Swords From the Sea Page 3

  "May the star of good fortune never fail your Magnificence. I come at command of Phocas, who serves your-"

  "What says he?"

  "The barbarians of the ship thou knowest sent men to the market for grain and oil and dried fish. Phocas himself, waiting in a fishing skiff, listened to their talk. He heard the voice of the woman thou knowest in the cabin of the ship. Ai! He heard her voice many times, and she urged the master of the ship to go away from the city in his boat."

  "And what said he?"

  The oriental spy glanced up shrewdly to judge if his message pleased or not. "Phocas thinks he will not go. Ai-he spoke angrily with the woman, swearing that he had a duel to fight."

  With a gesture the Caesar dismissed his spy. If he knew the mind of Sigurd's son, the Viking would never turn his prow away from a combat. But when late that afternoon-when the sun had gone down behind the Golden Horn and lanterns were appearing like sparks in the darkening alleys-he looked out over the waterfront, he noticed that the dragon ship was moving out from its berth. It was turning toward the sea.

  At the same time a cortege was proceeding from the Sacred Palace toward the great basilica, the gaunt Emperor was walking in his cloth-ofgold to the place of prayer.

  The Caesar liked to overlook the city at this hour of candle-lighting, when the round domes merged into the blue haze, and the sea wall faded against the dark water. It would not be long, he fancied, before he would walk, clad in gold, at the head of his court while the singers intoned hymns of praise. He was thinking then of the four Varangians who had disobeyed his spoken order. Perhaps his cousin the Emperor suspected him-so the Varangians had dared defy him, hoping that he might be struck down by that barbarian.

  If so, John Dukas reasoned, he should lose no time in joining his army. By degrees he could move his cataphracts, his mailed cavalry, across the strait, into the city. The Caesar could act swiftly without seeming to hurry. By full starlight he was at his barge, sitting the saddle of his white charger, with a dozen nobles and officers armed at his side. Beneath the tossing flames of torches his Bulgarian archers, twoscore strong, manned the waist of the great barge. ~Dukas had chosen no Varangians to go with him this night.

  The barge captain struck a chant and the slaves on their benches heaved at their oars. With a fanfare of trumpets and a waving of torches the barge moved out of the harbor toward the distant shore. The Caesar was aware that with the plumes swaying upon the goldplated helmets, and the purple cloaks of his nobles fluttering in the night breeze, it made a fine sight for the crowds on the shore.

  A half-hour and he would be at the head of his army on the Asia side. Then the captain of the slaves cried a warning, and the oars hung motionless. John Dukas heard the thresh of other oars. A shape appeared on the bow.

  A wooden dragon head, crudely carved, with its tongue sticking out, loomed above the rail of his barge. The two craft drifted together. Wood crunched against wood. The barge captain shouted furiously, but the deep voice of Brian, Sigurd's son, cut through his complaining.

  "I see well that you have come armed for weapon-play, lordling."

  It was all absurd, the Caesar thought. That clumsy dragon head that should have been well on its way into the Marmora under the starlight by now. Those twoscore wild figures leaping from the rail of the Viking's ship to the foredeck of his barge-so swiftly that the Bulgarian archers had no time to string and raise their weapons. Absurd, the way the unarmed slaves slid under the rowers' benches or dropped into the water to cling to the oars.

  "Shield wall-shield wall!" cried a grotesque bearded man. Roaring their glee, the Vikings pressed into double ranks, shield overlapping shield, stretching from rail to rail of the barge. The shield wall, topped by iron helms, moved forward swiftly over the benches.

  The Bulgarians took to their axes, and hewed at it. Steel clanged against iron, as the long swords flicked out among the axes. Several of the Bulgarian mercenaries leaped into the water, and more were trodden down by the Vikings. Blood flecked their arms and heads, but when a man went down the warrior behind him stepped forward to his place.

  John Dukas looked to right and left. Far off shone the lights of Con stantinople; no vessels except fishing craft were afloat in the darkness. Over his head, hugging the long wooden neck of the dragon, he made out the slender figure of a girl.

  "Stand fast!" John Dukas cried at his men. "Stand-for aid is coming."

