Swords From the Sea (86 page)

Now the Norseman had no defense. He tossed his sword up into the air just as the gladiator came within reach. Then Harald leaped high to one side, catching the upflung sword in his good left hand. As his feet touched the ground his sword swept down. It bit deep into the right side of the gladiator above the belt.

Antiochus fell to his knees. He tried to thrust once with his short sword; then the Norseman wrenched his own blade clear and the gladiator fell limp on the sand.

Just as the mob had roared when Harald had staggered, it bellowed now at the downfall of the sword-slayer. Zoe, who had been tearing a silk scarf into shreds as she watched the combat, leaned forward with a shrill cry of delight, holding out her hand with the thumb down.

But Harald, if he saw the signal to put Antiochus to death, did not heed it. Already Antiochus had had his death blow.

"He was a mighty man," Harald panted as Ulf ran up to him, "with his weapons."

Ulf nodded, watching the gladiator. "Well for you, Harald, that he did not know you could cast spear or wield sword with either hand." And he began to tie up his chieftain's injured right arm with strips of cloth.

Slaves ran from the royal box and lifted the Norseman to their shoulders.

While he was carried up toward the canopy, men maddened with the lust of slaying clutched at his limbs; women struggled to get close to him, to catch a drop of the blood that dripped from him.

Zoe sprang up, her body yearning toward him. She caught his head between her hands.

"My strong one! 0 mightiest of men-my champion-Thou art sore hurt! But come, the reward is thine. Choose thou the woman who will favor thee-" and her eyes smiled upon him.

The Norseman had not forgotten. It seemed great good fortune to him. "That black-eyed maid yonder," he said, pointing.

When the Englishman translated this, utter silence fell beneath the canopy. All heads turned where he had pointed, where behind the imperial couch a frightened girl knelt. She had been weeping during the fight.

Zoe's face changed. It became hard and lines appeared about the eyes.

"Witless fool!" she hissed in a cold rage. Then she drew herself up. "Thinkest thou to have at thy call a woman of the purple? That is Maria, my kinswoman. And thou art no more than a barbarian!"

Even while the Englishman was saying this to the surprised Norseman, Zoe whispered a command to the eunuch who was ever at her side. In another moment the imperial guards had closed in upon the dozen Norsemen and had gripped them before they could lay hand to weapon.

"It should be clear to you now," Ulf grumbled, "that this queen they call Zoe is mightier than you."

They were sitting on the grass at the bottom of a hollow tower. The tower was high as a ship's masthead and it had no roof. Nor did it have a stair on the inside. The one iron-bound door was locked from without. At times a guard appeared at the summit of the wall to look down at the captive Norsemen, who had been stripped of their weapons and hurried into this tower to await Zoe's decision as to their fate. Not one had been able to escape to the dragon ship, where the rest of Harald's crew waited.

Harald looked at his bruised messmates.

"She did not hold to her word," he said, "and she overthrew us by treachery." He thought for a moment. "It comes into my mind that this Empress thought herself the fairest of all women, and belike she was angered. These are not simple-minded women."

Ulf grunted. "If that is clear to you now," he said, "it is a pity that it did not come into your head yonder in the bear-pit. Now it seems to me that the Icelander foresaw this ill luck, and that many of us will lose our home-coming."

"That may well be," Harald agreed. Presently a youth appeared at the tower's rim-he must have climbed an outer stair that served the guards. He was shedding tears, and crying words in Norman-French that Harald and some of the messmates understood. Harald sat up to listen, When the youth went away, a guard came and spat down at the Norsemen.

"That youngling was saying," Harald said to Ulf, "that he was brother to the dark-eyed Maria the Porfr-whatever it is. He was saying that this Empress in anger hath given command to make Maria captive and put out her eyes with hot irons."

After that afternoon in the Hippodrome, it did not surprise the Norsemen that Zoe should command this.

