Hereward 05 - The Immortals (27 page)

The boulder ground out further. Now Hereward could see the Romans straining to push it, eight of them, all broad and strong. Torchlight flooded into the night.

‘Make haste,’ Zeno called, his voice breaking as he craned his neck round to search for their pursuers. Terror carved deep lines in his features. The sound of running feet and bellowed threats was drawing nearer.

When the gap was wide enough, the four warriors thrust their way inside. In his desperation, Zeno tripped and fell to the ground, bringing Alexios down on top of him.

Straining, the eight men heaved on ropes attached to iron bars struck into the stone of the boulder. The weighty obstacle juddered back into place, and not a moment too soon. Steel clattered against the other side. Furious threats rang out.

Zeno scrabbled away from the entrance, his eyes wide. But Hereward only sheathed his sword and looked around their hiding place. It was clear Drogo Vavasour and his men would never be able to smash their way in. They were safe, for now.

With faces like iron, the eight men now gripped their axes, barring the way into the caves.

‘Where is this place?’ the Mercian demanded.

A man in a pale-blue tunic pushed his way through the defenders, so old his face resembled a melted candle. ‘You are welcome in Malakopea,’ he said, looking Hereward up and down, ‘if you come in peace, and abide by our rules.’

Grinning, Maximos boomed, ‘Grandfather, we are your servants. You have saved our miserable necks from a Norman war-band, and for that we will always be grateful.’

‘Normans, you say?’ the old man replied, curious. ‘Not Turks?’ Cocking his head, he listened to the words echoing through the stone door and then nodded to the guards. When they moved apart, Hereward marvelled at what he saw waiting beyond.

Carved out of the very stone was a tunnel wide enough for three men to walk abreast. It seemed to run deep into the earth. On either side, chambers had been hollowed out, each one flickering with candlelight. Laughing children raced around as if they were outside their homes far above. Men and women, young and old, emerged from the rooms to puzzle over the new arrivals, or gathered along the tunnel to chatter. Amid the din of a community at rest, Hereward thought he could hear the bleating of goats and, far away, the lowing of cattle.

‘Whatever you have witnessed in your life,’ the old man said with a note of pride, ‘you have seen nothing like Malakopea, our city beneath the city.’

Alexios wandered into the tunnel, gaping as he looked around. ‘You live down here, like rats in the earth?’

‘We live like kings,’ the old man corrected him, grinning. ‘Well fed from our stores. Good water from deep wells. Cool air from the shafts that run up to the world above—’

A young boy ran up and grabbed the old man’s leg, half hiding behind him. ‘Clovos. Clovos. Are these our enemies?’ he said, peeping out.

Clovos ruffled the lad’s hair. ‘No, Damian. These are Romans, like you, and an Englishman, if I am not mistaken. They are not the Turks who drove us from our homes.’

‘This is sanctuary, then,’ Maximos suggested.

‘When it is safe, we live in Malakopea-above. We farm the land, and trade with our neighbours. We live as all Romans do. But when we face an enemy, we hide here until the threat has passed. Why, we could live here for an age, if need be. Come.’ He beckoned and the four warriors followed him into the depths of the fortress.

As he walked, Hereward scraped his fingers along the surface of the wall. The rock was soft, but still he could not imagine the work involved in creating this place. Glancing up at the encrusted soot from the torches, he said, ‘These caves are old.’

Clovos shrugged. ‘Malakopea-below has always been here. Some say it was built before the Flood.’

Along the tunnel they wandered, and into branching tunnels going deeper and deeper beneath the earth. Hereward felt stunned by what he saw. Never had he seen the like in England.

Stone steps led down to new levels, and down and down. Eighteen in all, Clovos said, large enough to house twenty thousand inhabitants. Hereward saw large chambers for kin, and smaller ones too, stables reeking of animal dung, olive presses and wine cellars, stores where merchants made and sold their wares, rooms filled with weapons, a chamber lined with stone containers and smelling of herbs and spices where the leech healed the sick, tombs for those he failed, and even a chapel where the devoted knelt in prayer before God’s table. Everything that was above ground was here below too.

‘This is like a rabbit’s warren,’ Maximos breathed, amazed. ‘It is safer than any fortress.’

