“For princes enjoy the sight of their women’s former lovers no more than we do,” he said, “and it was bold of her to allow you to see her again, even though there were witnesses present to swear, if necessary, that nothing untoward occurred. In this, as in all other respects, Almansur is a sharp-eyed master, so that Toke will do well to keep a tight rein on his tongue.”
Toke replied that there was no fear of his doing otherwise; and that his most immediate concern was to think of a good name for his sword. For such a sword as his had surely come from the hand of as great a smith as he who had forged Sigurd’s sword Gram, or Mimming, which had belonged to Didrik, or Skofnung, which Rolf the Jade had wielded. Therefore it must have a name, as theirs had had. But he could not hit upon any name that pleased him, though he tried assiduously to think of one. Orm, however, called his sword Blue-Tongue.
They left Solomon with many expressions of thanks, and were conducted to Almansur’s palace, where they were received by an officer of the royal household and were given armor and a full complement of weapons, and commenced their service in Almansur’s bodyguard. And the seven men from the north elected Orm to be their chieftain.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOW ORM SERVED ALMANSUR, AND HOW HE SAILED WITH ST. JAMES’S BELL
ORM entered the Imperial bodyguard at Córdoba in the year commonly reckoned as the eighth of the reign of the Caliph Hisham; that is, three years before Bue Digre and Vagn Akesson sailed with the Jomsvikings against the Norwegians. He remained in Almansur’s service for four years.
The men of the Imperial bodyguard were greatly respected in Córdoba, and were more finely attired than the ordinary citizens. Their mail shirts were light and thin, but more resilient and of finer workmanship than any that Orm and his men had ever previously seen. Their helmets shone like silver, and on occasion they wore scarlet cloaks over their amor; and their shields were engraved round the edge with an arc of lettering, cunningly worked. This same legend was sewn upon Almansur’s great banners, which were always borne at the head of his army when he marched to war, and the meaning of it was: “Allah alone is victorious.”
The first occasion on which Orm and his men entered Almansur’s presence, to be shown to him by the commander of the guard, they were surprised at his appearance, for they had imagined him to be of the proportions of a hero. He was in fact an unprepossessing man, pinched and half-bald, with a yellow-green face and heavy eyebrows. He was seated on a broad bed among a heap of cushions, and tugged meditatively at his beard as he addressed rapid commands to two secretaries seated on the floor before him, who took down everything he said. On a table beside his bed there stood a copper box and, next to the box, a bowl of fruit and a large wicker cage, in which several tiny monkeys were playing and leaping round on a wheel. While the secretaries were writing down what he had just said, he took fruit from the bowl and put it between the bars of the cage and watched the monkeys fighting for the gift and stretching out their dwarfish hands for more; but instead of smiling at their antics, he stared at them with sad eyes and pushed more fruit between the bars and began again to dictate to his secretaries.
After a while he gave the secretaries permission to rest and bade the commander of the guard approach with his men. He turned his face from the cage and gazed at Orm and the other Vikings. His eyes were black and as though grief-stricken, but it seemed as if something burned and glittered deep down in their depths, so that the men found it difficult to meet his gaze for more than a few seconds. He studied them critically, one by one, and nodded his head.
“These men have the bearing of warriors,” he said to the commander. “Do they understand our language?”
The commander indicated Orm and said that he understood Arabic, but that the rest knew little or none, and that they regarded him as their chieftain.
Almansur said to Orm: “What is your name?”
Orm told him his name and added that in his language it meant Serpent.
Almansur then asked him: “Who is your King?”
“Harald, the son of Gorm,” replied Orm, “and he is the lord of all the Danish kingdom.”
“I do not know of him,” said Almansur.
“Be glad of it, lord,” replied Orm, “for whithersoever his ships sail, kings pale at the sound of his name.”
Almansur gazed at Orm for a few moments; then he said: “You are quick-tongued, and deserve the name you bear. Is your King a friend of the Franks?”
Orm smiled, and answered: “He was their friend when his own country was disturbed by insurrection. But when Fortune smiles upon him, he burns their cities, both in Frankland and in Saxony. And he is a King whom Fortune dotes on.”
“Perchance he is a good King,” said Almansur. “Who is your god?”
“That is a more difficult question to answer, lord,” replied Orm. “My gods are the gods of my people, and we think them strong, as we ourselves are. There are many of them, but some of them are old, and few men trouble to worship these, apart from poets. The strongest of them is called Thor. He is red, as I am, and is held to be the friend of all mortal men. But the wisest of them is Odin, who is the god of soldiers, and they say that it is thanks to him that we Northmen are the best warriors in the world. Whether any of our gods have done anything for me, though, I do not know; certain it is that I have not done much for them. And they seem to me to have little sway in this land.”
“Now listen carefully, infidel,” said Almansur, “to what I am about to say. There is no God save Allah. Say not that there are many, nor that there are three; it shall be well for you on the Judgment Day if you do not say these things. There is but one Allah, the Eternal, the Sublime; and Mohammed is His Prophet. This is the truth, and this you shall believe. When I wage war against the Christians, I wage it for Allah and the Prophet, and ill betide any man of my army who does not honor them. From henceforth, therefore, you and your men shall worship none but the true God.”
Orm replied: “We men of the north do not worship our gods except in time of necessity, for we think it foolish to weary them with babbling. In this land we have worshipped no god since the time when we sacrificed to the sea-god to bless our homeward voyage with luck; and that proved to be of little use to us, for not long afterwards your ships appeared and we whom you see here became your captives. Perchance it may be that our gods wield but little power in this land; therefore, lord, I for my part shall willingly obey your command and worship your God while I am your servant. If it be your pleasure, I shall ask my comrades what is their feeling in this matter.”
Almansur nodded his assent, and Orm said to his men: “He says that we must worship his God. He has only one God, who is called Allah, and who dislikes all other gods. My own belief is that his God is powerful in this country, and that our gods are weak so far away from our homeland and theirs. We shall receive better treatment if we follow the custom of the people in this matter, and I think it would be foolish of us to go against Almansur’s wishes.”
The men agreed that they had little choice, and that it would be madness to anger so mighty a lord as Almansur; at length, therefore, Orm turned to Almansur and informed him that they were all willing to worship Allah and to promise to invoke no other god.
Almansur then summoned two priests into his presence, together with a magistrate, before whom Orm and his men were made to repeat the holy creed of the servants of Mohammed, as pronounced to Orm by Almansur: namely, that there is no God save Allah, and that Mohammed is His Prophet. All the men save Orm found difficulty in enunciating the words, though they were carefully spelled out to them.