The Hammer and The Cross

“A world where the Christ-god is supreme. Where for a thousand years and more men are subject to him alone and to his priests. Then, at the end of that thousand years—the burning and the famine. And all through the thousand years, the fight to keep men as they are, to tell them to forget this world and think only of the next. As if Ragnarok—the battle of gods and men and giants—were already decided and men were sure of victory.” His face was as stern as stone as he looked at the circle of priests.

“It is against that world that we have set our faces, and it is that future which we mean to avert. You will remember that by chance I heard in London of the death of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks. Then it came to me in my sleep that this was one of those moments when the history of the world may take a different turn. And so I called on Brand”—he waved a hand at the massive figure hunkered down a few feet away—“to take the news to the sons of Ragnar, and to take it in such a way that they could not refuse the challenge. Few men might have survived that errand. Yet Brand did it, as a duty to us, in the name of the one who will come from the North. Come from the North, we believe, to set the world on its true path.”

The men in the circle touched their pendants respectfully.

Farman went on. “It was in my mind that the sons of Ragnar, falling on the Christian kingdoms of England, might break their power and be a mighty force for us, for the Way. I was a fool to guess at the meaning of the gods. A fool, too, to think that good might come from the evil of the Ragnarssons. They are not Christians, but what they do gives the Christians strength. Torture. Violation. The making of heimnars.”

Ingulf, Hund's master, cut in. “Ivar—he is of the brood of Loki, sent to afflict the earth. He has been seen on the other side—and not as man. He is not one to be used for any good purpose.”

“As now we see,” replied Farman. “For far from breaking the power of the Christ-god church, he has made alliance with it. For his own ends—and only that fool of an archbishop would trust him. Yet for the moment both are stronger.”

“And we are poorer!” growled Brand, driven beyond respect.

“But is Ivar richer?” asked Vestmund. “I cannot see what Ivar and his brothers have from this deal they have made. Except entry into York.”

“I can tell you that,” said Thorvin. “For I have looked well into this matter. We have all seen how poor their money is here. Little silver, much lead, much copper. Where has all the silver gone? Even the English ask each other that. I can tell you. The Church has taken it.

“We do not understand—even Ivar cannot know—how rich the Church in Northumbria is. They have been here two hundred years and all that time they have taken gifts of silver, and of gold, and of land. And from the land they wring more silver, and from the land they do not own they wring yet more. To splash a child with water, to make her wedding holy, in the end to bury them in holy soil and take away the threat of eternal torment—not for their sins, but for failure to pay the toll.”

“But what do they do with this silver?” Farman asked.

“They make ornaments for their god. It all lies now in the minster, as useless as when it was first in the soil. The silver and the gold in their chalices, in their great roods and rood-screens, in the plates for the altar and the boxes for the bodies of their saints—it comes out of the money. The richer the Church, the poorer the coinage.” He shook his head in disgust.

“The Church will hand nothing over—and Ivar does not even know what lies in his hand. The priests have told him that they will call in all the coins of the realm and melt them down. Purge out the base metal and leave him only the silver. And then with that they will make him a new coinage. A coinage for Ivar the Victorious, king of York. And Dublin too.

“The Ragnarssons may not be richer. They will be more powerful.”

“And Brand, son of Barn, will be poorer!” snarled an angry voice.

“So what we have done,” summed up Skaldfinn, “is to bring the Ragnarssons and the Christ-priests together. How sure are you now of your dream, Farman? And what of the world's history and of its future?”

“There is one thing I did not dream then,” replied Farman. “But I have dreamed him since. And that is the boy Skjef.”

“His name is Shef,” put in Hund.

Farman nodded agreement. “Think of it. He defied Ivar. He fought the holmgang. He broke the walls of York. And he walked up to Thorvin's meeting months ago and said he was one who came from the North.”

“He only meant he came from the north part of the kingdom, from the Northfolk,” protested Hund.

“What he meant is one thing, what the gods mean is another,” said Farman. “Do not forget also: I saw him on the other side. In the home of the gods itself.

“And there is another strange thing about him. Who is his father? Sigvarth Jarl thinks he is. But for that we have only his mother's word. It comes to me that perhaps this boy is the beginning of the great change, the center of the circle, though no one could have guessed it. And so I have to ask his friends and those who know him a question:

“Is the boy mad?”

Slowly, eyes turned to Ingulf. He raised his eyebrows.

“Mad? That is not a word to be used by a leech. But since you put it to me in that way, I will tell you. Yes, of course the boy Shef is mad. Consider…”

Hund found his friend, as he had known he would, standing amid a litter of charred wood and iron at the northeast tower, above the Aldwark, surrounded by a knot of interested pendant-wearers. He slipped between them like an eel.

“Have you worked it out yet?” he asked.

Shef looked up. “I think I have the answer now. There was a monk with each machine, whose duty was to see it destroyed instead of captured. They started the job, then scuttled back to the Minster. The men they left behind had no great desire to see the burning finished. This slave was captured,” he nodded at a collared Englishman inside the ring of Vikings. “He told me how it worked. I haven't tried to rebuild the machine, but I understand it now.”

He indicated the pile of charred timbers and iron devices.

“This is the machine that fires the bolts.”

Shef pointed. “See, the spring is not in the wood, it is in the rope. Twisted rope. This axle is turned and twists the rope which puts more and more force on each bow-arm and the bowstring. Then, at the right moment, you release the bowstring…”

“Wham,” said one of the Vikings. “And there goes old Tonni.”

A grunt of laughter. Shef pointed at the toothed wheels on the frame. “See the rust on them? They are as old as time. I do not know how long it is since the Rome-folk left, or if these things have been lying round in some armory ever since. But anyway, they were not made by the minster-folk. It is all they can do to use them.”

“What of the great boulder-machine?”

“They burnt that better. But I already knew how they were made before we got over the wall. The minster- folk had all that in a book, and the parts of the machine also, left over from olden times, so the slave says. I am sorry they burnt it all, for that alone. And I should like to see the book that tells how to build machines. That and the book of numbercraft!”

“Erkenbert has the numbercraft,” said the slave suddenly, catching the Norse word in Shef's still faintly English pronunciation. “He is the arithmeticus.”

Several Vikings clutched their pendants protectively. Shef laughed.

“Arithmeticus or no arithmeticus, I can build a better machine than him. Many machines. The thrall says he heard a minster-man say once, of themselves and the Rome- folk, that the Christians now are as dwarves on the shoulders of giants. Well, they may have the giants to ride on, with their books and their old machines and old walls left over from time past. But they are dwarves just the same. And we, we are—”

“Do not say it,” cut in a Viking, stepping forward. “Do not say the ill-luck word, Skjef Sigvarthsson. We are not giants, and the giants—the iotnar—are the foes of gods and men. I think you know that. Have you not seen them?”

Shef nodded slowly, thinking of his dream of the uncompleted walls and the gigantic, clumsy stallion-master. His audience stirred again, looking at each other.