60.
60.
There were many things I wanted to ask.
I had already informed the emperor through Rentakios that his sister Thekla was highly likely connected to this rebellion, and added that Patriarch Photios suspected his predecessor and rival, Ignatius, and a few other names as well.
Everything after that was for the emperor to handle.
'He'll probably lock her away in some monastery, I suppose...' But it was no longer my business. It would be nothing more than a meddlesome interference.
So I did not ask, and the emperor did not make a point of telling me the tangled stories of Roman politics.
Over the past month he had only sought my insight on the future, never asking for counsel on the past and how to deal with it. That was, in a way, a declaration of will. A promise that he would fulfill his duty as emperor.
Of course, perhaps because the memory of his mother Theodora's regency had become a trauma, the emperor was especially reluctant to have the empress or his officials' wives attend any public function where he presided. Yet in private settings he was always accompanied by Eudokia Ingerina and their son.
As for the other Eudokia, the show-window couple, he was said to have resolved to divorce her. Unlike the past, Michael's authority now rode at its peak, so with the Patriarch's disposition—loyal to the emperor and abundantly possessed of a sycophant's temperament—there would be little difficulty.
The citizens already knew everything anyway. They would simply need to give a small compensation to the current empress's family, the show-window wife.
Eudokia Ingerina was a beauty with lovely golden hair, her northern and Roman blood exquisitely blended, and after speaking with her a few times I realized her true charm lay in her eloquence.
Following her father Yngvar's example, she even tried to bow to me, and it was quite an effort to stop her... The newborn Leon was dangling a string of snot, and the line of his face, the space between his brows, the bridge of his nose—anyone could see he was Michael's child, so I nearly laughed out loud.
At any rate, though I had only passed a few months of winter there, perhaps because I had been through such enormous events... I found myself swept by a wistfulness, the kind you feel when parting from a very close friend.
With a wooden case holding a purple robe between us, Michael and I clasped hands firmly.
"Helgi Konungr. I have much to say, but I believe this is not the last time. Truly, truly, thank you. Thank you."
"What is there to be grateful for, Basileus Michael? Rather, I am the one receiving too much. If you need help, seek me through Kiyiu. If I possibly can, I will surely come."
The strength eased from our clasped forearms. I took the wooden box containing the purple robe from the attendant, passed it to Refil, and soon turned away with a final farewell.
"Then fare well, Michael."
"Farewell, Helgi."
Crossing the smooth marble floor, I boarded the longship Örn.
"Seutorolpeu, announce the departure. Let's go back."
"Yes, Konungr!"
[Buuuuuuung- Uuuuu-]
The long, drawn-out sound of the horn covered Bucoleon's harbor,
[Paaaaaam- Paaaam-]
and the answering brass horns were carried on the wind, softly pushing against the longship's back.
The longship, riding the wind gently, soon surged forward.
Three warships and dozens of merchant ships fell into line behind it, and the fleet slowly vanished beyond the Golden Horn.
The emperor and his party remained long after the line of longships had disappeared past the walls.
*****
The return journey was far easier.
There were no stops for departure procedures, so we sailed straight northeast and reached the Cherson quayside within a day.
"Welcome, Helgi Konungr."
"Damian. Your color has improved?"
"It is thanks to the efforts of the Konungr."
Damian, that old fox.
Because Cherson's strategos, Petronas, had taken the seat of finance minister, Damian had slipped into the position of acting strategos for his still-young son, and he welcomed me warmly.
"Securing the Knyaz of Bulgaria as a firm ally. Was that your intention from the start?"
I had grown accustomed to these Romans' habit of throwing a banquet at every opportunity, so after telling the warriors who had followed me to fight in that distant place to drink and enjoy themselves to their hearts' content, Damian and I talked in the same manner as when we had first held a feast.
Damian asked me about the emperor, and I asked him about Bulgaria.
"It has been only a few years since Knyaz Mikhail of Bulgaria—though he was called Boris before that—bowed his head to Rome. Officially, he submitted to the emperor's majesty... but the truth is different.
The more substantial reason was a stratagem to deal with the threats from East Frankia and Moravia on their western frontier."
Damian shook his head gently, and a stream of Bulgaria's secret history flowed from his lips.
"He appears to be walking a tightrope between the western Pope and the eastern Patriarch, but in reality he has simply drawn our empire in to oppose the belligerent East Frankia.
Therefore, the most urgent thing for him right now was that the empire's instability be swiftly resolved.
Once His Majesty Michael had quelled the rebellion and even thwarted assassination, he had not a single reason to turn his back. The moment the Konungr foiled Basil's scheme, that man's fate was sealed as well."
"...I see."
I turned my head absently and looked at the face of the young boy seated beside me. Seven years old. It was his first time on a ship, and he had suffered greatly, but he had never once whimpered. A precocious child.
The sight of him dozing off, nodding repeatedly, was somehow pitiful.
"All the same, Constantinos is fortunate."
Following my gaze to the child, Damian's eyes carried a tinge of remorse.
"Are you aware that the former patriarch, Ignatios, was once an emperor's son?"
"Was he?"
That was the first I had heard of it.
"The imperial throne of Rome is such a heavy seat that few have endured it for long. It was a chaotic era. Perhaps even more so than now..."
The old man's face, tracing the past, was deeply marked not by longing but by resentment and regret. It was not directed at anyone in particular; it was simply an emotion toward everything from that time.
