by Robert Low
He was pleased with the cloth, less so with the spices, which I had suspected would be the case — the best prices for them came the further away from their origin and Cyprus was just this side of too close.
Then I announced my intention of visiting the Archbishop Honorius and the ears went up like questing hounds, for I had made it sound like I was dropping in on an old friend.
`You know our Archbishop?' the Kephale asked smoothly, lifting his cold-sweating cup.
I am paying my respects to him, from Choniates in the Great City,' I answered casually. 'I have a letter for him.'
Architos Choniates?' asked Tagardis, pausing with cup to lip.
I nodded, pretended to savour the wine with my eyes closed. Under my lashes, I saw the pair of them exchange knowing looks.
`My commander will no doubt wish to have you presented to him, if you will. Later this evening?' said Tagardis. 'The Archbishop will also be there.'
This was new. I thought he was the commander and said as much.
He smiled and shook his head. 'A compliment which I accept gratefully, my friend,' he said, all teeth and smiles and lies. 'But I am garrison commander in Larnaca only. The commander of the island's forces is a general, Leo Balantes.'
That smacked me in the forehead, though I tried to cover it by coughing on the wine, which was one of those deep-thinking moments my men praised me for; all Greeks think barbarians like us cannot drink wine, or appreciate it when we do. They smiled indulgently.
Leo Balantes, the one rumoured to have tried to riot the Basileus out of his throne the year before. So this was what had happened to him: a threadbare command at the arse-edge of what a Greek would consider civilisation, surrounded by sea-raiders and infidels.
I remembered that he was a sword-brother of John Tzimisces, the general they called Red Boots and the one currently commanding the Basileus's armies at Antioch. That favour had at least prevented Leo from being blinded, the Great City's preferred method of dealing with awkward commanders.
We met in a simple room at the top of that solid-square fortress, dining on what seemed to be soldier's fare — fine for me, though the Kephale and the Archbishop hardly ate.
Balantes was square-faced and running to jowl, with forearms like hams and iron-grey hair and eyebrows, the latter as long as spider's legs.
He requested the letter, even though it was addressed to Honorius. It seemed, even to me, that we were conspirators, confirmed as Archbishop Honorius, a dried-up stick of a man with too many rings and a face like a ravaged hawk, started to explain the situation and began by looking right and left for hidden listeners.
It was almost comical, but the implications of it made me sweat.
`The. . package. . that you have to deliver to Choniates,' the Archbishop said, while insects looped through the open shutters and died in a blaze of glory on the sconces, 'is in the church of the Archangel Michael in Kato Lefkara. It was left in the charge of monks there, to be delivered here.'
`What is it?' I asked.
Balantes wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and said, 'No business of yours. Yours is simply to get it and take it to your master who will take it to Choniates. Where is this Starkad I was told of anyway?'
`Delayed,' I replied. 'He has other business.'
I have heard of his other business — some renegade apostate monk,' growled Balantes, scowling. 'I also know you wolves were paid enough for him to put that aside until this task was done.'
I am here to do it,' I replied with as mead-honey a grin as I could pour out, spreading my hands to embrace them all. 'Simply get me the package and I will set sail at once.'
Now Balantes looked embarrassed.
`Not quite so simple,' Tagardis said, hesitantly, looking to his chief and back to me. 'There was. . a problem.'
And he saga-told it all out, like a bad drunk hoiking up too much mead over his neighbours.
The island had been once jointly ruled by the Great City and the Arabs, which arrangement Nikephoras Phocas had ended by making it clear if the Arabs didn't pack up their tents and leave, he would kick their burnous-covered arses into the sea. Most had gone. Some had not and one, who called himself Farouk, had taken to raiding from the inland hills.
Unfortunately, he has grown quite strong,' Tagardis said. `Now he has actually captured the town of Lefkara — Kato Lefkara is a village a little way beyond it and we have had no news from that quarter for several months.'
