Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  But the west wind had risen to a gale.

  At daybreak we saw the plain toward the sea gray with water. The water in the moat had risen and was flowing past. Watchers who climbed to the statehouse tower saw the great sea dikes had been broken through in five places.

  Some of the Spanish encampments had been flooded out, and we could make out men climbing up to higher ground, crowding on knolls and embankments, pulling cannon up after them.

  "Ya," said Ludowyk, who limped out to watch, "they have wet their bottoms this night."

  The gale piled water into the breaks, rushing across the lowlands, tearing into cottages and trenches. Bodies began to whirl and drift through our moat-bodies of Spaniards torn out of the loose dirt in the cemeteries. Under that gray storm, the bodies turned in the water as if alive. The earth was vanishing, and clouds swept low over the water.

  "It is like the judgment day," muttered Ludowyk.

  Then we saw that ghost of a ship. A black bark without banner or side curtains, driving over the land itself, under a patched, gray headsail. It veered between the embankments as if driven by witchcraft, over the floodwater.

  "See," I cried at Ludowyk, "it keeps to the course of the old Rhine."

  In that rising flood the specter ship was feeling its way along an invisible channel, as if knowing well how the land lay beneath the floodwater.

  Fear made the skin of my back cold. I thought a Dutchman must be at the tiller of that bark. Then flame flashed from its sides, and we heard the roar of cannon. This ship, steering over the land, was firing at the Spaniards clustered on higher ground.

  "It is Nick van Straaten's bark," Ludowyk said.

  Then I heard the great bell of the statehouse tolling, which was a signal for all living men to stand to arms. We crowded along the rampart, watching.

  For, behind the bark, fishing sloops came in, over the land, firing cannon fore and aft. And behind them a great admiral ship, with the arms of Orange painted upon its sterncastle. It moved slowly, under one spritsail, its broadsides smoking and roaring. And astern of it appeared long cargo barges carrying cannon, pulled by oars.

  Ludowyk wiped the tears from his eyes, watching. "The ships of the sea are coming to Leyden."

  Ketches and schooners from Lofoten, sailing skiffs of the Zuyder Zee, they followed van Straaten in, on a course over the canals to the Rhine that had filled its channel again with salt water. It seemed to the good people to be a miracle.

  Because a strange thing happened. The thousands of armed men of the tercios, wet and cold and hungry, caught in crowds along the embankments and punished by chain and solid shot of the ships, began to leave their cannon and to try to get away to firm land. Divided, out of reach of their commanders and half submerged, they ran from those ships that sailed over their tents of the night before. Weighted by their breastplates, they drowned where the earth beneath them gave way.

  All the while the great bell tolled. Ludowyk and I could see the ships drifting toward the stone quays on the floodwater. Men pushed at poles to steer them past the wrecks of canal barges, where no ships had ever ventured before. We could see cheeses and wine kegs piled on the decks.

  But we heard the bell tolling, and we of the watch understood why it was summoning us when we no longer had a duty to perform on the rampart.

  Hurrying back, we joined other people along the canal walks where the water now splashed against our feet. Nay, we did not go down to the quays where the food would be landed. We hurried toward the doors of the Pieterskerk whither the voice of Adrian van der Werf was summoning us by means of the bell.

  Although we hurried, we did not make much progress because we were weak, and our feet in wooden shoes slipped on cobbles. I heard men weeping for joy, and heard only faintly their voices as they tried to sing:

  "We praise Thee . . . 0 Lord for Thy mercy everlasting. We give praise-"

  We were going to make our prayer at the kerk before tasting of the food. Coming out of the doors, I thought of Lady Margaret and hurried down the canal to her house.

  There I saw Nick van Straaten, alone. He limped with one leg, and his other arm hung stiff by his belt. Dried blood blackened his fingers. On his good arm he was carrying a basket. And it was strange how, sud denly, my belly ached at sight of the round loaf of bread and jug of wine in it. He swayed as he walked, as if the ground was awkward to him who had been so long at sea.

  I helped him to open the door that had no latch on it. Pushing into his lady's sleeping room, he went to the bed, looking into her face. Her eyes moved up at him.

