The Long Ships (13 page)

So saying, she lifted her veil, at which the Jew abased himself again. Toke tugged at his beard and muttered to Orm: “It is my girl from the fortress, and she is more beautiful now than ever. Her luck must indeed have been good, for since we last saw her, she has become a queen. I should like to know whether she is pleased to see me again.”

The lady glanced toward Toke and said: “Why do you address your friend and not me?”

Orm replied to her that Toke could not understand Arabic, but that he said that he remembered her and thought her even more beautiful now than when he had last seen her. “And we both rejoice,” he added, “to see that luck and power have come your way, for you appear to us to be deserving of the one and worthy of the other.”

She looked at Orm and smiled, and said: “But you, O red man, have learned the language of this country, as I have done. Which is the better man, you or your friend who was once my master?”

“We both reckon ourselves to be good men,” replied Orm. “But I am young and am less experienced than he; and he performed mighty feats when we took the fortress that was your home. Therefore I hold him to be the better man of us as yet, though he cannot tell you so himself in the language of this land. But better than either of us was Krok, our chieftain; but he is dead.”

She said that she remembered Krok, and that good chieftains seldom lived to be old. Orm told her how he had died, and she nodded, and said: “Fate has woven our destinies together in a curious way. You took my father’s house and slew him and most of his people, for which I should rightly make you atone with your lives. But my father was a cruel man, especially toward my mother, and I hated and feared him like a hairy devil. I was glad when he was killed, and was not sorry to find myself among foreigners, nor to be made love to by your friend, though it was a pity that we were never able to talk to each other. I did not much care for the smell of his beard, but he had merry eyes and a kind laugh, and these I liked; and he used me gently, even when he was drunk and impatient with lust. He left no bruises on my body, and gave me only a light burden to bear on the march to the ship. I would have been willing to accompany him to your country. Tell him this.”

All that she had said Orm repeated to Toke, who listened with a contented expression. When Orm had finished, Toke said: “You see how lucky I am with women! But she is the best I ever saw, and you may tell her that I said so. Do you suppose that she intends to make me an important man in this country of hers?”

Orm replied that she had said nothing about that; then, after repeating Toke’s compliment to her, he begged her to tell them what had happened to her since they had parted on the seashore.

“The ship’s captain brought me hither to Córdoba,” she said. “Nor did he lay his hand on me, though he had forced me to stand naked before him, for he knew that I would make a fine gift for him to present to his master, the Grand Vizier. Now, therefore, I belong to the Grand Vizier of the Caliph, who is called Almansur and is the most powerful man in the whole of the Caliph’s dominions. He, after first instructing me in the teaching of the Prophet, raised me from a slave-girl to be his chief wife, since he found that my beauty exceeded that of all his other women. Praised be Allah for it! So you have brought me luck, for if you had not come to destroy my father’s fortress, I should still be living in daily dread of my father and should have had some bad man forced on me as a husband, for all my beauty. When, therefore, Solomon, who makes my finest jewelry, informed me that you were still alive, I resolved to give you such assistance as lay within my power.”

“We have three persons to thank for freeing us from the galley benches,” said Orm: “yourself, Solomon, and a man from Málaga called Khalid. Now, though, we know that it was your word that counted for most; therefore we give our chief thanks to you. It was lucky for us that we met such people as you and these two poets, for otherwise we should still be straining on our benches, with naught but death to hope for. We shall be proud to enter your lord’s service, and to aid him against his enemies. But we are surprised that you succeeded in persuading him to release us, for all the power you wield; for we seamen from the north are regarded here as great enemies, and have been so ever since the days of the sons of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks.”

Subaida replied: “You did my lord Almansur a great service when you took my father’s fortress, for he would not else have known that I existed. Besides this, it is well known among the people of this country that the men of the north keep their word and are brave warriors. Both the Caliph Abd-er-Rahman the Great, and his father, the Emir Abdullah, had many Northmen in their bodyguards, for in those days your countrymen harried our Spanish coasts sorely; but of late few Northmen have been seen in these parts, so that there are now none of them in the royal bodyguard. If you serve my lord Almansur faithfully and well, you will be richly rewarded, and the captain of the guard will give you and your men full armor and fine weapons. But first I have a gift for each of you.”

