The Bear of Byzantium

In memory of that most erudite and entertaining of all Vikings, Robert Low.

I’ll see you in Valhalla, my friend.

The Norns did both good and evil, great toil they created for me.

Christian-era runestone of Þórir from Borgund, Norway

A note on pronunciation

Wherever possible within this tale, I have adhered to the Old Norse spellings and pronunciations of Viking names, concepts and words. There is a certain closeness to be gained from speaking these names as they would have been spoken a thousand years ago. For example, I have used Valhöll rather than Valhalla, which is more ubiquitous now, but they refer to the same thing. There is a glossary of Norse terms at the back of the book.

Two letters in particular may be unfamiliar to readers. The letter ð (eth) is pronounced in Old Norse as ‘th’, as you would pronounce it in ‘the’ or ‘then’, but in many cases over the centuries has been anglicised as a ‘d’. So, for example, you will find Harald Hardrada’s name written in the text as Harðráði (pronounced Har-th-rar-thi) but it can be read as Hardradi for ease. Similarly, Seiðr can be read as seithr or seidr. The letter æ (ash) is pronounced ‘a’ as in cat, or bat.

Prologue

Ostrovo, Bulgaria, Spring 1041 (Six months ago)

‘One more push and they could break,’ Valgarðr bellowed over the din of battle, elbowing a man aside to swing his giant axe. The six-foot haft swung like a deadly pendulum, his hands sliding easily along it to increase the momentum, and the finely etched iron blade slammed down into one of the Bulgar warriors, cleaving through flesh, muscle and bone as if they were butter. As the man fell away and Valgarðr hauled the great weapon back, the commander by his side grunted.

‘They’ll fight hard before they break, old man,’ Harðráði breathed. ‘The lake and the royal guard both block their rear, and their king has filled the flanks with solid men too. There is nowhere for this lot to go but through us.’

With that, his own axe – a shorter, bearded one – swung out, slamming against a shield and knocking it aside long enough for the sword in his other hand to slam into the soft leather covering the man’s torso, punching through the toughened fabric and into the vital matter inside.

‘Then we’re fucked,’ Valgarðr said in a matter-of-fact tone.

‘We are Varangoi,’ Harðráði replied with a snarl. ‘The emperor is on the field, and while he stands, so do we. If you die now, old man, I will hunt you down in the afterlife and kick seven shades of shit out of you.’

His second-in-command laughed raucously and pushed another man aside to make room for his great axe. Above, the grey clouds of morning that had threatened rain finally cleared, and weak sun shone through like a lighthouse in the mist. The Bulgars seethed forward, this rabble at the centre their poorest fare, levies from farms and hard-recruited alley-refuse armed with whatever could be spared. The heavy troops fought on the flanks, where the generals of the Byzantine army pushed their formidable troops to finish the job and quell this revolt once and for all. But Harðráði had his eyes set on one figure. Beyond the rabble in front of them stood the karls who formed the guard of the Bulgar usurper king, and there, visible to all in his grisly glory, sat their master on a warhorse, gesturing with a sword as though he could see what was happening around him.

He could not, of course.

Delyan the Upstart had been mutilated a few months past, his nose hacked from his face and his eyes put out with a sharp knife. Yet Harðráði had to give the man his due. There he sat, leading his men in the last battle, his face a contorted mask around a malformed, bloodied hole, hollow black sockets on show as he turned this way and that, yelling orders. Even Harðráði, brave as he was, suspected he might not show such courage in those circumstances. Still, it wouldn’t help the royal draugr in the long run, for his death would end this, and so he must fall.

‘We’re being pushed back,’ one of his men yelled, before disappearing among the brawl with a cry of pain, a Bulgarian sword rising and falling above him in a spray of blood.

‘The emperor has our back,’ Valgarðr replied as he swung once again, accidentally catching one of his own men a glancing blow with the butt end of his great axe, and raising a curse with it.

