Byzantium by Michael Ennis Page B

preserve. Otherwise we are not Varangians.’
    Haraldr deliberately made no response. Halldor searched Haraldr’s face for a moment and then smiled. ‘Besides,’ he said, ‘Hakon is an important man in Miklagardr. We don’t want to be known as the unit that mutinied against an officer of the court. The only honourable and acceptable way for us to eliminate Hakon would be for one of us to challenge him to an island-going.’ Halldor looked over at Ulfr. ‘But there isn’t a man among our five hundred who would return from such an excursion with his head still attached to his neck.’
    ‘So I shovel the Varangians’ dung heap,’ said Haraldr evenly. ‘A spade carved from green-wood.’
    Halldor looked Haraldr right in the eyes. ‘Yes.’ Then he smiled at Haraldr’s barbed jest.
    ‘I would think the main requirement for fighting your Hakon would be feet swift in pursuit,’ said Haraldr.
    Halldor fixed Haraldr with eyes as implacable as slate. ‘Hakon did not run with fear dribbling from his breeches. You know that. Ulfr says that after he deserted you today he deliberately let himself be surrounded, and then killed a dozen Pechenegs by ripping their windpipes out with his bare hands. I will be honest with you. I think you alone have a chance against him. But a very slender chance. Still, our honour commands us to risk a wager on your chance.’
    Haraldr returned Halldor’s obdurate stare. ‘It seems as if my life is a small enough risk for you. What do you risk?’
    Halldor paused, making sure of his next words. ‘If you challenge Hakon to single combat, Ulfr and I will stand as your seconds. If you lose, so will we, but in that way our deaths will ensure that the honour of our unit will remain unstained.’
    Haraldr nodded. A few minutes ago he would have suspected that these men would second him with a dagger in his back. Now, almost instinctively, he believed he could trust them. They had just placed their lives in his hands.
    ‘And if I win?’
    Halldor and Ulfr both grinned broadly. ‘If you win,’ said Halldor, ‘you take everything that is Hakon’s. His tunics, weapons, coins, treasures, slaves.’ Halldor’s laconic tone took on a droll hint. ‘His women too.’ Then he paused and his voice became grimly earnest. ‘And also the command of his five hundred Varangians.’
     
     
    When Maria awoke, she smelled the sea. She had left the arcade of her summer bedchamber unshuttered, and the breeze, warmed by the morning sun, was already sultry. The light flooded the open balcony overlooking the silver-spangled water and blurred the white columns of the arcade into molten shafts. She turned away. Giorgios was looking at her, his fawnish eyes intent and adoring. Alexandros was still asleep.
    She kissed Giorgios and pressed her body fully along his, revelling in his tension, his heat, and the steely erection against her thigh. When he tried to enter her, she pushed him away. ‘Don’t.’ Giorgios’s eyes were wounded; she had not allowed him to make love to her the previous night, though she had let his hands explore wherever he had wished.
    Maria turned back into the morning’s flaring apocalypse, wrapped her hand around Alexandros’s priapic, dream-swollen shaft, and squeezed tightly. Alexandros’s eyes shot open. She mounted him swiftly and began a low, churning ride, her breasts swaying to the rhythm of her pleasure. She looked down at Giorgios and smiled.
    Her paroxysm came even before Alexandros’s, and she quickly dismounted and walked naked out onto her balcony. Giorgios squinted and could no longer see her; it was as if she had been consumed by the white fire of the new day.
     
     
    ‘Yes, silki. I could well pay that toll. I could afford a hundred of you, in fact. Hakon is no mean diminisher of ice-of-arm.’ Hakon’s skald, Grettir, pointed to the silver arm bracelets that coiled up his left arm. The girl smiled. She was young, and her healthy white teeth sparkled against her thin