The Iron Lance (18 page)

“We do not,” answered Alexius, choosing his words carefully. He knew full well the danger of denying Bohemond; at the same time, he could not possibly give the prince authority over the crusader armies. “On the contrary, Bold Prince, we deem it a sound and sensible appointment. We doubt the leadership of the pilgrim forces could be placed in better hands. Indeed, we are only sorry that we cannot accede to your desires at this very moment. You will understand the difficulty if we are seen to favor one nobleman over another before all have arrived. Still, we are happy to offer you every assurance that when the time becomes appropriate, the title you seek will be swiftly granted.”

Bohemond, much to the emperor's relief and gratitude, accepted this answer with good grace. “I leave it to your discretion, Emperor Alexius. When the time is ripe, you will find me eager to take up my new responsibilities.”

“We will await the day with keen anticipation. Until then,” said the emperor, almost hugging himself with joy for the way in which he had brought the difficult prince to heel, “please accept the bowl as a small emblem of the treasures awaiting those who persevere in faith and,” he added pointedly, “loyalty.”

Murdo glowered at the white-haired monk before him. Why did it have to be priests, he wondered, and nosey ones at that? “I was hoping to go to Jerusalem with King Magnus,” he muttered thickly, “but I did not reach the ships in time.” The thought of sharing ship space with them filled him with despair—and all the way to Jerusalem!

“How extraordinary!” remarked the tallest of the three clerics. Somewhat older than the others, he appeared to be the leader of the group. His curly white hair was thick and close cut, making him appear to be wearing a fleece on his head.

“Extraordinary!” agreed the other two, regarding Murdo with a benign interest that made his skin crawl.

“That is exactly what happened to us,” the tall monk said. “It took longer to reach Inbhir Ness than we knew. We arrived too late and missed the king's fleet.” The three fell to squabbling about how narrowly they had missed the boat—was it one day, or two, or more? They could not agree; but then, agreement seemed the furthest thing from their intentions.

Without a doubt, Murdo reflected sourly, these were the least likely churchmen he had ever encountered: dressed in long robes of undyed wool, the hems of which were tattered and bedraggled with mud; the hoods of their cowls hung down their backs almost touching the ground, and their sleeves were absurdly wide and ample. They were bare-footed, dirty-fin
gered, and reeking with the odor of lamb fat which Murdo could smell from where he stood.

Huge, worn, leather satchels hung at their sides from straps over their shoulders and, although they were aboard a ship in the middle of the sea, each one carried a well-worn wooden staff made from a rowan sapling. Their foreheads were shaved from ear to ear, save for a thin circlet of close-cropped hair resembling a crown at the brow.

Despite his aversion to clerics, Murdo could not take his eyes from them. As he looked on, it occurred to him that they were like ancient Druids—those weird and mysterious figures who inhabited the tales his grandmother used to tell. “The druid-kind are wise and powerful seers, Murdo-boy,” she would tell him. “They know all things men can know, for they do peer through the veil of time. They know the pathways that lead beyond the walls of this world and, as we might go to Kirkjuvágr, they roam the Otherworld.”

Could they be druids? Murdo wondered. But then he saw the large wooden crosses on leather loops around their necks, and decided that, perhaps they were priests after all—but of some obscure variety unknown to him. One tall and rangy, one narrow-faced and round-shouldered, one short and fat, with their filthy and disheveled appearance, battered satchels and absurd staffs and chunky wooden crosses, they were, if possible, even more odious than the ordinary kind Murdo knew and loathed. Had he possessed a lump of dung, Murdo would have cheerfully pelted them with it.

It was just past dawn, and all the rest of the ship's crew, save the pilot—a grizzled hank of bone and hair named Gorm Far-Seer—were still asleep. Murdo had just woken from his place at the prow, when the three emerged from the tented platform behind the mast where they had, apparently, been sleeping off
the effects of too much Inbhir Ness ale. They then proceeded to hobble up one side of the ship and down the other—not once only, but three times—slowly. They walked with their rowan staffs in their right hands, left hands raised above their foreheads, chanting with high reedy voices in a language that Murdo could not understand.

Upon the completion of their third circuit of the ship, they had come to stand before Murdo to greet him and make his acquaintance. He had not encouraged their questions, but these strange clerics seemed oblivious to his resentment.

“Maybe he has been unforeseeably detained,” the fat one was saying. He spoke his Latin in an odd lilting tongue, strangely accented—more like singing than speaking. “That is exactly what I said: ‘He has been detained'—did I not?”