‘The emperor is not the one directing the reserves,’ noted Harðráði, glancing over his shoulder. There, a good safe distance back from the fighting, a block of steel and leather stood waiting, shoulder to shoulder – the reserves under the command of Romanos Skleros. The Byzantine nobleman led fully half the Varangians as well as a sizeable military force. Harðráði’s contingent were running deeper into trouble by the heartbeat, and the reserves had yet to move, despite the flanks being under very little pressure.

‘The reserves will help us. Ari is with him,’ Valgarðr replied.

‘Ari is a pompous shit,’ Harðráði snorted.

‘He’s a pompous shit, but he’s our pompous shit.’

Harðráði made a noncommittal noise. If the reserves were going to be committed, they should have been by now. Someone must have given the order to hold back. ‘We have to end this ourselves,’ he snarled. ‘No help is coming.’

‘But Ari…?’

‘Fuck Ari. On me,’ Harðráði shouted, waving the sword above his head. A roar went up from the rest of his men and he grinned, blood framing his teeth from where he’d bitten his tongue earlier, in the excitement. There was no better unit to lead than these men.

Varangians, the Byzantine emperor’s personal guard.

He’d been only vaguely aware of their existence six years ago, when he’d come south and signed on among their number, kneeling like a penitent before the ageing empress. He’d been made akolouthos immediately, as was appropriate given his status and royal lineage, and within the year had taken command of the Varangians, which was when he had truly come to know their mettle. Six thousand strong, the unit was comprised wholly of men either from the northern Baltic – Norway, Sweden and Denmark – or of Rus origin from Kiev. Just as a man might expect, they retained the fierce pride of the Northmen, yet they were more than the sum of their parts, their impressive warrior skills hardened and focused by the Byzantines. For in the empire they had learned to fight not just for personal gain or for reputation, but as part of an organised force. An army.

The Guard fought here, on this field, for the emperor and for their commander, and while any other Byzantine unit might have broken and fled under such pressure, that was not the way of the Varangians. Until the emperor said ‘turn’, every man here would face down the enemy until he was either victorious or dead.

As the men of the Guard surged forward behind him, Harald Harðráði, son and grandson of kings, commander of the imperial guard, shouted something that would have made the empress blush, and pushed forward. His men followed with a roar, allowing their famous commander to form the sharp point of the wedge. A fresh push.

That was the thing about battle. After a while you fell into a rhythm, and it became almost second nature. Harðráði had once heard a man trying to remember a poem while fighting for his life, just because his mind had detached itself from the carnage, leaving his body to work on instinct. And so, while the Varangians had been fighting with skill and power, still they were not putting every ounce of their concentration into it. Now, with his command, every mind had focused on the job at hand, and with that came a fresh strength and determination.

Bellowing war cries, some to Christ and some to older, less popular gods, the emperor’s guard pushed forward into a suddenly startled mass of Bulgarian levies. The sheer strength and power of the Northmen’s push broke their will in an instant. There was nowhere for the poor bastards to run, though, and as they tried to flee from this fresh onslaught, they simply met their doom elsewhere, either turning to be cut down by the royal force behind them, or moving to the flanks where they became embroiled instead in another part of the battle.

Still, they melted away to either side from the Varangian push. Harðráði lashed out with his sword, stabbing and hacking, the axe in his other hand chopping and biting, and never did he hold back for fear of striking his own. He was the point of the wedge, the very front of the attack, and any flesh his blades bit into would be that of the enemy.

‘The bastards,’ someone shouted from behind. ‘The reserves are leaving.’

Harald risked a brief glance over his shoulder. He was a tall and imposing figure, and over the heads of his men he could just see the reserves – the remaining half of the Varangians in the field, along with the excubitor cavalry – moving to support one of the untroubled flanks. Someone was going to pay for that, Harðráði swore, for leaving them deliberately in the lurch. For now, he had to make sure they won the fight.

