The Road of the Sea Horse Read online

  HARALD, THE KING

  "We'll make fire of our own!" vowed Harald to his men.

  They rushed up under the walls, losing some men on the way but reaching the riverward gate. "Out axes! Chop our way in!" Harald cried. Splinters flew while the ax-men's comrades held shields above them to ward off raining stones.

  Around the wall came a force of townsmen, sallying from another gate. Harald had kept most of his crew grouped, and now sped to meet the enemy. Shields thudded together, spears thrust provoking grunts at one end and screams at the other, swords blurred and axes belled. The heavy river gate went down and Harald drew his lines back to enter it.

  "Fire arrows!" bawled Harald. "Set the damned town on fire!"

  Like shooting stars, the blazing shafts arced from the harbor and onto the roofs. The flames hissed, nuzzled into the thatch and ate hungrily. Roaring against a wan sky, a wave of heat smote men's faces and the crumbling buildings glowed white-hot. As Harald watched the flames bellow he felt the thrill of victory and the bitter bile of death—and he knew there would be more to come . . .

  THE LAST VIKING

  Book 2

  THE ROAD OF THE SEA HORSE

  POUL ANDERSON

  ZEBRA BOOKS KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  ZEBRA BOOKS are published by

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP. 21 East 40th Street New York, N.Y. 10016

  Copyright © 1980 by Poul Anderson

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Printed in the United States of America

  SEA HORSE ROAD

  FOREWORD

  The Golden Horn told of the earlier years of Harald Sigurdharson, and of what had happened before he was born.

  In the year 872 A.D., King Harald Halfdansson, called Fairhair, finished bringing all Norway under himself when he smote his last foemen at the battle of Hafrsfjord. Many chieftains and yeomen disliked his stern rule and left the country. This was especially true in its northern parts, for Harald was from the South, where his Yngling family had been strong since mythic times. Above all, the men of the Throndlaw, the rich land opening on the Throndheimsfjord where the town Nidharos was, often stood fast against the will of Harald and his successors. Those who departed went to the British Isles, to Normandy, though that was mainly a Danish colony, and to the Iceland which Norse seafarers had lately discovered.

  Harald was followed by his oldest son Eirik Blood-Ax, who soon grew hated for his harshness and greed. Another son of Harald, Haakon, had been fostered in England, and now came back to claim his right; for any son of a king, legitimate or not, could inherit the power if the folk hailed him at their Things, their shire-meetings. With no backing left him, Eirik must needs flee to England, where he fell in warfare. Meanwhile Haakon reigned so well in Norway that he came to be known as the Good, though he did not succeed in making the country Christian as he had hoped.

  The sons of Eirik harassed him for years. After he died fighting against them, they took power in the West under the leadership of Harald Grayfell, who is therefore remembered as King Harald II. However, the North was held by Sigurdh, the jarl of Hladhi, who had been a friend of Haakon. ("Jarl" was the only hereditary title other than "king" in old Scandinavia, though a king could raise a man to that rank. Such a chieftain was often stronger than most who bore the name of king. Those might be numerous at any given time, no matter that their power was generally small and they themselves under the overlordship of the king of the entire country.) The South was held by lesser kings, also descended from Harald Fairhair.

  Sigurdh's son and successor, Haakon Jarl the Great, conspired with the king of Denmark and lured Harald Grayfell to his death. Thereafter Haakon Jarl, aided by the Danes, took over most of Norway. He soon renounced his fealty to the Danish king and defeated an expedition sent against him.

  Yet in the end he became so oppressive that folk welcomed a new arrival: Olaf Tryggvason, formerly a Viking, later a lord in Dublin, a great-grandson of the first Harald. Overthrowing Haakon, who suffered a miserable death, Olaf made himself master of Norway in 995 and set about Christianizing it—by persuasion when he could, otherwise by fire, sword, and torture. After five years, he fell in a sea fight against a combined force of Danes, Swedes, and Norse, the last under the sons of Haakon Jarl.

