Hereward 05 - The Immortals (37 page)

The nobles shuffled across the yard with a weary gait. Their discourse had dragged on for long hours, but the final outcome had never been in doubt. Hereward nodded. He could see from the grin on Suleiman’s face that the Turk had got everything he had been promised. His voice was louder than most. ‘And so we are all friends,’ he boomed. The scowl on Nikephoritzes’ face gave the lie to his words.

A woman walked at the rear. Anna Dalassene wielded more power than any other woman in the city, Hereward had come to realize, perhaps almost as much as Nikephoritzes. And she hungered for more. When she caught sight of the Mercian standing in the shadows, she nodded and came over. The men continued on their way, oblivious. They would soon regret making such errors, Hereward guessed.

‘How tiresome these talks are,’ she said with mock-weariness, ‘but men love the sound of their own voices.’

Hereward glanced at Suleiman as the Turk clapped an arm across Nikephoritzes’ shoulder. ‘I think the emperor’s decision will come back to bite him in the arse.’

Her face darkening, Anna glanced back at the knot of men as they disappeared into the feasting hall. ‘I fear that you are right. What madness assailed him? To cede to the Seljuks all rights to the land they have conquered. The sultan of Damascus will reward Suleiman well. And we have given up a swathe of our empire without a fight, and for what … because we had no army of note that could defeat a Norman upstart.’ For once her mask slipped away and Hereward glimpsed a face of stone. ‘It will not end here. The Turks will demand more and more. Michael has invited them into his hall, but they carry knives behind their backs.’

‘This will weaken the emperor further.’

‘But at what cost?’ Her features softened, and a sly smile crept on to her lips. ‘Still, there is sun after every storm.’ Fixing her gaze upon Hereward, she narrowed her eyes and silently urged him to ask the question that he had been waiting so long to utter.

‘It is done?’ he said.

‘The gold you took from the carts in Roussel’s camp is part payment,’ she replied. ‘The remainder will come from my coffers, as we agreed. I will be your patron. The Varangian Guard will accept you and your men into their ranks.’

Hereward felt his heart surge. Finally, after all the striving, they had clawed their way out of the mire. But he knew there would be a price to pay.

‘What do you ask?’ he said.

Anna pursed her lips as if deep in thought, but he knew she had long since decided her side of the bargain. ‘After the ceremony, you will give your oath to the emperor, as is right, but you will also work for me. Juliana Nepa has Wulfrun, and I will have you.’

Hereward nodded. He had expected no less.

‘This will be difficult for you, a great leader of men.’

‘You will have my sword, but not my soul. Honour above all, that is my code. I will not betray that.’

Anna stroked her lips with her slender index finger. ‘You will tell your men where your loyalties lie?’

‘They do not need to know.’

‘You must care greatly for them, to spare them this burden.’

‘My burden,’ he growled, ‘and mine alone.’

‘Then let us see what the days yet to come hold,’ she said, pleased with her deal. Her smile gave him no comfort. She moved away into the smoke drifting from the pyre. Her voice floated back. ‘Be ready to use your sword, Hereward of the English. You will need it.’

‘
YOU ARE A
coward and a traitor!’

The amphora shattered against the wall a hand’s breadth from Maximos’ head. Juliana bared her small white teeth. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes flecked with tears of rage. Behind her, their mother Simonis flexed her fingers as if she wanted to throttle the life from her son’s neck. In his chair in the corner of the chamber in the house of Nepotes, Kalamdios twitched and jerked. His eyes rolled wildly and spittle flew from his mouth as his mewling spiralled up.

Maximos forced his winning grin, knowing it would do little good. He had expected dismay when he told his kin that he was leaving – leaving Constantinople, leaving them all to stew in their own endlessly bubbling pot of plots and deceit. But he had not been prepared for this explosion of rage.

Another amphora with an ornately painted image of Apollo thundered towards him, one that had belonged to his grandfather. Jerking aside, he batted it away with his hand.

‘When I was lost in Afrique, you did well enough without me,’ Maximos protested.

‘We held faith in your returning,’ Simonis snarled. ‘All that we have planned, all of it, over these long years … you were always at the heart of it. You would have been emperor.’

