The Long Ships (46 page)

Father Willibald was especially jubilant because he had achieved so much during the feast, not only having converted all the guests but having also become the first of all Christ’s servants to succeed in baptizing men from Smaland.

“Now, indeed, I can truthfully say,” he said, “that patience has earned its reward and that I have not accompanied you to this foul land in vain. During these three feast-days forty-five souls have received baptism at my hand. True, alas, it is that none of them can be said to have been impelled by a genuine heartfelt longing for Christ, though I told them so much about Him. Our guests were persuaded by the Irish Masters, and the men from Smaland were baptized against their will. But it is my belief that if a servant of Christ were to sit and wait for the people of this land to come to him out of the longing of their hearts, he would have to wait a long time. And I believe that much good may result from all that has happened during this feast. But the credit for all this is not mine; but belongs to these two Irish Masters; and it was certainly a true miracle of God that they were sent here at the very time when their art was most needed.”

“Only God could have thought of it,” said Asa.

“But now,” said Orm to the four strangers, “it is time for us to hear something more about you curious men who have come to us in the guise of beggars. We should like to know why you two masters wander thus about our land, and who your two companions are, and on what errand you are bound.”

The large man with the grizzled beard glanced at his companions and nodded his head slowly. Then he said, in a heavy voice: “My name is Spjalle and my home is in Uppsala. I have accompanied King Erik on all his campaigns, and have stood beside him as his shield-bearer, because of my size and strength. But now I no longer perform that task; instead, it has been commanded that I shall return to Uppsala in the guise of a beggar, with a sword bound to my leg.”

He ceased speaking, and all the others stared at him in astonishment.

“Why have you a sword bound to your leg?” asked Ylva.

“There is much that I could say in reply to that question,” he replied. “And much else besides; but perchance I have already said too much, for I know that you, woman, are King Sven’s sister. But my chief news is my worst; which is that King Erik, whom men called the Victorious, is dead.”

They all thought that this was news indeed and were eager to know more.

“You need have no fear on my account,” said Ylva, “though I am King Sven’s sister. For there is no love lost between us, and the last greeting we received from him was when he sent men here to seek our lives. Was it he who killed King Erik?”

“No, no!” cried Spjalle indignantly. “Had that been so, I should not now be here to tell the tale. King Erik died of witchcraft; of that I am sure, though whether his death was plotted by the gods, or whether by the foul Gute woman Sigrid, Skoglar-Toste’s daughter and King Erik’s Queen—may she toss perpetually in the whirlpool of hell among sword-blades and serpents’ fangs!—I do not know. The King lay off the Small Islands plundering with a mighty fleet, intending shortly to sail against King Sven, who was hiding in North Sjælland; and good luck attended all our enterprises, so that our hearts were merry. But while we were in harbor at Falster, our luck changed; for there a madness descended upon the King, and he made it known to the whole army that he was intending to become baptized. He said that his luck against King Sven would become better if he did this, and that it would not then be long before he put an end to him for good. He had been seduced into this folly by priests who had come to him from the Saxons and who had long been mumbling in his ear. The army liked this news but little, and wise men told him openly that it ill became the King of the Swedes to think of such foolishness, which might serve for Saxons and Danes but would be of no use to him. But he glowered fiercely at them when they counseled him thus, and answered them shortly; and as they knew him to be the wisest of men and one, besides, who always followed his own inclinations, they said no more to him on the matter. But his Queen, the crazy Gute woman, who had sailed south with us, bringing all the ships she had inherited from her father, loathed Christ and His followers with a savage loathing and refused to let King Erik silence her; so that a terrible enmity sprang up between these two, and it was rumored among the soldiers that she had said that there was no more pitiful object in the world than a baptized king, and that King Erik had threatened to have her flogged if she dared to mention the matter again. But it was too late to talk to her of flogging; she ought to have tasted the birch long before, and many times at that. As a result of their strife, the army became divided, so that we Swedes and the Queen’s men looked askance at one another and exchanged sharp words, and often drew our swords upon one another. Then the witchcraft gripped him, so that he began to sicken and lay helpless, unable to move his limbs; and early one morning, while most of our men were still asleep, Skoglar-Toste’s crazy daughter sailed away with all her ships and deserted us. Many of us thought she had sailed to join King Sven, and the King thought so too when he heard of her departure; but there was nothing we could do, and the King was by now so weak that he was scarcely able to speak. Then a great panic descended upon the army, and all the ships’ captains wanted to desert and return to their homes as soon as they might; and there was much wrangling about the King’s treasure-chests and how they might best be divided among his followers so as to prevent them from falling into King Sven’s hands. But the King called me to his bedside and commanded me to carry his sword back to his son in Uppsala. For this is the ancient sword of the Uppsala kings, which was given them by Fröj and is their dearest possession. ‘Take my sword home, Spjalle,’ he said, ‘and guard it well; for in it resides the luck of my family.’ Then he begged me to give him water to drink, and from this I knew that he had not long to live. Soon afterwards he, whom people called the Victorious, died miserably in his bed; and there were scarcely enough of his followers left to build his pyre. But we performed the task as well as we could, and killed his thralls and two of his priests and laid them on the pyre at his feet, that he might not appear before the gods alone and unaccompanied like a man of low degree. Then, while the pyre was yet aflame, the people of the islands fell upon us in great strength. When I saw them coming, I straightway fled, not from fear, but for the sword’s sake, and with these three men escaped across the water to Skania in a fishing-boat. Now I carry the sword bound to my leg beneath my clothes, to hide it as best I can. But what will happen in the world now that he is dead is more than I can guess, for, of all kings, he was the greatest, though by the foul witch’s contriving he met so mean an end and now lies far away on Falster’s strand with no mound to cover his ashes.”