  The leaders of this force became the strongest men in Norway, though vassals of Denmark, until 1015. At that time still another former Viking of the Yngling line arrived from the West. This was Olaf Haraldsson, nicknamed the Stout, born to one of those Southern shire-kings who had perished at the hands of enemies. The new Olaf, who had been baptized, fought his way to supremacy and undertook the conversion of the people as ruthlessly as his namesake had done.

  In time that provoked rebellion among chieftains and yeomen, including many Christians. They found help in the mighty King Knut of Denmark, known in English history as Canute. Olaf escaped to Russia, where Grand Prince Jaroslav gave him refuge.

  The Kievan state had gotten its dynasty from Scandinavia and still kept closely in touch with the lands of its forebears. While the gap between Catholic and Orthodox churches was widening, it had not yet become an open breach. Jaroslav had married a Swedish princess, Ingigerdh, to whom Olaf had once been betrothed. By her Jaroslav had had several children, including a girl named Elizabeth.

  In 1030, with what forces he could muster, Olaf returned to Norway, hoping to win back his realm. After he landed, some folk rallied to his cause.

  These included his half-brother Harald. Following the death of her first husband, Olaf's father, strong-willed Aasta had married a kinsman of his, the shire-king Sigurdh Sow. Harald had been born to them. After Sigurdh also died, Aasta ruled over the great family estate near the Oslofjord. In 1030, at fifteen years of age, Harald was already close to the seven feet of height he would have as a grown man, and wild to join Olaf. Aasta gave him a following of warriors.

  The hosts met at Stiklastadh: on the one hand, the king and those who would restore him; on the other, men who felt that they were defending their ancient rights against a tyrant. After a terrible combat, Olaf fell. Harald, wounded, was brought from the field by the Orkneyman Rognvald Brusason, who left him in the care of a dweller in the wilderness.

  When he had recovered, Harald went on to Sweden, where Rognvald was waiting. Together they sought out Jaroslav in Russia. He made them welcome. In the following years, Harald rose high in his army, fighting against insurgent Poles and predatory nomads.

  Meanwhile, Olaf's body had been carried to Nidharos, where it was said to lie undecayed in a church. The hand of the Danish viceroy was heavy, and folk began to fear that in killing Olaf they had killed a saint. Olaf's bastard son Magnus was also brought to refuge with Jaroslav.

  Harald saw that he must bide his time before he could go home. He needed wealth for the hiring of fighters, too; and he wished to see more of the world. Getting leave from Jaroslav, he took a following south to Constantinople.

  This was the queen city of Christendom, reigning over an empire that reached from the Balkans to Mesopotamia. Brilliant, rich, corrupt, reeling toward a downfall that nonetheless would take nearly five centuries more, the Byzantines found few whom they could trust. Among those few were the emperor's Varangian Guard, mercenaries from the Northlands. Erelong Harald was the captain of these.

  As such, for the next several years he warred against both Saracens and rebels. The great booty that he won he sent back with Russian traders, for Jaroslav to keep for him. He learned much about the ways of lordship. He got two close friends, the Icelanders Halldor Snorrason and Ulf Uspaksson. At last he
fell in love with a young lady, an attendant upon the Empress Zoe, Maria Skleraina.

  A revolution brought Zoe and her sister to supreme power. When Harald sought her permission to marry Maria, she denied him. After all, he had fought for the former emperor against the uprising. That had simply been his duty; however, his later failure to toady to her and even seek to be among her lovers was still more angering. He swallowed his own rage and went off to campaign for the empire in Italy. Soon after his return, he was imprisoned on a trumped-up charge of embezzlement. His Russian connections had much to do with that, since Jaroslav had lately launched an unsuccessful attack on the empire.

  Harald escaped, together with his friends Ulf and

  Halldor, and even took Maria along. She, though, went unwillingly, and pleaded with him to let her go, since otherwise her family would be open to Zoe's lethal spite. He loved her too much to refuse this, but never afterward forgot that he had lost her because he was powerless.

