Swords From the Sea

by Harold Lamb

  Hjor grunted, but some of his men came closer to hear.

  "When the moon is full upon this maid," Honeywords explained, "she sings, and she combs her hair with a shining comb. Some of you, mayhap have seen the mermaids of the waters. Fairer indeed is this elf woman. White as wands, her arms. Like fruit blossoms her breasts. With her distaff she weaves a mist of magic about her, and if you can enter that, you will find her dearer than mortal women."

  "No such lorelei lives," Hjor snarled. He and his men thought no more of looking for a woman. Instead, pulling Rang with him, he pushed into the hut. The sunset was fading, and Hjor peered at the Icelander's hunting weapons. "Sticks and cords!" The tined fishing spear he tossed away contemptuously. And with the throwing stick, he poked into the chest where the Icelander kept his precious things-the green cloak of silk that had been his mother's and that jewelry he had made her out of pearl shell. These Hjor tossed aside indifferently. Spitting into the steaming water pool, he called for Honeywords.

  Rang noticed that the silver ring, his treasure, had vanished from its cord. And the raiders discovered that the piper of Erin was not to be found. In the twilight, he had slipped away while Hjor was inspecting the hut. Hjor breathed deep. "By Freya's boar!"

  Taking up Rang's roping pole, he broke the shaft away from the cord and jerked the noose over Rang's head, tightening it about his throat until his injured head ached.

  "You feel that?" he asked softly, "We will cut the skin from your head and pull it off and leave you for the wolves to find, Icelander, if you do not lead us by the shortest way to the Town. Do you understand that? "

  "Yes," said Rang.

  Knotting the free end of it about his own left wrist, Hjor went outside, pulling Rang with him. He peered into the dense mist over the river. "Can you see your way through this?"

  "Yes," said Rang. "Soon the moon will be clear on the hills."

  For a while, until the moon showed, Hjor inspected the foot of the trail that led to Town. Tracks cut up the ground, and it was broad enough for his men to ride two abreast.

  When the moon's glow showed through the mist above them he peered into Rang's eyes from beneath the boar's head. "You," he advised, "go first, and go quietly." Rang felt a cold iron point sear the flesh under his shoulder. "And keep to the path or you will have the whole of this blade in your guts."

  Silently Rang started up the path by the river. He did not think he would come down again into that valley.

  Then he heard a voice singing, clearer than the rush of the stream. After a step or two he saw the moonlight full upon the top of the grass mound, and a woman singing there, bending over, combing at her hair.

  Soft she sang, heedless of the men, the silk of her green cloak shining on her slender body, with a necklace gleaming on her bare throat.

  For a moment Rang hardly thought it to be Caill, so different she seemed.

  "The lorelei!" said someone, and by her bare feet lay the distaff, and around her the mist thinned away. The lines of men edged toward her, staring. They came around the mound hungrily.

  "Fetch her along," Hjor said. "We have no time to play with the young witch now."

  So the moon was higher when they started up the path again, with Caill among the men. And Rang pondered, each step sending pain shooting into his head. He wished that he had some of Honeywords's cunning. For in that night light he could see; still that did not help him to make a plan.

  He saw where the path forked ahead of him, and that showed him something he could do. He stopped. "On the right hand," he said to Hjor, "goes the path to the dales, easy to follow but long. On the left goes the hill path-"

  "Up or down, take the short way. Stir yourself, animal."

  Rang turned left, climbing. Here he did not know the landmarks, for this path led up to the white glaciers of the Sleeper, not to the Town, and Rang had never explored it. Out of the birch clumps he climbed, past the face of black rocks shining with wet, out along a ridge crowning one of the glaciers. White and cold lay the ice.

  Above him he could see the breath of the Sleeper puffing out, after he counted ten and seven each time. He was thinking about Caill, who seemed so beautiful now in the moonlight in her fine cloak, and what might happen to her presently.

  They were passing under bare rocks, skirting the edge of the glacier when Hjor jerked the rope hard. "I see no roofs about here. Where sits this Town?"

  Rang did not answer, because he was holding his breath. A cloud of smoke billowed down over them, and the men began to cough, choking. Edging closer to Caill, he whispered, "Hold your breath." Some of the ponies neighed and plunged.

