The Long Ships (14 page)

After a while he gave the secretaries permission to rest and bade the commander of the guard approach with his men. He turned his face from the cage and gazed at Orm and the other Vikings. His eyes were black and as though grief-stricken, but it seemed as if something burned and glittered deep down in their depths, so that the men found it difficult to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds. He studied them critically, one by one, and nodded his head.

“These men have the bearing of warriors,” he said to the commander. “Do they understand our language?”

The commander indicated Orm and said that he understood Arabic, but that the rest knew little or none, and that they regarded him as their chieftain.

Almansur said to Orm: “What is your name?”

Orm told him his name and added that in his language it meant Serpent.

Almansur then asked him: “Who is your King?”

“Harald, the son of Gorm,” replied Orm, “and he is the lord of all the Danish kingdom.”

“I do not know of him,” said Almansur.

“Be glad of it, lord,” replied Orm, “for whithersoever his ships sail, kings pale at the sound of his name.”

Almansur gazed at Orm for a few moments; then he said: “You are quick-tongued, and deserve the name you bear. Is your King a friend of the Franks?”

Orm smiled, and answered: “He was their friend when his own country was disturbed by insurrection. But when Fortune smiles upon him, he burns their cities, both in Frankland and in Saxony. And he is a King whom Fortune dotes on.”

“Perchance he is a good King,” said Almansur. “Who is your god?”

“That is a more difficult question to answer, lord,” replied Orm. “My gods are the gods of my people, and we think them strong, as we ourselves are. There are many of them, but some of them are old, and few men trouble to worship these, apart from poets. The strongest of them is called Thor. He is red, as I am, and is held to be the friend of all mortal men. But the wisest of them is Odin, who is the god of soldiers, and they say that it is thanks to him that we Northmen are the best warriors in the world. Whether any of our gods have done anything for me, though, I do not know; certain it is that I have not done much for them. And they seem to me to have little sway in this land.”

“Now listen carefully, infidel,” said Almansur, “to what I am about to say. There is no God save Allah. Say not that there are many, nor that there are three; it shall be well for you on the Judgment Day if you do not say these things. There is but one Allah, the Eternal, the Sublime; and Mohammed is His Prophet. This is the truth, and this you shall believe. When I wage war against the Christians, I wage it for Allah and the Prophet, and ill betide any man of my army who does not honor them. From henceforth, therefore, you and your men shall worship none but the true God.”

Orm replied: “We men of the north do not worship our gods except in time of necessity, for we think it foolish to weary them with babbling. In this land we have worshipped no god since the time when we sacrificed to the sea-god to bless our homeward voyage with luck; and that proved to be of little use to us, for not long afterwards your ships appeared and we whom you see here became your captives. Perchance it may be that our gods wield but little power in this land; therefore, lord, I for my part shall willingly obey your command and worship your God while I am your servant. If it be your pleasure, I shall ask my comrades what is their feeling in this matter.”

Almansur nodded his assent, and Orm said to his men: “He says that we must worship his God. He has only one God, who is called Allah, and who dislikes all other gods. My own belief is that his God is powerful in this country, and that our gods are weak so far away from our homeland and theirs. We shall receive better treatment if we follow the custom of the people in this matter, and I think it would be foolish of us to go against Almansur’s wishes.”

The men agreed that they had little choice, and that it would be madness to anger so mighty a lord as Almansur; at length, therefore, Orm turned to Almansur and informed him that they were all willing to worship Allah and to promise to invoke no other god.

Almansur then summoned two priests into his presence, together with a magistrate, before whom Orm and his men were made to repeat the holy creed of the servants of Mohammed, as pronounced to Orm by Almansur: namely, that there is no God save Allah, and that Mohammed is His Prophet. All the men save Orm found difficulty in enunciating the words, though they were carefully spelled out to them.

When this ceremony was completed, Almansur appeared to be well pleased, and told the priests that he felt that he had thereby done a good service to Allah, with which they agreed. Then, putting his hand into the copper box that stood on his table, he took from it a handful of gold coins and gave fifteen pieces to each of the men, but thirty to Orm. They thanked him, and were conducted by the commander back to their own quarters.

