Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  Wulf said from his bed, ‘I am glad it has turned out so. I could not have done myself justice, as I feel now, if they had come aboard for a tussle.’

  Haldor said, ‘This emir seems a reasonable enough fellow. Perhaps we can get him to have you made a little cart with two wheels and a pair of handles. Then I can push you into the battle-line when we meet Maniakes.’

  Wulf nodded and said, ‘That is a good idea, brother. But see that it is well padded. I feel as sore as though I had been thrashed, lying on this hard deck so long. I hope they have soft beds in Syracuse.’

  23. The Emir and Hauteville

  Wulf got his wish. The beds in the emir’s palace were the softest he had ever lain in. And the food and drink were the best the Varangers had tasted since they sailed out of Byzantium.

  The Emir Bouid was a pale-faced merry man who had studied languages and medicine at the great school in Cordoba before he took to arms; so he could speak and jest with any of the Varangers in their own tongues, but what was best, he had salves and potions which soon had Wulf skipping about on his poisoned leg as though it was a new one.

  As they all sat on cushions by the brazier in his courtyard, Bouid said to Harald, ‘There is one thing that puzzles me about you northfolk; you are the best in the world at giving wounds, and the worst at mending them. Why is this?’

  Harald said, ‘We usually leave it to the women, this woundhealing. They have their own remedies that are passed down from mother to daughter.’

  Bouid answered smiling, ‘Yes, I have heard of some of these remedies. When I was a student a young doctor from Paris told me about the roast toad that your women grind to a powder as medicine, and about your tinctures of earthworms and confections of wood-lice. He also mentioned the mould that you scrape off the bark of damp trees to put into a wound and then cover it over with a spider’s web. I cannot see how such treatment could do other than kill a wounded man.’

  Haldor said, ‘Think what you like, Emir, but I can tell you that an uncle of mine lost the end of his nose in a night ambush up at Knafahills. He had the good sense to bring the piece home with him after the fighting, and my grandmother stuck it back on, with a paste of snails. It got to be the best-known nose in Iceland. It could smell out an enemy five miles away.’

  Wulf said slyly, ‘But you should tell the emit the full story. The old lady could not see very well and she put it on upside down. Men sailed from as far away as Dublin to see this nose afterwards.’

  The emir laughed at this story and said, ‘If I had fellows like you to stay with me in Sicily always, I should be the merriest man alive.’

  Harald said, ‘I have not noticed that you wept overmuch about the palace, Bouid.’

  The emir said, ‘That is because I weep secretly into my sleeve, Harald. A man like myself who has studied the Stoics does not display his grief.’

  Wulf said, ‘What do you weep for? Is it because your Prophet forbade you to drink wine?’

  Bouid answered, ‘No, not that, Icelander. He was a stern man, surely, but a very human man. He knew that rules were made to be broken from time to time. Shall I send for another jar of wine so that you may see?’

  Wulf said, ‘Please do, Emir. But when it comes, I shall see that you touch none of it, breaking the rules on our behalf. I shall drink it myself.’

  The emir said, ‘Such selfishness is most unchristian, as I understand your Prophet’s teachings. We must share and share alike, Viking.’

  So Bouid sent for more wine and then Harald asked him: ‘Why do you say you are unhappy, brother? Your folk have been on this island for five lifetimes of a man; you have green plants growing in this desert, and lemons to make drinks from. You even have snow whenever you need it, in winter or summer, from the great mountain, to cool your wine. What makes you sad?’

  Bouid answered, ‘We were once a great people, Sigurdson, and we shall be so again; but in the meantime we have fallen on bad times. We cannot agree with one another. From Gades up to Baghdad we quarrel and quarrel. And each time we quarrel we weaken ourselves by bringing in mercenary soldiers of other faiths to fight for us.’

  Gyric laughed and said, ‘It is no bad thing to be brought in, if one is by trade a mercenary soldier, Emir. I would fight for the King of India if he offered me more than the King of Africa.’ Bouid nodded, then said gently, ‘Of course, of course. A knight must look to his trade, that is understood. But, my friend, it is sometimes disturbing when a king of one’s own faith brings in pagans to fight fellow-Muslims. This is happening now with the King of Tunis, who calls himself my overlord, but fetches in the Norman foragers to bring me to heel if I do not leap to obey his most stupid commands.’

