But in this Charlemagne chronicle there was something Erkenbert had indeed never heard, till Rimbert had told them all of it. Not how the Emperor died, for that was known, but the portents that announced it. Erkenbert shifted the book into full sunlight and read intently.
The emperor, aged seventy, was returning, it said, from his forty-seventh victorious campaign, against the Saxons, in full majesty and power. But then across the evening sky a comet had flashed. Cometa, thought Erkenbert. What we call the long-haired star. Long hair is the sign of the sacred king. That is why Charlemagne's ancestors had the kings they deposed shorn in public. The hairy star fell. And as it fell, the chronicle asserted, the emperor's horse shied and threw him. It threw him so violently that his sword-belt was torn off. And the lance he was carrying in his left hand flew from it and landed many yards away. At the same time, at the emperor's chapel in Aachen, the word “Princeps,” or “Prince,” had faded from an inscription the emperor had erected for himself, and never returned. The king had died weeks later, the chronicle said, insisting to the last that these portents did not mean that God had taken his authority from him. Yet of them all the greatest was the emperor's dropping of the lance, which previously he had carried everywhere with him—for that lance, the book insisted, was the beata lancea itself, the Lance of the German centurion Longinus, taken from its hiding-place in Cologne by Charlemagne in youth, and never leaving his side again in all his many campaigns and victories.
He who holds this Lance, the chronicle said, sways the destiny of the world. But no scholar knows where it is, for Charlemagne's counts diced for it after his death, and revealed only to each other who had been the winner.
And according to Rimbert no man knows now, thought Erkenbert, straightening up from his books. For by his account the Holy Lance was taken by Count Reginbald to Hamburg and treasured as a relic, inlaid with gold and precious stones. But since the heathens of the North sacked Hamburg twelve years ago, it has not been seen. Stolen away by some chieftain or kinglet. Destroyed maybe.
But no. For if it is the holy relic, God would guard it. And if it was made marvelous with gold and gems, even the heathen would respect it.
Does that mean that some petty chief among the church-despoilers shall be the overlord of Europe, the new Charlemagne? Remembering Ragnar Hairy-Breeks, whom he himself had put to the serpent-pit, and his sons, Ubbi, Halvdan, Ivar the Boneless and worst of all, the Snake-eye, Erkenbert felt his spine cringe in fear.
That could not be allowed. If the relic were in the hands of the heathen, it would have to be rescued, as Rimbert had urged so passionately. Rescued and transferred to the new emperor, whoever he might be, to unite Christendom once again. But what guarantee was there that this whole story, of lance and crucifixion and German centurion, was not just a fable? A forgery?
Leaving the books, Erkenbert strolled to the window and stared out at the peaceful spring scene. He had come to the library to check the documents, and check them he had. They seemed reliable. The story they told held together. Furthermore, he realized, it was a good story. He wanted to believe it. And he knew why he wanted to believe it.
All his life, Erkenbert reflected, he had been in the hands of bunglers. Incompetent archbishops like Wulfhere, incompetent kings like Ella and the fool Osbert before him, stupid thanes and illiterate priestlings, in their posts only because of some kinship with the great. England was a land where all his tools had been made of straw.
It was different here, in the land of the German Prince-Archbishops. Orders were carried out. Counselors were picked for their brains and their learning. Practical matters were attended to promptly, and those who understood them appreciated. Resources were far greater. Erkenbert knew that he had come to the great Gunther's attention simply because he had recognized the high quality of the Archbishop's silver currency, and asked how it was maintained. From the new mines, they had told him, in the Harz mountains. But a man who knows how to purify silver and separate out the lead is always welcome.
Yes, thought Erkenbert. He admired these people. He wanted them to accept him. But would they? He could sense their fierce pride in their own race and language, and knew that he was to that an outsider. He was short and dark as well, and knew how much they valued strength and the fair hair they thought a mark of their origin. Could his personal destiny ever be here? He needed a sign.