  Having fared back to Jaroslav in Kiev, he was well received. Not only was wealth waiting for him there, but many things had been happening in the North. After Knut's death, the leading men of Norway had looked for ways to get rid of Danish rule. Foremost among them were Einar Thambaskelfir (the Archer), who had fought in the last battle of Olaf Tryggvason, and the brothers Kalf and Finn Arnason. They had fetched young Magnus, the son of King Olaf Haraldsson the Stout—who was now thought of as St. Olaf—from Russia, and gotten him hailed as the new king. The Danes were soon expelled and Magnus ruled alone. By treaty, he also had a claim on both Denmark and England.

  At first he was an overbearing lord, who caused Kalf Arnason to flee westward and brought his people close to revolt. However, his godfather Sighvat, a famous skald (poet), brought him to his senses, and before long he was known as Magnus the Good.

  Harald, meanwhile, married Elizabeth, daughter of Jaroslav and Ingigerdh. In the Norse tongue, her name was softened to Ellisif. With what strength the Grand Prince would supply and that he himself could raise, Harald crossed the Baltic Sea to seek his fortune.

  After taking over in Denmark, Magnus Olafsson had made Svein Estridhsson his jarl over that country. Svein, on his mother's side, was a scion of its old Skjoldung kings—hence his nickname, for his father had been of lower rank than her. He soon rebelled and proclaimed himself the Danish king. Magnus contested that, and made Svein flee to Sweden, whose own king was not loth to give shelter to an enemy of his Norse rival.

  There Harald found Svein. Since Magnus would not agree that his uncle had at least an equal right to head Norway, Harald allied himself with the Dane. During the strife that followed, the first child of Harald and Ellisif was born: a girl, whom the father had christened Maria.

  The alliance was uneasy, with bad faith on both sides. Harald negotiated secretly with Magnus. Later Svein sent a man who tried to kill Harald. Thereupon, in 1046 A.D., the Norseman took his crews off to meet with his nephew.

  They reached agreement, Harald and Magnus. They would share the kingship of Norway and the riches brought up from Byzantium, though Magnus, as the son of St. Olaf, would always take first place.

  For the time being, Harald was content. He was no longer a landless wanderer, unable even to keep the woman he loved. Between them, he and Magnus ought to break Svein and lay Denmark under them. After that, through old treaties, they had a claim on the throne of England.

  Full of joy was the faring

  on fjords beyond the beaches,

  when kingly ships did craftily

  catch with sails the breezes.

  Hurrying sea horses

  hewed with keels the waters;

  swiftly went we storming

  seaward in the longships

  —Sighvat

  I

  Of Kings in Norway

  1

  With many ships and men at their beck, King Magnus and King Harald sailed to Jutland. There they made landfall and harried widely. Their foe Svein did not care to meet them, but took his own fleet eastward along Scania, to wait till he heard the Norse had gone home. The Jutes themselves raised a force under a mighty yeoman, Thorkell Geysa, who had named Svein King of Denmark at Viborg Thing; but in a hard battle they were defeated, and Thorkell himself carried prisoner back to Norway.

  Thither Magnus and Harald steered in the fall, agreeing that next year they would come with a real army and quell the Danes for good. Magnus went straight to Nidharos, but Harald, who wished to see more of this land he had won, entered the Sognefjord.

  In and in his ships went, under tall cliffs helmed with forest through which showed occasionally the slender gleam of a waterfall, a gnarled tree clinging within a cleft, a steading perched, tiny, on the heights. The water was cold and darkly clear; clouds blowing over the steeps made it seem they were endlessly toppling; an eagle hovered far aloft on sun-gold wings.

  "So this is your country," said Elizabeth. Her voice was very low, as if crushed by the hugeness around her. "I see now what shaped you."

  "My shire is less grand," Harald answered. "But my blood comes from such wellsprings as you see here. The very word 'Viking' means a man of the vik, the inlet."

  She shivered a little.

