King and Emperor

Chapter Thirty-four

The Emperor massed his remaining troops beneath the stair from which he had been pulled earlier that day. There was no attempt at concealment or surprise this time. It was like the game the soldiers played. Two men sat each side of a table, gripped hands, and each tried to push the other's arm down. A test of strength, a test, between evenly-matched men, of will. When the soldiers did it and they were drunk enough, they hammered nails up through the table to impale the wrist of the loser. That was a great improver of the will. And that was how things stood now. The whole day had been full of rumors and sudden panics: the Italians had risen, there was an Arab fleet at the coast, the pagan king had escaped with magic wings to bring up a new army. None of that mattered. The pagan king was dead, or soon would be. His army would be destroyed before sundown. After that Bruno was ready to fall back into the hills, retreat all the way to Germany before he gathered strength and returned. But he would leave no unfinished business, no center to grow a legend of victory.

Brand had spent the afternoon polishing his armor and considering his weapons. He was of the same mind as the Emperor. Most of his army, such of it as was left, was reduced to spectator status by wounds or loss of ammunition. Most of the opposing army, he reckoned, was much the same. He had seen the guard-posts outside the wall shrink all day, from desertion, from call-up of the reliable units to face the immediate danger inside the wall. It would turn, now, on a clash of a few men. Maybe, he thought, two men.

The question was, what to fight the bastard with. Brand did not think the Emperor was as quick as Ivar, or as strong as himself. But he was certainly quicker than Styrr, or Brand, and stronger than Ivar. Brand had decided to abandon his axe “Battle-troll.” Against a really good swordsman, rather than a fair or moderate one, it was a disadvantage. He had borrowed a sword from Guthmund, flexed it a few times, rejected it. In the end he had decided to rely on main strength, in which he was every man's master. He had taken one of the English pygmies' halberds, sawn off half the shaft, and constructed for himself an axe of massive proportions. No other man could wield something like this one-handed. That would be his advantage. The axe one side, the spike the other, the lance-head on top of the shaft. Three weapons in one, and all of them clumsy. He had abandoned his shield as well, taken instead a dead man's and cut it down to half the diameter, strapped it immovably on his left forearm, leaving his left hand free. Round his waist and over his mail he had strapped another dead man's leather jacket, doubled over on the left side to cover more of the area that a proper shield would have protected.

As the enemy trumpets rang out again, Brand slouched to the head of the stair. He was hot, he was thirsty—they had blocked the aqueduct earlier on. He had ceased to be afraid.

The Emperor was at the head of his usual troop of heavy-armed German foot. Mixed in with them were strange contrivances. “What are they?” he muttered to Steffi, standing by him holding one of his three remaining firepots.

“I can see the hoses,” said Steffi. “I think they're for water. Some way of pumping water. To put out fires, maybe.” They were indeed the municipal fire-guardians of the City of Rome, dragged from their hiding by Bruno's agents.

“No need for them,” called out Brand in Norse. He knew Bruno understood it from his long wanderings in quest of the Holy Lance. He turned Steffi round, shoved him gently away.

“Let me come up and fight, big man,” shouted Bruno.

“I'll come down.”

“Will your men surrender if I win?”

“If you win, you can ask them. If I win I'll ask yours.”

The mailed Germans fell back a little from the foot of the stair as Brand walked down it, to leave a space twenty feet across.

Not all eyes were fixed on the scene. On the parapet, high up, Cwicca and Osmod whispered together.

“What do you reckon happened to the boss?”

“He crashed. They'll have picked him up.”

“Dead, do you reckon?”

“Up to us to see,” said Cwicca, still lisping through his broken teeth. “Whether it's win or lose down there, I reckon as soon as it starts to get dark we throw the lines over the wall—I've made half a dozen strong ones from the kite stuff—and we all go down it. All us English, anyway. Then we can butht out and look for him.”

“They'll cut us to bits on the flat. The crossbows are useless now.”

