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Title: The Last of the Vikings
Author: Treece, Henry [Henry William] (1911-1966)
Date of first publication: 1964
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Leicester: Brockhampton Press, 1964
   [first edition]
Date first posted: 22 March 2017
Date last updated: 22 March 2017
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1414

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


PUBLISHER'S NOTE

Italics in the original printed edition are indicated _thus_.

As part of the conversion of the book to its new digital
format, we have made certain minor adjustments in its layout.

Because of copyright considerations, the illustrations by
Charles Keeping (1924-1988) have been omitted from this ebook.






  Henry Treece


  THE LAST
  OF
  THE VIKINGS


  BROCKHAMPTON PRESS




  _By the same author published by Brockhampton Press_

  FIGHTING MEN: How men have fought through the ages
  HORNED HELMET
  WAR DOG
  THE JET BEADS



  _First edition 1964
  Published by Brockhampton Press Ltd, Market Place, Leicester
  Printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd, Aylesbury




  Contents


  Prologue

_Chapter_

  1 The Spears of Stiklestad
  2 Bolverk's Bargain
  3 Sword from the Summerbird
  4 Fur-train to Novgorod
  5 Jaroslav's Yuletide Feasting
  6 The Tax Gathering
  7 Over the Weirs
  8 Burnt Longship
  9 Flight of the Summerbird

  Epilogue




  To Anthea
  whose opinion I respect




Prologue

Although it was the end of September, the weather up in Yorkshire did
not seem to know it, and the sun beat down from a cloudless blue sky
for all the world as if it was mid-summer.  In a broad green meadow
beside the river Derwent, a host of men lay under the sunshine,
laughing and joking like merry feasters at the end of Lent; or like
resting pilgrims on the way to Santiago's distant shrine, forgetting
their long journey for a while.  Listening to the din they made, a man
would hardly know where they came from, for the air was laden with the
sounds of Norwegian and Icelandic, of Flemish and French, of Scotch
Gaelic and English.  There were upwards of two thousand men in the
great field, so it is little wonder that the birds were silent and the
sunlit sky above them empty.  That is, empty save for three carrion
crows who circled curiously back and forth, crying discordantly from
time to time; and, higher in the upper air, a broad-winged goshawk
which hovered at times, almost motionless in the sky, noting everything
with his cold sharp eye.  Unlike the crows, this hawk was silent, for
he was a warrior-bird and knew what manner of men sprawled out below
him on the green turf.  His watchful eye had told him that this was no
crowd of pilgrims, for he had noted the swords and axes, the shields
and mail coats, the helmets and javelins that lay everywhere beside the
men, on the trampled turf, cast down because of the sun's warmth.

And especially the hawk noticed a broad banner that lay, spread over a
hillock to keep its white silk unwrinkled, for on this banner was
pictured another great bird, the black raven with its wings outspread,
Odin's bird.

Close to the raven-banner, three score men sat in a ring laughing, and
in their midst, a giant with flax-yellow hair and beard, merrier than
the rest.  The hawk came lower to look at this man, for he seemed to be
three heads taller than all about him, though they were not small men
either.

But suddenly the giant turned back his head and with a stiff arm
pointed upwards.  'Away with you, goshawk,' he called in a hard voice,
'today's business is for men, not birds.  We'll send for you if we need
you.'

The men in the circle laughed at this and one of them even took a
leather sling and sent a round pebble whistling up towards the bird.
The goshawk did not stay to be insulted further, but wheeled with a
flick of his broad pinions and rode the warm waves of air towards the
west, setting his course for the oakwoods that stood above York.

Down below, the giant laughed and said to the slinger, 'Why, man Ljot,
you are almost as good a hand with the sling as you are with the axe.'

'So I should be, King Harald,' said black-bearded Ljot, wrapping his
sling up carefully and tucking it into his calf-skin pouch, 'I spent my
boyhood learning to cast a stone, up in Orkney, at my father's
steading.  It was the only way to keep the wild-cat from harrying the
new-born lambs.  A man can't catch a wild-cat with an axe, you know,
Hardrada.'

The giant called Hardrada stared at Ljot, his short flaxen beard
jutting out and his thick moustaches hanging down on either side of it.
For a moment, his scarred nut-brown face looked harsh.  The light blue
eyes which gazed out of it, one eyebrow set higher than the other,
seemed as cold as northern icebergs.  He said, 'Do you think I could
catch a wild-cat with an axe, fellow?'

Ljot shrugged his shoulders and grinned.  'Well,' he said, 'you are
brisker than most men in the world, as well as being bigger.  You have
caught many a Turk unawares, and that takes some doing!  Besides, you
have the blessing of God on you, since you once helped to build the
Church in Jerusalem, over the grave of Jesus Christ, when you were
soldiering for the Emperor of the Greeks.  Yes, on second thoughts, you
might outwit a wild-cat.'

The face of Harald Hardrada relaxed into a smile, though such a fierce
smile that it was harder to bear than most men's scowling, and he said,
'You did not mention that I am King of Norway.  Does that not count?'

Black-bearded Ljot plucked a grass-stem and began to chew it, though he
still looked from under his eyelids at the Norse King.  'Aye,' he said
casually at last, 'that does count, a little, Harald.  But it would
count even more if you were King of England as well: then, the
wild-cats would run for their lives only to see your shadow on the
hillside.'

Harald Hardrada, King of Norway, frowned again and seemed to forget
Ljot altogether.  Between his clenched white teeth, he said, almost to
himself, 'That day has come.  That is why we are here.  Before this hot
sun sets, if God wills it, and my raven-banner, _Landwaster_, has not
lost its magic, I shall have a second crown to wear.'

Ljot stopped chewing the grass-stalk and said, daringly, 'You will have
to share it with Earl Tostig of Northumbria there, since he fetched you
over the sea to kill his brother, the English king.  Perhaps you could
wear the crown turn and turn about: you on Monday, Tostig on Tuesday,
then you again on Wednesday.  Yes, certainly Wednesday, since that is
Odin's day...'

But Harald Hardrada did not answer him.  Instead, he called across to
the next hillock, where a group of English carles stood, leaning on
their spears, and talking to a grizzled man who wore a scarlet tunic of
fine silk and swung a gilded helmet carelessly on his thick forefinger.

'Hey, Tostig,' cried King Harald, 'which days do you want to wear the
crown when we take it from your brother?'

Earl Tostig stopped talking to his spearmen and turned towards the
lounging Norse king.  'I have no preferences, my lord,' he said,
smiling strangely, 'as long as we can get our hands on it.'

A tall spearman standing next to the earl said under his breath, 'When
we have the crown safely in our grip, it will be a lucky Norseman who
ever sees it, much less wears it, at all!'

But Earl Tostig did not seem to hear these words; he only smiled again,
with a quick twitch of the lips that spread upwards towards his eyelids.

King Harald of Norway turned away from him, as though he had forgotten
him all at once, and said to Ljot again, 'I wonder if you would be good
enough to hoist my banner, _Landwaster_, on the hilltop here?  I would
like to see it flapping in the English breezes.  The banner-bearer, old
Fridrek, will help you: he has hoisted it many times, and knows how to
manage it when the wind gets into the cloth.'

Ljot rose to his feet and said, 'I have sailed from Orkney to Iceland,
and back, in autumn gales, two score of times; and each time I have
hoisted the sail of my own longship.  A man who can hoist a sail
single-handed needs no help in hoisting a mere banner.'

King Harald's face became hard at this.  His hands were clasped
together and when he heard Ljot's words, he clenched his fingers so
tightly together that the knuckles cracked.  He said, 'After such
boasting, you had better hoist my banner well, friend Ljot.  I am not
short of Orkneymen, remember, but there is only one _Landwaster_.'

Many men, sitting in that ring, wished that Ljot had not been so
outspoken and that Harald had not answered him so hotly.  Before a
battle, it ill becomes any man, king or carle, to speak such words as
may be heard elsewhere and remembered, if the luck falls on the other
side of the fence.

And now the luck seemed to fall strangely, for as Ljot grasped the tall
ash-pole, a sudden gust of wind came from nowhere and wrenched at the
heavy silken cloth, bellying it out like a sail so that no three men
could have held it, much less driven the iron point into the ground.

_Landwaster_ crashed back to the turf, its long folds whirling about
Ljot and dragging him down with it.  And though he looked a foolish
enough figure on the ground, with his legs kicking out, no one in the
ring laughed, or even whispered.  The silence that lay upon them all
was much heavier than lead.  Even the wind stopped blowing.

As for King Harald, his eyes and face had become stone, or iron, or
ice.  He only said, 'You shall have your chance, before this day is
out, to prove that you mean well by me.'  But these words, though
simple ones, were said in such a way that no man who was there did not
feel the hairs rise upon his head and neck, as stiff as wire.

Then, all at once, a man in Earl Tostig's company pointed towards the
west and shouted, 'Look!  Look!  The English king is coming to bring us
his crown in person!'

All men gazed at the cloud of dust which rose on the road beyond the
meadow.  King Harald, who was sharper-eyed than other men, said, 'His
force outnumbers ours, and will be here before we can put on our armour
and make ready for them.'

Then he called across to Earl Tostig, 'Is that small man on the black
horse at the front your brother, then?  The one with the golden helmet?'

Earl Tostig answered sharply, 'My brother is the one on the black
horse, but I have yet to hear anyone call him small to his face.'

The King of Norway smiled gently and said, 'You shall have that
pleasure before long, Tostig Godwinson.'

Then he stood up among his Northmen and forgot all else except the
battle that was coming.  In a loud voice, he commanded his host to
cross the single bridge that spanned the river Derwent and to take up
their positions on the far side, forming a great shield-ring about
_Landwaster_.

Ljot of Orkney began to move away with the others, but King Harald
suddenly called him back.  'Your place is not in the far field, hoister
of sails and banners,' he said grimly.  'I need you for a more special
task.'

Ljot gazed back into the king's cold eyes.  'I am your dog, master,' he
said without blinking.

For an instant, Harald Hardrada almost smiled at him: but then he
recollected himself and said, 'Yes, you are my dog, and a good dog
guards his master's door.  I have no door in England at the moment, but
I have a bridge; and that you shall guard with your axe, to see that
this English king does not pass over the river until we are all armed
and ready for him on the other side.'

Ljot slapped his axe-blade and nodded.  'I shall see that you have
enough time, Harald,' he said calmly.  'For your part, see that old man
Fridrek makes a better job of hoisting _Landwaster_ than I did!'

King Harald said, 'He will, fellow.  He has not sailed to Iceland
twenty times, but he has stood in twenty battles, which amounts to much
the same thing.  Now, good luck sit on your axe-edge.  And, wherever
you are going, I wish you a good journey.'

Ljot called at the king's back, 'I shall travel merrily, Harald, which
is more than will be said for the Englishmen who set foot on the
bridge.'

Then, as the Northmen crossed over, Ljot dragged on his mail shirt and
stood waiting, leaning on the bridge and whistling, and occasionally
swinging his long axe like a scytheman cutting corn, delighting in the
hiss the keen blade made, going through the air.

In his shield-ring, on the far meadow, with great _Landwaster_ flapping
behind him, King Harald of Norway buckled on his own mail shirt.  It
was very long and reached down to the lower leg.  When the king wore
it, the Norse carles called him 'Emma' behind his back, because the
skirts were so long.  In his own sharp way, Harald had got to know of
this and now called his ring-shirt by the same name, gritting his teeth
gently and sweeping his pale eyes over the carles' faces like a light
whip-lash.

'On, Emma, on!' he grunted that hot day.  'Let us have no woman's
treachery about you.  Keep the arrows out, that is all I ask.'

As he spoke, two strange things happened.  First, an angry cry went up
from the tight-packed Norse carles in the foremost ranks.  'Ljot is
down!' one said.  'Now the English are coming over the bridge.'

Harald was busy with a throat-buckle and, not looking up, asked, 'How
did he fare?'

A burnt-faced Icelander called back above his shield, 'He took the
heads off three before one went under the planks and poked a spear up
into him, the English dogs!'

Harald finished fastening the buckle, then nodded and said, 'When I am
their king, I shall have a word or two to say to the captain who
ordered such a death, and he will have but short time to answer me.'

As he spoke, he knew that he should not have tempted his fates so, for
suddenly a tearing gust of wind came from nowhere and almost flung
_Landwaster_ down again on the hillock.  Fridrek held on to the great
ash-pole as though he was wrestling with a troll in the darkness; but
it was all he could do to keep the banner upright.  And while he
struggled, a raven came down over the King of Norway and cried out so
furiously in its cracked voice, like a scolding old crone, that all the
carles were silent with foreboding.  Harald pretended to pick up a
stone from the ground and made the action of throwing it.  The bird
flapped away on its ragged black wings.

The King of Norway laughed and said, 'See, that messenger talks
much--but knows nothing!'

Then the second strange thing happened.

There was a marshal in the King's Host, named Styrkar, a tall and
gallant man, ever first in the blow-swapping, who carried scars from
Sicily and Jerusalem across his face.  In all their time together, the
king asked Styrkar's advice on battle-affairs more than he did of any
other man, for this marshal knew more about war than any five living
kings, having spent half his days on battlefields.  Styrkar's mother
came from Gritriver, near Hlidarend, in Iceland, and claimed to be a
kinswoman of Gunnar Hamundarson, which made the marshal of heroic
blood.  His father was Gizur of Bergen who took a longship to Dublin
before his sixteenth birthday and brought it back safely through winter
storms, down to the gunwales in water, being so laden with Irish gold
that the oarsmen could not even sit down to row, much less lie down to
sleep.

So this Styrkar was of the finest birth on both sides, and any king
might be glad to ask his counsel.  Just now, he was setting the
shield-ring, with spearmen in the first ranks to keep the English
horses off; then shield-men with their bucklers rim to rim; and,
nearest the king and banner, bowmen who could send their arrow-hail
over the heads of all in front.

King Harald Hardrada called out to Styrkar the Marshal, 'From where you
are, friend, how does it look?  Shall we have these English on their
backs and knees in time for dinner, do you think?'

In the bright sunlight, Styrkar glanced up at the king with a wet red
face, and his lips moved in answer.  But the King of Norway stood
aghast to hear his words, for his voice had changed so much.  In the
shuffling and clattering of battle-dawn, it was not Styrkar's high
voice that seemed to speak, but the deep voice of Harald's brother,
King Olaf.  Yet Olaf the Saint had been dead for thirty-six years.

The voice said, 'It ill becomes a man, though he be a king, to weave
the future's web with boastful words.  No man should speak of dinner
till the sword is put away and the cup is at his lips.  Here, close by
York and beside this river called the Derwent, you should remember
other words I spoke to you, once when you lay asleep in a burned ship
on the plains above Kiev.  But, more than that, you should remember
Stiklestad, above Trondheim, when we thought we had the beating of
Swein of Denmark.  Do you remember Stiklestad, Brother Harald?'

The King of Norway nodded and rubbed his eyes as though they were full
of sleep and he was trying to be rid of it.  None of the carles seemed
to notice this, or to hear dead Olaf's voice.  It was more like a dream
than anything else, and only Harald was in this dream.  He gazed
upwards, under the flapping banner, and said aloud, 'Aye, Olaf, I
remember Stiklestad.  It was the first battle I was ever in, and I was
only a lad.  I _should_ remember it--enough happened that day to stay
with me all my life.  I have good cause to remember it, Olaf.  Yes,
every second of it, every blow of it!'




  THE LAST
  OF
  THE VIKINGS




_1 The Spears of Stiklestad_

At Stiklestad six spears came at Harald, swift as snakes, rattling
against each other, ash against ash, in haste to end him.  He stumbled
on the churned-up turf and fell, the spear-shafts criss-crossing over
him like the roof-beams of a house, their iron points in the ground on
either side of his body.

'Olaf!  Brother Olaf!' he shouted, swinging his round shield sideways
and flailing out as well as he could with his sword.  To the rescue,
Olaf, I am down!'  His young voice echoed among the rocks, high and
shrill.

He heard the rebel-peasants laughing above him, and one of them saying,
'You can cry out for the King, wolf-cub, but he's too busy to help you
now!'

Suddenly Harald Sigurdson felt a great fury come over him, and rejoiced
when his shield-rim cracked hard against the man's shin-bone, sending
him skipping away and groaning.

Then the spear-points came out of the ground with a sucking noise, and
Harald knew that soon they would be thrusting at him again, but more
carefully now, having missed the first time.

In the little grace allowed him, he rose to his knees and swept out
widely, like a man scything grass.  He felt the edge of his sword,
_Legbiter_, shock against something, almost twisting from his grasp,
and he heard a man shout in pain.  Then he just had time to get the
broad shield over his head before the iron-points rattled on it
furiously again.

He was about to take air into his lungs and call for Olaf once more,
when there was a great thudding of feet and a rushing of air, and
Harald found himself being lifted high, and being swept away, as though
a whirlwind had clenched about his body to carry him up to Valhalla.
As he struggled for a moment, he saw that his brother, Olaf of Norway,
was close beside him, laughing and red-faced, scything with his long
sword, and knocking men away from him as a lion would shake off dogs.

'Courage, brother!' the King was calling.  'We have got you now.  We'll
teach these carrion crows what it is like to fight with princes.'

Then Olaf's men had set Harald on his feet again, where the ground was
more even and there were fewer enemies.

Olaf called back over his shoulder, 'Keep at it, little gamecock.  I go
to look for our enemy, the Danish king!'

Harald saw his half-brother plunging away like a giant among the
brambles, his feet sinking into the sandy soil as he went, and his
great cloak flying.  Olaf was a fine man, a head taller than most in
Norway, his hair almost as white as flax, his shoulders as broad as a
barn-door.

'Let me come with you, brother!' the boy called.

But an old warrior dragged at his mail-shirt and said hoarsely in his
ear, 'Hold the hill, Harald!  You can serve him best here.  Why do you
think he has brought you to this place?'

Harald looked back at the old man, a bitter answer forming on his lips;
but then he saw the smile on the wrinkled, battle-scarred face, and the
great slashes in the man's mail-shirt, where his leather tunic showed
through.  And he said breathlessly, 'Yours is good counsel, Earl
Rognvald.  I thank you for reminding me of my duty.'

The Earl pulled Harald to one side, so that their house-carles could
get round them in a shield-ring.  Then he said, 'My own sons were like
you, lad, rough unbroken stallions, before they fell under the Danish
axe.  At fifteen, you are a day too young for such an end.  Keep with
me, and we shall put an end to these rebel-peasants and their Danish
allies, if God will only smile on us a while.'

Harald wiped the streaming sweat from his forehead and said, 'If He
does, then one day, when the crown comes to me, Rognvald, I will build
a great church for Him, down there at Trondheim.  I call you to witness
my promise.'

Earl Rognvald nodded and smiled.  'Aye, aye, lad,' he answered, 'I hear
you, and I'll keep you to it, when the time comes.  Now pull your
helmet well down and tighten your throat-mail.  Never leave the buckles
unfastened.  The arrows are flying, and it would be a bad bargain for
Olaf to drag you away from the spears to lose you a minute later to the
arrows.'

It was starting to rain, on the hill above the dark fiord, and the
clouds were sweeping in, low and grey, from the sea, bringing with them
hosts of white sea-birds which squawked harshly as they wheeled above
the fighting men, as though mocking them.

