Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  Abu Firuz listened to him courteously, nodding, then said, ‘What are we to do then, Harald Sigurdson?’

  Harald leaned on his staff and smiled. ‘I have never been one to run away from a fight if I thought there was honour to be gained in staying; but if we fought tonight there would be no honour for either of us, Scourge of Aleppo. We must come to an arrangement, as sensible men always do when their anger has died down. Now, as you can see in the light of this flare, I am not angry; and, from your own smiling, I observe that you are not, either.’

  Abu Firuz got down from his pony and stood by Harald. His head came up to the Northman’s shoulder, but in all other ways he was a most proper man and a true, hawk-nosed warrior. He said, ‘Let us go to my tent and talk of this.’

  It was the richest tent Harald had seen, with its samite hangings and carpets and cushions set on the ground for them to sit on. And there Harold and Abu Firuz drank a cup of sherbet in which floated pieces of ice. Harald said laughing, ‘This is not the sort of drink that would turn a man’s head, but at this time of such a warm night I can think of no pleasanter wine.’

  The Seljuk shook his head. ‘It is not wine, Sigurdson,’ he said. ‘We do not drink wine. Now, what arrangement are we to make, we two?’

  Harald scratched his shaggy head and said, ‘I cannot offer you any sort of ransom since I have no coin or loot with me. Maniakes, my fellow captain, has sent all that back to the emperor. We Varangers carry only what we need for making war.’ The Seljuk Turk rubbed his chin and then said thoughtfully, ‘Are you offering, then, to bring your Northmen over to our side? Is that the arrangement you were thinking of?’

  Harald said, ‘I have no doubt that we should enjoy that much more than fighting alongside these Greeks; but unfortunately I have sworn an oath to serve the emperor in Greekland, and an oath is an oath, as you know.’

  Abu Firuz nodded then and answered, ‘I am glad that you think so. If you had offered to betray your master by riding with us, I should have had no alternative but to kill you now for, of all the sins, disloyalty in a soldier is the worst. Very well, what are we to do?’

  Harald said, ‘This has come to my mind. From now on until we are well outside your territory, I swear to you that we Varangers will molest no one, will sack no city and will shed no blood.’

  Abu considered this, then asked, ‘But what of your Greek companions? What of your general? Will he agree to this?’ Harald smiled ruefully and said, ‘You know as well as I do, Abu Firuz, that this Maniakes is a famous soldier who is unlikely to follow the advice of a Varanger captain. I have no doubt that he will storm and fret and stamp about the place; but if we from the north do not join him in battle there is little he can do, save tear out his hair and beard in rage. He has not enough men under him to cause your people any great discomfort. Is this a bargain?’

  Abu Firuz looked at him narrowly and said, ‘And you do not consider this to be disloyalty?’

  Harald laughed aloud. ‘Why no,’ he said, ‘because as soon as we have passed through your own land towards Mosul, say, my men will fight as fiercely as ever alongside their Greek fellows.’

  Abu Firuz nodded and said, ‘I am not sure that I understand your northern reasoning completely, Harald, but I will draw off my army provided that you agree to two points which I shall make. First, that you shall explain in detail to the general Maniakes what we have said together; and secondly that you leave behind in the valley one wagon-load of provisions. My riders travel lightly and at present are lacking in food. So you would be doing me a favour by agreeing.’

  Harald stood up and held out his right hand for the Turk to grasp. But Abu Firuz said, ‘We do not seal our bargains in your manner, Harald. Think it no disgrace that I do not take your hand. What we will do is to have a scribe come in and make two copies of the words we have spoken. You shall have one and I the other. Can you write your name?’

  Harald shrugged his shoulders and answered, ‘Usually someone does that for me and I make a raven beside the name, for that is my sign.’

  ‘Then,’ said Abu Firuz, ‘that is what we will do now. There is a Frankish scribe among us and he will see that all is done correctly.’

  And that is how the Byzantine army came out of the green valley alive. Though Georgios Maniakes went into such a fury that he lay ill in a litter for three days afterwards as they passed on towards Mosul.

