TLV - 02 - The Road of the Sea Horse Page 6

As soon as the roads were clear, Harald sent out word that again there would be a full levy, half the men and ships in the realm. This time, he swore, he would have Denmark if he must hunt Svein Estridhsson up to the Jotuns's home. Nidharos became a caldron of armed men, and the bay filled with dragons.

  But one afternoon the king was in his stables, currying his best horse, when Halldor Snorrason sought him out. Looking up as the light from the door was blocked off, Harald saw him standing and went over. "Good day to you, Halldor. What do you seek?"

  "I'd have a word with you, my lord." The Icelander was grave.

  "Well, then, let's take a walk down to the dock." Harald nodded at his carles, who took over the work; several waiting guardsmen shouldered their axes and followed him as he strolled from the yard.

  "Why do you call me lord?" he asked. "I thought we were too old friends for such lickspittle talk."

  "You are the lord now," said Halldor. "You have what you've hankered for, the Norse throne, and this Danish business is foolishness."

  "Not so," answered Harald, unoffended. "You've seen as well as I, down in the South, what a united empire can mean."

  "You'll never have one," said Halldor. "The time's not ripe. It took many hundreds of years to build up the Roman domain. But that's no concern of mine. What I ask now is leave to go home to Iceland."

  Harald stopped. Of the street activity around him, swaggering warriors, tramping horses, haggling merchants, plodding oxcarts, Harald was hardly aware. Looking down at the scarred face, he saw wistfulness under its calm.

  "Are you not pleased with my service?" he asked.

  "Oh, yes. You're no niggard to your friends. But we're scarce getting younger, you and I, and it's time I got me a wife and a home."

  "I can arrange a good marriage for you."

  "I want to be among my own folk," said Halldor. "I have brothers, sisters, kin I haven't seen for . . . God in Heaven, eighteen years since I left them! Now there's a trader from the West-firths, bound back after spending the winter here, and I can get passage with him. My wealth will buy me a good farm."

  "And so you'll bite coals and squabble with your neighbors over cow pastures, the rest of your days," said Harald bitterly.

  Halldor resumed walking, down the slanted street toward the docks on the river. "I'll be an important man," he said. "My house shall be famous someday. But that's no matter. It's only that now and then I long so much to go home, and to be done with this warring and scheming, that it's a sickness in me."

  "Well," said Harald, "if go you must, I shall not stop you." He tried to smile. "It's but that I have so few friends. I'd thought . . . Well, no matter. Our souls are not alike."

  "They were once." Halldor tugged at his mustache. "Do you remember the days of our youth, when we drank Miklagardh dry and set the world on its beam-ends? Hoy, we had some merry times, and there was naught we could not do. Each coin was treasure, each wine a discovery, each woman an adventure. But for us those days are past."

  "We still have much to do," said Harald.

  "And do you laugh as you work at it? No, it's a task, something you do for the sake of wealth and glory, and because you know not how to stop. As for me, Harald, my bones ache after a day's ride, and in wet weather I'd liefer doze by the fire than be out making war. But more than that, these things have ceased to matter very much. One gold piece is just like another, and not worth the trouble of gaining. A new country is only a reach of ground I've not chanced to see before. Women fall into perhaps a dozen kinds—at most—and I know what each kind will do and say whatever happens."

  They came out on the wharf planking, and Harald's eyes went to the haughty curves of a longboat tied nearby. "A ship is a lovely thing," he said. "I don't think men have ever made anything more beautiful."

  "But the shapes are all alike," replied Halldor. "They cannot be otherwise, if they're to sail properly. So has everything in life become. Whatever happens, I'm not surprised, and I already know the answer. Nor do I mind this, I am content. In my youth it would have seemed horrible, better die than live in such a dullness, but now ..." His scar-twisted mouth bent upward, a little sadly. "Why, now I am not a youth."

