Scramasax (22 page)

‘S
o where have you been?'

The two cooks appraised Solveig.

‘Your poor old father.'

‘You've finished him off.'

‘What?' cried Solveig. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Sick,' wailed Edla. ‘Sick with sorrow.'

‘As for Tamas …' groaned Vibrog, rolling her eyes.

‘Lovesick!' sneered Edla. ‘He rode out of camp, searching for you. Harald had him beaten.'

Solveig blinked. She kept sucking her cheeks and swallowing. ‘I'll explain,' she said. ‘I can.'

‘He'll have you beaten too,' Vibrog told her. ‘When he gets better, he will.'

‘You're women!' cried Solveig.

She expected of them at least some concern, some understanding, even if no gentleness. But she didn't go on. She bit on her tongue.

‘And you, Solveig, you're a child,' Edla told her. ‘Learn before it's too late.'

‘What do you mean, when Harald gets better?' Solveig asked.

Vibrog sniffed. ‘He caught a fever. A few days after.'

‘After what?'

‘We ransacked that town. The one you ran away
from.' She smirked. ‘We killed the whole lot. Every man, woman and child.'

‘And looted it,' Edla gloated. ‘Rich pickings, Solveig.'

‘And then set fire to it,' added Vibrog with grim satisfaction. ‘Every building. But on our way here, three days later, Harald felt unwell.'

‘He gave us orders to pitch his tent over there,' Edla said, pointing to a single tent standing well back from the circle of Viking tents surrounding the city. ‘So he can sleep.'

‘But my father and Tamas – are they all right?'

‘Harald sent your father back to the boats. To recover.'

‘He wasn't wounded?' Solveig asked anxiously.

‘Only by you, Solveig,' Edla told her. ‘Only by you. But he swears a snake's worming round inside his gut.'

Solveig stared at both women, dismayed. ‘What shall I do? I mean …'

‘When people suit only themselves,' Vibrog added, ‘they shit on others. That's what your father told me.'

That's not what he said about me, thought Solveig. It can't be. But she was half afraid it was.

In the gloom of his tent, Tamas looked up at her. His eyes were shining.

Solveig, she looked down.

‘You've come back,' he said. His voice was soft and almost expressionless.

‘Ohh! Tamas!'

Solveig got down on to her knees and laid her right wrist on his brow as lightly as the mountain man had laid the gauzy veil on the top of her head.

Tamas was feverish.

‘Because of me,' she whispered.

‘No,' said Tamas. ‘You didn't ride out. I rode out. I disobeyed orders.'

Solveig felt stricken.

‘I'll heal,' Tamas murmured. ‘I'll be whole again. They say I will.'

Solveig stroked his forehead. Gently she stroked it.

‘Well enough to fight again,' murmured Tamas.

Solveig felt such utter tenderness. In her heart and head, each limb of her body. She longed to encircle him, encompass him, heal him.

His eyelids closed, his long eyelashes flickered. Solveig looked at him and knew she loved him.

Harald, meanwhile, lay in his tent on his straw mattress, and his companions were ants and beetles and jewel-eyed lizards, half memories, half waking dreams.

One afternoon, he saw himself aged three, looking up at King Olaf. The king was glaring at him and trying to drill through Harald's head with the augers of his eyes, but Harald stared right back at him. Then the king grasped a handful of Harald's hair and twisted it and pulled it. And little Harald? He reached up, grabbed the king's moustache and pulled it.

King Olaf laughed. ‘No one's going to get the better of you,' he said, and then he turned to Harald's mother. ‘A king-in-waiting. You're bringing up a king. A warrior whose name will never die.'

‘Stand beside my Harald,' his mother said. ‘Watch over my son.'

‘I will,' said the king. ‘For as long as I live and after I'm dead.'

When Harald opened his eyes and returned from his dream, he realised he had grabbed his own moustache and was still holding it in his right fist.

