“Sedko,” Gontran said. “Sedko Sitinits.”
The man’s blue eyes squinted with joy, and his smiling lips revealed his carefully clean white teeth. He widened his arms, stepped forward, hugged Gontran, patted his back, and laughed.
“Gontran Koraki!” he growled. “Hey, look who it is! And you’ve brought Kambine Diaresso along for the ride—Diaresso, my god, what the hell are you still doing with this guy?”
“Oft do I ask myself the same question,” Diaresso said as Sedko lunged over to embrace him.
“We gotta jam together, man,” Sedko said to Diaresso. “It’s been way too long.”
“Only a moment ago I uttered the selfsame words to a number of fishermen here on this very vessel,” Diaresso said. “They are among the greatest singers I have ever had the pleasure to hear. Their music moved my very soul, it did.”
“Yeah, they’re great, aren’t they?” Sedko said. “This whole place is just like continuous music in every form, you know? Food, architecture, being, you name it, we got it. And who might this be?” Sedko stepped back to regard Samonas up and down. “You two losers made a friend? That’s a first.”
“I am Samonas,” Samonas said. “Special Advisor to Strategos Herakleia of Trebizond.”
“Never heard of her.” Sedko shook Samonas’s hand. “Heard of Trebizond, though. It’s a real entrepôt, if you know what I mean.” He nudged Samonas’s ribs so hard he gasped.
“The song they sang,” Diaresso continued. “It was of a stunning beauty.”
“Nobody wants to hear about that dumb song, Diaresso,” Gontran said.
“Be silent, thou unappreciative giaour,” Diaresso growled. Then he turned to Sedko. “Can you tell me what the song was about? ”
“Let me see,” Sedko said. “Half a moment.”
He rushed away to the room’s edge and pulled an instrument which resembled a dulcimer from beside a gigantic wardrobe of dark oak. Then he sat on the floor, ruffling his expensive clothing, and he began to strum his dulcimer, which—he explained—was called a gusli in Varangian. Plucking sweet, pretty notes from the strings, he sang softly:
Yes, it happened on the River Neva, on the wide waters.
There we slew our foes’ pick of fighting men, the invading army.
Ah! How we fought, how we routed them!
Yes, we smashed their ships of war to kindling wood!
In the fight our red blood was freely shed
For our great land
Our native land of Rus.
“Yes!” Diaresso shouted. He had been nodding along to the song. “That is the one! Who could have known such a tune was so martial in its very nature? These Khazars, they are warriors, yes, but great poets also!”
“That must be the ruse of the Rus, as it were,” Samonas said.
“I feel the call of this native land,” Diaresso said, as Sedko continued to play. “Though I am no native to it. I feel the call, upon my very soul I do. This great earth mother whose soil brings forth such men, such creatures of dust and clay with such talent!”
“Easy, there,” Gontran said.
“Did you hear this one, Diaresso?” Sedko played a jauntier song. “It’s popular with the Volga boatmen. They don’t live so far from here. They sing all sorts of things to this kind of melody.”
He sang:
Arise to arms, ye folk of Rus!
In battle just, we fight to death!
The Russian people, free and brave
Defend our fair and native land!
“Play such a song for me, and I shall die for you, if you ask,” Diaresso said. “Only call me one of your own—and bury my body in this beautiful earth. I have never seen it, I cannot see it now, and yet in my mind’s eye, its rich dark soil sprouts with trees and crops…”
“Novgorod.” Sedko stopped the music. “Glorious Novgorod. Novgorod of the white walls—of the bells, of the dragon ships, and the golden domes topped with crosses. That’s where I’m from. And that is far from here. Far in the northern wilds, on the way to Lake Ladoga. Back when I was young and I lived there I didn’t have a grivna to my name. I was so poor, nobody would marry me. I had nobody to sing to but my little river Volkhov. And hey, she was the prettiest river that ever was, and she treated me better than most wives—though not all.” He laughed.
“Doesn’t Novgorod mean ‘Newtown?’” Gontran said.
“You bet.” Sedko put the dulcimer away. “And you can also bet it was new, once upon a time. Probably hundreds of years ago. Not so new anymore, though.” He looked at his guests. “Anyway, as I was saying—welcome to Kitezh. It’s a helluva place, ain’t it? A lot of people call it Veliky Kitezh—it means ‘Great Kitezh’ in Varangian. Because, as you can see, it’s pretty great.”
