Читать книгу The Long Ships: A Saga of the Viking Age - Michael Meyer - Страница 16

The tongueless man who rowed beside Orm grew worse and worse until at last he could row no more; so, when the ship anchored in one of the Caliph’s military harbours in the south, called Malaga, he was led ashore, and they waited for another man to be brought to replace him. Orm had had to do nearly all the work on his oar during the last few weeks, and was curious to know whether he would now have a more congenial workmate. The next morning, the new man appeared. He was dragged to the ship by four soldiers, who had their work cut out to get him up the gangway, and nobody needed to peer closely at him to know that he still had his tongue. He was a young man, handsome, beardless and finely limbed, and he shrieked curses more frightful than anything that had been heard in the ship before.

He was carried to his place and held fast there while the chain was fixed round his ankle. At this, tears streamed down his cheeks, though they seemed to be the effect of anger rather than of sorrow. The ship’s captain and the overseer came to have a look at him, whereupon he immediately began to abuse them with curses and imprecations, calling them many names that Orm had never heard before, so that all the slaves expected to see him receive a fearful flogging. The captain and the overseer, however, merely stroked their beards and looked thoughtful, while they studied a letter that the soldiers had brought with them. They nodded their heads at this and shook them at that sentence, and whispered discreetly among themselves, while all the time the newcomer howled abuse at them, calling them sons of whores, pork-eaters and copulators of female asses. At last, the overseer threatened him with the whip and told him to keep his mouth shut. Then when the captain and the overseer had moved away, the newcomer began to weep in earnest, so that his whole body shook with it.

Orm did not know what to make of all this, but thought he would get little help from this fellow, unless they used the whip on him. Still, he felt it would be something to have a companion who could at any rate talk, after his experience with the tongueless man. At first, however, the newcomer disdained to hold any converse with him, and rejected Orm’s friendly approaches. As Orm had feared, he turned out to be no oarsman, and could not adapt himself to his new mode of life at all, finding especial cause for complaint in the food that was supplied to them, which seemed to Orm to be very good, though insufficient. But Orm was forbearing with him, and did the rowing for both of them, and muttered words of encouragement to him, in so far as he was able to in Arabic. Several times he asked the man who he was and why he had been sentenced to this ship, but received in response merely haughty glances and shoulder-shrugs. At length the man condescended to address him, and announced that he was a man of breeding and not accustomed to being cross-examined by slaves who could not even talk properly. At this, Orm said: ‘For those words you have just uttered, I could take you by the neck so that you felt it; but it is better that there should be peace between us, and that you and I should be friends. In this ship we are all slaves, you no less than the rest of us; nor are you the only man aboard who is of good lineage. I am so myself; my name is Orm, and I am a chieftain’s son. It is true that I speak your language poorly, but you speak mine worse, for you do not know a word of it. It therefore appears to me that there is nothing to choose between us; indeed, if either of us has the advantage, I do not think it is you.’

‘Your intonation is deplorable,’ replied the newcomer. ‘However, you seem to be a man of some intelligence. It is possible that, among your own people, you are reckoned to be well-born; but in this respect, you can hardly compare with me, for on my mother’s side I am directly descended from the Prophet, peace be to His immortal soul! Know, too, that the tongue which I speak is Allah’s own, all other tongues having been invented by evil spirits to hinder the spread of the true learning. So you see that there can be no comparison between us. Khalid is my name, the son of Yezid; my father was a high officer of the Caliph, and I own great possessions and do no work, apart from supervising my gardens, entertaining my friends and composing music and poetry. It is true, I admit, that I now temporarily find myself otherwise occupied, but this shall not be for long, may worms eat out the eyes of he who set me here! I have written songs which are sung throughout Malaga, and there are few poets living as skilful as I.’

Orm commented that there must be many poets in the Caliph’s kingdom, as he had met one already. Khalid replied that there were a lot in the sense that many men attempted to write verses, but that very few of them could be considered true poets.

After this conversation, they got on better together, although Khalid continued to be a poor oarsmen, and was sometimes hardly able to pull at all, because his hands were skinned by the oar. A little later, he told Orm how he had come to be sent to the ship. He had to repeat himself several times, and use paraphrases to explain what he meant, for he was difficult to follow; but in the end Orm grasped the gist of what he had to say.

