Raven (34 page)

‘The basileus does not answer to any man, only God,’ Bardanes lashed, but again Nikephoros stilled him with a gesture.

‘Seven weeks ago we came to Rome, our plan having grown over many days at sea,’ Nikephoros said, turning his gaze back to the man who counted – Sigurd. ‘General Bardanes became Lord Guido, a cloth merchant from Venice, and I became a common soldier in his guard.’ A smile touched Nikephoros’s lips at this part, which told me that he was a man who enjoyed
a good Loki-scheme for all his love of the White Christ. There were Christians and Christians, it seemed to me. ‘We had money. Not enough to buy the soldiers we would need, but enough to upset the grain cart.’

‘Grain cart?’ Sigurd repeated, twirling the end of his beard round a ringed finger.

Nikephoros smiled, pleased with himself. ‘My men buzzed through the city, like bees from flower to flower, buying up every loaf of bread, every sack of grain.’ He glanced at Olaf. ‘If you want grain you have only to ask,’ he said, brows arched, his short black beard glistening wetly. ‘At night we sabotaged the aqueducts, sank rotting animal carcasses in the public fountains, lit fires here and there. We killed men’s pigs and oxen. Took animals from one man’s pen and put them in another, anything to encourage suspicion and feud.’

‘That’ll get men feuding all right,’ Olaf said appreciatively.

‘We did whatever we could think of, sowing seeds of disorder that began to sprout all across the city. After four weeks of this Rome was like dry tinder waiting for a spark,’ Nikephoros went on. ‘You could smell trouble in the air.’

‘But not bread,’ Olaf muttered into his mead horn. I had smelt that trouble myself and seen the burnt lean-tos and fountains guarded by armed men.

Bardanes glared at Uncle but the Norseman simply dragged his forearm across his bushy beard and flapped a hand at the Emperor of Miklagard to continue.

This Nikephoros has patience
, I thought, and patience can make a man a dangerous enemy, which was another reason why Arsaber should have tried harder to catch Nikephoros and kill him before making himself a nest in the man’s throne.

‘Lord Guido,’ the basileus went on, fox-smiling, ‘secured an audience with Pope Leo. Armed mobs were roaming the streets. Murder and theft were rife. The poor blamed the rich and the rich blamed Pope Leo.’

‘The pope has soldiers,’ Sigurd said, as though that should be enough.

‘He has some,’ Nikephoros said, ‘but not enough to keep the peace. He needed them to guard his palace and his churches.’

‘Like all rich men Pope Leo wants to stay rich,’ Bardanes took up at a nod from his lord. ‘He sent for Karolus of course, but the Frankish king is up to his elbows in heathen blood and meanwhile the people of Rome are battering down Leo’s door.’ Bardanes sipped at his wine, more for show, I felt, than because he enjoyed it. ‘I gave Leo what he needed.’

What Pope Leo needed was peace in Rome. And Lord Guido the cloth trader from Venice sold him the idea of peace steeped in blood. He suggested that if the people of Rome could be distracted, they would forget about their hungry bellies. Give them a reason to stay off the streets and, better still, give them the chance to make money. The idea of staging fights in the Amphitheatrum Flavium had appalled and disgusted Pope Leo. He had raged at the iniquity of the idea, the foulness of letting the arena be used for spectacles of death as it had been in Rome’s past. But Lord Guido had been persuasive. Let a few willing fighters die in the arena and keep the good people of Rome safe on the streets, he had said. Four weeks was all he would need, Guido assured Pope Leo, by which time Karolus would be here with enough soldiers to restore order.

This was the gist of it so far as I could tell through my wine-and herbs-soaked pain. There was no doubt Bardanes was as slippery as a snot-covered eel. He seemed to me the kind of man who could talk a bear into stepping out of its skin and rolling it up for you. As for Pope Leo, the way I saw things he could not have been a fool or else he would not have risen so high amongst the White Christ followers. And yet he went along with Guido’s plan, or at least turned a blind eye to it, and I was thinking that strange until I heard the bit where Guido had promised Leo a cut of the money he made from folk’s wagers. The pope’s coffers were light these days in large part thanks
to the warships and crews he maintained to protect the coast from Moors.