The rays of the sun had been moving all afternoon steadily westwards, across the lectern and the shelf of books beside it. As Erkenbert turned from the window it shone on an open page. Gold glittered from the massive illuminated capital on it, done with fantastic art in interlaced serpent-bodies, shining with silver and ruby patterns.
That is English art, thought Erkenbert. He looked again at the great Bible whose pages he had been turning, intent only on what they said, not on their art or origin. Certainly English work, and from Northumbria at that. Not York maybe, but Wearmouth or the scriptorium of the great Bede at Jarrow, from the time before the Vikings came. How did it get here?
How did Christianity get here? Hamburg and Bremen were pagan towns to Charlemagne. It was brought here by the English missionaries, by the men of my own blood, by the blessed Willibrord and Wynfrith and Willebald the breaker of idols. My ancestors brought them a great gift, Erkenbert told himself with a flush of pride. The Christian religion and the learning with which to understand it. If any check me with my foreignness, I will remind them of that.
Carefully, Erkenbert replaced the precious books on their shelves and let himself out. Arno, the archbishop's counselor, sat on a bench in the square outside. He rose as he saw the little deacon emerging.
“Well, brother? Are you satisfied?”
Erkenbert smiled with total confidence and enthusiasm. “Completely satisfied, brother Arno. You may be sure that the holy Rimbert has made his first convert of alien race. I bless the day he told me of this greatest of relics.”
Arno grinned down, momentary tension relieved. He had come to respect the little Englishman for his learning and his foresight. And after all—were the English not only some other kind of Saxon?
“Well, then, brother. Shall we be about God's work? The finding of the Holy Lance.”
“Yes,” said Erkenbert fervently. “And after that, brother, the work it was sent for. The finding of the true king, the emperor of New Rome in the West.”
Shef lay stretched on his back, drifting in and out of sleep. The fleet was due to sail next morning, and from all that Brand had said about the hardships of life at sea, it was important to sleep while one could. But it had been a trying evening. Shef had been obliged to host all his captains, the ten English skippers he had with difficulty found to command his “battleships,” and the forty or more Way-Vikings who skippered his conventional craft. It had needed much drinking of toasts, with both groups anxious not to be outdone.
Then, when he had got rid of them and hoped for a confidential talk with Brand, his convalescent friend had been in sour mood. He had refused to accompany Shef in the Norfolk, saying he preferred his own ship and crew. He had insisted that it was bad luck to sail with so many men in the fleet who did not know the haf-words, the elaborate taboo-language by which sailors avoided mentioning directly such unlucky things as women, cats or priests. Finding that dismissed even by Thorvin, who did intend to sail in the Norfolk, he had fallen back on telling depressing tales from his homeland, tales mostly of the unknown creatures of the sea, the mermaids and marbendills, men who had angered the skerry-elves and been turned into whales, eventually one of a scoffer and scorner whose boat had last been seen being drawn under water by a long arm covered in gray hair. At that, Shef had broken off the conversation. Now he lay, afraid of what his dreams would show him.
When the dream came, Shef knew immediately—for once—exactly where he was. He was in Asgarth, home of the gods, and moreover he was standing exactly outside the greatest of the halls of Asgarth, Valhalla, Othin's home of the heroes. In the distance, though still inside As
garth, he could see a vast plain, with what looked like a confused battle taking place on it: a battle with no battle-lines, where every man struck everyone else, falling and bleeding at random.
As the day wore on, men fell and did not rise. The battle resolved itself into a string of duels between single men. The losers fell, the winners fought again. In the end only one man was left, hideously wounded, leaning on a great bloody axe. Shef heard a dim and distant cheering: Hermoth, Hermoth.
The dead began to rise, their severed limbs reuniting, the gashes in their sides healing up. They helped each other up, the men who had killed each other laughing and showing how things had gone. Slowly they formed into ranks and began to march back to the great hall, twelve abreast, a column thousands long, the figure with the great axe at their head. They marched round the building a few feet from Shef's unnoticed person, wheeled left and tramped without breaking their ranks or their stride through the double doors of the hall, now flung wide. The doors slammed. Light even in Asgarth began to fade. Sounds of revelry rose from inside.
