Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  These aristocrats knew Irene Comnena as a self-contained girl who preferred the country house on the Pontus to her city palace and their society; most of them knew her by sight. So John Dukas must needs smuggle her into oblivion without attracting attention. Byzantine society winked at assassination, but it never forgave bungling.

  "What is that?" the Caesar asked, staring at something within the rim of the Golden Horn.

  A secretary came to the window, standing respectfully behind him. Below them extended the imperial gardens, and-beyond a guarded wall-the jetties crowded with galleys and trading vessels. In a private anchorage lay the Caesar's barge, gilded and carpeted and canopied, with space for forty rowers. Upon this barge he was accustomed to journey up the Bosporus or to cross over to Chalcedon-even to take pleasure trips out to the islands. But he was looking at a strange craft coming in past the guard-ships.

  It was smaller than a galley. It had a prow that reared up into a wooden dragon head much the worse for wear. Battered shields were ranged along the rail above the oars.

  "Your Illustriousness," the secretary explained, "it is a dragon ship from the far northern sea."

  The Caesar had never seen such a craft in Constantinople. "From what land?" he asked.

  "May it please your high Excellence, from the end of all land-what is called the ultimate Thule."

  John Dukas nodded as if satisfied. "Bring me a report," he said, "of its master, and its probable length of stay-" for the first time he glanced at the secretary-"Theophile."

  Now the dragon ship lay in the bight of the Golden Horn. A gangboard stretched from its foredeck to a stone jetty. On the afterdeck its master sat, gazing at the lofty towers and the mighty domes of such a city as he had never seen in his days before now.

  Brian was his name-Brian Longsword, a sea rover and a great manslayer by reason of his strength in weapon-play. Wide shoulders he had, behind an arching chest; he had such legs that he could leap his own height into the air, and with his fingers he could pull nails from a plank. But he was handsome and gentle until something angered him overmuch. He had a youthful beard curling around his chin, and he had mild gray eyes.

  "It is a good hamlet," he said, "for spoiling."

  Beside him squatted an old Viking of more fell than flesh. A far-wandering man he was-Fiddle Skal they called him-and he had many tales at his tongue's end of the wonders he had seen. "Rather," he grunted, "would yonder dwellers spoil thee, Brian."

  The tall rover gazed down affectionately at the gray steel blade that lay upon his knee. He was polishing with a sheepskin the long sword that had won him his name. "Oh, I would bid them take their weapons," said he, "and many of them would be raven's meat before that happened."

  Fiddle Skal grunted again. He had been in Constantinople, which the Vikings knew as Micklegarth, before.

  "These men-" he waved a crooked hand at the crowded waterfront-"do not stand their ground with weapons. Nay, they have other ways of plucking gold and gear from the likes of us. But they have grand horse racing, whatever."

  "I would like well," observed Brian Longsword after a while, "to see that."

  So they went ashore, the Viking sea rover and his foredeck man. They walked with a clumsy rolling gait, yet many heads turned after Brian, who had put on a red cloak. At the first booth where carved ivory trinkets were displayed he stopped to stare admiringly.

  "Come away, man," urged Fiddle Skal, who was impatient to get off to the Hippodrome to watch the chariot racing.

  Just then a Greek peddler edged up with one thing in his hand, holding it so Brian could not help but see it-a round miniature painting no larger than a man's hand, with a frame of gold and pearls. A dainty woman's head the size of his thumb looked up at Brian.

  "Does your Lordship wish to buy a slave-such a slave?" The man asked in fair Norman French, which the Vikings understood well enough.

  The hair of the head was pale gold, and the eyes met Brian's no matter how he turned the miniature. He had never seen anything like it before.

  "Her portrait," the Greek whispered.

  Meanwhile Fiddle Skal had peered around Brian's arm. "Put it down," he urged. "'Tis a Greek trick. One like that is not for the likes of you."

  Brian thought this would be true. Still, he gave it back reluctantly and followed slowly after the hurrying Skal. The eyes of the miniature still seemed to be beseeching him.

  So he stopped readily enough when that same Greek bobbed up at his elbow again, out of the crowd.

