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“Regardless of whether you are there by choice or not, you are ill-prepared for the atmosphere of corruption.”
“Wulf,” she said, as if he were a youthling she was about to lecture, “all courts are like that, whether they be Saxon, Norse, Arab, or Byzantine.”
“Your own sister Tyra was kidnapped whilst here years ago.”
“That was under a different emperor.”
Wulf threw up his hands in frustration. “I don’t know what your father was thinking.”
“He sent four of his trusted warriors to guard me. Do not worry. Once I have completed my studies, I will go home.” My father has ensured that. Did he not make me promise that in return for this boon, I would wed on my return? Gods only know what prospects he will gather this time! In truth, he has run out of prospects. Still, I should wed and provide a real home for Runa. ’Tis time. “Believe me, Wulf, come winter I will be home.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
Chapter Four
Viking spiders are the deadliest of all ...
Sidroc Guntersson was sick to his Norse gills of Byzantium.
He lay back relaxing his battle-weary muscles in the warm waters of the bathing pool, in his private chambers at the Blue Palace. They had more palaces than fleas here in Miklagard. Occasionally he used his big toe to turn a lever that allowed more hot water to enter. You had to admire the skills of the ancient Romans who first held Byzantium.
A slave girl had gone off to get him fresh drying linens. Finn was in an adjoining chamber having his nude body massaged with oil by an equally nude houri; knowing him, he was probably having her pluck his stray man-hairs, as well. And Sidroc’s mistress, Ianthe Petros, would soon arrive to take care of his other needs.
Thinking on those needs, he smiled and reached a hand down to his half-limp cock, giving it a quick squeeze, like a promise of attentions to come. His favorite appendage became immediately alert. That was not surprising. What was surprising was the size of the thickenings he got ever since that bloody head drilling. Not that he was complaining, nor were the women who shared his bed furs.
One might think that, with all these pleasures, he would be content. Not so! Life was good at the moment, true, but Sidroc knew too well that it would not last.
After five long years serving in Emperor John Tzimisces’s Varangian Guard, much of it under the direction of the wily General Sclerus, he had enough of greedy rulers, berserk commanders, and often unwarranted killings on a scale so massive and bloody it made even a Viking cringe. He would fight to the death to save himself, those close to him, women or children in peril, and rulers with just causes to fight. But that was it. No more!
He had just returned from yet another of the endless Byzantine battles, mostly against the Moslems, including the defeated powerful border emir Saif ad-Dawlah. If he never saw sand, camels, or tents again, he would be a happy man. Of course that had been only slightly better than his posting in the freeze-your-arse Balkans before that. Thank the gods, the Bulgarians finally surrendered, but then only after losing thirty thousand men in a five-year war.
Suffice it to say, he had well earned the vast treasure he’d amassed for his service as a commander in the Varangian Guard. Finally he would be able to purchase an estate, possibly in the Orkneys, where many Vikings had settled, only a day’s longship ride from the Norselands. The best part was that the weather never got brutally cold, and it was far enough away from his father and brothers, though the other side of the world would be even better. On the other hand, he was a Viking, born and bred. The ice of the North was in his veins. ’Twas a hard decision to make when choosing a home. If it were not for his father ...
The only question was how to broach the termination of his service to the emperor in a diplomatic way, one that would result in the release of his annual pay and not land him in prison, or dead. The Byzantines hated to lose their mercenaries—actually, any of their soldiers—because they feared that the secret of Greek Fire, which they’d invented, would leave the country. Sidroc and Finn had made sure never to associate themselves with the incendiary substance that ignited almost magically and could be used ruthlessly against enemies. It was once used against an invading force of ten thousand Russians, and they were all killed. Yes, the less they knew the better, he and Finn had always contended.
Another reason for diplomacy in resigning was that the emperor could be peevish and spontaneously vicious on occasion, without warning or excuse. Like the manner in which he and others before him castrated all royal illegitimate sons and sent the illegitimate daughters to convents for life. Betimes they plucked out an eye, just for good measure. At least the emperor left them living. Unlike Sidroc’s father.
He still raged betimes over his father’s cruelty and the loss of his baby daughter. The old man had married twice more since he’d seen him last and had five more children, only one of them to his wives, or so he had heard. He wondered how many of those he’d permitted to live, considering his lack of regard for Signe.
He smarted, as well, over the ill-treatment he’d suffered at Drifa’s hand. Every time he got an aching head, he was reminded of her blow. He wouldn’t have the bitch now if she were served up to him on a silver trencher, bare-arsed naked with an apple in her devious mouth.
He had to be thankful that Finn—and six seamen—had held him down on his longship when they left Stoneheim five years before, to prevent him from returning to Vikstead and cutting out his father’s cold heart. As rewarding as that deed might have been to him emotionally, it would surely have resulted in his own death by his brothers and the Vikstead warriors, or at the very least being outlawed from his homeland by King Harald Bluetooth.
Despite his bad experience with Princess Drifa, he would seek a wife, but not right away. He could bring his mistress, Ianthe, with him, but he doubted she would be happy in colder climes, away from her Greek culture. There was a change of seasons here in Byzantium, even snow in the winter, but summers, like today, were very hot and humid. Winters in the Norselands were not for the faint of heart. Nay, he would settle a sum of coins on her, for which she would no doubt show her thanks in the way she knew best. He smiled at the erotic mind picture that prompted.
Someday he hoped to make his father—and Drifa—pay, pathetic and immature as that might be. He alternated the subject of his periodic tirades between Drifa and his father. Every time he had to suffer sand in every body orifice when on desert patrols, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when he was wet and shivering cold in Bulgaria, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when he had to maneuver his way amongst the bloodthirsty politics of the imperial family (they were wont to murder each other whenever an opportunity arose), he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when he walked a tightrope of diplomacy between the court contenders-to-power and the military leaders out in the field, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when he was forced to don the ridiculously opulent uniform of the Varangian Guard for palace duty, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when the empress and her royal ladies sent him off on an errand to do this or that to appease their lusty appetites, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.” Or when he thought of his little daughter, long dead now, he muttered, “Someday, princess (Father), you will pay.”
“Master,” the slave girl carrying a stack of drying cloths said as she approached on silent, shoeless feet across the mosaic tiled, marble floor. “Would you like me to dry you now?”
Sidroc glanced up at the girl whose barely developed body was visible through her thin bathing shift. She bowed her head and stood still under his perusal. ’Twas obvious she would be willing if he was so inclined. He was not.
“Leave the linens and tell my mistress, Ianthe, to enter when she arrives.”
With a sigh of relief, the girl scooted away. He should be offended, but he just laughed.
Just then Finn walked in, his nude body shiny with enough oil to boil a boar. He eyed the maid’s backside as she departed.
“She is too young for you,” Sidroc said as he stood and began drying his long hair.
