The Long Ships

CHAPTER TWO

CONCERNING SPIRITUAL THINGS

THERE was great rejoicing in the camp when the men learned of the agreement that their chieftains had reached with King Ethelred’s envoys. They all praised the chieftains for striking such a fine bargain, and acclaimed King Ethelred as the most considerate king toward poor seafarers from the north that there had ever been. Much drinking and merrymaking followed, fat sheep and young women being in great demand; and the scholars among them sat round the fires where the sheep were being roasted and tried to calculate how much silver there would be to each ship, and how much for the whole fleet. This they found a difficult task, and there were frequent disputes over who had calculated most correctly; but on one point they were all agreed: namely, that none of them had ever before believed that such a quantity of silver could exist anywhere in the world, unless perhaps in the Emperor’s palace at Miklagard. Some of them thought it surprising that the helmsmen should receive so large a share, seeing that their work was light and they were never required to sit at an oar; but the helmsmen themselves thought that every right-thinking man would appreciate that they were worth more than any other members of the fleet.

Although the ale was good and strong and the excitement great, still, the arguments seldom took a serious turn; for they all now regarded themselves as rich men and found life good, and so were less ready than usual to grope for their weapons.

But Orm sat brooding darkly with the little priest, thinking that few men in the world could find themselves more unhappily placed than he.

Brother Willibald had found plenty to occupy him, for there were many wounded men who required his attention, and he applied himself to their needs with zeal and cunning. He also examined Thorkel’s arm and had a good deal to say about the Bishops’ doctor and the way he had treated it; for he was unwilling to allow that anyone but himself possessed any skill or knowledge in the craft of medicine. He said that he would have to leave with the Bishops, but Orm was reluctant to let him go.

“For it is always a good thing to have a doctor around,” he said, “and it may be, as you say, that you are the best there is. It is true that I should like to send greetings through you to Ylva, this daughter of King Harald; but if I did this, I should never see you again, because of the hatred you bear us Northmen. So I should never know her reply in any case. I cannot decide what is the best thing for me to do, and this uncertainty is having a serious effect on my appetite and sleep.”

“Do you intend to keep me here by force?” asked Brother Willibald indignantly. “I have frequently heard you Northmen boast that your fidelity to your word matches your valor in battle; and all of us who were in the tower were promised that we should be free to go as we pleased. But doubtless that has slipped your memory.”

Orm stared blackly ahead of him and replied that he seldom forgot things. “But it is hard for me to let you go,” he added, “for you are a good counselor to me, even if you can do nothing for me in this matter. You are a wise man, little priest, so answer me this question: if you were in my place and were faced with the problem that faces me, what would you do?”

Brother Willibald smiled to himself and nodded sympathetically at Orm. Then he shook his head.

“You seem to be very fixed on wooing this young woman,” he said, “despite the sharpness of her temper. I am surprised at this, for you godless berserks are usually content with any woman who crosses your path and seldom mope for a particular one. Is it because she is a princess?”

“She can expect no dowry from her father,” said Orm, “the way things have turned out for him. And be sure of this, that it is herself and not her wealth that I yearn for. Nor is the fact that she is of noble blood any obstacle to our marriage, for I am myself of aristocratic ancestry.”

“Perhaps she has given you a love potion,” said Brother Willibald, “and that is why your passion for her is so unrelenting.”

“Once she gave me drink,” said Orm, “but never since. It was the first occasion on which I saw her, and the drink was meat broth. And I drank but little of that, for she lost her temper and threw the cup and the broth into the fireplace. In any case, it was you yourself who ordered the broth to be prepared for me.”

“I was not present while it was being prepared,” said Brother Willibald thoughtfully, “nor while she was bringing it from the kitchen to your room; and a young man needs but a few drops of one of these potions, when the woman in question is young and well shaped. But even if it be true that she put witchcraft in the drink, there is nothing I can do about it; for there is no cure for love save love itself. That is the verdict of all the wise doctors who have ever practiced since the earliest times.”