Khalid told him that his present plight arose from the fact of the most beautiful maiden in all Malaga being the daughter of the governor of the city, a man of low birth and evil disposition. The beauty of his daughter, however, was such that not even a poet could conceive of anything lovelier, and on one occasion Khalid had been lucky enough to see her unveiled at a harvest feast. From that moment, he had loved her above all other women, and had written songs in her honour that had melted in his mouth as he sang them. At length, by dint of taking up residence on the roof of a house near where she lived, he had succeeded in catching another glimpse of her when she was sitting alone on her roof. He had shouted ecstatic greetings to her and, by stretching out his arms appealingly towards her, had prevailed on her to lift her veil once more. This was a sign that she reciprocated his love; and the surpassing magnificence of her beauty had almost caused him to faint.

Thus assured that the lady was favourably disposed towards him, he had given rich gifts to her maid-in-waiting, and so had managed to convey messages to her. Then the governor had gone to Cordova to present his annual accounts to the Caliph, and the lady had sent Khalid a red flower; whereupon he had disguised himself as an old crone and, with the connivance of the maid-in-waiting, had gained admission to the lady’s presence, where he had enjoyed lively sport with her. One day, however, not long afterwards, her brother had drawn upon him in the city and, in the ensuing fight, had, by reason of Khalid’s skill at arms, been wounded. On the governor’s return, Khalid had been arrested and brought before him.

At this point in his story, Khalid went black with fury, spat viciously and shrieked horrible curses upon the governor. Then he proceeded: ‘Legally, he had no case against me. Granted I had lain with his daughter, but in return for that I immortalized her in exquisite songs, and even he seemed to realize that a man of my birth could hardly be expected to propose marriage to the daughter of a common Berber. I had wounded his son, but only after he had attacked me; indeed, but for the temperateness of my nature, he would not have escaped with his life. For all this, the governor, if he had been a true lover of justice, should have been grateful to me. Instead, he took counsel in his wickedness, which is surpassing even in Malaga, and this is the result. Hearken well, O unbeliever, and be amazed.’

Orm listened to all this with interest, although many of the words were unfamiliar to him, and the men on the nearest benches listened too, for Khalid told his story in a loud voice.

‘He had one of my poems read aloud, and asked whether I had written it. I replied that everyone in Malaga knew the poem and knew that I was the author of it, for it is a paean in praise of the city, the best that was ever written. In the poem occur these lines:

“This I know well; that had the Prophet e’er

Tasted the harvest that the grape-vines bear,

He would not blindly have forbidden us

(In his strict book) to taste the sweet grape’s juice.

His whiskers berry-drenched, his beaker flowing,

With praise of wine he had enhanced his teaching.”’

Having recited these lines, Khalid burst into tears, and explained that it was for their sake that he had been condemned to serve in the galleys. For the Caliph, who was the protector of the true faith and the earthly representative of the Prophet, had ordained that any who blasphemed against the Prophet or criticized his teaching should be severely punished, and the governor had hit upon this method of securing his revenge, under the pretext of demanding justice.

‘But I solace myself by reflecting that this state of affairs cannot last for long,’ said Khalid. ‘For my family is more powerful than his, and has, besides, the Caliph’s ear, so that I shall shortly be liberated. That is why nobody in this ship dares to bring the whip to me, for they know that no man can, with impunity, lay his hand on one who is descended from the Prophet.’

Orm asked when this Prophet had lived, and Khalid replied that he had died more than 350 years ago. Orm remarked that he must indeed have been a mighty man if he could still, after so long an interval, protect his kinsmen and decide what his people might or might not drink. No man had ever wielded such power in Skania, not even King Ivar of the Broad Embrace, who was the mightiest man that had lived in the north.

‘No man in my country,’ he said, ‘lays down the law about what another man may drink, be he king or commoner.’

Orm’s knowledge of Arabic increased by leaps and bounds now that he had Khalid as his companion, for the latter talked incessantly and had many interesting things to tell of. After some days, he enquired where Orm’s country was and how he had come to be in the ship. Then Orm told him the story of Krok’s expedition, and how he had joined it, and of all that had ensued. When he had recounted his adventures, as well as he could, he concluded: ‘As you see, much of what happened was the result of our meeting with the Jew Solomon. I think it possible that he was a man of luck, for he was freed from his slavery, and, as long as he remained with us, our fortunes prospered. He said that he was an important man in a town called Toledo, where he was a silversmith, as well as being the leading poet.’

