Free TLV - 02 - The Road of the Sea Horse by Poul Anderson

down the curse of heaven."
    "No doubt." Svein's hands clenched on the saddlebow.
    "You gain naught by viewing this desolation," went on the bishop. "Best we return to Roskilde. Your good wife tried to make me keep you there, she says you catch cold too easily." Svein was married to Gunnhild, a granddaughter of Haakon Jarl.
    The king said in a jeering tone: "Is that all you think me fit for, to sit by the fire and write Latin letters to foreign priests?"
    "Your friend Hildebrand down in the southlands is worth writing to," said William quietly. "I'd not be surprised if that young man became Pope someday. . . . But I wander. No, my Lord, you would be happier in a more polished age than ours, but I did not mean you cannot master these times."
    "Next year," said Svein, "I will not hang back. I thought this year we'd only lose our last hope, if we went against Harald; but now that I've seen what that hellhound has done—" He clamped his lips together, and was silent for a while, then: "We shall not do less in Norway."
    "My lord," said the bishop, "best for both lands for all Christendom, would be if you sent a message to King Harald challenging him to meet you at a certain place and fight until your differences were settled. He will not refuse that."
    "Before God, I will!" burst out Svein. "And when it's finished, I'll come home with that wolf's head mounted on my prow!"
    "That were a heathen thing to do," said William, shocked.
    "Forgive me. I am too hasty." Svein shuddered. The wet raw air seemed to be seeping through his flesh, winter mists lay dank between his ribs. "No, not that. How . . . how do I know Harald will not have the chance to do thus to me?"
    V
    How Harald Reigned
    1
    The Norse fleet broke up on the way back, as ship after ship turned off when her home coast rose to starboard. Harald approached Nidharos, with less than half his following, and they were not the gallant vessels which had left in spring. Paint was chipped and dull, decks were scuffed, sails faded and sea-streaked, here and there waves had torn out a piece of bulwark or bitten off figurehead and sternpost. The men rowed slowly, a dirty, gaunt, shaggy, sun-blackened crew in ragged clothes, driven by no more than the animal wish to go home. Though casks and bundles of loot were aboard, though hundreds of prisoners awaited ransom or thralldom, there was no victory.
    Harald had th e steering oar when Throndheims fjord hove into sight, hills reaching green but already dimmed by the first gusts of autumn. Wind shrilled across a dark roar of sea, the dragon pitched and wallowed. Low above her, clouds were whipped along like smoke, and spindrift stung the faces of men at the oars. Harald braced his legs wide apart and bent to the unsteady roll, hair and cloak flying wildly, eyes squinted against the blast. Ulf sprawled at his feet, brown troll's face turned upward and hairy arms folded across the knees.
    "So we come back once more with naught to show," said the king.
    "Enough booty for the men to feel it's worth the trouble," reminded Ulf.
    "Oh, yes . . . but my foes will see as well as I that we really failed, and be heartened." Harald stared at Ulf. "Few are they whom I can trust. Do you also plan to return to Iceland?"
    "God forbid," said Ulf. "This playing chess with kingdoms becomes a habit."
    Harald smiled. "That's well, my friend. You shall see that I'm not stingy when men stand by me. When we get home, you shall be my marshal. No man is better fitted to have the guardsmen in charge or to lead the army in my absence."
    "I thank you. But, a man with that rank has certain duties; he himself can't grip gold too tightly."
    "I think," said Harald, "that we have been such near friends so long, in spite of that adder's tongue of yours, because at bottom we are the same. You're as greedy as I, Ulf; you only lack a plan in your life. Well, I need a trustworthy chief in the Throndlaw, so you shall also have the rights of a sheriff, and I'll give to you a fief