“The cure you speak of is the cure I wish to have,” said Orm, “and what I am asking is whether you can help me to procure it.”

Brother Willibald pointed his finger at him magisterially, and in his most fatherly manner said: “There is only one thing to be done when a man is troubled and cannot work out his own salvation; but you, unfortunate heathen, are in no position to follow my advice. For the only remedy is to pray to God for help, and that you cannot do.”

“Does He often help you?” asked Orm.

“He helps me when I ask Him sensible things,” replied Brother Willibald with feeling, “and that is more than your gods do for you. He does not listen when I complain to Him about trivial afflictions, which He thinks I am well able to endure on my own; indeed, I have, with my own eyes, seen the holy and blessed Bishop Poppo, when we were fleeing across the sea, cry most desperately to God and St. Peter to relieve him from his seasickness and remain unheard. But when I was in the tower with these other good people, and hunger and thirst and the swords of Antichrist were threatening us, we cried to God in our need, and He heard us and granted our prayers, though there was none among us as blessed in the sight of God as Bishop Poppo. For in God’s good time the envoys arrived and rescued us; and though they were, in one sense, envoys from King Ethelred to the heathen chieftains, still, they were also envoys from God sent from heaven to succor us, in answer to the many and earnest prayers that we had offered up to Him.”

Orm nodded, and admitted that there might be something in what Brother Willibald said, since he had himself been a witness to all this.

“Now I begin to understand,” he said, “why my plan to smoke you out of the tower went astray. Doubtless this God, or whoever you cried to, ordered the wind to arise and blow away the smoke.”

Brother Willibald replied that this was exactly what had happened; the finger of God had countered their evil machinations and set them at naught.

Orm sat pondering in silence, tugging his beard uncertainly.

“My mother has become a Christian in her old age,” he said at length. “She has learned two prayers, which she repeats often, holding them to be most potent. She says it is these prayers that saved me from death and brought me home to her again, after undergoing so many perils; though it may be that Blue-Tongue and I did our share in overcoming them, and you, too, little priest. Now I am beginning to feel that I, too, might ask this God to help me, since He seems to be such a helpful god. But I do not know what He will ask of me in return, nor how I should address Him.”

“You cannot ask God to help you,” said Brother Willibald decisively, “until you have become a Christian. And you cannot become a Christian until you have been baptized. And you cannot be baptized until you have renounced your false gods and professed yourself a convinced believer in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”

“Those are a great many conditions,” said Orm. “More than Allah and His Prophet require of a man.”

“Allah and His Prophet?” exclaimed the little priest in surprise. “What do you know of them?”

“I have traveled more widely in the world than you,” replied Orm. “And when I served Almansur in Andalusia, we had to pray to Allah and His Prophet twice a day, and sometimes even thrice. I still remember the prayers, if you would care to hear them.”

Brother Willibald threw up his hands in horror. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!” he cried. “Save us from the machinations of Satan and the devices of Allah the abominable! Your state is as parlous as a man’s could be, for to worship Allah is the worst heresy of all. Are you still a follower of His?”

“I worshipped Him while I was Almansur’s servant,” said Orm, “because my master commanded me to do so, and he was a man whom it was folly to disobey. Since I left him, I have not worshipped any god. Perhaps that is why things have gone less well for me recently.”

“I am surprised that Bishop Poppo did not come to hear of this while you were at King Harald’s court,” said Brother Willibald. “If he had known that you had embraced the black impostor he would have baptized you straightway, so full of zeal and piety is he, even if it had needed twelve of King Harald’s berserks to hold you in the water. It is a good and blessed thing to rescue a plain soul from darkness and blindness; and it may be that even the souls of Northmen should be regarded as deserving of charity, though I confess I can hardly bring myself to believe it after all I have suffered at their hands. But all good men are agreed that it is seven times more glorious to save the soul of one who has been seduced by Mohammed. For Satan himself has not caused more mischief than that man.”

Orm asked who Satan might be, and Brother Willibald told him all about him.