  A squealing and a wailing broke out above them, in the smoke, as if fiends danced there. The ponies reared, clattering on the loose stones along the path above the glacier. One of the raiders yelled in fear.

  "'Tis that mad piper of Erie," Hjor shouted, "who swore by his soul he would deliver Iceland to us."

  His eyes aflame with suspicion, he whirled on Rang. A stick whistled through the air and clanged against his headgear. A throwing stick, Rang saw it to be. A long fish spear followed, out of the smoke, sticking in a man's thigh.

  Lifting his shield, Hjor stopped. A stone smashed against the shield.

  "The mountain lives!" a man shouted, staring. Along that path bedlam was breaking loose; with the whistle of the wind, the billowing of smoke, the hurling of weapons, and men tumbling from frightened ponies.

  Above them, in the rocks, shapes in fishskins and seal pelts jumping. Rang saw them to be the fishers and hunters of the Iceland folk. A net sailing down upon the heads of the nearest raiders, and the while the pipes of Erin wailing-

  Rang jumped among his ponies, shouting at them, and they headed back, rushing down the path, spilling men. Then the rope tore at Rang's throat, hauling him back.

  Light arrows rattled against the iron shirts of the raiders, and sling-stones slashed their faces. From between the rocks a seal hunter slipped, to make a cast with his roping-pole, and catch a warrior in the noose, throwing him. Amazed, the weapon-men were ducking and scrambling for shelter.

  Then Hjor's voice boomed out: "Sticks and stones and smoke, messmates! You are hiding your heads from fishing folk. Up with you!"

  Climbing to a rock, he called those raiders together: "Shield wall! Shield wall!"

  Obedient to his voice, the war band gathered, shields overlapping. Limping and uncertain, they rallied toward Hjor's voice: "Fight down to the ship, lads!"

  Unnoticed for that instant, Rang pulled the noose from his neck. "I will show you a way down," he shouted, forgetting the pain in his head, running toward Hjor's rock. Up to the rock he leaped with empty hands. Before Hjor could strike at him, his legs and arms caught around the warrior in a wrestler's grip. The blow knocked Hjor off balance, and Rang locked his arms.

  The two of them rolled off the rock, and Rang shoved Hjor out upon the glacier ice. As he did so, he felt himself shoot downward. Sliding, he let his body go limp, and curled his arms about his head.

  Over the gray ice he slid faster, scraping against rocks. He whirled around, and brought up in soft, wet snow. He got to his feet, finding no bones broken. A stone's throw away lay Hjor without his sword, but with his shield arm twisted under him. The heavy shield had caught fast beneath the snow, and Hjor groaned. Rang jumped on him with his knees. He caught Hjor's beard and twisted it one way, while he knelt on the man's broken shoulder. And Hjor yelped at the pain.

  Sliding and scrambling, Honeywords appeared beside them, pulling out his sheath knife.

  "Let me stick it in his throat," he panted.

  Rang shoved the piper away, and Honeywords gibed at him: "Horseherder. Slay him now, or he will feed you to the birds!"

  But Rang was thinking about that. He felt anger rise in him, because Hjor's men had killed the pony. Still, he thought how they would obey Hjor's voice. So thinking, he ground his knee again into Hjor, and the warrior yelled, tears running from his eyes.

  "Call to
your war band up there," Rang said, "to throw down their shields and weapons, or you will weep more than that."

  "What then?" gasped Hjor, sweating.

  Rang considered. "The Iceland folk will summon you to trial for making a landfall with weapons."

  Hjor's eyes gleamed when he heard this. He nodded his head, and Rang got up from his knee. Swallowing hard, Hjor shouted up at the path, "Down shields, Hjor's men. Throw away your swords. The power of magic on this mountain is too much for us!"

  Faces peered down at them through the drifting smoke, and they heard iron clatter upon stones. Rang felt with his feet in the snow, and took up Hjor's sword, while Honeywords stared at him as if he had changed his shape.

  "By the powers!" the man of Erin cried. "You shall not be saying at the court that I was forerunner of these seasnakes, Rang. Look ye! I ran fast to the town, and summoned forth the folk, to keep you from being cut out of your skin. So you owe your life to me. Do you understand, Rang?"

  "Yes," said Rang.

