Wayward Heroes Page 18

  Þorgeir said: “Why then, if the Rouen peasants are men and Frankish, and have had enough of Richard their king, do they not form an army against us in warrior fashion, and meet us in battle with Frankish swords, stoutness of heart, and savagery, and kill him? Such a thing would be more valorous than sneaking up on people by night and threatening them with fence posts or entangling them in fishing nets or scalding them with broth and piss.”

  “Trolls take your valor and your warrior fashion,” said the old woman. “And as for your murderous deeds, they are worthy of praise by none but the fools who sniff along after you, whom you call your skalds. Now, Þorgeir Hávarsson, you have this choice: you may stay here and marry my granddaughter, the mistress of this house, since you Vikings have hanged her husband. She saved your life tonight, when her kinsmen and brothers-in-law were determined to kill you. You owe this woman your life many times over.”

  Þorgeir Hávarsson thought things over for a little while, before saying: “To little avail have good skalds sung of the glory of kings and immortalized the fame of high-minded warriors, if I am to sit here and grow soft, squandering my manhood in love games. My sworn brother, Þormóður the skald, and I had other things in mind the day we parted at the shoal. Þormóður will hardly find much in me worthy of his verses when he hears that I lived out my life and lay down to die as a peasant in Rouen, among swine and babies, with Cabbage-Christ and Onion – even if my wife was beautiful and worthy. He will find little cause to leave his home and ladylove and set out to avenge me. The world must have grown rather flat if heroes are not to be found anymore but in women’s arms.”

  The ragged old crone said: “You have chosen as I expected you would, and it is just as well. Off with you, then, to perform deeds befitting a warrior: setting fire to people’s houses and killing everything that draws breath for your sea-kings or sovereigns – all in order to rule the world.”

  At these words, Þorgeir, though not fully recovered, rose from his bed, pulled on his shoes and threw on his tunic.

  The dauntless hero and the Norman woman exchanged few words in parting. The housewife flung a broom at him as he limped out the door, while the old woman remarked that there went a leper who would assuredly suffer an inglorious death someday, detested by all and succorless.

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  A KING NAMED Sweyn, the son of Harald Bluetooth, ruled over Denmark. In their books, the Danes call him Twobeard, and the Icelanders Forkbeard. In English books he has the nickname Father-Slayer, after having adorned himself with far more glory than any other king by fighting against his father and killing him. In his childhood, Sweyn had been received into Christianity by the German emperor, but had renounced his faith and now desired to kill all Christians, clergymen in particular.

  King Sweyn heard report of England as a place where intrepid kings might win great renown, so he assembled an imposing fleet in Denmark and sailed with it to England in order to harrow the land.

  The Danes arrived in England’s east, and ordered a part of their troops ashore and the rest to remain aboard ship. Sweyn Bluetoothsson was quite a different king from Thorkell Strutharaldsson. The latter was a sea-king whose experience was solely aboard ships, making him more of a marauder than a conqueror. He gave little thought to subjugating countries, even when given the opportunity, which is why he plundered King Æthelred’s England of all its valuables rather than occupy it. Sweyn, for his part, was more bent on conquering countries than plundering them, and his men diligently subdued towns and shires. Wherever they came, they began immediately to reorganize things to their liking, and beheaded or mutilated the leading aldermen and clerics, while sparing people’s property. Many Englishmen came to parley with King Sweyn and pledge him their allegiance, stating that they preferred their king to be a foreign, heathen patricide and sworn enemy of Christians than a native, devout Christian king who carved bones in peacetime and vomited in wartime, and never commanded his troops against anyone but his own subjects.

  As for King Æthelred, he was as generous as ever to his foreign enemies, and just as King Thorkell had obtained from him all the struck silver that he demanded, along with other treasures, so too did the newly arrived king receive almost everything that he desired. King Æthelred’s first reaction was to vomit mightily, as usual, and to remain beneath his bedsheets as Sweyn subdued town after town. When Æthelred was finally able to speak again, he sent to King Sweyn to inquire of his demands, and to inform him that all he asked would be his. Sweyn, however, sent back word that he demanded the kingdom of England.