“It would appear, then,” said Orm, “that I have involuntarily angered this Satan by ceasing to worship Allah and His Prophet, and that all my misfortunes have resulted from this.”

“Exactly,” said the little priest, “and it is lucky for you that you have come at last to realize the error of your ways. Your present state is as disastrous as could be imagined, for you have incurred the wrath of Satan without having the protection of God. As long as you worshipped Mohammed, accursed be his name, Satan was your ally and so, to a certain extent, you prospered.”

“It is as I feared,” said Orm. “Few men are in such a desperate plight as I. It is too much for any man to be on evil terms with both God and Satan.”

He sat for a while buried in reflection.

At length he said: “Take me to the envoys. I wish to speak with men who have influence with God.”

The Bishops had returned from the battlefield, where they had been blessing the dead, and were intending to start on their homeward journey on the following day. The elder of them was exhausted with walking round from corpse to corpse and had gone to rest, but the Bishop of London had invited Gudmund to join him in his lodgings and was sitting drinking with him in a last effort to persuade him to allow himself to become converted to Christianity.

Ever since they had first arrived at Maldon, the Bishops had striven their utmost to win the Viking chieftains over to their religion. King Ethelred and his Archbishop had commanded them to do so, for if they should succeed in this, the King’s honor would be greatly enhanced in the sight of God and his countrymen. They had not succeeded in making much headway with Thorkel, for he had replied that his weapon-luck was good enough already and was, in any case, considerably superior to that of the Christians. Accordingly, he said, there seemed no point in his looking round for new gods. Nor had they prevailed upon Jostein. He had listened mutely to their arguments, sitting with his hands crossed upon the handle of the great battleax that he always carried with him, which he called Widow’s-Grief, regarding them from beneath wrinkled brows as they explained to him the mysteries of Christ and of the kingdom of God. Then he gave a great roar of laughter, flung his hat upon the floor, and asked the Bishops if they thought that he was a simpleton.

“These twenty-seven winters,” he said, “I have served as priest at the great Uppsala sacrifice; and you do me little honor in filling my ears with such prattle as this, fit only for children and gammers. With this ax which you see here I have hewn off the heads of the harvest sacrifices, and hung their bodies on the sacred trees that front the temple; and there were Christians among them, ay, and priests too, naked on their knees in the snow, wailing. Tell me what profit they gained from worshipping this God you speak of.”

The Bishops shuddered and crossed themselves and understood that there was no sense in trying to reason with such a man.

But they cherished greater hopes of Gudmund, for he was amiable and good-humored toward them and seemed interested in what they had to say; and sometimes, when he had drunk well, he had even thanked them warmly for their beautiful talk and solicitous regard for his spiritual well-being. He had not as yet, however, committed himself definitely; so the Bishop of London had now invited him to a grand dinner, with food and drink of a very special nature, in the hope of being able to push him to a positive decision.

Gudmund helped himself greedily to everything that was put before him; and when he had eaten and drunk his fill, the Bishop’s musicians played for him, so beautifully that tears began to appear in his beard. Then the Bishop set to work on him, speaking in his most persuasive tones and choosing his words with care. Gudmund listened and nodded and at length admitted that there was much that appealed to him in this Christianity.

“You are a good fellow,” he said to the Bishop. “You are open-handed and wise, and you drink like a warrior, and your talk is agreeable to listen to. I should like to accede to your request; but you must know that this is no small favor that you are asking of me. For it will be an ill thing if I return home to find myself the laughing-stock of my house-folk and neighbors for having allowed myself to be deceived by the prattle of priests. Still, it is my belief that a man like you must doubtless wield considerable power and be the possessor of many secrets; and I have here an object I have recently found which I should like you to read one of your prayers over.”

He drew from his shirt the little gold cross and held it in front of the Bishop’s nose.

