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though he had to lean on a spear to stay upright. ‘Surrender now.’
    I spat a bloody wad of phlegm onto the floor. ‘What terms will you offer?’
    That provoked a laugh. ‘Terms? When you are wriggling on the points of my spears, then I will talk of terms. Otherwise, all I offer is that if you surrender, I will spare you – for now.’
    I could see by their faces that the Varangians beside me did not like that. ‘These men would rather die now than have their throats cut in your prison. You must offer them more than that.’
    ‘Would you believe me if I did?’
    Behind Pakrad, Sigurd struggled to raise himself on his elbow. He mumbled something that was too faint to hear, though every man among us knew what he meant. More than anyone, Sigurd wanted to die well: he would not surrender. All the time I had known him he had seemed invulnerable, an animal spirit from one of his boreal legends. Seeing him now left me wanting nothing more than to empty my stomach onto the ground and weep.
    Pakrad had raised his sword. ‘If you do not surrender now, I will kill the wounded first. Then I will finish you one by one. You, Demetrios, will be the last.’
    ‘That is barbaric,’ I muttered.
    ‘It is war.’
    Beside Pakrad, one of his men dangled his sword like a pendulum over Sigurd’s throat. ‘Well?’
    I dropped my sword, pulled my left arm out of my shield straps and let it fall to the ground. Sigurd groaned; the other Varangians looked at me with despising, hatefilled eyes. One of them – a young man named Oswald – could not stand the wound to his pride: he ran towards the line of Pakrad’s men, bellowing a war-cry and lifting his axe to strike. A long spear ran him through before he was within four feet of his enemies. He was lifted clear off the ground by the force of the blow before falling, gurgling, on his back. A second spear finished him with a thrust between his eyes.
    None of the other Varangians had moved to follow him, and none did so now. Whether cowed by his fate or sickened by the waste, they threw down their axes.
    With supreme derision in his moment of triumph, Pakrad turned his back on us.
    ‘Lock them away.’

δ

    They stripped us of our armour and herded us out of the church, into a small adjoining room. Once it had probably been a chapel; now, with iron rings driven into the walls and lengths of rope and chain lying in the corners, it had become a prison. The only mercy was that it had a roof. The thatch was black with mould, and allowed a steady dribble of water to drip through, but it kept the worst of the rain off us.
    Our captors tied our wrists, then made us fast to the wall on short ropes just long enough that we could sit. They treated the wounded no more gently – even Sigurd, whom they had carried there and who slumped unconscious against the wall. All told, nine of us seemed to have survived. With brusque tugs to make sure our bonds were secure, they left us alone.
    I sat in the darkness, tipping my head back against the cool wall to lessen the strain on my shoulders. Despair squeezed me so tight that my body longed to empty itself: the food from my guts, the tears from my eyes, the blood from my veins. Only the presence of the Varangians kept me from collapse. The sour smell of blood overwhelmed the room, and the wounded groaned out their pain. I closed my eyes, though it made no difference.
    After about an hour, Pakrad came to visit. The monk’s habit had gone, replaced by a grimy grey tunic and a leather hauberk. Three knives hung from his belt, another jutted from the top of his boot. Of his monastic disguise, only the tonsure remained – an incongruous crown to his vicious appearance.
    ‘We need a doctor,’ I said. ‘And water.’
    Pakrad looked down on me with a sneer. ‘You will get what I give you. After you have given me what I want. He pointed to my hands, tied in front of me like a supplicant at prayer. ‘Give me your ring.’
    I looked down at my left hand, to the