The Last Viking. The Great City

The great city on the shore of the strait dividing Europe and Asia was once called Byzantium. Later it was renamed Constantinople. In Rus’ it was known as Tsargrad, and in Scandinavian countries as Miklagard—that is, the Great City. The last of the Vikings, Harald the Severe, spent his youth in Miklagard. Here he matured, turning from a simple royal bodyguard into the true master of the Sacred Palace—by his own will, overthrowing and enthroning Byzantine emperors and empresses. Harald the Severe will return to his homeland and create his own empire. But for now, the future conqueror and poet needs to learn a great deal in Miklagard, the great city where luxury and poverty, majesty and the base, piety and the deepest debauchery coexist side by side like nowhere else in the world.