Swords From the West (19 page)

Black Odo's road was stopped. And he grunted with satisfaction, because this meant a fight, and nothing warmed the blood in his veins like a fight.

Big he was and bold-he could swing his four-foot sword with either hand and with cunning, being Norman born. Besides, he was Duke of Bari with the rents of a countryside to squander and eight hundred good spears to follow him. Black Odo his men called him, because he would draw back neither from peril nor sin. They said of him that he feared not the powers of darkness. Some said more-that for every horse in his stables, he had a woman to his will. They whispered that the tale of his sins was blacker than a pit in the hours of night. But now, in the Year of Our Lord one thousand and ninety-nine, he was Jerusalem bound, a cross upon his shoulder.

"God's life!" breathed Duke Odo, "'Tis no land flowing with milk and honey as the shave-pates swore."

He could see nothing around him but the barren, dry lands covered with tangles of thorn and nests of boulders. The driving dust was worse than the sun, in this long valley between low hills where it was a torment to wear the chain mail that they dared not take off. It was midafternoon, and the fleshy Norman sat under his pavilion flap nursing his long chin in his hand and gulping warm wine. On his jutting shoulder gleamed a scarlet cross, the edges sewn with rubies, for Odo did nothing in niggardwise, and he had seen to it that the crusaders' cross was an emblem of price.

His eye roved over the camp, on the boulder-strewn ridge. His banner with its rearing lion swelled and drooped in the wind gusts. Wherever the rocks gave any shade, his men-at-arms were clustered. The faded tents of his knights topped the horse lines, and between them a few women moved wearily, toward the uplifted arms of a barefoot friar who prayed for water.

Odo wondered why these daughters and sisters of his liegemen had taken the road to Palestine. They hungered for Jerusalem, and the salvation of their souls, and they would not turn back, although they were dying by the way. Odo had not seen a shapely throat or a sparkling eye among them. He himself looked forward to his fill of fighting and the despoiling of the pagan castles. The prospect was fair enough.

Ahead of him, only half a league away, some three thousand Arabs were encamped. And his Armenian guides told him that the Moslems were in possession of the only well in this stretch of the Stone Desert. The Normans were out of water-they had a little wine still-and unless they turned back at once to the coast, they must reach the well. Odo meant to reach the well, after dawn before the heat should weaken his men. And he counted the black tents of the Arabs grimly, for they were the first foemen to come into his way.

"Think ye, Sir Guy," he asked, looking up suddenly, "they will stand?"

A sallow Norman, his eyes dark with the fever that lurked in his veins, came forward. Unlike the giant duke, he wore faded blue linen, the cross sewn upon the back of his surcoat. He had been with the host that had captured Jerusalem the summer before, and the desert had left its mark upon him. Moreover, to Odo's thinking, he kept too much to himself, with his half dozen scarred followers and a girl who wore a veil like a Moslem-Sir Guy of the Mount they called him. He had joined Odo's company, with some Genoese merchants, for protection during the short journey from the sea to the city.

"They will do more than that, my lord," he answered.

"What, then?"

"They are a fighting clan. Having seen the bright armor and shining gear of thy men, and the merchants' caravan, they know thee for a newcomer in this land, and they will loot thy camp, if so be they may."

"By my faith," swore Odo, "they will not do that, for I shall break them, and gladden the foul Fiend by their death."

"Then guard thee, my lord, against one peril," the knight of the Mount advised. "These Moslems will come against thee, where thy standard is lifted. At first they will give way, then come in from all sides, assailing thy horse with arrows, and putting thee afoot. Long is thy sword's reach, but they will venture their lives fearlessly to ride thee down, and slay thee. 'Tis their way thus to make an end of the leader of a Christian host, knowing that his men will lose heart if he dies."

"Out upon thee, for a faint heart!" Odo grinned at the crusader. "Put some wine in thy belly."

A flush tinged the gray cheeks of the man from Jerusalem, and he turned on his heel with only a silent salutation. It was not good to bandy words with Black Odo.

But the Norman pondered what Sir Guy had said. He glanced over his shoulder at the couch where his helm stood-the polished steel crest of which was a rearing lion, nicely gilded. Few men of his day had such crests, but Odo liked to be known wherever he went. He liked to see foemen shrink away from him. As for arrows, he made mock of them-fit weapons for Genoese churls and Arab pagans who could not strike a good blow with steel. Still, he was too shrewd to make light of Sir Guy's warning. The man from Jerusalem had faced the Moslems too often not to know their ways.

