Once I’d made up my mind to get away, I couldn’t go fast enough. I ran across Gotland Yard to our barracks, where I knew Harald intended to spend the night. I found him there playing dice with a few of our men, although it was nearly dawn.
“Where’ve you been all the night? I never saw such a fellow as you, Tangle-Hair, for popping up at strange hours. Don’t stand in the doorway, man, you’ll let in the cold.”
He was drunk and in a foul mood; probably because he was losing.
“No, Harald, you come out. I need to talk to you alone.”
Another of the gamblers, who was also one of his bodyguards, held him by the sleeve and gave him a warning look.
“Bah!” he said, lurching to his feet and knocking over his stool, “when the day comes that I have to fear my own skald’s dagger you can cut me up and sell me for horsemeat.”
It was a chilly night and the two of us stood shivering together outside the door as I explained my idea to him.
“What? Stupidest damned thing I ever heard! What you want is a pail of cold water over your head, you’ve drunk too much. Obviously, the jarls can’t invite me back to Norway if they still think I’m dead; it doesn’t take great brains to figure that out. But why should they take your word for my being alive and well in Gardariki? It’s a case of the truth being too fantastic. Besides, they don’t know you from a tree stump. Now if it were Dag …” He checked himself, remembering too late why, of course, it wasn’t Dag.
“Now look here, Tangle-Hair,” he jabbed me with a forefinger. “I aim to make Yaroslav dower his daughter with horses, arms, and gold enough to equip an army ten times the size of Olaf’s. Then will be the time to think about going home. Why put my enemies on their guard now. Stop thinking so much—it’s making you weak-minded.”
He turned to go back in. This was going to be harder than I’d thought. Harald had no reason to share my urgent desire to get out of Novgorod and I, of course, dared not tell him my reason—to put an end to the impossible situation I found myself in.
“No, but wait, Harald.” I held him back with a hand on his arm. “Think. It’s not too soon to test the water. We’ve had no news of home for more than a year. Who knows what state the country’s in? At least let me find that out, and if the time seems right I’ll make your case to the jarls. Give me your signet ring to convince them that I am who I say, and fifty gold ounces—part to pay my passage, the rest as earnest money for the jarls with a promise of more to come if they side with us.”
He stood hesitating with one hand on the door latch and looked at me so hard that my nerve began to fail.
“What are you up to, Tangle-Hair? What aren’t you telling me? Why this sudden desire to visit Norway with a bag of my gold?”
If he wouldn’t be persuaded by good sense, then I must try nonsense. “I don’t like to talk about it, Harald,” I said in a low voice, “but you know that I come from a family that’s gifted in dreams and visions. I had a dream the other night, as I dozed by the oven. First I saw the Tronder jarls hanging garlands on a tall oak tree and kneeling before it. Then I saw two snails, slimy white things, a bigger one and a smaller one. They crawled into a fire which sprang up from the roots of the tree and there they turned black and shriveled away to nothing. Now I think that the oak tree, Harald, is you, and the snails are Ingigerd and Magnus.”
“Oak tree, eh? Snails? I like that. You wouldn’t be making it up would you?”
I gave him a reproachful look. “You know there’s a sacred bond of trust between lord and skald. If my word isn’t good enough for you, say so and I won’t trouble you again.”
“Dammit, did I say I didn’t trust you? Don’t be putting words in my mouth!”
“I didn’t say that either. When would you be back?”
“By Midsummer’s day if all goes well.”
“I have a mind to wed Elisif then.”
“Norway would be a splendid wedding present, and you’d still have Yaroslav’s gold to repay yourself with.”
“Aye, that’s true. Come inside, dammit, don’t make me stand out here freezing. Fifty gold pieces d’you say? I’ve just lost more than that to these cheating bastards.” He indicated with a scowl his companions. “I’ve no more on me.”
“I expect they’d loan it back to you.”
“And you want me to gamble it on your coming back?”
“You’ve gambled it away once already.”
“Got an answer for everything, haven’t you? All right,” he smiled slowly. “Done.”
With some reluctance on the part of his friends, the coins were handed over and collected in a big leather wallet into which he also dropped the signet ring from his finger.
