Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  Harald said, ‘I am content with the north, lady. I come here to fill myself a few gold-coffers and to pass a year or two until Norway is ready for me again. I will tell you the rest of my tale.’

  So he told her how he had made friends with his two battle-brothers, Wulf Ospakson and Haldor Snorreson, both of them down from Iceland looking for gold and adventure when he ran across them.

  Zoe said, ‘Are they trustworthy fellows? I have met Icelanders who are so restless that they can never stay in one place more than a month.’

  Harald said, ‘I would trust these two with my helmet War Swine; or my sword Quernbiter; or my mesh shirt Emma; or my ship Stallion. As for staying in one place, only old men stay by the hearthside. Young men must be up and doing.’

  Then he told her how they had gathered taxes for Jaroslav but had grown so weary of burning down peasant villages, to force the folk to pay, that they had taken ship and had come across the Great Portage and the waterfalls and so down the Dnieper into the Black Sea.

  The empress said, ‘No doubt you had adventures, viking? That part of the world is full of wandering Patzinak horsemen. They do not let the ships come down here without a tussle or two.’

  Harald said, ‘We met a few of them but they did not stay long to talk with us when we put ashore and went after them. The thirty rovers in my crew were sad at this; they hoped to learn more of the world from them. Our biggest trouble came from the Bulgars who live on the eastern shores of the Black Sea.’

  Zoe smiled. ‘I know where they live, Northman,’ she said. ‘We keep a regiment of them here in Byzantium. You will meet some of them before long, if you stay with us.’

  Harald said, ‘Why do you employ Bulgars when you have a regiment of Northmen in your Varangian Guard?’

  She lowered her painted eyes and said, ‘The Bulgars keep a close watch on the vikings; and the vikings hold the Bulgars in check. We who govern this Empire cannot afford to let any one body of soldiers have the entire control of our city.’

  Harald pursed his lips. ‘Who keeps them both in check then?’ he asked. ‘Do you?’

  She smiled and tapped her long thin fingers on the arms of the throne chair. She answered, ‘My husband Romanus and I are too occupied with more important matters, viking. We employ a general to do that; Georgios Maniakes, a brave soldier who knows how to handle such men as you.’

  Harald said smiling, ‘I look forward to meeting him. I am always glad to hear of brave men.’

  The empress yawned now without holding her jewelled hand over her mouth, so that the vikings should see that their audience was almost ended. She said, ‘You will meet him. He will send for you to inspect you if the emperor decides that you are men he would care to employ in his Guard.’

  Harald said, ‘Let us hope that this Maniakes does not expect us to come running to his whistle. We are not dogs, we are warmen. Where is this emperor, so that we can decide whether we wish to serve him or not?’

  The empress was about to answer when one of the curtains was drawn gently aside and a round-shouldered man dressed in a heavy gown of purple silk came shuffling in, leaning hard on a long silver wand. On his bowed head he wore a high crown of chiselled gold, shaped much like the pointed dome of a church.

  In his left hand he carried a roll of parchment from which a great round seal of red wax dangled.

  He stood no higher than Harald’s chest but his black eyes were so piercing that the viking almost looked away under their gaze. This old man said dryly, ‘I am the Emperor Romanus, gentlemen. So, now you have met me, what is your noble decision?’

  He stood smiling vaguely, his head nodding all the time under the weight of his tall crown. Harald shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Speaking for myself, I have no objection to you, provided the pay is good.’

  The emperor gave a little smile at this and said, ‘The pay is good, young man. It is better than any pay in the rest of the world, I might say. I am heartened that you have no objection to me; there are many who have, it seems.’

  As he said this he turned and glanced at the Empress Zoe, who was gazing at her long tinted fingernails as though she had lost interest in everyone. She did not look back at her husband and so he said, ‘Then, my good fellows, if you will now kneel and swear on behalf of your ships’ crew to serve me faithfully in all that I shall ask until such time as I grant your release, then you shall become members of my Imperial Guard. Is that good enough for you?’

  The three men looked at each other. Wulf said outright, ‘I do not like this kneeling, Harald. We do not kneel in Iceland.’