"What is the ultimate fate that awaits the sons of a ruler driven from power? If they are not killed, they are castrated and thrown into a monastery. Ignatios still has not lost the fire in his breast, so compared to that agony... Constantinos here, that child, has been granted a great stroke of fortune.
Because he now follows a hero who stepped out of myth."
'This old man. His flattery skills had improved. Now he was giving a clever compliment.'
"Is following me truly a good thing for this child..."
It would certainly be a better end than being killed or castrated, but...
My men laughed and made merry, and flames flickered gently. After feasting and enjoying ourselves under Damian's hospitality, we took to the water again two days later.
*****
"Think it over carefully, Damian."
"Thank you. Helgi Konungr. I shall most certainly do so."
On the day we parted, I made Damian an offer.
I asked whether he would consider helping me. The wily Damian gave a faint smile and said he would think about it. I do not know what he will decide.
He did not seem intent on returning to Roman politics, so was he planning to retire as he was? Whatever the case, I wished him good fortune as well.
The Dnieper River felt slightly different from the descent.
It was approaching early February by the Julian calendar.
The river, scarcely frozen anywhere after a mild winter, flowed leisurely, and unlike the hurried journey down, driven by Eudokia's letter, the nature I now appreciated with a relaxed heart was healing in itself.
Personally, I preferred winter over summer, the biggest reason being there were no insects. Do not laugh—it is truly a great problem.
No matter how much of a warrior I had become who had reached the realm of myth, against mosquitoes that recklessly coveted my flesh, or the monstrous Tinkerbells that lost all reason and hurled themselves at any source of light... against the ceaseless attacks of such non-humans, even I could not hold out. I was a great warrior only among men... before nature, I was nothing but a quaint piece of organic matter.
For that reason, my spirits were exceedingly content as I sailed upriver on a pleasantly cool breeze.
I had brought five warships and ten merchant ships down from Kiyiu, but on the way up I was towing thirty more ships behind me.
People, knowledge, materials, and even honor.
After a journey that had yielded more than I had expected, the Norsemen and Rus who accompanied me no longer seemed to treat me as a mere Konungr. Perhaps it was because they had lived side by side with the emperor. Something in the level of reverence had risen a step.
"Konungr Helgi! Over there, Kiyiu is in sight!"
I heard the shout of the sharp-eyed warrior at the front, and soon the village on the high hill beyond the wide river to the left came into my view.
Beside it, on the small hill, I could also see the encampment of my warriors.
But beside that, there was something odd.
'Was that... a Mongol-style house? The nomads'... What was it called, a ger?'
All my physical abilities had improved and my brain had sharpened along with them. I do not know precisely what the correlation was, but my brain was often good at dredging up memories from my previous life.
Somewhere, I had seen tents like those nomads used.
Looking from afar, it was truly comical: on the highest ground stood the village of the Kiyiu people, on lower ground the garrison of the Árós warriors, and on the pastureland below that sat a vast encampment of nomads.
"Konungr. I had heard the news, but it really was true. I have never seen houses of that shape before."
Refil, standing beside me, narrowed his eyes and spoke as he looked into that far distance. Indeed, he had never seen houses shaped like that. It was my first time seeing them in the flesh as well.
"So that is how it is. No wonder the message carried a hurried tone; Haskuldr had reason to rush."
From the visible scale alone, there looked to be a hundred to two hundred of them. Was that the size of a single tribe? I could not be sure.
'A prince of the Magyars...'
He was the son of a chieftain, so what was I supposed to call him?
"Let us hurry a little, Refil. It seems a guest is waiting for us."
"Understood, Konungr."
The full-bellied sails caught the wind and pulled the ships onward, and the three settlements, seeing us approach, bustled with activity all at once.
Soon, the prow touched the place where I had first landed at this hill village, and as the dragon head gently rose onto the land, my eyes first saw Jarl Haskuldr and the warriors of Kiyiu and Árós standing around him. They had lined up in numbers and seemed to have come out to greet me.
I stepped off.
[Chalgrag]
Along with the sound of my armor shifting, I touched down on the ground in good spirits, twisting my waist and arms this way and that to loosen my body.
Behind me—Refil, Seutorolpeu, Oleg, Djur, and my new retainer, the engineer Leon with Constantinos in his arms—we all approached Haskuldr while watching the ships that came ashore one after another.
"Konungr Helgi. Welcome back safely. Kiyiu is yours."
Watching Haskuldr bow his head in a respectful greeting, I could truly feel that I had left Rome behind. A warrior's forthright salute, without bending at the waist or prostrating himself.
For some reason I even felt a sense of fondness, so I immediately clapped him on the shoulder and we climbed the hill together.
"Thanks to you I was able to return safely, Jarl Haskuldr. I meant to ask if anything had happened, but... something clearly did happen. Those horse riders—what business do they have here?"
If they had wanted a fight, various parts of Kiyiu would have been burning already. They must have had something to say, which was why they were staying quiet.
I felt Haskuldr's body stiffen under the cool light of my presence.
It truly felt as though my body and mind had undergone some... further stage of growth while I was traveling to and from Eastern Rome. It sounded like something out of an animated film, but I could not explain it any other way.
Come to think of it, I was now nineteen years old by my reckoning. Nineteen by international count, which meant twenty by my previous life's counting. An adult.
"That is correct, my Konungr. The Gyula of the Magyars personally led a tribe to us. He is called Árpád, a man who was held in tremendous respect among those Magyars. His father is Álmos, who they called the Kende."
Gyula and Kende...?
Somewhere, familiar names had lodged themselves among unfamiliar ones.