The Saracens were puzzled. For seven days the Varangians had encircled their town but they hadn't hurled a single
stone from one of their three siege engines. They hadn't loosed so much as an arrow.

So the townsmen sent two Christian priests over to their encampment to try to find out what was going on. Each man was carrying a large wooden cross, and they had instructions to make the Vikings an offer.

‘You've no need to lay siege to us,' the priests told Harald's shoulder-companions, Snorri and Skarp. ‘The leaders of our town will give you great riches if you lift your siege and leave us in peace. And this is one of the richest towns in Sicily.'

‘We'll put your offer to Harald,' Snorri told them, ‘as soon as he's well enough.'

‘Well enough?' enquired the priests.

‘That's what I said,' Snorri said, and he bared his teeth.

‘Their leader is ill,' the two priests reported to the townsmen later that day. ‘Harald Sigurdsson himself. Very ill, maybe. His men fear his strength is failing. Two of them told us he will soon die.'

But the moon waxed … and because of the concoctions he gulped down after refusing to be bled with leeches, or because of the sheer strength of his own will, Harald began to recover. He sat up, he ate watermelon and drank milk.

When he was informed that Solveig had been able to find her way back to them, and was in their new encampment at that, Harald just growled.

And when his men told him about the Saracens' offer, Harald glowered and said nothing.

But late that night, alone in his tent, he had an idea.

Very early next morning, he summoned Snorri and Skarp, and the two men got down on their knees on either side of Harald's mattress.

‘As you know,' he told them, ‘a siege can last for
months, and that's the last thing we want, with winter on its way. From what I've heard, this hothouse of an island quickly turns very cold. We must reduce this town as quickly as we can.'

Snorri and Skarp agreed.

‘I want to sail back to Miklagard before the end of Slaughter Month. We'll overwinter there and come back next spring.'

‘What about Maniakes?' Snorri asked.

‘What about him?!' retorted Harald. ‘Now! I hear some men were fool enough to tell those priests my strength was failing and I might even die. So …' said Harald, and he pursed his lips, ‘. . . I've decided to die.'

Snorri and Skarp frowned.

Harald gave them a crafty look. ‘I want you two to walk up to the town gates. Unarmed. Completely unarmed. You understand?'

Snorri and Skarp clamped their jaws.

‘If Halfdan were here, I'd ask him to go with you. My three best men.' Harald paused and stared at Skarp. ‘I know,' he said, ‘you insulted me. You refused to carry Land-Ravager. You incensed me.' Harald shook his head. ‘But I also know I need henchmen who say what they think. I need you, Skarp.'

Skarp grunted.

‘Yes,' continued Harald, ‘I'd have asked Halfdan to go over with you. But seeing as he's not here, his daughter can take his place.'

‘Solveig!' exclaimed Skarp with a contemptuous laugh.

‘Why not? An innocent young woman. There's no better way to persuade the townsmen to trust you.' Harald narrowed his eyes. ‘In fact,' he said slowly, ‘she needn't even know I'm still alive, need she? Tell her I died during the night. It's better she believes that I am dead.'

Snorri and Skarp slapped their knees.

‘But when we reach the gates …' Snorri began.

Harald didn't reply. And then, talking more to himself than his henchmen, he growled, ‘I'll spare her a beating. This time.'

‘At the gates?' Snorri asked again.

‘Tell the Saracens I've died,' Harald instructed him. ‘Tell them I'm dead.'

Snorri and Skarp leaned forward. The three men's heads were almost touching.

‘Wait until you're sure you're speaking to their leader, their chief … whatever the Saracens call him. If you can, talk to him on his own, or with just a few followers. No crowd makes a good decision.'

‘And when we've told him?' asked Skarp.

‘Say my last wish was to be buried on holy ground – one of the churches inside the town. Ask his permission to bring my coffin through the gates and bury me in a Christian graveyard.'

Snorri and Skarp both rocked back on their haunches, laughing.