From time to time arrows whistled out of the miserable sky and smacked
viciously into the ground, sinking a hand's breadth before they stood,
quivering, where they stuck.

Earl Rognvald called out for the carles to kneel and hold their
bucklers above their heads for a while, until the arrow-flights had
died off.

One great warrior shouted back, enjoying his taunt, 'What are our
helmets for, Rognvald?'

The old Earl smiled bleakly at him and answered, 'Yours is of no use at
all, Thorleif.  Your skull itself is thick enough to turn any arrow I
have seen; but I am thinking of your comrades, whose heads are less
solid.'

The men all laughed at this and raised their shields as the Earl had
said.  Even Thorleif joined in the laughter, for it would have been
unmanly not to take a joke against himself.

It was then that a tight-packed company of peasant Bonders came rushing
from behind a clump of dark pine trees, and halting, shouted, 'Death to
Olaf!  We will have Swein of Denmark for our master, or none at all.'

Earl Rognvald poised his throwing-spear and answered them, 'You will
have what you get, you treacherous dogs.  And you can have this spear
for a start!'

The long shaft whistled through the air towards the Bonder leader, who
was running some paces ahead of his band.  He was a black-haired man
with the sharp eyes of a wolf, and so he saw the Earl's spear coming.
No man could deny him courage, for he laughed even as the weapon
plunged at him; then, in the last moment, leapt aside so that it only
went through the skirt of his tunic.

'There are better spearmen than you, Rognvald,' he called.

But the Earl answered wryly, 'Look behind you, fellow, and see what it
did to your brother.'

Then the Bonders were upon them, striking out with bill-hooks and
scythe-blades, as well as with their long-hafted wood-axes.  Some of
these men felt the blood of battle beating so hard in their hearts that
they flung themselves at the spear-hedge and tried to leap the points.
But Harald's house-carles were old hands at this game.  Many of them
had faced even the fierce Moors of Andalusia in their time.  Only one
of the Bonders broke through towards the banner, and this one Harald
cut down when he was but a yard away.  It was the black-haired leader
who had been so nimble and mocking a minute before.

Earl Rognvald spared him a glance and said, 'So, you see, lad, it ill
becomes a cock to crow too loudly.  Another fox may be waiting round
the next corner of the barn.'

It was a hard tussle while it lasted.  Some of the Bonders were so
quick-sighted that they even caught the spears hurled at them, and
returned them at the sender while he was still bent over from the cast.
But the house-carles were even brisker; seeing the peasant axes
sweeping out, they jumped over them like dancers; at other times, they
straddled thrusting spears, like men mounting a war-mad stallion.  And
always they gave better than they got, using the edge and the horn of
the war-axe to bring down their foemen.

There was one old carle, who had been viking every summer for forty
years, and knew the world, from Iceland to Jerusalem, like the back of
his horny hand.  He knew every harbour, and every coastal village where
there was a church with a gold cup in it, from Bergen to Antioch.  His
name was Sigvat and he had lost eight sons on the seas.  This made him
careless of his own life, but much feared by his enemies.

This day six Bonders came at him, seeing that he was grey-haired and
thin-legged, thinking to have him down in a moment.  But old Sigvat was
not to be taken so lightly.  He looked back at Harald and whispered,
'Watch this trick, Sigurdson.  If I can bring it off, then at least you
will have learned something today.'

Then, with a high shout, he flung away his shield, as though he did not
need its protection any longer, and made for the smallest of the
Bonders, who was some paces away from his fellows.  As the man quailed,
taken by surprise, Sigvat dealt him a shoulder-blow, which toppled him
among his mates; then, springing sideways, the old viking began to run
outside the shield-ring.  So, gaining a few yards start, and stringing
his foemen out, Sigvat laid five of them low, some with knee-blows,
some with thigh-blows, and one even with a stroke made over his
shoulder as he went.  The sixth Bonder gave up the chase and setting
himself to take careful aim, reached Sigvat in the back with a short
javelin as his mail-shirt swung upwards in the exertion of running.

Harald was close to tears to witness such a sad end; but Earl Rognvald
struck him across the face, just hard enough to bring his mind back to
the matter in hand, and said, 'Sigvat is laughing, where he is.  Why
should a mere boy weep?  You should be sharing Sigvat's triumph, my
friend, not moping like a woman.'

By now the shield-ring was less than it had been before, and though the
Bonders were broken, there were still Danes to reckon with.  Rognvald
said, 'Let us shift higher up the hill, then they will find us harder
to get at.  And maybe King Olaf will see us when he has finished his
own foraging and will come up to help us.'

Those who were left of the house-carles obeyed the old Earl, and they
were formed in a small ring once more just as the Danishmen came out of
the wood with their spears.

This was not like the peasants' attack.  The Danes ran tight-packed as
herrings in a tub, their spears as close-set as a farmyard fence, so
that not even a piglet could squeeze between them.  Earl Rognvald drew
in his breath and said, 'It will be a lucky man whose hair is not
smoothed by this comb.  See that you do as I do, Harald, and let us
have no more swapping blow for blow until the spears have passed.
Stand behind me and watch.'

Harald's eyes were everywhere at that moment.  He saw his carles
valiantly trying to hack the iron-heads from the Dane spears as the
push was made; he even saw the captain of the carles go up into the air
on one point, still angrily trying to reach its holder with his long
axe.

Then he saw the carles break and Danish spears coming in a line at him.
'Down on your knees, you fool!' shouted Earl Rognvald, forgetting
himself at such a moment.

Scrambling like weasels, the two slid under the spear-points on hands
and knees, and then the Earl called out again, 'Strike at their legs.
They cannot get at you now, if they keep their formation.  Their points
have already passed us.'

So, being jostled here and there, kicked and buffeted in the
half-darkness, Harald and the Earl struck out to left and right, all
the time shuffling on over the tussocky grass, their mouths and eyes
filled with the sand that furious Danish feet kicked up.

And at last they were clear, outside the spear charge, with the grey
sky and the white sea-birds over them once more, and the Danes still
pushing on away from them towards the banner in the broken shield-ring.

The Earl dragged Harald to his feet.  Come,' he gasped, 'we have been
fortunate.  It would ill become us to throw our luck back in God's
face.'

He set off at a run, round a clump of hawthorn-trees, heading for the
brow of the hill, so that they could drop behind it out of sight until
their surviving men could join them to make another stand.

And so they both lay behind a boulder, fighting for breath, thankful
for the lull in the war-play, when down below them they heard a loud
mocking voice which said, 'Are you two fellows weary of the game, then?
I thought you Norwegians worked a longer day than this.  Come down and
let me see you.'

Harald turned his head slowly and saw, twenty paces below, a big man
sitting by a stream, his shirt open and his helmet on the grass beside
him, as though he was enjoying the sunshine.  He was eating a piece of
bread and in his other hand he held a horn ale-cup.  On either side of
him stood armed men with their bows drawn and their sharp arrows
pointing up the hill towards the boulder which had sheltered Harald and
the Earl.

Rognvald placed his sword on the ground beside him and said, 'Out of
the cooking-pot into the fire, lad.  I thought our luck was too good to
last.  We have run right into the mouth of King Swein, like a hare into
a wolf's jaws.  And it is his dinner-time!'

The Danish king stood up, his food in his hand as though this was no
battle encounter, and called, 'Must I ask twice?  Come down, I say.  It
would be a bad end to my meal if I had to have these good bowmen skewer
you before I had finished my bread and ale.'

Rognvald stood then, grasping his sword by the point-end and letting
the ivory handle hang down.

'Come, prince,' he said quietly, 'we must face this out, though we have
no stomach for it.'

So, at last, they went down the hill and stood before King Swein of
Denmark.  Harald noted his thick arms and legs and the fineness of his
armour, each black iron scale of which was inlaid with silver in the
shape of a dragon.  But most of all he noted the Dane-King's face, as
brown and wrinkled as well-used Cordovan leather, with a stiff black
beard, tinged here and there with grey, and growing right up his cheeks
almost to the eyes.  And the eyes themselves, light and grey and
dancing, like those of a baresark.

'Well,' said the King, 'so now you have looked me over, like a farmer
at a market, and what do you think?'

Harald said, 'I think you are the best-looking man I have ever seen,
apart from my brother, Olaf.  But I think that you are a bad man, for
all your warrior face, and it would do my heart good to put an end to
you.'

The Dane laughed, his head thrown back, and then he held out his
ale-cup to the boy.  'Words break no bones,' he answered, 'and I like a
young dog that's not afraid to bark when he meets with a wolf.  Drink,
my friend, you look thirsty.  It would ill become a King to refuse ale
to a prince at a time like this.'

At first Harald could not bring himself to take the cup, though his
mouth was parched and his tongue as dry as an old piece of oak.

Swein laughed again.  'Come, lad, take it,' he said.  'There's no salt
in this ale.  It will not bind you to be my friend.'

So, at last, Harald drank and then passed the cup to Earl Rognvald.
Swein nodded, smiling, and waved to his men to stand a little farther
off.  Then, pointing towards the flat stone, he said, 'Now let us sit
down and talk of serious things.'

Harald flared up and said, 'There is no thing I wish to talk of with a
Dane, save his death.'  But old Earl Rognvald took his arm and drew him
down on to the rock.  And then King Swein said between closed teeth,
'Now you have barked enough, young dog, and we know your courage.  But
do not tempt the wolf too far.  His temper is a short one, and it may
be in his mind that you, not he, shall die.'

Earl Rognvald said, 'The lad speaks honestly, Swein, he is no thrall or
byre-slave.  He is to be a king one day, and kings speak their mind, as
you know.  He should not be harmed for that.'

The Dane smiled, though his smiling was worse than his frowning.  And
he said, 'Not every egg becomes an eagle.  It may fall from the nest
and be smashed before it is hatched.  Or a man may carry it away and
give it to his children so that they can say they have blown an eagle's
egg.  There is nothing certain in this life, as you must know, old man,
for you have seen your family perish when you thought they would grow
to be a fine brood of young warriors.'

For a while, both the Earl and Harald glowered at the Dane, as though
they might leap up and try to kill him, in spite of all his bowmen who
ringed them round.  But Swein disregarded their looks and,
half-shutting his eyes, looked above them towards the hilltop.

'You hate me because I have come with my ships and my swords into your
country,' he said.  'But you are wise enough to understand, surely,
that I come because your Bonders, your hard-working farmers, are weary
of your rule--weary of paying their heavy taxes, weary of bowing down
to a harsh king.'

Harald cried out, 'Olaf is no harsh king.  He takes his dues, no more.
And even if he were what you say, that gives you no right to come here.
A farmer does not break into his neighbour's land because that
neighbour sows a different crop from himself.  A shepherd does not lead
away his neighbour's flock because the silly sheep call out to him.'

At first it seemed that King Swein would jump up and strike the lad:
but suddenly he laughed and said, 'They told me you were a sharp young
fellow, but they did not tell me you were half a priest and half a
lawyer already!  Oh, lad, it is a waste of a good life for you to go on
living in this rainy desert.  Forget Olaf, and come back with me to
Hedeby and sit on a stool beside my throne.  I'll see that you get the
crown you want, one day, if you are a good lad and mind your manners.'

Now a great madness came over Harald.  His heart beat like a smith's
hammer, and the grey clouds came down right over his eyes.  He leapt
up, though Earl Rognvald tried to stop him, and plunged at the Danish
king.

But Swein was stronger and quicker than most men.  Harald, in his
wildness, felt a hard blow at the side of his head, then he was
sprawling at the king's feet, and, high above him, Swein was standing
with his sword drawn and flecks of spittle all over his harsh beard.

Yet, even so, Harald's anger had not left him.  Snatching out, he
grasped the king's ankle and sank his teeth into it, hoping to gain
some revenge, however small, against this man who spoke so slightingly
of Olaf.

With a sudden hard movement, King Swein kicked him away, and what might
have happened then, no man knows; but all at once the world seemed to
fall apart.  There came a loud shouting from the hilltop, and then men
stood dark on the skyline, with their spears bristling and the wild
sea-birds swirling about them.  For a moment, Harald on the ground
thought that it was Olaf and his companions, come to save him.  But
then he heard Swein's high shout of triumph, answered even more wildly
from the hillside: and when he looked more closely, he saw that these
men also were Danes, and that they carried with them a great man, whose
arms and legs hung down limply, and whose swinging head was white.

Then Harald knew who it was.  He knew the tattered banner, with its red
ground and its spread-winged raven.  And, beside it, he saw other men
carrying Olaf's high-crested helmet and his shield garnished with
plates of copper and ivory.

Tears spurted from his eyes.  His voice went and left him dumb,
although he tried with all his power to shout out for vengeance.

Then his head whirled so much that he did not know what was happening
to him.  He only felt two strong hands on his shoulders, dragging him
up to his feet.  And when any sense at all came back to him, he was
running beside Earl Rognvald, with arrows slapping into the turf all
about him, towards a wood.

'Faster!  Faster!' the Earl was crying.  'We may still get clear, while
they are rejoicing over the body of Olaf.'

Harald wanted to stop then, and weep again: or to turn back and do his
best, against the arrow-hail, to get vengeance for his dead brother.
But Earl Rognvald took him by the hair and dragged him on.

'Run!  You donkey!' he was shouting.  'There will be time for
Dane-killing later.  You owe it to Olaf to come clear out of this.  So
run!'

And when their hearts were almost bursting, and their legs too weak to
carry them much farther, the two broke through the spiky brambles and
so into a dark pinewood, where the tree-trunks stood, grey and green
and solemn, like the pillars of a church, and the thick carpet of
ancient pine-needles muffled all sounds their feet made.

'Into this bush,' gasped Earl Rognvald.  'Draw the leaves about you and
lie still.  They will be coming for us before long, you can depend on
that!'

So, they lay, every gasp as painful as a dagger-thrust, their limbs
twitching from their race to freedom, while, now in the distance, the
Danes shouted again and again, like hounds on the scent of a frightened
hare.




_2 Bolverk's Bargain_

After a time all was quiet again, except for the swishing of rain on
the roof of the forest which sent a steady whispering down the aisles
of trees, but never reached the floor of age-dry pine-needles.  This
sound went on so long that at last Harald did not hear it.  It became
part of the silence.

And in this heavy quietness, with the smell of pine-cones in his
nostrils, he remembered his dead brother Olaf again, and began to shake
and shudder as though all his tears had dried up and this was his only
way of weeping.  Then his sorrow changed to wild fury and he dug his
fingers deep among the pine-needles and clenched them time after time,
as though he was clutching the throat of King Swein.

It was while he was doing this that a bird suddenly broke away from a
near-by bush, and fluttered noisily up into the black tracery of
forest-boughs, crying out in alarm.

Earl Rognvald, lying close beside Harald, whispered, 'That is a sign.
The bird knows.  They are coming.  Lie still now or we are dead men.'

The Danes came openly into the wood, not bothering to be silent, but
talking and laughing to one another as though they were going to a
feasting.  But nothing escaped them, and each man prodded with sword or
spear into any bush or hummock of moss that could have sheltered a cat.

Harald glanced once at the Earl and saw beads of sweat covering the old
man's face.  Then he noticed that his own hands were streaming, as
though he had dipped them into water.

After that he no longer had a chance to think of anything very much,
because three men were making towards the bush under which he lay.  He
heard their shuffling feet pause, and he held his breath, hoping that
his end would be a quick one.  For a short moment, he almost jumped to
his feet in the hope of striking one of them with his knife.

Then it was too late, because spear-points came slanting between the
leaves and deep into the ground all about his head.  Harald suddenly
thought how hard and cruel they seemed, thudding beside him: very
different from when he himself was guiding them at an enemy.

Under his breath, in a mortal fear, he whispered, 'Brother Olaf!  Save
me, Olaf!'  He felt like a little child again, frightened in the dark,
and not like a blooded warrior of fifteen who would one day be a king.

Suddenly the hard iron ran through his sleeve, pinning it for a space
to the ground.  Then another spear-point plunged between the fingers of
his outspread hand.  Harald stared at it in wonder, until it withdrew
out of his sight.  And while he waited for the next thrust, Earl
Rognvald who lay close beside him gave a little start and clutched him
tightly about the wrist.

And just as suddenly it was all over, and the Danes were moving away,
laughing and joking and searching for another bush to poke into.

It seemed hours before the sound of their footsteps had gone from
hearing and the forest was its silent brooding self once more.

At last the Earl said hoarsely, 'We came well out of that, lad.  One of
those fools pushed his point into my leg, but I have had worse from a
kicking cow in my time.'

Harald rolled over to answer him and then saw that the old man was
lying still, as pale as death, his eyelids closed and blue.  For a time
he waited for the Earl to rouse again and speak, but when this did not
happen, the lad went chill with fear and, pushing the low branches
aside, he began to roll the body of his friend into the open, so that
he could see the nature of his wound.

Earl Rognvald's leg-wrappings were dark and sodden, and now he began to
groan as Harald moved him.

It was while the lad was cutting the breech-straps with his knife that
he heard a sound behind him.  Startled, on his knees, he turned to see
a tall man wrapped in skins and carrying a rusty axe, gazing down at
him, with a strange smile on his red-bearded face.

'Do not move,' the man said, 'or I will finish what the Danes began.'

Harald said in contempt, 'You are a Bonder dog, a jackal who follows
the lion.'

The man shrugged his shoulders and answered, 'I saw that you were there
all the while those stupid fellows were poking about in the bush.  I
could have told them where you were, Harald.'

The lad stared at him, amazed.  'Are you a friend, then?' he said.

But the Bonder shook his matted head.  'No, not that,' he answered.  'I
am what you said, a jackal.  I take what the lion misses.  If I told
the lion what I knew, he would gobble it up, would he not?  And I see
that you and the old man carry good daggers and wear good mail-shirts.
Why should Danes have those when Bonders need them?'

Harald began to judge the distance between the man and himself, but the
Bonder nodded and said, 'My axe would fall on your neck before you
could get to your feet.  Be a wise fellow and give up your dagger.
Perhaps it will buy your life and the life of the old Earl, if he still
has a life to bargain for.  Come, we will get him to my house, and
perhaps, if Odin wills it, you may both escape my Danish friends.'

Harald said, 'A loyal friend you must be to any man!'

But the Bonder only laughed and said, 'In this life, as you will learn
if you are given time, a man must do the best he can for himself.  When
it comes to feeding and clothing his family, or keeping his own neck
out of the noose, a man cannot depend on Danes, or on anyone but
himself.  Come now, fling down your dagger and we will get the old man
to shelter.  He has a fever coming on him, I can see.  We have no time
to waste with such women's chatter.'

So they went on through the dark wood carrying Earl Rognvald, and
always keeping an ear cocked for the sound of the questing Danes.
Once, when they rested, the Bonder sang a song about Arsleif
Summerbird, a strange chieftain of the Inner Lands, who once became
King of the Bearfolk, after wrestling with the bear-champion and
throwing him ten times before supper.

Harald was in no mood for such songs, and said so.  But the Bonder
shook his head and said, 'Princeling, you have much to learn still.
Arsleif Summerbird is a greater man than any we have in the Northland.
If you met him, you would feel your eyes popping out of their lids, and
you would fall to your knees before him, thinking he was Odin.'