And that morning, Odo had had a sign. A raven, a grave bird, had croaked at his ear. He rubbed his chin reflectively. It would take more than the croaking of a grave bird and the maundering of a sick man to make the Duke of Bari discard his crested helm and gilt mail and wear the plain steel casque and mail that his weapon man, Arnulf, carried in his sack-

Odo sat up abruptly, his hands gripping the arms of the chair. Down below his pavilion Sir Guy was walking away, slowly. And, hastening through the idle men-at-arms, that veiled girl came to meet him. She moved gracefully, and Odo thought that she must be strong, and not old. But others had noticed her, and a bearded Norman swordsman reached out an arm and tore the veil from her head. The girl was thrown to her knees and cried out involuntarily.

The Norman stood over her, roaring out something about the veil being Moslem and accursed. Another man stepped to her side, a man great of bone who overtopped the Norman by half a head. Long hair fell from the edge of his steel cap to his shoulders, covered with a bright crimson cloak. Heavy bands of gold shone against the brown skin of his arms, and Odo saw that his only armor was a corselet of square steel plates rudely fastened together.

The stranger stepped forward and thrust out his left arm, the heel of his open hand thudding against the Norman's forehead. To Odo's muttered surprise, the bearded swordsman fell with limp limbs, and did not rise. There were shouts and other men hastened up, surrounding the tall stranger. Steel rasped against leather, and more than one weapon flashed in the sun. Wine, in that heat, was not soothing to the blood.

Above the head of the stranger an ax was upflung-a broadax, as long as a man's forearm, with a curving, blue blade, the weight of the blade balanced by a heavy spike at the back. And at sight of this weapon in the warrior's hand, the Normans fell back.

"'Ware ye, the Viking!"

Meanwhile Sir Guy had made his way into the group, and at sight of him the Norman men-at-arms turned their backs. For a moment Odo had a clear view of the girl's face, as she caught the knight's arm and smiled up at him. An elfin face, with its pointed chin and fresh young lips. The girl had the fair skin of a child, and her dark eyes were more angry than afraid-the eyes of one who had never known harm. And a glimpse of her stirred Odo like hot wine. Then Sir Guy drew her away with him, leaning on her shoulder.

Odo had encountered no woman of her like for many weary months, and he followed the sick man and the girl with his eyes until they disappeared in Sir Guy's tent.

"In God's name-ho, Arnulf, what brat is that?" he exclaimed.

A slender man in a black tunic hastened forward and knelt by the duke's side. He had been polishing the silver plates of his master's sword belt in the back of the pavilion, but Odo often said that Arnulf, his armiger-weaponbearer-could see out of the back of his skull, and could hear all the better for his ears being cropped.

"Eh-ch! That one was the daughter of the Sieur Guy."

Odo grunted. "Her name?"

"Ilga." Arnulf considered. "He keeps her veiled, like a jewel in his tent. I have heard her singing." And, with a swift upward glance at his master, "Yet the Jerusalem knight is sick."

"The Fiend will not want a gossip, when thou diest. Nay, this sunrise I heard a grave bird call."

The henchman crossed himself hastily, and Odo frowned at a new thought. "Who is the churl in velvet and gold? My men gave back at his ax, as if a mad bull fronted them."

The stranger, after knocking down the Norman, had seated himself on a stone, his weapon between his knees. He said nothing, but the menat-arms took care to keep out of his way.

Arnulf shook his head. "May it please my lord, he is not a liegeman of Bari. And I know not-"

"Go, and learn, and return apace."

It puzzled Odo that his men should have taken a blow from the stranger, who was clearly no fellow of Sir Guy's. Within an hour Arnulf enlightened him.

"Eh-that one is a Viking, a sea king of the north. Body of an angel, he has no land to his name-only a galley that they call a dragon ship. Eric the Landless they called him at Constantinople, where he served the great emperor as captain."