  "This way your Lordship," the fellow whispered. "Up this alleycome."

  Brian looked over the heads of the chattering throng. By now Fiddle Skal was almost out of sight hurrying toward his horse racing. The tall seafarer wanted above all things to set eyes on the woman of the miniature. There could be no harm in that, he thought, and he might find Skal later. But the truth was that whatever Brian had in his mind to do, he did that, no matter what might be in his path.

  Following the Greek, he made his way through a kind of garden, into a gate where lounging spearmen inspected him curiously and a softly stepping person with a staff appeared, to whisper to the Greek. Again the big Viking followed patiently through dim corridors, up winding stairs into a tapestried room.

  There he stopped, motionless. By the window the woman of the miniature lay, curled among cushions. She was twisting her heavy hair with slim, white fingers, and she looked up at him, startled. Brian felt the hot blood rush into his cheeks. It seemed to him that here was an elf-maid, come among mortals.

  When she spoke, her voice was like the chiming of a golden chain. Not a word did he understand. He had seen the girl, though, and that was enough. He would have liked to pick her up in his arms and bear her off to the ship. But it seemed she must be bought.

  After avid questioning by the Greek, and-through the Greek-by the man with the staff, Theophile by name, it turned out that the woman's price was two hundred and ten gold byzants. That, strangely enough, was the exact number of coins Brian had confessed that he had in his wallet. So he handed his wallet to the fellow, who began to argue fiercely with the bearded Greek. They did not count the money before the woman, and Brian moved toward her shyly.

  "Thy name?" His deep tones rumbled through the room.

  She only looked at him strangely, as if puzzled, and turned suddenly away to the window.

  "Her name is Irene," the Greek was whispering, "and now she is shy-you understand? Consider, my lord. Now she is a slave, but once she was the daughter of a magister militum-of-of an earl, you understand." He addressed the girl respectfully, and she answered briefly. "She asks an hour or so to gather her belongings together. At the hour of the vesper bell she will be brought down to your ship."

  Still talking, he edged Brian from the room and into the corridors. At the garden gate he said farewell hurriedly, to hasten after the man with the staff who had retained the purse.

  Veiled women looked quickly into Brian's flushed face as he strode down toward the waterfront. He thought of nothing but the living thing that was Irene, who would, soon, belong to him.

  Halfway down the market street, however, he had an idea. Here, in a booth at his side was a carpet somewhat like the luxurious carpet in Irene's room. He motioned to a bowing shopman to roll it up and carry it after him. He did not know anything about haggling. But after that he looked to right and left. When a thing caught his fancy he had it carried forth and strode on, with a growing procession of merchants' boys at his heels. The last purchase he made was a couch with a brocade covering.

  When he reached the dragon ship he went to his sea chest and ransacked it for gold rings and bits of silver. When he had a handful of these he distributed them among the bearers.

  Only a few of his stalwarts had remained to guard the ship; the rest were amusing themselves on shore. These few he set to work swabbing down the half-cabin under the afterdeck. He made them wash down the sidewalls that looked of a sudden bare and inhospitable.

  He moved his sea c
hest and sleeping skins to one side and spread the new carpet over the rough planking. The couch he arranged on the other side, with an ebony chest, cushions, and gilt candelabra. The linen cloths with pictures of strange birds-meant to cover the walls-he did not meddle with. Such as that was woman's work. But he did have his men rig up a length of tapestry to screen the newly adorned cabin from the open waist of the ship.

  It was after dark when Fiddle Skal pushed through the tapestry and blinked in astonishment. "What wine," he growled, "did they pour out for you, to turn your mind to this peacock's nest?"

  Brian admitted it was for a woman.

  "What manner of woman would set foot on a dragon ship?"

  "One that I bought."

  Fiddle Skal's jaw dropped open, and he remained speechless for a moment. "You-the warfarer-bought a woman? Where is she, then?"

  "After the vesper bell she will be brought down to the boat."

  The foredeck man pondered and his beard twitched in a grin. "That is to be seen. Did you buy her in the slave market?"