  King Æthelred had yielded all of his wealth to King Thorkell, and now he handed over his realm to King Sweyn, leaving him with nothing but Queen Emma and seven birds carved from bone. Some compassionate fishermen then offered him their boat and transported him and his queen to Rouen, where he met his brother-in-law, Duke Richard, and supplicated for his aid.

  The Vikings had stopped their attacks for the time being and, as defenders of Duke Richard’s realm, were entertaining themselves in Rouen, some in the castles and others on their ships. As was usual when Vikings hired out their services to kings, the townsfolk met their every demand. They spent many an evening drinking in taverns and recounting to each other tales of their valiant deeds and their exploits in battles throughout the world, as well as the perils they had faced at sea, not to mention the distinctions bestowed on them by kings and high-born maidens. In addition to this, they attended the churches on the numerous holidays and festivals observed by the clergy. Frankish books state that every harlot in the town flocked there to find customers, particularly on high holy days. The commoners also took great pleasure in viewing the gloriously arrayed countesses or bishops’ mistresses, as well as praiseworthy abbesses strutting in scarlet cloaks bordered with lace down to their hems, and wearing wimples adorned with gemstones.

  Duke Richard now met with the Vikings, to request, on behalf of his brother-in-law Æthelred, that they sail to England and help drive King Sweyn Bluetoothsson out of the country, promising them rich rewards if they managed to subjugate the English to Æthelred’s rule once more. At this entreaty, some of the Vikings’ brows sunk down to their noses, and they protested that the brothels in Rouen were far more elegant than those in England, the wine sweeter, the church festivals more frequent and lively, the chanting more admirable. The climate was so good in Rouen that grass grew in midwinter and cows continued to give summer milk. Yet others in the company were all for great ventures, rather than living for womanish entertainments or toiling away at haymaking – they declared that the Vikings had taken a turn for the worse if they denied themselves glory and chose instead to dally over trollops, gape at monks croaking evensong, or admire livestock grazing. All agreed, however, that there was little hope of further glory in playing the henchmen of such a pitiful king as Æthelred. It was to be regretted, they said, that Thorkell the Tall had not seized the opportunity to make himself king of England. They were convinced that Sweyn Forkbeard must be a hard-nosed king if he had not even shirked from killing his father.

  Time passed as they pondered whether to sail to England, until news came to Rouen that some welcomed joyfully: King Sweyn Forkbeard was dead, the victim of illness. The Danes had sailed away, and England was now without a king. At this news, the Vikings did not hesitate to pledge their support to King Æthelred, so they rigged their ships and prepared to sail to England.

  As previously recounted, on the day that the townsfolk were mutilated in Canterbury and the venerable Ælfheah was pelted to death, a young lad stood at the archbishop’s side, his gaze fixed on Heaven, his face fair and his eyes beautiful. The chief torturer, Olaf Haraldsson the Stout, stepped forward and proclaimed this boy too maidenly to die, and asked that his life be spared. Having struck Ælfheah dead, the Vikings went up to behold this youth who had stood beside the holy man and chanted as he was martyred. They all found the boy very comely, and various among them said that they would be happy to have him as a wife. When King Thorkell heard th
ese gibes, he declared that no man was to dare humiliate the lad. “He shall serve me, and I will be his guardian,” said Thorkell. King Thorkell kept the lad constantly at his side, and lodged him in his own chamber. The Vikings could not pronounce the boy’s Latin name, which he had received in holy baptism, and instead called him Grímkell. Thorkell treated him as a great confidant, and consulted him on a variety of things.

  After Thorkell became a Christian, he grew even fonder of his foster son Grímkell, and asked him about many things he had previously thought insignificant, particularly concerning the Christian church – who its rightful rulers were, and what weapons they had. It seemed to the Viking that the bishop of Rome was the one in charge, and then the lesser bishops, and that they used magic and Latin spells and other sorcery, against which Óðinn and the old Norse gods had no defense, including the power to excommunicate their foes and put kings on thrones, and Christ the heavenly smith had shared this power with his bishops when he dwelt in this world, before he was martyred. The Viking made a point of learning about Christ and his stewards, and determining which things said about him were true, and which were untrue. Until the hour that the Vikings became Christians, all they had ever heard was that those deeds were right and those words true that could be backed with weapons or bribes, and that any other justification for words or deeds was quite useless. Yet now there was this new idea derived from the example of the saints, that some deeds were right and others wrong, not by the nature of things, but according to divine wisdom. King Þórkell found it quite troublesome that the bishops should be the only ones capable of interpreting the will of Christ in matters of greatest interest to a warlord, such as how battle was to be conducted against Christian men, what justified burning innocents and other wretches alive, and when Christ deems it right and proper to set fire to churches.