“I found this in a rich man’s house,” he said. “It cost me two men’s lives, and a prettier plaything I never set eyes on. I intend to give this to my small son when I return home. His name is Folke, and women call him Filbyter. He is a sturdy little ruffian, with a particular fondness for silver and gold, and once he has got his hands on a thing, it is no easy matter to get it away from him. He will hardly be able to contain himself when he sees this cross. It would be a fine thing if you could bless it and make it lucky, for I want him to become rich and powerful, so that he will be able to sit at home in his house and be honored by men, and see his crops flourish and his cattle wax fat, and have no need to rove the sea for his livelihood, faring ill among foreigners and their arms.”

The Bishop smiled and took the cross and mumbled over it. Gudmund, greatly delighted, stuffed it back into his shirt.

“You shall return to your home a wealthy man,” said the Bishop, “thanks to good King Ethelred’s openhandedness and meek love of peace. But you must believe me when I tell you that your luck would be even greater if you were to come over to Christ.”

“A man can never have too much luck,” said Gudmund, pulling thoughtfully at his beard. “I have already decided which neighbor’s land I shall purchase when I return home, and what manner of house I shall build on it. It shall be large, with many rooms, built of the finest oak. To have it the way I want it to be is going to cost a lot of silver. But if I have a good hoard of silver left in my coffers after I have built it, I do not think anyone will feel much inclined to laugh at me, howsoever I may have conducted myself while abroad. So it shall be as you wish. You may baptize me, and I will follow Christ faithfully for the rest of my days, if you increase my share of King Ethelred’s silver by a hundred marks.”

“That,” replied the Bishop mildly, “is not the right attitude of mind for one wishing to be admitted into the brotherhood of Christ. I shall not blame you too heavily, however, since you are doubtless unfamiliar with the text which says: ‘Blessed are the poor’; and I fear it would take some time to explain the truth of that to you. But you should bethink yourself that you are already about to receive much silver from King Ethelred, more than any other living man could offer you; and, though he is a great and powerful King, still, even his coffers are not bottomless. It is not within his power to grant this demand of yours, even if he were agreeable to doing so. I think I can promise you a baptismal gift of twenty marks, seeing that you are a chieftain, but that is the maximum that I can offer, and he may regard even that as excessive. But now I beg that you will sample a drink that I have specially ordered to be prepared for us and which is, I think, not known in your country. It consists of hot wine blended with honey and with rare spices from the Eastland called cinnamon and cardamom. Men well versed in the subject of drink assert that no beverage is so pleasing to the palate or so effective at dispersing heavy humors and morbid cogitations.”

Gudmund found the drink good and wholesome; nevertheless, the Bishop’s offer still appeared to him to be inadequate. He would not, he explained, be prepared to risk his good name at home in East Guteland for as little as that.

“However, for the sake of the friendship I bear toward you,” he said, “I will do it for sixty marks. I cannot offer myself more cheaply than that.”

“The friendship I bear toward you could not be greater,” replied the Bishop, “and such is my desire to lead you into the brotherhood of Christ, so that you may partake of the wealth that Heaven has to offer, that I will even plunge into my own poor coffers to satisfy your demand. But I own, alas, little in the way of worldly goods, and ten marks is the most that I can add to my original offer.”

Gudmund shook his head at this and closed his eyes sleepily. At this stage in the bargaining a commotion was suddenly heard outside the door, and Orm burst in with Brother Willibald struggling under one arm and two porters hanging on to his clothing and clamoring that the Bishop was not to be disturbed.

“Holy Bishop!” he said. “I am Orm, Toste’s son, from the Mound in Skania, a captain of Thorkel the Tall. I wish to be baptized and to accompany you to London.”

The Bishop stared at him in amazement and some alarm. But when he saw that Orm was neither drunk nor out of his wits, he asked him the meaning of his request; for he was not accustomed to Northmen forcing themselves into his presence on errands of this nature.

“I wish to place myself under the protection of God,” said Orm, “for my plight is worse than that of other men. This priest can explain it all to you better than I can.”

