Arthur D. Howden Smith

“ And riding the waves—poised midway betwixt sea floor and sky roof—a half dozen low-waisted, crawling craft, wet hulls all green and sheeny black, oar shafts a-drip as they flashed up and down, single masts tossing crazily, dragon prows dipping and preening in a gay glitter of green, red and gold.
Foremost of the little fleet was Swain Olaf's son's great dragon Deathbringer, dashing the sea to foam with her sixty oars, while the men on her rowing benches chanted in harmony the grunting refrain of the “Rowers' Song'—“Ha! Hee! Ho! ”

“ And while a man has life he can work and strive for regaining what he has lost.”
“That is strange advice from you,” said Hakon.
“Well, I find myself sorrowful for a king as honorable as yourself,” answered Swain. “There are few like you. But sorrowful or no, I can not stand here. Will you yield?”
Hakon cast down his sword.
“To you, yes. But there is no other man could have taken me sword in hand, Swain.”
Swain guided him across the rolling ships to the forecastle of Baekisudin and gave him in charge of Erling's folk there. ”

“ In those days in Norway the party of King Magnus stood for orderly government; King Hakon's people were more inclined to let the country go as it pleased. Hakon was a brave young king, but he had spent his life in longships since he was able to swing steel, and he had no ambition other than to win himself as much wealth and power as possible. Swain and Erling, on the other hand, were fighting for more than the kingship of Magnus; they looked to see the whole land consolidated under the reign of one king, with an increase in wealth and order such as this policy should ensure. ”

“ Erling knit his brows.
“You are always for extreme measures, Swain. Let us wait.”
“And give Hakon a chance to summon aid, perhaps for Sigurd to reach him! No, no! Strike now or flee.”
“Well, if you must——”
“Dip oars, carls!” Swain shouted to his own rowing benches. “Swain goes ashore.”
A ragged cheer answered him, and ship by ship, the fleet followed the Orkneyman. Erling, after a moment's hesitation, also gave the word for his dragon to beach. The ships bunched together, and turned their prows toward an open space, just outside the town, where there was room for forming an orderly array. ”

“ But Swain was no man to abandon an issue in which he had concerned himself.
“This side of death a man can always be victor,” he said.
He had set out to unite Norway under one king, at first, because Ingi had offered him a fitting reward, but as the war continued and waxed bitterer and more desperate his feeling changed, and the task he had assumed originally as a viking venture, an opportunity for gaining power, became an obligation of honor. ”

“ He was always more dangerous to his friends than to his enemies.”
“He is too dangerous to live,” scowled Swain. “A man who is your friend one year, and turns from you later! Bah! The ax to his throat! Why, he was Erling's shield-mate, as well as mine. And now he fights beside Olvir Rosta! That is enough for me.
“In oars, carls! Let the wind work for us.”
“Which is more than Eindride's folk will do,” exclaimed Oddi. “They have had enough of this swell already. See! They turn back.” ”

“ They were sitting by themselves in Erling's private chamber, the scalds having just quitted them.
“Why, we are still short of the men we should have,” answered Swain. “That is not to be denied, and the wise man is he who reckons his defects as vigilantly as does his enemy. Hakon has a plenitude of men, but few ships. We have many ships, but scarce the men to row them—and if we met his folk in a shield pushing, his wings would overlap us on either flank.” ”

“ Eindride shrugged his shoulders.
“Some chance a man must take, Swain. But you overrate Olvir's influence. There is none so high in Hakon's favor as I, seeing that he and all his folk know that my trireme is the surest tool we possess to wreck damage to Magnus's folk.” ”

“ When Deathbringer left her companions and came on alone the enormous bus preceding the Tunsburg ships made signal to her consorts and they lay on their oars and permitted her to continue without them.
“Here are others not so keen for battle,” remarked Swain. “I hope these are not Erling's friends. I should be ill pleased to think our folk were so loath at the weaponwork.”
“Nevertheless, I begin to think they are friends,” declared Oddi. “I have seen that gilt helm on the trireme's poop before this day. Holy Magnus, how it flames, even in this light!” ”

