Scramasax (18 page)

To begin with, Solveig felt flushed – more feverish than scared, excited by sharing such danger with Tamas.

But all at once, in the way a cold sea mist seeps in and blots out the sun, the heat drained out of her and she felt afraid and chill.

‘That's enough,' she pleaded.

‘One more.'

‘Nine's a good number.'

‘Pff!'

‘Nine worlds, Tamas. One arrow for each world.'

‘I know a charm,' Tamas intoned, ‘to speed an arrow
to its target. A shrieking Saracen!'

Then Tamas notched the tenth arrow and stepped out from behind the shield. He drew the bowstring, back, right back … His bowstring hissed and it snapped. It whipped Tamas's face and left a red line down his right cheek.

‘No!' Tamas shouted. ‘Back! Careful!'

So while more Saracen arrows whirred around them, Solveig and Tamas quickly retreated until they were safely out of arrowshot again.

Tamas gazed at his bow. Then he opened his eyes wide and pouted at Solveig.

He's like a child, thought Solveig. Like Blubba caught dipping his forefinger into the honeycomb.

‘The trouble is,' Tamas told her, ‘I haven't got any spare strings. I left them aboard the boat.'

‘You can borrow one.'

Tamas shook his head. ‘Precious as fiddle strings,' he lamented. ‘Precious as heartstrings.'

No sooner had the thought crossed Solveig's mind then she acted on it. With her right hand, she reached round to the small of her back.

‘What are you doing?'

Solveig didn't reply.

‘Solveig!'

Solveig drew her scramasax from its scabbard and brandished it. She grabbed a hank of her long fair hair, pulled it sideways and, before Tamas could stop her, sliced it off.

Solveig gazed at Tamas, pink and triumphant. ‘I'm making you a new bowstring,' she told him. Her voice was low and quivering.

The messages passing between Harald Sigurdsson and Maniakes grew more terse and tetchy. Neither leader
was ready to risk his troops in an onslaught on the hill fort's huge iron gates or by scaling the walls with long ladders.

‘Be patient,' Maniakes counselled Harald, ‘if you know what that word means.'

But one day, while watching a flock of twittering martins fly back from the pine grove to their nests in the hill fort, Harald's eyes lit up.

The Viking leader instructed his bird-snarers not to wring the necks of the birds they caught but to bring them to him alive.

The guards brought Harald nineteen birds, some flapping inside a floppy catching-net, some keeping their heads well down.

Harald ordered his catchers to make a mixture of warm wax and fire-powder and a few pine needles, and to smear a glob on the tail feathers of each bird.

‘One spark can set fire to a city,' he told them. ‘That's what Saracens say. And it's what I say.' He raised both arms. ‘Odin, be with us!' he called out. ‘Christ, be with us. Our cause is a just one.'

Then Harald ordered his men to light the wax and the powder and the pine wicks, and to release the nineteen birds. The poor house martins hurtled back to the high hill fort, their nests in the eaves, their fledglings.

Thatched roofs crackled; timber frames caught fire. Very soon a thick plume of black smoke began to rise over the hill fort, and there was nothing whatsoever that the besieged men, women and children could do about it.

They opened the gates and streamed out of the hill fort, surrendering and imploring Maniakes for mercy.

The commander-in-chief instructed his men not to draw their swords or swing their axes or harm their captives in any way.

‘My work,' Maniakes told Harald later that day, ‘is
to win back Sicily for Emperor Michael and Empress Zoe.'

‘You should have strung their leaders up,' Harald replied. ‘At least that. As an example.'

Maniakes gave him a withering look. ‘Vikings!' he said. ‘You're vile. You're always violent. Sometimes mercy is a better weapon than butchery.'

‘If I'd followed your advice,' Harald retorted, ‘we'd still have been here this time next year. You with all your men and siege engines and your sickening patience. In one short hour I achieved what you in six long weeks could not.'