  His good hand trembled so that he could not break the bread, until I helped I him with my knife, first cleaning it of dirt. Then he dipped the morsel of bread into the wine and opened her lips so that she could chew on the soft bread. After an hour the deathly paleness was gone from her cheeks and she could smile.

  By the basket he sat, rubbing his knee, not knowing what to say. It was a strange thing for me to see, but the lines softened in his hard face and he also seemed more alive than before. He looked at me and sighed.

  "Those skellums in our ships would not go ashore at first when the wind came to blow up the out-dikes," he grumbled. "They said no ships could reach Leyden. The Devil fly away with them!"

  "They were Dutch," Lady Margaret smiled, "and so are you."

  "Why, yes," said Nick.

  Now that he had fed her, he did not think of anything else to do. Sitting in his chair, his head dropped on his beard, and he breathed heavily. He slept like a tired man who has come home at the hour of candlelighting.

  Out of that day we had learned a lesson. The Spanish army could run away-the armada of King Philip was not invincible. So from then we fought back like fiends, and they melted away from our coast of Holland, leaving us free in our land.

  Now that the wars are over, we in Leyden town are building a monument to Adrian van der Werf, and our good William of Orange hath ordered a university to be established here, to honor the defenders of Leyden.

  But Nick is not here. He is sailing his ship again, up there beyond wind tide, in the Ice Sea. He is looking for that passage he meant to find. And he will not die, my lady says, while Dutchmen live.

  Mist covered the ship. It was a mist of magic, Sir Ranulf said, because for two weeks they had not seen the sun or the stars in a clear sky.

  And yet a wind drove the ship on. It was a strong sea ship with a tall mast and a square leather sail, Sir Ranulf's ship. The wind filled the leather sail and drove it beneath a cloudy sky. Sir Ranulf could not get a fair sight of the stars, so he could not know in what direction they were going.

  On his fingers he counted the days-twenty-seven days since they had left the coast of the Ice Land, heading west and south in good sailing weather. But with such weather he should have sighted the coast of the Green Land in seven days.

  Ranulf had put out that summer from his home on the Norway coast, with a lading of skins, beer, and timber in his trading ship. It was not a rich lading, but Ranulf was not a wealthy man. Times were hard at home and he had heard tales of seafarers who brought back profitable ladings of ivory and white bearskins from these new settlements in the western islands. He had done some trading in the Ice Land and had decided to risk sailing on to the little-visited Green Land for his profit's sake-although the summer season was nearing its end, and Ranulf himself was better skilled in faring along his own coast than in seafaring.

  But for twenty and seven days they had seen no land. Ranulf wondered if they had not missed the Green Land altogether. When the twenty-eighth day dawned cloudy with white foam on the wave crests, he called to him the two other men.

  "Such a wind in a mist I have never seen," he said moodily. "I know not whither to steer. Aye, I doubt not the ship is under a spell of magic. What say ye?"

  Fighting Mord was the first to answer. He was a Viking, a good man with his weapons, a man of mark in Norway, who had offered to go upon this cruise with Sir Ranulf, with eight of his swordsmen-since f
ighting was to be expected as well as trading. A tall, dark man in the prime of his strength, who thought before he spoke. "It seems to me that we have been blown far south into a strange sea. When we can see the sun rise and set, then we will know."

  "And you, Brand, what say you?" Ranulf asked.

  The other man had come on board the ship an hour before sailing, saying that he had heard they were bound for the new lands. He had a way of laughing at himself, but at times he was moody. He had long red hair and clear eyes; he wore a strange, close-fitting blue traveler's cloak, with a great white bearskin about his shoulders, upon which he carried a double-headed ax with a short shaft.

  "The storm maidens will drive us," he responded idly, "where they will."

  "But what if we have missed our landfall upon Green Land?"

  "Then," said Brand, "it will be the worse for us."

  And he went away to sit on his bearskin near the penthouse built against the poop for the single woman on the ship, Sir Ranulf's younger sister.

  "It seems to me," observed Ranulf in a low voice, "this far-wandering Brand hath brought trouble upon us from the sea. He lies there, singing often to himself. His like I have never known before."