Toke said: “Now we have bidden farewell to our gods. This may be a right thing to do in a foreign land, where other gods reign; but if I ever reach home again, I shall bother more about them than about this Allah. Still, I dare say he is the best god in these parts, and he has already provided us with gold. If he can manage to provide a few women too, he will rise even higher in my estimation.”

A short while afterwards Almansur declared war against the Christians and set out northwards with his Imperial bodyguard and a mighty army. He plundered for three months in Navarre and Aragon, during which time Orm and his men won both gold and women, so that they declared themselves well satisfied to serve such a master. Each subsequent spring and autumn they found themselves in the field under Almansur’s banners, resting in Córdoba during the worst of the summer heat and during those months of the year which the people of the south call winter. They did their best to accustom themselves to the habits of the country, and found little cause for complaint in their employment, for Almansur often rewarded them with rich gifts, to secure their loyalty, and everything that they won by storm or plunder they were permitted to keep for themselves, apart from one fifth, which they had to yield to him.

Sometimes, however, they found it somewhat irksome to be followers of Allah and servants of the Prophet. Whenever on their expeditions they found wine or pork in the Christians' houses, they were forbidden to enjoy either commodity, though they longed for both. This decree, which appeared to them more extraordinary than any they had previously heard of, they seldom dared to disobey, for Almansur punished any disobedience very strictly. In addition to this, they found themselves having to pray to Allah and abase themselves before the Prophet far too often for their taste; for every morning and evening when Almansur was in the field, the whole of his army would fall to its knees, facing the direction in which the City of the Prophet was said to lie, and every man had to bow several times, pressing his forehead against the earth. This seemed to them a debasing and ridiculous thing for a man to have to do, but they agreed that there was nothing for it but to conform to this custom as best they could and do as the rest of the army did.

They excelled in battle and won a great name for themselves in the bodyguard. They held themselves to be the best men in it, and when the time came for the dividing up of booty, no man challenged their right to whatever they chose. There were eight of them, all told: Orm and Toke, Halle and ögmund, Tume, who had rowed with Toke, Gunne, who had rowed with Krok, Rapp, who was one-eyed, and Ulf, who was the oldest of them. Once, long before, he had had one of the corners of his mouth split at a Christmas feast, ever since when he had been known as Grinulf, because his mouth sat awry and was broader than other men’s. Their luck was so good that only one of them lost his life during all the four years that they were in Almansur’s service.

They traveled far and wide, for the more Almansur’s beard became flecked with gray, the more vehemently he harried the Christians, spending less and less time peacefully at home in his palace at Córdoba. They were with him when he marched far northwards to Pamplona, in the Kingdom of Navarre, where twice they attempted vainly to storm the city; but the third time, they took it and gave it to the sword. Here Tume, who had shared Toke’s oar in the galley, was killed by a stone from a catapult. They sailed in Almansur’s own ship to Majorca, when the governor of that island had shown himself refractory, and stood guard while his head was struck off, together with those of thirty of his kinsmen. They fought in dust and heat a grim conflict at Henares, where the Count of Castile’s men pressed them hard but were at length encircled and annihilated. There, on the evening following the battle, the dead Christians were piled together and built into a great mound of corpses, from the summit of which one of Almansur’s priests called the servants of the Prophet to prayer. Then they marched on a huge expedition to the Kingdom of León, where they harried King Sancho the Fat so sorely that in the end his own men found him dispensable (for he was so fat that he could no longer sit on a horse) and deposed him and came with tribute to Almansur.

Throughout all these campaigns Orm and his men never ceased to marvel at Almansur’s sagacity and power and at the great luck that always attended his enterprises; but most of all they marveled at the extent of his fear of Allah, and the variety of measures that he was forever devising to placate his God. All the dirt that gathered on his shoes and clothing when he was in the field was carefully scraped off each evening by his servants and placed in a silken bag; and at the conclusion of every campaign this bagful of dirt was brought back to Córdoba. He had ordained that all this dirt that he had collected in his wars against the Christians was to be buried with him when he died, because the Prophet had said: “Blessed are those who have trodden dusty ways to fight against the unbelievers.”

