Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

“Brightly flash the oar-blades,

Washing in the whale’s bath,

Dipping in the salty

Ale of Aegir’s daughters.

Better is the brew there,

Casked in yonder cargo,

Where the wine of Eastland

Waits for Wulfhere’s killers.

“Ye that row to steerboard,

Raise your oars and rest them,

While the wights a-portside

Turn us to the grappling.

See, the southron sailors,

White with terror-madness,

Hunch like hunted conies

With the stoats among them.”

In truth, it was not such a large brag. The crew of Thetis was more than two to one outnumbered, and every man able plainly to see it. Nor might they have stood against the wild slayers out of the north, even at level odds. As for an attempt at flight… Raven was making three ship’s lengths to the fat corbito’s one. It was unfair, so close to home-and mad and raving mad the pirates must be, to be trying it! Demons from the reddest pits of hell they seemed, a-glimmer with metal scales and bosses and horned like Satan, their dark ship a dragon fit to carry such creatures.

The voyage had been hard and weary, and this to be its ending! Unfair.

Raven was so close now that Gervase could see the Danish leader’s face, aye, and his henchman’s, too. Gervase knew them at once. Not a seaman on these coasts but had heard of the ruddy giant with his ax and burning beard, and the dark-visaged sworder in black mail.

The heart of Gervase turned cold. Yet at the same time he felt hope stirring, for it was said that these twain were not given to wanton slaying of the helpless. And helpless he was, and all his crew.

Captain Gervase licked his lips and shouted through cupped hands, “ Quarter! ”

Wulfhere loosed a roar of laughter. “O-ho-ho-ho-ho! Quarter ye’re asking? Oh, little man, little man! You cheat us of a good fight!”

“Not such a good fight as that,” Gervase called wryly back, considering the aspect of his men. “But such as we can put up, unless you promise us our lives, we will give you. And more than that!” he added in sudden inspiration. “We’ve casks and casks of good wine below. Do you board us bent on slaughter, I’ll take two men and smash them open myself!”

The Skull-splitter ceased to laugh. “Ye be a monster!” he bellowed. “A black-hearted monster!”

Cormac mac Art laughed. It was untrue that he never did so, and he did like grit.

“Let him have his way, Wulfhere,” he advised. “I’ve a notion how this can be turned to our account. Let me be having his ear.”

“I had rather let you have his whole head,” Wulfhere grumbled.

“Ahoy, trader! Do but these things and we grant ye life. Be ye running your tub ashore, and that swiftly, then set your crew to loading your cargo aboard us. Swiftly, ye hear? Swifter than the like was ever done aforetime! And remember the price, do ye fail!”

Gervase looked once at the dark, scarred face, and turned to scan again his disheartened crew. None but a madman on the breast of the sea would have opted for resistance.

“Done!” he said.

And done it was. A spear’s cast from the nearby white beach, Thetis let down both iron anchors and Raven grappled to her. Cormac was first on her deck, with four men eager at his back, among them Knud the Swift and one warrior with hair black as the Gael’s own, a rare sight among northerners.

“The lighter stuff first, and most costly,” said Cormac. “It’s silk ye have aboard, and rare gems and spices. There is ivory too, balsams and jewellery that’s after being looted from Egypt’s king-graves. It’s unwise ye’d be for attempting to deny it. Show me.”

Betrayed! Gervase thought bitterly. But who could have done it in such detail? None surely, but the factor who directed the lading. And Gervase promised himself that he’d see the man torn by bears-if he survived this day.

For the pirate’s list was true to the item. The bolts of cloth the sailors threw down to Wulfhere were not all of silk; some were Egyptian cotton loomed so fine and shining that the difference was not evident at a glance, and nigh as rare as silk, here in the west. They were stowed in the bow, with the boxes and packets that came also from Alexandria, the incense and pepper and the all but priceless sugar.

And Wulfhere, thirsty Wulfhere, had scarcely a glance for any of it.

“The wine!” he demanded.

The wine was brought forth. Sailors levered oaken casks from their cradles in the hold, and trundled them to the hatchway. Ropes were knotted about them with a fearful care to make them secure, and brawny men drew them on deck, flashing uneasy sidewise stares the while. The casks were lowered over Thetis’s side and received with joy by the wild crew of Raven . Swiftly those men lashed their prizes firmly to bench-ends with a proper eye to balance and distribution so that Raven should continue to ride the sea well.

All was accomplished with a will and speed that no stevedore on Burdigala’s docks had ever approached.

Since Raven was both a leaner vessel than Thetis , and shallower of draught, she could not take the entire load. Still, by canny stowing the Danes made a fair shift towards it.

No more than an hour later, the Danish galley carried twenty-three casks of red Falernian; three were lashed crosswise in a row in the stern with ten more on their sides along each row of oar benches, so positioned as not to impede the oarsmen-and them sitting appreciably closer to the sea than they had been.

Cormac and his four sword-comrades added their weight to the load.

“Now if ye’ll be casting off our grapnel-irons,” he said, “it’s farewell we’ll be bidding ye, with due thanks for your hospitality-and a caution not to raise your anchors whilst we be in sight.”

Gervase nodded glumly. The grapnels were prised loose to thud down aboard the galley. The Danes raised an ironical cheer as they pushed off from Thetis’s plump side. Gervase’s square wind-burned face darkened; anger got the best of caution.

“Laugh when you’re out of Count Guntram’s reach!” he yelled after them.

None aboard Raven had Latin but Cormac and Wulfhere, and only the former was fluent. No Latin was required, however, to recognize the name Guntram. The Danes replied with laughter, boos and rude gestures. Then they settled to rowing.

Gervase, watching them go, gripped the timber of his ship’s rail till his knuckles showed the colour of the bone beneath.

Raven’s oars marched smoothly, like the jointless legs of some strange water-centipede, yet this time they imparted speed but gradually. Out and out across Garonne-mouth moved the pirate craft, turning for a nor’westerly course.

Not the least of Gervase’s warring feelings was wonder that he lived.

His passions were to be further moved, and that in moments. For while the corbito rolled at anchor, he saw-beyond the departing Raven , on the estuary’s north side-shapes move and emerge. With bulging eyes he recognised them as biremes of the Garonne fleet. They too had their masts unstepped and their decks clear for fighting.

Master Gervase struck his fist on the rail in explosive joy.

That was his first response, but then he was not the swiftest of thinkers.

Two warships! Raven captured or sunk! The cargo recovered! Such pirates as survived hanging on a gibbet, after appropriate tortures!

Then it struck him.

They must ha’ seen the whole business, from first to last! Why-blight ’em with boils from where they lay, they couldn’t ha’ helped it!

Why didn’t they appear sooner?

The answer became obvious as soon as the question was posed.