`How strong has he grown?' I asked, seeing from which quarter the wind was blowing.
A hundred or so Saracens,' Balantes grunted, using the Greek word for them, Sarakenoi. I learned later that this properly referred to the Arabs of the deserts in Serkland, but had come to be used for them all.
Tearing more mutton on to his plate, he added: 'The troops I have here outnumber him three to one, so he will not attack. However, he can't get off, nor can he get help, for my ships are better.'
I have seen your men,' I replied, 'and your ships would only need to stay afloat to be better against a man who has none at all.'
I watched Tagardis' lips tighten, then went on, 'What do you expect from me? I have less than a dozen men.'
I thought you Varangii counted yourself worth ten of any enemy,' snapped Tagardis.
Tomanoi, for sure,' I answered, which was foolish, since there is never anything to be gained from insulting your hosts — but I was young then and enjoyed such things.
There was a sliding sound as Tagardis pushed his chair back and half rose, face flaming. The Archbishop fanned the air; the Kephale started to bluster.
Balantes slapped the table with a hand hard as the flat of a blade. There was silence. The General spat gristle and scowled at me. 'I do not know you and though you look like a boy barely into chin hair, I do you the courtesy of allowing that this Starkad gave you command because you have talent for one so young. You seem witted enough. If you had more men, could you gain this church and the prize in it?'
`Not if they are the men I have seen,' I replied. 'And how do you know this Farouk does not already have your prize?'
It is well hidden and small,' the Archbishop declared. 'It is a leather cylinder, the length of your forearm and slightly fatter than a scroll-case. I will tell you where it is when all is decided.'
I had no idea what a scroll-case looked like, but still had a fair idea of what to look for. 'And the men?'
`What say you to fifty Danes?'
I gaped like a fresh-stunned fish, recovered and managed to grin. 'If they are the ones who have been in your prison for the last five years, I would say "farewell fifty Danes" and run like wolves were chewing at my backside. They are as likely to rip both of us a second bung hole as fight a Serklander called Farouk.'
Balantes chuckled. 'That is your problem.'
`No,' I said, 'for fifty angry and armed Danes, I am thinking, are worse to you than all the Farouks on this island.'
Balantes leaned both meaty arms on the table. 'For the last five years they have been breaking stones to repair the fortress,' he said flatly. 'There is no hope for them, no chance to get off this island other than the one they take now. If they decide to turn renegade, they will have the Sarakenoi and me to fight and there will be no place for them to go.
`They can rampage all they like, steal what they can, but they will be opposed at every turn and die for every mouthful of bread. They may gain riches, but will have nowhere to spend it. There is no way off this island.'
This last he almost spat at me and I saw then that he was as much a prisoner here as they — which, it seemed to me, made them more Odin-lucky than he.
I considered it and the more I did the more it seemed as attractive as Loki's daughter, Hel, her whose bedhangings were Glimmering Misfortune.
`How do they get off the island when we have recovered this prize?' I asked. 'My own crew is about all the Volchok will take. It is a simple trading knarr and, even allowing that some will die, those left will be too many for that boat.'
`Your problem,' snarled Tagardis sullenly.
`No, for I am thinking these Danes will see that clear enough when this is put to them,' I answered. 'It is not a gold-gift, this offer of yours.'
Balantes stirred slightly. 'Their ship will be returned to them,' he said and I blinked at that, for Tagardis had given me to understand that it had been sunk.
`Foundered, I said,' he corrected with a smirk. 'Holed and driven ashore. We took her and repaired her, but have found no use for her yet.'
More likely the Greeks did not know how to sail it and they would not trust the Danes back on the deck of their own ship.
I will give them their ship and arms,' Balantes said, 'and the promise that they will be unmolested for two leagues beyond the harbour. After that, if I see that ship or the crew again, I will sink one and blind everything else.
`You will go quickly to the place, get this container and return it to me unopened. I will seal it, then you will take it back to Choniates, into his hands and no other. Time is against us here, so move swiftly. I do not care about Farouk's destruction, only what is in the container. Understand?'
