Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  Maria Anastasia began to weep as she held his arm; but this time her tears were those of joy. It had been a long while since anyone had given her a present without asking something in return for it.

  35. ‘We Shall be Dead!’

  Twelve days out, standing off Chios against a contrary wind, Haldor said with a grey look in the eye, ‘It comes to me more and more as we journey, that this is the last time I shall sail up through the Islands.’

  Wulf said, ‘I had the same feeling as we rounded Samos. I put it down to the salted pork we have been eating, which is none of the freshest now, and I forgot all about it. Now you make me remember that feeling again and I agree with you. It will be the last time. I am sure of that now.’

  Harald was lounging beside them at the gunwale and said, ‘I once heard two old butterwomen on Stronsay ranting about which one would die first. They each had had a dream the night before and they came to blows for the privilege of being the first to have the church bell rung for them. You two sound like those women. I have heard ravens on a battlefield, the morning after, which sounded merrier - aye, far merrier.’

  Haldor half-turned and looked at him with wrinkled eyelids’ like an old eagle and said, ‘You are reckoned to be a strangely brisk young fellow, aren’t you, Sigurdson?’

  Harald plucked a bit of fur from his cape and blew it up into the air to watch the wind carry it backwards from the ship. He looked down at Haldor, his light eyes smiling, and said, ‘I have heard some such. Though I have never said so. It is what people say. The man himself does not say it.’

  Haldor said, ‘Very well, if you areas brisk as men say, you will not take this fleet into the Golden Horn, young briskling. You will head on up the Bosphorus to the Holy Mouth and out into the Black Sea and home.’

  Harald said with innocence, ‘And why should I do that, having vowed to shake sense into these empresses and to bum their old rabbit-warren about their ears?’

  Haldor answered, ‘Because, although I am no longer a brisk young fellow, I still have a nose for the scent of death.’

  Then Wulf joined him and added, ‘It has been in my nostrils for days, brother. There is no mistaking it once you have smelled it.’

  Maria was standing a few yards away with her hand-maiden, Euphemia, teasing blue wool from a spindle. She came forward and said, ‘I have heard what you men have been saying. I must now tell you that I too have had some sort of dread as we have got nearer and nearer to Byzantium. It is like entering the spider’s web. Can we not do as they say, Harald, and sail on to safety in the Black Sea? I would love to see the north. I have heard of it all my life, but have only seen the hot sun and our grapes and melons. I would love to stand in an icy wind on a green mountain, with the great grey sky roaring over my head. Oh, Harald, can we not go to the north? I would adore the north.’

  Harald Sigurdson turned round very slowly as though he did not know who was speaking; and when he had turned he made a great pretence of not being able to see the speaker, because she was so small. And when he had gone through all this game, at which only he was the smiler, he said, ‘I wonder if I did wrong after all to bring you aboard? They say women are unlucky.’

  Maria said quite sharply, ‘Often in this life it takes a woman to tell men what sense is. Men are like little boys, only bigger, who still need to be told when to put on their warm clothes or to wash their hands.’

  Harald said, ‘I have got on my warmest fur cape and my hands are clean. What is the argument, woman? What have you to tell me?’

  Maria stamped her foot with impatience and said, ‘It is the very simple matter of death, great captain. If you go to Byzantium you could be dead, like that!’ As she spoke, she snapped her thumb and middle finger together with a click.

  Harald watched this and smiled. ‘Do that again, my princess,’ he said, ‘it made a pretty sound. Yes, do it again. I like it.’

  But Maria snorted and turned away from him in irritation. Then she and Euphemia went to the after-cabin of Stallion, which had been turned into a bower for them on this voyage.

  So Harald turned to Haldor and Wulf with a stark flat look about his eyes and said like iron, ‘If you two old butterwomen start such a conversation again you had better be prepared to swim the rest of the way because, as sure as Thor made hammers, I’ll pitch you both neck and crop into the sea. That is my last word.’

  Then he turned and left them to go and pour ale for the rowers, who were at the end of their tether against such a body-buffeting wind from the north.

