The Harp and the Blade

  The fourth of the lot was the girl I’d met at the ford. It wasn’t that I cared for her as such or had the slightest concern for her personal welfare. She and her bravos had given me a bad scare, and I hadn’t wanted to re-encounter her. And at that moment I would have given all Charlemagne’s empire, had I owned it, for the privilege of not seeing her again.

  Or if I hadn’t seen her before it would have been all right. I could think of her what was probably true of all the others. They were wretches whose lives it would take a deliberately sadistic master to make less endurable. And if the women were sold to Moorish harems, why, they would lead a sheltered existence compared to that to which they were accustomed, with outlaw bands periodically subjecting them to gang rape. The alternative for their kind was becoming some leader’s doxy.

  But I had looked on this girl in her pride, and I could not so classify her. She was of my own sort, and whatever else she was she was no man’s whore. So though we had met as enemies the fact that we had met at all before placed an obligation on me. I shivered, feeling sick.

  Her frightened eyes glared hate as the vikings cheered her beauty, but Thorgrim came between her and a couple of drunken youngsters. “Who takes prizes first?” he asked them dangerously, nor were they too crazed to remember he was chief.

  Mustering a guard, Thorgrim sent the prisoners to join the others in one of the ships. “One good thing about getting older,” he said as he resettled himself comfortably, “is that you don’t let lust interfere with the profits. When I was the age of those boys I would have had that girl, and very likely she would have knifed me for it as soon as she got the chance. That kind doesn’t take to man-handling. As it is I’ll get a good price for her from some Moor, and let him get killed instead.” He stretched. “Feel like giving us another song?”

  “No,” I said. I didn’t yet see what I could do.

  I gained nothing but a headache and a morosely fatal feeling from that night, and I took ship the next morning with only the knowledge that I’d made some sort of gesture toward freeing the girl. Thorgrim, as I had taken for granted he would, had arranged that she, as his most valuable prisoner, should voyage in his galley. He took the tiller to steer up river, and I stood silently beside him.

  It was just after we had started that she recognized me for the first time. I saw her eyes widen, then her mouth set in a yet harder line of hate. No doubt I was in just such company as she would have expected. I looked away from her, sweeping earth and sky in an aimless reach for courage.

  My mouth was dry, and my hands started to sweat. If I was to help the girl, now was the time, before she was borne too far from kinsmen or friends who might take her in. Otherwise I’d have her on my hands, and the last thing I wanted was somebody to look after in that land where I wasn’t able to keep any decent footing for myself.

  When the ship had straightened its course to head upriver I got behind Thorgrim. In addition to being jumpy with nervousness I disliked so repaying his hospitality, but there was no other solution. “Thorgrim,” I told him, letting him feel the point, “there’s a knife at your back. Move or yell, and you die.”

  He stiffened, but that was all. “Well?” he queried; and his whisper carried his anger as well as a shout could have done.

  “It’s the girl there. I want you to put us both ashore.”

  “I might have known she’d make trouble,” he said bitterly. “Why didn’t you say you wanted her? Maybe I’d have given her to you.”

  I paid no attention to that. Nor was there any use in telling him that I didn’t want her. He would merely have considered that incomprehensible meanness. I was sorry I couldn’t make him understand, for we had been friendly.

  “Put us on the north bank,” I ordered.

  He was too surprised and furious to stop arguing and make up his mind. “Why didn’t you fight me for her openly?” He was still pursuing the ethics of the case. “Only a bastard Irishman would drink a man’s wine, then knife him when his back was turned.”

  Not bothering to point out that the wine in question was really the property of St. Lucien Abbey, I pricked him a little harder. If it came to the pinch I’d decided to kill him, too. He showed no mercy to any, and my last act would be to see that he got none. “Well?” I said in turn.

  “No!”

  He meant it. A Danish chief will do anything rather than compromise with his own sense of dignity. He’d let us both die and be damned before he’d accept the ignominy of being forced to surrender a valuable prize in the presence of his own men. I sought desperately for a sop to his pride.

  “Look!” I urged. “If you’ll give her to me and let us go free I’ll make a lay about how Thorgrim the Varanger fared back from Miklagard to avenge his brother.” That had actually been a notable exploit, because Sweyn Bucktooth had had a great reputation as a warrior. “I’ll sing the tale in every land I visit,” I continued persuasively, “and I’ll write it in runes for men that live after us to read.”

  It was that last touch that won him. A Dane is as desirous of having his name and exploits known by later generations as a saint could be of securing a place near the throne of heaven. Every man to his own immortality.

  “Do you give your word that you’ll do this?” he asked, and the burden of death started to skip from me.

  “I swear it by Christ and by Odin,” I answered earnestly. “If I don’t make this lay within three months and sing it in every country I fare to may my bones be dug up and mouthed by cur dogs.”

  That apparently satisfied him. “Sheathe your knife,” he whispered. “I give my word to the bargain.” Gulping with relief, I stepped forward to stand in friendly-wise beside him. Signaling for the remaining galleys to proceed, he swung the tiller of his own to head it for the shore.

