A Burning Sea Read online

  The envoy’s brow knitted tighter. ‘I fear not, Majesty.’

  ‘The siege must go on for now. We, within these walls, must feel its bite. Let us sleep with a little fear and uncertainty for a while. Enough that the appearance of resistance is convincing, so that when I do relinquish control into the caliph’s hands, the taste of submission proves a good deal sweeter than people feared. Then they will look to me with gratitude. Who knows, perhaps they will even see me as their saviour? I dare to hope as much. . . Do you begin to see now?’

  Abdal-Battal didn’t answer at once. Katāros noticed his fist tighten, his knuckles straining against the skin. He found he could tell a lot from a man’s knuckles. This man’s were all bone and sinew. Perhaps under all that finery was hidden one of those warrior-ascetics who had so terrorized the borderlands, like the famously fragrant Caliph Umar before him.

  ‘You cannot hope that nothing will change, Majesty. The city is full of idols. Such blasphemy cannot be allowed to continue. Even here, in this golden hall.’ He glanced up at the dome above where a million gilded tesserae formed the face of the Christ. ‘Idols stare from every wall. They must be torn down.’

  ‘I do not disagree with you. I’ve always thought the reverence of images strays easily into idolatry. But there are ways of guiding people to the truth. Do they not say in your own land, if you cut off a man’s nose, there’s no point giving him a rose to smell?’

  The young envoy snorted. ‘It is not we who are famous for cutting off noses, Majesty.’ Nevertheless, he considered the emperor’s point. ‘This, then, is your answer to my Lord Maslama.’

  ‘It is.’ Leo’s eyes flashed at Katāros. ‘We each have our part to play. For now.’ His tone brightened abruptly. ‘But you must call on us again, Abdullah Abu Yahya al-Antaqi al-Battal.’ He rattled off the name with ease. ‘Your lord must treat me as a brother prince. And brothers talk, do they not?’

  Abdal-Battal cast him an uncertain look.

  ‘That is all.’

  Whatever thoughts turned in the envoy’s mind, he drew himself up and, with an elaborate bow, took his leave.

  Leo waited until the golden doors had closed behind him and the envoy’s footsteps had grown faint before he turned to Katāros.

  ‘As you doubtless understand, there is more to this than you know, Lord Chamberlain.’

  ‘So I see, Majesty.’

  ‘An explanation for another time, I think,’ he sniffed.

  A mere play for time. Katāros knew he would never tell him. Or if he did, it would be some shadow of the truth. It didn’t matter. Katāros had already begun to fill in the missing pieces for himself.

  ‘Do you think it wise, Majesty, to gamble with an entire empire?’

  Leo chuckled. ‘To catch a lion, my friend, you need a large piece of bait.’

  Katāros hurried down the corridors of white marble, past porphyry pillars and ivory statues of emperors and their consorts long dead. He saw none of it.

  Leo had delayed him too long, talking much – of reinforcements, supplies, councils – but giving away nothing. Well, let Leo have his schemes. Katāros had some of his own.

  His footsteps rang off the stone as old memories circled in his mind like crows in search of carrion.

  Vengeance. A word he knew so well.

  For what, though? For a lifetime of bitterness? A sea of injustice? An ocean of torment?

  Yes. A thousand times, yes.

  For all of it. . . all the way back to the beginning. For the wrongs of the seiðman who saved him from a pitiful death only to force on him a still more pitiful life. That black-souled scoundrel had called himself ‘father’. ‘The closest you’ll ever know to one, anyway,’ he’d croaked. But he treated him like a slave not a son. He named him Skírpa – ‘Scorned’ in the Norse tongue. ‘Because no one else wants you.’ Only he cared for him. Only he loved him. Yet no child ever endured such hatred.

  And then the nights became a terror, too. . .

  They had wandered down from the north, through fen and forest, selling deception. His so-called father taught him seiðr-magic, and seeing its power, he had learned it well. He was a quick-minded boy. Quicker than his master, to be sure. And he grew strong of limb, broad of shoulder, a fine-looking youngster. But the seiðman was too blinded by wickedness to notice. Then one night, after the wicked old goat had visited his bed and then drunk himself into a stupor, the boy had drawn his little knife and slashed open his grizzled throat. He left the corpse for the wolves.

