Part One:

Zeno, Centurion of Emperor Vasil's archers, cursed the name of his emperor under his breath. His and a hundred other fingers ached to release the shaft that would pierce the heart of the lumbering warrior that now stood a hundred paces before the great gate of Zantyum.

Igor stumbled forward almost dropping the shield, mallet and spike that he carried. Igor could see that the gate was not made of gold and ivory as had been sung in the fable. It was ten times his height and made of oak and iron. It had been scorched by the fire of a hundred sieges. The flint arrow points of the enemies of Zantyum covered the gate with a sparkling chain-mail. The great gate had been assailed a hundred times but never yielded.

Igor stopped for an instant and thought. "Have I led a thousand fools south for this? Did Ivan, that bastard of mine, lie to me. Is there no Zoe?" The clam shell locket bounced against the grey and red hair of his heaving chest. It burned with pale cold light against his huge pectorals. Igor felt a rush of fear cut through his heart. Perhaps she was no longer inside. His hands snapped open the locket and he seemed to step out time.

For that instant he was a a thousand miles north, lost inside the great whale's belly of Mead Hall which shielded them from the northern darkness and the eternal winter which lasted half a year. The voices lost themselves in the moist smoke as it followed the great whale's ribs that supported the peat roof.

Igor heard his own voice cut through the smothering guts of the hall.

"If you will not sell the locket then I will kill you for it, " cried Igor. Then he heard his son Ivan answer.

"You will never own it. You will never see her. She is too white, to pure for your eyes, you bloated ox!"

But Igor did not have to fight or kill for the locket. Instead he threatened his own son with being the cause of his fathers suicide. But now Igor was back in the present

Igor snapped the clam shell shut and dropped the locket inside his shirt.

To his men watching from a small ridge outside of arrow range Igor looked like a tiny figure on the great plain. The walls of the city stretched to the periphery of their vision. Behind the walls, ships came and left every minute, as if the siege of Zantyum were only a dream in the Vikings' minds.

One of the spear carriers spoke. "Igor should be crushed like an ant. Why did they fall back? This city is larger than our kingdom -- it rules the world."

"We are no more than an insect on their shin." "It must have been our time," said another. "I hope Igor's heart does not fail. He is really far too old for this. He should be home fishing."

Luckily the last hundred paces were down hill and Igor seemed almost to roll against the gate.

From a secret window Zoe looked down at Igor.She had never seen a man so ugly. His hair hung like a mane across his broad but sloping shoulders. there was nothing about him which spoke of royalty. She could see the burrs in his matted red beard and scars from his hundred battles covered his heavy body. Then she thought of her father's words the last time that a prime minister died sampling some eastern delicacy before her father the emperor.

"Once too often you have tried to kill me, Zoe. You will leave with Igor "Emperor of the North" who is coming south for you, that or you will eat first at our next banquet and the empire will mourn you for saving your father's life. Perhaps, you will fall off the wall on one of your little midnight walks."

How could these two northerners (father and son) be so different? She thought of Ivan,(the son of Igor who now stood like some ox at the great gate) She remembered Ivans hands, his hair, his height, and his eyes. She remembered how she had snatched him from the Marshall of the Empire, who had bid Ivans weight in gold. She thought of his hands, twice as large as hers, and she thought of how quickly his hands learned to play the lyre. He had grown too close to her too quickly and one night she had sent him out of the city and home, home to save his life. Her words to him sliced across time.

"Take this small thing to remember me with." Into his hand she pressed her locket, shaped like a clam shell, opening with a hidden clasp and containing a perfect like ness of Zoe inside. It shone with a cold, precious light that would bring both fire and ice to Ivan's heart.

Now the same locket banged against Igor's chest as he rose to his feet, spike, shield and mallet in hand, he pressed his forearm to hold the shield to the gate.

The first blow glanced off the spike and smashed against Igor's finger. He roared like a wounded bull and his men on the hill held their sides laughing, and then it changed. Igor's hands were sure, his chest was deep, and his balance steady. With three blows, he drove the spike through the shield and into the iron and wood.

