The Golden Horn

HARALD, THE WARRIOR

As he plunged down the slope, Ha raid had a glimpse across the enemy host below. A man ahead of him groaned and fell to his knees. An arrow stood in his eye. He pawed at it, rolled over, and Harald slipped in the blood that ran from his brain.

Suddenly the enemy front was before him. He saw a face over a shield: thick yellow brows, big nose, coarse pores. The yeoman grunted and struck out with his ax. Harald caught the blow and lurched with the shock. He cut low, striking at the fellow's legs, and saw the calf flayed open.

Harald pressed on. Teeth grinned at him, another man was there, where had the first one gone? Something clipped his helmet and he stumbled. Echoes flew in his head. He struck out wildly, catching an ax haft on his blade. The hilt was almost torn from his hands.

Was this battle, he thought dimly—this trampling and slipping and hammering, in a mill of stinking bodies? Why... did you even know, at the end, whether you had killed anyone or not? The only answers were in the blood-soaked fields—and the wretched moans of the dead...

THE LAST VIKING

Book 1

THE GOLDEN HORN

POULANDERSON

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THE GOLDEN HORN

This trilogy is dedicated to the memory of my father Anton William Anderson

FOREWORD

The fullest and liveliest account of King Harald Sigurdharson's* incredible career is found in the thirteenth-century Heimskringla, on which I have leaned heavily. But Snorri Sturluson, the prince of historians as regards style and a compiler who does not lack critical judgment, is demonstrably wrong on many points and omits others. Here one must turn to Byzantine writers: Kedrenos, Zonaras, Glykas, Psellus and others; to the Dane Saxo Grammaticus and the German Adam of Bremen; to the Englishman William of Malmesbury and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; to the Morkinskinna, Fagrskinna, Flateyjarbok and lesser Icelandic sagas; and to more modern authorities such as Finlay, Oman, Storm and Gjerset. A source of much information is the verse of the contemporary skalds; it should be mentioned that all skaldic poetry translated in this book, including Harald's own, is authentic. Various sites and exhibits, especially those in the Danish National Museum, are a treasury of information about the details of daily life in the eleventh century . . . but quoting sources is a wearisome business.

*His nickname Hardhraadhi, meaning hard or stern counsel, has gone down in English history as Hardrada (sometimes confused with Harfagr) and is rendered Hardrede in this book.

All the major characters except (perhaps) Maria Skleraina and her father are historical, and many of the minor ones are, too; though, of course, the appearance, personality and ultimate fate of several are entirely conjectural. I have tried to respect all established facts, and to fill in the gaps with the most logical guesses. However, when facts are unknown, dates vague, motives obscure, chronicles self-contradictory and equally good authorities in conflict, I have not hesitated to select those events and that chronology which best fit the requirements of a story. Thus, Saxo's yarn of Harald's fight with a dragon is pretty clearly mythical, and therefore omitted; William's tale of his wrestling with a lion contradicts the more reliable Byzantines; but Snorri's story of Maria, while it may only be legend, may just as well be true and is included.

Sometimes one has only a hint to go on. For example, Harald's Arctic expedition is barely noted by Adam and one runestone. I have dated it at 1061, somewhat arbitrarily, but I think more probably than the 1065 occasionally given.

In short, events happened more or less as described in this book; how much more or less we cannot say.

Rather than clutter up the story with unfamiliar words, I have used the nearest English equivalents. Thus: royal guard instead of hird, marshal instead of stallar, sheriff instead of lendrmadhr, yeoman instead of bondir, etc. ("Yeoman" was chosen rather than "peasant," which connotes a servile state and a rigid class distinction that did not exist in Scandinavia at the time.) Likewise, place names which would be familiar to the reader are given in their English forms: i.e., Norway instead of Noreg, or in the modern forms which can be found on a map, e.g., Roskilde instead of Roiskelda.

Exceptions to this rule are a few untranslatable words such as jarl and Thing, explained in the text, and place names which would in any event be new to the average Anglo-Saxon reader, for example Stiklastadh. Throndheim is used, a form closer to the ancient one than today's Trondheim, because of the importance of the stem. Personal names, which are exotic however spelled, have been left in their original form as nearly as possible. For the sake of clarity and simplicity, some spellings and grammar have been modified a bit. It must be remembered - that medieval orthography was a fearful and wonderful thing.

The reader interested in Old Norse pronunciations may use the following as a very approximate (caveat!) guide. Otherwise he can use the rules of modern German and not be too far off.

A : Broad, somewhat as in arm.

Aa: Somewhat like aw in hawk.

Ae: Like German a.

Alf: All letters pronounced, as in Alfred.

Au: Somewhat like ow in now.

Dh: Like th in this.

E: As in end. Terminal e is pronounced.

Ei, ey: Somewhat like ay in say.

Gn: Both letters pronounced.

I: When followed in a syllable by a single
consonant, or when terminal, as in machine; when followed by a doubled consonant, as in it.

J: Like y in yet.

Kn: Both letters pronounced.

Ng: Always as in thing, not as in finger.

O: Usually long, about as in obey.

Ö: As in German.

R: As in Scottish.

Th: As in thing.

U: Approximately as in ruthless; when followed by a doubled consonant, as in gun.

Y: Like German ü.

Stress normally falls on the first syllable.

These rules may also be applied to Anglo-Saxon and, with less accuracy, to Russian—but not, of course, to Greek, where the usual conventions of transliteration apply.

The quotation from the Agamemnon in Book One, Chapter X, is from Edith Hamilton's translation in Three Greek Plays, by kind permission of the publishers, W. W. Norton and Company, Copyright 1937 by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.

In conclusion, I must express my very real gratitude to several people: to my wife Karen, to Marvin Larson, Philip K. Dick and Reginald Bret-nor, for their advice and encouragement; to Willy Ley and Dr. Leland Cunningham for assistance with historical astronomy; to Kenneth Gray, not only for suggesting the title but for using his immense knowledge of Russian and Byzantine history to criticize Book One; to the late Professor George Guins for help with a difficult point of Russian church history. But all flaws and errors are entirely my own.

Poul Anderson

EARLY KINGS OF NORWAY

All were of the Yngling family, descended in legend from the god Yngvi-Freyr and in fact from Harald Fairhair, who completed the unification of Norway about 872 A.D. Some, though bearing the title of king, were local vassals; kings of all Norway are here in italic and the dates of their reigns given. It should be remembered that most of these men had brothers or half-brothers who never bore a title and are not shown. There were three interregna as follows: Haakon the Great, jarl of Hladhi, ruled between Harald Grayfell and Olaf Tryggvason; the sons of Haakon between Olaf Tryggvason and Olaf the Stout (St. Olaf); and Svein Alfifasson as the viceroy of Knut ("Canute") the Great between Olaf the Stout and Magnus the Good.

THE GOLDEN HORN

Gaily and right gleeful,

girls will spy the dustcloud

raised as we come riding

to Rognvald's town of Skara.

Hoy! Let's spur the horses

hotly, so the maidens

a long way off can listen

to loudness of the hoof beats!

—Sighvat

Prologue Of Olaf the Stout and his Kin

Over the land came a troop of men riding. They were the guards of Norway's king, and he was on his way to see his mother.

Winter still dwelt in the Uplands, but as the band moved southward and down, into Hringariki shire, they felt the first winds of springtime. Here the mountains had sloped off into hills where spruce trees stood murky against snow. The sun glittered from a high clear sky. Louder than hoofs in mud, a river brawled seaward over stones. Now and again a raven flapped off, astoundingly black, as the riders neared.

They were big men, shaggy in furs wrapped over chain-mail byrnies, reddened by the cold. Sunbeams ran like fire along their helmets and spear blades, that rose and fell with the trotting of their shaggy little horses. Shields banged on cruppers, leather creaked, iron jingled, sometimes laughter sounded. Olaf Haraldsson led them. He was not the oldest, he had not yet seen a quarter century, but he was the king. Of middle height, he was broadly built and kettle-bellied; one could even call him fat, but heavy bone and hard flesh lay beneath. His face was wide, brown-bearded, ruddy, with a blunt nose, a large mouth and small ice-blue eyes. He bore a sword at his waist and

an ax at his saddle.

"We are nearly through the forest," he called over his shoulder. "I remember the landmarks. We will soon be there."

"Will the beer?" asked the nearest man.

Olaf grinned. The road made a turn, the woods halted, and he rode out across plowland. Here the earth lay bare between snowbanks and the wind raised wavelets on every puddle. Smoke rose raggedly from a house on the left. The dwellers came out to gape at the warriors: burly yeomen, long-limbed women, children whose shocks of hair were nearly white, all in wadmal and winter sheepskins. Weapons sank when the troop offered no threat. Beyond them, Olaf saw their pigs and goats and cattle behind rail fences, and beyond that other steadings like this one and their lands rolling southward to the hidden Oslofjord. And this was his; he was the king. That fact was not yet too old to shout within him.

Soon he spied the lake he knew, and his mother's home. She had what was a thorp in its own right: barns, sheds, workshops and dwellings on three sides of a flagged courtyard. On the fourth side was the hall, steep-roofed, dragon heads gaping from the beam ends. Messengers had gone before to say he was coming. As he clattered onto the stones, he saw the housefolk in their best clothes awaiting him. His horse snorted wearily as he drew rein.

Dismounting, he strode to the doorway where his mother stood. He pulled off his gloves and took her hands with sudden awkwardness. She smiled. "Welcome, Olaf," she said.

"I should have come ere now," he mumbled.

"Three years was long, yes. But they were three hard years. I well understood you had no time to spare. Now come in, you and your men." Pride lifted her voice. "Come in, king!"

Aasta Gudhbrandsdottir was a tall woman, still straight and slender though her thick yellow hair was streaked with gray. She looked into his eyes as boldly as a man, and he knew it was not only because he was her son. She had confronted the foes of his kindred, when they ruled this realm, with the same gaze. He remembered how she had always stood for him against his stepfather, Sigurdh Sow, and that it was chiefly her doing that he was not Norway's master.

Careful as a boy, he wiped his feet. In the entry room he gave a carle his coat, helmet and byrnie. His clothes beneath were good, a blue linen shirt and leg-ginged breeches, a golden pin at his throat and a gold ring on one hairy arm. He and his guards followed Aasta into the main chamber.

Long and dim it ran, between pillars carved with beasts and heroes. Fire leaped in the trenches; smoke stung men's eyes before curling past the high rafters and out the holes in the roof. Aasta had had fresh boughs laid on the floor, cushions put on the benches, her finest tapestries hung on the walls among the weapons and antlers. Trestle tables had been set up and loaded with food, casks of beer and mead stood close by, the household women waited to serve. Olaf was given the high seat which had been Sigurdh's, at the middle of one side wall. His mother sat on his right.

First her chaplain must bless the food, for Olaf was a strict Christian and felt that his greatest work lay in uprooting heathendom throughout the land. Then they fell to, hacking off meat and bread with their knives, throwing bones to the dogs, draining horn after horn, till the hall clattered. Only after the meal, when the tables had been cleared away and the men were off to lounge about the garth, did Aasta speak much with Olaf.

He felt he must take the lead and said clumsily, "It's a sorrow that Sigurdh is dead. He was a good man."

"Good," she nodded. "Wise and gentle, and we were not unhappy together, he and I. But he lacked the heart of a king."

Shocked at her bluntness—her husband had died only a few months ago—Olaf said, "Why, he ... it was he who got the chiefs to aid me against the Haakonssons, when I first came home."

"Because I made him," she answered. "I speak no ill of the dead. Sigurdh Sow was a mighty yeoman, and no coward. But he was not a king, for all he bore the name."

"My father—" Olaf's mouth closed, for he thought it best to let that matter lie. Harald Gudhrodharson had been king in Vestfold shire and Aasta's first husband, but he had wanted to put her aside and marry Sigridh the Haughty of Sweden. And Sigridh had had him murdered, saying that this would teach those little under-kings not to come wooing her. Later she married Svein Twybeard, Lord of Denmark and conqueror of England. Olaf had never known his father Harald, who died before he was born.

"Can you run these acres by yourself?" he asked hastily. "I could send a trusty man down to help you."

"I have enough," said Aasta. After a moment: "You were good to come see me. You must tell me the full tale of how you smote the Upland kings this winter. Now there are none other left who even call themselves under-king, are there?"

"No," he said.

"Keep it thus."

"I will, if God allows."

Aasta rose. "But would you not like to see the children?" she asked. "Stay here, I'll fetch them in."

They entered slowly, all but the youngest shy before their grown half-brother. The oldest was Guthorm, about ten; then came the girl Gunnhild, the boy Halfdan, the girl Ingiridh and last the three-year-old boy Harald.

Olaf leaned forward, smiling. "Be not afraid," he said. "Here, come to me."

Aasta led the boys forward. Guthorm and Halfdan already looked like their father Sigurdh, the big, slow-spoken man who had been clever with his hands and had himself worked in the fields he loved. One after the other, Olaf took them on his knee, as the custom was. To test them he scowled and glared. Guthorm shrank back and Halfdan broke into a wail. Olaf could see that Aasta was displeased, but he took Harald anyway. The lad was big for his age, with sharp eyes under a bleached mane. His face remained steady when the king frowned.

Olaf tugged his hair. At once a little hand gave his beard an angry yank. The king laughed and set Harald down. "You'll be revengeful when you grow up, kinsman!" he said.

The next day Olaf and his mother were walking about the grounds. A warm wind had blown through the night and now the snow was melting with an old man's haste to die and be done. Clouds banked dusky in the south, boding rain, but roofed with sunlight. A hare bolted underfoot and sparrows were noisy in the fields. On high floated an eagle, two wings and a beak in heaven.

Talking of old times and everything which had happened since, Olaf and Aasta wandered down to the lake. It was wrinkled with wind, almost black against the last snow, and. smelled wet. A broadness thrust out into the water with ten farmsteads smoking on its back. "Look," said Olaf, "yonder are the boys."

Guthorm and Halfdan were building toy houses out of clay. Harald was by himself, sailing chips of wood. "Ever he goes alone," said his mother. "His siblings weary him."

Olaf strolled over to watch. Harald glanced up, meeting his gaze with blue eyes that seemed oddly cold for three years old. "What have you there?" asked the king.

"They are my warships," said Harald.

Olaf nodded and answered gravely, "Surely the time will come, kinsman, when you lead many ships."

He turned and whistled at Guthorm and Halfdan, who came and stood bashful before him. "Tell me, Guthorm," said Olaf, "what would you like to have most of?"

"Grainfields," mumbled the boy.

"And how big should those fields be?"

Guthorm flushed. "They should be so big that that whole ness sticking into the water there could every summer be sown with their grain."

Olaf smiled. "Yes, that wouldn't be so little grain." To Halfdan: "And what do you want to have most of?"

"Cattle," said Halfdan at once.

"And how many cattle would you like?"

"So many that—that—" The boy waved his hand eagerly. "That when they came down to drink, they would stand tight around the lake."

"You're like your father, you two," said Olaf. "But Harald, what would you have most of?"

"Warriors," said the youngest.

"And how many warriors do you want?"

"So many that at one meal they could eat all my brother Halfdan's cattle."

Olaf bellowed with laughter. When he had finished, he said to Aasta: "Here you are raising a king, mother!"

He walked further with her, and what else was said between them is not known.

Book One THE GOLDEN HORN

How They Fought at Stiklastadh

1

The night before King Olaf's last battle, his men lay, out on the ground and slept under their shields, rolled up in cloaks. It was the end of July, in the year of Our Lord one thousand and thirty, and the nights were still short and light. Under a deep blue, dimly starred sky, hills lifted like the bulwarks of a ship. Harald Sigurdharson went to sleep with the feeling that this whole earth was a ship, plunging through a foam of stars to an unknown port.

A voice woke him, high and happy, before the sun lifted. He sat up and peered to see who stood black against the paling east and chanted. That was the Icelander, Thormodh Coalbrows'-Skald, who would rouse his fellows with the old Bjarkamaal.

"The sun is rising,

the cocks' feathers rustle,

'tis time for thralls to tread into work.

Waken, warriors,

wake ye now, all the goodly

swains of Adhils."

Harald shivered. He told himself it was only because the dew lay so cold and heavy in his garments. But everyone knew that today the battle would stand.

He climbed to his feet, thinking that his boyish dreams had never foreseen how far one must go to find a war. The ride from his mother's home with the troop she had raised for him had been hurried but seemed endless. He had felt awkward, leading seasoned men, and covered that with a chill manner that kept off any friendship with them. When at last they met King Olaf, the host must then cross the mountains of the Keel. And now they were on the seaward slopes of the Throndlaw, no great ways from the fjord. Yet only lately had their scouts seen foemen gathering against them.

The army came to life as Thormodh went on with the lay. There was a rattle of weapons, a grumble of voices, much coughing and hand-slapping. To Harald the force seemed uncountable, but Rognvald Brusason had told him it was very small to win a whole land. Olaf's guardsmen and other friends from the days before he was driven out of the country; the men of Dag Hringsson, Norse prince called back from exile to help; the Swedes whom King Onund Jacob had lent; the Norsemen who, like Harald, had come straight from their dwellings to join, together numbered less than four thousand, many of them poorly armed.

"A strangeness has come over Olaf," Rognvald had gone on. "Those heathens who would have helped, now . . ." He shook his head dolefully. For no few common folk had come to go under the king's banner, especially outlaws seeking to better themselves; but Olaf would only have baptized men. It had cost him five hundred warriors, who went back rather than give up the old gods. Every man left had been told to mark the holy Cross on his shield.

Harald moved toward the king. He felt it behooved him, Olaf's half brother, to thank Thormodh for the verse as others were doing. Olaf had three skalds with him, whom he had told to stay inside a shield wall and watch the fight so they could later tell the world what had happened. They were bitterly jealous of Sighvat Thordharson, the greatest skald of his day and the king's dear friend. He was not here now, being on a pilgrimage to Rome, and the others had sneered at him for that.

Harald was in time to see Olaf give Thormodh a heavy gold arm ring and hear the Icelander say in thanks, "We have a good king, but none can say how long he may live. Grant me this, lord, that you let us never be parted, in life or in death."

"We'll be together as long as I may choose what happens," said Olaf softly, "if you don't wish to part from me."

"I hope, lord, however it goes in peace and war, I may stand where you stand, as long as I live," said Thormodh. "Then let Sighvat and his gold-hilted sword wander where he will!"

Harald turned away without having spoken. He had seen tears in the eyes of men.

Rognvald Brusason was ripping flatbread and salt flesh with his teeth. He nodded to Harald to sit down and join him. "A cold breakfast," said the boy.

"We may have a colder supper," said Rognvald.

He was a tall, slender man, very handsome, with long fair hair and mustache, the son of an Orkney jarl, and among the king's nearest men. Olaf had put Harald's troop with his, and those two had become good friends. Though Harald was only fifteen years old, there was no great time span between them.

Horns blew amidst echoes. The army gathered itself together and went on down the valley road. Soon dust hung heavy. Even mounted and above the worst of it, Harald grew dry in the mouth. The helmets below him were grayed.

Once he glimpsed afar a skirmish, weapons aflash in the early sun. He started thither. Rognvald laid a hand on his arm. "Easy, lad. That's but a few scouts, who'll be dead ere you can get there. You'll have had enough fighting by sunset."

A tale ran down the disorderly ranks, followed by barks of laughter. Olaf had recognized the leader of those enemy outriders who came unawares on his host. It was an Icelander called Hrut, which means "wether." He had said to the Icelanders in his guard: "They tell me in your country each householder must give his carles a sheep every fall. Today I'll give you a wether to kill." Hrut and his men were cut down at once.

"Now that's like the old Olaf!" Teeth gleamed in the sweat-streaked grime of Rognvald's face.

Otherwise, thought Harald, little remained of the king he had known, save bravery. In his youth Olaf the Stout had been among the wildest of the vikings who harried England. That was after his namesake, King Olaf Tryggvason, was slain, and Norway divided between Danes, Swedes and rebellious Haakonssons; heathendom had flourished anew. Returning home to claim his birthright, Olaf Haraldsson had been aided by his stepfather Sigurdh Sow, and by other chiefs who were weary of foreign rule. He beat the outlanders and the jarls; he went against the Upland kinglets, slaying some and maiming others, until he alone bore the royal name in Norway. He quarreled with the mighty king of Sweden but finally married his daughter. He put down the Orkney jarls and made those islands again a Norse fief. Everywhere he handled his own Norsemen as a rider handles an untamed horse. With mild words when he could, more often with sword and fire, he broke them to the worship of Christ and his own overlordship.

But that same almightiness had brought him to grief, Harald thought. More and more Norsemen came to hate Olaf the Stout. Many turned secretly toward Knut the Great, king of Denmark and England, who also claimed Norway by right of his father Svein Twybeard's victory over Olaf Tryggvason. In the end, chiefs and yeomen alike rose in revolt; the Danes arrived to help; Olaf the Stout was forced to flee to refuge with Grand Prince Jaroslav in Russia.

But now, after a year and a half, when Knut's Danish jarl had drowned at sea, Olaf had returned home. With what folk he could gather, Russian, Swedish, Norse, he was seeking his kingship again.

Harald's downy face lifted and stiffened. That those traitors, those swine would dare stand against Olaf! Their king!

But in truth Olaf had changed in Russia, changed so much that his jest about Hrut was astonishing. The man who once mowed down stubborn yeomen like wheat had lately given money to buy Masses for the souls of those enemies who would fall; he had forbidden looting and burning; he had tried to keep his army to the road so that crops would not be trampled; he spoke gently to every man; sometimes he had visions.

Harald crossed himself. He lacked his kinsman's devoutness, but the regrowth of heathendom which he had seen during Olaf's exile had angered him—that men should do what their rightful lord had banned.

They had not far to go this day. Olaf was merely looking for a good site to defend. On a high hill above a farm near Stiklastadh, the horns blew a halt.

Rognvald and Harald staked out their horses, for men fought afoot in the North, and helped each other don mail. Underpadding, nose-guarded helmet, rattling knee-length ring byrnie, small wooden shield with its single handgrip, sword sheathed at hip, all sent a thrilling like wine through the boy. Afterward he watched men straggle into place behind the banners of their chieftains. Rognvald squinted at the horizon.

"Dag's band is not yet in sight," he said. It had gone another way. "Best we ask the king what to do." He pushed through the crowd. Harald trailed him.

Olaf was talking with a stocky, grizzled yeoman, but turned as Rognvald neared.

"Good day to you," he greeted. "What is the matter?" When the Orkneyman had explained, Olaf decided: "Then the Uplanders had best take the right wing. Set up your standard to rally them there."

His glance fell on Harald, and he stroked his beard and stared until his half-brother grew uneasy. Despite his youth, Harald was already as tall as most men, wide-shouldered and narrow-waisted, hands and feet big but well formed. Thick fair hair tumbled past a lean face with long straight nose, jutting chin, thin lips. Above the large light eyes, the brows were dark, the left one higher than the right, which gave him a look of always studying the world and pondering how to overthrow it. His outfit was good, bedecked with gold, as befitted his birth, though travel-stained like everybody else's.

"I think best you stay out of the battle, kinsman," Olaf said. "You're still no more than a child."

Harald felt himself go hot. It angered him that his voice should break as he answered: "No! I'll be there. Should I be too weak to master my sword, you can bind it to my hand, and then see I've no more ruth for these farmers than you. But—but—I'll fight with my folk!"

He gulped for breath and hastily sought a way to nail down his words. It was mannerly to make a verse at great times, and the men on Aasta's stead had taught him skaldcraft as well as the use of arms. He blurted one that he had composed not long ago:

"Aught shall no woman ever

eye, than that I bravely

guard my place and greedy

glaive besmear with redness.

The young deed-worthy warrior

will not blench at spearshafts

flying when the folk

foregather at blood-meeting."

Olaf sighed. "Stay, then," he said in a troubled tone. "It's God's will whether you live or die."

He turned back to the yeoman, who owned the nearby farm, and went on: "Thorgils, I would liefer you kept out of the fight and promised me instead to care for the wounded and give the fallen a grave. And if I should die, give my body the care it needs, if they don't forbid that."

The man nodded mutely, pressed his hands between the king's and hurried off, stumbling a little.

Harald went to his post with Rognvald, wondering if he had made a fool of himself. But he was soon forgotten anyhow, for Olaf rose to address his men. He stood on a rock so everyone could see him, in chain mail and gilt helmet, one hand bearing a spear and the other a white shield with a golden cross, sword belted at his thick waist. His words rolled forth with a seaman's fullness:

"We have a big and good host, and, even if the yeomen have somewhat more men, it was ever a matter of luck which side wins. And know this: I shall not flee from this battle; for me, it will be victory or death, and I ask that the upshot be what God deems best. Let us take comfort in knowing that our cause is the better one. ..."

His banner fluttered in a passing breeze, over his head of sunlit gold. The men cheered. When he urged them to go forward as strongly as they could at the outset and put the enemy's leading ranks to flight, so that one would trip over another and the more there were the worse it would be for them, Harald thought wildly that this lord could storm Hell gate.

Still the foe did not show himself. After Olaf finished, his army sat down in the long grass to wait. Harald's gaze ranged about. Behind him lay the clustered buildings of the farm, log walls and turf roofs. Cattle cropped in the meadow with a calm that seemed outrageous. Beyond them gleamed a river. Elsewhere he saw hills, fields that rippled green under the wind, the dark bulk of a forest. When he stood up, he saw a few more men come to talk with the king. But presently they left him alone. Olaf fell asleep with his head in Finn Arnason's lap. Stout Finn Arnason, of a family mighty in Norway, had stood by the king though his own brother Kalf was high in the rebel host. Harald thought this must be a bitter day for him.

The youth tried to talk with Rognvald, who lay at his ease chewing a grass stem, but chatter soon faded. Would they sit here forever?

When at last a shout lifted, Harald jumped, as if stricken with an arrow. The foe were coming in sight.

They trooped over a hill, endlessly, spears and spears and spears. The dogged tramping of thousands of feet reached Harald across miles. There they came, he thought in the leaping of his heart, there they came under the banners of their chiefs: plain bearded men in gray wadmal, farmers, fishermen, wrights, carles.

common folk who did not like being taxed and fined and herded into a church they hardly understood. Wave after wave of them poured sullenly down into the valley; it was as if the earth rose in anger to cast off its kings.

Rognvald whistled. "A hundred times a hundred—at least," he said. "There'll be fat ravens tomorrow."

Finn Arnason shook Olaf, who blinked and said low, "Why did you wake me? Why did you not let me enjoy my dream?"

"You were hardly dreaming so well that you had not better make ready," said Finn. "Don't you see the whole yeoman host is on its feet now?"

Olaf looked down the slope. "They're not yet so near that it were better you called me instead of letting me dream."

"What was your dream, then?" growled Finn.

"I thought I saw a high ladder, and I went so far up it that Heaven was open before me."

Finn made to cross himself, but out of old habit it was Thor's hammer he drew. "I don't think that dream was as good as you believe," he said. "I think it means you're a fey man, if it wasn't merely dream mists which came over you."

Still the fight stalled. The yeomen needed time to pull their ranks together, while their leaders harangued them, and Olaf was waiting for Dag. They saw the prince at last, miles away in a smoke of dust, but he could not arrive for a while. Harald's tongue felt thick and dry, as if he were going to be ill.

"Forward, forward, yeomen!" The shouts hung on the air, which had grown very still. Slowly the foe slogged up the hillside. Behind the ranks, archers and slingers made ready.

They were only some yards off when they halted again. Harald could see their faces, their arms, a scar that twisted one mouth and a scarlet cloak that must be the best garment of another. Beyond their first line he was aware only of their manyness.

A small group stepped from the van to talk with Olaf. Rognvald pointed them out to Harald. "That's Kalf Arnason, and that's Thorgeir from Kvistadh, and that's Thorstein the Shipwright; he hates Olaf because the king once took his best ship as a fine. I don't yet see Thori Hound—no, there he is, moving toward the front under that green banner."

For Harald, to whom these men had been names and deeds only, the flesh was strange. He could not shake off the notion that they were somehow more than men, just as Olaf was, and that more would be fought out today than who should steer Norway.

Sharp-edged words drifted to him from the brothers Kalf and Finn. Olaf said something about making peace even at this late hour, but the chiefs went back to their host. And now Thori Hound and his men took their place in the lead, and Rognvald laid a hand on Harald's shoulder. "Hold your shield up slantwise," he reminded. "They will be shooting."

"Forward, forward, yeomen!"

Olaf's host roared back the rallying cry he had given them: "Forward, forward, Christ men, cross men, king's men!"

Harald heard the dark whistle of arrows rising behind him. He saw another flight meet it in the sky and pounce on him. Something hit his shield, he felt a rock bounce back, an arrow smote his shield rim and stuck, a spear glittered past. He knew with immense astonishment that he was now truly in a battle. It was like understanding, two years ago, that he had bedded his first thrall girl.

"Go!" shouted Rognvald. The Upland standard bearer set off at a run.

"Forward, forward, Christ men, cross men, king's men!"

As he plunged down the slope, Harald had a glimpse across the enemy host below. Somehow, those on the edges had taken up Olaf's cry, and their fellows were blindly attacking them. Laughter rattled in his throat.

A man ahead of him groaned and fell to his knees. An arrow stood in his eye. He pawed at it, rolled over, and Harald slipped in the blood that ran from his brain. The boy was hardly aware of picking himself up and following Rognvald.

Suddenly the enemy front was before him. He saw a face over a shield. Every part was stark in his mind: thick yellow brows, big nose, coarse pores. His sword whooped and hit the shield edge.

The yeoman grunted and smote with a light one-handed ax. Harald caught the blow on his own shield and lurched with the shock. He cut low, striking at the fellow's legs, and saw the calf flayed open. The yeoman howled and staggered back. Harald pressed in, hewing. Teeth grinned at him, another man was there. Where had the first one gone? Something clipped his helmet and he stumbled. Echoes flew in his head. He struck out wildly, catching an ax haft on his blade. The hilt was almost torn from his hands. Then still a third man shoved in before him. They traded blows. He saw rust on the other's sword.

Was this battle, he thought dimly—this trampling and slipping and hammering, in a mill of stinking bodies? Why ... did you even know, at the end, whether you had killed anyone or not?

"Follow the banner, "old Hrafn had said.'Always follow the banner, or you won't know where you're at." He had been Aasta's blacksmith till age and rheumatism made him too feeble. Folk whispered that he still made heathen sacrifices in secret, and indeed he had asked anxiously if they would bind hell shoes on his feet when he was dead, for the long journey hence. Once, though, Hrafn had been a great viking, and he taught Harald much weaponcraft and lore about far places. Now he lay in the earth. Harald remembered fleetingly that no one had put hell shoes on him.

Looking up when he had a chance, the youth saw Rognvald's standard pitching above a swarm of helmets, and forced a way thither. Arrows, spears, stones sleeted from above. He saw a bruise on his left arm, where the shirt was torn below the byrnie, and wondered how it had gotten there.

Rognvald Brusason spied him and yelled: "We're driving them back! We're driving them back, do you hear?"

A dull lowing of horns lifted from the sides. The yeomen had flanked the king's host and were coming in on three fronts. Their foremost warriors chopped with ax and sword, those behind thrust with spears, and further back the archers and slingers fired without stop. Harald saw a man fall with whom he had been dicing and bragging only yesterday. Feet stamped the body into the ground.

Forward! He struck and struck, taking blows on his shield till it splintered as if mice had been gnawing it. A man was before him, he hacked, his sword bit deep into the red neck and the man went down. But there was no time to be gladdened by this first kill of his life. Sweat stung his eyes, drenched his clothes. Overhead, Rognvald's banner swayed and flapped. The clang of iron, yells and curses of men, his own heartbeat and harsh panting, filled Harald's skull. He hardly marked the jag of pain that went through him. He was still pressing forward.

All at once he grew aware that he had won close to Olaf. The king's folk were falling, their ranks thinned and pushed against each other. Through a brief gap in the struggle, Harald saw Olaf's sword blaze down, cleaving a man's nose guard and laying his face open so that it almost fell off. The king's standard bearer thrust his staff into the ground and toppled bloodily. Two skalds were dead; Thormodh of Iceland still fought. Then there were foemen again between Harald and Olaf.

Rognvald looked from his great height over the heads. "Dag Hringsson is here," he croaked, "drawing up his folk for battle. We may yet win."

Hew, sword, hew!

Harald's arms had grown wooden. They did not obey him as they should. A yeoman rushed at him, swinging an ax. Harald lifted his shield, but the blow knocked him to one knee. The ax had bitten into the wood almost to his hand. He knew he should use the shield to wrest that weapon from his foe before the man could wrench it loose, but he lacked strength. He smote at the man's legs and could not cut through the leather cross-gaiters. His gullet was one dry fire.

Letting go the shield, he got to his feet. His next blow glanced off a breast covered in bullhide; and now the ax was free.

The yeoman wailed and fell. Harald saw a spear in his back. Who had done that? A swirl of combat passed near. He edged away, looking for a banner to join.

Thus it was that he saw Olaf again, standing with his best men by a tall rock where his flag was planted. Thori Hound threatened the king with a spear. Olaf struck him on the shoulders so the dust smoked off his leather coat; but the battle-blunted sword did not cut through. They fought for a little. Thori was wounded in the hand, but the king could not slay him.

"Strike down that dog that iron won't bite!" snarled Olaf. His man Bjorn smote with the hammer of an ax so that Thori reeled; and, as he did so, Olaf gave a man by Kalf Arnason his death wound. Thori Hound lowered his spear and drove it through Bjorn's belly. "That's how we stick bears!" he cried, and hauled it out again.

Harald tried to go help, but his feet were lumps, they would not run. He felt a heavier wetness than sweat and saw blood rivering down his left side. A spear had gone under the short sleeve of his byrnie and pierced him below the arm. But when had he gotten that hurt?

Through a swoop of dizziness, he saw Thorstein Shipwright strike at Olaf. The ax went into the king's left leg, burying itself over the knee. Finn Arnason cut Thorstein down, but Olaf was staggering. He dropped his sword and leaned against the high rock.

"God help me," he said through gray lips.

Thori Hound stabbed from below with his spear, under the king's byrnie and into the groin. Night whirled before Harald.

He went down on all fours. Olaf was down, a third wound in his neck, Olaf was fallen, Olaf was dead.

From the side came a new clangor. Dag Hringsson had made ready and now hit the yeoman host. Harald crouched, shuddering. He saw the fight around Olaf end as the leaders went to meet Dag. The whole battle streamed that way, deserting him.

And this was death. A black fog went before him. He thought dreamlike that he should try to get his mail off and staunch the wound beneath, but he was too weary. Strength was lacking and . . . and . . .

He sank down on his belly. Centuries passed while they broke Dag behind him. A dead man sprawled close by. Harald knew not which side he had been on. One arm was cut off, he had bled to death and now he lay gaping like an idiot at the empty, empty sky. A breeze ruffled his thin reddish beard.

Ravens circled low. The ravens of the North had learned where to get food. One landed on the corpse's chest. Harald saw how the bird's eye glittered and how the beak was frozen in a grin. The raven cocked its head, studied the dead man's face and picked out an eye. It flapped upward again.

Harald drifted through a gray waste. There was no one else, there had never been anything else, only the grayness and the high thin singing in his ears ... a voice, very far off, rising and falling like surf. . . .

Someone was shaking him. He realized stupidly that his own eyes were still open and that he was looking at Rognvald Brusason. Blood was smeared on the man's cheek.

"Harald! Up, boy! We have to get away! To horse!"

Horses. . . . How long since he had combed burrs from the mane of a horse. They were so good-hearted, the shaggy dun Northland ponies; they stood under the currycomb stamping a little, snorting a little, smelling of summer and upland meadows. Their noses were the softest things he had ever touched. . . .

He felt Rognvald lift him. The words were merely another noise:

"Done, all done for. The fight is nigh over. We have to get away while we can, you and I. Those chieftains won't let anyone live who stood high with Olaf. Now, on your feet, Christ damn you, into the saddle and let's be gone!"

Somehow Harald was astride again, holding onto the beast's neck with both arms. Rognvald lay hold of its reins, clucked to his own mount, and galloped off toward the forest.

* * *

It was strange how quickly the land was emptied after they were done fighting. But then, most of the yeomen were from nearby garths and wanted to go home and rest.

The buildings at Stiklastadh were filled with wounded, and still they came, until they had to lie on the ground outside. Thormodh Coalbrows'-Skald groped his way thither with an arrow in his breast. He quarreled with a yeoman and chopped his hand off; thereafter he talked with a leechwife, bade her cut around the iron that sat in him, and gave her the ring in payment which Olaf had given him. He took a pair of tongs and pulled the arrow out himself. Shreds of fat clung to the barbs, red and white. "The king fed us well," he said. "I am still fat around my heart roots." Then he bent forward and died.

Thori Hound returned to Olaf's body, wiped off the blood, laid it out and spread a cloak over it. Afterward he said that some of the blood had gotten on his wound, which healed uncommonly fast. He was the first among the rebel leaders to think that Olaf the Stout had been a saint.

Thorgils, the yeoman at Stiklastadh, came and hid the body. Later he took it to Nidharos, the town on the Throndheimsfjord, where he tricked some men into supposing they cast it into the water; but he buried it in a sandy bank. After a year, Bishop Grimkell and the great yeoman chief Einar Thambarskelfir, who had held aloof from this struggle, though once he opposed Olaf, dug it up. It was not corrupted, they said, and some of the hair put in a consecrated fire did not burn. Henceforth Olaf's casket lay on the high altar of St. Clement's Church in Nidharos, where the relic was said to work many miracles.

Meanwhile, though, Knut the Great had Norway. He set his son Svein, by the Northumbrian ealdorman's daughter, Aelfgifu, over the realm. Some of Olaf's men, such as Finn Arnason, got peace from the new lords and dwelt quietly at home.

Nevertheless, the Danish rule was more harsh than folk had awaited. As the years passed, they began to sigh after Olaf, who at the very least had been a Norseman like themselves. Stories grew up about his miracles, both in life and after death; and men agreed that Svein Knutsson and his grasping mother were their own punishment for having slain a saint.

How They Fared to Miklagardh

1

Rognvald Brusason left Harald with a poor hind he knew, deep in the forest. He did not tell that family who the hurt youth was, but promised good payment if Harald was brought safe to him. The next day he departed for Sweden. There was scant danger that anyone would learn about Olaf's kinsman. Woods dwellers like this hardly saw an outsider from one year to the next.

Harald's wounds had cost him much blood and he needed weeks to get back his strength. He chafed, now furious, now sullen, at the dullness. Toward summer's end it was broken. One afternoon the sun turned dark, and white flames blazed around it. Though this lasted but a short while, he waited in terror for the Last Judgment—he, who had perforce aided his host in making offerings to the elves. But night and morning came as always, and the vision faded in men's minds. After a few years they believed that the sun had gone out at the moment of St. Olaf's death.

By fall Harald was well. With the man's son as guide, he rode off eastward. They went by wilderness paths wherever they could, over the Keel and out of Norway. Once, riding cold and hungry in the rain, Harald made a verse:

"From wood to wood must I wander

and hide me without honor.

Who knows, though, if I never

shall gain a name men speak of?"

