Гарри Гаррисон - One King's Way

But in this Charlemagne chronicle there was something Erkenbert had indeed never heard, till Rimbert had told them all of it. Not how the Emperor died, for that was known, but the portents that announced it. Erkenbert shifted the book into full sunlight and read intently.

The emperor, aged seventy, was returning, it said, from his forty-seventh victorious campaign, against the Saxons, in full majesty and power. But then across the evening sky a comet had flashed. Cometa , thought Erkenbert. What we call the long-haired star. Long hair is the sign of the sacred king. That is why Charlemagne's ancestors had the kings they deposed shorn in public. The hairy star fell. And as it fell, the chronicle asserted, the emperor's horse shied and threw him. It threw him so violently that his sword-belt was torn off. And the lance he was carrying in his left hand flew from it and landed many yards away. At the same time, at the emperor's chapel in Aachen, the word “Princeps,” or “Prince,” had faded from an inscription the emperor had erected for himself, and never returned. The king had died weeks later, the chronicle said, insisting to the last that these portents did not mean that God had taken his authority from him. Yet of them all the greatest was the emperor's dropping of the lance, which previously he had carried everywhere with him—for that lance, the book insisted, was the beata lancea itself, the Lance of the German centurion Longinus, taken from its hiding-place in Cologne by Charlemagne in youth, and never leaving his side again in all his many campaigns and victories.

He who holds this Lance, the chronicle said, sways the destiny of the world. But no scholar knows where it is, for Charlemagne's counts diced for it after his death, and revealed only to each other who had been the winner.

And according to Rimbert no man knows now, thought Erkenbert, straightening up from his books. For by his account the Holy Lance was taken by Count Reginbald to Hamburg and treasured as a relic, inlaid with gold and precious stones. But since the heathens of the North sacked Hamburg twelve years ago, it has not been seen. Stolen away by some chieftain or kinglet. Destroyed maybe.

But no. For if it is the holy relic, God would guard it. And if it was made marvelous with gold and gems, even the heathen would respect it.

Does that mean that some petty chief among the church-despoilers shall be the overlord of Europe, the new Charlemagne? Remembering Ragnar Hairy-Breeks, whom he himself had put to the serpent-pit, and his sons, Ubbi, Halvdan, Ivar the Boneless and worst of all, the Snake-eye, Erkenbert felt his spine cringe in fear.

That could not be allowed. If the relic were in the hands of the heathen, it would have to be rescued, as Rimbert had urged so passionately. Rescued and transferred to the new emperor, whoever he might be, to unite Christendom once again. But what guarantee was there that this whole story, of lance and crucifixion and German centurion, was not just a fable? A forgery?

Leaving the books, Erkenbert strolled to the window and stared out at the peaceful spring scene. He had come to the library to check the documents, and check them he had. They seemed reliable. The story they told held together. Furthermore, he realized, it was a good story. He wanted to believe it. And he knew why he wanted to believe it.

All his life, Erkenbert reflected, he had been in the hands of bunglers. Incompetent archbishops like Wulfhere, incompetent kings like Ella and the fool Osbert before him, stupid thanes and illiterate priestlings, in their posts only because of some kinship with the great. England was a land where all his tools had been made of straw.

It was different here, in the land of the German Prince-Archbishops. Orders were carried out. Counselors were picked for their brains and their learning. Practical matters were attended to promptly, and those who understood them appreciated. Resources were far greater. Erkenbert knew that he had come to the great Gunther's attention simply because he had recognized the high quality of the Archbishop's silver currency, and asked how it was maintained. From the new mines, they had told him, in the Harz mountains. But a man who knows how to purify silver and separate out the lead is always welcome.

Yes, thought Erkenbert. He admired these people. He wanted them to accept him. But would they? He could sense their fierce pride in their own race and language, and knew that he was to that an outsider. He was short and dark as well, and knew how much they valued strength and the fair hair they thought a mark of their origin. Could his personal destiny ever be here? He needed a sign.

The rays of the sun had been moving all afternoon steadily westwards, across the lectern and the shelf of books beside it. As Erkenbert turned from the window it shone on an open page. Gold glittered from the massive illuminated capital on it, done with fantastic art in interlaced serpent-bodies, shining with silver and ruby patterns.

That is English art, thought Erkenbert. He looked again at the great Bible whose pages he had been turning, intent only on what they said, not on their art or origin. Certainly English work, and from Northumbria at that. Not York maybe, but Wearmouth or the scriptorium of the great Bede at Jarrow, from the time before the Vikings came. How did it get here?

How did Christianity get here? Hamburg and Bremen were pagan towns to Charlemagne. It was brought here by the English missionaries, by the men of my own blood, by the blessed Willibrord and Wynfrith and Willebald the breaker of idols. My ancestors brought them a great gift, Erkenbert told himself with a flush of pride. The Christian religion and the learning with which to understand it. If any check me with my foreignness, I will remind them of that.

Carefully, Erkenbert replaced the precious books on their shelves and let himself out. Arno, the archbishop's counselor, sat on a bench in the square outside. He rose as he saw the little deacon emerging.

“Well, brother? Are you satisfied?”

Erkenbert smiled with total confidence and enthusiasm. “Completely satisfied, brother Arno. You may be sure that the holy Rimbert has made his first convert of alien race. I bless the day he told me of this greatest of relics.”

Arno grinned down, momentary tension relieved. He had come to respect the little Englishman for his learning and his foresight. And after all—were the English not only some other kind of Saxon?

“Well, then, brother. Shall we be about God's work? The finding of the Holy Lance.”

“Yes,” said Erkenbert fervently. “And after that, brother, the work it was sent for. The finding of the true king, the emperor of New Rome in the West.”

Shef lay stretched on his back, drifting in and out of sleep. The fleet was due to sail next morning, and from all that Brand had said about the hardships of life at sea, it was important to sleep while one could. But it had been a trying evening. Shef had been obliged to host all his captains, the ten English skippers he had with difficulty found to command his “battleships,” and the forty or more Way-Vikings who skippered his conventional craft. It had needed much drinking of toasts, with both groups anxious not to be outdone.

Then, when he had got rid of them and hoped for a confidential talk with Brand, his convalescent friend had been in sour mood. He had refused to accompany Shef in the Norfolk , saying he preferred his own ship and crew. He had insisted that it was bad luck to sail with so many men in the fleet who did not know the haf -words, the elaborate taboo-language by which sailors avoided mentioning directly such unlucky things as women, cats or priests. Finding that dismissed even by Thorvin, who did intend to sail in the Norfolk , he had fallen back on telling depressing tales from his homeland, tales mostly of the unknown creatures of the sea, the mermaids and marbendills, men who had angered the skerry-elves and been turned into whales, eventually one of a scoffer and scorner whose boat had last been seen being drawn under water by a long arm covered in gray hair. At that, Shef had broken off the conversation. Now he lay, afraid of what his dreams would show him.