Return to Fanglith

PART FOUR

The sirocco began to die down late the next morning. The locals said we were lucky, that usually it lasted longer, just before dusk the ship arrived from Reggio, probably the biggest ship I'd seen close up on Fanglith, with a taller, heavier mast than usual and a square sail instead of the usual triangular one. Tomorrow, Arno said, we would leave.

The next morning we met with the captain in a steel-gray dawn. The wind was out of the north now, and chilly instead of gritty. It would be best to lie at the dock a while, he said. The wind would make the Strait of Messina hard to navigate northbound. But Arno was a Norman and the captain wasn't. We would start this morning, Arno insisted, and if we had too much trouble, we could put in at Reggio or Messina. Roger had his own docks in both ports, which we could use without fee; Arno had a letter of authorization.

The captain shrugged and agreed. He was Greek, and his French quite broken, but I got the idea that it wasn't a big deal to him either way-sail or lie at the dock. We started loading the horses.

Most of the deck could be taken up in sections, like a mosaic of hatch covers. Each horse stall in the hold was just wide enough for a destrier, with a sort of leather sling so the horse couldn't fall in rough weather and maybe break a leg. The horses were loaded in-you could almost say they were inserted in their stalls- with a block and tackle fastened to a boom. That seemed to be the reason, or a reason, for the taller, heavier mast: It served as part of the boom rig for loading the horses.

When all sixty horses had been loaded, we cast off- Arno, Brislieu, and three sergeants, along with their squires, myself, and the ship's crew. The crew kept giving me sideways looks and plenty of room; Arno had spread the word that I was a holy monk from India. I didn't know whether he had some purpose in this or if it was his sense of humor.

The breeze was brisk, but nothing like a storm. The captain took us around the point of land just west of Mileto and we entered the wide, lower end of the long, funnel-shaped strait. The wind picked up a bit then, and he tacked northwestward across it. An hour later, though the clouds were breaking up, it was blowing considerably harder, and the ship was pitching pretty badly. Arno agreed that we should turn southwest and make for a little bay north of Taormina, the harbor of Taormina still being held by Saracens. But before long they decided that Catania was a better choice. It was considerably farther, but safer; we wouldn't have to sail across the wind.

Then, around mid-afternoon, the wind began to slack off markedly, and Arno had us turned north again. I was beginning to get a better idea of how hard it could be, with sailing rigs as crude as ours, to travel by sea with nothing more than wind power. I'd be willing to bet that sport sailors back on Evdash had a lot fewer problems with wind direction than the Fanglithans did.

At any rate, after five hours at sea we were quite a lot farther from Palermo than when we started. The swell continued pretty high, lifting our bow, then the entire ship, letting it slide down the back side, but we weren't taking spray across the deck anymore. The captain had the crew remove some of the hatches so the horses could have sunshine and fresh air.

As we zigzagged clumsily northward, we saw a sail riding the wind southward toward us-a square sail like our own. The captain told us it was almost surely not Mediterranean; Mediterranean vessels carried triangular sails. Ours was an exception, designed for hauling destriers.

Before long we could make out her hull, which was slender. My first thought was pirates, and that was Arno's thought too. But the captain said a corsair would have a triangular sail; this looked like a ship of Norse pilgrims on its way home from the Holy Land.

The word "Norse" triggered Arno's interest. The Norse, he told me, had founded Normandy, and some of his ancestors had been from Norse kingdoms. Also, the Varangian mercenary regiments in the Byzantine armies were Norse, and were famous fighting men. He asked the captain if we could sail near enough for a close look at their ship, and after a moment's hesitation, the captain agreed. He changed our tack so that we'd pass close to her.

The Norse ship moved fast by Fanglithan standards, riding high in the water, and soon we got a good look at her. Her lines were as smooth as the pirate's had been, and more slender. A "long ship," our captain said; he'd never seen one before, but he knew of them. Most Norse ships were broader, he told us, to carry cargo. We passed her at a distance of no more than two hundred feet, and there seemed to be fifty men or more on board her, most of them watching us. One of them had climbed her mast to the spar, presumably to get a better look.

Then we were past, and our attention left her. No one was even aware when she began to put about; she was mostly through her turn when our steersman noticed and called out. By that time her sail was down and she had oars in the water, her oarsmen pulling hard. Over the next few minutes, the Normans and I watched her draw up on us. It took skill to row in a swell like that. Our captain changed our course northwestward, angling toward the Sicilian coast, but it was obvious that she'd catch us. With the primitive Fanglithan sail rigs, oars worked a lot better in a headwind.

And Deneen was hundreds of miles away with all systems shut down, which meant no radio.

When the long ship had drawn near, I could see one of her men in the bow with a grapple in his hand, rope attached, I could imagine the technique: When they were close enough, he'd throw it and hook us. Brislieu had strung his bow, but Arno warned him sharply not to shoot. The Norse, he said, might all have bows, many to our few. Instead he drew his-my-blast pistol.

"Let them draw alongside," he muttered. "Do not cut their lines." He gestured with the blaster. "This will put the fear of God into them. They'll let us go as if we carried the Devil himself, and we'll have their grapples for our own."

