Return to Fanglith f-2

by John Dalmas

  The word "Norse" triggered Arno's interest. The Norse, he told me, had founded Normandy, and some of his ancestors had been from Norse kingdoms. Also, the Varangian mercenary regiments in the Byzantine armies were Norse, and were famous fighting men. He asked the captain if we could sail near enough for a close look at their ship, and after a moment's hesitation, the captain agreed. He changed our tack so that we'd pass close to her.

  The Norse ship moved fast by Fanglithan standards, riding high in the water, and soon we got a good look at her. Her lines were as smooth as the pirate's had been, and more slender. A "long ship," our captain said; he'd never seen one before, but he knew of them. Most Norse ships were broader, he told us, to carry cargo. We passed her at a distance of no more than two hundred feet, and there seemed to be fifty men or more on board her, most of them watching us. One of them had climbed her mast to the spar, presumably to get a better look.

  Then we were past, and our attention left her. No one was even aware when she began to put about; she was mostly through her turn when our steersman noticed and called out. By that time her sail was down and she had oars in the water, her oarsmen pulling hard. Over the next few minutes, the Normans and I watched her draw up on us. It took skill to row in a swell like that. Our captain changed our course northwestward, angling toward the Sicilian coast, but it was obvious that she'd catch us. With the primitive Fanglithan sail rigs, oars worked a lot better in a headwind.

  And Deneen was hundreds of miles away with all systems shut down, which meant no radio.

  When the long ship had drawn near, I could see one of her men in the bow with a grapple in his hand, rope attached, I could imagine the technique: When they were close enough, he'd throw it and hook us. Brislieu had strung his bow, but Arno warned him sharply not to shoot. The Norse, he said, might all have bows, many to our few. Instead he drew his-my-blast pistol.

  "Let them draw alongside," he muttered. "Do not cut their lines." He gestured with the blaster. "This will put the fear of God into them. They'll let us go as if we carried the Devil himself, and we'll have their grapples for our own."

  The Norseman began swinging his grapple around his head, then released it, its line snaking behind it across the water. It fell onto our deck, narrowly missing me, caught the gunwale, and bit deep and hard into the wood. Then other Norsemen threw grapples, and strong arms drew the ropes taut. They shipped their oars then, the oarsmen lending their tough hands to the ropes. I could see them plainly now-well-tanned, bearded men, mostly with brown or blond hair. At about fifteen feet, Arno leveled the pistol at the Norsemen in the bow and pressed the firing stud.

  And nothing happened! It flashed through my mind that the safety was on; the double safety on this heavy military model was different from that on the police model he'd had before.

  "Let me have it!" I shouted at him.

  But instead, one of the Norsemen let him have it- slung a throwing axe spinning toward us. It slammed hard against Arno's helmet-fortunately end on-sending him sprawling unconscious.

  The pistol went sliding along the deck, but what I dove after was the stunner on Arno's belt.

  At close quarters, it would stop the Norsemen as well as the blaster would, and it was closer to hand. Arno's body was lying on the stunner, though, and by the time I got my hands on it, the Norsemen were boarding us. Brislieu and the sergeants and squires, in true, reckless Norman style, had drawn their swords, and for maybe half a minute I could hear their furious fight. If I'd gotten to my feet, or even to my knees, I'd probably have been killed for my trouble, so I shoved the stunner and communicator into my shirt and lay beside the unconscious Arno, playing dead. Blood was spreading across the deck planks-Norman blood, I thought-and the brief noise of fighting had stopped.

  Pilgrims from the Holy Land!

  Then brown hands with pale hair curling on their backs turned Arno over and took off first his sword belt, then his helmet, collet, and hauberk. Unfamiliar voices were speaking a language I'd never heard before-a language with a sort of tonality-almost a singsong quality. There was quite a bit of laughter. Someone grabbed me then and started to turn me over, and abruptly I scrambled to my feet. I didn't want them to take my stunner and communicator.

