[Odd resumes his narrative]
The night following the banquet found me once again in Apgar’s taverna, half-hoping I’d see ‘Andreas’, but the Armenian said he hadn’t seen the boy since that trouble with the sailor. I decided to wait around a while. As the hour grew late and I was just getting ready to give up and leave, in she walked, carrying her game board under her arm. She saw me and ducked her head with a quick smile. I nodded back. Apgar beamed and brought her a cup of wine, and there was a quick exchange of Greek between the two of them with a glance in my direction. Andreas opened the board and set out the black and white counters. She looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. I felt my heart beat faster. That face of hers that hovered disturbingly between male and female fascinated me.
I brought my jug of wine over to the table and sat down. “My name is Churillo. What do you call this game of yours?”
“We call it tavli, sir.” She used the Greek word that means ‘tables’.
“Will you teach me to play? I hope you won’t separate me from all my silver.”
“That is up to you, sir.” Her voice was husky—a maid trying to sound like a man. “We each throw two dice and the object is to move your fifteen men around the board and be the first to remove them all. It seems easy, but there are dangers and traps to be avoided. Land on the wrong triangle and you can be sent back to where you started. You almost always have several possible moves, but only one of them is best.”
“Where did you learn to play?”
“My father taught me. He learned it in the East as a young man.”
“He was a merchant? A soldier?”
Her lips tightened just a little. “A seeker of knowledge, a physician.”
“I’d like to meet him.”
She ignored this and handed me the dice cup. “A silver penny a game? You can go first.”
And so we played for a while. I watched her more than I watched the board. She had a space between her front teeth and, while she considered a move, she would touch the tip of her tongue to it. Her eyebrows would draw together in concentration and she would tap a foot nervously.
I lost steadily, while Andreas explained carefully why every move I made was not the best. Finally, she said, “Sir, if you keep looking in my eyes instead of at the board you will never learn a thing.”
“In that case, I give up,” I laughed. “This is too hard for my thick head. You’d best take someone else’s silver.”
“Very well.”
But there were no other takers this evening. After a moment, I said, “Shall we try somewhere else? I’ll walk with you. It’s a dark night.”
Without meeting my eyes, she closed the board and stood up. “Not necessary.”
But I followed her out the door. “Who are you, girl?” I touched her arm and turned her toward me.
“What do you mean? Let me go.” She tried to pull away, but I held her. “I’m not a girl.” She looked at me with angry eyes.
“I know the feel of a woman when I touch her. I also know that a boy doesn’t sit with his knees together. What sort of game are you really playing here? I promise to keep your secret. You’re a brave child.”
“I’m no child. I’m eighteen and can take care of myself.”
I doubted she was even that old. “Eighteen and not married?”
“What is that to you? I have no dowry, so that’s an end of it. And if your next question is going to be do I have a lover the answer is no. I haven’t time for such things.”
“But your parents let you go out and mix with men like this? In my country that wouldn’t be unusual, but here? I thought Greeks all locked their daughters up at night.”
She shrugged. “My mother wouldn’t have allowed it but she is dead. And as for my father—well, he has much to occupy him at night. And whatever he doesn’t like, he prefers not to see. The fact is we need the money.”
“Is it only for the money?”
Now she smiled. “It’s more than that. It’s the battle of wits. It’s getting one over on men.”
“Not all men like being beaten—like the one who attacked you the other night.”
“It doesn’t happen often. I’m careful not to win too much.”
“Tell me your name.”
“Why?”
“No reason.”
She hesitated. “It’s Selene.”
“Very pretty. Is that some saint?”
“I was named for the goddess of the Moon.”
“Do you worship her?”
She looked at me from under long lashes. “That would be against the law.”
She wasn’t pretty, really. But there was intelligence in those large, dark eyes. And there was something about her that reminded me of little Ainikki, whom I had loved for so brief a time in Finland. But that child of the forest and this child of the streets would have nothing in common, except their courage, and maybe something more: an aura of magic that clung to both of them. While we talked, we strolled along the quay in the shadow of the sea wall; it was quiet on the water. A quarter-moon hung low over the Galata side.
“You said your father was a physician? But not a rich one. Surely, you can’t make enough gambling to support the two of you? Do you have another trade?”
“I was once apprenticed to a silk weaving factory. I spoiled a piece of cloth, the matron beat me. I never went back.”
“Good for you. And your father?”
“He takes patients sometimes. But he has little time for that. His life is devoted to the work.”
“What work is that?”
Our shoulders had been almost touching but now she pulled away. “I’ve said too much. I don’t know you.”
“Then I will introduce myself. I am Churillo Igorevich, the envoy of Grand Prince Yaroslav of Kiev.” I swept off my cap and made her a little bow.
“Rus! My God, you are a fierce, barbaric people.”
