One King's Way

Chapter Thirty-three

The Fearnought beached, or sank, but either way touched bottom a few yards from the sandy shore. Dead and wounded men lay stretched out in a scatter not far away. Here and there in the water, hands waved feebly for rescue. Shef pointed them out to Hagbarth. “Get a couple of men into the row-boat and pick up as many as you can. Send some more along the shore to do what they can for the wounded. Hund will direct them.”

Hagbarth nodded. “I'll get the rest working to shed the plates and lighten the ship. I think we can refloat her in the end.”

“All right.” Shef looked up the slope to where the Ragnarssons had mounted their catapults. No-one there. The battle had moved on, the catapulteers fled, the men from Shef's small-boat flotilla pursuing them and heading for the loot to be found in the now-undefended Braethraborg itself. Shef felt weariness descending on him with the relief of tension, felt he could bear to make no more decisions. Now that the noise of battle had gone by, a lark was singing, high in the air above the grassy slope, reminding him of days in the Emneth meadows years ago. Maybe those days would come back. Days of peace.

He decided to walk up the gentle slope to look over the other side into the bay, see the end of the battle and what must follow it, the sack of the Braethraborg. As he started off up the slope, lance in hand, Cuthred followed him. Karli followed also, a few paces behind. Hagbarth watched them go, felt a moment's concern. On any battlefield there were likely to be men who had feigned death, enemies who might suddenly get to their feet again. It was Viking routine to police a battlefield before ceasing precautions, going over it in teams to strip bodies, finish enemy wounded and look for those worth ransom. This time it had not been done. Still, the king had two bodyguards with him, and there was much to be done on shore. Hagbarth put aside his concern, began to detail the others to their tasks.

At the top of the slope Shef saw again the scattering of dead, not many of them—the catapulteers had mostly run as they saw the drilled German line come up the hill at them. From the highest point he looked out over the scene he had seen in his vision, from the other end of the fjord. A long, green, peaceful bay. Clustered together maybe a mile off, the row on row of longhouses, barracks, shipyards, slipways, slave-pens that had been for so long the center of the Ragnarssons' power, the most feared place in the north. Now the core of that power was sinking in the bay, smashed by King Olaf's ships now making their stately way towards the main dock. The survivors were being hunted down by the smaller craft following up. Some ships, manned by Sigurth's reluctant levies, were steering widely round in an attempt to make their escape. At the center of the whole scene, battered into hulks by the Fearnought's artillery, the twelve great dragon-boats lay holed, awash, their crews clinging to timbers, waiting to be rescued or to drown. All over the bay small boats, makeshift rafts or strong swimmers made for the shore.

“Not much for me to do today,” said Cuthred behind Shef. “I might as well have stayed behind.”

Shef did not reply. His eye had been caught by three bedraggled warriors beaching a small boat below him, on the side of the spit away from the grounded Fearnought. They had seen him too, were walking briskly up the slope.

“Maybe this could be a good day after all,” said Sigurth Ragnarsson, in the lead. He had begun the battle in the center ship of the line of the great warships. It had been struck and all but split open by the first stone that came flying from the strange metal-plated boat the Sigvarthsson had deployed. The grapnels which held ship to ship all along the line had kept his own afloat. But still the stones had come flying, flying, while he waited in a fury of impatience for his own artillery to find the range, smash the interloper. In the end he had torn the Raven Banner from the mast, and transferred it, himself and his brothers to his beloved Frani Ormr, leading the main fleet behind the shelter of the great patrol craft. Then, with the metal boat at last sinking and out of action, he had led the charge of the smaller ships against King Olaf's Heron.

That had failed too, the Frani Ormr sunk under him, her bottom smashed open by a boulder heaved from a higher deck. He and his brothers had had to kill several of their own men in the melee that followed to get off the sinking ship. His fleet and army had disintegrated behind him. In a bare hour, without the chance to strike a blow, he had been cast down from power and kingship to being once again a mere warrior, owning only his clothes and his weapons and what he carried on his person. Sigurth had heard that Othin betrayed his followers. But only, so the stories said, to glorious death, sword in hand. Not to ignominious defeat without a chance to strike.

