“Time you told us,” he said, pointing out a stone for her to sit on. “Why do you think there are no gods, only wicked men? If that's what you think, why this mummery with white robes and rowan-berries like a Way-priest? Don't waste my time being angry. Tell me the answers.”
Weariness and strain gave Shef's voice a chill that brooked no defiance. In the firelight behind Svandis Shef saw Thorvin squatting on the sand, hammer in belt, and the other Way-priests with him, Suleiman the Jew next to his colleague Skaldfinn. “Well. Do you need me to tell you why I think there are wicked men?”
“Don't be silly. I knew your father. I killed him, remember? The kindest thing you could say about him was that he was not of one skin, eigi einhamr, like a werewolf. Only he was a were-worm, I saw him on the other side. If you had to think of him as a man—well, what could you say? He cut women's living bowels out for pleasure, the only way he knew to put bone in his prick. Wicked?” Shef shook his head, without words. “No, tell us why you think there are no wicked gods. You're talking to a man who's seen them.”
“In dreams! Only in dreams!”
Shef shrugged. “My mother saw one on a beach, like this, and felt him too, Thorvin says. Otherwise I wouldn't be here.”
Svandis hesitated. She had explained her views often enough. Never in the face of such solid cast-iron certainty on the other side. Yet the fierce blood of Ragnar ran in her veins, only surging more strongly to opposition.
“Consider the gods that people believe in,” she began. “The gods my father and his brothers sacrificed to, Othin god of the hanged, betrayer of warriors, prepared always for Ragnarök and the battle with Fenris-wolf. What are the words that Othin tells us in the holy Havamal, ‘The Sayings of the High One.’ ” Her voice broke suddenly into the chant of the Way-priest:
“Early shall he rise, who will reft another's
Life or lands or woman.“
“I know the sayings,” said Shef. “What's the point?”
“The point is that the god is like the men who believed in him. He told them only what they wanted to know already. Othin—the High One as you call him—he is just a mouthpiece for the wisdom of a pirate, a murderer like my father.
“Think of another god. Think of the Christ-god—flogged, spat on, nailed to a cross and killed without a weapon in his hand. Who believes in him?”
“Those wicked bastards of monks,” said an anonymous voice in the darkness. “Used to be my masters. They laid on the lash all right, but no one never flogged none of them.”
“But where did the Christians start?” cried Svandis. “Among the slaves of the Rome-folk! They made a god in their own image, one who would rise again and bring them victory in another world, because they had no chance in this one.”
“What about the monks?” said the skeptical voice again.
“Who did they preach their religion to? Their slaves! Did they believe it themselves, maybe, maybe not, but it was useful to them. What good would it have done them if their slaves had believed in Othin?
“And what of the followers of the Prophet here?” she went on, pressing an advantage. “They believe in the one clear way. Anyone can join it by saying a few words. No-one can leave it without facing death. Those who join pay no taxes, but their men-folk must forever fight the unbelievers. Two hundred years ago the Arabs were sand-rats, nobodies, feared by none! What is their religion but a way of gaining strength? They have made themselves a god who gives them power. As my uncles made a god who gave them courage and fearlessness, or the Christians one who gave obedience.”
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's,” said the skeptical voice again, followed by a comprehensive hawk and spit into the fire. “True enough. I heard them say it.”
Shef placed the voice finally. Not Cwicca, but Trimma, one of his mates. Strange that he should speak so freely. It must be the ale.
Another voice breaking in, the quiet one of Suleiman the Jew, by now speaking the fleet's common Anglo-Norse mixed speech with barely a trace of accent.
“An interesting view, young lady. I wonder what you will have to say of the Lord whose name is not spoken.” He added, as ignorance remained complete, “The god of my people. The god of the Jews.”