Khalid said that he had certainly heard of him, for his skill as a silversmith was renowned; nor was he a bad poet, as poets went in Toledo.

‘Not so long ago,’ he said, ‘I heard one of his poems sung by a wandering minstrel from the north, in which he described how he had fallen into the hands of an Asturian margrave, who used him ill, and how he had escaped and had led the fierce pirates against the fortress, storming it and killing the margrave and sticking his head on a pole for the crows to peck at, after which he had returned home to his own country with the margrave’s gold. It was a competent work, in a simple style, though lacking the delicacy of expression that we of Malaga aim at.’

‘He does not belittle his achievements,’ said Orm. ‘If he is prepared to go to so much trouble to revenge himself on an enemy, he ought to be willing to do something to help the friends who rendered him such service. It was we who liberated him from his slavery, stormed the fortress and executed his revenge; and, if he is in reality an important man in his country, he is, perhaps, in a position to render us who sit here a service comparable to that which we performed for him. Nor do I see how else we shall ever regain our freedom, if he does not help us.’

Khalid said that Solomon was famous for his wealth, and that the Caliph regarded him highly, although he did not follow the true religion. Orm now began to hope, but he said nothing to his countrymen of what Khalid had told him. The outcome of their conversation was that Khalid undertook to send a message, together with Orm’s greetings, to Solomon in Toledo, as soon as he was released himself.

But the days passed, and still no order arrived for Khalid’s liberation. The delay made him more unruly than ever, and he inveighed furiously against the indifference shown by his kinsmen. He began to compose a long poem on the pernicious influence of wine, hoping that he might be able to get this copied out when they were in port and forwarded to the Caliph, so that his real feelings on the subject might become known. But when it came to the point where he had to sing the praises of water and lemon-juice, and to acclaim their superiority to wine, his verses began to halt somewhat. However, although he continued to shriek imprecations at the ship’s crew whenever his dark fits settled on him, he was still never touched with the whip, and Orm took this to be a hopeful sign that he would not remain with them for much longer.

One morning, when they were in one of the eastern harbours, the ship having returned with many others from a hard chase after African pirates, four men walked aboard and, when Khalid saw them, he became faint with joy and paid no heed to Orm’s questions regarding their identity. One of the men was an official with a big turban and a cloak reaching to his feet. He handed a letter to the captain of the ship, who touched it with his forehead and read it reverently. Another member of the four seemed to be some kinsman of Khalid’s, for, as soon as the latter had been released from his ankle-chain, they threw themselves into each other’s arms, weeping and exchanging kisses and chattering like madmen. The other two men were servants, bearing clothes and baskets. They dressed Khalid in a fine robe and offered him food. Orm shouted to him to remember his promise, but Khalid was already rebuking his kinsman for having forgotten to bring a barber with him, and did not hear. Then Khalid went ashore with his suite, the captain and crew bidding him obsequious farewells, which he acknowledged with condescension as though barely aware of their presence, and disappeared arm in arm with his kinsman.

Orm was sorry to see him depart, for Khalid had been an entertaining companion, and he feared that, in his new-found freedom, he would be above remembering to fulfil his promise. Another man was chained beside Orm in Khalid’s place, a shop-keeper who had been found guilty of using false weights. He tired quickly, and was little use at the oar, and had to be whipped frequently, at which he moaned and mumbled little pieties to himself. Orm gained small pleasure from his company, and this was the period of his life in the galley that he found most tedious. He set all his hopes on Khalid and Solomon but, as more and more time passed, these began to fade.

At last, however, in Cadiz, their lucky day arrived. An officer came on board with a troop of men, and all the Northmen were released from their ankle-chains and were given clothes and shoes, and were removed to another ship, which proceeded up the great river to Cordova. They were made to lend a hand rowing against the stream, but were not fettered or whipped, and were frequently relieved; moreover, they were allowed to sit together, and so could talk without hindrance for the first time for many a day. They had been galley-slaves for two years and the greater part of a third; and Toke, who sang and laughed almost the whole time, said that he did not know what would become of them now, but that one thing he did know, that it was high time that he drank the thirst out of himself. Orm said that it would be better if he could wait until he had someone’s permission to do so, for it would be a bad thing if they had any violence now, which they would be liable to have, if Orm’s memory served him rightly, once Toke began quenching his thirst. Toke agreed that he would do better to wait, though he added that the waiting would be difficult. They all wondered what was going to happen to them, and Orm now repeated to them the details of his conversation wth Khalid concerning the Jew. Then they were loud in the Jew’s praise, and in Orm’s also; and, although Orm was the youngest of them, they all now acknowledged him to be their chieftain.