  “Vikings!” he cried when the oars were dipping just enough to hold the dragon’s nose on the north bank, “my friend the great scald is going to make a hero-lay about how we fought our way through the Middle Sea to Miklagard. He’ll tell of the treasure we won and how word came that my brother was slain. He’ll tell how Sweyn’s blood paid the wergild when I followed him to the Western Isles; and now how we return to Miklagard for more honor and wealth!”

  His men cheered him, themselves, and me. All that Thorgrim had promised them hadn’t been specified in our contract, but I nodded my acceptance. He raised his voice again, now carried away by magnificence of his own gesture. “For reward I am giving him the lovely Frankish maiden.”

  He made the statement with telling directness, and the applause was great. Generosity in requiting service is one of the hallmarks of a Danish chieftan of standing, and this was a princely gift. None of his followers dreamed that Thorgrim would turn over such a prize to them, so they didn’t begrudge me my supposed good fortune.

  “Scalds make fame, the only good thing a man can have,” an older man quoted. “No gift is too fine to exchange for it.” It was a high moment for all of them. I could see the younger ones a-dream for the day when their adventures should be sung and the singer rewarded with a hero’s magnanimity. Of all those there, as he himself had temporarily passed beyond the point of caring, I alone knew how Thorgrim would soon regret his loss.

  Forcing myself to appear pleasurably excited, I made an appropriately grateful speech in answer, told them how fortunate I thought they were to have such a chief to lead them, and wished them luck in all ensuing exploits. Then I hastily strode toward the girl.

  Up till then, being ignorant of Danish, she had naturally been unaware of what had been taking place. “You’re free,” I said in Frankish as I took her by the wrist. “Come on ashore fast!”

  But all men seemed enemies to her then, and she did not remember me kindly. She snatched her arm away and backed from me. “Let me alone!” she screeched.

  Her delay in the face of the urgency for haste suffused me with wrath. “They’ll sell you to a Moorish brothel!” I thrust it at her bluntly.

  It might only be a private brothel,
but it was the same thing as far as I could see. It got home to her, her eyes wavered, and I seized her during that instant of uncertainty. Picking her up, I stepped forward and dropped her overside in the soft mud. I was standing beside her by the time she had risen.

  Panic and loathing had rendered her incapable of making distinctions between grades of bad situations, and my roughness had aroused furious antagonism. She struck me hard, and the vikings peering over the gunwale laughed uproariously.

  “Better trade it in for a tame one,” a man counseled me sagely.

  “What odds on the scald?”

  “No takers!”

  “He hasn’t got a chance! ”

  Even without their gibes I was keenly conscious of the ridiculousness of my position. Moreover, Thorgrim might take advantage of her obvious unwillingness to go with me to rescind this gift. Shifting my harp out of the way, I ducked under her next swing, grabbed her around the knees, and heaved her over my shoulder. Then by sheer force of will I bore her up the bank in spite of her kicking, hitting, and scratching.

  The Danes were overjoyed at my difficulties, but a glance showed me that Thorgrim wasn’t joining in the mirth. Pleasure at his gesture was already past, and he was remembering to what an extent it had been compulsory. It would be bad luck for me to meet that man again.

  As soon as we were out of sight in the trees I dropped her unceremoniously and put my foot on her throat. “Move and I’ll step down,” I warned her. Her nails had made some uncomfortable gouges in my back, and I was in no mood to humor her. “Now,” I went on as she lay still, “let’s get a couple of things straight. The only thing I want or ever have wanted to do with you is to get rid of you. Do you know how to get home from here?”

  It took her a minute to receive the import of what I was saying. Her eyes grew dazed then, and I took my foot from her neck, certain she would cause no more trouble. “There is no home,” she finally said. I could see her thinking about it and, as she thought, emotion emerging from the depths where it had been driven by overwhelming horror. Soon she was sobbing terribly, but I was no one to comfort her. I walked a little apart to review and face my own problems.

  The night before I had been the chosen companion of a successful chieftain and bound on a voyage that promised to reestablish my fortunes. Now he had become my enemy, as all men seemed to be those days, and I was moneyless as well as horseless in a country marked perilous for me. Worse than all, I had a charge I must somehow dispose of before I could get around to the much more desirable business of improving my personal circumstances.

  It had been my hope that all that would be required of me would be to take her home. She had stated that she had none, and I assumed that the Danes had destroyed it. If there was anyone else who would undertake her care I piously prayed that he didn’t live far away. It was not only the disinclination to be inconvenienced which inspired this wish; there was the downright danger of being with her in that disordered land where marauders abounded. Any such would try to help themselves to such a beauty, and it would be up to me to try to do something about it.

  Some while later she was quiet and slept, exhausted by emotional stress. I let it be so on the theory that she would be more rational after some rest. Bored, nervous, and fuming with impatience, I alternately paced and sat till at length she roused herself. Gloomily I returned her dull stare.

  “Who are you?” she asked; and it occurred to me that a woman is never too hard put for personalities.

  “You say you have no home,” I brushed the questions aside. “Is there any other place where it would be good for you to go?”

  I thought she was going to break down again, but she controlled herself and shook her head. “No place near here. The Danes—” She spread out her hands and stopped.

