The Long Ships

CHAPTER THREE

CONCERNING THE STORY OF THE BULGAR GOLD

I AM the poorest of men, for my eyes have been taken from me, and my tongue and my right hand, and my son, whom the Emperor’s treasurer killed. But I can also call myself the richest, for I know where the Bulgar gold lies hidden. I shall tell you where it lies, that I may not die with the secret still hidden in my breast, and you, priest, shall repeat it to my brother, but to no other man. He shall then decide whether he wishes it to be repeated for other ears.

In the river Dnieper, where the portage climbs beside the great weirs, just below the third weir as a man comes from the south, off the right bank between the skull-mound of the Patzinaks and the small rock in the river on which the three rosebushes grow, under the water in the narrow channel where the rock-flat is broken, hidden beneath large stones where the rock-flat juts out and hides the bed beneath—there lies the Bulgar gold, and I alone know its hiding-place. As much gold as two strong men might carry lies drowned there, in four small chests sealed with the Emperor’s seal, together with silver in five sacks of skin, and the sacks are heavy. This treasure first belonged to the Bulgars, who had stolen it from many wealthy men. Then it became the Emperor’s, and from him it was stolen by his treasurer, Theofilus Lakenodrako. Then it became mine, and I hid it where it now lies.

I shall tell you how all this came about. When I first came to Miklagard, I entered the Imperial bodyguard, as many Northmen had done before me. Many Swedes serve in it, and Danes too, and men from Norway, and from Iceland also, far out in the western sea. The work is good, and the pay also, though I came too late to partake in the plundering of the palace when the Emperor John Zimisces died, which was a fine plundering, still much talked of among those who took part in it. For it is the ancient custom there that whenever an emperor dies, his bodyguard is permitted to plunder his palace. There is much that I could tell you, priest, but I shall speak only of those things that it is necessary to know, for this fumbling upon a beam wearies me. I served in the bodyguard for a long while, and became a Christian and took a woman to wife. She was called Karbonosina, which means with coal-black eyebrows, and was of good family according to Byzantine reckoning, for her father was brother to the wife of the second wardrobe-master of the three royal Princesses.

You must know that in Miklagard, as well as the Emperor Basil, who is childless, there rules also Constantine, his brother, who is also called Emperor. But Basil is the true Emperor. It is he who rules the land and crushes revolts and goes to war each year against the Bulgars and Arabs, while Constantine, his brother, sits at home in the palace playing with his treasure and his courtiers and the eunuchs who crowd about him. When any of them tells him that he is as good as his brother, or better, he strikes the speaker on the head with his little black staff, which bears a gold eagle on it, but the blow is always light, and the speaker is afterwards rewarded with rich gifts. He is a cruel man when his humor is darkened, and worst when he is drunk.

It is he who is father to the three Princesses. They are held to be greater than all other people in the world, save the Emperors themselves; for they are the only children of Imperial blood. Their names are: Eudokia, who is hunchbacked and disfigured by the pox, and whom they keep hidden; Zoe, who is one of the fairest of women, and who has lusted eagerly after men since she was a young girl; and Theodora, who is weak-brained and pious. They are unmarried, for there is no man in the world worthy to marry them, say the Emperors—which has for years been a source of vexation to Zoe.

We of the bodyguard took it in turns to go to war with the Emperor Basil and to remain in the palace with his brother. There is much that I remember and would tell you, but this telling goes slowly, and I shall now speak to you of my son.

My woman called him Georgios and had him christened thus, I being in the field with the Emperor when he was born. For this I whipped her on my return, and called him Halvdan, a good name. When he grew up, he was known by both names. With her and others he conversed in the Greek tongue, which is the speech that women and priests use there, but with me he spoke our tongue, though the learning of it came more slowly to him. When he was seven years old, my woman ate a surfeit of mussels and died; and I took no other wife, for it is a bad thing to marry a foreign woman. The women of Miklagard are worth little. As soon as they marry, they become thoughtless and lazy, and childbearing ages them and makes them fat and insubordinate. When their husbands try to tame them, they run shrieking to their priests and bishops. They are not like our women, who are understanding and work diligently and whom childbearing makes wiser and more comely. This was the opinion of all of us Northmen who served in the bodyguard. Many of us changed our wives every year and still were not satisfied.