‘And now you are nothing but a filthy rat, scurrying away in search of carrion,’ Juliana spat.

Simonis jabbed a finger at her son. ‘You have been around those English too long. They have corrupted your mind. They do not want power, only wine and women and fighting.’

Maximos shrugged, then regretted it. He decided not to reveal his fondness for that same road. ‘You risked all to aid Wulfrun when his life was in peril,’ he said instead.

‘But I did not choose between him and kin.’

With a deep sigh, Maximos held out his hands. ‘My decision has been made. Will you not wish me well?’

‘Go,’ Simonis replied, her voice wintry. ‘And I pray that I never lay eyes upon you again.’

Maximos felt a pang in his heart. But he knew his choice was the right one. He could not be a slave to his kin’s hungers any longer. ‘Where is Leo?’ he asked, drained of all emotion.

‘When he heard you speak with your treacherous tongue, he fled this house. You have broken his heart,’ Juliana said, cutting him as hard as she could.

Maximos winced. Of all of them, Leo was the one he would miss the most. ‘I will return, one day,’ he said, ‘and then perhaps you will look on me with kindness once more—’

‘Leave this house,’ Simonis ordered.

With a sigh and a nod, Maximos strode out of the chamber. He could feel the weight of their resentful stares upon his back. As he picked up the sack filled with the few possessions he was taking with him, he hoped they would find it in their hearts to forgive him. But he knew them too well.

Once he was outside in the warm night, he felt his mood lighten, a little. The burden that had crushed him for so long was lifting. Ahead lay new towns, new folk who did not know him, and a chance to make amends for the miseries he had inflicted over the years. Ahead lay hope.

As he set off for the Kharisios Gate, he found Leo sitting against the wall of a house, his head in his hands. Relief flooded him. At the least, he could say goodbye. He felt a touch of regret when he saw that the boy nursed the sword he had given him when he was teaching him how to fight. They had been close. Of all of them, Leo would miss him the most.

‘Why must you go?’ the boy demanded without looking up. His voice was low and hard.

‘When you are grown, you will understand. There are worlds beyond Constantinople, and this web we Nepotes weave for ourselves.’

‘You have no love for your own kin?’

‘I love you more than ever!’ Maximos was taken aback that Leo could think such a thing. Squatting in front of the boy, he made his voice low and warm. ‘I must find my own destiny, and it is not here in Constantinople.’

Leo shook his head, incredulous. ‘You are grown. Why do you speak like a child? We are the Nepotes. We work for each other. One wins, we all win.’

Maximos felt his heart sink as he heard the words of his mother and father quoted back at him. His head swam with a sudden vision of Leo’s days yet to come, a life made up of deceit and murder in pursuit of power, until all the innocence in his heart had been wiped away.

‘There is another way,’ he tried to explain. ‘Your mother and sister … they see only one path in life, all our wants and wishes set aside in a constant struggle to gain the throne—’

‘And then we will be content, for all others will have to bow their heads to us.’

‘No! Even were you to gain such a thing, after long battles and much suffering, what seems like gold from a distance will only be clay when you hold it in your hand.’

‘You are a jolt-head.’ Leo glowered. ‘You could be emperor, and you would throw it away.’

‘Can you not hear what I am saying?’ Maximos leaned forward, pushing his face into the boy’s. ‘Pay no heed to what your mother and sister tell you. What do
you
want, brother? What is your desire?’ When Leo only looked away sullenly, he said soothingly, ‘I would not have you suffer as I have. Your life would be filled with joy if only you would seek it out.’

‘I ask you one more time,’ the boy said in a small voice, ‘do not leave.’

‘I must.’ Maximos held out a hand. After a moment’s reluctance, Leo took it, allowing his brother to haul him to his feet. ‘I hope you will pay heed to my words. If not now, if not this night, then when I am gone. Follow your own path.’

Maximos hugged the lad tight to his chest, and felt a pang of sadness when his brother remained stiff, his arms hanging limply at his side. ‘And keep up your lessons with that blade,’ he said with a grin, trying to raise the mood. ‘You will be a great swordsman one day.’