"I claim Zoe for my own, give me what is mime or, your city will be in ashes," cried Igor.

A door appeared as if by magic next to the gate and the emperor's marshall stepped through. He was dressed in his full ceremonial armor and spoke to Igor in his own tongue.

"What is this disturbance, you northern ruffians? Why do you insult the summer day with your buffoonery?" Milos clutched the hollow silver shaft of his spear and waited.

From the hill one Viking said, "By Odin's goats, if they come out, we are all dead. What's happening now?"

They squinted their eyes, and saw a shape appear in purple robes, wearing a leaf cluster of gold on his forehead. Vasil was only a few years older than Igor but he seened wraith like in appearance, while Igor battled across the world, Vasil had spent life in political intrigue and philosophical speculations. Thousands had died over the question of whether or not the deity could appear in the icon, and a empire had been split over the form the Prelate would deliver a benediction.

Vasil spoke. "You will have Zoe. You will marry her and you will receive a dower of ten times your weight in gold. (Well maybe five times your weight) But you will be baptized and you will take a priest north with you when you leave, which will be immediately.

"What is a priest, what is baptized?" said Igor. "What is married?" "I would not send my daughter to live with a heathen. I would not send her to live as a concubine. I would not send her without a priest to meet her spirit's needs."

Igor looked up at Zeno's bow, now pulled back, and hundred like it drawn taunt. The Viking shuddered for an instant, and then Igor smiled.

"Then I will have an emperor for a father-in-law.:" Zoe wished she could drive a dagger into her father's heart. But she knew that he had a web of mithril woven into his purple robe. It had turned an assassin's dagger back many times before. It was Igor or poison, and she chose life over annihilation. She stepped out of the great gate which creaked open just enough to let her form slip through.

She forced herself to look at Igor. Her eyes moved form his heavy boots to his leggings to his short thick legs, past his belly to his chest, which was like a boulder. And then she saw the chain. With his hands, he reached inside his heavy; shirt. The silver clamshell sparkled in the midday sun; Igor looked directly into her black eyes and opened the locket.

She looked into his eyes, and said with a deadly measured voice. "Did you kill him for it?"

"No," said Igor, "it is a curse for a man to kill his son." Zoe looked into his eyes and tried to find some reason to keep herself from killing him the first time he made love to her.

They were married immediately after the priest baptized Igor. Within five minutes, the donkeys were loaded with gold. Zoe rode in an ivory cart pulled by white asses as Igor walked in front. Before they left, Vasil kissed his daughter on the forehead. The half a thousand vikings stood on the ridge most of them scratching there heads not believing that it had happened. This this day the was enough gold and glory for all.

When the wedding party was beyond earshot, Vasil turned to the Marshal of the Empire and said, "You will send a dispatch to all towns and all the stations of the empire. It will read like this..." A scribe was summoned instantly.

"Today was a noble day for the Empire of Exanthem. Igor, leader of host of 100,000, walked fearlessly to the gate of Exanthem. In his huge hands, he carried only a shield, a steel spike, and a silver mallet. With three blows he drove the spike through the gate and demanded an audience with the Emperor Vasil, subduer of the Eastern Hordes. The Emperor bravely faced the intruder, the scourge of the whole world, and asked what he wanted. He demanded the Emperor's daughter. Vasil agreed, but only if Igor would accept the True Cross and marriage. Vasil touched Igor's spirit, and he accepted. It was a great day for both the Emperor of the North and the Emperor of the South."

"Anyone who disputes this , anyone who writes another history will hang upside down from the cross."

The Marshall looked at Vasil, perplexed. "But why, good Emperor?" he asked. "A thousand years from now, we will be part of the saga of the great warrior Igor. Besides, if she had stayed another night, she would have killed me."

At the end of the first day's journey, Zoe was heard to scream at the priest. "I would die before I let that ... thing touch me."

