For the moment the two Varangian forces hesitated and the metal music stilled. Haraldr looked into the fierce blue eyes of Mar’s men and for a moment wished he could offer them something less bitter than the ferric draught of blood and steel. But the Bulgar war had settled that. He studied the man with a thin blond moustache opposite him; he had seen him in the palace but did not know his name. With a lightning-quick motion he raised his sword and brought it down; the man’s clavicle collapsed, his mouth contorted, and he pitched to his knees.
Time ended. The sun rose and iced steel byrnnies and helms and blades, but no man could register the length of its silvery ascent. The fighting was unrelenting in its brutality, a confrontation of seasoned warriors who had determined to abandon all the artifices of their trade and exchange blows of pure, desperate hate. There were no battle cries, no false courage, only the endless, harsh chorale of steel on steel, and the regular, sickening thuds of swords and axes into flesh. The only thing that separated their motions from the deft, mechanistic slaughter of a butcher was their voiceless rage.
At first Haraldr, Halldor, Ulfr and Hord Stefnirson took the snout of a slender boar, exchanging places at the front every few moments, a relay passing on the terrible hammer of Thor. Gradually they expanded their front to the entire width of the terrace. Haraldr’s arms still ached from his ordeal in Neorion, and he noticed that Halldor and Hord – fired by vengeance for his brother, Joli – were his champions now, pushing forward where even he could not go. And over the course of what might have been an hour, what for many was eternity, Halldor and Hord prevailed; it seemed as if Mar was now losing four men for every one of Haraldr’s.
Soon the resistance perceptibly sagged, and the bloody stalemate quickened to a steady shuffling advance. Haraldr glanced off to his left and could see the ringed silver domes of the Chrysotriklinos glitter in the morning sun, and he realised that if he could live another few hours, he could settle with the man enthroned beneath those domes. But first he had to settle with the man who waited ahead. And the gods were telling him that even they feared that moment.
Mar’s men fell back suddenly and the din of conflict abruptly subsided. A voice barked from behind the bloodied, disastrously thinned ranks of Mar’s Varangians. ‘Haraldr Sigurdarson! We must deal!’
Halldor simply charged forward to finish the fight, and Haraldr had to pull him back. ‘I am Haraldr Sigurdarson,’ said Haraldr. Halldor’s jaw slackened and he stared in shock. The Varangian ranks on both sides became absolutely silent. The vague shouting from the fighting in the stadium only added to the sense that they all stood in an eerie, soundless vortex. Haraldr walked forward to confront Mar Hunrodarson.
There is no reason for our men to continue to settle the quarrel between us, Prince of Norway.’ Mar’s byrnnie glistened with fresh, unmarred lacquer. His eyes were like diamonds and his nostrils flared. ‘You knew this time would come,’ he said with a sneer. ‘I have always despised you. You are weak and stupid.’
Haraldr now understood Mar’s strategy. He had sacrificed his best men, and his honour, to exhaust Haraldr and save himself for their reckoning.
Halldor shouldered past Haraldr and pounded Mar in the chest with his flat hand. ‘I will settle with you, Hunrodarson! I am not afraid of your vaunted arm! Coward!’
Mar simply grinned at the provocation. ‘It seems that your Prince Haraldr is the coward.’
‘He has been poisoned and bound and beaten in Neorion!’ shouted Halldor, so that everyone would hear. ‘And he has fought this morning, slime crawler! There is no shame in my appearing as his champion!’ Halldor shoved Mar again. ‘I do not need Odin’s favour to meet you, Hunrodarson.’
Mar shook his head and laughed. ‘He will want to fight me when he learns that I fucked his woman.’ Haraldr’s head snapped and the blood drained from his face. ‘You don’t believe me?’ said Mar. ‘Let me describe the bite I took from her soft breast. She begged me, little Prince. Ask her how she begged me.’ Mar pointed to Haraldr and snorted derisively. ‘He wants to make his woman Queen of Norway. But she is just my whore.’
Haraldr refused to lower his eyes. If he could see Maria again, he would forgive her a thousand men. But he could not forgive himself if he yielded to Mar’s challenge. Were he only Haraldr Nordbrikt, yes. But Haraldr Sigurdarson, King of Norway, could not turn away from this any more than Olaf could have walked away from Stiklestad. And for the first time in all his years of dreaming and yearning, he knew what it was to be a king: always to be in front; always to be the first to accept the consequence of decision, especially when he blundered, even when the men who served him blundered. A king had to be the one man in the world who could say to his people: ‘I hold myself accountable, for my honour and for yours. Always. Not merely when it is easy to do so.’
‘You are a small man, Mar,’ said Haraldr softly. ‘The weapons I choose are one sword, one shield, no replacements.’
Halldor turned to Haraldr. ‘No! We don’t need to do this. You have already won. Let us begin again until we have slaughtered them to a man.’
Haraldr shook his head. ‘I must do this. I fear running again more than any death. I owe the men who have been brave enough to follow Haraldr Nordbrikt at least this much.’ Ulfr stepped forward and nodded at Halldor. Halldor would not yield. Haraldr seized Halldor’s shoulders and looked between him and Ulfr. ‘The last time you seconded me I fought for the right to lead five hundred men. Today I must fight for the right to lead Norway.’
Halldor finally stepped away, his eyes wet. Then he turned and addressed all the Varangians with a flat, implacable statement. ‘The tale that Haraldr Sigurdarson was a coward is a lie.’
Mar unsheathed his magnificent engraved blade and examined it in the sun. Then he slammed his sword against his shield and Haraldr turned to meet him. Haraldr knew he would be able to make but one savage assault with all his remaining strength. He closed with no preliminaries and pounded Mar’s shield to kindling amid a gale of cheers. Mar countered deftly, and moments later Haraldr tossed aside the useless, rattling frame of his own shield. The energy-sapping, screeching quarrel of blade on blade quickly drained his exhausted shoulders, and yet Mar still could not overpower him. Haraldr had expected no reprieve from Odin, but he thanked the one-eyed god for today withholding his favour from the craven Mar.
Haraldr allowed Mar to drive him in a continuous, circling retreat; he hoped to tire him. Finally Haraldr broke and turned and leapt to the ell-wide wooden catwalk that ran along the ridge of the peaked roof of the Imperial seating pavilion. He walked steadily backwards, to the very end of the precarious walkway. The tiled roof sloped away to the stone seats fifty ells below. Mar looked down and hesitated. Then he advanced carefully. Haraldr swayed and looked over his shoulder at the drop. He was certain he was losing his balance and he deliberately lunged forward so that he would not topple backward to his death. His chest slapped to the catwalk and he clutched for his life. He realized he had lost both his nerve and his sword.
Haraldr’s sword distantly rang against the steps. Mar walked steadily forward, to the accompaniment of a gentle, evil laugh. He came close enough to sever the neck so neatly presented on this lofty scaffold. ‘Norway,’ said Mar, ‘this is a fitting end to you. Nose to the ground.’ He lifted his sword. ‘Odin spits on you, little coward. . . .’