But my son was my joy. He was shapely and swift-footed, quick-tongued and merry. He was afraid of nothing, not even of me. He was such that women in the street turned to look at him when he was little, and turned more swiftly as he grew to manhood. This was his misfortune, but there was no help for it. He is dead now, but is seldom out of my thoughts. He and Bulgar gold are all I can think about. It could have become his, if all had gone well.

When my woman died, my son spent much time with her kinsfolk, wardrobe-master Symbatios and his wife. They were old and childless, for the wardrobe-master, as befitted one who worked in the royal women’s apartments, was a eunuch. He was married, though, as Byzantine eunuchs often are. He and his wife both loved Halvdan, though they called him Georgios, and when I was away with the Emperor they took care of him. One day I returned from the wars to find the old man weeping for joy. He told me that my son had become the Princesses’ playmate, especially Zoe’s, and that Zoe and he had already fought and proved equally strong, she being two years older than he. Although they had fought, she had said that she much preferred him as a playmate to the Metropolitan Leo’s niece, who fell on her knees and wept when anyone tore her clothes, or chamberlain Nikeforos’s son, who was harelipped. The Empress Helena herself, he said, had clapped the boy on the head and called him a little wolf cub and told him he must not pull Her Imperial Highness Zoe’s hair when she maltreated him. Gazing up at the Empress, the boy had asked her when he might pull it. At this the Empress had condescended to laugh aloud with her own mouth, which, the old man said, had been the happiest moment in his life.

These are childish things, but to remember them is one of the few joys that remain to me. In time things changed. I pass over many things, which would take too long to tell. But some five years later, when I was commanding a company of the bodyguard, Symbatios again came weeping to my chamber, but not this time for joy. He had that day gone to the innermost clothing chamber, where the coronation garments were kept, and which was seldom visited, to see if there were any rats there. Instead of rats, he had found Halvdan and Zoe playing a new kind of game together, a game the sight of which had terrified him exceedingly, on a bed they had made of coronation garments that they had dragged from their chests. As he stood there speechless, they had grabbed their clothes and disappeared, leaving the coronation robes, which were of purple-dyed silk from the land of the Seres,1 severely crumpled, so that he knew not what to do. He had pressed them as well as he was able, and had replaced them carefully in their chests. There could, he said, be only one fate for him if this business was discovered—namely, that he would lose his head. It was lucky that the Empress was sick abed, for all the courtiers were in her chamber and had no time to think of anything else, which was the reason the Princess was less carefully guarded than usual and had been able to find this opportunity to seduce my son. There could be no doubt, he said, that the blame was wholly hers; for nobody could suspect a boy still in his thirteenth year of harboring such ideas. But nothing could alter what had happened, and he held this to be the worst stroke of ill luck that had ever befallen him.

I laughed at his story, thinking the boy had behaved like a true son of mine, and tried to comfort the old man by telling him that Halvdan was too young to be able to present Princess Zoe with a little emperor, however hard they might have striven to do so; and that though the coronation robes might be crumpled, they could hardly have sustained any real damage. But the old man continued to weep and moan. He said all our lives were in danger—his, his wife’s, my son’s, and my own—for the Emperor Constantine would immediately order us to be killed if he ever learned of what had happened. Nobody, he added, could suppose that Zoe had been frightened at being discovered thus with Halvdan, for she was by now a full fifteen, and of a temper more akin to that of a burning devil than of a blushing virgin, so that it could not be doubted that she would shortly start afresh with Halvdan, he being the only person she was allowed to associate with who was not a woman or a eunuch. In time the scandal must inevitably be discovered, when Princess Zoe would receive an admonition from a bishop, and Halvdan and the rest of us would be killed.

As he spoke, I began to be afraid. I thought of all the people I had seen maimed and killed for offending the imperial humor during the years I had served in the bodyguard. We sent for my son and remonstrated with him for what he had done, but he said that he regretted nothing. It had not been the first time, he said, and he was no child who required seducing, but knew as much about love as Zoe. I realized that nothing now could keep them apart and that disaster would overtake us all if the affair was allowed to continue. So I shut him up in the wardrobe-master’s house and went to call on the chief officer of the bodyguard.

