The Long Ships (62 page)

On the next day I went back to sword-bearer Zacharias, who was so pleased with the way everything had turned out that he acted honorably toward me. Everything, he said, leering with satisfaction, had gone better than he could have hoped. Skule had been dead when the watch had found him, and the Archimandrite was now in prison charged with street-brawling and murder. There was good hope that he would not be released before his ears had been clipped, for the Emperor Constantine feared his brother, and the Emperor Basil always meted out severe punishment to any monk convicted of disorderly behavior and, moreover, disliked having men of his bodyguard murdered. As a reward for the success of my efforts, my request was to be granted immediately. He had, he said, already spoken with important friends of his who held high positions in the navy, and before long I would find myself a ship’s chieftain in one of the red ships, which were regarded as the finest in the fleet.

Things turned out as he had promised, for even Byzantine courtiers sometimes keep their word. So I was appointed to a good ship and departed with my son from the palace and the perils it contained for us. We rowed westwards to the land of Apulia, where we fought Mohammed’s servants, both those of Sicily and those who belong to more distant lands. We stayed there a long time and underwent many adventures, which it would take long to relate. My son waxed strong and comely. I made him an archer in my ship. He liked the sea, and we were happy there. But when we were ashore, he was often foolish with women, as young people are, and this caused quarrels between us. When we anchored in the Emperor’s harbors, Bari or Tarentum in Apulia, or Modon, or Nepanto, where the great shipyards are, and where we received our pay, there were always plenty of women to choose from, for wherever sailors are with booty and pay, thither women always flock eagerly. But there were also in these towns officers called
strategi
, and silver-booted naval chieftains, and officials called
secretices
and
logothetes
who dealt with matters of pay and booty. They had their wives with them, beautiful women with dovelike voices and white hands and painted eyes. They were full of witchcraft, and not for seafaring men, as I often told Halvdan.

But he paid small heed to my counsel. It was his fate that women’s eyes always turned toward him, and he thought none but the best good enough for one who had lain with the Emperor’s daughter. The Byzantine women are fiery, and swift to cuckold their husbands once their lust is aroused. But their men dislike being cuckolded, and those in high office order the death of any young man who arouses their suspicions, and often kill their wives, too, that their minds may be set at rest and that they may marry again and be luckier. My advice to Halvdan was always to leave married women alone and to content himself with those whose virtue was their own business. If he had heeded my counsel, that which afterwards happened would never have happened. He would not be dead, and I should not be as I am. Neither should I be sitting here telling you of the Bulgar gold. It would have been better so.

It was not for the woman’s sake that he was killed, but for that of the gold. But it was the woman who caused our ways to separate, and the rest followed.

It was then that sword-bearer Zacharias Lakenodrako spat the communion bread into the face of his enemy, the Archimandrite Sophron, who had by this time returned into the Emperor’s favor, crying aloud before the assembled court that the Archimandrite had poisoned it. The Archimandrite was whipped for this and exiled to a distant monastery, but Zacharias, too, was dismissed from his office and had his ears clipped for dishonoring Christ. For it was held that, once a man had taken the body of Christ into his mouth, he ought to have the faith to swallow it, even if he knew it to be poisoned. When this news reached me from Miklagard, I laughed aloud, thinking that it would be difficult to decide which of the two men was the more evil, and that the ambitions of both to have the other’s ears clipped had now been satisfied.

But Zacharias had a son called Theofilus. He was already thirty years old and was serving at the court. When his father lost his ears and his office, the son went to both Emperors and prostrated himself on the ground at their feet. He said that the sin his father had committed was, indeed, most foul, and the punishment inflicted upon him so mild that he wept for joy whenever he thought of it. In short, he praised the goodness of the two Emperors so enthusiastically that before very long the Emperor Basil appointed him naval treasurer. This meant that, for the future, he was to supervise the division of all booty won anywhere by the Emperor’s ships, and was, besides, to be in complete charge of all matters concerning sailors’ pay.

