"Oh, please, Gunter!" It was she who laughed now. "All these years we have traveled together, and not once before did you offer your services. Why now?"

He shrugged. "You have changed."

"How so?"Does the fact thatIam no longer a virgin show?

"You are softer somehow."

That is just wonderful! A soft soldier! A voluptuous Varangian! A weak woman! It appeared she would have to work more on her masculinization. More groin scratching, and swaggering, and spitting. She already knew how to curse like a sailor.

"As to your question," she said, changing the subject, "nay, I have no second thoughts. This is the right thing for me."

"Me, too," Egil remarked, coming up on her other side.

"Do not even think of touching my a.r.s.e," she warned. If Egil put his hand on her b.u.t.tocks one more time, as seemed to have become a reflex with him, she swore she was going to pull out her dagger and slice him across the knuckles.

He put a palm to his chest, as if wounded by her words. "My lady, your words do me wrong. I am betrothed to be married."

"Oh, really! That did not stop you from making indecent proposals to me."

"What indecent proposals?" an interested Gunter wanted to know.

"The same ones you have been making," she told Gunter.

"Oh," Gunter said, clearly disappointed that there was not some new form of indecent proposal he had not yet heard of. Men.' "But I am not affianced, Tyra. So I am free to provide for your pleasure. Unlike Egil here. By the by, Egil, who are you trying to impress with those tightbraies ?"

"What has my being affianced to do with having s.e.x with another woman? My Inga does not expect me to remain chaste whilst I go off earning treasure for her bride price. And as to my tightbraies , at least I have something substantial to fill them."

Gunter stiffened and dropped his arm from her shoulder. Next they would be calling for theholmganga , a duel that was fought within a ten-foot square according to strict ritual rules.

"Would the two of you just stop? We are about to dock." With that in mind, she called out to Ivan, the rudder master, "Pull up to the Gate of Phanar. That is closest to the Palace of Blachernae, where the emperor and empress should be in residence."

Ivan nodded, and soon they were docked.

"Go to Roma.n.u.s and send my regards. Request an immediate audience for me," she ordered Gunter and Egil. "I met him five years past when his father, Constantine, was still alive. He was only seventeen or so at the time, but he should remember me. If not, give him this as a gift." She handed Gunter a velvet-lined box containing a large piece of rare amber on a heavy gold chain. Although she was not much given to ornamentation, she had been wearing it at the time over her tunic, and he had admired it.

Tyra stepped over the plank then. She had been aboard ship too long now and much preferred to await the emperor's summons on land. When she stepped ash.o.r.e, carrying with her the shield that Adam had given her, she sighed deeply.

With those first steps onto a new land, tears welled in her eyes. A new episode of her life was about to begin.

One sennight after departure from Stoneheim "When I made the decision that I wanted Tyra... that I should go after her... I never realized that she carried so much baggage with her," Adam grumbled aloud. He was standing at the prow of the ship, which was riding the large waves of a stormy Baltic Sea.

In truth, Adam was growing excessively tired of long-ships and stomach-churning waves and wet boots and watery horizons. Once he got back to his home in Northumbria, he swore he would not travel again for a good long time, and definitely not over water.

"What baggage would that be?" Tykir asked.

How his uncle had come to be on this journey was another story altogether. But here he was, and Alrek, too. Not to mention Bolthor, who was off somewhere composing an Ode to the Ocean, or Saga of a Shark, or some such thing. You would think that Tykir-a man with a newborn child-would feel the need to stay close to home, but, nay, Tykir had sent Alinor back to Dragonstead under heavy guard. For some reason, he believed that Adam needed him more than his wife and children did. Alinor had agreed to let him go, but adamantly refused to allow their son Thork to accompany his father. Tykir appeared alternately prideful and dismayed by his incorrigible son, who was surely a miniature version of himself as a youthling.

"The baggage I refer to is a troublesome family," Adam explained. "I did not realize that caring for someone"- he still had trouble saying the love-word-"meant involvement with all these other appendages."

Tykir laughed. "Appendages, huh? That is a good way of describing family members. But, really, Adam, you should not be surprised. It is the same for everyone. For example, when I fell in love with Alinor, I also had to deal with her barmy twin brothers, Egbert and Hebert. When she fell in love with me, my family became hers, and that included not just Rain and Selik, Eirik and Eadyth, and all their children, but you and Adela, too. Plus our friends Bolthor and Rurik and all the rest."

Adam winced at the mention of Adela. "But don't you ever just crave privacy?"

"All the time. Well, not all the time. When things get too loud or bothersome at Dragonstead, I go off on an amber dig to the Samland Peninsula, or to Hedeby for trading. But you know what is really odd? No sooner do I leave the fjord harbor at Dragonstead than I am missing my wife and family... even all the chaos that accompanies them." Tykir shrugged.

"She will change my life, won't she?" Adam asked.

Tykir chuckled at his nephew's woeful tone and informed him with much glee, "Oh, Adam, she already has."