He was called Zacharias Lakenodrako, and bore the title of Chief Sword-bearer, which is an office much honored among the Byzantines. He was an old man, tall and venerable-looking, with red and green jewels on his fingers, a wise and skillful talker, but sly and malignant, like everybody who holds high office in Miklagard. I bowed humbly before him, said that I was unhappy in the bodyguard, and begged that I might spend the remaining years of my service on one of the Emperor’s warships. He considered this request and found it difficult to grant. At length he said he thought he might be able to arrange it if I did him a small service in return. It was his wish, he said, that the Archimandrite Sophron, who was the Emperor Constantine’s confessor, should receive a sound drubbing, for the latter was his worst enemy and had of late been talking evil of him to the Emperor behind his back. He wanted, he said, no bloodshed, so that I must use no edged or pointed weapons against the Archimandrite, but merely stout sticks, which would make his flesh smart. He said the deed would best be done beyond the palace gardens in the evening when he was riding home from the Emperor on his white mule.

I answered that I had long been a Christian, and that it would be a great sin for me to thrash a holy man. But he admonished me like a father, explaining that I was wrong in my supposition. “For the Archimandrite,” he said, “is a heretic, and confuses the two natures of Christ, which was the reason why we first became enemies. So it will be a pious action to thrash him. But he is a dangerous man, and you will be wise to take two men to help you. For before he became a monk he was chieftain of a band of robbers in Anatolia, and is still easily able to kill a man with a blow from his fist. Only strong men, such as serve in the bodyguard, will be able to give him the whipping he deserves. But I am sure your strength and wisdom will see the matter through. Take good sticks and strong men.”

Thus spoke sword-bearer Zacharias, deceiving me and leading me into sin. God has since punished me for striking a holy man; for though he may have been evil, he was still holy. But I did not understand this then. I took with me two men on whom I could rely, Ospak and Skule, gave them wine and money, and told them we were going to beat a man who confused the two natures of Christ. It surprised them that three of us should be needed to beat one man, but when that evening we attacked the Archimandrite, their wonder ceased. As we rushed at him, I received a kick from his mule; and with his rosary, which he wore on his wrist and which consisted of heavy leaden beads, he gave Skule such a blow on the temples that he fell to the ground and remained there. But Ospak, a good man from Öland with the strength of a bear, dragged him from his saddle and threw him to the ground. By this time our blood was roused, so that we beat him worse than we would otherwise have done. He bellowed curses and roared for help; but nobody came, for in Miklagard, when anyone hears a cry for help, everyone runs in the opposite direction, lest he be arrested as perpetrator of the crime. At last we heard the sound of hoofs and we knew that the Khazar bowmen of the city watch were approaching; so we left the Archimandrite, who was by now unable to do anything save crawl, and departed. But we had to leave Skule there with him.

On the next day I went back to sword-bearer Zacharias, who was so pleased with the way everything had turned out that he acted honorably toward me. Everything, he said, leering with satisfaction, had gone better than he could have hoped. Skule had been dead when the watch had found him, and the Archimandrite was now in prison charged with street-brawling and murder. There was good hope that he would not be released before his ears had been clipped, for the Emperor Constantine feared his brother, and the Emperor Basil always meted out severe punishment to any monk convicted of disorderly behavior and, moreover, disliked having men of his bodyguard murdered. As a reward for the success of my efforts, my request was to be granted immediately. He had, he said, already spoken with important friends of his who held high positions in the navy, and before long I would find myself a ship’s chieftain in one of the red ships, which were regarded as the finest in the fleet.

