Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  From time to time he would go aboard the galley of Georgios Maniakes and noticed that the Greek general always wore his new Order of Catalactus over his gilded breastplate. When the general once asked Harald where his chain was the Norseman answered, ‘In safe enough keeping.. It is not our custom to wear jewellery into battle.’ He said no more and after that Maniakes ceased to wear his gold chain.

  Once they had passed through the Hellespont and out into the broad Aegean they came up with a small fishing smack early one morning and hemmed it in before it could make off. They dragged the dark-faced fisherman aboard a galley and asked him the news of those parts. But the man was so terrified that he was struck dumb at first. So Haldor offered him a cup of wine and a piece broken from a barley loaf; and then the man began to talk very fast in a language that the Varangers could not understand. Maniakes sent one of his Greek lieutenants aboard Stallion to find out what was happening. This soldier listened to the fisherman for a while, then said, ‘He is deceiving us by speaking in the ancient dialect of Lemnos, using words that old Jason himself would have spoken in our forefathers’ time. But he is as Greek as I am, gentlemen. You will see, when I have slit his tongue with my sharp dagger, he will talk as well as Michael Catalactus himself.’

  The man watched wide-eyed while the soldier drew out his dagger, and as soon as it came near to his mouth he began to talk like a true Byzantine. The Northmen heard this and thought it a great jest.

  The fisherman said, ‘Mercy, lord, mercy. I did not dare to speak, not because I am your enemy, but because the pirates who infest our island would murder me if they thought I had told you where they have their lair.’

  The lieutenant then said, ‘You have told us what we wanted to know, you miserable coward. And now because you have insulted the General Maniakes himself by your gibbering, I shall do as I said earlier and shall slit your tongue.’

  The man fell to his knees and began to cry out to the Virgin for help. But Harald came forward and said to him, ‘There is no need to go as high as that, man, when your plea could be answered at a lower level. Now be quiet and behave yourself. Less of this bawling.’

  Then he turned to the lieutenant and said, ‘Put up your dagger, soldier. We know what we need to know.’

  The officer did so with a bad grace and went back to his general to report what Hardrada had said. Maniakes stormed about his deck in a fury for a while, then sent a sailor to the side to call out that the fisherman’s smack should be sunk. But once more Harald answered and called back, ‘If that little boat is sunk I shall see to it that three galleys go down beside it to keep it company.’

  Then the general’s galley drew away as fast as the oars could beat; and the Northmen gave the fisherman a gold coin or two and another cup of wine, then dropped him into his smack and told him to be off while he was still whole. He thanked them until he was out of range of their arrows, then stood up in his boat and began to call them swine, dogs, hairy apes and white-eyed wolves.

  Harald smiled and said, ‘Let him go. At least he has told us what we are. I was coming to the conclusion after all our time in the city that we were only wooden dolls.’

  Later that day they drew a cordon round the southern shore of Lemnos and found five low-lying galleys that belonged to pirates. They stove them all in with iron hooks, then went ashore in several waves and fetched out a score of rough-looking men who carried weapons. In the fighting two Greeks and one Norman were killed. Maniakes sat in judgement on the corsairs and gave a stern punishment. From pine trees he hanged four pirates for each Greek killed and two for the Norman. Harald did not like this judgement but he knew that the general had the Law of Byzantium on his side and that to contest this sentence would be an act of mutiny. Since this would bring death on all the Varangers when they got back to port, he turned away and let the punishment take place. But he saw to it that one of his own men hauled on the ropes. He also saw to it that the remaining pirates were turned loose that night, to make what escape they could.

  For, as he said to Eystein Baardson, ‘I have a certain friendly feeling towards these rough fellows. I think, I can understand how their minds work. I have been a sort of pirate myself in my time.’

  Eystein nodded and said, ‘I was once on the end of a rope in Clontarf for a similar thing, and I should have been eagle’s meat by now but for another Orkneyman who sailed into harbour just as they were about to hoist me.’