About that time, in Byzantium "You wish to join the Varangian Guard?" Roma.n.u.s asked Tyra incredulously. Thank the G.o.ds, she and her men understood the Byzantine tongue, being far-traveled people. Roma.n.u.s sat upon a great silver throne under a golden canopy in the palace reception room, several marble steps up from where Tyra stood with Gunter and Egil. Roma.n.u.s's keen eyes surveyed her, from her long blond hair, plaited on each side into war braids, over her soft leather tunic andbraies , down to her overlarge feet encased in half-boots. He gave particular attention to the broadsword sheathed at her side, and the battle-ax slung over her shoulder with a special strap.

"I do... along with three dozen fine fighting men who have accompanied me," she answered, not at all intimidated by Roma.n.u.s, who was several years younger than herself.

Roma.n.u.s rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his eyes twinkling with delight. She could see that she and her entire retinue amused him. It was true that she and her men were attired differently from these Byzantines. Her men wore hip-length tunics with thick belts overbraies and leather boots. Some of them even wore wolf skins. No matter how fine their fabrics or the jewels they might wear, they were primitive in appearance compared to these more sophisticated Byzantines, who wore loose silk or linen ankle-length gowns of a T-shape, highly ornamented with embroidery. Their necks and arms and various fingers held jewels worth a king's treasure.

At twenty-three, Roma.n.u.s was an impressive man, and not just because of his garments of royal purple encrusted with pearls and rubies. The young man had inherited his father's fine physique and charming manners, not to mention his mother's beauty. And vanity-he had that in abundance, it was clear. Already he wore her amber pendant around his neck, hanging over his golden breastplate.

He was nothing compared to Adam, though. No one was.

"But a woman in the Imperial Army, Roma.n.u.s? It is unheard of." The woman speaking at Roma.n.u.s's side was Theophano, a breathtakingly beautiful woman with sleek dark hair reaching down to her knees and wide ebony eyes. The sapphire torque around her neck could purchase five longships. Theophano was clearly in love with her husband, and he with her. They could not seem to stop touching one another... a hand on the wrist here, a pat on the head there. Theophano had already given him three children and was pregnant with a fourth. No wonder, with all that touching!

"But perhaps that is the best part, Theo," Roma.n.u.s said as if thinking aloud. "No other king or emperor could boast of the same. Mayhap if the Princess Tyra works out, I could establish a separate female guard. Truly, my dear, I will be the envy of every monarch in the world."

Theophano was not convinced. "Like a freak dwarf, or a double-headed cow?" she sneered.

Tyra bristled with outrage, but held her tongue when Gunter and Egil squeezed her forearms from either side in warning.

Even more alarming, Theophano kept looking from Tyra to Roma.n.u.s, as if she suspected that her husband had a personal interest in Tyra... which was ridiculous, of course, especially when he had a woman of Theophano's outstanding beauty.

Unfortunately, that suspicion proved true when Theophano whispered to her husband, loud enough for Tyra to overhear, "She is sobig , dearling, and not at all pretty."

Roma.n.u.s, the dumb dolt, answered, "Dost think so, dearling? On the contrary, I think she is stunning. Tall, yes, and perhaps not pretty, but very attractive."

Holy Thor! That should put an end to her hopes of joining the Varangian Guard. A jealous wife would never allow her husband to employ an attractive woman. Not that Tyra considered herself attractive. It must be something Adam had done to her that made her appear different to men. She and Gunter and Egil exchanged meaningful glances, and shrugged. Perhaps they could continue on to the Rus lands and find mercenary work there. Or they could backtrack to Trelleborg and become Jomsvikings, but Tyra mis...o...b..ed the knights would allow a woman to join their ranks. Or her men could stay and become Varangians while she went off on her own.

Roma.n.u.s clapped his hands together as if making a decision. "It is done. You and your soldiers are welcome to join my army, Tyra." He motioned for a man standing off to the side to come forward. "Let me introduce you to my general, Nicephorus Phocas. Nicky, you can find a place for several accomplished fighting men... and a woman, ha ha ha... can you not?"

Tyra was in awe. Who had not heard of General Nicephorus Phocas? Nicephorus was famous for his spectacular triumphs in recent years in Crete.

Whereas Roma.n.u.s was young and handsome, Nicephorus, at fifty or so years, was short and squat with broad shoulders and a barrel chest. His complexion was swarthy from years of serving under the Syrian sun. His eyes, piercing and sad, were small and dark, under heavy brows.

He stared for a long time at Tyra before speaking. "We are constantly involved in battle to drive the infidels back to the desert. That is my brother Leo's area of command," he told her. "Do you have any problem fighting Arabs?"

For some reason, an image of Rashid flashed into her mind. But she gave the answer that was expected of her. "The enemy of my friend is my enemy, too."

He nodded his acceptance of her words, then waved a hand in the emperor's direction. "It is as you wish, Your Majesty." Then he walked away.

Roma.n.u.s walked down the steps toward her, smiling widely. "Welcome to Byzantium," he said warmly, kissing her lightly on one cheek, then the other.

Over his shoulder, Tyra saw Theophano glaring at her with venom.It appeared that her welcome to Byzantium was not a universal one.

