The marble halls of the Magnaura were quiet, but not calm.
The whispers of scribes echoed faintly beneath the dome, carried by the drifting scent of incense and old paper.
Outside, the afternoon sun glinted off golden mosaics, but the chamber was darkened by heavy drapes; drawn as if to contain whatever storm now gathered within.
Emperor Constantine VIII sat slumped on his throne, one elbow propped on the gilded armrest, fingers tapping the carved lion’s mane with a thin, irritated rhythm.
Before him stood what remained of the Tó Varangoi; the imperial axe-bearers.
They were fewer now than in his father’s day. Fewer still than before the White Wolf had left their ranks. And the hall felt emptier for it.
The emperor’s eyes, rheumy, petulant, framed by bloated lids and gold rings, glared at them with something between contempt and unease.
"You served under him," he said, voice heavy with accusation. "You shared his oaths, bled in his ranks, and now you stand here, telling me you knew nothing?"
At the head of the group stood Eiríkr Skálason, the oldest among them now, his beard streaked with grey, his cloak still bearing the faded raven crest of Basil’s final campaign.
His eyes did not blink.
"We thought it a raid," said Eiríkr at last. "An act of vengeance against the West. Not treason."
"A raid?" Constantine scoffed. "You call the sack of Bobbio a raid? Rome has sent no fewer than six letters demanding explanation. Six, before I ever heard a whisper from you."
He held up the latest; unsealed. Papal wax shattered. The Latin was harsh, sharp in its condemnation.
"The one you have sheltered is no mere brigand," Constantine read aloud. "He wields relics older than your dynasty, and slaughters God’s anointed with impunity. The White Wolf bears the mark of the Old Ways, and your silence is complicity."
He dropped the scroll to the floor with disdain.
"And now, the Curia knows. Knows we know. So I ask you one final time: who is he?"
Silence again. Then a shift; Eiríkr stepping forward, sighing as if something long buried now clawed its way to daylight.
"He was our captain," the old warrior said. "Under Basil. He led us through Thrace, through Antioch, through the fire and back again. No man bled more for the empire than he did."
"And yet he abandoned it," Constantine hissed.
"No," said Eiríkr. "The empire abandoned him. You left your brother’s friends to rot. Gave your ear to priests and flatterers. The Wolf saw the rot coming. And he left to build something better."
The guards along the wall shifted at that, but Constantine raised a hand to still them.
His voice dropped low. Cold.
Eiríkr hesitated; just for a heartbeat. Then, quietly:
A pause. The name seemed to still the air in the room.
He added. "Captain of Basil’s own hearthguard. You remember him? Yes... He was at the Bulgar Slayer’s funeral."
Constantine leaned back, eyes narrowing. The look on his face said he recalled the man now. Perhaps never even bothering to learn the name in the first place.
"So Rome has its name."
He nodded to a scribe in the corner, who began furiously transcribing.
Eiríkr’s voice turned low, bitter. "You’ve done what he feared. You’ve given them a name. Now they’ll hunt him in truth."
The emperor waved a languid hand. "Let them. Let the Pope send fleets to the ice if he dares. Let him march pilgrims into frost and fire. It is no longer my concern."
But the unease in his voice betrayed him.
For even in this hall of marble and gold, the name had weight.
The White Wolf now had a face. A past. A place in the world’s tapestry.
And that made him dangerous in ways Constantine had barely begun to understand.
The papal chamber stank of candle smoke and old incense.
A letter, creased, weather-stained, and sealed in the faded wax of Constantinople, lay cracked open upon the marble desk.
Its contents had been read thrice now, and yet Pope John XIX still stared at the words as though they might rearrange themselves into something more sensible.
The name meant little at first. Northern. Harsh. A mouthful of frost and consonants. But the titles accompanying it; Captain of the Varangian Guard, sworn under Basil II, now called the High King of the Great North struck deeper than any name.
"So..." the Pope murmured, fingers drumming the gilded edge of a reliquary. "Not some howling pagan born in a mossy cave. Not a mere raider with delusions of grandeur."
He leaned back, the wooden throne creaking beneath his weight. His eyes, sharp despite the folds of age and pride, narrowed toward the open balcony. Rome’s rooftops basked in golden sun; clean, holy, eternal.
A Varangian. Basil’s own man.
"And one who fled the light for ice and shadow..."
He snorted, trying to dismiss the chill in his gut. But his mind churned.
If this man had served under Basil the Bulgar Slayer, then he was no fool. He had walked the libraries of Constantinople.
He had spoken with Greeks, Armenians, Persians, even Arabs. He had seen the maps Rome had long forgotten. The roads Rome had long forgotten.
The rumors, half-laughed off over wine and scripture, of aqueducts in the far north, of stone citadels beyond the ice, of a New Rome rising where no eagle had ever flown...
Could they be more than myth?
He clenched the edge of the parchment tighter.
"Did you uncover something, you pale-skinned beast?" he whispered. "Did the East teach you more than how to kill?"
There was power in old knowledge. In what had been buried when the Empire fractured and bled. Could it be that this Wolf-King had clawed into that grave?
He spat once onto the floor. Then crossed himself.
"Send a copy to the Curia. And another to Cluny," he ordered his attendant. "And tell them this: Vetrúlfr is no mere heretic. He is a pretender. A danger to the soul of Christendom itself."
But still, as he sat alone, he found his hand returning to the letter.
A ghost of old empire clothed in fur and frost.
And perhaps... the beginning of a new one.