  Harald was enjoying the wine. He said pleasantly, ‘Life is a very difficult book to read, Bouid. Each page seems to have so many hidden meanings, and every work has so many various shades.’

  Wulf said, ‘You never told us you could read, Harald! When did you learn, on the way down from Byzantium?’

  Harald put on a stark look and said, ‘The trouble with Icelanders is that they will try to be merry at a greater man’s expense.’

  Then Wulf and Haldor made a great show of looking round the courtyard to see where such a great man might be. Harald wagged his long finger at them and said, ‘There will come a time when you two will be sorry you ever taunted me. When I sit on the throne-chair in Norway, one of the first things I shall do is to gather a great fleet round me and sail to Iceland to teach it its manners.’

  The emir smiled slowly. He said, ‘Your family have always been sailing to teach someone their manners, Harald. When I was in Zaragoza once I met an old monk from Essex in England who told me of a kinsman of yours, Anlaf, he called him, who took the ships over to beat sense into the heads of the English.’ Harald clenched his jaws and did not answer. Wulf nudged him and said, ‘Come now, Sigurdson, your kinsman Olaf won the day at Maldon. You have no need to be ashamed of him, even if he was a heathen at the time. A man has to learn some time, and he hadn’t learned then.’

  The emir nodded and smiled. He said, ‘This old monk told me how the battle went - with the Danes outnumbering the English - and how, at the end, the English began to sing in their shield-ring. It was a wonderful warrior-song he told me:

  Thought shall be the harder, heart the keener,

  Courage the greater, as our strength faileth.

  Here lies our leader in the dust of his greatness;

  Who leaves him now, damned be for ever.

  We who are with him shall not leave this battle,

  But lie at his side, in the dust with our leader.

  That is the sort of song my people used to sing when we first started out from Arabia.’

  Harald snorted. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We all learn better as we get older.’

  The emir poured another cup of wine for Harald and put into it a spoonful of honey and a spoonful of ice. He said, ‘I wonder if that is true, friend? I wonder if we all lose some of our great honest virtues when we get to be more knowing, more crafty, more clever - but less wise?’

  Harald was about to answer him in strong fashion when a trumpet screamed outside and the door was flung open. Standing there and smiling down at them was a young man of perhaps twenty, who wore black armour and a fox’s russet brush in place of a plume in his helmet. His face was rawboned and red and his hair was a bleached sandy colour. His long sword scraped the tiles of the floor when he walked.

  He said above their heads, ‘I am the youngest of the Hauteville. Which is the man they call Hardrada?’

  Harald rose from beside the brazier and said, ‘I am Harald Sigurdson, young man. Do you wish to speak with me?’

  The young knight shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The message that Maniakes ordered me to deliver was not sent in words. It is this.’

  Then as he spoke, he suddenly reached out and struck Harald hard across the face with his iron-meshed glove. The wine-cup fell from Harald’s hand and he drew back a pace, the blood showin
g on his grazed cheek.

  Wulf called to him, ‘Shall I pass you the sword, Harald? Or am I to use mine?’

  But Harald said, ‘No, he is a herald and is delivering a message. We must follow the correct procedure in such matters or the story-tellers will report ill of us.’

  So he walked up to the young knight, who stood there still smiling, with the fox’s brush bobbing about on his helmet. And Harald said to him pleasantly, ‘When you go back to Maniakes of Byzantium, will you do me the favour of passing on my reply?’

  Hauteville the knight nodded and said, ‘Certainly, Varanger.’

  No one except Gyric of Lichfield saw the two blows struck. And he had good cause to observe how they felt for he had once felt their weight himself.

  And while the emir’s servants were reviving the knight with cups of iced wine, Harald fingered the fox’s brush and said, ‘This is well enough as a sort of jest, but should not be worn seriously by a warrior.’

  So he threw it into the fire and watched it crackle and burn.

  Then he drew the knight’s sword and gazed at it. ‘This is too long a toy,’ he said. ‘This young fellow will surely trip over it one day if it is not shortened for him.’