"Be careful," Gunter advised her in an undertone. "Be very careful, my lady."

Egil concurred by adding from her other side, "You have entered a real vipers' nest here. And the queen asp has her eye on you."

Their words of caution were reinforced when the empress stepped down from the royal dais and went off to the side, where she and General Phocas put their heads together, looking up from time to time toward her.

An uncomfortable ripple of foreboding swept over Tyra's body. Battles she could fight-'twas what she'd been trained to do. But court intrigues were another matter.

Gunter and Egil were here with her, and several dozen of herhesirs , but still Tyra came to an alarming conclusion.

I am all alone.

Tyra's fears were reinforced that night as she prepared for bed in one of the small castle chambers that had been a.s.signed to her. Gunter and Egil and all her soldiers had been given quarters in the army guardhouse. She was virtually isolated from her men.

Azize, a Turkish slave a.s.signed to her, whispered a warning as she smoothed out the bed linens. "Be careful of the empress, my lady. Her beauty is a facade to hide much evil. Nothing and no one stand in the way of her ambition."

Tyra was surprised that a servant would speak so bluntly, but she was not about to question the maid's good intentions. "Perhaps your view is biased because of your situation," Tyra suggested kindly as she began to take off her clothing. From her language, it was clear that Azize was not of common birth. No doubt she was a prize of one battle or another and resented the empress's royal position, which she might very well have held in another country.

Azize shook her head vehemently. "The empress tolerates no rivals... real or perceived. When Roma.n.u.s became emperor, she had his mother and five sisters relegated to a distant part of the castle, like prisoners. Then, after his mother died, Theophano forced all five girls into nunneries, against their will. The Patriarch Polyeuctus himself was called in to shear their hair in public. Ahhh, the wailing and lamentations were so sorrowful! All five of them were then sent to different convents so they would never see each other again in this lifetime. They are now slaves as much as I."

Tyra decided then and there to heed Azize's warning. The sooner she was out of this palace, the better. She slept with her sword that night. Adam's shield on the floor by her low pallet served as an odd comfort to Tyra as she began her new life in a foreign country.

Chapter Eighteen.

Two sennights later, Birka "What has a hole on the top and is full of mead?" one Stoneheim soldier asked another Stoneheim soldier.

"A barrel of mead?" a third soldier interjected innocently, though he had to know the answer.

"Nay, thedrukkinn king of Stoneheim."

"Ha, ha, ha!" the men sitting around the alehouse table laughed.

"Didst hear that the king tupped Bertha last night?" another soldier called out. Bertha, the alehouse wh.o.r.e, straightened up. "The only problem is, he tupped the wrong hole."

"Ha, ha, ha!" More communal laughter.

"The king tupped himself," the soldier explained to one man who hadn't understood the jest.

These men must be demented to find humor in these endless hole-in-the-head jokes, Adam thought, but after a forced two-sennight stay in the trading town while the king recovered from a high fever, he and his friends were bordering on demented, too.

"You'd better be careful that Thorvald doesn't overhear these jokes," Adam warned. "He may not appreciate your laughing at him."

"Nay, you are wrong there," Bolthor spoke up. "Thorvald seems to enjoy the hole-in-the-head jests best of all. In fact, I have composed a saga about this very thing, 'Viking Men with Humor.' "

Bolthor was already starting to perform before Adam had a chance to groan. Rashid, the traitor, was applauding.

"Viking men are fiercesome fighters, Skilled with sword and axe.

But off the battlefield, some say, Their greatest talent is The ability to laugh at themselves.

No man or G.o.d is ever so great That never does he trip.

If man cannot laugh at himself, He might as well be dead."

There was stone silence in the ale room. Bolthor was a giant of a man... too big for them to taunt with

laughter or ridicule. Finally Adam said, "Very good, Bolthor," though he gritted his teeth in saying so. Then he added, "I noticed that you had no rhyming words in that one."

"How sharp-witted of you to notice, Adam! I like to mix my sagas... some rhyming, some not."

"Excellent idea!" Tykir said.

Adam's head swiveled toward Tykir so sharply he would probably have a crick in his neck tonight.

"Excellent idea?" he mouthed silently.

Tykir just grinned.

"Someone ought to tell Bolthor the truth someday," Adam grumbled.

"He who tells the truth should have one foot in the stirrup," Rashid advised him.

"Sagas and proverbs! I think I have landed in h.e.l.l and no one bothered to inform me."

"It is good to know the truth, but it is better to speak of fig trees," Rashid continued.

"Aaarrgh!"

"Methinks I will go over and talk to Bertha," Rashid said.

"If you dare to offer her a spot in my harem, I swear I will tell the world you are a eunuch." Adam shoved his trencher and wooden goblet aside and placed his forehead on the table before him. Then he banged his head several times.Welcometothe world of the demented! "I have to get out of this place. I am dying of boredom. Soon I will be composing sagas and proverbs myself."

"Now, Adam, we will be gone from here in a day or so. Even you have said that the king is much improved," Tykir said.