“And I replied, ‘I fear your hope is mistaken, brother,' remember?” answered the thin one in a fine, faintly accented intonation. “It was, if you will reconsider, precisely explained to us that the king had been there already. The master of the harbor was most emphatic about that.”

“Ah, but there was no harbor,” pointed out the tall one; his speech danced, too, but in a way slightly different to the others. “Unless the rudimentary timber mooring on the river could in some way be considered a harbor.”

“Of course there was no harbor,” replied the thin-faced monk. “I merely meant that which serves
in place of
a harbor for the good folk of Inbhir Ness.”

“If there was no harbor, there could not be a harbor master,” the tall monk rejoined. “Ergo, the man you spoke to may not, in fact, have possessed the necessary authority to provide satisfactory answer to our inquiry.”

“There may be something in what you say,” allowed the fat priest. “Yet, I feel duty bound to point out that the man's
authority was never at issue. Rather, it was his perspicacity. Any man with wit enough—”

Murdo, astonished that they should recount in word-forword detail their inane argument of two days ago, shook his head in disbelief. “But how else were we to get to Jerusalem?” wondered the round-shouldered one. “That is the question before us, brothers.”

“How indeed?” mused the tall monk. “If not for the Great King's providential intervention, we might yet be pondering that very question.”

“We might have walked,” suggested the thin-faced monk. “Many illustrious persons have done so in the past, much to their spiritual improvement. After all,” he added, “it is the means of conveyance our Lord Christ himself chose when travelling abroad the land.”

“Verily, brother, verily,” agreed the elder cleric amiably. “Well said.”

“I have no objection to it whatever,” said the fat one. “I would only offer the observation that Jerusalem may be, according to many and various accounts, rather a great distance from our own green and pleasant shores. Therefore, a journey by foot could conceivably take somewhat longer than we anticipate. The crusade might indeed have achieved its end long before we reached the Holy Land, it must be said.”

“Alas, I fear you may be right,” sighed the thin one, suddenly disheartened by the thought.

Murdo, annoyed by their vaunted blather, decided they were harmless enough, if somewhat tedious. He was about to leave them to their pointless debate when the fat one looked up and grinned at him, his round face shining with simple good will. “Brothers, see here! We are forgetting ourselves. Our young friend has no interest in our trifling suppositions.” The monk
inclined his head in acknowledgement of Murdo's patience. “Like you, we are on pilgrimage. It was arranged for us to join King Magnus' fleet at Inbhir Ness and take passage with him.” Smiling happily, he cheerfully confided, “We are to be his advisers—in spiritual matters, that is—for the duration of the pilgrimage.”

“My brothers,” announced the tall monk suddenly, “this is a most auspicious meeting, and one deserving of proper—and, I dare suggest, hallowed—recognition. The Good Lord has placed this young man in our path as a friend for the journey. Let us acknowledge this glad meeting with a drink!”

“Ale!” cried the fat monk. “We must have ale!”

“The very cry of my heart,” remarked the tall cleric. “Yes, yes, you and Fionn fetch us all some ale. We will celebrate the Almighty's wondrous providence.”

The two clerics tottered off along the rail, returning from their tent a few moments later bearing jars of frothy brown ale which they handed around.

“Hail, Brave Wanderer!” proclaimed the fat monk, thrusting a jar into Murdo's hands. “May the Lord of Hosts be good to you; may the Lord of Peace richly bless you; may the Lord of Grace grant you your heart's desire.” Raising his jar in salute, he cried, “Sláinte!”

“Sláinte!” echoed the other two, eagerly raising their jars.

Murdo recognized the word as Gaelic, a language many of Orkneyjar's older families still maintained, and one his mother often employed when more mundane words failed her. Consequently, Murdo knew enough of it to make himself understood. “Sláinte mor!” he said, which brought smiles and nods of approval from the clerics.

“A man blessed of Heaven's own tongue!” declared the thin-faced monk. “It is myself, Brother Fionn mac Enda, at your ser
vice. May I know your name, my friend?”

“I am Murdo Ranulfson of Dýrness in Orkneyjar,” he answered, straightening himself and squaring his shoulders so as to be worthy of his father's name.

“We drink to you, Murdo Ranulfson!” said the monk called Fionn, and all three raised their cups and began slurping noisily. Murdo followed their example, and for a moment they occupied themselves wholly with their cups.