She beckoned to one of the slaves who stood beside the litter, and he brought forward two swords, with splendidly ornamented scabbards and belts embossed with heavy silver buckles. One of these she gave to Toke, and the other to Orm. They accepted them joyfully, for they had felt naked with no swords at their waists during the years that had passed. They drew them forth from their scabbards, examining the blades closely, and weighing them in their hands. Solomon looked at the swords and said: “These were forged in Toledo, where the best smiths in the world, both in silver and in steel, work. They still make swords straight there, as was the fashion in the time of the Gothic kings, before the servants of the Prophet came to this land. No smith alive forges a finer sword than these.”

Toke laughed aloud for joy and began to mutter to himself. At length he said:

“Long have the warrior’s hands
Known the oar’s timber.
See how they laugh to hold
Once more the war-man’s blade.”

Orm was anxious not to be outdone as a poet, so he reflected for a few minutes and then, holding his sword before his face, said:

“The sword the fair one gave me
I raise with my left hand,
Like Tyr among the immortals.
The serpent has won back his sting.”

Subaida laughed and said: “Giving a man a sword is like giving a woman a looking-glass; they have eyes left for nothing else. But it is good to see gifts so gratefully received. May they bring you luck.”

Then their meeting ended, for Subaida said that the time had come for her to bid them farewell, though it might chance that some time they would meet again. So she stepped into her litter and was borne away.

As they returned with Solomon to his house, the three of them were loud in their praise of Subaida and of the costly presents she had given them. Solomon explained that he had known her for more than a year and had often sold her jewelry. He had realized from the first that she was the same girl that Toke had won in the cruel margrave’s fortress, though her beauty had greatly increased since then.

Toke said: “She is fair and kind, and does not forget those who take her fancy. It is a hard thing for me to see her again, knowing that she is the wife of a great lord. Still, I am glad she does not belong to that potbellied old goat with the silver hammer who captured us. I should not have liked that. But, all in all, I cannot complain, for the girl Solomon has found for me suits me very well.”

Orm questioned the Jew concerning Subaida’s lord, Almansur, asking how he could be the mightiest man in the land. Surely the Caliph must be more powerful than he? Solomon, however, explained how the matter lay. The previous Caliph, Hakam the Learned, the son of Abd-er-Rahman the Great, had been a great ruler despite the fact that he had spent most of his time reading books and conversing with learned men. On his death he had left no heir save an infant son, named Hisham, who was the present Caliph. Now Hakam had ordained that his most trusted counselor, together with his favorite wife, who was the child’s mother, should rule until Hisham came of age. Unfortunately, these two had so enjoyed the exercise of their power that they had imprisoned the young Caliph in a castle, on the pretext that he was of too holy a nature to be bothered with earthly matters. This counselor, in his capacity as regent of the realm, had won many victories against the Christians in the north, as a result of which he had received the title of Almansur, meaning “the Conqueror.” The Queen, the young Caliph’s mother, had for a long time past loved Almansur above all other earthly things, but he had become weary of her, for she was older than he and inclined, besides, to be captious about the division of power; so now she had been imprisoned, like her son, and Almansur ruled alone in the land as the Caliph’s regent. Many of his subjects hated him for what he had done to the Caliph and the Queen Mother, but many loved him for the victories he had gained against the Christians; and he was a good master to his bodyguard, for he relied on them as a shield against all who treasured envy and hatred toward him. Orm and his men might, therefore, expect to prosper in Almansur’s palace while there was peace, in addition to all the fighting that they could wish for, since each spring Almansur set forth with a mighty army, either against the King of Asturia and the Count of Castile, or against the King of Navarre and the Count of Aragon, far away in the north near the border country of the Franks. All these monarchs lived in perpetual dread of him and were glad to pay him tribute in order to make him postpone his visits.

