To Julie Gibson
For friendship and because the idea of her having a book called Lord of Slaughter dedicated to her makes me laugh.
Contents
Cover
Dedication
Title Page
Epigraph
1. The Rain
2. The Lovers
3. Profitable Murder
4. A Reluctant Assassin
5. The Chamberlain
6. Taken
7. The Road to the Dark
8. The Chamberlain’s Man
9. The Numera
10. The Office of Barbarians
11. A Fight for Snake in the Eye
12. An Invitation
13. Help for the Hunters
14. The Lower Caves
15. An Ambush
16. The Lady Styliane
17. The Vala
18. A Wolf
19. Descent
20. A Champion for Snake in the Eye
21. Friend Fear
22. The Pale God
23. Outside the Walls
24. The Price of Power
25. A Sacrifice
26. A Wolf Discovered
27. Hidden by Darkness
28. The Wolf Free
29. Snake in the Eye’s Bargain
30. A Curse Removed
31. Lord of Slaughter
32. A Face From the Past
33. Awakening
34. House of the Dead
35. The Moon on the Water
36. Twice Hidden
37. The Uses of Love
38. Revelation
39. Killers
40. Glory
41. Captured
42. The Old Way
43. A Necessary Rage
44. A Thinking Beast
45. The Bloody Waters
46. A Girl Weaving
47. Brother and Sister
48. No Way Back
49. Death by Water
50. Mighty Killer
51. The Norns
52. The Blood-Rooted Tree
53. The Fenris Wolf
54. Stronger than Death
55. Child of Blood
Acknowledgements
Also by M.D. Lachlan
Copyright
Hades I call thee Numera, and even worse than Hades,
For in its horror it surpasses even Hades.
In this murky and most deep dungeon
There is no light to the eyes, nor any conversation,
For the constant smoke, and the thickness of the darkness
Suffer us not to see or recognise each other.
But bonds and tortures, and guards and towers
And the shouting Varangoi; and terror keeps you awake.
MICHAEL GLYCAS, BYZANTINE HISTORIAN, 12TH CENTURY
Through hunger and thirst,
Through heat and bitter frost.
By never avoiding the hardships of weather thou didst purify
thyself as gold in the furnace.
KONTAKION OF THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH, TONE 4, DATE UNKNOWN
From there come the maidens
mighty in wisdom,
Three from the well
down beneath the tree.
Uthr is one named,
Verthani the next –
On wood they scored –
and Skuld the third.
Laws they made there,
and life allotted
To the sons of men,
and set their fates.
THE POETIC EDDA, 10TH CENTURY
1 The Rain
Under a dead moon, on a field of the dead, a wolf moved unseen beneath the rain’s great shadow.
The downpour had started with nightfall as the battle ended. There was too much blood for Christ to bear, said the victorious Greeks, and he had decided to wash it away.
The wolf slipped through the ranks of dead and dying, past the little cocoons of light where men nurtured lamps or candles in their sagging tents. Even there it was just a smudge in the darkness, a spectre made by the rain.
The boy Snake in the Eye looked out of the imperial tent for signs of a break in the weather. Any moon would have made looting possible but its slim crescent had faded the previous evening and the clouds had rolled in. He saw nothing in the sodden night beyond the weak glow of the lamps.
He was sure men would try to claim what plunder they could, even in that black deluge. The ground was a mire, though, and not all the wounded were beyond defending themselves. Why die ingloriously in the dark to the knife of one of the rebel’s half-dead Normans or Arabs? If you were going to die, better to do it where your fellows would see you and credit you for your warrior’s heart.
Snake in the Eye often dreamed of a famous death – surrounded by a press of enemies, their spears bright under a cold sun, his sword flashing arcs of sunlight and crimson – filled with the elation of killing and dying.
‘Twenty faced him and twenty went with him to the halls of the dead, to cheer him to the mead bench at the All Father’s side.’ So the skalds would sing for him one day.
He had never feared death and thought it a fine thing to die well and live for ever in the tales of his kin at the fireside and in the marketplace, though he would not throw his life away. For now he would sit tight behind the ditches of the camp and begin searching the bodies and the baggage train with the crows in the morning light. After that, he would go dancing with his loot to Abydos, to see the grateful town throw open its gates to the men who had lifted its siege. Then he would enjoy all the pleasures available to the liberator, including that of watching the rebel leaders impaled on the walls.
The rain fell so hard that no lamp or fire could be had outside and men huddled in their soaking tents waiting for dawn – those who had tents. In the summer most of the army slept in the open. When the rain had come in, fast, cold, unseasonable and heavy, the soldiers had crammed into any available shelter, fighting for cover before the blind blackness fell. The unlucky and the weak stood shivering and stamping in the bare scrub, clinging together for warmth in the sightless dark.
The horses of the cavalry moaned under the onslaught of the water and the warriors sang in the night to keep up their spirits. Snake in the Eye heard the songs of the Rus, of how Helgi won the battle at Kiev. He heard those of the Greeks, who called themselves Romans and sang of how Constantine had raised the greatest city in the world. And he heard those he loved the most – old songs of the north, from the Viking warriors, his people. Songs of heroes, dragons and battles against incredible odds. He understood each language. He’d been a market boy at Birka in Skania and it had paid him to be able to speak to as many varieties of men as he could.