Despite all this dirt, however, Almansur’s dread of Allah no whit decreased, and finally he decided to undertake a mightier enterprise than any that he had yet attempted: namely, to destroy the holy city of the Christians in Asturia, in which the apostle James, the great miracle-worker, lay buried. In the autumn of the twelfth year of the reign of the Caliph Hisham, which was the fourth year that Orm and his men spent in Almansur’s service, he assembled an army larger than any that had ever before been seen in Spain, and marched northwestwards, proceeding through the Empty Land, which was the old dividing barrier between the Andalusians and the Asturian Christians.

They reached the Christian settlements on the far side of the Empty Land, which no Andalusian had penetrated in mortal memory, and each day saw them engaged in hard fighting, for the Christians defended themselves cunningly among the mountains and ravines. Then one evening, when the army had pitched camp and Almansur was resting in his great tent after evening prayer, the Christians launched a surprise attack. At first they threatened to overwhelm the Mohammedans, for a troop of them broke into the camp and created a panic, the air becoming wild with war-cries and shrieks for help. Hearing these, Almansur hastened forth from his tent, wearing his helmet and carrying his sword, but without his armor, to see what was afoot. Now, that evening Orm and two of his men, Halle and Rapp the One-Eyed, were standing guard at the entrance to the tent. As Almansur emerged, several of the enemy’s horsemen appeared, galloping toward the tent at full speed. When they saw Almansur, they recognized him by his green helmet-veil (for he was the only man in the army who wore that color) and, yelling triumphantly, cast their spears at him. It was a dark night, and Almansur was old and could not have evaded them; but Orm, who was standing nearest to him, flung himself suddenly at his back, bowling him over on to his face and taking two of the spears on his shield and a third in his shoulder. A fourth grazed Almansur’s side as he lay on the ground, and drew blood. Halle and Rapp rushed forward to meet the enemy, casting their spears at them and bringing one man from his horse; then others swarmed to their assistance from all directions, and the Christians were killed or put to flight.

Orm pulled the spear out of his shoulder and assisted Almansur to his feet, wondering dubiously how his master would feel about being knocked face downwards on to the ground. Almansur, however, was hugely pleased with his wound. It was the first that he had ever received, and he reckoned it as a piece of great good luck that he had been allowed to spill his blood for Allah’s sake, without sustaining any serious injury in the process. He ordered three of his cavalry commanders to be summoned before him, and rebuked them publicly before his assembled officers for not having kept better watch over the camp. They prostrated themselves at his feet and confessed their negligence; whereupon Almansur, as was his wont when he was in a good humor, allowed them time to say their prayers and bind up their beards before being led to execution.

To Halle and Rapp he gave a fistful of gold each. Then, while all the officers of the army were still drawn up before him, he bade Orm step forward. Almansur stared at him and said: “Red-bearded man, you have laid your hand upon your master, which it is forbidden for any soldier to do. What answer have you to make to this charge?”

Orm replied: “The air was alive with spears, and there was naught else to be done. But it is my belief, lord, that your honor is so great that what has happened cannot harm it. Besides which, you fell with your face toward your enemies, so that no man can say that you shrank from them.”

Almansur sat fingering his beard silently. Then he nodded and said: “It is a good answer. And you saved my life; and I have work yet to accomplish.”

He ordered a neck-chain to be brought from his coffers; it was of gold, and heavy. He said: “I see that a spear found your shoulder. Perchance it may prove painful. Here is balm for the pain.”

So saying, he hung the chain around Orm’s neck, which was an exceedingly rare honor for him to grant. After this incident Orm and his men stood even higher in Almansur’s favor than before. Toke examined the chain and expressed his delight that Orm had won so rich a gift.