‘There was never any shortage of fighters,’ Nikephoros said. ‘Dozens came to fight and thousands came to watch and my chests began to fill. Openly, Pope Leo condemned the fights. He had to, of course. Some of his soldiers broke a few heads to make a show of it, and the crowds watched the fights with one eye on the doors. But they still watched the fights. After two weeks we let the grain flow again. The people had their bread. After three the fountains were clean and there were no more riots.’

‘And now?’ Sigurd said, his eyes reflecting Bram’s dying pyre.

‘Now we have silver to raise an army and the pope has his city back,’ Nikephoros said simply. ‘Leo will never know we were here. He will bury all evidence of what has happened in the Amphitheatrum Flavium. Perhaps he’ll build another church over the blood. And he will minister to his flock.’

‘Why did you stop the fight?’ Sigurd asked, his eyes meeting mine for a half-breath, then riveting back on Nikephoros. It was a good question, I thought, for there was no denying that how it ended had taken a little of the shine off our winning.

‘Theophilos is one of my best men,’ Nikephoros said, scratching his oiled beard. ‘As you can see, I don’t have the army I once did. I will need men like Theo in the days to come.’

Sigurd greeted this with a low grunt. ‘That was a good tale,’ he said, raising his horn to Nikephoros and Bardanes and sweeping sweat-lank hair out of his face.

‘There could have been more fighting in it,’ Olaf moaned, one eye closed and the other pointing Thór knew where, because Uncle was as drunk as the Thunder God at a Yule feast.

Then Sigurd frowned whilst Bjarni leant over to refill his horn from a wineskin. ‘The ending was poor though,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Uncle is right. A good ending must have
a generous spattering of blood or else no one is happy.’ He scratched the back of his head as though there was a mouse nesting in his hair. ‘Now I am thinking about it, it wasn’t a good story at all.’

‘I could not tell you the ending because it hasn’t happened yet, Jarl Sigurd,’ Nikephoros said, one dark eyebrow hitched. ‘But I can assure you that there will be blood. Arsaber will die and his snakes with him.’

‘Good,’ Sigurd said. ‘I am happy about that. My friend Bram would be happy about that too. He liked a bloody tale.’ Olaf banged his horn against his jarl’s and wine spilled.

‘Perhaps you want to see how this story ends for yourself, Sigurd,’ Nikephoros suggested, and though it shames me to admit it, that was the first time I saw through the smoke the pattern that these Greeks had been weaving since they came to our wharf and sat amongst our furs. Here was an emperor sharing piss-foul wine with rough men and heathens. He could have sent any of his men to deliver what he owed us, but here he was, biting his tongue and biding his time, and I had been a fool not to see it sooner. This emperor wanted us.

‘At last, Uncle, I think we are through to the bone!’ Sigurd bellowed. Men looked at each other with shrugs and beard-scratching. I levered myself up on to a higher bolster, swearing at Halfdan and Gunnar who were blocking my view.

‘Your men fought well in the arena today, Sigurd. They did you great honour. Truly I did not think my fighters could be beaten.’

‘Every one of these wolves wanted to fight your men,’ Sigurd said, which was not quite true but near enough. ‘We drew lots for the honour.’ Nikephoros shared a look with Bardanes then that told us they were even more impressed, for surely they had thought we had simply sent our best fighters.

‘Then your reputation as great warriors is well deserved,’ the basileus said to the growing press of men around him, though the flattery was mostly wasted on the blind drunk
and those who knew no English. ‘What impressed us most was your men’s loyalty to each other.’ He grinned, revealing good teeth. ‘You flew down like hawks to protect the giant and that young warrior when we moved to guard Theophilos. I admit that I sweated a few drops at that moment.’ Bardanes stifled a grimace at that and I guessed he was still pride-hurt from yielding to a few crews of heathens. If he truly was the emperor’s war leader he must have been used to commanding thousands. Now he led eighteen men.

‘We were a flea’s ball bag away from carving you into joints of meat for Rome’s mangy curs,’ Olaf said in drunken Norse, forgetting to use English. The men cheered. ‘That would have got the crowds stiff!’ he barked, making a fist and shaking his forearm.