  For a time guilt weighed on his heart but he soon learned to bear the burden. He drifted south, drawn by the sun, his only friend. His body became lean and hard, his hair grew long and dark, though he always looked a beggar. He came to the great Danube river. There, he started to sell his skills for scraps of food. Trivial things, at first: he’d tell folk’s fortunes, work illusions of magic, carve runes, weave spiteful curses to stoke housewives’ petty feuding. But in this foolery, he began to see dark things, to discover that his words carried the power to bind. In one village, a boy threw a stone at him. He answered the blow with a curse. The boy died almost on the instant; the branch he was sitting on snapped and he smashed his skull on the ground. There was an outcry. He fled. The men of the village hunted him deep into the forest where he was forced to accept protection from a band of worthless men. It was mere days before they betrayed him too, selling him to one of the Bulgar clan chiefs.

  Katāros glided down the staircase towards the Boukoleon Harbour, shielding his eyes from the sun, recalling the chain of humiliating transactions that had followed. He was sold down the river lands to the port of Varna and from there slung in the hold of a ship and didn’t see the light of day again till he was dragged onto the block in Byzantium. The Queen of Cities.

  Aye, he thought in disgust, if the queen were a pox addled whore. Everywhere, he saw this fetish for a figure they called the Mother of God, and with her the Christ, and above him one God. The One True God, they claimed. Although they knew nothing of the dark powers he had seen.

  Of course, at first he had been taken in like every other newcomer, awed by the city’s scale, delighted by its confusion, thrilled by its beauty. But he was to have a new master now. One who had coin enough to buy up all the best-looking boys in the market. He hoped, maybe, to be trained in the arts of war. He felt strength growing in his youthful body, his muscles winding tighter like bowstrings, ready to release him into manhood and, if fate was kind, better things. Instead, that which made him a man was taken from him, root and branch. The thought of it burned his heart now as hotly as the wound had burned his body then. He was transformed into a thing, a sexless thing.

  Both. And neither.

  All so that he could be sold for still greater profit into the court of the Emperor Justinian, second of his name. The Slit-Nosed. He was put to learning and learn he did, quicker than the other boys, quicker even than the other men – or eunuchs, as he learned to call them. He learned to speak many tongues; he learned to read, to dress, to serve. He learned the protocols of court; he learned the laws of empire; he learned to see people, to read them, to know their thoughts before they formed them. He learned to hide in plain sight. He learned to shine.

  Emperors had come and gone as revolt succeeded revolt. But he remained at court, a constant. And all that while, he had never forgiven the city that had meted out his final humiliation. Had never forgiven its people, nor its god. The priests told him that God the Father loved him, that God had ordered every moment of his life, and somehow God meant it all for good. A sick joke. The priests spoke often of the Father’s love, and every time he heard the seiðman’s laughter ringing in his ears and felt his cold breath prickle the back of his neck. The Father didn’t love him. If this life was the Father’s gift then He could have it back. God had tried to crush him. But he would not be crushed. Instead he had waited, watching the empire thrash in its noose, watched as the Arab tide rose ever higher until the city stood in isolation, like a rock in a ro
iling sea. And as their armies drew closer, his path became more certain. God could not defeat him. It was God who would be defeated. And this city, His precious jewel, that would be destroyed.

  Now, at last, the day had come. Now – this very moment! He spilled out of the shadows under the archway of the Boukoleon Harbour into the sunlight. Below him on the quayside, preparing to embark, was the envoy. Katāros slowed his pace, calmed his breathing, stilled his racing heart beneath his spotless white robes, and smiled. He had not been too late after all.

  ‘My lord,’ he called. The envoy turned and looked back up the steps. ‘A word with you.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The darkness was almost a friend now. Its comfort cold perhaps, but at least familiar.

