by Henry Treece
So Harald swung round, still on his knees, and there before him grinning stood the young Hauteville he had knocked to the ground at Syracuse. Harald gazed past the knight’s stiff mask of a face at the eight men who rose from the bushes behind him, their swords in their hands and the foxes’ brushes bobbing in their helmets. He said, ‘I see you have brought your brothers with you, Hauteville.’
The young man said, ‘It is not every day that the foxes run a hound to earth. We like to make a good job of these affairs.’
Harald said, ‘You will see that I have no sword, Hauteville.’
The young man nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘That will make it the more entertaining for us.’
Now a great fury rose in Harald’s heart towards this young knight who stood calmly drawing his long dagger from his belt. Staring the youth fixedly in the eye and speaking as evenly as he could, Harald said, ‘I have seen prettier pigstickers than that in my time.’ Then, even as he was speaking, he grasped a handful of mud from beside the stream and flung it into Hauteville’s face. The dagger swept out in a bright flash, but Harald stepped inside it and chopped down harshly with his right hand. A great shout of anger went up as the young knight fell face downwards to the ground. Harald bellowed like a penned bull and stamped the youth’s face into the marshy turf.
Then the Hautevilles were rushing at him like furies, almost slashing one another to be first at the kill. As blade clashed on blade and brother jostled with brother savagely, Harald caught sight of a pine branch above him and leaped upwards with all his strength. The point of one sword passed through the skirt of his tunic as he went. The flat of another caught him on the thigh but did not cut.
And then he sat on the bough, out of sword’s reach, laughing down at them and gasping for breath. He said, ‘If you will have the goodness to pass my sword up to me, I will show you something else before I go.’
They glared up at him, raw-boned as wolves, their grey eyes starting and their teeth showing. And the most furious of all was the youngest who now rose from the marsh with mud up to his eyes. Harald called down to him, ‘See that you wash your face before you sit down to meat tonight, my boy. Now throw me up my sword and I will come down and visit you lads.’
The youngest Hauteville shrieked out in fury then like a mewed hawk, snatched up the Bulgar lance and thrust with it at Harald’s legs. But it failed to reach him by at least a foot, so Harald said, ‘That is no way to bring a bear down out of a tree, my boy. Take aim and throw the spear and let us see what sort of marksman you are.’
But one of the elder Hautevilles cried out, ‘Do not cast it, brother. These vikings have the trick of catching spears in mid-flight and turning them back on the sender. Let us not be hasty; we have all time before us. We will take this vengeance at our leisure.’
So some of them sat down by the stream, and others leaned on trees and watched. Then the youngest Hauteville bent and took up a handful of pebbles from the waterside and began to fling them at Harald. Some of them flew past his head but others struck him sharply on the arms and body.
Harald had die good fortune to catch one of them and to bounce it off the youth’s right shoulder, sending him away howling with pain.
Then the Varanger said sternly, ‘Let that be a lesson to you not to fight like peasants and thralls. If you are men enough to wear swords, then be men enough to use swords.’
But these words were his undoing, for while he spoke he did not notice one of the older and stronger men bending to pick up a large stone. It was this one which struck him beside the right temple and toppled him from the bough.
Yet even so his senses did not leave him utterly. He clutched out as he fell and so hung by both hands from the pine-bough. But now his plight was desperate for the smallest of the Normans could have reached him with the sword.
But this was not their way. They could see well enough that if Harald tried to climb back on to the swaying branch his great weight would snap it short; and if he let go, he would fall to the ground at their feet. So they took their time and at last they fetched the youngest Hauteville. and put the lance back into his hand. ‘Now take your vengeance, brother,’ said the eldest. ‘He cannot throw another stone at you.’
As he hung there helplessly, Harald thought how stupid such an end was. He had always assumed that he would die in the usual manner, with his back set against the standard, or holding on firmly to the sinking prow. But to be spiked while dangling from a pine-bough was no sort of death to be recalled in a song. He was thinking how curious life was - which gave him back an old friend and took his own life, all in one afternoon - when a great sharp pain came up under his left arm and he bit through his lip rather than howl out.
