Haraldr remained statue-still in the prow. Gleb looked at him, then at Ulfr and Halldor, and spat. ‘Well,’ he growled, ‘he is about to meet a woman who will make him forget all the rest.’ He paused for effect. ‘The Empress City.’ He gestured south, where the coastline was just a dark, greenish line on the horizon. To the west the ascending sun punched a brilliant hole in a seamless sheet of smoked blue. ‘By mid-morning we’ll reach an opening on that coast. It’s a strait the Greeks call Bosporus. At the end of it, half a day’s sail south, is the Empress City. I’ll never forget my first sight of her.’
‘Look. Another one,’ said Halldor. He faced the stern and pointed into the steel-hued sky. A messenger pigeon made one last spiralling turn before heading off to the southwest. ‘That’s the fifth bird the Grik ambassador has sent out since yesterday morning.’
‘He’s telling them to prepare our welcome,’ said Gleb.
‘What nature of welcome?’ asked Haraldr. He had left his lonely perch while Ulfr, Halldor and Gleb had been distracted by the pigeon. ‘That’s what troubles me.’
‘Well, I’m glad something besides that girl troubles you,’ said Gleb. He spat and smiled like a father forgiving a foolish son. Then his malleable face puckered with concern. ‘I’d say we’re in danger. If only because there’s no knowing the mind of these Greeks. They’re a nervous people, they’ve never trusted the Rus, and this business with their Manglavite, which they surely know of by now, has got to alarm them. It’s obvious from the way their ambassador has acted.’
Indeed, thought Haraldr. For the past three and a half weeks the Byzantine trade ambassador had rebuffed every attempt at communication with the curt message ‘maintain course’. In fact, they had seen neither the ambassador nor the interpreter, Gregory, since leaving St Gregory’s Island.
‘Can we fight them?’ asked Ulfr.
Gleb tugged at his doughy jowls. ‘Long before I made my first trip down the Dnieper, a Rus fleet attacked the Greek navy right in front of the Empress City. But these were swift warships manned by thousands of Varangians; Swedes, I believe they were. Even then the Greeks were able to call on their lightning from heaven and set the water on fire. They say you could walk across the shores of the Bosporus for a rowing-spell and your feet would never touch anything but the bodies of sailors, both Greek and Rus. Ten ships returned to Kiev. That’s when the Emperor and the Great Prince decided a treaty was preferable to such slaughter.’
‘Then that treaty will protect us,’ said Ulfr hopefully.
‘Unless they view the death of their Manglavite as a breach of that treaty; indeed, an act of aggression against the very Emperor whom Hakon served,’ added Haraldr.
‘We don’t even know who the Emperor is now,’ said Halldor. ‘It’s fairly certain that Basil Bulgar-Slayer is dead.’ The Bulgar-Slayer had ruled Byzantium for so long that he had become a legend, even in the far north, long before Haraldr had been born. ‘All we know beyond that are reports of mutterings made by Hakon when he was drunk, of a second and even third Emperor after Basil Bulgar-Slayer, and something about a “bitch-whore” who has had a very great hand in this succession of Emperors.’ Halldor looked around at the group and gave his usual insouciant shrug. ‘There are times when a man finds himself far from shelter on a moonless night, with his tinder wet. There’s nothing he can do but wait for the sun.’
Haraldr envied Halldor his innate calm as much as he hated his own gut-churning helplessness. He was no Halldor, but he knew that Halldor was right. They could only wait. And watch. ‘Who’s got the sharpest eyes?’ he asked Gleb. ‘Send him up the mast.’
Gleb snapped an order, and Blud, a young Slav oarsman, clambered up the mast like a monkey and stood atop the single cross-spar from which the billowing square sail was suspended. Blud waved happily at his comrades below and then intently began to study the empty Rus Sea.
‘Bosporus.’ Gleb pointed to the now clearly visible fissure in the green band of headland. He called out for the following ships – at last count there were one hundred and fifty-four vessels remaining of the close to five hundred that had left Kiev – to make a broad starboard turn and close up formation. The sun was rising to its zenith and the water glittered. The sky was an immaculate cerulean. Soon it became apparent that the Bosporus was a good fourth or even third of a rowing-spell in width. Dozens of small boats with square and triangular white sails cruised along the coastline. Scattered clusters of white buildings gleamed on the high, grassy, tree-spotted escarpments of the nearest shore; some of these apparent suburbs of the Great City were more extensive than any town Haraldr had ever seen, save Kiev. After an hour or so the Bosporus narrowed to several thousand ells. The immense buildings scattered on the headlands became clearly visible; domes like those of Yaroslav’s cathedral, though much larger, rose from yew-coloured woods.
‘A-heaaad! A-heaaad! Off the prow!’ Blud looked like a mad seabird leaping up and down on the cross-spar, flapping his free arm and screaming himself purple. Haraldr dashed to the mast, grabbed a rope, and pulled himself up the timber spire.
At first it seemed like a necklace on the water, flashing in the sun. Within a few minutes the jewels could be distinguished as gilded, swoop-necked prows. Dragons, like the ships of Norse kings. But there had been only a handful of such ships in the entire north. Now there were hundreds out there, spread across the entire width of the Bosporus.
Gleb came scrambling spryly up the mast, his limp no handicap in the rigging. He frowned as he appraised the dancing gold on the water.
The fleet was approaching rapidly. Haraldr counted perhaps a hundred large ships, surrounded by several hundred smaller supporting vessels. Though still too distant for an accurate gauge of length, the biggest ships were clearly of enormous size, with double banks of oars, twin masts, and what looked like huge gold beasts – perhaps panthers or bears – looming at both bow and stern.
‘Dhromons of the Imperial Fleet.’ Gleb spoke as if he were describing a huge wave rolling towards them, a natural phenomenon that a man could only curse helplessly in his last instant of life. ‘Fire-ships.’
‘In what formation?’
Gleb cleared his throat with an angry growl. ‘Battle formation.’
If we are to die, Haraldr told himself, we will not make it easy for them. He shouted down to Halldor: ‘We must give no provocation! Reef sails but don’t furl them. Oars and weapons ready but out of sight. Keep men in place to furl sails quickly at my command. We’ll wait for them, but if they come closer than two thousand ells, we’ll furl sails and row for the shore. Those big ships may have trouble manoeuvring up against the headlands!’
‘So will these Rus washtubs!’ answered Halldor. Then he shouted the orders down the line. Within minutes the entire Rus trade flotilla had stopped and sat bobbing like a great flock of waterfowl resting on the water. The Imperial ships continued to advance, their formation perfect, oars slitting the water in precise rhythm. Haraldr could see metal scintillating on the decks, and distinct figures clambering about. The range was down to three thousand ells. A fearsome, oxlike bellowing echoed across the water.
Two thousand five hundred ells. Haraldr looked at Gleb. Gleb just shook his head and worked his jaws. Perun be praised that he had exacted enough gold from Yaroslav to ensure that his grandchildren would never have to look down the angry snout of an Imperial dhromon. If his death could buy that, then death take him.