Things turned out as he had promised, for even Byzantine courtiers sometimes keep their word. So I was appointed to a good ship and departed with my son from the palace and the perils it contained for us. We rowed westwards to the land of Apulia, where we fought Mohammed’s servants, both those of Sicily and those who belong to more distant lands. We stayed there a long time and underwent many adventures, which it would take long to relate. My son waxed strong and comely. I made him an archer in my ship. He liked the sea, and we were happy there. But when we were ashore, he was often foolish with women, as young people are, and this caused quarrels between us. When we anchored in the Emperor’s harbors, Bari or Tarentum in Apulia, or Modon, or Nepanto, where the great shipyards are, and where we received our pay, there were always plenty of women to choose from, for wherever sailors are with booty and pay, thither women always flock eagerly. But there were also in these towns officers called strategi, and silver-booted naval chieftains, and officials called secretices and logothetes who dealt with matters of pay and booty. They had their wives with them, beautiful women with dovelike voices and white hands and painted eyes. They were full of witchcraft, and not for seafaring men, as I often told Halvdan.

But he paid small heed to my counsel. It was his fate that women’s eyes always turned toward him, and he thought none but the best good enough for one who had lain with the Emperor’s daughter. The Byzantine women are fiery, and swift to cuckold their husbands once their lust is aroused. But their men dislike being cuckolded, and those in high office order the death of any young man who arouses their suspicions, and often kill their wives, too, that their minds may be set at rest and that they may marry again and be luckier. My advice to Halvdan was always to leave married women alone and to content himself with those whose virtue was their own business. If he had heeded my counsel, that which afterwards happened would never have happened. He would not be dead, and I should not be as I am. Neither should I be sitting here telling you of the Bulgar gold. It would have been better so.

It was not for the woman’s sake that he was killed, but for that of the gold. But it was the woman who caused our ways to separate, and the rest followed.

It was then that sword-bearer Zacharias Lakenodrako spat the communion bread into the face of his enemy, the Archimandrite Sophron, who had by this time returned into the Emperor’s favor, crying aloud before the assembled court that the Archimandrite had poisoned it. The Archimandrite was whipped for this and exiled to a distant monastery, but Zacharias, too, was dismissed from his office and had his ears clipped for dishonoring Christ. For it was held that, once a man had taken the body of Christ into his mouth, he ought to have the faith to swallow it, even if he knew it to be poisoned. When this news reached me from Miklagard, I laughed aloud, thinking that it would be difficult to decide which of the two men was the more evil, and that the ambitions of both to have the other’s ears clipped had now been satisfied.

But Zacharias had a son called Theofilus. He was already thirty years old and was serving at the court. When his father lost his ears and his office, the son went to both Emperors and prostrated himself on the ground at their feet. He said that the sin his father had committed was, indeed, most foul, and the punishment inflicted upon him so mild that he wept for joy whenever he thought of it. In short, he praised the goodness of the two Emperors so enthusiastically that before very long the Emperor Basil appointed him naval treasurer. This meant that, for the future, he was to supervise the division of all booty won anywhere by the Emperor’s ships, and was, besides, to be in complete charge of all matters concerning sailors’ pay.

We came with the red fleet to Modon, to have our keels scraped and to be paid. Treasurer Theofilus was there, with his wife. I never saw her, but my son quickly did so, and she him. It was in church that their eyes first met, and although he was but a young archer and she a rich woman, it was not long before they met in secret and indulged their lust for each other. Of this I knew nothing until he came to me one day and told me he was weary of the sea and had hopes of a better position in the treasurer’s household. The woman had told her husband that Halvdan was son to a man who had once done his father a service by spiting the Archimandrite, so that now Halvdan stood high not only in the woman’s favor, but in that of her husband also.

When I heard the reasons for his appointment, I told him he might as well run a sword through his breast there and then as do what he intended to do. I also said that it was cruel of him to leave me alone and kinless for a woman’s painted eyes. But he would have his way, and refused to hearken to my counsel. The woman, he said, was like a flame, and without flaw, and he would never be able to live without her. Besides which, he said, he would now grow rich and famous in the treasurer’s service and would no longer have to continue as a poor archer. There was no danger, he said, of his being found out and killed, for, he bade me remember, he was half Byzantine and therefore better able than I to understand many things, including women. When he said this, I was gripped with fury and cursed his mother’s name; and so we parted.