Sedko gestured for them to sit on the nearest silk pillows, then clapped his hands twice very hard. A young servant with a blond bowl cut rushed in from the doorway and bowed, rumpling his silk kaftan.
Even the servants here wear silk, Gontran thought.
“Hey, Svyatoslav Olgovich, do me a favor and bring our guests some chow.” Sedko winked at Gontran. “A nice big bucket of slop for this nemtsy here.”
As Svyatoslav Olgovich bowed and left, Sedko poured everyone cha from the pot atop the samovar, and then offered them the hookah tube. Gontran and Diaresso accepted, but Samonas politely refused.
“Now here’s the thing.” Sedko sucked smoke from the hookah. “Before we talk about anything else. You probably shouldn’t call me Sedko, at least not in front of the Khazars. Nobody here calls me that.”
“Somehow you swindled yourself into a kingship,” Gontran said. Sedko is short for Sed. Co—Sedko, Incorporated, since the guy is such a businessman.
Sedko shrugged, pursed his lips, and tilted his head. “So what if I did? Anyway, they call me King Benjamin here, although if they don’t address me as Khagan Bek, I gotta have ‘em whipped. Thankfully that doesn’t happen much. I was never a fan of whipping.”
“Alright, King Benjamin Khagan Bek.” Gontran grinned. “Did you win this place in a game of dice?”
“Something like that,” Sedko said. “The Khazars, man, they’re mostly a mix of Jews and Turks, with a bit of the old Varangian Rus thrown in for some of that pungent borscht-y flavor. They like people who get results.”
“Guess that means they made a big mistake with you,” Gontran said.
Sedko laughed. “Well, you know, as it turns out, being a Novgorod merchant makes all the difference. I’ve got so many contacts all over the place, the Khazars were looking for a leader, we made a deal, and here I am. They liked my music, too. Learning all those pentatonic tunes from Diaresso has paid off in quite a few ways.”
“Is that how you appear to be so familiar with one another?” Samonas said. “All of you are merchants.”
“Me and Gontran and Diaresso?” Sedko said. “I knew ‘em back in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies—the Kingdoms in the Sun. Palermo of the palm trees. Hot fucking place, got sunburned every day, very bad for my nose. In those days these two were running silk and spice for the Normans, although I don’t know what kind of scam they’re up to now.”
“People’s war,” Gontran said.
Sedko winced. “Not a lot of money in that, is there?”
Gontran shook his head. “Not if you’re on the people’s side.”
“As Allah right well knows, there is no money,” Diaresso said. “Only heartbreak.”
“And bankruptcy,” Gontran added.
“Sounds like you two are still just as hopeless with money as the last time I saw you,” Sedko said.
“But we have a great deal of hope for a better future,” Samonas said. “A risk in the beginning can lead to great rewards in the end, as I’m certain you are fully aware. Yes, we have a great deal of hope, as a matter of fact.”
Gontran glared at Samonas. He was talking too much, as usual.
“Well, you know, that sounds great,” Sedko said. “The only problem is, people can’t live on hope. They can’t eat it. They can’t drink it. They can’t live on excuses. You gotta deliver real material results they can see and touch—even if you start out small—in the here and now.”
“Thus our journey to this place,” Samonas said. “And the various proposals we wish to make.”
“Hey, look, I don’t know how they do things in Trebizond,” Sedko said. “But here in Kitezh, first we eat and enjoy each other’s company, then we get down to business. Sound good?”
“That is the way of doing things in Tomboutou also,” Diaresso said. “Days may pass in the company of house guests before they broach the reason for their coming over a kola nut and some palm wine.”
Samonas bowed. “Do forgive the breach in etiquette.”
“Nonsense, there ain’t nothin’ to forgive! Now, where is that Svyatoslav Olgovich?” Sedko said. “I asked him to—ah, here he is, finally. Service here, it’s gettin’ a little slow these days. I’m gonna have to bust a few heads.”