  "True," said Harald. He sighed. "How old am I . . . thirty-three? Not a great age, but it does seem that time goes faster than it used to. Once I'd have been unable to wait for this summer's outcome—king of Denmark! These days, though . . ." He shrugged.

  Time went, time went, he thought, and even the gods had grown old. Thora was a handsome and lusty wench, with stately manners and a sharp elfin wit, but she was not Maria who had cracked his heart in two. Was it only himself, or had the sun paled since he was a boy?

  Well . . .

  He clapped Halldor's shoulder. "Go with God," he said. "You shall have worthy gifts from me. And . . . when a man from wherever you settle comes hither, send me word by him, will you?"

  3

  In the late spring, when the sowing was finished, the Norse fleet met and sailed down to Jutland. They landed with flame and iron, laying waste the northern part as they steered from beach to beach. After a while they entered Godhnarfjord to make a camp from which they could go inland. That was at dawn, a misty gray light stealing into the sky and dew glistening on the planks. A few dogs ashore barked, a cock crowed, but otherwise the garths they could dimly see lay wrapped in shadow and sleep.

  Harald chuckled and made half a verse:

  "In Godhnarfjord we grip

  the ground with claws of anchors

  while wives do sing unwakeful

  warriors songs of slumber. "

  To Thjodholf the skald, he said, "Now do you complete it."

  The Icelander stroked his ruddy beard, thought for a moment, and chanted:

  "Next summer we'll be sinking

  further south the anchors;

  oft, I spae, hereafter,

  we'll anchor even deeper."

  Harald frowned and crossed himself. The lines did not seem to bode well for this faring. But he did not choose to upbraid Thjodholf, who was a plainspoken man but a good and loyal fighter.

  The Norsemen took the shoreward crofts without trouble, and Harald struck inland toward a hill overlooking the bay. There, he knew, was the home of Thorkell Geysa.

  During the winter, Thorkell’ s daughters had made much sport of King Harald's unlucky ventures; they had cut anchors out of cheese, saying these would surely be strong enough to hold his ships. Now, when a man, white-faced, came running to tell them the foe was here, he panted in wrath and sorrow: "You said, you Geysa daughters, that Harald would not come back to Denmark."

  "That was yesterday," answered Dotta Thor kelsdottir faintly.

  The garth was burned and the girls led to the camp. Somewhat later Thorkell himself appeared; he now stumbled half crazed to Harald. The king set a mighty ransom for his daughters, which was paid a few days later. By that time Harald was already elsewhere and fighting.

  The land lay almost open to him, Svein had not come forth and he had only small skirmishes. At first Harald was gleeful, but as the summer wore on he grew more and more enraged. Well enough to harry and load the ships with plunder, but while his wily foeman held back there would be no settling the war. He thought of wintering in Jutland and next year overrunning the islands. However, Ulf said most of the men would not agree to this but would go home when the term of the levy was up.

  "Fools, dolts, gutless nidhings!" Harald growled in his throat and smacked one fist into the other hand. "What do they think will happen if we leave? Svein will return, and everything will have to be done over."

  Ulf peered at him. "We are no Guthorm's host grabbing a Danelaw. Those were folk who had little or no land at home. Our men have fields which must be harvested or their wives and children starve. They've no wish to sit in a strange country. You'll not take Denmark as the Danes took eastern England, by settling it with your own people."

  Harald's mouth grinned back over his teeth. "Then, by God, if Svein won't meet me like an hone
st man, I'll reave his land till his folk cast him off themselves that they may live!"

  "That seems your best hope," said Ulf. "Were the Norse chiefs friendlier to you, they might persuade the army to do as you wish. But as things are . . ."

  Harald nodded. He had all too few who stood by him. Orm Eilifsson, jarl in the Uplands, was a trusty follower. So was Finn Arnason, but Finn had gone with some others on a long Viking cruise to the West. Thori of Steig supported Harald, as did Thorberg of Gizki, but still, he could count his powerful friends on his fingers.

