291. The Whale.
"Eeyaaa—!"
Upon the horse saddle, shaken violently up and down and from side to side.
The silver cross hanging around Nikephoros Phokas's neck flashed.
So well-maintained and polished it was that, amidst all the shaking, the light reflecting every scene around it was radiant.
The faces of the riders closing the distance in unison, shouting their war cries, all had veins bulging. The mingled spit and blood of men and horses flew through the air. The heavy bodies of men tumbling to the ground, hurtling toward the opposing side like cannonballs, were reflected here and there on Nikephoros's cross.
Though they had been told so many times to plant their feet firmly on the stirrups, the riders on both sides who had loosened their reins or whose feet had simply slipped from too great an impact would have likely lost consciousness the very moment they were launched into the air.
[For God!]
Warriors who flung their bodies for the same purpose and God, each in their own tongue.
Before thrusting the spear in their hand forward, the silver cross that had flown up powerfully and filled Nikephoros's vision drank in all the blood, screams, shrieks, war cries, and every emotion existing in that space.
Then it slowly settled, releasing the time that had been flowing sluggishly around them.
"Yaaaa!"
[Dugudugudugu- Puk! Ihihing! Purureuk! Aaak!]
Even if not quite the equal of the Fylkir of the North Sea, Nikephoros was a mighty rider, and his long spear—that chilling weapon—thrust a sharp attack that impaled the charging Muslim rider straight through. At the same moment, as the stirrup his own rider had firmly fixed jerked upward, the horse the Muslim warrior had been riding went into convulsions and collapsed to the ground.
[Ihihihing-! Kwadang! Seureung!]
Nikephoros, having naturally let go of his spear, drew his Roman sword as he swept past, and raising it high toward the sky, he shouted with all his might.
"Roma Invicta—!"
Caught by the light shining down, Nikephoros's silver cross necklace flashed once more, heaving with motion.
*****
The silver cross necklaces worn by the soldiers of the Eastern Roman Empire fighting on the island of Sicily. This ornament, though far more splendid with all manner of jewels studded here and there, was in shape still a cross, and it swayed this way and that with the Emperor's movements.
"What in the—what is this news! Nikephoros and Oleg, Edmund have won again? Now they've achieved a complete victory!"
In the most holy city of Constantinople, within the Palace of the Bull and Lion situated in its innermost part, the master of the Eastern Roman Empire, Emperor Mikhaíl, was forgetting his dignity and leaping up and down in delight.
Just as he used to do in the hippodrome in his younger days.
"Parakoimomenos! Prepare a reward fitting for these great generals at once."
"It shall be done as you command, Emperor."
As the Emperor's shadow, the Parakoimomenos Rentakios, respectfully bowed his head and stepped back, Michael laid the report he had been clutching with both hands upon the splendid round table and looked around at his trusted men assembled in the council chamber.
Centered around the Ecumenical Patriarch, the Treasurer, and the Grand Admiral, they were the current power-brokers of the Eastern Roman Empire encompassing religion, administration, and military affairs, and men loyal to Emperor Michael.
Upon their faces flickered a confidence similar to that which had risen on the Emperor's face, yet they also bore an anxiety they could not conceal.
For the Eastern Roman Empire now stood on the brink of a titanic battle for supremacy of the sea against the mighty Muslims of Egypt-Syria.
Thus, the Emperor could not help but be all the more pleased by the continuing victories in Sicily. Whether in war or politics, or even chariot racing, seizing the momentum was all that mattered.
"The wind of victory blows toward our Roman Empire. It is thanks to the efforts of all of you gathered here, but our Empire still has many races left to win. As you all know, the only way to win a race is to run like mad. We cannot at this moment employ the methods of feeding the opponent's horse hay laced with poison, or bribing the opposing rider. Or failing that, canceling the race itself.
According to intelligence, the Muslims of the East have momentarily halted their internal strife and prepared for a battle against us. Cheap tricks will not work."