  But Fighting Mord, who had taken part in many Viking raids, had greater knowledge of men. "Nay, Ranulf, he is restless, hungering after new sights. He is even a land seeker. Still, he has a wild way with him."

  And presently the Viking went to stand by Brand, who was running his hand through Kristi's long hair, as light and soft as silk. Brand was telling the girl a tale about a town called Paris where he had tasted wine and seen silk dresses upon the women, and Kristi was listening, although she looked up at Fighting Mord. She was sixteen, venturing for the first time away from her homeland-Ranulf, her brother, had thought that, owing to the lateness of the season, they might have to winter in the Ice Land, and he wished the girl to be under his protection.

  Kristi had only cotton frocks and rough wool cloaks; until now she had only talked with other girls and priests. She did not know-because she had no mirror except a piece of polished bronze-that her gray, elfin eyes were lovely, or that men looked long at her supple arms and soft, white throat.

  To Ranulf, Kristi was still the child who had stolen sugar from the storehouse and had wept over a slain kitten. When she had asked to have a board hut to herself on the ship, he thought that she was frightened. She paid long visits to the animals in the cargo deck below, especially to the goats that were to be sold to the settlers in Green Land.

  Now she let Brand caress her hair because she wanted to hear about the wonderful gowns of Paris. Leaning against the rail, Fighting Mord listened also, until his temper began to irk him.

  "Now, hear me," he said then. "It seems to me, Brand, that you have a hand better suited to rubbing a girl's hair than holding a sword."

  "This is pleasanter," nodded Brand.

  "What if I bade you try your skill with a sword?"

  "I will never do it," Brand answered, but to himself he added, "again."

  Kristi glanced at him scornfully, and the ship's men within hearing turned to stare. For in that age no man of mark went without a sword, or hesitated to use the weapon he wore. Brand, it is true, carried that shorthandled ax which, except for its polished steel and silver inlay, might have been a woodman's or a butcher's arm.

  "Well," observed Fighting Mord after a moment, "you have a pole-ax. Will you use that?"

  "Nay. I bear it to frighten off quarrelers."

  Fighting Mord looked at him steadily. "There's something in you not easily understood." He put his foot on the stranger's knee and trod heavily.

  He was a strong and heavy man, the Viking. Still, so suddenly did Brand seize his ankle and throw him off that he struck the deck on his head and shoulders, and Kristi gave a low cry of fright. At once Fighting Mord sprang up, drawing his sword. But Kristi gripped his arm, pleading with him, and Sir Ranulf ran up to beg him to have no weapon-play on the ship. Fighting Mord yielded reluctantly. "So long as we are on this boat in peril of our lives," he cried to Brand, "l will not lift hand against you. But when we have made our landfall, then we will take to the weapons and it will go ill with one of us."

  "That," assented Brand, "is easy to say."

  Kristi gazed at him as if trying to see what was beneath the skin and hard bones of him. "What makes you so strange?" she asked.

  "A tale," said Brand, "that I have no mind to tell you, little Kristi. Yet I will tell how once I served the Emperor of Constantinople, where even the palace guards wore gold helmets. A magician there was-"

  Kristi got up with dignity. "You are hateful to me now, and I will never let you touch my hair again."

  "Not even," Brand smiled suddenly, "if I hang your mittens on a sunbeam to dry?"

  "There's no sun," Kristi pointed out. Then she stamped her foot angrily. "Oh, you will not mock me!"

  She went away into her hut and shut the door. Brand turned over on his back and looked at the sky, through which the pale sun gleamed for a while. Then he rolled up in his bearskin and went to sleep.

  But Fighting Mord sat on the bench under the hang of the afterdeck with Sir Ranulf beside him. They were drinking beer and between his knees Fighting Mord had an open sea chest. "Do you not see," he said, "how fair your young sister has grown? If she had fitting garments and gold to deck her, she would be the match of any woman."

  "That," uttered Ranulf, "I did not know."

  "Well, here is a silk dress and here is an embroidered cloak, with red slippers. Give them to her, with this gold arm ring-" the Viking lifted a small band of fine red gold-"for I have a mind to her. Are you willing that it should come to a match between us?"