Suddenly, he felt the resistance to their push change. The enemy were less of a panicked rabble and more of a wall of steel and leather. The Varangians had forged a path through the levies and come up against the hardened warriors of the king. Briefly, Harðráði caught sight of the nightmare form of Delyan himself, and then the man was lost to view as the Varangian commander was pulled into another fight, harder than ever. The enemy struck and lunged, slashed and chopped, their swords carving bloody chunks from Harðráði’s force. The advance of the wedge faltered. They were too few, with no support, facing the core of Delyan’s army.

Knowing that the moment they stopped advancing the enemy would gain the upper hand and the battle’s flow would change, Harðráði bellowed the cry of his forefathers and pushed on. He felt a sword slash his side and, despite his lamellar armour, he felt a warm, wet response from his flesh, blood leaking out amid the torn linen and scattered bronze scales. He ignored it. His axe slammed into the neck of a man before him, and he pulled, the beard of his axe digging into the man like a fish-hook and yanking him forward where he fell, screaming, beneath Harðráði’s trampling feet. The commander’s sword slashed, low, slicing a deadly line across a Bulgar’s upper thigh, near the groin, where the blood flowed fastest. As the next Bulgar yelled and readied himself, surprised as the warrior in front of him fell, Harðráði struck once more. His head slammed forward, the iron bar of his nose protector smashing into the man’s face, splintering bone and ruining him for good.

A second strike almost did for him as a sword came seemingly from nowhere and nearly hit him in the throat. At the last moment, the arm bearing the sword was knocked away, and Valgarðr was there, his immense axe cleaving the wielder almost in half. Another Northman was there to his right in another heartbeat. Snarling, Harðráði pushed on. Another Bulgar fell. The Varangian’s axe dug deep, drinking blood, his sword drawing lines of red death across figure after figure as he pushed on.

There was King Delyan once more… closer… so unbearably close.

He felt another wound, this time on his shoulder, and now when he lifted his axe, the arm felt a little weaker. They had to finish this soon. He knew his force was diminishing rapidly, and if they turned with no support, they would be cut down to a man. A steely determination rose in him once more. He may be a son of the true Church and a servant of the empire, but Harald Sigurdsson, known as the Harðráði, the iron ruler, was still a child of the North, a descendant of kings, and his ancestors had been Vikings of the hard black mountain coast. He was damned if he was going to end his days here, uncrowned and slain on a Greek field.

His knee connected with the groin of a man who had prepared himself to parry a sword, and, bellowing rage, Harðráði heaved him aside with the hook of his axe and drove his sword into the unprepared warrior behind. Another blow bounced off his already injured shoulder and he saw the watery sunlight flashing from fragments of bronze scales as they were torn away. Then the man responsible was gone, for Valgarðr’s great axe was there again, cleaving a path through the enemy. Another man fell, and Harðráði’s sword came up spraying blood that spattered across his eyes and made him blink repeatedly.

As his vision cleared, he thanked both Christ and the Holy Mother, for in the fallen warrior’s place he could see Delyan, false king of Bulgaria, sitting astride his horse, his unseeing, hideous face turning this way and that as he tried in his way to keep track of the battle. The usurper somehow sensed the danger, perhaps hearing Harðráði’s constant stream of curses, for those hollow sockets turned with ponderous slowness to face him.

Delyan sensed his enemy, and his sword came round.

Harðráði gave him no time. His axe slashed out, hacking into the king’s leg just above the knee, deep enough to cut into bone. The king screamed as his leg broke and tore, muscle and flesh separating as he fell from the far side of his horse, leaving half the appendage in place.