Why the Viking had left his mist-filled fiords in the north, Arnulf did not know. There were many northern warriors in the emperor's guard. They followed the wars, and served faithfully the men who paid themotherwise they were dull of wit and drowsy, fit only to wield their weapons and fall in their own blood. So said Arnulf. But with those heavy weapons they were deadly as mad giants, when aroused. Arnulf himself had seen this same Eric the Landless hew a man through the body, from shoulder to hip, in a brawl at sea.

That Eric meant to go to Jerusalem was evident. He had joined the Normans at the coast. He had offered to stand shield to shield with them if they were attacked, provided they guided him to the city.

"He wears no cross," Arnulf shrugged. "He eats his own bread, serves himself-aye, he carries a bundle wrapped in fur on his shoulder when we march."

"A Viking," Odo mused. "Stands he to my height?"

"Aye, that doth he my lord."

The duke smashed down his hand upon his mailed thigh. "Then, by God's life, is he my man!" He lowered his voice.

"Hearken-thy chopped ears heard Sir Guy's warning? Who leads the Christians doth court death," said he.

"Aye, lord, and true it is. The Moslems will seek thee with their swords."

"On the morrow," Odo said thoughtfully, "one in my armor, wearing the crested helm and mounted on my charger, will lead the men of Bari. But I shall remain here."

"Eh-" the armiger laughed silently-"A mock duke!"

It was often done, he knew. Another man would wear the garments and carry the shield of Duke Odo; the heavy helm, being of the basket type, would hide his face. And the Norman leader, from the safety of the pavilion, could watch the battle unharmed-could join his men in case of need. And the trick would succeed. Moslems would naturally mark the man in the crested helm, beneath the standard, riding the duke's caparisoned charger. They would assail the mock duke. But who would take Odo's place?

"The Viking," said Odo. "Fetch me him, after candle lighting."

That evening the Normans ate dry bread and shivered in the chill air that stirred out of the gullies. The breath of the desert, it seemed, was not always hot, and they had no wood for fires. When candles were lighted in the tents, Eric the Landless strode through the camp at Arnulf's heels. He thrust up the entrance flap of the duke's pavilion and looked within before he entered, to find the Norman leader seated alone by a flagon on the table.

"Who gives the welcome?" the deep voice of the Viking boomed.

"I, Odo, lord of Bari, greet thee, Eric the Landless. Sit, and sup." He signed to Arnulf to fill a goblet for the stranger, by the leather platter of broken bread.

Eric flung himself into a chair that creaked under the weight of his long body. Limb for limb, the two were a match, but the dark, lined face of the Norman resembled in nothing the fair head of the Viking, whose soft mustache hid his lips, whose blue eyes above the high cheekbones were as quiet as still water. Odo thought he might be twenty years in age. And he held the shaft of the great ax, dark with oil and usage, in one broad hand. Sipping his wine, the duke considered his guest.

"Men say thou art a mighty giver of blows," he observed.

Eric emptied his goblet with a ringing "Skoal! " Then after a moment's thought he responded, "That is not to be denied."

"'Tis said thou wert a captain of the emperor's Varangian guard, and hast faced the paynim before now."

The Viking nodded.

"On the morrow," explained the Norman, "my men go against the Moslems who hold the well." And when Eric made no response except another nod, he added, "Thine armor is not proof against arrows. I have a mind to offer thee this chain haburgeon, and the shield and the helm. Look!"

Eric's eyes gleamed when Arnulf held the heavy mail up to the light-a mesh of fine steel chain-work that would cover a man from chin to toe. The armiger pointed to the helm, surmounted by the rearing lion, and the long shield bearing the same lion painted upon it in gilt. His own iron plates fastened together by leather thongs and girdled by his broad leather belt were poor stuff beside this armor of a prince.

"The gear is good," he said frankly, "and I like it well."

"I will lend thee likewise a good horse for the battle."

"That may not be," Eric shook his head. "I will stay at the camp on the morrow."

"God's life! With the merchants and churls?"

"Aye, so."

Black Odo threw himself back in his chair frowning.

Here was the stout fellow he wanted to take his place, a man whose life was spent in handling his weapons, and as accustomed to take blows as the iron-thewed Spartans or the trained gladiators of Rome. And he did not intend to fight. The duke knew of no one else, his very twin in size and bearing, fit to wear his armor. If he ordered one of his own men to take his place, the rogue would talk. Behind his chair, Arnulf whispered, "Offer him gold."