Brother Willibald then begged the Bishop to forgive him for taking part in this intrusion. He had, he explained, not come voluntarily, but had been compelled to do so by the brute force of this heathen berserk, who had dragged him past vigilant porters, despite his desperate struggles and protests; for he himself had realized that the Bishop was engaged upon important business.

The Bishop replied amiably that he need give no more thought to the matter. He pointed a finger at Gudmund, who, with the assistance of a last cupful of spiced wine, had fallen asleep in his chair.

“I have labored long to persuade him to become a Christian,” he said, “and yet I have failed, for his soul is wholly occupied with earthly considerations. But now God has sent me another heathen in his place, and one, moreover, who is not called but comes of his own free will. Welcome, unbeliever! Are you fully prepared to join our brotherhood?”

“I am,” replied Orm, “for I have already served the prophet Mohammed and his God, and I gather that nothing can be more dangerous than that.”

The Bishop’s eyes grew round, and he struck the cross on his breast three times and called for holy water.

“Mohammed and his God?” he inquired of Brother Willibald. “What is the meaning of this?”

Between them Orm and Brother Willibald explained to the Bishop how the matter stood. The Bishop then announced that he had, in his time, seen much of sin and darkness, but that never before had he set eyes upon a man who had actually served Mohammed. When the holy water arrived, he took a small branch, dipped it in the water, and shook it over Orm, intoning prayers the while to drive the evil spirits out of the latter’s body. Orm turned pale as the Bishop did this, and he afterwards said that this sprinkling was a hard thing to endure, for it made his whole body shiver as though the hairs on his neck were trying to stand on end. The Bishop continued to sprinkle him vigorously for some time, but at length desisted and said that that would suffice.

“You are not rolling about in fits,” he informed Orm, “and I can see no froth on your lips, nor can detect any unpleasant smell emanating from your body. All this signifies that the evil spirit has departed from you. Praise God for it!”

Then he sprinkled a little on Gudmund, who immediately leaped to his feet, roaring at them to reef sail, but then fell back on his bench and began to snore resonantly.

Orm dried the water from his face and asked whether this would have the same effect upon him as baptism.

The Bishop replied that there was a considerable difference between baptism and this rite, and that it was by no means so easy for a man to be permitted to undergo baptism, least of all one who had served Mohammed.

“First you must forswear your false gods,” he said, “and avow your belief in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. In addition to this, you must also be schooled in Christian doctrine.”

“I have no gods to forswear,” said Orm, “and am ready to bind myself to God and his son and this ghost of theirs. As for schooling in Christian doctrine, I have already had plenty of that, first from the monks in Ireland, and afterwards at King Harald’s court, and from my old mother at home, as well as she was able. And now I have heard more about it from this little priest, who is my friend and has taught me a great deal about Satan. So that I think I am as learned on the subject as most men.”

The Bishop nodded approvingly and said that this was good to hear, and that it was not often that one met heathens who were willing to listen to so much instruction about holy matters. Then he rubbed his nose and stole a thoughtful glance at Gudmund, who was sound asleep. He turned again to Orm.

“There is one other point,” he said slowly and with great solemnity. “You have been dyed more deeply in sin than any man I have ever come across, in that you have served the false prophet, who is the blackest of all the chieftains of Satan. Now if, after partaking in such abominable practices, you wish to place yourself under the wing of the living God, it is meet that you should bring with you a gift for Him and for His Church, to show that your repentance is genuine and that you have truly abandoned your evil ways.”

Orm replied that was no more than was reasonable, that he should give something to improve his luck and buy the protection of God. He asked the Bishop what would be regarded as a suitable gift.

“That depends,” said the Bishop, “upon a man’s blood and wealth, and upon the magnitude of his sins. Once I baptized a Danish chieftain who had come to this land to claim his inheritance. He gave five oxen, an anker of ale and twenty pounds of beeswax to the Church of God. In the ancient Scriptures we read of men of noble birth who gave as much as ten marks of silver, or even twelve, and built a church besides. But they had brought all their household with them to be baptized.”

