by Angus Donald
‘This is the imperial baths of Aachen,’ said Livinus, ‘built by the old Romans in the days when it was called Aquae Granni. The waters here were considered sacred by the pagans, and do indeed contain healing properties.’
Father Livinus left them, and the Red Cloaks retreated out of sight, and they were stripped and washed, and allowed to soak their bruised bodies in a great square marble tank, which they discovered was filled with delightfully warm bubbling water, although it smelled slightly of rotten eggs. When they were thoroughly washed and clean, they relaxed on soft pillows on thick cool marble slabs in the colonnade and a matronly slave sewed up Tor’s cut face, muttering about scars and ruining her pretty looks. Tor ignored her and the pain of her needle; she was already half-asleep, drowsing at peace. Some hours later they were fed royally, various kinds of meat and fruit, given hot sweetened wine to drink, and they were massaged by a pair of burly half-naked slaves, blinded at birth so they would ‘see’ better with their fingers.
It was just the right side of painful, deep kneading strokes, and while Tor was initially wary of allowing a bald, beefy Moravian to manipulate her scrawny body, she eventually relaxed and allowed the sensations to engulf her. Bjarki fell fast asleep almost as soon as he lay down on the marble slab.
In the evening, Father Livinus reappeared, now in his usual plain white robe, and they were dressed in fresh Frankish attire and, with only a pair of Red Cloaks in attendance, led along a brick path in the cool dusk over to the square tower at the east end of the council hall. They were ushered into the spacious room on the second floor, a chamber hung with silk tapestries showing scenes of the hunt and lit by scores of golden candle holders.
They were, Bjarki realised, in Karolus’s personal quarters.
The priest, obviously brimming with pride, bowed low before the king and presented his two charges with suitable aplomb.
‘I salute you both as victors,’ said Karolus, who was lounging on a couch, eating a peach. ‘I cannot remember,’ he said, smiling happily at the pair of them, ‘when I have seen a nobler display of courage and prowess combined. God has judged you and found you innocent of all charges.’
The king was flanked by Lord Grimoald and Lord Paulinus, both standing stiffly behind the long couch. A score of black-cloaked guards in full armour lined the walls – the much-feared Scholares. Karolus was as plainly dressed as the night before when Bjarki had mistaken him for a cook: clean brown tunic, plain leather belt and cross-gartered hose. But he wore a gold circlet that glinted in the candlelight and kept his red hair from his face.
Father Livinus stepped forward and spoke for them: ‘My friends are deeply honoured by His Majesty’s gracious praise for their pagan valour.’
Bjarki glanced over at Tor, worried she would say something rude, but she just rolled her eyes. He suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to giggle.
Lord Grimoald said: ‘Majesty, it is my duty to tell you that I do not think this course at all wise, as I said before it is a dangerous indulgence—’
‘I’m aware of your opinion, Grimaold,’ said the king coldly, twisting his neck to stare up at the soldier. ‘And while I thank you for sharing your wisdom with me, it is unnecessary for you to repeat it.’
‘They must acknowledge the true Faith,’ said Lord Paulinus. ‘I cannot allow Your Majesty’s proposal to proceed unless that vital condition is met.’
‘You cannot allow it?’ said the king, raising an eyebrow. ‘Are you saying that you would step down from your position as my chaplain and chancellor if I were to proceed without your blessing, Paulinus? Because, if that is the case, I would with the greatest regret give my consent – and immediately begin considering who might be chosen as your successor.’
‘No, no, Majesty, I’m content to continue to serve you in my present capacity… I would never presume… I meant… I merely suggest that these two heathens must admit the truth that Jesus Christ is Our Saviour before any offers of mercy are made. It is the law of Francia, and the law of Holy Mother Church. If we were seen to be relaxing our vigilance against pagans and heretics, demon-summoners and the like, then… well it would set a dangerous precedent, as well as damaging the soul of the nation.’
‘I hear you, Paulinus. But I also must remind you: I make the laws in Francia – not you, and not the Church. Anyway, let us hear what our two heathen heroes have to say about this matter. Then I shall make my decision.’