  And when he had gone out of earshot Wulf said, ‘The girl was right, Haldor. She may only be a princess with blue wool in her hands but she was right. We should not go on, for it will be our deaths. It is the spider’s web.’

  Haldor was picking a splinter out of his thumb and did not look up. He said absently, ‘Aye, for a Greek this Maria is not without sense. I met a Saracen lass once, an emir’s daughter from Jebel Tarik, who spoke much the same way and didn’t look too unlike this Maria. They are very similar, these Outlanders down here. Dress them up this way or that way and I cannot tell one from the other until they open their pretty pink mouths.’ Wulf struck the gunwale till the shields rattled and said, ‘I am not talking about girls, you Iceland-fool. I am talking about life and death.’

  Haldor said, ‘Oh, are you, brother? And what did you decide? I am always willing to listen to wise men giving their judgement.’

  Wulf gazed at him speechlessly for a while, then drew in a very long breath and said through locked teeth, ‘If we go to Byzantium, brother, we shall be dead - like this!’

  He clicked his thumb against his middle finger and the sound he made was like that which Maria had made but very much louder and sharper. Very much louder and sharper, and colder.

  36. The Second Song

  On the way northwards to the Hellespont Harald made ten songs. They were not the best he had ever made, but this is the best of them.

  I yearn for the grey stones of Norway

  Shaded by green trees;

  And the gnarled pines sighing

  In a bitter breeze.

  I long to sit by spruce fires

  When the ale-cup passes round,

  And to hear a tongue spoken

  That I can understand.

  If I live to be a hundred

  And my sense stays sharp,

  I shall never forget Gyric,

  I shall never cease to weep.

  They call me Sigurdson,

  And Olaf was my brother;

  He fell at Stiklestad.

  Now there is no other.

  To tell me what to do,

  To tell me what to be.

  I am the Bear of Norway,

  Chained though free.

  Maria heard this song and said, ‘You will never live to be a hundred if you put in at Byzantium. You will be chained, certainly, but will not get free.’

  Young Helge who was whittling a stick by the mast-stepping said smiling, ‘This is not the court poetry you are used to, lady. This is only rough northern stuff that helps men to find the beat of the oars as they row. You are not meant to find pretty things and wisdom in our songs. They are for men.’

  Maria answered, ‘The more’s the pity. Harald should make a song that gives the men such a desire to be back home that they could not bear to put into port anywhere until they were safe in the Dnieper on the way to Kiev.’

  Haldor was watching Helge carving the stick and said, ‘Safe? Safe? Who would sleep well in his bed or eat well at the board, thinking that he set safety before his proper duty as a man?’ Maria said, ‘Only a few days ago you were advising Harald to sail past the Holy City and into the Black Sea. Now you have changed your tune.’

  Haldor nodded glumly. ‘Oh aye,’ he said, ‘but that is the way of things. Did you ever know the wind to blow three days together from the same quarter?’

  Maria clenched her hands in annoyance. ‘Oh, you Northmen,’ she said. ‘When will you learn sense?’

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sp; Wulf said, ‘Never, princess. That is why we are Northmen.’

  So she gave up trying to talk to them and went with Euphemia into the cabin-bower to pray for them. They were such fools, such children.

  The ships rounded the Horn and put in to harbour a month after leaving Palestine. Byzantium looked very bright and white and full of splendid high towers, after so long on the water. But Maria said, ‘My Aunt Zoe can look very grand but beneath her splendour she is as cruel as the Egyptian crocodile.’

  Harald laughed and said, ‘Her days of cruelty are numbered, little one. When we march up to the palace and kick the door in she will grovel like any lesser creature. She will cry and beg for mercy and then you will see what stuff even great empresses are made of. They are all the same once they see the sword grinning out of its scabbard.’