“I do not wish to give less than other men,” said Orm, “for you must know that the blood of the Broad Embrace runs in my veins. When I reach home, I will build a church; you shall baptize all my crew, and I will give you fifteen marks of silver. But in return for this I expect you to speak well of me to God.”

“You are a true chieftain,” cried the Bishop joyfully, “and I will do all that lies in my power to help you.”

Both of them were delighted with the bargain they had struck; but the Bishop wondered if Orm could have been serious when he had said that all the members of his crew were to be baptized with him.

“If I am to be a Christian,” said Orm, “I cannot have heathens aboard my ship. For what would God think of me if I were to allow that? They shall do as I do, and when I tell my crew that such and such a thing is to be, they do not contradict me. I have some men aboard who have already been baptized once, or even twice, but once more cannot hurt them.”

He begged that the Bishops and all their followers would honor him by coming aboard his ship the next morning, so that he might convey them up the river to London and Westminster and they might all be baptized there.

“My ship is large and fine,” he said. “It will be somewhat crowded, with so many guests aboard, but the voyage will not take long, and the weather is fair and calm.”

He was very pressing about this, but the Bishop said that he could not make a decision in so important a matter before discussing it with his brother in office and with others of their company, so Orm had to contain himself patiently until the following day. He parted from the Bishop with many expressions of thanks, and walked back to his lodgings with Brother Willibald. The latter had not said much in the Bishop’s presence, but as soon as they had left the house, he began to cackle mirthfully.

“What are you so amused at?” asked Orm.

“I was only thinking,” replied the little priest, “how much trouble you were putting yourself to for the sake of King Harald’s daughter. But I think you are acquitting yourself very well.”

“If everything goes as it should,” said Orm, “you shall not be left unrewarded. For it seems to me that my luck began to improve from the moment I met you again.”

The Bishop, left to himself, sat for a while smiling to himself, and then bade his servants wake Gudmund. This they at length succeeded in doing, though he grumbled at being thus disturbed.

“I have been thinking about that matter we were speaking of,” said the Bishop, “and, with God’s help, I think I can promise you forty marks if you will allow yourself to be baptized.”

On hearing this, Gudmund became wide awake, and after a brief argument they shook hands on forty-five marks, together with a pound of the spices that the Bishop used to flavor his wine.

The next day, at Thorkel’s lodgings, the chieftains discussed Orm’s proposal to convey the Bishops by ship to Westminster. On hearing of the plan, Gudmund announced that he would like to join the party. Seeing that the envoys had promised them a safe conduct, and that peace had been concluded between themselves and King Ethelred, he would, he said, like to be present when the King weighed out his silver, to ensure that the ceremony was carried out in a right and proper manner.

Thorkel thought this a reasonable request, and said he would have liked to accompany them himself if his arm had been better. But Jostein said that it was quite sufficient that one of the three chieftains should go; otherwise the English might be tempted to attack them, and it would be rash to weaken the strength of the main body in the camp before the silver was safely in their hands.

The weather was so fine that the Bishops could not find it in themselves to refuse to return by ship. Their only concern was lest they should fall foul of pirates; so at last it was decided that Gudmund should take his ship as well as Orm’s, and that they should sail up to Westminster together. There they were to see the silver weighed out with the least possible delay; and in the event of their meeting the King himself, they were to thank him for his gift and inform him that they intended to start plundering again, on a more extensive scale than before, if he took too long about handing it over.

Orm summoned his crew together and told them that they were now about to sail up to Westminster with the shield of peace upon their masthead and with King Ethelred’s holy envoys aboard.

Several of his men expressed uneasiness at this. They said that it was always dangerous to have a priest on board, as every sailor knew, and that a bishop might prove even worse.