"If they will do that to the girl," Ulf pondered, "what will they do to us?"

"We are warfarers," said Harald, "and soon or late we will find our deaths otherwise than in a bed. But Maria is no more than a tender girl, and it is a shameful thing they will do to her."

"What led you to ask for her, of all the women of Constantinople?"

Harald pulled at the grass between his knees. "I know not. But I will not sit by while they put out her eyes."

"It is hard to see," Ulf pointed out, "how you can do anything else."

By then it was the end of dusk, with only a red glow in the sky. Ulf could hear the guards eating by their fire. From the summit of the tower a hooded woman peered down at them, making mocking sounds. At times she spat, or she threw stones taken from her dress, at Ulf. Suddenly Ulf became greatly interested in what the woman was doing. He touched Harald gently.

"A rope is coming down," he whispered.

The two of then went to the tower's side and searched with their hands until they found the rope dangling. It was stout and strong and the woman had made it fast above because two men could swing on it.

"Now how are we to know," whispered Ulf, "What this woman hath in store for us?"

"We will find out," quoth Harald, taking hold of the rope with his good arm. But Ulf, who had two sound arms, climbed the rope first, bracing himself against the wall with his feet while the Norsemen below held the end of the rope taut.

When Ulf put his shaggy head over the top, he saw that the tall cloaked woman was standing alone at the head of the outer stair. He wondered then how he would speak to her. "Hi, Olga, Gretchen, dalnzelle-"

"Hi, blood-drawn butcher's calf," croaked the woman in a deep voice. "Shut your lip and come over."

"The Icelander," whispered Ulf joyfully, as he hauled himself over the edge. "How come ye here?"

"By the sense that fools lack. Bid Lord Harald tie himself in this rope's end, and we will haul him up."

While they worked, the Icelander explained that he had been in the crowd at the Hippodrome, but high up among the commoners. He had gone out of a gate and had hidden himself until he could speak with his friend the Englishman, who was angered by the treachery of the Byzantines. So the Englishman had got him this dress with a stout rope to coil beneath his cloak.

Before the guards understood what was happening, the messmates swarmed down and cast them to the ground. The struggle lasted only a moment, but some women who had been hanging about the soldiers' fire screamed and ran away.

"This place," the Icelander complained "hath too many women in it. Now we must make our way quickly down to the ship."

"Wait," said Harald suddenly. "Strip these five of their armor. Take their shields and spears-five of you. Nay, the cloaks as well. Put them on."

Ulf and the Icelander saw the cunning of this, and in another minute five Norsemen stood dressed like Constantinople guards-looking enough like the Byzantines to pass for them in that dim light.

"Now," said Harald, "we will find Maria's house, and take her away so that her eyes will not be put out. Come with me, for I shall find that girl, and Constantinople will not soon forget this night."

His saying came true. At that hour Zoe was at supper with the Caesar and advisers of the empire. She was still in a fury, which did not mend when a slave brought word that the Norsemen had got out of their tower.

The second message, a half-hour later, startled all the Sacred Palace. The Norsemen, Harald and seven others including a strange woman, had been brought into the courtyard of the palace of Maria the Porphyrogenita, by five guards. At least, everyone had taken the five for guards-until Harald made his way up the stairs and found Maria lying on her bed. He wrapped her up in a coverlet and carried her down, and went forth in the center of his men, who had got new arms from the house. They vanished into the network of dark alleys leading to the waterfront.

"Draw up the chain across the harbor," Zoe commanded. "Summon the captains of the war vessels. Light up all the harbor front!"

She called for her litter and a cohort of the palace guard. Surrounded by torches, in the midst of her Goths and Tatars, she was carried down through the gardens and the markets to the marble docks of the Golden Horn.

