Byzantium (117 page)

The King walked ahead for a long while, alone, as if drawn to Stamford Bridge by the sun-coloured butterflies darting before him rather than the imperative of the impatient armies at his back. The day was his vindication, his ... resurrection.

There had been so many times through these long years when he had wondered why fate had taken Maria and spared him. The constant quarrels with fractious Jarls; the long, bitter, inconclusive war in Denmark; the guilt he felt about Elisevett - circumstances that never would have come about if he were only a man and not a king. So many times he had thought of Halldor and his friend’s strange renunciation, and he wondered if Halldor had been perhaps the wisest of them all. It was Halldor who had never really recovered from that night so long ago, who had always been haunted by the burned and broken body of the one woman he had never made love to. Halldor had helped Haraldr regain his throne, and then he had gone back to Iceland, to live quietly on a farm. Haraldr wondered if Halldor had received news of Ulfr’s death yet. The road of life, so many turns.

And yet now that road had levelled into a glorious autumn. Today would at last consummate what he had so long ago dreamed of with her. For her. This would have been Maria’s Empire, she who had left behind her own Imperial legacy to join him in what had then been only a promise, what for her had meant only death. He wondered if she approved of him now; he knew there had been many times over these years when she had not. That, too, was one of life’s strange paths, the route her spirit had taken through his life. Sometimes he could reach out and touch her; at other times he could not even remember her voice. He could never see her in her entirety, but often he could recall distinctly the parts of her, the incandescent irises, the gull-wing eyebrows, the soft white inside of her thigh. He thought of the Maria who had taken her place in his life; she was as distinct as his hand before him, not only the young woman she was now, but the infant, the child, the adolescent, every phase of her life. Even the first Maria never could have been that close, to have been created by him, to become a woman as he watched in wonder. And yet his daughter Maria could never share with him the supreme intimacy that the other Maria had shared with him. Perhaps, he often thought, the two Marias, the daughter and the lover, were different aspects of the same soul, that through him his first Maria had so deeply touched her namesake that she lived again, to restore that joy to his breast. There were times when the two Marias were that much alike, or so he remembered, and yet times when they did not seem alike at all. There were even moments, albeit fleeting, when he thought of Elisevett as the first and greatest love of his life. In the world as it was, not as it had seemed to be so long ago beside the Bosporus, what more could a man ask from a wife, except to know that from time to time he loved her above all else? And Tora, who had given him sons and love, how could she be denied her claim to his heart? Perhaps they were all aspects of the same soul, of the great love that only youth can know, just as an old man’s shattered dreams are all fragments of the single, pure, incandescent purpose he had imagined as a young man. The dream seemed pure and whole again today, but he would give it away to the young men who could truly believe in it. But the love was not the same as the dream. The dream had faded and crumbled, and had now been restored. But the love had never faded. It was only in many different places now. She had been the source of the light, and as best he could, he had shared it with many.

‘Let them raid the cattle,’ Haraldr said to Styrkar, his voice edged with annoyance. ‘I will pay for whatever they plunder. But if they begin to molest the peasants, I will send my house-karls down after them.’ Haraldr watched the Norse warriors wade the reed-choked shallows of the languid Derwent, then scatter over the broad, very gradually sloping meadows on the west side of the river. Several bowshots to the north, where the little river narrowed and the banks steepened, stood Stamford Bridge, a simple structure of wooden trestles and rotting planking. The King and his retinue stood on a grassy flat about thirty ells above the dull silver water. The sun was at its zenith, the heat oppressive. Haraldr wished the wind would come up and evaporate the sweat from his soggy silk tunic.

‘What is that?’ asked Styrkar. He pointed to a thick haze visible at the western horizon, just above a ridge line about eight or nine bowshots distant.

Haraldr shaded his eyes with his palm. ‘I imagine it is the people of the countryside come out to see us,’ he said. ‘They will find we are no different from them.’ Haraldr turned and watched his house-karls wager on spear tosses. He remembered that he had played the same game with Olaf’s house-karls on the magic, innocent day before Stiklestad had sent his destiny gyring.
I will never have more courage than I did the day before Stiklestad,
thought Haraldr.
No man who has seen battle can ever be as brave as one who has not. And yet I can be proud that in every one of my fights, while I was always afraid, I never turned my back. Of course I have never met the ultimate test of courage, either, as so many of my foes have. As Maria and Ulfr and Olaf and Jarl Rognvald and so many of my comrades have. Each of them showed the valour I have yet to prove. And the woman had been the bravest.