  The funny thing was, Erlan didn’t think much about the men who had put him there. About the slaver’s betrayal, or the steward’s insouciance, or the general’s retribution. He didn’t think about the mysterious Lucia, or Aska, or Kai, or even Lilla. Why sully her memory with this stinking hole?

  He thought of home, the home he had foresworn – forbidden himself even to think of. Yet here, in this place of silent darkness, he allowed himself this morsel of memory – like a drunkard licking up a drop of wine. Jutland. He imagined the marram grass bending in the wind off the Juten Belt, the curved dunes sweeping down to the frothy grey breakers. He thought of the nutwood above the hall-stead, the furrowed strip-fields, frosty and mist-wreathed on an autumn morning, martins swooping under the eaves of the dark hall of Vendlagard. Old Hadding’s coarse laughter, Tolla’s chiding words which really meant, ‘I love you.’

  Home. . .

  His father—

  His mind recoiled then as if from a jagged edge. No. All of it was shattered, for ever. By her. By him. He could never forgive them. Never forgive himself. Didn’t he deserve this foul fate he had fallen into? Hadn’t he brought it on himself? Softly, he knocked his head against the stone wall, ignoring the slime sticking to his hair. Knocked so he would clear away all thoughts of home. Of that place.

  I am Hakan. I am the chosen son, a voice said.

  No. Hakan is dead, answered another.

  I am dead, he thought. Only Erlan lives.

  It was simple. He must drink the blood of the king of kings. And so. . . the king of kings must die.

  This time, Lilla chose her own clothing. Layers of lightweight silk, a sky-blue stola under a cream palla, which fell more naturally over her figure, and left her room to breathe. Her arms were bare, but for two silver arm-rings, their dragon-head terminals pressed tight against her sun-bronzed skin. She felt more herself. She needed to.

  General Arbasdos filled a silver chalice with red wine. ‘From Rhodes,’ he said, offering it to her. ‘It was the finest in the empire. Until the Arabs took the island from us. It’s wasted on them, of course.’

  The wine tasted sweet and strong. She knew the Byzantine habit was to dilute their wine to a thin, refreshing drink, often flavoured with other spices. The general served his undiluted. Perhaps he wanted to appear extravagant, or else cloud her head. She took a sip and twirled the chalice in her fingers. It was solid silver with gilt filigree, encrusted with fat pink rubies. War had made this man rich.

  Everything in the chamber reeked of opulence. The silk curtains, the white stone balcony overlooking the point of the promontory, the green marble table, the gilded chairs, the murals of half-clad men and women dancing about a sunlit wood. It showed a certain degree of taste, she supposed, and said more of the man before her than the impersonal extravagance of the palace said of the emperor.

  ‘Lord Katāros wanted to join us. He seems to think you cannot speak our language,’ said Arbasdos. ‘I told him we would cope.’

  ‘I hope you are right,’ she said. ‘I am still learning.’ She had already decided that this general was a different breed to the emperor. She detected a streak of vanity in the little details of his appearance – the curls in his hair not entirely natural, the gold ring in his left ear, the musky perfume drifting off him. Not unpleasant, she had to admit, but deliberate. His tunic stopped a little higher than those of other men, revealing tanned, muscular calves under the leather bands of his sandals, and his dalmatica – a kind of lightweight coat, open at the front – was of deep green silk, studded here and there with pearls as big as her thumbnail.

  ‘You’re too modest,’ he smiled. ‘Anyway, I can’t stand the creature. He somehow oils his way into everybody’s business.’

  Lilla offered a non-committal smile in reply.

  ‘And what is our business, my lady?’

  ‘It is simple enough. You hold a man here. His name is Erlan Aurvandil.’

  At mention of that name, the general’s smile soured. ‘You mean my Northman.’

  ‘So you don’t deny he is here.’

  ‘Why on Earth should I? He may be a disobedient wretch. But he belongs to me.’

  ‘I have come here for him.’

  ‘For the Northman,’ he scoffed. ‘Why?’

  ‘I have my reasons.’