When the clerics finally came up for a breath, the fat one, beaming like a happy cherub, announced, “I am called Emlyn ap Hygwyd, and I am pleased to meet you, Murdo. I believe we shall be good friends, you and I.”

Although the prospect seemed unlikely in light of Murdo's avowed enmity toward priests, the rotund cleric spoke with such sincerity, Murdo could not bring himself to openly disagree.

“If you please, good Murdo,” Emlyn continued, “allow me to present our esteemed superior, Brother Ronan macDiarmuid.”

The tallest monk bowed his head humbly. “Superior in years only,” he replied with gentle dignity, “not, I hasten to assure you, in zeal for our Lord, devotion, or holiness.”

Murdo repeated the monks names, whereupon they all drank again, and declared the ale a blessing of the highest virtue—in consideration of which they would all be guilty of gross impiety if they did not instantly avail themselves of a second helping. Accordingly, they drained the cups quickly, and Emlyn and Fionn hastened to refill them, returning in a short while, loudly praising the brewer's remarkable skill and generosity.

After they had guzzled from their jars, Ronan said, “Now then, if I may be so bold as to suggest, I find it astonishing that a man of your tender years should be undertaking pilgrimage alone—commendable to be sure, even laudable—but astonishing nonetheless.”

“Many people from Orkneyjar have taken the cross,” Murdo assured him quickly. “My father and brothers have gone before me—they travel in company with Duke Robert of Normandy, and many other noblemen. I am going to join them.”

“Ah, yes,” remarked the monk, as if Murdo had supplied the solution to a longstanding mystery.

“Extraordinary!” the other two declared.

Eager to avoid further questions, Murdo said, “How is it that you come to follow King Magnus?”

“As it happens,” Ronan answered, “our abbey occupies lands granted to Lord Magnus by Malcolm, High King of the Scots some years ago—near Thorsa. Do you know it?”

Before Murdo could answer, Fionn broke in, saying, “When we learned that the good king had taken the cross and intended following the crusade, we made entreaty for the privilege of accompanying our monarch and benefactor on pilgrimage to the Holy Land.”

“Our bishop kindly granted our petition,” explained Emlyn, “and it was arranged that we should accompany King Magnus to Jerusalem. I can only think that something must have gone amiss, otherwise he would not have sailed without us.”

“We were,” offered Ronan, resuming his story, “to be the king's guides and counselors in all matters pertaining to the Holy Land and its environs—leaving, of course, any actual combat to the more militarily inclined among the king's retinue.”

“I have never touched a sword,” Emlyn proclaimed cheerfully. “I am certain I would cut off my own foot before ever coming so much as a stone's throw from a Saracen.”

“He would,” confirmed Fionn. “Indeed, he would—we all would. We are not warlike in the least.”

Murdo considered this pronouncement a pathetic confession of weakness, thinking that if he owned such a defect, he
would not tell another soul; certainly, he would not boast about it with the pride these confused clerics appeared to enjoy.

“Well, I suppose the king has warriors enough already. No doubt he needs priests, too,” Murdo allowed, although why anybody should want three such garrulous clerics was a mystery—especially when even
one
priest was a priest too many in Murdo's reckoning.

Still, the mention of King Malcolm's name piqued his interest. That these monks should have some association with his mother's kin intrigued Murdo. What, he wondered, had the King of the Scots to do with the King of Norway? And why should either of them be giving lands to this curious breed of cleric? Clearly, there was more here than he knew, and he determined to find out.

 

The sun was a foul yellow flare directly overhead when
Skidbladnir
came in sight of the jutting peninsula called Andredeswald by the Angles who lived there. “That is where we shall put in for supplies,” Jon Wing announced.

The weather had been fair and the winds good for many days, allowing the knife-hulled ship to soar over the gentle sea swell as it made its way down along the eastern coast, bearing its crew and passengers swiftly southward. They made landfall now and then at safe havens to refresh the water skins and stoups, always moving swiftly on. Murdo, anxious to reach the Holy Land, resented stopping now—especially since they seemed to have plenty of provisions already.

But Jon would have it no other way but that they put in to shore. “Dofras is the last good market this side of the strait,” he explained. “Where we fetch up next, I cannot say. Better to take with us what we can.”

The monks agreed this seemed the wisest course. “The voyage could be long,” Emlyn told him.

“How long?” asked Murdo suspiciously.

“A year, perhaps even longer—or so I have heard,” replied the priest.

“A year!” challenged Murdo. No place could be so far away that it could take so long. He imagined a few more weeks would be more than sufficient.