The Last Viking

by Poul Anderson

  Then he became the scholar once more, observing life from its edge. "Let us consider the other dry necessities at once. How long do you plan to remain here, Araltes?"

  The words came from afar as if someone else were speaking through the roar in Harald's head. "Two years, perhaps?"

  "Maria cannot quit her service at court overnight. The Empress is so easily offended. And then too, my dear, your mother would be grieved by a hasty wedding. To me it means nothing, but you know what tongues are like in this city. Best we plan upon the marriage next year."

  Harald nodded. He could see the sense of that, however it galled him.

  "Very good." Gently, Nicephorus freed himself from the girl. "We will forget the proprieties a while, for you two have much to talk about and . . . you are an honorable man, Araltes. Good night."

  When he was gone, Maria flung herself into Harald's arms. He caressed her clumsily and wondered aloud why she wept.

  "You long-legged idiot," she gasped, raising her face to his, "did you never guess how I was hoping?"

  He kissed her, tasting the tears upon her lips.

  4

  He was often sleepless at night, but the days could be more than sweet. Neither Harald nor Maria might escape their work; oftimes the better part of a week went by without sight of each other, but he found how a man can live on memory. He flung himself back into steering the Guard, as one way to fill such emptinesses.

  The year waned in autumn storms and winter chill, the new was rung in by chimes that shuddered through rain. As he came out of Hagia Sophia, Harald felt a raw wind blowing in off the Bosporus, driving a downpour before it that smoked along the streets and gurgled in the sewers. Belike there was snow at home, he thought, white and still. They seldom got snow here. More and more he wanted to go home.

  Early in the year he found himself with a free afternoon, and so did Maria, and sainted Olaf—who had himself loved—made it warm and bright. They sat together in the walled garden of Nicephorus, alone except for the needful duenna. Her father had provided the oldest, deafest, dimmest-eyed poor relation he could find; she fell asleep in her chair and Maria came to join Harald on a bower bench.

  Her hand lay in his with a trustfulness that turned over the heart inside him, but they talked quietly. She had set herself to learning the Norse tongue, beginning with his name.

  "Hah-rrahlt. No, there's a delta on the end, is there not? Hah-rrald!" She wrinkled her nose at him. "What a language! You sound like a bear waking up angry."

  "Not angry at you," he said. "I could never be that."

  "Well, teach me next to say, 'I love you.' "

  He did, and she said it in Norse, and he kissed her for it. She felt how his hands strained not to close on her with their full bone-breaking strength.

  "Poor darling." She rumpled his hair. "This betrothal time is not so easy for you, is it?" She flushed. "We have not long to wait. And then . . . And next year, God willing, to travel with you toward the Pole Star. With youl"

  "I'll make you queen over the whole North, Maria."

  "It will be enough to be your wife. Truly, I wish no more. Oh, I'm proud as Satan when they talk at court of your victories. Nevertheless—"

  "Go on." He lifted her chin in his hand.

  "Oh ... I am being weak and foolish, I know. But I cannot keep from thinking of the other women, whose men never came back. And the peasants dragged off to war, who asked nothing but leave to work their fields in peace. One night I dreamed I stood before the Imperial throne, the Emperor was on it and somehow the Emperor was you, too, but the throne was wet with blood and when you—he—lifted his hand, I saw blood clotted between his fingers."

  They had talked somewhat of this erenow. "The Norse throne I must have," he said. "If I take that not, I am a craven who cheats his own sons. But as for the rest, perhaps you can talk me into ways of peace."

  Her mood sprang over to lightness. "How many sons shall we have? I hope they will be many. Big noisy boys tramping through the house. And will you give me just one daughter?"

  "To be sure. If she has your looks, she'll be wooed by kings. Which will be useful to our throne, eh? But enough of talking. Yonder crone will not nap the whole day, worse luck." He drew her to him. She kissed him with hunger.

  Then after a timeless time, feet stamped in the peristyle and a Northern voice cried, "Hoy, there, Harald Sigurdharson! Where the Devil are you?"

  "Ulf!" Harald came swiftly from the bower. "What's this?"

  The Icelander entered the garden. Teeth gleamed in his dark face. "I thought I'd find you here. News has come."