Safe at last in the rich dales of Sweden, they stayed overnight at whatever houses they came to, like ordinary travelers. Though speech was different from place to place, so that anyone could hear that Harald had spent his life near the Oslofjord while the hind's boy was a Thrond, a Norseman could make himself understood through most of the world he knew. In Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland, England, Germany, Flanders they spoke much the same tongue. Even the lords of Russia could still talk the language of their viking forebears.

The Uppsala king, who had lent Olaf some men, was a Christian, but most of his folk remained heathen; they had made his parents change the name Jacob First given him to a more seemly Onund. Harald could look for no further help here against the mighty Knut of Denmark. He asked his way to where Rognvald was staying, although his hope of finding him grew more forlorn each day.

Nor did this Orkneyman, when they greeted each other, see any likelihood of winning home. But nonetheless he had plans, which he and Harald often talked about that winter. In spring they gathered their following, many men who had fled hither from Stiklastadh like themselves, and got ships. They sailed across the Baltic Sea to Russia.

From the coast they rowed up the Neva River to Lake Ladoga, where the headman at the town feasted them so well that they embarked next day with thumping skulls. The River Volkhov took them on to Novgorod. Here they had been told that Grand Prince Jaroslav now was.

When he first saw that city, Harald sucked in a quick breath. Never had he known anything so big. The North had only a few small towns, otherwise folk dwelt in thorps and steadings. Novgorod had grown rich on the fur trade, and its leaders had added an empire to its hinterland. The outer walls, of heavy logs banked with earth, loomed sheer on both sides of the river; the eastern landing, where the Norsemen halted, swarmed with people as ants may swarm in a man-high anthill.

Word had gone ahead, and royal guardsmen waited to offer horses. The ride was slow through narrow, crowded streets, but Harald was so interested in his surroundings that he didn't notice the tedious pace at which he progressed.

Timbered, galleried houses, gaudily painted, hemmed him in. Booths lined the thoroughfares, spilling over with furs, cloth, tools, weapons, gold and silver. A besmocked peasant drove an oxcart creaking with grain sacks toward a big-bellied trader. A housewife carried a market basket in her hand and a baby on her back. A priest, barefoot, bearded, in a coarse black robe, picked his way between tumbling, squalling children. A warrior strode by, ax on shoulder, outfitted not unlike a Northman, but with his head shaven save for a lock on the right side.

Though roundskulled, snub-nosed, and less tall, these Russians looked much like folk at home. They wore the same shirt and breeches, but left off the cross-gaiters and added calf-length boots of colored leather. Some men bore the high narrow-brimmed hat of summer, others still clung to the fur cap and belted coat of winter. They seemed more chattersome than Northerners, and men often walked hand in hand.

Passing a broad open square where stood a platform and a wooden bell tower, Rognvald, who had been here before, said to Harald: "This is where the townsmen meet when they've something great to decide. The bell summons them, and the king must stand and tell them what's to be done, and then they all talk on the question."

"Why, that's like a Thing at home," said Harald.

"Well ... no, not really. They call this folkmoot the vieche, and it can often break out into a fight."

Harald was shocked. A Thing was peace-holy. "I see not why the king suffers that," he said.

Rognvald gave him a narrow look. "A king must take his folk as he finds them. Olaf met death because he went too strongly forward. Do not forget."

Rage caught at Harald's throat. "No," he said, "I'll never forget."

The bridge thundered beneath them and they entered the west side of town, where the great families dwelt. For the first time Harald saw a few brick buildings. On a central square stood a cathedral. Though wooden, it was unlike the stave kirks of Norway, not only of another shape but far bigger and with thirteen tall steeples.

"What's this I have heard about the Russians being a different kind of Christian from us?" Harald asked.

"Yes, they call themselves Orthodox rather than Catholic," said Rognvald. "It has something to do with the Creed; and they have Mass in their own tongue instead of Latin, and cross themselves from right to left; nor may they eat bear and rabbit; and they dispute certain powers of the Pope." He shrugged. "Some think it a large matter."

They came to the house where Jaroslav was staying. This was no mere hall like a Northern king's, but had many rooms, magnificently furnished in the strange stiff Russian way. Harald, Rognvald, and the man's young son Eilif—his wife was home in Orkney—were led to the throne chamber by guards and servants, for noblemen here stood much on their dignity.

Jaroslav Vladimirovitch, Grand Prince of Novgorod, not yet forty and already among the world's foremost lords, should have been a lusty giant. Instead, Harald saw a dwarfish cripple, one leg withered and twisted, the broad ugly face plowed by pain. His furs, embroidered tunic, red hose, gold and jewels, the carven bulk of his throne mocked him. Yet when he spoke, his words fell strong, and the sunken eyes were very steady.

"In God's name, welcome," he said. "We who swore friendship with King Olaf will never refuse guesting to his kinsman, nor to those who were faithful to him in his need."

"Lord," blurted Harald, "with your help—a return—" Rognvald hushed him. Jaroslav chuckled; then, with renewed weightiness, he answered:

"No, prince, this may not be. Not until God wills it. . . . Though surely He in His own time will restore the Ynglings to their rightful throne of Norway. But as for us, we have too much work on our hands, wars against rebellious Poles and wild Pecheneg tribesmen, for years to come."

"Gladly would we follow your banners, lord," said Rognvald. In truth that was a good service for men who lay under Knut's wrath.

"Gladly will you be received among us," Jaroslav told them. "And you will find your chance to win wealth, at least." Breath whistled between his teeth. He gripped the arms of the throne. "Enough," he said harshly. "We shall talk of these things later."

Harald found himself in an apartment richer than his mother's whole thorp. After he had been steamed clean in the bath house, servants laid out dazzling garments for him. That night he feasted as if in Heaven: white cloths on the tables, gold and silver mugs, rare courses eaten with golden spoons off fine plate. Not a dog was allowed indoors. Nor were there firepits, though the evening was cool; tile stoves gave ample heat, while hundreds of wax tapers shed light. It galled Harald that he had no gifts to offer, that he had come as a near beggar and wore not even his own clothes. He, descended on the spear side from Harald Fairhair; son of Sigurdh Sow, shire-king of Hringariki; half-brother of Olaf the Stout, king of all Norway—hunted from his land like a wolf, by a pack of yeomen! The food and the wines turned ashen in his mouth.

* * *

Years before, Olaf had been betrothed to Ingigerdh, daughter of Olaf Lap-King, the then ruler of Sweden. But an old quarrel between those two namesakes had flared afresh and Igigerdh was wedded instead to Jaroslav. Afterward the breach was healed and Olaf the Stout married her sister Astridh. However, his son, Magnus, was by a serving woman named Alfhild. In spite of all this, Ingigerdh was ever a friend to Norse Olaf and his house. It was largely her doing that Jaroslav had given not only refuge when the exiled king fled to them but some help when he tried to regain Norway. She dealt with Magnus, who had come in his father's train and stayed behind when Olaf returned, as if he were her own son. Now Magnus was become a handsome lad of seven years.

One morning not long after Harald Sigurdharson's arrival, a servant asked him if he would go have speech with the Grand Princess in the garden. Puzzled, the youth went out. The air was cool and damp, but sunlight spilled on the first tender green of springtime. Ingigerdh sat in an arbor among the usual maidservants of a Russian noblewoman. They sewed and giggled among themselves. She herself sat tautly, wordless. Only one of her children was with her, the girl Elizabeth, about the same age as Magnus Olafsson. Those two were playing at her feet. When Magnus saw his uncle, he jumped up and cried importantly, "Good day to you, kinsman!"

"Greeting," said Harald. He bowed to Ingigerdh, awkwardly since such was not Norse custom. "Did my lady send for me?"

"Yes, of your kindness," she said, almost too low to hear. "Come, sit on the bench beside me. I would fain ask you about that which happened in Norway."

He obeyed. The maids rustled and fluttered like leaves caught by a gust. Harald remembered being told that highborn women in Russia were held to a narrow round of work, prayer, and withdrawn seemliness. No matter. She had summoned him, not he her.

But she was long about opening any talk, she sat as if locked into her gold-embroidered gown—a tall woman, said to be once fair and merry, still mild of manner, but early aged. Harald stared at his lap, the ground, some swifts darting over the roofs. Elizabeth watched him so steadily that he wanted to squirm.

Magnus rescued him. "Yes, kinsman," he said, "do tell what happened." His cheeks went pink. "What were their names that slew my father? I will kill them when I am big."

"Hush, dear," said Ingigerdh. "You are a Christian."

Without stopping to think, Harald said roughly, "But he is also an Yngling. He comes of Harald Fairhair's line."

"Who is that?" piped Magnus, forgetting to be revengeful.

Harald gasped. "What? You do not . . . No, what is this?"

A sad little smile touched Ingigerdh's mouth. "He is only a child, Harald Sigurdharson. He was small indeed when he came here. Since then he has been more in the company of Russians than Norsemen. Do you tell him." The smile died, "since his father is gone."

Harald sensed she wanted time to frame her thoughts in words, or maybe gather courage to voice them. He was not loth to be the man, wise and strong, who taught this boy. Magnus sat down again and hugged his knees.

"Well," Harald said, "long ago, some hundred and fifty years ago, Norway was divided among chiefs and kings. Most of our shires today were once kingdoms. Harald Halfdansson, called the Fair-haired, overcame the rest and made himself lord of all Norway. Many great men, who liked not the new laws and taxes he laid on them, left home in those days. Some went to the Orkney Islands, some to Ireland or Scotland or England, some to Iceland, and some joined the Danes who took that part of France now called Normandy. But others stayed. Since then, we kings have ever had trouble with such stubborn jarls and yeomen."

"What's a jarl?" asked Magnus.

"That is the only kind of noble we have in the North except for kings. A jarl is mightier than a sheriff, who wards the law in one place, and some great jarls have been mightier than shire-kings; but they are always less than the high king, unless a jarl revolts against him, as has happened."

"When?"

"Often. Let me see . . . after Harald Fairhair died, his oldest son Eirik Blood-Ax reigned, but was not much liked. At last his young brother Haakon, who had been fostered in England, came back and threw him out. In this, Haakon had the help of Sigurdh, the jarl of Hladhi in Throndheim. Haakon was loved by the folk for his mild ways, but when he sought to bring in the Christian lore, they would have none of it and made him offer heathen sacrifices. Thus while Haakon the Good was not slain by the chiefs as your father was, they put his soul in danger. Maybe he went to Hell because of them." Harald Sigurdharson throttled his fury at the thought and went on:

"At last the sons of Eirik Blood-Ax succeeded in regaining the kingdom, when Haakon fell in battle against them. But they were hated as their father had been. So much ill will was spawned that for years Norway came to be without a king."

"How?" breathed Magnus.

"Well, you see, up in the Throndlaw, around Throndheimsfjord, which is the strongest part of the kingdom, the yeomen are both richer and more willful than elsewhere. They aided Haakon Sigurdharson, the Jarl of Hladhi, who with the help of the Danish king, overthrew the Eirikssons. Haakon Jarl ruled for many years.

"A grandson of Harald Fairhair was the shire-king Tryggvi, who had been murdered by the Eirikssons. Tryggvi's widow fled from the land with their baby son Olaf. He grew up a viking chief, who at length became lord of Dublin and a Christian. When he heard that Haakon Jarl had become unpopular because of his harshness and lust for freemen's women, Olaf Tryggvason came back. He slew Haakon and was hailed king at the shire-Thing. He planted Christendom firmly in the land, killing whoever would not be baptized.

"But after five years he was set on at sea. It took the ships of Denmark and Sweden and the sons of Haakon Jarl to overcome him. When the Long Snake was boarded, he leaped over the side. Then, for some fifteen years, Norway was ruled by the victors.

"Finally Olaf Haraldsson arrived from abroad, my brother, your father, and won the kingship that was his."

"But my father was not Olaf Tryggvason's grandson was he?" Magnus knitted his brows, trying to follow.

"No. You and I come straight from Harald Fairhair too, but by other lines of descent. He had many sons by different women, you see. Someday one of us will claim his kingdom. It is ours by right."

"I will!" Magnus shouted.

Ingigerdh bit her lip. "Child, you know not what you say," she warned. "It is bitter to be a king."

"No, no, my lady," Harald said. "What else could an Yngling wish to be?"

"Well . . . hard to be a king's daughter, then. . . . Magnus, my dear, will you go play elsewhere? I have words to speak privately."

Magnus stamped his foot. "I am a king. I am. I can stay."

Harald lifted him by the coat. "I am as much a king as you," he laughed, shaking him. "Go." Magnus went, stiff-legged with rage. The maidservants and the girl Elizabeth did not matter; they spoke only Russian.

After another long stillness she said quietly, but through lips gone white, "We were betrothed once, he and I. Did you know? But my father set himself against it, and so my sister got him."

"Someday," said Harald, "I shall gather in his weregild. It shall be paid in blood."

"What use is that? No, answer me not, I fear you will never be able to answer that question. Nor was Olaf, through most of his life. Toward the end, in those months when he dwelt here, landless and friendless ... I think then his heart was opened." Now she was talking to herself alone. "This I have heard from Northern folk—oh, yes, even a queen in Russia learns ways to get truth. One evening he stood on a hill outside the city when I came riding by. Well do I know that my form is bowed and my face is faded. Yet as he watched me, he made a verse.

" 'From my hill I followed

the faring, when on horseback

lightly did the lovely

let herself be outborne.

And her shining eyes

did all my hope bereave me.

Known it is, to no one

naught of sorrow happens.' "

"What would you say, my lady?" asked Harald, feeling very grown.

Ingigerdh looked down. Her fingers twisted together. "I am not sure," she answered low. "Save to beg that you tell me what you saw of Olaf. His last days on earth."

"The tale ends bloodily."

"I know. Why do they think in this land that a woman is not fit to hear anything save the Faith? It was otherwise at home." Her fingers made fists. "Harald, if ever I showed friendship for your kindred, repay me now."

He ran a hand through his thick yellow hair, wondering what to do. Well, best heed her wish. He drew breath and began to talk. As he related the story, from the time he met Olaf in Sweden to the hour when Olaf lay dead, it came back to him, words flowed more and more readily, and tears stung his eyes.

"And so," he ended, "we fled, seeing the day was lost."

Only then did he glance at her. She had not wept. He could not read her look. But she stared before her, surely not at the hedges and walls that ringed them. When she spoke, he could hardly make out the whisper:

"We knew we would not see each other again, he and I. If he won, he must stay home, whither God's work had called him. Oh, believe me, kingship tastes bitter."

Harald fumbled after comfort to offer her. "You will meet him in Heaven, my lady."

"Formerly in fairness,

filled with golden blossoms,

trees stood green and trembling,

tall above the jarldom.

Soon their leaves grew sallow,

silently, in Russia.

Only gold now garlands

Ingigerdha's forehead."

Harald sat altogether still. The wind lulled about him, soft and wet off the wet great plains. He tried to understand that this had also been Olaf. There were his Olaf and hers and who knew how many other's; but what had Olaf been to himself?

Troubled by their mien, Elizabeth rose and threw her arms about her mother. Ingigerdh held her tightly. Harald looked at the child. Her heavy, rich gown did not hide slenderness and grace. Her hair was braided thick, shining brown, her face was large-eyed and heart-shaped. "Well, Ellisif," he said, trying to ease the air, "I am sorry to be so dull, talking in a tongue you do not know. When I've learned your Russian, I will be more courtly to you."

Ingigerdh got to her feet. "Good day, Harald Sigurdharson," she said unevenly. "Thank you. Bless you." Her clothes stirred with the haste of her leave-taking. The small princess followed, but glanced back at him more than once.

Harald was three years with Jaroslav.

His first summer he spent in Poland, where the folk had rebelled against the Christian-noble order that had been thrust upon them. The trek there, and return in the fall, was harder than any fighting: forest, marsh, river—the whole way, gloomy and fever-haunted. Supply was by boat train and, what seemed better suited to the trolls of this land, camel caravans. Yet Harald learned more about war than any Norse prince had done erenow: this whole matter of provisioning; the training of men until they worked together as one; the use of spies and scouts; the balance a leader must strike, between harshness and mildness; the careful planning of each battle, which

Jaroslav himself carried out.

There was more soul than body in this man. Crippled, each day's travel a long pain, he still led his army, so that he himself might render judgment on the Poles. He was soft of speech and only greedy for books, which he read in many tongues. His dreams went beyond merely grasping land. He was bringing artisans and learned men from Constantinople to teach his people their skills; he was a great builder with a shrewd eye for trade; his aim was to bring all the Russian cities under one rule. For this he had fought his own kin, and the present alliance between him and his brother Mstislav, Prince of Chernigov, was uneasy.

"Too many wild tribes hem us in," he said once to Harald. He had taken a fancy to the brusque, brooding youth. "If we cannot be brought together against them, they will end by overrunning us . . . not to speak of the unholiness which is civil war. Your foeman Knut the Dane is doing the North a service, however little you like it."

Harald pondered long on that.

Rognvald Brusason had him in charge to begin with, but before summer's end he was leading his own company without shame or awkwardness. Though young, he was of king's blood, and greener lads than he had captained armies.

When in the fall the host came back, and every bell in Novgorod pealed for their victory, a thought stabbed through his weariness like lightning: But I am no longer a boy! I am a proven man!

He salved his pride by making Jaroslav gifts which he thought lavish, from his share of the loot and the sale of prisoners. Not yet had he understood how much wealthier they were here than at home. He grudged somewhat the cost, as well as the expense of a house and a staff and the way of living expected of a nobleman. So many thralls, a cook from Khoresmian Asia, a Hungarian groom—how in Loki's name was he to save any money?

Gold and land, without them a man was nothing and no king could claim his birthright. Never did Harald forget that day when he came as a beggar to Novgorod.

Still, if spend he must, at least it was a merry life, once he got used to the custom of sleeping from midday to mid-afternoon. His two Circassian lemans had come to him for a high price, but were they not fine to show off and finer in his bed? Until one of them bore him a child which soon died; he himself cared little, but she grieved, and he knew not how to cheer her. Well, she was naught but a woman.

Quick at languages, Harald could soon address the Russians in their own. He found their rite more stately and pleasing than the Latin one; but he was not overly devout, and thought the best thing about the Eastern church was that its clergy gave their kings less trouble than did those of Rome. As a new plan began to grow in him, he had one of the clerks from Constantinople teach him Greek.

This was interrupted by the campaigns of the next two summers. Jaroslav stayed home, for these were merely expeditions against the troublesome Pecheneg tribes. Eastward through darkling forests the men trekked till they came out on a steppe which whispered tawny to the edge of the world. The battles were brief crazy whirls of spears and arrows in dust clouds; their opponents were small dancing slant-eyed devils on horseback. The Russians burned some nomad camps and slaughtered many cattle, returning home with scant booty but much honor—the highest for Harald who was being raised to high military position; "and not because you are a prince," Jaroslav said, "but because you have led men well."

In those years he got his growth, which was huge. When fully a man, he was seven feet tall and no one could stand before him in battle or sport. Folk did not know quite what to make of him, maybe because of the one brow that was ever cocked upward as if in mockery. His manner was often curt and haughty, though he knew how to win to him those whom he liked. He had small taste for bookish learning, but was reckoned a good skald; and he could never hear enough of far lands. So wide a world, so short a span to wander it!

The restlessness swelled. One winter's evening of his third year at Novgorod, he broached his wish to Rognvald. They two sat drinking after everyone else was abed. The stove roared, but they heard the house timbers creak with deepening chill.

"Jaroslav's wars have become skirmishes," Harald complained. "How can wealth be gotten on our pay alone? Unless by trade, for which I'm ill suited."

"I'm doing well enough," shrugged Rognvald.

"Well, I'm not."

"Bide your time," said Rognvald, who questioned every trader from the North. "Knut's yoke lies heavy at home. Erelong, I'm sure, the chiefs will send for a king of the Yngling race."

"Yes, Magnus!" Harald gibed. "They'll think they can steer a boy more easily than me."

"They'll find otherwise. That's a stiff-necked little fellow." Rognvald tossed off the wine in his Byzantine goblet. Its jewels caught the candle gleam as fiercely as Harald's eyes.

"Which boots me naught. No, I've a while to wait yet, and can best spend it hoarding up treasure. Now, then," Harald stabbed with a forefinger, "where's that to be found? Where's the richest place on earth? Miklagardh!"

"The king there does take foreigners into his service," said Rognvald doubtfully.

"And pays them well. And fights the Saracens, whose cities bulge with gold. I've talked with men who were in the Varangian Guard. They came home well-heeled, and they were only commoners."

"Do you want me to fare south? Thank you, no. I've a good place here, and Eilif is growing up a chief's son."

"Stay, then," said Harald with a touch of bitterness. "But I am going."

Jaroslav was not surprised when his guest asked leave to depart. He stroked his beard, nodded and said the idea had its merits, especially if Harald could bring back knowledge of Constantinople's defenses. In exchange, he agreed to take charge of whatever the prince might send hither for safekeeping.

Ingigerdh smiled wearily when Harald told her. "So it goes," she said, "with all you Ynglings, all you Northmen."

"I'll come back," laughed Harald. He could hardly sleep of nights for the eagerness in him. "And I'll wed your daughter and make myself king of Norway and live happily the rest of my days."

"I pray that may be," said Ingigerdh.

Each spring, trading fleets went south, chiefly from Kiev but some from further north. Harald easily arranged his passage with the Novgorod merchants. True, he would trouble them by having five hundred men in his train, mostly exiled foes of Knut, some Russian adventurers, eager for gold and glory; he did not mean, ever again, to arrive anywhere as a strengthless wanderer. But Mstislav, dour in Chernigov, had been making traders go by way of the Don and the Azov Sea. He could not well refuse a king's son the older, shorter Dnieper path. Thus the chapmen were glad of the Norse prince's company and he bargained the cost of passage far down.

He said his farewells awkwardly, for here were good friends, Rognvald, Eilif, Jaroslav, Ingigerdh, the Russian nobles. To Magnus he vowed: “I’ll see you in a few years, kinsman."

"Then you must come to Norway," said the boy.

"I shall," said Harald.

The troop rode past broad Lake Ilmen, over land which was still brown and wet but had the first dim green of springtime breathed across it, until they came to the meeting place on the Dnieper. The river ran wide and muddy, swirling around brush-covered islands, smelling of dampness and reeds. The ships were not unlike the Norse, long and of shallow draught, wallowing under their load of furs, amber, hides, tallow, beeswax. A fresh wind and the calling of homebound geese resounded through human shout and clatter.

They went south for many days, between timbered banks that became increasingly verdant as they fared farther, and through marshlands whose skies were clamorous with birds. At Kiev they halted to join the fleet assembling there. This was a still larger and wealthier town than Novgorod, showing more of Constantinople in its buildings, and Harald was well entertained; but his head was too full of Miklagardh the Golden for him to be much impressed.

When they set forth again, the river was nigh . decked with ships, loud with creaking oars and men's voices, bright from sun blinking on metal. At night, when the travelers camped ashore, their fires twinkled along the banks as far as Harald could see.

Slowly, the forest thinned out until the river lazed through rippling hugenesses of grassland. It grew warmer by the day, sweat gleamed on sunburned faces and helmets were dipped overboard for a drink.

When they had come yet farther, the land climbed and the water rang aloud, green and swift under steep bluffs. At the rapids they must unload, carry the cargoes around, tow the empty ships or, at the wildest reaches, get them overland on rollers.

Reloaded, they went on south, day by day, camping ashore at night, until Harald thought the voyage would have no end. Yet at last they came out on the Black Sea. It was, in truth, of a deep blue, the foam dazzling white upon waves that chuckled against hulls. Sunlight poured from an enormous bowl of sky, to spatter off the waters in knife-sharp shards.

Currents here were dangerous. The ships must hug the western shore and crawl forward on oars. The high coast to starboard became only so many miles to pass, while Harald sat and chewed on his soured eagerness.

But the days ran out, and they neared the Bosporus, and their goal opened before them.

Green hills, jeweled with towns and villas, rolled from the surfless strand. A war fleet kept the narrows: long dromonds, with rams on the sheer prows and shields hung along the gunwales, twin lateen-rigged masts and double banks of oars; these ships of the line were attended by smaller but swifter chelands. Upon their decks Harald saw tubes for spouting the dreaded Greek fire. He went aboard the flagship with the trading captains to get a pass from the commander.

The Byzantines were short and stocky, dark-skinned, big-nosed, curly-haired; more blood of Anatolia than of Hellas flowed through this empire which called itself Roman. Their officials were clad in robes and gold-buttoned copes. Two classes of soldiers were on hand. The archers wore knee-length tunics, light scale-mail shirts, and hobnailed boots. The scutati had longer and thicker coats of mail that ended in breeches, skirts also to the knee, helmets, greaves and brassards. Every man wore his hair cut short, and those who were not clean-shaven trimmed their beards closely. Harald had to admire the way their officers could blend courtesy and arrogance.

After much paperwork, the Russians got leave to proceed under escort. The water grew dark and littered, stinking from earth's mightiest harbor, but Harald hardly noticed. Miklagardh, Constantinople, New Rome lay before him! To larboard the city walls rose like fjord cliffs, overtopped by a multiplicity of towers and domes that blazed with gold. A mist hung over the city, smoke and dust; the grumble and growl of wheels, hoofs, feet sounded far over the strait. To starboard, beyond the ships lured here from half the world, Galata and its suburbs covered the land. Ahead was the Golden Horn.

There the traders tied up at great stone piers, among Grecian galleys, Saracen dhows, and vessels stranger yet. The crews debarked in a rush, chattering of pleasures they would soon seek. "Are we leaving none to guard?" asked Harald.

"The harbor watch does that for us, highness, better than we could," answered the skipper of his craft. Harald frowned, somewhat daunted by such a token of the Emperor's might.

City guards conducted them to the suburb of St. Mamo, where Russian merchants had quarters by treaty. Harald and his closest followers were guested at the villa of one such. It stood in a walled garden that bloomed with a sunburst of flowers. The king's son wandered about admiring the airy lightness of it, the intricate decoration, the sensuousness of silk and velvet rarely seen in the North. For the first time, he looked through windows of glass. He barked his Greek at the household slaves and wondered if they laughed at him behind his back; already he was discovering a smoothness of manner here that was like trying to grasp water, a subtlety on which anger could find no hold. The Norsemen drank deep and talked loudly among themselves to hide a certain feeling of lostness.

* * *

Harald might have been left to cool his heels for weeks if he had been a lesser person; but the Byzantine had news from many corners, knew well enough who he was and what his errand. The summons to an audience came already on the second day.

The horses here were larger than in the North, but he had still not been provided with a big enough one and felt laughable on it. His first ride was not one to forget. The guardsmen who led him and his men wished to impress their visitors, and took him over the bridge at Blachernae and in that gate, so that he entered the city from the north and went through most of it to reach the Imperial palace. Through a maelstrom of crowds, avenues, soaring churches, prideful houses, workaday buildings finer than a king's hall at home, the leaping sparkle of fountains and the white ancient loveliness of statues, he held stiffly to the knowledge that he was also royal and a warrior.

Across from the mighty walls of the Hippodrome rose the outer gates of the palace. Here, for the first time, Harald saw the Varangians he had come to join, big fair men, his own sort, in mail and livery of the South but with good honest double-edged axes to hand; they stood unmoving, but their eyes followed him as he dismounted.

Hall and courtyard, sculptured columns, mosaics glowing from marble walls, corridors, gardens, fountains, roofs and domes of many separate buildings went past as his striding feet spurned the paths and the rare Persian carpets. At the end of it all, curtains of crimson silk were drawn aside, and there was music which thundered in his bones—organ music—as he entered with a courtier on either elbow. Across the vaulted hall, he spied robed officials and armored guards, deathly still, and at the middle of them a golden throne like the seat of God. There were golden trees with leaves and birds that were jeweled, two golden lions that rose up and roared—and inside his wall of gold-stiffened robes, under his roof of crown, was a handsome young man with sharp swarthy features, flesh and bone nearly lost in all that splendor. This was Michael IV, Emperor of the Romans.

He did not move or speak as Harald made the obeisance he had been taught, nor as slaves brought in Harald's gifts of ermine, sable, and other slaves. Not a word was spoken when Harald prostrated himself again and backed out.

"There, now!" said his guide when they were safely away. He was a plump jolly fellow with white hair fringing an egglike head. "Now you've seen the Emperor, despotes."

"But I wanted to speak with him!" said Harald resentfully.

"There is a rule in these matters, despotes. You will find that all our lives here are governed by law and custom going back many centuries. . . ." The courtier paused, rubbing a smooth double chin. He looked almost womanish in the embroidered cope and dalmatic; it was only later that Harald found he was a clever, hardworking man and that the paper which went through his bejeweled hands held the lives of many thousands of peasant families. "Nor can you expect His Sacred Majesty to consider every detail of the world's greatest empire, the more so when he has borne the crown so short a time, only since Easter this year."

"No," said Harald thoughtfully, "I suppose not. : . . He must be lonely."

There was a banquet that evening, with golden tableware, actors, dancers, a choir to sing the praises of the Emperor as he sat high above the rest. Harald felt clumsy, unsure what to do with himself, prickling with the idea that a hundred eyes were watching him through secret laughter. He hardly tasted the delicate foods, he sat lumpishly silent while conversation buzzed around him.

But the next day he went to the Brazen House, the immense building in which the Varangians were barracked, and at once felt himself home. These long-legged boys swarmed around him, shouting in the dear rough tongue of his mother, breathlessly asking the news and listening wide-eyed. Their mirth was enormous when they were off duty. He felt a sureness rising in his breast.

"We'll have wars again erelong," said one. "The Saracens are getting above themselves in Syria, raiding the Greek ships and coasts. It's time we hammered some manners back into them. Come be our chief!"

"That must needs be later," laughed Harald. "You have your own officers." But he had no intention of going under any other man.

"I think it'll begin this summer with another sea voyage to hound out the corsairs," he was told. "You brought men with you, a force of your own, they'll be useful; and some of us can get leave to come along."

Harald nodded. It would do for now to be a sea king, if that led to the captaincy of the Varangians.

He spoke with the Byzantine officials in charge and made the arrangements; on the advice of his new friends, he gave lavish gifts and the business went smoothly. When he had taken the oath of service to the Emperor, he sprang happily into the work of readying his fleet.

III

Of Kings in Miklagardh

1

Varangian was the Byzantine word for all Northern barbarians: Russian, Northman, Englander, German, Fleming—the young folk spilling down from pine and birch forest, gray seas and whistling winters, south to the sun. In recent generations, many of them had been taken as mercenaries. They were in the Imperial bodyguards, the city police, the fleets and armies which stood like a wall between eastern Christendom and the Saracen fury. At this time most of them were from the viking countries.

There were two men of Iceland in the Varangian Guard, both a little older than Harald, bold warriors and good leaders. One was Halldor Snorrason and the other Ulf Uspaksson. They, with others, got leave to accompany him on his ships, and were soon his close friends. Halldor was a tall fair-skinned man with drooping yellow mustache under a handsome hollow-cheeked face; it was odd that so much strength should lie in his gaunt frame. He was mostly of a calm and thoughtful temper. Of him there is less to be said than of Ulf, who was short for a Northman but very broad and powerful, with black hair, green eyes and looks somewhat marred by pockmarks. He was merry and open-handed, though sometimes he would fall into gloom and always he spoke with a rasp.

Long had the Saracens been harrying the Greeks at sea from their bases in Africa and Sicily. In this year Lycia and the Aegean islands suffered cruelly from their raids. It was against these that Harald sailed. He was in charge of several dromonds and chelands manned by his own folk with a scattering of Greeks; the whole fleet, adding up to some twenty craft, was under a Thracian whom Harald grudgingly admitted was an able sailor.

They went down the Sea of Marmora and out the Dardanelles, to find themselves in water which sparkled a lighter and happier blue than the Black Sea. Islands dotted it, rising steep and rocky to a little green and a few huts on top; humble fishing and trading boats cruised by, to be hailed and asked if they knew aught of the enemy's whereabouts. It was a stain of smoke on a cloudless sky which told that.

The fleet rowed into a harbor in the Cyclades where a town was burning. It was not a large town, a huddle of cottages near the shore, nets still staked on the beach and boats drawn up. Harald rowed in with some others to make inquiry.

He saw a woman sitting on a charred beam. The house behind her was a sour, stinking ash heap, blackened walls gaping to a careless heaven. She was fat and middle-aged, dressed in worn clothes, and she held a man's head in her lap. The man was dead with a spear thrust between his ribs, and the blood had clotted on the woman's skirts.

Harald loomed over her, the sunlight savage off his mail. She looked up, blindly, her eyes red but dry as if she had wept out all her tears long ago. "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am no one," she said. "No one at all."

"Was that your husband?"

She shifted the gray head on her knees. "They killed the priest," she said in a thin frightened voice. "How shall he get Christian burial?"

"I want to know which way they sailed," said Harald patiently.

Something like hope flickered in the dimmed eyes. "If you can catch them ... my son is aboard," she whispered. "They took him for a slave. They'll geld him and ... He was a good boy, he was a good boy, wasn't he, Georgios?" She stroked the dead man's cheek.

"They didn't take the baby," she said after a moment. "They dashed his brains out against a wall. Then the house fell down and he is under the ashes. My baby is cooked like a pig. ... I heard the flesh sizzle on his small bones, I swear I did." She shook her disordered head, vaguely. "North. Their ships were black."

Harald laid a gold coin in her lap. She didn't seem to see it, and he wondered what she could buy with it anyhow. But ... as he turned away, she began singing her husband to sleep.

"Northward, eh?" The Byzantine captain frowned. "I think I know the way they are headed, then. Perhaps we can overtake them. They haven't much of a start, but we'd best move fast."

"You have some evil foes," said Harald.

"These were not men of the Saracen host who did this. They must be stateless pirates, using the war for their own good. The infidels fight honorably, if only because we may be the victors, but corsairs have nothing to await save impalement."

With a clash of armor and rattle of anchors, the galleys got under weigh. It was a hot, windless day, tar bubbled between the deck planks and the creak of oars was loud and weary. Impatient, Harald went below to see if more speed could be gotten out of the rowers.

They were free men, rather well paid for their brawn, but this was not a Northern vessel, open to the clean sea winds. Here was a narrow foulness lit only through the ports by shifting streaks of sunlight that gleamed off sweat runneling down nearly naked bodies. The beat of the coxswain's drum would soon have maddened him. Almost as loud as the drum and the creak of shafts in tholes was the sound of harsh breathing. He returned topside, for it was plain to see that nothing indeed could be done to hasten the ship . . . and that was a refined torture by itself.

But in the late afternoon, the Imperialists did raise the corsairs, whose smaller and doubtless foul-bottomed craft had less speed, though they looked rakish enough. A roar went up among the Varangians. Harald climbed the mast and peered ahead, sensing a thrill run through his body. These would be the first Moslems he had seen, other than slaves or traders in Constantinople. Their force was somewhat less than that of the pursuit.

The chelands darted forward like unslipped hounds. Harald heard faintly a clamor of trumpets as the pirates readied for battle, saw their galleys go into formation and spit stones from engines mounted on the decks. Then fire sprang from the chelands, the blue Greek fire which burned on water, pumped from nozzles by men sworn to keep the secret of its making. A gout of flame ran up the rigging of one enemy craft, smoke lifted thick, then red and yellow burst free. As Harald's dromond wallowed up, he saw men run screaming, ablaze. Most leaped overboard in search of a better death.

"Damnation," Harald grumbled, "will we get no fight at all?"

"Oh, we will that," Halldor told him. "Only wait and see."

Fire took out just three vessels; otherwise it missed, or hit but was quenched. Meanwhile the Greeks closed, and it became a strife of ship against ship. The Thracian shouted orders. His steersmen sent the dromond against a chosen galley. That one veered to avoid the ram, but the beak sheared through oars and Saracen rowers shrieked as shafts recoiled on them and broke bones. The Byzantines had drawn their own oars in on that side. Hulls grated together, grapnels bit fast, the linked craft became a battlefield.

Harald had already marshaled his Northerners. Now he led them in boarding the enemy. Dark, turbaned faces glared at him from behind shields, spears, uplifted blades. The king's son attacked a man in the line who was almost black of skin. The westering sun flared off eyeballs, teeth, curved swords that whistled about and downward:

He caught that blow on his shield. It had taken him weary, often bruising hours of practice with wooden weapons, to master the Southern war gear. A shield here was metal-rimmed, meant to deflect rather than catch a hostile edge; it was held by loops through which the forearm passed. A fighter moved it only slightly, yet it was in its own way a tool of attack, letting him strike past top and sides while he pressed close or withdrew to gain room for a swing.

Steel dinned. Harald hewed with care, seeking an opening. His was the greater reach, weight, strength, but strugglers were still crowded together; he almost had to elbow men aside to get at his chosen prey. Then suddenly he saw his chance. His straight blade whirred, struck the wrist behind the scimitar, made blood spout. The pirate wailed and stumbled backward. Harald followed.

Defensive line breached, the fray spilled widely across the deck. Harald finished off his first opponent. Hardly could he turn to see what was happening elsewhere, but three more were upon him. Metal banged on his helmet, rattled along his byrnie. He sought a corner where he could make a stand, but the three kept him surrounded as wolves might harry an elk.

All at once, the corsair circling to get at him from behind uttered a yell. Harald struck aside the blade of a comrade and turned on his heel. Ulf Uspaksson was there, an ax awhirl in his hands. The Saracen lay dying at his feet. The Icelander whooped and smashed in the helmet of another. Harald killed the third.

"Thanks!" gasped the king's son. "Best we stay together."

Ulf nodded. "Bare is brotherless back," he said, a word old in the North.

They sought their fellows. Harald bellowed orders to get into formation, fight like soldiers and not like tavern brawlers. The Varangians heeded, although, perhaps, they would have done this anyway. Most of them knew as much about war as their chief did. The pirates fought desperately, calling on their God; a few Norsemen forgot themselves and shouted the names of Odhinn and Thor.

Ulf took a slung stone in the nose and lurched, his face a red mask. Ever after, his nose was flattened and crooked. However, it was no great wound and he went on fighting.

When the ship was gained, Harald returned to his own and had it rowed to join another battle. The task had almost been completed, though. When the big soft stars of the Southern heaven bloomed, they heard a hymn of thanksgiving from the victorious Greeks.

Subjects of the Emperor who had been aboard, taken to sell, were freed. A share of proceeds from the loot that was regained would help them start life anew in their homes; though some had been so abused that Harald wondered if they would care to try. The pirates themselves took their places. Those men were not exchangeable like ordinary prisoners of war, and would hardly make safe slaves. The Thracian captain explained, '"We will take them ashore and impale them."

Harald was at sea till the autumn storms grew too fierce for these ships. He fought against Saracen regulars as well as outlaws, had the best of every encounter, even took and burned a couple of strongholds. When he came back, to a city of rain and chilly nights, he was counted a proven chief. The Varangians flocked to him and demanded him for their commander.

He set aside most of his share in the summer's plunder, entrusting it to a Russian of known honesty to take to Jaroslav with the trading fleet. The Grand Prince would keep it safe for him. This practice he followed throughout the time he was in Constantinople. Though part of a Varangian's pay was held back until he left the service here, what Harald received made him well off. He did have to buy a great many things at first, and he wanted a house in the city itself, which would be costly.