  Leaning down he snatched a spear from an officer. Rising in his stirrups he hurled it fair at Brian, in the center of the shield wall. The Viking swayed his head aside and the spear went by.

  Brian had changed. His eyes were shining. He sang as his sword whirled. The muscles rippled along his bare arm. Here, in the weapon-play, he tasted his joy.

  John Dukas flung himself from the saddle of the white horse-for the trembling charger was useless in a boat. In the boat he must fight, for in armor he could not swim through the water. With his nobles he rushed forward.

  "Now," cried Brian, "there is little between us, Caesar."

  Absurd that John Dukas should be fighting sword in hand, under the last of the guttering torches, under the dragon's head and the eyes of the girl he had put there to make an end of her.

  But Brian thrust the boss of his shield into the face of a Byzantine captain; he drove the pommel of his sword into the jaw of another. "Make way," he said between his teeth, and came at Dukas.

  The Caesar slashed wide at his head, and Brian's iron cap clanged off, leaving blood flowing down. The Viking's sword crashed full upon the Caesar's unlifted shield, cracking it and driving it back on his arm. And Dukas felt sick, at the power that numbed his arm and drove the links of his mail into his chest. Raising his sword again, he was only in time to parry a second terrible blow that beat down his blade and wrenched his right arm from wrist to shoulder.

  He staggered, his crippled arms flapping at his side. A voice was screaming in his ears, and it was his own voice. His jaws snapped together and fell apart, while the Viking's sword was sweeping toward him a third time out of the air.

  John Dukas's body lay on the boards of the deck, the knees moving slowly. Apart from it, still fast in the goldplated helmet with the Caesar's crest, lay his head. Above it the Vikings were stripping gear and jewels from the nobles who had thrown down their arms at his fall.

  "Well, it cannot be said that he was a great man with his weapons."

  Brian leaned on his long sword, staring down at the body, puzzled. It had been a brave encounter, he thought-that of the two boats on the water. But this Caesar had brought with him too many niddering fighters to the duel, and after all he had fallen as easily as a common man.

  He had fallen and the duel was over. "Back to your benches, lads! " cried the Viking. "Out oars and away!"

  When the oars churned the water white under the star-gleam, he stood by the steering sweep, watching for pursuit. No sail followed. Slowly the lights of the great city merged and dwindled astern. Fiddle Skal was singing to the laboring messmates of the sword that wrought a lordling's doom. But Brian wondered why the sea was without hue and cry after them.

  In his mind he recalled that afternoon, when he had seen again the two men that sold him Irene. The bearded Greek peddler had been fishing in a skiff; but Theophile had brought a message to the ship. Theophile, that confidential man with the staff, had said that Dukas would fight the duel that evening, coming out in his barge to meet the dragon ship midway between the city and the Asia shore after the first starlight. Theophile had whispered it, showing fleetingly a signet ring in his hand. And now Brian wondered.

  He washed the blood from his head and went down into the cabin where Irene was sitting, with a curtain cloth on her knee. The place looked bright now and not at all like a wolf's throat. She held out her hands to him. "You are brave, my lord."

  It pleased him, but still he did not forget the doubt in his mind. "I am thinking," he explained, "that Dukas the Caesar did not relish that duel of ours. It may be that
he did not seek it. Yet that man of his, Theophile, showed me his signet ring."

  Irene sewed a stitch or two. "It was not his. I saw it." She sighed and thought for a moment. "The ring was the Emperor's. Aye, Theophile must have been his spy."

  Brian could make little of this. "Then why, after that, didst thou pray me to sail away?"

  "Because-" she lifted her eyes suddenly to him-"I was afraid for thee. Do not think now of that which is past, and I will not." She took his face between her hands and smiled unsteadily. In her heart she had said farewell to the sunlit palace by the Judas trees. "Wilt thou take me to that land where the lotus eaters are, and no one remembers aught?"

  "Aye-if it will make thee glad, my lovely one."

  "So glad," she said softly, "so glad."

  Out of the mist the dragon's head appeared. Then came its body, long and low and lined with shields. From the mist it wallowed toward the shore. It turned into a narrow bay, long oars moving slowly like fins at its side.

