A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (snow like ashes series TXT) 📗

forward and seized hold of Jarpr who started writhing on the floor, bleating helplessly. The lad was drunk out of his skull. The men tied ropes around his wrists and ankles and shoved him down on the ground. From somewhere two oxen appeared and were led into the feast-circle.

‘What are they going to do to him?’ asked Lilla, cold horror filling her veins. But no one answered. She watched, disbelieving, as Jarpr’s limbs were fastened to the harnesses. The headman pulled himself to his feet – no small achievement given his immense size – then he murmured a single, soft word. Whips cracked down on the white rumps. The oxen started forward, pulling in opposite directions, each uttering a bellow of protest that was answered by Jarpr’s bone-chilling scream.

‘Plead for him,’ Lilla implored Valrik in a whisper. ‘Plead for his life! For Frigg’s sake – they’re going to tear him apart!’

‘And what in black Hel do you think I can do about it?’ he snarled.

‘Offer silver! Offer anything. Now – before it’s—’

But it was too late. There was a final shriek, a crack of bone and a sickening ripping sound. Lilla looked away, but still heard the oxen stumble forwards as resistance to their brute strength ceased. A rank smell filled the air.

Valrik half-stood. ‘No one say a word,’ he called to his men around the circle. ‘Not one word! The lad brought it on himself.’ Even so, some of the Northmen were muttering darkly. Lilla found Einar’s face in the crowd. He gave her a shake of the head. But no one moved. It was over. And now all she wanted was to get away from this place, as far as she possibly could.

But now the girl was pulled forward to the same spot, where Jarpr’s blood was still soaking into the earth.

‘What are they doing?’

‘She gets the same penalty,’ said Bayan.

‘But he attacked her.’

Bayan grunted. ‘The way they see it, she’s guilty too. She shamed her father and her clan.’

The father was looking grim, maybe even with the glint of a tear in his eye, but he did nothing to intervene.

‘This is wrong,’ Lilla said, her voice rising. ‘So wrong!’

‘Stay calm.’ It was Valrik’s turn to check her arm. ‘It’s their law. Their judgement.’

‘Damn their accursed law!’ She was on her feet. ‘It’s this girl who has been wronged! She is innocent!’ The headman turned. ‘Please,’ she begged him, but his fat features showed nothing but dull indifference. And with a flick of his hand he signalled the ox-handlers to continue.

Lilla felt giddy, adrift on a sea of rage. She heard Valrik struggling to his feet behind her. She was beside the headman, reaching for him; his guards moved in, hard fingers dug into her flesh, twisting her arm. She screamed. There was a rasp of steel. Valrik was there. Metal flashed bright in the firelight, she heard a gasp and something warm splattered her face.

The next moment all Hel erupted.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

By the time they reached the towering black gates that marked the entrance into his new home, Erlan was in a state of complete bewilderment. Byzantium – the Great City, the City of Constantine, the Queen of Cities – was beyond belief. The scale, the intensity, the noise. Everything was stone – white blocks blinding in the sun, black polished pillars, tall blood-red columns. Giant houses that defied gravity, vast bulbous vaults of wood and stone, images splintered into ten thousand pieces, scattering the light that fell on them in silver and gold.

The market streets of Uppsala and Sigtuna were mere pimples on the landscape against the broad thoroughfares of paved stone, each lined with shaded colonnades under which craft-shops hid from the beating sun, selling everything from oils to tableware to spices bright with every colour of the rainbow. Copper-workers, tinkers, smiths, cloth merchants, wine merchants, silk merchants, carpenters, stonemasons, bakers, butchers, and on and on and on.

It was far beyond any dream. But the smells and noise and strange voices and oddly dressed bodies jostling past were real enough. His mind was too stupefied by it all to think of escape or of his own sorry predicament. It was a sponge so dry all it could do was soak up what his senses fed it.

‘Ramedios tells me you speak Greek,’ the man who bought him suddenly said.

‘Some,’ Erlan answered.

‘Well then – what’s your name?’

‘Erlan.’

His owner tried it out for size. He made it sound strange.

‘Who are you?’ Erlan asked.

‘Me?’ the man laughed. ‘My name is Silanos. A humble steward, no more. But my master – your master – is a great man. General Arbasdos. He is second only to the Basíleus in this city.’

‘Basíleus?’ He hadn’t met this word.

‘Ahhh. How to explain?’ The steward pulled at his beard. ‘Arbasdos is second only to the king. You know that word, do you? King?’

Erlan nodded slowly. ‘King of kings,’ he muttered.

Silanos frowned doubtfully. ‘Never mind. You’ll see.’

Erlan had no idea how far they had walked since the slave market, only that they had come north, more or less, over a steep hillside and then down an even steeper maze of alleys. At the ridge crest, he had glimpsed a long and narrow inlet lying further north, and floating on its surface, dozens of lean-looking ships.

But the vista was soon swallowed up as narrow streets closed over them, choking him with their dusty, stagnant air. At length they emerged once more into a broader sunlit way, and he found himself standing before two high doors of black polished wood set into a severe stone wall which ran up and down the street in both directions as far as he could see.

‘Welcome to the House of Arbasdos,’ Silanos declared. ‘Your new home.’

Erlan waited while the steward rapped a huge bronze knocker against the door. Almost at once the gates swung open and they passed through into a cool and quiet courtyard beyond. The gates closed behind them and Erlan felt sweet relief as they shut