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Svyatoslav Olgovich returned with a platter of sliced melons and apples, cheese, preserves, freshly baked bread, something like pound cake, as well as rhubarb pie, and pancakes with caviar. The platter was so huge and heavy the servant trembled as he carried it; his sweat dripped onto the floor. Sadly, much of this feast disappeared down Diaresso’s gullet almost before the others had even gotten a chance to look at it. Gontran and Samonas were, however, content to keep slurping at their scalding cha, which warmed their flesh and bones all the way down to their toes, and slowly increased their stamina. The men were so frigid from all their time among the wintry wind and waves that they’d failed to realize, until then, just how deeply the cold had penetrated them.
“I was so cold, I didn’t even know it,” Gontran explained. “This cha…it goes straight to your bones. To your marrow. And to whatever’s inside your marrow.”
“To the depths of your very soul,” Diaresso added.
“Yeah, it’s good shit, ain’t it?” Sedko said.
“Quite,” Samonas said.
Svyatoslav Olgovich had also brought a wooden box, inside of which was a big chunk of salt and a pair of iron pincers. Using the pincers, he cut dozens of smaller chunks of salt away. Many finer grains were caught inside the box, though not a single grain fell to the floor. Then Svyatoslav Olgovich bowed and disappeared back down the corridor, to wherever such people known as “Svyatoslav Olgovich” originate.
“You’re gonna love this,” Sedko said to Gontran.
“You like salt with your cha, Sedko?” Gontran said.
“I know you weren’t always the smartest guy around, but do me a favor and try to keep up,” Sedko said. “This ain’t that complicated.”
He took one of the small salt chunks, placed it on his tongue, and then sipped his scalding cha so loudly he made a hissing sound. The hot cha reddened his cheeks.
“Oh yeah, that hits the spot right there,” Sedko said. “In the winters, man, this is all we do. We just hang out and drink cha. We read books, tell stories, play music. It’s great.” He looked at his guests. “So whaddya say? Try my product.”
Gontran and Diaresso glanced at each other, then copied Sedko’s actions while Samonas—always the more careful one—observed.
“It is like unto salt,” Diaresso said, after he had tasted the white chunks with cha. “Yet sweet. A sweet salt. A sort of solidified honey.”
Gontran laughed. “It’s sugar.”
Sedko looked at him. “How’d you know that?”
“It’s been awhile since I’ve had any,” Gontran said. “To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever taste it again—not in this form, anyway. I just sort of forgot about it…”
“In Serindia they call it khanda,” Sedko said. “But Gontran, you used the Sarakenou word for it—sukkar. It ain’t cheap, but we got it for a very good price. I know a guy, I can connect you if you’d like. This shit has all kinds of medicinal purposes, too. It’s great for the digestion and especially masculine vigor!” He elbowed Gontran and winked at Samonas, who blushed.
“No, it isn’t.” Gontran chuckled. “It’s just a sweetener. Where I come from, it’s made everyone sick and miserable. People eat a ton of this stuff. It’s practically floating around in the air.”
“Don’t you come from some shithole in France?” Sedko said. “I mean, no offense, but how can they have any of this shit there? I thought all those people ate was mud. That’s what you told me about it.” Sedko looked at Samonas. “Gontran never had anything good to say about that place. They eat mud, they live in mud, they work in mud, they’re born in mud, they die in mud—they are mud!”
“He does indeed have a rather individualistic attitude.” Samonas smiled at Gontran. “‘Everyone is a problem but me,’ and all that.”
“Anyway,” Sedko continued, “sukkar is so expensive here, it might have been cheaper if we’d flavored our cha with gold…”
“Gontran is not speaking of his homeland when he speaks of this sukkar,” Diaresso said. “He speaks of a different homeland.”
“What the hell do you mean?” Sedko said.
“To explain is difficult,” Diaresso said. “For there is a djinni, at this moment, infesting Gontran’s spirit. This creature claims to originate in a sorcerous realm it calls ‘the old world,’ where abound the most harebrained things. Thus his statement regarding this sukkar.”
“Demonic possession is what you’re talking about,” Sedko said. “Well, hey, we’ve got a way to deal with that, too. In Kitezh, there’s something for everybody! But in this case, I’m talking about these special priests called šaman. They’re from way the hell out there, the other side of the steppe, around Tunguska. Some even come all the way from Cauli. The šaman can get that djinni of yours exorcised. I can get you a great deal on one of their kut ceremonies.”
Gontran shrugged, but kept quiet, having little desire to offend his host.
Samonas, meanwhile, had been sipping at his cha without trying the sukkar. “It would indeed appear that this place is welcoming to all faiths,” he said.
