Swords From the North by Henry Treece

Author:Henry Treece
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Childrens
ISBN: 9780140311389
Publisher: Puffin
Published: 1967-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

That is the sort of song my people used to sing when we first started out from Arabia.’

Harald snorted. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘We all learn better as we get older.’

The emir poured another cup of wine for Harald and put into it a spoonful of honey and a spoonful of ice. He said, ‘I wonder if that is true, friend? I wonder if we all lose some of our great honest virtues when we get to be more knowing, more crafty, more clever - but less wise?’

Harald was about to answer him in strong fashion when a trumpet screamed outside and the door was flung open. Standing there and smiling down at them was a young man of perhaps twenty, who wore black armour and a fox’s russet brush in place of a plume in his helmet. His face was rawboned and red and his hair was a bleached sandy colour. His long sword scraped the tiles of the floor when he walked.

He said above their heads, ‘I am the youngest of the Hauteville. Which is the man they call Hardrada?’

Harald rose from beside the brazier and said, ‘I am Harald Sigurdson, young man. Do you wish to speak with me?’

The young knight shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘The message that Maniakes ordered me to deliver was not sent in words. It is this.’

Then as he spoke, he suddenly reached out and struck Harald hard across the face with his iron-meshed glove. The wine-cup fell from Harald’s hand and he drew back a pace, the blood showing on his grazed cheek.

Wulf called to him, ‘Shall I pass you the sword, Harald? Or am I to use mine?’

But Harald said, ‘No, he is a herald and is delivering a message. We must follow the correct procedure in such matters or the story-tellers will report ill of us.’

So he walked up to the young knight, who stood there still smiling, with the fox’s brush bobbing about on his helmet. And Harald said to him pleasantly, ‘When you go back to Maniakes of Byzantium, will you do me the favour of passing on my reply?’

Hauteville the knight nodded and said, ‘Certainly, Varanger.’

No one except Gyric of Lichfield saw the two blows struck. And he had good cause to observe how they felt for he had once felt their weight himself.

And while the emir’s servants were reviving the knight with cups of iced wine, Harald fingered the fox’s brush and said, ‘This is well enough as a sort of jest, but should not be worn seriously by a warrior.’

So he threw it into the fire and watched it crackle and burn.

Then he drew the knight’s sword and gazed at it. ‘This is too long a toy,’ he said. ‘This young fellow will surely trip over it one day if it is not shortened for him.’

So he put the sword across his knee and broke a foot off the end of it. Then he slipped the two pieces back into the scabbard.

And when Hauteville

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