  The wounds of Wulf and Haldor healed quickly, for they were hardy men; besides, Abu Firuz sent his own physician down to them with medicines and salves before the Christian armies went away.

  But Maniakes did not hide his annoyance at Harald’s pact with the Saracens. As soon as he could, he sent a messenger northwards towards Sinope, to give the emperor Michael Catalactus a complete account of Harald’s treachery.

  17. The Wall of Mosul

  Things did not go too well along the desert route towards Mosul. The old man who styled himself emir there lay on a sick-bed, weakened by malaria and dysentery, and so the city was in the hands of his eldest son, a fierce young man named Kamil who hated all Christians and especially Greeks. To him came the insulted Turcopoles with their grievance, and he promised to give them all their outstanding pay if they saw to it that the Byzantines were weakened before they reached the city.

  So day by day the army of Maniakes had to put up with the harrying of the horsemen, who swept out of the blinding dust without warning and loosed off volleys of arrows at them before galloping away. Now the Byzantines were forced to wear their heavy hauberks, with the thick quilted coats beneath them, even on the hottest day. As food supplies ran out, some of them killed their horses and ate them. So they plodded along, heavily armed, on foot, often with so many short Turkish arrows sticking our of their padded coats that they looked more like hedgehogs than men.

  To add to their discomfort Kamil ordered that all the wells along that route should be poisoned, stained with dyes, or defiled with the carcasses of dead sheep. And finally, to make all worse, half-way to Mosul the Byzantine host came across a swarming encampment of Bedouin who claimed to be converted Christians and so insisted on protection.

  Maniakes tried to turn them away, but these folk, with their multitude of women, children and even dogs, goats and camels, insisted on following in the wake of the army and in sharing whatever food and drink there was.

  Harald said to the general, ‘If I had my way I would threaten to fire their tents and eat their camels - little as I fancy that meat - unless they left us.’

  But the general said, ‘Our emperor would think ill of us for treating his Christian subjects in that way, Varanger. Nor will he think well of the man who suggested it.’

  So Harald gave up trying to make sense out of the situation; but privately he sent Eystein to the Bedouin headman with the stark message that if he was wise he would find some other way of putting food and drink into his people’s mouths since the Northmen had now become weary of living on half-rations.

  The Bedouin sent back the pleasant reply that when he and Harald met in Heaven he would put his complaints to God Himself.

  When Harald heard this he flew into one of his strange furies and said, ‘When I find myself standing before the same God as that shrivelled thief, then I will swing myself into another tree. From now on if I hear of any Varanger sharing his food and drink with these unwashed scavengers, that man shall receive forty stripes with my sword-belt. That is my judgement.’

  From this, Wulf and Haldor saw that their brother was not himself, for his temper, though fiery when roused, was usually sailing on an even keel and not easily upset.

  Then they came to Mosul. And when they saw its crumbling walls the Varangers began to wonder why they had come so far to sack this ruinous heap.

  Yet as they walked towards the gate, shower after shower of arrows came over at them so quickly that they were forced back, leaving eight men down before the wall. Harald was so angry at this, he turned to where Maniakes stood with his lieutenants, well out of range on a l
ittle hilltop, and said, I see that you are in no hurry to gain glory. Very well, with eight of my friends dead on the ground, I now regard this as a personal matter and shall be insulted if you send your Greeks in at this place. It shall be mine or no one’s.’

  Maniakes answered with scorn, ‘There is a correct way of conducting a siege and you are not following it. However, if your mind is fixed on losing men, that is your affair. We shall withdraw half a mile and watch what you do. It is possible to learn something even from the most stupid of animals.’

  Now there was a man called Moriartak who claimed to be close kinsman to the King of Connaught. He was small and red-haired but among the Varangers there was no man more nimble. He had first gained fame up in Caithness on a foray, when he vaulted out of a burning barn in which he was trapped on the end of a broomstick. Five other rovers, two heads taller than Moriartak but lacking his wit, stayed in that barn and were burned. Because of this he was called Moriartak Broomstick, and everyone in the north knew why. Any earl or chieftain from Iceland down to Galloway would have given him a place at the feast board just to hear his story of the barn-burning.