  But Harald grinned and said, ‘Nay, brother, it is nothing. We cannot take an oath looking down on an emperor. So, since he is such a small man, we must kneel. Come, I have no complaint. Do as I do.’

  So he knelt, in his great bearskin coat with his helmet still on, and his long yellow hair hanging over his broad shoulders. The Icelanders did the same, grumbling, and then, when they had repeated the words of the oath, Romanus struck the three of them on the neck with his silver wand. Then he said, ‘Now you may rise, Varangers. And if I or my wife or my general command you to swim to Sardinia or fly to the moon, you will do it without question.’

  Haldor said, ‘If we can do that, then there must be more magic in that stick of yours than I thought.’

  The empress laughed with mockery at these words. But Romanus only nodded and said, ‘It is amazing what magic there is in this staff, Icelander. But this you will come to learn as the years go on.’

  ‘Years?’ said Harald. ‘We have only come for months.’

  The Empress Zoe said from her throne, ‘There was no mention of months, Varanger. When we employ soldiers, we decide how long they shall stay. Now go to the barracks and try on your new armour. General Maniakes will want to see you looking smart for his parade.’

  The Northmen turned and went towards the curtained door, but they had made no more than three paces when the Empress Zoe clapped her hands so sharply that Harald looked back and said, ‘Do we walk so well that you must applaud, lady?’

  The empress narrowed her eyes and answered, ‘Quite the contrary, Varanger. You walk so badly that, but for your Norse ignorance, it would be my duty to have you all thrashed against stakes before the people in the Hippodrome tomorrow.’

  The emperor clucked and nodded so excitedly that his tall heavy crown slipped forward and almost came off. Harald said, ‘I have never been thrashed in my life and I do not mean to start now.’

  He began to go back towards the high throne, but Wulf and Haldor had seen the curtains across all the alcoves moving and they took his arms and held him. Then Zoe said, ‘Your two dogs are wiser than their master, it seems. Perhaps they will understand when I tell them that all our servants of whatever rank, from the Logothete of the Dome to the Curopalates, must move from the presence of the Basileus and myself backwards and bowing. Now let us see if you have learned your first lesson.’ The three Northmen backed from the room, red-faced and furious. As they passed through the curtain they heard Zoe’s mocking laughter and the emperor’s high bleating cackle.

  Harald Hardrada said, ‘By the loaves and fishes, I am inclined to go back in there and teach them both a lesson of my own, these painted puppets!’

  But just then a small voice behind them said, ‘That is what they expect of you, sir. But if you do, you will be dead before I could say even one small prayer for you.’

  3. Maria and Theodora

  The three northern brothers swung round and there, in the dim and curtain-hung corridor, they saw a thin pale-faced girl of about twelve, dressed in coarse black robes and holding a large silver crucifix against her chest with crossed white hands.

  Her dark eyes were so large and sad that Wulf said, ‘Now, now, little one, there is no need for tears. No one is dead yet. Tell us, who are you to be so concerned about three rough Outlanders?’

  She lowered her large eyes and said, ‘I am Maria Anastasia Argyra, Varanger.’

  Harald hel
d out his hand towards her and said, smiling now, ‘Then, Maria Anastasia Argyra, take hold of my hands and I will swing you up on to my back and give you the best ride you’ve ever had down these musty old corridors.’

  But the girl shrank away from him and shook her head. ‘Please don’t touch me, sir,’ she said. ‘I am niece to the Empress Zoe. I am a princess and must not be touched.’

  Harald rubbed his yellow beard in amusement. ‘You seem like a small girl to me,’ he said. ‘Besides, in my own land there are many who think of me as a king. Cannot a king play with a princess?’

  Maria shook her head again. ‘Here things are different,’ she said, quite sternly now. ‘We stand at the centre of the world, in the Holiest of Empires. You, though I can see you are a strong and handsome man, are only a barbarian from the north who chooses to call himself a king. Please follow me and do not try to touch me again for there are eyes watching everywhere in this palace.’

