Haraldr paused and also took a deep draught. He looked over at Constantine, who was so drunk, it appeared he might collapse into his roast pig. ‘I allow only the best men at my back, and then make certain that I am always at the front to lead them. I do not command my men to do anything I am not prepared to do myself. I am certain that my men are drilled in every tactic that I might wish to employ, and I remember that in battle the memory grows weak, so I make certain that my tactics are simple and direct to begin with. But at the moment when fate hinges, I am not unlike yourself, Majesty. I trust in luck.’
‘Indeed!’ Michael spilled his goblet as he lurched forward in excitement. ‘Tell me what you mean. I had always considered you a kindred sportsman of sorts, but I thought you entirely grim in battle. What do you mean?’ Michael nodded for the chamberlain to refill Haraldr’s cup. ‘This is a different wine, Hetairarch,’ he offered as the eunuch poured from the silver ewer. ‘From Dyracchium. If you do not like it, pour it out.’
Haraldr drank deeply; he didn’t like the taste of Dyracchium vintage, but he was enjoying himself too much to complain. ‘Majesty,’ he said, conscious of a slight slurring of his words, ‘we Norsemen believe in a god called Odin. But you do not have to consider him a god if it offends your Christian piety. You could consider him a talisman, like a splinter of the True Cross, or even a personification, like Fortune, But we believe that Odin sends his favour to certain men in battle and withholds that favour from others. If he sends his Valkyrja, these being his angels of death, to pluck a man from the battle, then nothing that man can do can arrest his fate. We have a saying: “No man lives to evening whom the fates condemn at morning.” ‘
‘Does this Odin enjoy any sports besides war?’ asked Michael ebulliently.
Haraldr jerked his head up. What had the Emperor asked him? Had he been asleep? His head snapped up again and a surge of alarm brought his wits back for a moment. How could he be this drunk? He had not consumed enough wine to have already summoned the herons of forgetfulness. He felt the drowsiness in his arms and legs, and his terrified heart pounded life back into his limbs. He lurched to his feet and his spastic arms sent his cups and dishes clattering; his spilled wine spread a broadening red stain over the white-and-gold tablecloth. His feet seemed stuck in mud, but he staggered towards Michael and reached with arms that felt like huge logs. ‘You . . . have . . . poisoned--’ He gasped, suffocating. Then the room whirled and he fell forward onto the table with a tremendous crash.
Michael and Constantine stood up. They looked over Haraldr’s twitching torso like hunters examining a slaughtered beast. A long golden lock of Haraldr’s hair rested in the garos sauce on the Emperor’s plate. Michael lifted the sodden strand of hair from the golden dish with the tips of his ringers and looked over at his suddenly alert uncle. ‘It appears,’ he said, ‘that when this Odin decided to bring our friend here to a timely end, he also divined to ruin my roast pig.’
‘Do you smell it?’ Halldor stood on the St Mama’s Quarter wharf and stared towards the Great City. The setting sun flared off the soaring round towers of the main land wall.
‘I am gagging from the stench.’ Ulfr looked back at the three light galleys tied up on the wharf. Varangians poured over the ships, attaching rigging, finishing out the oar ports, checking caulk and loading kegs of provisions. ‘Even if he was with Maria, he would have come out here to check on this. No Norseman takes the sea that lightly.’
‘I don’t like the whole business,’ said Halldor. ‘The way those Pechenegs were waiting to move into the Numera before our mattresses were cold. It was as if the Emperor were only too eager to have us out of the palace.’
‘Where did Haraldr go last night? Did you ask Maria?’ ‘I sent a man to Haraldr’s house. Erling. I told him not to come back until he found her. He hasn’t come back.’ Halldor shifted on his feet. ‘We need to arrive at a plan.’ ‘Unfortunately we don’t know what to plan for or against.’ ‘Let’s consider the two possibilities. If Haraldr is in trouble, we need to find him, rescue him and prepare to depart immediately. The other possibility is that Haraldr has met with some treachery that has placed him beyond our help.’ Halldor looked at Ulfr and astonished his friend with his tearing eyes. ‘In that case I intend to join him in the Valhol. But before the Valkyrja wrap their cold limbs around me, I will reduce the palaces of Rome to a pile of cinders.’
‘I will join you if it comes to that. So will they.’ Ulfr pointed to the Varangians. ‘But if he still needs our help, we must find him. . . . Look.’
Gregory, mounted on a horse vastly oversize for him, galloped along the wharf. The hoofbeats pounded against the shouting of the workers. ‘Comrades!’ he yelled. He swung off the horse expertly. ‘I have information.’ He took a moment to catch his breath. ‘Haraldr went to the Emperor’s apartments last night. None of my informants saw him leave.’
Halldor and Ulfr exchanged ominous looks. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘Yes,’ said Gregory. ‘The Emperor has been consulting with his astrologers all day. I have become acquainted with the chamberlain who attends one of these scientists, and he overheard this gentleman working on his astronomical calculations with his assistants. The Emperor has asked them if the stars will be auspicious for a man who takes a very great risk.’
‘For what day are they calculating, Gregory?’ asked Ulfr.
‘Tomorrow.’
‘As I said, that whole city reeks right now,’ said Halldor. ‘I suggest we march in there and demand that the Emperor tell us where we can find Haraldr. And then we should march right out again and leave Rome before the Emperor takes this great risk of his.’
‘What if the Emperor does want us out of the city, and Haraldr out of the way, as it would look right now?’ asked Ulfr. He pointed to the massive towers of the land wall. ‘Those walls aren’t going to tumble down because all three hundred and sixty of us demand to see the Emperor. And even if we do get in, we can hardly hope to attack the entire Imperial Taghmata, particularly when they are the ones who will be fortified behind the palace walls.’
Halldor nodded impassively. ‘Of course.’ He seemed almost embarrassed by his impulsiveness. He looked out over the harbour for a while. ‘This is what we do. We begin to go into the city in small groups. Not all of us will make it through before they close the gates at sunset. The rest can come through during the morning.’
‘And how do we deal with the Taghmata?’ said Ulfr.
‘Allies,’ said Halldor. He looked grimly at the towers of the Great Wall; only the crenellated tips were still glowing. ‘Our Varangians will rendezvous in the streets around the Devil’s Walking Stick Inn during the morning. And by then I expect to have asked for and received the help of a lady.
‘A lady?’ asked Gregory.
Halldor nodded. ‘A very formidable lady.’
‘I don’t wish to be exhausted by your preliminaries concerning the ruling planets and the relative position of the planets in the zodiacal signs and aspects and limits.’ Michael leaned forward in his throne and glared at the trio of astrologers. ‘I simply want the answer to the question I put to you this morning.’
Cyril, the spokesman for the group, was an elderly man with a grey beard and black-and-silver widow’s peak. He wore a white pallium with his white silk scaramangium and carried the trail of the pallium very elegantly, as if he were posing for a statue. ‘Majesty,’ he intoned with the rolling speech of an educated Hellene, ‘I must warn you that the positions of the stars for the period of time you have mandated to us portend only blood and sorrow. Might I recommend that you put away the idea of this venture, or at least postpone your enterprise until the planetary aspects are more favourable?’