Tim Severin - King's Man

'I don't know. The dreams are never precise. It could happen soon, or many years from now.'

'You had better tell me the details. Together we might be able to persuade Harald to avoid an open battle, if not now then at least for some time.'

So I told Halldor what I had dreamed. I described the fleet, the invading army, the tall man, the march across a dry land under a blazing sun, and his death.

When I finished, Halldor was looking at me with a mixture of relief and awe.

'Thorgils,' he said, 'my father was right. You really do have the second sight. But this time you have misinterpreted your vision. Harald is safe.'

'What do you mean?'

'It was not Harald you saw die. It was Maniakes, the tall Greek general who led us in the campaign in Sicily.'

'But that's not possible. I haven't seen Maniakes for years, and in all that time I've never given him a thought.'

'Why should you,' said the Icelander. 'You've been in the northlands these two years past and you could not know the news. A year ago Maniakes rebelled against the new Basileus. That man-eating old empress Zoe had got herself married for a third time and handed over most of the power to her new husband, and Maniakes tried to seize the throne for himself. He was commanding the imperial army in Italy at the time, and he led an invasion into Greece. That's the parched landscape you saw. The Basileus assembled all the troops he could muster, including the garrison of Constantinople, and marched out to confront him. The two armies met - and it was on a hot sunny day on a barren plain -and there was a great battle which was to decide the fate of the empire. Maniakes had victory within his grasp, his troops had the enemy soundly beaten when a chance arrow struck him in the throat, killing him. It was all over. His army fled, and there was a great slaughter. This took place just a few months ago. We heard the news in Kiev just before we left to come here. Maniakes, not Harald, was the man in your vision.'

I was dumbfounded and relieved at the same time. I remembered how very alike the two men had been in height and manner, and that I had never seen the face of the dead commander in my dream. It had all been a mistake: I had been spirit-flying. At various times in my life I had been in the presence of certain seidrmanna, the seers of the northlands who were capable of leaving their bodies while in a trance and flying to other regions far away. That was what had happened in my dream. I had been transported to another place and another time, and there I had seen Maniakes die. It had never happened to me before. I felt bewildered and a little dizzy. But at least I had not made a fool of myself in Harald's eyes by telling him of my fears.

Yet I failed to ask myself why Odinn had brought me to Harald's ship, if indeed it was Maniakes's death I had seen. Had I posed myself that simple question, matters might have turned out differently. But then, deception was always Odinn's way.

ELEVEN

WHAT WAS IT like to be councillor to the wealthiest ruler in the northlands? For that is what Harald became in less than three years.

Initially he had to accept his nephew's offer to share the throne of Norway, but it was an uneasy arrangement and would certainly have ended in civil war, had Magnus not been killed in a freak accident when he was out hunting. A hare leaped up in front of his horse, the horse bolted, and a low branch swept Magnus out of his saddle. He broke his neck. The hare, like her cats, is another familiar of Freyja, so I thought at the time that the king's accident was a sign that the Old Gods were acting in my favour, because Magnus's death left Harald as the sole ruler of Norway. But I soon had my doubts when Harald's elevation to the undisputed kingship changed him. He became even more difficult and high-handed.

I measured his change through his treatment of Halldor. The bluff Icelander had been at Harald's side throughout his foreign travels, and in Sicily had received a face wound which had left him badly scarred, yet his record of loyalty did not protect him from Harald's vainglory. Halldor had always been outspoken. He gave his opinions without mincing his words, and the more powerful Harald became, the less he liked to hear blunt speaking, even from a favoured adviser. One example will suffice: during one of Harald's frequent seaborne raids on Earl Svein's Danish lands, Halldor was the lookout on the foredeck of Harald's longship, a position of honour and great responsibility. As the vessel sailed along the coast, Halldor called out that there were rocks ahead. Harald, standing near the helmsman, chose to ignore the warning. Minutes later the longship crashed upon the rocks and was badly damaged. Exasperated, Halldor informed Harald that there was little point in serving as a lookout if his advice was ignored. Angrily Harald retorted that he had no need of men like Halldor.

There had been countless incidents of a similar nature, but from that time forward relations between them cooled, and I was sorry to see how Harald took pleasure in baiting Halldor. It was a rule at Harald's court that every member of his entourage had to be dressed and ready for attendance upon the king by the time the royal herald sounded the trumpet announcing that the king was about to emerge from his bedchamber. One morning, to make mischief, Harald paid the herald to sound the trumpet at the crack of dawn, much earlier than usual. Halldor and his friends had been carousing the night before and were caught unprepared. Harald then made Halldor and the others sit on the floor of the banqueting hall, in the foul straw, and gulp down full horns of ale while the other courtiers mocked them. Another royal rule was that at meals no one should continue to eat after the king himself had finished eating. To mark that moment, Harald would rap on the table with the handle of his knife. One day Halldor ignored the signal and continued to chew on his food. Harald called out down the length of the hall that Halldor was growing fat from too much food and too little exercise, and once again insisted that the Icelander pay a drinking forfeit.

Matters came to a head on the day of Harald's coinage. This was the occasion each year on the eighth day after Jol festival when the king gave his retainers their annual bounty. Though his wealth was still vast - it took ten strong men to lift Harald's treasure chests - Harald paid Halldor, myself and his other sworn men with copper coin instead of the usual silver. Only Halldor was bold enough to complain. He announced that he could no longer serve such a penny-pinching lord and preferred to return home to Iceland. He sold off all his possessions in Norway and had an ugly confrontation with Harald, when he demanded that the king pay the proper price for a ship he had agreed to buy from Halldor. The whole sorry affair ended with Halldor storming into the king's private chambers and, at sword point, demanding that Harald hand over one of his wife's gold rings to settle the debt. Then Halldor sailed off for Iceland, never to return.

His departure saddened me. He had been a friend from the first, and I valued his good sense. But I did not follow his example and leave Harald's service because I was still hoping that Harald would champion the Old Ways, and, in some matters, Harald was living up to my expectations. He married again, without divorcing Elizabeth, his first wife. His new bride, Thora, the daughter of a Norwegian magnate, was a robust Old Believer. When the Christian priests at court objected, claiming that Harald was committing bigamy, Harald bluntly told them to mind their own business. Equally, when a brace of new bishops arrived in Norway sent by the Archbishop of Bremen in the German lands, Harald promptly despatched them back to the Archbishop with a curt message that the king alone decided Church appointments. Unfortunately for me, Harald also displayed Christian tendencies whenever it suited him. He refurbished the church where the bodies of his half-brother 'Saint' Olaf and his nephew Magnus lay, and whenever he dealt with the followers of the White Christ he made a point of reminding them that St Olaf was his close relative. It was to be several years before I had finally to admit to myself that Halldor had been right from the beginning. Harald was serving only one God — himself.