The priest only smiled as he explained to Zoe the obligations of the queen of the North to her royal husband. He further explained that despair was the only sin that royalty could not escape eternal fire, by paying indulgences

Igor stood somewhat away from the din and looked at the last lines of light in the pale evening sky. He opened the locket and looked at Zoe. They were the same woman; but the woman in the locket seemed so much younger.

Part II: Igor's Wedding Night

Princess Zoe reached inside her bodice and pulled out two tiny hollow glass daggers. She had decided that eternal fire was a better fate than a night with Igor. One dagger was filled with the slow excruciating poison for her enemies; the other was filled with the purple poison which would mean an instant and painless death for herself. One was for Igor and one was for herself, but as yet, she was not sure when she would use them. She thought that, perhaps, at the instant that Igor would have her, she would bury the slow death in his back, and then be done with herself.

Just as she fastened them back inside her bodice, Igor entered the tent. Had she ever seen and uglier man, she wondered. Yes, she had--and for the good of the state, and at her father's bidding, she had once slept with a powerful eunuch from the East, whose pleasure came in giving her unspeakable pain. If she had done that for Zantyum, perhaps,for herself she would stay alive a bit longer. Something inside her made her speak to him in his own language. It was as if womanly disdain and disgust overwhelmed her passion for murder and suicide and made her speak.

"Igor, you smell like a stable. You smell like the latrines of my father's soldiers," she snarled.

"Smell? What smell? This is the way that we all smell. Every spring, in the chilled water, we bathe off the winter's evil spirits. I have done that now for two score and five winters."

"If you step inside my tent, husband of mine, you will wash the filth off your body, or,or,orr,(her voice trailed off) what she thought, what does it matter, she was going to kill him anyway.

Zoe could hardly believe that she had said that to Igor. Did she really mean to think of him, to take him as a man? What would he do, she thought? If he tried to rape her, he would die an exceeding painful death. She turned from him and rummaged through her chest. She found a cake of sweet-smelling soap and flung it at Igor, along with a tunic made of fine linen.

"Bathe...bathe?" mumbled Igor as he backed out of the tent. This was surely not what he had expected. He was supposed to die, impaled like some fat hedgehog, stuck through like some giant pincushion. The story was supposed to be over.

In the northern halls, they were to sing of his quest; and here he was being ordered to take a bath by woman who seemed more like his mother than like a mythical princess whose picture he carried in the lock he had wrested from his son in that wrestling match six months before.

By now the sun had set, and Igor thought he could sneak off to some shallow pool and wash himself, as he had been ordered. The moon was full and the night was warm. As Igor disrobed, he could see his reflection in the pale moonlight. His memory was a curse to him; some days, he could remember what it felt like to be fifteen, and some days, he could barely lift his battle axe. Bjorn had told him to be grateful for the days when he felt fifteen, but in some ways, they only made the other days seem worse. But maybe they made the other days worth living for.

The Vikings has no love for water. Many had drowned because it was too cold in the north to learn to swim. He remembered that he had been meaning to ask the priest about the fiery Hell that the missionaries had tried to threaten the Vikings with. As he walked into the water, carrying the cake of soap, he curled his toes to escape the cold. Then he charged in, thinking he might as well get it over with. Waist-deep water was as much as Igor was willing to risk. The soap made a rich, sweet-smelling lather which amused him no end. He thought that this was not so bad, and at least he fled undriven by anything, for the first time since childhood.

His mind seemed to move north.Igor had more children than he could count--or even remember-- but since Ivan had been quite small, he had stood separate. He was more like his mother (The only woman Igor had married) than like Igor. Igor's life might have been different if Sylvia had lived; but that was a door that he dared not open. No one blamed him that he had been passed out when the raid had taken place. All said that he had wrought a vengeance that Woden would have been proud of; but since then, everything in the north had seemed off-center. Bjorn knew about these things. God, how he missed Bjorn! None of the others who had come south could share Igor's memories. With none could he share the great joke of his survival. The night and the moon seemed that they would last forever. Igor was startled out of his reverie by a jumping fish. And then several pebbles hit the water.