Now up to the door came limping a poor man, roughly dressed. As Shef looked at him he knew that only in Asgarth could such a creature remain alive. His back was broken in two, so that his upper half lurched along seemingly without connection to his legs. His ribs were splayed wide, his middle crushed flat as if by the stamp of some mighty animal. Burst entrails projected from his coat.
He reached the gate of Valhalla and stared at it. A voice came from inside, one of the mighty voices Shef had often heard before: not the amused and cynical voice of his own patron—or maybe his own father—the god Rig, fomenter of skills and trickery. No, a cold and gravelly voice. This is the owner of the hall, thought Shef. This is Othin the mighty himself.
“Who sent you, mannikin?” said the voice.
Shef could not hear the low reply, but the voice could.
“Ah,” it said. “Well I know his mark. There will be a place for him here among my heroes. When the time comes.”
The crushed man spoke again, still inaudible.
“You?” said the mighty voice. “There is no place here for the likes of you. Who are you to stand in line against the Fenris-brood, when I have need of men? Away with you. Go round the back, to my kitchen-men. Maybe my chamberlain Thjalfi has need of another trencher-licker.”
The crushed man turned and hobbled away, round the building in the opposite direction to that from which the marching host had come. On his face, Shef saw as he passed, was an expression of such desolate despair as he hoped never to see again.
That is a man for whom even death has brought no peace, he thought. Are even the gods allowed to do such harm? What need is it that drives them to such evil?
Chapter Three
From his vantage-point in the stern of the leading ship, Shef looked back at the long, trailing line. The Bedfordshire, fourth ship from the van, was sagging out of line again, as she had done ever since, by trial and error, they had picked on their present formation. All ten of the English “battleships,” as Ordlaf insisted on calling them, were heading due east with the south-west wind behind them and on the beam, as easy a point of sailing as could be imagined, certainly far easier than their awkward sail up the first part of the Dutch coast from the Rhine mouth with the wind almost directly behind them. Just the same the Bedfordshire was wallowing slowly out to sea again.
No point in shouting to the ship behind, to pass on a message mouth to mouth till it reached the Bedfordshire's skipper. He knew the importance of keeping in line, he had had it shouted at him time and time again by all the other skippers in turn every time they camped for the night. There was some error in his ship's construction. For some reason or other she made more of this “leeway” that Ordlaf was always complaining about. They would get it fixed when they returned to dock. Meanwhile the Bedfordshire would do what she always did: wallow out to sea till she was a hundred yards out of line, and then brace her sail round and awkwardly maneuver back into place. Where the others sailed along more or less straight, her progress was a string of shallow zig-zags, like the patterns on a welded sword.
It did no harm, at least for the moment, Shef concluded. He had realized one thing, though, and realized it some days before, almost as soon as he and the rest of the landsmen had stopped retching over the side. That was that the reason the Vikings ruled the seas, and could descend at any spot in the Western world regardless of the precautions and the guards of the Christian kings, was that they were very very good at something quite unexpectedly complex and difficult: sailing boats.
The seamen and skippers Shef had recruited from the English coastal ports were good enough sailors in their way, but it was not the Viking way. Fishermen almost to a man, what they were good at was coming back alive. Like Ordlaf, if the children's bellies had to be filled, they would put to sea in almost any weather. They had no interest, though, in getting anywhere unless it were to another likely bank or shoal, and certainly no interest in going anywhere fast or unexpectedly. As for the crewmen from the inland counties, aboard to man the mules and shoot the crossbows, every detail of life at sea was a burden to them. At least six of them had fallen overboard already while trying to attend to their natural functions, though it was true that they had all been recovered from the calm and shallow sea. The main reason Shef insisted on camping every night instead of pressing on was that he dreaded the results of trying to cook afloat.
