30

An End At Last

[Odd resumes his narrative]

We returned to Syracuse, where the siege was drawing near the end of its second year. But things were different now—we could taste victory. Our one worry was Stephen. We had heard no more from him, but no one was fool enough to think that business was over. Maniakes tried to pass it off with a joke, but I saw worry in his eyes. He knew he had taken a step too far.

I was hobbling about on one crutch now but I was still in pain and treating it with opium, which made my brain sluggish. Maniakes offered to send me back to Constantinople on the next ship with our other wounded. And I would have agreed—if it hadn’t been for Harald. “You’re my ears, Tangle-Hair,” he pleaded, gripping my hand, “my mouth. Whether you can walk or not doesn’t matter to me”—of course not, to him—“It won’t be long now, and the reward will be great. I’ll see you made a Varangian, one word from John is all it takes. Leave now and you lose everything.”

Well, I reasoned (not thinking very clearly, you may say), the Logothete and Psellus have deserted me. Selene, too, for all I know. If I go back empty-handed now, I’m no better than a used-up cripple with no future. What can I do but stay with Harald? He’s all I’ve got. Maniakes shook his head in wonderment when I told him my decision.

And, as Harald promised, it wasn’t much longer. Syracuse fell in less than a month after our victory at Troina. Even though the Emir had slipped through our fingers, we had his tent, his banners, his wives, his money chests, his prize stallions, and numbers of his high-ranking chieftains. All these we paraded under the walls of the city. The defenders made one last desperate sortie. Their commander, Ibn al-Thumnah, led them in a charge against the part of our lines where the Normans were posted. And here happened one of those remarkable opportunities in battle that give a man lasting fame among his countrymen. The Norman William de Hauteville—the horseshoe bender, the equal of Maniakes and Harald in stature—challenged al-Thumnah to single combat. They were both mounted on big chargers, armored head to knee in ringmail hauberks, and carried shields and lances. They came together with a crash of steel on steel. The Saracen’s horse was driven back on its haunches and threw its rider. With a shout of triumph, William leapt to the ground and swung at al-Thumnah’s head with his sword, cracking it like an eggshell. And that is how William came by the nickname Bras-de-Fer, or Iron Arm. He sawed through the neck and held the head up while the Normans cheered themselves hoarse. A fine deed, a brilliant deed—if only it hadn’t rankled in Maniakes, who felt that it should have been him holding up that head.

The Saracen defenders threw down their arms and marched out. They were starved, hollow-cheeked, dirty, some leaning on the arms of comrades, and were greeted by jeers and catcalls from our side but they held their heads high although they knew that chains and a life of slavery awaited them. They were brave men who had done their duty and more.

And we marched into a ravaged city, where the smell of death hung heavy. Syracuse was a city of staring eyes and swollen bellies and skeletal arms. The Arab population hid in their houses, but the Greeks met us with one continual wild cheer. They stretched their hands to heaven, brought out the holy icons and relics that had lain hidden for years and waved them in the air. Delirious throngs capered through the streets, dancing, banging on drums or old pots or anything. Church bells rang. Flocks of carrion birds and clouds of blowflies, affrighted by the racket, rose up indignantly from their banquet of flesh.

Maniakes wanted to spare the city any more suffering, but Harald demanded the right of pillage for his men. We raced through the Emir’s palace in a frenzy of looting (I, too, as well as I could manage on my crutch). It was a sprawling place of arches and colonnades, latticed windows, fountains, and tiled courtyards. We broke into the harem, but found no one there save a few cowering eunuchs. The women seemingly had slipped out into the city crowd where they would be safe. After more searching, we found the treasure room. Sacks of gold dinars and silver dirhams, ropes of pearls, baskets of gems, bales of silk. Harald had it all carried out under guard. For a few heady days we imagined ourselves as rich as kings.

Aside from the palace, Maniakes would allow no pillaging by our troops. But it was a harder thing to keep the Greek population from taking revenge on their Saracen neighbors. Shops were looted, a mosque was burned, each dawn revealed a fresh crop of bodies strangled or stabbed.

During those next days, as order was restored, I explored this city that we had shed so much blood to capture. Once it must have been one of the great cities of the world. Wherever you looked you saw the ruins of what ancient kings had built—temples to their gods, theaters, stadiums, baths. Those ancient pagans all vanished now, leaving it to the followers of Mohammed and Christ to fight over the remains like two dogs tearing at the carcass of a noble steed.

Wandering about with Gorm one day, I found the library. The entrance was heaped with trash and bricks where part of the cornice had fallen, but it was unguarded so we made our way inside. Long, dim corridors seemed to stretch for miles, lined with books and scrolls. I stood astonished. I touched a volume, thumbed the dust off the binding and read the title. It was an author I’d never heard of. I felt very small here. In ten lifetimes, I could not absorb so much learning, and that made me think of Melampus and of Psellus. And that made my heart throb with something between sorrow and anger. Gorm was complaining that the dust made him sneeze, and so we left.

Maniakes’s first job was to get food into the city, care for the injured, and bury the dead to avoid pestilence. This took a week. Then it was time to celebrate our triumph. He paraded all the men and the ships’ crews and, after interminable prayers of thanksgiving to God and various saints, he distributed the spoils. Alas, what had seemed like a fortune beyond imagining when it was all heaped up in one room, now looked less when it was spread out to be divided among ten thousand men. One-third of the spoils by custom must be set aside for the Emperor. Maniakes took a full fourth for himself.