Orm asked the officer what was going to be done with them, and whether he knew of a Jew called Solomon, but all the officer could tell him was that he had been commanded to conduct them to Cordova; and he had never heard of Solomon.

They arrived at the Caliph’s city, and saw it spreading out on both banks of the river, with many houses huddled together and white palaces and palm courts and towers. They marvelled greatly at its size and splendour, which surpassed anything that they could have imagined, and its wealth seemed to them sufficient to provide rich booty for all the seamen from the whole of the Danish kingdom.

They were led through the city, gazing in wonder on the throngs of people; though they complained that there were too few women among them, and that not much could be seen of those that were abroad, because they were all cloaked and veiled.

‘A woman would have her work cut out not to appear beautiful in my eyes,’ said Toke, ‘if only I had a chance to talk to one of them; for it is now three years since we fell among these foreigners, and in all that time we have not been allowed to smell a single woman.’

‘If they set us free,’ said Ogmund, ‘we ought to be able to do well for women in this country; for their men are of miserable appearance compared with us.’

‘Every man in this land is allowed to have four wives,’ said Orm, ‘if he has embraced the Prophet and his teaching. But, once having done so, he can never drink wine again.’

‘It is a difficult choice to make,’ said Toke, ‘for their ale is too thin for my palate. But it may be that we have not yet sampled their best brew. And four women is just about what I need.’

They came to a large house, where there were many soldiers, and there they slept the night. The next morning, a stranger appeared and led them to another house not far distant, where they were well bathed and barbered, and where cool drinks were offered to them in beautiful tiny cups. Then they were given softer garments, which chafed them less; for their clothes felt rough against their skin, since they had for so long been naked. They looked at each other, laughing at the change that had been wrought in their appearance; then, marvelling greatly at all this, they were conducted into a dining-room, where a man came forward, greeting them and bidding them welcome. They recognized him at once as Solomon, although he now wore a very different appearance to when they had last seen him, for he had all the bearing and accoutrements of a rich and mighty prince.

He greeted them hospitably, bidding them eat and drink and regard his house as their own; but he had forgotten most of what he had formerly known of the Nordic tongue, so that only Orm was able to converse with him. Solomon said that he had done all that he could on their behalf, as soon as he had heard of their plight, because they had once performed a very great service for him, which he was glad to be able to repay. Orm thanked him as eloquently as he could; but, he told Solomon, what they were most eager to know was whether they were now free men, or whether they were still slaves.

Solomon replied that they were still the Caliph’s slaves, and must remain so; in that matter, he could not help them; but they were now to serve in the Caliph’s private bodyguard, which was recruited from the pick of prisoners that the Caliph captured in battle, and of the slaves that he purchased from abroad. The Caliphs of Cordova, he went on, had always possessed such a bodyguard, regarding it as safer than being surrounded by armed subjects of their own, since the latter might more easily be bribed by their kinsmen or their friends to lay violent hands on the Caliph’s person when discontent pricked the land.

But before they joined the bodyguard, Solomon told them, they would first be his guests for a while, in order that they might in some measure recover themselves after their labours; so they stayed at his house for five days, and were treated as heroes are treated at the table of Odin. They partook of many delicate dishes, and drink was brought to them whenever they cared to call for it; musicians played for them, and they made themselves tipsy with wine every evening, no Prophet having forbidden Solomon to taste of that drink. Orm and his fellows, however, kept a watchful eye on Toke the whole time, lest he should drink too much and so weep and become dangerous. Their host offered each of them a young slave-girl to keep them company in bed, and this delighted them most of all. They agreed unanimously that the Jew was a fine man, and a chieftain, every bit as good as if he had been of Nordic blood; and Toke said that he had seldom made a more fortunate catch than when he had drawn this noble Semite out of the sea. They slept late in the mornings, in feather-beds softer than anything they had previously known; and, at table, they quarrelled merrily as to which among them had the prettiest slave-girl, and none of them would allow that his was not the choicest of them all.

On the third evening of their stay there, Solomon bade Orm and Toke accompany him into the city, saying that there was someone else whom they had to thank for their liberation, and who had perhaps done more for them than he had. They went with him along many streets, and Orm asked whether Khalid, the great poet of Malaga, had perhaps come to Cordova, and whether it was he whom they were on their way to visit; but Solomon replied that they were going to meet a nobler personage than Khalid.