  For this reason, King Thorkell declared his intent to appoint a bishop as his right-hand man in weighty matters, to deliver verdicts on Christ’s precepts for murder, torture, and the desecration of churches, as well as for the slaughter of the poor and the weak. Archbishop Robert, however, was less than enthusiastic about the need to ordain a bishop for King Thorkell, saying that it was Christ’s will that bishops have their seats on land and sing in cathedrals, and not be roving the seas.

  In the town were some wandering Armenians, who claimed to be clerics and lawful successors of the apostles, and that they had been driven from their homeland by the Seljuks, a people who followed the prophet Mohammed. Armenians profess neither Byzantine Christianity nor Roman, but Gregorian. The Vikings came across an Armenian bishop in a tavern in the town, and expressed their desire to pay him to ordain the lad Grímkell as bishop – but the itinerant was reluctant. First the Vikings offered him ale and wine, and then silver. It was only after they showed him burnished gold, which the archbishop verified to be well struck, that he sent for his fellows, some other traveling clerics who were in town. For the longest time, these clerics refused the task, calling it a scandalous abomination for Christ to reveal his mysteries to pirates and thieves from the northern end of the world. The more the bishops drank at the Norsemen’s expense, hearing the constant jingling of the precious Frankish gold in their ears as they downed their ale, the warmer they grew toward the matter, until finally – being nearly penniless – they gave in.

  Every church in town was closed to heretics, and there was a ban on providing them places for any of their sacred rites. Thus, Grímkell was ordained bishop in a common marketplace, in the midst of horses, Cabbage-Christ, and Onion, as well as the slaughtered hogs and other victuals the peasants had brought to market. The blessing was brief and the chanting strained, and the Vikings stood guard over the ceremony, shooing away boys and dogs that the clergy stirred up against them. When their work was done, the wandering clerics left with their gold, but Thorkell sent trustworthy men to testify at the council of clerics, named the capitulum, that the ordination had been performed and that Grímkell had received his ring and crosier.

  Canon law stipulates that any man who accepts an office or is ordained by a wandering bishop is to be excommunicated, yet that neither God nor men nor the Lord Pope himself can repudiate a man’s ordination or sacred ministry if he is a true successor of the apostles – and neither the capitulum nor suffragan bishops were able to deprive Grímkell of his bishopric.

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  WHEN THORKELL the Tall and his troops landed in England, they encountered few Danish defenders, and fought only minor skirmishes. Yet Englishmen came from inland to meet Thorkell: clerics and laymen, rich and poor, weeping profusely with joy at King Æthelred’s return, and entreating him to remount the throne. No king, they declared, was more beloved to them than he. Nature itself, they cried, had bestowed him on them by the will of Christ – particularly if he would govern them more circumspectly than he had done until then.

  As written earlier in this book, Æthelred was such a peaceable king that he made war on none but his own subjects, and then only if he found himself forced to strengthen their Christian devotion or collect unpaid taxes, especially after having surrendered all his own wealth. In truth, it was said, warfare was so abhorrent to him that he began vomiting at the mere mention of other kings, and took to his bed if they were reported to be near. His delight was to remain in his castle – not to hurl rocks down on his enemies, but to watch his spouse Emma promenade through its halls, while he carved birds of bone or created silver filigree for her. He firmly believed that Queen Emma was the fairest woman in all Christendom or beyond. He would give all he owned, his estates and castles, as well as the possessions of every Englishman, their houses and farms, along with the entire kingdom of Britain, only to be able to live in peace with this woman, for whom his heart practically burst with affection. For this reason, King Æthelred has been called one of the most inept kings ever to occupy the throne of England.