“The Jews live in a corridor,” said Svandis flatly. “At the far end of this inner sea. All the armies of the world have marched up and down it, Arabs, Greeks, Rome-folk, all of them. The Jews have been toads under the harrow since their history began, from what I have been told of it. Have you heard the toad shriek out as the harrow rakes it? It cries out, ‘I will be revenged!’ The Jews have made a god of total power, and total memory, who never forgets any injury to his people, and who will revenge it—sometime. When the Holy One comes. He has been a long time coming, and they say you crucified him when he did. But if you believe what you do, it does not matter that the Holy One never comes, because he is always coming. That is how the Jews live on.”
Shef could see Suleiman's face in the firelight, watched it carefully for any grimace, any twist of anger. Nothing that he could see.
“An interesting view, young princess,” said Suleiman carefully. “I see you have an answer for everything.”
“Not for me,” said Shef, draining his mug. “I have seen them, in dreams. And others have seen me in the same dreams, so it is not just my fantasy. They have shown me sights far off as well, and they have come true. As they have for Vigleik of the visions, for Farman priest of Frey, for others of the Way.
“And I tell you, those gods are not made in my image! What was it that bit me, Svandis, you saw the marks in my flesh? A pet of Loki's, a pet of Othin's? No pet of mine. I do not even like my father Rig, if he is my father. The world would be better with no gods, I say. If we all believed what we wanted, I would be a believer in Svandis. But I know better. It is the gods who are evil. Men are evil too, because they have to be. If it were a better world that the gods made, men would be better too.”
“It will be a better world,” rumbled Thorvin in his deep bass, “if we can escape the chains of Skuld.”
“Keep thinking about it, Svandis,” said Shef, standing up. He stopped as he walked towards his blanket on the sand. “I mean what I say, and not as a joke, nor an insult. You are wrong about the gods of the Way, or at least you have not explained to me what I know. Just the same, there may be new knowledge in there somewhere, knowledge of people if not of gods. That is what the Way is about. Knowledge, not preparing for Ragnarök.”
Svandis dropped her eyes, for once silent, defenseless against praise.
Chapter Eleven
The small Northern fleet, only eleven ships now, mustered next morning the moment the highest lookout saw the first streak of light in the sky. Many men had dreamt of fire in the night, none wished to be trapped against a hostile shore by the red galleys of the Greeks. Shef left the details of the withdrawal to be organized by Brand, who had rowed away from many a beachhead. The clumsier two-masters moved first, using their sweeps while they waited for the first puffs of the land breeze that blew from the cooled land towards the warmer sea every morning. The four remaining Viking longships lay on their oars close in, sterns just touching the beach. The party of sentries blocking the landward path ran down all together, their commander in the rear, shoved the boats out and scrambled aboard in the same moment, Brand counting carefully as they boarded. Ten strokes and the longships were out in the main channel, pulling easily past the Fafnisbane.
Two last groups to recover. On each of the headlands either side of the cove Shef had posted a dozen men, with their bundles of dried grass and pitch to illuminate any enemy trying to force the cove entrance. The Vikings had a routine for recovering such men too. On the hail, ropes appeared, men began to drop down like spiders on the end of their threads. The Vikings were lowering their more inexperienced English colleagues bodily, Shef realized. They touched ground, waded out into the water, seized outstretched oars, were hauled aboard.
Now the experts were doing it
, at three times the speed, moving as if an enemy army were rushing up the other side of the hill. Ropes slung round firm-driven stakes, passed doubled round the waists, and the Vikings were walking swiftly backwards down the cliffs, bracing themselves against the pull. Into the water, the ropes jerked free.
And they'd left someone behind! As the last men scrambled for the waiting ships, Shef saw a head and a waving arm. He could even recognize the face, the squint. It was the innovator of the evening before, who had wanted to set kite-cloth to the flares. Shef knew his name now: Steffi, known familiarly as Cross-eye, said to be the worst shot with a crossbow in the whole fleet. He seemed unworried, was indeed grinning broadly. Shef caught the words floating down.
“I got a new way to come down! Watch this!”