“Now, friend Odd, just one thing more before you go galloping off. It occurs to me that the trouble with your plan is that the jarls are not made to commit themselves openly to me. They can change their minds, keep the gold, and swear they never laid eyes on you. No. They must declare for me in front of witnesses or not at all.”
“But you can’t expect them to do that in Norway before you and your army arrive.”
“Exactly. So they must do it here.”
“Here? In Novgorod?”
“In a public audience before the prince and princess—especially the princess. You tell them that, Tangle-Hair, and tell them also that the purpose of their mission must be kept secret until I say the word. I want to surprise the Swedish bitch and her puppy. What a sight that will be!”
My heart sank, for it seemed utterly improbable that the jarls would consent to make so long a journey. But there was no backing out of it now.
“All right, then. I’ll take a fast horse from the stable and I’m off to Aldeigjuborg. It shouldn’t be hard to find a west-bound merchant ship there this time of year.”
“Hold on. What am I supposed to say when people notice you’re gone?”
“Anything but the truth. Oh, and one other thing—get rid of all your females and buy new ones, and not from Stavko Ulanovich.”
I left him puzzling over that.
On a summer’s evening four weeks later I sailed into Nidaros harbor aboard a merchant ship out of Gotland. I had thought Nidaros such a magnificent place when I first saw it, fresh from Iceland. It came as a shock to realize what a mean little village it was compared to Lord Novgorod the Great.
Two years ago, my crew and I had spent the winter at an inn (more precisely, a brothel) presided over by Bergthora Grimsdottir—a big, homely woman, both tough and tender-hearted. During that year, I had, against my will, fought in the Battle of Stiklestad, where King Olaf met his death and where I first laid eyes on young Harald.
Entering the inn yard now, I beheld Bergthora’s ample backside as she bent over to draw water from the well. I crept up behind her, grabbed her round the waist, and kissed her neck. She uttered a scream and threw her arms in the air, and followed this with kisses and hugs till I scarcely had breath left in me.
No need to recount all the questions she peppered me with nor my answers, of which I doubt she believed the half. To the question of what brought me back, I said only that I had a little business to transact for my master. “Now, Bergthora, where’s that rogue, Stig No one’s-Son? Inside pinching the girls and drinking up all your profits, I’ll wager. He and I quarreled and parted company I’m ashamed to say. I’d like nothing better than to make it up with him. Come on, let’s surprise him.”
“What, him?” She squeezed out a tight little smile. “Oh, he never came back. Never thought he would, not Stig.” She turned her head away, not wanting me to see the tear in her eye.
“Never—? Why, then, he’s the damndest fool in all the world! Oh, but he’ll come rolling home to you one day yet, Bergthora, don’t you worry. Now, Kalf Slender-Leg’s still here, isn’t he?—how I’ve missed him!”
A large teardrop rolled down her cheek. “Gone away too.”
“No, not there. T’was not long after you sailed when he stole away one morning early—we were all still abed—with his little bundle of belongings on his back. I know it on account of he was seen at the waterfront—no one could mistake him hobbling on his crutch, dragging his useless leg behind him. They say he took passage on a ship bound across the sea for Frankland. You know, I came to love him like a son; and one who’d always stay by me—not a rover like you and Stig. But it weren’t so. On two legs or one you’re all alike, you men.
“He left me a purse of silver, though—t’was all he had left in the world—with a note that deacon Poppo read to me, saying how an angel of the Lord came to him in his sleep and bade him go on pilgrimage and walk in Our Savior’s steps. That was all, except begging me to pray for him every day just as he would for me. Walk to Jerusalem! That poor boy as could scarcely walk at all!”
Bergthora was Christian, though she never let that get in the way of business. But Kalf—Kalf my boyhood friend, closer to me than a blood brother—had become consumed with the Faith. He joined Olaf’s army and was crippled in the battle. His piety led to a painful breach between us, though in the end we forgave each other. How pleased he would be if he knew I’d been baptized!
I stayed that night at the inn, with Bergthora hovering over me the whole time, cutting choice slices of meat off the spit for me, filling my ale horn, and offering the pick of her girls. And each of us tried to put on a cheerful face for the other, but it was hard.