  Ranulf felt amazed. For Fighting Mord was a man of mark in Norway, a leader in the wars, with threescore swords to follow him, and rich lands to his name. It seemed good to Ranulf, for the sake of his wealth, that Kristi should wed so strong a man. "Right gladly," he cried.

  "Did you think I had come upon this cruise merely to smell the western sea? Give Kristi the presents, and when we come to a town, then you and I will lay down the terms of the match. Until then I shall look to Kristi's safety myself, and I will deal with any man who seeks to beguile her."

  Well content, Ranulf called for fresh beer. But a serf came running, stopping beneath the deck. "Listen, my masters," the man cried. "The gulls!"

  So it happened that Sir Ranulf had other things on his mind than Kristi for many days. When he went up to the open deck, he saw gray gulls circling and screaming about the masthead-gulls that must have come from some shore. The clouds had thinned to a light haze; the sea gleamed blue under a mild sun. And soon they saw the white surf along a coast on the starboard beam.

  "Land!" cried the seafarers.

  The sky cleared and they saw the new land, level and dark with forest growth. Late that day when the sea had calmed, they came abreast the mouth of a fiord. Into this Sir Ranulf steered his ship, for he could not find a better place for a landfall.

  "It is like," he told Fighting Mord, "we shall find a settlement on this fiord."

  When they were in it, they lowered the sail and all hands took to the oars. They rowed the ship slowly up the narrow channel, where the walls of the forest drew ever closer upon either side, while the gulls clamored overhead. The branches of the trees nearly met above the mast when, after sunset, the forest wall fell away and the ship came through into a lake red with the last sunset fires. They could smell the odor of ferns and forest mold from the shore. Then Sir Ranulf ordered the anchor stone to be dropped, and he rowed ashore in the aft-boat.

  That evening they gathered wood and cooked salt meat in a pot on shore and Kristi baked hot bread. For twenty and eight days they had lived upon dried fish and hard bread, so they feasted well. After they had done that, Kristi watched the bright stars mirrored in the still lake, and she thought this place fair enough to be the home of the gods.

  The next morning the men were eager to explore the s
urrounding country, and Kristi occupied herself with making a bower out of pine branches while the serfs brought the animals ashore. The gaunt cows and the hungry goats went at once into a meadow where golden wheat grew rank. Kristi wondered who had planted that wheat, and she wondered more when the men came back at nightfall without having found a trace of any habitation. But Fighting Mord had slain an antlered buck with an arrow, and they had fresh meat to eat.

  "By Thor's thunder," he laughed, "I did not know this Green Land bred such game."

  Brand had brought in a strip of strange bark as long as his arm. On the outside it was the hue of gray silver; it was all of one piece that could be bent and rolled and it smelled sweet-as did the entire forest of this lake-yet it was thin as well-woven linen.

  "Now I have been in many lands of the earth," he said, "and I have never seen until now the silver tree from which this bark comes."

  "What good is it?" demanded Kristi contemptuously.

  Brand, the far-wandering man, shook his head. "It may be a sign." Kneeling, he scratched with a twig upon the ground as if seeking for a message out of runes. "They said in Ice Land that we would find bare rocky heights and bare fields rising from the sea's edge in Green Land. Now here we have found no fiord but a river. Aye, the lake water is fresh and sweet. Here is a lofty forest and standing grain that was never sown. Here is bark from an unknown tree. So, it seems to me that we have come to some unknown land."

  "What land could it be," retorted Mord, "except Green Land, or perhaps an island?"

  "It is not an island."

  Ranulf nudged Mord and whispered, "Let be, the man is fey. He may have the gift of seeing what is to be."

  The next day he remembered to give Kristi the presents from Fighting Mord, and the girl carried them off to her bower, to lay them on her knee and run her fingers over the fine texture. After a while she fetched a small keg of water from the lake and washed herself from head to foot, and put on the new garments reverently. The shoes were a little big, and after she had studied herself in the bronze mirror she got out her comb and combed smooth her unruly hair, plaiting it into two long tresses after the manner of the great ladies she had seen. Then she walked slowly through the camp.