The king fixed Bjarki with his pale blue eyes and said: ‘I am minded to bless you with a signal honour, in recompense for the indignities you have suffered here and in recognition of, and reward for, your remarkable victory in the arena. Are you willing to receive a great honour, my young friend?’
‘I would much rather be honoured than dishonoured, Your Majesty,’ said Bjarki. ‘But since I do not know what this honour is, I can’t say more.’
Karolus laughed. ‘This is what I would do: I would invite you, and your brave friend, to join the ranks of one particular scara of my army, that is, to join a regiment of my troops, a special unit known as the Auxilla.
‘This scara is part of my royal household but it is made up of non-Franks, men and women who are not natives of Francia and who do not owe me service through their territorial lords. You would be housed in Aachen and fed, armed and paid, and I would employ you in special duties, nothing too arduous, in the main as a guard of honour in this palace. You would also have the right of personal audience with me, as members of my familia.’
The king paused, and looked sternly at Tor, before turning back to Bjarki. ‘However,’ he said, ‘you would be required to swear an oath of allegiance to me. But I give you my word you would not be required to fight your own folk, to shed the blood of Saxons or warriors of the Dane-Mark.’
‘What about Svearland?’ said Tor.
‘Svearland?’ said the king. He looked enquiringly at Lord Paulinus.
‘It is a remote land of ice, snow and darkness far to the north and east of the Dane-Mark. The people are savage barbarians, heathens all and—’
‘Yes, yes, all right,’ said the king. ‘So… you will not be called upon to fight Svearlanders either. I give you my word. However, I shall require you to acknowledge the true Faith, and accept the Lord God and Jesus Christ into your hearts through the sacrament of baptism. Now, what do you say?’
‘What if we do not accept your offer? What then?’ said Tor.
‘Then,’ said Lord Paulinus, with a horrible smile, ‘you will be accused of witchcraft and devil-worship and returned to your lion’s den under the amphitheatre until we decide your fate. Or until you see the light of Christ.’
‘It is a huge honour for you,’ rumbled Lord Grimoald. ‘One I do not believe you truly merit. But the king desires it. So, now, you must choose.’
Bjarki and Tor glanced at each other.
‘We accept,’ said Tor. ‘Now, shall we discuss suitable rates of pay?’
Chapter Seventeen
A very special scara
‘Are we doing the right thing?’ said Bjarki. ‘Acknowledging the triple Christ god? Undergoing their washing ceremony – pretending to believe in it? What would the Mikelgothi say about our actions, I wonder, or Valtyr?’
They were sitting in a tiny anteroom outside the king’s private chapel, on the far side of the palace complex from the tower that housed the king’s apartments and the council hall. They had been there much of the night, dozing on the stone benches, although they were supposed to be pondering the mystery of the Trinity. This was three gods in one, apparently. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost were all one deity, but also three deities at the same time, which was obviously nonsense. Inside the huge round palace chapel, Paulinus and Livinus and half a dozen other priests were preparing the time-honoured ritual, something to do with a spiritual cleansing, that would admit them to the Christ religion: baptism.
‘It is just a ruse,’ said Tor. ‘It is quite acceptable in war to lie to your enemy, to make false oaths, t
rick him, do anything to gain an advantage. Besides, what do we actually have to do? We acknowledge this Jesus God. Say we believe in this silly Trinity thing. Undergo a ritual. Say some words. And we’re free. I doubt the real gods will care much if we pay lip service to this new one. And Valtyr would tell us to do what we have to do to survive.’
‘It feels dishonest,’ said Bjarki.
‘We do this or we die – sooner or later – for the amusement of these so-called civilised people. Trial by combat, my arse. They just wanted to watch our blood being shed. And don’t think our trick will work next time, oaf. They will pit us against a hundred Avars. Two hundred. And that will be it.’
‘So, what now? We just serve the Frankish king as his loyal soldiers?’
‘Three words,’ said Tor. ‘Guard. Of. Honour.’
‘What?’