Yet now, Sigurth thought, it might be that Othin stood his friend after all. For there, in front of him, was the source of all their troubles. With two men only by him, to match Sigurth and his two mighty brothers. Three against three.

Shef looked round, recognizing from fifty yards the strange eyes of the Snake-eye. Sigurth, Halvdan and Ubbi, every one of them a champion, and all of them fully armed for the hand-to-hand battle that had not taken place. Against them himself, carrying only his old and fragile lance, with neither armor nor shield, Karli, still clutching his cheap sword, and Cuthred. Could even Cuthred fight three champions at once, with only the doubtful help Shef and Karli could give him? This was what Shef had always hoped and schemed to avoid: the fair fight on even ground against better and more experienced men. The sensible thing to do was run at once, down to the shore and the cover of the Fearnought's crossbows. Shef turned to the others, starting to signal to them, point the way back over the little hill.

Too late. Cuthred's eyes had gone wide, he was breathing in with great gasps, slaver beginning to run from the corners of his mouth. He too had recognized the Snake-eye.

Shef shook him by the arm, was shrugged aside with a careless sweep from the shield, its spike missing his face by a fraction. “Cuthred,” he shouted. “We must run, for now. Kill them later.”

“Kill them now,” came a hoarse inhuman answer.

“Remember, you are my man! I released you from the mill. You swore allegiance.”

Cuthred turned to look Shef full in the eye, some fragment of intelligence still under his control despite the coming berserkergang. “I was someone's man before you, king. Those are the men who killed King Ella.” He struggled to form words, his face twisting. Shef thought he caught the word “sorry.” And then the berserk had thrust past him, running gleefully over the grass at the oncoming trio.

He stopped feet short of them, called out tauntingly, his voice clear and high, full of delight.

“Sons of Ragnar,” he shouted. “I killed your father. I tore out his fingernails to make him talk. Then I bound him and put him in the snake-pit, the ormgarthr. He died blue in the face with his hands tied. You will not meet him in Valhalla.”

He threw his head back, with a crow of triumphant laughter. Quick as a snake came the javelin from Sigurth. As quick the parry from the hardened shield that sent it flying high overhead. Then Cuthred had charged.

Sigurth stepped deftly away from him, dodging the first slash and ducking the back-stroke. Then Ubbi and Halvdan closed in, one from each side, swords swinging. The air was full of the clang of metal as Cuthred beat blows aside, swung and stabbed himself, pressing both men instantly back.

Yet he could not pursue three at once. Sigurth looked for a moment at the melee he had evaded, then turned from it, came on, sword drawn, shield up. Shef looked round. Karli stood by him, face pale, still clutching the reforged sword Shef had given him, taken from the unlucky Hrani. Shef had his lance. Neither had shields. Sigurth outnumbered them one to two. Yet he could not run now and leave Cuthred alone.

“No water between us this time, clever boy,” said Sigurth. As he jumped forward Shef stabbed at him with the lance, the first time he had ever tried to wield it in earnest. Sigurth slashed head from wooden shaft with one forehand blow, swung the backhand instantly at Shef's neck. He ducked, sprang back, dropping the useless shaft and pulling out the belt-knife with which he had killed Kjallak. He still felt numb, useless, unprepared. Now was the time he needed Hund's potion. But Hund was on the other side of the hill.

Karli stepped forward to protect his master, swung with the sword he had carried proudly since the day Shef gave it to him. With sick recognition Shef saw that he had forgotten once more everything that had ever been told him about how to wield it. He struck like a plowboy, like a churl, like a webfoot from the fen. Sigurth took the first blow easily on his blade, waited with something like disbelief for the slow second, caught it on his shield and swung with an adder's speed before Karli could recover. Karli had no shield, no helmet. Shef heard the butcher's chunk of cleaver into bone as sword bit deep into skull. The stocky man from the Ditmarsh dropped his weapon, sprawled at the Snake-eye's feet.

