No sickness is worse for a man than to have no one to love him. Thus speaks Odin in The Sayings of the High One. I had been sick that way for too long.
I went straight from the palace, in full armor, with my shield on my back and my ax over my shoulder. I was a Varangian. In a city of unarmed men, I could go where I pleased and no one got in my way.
It was an elegant two-story house built around a garden in the fashionable Sphorakion quarter, near the Milion Arch. I hammered on the door with the butt of my ax. The door slave retreated before me, too frightened to speak. The foyer was marble-tiled with tapestries on the walls and expensive vases on little tables.
“Selene!”
A man came running down the circular stairway from the upper floor, pulling on a loose morning gown, his blond hair tousled, eyes puffy like someone who had just woken up, though it was almost noon. He knew instantly who I was.
“Where’s my wife, Alypius?”
“I don’t know who you mean, get out of my house.”
Bold words, but I could smell his fear. I didn’t say anything. I just lifted my ax.
“I’m not afraid of you. You come back after all this time? You threaten me? Selene doesn’t want to see you. She’s very happy here. I don’t permit her to have visitors. She has everything she wants here. Now you will leave my house or I’ll summon the police.”
“I am the police.” I leaned against one of the little tables and sent a large vase crashing to the floor. Now I could see sweat on his forehead.
And then she appeared—coming in from the garden, followed by my son and an older girl and a maid. Her face was white as milk. “Odd?” She put a hand out to the door jamb to steady herself. We just stared at each other. Seeing her again, I realized that my memory of her had grown faint, like a drawing blurred by water. Her cheeks were fuller, her hips a little wider, her hair was long now, not the boyish style she had kept before.
“He keeps you well,” I said. She wore a sheer silk dress of dark green with silver threads, shoes sewn with tiny pearls, and on her arm a gold bracelet set with sapphires.
“Please, Odd, don’t—”
I took a step toward her. “You really thought I wasn’t coming home, to you, to our son?”
“I didn’t know. No one would tell me anything. I did what I had to.” Her eyes flashed, the words tumbled out—words that I think she had been rehearsing to herself for months. “I would have gone back to gambling in the taverns if I could still pass for a boy. How many times have you told me that the women of Iceland are strong and independent. Well, so am I, and you knew it when you married me. So I gave myself to a man. Don’t tell me you didn’t have women in Sicily, because I won’t believe you. What are you going to do now, kill me? You’ve got your ax. Strike!” She thrust out her head.
The two children, goggle-eyed, hid behind the maid’s skirt. I let the ax fall from my hand; the steel rang on the marble floor. “Selene, are you married to this man?”
Alypius, who had lost his voice, found it again. “Don’t be stupid. A man like me doesn’t marry people of her class. I wanted a companion, I was willing to play father to her boy. Look, maybe I’ve wronged you. I have money here, jewels, take what you like…”
I picked up my axe and took a step toward him. Alypius backed away, bumping into one of the little tables. Another vase gone. He held out his arms to ward me off. “All right, I’m not going to fight with a barbarian thug over some woman. Get out, the both of you.”
In an instant, my wife was in my arms, crying, kissing me, begging my pardon.
(If ever anyone reads this saga of mine, I imagine he is smiling now, shaking his head. How impossibly perfect! Did it really happen this way or is it only a lonely old man’s fantasy? No matter, I cherish it. What else have I but these memories to keep me warm at night?)
“Gunnar,” Selene said, taking his small hand, “this is your father, your real father. We’re all going home now.”
He looked like he might cry.
“Ramesses is at home,” I said, smiling at him. “He misses you.” That made his eyes brighten. I put out my hand to touch his curly head. What a handsome boy he was! I thought my heart would burst.
“Take the brat and get out.” Alypius snarled. “And I’ll have that bracelet back, it cost me enough.”
She pulled it off and flung it in his face.
“Myrinna, come and see us whenever you like—” Selene started to say, but Alypius grabbed the girl’s arm and dragged her to him. “She will not.”
That night, after we made love, Selene studied my naked body, every inch, and cried over the scars on my feet. And we talked all night long.
“I wish you could have been here when my father died. He loved you.”
“Take me to his grave tomorrow. I will pour a libation to his spirit.”
And after a time she said in a small voice, “Are you going to stay now? Not leave us again?”
“I can’t promise you. I’m a soldier, I go where I’m ordered to. But you must believe that I will always, always come back.”
She lay in my arms, with her head against my chest. Toward dawn we fell asleep.
Within a week we moved to a rented house not far from the Varangian barracks. Several of us came back from Sicily rich enough to live separately, away from the noise and crowding of the barracks. Harald had no objection as long as we were on hand for daily drill in the parade ground and our rotation at sentry duty. He himself took over his predecessor’s splendid mansion. Our house needed painting, repairs inside and out, and the attentions of a gardener. When we were ready to show it off, I invited Psellus and his wife to dinner. I wanted to keep his friendship, though I would make no promises to the Logothete.
And so I settled down with my family to what I expected would be a peaceful life.