‘And say this too,' added Harald. ‘A few days ago they were offering us vast riches to lift the siege and leave them in peace. But now we're offering them even greater riches – gold, jewellery – if they agree to this.'

‘They may ask what we Vikings mean to do,' Snorri said, ‘after we've buried you.'

Harald Sigurdsson nodded. ‘Tell them you'll lift the siege. Say you mean to leave Sicily and return to Miklagard.'

‘As we do,' declared Skarp.

At noon, Snorri and Skarp walked soberly up to the town gates. Tear-stained, Solveig walked between them.

‘Three well-aimed arrows, and it will be all over,' Snorri observed.

But the Saracens wanted to hear what the two men had to say and, whatever their thoughts and feelings, they received the news of Harald Sigurdsson's death without undue emotion.

‘Death's a black camel,' their leader said. ‘Sooner or later he kneels in front of each of us.'

‘Any man who dies for a cause, a just cause, a vile cause, will be remembered by it,' one of his henchmen added.

No, thought Solveig miserably. No. That's not true, that's not how I'll remember you.

Oh, Harald! I can see you lifting me off my feet and whirling me round and round. I can hear you telling me my father's worth two men. I'll remember how you allowed me to come to Sicily, and your almost-patience with me, even when I know you were impatient. And the look of you, Harald, the look of you … All of Norway will mourn. And who here will lead us?

When the Saracen leader and his henchmen heard about Harald's last wish, their dark eyes shone. And while Solveig went on sniffing and sometimes gulping, they began to bargain with Snorri and Skarp, and to write down on papyrus the exact weight of gold and silver and precious stones the Vikings were prepared to offer.

‘Harald was Christian,' Snorri told them.

‘Well, no less Christian than pagan,' Skarp added, but the Saracens didn't understand quite what he was saying, and it was probably a good thing they did not.

‘Christian, yes,' Snorri said very firmly. ‘Wherever he is now, he will be blessing you.'

Then Snorri and Skarp and the Saracens discussed arrangements for the burial. The Saracens agreed to raise the gates at noon so that the town's Christian priests could come out to meet the funeral cortège.

‘We have five churches in this town,' the Saracen leader told them, ‘and you can be sure their priests will argue over where Harald is to be buried. They argue about everything.'

‘Ohh!' wailed Solveig. ‘I've failed my father. Harald, I failed you.'

All the men ignored her.

Why should it matter in which churchyard he's buried? she thought. Death is death. What matters is the stone we raise and the words carved on it. No one has even mentioned that.

I wish … I wish I could carve it. Words to honour Harald … I hope I can.

All that interests Snorri and Skarp and these Saracens is money. Profit. Harald Sigurdsson lies dead, and these men stand haggling over his grave.

After assuring the Saracens once again that they would lift the siege as soon as Harald had been buried, Snorri and Skarp returned with Solveig to the Viking encampment, and it was only then that the two men informed her that Harald Sigurdsson wasn't quite so dead after all.

Solveig shuddered. Her head and heart whirled. First she felt relief, even joy that Harald was still alive. Then she became angry, very angry, at the calculating and cruel way in which she had been deceived and, without any regard for her feelings, Snorri and Skarp had used her grief to trick the Saracens. And after this, she felt a surge of sheer terror at what was to come.

*

Next morning, a horseman rode from tent to tent around the Viking encampment repeating this message:

‘Harald Sigurdsson's strength has not failed. He will not die. Nevertheless, we will hold his funeral today at midday. Half of you will join the cortège, with your axes and swords concealed inside your cloaks, and half will stay here in your tents, armed and ready, until you hear the trumpeter. Every woman in the encampment is to join the procession.'

At midday, the town gates were slowly swung open. Then the leader of the Saracens and at least fifty townsmen came out to meet the funeral cortège. The five priests and their acolytes accompanied them, carrying shrines and holy relics, and the five priests were all still arguing, all intent on burying Harald in their churchyard so as to secure additional rewards from the Vikings.