Sedko nodded. “Oh yeah. We’re merchants, alright. Our only god is money. For everyone else aboard, they can pray to whoever they want, long as they stay out of the way of the one true god—the only one we can see and touch. The only one who really changes the world, who can turn a village into the beating heart of an empire, who can make a weak man strong, an ugly man handsome, a—”
“That is false,” Diaresso said. “One can readily behold the wondrous transformations of Allah wheresoever one turns—”
Gontran looked at him.
“Still into the Islam I see,” Sedko said to Diaresso. “Well, like I told you, I couldn’t care less. There’s so many different faiths here, some I’d never even heard of—and not just those šaman I mentioned. We’ve got it all. We’ve got fire-worshippers from Persia, some Nestorian Christians from the Church of the East, and another group called Sabians—they worship the severed head of Hermes, who they say lives in Syria somewhere, and reveals the future to his buddies I guess. And then we’ve even got a few hairy dudes from Baktria who are really into some guy called Boutta. I don’t really know what he’s about. He’s kind of lanky and ladylike, he sits around a lot and says the world’s an illusion and we should all just kind of take it easy or else we’ll turn into worms after we die.”
“We have encountered these idolators and devil-worshippers on our journeys to Sera,” Diaresso said.
“Anyway,” Sedko continued, “all these people come here, they flee persecution, they live, they trade. They’re grateful for the break we give ‘em, so they work their asses off. But hey, when it comes to spiritual sicknesses, the šaman can be useful.” He looked at Gontran.
“That’s alright,” Gontran said. “I’ve gotten used to it. I’m not the only one with this problem—a couple of my friends have it, too—and it’s actually saved my life a few times.”
“You know,” Sedko said, “if this demon that’s possessing you is telling the truth, we could find a way to travel to this realm of yours and bring some sukkar back. One boatload of this shit would make us the richest men in the world. We’d be so rich, we’d be swimming in money. We wouldn’t have the Middle Sea anymore. We’d just have the Money Sea.”
“There’s a lot more than just sugar there,” Gontran said. “But it’s not possible to go. Not unless you can overthrow the Roman emperor and destroy the Roman Empire.”
Sedko laughed and pointed at him. “Ah, Gontran, you haven’t lost your gift for accidentally telling strange jokes.”
Samonas put down his cup of cha. “That is actually the reason for our coming here, not to put too fine a point on it.”
“What, you’re already getting down to business again?” Sedko said. “Can’t I enjoy your company a little longer? We just got started on this banquet, here! Or at least some of us did.” He looked at Diaresso. “Others already polished off quite a bit. I swear to god, I’ve seen this guy eat twenty pies in one go. He could eat the whole world if he wanted—heavenly spheres, empyrean, and all. Hey, Diaresso, how many pies have disappeared into that gullet of yours?”
Before Diaresso could answer, Samonas cleared his throat. “We come from Trebizond, and—”
“Yeah, you mentioned that earlier, Trebizond, I know all about it,” Sedko said. “The merchants there, though, don’t mess with those guys—they’ll fleece you like sheep.”
“Excuse me, but is that a good or a bad thing?” Samonas said.
“Bad,” Sedko said.
“And yet perhaps the situation has changed since you were last there,” Samonas said. “Have you heard of the uprising?”
“Course I have,” Sedko said. “Oh, it’s been a nightmare for us traders. Nobody down there in Romanía has any money these days. You know, all these troubles with the Romans have turned into our troubles, going back way before this little uprising of yours. That’s mostly the reason we’re out here in the first place. The Khazars used to have this huge land empire stretching across half the steppe. They traded with everybody, they exacted tribute, they had big walled cities filled with palaces. Then Romanía started having problems, so we started having problems, since we were all so closely linked with all the trade and whatnot. We built Kitezh to get away from the Varangians and the Turks, even though plenty of Khazars are Varangians and Turks—just some of the more enterprising variety, the ones who prefer trading to stealing and killing. And so here we are. Whatever was left of Khazar’s wealth got poured into this ship, this regular Noah’s ark, built to survive the flood of catastrophes that’s sweeping the whole world.”
“And so Kitezh has no army?” Samonas said.