  One of them drew his sword, and I raised my cross, holding it out at him in my left hand. My right hand drew my stunner, aiming from beneath my cape. As he hesitated, I started chanting my school fight song good and loud, as if it were a prayer, moving my cross up and down between us to hold their attention on it. Then I pushed the firing stud, and the blond swordsman just sort of sank to his knees and toppled over on his face.

  Talk about a reaction! For four or five seconds no one said a thing. After that, they all started talking at once, while I slipped the stunner back inside my shirt. I was still holding my cross up. Then the Norseman who seemed to be the leader bellowed something and they all shut up. With his eyes slitted at me, he said something else in a quiet voice and someone grabbed me around the arms from behind so hard I thought my rib cage would break. Another put his knife tip to my throat. I held very, very still.

  Their leader was a broad, thick-shouldered warrior whose red hair and beard were marked with white. He turned to our captain and said something that had to be Greek-it sounded pretty much like what our captain and crew talked among themselves, though I could tell it was accented. Our captain answered. The Norseman looked at his fallen warrior, then at me, and said something more in Greek, and again our captain answered. They talked back and forth for a minute or so, then the Norseman pursed his lips and frowned, said something to the man who had hold of me, and I was let go.

  I sucked in a big breath of air and looked around. Except for Arno, every one of the Normans was dead, lying in their own blood-including the squires, none of them more than fifteen years old, I could see three dead Norsemen too, while another was sitting on a hatch cover having a gashed arm bandaged. He was bloody from shoulder to feet-must have lost at least a quart of it-but instead of looking pale and weak, he looked angry and mean. I'm not sure how I looked; probably green.

  We were broadside to the swell now, rolling heavily from side to side. Some of the Norsemen were down in our hold, looking at the horses and talking enthusiastically. I learned later that the Norseman who'd climbed their mast had seen our rich cargo of horses. That was what inspired them to turn and attack us.

  The Norse leader shouted orders, and the men in the hold started coming back on deck. Some of them laid the dead bodies out on the deck boards-Normans and Norsemen both. When they were done, the Norse leader stood over the corpses. He called again, sharply, and two more of his men came out of the hold. Then all the Norsemen took off their helmets and stood quietly. Their leader wore an ornate gold cross on a chain around his neck, and he held it up with his right hand, then raised his eyes to it and started chanting in his own language. It occurred to me that he was praying.

  He prayed for about half a minute, then let the cross fall against his hauberk. Another brief order, and some of his men grabbed the dead under the arms and knees and threw them over the side. He turned to look at me, gave another order, and one of his men grabbed my arm and pointed to their ship, gesturing forcefully. His grip was like a steel pincer, his hands as fiercely strong as Arno's. The two ships had been tied snugly against each other, side by side, and were rolling and wallowing, their gunwales at almost the same level; apparently, they wanted me to cross to theirs, so I did. Two of the Norsemen lifted Arno and carried him across.

  Within minutes the ships were separated. The Norse had left a small prize crew of their warriors on the horse ship, with her Greek captain and his men. Both ships had turned before the wind now, and we were sailing southward together about two hundred feet apart, with the long ship in the lead, her sail raised again.

  I wasn't feeling too pessimistic. If the Norsemen had been going to kill Arno and me, they probably would have done it already. And I had the communicator. In six or eight days Deneen would be back, and
if worst came to worst, when the time came, I could jump over the side at night and let her fish me out.

  It occurred to me then to turn off the remote in my right ear. Deneen wasn't around to talk to me, and even just turned on, it was a constant tiny drain on the communicator's power cell. When I needed it, later on, I didn't want a rundown powercell.

  TWENTY

  Arno didn't wake up for half an hour, and when he did, he was confused. We sat on the bottom decking of the open Norse ship, talking quietly, his speech vague and mumbly at first as he gradually remembered what had happened. After a while, the Norse leader came over to us with one of the Greek sailors from the horse ship.

  The Norseman said something in Greek, and the Greek repeated it in Norman French. His Norman was good-a lot better than his captain's had been-and obviously the Norseman had brought him aboard to interpret.