Such was Spjalle’s story, and all his listeners stood open-eyed and silent to hear such tidings.

“These are evil times for kings,” said Orm at last. “First Styrbjörn, who was the strongest; then King Harald, who was the wisest; and now King Erik, who was the most powerful; and not long since we heard that the great Empress Theofano had also died, she who ruled alone over the Saxons and the Lombards. Only King Sven, my wife’s brother, who is more evil than other kings, does not die, but flourishes and waxes fat. It would be good to know why God does not destroy him and let better kings live.”

“God will smite him in His own good time,” said Father Willibald, “as He smote Holofernes, who had his head hewn off by the woman Judith, or Sennacherib, the Lord of the Assyrians, who was slain by his sons as he knelt praying before his idols. But it sometimes happens that evil men cling hard to life; and in these northern climes the Devil is stronger and more powerful than in more civilized regions. That this is true has just been dreadfully testified before us; for this man Spjalle sits here telling us how he himself slew two of Christ’s servants to sacrifice them on a heathen’s pyre. Such devilry exists nowhere in the world save in these climes and among certain of the Wendish tribes. I do not rightly know what action I should take against the perpetrator of such a crime. Of what use would it be for me to tell you, Spjalle, that you will burn in hell-fire for this deed; for even if you had not committed it, you would burn there just the same.”

Spjalle’s gaze wandered thoughtfully around the small group in which he sat.

“In my ignorance, I have said too much,” he said, “and have made this priest angry. But we acted only according to our ancient custom, for we always do thus when any Swedish king sets out on his journey to the gods. And you told me, woman, that I was not among enemies here.”

“She spoke the truth,” said Orm. “You shall suffer no harm here. But you must not be amazed that we, who are all followers of Christ, hold it an evil thing to have killed a priest.”

“They are among the blessed martyrs now,” said Father Willibald.

“Are they happy there?” asked Spjalle.

“They sit on the right hand of God, and live in bliss such as no mortal man can conceive of,” replied Father Willibald.

“Then they are better off than when they were alive,” said Spjalle, “for in King Erik’s household they were treated as thralls.”

Ylva laughed.

“You deserve more praise than blame,” she said, “for helping to bring them to this happy state.”

Father Willibald glared angrily at her and said that it distressed him to hear her dismiss the matter so lightly. “Such foolish talk was pardonable in you when you were but a thoughtless girl,” he said, “but now that you are a wise housewife with three children, and have received much Christian instruction, you should know better.”

“I am my father’s child,” replied Ylva, “and I cannot remember that he gained much spiritual profit from begetting children or from all the instruction he received from you and Bishop Poppo.”

Father Willibald nodded sorrowfully and passed his hand gently over the crown of his head, as was his wont when anyone mentioned King Harald’s name; for he still bore there the imprint of a crucifix with which the King, in an impatient moment, had struck him a violent blow.

“It cannot be denied that King Harald was a dreadful sinner,” he said; “and on the occasion to which you have referred, I all but joined the regiments of the blessed martyrs. In many ways, though, he was not altogether unlike King David—the resemblance is, perhaps, more noticeable if one compares him with King Sven—and I do not think he would have been pleased to hear one of his daughters jest on the subject of priest-murder.”

“We are all sinners,” said Orm. “Even I am no exception; for I myself have more than once laid violent hands on a priest, during our campaigns in Castile and León, when we stormed the Christians’ towns and burned their churches. Their priests fought bravely against us, with spear and sword, and it was my master Almansur’s command that we should always kill them first. But that was in the days when I knew no better, so that I think God will not judge me too severely for it.”