He was an Emperor who spoke of all manner of dirty tricks as though they were the most natural thing, yet no one rebuked him. The chariot races that captivated every soul in the Eastern Roman Empire, especially those of Constantinople, were a sport to which countless people devoted their entire lives, a source of fanatical devotion. And that the Emperor, the maddest of all those madmen, had once been a die-hard supporter of the Green Faction was not particularly a secret.
Because of that, even now, after so much time had passed, the supporters of the Blue, Red, and White Factions still ground their teeth at the Greens. Whatever the other three factions might feel, the massive supporters' club of the Greens backed their beloved Emperor and chariot team, making a habit of ignoring the pathetic hangers-on of the rest.
In any case, as a man who had been a central figure in all kinds of chariot-racing scandals, the Emperor was a man well-versed (?) in mean and tenacious stratagems, yet he could not exercise such skills in the looming brawl with the Muslims.
As the Emperor had said, the divided Arabs of the East had decided to set aside their internal strife and join forces, thanks to the ominous news filtering in from the north—the fall of the Khazar Khaganate—and the disaster reported from the west—the occupation of Chandax.
Now the situation had reversed, and the Eastern Roman Empire had to fend off their attack from the island of Crete.
"Admiral Niketas. How goes it? Shall we be able to repel their challenge and defend the Roman sea?"
Regrettably, the Emperor himself was no outstanding commander like his uncle Bardas, who had been a wise leader, or like his old friend and traitor Basil, who had been a coldly rational one.
But the Emperor had a general who, save for ambition, was in no way inferior to those two men: Niketas Ooryphas. And he possessed an imperial treasury and a powerful central army said to be the most robust since Justinian the Great.
The Grand Admiral of the Eastern Roman Navy, Niketas Ooryphas, bowed his head before his august Emperor's question and answered.
"The soldiers of Rome shall offer victory to the Emperor."
It was a calm reply from Niketas that sent a thrill beyond mere satisfaction through the Emperor. He nodded, his face full of smiles, yet he could not stop one face from surfacing within his breast.
What if the Fylkir of the North Sea were in this place?
At a time when Patriarch Photios was locking horns with the Papal See of Rome, everyone was keeping quiet about it, but in truth, to the Eastern Romans, he was already the demigod Helgi Ragnarsson—called the one blessed by the goddess Hera, a saint born in the wrong place, the second coming of Heracles, and more.
The number of Roman soldiers who had seen with their own eyes the mythic power he had displayed exceeded fifty thousand.
Countless saints and miracles are recorded in the history of Roman Catholicism, but to speak frankly, Helgi Ragnarsson would be the first and last miracle so clearly proven.
Many were the soldiers who, shocked by the sight of him leaping clean over heavily armed cavalry or tearing through and shattering a formation of heavy infantry, had secretly turned to the side of the goddess Hera.
As a matter of fact, the Emperor himself, by way of his Empress of Norse lineage, had subtly acquired a symbol of the goddess who should properly be pronounced Hel, not Hera, and always carried it deep within his robes. But what could others in the Empire do about it, even if it were spoken of?
This was, leaving aside the question of whether the faith was right or wrong, an expression of the awe that those who had personally witnessed the valor of the great warrior Helgi Ragnarsson could not help but hold.
So to speak, a fan club.
In any case, half the blood of all the children born between the Roman Emperor and the Norse Empress was of the North Sea. So if they believed half in each faith, might they not receive half the blessings? Such was the thought the Emperor entertained.
Naturally, it was a blasphemous thought that would make the Patriarch leap up and raise a storm — outwardly, at least — but by this point, the North Sea Empire had become an ally, a blood-ally, that the Eastern Roman Empire could not be rid of even if it wished.
The Fylkir of the North Sea had fought for the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire with his life, had achieved greater merit than anyone in the Empire, and had then simply departed, wanting nothing in return. In truth, the Empire's food market had already knelt before the grain of the North Sea, which boasted vastly superior quality and price.