Down below him he heard the young Hauteville laugh grimly and the brothers congratulating him for his thrust. Then Harald knew that his left hand had fallen from its hold on the branch and was hanging down helplessly by his side. And as he waited for the next thrust, for want of something better to do, he called out at the top of what voice was left him: ‘Hroar - Hroar - hek - kek - kek! Hroar - Hroar - hek - kek - kek!’
At first he heard them laughing below, then all at once there was a great rushing sound and a fierce trampling of the brushwood round the glade. Harald looked through the sweat that streamed down his face and saw Gyric flailing his great Danish axe and the Hautevilles falling before him like mown wheat or taking to their heels. And close beside Gyric stood Wulf hissing like a fiend with every blow of his long sword. And just behind him, old Haldor, tottering like a crippled bear but swiping out so terribly and grinning with his fearful new face so horribly that the Normans faded before him like wood-smoke.
And then Harald fell from the bough, all his strength gone, and lay beside the little hummock where his sword still stuck up like a headstone on a grave.
The last spark of his senses had left him now so he was spared the grief of seeing Gyric fall beside him, a cloth-yard arrow deeply embedded between his shoulder-blades.
He was spared the grief of hearing poor Haldor crying out wordlessly at the death of one of his dearest comrades.
29. The Great Darkness
A great darkness hung over the Varanger encampment. Some of the oldest rovers there said that they had never known such times and prayed for Harald to recover so that they could shake the dust of Sicily from their feet since, they swore, it was an accursed island and had always been so. No one since Minos the Great had prospered there. No tree came to its full growth in such parched soil, they said. The gods were angry with such a place, or why else should they set a fire-mountain on it to threaten all men?
A party of the youngest vikings who had seen little service before this voyage, and who had not been hammered into an iron-hearted host, lost courage at these words and slipped away towards the north-east coast, taking their chance on finding shipping to carry them to Denmark, and another leader to follow.
Harald’s wound was so deep and angry, his fever so great, that at last Eystein forgot all pride and sent to the Berber physician of Licata for aid. The man came over the mountains on a mule and leading an ass behind him laden with a medicine chest. But when he had examined the wound and had probed deeply into it, he shook his head sadly and said, ‘This is beyond my curing. If I had been here when you brought him in, I might have done something; but the weapon which made this hole must have been unclean, for now a poison has spread through this man’s whole body. The best we can do for him is to make his last hours comfortable ones.’
So they washed Harald and put fresh clothing on him and propped him up on feather-cushions beside a brazier on which the doctor burned aromatic woods and spices. And by this bed they set a cup of spiced wine on a low table in case he should wake and feel thirsty.
In the next tent Haldor lay, sick from his exertions in the wood and barely conscious. Wulf knelt beside him, holding his hand and saying, again and again, ‘Forgive me, forgive me, brother. I should have gone in first.’
Eystein saw
that Gyric had a high funeral pyre of all the various woods they could find about the Golden Shell. They poured on to this great heap oil and wine and milk that they could ill afford, having no supplies but what they foraged for by night. And when they had dressed him in his war-shirt and helmet, and had laid sword, buckler and spear beside him, they put fire to the mound.
A fresh wind blew up from the sea, fanning the flames into a fierce blaze and sending up showers of sparks into the evening air. And when the fire was at its height a great grey bird came swooping down, then paused and hovered a while over the pyre before it turned and set course again for the north, crying out sadly.
Eystein said to the man beside him, ‘Did you hear what that bird cried, friend?’
The viking nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it was old Gyric’s call, and that bird was a goshawk, master.’
Eystein said, ‘I thought my ears did not deceive me, friend.’
Then he went back to Harald’s tent and found the Varanger sitting up and staring towards the open door-flap. And when Eystein went towards him, Harald said quite clearly, ‘I have just heard Gyric calling me to come to him, Eystein. He was sending out the goshawk cry. I must go to his aid.’