  “I can guess,” I put in. “They killed everybody that got in their way, looted your home and burnt it.”

  “My mother didn’t fight them, but they killed her as well as my father and the rest. Why?” She was like a hurt child trying to find out about the world.

  “Too old to be a useful slave,” I explained somberly. I knew Dane ways. They had killed the woman for that mysteriously exciting moment when life ceases to be.

  “Most of our people ran away when they heard the Danes were coming. Only our household men stayed with us. We beat off the first batch, but lots more came. Now I’m the only one left.”

  She had to talk about it to get free of it at all, so, though restless and annoyed, I let her go on. It was not that I felt no pity for her, but the necessities of the future were then too imperious for me to be interested in any phase of the past.

  “All right,” I said when she had finally paused to give me an opening, “there’s nothing left you around here. True?”

  “It’s true,” she muttered, “but—”

  “Never mind,” I interrupted before she could get started again. “Is there any place at all where friends would welcome you? You’ve got to go somewhere, you know,” I elaborated when she failed to show interest.

  “Yes, that’s so, I suppose.” She passed a hand over her eyes. “A cousin of mine is married to a man north of here. It was she I was visiting when I met you at the ford.”

  As she said that I had an ironic mental picture of the stout lads that had been with her and how angry they had been with me for menacing this girl. Now they were all dead, and I had their job. “How far away would that be?” I asked her. “About forty miles. More if anything.”

  “Any chance of finding a couple of horses around your place?”

  She shivered. “The barn caught fire during the attack, and we were too busy to save them.”

  I grunted. It would be a dangerous trip on foot, but it had to be attempted. I wished then that I had more of an appetite at breakfast. “If you know how to find the road to your cousin’s we’d better get started,” I suggested.

  But now she was sullen about a remark I’d made two hours before. “You said you only wanted to get rid of me,” she pointed out. “You don’t have to come.”

  Exasperation choked me. “You were a slave, and I overpaid them buying you for a song!” I snarled when I could think of anything else to say. “If I want to go some place with you, why that’s my business!” Then the absurdity of it all took hold of me, and I laughed.

  “What’s funny?” She was more sulky than ever.

  “You wouldn’t see it,” I told her. “Now listen carefully. I don’t like to stress the fact, but I was of some assistance in getting you out of the hands of the Danes. It’s possible, too, that I could be of help in case you encountered local bandits. Shall we stop the foolishness and get under way?”

  Theretofore I had doubtless appeared to her in the light of being one more irritant in a nightmare world. Now at last it was borne in upon her that I was a man who was putting himself to some inconvenience on her account. She was as yet too upset to order her mind, but she made an effort to place me in the scheme of things.

  “Why do you take the trouble?”

  “I don’t know any better,” I said wearily. There was no use in trying to explain what I myself but hazily understood.

  She got up, staring haggardly around as if she had never seen anything before. “You’re trying hard to do something for me.” She looked at me again. “You had been going somewhere in that ship, hadn’t you?”

  “That had been my intention,” I said drily.

  “You got off for me. Thank you.” Then she added, quite irrelevantly: “I’m sorry I was rude to you then.”

  She was referring to our encounter at the ford. “At my age I should know better than to laugh at a woman.” I apologized in my turn. “There’s always trouble in it.”

  Making no answer, she started to pick her way through the woods, and I followed. In a short while we came to a path which soon led us to the road to Tours. There was no one in sight, and I reflected that the Danes had been of service to us by clearing the district of other marauders. Not until we were w
ell inland should there be any special need for cautious faring.

  A half mile west on the highway we found a narrow road running north into which she turned. I was glum enough, and my knowledge of the despair my companion was in didn’t help to make the journey more cheerful. She said no more about her grief, but every now and then I noted that she was weeping silently. She didn’t care enough either to walk well or to rest, but I made her stop about once an hour. Not only was she tired to begin with, but I guessed that she hadn’t eaten since the previous day.

  Having no food, I could see nothing for it but to forge ahead as swiftly as the adverse circumstances would permit. But it was sultry, even in the forest, and toward late afternoon the high heat of the day began to tell on the girl. She was asleep almost as soon as I suggested that she lie down, but, though I stretched out, I was listening alertly to make sure we wouldn’t be taken by surprise. In the end I was reluctantly forced to sacrifice comfort to keenness.

  She had rolled over on her back, I saw when I sat up to drive sleep away, and was slumbering soundly. With the drawn, lost expression smoothed from her face she looked appealingly sweet and young. I shrugged. Life never cares to whom and how precociously its most terrifying phases are shown. Things happen, and there are but two responsive choices—acceptance or death.

  A deer almost stepped on us, got panic-stricken when it noticed our presence, and crashed away through the underbrush. Awakened by the noise, she opened her eyes. I looked away, having no words to offer, but I could feel her studying me.

  “You don’t make any more sense to me than the Danes did,” she accused suddenly.

  I was startled by this sudden attack. “Why?”

  “It puts me just as much at a loss to be under the wing of a perfect stranger as it does to be warred on by somebody that’s not an enemy. They weren’t enemies, you see. They weren’t even angry—just businesslike. On the other hand you’re doing me a great favor without having any kindness for me.”