Harald, who was now very weary from fighting and sadness, answered,
'The only man I would bow before is my brother Olaf, and he is dead.
There will never be such another, fellow, for God makes only one of
that mould in a world's lifetime.'

The Bonder laughed shortly and said, 'Aye, Olaf was a good enough man,
though overmuch concerned with praying to Christ for our liking, we up
in the hill-lands.  But wait till you have met with Arsleif Summerbird,
then tell me what you think.'

At last they came to a hollow at the farthest edge of the pine-forest,
and there tucked among bracken and hawthorn was a long log-house
surrounded by a stockade with sharpened points.  Sheep and cows and
pigs were in the stockyard, and four shag-haired thralls to guard them.
Blue smoke came up from the chimney-hole and grey pigeons sat on the
roof-coping.  The Bonder pointed and said, 'This is my place.  This is
where the old Earl can lie abed and get healed of his wound.  My wife
is a great hand at poultices, and if she can't cure him, then he is
sick indeed.'

Harald glanced at the steading; it looked like a wooden fortress as
much as anything.  He said, 'Before we go in, how do I know that,
tomorrow, you will not hand us over to the Danes, when you have
stripped us of our mail-shirts?'

The Bonder blew through his lips and made a rude sound.  'If I had
wanted your shirts, I could have taken them in the forest,' he said.
'Then I could have shown the Danes your bodies and got my reward for
killing you, without any more trouble.  Instead, I am bringing you to
my house, and offering to put bread and meat into you until such time
as you can make your own way abroad and save your skins.  Does that
sound like a traitor to you, Harald?'

The lad thought for a while, then said, 'Why should you go to this
trouble, fellow, if you are not going to gain by it?  Men do not use up
their fodder and poultices unless there is gain to be had from it.'

The Bonder struck his axe-head into the ground and halted.  'Well,
now,' he said lazily, 'you ask a fair question and I'll give you a fair
answer.  First, I love Danes no better than you do; but, like a ship, I
have to go the way the wind blows.  If the other Bonders go harnessed
with Danes, then so must I, or have my house burned over my head and my
kin put to the sword's edge.  Second, your brother Olaf once stopped at
my steading when he was out hunting, and gave my old woman a silver
brooch from Miklagard in return for a cup of barley-beer--and of all
the virtues, I cherish generosity in a man.  But, best of all, and
third--one day the dice may all fall otherwise, and who knows but what
you might be a king yourself.  Then, if you are anyway like your
brother, you will say to yourself, "Ah, there was old Bolverk, who
saved me and the Earl that day.  He is a poor hard-working man and
needs a new house and a score of milch-cows, and a dowry for his five
daughters, and a fresh set of cooking-pots for his old wife.  Ah, I'll
look after old Bolverk, and mayhap I'll even see if he would like to be
an Earl..."  So, that's what you will say, Harald.'

Harald stared hard at the Bonder and said slowly, 'Do you think so?'

Bolverk the Bonder pulled his axe out of the ground and smiled.  'No,'
he answered, 'but it was worth putting to you.  Come, then, and we will
see what is cooking on the fire.'

And so Harald and Earl Rognvald came to the house of Bolverk the
Bonder, and, as this man had promised, the Earl was healed of his deep
leg-wound, and after a month or two had little more to show for it than
a scar as long as his hand, and a limp that made him walk rather like a
hobbled stallion.  The worst Earl Rognvald had to tolerate after this
was listening to the rough rhymes that Bolverk used to recite every
evening.  'Do you know,' said Bolverk proudly one night after supper,
'about here, they call me Bolverk the Bard!'

Then they must be fools--or deaf!' grunted the Earl.

The fight at Stiklestad happened in the July, and that was when King
Olaf was killed.  It was September before Earl Rognvald could walk
without aid, and half-way through that month before he threw his
blackthorn stick away.

The day he did this, he said to Harald, 'What now, lad?  We must be
doing.  We cannot sit listening to Bolverk's nonsense much longer.'

Harald waited till the Bonder's wife had gone to the outhouse, then he
answered, 'It is our task to find Swein of Denmark, and to put a knife
into his wicked heart.  He has no right to rule in our land.'

But the Earl struck hard on the table-top and said, 'There, trust a
rabbit to run back into the trap!  You have no more sense than would
fit snugly into a mouse's ear.  Have we any weapons?  Have we any war
shirts?  No!  All we have is what covers us, and a pair of shoes on our
feet.'

Harald flared up at the words about a mouse's ear, for he had grown up
to think he was Olaf's heir both to land and wisdom.  So he stood above
the Earl and said, 'I shall remind you of this, one day, Rognvald, and
then you will see that there is no fool like an old fool.'

But the Earl was busy combing his beard with his fingernails at that
moment, and pretended not to hear; and when Harald's anger had died
down, the Earl said, 'You have a kinsman, a cousin of some sort, who
sits on the throne chair in Novgorod and calls himself Jaroslav.  I
have never seen Novgorod, though I have visited most places in the
world.  I have been to Dublin and London, and when I was a lad I sailed
round Sicily.  The best wine I tasted, though, was in Jebel Tarik,
where the women go about with their faces covered, and the men talk
like monkeys.  They have a tall rock there, and a nimble fellow could
leap from its top into Africa--or so they tell me.  But I've never yet
set eyes on Novgorod, which is only in the next village, as you might
say.'

Harald was still wondering whether the old Earl had lost his senses,
when the Bonder came quietly through the door and said, 'I have been
listening to what you were saying.  I am a simple fellow and know more
about milking cows and reaping barley than about these far-off places;
but no man can ever say that Bolverk was not a man for a bargain.'

He came close and sat at the board with them, as though he was their
equal.  Then he said, 'Look you, in Novgorod there is great treasure.
The Novgorod-men bring it back by the sledge-load from down south,
where they get it from Bulgars, who get it from the weak-minded old
Emperor at Miklagard.  Now, we all know that Odin sets great store by a
man who is out doing, and making his fortune, and not sitting back at
home biting his finger-nails and helping his wife to wash the pots and
pans.  So, if I put you two in the way of getting the Novgorod
treasure, then Odin would think of me as being a brisk fellow, too,
would he not?'

Earl Rognvald sucked his lips together and gave a sly smile.  'You talk
outside your knowing, fellow,' he said.  'First, we are not Odin-men
any longer, as you must have heard.  We are both baptized Christ-men.
And second, how could the likes of you aid us in getting treasure, even
if we wished?'

Bolverk scratched his shaggy head and said laughing, 'I was at
Stiklestad like yourselves, and saw some of the fighting.  And it did
not occur to me that the Christ-men showed any more mercy than the
Odin-men.  So we can set that stuff aside for another buyer.  And
second, no man can gain treasure unless he has a sword and a war-shirt,
a horse and a saddle-bag full of food.  Is that not so?'

The Earl said that it was so.  Then Bolverk said, 'Very well, I will
give you back your shirts and some weapons; and I will see that you
have the other things, too.  Which makes me a partner in the
enterprise, does it not?  And while you are away, I will make a poem
about you!'

Harald was for refusing the offer straightway; but Earl Rognvald laid
his withered hand on the boy's arm to silence him, and said, 'Yes,
Bonder, it does.  You shall have a third share of all we gain.  Now get
your wife to broach another keg of that voyage-ale she keeps hidden in
the byre, and we will drink to the bargain.  But no poems, please.'

When the laughing Bonder had gone away to see to this, the Earl said in
a low voice, 'He is crafty, Harald, but we of noble blood are craftier.
Once we are clear of this place, well-armed and horsed, we can suit
ourselves whether we ever clap eyes on him again, treasure or no
treasure.'

So Harald and the Earl and the Bonder drank merrily to the good luck of
the Novgorod treasure-quest, and the next day the two set out over the
hills, with their horses' noses reined towards Uppsala.  It was a far
journey they meant to make, but, as the Earl said to Harald, some of
the war-men they had stood beside above Trondheim fiord had a still
farther journey before them, up towards Heaven; which, as all men knew,
lay off beyond Iceland, and was beset all the way by dragons, wolves
with iron teeth, serpents with flame-casting eyes, and white-eyed women
whose mere touch brought leprosy on a man.

Harald said, 'I have been thoughtless at times, Rognvald, and have
often disputed your advice.  Now, you must put that down to my youth
and lack of teaching.  From what you have just told me, I now admit my
stupidity.  You have given much thought to this matter of religion, I
can tell, and I will follow all your counsel from this time.  We will
go to Uppsala, and get aboard a stout ship there.  Then we will take a
look at Novgorod, and see if my kinsman, Jaroslav, leaves his
treasure-chests unlocked at night.'

The Earl nodded, his face serious, and said, 'It is always a teacher's
pleasure to hear that his wisdom has triumphed over the darkness that
is in a youth's head.  You will make a good king, yet, my boy.'

Harald laughed happily.  'But what about sharing the treasure with the
Bonder, though?' he asked.  'We did make a bargain with him, you know.'

The Earl was by now feeling the stiffness coming back to his wound, and
he said sharply, 'We will decide that matter when we are a few months
older.  As for me, I shall now look for a quiet place to lie down in,
and shall sleep until some of the heat has gone out of the sun.'




_3 Sword from the Summerbird_

The heat had well left the sun by the time the two travellers reached
Uppsala, for by then it was late in October, and already the wind had
icy teeth in it.  But there they bartered the Bonder's horses for two
places in a longship named _Thor's Larder_ and began the long sea-way
towards Finland.

It was not the smoothest of voyages.  _Thor's Larder_ belonged to two
Swedish brothers, one short and red-haired, the other as stringy as a
bean-pole and as white as snow, though he was younger than thirty.
These two brothers were for ever at arguments and blows, for each
claimed that the other had robbed him of his rightful inheritance when
their father died.  What was worse, they shared their quarrels with the
others in the longship, forcing them to take sides in the most stupid
of arguments.

One evening, the short red-haired man, whose name was Krok, came to
Earl Rognvald and whispered behind his hand, 'If ever we see land, my
friend, we shall be lucky men, for that brother of mine, Beanpole Spof,
has no more notion of navigation than a cat has of playing the flute.'

Rognvald, who was never anxious to strike another man's blows for him
without good payment, looked over the gunwales and said pleasantly, 'It
is a fine sunset, tonight, ship-master.  There are painters at
Miklagard who would tear out their beards in rage, not to be able to
put such a sight into a picture.'

Red-haired Krok came closer and said, 'You did not hear what I was
saying, friend.  I was saying that my brother...'

And Earl Rognvald said, 'Yes, oh, yes, ship-master.  Down past
Gardarike, a man would sooner paint a sunset glowing over the head of
Saint Michael than he would eat his dinner.'

But Krok would not be put off.  Taking the Earl's arm he stood on
tiptoes and whispered hoarsely in his ear, 'With your aid, friend, I
could pitch him overboard tonight, when the moon is down, and we could
go on our way safely, for, as you must have noticed, I am the very
prince of steersmen.  When I am at the helm, we run against no shoals,
and always seem to pick up the wind right at our backs.'

Earl Rognvald said, just as quietly, 'If you ever speak in that way to
me again, I shall shorten you by a head's length--and a little fellow
of your size could ill afford to lose any height.  Be off with you!'

Later that evening, when the watch was changed, Beanpole Spof came
edging towards the Earl and said behind his hand, 'I must offer you my
thanks, Earl.  Do not think I do not know what went on.  That brother
of mine is always waiting to trip me up and so have this boat all for
himself.  Thank Odin he ran up against an honest man for once.'

Earl Rognvald said calmly, 'Your brother and I were discussing these
painters at Miklagard.  I was telling him what a fancy they have for
painting sunsets, to put round their saints' heads for haloes.  Now, as
for me, though I am a Christian, as they call it, I would sooner put
the paint on the planks of my longship to keep out the water.  What do
you say, ship-master?'

Beanpole Spof leaned down over the Earl and said urgently, 'You do not
understand what I am telling you, friend.  My fat little brother wants
to kill me, don't you see?  Now, if a good true man like you would only
join me, together we could put him overboard off Estland, when
everybody is asleep, and that would be the end of his wicked plotting.'

Earl Rognvald swung round suddenly, as though interested in the
sea-birds, but so that his heavy sword-scabbard caught tall Spof across
the shins, making him hop with the sharpness of the pain.

Then he said, as though to the birds which were circling the longship,
'If ever you come to me again with such ideas, I will nail you by the
ears to the mast, to give us a new banner.  Now be off with you!'

Harald heard all of this, and said with a smile, when Spof had scuttled
away, 'Why do we not do what Harald Bluetooth would have done, and
throw them both overboard?  Then we could sail to Spain and see what
the Moors have to give us.'

Earl Rognvald shook his head and answered, 'Harald Bluetooth was an old
fool, lad.  He was not fit to rule over a farm-midden, much less a
kingdom.  A ship got by trickery would never steer aright; and most
likely it would founder before we had got it three lengths out into the
waters.  Besides, I have no taste for visiting the Moors again.  My
best friend lost both his thumbs and the end of his nose at Jebel
Tarik, just for lifting a woman's face-veil to see if she was smiling
or frowning at him.'

Harald said, 'And what was she doing?'

The Earl answered, 'Neither.  She turned out to be the village
simpleton, so no one could tell what she was doing.  And that, you must
agree, was a poor bargain for my friend, who never looked himself
again.'

After that the Earl went under the after-deck and wrapped his cloak
round him and was straightway off to sleep.  He had this great gift,
that whatever the weather, or the danger that threatened, he could
always go to sleep without delay.  Yet, on the other hand, if the
danger came too close, Earl Rognvald was twice as fast as any other man
at waking, though at this time he was a very old man, fifty if he was a
day.

_Thor's Larder_ was nearly a month coming towards Finland, but luckily
much of the journey was beside the Estland coast, so that when the ale
ran short, or the men felt sick, they could put ashore for the night.
For Harald the trip seemed endless, but the old Earl comforted him and
said, 'I have sailed this way when it has taken two months, lad.  We
are fortunate, for the west wind has been in our sail almost every day,
pushing us onwards.'

Harald answered, 'I would rather walk five miles than sail one, west
wind or not.  If I never taste salt again, it will be too soon.'

Earl Rognvald put on a serious look and said, 'It is by way of being a
tragedy that the King of Norway is no viking.  The world has come to
its last chapter when such a thing happens.  Ah well, they are breeding
a different race of men in the world today from what they were in my
young ship-days.'

After that, Harald did his best to make up for what he had said.  He
even paid the oarsmen to hold out their blades stiff and still, while
he ran the length of them, as the old vikings used to do, only two
yards above the deep green water.  But when he had done this, he got
little praise from Rognvald, who turned away and said, 'So the King of
Norway is a bigger fool even than old Bluetooth!  What use would that
foolery have been if you had fallen in?  With your mail-shirt on, you
would have slipped to the bottom faster than an iron coffer.  Then who
would have had to go in and fetch you out?  Why, me, of course; for no
one else among this crew of bleating sheep would risk his hide for a
worthless lad.'

The Earl's anger lasted for three whole days, but then, when they were
only a day from their port, something happened to put an end to it.
That night, just when the land breeze was at its freshest and the moon
had gone behind a cloud, Harald woke suddenly from his sleep to hear a
sound like a bullock blurting.  He turned towards the Earl and saw that
the noise had wakened him, too.

So, bewildered, they both rose and went to the steerboard, where the
sound had come from; and there they saw Beanpole Spof hanging over the
gunwales with blood coming from him, and fat Krok still holding the axe
that fetched forth the blood.

The Earl said, 'So it has come to this, has it?  A brother has killed a
brother.  Well, now you have made it every man's affair, for this
killing must be announced to the Thing when we reach the port.  As the
oldest man on board, I must ask you to place yourself in my charge.'

Then the Earl drew his sword and went forward to take the axe from
Krok.  But all at once the little fat man came out of his daze and,
giving a great shout, he flung the red-stained weapon far into the sea,
then began to cry out, 'Come quickly, my men!  The old Earl has killed
my dear brother and means to rob us of our ship!'

Before a man could count five fingers, the rowers had jumped up and
were clustering so thickly round Rognvald and Harald that they could
not have used their swords if they had wanted to.

It was Harald who pointed out to them all that Krok was lying, as could
be seen by the fact that the Earl's sword-blade was unstained with
blood.  But Krok bawled out once more, 'See, the traitorous dogs!  The
old Earl wiped his sword on my poor brother's tunic after he had done
the deed.  Now hark at them, blaming me.'

The tallest of the oarsmen now came up and said gravely to Earl
Rognvald, 'It ill becomes a nobleman of your fame to kill a poor fellow
like Beanpole Spof.  But we are rowers, not lawyers, and it will be for
you to state your case at the Thing in Finland.'

So, by sheer weight of numbers, the oarsmen took away the swords of
Harald and the Earl, and tied a rope loosely about their ankles, then
flung them among the cargo as though they were sacks of barley-meal.

Later, under the after-deck, Harald said to the Earl, 'You called me a
fool, old friend, but it might have been better after all if we had
done what I first suggested, and had taken this ship down to Spain.'

But Earl Rognvald only smiled and said, 'If a pretty house-wife ran out
of her kitchen every time a blackbird whistled, she'd never get any
baking done.'

After that, Harald said no more, for he was more sure than ever that
Rognvald was going mad because of his great age.

It was getting to be bright morning now and the longship lay well into
the shore.  Harald could see a line of drift-wood huts, thatched with
weed and sea-grass, with blue smoke coming from their chimney-holes,
and children playing among the dogs outside the doors.  Here and there
were rough-coated men, tarring upturned boats, or splicing ropes.  They
looked up as the longship passed and either waved in casual greeting,
or shouted out in hoarse voices that were more like those of hounds
baying than men speaking.

Harald said in a quiet voice to the Earl, 'I see small mercy if we are
handed over to fellows like this when we land.'

But Rognvald looked away and smiled up at the sky.  'They are
Finnfolk,' he said, 'and their law is different from ours.  If you can
quickly learn how to dance on your hands, or talk to the sea-mews,
these Finns will side with you, rather than with the little fat man
here.'

Harald said, 'But I cannot do those things, Rognvald.  What then?'

The Earl leaned back on a bale of straw and said, 'Then we must find
another way.'

As he spoke the men were all busy rowing, for the great sail had been
furled so that the wind should not run the longship aground; and fat
Krok was walking the length of the deck, occupied with the task of
keeping the keel away from any drift-weed or hidden shoals.

He was standing, less than a yard from the Earl, and busy looking the
other way, when suddenly Rognvald's tied feet swept out, knocking Krok
sideways, off balance.  As he fell to the deck, Harald took him by the
throat and held him like a terrier with a rat.  It all happened so fast
that not even the foremost oarsmen saw what had taken place until it
was too late.  As the Earl grabbed Krok's knife and cut through their
leg-bonds, the man yelled out for help; but even the most stupid rower
knew that if he let go his oar, the other oars would knock against it
and throw the whole ship out of time, perhaps even running her aground
or tipping her over.

Krok knew this, too, and began to plead with the Earl.  'Have mercy,
master,' he gasped.  'We did not mean to have you punished.  It was a
jest, I assure you!'

'And so is this,' shouted Rognvald, flinging the man with all his might
against the mast-stepping.  Then turning to Harald he said, 'Come, lad,
over the side with you and let us see what the water is like this
bright morning.'