  On the beach, when the moon was high, the Iceland court held inquest upon the raiders. The court sat by the dragon-ship.

  Gizur the Old sat by the fire they had lighted, with good men and true from the Thing to consider the judgment after witness had been taken. On one hand sat hundreds of the hunters and fishers, with the weapons, the iron shirts and the shields of the raiders close by them. On the other side, away from the ship, sat Hjor and his raiders with empty hands.

  Gizur pulled at his white mustache, and spoke each word carefully. For the law of Iceland, made by the first comers to the land, was older than Britain or the Angle and Saxon folk, and it was the duty of the old men like Gizur to see that the law suffered no change.

  The witnesses, Gizur said, had established that these raiders summoned before the court had suffered some flesh wounds but no body or bone or death wounds. So he took no account of those flesh wounds. The Icelander Rang, however, had suffered a head wound, and the raider Hjor a broken shoulder. These he set against each other and took no more account of them.

  Hjor breathed easier when he heard this.

  "The death of the pony is to be atoned for," Gizur continued. "And for that I will let Rang name his award."

  Standing up before all that court, Rang considered carefully what the true value of the pony might be. "Hjor's sword I shall take," he announced, "in full atonement." He thought a good ax could be forged out of the blade.

  And Hjor almost laughed, seeing how carefully the Icelanders dealt with little things. Not so Honeywords. "What a simple folk you are," he gibed, "and tender in what you do! Will you be after letting these manslayers go off scot-free in their ship? They will come back to take the hides off you. Whatever!"

  Now in this, Honeywords was thinking about his own hide. But Gizur the Old was not pleased.

  "A word more," Gizur said, "and you will be in contempt of this court, man of Erin. The law may not please you, but in this land men must have equal right, by law." Hjor sprang up, to run with his men to the ship and push off, when Gizur bade him wait, as there was one more point to be judged. "It is evident, Hjor, that you and your shipmates made a landfall at this spot with intent to do bodily harm."

  Hjor stopped as if struck, and Gizur added that he could plead his own cause.

  "True enough, we made a landfall," muttered Hjor, looking about him cunningly. "But where is the witness who says we came with any malice aforethought? I do not see him."

  "There are the witnesses." Gizur said. "They are those killing weapons of yours." Gizur nodded. "Nay, those swords and battle axes and spears were made for manslaughter. And by carrying them you are guilty of intent to kill. For that, atonement must be made."

  Chewing his beard, Hjor waited.

  "I award," said Gizur slowly, "to those who were to be killed but are not-to the Iceland folk-all goods and gear that are movable upon your dragon-ship."

  "And the ship itself?" demanded Hjor.

  "That is yours." And Gizur ordered him sharply with his men into it-to the stern. Those raiders hurried to obey, hiding their exultation. They watched the Icelanders, armed with the killing weapons, haul fur cloaks and beer kegs and dried fish and a chest of gold from the dragonship. Every bit of cloth and loose rope and every sea chest, the Icelanders passed down to the beach. They even pulled the long steering oars from the stem and heaved out the rowing benches. When Hjor shouted protest, Gizur reminded him that the oars were movable gear. And he bade the Icelanders throw out the rowing oars.

  At this, Hjor stormed forward. Then Gizur with his own knife cut the yard sheets, and the yard came down. Iceland fishermen slashed loose the one great sail of the dragon-ship and tossed it to the sand.

  "Robbers!" yelled Hjor, in a fury. "How will we sail-"

  The dragon-ship began to move out into the swell. Scores of fishermen shoved at its sides, running it out into deep water. The ship slid past the break in the swell, and turned slowly, caught by the offshore wind.

  "This is murder," roared Hjor, his hands groping for a stick or a pole in vain.

  "No," Gizur shouted back, where the armed fishermen waited in the swell, "it is what you had in mind, intent to do manslaughter. You will judge for yourself how it turns out."

  The dragon-ship drifted farther out, into the moonlight.

  Rang did not see it. He went to where Caill sat, and she held out the fine silk cloak and the pearl shell trinkets to him. "Those are yours, Rang."

  Instead of taking them, Rang shook his head.

  "Why did you make yourself into an elf-maid," he demanded, "sitting on that mound?"