  Wulf smiled and said, ‘See what a good man the world would have lost then!’

  12. Wulf’s Kinsman

  Months passed and the Byzantine fleet swept down the Aegean like a great coloured broom. It was more a fishing fleet than a sea-army, for its wide-spread net caught all but the smallest craft that could slip through the mesh. Often towards sunset the Varangers saw the larger black Corsairs driving on southwards towards Crete or Rhodes, rather than stay and be dragged in.

  By the late summer the Greek galleys were low on the waterline with taxes and pirate-plunder, since it was the rule that Varangers might not take such official loot on board - in case they changed their allegiance at the last moment and took the lot home to the north.

  In general the Northmen were there to fight and not to gather gold and since there was little fighting done they had much time to waste. Indeed, it became the rule for the Greek vessels to swing away from them at dawn on their own affairs and only to fetch them in to form a unified fleet if there was trouble. This they did by the use of flares sent up on the points of arrows, composed of nitre and saltpetre and other chemicals which the Byzantines had learned from the Arabs to use to form their own peculiar ‘Greek Fire’.

  So, unless there was such an alarm, the Varangers drew their ships alongside in batches by sundown and gathered together to talk about this and that. On Harald’s ship only the most experienced warmen gathered and so they often talked of fighting and of death.

  One evening when the stars shone through the dark indigo sky like pin-pricks in a lantern shield, a group of Norsemen sat round the log fire that Harald always had built in an iron grid on his deck. And Eystein said, ‘Men grow big by suffering.’

  This was the sort of thing that always started an argument among the Norwegians and Icelanders. The Danes and Swedes often snorted and frowned and spoke of something else, such as pig-breeding or market-prices in Gotland. But on this evening a big Swede said, ‘You dare to say that! You from the islands of sheep-manure and gulls’ droppings?’

  Haldor stepped in calmly and said, ‘He has the right to say anything that the Hardrada lets him, Swede. I come from Iceland - which even you may have heard of and up there we have as many sheep and gulls as Orkney ever had or will have. I can see that your hand is creeping towards your axe but that does not trouble me. Two of my friends stand directly behind you, waiting for you to lift it - then you will know no more.’

  The big Swede looked round quite pleasantly and saw Wulf and Gyric with their hands on their weapons. So he said, ‘I am by nature an inquiring man, Haldor Snorreson, and the motion of my hand towards my axe only showed my great interest in the conversation. But I think you are a liar and a fool and will be prepared to demonstrate both to you if I may, and without the persuasion of your friends who stand directly behind me.’ Haldor said, ‘By all means. When and where you like, Swede.’

  So the Swede said, ‘How can men grow big by suffering, when wounds, which you cannot call anything else but suffering, often chop them to a shorter length? For example, there was an uncle of mine called Glam, who stood as tall as or taller than your captain Harald. Now, he sailed up to Iceland when he was a brisk voyager looking for free forage, and got to be the bailiff of a farm… I forget where it was.’

  Wulf said from behind him with grim jaws, ‘It was in Shady-vale and the farmer’s name was Thorhall.’

  The Swede turning, smiled at him and nodded. ‘You are right, Icelander,’ he said, ‘but so you should be, it was your country and it only happened fifteen years ago.’

  Hald
or smiled back as starkly and said, ‘I too am from Iceland. I have heard the tale as often as Wulf has. Speak on.’ Then the Swede, who had been drinking too much of the voyage ale, rubbed his long red nose and said, ‘This kinsman of mine called Glam was a pretty enough man in his day. Though he could make no living in our own land he did well enough in Iceland among the fools there, jumping out from behind barns by night and scaring rich farmer-chiefs; or trampling on the roof-thatch in the small hours and driving away the peasants. So in a few months he had more gold in his coffer than most of the Icelanders had. And all because of his great Swedish wit, you see.’

  Eystein suddenly said, ‘I can see the end of this story and when it is told I hope that all men whose kinsmen are not involved should stand well away from this fire.’