Harald was down among the weed, spluttering, before he had time to
think.  Then, with a great effort, he was striking up again to the
sunlight, finding his iron shirt a great hindrance.  As he broke
surface, he saw the Earl only a few yards from him, swimming strongly,
his face red and laughing and his white hair streaming behind him in
the muddy waters.

Already the shouting from the longship was growing fainter, and
Harald's heart was very light to think that he and the Earl had
outwitted the Swedishmen.  He began to hum a gay song as he swam, to
beat time to his arm-strokes.  Earl Rognvald turned back to him, still
merry, and said, between gasps and spluttering, 'When you are King of
Norway, lad, I will pay a skald to make a poem about this great
swimming of yours.  Not Bolverk, but a real poet!  We must put our
heads together when we land, and see what should go into such a poem.
You know what these bards are for getting the wrong end of the stick.
We must put them right.'

Harald was still listening to the Earl's breathless words when a shrill
whirring sounded in the air over his head from the direction of the
longship.  Then suddenly Rognvald almost leapt right out of the water,
like a salmon breasting a hillside stream.

'What is it, friend?' called the boy, his mouth half-full of salty
water.  Now Earl Rognvald's strokes were slower and slower, and soon he
was swimming with his face below the sea.  Harald gained on him, and
then saw that the water about the Earl was reddening as though a dye
had been poured into it.  And as he noticed this strange happening, his
ears caught the vicious sound of other arrows chucking into the
shoal-water all about him, throwing up sharp spurts of white before
they clove down out of sight.

But Harald paid no heed to these arrows now.  Soon he was beside the
Earl, and then his feet touched the bottom and he found he could stand.
But Earl Rognvald did not stand; he lay face-downwards, his arms spread
wide, and his white hair floating above him.

A shag-haired man came running, knee-deep in water, towards them, a
fish-spear in his right hand, a thin black dog close behind him yelping
with excitement.

Harald called to him, 'Give me a hand, fellow, to drag the Earl to the
shore.'

The man reached down and put his arms about Rognvald, then shook his
head and said, 'He will swim no more.  The man who loosed that arrow
must know good prayers to offer.  I wish I could aim as well.'

Now other men came, clustering round, and all helping to lift the
Earl's body up and get it on to the muddy shore.  Harald could only
gaze at the pale face that had been ruddy and laughing but a few
moments before.  And to himself he kept on saying, 'But this is not
just.  We were talking about a poem, and then he said no more.  It is
not just.'

An old man whose head was wrapped with furs and who leaned heavily on a
blackthorn stick, came to the front of the crowd and said in a thick
voice, 'Stop babbling, boy, and answer a few questions.  I am the
headman here and I must be told all that happens.'

Harald said hotly, 'Then I tell you that Earl Rognvald, the companion
of kings, has just been murdered by Krok the Swede.  It is your duty
not to stand doddering there on a stick, but to catch that longship
when it pulls in to shore, and to punish the murderers of my friend.'

The old man turned away from Harald and said, 'The lad's a fool.  If we
as much as lay a finger on a Swedish longship, next season we shall
find our houses burned about our heads, and our children driven off
into slavery.  Strip the Earl of his shirt and make a hole for him on
the shore.  As for the lad, we'll offer him for sale to the next party
of fur-traders to come along the coast.  He looks strong enough and
he'd make a good sledge-puller for some trader short of dogs.'

Though Harald fought and kicked out with all his force, the shore-folk
were too many for him, and they carried him, weeping with fury, up
towards the row of smoke-blackened huts.  In the distance, he saw
_Thor's Larder_ pulling away, well offshore now, towards a point where
the thick pine-woods came down almost to the sea.

Shaking his fist in anger, he called out, 'Ill luck go with you, Krok!
I'll pay you back for this day's work if I have to spend my lifetime
doing it!'

As he was saying this, a tall dark-faced man came to the door of a hut
over which a bush hung, indicating that here was an inn for travellers.
His hair fell down on to his breast and his hands were long and fine,
their fingers bright with gold and silver rings.  His sharp black eyes,
his hooked nose, and his oiled and curly beard, made him look like a
hawk, or an eagle; but his clothing was of so many and such fine
colours, reds and yellows and greens, that there was no hawk and no
eagle ever so gaily-garbed.

This man stared at Harald a moment, then said, 'Spirit in hound, horse,
and lad is good to see; but a weeping boy is neither use to God nor
man.'

Harald stopped shouting and turned towards the man.  He was the tallest
man the lad had ever seen, taller even than King Olaf.

'What is your name, fellow?' he asked, putting on his sternest face,
and wishing the tears did not still run down his cheeks.

The tall man walked over to him and, with one of his bright red
sleeves, wiped Harald's face dry.  He did it so calmly and so gently
that not even the wildest baresark could have taken offence at the
gesture.

Then he bent his head and looked down at Harald and said softly, 'My
name is Arsleif, and the folk inland call me Summerbird, because, as
you see, I go gaily garbed.'

Harald looked him up and down, remembering what Bolverk had said of
Arsleif Summerbird.  Then he answered, 'You and I are kings, or as good
as kings.  This dead man was my friend, Earl Rognvald, right-hand of
Olaf the King.  So, do you wonder that I weep?'

Arsleif Summerbird pinched his thin lips together and then answered,
'To lose your brother and your best friend, as you have done, is a
heavy burden for any man to bear; but letting salt water run out from
between the eyelids lightens no load.'

For a moment, Harald began to hate this tall man, but then Arsleif
Summerbird smiled and said, 'It is the task of every man to learn how
to bear his grief without weeping.  I was twenty before I learned this,
and by that time I had lost so many kinsmen and friends that there was
no more salt-water left in my head.  So, you will learn it, as I did.
And you will learn that I too have a score to settle with fat Krok, who
robbed me of a fur-cargo less than a year ago, taking my best skins and
paying me with wormy meal and sour ale.  You will come with me, and one
day we may meet this Swedishman again, and have a short talk on
business matters with him.'

Harald said, 'You will make me a thrall to pull your sledges?  Is this
what you mean?'

Arsleif Summerbird smiled and said, 'I shall give the headman here a
few marks for your ransom, as one king to another; and I shall take you
with me, fur-trapping, towards Novgorod, where I hope to sell in the
markets at the depth of winter, which is the time when my furs fetch
the best prices.'

Overcome by his feelings, Harald clasped the tall man's hand and began
to shake it as though he was the oldest friend he had.

Arsleif Summerbird said, 'Enough is enough, my young friend.  One would
think that Novgorod was where you most wanted to be.  But there are
other places, too, and we will visit them all, if we are spared.'

That evening, in the inn, Harald and Arsleif Summerbird ate and drank
with the fur-traders, when they had seen that Earl Rognvald's body had
been decently buried, with a stone above it to mark where it lay.

And before the night was out, Arsleif Summerbird unwrapped a bright
sword from a bundle of sheepskins and gave it to Harald.

This sword,' he said, 'comes from Toledo in the land of the Moslems.
It is so sharp that it will run through the best mail-shirt any smith
has ever forged.  And it is of iron so tough that you could strike
against a rock all day with it, and never spoil its edge.  I was
keeping it for my own son, when he grew to warrior-hood, but while I
have been here by the shore, selling my furs, word has come to me that
my son has been taken from me by a plague.  It is not my place to
mourn, for in my village every house has lost its children.  I am
fortunate to find another son so soon.  So I give you my son's sword,
and welcome.  Its name is _Whitefang_, and that name must stay with it,
or it loses its edge.  Are you content?'

Harald took the sword, _Whitefang_, and was so full of feeling that he
almost wept over it; but Arsleif Summerbird pushed the bright blade
away, so that tears should not fall on it.  There, lad,' he said, 'a
little toy like that is no cause for grief.  See that no tears ever
blunt its blade.  That is the secret the old swordsmith told me, in
Moslemland, when I got this sword.  It can tolerate any amount of blood
and wine, but not a single tear.'

When Harald went into the byre, to sleep among the straw, he wondered
whether Arsleif Summerbird had made up this story to cure his sadness,
but before he could make up his mind, he was fast asleep; and when the
fur-traders woke him the next morning, so that they could make an early
start, the thought had gone out of his mind, leaving only a great
gratitude that things should have fallen out so well.  It was a bright,
crisp morning, with an early frost already on the thatched roofs of the
huts.  It was such a day as all heroes pray for, when they set out on
their great adventures.  All the same, he felt his sadness again for a
little while, when they passed the old Earl's grave-mound by the shore.




_4 Fur-train to Novgorod_

The east road to Novgorod was no way for a weakling to take.  Up along
the rushing river, where the rocks gave the sledges great trouble, both
horses and oxen could founder; and there were marshes which gave no
sign of their presence, except that the grass above them was slightly
greener than anywhere else.  Even some of the most experienced
fur-traders found trouble there.  It was a land almost always covered
in a grey mist, that only thinned out at midday when the sun came down
at its hottest.  Then the light lasted for no more than an hour, and
Arsleif Summerbird always gave orders that the tents should be staked
and the day's journey ended.

For Harald it was magic-land.  Once, among the sighing pine-woods that
clustered close beside the rushing river, he saw great vague shapes of
horned creatures; and when he asked what they were, Arsleif Summerbird
told him that they were the first of the cattle, the Great Ox that had
been there since the beginning of the world.  They were immense beasts,
and seemed to brush the highest boughs of the pine-woods with their
long horns.  Harald dreamed of them for nights afterwards.

Then the snow began to come, to bring him other bad dreams and
night-fears.  At first, it fell lightly, like swan's down, just here
and there, causing no distress to man or beast.  Then gradually it came
harder and harder until, at last, as the long line of fur-traders made
its way across the plain, it was like the thickest sort of arrow-hail,
sharp and stinging, making the world all white, hurtful to the eyes and
face.  Even the hardiest of the dogs which always went with the
fur-traders shrank from this hard snow-shower, and scuttled with their
tails between their legs to the end of the winding column.

Arsleif Summerbird took off his coloured clothes and put on a hood and
shirt and breeches of deerskin.  Only his black eyes could be seen when
he drew down the peak of his headgear.

One day Harald said to him, 'Arsleif Summerbird, where do you come
from?  You are like no man I have ever seen before.'

Arsleif Summerbird whistled like a thrush for a while in the driving
snow, then turned to the lad and said, 'I have had that question asked
many times before.  And often I have killed the man who asked it.'

Harald was tucked up warm in his own new deerskin shirt and hood; he
was switching at his legs with a little twig, and he was not afraid of
anyone.  He said, 'Very well, then I ask you this time, and I dare you
to kill me!'

Arsleif Summerbird said, 'You know what you are doing.  The others
asked out of vulgar gossip's sake; but you are my adopted son and you
know I cannot withhold anything from you.'

Harald said, 'Since my brother Olaf died, and my hand-friend Rognvald
went under the water, you are the only one I love.  So I do not see why
I should not ask you anything, or tell you anything.  Very well, where
do you come from, Arsleif-father Summerbird?'

The leader of the fur-traders scratched at his arm as though the gnats
were at it, which was not possible in that cold place and at that cold
time.  Then he said, rather laughing in his throat, lightly, as though
it was a thing to be pleasant about, 'I am from Tarifa, where a man can
jump from the high rock into Africa.  I am a Moor, as they say up here.
Does that settle the question?'

Harald nodded then marched on a while before he said, 'So you pray to
Allah?'

Arsleif Summerbird said, 'Yes, I go on to my knees three times a day,
in general; five times a day, when there is leisure to do so.  But I
have been up and down the world, son, and I have seen many men praying
to their different gods in different ways; so, although I know that the
Odin-men and the Christ-men are misled, I do not deny them those rights
which I claim myself.  Some of the fellows in this camp of fur-traders
are Finns who pray to some witch or other.  And there are Germans who
carry a bone from a horse's head in their pouches, to worship.  I care
not, if the man works well and gets his catch of fox-skins and
otter-pelts.  God is god; there is only one god, and his name is Allah.
The horse's head and the witch and the Christ, they are all a simple
man's way of trying to reach out to Allah.'

Harald said, 'I am not so sure of that, Arsleif Summerbird.  But I will
give it my consideration when I have the time.'

Arsleif nodded gravely, then said, 'I was only seventeen when the
pirates carried me off to Aachen, to sell me to the Franks.  I was
hunting by the shore with my sister on a white Arab stallion, no doubt
showing off, as was my habit in those days.  We were, you understand,
the children of the Caliph.  So we thought the world was an easy place
to live in.  We thought that life lasted for ever, and that it was
always summer.  Then suddenly the pirates came over the cliff-top and
pulled me off my horse.  My sister galloped back to the fort to rouse
our people, but it was too late.  The pirates slung me into their
longship together with sheep and goats and had me away as neatly as a
boy traps a rabbit.  Then, at Aachen, an old German bought me as his
kitchen-boy.  Finding me a sharp young fellow, he had me taught Latin
and such nonsense, and when I was twenty, sent me to escort his
daughter on a pilgrimage to a shrine near Antioch.  That place would
have suited me splendidly, but I had other plans.  I spoke to the
Captain of the Guard there, telling him I had a strong German girl for
sale.  And so I gained enough ready money to set myself up in the
fur-trade.'

Harald was shocked.  'You sold your master's daughter?'

Arsleif Summerbird said, 'Ojald, but you sounded just like the priest
who taught me Latin, then!  A very red-nosed pious man, who thought the
fate of the world depended on the right use of the accusative!  Yes,
son, I sold the German girl; which was tit for tat, in a way, for the
pirates selling me, and the German buying me.  I have led a good life
since then, and have bought and sold no one else.  You recall, I did
not even buy you.  I just paid your freedom-money.  So I consider that
I stand fairly well in the sight of whatever god rules in whatever land
I wander in.'

Harald said no more for a while.  He had enough to be thinking about.
Then the snow came really hard, carried on a wind strong enough to blow
a stone house down.  The fur-traders were three weeks laid up among the
rocks by the river's side, snuggling in the crevices like weasels,
coughing and spluttering with all manner of chest troubles.  In the
third week two of them died from lack of food; the others cursed the
winter, coming so silently, like a spy at a feast, with a knife in its
hand.

Arsleif Summerbird did not like them to curse so much, and would often
call them together and lecture them on correct behaviour.  After which
they would be better for a while, and would suffer their hunger more
graciously.  Then the rushing river ran slower, and at last stopped
because it was all ice.  So it became difficult to get water to drink,
and once more the men grew impatient.

Arsleif Summerbird told them to melt the ice over their fires; and
though it was not the same as fresh water, it served well enough.

One dark night, when the fur-train was well on the way to Novgorod, and
there were now no trees at all, and no rocks either, but only wide grey
expanses of plainland, Arsleif Summerbird said to Harald, 'My son, this
last hour I have been troubled with such a strange feeling that I think
my fate is coming to fetch me.  Do not be troubled, but if this should
happen, I want you to succeed me as leader of this fur-train; and I
want you to take the five wooden chests which are in the last sledge,
and keep them for your inheritance.  They are full of silver and gold,
and goblets and necklaces, and such priests' and women's things.  Some
of them have come from Miklagard, some from Jerusalem, and some from
Andalusia.  It is all treasure rightly got, so you need have no fear
about taking it.  I think it timely to say this to you, because of the
strange feeling I have.'

Harald was now greatly alarmed and said, 'What is this strange feeling,
Summerbird?  Is it in the arms or legs or body?  Is it a chill?'

Arsleif lifted the hood of his deerskin coat and smiled.  'It is
nowhere,' he answered.  'It is only that when I walk out beyond the
sledges, I feel that there are eyes staring at me from behind.  So the
back of my head twitches and the skin on my back crawls.  That is all.'

Harald said, 'All men must feel like that, in this howling plain with
wolves creeping about in the dusk.  Look, let us go outside together,
and leave this bright fire in the cave; and we will tell one another
the moment we feel it.  Then we may discover what it is that troubles
you.'

So they did this, and walked away from the cave, and out of reach of
the fires.  And at a spot where the last sledge was stationed, where
there were no men at all to be seen, Arsleif Summerbird said, 'Now, I
feel it here!'

Harald, who walked beside him, nodded and said, 'So do I.  It is as
though men were standing behind me, watching every step I took, and
wondering whether to shoot their arrows at me now, or a little later.'

Arsleif began to laugh and said, 'Well, if we both feel like that, let
us be brave and turn round, to frighten these ghosts away, and so prove
to ourselves that we are men.'

So they both turned round; and in the dusk before them they saw a long
line of horsemen, sitting silently in their high sheepskin saddles,
each one holding a drawn bow, and each one staring from out of their
fur-hoods like Northland spirits.

Arsleif Summerbird laughed and said, 'This gives me much relief, son.
When I came to the cave, I was certain that I was going to die.  Now I
only think I might do!'

As he spoke, one of the horsemen grunted an order to his fellows, and
the long line plunged forwards, reaching out their arms to sweep Harald
and Arsleif Summerbird into the saddles before them.




_5 Jaroslav's Yuletide Feasting_

For a while, all was a whirl of hooves and scattering snow.  The world
turned upside-down for Harald; there was dark sky with a moon in it at
his feet, and bushes and boulders over his head.

Then, as the shaggy ponies galloped on and on, and he found a firmer
seat in the slippery saddle, sense returned to the world, and he saw
more clearly what was happening.

And what he saw now was as amazing as what he had seen before.

Arsleif Summerbird was sitting, two-up with a squat fur-clad rider,
hunched like a dwarf on his horse's back, and was slapping the old
man's shoulders and laughing as though he had found an old friend.

Harald called out above the thrumming hooves, 'What is going on,
Arsleif-father?'

His friend pulled back the deerskin hood and yelled.  'These blind
fools thought I was some rich trader they could rob--and find that
instead I am only their old visitor, the Summerbird, who has sold in
their Novgorod markets for half a lifetime!'

Harald still bewildered, cried, 'Then will they set us down and let us
mind our own business?'

Arsleif answered, 'Not if I can arrange it!  Riding with them, we shall
reach the city in half the time.  Our trappers can follow on at their
own snail-speed, and good fortune to them!'

And so it was that Harald and Arsleif Summerbird came to Novgorod, in
the bitter winter weather, with nothing more in their hands than they
could carry, but with hearts as light as spring blackbirds.  And at
Novgorod, they found that King Jaroslav was about to hold his Yuletide
feast, and that his great rambling wooden palace was blazing with white
fat-candles, enough to light any common house for three years.

King Jaroslav, Grand Duke of Novgorod, Prince of Kiev, King of the
Plains and cousin to Sigurdson, sat on his gilded pine-wood throne to
receive Harald and Arsleif Summerbird; and he wore gold and jewels
enough on him to weigh down any ordinary man.  But Jaroslav was built
in Thor's own mould; his forearms were as thick as most men's thighs;
his neck was nearly as round as a girl's waist; his hands were so big
that he must have his drinking-cup made of iron, for any lesser metal
crumbled when he gave the toast.  And as though these were not enough
great qualities for any king to possess, it was said that his black
beard grew so strongly that, during any silence in the
feast-hall--which did not happen often--an alert man might truly hear
his whiskers pushing outwards, as thick as the bristles on a broom.
One skald made a song which said that when King Jaroslav was
angry--which was three times a day, except in the cold winter-weather
which slowed all things down--his eyes stood out from their lids as big
as apples, and the veins in his neck pushed up as stoutly as the hempen
ropes of a longship's rigging.