  "Well?" said Harald like a curse.

  "A messenger from the palace to the Brazen House. The Bulgarians have risen in force. They're advancing through Dyrrachium, slaying every Greek they can lay hands on. The Emperor is on his way back from Thessalonica to raise a new army. We'll be among them."

  Harald stood motionless before he asked, most softly: "How bad is the case?"

  "Bad enough. Slavic troops have cast off their allegiance and thrown in with the rebels. The governor in Dyrrachium seems as big an ass as Admiral Stephen, he's being whipped everywhere." Ulf spread his hands. "Well, if the Emperor himself plans to take the field, you can judge for yourself how matters must stand."

  "I see." Harald turned back to Maria.

  "What were you two saying?" she asked, white-faced.

  He told her. "So we cannot be wedded until after this war," he finished, "and the war looks to be a long one."

  She had shuddered and he had thought her about to weep. But she drew herself straight instead, and the hands she laid in his did not tremble greatly.

  "I'll pray for your safety," she said. "God love you."

  Chapter VIII:

  How Emperor Michael Went to his Weird

  1

  The Imperialists landed at Thessalonica and proceeded on into Macedonia. When Harald looked back over the columns winding up the mountains after him, mile upon mile of lances and banners and knobbed helmets, he might have felt ready to storm Utgardh of the giants. But then his eye traveled to the Emperor, near whom he rode with his choicest guardsmen, and a coldness touched him.

  Michael's mount was an ambling fat gelding. He drooped and hung onto the saddlebow as if his cuirassier's armor were about to overbalance him. Swollen with the dropsy, his face a puffball, his hair already streaked with gray, he mumbled one steady stream of prayers. Harald wondered if such a presence was heartening to anyone.

  God knew the Byzantines needed a rallying sign. The Bulgars had romped through a land which welcomed them as deliverers; Greek and Slav alike had risen; they gripped most of Macedonia and Epirus and on down into the Peloponnesus itself. Yes, he thought, this war would take time, and he might well leave his bones on these gaunt slopes.

  Up ahead, from the vanguard, came a sound of yelling. Horses galloped off the road. Harald edged closer to the Emperor. His task was to ward the sacred person, letting Ulf and Halldor lead the Varangian shock troops. He owned he was not sorry for that, however much his nerves were chewed by sitting through the skirmishes thus far. There was no sense in risking needlessly the neck about which Maria's arms had lain.

  "What is happening, Manglabites?" asked Michael in a thin voice. His hand fluttered toward the officer's arms hung at his saddle, as if ax, mace and hook meant anything in his possession.

  "Some little trouble or other, Your Sacred Majesty. Naught to take much heed of."

  "Should we halt the lines?"

  "I think not, despotes, unless His Sacred Majesty wishes to rest."

  The head, sagging under the gilt helmet, wobbled back and forth. "Not so. We shall go on. This is God's war. You must understand that, Manglabites. We want the troops to understand it. The Empire is the realm of God on earth. We could not give a broken scepter to our successor when soon we will be called before God's judgment seat. You know that, do you not, Manglabites?"

  "Of course, despotes." Harald squinted ahead, into the wind th
at lashed tears from his eyes, trying to see what was going on.

  "Ride thither, Manglabites. Bring us a report. The saints grant it be a good report, for our sins are many."

  Harald spurred his horse forward, past the mindlessly marching columns and up a shale-covered hillside. The fight was already over. Halldor and some guardsmen were binding the arms of several men in the rough clothing of mountaineers. Two sprawled dead, their brains spattered by the Varangian axes.

  "Oh, good day," said Halldor. "These fellows thought to put some arrows into our advance guard from ambush and then escape into yonder woods. They were not quick enough. None of our folk were hurt."

  "No more than that?" Harald searched the Macedonian faces. One youth, he could scarce have seen fourteen winters, spat on his horse. A Northman cuffed him so he stumbled.

  "There's no need to strike bound men," said Harald mildly. He addressed the boy in Greek: "Why did you do this? Are you scouts for an army?"

  "Yus." The answer was in a dialect he could barely follow. "Yus, a host o' greatness what'll slay the last devil o' ye."