  She turned and went quickly along the corridor. The Northmen shrugged their shoulders and followed. Here and there, at cross-roads in the many passageways, court servants, in dark robes and bearing black wands, bowed their heads to the little girl, though she paid no attention to any of them.

  Harald said to her, ‘Well, I can see now that you are a princess. And where is Your Highness taking us? To the barracks?’

  Maria said over her shoulder, ‘Do not call me Highness. I am in disgrace and am not allowed a title until I am obedient again. My other aunt, Theodora, to whom I am taking you, wishes me to enter a convent. So I am in disgrace for refusing. Please walk a little faster, Varangers, or I shall be in more trouble for being so long away.’

  They did as she asked and soon she led them down a low tunnel and into a room so bare that it seemed like a prison to them. In the middle of the grey stone floor kneeled a white-haired old lady dressed in brown sackcloth, wearing a length of thick knotted rope about her neck. As they entered, she gazed at them with faded eyes and said in a surprisingly strong harsh voice, ‘It is my custom to meet all who enter our service, Varangers. Are you Christians?’

  Harald said, ‘We were baptized at Trondheim. Is that good enough?’

  The lady Theodora answered flatly, ‘It will have to do, meagre as it is. Now kneel before me while I finish my prayers. And you too, girl, kneel behind them and keep your mind on your devotions. Hurry now.’

  The old lady was a long time in finishing her prayers. She mumbled on in a language that the Northmen could not follow, and every time they thought she had come to the end and were about to rise she began again and again, until their very knee-bones were sore.

  But at last she was silent, and when they saw her get up slowly and stiffly, they rose too and stood before the little plain oak stool where she now sat. And when she had gazed at each one of them, from head to foot, she said, ‘You have come to Byzantium for easy pickings, like all Northmen. But you will find soon enough that you have wandered stupidly into a spider’s web. Last month four English Varangers lost their tongues in the Hippodrome for forgetting how to address the Logothete of the Secretes.’

  Haldor said, ‘Trust the English to forget! They would forget their heads if they were loose!’

  Theodora said drily, ‘Some of them have done that, too, Outlander. But usually the eyes are what are forgotten. We are an old people and hence a humane one; but we must force our selves to treat barbarians with barbarism when their uncouth behaviour deserves it. If you can only learn that you will be wise. Learn also that my niece, Maria Anastasia Argyra, is a silly child who must not be encouraged in her girlish foolishness. Soon she is to enter one of our imperial convents for the good of her wayward soul - I have not decided which one yet - so I forbid you to turn the child’s head with any of your godless northern stories. I, the Mother of the People, forbid it. Do you understand?’

  Harald glanced over at the kneeling girl Maria and winked at her. She turned her head away like a frightened bird. He said to the old lady then, ‘You are addressing a man whose half-brother is a saint. Is it likely, do you think, that my stories would be godless ones?’

  He felt pleased with himself that he had avoided giving this fierce old crone a promise. But she smiled up at him with her thin white lips and said, ‘You are as crafty as the rest of Northmen, Varanger, but do not let your pride cost you too dearly.’

  Suddenly she bent and rang a small silver handbell that stood on the stone floor beside her stool. A panel in the wall behind her slid open and a man came in.

  He was not so tall as Harald, but every inch as broad in the shoulder. His face was pale and set in a brooding expression. His eyebrows and hair were jet black. Over his embossed gilt armour he wore a scarlet cloak edged with purple. Under his arm he carried a silver helmet crested with white horse-hair. Before him, crossed one over the other, hung two swords in blue scabbards, a short stabbing gladius and a longer spatha, after the ancient Roman style.

  Theodora said in a thin voice, ‘This is your master now, Outlanders. This is your general, my kinsman, Georgios Maniakes. Listen to his commands and obey him like slaves in all things.’

  Harald Hardrada stared at the general coldly, hoping to beat down the Greek’s dark gaze. But Maniakes looked back so fixedly that for an instant Harald feared that his own eyes might give way.

  Then all at once the general said in a deep voice, ‘How many battles have you three been in?’

