We ambled along in stupefied reverie, gawking at everything, until, "Listen!" hissed Gunnar.

The Sea Wolves stopped as one, and held their breath, listening. "What is it?" wondered Orm, after a moment.

"It sounds like an animal," observed Hnefi. "A large one."

"Nay," said Gunnar. "It is people."

"There must be very many of them," agreed Orm.

"A battle!" cried Hnefi. "This way! Hurry!"

Off they ran towards the sound, clutching their weapons in the hope of winning plunder for themselves. I hurried after them so that I would not be left behind. Ahead of us the street widened and I could see movement and colour in the light beyond.

And then I found myself standing in a market square-the largest, busiest, noisiest market I had ever seen, thronging with hordes of people and all of them bawling at the top of their voices. Merchants stood beneath rich-woven canopies crying the virtues of their wares to one and all, wheedling with their customers in any of six languages while prospective buyers sauntered slowly by, eyeing each item and bargaining with undiluted fervour. Strange battle this, but a form of combat nonetheless. The various sounds of commerce melded together to produce the monstrous din we had heard.

Drawn into the maelstrom, the Danemen stumbled forth, still holding tight to their weapons. I had taken but a half-dozen paces when my eyes watered and I began sneezing. Directly before me was a stall boasting spices the like of which I had never known: deep red and dusty yellow, black, orange, pale green, and white. These mysterious spices were heaped into pyramids of casual abundance: brown mounds of powder that smelled like peppered honey-cinnamon, I learned later; black deeply pungent spikes, which were cloves; three or four kinds of pepper, yellow turmeric, earth-coloured hills of cumin and coriander, bright red chilies ground to fine crimson powder, golden peaks of ground almonds, and little round, stone-coloured beans called chickpeas. The mingled scents created a perfume so intensely pungent I could not see, and had to hurry on.

Beside the spice merchant was the first of many stalls selling green produce. I stopped and stared down the long line of stalls at vegetables of every kind under heaven: leeks, onions, garlics, lentils, little red objects called capsicums, cucumbers, green finger-like things called okra, cabbages, any of a dozen varieties of beans and squash and melons. Nor was this all. Indeed, it was not even the least part of all I saw. It was as if the whole world had sent its goods to this marketplace: everything from gold and silver to salt and pepper, live animals and Egyptian leather, Macedonian pottery and Syrian wine, magic potions and Holy Icons blessed by the Bishop of Antioch. If one could think of it, there was someone selling it in the market.

One merchant sold only olives-fifteen or twenty different varieties! This astonished me more than anything I had seen before. Sure, I could not tell one olive from another in the dark; I had never even seen an olive before. But looking at bowl after bowl of olives-green, black, purple, and more-it occurred to me that any civilization which could concern itself in such detail with such a small and insignificant fruit must possess powers beyond imagining.

Twenty kinds of olives! Think of it!

No king of Eire, however powerful or wealthy, had ever seen, let alone tasted, one solitary olive. Merely undertaking the transportation would have squandered nearly all of Eire's energies and resources. Yet, here in Byzantium, even beggars could eat olives grown in the furthest outposts of the empire. How, I asked myself, was it possible to measure such an achievement? To this, I had no answer.

Unfamiliar with such casual displays of wealth, the market was, for me, less a place of commerce than a revelation of magnificence unrivalled by anything I had known. After but a few moments, I could comprehend no more; and though I continued walking through the marketplace, looking at everything on offer, my mind simply refused to credit it.

As we passed a stall selling brass bowls and cups and other small objects, the merchant suddenly called out in Danespeak: "Heya! Heya! Come here, my friends."

The Sea Wolves stopped and stared at the man. "This man is a Dane!" said Orm.

"Then he is like no Dane I ever met," observed Gunnar.

"He is, I tell you," insisted Orm, who turned and began speaking rapidly to the man, who simply smiled and spread his hands with a shrug.

"Gunnar is right," decided Hnefi, "the man is no Dane."

Disgusted by what they considered a shabby ruse, the Sea Wolves stalked away. But the brass-seller was not the last to hail the barbarians in their own tongue, for as we made our way along the close-set stalls, other merchants called out to us in Danespeak. At first wary, then charmed, the simple feat, repeated so frequently, soon amazed the Sea Wolves almost as much as the wealth on display. They continually stopped to engage the various sellers in conversation-which did not run far beyond the first few words of greeting on the seller's part before lapsing into Greek or, sometimes, Latin, or some other tongue.

Hunger overtook us as we wandered the lavish stalls. Orm complained loudly that the sight of so much food was making him light-headed. Gunnar said that bold plunderers such as we needed sustenance to keep our wits keen and strength ready. Hnefi suggested that the food would not be good for us; unaccustomed to it as we were, it might make us sick. Orm and Gunnar protested so vehemently at this that Hnefi finally relented. Having a bellyache, he said, was far preferable to listening to the others piss and moan about how hungry they were.

Hnefi decided that we should eat nothing more unusual than salt fish; the others agreed, so we went in search of one of the fish-sellers we had seen earlier. While we were looking, however, we happened upon a man standing at a brazier of glowing coals over which he roasted long strips of meat wrapped on long wooden skewers. The meat sputtered in the heat, sending up an aroma that brought water to the mouth.

Orm took one sniff and stopped in his tracks. He and Gunnar stood side by side, transfixed by the sight and smell of the sizzling meat. The man, his face glowing in the heat of the coals, saw that he had acquired interest in his wares, and called out, "Heya! Heya!"

"How much?" asked Hnefi, pointing at the skewers.

The man shook his head.

"How much?" demanded Hnefi, speaking more loudly.

The man simply smiled wide and shrugged his shoulders. "Forgive me, my friend. I do not understand," he said in Greek.

"He is asking how much for one of the spits you have roasting there," I told the man.

"Ah!" he laughed, "a learned slave we have before us. Welcome to Great Constantine's city, my friend."

"How do you know we are newly arrived?" I asked.

The man laughed again and said that everyone else in the world knew very well that the skewers cost two nomismi. "How many would you like, my friend?"

"Four," I replied, and told Hnefi to give him eight of the small brass coins.

When the money was counted over, the man allowed us to choose our skewers. The Danes wolfed down the meat in gulps and demanded more, which the man happily supplied for eight more coins. Taking our meat-sticks, we continued on through the maze of market stalls, chewing the meat from the sticks and looking at all around us. The Danes moved like men in a dream.

As we passed along a row of stalls selling incense and perfume, our progress was arrested by the sight of a most regally beautiful woman being borne through the market in a chair on poles. Four slaves carried the chair and a fifth held a round sunshade made of stiffened cloth attached to a slender cane. The woman-a queen, certainly-wore a robe of shimmering blue silk; her hair was elaborately curled and heaped high on her elegant head, and her painted face was impassive as she regarded all beneath her.