He heard more than songs under the beating rain. Men and animals still lay dying in the storm and, to Snake in the Eye, their cries were a sort of music too. They filled him with a physical joy that tingled from his boots to his tongue.
‘Any sign of this weather clearing, boy?’ A voice from inside the tent.
‘No, lord.’
‘I thought not. Come back in here. I need to talk to you.’
Snake in the Eye turned away from the guard who sat shivering at the tent’s dripping entrance despite his three cloaks.
The emperor was alone, his war council having finished digesting the events of the day. He gestured for Snake in the Eye to sit next to a small and ornate brazier. The boy did so. The brazier fascinated him. The basket that held the fire was wrought with little lizards that seemed to wriggle in the heat, black against the light of the coals. At the emperor’s feet lay something equally as fascinating – the head of the rebel Phokas, scarcely recognisable as human – the rebel had fallen from his horse and been trampled by his own cavalry – but Snake in the E
ye knew it was him. He had been there when Bollason, the famous Viking, had found the body and decapitated it.
The emperor’s eyes flicked momentarily to a trickle of water dropping from a corner of the tent.
‘You did us good service today in translating my commands. You are a Varangian but you speak Greek like a true Roman. How did you learn our language?’
‘I make it my study, sir. I have travelled this way with my father trading furs, and your countrymen come to our market.’
‘You speak impressively.’
‘I find all tongues easy, sir. I can converse with the Arabs as well, enough to trade anyway.’
‘Then you can be useful to us. I should order you castrated so you can attend me formally at court.’
The boy paled.
‘Don’t look so terrified. Many poorer sons have made that career choice. The chamberlain who rules in my place in Constantinople when I am on campaign is a eunuch and not of good family. Do you think he could have risen to be so mighty had he stayed intact? Of course not. He would not have been allowed as close to the purple.’
Again, the boy said nothing.
‘Don’t worry, I shan’t command it but it’s an option you should consider. You handled yourself well under the pressure of the battle today. You would benefit by ongoing access to my presence. It’s not so much to give up. You’re not even a proper man yet, it’s apparent to any who look at you.’
‘I am a man, sir.’
‘Listen to your voice. Look at the smoothness of your chin. I’m a Roman emperor, boy, I’ve seen enough eunuchs and ordered enough cut to know the difference between a man and a boy. You can’t miss what you’ve never had. What is your name?’
‘Snake in the Eye.’
‘Why so?’
The boy pointed to his left eye. The emperor beckoned him forward. Snake in the Eye held the eye open wide and the emperor peered into it. Around the pupil curled a second blackness, a deformity of the eye.
‘It does look like a snake,’ said the emperor. ‘What is its meaning?’
‘Death,’ said Snake in the Eye, ‘so my mother told me.’
The emperor pursed his lips, impressed.
‘I have always paid attention to things like this. It is an important mark, something from God.’
‘Our people say it is an image of the world snake – a serpent whose coils stretch across the whole earth. When it shakes, the seas boil and the land splits.’
‘Would you shake the earth and boil the seas, Snake in the Eye?’
‘I would, sir, on your behalf.’
The emperor touched his tongue to his upper lip.
‘A snake in a boy’s eye. One thing among many strange ones recently. Two days ago – you saw the fireball in the sky?’
‘It was a good omen.’
‘We made sure it was. I had to drum up a legion of fortune tellers and wonder workers to convince the men it was a sign God was with us.’
‘He surely was, sir.’
‘Who knows what these things mean? Men call comets the terror of kings. I tell you for nothing, it put the wind up me. Must have been a good sign, I suppose. We won, didn’t we?’
Snake in the Eye stayed silent. He sensed the emperor just wanted to voice his concerns. Snake in the Eye’s one purpose was to provide a pair of ears so Basileios could talk out loud without considering himself mad.
‘The rebel drops dead in front of me, then this downpour arrives out of nowhere in high summer in a land that hasn’t seen rain in a year. What do you think of that?’
‘The land is grateful. You have removed the rebel and reset the natural order. Perhaps the rebellion caused the drought.’
‘You speak like a man twice your age. Are all the Varangians like you?’
‘I come from a line of wise men and have been brought up in their company but I am wise enough to know that I know only a little of the world. This is why I spend my time listening, when I can, to people who know more.’
‘A good policy. It is better to listen than to speak, even for kings. Only the king who keeps his secrets to himself knows he can never be betrayed.’
He took a sip of his wine and swirled the remaining liquid around in the bottom of his cup, staring into it as if he expected it to reveal the answer to some troubling question.
‘There are envious men working against me by supernatural means, I am sure, envious men in league with envious demons. Fascinus, St Jerome called it, so says my chamberlain. Envy turned to hurt. Harm in the gaze. Was it Christ who came to our aid? I hope so. But this will excite the envy of demons even more. If the rebel can be struck down in such a way, why not me? These past years I have …’
He stopped speaking.