He struggled to rise then but Eystein caught him as he toppled sideways and said, ‘Lie still, captain. I have just come from Gyric’s side and I swear to you that he was not crying out then.’
Then Harald fought hard to see Eystein clearly, and when his eyes were steadily fixed on him he said, ‘You swear that Gyric is in no danger?’
Eystein clenched his fist and said, ‘I swear by Thor’s hammer, captain, or may I never thrive again. Nothing will hurt Gyric.’
The Berber heard this and when Harald had lain back on his pillows whispered, ‘You did the only thing a man could do for his friend.’
Many times that night Harald roused and asked hoarsely if Gyric was safe, and each time Eystein nodded and smiled. And at length the Varanger fell into a calm sleep with his hands folded on his breast.
The Berber came into the tent and said, ‘I must leave you now, for my duty lies with the King of Tunis. If the God your captain prays to is kind to him, He will let Harald float away from this harsh world while he is sleeping so peacefully.’
Eystein had barely returned from escorting the Berber safely from the encampment when a tall old man, wearing a black cloak and carrying Ms round helmet below Ms left arm, came up from Palermo among the Varangers. The wind whipped his close-cut white hair about his head and reddened his thin, sun-burnt face; yet there seemed to be something in this man’s features and bearing which were strangely familiar to Eystein, who stood and waited for him to speak.
And when the old man was five paces from the sea-rover, he stopped and flung open his cloak to show that he wore no hauberk beneath it. Then in a firm, quiet voice he said, ‘My name is Hauteville, and four of my sons lie dead.’
Eystein said gravely, ‘I know. I was there. Have you come for blood-money or vengeance?’
The old man answered, ‘Neither. My little foxes should have known better than to tree the Bear of Norway. It was their misfortune and I thank God that I still have five sons left.’
Eystein said, ‘Keep them under lock and key or you will have five less to thank God for.’
Then the Varanger saw that tears were coursing down the old man’s cheeks, although Ms face was as firm-set as ever. At last Hauteville said, ‘Sir, in all my life I have never bent the knee to any man, and until this moment these eyes had never shed a tear. But now my heart is so laden with shame and sadness that I beg leave to go on my knees before the Hardrada and to ask Ms pardon for the wrong that has been done.’
Many Norsemen had clustered round the old knight and had heard what he said. They cried out, ‘Let the old one have his wish, Eystein. Let him pay homage to the Hardrada, it is Ms due.’
And so the famous Norman was led to Harald’s bedside and, seeing what a ruin his sons had made of the great hero, he fell to his knees and put Ms lips to the hem of Harald’s robe.
As he did so, the Norseman’s eyelids flickered and he moved his head and looked down sleepily on Hauteville. ‘I know who you are,’ he said. ‘Do you wear the fox’s brush in your helmet too?’
But old Hauteville did not answer this. Instead, he bowed still lower and said, ‘My lord, I am here to ask your pardon.’ And Harald, struggling hard against sleep, replied, ‘You shall have it and willingly - in return for the head of the Greek, Maniakes, who began this quarrel which has cost the blood of too many good men.’
Hauteville rose then and said gently, ‘That price is beyond my power to pay, my lord. We have already driven the Greek from Palermo and he is out of our reach now. We could not tolerate his pride and arrogance.’
Harald whispered harshly, ‘If you were following him, as I am, where would you look, Hauteville?’
The Norman said grimly, ‘I would search in Crete, for that is where the merchant-ship he sailed in was bound.’
Harald said, ‘Then that is where we will go. I have come too far now to be cheated of my rights.’
Hauteville stared round the tent at the faces of the sea-rovers, then he said to Eystein, ‘Your captain must not be moved. Or, at least, no further than the castle I hold in Palermo. There he might lie safely, with priests and physicians to watch him until the end.’
Now Harald spoke almost as clearly as they had ever heard him and said, ‘When I enter that castle, Hauteville, it will be walking, on my own feet, not carried on men’s shoulders. I cannot use my sword lying down.’
