Swords From the Sea (84 page)

Olaf had not put his arm around her, or tried to pull her to his knee, and for that she was glad. The shouting rose loud about her, as the seamen gulped meat and swallowed beer.

"Bergen beer," said Olaf. "They do not open their own hogsheads."

A giant from Visby kicked away the dancing bear and called for a champion to tug at war with him. The stout Flemish merchant came forward at the challenge.

"The bull's hide, Lefard," roared Stortebecker. "Pull the hide, man."

The Visby gamester took one end of the rawhide stripped from the bull's carcass, and showed the Fleming how to hold to the other end by the legs. Lefard took his stand at one side of the smoldering bed of coals, and, at a word from Stortebecker, heaved at the hide, while the Fleming strained back, across the fire. The taut hide moved back and forth as the giants tugged. Suddenly the man Lefard threw himself back on his heels. Jerked off balance, the merchant plunged into the embers, the hide falling across him.

He writhed up, and fell again and dragged himself clear of the fire, smoking and blackened. A whimpering came from his mouth.

"The goat bleats," said Stortebecker, looking around. The Bergen men were silent, startled. "Let the goats bleat!" Stortebecker roared.

Olaf grinned and drank more ale.

Kari shivered, feeling for the hurt of the burned man. And Lefard, striding back to their table, took the nearest ale horn, which was Olaf's, and emptied it.

The big Visby man looked at Olaf, who said nothing. Then he bent over Kari, pulling the hood back from her head. At sight of the flaming red hair, he crowed.

Two heavy hands gripped the girl's waist and lifted her high. She felt the blood rush through her body. And then she jolted down on Lefard's knee, as he seated himself on the bench.

"Pour out the ale, girl," Lefard said in her ear.

Kari felt cold with fright. She made no move to touch the ale horn. Now she felt ashamed of her red hair. "For wine or for a woman," laughed Lefard, "I wait not."

His shaven head turned toward her, and his hand smelled of the wet bull's hide. Beside her, Olaf watched curiously, saying nothing. And Kari closed her eyes as she felt her throat choking.

She heard Olaf's chanting voice: "Messmate, you play hard. Let this child go, and pour your own drink."

While the Visby man stared at him, Olaf reached down to the ground between them. His hand came up gripping the ax under the head. The head of the ax caught Lefard under jaw and ear, knocking him aside.

"Blood! " Stortebecker bellowed. "Beware and yare, lads. Out with the steel."

Getting to his feet, his ax arm swinging, the Viking called, "You find a quarrel easily."

Kari, gasping at the bellow of voices, saw twenty men of Visby run to the unopened hogsheads. Ripping off the tops, they began to pull out swords, shields, battle-axes. Some of these weapons they tossed to their mates at the tables. A wailing rose among the women, and the unarmed Bergen men surged up like cattle startled by a wolf's coming.

"Steel it is," sang out Olaf, vaulting the table, and making for the hogshead.

The nearest swordsman stepped out to him, slashing at his head. Olaf checked his run, poised, braced on his feet. His ax flashed in front of him as the sword came down. This sword and the hand gripping it flew up into the air, cut off by the ax blade.

Stortebecker caught an ax from a man near him. His eyes gleamed red and he snarled as he ran at Olaf, who turned to meet him. Neither man had a shield.

Swinging his hands over one shoulder, Klas Stortebecker slashed wide with all the reach of his arms. As he did so the Viking leaped forward, inside the stroke.

His hands gripped the ax haft short and the head of the ax smashed at Stortebecker's face. The Visby chieftain bent his head, taking the blow on his skull, falling to the ground.

As he did so, his hands clutched at Olaf's legs. But the Viking, quicker than he, was away from him. A glance to right and left showed Olaf that the swordsmen were closing around him, and he leaped clear of them, back to the table.

He came running to Kari, his ax in one hand. Catching her about the knees in his right arm, he heaved her up over his shoulder, and ran on.

Behind him the bearlike Klas hauled himself up, shaking his head. "Leave the goats," he bawled. "Fetch back that strife starter."

As he ran through the Street of the Shoemakers, Olaf heard them coming after him. He headed for the barricade at the bridge, for the wall of kegs and the men-at-arms. Without slowing his pace, he thrust his ax hand on the top of the kegs and slid over. "There is a hue and cry," he called to Bode, "coming this way."

The Kontor's men stared at him bewildered, when he raced down the bridge toward his longboat. Kari's breath was squeezed out of her, and she hung fast to his swaying shoulders, until she felt him jump down into the boat. Then he lowered her to the aft deck and reached for the rope of the anchor stone.

Abruptly he stopped, staring beyond her. The brown falcon with its hoop had gone from the boat.

"Hide and hair of the Horned One!" Olaf swore. For the first time anger twisted his face, and he swung round to search the quay with his eyes. Down at the barricade voices clamored and metal crashed. Two apprentices ran out the Kontor gate with a pack of mastiff dogs. All this seemed to Olaf to have the making of a brawl, but he saw no sign of his falcon.

Taking his ax he ran into the unguarded gate of the Kontor. When he came upon stairs leading up, he took them three at a time, and so he found himself in the great meeting hall of the Kontor. And he found himself not alone-men in uniform lined the wall, waiting leaning upon staves and halberds.

Behind the table Ernst Salza sat in his high seat calmly, with a massive book before him. Behind him the hooded falcon perched on its hoop in a clerk's hand.

It seemed to Olaf that these silent men were waiting and listening. Through the window opening he could hear the disturbance on the bridge. Pushing through the attendants, he went up to take his hawk, and he spoke to it. At his voice the bird spread its wings.