  Harald tried to remember, for there had been many against the Danes and the Bonders and the Wends, and some of them little more than ambushes.

  He said at last, ‘I would say twelve, give or take one or two. A fighting man does not count such things as carefully as he would his pay.’

  Georgios Maniakes smiled scornfully and said, ‘It will be a month before you count that. We must see what you are worth first. Now tell me, how many times in your twelve great battles did you run away?’

  Harald gritted his teeth until Wulf thought he would break them off. He said, ‘If you are trying to taunt me, wait until we are somewhere outside, with room to move in, Greek.’

  The general coldly ignored these words and said, ‘Between you, how many men have you killed?’

  Now Haldor spoke up and said, ‘In the place where I come from we are taught that it ill becomes any man to boast over the luck which sat on the point of his sword. It may be well enough down in Miklagard for young cocks to crow in the sunlight but up in Iceland the eagle goes quietly about his trade.’ Then the General Maniakes turned to Theodora and said, ‘Gracious One, I think that these three will do. They are much like all the other good ones we have had. It must be the climate they endure up there in the north that makes them so hardy.’ He bowed and went back through the sliding panel. And Theodora smiled at Harald and said, ‘Go now, and see that your weapons are burnished and in good order. The general will not always be so gentle with you.’

  When they were outside in the corridor again Wulf said to his friends, ‘I may be wrong, brothers, but I think that this general may give us some trouble before we leave Miklagard.’ Haldor answered, ‘It would suit me better to be up the Dnieper now with the planks bucking under my feet and the wind in my nostrils.’

  But Harald slapped them both on the shoulder and laughed. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘when have I known you two upset by a musty old palace and a little man in gold armour? Come, come, my lads, let us enjoy our holiday!’

  They went off laughing then and all the black-robed chamberlains leaning on their wands stared after them in shocked amazement.

  4. The Varangers

  The northern brothers and their crew found the lodgings at the imperial barracks comfortable enough, once they had convinced the other five hundred Varangers that they would not be meddled with. An Orkneyman named Eystein Baardson, shipmaster of the War Hawk, came with his crew to their help on the first night. Years before this Eystein had borrowed a cloak and a pair of shoes from Olaf, Harald’s half-brother, but had been unable to pay back the debt before his friend wa
s killed at Stiklestad. So now he came to Harald’s aid and considered that this was fair return for the cloak and shoes. He saw to it that the newcomers had broad beds close to the windows, and a place at the feast-board within five paces of the kitchen hatchway. More, he said, he could not do.

  He told Harald that the Englishmen among the Varangers were quiet enough men unless they got drunk on their own special feast days; but that the Danes and the Normans were hardly ever to be trusted. Harald said, ‘I have met them before in other places. They are men like any others. Treat them well and they are good enough. Why, I have friends among the yellow-faced Patzinaks whose language I cannot even speak. But I am glad to hear your opinion of these English, for one of these days, when I grow to my full strength, I mean to visit their land and to see if they have a crown there that would fit me.’

  Eystein Baardson laughed at this and said, ‘Let me know when you go there for I always fancied being an earl in England.’ Harald nodded and said, ‘I give you my word that when I am king in England, you shall be an earl. And my brothers, Haldor Snorreson and Wulf Ospakson, shall be two of the other earls. We will take some new blood into that country, for I think it is getting to be a very tired old place.’

  Then a man with a chest like a barrel and a black shade over his left eye stood up from the bench and struck Harald in the middle of the chest with the flat of his hand, almost staggering him, and said, ‘My name is Gyric and I come from a place you have never heard of called Lichfield in Mercia.’

  Harald looked down at the man’s big red hand and said, ‘At first I thought it was Thor come visiting from Valhalla. Well,

  Gyric of Lichfield, I have seen bigger men than you, but not many. What is it you wish to tell me?’

  The man said, ‘I wish to tell you that I am an Englishman and that before you sit on the throne in England you will need to grow to seven feet.’

  Harald Sigurdson said pleasantly, ‘I am well on the way to that now, Englishman. But I will bear in mind what you advise me and I will wait until I am the proper height.’