I was hardly listening. A hafskip. Even allowing for the fact that Greeks did not know bollock from rowlock when it came to Norse ships, they could hardly have botched repairs so as to make her unseaworthy.
A hafskip was within my grasp and all I had to do was persuade fifty Danes not to kill their captors, to trust me, a barely shaved boy, and to take on an Arab and all his men. After that, I would have to think up some way of keeping the hafskip — and them if possible.
All of which made the Thing we held on board later that night a lively one.
Brother John thought we should find out how many were Christ-sworn and then convert those who were not, so that we all had that faith in common. Sighvat said it did not much matter what gods men believed in, only what men they believed in.
Finn said we should get them to swear the Oath, at which my heart sank. That Odin-oath never seemed to weaken — indeed, it grew stronger with every warrior who joined.
Kvasir, of course, slashed his way to the nub of it and, for a man with only one good eye, saw clearer than anyone, save me. I had already seen what had to happen, but just did not want to have to face it.
`These Danes will already have a leader, whether the jarl they sailed with, or one they look to if he has gone,' he said and looked at me. Orm will have to fight him and defeat him, otherwise all of them will be patient enemies for us, not sword-brothers to trust at our backs.'
There was silence — even the incessant chirrup of the night insects had stopped — so that my sigh seemed like the curl of wave on a beach.
`You almost have the right of it, Kvasir,' I replied. 'I will not have to defeat him, I am thinking — I will have to kill him stone dead.' It was an effort to make it sound like I was asking for the mutton dish to be passed, but I carried it off.
`Just so,' agreed Kvasir sombrely, nodding.
`What if he kills you?' asked Amund.
I shrugged. 'Then you will have to think that one out for yourselves.'
It was as offhand a hero-gesture as I could make it, but I was swallowing a thistle in my throat at the very idea of a fight and my bowels were melted.
Sighvat nodded and shifted so he could fart, a long sound, like a horn call in a fog, which broke the tension into fragments of chuckles.
`Still,' mused Brother John, 'five years breaking stones will have dulled this leader's fighting skills, surely.'
A fact I was grasping at while drowning in fear.
Kvasir grunted agreement, then said thoughtfully: 'Just don't choose to fight with hammers.'
The next day, with Kvasir, Brother John and Finn on either side, I stood in front of the sorry Danes, as husked-out a crew of worn specimens as any seen on a slave coffle in Dyfflin. They were honed by rough work and too little food into men made of braided hawsers, with muscles like knots.
Burned leather-dark, their hair made white by rock dust and sun-scorch, they stood and looked at us in the remains of their tunics and breeks, torn and bleached to a uniform drab pale, like the stuff they hewed.
Stone men, with stone hearts.
Yet there was a flicker when I spoke to them and told them of what would happen, the chances for plunder on the way, which they could also keep — this last my own invention, for I knew my kind well.
`How do we know these Greeks will honour such a promise?' demanded one.
There he was. Taller than the rest, with bigger bones at elbow and knees to show that, if he'd had more food, the work would have slabbed real muscle on him. A glimmer of genuine red-gold showed in the quartz-sparkled stone dust shrouding his hair and beard and his eyes were so pale a blue that they seemed to have no colour at all.
`Because I say so,' I said. 'I, Orm Ruriksson of the Oathsworn, give you my own word on it.'
He shifted, squinted at me, then spat pointedly. 'A boy? You claim to be a jarl, but if you need us you are short on followers, ring-giver.'
`You are?'
I am Thrain, who says you should go away, little boy. Come back when you are grown.'
`You may say that,' growled someone from the back, to a muttered chorus of agreement, 'but I would like to listen more. Five years is a long time and I am sick of stone-carving.'
Thrain whirled, spraying dust from himself. 'Fasten that bag, Halfred. We agreed that I lead here. I speak, not you.'