A strange, shocked silence fell among the Bulgars across the field at the sight of their king vanishing from his horse, but Harðráði knew it couldn’t finish there. For the battle to end, the usurper had to die. Valgarðr, appearing from nowhere, suddenly had the horse’s reins, half a leg still flapping around in the stirrup, pulling the animal aside to reveal the fallen, grisly, maimed king, struggling in the mud, blind and ruined. Delyan knew his doom stood over him. His hands came up imploringly. His voice, little more than a croak, began to offer everything: gold, lands, titles, even the throne.

Harðráði’s sword slammed down into that ruined face, pinning him to the churned, bloody turf.

Delyan the usurper died within heartbeats, and the moan of dismay spread out through the Bulgarian army like the ripples from a stone cast into a still pond.

The Bulgar army broke.

The battle was over.

‘Don’t do anything stupid,’ Valgarðr urged, gripping Harðráði’s shoulder as he stomped past, his face white with anger. The commander said nothing in reply, simply tore his arm free and marched on, tucking his blood-coated axe in the back of his belt, sword still out and dripping.

Ari Karsten, primikerios in the Guard, stood with his hands on his hips watching the aftermath with an air of disconnected satisfaction. Varangians stood in clusters behind him, while the strategos, Romanos Skleros, sat astride his horse nearby, dictating to a secretary. The emperor himself sat not far off, looking surprisingly martial and regal for a man so ill he almost hadn’t made it across Bulgaria.

Ari turned at the sound of Harðráði’s approach, and his expression slid from satisfaction to distaste in a moment. The commander, even in the grip of rage, noted that and filed it away in his memory for the future. The primikerios made no move to get out of the way – a brave decision, given how Harðráði must look, furious and blood-soaked. The commander stormed up to Ari and his free hand came up, grabbing the edge of the chain hood that sat across the man’s shoulders and upper chest. Harðráði’s fingers knitting in the steel armour, he jerked Ari towards him.

‘Explain yourself.’

‘Explain what, precisely?’ Ari replied with a curling lip.

‘You address me by my rank, or sir, and show some fucking deference or I will add you to the line over there,’ Harðráði snapped, using his sword to point to the hill overlooking the stinking battlefield. Ari followed the gesture, his distaste growing. All along the hill, like some grisly hedge, scores of Bulgarian officers and nobles, those who had led the army and the revolt it was part of, had been lashed to stakes. Then, kindling and brush had been packed around each base, and the burnings had begun. The screams of those tortured by the flames were only slightly louder than the screams of panic from those strapped tight and awaiting their fate.

‘Explain what, precisely, sir?’ Ari said, tearing his gaze from the horror that Harðráði had visited upon the captured Bulgarians.

‘Explain why, when my force was outnumbered, outflanked, and fighting for their lives, the reserves, including fully half my Varangians, went to help the flank where there was no danger whatsoever? You go too far this time, Ari.’

The primikerios pulled himself free of his commander’s grip and stepped back, teeth bared. He growled. ‘Commander you may be, but I was serving here while you were still stuck to your mother’s tit, sir. The next time you grab me like that, I will break both your wrists.’

The two men glared at one another for a time, a battle of wills from which neither was about to back down. Finally, Ari looked away, towards the Byzantine officers nearby.

‘Your quarrel is with Skleros. In your absence, he was the senior commander present, and his was the order to commit the reserves elsewhere.’

Harðráði maintained his piercing gaze for a few moments before shifting it to the general on his horse. He did not like Skleros, and never had. The man was a courtier, not a soldier. He had as much grasp of military tactics as a three-legged goat, yet his eminence had bought him a position in the army’s command, for the emperor favoured him, or so it was said. Harðráði knew otherwise. The emperor trusted Skleros no further than he could safely throw a horse. Skleros was oily enough in his own right, but his family had made a play for power not too long ago, and any emperor wishing to stay safely seated on his throne kept his enemies close. Expediency was the only reason Skleros was here. With one last glare cast like a throwing knife at the insolent Varangian, Harðráði turned and marched on the general.