Orm calmed their fears, however, and assured them that everything would be all right; for, he explained, these god-men were so holy that no harm could possibly come to them, however cunningly the sea people might contrive against them. He continued: “When we reach Westminster, I am going to get myself baptized. I have discussed the subject thoroughly with these holy men, and they have convinced me that it is an excellent thing to worship Christ; so I intend to begin doing so as soon as possible. Now, in a ship it is always best that everyone should be of the same mind and should follow the same customs. It is therefore my wish that you shall all be baptized with me. This will be to the advantage of you all. You can be certain of this, for I, who know, tell you that it will be so. If any of you is unwilling to do this, let him speak up at once; but he shall leave my ship and take his belongings with him, and shall not be a follower of mine any more.”

Many of the men glanced doubtfully at one another and scratched behind their ears; but Rapp the One-Eyed, who was the ship’s helmsman, and who was feared by most of the men, was standing in front of the crew as they listened, and he nodded calmly when he heard Orm say this, having heard him speak thus on a similar occasion once before. When the others saw Rapp do this, they offered no objection.

Orm continued: “I know that there are among you men who have already been baptized at home in Skania, perhaps receiving a shirt or a tunic for your pains, or a little cross to wear on a band round your neck. Sometimes it happens that one hears one of these men say that he cannot see that he has profited much from being baptized. But these were cheap baptisms, fit only for women and children. This time we are going to be baptized differently, by holier men, and are going to get protection from God and better luck for the rest of our lives. It would not be a right thing that we should gain such advantages without paying for them. I myself am giving a large sum for the protection and luck that I expect to receive; and each of you shall pay a penny.”

There was murmuring at this, and some of the men were heard to say that this was a new idea, that a man should pay to be baptized, and that a penny was no small sum.

“I am not forcing anyone to do this,” said Orm. “Anyone who thinks this suggestion unreasonable can save his money by meeting me in combat as soon as the baptizing is finished. If he wins, nobody is going to make him pay; and if he loses, he will also save his money.”

Most of the men thought that this was well spoken, and several of them challenged any member of the crew who had a mind to be closefisted to declare himself. But the ones to whom these words were addressed grinned weakly, thinking that they would have to make the best of whatever advantages their money might bring them.

Gudmund and Orm each took one of the god-men aboard his ship, the elder Bishop and his suite going with Gudmund, and the Bishop of London with Orm, who also took with him Brother Willibald. The Bishops blessed their ships, prayed for a lucky voyage, and set up their standards; then the ships put out and at once got a good breeze and fine weather, which made the men regard the Bishops with increased respect. They entered the river Thames on the flood tide, spent the night in the estuary, and next morning, in a clear dawn light, began to row up the river.

People stood at their hut doors among the trees that lined the riverbank, staring at the ships fearfully, and men fishing in the river prepared to flee as the ships hove into sight; they were calmed, however, by the sight of the Bishops’ standards. Here and there they saw burned villages lying deserted after one of the Vikings’ visits; then, farther up, they came to a place where the river was blocked by four rows of piles, with only a small channel left free in the middle. Three large watch-ships lay there, filled with armed men. The Vikings were forced to stop rowing, for the watch-ships stood in the midst of the channel with all their men prepared for battle, and blocked further progress.

“Are you blind?” roared Gudmund across the water, “or have you lost your wits? Do you not see that we come with a shield of peace on our masthead, and have holy bishops aboard?”

“Do not try to fool us,” replied a voice from the watch-ships. “We want no pirates here.”

“We have your own King’s envoys aboard,” roared Gudmund.

“We know you,” came the reply. “You are full of cunning and devilry.”

“We are coming to be baptized,” shouted Orm impatiently.

At this, there was loud laughter on the watch-ships, and a voice shouted back: “Have you grown tired of your lord and master the Devil?”

“Yes!” roared Orm furiously, and at this the laughter on the other ships was redoubled.

Then it looked as though there was going to be fighting, for Orm was enraged by their laughter and bade Rapp heave to and grapple the nearest ship, which was doing most of the laughing. But by this time the Bishops had hastily donned their robes, and now, raising their staffs aloft, they cried to both sides to be still. Orm was unwilling to obey, and Gudmund, too, thought that this was asking too much. Then the Bishops cried across the water to their countrymen, addressing them sternly, so that at last they realized that the holy men were what they appeared to be, and not prisoners or pirates in disguise. So the ships were allowed to pass, and nothing came of the encounter, apart from smart exchanges of insults between the rival crews as the Vikings rowed past.