Before he could put this plan into effect, he received word that the Empress desired audience with him.

"Why her?" he asked Ulf, who had been here longer and picked up all the gossip in taverns and bawdyhouses. "I suppose it's this matter of setting me over the Guard, but the Emperor himself—"

"Oh, yes, in time, no doubt." Ulf hoisted a goblet and drained his wine thirstily. "But the Empress Zoe had an eye for the men. Be careful, or you're apt to find yourself in bed with her."

Harald considered what he had heard during idle watches at sea. Zoe was the second of the old Emperor's three daughters. The third was disfigured by disease and spent her life in a convent. The other two, Theodora and Zoe, had dwelt long in the Gynaeceum, the women's quarters, supposedly hidden from the world. These Byzantines kept their women secluded in a way that none of the free-striding girls in the North would have suffered. It worked well enough for Theodora, who was ugly, strong-willed and pious, but there had been some racy tales about Zoe even in those early days. She was fifty when the Emperor got her married off.

That was to Romanus Arghyros, a gentle old nobleman who was forced to it by threat of blinding; his wife entered a convent to save him, and he wed the princess and was presently crowned. He wore himself out with her and with the aphrodisiacs he took for his flagging vigor; she made up for lost time elsewhere. She also forced her sister Theodora to take the veil lest a conspiracy arise against her.

Meanwhile, a Paphlagonian eunuch named John, a monk, became powerful at court and introduced one of his brothers, a handsome young fellow named Michael, to court circles. Both the Emperor and Empress took a great fancy to the young man.

Ulf snickered. "Michael used to be sent to the Imperial bedchamber to rub His Majesty's feet," he said. "It were a wonder if he never touched the Empress' too. ... He has a falling sickness, but they say he's a lusty one otherwise, and he and Zoe had fine sport even while the old man lived."

When Romanus died on Holy Thursday, 1034, there was good reason to believe that Zoe had had him poisoned. That same night Michael was wed to her and crowned Emperor.

"The strange thing is, the people still care for her," said Ulf. "They'll tell enough rowdy tales of her carryings on, but she remains their mother, appointed by God Himself, and they like her all the better for her bawdiness. They save their hate for John the monk. He's the real king, and you'd best keep on the lee side of him."

Harald nodded. He had heard enough already about the heavy taxes which John was laying on the realm, the corruption and spying at court.

He donned his best clothes and rode with an escort of Varangians to that city within a city which was the palace. He went clean-shaven now, to seem less the hairy barbarian, but on Ulf's advice wore long hair and his Northern shirt and breeches on all save the greatest occasions. "Why be a poor Greek when you could be a good Norseman? They like newness here, in spite of all their ritual."

Courtiers led him first, to his surprise, to John the Orphanotrophos. It was a small enough title for so mighty a man, director of charitable institutions, and the office was not overly large or ornamented. A lovely ikon of gold and jewels, God's Mother stiff and strange in the Byzantine manner but still somehow glowing with mystery, hung over the chair.

John himself was another astonishment. Harald had seen the rolling blobs, beardless and twitter-voiced, which were eunuchs, and had awaited something of that sort. But the Paphlagonian, though not tall, was powerfully built; his cheeks were smooth and fat, but a strong jaw cragged from them and the small black eyes glittered almost fiercely around the great hooked nose. He wore the humble robe of a monk, but his feet were cased in silken buskins.

"God be with you," he said, extending a hand in casual blessing and then lowering it to be kissed.

Harald bent the knee and bowed his head, however much it galled him.

"I have heard you spoken of as a fine soldier." John's voice was high, but it had a ring to it.

"Thank you, despotes." Harald spoke Greek quite easily now; his sense of smallness was gone and he remembered that he could break any man's back in his hands. "It pleased God to grant us some victories."

John nodded at the courtiers, who bowed and slipped out; only his personal guards remained, and they were like furniture. "Enough of this formality. I want to talk to you." The beady eyes locked with Harald's and hardly blinked. "They say the Varangians want you to lead them, since their present captain is ready to go home; but that is a high post to give so new a man."

"I think I can fill it well, despotes."

"Oh, no doubt of that." John smiled coldly, and Harald saw a cancer eating at one corner of his mouth. "Too well, perhaps." He pointed to the books which stood in fair bindings on his shelves. "You have not read those histories, but they relate no few cases of men who got near the throne and then sought to climb that last step. Sometimes they succeeded, too. Once, in Old Rome, the Praetorian Guard put the whole Empire up at auction. I'd not want that to happen again."

Harald swallowed an angry reply and said: "If you mean that I might think of making myself Emperor, then let me only say that I am not so mad."

"Not now," said John. "But power . . . that's a curious drug, and habit-forming. There are other drugs too . . . poisons, for instance. Now just what are your plans?"

"To serve His Sacred Majesty, as I swore to do."

"But beyond that? You're a prince in your own country, Captain Araltes. Have you never thought of returning?"

"Of course I have!" blurted Harald.

"I see. Well, you will understand that it would not do to get the Guard organized around you only to have you start home at once."

"That would not be for years, despotes. I must get money, and let my enemies wear themselves out against each other, and—"

"That's shrewd thinking, I must say." John stroked his chin. Sunlight came through the arched window to flash in fiery shards off his rings. "You have the stuff of a good general, Captain Araltes, but a general needs trained men. Have you ever thought of building up an army for your return, among the Varangians here?"

"I could scarce do that, despotes," said Harald. "They come from all over the North, and will go to their homes when their service here is done. No, a would-be king depends on the Thing at home, the folk meeting, to hail him king, and must raise most of his forces among the yeomen there."

"I see. That is very interesting. It reminds me of passages in Tacitus. Well . . ."

It was not till he had been dismissed and sent on to the Empress that Harald realized John had drawn from him all his plans and learned the limits of all he could hope to do. There had never been any fear of an outlander getting the crown; the whole realm would have revolted. Briefly, he wanted to go back and cut the eunuch down. Then he grinned admiringly, for it had been done with wondrous craft. Give honor to John the Orphanotrophos!

Zoe Porphyrogenita, Empress of the Romans, sat in a room which was one wash of soft colors, a peacock mosaic on the floor and the long gaunt golden images of saints on the wall. Serving maids, decorously veiled, stood about to fan her and hold forth trays of the sweetmeats she loved; an armed guard waited at the entrance to her apartments. Through the air floated a richness of the perfumes which Zoe was forever concocting.

When Harald had made obeisance and stood before her, he was astonished. He had awaited a raddled harridan such as leered from brothel windows down in the slums, but at fifty-six Zoe was still almost young. She was of medium height, her plumpness not yet become fat, her hair a heavy light-brown heap of burnished tresses. The face was youthful, nearly childish, with large dark eyes under thick brows, a delicately hooked nose, a full and somewhat petulant mouth; her skin was milk-white. She scorned the veil and stiff robes of a lady, and wore light filmy garments under a barnacle crust of jewels. Surely, thought Harald, this could not be the woman who plotted the murder of a harmless old husband and then ran off to crown the man who had cuckolded him!

But he remembered Gunnhild the witch, wife of Eirik Blood-ax. She had also been very beautiful, they said, to the day she was hurled into a Danish bog to drown. He stood with eyes respectfully lowered, remembering that he was unarmed and a crook of one small finger could hew him in pieces.

Zoe smiled and looked boldly up and down his towering height. "You are very big," she said. "1 have seen few bigger men, and they were freaks or slaves."

Harald mumbled something ending in "Your Sacred Majesty."

"You must have had many adventures," went on the Empress. "Sit down and tell us about them, Araltes."

A chair was brought and Harald lowered himself to its edge, wondering what to do with his hands. "There's little to tell, despoina," he said. "One fight must sound much like another to the Empress."

"Oh, but you have seen so much," said Zoe. "Tell me, is it true that in the North a girl must agree if she is to be married?"

"Not under the law, despoina. But few fathers would make a daughter wed a man she disliked. That could lead to trouble."

"But you are always having trouble up there, are you not? I hear about fights, feuds . . ." Zoe's rather small voice faded vaguely off.

"Wars, of course, despoina, and a man is bound to avenge his kin. But no one fights without a reason, unless he is a berserker."

"A what? Well, anyhow, you carry off women and keep them, do you not? For yourselves, I mean. What do they say to that?"

Harald found himself flushing at some of her questions. He had only heard of one way to make love. About his own adventures in bed he did not like to talk, but since she insisted he made up some good stories. She listened eagerly. Several of the maids could not keep from giggling. Harald sweated and wondered when he would be allowed to go.

"I hope to serve you and His Sacred Majesty well," he said at last, in hopes of dismissal.

"Oh, I am sure you will, Araltes. A strong man like you ... It isn't my duty and they may frown on it, but I'll put in a good word for you, I promise. We have so many enemies, all those dreadful Saracens and . . . and all. And the Pope in Rome says we are heretics, imagine that!" Zoe leaned forward breathlessly. "You will have to fight very hard. God be with you in your battles."

"I trust He will, despoina."

"Remember that you fight for the Emperor," she said with a sudden earnestness, "and that God has set him over us, and that in spite of those horrible stories you hear Michael is the best and most gallant Emperor we have ever had." A rush of blood went up her rouged cheeks, and something glowed in her eyes. "Remember that, Araltes! The Emperor is not well, but he bears it bravely and . . . and . . . well, he is the best in the world."

As Harald left, he reflected that in one respect Ulf had been wrong. Even this mist-brained creature could love.

How Three Made Merry

After a time, an official informed Harald that he would indeed be the next commander of the Varangian Guard. Since that would require dignity of him, he decided to celebrate freely while he still could.

With pleasantly jingling purses, he, Ulf and Halldor pushed through the crowds and racket of the streets. It was a cool, sharp day, wherein a wind raised whitecaps on the Bosporus and rocked ships berthed in the Golden Horn. Almost, he thought with a little wistfulness, this was Norse weather.

The Hippodrome saw use only a few times a year, but there were always the theaters, and his band sought one. Never had he seen jugglers so skillful, acrobats so lithe, magicians so crafty; it was as if Elf Hill had opened before him. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants danced, balanced, bowed their heads at the will of one brightly clad man. Comely young women writhed onto the stage and disrobed while music tweedled lustfully. The Northerners beckoned again and again to wine sellers in the aisles.

When the show was done, Ulf led the way backstage. An attendant protested vainly; Harald picked him up and set him in a corner with his face to the wall. Halldor flung open the door of the women's dressing room.

Ulf spread his arms grandly. "Who's for a barge on the water?" he called.

A tall girl did not coo and flutter like the rest, but drew nigh, smiling. "I've heard tales about a king among the Varangians, a mountain of a man," she said. Harald laughed and threw an arm around her waist.

Coin made the manager agreeable when he arrived. The Norsemen picked half a dozen lasses to come along. A pleasure boat, already hired, waited at the docks. Its cabins were rich with cushions, carpets, tapers, refreshments. Musicians played as oars sent the craft out upon the strait.

Harald led the tall girl into one room. "What is your name?" he asked.

A shadow crossed her. "I am called Bernice. But what does it matter?"

His hands fumbled at the clasps of her dress. "Why, one as fair as you matters greatly."

Bitterness edged her voice. "And when I am old and shriveled, and wait in my rags for whatever man may come by, down in the shadow of the Hippodrome arches? I could have wed once, but he seemed a dull sort. Now ..." She snapped the words off and her mouth was suddenly hungry on his, as if she would draw forgetfulness from him.

But she was smiling again and combing tousled hair when they went out on deck to watch the shore slide by. In this wise did the day pass.

At dusk, when the land was growing starry with the lights of houses, the barge moored and the warriors said farewell to their partners. As the women left, Halldor wiped his mouth to get rid of the rouge that clung there. "I'm thirsty," he complained.

"Too much wine," said Ulf. "The cure for that is more."

"Belike so. Anyhow, I'd fain be among men for a while."

"Not all night, I hope. But follow me; I know a place."

Ulf guided his friends down broad avenues and lesser streets until they were in an alley where flat-roofed houses gloomed above muck and trash. There they found an inn, low-ceilinged, areek with charcoal braziers, its benches full of drinkers, a hard lot. "Hm," said Ulf, "where shall we sit?"

Harald stepped over to three who had been muttering to each other and tapped a shoulder. "I beg your pardon," he said politely, "but it's our turn for your seats."

"What?" Dark faces turned furiously up toward him . . . and up and up. Having no room in here to stand straight, he hulked as well as loomed over them. The Northerners were unarmed as law required, save for knives they had tucked under their tunics, but the hand that Harald laid around a man's neck was unfairly large.

A hush fell on the taproom, and quivered.

"Thank you so much," said Harald. He lifted the fellow with a single movement of one arm, dumped him on the floor, and took his seat. The two adjoining decided that it was not worthwhile making a fuss, and both slunk out. Elsewhere, folk eased; a few laughed.

"Wine!" roared Ulf. "And so help me Njordh, Frey, and almighty Thor, if you've watered it I'll drown you in it."

The landlord scuttled toward him, bearing a loaded tray. "Have you no goblets of a fit size?" Harald snorted. He took the nearest and drained it at a gulp. "Well, fetch us a jug and we'll pour for ourselves."

"At once, despotes," the innkeeper said. Oil dripped from every word. "May I ask who it is I have the honor of serving?"

"You may," Harald replied, "but you will get no answer." He turned to his companions and added in Norse: "I suppose my position requires I be nameless."

"It's not just easy to be nameless when you're seven feet tall and a prince of Norway," said Ulf. "Oh, well, here comes the jug. Skaal, everybody!"

Halldor clinked beakers with him. "Skaal ... to victory for us, wherever we go."

"And to us ourselves," said Ulf.

"And to the damnation of Kalf Arnason, Thori Hound, and many more," added Harald.

"Skaal to the Emperor," said Ulf loyally, not being able to think of a better pledge at the moment.

"And the Empress," leered Halldor.

The landlord hovered nigh. "Urn, uh, despotes," he whimpered, "you have not paid."

Harald scowled. "You should pay us to drink this horse piss."

"Now, now, we want no trouble," said Ulf, and belched. "You know me, Alexis. And me, I know what the going prices are. Here. As for the goblets you first brought, I think they should be on the house, inasmuch as we rid it of those rowdies."

The landlord shrugged and departed. "Where were we?" Halldor wondered. "Oh, aye. We were skaaling. Here's to the early frying of John the Orphanotrophos."

Ulf grinned. "How Hell's griddle will sizzle! They've a saying here: 'If you have a eunuch, kill him; if you haven't, buy one and kill him.' "

"Ah, pity the poor devil," said Harald. "He must do something with his time, right?" He refilled his cup. "To Olaf the Stout!"

"A man indeed, from what I've heard," remarked Halldor. "I think he died young because they needed a good captain for the Heavenly armies."

Harald nodded.

"We're in grave danger of becoming serious," warned Ulf. "Here's to good King—no, Knjaz Jaroslav."

"To his daughter Ellisif," Harald said afterward. "A sweet child, and her dowry won't be small."

They skaaled Ellisif, and they skaaled Ingigerdh, and they skaaled the kings of Norway since Harald Fairhair, and they skaaled Ingolf of Vik who had first settled Iceland, and they skaaled Eirik the Red because he won Greenland and his son Leif who found a country further west where grapes grew wild, and they skaaled St. George, and they skaaled the Pope and the Patriarch both so as not to be partial, and they skaaled the good men in the tavern with them and bought a round o.f drinks, and they skaaled Sighvat the skald for his fine verses, and about that time Harald stood up and bawled forth some of the Bjarkamaal for the company, who did not understand a word but cheered anyhow, and then Halldor said he needed fresh air as well as the alley for letting his water, and Ulf pointed out that if they kept on drinking they would be of no use for anything else they might find tonight, so they got up and bowed to their new friends and went out the door with Harald's head nearly taking the lintel along.

A salt mist blew through the darkness. Ulf said something about knowing where a good dice house was, if only he could be sure which way was north. As he groped his way toward the street, his hands closed on a face. He slipped his palms downward. "Male," he sighed, and let go.

A lanthorn bobbed around the edge of a wall, borne by one who peered ahead. Shadowy behind him came several more. "That's them, the barbarians!" he yelped. "Have at them!"

The band shuffled forward. There was just enough light for Harald to recognize one of the three whom he had sent from their bench. They must have fetched others to help them get revenge, and, of course, to plunder the well-filled Varangian purses. Knives gleamed, sticks twirled.

"Ha!" shouted Ulf joyously, and fed knuckles to the nearest face. A staff hit Harald's elbow. Pain flashed most of the drunkenness out of him. Angered, he snatched the rod away and brought it down himself. It broke on the crown of its owner, who fell loglike.

"Yuk-hai-saa-saa!" chanted Ulf, the old viking war yell. His knife was out and his cloak twirled about his left arm as a shield. Halldor got back to back with him and they slashed unsteadily but with a right good will. Harald grabbed a ragged dalmatic, drew the wearer close, knocked out some teeth, picked him up by the ankles when he crumpled and swung him against the attackers.

The tavern door opened again and sailors erupted forth. They knew not who was fighting or why, but this seemed too good a brawl to miss. The alley roiled.

Feet tramped, weapons clashed. "The city guards," gasped Halldor. "Best we scramble out of here. Wouldn't do for you to get arrested, Harald, would it?"

"Up, then," said the prince, and raised the Icelander to his shoulders. "No, don't hang there like a slice of wet bread. Grab the roof here by us."

"I have it." Halldor chinned himself onto the flat top of the building, lay belly down, and stretched a long arm to help Ulf. Between them, those two got Harald up.

Heavy official feet clattered below, amidst sounds of breaking heads and cursing men. Harald groped to the far side of the roof. It was only a small jump to the next.

"That was fun!" panted Ulf. "What shall we do next?"

"Let's see how far aloft we can go," Harald proposed.

They went from roof to roof. "The guards will hear about three Varangian rioters," Halldor warned. "I'd not put it past them to stake out the Brazen House for latecomers. We'd better go to earth somewhere until tomorrow."

They crossed the roofs till they reached a street too wide to overleap. A tomcat, crouching there, gave them what Harald thought was a look of understanding.

"'Shall we scramble back down?" he wondered aloud.

Halldor squinted into the mist, now whitened by a moon that it hid. Droplets glistened in his mustache. "Do I hear voices underfoot?" he asked.

Ulf put an ear to the deck. "Aye," he said. Prowling about, he found a trapdoor. "Well, well." He opened it. Light, noise, warm smoky air trickled forth. "Seems promising, eh, boys?"

A ladder led to a cubicle with a door. Beyond the door was a bedroom. The girl and the man in the bed seemed surprised when two strangers and one giant stalked past in search of a corridor. "What sort of place is this?" squalled the man.

"Do go on," said Harald politely, and closed the hall door behind his party. They took a stair down to a large chamber where more girls were, as well as men who fondled them, drank and gambled. "Greeting," said Harald to their astonishment.

"A kindly saint has been with us," Ulf decided. "Here we have everything we may need for the rest of this night."

The dice favored them, too.

As dawn stole thin and gray across the world,

Harald, Ulf and Halldor made their way toward Hagia Sophia, since it would be well if they offered some prayers for their sinful selves, and where better than in the cathedral?

Halldor walked unsurely, mumbling that his skull was athump and he should never have left the fells and firths of Iceland. Ulf sang to himself. Harald began reckoning up everything he must do later this day, yes, even paperwork, the eternal Byzantine paperwork. But how else could you steer an empire that reached from the Balkan Mountains to the plains of Mesopotamia?

The Church of the Sacred Wisdom stood immense in both size and age above its square. How many folk through the centuries had dwelt in sight of it, and prayed and wept and been gladdened by its presence, how many lives had it seen go from puling babes to trembling grandsires? Down in dust they were, Harald thought: down in darkness and silence, forgotten utterly on the earth that had claimed them; but the emperors who raised this house, they were remembered.

Some beggars whined on the steps, not many as yet, and pulled aside rags to show their sores. He threw them small coins and went on in.

A huge serenity took him unto itself. Marble glimmered underfoot and up the walls, between dimly visible pillars, to the galleries. Above eight porphyry columns, the main dome arched so high that it seemed a lesser Heaven, where the wings of angels went whispering. Stiff and stern, Apostles and saints and Christ Lord of All watched those few mortals who had crept in here for the early service. Gold, silver, rubies, emeralds, diamonds cast back what light there was, like stars in yonder firmament. Below, candles were like distant, welcoming hearth-fires. The air hung chill, heavy with incense.

Truly the glory of God dwelt here, thought Harald; and yet it was men that had built this thing, men who sweated and laughed and scratched after fleas, drank, fornicated, married, begot, fretted about money, sneezed, farted, shivered when winter cold bit their bones, aged, died as untidily as men always die . . . No, he thought anew, the work was not theirs, they had been no more than tools of the Imperial workmen, who were the true builders. Was that right? Seen from eternity, had Justinian and his successors been, themselves, tools . . . maybe not the best in the Master Craftsman's kit? Harald cast that monkish question from him.

Those present for the Mass were mostly humble folk, huddled close together. Apart from them stood one family that appeared rich. There were no seats, nor an altar to be seen: only a low rail before the ikonostasis, though that screen of carven stone was amply- fair to behold.

The three silver doors in it opened as a choir broke into song. The Mass that followed was not like the Catholic rites of home, but by now Harald had attended enough that were Orthodox to feel at ease with them, even when he must prostrate himself.

This one, however, did not lave his spirit as he had hoped; his mind was too busy with plans and rivalries.

Afterward, leaving, he passed near the family he had spied within. Those persons and their attendants walked aloofly, in gorgeous garb, though somehow they seemed less haughty than most nobles. A young girl joined them, come down from the curtained galleries where women worshiped out of the sight of men. Despite her heavy robes and veil, Harald was struck by how gracefully she moved and by her dark, lustrous eyes. He stopped to watch from the stairs until she had entered a waiting litter and was borne off.

"Who were those?" he asked.

Ulf shrugged. "High-born folk, but I've never seen them before. No doubt they live outside the city."

It might only be that his head was a little strange after so much carousing, but Harald remembered the girl for a long time.

V

Of Harald and Gyrgi

The next spring troops were ordered to Syria, where border warfare with the Saracens had grown unduly troublesome. They included a large Varangian corps under Harald. In this he suspected the hand of John, who was suspicious of the Norseman's friendship with Novgorod and thus anxious to get him out of Constantinople. Harald was not unpleased; he had grown restless from a winter of dull guard duty and duller court functions, while the campaign to come offered good chance of booty.

The host went south across Anatolia, through green valleys, crossing ruddy mountain crags, rich fields and richer towns. This countryside was peaceful; even the lowliest peasant looked well fed. Though every commoner must keep weapons and be skilled in their use against a day of need, Halldor remarked how none went armed. "And at home a man takes a spear along when he goes to fetch in the cows."

"That's due to the Imperial guards and police," Harald said., "What a power the Emperor has, to keep men reined in over so many miles!"

Halldor scowled. "The power of armies. Weapons or no, these folk are at the mercy of the court. I like it not."

"One king, one power will make Miklagardh the mightiest realm on earth," Harald argued. "At home we rip each other asunder."

"Yet we may still sneeze without a royal by-your-leave," the Icelander snapped, and edged his horse away.

Indeed, Harald thought, the regular army of New Rome embodied strength. Each man of any sort, scutatus, archer, whatever he might be, was outfitted like his fellows; foot soldiers marched in step like an iron caterpillar, the highway smoked with dust under a thousand boots that struck it at once. But the heart of the army was the cataphract, the heavy lancer, sheathed in steel on a great horse that wore its own armor. When a line of those men charged, the earth shook, and the air thundered, and few stood firm before them. Light cavalry trotted on the wings, bows ready to hand. Then the war engines came trundling, catapults, mangonels, siege towers knocked down to carry in wagons; and the hospital corps and the quartermasters and a supply train followed all, snaking back farther than he could see. Lanceheads rose and fell, a wave went along them like the ripple in a wheatfield, banners burned above the dust.

In Christ's name, he thought, to have such an instrument for his own!

The land sloped downward as days went by, until they were in the lower hills. There they met the main Byzantine host, and tents bloomed for miles around.

Harald went among the campfires to the great embroidered pavilion of the Archestrategos, Georgios Maniakes, who had already made a name for himself as a bold and cunning leader. Admitted past the guards, Harald entered, canvas brushing his head, and bowed to the man who sat behind a table poring over lists.

"Ah . . . Captain Araltes." Georgios nodded curtly. He was a stocky man with a proud dark face, his garments rough and simple. "I only wished to know if you've anything to report of your march hither. Sickness? Incidents?"

Harald bristled but said, "Nothing, despotes. May I ask what your plans are now?"

"We'll follow the Euphrates south into Syria, toward Aleppo. There's a considerable enemy force in that direction which I hope to engage. If we can break them, the country lies open for us and we can teach those bastards a lesson they much need. As for you, your Varangians will be on the right wing. See my aide Bardas about the details." He returned to his papers. "You may go. We march at dawn tomorrow."

Harald left, gnawing his anger. That he, a king's son, should be so dismissed by a mere noble! He swore to get his own back somehow.

The army traveled a few days without event. Then came a rainstorm, a wild sluicing downpour which choked the ravines with brown water and mired the wagons axle-deep. Harald soon gave up trying to keep himself dry, and when his horse began to shudder with weariness he went afoot like his men. "A cold camp tonight," said Ulf. "I've no hankering to sleep in a puddle and wake with a running nose."

"Let's see if we can get on high ground," said Harald.

Toward evening the rain stopped. Ahead of them rose a hill crowned with cedars, and the word was passed among the captains that this would be their campsite. "There's not room for many on top," Ulf grumbled. He glanced back at the Varangians, tiredly squelching through the mud. "It galls me that we must camp wet while the Greeks take the dry ground."

Harald skinned his teeth in a grin. "Well," he said, "we've longer legs than they do. Hop to it, lads!"

Laughter barked from the bearded, sun-darkened faces as his order went down the ranks. Mail clashed, axes bobbed; the Northmen broke into a trot. They passed the van, ignoring frantic trumpets, and climbed the hill in a rush. They were staking their tents and kindling their fires among the trees when Georgios Maniakes himself galloped up with an escort.

His big-nosed features were furious under the helmet. "You, there!" he shouted at Harald. "This is the place for the Archestrategos and his corps. Get down below."

Harald strolled over to him and stood with eyes not much below the rider's. An ax dangled loosely in his hand. One by one his men drifted nearer, hefting their weapons.

"Why, I'm sorry, despotes," said Harald blandly, "but we came here first."

"And I am your leader," said Georgios.

Harald kept his tone steady.

"When you come first to a camping place, you take it and we must pitch where we can. Now you may do likewise this time. I think it's ever been the right of the Varangians to steer their own affairs freely and be under none but the Emperor and Empress."

"Not in my army," said Georgios through taut lips.

"These men follow me, " Harald rapped. "I were a strange chief if I sent them back to lie in the muck."

They disputed for a while with growing heat. The Varangians growled and closed in, the Greeks clapped hands to their swords. Harald wondered if there would be a fight. In his present mood, he would not regret that.

An older Byzantine officer urged his horse forward. "Despotes," he said anxiously. "Good sirs, who are we supposed to be at quarrel with? Surely the Devil has joy of this."

"Joy of him!" Georgios pointed at Harald with a shaking hand. His face was red. Harald's had whitened, as ever when he was angered.

"But there must be a way to arbitrate." The officer looked small in his gilt mail, there under the cedars and the gathering dusk. "We are Christian men. Let God decide."

"I think God has more on His mind than where Gyrgi is going to sleep tonight," said Harald.

"God looks after all things, despotes. If we drew lots . . ."

Georgios swallowed, "I am yielding my rights," he said thickly. "But Hell take it, I've no men to waste on you overgrown children. Let it be by lot, then, and whoever wins shall have first choice of campsites throughout this campaign."

Harald muttered agreement. His mind raced; it would not be good for his standing among the Varangians if he now lost.

The old officer got two dice and a grease pencil. "May each mark his, sirs, and I'll draw one."

Harald leaned close to Georgios. "Let me see what you put on yours so I do not mark mine likewise," he said.

The Archestrategos scrawled a pi on his lot and gave the pencil to the Norseman, whose big hand hid what he placed on his own die. Both were cast into a folded cloak. The officer tumbled them about. "Whosever this be," he said, "shall go first in the ranks and have first pick of night quarters." He drew one forth.

"Let me see that!" Harald snatched it from him, glanced at it, and threw it into the downhill gloom, all in one movement. "I won," he said. "That was ours."

"Why did you not let the rest of us see it?" Georgios demanded.

Harald shrugged. "Look at the one remaining," he said. "It bears your mark."

Georgios gasped. "Do you believe ... me ... so stupid . . ." His glance fell on the burly Varangians. "Very well," he said in a flat voice. He wheeled his horse and trotted downhill with his men. Laughter followed him the whole way.

Halldor rubbed his chin and murmured, "Yon Gyrgi is a man."

* * *

There were many battles that summer. When Greeks and Varangians were separated, Harald led his men forward as boldly as he could. But when they fought together, he saw no reason for thinning the ranks of lads who trusted him, to the glory of Georgios Maniakes, and held back as much as possible, going to those points where the danger seemed least. Presently the Byzantine troops grumbled that Araltes was a more successful commander than their own. At last Georgios summoned Harald to his tent. The Norseman came armed, and a number of men stood close by outside.

A guttering lamp outlined Georgios' bony face against the night. His fingers drummed on the tabletop and for a while he sat silent.

"You are an insolent one," he began.

"I am a king," said Harald.

"Only at home, if then." Georgios watched him moodily. "But I thought you came hither to serve His Sacred Majesty."

"So I did. Not to serve anyone else."

"Well ... I could make formal complaint against you." Georgios stared out the tent opening, into the Syrian darkness. "But these are evil times and the Empire needs every sword. Since you and I have so many quarrels, it might be best if our troops parted."

"It might indeed," said Harald. He could not altogether hide the eagerness that sprang forth in him.

Georgios broke into one of his rare smiles. "Well, I shall issue such an order, then. In a way, I must admire your willfulness. Bootlickers are too common among us."

Harald felt a swift liking for this lonely, short-tempered man, who must stand against not only the Saracens but his own auxiliaries and the court at home. He thrust out his hand. "If we are together again, Kyrios Maniakes," he said, using the title for an equal, "I hope we can come to better agreement."

"You may have grown up somewhat by that time," growled the Byzantine, but with little sting in his words.

A few days later, the Varangians marched east to do their own warring. Save for a few Greek officers, who chiefly did the paperwork for him, Harald was now his own master.

Through the stark brown summer, he campaigned with much success. Moslem cavalry ran into the grounded pikes of his men; Moslem camps were plundered, towns brought under submission, booty and ransom gathered. Harald's share was making him rich. In the fall, perhaps as a punishment, the Varangians were not ordered back to Constantinople but were sent to winter quarters in the Thrakesian theme. Ulf cursed loudly, he had looked forward to a season's debauch, but Harald was not unhappy to be spared court expenses.

In the spring they were finally summoned back to Miklagardh. Any anger at Harald seemed forgotten, and his victories of the year before were rewarded with high honor. After long negotiation, the caliph in Egypt had finally agreed to let the Byzantines rebuild, in Jerusalem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, which the Moslems had destroyed twenty-five years ago. Harald and his corps would guard the artisans sent upon this sacred task.

He was less joyful than he dared admit. If he went in peace, there could be no gains of war and indeed he must make rich gifts to the shrines. Outwardly, of course, he could only bend the knee and kiss the Emperor's ring in vast thankfulness.

Michael was growing ever more zealous to do holy works. All men knew he was haunted by the treachery and murder which gave him the throne. His flesh was wasting, he was often fevered, and the falling sickness smote him like God's curse.

While he readied his folk for the trip, Harald learned from a Russian merchant that Svein Knutsson and his mother were thrown out of Norway. The boy Magnus Olafsson was now king. It had happened only a short time after Harald left Novgorod.

"So do you wish to go back and claim your share?" Ulf asked.

"Not yet," said Harald. He paced the floor, restlessly. "Best to see how it goes for a while."

And to win still more wealth, he thought, so that he might raise a goodly host on his return. He would never knuckle under to a beardless boy, not even to the son of Olaf. He bore too many plans in him for building the greatness of a backward country.

Presently he fared off to the Holy Land. The Moslem noblemen received him well during this truce. They were as interested in learning about him as he was in them. He visited the sacred sites, bathed in the Jordan and performed the pious work of helping clear out bandits from the pilgrim highways. That fall he returned to Constantinople with his fame richly grown.

* * *

The news from the North was that King Knut was dead, struck down by illness. Mstislav of Chernigov had also died and Jaroslav, his heir, now dwelt at Kiev to be nearer the heart of his enlarged realm.

So there was his greatest foe out of the way, and his greatest friend become a still more valuable ally. Time was working nobly for Harald Sigurdharson, he thought. He moved into a dwelling near the Brazen House and lived as quietly as a man of his standing could. Better to learn more of government than roister about with Ulf. He was often at court, being required to head the Varangians himself on any great occasion. When they had a tawny seven-foot prince in their lead, it doubled the Imperial splendor.

Indeed Michael needed bolstering. The old aristocracy sneered at him behind his back contemptuous of a Paphlagonian money changer squatting on the throne of Justinian! And his brother John was hated as much as feared; Harald remembered the lion, tamer in the theater. Spies of the Orphanotrophos were in every corner. The Senate was filled with his creatures; all high offices went to his kinsmen. Of these, the best-known were: John's brother, the eunuch Constantine, first made Duke of Antioch and then Grand Domestikos in the palace, almost as ruthless and adroit as the monk; his brother-in-law Stephen, a great epicure, grand admiral of the fleet; and Stephen's son Michael, a good-looking, insolent young fellow who had a name for vigor and ability which Harald could not see was deserved. The Emperor Michael appointed him Caesar: colleague and heir apparent.

Admiral Stephen had begun life as humbly as the rest, a shipwright; hence his son was scornfully nicknamed Michael Calaphates, the Caulker. But this was not said aloud. No noble was safe. At the first whisper he was apt to be thrown in prison and his estates confiscated. Nor were the common folk much better off. Former Emperors had seen to their welfare, but Michael's mind was wholly on his works of atonement. Moneylenders grew fat in the land, and the people began to know hunger.

That winter brought great whirls of hailstones, glinting out of the sky, ringing on coppered roofs, breaking windows and even knocking men senseless. On several nights heaven was full of falling stars. From the provinces came word of earthquakes, pestilence and famine. Folk muttered that God was scourging a land that tolerated a murderer on its throne.

Early in spring the Varangians, along with Greek troops, were ordered on a long sweep into Armenia, where there was border trouble, and then down into Syria. They fought several battles with good gain. What happened after one such dwelt long in Harald's memory.

Clotted with flies, the dead lay thick in a trampled grain field, under an unmercifully hot sky. Harald and Ulf sat mounted, overlooking the scene. Some enemy leaders had been captured in the final charge of the cataphracts and their chief was now led forward. He was a young man, dressed like an Arab but with Grecian features, and he walked haughtily.

"Get someone who knows the heathen tongue," said Harald. "I would question him."

"That will not be needful, kyrios," said the prisoner. "I am Roman born."

Harald shifted in the saddle. The man's eyes challenged him. "Who are you, then?"

"I am Ibrahim ... but once they called me Doukas Dalassenos."

That made him a member of a great family. "And you betrayed your Emperor?" said Harald. He spat. "There is a word for you."

Doukas smiled without mirth. "Also a treatment. What will it be, death or blinding and gelding?"

"I know not. Nor do I care. You will go back for judgment."

"Easy enough for you, kyrios, who wields a sword for pay. I asked to be posted on this border because I had a country and a faith to defend."

"Why did you forsake them?"

"When a traitor sits the throne, puppet of a Paphlagonian eunuch? Do you know how much of the people's treasure goes into his coffers, Varangian? I had a brother whom I loved. He spoke one idle word about the matter. John heard of it. My brother died as no one would kill a beast. Then I went over to the Saracens." Doukas turned away. "Enough," he said harshly.

Harald grew still. Were not the bonds of blood holy? But . . . "Take him away," he said at length. "Let me not see him again."

Afterward he sat staring at emptiness. How the sun glimmered! Sweat soaked his underpadding. The flies buzzed and buzzed.

"We hire out for an ill work," said Ulf.

"I gave my oath," said Harald angrily.

"Not that it's any affair of ours if the Emperor lets his folk fall into the claws of the usurers. It's not our best men who are being gnawed away. Nonetheless . . . John ..." Ulf's broad brown face turned dreamy. "How would you like to join me and a hot iron someday in making a memorial inscription? 'Ulf Uspaksson raised this in memory of himself, that Ulf who was in Miklagardh with Harald Sigurdharson. Thor hallow these runes' ... in burnt leather on the buttocks of an Orphanotrophos."

"The thought has its merits," agreed Harald.

After wintering again in Constantinople, the Varangians were ordered that spring to sail for Italy.

There had been war in Sicily between two Saracen chieftains, brothers. The Byzantines had become allies of one, so successfully that the alarmed rivals made a reconciliation against them. This seemed a good moment to attack the island, regaining it for Christendom and ending the corsair raids based upon it. Georgios Maniakes, now commanding the Italian troops of the Empire, was readying for that new war, and the Northmen were sent to join him.

Harald landed at Reggio Calabria and led an escort of his axmen toward headquarters. The city boiled with soldiers, men from every theme of the Empire and mercenaries from a dozen other nations. Here a Greek officer rode by, arrogant in gilt armor, the lances of his guards nodding behind him; there a scarred Catalan grinned and snatched at a girl on the arm of a bearded Bulgar, suddenly knives were out and the girl screamed avidly; nearby a legless beggar whined appeal to a turbaned Persian who damned him for a Nazarene—bustle and clamor, clashing metal and bawling voices, heavy feet. The town bristled with weaponed men. Out in the harbor, ships lay jammed together. At their backs rose the mountains of Sicily, blue menace across the straits.

Harald entered a palace scarred and littered by the haste of war and found the chamber where Georgios was. The Greek looked wearily up from his endless papers. "Oh, Captain Araltes. Enter, be seated, we've much to talk about." Three years had changed him little, he was still a short-spoken stout man in peasantish garments, a sword belted at his waist even as he sat.

Harald lowered his bulk to a chair that creaked under him. "My folk are marching to quarters . . . kyrios."

Georgios watched him for a long minute. "Think you we can work together better this time than last?"

"The ground may not be so marshy here," said Harald.

Georgios chuckled. "Oh, I'll unleash you when I can, but first we must seize Messina. Once we have that for a port, we can spread out. I must own that the records of your campaigns make good reading." He bridged his fingers and stared intently across them. "I want you to lead not only your own corps, but three hundred Norman mercenaries. Know you the Frankish tongue?'

"No, but I can learn the needful words soon enough. 'Up on your feet, soldier! Forward! About face! Stand where you are or I'll see your liver!' "

Georgios nodded. "You'll need such phrases. The Normans are a wild and filthy folk. Stand ready to cuff them down, they are used to stern overlords at home."

"When shall we cross over to Messina?"