  Most of the Varangers moved at these words. The Swede watched them go and then he said gently, ‘And when my uncle was well set towards becoming a rich man in his own right and was thinking of journeying back to Sweden to start his own farm and to raise his own family, along comes a brisk and blunt youth with a short sword in his hand to rid the land of its monster.’

  Wulf said, ‘Where did this youth come from, Swede?’

  With unblinking lashless eyes the Swede said calmly, ‘He came from Biarg. Is there anything else you would like to know?’ Wulf shook his head, then jumped into the fire-glow swiftly with his sword in his right hand and his cloak wrapped round his left. He said, ‘No, thank you, Swede. His name was Grettir, he was my mother’s brother and he shortened your troll of a kinsman by a head’s length.’

  The Swede rose too, grinning whitely, his axe up over his shoulder. ‘Aye, that is what I am driving at, Icelander,’ he said.

  The men scattered. But just then Hardrada came from his after-cabin and kicked the hearth-fire into the sea and the deck was in darkness.

  No man saw exactly what happened; but later when Gyric lit the lamps both Wulf and the Swede were lying side by side with puffed eyes and swelled noses, their sword and axe well away from them, not boasting about anything but only snoring.

  And in the morning Harald got the Varanger ships hooked together and held a great Council on the sea, just off Naxos, in which he said: ‘Whether we are Norwegians, Swedes, Icelanders, Danes, Normans, or even English - we are of the one blood. And I will not see that good blood spilled on foreign waters unless there is a bargain to be gained by it from these dark-eyed Greeks. So understand from this time, if I see any one of you - even my dearest friend - as much as raise a clenched fist to strike another of the northern brothers, then his head upon a wooden platter will be the cheapest way he can avoid my wrath.’

  And when he had finished shouting all this down the leather horn he ordered the ships to be cast away. Then he went down to where Wulf lay groaning and, feeling his jaw to find how many teeth he had lost, he said starkly but gently, ‘Wulf Ospakson, do I, or do I not, love my right hand?’

  Wulf mumbled that Harald loved his right hand.

  Then Harald said, ‘But if that hand was full of venom from a viper’s bite what would I do?’

  Wulf waited long before answering; but in the end, with Hardrada staring at him, he had to answer and he said, ‘You would cut it off, brother.’

  Harald nodded like a hairy dragon and said, ‘And why would I cut it off, brother?’

  Wulf gulped and said, ‘So that the poison did not rot all your body, captain.’

  Then Harald said, ‘So, dear Wulf, when I have a body like this fleet about me, do you wonder that I wish to cut off any part which might poison it?’

  Wulf even expected death then, so he gave up trying to excuse himself and lay back with his arms wide and the neck of his shirt open to make it easier for his leader.

  He said with his eyes closed, ‘I have often wondered what it was like to be dead, Harald. Men say so many different things, you can’t tell what is true or what is false. So in a way I am not sorry. I shall know before quite a number of men about me know.’

  There was a heavy silence hanging over his eyelids that lasted for a long while. In fact Wulf went to sleep during that silence. And when he opened his eyes again Harald had gone. So Wulf did not get to know what death was like at that time. Although he tried hard enough to find out, one way and another, as the voyage went on.

  13. Goose-woman and Quarrel

  Now when they got down to the shore at Naxos and found that here they had space for all to drive their galleys on to the sand and clear their undersides of weed and barnacles, Maniakes decided that the fleet should stay for a while.

  The northern sea-folk were quicker than the Greeks at carrying out their work and then looked round for something else to do. A Greek lieutenant who had been a scholar before he took to carrying arms said, ‘Go up above the snow-line among the pines and from there you will get a fine view across the sea. As you look northwards tell yourselves that this is the sea-route old Theseus took on his way back from Crete.’

  Harald said, ‘This Theseus killed the bull, as well as being a good seaman. I am always ready to stand where old heroes have stood.’

  So he took his three friends and they went up in the evening sun. And when they got among the trees they saw a tumble-down cabin roofed with pine-boughs, and a very old woman dressed in black sitting before the hanging door, watching four geese cropping the grass.