I’d only meant to impress the girl, not terrify her. “Look,” I said quickly, “I’m quite harmless, really. And I’m lonely here. I’ve been in the city two weeks and haven’t yet been invited into a Greek home. I’d like to meet your father. I’ll gladly bring a contribution for dinner.”
“What? No, I’m sorry, it’s impossible.”
“But why?”
But she was already heading away from me down the street. The moon—her goddess—took that moment to disappear behind a rack of cloud plunging us into utter darkness. And I was left angry, baffled, and cursing the Greeks.
Then things got worse
Two days passed uneventfully and then Psellus paid me a visit. Not the smiling, talkative young man of our last conversation. He was tightlipped, frowning, and he avoided my eyes. All he would say was that the Logothete demanded my presence. What alarmed me most was that he brought two Khazar archers with him, as though he expected me to make a run for it.
There were more armed guards in Eustathius’s office and the man himself was no longer the genial elf that I had first met amid his butterfly collection. He was pacing the room, and I noticed for the first time that he had a clubbed foot with a special shoe to cover it. He searched me with cold eyes. “Who the hell are you?” Before I could open my mouth, he went on: “I wondered why Yaroslav would send a new ambassador instead of Oleg Bogdanovich, who has been coming here for years. And someone so young, at that. Foreign intelligence is our specialty here. I know people who are familiar with Yaroslav’s court. We know the names of all his boyars and ‘Churillo Igorevich’ isn’t one of them. It has taken me a few days to confirm with our contacts that you are not who you claim to be. Who are you really and why are you here? What is this charade about?”
The first thought that flashed through my mind was of Ingigerd and how naïve she was, how little she really understood of how things worked here. To think that we could get away with this farce for more than a few days. By now, of course, I should have been standing over Harald’s cold corpse; but I wasn’t, and now I never would. The one bright spot, if you could call it that, was imagining how Inge was going to wriggle out of this one when her husband was informed of the deceit that had been practiced in his name. Perhaps this time she really had overstepped herself.
The Logothete’s eyes searched me. “We don’t like being fooled. I’ll ask you one more time before I have my men beat it out of you. Why are you here?”
For a desperate moment, I ran through one possible lie after another. And then, with a feeling of indescribable relief, I decided to tell the truth. How I had been sent here as Princess Ingigerd’s agent, not to negotiate the marriage of her daughter, but to murder the Varangian Guardsman, Harald Sigurdsson, whom she hated for reasons too complicated to explain. “And I had reasons of my own for killing him,” I added.
“Harald who? Psellus, fetch down the Varangian muster book, it’s on the high shelf behind you.” Eustathius spent a minute turning the pages of the enormous volume. “Is this him?” He looked up. “Half-brother to the late King Olaf of Norway. Arrived here three years ago. Fine military record, important mission to Jerusalem, promoted to captain of a bandon, good officer by all accounts. The kind of man we like to see in the Guard. This is outrageous. I tell you right now, Churillo, or whatever your name is, you will make no move against this officer, or I will have you executed on the spot. The fact that a barbarian princess hates him for personal reasons is no concern of mine. I’m writing to Yaroslav at once. And I will order the Rus merchants here to cut ties with you; they’ll be out of our city in a few days anyway, thank God.”
“And what about me, sir?”
“What about you? You are entirely dispensable, Churillo Igor—Dammit, man, what is your name anyway?”
I told him, and tried to explain that I had pretty well given up the idea of killing Harald, but he cut me off. “For someone who is here under false colors, you seem to be very interested in us. Young Psellus has told me about your long conversation after the banquet. I fear he may have said more than he should. Exactly why do you want to know all this—how the government works, who does what? Don’t bother answering, the question is moot now. You no longer have any reason to be here, so I’m afraid your curiosity about our affairs will have to go unsatisfied. You will, of course, move out of the hostel at once. If you want to remain in our city, you do so on your own. You know ships? You might be able to find work around the water front, caulking, sail-mending, something of the sort. Or, I would suggest the army, but we’re not recruiting at the moment.”
“The Varangians?” I ventured in a murmur.
“What? Out of the question. They don’t take just anyone.”
“Office of Barbarians? I speak three languages.”
“Ridiculous.”
Well, that was that then. No place to live. My subsidy, which Stavko had been doling out, would stop at once. I owned nothing but the expensive clothes on my back. How would I live? Where would I go? Obviously, not back to Kiev. I had no ship, no crew, no friends. My beautiful fantasy of rising to wealth and power in Golden Miklagard lay shattered in pieces. My long, tortuous journey from the ruins of my Iceland home had ended here in abject failure. Perhaps I should hang myself.
With tears in my eyes—I’m not ashamed to admit it—I stumbled out the door and made my way across the palace grounds. As I came in sight of the polo field, I heard the bray of trumpets and the tramp of feet. A raven banner fluttered in the wind. The Varangians were on parade. In spite of myself, I stopped for a minute to look.
“Tangle-Hair, over here!” came a voice I recognized.