  "He wants you to stand up," the Greek said, It was me the Norse leader was looking at, so I got up. The Norseman spoke to me again, the Greek translating. "I am told you are a holy monk."

  "That's right."

  The Norseman eyed the cross that hung from my neck. "Do you follow the church of Miklagard, or that of Rome?"

  Somehow the question felt dangerous, so I sidestepped. "India. I am a Christian of India."

  "Umh." He thought about that, frowning, then said something more to the Greek and walked away.

  "What did he tell you?" I asked.

  "He had planned to sell all of us, and the ship and horses, to Saracen merchants in Spain. But he says he cannot sell a Christian holy man, certainly not to the Saracens, so he will have to take you with him to his homeland."

  Well, I thought, mark one up to being a holy monk. "He asked if I followed the way of Miklagard," I said. "Where or what is Miklagard?"

  "These men are Varangians, Miklagard is their name for Byzantium."

  Varangians? "What are Varangians?" I asked.

  He shrugged. "They are barbarian mercenaries who come from the North. Some come on ships like this, across the Mediterranean. But mostly they come, or used to, across the Black Sea from the Rhos land. They pay no heed to kings, but bond themselves by oaths to whatever leaders they choose. Most of these men have been fighting for the Emperor, and are returning now to their homelands with the gold they have earned."

  The Emperor. That would be the Byzantine emperor, I decided.

  "And they plan to sell you?" I said. "Does that mean you'll be a slave?"

  "Yes. But I am a skilled sailor. I will probably not be chained to a rowing bench or sent to the mines."

  He didn't seem all that upset. Resigned was more like it.

  Meanwhile Arno had gotten to his feet and stood by, taking it all in. Now he called out in what seemed to be the Norse language! It surprised heck out of me; I hadn't known he knew it. The captain, who was standing about thirty feet away in the bow, turned and stared at him, then said something back in Norse. Haltingly, Arno answered, and the captain came over with an interested expression. They talked for a couple of minutes, Arno often pausing as if groping for words. The captain reached out, squeezed Arno's arms and shoulders with big hands as if testing his muscles. Then he laughed, nodding, said something more, and drew Arno by an arm to the center of the long ship while calling in Norse to its crew.

  Most of them moved toward the middle of the long ship, with Arno in the center, and there seemed to be some sort of brief meeting. Everyone was grinning or even laughing, then serious for a few moments, then cheering. A keg was passed around, which must have held five gallons, and they all drank, some from big mugs. Those who drank from the spout held the keg above their faces as if it didn't weigh a thing, but when it got to me, it still must have weighed twenty-five pounds or more.

  Our Greek had come over to where I was sitting. He had no more idea what was going on than I did. After a few minutes, Arno came back. My eyes must have been out on stalks by then.

  "What was that all about?" I asked. "What did you say to him? How did you know their language?"

  Arno chuckled. With the wind behind us now, no one was rowing, so we moved to adjacent rowing stools. "I never told you the history of my people," he said. "The first Normans were Norse pirates called Vikings. Most were from the kingdom of Denmark, though Hrolf, our first duke, was from Norway. They had been harrying the coast of France from ships much like this one,

  and the Franks were unable to deal with their ferocity. The Vikings would sail up a river to some town or monastery and capture and loot it, putting the people to the sword, then setting the place on fire before they left."

  Arno chuckled again. It bothered me that he could laugh about it.

  "So Charles the Simple, the Prankish king, offered Hrolf the duchy now called Normandy," Arrio went on, "if he would stop his raiding. Hrolf was a great Viking lord, a sea king with many men sworn to him. And Hrolf, whom the Franks called Rollo and who later took the Christian name Robert, would be the duke. All the king required, besides the end of his raiding, was that Hrolf allow himself to be baptized, for the Norse were not Christians then. And Hrolf was also to recognize the king as his sovereign, but owing him only one man's military service for forty days a year. Which, the story goes, the king in turn promised not to demand of him, though I doubt that even Charles would promise that.