‘I hope the next battle is my last,’ he told Styrkar, his voice musing, distracted. His marshal lifted his fine golden eyebrows in surprise. ‘When we go south to meet King Harold Godwinnson,’ clarified Haraldr. ‘When he is defeated, that will be the end of my wars of conquest. You and Eystein Orre can settle with my remaining enemies. I wish to govern. I have fought my entire life and I have seen too many terrible battles. I will soon have grandchildren.’

‘You showed no reluctance to fight five days ago,’ said Styrkar. ‘The fashion in which you drew the English vanguard on, holding back your strength, and then crushed them at the centre and rear. I learned a lesson that day.’

‘I learned that lesson from a Greek. His name was ... It is impossible I could have forgotten. I can see his face before me. I will remember it before the day is over. He was a friend of mine.’ Haraldr frowned. ‘Nicon Blymmedes. Domestic of the Imperial Excubitores. He was transferred to Italia. I should have liked to have known what happened to him.’

‘If he lives, he has heard of you,’ said Styrkar, intending no flattery. Styrkar looked west again. ‘Are those our men that far off?’ he asked.

Haraldr looked towards the ridge and saw, through a rising haze of dust, the glint of sun off steel. ‘Those are not our men,’ he said. ‘Bring Tostig to me.’

A few moments later Tostig came to Haraldr’s side. A broad front of armoured men had begun to spill down from the ridge, a descending wall of ice-of-battle. Tostig stared out and then turned to Haraldr, his eyes sharp with frustration and rage. ‘English,’ he said. ‘You have perhaps risked too much today.’

Haraldr studied the rapidly moving vanguard. Fast cavalry, thousands of them. That was why there was so much dust. ‘The fyrd of Northumbria could not have that many horses left,’ he observed to Tostig, his own logic chilling him.

Tostig and Haraldr watched in silence for a long while as the horsemen, followed by a solid mass of infantry, came spilling down the ridge in glittering rows. The banners in the vanguard were like gold lanterns flickering in the dusty pall. Across the river, the cattle raiders abandoned their few trophies and began to form for a valiant defence of the river. Haraldr did not order them called back. He would need the time their lives would buy.

The wind at last blew, almost as if the huge vault of Heaven had been stirred by the massive movement across the River Derwent. Haraldr felt the chill against his back. The gold-embroidered English banners lifted. Styrkar pointed to the tiny figures in the distance, two gold-threaded scintillae rising above the steel-silvered English vanguard. ‘There,’ said Tostig softly, incredulity reducing his voice almost to a whisper. ‘The Dragon of Wessex. And the Fighting Man of Harold Godwinnson. The banners of the King of England. Somehow my brother has attached wings to his army and flown it north.’

‘The wings of the dragon,’ said Haraldr as he watched the huge army come down to the river like a silver avalanche.

‘We must withdraw to the ships,’ said Tostig. ‘Our armour and our reinforcements--’

‘No,’ said Haraldr. ‘Their horse would overtake us easily and cut down our backs. I will dispatch couriers to the ships to summon Eystein. And then we will stand and fight.’

The reed-stubbled shallows were coppery with blood. The Norse cattle raiders had fought valiantly, but the English van had forded the river and now waited just out of bowshot on the banks below the flats on the east side of the river. Their ranks were disciplined and murmuring quiet, a sound far more frightening than the pointless bravado of a rabble. The English ambassadors, a group of about twenty richly armoured officers, rode forward on their horses; at their head was a medium-sized, red-bearded man who wore a golden helm and carried a red-enamelled shield embossed with a gilded hawk. The man announced himself as a representative of the English King. Haraldr ordered his spear-bristled shield-wall to open and admit them.

Haraldr dispatched Tostig as his ambassador. He watched from thirty ells away as Tostig conversed with the King’s representative, who remained sitting proudly in his saddle. It was obvious that the dialogue was as stiff and formal as the emissary’s postures. After a curt exchange the horsemen bowed and rode back through the shield-wall. Tostig returned to Haraldr.

‘He offers me a third of his kingdom if I will abandon you,’ said Tostig.

‘Indeed. And what is offered Norway’s King?’