This was a great grief for me. But I thought that, in time, the woman would tire of him, or he of her, and that then he would come back. “Then,” I thought, “when my service is finished, he will return with me home to the north and take a wife there and forget his Byzantine blood.”

So time passed, and the Emperor Basil, who is the greatest warlord who has ever ruled in Miklagard, began a new campaign against the Bulgars. These people are bold warriors and terrible bandits, and plague their neighbors fearfully, so that they have excited the wrath of many emperors; and now the Emperor Basil had sworn an oath to destroy their kingdom and every man of them and hang their King in chains above his own city gate. He invaded their land with a mighty army, and his red fleet sailed up into the Black Sea to harry their coasts.

But twelve of the best ships were detailed upon a special mission, and mine was among them. We took soldiers from the army aboard, as many as the ships could hold, and sailed northwards along the coast till we reached the mouth of a river called Danube, which is the greatest of all rivers. The commander of our flotilla was named Bardas; he was in the biggest of our ships, and I heard, as we rowed up the river three abreast, that the naval treasurer was on board with him. At this I rejoiced, hoping to see my son again, if he was still alive. But why the treasurer should be accompanying us, none could say.

We heard the trump of war-horns ahead and, rounding a bend in the river, sighted a great fortress. It stood behind dikes and stockades on a hill not far from the river. All around was marsh and wilderness, with nothing to be seen but reeds and birds. We all marveled that our Emperor had sent us to so desolate a place as this. We put soldiers and archers ashore to storm the fortress. The Bulgars fought valiantly on their ramparts, and it was not until the second day that we gained the upper hand. I was wounded in my shoulder by an arrow and went back to my ship. There they drew out the arrow and dressed the wound; and as night fell, I sat on the deck and saw the fortress burn and the treasurer’s men come back with prisoners, who staggered beneath the weight of the booty they were carrying. The ship that had carried Bardas and the treasurer lay at the end of our line, nearest to the fortress; then came two other ships, then mine, and then the rest in a line up the river. A short while after darkness had fallen, we heard shouts and alarums from one of the ships below us, and men cried from other ships to ask what might be afoot. I thought some of the men had probably been trying to steal the booty, and that Bardas was teaching them a lesson. But soon the noise ceased and everything became quiet, save for the baying of wolves who had scented meat. So I sat there, sleepless because of the pain in my arm.

Then a man came swimming toward my ship. I could hear him in the water, but could see nothing. I took a spear and bade him say who he was, for I feared the Bulgars might be upon us, but when I heard him reply, my heart leaped, for the voice was that of my son. When I had pulled him aboard, he sat there panting. I said: “It is good to see your face. I had small hope that we should meet again.” He replied in a low voice: “Bardas has been murdered in his ship, and many others with him. The treasurer and his father have fled with the gold—more gold than anyone has ever seen. We must go after them and take it from them. Have you archers aboard?”

I gave him drink to calm him, and answered that I had some fifteen archers left aboard, the rest being ashore, but that I wished to know more about this gold, for this was the first I had heard of it.

Eagerly he replied: “The gold belonged to the Bulgar King, who kept it hidden here. The Emperor learned of this and sent us here with his treasurer, whom he trusted. I saw the gold as they were carrying it aboard, and helped to seal it with the Emperor’s seal. But the treasurer hates the Emperor for what he did to his father. The old man is here with him, and they planned this together. All his men were bribed to help him, and when darkness fell they killed Bardas and his officers and the archers of his bodyguard. It was easy, for the others suspected nothing. But I thought to myself: ‘This was lately the Emperor’s gold, and while it was his it was a crime for any man to touch it. Now it is the treasurer’s; but if it should be taken from him, whose will it be then?’ I reasoned thus; then, when no one was looking, I slipped overboard into the river and swam here to you. They will not miss me, for they will think I have been killed in the fighting. But now answer me this question: whose shall the gold be if it is taken from them?”

I said: “This must be the reason that the treasurer anchored his ship farthest downstream, so that they might more easily escape in the darkness. If they have already fled, the gold will belong to whoever can take it from them and keep it; for such is the unwritten law of the sea. First they will float silently downstream in silence; then, when they are out of earshot, they will unship their oars. When it begins to grow light, they will set sail, and with this wind they will soon be well out to sea. It would be good to know where they are making for. There is much here that requires thought, and I do not want to do anything before I am sure which is the wisest course to follow.”

