He felt a lot better at midday break, when one of the Varangians came up with the blast pistol I was glad it had a so-called "shelf safety"-the second safety that Arno hadn't known about. Otherwise the Varangian, poking around in curiosity, might easily have shot a hole in the bottom of the ship, or killed some shipmate. I showed Arno how to disengage it, and advised him to leave it on when he was just wearing it around.
In turn, Arno was halfway friendly toward me again.
During our other off-shifts, with Michael's help, I talked with a few of the Norsemen, including Gunnlag Snorrason. The captain was from a Norse kingdom called Sweden, and at sixteen had gone to the Rhos land, where the warrior band he belonged to took service with a great prince named Jarisleif from time to time. Apparently the Rhos princes fought one another a lot. Jarisleif himself was descended from a Swede, as were most of the princes there.
Between hostilities, the Varangians occasionally raided Slav villages, selling their captives as slaves to the Greeks. Gunnlag laughed after he told me that. It had seemed, he said, as if the Greeks had all the gold in the world. So when his chief had a falling out with Jarisleif, their band had gone south in boats, down a great river to the Black Sea.
It had been a dangerous trip. The southernmost end of the river flowed through grasslands held by the Patzinaks-dark fierce horse barbarians who grazed their herds there. Reaching the Black Sea, the Varangians had rowed to Miklagard to take service with the Greek Emperor. Miklagard had proved everything men said of it.
Gunnlag cocked an eye at me then. "Surely you have been to Miklagard. How could one come here from India and not visit Miklagard?"
"Through the sky," I told him. "Through the sky." And he believed me, or that's how it looked, anyway, because after probing me with his eyes for a moment, he nodded.
He'd fought for the Emperor for eight years, Gunnlag told me, then had shipped home to Sweden. With the gold he took with him, he'd had this ship built on a great lake called Vanern, then rode it down the river Gota to the Northern Sea. In his youth, the old man who'd built it had built ships for the last of the Vikings. This one was built much like them, for ease of rowing, but a bit broader and deeper of keel for long sea voyages. By having his passengers row when the winds were not favorable, the trips went faster and there was less quarreling on board.
This had been Gunnlag's third voyage carrying pilgrims to the Holy Land. But when they had stopped at Crete, they'd been told by an admiral of the Byzantine Emperor that pilgrims landing in the Holy Land recently had been sold into slavery there. The Emperor was gathering a new army to punish the Saracens for it, and surely those who took part would be rewarded not only with gold in this life but with Heaven afterward.
Most of the Swedes had planned to go to Miklagard anyway, after first visiting the holy city of Jorsala where the Christ had died. Instead, following this bad news, they went directly to Miklagard, where most of them entered service in a Varangian regiment. Gunnlag had recrewed his ship with Varangian veterans wishing to return to the lands of their birth. Now, aboard ship, there were not only men from Sweden, but from Denmark, Norway, and even distant Iceland, all speaking dialects of Norse. There were even two who'd been born in the Rhos land and had never seen the home of their fathers, though they could speak their tongue.
That night, lying chilled in the bottom of the long ship, I couldn't help wondering if the Fanglithans would ever become civilized. But then I remembered Brother Oliver and the monks, and Isaac ben Abraham. And back in Normandy, Father Drogo and Pierre the tanner, each of them a man of peace. Maybe dominance by warlike cultures was just a phase, one that Fanglith would have to live through.
Then what phase was the Federation-turned-Empire in? Was tyranny just a phase? If it was, it had been recurring for a long time. And meanwhile, I told myself, what I needed was warriors. The Glondis Empire made slaves of peaceful people.
TWENTY-TWO
The next morning I was so stiff and sore I couldn't believe it. Me, who'd always been so good at athletics, who'd been one of the stronger kids in school! I could hardly close my hands or pick up food with them. About my only consolation was that I wasn't the only one. Michael and Arno weren't moving around too well either. I don't suppose Arno's sword-callused right hand was peeled raw like mine, but I wasn't so sure about his left.
One of the Varangians grinned at us and said something in Norse. Arno had been practicing the
language, and seemed to be doing pretty well, so I asked him what the man had said.
"He said the oar does that to you, when you're not used to it. And that the best cure for the oar is the oar. Yesterday one of them told me they were all sore the second day out of Miklagard."
I examined my hands-an oozing mess. I got another bucket of salt water to soak them, then just sort of flexed and unflexed them to limber them up before using the oar again.
The first minute was the worst, as far as pain was concerned.
As I rowed, I thought of the young slave oarsman that Deneen and Tarel had rescued. He must be pretty tough, I decided. I hoped he didn't cause any problems on their wilderness island. In Deneen's description, though, Moise had sounded all right. And Bubba had approved of him; that was the best assurance I could ask for.
By mid-morning my muscles weren't nearly as sore, although I was tired again, and even my hands felt better. As I had the day before, I soaked them in salt water for a while after each shift. We were finishing off our lunch when one of the Varangians saw sails to the southwest. They were triangular-two at first, and quickly two more. If we kept our present course, we'd just about run into them.
Gunnlag began shouting orders. Then, pulling on his steering oar, he put us into a long turn toward the north. The other rowing shift moved quickly to their oars. Of my shift, some began lowering the spar and sail, while others hauled furiously on the tow rope, taking in the slack that formed before the horse ship's steersman could match our turn. Arno ran to the stern of the long ship, his expression a mixture of chagrin and determination.
I saw Michael questioning a Varangian, and went over to him. "What is it?" I asked.
"The captain believes the sails are a Saracen fleet, and I think he is right. If that is so, we will have to abandon the prize ship and flee, else we will be taken."
Abandon the horse ship, and Arno's herd! Meanwhile, Gunnlag was determined to pick up his men aboard her. By that time I could see seven or eight sails, and surely they had seen ours. I grabbed the braided leather rope and helped pull; under the circumstances, I almost forgot how sore my hands were.
When we'd completed our turn, the oarsmen slowed until we'd pulled the prize ship's bow against our stern. As soon as they bumped, Arno vaulted across, and I thought I knew why: He wanted to find the spare charge cylinders for the blast pistol. Meanwhile the Varangian prize crew was scrambling aboard the long ship, but not the Greek crew; they were staying! Whether by choice or Varangian order, I didn't know. When the last Varangian was aboard, one of them raised his sword to cut the rope-and Arno wasn't back aboard yet! I grabbed the Varangian's sword arm and began yelling.
"Arno!" I yelled. "For God's sake, get back here! They're going to cut the rope!"
The Varangian stared, bug-eyed and indignant, for just a second, then aimed a punch at my head with his free hand, but I ducked it. Gunnlag shouted at him, then across at Arno in Norse, and the man I had hold of stopped trying to shake me loose. A moment later Arno came out of the hold and leaped aboard. Another Varangian cleft the rope.
"They were not there!" he said. "Someone must have thrown them overboard, else I'd have found them." His eyes were blazing. "If I had them, I could drive back the entire Saracen fleet. Then I'd take over this ship and make them row us to Palermo as my prize!"