The Long Ships (25 page)

Ylva said that several of King Harald’s men had complained of the backache after being baptized and had requested the Bishop to give them money for the pain, but that, apart from this, they were apparently none the worse for their experience; indeed, there were many who had now come to regard baptism as being advantageous to a man’s health. The priests had no objection to a man’s eating pork, as Orm had doubtless observed during the Yuletide feasting, nor did they lay down any regulations regarding diet, save only that when anyone offered them horse-meat they spat and crossed themselves, and had at first occasionally been heard to mutter that men ought not to eat meat on Fridays; her father, however, had expressed his unwillingness to hear any more talk on that subject. She herself could not say that she had found the new religion in any way inconvenient. There were some, though, who held that the harvest was smaller and the cows’ milk thinner nowadays, and that this was because people had begun to neglect the old gods.

She drew her comb slowly through a tuft of Orm’s hair which she had just untangled, and held it up against the daylight to examine it closely.

“I do not understand how this can be,” she said, “but there does not appear to be a single louse in your hair.”

“That is not possible,” said Orm. “It must be a bad comb.”

She said that it was a good louse-comb, and scraped his head so that his scalp burned, but still she could find no louse.

“If what you say is true, then I am sick indeed,” said Orm, “and things are even worse than I had feared. This can only mean that my blood is poisoned.”

Ylva ventured the opinion that things might perhaps not be quite so bad as he feared, but Orm was much depressed by her discovery. He lay in silence while she finished her combing, acknowledging her further remarks with dispirited grunts. Meanwhile, however, Toke and Mirah had all the more to say to each other and appeared to be finding each other more and more congenial.

At last Orm’s hair and beard were combed ready, and Ylva regarded the results of her work with satisfaction.

“Now you look less like a scarecrow,” she said, “and more like a chieftain. Few women would run from the sight of you now, and you can thank me for that.”

She picked up his shield, rubbed it with her sleeve in the part where it was least scarred, and held it in front of his face. Orm regarded himself in it and nodded.

“You have combed me well,” he admitted, “better than I thought a king’s daughter could. It may be that you are somewhat above the run of them. You have earned a glimpse of my necklace.”

So saying, he loosened the neck of his shirt, drew forth the chain, and handed it to her. Ylva uttered a little cry as her hands closed on it. She weighed it in her fingers and admired its beauty; and Mirah left Toke and ran to look at it, and she, too, murmured aloud with wonder. Orm said to Ylva: “Hang it round your neck,” and she did as he bade her. The necklace was long and hung down over the breast-rings of her undergarment. She hastily set the shield on the wall-seat to see how the necklace looked against her throat.

“It is long enough to go twice round my neck,” she said, and was unable to take her eyes or her fingers from it. “How should it be worn?”

“Almansur kept it in a chest,” said Orm, “where no one ever set eyes on it. Since it became mine, I have worn it beneath my shirt until it chafed my skin, and never showed it to any man until this Yuletide, when it straightway brought me pain. No one, I think, can say that it has not now found a more suitable resting-place; therefore, Ylva, regard it as your own and wear it as you think most fitting.”

She clutched the necklace with both hands, and stared at him with enormous eyes.

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” she cried. “What have I done that you should give me such a princely gift? The noblest queen in the world would lie with a berserk for the sake of a poorer jewel than this.”

“You have combed me well,” replied Orm, and he smiled at her. “We who are of Broad-Hug’s line give good friendship-gifts or none at all.”

Mirah, too, wished to try on the necklace, but Toke commanded her to return to him and not to tease her mind with trinkets; and he had already won such power over her that she obeyed him meekly.

Ylva said: “Perhaps I would do best to hide it beneath my clothing, for my sisters and all the women in the palace would claw out my eyes to get it for themselves. But why you have given it to me is beyond my understanding, however much of Broad-Hug’s blood may run in your veins.”