"In two or three weeks, however long we need to make ready. I'll have you in later with our other captains to hammer out the plans. Meanwhile, go arrange for the Normans to be quartered and drilled with your Varangians." Georgios went into details. Having ended his explanation, he asked, "Do you understand? Good day, then." Immediately he returned to his paperwork.

Harald went out and sought the Norman chief. Odo Fitz Maurice sat in a house drinking with a dozen cronies. They had nearly wrecked the place, tapestries hung ragged and tables were hacked and a peacock mosaic had been used for crossbow practice. Guards in hauberk and long surcoats admitted Harald, who ducked his head as he came into the dining hall.

Odo glanced about. He was a lean, richly clad man, his black hair cropped short and shaven at the back, his features hard and blue-chinned. "Well, a giant to add to the circus!" he said in broken Greek.

"Speak more respectfully." Harald tossed the parchment given him by Georgios onto the table. "I am your new captain. There are the orders."

"So." Odo studied him for a space. A drunken mumble ran among his fellows.

"We had best talk of this," said Harald mildly.

"Quite so." Odo's tone was sour. "Be seated."

Harald cocked his left brow still higher. "I belong at the head of the table," he said. His backbone prickled.

Odo made some remark in French. His men guffawed.

"That will do!" Harald stepped over in one stride, seized Odo and lifted him in the air. A moment he held the squirming, cursing man aloft, then flung him to the floor and sat down in his chair.

Odo leaped up, spitting like a cat. A dagger flamed in his hand. The other Normans were on their feet, roaring. Harald stared at him. "Be seated," he said.

"You whoreson outlander!" Odo sprang. Harald snatched a massive silver goblet from the table and hurled it with deadly aim. Odo went down with a smashed nose, his face one mask of blood.

Harald drew his sword and struck the table with the flat so wood and metal boomed. "Before God, I am the chief here!" he bellowed. "Does anyone else care to dispute it?"

Still he remained seated, but they remembered his height and drew back, snarling at him. "Who is the next in command among you?" he barked.

"I . . .I am," said one unsurely.

"Then you are in charge, under me. Odo what's-his-name will mend his ways on bread and water until we sail. The next such insubordination means a beheading." Harald put the horn at his hip to his mouth and blew.

His escort shoved in past the sentries, axes aloft, grinning at the Normans. Harald jerked a thumb toward the half-conscious Odo. "Put that dog in irons, Ulf. And now, friends, shall we talk of plans?"

Thereafter the Normans obeyed him. When next he saw Georgios, the Archestrategos remarked, "I heard how you tamed your wolf pack. You like not mutiny, do you?"

"Indeed not," said Harald.

"Suppose I had tried to so likewise to you, three years ago?"

"Well, kyrios, you did not."

Georgios laughed.

How Gyrgi Was Angered

1

Harald was two years in Sicily.

Having taken Messina by a hard and bloody fight, Georgios Maniakes swiftly subdued the larger part of the island and built citadels to keep the folk tame. But this rugged land had many chiefs who from their castles ruled like small kings and must be subdued one by one. Harald and his men, with some Greeks to help as engineers and in other skilled work, were sent out on this task.

The castles he must overcome were well-stocked fortresses surrounded by turreted stone walls, not lightly to be seized. Harald conquered his first one by a clever strategy. He had spread nets and lime to catch birds; it was still the nesting season. Splinters of wood smeared with wax and sulfur were bound to the birds and set alight; the birds flew back to their nests and started fires throughout the buildings. The defenders gave in. As was the common practice, Harald granted quarter and did not loot the place. He took tribute and waited until Georgios sent a garrison.

Summer was well along when he came to the next stronghold, so he could not use the same trick, nor did he have luck with fire arrows. He settled down as for a siege. The castle stood on a flat plain baked hard by the sun; a nearby stream ran low between its banks. Thus a tunnel could be dug, unseen by the Saracens, with the water carrying away the dirt. When it was finished, Harald led his warriors crawling through. They broke out into a hall where men sat at meat, expecting no such uninvited guests. When the gates were opened the rest of the Varangians came in, and that was that.

The third castle was very large, with moats around it that forbade sapping even had there been a river so handily close. Harald ringed it with tents and camp-fires but made no move to attack. When some days had gone by, the defenders were jeering, often throwing open their gates. Those who knew Greek shouted to the Varangians to come in and be killed like the poultry they were.

Ulf sought Harald in his tent. 'When will we strike?" he asked. "'The men are grumbling, and you know how readily sickness breaks out when folk stay camped for a long time."

"I know," said Harald. He sat resting his chin in one hand, eyes half closed. Outside, the sun danced in a haze of heat.

"We could wade across the ditch," said Ulf.

"And be slain under the walls," answered Harald. "They have but to throw spears and boiling water down on us."

Ulf caught a louse and cracked it between his teeth. "Well, I would be glad of a bath," he said and laughed.

"No," said Harald, "tell the men we'll give the foe back his mockery. Tell them to play games every day, just beyond bowshot, and leave off their weapons when they do, to show how little we fear yonder heathen."

Ulf snorted, but seeing Harald's look he did not argue further.

As the days dragged by, Harald's men amusing themselves with ball games and wrestling matches, he saw how the defenders had lost their wariness. His Northmen clearly were making a long siege. The Saracens began to dawdle about on the walls, unarmed, watching the sport; their gates remained open for the sake of the breeze. They knew they could close the fortress and take up arms long before a real assault could be mounted.

When he thought the time was ripe, Harald summoned Halldor. "Now we can go to work," he said.

The Icelander was astonished. "Have you decided to try storming them after all?" he asked.

"Yes, with a trick I could not speak of erenow, lest the secret leak out. Tomorrow let a number of the Varangians go forth to play as always, but let them have swords under their cloaks and helmets under their hats. Work as close as you can to the main gate, and then attack. I'll bring the rest of our lads after you."

Halldor looked doubtful, but pride would not let him protest. "I'll gather fifty trustworthy men," he said.

No others could yet be told.

Harald slept little that night, but in the morning, Halldor's band were out tossing a ball between two teams. Their shouts, that sounded like mirth, were orders in the Norse tongue. No shot was loosed at them even when they reached the moat's edge.

Then Halldor winded his horn. The Varangians whipped forth their swords, wrapped cloaks around their left arms and surged into the ditch. Splashing through the green-scummed water, they were in the gateway before winches could be activated to shut them out.

Now haste was everything, for they could not last long against so many Saracens as boiled around them. Harald sounded the charge. But his unwarned host was maddeningly slow to uncoil itself and lumber forward.

Dead men lay thick in the entrance, the ill-armed Varangians were being slain where they stood. Harald rushed up the inner slope of the moat, his standard bearer toiling alongside. He was a beardless youth, eager and merry, who had but lately come to Miklagardh from some Danish farmstead. As Harald reached the battle, the boy crumpled and went down, an arrow in his breast.

Harald snatched the banner and thrust it at Halldor. The Icelander stood braced against the wall. His teeth showed through a right cheek laid open and hanging loose. 'Here, take the standard!" cried Harald.

Wild with pain and rage, Halldor snarled back, "Who cares to take a banner before you, as unmanly as you follow it?"

There was no time to dispute further, with scimitars clattering on shields. Harald shoved the staff into Halldor's hand and went forward. His armored men cleared the gateway and spread yelling into the court.

The fight was hard before the castle was taken.

That evening Harald walked through his camp to Halldor's tent. The Icelander sat biting his lips while a Greek surgeon sewed up his cheek. Harald waited, staring into the lamp flame.

"There, now." The surgeon laid down the needle. "The mark will be large, but a beard can cover it somewhat."

Halldor nodded and gulped a stoup of wine. His eyes were glazed.

"I wished to say you did nobly," Harald spoke.

"I may have said too much in the gate," Halldor answered tonelessly, "but you did seem long about coming and many of us died."

"Will you take an extra share of booty in weregild?"

"I thank you, no." Halldor returned to his wine. Harald went out.

The wound left a livid scar that twisted Halldor's mouth and was often painful. He was more withdrawn after that, and while naught was said, Harald felt his friendship was not what it had been.

The Varangians spent the mild, rainy winter happily in Messina, which was a large town with a seaport's diversions. Italian and Saracen dwellers continued their lives under the new reign much as they had done before. The East was more forbearing than the West. After so hard a summer's work it was good to know ease, wine, women, and merriment again.

The next year Harald was out warring afresh with subborn emirs, chasing robbers, gathering scot. In that season he first met Nicephorus Skleros.

He was near Agrigento when scouts brought word that a Greek detachment had been trapped by the enemy in a valley close by and was being whittled down. Harald's men hastened over the ridges till he saw the fight. There were not many Greeks left. They battled wearily against overwhelming numbers. Harald hit the Saracens from the rear, almost wholly by surprise, crumpled them up and threw them away.

While the wounded groaned in their anguish and the captives were shuffled off under spears, Harald found the highest ranking survivor of the Byzantines. This was a middle-aged man, tall and erect even in his tiredness. His face was straight-boned and comely in the manner of the ancient Grecian statues, its notable features being a neatly pointed gray beard and lustrous eyes. He bowed deeply. "After God and the saints, kyrios," he said, "we have you to thank for our lives. Pray, what is your name?"

"I am Harald Sigurdharson of the Varangians."

"The famous Araltes himself? I should have known from your height. I am Nicephorus Skleros, aide to the regimental commander, though he is fallen." The Byzantine waved a fine hand, modestly. "My branch of the great Skleros gens is very minor, kyrios. I have been a country dweller who seldom left his Homer and Plutarch for the city. But of course I have heard of you. They say you are a king in your own country."

"Well . . ."

"How you smote the infidel! It was as if Achilles had come back from Elysium." Nicephorus recited some Homeric lines which Harald could not quite follow; but they had a goodly clash to them.

"Best we get things in order," he said. "Few remain of your troops. What do you wish to do?"

Nicephorus sighed and took off his helmet. A light breeze ruffled his curly, grizzled hair. "Frankly, captain, I am at a loss. We can hardly relieve the garrison as we were ordered. I am not a soldier, do you see. I went to serve in this campaign, chiefly as an amanuensis, in order to see the famous places of antiquity, where the Athenian expedition ended and where Archimedes wrought. And to gain some understanding of war, that I might understand the poets and historians." He smiled sadly. "If you would advise me, I shall be doubly grateful."

"Well, we can march together to your destination and then . . . hm . . . your men might well be made part of my own command, if the strategos is willing. I need to replace some losses."

Eagerness kindled in Nicephorus' voice. "May I, too, join you, captain?"

"Eh?" Harald checked a grin. He did not wish to hurt the man's pride. "Have you not had enough of war, kyrios?"

"Of its cruelties, indeed," said Nicephorus. "But ... I would not have it said a Skleros went home before the war's end. Also," he added shyly, "I would fain get to know you and your men better. Your folk are like Achaeans returned—yourself, by every account, a new Odysseus."

"Thank you, kyrios," said Harald. "But now we've work to do."

Sadness tinged the mobile face. "Of course you are right. I fear the life of Hellas has run out in memories, old books and dusty dreams; you practical young folk will inherit the earth. Yet remember, a thousand years hence you will also be buried in books and none but a few dreamers will care what you did."

Harald doubted the wisdom of taking Nicephorus with him, but soon changed his mind. Although the noble was indeed no soldier, he bore hardships uncomplainingly. His learning was useful in the tedious business of records and accounts; his conversation, parched wit and endless curiosity livened many long marches.

"There are stories among us that the Aesir, whom we worshiped as gods till lately, came from the Black Sea lands about the time of Christ," Harald said once in answer to a question. "True it is, one finds an Asgardh there—Asgorod—and the Azov Sea."

"Were they an Alanic tribe, then?" wondered Nicephorus. "Me Hercule, I would I had my books here! Or even my daughter Maria, she is well taught in classical matters. A good girl, kyrios. Lately she has joined Her Sacred Majesty's attendants, a step upward for her. My other children were boys, grown now and scattered over the Empire in governmental service. Only Maria is left to my wife and me. We have taken a house in Constantinople to be near her. You must come visit me when we get back. We shall have some good talks. I will read certain passages of Aristotle to you; I believe you would appreciate his clear cool reasoning. No one thinks in these later days, it's all flatulent mysticism, no Hellenes remain in the world."

Harald decided he would accept the invitation.

That winter again he spent in Messina. More and more he thought about his return home. Not that there was huge haste. Once the news that Knut was dead would have sent him rushing back, to grab for the kingdom and belike fall slain. Today, nearing the ripe age of twenty-five years, he felt more steady. Let his gold hoard grow with his plans, until one day he could not be resisted. He had learned much in the South. If he could make an empire of the North, from Greenland to Finland, and bind his wild folk to one king and one law, there would be no power on earth they need fear and his name would last forever.

In the spring of Anno Domini 1040, Georgios Maniakes got word that an army was bound from Africa to wrest Sicily back for the emirs. That was not unexpected, and his own preparations were soon made. The Greeks marched to the coast and halted at Draginas, whither their scouting boats told them the enemy fleet was bound.

Harald was at the final conference. Officers crowded Georgios' pavilion, filling the air with their sweat. Georgios leaned on a table littered with maps, snapping orders at one after another of his men.

His gaunted, unshaven face turned to Stephen, the Emperor's brother-in-law, grand admiral of the fleet. The navy had had an easy time hitherto, and Stephen was pouting at having been dragged from his vintages and larks' tongues in Messina. "Now, despotes," said Georgios, "as I've explained, with God's help we shall drive the infidels back into the sea. But if then they escape in their ships, this work must all be done over. It would be too dangerous to attack them from the water, with the reefs hereabouts. But if you stand guard and meet them as they get clear, still confused, their array unformed . . . you can cut them off and sink every last tubful!"

Stephen wiped his plump wet face with a perfumed scarf. "Easier said than done," he sulked. "They could sail around us."

Georgios brough his fist down so the table jumped. "By St. Demetrios and all angels! What's a navy for? You have twice their numbers, you can box them against the land. A sea breeze will push them back toward us, an offshore wind drive them into your arms." He curbed himself, resorting to irony. "Surely, despotes, a commander of your rare gifts can see many ways to which I am blind, for ending this campaign at one stroke."

Stephen said nothing to that. Harald wondered if he paid any heed to Georgios' discourse on tactics.

The next morning the two armies met. The Saracens were a good-sized host, splashing through the shallows and charging ashore with an inhuman screech. No few Christians were daunted. Harald was not. His victorious years had given him a belief that Olaf the Stout watched over him from Heaven and his life would not end until his work was done. He led his Varangians stolidly through their own battle task. Amidst a clanging and belling of metal they rolled back the enemy line. There was a butcher's time, then Georgios' schemes bore fruit. The foe crumpled, broke up into knots and single men, and fled.

They had brave rear guards, who died in their red footprints but held off the Imperialists long enough for the rest, still a large army, to board their ships and put to sea.

Harald stood on a high ridge, looking over the waters. Oars threshed, sails rattled loose, the galleys milled about. Beyond the reefs, the Byzantine fleet waited. But Harald frowned. "Our ships are not well ordered," he said.

Ulf nodded. "That's what comes of putting a fat wine bibber in command. Let's hope the harm he does is not too great."

They watched, and as day declined they saw the enemy break past with small trouble, assume formation, and slip over the horizon. The Byzantine dromonds wallowed in pursuit for a while, but were outdistanced and must crawl back.

"Let's return to camp," said Harald bleakly. "I'm fain to see what Gyrgi does about this."

Again officers crowded the pavilion. They shifted on their feet, unspeaking, numbed by their losses. Georgios entered, a javelin in one hand. Lamplight shimmered off the mail shirt and helmet he still wore. Not often had Harald seen a mouth turned down so bitterly. He seated himself behind his table and drummed with his fingers. That was the only noise.

After a very long while, Stephen entered. The admiral had delayed to bathe and change into silken raiment. He paused a moment under their eyes, then took a chair before the Archestrategos. Georgios said never a word.

"Well ..." Stephen cleared his throat.

"Be silent, caulker!" Georgios spat. "Men died today to win what you lost again."

Stephen flushed. "It was God's will," he mumbled.

"God's will my arse! It was your cowardice and incompetence, as well you know. Now we must await a fresh invasion."

Stephen rose, trembling. "That's enough!" he shrieked. "I'll thank you to remember, you, I am His Sacred Majesty's kinsman, and you can address me with respect. If I hear any more of your insolence ..."

Georgios rasped in his throat, leaped to his feet, and brought the javelin down. Its butt cracked against Stephen's head. The admiral staggered.

A moan went among the packed nobles. Georgios dropped his weapon, recalling whom he had struck. Pride kept him stiff and glaring.

Stephen wobbled about, mopping the blood from his scalp with the scented scarf. "Rebellion," he whispered. "So you rebel against God's anointed, Maniakes. They'll hear of this at court."

He swept out into darkness. Georgios stood a while longer before he said, "Dismissed."

One by one they left him. Harald wanted very much to speak to him, but he could think of no words.

The army returned to Messina, marching as if it had lost the battle. Georgios shut himself up with his work, Stephen in his house. Time would be needed for the dispatch ships to get to Constantinople and back. Meanwhile life went on, after a fashion.

"What will come of this?" Harald asked Nicephorus.

The older man spread his hands. "What think you? Maniakes will be imprisoned, perhaps executed." "But he was in the right!"

"Most certainly. The fact remains, however, that he struck the Emperor's kinsman. Even had John no care for his own family, this could not be suffered. Our Emperors never forget how insecurely they hold the throne, how many revolts have been raised among the great nobles."

"Gyrgi should rebel. By Gabriel's pinfeathers, I'd join him!"

"Maniakes sets the Empire above himself, Araltes."

So long did the waiting become that anger was spent and men accepted drearily what was foredoomed. Georgios was deposed, to be taken back under arrest. It was the further order that brought Harald to his feet with a curse. Stephen was now commander of the Sicilian forces.

But, God be thanked, the Varangians were summoned home. This island was now believed firmly held, while fresh troubles were arising everywhere else in the Empire. The Northmen embarked gleefully, not just because they longed for the fleshpots of Constantinople but because they would not have to serve under Stephen the Caulker. Nicephorus Skleros returned with them, vowing he would hereafter stay among his books and have no more to do with a corrupted age.

Georgios Maniakes was fortunate: he was jailed but not mutilated. Otherwise the news that year was altogether evil. Stephen's dominion fell swiftly apart; fresh hosts from Africa ate up the land again, until only Messina remained of all the Sicilian conquests.

Serbia rose in revolt against the taxes John had imposed, and won an independence the Empire dared not contest. For the great Bulgarian provinces seethed with the same spirit; tax collectors and soldiers were murdered; the cities were full of plots and the hills full of armed men.

Harald paid scant heed. He had suddenly gotten something else to think about.

VII

How Harald Was Betrothed

1

Upon the Norse prince, when the Varangians came back, the Emperor bestowed the high title of Manglabites. Thereafter Michael removed himself to the shrine of St. Demetrios in Thessalonica for ever more frantic prayers; he was becoming dropsical. Zoe remained in Constantinople. She had begun finally to show her age, turning fat and gray and religious.

Harald found himself with little to do but manage palace guards. He was more pleased than he would have admitted when an invitation came to visit Nicephorus Skleros. He dressed with care, though in Western rather than Eastern style: white linen shirt, gold-embroidered coat, scarlet hose, blue cloak lined with sable, rings on his fingers; a Persian slave accompanied him, bearing his gift of an antique calyx that he had brought from Syracuse. Their horses clopped through long sunset light, into the Blachernae quarter where Nicephorus dwelt.

The nobleman's house, was small, a porticoed building amidst a walled garden. The hillcrest on which it sat commanded a view of the city's endless flat roofs, gleaming domes and mask-raked vapors aglow in the Golden Horn. Nicephorus received Harald in an airy, simply furnished atrium; his plain white cope suggested a toga. ""Welcome, Araltes!" He pressed the Norseman's big hand. "It was good of you to come. The first of many such occasions, I trust."

They exchanged gifts. Nicephorus offered a costly dagger which Harald refrained from saying looked like poor steel. "Another time I should like you to meet some of my friends," the Byzantine said. "I have not many, but some few are worth knowing, men who talk honestly, though ..." He paused shyly. "I spoke so much of you to my wife and daughter that they wished to make your acquaintance themselves, which they could scarcely do when decorum binds them in company. I thought we would dine as one family tonight."

Thor help me, Harald groaned to himself. The lowborn women of the city he liked, even those he got no chance to tumble; they were often cocky and quick-witted. The veiled and secluded noble ladies he had met were an empty lot, even those he got into bed. He began to think of excuses for leaving early.

"I would be most happy to meet them," he said.

Nicephorus nodded to a servant, who bowed and slipped out. Meanwhile he poured wine with his own hand and turned to admiring the calyx. "See, is this not lovely? No such work could be done today. See how she stands there. Aphrodite risen new-born from the sea, wringing out her long tresses while the world sings about her. . . . Oh, good evening, my dears. My wife Dorothea, my daughter Maria. The right noble

Manglabites Araltes, captain of the Varangian Guard and heir to the throne of Hyperborea."

The older woman was quiet, good-looking in a faded way. It was on the younger one that Harald's gaze fell, and stayed.

She was tall, youthfully slender in her long silken gown, graceful on her feet. Her head was proudly carried, the blue-black hair piled in classic mode, the unveiled face so clean of line that it seemed cold until one noticed her smile. Beneath arched brows her eyes were big and dark, encountering Harald's steadily. He had rarely seen such beauty as lay in those faintly tipped eyes.

"This is a great honor, despotes." Her voice was low-pitched. "And how can we ever thank you for saving our father's life?"

"A ... a lucky chance," mumbled Harald. "Naught more. He, um, he would belike only have been held for ransom anyway."

"That would have been nigh as bad," Nicephorus said. "We are not rich." He waved them toward chairs. "Be seated, I pray you. I've promised Maria you would explain what happened at Draginas. To me the battle was sheer chaos."

Harald, who had taken a deep draught of wine, began to feel it. "Gyrgi, Georgios Maniakes, alone understands fully what went on," he said. Striving to curb the return of anger: "He and I had our quarrels, but he remains among the best men I have met down here; next to Olaf the Stout and Jaroslav the Wise, the best man I ever served."

"A vile trick they played on him," said Maria. Harald saw the color rise in her cheeks. One small hand drew into a fist. "The Empire has so few men worth anything. And then to throw this one into a dungeon!"

"Hush!" Her mother glanced fearfully at the doorway. "You are of Her Sacred Majesty's court."

"By Zeus, we will speak truth tonight," exclaimed Nicephorus. "Our servants are old and trusty folk come with us from the country. I say God will punish the Empire for its ingratitude to Maniakes."

"At least the Saracens will," drawled Harald.

Maria surprised him with a chuckle. "Why do you stay in this ungrateful place, Manglabites?" she asked.

"For gold," he shrugged.

"Now there's an honest man, father. The true Homeric insolence . . . Forgive me, despotes. I should not have spoken so familiarly. Dwelling far from court as we did most of my life, I fear I never learned proper manners."

"Why, kyria," said Harald, "what they call manners down here seems to me only . . "He broke off, feeling he approached dangerous ground. "As for the battle of Draginas," he said in haste.

When he had finished with that, Nicephorus suggested they dine. The meal was at once more simple and more subtle than most Byzantine cookery: fruits, soups, fish prepared in olive oil, well-chosen wines. Harald paid most heed to the candle glow shimmering along the curve of Maria's breast. The talk soon turned to himself, by her doing. "Will you never return home?" she asked.

"Indeed I will, when the time seems ripe. I had to flee my country, but someday I shall come home to be its king."

Her eyes widened. "One man alone dares speak of winning a whole nation?"

"It can be done," said Harald eagerly. All at once he found himself telling her of it: of his youth, Olaf the Stout and the battle at Stiklastadh; of his refuge in the wilderness, the ride across the Keel, the winter in heathen Sweden and the journey across the Baltic; of Jaroslav's folk; of warring in the marshes of Poland and on steppes where cornflowers blazed blue under an endless mournful wind; of the fleet that went down the Dnieper toward Miklagardh the Golden; of the years since, roving and lurching about the Midworld Sea, remembering even while whetted metal sang how the young beech trees had laughed in a Northern springtime.

The candles guttered low, Dorothea quietly lit fresh ones and slipped off to bed, Nicephorus kept Harald's goblet filled, while still he talked. So had he never spoken to anyone ere now. It torrented from him, a rush of years, sword blink and sea blink, horses and ships and all high longings, in that night he gave more to the girl who listened than he had ever given even to himself. He saw how she leaned forward, lips parted, to feel his pain as good men died or stood beside him on a sloping deck with spindrift in her hair. Belike the wine had somewhat to do with it for them both, but nonetheless, when much deeper in his cups he had never so laid down his soul's shield.

After he stopped, there was a long stillness. They heard church bells peal, far and icy sweet across the great slumbering beast of a city. "How you have wandered!" she breathed at last. "What have you not seen and done?"

"Much," he said, rather hoarsely. "I have not yet been hailed king at the Frosta-Thing, nor avenged Olaf, nor laid the Northlands under me, nor sailed to that western land of wild grapes and the Wonderstrands which Northmen found and lost again."

"If anyone can, it is you."

He gave her a sharp look, jarred out of his past, but saw no flattery in her. She seemed to have forgotten she was a woman and to be speaking to him as one of his own warriors might—the same scarred faithful man who called him "thou" and would say to his face that he was wrong.

"Could I but have seen a little of your world," she sighed.

"It has been ruled by war," he said. "And war is rain, mud, heat, fever, saddle sores, hunger, thirst, blisters, lice, filth, wounds, and death."

"Yet you have mastered those troubles."

"Well, one learns ways to make life in the field somewhat easier."

"Could I not?"

"If you were a man. Fortunately, kyria, you are not."

"I am only one of a hundred veiled serving ladies at court," she said, seriously and the least bit drunkenly. "Twice have I seen you there. Of course you did not notice me, but how I remember! You came in like a breath from the sea, blowing out those stale perfumes. I thought I could feel your strides ringing through the floor."

"Do you not like Her Majesty's service?"

"Well ... it seemed a chance to ... to do something new, as well as gain influence to help my brothers. But now—"

"You'll soon be wed and have your own household, kyria."

"Indeed." Her nostrils flared. "A whole house to move about in, a whole score of ignorant slaves for companion, and—no, not a whole man to myself. A half man whose work is to lick the Paphlagonian's buskins."

She rose. "Come," she said, "let us go out in the peristyle. The air indoors has gotten so thick."

Nicephorus watched owlishly as they left, too full of wine to accompany them as propriety demanded.

They stood between slim white columns, looking downhill over the city and the Golden Horn and Asia, shouldering black across the harbor. A breeze touched them, lightly as the moon did the waters. Overhead glistened a thousand stars. It was very still. Harald saw the girl's face outlined upon darkness.

"The old days were better," she said after a while. "When Artemis hunted in forests wet with dew, and the gods dreamed on Olympus, and every tree and spring and mountain was haunted by its own spirit . . . Almighty Zeus, what has the world become?"

"I think you are half pagan," he jested.

"More than half, perhaps," she said.

"From what I've heard, though, there ancients kept their own women well locked up."

"True . . . Penelope weaving the same tapestry over and over. . . . And yet she waited for a man who had wrought mightily." Maria shivered. "Best we go in again. The night grows cold."

Nicephorus nodded at them when they returned. "Do come back soon, Araltes," he said.

"Why, was that a hint he go?" laughed Maria.

"Well, I shall come back," said Harald, shamelessly adding, "Had you any particular day in mind?"

He joined the Skleros family one morning not long afterward for an outing in the hills beyond Galata. Nicephorus went on horseback like his guest; four brawny porters carried his wife and daughter in a litter; a retinue of slaves and servants came chattering after.

Harald felt tongue-tied, somewhat ashamed of giving himself away so much the last time. Maria must have had the same feeling, for she sat mute behind her veil. But when they passed the palace of Blachernae, she leaned out and said, "Father, you should show Manglabites Araltes the Bellerophon statue."

"Why, so I should, if he has never seen it," Nicephorus agreed. "Go on ahead, we'll come fast enough."

Dismounting, he and Harald went past the outer walls and into the Panhagia. There they stood, the hero and his winged horse, caught in one great leap; it was as if the wind of their flying still whirled through the dusky chamber, as if the horns of gods long dead blew again in heaven. Neither man spoke, they had a need of silence. .

When they were again riding, Harald said, "That is enough to make a man believe there are such horses."

"Just so," said Nicephorus. "Do you wonder that we remember that age as golden?" He tapped his brow. "Up here I know full well that they were men like us, who sweated and stank, cheated and slandered and fornicated and committed stupidities as much as any Christian. But by Apollo, in my heart I know otherwise."

"Something like that might be built again," Harald ventured.

Nicephorus shook his head and smiled with closed sad lips. "Men cannot raise the dead. If genius is to bloom anew, it must be from virgin soil. I fear I've done Maria an ill turn, filling her head with that which is now a thousand years behind us. How can she be happy in this sated, stiffened world? She ought to live where men work toward something new."

"That may well be right," said Harald thoughtfully.

"I have had few friends. My sons were good and dutiful, but only Maria seemed to feel as I did. God forgive me, I took advantage of that."

They caught their party beyond the gate and accompanied it over the bridge and so down a wide highway between the villas of the rich. Harald brought his horse next to the litter. A curl had fallen across Maria's forehead. "That thing you ride in should be good training for shipboard, kyria," he smiled. "I myself would get seasick."

"It is not comfortable," she answered tonelessly, "but it is considered proper for a lady."

"Can it be a virtue in us barbarians that we have fewer manners?" he teased.

Her interest awoke. "Is it true what I've heard, that your Northern women go about freely, unveiled, even crossing seas with their men?"

He nodded. "My mother ruled a large estate alone after my father died. Perhaps she still does. I've heard nothing of her for some ten years now." With a tightening in his breast, Harald said roughly, "There are few such women."

"I wish I could meet her," said Maria.

Dorothea made scandalized gestures, but Harald ignored them and continued talking with the girl. The ride became short.

They halted on a wooded ridge. The attendants busied themselves raising a pavilion and setting a table. Maria sprang from the litter and walked over to a steep bluff. Harald followed, aware of how the thin garments fluttered and were flattened against her in the wind. When they stood side by side, looking down across fields and orchards and houses to the remote flash of the Golden Horn, her head reached to his breast.

Slowly, she took her veil off. "Let the servants gabble," she said with a note of scorn. "They will anyhow."

He spread his cloak on the grass and they sat down together. She drew her knees to her chin and hugged them. The wind fluttered that one stray lock of hair; the rest shone like a raven's wing in the hot light. There was a tiny beading of sweat along her upper lip.

"Have you ..." She halted. "I pray pardon. Pay no heed."

"Have I what?" he asked. His left arm brushed her shoulder as he leaned on that hand.

She flushed and would not look at him. "It was a foolish question, despotes. See, what a fleet that is coming out the Horn!"

"Well, then," he said brashly, "if you'll not tell me, I must guess. You were about to ask if I had a woman waiting for me at home."

"I was not!" she cried.

"Will you swear to that?" he grinned.

"You are being rude, Manglabites."

"I am a barbarian with no manners," he mocked. "It was not hard to guess. Every woman thinks about the same thing."

Her anger drooped. She looked almost sorrowfully at him. "Do you really think so poorly of us, then?"

Taken aback, he fumbled after a clever reply but found none. "Not all women, surely. I cannot say. I've had little to do with them."

She saw him in retreat and followed him with quick merriment. "So, a monk! A paragon of chastity!"

Lest she think him unmanly, he answered more frankly than he meant to: "Now let me finish. I have been with women, of course, but we were never ... I suppose we never understood each other. First I was a boy, and since then I have been hastening off to fight somewhere."

She said so low he could barely hear: "You must be a lonely man."

"There is no woman waiting," he said. "Unless my mother lives."

Her hand brushed across his, a touch instantly gone again. The wind soughed through the poplars and tossed them in serpentine ripples, bright beneath the sun.

"I know not what there is about you, kyria," he said. "You loose my tongue more than is seemly. What a one you must think me, clacking away like an old carline!"

"No matter. No matter . . . Araltes. I am not one to gossip to others."

To cover his bewildered delight that she had addressed him by name (was that her intention?), he shaded his eyes and peered toward the water. A train of galleys crawled on their oars like beetles. "I think those must be the supplies for Sicily," he said. "They'll have a favoring wind in the Marmora."

"In ancient days," she said, as anxious as he to speak lightly, "they could have gotten a bag of wind from Aeolus and been sure of good passage."

"At home our fishermen often buy wind sacks from the Finn," he remarked.

"Perhaps Father's guess is right," she said. "If the Achaean wind god was Northern, perhaps the Achaeans themselves were."

Harald rubbed his chin. "Well, I shall tell you. The Finn is an old man, withered as an empty wine bag, who sits in the smoke under a skin tent and cracks fleas. Even the fellow who carved Bellerophon would be hard put to make a nude athlete of him."

"He could be carven as a god of fleas, then," she suggested. "Marble fleas upon him."

"Which clump when they hop," he said.

"And have tiny chisels to bite with."

"They could be trained to work for stonecutters ..."

Dorothea was shocked at how immoderately her daughter and the Manglabites laughed, through the entire meal and afterward, and none of their words made sense! She was relieved when they went home in the evening.

Torches flared as they paused outside Nicephorus' house. "Will you not come in for a last cup?" he asked.

"No, thank you," said Harald. Maria had told him she must go early to bed because of having to attend the Empress in the morning. "I must get back. But will you and your family not come dine with me soon?"

Nicephorus studied his shrewdly. "With pleasure. I will be sure to bring my whole family."

Harald clattered back through a gloom of avenues, wondering why his head should be in such a whirl. Curse it, he thought, he knew nothing about preparing a feast, nor did his present cook. Tomorrow he must go out and buy a slave who understood such arts. No, tomorrow the Varangians would be drilling. Well, Satan sink them, Halldor could take charge of that.

Ulf Uspaksson sat on a bench outside the Brazen House, carving, amidst the looped vines, an elephant's tusk and beasts beloved of Northmen. Sunlight rained over him, his shirt clung wetly to the squat powerful frame and his black-furred arms were bare. He looked up as Harald's gigantic form rounded the corner. "Good day," he nodded. "I've not seen you for a while."

"No," said Harald, "I've been busy elsewhere. I only stopped here today to see how things were faring."

"Oh, thus and so." Ulf laid down his knife and mopped his low forehead. "The Caesar asked me yesterday why you had absented yourself from his reception. I lied like Mohammed on your behalf, but he remained ill pleased."

"The Caesar? Bugger him," said Harald shortly.

"Look here," said Ulf, "this cannot go on forever. You got your titles and honors for fighting and standing guard, not for moping about like a bloated bull calf. Beware lest they weary of you."

Harald glared down at the broad ugly face. "Who's the chief of this corps?" he snapped.

"Somebody must speak plain truth to you. It's common gossip that you're so smitten with some girl at court you've even stopped having to do with other women. By the nine thousand lovers of Freyja, why do you not lay her and be done?"

"Enough!" Harald's hand dropped to his sword.

"Well, marry her, then. If I did not care about your good name, and your life, I'd not have said anything."

With an effort, Harald throttled his temper and nodded. "You run off too freely at the mouth, Ulf, but I'll take it as well meant."

"I call you no fool," said the Icelander gently. "Once or twice in a lifetime, if a man is favored by a good Norn, that happens to him which seems to have happened to you. I ask naught but that you take steps to ward what you have won."

"Yes ..." Harald left him.

He spent the day weighing Ulf's words. Often an outsider has clearer sight. He had been seeing a great deal of Maria Skleraina these past weeks; let him own honestly that he wanted her, and that a hundred years in her company would be too short. Let him then ask her hand, by heaven! He shook his head, awed at the suddenness of his resolution. But why not, why not, why not?

That evening he appeared at the Skleros home. Invitations had quietly stopped being needful some time ago. Nicephorus and Maria were alone in the library, he resting on a couch while she read aloud to him from the Agamemnon. Harald stood silent in the doorway, listening.

" 'Now do I swear no more behind a veil

my truth shall hide like a new-wedded girl.

A shining wind shall blow strong to the sunrise,

and like a breaking wave lift to the light

something far greater than this pain of mine . . .' "

She grew aware of him. The book fell from her hand. "Araltes," she said, as if his name belonged to the poem.

Nicephorus rose. "Good evening," he said. "Come join us. Do you know Aeschylus? I swear there will never be another like—Why, what is the matter?"

"Nothing," said Harald. "Nothing wrong."

Maria's eyes widened. Her hand went to her mouth. "Araltes," she whispered, "you're not being sent away ... to the Serbian war?"

He must grin at that. John had grown much too frightened of revolt at home to dismiss the trusted Varangians. He shook his head and, awkward again, sat down on the edge of a chair."Nicephorus, can we talk freely?" he asked. "I will go," said Maria.

"No, stay." In a rush, like charging a line of pikeman: "I wish to ask for your daughter in marriage."

Harald dared not look at her, he was watching the older man, but he heard how she gulped.

"This is not unexpected," said Nicephorus slowly.

"Well, I suppose I am no good dissembler." Harald's fingers strained against each other. "But I am a king born, and rich, and can take care of my own. I can make her a queen."

Nicephorus bit his lip. "Can you make her happy, though?"

"Can anyone else?" Maria's words wavered.

"So that is how it stands, eh?" Nicephorus sat down again himself. "I could pray for no better son-in-law," he sighed.

Maria went to him. Candlelight and shadow ran across the folds of her dress. "Say what you think, father. This is a time for truth."

His smile was weary. "I had hoped to see your children. But it is selfish of me."

"I can stay here," Harald blurted.

Nicephorus shook his head. "I would not ask that, my friend. I should always think of the lions caged at the Hippodrome. But you, Maria . . . it's a long journey to a barbarous land."

"Do you think that matters?" she cried.

"I had to say it." Nicephorus looked old for a moment, before he shook himself and smiled. "But having done so, why, Christ bless you both."

Maria knelt to embrace him, burying her face in his breast. "Come with us!"

"Now, now, let us remain practical. Perhaps you can send a letter now and again. It's not quite like dying." His thin hand shook as he stroked her hair.

Then he became the scholar once more, observing life from its edge. "Let us consider the other dry necessities at once. How long do you plan to remain here, Araltes?"

The words came from afar as if someone else were speaking through the roar in Harald's head. "Two years, perhaps?"

"Maria cannot quit her service at court overnight. The Empress is so easily offended. And then too, my dear, your mother would be grieved by a hasty wedding. To me it means nothing, but you know what tongues are like in this city. Best we plan upon the marriage next year."

Harald nodded. He could see the sense of that, however it galled him.

"Very good." Gently, Nicephorus freed himself from the girl. "We will forget the proprieties a while, for you two have much to talk about and . . . you are an honorable man, Araltes. Good night."

When he was gone, Maria flung herself into Harald's arms. He caressed her clumsily and wondered aloud why she wept.

"You long-legged idiot," she gasped, raising her face to his, "did you never guess how I was hoping?"

He kissed her, tasting the tears upon her lips.

He was often sleepless at night, but the days could be more than sweet. Neither Harald nor Maria might escape their work; oftimes the better part of a week went by without sight of each other, but he found how a man can live on memory. He flung himself back into steering the Guard, as one way to fill such emptinesses.