‘And only a foreigner,’ he added feelingly, ‘could look upon this Khalid as a great poet, though he noises it abroad that he is one. Sometimes I try to calculate how many truly great poets there can be said to be nowadays in the Caliph’s dominions; and I do not think that that honour can rightly be allowed to more than five of us, among which number Khalid could not possibly find inclusion, although he has a certain facility for playing with rhymes. None the less, you do right, Orm, to regard him as your friend, for without his help I should never have discovered what became of you and your men; so, if you should meet him and he should refer to himself as a poet, you need not correct him.’

Orm remarked that he knew enough about men not to argue with poets concerning their respective merits; but Toke broke into their conversation with the complaint that he wanted to know why he had been pressed into this evening ramble when it was impossible for him to understand a word of what was being said, and when he had been enjoying himself so much in Solomon’s house. Solomon merely replied that it was necessary that he should accompany them, it having so been ordered.

They arrived at a walled garden with a narrow gate, which was opened to admit them. They entered, walking among beautiful trees and many strange plants and flowers, and came to a place where a great fountain was playing and clear water ran through rich grasses in small coiling streams. From the opposite direction to that from which they had come, a litter was being carried towards them by four slaves, followed by two slave-girls and two black men carrying drawn swords.

Solomon halted, and Orm and Toke did likewise. The litter was lowered to the ground, and the slave-girls ran forward and stood reverently one on either side of it. Then a veiled lady stepped forth. Solomon bowed low to her thrice, with his hands pressed against his forehead, so that Orm and Toke realized that she must be of royal blood; they remained upright, however, for it seemed to them a wrong thing that any man should abase himself before a woman.

The lady inclined her head graciously in Solomon’s direction. Then she turned towards Orm and Toke, and murmured something beneath her veil; and her eyes were friendly. Solomon bowed to her again, and said: ‘Warriors from the north, thank Her Highness Subaida, for it is by her power that you stand liberated.’

Orm said to the lady: ‘If you have helped to free us, we owe you a great debt of thanks. But who you are, and why you have showed us such favour, we do not know.’

‘Yet we have met,’ she answered, ‘and perchance you will remember my face.’

So saying, she lifted her veil, at which the Jew abased himself again. Toke tugged at his beard and muttered to Orm: ‘It is my girl from the fortress, and she is more beautiful now than ever. Her luck must indeed have been good, for, since we last saw her, she has become a queen. I should like to know whether she is pleased to see me again.’

The lady glanced towards Toke, and said: ‘Why do you address your friend, and not me?’

Orm replied to her that Toke could not understand Arabic, but that he said that he remembered her and thought her even more beautiful now than when he had last seen her.

‘And we both rejoice,’ he added, ‘to see that luck and power have come your way, for you appear to us to be deserving of the one and worthy of the other.’

She looked at Orm, and smiled, and said: ‘But you, O red man, have learned the language of this country, as I have done. Which is the better man, you or your friend who was once my master?’

‘We both reckon ourselves to be good men,’ replied Orm. ‘But I am young, and am less experienced than he; and he performed mighty feats when we took the fortress which was your home. Therefore, I hold him to be the better man of us, as yet; though he cannot tell you so himself in the language of this land. But better than either of us was Krok, our chieftain; but he is dead.’

She said that she remembered Krok, and that good chieftains seldom lived to be old. Orm told her how he had died, and she nodded, and said: ‘Fate has woven our destinies together in a curious way. You took my father’s house, and slew him and most of his people, for which I should rightly make you atone with your lives. But my father was a cruel man, especially towards my mother, and I hated and feared him like a hairy devil. I was glad when he was killed, and was not sorry to find myself among foreigners, nor to be made love to by your friend, although it was a pity that we were never able to talk to each other. I did not much care for the smell of his beard, but he had merry eyes and a kind laugh, and these I liked; and he used me gently, even when he was drunk and impatient with lust. He left no bruises on my body, and gave me only a light burden to bear on the march to the ship. I would have been willing to accompany him to your country. Tell him this.’

Orm repeated all that she had said to Toke, who listened with a contented expression. When Orm had finished, Toke said: ‘You see how lucky I am with women! But she is the best I ever saw, and you may tell her that I said so. Do you suppose that she intends to make me an important man in this country of hers?’

