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Luckily Drifa had prepared well for her journey and had studied the Greek language this past year with an elderly Greek slave her father had purchased for just that purpose. Mina had been supposed to travel with her to Byzantium but had become ill a month past and was still recovering.
Drifa bowed her head to the senator. “It is my pleasure to finally enter your wonderful country.” To the high priest, Drifa, according to prearranged ritual, bowed from the waist with her right hand touching the ground. When she rose up, she placed her right hand over the left, palms up, and said, “Bless, Your Grace.”
The patriarch raised the fingers of one hand in the shape of a Christogram. Holding that hand toward her, he pronounced, “May the Lord God of all people bless you.”
She assumed that “of all people” was meant to let her know that even Vikings were blessed by the One-God. Drifa nodded and then pointed to each of the men beside her in turn. “Accompanying me are Lord Wulfgar of Wessex in the Saxon lands, Thork Tykirsson, son of the high chieftain Tykir Ericsson of Dragonstead in the Norselands, Laird James Campbell from the land of the Scots, and Alrek, a noted warrior who serves my father good and well.” She also turned to show the four warriors standing rigidly at attention behind her. “My guardsmen.”
She hoped she gave her welcoming party pause: she did not come unprotected to an alien land. “We thank you for your warm greeting,” she added. “I bring gifts for your emperor from my father, King Thorvald.”
“An audience will be arranged for you,” Senator Phocas told her, “though the court is very busy at the moment preparing for the emperor’s wedding. We have assigned chambers for you in the Garden of Sun Palace.”
This was news to her. That she would be housed in a sun palace was wonderful, of course, but she’d been unaware of a pending royal wedding. The former warlord had become a widower many years before and had chosen the unmarried state thereafter, unusual for a monarch whose duty was to provide heirs, none of which he had yet. She had always thought there must be a story there.
“Come, my lady, we have provided for you a special escort to take you to your rooms. There is a curfew in the city, and the palace gates close from late afternoon to dawn. Just a precaution to keep the peace,” the senator said. Then he beamed as he announced, “Your guards will be your own countrymen, by the by. Varangian guardsmen.”
If the emperor’s representative and the church leader were dressed with opulence, the Varangians’ attire could only be described as splendid, a far cry from the garments back home, even when they were made of fine materials. They wore tunics of soft red wool, long sleeved and so tight along the forearm that they must be sewn on. That tightness caused the excess fabric to billow out above the elbows. Rich embroidery decorated the neckline, hem, and wrists of the garments in panels showing intertwining leaves of gold and silver thread. The men, all exceedingly tall, mostly with blond hair, wore braies of brilliant yellow and blue and pearly white that resembled loose pantaloons down to the knees, where they met highly polished black leather boots. Chalmys, long purple cloaks denoting the imperial guard status, were fastened on the right shoulder with brooches bearing the military insignia of the emperor, leaving the right arm free for weapons.
“Good gods!” Thork murmured from her one side.
“Like peacocks, they are,” Jamie murmured from her other side. “I’d like a pair of those breeches in blue.”
“It must take them hours to get clothed in the morn,” Alrek added.
“They are too pretty, by half,” Wulf concluded.
Luckily, all their remarks were low enough not to be overheard, but she suspected that the smirks on her hersirs’ faces told all.
The senator motioned for the Varangians to step forward. Anticipating her pleasure at meeting some of her countrymen in this foreign land, he smiled and stepped aside, giving her a first close-up view of the colorfully dressed men in the emperor’s elite attire.
But she did not smile.
Standing at attention, dead center of the seven Varangians, was a chestnut-haired man spearing her with luminous gray-green eyes, not unlike the much-loved girling, Runa, back at Stoneheim. It was none other than Sidroc Guntersson.
He, too, was not smiling.
Chapter Five
In the still of the night ...
As they were led, Varangians to the front of them, Varangians to the back of them, through one street after another, then one palace corridor after another, Drifa’s head swung right and left, like a copper weather vane of a rooster she’d seen one time atop a cotter’s barn.
The senator and high priest had departed for the Imperial Palace, where some feast or other was being held, leaving her in the care of the emperor’s guard. Apparently she was not invited, not that Drifa would have wanted to attend in her travel-worn garments.
A huge Nubian chamberlain with rings of keys hanging from his belt—a eunuch by the looks of his smooth-faced, almost feminine features—was leading them to their assigned rooms in one of the smaller palaces. It appeared as if many of the lesser palaces were connected to the central palace by opened-sided passageways, like spokes on a wheel. Everywhere there were fragrant gardens and tinkling fountains. Drifa couldn’t wait to examine them.
“I feel as if I’ve entered Asgard, a paradise beyond description,” Alrek whispered at her side.
“The only thing missing is a few dozen—” Jamie started to say.
“Valkyries,” the rest of her group finished for him.
They all laughed, even some of the Varangians. Not Sidroc, though, she noticed, turning to peer at him over her shoulder. Mayhap he took his guardsman duties seriously, never daring to waver from watchfulness, and that was the reason for his sour demeanor. Probably not, though, because when she glanced to his side, his friend Finn winked at her.
Turning forward once again, her face flamed. She would need to talk to Sidroc soon, and how he would take news of Runa’s—nay, Signe’s—presence at Stoneheim boded ill for Drifa. Her greatest fear was not his fury over her striking him down, but that he would take Runa away from her. But she would not let that prospect dampen her spirits on this great adventure of hers.
Drifa’s mind and all her senses boggled at the passing scenery. As dusk rose over the city like a gossamer cloak, colors swirled and changed on the marble, glass, and mosaic tiles. All the splendor was highlighted by the gold dome of the magnificent Hagia Sophia cathedral in the distance.
Finally they entered the Sun Palace, a structure of pink marble flecked with green malachite chips. It was three floors high and built in the shape of a cross, with a huge garden in its center, and a number of smaller gardens or grottos along each arm. She, her four guardsmen, and the four hersirs were assigned one whole arm of the cross on the ground level. If this was a lesser palace, as the apologetic senator had implied, Drifa could not imagine what would be grander.