  "At least," he said, "Einar Thambaskelfir and his son have stayed home. I want none of their service." He sighed; all at once he felt tired. "So be it. Can we not get a foothold, we'll steer back in fall."

  This was done. The men were happy, they had won rich booty with small loss and considered this a well-managed war. Harald, standing moodily in the bows of his dragon, thought the season had been hollow. But one thing at a time. Up here, they had not much idea of the nation; a man might join a foreign king, as he himself had done for a while with Svein, and was not thought to have shamed himself. Men went to war because they must and because of the chance to gain wealth, but they did not see that war could be a means to a larger end. A small-minded folk! Why the devil had he ever come home?

  He straightened and looked ahead, to the rising cliffs of Norway. If he must build a state, then he would; if he must fight Svein for twenty years, he would. His son was going to have a throne which no one dared contest.

  4

  Svein Ulfsson rode through northern Jutland, up near the Skaw. It was a cold gray winter day, the land lay white around him and a few listless flakes drifted from a sullen sky. Not far off he heard the sea, endlessly hurling itself against the land, a heavy underground gnawing. His hooded cloak seemed too thin for the still, relentless frost in the air.

  Beside him rode the English priest William, whom he had made bishop of Roskilde: a strong-willed, fleshy man who often clashed with the king but was still his dearest friend and counselor. Behind him came the royal guard. Their spears were lowered wearily, and they hunched on plodding horses whose heads drooped.

  "Ruin," whispered Svein. "Death and ruin. There were clean-picked bones in that ditch we passed."

  "An ill thing," said William. The beads clicked between his fingers.

  Svein lifted his fist. The long-nosed face was drawn tight with unshed tears. "Sancta Maria, how long must we suffer? I have sinned like any man, but is God so angry that He must wreck my whole kingdom?"

  "His will be done," said the bishop.

  They topped a steep rise. On the farther side lay a burned homestead, a few blackened timbers thrusting above the snow. Some half-dozen people, women and children and an old carle, were huddled in a rude shelter of boughs. They came out in their rags and looked sunken-eyed at the strangers. Hunger had caved in their cheeks.

  "I am ashamed of my full belly," said Svein. He reached in his purse and brought out a fistful of coins. "Here, take these from your king."

  "So you are the king." A woman looked dully at him through a straw-colored mat of hair. "Where were you when they hacked down my husband? Where were you when my milk dried and my baby starved to death? Run your sword through me now and finish your work; you're good enough to fight women!"

  "Let me be, for Christ's sake!" shrieked Svein. He spurred his horse into a shambling trot and left them behind.

  "Be of good heart, my lord," said William. "Worse for the land were it if it took an unlawful king. That would indeed bring down the curse of heaven."

  "No doubt." Svein's hands clenched on the saddlebow.

  "You gain naught by viewing this desolation," went on the bishop. "Best we return to Roskilde. Your good wife tried to make me keep you there, she says you catch cold too easily." Svein was married to Gunnhild, a granddaughter of Haakon Jarl.

  The king said in a jeering tone: "Is that all you think me fit for, to sit by the fire and write Latin letters to foreign priests?"

  "Your friend Hildebrand down in the southlands is worth writing to," said William quietly. "I'd not be surprised if that young man became Pope someday. . . . But I wander. No, my Lord, you would be happier in a more polished age than ours, but I did not mean you cannot master these times."

  "Next year," said Svein, "I will not hang back. I thought this year we'd only lose our last hope, if we went against Harald; but now that I've seen what that hellhound has done—" He clamped his lips together, and was silent for a while, then: "We shall not do less in Norway."

  "My lord," said the bishop, "best for both lands for all Christendom, would be if you sent a message to King Harald challenging him to meet you at a certain place and fight until your differences were settled. He will not refuse that."

  "Before God, I will!" burst out Svein. "And when it's finished, I'll come home with that wolf's head mounted on my prow!"

  "That were a heathen thing to do," said William, shocked.

