Free Hereward 04 - Wolves of New Rome by James Wilde Page B

through a man. When Juliana saw him, her face lit up. Afraid she would cry out and alert Victor, Wulfrun caught her arm and gently urged her, and Leo, out and across the courtyard to the deep shadows under the trees.
    ‘You are hard to fathom, but you bring me such joy,’ Juliana exclaimed. She sat, leaning back against a tree trunk. Her face was dappled by moon shadows. At that moment Wulfrun felt a yearning that shocked him.
    ‘Is it true that if you unsheathe your sword, it must drink blood?’ Leo asked. His sister tried to hush him. The boy looked up at the captain with wide eyes. Wulfrun remembered feeling that same sense of awe when he was a boy in England, watching the earl’s men hunting in the wildwood.
    ‘It does not hurt if our enemies believe that,’ he replied with a smile. Glancing over his shoulder, he searched the doors to the house for any sign of movement. All was still. That was good, but he would not leave that night until Victor had gone.
    ‘We went to the Hagia Sophia, to pray for the safe return of my brother,’ Juliana said.
    ‘Still no word?’ Wulfrun asked.
    Glancing down, she shook her head. But then she looked up at him, beaming. ‘He yet lives, I know he does. As we knelt before the altar, Leo heard this truth. God spoke to him.’
    ‘You hear God, lad?’
    ‘Sometimes. He whispers to me. He guides me.’
    ‘Then you are blessed.’ Wulfrun did not want to dash any hopes – they had suffered enough as it was – but he knew that almost all those who had been with her brother when he disappeared had now returned to Constantinople. None could say for certain if he lived or died, but with each day that passed there was less chance of his ever coming home.
    Victor’s braying laughter echoed from the depths of the house and both Juliana and Leo flinched. Wulfrun glimpsed the shadows that crossed their faces, and he felt their hidden pain. He could stand by no longer. It was not in his nature.
    Snatching up Juliana’s hand, he knelt before her and said, ‘I swear an oath to you this day. On my honour, I will protect you against all harm, though my own life is forfeit. I swear my axe to your service, so help me God.’
    A dim part of him called out in protest, for a man of the Varangian Guard must only have one master, the emperor himself, but when he looked into her bright face he felt all his doubts fall away. If Victor Verinus dared take even one step towards this woman, this innocent and pure creature, there would be blood.

C HAPTER E IGHT
     
    THE HOT WIND licked across the dusty land. Whorls of sand whisked up over brown rock as the column of men trudged under the cruel sun. Their heads were bowed from the weight of that infernal heat, their throats as dry as the lifeless plain.
    ‘Where are the foul-smelling bogs, and the willows and the insects and the rushing waters?’ Mad Hengist whined. ‘I would be home, in the fens, not in this hell.’
    ‘I never thought I would be yearning for that damp, miserable place,’ Alric agreed. ‘This is hell indeed. Will the sun never set? And the dust … it tears at your eyes, and fills your nose and ears and mouth, even when the wind is not blowing.’ He caught the arm of the one next to him. ‘These men were raised with moss on their backs and rain in their faces. They were not prepared for this.’
    ‘They are warriors,’ Hereward growled. ‘They fight. No matter where … in the snow of the north, or the heat, here. If they cannot survive a little sun, they will be no good when we get to Constantinople. What then for the glory and the gold?’
    The Mercian watched the woman stride a few paces ahead of the shambling, sweating war-band. She seemed to float over that hard land, untouched by the heat or the dust. Her hood had been pulled up, her woollen cloak wrapped around her, while the men were all stripped to the waist, their skin reddening. Hereward hid his doubts from the others. Was he right to trust her? Once they had left