The High City

Raef reaches Constantinople with Rus and Norse companions while the empire is divided by the rebellion of Bardas Phokas against the young Basil II. The newcomers enter a city whose ceremonial splendour conceals military crisis, factional rivalry and the constant danger of palace intrigue. Raef’s refusal to accept the social distance between foreign mercenaries and imperial elites attracts the attention of the court and places him close to Basil, Constantine VIII and the people manoeuvring around them.

As the civil war approaches the capital, the northern warriors are transformed from raiders into imperial soldiers and become part of the force associated with the early Varangian Guard. Raef’s entanglement with a woman of the imperial household sharpens Basil’s hostility and makes personal escape inseparable from political survival. The novel uses Constantinople’s streets, palaces, hippodrome and harbour to show how outsiders can become indispensable to an empire that still considers them barbarians.