Halvdan said: “The treasurer told me that we should flee to Tmutorokan, beyond Krim, where we would divide up the treasure, and then proceed to the country of the Khazars, to be safe from the Emperor’s wrath; after which, he said, we might go where we pleased. He said this to the others also; so it is certain he does not intend to go there. But a short while before we started on this voyage, I heard him sitting mumbling with his father, just after some message had reached them, and I heard the old man say it was a good thing for them that the great Prince of Kiev had begun again to beget children upon his concubines and no longer honored his High Princess, our Emperor’s sister, so that there was small friendship between him and the Emperor. I therefore think that they intend to flee to Kiev with the gold.”

I said: “Halvdan, you are a wise boy, and I think you have guessed rightly. If they are heading for Kiev, they are sailing in a direction that suits us well, for they are taking it halfway home for us. If we let them reach Kiev, we shall find good men there willing to help us take it from them, if we find we cannot do so ourselves unaided. There is no need for us to start yet, for we must not let them see us following them over the sea, lest they should grow suspicious and alter their course. But a short while before it is light, when even the best ship’s watchmen are asleep, let us leave this place silently. I have grieved much that you left me, Halvdan, but perhaps what happened was for the best, for this affair looks as if it may prove most luck for us both.”

Thus spake I, foolishly; for what known god likes to hear men praise their luck before it has come to them?

I asked him about the woman who had seduced him. He replied that the treasurer had wearied of her and imprisoned her in a nunnery, because she had taken to defending herself when he tried to birch her. “And,” he said, “when I found that she was lusting after other young men besides me, I, too, wearied of her.”

This pleased me, and I promised him far finer women when we should bring the gold home to the north.

As the first gray appeared in the sky, we weighed anchor and swung out into the river, with our oars shipped and our rowers asleep on their benches, and glided downstream without anyone crying to ask whither we were going. When the crew and the archers awoke, I gave them better food than that to which they were accustomed, and stronger drink; then I told them that we were pursuing thieves who had fled with the Emperor’s booty. More than that I did not tell them. It was not my intention to act dishonorably and steal one of the Emperor’s ships, for I wished but to borrow it until I had achieved my purpose. I thought this not unjust, seeing that he owed me a year’s pay.

We came out of the river and sailed across the sea, uncertain whether we had guessed rightly; but when we reached the mouth of the river Dnieper, we saw fishermen there and learned from them that one of the Emperor’s red ships had entered the river the day before. My ship was smaller than the treasurer’s, but I was not afraid, for I had Lezghian and Khazar archers aboard, good men for a fight, while he had only men of his own household.

Then there was heavy rowing with few intervals for resting, but whenever the rowers began to complain, I gave them a double measure of wine and comforted myself with the thought that the treasurer, with his heavier ship, must be in a worse plight. I saw no horse-herds on the banks, and no Patzinaks, at which we were glad; for when the Patzinaks are on the warpath, or are pasturing their horses on the riverbanks, they regard the river and all that moves on its surface as their own, so that no sailor dares land to cook his food. They are the most arrogant of peoples, and the worst robbers, and the Emperor himself pays them friendship-money every year.

On the fourth day the bodies of three men floated down the river. By the marks on their backs it could be seen that they were oarsmen of the treasurer who had grown tired. This I took as an encouraging sign, and I now began to hope we might overtake him at the weirs. On the next day more bodies floated downstream, but they did not belong to the treasurer’s men. Then we found his ship, stranded on a tongue of land and empty. I realized from this that he had encountered a river ship and captured it, that he might proceed more swiftly and take his treasure more easily across the portage when he came to the weirs. For a keeled warship is no easy thing to drag overland.

Toward the evening of the eighth day we heard the splash of the weirs and reached the portage. There was nothing to be seen there save two oarsmen who had been left because they were too weak to row farther. We gave them wine, which revived them, and they told us that the treasurer had put his new ship on rollers that very day. But he had been unable to find either horses or oxen to harness to it, for the riverbanks were deserted, so that he had only his oarsmen to pull it, and they were all exceedingly weary. They could not, therefore, have got far.