‘Good,’ Zeno grumbled. ‘I will sleep soundly for the first time in days.’

Hearing the word sleep, Hereward realized what little strength remained in his limbs. His belly growled, and he was filthy from the road.

Clovos was one of the city elders. After three weeks sheltering from the marauding Turks who had raided the city and killed many, he seemed pleased to see new faces. He found them empty chambers where they could sleep, and bread, cheese and olives, and fresh water.

Hereward fell into a deep sleep the moment he laid down his head. No dreams assailed him, and for that he was thankful.

For the next three days, the four warriors ate their fill and slept like the dead. The Mercian could feel his strength returning by the hour, and with it a desire to push aside his bitterness at the loss of the gold, and his despair at what it meant for his brothers. There was little to be gained in dwelling on failure – that was a lesson he had learned when he first became a warrior. Battles ebbed and flowed. Friends died. Loved ones were murdered. Defeat swept in at the moment of seeming victory. And yet the hard road went on, and it was the warrior’s task to walk it, through rain, and bog, aye, and fire too. But at some point there would be sun, and God’s rewards; he believed that with all his heart.

He only had to find the way.

Alexios spent much of his time with the monks who taught the children in their large study chamber. From the shadows in the doorway, Hereward watched him tell of great battles, and horsemanship, and read the lessons from God’s book. When the Roman was alone with the youngest, it seemed that the responsibilities of war slipped from him. He laughed more, and he charmed the girls and wrestled with the boys. Hereward could see an innocence there that reminded him of Alric.

Later, Hereward prowled the long tunnels, exploring the marvels of that hidden place. The underground city throbbed with life everywhere he turned. Standing beneath the narrow shafts that rose up through the rock to the surface, he closed his eyes and let the cool wind blow down on to his face. He found a central air shaft that was wider than three men standing with their arms outstretched. Could there be a wonder greater than this anywhere in the world?

But as he went deeper, and deeper still, more chambers became unoccupied. The lowest two levels were deserted. Only the sound of his whispering footsteps rustled through them. When he took a torch and began to creep into the darkness, he felt an unsettling atmosphere that made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He peered down into the deep wells and dropped in a pebble. He held his breath, listening, but the splash, when it finally came, was almost too faint to hear. What kind of men could have cut those pits that seemed to go down to the very depths of hell itself?

In one chamber, the dancing light of his torch pulled faces from the dark. Daubed on the walls, they seemed very old indeed. The ochres and blacks had faded, so that they looked like ghosts emerging from the stone. As he peered closer, he decided those features did not resemble any man he knew. They looked like devils. He was not superstitious, but he felt unsettled, as if he had uncovered something that was not meant for him to see.

When he walked away, he thought he could feel those eyes on his back.

As he moved through the last of the dark towards the brightly lit stone steps leading up to the inhabited levels, a figure stepped out of the shadows. Hereward snatched out his sword, and thrust the torch in front of him. A pale face flared in the dark: it was Zeno. The Roman had been following him. ‘You were close to losing the weight upon your shoulders,’ Hereward spat. ‘Why are you lurking here?’

Glancing over his shoulder to make sure they could not be overheard, Zeno said, ‘You cannot trust Maximos Nepos.’

‘Why do you say so?’

‘You cannot trust him,’ the other man breathed. ‘He is not what he seems to be.’ Before Hereward could question him further, he had hurried up the steps and away.

Turning the warning over in his mind, the Mercian climbed up through the warren of Malakopea-below until the city folk started to buzz around him. A puzzle that had troubled him since he had left Constantinople now seemed clearer.

Searching through the tunnels and chambers, he found a gloomy tavern that smelled of vinegar. In the half-light, old men squatted on stools, sipping wine from cups. Hereward heard the Roman’s laughter before he saw him. Maximos was leaning against the tavernkeeper’s table, arms folded, flirting with two women, whores by the look of them. When he saw the Mercian, he whispered something in one of their ears that brought a peal of giggles, and then he wandered over.

‘That is a face that needs some wine inside it,’ he said.

‘I am not here to drink with you.’

Maximos studied the Mercian’s eyes, noted the hand upon the sword hilt, and nodded. ‘Bad business, then.’ He led the way to two stools in a dark corner at the rear of the tavern.