  So he put the sword across his knee and broke a foot off the end of it. Then he slipped the two pieces back into the scabbard.

  And when Hauteville was fully awake again, Harald stroked his cheek and said, ‘Such a young fellow to come carrying so heavy a message. Well, my lad, do your best to take my own greeting back to the Greek. And good luck go with you.’

  Hauteville staggered up, felt for his fox’s brush and could not find it. Then he swayed to the door and leaned on the lintel a while to get his bearings. While he was there he said to Harald, ‘I am young now, Hardrada, but I shall grow. And when we meet again you shall have reason to know that I am bigger than I was.’

  Harald bowed to him and said, ‘You are always welcome, my boy. And if you do not feel strong enough for such discussions in the future, I beg you to bring your family with you.’

  Hauteville said gravely then, ‘Have no fear, Norseman, I shall bring my family. And when you see them you will feel very lonely, for I have eight brothers and twenty cousins.’

  Harald said, ‘Then our meeting will be a sad day for their fathers with so many funerals to pay for, little one.’

  And when the knight had gone, the emir said, ‘Whether you did well or ill, I cannot tell you, Harald. But now you have offended the most powerful clan of Normans that the world has known. They have already frightened the Pope out of his wits and even have the Byzantine emperor in their grasp.’

  Harald said, ‘I am not so easily frightened, my friend. And whoever grasps me must have a hand three times the size of any that God has so far given to man.’

  Then he went back to his wine-cup by the glowing brazier.

  24. Gyric’s Call

  A few days later Harald was walking in the olive fields with Emir Bouid when suddenly Gyric came running towards them and waving at them to stop. Harald laughed at him and said, ‘What is it? Are the ships on fire in the harbour?’

  Gyric went up to Harald and touched him on the chest and arms and then said, ‘Thanks be to God.’

  Harald said, ‘I will agree to that any day of the week and twice on Sundays; but why come running through the olives on such a warm day to tell me you are thankful?’

  Gyric began to sway his head and shuffle his feet sheepishly, which was a very funny sight since he was so big and awkward in all his movements. At last he said, ‘Did I ever tell you that my grandmother on my father’s side was Black Torfi the witch who lived in a sandstone cave at Wednesbury in the shire of Stafford?’ Harald shook his head. ‘No,’ he answered, ‘but I am always glad to hear of great folk, wherever they come from.’

  The mild-tempered emir regarded Gyric with an amused smile on his pale face, so Gyric said to the Muslim, ‘My grandmother Black Torfi once shook her stick at the wooden spire on Wednesbury church and it fell to the ground. That was because the priest there would not spare space for Odin in his devotions. At Cleobury in Shropshire the same thing happened; but this time she only carried her small stick with her and it lacked the full force to bring down the spire there. Instead, it twisted like a corkscrew, as you can see to this day.’

  The emir said, ‘That lady would have been useful in certain campaigns I have been on. Her stick would have succeeded where my siege-engines failed, it seems.’

  Then Gyric took Harald by the sleeve and said, ‘Listen well to this.’ And he threw back his head and shrieked, ‘Hroar - Hroar - hek - kek - kek! Hroar - Hroar - hek - kek - kek!’ As he did this a flock of birds flew, terrified, out of the grass and rose into the sky chittering.

  Harald said, ‘Most interesting, Gyric. But what has it to do with me?’

  Gyric said, ‘I want you to do it, too.’

  At first Harald would not do this, but the emir was so amused, he said, ‘Do it, to please Gyric, Norseman, and I will try to do it with you.’

  So the two did it until they could send up birds wherever they stood. And then Harald said, ‘Come, now, Gyric. A joke’s a joke. What is this you have had us doing the last hour?’

  Gyric said, ‘It is the warning cry of the goshawk, captain. It is the sound he makes when he is furious with an enemy and wants to get his beak and claws into him.’

  Harald said, ‘This is a most interesting day; I have learned how to bring a church steeple down, and how to yell like a hunting-bird. What more could a man want in this world? Against such learning gold is nothing.’