‘When we are members of this scara thing, this Auxilla regiment, whatever that turns out to be, we will have the honour of forming a personal guard for their king. We’ll be Karolus’s bodyguards. I plan to bide my time, wait for the moment and, when they least expect it, slice open his throat.’
‘Shhh,’ said Bjarki, looking around him at the small, empty anteroom. ‘Even if you’re joking, Tor, don’t say that kind of thing out loud.’
Tor shook her head. ‘I’m not joking.’
The door opened and Father Livinus poked his tonsured head round the jamb. ‘The king is here now and Lord Paulinus is ready for you,’ he said.
The ceremony was a simple one. They stood together as the bishop and his priests chanted a long babble of sacred words in the old Latin tongue – something about being reborn in the light of the Lord, accepting Jesus Christ as their Saviour, or so Father Livinus whispered to them in his translation.
Bjarki did not pay much attention to the priest’s words – he was staring open mouthed at the chapel, a huge circular space made of coloured marble, its dome decorated wonderfully with gold and jewels and coloured tiles in vivid blues and reds, and images of the Christ, and his mother Mary, a virgin who had nonetheless given birth to him, apparently, and all the various saints – who were like minor gods. The chapel had a huge stone throne, raised up in the very centre, on which sat the king, beaming down at them. Tor made a point of yawning conspicuously during the ceremony, and while Bjarki, too, was exhausted, a sense of courtesy kept him reasonably solemn.
They both swore to renounce evil, in all its forms, and the worship of false gods and demons, in particular. Then they were liberally splashed with water three times, a big cupful on their heads, taken from the font, which was a big marble basin. Then they were smeared with holy oils, and Father Livinus stepped forward and declared himself Bjarki and Tor’s father under Almighty God, responsible for keeping them on the path of righteousness.
There was more unintelligible chanting from the priests, more prayers, and a speech about the Christ’s last days in the Middle-Realm, and they knelt and were fed a scrap of bread and a sip of wine by the bishop. And the baptism was done. Father Livinus embraced both of them one after the other, and said it was time to swear the oath of allegiance to King Karolus himself.
This was no prolonged matter either, it was simply a question of kneeling before the king on the steps as he sat above them on his stone throne and placing their clasped hands between his warm palms as he leaned over them, then swearing to be loyal and faithful to Karolus and his heirs, for the rest of their lives, and never to break the oath on pain of death.
‘I know you’re a man who strives to keep an oath, Bjarki Bloodhand,’ said the king, when he had released Bjarki’s hands and the ceremony was concluded. ‘It is one of the reasons I took you into my service. And I look forward to many more interesting and illuminating conversations with you.’
* * *
The Auxilla barracks were something of a shock. In the palace complex, and in the city of Aachen itself, they had seen vast quantities of marble and gilt. They had been awed by the soaring columns and beautiful bronze statues, by the arrow-straight paved streets and the towering brick-built apartment blocks, by the extraordinary majesty of the council hall and the splendour of the king’s chapel. But when they came into the large walled compound that housed the Frankish standing army, in the rolling fields just outside the city limits, the first building they saw was a longhouse, of a kind they might see in any humble village in Saxony, or the Dane-Mark, for that matter.
It was a low, thatched building, built of wood with wattle-and-daub walls, with a slightly curved roof, the shape of an enormous upturned ship. For the first time in many weeks, Bjarki was pierced through by a shard of homesickness. An image of Freya leapt into his mind. He wondered what his sweet girl was doing at that moment, and whether she was thinking of him.
He thought even more painfully of the oath he had made to her in the dunes, and then of the oath to the Mikelgothi in the Groves, and then of the oath he had just sworn to Karolus in the jewelled chapel. So many oaths. A burden of promises made – and, in the case of Freya – immediately broken.
One day, he told himself, one day soon, he would return to Bago in triumph. And he would kneel before Freya and beg her forgiveness. And she would forgive him. Then he’d take her into his arms and kiss her and…
The other buildings in the rectangular army compound outside the city were constructions of brick and red tile, neat squares, laid out with precision along the sides of the straight, slab-paved streets, but the Auxilla barracks was a slice of his old life on Bago, magically transplanted to this Frankish soil.