We came with the red fleet to Modon, to have our keels scraped and to be paid. Treasurer Theofilus was there, with his wife. I never saw her, but my son quickly did so, and she him. It was in church that their eyes first met, and although he was but a young archer and she a rich woman, it was not long before they met in secret and indulged their lust for each other. Of this I knew nothing until he came to me one day and told me he was weary of the sea and had hopes of a better position in the treasurer’s household. The woman had told her husband that Halvdan was son to a man who had once done his father a service by spiting the Archimandrite, so that now Halvdan stood high not only in the woman’s favor, but in that of her husband also.

When I heard the reasons for his appointment, I told him he might as well run a sword through his breast there and then as do what he intended to do. I also said that it was cruel of him to leave me alone and kinless for a woman’s painted eyes. But he would have his way, and refused to hearken to my counsel. The woman, he said, was like a flame, and without flaw, and he would never be able to live without her. Besides which, he said, he would now grow rich and famous in the treasurer’s service and would no longer have to continue as a poor archer. There was no danger, he said, of his being found out and killed, for, he bade me remember, he was half Byzantine and therefore better able than I to understand many things, including women. When he said this, I was gripped with fury and cursed his mother’s name; and so we parted.

This was a great grief for me. But I thought that, in time, the woman would tire of him, or he of her, and that then he would come back. “Then,” I thought, “when my service is finished, he will return with me home to the north and take a wife there and forget his Byzantine blood.”

So time passed, and the Emperor Basil, who is the greatest warlord who has ever ruled in Miklagard, began a new campaign against the Bulgars. These people are bold warriors and terrible bandits, and plague their neighbors fearfully, so that they have excited the wrath of many emperors; and now the Emperor Basil had sworn an oath to destroy their kingdom and every man of them and hang their King in chains above his own city gate. He invaded their land with a mighty army, and his red fleet sailed up into the Black Sea to harry their coasts.

But twelve of the best ships were detailed upon a special mission, and mine was among them. We took soldiers from the army aboard, as many as the ships could hold, and sailed northwards along the coast till we reached the mouth of a river called Danube, which is the greatest of all rivers. The commander of our flotilla was named Bardas; he was in the biggest of our ships, and I heard, as we rowed up the river three abreast, that the naval treasurer was on board with him. At this I rejoiced, hoping to see my son again, if he was still alive. But why the treasurer should be accompanying us, none could say.

We heard the trump of war-horns ahead and, rounding a bend in the river, sighted a great fortress. It stood behind dikes and stockades on a hill not far from the river. All around was marsh and wilderness, with nothing to be seen but reeds and birds. We all marveled that our Emperor had sent us to so desolate a place as this. We put soldiers and archers ashore to storm the fortress. The Bulgars fought valiantly on their ramparts, and it was not until the second day that we gained the upper hand. I was wounded in my shoulder by an arrow and went back to my ship. There they drew out the arrow and dressed the wound; and as night fell, I sat on the deck and saw the fortress burn and the treasurer’s men come back with prisoners, who staggered beneath the weight of the booty they were carrying. The ship that had carried Bardas and the treasurer lay at the end of our line, nearest to the fortress; then came two other ships, then mine, and then the rest in a line up the river. A short while after darkness had fallen, we heard shouts and alarums from one of the ships below us, and men cried from other ships to ask what might be afoot. I thought some of the men had probably been trying to steal the booty, and that Bardas was teaching them a lesson. But soon the noise ceased and everything became quiet, save for the baying of wolves who had scented meat. So I sat there, sleepless because of the pain in my arm.

Then a man came swimming toward my ship. I could hear him in the water, but could see nothing. I took a spear and bade him say who he was, for I feared the Bulgars might be upon us, but when I heard him reply, my heart leaped, for the voice was that of my son. When I had pulled him aboard, he sat there panting. I said: “It is good to see your face. I had small hope that we should meet again.” He replied in a low voice: “Bardas has been murdered in his ship, and many others with him. The treasurer and his father have fled with the gold—more gold than anyone has ever seen. We must go after them and take it from them. Have you archers aboard?”

