The Road to Miklagard by Henry Treece

Author:Henry Treece
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Vikings, Fiction
Published: 1957-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

Then he clapped his hands as a sign that the audience was ended and the three Vikings walked down the long arcades, unable to speak for the joy that was in their hearts to be going in a ship once again.

Marriba watched them from her window grille and smiled, though when her father came into her room to tell her the result of the meeting, she lay back in her bed again and put her hand over her eyes.

‘Oh, father,’ she said, ‘the heat is so oppressive. I can hardly stand it. I shall die, I know I shall die.’

Abu Mazur bent and stroked her head lightly. ‘Patience, my lamb, patience my chicken,’ he said soothingly. ‘In two days from now you will be on the seas with our brave Vikings to look after you. Then your spirits will rise again and you will be my lovely daughter once more.’

Marriba shrugged petulantly and said, ‘No, I shall not! I shall die, I tell you, father, and then you will be sorry for bringing me here to Jebel Tarik where the wind is as hot as a furnace and the stones burn one to touch them.’

Her father tiptoed sorrowfully from the room to fetch the physician, but as soon as the door curtain had swung to, Marriba jumped from her bed and ran to the window grille, to see if the Vikings were still in sight.

But they were not; now they stood looking over the harbour wall at a low and rakish vessel with a triangular sail of red and gold.

‘Ten oar ports and a steerboard like one of our own longships,’ said Harald, pointing.

Haro gazed in silence at the high sharp prow and the bright steel grappling hooks. A great lump had risen in his throat and he was afraid of crying if he tried to answer.

Suddenly Radbard began to shout and dance and cry, all at the same time. ‘By Odin,’ he said, ‘a ship! A ship! A ship!’

Then, with the tears streaming down their cheeks, they began to hug each other like clumsy bears.

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