  "I doubt that," said Halldor. "We've no reason to believe a sizeable enemy force is anywhere close by. Lad, lad, do you not know you can be impaled for this?"

  "Yus, 'tis your way, is't not? Wring us bloodless, an' when we can't pay no more taxes then take the people's holy church from 'em, an' end with running a stake up us an' leaving us for the crows. That's your Empire!" the boy wept.

  "The worst of it is that he is right," Halldor said bleakly in Norse. When one of his men asked why, he explained: "The Bulgars rose because the taxes were raised beyond endurance and their own Patriarchate was put down. John the Orphanotrophos! Now they've egged their neighbor folk on to revolt with them, and so we must take honest yeomen like these," his marred features, tautened beneath the dust, "and give them to the Emperor's creatures for judgment."

  "The trouble," said Harald, "is that we have a king here who is not a king. He should have kept power in his own hands."

  "As you will do?" asked Halldor jaggedly.

  "Yes," said Harald.

  2

  Perhaps God still watched over New Rome. With their own strength and so many allies, the Bulgars should have kept their freshly won freedom and added all Greece to the realm. But their leaders fell out. Alusianos seized King Deleanos by treachery, blinded him and took the crown, then, heavily bribed, submitted to the Byzantines.

  Still the campaign wore on, for many Slavs would not yield so readily. In a great and hard-fought battle, Michael's army destroyed the leaderless Bulgar host and took Deleanos and his associate Ibatzes prisoner. Thereafter they went south through Macedonia and Epirus into Greece, restoring order, a long-drawn affair of hard marches and bitter little combats. Riding beside Michael, Harald saw that the Emperor was dying in the saddle.

  One autumnal day they came down a valley in the rain. After hours of such weather, the world was formless gray, nothing but water and mud underfoot. Horses stumbled, close to exhaustion. The infantry was scarcely in a better case.

  There he came, the Byzantine soldier, bulwark of Orthodox Christendom, his face a dark snarl of beard where raindrops glistened like tears, his cheeks caved in, his jaw hanging lax and his nose dripping. Under the rusty helmet his head bowed down toward the squelching earth. The end of his pike trailed in the mud; his shoulder hunched beneath armor and pack; his knees were lumps of bone above the greaves; and his feet were two clods of clay, up and down, up and down, up and down. Over his back, along his ribs, into his boots came the rain. It sluiced from the hidden sky, drummed on helmets, poured over mail, drenched and weighted cloth, plashed in footprints. Toward evening the air grew very cold, the soldiers' skins prickled with cold, but their eyes were half closed and they no longer felt it.

  Harald rode side by side with the Emperor, ready to catch the gross body if it should fall off the saddle. Michael's head hung on his breast, his eyes were shut. Four horsemen held a canopy over the sacred person, but it had begun to leak and rain pattered steadily upon the lord of New Rome. The dribble from his parted lips was almost the only sign that he yet lived.

  Darkness fell, layer by layer, until unseen trumpets blew. The noise came dully out of chilled brass. A great uneven sigh lifted from the shadow host behind Harald. Now they must dig fosses, arrange the wagons, pitch tents and set guards before they could sleep. Mist streamed over the mud, under the rain.

  The Imperial pavilion had already been erected.

  The two-headed eagle hung above, a soaked rag forlornly waiting to be wrung out. Harald dismounted and felt water seep into his boots. Must get them cobbled, he thought wearily. "We are making camp, despotes."

  Michael stirred, whimpering, and slid down into Harald's arms. The Norseman bore the bloated form like a child's, helmet snuggled against his shoulder, into the pavilion. Its wooden floor thudded under his tread. He set his burden in a chair.

  "Is there aught else His Sacred Majesty desires?" he asked.

  Michael raised his eyes, slowly, as if stones hung from the lids. "Remain here," he whispered.

  Harald waited in a corner while slaves undressed the Emperor, rubbed him with scented oils, wrapped him in a purple robe and put him to bed. He lay breathing heavily while they went out after food. Harald had begun to think he had been forgotten and would have to stand there the whole night, when the red-veined eyes opened again and rolled toward him. "Stay and dine with me, Manglabites," said Michael faintly. "I want to . . . to . . . discuss tactics. . . ." His words trailed off.