Orm stood with a spear in his hand, staring at the watch-ships, still white with wrath.

“I should have liked to teach them some manners,” he said to Brother Willibald, who was standing beside him, and who had not shown any evidence of fear when the fighting had seemed about to begin.

“He who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword,” replied the little priest. “Thus it is written in the holy book, where all wisdom is. How could you have come to King Harald’s daughter if you had fought with King Ethelred’s ships? But you are a man of violence, and will always remain one. And you will suffer sorely for it.”

Orm sighed and threw down his spear.

“When I have won her,” he said, “I shall be a man of peace.”

But the little priest shook his head sadly.

“Can the leopard change its spots?” he said. “Or the blue man his skin? Thus, too, is it written in the holy book. But thank God and the blessed Bishops that they have helped you now.”

Soon they rounded a curve in the river and saw London lying before them on the right bank. It was a sight that struck the Vikings speechless with wonder, for the town was so great that, from the river, they could not see its end, and the priests told them it had been calculated that more than thirty thousand men dwelt there. Many of the Vikings found it difficult to imagine what so many men could find to live on in such a crowded place, with no fields or cattle. But the wise ones among them knew and said that such town-dwellers were an evil and cunning race, who understood well how to earn a livelihood from honest countryfolk without themselves ever setting their hands to a plow or a flail. It was therefore, these wise men argued, a good thing for bold sailors to pay occasional visits to these people and relieve them of what they had stolen from other folk. So they all gazed spellbound at the town as they rowed slowly up against the tide, thinking that here indeed there must be riches worth the taking.

But Orm and Rapp the One-Eyed said that they had seen bigger cities, and that this was only a village compared with Córdoba.

So they rowed on toward the great bridge, which was built of huge tree trunks, and which was so high that the biggest ships could row under it, once they had lowered their masts. Many people rushed out to see them, including armed men, yelling at the tops of their voices about heathens and devils; but they broke into shouts of jubilation when they heard their Bishops cry resonantly to them that all was well and that peace had been concluded with the men from the sea. As the ships approached, people crowded on to the bridge to catch a glimpse of them at close quarters. When the crews caught sight of several fine young women among them, they shouted enthusiastically to them to make haste and come down, promising that they would find good prizes aboard, silver and merriment and bold men, as well as plenty of priests to pardon their sins in the best Christian manner. One or two of the young women giggled coyly and answered that they had a mind to do as the men bade them, but that it was a long way to jump; whereupon they were immediately grabbed by the hair by furious kinsfolk, who promised them the birch on their bare bodies for indulging in such lewd chatter with heathen men.

Brother Willibald shook his head sadly and said that young people were very difficult nowadays, even in Christian communities. And Rapp, too, standing at his steering-oar, shook his head as they passed beneath the bridge, and muttered sullenly that women were always full of useless chatter, wherever you found them.

“They ought to have kept their mouths shut,” he said, “and to have jumped at once, as they were told to do.”

They were now approaching Westminster and could see tall spires rising up behind the trees. The Bishops clothed themselves once more in all their finery; and the priests attending them began to chant an ancient hymn, which St. Columbanus had been wont to sing when baptizing heathens.

Lo! Here’s a host from darkness won

—Do not reject them, Lord!—

Who late in need and peril spun

Upon the sinful flood.

To the cross which the wide world o’er hath blazed

They lift their eyes, and Thy name is praised

By souls which late with the Devil grazed.

—Do not reject them, Lord!

Their voices rang sweetly over the water in the clear evening; and as soon as the men at the oars had grasped the rhythm of the hymn, they began to pull in time to it and voted it a fine chantey to row by.

As the singing ceased, they brought the ship to starboard and made her fast to one of the piers beneath the red walls of Westminster.