Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  He was long in noticing that she was there, and then he only said, ‘Soon we shall be running in the teeth of the north wind. You will be wise to put on furs then.’

  The princess smiled and took his hard hand. ‘Harald,’ she said, ‘you may be well enough in the thick of a battle, but you are as helpless as a child when there is no fighting to do. You need someone to care for you and to look after you.’

  He stared at her, then drew his hand away slowly. Maria Anastasia watched it go, then frowned with annoyance and said, ‘As time goes on you will learn more courtly manners. You will learn how a king must behave.’

  Harald passed his hand across his lined brow and said, ‘Who will teach me, woman?’

  He spoke as though he did not wish to know the answer, but Maria said quite briskly, ‘Why, I will. You will see that there are some things I can do for you as time goes on. When we are in the north I will show the folk what it is like to be a Greek. And they will come to do what I teach them to do. They will be glad to follow a civilized example, you will see.’

  Harald said softly, ‘If you left me now, I think I could go to sleep, I am so tired.’

  But Maria Anastasia would not be put off in this way. She smoothed his ruffled hair and said, ‘You see, Varanger, a new life could open out for you now, with me beside you. Together we could teach the barbarians in the northlands what a king and queen should be like. Why, Byzantium could reach as far to the north as Oslo, or even farther.’

  Now when she said this Harald gave a great shudder as though she had suddenly drenched him with cold water, and he said like a man coming out of a dream, ‘I am betrothed to Elizabeth, daughter of King Jaroslav. With the treasure I have sent home from Crete, we shall be married and soon she will sit beside me on the throne in Norway. That is the pattern of my life from now on.’

  Now it was Maria’s turn to shudder. But she would not leave her dream so easily. Taking him by the sleeve and dragging at it, she said, ‘Listen, Varanger. How dare you say that to me? How dare you even mention another woman’s name to me? I am a Greek. I am of the royal house of Argyra. Is that nothing to you?’

  Harald smiled sadly and nodded. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘it is a great deal. Your Aunt Zoe was of that same family.’

  Suddenly Maria Anastasia rose on the deck and stamped her foot. She said, ‘I have not come so far from my home to be insulted by a Norse hireling. I have not thrown away all my inheritance to be treated like a servant, and to have the name of some peasant king’s brat thrust down my throat. Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Who is this Elizabeth that she must be set above me?

  Did this precious Elizabeth save your life when you were in the tower prison? Did she send a woman to fetch you out on a rope-ladder? Did she do for you a quarter of what I have done?’ She had never spoken so fiercely before, in all her life.

  Then for the first time since the harbour chain, Harald stood up as tall as he had ever been, or even taller, and his hard brown face was furrowed in a smile that was awful to see. Even Maria Anastasia backed away from him then, but he took no step towards her to hint her.

  Instead, he said very gently, in a tone that few men had ever heard from his lips before or would hear after, ‘You remind me that I owe you my life, lady. I shall not remind you of anything you might owe me, because I am sure that among Greeks such a reminder would be considered ill-mannered in a man. You remind me also that you have left a royal palace to come with me to the rude northland.’

  Then Maria went towards him with her hands out, but he put them aside and said, ‘All my life I have been at pains to pay my debts, lady. I am no horse-coper, no market-cheat, no pickpurse at a fair. I am soon to be the king in Norway, and even in England perhaps. And that is no peasant king, lady.’

  Now Maria Anastasia saw how things were going and she broke in and said, ‘Yes, yes, Harald, and you will be a very great king, I am sure of that.’

  He answered, ‘Yes, by God’s grace and with Saint Olaf’s guidance, I might gain some honour. I might grow a little even yet.’

  Then he half-turned from her and said quite humbly, ‘But I shall never grow another inch if I am to be reminded for the rest of my days that I owe my very existence to a young woman who threw a rope-ladder over a wall for me to climb up. I shall be a prisoner still, where no ladder would save me.’

  So he walked the length of the ship with Maria trailing after him, wringing her hands, and he said aloud to Wulf and Haldor, ‘We shall not put in at Mesembria this evening. But if we stand off shore there and light flares they will send out a rowing boat to us with supplies.’

  Haldor nodded. ‘Aye, they will do that, brother,’ he said.

  ‘Then,’ answered Harald, ‘we will pay them well to row this lady with them into port. She shall take with her the ikon I stole from her room and as much treasure as she can carry, to pay her fare back to the royal palace of Byzantium that she yearns after so much already.’

  Maria Anastasia now burst into tears and fell at his feet on the deck. He looked down at her for a while, then bent and raised her very gently. He said, ‘Please do not weep, lady. I do not wish my last memory of a Greek princess to be one of weeping. I would rather remember you as the little girl in black who laughed when she rode on my back through the corridors.’

  Then Maria Anastasia began to cry louder than ever. But Harald was not there to hear her. He had gone away to the after-cabin and had shut the door and bolted it.

  Now he was on his knees in the darkness, giving thanks to God and to Saint Olaf for a safe deliverance from Miklagard.

  He did not even come out to see them put Maria Anastasia, still weeping, into the little boat that would take her into Mesembria. Which was just as well, since he had enough memories of sadness to last him a lifetime already. Now he would look forward only to glory.