The Long Ships (32 page)

Both the old Bishops spoke out manfully on their master’s behalf, advancing many arguments to show why the sums suggested by the chieftains should be regarded as excessive. They regretted that the Vikings did not appear to realize that there were more valuable things in the world than gold and silver, and that for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven was more difficult than for an ox to pass through the smoke-hole of a roof. The chieftains heard them out patiently and then replied that, should any disadvantages accrue to them from the bargain, they would accept them stoically, but they could not accept a sum less than that which they had originally named. If, they added, what the Bishops had said about the kingdom of heaven and the smoke-hole was true, they would surely be doing King Ethelred a good service by relieving him of some of the burden of his wealth.

Sighing, the Bishops increased their offer, and at last agreement was reached as to the sum that King Ethelred was to pay. Every man in the fleet was to receive six marks of silver, in addition to what he had already taken by plunder. Every helmsman was to have twelve marks, and every ship’s captain sixty; and Thorkel, Gudmund, and Jostein were each to receive three hundred marks. The Bishops said that this was a sad day for them, and that they hardly knew what their King would say when he heard the sum they had agreed on. It would, they explained, fall all the more heavily on him because at this very moment other envoys of his were negotiating with a Norwegian chieftain named Olaf Tryggvasson, who, with his fleet, was plundering the south coast. They could not be sure, they said, that even King Ethelred’s wealth would suffice to meet both demands.

When they heard this, the chieftains began to worry lest they might have asked for too small a sum, and also lest the Norwegians should get in before them. They held a brief conference among themselves and then announced that they had decided not to increase their demand, but that the Bishops had better lose no time in fetching the silver, for, they said, they would take it ill if the Norwegians were paid before them.

The Bishop of London, who was a friendly and smiling man, assented to this and promised that they would do their best.

“I am surprised, however,” he said, “to see such valiant chieftains as yourselves bothering your heads about this Norwegian captain, whose fleet is much smaller than yours. Would it not be a good thing for you to row down to the south coast, where this captain is lying, and destroy him and his men, and so win all his treasure? He has lately come from Brittany, in fine ships, and men say that he took much booty there. If you were to do this, it would still further increase the love that our lord the King bears you; and in that case he would have no difficulty in finding the sum you demand, for he would not then have to appease this Norwegian captain’s greed.”

Thorkel nodded and looked uncertain, and Gudmund laughed and said that the Bishop’s suggestion was certainly worth considering.

“I have never myself met any of these Norwegians,” he said, “but everyone knows that an encounter with them always provides fine fighting and good tales for the survivors to tell their children. At home, in Bravik, I have heard it said that few men outside East Guteland are their superiors, and it might be worth finding out whether this reputation of theirs is justified. I have in my ships berserks from Aland who are beginning to complain that this expedition is providing them with splendid booty and excellent ale, but little in the way of good fighting; and they say they are not used to a peaceful life.”

Thorkel commented that he had, on one occasion, encountered Norwegians, but that he had no objection to doing so again, once his arm was healed; for in a battle with them much honor and wealth might be won.

Then Jostein burst into a great roar of laughter and took off his hat and flung it on the ground at his feet. He always wore an old red hat with a broad brim when he was not actually fighting, because his helmet chafed his skull.

“Look at me!” he cried. “I am old and bald; and where age is, there is also wisdom, as I am about to show you. This god-man can deceive you, Thorkel, and you, too, Gudmund, with his craft and cunning, but he cannot deceive me, for I am as old and as wise as he is. It will be a fine thing for him and his King if he can persuade us to fight against the Norwegian; for then we shall destroy each other, and King Ethelred will be quit of us all and will not need to squander any of his silver on such as survive the battle. But if you take my advice, you will not let any such thing happen.”

Gudmund and Thorkel had to admit that they had not thought of it in this light, and that Jostein was the wisest of them all; and the envoys found that they could not prevail upon them any further. So they made ready to return to King Ethelred, to tell him how everything had turned out and to make arrangements to have the silver collected as soon as possible.