Shef turned from the problems of the Bedfordshire to the low, sullen, sandy shore slipping by to the right—or to “steerboard” as the sailors called it, the side of the ship which had the long steering-oar mounted. Shef unrolled the long scroll of parchment on which he was attempting, following his earlier experience, to draw a chart of these unfamiliar lands. The natives on the coastal islands they had passed had told him a great deal—they were, of course, Frisians, and the Frisians felt strong kinship both with the English to whom they were related, and to the men of the Way, whose religion and order had been founded by their own Duke Radbod a hundred and fifty years before. But, more important, the Frisians of the islands were the poorest of the poor. On the desolate sandbanks on which they lived, sometimes twenty miles long but never more than a mile across, no hut, no flock of sheep was ever more than ten minutes from a Viking marauder. The islanders lived with little and stood ready to abandon that any moment.
That did not mean they were not happy to strike back. Once the news had spread up along the islands that the strange fleet was an English one, come to fight the Vikings, men had drifted in to every camp fire, eager to speak for a mug of ale or a good silver penny of the new coinage.
The picture they gave was clear. As one rounded the Ijsselmeer the chain of islands began, running like the coast they sheltered slightly north of east. The islands' names seemed to become more familiar as one went further along. The Texel, Vlieland, Terschelling, which they had passed three days before—Shef did not know what those names meant. But then they had passed Schiermonnikoog, and further along a string of similar names, Langeoog, Spiekeroog, and Norderney. All these were easy to understand, for -oog was just the hoarse Frisian way of saying “ey,” an island, an eyot, and -koog was the familiar Norfolk “key,” a sandbank.
And all these islands were just sandbanks, drifts piled up over centuries by the rivers that flowed into the sea and that continually threatened to choke themselves with silt. The first slight break in the chain had been the Ems. Further up, the twin estuaries of the Jade and the Weser, with somewhere inside them the guarded bishop's town of Bremen. Just ahead, past Wangeroog, the last of the long Frisian island-chain now slipping past to starboard, lay the greater flow of the Elbe, with on it the port and stronghold of Hamburg under its powerful archbishop. Hamburg, famously sacked by the Vikings a dozen years before, so Brand said, who had taken part, but once again recovering, the very spear-point of the Empire of Christendom leveled at Denmark and Scandinavia beyond.
There would be a time to look into Hamburg and Bremen
. But not now. Now the plan was to push ahead across the estuary of the Elbe, to the spot where the coastline turned north to the North Frisian islands, to Jutland, to the South Danes. And—so some of the seamen said—to the flatlands from which the English had come in their turn, centuries before, to the sack of Britannia and the overthrow of the Rome-folk. Shef felt a slight stirring of excitement. Who was to say that up there, there might not still be Englishmen left, who could be called to the defeat of what surely must be their Danish oppressors? But it would be enough if he could reach there—reach there and return, having tried his ships and given their crews confidence.
What he really needed, Shef reflected, still staring at the markings on his map, was a chart of what lay inside the island chain, between the islands and the main shore. If they could sail along there, his ships could defy wind and weather and water-shortage, cruise along as easily as on the Ouse or the Stour at home. Lurk inside shelter to pounce out on Viking fleets.
But Ordlaf had refused flatly to take the ships inshore, and Brand had backed him utterly. Pilot water, he had repeated. Don't try it without a man born and bred there and one you can trust. Shoals, banks, currents, tides. You can wreck a ship on sand or on chesil as easily as you can on Flamborough Head. Easier, Ordlaf had added. At least you can see Flamborough Head.
Shef wondered obstinately how much of that was the Viking contempt for English seamanship. It had grown steadily during the days of their cruise, the Viking jokes getting continually more barbed till Shef had had to restrain the crew of the Norfolk from manning the mule and sending a few of the loudest laughers to the bottom. Since then they had evolved their current formation: the ten battleships cruising inshore and using all their efforts to keep up a decent speed, while the forty accompanying craft—all Viking-manned, all built on the shores of the Kattegat or the Norway fjords, but all bearing the Hammer and Cross of the Way kingdoms stitched to their sails—swept their contemptuous arcs far ahead and out to sea. Though never out of sight. Always one sail remained on the horizon, keeping a keen eye on the English lubbering along behind, itself watched keenly by the sharpest eyes in Brand's small fleet a further horizon away.
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