The year waned in autumn storms and winter chill, the new was rung in by chimes that shuddered through rain. As he came out of Hagia Sophia, Harald felt a raw wind blowing in off the Bosporus, driving a downpour before it that smoked along the streets and gurgled in the sewers. Belike there was snow at home, he thought, white and still. They seldom got snow here. More and more he wanted to go home.

Early in the year he found himself with a free afternoon, and so did Maria, and sainted Olaf—who had himself loved—made it warm and bright. They sat together in the walled garden of Nicephorus, alone except for the needful duenna. Her father had provided the oldest, deafest, dimmest-eyed poor relation he could find; she fell asleep in her chair and Maria came to join Harald on a bower bench.

Her hand lay in his with a trustfulness that turned over the heart inside him, but they talked quietly. She had set herself to learning the Norse tongue, beginning with his name.

"Hah-rrahlt. No, there's a delta on the end, is there not? Hah-rrald!" She wrinkled her nose at him. "What a language! You sound like a bear waking up angry."

"Not angry at you," he said. "I could never be that."

"Well, teach me next to say, 'I love you.' "

He did, and she said it in Norse, and he kissed her for it. She felt how his hands strained not to close on her with their full bone-breaking strength.

"Poor darling." She rumpled his hair. "This betrothal time is not so easy for you, is it?" She flushed. "We have not long to wait. And then . . . And next year, God willing, to travel with you toward the Pole Star. With youl"

"I'll make you queen over the whole North, Maria."

"It will be enough to be your wife. Truly, I wish no more. Oh, I'm proud as Satan when they talk at court of your victories. Nevertheless—"

"Go on." He lifted her chin in his hand.

"Oh ... I am being weak and foolish, I know. But I cannot keep from thinking of the other women, whose men never came back. And the peasants dragged off to war, who asked nothing but leave to work their fields in peace. One night I dreamed I stood before the Imperial throne, the Emperor was on it and somehow the Emperor was you, too, but the throne was wet with blood and when you—he—lifted his hand, I saw blood clotted between his fingers."

They had talked somewhat of this erenow. "The Norse throne I must have," he said. "If I take that not, I am a craven who cheats his own sons. But as for the rest, perhaps you can talk me into ways of peace."

Her mood sprang over to lightness. "How many sons shall we have? I hope they will be many. Big noisy boys tramping through the house. And will you give me just one daughter?"

"To be sure. If she has your looks, she'll be wooed by kings. Which will be useful to our throne, eh? But enough of talking. Yonder crone will not nap the whole day, worse luck." He drew her to him. She kissed him with hunger.

Then after a timeless time, feet stamped in the peristyle and a Northern voice cried, "Hoy, there, Harald Sigurdharson! Where the Devil are you?"

"Ulf!" Harald came swiftly from the bower. "What's this?"

The Icelander entered the garden. Teeth gleamed in his dark face. "I thought I'd find you here. News has come."

"Well?" said Harald like a curse.

"A messenger from the palace to the Brazen House. The Bulgarians have risen in force. They're advancing through Dyrrachium, slaying every Greek they can lay hands on. The Emperor is on his way back from Thessalonica to raise a new army. We'll be among them."

Harald stood motionless before he asked, most softly: "How bad is the case?"

"Bad enough. Slavic troops have cast off their allegiance and thrown in with the rebels. The governor in Dyrrachium seems as big an ass as Admiral Stephen, he's being whipped everywhere." Ulf spread his hands. "Well, if the Emperor himself plans to take the field, you can judge for yourself how matters must stand."

"I see." Harald turned back to Maria.

"What were you two saying?" she asked, white-faced.

He told her. "So we cannot be wedded until after this war," he finished, "and the war looks to be a long one."

She had shuddered and he had thought her about to weep. But she drew herself straight instead, and the hands she laid in his did not tremble greatly.

"I'll pray for your safety," she said. "God love you."

VIII

How Emperor Michael Went to his Weird

1

The Imperialists landed at Thessalonica and proceeded on into Macedonia. When Harald looked back over the columns winding up the mountains after him, mile upon mile of lances and banners and knobbed helmets, he might have felt ready to storm Utgardh of the giants. But then his eye traveled to the Emperor, near whom he rode with his choicest guardsmen, and a coldness touched him.

Michael's mount was an ambling fat gelding. He drooped and hung onto the saddlebow as if his cuirassier's armor were about to overbalance him. Swollen with the dropsy, his face a puffball, his hair already streaked with gray, he mumbled one steady stream of prayers. Harald wondered if such a presence was heartening to anyone.

God knew the Byzantines needed a rallying sign. The Bulgars had romped through a land which welcomed them as deliverers; Greek and Slav alike had risen; they gripped most of Macedonia and Epirus and on down into the Peloponnesus itself. Yes, he thought, this war would take time, and he might well leave his bones on these gaunt slopes.

Up ahead, from the vanguard, came a sound of yelling. Horses galloped off the road. Harald edged closer to the Emperor. His task was to ward the sacred person, letting Ulf and Halldor lead the Varangian shock troops. He owned he was not sorry for that, however much his nerves were chewed by sitting through the skirmishes thus far. There was no sense in risking needlessly the neck about which Maria's arms had lain.

"What is happening, Manglabites?" asked Michael in a thin voice. His hand fluttered toward the officer's arms hung at his saddle, as if ax, mace and hook meant anything in his possession.

"Some little trouble or other, Your Sacred Majesty. Naught to take much heed of."

"Should we halt the lines?"

"I think not, despotes, unless His Sacred Majesty wishes to rest."

The head, sagging under the gilt helmet, wobbled back and forth. "Not so. We shall go on. This is God's war. You must understand that, Manglabites. We want the troops to understand it. The Empire is the realm of God on earth. We could not give a broken scepter to our successor when soon we will be called before God's judgment seat. You know that, do you not, Manglabites?"

"Of course, despotes." Harald squinted ahead, into the wind that lashed tears from his eyes, trying to see what was going on.

"Ride thither, Manglabites. Bring us a report. The saints grant it be a good report, for our sins are many."

Harald spurred his horse forward, past the mindlessly marching columns and up a shale-covered hillside. The fight was already over. Halldor and some guardsmen were binding the arms of several men in the rough clothing of mountaineers. Two sprawled dead, their brains spattered by the Varangian axes.

"Oh, good day," said Halldor. "These fellows thought to put some arrows into our advance guard from ambush and then escape into yonder woods. They were not quick enough. None of our folk were hurt."

"No more than that?" Harald searched the Macedonian faces. One youth, he could scarce have seen fourteen winters, spat on his horse. A Northman cuffed him so he stumbled.

"There's no need to strike bound men," said Harald mildly. He addressed the boy in Greek: "Why did you do this? Are you scouts for an army?"

"Yus." The answer was in a dialect he could barely follow. "Yus, a host o' greatness what'll slay the last devil o' ye."

"I doubt that," said Halldor. "We've no reason to believe a sizeable enemy force is anywhere close by. Lad, lad, do you not know you can be impaled for this?"

"Yus, 'tis your way, is't not? Wring us bloodless, an' when we can't pay no more taxes then take the people's holy church from 'em, an' end with running a stake up us an' leaving us for the crows. That's your Empire!" the boy wept.

"The worst of it is that he is right," Halldor said bleakly in Norse. When one of his men asked why, he explained: "The Bulgars rose because the taxes were raised beyond endurance and their own Patriarchate was put down. John the Orphanotrophos! Now they've egged their neighbor folk on to revolt with them, and so we must take honest yeomen like these," his marred features, tautened beneath the dust, "and give them to the Emperor's creatures for judgment."

"The trouble," said Harald, "is that we have a king here who is not a king. He should have kept power in his own hands."

"As you will do?" asked Halldor jaggedly.

"Yes," said Harald.

Perhaps God still watched over New Rome. With their own strength and so many allies, the Bulgars should have kept their freshly won freedom and added all Greece to the realm. But their leaders fell out. Alusianos seized King Deleanos by treachery, blinded him and took the crown, then, heavily bribed, submitted to the Byzantines.

Still the campaign wore on, for many Slavs would not yield so readily. In a great and hard-fought battle, Michael's army destroyed the leaderless Bulgar host and took Deleanos and his associate Ibatzes prisoner. Thereafter they went south through Macedonia and Epirus into Greece, restoring order, a long-drawn affair of hard marches and bitter little combats. Riding beside Michael, Harald saw that the Emperor was dying in the saddle.

One autumnal day they came down a valley in the rain. After hours of such weather, the world was formless gray, nothing but water and mud underfoot. Horses stumbled, close to exhaustion. The infantry was scarcely in a better case.

There he came, the Byzantine soldier, bulwark of Orthodox Christendom, his face a dark snarl of beard where raindrops glistened like tears, his cheeks caved in, his jaw hanging lax and his nose dripping. Under the rusty helmet his head bowed down toward the squelching earth. The end of his pike trailed in the mud; his shoulder hunched beneath armor and pack; his knees were lumps of bone above the greaves; and his feet were two clods of clay, up and down, up and down, up and down. Over his back, along his ribs, into his boots came the rain. It sluiced from the hidden sky, drummed on helmets, poured over mail, drenched and weighted cloth, plashed in footprints. Toward evening the air grew very cold, the soldiers' skins prickled with cold, but their eyes were half closed and they no longer felt it.

Harald rode side by side with the Emperor, ready to catch the gross body if it should fall off the saddle. Michael's head hung on his breast, his eyes were shut. Four horsemen held a canopy over the sacred person, but it had begun to leak and rain pattered steadily upon the lord of New Rome. The dribble from his parted lips was almost the only sign that he yet lived.

Darkness fell, layer by layer, until unseen trumpets blew. The noise came dully out of chilled brass. A great uneven sigh lifted from the shadow host behind Harald. Now they must dig fosses, arrange the wagons, pitch tents and set guards before they could sleep. Mist streamed over the mud, under the rain.

The Imperial pavilion had already been erected.

The two-headed eagle hung above, a soaked rag forlornly waiting to be wrung out. Harald dismounted and felt water seep into his boots. Must get them cobbled, he thought wearily. "We are making camp, despotes."

Michael stirred, whimpering, and slid down into Harald's arms. The Norseman bore the bloated form like a child's, helmet snuggled against his shoulder, into the pavilion. Its wooden floor thudded under his tread. He set his burden in a chair.

"Is there aught else His Sacred Majesty desires?" he asked.

Michael raised his eyes, slowly, as if stones hung from the lids. "Remain here," he whispered.

Harald waited in a corner while slaves undressed the Emperor, rubbed him with scented oils, wrapped him in a purple robe and put him to bed. He lay breathing heavily while they went out after food. Harald had begun to think he had been forgotten and would have to stand there the whole night, when the red-veined eyes opened again and rolled toward him. "Stay and dine with me, Manglabites," said Michael faintly. "I want to . . . to . . . discuss tactics. . . ." His words trailed off.

The honor could be as dangerous as it was unprecedented: no telling what might enter a head so sick. Harald bowed and waited, listening to the rush of rain over canvas. The single lamp guttered, almost going out, causing huge shadows to jump on the wall. Attendants spread the table with silken cloth, golden ware and delicate viands. But one man must lift the Emperor's head and feed him from a spoon.

"Be seated, Araltes," he mumbled. "Sit and eat. Wait not on ritual. We are all God's children."

The Norseman gave an inward shrug, drew up a chair, and fell wolfishly on the food. There was silence while his fingers tore a roast swan apart and his teeth picked the bones clean. Nothing could so gut the soul of a man as hunger, he thought; might not the visions of ascetic hermits be mere belly growlings? On a night like this, God seemed far away and the Fiend walked abroad. Defiant, he repeated his heresy and tossed off a bumper of wine. It glowed in him like a small hearthfire.

Michael had himself propped against the pillows after he had been fed. The mottled face looked somewhat less corpselike and he spoke more clearly. "Go. Every one of you out. Close the flaps. We would talk privately with the Manglabites."

Harald knew suddenly that the best service he could do was pretend the Emperor was only a man. He leaned back in his chair and crossed one spurred boot over the other knee. Michael plucked at his coverlets. They heard the rain laugh in the ditches.

"We ... I . . ." Michael looked blurrily at Harald. "I fear tomorrow I must cease riding a horse. Have a carriage prepared."

"It has been prepared for many days, despotes. Everyone has urged you not to wear yourself out in the saddle."

"But . . . the men . . . leadership . . . oh, another thing. I was wondering."

"What about, despotes?" asked Harald after a long pause.

"What? Oh. Indeed." Michael had pulled a gold thread loose. He worried it between his fingers, ceaselessly. "About the campaign. To be sure. I was wondering ..."

"It goes well, despotes."

"With God's help." Michael crossed himself." "With God's help. Perhaps He has forgiven us our sins." His hand returned to the thread. "Christ's mercy is infinite, is it not?" he asked in a child's voice.

"So they say, despotes."

"It must be so, truly it must be, or another flood would long ago have ..." Michael's mouth fell open. He stared into the shadows. "Could this be the beginning? The rain is so heavy. . . . Forty days and forty nights!"

"This is only a seasonal rain, despotes. It should stop before dawn."

"I never thought there was so much rain in the world," breathed the Emperor. "But ... I remember now. God promised there would not be another flood. He will burn us instead."

"His Sacred Majesty tires himself," said Harald. "Best he sleep."

"Not so. I am not sleepy. I must go on. Do you hear me? I have to . . . take my punishment. . . . This, and the pain, and the dreams at night, O God, the dreams!" Michael covered his face.

"Go not away, Araltes," he said frantically. "Stay here. Give me some wine."

Harald held the cup to the Emperor's lips. He sipped a little.

"Thank you, thank you. You are a good man, Manglabites. I will give you honors when we return. Many honors. You shall be a great man for being so true to me." Strengthless clammy fingers wrapped about Harald's wrist. The eyes that searched his were horrible. "'You are true, are you not? Say you are true to me!"

"Of course I am, Your Sacred Majesty."

"Good, good. ... I knew I could trust you. . . ." Michael struggled for air. "Even with God's doom on me, you stand fast. . . . Hired ... I hired you to uphold a breaking sky. You know not how the palace whispers. They are always whispering, hiding in the drapes, creeping about inside the walls; they are waiting for me to die."

Harald wondered what to do. Should he summon the Imperial physicians? But too many words were rushing out of Michael's mouth. The Emperor's head threshed about on the pillows.

"Zoe, Zoe, she's faithful too, we have to stay together, she and I, murderers dare not fall out, do they? I should have loved her more, I know she cares for me, but ... It was sport at first, do you understand? A game, a boy's mischief, I, a servant, cuckolding the Emperor. . . . How the old man trusted us! When they told him how we were carrying on, he summoned me, and so gently he asked if it were true. God help me, I swore it was not, and he believed me! He gave me fresh marks of favor!"

Later, thought Harald, even Romanus Arghyros could not have stayed blind. But the tale was that he had let the liaison become almost official, lest Zoe roll into still greater scandal. There had been no need to murder him.

"When they took him from his bath, he was dying," said Michael crazily. "He tried to speak and could not. Zoe went in and saw his condition and left again; she did not even wait for the end. Then, they say, he turned his face to the wall and died. It was Zoe! Do You hear me, God? It was Zoe! My God, my God, I am trying to save Your Church and Your Empire, why have You forsaken me?"

His eyeballs swiveled back. His legs kicked. Harald seized a spoon and thrust it into the bubbling mouth lest the tongue be bitten off. Michael arched his spine, gasping. Outside, the rain roared.

Harald held the Emperor in his arms till the fit was over and sleep had come. Then he left and called the physicians. The next day the march went on.

How the Caulker Reigned

1

With the rebellion at last put down, the army traveled home overland. Late that year, Michael entered the city in a triumphant clamor of bells. Roses were rained on his head, the Patriarch met him outside Hagia Sophia with a chant of thanksgiving, his Empress watched with shining eyes. Through it all he crouched small and shivering. When he bestowed on Harald the exalted title of Spatharokandidatos, officer of the swordsmen, his voice could scarcely be heard. Not long afterward he retired to the monastery of St. Anarghyros, taking the vows and habit of a monk. A few days later, early in the month of December, bells tolled throughout the city and men knew that the Emperor was dead.

Courtiers related that when Zoe heard Michael had entered the monastery to die she ran on foot, weeping, to see him a final time. He coldly refused to receive her. She shuffled back to the palace and summoned John.

"Now, you dog, it is time for a reckoning," she said.

The eunuch threw himself at her feet in a storm of words. "Mother of Empire! Without Your Sacred Majesty we are lost. . . . Take the power, gracious one; rule for us. . . . Your holy will be done." By the time he finished, Zoe was smiling foolishly. She agreed to spare his life.

The old Emperor's nephew, her adopted son, Caesar Michael Calaphates, mounted the throne. So little trust had been placed in this young man that no work of state whatsoever had been allowed to go through his hands. Zoe made him swear he would ever regard her as his mother and would banish John and John's brothers.

Harald was not much surprised when, shortly afterward, Michael Calaphates recalled the Orphanotrophos to the palace and conferred on him the high rank of Despot.

Some weeks later, the Norseman went to visit Maria. He entered the house with long, impatient strides. Now that war and succession and distribution of offices and such time-devouring nonsense were past, the setting of a new date for his wedding was long overdue. But when he was shown into the atrium, his intention was cut off. Nicephorus sat waiting beside Maria. His countenance was haggard. The maiden ran to her betrothed with that lightness he would never forget—they had not been able to meet for more than a week—and caught his hands in hers.

"Oh, Harald," she exclaimed, "I've been dismissed!"

His first thought was: light candles to St. Olaf! Then some of the meaning struck him. "Eh?" he said blankly.

Nicephorus nodded, stroking his beard with a nervous hand. "All the Empress' women have been sent home," he said.

"How's that? What's come upon her?"

"Not her own free will. You know how the new Emperor has been steadily gnawing at Zoe's power, diminishing her allowance, refusing her the due honors, openly mocking her."

"It was ugly to watch." Maria's eyes clouded over. "The poor old soul!"

"Now her ladies are taken away," Nicephorus said. "She is being strictly guarded in the Gynaeceum. Her only attendants are creatures of Michael's. It cannot be long before he dethrones her and sends her to a convent."

"As she did to her own sister," said Harald unfeelingly. "Michael IV was more a man than I knew, but as for the rest of that pack. ..." He checked himself.

"It is not so well for us, my own family and myself, that we have been associated with Zoe," said Nicephorus. "The great branches of the Skleros, Phokas, Dalassenos, and other gentes can look after themselves, but the minor bearers of such a name, only distantly related, may come to feel the Imperial malice. And ... I have sons in provincial service."

Harald let Maria go, lifted his head, and answered, "But you are associated with the captain of the Varangians. Presently you will be associated with a king. I do not think you need fear."

Blood flew into Maria's cheeks. "So would Achilles have spoken!" she cried.

"The sooner I become your son-in-law, then, the better for you," Harald went on.

Nicephorus seemed oddly reluctant. "If you are going home with the Russian traders this summer, he said, "you will have much to do beforehand. A suitable wedding takes more time than you perhaps know."

"What of it?" Harald knotted one fist. "Before God, I've lost a year already!"

"And so have I," murmured Maria.

Nicephorus looked up at their two tall forms and down again. "Well," he said slowly, as if dragging the words from himself, "that is true. I have no right to . . ."

His daughter went to him. Her voice was not altogether steady. "I know what you think, Father."

"What?" asked Harald. Unease touched him.

She gave him a torn look. "That when we depart, you and I, he will never see us again."

After a long while: "Harald, will you understand it if I ask we not be wedded until just before we depart north?"

He did not, entirely; but he could ill say so when she was that close to tears. "Let it be thus," he yielded. She wept in her father's arms.

Nicephorus regarded Harald over her shoulder and said softly. "Now my last fears on her behalf have been removed, Araltes."

In the time that followed, Harald found himself busy indeed. Much of his work was ceremonial, for the handsome, dissolute, sulky-lipped Emperor was great for show. The Norseman's gloom was lightened somewhat as he watched the second banishment of John. Michael V repaid his benefactor as he did all;

John was sent away, and the last sight Harald had of him was as he stalked through a long marble corridor toward the palace gates.

His face was held wooden, save for a jag of pain now and then from the cancer that was growing on it; but the jet eyes remained steadfastly baleful. He left as he had come, in the humble garb of a monk, and Halldor said: "So God does act justly."

"But the Devil looks after his own," said Ulf.

"What do you mean?"

"Why, John has stolen enough wealth for a king, and now retires to an easy life, far from the witch's cauldron brewing here. You should come with me to the stews and listen to the anger of the folk."

"Well," said Harald, "it's a hard punishment that he can no longer play at almightiness."

"Maybe so," Ulf grinned. "How now can such a gelding pass the years?"

Halldor rubbed his chin. "Had men done that to me," he murmured, "I might also have made my life one long revenge."

The dismissal of John changed nothing at court. His rank as prime minister, with elevation to Nobilissimus, was given his brother Constantine, who still stood in favor. This Constantine was a eunuch too, but tall and vigorous. Corruption bloomed on a yet grander scale.

When Harald led the Varangians in the Easter procession, he saw how the crowds along the avenues cheered and how costly rugs were spread for Michael's horse to walk on. The young man puffed himself up like a toad. He did not hear the note of mockery in those hurrahs.

Well, thought Harald, erelong I will be out of this. With Maria!

On Sunday night, the eighteenth day of April, he went to bed with no thought save of her. In the misty chill of Monday before dawn, Ulf came in and shook him awake.

"Rise, Spatharokandidatos!" The Icelander was in full mail. His eyes burned wolf green under the plumed helmet. "We've work to do!"

Harald sat up. Sleep drained from him. "What is this?"

"Last night dear Emperor Michael Calaphates had his beloved adoptive mother Zoe arrested on a charge she tried to poison him. She was taken to the convent on Prince's Island, stuffed into a nun's habit, her hair sheared off. The Senate will be gathered this morning to pronounce her dethroned."

"Well?"

"Well, the news is already loose and the mobs have begun to form. We must guard him well, or Michael's loyal subjects will rip his guts out!"

"Death to the Caulker!" "Bring back our mother!"

From a wall of the palace, looking toward the Hippodrome, Harald saw the city boil with revolt. The crowd was jammed and screaming below him. His eye fell on a woman who clawed the air as if it were the Emperor's face; on an aproned carpenter waving an adze like a weapon; on a beggar with wild white beard who ranted from a ladder and was answered by howls of hate.

Eight years of oppression and savage taxes had come back to roost on the golden domes. To those down there, commoners, workers, shopkeepers, servants, thieves and whores—the swarmers in the streets—Zoe stood as a sign. She also was weak, she also was vain and lustful and stupid, and now when she also became the prey of the Paphlagonian house, it was too much. The mob arose and yelled for blood.

Stones rattled against the wall below Harald. Ulf came to join him. ''We're ready to go," said the Icelander. "Whoof, what a stroll this will be!" They descended to an inner court where their men were ranked. Michael stood there, mouth aquiver, skin shiny with sweat. Constantine loomed in gorgeous robes of state, evil and indomitable. The new-made nun Zoe taunted them from beneath her coif. "It did not work, Calaphates!" she kept shouting. "You could not undo me. You, treacherous apes!" The Emperor seemed too frightened to hear her.

Harald led the guards of the party through the tunnel from palace to Hippodrome. It boomed and echoed under the Varangian boots, candles smoked and streamed in slave hands. At the end, they mounted the stairs to the Imperial box. Harald drew the purple curtains and looked out upon an arena seething with folk. One big laborer was so close that his teeth could be seen, he threw a club that almost entered the box, then a tide in the throng whirled him away. Their clamor filled the bowl of the sky.

Trumpets bellowed from guard posts, hoo, hoo, silence, the Emperor is going to speak. "Bugger the Emperor! Death to the Caulker! Zoe, mother Zoe, come back to us!"

"Go on." Roughly, Constantine pushed his shaking nephew forward. "Tell them we've recalled her. Else we're done."

Michael wet his lips. A stone went over the rail and clunked at his feet. "Go on, you whelp!" snarled Constantine.

Slowly, Michael Calaphates went to the edge of the box. He leaned on it as if his knees had folded. "My people—people of city and Empire—Romans—" His thin tones were lost. Not even the professional stentor who repeated his words could make headway against that din.

"People . . . see, the Empress is here, safe. . . ."

Zoe laughed with hatred. "A nun!" she shrieked. "A shorn nun! Think you that sight will pacify them?"

Stones were flying thick. Harald held his shield upraised, peering over the rim. One missile clashed on the metal.

"It's no use!" Tears ran from Michael's eyes. "Uncle, they won't listen!" "Death to the Caulker!"

"We must flee," Michael babbled. "A monastery . . . refuge ..."

Constantine turned his back on the Emperor. "We will stay in the palace," he declared. "The Varangians and our household troops can keep it until this dies down. Katakalon, do you take charge of our defenses."

The governor who had held Messina when the rest of Sicily was lost nodded. "Just so, despotes. Once the rabble have cooled off, they'll skulk home, each one vowing he had nothing to do with this."

''Uncle, it's death to stay here," Michael sobbed.

Constantine seized his dalmatic and shook him. "It's death to leave," he said between clenched jaws. "Know you what's happening at Hagia Sophia? I've had spies out; I'll tell you. There's an assembly there which has proclaimed itself the new government and read you off the throne. It's fetched Zoe's sister Theodora from the Petrion convent, named her co-Empress . . . and you know what our family has done to Theodora!"

Michael buried his face in a sleeve. The walk back to the palace was silent.

Harald posted a strong guard at the tunnel and mounted the walls anew. Spires and domes were black against a bloody sunset. Down in the crowd he saw not only sharp tools but swords. Rich tapestries were waved as banners, gold clinked on the paving, gaunt men lifted wrists from which dangled broken chains. The folk were pillaging now, opening the prisons, putting houses to the torch.

"And the worst of it is," muttered Halldor beside him, "they act with justice."

"Well, then, I've a more tasteful task for you than fighting them" said Harald rapidly, through dry lips. "Take some trusty men and slip out a lesser gate ere Katakalon inspects us. Go to the home of Nicephorus Skleros and defend it like your own."

Halldor gave him a long look. "Would you not liefer do that yourself?"

"God help me, I cannot," groaned Harald. "She and I are both ruined if I absent myself. But . . . Halldor, if you save her, everything I've hoarded up is yours."

"Keep it," said Halldor shortly. "I need no pay to be a man." He turned on his heel and walked off.

All that night, the guards on the walls saw flames flapping above city roofs and heard the mob prowling. Smoke was bitter in their nostrils. Harald paced among his men, seeing to the posts, feeling the edges of their weapons. Often he went into the chapel and begged St. Olaf to watch over Maria.

The assault came on Tuesday morning. Someone had gotten the rioters organized, with leaders and arms, for they stormed the palace from three sides at once.

Harald stood with a hundred Varangians before a major gate, hoping to keep it from being rammed in. He watched coldly as the folk moved closer, yelping insults and throwing stones. Those swine dared imperil Maria! Then a tall man shouted and charged.

Harald saw how his rags fluttered in the morning wind and how sunlight ran off his lifted ax. The Norseman raised his sword, but the Byzantine went down with an arrow in him. His ax clattered on the pavement. The rioters came after, a human landslide driven by its own weight, and trampled him flat.

Spears, arrows, quarrels hailed on them, but their dead could no longer fall, the press was so thick that a corpse was borne along. Harald lifted his shield. At least no more rocks and filth would be thrown. His sword flickered out and clove a skull.

Another man leaped over the fallen one, screaming. His club shocked on Harald's shield. The Norseman took a leg off him. Someone else behind, one to the right and one to the left, hew, hew, hew, three down and a thousand more coming!

There was one in armor, an Imperial trooper fighting for Theodora. He struck at Harald with skill. The Norseman beat down the round shield and buried his long sword in the jaws. As the soldier died, Harald had time to wonder if they had been together in Greece last year.

From the red welter below, a knife stabbed upward. He felt a blade slide along his greave and stamped on the hand of the wounded man. Bones crunched. The man sighed wearily and died.

A sledge crashed on Harald's helmet. Lights glared through a brief darkness. As his guard dropped, two men sprang over the heaped dead and fell upon him. He kicked one in the belly and knocked the other down with the boss of his shield. His sword finished them.

In the end, the mob drew back and cursed the Varangians from beneath the Hippodrome. Harald sucked breath into starved lungs and looked about. The pavement gleamed with the lurid brightness of new blood. Dead men sprawled and stared, wounded men moaned and tried horribly to crawl away. No few of his own were down too, heads cracked open, steel in their throats, limbs broken. The faces of the hale were gray with weariness. Harald's hands were red and slippery. He wiped them on a slain man's tunic, leaned on his sword and panted.

"Shall we follow and scatter them?" asked Ulf.

"'No. They are too many. They'll come back." As his heartbeat waned, Harald heard noises from the court, struggles of the guard and the tchukanisterion. Assaults were still being mounted. He glanced at the sun and was dimly surprised to see that it stood almost at noon. Had the fight lasted so long? Or . . . rather . . . only one morning?

Servants slipped through the gates at his back to remove the casualties and bring food and drink. He tore the bread with his teeth, not hungry but knowing he would need strength. Over by the Hippodrome, a wagon laden with wine barrels was trundled forth. The enemy yowled around it. They would return here full of wet courage.

That was after an hour of haranguing. Again it was smite, hack, hew, a whirl and a roar and a final withdrawal. Harald felt giddy, his helmet was a bake oven, sweat runneled through the scutes of his armor. The Varangian line had been gruesomely thinned.

"One more such attack, Ulf, and they'll have us," he croaked. "Prepare the men to retreat into the palace grounds. After that we can only try to hold the halls until . . ."He sighed. "Until everybody is dead on one side or another, I suppose."

Maria's image seemed very faint, he knew only the drag of iron from his shoulders, the bite of wounds in legs and arms.

As the sun declined, the rioters stormed once more. Harald stood fast, taking a storm of blows on his shield, striking with a sword grown dull from slaughter. One by one the Varangians went through the gates. "Now, then, forward!" A last brief rage of axes, the front ranks of the enemy cut down and their advance stopped, a moment's pause gained for Harald to lead his rear guard inside and bar the gates.

Beyond, the garden was cool. There were clipped hedges and ordered flowerbeds, trees that rustled in the evening wind. Harald sat on the grass, gulping what wine he could get, while the gates buckled and groaned. Out there a hundred men wielded a log, drumming down the portal and the throne of Michael.

"Here they come." Harald rose and led his troopers to the entrance of the nearest building. "Form ranks!"

The gates sagged. The people surged in and spilled through the palace. High on their shadowed walls, mosaic saints watched God's judgment roll over the Imperium.

The Varangians were attacked less fiercely than Harald had awaited. With so much to loot, only the most revengeful rebels went against them. He withdrew step by step down seemingly endless hallways, giving and taking weary blows. Forced at last into a wide room and attacked on every side, his formation was broken and his men must flee singly. He saw Ulf backing up a stair, ax still flying as half a dozen swordsmen pursued.

Later, with much lewd detail, the Icelander told what had happened. No lamps were lit on the floor above, so he ducked around a corner and into the gloom of a luxurious suite. A woman hiding there gasped as she heard him come in. He seized her and clapped a hand to her mouth. "Silence! They'll hear us!"

"Oh ... a Varangian!" She coughed out, then, still in his arms half weeping, she said, "Save me, save me, for God's holy sake! I will pay you, I'll make you rich if you save me. . . ."

Though he reeled on his feet, Ulf thought he could best stop her fit with a good noisy kiss. That worked well enough, perhaps, because even in her terror Anna Danielis expected no such thing from a mere guardsman.

"At your service, despoina," he said. "We can make ourselves a fortress here. They're not likely to come in such numbers that they can storm it." He piled furnishings against the doors and got a lamp lit. Since he saw no chance of rejoining his comrades, and a full carafe stood on a table, he removed his mail and shared the wine with her. They were soon drunk. She was a leading lady at court, handsome in a plump pop-eyed fashion, her decorum torn away by fear. Ulf was not too worn to bed her and afterward they often found occasion to meet. Her husband was a dry stick, she told him.

As for Harald, he rallied a few men in a doorway, beat off an attack and stood waiting. The foe grumbled sullenly at him but did not try afresh. Every man's hands felt too heavy to lift. In the hours that followed, the mob sacked the palace.

Toward morning a band of Imperial guardsmen, bearing torches and a flag of truce, arrived with their news. The Emperor had fled with his uncle, Zoe had resumed power, the cause was won and all folk should go peacefully home.

"And my men died for him!" said Harald. He threw his blunted sword on the floor and walked out.

Theodora was not like Zoe. She was big and ugly, dressed plainly, hoarded her wealth and, although a good speaker, she voiced more prayers than counsel. While the commoners cheered, danced and sang in the streets, the Senate confirmed her as colleague on the throne, much to her sister's displeasure.

Harald stood with several Varangians behind Zoe while she addressed her people from a balcony, thanking them for the aid which had left her dwelling a gutted wreck. His wounds ached, he mourned good friends, but the riots had not come near Maria's home and that was sign enough of God's goodness.

The Empress' fat shoulders sagged with exhaustion. When she asked mercy for Michael, her voice was quite lost in the shouts.

"Death to the Caulker! Down with the scoundrel! Impale him! Burn him! Geld him!" For a moment it looked as if wrath would again waste the city. Zoe fled back to her apartments, tears making channels in her powder.

Harald was not surprised to learn that the praefect and a squad of officers were already off to St. Studion. Theodora had many years to avenge. He and his men were ordered to hold back the crowds while sentence was publicly carried out.

The braces had been erected in the square before the palace, and the executioner was heating his instruments when Michael and Constantine were brought thither. Both still wore the black monastic robes they had hoped would keep them safe. Michael stumbled, half dragged along by his guards; Constantine strode firmly, glaring contempt at the world.

As they lashed him into place, Michael struggled and screamed. "Christ, not so, have mercy, in Christ's name, I am your Emperor, God will smite you for this, help, help, help!"

"Hear how the pig squeals!" called someone. The mob, pressing hungrily closer, laughed. Theodora watched from a balcony, avid. Zoe was not present.

"Show some respect, there!" rapped Constantine when he was fastened in the brace.

"Take him first!" screamed Michael. "Take him first!"

The executioner shrugged and plucked a white-hot needle from his brazier with tongs. Constantine watched unwaveringly. Harald saw how the eunuch's teeth caught at his lip when the steel sizzled in, but he made no sound. The executioner withdrew the needle and picked up another.

Blood ran down Constantine's cheeks from the empty eye sockets. "God be praised!" he said. "Now I need no longer look at you dogs."

Michael jerked against his bonds, keening above the jeers. Thus had it ended, the power and wealth, stately days and reveling nights—ended in a wooden spiderweb and the blue-white glow of a needle. He screwed his eyes shut, still shrieking. The executioner forced the lids back with deft fingers.

Afterward the prisoners were led off, to drag out their lives as common monks at Elegmos. Two old women sat upon the Imperial throne, with a treasury nearly dry and a realm yet trembling.

Up on the balcony, Theodora permitted herself a pious little smile.

How Zoe Was Ungrateful

1

A few days later, Harald learned that Georgios Maniakes had been released and reappointed commander in Italy. The Empire's affairs there had fallen into a sorry state, with the native Italians rising and the Norman mercenaries, by now a sizeable army, holding most of the Imperial possessions as an independent nation. Harald went to see his friend and wish him Godspeed. He found him directing preparations from an office by the Golden Horn.

''Oh . . . Araltes. Spatharokandidatos Araltes now, is it not? Good day to you. Be seated." Georgios laid down a list and peered across the table. Two years in prison had bleached his skin and gaunted his flesh, and his movements were jerky; but he smiled with a touch of the old sour humor. '"Say not you are coming too!"

Harald shook his head. "I will soon be bound home, kyrios. I came but to say farewell."

"That was kind of you. I'll miss your mulishness." Georgios' fist slammed the table. "Body of Christ! Men these days are nothing but traitors or catamites. Where shall I find anyone like you who'll do a task and not stab me from behind?"

"Your common soldiers are not such bad fellows."

"Clods. I need officers. By the Virgin, it's hard." A whine entered the tone. "For two years they let me rot, then today when I've scarce seen my family I must be off again to shore up this wreck of an Empire, while my enemy Romanus Skleros stays home to intrigue against me. Has a man no rights?"

"You could resign your post and retire to the country."

"And leave myself powerless? Never." Georgios' mouth drew into harsh lines. "But let them give me my deserts this time, or beware."

Harald stirred uncomfortably. "Well, then . . . farewell," he said. "God help you."

"I'll help myself. It's useless to rely on anyone else."

Harald went out feeling that he had spoken to an unlucky man.

A sharp wind bore tar and smoke and a hundred spices to his nose. The docks clamored with men: a sweaty gang of laborers loading a^ merchant vessel, a carpenter hammering a gaggle of drunken sailors, a squad of harbor guards tramping by with the sun aflash on their mail. Ships, seemingly without end, lay berthed in the harbor, their yardarms athwart the sky. A gilt naiad leaped at the prow of one; tangled cordage and rusty anchors were everywhere; and the slap of wavelets on barnacled hulls permeated the air. Elsewhere the court might scheme and feast and make a great thing of refurnishing the palace; here there was work to do.

Harald walked the barrier chain, looped metal links as thick as a man's arm. At night, in times of peril, it stretched on timber floats across the Golden Horn, no part far above or below the water. An idle thought came to him, a way by which certain craft could pass it if they must.

He fetched his horse from a livery stable and rode toward Nicephorus' house to see Maria. As he jogged through the swarming streets, he sang under his breath. At the gate, a servant took the beast. Merrily, Harald tossed him a coin, and got a troubled thanks. "Why, what's the matter, Demetrios?"

"Oh ..." The Greek would not meet his gaze.

"What?" Harald seized the fellow's shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Demetrios winced at the grasp. "Best see my master, despotes," he mumbled.

Harald flung him aside, ran over the path and up the peristyle stairway. He had not been able to meet her for days. If she lay in fever or . . . There were so many ways for folk to die. Sometimes they coughed their lungs out for five years, sometimes they screamed and clutched their bellies and were corpses next morning. O almighty God, surely You love her too much for that!

Nicephorus met him just inside the porch. The man's face was bleak. "Maria!" yelled Harald. "Where is she? What's the matter?"

"She is well," said Nicephorus hastily. "But she . . . she isn't here." His wiry fingers caught the Norseman's wrist with their ever astonishing strength; they felt cold. "Come in and sit with me. I have wine already poured."

Harald knotted his fists. He felt sweat prickle under his arms. But he forced himself to be calm. "Tell me the news."

Nicephorus waited until they were alone before he raised a cup and said, "Well, Araltes, I am afraid your wedding may have to be postponed. You see, yesterday the Empress Zoe ordered Maria back to court. She also withdrew permission for her marriage to you."

Harald took up the other goblet. Wine slopped on the floor. "Why?" he asked after a time. His voice felt strange in his ears.

"The order merely said something about . . . unsuitability ... it was vague." Nicephorus looked steadily into the blind blue eyes. "We have no cause for despair, Araltes. You know how flighty the Empress is. This is a question of ... of time, and diplomacy. Not something to be settled with an ax."

"By St. Olaf, if it were!" Blood trickled into Harald's short beard from the lip he had bitten.