As Igor turned, he saw a line of leering Vikings on the river bank.

"Hey, Emperor of the North! Making yourself look pretty for your new bride? Aren't you pretty enough for her? Doesn't she think that you smell pretty enough for her?"

"Silence!" roared Igor. "Shut up, or I'll kill you!"

"Kill us, kill us!" they shouted. "But Igor, you are too pretty and pink to kill anyone."

Igor was suddenly embarrassed by his own nakedness, and tried to cover himself. He looked for his life like some grotesque characterure of a startled maiden. Igor knew that if he did not get them all in the water, he would lose his role as leader, and all would joke about Igor's Bath.

"There are nymphs in this pool. They will clutch at you and make you forget what you left at home."

You are lying to us," said Sven. "There are no nymphs in this pool."

Just as he spoke, a pale shape glided by Igor in the water. As he turned, it seemed to be the pale, beautiful shape of a young woman. He had said something, and it has become real. They had seen it on shore, and were out of their leathers in an instant. Suddenly the waters were frothing with the gamboling shapes of nymphs and warriors. Igor rubbed his eyes, but the vision would not go away. Then he felt the locket, warm against his chest. In an instant, it was all over. Igor and then Vikings stood staring at each other, rubbing their eyes and wondering if they did indeed for that instant dance with the mermaids. Far in the distance, they all heard a haunting, beautiful song, fading into the night sky.

Finally, Sven spoke. "There are gifts that are beyond our norther minds. Because it has happened once does not mean it will happened again. I know that I will never again hate water."

Princess Zoe smiled quietly in her tent. At least for the moment, she to felt young and clean.

Igor made his way back to the tent bemused and confused. Zoe waited. At least for this day, all would stay alive. Igor entered and sat next to Zoe without speaking.

Thinking of nothing else to do, he extended his hand, palm upward and open to her. Their hands were so different! Igor's were thick and strong and gnarled, at home holding either a battle axe or planing the finish on a ship's woodwork. He felt Zoe's had on his wrist, kneading and stretching his fingers. It was his hands that made Igor human to her, made here even want him. It was something that she never would have expected. Love was not the word.there was no word for it.

Igor had never kissed a woman before. A kiss was a way of settling a bargain, making a deal, saying good-bye between men-- and then he felt Zoe's lips softly touch his. Igors wedding was consummated that night. ( Outside the tent, in the morning, two tiny glass daggers were found, broken and discarded. Perhaps she knew that she could not keep such a handy means of death around.)

"What happens now?" asked Zoe. "What do you mean, 'what happens?'" "Do you return to be Emperor of the North?" "I never thought. I mean, things were not supposed to happen this way. Your father was supposed to kill me. I am supposed to be dead by now."

"What can you do, besides fight and loot and rob?" "We tried to trade once, but it didn't work out." "What do you mean, 'didn't work out?'" "They would not trade their gold for our dried fish. So we besieged their city."

"What happened?"

"They lifted the siege in three days, and massacred half our party. They kept the fish."

"Can you read or write?" "No', said Igor, and rolled over, and returned to sleep. It had been quite a night for the Emperor of the North

The priest and Swen talked late that same night. Swen seemed to have taken a precocious interest in theology. The priest was amazed that he might have a second voluntary convert. Swen seemed the most interested in the pains of that fiery hell which he would face if he continued to live his present life after he was converted to Christianity. Swen spoke with deep sincerity to father Cyril (who praised the day he had learned Norse).

"Tell me again father how hot hell is. Tell me about the heat of the eternal flames. Then father baptize three times in the name of the father son and holy spirit"

Just then there was a roar from the skies that seemed to well into a great gale. A great Gale of laughter which swept the world.

Father Cyril was terrified then the gale passed. he grabbed Swens wrist tightly and said fearfully.

"What demons were those. What made those sounds" Swen smiled and said.

"Not demons, this day my old dark gods are amused."

Swen fell to his knees and was baptized three more times in the name of the father son and holy spirit.