I was happy to get away next morning and be about my business. I hired a horse in the town and asked directions to the farmstead of Jarl Haarek of Tjotta. Haarek was a slippery character who had once been Olaf’s man but then betrayed him to Canute, King of Denmark, England and now Norway too. Soon after Olaf’s death at Stiklestad, though, smelling a change in the wind, he became one of the first to trumpet the martyred king’s sainthood. Skeptical at first, Haarek heard me out and, after a short rumination, sent riders to summon Kalv Arnesson, Thorir Hound, and half a dozen others, who, like himself, had been quick to shed Olaf’s blood and even quicker to regret it once they got a taste of Danish rule.
To this assembly, I recounted, in my most high-flown skaldic manner, how Harald Sigurdsson had been carried half dead from the bloody field of Stiklestad, and how, after recovering his strength, he had followed in his saintly brother’s footsteps to the land of the Rus. There he was at this very moment—wealthy, powerful, and held in the highest esteem by Prince Yaroslav the Wise and his excellent wife.
“Nevertheless,” I said with feeling, “in spite of his comfortable situation and against the wishes of the prince and princess, who long to keep him with them, he thinks only of returning to his native land and uniting it under his banner in a rising against the Danes.”
I knew that my own future, just as much as Harald’s, depended on my eloquence, and so I put my whole heart into it. “With God’s help and yours,” I concluded, brandishing my fist in the air, “Harald Sigurdsson Haarek will one day sit on Norway’s throne, a worthy successor to his sainted brother!”
But these jarls were shrewd men, not easily swayed. Instead of the cheers and table-pounding that I had hoped for, there were questions testing me on details of the battle which only someone close to Harald and Olaf could have known. My answers were chewed over in long stretches of silence. Finally they asked to see the signet ring with Harald’s initial on it and they passed it around from hand to hand, studying it thoughtfully.
Really, my argument was a strong one. It was taken for granted that none but Olaf’s kin could ever rule Norway, and Harald—brave, capable, a proven warrior, the very incarnation of Olaf—was plainly to be preferred to the weak and immature Magnus. Of course, that argument could cut two ways. The jarls were not so sure that they wanted a strong king who would tax their peasants and curtail their liberties. The ultimate persuader was money. Every mercenary captain is expected to line his pockets, but Harald had a positive genius for it. Even half his fortune—which was the figure I mentioned—would be enough to keep these jarls fat and drunk for the rest of their days.
On what terms would he return? they asked. I replied coolly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, “Harald, wishes to be invited by a deputation of you in Novgorod. You understand that without oaths publicly taken he places himself in danger. The expenses of your journey”—here I dropped my wallet full of gold on the table, artfully allowing the coins to spill out—“he insists on paying himself.” (Their eyes grew wide.) “The city of Novgorod, I may add, has not its equal anywhere in the world. Every sort of pleasure can be tasted there. And you would, of course, be the guests of the prince and princess, than whom there is no pleasanter couple to be found in all Christendom. The crown must be offered to Harald in their presence, he insists on this point, though he asks you to keep your mission secret until the final moment, when he himself will break the news to them gently—they are such a sweet and sentimental couple and prone to floods of tears.”
We sailed out of Trondheimfjord in three well-built ships, each carrying three of the jarls with their retinues and baggage. The most precious item of baggage was the narrow circlet of gold that had once sat on Olaf’s brow. A brave Norwegian had snatched it right from under the Danes’ noses and had kept it safely hidden all this time.
We had a favoring wind all the way and Midsummer’s day found us crossing Lake Ladoga on the last leg of our journey. I’d hoped to sail straight past Aldeigjuborg in order to escape the notice of Ragnvald, but the jarls insisted on stopping here to rest and stretch themselves before going on. I had passed through the town on my outward journey unobserved, but it was impossible that this large entourage could fail to draw attention to itself. And sure enough, here came Jarl Ragnvald, hurrying down to the pier with expressions of delight. He greeted me like an old friend and insisted on bringing us to his hall, where he set every one flying about to produce a feast that very night.
