Swords From the North

by Henry Treece

  Wulf gave him a push which sent his axe clattering and said, ‘You Norwegians leave it long enough. We could have been white bones before your beef-wits got to work.’

  But Harald was already in the long dim room, the Varangers crowding round him, slapping his back and shaking his great hand. For a while it was all so noisy that no man could hear himself speak. Then Eystein stood on a ale-tub and shouted, ‘Silence, lads! We have them back now, so no more talk. Let Harald speak; he has something to say.’

  Still breathing hard from his running, Harald said, ‘It has long been in my mind to leave this place, my friends. A man can have too much of the sun, it makes him lazy. Let us say farewell to Miklagard and see what cooks in the Russian pots.’

  He ran his light eyes over the crowd as they waved their hands and shouted. There were eighty of the best Varangers in that cellar, and most of them armed.

  To Eystein he called out, ‘They took my gear from me when I was arrested, brother. Have you an axe and a shirt to fit me?’ Eystein jumped off his barrel and came with a bundle in his arms. ‘These are your things, Harald,’ he said. ‘Someone flung them down the steps last night and ran away. That was when we thought you must be stark and cold.’

  As Harald struggled into his hauberk, he said, ‘A fine thing to wait all night making up your mind.’

  Eystein shook his head. ‘You know we can decide nothing without you, lad,’ he said. ‘But now you are back we can do everything!’

  Harald tightened his belt-buckle carefully and said in a great voice, ‘Very well, little wolves, then the first thing to do is to claim your booty from the palace while I go about other small tasks.’

  But Haldor, bleak-faced as a pine, said, ‘Harald, this is not the law. Varangers may only strip the palace when the emperor has died. That is the ancient custom.’ He smiled then strangely.

  Harald turned on him the gaze of an iceberg before he answered. ‘You will not break the law, friend. You attend to the foraging, the Polota-svarv, and I will see that the other part of it is arranged.’

  Then he led the way up the stone steps into the broad corridors where the long silk hangings swung lazily as the Varangers swept past them.

  Wulf said as he ran, ‘I have always had a yearning for an ikon - one with reds and blues and gold on it.’

  Haldor said, ‘There is a silver cup in the chapel, with red rubies round the lip. I have often looked at it during Mass. That cup would buy a steading in Sandgill and perhaps three smacks to go fishing in, when the hay-harvest was poor.’

  Other men said other things; but each had his heart on something. Eystein said, ‘This Constantine Monomachus has a golden staff, Harald. At my age a man should look to his future. If you see it lying about will you bring it for me?’

  Harald nodded but did not answer with words.

  And now they were in the central courtyard where the water spouted out of bronze lions’ mouths and tall palm trees ringed the fountain like golden pillars. A few Chamberlains in their high crowns were moving about here and there but when they saw the Northmen, they gathered their robes about them and stood aside to let the soldiers pass. No one thought it his affair to raise the alarm.

  And so when the Varangers were near the great chapel, Harald halted them and called out, ‘Be about it, fellows, and join me in the Lion-court when I blow my horn. Do not forget, bring no more than you can carry, running. Doubtless there will be some running to do.’

  Then he swung away from them along a dusky passageway that was tented with fine red samite hangings. No Varanger followed him there, even in the plunder-fury, for this was a private part of the palace where mostly the women had their lodgings. As Harald came to the first gilded door he paused and drew the heavy curtain aside a little. The empress Zoe was lying on her low divan with the eagles’- claw feet, sprawled in her gauze gown like a great she-cat. Harald looked at the gold on her arms and the many strands of pearl about her wrinkled neck. For a moment, a strange smile twisted his golden-bearded lips; then he shrugged his shoulders and went on. ‘I have never seen an empress sleeping before,’ he thought. ‘How helpless they are. As helpless as common folk.’ But his smile stopped at the next door. Halting only to glance at the long axe in his hand, he ripped open the velvet curtain and ran inside.

  While he was away no sound disturbed the corridor; not as much as a kitten mewing. And when he came back he had the emperor’s gold staff in his left hand. ‘Eystein will be pleased,’ he said.