  Æthelred, however, had not long returned to his peaceful, leisurely life in his castles, leaving the country’s defense to Thorkell and his men, before another fleet came sailing from the east, comprising more ships than had ever been seen off England’s shores. The troops aboard this flotilla, including numerous great and dauntless champions, made war by sea and land against any force that opposed them. For a very long time, Thorkell and his warriors had followed a policy that was more profitable to them than battle: never to put their lives at risk if they encountered a doughty army. When they asked who was now preparing to attack King Æthelred’s forces, they were told that it was King Cnut Sweynsson from Denmark, whom the Danes had chosen to be king of England, to take control of the realm that his father Sweyn Bluetoothsson had seized in that country. Each and every man who did not pledge perfect allegiance to Cnut from the start would lose nothing less than his property and his life.

  Although Thorkell the Tall had never occupied another territory, he was such a mighty naval commander that he could demand as much tribute as any one of his fellow Danish kings wherever he landed. He obeyed no man’s command in matters he was convinced were his own to decide. Now it seemed that England was being threatened by someone no less formidable at sea than Thorkell Strutharaldsson. While pointless skirmishes between Vikings and Danes were taking place off England’s coast or on its headlands, the leaders of the Vikings held long deliberations as to whether they should make a determined attempt to defend England against King Cnut, and what it might cost them.

  While this is going on, and no final decision has yet been made by the chieftains nor any order has been issued by King Thorkell, it happens late one night that one of Thorkell the Tall’s subordinates, so low-ranking that his name is not given in the books written about these events by learned Englishmen, orders some of his best men, forecastlemen all, to launch a boat under cover of night and row out to the Danish fleet anchored opposite. As they approach Cnut’s fleet, the Danish watchmen hear the clanking of the oars and order them to halt, and the man in charge of the rowers replies:

  “We are unarmed.”
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  The watchmen ask who they are.

  The other answers: “I am Olaf Haraldsson of Norway, here to entreat peace of King Cnut.”

  The watchmen aboard the king’s ships shine their lanterns on the boat to get a look at the men, and notice that their leader is wearing several gold rings, three cloaks, two silver belts, and tall boots from France, inlaid with gold. When the watchmen see these tokens, and that there are no weapons aboard, they direct the boat’s crew to King Cnut’s fortification a short distance up on the headland.

  At this point in our story, King Cnut Sweynsson was eighteen years old. He and Olaf Haraldsson were much the same age – but were quite different in character.

  Olaf the Stout had grown up aboard ships, with the sights and smells of salt and tar, rotten seaweed and vomit, lice and decay, rashes and scabs, scurvy and itching, and the sweaty stink of sailors long unwashed. He had no education, apart from the tall tales and hashed and hackneyed poems that sailors swapped to stave off tedium and steel themselves – all of them about battles and sea perils, deeds of derring-do and feats of renown, as well as obscene anecdotes on the shenanigans of ogresses in the North, or vulgar verses about the gods.

  King Cnut Sweynsson was reared in the residences of kings and bishops, in halls or castles. In his youth, he learned the arts fit for men of high estate: skill in arms and knightliness, and how to wear one’s weapons or clothing in the manner of noblemen, as gracefully as the barons who served the emperor. From childhood, he had served the bishops sent to the Danes from Bremen, and they never let him out of their pincer-grasp even when his father, Sweyn, turned apostate. Clerics had taught Cnut how to read from Latin books and chant antiphons in the choir. He learned, too, how to pray at the altar with tears and sighs, both genuflectens and prostratus. Cnut was pale and pop-eyed, as is common among his lineage, and he had thick yellow hair. He was as intemperate in his merrymaking as he was lacrimose at the altar. He wore a light blue kirtle and had laid aside his red mantle. Richly embroidered shoes adorned his feet, and from his belt hung a curved Saracen sword in a golden sheath, exquisitely engraved and ornamented with the fairest of gemstones. Long goatskin gloves bedecked his hands and arms. He was sitting drinking with his fellows and a few singing-girls when into his hall waddled Olaf the Stout, a thick-necked potbelly despite his young age, flat-footed and knock-kneed. The girls burst out giggling at this visitor, from whom dangled rings, brooches, pins, and many other baubles, besides numerous crumpled cloaks, some too long, others rather tight. The king slammed his tankard down on the table and asked what scullery boy this was.