Smoke trickled from the ‘wind-eyes’, triangular holes at the tops of the gable ends of the roof. Bjarki smelled roast pork, and sour days-old ale and the musty stench of seldom-washed bodies living together in a small space.
‘These will be your quarters, along with the rest of the king’s pack of tame savages,’ said the captain of the Scholares escort who accompanied them. ‘Rations will be brought to you each day, and Lord Grimoald will issue the weekly orders, but on a day-to-day basis you will be under the authority of the leader of this gang of mountebanks. You’d probably call him a hersir.’
The man grimaced at the ugly, unfamiliar word. He had made it clear on the way from the palace that he didn’t approve of this unit at all.
If the Auxilla barracks was a small shock to Bjarki, the first person he saw when he went into the longhouse was a huge one. It was Freki, the boy from Bago, son of Olaf, who had taunted him and Freya in the sand dunes, along with his elder brother, Jeki, and their broad, dull-witted servant, Ymir.
Freki was standing by the end of the fire-trough in the centre of the hall, leaning against a carved wooden pillar, gesturing with his hands and chatting with a group of others. He was no longer a youth, Bjarki could see that – he had filled out in the chest, the shoulders and arms. He was a man, a warrior, with a fine sword hanging from his tooled belt. Bjarki stopped dead in the doorway at the sight of him, and Tor barged right into his broad back. There was no mistaking the pale, nearly snow-white hair of Bjarki’s erstwhile tormentor in Bago, and his large, slightly bulging dark blue eyes.
‘What? What is it?’ Tor was looking wildly between Bjarki and the interior of the longhouse. Her body was tensed for immediate action.
‘See the blond man by the fire-trough? I killed his brother. In Bago.’
By this time Freki had noticed and obviously recognised Bjarki.
‘I see him,’ said Tor. ‘Right. We had better get astride this matter right from the start.’ They were both armed, the Black Cloaks had issued each of them with a northern-style sword, a straight yard of sharp steel with a downward curved cross bar, which hung from their waists in leather sheaths. They both had seaxes slung across their loins. But there were about thirty Auxilla in that hall, indistinct figures in the smoky interior, all surely armed.
‘You!’ said Freki, pointing a finger at Bjarki. ‘It’s you – Bloodhand!’
Tor marched directly over to the group of young men by the pillar.
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br /> ‘I am called Torfina Hildarsdottir. This is my friend Bjarki Bloodhand – I think at least one of you knows this.’ She looked at Freki. A challenge.
Freki said nothing. He was staring balefully over her shoulder at Bjarki.
‘I understand that my friend here slew your brother in a fight on Bago,’ continued Tor. ‘He admits the deed. And he has already been judged and sentenced by his community – by the Thing of Bago – and punished with outlawry. I know this because I was there myself with my master, Valtyr. Your father, Olaf Karlsson, renounced vengeance for himself and the village.’
Freki seemed to have lost the power of speech.
Tor said: ‘He also made Bjarki a thrall – although he has since been freed of that yoke by Valtyr Far-Traveller. However, you still may wish to claim kin-vengeance. We understand that. It is only natural. If so, my friend Bjarki will willingly fight you, seax or sword. But tell him now. We have been invited by the king to join the Auxilla and shall be living among you. This must be settled fairly and speedily. Tell me what your choice will be.’
‘What is going on?’ said a new voice. A short, stocky man of perhaps thirty winters, bald as an egg, strode over to the gathering at the fire-trough.
‘Who are you, strangers? And why do you disturb us in our house?’
Tor repeated her name and explained the situation.
‘You are the Rekkr?’ said the bald man, gazing up admiringly at Bjarki. ‘I should have known. I should have been told. I am Otto, captain of the Auxilla, hersir of this company. I’m sorry I did not recognise you sooner, Rekkr. I saw you yesterday in the amphitheatre. It was magnificent. We are honoured to have you here, Bjarki Bloodhand, and your comrade.’