“They're like us, a lot of 'em have had enough. Three hundred of us, whatever it is, with knives and bad tempers—we'll go right through 'em. Head for where those damned machines were, till they gave up, and see who we can catch.”

“I heard you,” said Svandis, breaking in on the whispers. “I'm coming too.”

Behind them there came the sudden clash of metal.

The usual formal swordfight turned on cut and parry, use of sword and shield together, on speed of reaction and strength of wrist. Brand did not mean to fight like that. If he did, he would lose.

The first clash came as the Emperor, without salute or warning, sprang across the space between the duelers and cut low at the unshielded side. Brand met the blow barely in time with the iron head of his halberd, and ducked his head under the instant vicious back-stroke. Then he too was in motion, on his toes, moving round always to the right, away from the Emperor's sword and towards his shield, the Lance-head once more showing above it. After the first blow Brand made no attempt to parry, only to avoid the stroke, keep out of range. Even against the long-armed and ape-shouldered Emperor he had the advantage in reach. He kept back, feinting every few seconds with his ponderous weapon. As the Emperor braced for another forward spring he stepped forward and lashed out. He flicked the twenty-pound iron head with its sharp-filed edge like a boy sweeping a switch at the head of a thistle. The Emperor took it full on his shield, was beaten sideways, stumbled and recovered. He glanced for an instant anxiously at the inside of his shield, where the Holy Lance rested in its holder. Still there, though Bruno's own blood was running down it now from a gashed arm. It ran where his Savior's had eight hundred years before.

“Relics don't help you now,” grunted Brand, his breath beginning to come hard. He was still moving lightly, but the spike of the halberd rested now on his right shoulder, ready to strike again.

“Blasphemer!” replied the Emperor, and stabbed low for the groin.

Brand twisted away from the thrust, slashed at the face, was blocked again. But the Emperor's shield had taken two monstrous blows, was cut deep and splintered. Two more and he would be unprotected. Unprotected both by shield and by relic. The Emperor's left hand was free of its shield-grip, groping across to seize the Lance, to hold on to that even if the shield should be cut away. Brand saw his uncertainty, stepped forward swinging forehand and backhand, high and low, the massive steel head singing through the air as he used the full strength in his forearms, thick as a bear's. The Emperor's turn to dodge away, raising his arms high as a cut hissed past his belly. He was back almost among his own supporters now and Brand backed away, taunting him with his retreat, urging him back into the center of the cleared space.

Not all eyes were on the fight. As the short Italian dusk began to fall, Hund had been seeking his opportunity. He too had heard the whispered exchange of Cwicca and Osmod. Stealthily he took one of the lines Cwicca had prepared. Svandis, looking down at the fight from the edge of the crowd of men on the battlements, felt a hand on her shoulder. Hund beckoned to her, and she turned silently away. In the growing twilight the two padded soft-footed away, reached the aqueduct up which they had come the night before. It was unguarded, the watching sentries turned the other way. Hund motioned to Svandis to drop on all fours. At a scuttling run the little man made off down the line of the channel, hidden from view by the four-foot walls. A few yards down she caught up and whispered to him, “There are guards at the other end!”

Hund showed her the line. “We will go over the side before it reaches the ground. In the shadow of a buttress. They may not see us. The Emperor's best men are with him now inside the wall.”

The dropping sun was affecting both combatants now, but the Emperor more. Brand had the sun behind him in the west, only just above the city wall. His head and shoulders were in the light, his body already shadowed. He was striking sometimes out of the shadow, sometimes out of the sun, and the Emperor's shield was a fragment, one strap cut through, the Holy Lance itself hanging loose. But Brand was tiring visibly, while the Emperor seemed as quick and deft as ever. The watchers had been silent at first, anxious and unsure on both sides, but now they were beginning to call out in their excitement, in a medley of tongues.

“Use your own shield, Brand!”

“Use the point, herra!”

“Keep moving!”

“Stab him with the Lance!”