A
lthough Harald Sigurdsson had found a way to capture the hill fort, it was the Byzantines who profited most from it. They were billeted in front of the gateway, and they were first through it. They swept from house to house like a second wave of fire, seizing gold, silver, weapons and other valuables, and leaving the Vikings only poor pickings.

Tamas's share consisted of two little salt spoons, shaped like scallops.

He pocketed one, and in full view of Vibrog and Edla presented the other to Solveig. She wrinkled up her face and tried to give it back to him.

‘Put it in your bone-bag,' Tamas told her. ‘Forget about it.'

Very soon after this, Harald and Maniakes decided to go separate ways – Maniakes to a hill fort further west along the coast, Harald to a walled town in the scorching heart of Sicily.

Neither of them was in the least sorry about it.

‘Good riddance!' Harald declared. ‘The man's a bully and a cheat.'

So says Harald, thought Solveig. But I wonder what Maniakes has to say about him. I don't suppose he'll be singing praise-poems.

Harald's men were relieved to step into a greenwood
after a long morning's ride-and-march. While they waited for their companions who were pushing their newly made siege engines to catch up with them, they stretched out, and many of them dozed.

Not Harald though. As was his habit, he did the rounds, here and there pausing to encourage his guards. When he came upon Solveig, sitting on her own with her back against a stunted oak, he pursed his lips.

‘Hmm!' he purred. ‘One-breasted women, I've heard of them, but not one-plaited women. You'll have to do better than this.'

‘Why?' asked Solveig.

‘If you want to be a Valkyrie—'

‘I don't,' snapped Solveig.

Harald raised an eyebrow.

‘Carrion crows! That's all they are.'

‘I see,' said Harald. ‘You don't think slain warriors should be raised to Asgard.'

Solveig closed her eyes and sighed.

‘Solveig,' began Harald, ‘I can see you're far from happy. I was fifteen once … once upon a time. The year I fought at Stiklestad and overwintered with you. You must learn to accept.'

It's true, Solveig thought. I do keep wrestling with myself. With everyone else. I know Harald's men have to fight – that's why we're here. But that doesn't mean they have to be cruel. And I know we're here to win back Sicily, town by town. But our weapons are swords and scramasaxes, not cunning and deceit. We're humans, not animals.

Harald waved at the men dozing all around them. ‘This is an army. This is how armies are. You begged to come, and I allowed it. Now you must do as we do.'

‘But …' Solveig began. ‘How can I accept without questioning? How can I accept what troubles me?'

‘Your father can,' Harald replied.

Solveig lowered her eyes.

‘Now! What about that scamp? Is he pleased with his bowstring?'

Solveig sighed. ‘No. He says it's not as good as a real one.'

‘There's gratitude for you,' barked Harald. ‘You cut off half your hair and Tamas complains! He's wrong, anyhow. Hair stretches just as willow bends, but it doesn't break.' He reached down and gave Solveig's plait a friendly tug. ‘A man's strength,' he said, ‘and a woman's beauty. That's what hair is. And it goes on growing after a person dies.'

Solveig frowned.

‘So do fingernails and toenails,' Harald told her. ‘Christians clip them off and worship them.'

The two of them caught each other's eye and laughed.

‘Come on, now,' Harald told her. ‘I like to hear that laugh. And your hair will grow back.'

‘Harald,' said Solveig in a serious voice.

‘What now?'

‘Maria.'

Harald frowned. ‘Maria.'

‘Do you know …'

‘What?'

‘. . . know how …'

‘How she carries her heart around on a platter, and keeps offering it to me,' Harald replied brusquely.

‘Will you marry her?'

Harald stared at Solveig. He glared at her. ‘Here I am,' he said in a low voice, ‘here I am in the middle of a scorching day in the middle of a campaign in the middle of Sicily, and you're asking me whether I mean to marry Maria.'

‘Will you, though?' Solveig persisted.

Harald sucked his cheeks and spat on the ground.