  The honor could be as dangerous as it was unprecedented: no telling what might enter a head so sick. Harald bowed and waited, listening to the rush of rain over canvas. The single lamp guttered, almost going out, causing huge shadows to jump on the wall. Attendants spread the table with silken cloth, golden ware and delicate viands. But one man must lift the Emperor's head and feed him from a spoon.

  "Be seated, Araltes," he mumbled. "Sit and eat. Wait not on ritual. We are all God's children."

  The Norseman gave an inward shrug, drew up a chair, and fell wolfishly on the food. There was silence while his fingers tore a roast swan apart and his teeth picked the bones clean. Nothing could so gut the soul of a man as hunger, he thought; might not the visions of ascetic hermits be mere belly growlings? On a night like this, God seemed far away and the Fiend walked abroad. Defiant, he repeated his heresy and tossed off a bumper of wine. It glowed in him like a small hearthfire.

  Michael had himself propped against the pillows after he had been fed. The mottled face looked somewhat less corpselike and he spoke more clearly. "Go. Every one of you out. Close the flaps. We would talk privately with the Manglabites."

  Harald knew suddenly that the best service he could do was pretend the Emperor was only a man. He leaned back in his chair and crossed one spurred boot over the other knee. Michael plucked at his coverlets. They heard the rain laugh in the ditches.

  "We ... I . . ." Michael looked blurrily at Harald. "I fear tomorrow I must cease riding a horse. Have a carriage prepared."

  "It has been prepared for many days, despotes. Everyone has urged you not to wear yourself out in the saddle."

  "But . . . the men . . . leadership . . . oh, another thing. I was wondering."

  "What about, despotes?" asked Harald after a long pause.

  "What? Oh. Indeed." Michael had pulled a gold thread loose. He worried it between his fingers, ceaselessly. "About the campaign. To be sure. I was wondering ..."

  "It goes well, despotes."

  "With God's help." Michael crossed himself." "With God's help. Perhaps He has forgiven us our sins." His hand returned to the thread. "Christ's mercy is infinite, is it not?" he asked in a child's voice.

  "So they say, despotes."

  "It must be so, truly it must be, or another flood would long ago have ..." Michael's mouth fell open. He stared into the shadows. "Could this be the beginning? The rain is so heavy. . . . Forty days and forty nights!"

>   "This is only a seasonal rain, despotes. It should stop before dawn."

  "I never thought there was so much rain in the world," breathed the Emperor. "But ... I remember now. God promised there would not be another flood. He will burn us instead."

  "His Sacred Majesty tires himself," said Harald. "Best he sleep."

  "Not so. I am not sleepy. I must go on. Do you hear me? I have to . . . take my punishment. . . . This, and the pain, and the dreams at night, O God, the dreams!" Michael covered his face.

  "Go not away, Araltes," he said frantically. "Stay here. Give me some wine."

  Harald held the cup to the Emperor's lips. He sipped a little.

  "Thank you, thank you. You are a good man, Manglabites. I will give you honors when we return. Many honors. You shall be a great man for being so true to me." Strengthless clammy fingers wrapped about Harald's wrist. The eyes that searched his were horrible. "'You are true, are you not? Say you are true to me!"

  "Of course I am, Your Sacred Majesty."

  "Good, good. ... I knew I could trust you. . . ." Michael struggled for air. "Even with God's doom on me, you stand fast. . . . Hired ... I hired you to uphold a breaking sky. You know not how the palace whispers. They are always whispering, hiding in the drapes, creeping about inside the walls; they are waiting for me to die."

  Harald wondered what to do. Should he summon the Imperial physicians? But too many words were rushing out of Michael's mouth. The Emperor's head threshed about on the pillows.

  "Zoe, Zoe, she's faithful too, we have to stay together, she and I, murderers dare not fall out, do they? I should have loved her more, I know she cares for me, but ... It was sport at first, do you understand? A game, a boy's mischief, I, a servant, cuckolding the Emperor. . . . How the old man trusted us! When they told him how we were carrying on, he summoned me, and so gently he asked if it were true. God help me, I swore it was not, and he believed me! He gave me fresh marks of favor!"