  "Denmark was crowded in those days, and many Danes, as well as certain other Norse, came to Normandy then to take land. The Franks who were there before them became their villeins. Many of the Danes who went there were drengr-unmarried men-and becoming baptized, took Frankish wives. Also they ceased their seafaring and learned to fight on horseback-like the Franks, but more skillfully. And they still had the bold, fierce, Viking nature, which we Normans keep to this day."

  Although I followed all of that easily enough, there was one point of confusion. "But the Greek said that these are Varangians. How does that fit with Vikings? And apparently they not only speak a language of their own, but Greek."

  "Varangians are the same people as the Vikings. Varangians are Norse who went to Byzantium to fight for the Emperor, and the language of Byzantium is Greek. Byzantium is wealthy beyond belief, and its Emperor pays richly for warriors of skill and valor. Many Norse go to Byzantium, and return to their homelands wealthy by Northern standards."

  "And the Normans can also speak Norse?" I asked.

  Arno shook his head. "Almost none do. I'm the only one I know who speaks as much of it as I, although there may be a few others. When I was born, my great-grandsire was an old man-seventy. As a small boy, I was intrigued by him, for he could find his way around the castle as if he still had the eyes which had been taken from him by a sword stroke, fighting river pirates on the Seine.

  "In summer, he liked me to sit in the sun with him, when I was small and we would talk. He taught me the Norse language, which as he spoke it then was mixed with more than a little of our good Norman French. And he told me many stories in Norse, of old days and old ways. I did not fully understand them then, of course, but I remembered; I heard them often enough that sometimes I told them to him,"

  Amo smiled, shaking his head. "I loved that old man, although I will tell you that he never entirely forgot the old gods. Indeed, I believe our priest suspected as much, for he often told my mother I should not be allowed with great-grandsire. He dared not accuse him of paganism though, for he had no evidence. And in name, my great-grandsire was still the baron there, though in his blindness, first my grandsire and then my father bore the responsibility.

  "Great-grandsire-his name was Knut-had been born in Denmark, but Harald Bluetooth, who in those days was king there, had become Christian. And demanding that all Danes be baptized, and had begun to burn the shrines of the false gods, replacing them with churches.

  "So my great-grandsire's father, disapproving of Christian ways, took his wife and children and left the country, going up to Norway, which was pagan still. It was there my great-grandsire grew up, worshiping the old gods, and when he was fifteen
, went a-viking. In time, the band he was with took service with Ethelred of England, and fought Sveinn Forkbeard, who'd since become Denmark's king.

  "But the band broke up when its leader, Gisli Ketilsson, was baptized and demanded that his followers do the same. Then my great-grandsire went home to Norway, where he found Olaf Tryggvesson king, and the people being baptized left and right. The shrines of the false gods were being burned, there'd been fighting, and in one fight, my great-grandsire's father had been sent to his grave.

  "So he went with a Viking band to Normandy, where they took service with Duke Richard in quieting rebellious freeholders who were protesting certain changes from old Danish law to feudal law, which they considered a Prankish heresy. And the duke, not aware that great-grandsire was pagan, knighted him, his valor and the force and cunning of his sword making up for indifferent horsemanship."

  Arno chuckled. "And in Normandy he was baptized at last, having seen, if not the truth of God, at least the daughter of William of Courmeron, who would not give her in marriage to a heathen. When William died without living sons, great-grandsire received the fief from the duke. From heathen Viking to Christian baron in a ten-year! By then he'd learned to ride with all but the best of them, though he swore he'd been fortunate to survive some of those wild early hunting rides through the forest.

  "Then, when I was six, I was sent to serve at the castle of Hugh of Falaise, Roland's father, a man far nobler than his son would ever be. At certain holidays, we pages and squires would go home. Great-grandsire had entered his dotage, and somehow could no longer speak French, but only Norse, which, since grandsire's death, no one else there could speak except myself. Even from his Norse the French words all had fled, so that I had trouble understanding him at first. But because I could at least somewhat understand him, I spent much of my time with him when I was home. Until, when I was twelve, I was called to weep beside his bier."