“We’ve got a small security detail, as you’ve probably noticed,” Sedko said. “But we rely on our mobility and a few ships to protect us. These days there aren’t too many other boats out here, especially out in the deeper waters away from the coast.”
“What about the ketoi?” Gontran said. “We ran into a real nasty one not far from here.”
“There’s a way for dealing with them, too,” Sedko said. “We’ve got some Serans on our ship who know how to propitiate ‘em, since big dragons, flying or water or otherwise, they’re more common over there in Sera. There’s ways to stay in their good graces, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t,” Gontran said.
“You have to sacrifice,” Sedko said. “You have to be on high. You have to ride the dragon. Sometimes they’re even lucky. They don’t just eat people—they can be omens of good fortune. You can hear ‘em coming if there’s the sound of ringing coins in the air, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Occasionally they even grant wishes, if you’re really lucky.”
Gontran raised his eyebrows and looked away. “Alright.”
“Anyway,” Sedko said. “The steppe raiders, you know, they don’t like the sea of water, they like the sea of land. I think there’s some catechism from Alcuin—you’ve heard of that guy, haven’t you, Gontran?”
“Nope.”
“He’s a Frankish philosopher,” Sedko said. “He said something like: ‘What is the sea?’ And the answer is: ‘a refuge from danger.’”
Samonas frowned at Gontran as if to say that this entire venture had been a waste of time, and that they should leave immediately.
Won’t be easy, Gontran thought. Sedko’s a talker.
“So you made caesar into one of your many enemies,” Sedko said to Gontran. “Usually not the brightest idea. Those caesars, they tend to be on the nastier side, if you know what I mean.”
“You think I had a choice?” Gontran said.
“So let me get this straight,” Sedko said. “You guys are trying to build your own little Empire of Trebizond at caesar’s expense, and you want Kitezh to help you out?”
“It’s not an empire,” Samonas said. “It’s a union of workers, peasants, and slaves.”
“Sure it is,” Sedko said. “And my father never touched a hair on my pretty little head.”
“We have many things we could trade with you,” Samonas continued. “‘Diverse items which might be of interest,’ I think was the curious manner in which your man put it.”
“I’m listening.”
“We’ve been pumping out enough coal and iron to bankrupt half of Christendom,” Gontran said. He was trying to salvage the conversation with his Journeyman Charismatic skill (6/10), to little avail.
“Well, you know, we’ve got our own sources for that stuff,” Sedko said. “It’s not really worth it to piss off the Romans. Let me tell you, we have enough problems. What really interests people around here is the same shit that’s been interesting everyone since who knows when: silk and spice. And now, sukkar, too. If you’ve got any of that, we might be able to work out some sort of deal. But we can’t lend any military support. We keep that shit at arm’s length. That’s how we survive when everybody else is busy getting robbed and killed. We keep our distance.”
The three travelers fell silent, sipping their cha and nibbling the remains of the banquet.
“Maybe you guys want to rest up?” Sedko said. “I wish my wife was here to meet you. I don’t know where she’s gone off to.”
“You got married?” Gontran said. “I thought you told me you’d always be a bachelor?”
Sedko shrugged. “Times change, people change. When you’re young, you want to do everything, travel everywhere, experience everything. As you get older, you start asking yourself what the hell you’re doing with your life, and you think more and more about settling down. It happened to me. It’ll happen to you. And when it does, you won’t even care. You’ll embrace it—just like I did.”
Gontran smiled. “I don’t think so.”
“The last khagan here,” Sedko continued, “they called him the King of the Sea, he had a kind of bridal show, and wanted me to pick from thirty of the prettiest women in the city. You should have seen ‘em. They were all dolled up like you wouldn’t believe. But there was this one peasant girl behind all of them, serving them and helping them out as they passed me by in this long parade. Even just in her regular peasant clothes, looking tired and sweaty and dirty, she was more beautiful and livelier than all the rest. She reminded me of my little River Volkhov somehow. Her eyes glittered like the stars in the river water, her hair gleamed like the glassy waves at sunrise. I asked her to marry me, and she accepted. I kissed her on our wedding night, and it’s been like a dream out here in the sea ever since. When that happened I figured out that I was never going home. I’d never leave Kitezh. This Palace of the Sea is my home.”
“Congratulations,” Gontran said. “That’s funny. It sounds like such a fairytale. What’s her name?”
“Vasilissa,” Sedko said.