“ Is the Orkneyman returned?”
Men spoke so along the strands of the merchant towns from Konungahela, south in the Viken country, to Nidaros, north in Throndhjem. Everywhere they watched for Swain, honing their sword blades, refitting their spearheads, stringing their bows, furbishing their mail—eying one another askance. For who could tell in which king's array his neighbor would be on the morrow?
II “Meet her, carls, meet her!” rasped Swain to the steersmen who tugged at their big sweeps under the incurving dragon's tail, gasping for breath as the salt spray blanketed their nostrils. ”

“ Arne Ingerid's son, who was mother's son to King Ingi that was dead and notable among the chiefs that fought under Erling's banner shouldered his way through the jam of lendermen on the pier end.
“We waste time, Erling,” he called. “Swain has the right of it. We are, indeed, fortunate, if our luck has afforded us an opportunity to strike Hakon when his folk are divided. Lose no time in moving or we may be too late. You must bear in mind that it was in the Viken country Hakon won his victory and slew Ingi, and if we do the like by him there all the eastward folk will flock to us.” ”

“ Those chiefs who had no blood feud with Erling and his son sent in their submissions and returned with their folk to their steads. Only the men of the more desperate sort headed for the uplands and joined themselves with the skeleton host that still clung to Jarl Sigurd and Olvir. But there was no longer an army or a king in opposition to Magnus, only a band of outlaws who were concerned with the stealing of cattle to feed themselves, rather than with an ambition to rule the land.
“Let them be,” advised Swain. “They are turning all the folk against them with their depredations. ”

“ It is so big, and it has so many rowers—and they all thralls—that it is like a fat man in armor who contends with a swift-footed bowman. I would rather be the bowman, naked, than the fat man, armored.
“But our fight with the trireme was not so important as the tidings I wrung from that fool Eindride. He told us that Hakon was in Tunsburg, with a part of his forces, while Sigurd of Reyr was east in Konungahela. They think to be ready for you, whichever way you come into the Viken country, and if you will be guided by me you will not disappoint them. ”

“ Swain nodded thoughtfully.
“Yet I do not propose to turn back,” he said. “If they would fight, I believe we can render a good account of ourselves, and there is always the chance that we have stumbled upon some of our friends. Erling must have sent men ahead of him to raise folk for King Magnus.”
He scowled at the rocky gray land which was closing in upon either hand.
“I should like to know where we are,” he growled. “That would tell us more than aught else.”
“It has the look of the Viken country to me,” said Armod.
“There are houses,” exclaimed Erik, “beyond the ships.” ”

“ Astern of Deathbringer followed another dragon and four longships, the least of them pulling twenty oars a side, and each craft crammed with men, whose shields were jammed edge to edge in the gunwale notches. Every poop showed the glimmer of mail and helm and the flare of crimson cloaks where the chiefs stood by the helmsmen.
There were full arms' chests lashed to the poop and forecastle bulkheads, and beneath the rowing benches were stowed fur sleeping bags for the carls who labored at the bucking oars. ”

“ Do you remember?”
“I do, indeed,” rejoined Oddi. “And what is more, Swain, she is no longship. There! Her folk are thrusting out the oars; there are three rows, one above the other. The Greeks used such ships——”
“She is what the Greeks called a trireme,” interrupted Armod. “We used to marvel how they pulled all the oars without confusion. How came she here? Hakon had no craft like her that I ever heard of.”
“She is not Hakon's,” snapped Swain. “Humph! This is a coil. She must carry as many carls as three of our dragons. I am of a mind to have a closer look at her.” ”

“ Armod started abruptly.
“You have said it, Oddi!” proclaimed the tall scald. “Mark his strut as he paces the deck. Yes, yes, many's the time we have seen that helm in other days.”
“If you mean Eindride Ungi,” [6] said Swain skeptically, “he is no nearer than Mikligard.”
“Who?” asked Erik curiously. “Eindride Ungi, who commands the Varangian guards of the Greek emperor?”
“Yes, he,” insisted Oddi. “I would swear to that helm on any deck.”
“And better still, I will take oath to that strut of Eindride's,” cried Armod. “He is as vain as the peacocks in the emperor's gardens.” ”