Steffi moved to the highest point of the cliff, looked down into deep water, the boats moving gently across it a hundred feet below. He had something tied to him and trailing behind. Shef shut his eyes. Another one who thought he could fly. At least it was over water. If he didn't hit a rock. If he could stay afloat long enough to be rescued.
Steffi took a few steps backward, ran awkwardly forward again, and then leapt straight out. As he leapt, something billowed out behind him. Kitecloth. A square of it, eight feet across, fixed by cords to some kind of belt. As the small figure shot downwards it seemed to catch the air, form a kind of bell above him. For a few instants the figure slowed, hung marvelously in the air, Steffi's grin once again perfectly visible.
Then something seemed to go wrong, Steffi began to lurch from side to side in the air, his grin vanished, he hauled vainly on his cords, legs thrashing. A splash, barely twenty feet from the side. Two of Brand's men were in the water, swimming like seals. They resurfaced with Steffi between them, blood streaming from his nose, towed him to the Fafnisbane, heaved him up to waiting hands before stroking back to their own Narwhal.
“It was going fine,” muttered Steffi. “Then the air started to spill, like. Like a mug that's too full. I've still got the cloth,” he added, hauling on the lines attached to the belt now in his hands. “I didn't lose nothing.”
Shef patted him on the back. “Tell us before you do it next time. Birdman.”
He turned, waved to Hagbarth. Slowly the fleet rowed and swept its way out to sea, every lookout scanning the horizon with far-seers for any trace of the galleys, any threatening scout of a lateen sail.
No sign. Hagbarth coughed, asked the vital question. “Lord? Which direction now? South and back to base?”
Shef shook his head. “Take us straight out to sea, as far from land as we can get before noon. When the wind dies and we are helpless again I want us to be so far away that the furthest Christian scout cannot pick us up. They will be sweeping the shore in line abreast before long. We must be over the horizon by then.
“Conference at noon,” he added. “Tell Brand to come aboard then.” He turned to sling his hammock. A night on the sand with the sand-mites had left most men weary. Those not detailed to handle the sails or keep lookout followed his example.
Hours later, an awning shading them from the noonday sun, Shef and his council met on the high deck of the Fafnisbane's forward catapult mounting. Shef himself sat on the frame of the mule. Round him, sitting or squatting on the deck, were the four Way-priests, Thorvin, Hagbarth, Skaldfinn and Hund, with Brand resting his great back against the dragon-prow. After thought, Shef had once more called Suleiman the Jew over to listen to them. A few feet away, permitted to listen but not intervene unless asked, squatted Cwicca and Osmod to relay word to the crewmen once a decision was reached. Between them, a sullen expression on his face, was the young Arab Mu'atiyah. He would understand little or nothing of what was discussed in the Anglo-Norse patois of the Way, none of which he had troubled to learn in his weeks with the fleet. Yet he might be needed to answer questions.
“All right,” said Shef without formality, “only one question, where do we go?”
“Back to Cordova,” said Hagbarth promptly. “Or back to the mouth of the Guadalquivir anyway. Tell the Caliph what happened. He'll know before we get there, some stragglers must have got away, but at least we can tell him we didn't run.”
“We'll have to tell him we failed, though,” Shef replied. “These Mohammedans are not patient with failures. Especially as we'd told him we would succeed.”
“Nowhere else to go,” rumbled Brand. “Go north, they'll find out about us, send word to the galleys. Go out to sea like we're doing, well, they say there's islands out here but all in Christian hands. They'd catch up with us. But I agree, no point in going back to the Caliph. Why don't we just go home? Maybe pick up a little something on the way. Go back through the straits into the open ocean, sail home, see if we can't find a few bits and pieces to make a profit on the trip. From the Christians on the Frankish coast,” he added, his eye on the listening figure of Suleiman. “If we decide we're still in alliance with the Caliph, that is.”
Shef shook his head. “No. Even if we made a profit, we'd be going home without what we came for.
“Just in case you've all forgotten, we came for knowledge. At least I did. Knowledge of flight. And now, knowledge of fire. Don't forget, if the Empire of the Christians has learnt that, the next time we meet it may be in the English Channel. Home isn't safe any more.”