Naturally, he said, his curiosity was piqued as to his guests’ object in visiting Gardariki. A secret? How extraordinary! Well, he would inquire no more about it—diplomacy was too deep a matter for his simple nature—but would only beg to have the pleasure of our company for a few days before we completed our journey. The noble jarls would find his ale vats overflowing, his larder well-stocked, and they would insult him if they did not treat his possessions entirely as their own.
This was a side of Ragnvald I was seeing for the first time. Fawning humility, it appeared, was as much a part of his nature as overbearing pride. Either way, I didn’t trust him, and the prospect of delay made me frantic. But my Norwegians were delighted; they loved being groveled to. After three maddening days of this, I commandeered a small boat and went ahead by myself to prepare the way, after getting their promise to follow me within the next day or two.
It was midnight, although the midsummer sun still hung in the treetops, when I entered the courtyard of Harald’s dvor. From the hall drifted the sound of laughter and snatches of song. I pounded on the door until a servant answered.
“Tell gospodin Harald,” I said, “that his skald hails him King of Norway!”
A moment passed, followed by the din of many voices shouting at once. Harald, his face flushed with drink and his clothes disheveled, came to the door. His bodyguards, in similar condition, crowded round us.
“You’ve come back, by God!” said Harald.
“Didn’t you think I would?”
“Frankly, no.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. You may have a better opinion of me when I tell you that the Tronder jarls are only a day’s sail away and have pledged themselves to give you Olaf’s crown—Your Highness.”
“Hurrah for Odd Haraldsskald! Hurrah for Harald and Norway!” a chorus of voices rang out.
I was lifted up and carried inside, toasted and cheered, and made to recount every detail of my mission to these happy men, who would soon now be going home to their farms and families.
In the midst of this noisy excitement, though, Harald, who should have been the happiest of all, was strangely quiet and looked at me from time to time in a way that I didn’t quite like.
“Does something here displease you, King?” I asked him, while the others carried on drunkenly among themselves.
“Not a bit, Tangle-Hair, I’m well pleased with your success and mean to reward you for it. It’s only that I must think precisely what reward will suit you.”
I had learned from experience that Harald was to be feared when he screamed or when he spoke very, very softly. He spoke softly now.
“I expect you haven’t heard much of the news from Novgorod,” he went on. “We had a bit of excitement some weeks back.”
“I would like to hear about it.”
“Oh, you will. Just days after you left in such a rush, what d’you suppose happens to our gracious Lady Ingigerd? She takes deathly ill with the belly ache, fever, and fainting; her nails turn blue and her tongue turns grey; and she can scarcely breathe. Mind you, I’m only repeating the court gossip—not being one of those who are invited to the princess’ bedside. Yaroslav, so I’m told, sends for the physician, the physician sends for the priest, and somebody sends for Ragnvald. And all of them wail and wring their hands for about two weeks while she lies near death. Now, it’s said that when they first found her there was a flask in her hand with a few drops of some rather nasty liquid still in it. Queer business, don’t you think?”
While he spoke his eyes never strayed from mine. I returned his gaze steadily and managed (I hoped) to sound only mildly interested. “Now you mention it, Ragnvald did say something to me about her being down with a touch of fever early in the summer. Is she recovered?”
“Not much, according to Yaroslav. We never see her. She takes her meals in her chamber with no company but her dwarf, and seldom shows her face to anyone else. A great improvement as far as I’m concerned.” He uttered a sharp bark of laughter—and still those eyes searched mine.
“And what does she say about the bottle of p—liquid?”
“Of what?”
“The liquid, the stuff you just mentioned.”
“Oh, that. Remedy for headache given her by her old nurse; it seems the recipe got a bit muddled. Anyway, that’s the public story. Elisif thinks she tried to kill herself and only wishes she hadn’t botched it. What d’you say to that, Tangle-Hair?”
“King, I don’t say anything to it.”
He took a swallow of ale and drew his sleeve across his mouth, then stared at me in silence for a time. “No, of course not. Why should you? Boring story anyway. Come on, drink up!”
We drank until the sun was high and then lay down to sleep. Later in the afternoon, Harald informed me that he was going to pay a call on Yaroslav and I could join him if I cared to, or not, if I didn’t. I could see no reason for hanging back and so rode with him along the river to the city. It should have been a pleasant ride since the day was not too hot and the summer foliage was in its glory. But all the way there, Harald was grimly silent and ignored my attempts at conversation.