Snake in the Eye had spent his time in the Greek camp learning everything he could about the emperor and the organisation of the Byzantine forces. Basileios had not had a woman in five years. His closest advisers insisted he had no time for such things. He thought of conquest, not women. The soldiers whispered that an Anatolian witch had cursed his cock to limpness for the ravages of his armies. That explained why he didn’t marry. But there again his mother had been a murderous witch – she killed her husband, the emperor Romanos, with poison and married his successor. When she grew tired of him she had him killed too and would have married a third emperor if the Church hadn’t interceded. With a mother like her, Basileios had learned to be wary of women. He was known to be a superstitious man and may have seen wives as bad luck.
The emperor seemed to get irritated with his own deliberations. He pointed to the boy’s eye.
‘An interesting mark. Perhaps a sign of great fortune.’
‘Not for my enemies,’ said the boy.
Basileios laughed. ‘Ah, let’s hope not. You amuse me, Snake in the Eye, and that in itself is a great fortune.’
‘I hope to be of greater service than making you laugh, lord. I am a man now, just, and my axe is restless in my hand. I would kill for you. That is my destiny. I was raised as a merchant but in the northern way – as a warrior too. I have a skill at arms unmatched by my fellows and one day it will be unmatched by men throughout the world. Your enemies are my enemies and I would watch them fall.’
Snake in the Eye believed the words as he said them. He beat most older boys in their fighting games, despite his size. Would it be so different to face a grown man with sharp steel? Not if you kept your wits, he thought.
‘Perhaps you will, one day. If you get some hairs on your chin and a sword, I think that would be a start. First, tell me about these Norsemen, their customs and their ways. To command them, I must know them.’
So Snake in the Eye told the stories of his people – of battles, journeys by ship, incredible hardships. The emperor listened with conspicuous pleasure – happy he had secured the services of unusually violent and hardy men. One fact particularly pleased him.
‘When we give an oath it is our solemn bond,’ said Snake in the Eye. ‘We will not break it for anything – not starvation, not death or poverty. A man, to us, is only as good as his word.’
‘That is your boast, but is it your practice?’ said the emperor. ‘Many men who swear loyalty to Christ do not act as Christians when their betters are not looking.’
‘If our men swear, they swear in earnest,’ said the boy. ‘In the market at Birka I have never known a man of my people fail to keep a promise. When a Norseman says he will pay you in ten days, you will be paid in ten days, even if he has to cut another merchant’s throat to do it.’
The emperor glanced at the cloaked back of the Hetaereian guard who sat cross-legged in the rain at the small open entrance to the tent.
‘Romans have no such code,’ he said. ‘They live in terror of the emperor or they slit his throat. They have known no other way since the beginnings of the empire.’
‘Our men are not like that,’ said Snake in the Eye, who had not mistaken the direction of the emperor’s thoughts. ‘If we pledge allegiance to a lord, we will d
ie rather than betray him. We are dependable. Above all else, we are dependable.’
The emperor took a fig from a silver bowl at his side and toyed with it in his hand. ‘Did you take an oath to Vladimir before you deserted him?’
‘We did but he released us from it to send us to you.’
‘He never paid you. Six thousand of you and no attempt at rebellion?’
‘Our leaders had sworn. That was the end of the matter.’
‘I will think on it,’ said the emperor. He replaced the fig and fell to silence.
The rain kept coming, harder and harder. Eventually the emperor grew tired and ordered the flap of the tent closed to the minimum necessary for ventilation, and had the coals in the brazier reduced to just a couple. The soaking eunuch guard ducked into the tent and went to shoo the boy out but the emperor raised a hand.
‘He has earned a dry night,’ he said.
Snake in the Eye lay down to sleep on a silk cushion, pulling a blanket of fine goat wool about him, and staring up at the tent’s roof by what remained of the brazier’s glow. He glanced across at the head of the rebel. He smiled to see the swollen slits of eyes watching him in the dim light.
You were greater than me, he thought, but now look at you. The poets will sing of me, not you.
His limbs were sore from the day’s exertions but he was not sleepy. His mind hummed with the thrill of battle. He ached to do it all again, but this time, this time at least, to get in on the kill. At the great northern market at Birka Snake in the Eye met many foreigners and saw many remarkable sights but nothing like he had seen that day.
He’d stood next to the emperor, translating his commands for the Varangians as the armies engaged, right by his standard and the portrait of St Helena exhibited on a pole to face the oncoming enemy. The emperor’s Greeks, foot soldiers at the front, slammed into the rebel’s iron-armoured Armenians with a sound like the fall of a million metal plates and the battle started. Images from the day came back to him – the rain of arrows from both sides, the strangeness of the enemy’s Bedouin camel riders, the grace of the Anatolian cavalry as they harried the infantry with arrows dispatched at full gallop, the similarity of the troops as Greek fought Greek in tight and ordered lines. With the fighting at its fiercest, the rebel led a charge with his heavy cavalry into the emperor’s flank.