  The next door he stopped at lay further down the passage way, in a humbler quarter of the great gloomy place. Its curtain was of embroidered linen, not of samite. And here Harold paused a little longer than before, as though less sure of what he was about to do. But in the end he pulled the curtain aside and went in, leaving the axe and the golden staff outside propped by the alabaster wall.

  It was only a small room and the curtained bed took up most of its space. Under a great cone of hangings, her black hair spread all over the silk pillows, lay Maria Anastasia. Her dark eyes opened as soon as Harold came through the door but she did not struggle or scream, or do any of the things he had half-expected.

  Instead she gazed at him without even moving her head, and said in a faint voice, ‘You are up early, captain.’

  Harold stood over her, twisting his golden beard, and then said almost as faintly himself, ‘Yes, that is because there is much to do, lady. Thank you for giving me the chance to do it.’

  The princess smiled sadly and said, ‘Much to do for everyone except me. For me there will only be embroidery and prayers, prayers and embroidery, until I am old and grey.

  Harold coughed and looked around the room for Maria’s gown.

  He said, ‘All this talk of prayers. I would say you had prayed enough for one night, lady. At any rate, you got a good result. Now, let us be away. You want to leave this place, don’t you?’

  Maria Anastasia gazed up at him with tears in her eyes. She said ‘Now that the moment has come I do not know. When it all seemed impossible. I dreamed every night of escaping with you into the free north. But now that I have the chance, I am afraid. After they took you to the prison last night, the Patriarch came to me and told me most sternly that I was in danger of eternal damnation for offending the caliph and so putting in jeopardy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. He said that only by a supreme act of self-denial could I even dream of salvation.’

  Harold found the gown and handed it to her. He said, ‘I am not a Patriarch and so I know little about these affairs. But I would say that if you are unhappy here and would be happy elsewhere, then you should take the risk of salvation, whatever that may be.’

  Maria Anastasia put on her gown and tied the belt. She said, ‘These things are easy for you, my lord, because you have always pleased yourself in whatever you have done. But my life has been different. I think that I need someone to make up my mind for me.’

  Harold said, ‘Very well, then. I will make it up. I will take you away from all these prayers and embroidery and will just throw you into the longship, with my other plunder and perhaps, if I feel like it, I will sell you in Kiev or Polotsk - if you can cook well enough for anyone to want to buy you. Will that do?’

  He smiled as he spoke so that she would see he was jesting. Then he turned away to look at a little ikon the hung on the far wall. It was of bright enamels, encrusted with gold and he ran his thick thumb over it lovingly, wondering what it would fetch on Novgorod, Maria came and stood by him and said, ‘You may take it, if you like it, Harold. I have never really cared for it; it reminds me too much of the praying and chanting here. Accept it as my passage-money on Stallion, captain.’

  Harold turned towards her and saw she was smiling and was dressed warmly as for a sea-journey. He said, ‘I thought you would be screaming for help by now, the way you were talking a moment ago, Maria.’

  She laughed and said, ‘No, you have made up my mind for me, Harold. Just sling me over your shoulder, like the other plunder y
ou spoke of, so that the Chamberlains will be able to report that I was stolen away - and then let us be off.’

  He did it as gently as he could. Then she reached out and snatched the ikon from the wall. ‘If you won’t take it for yourself,’ she said, ‘then I must take it for you.’

  In the Lion-court the Varangers were already gathered, loaded with all they could lay hands on. When Harald appeared with the princess over his shoulder they shouted and laughed as though they were going on a holiday. Eystein came forward and said, ‘I see you found the staff for me. Was it any trouble to get it?’

  Harald shook his head. ‘Not for me,’ he said. ‘But I suppose there will have to be a period of prayers and mourning, and that will cause old Zoe some trouble. Still, she has her sister to help with the rites, so it will not all fall on one pair of shoulders.’

  Wulf took him by the arm. ‘Less talk, more walk,’ he said sternly. ‘The Bulgar guard will soon be on the move, and we shall be hampered by all this stuff we are carrying. Come on, a brisk pair of legs will purchase a long life this morning.’

