Rollo had been the king’s eyes and ears in the Holy Land. He had observed, considered, judged, memorized; names, locations, strengths, weaknesses. He had ventured into dark and dangerous places, and paid dearly for information meant to be kept hidden. He had crawled under men’s defences, winkled out their secrets. He had misled people, lied to them, bribed them, persuaded them to act against their conscience and bent them to his will. He was too good at his job; what he had learned went far beyond his king’s remit. He had, he sensed, left behind in the Holy Land a part of his soul.
He knew exactly what he would say to his king; how he would summarize, in the succinct, brief statements which the chronically impatient king demanded, all that he had seen. Now, though, before he could set out for England, he must find a way to make some sort of contact with the mighty ruler of Constantinople.
His mind leapt ahead to what he must do when he arrived in the city. His prime mission was to discover how Alexius Comnenus viewed the enemy on his doorstep and what he proposed to do about his perilous situation. Besieged as he was by the Seljuk Turks, this race of ferociously devout men who, it appeared, would stop at nothing until the entire world believed exactly as they did, how was Alexius going to react? Would he, as William believed, send out to the kings and the great lords of the west, asking for their help in the inevitable confrontation that was coming? Once Rollo had found out all he could – and, so far, he had only the sketchiest notion of how he was to go about it – he must find the fastest ship heading back to north-west Europe. With luck, he might find a swift craft sailing all the way to England, although that was surely too much to ask.
It was going to be tricky, worming his way into a place where he could have some sort of open exchange with those who ruled the huge Byzantine Empire, but he had something with which to bargain. So recently arrived from the turbulent lands where the Turks were flexing their muscles, he was in possession of certain facts of which Alexius Comnenus was possibly unaware.
One fact in particular stood out; something Rollo knew to be more important than virtually anything else. He hoped it was going to be enough …
In the middle of the following morning, he stood on an elevation on the southern side of the Bosphorus, his eyes fixed on the Queen of Cities across the azure water. It was fortified by thick walls, interspersed at intervals by narrow gates manned with guards. Beyond the walls, on a series of steep hills, rose the buildings of Constantinople. Rollo had an impression of graceful towers and gilded domes, the bright morning light dazzling off stone, metal and paint so that the entire city shimmered.
The waterway dividing the Greek and Turkish halves of the city was hectic with traffic, and he watched ferries darting from north to south and back again, weaving a path among the slow, heavy merchant ships making their way up or down the Bosphorus. To his right, the narrow strait stretched on north-eastwards, towards its meeting with the Black Sea. Almost opposite to where he stood, the Golden Horn flowed out, its quays thick with vessels loading, unloading or waiting their turn to tie up. To his left, the Sea of Marmara opened up, and along its northern shore he saw the life of the city spread out.
He stood in silent thought for some time, then, with a decisive step, made his way down the steep track to the settlement spread out below.
He had at last made up his mind how best to make the approach to Alexius’s inner circle that would enable him to find out what he needed to know. He had concluded that, as he was a foreigner in the city, the logical conduit to Alexius’s ear was via other foreigners. These particular foreigners, indeed, had the additional bonus of being closer to the emperor than any men outside his own kin, for they formed his elite personal bodyguard.
They were men of the north: big, broad, brawny and blond, in a land where men were habitually lean, dark, short and slight. Their loyalty and warrior prowess were beyond question, and far in excess of anything the emperor found among local recruits. The first look at them was enough to terrify lesser opponents, huge and well-equipped as they were, and they attacked with a rage so reckless that even the prospect of bloodshed and agonizing wounds did not appear to hold them back. They were, the whispered, horrified rumours said, the berserkergang, and they fought in a trance state that gave superhuman strength and the ability to be wounded and feel no pain.
They were known as the Varangian Guard, and Rollo knew quite a lot about them, for his Guiscard kin in Sicily had encountered them in force as these ferocious northern warriors fought to repel the Normans’ advance and ultimate capture of the island. The Varangians might have lost that battle, but they had been more successful in the lower Balkans, where the Guiscards had definitely come off second best. Rollo detected a note of grudging admiration among his kinsmen; as his cousin, Count Roger Guiscard, had remarked, the Varangians were Northmen like themselves, and you knew where you were with a northerner.
Nevertheless, Rollo was aware that he should be cautious. Fellow Northmen the Varangians were, but they had been his kinsmen’s enemy not many years ago, and, when it came to offering the hand of friendship to someone they had once battled against, undoubtedly they would have the long memories of fighting men.
As he stood on the deck of the ferry, watching the Greek half of Constantinople rise up before him, Rollo realized that it was time to change his appearance. The guise of a hard-working, impoverished Turkish merchant was not the way to gain admittance to the emperor’s bodyguard. He needed a bath, haircut, shave, clean linen, fresh clothes. Then, presenting himself not as Rollo Guiscard, Norman adventurer, but instead simply as a lonely and homesick English traveller, he would try his luck in the huge barracks close to the Bucoleon Palace where the Varangian Guard were housed.
Rollo had not imagined he could simply walk into the Varangians’ stronghold. Approaching its massive outer defences, he gazed up at the crenellated walls rising high above. Their solidity was broken by one single opening, where sturdy iron-bound gates were guarded by at least a dozen men.
When he was still some distance away, he stopped and took in his first sight of the emperor’s personal guards. Everything he had heard concerning them was accurate; indeed, reality exceeded rumour. If these gate guards were typical, then the Varangians richly deserved their fearsome reputation. They were exceptionally tall, broad-shouldered, giants of men. They wore their hair long, some sporting elaborate plaits banded with cord and even small coins; in colouring, they were fair or red-headed. Beards appeared to be the norm, and, again, some of the men had woven their facial hair into thick, wiry braids. They were clad in short sleeveless corselets made of iron rings, under which they wore brightly coloured tunics. Perhaps in acknowledgement of local dress customs, some wore baggy, loose-fitting striped trousers tucked into their high boots.
All were armed. They carried the huge, heavy, long-handled axe; the terrifying weapon which was largely responsible for the Varangians’ fame. Rollo stared at the axes. They were, he had been told, capable of splitting a man’s head in two. If the death stroke was made by a particularly strong and skilled man and the axe was sufficiently sharp, the bisection of the victim had been known to extend right down to his breast bone.
As if the axe was not enough, each guard also wore a long sword and carried various knives and daggers attached to his belt. The men were watchful, clearly on high alert. Had something happened, to make them suspect an enemy at the gate?
I am not their enemy, Rollo told himself firmly.
Enemy or not, a brazen demand for admittance to the stronghold did not seem wise. Instead, Rollo found a place in the shade from which he could observe without it being too noticeable that he was doing so. Then he settled himself as comfortably as he could for a long wait.