Choking down his feelings, he told himself that it was only a brief parting and he would see his brother again one day. But as he walked away, he heard the sound of small feet hurrying behind him. He smiled, and had begun to turn to give the boy another hug when an agonizing pain burned in his side. In shock, he glanced down. A blade had burst from his belly. Blood pumped from the edges, soaking his tunic and streaming down his legs to puddle around his feet.

‘My sister is right,’ Leo hissed, wrenching the sword free. ‘You have betrayed the Nepotes. You do not deserve to live.’ The boy danced in front of him, his face twisted with righteous rage.

Maximos gaped, unable to accept what had happened. Pleading, questioning, he reached out his hands and saw they were stained red. His legs gave way and he sagged to his knees in the spreading pool. ‘You have killed me?’ he stuttered.

Leo leaned down and snarled into his face. ‘My desire is to be emperor, brother. When you were missing, the throne was offered to me, and when you returned they snatched it away. But it will be mine. I will fight for it harder than you ever would. This blow is struck for the Nepotes, and I am proud to be one. I will never be a coward like you.’

The lad’s pale face hovered for a moment. Maximos could see no remorse there, only contempt. And then Leo spun on his heel and raced away into the night.

Maximos slumped down, his cheek pressing into his own hot blood. As the dark closed in, more visions flashed before his eyes. He could see the path of misery continuing for Leo, and for all the Nepotes who came after him, a path without honour. There was no end to it.

Footsteps echoed and a shadow loomed over him. Through the haze, Maximos squinted. A great hulk of a man was squatting in front of him. A low chuckle emerged. When the new arrival leaned in, the broad, leonine face of Karas Verinus hove into view.

‘And another of the Nepotes dies in the filth of the street,’ he gloated.

Maximos tried to spit an epithet, but only blood bubbled between his lips. For a moment, coughs racked his body, and when he looked back Karas was rocking on his heels, looking up at the stars.

‘The heavens look down upon us and our battles,’ the general mused. ‘We must be as nothing to the angels watching o’er us. We strive, we fall, we rise, we fight again. For what?’ He shrugged. ‘For power, of course. It is the coin of our realm down here. We can do no other. Fight or die.’

Maximos shuddered. The night was hot, but he felt colder than he ever had in his life.

‘And in the coming seasons there will be a hard-fought battle for the throne here in Constantinople,’ Karas continued, looking down at his enemy. ‘The emperor’s days will soon be done, any fool can see that. And all those who hunger for that crown are moving into place. But now you will not be one of them.’ He laughed, low and throaty.

As his head spun, Maximos heard the other man’s words echoing as if from a long tunnel. He knew he should be feeling anger, but nothing burned in him. He had been hollowed out.

‘You are weak, Maximos Nepos,’ Karas said, his voice almost too dim to hear. ‘A strong man would bend his kin to his will. But you flee, like a rabbit. And if you run, you die.’

And then Maximos sensed movement around him, and heard other, stranger sounds. At first he thought Karas’ angels had come down to claim him. After a moment, he realized he was watching a man with ruined features and a boy with a face like the moon roaming around him, and they were making a sound like cattle lowing. Round and round they went, round and round, and he thought perhaps they were dancing, and singing in jubilation, singing that he was soon to be gone.

He thought of Arcadius, his childhood friend, whom he had murdered for the sake of his kin, and of Meghigda, the only woman he had ever loved, whom he might as well have murdered.

It seemed there was no escape from the plots and games even at the last.

Karas settled back to watch him die.

DUST MOTES FLOATED
in the shaft of pale dawn light. Shadows clustered hard against it as the line of warriors peered towards the sole, narrow window, high up on one glistening stone wall. The iron scent of blood hung in the air, and the vinegar reek of fear-sweat. Most of that dank chamber lay below ground, and the steady drip of water echoed all around. Chill and dark apart from that feeble promise of the rising sun, to the men there it was a grave in all but name.

‘Death waits in silence.’

The voice boomed out of the gloom, low and hoarse. The warriors chanted the words back into the dark. A flint was struck, the sparks flaring. A torch sizzled into life. The shadows flew away, hungering at the backs of the row of naked spear-brothers.

Hereward blinked, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the amber glow. He was proud. Here was the moment for which they had fought for so long. Once he and his men emerged from this pit into the new day, they would be reborn as members of the Varangian Guard. Gold and glory would be within their grasp, finally.