The Dnieper River had long since become the lifeblood of the Empire's citizens and merchants, and Cherson was in the process of becoming the second most important city in the Empire after Constantinople.
The more he thought about it, the more he regretted not having bound the Fylkir of the North Sea to the Empire as co-emperor back when he was still a Konungr. But thinking back on a race already run only churns the stomach. The Emperor had no mind to lose the next race.
'Fylkir has two sons and two daughters, I heard.'
Besides his heir Leon, the Emperor also had one other son and one daughter.
It was a laughable story, actually: to shore up his children's insufficient legitimacy, the Emperor had bestowed upon them the title 'Porphyrogennetos,' born in the purple.
There were many in Constantinople who loved to wag their tongues, and all sorts of scandal clung to them because the Empress Eudokia had been the official wife of the already dead traitor Basil.
That Leo was in truth Basil's child. That Stephanos, born after him, was also possibly Basil's seed.
Of course, the Emperor was furious and threatened severe punishment for those who spread idle rumors, but it was impossible to arrest and flog every single person whispering here and there.
Therefore, to imbue his children with a powerful sense of legitimacy and to widely announce the fact that the Emperor's support for them remained unwavering, he performed a spectacle with the Patriarch in a chamber entirely dyed and adorned with costly purple dye, blessing the children there.
The title created as a result was Porphyrogennetos: children noble from birth.
For the time being, the people of Constantinople, who loved things splendid and somehow magnificent, were deeply impressed by this performance, and the controversy over their bloodline died down in the face of the Emperor's astonishing extravagance. But Michael wanted his family and children to be reborn as beings even more unassailable.
And the best way to do that was with an emergency funding line to lean on in moments of crisis, and overwhelming military might!
Becoming one family with that Fylkir of the North Sea.
It was better, they said, that Leon, the firstborn and heir, marry a noble lady of Constantinople or Anatolia for the stability of the Empire. But there was no law saying Stephanos or his lovely daughter Anna must marry a Roman noble, was there?
No, was there any reason my children absolutely must remain in Constantinople? According to former Parakoimomenos Damian, who was now striving beside the Fylkir of the North Sea to promote friendship between the two nations, Fylkir inwardly hoped for his own children to love and marry freely, just as he himself had.
To the Emperor, oddly well-informed about the internal affairs of the North Sea, the Fylkir of the North Sea, who had no need whatsoever for political marriages, was an object of pure envy.
There's no law saying my sons and daughters must live only in Constantinople. Damian, the merchants, law-speakers, and scholars all say they increasingly cannot tell the difference between Árós and Constantinople. It wouldn't be so bad if just one of them went to the North Sea and lived freely—
"Emperor! An envoy has arrived from Attila of the North Sea."
"A man from Attila? Tell him to enter at once."
As a rule, no one disturbed a meeting presided over by the Emperor himself. Except in special cases. The reason Rentakios, who had been calculating the reward for the generals on Sicily, had hurried his steps to the Emperor's council chamber was precisely because such a special case had arisen.
"Fylkir himself is moving?"
A man whom the Emperor, and all the people of the Eastern Roman Empire, adored. The man who had single-handedly revived the forgotten fashion of old Greco-Roman mythology in the Eastern Empire. Though he did not know it himself, a hot potato in Eastern Roman political and religious circles. The walking demigod had sent word that he would once again stop by Constantinople.
*****
It had already been two months since I had taken Attila and toppled the Khazar Khaganate. By now, the signs of spring were fully in the air.
Leading my personal thousand-man unit with Sæþórr, I crossed the Don River and arrived at the Dnieper.
On the opposite bank of the Dnieper, a sight that Sagarya Khagan had likely once gazed upon with burning ambition and bitter resentment, Kiyiu's imposing figure revealed itself to me across the majestic river's flow.