  "I thought I could beguile them into looking at me," she whispered, "so you could escape." A shadow of the old fear touched her eyes. "Why did you leap upon Hjor up on the mountain?"

  "I could not have them fighting where you might be harmed."

  "You are foolish," she said, laughing. "You were not like that at first."

  Bending over, he picked her up in his arms, and began to carry her. Along his river, up his land he carried her, to his hut. And he would have carried her across the threshold if Honeywords words had not jumped out into the moonlight close by it. He peered at those two and he grumbled.

  "Ochune! Too tenderhearted and simple am I."

  "You!" cried Caill. "Indeed you are, a fine, scheming man."

  Honeywords looked into her face, and shook his head. "I could have had gold and gear as the forerunner of the sea raiders. Yet for the sight of a girl and the sake of a boy, I saved Iceland. 'Tis the heart of a poet I have and nothing else."

  Listening, they heard the wail of his pipes as he walked away, the sound of it soft and mournful as he pressed the hag under his arm. But they did not see over his other arm Rang's ring of silver.

  You will be thinking that this strange story is a lie; but it is all true, and many men have sworn to it. It befell on the Cote d'Or, within those drowsy hills of Burgundy, on a clear midsummer day when the good Charles was Duke-may God grant him everlasting rest! It came about, men say, because Bryn Briogan had eyes to see in the dark. Others say that he brought trouble with him, as a dog brings fleas. But you will hear the first and the last of it, and you will judge for yourself.

  Now the first of it was the ferryman, snoring in his barge on the river, when someone clapped him on the breech and he awoke to ferry Bryn Briogan across to the island. Him and his horse.

  "It will be a silver denier," said the ferryman when Bryn was for leading his horse out of the barge to the land. "A denier, messire."

  Bryn shook his head then. "A pity," he said. "For I have a copper farthing in my wallet, but no silver. So you will have nothing."

  The ferryman scratched his big head. He looked carefully at this man and his horse. For the man, he saw, was long and lean-ragged and sundarkened, with a wide, hard mouth and a look of laughter about his eyes. And the horse was fine and high-black with a white blaze in the forehead. He had a saddle of red leather, strange to the eye.

  "I
'll take the farthing," he said.

  "Tell me," remarked Bryn, "if there is a place hereabouts where a man with a sword may find service."

  "Aye, the Castle Ferrand up yonder."

  "And what manner of master has this Castle Ferrand?"

  "The Lord Renault de Ferrand of this island is a just and high lord, and rich as a bishop."

  Then Bryn tossed him the coin, and mounted the charger walking up the road. The ferryman pushed off the barge and rubbed the farthing, which was clipped and bent. "And more," he shouted after the rider, "he hath a great gallows upon which to swing off such a tripe-gutted bottlewhacker as thou art!"

  Over his shoulder the rider looked back. "Have a care, little man, for this horse and I can overpass that water without a boat to serve us."

  And at this the ferryman felt the chill of fear creeping up his back; his knees shook, and he thrust at the sweep with trembling hands. A sudden dread had come upon him, so that-when the stranger had disappeared from the hillside-he rowed his barge back across the stream and went on foot by roundabout paths to the village of Ferrand that lies beyond the castle, to tell of these words. "He and his horse," the ferryman repeated when he had emptied a cup or two, "have no need of a boat. Nay, they can ride over a river."

  While the ferryman was doing this, Bryn Briogan was riding down below the road in a little valley girdled by a wood of live oaks. He might have gone on, but a thought came to him.

  "Malik," he said to the horse, "we have not filled our bellies for a night and a day, and here is some good grazing."

  He turned the black charger into the field and dismounted, slipping off the bit and the straps of the headstall. The horse thrust down its long neck eagerly, and the man went to sit in the shadow of the oaks. It was not good in that age of men to let a charger graze unwatched, or to sit oneself where enemies might come up behind. Bryn knew this well, for he had many enemies and his skin bore the scars of wounds.

  He took the empty purse out of his wallet, tossed it away, and lay back in the tall dry grass, drawing his belt a notch tighter and chewing on a stalk. He had need of food and some good wine. But before he could have that he must hire him out again as swordsman in a lord's service. Service and war he had known for years-and the waking under a burning roof, and the watching the stars go down, and the waiting for death to pass by ...