The man should have managed to look superior, given that he wore ornate armour that harkened back to the days of old Rome, that he sat above Harðráði on horseback, and that a snap of his fingers could see most men peeled and left for dead. In fact, he looked nervous as the commander of the imperial guard stomped towards him, quivering with rage, sword in hand. Skleros recovered himself in time to plaster an imperious and aloof expression over his fear.

‘What is it, commander?’

Harðráði threw out his hand angrily, the tip of his sword almost jabbing into the general’s side. ‘We were hard pressed, and the battle hinged on our success. Why did you commit the reserves elsewhere?’

Skleros’ lip wrinkled. ‘You were in no danger. Ari confirmed that you had sufficient force to overcome the centre, and there was a danger on the flank, for the emperor was close to the fray. It is my place to protect imperial interests, rather than thieves and Nordic vagabond mercenaries.’

Harðráði’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve killed men for less than those words.’

‘I do not doubt it, yet it is true. All of Byzantium knows of your thievery, Araltes Harðráði. The treasury has been losing funds steadily since the day you took office.’

‘Which happens to be the same time the emperor came to power, along with his criminal brothers and certain other snakes of the court.’

Skleros snorted. ‘You deflect the blame onto those who accuse you? I wonder, if we were to count the ships that leave the city every month, full of gold and bound for Kiev, would we find the sum missing from the treasury?’

‘The gold I ship north is my own, gained from imperial donatives and battlefield loot, nothing more. Unlike pampered Byzantines, I do not spend every coin I earn on whores, wine and womanish silk garments.’ To emphasise his words, his wavering sword point took in the ornate armour and the silk and velvet clothes poking around the edges of it. ‘When my command ends, I shall be a king in the North; thrones are easier to win with gold than with steel.’

‘Barbarian.’

‘A man might also point out that it was the greed and lust for gold of the emperor’s brother Constantine that triggered this entire revolt and led to the wars we now fight. And I would be willing to wager that your fingers were dancing in the same pot as Constantine’s.’

‘You are a mercenary. Gold is the entire reason you came south and the reason you took your commission.’

Harðráði ground his teeth. ‘My loyalty is to the emperor himself. I find it a shame that he seems incapable of identifying the thieves and criminals within his own court and family who weaken his position day by day. Constantine has become a very rich man off the confiscation of other men’s estates, after all.’

‘Your loyalty is not to the emperor,’ Skleros spat. ‘All know that it was the empress to whom you knelt, and she to whom you owe your position.’

‘Slide off that fucking horse, and I will wipe that smug smirk from your face, Skleros.’

The clearing of a throat attracted their attention, and both faces turned to the new arrival. They had been so caught up in their argument that they had not noticed the emperor and his entourage plodding calmly in their direction. As the master of the civilised world halted his mount, an unreadable expression on his face, Harðráði swiftly ran through everything he’d just said, realising now that he’d said it all within earshot of the emperor. He winced inwardly as he remembered some of his words. And, damn the man, Skleros had been careful to keep his accusations and comments clear of imperial blame.

‘It is not seemly that two of my most senior commanders bicker and quarrel like fishwives in front of the army,’ the emperor said. Harðráði looked up at him and shivered. Michael the Paphlagonian, emperor of Byzantium, was dying, and everyone could see it. He was pale as porcelain and his flesh had sunk into his bones, giving him the appearance of the walking dead. Still, his voice was imperious and confident, and here, near the end, Harðráði could see a hint of why the empress had chosen him for a husband.

As both Skleros and Harðráði bowed their heads in the imperial presence, the emperor’s eyebrow arched. ‘There is work yet to do, both here and at home.’ He shared a look with Skleros that Harðráði really did not like, and straightened in his saddle. ‘Araltes, whom they call Harðráði, you have ever been a faithful and strong commander of my Guard, but your tongue is often barbed and unchecked, and you lack sufficient finesse for court life. I think that perhaps it might be a good idea if you were absent from court for a time. We are entreated by Prince Demetrios of Georgia. He is engaged in a dangerous civil war with his half-brother, Bagrat, who threatens imperial interests in that important land. Your talent for winning wars might be better served destroying Bagrat and his faction than causing friction within the imperial court. Who knows, perhaps the treasury might even heal itself in your absence.’