Erkenbert too thought that the moment of decision had come. In his own mind it was he who had determined the outcome on the day of the destruction of the Kingdom Oak at Uppsala, by his timely attack with the axe. When the time came for his hagiography to be written there must be something to mark his presence on this second day of the heathen's destruction. Seizing the Grail banner from its holder, he stepped a pace forward from the crowd, lifted it high and shouted with all the force of his lungs, “In hoc signo vinces!”

Brand saw the Emperor respond to the cry, and for the first time caught his halberd-shaft in two hands. He blocked the blow at his head with a furious upward drive, took two paces forward at his retreating enemy, now backed once more almost to the enclosing ring, and unleashed a full-armed swing backhand at the body. Too high to jump, too low to duck, no room to dodge.

The Emperor stepped inside the blow and swung his razor-edged sword of finest Spanish steel not at the halberd, but at the wrist. For an instant the blow seemed to continue, the halberd-head met the Emperor's shattered shield, knocked it and the Lance with it from his grasp. Then it was spinning on the ground, still clutched in a severed hand. Blood spouted instantly from Brand's wrist, a deep groan rose from his supporters.

The Emperor dropped his sword-point, realized the shield was gone from his grip, turned anxiously to where the Holy Lance lay next to the severed hand. As he did so Brand stepped forward again, right arm trailing helplessly. On his left he still had the small shield strapped, the shield he had never yet used. Fist clenched, he swept the left arm down in a chopping blow. The thick edge of the shield met the Emperor's neck as he stooped to pick up his talisman. The snap of breaking bone echoed clearly between the walls. Then, in dead silence, the Emperor fell forward on his face, his head at an impossible angle.

Brand stooped instantly, twitched the Holy Lance away from the dead left hand. A dozen Lanzenritter moved forward automatically, hands groping for their holy relic. Brand stepped away as his own men crowded forward, turned towards them and with his left hand threw the Lance up and over the wall, the dropping sun catching its gold-inlaid crosses with a last flash of light.

“Your God has failed you!” he shouted as hands gripped his arm, began to twist a cord round the wrist.

Some of the Ritters understood the words, some did not. All felt the same superstitious horror. They would not fight now. They needed to understand first. Knights and brothers alike, they fell back into the alleyways up which they had come, meaning only to retrieve their horses and flee the ill-omened city.

Two of them, Tasso the Bavarian and Jopp the Burgundian, delayed long enough to seize their Emperor's body from the ground. Tasso slung it over his shoulder, Jopp drew his sword and backed away as a rearguard against any rush from the enemy. As he backed away he saw the Grail banner still stuck in the ground. Where is the little deacon, the one our master made Pope? he thought in rage and despair. He has deserted him, he and his false sign! He hacked at the banner's shaft, sent it tumbling with the last light to earth.

Shef knew he was dying now, the dark was all around him. He did not know if it was night or his one eye failing him. He could hear still. There was a voice calling out of the darkness, a voice he had heard first many years before, in York, the day of Ragnar's death when his own true life had started. It was Erkenbert's voice, and it was calling out, “The Emperor is dead!” Now how could that have happened?

A confusion of voices below him. His mind was perfectly clear now at the last, and he could understand what they said, but he paid little attention. The Grail-knights were arguing, unable to believe that their holy cause and leader had failed. Then there were accusations of treachery and betrayal, a scuffle over the golden case in which the Grail had been kept, blows struck. He did not know who won.

Some time later he realized that the clearing, now perfectly dark, was empty. His guards had gone. They should have stabbed him before they left, shouldn't they? Not quite empty. He opened his eye, saw a figure standing at the foot of his tree-trunk. Somehow he had got his foot back on the little ledge that had kept him alive so long, he could see and think. It was Erkenbert the deacon, he recognized the tonsure and the black robe. The little man had found a spear from somewhere, was poising it inexpertly, about to stab him under the ribs as the German centurion had done to Christ, long ago in his vision by the Norwegian fjord.

