under escort. The water grew dark and littered, stinking from earth's mightiest harbor, but Harald hardly noticed. Miklagardh, Constantinople, New Rome lay before him! To larboard the city walls rose like fjord cliffs, overtopped by a multiplicity of towers and domes that blazed with gold. A mist hung over the city, smoke and dust; the grumble and growl of wheels, hoofs, feet sounded far over the strait. To starboard, beyond the ships lured here from half the world, Galata and its suburbs covered the land. Ahead was the Golden Horn.
There the traders tied up at great stone piers, among Grecian galleys, Saracen dhows, and vessels stranger yet. The crews debarked in a rush, chattering of pleasures they would soon seek. "Are we leaving none to guard?" asked Harald.
"The harbor watch does that for us, highness, better than we could," answered the skipper of his craft. Harald frowned, somewhat daunted by such a token of the Emperor's might.
City guards conducted them to the suburb of St. Mamo, where Russian merchants had quarters by treaty. Harald and his closest followers were guested at the villa of one such. It stood in a walled garden that bloomed with a sunburst of flowers. The king's son wandered about admiring the airy lightness of it, the intricate decoration, the sensuousness of silk and velvet rarely seen in the North. For the first time, he looked through windows of glass. He barked his Greek at the household slaves and wondered if they laughed at him behind his back; already he was discovering a smoothness of manner here that was like trying to grasp water, a subtlety on which anger could find no hold. The Norsemen drank deep and talked loudly among themselves to hide a certain feeling of lostness.
* * *
Harald might have been left to cool his heels for weeks if he had been a lesser person; but the Byzantine had news from many corners, knew well enough who he was and what his errand. The summons to an audience came already on the second day.
The horses here were larger than in the North, but he had still not been provided with a big enough one and felt laughable on it. His first ride was not one to forget. The guardsmen who led him and his men wished to impress their visitors, and took him over the bridge at Blachernae and in that gate, so that he entered the city from the north and went through most of it to reach the Imperial palace. Through a maelstrom of crowds, avenues, soaring churches, prideful houses, workaday buildings finer than a king's hall at home, the leaping sparkle of fountains and the white ancient loveliness of statues, he held stiffly to the knowledge that he was also royal and a warrior.
Across from the mighty walls of the Hippodrome rose the outer gates of the palace. Here, for the first time, Harald saw the Varangians he had come to join, big fair men, his own sort, in mail and livery of the South but with good honest double-edged axes to hand; they stood unmoving, but their eyes followed him as he dismounted.
Hall and courtyard, sculptured columns, mosaics glowing from marble walls, corridors, gardens, fountains, roofs and domes of many separate buildings went past as his striding feet spurned the paths and the rare Persian carpets. At the end of it all, curtains of crimson silk were drawn aside, and there was music which thundered in his bones—organ music—as he entered with a courtier on either elbow. Across the vaulted hall, he spied robed officials and armored guards, deathly still, and at the middle of them a golden throne like the seat of God. There were golden trees with leaves and birds that were jeweled, two golden lions that rose up and roared—and inside his wall of gold-stiffened robes, under his roof of crown, was a handsome young man with sharp swarthy features, flesh and bone nearly lost in all that splendor. This was Michael IV, Emperor of the Romans.
He did not move or speak as Harald made the obeisance he had been taught, nor as slaves brought in Harald's gifts of
There the traders tied up at great stone piers, among Grecian galleys, Saracen dhows, and vessels stranger yet. The crews debarked in a rush, chattering of pleasures they would soon seek. "Are we leaving none to guard?" asked Harald.
"The harbor watch does that for us, highness, better than we could," answered the skipper of his craft. Harald frowned, somewhat daunted by such a token of the Emperor's might.
City guards conducted them to the suburb of St. Mamo, where Russian merchants had quarters by treaty. Harald and his closest followers were guested at the villa of one such. It stood in a walled garden that bloomed with a sunburst of flowers. The king's son wandered about admiring the airy lightness of it, the intricate decoration, the sensuousness of silk and velvet rarely seen in the North. For the first time, he looked through windows of glass. He barked his Greek at the household slaves and wondered if they laughed at him behind his back; already he was discovering a smoothness of manner here that was like trying to grasp water, a subtlety on which anger could find no hold. The Norsemen drank deep and talked loudly among themselves to hide a certain feeling of lostness.
* * *
Harald might have been left to cool his heels for weeks if he had been a lesser person; but the Byzantine had news from many corners, knew well enough who he was and what his errand. The summons to an audience came already on the second day.
The horses here were larger than in the North, but he had still not been provided with a big enough one and felt laughable on it. His first ride was not one to forget. The guardsmen who led him and his men wished to impress their visitors, and took him over the bridge at Blachernae and in that gate, so that he entered the city from the north and went through most of it to reach the Imperial palace. Through a maelstrom of crowds, avenues, soaring churches, prideful houses, workaday buildings finer than a king's hall at home, the leaping sparkle of fountains and the white ancient loveliness of statues, he held stiffly to the knowledge that he was also royal and a warrior.
Across from the mighty walls of the Hippodrome rose the outer gates of the palace. Here, for the first time, Harald saw the Varangians he had come to join, big fair men, his own sort, in mail and livery of the South but with good honest double-edged axes to hand; they stood unmoving, but their eyes followed him as he dismounted.
Hall and courtyard, sculptured columns, mosaics glowing from marble walls, corridors, gardens, fountains, roofs and domes of many separate buildings went past as his striding feet spurned the paths and the rare Persian carpets. At the end of it all, curtains of crimson silk were drawn aside, and there was music which thundered in his bones—organ music—as he entered with a courtier on either elbow. Across the vaulted hall, he spied robed officials and armored guards, deathly still, and at the middle of them a golden throne like the seat of God. There were golden trees with leaves and birds that were jeweled, two golden lions that rose up and roared—and inside his wall of gold-stiffened robes, under his roof of crown, was a handsome young man with sharp swarthy features, flesh and bone nearly lost in all that splendor. This was Michael IV, Emperor of the Romans.
He did not move or speak as Harald made the obeisance he had been taught, nor as slaves brought in Harald's gifts of
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