Orm replied that she had said nothing about that; then, after repeating Toke’s compliment to her, he begged her to tell them what had happened to her since they had parted on the seashore.

‘The ship’s captain brought me hither to Cordova,’ she said. ‘Nor did he lay his hand on me, although he had forced me to stand naked before him, for he knew that I would make a fine gift for him to present to his master, the Grand Vizier. Now, therefore, I belong to the Grand Vizier of the Caliph, who is called Almansur and is the most powerful man in the whole of the Caliph’s dominions. He, after first instructing me in the teaching of the Prophet, raised me from a slave-girl to be his chief wife, since he found that my beauty exceeded that of all his other women. Praised be Allah for it! So, you have brought me luck, for, if you had not come to destroy my father’s fortress, I would still be living in daily dread of my father, and would have had some bad man forced on me as a husband, for all my beauty. When, therefore, Solomon, who makes my finest jewellery, informed me that you were still alive, I resolved to give you such assistance as lay within my power.’

‘We have three persons to thank for freeing us from the galley-benches,’ said Orm. ‘Yourself, Solomon, and a man from Malaga called Khalid. Now, though, we know that it was your word that counted for most; therefore, we give our chief thanks to you. It was lucky for us that we met such people as you and these two poets, for otherwise we should still be straining upon our benches, with naught but death to hope for. We shall be proud to enter your lord’s service, and to aid him against his enemies. But we are surprised that you succeeded in persuading him to release us, for all the power you wield; for we seamen from the north are regarded here as great enemies, and have been so ever since the days of the sons of Ragnar Hairy-Breeks.’

Subaida replied: ‘You did my lord Almansur a great service when you took my father’s fortress, for he would not else have known that I existed. Besides this, it is well known among the people of this country that the men of the north keep their word and are brave warriors. Both the Caliph Abderrachman the Great, and his father, the Emir Abdullah, had many Northmen in their bodyguards, for in those days your countrymen harried our Spanish coasts sorely; but of late, few Northmen have been seen in these parts, so there are now none of them in the royal bodyguard. If you serve my lord Almansur faithfully and well, you will be richly rewarded, and the captain of the guard will give you and your men full armour and fine weapons. But first, I have a gift for each of you.’

She beckoned to one of the slaves who stood beside the litter, and he brought forward two swords, with splendidly ornamented scabbards and belts embossed with heavy silver buckles. One of these she gave to Toke, and the other to Orm. They accepted them joyfully, for they had felt naked with no swords at their waists during the years that had passed. They drew them forth from their scabbards, examining the blades closely, and weighing them in their hands. Solomon looked at the swords, and said: ‘These were forged in Toledo, where the best smiths in the world, both in silver and in steel, work. They still make swords straight there, as was the fashion in the time of the Gothic kings, before the servants of the Prophet came to this land. No smith alive forges a finer sword than these.’

Toke laughed aloud for joy, and began to mutter to himself. At length, he said:

‘Long have the warrior’s hands

Known the oar’s timber.

See how they laugh to hold

Once more the war-man’s blade.’

Orm was anxious not to be outdone as a poet, so he reflected for a few minutes and then, holding his sword before his face, said:

‘The sword the fair one gave me

I raise with my left hand,

Like Tyr among the immortals.

The serpent has won back his sting.’

Subaida laughed, and said: ‘Giving a man a sword is like giving a woman a looking-glass; they have eyes left for nothing else. But it is good to see gifts so gratefully received. May they bring you luck.’

Then, their meeting ended, for Subaida said that the time had come for her to bid them farewell, though it might chance that sometime they would meet again. So she stepped into her litter, and was borne away.

As they returned with Solomon to his house, the three of them were loud in their praise of Subaida and of the costly presents she had given them. Solomon explained that he had known her for more than a year, and had often sold her jewellery. He had realized from the first that she was the same girl that Toke had won in the cruel margrave’s fortress, although her beauty had greatly increased since then. Toke said: ‘She is fair and kind, and does not forget those who take her fancy. It is a hard thing for me to see her again, knowing that she is the wife of a great lord. Still, I am glad she does not belong to that pot-bellied old goat with the silver hammer who captured us. I should not have liked that. But all in all, I cannot complain, for the girl Solomon has found for me suits me very well.’