But before they departed, they robed themselves in their finest garments, gathered their followers about them, and walked out in solemn procession to the field where the battle had taken place. There they read prayers over the bodies of the dead, who lay half-covered by the richly growing grass, while crows and ravens circled above them in their multitudes, complaining harshly at being thus rudely disturbed from their lawful feeding.

THERE was great rejoicing in the camp when the men learned of the agreement that their chieftains had reached with King Ethelred’s envoys. They all praised the chieftains for striking such a fine bargain, and acclaimed King Ethelred as the most considerate king toward poor seafarers from the north that there had ever been. Much drinking and merrymaking followed, fat sheep and young women being in great demand; and the scholars among them sat round the fires where the sheep were being roasted and tried to calculate how much silver there would be to each ship, and how much for the whole fleet. This they found a difficult task, and there were frequent disputes over who had calculated most correctly; but on one point they were all agreed: namely, that none of them had ever before believed that such a quantity of silver could exist anywhere in the world, unless perhaps in the Emperor’s palace at Miklagard. Some of them thought it surprising that the helmsmen should receive so large a share, seeing that their work was light and they were never required to sit at an oar; but the helmsmen themselves thought that every right-thinking man would appreciate that they were worth more than any other members of the fleet.

Although the ale was good and strong and the excitement great, still, the arguments seldom took a serious turn; for they all now regarded themselves as rich men and found life good, and so were less ready than usual to grope for their weapons.

But Orm sat brooding darkly with the little priest, thinking that few men in the world could find themselves more unhappily placed than he.

Brother Willibald had found plenty to occupy him, for there were many wounded men who required his attention, and he applied himself to their needs with zeal and cunning. He also examined Thorkel’s arm and had a good deal to say about the Bishops’ doctor and the way he had treated it; for he was unwilling to allow that anyone but himself possessed any skill or knowledge in the craft of medicine. He said that he would have to leave with the Bishops, but Orm was reluctant to let him go.

“For it is always a good thing to have a doctor around,” he said, “and it may be, as you say, that you are the best there is. It is true that I should like to send greetings through you to Ylva, this daughter of King Harald; but if I did this, I should never see you again, because of the hatred you bear us Northmen. So I should never know her reply in any case. I cannot decide what is the best thing for me to do, and this uncertainty is having a serious effect on my appetite and sleep.”

“Do you intend to keep me here by force?” asked Brother Willibald indignantly. “I have frequently heard you Northmen boast that your fidelity to your word matches your valor in battle; and all of us who were in the tower were promised that we should be free to go as we pleased. But doubtless that has slipped your memory.”

Orm stared blackly ahead of him and replied that he seldom forgot things. “But it is hard for me to let you go,” he added, “for you are a good counselor to me, even if you can do nothing for me in this matter. You are a wise man, little priest, so answer me this question: if you were in my place and were faced with the problem that faces me, what would you do?”

Brother Willibald smiled to himself and nodded sympathetically at Orm. Then he shook his head.

“You seem to be very fixed on wooing this young woman,” he said, “despite the sharpness of her temper. I am surprised at this, for you godless berserks are usually content with any woman who crosses your path and seldom mope for a particular one. Is it because she is a princess?”

“She can expect no dowry from her father,” said Orm, “the way things have turned out for him. And be sure of this, that it is herself and not her wealth that I yearn for. Nor is the fact that she is of noble blood any obstacle to our marriage, for I am myself of aristocratic ancestry.”

“Perhaps she has given you a love potion,” said Brother Willibald, “and that is why your passion for her is so unrelenting.”

“Once she gave me drink,” said Orm, “but never since. It was the first occasion on which I saw her, and the drink was meat broth. And I drank but little of that, for she lost her temper and threw the cup and the broth into the fireplace. In any case, it was you yourself who ordered the broth to be prepared for me.”

“I was not present while it was being prepared,” said Brother Willibald thoughtfully, “nor while she was bringing it from the kitchen to your room; and a young man needs but a few drops of one of these potions, when the woman in question is young and well shaped. But even if it be true that she put witchcraft in the drink, there is nothing I can do about it; for there is no cure for love save love itself. That is the verdict of all the wise doctors who have ever practiced since the earliest times.”