There she drew a deep breath of anticipation. Her commands had been carried out. Beacons lighted on both sides the harbor cast a gleam over all the dark water. The great chain at the narrow harbor mouth was clanking up-already its ends appeared, dripping, out of the water. In a tumult of hurrying slaves and shouting seamen, several lofty war galleys were preparing to put out from the docks, to where the slender dragon ship of the Norsemen lay waiting in the deserted middle of the harbor-having rowed out from its jetty as soon as Harald had boarded it.

It seemed to Zoe that at last she would behold a spectacle worthy of the Caesars of ancient Rome-a battle of gladiators upon ships, before her eyes.

"Sound the trumpets!" she cried.

Over the water resounded the melodious blast of the horns that signified the Empress was ready to watch the spectacle.

Maria, standing on the aft deck of the long dragon ship, heard that blast. She arranged the coverlet about her shoulders and she faced Lord Harald with pride.

"Do ye make war upon a woman? Set me back on the shore, or men will name you coward until the day of your death."

Harald laughed. "A coward? Tell me where it will please you to be landed and I will set you there."

Maria clenched her hands. "You dare not!"

For answer Harald took up one of the steering sweeps, motioning Ulf to the other. "Out oars, lads," he called. "Pull back to the jetty!"

And he thrust over the sweep he held. The men pulled in grim silence; they had little desire to go back among the war vessels that would spout Greek fire and stones at them. They were trapped by the chain, but at least they were better off in open water.

Maria clasped her hands together as if she were praying. Quickly she glanced up at Harald as if to read his eyes. "Stop!" Her cry was so sudden that he echoed it:

"Weigh oars, lads." And he looked down at her. "What now?"

Maria's face was flushed, her head bent. All at once she felt afraid of him, and her lips quivered. "I-you must not risk your life again. These men-" she pointed out into the darkness. "My brother and I, we rowed over the Golden Horn and there, in the middle, the great chain sags-and perhaps-" her voice trailed into silence.

Harald bent toward her eagerly. "How far below the surface lies the bight of the chain?"

A little more than a yard she measured with her hands, and Harald looked at Ulf, who shook his head moodily.

"Nay, Harald, the boat will break her back on that. Then we would find our end in the water."

But Harald touched the girl on the shoulder. "Then you do not wish to go back?"

"Oh, I have told you-besides, I do not want to be blinded."

Strangely Maria did not add that her aunt had often condemned her to such a fate, in a jealous rage. After all, who knew what Zoe would really do?

"Now, lads," Harald called to them, "we will get away. Pull for life. And the others come aft. Each man with a bit of gear. Fetch away the anchor stone."

As the dragon ship turned its carved prow toward the harbor mouth and the long oars churned the water into foam, a mocking shout resounded from the shore. The dragon ship, gaining speed swiftly, headed toward the dim gap where the chain was covered with water. All the Norsemen who were not at the oars staggered aft along the runway with bags and chests in their arms. Two of them lugged the great anchor stone.

Harald did not take his eyes from the dark gap as the dragon ship rushed upon the chain. The keel grated and the narrow craft swayed, jarring suddenly to a stop. The fore part, suspended in the air, creaked ominously.

"She will not clear," shouted Ulf, looking over the side.

"Forward, all!" Harold roared. "Forward with the gear!" He watched the lifted prow as the men ran forward with their burdens. Slowly the prow sank, while the stern rose a little beneath his feet.

"Pull, lads!" he barked at the rowers. "Pull her over-"

The oar blades thrashed the water white. The chain rasped along the keel and the prow sank gently. The Norsemen yelled as the dragon ship rocked and slid clear of the chain, gliding into open water.

Harald looked over his shoulder at the lights already vanishing behind the point of the city. "Now," he laughed, "that Empress cannot say she is mightier than the Norsemen; for I take away with me the greatest treasure of her city!"

And he summoned the Icelander to the steering sweep. He picked up Maria gently in his arms and carried her down to the cabin space below the aft deck.

The Icelander looked after them, and then he said to Ulf:

"It is clear to me that Lord Harald carries in his arms the one who is mightier than he."