Orm questioned the Jew concerning Subaida’s lord, Almansur, asking how he could be the mightiest man in the land. Surely the Caliph must be more powerful than he? Solomon, however, explained how the matter lay. The previous Caliph, Hacham the Learned, the son of Abderracham the Great, had been a great ruler, despite the fact that he had spent most of his time reading books and conversing with learned men. On his death, he had left no heir save an infant son, named Hischam, who was the present Caliph. Now Hacham had ordained that his most trusted counsellor, together with his favourite wife, who was the child’s mother, should rule until Hischam came of age. Unfortunately, these two had so enjoyed the exercise of their power that they had imprisoned the young Caliph in a castle, on the pretext that he was of too holy a nature to be bothered with earthly matters. This counsellor had, in his capacity as regent of the realm, won many victories against the Christians in the north, as a result of which he had received the title of Almansur, meaning ‘the conqueror.’ The Queen, the young Caliph’s mother, had for a long time past loved Almansur above all other earthly things, but he had become weary of her, for she was older than he and inclined, besides, to be captious about the division of power; so now she had been imprisoned, like her son, and Almansur ruled alone in the land as the Caliph’s regent. Many of his subjects hated him for what he had done to the Caliph and the Queen Mother, but many loved him for the victories he had gained against the Christians; and he was a good master to his bodyguard, for he relied on them as a shield against all who treasured envy and hatred towards him. Orm and his men might, therefore, expect to prosper in Almansur’s palace while there was peace, in addition to all the fighting that they could wish for, since, each spring, Almansur set forth with a mighty army, either against the King of Asturia and the Count of Castile, or against the King of Navarre and the Counts of Aragon, far away in the north near the border country of the Franks. All these monarchs lived in perpetual dread of him, and were glad to pay him tribute in order to make him postpone his visits.

‘But they do not find it easy to buy him off,’ continued Solomon, ‘the reason for this being that he is a very unhappy man. He is powerful and victorious, and has succeeded in every enterprise to which he has laid his hand; but, in spite of all this, everyone knows that he is plagued by an incessant fear. For he has turned his hand against the Caliph, who is the shadow of the Prophet, and has stolen his power from him; on account of which, he lives in daily dread of the wrath of Allah, and has no peace in his soul. Each year he seeks to propitiate Allah by waging new wars against the Christians, and that is why he never accepts tributes from all the Christian princes at once, but only allows each of them to buy him off for a few months at a time, so that he can always have some of them available for him to put zealously to the sword. Of all the warriors that have ever been born in this land, he is the mightiest; and he has sworn a great oath that he will die in the field, with his face turned towards the false worshippers who believe that the son of Joseph was God. He takes little interest in verses of music, so that these are lean times for poets compared with the favours we enjoyed under Hacham the Wise; but, in his leisure hours, he finds some pleasure in gold and silver work, and in precious stones, so I cannot complain. I bought this house in Cordova that I might the better serve his pleasure; and long may he flourish and long may fortune smile upon him for, to a silversmith, he is indeed a good master.’

All this and more Solomon recounted to Orm, and Orm repeated it to Toke and the others; and they agreed that this Almansur must be a notable prince. But his fear of Allah they could not understand, for it was unknown among the Northmen for anyone to be afraid of the gods.

Before the time came for them to leave the Jew’s house, he gave them sage counsel on many matters; above all, he warned Toke never to let it become known that he had formerly been Subaida’s master.

‘For princes enjoy the sight of their women’s former lovers no more than we do,’ he said, ‘and it was bold of her to allow you to see her again, even though there were witnesses present to swear, if necessary, that nothing untoward occurred. In this, as in all other respects, Almansur is a sharp-eyed master, so that Toke will do well to keep a tight rein on his tongue.’

Toke replied that there was no fear of his doing otherwise; and that his most immediate concern was to think of a good name for his sword. For such a sword as his had surely come from the hand of as great a smith as he who had forged Sigurd’s sword Gram, or Mimming, which had belonged to Didrik, or Skofnung, which Rolf the Jade had wielded. Therefore, it must have a name, as theirs had had. But he could not hit upon any name that pleased him, although he tried assiduously to think of one. Orm, however, called his sword Blue-Tongue.

They left Solomon with many expressions of thanks, and were conducted to Almansur’s palace, where they were received by an officer of the royal household, and were given armour and a full complement of weapons, and commenced their service in Almansur’s bodyguard. And the seven men from the north elected Orm to be their chieftain.