Nicephorus poured him a fresh beaker, which he drank at a gulp. "Let us discuss coolly what can be done," said the Greek.

Harald threw himself into a chair. The silver cup began to be distorted by his fingers. Nicephorus took a couch.

"This isn't final, Araltes, never forget that," he said. "I know not what the Empress' motives are. Perhaps some of this religion she has been feeling so much of late. After all, you are from a Catholic country, and we are ever more at odds with the Pope. Perhaps she, or Theodora, who has more real power—but surely Zoe would do the very opposite of anything Theodora suggested. . . . Well, perhaps she is piqued that you fought so well on behalf of Michael Calaphates. Or perhaps this is only a means of keeping you, a soldier of proven value, here. No doubt many reasons at once lie behind her act."

'"Mother of the people! Fit mother of those!"

"Our riddle is not answered with curses," said Nicephorus gently. "I think your best chance is to petition the Empress in person. Win back her favor."

"And if she still refuses, how long must I wait?" Harald shouted. "God's teeth, it's nigh twelve years since I left home!"

"Araltes, you cannot fight the Empire. The day is long past, here in the South, when a man could be a man. Think: Saracens and Bulgars you mowed, but the mob of Constantinople defeated you. Only two kinds of men in the Empire have any real freedom. Those like me, who withdraw into their own shadow world; and those who can outwit and outwait their masters."

"Am I to own Zoe and her rabble masters?" asked Harald thickly.

"You must try. And ... it grieves me to say this . . . you must stay away from this house. Your case will be prejudiced if you continue to see Maria, she herself may be endangered, and Zoe has spies everywhere. Araltes, are you man enough to abide your chance?"

Harald's request for a private audience with Zoe was acknowledged and he was told to wait. He waited a month.

And meanwhile he must be on duty. Day after day he must be in the throne room, leading the double circle of guards who stood with lowered eyes while two old women received ambassadors, gave judgment and ruled the state. He was part of their statuary. The great ax which could hack them to Hell was another decoration. Buttered voices fell on his ears, the organ thundered, the eunuchs pattered to and fro, and he stood motionless.

Once only did he see Maria, during a court procession: she was robed and veiled, but her light tread turned his heart over within him. For the barest moment their eyes crossed, then broke away again; it was forbidden.

A few times she sent him a letter by some furtive messenger. Though he wrestled with the words till sweat stood out on his skin, in the end he had to take them to a priest. The old man was friendly, but he read in a nasal monotone.

"... each day without you is another death, and yet I can find you each moment. Morning light has the hue of your hair; noontime overhead is colored like your eyes; rain and wind are you hurrying across the world; night and the stars are filled with you. Now and again the gods are—kind? cruel? I know not, but I glimpse you from some high window, and then for a while I am in a darkness that burns. I have not yet learned why this must be, the Empress has never deigned to say and a serving maid may not ask. Were this the ancient days, I would think the gods were envious of us; we were too happy. But then you would have ridden up Olympus, broken down the gates and compelled Zeus himself to do as you bid. Were the saints, then, angered that I made your name a prayer? Well, I shall endure knowing you are too strong to be broken. . . ."

Thereafter Harald set himself to learn book skills.

He slept badly and, lacking appetite, had to force food down his gullet. The Varangians were patient under his harshness, being aware of the truth. Finally they sent Ulf to speak for them.

He found Harald slumped in a chair at home, more than half drunk. He took another seat and some wine of his own.

"I have a word for you," he said at length.

""Yes?" Harald remained sprawling, chin on breast, hands dangling empty.

"From your lads. They say that if you can't brook this any longer, they'll do whatever you like. Not all, of course, but those who've been with us longest. We could fight our way out and march to Russia. With good plunder, too," Ulf added thoughtfully.

"God! "Harald sat bolt upright. He lifted one fist. "To burn this whole snake's nest of a city! No." The fist dropped. "Let me first speak to the old slut. But tell the men . . . thanks."

There was another silence. "How goes it with you?" asked Harald finally, not caring much.

"Good. This noblewoman, Anna Danielis, is madly in love. She presses a Fafnir's hoard of gifts on me." Ulf's grin died. "But it's no life for a man. I'll be glad when we go home."

"If ever we do. Oftimes I feel like a netted bird.

Those birds in Sicily, that burned the castle for us," said Harald somewhat wildly. "I've remembered them of late. Poor birds, it wasn't their war, was it?"

Ulf cocked his head. "You need a woman," he decided.

"Not the sort you have in mind." Harald got out a smile.

"Well," said Ulf awkwardly, "good luck to you." He departed.

The days passed. Harald hearkened to the court gossip, hoping for any clue. Zoe was openly in search of a third husband, despite the Orthodox Church frowning on such marriages. It was her best escape from Theodora's prim reign. After much intrigue, which led to at least one poisoning, her fancy approached a former lover, Constantine Monomachos, a dashing courtier whom Michael IV had been ungracious enough to exile. Zoe had already appointed him governor of Greece, and the court gossip flowed with rumors of still higher honors for him. Her advisors approved; Constantine Monomachos was not one to take an unfriendly view of their amusements.

Then the summons came for Harald.

At the appointed hour, an obsequious eunuch guided him to a room of rich hangings and soft colors. The air was sickly with perfumes. But no maids were in attendance, only a rank of guardsmen. Maria might not learn today's outcome for hours. Harald made obeisance with his heartbeat thick in his throat.

"Rise, Spatharokandidatos," said Zoe. "You may look at us."

Harald hoped that the hate and scorn in him did not show. The Empress seemed fatter each day, she bulged around her girdle. Small help to her were her thin silken garments, or jewels or the wig of some blonde girl's hair which covered her bristly gray pate. She stroked her chins, simpered, and let him wait a bit before she spoke.

"You desired an interview with us, Spatharokandidatos."

'That is right, despoina," said Harald with great care. "I have served the Imperium faithfully for many years. Now I throw myself on the well-known mercy of Her Sacred Majesty, and beg one small favor."

"We understand that you wish to leave us," said Zoe coldly.

"Despoina, I have been long away from home. A crown awaits me there."

"Our finance ministers have been studying your accounts, Spatharokandidatos. It seems there are irregularities. They have even intimated misappropriation of Imperial property."

Harald's jaws ached with pressure. Somehow he was able to say quietly: "Despoina, not only am I a stranger to clerkly crafts, but in time of war a leader cannot stop to record everything. Perhaps my treasurers were not always honest. I have never heard that a successful leader was questioned about such things."

"Let us hear your petition," said Zoe with an impatient gesture.

"Surely Her Sacred Majesty knows. In view of my services to the Empire, I beg that the lady Maria Skleraina get leave to wed me and accompany me home."

"Services on behalf of Paphlagonian Constantine?" Zoe sneered.

So that still rankled, Harald thought. "Guardsmen must obey their superiors, despoina. We are but instruments. We did strive to save the palace from being looted."

Zoe reached for a sweetmeat and nibbled. The stillness waxed. Finally her lashes fluttered. Perhaps, under the powder, she colored a little. "For a self-styled king, Spatharokandidatos, you plan a humble marriage. Maria belongs to no wealthy or powerful branch of her family. Surely you could do better."

"I hardly think so, Your Sacred Majesty."

"Indeed?" Zoe leaned forward, drooping her lids, until he looked down the cleft of her great udders. "Spatharokandidatos," she murmured, "whatever ill you may have done, you are certainly a strong man. You could make a very fine alliance."

It thundered in Harald's skull.

"Oh, leap not to conclusions," said Zoe archly. "A foreigner cannot wear purple—at least in name. But in these evil times ... a strong man to uphold the throne . . . and friendly ..." She giggled.

Harald fought to steady his rocking mind. "Despoina, I am a barbarian. I do not wish anything unsuitable."

Zoe wagged her finger at him. "We told you not to be hasty. But still, we think you have sometimes been discourteously blind."

So, thought Harald. She wanted to keep him here as a support, almost the only unrotted one in the Empire. And she might like to have him in bed, for a night or two; in any event, a seven-foot doll dancing attendance upon her.

She had been penned in so long. This power over warriors and kings must feel like drunkenness.

"Most Sacred Majesty," he said, "foolish though I may be, my heart is set on Maria Skleraina and on going home."

She gasped so sharply that he heard it. For a space she sat and stared at him, as if unbelieving, until she broke the silence in a strangled voice. "We shall take your petition under advisement. You may go."

Harald made obeisance and backed out.

When he returned to his house, he picked up a chair and pulled it asunder. Slowly and carefully he went through the rooms, smashing glass, crumpling gold and silver, stamping furniture into kindling. His slaves peered terrified from around the corners.

When he was done, he bellowed for wine, emptied a cup at a draught and shattered it against the wall. Then he could sit down and think.

If he had played the Empress' game . . . No. He was not an actor. He would have let something slip that would have cost him his eyes at the very least.

Raise the Varangians! Pull down the roof over Zoe's wig!

No. That was too chancy. Maria could too easily be killed. As matters stood now, he had some power. The Empress would not do anything that would goad him into revolt, or even into quitting her service. But if ever an open break came, let Maria beware her spite.

So, he must bide his time. Perhaps, somehow, he could yet win his cause. But if not, he must escape with Maria. Therefore, he must prepare.

He could do nothing himself; he was too carefully watched. "Boy! Hell damn you, Eleazar, come here! Go to— Wait. Do not. That would be too plain. Get back to your work! Pick up this mess!"

Ulf could handle it. He knew every byway and itching palm in Constantinople. And tomorrow Harald would see Ulf at the Brazen House.

He drank himself to sleep.

The following afternoon he told the Icelander what had happened. Ulf scowled. "Things could be worse," he said, "but they could also be better. We might end in the Sigma, you and I."

"I know," snapped Harald. "Now I want you to prepare our escape. Through some merchant or whatnot, lay aside provisions, with much monies and treasure of ours as you can slowly and secretly withdraw. Mark what ships we can steal. Sound out our most faithful men. Tell them nothing—all know what is known to three, says the Haavamaal—but make sure that if the time comes, they will instantly follow us. Keep everything so readied that we can leave at once, a month from now or a year from now or anytime it proves needful."

"As you wish," said Ulf. "My friend Anna has agents I can use, though I shall have to give her a false reason."

Harald chuckled. Win or lose, he was again fighting. "I thought you looked weary."

"Whoof!" said Ulf.

In the days that followed, Harald grew calmer. He could even stand amongst the palace guard without wanting to run berserk. A letter was smuggled to him from Maria. The words were like claws in him; she had wept while writing it. But he whispered only, "Bide your time, my dearest. Bide our chance."

Orders came: the Empress had summoned Constantine Monomachos from Greece, and the Varangians were to march out and join the escort for his triumphal entry.

That was a parade of bells and cheers, under raining flowers, through joyful throngs. A tall man, handsome and genial, with unexpected strength in his slender white hands, Constantine was exactly the one to spend the Empire into final ruin with proper elegance. Marching near him, Harald felt a regained hope of achieving his wishes peacefully. It was well known that Constantine's beloved mistress was a Skleraina, a third cousin or the like to Maria.

He had had good times in this realm. Much here was fine and honorable. He would liefest not slay men who had fought at his side. So let him wait. In due time, let him plead his case to the new Emperor, as one man to another. But let him always keep alive his preparations for flight.

Harald was stationed outside Hagia Sophia during the wedding of Constantine and Zoe. Afterward he led the guards to the palace and accepted his share of the liberal gifts handed out. At dawn he went off duty and rode home with his head dulled by weariness.

A courier woke him from distorted dreams. The man read from a paper with the Imperial seal. The gist of the message was that the right noble Spatharokandidatos Araltes was ordered with so and so many Varangians to Italy to aid the Archestrategos Maniakes.

Harald stood for many heartbeats, unstirring. He felt as if he were still caught in his nightmare.

Zoe had acted—it must have been she—before he had gotten an opening. He could complete his announced resignation and go home without Maria . . . or he could try to flee with her, despite her constant presence at court during these' festivities ... or he could obey.

Slowly, his decision grew. He would fight, and fight well. The Emperor could not refuse a man whose bravery won back whole provinces. While he was gone, Maria would plead with the Imperial concubine, who was said to have a gentle heart.

He had waited erenow. Two years since first Maria captured him. Merciful Christ, was it that long? A dozen years since Olaf met death at Stiklastadh. He could wait longer. Holy Olaf, saint of warriors, stand by us twain.

He lifted his head. "I shall start readying at once."

How Harald Was Imprisoned

1

The Varangians were almost ready to embark when Halldor sought out his chief.

Harald looked up impatiently. He was whetting his weapons, a task he left for no one else. "What now?" he barked.

The Icelander stood with a curious look on his ruined face. "Hvitserk the Red—you know him, the Swede—is in trouble. There was a brawl at an inn and he's been arrested."

"God's eyeballs!" Harald threw an ax on the table so it bounced. "Why plague me about that? Have I not enough to do?"

"Best you come," said Halldor. "They wait at the inn because I said you would. With your rank, you can settle the matter so as to spare Hvitserk real woe. And he was ever your trusty friend."

Harald muttered a string of oaths, but called for his horse. The hour was late when he and Halldor clattered forth. A low sun touched spires with gold; in such a light, the crowds moved less frantically than they were wont to do. A subdued murmur hung over the city, mingling the sounds of voices and feet and wheels into a soft blanket much like the one smoke that curled about the roofs made. Neither Northman said anything on their way.

The inn was a tumbledown hog pen near the waterfront. Harald dismounted and stormed inside. Hvitserk the Swede stood there watched by two praefectural guards and a score of unkempt sailors.

"What have you done now?" snarled Harald.

Hvitserk shrugged. Unexpectedly, he spoke in Greek, and though his tone was sullen, there was something else behind the freckled mask of his face. "The pig overcharged me. We had words, and he said what would have been cause for killing at home, and I struck him. He squealed for these guardsmen who were nearby. ..."

"Well," sighed Harald, "let me talk to him. Belike we can end the matter without going to the law."

"He lies above," said Halldor. "That was a hefty blow." He led Harald up a rickety, smoke-blackened stair and opened a door. As they went through, he closed it quickly behind him.

The landlord sat nursing a bruised mouth. Halldor grinned and counted out ten byzants. "Here's your money," he said. "Now you and I will go into the next room, Apollonius, and I'll explain what will happen to you if ever you breathe a word of this."

Harald had not seen the exchange. He stood stock still, eyes fixed on the other person in that room.

Maria rose from a couch and ran to him. She had grown pale, and weeping had marked her eyes, but all earth's mornings lay in her smile. They came into each other's arms and for a long space naught was said. Behind them the window framed spires and domes, black against a sky of burnt gold.

"Maria," Harald whispered wonderingly. "Maria."

She drew his lips back to hers.

"How was it done?" he asked after another while. "This is too dangerous for you. ..."

"Not so. It is safe. Ulf and Halldor contrived it." She moved back from him, their hands still clasped together. Her rumpled hair fell darkly to her shoulders.

Soon, from her lips, he had the full story. Secret messengers had taken the needful words between her and the Icelanders. Then as her curtained litter, returning from court, neared home, another which bore Ulf had come alongside. She had slipped in with him, while her own bribed bearers continued on their way. Meanwhile, with Hvitserk's help, a likely excuse had been made for Harald to come here. She could go back after dark, when any spies would think her litter brought only some guest to Nicephorus' house.

"They thought . . . they knew it would be . . . hard for me to live without seeing you before you go," said Maria.

"I need not go. We can flee the city tonight."

"What?" Fear leaped forth in her. "To defy the crown . . ."

"Satan take the crown," he said, near retching with bitterness. "I've served them well. Why have they done this to us?"

"Surely you know that," she said. "There are three reasons. First, they would keep a great captain like you, in this time of troubles. Second, they grow ever more fearful of a Russian attack, and would not risk you going to Jaroslav with your knowledge of their defenses. Third ..."

"What else?" he urged when her tones died.

A cart rumbled heavily beneath the window.

"I think Zoe loves you," Maria said.

"That old swine?" he snorted.

"Who would not love you, Harald? I have never understood why I was chosen to be so blessed out of a thousand women."

"Let's have no more foolishness." He felt his ears redden.

"But you'll not know what you must overcome unless you see….She knows she cannot have you; she is bound that I shall not. Otherwise she would only need to make your remaining here a while longer a condition of our wedding. At the same time, she is angry with you for defending her Paphlagonian oppressors, and—"

"Has she been mistreating you?" he flared.

Maria shook her head in haste. "I rarely see her. My duties lie elsewhere. It's only that I cannot be with you."

"That's enough!"

She kissed him, and for another time no words were spoken.

"Come away with me," he said. "Come away this night."

"I cannot leave my kinfolk to Zoe's revenge." Maria drew back from him, her slender form dark against the dying western sky. When she spoke again, it was in a clear, almost dry tone:

"Our one hope is for you to win the new Emperor's favor. That should not be hard. To think of you at war is like a knife, but surely Christ will guard you. Meantime I can plead with my cousin, the Skleraina."

"I may be long gone," he said.

"I can wait . . . knowing you will return."

"So be it, then." He hammered a fist softly into his palm.

"Harald," she said unsteadily. "My beloved . . . if before you go, you would wish ... we two, now. . . ."

He clutched her so she gasped. Then, exerting all his control, he let her slip free and kissed her with a great tenderness.

"Not here, in one frightened hour," he said. "You are worthy of more."

"When you come home," she whispered.

The rest of their time together they talked little.

The Varangians landed at Otranto. Together with Bari, Brindisi, and Tarento, this was all that remained of the Empire's Italian possessions. But Georgios Maniakes had gone to work at once; the rebels and their Norman allies were being driven back. Something cold had entered the soul of the Archestrategos while he lay in prison: he had let his men plunder Monopoli and Matera without restraint and had struck the heads off two hundred leading men at the latter city.

While preparing to join him, Harald heard news afresh from Constantinople. Without so much as hearing his case, Theodora had had John the Paphlagonian seized and blinded on his estate. Harald laughed, until it came to him that this was the vengeance of Zoe's sister.

Well . . . there was a war to fight. He flung himself into the task.

After a few days' travel he found Georgios encamped. The Byzantine gave him curt greeting. "So we meet again, Spatharokandidatos. You come at an ill moment."

"I thought our cause was going well," said Harald.

"Not with Constantine Monomachos on the throne," spat Georgios.

Harald had been long enough in the South to feel a shudder at hearing the Emperor thus bespoken. "He seems a decent sort," he replied.

"Did you not know his whore the Skleraina is sister to my enemy? Romanus Skleros has claimed my great holdings in Asia are his own. Where now shall I get justice?" Georgios' mouth bent downward like a peevish child's.

After a moment he went on, distantly. "I think best our two commands be separated. There are Norman strongholds in plenty for us both. My liaison officers will tell you what to do."

"Kyrios Maniakes," said Harald, astonished, "I believed we were friends."

"The story is you, too, are buzzing around a Skleraina. You may go."

Harald snapped his teeth together. He would have stalked out less wrathfully had he known he would never see Georgios again.

On a rainy night, alone in a commandeered cottage, he tried to write a letter to go back with the dispatches. His lamp sputtered and smoked in the dank air. Slowly, his fingertips straining on the quill, he traced out the Greek signs:

"Harald Sigurdharson, King of Norway and Spatharokandidatos, to Maria Skleraina in Constantinople, greeting.

"I hope this finds you well. Our war goes forward. There is no stiffness in the Italians, but the Normans give trouble. We have had much rain of late. Soon we shall march to the next enemy town."

(Olaf cast it to Hell! This was not what he wanted to say. He was a skald; in the Norse tongue he could have made a verse, the ring of arms and the neigh of horses, sharp axes and shining helmets . . . only that was not the truth. The truth was tramping through mud that lay on the boots heavy as sorrow, it was searching for fleas and gulping moldy bread, it was Hvitserk with a lance in his breast, staring and plucking at it, seeking a brave word to die with but only slobbering blood. It was a loneliness that naught but sleep could hide, and men sinking into sleep like beasts, now and again they fell asleep on their feet and lay in the road with the brown rainwater gurgling around them.)

"Word is that we may have finished before Christmas. My horse went lame and I cannot get another big enough. The peasants are surly, they like not the Empire. But we are having good success."

(Starved faces in the doorways of hovels, watching with animal eyes their masters stumbling by. A rotted corpse in a ditch. A raped girl, perhaps twelve years old, swollen and sick with child. The ashes of a homestead, and charred bones among them.)

"We have won little booty. But I have hopes of getting somewhat from the Normans. You will need gold when you are queen of Norway."

Ah, better! Harald heard a knock on the door. He worked his fingers to get the stiffness out of them and reached carefully for his ax.

"Enter," he said.

Ulf came in. Rain puddled around his feet and soaked his hair and bristled beard. He grinned wildly. "We've just got tidings," he said. "A special courier. Another rebellion is afoot."

"How's that?" Harald stood up. The lamp threw his misshapen shadow across the walls.

"It seems the latest ship from home bore private news to our good Archestrategos. His old acquaintance Romanus Skleros has seized the land they quarreled about and seduced Gyrgi's wife to boot. I hear Gyrgi is like one crazed. He's going to proclaim himself Emperor and revolt."

Harald stood still. Rain hissed on the thatch overhead.

"Well," said Ulf, "whose side are we on?" "I know not." Harald stared before him. "If he should win, his friends may look for reward." "But he may lose."

"Yes. Also, Maria is in Miklagardh now." Harald shook himself. "We'll stand by the throne."

"Were things otherwise," said Ulf, "I'd liefer march with Gyrgi."

"So would I," said Harald.

He held himself aloof, wrote back and asked for orders. Georgios did not approach him, but worked hard to make allies of the Normans.

Winter came, and at last Constantine's army. Harald, some distance off, could not join that host before Georgios routed it. Thereafter the rebel and his men took ship across the Adriatic Sea to Dyrrachium.

Whether for lack of trust or good reasons of war, Harald was commanded to remain in Italy to keep it from being rallied against the Emperor. This was not overly difficult, and he chafed many weeks in idleness. No longer able to rein in his flesh, he took an Italian concubine and felt himself the worst of men.

A second army under the command of Stephen, a eunuch of Zoe's, hurried from Constantinople to meet the advancing foe. Near Ostrovos, the rebel made his scornful charge. He had nearly shattered the Imperialists when an arrow went through his heart. His followers gave way at once, and the eunuch rode into Constantinople with the head of Georgios Maniakes on a lance. The night that story reached them, Harald, Ulf and Halldor got monstrously drunk and made a long memorial verse for Gyrgi.

Still the weeks dragged. A few times Harald received a letter from Maria. Her kinswoman, ruling the Emperor in everything else, could make no headway against Zoe's will; Constantine would not cross his benefactress for the sake of a friend of the Russians.

With summer came news that lit fire in Harald. Early in the year it had chanced that a Russian noble had been slain during a tumult at Constantinople. Jaroslav, now lord of all his folk, deemed this a ripe time to fall on the Empire. An expedition under his son Vladimir crossed the Black Sea. Suddenly Constantine Monomachos had his back to the wall and a sword at his throat. He had every resident Russian arrested and sent to remote themes. But Harald was commanded to hasten back.

Under the mild Italian heaven, the Norseman raised a boy's shout. He did not then care that he might have to fight his mentor; he did not think until hours afterward that he might himself face arrest. He was returning to Maria!

By the time the Varangian galleys had toiled into the Sea of Marmora, the war was past.

In hard battles, the Russian ships and troops had been defeated, experiencing heavy losses. As they retreated, a storm finished the work. Byzantium was not yet too old to defend herself.

That victory was very new, and the danger of a fresh attack must still be reckoned with. At night the great chain lay across the Golden Horn. But bells were singing when Harald came ashore.

He was quickly brought before the Emperor and prostrated himself, knowing he was suspect. The wine-flushed countenance regarded him sternly. "Rise, Spatharokandidatos," said Constantine. "You came too late to aid us."

"We came as fast as God allowed, Your Sacred Majesty." Harald kept his eyes respectfully on the floor.

"You did not fall on Maniakes either, when first he committed his treason in Italy."

"Despotes, his men outnumbered mine. Furthermore, there were unrestful natives to keep obedient to Your Sacred Majesty. The first Imperial army sent against him was broken before I could effect a juncture."

"Indeed, indeed." Constantine tapped the arm of his throne. "We have heard, however, that you would leave us."

Harald's palms were cold and wet. "Despotes, I have served the Empire for nine years. My nation awaits its rightful king. I wish to make a lady of this realm its queen. Most humbly do I beg Your Sacred Majesty to let these things come to pass."

"It must be thought of, Spatharokandidatos. You may go."

Harald left with a numbness in him. He had been refused.

At the Brazen House, he summoned Ulf to a private room. The Icelander looked grim on hearing his news. "Leaving Zoe aside, your friendship with Jaroslav is a heavy burden today," he said. "This city came too near death. I think indeed I had best make sure of our old arrangements for escape—though that'll be no easy trick, with the Horn closed at night and the watch doubled."

"Have you word of Maria?" asked Harald through his own pulsebeat.

"Yes, she is well, though grown very quiet this past year. She is on duty at the palace today but will be free tomorrow. I'll see what I can do about another meeting for you and her."

"How do you know so much?"

Ulf chuckled. "While you were seeing the Emperor, I was seeing Lady Anna. She's at court too, you remember. Ah, what a homecoming I've just had!"

Harald went back to his work. Getting the Varangians barracked after so lengthy a stay abroad was a knotty task. He welcomed that—a means to forget for a while that he and Maria were still walled from each other. Not until late at night did he return to his own house. He drank several cups of wine and presently slept.

Thundering at the door awoke him before sunrise. Then he heard clashing metal and the terrified squeak of a slave. He started up as a score of praefectural guardsmen entered his bedchamber. They grounded their spears with a doomsday noise. Their chief trod forward and raised a paper he held.

"Spathatokandidatos, I have here an order for your arrest. Dress and come with us. In the name of His Sacred Majesty!"

XII

Of Maria Skleraina

1

Walking between his guards through the stirrings of a dawn-gray city, Harald felt his head clear. The first stunned "No!" had been said; now he had to be cold and watchful however hard his heart galloped.

Clearly he was being hurried off in secret. If he could knock his way past these spears, dash to the Brazen House and raise the Varangians . . .No. There would be no time to ready them, and the city was full of Imperial troops recently returned from fighting in Russia. The Northmen would be cut down for no gain and Maria would face Zoe alone.

"Where are we bound?" he asked.

"Be still, prisoner," said the captain.

That insolence told how steeply Harald had toppled from the Imperial favor. He controlled his anger and watched the way he was taken.

They ended in the Phanar quarter, at an old fortress lost among warehouses and sleazy tenements. His friends would not easily learn where he was. The building was a block of stone with a cobbled courtyard at the rear. On this side it rose in a round tower whose battlements were only a few yards above the flat main roof. An iron-bound door, newly carpentered, opened at the base of the tower. Harald was waved through. The door clashed behind him. He heard bolts go down and the lock snap shut.

Cursing, he looked about. He was in a large single room. It filled the whole tower, but it was dank and bare save for a few straw pallets. The walls were sooty; charred beams showed where upper floors had been. Now even the ceiling was gone. This must be one of the prisons devastated by the rioters two years ago. A piece of sailcloth stretched across the remaining beams made a roof of sorts; daylight filtered through it, thick and yellowish. Otherwise only some arrow slits admitted any sun. Ancient sweat and dirt, as well as the latrine hole, made a stench that would choke a hog.

His very prison was an insult.

Slumping down, suddenly bone-tired, Harald fought his own sense of defeat.

In a little while, the door was opened again and Halldor thrust inside. They stared at each other.

"You, also," said Harald at length. "Why?"

"I could not guess until I saw you here," answered Halldor. "Now I can tell. We may look for Ulf to join us."

Slowly, Harald nodded. "Of course. You two are known as my nearest friends. The only ones who would keep striving and prying to learn what had happened to me. You could rally the Varangians to make a threat on my behalf. Without some such leadership, lack of sure knowledge will hold them still. I know those lads."

"So does Zoe." Halldor spat.

Harald arched his brows. ‘Then, you have heard?"

"Who has not, in that damned sniggering court? Though I suppose the Russian trouble was what thrust you over the edge. Ulf told me you were thinking of flight. I was going to come too." Halldor shook his head. In this light, his skin had a grisly color. "And I left Iceland meaning to wax rich and famous. Here I left my youth and here I'll leave my bones."

Harald wondered how much the other man blamed him. He could never quite understand Halldor. "This is no time for waitings," he said. "What's our outlook for escape? Belike we could climb up those beam stumps, and the roof is only sailcloth."

"Which isn't easy to tear," Halldor said. "Maybe you've that much strength, but it would still be too noisy. There are men barracked in the main house. We'd gain naught but fetters."

"Yes." Harald sat down again. Somewhere a mouse scuttled away. Oh, Maria, Maria, what will become of you?

A while later, Ulf joined them. He looked at the others, grinned, and fished in his pouch. "What a pair of faces!" he said. "Were they an inch longer, you'd trip over your own chins. Here, I have some dice."

"Rattle them around in that hollow head of yours," Halldor growled, "but leave me alone."

"Haw!" Ulf squatted on the floor and began idly rolling the dice. "Will you not give me a chance to fill my purse again? It's empty because my head this morning was so full."

Harald felt his belly muscles tighten. "You have some scheme?" he asked most softly.

"Well, no, but I have taken steps. Whether or not they lead anywhere lies with the Norns." The dice danced across the clay floor. "When they came to arrest me, I begged leave to send a message to my good friend, the noble lord Stauracius Danielis, to inform him of my plight, that he might plead my case. The name was impressive, and when I added gold it was overwhelming. So they let me give word in their presence to a little blackamoor I own."

"The great lord Stauracius would scarce be an oath brother to you," said Harald dryly.

"Oh, he knows naught of me. But I must needs use his name, d'you see. My thrall understood well enough it was Danielis' fair wife I meant. Now Anna has brains, and she's high among the ladies at court. If anyone can find out why we've been locked away and what's to be done about it, she will. Harald, how often have I told you that this one-woman virtue you've striven so much for can lead to no good?"

The chief laughed. Even Halldor smiled. So small a hope was like wine in this place.

They diced most of the day, against promises of payment. Ulf won so heavily that Harald was not sure there was no skill used. Once the guards brought them bread and water, otherwise nothing happened. Toward evening, they went to sleep.

Harald had a dream. He stood on endless snow, and snow whirled out of a sightless sky, hissing as it fell, driven by a shrill and bitter wind. From afar he heard the noise of glaciers, marching down off the mountains, grinding fells and towns and all fair valleys to ruin. A raven flew by, screaming. And he knew with a shudder that this was the Fimbul Winter.

Groping forward through the drifts, teeth clapping in his jaws, he saw something that shone. As he neared, it became the byrnie of Olaf. The king was seated on a throne of rock, and ice had sheathed him thickly; he was pale, and the three wounds lay red across him. But as Harald approached, he opened his eyes and his helmet flamed with swift sunlight. Even as the world shattered in the wreck of the gods, Olaf sat on his throne, wearing his helmet that was the sun.

Harald woke gasping. The narrow foulness of his prison closed in. He felt cold and afraid. Surely this had been a vision, but whether for good or ill, he could not say.

"Hallow Olaf," he whispered into the night's blindness. "I fought for you once. Watch over Maria."

Lying there, he grew suddenly aware of a noise. Horror gripped his throat, thought of draugs and devils crawling from the earth. He told himself it was only a mouse but he knew it was not. The noise stopped, began again, the softest scratching. And it was from above.

Harald leaped to his feet. He stared upward. The sky rolled back and became a ragged patch of stars.

Olaf!

He knelt, groped his way to Ulf's snores and laid a hand on the mouth. The beard tickled his palm. Ulf started alert, drew one shaken breath and gripped Harald's shoulder. They roused Halldor. A shadow leaned over the hole cut in the roof. Barely enough starlight fell into the tower to show a rope snaking down.

"I'll go first," muttered Harald. "This may be some scheme to murder us without the Emperor being blamed, but ..." He tugged at the rope. It held firm. He swarmed up.

Two men, hardly visible in the deeper blackness outside, stood on the battlements. The knife which had slit the canvas shone under a splendid sky. The other man held the rope, belayed about a merlon. Harald sprawled flat on the verge and peered downward. A sentry tramped around the courtyard, emitting a faint metal shimmer, but he had not heard ... he had not heard.

Ulf and Halldor joined them on the roof. Whereupon the strangers stealthily led them over a ladder to the roof of the house across the street, where another ladder was propped and a third man waited. Harald could now see that they were Saracens, either slaves or bribed visitors. When he felt the pavement under his shoes, a wave of dizziness went through him, he stumbled and knew not what to do. "Olaf," he breathed. "Olaf, King."

Within moments his wits returned; his nerves were steady but keyed for action. There was much work yet. But before God, he was free, and ready to fight the whole damned Empire!

The guides led them through a twist of alleys to another courtyard. Blank walls rose on every side. In the center stood a litter, surrounded by its porters and a couple of stave-bearing guards.

A white figure came running and sobbing to Ulf's arms.

"Anna!" the Icelander choked. "You did this?"

"Oh, my darling, my darling, my darling!" She clawed herself to him. "It might have been death for you. . . . The Empress was so angry!"

"There, there, I'm still alive, sweet." Ulf chucked her under the chin. Her tears gleamed in the starlight. "Tell me how it stands."

"I had to bribe . . . and blackmail, and promise, and . . . Th-th-the praefect's officer told me the most." Anna caught her breath on a hiccough. "Araltes was to be charged with . . . stealing funds and goods entrusted to him in the wars . . . and you were to be his ac-accomplices. I learned where you were. Your fate had not yet be-been decided, but they thought ... it to be harsh. I made an excuse to leave the house, and promised . . . those three slaves their freedom if ... It will be hard to explain. But I love you so!"

Ulf glanced at his fellows with some shame. "Give me a few minutes," he said in Norse. "I must make sure of her." He led her into an alley.

Harald drew Halldor aside. "Can we flee tonight?" he asked.

"Yes. We'd better! Ulf knows how. He's marked a couple of Russian ships we can steal, little watched now when their owners have been sent away. And he's laid provisions and treasure in a warehouse nearby, he says. But the cursed chain—I know not how to get past that. Maybe we can wait in the harbor till morning, hoping we aren't noticed, and then row faster than ever men rowed erenow."

"We'd never escape thus. But I think I know a way."

Ulf came back. "Let's go," he said shortly. "I like not so using a woman."

"St. Olaf did this," Harald answered. "He worked through her. But come quickly!"

They loped through streets which were tunnels of night. Once they hid in a doorway while a patrol went by, otherwise it was run and run and run with burning lungs and bursting heart, until they were at the palace gates and bespoke a Varangian on guard who let them in. When they had entered the barracks, it was like waking from fever dreams.

Darkness was not yet old. Most of the Varangians were still awake, benched in the central hall. Lamplight splashed hard, bearded faces, beakers clinked and voices surfed. When Harald stepped in, they rose with a yell.

"Where've you three been? What the Devil's the matter?"

Harald raised his arms for silence. Huge, in the doorway he stood, questioning them about what they knew. The accusation of theft to be laid against him had been shrewdly chosen. The Varangians would not have stirred, however unhappy they were, until they could be sure he was honest. They knew him to be in need of gold and would not besmirch their own names by following a thief. In a few sharp words he told them the truth. Their outcry shivered the walls.

"No, easy there, stay calm. Satan take you all, be still!" Harald roared them down. "We cannot rise against the whole city. Ulf has long ago sounded out those men who'll be willing to escape with me. Let them now take their arms and come. The rest can do naught but stay here, and when you're later asked what happened, you must say you know nothing. Serve out your terms; there's no reason to cause yourselves loss. I lay one command on you, that you watch over Nicephorus Skleros. Let it be known that any harm done him is harm to you. And those who come home through my hall in Norway shall have good guesting!"

Slowly the band grumbled itself back toward coolness. A hundred busked themselves to go, men of long service, the hardiest and most loyal to Harald. Looking at their scarred faces, he felt a leap of joy. He himself took helmet and sword and slung a small shield on his back, but left off the noisy mail coat. Ten others he told to do likewise.

"Now, Ulf," he said, "where are those ships you know of?"

The Icelander gave directions. "We shall have to bind and gag a few harbor guards, or kill them, but I've spied out their rounds and it should be simple. Then we must very quietly load." His gaze grew thoughtful. "Harald, you are going after Maria, are you not?"

"Yes. I'll join you at the dock."

"The streets are full of death tonight, and you have a kingdom waiting. Is the girl worth that much?"

Harald nodded curtly. "If I'm not there by the time you're ready, sail without me and raise a runestone in my memory at home. But I think St. Olaf is with us."

"Well, I hope so." Ulf grinned crookedly and wrung his hand.

The Varangian exit was noticed in the palace grounds, of course, but none challenged them. Doubtless every Greek officer thought that someone else had ordered a hundred guardsmen out. When he left the main body with his ten, Harald told them to shoulder axes and march in formation. He himself went at their head. Each time he passed a patrol he was saluted. Being so discreetly arrested had its merits.

When he saw the dim whiteness of Nicephorus' garden wall, the blood thudded within him. He pointed to a gloomy side street.

"Wait there," he ordered. "This will surely have to be done by stealth."

Reaching, he caught the top of the wall and lifted himself over. His shield rattled as he dropped to the other side. He crouched with his scalp aprickle. About him lay only a sleepy fragrance of roses—no sound save the rustling of trees and the chirping of crickets. The house stood before him.

Noiseless, he made his way around those well-remembered corners. Maria's window glowed with light. It was unglazed and the shutters stood open. He looked in. The light came from a single candle before an ikon of the Virgin, all else was dark. It sheened on a small bronze Hermes, a thousand years old or more, who danced like Harald's own heart. He hitched himself to the sill and squeezed his shoulders through. Slowly he moved to the bed.

Maria slept with her hair spilling night-black around her, hps parted, lashes smoky below the thin blue-veined lids. One arm was thrown across the blanket, fingers closed on the thumb, like a child that has wept itself to sleep. Harald leaned over and put his hand on her mouth. It was the first time he had touched her in two years.

She started awake. "Be still!" he hissed. "It's death if we're heard."

He let her go. She soared from the bed to him. The sight of her young unclad body brought back his dizziness, he gripped her and was drowned.

"Harald, Harald, Harald!" She clung to him, shaking, her dear fingers biting into his flesh. "Harald, you cannot, we must not, oh, God forgive me, come to me!"

He shook his head. She saw how teeth gleamed in the gaunt jut-nosed face. "Not yet, my dearest. Have you not heard? I'm a hunted man."

She nodded, blind with tears. He told her what had happened. She drew a long breath and said thinly:

"I understand. Surely we are cursed. But go. Fast, before they come. I will wait. I know you can find a way to return for me. Or if not, you will at least be alive. Go!"

"I came not to tell you goodbye," he said. "Get some clothes and we'll be off."

She was suddenly aware of her nakedness. He was moved to see how the blush ran over her body. He should have turned his back as she scrambled into gown and slippers, but he could not.

"Now we're on our way." Laughter brimmed in him. "Come."

She met his gaze with a despair he could not fathom. "I cannot," she said.

"What?"

"My family . . ."

"They'll know how it is. Come along By God, we've no time to spill!"