  When Brian described the garden and the lion-guarded portal, Skal burst into a roar of laughter. "May the dogs bite the Greeks! That was the Sacred Palace. It must be that the imperial slaves have shown you some dancing girl. And for that you gave them all your gold!"

  And he struck his hands together. "A princess, no doubt, she was-for two hundred byzants-"

  He stopped, amazed. A seaman came under the hanging to say that armed men in uniform had come to the gangboard. Skal went to the rail, to peer into the darkness.

  These men carried no torches. But he saw a white-veiled figure emerge from a litter and come down the gangboard. Behind her followed a black slave in the red cloak of the palace guard, and he carried on his shoulder a box.

  The Vikings stared in silence as if spirits had appeared among them. The guards and slaves departed with the empty litter, and Brian stepped toward the veiled girl, who was now alone. Fiddle Skal heard her speak slowly, as if the Norman tongue were strange to her. "My lord, you are he that will take me to my home. But what manner of ship is this?"

  Fierce joy surged through Brian's body. Irene had come. She was here on his boat-she was his. When he tried to speak his throat closed and he could not utter words, although he was laughing softly from sheer exultation. Beckoning her to the afterdeck, he clumsily drew back the tapestry hanging so she could see her new quarters. And she cried out in dismay. The common bazaar hangings and the glaring rug appeared to be a stage set to deceive her. Theophile had sworn to her on holy relics, and she had hoped-although she had not quite believed-she would be sent back unharmed to her summer home on the sea. Theophile and the Greek trinket seller had shown this great Viking to her that afternoon and assured her that he had been commissioned by the Caesar to bear her thither in his ship. And she had thought that the Viking's gray eyes were honest. So she had hoped. But this cabin-a pagan Tatar would have provided better quarters for a slave.

  "Let me go!" she whispered.

  Slowly Brian shook his head. He would never do that.

  It seemed clear, now, to the girl: the Caesar had sent her to this strange ship with the dragon's head to be slain at sea.

  "Is-is it thy will," she whispered again, "that I should find my death here?"

  Brian could only shake his head. "That," he growled at last, "will never happen while I can hold a weapon."

  She let the veil fall from her face and looked into his eyes to read the soul behind them. And in that moment she knew more of Brian than he knew of himself. A flush of blood darkened her cheeks and she spoke shyly, "Then why did they bring me here?"

  "First tell me," he bade her, "who thou art."

  So it happened that she told him of the capture of Comnenus and the slaying of him, when the Caesar's ax-men hewed her father into five pieces under the eyes of the mob in the Hippodrome. And then of her imprisonment in the Sacred Palace, when the slave girls whispered one day that she might be spared, and the next day that the Caesar would poison her food-until that afternoon when Theophile had ushered Brian into her room.

  The Viking listened without moving. At the end he nodded, because he had thought it all over carefully and he knew now what was to be done.

  "It is clear to me," he said, "that they are mighty liars. Now, sleep."

  Sitting on his chest with the sword on his knee, he kept watch while the tired girl stretched out on the couch. At first she pulled the mantle over her head and cried a little. Then the slapping of the wavelets against the hull and the swaying of the curtain made her drowsy. Not until the last candle had guttered out did the Viking rise and go forth to the deck.

  There a shaggy shape croaked at his elbow. "The messmates are saying that harm will come out of taking that mighty dame on the ship."

  "I will take her, and I will keep her."

  Fiddle Skal sighed. "That is to be seen."

  The last thing John Dukas expected was a visit from the master of the dragon ship. He was seated at his noon meal on a terrace overlooking the sea when his chamberlain announced that the Viking demanded admittance. It pleased the Caesar's humor to see him, although Dukas instructed Theophile to have in four stalwarts of the Varangian Guard to stand behind the table. These mercenaries were the Emperor's personal guard, but the Caesar cultivated them against the day when he might feel himself strong enough to seize the imperial palace and the throne of Constantinople. There was a proverb that he who ruled the army would someday rule the empire.

  The Caesar looked up indulgently while he selected a bunch of grapes and dipped them into wine. "What says the barbarian?" he asked Theophile.