“False prophet!” hissed the voice from below. “False Messiah!”

There were other shapes behind Erkenbert in the gloom. Hund and Svandis, well ahead of the rest of the Waymen now grouping and marching out of the city under Cwicca's urgings to rescue their leader, had heard the commotion round the Grail and crept up through the groves and gardens to see what it was. Hund carried no weapon, Svandis only the long pin that fastened up her hair. It was enough for a descendant of Ragnar and of Ivar. As the sometime-deacon braced for a two-handed thrust, the thin point drove between his vertebrae. He fell forward at the foot of the tree.

“How do we get him down?” asked Hund.

She pointed silently at the old wooden graduale, used long before for a similar purpose, now thrown aside as a betrayal by the furious knights who had looted its casings.

Hund propped it against the tree, climbed up, struggled with the long nail through both wrists, well above Shef's head and his own.

“I need tools,” he said. “Thorvin will have some.”

“I have what you need,” said another voice. Svandis sprang round, pin out. Two more figures had drifted out of the gloom. To her surprise she recognized Farman the visionary-priest, whom she had thought still at the ships, and Solomon the Jew, who had vanished in the fighting the previous night.

“I met Solomon on the road,” said Farman. “He saw much of what happened today from hiding. But I already knew your man was here, and what they had done to him. Not all vision comes from the mind, Svandis. Here, I have pliers ready.”

After a few minutes of grunting struggle Shef was stretched on the ground, Hund listening to his heartbeat, pouring water onto the cracked lips. Sniffing at the blackened wounds in the crushed and swollen feet.

“I will go for Thorvin and the others,” said Svandis. “He needs shelter and protection.”

Farman blocked her with a raised hand. “He does. But not from Thorvin. Not from the Way. If he were nursed back to power and kingship now, think what they would say. The one-eyed king, crucified outside the city wall, the lame smith, brought back from the dead. They would make him a god.

“No. Let him go into the dark now, and let the world have rest. He has set the world on its new path, and that is enough.”

“You mean to leave him to die?”

“Let me have him,” said Hund from the ground. “We were friends long ago. He often spoke of having a hut somewhere in the fen, where he could trap eels and grow barley and live in peace. If he lives, I will take him back to the fen. I do not think he will live through what I shall have to do, but he may.”

“Norfolk fens are a thousand miles away!” cried Svandis.

“Septimania is not so far,” said Solomon. “I can hide him there, for a while. My people have no wish for any more Messiahs to trouble the world.”

“The three of you, take him,” said Farman. “He has the gold on his arms still, and here is more from the ships.” He dropped a bag on the ground. “Hide here till the Emperor's men are all gone, and ours, and the natives of the place return. If he lives, take him home, but do not let him be seen again. The Way needs him no more.”

He bent down over the body, pulled the Rig-pendant from round its neck. “I will leave this to be found somewhere. Then men will think he is dead.”

“But they won't know,” said Svandis.

“So they will tell tales instead. Of how his faithful friends took him away from the battlefield and were never seen again. Went to Asgarth, to Valhalla, to Thruthvangar. Were taken by the gods, for him to be a god. Not a god who became a man, but a man who became a god. That will be a good belief for men to have, in time to come.”

Farman turned and faded without more words into the gloom. Not far away shouts could be heard, torches were flaring. The Waymen, with Cwicca and Thorvin at their head, searching for their lost leader.

“We must go,” said Solomon.

“How shall we carry him?”

“Use the graduale again. It can perform one last service, and then we will burn it tonight for firewood, before it kills more men.”

As the two men strapped the still-unmoving Shef on the old ladder, the body stirred, spoke.

“What did he say?” asked Svandis.

“I couldn't hear,” said Solomon.

“I could,” said Hund. “His mind is wandering in far places.”

“What did he say, then?”

“He said, ‘Up the ladder and into the light.’ But I do not know from what prison he thinks he is escaping.”

The two men and the woman carried their burden away from the searching torches and into the dark.