Harald was given a sizeable sum to divide among the Emperor’s Wineskins, a share of which went to me as his skald (another large share went to Halldor, his standard-bearer.) I was also given a handsome sum by the general personally from his share as a reward for my exploit. So were Stig and Moses. Putting it all together, I wasn’t as rich as I had hoped, but I reckoned I had enough to afford a comfortable house in the city with a few servants. I had no complaints.

But here our general made his second fatal mistake. From the shrinking pile of booty, he intended to give most to his Greeks and shortchange the allies. William the Norman, who had slain al-Thumnah single-handedly, felt insulted by his small share—a bag of silver and some not-very-attractive women. And so did Arduin, that clever, Greek-speaking Lombard noble. He had demanded, among much else, a fine Arabian stallion as a prize but Maniakes stupidly insisted that he give it up. Arduin argued with him. What happened then may be hard to believe but I saw it with my own eyes. Maniakes knocked him down, kicked him and ripped his shirt off him. Beating up Stephen was one thing—no one respected him. But Arduin? The man was well-liked and had hundreds of Lombard and Norman warriors at his back. I thought we would have to fight them then and there, but our cavalry moved in quickly and pushed them back.

That very day, eight hundred Lombards and Normans, angry and embittered, boarded ship and sailed back to Italy. We watched them go in silence. Too late, Maniakes seemed to realize what he had done. And his remedy? To send the Varangians after them, to occupy Reggio and stiffen the small Greek force that was holding Calabria and Apulia. I believe Maniakes was looking for an excuse to rid himself of all these troublesome barbarians, including us, and this was it.

I had thought I was on the point of going home. Now the prospect of more endless months of campaigning stretched before me. Again Harald urged me to stick with him, and again I yielded.

I made my goodbyes.

“Demetra, could you live with Infidels?”

“Don’t mind as long as I’m fed,” she answered.

“Then I pass you on to my friend Musa, who has a fine house and will give you light work to do.”

“I will miss you. You were a good fellow, as barbarians go.” She managed to squeeze out a tear.

“Stig, a long life and many sons.”

“The same to you, Tangle-Hair. And I pray that when you finally get home you’ll find everything as you would wish.”

“Thank you, Stig. We may meet again. Who knows?”

“Inshallah,” as we say, “God willing.”

But we didn’t. I never saw him again.

I gripped arms with Moses. “Someday back in Constantinople, my friend.”

And he and I would meet again, though the circumstances were bitter. He deserved a better master than Maniakes.

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The next months I will pass over quickly for they brought us no joy or profit. We had hardly established ourselves in Reggio when word came that Maniakes had been arrested and taken back to Constantinople to face a charge of treason. This was Stephen’s doing, of course. He had been hiding out all the while at the court of Duke Gaimar of Salerno. He now returned to Sicily as its governor—and with astonishing speed managed to lose Syracuse and every place else that we had fought so hard for. (We were told that he died of a fever in the course of this debacle.) Within a year the island fell once more to the Saracens, and we never got it back.

Meanwhile we had our hands full in Italy. The Lombards and Normans, our former allies, were now our enemies and, fighting on their own ground, they were formidable. One after another, the Apennine hill towns went over to them thanks to Arduin’s powers of persuasion. A new Greek commander—another incompetent appointed by John—arrived to save the situation. His army, including our men, suffered a disaster at the River Olivento. We were driven back by the Norman horse, led by William, into the rushing waters and hundreds were drowned. I was in that battle. By now, I could bear the pain in my feet and I was ashamed to lurk behind in the tents. One who almost drowned was Gorm. He had taken a deep spear thrust in his side and was weak with loss of blood. I barely managed to drag him to shore. But many other friends of mine died. Halldor and Bolli, I’m sorry to say, came out of it unscathed. Harald was so angry and humiliated I feared he would take his own life. He’d never been beaten like this before. Two more defeats followed this, and by high summer of the year one thousand and forty all Southern Italy had gone over to the Lombards.

But this was when our fortunes changed, Harald’s and mine. One rainy morning a ship with purple sails, flying the Emperor’s pennant, sailed into the harbor of Otranto, where we were bivouacked. A Varangian officer stepped ashore—one of those Varangians who had been left behind to guard the palace. He found Harald brooding in his tent, and with a happy smile saluted him as the new Commandant of the Varangian Guard. His orders were to return with his men to the city at once.

This was not as great a surprise as you might think. Harald—seeing that there was no glory to be had in Italy—had sent a message to John, worded in Greek by me, demanding to be recalled and promoted. Of course, the Guard already had a Commandant—old, fat, gouty Sveinn Gudleifsson—a man with many friends at court. How convenient that Sveinn had just died.

We shouted, we sang, we celebrated all day long.

Harald insisted that we have all new clothes and arms, for we were a shabby, battle-stained bunch and he was ashamed to lead us back to Constantinople looking as we did. He paid for it all out of his own pocket like the prince he was. This occupied a few days. But, at last, we bade goodbye to our sullen Greek comrades and boarded our ships. Not as many ships as we had come out in, though. Half our number had given their bodies to the crows in this wretched country.

What a joy it was to leave. But, as we made our way slowly back across the Aegean, battling contrary winds all the way, I slept badly and felt a nameless dread growing in me. What was I going home to?

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“Take me to my husband.” For a moment, her voice was firm, commanding, a queen’s voice.