“ They are doughty enemies, Eindride, and honorable in the bargain, as I have always testified.”
“No,” said Eindride, “we do not leave all our eggs in the one basket. Sigurd is in Konungahela, and however Erling comes at us we shall be in position to withstand him and bring his efforts to naught.”
“Humph,” muttered Swain in his beard. “It might also be said that he who divides his eggs divides his care of them, and if he brings one basket home whole the other is likely to be smashed.”
But aloud he said only:
“Hakon is a young man, and like all young men a brisk walker. He covers much ground. ”

“ XI Hakon's return did not suffice to save Eindride, but it brought about what men afterward said was the most desperate and disorderly sea fight since the old berserk days.
Full tilt into the ring of dragons and longships around the trireme came the twelve vessels that had followed Broadshoulders' lead. Olvir, of course, had bided at the circle's edge, but the other eleven penetrated it, and became involved in hopeless confusion with Magnus' ships. ”

“ Ingi used to sit so on his horse, with his guards around him, when we sailed in after the spring gales to join his banner.”
“But there is this difference,” put in Oddi merrily. “In those times the king on the horse was a cripple, seeing that Ingi had a hump to his back and a twisted foot, and now the king is a child still tied to the bower.”
“A difference, yet not such a difference,” growled Swain, speaking for the first time. “A cripple king and a child king, each must have others lead his troops and fight his battles. ”

“ But if he sails away without coming to a weapon clash he will have lost more than he gained by his venture.”
“It is not like Swain to suffer himself to be placed at a disadvantage,” commented Hakon.
“Swain is no smarter than other men,” retorted Olvir with a trace of heat. “He succeeds because he is willing to wait until his foes commit some foolishness which gives him an opening for victory.”
“He is up to some trick now,” called Onund, pointing down the fiord, where lay Erling's fleet clustered about the captured ships. ”

“ We can never have too many folk to lead against Swain, as Olvir has said. Also, we shall do well if we confuse them at the beginning of the summer. They will look to see us come straight to Bergen by land or sea path. Instead, I advise that we take what ships we have and fare south, ravaging the boendr on the seaside who are friendly to Erling and gathering additional men for our company, as we go.
“It is probable that the people we injure will send to Bergen for aid, and perhaps Erling and Swain will be induced to come forth with their carls and attempt to defend the countryside. ”

“ As was to be expected, however, warning of their coming sped ahead of them, for the folk of the seaside spied the passage of the fleet from many a stead, and horsemen flogged their steeds to carry the word north. King Hakon and his lendermen had just celebrated matins—the day was a Friday—and were sitting on a hillside of the island, watching the common men of the host playing games, when they spied a small boat rowing out from the mainland.
“Those carls are in haste,'” remarked the king idly. “See, they are pulling so hard that they bend back nearly to the keel.” ”

“ Evil he loved for its own sake, and he could match craft of a kind with Swain's—courage, too, although he was no man to match weapons with a stronger foe, unless he must.
“That is to be seen,” he snarled. “I do a fear Swain, however the rest of you may, and——”
“Be careful,” flashed the young king. “No man tells me I fear another!”
Olvir clicked his teeth together.
“I was at fault,” he apologized suavely. “Yet heed me when I say that you do ill to weaken your resolution by anticipating what——”
“Smoke!” cried Onund. “See the smoke!”
“The bus is afire!” cried others. “They draw her back! ”

“ With their forces united, they might be too strong for us. Divided, I do not see why we can not rout one or the other, with a little skill.”
“Would it not be safer policy to fare north and establish ourselves in Nidaros?” asked Erling doubtfully. “We have friends in the Throndhjem dales who would join the banner if they had encouragement.”
“The way to harm your enemy is to attack him,” growled Swain. “Defeat Hakon, and you will have no trouble persuading your friends to join you. It will be Hakon who must travel light, and you who can afford to pick and choose your following.” ”

“ And Eindride echoed him—
“He who has the disadvantage must jump the quickest.”
“Is it dignified to run?” asked the King: “We are not a weak company.”
“But we have not such a fleet as comes against us,” shouted several lendermen.
“In More Jarl Sigurd awaits us,” reminded Eindride. “Also, the townfolk in Veey are our friends. Ashore there we shall be safe.”
“It was in my mind that I had heard you saying you would not be satisfied with any fight unless it permitted you to lay your ship alongside Swain's!” exclaimed Hakon contemptuously. ”