There were men and women in it, children and dogs, all chattering excitedly — and all in a good West Norse, so that my heart ached for the sound of it. They had seen a sight they had not seen for some time — a Norse ship, prows decently removed — and had come running.
They stopped some distance off, which was both polite and sensible, then one stepped forward to hail us, a tall,man in a fine linen tunic and breeks, with a good seax strapped round his waist. He had blond hair in two thick braids and a neatly trimmed beard, altogether the very way a fine Norse farmer should look.
Which made it as strange a sight in this land as a calf with a head at each end.
I am Olvar Skartisson,' he announced. 'Who leads this welcome band to us?'
I told him as the crew splashed ashore and began chattering and grinning with the girls and older women.
In the end, everyone dropped into the water and came ashore, grinning and talking.
`Have you come to join us, then?' asked Olvar Skartisson and that set the whole saga tale of it out, as we pitched down on the rocks and sand and got more comfortable. Ale and bread came out and we started in to share our tales.
It turned out that this Na bites was what the Greeks took from
Olvar said he had the right of it, and that when the good Christ-follower Harald Greycloak went under the treacherous swords of that heathen Haakon of Hladir, who was Bluetooth's man in Norway, Skarpheddin had to take his men and flee.
Since they would scarcely leave their families behind, he had to take them, too, and all the ships they sailed in were now in Aldeigjuborg. They had left them there to come by riverboats down all the rivers of the Rus to Miklagard at the expense of little Prince Vladimir, where the Great City's Basileus duly offered the jarl three pounds of gold annually to serve him in his wars.
Which, I thought to myself as this was laid out, showed how young Vladimir, sent to rule Novgorod at four years old by his father, Sviatoslav, was blossoming into a deep-minded prince before his first decade was out, even allowing for his clever Uncle Dobrynya at his side.
His dealing with Skarpheddin was as cheap a way of ridding yourself of a thousand unwanted mouths as you could find, as well as getting yourself a nice fleet of decent Norse ships. Now the landless, luckless Skarpheddin and his whole people were here, at the sharp edge of the Roman frontier, fighting the
At least it made the light brighter on my own problems.
I told him as many vague lies as I thought I would get away with when my men became loose-mouthed.
At the end of it, he dabbed the ale from his moustaches, accepted a refill with a nod and a smile and said:
'Well, perhaps Skarpheddin can help you and you him.'
And why would that be?' I asked, then paused as someone tapped my shoulder. I looked up to see a girl with an ale flask, looking to refill my own. She was red-lipped and pale, with the skin flush and thick white-blonde plaits that spoke of someone who should never sit long in the heat.
She offered up a smile like a new sun and eyes shaped like almonds and I gawped until the girl grew impatient and said: If your mouth hangs open so much, you clearly cannot hold ale in it.' And with that she was gone.
Olvar frowned. 'A
Nothing more was said, but now that I looked, other women were circulating, pouring ale, offering bread from huge baskets of them: Norse women, in fine embroidery and headsquares, hung about with keys and scissors. There were girls, too, like Svala, with their hair in braids.
I saw the Oathsworn smile and blush and hang their heads at being chided for needing their hair and beards trimmed, or their clothes cleaned and mended. The same men, I remembered, who had tripped screaming, veiled women in the dust of Kato Lefkara and tupped them, drooling, only days before.
Olvar then went on to say that Skarpheddin needed new men, for there had been losses in the fighting against the Arabs. He would broach it with his jarl and take us to him.
I saw Brother John hovering. When he caught my eye, he came across and sat down.
`We have injured,' he said to Olvar. 'Do you have someone who can help?'
Olvar smiled and nodded. `Thorhalla's charms are second to none,' he declared, at which Brother John scowled and, realising suddenly that he was talking to a Christ priest, the good Christ-man Olvar blanched and backed water.
Of course, there are priests of the
I was thinking more of someone who can fix wounds,' said Brother John sternly.
Olvar shrugged. 'That we get from the Greeks, who have chirurgeons for it, though some of them are Mussulmen and, being decent Christians, most of us have nothing to do with them.'
Brother John rose and left, shaking his head. Olvar was bewildered and frowning, then he brightened and offered to take me to see Skarpheddin. I had Finn and Brother John organise getting the Goat Boy to proper help, then asked Radoslav and Sighvat to come with me. The others, I thought, would be better staying with the boat.
It had rained, but the day was already warm and growing warmer as we set off, a fair procession of women and girls and men carrying their big baskets, still brimming with round loaves. Olvar said they did this every day, which was their free ration for being part of the army.
He also told us about the Serklanders, which was useful to know.
`They worship the Prophet Mahomet,' he said, 'and every man in the land is allowed to have four wives if he has embraced that way.'
`Four women should just about be enough for me,' grunted Finn, 'after the journey I have had.'
If you do become a Mahomet-follower,' Olvar pointed out, `you can never drink wine or ale or mead again.'
Kvasir laughed with his head thrown back and others joined in, for the struggle on Finn's face over what was more important to him was fine entertainment for a long walk.
Olvar, laughing also, added: 'My own belief is that the old gods are weak in this land and the Serklanders and Christ-men are stronger. The Serklanders only have one god and they call him Allah. The Christ-men and the Jews also only have one God, which is confusing.'
I felt I should point out — for him and all the others who could hear — that All-Father was a force no matter in what corner of the world his followers were and had the satisfaction of seeing Olvar flush.
The land swayed and dipped, as it always did after days at sea and I stumbled, bracing for swells that never came, across rock and scrub heavy with the scent of watered dust. Already I missed the salt breeze on my face. At the crest of the hill above the village, I turned back, to find the
The heat grew, though the sun was just a glow, as if seen through brine, and we sweated in our leather boots and wool over the dusty green land, on a long walk along a road busy with donkeys and carts and oxen, robed men and soldiers in leather and iron.
The sun had moved towards the other horizon by the time we crested the last slope and saw Antioch for the first time. It was less a city than a jewelled reliquary in the late sun, a confection like the ones sold on trays in Mildagard, made of spun sugar and made more dazzling against the black-humped hills behind and the green and gold of crops and grazing land it sat in.
When we reached the bridge over the river at the main gate, though, the spun sugar vanished and the white walls showed black scorch marks I knew only too well. Ox-carts and donkey trains straggled in and out of the gate, while several mounds nearby showed where the massed dead — probably the enemy, since nothing marked it — had been buried.
The Norse had started a camp near the river, where once there had been a Mussulman temple, which they