  ‘Hm. How very mysterious.’

  ‘I’ll repay you whatever he cost you.’

  ‘He’s not for sale.’

  Lilla frowned. ‘If he’s so worthless to you, what reason have you to keep—’

  ‘I never said he was worthless. He’s difficult, for sure. But the truth is I’ve never seen a man use a sword with greater skill, nor fight with such. . . rage.’ The general chuckled. ‘He’s actually quite terrifying. That’s why I’m keeping him.’

  ‘He’ll never fight for you. Not after being kept like an animal.’

  ‘Every man has his breaking point. We will find his. And once broken, once he is a slave in here –’ he tapped his temple – ‘then he may be of some use to me.’

  ‘He will never break,’ she said sadly, because she knew she was right. ‘He’ll be nothing but trouble for you. Trouble and expense.’

  ‘He’s no trouble to me at all. Until he learns what he is – a slave entirely under my will – he can stay where he is.’

  Lilla felt her temper rising. ‘You’ll have to kill him first. I tell you, he will never break.’

  ‘I’ll not kill him because I paid good money for him. If I destroy my own property, who loses out but me?’

  ‘He’s not property.’ She could hear the tremor in her own voice. She expelled a long breath to draw the heat from her temper. ‘He’s a man honoured as high as any among my people. But,’ she added, ‘I will still pay you for him. So I say again, name your price.’

  Arbasdos gave a condescending snort. ‘My lady, look around you. Do I look like I need your money?’ There was no crack in the armour of this man’s arrogance, that was clear. She felt suddenly ashamed at the blithe way she had treated the thralls amongst her own people. It had never occurred to her what it must feel like, to be owned by another. To be nothing better than a milking cow or a prized axe.

  This Arbasdos didn’t look like a man to treat his slaves well. She could only imagine what cruelty Erlan had already suffered. But if the general would take no money and the emperor would not force his hand, what could she do? She had crossed half the world. . .

  ‘You’ll waste this man’s life. I know him. He will never fight for you.’

  ‘Is our business concluded then?’

  ‘If you will not take gold or silver—’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I suppose it is.’ She put down her cup. Her mind was already working, feeling blindly for the edges of this perfumed wall of muscle in her way. Perhaps there were others within his household whose purses were not so full.

  ‘Why not stay a little?’ A sly smile crept over his melancholy face. ‘Have another cup.’ He topped up her chalice, which was full enough already, and handed it to her. Then he dismissed the servants.

  ‘You know, I’d always heard the people of the north were canny traders,’ he said when they were alone.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  �
��Well, if you came here to trade with me, you should have understood what I want, or at least what I might value.’

  ‘I’ve not yet met a man who didn’t value more gold.’

  ‘Well, now you have, Lady. And what I value is a little more. . . subtle.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Do I have to?’

  He edged closer, skirting the table. All she could see was the sardonic tilt of his mouth under those soft, sad eyes. They were alone and she sensed a choice opening up before her like a chasm in the floor. One with no way around it. Suddenly she wished this man wanted to kill Erlan, that it were Erlan’s life she were bargaining for and not his freedom. That would make it easier. But wasn’t a life condemned to slavery a kind of living death? For a man like Erlan, it would be.

  She raised the chalice between them and moved towards the balcony. ‘You like to surround yourself with beautiful things, don’t you?’

  He chuckled to himself, apparently amused that she wanted to spin out this game a little longer. ‘It’s true, I am a man of wide appreciation. Beautiful things. New things. I like to drink from all cups.’

  She stood leaning against the stone pillar, looking out through the fluttering gauze, looking north to the straits whose surface glittered in the late morning sun. Her fingers went to the amulet around her neck, its little silver arms warmed by her skin. It was Erlan’s amulet. His call to her.

  She felt Arbasdos move behind her, caught his strong scent in her nostrils. She was aware of his breathing, shallower than before. Glancing down, she saw thick jewelled knuckles curl around the stem of her chalice and gently prise it from her gasp.

  ‘This, then, is your price,’ she said softly, still looking away.