Downslope Cuthred was beating Halvdan to his knees with a furious assault. Ubbi, head slashed from shoulders, lay a few yards from him. Sigurth saw the scene out of the corner of his eye and turned again to Shef.

“I'd better make sure of you, then,” he said, stepping round Karli's body. Shef faced the veteran warrior with knife alone, too close to turn his back and run.

From far above Othin the one-eyed god looked down on his devotee, Sigurth son of Ragnar. “He is a great warrior,” he said ruefully.

“But he has lost the battle,” came the reply from the clever-faced god beside him.

“If it had been a fair match he would have won.”

“Take him for your Einheriar then.”

Othin paused in thought. Should he allow his worshiper one last victory? The words of his son Rig came back to him, and his own words too, the words he had whispered in the ear of his beloved son Balder on the funeral pyre. “Would that some god would bring you back to me, my son.” No god had, no hero had, not even his trusted Hermoth. Maybe they were right. Blood was not the cure, but tears. He would never draw tears from the Snake-eye. Regretfully, he made his decision. “Not for nothing do they call me Bölverk, doer of evil, betrayer of warriors,”. he muttered, heard only by Rig and the all-hearing ears of Heimdall.

He whistled a call to his Valkyriar, who fly unseen over every battlefield, choosing the slain and throwing over them their nets of weakness, paralysis, making weapons turn in the hand and eyes miss the flight of spear or arrow. With his great spear he pointed out the Snake-eye.

Sigurth came up the slight slope like a hunting beast, sword-point low, shield high, his white-rimmed eyes never leaving Shef's face. Shef backed away from him, short knife in hand, open to slash or thrust as soon as Sigurth could close the six bare feet between them. As he backed he felt, suddenly, the ground beneath him at a different angle. They had reached the top of the slope, were starting to cross it. In a few moments they would be among the abandoned catapults, in sight from the Fearnought. If he could delay a hundred heartbeats longer… The same thought came to Sigurth. He came on faster, determined to make sure work before anyone could intervene.

All day the lace on his rawhide shoe had worked looser and looser. Now it trailed in the short grass. As he took the pace forward that would set up the killing thrust, Sigurth trod on the lace, tried to step forward with the foot that was trapped, slipped and stumbled off balance. He dropped his shield-arm, bracing himself for a moment with his left hand on the grass.

Shef, backing away, stepped forward on pure reflex and stabbed forward with the Rogaland knife. It drove home through the beard and under the chin, exactly as it had done with Kjallak. For an instant Sigurth stared up at him, the strange eyes widening in shock. Then they seemed to see something behind Shef's back, a look of mingled recognition and disgust crossed the dying face. The sword lifted as if to stab at some shape, some betrayer in the sky.

Shef twisted the knife savagely once and leaped back, as Sigurth fell face down.

Cuthred was limping up the slope towards him. His face was gashed open, a long unbleeding split, like the wound a butcher makes in long-dead meat. His mail was hacked and torn in a dozen places. It seemed impossible that he could walk, one thigh seemingly half-severed again, the one slashed open by Vigdjarf.

“You got one, I got two,” he remarked. “I avenged King Ella. I will speak well of you to him.” As he stood swaying the crazy light died in his eyes. In a more normal voice he added, “I wish you could bury me whole. Send word to the trolls for me, to Miltastaray. I would have been her man.”

Suddenly blood began to flow from his wounds, as the strange auto-control of berserkergang left him. He sank down, rolled on to his back. When Shef felt for a pulse, there was none. He walked across the blood-stained grass to look to Karli, but without hope. Warriors like the Snake-eye did not miss their stroke. Not unless they were prevented. His guess was right. Karli was stone-dead as well, brains mixed with the blood around him, his cheerful expression faded for ever to one of surprise and dismay. Bad news for Edith, and a score of others. Bad news for Miltastaray.