He caught her wrist. She tried to pull free. "I cannot!" she said in a near scream.

Stabbed, he answered bleakly, "If you make that much noise, you'll bring the city guards."

"But . . ."

"Are you afraid?"

"Not for myself," she said, frantic. "But my father, mother, brothers . . ."

"I have put them under the ward of the Varangians." Harald picked her up. For a moment she struggled. Her litheness filled his world. Then she lay still.

"If you do not come with me, I will not leave at all," he told her. "I'll wait here and slay enough of the guardsmen who arrive to force them to kill me."

"I will come," she said, so low he could barely hear.

Borne on the wave of his relief, he set her down and kissed her. They scrambled through the window; he mounted the wall and drew her up, then sprang down to the street and she fell into his arms.

The dock smell swirled in their nostrils. Two Varangians stepped from a shadowed warehouse doorway to challenge them. Weapons dropped as they were recognized. Harald led Maria onto one of the ships.

Those were a pair of lean, shallow-draught Russian vessels, good on both river and sea, each with room for fifty or more men. Ulf's crew carried supplies over the gangplanks, with much shuffling, thudding, clinking, creaking and swearing. The Icelander's stocky form padded up to Harald and the girl.

''We're almost ready," he said. ""I've also stowed the chests of money I set aside last year. No sense letting them stay behind; bad enough to forfeit so much withheld pay. But how in the Nine Worlds do you plan to get our ships past the barrier? I'd meant to slink out with the morning traffic when the chain's pulled ashore."

'These are light craft," said Harald. "The chain lies low, even under water in places. We'll row like fiends. As we near the links, let every man not at the oars run aft with whatever he can carry: boxes, sleeping bags, anything to make weight. That'll raise the stem and slip it over. Then let them at once run forward, and we'll slide across."

Ulf whistled. "A good scheme if the keels can stand it."

"We've no choice. Lacking a head start, we're too likely to be chased down, or blocked off by the Bosporus patrols if horsemen forewarn them. Fear not. St. Olaf is with us. And so," he laughed aloud, "so is Maria!"

He hugged her to him, wondering why she wept so softly and hopelessly.

The men completed their tasks and went aboard. Harald took the steering oar of one ship. Maria sat hunched at his feet. Ulf went to the bow. Halldor had charge of the other vessel. They slipped their moorings, put forth oars, and stole out into the Golden Horn.

Would not the creak and splash of oars rouse the whole city? Harald thought. On either side bulked tall hulls with masts that stabbed the constellations; patrols walked the docks, Europe and Asia walled him in ready to awaken with a scream. Ulf chanted the stroke just loud enough to hear, men hurled themselves at the oars and the ship sprang forward. Behind, the wake swirled ghostlike. Reflected stars fluttered in the dirty water.

Now, ahead, appeared a dull wet gleam. Wavelets slapped against heavy floats; they heard the scrape of iron. "Row!" bellowed Ulf. The shadowy hull grunted back at him. Harald clutched the steering oar with both hands and aimed his prow where the chain seemed lowest.

"To the stern!"

Feet boomed across planks and thwarts. Harald saw the stempost rise into the winking sky. Then the shock of impact threw him against the starboard bulwark.

"Forward!" he howled. "Before we slip off!"

They scrambled back, cursing and clutching. The stern rose. The strakes groaned. The ship went over. Water sheeted white at the bows. They rocked toward the stillness beyond.

Some yards off, Harald heard a scream and snapping. It was like a lance in him. Christ, the other ship had broken!

"Over there! Haul her along the chain!" he cried.

Two halves of the second galley bobbed about among splinters. They must have struck where the links were too high. Most of the men aboard, ironclad, had gone down like stones. A few clung to the chain or the wreckage. Harald leaned out and clasped one hand. It was Halldor he drew dripping from the water.

The Icelander smote his fist on a bench. ''Dead," he mumbled. "'Drowning under our feet!"

"Is everyone aboard?" called Harald across the racketing length of the hull.

"Down in the muck," Halldor raved. "Down for fish to eat. God help me, those were my friends!"

"We'll all be fishbait if we don't start rowing again," said Harald. "Take those oars, you scoundrels!"

The ship rattled away. Squinting across dark waters, Harald saw torches bob about and heard remote cries. But folk would need more time to learn what had happened and start a chase. He pointed his bows toward Russia and breathed a huge sigh.

"We're away, Maria," he said. It was a prayer of thanks. "We're free."

She sat unstirring. The loose hair hid her face.

Ulf came aft to report. "We saved about twenty," he said. "We're leaking, but not too much. Surely a good Norn stood over your cradle."

"We've yet to clear the Bosporus," Harald warned.

Ulf held a wet finger aloft. "But a fine stern wind is blowing. We can sail from here. No, I hold that you're a lucky man."

"Save in dice," laughed Harald, wild with victory.

"Ah, yes, you do owe me some byzants, do you not? I'll broach a beer keg. The men can have a drink when the mast's been stepped."

The first oyster-shell glow of dawn stole into heaven. Harald saw the land loom, white with mist, on either side. Yes, he thought, the years down here had not been lost. He had gained wealth and wisdom, had seen for himself how much a wide realm under a strong lord could be, had found Maria. What more could he want?

He turned to the girl. She sat shivering in the cold early wind. He threw his cloak about her. She glanced up with an unsure smile. "Thank you," she said.

His free hand ruffled her hair. "Thank me not. I have to take care of my dearest possession."

She bit her lip and looked away. He watched the clean profile with such a rush of love that he felt a stranger to himself.

"Why do you mourn?" he asked. Down in the hull his men, a crew of bears, yawned and stretched and rumbled with talk, but he had forgotten them. "For those we lost? But they will be with holy Olaf. This is a day of gladness, Maria."

She shook her head, still staring over the side. One hand clenched the bulwark. "Only sorrow, Harald. I cannot go with you."

He would not let himself understand. "Because we aren't wed?" He chuckled, denying the sudden chill in him. "Have no fear. A ship is no place to debauch you. We shall be married in Kiev."

"I came so you would escape," she told him. "You said otherwise you would stay and be killed. But now you must set me ashore."

He stood unmoving. The sail cracked with a flaw of wind.

"Why?" he asked finally.

"Because of my people. Father, mother, brothers.

Think you they will be spared, once the Empress learns I fled with you?"

"But the Varangians have sworn ..."

"How much is that worth?" she asked dully. "Let the Varangians be sent abroad, and when they come back my father is tortured to death, my mother poisoned, my brothers blinded. If there is any fear the Varangians will then do anything, the court can give out that my people died of natural causes. Do your friends even know the names of my brothers?"

Blindness wavered before him.

"I love you," said Maria. "Only God knows how much I love you."

"Then come with me!" he said like a beggar.

She made no reply.

Wrath stirred in him. "I can carry you off whether you will or no," he said.

Turning, she caught his gaze. "I thought you loved me."

"I . . ." The ship veered with the jerk he gave the rudder. "Maria, forget them! Says not the marriage vow . . . forsaking all others?"

"I could never forget," she said. "They would always be there."

The sun was rising. It burned his eyes.

"What will you do?" he asked very slowly.

"I will go back and say you forced me, but I prevailed on you to let me go. And then ..."

"You will marry someone," he said without tone.

"Perhaps. Some decent man, and I will be a good wife to him, and . . . and I will never stop thinking of you."

"Take the helm, Halldor," said Harald. He joined her on the bench and drew her close to him. They were silent for a long while.

"You will marry too," she said. "Will you name one of your daughters for me?"

"Oh, God!" He beat the thwart with his fist, for he had long ago forgotten how to weep.

"We had too much happiness," she said. "Man was not put on earth to be happy."

"Then why?" he mumbled.

"I know not. I should be thankful for having seen you. That was worth many lifetimes." She kissed him. He remembered that her lips had been salt the first time, too.

Morning wore away. They passed the galleys at the Bosporus mouth with a tale of a scouting mission that was readily believed.

Harald called to Halldor, "Bring us to land at yonder villa, a mile or so ahead."

The Icelander nodded and stared back at the stem-post. None of the men watched those two who sat beneath him.

When the ship grounded, Harald sprang into the shallows and carried Maria ashore. The folk of the villa were running down to gape. Among them was a man in rich dress. He looked, half frightened, at the giant who approached him.

"Are you the master here?" asked Harald.

"That is true, kyrios. You are Varangian guardsmen, are you not?"

"Here is a lady of the court who must have suitable escort back to Constantinople. Imperial business."

The man bowed. "At once, despotes."

"Well, wait a bit," said Harald roughly.

He returned to the girl, who stood alone on the beach with thin clothes and unbound hair blowing around her. The face she raised to him held a calm like death.

"So I will say farewell, Maria," said Harald.

She tried to speak and could not.

"I will always love you," he said.

She huddled against him. He bent his head to hers. She broke free and ran. He stood looking after her until she had vanished into the house.

His ship was pushed out again, the sail caught wind and the bows hissed in the dark water. Harald shook himself. His eyes turned seaward. "This may blow up to a storm," he said in a flat voice.

"We'll weather it," Ulf said. "We've weathered many gales."

Harald nodded. The men must not see him downhearted. Rusty skaldship came back to him, he cleared his throat and made a verse.

"Sicily has seen us

sailing past her coastline,

how our winged sea horses

hastened underneath us.

Mightily we've mastered men

and lands and riches. ..."

He paused, then finished:

"Golden-ringed, the girl, though,

greets me without welcome."

He was thinking of Elizabeth, the Russian princess.

She should be of marriageable age now, and he would need strong allies in a world full of swords. He used the same last lines for every verse he made on that voyage.

XIII

How Harald Was Wedded

Kiev had grown vastly in the years since Jaroslav the Wise had made it his seat. Behind the iron-gated stone walls dwelt more folk, perhaps, than in the whole of Norway. The palace was constructed of stone, too, as were many of the newer churches. There was a school where the children of noblemen learned to read and write. To the marketplaces came goods from half the world. Nonetheless, those whom the Grand Prince received with honor in his throne room, on a summer's day in the year of Our Lord 1044, were reckoned uncommon.

One was tall and slender; he would have been handsome save for the scar which puckered his cheek. Another was short and stout, black-bearded and swaggering. The third overtopped them, a giant with a bleached yellow mane and the left brow cocked high. His clothes were good but travel-stained, hardly fitting, thought Jaroslav's courtiers, for a man so wealthy. Harald Sigurdharson had sent much gold north over the years, which the Grand Prince had put out for him at the ordinary interest of twenty-five percent; he was rich.

No doubt this self-styled king would outfit himself properly and make suitable gifts to his host when he had been able to look over his treasures. Rumor buzzed that in that hoard was an actual bottle of Jordan water, which Harald intended to give Jaroslav as well as more priceable things. Meanwhile, the Russians listened with interest to his tale, only disappointed that he was so short-spoken about it.

"Because of the war," he said, "we feared the Dnieper mouth would be blocked off. So we went to the Azov Sea instead and up the Don. Meeting men from Chernigov, we were brought thither and spent the winter. Its lord guested us generously."

"So much so that it's nigh a year you've been in Russia before coming to Kiev," said Jaroslav dryly.

Harald's mouth tightened. "I meant no discourtesy to you. But for a time ... we were weary. Nothing seemed to matter very much. Now my will has come to me, to claim my rights."

"Against Magnus Olafsson?" Jaroslav tugged his gray beard. His face had grown deeply lined. But the wasted body sat stiff on the throne. "He's not one to step peacefully down from his lordship. And remember he is the son of Norway's eternal king."

"I will not be less than any man," said Harald harshly. "Kneeling to others brought me nothing but ill. But I'll see if Magnus and I cannot reach some understanding."

"That would be best. We shall be glad to help your cause as much as is lawful. Surely you have rights which could not be denied you without sin. And you served us well, long ago, you and Rognvald Brusason. He, by the bye, has returned to Orkney with his son," said Jaroslav absently. One might guess the calculation behind those book-weakened eyes. Magnus was not as tightly bound to Kiev or as friendly to the Orthodox faith as Harald could be. . . . Let ill fortune befall the heirless Magnus and the Norse-Danish realm might fall into chaos or a state of hostility that was not desirable on Kiev's Baltic flank. . . .

"'You are weary," said Jaroslav. "Let our servants show you to suitable apartments. Your men shall be quartered. In the evening we will feast. At that time you must renew old acquaintances, with the Grand Princess Ingigerdh ..." he paused, "and our daughter."

One morning not long afterward the opportunity came for which Harald had been waiting. He walked into the palace garden, as if by accident, when Jaroslav's oldest daughter was there. She sat under a rose trellis, stitching a silken shirt, attended only by two elderly maidservants. Her eyes lowered as became a well-born girl, she was not aware of him before the long shadow fell over her.

"Oh!" She looked up. Her momentary surprise was erased by a timid smile. "Good day, my lord."

"Good day to you, my lady. May I join you?" Harald did not wait for her consent but placed himself on the bench opposite.

She watched him mutely, as if poised for flight. He looked back, not without pleasure. Of middle height, she was slender, graceful in her movements, though the stiff dress and the gold arm rings seemed to weigh her down. Likewise the thick brown braids coiled around her head appeared too great a burden for so childishly slim a neck. Her face was not beautiful, but the nose had an elfin tilt, the mouth was wide and soft, her skin fair and her gray eyes enormous.

"It is blessedly peaceful here," said Harald. Leaves rustled overhead—a thrush bearing food to her nest. "After so many years tumbling about, peace feels strange."

"You have had a hard life, my lord," said Elizabeth clumsily.

"Oh, there have been good things too. This is a lovely earth we have." He was leading on to a gallantry, but she said:

"The priests call the world a vale of sin and sorrow."

He wondered if she was teasing him, for her tone was not as prim as the words. Well, he would follow that tack anyhow, to show her he was a man of gravity as well as of deeds.

He leaned forward on his elbows, folding the sinewed hands between his knees, and answered, "I would not say the priests lie, but they might bethink them that this world is also God's work. Too many clerics know it only from books."

"Like myself," she said, low but unexpectedly.

He recovered with a grin. "High time you did otherwise."

A flush stained her cheeks. She turned back to her sewing. "That is as God wills."

"Would you not like to, though?"

"My lord," she said with a trace of anger, "even I have seen men dwelling like beasts and heard enough about bloodshed and cruelty to suffice."

"There is more," said Harald. Bees hummed in the roses, white clouds drifted through pouring sunlight. "Merriment, and work well done, and, if I may say it, love."

She raised her head again, but looked past him. "Once when I was quite little," she said, more to herself than to anyone else, "my brothers took me along on a hunting trip. That was in autumn. The woods seemed afire. A maple leaf fluttered into my lap, I have never seen anything so red—like a shout of joy. I kept it till it crumbled away."

"May I take you hunting again, my lady?"

The maids gasped. "It would not be proper," said Elizabeth in haste.

"In Norway it would," he told her. "You've too much of the Empire here."

She glanced around, helplessly. Her maids grew very busy with their own sewing. All at once, in a high uncertain voice, she said to them, "You may go. I'll join you in my bower."

"Highness!"

"Go, I said!"

When they were away, she took a long breath. "My lord," she said shakily, "this is scandalous, but you've driven me to it."

"I?" asked Harald, thoroughly taken aback.

"You were going headlong toward something— something private. Were you not?"

He came to a decision and said bluntly, "Yes. Not that I meant to speak it this very day. But I wish to marry you."

She flushed deeply and stared down at her clenched hands. "My lord—"

"I have spoken to your father, of course. No pledges have yet been given on either side, but he is not unwilling."

"This is so swift," she whispered.

"You forced me, my lady."

"I did not mean to." She passed a thin hand over her eyes. "Or did I? I know not what to think."

Harald took the other hand. "Ellisif," he said, his Norse tongue softening her name, "your sisters have wed kings. Would you not do the same?"

She tensed. "How many warriors will there be in my dowry?"

Again at a loss, he let her hand go, stood up and scowled at the grass. "I am a fighter," he said. "If you think me a rough sort, well, God knows that's right. Nor is my own land as fine as this. But we could live happily together."

"Until you took our sons to war," she said.

"Why . . . what else? They will be princes!"

"This is no age for mothers," she said with an inward bitterness. "We wrap our new-born child in swaddling clothes, and he's scarce grown before we wrap him in a shroud. Because some king wanted more land!"

"Were matters ever otherwise?" he said, holding himself on a tight rein. "You can be a queen, sit honored in the high seat, speak freely, go where you please, loosed from the bonds they lay on you here. In God's name, what more do you wish?"

She shrank into herself. Her eyes misted over with tears. "Forgive me, my lord," she stammered. "You . . . you have honored me and—oh, indeed I forgot myself—I had best go." She sprang to her feet and almost ran toward the palace.

The next time they met, and most times thereafter, Elizabeth was grave and gracious. Ingigerdh urged the marriage strongly on husband and daughter. When agreement was reached, she sought Harald alone to tell him she was gladdened.

"My own Elizabeth," she murmured. "It seems so short a while ago she was a baby just learning to smile. Now overnight she's a woman grown, with Olaf's kinsman for husband."

"I hope ..." Harald fumbled after words. "I hope she is happy."

"Oh, yes. . . . Bewildered, perhaps. I do not really know. She was ever quiet. Not even I have altogether fathomed her." Ingigerdh stared into a guttering lamp. "I think she is a little afraid of you. Yet still she longs for that freedom she never knew, save in words I let drop about my own girlhood. Be gentle to her, Harald."

Oddly, Ulf said much the same thing at the feast which celebrated the betrothal. He had drunk heavily, and drew Harald into a corner with an owlish air.

"Very good for you," he said. "Very good marriage. My best wishes and so forth. It's a fine alliance."

"I think so too," said Harald, not without smugness.

"Fine alliance." Ulf's dark shock-head wagged. "But so young a girl."

"Why, she's seen full twenty winters."

"Too long a fine lady." Ulf shook his head again. "Never milked a cow, never bound a wound, never laid out a slain man. Naught hard about her. And you're a hard man. Be kind to her. She's very sweet." He shoved his friend. "Go on, get back there, talk to her, for God's sake!"

Harald obeyed, wending his way past musicians, among lordly-clad nobles with silver mugs in their hands, under walls that shimmered in the lamplight with weapons and ikons. When he sat down in the seat which he and Elizabeth shared, she gave him a curious slow smile.

"I can scarce wait for the marriage," he said foolishly.

"Why should we be so fine with each other?" she answered. Her tone was steady and not untender, but blurred so that he knew she was a trifle drunk. "We must live together too long to begin with lies."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"What I said. That slave girl who shares your nights. Oh, I hear things, we maidens are not so blind and deaf as men believe. No, no!" Her hand fell on his. She laughed the least bit. "Of course I would not wish to wed an unmanly man. I should not have spoken of her. What I, I wanted to say was . . . you need not pretend with me, Harald dear. I know you're marrying me to get my father's strength behind you. We are not prince and princess in some old story. We are here and alive and . . . real," she finished awkwardly.

"Why, you are very fair," he said.

"Not as fair as that one in the South. I have heard those tales too." At the look he gave her, she broke off. "Forgive me. I pray your pardon. We will never speak of that again. I only wanted to say, let us be good enough friends to be honest with each other."

"I would not force you," he said huffily.

"Why, no," she replied. "There is no force. My mother came weeping to her wedding, and yet it has been a good marriage. I go gladly to mine. I ask nothing but to be a wife, not a slave or a leman but a wife at your side."

He regarded the gray eyes for a silent while. "You surprise me," he said. "Even with wine in you, I had not looked for you ever to speak thus."

"I dare not speak otherwise," she said, then, with a leap into mirth. "Best I keep a few surprises to use on you when needful."

He chuckled.

During fall and early winter, Harald was busy gathering men. Some were Norse, come here to trade and willing to return with him for a chance at wealth; some were Russian adventurers. His ships would number about two score, large and small, with over a thousand men aboard.

Word from the North was that Magnus Olafsson sat firmly in Norway but that Denmark was restless under him. The Danish pretender, Svein, was now in Sweden with no few followers. He told Harald's messenger he would be glad to consider an alliance.

When Elizabeth heard this, the first time they were alone, she said strickenly, "I had not thought you would begin by making war on your own blood."

"If I must, then I must," said Harald.

"Is the kingship worth that much to you?"

"Yes. I've eaten exile's bread too long. My right is as great as Magnus'. I've sworn never again to be any man's underling." Thrusting a smile to his lips, he laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's for our children too, Ellisif."

"I would not give them a heritage stained with brother's blood," she said.

"Then, renounce your own rank!" he snapped. "How do you think your father won his crown? He fought his brothers for it!"

She wept and fled him. Several days passed before they spoke freely again.

Winter came with the snowstorms that galloped out of the steppes to howl around houses and shake roof-trees. It grew cold; breathing was painful to the nostrils and beards were full of ice. Sometimes on a still night, under frosty stars, one could hear the crack of trees burst open.

Yuletide broke that lonely gloom. Two months later a still bigger feast was held, when Jaroslav gave away his daughter. The nobles of Russia came by sleigh from afar; the halls thronged with color and tumult. Harald got few chances to see his bride.

On a pale frosty sunlit morning the bells of Kiev rang out, folk swarmed in the streets, the cathedral was filled with the smoke of incense and the sound of chanting. As he stood facing the congregation with the veiled girl, their hands tied together, Harald could not keep his mind on what was happening. It was unreal, unimportant, too much else to think about: Maria and a dozen years lost somewhere, so damned much to do before the ice broke, curse it, where could he find enough good tackle for his ships? His shoes were too tight. Ulf was drunk as a god, let's hope Halldor could keep him behaving. That fellow Svein of Denmark, they said he was not a man to trust. . . . Hospodne pomiluie.

Not until he was seated again by Elizabeth in the palace did he grow well aware of her. She looked pale and tired but held herself proudly. So now he was a wedded man. It felt no different.

He lifted his beaker. "To you," he said. "The queen of the North."

"No." She raised her own cup. "To us. Oh, Harald, may it always be us!"

He shrugged uneasily. He did not wish to be unkind, but he could not have a woman forever about his neck.

"I think ..." She glanced around, saw no one was listening, and leaned close. "I think I can care for you . . . very much."

"Thank you," he mumbled.

"If you will let me," she said.

Then a noble from Polotsk came up to speak with them.

The day passed in feasting and drinking. Night fell early, time for the bridal couple to retire. Harald and Elizabeth paused on the landing with their candle bearers. The hall below seethed with men; eyes, mouths, hands and eyes turned upward in a roar of good nights and good wishes. Elizabeth could see her father on his high seat, but her mother was hidden in the throng. She waved blindly and went on upstairs with Harald.

When they were alone in their bedchamber, he sighed and dropped the latch. "Yonder merrymaking should last for days," he said. "Your father does not do things in a niggardly way."

"No." She stood stiffly near the bed. "No, he doesn't."

Harald walked across the floor and took her in his aims. "Ellisif," he said. "I have never so much as kissed you."

Her lips were cold under his. He felt how she shivered.

"I will . . ." He stopped and sought words. "I hope I can be good to you."

He would not have had to say anything to Maria, he thought.

Elizabeth could not bring herself to look at him. She went around the room and blew out the lamps, one by one.

XIV

Of Magnus the Good and Svein Estridharson

1

After Olaf the Stout had fallen, Norway was ruled by a viceroy for the Danish king. He was a bastard son of Knut the Great. Folk soon came to hate him for his greed and injustice. They agreed that Olaf had been a saint and longed to be steered by one of his blood.

Einar Thambaskelfir, first among the Norse chiefs, was especially offended by the viceroy because he had not received the title of jarl as he had expected. He, Kalf Arnason and some other powerful men decided to make their peace with Magnus Olafsson and to recognize him as king. With a great following, they came to Novgorod in the fall of Anno Domini 1034. Here they agreed to support Magnus; in return, Magnus must pardon everyone who had fought against Olaf, and would become the foster son of Kalf. Magnus being only ten years old, the chiefs thought this a good bargain since it would leave the real power in their hands.

In spring they went to Sweden, where Magnus' stepmother Astridh, Olaf's widow, received him gladly. Many Swedes came under his banner, and he crossed over, into Norway, where he was hailed king. With none to help him, the Danish viceroy fled the land. Knut had died a short time before, and the Danish empire had fallen apart. Now one son, Harald Harefoot, ruled England, while another, Hardhaknut, had Denmark.

In 1036 the Norse chiefs, in Magnus' name, ordered out a levy and sailed against the Danes, whom they met near the Gota River. But neither land was eager to fight, so peace was made. Magnus and Hardhaknut swore that they should remain at peace while they lived, and if either died sonless, the other would succeed to both thrones.

The situation looked promising for Norway until Magnus began to show whose child he was. Thori Hound had already died on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Then Haarek of Thjottu, who had been another leader against Olaf, was murdered with the complicity of Magnus.

Asmund Grankelsson, an enemy of Haarek, stood on the gallery of the king's house in Nidharos, Magnus beside him, when Haarek went by in the street. "Now," said Asmund, "I will repay his killing of my father." He hefted his small ax in his hand and started to go.

"Take my ax instead," Magnus offered, holding out the stout weapon he bore. "There are hard bones in that old fellow, Asmund."

Asmund went down and split Haarek's skull. When he came back, despite the blood, Magnus saw that the edge of the ax had turned. Grinning, he asked: "What use would you have had of that thin thing of yours? It seems that even the one you carry has been damaged!"

Asmund was not fined or punished for his breach of the peace. Indeed, Magnus gave him a fief and an office in Haalogaland shire, where he was continually at odds with Haarek's sons.

Nor had Magnus ever forgiven the regent, Kalf Arnason, for his part at Stiklastadh. To Einar Thambaskelfir, Kalf's rival, who had not been in that battle, Magnus showed the greatest friendship. Not long after Haarek's assassination, these three were guesting at a farm near the battleground. Magnus said to Einar: "We two will ride to Stiklastadh today, and you can show me just how it was then."

"I can tell you naught," said Einar maliciously; "but let your foster father Kalf go with you. He knows all about it."

When they had eaten, the king said to Kalf, "Get your horse and ride to Staklastadh with me."

"This is no affair of mine," mumbled the chief.

The king's voice broke, boyishly, but wrath was in it: "Go you shall, Kalf!" He left the room.

Kalf realized that he must obey the king, boy or no. As he donned his riding clothes with unsteady hands, he said to his footboy: "Gallop straight to my garth and tell the carles to get all my goods aboard ship ere sunset."

Then Magnus and Kalf rode to Stiklastadh, where they dismounted. The day was clear and cool, wan sunlight spilling over the grass, the wind noisy in the trees. "Where is the spot where the king fell?" Magnus asked.

Kalf pointed with his spearshaft to a tall rock nearby. "There he lay when he had fallen."

"And where were you, Kalf?"

"Here where I now am standing."

Magnus' face reddened. "Then your ax could have reached him!"

"My ax did not come near him," said Kalf. He jumped on his horse and rode swiftly off to his home. That night his ship went down the fjord. He was in viking in the western lands for a long time.

Magnus went harshly to work. He took Kalf's farm for his own, plus many more farms that belonged to men who had fallen on the yeomen's side at Stiklastadh. Heavy fines were laid on others, or they were driven into exile or their cattle were slaughtered for his own use. In addition to these pressures he exerted on the yeomen, Magnus did not change the unjust laws of the Danish viceroy.

Anger went through the land as the yeomen saw their freehold rights again attacked. In Sogn shire men armed themselves, swearing that they would hew down the king if he ventured thither. Magnus gathered a host of his own to move against them. It seemed as if once more the land must suffer war.

Sighvat Thordharson, skald to Olaf the Stout, was in Rome when his master died. Hearing what had happened on his return, he mourned greatly and went to stay with the widowed Queen Astridh in Sweden. When Magnus came back, Sighvat joined him and served him well. He even helped lessen the strife between Astridh and Magnus' mother Alfhild, Olaf's one-time leman, and that was no easy task.

Now when the king's men saw battle threaten in Sogn, they were unhappy, and twelve of them met to decide what was to be done. They drew lots to determine who should go tell Magnus how ill content the folk were, and the lot fell on Sighvat. He ordered his affairs, confessed his sins and in the evening went to the hall where Magnus was.

As he trod in, the long fires leaping smoky down its length showed him the men on the benches along the walls, the women at the far end, drinking and talking. Those near the mid-wall high seat, where Magnus was, were great chiefs. The light splashed their grave bearded faces, fur and linen garments, the gold rings on their arms. Splendid among them sat the boy king. His downy face was sullen. Sighvat stepped up before him.

"Good evening," said Magnus in an ill-humored tone. "What brings you here?"

Sighvat cleared his throat. His black hair was graying, but he bore himself erect as any youth. "I have a word for you from the people of Norway, my lord," he said. He was awkward in ordinary speech, but verses could stream from him.

"Let me hear, then," said Magnus.

Sighvat folded his arms and began reciting:

" 'Tis said, I hear, that Sighvat

seeks to turn his master

from strife against the Sognmen.

Myself I'll hie to battle:

gladly belt my glaive on,

go beneath your banner. . . .

But lawlessness in the land,

how long must we endure it?"

Women gasped and men sucked in their breath to hear the king thus spoken to. The chieftains leaned forward, folding bulky hands into fists. Magnus sat blankly as Sighvat's verses related what former kings had done, how Haakon the Good had obeyed ancient law and the two Olafs had sought to bring the whole realm under one lawful rule. Only the crackle of the fires was heard as Sighvat continued:

"Atheling, be not angry

when honest friends give counsel,

warning open-worded,

wanting but to serve you.

Landsmen will not lout

to laws which are another

and worse rule than awaited,

as well as you must remember.

"Who has urged your hasty

heart to break your pledges?

Much too often, master,

make you use of sword edge.

Ever should the honor

of the king be steadfast;

little is the love for lawless,

faithless ruler."

Magnus shifted, flushing darkly, but Sighvat held his eyes and spoke on: verse after verse, calm and ruthless, as if the land itself stirred under him who had trodden too heavily across it.

"Ill it is when all

the older men speak war words,

gathering against you;

get it stopped, and swiftly!

Know, when men say nothing,

nodding silent, lowering

heads in hairy coats . . .

then harm and danger threaten."

Those who sat near the youth thought they saw tears glimmer as the skald went on. It seemed a long time before the last verse:

"Holy bonds that hold us

make me wish a healing.

Wait not till the wicked

weapons flash, but help us.

Grant this boon, my godson!

Gladly then we'll serve you

Go in peace, not glaive,

and give your people freedom!"

The stillness became long when Sighvat had finished until Einar Thambaskelfir said, "He speaks truth, my lord."

Magnus' knuckles were white where he gripped the chair.

"Yes," he muttered thickly. Rising, he left the hall.

But the next morning he held council with his chiefs. It was agreed that the laws must be changed and the king himself obey them. Peace was made in Sogn, and in due time Magnus had laws written for the whole land which the Things accepted heartily. This book, called the Gray Goose from the hue of its parchment, was the first written code the North had had. It laid down not only rules for the mighty, but protection for the poor, and Magnus did abide by it. On this account he was much loved by the folk, who called him Magnus the Good.

Sighvat returned home to Iceland soon after, where he died; but the Free-speaking Verses were never forgotten in Norway.

In 1039 Harald Harefoot, King of England, died, and was succeeded by his brother Hardhaknut, who lived only two years more. Both had been worthless, and in any case no other sons of Knut the Great were left. So the English made Edward Aethelredsson king. He was a pious weakling known as the Confessor.

His treaty with Hardhaknut gave Magnus the right to the Danish throne. He was now, in 1042, eighteen years old, handsome, mild and merry, but strong in battle and council. The aging Einar Thambaskelfir remained his dearest friend and first redesman. They sailed to Denmark with seventy long ships to claim the land. Magnus was well received and hailed king at the Viborg Thing.

That fall he returned to Norway, lying over for a while in the Gota mouth. There Svein Ulfsson came to greet him. He was a son of Knut's half-sister Estridh and Knut's one-time jarl and governor of Denmark, a man whom the Danes called Ulf but who had actually been an Englishman named Wulfsige. Knut had quarreled with this man and had him slain, but afterward repented, bestowed great wealth on widowed Estridh and raised the boy Svein as one of his own. Because Svein's mother was of higher rank than his father, his enemies scornfully called him Svein Estridharson.

He was some four years older than Magnus, a witty and polished man who soon won the king's friendship. Presently Magnus announced that he was making Svein jarl of Denmark, to govern and ward it for him.

"Too great a jarl," said Einar Thambaskelfir. "Too great a jarl, foster son!"

Magnus' quick temper flared, he turned on the old chief and snapped: '"You think ill of my judgment. You seem to mean that some are too great to become jarls, while others will never become men!"

He rose, fastened a sword at Svein's belt, hung a shield at his shoulder, set a helmet on his head, and proclaimed him jarl in Denmark with the same rights his father Wulfsige had had. A priest bore forth a casket with holy relics, and on this Svein swore troth to his overlord.

But that same winter, having gotten many followers, Svein gave himself the name of king.

The next spring Magnus sailed to Jomsborg in eastern Wendland, a nest of vikings who had refused him allegiance. He took and burned it, made havoc in the countryside and came to Jutland to spend the winter. Before settling in, he sent many of his folk home.

Svein had withdrawn to Sweden when he heard Magnus was coming. But now he returned to Danish Scania with a large force. Crossing the Sound, he brought all the islands under his control, then sailed to Rugen to attack Magnus from the east.

Magnus was caught between Svein and the Wends, who were then pillaging their way up through Schleswig. Ordulf, son of the Duke of Saxony, who had married St. Olaf's daughter Ulfhild, brought a troop to join the Norse king. Even so, when they spied the Wendish men on Hlyrskog Heath, the allies saw they were outnumbered. But they went valiantly forth in the morning, Magnus himself in the van, hewing and shouting. The heathen invaders were slaughtered.

At once Magnus turned against his unruly jarl, and trounced him at Rugen. Again Svein fled to his kinsman, King Emund of Sweden. Magnus returned to Jutland to winter as he had first intended.

Svein rallied his supporters in Scania and the islands. As Yule neared he rowed into the Limfjord, where many yeomen acknowledged him king. Magnus sailed to meet him. In a sea battle off Aarhus, the smaller Norse band won, but again the slippery jarl escaped.

Magnus pursued with fire and iron, ravaging first Sealand and then Scania until the Dane submitted. In spring the Norse king went home, leaving some men to hold Denmark for him.

That was enough for Svein; he rode straight down from his Swedish refuge, raised a fresh army, and again overran the islands. Magnus sailed to quell him, again there was a sea fight, again Svein fled, this time from a ship cleared of men, with such remnants as lived. Magnus chased him through Scania, burning the houses wherever he went to show the folk who their rightful lord was, but Svein got away to Sweden. Magnus spent the rest of the summer subduing Denmark, and rested there in peace throughout the winter. The next year he busked himself to return to Norway.

"A pity that Svein Estridharson lives," remarked Einar Thambaskelfir. '"Strong though King Emund is, it might be worth a war with him to lay hands on that wolf's head."

"Not yet, anyhow," sighed Magnus. He wrinkled his brow, puzzled. "But I don't understand the Danes. I meant to be a good and lawful king over them. Why should they lay down their lives and see their lands wasted, for the sake of yonder scoundrel?"

"Does Olaf's son ask me that?" Einar retorted. "He is of the Skjoldung house, their kingly blood. A land without its rightful lord would be unlucky."

"But that is me! I got the right by holy oaths!"

"Of course, of course, foster son. 'Tis but that many Danes see the matter otherwise. Then, too, many follow Svein in hope of reward, or because they are afraid not to."

"They did follow him, you mean," Magnus said. "Now his hope lies dead by our hand."

"God willing," said Einar, "though surely He loves you."

Indeed this seemed the case. Magnus was the well-regarded king of Norway, the master of Denmark, the tamer of Wends and Jomsvikings. His claim to England's throne by virtue of the treaty with Hardhaknut had been refused, but he brooded little about that, having enough to do nearer home.

Though not married, by a leman he had one child, a fair girl named Ragnhild; she was being fostered by a wealthy family in Nidharos, and gladdened him when he saw her. The cost of his Danish wars had left him poor himself, but he felt that at last he could look forward to a gainful peace.

How Harald Came Home

1

In the spring of 1045, Harald Sigurdharson sailed from Ladoga with Elizabeth and his men. They had a gusty passage across the Baltic, and the woman was miserably seasick. She lay under the foredeck of his dragon, shivering in her blankets, now and then heaving from an empty stomach when the ship rolled. Chill green waves spattered their scud over her, her hair was crusted with salt, and she looked up at him out of dark-rimmed eyes.

"There, now," he said, stooping over her. "It's not so bad, is it? No one ever died of seasickness."

"No," she whispered. Her pale lips twitched into a smile. "They only wish they could."

Harald left her again; the crowded hull was no place to give kisses and comfort. He felt a dim anger, that she should disgrace him thus—not her fault, God knew, but still she was no pretty sight. Nor had she been much of a companion to him, too shy and withdrawn. He had had better bedmates, too. Or was it his fault? Ever rushing about with his men, ever thinking and talking of a kingdom she had never seen? He didn't know. She had made him a splendid banner, gold-bordered red with Norway's raven black across it, and had flushed and wrung her hands when he praised it. She had set herself to learn Norse, and now spoke only in that tongue though often forced to search for words. He had perhaps given her too little kindness . . . but body of Christ, how much occasion had she given, and where was a man to find time for cooing at his wife?

Ulf Uspaksson stood under the tense, creaking sail, his ugly dark face turned to the dragonhead prow. Spray sheeted as the ship pitched into a wave, wind shrilled, the water, gray and green, ran thunderously to the cloudy horizon. "A swift passage," he said. "We should raise Sweden ere nightfall."

Harald nodded, glancing aft where his other ships labored to match their-speed. "My wife will be glad of that," he said.

Ulf's green eyes went to her where she lay, then jerked back as if from something dangerous. "She's not meant for this sort of thing," he said with unwonted seriousness. "We should have left her behind and summoned her after we—"

"Enough!" said Harald sharply, and left him. His giant form made a slow way between the benches, arms outspread to keep balance as the deck wallowed beneath him. Halldor Snorrason had the steering oar; under the wide-brimmed hat tied to his head, the long fair hair fluttered wildly about the scarred face.

"How goes it? If you are getting weary, I can have someone relieve you."

"I can steer your ships anywhere you choose to go," replied Halldor, his body bent to the rolling.

Harald stroked the drenched beard close-cropped under his jaws. "I know not why I stand for such insolence," he chuckled. "Had you not been a trusty friend of mine all these years, I wouldn't."

The Icelander shrugged. "You'll need men," he said. "Not bootlickers. It would be better for you were you not always so set on having your own way."

Harald sat down and looked over the bulwarks. After all the blue Mediterranean years, it was good to see Northern water again, white-maned horses stamping across a windy world. This was his, he thought, and these blue-eyed, red-faced, blunt-minded lads were his own folk. He had fought Saracens and Bulgars without hate, you had to be close to a man, share his soul, to get really angry with him. If Constantinople grew slothful and corrupt, it was naught to Harald Sigurdharson; but the Northern people would be drawn under one rule no matter how many thick skulls he must knock together.