  And this man came to Harald and said, ‘Captain, I have been looking at this wall. If I had a long stick, strong enough to bear my weight, I could run among the arrows, vault into Mosul, then open the gates and let you all into this city. It would make a great supper-story.’

  Harald said, ‘General Maniakes would grind his teeth if we carried out our siege in that farmyard manner.’

  Moriartak said, ‘General Maniakes can put his head in a bucket for all I care. Will you give me permission to go? You see, before I came southwards, I promised my mother and my sisters that I would bring great honour on our family by some other deed than merely jumping out of a northern cow-byre.’ Harald said, ‘I have just lost eight men. I do not wish to lose a single one more. If we wait until dark we may all go against this place together and come off unscathed, because they cannot see to shoot arrows in the dark. No, I must refuse you, Moriartak. But thank you for offering.’

  Then the man stepped up close to Harald and said in a very strange voice, ‘I have a confession to make to you, captain. I hoped to keep this from you, but from the way my legs are now twitching I know that I must reveal my secret. Like my father and my three brothers who are all now under the ground, Tama baresark.’

  Harald drew him aside and said, ‘How long have you known this, little one?’

  And Moriartak answered, ‘Since I was fifteen, when I went into the red dream and killed two tax-gatherers who were treating my mother badly while the grown men were away.’

  Harald said, ‘Well, a baresark is a baresark. Have you told the priest about this?’

  Moriartak nodded and said, ‘In my youth my mother took me to ten priests, including a bishop, and though they sprinkled me with enough holy water to float a longship they all said that it was the will of God, and that there was no spell in the Book for the curing of my condition.’

  Then Harald patted the man on the back and said, ‘Well, what must be, must. Get yourself the best stick you can find, and then do what you mean to do. I will have two hundred Varangers just out of bowshot, waiting to run in the instant we see the gates moving. Good luck to you, baresark.’

  Later, all the Northmen watched the red-haired man go running towards the walls, zig-zagging so that the arrows all missed him, and shouting in the usual piercing high voice all the way to the walls. And when he reached them at their lowest point, they saw him give a great heave, then sail up into the air on his stick and over, out of sight.

  Harald said, ‘Forward now, men, and keep your shields well up over your heads.’

  But though they waited an hour, the gates did not move, and so they drew back and sat outside the tents in a grim silence.

  Towards dusk they saw a high siege catapult come slowly up on the other side of the wall, and shortly a heavy dark missile came whizzing over towards them. It fell into the largest of the camp fires and did no damage apart from scattering the embers.

  Wulf said, ‘That was no stone.’

  Haldor said, ‘No, it is a hide bag. But there is nothing explosive in it. Get one of the men to drag it out of the fire with a grappling-hook and we will see what new ways of making war these Turks have nowadays.’

  And when they had opened the bag, they found in it the burned body of Moriartak, all in separate pieces. There was a strange smile on his face although his red hair was singed off.

  Harald ground his teeth, then said, ‘So, he must come all that way from Caithness to die in the fire after all. The ways of God are hidden from us.’

  Eystein Baardson said, ‘Well, Moriartak never leaped so far before, and without the aid of a stick this time. Come on, Harald, let us take some vengeance for this.’

  Just then a messenger from General Maniakes came up and said, ‘Our master commands you to stay back, captain. He is now about to demonstrate the correct manner of taking a city.’

  Harald said to the man, ‘Go back and tell your master that we shall take this city in our own way without his aid. And tell him that if he moves as few as five men from your position on the hill, then the Varangers will come over and thrash you Greeks soundly in sight of the Turks.’

  The messenger stumped off haughtily and soon all the Greeks sat on the ground with their backs towards the Varangers and the city, as though disowning them.