  Brian had his shield on his arm, an iron cap on his head. He gazed about him in wonder, and, obviously, he did not know how to prostrate himself fittingly.

  "Your Illustriousness," explained the secretary, "he hath a grievance."

  It seemed to the Caesar amusing that a sea rover who had just been given a fair girl should come with a grievance.

  "And what is it?" he asked.

  "He says your Illustriousness bath dealt churlishly by his bride. He says that the woman who will be his bride was held in captivity here like a slave ... For that reason he comes to challenge your Illustriousness to combat with weapons, ahorse or afoot, on sea or land, with sword or spear or ax."

  John Dukas selected a grape, rather regretting that the four Varangian swordsmen should be within hearing. He himself was skilled in handling weapons; he judged himself a match for the slow-moving seafarer who had been mad enough to defy him, but he had no intention of settling a quarrel in this fashion. "Ask him," he responded, "by what right he claims a bride in Constantinople."

  Everyone in the room heard Brian's answer. "By two hundred and ten byzants paid down."

  With lifted brows the Caesar glanced at Theophile, who fingered his staff uneasily. Then, gently, he shook his dark head. "Tell him a Caesar of the empire does not cross words with a warfarer."

  "I am Brian," the Viking said slowly, "Sigurd's son, Earl of Drontheim at the land's end, and I hold myself equal in blood to any man so faint of heart that he will war against a girl. Tell the beardless one so."

  This baiting John Dukas had found amusing. He contemplated the earl of a thatched village at the land's end who meant to marry Irene. This dull man was waiting patiently, unmoved as the timbers of his storm-battered dragon ship. And in this patience John Dukas found something disturbing. He had not, it seemed, managed to make Irene disappear without notice. It might be better if she did not join herself to such an outspoken earl.

  "Seize him," he ordered his Varangians. "Disarm him."

  Not a man moved to obey. Those four mercenaries from the Norse lands had seen the gold ring of a chieftain of their folk; they had heard the broad accents of the north. In their scarlet cloaks and gilded helmets they stood motionless.

  Theophile and the slaves cast down their eyes, trembling. Only John Dukas found amusement in the situation.

  In another moment, he t
hought, they might salute the barbarian. A feckless breed, touchy about points of honor, yet dense of brain. So-they served the Byzantine princes for hire. To Brian aloud, he said, "So be it. I will meet this earl on the morrow, when he comes ashore again, and I am armed. Until then, bid him go without harm."

  Brian considered, and nodded. "Tell this lordling to arm himself well." And he strode from the hall between the silent guards.

  When the Caesar and Theophile were alone, the secretary wiped the sweat covertly from his cheeks. But John Dukas was little concerned about the byzants that had found their way into his wallet. Instead, he reflected that it was necessary now to dispose of this sea-roving earl. After which he could confidently expect that the Viking crew would dispose of the troublesome Irene in their own fashion.

  "Theophile," he said, "I do not wish another such conversation with your barbarian. You will go to Phocas and bid him place his spies on the jetty by that dragon ship. He shall observe the movements of the barbarians, and when this Brian, son of Sigurd, comes ashore again, Phocas's men shall set upon him in the market street. They can pick a quarrel with him, and knife him in the back. Then, Theophile, you might reward Phocas with some of your ill-gotten byzants. Do you understand?"

  "Your Magnanimity," cried the secretary, "it shall be done."

  "I hope so," smiled the Caesar. "This evening I go to the Asia shore to take command of the army encamped there. But I shall hear the gossip of the town. And if there is more bungling, Theophile, you shall be given red gloves to wear."

  The secretary looked down at his hands, at the skin upon his hands. When the Caesar smiled, he was quite capable of ordering the skin stripped from the fingers of one who had displeased him.

  As for the Caesar, he had many other things to think about that afternoon. The sun telegraph was winking a message to him from the dark hills of the Asia shore, across the blue waters of the Marmora. Officers from distant points waited to talk with him, apart from listeners. Once, indeed, a bearded man in a striped robe appeared like an ominous djinn, at his elbow. The bearded one, the Bokharian spy, prostrated himself before the Caesar and whispered tidings.