King Jaroslav smiled down as Harald kneeled before him and said,
'Greetings, young cousin.  Get up off that stone floor or we shall have
you in bed with an ague.  Come and sit beside me on this chair; after
all, you will soon be a king, and there is room enough for two here,
since your good old aunt died.'

So Harald sat beside the King and told him all about the battle at
Stiklestad, where holy King Olaf died, while Arsleif Summerbird sat on
a lower step of the dais and drank cup after cup of warm spiced
berry-wine.

And when Harald had finished his tale, King Jaroslav said, 'That Swein
could do with a sword in him.  It would make a better man of him.  I am
too occupied at the moment with my own wicked peasant-farmers, who hate
paying their rightful dues and taxes, otherwise I would relish the idea
of sailing to Denmark and eating him up.'

Then, seeing that this matter was a painful one for Harald, King
Jaroslav changed the topic and clapped his hands for servants to bring
the Princess Elizabeth to meet her cousin from Norway.

Elizabeth was only thirteen, but she was as tall as most of the women
at the court.  Her face was very pale, and her hair was long and thick,
light yellow in colour, and done into six braided plaits round her
head.  Her eyes were a faded blue, almost grey, though her eyebrows
were quite dark.  This gave her an expression as though she was either
frowning or mocking, most of the time.  Her nose was thin and pointed,
and her mouth was most often set in a downward curve, as though she was
smiling at some secret thought which amused her.  All told, she was
like no girl Harald had ever seen before; nor did she walk meekly, like
the girls in Norway, waiting to be spoken to first, before she dared
open her own mouth.

Instead, as soon as she set foot within the audience chamber, she
pointed her long forefinger at Arsleif and said, 'Who gave this monkey
the right to sit at the King's feet?'

Then she turned her light eyes on to Harald and pointed at him, saying,
'And who told you to sit on the King's chair, jackanapes?'

King Jaroslav coughed behind his great hand and said mildly, like a
wolf that has swallowed butter to make his voice sweet, 'Ah, come, my
love, come my sweeting, and give your cousin from Norway a big kiss.'

Princess Elizabeth paused in her tracks, looked searchingly at Harald,
then gave a loud sniff and said, 'I should think not!  Why, I would
sooner kiss our cat than that whey-faced boy!  Look at him, with his
great red wrists all dangling out of his sleeves and his great big feet
all covered with mud.  And look at his great big head, and his great
big nose, and his thick hair all shaggy.  It wants the woodcutters'
chopper on it, that hair of his!  Who does he think he is, to come into
a King's house with bracken for hair?  And I bet it's as full of fleas
as our dog's back!'

King Jaroslav was so taken aback that he gave a great thump on his
chair-arm and broke a lion's head off the carving, which angered him
still more.  Arsleif Summerbird was so amused both at the girl's
sauciness and the King's broken lion that he drank his berry-wine down
the wrong way and was beside himself with spluttering.  As for Harald,
he leapt up from the throne chair and almost ran at the girl, saying,
'Call yourself a princess!  Why, I have seen better manners in the
pig-market at Oslo on a Friday morning.'

By now, King Jaroslav had regained his composure and said, 'Daughter,
this young prince has been in a great battle.  He has also outwitted
the Swedish pirates; and what is more, he has come on foot through the
bad deep snow all the way down to Novgorod.  There are many heroes who
have not done half as much.'

Princess Elizabeth came closer to Harald and said, 'And there are many
who have done much more.  As for walking across to Novgorod through the
snow, he must be stupid.  And, come to think of it, he _looks_ stupid,
standing here and shaking his fists at me.  For he knows he daren't lay
a finger on me.'

King Jaroslav suddenly lost his good humour again, and he called out,
'Go on, Harald, you have my permission to give her a slap for her bad
manners.  She has been allowed too much freedom since her mother died.
I am glad that we now have a young man of equal rank with her to teach
her how a princess should behave.  Go on, Harald, I command you to give
her a smacking, I am never quick enough to catch her.'

Now Harald was more upset than before.  It is one thing to be furious
on the spur of the moment, but quite another to be angry because a King
orders it.  Suddenly Princess Elizabeth burst out laughing and said,
'Look, the silly goose does not know which way to turn, between you and
me!  Very well, I will settle this quarrel, which amounts to nothing
after all, and will let him kiss me in cousinly greeting.'

She stepped forward a pace, and held her face sideways.  Harald would
rather have been in the battle beside old Rognvald, or hiding under the
bush when the Danes came foraging with their spears.  But Arsleif
Summerbird called out, 'Come, Northman, show us how a viking treats
these forward women!'

So Harald had to go forward and kiss the Princess in greeting, though
he went as red as fire when Elizabeth very carefully wiped the kiss
off, and then ran to her father and began to tug at his iron beard in
play.

King Jaroslav put up with this as long as he could, then he sent the
girl away; and when she was out of sight, he said to Harald, 'It was
your brother Olaf's wish that you should one day marry my daughter.
Well, now you have seen her, and you know what lies in store for you.
What have you to say?'

Harald looked down at his feet, not wishing to offend this great King,
and said at last, 'It is a matter on which I have had little time to
think, Cousin-King.  All my time has been taken up learning sword-play
and axe-play and the management of horses.'

King Jaroslav said pleasantly, 'That is as it should be.  And doubtless
you have learned, from taming horses, something that will be of use to
you when it comes to taming this girl.  So your time has not been
wasted.  Now go with Arsleif to our guest-house and make ready for the
feast.  There will be time enough after that is over for us to talk
about betrothals and marriages.  Go with a light heart, cousin.'

If Harald's heart was not light when these words were spoken, it was so
when he entered Jaroslav's feast-hall, for he had not seen so many
merry folk gathered together at Yuletide in the whole of his life.
They sat along two long tables, the length of the spruce-lined hall;
men of all nations--big raw-boned chieftains from the Baltic coast,
red-haired lords from outside Kiev, and even small, dark, slant-eyed
men whose beards were smaller than a goat's and who would not take off
their fur caps even in the King's presence.  Where these last men came
from, Harald could not find out, but one of them brought a small bear
in with him, shackled by a silver chain, and laughed in a high voice
when this animal nibbled at the legs of the feasters sitting opposite
him: so, at least, Harald thought, they must be witty men, wherever
their homes were.

King Jaroslav sat in a great chair, under the shields on the
gable-wall, in the middle of a table set cross-wise.  Though it was not
the custom for palace-women to attend such feasts, for fear they caused
trouble, Elizabeth sat at his left hand, her hair now tucked up and
looking, in her deerskin jacket, very much like a boy.  Harald was at
the King's right hand, with Arsleif Summerbird beside him, as the
special guests of Novgorod that Yuletide.

Harald whispered to Arsleif, 'It would suit me better if that girl had
stayed in her bower.'  But Arsleif only laughed and said, 'Once the
Yuletide ale has passed this way a time or two, such thoughts will fly
from your mind like clouds before the wind.'

No man could ever accuse King Jaroslav of meanness when it came to
providing feast-fare.  When all were seated, he banged on the table
with the bone haft of his meat-knife to bring order, then he stood and
called out in a loud voice, 'Here ye, friends, hear ye!  It is our
custom that no edged tools shall be used in this hall, save for the
purpose of cutting up meat.  Moreover, so that you shall keep this
Yuletide holy and free from all strife, it is my command that any wound
caused among you by meat-knife, ale-cup, meat-bone, or fist shall be
regarded as outright murder and shall be punished by hanging!'

There was some muttering and mumbling at these words, because not a few
of the men there had come in the pious hope of meeting neighbours who
had stolen their cattle or burned their byres out of spite.  But the
great troll-king glared down the tables with his eyes wide open like
apples, and soon the whispering was still again.  Then King Jaroslav
raised his iron cup, from which the ale already flowed as he moved it,
and called for three toasts: to the honour of Christ, to the good
fortune of Jaroslav, and to the return of the sun.  Harald's sharp eyes
saw that though all men drank to Christ, not a few of them made the
sign of the hammer, with clenched fist over their cups, before
drinking.  These were men from outlying parts, who still held to Thor.
He noticed also that though Arsleif Summerbird raised his horn with all
the others, his lips were not wet when the cup came away; but then the
many servants began to bustle about the hall and Harald had no chance
to mention this to his friend.  Three tall lords, with high-domed heads
and no hair upon their faces, save for long moustaches, men whose skin
was as pink as coral, but whose arms were like great hams, began to
hammer the tables with their fists and shout out, 'Where is the food we
were promised, Jaroslav?  Have we come all this way from the Baltic to
dine on bones?'

Jaroslav nodded to them mildly, then hissed at the thralls to run round
to that table immediately with the Yuletide fare.  Turning to Harald,
he whispered, 'They are three chieftains from the Baltic shore, three
brothers, who will bow the knee to no one, but who travel up and down
the world from one feasting to another, till they are as fat as butter.
It grieves my heart to see so much good food go down their throats, I
tell you, nephew.'

Harald said, 'Why don't you send them packing, then?'

King Jaroslav's eyes widened in astonishment at these words.  'Oh no!
Oh no!' he said, his voice small with shock.  'If I turned them out,
the Brothers Blutkind, I could look to lose my throne and perhaps my
head before next corn-springing!  They boast that though they are not
kings, they make and unmake kings.  They say that if they but climb the
nearest tree, wherever they are, and blow upon their bone whistles,
five hundred men come running out of the grass to ask what needs doing.
No, lad, it is better to feed them and put up with their taunts.'

By now, Harald was scarcely listening, for the food-thralls had come to
his end of the table and were serving out the Yuletide fare.  Some
carried wooden troughs of sausage, of which each man received an arm's
length, or more if he needed it; others hauled steaming pots, full of
thick broth in which floated great hunks of meat.  On clay plates down
the board were set bread-cakes and fried turnips; and near the end of
each table stood a butt of ale.  But best of all were the huge
trenchers of acorn-fed hog-meat, for Jaroslav had had fifty-six pigs
slaughtered for this feasting, and that was eight pigs better than
Harald Bluetooth had ever offered in his fortress at Jellinge.

This pork was so fat that it slid down the throat, almost before a man
had the chance to bite at it; and the crackling was so crisp that one
of the Baltic chiefs suddenly jumped up and shouted, 'Oh, crackling my
dear, my beloved!  Where else is there a sweetheart as comely as you?
Whose hair is as bright as your crispy-brown?  Whose cheeks are so
shiny with fat?  Oh, dear crackling!'

His brothers began to slap him on the back, saying, 'Oh, dear
crackling!' in mockery.  Then they all began to laugh, and twisting
their arms about each others', drank from one another's cups and horns.
At last they fell backwards off their benches and lay laughing in the
straw.

Harald saw that some of the yellow-faced chiefs wasted none of their
pork, but even rubbed their hands on their black hair, when the meat
was done.  He also saw that Arsleif Summerbird most carefully avoided
touching it, but nudged it gently to the side of his wooden plate with
the back of his knife, so that none of the fat should come near his
lips in eating.

Then another thing called his attention away; a dwarf with no head or
arms suddenly jumped out of the curtains on to the middle table, and
began to dance on one spot, shooting out his legs before him so fast
that it seemed as though he was sitting on air, just a foot above the
board.  Everyone was amazed and silent.  Even the three Baltic
chieftains crawled up to peer at this marvel with their big blue eyes,
their pale hair hanging in great plaits on to the table.

At the far end of the hall, near the fire, a girl with raven hair,
stuck full with cock's feathers, dyed blue and red and white, was
thrumming on a little lute, making the strings hum and howl and twitch,
as her long dark fingers shivered over them like summer lightning.
Some of the men forgot the dwarf and began to throw gifts to this girl,
calling her the Queen of lute-players, and the Princess of Melody.
Some said she was Freya, but others argued that Freya's hair was
corn-coloured, and that this girl was Marienna of the Sumerians come
back to earth again.  One of the Baltic chieftains staggered down the
hall saying that he would ask for her hand in marriage, and, if need
be, would kill any ten men who tried to stop him.  But he did not need
to go to such trouble, for, half-way down the hall, he suddenly fell
down and began to snore, his long plaits coming near to getting burned
off in the hearth-fire that blazed with holly-logs and pine.

Arsleif Summerbird said, 'Jaroslav's ale is the best in the North, they
say.  Yet it ill becomes a man of property to guzzle it until he has
not more wit than a scarecrow.'

One of the other Baltic brothers heard Arsleif's last words, and came
across the room to him, clutching his meat-knife in his great ham-like
hand.

'Would you say that my brother is a mawkin for frightening crows,
outlander?' he asked, his mouth shiny with fat.

Arsleif Summerbird cut himself a piece of fried turnip and held it by
his lips, as though thinking.  'No,' he answered, 'I would not say
that.'

The Baltic chieftain began to laugh, swaying on his feet, and holding
his head back so that his thick plaits hung down behind him like ship's
ropes.

'Then what would you say of my brother?' he asked.

Arsleif Summerbird frowned a little, then he smiled and answered.

'I would say that if he had twice the wit he has shown tonight, then he
might be a mawkin's apprentice and, in time, come to frighten a very
small sparrow.'

The Baltic chieftain stared at Arsleif Summerbird, his pale blue eyes
as empty as winter rock-pools, his pink face straining to shape itself
into an expression of understanding.  At last he said thickly, 'If it
were not for the King's Yuletide law, I would come round this table and
brain you with a pork bone.'

Arsleif Summerbird laughed up at him and said, 'Then you would be doing
both me and yourself a great wrong, lord.  For you would be killing an
honest man, and causing a brave one to hang.'

For a while the pale-eyed man gazed at Arsleif, as though unable to see
him clearly.  Then his broad face wreathed with smiles and he
spluttered, 'You call me a brave man!  Aye, that I am--a very brave
man.  And that makes you a very honest man, my friend.  For he who
tells the truth is a very honest man, and I will kill any man who
denies me that.'

Suddenly he glared at Harald and said, 'Do you deny me that?'

Harald solemnly shook his head and said, 'I do not deny you that.  Of
course you are a brave man, to eat as much as you have done, and to
drink the King's ale as though it were water.  Only a very brave man
would so risk stifling and drowning at one time!'

The Baltic chieftain stopped laughing and, leaning with both hands on
the table, stared down at Arsleif and Harald, his eyes now filling with
tears.

'To have lived so long,' he said, shaking his head with happiness, 'to
have heard such talk at Yuletide from men I do not even know!  This is
truly the season of brotherly love, as the priests said.  You two are
my friends, for life.  Each Yuletide we shall sit at the board and you
shall tell me of my bravery.  Now I will join you at your side of the
table, and will sit between you.'

But as he staggered forward, one of the kitchen-dogs ran between his
legs, chasing a cat, and tumbled him over.  Four thralls ran forward
and dragged him down the hall to where his brother lay, still snoring.

Arsleif whispered, 'With friends like him, a man needs no enemies!'

But Harald's eyes were on the dwarf again, who had suddenly cast off
the sheepskin bag that had covered his head and his arms, and had grown
to be as tall a man as any there, laughing and singing as the lute
still strummed, as busy as a bower-bird.

Elizabeth bent towards Harald and said, 'Get up on the table, cousin,
and see if you could do as well.'

Harald's face flushed again at her teasing, but he kept his patience
and only answered, 'There are trades for every man, and dancing is not
my trade.'

Elizabeth smiled thinly and replied, 'What is your trade, then, cousin?'

Harald, a little warm in the head from the feasting, said airily, 'Oh,
a bit of this and a bit of that.  A tussle with a bear or a tumble with
an ox!'

'Then here's your chance, cousin,' suddenly said Elizabeth, her eyes
half-shut with mockery.

And as she spoke, two young men leaped over the far table from out of
the dimness and called, 'We are Icelanders.  Our names are Wulf
Ospakson and Haldor Snorreson, and we challenge any man between fifteen
and fifty to try three throws against us.'

'Now is your chance, as I said,' whispered Elizabeth, pointing her long
finger at Harald.

Arsleif Summerbird laid his hand on Harald's arm and said gently, 'I
have seen young fighting-cocks like this before.  Iceland breeds them
by the score, and they seldom come away from home but to gain fame
among these simple folk with their rough play.  Do not let this girl
egg you on to get a broken arm or a twisted neck, my son.  Suffer her
taunts, and go whole to bed tonight.'

But Harald was too far gone in anger against Elizabeth now to listen to
the Summerbird's wise counsel, and before he knew what he was doing, he
too had leaped the board, and, tugging his feasting-tunic off, cried
out, 'I'll take on either of you, for three throws or six.'

Now all was silent in the hall, for it was at such times that men might
look to see something he might tell his grandchildren of.  Even
Elizabeth was still, her eyes wide, her hands placed over her mouth, as
though she had got more than she bargained for, and was not sure
whether she cared for the bargain after all.

One of the Icelanders, a thick-set, red-haired youth, called, 'I am
Wulf Ospakson, and I will take you first, Norway.'

Then, from behind Harald a great voice sounded, 'I am not yet fifty, so
I will take your mate, Icelander!'

And there was Arsleif Summerbird, stripped to the waist and striding
beside Harald, grinning like a baresark, his hawk's nose jutting out
before him as though he was going to pick the bones of his prey.

Harald said, 'This is not your affair, Arsleif.'

But already Arsleif had grasped Haldor Snorreson by the wrists and,
falling to the ground, had placed his right foot under him and pitched
him over the middle table.  The Icelander's head hit the kingpost of
the hall with such a thump that it seemed the roof shook.  But he got
up and staggered back towards Arsleif, as though he thought nothing had
happened.

Harald had no time to see any more, because at that moment Wulf
Ospakson was on him, and trying to get his head fast under his thick
right arm.  But Harald had the measure of this, and as the arm began to
close, slipped out of it and grasping the Icelander's wrist, helped the
arm on its way round, jerking it behind Wulf's back so sharply that all
men heard the man groan.

Then, leaping back a pace, Harald came in again and butted the
Icelander in the ribs, while he was still nursing his injured arm.
Wulf went down, with Harald on top of him, just as Arsleif ran to meet
the staggering Haldor.

The men at the tables had already lost interest in such a short bout
and were going back to their ale-cups.  Arsleif swung out his leg and
tripped the Icelander, then, as he fell, brought down his fist behind
the neck.  Haldor put his face in the straw and lay still, as though
the journey from Iceland had tired him out.

As for Harald, he took a little longer over his part of the affair, but
when he had finished, Wulf was sleeping as soundly as Haldor.

And when Arsleif and Harald had put on their shirts again and were
slaking their thirst from the wrestling, Jaroslav leaned across and
said, 'You will have made either two very good friends, or two bitter
enemies.  We shall not know which, until they wake.  As for my
daughter, who caused this to happen, I leave her punishment to you,
Harald.  Say the word, and she shall be whipped like any kitchen-wench
who misbehaves herself.'

Harald looked at Elizabeth over the top of his cup.  She was staring at
him white-faced and defiantly, as though she was daring him to say,
'Whip her!'  Instead, he took a pull at the ale-cup and said in his
loudest voice, 'Send her to play with her dolls, Cousin Jaroslav, for
she is not yet clever enough to play with men.'