Orm sighed, and answered: “What shall it profit me when the grass grows over my limbs? I know now that I shall surely die, for you have found that not even a louse will live on my body; though, indeed, I had guessed as much already. Perhaps it might have become yours even if I had not been marked for death; though then I should have required something of you in return for it. You seem to me to be well worthy of such a jewel, and it is my guess that you will prove fully able to defend it if anyone should challenge you to a contest of nails. But, for my part, I would rather live and see it glitter between your breasts.”

THINGS soon turned out as Ylva had foretold, for a few days later the Bishop began to hint that the two wounded men should allow themselves to be baptized; but he had no success with either of them in this matter. Orm lost his patience almost at once, and told him sharply that he wished to hear no more about it, as he had in any case but a short time left to live; and Toke said that he, for his part, would very soon be fit and well and so had no need of any spiritual assistance. The Bishop then set Brother Matthias to strive to win them over by patient methods and gradual education, and he made several endeavors to teach them the Creed, ignoring their entreaties to be left in peace. Then Toke had a good spear, slim-bladed and keen-edged, brought to him, and the next time Brother Matthias came to instruct them he found Toke sitting up in bed, supported on one elbow, weighing the spear thoughtfully in his free hand.

“It would be an ill thing to break the peace in King Harald’s palace,” said Toke, “but I do not think anyone can condemn an invalid for doing so in self-defense. It would also be a pity to soil the floor of so fine a chamber as this with the blood of a fat man, and your veins look full; I have persuaded myself, however, that if I can nail you cleanly to a wall with this spear, the blood-gush will be contained within reasonable limits. To do this will not be a simple task for a bedridden man to perform, but I shall try my best to execute it competently; and this I swear I shall do the moment you open your mouth to plague us with your prattle. For, as we have told you, we do not wish to hear any more of it.”

Brother Matthias turned white and raised his hands before him in fearful supplication. At first he seemed to be about to speak; then, however, his limbs began to quake and he beat a smart retreat from the chamber, slamming the door behind him. After this they were not disturbed by him any more. But Brother Willibald, who never showed any sign of fear, came at his usual time to dress their wounds, and rebuked them severely for the fright they had given Brother Matthias.

“You are a man of mettle,” said Toke, “though there is but little of you; and I confess that I prefer you to other men of your kidney, though you are rude and peevish. Perhaps it is because you do not try to badger us into this Christianity, but content yourself with ministering to our wounds.”

Brother Willibald replied that he had been longer than his fellow priests in this land of darkness and had managed to free himself from such vain fancies and ambitions.

“When I first came here,” he said, “I was as fanatical as any other member of the blessed Benedict’s order in my zeal to baptize every heathen soul. But now I am wiser and know what is feasible and what is merely vanity. It is right that the children of this land should be baptized, together with such women as have not wallowed too deeply in sin, if indeed any such are to be found; but the grown men of this country are veritable apostles of Satan and must, in the name of divine justice, burn in hell-fire, however assiduously one may baptize them; for no redemption can suffice to wipe away such vileness as their souls are stained with. Of this I am sure, for I know them well; therefore I do not waste my time trying to convert such men as you.”

His voice became frenzied, and he glared wrathfully from one to the other, brandishing his arms and crying: “Blood-wolves, murderers and malefactors, adulterate vermin, Gadarene swine, weeds of Satan and minions of Beelzebub, generation of vipers and basilisks, shall you be cleansed by holy baptism and stand as white as snow in the regiments of the blessed angels? Nay, I tell you, it shall not be so. I have lived long in this house and have witnessed too much; I know your ways. No bishop or holy father shall ever persuade me that such as you can be saved. How should men of the north be allowed to enter the gates of heaven? You would scrabble at the blessed virgins with your lewd fingers, you would raise your war-whoops against the seraphim and archangels, you would bawl for ale before the throne of God Himself! No, no, I know what I speak of. Hell alone will serve for such as you, whether you be baptized or no. Praised be Almighty God, the One, the Eternal, amen!”

He fumbled angrily among his medicines and bandages and bustled across the room to apply salves to Toke’s wound.