Harðráði felt the anger wash over him afresh, but he had been in Constantinople long enough to know when to hold his temper. Fighting down the rage that threatened to erupt, he simply bowed his head, noting as he did the smug satisfaction on Skleros’ face.

‘The Guard will be in safe hands with Valgarðr,’ he replied carefully, ‘and I shall win your war and return within the year.’

‘I think it would be better to take that great axe-wielding maniac with you,’ Skleros said, earning a nod of approval from the emperor. ‘Your third-in-command, Ari Karsten, will be perfectly adequate to command in your absence. He is more familiar with court etiquette with his long service, after all.’

Before Harðráði could erupt once more, he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked around to see Valgarðr, a warning on his face. With a bow to the emperor, he turned and walked away, the old Varangian with his enormous axe stumping alongside.

‘Who gives a shit about some civil war in a provincial backwater,’ Harðráði snarled. ‘This is shuffling us out of the way so that they can continue their theft and corruption and further work to blacken my name.’

Valgarðr nodded. ‘Then we should work to win this war as quickly as possible and get back to the city. Who knows, we might make allies among the Georgians through this, and that could work to your advantage in the long run.’

Harðráði just nodded, his gaze rising to the scores of burning Bulgarians on the hill, then back to Ari, who had been summoned to the imperial presence. ‘One day, he and I will come to blows,’ Harðráði hissed, ‘and then he will wish his fate had been as simple as theirs.’

Part One

The Golden City

Chapter 1

Black Sea, Autumn 1041

‘Slow now, lads,’ Ulfr called, ‘and bring us to port a touch. Mind those rocks.’

Gunnhild watched the town slide towards them with a mix of intrigue and ennui. All these Byzantine ports seemed to be the same: a cluster of brick structures around a heart of white marble, poor folk gathered around a rich elite. A port filled with trade ships and fishermen overseen by stuffy, overdressed officials with endless papers. Occasional fights, gleaming imperial soldiers watching, too important to involve themselves in petty brawling. In some ways they were like ports all over the world, she mused, though like everything Byzantine, over the centuries an administration had evolved to control and record every breath the city took. It was cloying, to say the least.

‘A bear,’ she muttered, looking down at the bones, which had clearly formed an ursine shape on the deck. As Halfdan plodded towards her across the boards, she quickly swept the scattered items up and dropped them back into her pouch. Secrets were only secrets if you kept them, and the power was not to be explained to others. Besides, the visions had been varied and confused lately.

‘What have you seen?’ Halfdan asked quietly.

She looked up, then rose from her crouch, gathering up her staff as she did so. Halfdan was smiling. She liked him. Not in that way, of course. She was not made for hearth and bed, but for spear and song. But still, she liked him more than most, and he was a good man, which made what was to come all the more troubling.

‘Our road continues on beyond Amastris, but some threads of the weaving change here. They fold into another tale, I think.’

A bear.

‘We will lose men?’ he said, with a touch of anxiety. ‘Will we find new ones? We have thirty-eight aboard now, and we cannot easily crew the Sea Wolf with fewer.’

Why did he always expect detail and such certainty? That was not how it worked. ‘It is… complicated,’ she said. ‘The weaving changes, but I do not think we need fear this place. I do not see danger here.’

Bears are not dangerous?

She pushed down the voice in her heart.

Halfdan nodded. ‘We must restrain Bjorn this time. That last place cost us dearly in reparations.’

Gunnhild looked across the ship to where the big albino was busy rowing with one hand so that he could drink with the other, and gave a weary smile. ‘You might as well try to hold back the tide, Halfdan.’