The Norseman began swinging his grapple around his head, then released it, its line snaking behind it across the water. It fell onto our deck, narrowly missing me, caught the gunwale, and bit deep and hard into the wood. Then other Norsemen threw grapples, and strong arms drew the ropes taut. They shipped their oars then, the oarsmen lending their tough hands to the ropes. I could see them plainly now-well-tanned, bearded men, mostly with brown or blond hair. At about fifteen feet, Arno leveled the pistol at the Norsemen in the bow and pressed the firing stud.

And nothing happened! It flashed through my mind that the safety was on; the double safety on this heavy military model was different from that on the police model he'd had before.

"Let me have it!" I shouted at him.

But instead, one of the Norsemen let him have it- slung a throwing axe spinning toward us. It slammed hard against Arno's helmet-fortunately end on-sending him sprawling unconscious.

The pistol went sliding along the deck, but what I dove after was the stunner on Arno's belt.

At close quarters, it would stop the Norsemen as well as the blaster would, and it was closer to hand. Arno's body was lying on the stunner, though, and by the time I got my hands on it, the Norsemen were boarding us. Brislieu and the sergeants and squires, in true, reckless Norman style, had drawn their swords, and for maybe half a minute I could hear their furious fight. If I'd gotten to my feet, or even to my knees, I'd probably have been killed for my trouble, so I shoved the stunner and communicator into my shirt and lay beside the unconscious Arno, playing dead. Blood was spreading across the deck planks-Norman blood, I thought-and the brief noise of fighting had stopped.

Pilgrims from the Holy Land!

Then brown hands with pale hair curling on their backs turned Arno over and took off first his sword belt, then his helmet, collet, and hauberk. Unfamiliar voices were speaking a language I'd never heard before-a language with a sort of tonality-almost a singsong quality. There was quite a bit of laughter. Someone grabbed me then and started to turn me over, and abruptly I scrambled to my feet. I didn't want them to take my stunner and communicator.

One of them drew his sword, and I raised my cross, holding it out at him in my left hand. My right hand drew my stunner, aiming from beneath my cape. As he hesitated, I started chanting my school fight song good and loud, as if it were a prayer, moving my cross up and down between us to hold their attention on it. Then I pushed the firing stud, and the blond swordsman just sort of sank to his knees and toppled over on his face.

Talk about a reaction! For four or five seconds no one said a thing. After that, they all started talking at once, while I slipped the stunner back inside my shirt. I was still holding my cross up. Then the Norseman who seemed to be the leader bellowed something and they all shut up. With his eyes slitted at me, he said something else in a quiet voice and someone grabbed me around the arms from behind so hard I thought my rib cage would break. Another put his knife tip to my throat. I held very, very still.

Their leader was a broad, thick-shouldered warrior whose red hair and beard were marked with white. He turned to our captain and said something that had to be Greek-it sounded pretty much like what our captain and crew talked among themselves, though I could tell it was accented. Our captain answered. The Norseman looked at his fallen warrior, then at me, and said something more in Greek, and again our captain answered. They talked back and forth for a minute or so, then the Norseman pursed his lips and frowned, said something to the man who had hold of me, and I was let go.

I sucked in a big breath of air and looked around. Except for Arno, every one of the Normans was dead, lying in their own blood-including the squires, none of them more than fifteen years old, I could see three dead Norsemen too, while another was sitting on a hatch cover having a gashed arm bandaged. He was bloody from shoulder to feet-must have lost at least a quart of it-but instead of looking pale and weak, he looked angry and mean. I'm not sure how I looked; probably green.

We were broadside to the swell now, rolling heavily from side to side. Some of the Norsemen were down in our hold, looking at the horses and talking enthusiastically. I learned later that the Norseman who'd climbed their mast had seen our rich cargo of horses. That was what inspired them to turn and attack us.

The Norse leader shouted orders, and the men in the hold started coming back on deck. Some of them laid the dead bodies out on the deck boards-Normans and Norsemen both. When they were done, the Norse leader stood over the corpses. He called again, sharply, and two more of his men came out of the hold. Then all the Norsemen took off their helmets and stood quietly. Their leader wore an ornate gold cross on a chain around his neck, and he held it up with his right hand, then raised his eyes to it and started chanting in his own language. It occurred to me that he was praying.

He prayed for about half a minute, then let the cross fall against his hauberk. Another brief order, and some of his men grabbed the dead under the arms and knees and threw them over the side. He turned to look at me, gave another order, and one of his men grabbed my arm and pointed to their ship, gesturing forcefully. His grip was like a steel pincer, his hands as fiercely strong as Arno's. The two ships had been tied snugly against each other, side by side, and were rolling and wallowing, their gunwales at almost the same level; apparently, they wanted me to cross to theirs, so I did. Two of the Norsemen lifted Arno and carried him across.

Within minutes the ships were separated. The Norse had left a small prize crew of their warriors on the horse ship, with her Greek captain and his men. Both ships had turned before the wind now, and we were sailing southward together about two hundred feet apart, with the long ship in the lead, her sail raised again.

I wasn't feeling too pessimistic. If the Norsemen had been going to kill Arno and me, they probably would have done it already. And I had the communicator. In six or eight days Deneen would be back, and if worst came to worst, when the time came, I could jump over the side at night and let her fish me out.

It occurred to me then to turn off the remote in my right ear. Deneen wasn't around to talk to me, and even just turned on, it was a constant tiny drain on the communicator's power cell. When I needed it, later on, I didn't want a rundown powercell.