This was the first time that the lords of Novgorod had heard such words
said of the King's daughter, and many of the older ones with the long
beards, sucked in their breath at Harald's daring.

But King Jaroslav laughed out loud and said, 'By Thor, Odin and Freya,
you know how to touch her to the quick!  One day, men will boast that
Norway has the sharpest-tongued King and Queen in the Northland.'

In the gusty laughter about the board, Elizabeth rose hotly and went up
the stone-steps to her bower.  And when she got there she first gave
her slave-girl's hair a good tugging; then she took a bone hair-comb
and scratched it the length of a painted icon that had come up from
Miklagard.  Afterwards, she flung herself on her bed and kicked for a
while, before sending the thrall to see how the Icelanders now fared,
and to order them to her presence if they were fit to talk yet, since
she had something of importance to ask them.

When all the feasting was over, and such men as could walk were making
their way to the guest-houses, Arsleif said to Harald, 'Well, viking,
this night we have made both friends and enemies.  He who lives longest
will see which are strongest.'

Harald nodded and said, smiling, 'As it was fated, so it turned out.
No man can change the eagle's course by pointing up at him.  As long as
we are together, you and I, the whole world can come at us, for all I
care.'

Arsleif patted Harald on the shoulder, but nevertheless, smiled a
little thoughtfully as they went up the ladder to their beds.




_6 The Tax Gathering_

Winter passed like a dream at Jaroslav's great court, for there was
always feasting, or hunting, or listening to the blind bards singing
battle-tales.  At last, when the great plains outside the
palace-stockade were stirring with life again, and the sun was growing
bolder each day, Jaroslav sent for Harald and, in his secret
audience-chamber where the stone walls were hung with thick brocades
from Syria, he said, 'Cousin, some of the lords are beginning to say
that I am spoiling you, keeping you here like a prized bull in the
straw, when you should be out proving yourself and showing what you can
do.'

Harald shrugged his shoulders and said, 'I am ready to go anywhere, and
do anything, as long as there is profit in it, cousin.'

Jaroslav thought a while and said, 'Yes, you are a Northman; they
always ask first what profit is to be gained.  So I will tell you--in
this venture, there may be profit for both of us, though yours may not
be held in the hand for a man to see.'

Harald smiled and said, 'It is too early in the morning for riddles,
lord.  Come straight out with it, as the wolf comes from the wood at a
lamb, all in a rush.'

King Jaroslav said grimly, 'There will be wolves enough in this
undertaking.  See that you are not the lamb!  I want you to take a
strong party of war-men and collect my spring taxes from the southern
villages.  Some of them have not been brought in for two years or more,
and to keep up the feasting at this court I need good coin, or cattle
on the hoof.'

Harald said, 'I will go alone with Arsleif to collect the taxes,
cousin.  You need not disturb the warriors from their feasting and
hunting.'

But King Jaroslav shook his head and said, 'It would be easier to
snatch a leg of lamb from a lion than to bring in my spring taxes,
Harald.  If you knew our Novgorod peasants better you would ask for
twice the number of followers that I am able to give you.'

'As you please,' said Harald.

  '_Give me two, give me ten,
  I'll be there and back again!_'


When he had gone from the room, King Jaroslav sent for his priest and
ordered him to light ten white candles a day in the chapel until
further notice, and also to see that the prayer for safe-return of
travellers was chanted at each sunrise and sunset.

The priest bowed his head and said, 'Dare I ask who is about to put
himself in danger, voyaging, my lord?'

Jaroslav said, 'Oh, nobody, Master Priest.  It is just a fancy I have.
But see that it is done, all the same.'

The priest went away puzzled, and wishing he was back in Ireland, where
the hundred kings had more sense.

As for Harald, on his way from Jaroslav's chamber, he met Princess
Elizabeth up the stairs, trying to whistle like a blackbird.  He said
to her,

  '_A whistling woman and a crowing hen
  Are neither good for God nor men._'


She screwed up her eyes and said:

  '_The dog that barks by the great wolf's lair
  Soon finds he's lost both hide and hair._'


Harald said:

  '_This dog will keep his hair and hide
  And bring the wolf's pelt back besides._'


Elizabeth laughed and said, 'You rhyme like a Khazar horse-trader!
But, never mind, if you can bring back the King's taxes, I may agree to
sit with you on the throne-chair in Norway--even though I hear the
place is like a village-midden.'

Harald looked back over his shoulder and said, 'The time for that will
be when you are asked.'

As he went on down the stairs, the girl whistled after him, this time
like a mocking starling.

For days, men prepared to ride off under Harald's leadership, and soon
they had horses laden with salt-meat and skins of ale, and spare
fur-jackets, to see them through their journey.

The night before they set out, Arsleif Summerbird came to Harald and
said, 'We have now thirty men who will come with a good heart, and the
Baltic brothers are most anxious of all to follow you.  If only we can
keep their minds on the task before them, they should be useful fellows
to have with us.'

Harald nodded and said, 'What of the two Icelanders, Wulf and Haldor?
Are they coming with us?'

Arsleif frowned and said, 'They are nowhere to be seen.  They left the
feast-hall last night, and their beds were unslept in when the
thrall-woman went to call them this morning.'

Harald laughed and said, 'We can well do without such quarrelsome
hounds, father.  We shall have enough to do, keeping the Baltic-men in
order!'

And he spoke rightly enough, for less than a day south of Novgorod, the
chieftains challenged all of the party who had black hair to fight
them; and the next day, they challenged all men with grey eyes to
wrestle them.  On the third day they came and told Harald that, since
he had not allowed these sports, the least he could do was to declare a
holiday, so that they could all go hunting in a big forest they had
come to.

But Harald only said, 'Keep your noses turned to the south, brothers,
and when we reach the villages, there will be fighting and hunting
enough to satisfy even you.'

As he was speaking, Arsleif stood behind him, examining the edge of his
sword, as though he wanted to be sure that no rust had gathered on the
blade.  So the brothers said no more, and for a while rode peacefully
with the others.

The first village they came to lay out in the open plain, with a narrow
stream curling about it, and a half-rotten stockade of wood round it.
The men and women stood in the middle of the square and pretended not
to understand Harald's words, when he asked for the King's taxes.  They
shook their heads and pointed to their mouths, as though they were
dumb.  But when the Baltic brothers dug under the straw in their
headman's hall and came back with five iron-bound coffers of silver
coin, the villagers found their voices and called them thieves and
robbers and murderers.  Blutkind, the eldest brother, wanted to set
fire to the village-granary, but Arsleif held his arms and told him to
play fair; they had got the taxes, and more than the taxes, so these
villagers should be left in peace now.

The next village lay four days away, and was very different.  It
nestled at the edge of a forest, and was built of pine-logs, so that it
was hard to see where the forest ended and the village began.  No smoke
came from the chimney-holes, and no folk worked in the houses.
Harald's men said the dark-shadowed place made them feel uneasy, as
though it was inhabited only by woodland ghosts or trolls.  Even
Blutkind said that it would be wiser to pass this place by, and try to
collect twice the amount of taxes from the next village on the list.

But Harald said firmly, 'The King has sent us here to gather his dues,
and all who turn away from that task shall be named cowards, Blutkind.'

So Blutkind was the first to go into this place, to show his courage,
but not even he could smell out any treasure there.  Nor were there any
cows, goats, or sheep which could be taken instead.  Searching from
house to house, Harald and Arsleif scratched their heads in puzzlement,
for there were not even any pots and pans, meat-knives or bed-clothes;
and the white ashes in the hearths were all stone-cold and damp.

Arsleif said at last, 'This is a dead village, son.  The men and women
have either gone into the forest and forgotten it, or something has
come from the forest and eaten them up.'

Harald said, 'If so, it is strange there are no bones lying about,
Arsleif Summerbird.'

Blutkind's next brother, Skol, said, 'If these folk do not need their
village any longer, then we can burn it for them, can't we, Harald?
There is nothing that puts more heart into weary travellers than a good
blaze.'

Harald was just about to give them permission, so as to keep them
quiet, when from behind the biggest hut came the rattle of wings, and a
gaunt and bedraggled raven fluttered into the middle of the compound,
where it landed and stood, looking from one man to another, with
strange bright eyes.

Skol said, 'From this range, I could hit that bird with my spear.'  But
his brother, Blutkind, held his arm and said fiercely, 'It would be the
last thing you ever did, brother.  This is Odin's bird, and it does not
stare at us fearlessly for nothing.'

All the men heard these words, and began to back away from the tattered
bird, muttering.  The raven made a step or two towards Skol, causing
him to give ground, and then, with a harsh dry cry, suddenly turned and
fluttered back to the forest.  They heard its wings brushing the
pine-boughs.  Most men shuddered, as though a chill wind had suddenly
blown on their backs.

That night, well away from the village, with fires burning on the
plain, Arsleif said solemnly, 'I am not sure that this day has gone
well for us, Harald.  I had rather that bird had been a pigeon than a
raven.'

Harald answered, 'Who are we to judge whether he came as friend or foe?
Some men are too ready to think the worst when, by a little care, they
could turn things to their own advantage.  As for me, I shall consider
the omen as being to our advantage, and from this time shall again take
as my banner the black raven, and I shall call it _Landwaster_, because
the land hereabouts is so ravaged and bare.'

Arsleif said, 'You can do as you please, son.  But when we get to the
next village, we may find out whose side that bird was on.'

It was three days before the tax-collectors reached the next village,
and it was the strongest they had seen.  Set on a high mound, it was
surrounded by a thick rampart of turf and tree-stumps.  The houses
within the palisade were hunched and smoke-blackened, and on some of
the roofs men sat, unafraid of showing themselves, laughing and
drinking from skins, and waving axes and thick-shafted spears.

Arsleif said, 'These folk do not pretend to be dumb, or to hide in the
forest.  They want us to know they are at home.'

Blutkind said scornfully, 'We will show them what it is to taunt the
King's collectors.  We will burn down every other house in their
market-place.  That should bring them to their senses.'

As he said this, an arrow whistled out of the smoky air and stuck in
Blutkind's calf.  He gave a howl and fell on the ground, beating the
turf with his clenched fists.  His youngest brother, Ram, jumped on him
and held him still, while Skol wrenched the arrow out and examined it.
That was a shrewd blow,' he said, laughing, 'but you will get small
hurt from it; the point is only of sharpened stick and is clean enough.'

Blutkind stopped shouting now and bound his leg with a strip of cloth
torn from his cloak.

'All the same,' he grumbled at last, 'I am not as good as I was before
it hit me.  I shall have to hobble for a few days, I can feel.  That
arrow will cost these folk dearly; the taxes will be doubled, as far as
I am concerned.'

Just then a whole flight of arrows whirred out of the air and knocked
down a horse and three men.  Harald saw that this time the shafts had
done the most damage they could, and he called to his party to run
back, out of range, so that they could decide how it would be best to
attend to the matter.

Behind a line of stunted whinberry bushes, they sat and talked.  'That
raven knew what he was about,' said Blutkind, hugging his leg.  'I now
wish that I had let my brother, Skol, have his own way.'

Skol said, 'It would have mattered little.  A great ox like you would
have met that shaft, bird or not, for as our father used to say, you
have ever been too slow even to move inside out of the rain.'

Blutkind nodded simply and said, 'Aye, our father knew something.  I
wish he was here to talk to now; he would tell us what to do.'

Harald spoke sharply.

'That may be so, but I am your leader here, wise as your father was,
Blutkind.  And, since we have no bows and arrows, and would scorn to
use them if we had, being sword-men and axe-men, our hope lies
elsewhere.  This we shall do: tonight, as twilight falls, we shall ring
the village and come in at the blast of my horn, on all sides.  In the
dusk, their bowmen will be unsighted, and so we can climb the walls and
teach them sense.'

All men nodded at this, save Arsleif, who said quietly, 'I do not hold
with night-fighting, for in it many good men have met their end from a
comrade's blade.  But since you are set on it, Harald, I will not vote
against it; but I will suggest that we each tie a white cloth about our
heads so that we may know one another in the scuffle.'

All men nodded at this, too, and so they settled down to wait for dusk
to fall.

It came faster than men expected; grey mists blew in over the rolling
plain, as thick as fire-smoke, coming so low across the grass-tops that
a man, standing up, looked like a bodiless head, or like one standing
in the sea.  And as this misty-murk came up, so the torches flared on
poles in the village.

Harald said, 'They think to see all we shall do with these candles of
theirs; but I hazard we shall be over the walls before they set eyes on
us.'

Blutkind groaned and said, 'If the ache in my wounded leg does not
ease, I shall be over the hilltops to Troll-land, and no mistake.'

Harald clapped him on the back and said, 'What!  You'll live for a
hundred years, friend!'

Arsleif pulled Harald away then and whispered, 'You should never say a
thing like that among these simple warrior-folk.  It is like putting
new shoes on the table--you tempt the gods to send you packing.'

Harald shrugged and set his horn to his lips.  He paused and said, 'We
should be ready now, ringing the village.'  Then he blew a long blast,
that seemed to set up swirls in the grey mist while it lasted.  Then,
here and there on the plain, the black shapes of the King's
tax-collectors swept in towards the village-mound.

Arrows whined in the air, but Harald did not see any of his men who
were taken by them.  It was a steep scramble up the mound, but with
Arsleif's hand in his back, Harald gained the top and then plunged at
the turf-wall.  Once on top, he saw that it was wide enough for a wagon
to run along, and this disturbed him, for while a man was crossing the
wall, he was a target for the arrows, lit as he was by the high flares.
And here Harald saw at least six of his fellows go down, clutching
throat or chest.

Then, with a high cry and a leap, he was down into the village street,
with Arsleif beside him.  Both had their swords out and sought an
enemy.  And such were not hard to find, for the place was thick with
men.  They stood shoulder to shoulder, about the houses, each armed
with axe, or bill-hook, or javelin.

And foremost among them stood the Icelanders, Wulf Ospakson and Haldor
Snorreson, dressed in their best gilded helmets and war-mail, and
seeming to be much the chiefest men in the place.

Arsleif pulled Harald back a little and said, 'So, here are your
enemies, lad.  We gained little by beating them at the Yuletide
wrestling after all.'

Harald said, 'An Icelander is a man, like any other.  If you catch him
right, on the neck, he will fall down.'

Blutkind, stumbling behind them and groaning with every step, called
out, 'Then, for the love of Odin, catch them right, on the neck, for I
am in a poor way now and I think that a reasonably fierce sparrow could
outface me and put me to flight.'

The fight in the village did not last as long as one might have
thought.  Arsleif and Harald took on the Icelanders, and with luck came
out of it, losing hardly more blood than a thimble would hold.  And
when the beaten Icelanders turned and escaped between the huts, the
heart went out of the villagers.  Some of them leapt the walls and ran
over the misty plains; others set torches to their houses, and perished
in the flames.  All ways, it was a bloody-gathering of taxes that year.

And when the dawn came, Harald saw that Blutkind and his two brothers
were lying on the heap, among others, and that only Blutkind was still
awake in the world.

Of his thirty men, Harald could count but nineteen who would shake an
axe again; and these nineteen gathered round the white-faced Blutkind,
for it seemed in his eyes that he might speak a death-verse.

And this is what he spoke:

  '_I am going to the dark wood with my brothers.
  We have walked in the sunlight and have eaten good meat;
  We have emptied many cups of ale and seen the fires burn.
  We have had our share of giving and of taking knocks;
  And though we dreamed of treasure, all we have gained
  Is a good name along the Baltic, and a place in the hall
  Of the King Jaroslav.  May he remember us, and send
  Coin to our mother who lives beside Kurland.
  If I had the same life again, I would end it the same;
  And I speak for my brothers, who do not wish to talk._'


When he had finished, his head sank down, and Harald put two silver
pennies on his staring eyes to keep their lids shut.

'Well,' he said, when the burying had been done, and the just taxes
collected, 'that is the end of one chapter; but it is not the end of
the saga.  For now it is in my mind to leave the King's tax-gathering
for a while, and to follow the two Icelanders who have brought this
fate upon us.  Jaroslav can wait a little longer for his tax-money, and
Elizabeth for her taming.  I shall think better of myself in the future
if I follow the Icelanders now and take the heads off their treacherous
shoulders.  Besides, it would be pleasant to see a little more of the
world before we go back to Novgorod.'

Arsleif said gravely, 'Counting you and myself, we are twenty-one in
number, Harald.  From what I saw, the Icelanders had about the same
number with them, so it would be man to man.  And I, too, am not yet
ready to return to palaces.'

Harald nodded and said, 'We owe Blutkind and his brothers some payment;
so let us go and see what we can find in the world.'

Beyond the village there rose a grassy hill where black horses grazed
proudly as though they owned the earth.  And over that hill, Harald and
the men saw a broad river which they did not even know was there.  And
far down that river, heading to the south, the keenest-eyed of the men
said he saw a longship, going before the wind as though Odin blew in
the sail.

Harald said, 'That is where the Icelanders are, then, friends.  All we
need is a ship to follow them in.'

One of the men swept his arms wide, to indicate the empty steppeland
and the river.  Then he said, 'Aye, that is all we need.  Where shall
we get it, Harald?  Shall we go back to the village and build ourselves
a ship from their stockade-timbers?'

Harald said, 'If I had that Elizabeth here now, I would teach her a
thing or two for putting us in such a plight.  But the day will come!'

The man said, 'I was talking about ships, not princesses, Harald.
Where shall we find a ship?'

Arsleif answered this time, and said, 'First, let us go back over the
hill and find ourselves horses.  On their backs, we can forage further
afield than on our weary feet.'

So that was what they did.




_7 Over the Weirs_

It was a week before they came to a straggling settlement by the
riverside, where men were tarring a longship, knee-deep in mud, by the
waterside.  They were rough-looking fellows, all of them red-haired,
and most of them squinting.

As Harald's men rode up to them, one of the ship-builders wiped his
tarry hands on a piece of cloth and said, 'We have been getting this
ship ready for you.  When the Icelanders came through here, as though
old Loki was at their heels, we made sure someone would be coming
before long to buy a boat to follow them in.  And so we got this out of
the shed, and here it is.'

Arsleif said dryly, 'How much would kind fellows like you ask for such
a ship?'

The man wiped his face with the tarry cloth and said, 'Eight coffers of
silver coin, and twenty-one horses exactly.'

Harald flared up and said, 'But that is all we have, and they belong to
the King.'

The man smiled shut-eyed into the morning sun and said, 'And the ship
is all we have, and it belongs to us.'

As they talked, other men came out of the various houses on the
riverside, until Arsleif counted at least sixty of them, mostly
carrying adzes and choppers in their hands, and all seeming to wait for
a sign from their chief, the ship-builder.

Arsleif said to that man, 'You drive a hard bargain, fellow, but
beggars cannot be choosers.'

The man grinned and nodded.  'Aye,' he said, 'we must take our chance
when we can.  We are not lords, like you men, who can just ride on to
the plains and collect taxes when the mood takes you.  We have to work
hard and bargain briskly.  Anyway, to show our good will, we shall
stock the ship with food and voyage-ale, and, to top it all, if you
bring the ship back in good order before the year is out, I will refund
as many horses as you have men to ride on them.  Is that a bargain?'

Harald punched one fist into the other in anger, but there was nothing
to be gained by argument.  So at last he agreed and they set course.

