Then I heard a scream, and a man whimpered and began to cough and then fell silent. Then I was lying in a boat that was being pulled across the ground. I was given drink, and knew nothing. Then the boat was floating on the water, and it seemed to me that I was dead. The man who was rowing talked much, and I understood some of what he said. He was the second Khazar. He was singing and whistling, and very merry. He had run away when we had been attacked, and had fled back to my ship, but it had gone. So he had returned and, creeping up close behind the men who were working on me, and killed them both with arrows. Why he troubled to save what remained of me no one can know; he may have been a good man, as Khazars often are. Two poor peasants had come over from the other bank to plunder the dead, and he had given them the treasurer’s ship with all that it contained, on condition that they gave him their small boat and helped him carry me up the portage. Thus it happened; I know only what he said.
He laughed all the time and praised his luck, for on the bodies of the treasurer and his father he had found much silver and gold, and the arms and weapons that he had taken from them were of the finest workmanship. On the bodies of the other men, too, he had found money and jewels, and had, besides, taken a fine gold ring from the finger of my son. He was now, he told me, intending to buy horses in Kiev, and a woman or two, after which he would return to his own people, a rich man, in armor. He cared for me as well as he could while telling me all this. I wanted to drag myself over the side of the boat and drown, but was too weak to do so.
He knew that I wanted to go to Kiev, and when we reached the city, he handed me over to some monks. I wanted to reward him with silver, for he had left my belt untouched, but he would accept nothing. He had, he said, enough already, and had, besides, won favor with God for the way he had treated me.
I stayed with the monks and was nursed by them, until at length I grew better and began again to think of the gold. Then men from the north visited the monks and asked me questions. They understood that I wished to go home and learned that I had the means wherewith to pay them. So I ascended the river, one ship passing me on to another, until at last I came aboard the Gothlanders’ ship, where I met Orm.
All the time the thought weighed heavily on me that I would never be able to tell anyone about the Bulgar gold and where it lies, even if, by some marvel, I should reach home and rejoin my kinsmen. But now, thanks to your cunning, priest, I have been enabled to tell everything and can die happier.
As to the gold, Orm may do as he thinks best. It is a great treasure, enough for many men, and none can say what so much gold is worth, or how much blood has been spilled for its sake. It lies there in the place I spoke of and will not be hard to find for anyone who knows where to look for it. There is, besides, a mark near by which shows the place; the bones, by now pecked clean by crows, of the treasurer Theofilus and the sword-bearer Zacharias —may their souls wander without refuge till the end of time—and of my son, Halvdan, on whose soul God have mercy.
1. China. (The word “China” was not used in those times.)
CHAPTER FOUR
HOW THEY PLANNED TO GET THE GOLD
AS soon as he learned about the gold, Orm sent a man with a message to Toke.
“Tell him,” he said, “that there is question of a voyage after a great treasure in the Eastland, that he is the man whose advice I would most value on the matter, and that it would be good if he could come here quickly.”
Toke needed no further persuasion than this, and before Are and the priest had finished telling their story he arrived at Gröning, eager to learn more of what was afoot. After he had been welcomed and had drunk a cup of ale, he said:
“I heard word
Of bellied sailcloth,
Creak of oars,
And gold in Eastland.
Then I smelled
A smell remembered:
Salt of spray
And black-pitched boat’s keel.”
But Orm replied, more soberly:
“Twoscore years
And their stored wisdom
Curb men’s lust
For distant faring;
No slight task
By stealth to pilfer
Far-drowned gold
In Gardarike.
“But the treasure is rich beyond imagination,” he added, “and I have never needed counsel so urgently as in this affair. Ylva will not advise me; she says it is a matter that I must decide for myself, and it is not every day that she speaks thus. I have therefore asked you here to counsel me what to do. Here you see Olof Summerbird, who has himself been in the Eastland, and who is a man of much wisdom. Three heads are better than two when such an important matter as this has to be decided.”
Orm then told Toke of all that had happened to Are and of the Bulgar gold; the only thing he did not tell him was where the gold lay hidden.
“That knowledge,” he said, “I shall keep to myself until we reach the place. For gold can cause much bad luck; and if it should become known too soon where the gold lies, the information might come to the wrong ears, and other hands might touch it before mine. If this gold is ever to be lifted, it shall be lifted by my hands and no one else’s; for it has been bequeathed to me by Are, who thinks of himself as dead. But to those who help me get it I shall, if our journey proves successful, give good shares of it. I have been restless ever since I heard of this gold, and sometimes have hardly been able to sleep for thinking of it. What troubles me most is that, if I go in search of it, I shall be away from my home here for a long while and shall continually be plagued with anxiety for the safety of my house and family. Besides which such a voyage will necessitate the expenditure of much money on a good ship and crew. And if, in spite of all this, I seek the gold and then find that some thief has got there before me, I shall have wasted a great deal of money.”
Toke said unhesitatingly that, for his part, he was ready and willing to make the voyage. “And my advice to you, Orm,” he said, “is to go in search of this gold. For if you do not, you will sit here brooding over it until you can neither sleep nor eat, and will never again be merry-hearted. Indeed, I should not be surprised if you brooded yourself out of your senses. It is your fate to go and look for this gold, and you cannot escape it; and I have known men have worse fates than that. True, it will be a long voyage, but you cannot expect to get so large a treasure as this without some trouble. As for me, the skin-trade is bad just now, and my wife pregnant, so that I have nothing to keep me from coming with you.”
“Rapp gave me the same advice,” said Orm, “but when he did so, he supposed that he would be accompanying me. But when I told him that he would have to remain here to guard the house and my family, he changed his tone and bade me forget the gold and stay at home. Father Willibald advised me as I had known he would, telling me that I am rich enough already, and old enough to be thinking more of heavenly than of earthly riches. But I find it difficult to be at one with him in this matter.”
“The priest is wrong,” said Toke, “however wise he may be in other matters. For it is so with men that the older they become, the more they hanker after goods and gold. So it was even with King Harald, my woman tells me, and he was the wisest of men, even if he was once fooled by me. I myself grow yearly more resentful of the Gotland merchants at Kalmarna, even when they pay me value for my skins, which is seldom.”