“Why do you exert yourself to make us well again,” said Orm, “if your hatred for us is so great?”

“I do it because I am a Christian and have learned to repay evil with good,” he replied, “which is more than you will ever learn to do. Do I not still bear the scar upon my brow where King Harald struck me with the holy crucifix? Yet do I not still daily minister to his contaminated flesh with all the skill that lies at my command? Besides which, it may ultimately be for the best that such fierce fighting-men as you should be kept alive in this land, for you are like to send many of your fellows to hell before you go there yourselves, as you have already done at this Christmas feast. Let wolf rend wolf, that the Lamb of God may dwell in peace.”

When he at length left them, Toke said that it looked as though the blow on the head which the little fellow had received when the King had cracked him with the cross had knocked the wits out of him, for most of what he had shouted at them had no sense in it; with which observation Orm agreed. But both of them admitted that he was marvelously cunning in medicine, and very diligent in the care he showed toward them.

Toke was now beginning to be himself again, and before long he was able to limp round the room and even outside it, while Orm lay alone in his bed, finding time heavy on his hands except when Ylva was there to talk to him. When she was at his side, the thought of his impending death troubled him less, for she was always full of merriment and bright talk, so that he found pleasure in listening to her; but he became sullen again as soon as she said that he was looking better and would soon be up and about. In regard to that matter, he said, he thought he knew best what was most likely to happen. Soon, however, he found himself able to sit up in bed without too much pain; and the next time Ylva combed him, she found a louse in his hair that was large and fresh and full of blood. This made him think deeply, and he said that he did not know what conclusion to come to.

“You must not let the matter of the necklace weigh on your mind,” said Ylva. “You gave it to me when you thought you were going to die, and the memory of it troubles you now that you see that you are going to live. But I shall gladly give it back to you, though it far surpasses in beauty anything that has ever before been seen in this land. For I do not wish it to be said that I lured your gold from you when you were sick with wounds; which I have already heard muttered more than once.”

“Truly, it would be good to keep such a jewel in one’s family,” said Orm. “But the best solution for me would be to have both you and the jewel; nor will I accept it back on any other condition. But before I ask your father what his feelings are in regard to this, I should like to know whether you yourself are so inclined. For the first time we spoke together you told me that if you had been forced to marry Sigtrygg, you would have driven a knife into him in his bridal bed, and I should like to be sure that you feel differently toward me.”

Ylva laughed merrily and said that he should not be too confident about this. “For I am of a stranger temper than you know,” she said, “and difficult to satisfy. And the daughters of kings are more troublesome than other women when they marry and leave home. Have you heard what befell Agne, the King of the Swedes, long ago, when he took to wife a king’s daughter from a land east of the sea, who was not willing to be his bedfellow? The first night after the marriage, he lay with her in a tent beneath a tree, and when he was sound asleep she fastened a rope to his neckring, which was a good, strong ring, and hanged him from the tree, though he was a great king and she had but one slave-girl to help her. So ponder the matter carefully before you seek my hand.”

She leaned forward and stroked his forehead and pinched his ears and looked into his eyes, smiling, so that Orm felt better than he had done for many days.

But then she suddenly became solemn and thoughtful and said it was vain to talk of such things before her father had expressed his opinion on the matter; and she thought it would be no easy thing to win his consent unless Orm was better favored than most men as regards property and cattle and gold.

“He complains incessantly that so many of his daughters are unwed,” she said, “but he will never admit that any man is sufficiently rich and noble to be worthy of us. It is not such a fine thing as people imagine to be a king’s daughter, for many bold youths wink furtively at us and finger the hem of our skirts when no one is watching, but few of them have the courage to carry their suit to our father; and such as do, come crestfallen from the interview. It is a sore pity that he is so intent on getting us worthy husbands, though it is true that a poor man would be no fit mate for me. But you, Orm, who can bestow such a necklace upon me and have the blood of the Broad Embrace in your veins, must doubtless be one of the richest princes in Skania?”