  41. The Harbour Chain

  They swarmed down the corridors and out to the Via Dolorosa. No one stood in their way; it was as though Byzantium had agreed to let the two shiploads of Varangers go home without hindrance.

  Even down at the wharfside all was still and peaceful. Fishermen in their small boats smiled and waved to them, one lot of sailors wishing another lot god-speed.

  Haldor said frowning, ‘I do not like this, brother. A man expects some opposition. He expects a little blood-letting when he gathers plunder. Otherwise it seems to lower the value of the goods.’

  Harald said, ‘Save your breath for rowing, Icelander. There may be blood enough to shed before we get clear of Miklagard.’

  Maria said, across his broad shoulder, ‘If it comes to that, I shall be sorry I helped you to escape.’

  Harald said gruffly, ‘You can always shut your eyes. Now be silent for we are busy men, lady. ‘

  He did not like being reminded too often of any debt he owed.

  So running they came to the imperial wharf where the galleys and longships were moored. At first they thought there might be some fighting to do, for each longship already had some men aboard, armed with swords and spears. Then Wulf looked at them more closely and said, ‘They are the men from Hedeby come to join us. We are lucky today and no mistake.’

  So at last they were in Stallion and War Hawk, with their plunder stacked hurriedly between the sea-chests. As men slashed the anchor ropes away, Harald almost flung the princess on to a heap of straw in the after-cabin, then turned and cupped his hands to call to the men. ‘Take place, take place!’ he shouted. ‘Steerboards, set course! Rowers, bend your backs!’

  Then the two longships plunged clear of the other craft across the blue water and away from the white quayside.

  Now Maria sat up and clasped her hands like a small girl going off on an exciting holiday. Wulf turned and smiled wryly at Haldor. ‘She may laugh on the other side of her face when she feels how the wind can nip, going up the Dnieper,’ he said.

  Haldor gave his version of a grin and said gently, ‘Whichever side of her face she smiles on, it will be a pretty smile. I am pleased she is coming with us, brother. I feel that she is my sister now, and one of my life’s tasks will be to find a husband worthy of her.’

  Wulf glanced at him a little sharply, then said in a low voice, ‘That should cause you no trouble, comrade. I think she has made her own choice already, without your aid.’

  Then all at once Harald began to roar like a penned bull. ‘Take care, take care! These sly Greeks have drawn the chain across the harbour mouth.’

  Eystein Baardson called back from War Hawk, ‘If we halt they will shoot us full of arrows from the shore. Can we ram the chain, brother?’

  For a moment Harald’s face was as blank as a stone. Then suddenly his frowning stopped and he shouted, ‘We are in the hand of God, brother. Follow Stallion and do as we do. With luck we might still sniff the north wind again.’

  Fifty oar-strokes away lay the great chain, hitched from barge to barge across the Horn. It was rusted and weed-grown but still stout enough to smash the biggest craft that ran against it. Here and there, between the lighters from which it was suspended, it hung down almost to water-level, in great rusty arcs because of its weight. And it was towards one such arc that Harald steered Stallion.

  Then calling out loudly so that all should hear his voice, he said, ‘When I give the sign, let every man run aft with all the plunder he can lift. That might raise the prow above the chain. And when I give the next sign, run forward to get the stern across. That way we might yet leap the fence they have put in our way.’

  Maria called out pleasantly, ‘What am I to do, captain? Everyone else has his task.’

  But Harald did not hear her for now the great chain was coming towards them as fast as a galloping horse.

  And when it was only eight paces away, Harald raised his right hand and yelled, ‘Now! Back! Back!’ and the Varangers raced like men running from a barn fire, their heavy plunder in their arms. Stallion’s curved prow rose dripping in the morning sun and for a moment seemed about to soar into the sky like a sea-bird. Harald clung to the gunwales, his arms almost wrenched from their sockets, his brow streaming with sweat. Maria Anastasia was flung backwards like a doll, until Wulf put out his foot and held her against the mast-stepping to stop her from going overboard.

  Then as Stallion straddled the chain, and the oak keel crunched and splintered with the force of the impact, Harald cried out again, ‘Now forward, men, forward! Run like the wind forward!’