A bluster of hot wind rattled the leaves of the oaks.

‘In a man's life,' observed Harald, ‘there are many turnings. What is it your father always says? “Words and intentions come cheap, actions can be costly.”'

Solveig sat still as a nut. She waited.

‘You young women! You always want to talk about feelings. Use your head and let your heart follow, that's what I think.'

Solveig screwed up her face.

‘Not now, Solveig,' Harald told her, and Solveig could hear that just for a moment he sounded understanding, even tender.

Harald Sigurdsson sniffed. ‘Nothing happens until it happens,' he said.

‘You boors!'

‘Boiled lobsters!'

‘Men or women, which are you?'

‘Men-men are spawning babies on your sweethearts.'

‘Yes, and on your sweet sisters.'

‘Shitpool-hogs.'

‘No! A clutch of hens.'

‘Look at you! Peeping round your shields.'

No sooner had the Varangians reached the walled town, set in a valley in the high hills, and planted Land Ravager in front of it, than the Saracen inhabitants began to rain down insults on them.

‘You limping lumps of filth!'

‘Pagans!'

‘Trolls!'

‘Come on!'

‘Come in!'

‘Yes, and welcome! We'll teach you how to fight.'

‘Look! Our gates are open.'

‘Ignore them,' Harald instructed his men. ‘Pitch your tents beyond arrowshot – and out of earshot. Whatever you do, keep away from those gates.'

So that's what the Varangians did, and two weeks passed before they and the Saracens engaged again.

But before dawn on the fifteenth day, while the stars were still sparkling seeds of light, three nightwatchmen – Grimizo was one of them – heard noises coming from the top of the town walls. Quite a hollow sound. The bumping of wood against stone, was it? Then a man's brusque voice. And a strange scratching and scraping.

Grimizo and his companions drew their scramasaxes and raised their shields, daubed as dark as night. Stealthy as cats, they advanced towards the walls, and were crouching at the bottom when three people came slithering down a rope towards them.

A boy. Ten years old perhaps. Then a little girl. And then a man, quite old, with no teeth and a face like wrinkled leather. All three of them were carrying buckets.

The Varangians pounced on them, and although the girl squeaked and the boy wrestled and tried to bite, they were completely overwhelmed.

‘Buckets,' said Grimizo.

‘That's the noise we heard.'

‘Throats?' asked one of his companions.

Grimizo shook his head. ‘No! Hostages are worth more than corpses.'

‘One of those plots over there,' growled the third man. ‘That's where they were going. Where they grow their beans and eggplants.'

‘We've eaten them already,' Grimizo said.

The nightwatchmen found Harald Sigurdsson awake, early as it was.

Harald inspected the three hostages and sniffed.
‘Bottom of the barrel!' he observed. ‘A toothless old man and his two grandchildren. Hang them!'

That speedwell dawn, Solveig woke to the sound of three gallows being built by the Vikings, and she was horrified to see that her father was one of the carpenters.

‘You can't,' she insisted. ‘No matter what Harald says.'

Halfdan didn't reply.

‘You can't.'

‘Devils!' muttered Halfdan. ‘Dark ones! Do away with them!'

‘Talk to him, can't you? Harald listens to you.'

Again Halfdan didn't reply.

‘He asks your advice.'

Solveig begged, she implored, she accused, she kicked at the gallows-frame, she clutched Halfdan's right arm until, impatiently, he shrugged her off.

‘You're not my father!' she cried. ‘Two children. An old man.'

Halfdan's eyes darkened. He avoided his daughter's gaze.

‘In this army, you're a different person. This is worse, much worse than Harald's trickery and cunning. These two children, they're even younger than Kalf and Blubba. Look how that girl keeps hiding behind her grandfather.'

Halfdan didn't reply. Not one word. He pressed his hands against his stomach as if he were trying to hold in his guts, gave a deep sigh and got on with his ghastly work.