“But they do not find it easy to buy him off,” continued Solomon, “the reason for this being that he is a very unhappy man. He is powerful and victorious, and has succeeded in every enterprise to which he has laid his hand; but, in spite of all this, everyone knows that he is plagued by an incessant fear. For he has turned his hand against the Caliph, who is the shadow of the Prophet, and has stolen his power from him; on account of which, he lives in daily dread of the wrath of Allah and has no peace in his soul. Each year he seeks to propitiate Allah by waging new wars against the Christians, and that is why he never accepts tribute from all the Christian princes at once, but only allows each of them to buy him off for a few months at a time, so that he can always have some of them available for him to put zealously to the sword. Of all the warriors that have ever been born in this land, he is the mightiest; and he has sworn a great oath that he will die in the field, with his face turned toward the false worshippers who believe that the son of Joseph was God. He takes little interest in verses or music, so that these are lean times for poets compared with the favors we enjoyed under Hakam the Wise; but in his leisure hours he finds some pleasure in gold and silver work and in precious stones, so I cannot complain. I bought this house in Córdoba that I might the better serve his pleasure; and long may he flourish and long may fortune smile upon him, for to a silversmith he is indeed a good master.”

All this and more Solomon recounted to Orm, and Orm repeated it to Toke and the others; and they agreed that this Almansur must be a notable prince. But his fear of Allah they could not understand, for it was unknown among the Northmen for anyone to be afraid of the gods.

Before the time came for them to leave the Jew’s house, he gave them sage counsel on many matters; above all, he warned Toke never to let it become known that he had formerly been Subaida’s master.

“For princes enjoy the sight of their women’s former lovers no more than we do,” he said, “and it was bold of her to allow you to see her again, even though there were witnesses present to swear, if necessary, that nothing untoward occurred. In this, as in all other respects, Almansur is a sharp-eyed master, so that Toke will do well to keep a tight rein on his tongue.”

Toke replied that there was no fear of his doing otherwise; and that his most immediate concern was to think of a good name for his sword. For such a sword as his had surely come from the hand of as great a smith as he who had forged Sigurd’s sword Gram, or Mimming, which had belonged to Didrik, or Skofnung, which Rolf the Jade had wielded. Therefore it must have a name, as theirs had had. But he could not hit upon any name that pleased him, though he tried assiduously to think of one. Orm, however, called his sword Blue-Tongue.

They left Solomon with many expressions of thanks, and were conducted to Almansur’s palace, where they were received by an officer of the royal household and were given armor and a full complement of weapons, and commenced their service in Almansur’s bodyguard. And the seven men from the north elected Orm to be their chieftain.

ORM entered the Imperial bodyguard at Córdoba in the year commonly reckoned as the eighth of the reign of the Caliph Hisham; that is, three years before Bue Digre and Vagn Akesson sailed with the Jomsvikings against the Norwegians. He remained in Almansur’s service for four years.

The men of the Imperial bodyguard were greatly respected in Córdoba, and were more finely attired than the ordinary citizens. Their mail shirts were light and thin, but more resilient and of finer workmanship than any that Orm and his men had ever previously seen. Their helmets shone like silver, and on occasion they wore scarlet cloaks over their amor; and their shields were engraved round the edge with an arc of lettering, cunningly worked. This same legend was sewn upon Almansur’s great banners, which were always borne at the head of his army when he marched to war, and the meaning of it was: “Allah alone is victorious.”

The first occasion on which Orm and his men entered Almansur’s presence, to be shown to him by the commander of the guard, they were surprised at his appearance, for they had imagined him to be of the proportions of a hero. He was in fact an unprepossessing man, pinched and half-bald, with a yellow-green face and heavy eyebrows. He was seated on a broad bed among a heap of cushions, and tugged meditatively at his beard as he addressed rapid commands to two secretaries seated on the floor before him, who took down everything he said. On a table beside his bed there stood a copper box and, next to the box, a bowl of fruit and a large wicker cage, in which several tiny monkeys were playing and leaping round on a wheel. While the secretaries were writing down what he had just said, he took fruit from the bowl and put it between the bars of the cage and watched the monkeys fighting for the gift and stretching out their dwarfish hands for more; but instead of smiling at their antics, he stared at them with sad eyes and pushed more fruit between the bars and began again to dictate to his secretaries.