Hauteville bowed towards him stiffly, then backed to the tent-flap and said to Eystein, ‘This is the greatest man living in the world today, sea-rover. When his spirit passes from him, see that he has a ship-burning that will do him justice. He is the last of the vikings.’
Then he turned and left the tent so that the great Norseman should not see a Norman weeping. But Harald had already fallen back into sleep.
30. The Darkness Lifts
About this time a wet season began on the island and before long the Varangers found themselves penned in their tents with the rain lashing hour after hour at the canvas and the light dimmed by storm-clouds. The ground between the lines was sodden and a man could sink to the waist if he stepped from the rocky path. To make things worse, by now almost half of the rovers suffered from sickness and could keep no food or drink down.
At last one of the men came to Eystein and said, ‘Shipmaster, if we stay here we shall all die, there are no two ways about it. Each night we see the flares burning on our vessels off-shore, where they wait for us. Yet we lie here on mouldy straw, wet to the skin, and many of us starving. We are as brave as any men, Eystein, but now we face an enemy that sword and axe cannot touch. Let us go, master, while we still have the strength to drag our limbs down to the shore.’
Eystein said, ‘Helge, if any other man had said this to me, I should have struck him down. You have lost a brother and a cousin on this island, so you have the right to speak. But, know this, that if we move the Hardrada, he will die.’
Helge answered, ‘I do not speak for myself, shipmaster, but for two hundred comrades. If it were to be the exchange of one life for another, I would gladly give mine so that Harald should live on a while; but I doubt whether even the Bear of Norway values himself as two hundred men.’
Eystein said sharply, ‘That is for him to say. We will ask him.’
Harald was lolling against a cask, his eyes open but vacant, his great fingers playing idly with a strand of wool. When they stood before him he smiled at them briefly, then looked down.
Eystein said, ‘Brother, Helge tells me the men are sick.’ Harald waited long before replying, then he said, ‘Poor lads, they are only alive when the prow is bucking before them. They are like me, they stifle in anything but salt air.’
Then Helge went forward and fell on his knees before Hardrada. ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘the men say you are going to die.’ Eystein put his hand out to stop
the man, but suddenly Harald frowned most fiercely at his friend. Then he said, ‘Aye, lad, that is what they say.’
So Helge said, ‘Then, lord, where would you rather be, here on the cushions, or on your thong-bed in Stallion’s after-cabin?’ Harald swayed then as though he would fall, but he suddenly recollected himself and whispered through his clenched teeth, ‘Carry me there, I beg you.’
Helge dared to take Hardrada’s hand and clasp it tightly. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you shall go aboard your longship tonight if Eystein has my head for it tomorrow.’
As he spoke he turned and looked up at his sea-captain defiantly. But Eystein was nodding sadly as though he knew that this was the way it would turn out in the end.
And so at dusk the Varangers lit brushwood flares up the coast, away from Palermo, and fetched in the fleet. It was along affair in managing, for the wood was damp with the rain; and when they came to carry Harald in a litter the bearers must go as softly as night-thieves so as not to jolt him on the uneven ground.
They moved off like ghosts, taking only their weapons and war gear. They left their tents to flap deserted in the rain, or to be torn to shreds by the winds that came up from the sea. And soon after midnight they were aboard and standing off-shore, waiting to set a course to Crete.
No ships came out of Palermo to hinder them, though it was plain to the watchers on the castle-towers that the Varangers were withdrawing in a sorry state and were in no condition to defend themselves against sudden ambush.
And in the small hours when a north-easterly breeze from Taranto filled their sails for the voyage round about the island, Harald sent for Helge and said to him, ‘Do the men feel better now, friend?’
Helge told him that they did and that they blessed his name. Then Harald said, ‘When you go back to them, tell them that I bless their name too, for already the darkness is lifting from me. My fever is less and the pain of my wound is not what it was. Salt is the best medicine and the sea is the best mother. Feel how she rocks us in our cradle now, Helge.’