“The cure you speak of is the cure I wish to have,” said Orm, “and what I am asking is whether you can help me to procure it.”

Brother Willibald pointed his finger at him magisterially, and in his most fatherly manner said: “There is only one thing to be done when a man is troubled and cannot work out his own salvation; but you, unfortunate heathen, are in no position to follow my advice. For the only remedy is to pray to God for help, and that you cannot do.”

“Does He often help you?” asked Orm.

“He helps me when I ask Him sensible things,” replied Brother Willibald with feeling, “and that is more than your gods do for you. He does not listen when I complain to Him about trivial afflictions, which He thinks I am well able to endure on my own; indeed, I have, with my own eyes, seen the holy and blessed Bishop Poppo, when we were fleeing across the sea, cry most desperately to God and St. Peter to relieve him from his seasickness and remain unheard. But when I was in the tower with these other good people, and hunger and thirst and the swords of Antichrist were threatening us, we cried to God in our need, and He heard us and granted our prayers, though there was none among us as blessed in the sight of God as Bishop Poppo. For in God’s good time the envoys arrived and rescued us; and though they were, in one sense, envoys from King Ethelred to the heathen chieftains, still, they were also envoys from God sent from heaven to succor us, in answer to the many and earnest prayers that we had offered up to Him.”

Orm nodded, and admitted that there might be something in what Brother Willibald said, since he had himself been a witness to all this.

“Now I begin to understand,” he said, “why my plan to smoke you out of the tower went astray. Doubtless this God, or whoever you cried to, ordered the wind to arise and blow away the smoke.”

Brother Willibald replied that this was exactly what had happened; the finger of God had countered their evil machinations and set them at naught.

Orm sat pondering in silence, tugging his beard uncertainly.

“My mother has become a Christian in her old age,” he said at length. “She has learned two prayers, which she repeats often, holding them to be most potent. She says it is these prayers that saved me from death and brought me home to her again, after undergoing so many perils; though it may be that Blue-Tongue and I did our share in overcoming them, and you, too, little priest. Now I am beginning to feel that I, too, might ask this God to help me, since He seems to be such a helpful god. But I do not know what He will ask of me in return, nor how I should address Him.”

“You cannot ask God to help you,” said Brother Willibald decisively, “until you have become a Christian. And you cannot become a Christian until you have been baptized. And you cannot be baptized until you have renounced your false gods and professed yourself a convinced believer in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

“Those are a great many conditions,” said Orm. “More than Allah and His Prophet require of a man.”

“Allah and His Prophet?” exclaimed the little priest in surprise. “What do you know of them?”

“I have traveled more widely in the world than you,” replied Orm. “And when I served Almansur in Andalusia, we had to pray to Allah and His Prophet twice a day, and sometimes even thrice. I still remember the prayers, if you would care to hear them.”

Brother Willibald threw up his hands in horror. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!” he cried. “Save us from the machinations of Satan and the devices of Allah the abominable! Your state is as parlous as a man’s could be, for to worship Allah is the worst heresy of all. Are you still a follower of His?”

“I worshipped Him while I was Almansur’s servant,” said Orm, “because my master commanded me to do so, and he was a man whom it was folly to disobey. Since I left him, I have not worshipped any god. Perhaps that is why things have gone less well for me recently.”

“I am surprised that Bishop Poppo did not come to hear of this while you were at King Harald’s court,” said Brother Willibald. “If he had known that you had embraced the black impostor he would have baptized you straightway, so full of zeal and piety is he, even if it had needed twelve of King Harald’s berserks to hold you in the water. It is a good and blessed thing to rescue a plain soul from darkness and blindness; and it may be that even the souls of Northmen should be regarded as deserving of charity, though I confess I can hardly bring myself to believe it after all I have suffered at their hands. But all good men are agreed that it is seven times more glorious to save the soul of one who has been seduced by Mohammed. For Satan himself has not caused more mischief than that man.”