  Leaving his vesssels beached under guard, Harald rode off into the mountains at the head of such warriors as there were horses for, mounts either carried aboard or bought from folk of the neighborhood. Through a high wilderness they fared, where rivers brawled down into the tangle-wood of glens, flushed birds rose skyward in thunderous thousands, wolves howled, oftimes the mighty form of elk or aurochs shook horns against heaven. Dwellings were few, far apart, mostly small and poor, in the middle of fields carved out of the forest. A house could give shelter to the king, the queen, maybe two or three more, but the rest of the troop must spread sleeping bags outside. Then in the evening, the guests would likely hear fearsome tales of what haunted the land: elf and drow, were-bear and troll; no housewife failed to set out a bowl of milk for the hearth goblin, and on feast days offerings were made at the howes of long-dead chieftains. Hai, was that a rush of rain and wind in the night, or a ghost thumping his heels on the roof? Some men swore they had seen the Asgardh's Ride, one-eyed Odhinn leading the unhallowed dead on their endless hunt through the air, with screaming horns and baying hounds whose jaws dripped flame.

  Beyond those parts, slopes led downward to the great valley called the Gudhbrandsdal. There folk were well off. Thori of Steig made Harald welcome, and the king stayed with him for some time, while letting his strength grow. Besides his picked followers, he drew many young men who had heard of him and thought they might do well in his service. Erelong he had a good-sized court of his own.

  Having no settled home as yet, Harald left Elizabeth and Maria with Thori and renewed the olden practice: that a king should visit chief after chief, the cost of his stay with them being reckoned as part of their scot. He heard that Magnus was doing likewise this winter.

  Riding through the Uplands, he was always questioning folk, to learn how the realm stood. Money was his worry; much though he already had, it would not last unless he could start gathering in the taxes due him. At one lordly hall, he was told that the harvest had been bad and there was not enough ready money to pay.

  "Well," said Harald, "you have broad lands. You can sell some."

  "My lord, this is odal land," protested the chief. "By law, it cannot be sold out of the family, and none of my kin would want to buy it of me."

  "I know the law," said Harald impatiently. "But I know too you can borrow against your cattle or next year's crop."

  The chief swallowed his anger as he saw the armed guardsmen. "If you could but wait a year, my lord . . . The interest is so high."

  Harald cocked his brow. "No," he said. "I know your kind; let the king yield a finger, and you'll eat his whole arm. If the scot be not paid by spring, I will seize the land."

  As he rode off, one of those who had lately joined him said, "My lord, this is no way to win their friendship. I'v
e heard them talking when you were out of earshot, that good King Magnus would not fare thus against them."

  "Magnus is a fool," said Harald bitterly. "He thinks this is a hundred years ago. I say it's not. Unless the king is strong, the kingdom will be weak—a prey for the first wild beast that comes along."

  "How much of your fret is for the realm," asked Halldor, "and how much for yourself? Be not too greedy, Harald. He who reaches too far will fall."

  "You have the soul of a yeoman," said Ulf.

  "I'm following the rest of you," said Halldor. "When have I hung back from trouble? But I will not be a party to this sort of thing much longer."

  Harald remained silent; he was used to Halldor's tongue, but he brooded over Magnus. This split rule could lead to no good, and it seemed to him that the younger man was buying the people's love with the people's strength.

  At a large garth in the Uplands, he found his nephew also guesting. Magnus greeted him without warmth, and when they found themselves alone, blurted:

  "Harald, I've been hearing talk of your doings.

  Not thus did I plan to reign."

  "You promised me my share of the royal power and income," replied Harald. "I was but taking it."

  Magnus looked up the towering height of his uncle, to the lean unsmiling face. "You go too harshly," he said. "Kings have lost their thrones, sometimes their lives, for that."

  "Because the chiefs and the commoners would not have change, even when change was needed," snapped Harald. "When I was in the South, I saw how one realm after another went under because it was weakly ruled. The empire was strong because all the power lay in one place, yet it could have been stronger had the emperors taken the reins themselves instead of letting geldings run their affairs."