  Wulf had been gazing shorewards all this time. He said, ‘It seems that half of Byzantium is out to see us come into anchorage. I have never seen so many folk before. We must be heroes.’ Haldor said, ‘These folk have little better to do. They would turn out and crowd the walls just to watch two dolphins sporting. When I am king in Constantinople, I shall pass a law to make every man and woman do a fair day’s work. My own people up in Iceland have to work for their bread so why should these Byzantines laze their days away? Helge, on that stick of yours, carve a rune to remind me that when I am king…’

  Maria said very solemnly, ‘You will never be king of anywhere, Haldor. If you step ashore here you stand a better chance of being a corpse.’

  Harald patted her on the arm and, smiling grimly, said, ‘Now, now, lady. That is no way to put ambition into a brisk young fellow like our Haldor. You do not know Icelanders yet, it seems. If they say they will be caliphs in Cadiz - then that is what they will be or know the reason why.’

  Maria put on her expression of dignitas to go ashore. She whispered, ‘He will never know the reason why, and nor will you, Sigurdson.’

  Then the men lowered the plank and all out of Stallion strode to the wharfside as proudly as they could, to give the crowds a good show.

  And as soon as all the Varangers were ashore, a tall young officer with pale yellow hair came forward and held up his right hand in greeting to them. He said loudly for all to hear, ‘I am Guttorm Fis, Captain of the Varangian Guard in Miklagard. I come from Sweden.’

  Haldor said, ‘Where is Thorgrim Skalaglam? We left him as captain when we went away.’

  The Swede smiled and said coldly, ‘Captains change like everything else in this world. The man you speak of went for a ride on four horses in the Hippodrome and never came back. Now, tell me, which of you is Sigurdson?’

  Wulf glanced back to where Harald towered two heads above all others and then said to the Swede, ‘He is that little man over there with the golden beard. You will have to shout up, he is a bit deaf and cannot hear a mouse whispering. You must at least cry out like a rat, Swede!’

  Guttorm Fis went very red about the neck and pushed past Wulf roughly on his way to Harald. Then he said, ‘Sigurdson, I am commanded to meet you and to conduct you to the imperial palace, where you are awaited.’

  Harald looked round at the three hundred guards who stood behind the new captain, then said, ‘I know the way. I have been here before. I do not need three hundred guides. I shall come in my own time. I have the sudden wish to wander along the wharfside and to buy a few melons for my men. It is a warm day and they are thirsty.’

  But Guttorm Fis said stubbornly, ‘The thirst and the melons will wait. I am commanded to conduct you to the palace straightway.’ He thrust out his jaw.

  Helge lounged up to Harald and said, smiling, ‘Shall I knock this flax-distaff on the head, captain? He seems to have forgotten his manners.’

  Harald said, ‘Why put yourself to that trouble, brother? No, we will go with the little fellow after all, just to please him. Otherwise I can see that he will shed a few tears; and that would not be the best thing to do in front of all these gaping Greeks.’ Yes, in his heart, Harald knew that he had to go with Guttorm Fis, for now so many other guards had filed on to the wharf that the sea-rovers were outnumbered by three to one, and moreover were weary from their long voyage and hardly likely to give the best account of themselves they would wish, if put to the axe-stand with the sea at their backs.

  So, with Harald between two Swedes, and his northern brothers similarly guarded, they moved off. And now a new sight met their eyes as they passed the Acropolis and the Great Cistern; every square, avenue and even alley way was tight-packed with a black mass of Bulgar troops, fully-armed and stark-faced. No one had seen so many soldiers before.

  Helge said, ‘What a fine homecoming! The empress seems to have assembled at least half of her hundred-thousand men to greet us.’

  Harald answered shortly, ‘She will still have to answer for Thorgrim Skalaglam. When I leave a captain-in-charge, I expect to see him again when I return, however long I may be away.’

  But Guttorm Fis only laughed, shortly and quietly, then said, ‘Hurry along, Sigurdson. They do not like to be kept waiting.’

  Harald said into his beard, ‘They have not much longer to wait. When they see me, they will wish they had waited longer.’ Then someone in the crowd behind the massed Bulgars screamed out, ‘Here they come, the sea-wolves! To the Hippodrome with them, the traitors!’