  So, upon a winter's noon when the snow lay deep under the firs, the dragon ship came into Thord's bay. The first to see it was a young girl, walking upon the outer wall of Thord's hall.

  Bright quick eyes she had, and she knew well the like of ships. An instant she stared with a swift-drawn breath, and then was flying down the stone steps, her tawny hair twisting about her slender throat. Into the great hall she burst.

  "My father, a Viking ship has put into the shore." And she stamped her foot. "Make haste!"

  Sir Thord, a broad, mild man, reached behind his chair for his weapons. In other days he had fought off raids of the Vikings who came in their long boats from the northern sea. But of late he liked better to trade with them. Times were hard and he had few men to follow him when he went warfaring out of the manor.

  Another man got to his feet. A champion he was, tall and dark, with a shield of arms embroidered on his long robe. He had fur at his wrists and throat, this Valgard-for he was the king's warden of the coast who gathered in tithes and hung up miscreants. Few could match him ahorse or afoot, with sword or ax or spear. A man of mark-a fine huntsman, and rich. He laughed across the table at the excited girl.

  "God send," said he, "that this seafarer be the Red Elf. I have looked long for him."

  The girl, Astrid, had heard much talk of the Red Elf, who was the most elusive of the Vikings. Men said that he sailed all the seas, in any weather. He followed war like a raven, and he wooed the kiss of the young storm maidens adorned with seaweed. Some said that devils flew behind his sail, beating air into it with their wings. All agreed that he had the gift of foresight-he could see that which was to be. And a drunken Scot swore that he had seen the Red Elf land and flit over the snow more swiftly than a running horse. A hard man to lay hand on, this Red Elf who haunted the seas.

  "What luck," muttered Valgard, while his squire laced his mail habergeon upon his shoulders, "that this Viking ship should put in while I am guesting here."

  "Luck!" echoed old Thord, drinking from his goblet. The hall was full of the stalwart, well-armed liegemen of the warden. Two score and ten of them. They would be a match for a Viking crew. The warden had looked twice at Astrid, and had lingered here, after the storm that brought him to seek a haven had passed on.

  Valgard said no word about the maid, but he lingered, and Thord bethought him that it might come to a match between them. A good thing it would be, too-if the proud Valgard should ask Astrid for his bride. Thord no longer had gold or silver in big chests. The fishing had been had, and he could not pay the tithes the warden demanded. Aye, by chance and misfortune the wolf of poverty sniffed loud at Thord's door.

  Two fishermen came running in with word from the shore.

  "My lord," said they, "a Viking ship is at anchor by the rocks. Yea, 'twas harried i' the storm and seeketh meat and fresh water. Yonder seafarers will be after peace, and not war."

  Thord looked up. "Will they trade?"

  "Yea, my lord, that they will do. They have rich trove from other lands and they will trade this day for meat and drink, which they lack."

  Valgard lifted his shield, smiling. "If 'tis the Red Elf himself, we must beware. He hath more tricks in him than a fox.

  "Now I will tell you what to do. Send word to the rovers by these churls-" he nodded at the fishermen-"that you will keep the peace and in an hour you will come to the landing with cattle, wine kegs, and grain. You will do this, but I will go with my liegemen into the wood beside the landing. When the Viking chief comes ashore I will sally out and make him captive. Then will we have some of his men and his trove that he brings ashore. And the devils left in the ship can do naught but row away."

  Thord got to his feet uncertainly. He thought that the Vikings might be wolves; still, if they pledged a peace they would hold to it. But before he could speak Astrid was at his side, holding high her small head.

  "Sir Warden," she cried, "this ship has come into my father's land, not yours. What do we know of this Red Elf-surely it may be another!"

  "Hush, child-" began Thord.

  "Why," she demanded, "do you not go, Sir Warden, with your armed liegemen and guard my father openly at his trading, so that no harm may come of this landfall?"

  Valgard smiled, his eyes upon hers. "I will not have it said that I stood by with sword in sheath while the Red Elf fed and got away. We know not for certain it is he, but who else would come out of the sea at this time?"

  The girl looked up at her father. "Will you do this?"