  Then the rovers rushed forward, some of them sprawling like drunken men as the longship balanced dangerously for an instant before plunging clear on the farther side of the rusting chain and out into the open sea.

  Then they all began to shout and laugh like madmen; until Harald, looking over his shoulder, cried out, ‘Oh no! Oh no! War Hawk has broken her back! See, she is turning turtle! Oh no!’

  Four ships’ lengths away, on the far side of the chain, War Hawk wallowed over heavily, the sea sucking round her, her long mast slapping hard down into the channel like a great sword. The rovers on Stallion stared in horror to see the slimy blackened underside of the ship slide upwards, trapping all within it like a bird-snare. Harald gripped the gunwales till his bones showed white. His legs trembled with fear at this sight. He said under his breath, ‘The water has got them. The sea is devouring them.’ But he made no move to do anything. He was like a man in a dream that could not be shaken off.

  Wulf cried out, ‘They are lost. Their iron shirts will drag them down, even those who can swim - and few of them can.’

  Then suddenly Helge who had been leaning beside Haldor gave a high shout and ran to the side. Harald put out a hand, but was left only with the torn sleeve of the young man’s shirt as he plunged overboard.

  Helge struck out and got under the chain, and then to the side of War Hawk. As the others pulled away on the oars, Harald saw the youth holding up Eystein for a while, trying to get back to the nearest chain-barge. But all at once he flung back his head, seeming to shout out, then went under and Eystein with him.

  The tears streamed down Harald’s face. He cried, ‘Pull, pull. They are beyond us, we shall all die if we go back for them.’

  Only then did Wulf remember that he still had his foot on

  Maria Anastasia, holding her firmly against the mast-stepping. He took it away but had no words to say to her.

  She lay for a long while after that without moving. And then she rose slowly as Stallion drew well into the Bosphorus, the towers of Pera-Galata to larboard and those of Chrysopolis to steerboard, and made her way to the after-cabin where she was to have her quarters.

  No one dared go to Harald to ask for sailing orders. With Eystein and Helge lost so suddenly, he was like a man who had suffered the punishment of the Hippodrome, wide-eyed and staring with numbn
ess before the true pain came on him and set him howling.

  42. The Parting of the Ways

  Three days up through the Black Sea and heading for nightlanding at Mesembria, Haldor came to Harald and said, ‘There is no sense in this. Grief is grief, but if you go on like this you will be useless to yourself and to us. Already the men are losing heart, watching you. Eat something, drink something, and get the strength back to your limbs. What happened was God’s will. Who are you, to take all the burden of blame on yourself?’ Harald turned and gazed at him with pale blank eyes, then said in a hoarse voice, ‘All the years we have been away I have felt every blow which struck a man of mine. Can you, with your wise words, cure me of this now?’

  Haldor sat beside him under the forward gunwale and said, ‘Look, brother, while you live, we live. But if you pine to death because of War Hawk, we shall finish out here in the steppelands, among the yellow-faced Patzinaks. We shall never reach home again. Without you, we are already dead men, brother.’

  Harald considered a while then said, ‘Haldor, I feel old beyond my years. I feel that I can no longer be held to account for these men. Once it was a glory to me, to be a leader of Varangers. But now I hardly dare set one foot before the other, I am so weary of making decisions.’

  Wulf came up then and said, ‘This happens to all great captains who have drained themselves dry of courage for the sake of their men. It is not unusual. Even the greatest of warmen, the Caesar Julius, suffered in his tent before a battle, wondering if he was still worthy.’

  Harald smiled within himself then said, ‘Sometimes I think of poor Maniakes. He must have felt like this when he ran away from me to Sicily. If I could meet him again now, in his place of exile, I would take him by the hand and tell him that the long quarrel was over, that the vengeance was taken, one way or another.’

  When they heard him talking like this, Wulf and Haldor shook their heads and left him. But Maria Anastasia saw all this from her after-cabin and she felt certain in her heart that she could succeed where the rough-speaking vikings had failed. So she went to Harald, walking very softly and daintily, and sat down beside him on the boards.