  When she caught sight of the Northmen, bare-headed, barelegged, in their tunics of white linen because of the heat, she cried out to Harald, ‘So at last you have come back to fetch me after all those years. The folk down below told me you would never come, but I prayed to Mother Dia and even to Pallas Athene since she looks over your city; and here you are.’

  Harald bowed before her with courtesy and said, ‘I admire the pretty coronet of ivy about your head, lady.’

  She began to laugh and answered, ‘I still have a flask of the purple wine we drank that day, we Maenads, when you sailed away and left me among the raving women. Would you care to taste it, bull-leaper?’

  Harald saw inside that dirty cottage and saw too that her clothes and hands and face were not of the cleanest. So he bowed again and said, ‘I did not drink it then and I shall not drink it now. But, all with respect, my lady.’

  She laughed and said, ‘Why do you call me “lady”? It sounds so formal. Once you called me Ariadne.’

  This meant nothing to Harald, whose mind was taken up with the business of escaping from this sad old woman who lived alone in the wood. So he said, to pass the time, ‘And how are your family, Ariadne?’

  Among Northmen this was a question that one would ask the merest stranger; but the old woman began to tear at her black dress in anger then and shouted out, ‘You know well enough how they are. My father died of grief when your ruffians sacked his city; and my sister hanged herself when her love for you turned her mind. Do not ask me how my family is; there are none of them left, you sly Athenian.’

  Wulf put a little bag of coin beside her and they almost ran back down through the pine-wood. They knew that she threw the coins after them for they heard them clinking against the tree-trunks as they went.

  Haldor was for stopping to pick them up but Harald told him: ‘Leave them be, you fool. If we stay we shall have a mad woman on our hands.’

  Down at the shore again they told the young Greek lieutenant what they thought of him for sending them up there. He only laughed in a sort of mockery and then passed the story round. Soon General Maniakes came to Harald and said, ‘Lead me to this old woman. She needs care so I will have her put into the gaol-house down here in the village where the folk can keep an eye on her.’

  But Harald shook his head and said, ‘She is well enough where she lives, Maniakes. Do not meddle.’

  The general tugged at his beard, for this was said before the men; and from this small happening a greater quarrel came before dark.

  It was like this: the whole army of men saw that night was coming on and so decided to pitch tents on Naxos before sailing the next day.
Now the site chosen by the captains lay near the pine-wood, which would give shelter from the blustery winds of that season and so the men set off up the hill. The Northmen, being more active than the Greeks, reached this spot first and began to pitch their tents on the highest ground. They had hardly driven in their main poles when Georgios Maniakes stumped up and said, ‘So, you Northmen insist on defying me at every turn. You insist on picking the hard high ground for yourselves, leaving my countrymen to lie in the damp grass lower down the hill. I command you to move straightway. We, the Greeks of Byzantium, will have this site.’

  Now Harald came forward, his red face set, and he said, ‘I think that there is some mistake in your argument, Maniakes. First, we Varangers serve the emperor and the empress as well as you do and so are equally privileged. Second, my men will take orders from none but me, as is our arrangement. Third, throughout this voyage it has been our custom for whoever gets there first to choose his place for sleeping. All armies do this; I am asking for nothing strange. Finally, we have never asked your Greeks to shift their tent-poles once they were up, whatever advantage they had found for themselves. You see, Maniakes, all good soldiers must fend for themselves. That is the nature of their trade. So if your Greeks are slow off the mark that is their misfortune. My men will not shift their tents any more than they would expect you to shift yours, once set on the ground.’

  He began to turn away but Maniakes went white with fury and laid his hands on Harald and swung him round before all the men. He shouted out, ‘You, why you Norse swineherd, you do not deserve to live.’

  He was a brave man, though a stupid one, and even began to wrench at his sword. Harald shrugged his shoulders and laid his own right hand on that of Maniakes, making it impossible for the general to draw his weapon.