Byzantium by Michael Ennis Read Free Book Online Page B

brutish lips parted, offering a huge ivory grin. ‘Jarl Rognvald,’ he said casually. ‘It seems my quiver is temporarily empty.’ His head slumped again, and he returned his attention to his limp penis.
    Jarl Rognvald was rigid with disgust. To capture, own and trade in slaves was accepted in the north, but to abuse them, particularly in this fashion, was an outrage. But there was trouble enough waiting for him on the Dnieper, and he could not afford a row with the leader of the five hundred most able warriors under his overall command. ‘I’ll speak with Hakon in the morning,’ he told Haraldr wearily.
    A young man with wispy chin whiskers bounded from the crowd and began a recitation in the strident tones of the skald. ‘Sater-of-ravens! Full-strong arm of the Great King! He whose forehead-moons glow with the stars-of-hearth!’ He raised his arm and flourished his hand as if scattering gold dust into the sky.
    Hakon looked up at the young skald. ‘Grettir!’ He chortled. ‘Have you found me fresh meat? Something to temper my Frey-spike?’
    ‘Yes, heretic-hewer.’ Grettir moved his hands in suggestion of a woman’s curves. ‘Itrvaxinn!’ Good lines, like a well-crafted Norse dragon-ship.
    The naked farm girl was pushed aside. Two Varangians dragged the next victim through the crowd. At the sight of her Haraldr knew he could not leave.
    Though she was cloaked in a dirty burlap tunic and bound at her wrists and ankles, this young woman obviously had not been born to accept slavery. Her skin was as lustrously white as her uncropped hair was black. She snapped like a badger at Grettir’s hand, and he had to wrestle her chin up for Hakon’s inspection. Her agate eyes were brightly polished with anger; her nose was long and fine with a delicate, sharp tip. Even in the face of the humiliation that awaited her, she had an unmistakable nobility. Haraldr’s breast ached with her loveliness and her terrible fate. A voice whispered at him, then faded. He did not know what it said. A torrent of obscene speculation followed from the crowd.
    ‘Imagine the dark foliage that garlands her thigh-gorge, heretic-hewer.’ Grettir grimaced as he struggled to steady the girl’s writhing head. ‘You had better expect a fight if you try to sail up this fjord.’
    Hakon grinned. ‘The blood from the wound Freyja hews will bless our journey!’ His disproportionately small penis now stood with plum-hued stiffness. He reached out with an enormous apelike arm, seized the girl’s long black mane, and forced her to stumble between his massive, spread thighs; she became curiously acquiescent, and merely glared as he brought her mouth to his. There was a moment of contact, and then her head jerked violently. Hakon bellowed and almost pitched backwards off his perch. Blood streamed from his lacerated nose.
    Hakon dabbed at his nose with one hand. The other wrapped almost entirely around the girl’s neck. Jarl Rognvald decided that he would intercede if Hakon tried to kill the girl. The lewd chorusing of the Varangians quieted. Hakon’s eyes wandered, as if he were looking for a signal. The clearly voiced verses lilted over the crowd.
    Sable-haired
Plundered from the strand that is sea
Dauntless to spill the wine of ravens
Swan-white stands she.
    A fair snippet of verse, thought Haraldr as he savoured the skald’s words. The poet has imagined her coming from the desert, which is said to be a sea of beaches, and because she has spilled the brute’s blood she can yet wear her hair uncovered, like a maiden, and so is still white and pure . . . Why are they all looking at me? Haraldr wondered. Then he realised what had happened, and his veins iced. He was the poet. He had spoken aloud, perhaps not in his own voice, but the words had certainly come out of his mouth.
    ‘Hvat?’ bellowed Hakon, as astounded as he was furious. Grettir took two slow paces towards Haraldr and looked at him as if he had just seen a serpent talk. Jarl