‘You were prepared to fight alongside me in Malakopea-above, and likely die beside me too,’ Hereward said, sitting, ‘and for that you have my thanks.’

‘And yet?’

‘I know why you chose to ride with the Athanatoi.’ He allowed the words to sink in, but the Roman’s face gave nothing away. ‘It was not because you were prepared to sacrifice yourself for the emperor, not even for all the riches he could shower upon you. Everything you have done in your life … all the death you have dealt … has been to one end: to advance the cause of your kin, the Nepotes.’

Now Maximos winced and looked away.

‘No, you have ridden to war for one reason only,’ Hereward continued. ‘To find a way to murder Alexios Comnenos without blame falling upon you or your kin.’

Maximos took a deep breath, his shoulders sagging. ‘There you have me.’

‘Alexios is a rival, with a better claim to the throne than anything the Nepotes could ever show. Your kin failed once in their plot to seize the empire. You will not risk another failure. Does it eat away at them? At your mother, and your sister, and your father? The Nepotes think it is their destiny, and yet they are as far away from their goal as ever.’

Maximos wagged a finger to summon a cup of wine from the tavernkeeper.

‘That is why Anna Dalassene tasked me with watching over her son,’ Hereward continued. ‘It puzzled me. He is as sharp as a blade, a fine warrior with good command of his sword, and like all good warriors he never lets his guard down. But now I see that his mother feared treachery. A knife in the back. A throat slit while sleeping. She sent me to protect him from you.’

Maximos sucked on his lip in thought for a moment. ‘If that were so, why did she not warn you that I was the enemy? That would have made your work easier, would it not?’

Hereward had no answer. ‘Do you deny your kin sent those cut-throats to murder Alexios in the street on the night I was taken by the Varangian Guard?’

Taking his cup of wine, Maximos let it hover on his lips for a while as he weighed his response. ‘No. And yet I could have taken his life time and again on the ride from Constantinople. I did not.’ The Roman swilled back his wine. When he had wiped his mouth, he bowed his head, his shoulders sagging. Hereward watched the bravado fall away from him. He thought how the man who emerged looked hollowed out by life.

‘I am a vile canker, Mercian,’ Maximos said in a low voice. ‘I know my worth. I murdered a friend I had had since childhood, a man I loved more than any other, for the sake of my kin. And I betrayed a woman who loved me, Meghigda, and she died because of it. These two things haunt my nights, and my days. There is only so much misery a man can inflict before it starts to eat away at his soul. I have had my fill.’

‘You would deny your kin? Their desire for power?’

‘I would.’ His eyes flashed with passion.

‘Can a man walk away from his blood?’

‘You did.’

Hereward flinched. The Roman was right. His father, Asketil, had been a stain upon God’s earth, and his brother too. He had found the strength to tear himself away, to walk his own road, however lonely that might be.

‘I will not do my kin’s bidding any longer. I will be my own man,’ Maximos vowed, ‘even if that means I have no kin.’

‘You think they will let you walk away? You are key to all their plots.’

Maximos gripped his cup so tightly Hereward thought it might shatter. ‘I will make amends.’

The Mercian peered into the other man’s face. For all his protestations, he still could not wholly trust him. The Nepotes were masters of deception, and Maximos had shown time and again that he was skilled in twisting words to his own ends.

‘I know I must earn your trust. Time will show you I am a changed man.’

As Maximos held up his cup for more wine, cries of alarm rang through the tunnel outside the tavern. Armed men rushed past the doorway.

‘Come,’ Hereward said, jumping to his feet. ‘I smell Normans.’

The throb of anxious voices swelled. Hereward and Maximos raced past worried mothers pressing their children into their skirts and uneasy men with twitching hands. Word of some troubling discovery was rushing back through the tunnels, though no one seemed to know exactly what.

As the two warriors reached the entrance hall, they spied guards jostling for space, their faces drawn. Their worried eyes darted towards Clovos as the old man pushed his way into their midst.

‘Stand aside,’ he croaked, his voice hardening. ‘Stand aside.’

As Hereward and Maximos edged in behind the elder, Alexios and Zeno ran up behind.