Shef mechanically retrieved Cuthred's sword, started to trudge back to the ship, shoulders bowed. As he reached the abandoned catapults, to his surprise he saw Bruno the German standing in front of him. Behind him, Shef saw that Hagbarth had noticed as well, was calling men from their work on the Fearnought and directing them over the side. But for the moment they were alone.

“I saw your duel,” said Bruno. “Now you have killed two Ragnarssons. But I don't know how you do it. It seemed that he should kill you easily. Any one of my men could have done it. I doubt you would be any match for me.”

“Why should we be a match?”

“You have something I want. Where is your lance?”

Shef waved over one shoulder. “Back there. What is it to you?”

As if in answer Bruno aimed a blow at him with his long horseman's sword. Shef parried automatically with the sword he had taken from Cuthred, parried again and again, found the sword spinning from his hand and the point of Bruno's resting in the hollow of his throat, exactly where he had stabbed Sigurth the Snake-eye.

“What is it to me?” repeated Bruno. “It is the Holy Lance with which Jesus Christ was slain. By a German centurion. The Lance that shed the Holy Blood.”

Shef remembered the vision he had seen of a crucifixion, the man in the red-crested helmet speaking German words. “Yes,” he said, speaking carefully with the cold point pricking his skin. “I believe you.”

“He who holds it will be the Emperor. True Emperor of the West, successor of Charlemagne, uniter once more of the Roman Empire. The German Roman Empire.”

Shef felt immense pressure bearing down on him, pressure greater than the fear of the sharp steel point at his throat. Twice men had tried to make him release the lance, twice he had resisted them. If he handed it over now he might be condemning the whole world to a new domination, a new tyranny from a new Rome, stronger than the old Rome and the old Pope. If he refused he would die. Had he the right to save his life at such a price? With Karli and Cuthred dead in the grass beside him?

And yet the Lance was not his. So much was clear. It belonged to the Christians. What they would do with it, only their God knew. But they had the right to follow their vision, as he and the Way, he and Thorvin and Vigleik and all the others had the right to follow theirs. Remembering his own vision of the dying Christ, remembering King Edmund of the East Angles and the old woman he and Alfred had met lamenting in the forest-clearing, he felt there was something yet to come from the Cross. If not from the Church. Yet Bruno was no Churchman.

“If the Lance is to make a German Empire,” said Shef stiffly, “it had better be a German who holds it, then. You will find the lance-head by my companion's body there, where Sigurth cut it from its shaft. Only the head is ancient work. The shaft has been many times renewed.”

Bruno seemed, for a moment, nonplused. “You are prepared to give it up? I would not do so, even with a point at my throat.” He thought a moment longer, ignoring the men now running up the hill towards them. “It is true. Your emblem is not the spear, whether of Othin or of the centurion Longinus. What you wear round your neck, as I have told you, is the graduale. It is your destiny to pursue that, as mine was to retrieve the Lance.”

He twitched his blade back, raised it in salute. “I ought to kill you just the same,” he said. “I fear you are a dangerous man, though no swordsman. But it would not be knightly, in cold blood. Farewell, then, King of the North. Remember I was the first to hail you so.”

He ran down the slope, picked something from the bloody grass, kissed it, and sped away towards a line of horses being led towards him from the Braethraborg corrals.

Shef took a crossbow from one of the lightly-armed skogarmenn who came panting up the hill, cocked it, dropped in a quarrel, looked at the broad back running away sixty, eighty, a hundred yards off.

I ought to kill you too, he reflected. But it would not be knightly, in cold blood, to return ill for good. Farewell, then, Emperor-to-be. Or as you say, auf wiedersehen.