He laughed. He had an easy laugh. Gods, but he was a glowing coal in her cold heart some days.

Gunnhild felt un-easy, and only part of that was the uncertainty they faced every day. Given they had been fighting on opposite sides at Sasireti so recently, it had been decided that it would be better not to bump into the Varangians until they reached Miklagarðr itself. Consequently, the crew had been following Harðráði and his Varangians carefully back from Georgia, using the same ports and often just one day behind the famous commander.

Part of it, too, was her castings. All the way around the south coast she had been trying to divine what was to come. It was more difficult without a specific answer to seek. When she had been following the weaving of Yngvar the past few years, a goal had been part of her questions. Now, she simply looked into an open future and tried to see what she could. She had been disconcerted by what she had found, though. The strand of her weaving would separate from those of Halfdan and the others. Her threads came adrift, and she could not see far enough to tell whether they could be brought back into the pattern. That made her shiver: to be so far from all that was familiar, and to be separated from the others.

Another part of it, for certain, was the fear of losing the Seiðr. She had been taught the ways by the old völva, but not fully so. She had some sight and some skills, but she had been torn from the old woman’s side before she could learn all. And the compound that helped bring the sight remained a mystery, its ingredients and composition unknown to her still. Her fingers went to the precious pouch containing the meagre remaining supply. When that was done, so too was her sight. She couldn’t tell Halfdan of that worry, though, for the compound was as much part of the secret as the skill of bones, or the cadence of the world-song. It was the goddess’s gift to give, not Gunnhild’s.

Many worries. Much uneasiness.

She continued to fret at these things like a child at a frayed tunic hem while Halfdan, satisfied, turned his attention to the port of Amastris that slid towards them. The town’s citadel occupied a headland – more of an island, really – connected to the mainland by a wide spit upon which most of the urban mass sat, a harbour at each side. As with every stop on their journey, they had learned of Amastris at the previous port the night before, and so they had a tavern already in mind for the night. Most of the crew would stay aboard, of course, for there was treasure on the ship to be guarded these days, but half a dozen of them would head into the city and learn what they could in preparation for the next day’s sail. Four more sunsets would see them in the great city…

…where Gunnhild’s threads would come loose.

She was still picking at the scab of her fate when the ship bumped against the dock and men ran out ropes and secured the Sea Wolf to shore. She chewed her lip as Halfdan, Leif and Ketil negotiated with the port officials, filling in the endless forms, paying the fees and slipping the ubiquitous backhander to the pompous fat man. She huffed as the crew settled and her friends stepped down to the dock, and only returned to the present world when Halfdan called for her.

‘Are you coming?’

With a nod, she hopped from the ship and joined them on the jetty, striding along as they made their way up into the city. As they navigated the winding streets she occasionally felt odd sensations, as she had done in all these towns. The places were Byzantine, and so to a man their populations, followed the nailed god, but just a few centuries ago they had had their own old gods, and the temples of those powers were still here, either shattered and ignored, repurposed into Christian churches, or sometimes surviving as fragments of colonnades in the sides of houses. And while the Byzantines treated them as little more than shells or quarries, Gunnhild could feel the Seiðr still wreathing those ancient stones.

She tore her gaze from one such ruin as they rounded a corner to see the inn that was their destination. Like most of its kind, it was warm and welcoming in a stuffy, overly organised way, and its nature was broadcast by the sign above the door, which usually showed grapes in some form or other. She felt a shiver of Seiðr as her gaze fell upon this sign. A painted bear gripped the bunch of grapes above some Greek name she did not recognise. Her eyes shot to Halfdan, striding along unconcerned, but she could say nothing. She had nothing yet to say.

Halfdan was the first to enter. It had become the unwritten rule. He was their jarl, and it was his place to lead. Bjorn would come last, for he could hold off any pursuit. But the second was always Gunnhild, out of respect, not for her sex, of course, but for her power. That