  And another voice answered, ‘Yes, yes, hot irons are waiting.’ Harald said to the Swede, ‘These fools seem to have made some mistake. They do not know who we are.’

  Guttorm Fis replied, ‘No, they have made no mistake. And they know who you are, well enough. They have been waiting for you these three months.’

  Then they were into the great courtyard of the palace and the tall bronze gates clanged shut behind them like the gates of doom.

  Maria was crying openly now and had lost all her dignity of bearing. Her black skirts trailed in the dust like those of a peasant woman. She had had more pride when she hammered at the stones in the quarry of Saint Angelus.

  37. Trial and Judgement

  They were no sooner inside the broad corridors of the palace than ten companies of Bulgars ran forward, armed with daggers, and hemmed them in so tightly that no man could draw his sword.

  Guttorm Fis said to Harald pleasantly, ‘Now you must give up your weapons. You will not need them any more. They are just a burden.’

  Harald glared at him and said, ‘Why is this? In all our other homecomings we have carried our swords.’

  Guttorm Fis said, ‘Aye, but this is a different homecoming. In the Hall of Judgement no prisoner is permitted to carry a weapon of any sort.’

  Then Harald saw how it was, and called out to the rovers not to endanger their lives against such great odds by disobeying the order to hand over their edged tools.

  To the Swede he said, ‘What is to become of us then, straw-hair?’

  Guttorm Fis shrugged his shoulders and said without caring, ‘I have not been told that, Sigurdson. I simply had orders to trap the Bear, which I think you will admit I have done quite comfortably. Now my men and I are off duty and if you wish to know more you must ask the Bulgar captain. Though I do not think he will wish to tell you much. They are a sullen folk.’

  Harald drew in a deep breath, then said, ‘When I next come into Sweden, a few fires will redden the sky, make no mistake, straw-hair.’

  Guttorm Fis laughed openly at the hero now and said, ‘Our houses will be safe, Sigurdson. You will have no hands to strike flint on steel and no eyes to see whether your fires burn. Good day to you, old hero.’

  Then he turned smartly and drew his Varangers off into the open courtyard and away. The Bulgars who took over pushed and kicked the rovers along the corridors towards the Hall of Judgement. Some of the Northmen struck back and were knocked on the head with iron-shod staffs. So in the end they went as quietly as they could, but vowed to make the Bulgars pay for these blows as soon as they were out in the city again and free to move.

  The Hall of Judgem
ent was crowded with palace officials and noble spectators. The rovers were herded into the well of the court with Harald, Haldor, Wulf and Maria out in the front. Above them in a semi-circle sat the audience. And on a high dais before the spectators were set two splendid throne chairs.

  Wulf said, ‘What do they think we are about to do - give a performance of some great play?’

  A Bulgar who stood near them and could understand the Norse tongue said smiling, ‘You will perform, have no fear, although you do not know the words of the play as yet. It is an amusing drama, I can tell you. You learn the words as you go on. They are mostly screams.’

  Haldor said shortly to him, ‘No one spoke to you, Bulgar dog. Go back to your kennel and gnaw your bone.’

  The smiling Bulgar answered, ‘There will be bones, make no mistake. But they will be your bones. And I shall not gnaw them - the vultures will!’

  Then there was a high blowing of trumpets and two heavily robed figures came slowly on to the dais and sat on the thrones. One was the Empress Zoe, and the other was an elderly man who had once been square-shouldered and tall but was now stooping and bent. His thin white hair hung down sadly under the high imperial crown. His long nose was red and he seemed to be perpetually sniffing. Two boys followed him to support the weight of his heavy cloth-of-gold robe.

  Haldor said, ‘I expected to meet two empresses; not one empress and an old goat dressed in tinsel

  The Bulgar said, ‘What we expect and what we get in this life are two different things, sea-wolf. This is the new emperor, Constantine Monomachus. And if you are wise you will treat him with respect for though he is old his eyes and ears are sharper than a leopard’s. He has a leopard’s fangs and claws, too, as you will soon find out for yourselves.’