We found Yaroslav in his study, surrounded by dusty volumes, by tangled scrolls that rolled in confusion across the floor, and by sheaves of maps piled on all the tables and chairs. With his hair sticking up at all angles and his clothes looking as though he had not changed them in days, the prince appeared more than usually distracted.
“Gospodin Harald! Or, Son-in-Law as I may nearly call you now—eh? A pleasure to see you. And Tangle-Hair, too! Back so soon? I had the idea that Iceland was much farther…wasn’t that what you said, Harald? Well, never mind. All went well, did it? Your inheritance, I mean? Delighted to hear it.”
But his smile quickly faded as he took in the cluttered room with a sweep of his arm. “You see before you, my friends, a man perplexed; torn by sorrow and satisfaction all at once. What’s that, Odd? Harald didn’t tell you? Well, well. A messenger, you see, arrived from Chernigov not many days after you left to report the sad news that poor Mstislav was dead. While hunting wild horses on the steppe, his mount stumbled and fell on top of him. God help his soul. He always did ride like a madman. What a week that was—my Lady near death from that ghastly medicine and then Mstislav on top of that! Honestly, I wonder I didn’t lose my wits.
“Anyway, that’s all past. But his death leaves me now indisputably the Velikiy Knyaz—the Grand Prince of all Rus according to the understanding that we had. The other princes, all my brothers and half-brothers, have already taken their oath to me. Gratifying and all that, of course, but truthfully it would have meant more to me ten years ago than it does today. It means moving the court to Kiev, though I’m far more comfortable here. And then there’s the expense—my Lady will insist on refurbishing the old palace top to bottom—you remember the state it was in. And there’s the question of what to do about Novgorod. Wouldn’t dream of letting anyone but my young eagle govern it, but I fear my Volodya’s still too young for the job, don’t you think?” He didn’t pause for a reply. “Of course, my Lady carries on like a mad woman when I mention my doubts and hesitations to her, but we can’t let the women bully us, can we?”—this with a wink at Harald—”What I’ve agreed to for the moment is to send her nephew Yngvar off to Tmutorakan with his warriors and from there on to Serkland, just to show them my banner, for that was all part of Mstislav’s domain. The young fellow couldn’t be happier. Tells me that he’s ready to set out almost any moment—but don’t let an old man rattle on like this, what have you two come to see me about?”
Harald tugged at his drooping mustaches and repeated my news. He added that he wanted to settle Yelisaveta’s dowry and marry her without delay before they left for Norway.
Yaroslav greeted this with the expected noises of surprise, but far from being grieved, as I thought he might be at the prospect of losing his captain so soon, he seemed actually relieved and congratulated Harald warmly. “Although,” he added in a confiding way, “I don’t know that any man ought to be congratulated on being made a king, for it’s a hard and thankless job. You’ve been a godsend to me, Harald Sigurdsson, upon my soul you have, but my Lady has been after me day and night to deprive you of your rank, to send Yelisaveta away, to make you swear an oath to defend little Magnus. Really, it distracts a man from his books and cogitations—especially when I have all these other things on my mind. So perhaps it’s best after all, your going back to Norway.”
The good old man; he spoke his true mind. Harald, in the end, was just too much bother for him. “Now as for my pretty Yelisaveta,” he went on, “God in Heaven, I shall miss her smiling face! Yet to see her Queen of Norway: there’s something to gladden a father’s heart! And you, Odd Thorvaldsson, you’ll be leaving us too, I expect.”
“I had thought to,” I answered, with an eye on Harald, “if I’m still wanted.”
“Well, why ever not?” he exclaimed. “Why, you’d be an ornament to any king’s court with your recitations and poems and whatnot—wouldn’t he, Harald?”
“Indeed. A man of many devices is our friend Odd.”
Yaroslav blinked in surprise: Harald’s tone was like ice. “Yes, well—,” sensing tension in the air, he fumbled for words, “we needn’t keep you, Odd. Harald and I must settle all sorts of matters if he’s to carry off my daughter so soon. Until later—?”