‘He offers you seven feet of English earth.’

Haraldr laughed. ‘Well spoken. Do you wish to accept his parlay?’

‘Too little and too late. I will take what is offered the King of Norway.’

Haraldr nodded; Ulfr had not been wrong. ‘Who was the man you spoke with? He was a fine sight, so tall in his stirrups for a little man.’

Tostig dropped his dark grey eyes. ‘That was the King Harold Godwinnson.’

Haraldr’s rage flared momentarily; had he known, he might have sacrificed his honour to save his men. But kinship was the strangest of all bonds; he had seen that time and again in his life. ‘I understand why you would not give him up,’ said Haraldr after his anger had subsided. ‘I am grateful you did not give me up.’ Haraldr laughed again. ‘Seven feet of English earth. A man once told me that a king would one day show me mercy. But then that particular man was a craven liar.’ Haraldr turned to Styrkar. ‘We have not accepted terms. Tell the men their king has composed some verse for them.’

Haraldr was announced, and for a moment he stood silently at the centre of the immense, square shield-fort. He wondered if Odin had merely fooled him with the verses that had seemed so fully formed minutes ago. He had become too much a Christian. Odin had been the boy’s god. And then the wind rustled from the spirit world and he found the words. The ring of spear points around him seemed ineffably beautiful, like a garden of silver blossoms.

In Battle-storm
No refuge we seek
Behind our hollowed shields.
As once I was bade
By the highborn maiden
High to hold my head
When the Valkyrja flock
To the clash of swords and skulls.

When he was finished with the words, he could hear only the wind whistling in his ears.

‘Hold them back, Styrkar!’ The grotesque carpet of fallen Englishmen sprawled over the slope beneath the Norse shield-wall; the shadows of the dead had lengthened in the descending sun and begun to take on eerie life, as if they were dark little demons fleeing the flesh. The English cavalry had not sortied against the invincible Norse defences for a quarter of an hour now, a quarter of an hour in which the frenzy of the Norsemen had built with the violent suddenness of a summer storm. And now came the thunder of axes on shields, the footsteps of an army of Titans, unbidden by the Norse commanders, the spontaneous rage of men who had fought well all afternoon as defenders and now lusted for their own attack.

‘Hold them back!’ Haraldr shouted again, but he was already too late. The shield-wall bulged into a broad snout, and then the bright cloaks and gleaming steel blades and helms swept down the rise.

Nothing could be done to stop the mass suicide. The wall that the overwhelming English force had been unable to dent had now been broken by the very will that had kept it intact all afternoon. The din below was deafening as English cavalry and infantry rallied along their broad front on the river. Even Styrkar and Tostig had disappeared into the raging fray. As the Norse charged to the river, the entire English formation seemed to contract, an enormous organism preparing to engulf and ingest the Norse salient. Quickly the massed Norse attack was isolated into desperate pockets of survival. Haraldr had fostered the cult of bravery among his men, and now their deaths were their terrible homage to him. Haraldr stood on the plateau above the trickling coppery Derwent and realized that there was only one way to save Norway’s legacy. Follow the doomed attack with an assault of such devastating force that the shield-wall could re-form.

Haraldr turned and faced the weapon-bristled ring of his house-karls, four score strong, the bravest men in the north. No words were necessary. Their proud eyes glowed with the fury of their calling. He wondered for a moment if he was still equal to such youthful passion. And then he mastered his fear with the reflex of a lifetime. Too many had gone before him, were waiting for him, for death to daunt his breast now.

The Norse boar plunged down the embankment, at its deadly snout the King of Norway, the gold-threaded banner called Landravager snapping in the breeze above him. And as the Norse house-karls ripped aside the English ranks, the golden dragon above the head of the King of Norway moved inexorably towards the golden Dragon of Wessex flying above England’s King. But Haraldr Sigurdarson was only vaguely conscious of this collision of destinies. He knew only the cold black wind of the spirit world. He did not know how long he remained in the underworld, only that his quest in the darkness was much longer than ever before. And he emerged to a silent world viewed through a strange glass that scattered images of banners and bright cloaks and thrusting diamond-tipped spears like the tesserae of a shattered mosaic, yet presented the tiniest details in the sharpest focus: the white halo on the edge of a swinging sword, the sparks leaping like tiny fireflies as a javelin pierced a steel byrnnie.