I gave him drink to calm him, and answered that I had some fifteen archers left aboard, the rest being ashore, but that I wished to know more about this gold, for this was the first I had heard of it.

Eagerly he replied: “The gold belonged to the Bulgar King, who kept it hidden here. The Emperor learned of this and sent us here with his treasurer, whom he trusted. I saw the gold as they were carrying it aboard, and helped to seal it with the Emperor’s seal. But the treasurer hates the Emperor for what he did to his father. The old man is here with him, and they planned this together. All his men were bribed to help him, and when darkness fell they killed Bardas and his officers and the archers of his bodyguard. It was easy, for the others suspected nothing. But I thought to myself: ‘This was lately the Emperor’s gold, and while it was his it was a crime for any man to touch it. Now it is the treasurer’s; but if it should be taken from him, whose will it be then?’ I reasoned thus; then, when no one was looking, I slipped overboard into the river and swam here to you. They will not miss me, for they will think I have been killed in the fighting. But now answer me this question: whose shall the gold be if it is taken from them?”

I said: “This must be the reason that the treasurer anchored his ship farthest downstream, so that they might more easily escape in the darkness. If they have already fled, the gold will belong to whoever can take it from them and keep it; for such is the unwritten law of the sea. First they will float silently downstream in silence; then, when they are out of earshot, they will unship their oars. When it begins to grow light, they will set sail, and with this wind they will soon be well out to sea. It would be good to know where they are making for. There is much here that requires thought, and I do not want to do anything before I am sure which is the wisest course to follow.”

Halvdan said: “The treasurer told me that we should flee to Tmutorokan, beyond Krim, where we would divide up the treasure, and then proceed to the country of the Khazars, to be safe from the Emperor’s wrath; after which, he said, we might go where we pleased. He said this to the others also; so it is certain he does not intend to go there. But a short while before we started on this voyage, I heard him sitting mumbling with his father, just after some message had reached them, and I heard the old man say it was a good thing for them that the great Prince of Kiev had begun again to beget children upon his concubines and no longer honored his High Princess, our Emperor’s sister, so that there was small friendship between him and the Emperor. I therefore think that they intend to flee to Kiev with the gold.”

I said: “Halvdan, you are a wise boy, and I think you have guessed rightly. If they are heading for Kiev, they are sailing in a direction that suits us well, for they are taking it halfway home for us. If we let them reach Kiev, we shall find good men there willing to help us take it from them, if we find we cannot do so ourselves unaided. There is no need for us to start yet, for we must not let them see us following them over the sea, lest they should grow suspicious and alter their course. But a short while before it is light, when even the best ship’s watchmen are asleep, let us leave this place silently. I have grieved much that you left me, Halvdan, but perhaps what happened was for the best, for this affair looks as if it may prove most luck for us both.”

Thus spake I, foolishly; for what known god likes to hear men praise their luck before it has come to them?

I asked him about the woman who had seduced him. He replied that the treasurer had wearied of her and imprisoned her in a nunnery, because she had taken to defending herself when he tried to birch her. “And,” he said, “when I found that she was lusting after other young men besides me, I, too, wearied of her.”

This pleased me, and I promised him far finer women when we should bring the gold home to the north.

As the first gray appeared in the sky, we weighed anchor and swung out into the river, with our oars shipped and our rowers asleep on their benches, and glided downstream without anyone crying to ask whither we were going. When the crew and the archers awoke, I gave them better food than that to which they were accustomed, and stronger drink; then I told them that we were pursuing thieves who had fled with the Emperor’s booty. More than that I did not tell them. It was not my intention to act dishonorably and steal one of the Emperor’s ships, for I wished but to borrow it until I had achieved my purpose. I thought this not unjust, seeing that he owed me a year’s pay.