Halvdan and I rejoiced when we heard this. We took archers with us and followed the tracks of the ship. Between the second and third weir, we sighted them. Then we turned inland and crept swiftly forward behind the burial mound of the Patzinak chieftains, which stands on a rise there, surmounted by skulls, and waited beside it with arrows in our bows until they had almost reached the spot where we were hiding. I saw the treasurer and his father walking beside the ship in full armor, with swords in their hands. I ordered four archers to mark them, and the others to kill the men who were in charge of the harnessed rowers.

The bows sang, men fell to the ground, and we all drew our swords and charged, whooping our battle-cry. The rowers dropped their ropes and fled, and all was confusion; but the treasurer and his father fell not, because the Devil and their good armor protected them. Zacharias the sword-bearer, who had been grazed by several arrows, fled quicker than anyone else, running like a youth. But I gave most of my attention to the treasurer. I saw him turn in astonishment, his face a sickly white above his black beard, as our arrows and war-whoops reached him. He gathered his men about him, roaring at them in a terrible voice, being pained at the prospect of being parted from so much gold. I wish he had stood his ground there longer.

Halvdan and I and the master of the archers, a Lezghian man named Abchar, were the first to reach them, and we fought with the men who stood protecting the treasurer. I saw him bare his teeth as he recognized Halvdan; but we could not get at him, for his men fought bravely, even though their leader was cowering behind them. Then the archers joined us, and we forced the treasurer’s men back toward their ship; but when at last we broke their resistance, we found him fled and several of his men with him.

It was by now almost dusk, and I was uncertain what to do. The master of the archers was a man who always did as he was bidden without asking questions; I bade him take his men and pursue the enemy up the river as swiftly as he could, not pausing until darkness fell. I told him that the Emperor had put a price of a hundred pieces of silver on the treasurer’s head, and a like sum on his father’s, and that this would be paid in full to whoever brought me their heads. So he hastened away with his men.

So soon as Halvdan and I were left alone, we climbed up into the ship. There, in the cabin, hidden behind sacks and casks, lay the treasure, in four small chests and seven skin sacks, all sealed with the Emperor’s seal. But sight of so much wealth caused me less joy than concern as to what we should do next, and how we should succeed in bringing it home without anyone else learning of its existence. Halvdan said: “We must hide this before the archers return.” I said: “Where can we find a place large enough to hide so much?” He said: “Perhaps in the river.” “You are right,” I said; “wait here while I investigate.”

I went to the river, and there found the place of which I have spoken, with the river frothing as it coursed over it. Together we carried the treasure there and hid it well, save two sacks of silver which, after much thought, I left in the ship.

Abchar and his men now returned. They carried three heads, but not those I most wished to see. Together we ate and drank food and wine that we found in the ship. Then I said to him: “Here, Abchar, you see these two sacks, sealed with the Emperor’s seal. This is the treasure that the treasurer Theofilus and his father stole from the Emperor. Whether it is silver or gold I know not, for none may break the Emperor’s seal. Now we are in a sore plight, for all this must speedily be brought intact to the Emperor; but I was commanded by him not to return without the treasurer’s head. This, therefore, is what we must do. I and my son will go up the river to search for the treasurer, as far as Kiev; and two of your men, volunteers, shall go with us. But you and the rest of your men shall return to our ship with this treasure and bid the helmsman convey you to Miklagard. We four shall find our own way back, when our task has been accomplished.”

Those were my words, and Abchar nodded and felt the weight of the sacks. He spoke to his men, and two Khazars volunteered to come with us. Abchar and the others departed with the silversacks, and I was glad that thus far all had gone well. I needed the two archers to help me in my quest for a boat, lest we should encounter robbers, or perhaps the treasurer himself, if he had managed to rally his men. I thought he would probably continue his flight from us, but in that I was wrong.