  "Forgive me. I am too hasty." Svein shuddered. The wet raw air seemed to be seeping through his flesh, winter mists lay dank between his ribs. "No, not that. How . . . how do I know Harald will not have the chance to do thus to me?"

  V

  How Harald Reigned

  1

  The Norse fleet broke up on the way back, as ship after ship turned off when her home coast rose to starboard. Harald approached Nidharos, with less than half his following, and they were not the gallant vessels which had left in spring. Paint was chipped and dull, decks were scuffed, sails faded and sea-streaked, here and there waves had torn out a piece of bulwark or bitten off figurehead and sternpost. The men rowed slowly, a dirty, gaunt, shaggy, sun-blackened crew in ragged clothes, driven by no more than the animal wish to go home. Though casks and bundles of loot were aboard, though hundreds of prisoners awaited ransom or thralldom, there was no victory.

  Harald had th e steering oar when Throndheims fjord hove into sight, hills reaching green but already dimmed by the first gusts of autumn. Wind shrilled across a dark roar of sea, the dragon pitched and wallowed. Low above her, clouds were whipped along like smoke, and spindrift stung the faces of men at the oars. Harald braced his legs wide apart and bent to the unsteady roll, hair and cloak flying wildly, eyes squinted against the blast. Ulf sprawled at his feet, brown troll's face turned upward and hairy arms folded across the knees.

  "So we come back once more with naught to show," said the king.

  "Enough booty for the men to feel it's worth the trouble," reminded Ulf.

  "Oh, yes . . . but my foes will see as well as I that we really failed, and be heartened." Harald stared at Ulf. "Few are they whom I can trust. Do you also plan to return to Iceland?"

  "God forbid," said Ulf. "This playing chess with kingdoms becomes a habit."

  Harald smiled. "That's well, my friend. You shall see that I'm not stingy when men stand by me. When we get home, you shall be my marshal. No man is better fitted to have the guardsmen in charge or to lead the army in my absence."

  "I thank you. But, a man with that rank has certain duties; he himself can't grip gold too tightly."

  "I think," said Harald, "that we have been such near friends so long, in spite of that adder's tongue of yours, because at bottom we are the same. You're as greedy as I, Ulf; you only lack a plan in your life. Well, I need a trustworthy chief in the Throndlaw, so you shall also have the rights of a sheriff, and I'll give to you a fief carved from the estates Magnus took for himself. That should make a good income, some twelve marks I imagine. And thereto I'll lay half a shire in the Throndlaw."

  The green eyes blurred. "From me and my sons you shall ever have friendship!"

  "Ah, yes, your sons. It's long past time you were wed, Ulf, if only to build up your own power with a good alliance. What say you to Jorunn Tho rbergs dottir, sister of Queen Thora?"

  Ulf scratched his black thatch. "She's not a bad-looking wench, and spoke kindly to me the time we guested at Gizki. But how do you know she will—?"


  "Go a-wooing this winter and find out," laughed Harald. "I'll give you an escort of guardsmen and send gifts. Thorberg will not refuse if I know him."

  Something oddly like pain crossed Ulf's face. "Well," he said tonelessly, "if wed I must, she's as good as any, I suppose." He sat for a while without speaking, the wind loud around him, and then said, "Harald, I would you were kinder to Queen Ellisif. She—"

  "That's enough!" rapped the King. "Heed your own affairs and I'll tend to mine."

  "I thank you for your gifts," said Ulf coldly. He got up and went toward the bows.

  The ships steered into the fjord and lay to at Nidharos that evening. A crowd had come down to see them arrive. There were cheers, arms embracing as women and children sought their men. A few women searched through the disembarking crews, halted someone to cry a question, then hid their faces and walked slowly back.

  Harald noticed a big, richly clad man with a guard of warriors strange to him. This one strode up and bowed. "Greetings, my lord," he said with a burred accent. "I had hoped you would come back ere I must return home."