  Gyric sulked in the olive grove for a while, then he turned to Harald and said, ‘Very well, laugh at me if you wish, and see if I care. A man like you is so big in the bone that he outgrows his brains. You are the biggest viking-booby I ever had the mischance to meet. And if you ever sit on the throne in England, I shall make it quite clear to my fellow-Englishmen what sort of king they have got.’

  The emir said, ‘Something has put you out, friend Gyric. Tell me, what is it? I am never likely to be King of England, so you have no need to glower at me.’

  So Gyric told him. He said, ‘As I lay asleep by the well in the outer courtyard, Emir, I seemed to see Harald lying in a stone pit, with blood all over him and his clothes tom away. And there were a dozen men above him, poking down at him with spears and laughing at his plight.’

  Harald wiped his face for it was a very warm day, and said, ‘That was a bad dream. But warmen are always having bad dreams, especially before battles, and in any case you eat and drink so much that I am not surprised at such a dream.’

  Gyric said, ‘Not surprised, hey? Well, let me tell you this, Harald Not-so-surprised, that all of these men with spears wore the brush of a fox in their helmets. And, worst of all, as you lay down there, you had no sword. You could not defend yourself. Now are you surprised, big Norsehead?’

  Harald’s face went very white then. He leaned against a tree as though with shock and said, ‘You did right to tell me, brother. These Hautevilles caught me without a sword, eh? And took vengeance on me in a stone pit?’

  Suddenly he turned to the emir and said, ‘Are there such stone pits on this island, friend?’

  Bouid nodded his head. ‘They are everywhere,’ he answered. ‘You will find them in the big farms and the castles, where they are used for storing grain through the winter.’

  Harald said, ‘I must remember to keep away from granaries then, and must not be caught without my sword, is that it, Gyric?’

  Gyric said, ‘I have not told you all. At the end of my dream one of them jumped down to you with an axe in his hand. It was the young one who came to the palace with the message. I will not tell you what he did then.’

  Harald smiled and patted the man on the shoulder. ‘Thank you, brother,’ he said, ‘I do not really want to know. I can guess well enough.’

  Gyric took him by the arm and spoke seriously to him. ‘Then,’ he said, ‘I woke up with a start and
said a prayer for you. And while I was kneeling there by the well, it seemed to me that my old grandmother, Black Torfi, was whispering to me out of the grave. And she was saying: “You must teach the Norseman the warning cry of the goshawk, grandson. See that he learns it well, for it could save his life. ” So I promised her I would do as she advised and I ran all the way here to do it - and small thanks have I had for my trouble.’

  Harald turned to the Englishman and said, ‘I am sorry, brother, with all my heart. If ever I am so dim-witted again when you come to tell me something of importance, fetch me a clout that knocks some sense into my thick skull. Will you do that for me?’

  Gyric said, ‘I wish I could promise that, Norseman, but I have come to love you like a son, and if the devil himself had me, I couldn’t bring myself to lay a finger on you, dim-witted or not.’

  The emir put his arms round both of them as they walked on through the grove, and he said, ‘I admire the way you north-folk speak with one another. In the old days when my people were finding themselves and striking out at all who stood in their way, the captains spoke to the kings, and the soldiers to the captains, in the way you folk speak. They spoke as straight as the arrow flies, which is the way that men should speak to each other. But now those good days are over, and in the name of courtesy men speak with one another in such riddles that it is hard to know what they mean half the time. Let me advise you, see that you always speak as you do now, and one day your peoples will grow to be truly great. For straight speech is a sign of strength, of honesty of purpose, and no people can stay great without these qualities.’

  But Harald was not listening. He was practising the warning-call of the goshawk again and making swarms of birds rise from the fields and irrigation ditches every time. Gyric walked behind him, nodding his head and grinning hugely now, his awful dream almost forgotten.

  25. The Caliph’s Pact

  On the same day that Harald learned how to call like a goshawk, Maria Anastasia Argyra was working in the quarry of Saint Angelus on her hands and knees among the stone when a dark shadow fell before her. She looked up, drawing her hair from before her eyes, and saw that it was the Curopalates who looked after the private affairs of the emperor in the palace. He was a very tall thin man and was dressed very splendidly indeed. He looked down at the princess with distaste and said, ‘Your hands and feet are very dirty and your nails are broken. I see that your hair is thick with stone dust.’