We were tired, and that night I took the first watch myself. Then I bade one of the Khazars replace me; but he must have slept, in order, perhaps, that our fatal destiny might be fulfilled. For during the night, while we were all asleep in the ship, the treasurer, with his father and four men whom he still had, fell upon us unawares. I was awakened by the clatter of stones as someone stumbled, and sprang to my feet with my sword drawn. Two men leaped at me and as I met them, I saw the treasurer fell one of the Khazars and charge at Halvdan, whirling his sword above his head. Halvdan must have been sleeping deeply, for he had barely managed to draw his sword; I would have given my life and all the gold to have come between them. The men who had engaged me fell dead, but I scarcely noticed them go down, for as I turned upon the treasurer, Halvdan was already lying at his feet. I hewed with both hands; it was my last blow, and my best. It cleft his helmet and chain hood, and split his skull so deeply that I saw his teeth fall out through his throat. But as death bit him, his sword entered my eye. I fell to the ground and knew that I was about to die; but the thought of that did not trouble me, for I thought: “Halvdan is dead, and I have avenged him, and everything is now finished.”

This story wearies me, and there is little more to tell. The next I knew was that I was lying bound, and that sword-bearer Zacharias was sitting beside me, laughing, with a laugh that was not that of a man. He told me how I was to be maimed, and croaked much about the gold. I spat in his face and bade him show me his ears. He had one man left, and between them they chopped off my hand and heated oil from the ship to dip the stump in, so that I should not die too quickly. But he promised me a quick death if I would tell him where the gold was. I did not oblige him, fearing no pain, for my soul was dead. I told him the gold was on its way to the Emperor, and he believed me. We spoke no more.

Then I heard a scream, and a man whimpered and began to cough and then fell silent. Then I was lying in a boat that was being pulled across the ground. I was given drink, and knew nothing. Then the boat was floating on the water, and it seemed to me that I was dead. The man who was rowing talked much, and I understood some of what he said. He was the second Khazar. He was singing and whistling, and very merry. He had run away when we had been attacked, and had fled back to my ship, but it had gone. So he had returned and, creeping up close behind the men who were working on me, and killed them both with arrows. Why he troubled to save what remained of me no one can know; he may have been a good man, as Khazars often are. Two poor peasants had come over from the other bank to plunder the dead, and he had given them the treasurer’s ship with all that it contained, on condition that they gave him their small boat and helped him carry me up the portage. Thus it happened; I know only what he said.

He laughed all the time and praised his luck, for on the bodies of the treasurer and his father he had found much silver and gold, and the arms and weapons that he had taken from them were of the finest workmanship. On the bodies of the other men, too, he had found money and jewels, and had, besides, taken a fine gold ring from the finger of my son. He was now, he told me, intending to buy horses in Kiev, and a woman or two, after which he would return to his own people, a rich man, in armor. He cared for me as well as he could while telling me all this. I wanted to drag myself over the side of the boat and drown, but was too weak to do so.

He knew that I wanted to go to Kiev, and when we reached the city, he handed me over to some monks. I wanted to reward him with silver, for he had left my belt untouched, but he would accept nothing. He had, he said, enough already, and had, besides, won favor with God for the way he had treated me.

I stayed with the monks and was nursed by them, until at length I grew better and began again to think of the gold. Then men from the north visited the monks and asked me questions. They understood that I wished to go home and learned that I had the means wherewith to pay them. So I ascended the river, one ship passing me on to another, until at last I came aboard the Gothlanders’ ship, where I met Orm.

All the time the thought weighed heavily on me that I would never be able to tell anyone about the Bulgar gold and where it lies, even if, by some marvel, I should reach home and rejoin my kinsmen. But now, thanks to your cunning, priest, I have been enabled to tell everything and can die happier.

As to the gold, Orm may do as he thinks best. It is a great treasure, enough for many men, and none can say what so much gold is worth, or how much blood has been spilled for its sake. It lies there in the place I spoke of and will not be hard to find for anyone who knows where to look for it. There is, besides, a mark near by which shows the place; the bones, by now pecked clean by crows, of the treasurer Theofilus and the sword-bearer Zacharias —may their souls wander without refuge till the end of time—and of my son, Halvdan, on whose soul God have mercy.

1. China. (The word “China” was not used in those times.)