Did you speak when Hrolf took the steering oar when he was fog-brained with mead?' came the counter.
'Did you speak when Bardi ordered him to steer between two shoals, he who was seeing four at the time? No.
I am remembering the only noise you made was the same one as we all did — the sound of a man drowning.'
I liked this Halfred. Thrain scowled, but I had the bridle of this horse now, since I had heard the dissent.
`Here's the way of it,' I said. 'You will be free, with arms and your ship, but only if I am your jarl and you take our Oath.'
We swear to be brothers to each other, bone, blood and steel. On Gungnir, Odin's spear, we swear, may he curse us to the Nine Realms and beyond if we break this faith, one to another.
They blinked at the ferocity of it, as everyone did, for it was a hard oath and one made on Odin's spear, the Shaking One, and so could not be broken. It lasted for life unless you found someone to take your place
— or fought to the death to keep it against someone who wanted it, which had not happened while I had been with the Oathsworn. That, I suddenly realised, was because so many tended to die and there were always places.
For all that, these stone Danes sucked it in like a parched man falling in an ale vat. They wanted what was offered and I could see them tasting the salt on their lips and finding it spray rather than sweat.
`Those who do not wish to become Oathsworn can remain and dig stones,' I went on. 'Of course, anyone can become leader here if the others want him enough and, since it is clear that there will be more of you than my own men, I am supposing you will want this Thrain to take over. So I will save him all the trouble of calling for a Thing and talking round it until our heads hurt, for it will all come out the same way.'
I looked at him. 'We fight,' I said, trying to sound as if I had just asked someone to pass the bread.
There was a brief silence, where even the sun seemed loud as it beat down.
`Do you so challenge? Or are you afraid?' I asked and Thrain scowled, for he had been stunned by the speed of all this.
I am not afraid of you,' he managed to growl, adding a wolf-grin.
I can change that,' I told him and the grin faded. He licked dry lips and wondered about me now, this steel-smooth, cocksure boy. If he had known the effort it took to breathe normally, keep my voice from squeaking and my legs from shaking, he might have been less uneasy when he finally issued his challenge.
I had never fought a holmgang before, though I had seen it once, when two of the old Oathsworn,
long gone to Valholl, had stepped into the marked-off square to fight. Hring had lasted no more than the time it took Pinleg to froth at the mouth and Hring to see that he had ended up in a fight with a berserker. There had been barely enough time for him to widen his eyes with the horror of it before Pinleg charged and hacked him to bloody shreds.
Pinleg, last seen surrounded by enemies on a beach far north in the Baltic, saving us even as we sailed away and left him.
We went to a sheltered, level spot, away from prying eyes, when the Danes were unshackled. The others, especially Finn, were full of good advice, for they knew I had never fought holmgang. Come to that, no one else had either — it was a rare thing, most fights being unofficial and settled without such formal fuss and seldom ending in death.
I remembered what my father, Gunnar Raudi, had told me: see what weapon your opponent has and if he has more than one, which is permitted. Make your own second one a good short seax, held in the shield-hand and, if you get a chance, drop the shield and surprise him with it — if you can let go of the shield and still hold the seax, which is a cunning trick.
Keep your feet moving always, don't lead with the leg too far forward and attack legs and feet where possible, a sea-raiders' battle trick, for a man with a leg wound is out of the fight and can be left.
But the best piece of advice I hugged to myself, turning it over and over and over in my mind like a prayer to Tyr, god of battles.
Finn and Short Eldgrim marked out the five ells, which was supposed to be a hide, secured at each corner by long nails called tjosnur, which we didn't have. Finn managed to get four old Roman nails from the garrison stores, almost eight inches long and square-headed, which he then put in with the proper ritual.
That meant making sure sky could be seen through his legs, holding the lobe of an ear and speaking the ritual words.
Brother John scowled at all this, though the nails interested him, for it was with such as these, he told us, that Christ Jesus had been nailed to the cross.