“Nowhere else to go,” insisted Brand doggedly. “Only safe thing to do is keep moving. There are no safe harbors left. Not here in the Inner Sea.”
A long pause, while the ship rocked gently on the halcyon water. The sun burned down above them, crewmen stretched out on the decks, luxuriating in idleness and warmth, new experiences for almost all of them. The ships' holds were stuffed still with food and full water barrels. No need for care, or no immediate need. Yet the weight of decision pressed down. Home was many miles away for English and Vikings alike, and between it and them lay only hosts of enemies: enemies and uncertain friends.
Suleiman broke the silence. As he did so he began to unwind the turban that he had never been seen to shed before.
“It is possible that I can find you a safe harbor,” he said. “As you know, there are many of my people, the Jews, who live under the rule of the Caliph of Cordova. What I have not yet told you is that there are some—many—who live, well, not entirely under it.”
“At the other end of the Inner Sea?” queried Shef. “In the land where Christ was crucified, whatever they call it?”
Suleiman completed the unwinding of the turban, shook out the long hair it had bound in. On his head now there was only a small round cap, fixed on seemingly with hairpins. Out of the corner of his eye Shef noticed that the young Mu'atiyah had half-risen to his feet, been dragged down again by Cwicca and Osmod, was being restrained none too gently. Something was going on that he did not understand.
“No,” said Suleiman. “At this end. To the north, between the kingdom of the Franks and the Caliphate of Cordova. There, in the mountains, my people have lived, along with others of different religions, for many years. They pay a tax to the Caliph, but they do not always obey him. I think you will be welcome there.”
“If it's north,” said Brand, “it will be the Christians we have to fear now, not the Caliph.”
Suleiman shook his head. “The mountain passes are difficult, and we have many strongholds. In any case, as the fair princess said last night, my people have much experience in—being a corridor. The troops of the Emperor marched through by permission, never entering a town. It would be a major campaign for him to take our princedom. Septimania we call it, though the Franks among us say Roussillon. Come to Septimania. There you can judge a new faith.”
“Why do you make us this offer?” asked Shef.
Suleiman looked across at Svandis, standing out of earshot by the rail.
“For many years I have been a servant of the book, Torah or Talmud or even Koran. Now you—some of you—have shown me something different. Now I too share your desire for new knowledge. Knowledge outside the book.”
Shef turned his one eye across to the still-struggling Mu'atiyah. “Let him go, Cwicca.” He went on in his simple Arabic. “Mu'atiyah, what you have to say, say it. Say it with care.”
The young man, released, rose instantly to his feet. One hand was on the hilt of the dagger in his belt, but both Cwicca and Osmod were crouched ready to drag him down again if he moved. Shef saw Thorvin slip the hammer he always carried in his belt free. But Mu'atiyah seemed too furious to care for threats. His voice shaking, he pointed to Suleiman.
“Dog of a Jew! For years you have eaten the bread of the Caliph, your people have taken his protection. Now you seek to break free, to leave the Shatt al-Islam, the path of submission to Allah. You will ally yourself with anyone, like some noseless whore in a kennel. Yet beware! If you seek to let the Christians into Andalusia, they will remember you for killing their god—may the curse of Allah rest on those who worship one born in a bed! And if you seek to ally with”—he swept an arm round—“with these, know that they are barbarians, who come and go as the wild sheep defecate, now in that place, now in this.”
Faces turned to Shef and Skaldfinn, waiting for translation. “He's calling Suleiman a traitor,” Shef observed. “He doesn't think much of us either.”
“Why don't we just throw him overboard?” asked Brand.
Shef thought for a long minute before replying. Mu'atiyah, who had not understood the brief interchange, nevertheless sensed from Shef's immobile face and Brand's jerked thumb something of what was going on. His face paled, he began to speak, stopped and tried to draw himself up with an appearance of composure.
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