  Then Gyric of Lichfield came forward and said, ‘They are leaving it to us, Harald. We must see that we give them a good show, now that we have asked for it. What are we to do?’

  Harald said, ‘We will choose the most crumbling piece of the wall and we will gather heaps of scrub wood from about us in the desert. When darkness comes at its thickest, ten of us will run forward with the brushwood and torches, and another ten will go beside them with hammers, chisels and axes. If there are any iron levers about, we will take them too. They could be very useful. And when we are under the wall, we will knock out as many stones as we can, near the ground, push in the brushwood and set light to it. Once the inner rubble and mortar have dried out, the wall will crack, and then sway, and then tumble. The rest of you must be ready to scramble over the stones and to fight your way to the emir’s house. Do not waste your time and force by going anywhere else, and kill no more of the ordinary folk of this place than you have to. We shall need their good will when we are masters of Mosul.’

  This battle plan went without any hindrance. Ten yards of the wall came down before dawn, and when the first cocks crowed in the city, the Varangers were inside, with the loss of only two men dead and six wounded.

  18. The Greek Spy

  After that it was harsh going up through the narrow alleys towards the inner citadel, but the Saracens were as hampered as the Varangers; and by a great stroke of good fortune a mule-drawn wagon got stuck in the citadel gates so that they could not close, and the Northmen were quickly inside.

  They saw which was the emir’s house by the great banner before it, marked with the crescent moon, and into this place they stormed shouting.

  The courtyard was crowded with slaves, who fell to their knees and shrieked out for mercy. The Varangers passed by them and went into the rooms of the palace, looking for the emir. They found him in his bed reading the Koran and paying small attention to what was going on.

  Harald said to him, T beg pardon for interrupting your devotions, sir, but we are here on a matter of some urgency. Do you surrender this city tome?’

  The emir said, ‘I am almost prepared to surrender everything, young man, for at my age the Will of Allah makes itself very apparent. If you will kneel before me and allow some of my captains into this chamber to bear witness, I will put the city in your hands for as long as Allah chooses to let you keep it. Is that good enough?’

  Harald said that it was and so he became master of Mosul. An hour later, word came that fierce young Kamil had jumped to his death from the platform of the siege engine, rather than stand the dishono
ur of living in a city ruled by a Varanger. And two hours later a herald came in from General Maniakes commanding Harald to withdraw now and to hand over the governorship of Mosul to himself, so that the emperor in Byzantium should receive his rightful honours.

  Harald told this messenger: ‘Go back to your master and inform him that the Varangers took this city and the Varangers shall hold it. Tell him to look for another city on behalf of the emperor. And, at the same time, ask him if his correct siege procedure would have done any better than our rough northern way.’

  At sundown Maniakes sent another herald, to tell Harald that if he did not surrender the city the Greeks would come in and fight them through every street and without mercy.

  Harald was sitting with the emir, drinking iced fruit-juices, at this time. He lay back on the cushions with his mesh-shirt off and said, ‘Tell your master that I have no wish to fight Greeks. Tell him that half of what we plunder here shall be sent by escorted wagons along the Tigris valley and up to Trebizond. There the emperor’s agents can see that it goes by ship to Byzantium. But if Greeks come storming in now it is likely that the emperor will lose the lot, because we of the Varangers are in no mood to be bullied any further.’

  That message must have been well delivered, because an hour later, from the high parapet of the citadel, the Varangers saw General Maniakes and all his host move away into the desert with banners flying, southwards, as though they meant to assail Baghdad itself.

  Harald said to the emir, ‘You have seen more of life than I have, sir. Will you tell me if I answered General Maniakes correctly or not?’

  The old man said sadly, ‘You are either a very wise man or a very great fool, Hardrada. Who am I to say which? A man must act as he thinks fit at any moment in his life. It is only later that he knows whether he acted as God wished him to act. All I can tell you is that if it is your wish to abandon your infidel ways and to accept Allah, then I will adopt you as my son in place of poor Kamil.’