“My luck is better than I had feared,” said Spjalle. “For I see that I have fallen among honorable men.”

The pale young man with the short black beard, who was the fourth of these beggars, had till now sat silent and heavy-eyed. Now, however, he sighed and spoke.

“All men are sinners,” he said. “Alas, it is too true! But none of you bears as heavy a burden on his soul as I carry. I am Rainald, an unworthy priest of God, canon to the good Bishop Eckard of Schleswig. But I was born at Zülpich in Lotharingia and was formerly magister in the cathedral school at Aachen, and I have come to these northern climes because I am a sinner and a most unlucky man.”

“A man would have to look far before finding more rewarding beggars than you,” said Orm, “for not one of you but has a tale to tell. If your story is good, Rainald, let us hear it.”

“Stories about sin are always good to hear,” said Ylva.

“Only if one listens to them in a pious frame of mind, and profits from them,” said Father Willibald.

“There is, I fear, much profit to be gleaned from my story,” said the magister sadly, “for ever since my twelfth year I have been the unluckiest of men. Perhaps you know that in a cave in the earth between Zülpich and Heimbach there lives a wisewoman called Radla, who has the power of seeing into the future. I was taken to her by my mother, who wished to know if it would be a lucky thing for me to enter the priesthood; for I had a great longing to become a servant of Christ. The wisewoman took my hands in hers and sat for a long while rocking and moaning with her eyes closed, so that I thought I would die of terror. At last she began to speak, and said that I would be a good priest and that much of what I did would prosper. ‘But one piece of bad luck you must carry with you,’ she said. ‘You shall commit three sins, and the second shall be worse than the first, and the third shall be the worst of all. This is your fate, and you cannot escape it.’ Those were her words, and more than that she would not say. We wept bitterly, my mother and I, as we walked home from her cave, for it was our wish that I should be a holy man and free from sin. We went to our old priest to ask his advice, and he said that a man who committed only three sins in his life should be regarded as lucky; but I derived little comfort from that. So I entered the priest-school at Aachen, and none of the students was more zealous or industrious than I, or more assiduous in his avoidance of sin. Both in Latin and in liturgy I was the best in the school, and by the time I was twenty-one I knew the Gospels and the Psalms by heart, as well as much of the Epistles to the Thessalonians and Galatians, which were too difficult for the majority of the students, so that Dean Rumold praised me highly and took me to be his deacon. Dean Rumold was an old man with a voice like a bull and large glaring eyes. People trembled when he addressed them, and he loved two things above all else in the world, after Christ’s holy Church: namely, spiced wine and knowledge. He was expert in sciences so obscure and difficult that few people even knew the meaning of their names, such as astrology, mantik,
1
and algorism,
2
and it was said that he was able to converse with the Empress Theofano in her own Byzantine tongue. For in his younger days, he had been in the Eastland with the learned Bishop Liutprand of Cremona and had rare and wonderful stories to tell of those regions. All his life he had collected books, of which he now possessed more than seventy; and often in the evenings, when I brought the hot wine to him in his chamber, he would instruct me in learned matters, or let me read aloud to him from the works of two ancient poets who were in his library. One of these was called Statius; he sang in difficult words about old wars that had been fought between the Byzantines and a town called Thebes. The other was called Ermoldus Nigellus, and he was easier to understand; he told of the blessed Emperor Ludwig, the son of the great Emperor Charles, and of the wars he had fought against the heathens in Spain. When I made errors in reading Statius, the old Dean would curse me and swipe at me with his stick saying that I ought to love him and read him with care, because he was the first poet of Rome who had turned Christian. I was anxious to please the Dean and to escape his stick, so I did my best to obey him; but I could not come to love this poet greatly, much as I tried to do so. There was, besides, a third poet whose works the Dean possessed, bound more finely than the others, and sometimes I saw him sitting mumbling over them. Whenever he did this, his mood would mellow, and he would send me to fetch more wine; but he would never let me read to him from that book. This made me all the more curious to know what it might contain, and one evening, when he was visiting the Bishop, I went into his chamber and searched around for this book, finding it at last in a small chest that stood beneath his wall-seat. The first thing in the book was ‘Rules for a Magister,’ which is the blessed Benedict’s counsel on how to lead a godly life; and after that there came a discourse on chastity by a man from England called Aldhelmus. Following this was a long poem, beautifully and most carefully inscribed. It was called
Ars amandi
, which means the
Art of Love
, and was written by a poet of ancient Rome called Ovid, who most assuredly was not a Christian.”