Toward sunset, a dull blue streak lifted in the west, and as day smoldered redly into darkness, he saw the hills of Sweden. They lay bare and brown, mottled with the last dirty-white snow, water rushing down their flanks. Already a ghostly green was breathed over them and across the slender birches, and overhead a flock of geese cried out their far and lonely wander song.

The ships were drawn up near a garth, and Harald gave Elizabeth his arm as they walked toward the house. Her feet stumbled. "The ground is rocking," she said in a thin voice.

"It will seem so for a little while," he told her. "But we'll get you to bed now, and some hot food inside you."

"I'm . . . sorry to be so much trouble," she said. The wind roared through a dark stand of firs, drowning her words, and her face was a white blur in the dusk.

"It's nothing," he answered. Her cold fingers squeezed his arm gratefully. He was going to say more, but the yeoman and his carles broke their defensive line when they saw this was a peaceful visit. Harald arranged that he, with his wife and chiefs, would stay in the house overnight, while the men camped on the beach; he bought some cattle to be slaughtered for their evening meal, and soon the fires were blazing high.

The next day, guided by their host's words, they rowed north toward Sigtuna. It was calmer, and Elizabeth stood in the bows with her elfin face alight. "So this is your realm," she said.

"Well, not yet," smiled Harald. "This is Sweden. I'm to meet Svein Estridhsson here."

Her gaze was troubled. "Are you going to make alliance with him against your own kinsman Magnus, without even talking to Magnus first?"

"No. It's but that Svein is closer. If Magnus knows the Danes will be behind me, should he refuse me my share of Norway, he ought to be reasonable."

She shook her head. "I like it not."

"It's not your affair," he said coldly, and left her. Why the Devil must she always say the wrong thing?

At the harbor they docked their ships, leaving most of the men as guards, while Harald rode with a following to the rebel's hall. Sigtuna, a bit inland, was a thriving merchant town, composed of a sprawl of wooden buildings between muddy streets that bustled with folk readying to sail in the eastern trade. Pigs rooted in the offal thrown from the houses; dogs yapped and must be kicked away lest they bite; children played their ageless games; women and warriors, fishermen and tradesfolk, yeomen and artisans all swirled together in one merry throng. There was even a Christian priest to be seen, lonesome in this land still mostly heathen.

Harald entered the hall, moving with careful arrogance. He had dressed richly for the meeting: fur-trimmed, gold-embroidered red coat, silken shirt, blue linen breeches with leggings of white leather, a good sword at his belt, golden rings on his wrists. Once only had he come to Jaroslav's court as a penniless beggar. That was fourteen years ago, when he was barely sixteen, but he had vowed it should never happen again.

Svein Estridhsson rose to meet him. The Dane was tall, though well below Harald's seven feet, and rather thin. His long brown hair was carefully combed, but his short beard was scanty. He was still in his mid-twenties. His small blue eyes were set close by a big hooked nose, and his lips were full and red; but he was not bad-looking, nor did he seem unmanly. Indeed, he was known as a mighty drinker and lecher. He smiled with an astonishing charm and said: 'Welcome, Harald Sigurdharson! I have been eager for you to arrive. Perhaps my luck has turned, with so great an ally." He used the Northern tongue with a curious accent, a blend of the Danish, Swedish and English forms but clipped precisely, as if his books and monkish friends had taught him to speak with care.

"We have made no agreement yet," said Harald curtly.

"Well, God wilhng, we shall." Svein took his arm and led him to the high seat, where a graying, stately woman gave him a horn of ale. "My mother, Queen Estridh Sveinsdottir."

Harald thought suddenly of his own mother. It was fifteen years since he had left her, and pride blazed in her eyes when she saw him go. He hoped she still lived; what a welcome he would get!

Svein sat down beside him, and began talking of his travels. The Dane was eager to learn about Miklagardh; his mind darted squirrel-like to seize and store kernels of knowledge. Harald found it pleasant to converse with him, and began to see why so many men had set their lives at stake for Svein Estridhsson. The queen took part in their talk. It was against custom, but she was a strong sort and must have done much to hold her son to his ambitions.

Svein gave the whole company a feast that night, and found town quarters for all. It was not till the next day that he began to lay his glowing schemes before Harald.

"The Danes want me. They have shown it time and again. Once I have them, we can raise a mighty host to fight Magnus. I assure you, he'll not listen to reason; he must be compelled. He has the Norse chiefs with him, and you know what a headstrong lot they are. But the Danes have thrown out Norse kings erenow, and can do it again."

Harald said little, but remained hidden behind an unstirring face and the one high-cocked eyebrow. "I must know more of how things stand," he replied.

"Magnus has won three battles with you, and it boots naught to make war if we're but to be spitted on his spears. It may be I can reach some agreement with him which will satisfy all of us."

"Well," said Svein sullenly, "I cannot stop you, but it's trouble wasted." He remembered himself and broke into a smile. "Still, it's most Christian of you to try for peace. Blessed are the peacemakers, as it says in Holy Writ. I shall not stand in your way, my friend."

Harald decided that Svein was too smooth for his liking.

From inquiring of spies and travelers, Harald learned that King Magnus was lying to in the Sound. He had encamped on the Scanian beach to make sure Denmark was well in hand before going home. Leaving Ulf in charge of his men and of Elizabeth, the exile steered down the Swedish coast with Halldor and a picked crew in the long ship. She was a lovely craft, her hull painted red, her head and tail gilt, her sail of costly weave. She danced through the Baltic in a sun-sparked rush of waves, and the wind whistling across her entered Harald's soul. This was the life he had wished for, to stand with a lively ship under him and a band of rough Northern lads at his heel. He was not meant for prolonged intrigues with Svein or for hurt bafflement at his failure to make Ellisif glad.

Rounding the southern capes, they entered a narrow strait where the land spread low on either side, Sealand to larboard and Scania to starboard. Scudding up the Sound, they raised a great fleet of warships lying at anchor, their complement of men decking the eastern shore with tents. Sunlight streaked through the clouds to glisten off weapons and chain mail; campfire smoke blew raggedly into the pale Northern sky.

A small boat rowed out to hail them. It was like homecoming to hear the burred Throndish accent of the man in the bow: "Hoy, there! Who are you in the dragon, and what will you here? This is the camp of Magnus, King of Norway and Denmark."

Something like tears stung Harald's eyes, but he recalled that Norse axes were sharp. His huge form advanced, he cupped hands around his mouth and shouted back: "I bring a message from the king's kinsman, Harald Sigurdharson, who has come back from the South and would know how Magnus intends to receive him."

The boat returned to shore, and Harald waited a while till it came forth again with the answer: "King Magnus says he will make his uncle welcome and give him good guesting. This he swears."

"Can we trust him?" muttered Halldor.

"We must," said Harald. "I hear he's an honorable man." To the Thrond, he bawled, "Then stand by, because this is Harald Sigurdharson himself."

They rowed slowly toward shore, until the keel grated on pebbled ground. A gangplank was laid, and Harald walked over it to the beach, where the king and his chiefs stood waiting with a big array of guards.

"Be welcome, kinsman," said Magnus warmly, and took his hand. "This is a rare pleasure. You had become almost a story; I wondered if we should ever see you in the flesh."

Harald looked down at him, narrowly. Magnus was twenty-one years old now, a slim strong youth of medium height, with a long, sharply cut face, fair skin, large blue eyes and soft yellow hair. Having little beard as yet, he went clean-shaven. His gaze was frank, and his friendliness seemed real enough.

"I thank you," said Harald. He tried to be gracious, but it was hard. . . . This stripling stood between him and all his hopes. Before God, he had been buffeted about long enough, like a ship without an anchor; now it was time he came home! And he was not going to be any man's underling when he did. He'd had a bellyful of that down in Miklagardh and it had cost him dear.

Magnus presented his leading men, of whom Einar Thambaskelfir was chief. This was a tall, stout man, hair and beard wolf-gray, eyes squinting in a hard blunt face. He was married to Bergljot, a daughter of Haakon Jarl the Great. Their son Eindridhi stood beside him, as tall as his father but more handsome though somewhat older than Harald. Both of them greeted him coolly.

Magnus led the way to his own quarters, in a yeoman's garth, talking fast and with much cheer. "It's good to meet you again, uncle. There are too few Ynglings left. But honor enough to be won by all of them, I promise you. If we but stand together, there's naught we cannot overcome. ..."

They feasted that night, and spent the next day trading memories. Magnus was as anxious as Svein had been to hear about Harald's southern adventures; he himself spoke freely of all that had happened, and of what he planned. "Both kingdoms to be united, don't you think? I can belike marry into the Danish royal family, and my son will inherit both thrones. We can conquer the Wends and make them Christian, thus ending their raids on us, and ..."

"A fine idea," said Harald dryly, "but a few workaday questions remain. How shall you hold so large a realm together, when it can take days to sail from Nidharos to the Sound, after weeks spent raising a levy? It's not enough to lay a folk under the sword. They must be trained."

"The people up here are a free race," said Magnus.

"Aye, I've heard somewhat of this Gray Goose book of yours. Well enough for a single kingdom, perhaps, but what have you had in Denmark save one uprising after another? No, the whole house must be torn down and rebuilt."

"Those are hard words," said Magnus.

"This is a hard world," answered Harald.

"You must remember, those southerners you dwelt with so long are not Northmen. Ride our folk too hard, and you'll be thrown. I found that out."

"You went about it wrongly."

"Well ..." Magnus changed the subject.

They did not come to speaking of their own affairs till another day had gone by. Then Harald met Magnus in the hall, with the Norse chiefs present. He himself brought no one, but told Halldor to stand by ready for trouble, because it was plain that none of these leaders liked his way of thinking.

He cleared his throat and began courteously: "You have been most kind to me, and I hope to repay you well. Nevertheless, I have my own case to bring forward."

"Have you laid it before Svein Estridhsson?" asked Einar in a chill voice.

Harald stiffened. This same man who had betrayed Olaf the Saint was now counseling Norway's king! He was doubtless faithful to Magnus, but he and his kind stood for a land divided, for a ruler who could not move without their yea. And so, remorselessly as a glacier grinding down a mountainside, in generations to come they would create a set of toy kings and civil war.

Holding his temper back, Harald said evenly. "Yes, I met Svein in Sigtuna. He wished me to join him against you, but I felt sure an agreement could be reached."

"Then what do you ask?" Magnus' tone was very low.

"My right to the kingdom is as great as yours," said Harald. "Perhaps greater, for you were a child when I fought for Olaf, but we'll not speak of that. And you must understand how it is to be royal but landless, knowing that your sons will be exiles because you failed to claim their due for them. I do not wish to seem greedy, but half the kingdom is only my fair share."

"You were the one who talked against divided rule," said Magnus with a glint of wry humor.

"We can work together, I think," answered Harald, though inwardly he had his doubts. "It's not as if I offered you naught in return. I have good men and no small treasure. I have seen much of the world, fought in many battles, and can give you wise redes.

It was in my mind to take your whole kingdom, but I would liefer be your friend."

Magnus looked away, uneasy beneath the hard, thrusting words. "In such matters, I will be guided by my counselors," he said.

Einar Thambaskelfir stood up, locking narrowed eyes with Harald. "It's no small thing you ask," he said, "but peace between us is best. Nevertheless, it's only just that if you have half the kingdom, Magnus should have half your wealth. These Danish wars have left him little gold."

Harald bristled. "No!" he snapped. "I won that booty in harder battles than you know of, and it's for my own house."

Hatred glittered in the chief's gaze. He spoke bleakly. "Far away you were, Harald, while we won this kingdom you claim so boldly back from the Knytlings. We have no wish to be split between rulers now when we've gained what is ours. So far we have served only one, and so it shall remain while Magnus lives."

A rumble of agreement went among the other chiefs. "As for me," finished Einar in a flat tone, "I shall do all in my power to keep you from winning any part of the kingdom."

Harald sprang to his feet, snatching at his sword. Einar lunged forward. Both checked themselves and stood breathing hard.

"Magnus ..." Harald struggled for levelness. "Magnus, do you go in on this?"

Misery looked back at him. "I will not act against my friends," said the king. "But surely we can reach some understanding."

"You know what I want," said Harald.

Magnus' anger leaped up. "Then you must take it!" he shouted.

"I will," said Harald. He bowed ironically. "Until we meet again, kinsman."

He stalked from the hall and down to his ship. Silently, the Norse army watched him leave.

When they were rowing back down the Sound, Harald told Halldor what had occurred. "That was ill done of you," said the Icelander.

"So I should knuckle under to that lout Thambaskelfir?" snarled Harald. "So I should meekly settle down to farm as my father did? No, by unholy Thor, I'm a king!"

Halldor made no reply.

Harald gnawed his wrath all the way back to Sigtuna. There had been too many years, too many hurts. He had seen Olaf fall, he had housed in a forest hovel, he had fled out of the land, he had served foreign kings with homesickness black in his heart, he had left the only woman he loved because he was powerless to take her with him. It was enough!

When he docked, Elizabeth was there to meet him with Ulf and his own troops. "How went it?" she asked timidly.

He gave her a hurried look. She seemed pale and tired. "Not well," he said. "I shall have to join with Svein after all."

"Harald ..." She wet her lips and whispered in a rush: "Harald, my darling, be careful. We have too much to lose. I think I am with child."

"Oh?" For a startled moment, he gazed down at her. "But that is wonderful," he said dutifully. "You must not weary yourself. Don't worry, all will be well—now I must hasten, I'll see you later." Rapidly, he strode down the wharf.

She stared after him, till tears blurred the tall shape. Ulf heard the small gulp in her throat, and took her arm. "There," he said gently. "He has too much to think about. Be sure he's happy over it, but there's a kingdom to win for the child, isn't there?"

"Yes "

"Come back to the hall and lie down for a while." He guided her off the dock and toward their wagon.

Svein had been gathering a large host, Danish exiles and Swedish men. Tactfully, he said little about Harald's encounter with Magnus, but plunged him at once into the work of readying. By early summer, it was a good-sized fleet that stood out to sea and made for Denmark. Elizabeth was left behind in Sigtuna. Harald had not had much time with her but she wished him Godspeed with all the cheer she could muster. The slight form standing and waving on the dock was soon lost to sight.

When the ships reached Sealand, Harald steered for the nearest hamlet, cut down the folk on the beaches who tried to stop him, and plundered and burned. Svein, coming later, reproached him in a shocked tone: "Is this the way to gain the good will of the Danes?"

"They're pledged to Magnus," said Harald grimly. "Let them come over to us if they'd be spared."

"But—"

"I've no time to waste!" Harald roared him down. "This is the quickest way to get them back under you. If you mislike my ideas, we need not remain allied."

Svein bit his lip and said nothing.

Like a viking host, their men swept over the islands, fire and sword and bondage for those who fought against them. Valgardh the skald later put the story in verse:

"The whole of Sealand, Harald,

was harried by you;

wolf packs fed upon the fallen;

foemen did you slaughter.

With many folk, you mighty,

made you then your landfall;

hot it was 'neath host-men's helms,

and shields were sundered.

"Brightly fire was burning

buildings south of Roskilde;

king's men down did cast

the coal-swart, smoking houses;

high the slain were heaped up,

here no few found Doomsday;

horror-stricken hid

the hinds themselves in forests.

"Still were many, stricken,

who stayed behind made captive.

When folk had taken flight,

then fair young girls were captured;

loaded down with links,

they were led to where ships waited;

links bit in the limbs

of lovely Danish maidens."

Halldor said to Harald, when they stood watching a garth blaze while weeping folk were hurried out under guard: "This is no way to fight . . . against women and harmless farmers."

"You're too tender-hearted," said Harald roughly. "They can be ransomed, or set free when the country has yielded. If men are slain, well, they didn't have to stand against us."

"Still . . . caught between you and Magnus, like ants between two millstones!"

"That's true." Harald gripped Halldor's arm with bruising force. Teeth gleamed in his flame-splashed face. "Can you not understand? Can no one understand? This is the only way to make sure that someday my own wife and children won't walk out in chains while the house burns behind them. It's the only way to make sure that the whole North is not overrun."

Halldor regarded him gravely. "The world has wounded you," he said at length. "It's hurt you more than you perhaps know yourself. God be praised, I've not been so knocked about in my youth that now I must think all are my foes who are not my thralls."

Harald spat an oath and went from him. They did not speak for some days.

Through most of that summer, Harald and Svein made war in the islands. Where folk yielded to them, they gave peace, but elsewhere they fared ruthlessly. No outcry was raised. Thus did all men fight; the Danes themselves had looted and burned and killed where they went. Magnus had set the land afire, and all knew that the Normans in France were more cruel than this. Harald felt neither guilt nor pleasure. This was merely the road he must walk to reach his goal. Like Ulf, he slept with a number of Danish girls, who were not unwilling to try new men when they had an excuse, and feasted merrily after each victorious battle. His banner Landwaster, which Elizabeth had made for him, seemed to carry luck with it.

They had laid the islands under them when they heard that Magnus had raised a levy and was sailing toward Denmark. Harald laughed aloud. "That's what I hoped for!" he told Svein. "Now I shall take my own men to Norway."

"Is that wise?" asked the Dane.

"Are you so little a man that you can't hold your own realm?" countered Harald scornfully.

Svein did not answer, but his eyes were resentful.

With a number of ships, Harald sailed through the Kattegat and the Skagerrak, up into Oslofjord. When he saw the hills before him, rolling in a flame of autumn, his heart sprang, and he went into the bows so that men should not see the tears in his eyes.

They had brought horses along, and Harald rode with half his troop toward the thorp where he was born. Trees murmured above him, a vivid splash of scarlet, hot bronze and fluttering gold and sober brown. A little wind drove a gust of yellow leaves across his path, hoo, hey, off in viking to the other side of the road! The air was sharp and clear, thin blue overhead, flowing over a land wrapped in quietness.

"Home," he said, as if the word were holy.

Ulf looked sidewise at him. "Perhaps I see what you've had in mind all these years," he said.

They trotted into open fields, and now the thorp lay before them, smoking into the sky, and the lake blinked beside it. There were new buildings, Harald saw, it all had a rich look. They must have prospered here. He smiled, weighing the pouch at his belt; it held a necklace of diamonds and rubies that he would hang on his mother when she welcomed him home.

Armed housecarles stood warily at the garth as he rode up. Two men among them were tall and stout, well clad; it was with a small shock that Harald recognized his brothers.

They stood in silence for a while. Then Halfdan spoke: "Is it you, Harald?"

"Aye." He dismounted, smiling crookedly. "I'm back at last."

"I hear you are the king's foe," said Guthorm.

"For the time, at least," answered Harald. "Let us not speak of that now. Where is our mother?"

"You do not know? She is dead. Five years ago she died."

Harald stood without moving. A sudden emptiness was in his breast, he felt all at once how tired he was. "What did she die of?" he asked dully.

"Some sickness. It was a quick death, by Christ's mercy. She asked us to stand by you when you returned, for she never doubted you would."

Harald looked at the ground.

"We shall," said Guthorm hastily. "We swore we would. But it were better to make peace. Halfdan and I are content to be free yeomen."

"No matter," said Harald. He shivered and drew his cloak about him. "Come, let's go in, it's cold."

XVI

How Svein Was Angry

1

Now came a time of whirlwind, and Harald wore out many horses. Riding into the Uplands, he met the yeomen and asked that they name him king. They looked at him sullenly, gripping their weapons, and said they would not; one king was enough, and they were well pleased with Magnus Olafsson.

The levy to Denmark had not been large, coming as it did in the time of harvest and butchering, so the country was full of armed men. A war word could be borne across the land, from house to house, in days. Harald stared for a while into the ruddy, bearded faces before him. "I will not fight you now," he said tonelessly, "but you may be hearing more of me."

Leaving the field where they had met, he took his warriors down into the great valley Gudhbrandsdal. Here he was found by another troop, at their head young Thori of Steig. This was a powerful chief in the shire, and a kinsman of Harald's, who gave him friendly greeting.

"It is ill that you are denied your right," said Thori as they rode side by side toward the meeting place of the Thing, "but no better that you and your nephew must bear arms against each other."

"I'm willing to reach agreement with Magnus," said Harald. "We could have done so this spring had it not been for Einar Thambaskelfir."

Thori stroked his chin. "What then do you plan?"

"I can hardly remain much longer in Norway; as soon as he learns I've come hither, Magnus will return with a bigger host than I can fight. But if he and his counselors can be shown that I have friends within the realm ..."

"It's a risky course," said Thori. "Still, we Dalesmen are not glad to see all the power lie with the Throndish chiefs. I may be able to persuade the Thing to hazard Magnus' wrath."

"If you do," said Harald, "I shall not forget."

The assembly was a huge one, for the valley was thickly peopled. Harald mounted the Thing-stone and addressed them with fair words, pleading his case and promising he would not be swayed by advisors from the north country alone. His cousin Thori also argued on his behalf, and the end of it was that they hailed him king, and a number of the younger men joined his following.

"Now I must go back to Denmark," said Harald later, "for otherwise there would be war. Thori, you must speak to King Magnus; it's setting your life at stake, I know, but I doubt he will provoke an uprising by acting to harm you, the more so when you come as peacemaker."

"It would be an evil day indeed if you two kinsmen threw a death spear against each other," said Thori earnestly. "It's for that reason, as well as our mothers being sisters, I do this."

"Some Danes are friendly to Magnus," Harald told him. "Let your folk carry word secretly to them of what is happening here, and they can tell me. I stand by what I said: half the kingship; but I am not unwilling to yield on other points."

He made his farewells and rode back to the Oslofjord. Winter came striding behind him, and it was a stormy passage to Sealand. On the way, Ulf remarked dryly: "I wonder what your friend St. Olaf thinks of your locking horns with his son."

"So far I have succeeded," Harald answered. "If I must defy Heaven too, I will."

Halldor shuddered and crossed himself.

The ships went down the Sound and were drawn up at Hafn, a hamlet living off the herring fisheries. Harald told some of the men to lay the craft away for winter, and rode with the others to Roskilde.

On a gloomy day, with snow thick out of a leaden sky, he entered the town. A church bell was ringing, its sound as far and muffled as his horse's hoofbeats in the drifted street. Houses lifted dim on either side, providing a glimpse of galleries and carved eaves; a few people wrapped in cloaks were abroad, leaning on their spears as they watched his troop go by.

Firelight leaped in Svein's hall when he entered the main chamber, dusting snow from his breeches. The king rose to meet him, and guardsmen on the benches sat watchfully.

"Well, my friend, it's good to see you again!"

Svein beamed and took his hand. "I feared for your life. How went it?"

"Not so well," replied Harald, "but some are on my side." More than that he didn't care to say, for Svein's force was immensely bigger than his. "But what of Magnus?"

"He withdrew before we came to grips. I thought he would, with you at his back, so I was in no haste to meet him." Svein led Harald to the high seat. "Now we can look for a peaceful winter. Even Magnus would not campaign at this season. I've gotten a dwelling for you, and had your wife brought here before the weather got too rough."

"Thanks," said Harald curtly. He spoke little while they drank. It did not trouble him that he was planning to cast Svein aside; the king was not famous for keeping oaths. .But maintaining the secret of his plans all winter would be hard. He left as soon as he could and went to his own hall.

Elizabeth met him in the entry room. She was swollen with child and walked slowly. "God be praised, you came back," she said.

He kissed her lightly, and was surprised at the hunger of her response. The thin hands tightened on his shoulders. "I was so afraid," she whispered. "It has been lonely here."

"Well, well, that's done with for a while." He ruffled her hair and then, his guardsmen coming in, led her off with proper stateliness. Not till they were alone that night did they have a chance to talk.

He was pleased to see how well she had been running the house. Even one of the shut beds which stood in the corners of the hall had been rebuilt to fit him. As the fire pits darkened and men stretched out on the benches, Harald and Elizabeth entered their bed and drew the panel. The straw pallet rustled beneath them as they wriggled out of their clothes. She snuggled into his arms in lightlessness, and he told her how matters stood.

"So we get peace with Magnus?" she sighed. "That is ... I cannot say how good that is."

"Much depends on how long we can hoodwink Svein," he answered. "I'll have to keep my men ready for battle."

"There is naught to fear. Now that your cause is good, God will watch over you."

"It would be as well to have a few men-at-arms watching too," he said. His hands slid over small breasts firmed now with milk, and he drew her to him.

She pushed cold palms against his chest. "Harald, darling . . . no. I have not been well. I'm afraid for the child ..."

He lay in darkness for a bitter moment. "As you wish," he said coldly. "Good night."

A few minutes later, he heard her try to muffle her weeping, and felt a sudden pity. "It's naught. Forgive my temper. I've missed you."

"I want to be so much to you," she said, "and I am so little."

"Don't think thus," he said awkwardly.

"Take a concubine," she murmured. "I don't care. All men do, don't they?"

He could hear that she had to force the words out, but decided to follow her rede. It would have been done in any case, but she was good to say it herself.

The short winter days dragged by. Harald had no trouble finding a yeoman's daughter who would live with him for a while. Waking alone across the hall from the disturbed dreams of a woman with child, now and then he wondered how Ellisif felt, but did not know what to say to her. He did observe that she seldom went to church, and when he asked her why was told that she did not feel at home in the Roman rite.

"When I am king," he said, "we shall get an Orthodox priest or two for you."

Her smile broke forth like sunlight.

He took some care not to get his leman pregnant, for any king's son by any woman had a full claim to the throne and it would be better if he was succeeded by Jaroslav's grandchild.

Shortly after the new year, Elizabeth was brought to bed. She bore the child with many hours of pain. Harald sat them out drinking with Ulf; he could think of nothing else to do. Whenever a shriek came across the yard from the small house in which she lay, he would stiffen.

"I have not prayed much," said the Icelander drunkenly, "but let Christ comfort her."

"The Virgin," said Harald. "She was a mother too. I vow her a hundred candles if this goes well."

"You're a better churchman than I, though neither of us is very good," said Ulf. "Do you pray for her, and I'll cast a spell an old witch wife taught me." They heard another scream. His teeth snapped together. "By all the gods! Torn apart living . . . is there no other way than this?"

"They say it was a curse laid on Eve," Harald mumbled, staring into his horn.

"I think little of a God who would curse Ellisif for something another woman did," snarled Ulf. Sweat lay in the pockmarks on his face. He began to cut runes in a willow wand, slowly and carefully.

Dawn was chill and gray across miles of snow. Bells were ringing to matins when the midwife entered with something wrapped in a blanket and laid it on the earthen floor at Harald's feet.

He stared at the tiny wrinkled face. It hardly looked human. "What is it?" he asked. His skull was a hollowness filled with mists, the world was far off and unreal.

"A girl, my lord," said the woman, opening the blanket. "She seems to be sound."

"A girl. Well, then . . ." Harald stood up. "How is Ellisif?"

"She is awake, my lord."

Harald crossed the wintry courtyard to his wife. She looked up at him through eyes dulled by fading nightmare. He laid a hand on her wet forehead. "Are you well?" he asked.

"Yes . . ." He could barely hear her. "What do you want to call the child?"

Harald glanced away. "Maria," he said.

"For the Virgin? Yes. ... My little Maria ..."

"Go to sleep now," he said. His lips brushed hers and she smiled wearily.

* * *

It was not to be expected that Svein would not know what had occurred in Norway: the Uplanders refusing Harald, but the Dalesmen hailing him, and talk of agreement with Magnus. Harald did not try to hide it. What he wanted to keep secret was the men who now and again slipped into his house after dark with word from the north. Svein made remarks about how Harald's folk were always armed and near the hall, but added a nervous laugh. It was plain, though, that he bore little love for his ally.

The bargain was made by such messengers. Both sides yielded something: Harald was to be king with Magnus, the younger man ranking first; their movable goods should be divided equally; they would meet to take oaths on this. Now he must get away from Denmark without a fight.

Spring came in all her ancient trickiness: a day of warm skies, melting snow rushing seaward, birds achatter above wind-ruffled puddles; then snow again, wet and heavy, and ice in the morning; then all at once every road a mud wallow and the woods breaking out their first shy green. Folk crept from their houses and grew aware of crusted winter filth; children leaped on water-gleaming gravel, their bare legs blue with cold but wild to be out and run. The yeomen were suddenly hitching oxen to the wooden plows and turning over the earth in the shadow of gray old dolmens. Springtime feasts were held; men and women danced in a ring, and the clergy labored to give centuried heathen customs a Christian meaning.

Harald went to Hafn and worked at readying his ships, paint and tar and bast caulking, new ropes of walrus hide, scrubbing and soaking, then out of the boathouse and into the sea! Spring blazed in his blood; this year he was going home.

He came back to find Svein raising the Danish levies. Now that seed was in the ground, men had time to fight, and the camps about Roskilde bellowed with them.

"My scouts have brought word that Magnus is preparing to leave Norway," said Svein. "But he seems to have no great fleet, so he must not plan to do much this year. God willing, we can fall on him with more ships and be done with him."

"That may be," said Harald. "I shall take my whole household, and we can sail straight north after the battle."

Svein looked narrowly up to him. "Sometimes I wonder about you," he said. "I hear talk."

Harald raised his high-tilted left eyebrow.

"You should understand me," said Svein. "By every saint, I too want what is my right. If you knew what a weary time it's been, ever coming back, ever seeing my hopes crumble ..." He wrung his hands. "But I'll not stop fighting till Denmark is mine. If no other means will do, I'll outlive my foes."

Harald went to his own hall, where he found Elizabeth sitting on a bench outside with the child in her arms. She was still weak after the birth, but Maria grew apace. Harald picked the baby up and swung her over his head, laughing. "Oho, Maria!

Are you ready to go in viking with me?"

Sunlight lay snared in the baby's thin fine hair. It was gold, and the great eyes were gray. Elizabeth tried to reach up to the small threshing legs. "Do you think she's a bird, Harald, so high you lift her? Yes, she is, she's my own sweet bird, and now it's time for her meal."

"Whew! Messy little beast." Harald gave her back and wiped his hands.

"You were yourself, once," smiled his wife. "Wee and red and noisy. Somehow I can like any man better when I think that that is also true of him."

"Well, enough of this. Make ready, Ellisif. We go on shipboard tomorrow."

Fright was suddenly in her face, but she nodded.

The men walked to Hafn and boarded the waiting vessels. Lean figure headed dragon, heavy buss, broad knarr, the waters were decked over with them. Harald had his men and goods on their own craft. His numbers were not great beside Svein's fleet, but they stayed together. Against a gusty wind, they rowed up the Sound and lay to that evening at Elsinore village.

Harald went ashore to talk with Svein. The house which the king was using was bright with fires and noisy with men. He took a seat by the Dane, and was greeted coolly. They drank together in stillness for a while.i

"I think we can best wait here," said Svein at last. "Magnus must come by us unless he means to fall on Fyen or Jutland."

Harald nodded. "He knows what treasures I have along; they'll lure him hither."

"You have not been overly generous with your gold," said Svein. He had been drinking heavily, and his face was flushed.

"It is mine," said Harald. "I'll need it later."

"Well, well." Svein seemed to regret his remark. "So be it. What of all you own do you consider the most valuable?"

Harald thought of Ellisif, waiting in the warship with their child in her arms. "My banner Land-waster," he said after a moment.

"So?" Svein's nose thrust forward curiously. "What is so valuable about it?"

Harald measured him, thinking that haughtiness might provoke him into showing somewhat of his secretive mind. "Because men say that he has the victory who bears it before him, and this I've found to be true as long as I've owned it."

Svein emptied his horn. His voice was a little thick, and he said sneeringly: "I'll believe that if you bear it in three battles with King Magnus, your kinsman, and win them all."

Anger jumped within Harald. "I've not forgotten my kinship to him, without your reminding me," he said, "and even if we bear a war shield against each other now, it doesn't mean that we should not long ago have met in more seemly fashion."

Svein whitened and answered with a harsh tone: "There are those who say, Harald, that erenow you've only held to that part of a bargain you thought would best serve yourself."

Harald stood up, his shadow swallowing the other man, and said like a spitting cat: "You've less ground to reproach my breaking agreements, than King Magnus has to speak of your broken oaths to him."

He turned on his heel and walked out of the hall and down to the shore. As he was rowed to his ship, he thought coldly that matters were finally coming into the open.

Ulf helped him aboard. The fleet was shadowy under the stars; waves lapped on the hull and dew was already cold on the planks. A candle inside a holder of thin-scraped horn threw the Icelander's face into guttering highlights. "You look wrathful," he said.

"I am," Harold told him. "But we'll see. I'll not sleep in my usual place tonight, for it seems there may be treachery abroad. I saw that my friend Svein was embittered at the free speech I used. Keep watch tonight and tell me if aught happens. But make no needless outcry."

He roused Elizabeth, where she lay in the bed he had rigged in the bows, and brought her and the baby aft; in his own spot he placed a billet of firewood. The sail was stretched across the lowered mast for an awning, and the men grumbled themselves to sleep.

Elizabeth shivered in the sleeping bag Harald had given her. Night air seeped under the sail, chill and damp; muttering waves, creaking anchor cables, snoring men made the only sounds. "I am afraid," she whispered. "We should not have brought the little one with us."

"Safer here than elsewhere," Harald replied.

"Go to sleep."

He lay for a while, thinking mostly that his wife was not meant for the sea. It was not only the sickness; she could hardly get down the salt food, and was pitifully shamed by her own necessities even though two serving maids held a blanket before her. Well, let her stay behind in Norway, then. He rolled over, weary with a long day's work, and drifted into darkness.

It was not usual to keep a watch when a whole fleet lay at anchor. Ulf crawled between cursing men some hours later and shook Harald awake.

"Well?"

"I heard a boat come alongside our prow," said the Icelander. "The man in it lifted the awning, struck with an ax, and rowed off with some great haste." He regarded the other closely. "From the way you spoke to me earlier, I thought I'd best let him go. Was he a man of yours?"

Without answering, Harald slipped from the bag and went to his bed. An ax stood in the log he had put there. He nodded and told Ulf to rouse the men without noise, while he kindled a torch. When the sail was rolled up, he stood forth and pointed to the weapon.

"Svein Estridhsson has ordered this," he said. At their quickburst of oaths: "No, be still! We're too few to fight him when he thus brings treachery against us. Best we get away while yet we can. Take the ship's boat, go wake the crews of other craft, and let's be off in silence."

Ulf's face never stirred.

Halldor said dryly: "You've given Svein some cause to distrust you."

"Hardly to murder me by stealth," said Harald coldly. "I meant to do what was best—make peace with Magnus, aye, but see if peace could not also be made with Svein. He could have had his old rank of jarl back. Now I'll hunt that fox to his death."

"Would you have agreed to the mere name of jarl?"

"I am born a king. Svein is not. Enough. Let's make ready."

Slowly, moving their oars with care, Harald's ships left the fleet. Once or twice they were hailed, but none of the Danes thought anything was amiss. By morning they were out of sight of land.

King Magnus lay on the shore near Konungahella, where Norway ran against the Danish possession Halland and Swedish West Gotland. The tents of his army were spread wide across the hills and down to the strand, bright with fluttering flags, and when his ships had learned who was approaching, horns blew loud in welcome. Magnus took Harald's hand, smiling.

"It's good that we are to be friends, kinsman," he said.

"The man who gave Denmark to Svein should be a worthy warrior," muttered Eindridhi Einarsson sourly.

"Let there be no talk of what's past," said Magnus at once.

"As for that affair ..." Harald was in too good a temper to resent much what had been spoken. "Svein holds his seat with trouble, and what I did has weakened the land and made the Danes wonder what's to gain from supporting him."

"Come, let us talk alone." Magnus led his uncle to his tent, and they spoke long together. The young king was clearly anxious to have the older man's good will, and Harald for his part was glad the strife had ended. Quarrels would arise later, he foresaw, but for now let him have a moment's peace.

The next day Magnus gave a lavish feast. In the afternoon, when men were boisterous with ale, he came into the tent followed by carles who had bundles of fine clothing, weapons and gold. He gave each man a gift, but when he came to Harald he held forth only two stirring sticks. "Which of these do you choose, kinsman?" he asked.

"The nearest," said Harald.

Magnus reddened, gave it to him and said loudly: "With this stick you now take half Norway, with scot and duties and all domains, so that everywhere you shall be king with the same rights as I. But when we are together, I shall be the first greeted and seated; and if there are three kings, I shall sit in the middle, and shall have right to the king's place in harbor and camp. You shall support and strengthen us, in exchange for our having today given you that place in Norway we had never thought any man should take while our head was above ground."

Harald thought his words somewhat high-flown, but stood up and thanked him in a courteous speech. They were merry together for the rest of the day, and it was good to see the pleasure in Ellisif’s eyes when she spied them arm in arm.

Harald remained on shipboard that night. The next morning Magnus let the lur horns blow a summons to a Thing, and when the men gathered, he told them what he had done and made it lawful. Thori of Steig trod forth and gave Harald the name of king before all.

Thereafter Harald held a feast in the tent he had set up for himself. Toward evening, he had the ships which bore his wealth unloaded, and the cargo brought in and gifts given to everyone. When the caskets were opened, he said to Magnus:

"'Yesterday you gave us a great kingdom, which you had won in battle from our common foes, and set me by your side. That was well done, for we know what it has cost you in strife and work. As for us, we have been in foreign lands, and have also been in danger of our lives from time to time, ere I won that gold I am now going to show you. That will I now divide with you; for just as we have Norway's kingdom together, so shall all movable goods be divided between us. I know how different we are, you are more generous than I; therefore we shall each have half, and you can do with your share what you will."

An oxhide had been spread, and over this was now poured gold and silver. Such a heap had never before been seen in the North. Scales and weights were fetched, and the dividing began. When an ingot the size of a man's head appeared, Harald lifted it—no mean feat of strength—and asked gleefully: "Where have you the gold, kinsman Magnus, you can set against this?"

Magnus' cheer drooped a little. He answered slowly: "There has been so much unrest and so many great wars, that it's cost me nigh all the gold and silver I once had. I have only this ring left." He took it off his wrist and passed it to Harald, who studied it for a moment and then said:

"Aye, that isn't much gold, friend, for the king who owns two realms; and yet there might be some who doubt that even this is yours."

Magnus colored, but said: "If I don't rightfully own this ring, then I can't say what fs mine by right; for my father King Olaf the Saint gave it to me the last time we parted."

Harald laughed to see him so easily baited. "It's true what you say, King Magnus, that you had it from your father. My mother has told me of a ring made just this way. He took it from my father for some trifling cause; and, indeed, that was not a good time for small kings, when your father had his full power."

Magnus took the ring back and slipped it on his arm and began talking loudly and gaily as if to cover the brief clash.

Harald took from his share a birchwood bowl with gilt silver rim and handles, filled with silver monies, and gave it to Thori—likewise two heavy gold rings, and his own cloak, dark purple and lined with ermine. "This is yours for your help," he said, "and moreover you shall have my friendship and great dignities."

The young man turned red with pleasure. Harald clapped him on the shoulder and looked around the tent, at gloating men and ruddy gold. He went to Elizabeth, where she stood shyly in a corner, and lowered his head to her ear.

"Does this show you what I was striving for?" he whispered. "Do you think it was worth everything I had to do?"

"Yes, my darling," she answered as low. He could not tell if she meant it, or if she had even understood him. Maria Skleraina would have done so.

He straightened. Naught on earth would ever again take from him what he held dear, now that he was a king.