But the clerk would not give up the hoop. "Achtzehuer," the man exclaimed, troubled.

Salza was listening intently-to the brawling below that had passed from the streets of the town to the quay, against his instructions. It was coming closer now, and he wanted to go to the opening to look out, but thought that he should remain at the desk, taking no notice of it. Impatiently, he turned on Olaf, snapping out words: "The Greenland falcon? The Kontor owns it."

Olaf shook his head, startled. "No-"

"Here!" Salza flung open the huge book, taking a parchment slip from between the pages. "The quittance for it." And he read swiftly: "For the value of forty farthings, more or less, paid into my hand, I, Olaf, an outlander, do sell and devise unto the Bergen Kontor of the Hansa League, a brown falcon marked with white, weighing-"

"That was never said between us-"

"Never? You signed to it." Salza nodded at the clerk. "He witnessed."

Before Olaf could answer, a rush of feet came upon the stair, and Klas Stortebecker plunged into the meeting hall with his Visby weapon men wedged behind him. When he sighted the Kontor guards along the walls, and Olaf at the desk, his broad face darkened, and he came forward slowly.

Salza, motionless, watched him without expression. "Well, Klas?"

"Ho!" the sea raider snarled. "'Tis not well, Ernst. Not with the bridge held against me, and this woodchopper holed up here."

He glared his suspicion, breathing heavily. Salza glanced from one weapon man to the other. "If you want him, Klas, take him." And quietly he drew the record book toward him.

It happened then so quickly that only Olaf saw it all. The falcon at Salza's side moved its wings, restless at the voices. And Salza thrust it away with his hand, unheeding. The hawk's beak flashed down, and Salza, with a cry of pain, struck at the falcon. The threshing hooded bird rose into the air, clawing at the man.

The talons struck into the man's head, and the falcon's beak ripped across his forehead. Jumping for them, Olaf caught the hawk beneath one wing, and pulled him clear, loosening the hood on the brown head and tossing him up. The falcon threshed and headed out the opening toward the light.

Salza screamed, throwing himself down on the table. Even Stortebecker swore at the sight, for the iron dignity of the Achtzehuer had been stripped from him. Hurt, with blood running into his eyes, he groped about the table. But he had no thought of his own pain. His fingers searched frantically for the book.

"Wait, Klas!" he cried. "I will explain-"

One hand struck the book and he caught the pages to close them. Stortebecker looked at the written page, and planted one fist on it. He had seen his own name.

The Viking backed against the wall, feeling behind him, not taking his eyes from the two at the table.

"It says St. Olaf's Day," Stortebecker muttered, and pulled the book around to him suddenly. "It says-"

"Wait!" cried Salza again, reaching for the book.

Tracing out the words with his finger, Stortebecker was reading slowly, chewing at his lip, "And that they be hunted down and harried to their deaths,"' he repeated at the end. And he ripped out the page, dropping the book. "Sold out by the Kontor, lads!" he roared. "Aye, invited hither by this Kontor head, to frolic with the Bergen folk over the bay, and help ourselves with free hands to gear and goods of the merchants' stalls-"

Olaf spoke from the wall, "Well, here are gear and goods."

Stortebecker glared around at the rich tapestries on the walls, at the silver lanterns hanging over the desk, at the open door leading to the warehouse beyond. "Turn to, lads!" he shouted. He stuffed the parchment page into his belt. "Great liars these merchants be, for we have lifted no hand against the honest Bergen folk. Let them buy back their own goods in Lubeck."

And the sea raiders leaped for the walls.

Hidden under the aft deck of the boat, Kari heard the uproar of battle inside the Kontor. Frightened, and not knowing what to do without Olaf, she lay quiet on a robe of eider-duck feathers. First the brown falcon came down to its perch by her. Then Olaf leaped in.

Without a word he hauled up the anchor stone and shoved off with an oar. Hoisting the yard, he knotted taut the sheets. Throwing himself down beside her, he fastened a hood on the restless falcon. Then he wiped the sweat from his eyes, and shook his head. "It seems that I do not understand trading in the old country," he said.

Kari laughed a little. Now she did not feel frightened. "No," she said, "you do not, Olaf."

Settling down on the feather robe she felt warm and comfortable, between Olaf and the hawk. It was as if this place had been made for her. When she felt the sea breath from the fiord's mouth, she pulled the hood over her red hair, and under its cover her eyes searched the troubled face of the seafarer. "Nor do I," she admitted.

She was thinking, watching the line of the sea, when Olaf asked where he should set her ashore.

"On the isles," she said softly, "of the western sea."

The dust of the last chariot race settled slowly. One side of the Hippodrome became a tumult of waving green and exultant shouting. The favorite green had won.

Slaves ran beside the sweating, rearing horses as the slender chariots were led past the kathisma, the imperial box at the north end of the great arena. But Zoe, the Empress, did not glance at them. She was disappointed because all that afternoon there had been no spill.

She felt aggrieved by the tame ending of the last race. Listless, she lay on a couch scented with oil of poppies, beneath the heavy purple canopy that kept the harsh light of day from her face. Only her handmaidens, who labored in her attiring-rooms that were veritable laboratories of perfumes and unguents, knew the pains by which that face preserved its beauty. Her court and the world of Constantinople believed that Zoe had discovered the secret of everlasting youth; her maidens knew better.

Vain she was, and amorous. The lovers of her youth had grown gray and paunchy by now. These days it pleased Zoe to select mighty men from among the officers of the palace guard and the gladiators, to take them to the deserted throne room. There she clothed them in the Emperor's jeweled mantle and seated them beside her on the throne.