Nikephoros ignored him and pointed to the ironbound chest which now sat between Sigurd and Olaf, its contents having been weighed and found to be as promised. ‘Compared with the riches that lie in my treasury, that which you have won today is like a candle against the sun,’ the basileus said.

‘I think it is not your treasury any more,’ Sigurd pointed out, drinking. Wine spilled into his beard as he smiled. Those words stung Nikephoros like a wasp.

‘My people are loyal, Jarl Sigurd. They will rejoice to see me back on my rightful throne. As for the army, they are simple men. They fight for whoever carries the pay chest.’ He nodded resolutely. ‘With your help that will be me again.’

Sigurd laughed. ‘All the men I have are here as you see them. Aye they are killers. Every sharp-clawed, growling one of them. But I have seen Roman armies before. They are like swarms of flies or fleas on a dog.’

Bardanes glanced at Nikephoros, who nodded his permission for the general to take the reins of the conversation.

‘All we need to do is cut off the serpent’s head,’ he said, ‘and then the rebellion dies. It has always been this way in Constantinople.’

‘It is true, Sigurd,’ Egfrith said warily. ‘Just three years ago the Empress Irene ruled in Constantinople.’ Nikephoros’s eyes bulged and Sigurd waved a hand at Egfrith.

‘He is a Christ monk,’ the jarl said, as though that explained everything.

‘As the emperor has told you,’ Bardanes went on, ‘we will kill Arsaber and secure the treasury. Then it will be over. Help us do this simple thing and we will make you richer than kings.’

‘I have heard this before,’ Sigurd rumbled.

‘Not from the emperor of the richest city in the world you haven’t,’ Bardanes said.

Sigurd pursed his lips at this. ‘As it happens, we were going to Miklagard anyway,’ he said, at which Olaf nodded, biting into a hunk of meat that was cooling on the end of his knife. Sigurd gave Bardanes his wolf grin. ‘We were coming to raid. We were going to fill our ships’ bellies with as much treasure as they can take. But it seems to me that the All-Father’s hand is in this. How else can it be that the Emperor of Miklagard happens to be sitting on my furs drinking my wine?’

‘So you will fight for me?’ Nikephoros asked, tiny flames dancing in the whites of his eyes.

‘We’ll put your Greek arse back on your golden chair,’ Sigurd said, nodding. ‘If Óðin wills it,’ he added. ‘And you will fill our ships to their sheer strakes with silver.’ He nodded at the crown on Nikephoros’s head. ‘And gold,’ he said. ‘What say you, Uncle?’

Olaf frowned, meat juices glistening on his lips.

‘Anyone with a name that sounds so much like arse needs to be kicked,’ he said. The four men leant together and grasped each other’s forearms in the warrior way.

And we were going to Miklagard.

WE SPENT TEN MORE DAYS IN ROME. WE FOUND YOUNG
Gregororovius again, or rather he found us. We had not seen hide nor hair of him for days and it turned out that he had been made the new harbour master because Gratiosus, to whom we owed several weeks’ berthing tax, had never been found. Penda suggested to Gregor that he might be better off finding another trade unless he wanted to end up food for the river rats, which had likely been the last harbour master’s fate. But Gregor gave his handsome smile and assured the Wessexman that he would be safe enough now that the trouble in Rome seemed to have passed and His Holiness the Pope’s soldiers were patrolling the streets again. Whether that was true or not, he let us off the money we owed and this made me think that Gregor would be just fine, for he had enough cleverness in him to tell which way the wind was blowing and rig his sail for the smoothest ride. He also took Sigurd to the best blacksmith in Rome, who worked a forge in the shadow of the great wall east of the Amphitheatrum Flavium, because there were still seven Danes who needed good mail. The smith had four brynjas already, which he altered to fit the Danes, but he and his workers made the final three brynjas from the first ring to the last, and to do
this in ten days was unheard of by any of us. Still, it cost Sigurd no small part of the coin we had won with our blood and for a hoard like that I was willing to wager the smith would have happily gone without sleep for a month.

The day we slipped our moorings, our four prows sniffing the sea air on the wind, was the day we heard that King Karolus had entered Rome from the north. We had no desire to meet the warrior king again and neither had Basileus Nikephoros, and all in all we felt like mischievous children creeping out of the orchard at the bark of the farmer’s hound.