The ship they bought had already served many seasons and soon they
found that it leaked at the after-end, for the caulking had dried out
in the spring sun, and the hasty lick of tar which the villagers had
given it was not enough to turn aside all water.  So, while sixteen men
rowed, eight a side, the others took turns at baling, often using their
helmets for this task.

As for the rowers, they were soft-handed, being inland Lords of
Novgorod and not shore-vikings, and after three days most of them would
willingly have exchanged the ash-oar for the sword again.  But Harald
taunted them and said, 'What are raw hands and aching backs?  The
Blutkind brothers would be glad to sit where you are now, and would
count it a good bargain.  Besides, do not forget that, from the rocks
and bushes beside the river, eyes may be watching us always, and it
would go ill for the fame of the Novgorod Lords if word went round
among the tribes that they cried like girls at the oars' kiss.'

After that, the men went at it with less complaint; but, all the same,
it was a hard row and the wind from the plains now did little to push
the ship along.

Sometimes, at night, the sharpest-eyed of the crew saw fires on high
ground, along the river's course, well ahead, and this kept them going
in the chase; though by day they never saw a sign of the ship they were
pursuing.

Harald was as weary as his fellows at this, and at the wild and dreary
land that spread on either side of them.  He said to Arsleif, 'This is
a lonely land.  It must be the end of the world.  These black woods,
and grey rocks, and oceans of grassland with the mist over them, are
terrible.  Each day is the same, Arsleif.  Can it never change?  Will
the sun never shine on us?'

Arsleif leaned against the gunwale and said, 'All men who seek the
south must pass through this.  And if you think this is the end of the
world, you should try the desert between Zaragoza and Cartagena!
There, not even the eagle can live.  Have courage, lad, and I promise
you that before we have passed the Weirs, you will see the sun.  And
when you have seen it, perhaps you will long for these mists again for,
as the year passes on, heat strikes from the sky down there like a
great hammer.'

And that was how it was.  Within another week, as the summer unfolded,
the sun came out from a cloudless blue sky and thrashed the rowers like
thralls flailing barley after the harvest.  Even the strongest of the
Lords began to groan, and some of them fell off their seats gasping.
Now Harald shortened the rowing-spells, and pulled into the river-bank
more often when the sun was at its height.

He said, 'This way it will take longer to catch the Icelanders--but
what profit would there be to come up with them when we are hardly
strong enough to shake a willow-wand, much less a sword?'

Arsleif answered, 'The same sun beats on them, Harald.  And when we do
find them, we shall forget this rowing.'

Looking the length of the ship, no man would have thought that the
sunburnt, half-naked wretches who rowed it were the Lords of Novgorod.
By now, because they had eaten so much salt meat, and sat so much in
the sun, most of them had sores on their bodies, and since their great
rowing-thirst had used up all the voyage-ale, they were forced to drink
from the river itself, and now many of them complained of stomach-pains.

Then, just when they thought life could not be more cruel, they came to
the Weirs.  This was a grim and rocky place, where the water suddenly
rushed downwards among great boulders, its course twisting so much that
no one could see where the river wound next.

Arsleif said, 'This is where we get calluses on the shoulders as well
as on the hands, Harald.  No man can take a ship along the river here.
Instead, we must drag it ashore and build a wagon or sledge for it, to
move it overland.'

When the men heard this, many of them fell forward and let their oars
ride in the rowlocks with despair.  But Arsleif laughed at them and
said, 'Cheer up, lads, if you can play the ox for a week, you will come
out into clear water, among the great plains and the rolling hills,
with nothing then between you and Miklagard itself!'

One of the Lords, a grey-bearded man called Raskof, groaned, 'If I were
back in my hall, with my feet under my own table, I would pay all the
taxes to King Jaroslav, on behalf of the peasants, for a half-year.'

Harald said, 'We will remember that, Raskof, when we get back.
Jaroslav will want to know where his eight coffers of silver coin have
gone.'

But Raskof only groaned and turned his watery eyes away; and Arsleif
went to him and put his hand on the Lord's shoulder and said, 'Courage,
man; once we are down on the plain again, the wind will change.  I
promise you, there will be no more rowing after that.  The sail will
belly out and whisk us along faster than a stallion can gallop.'

But none of the men believed him; they were too weary even to believe
that they were still alive.  On shore, it took them three days to build
a rough sledge from the stunted hardwood trees that grew beside the
river, for most of the work had to be done with swords and war-axes,
which are not good tools for such labour, being shaped for other
purposes.  Yet they did it, and hoisted the leaking ship on to the
sledge, and also cut down twelve saplings as rollers, to lay under the
ship as they pulled.  For ropes, they sliced up their leather-jerkins
and pieced the lengths together.

Arsleif laughed and said, 'Do not look so downtrodden, men!  Who needs
a leather coat in such a summer?  And when we catch the Icelanders we
will take their coats.'

Raskof said, 'If we ever see them again ... I believe they have
vanished into the air, Arsleif.'

Another Lord said, 'And if they haven't, then they will have used their
own jackets for making ropes; so in the end we will go naked after all.'

Harald said, 'So much grumbling among such brave war-men!  In Norway,
even great kings will go unclothed, if only they may carry a good sword
in their hands.'

Raskof answered, 'Aye, we have heard of your baresarks, but to us they
are little better than madmen, though you call them kings.'

After that, there was no time for argument, and no breath for talking;
the way down the Weirs was like the Labours of Hercules.  A hundred
times a day men fell, gasping, or the poorly-tied ropes broke.  Once
the ship itself, unsurely lashed to the sledge, heeled over and almost
smashed itself against the rocks in a narrow gully.  When this
happened, it took a whole day to get it back on to the rollers; after
which, the men fell to the ground and slept where they fell, their
mouths open, their arms flung wide, as though begging for rest.

Harald, himself half-dead, smiled thinly through cracked lips at
Arsleif and said, 'If the Icelanders could come upon us now, we should
be easy meat for their axes.'

Arsleif nodded and said, 'It is at moments like these when a chieftain
learns most about his war-men.  Yet, when the time comes, I do not
think we shall be dissatisfied with the brethren we have here.  This
voyage has welded them together, like the edges of a good sword.  The
blade will not come apart again, however hard the blows.'

Harald began to answer this, but even as his lips opened, his head fell
forward and he was asleep.  Arsleif caught him and let him down gently
on to a bed of bracken, then covered him with his own tattered cloak,
from which the bright colours had now sadly faded, because of the sun
and water they had suffered.




_8 Burnt Longship_

All told, they were nine days on the Weirs, delayed by their weariness
and the accidents that befell them; but one morning, just before
midday, as they came over a rocky shelf, they all stopped and gazed in
wonder at what lay before and below them.  It was an enormous, rolling
plain, that stretched as far as eye could see, green and brown and
golden in the sunlight.  And through it, winding gently, ran the broad
river, shining like silver and smiling under the summer sun.

The Lords of Novgorod now forgot their bleeding hands and their raw
shoulders, and, hugging one another, they danced about like madmen,
laughing and shouting until the birds among the reeds and scrub-bushes
took fright and fluttered, alarmed into the blue sky.

Harald now declared a holiday, and the men lay about telling stories
and chewing grass-stems and acting as though they were on a gentle
hunting-trip.  And the next day, when they were refreshed, they rolled
the ship down a mild slope and were able to set it in clear water once
more.

Another thing delighted them; by chance, because of the jolting which
the timbers had had, the leak at the after-end was cured.  Raskof
declared that this was little short of a miracle and that, when they
were all back in Novgorod, he would describe it to the Bishop there and
get his opinion on the matter.  It might be, he said, that their ship
was a holy relic.  Indeed, he thought, it might be that one timber of
it had come from Holy Cross.  If that was so, then they who sailed in
such a ship were, in a sense, blessed.

Arsleif listened to all this, smiling quietly, and then said to Harald,
'I have heard Christians talk like this before; though I do not recall
this Raskof ever praying to his God in the hard days we have come
through.'

Harald frowned and said, 'Do not forget, friend, that I am a Christian,
too.'

Arsleif nodded and smiled.  'But I cannot say that it has gone to your
head like strong ale,' he said.  'A man would not know unless he was
told.'

It was later that very day, when, swinging round a bend in the river,
with the wind full in the sail, they came on such a surprise that even
Arsleif stood like a man struck unawares with an axe.

A longship lay among the rocks and reeds on the shore, blackened with
fire, and turned over so that it looked like the shell of a tortoise,
its narrow keel uppermost.  Round its landward side, three rough
ramparts of turf and brushwood had been set up, behind which crouched
two ragged men, clutching their rusted swords, more like scarecrows
than warriors.

Raskof stood up and peered, then cried, 'We have them at last, Harald!
We have them, by the White-Christ!  Here are the Icelanders!'

Harald flung out the anchor-stone, his hands trembling, and most of the
Lords of Novgorod snatched up weapons, like hounds in haste to run down
their quarry.

But Arsleif held up his hand and cried, 'Wait!  This is not what it
seems.'

And as he spoke, the men behind the ramparts stood up and staggered
towards the river, shielding their eyes from the bright sun.  They came
on towards the ship, as though careless of chance arrows, until they
were standing in the water up to their waists.  Harald saw indeed that
they were Wulf Ospakson and Haldor Snorreson, though less like men than
skeletons now.  In a cracked voice, Wulf called out to them, 'Let
vengeance rest a while, Sigurdson.  Though we are not friends, let us
not be enemies.'

Harald called back, 'We have come to settle a quarrel that started at
the Yuletide feasting, and we will not be put off now, Icelander.'

Then Haldor Snorreson flung his arms wide and shouted, 'For the love of
Odin, use what sense you have, Sigurdson.  If there is a plague, do men
carry on their quarrels while all drop dead about them?'

Raskof shouted out, 'I see no plague!  What plague are you mumbling
about, coward?'

But, even as he spoke, a bowshot beyond the farthest turf rampart, and
coming up from an unseen dip in the grassland, three score of horsemen
appeared, wearing high fur hats and sitting hunched in their sheepskin
saddles, like creatures of another world.  And almost as soon as the
oarsmen saw them, the air was filled with the heavy twang of
bowstrings, and through the blue sky short arrows flew, buzzing like
hornets, angry when their nest is disturbed.  Raskof, who was standing
on the mast-stepping suddenly cried out, then clutched his neck and
fell backwards, knocking over two other Lords.  The gunwales near to
where Harald stood with Arsleif suddenly sprouted, thick with shafts,
as though strange feathered flowers grew there.  Pieces of the mast
splintered off and flew about like the white flakes of snow.

Arsleif dragged Harald down and said, 'Lie low, my son.  This is
something no man could have dreamed of.  The Patzinaks have moved
northwards with their herds earlier than I expected.'

Harald struggled to free himself from Arsleif's grasp, for at least ten
of the Novgorod Lords lay pierced and writhing, their bodies now
unprotected by mail-shirt or horse-hide.  But Arsleif forced him to the
deck, and it was best so, for shower after shower of arrows came,
leaving scarcely a foot of deck space untouched, and quivering as
though they were alive, when they drove into the seasoned sun-dried oak.

Arsleif whispered in Harald's ear, 'Even if we cut the anchor rope,
they would ride down the river bank and shoot us as we rowed.  And, God
save us, we have hardly enough men left to row a fishing-smack now.  If
there are six unhurt, we shall be lucky.'

By the time the arrow-showers had died away, Harald could have wept to
see the toll they had taken.  Of the Novgorod Lords, as Arsleif had
said, only six still breathed, and they were clustered under the
nearside gunwales, afraid to move a finger's length, they who had been
great fighters.

At last, when the sun upon the deck made the oak as unbearable as an
oven-top, Arsleif stole a quick glance above the rail and said, 'The
Patzinaks have gone now.  The Icelanders are crawling through the
reeds, back to their fortress, and if we are wise, we shall leap
overboard and do the same.'

So, in the heavy stillness of the afternoon, that is what they did, to
come at last, wet and weary, into the shelter of the fire-charred
longship on the river-shore.

And there Harald and his few sat down with the two Icelanders as though
they had never quarrelled in their lives.  And Haldor Snorreson said,
'We may have had our differences, Sigurdson, but we are both Northmen,
you and I, when all is said, and we cannot let a little Yuletide
difference of opinion bring us to our deaths from Patzinak arrows.'

Arsleif nodded and said, 'If men would only think a while before they
rush into blood-feuds and vengeances, the world would be a better place
to do business in.'

Wulf said, 'We have been penned here for a week now, and as you see
have lost all our comrades.  We have buried them as the arrows have
allowed us, under mounds by the riverside.  Most of them died without
complaining; but there was one, the fellow who hired us this ship, who
wept enough for all the others, to lose his profit and his life.'

Harald said, 'Who was that, Icelander?'

Wulf said, 'A little round man called Krok.  A Swede, to judge from his
way of speaking, and a true rogue.'

Arsleif smiled gently and looked at Harald with narrowed eyes.  'Well,'
he said, 'it seems his roguery has profited him little in the end.  He
now rests by a foreign river, under the reeds, and his ship lies burned
by the water-side.  What is there to drink, Icelander?'

He said this to keep Harald from brooding too much on the memory of old
Earl Rognvald, for Arsleif knew that this strange encounter with crafty
Krok would set the lad thinking again.

Haldor came forward with a pannikin of ale.  It was bitter with age,
but much better than the river water had been to drink.

'Take this,' he said, 'it is our only luck.  We still had a great
barrel of it left when the horse-archers drove us ashore and attacked
us.  Doubtless there will be enough of it to last us the short time
that they will let us live.  So drink as deeply as you choose.'

As the pannikin went round, Wulf said, 'These Patzinaks prefer to
surprise their enemy in the middle of the plains, then they can circle
them on their ponies and shoot them down at will.  But we are fortunate
in having the river at our backs; so they must come at us from one side
only, and that gives us a little while longer to live.  They are a
stupid folk, taking them all in all.  Each day they shoot off their
stock of arrows at us, then spend the rest of the time making others,
to use on the morrow.'

Harald said, 'Why do they not charge your ramparts and have done with
it, Icelander?'

Haldor answered this and said, 'They have no taste for cold iron at
close-quarters.  Besides, we have found a way of keeping their ponies
from jumping the turf-walls; we light reeds and brushwood on the
ramparts when they look like charging, and that breaks the ponies'
courage.'

Arsleif said gravely, 'Aye, but such tricks cannot last for ever.  When
more Patzinaks come up, and the plain is black with them, your cold
iron and brushwood fires will be trodden under by ten thousand hooves.'

Wulf said, 'A man has to go sometime, Summerbird, and it is in my mind
that this is the last voyage I shall make.  But that does not mean I
should stand like an ox and let the axe fall on my neck without
complaining, does it?'

Haldor poured himself another cup of ale and said, 'It is in my head to
run out with my sword, the next time they line up for their
archery-practice, and to see how many I can knock off their horses.  As
the days have gone on, I have come to think less and less of myself.
Indeed, it would be a good bargain to me at the moment if I made such a
run, and some skald up in Iceland got to hear of it and made a song
about me and my friend, Wulf Ospakson.  We should be remembered as the
two vikings who defended their longship out in the plains, along the
road to Miklagard.  And that would be better even than some kings get
at their end.'

Wulf nodded and said, 'If my tale was told in the hall, during the same
feasting as King Olaf's tale was sung, I should think I had lived a
profitable life.  What about you, Sigurdson?'

Harald did not answer this question, for his eyes had suddenly become
filled.

But Arsleif said, 'You all talk like fools.  No song is worth a man's
life.  You Northfolk are too full of headstrong glory to see sense at
times.'

After he had said this, there was silence for a while, and suddenly the
sun sank down over the great plains, and the evening breeze began to
blow through the grasslands with a noise like that of rushing water, or
of a thousand ghosts whispering together in the dusk.

And when Harald had arranged for night-watches, the men who still
remained rolled themselves up in the burned ship and did their best to
get some sleep, though each one of them clutched sword or axe to his
chest, ready to jump up and defend himself if the Patzinaks broke in
through the rustling darkness.




_9 Flight of the Summerbird_

Now that night Harald had a strange dream, in which his half-brother
Olaf stood before him, holding old Earl Rognvald by the hand.  They
were not dressed in war-gear, as he had last seen them, but in coloured
clothes, as though they were going to a feast; and both of them were
smiling.  And Olaf stood above Harald in the dream and said gently,
'Not a sparrow falls from the nest but God knows, brother.'  And as he
said this, a great golden light shone as from behind Olaf, and seemed
to cast his long shadow across the plains as far as Miklagard, and
farther.  This bright dream-light bathed both Olaf and Earl Rognvald,
and for a while Harald was amazed at the brightness of it, and dared
not speak.  But at last he plucked up his courage in the dream and
said, 'Brother, things are going hard here.  They are as hard as it was
that day at Stiklestad, when Swein came with the Bonders to take our
land from us.  Perhaps they are even harder, for the men we deal with
here, at the burned boat, are not our own kith and kin, and do not
speak the tongue we know.'

Then Earl Rognvald spoke and said, 'That day, Harald, up above
Trondheim, we did a thing or two, you and I.  It was not all sadness,
lad.  There is a joy in doing, for Northfolk.'

Then Olaf with the golden light about his head laughed and clapped the
old Earl on the shoulder and said, 'I watched you two in the woods that
day, hiding under the bush while Swein's clumsy fellows poked about
with their spears.  We all laughed, we Northmen up there, to see how
you tricked them.'

Harald became impatient in his dream, though he did not dare to hinder
old warriors in their battle-talk, but at last he asked again, 'What of
us, here, in the burned ship, brother?'

And Olaf came out of his jesting and looked down at him carefully.
Then, smiling gently and stroking his long golden beard, he said, 'It
can take care of itself, brother.  Things go by rule, and from where I
stand now I see you have a way to travel.'  Then he half-turned his
head, as though he was looking into another country, and at last he
whispered, 'There is a city they call York.  And close by that city is
a river they call the Derwent.  And over that river there is a bridge
that leads into a green meadow.  Now, in that meadow there will fly a
golden arrow that brings the last message.  But not here, little
brother.  Not in a place where the great banner does not stand.  No,
not here.'

As he said these words, his voice faded away, and his brightness faded
with it, until Harald could see only the faintest grey shape of the
King and the Earl as he awoke inside the burned ship.

And there was Wulf Ospakson kneeling beside him and shaking him, his
face pale and drawn.

'Harald,' he was saying, 'wake up, lad.  Arsleif Summerbird has
disappeared.  He is nowhere to be seen, though Haldor and I have
searched all places.'

Then Haldor himself kneeled beside Wulf and said, 'Either the Patzinaks
have come and taken him in the night; or he has escaped along the river
and has left us to our doom.'

Harald was angry at this, being wakened with such news, and said, 'The
Summerbird would not fly away from the nest so thoughtlessly,
Icelander, when there are other lesser birds to care for.'

The two looked at him strangely, but said nothing.  Then they left him
hurriedly to go back to the turf ramparts in case the enemy came again.

And at last Harald jumped up and joined them, with his sword in his
hand, to lean against the heaped bank with all who were left.  Each man
was faint with hunger now, and as they all gazed over the swaying
grassland, the heat of the sun caused mirages to rise, and the air to
shimmer as though life moved in it.