  "Aye," said Thord heavily, and bade the fishermen take back the message of peace to the ship. He could not do without Valgard's help-and his wild girl had angered Valgard. She said no more, but when she would have slipped from the room, the warden laid hand upon her arm. At once she freed herself and sprang away through the door.

  "Forgive her, my lord," muttered Thord uneasily. "I have spoiled the girl, I fear-"

  "Nay, she is a beauty and knows it not." Valgard wondered why the image of this maid should be burned into his brain. She was willful, and untaught-a shabby little brat queening it in this dark, cracked hall. But the flash of her eyes, the soft gleam of her hair haunted his thoughts. What if she should be clad in brocaded silk with pearls twined around that slim throat? What if her hair were shaken loose upon her shoulders, and color brought into the pale cheeks?

  So Valgard mused, until it was time for him to set out with his men to the ambush in the wood by the landing. It would take him some time to work his way quietly around, through the trees.

  Astrid was before him. In soft boots and flying cloak she flitted over the drifted paths. The firs, sighing under the wind, drowned the slight sound of her feet, until she came out in a clearing within sight of the shore. And then she stopped, frightened, hands pressed against her heart.

  The man in the clearing had been amusing himself tossing pine cones at squirrels. Before he heard her, he sighted her figure moving toward him-and he turned, snatching up a long spear from the snow and pois ing it. Astrid thought to see it flying toward her. But he lowered it, looking from right to left. He came swiftly toward her.

  He had fiery red hair, cut short of his shoulders. Over his left arm hung a bossed shield with gold gleaming, and a long scarlet mantle. Gaunt and brown was the face from which his blue eyes glanced warily. But when he stood leaning upon the spear shaft before her, his eyes smiled.

  A thought came to her. "Are you the Red Elf?" she asked, breathlessly.

  He had the arm ring of a chieftain, and silver shone on his belt. Although he did no more than look at her, she felt afraid. "My name," he said slowly, "is Karli. But what are you?"

  "Go back to your ship," she whispered. "Go back quickly, and away. One is coming in secret through this wood, and he will deal badly by you and he hath fifty swordsmen to back him."

  The Viking did not move. "Is it so?" he asked. "Yet just now the people of the manor sent a pledge of peace."

  "I will not have my father foresworn and mocked by men. 'Tis the king's
warden who comes by stealth, seeking to take the Red Elf, who bath a rare good price on his head, and is beside a playmate of fiends-"

  Dismayed she stopped, wondering tardily whether this red-haired Karli might not be the Red Elf himself. She had looked for an old and crafty man, while this Viking was young and aimless enough to sport with the squirrels. Yet his spear had almost sped into her breast.

  "Sit down," he said quietly, laying his mantle upon a rock, "so that we may talk. You must be Sir Thord's daughter?"

  "'Tis so, and 'tis the truth I have told you. Go-call in your men and make away from the shore, or they will hang you."

  "Listen," quoth Karli the Viking.

  Anxiously she strained her ears, bearing a distant roar. "A heavy sea beats on the headlands," she explained.

  "Aye, and we have come out of it well with our lives, into the shelter of your bay. For a day and the half of a day we have tasted no food. Now my men are eating snow. Think you they will put out again unfed?"

  She noticed then that his leather jacket was stained, his hands cracked and bleeding. Had the dragon ship been out in that two weeks' storm? "What will you do then?" she asked.

  "Talk a bit," he said gravely. "My neck, it is safe enough now that I have such a hostage."

  For a moment she did not grasp his meaning, and he began to speak of the Red Elf. "So the landsmen call him. Now the truth is, that he is son of the slain Earl of the Norsemen, and the price has been put upon his head by his foes, who would like well to send the son to the sire. So this Red Elf and messmates hie them far over the sea-aye to the Emperor at Constantinople, and the dukes of Sicily. They are warfaring elsewhere to save their skins, and-"

  "Stop! Are you a churl to hold me captive, when I came to warn you?"

  Karli's blue eyes gazed at her impassively. For all his ready words, she could not guess at his thoughts,

  "Hold you fast I will," he said. He reached out his hand to hold her loosened hair, and she did not see that his powerful fingers trembled, so amazed was she at his words.