Wulf broke the silence as the time wore on, and said, 'I have not felt
so lost before.  Now that Arsleif has gone, it seems our hope has gone.
I cannot explain it, for I knew little about the man, except that he
nearly broke Haldor's neck at Jaroslav's Yuletide feasting.'

Haldor said, 'My father told me of him, when I was a boy.  The
Summerbird has gone in and out of men's dreams, through the Northland,
for generations.  He is no ordinary man.  At this moment, I would say
that perhaps he is a dream that comes to men when they are in need.'

Harald was about to say that this was not true, and that Arsleif
Summerbird was a real man of flesh and blood, a fur-trader chieftain
who had, in his lifetime, travelled up from Spain and half-way round
the world.  But even as he thought of Arsleif's story, he too began to
see how strange it was.  He remembered how the wild horsemen on the
plains outside Novgorod had known him, as though he was an old friend,
and how the shorefolk in Estonia had known him at their first meeting.
So he did not say that the Summerbird was a real man, after all, for as
the sun beat down and the endless grasslands sighed in the heat, Harald
was no longer sure of anything.  Even the sword in his hand had
suddenly lost weight, as though it did not exist save in the eye; and
his fingers had lost their touch, as though he himself was slowly
becoming a ghost.

Then, in the midst of this silent light-headed waiting, this gradual
changing of values and natures, Harald's ears caught the sound of a
deep, slow rumbling, as though the earth of the great plains was
stirring into life.  He glanced about him and saw that the other men
had also heard this noise, and were listening like hounds outside a
fox's hole.

And at last, at first far off, then gradually coming closer, they all
saw the Patzinaks, in hordes so great that they covered the grasslands,
making them black with horses and fur-cloaks.

Wulf grasped his sword and shook it, as though to be sure that he still
held it.  Then he said, 'So, this is why they waited, so as to come in
their thousands against us.  Well, at least we can say this, that a
handful of Northfolk are the match of a thousand Patzinaks!'

But Haldor, who was keener-sighted, suddenly said, 'They are coming at
the slow march, not the charge, Wulf.  And in their van, before the
host, their High-King is riding unarmed.'

Then the Northfolk climbed up on to the turf ramparts to see the
better, and they knew that what Haldor said was true.  As the hordes
came nearer and nearer, the waiting defenders saw that a small band of
horsemen rode far before their great army.

And so, in utter silence, the enemy came on, until at last the foremost
band, of a dozen riders, was little more than a long bowshot away.
Then the whole host stopped and stood still under the sun, and the
quietness was terrible to bear.

Wulf said, 'It is almost my wish that they should charge now and let us
be rid of the waiting.'

But Harald said, 'Now Arsleif has gone, I care not which way the battle
sways.  In the night I was reminded of two friends I have lost; and
this morning I awake to lose a third.  How can the priests tell us that
God is good, and life is good, if we lose our friends so easily?  Life
is nothing if there are not friends in it to share with.'

Haldor said, 'That is in my mind also, Sigurdson.  Yet, we can say
this, that in the short time we have been together behind this turf
rampart and in the burned boat, we have learned friendship, though we
began as enemies.  That is something, surely?'

Harald smiled bitterly and said, 'Aye, that is something.  For, as the
women up in Orkney say, "Half a loaf is better than no bread at all."'

Then suddenly they stopped talking, because the foremost group of
Patzinaks had come close and were bunched together at the side of their
High-King and behind him.  And, at the low mourning of a horn, these
riders at side and back slowly hoisted up great icons, or stiff banners
on poles, so that the High-King sat alone, enclosed on three sides by
the immense paintings, as though he was in a coloured room of his
palace, about to give an audience.

Wulf said, 'Those icons have been stolen from Miklagard.  They are too
splendid for these savages to have made, themselves.'

Haldor said, 'Maybe some rebel Bulgar-Captain has traded them to these
folk, some time-expired Varanger who has robbed the Emperor's
treasure-room, or his churches.'

But Harald was watching the Patzinak High-King, who was a little
shrivelled monkey of a man, perched high on his sheepskin saddle, with
a tall gold crown, shaped like the dome of a basilica, on his shaven
parchment-yellow head.

At first, Harald did not understand the words the High-King was
speaking, because of the sighing of the grasses and the wind, and
because he spoke the Northern steppe-tongue so quaintly.

But after a while, the boy's ears became tuned to the old man's words,
and he heard him say: 'The task is ended.  The bargain is fulfilled.
We have waited half a lifetime for the Summerbird to come to us, and
now that he is within our tents, we ask no more.  Go in peace,
Northmen, and trouble us no longer.  You shall have your lives, for we
have the Summerbird, who has given himself up so that you shall go
free.  I have spoken.'

When Harald heard these words, his grief burst all bounds of reason
and, giving a loud cry, he vaulted the turf rampart and, swinging
_Whitefang_ wildly in the air, rushed towards the icons, shouting,
'What are our lives, Patzinak dog, compared with that of Summerbird!
Set him free, or never move from this place alive!'

He ran, lightfooted, his head full of the sun, baresark for the first
time, laughing madly yet weeping as he raced across the ground.

For a while the High-King sat staring at him in curious wonder then,
seeing that the youth would not halt in his headlong career until death
overtook him, half-turned in the saddle and raised his right hand in
signal to the warriors who clustered behind.

And all at once, the air was filled with the heavy drone of arrows.
Their short shafts, plunged half their length into the earth,
completely ringed Harald as a stockade rings a penned bull.  And before
him row upon row of arrows stood, like soldiers in perfect line, or
like a great square sacred carpet on which no foot might tread, and all
as thickly placed as the spines upon a hedgehog's back.

Shocked into sense, Harald halted, then losing his balance fell among
the arrows.  And as he lay on their broken shafts, defeated and
weeping, he seemed to hear a voice somewhere above him saying, 'Go
back, Harald.  Go back.  There will be time enough to dare the arrows
when the years lie heavier on your back.  In peace now, go back!'

But whether it was the Summerbird's voice or Olaf's, Harald did not
know.  Then the Patzinak king smiled and bowed his head a little, so
that the sun, suddenly glinting on the golden dome of his crown, struck
full into Harald's eyes, blinding him for the moment, rendering him
helpless on the ground.

And, as the other Northfolk stood still, amazed on the ramparts, the
great icons fluttered down, the troop turned about, opening a space to
let their High-King ride through, and almost in a twinkling the whole
great horde had swung round and was retreating, off among the
shimmering grasslands, into the blinding haze made by the summer sun.

It was long before the sound of their slow hooves died away and the
plains had ceased shuddering.  And when all was silent again, Harald
found himself kneeling among the arrows on the hot earth and weeping
for the loss of Arsleif Summerbird, who had ransomed them with his own
life.

At last, as the sun began to slide down the sky and the twilight began
to move upwards like a faint dust on the horizon, Wulf Ospakson came
and led him back to the ramparts, and said, 'We are too few to take
your ship back up the Weirs now, Harald.  Yet we must shift for
ourselves, if we are to live at all.  What do you say we do?'

Harald held up his head and looked about him.  It would be madness, he
knew, to strike out on foot across the great plains, for a man might
starve among the grasslands, or die of thirst.  After a while he said,
'What lies down there, the way the river runs, Icelander?'

Haldor Snorreson said, 'The city of Kiev, and beyond that, the city of
Miklagard, where the Great Emperor sits on a golden chair.'

Harald wiped the dust from his sword and pushed it carefully into the
scabbard once again.  Then he brushed the damp hair from his eyes and
said, 'Then let us take the river-road south, the way the birds fly
when summer is over.  Perhaps Miklagard will be kinder to us than
Novgorod was.  Perhaps there is still something waiting for the last of
the wander-birds, the last of the vikings.'

And so they left the turf ramparts and the charred timbers, and walked
through the sighing reeds to where the ship swung against the
anchor-stone.




_Epilogue_

The sun was sliding from the sky and the dust was settling.  King
Harald of Norway had to blink and shake his head to persuade himself
that this was not the sun and dust of the great plains above Kiev, but
the sun and dust of England.  A dozen times he brushed the sweat from
his eyes and gazed above the milling throng of fighters towards the
cool green Derwent river.  Like a man coming out of a long sleep, he
said to himself, 'No, that is not the Dnieper, not the place where we
left the burned longship.  It is just an English river after all, and I
have been dreaming.  Ah, I am getting old, to let my thoughts wander
away so long in the midst of battle!'

There were many Englishmen who lay at his feet on the bruised turf,
about _Landwaster_, who would not have said the King of Norway was too
old: but now they could not speak.

Setting his broad back against the ash-pole, Harald called out to
Styrkar, 'How is it going, Marshal?  I cannot see for the crowds.'

Styrkar was in the middle of a knot of men, who were hacking and
stabbing at him like wild beasts.  His helmet was cracked down the
middle, and of his mail-shirt only the right sleeve still clung to him.
But he found time to answer, 'Tostig, our ally, is down.  The English
king put the axe to his brother's neck.  But, from where I am, things
seem to be going well enough.'  Then, taking a deep breath, Styrkar
flung away his shield and, grasping his axe with both hands, went at it
afresh, clearing a new space round himself and sending the English back
as though they were of no account.  Each time the axe-edge bit, he
said, 'This is for Ljot who held the bridge.'  He said this more times
than there are fingers on two hands, and never once did anyone answer
him back.

Harald of Norway was not idle, either.  If he had been a wood-cutter,
you might have said he had done a week's felling in that one day by the
Derwent, in spite of the heat and the thirsty dust.  Not all of it
sappy wood and alder, either; but hard-knurled oak mostly, that twisted
and jarred along the blade-edge, until chopper and chopped alike felt
need for resting.

But there is no resting for a warrior-man beset by enemy-hounds.
Though he stand seven feet tall, there will always be some low-bellied
cur to creep in and bite if he looks away but once, or blinks his eyes
in the sun.

And a bite on the ankle can bring a giant down as surely as a
thunder-knock on the head.

At such times, a man must keep up his swaying and his sword-flailing,
holding his shield to left and right in time to the strokes that come,
swinging his iron head backwards and forwards to miss stray blows.  No
man can hope to miss every knock.  It is like running through a rain
shower: some drops are bound to strike, however many others miss and
fall to the ground.  It is this way in a storm, or a battle, or in life
itself.  Even great gods bear wounds.  The only man who bears no wounds
has never lived: he is a dead man, although he breathes and smiles and
puts bread to his mouth.

It is better for a man to stand upright like a tree and chance what
storm may shower upon his shoulders: for, standing high, he may see
across the stone hills, through the red rain, and glimpse the
many-coloured rainbow of his dreams.

This did Harald of Norway, towards sunset, with the grass all
snow-frothed and crimson-carpeted about him, and cattle in the yonder
fields lowing to be milked.

By now, there were fewer men moving than had moved earlier; and
_Landwaster's_ silken edges were all torn and tattered by the wind's
day-long biting.  To strike blows and get blows by the hour is much
like drinking horn after horn of ale.  There is a drunkenness to it
that separates the hand from the memory; and while the one goes about
its task of hewing and heaving, the other will wander away along rivers
and over seas that have been dried up half a lifetime.

King Harald sailed such seas, while his right and left hands guarded
_Landwaster_.  He saw himself standing between Wulf and Haldor, before
the Emperor's peacock throne at Miklagard, taking the oath to serve him
well and put an end to all His Serene Majesty's enemies.  He saw
himself and the Icelanders outwitting Saracens in Sicily; or standing
guard over the stone-masons in Jerusalem, when they set up the new
shrine to Jesus Christ there.  He saw himself laughing in the sunlight
and urging the oarsmen over the harbour-chain when, at last, he wished
to come away from Miklagard, his fortune made.

'Oh,' he said to himself beside Derwent, 'but I have lived a good life,
that I have!'

Best of all was coming back up the Dnieper to Kiev and taming wild
Elizabeth and marrying her.  It was a wedding to remember for ever,
with the many maidens all in white and the candles blazing in the great
church, and the choir-boys singing like angels before the golden altar.
And old Jaroslav rubbing his ringed hands and smiling, as though he had
got Thor for a son-in-law, at least.

Harald leaned against the ash-pole, breathing hard now, for he had done
more than dream that afternoon.  Aloud, he said, 'I have a good wife,
my friends.  And I have two sons, Magnus and Olaf.  I have two
daughters, also, Maria and Ingigerd.  My wife and daughters wait for me
on Orkney.  My son, Olaf, waits for me on the Humber with all my ships.
My other son, Magnus, sits on the throne chair in Trondheim, keeping it
warm till I return.'

The English carles heard him say this and nodded, smiling at him as
they drove in.  One of them, a brisk axe-man from Ketelby near Lincoln,
said, 'Then you have a good family, Hardrada.  But I doubt if Prince
Magnus can keep the throne warm for you, the time it will take you to
sit on it again.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Harald Hardrada, and swept the carle's head
off his shoulders with one blow.  For a moment he glanced at the body
still standing with the axe held in its hands, then he said, 'Who is
there for a king to talk to now?  There get to be fewer good men in the
world every hour, I do declare!'

There was an English carle named Edward of Saxondale, from near
Nottingham.  He lacked one arm and one eye, but there was no better
dagger-man in the county.  He stepped close to the Hardrada and said,
'Oh, take it not so hard, Norway.  A man like you will always find
someone to talk to.'

Harald swept out at him, but Edward Saxondale-carle was not there: he
was inside the king's guard, almost breast to breast with him and the
mail-links rubbing together harshly.

'Here I am, Hardrada,' he said gaily.  'And here is my dagger.  Now,
what were you saying?'

Hardrada was blowing like a winded stag, held at bay, but as he felt
the knife-point searching his net-shirt, he said, 'I was mentioning
that I had a good family, carle.  And I will tell you in confidence,
for I know you will not spread the news, that I named my little
daughter Maria after a Greek princess I once knew in Miklagard.  Oh,
she was a darling girl, and if I had not been already betrothed, I
might have stayed down there among the palm-trees and golden chalices,
and have married her.'

Edward Saxondale-carle was about to answer with another jest when
suddenly he lost all his breath, and never got it back again.  Hardrada
picked the dagger out of his mail-shirt and flung it over his shoulder.

For a time now the English stood away and let him be.  One of them said
aloud, 'It is a thousand pities you cannot be our king and sit in the
West Minster, Hardrada.  We should like it well.'

Harald smiled at him wearily and brushed the sweat from his streaming
face.  'Aye,' he said, 'and so should I, friend.  If I could only sit
down now, I'd even rule you from a milking-stool.  I am so tired!'

While he was saying this, a small man in a gilded helmet stood at the
edge of the throng with a hacked axe in his right hand.  His face was
pale and serious and his watchful eyes missed nothing.  Putting his
hand into his pouch, he drew out an arrow-head tipped with gold, then,
turning to an archer who stood behind him, he said quietly, 'Fit this
to a straight shaft and use it, Edwin.  You are well within range now.'

Another strange thing happened to King Harald that afternoon, just when
the russet sun of September was falling behind the beech trees to the
west.  Peering through sweat and blood, he saw among the toiling men
the great back of someone he seemed to know.  This carle wore silver
fox furs about his shoulders and a wolf's brush on his helmet-top.  His
other clothes were of many gay colours.

Harald gasped with the shock of this sight and called out, 'Why,
Arsleif.  Arsleif Summerbird!  You old rogue, you!'

But the carle did not seem to hear, and went on hewing at the trade he
was there for.  King Harald forgot his own war-business for a moment
and dragged open his mail hood so that his voice should not be muffled
within the iron.  It fell about him on either side, the buckles broken,
leaving his face and throat bare.

'Hey, Arsleif!' he called.  'Must I speak to you twice!'

Suddenly he felt the ash-shaft of _Landwaster_ strike him in the middle
of the back almost as hard as a pole-axe.  Then his legs gave under him
and instead of looking down at men, he was forced to gaze upwards to
see them.  Even so, it was hard to distinguish their features, for a
dark red cloud was floating before them now.

The man in the fox-furs and coloured clothes turned just then, and the
king saw that he was not Arsleif after all, but a thin-faced youth with
sandy eyelashes and a brown mole to the right side of his nose.

It was only then that Hardrada felt the sharp pain in his throat and
heard the harsh bubbling of his breath.  He tried to speak, but a great
black wave smothered him and shook him so angrily that for a while he
thought he was back on his longship, sailing the winter sea from the
Vik down to the Kattegat.

And when that wave had passed, leaving his mouth full of its bitter
salt, Hardrada opened his eyes again and saw men standing about him;
not his own carles, but men who wore the Wessex Dragon on their
over-shirts.  They were all big men with solemn faces, most of them
carrying the axe over their shoulders.

The king smiled up at them and would have greeted them if he could, for
he knew they were royal house-carles and all brave men, with twenty
battles on their backs.  One of them standing closer to him than the
others, a grey-haired man, held something in his red-stained hand, as
though he treasured it.  Hardrada saw the tears on this man's cheeks.
With a great effort, he shifted up on to his elbow and stretched out
his hand.

'Show it to me,' he said, in a voice that was not his own, but piped
and whistled at the back of his throat like an old man's sound.

The grey-haired carle bent before the King of Norway and put the thing
into his shaking hand.  It was a gold-tipped arrow-head, its point now
knocked aside and blunted: but it glinted with a strange fierce beauty
in the sun's dying rays, though its edge was gone.

Hardrada rolled it between his long brown fingers, not feeling it any
more and now scarcely seeing it.  Yet he knew that the silent
grave-faced men were listening to what words he might wish to speak in
that great moment and so, though the effort cost him agony, he smiled
and whispered, 'The man who made this knew his trade.'

From the sounds about him, Harald knew that his words had been well
received, though most of the house-carles had had to bend forward to
hear them.  Then he lost interest in the arrow-head and cared little
that it fell from his hand into the trampled grass.

Suddenly he wondered if _Landwaster_ was still standing and, with a
painful heave, he began to turn his head and body towards the
hillock-top; but the grey-haired carle laid gentle hands on his
shoulders and said, 'Do not trouble yourself any longer, sir.  Your
great banner is down.  See, we have wrapped it about you.  Put out your
hand and I will guide it to feel the fine silk.'

King Harald's eyelids were very heavy now, but his ears were open and
he heard all the man said.  For a moment or two he tried to smile,
tried to say that the fine silken cloth would be spoiled, and that he
would be indebted if these good Englishmen would roll him over on to a
piece of stout sail-cloth instead.

But these words stayed in his head and would not come out of his mouth,
for all his trying.  And at length the pale-faced small man in the
gilded helmet came forward between the house-carles and, kneeling,
placed new-minted pennies on each of the Norse king's lids to keep them
closed.  The face on the coins was the face of the man who held them
there.

When he rose and turned away, he said to a quiet monk who stood at the
edge of the throng, 'Such a man merits gold coins.'

Then suddenly, almost savagely, he slapped the leather pouch at his
side.  It gave off but a thin jingle.  He said, to no one, to the air
or the birds, 'But there is little enough gold left in England now; he
must make do with silver.  He has lived rough; he will understand.  The
last of the vikings will understand.'

Afterwards, he left the twilit hill and went down towards the river
Derwent where his own brother, Tostig, lay among the many who had gone
voyaging that September day.  As he stumbled over the turf, he felt
inside his pouch once more to find two coins.






[End of The Last of the Vikings, by Henry Treece]
