“Now the words I spoke at the foot of the tower have come true,” he said. “I need a priest badly, for priests understand such matters as this.”
Orm nodded in agreement and said that priests were cunning doctors; after the Yule feast at King Harald’s he had had a much worse wound than Thorkel’s healed by a priest. Indeed, he added, he would welcome a priest no less than Thorkel, for the blow he had received on his skull from a shoed club was causing him incessant headaches, so that he was beginning to wonder whether something might not have come loose inside his head.
When they were alone, Thorkel said to him: “I hold you to be the wisest of my ship’s captains, and the best warrior, too, now that Fare-Wide is dead. None the less, it is clear that you easily lose your courage when your body is afflicted, even when the injury is but a slight one.”
Orm replied: “It is so with me that I am a man who has lost his luck. Formerly, my luck was good, for I survived unscathed more dangers than most men face in the whole of their lives, and emerged from all of them with profit. But since I returned from the southland, everything has gone wrong for me. I have lost my gold chain, my sweetheart, and the man whose company pleased me best; and as for battle, it has come to such a pass that nowadays I can scarcely draw my sword without coming to some harm. Even when I advised you to smoke these English out of their church tower, nothing came of it.”
Thorkel said that he had seen unluckier men than Orm, but Orm shook his head sadly. He sent his men off plundering with Rapp in command, and remained himself in the town with Thorkel, spending most of the time sitting by himself and contemplating his woes.
One morning not long afterwards the bells in the church tower rang long and loud, and the people there sang psalms very zealously, causing the Vikings to shout up and ask them what all the fuss might be about. The people had no stones left to throw down at them, but they shouted back that it was now Whitsun, and that this day was for them a day of rejoicing.
The Vikings found this reply astonishing, and several of them asked the English what on earth they could have to rejoice about, and how they were placed as regards meat and ale. They replied that in that matter things were as they were; nevertheless, they would continue to rejoice, because Christ was in heaven and would surely help them.
Thorkel’s men roasted fat sheep over their fires, and the odor of roasting was wafted up to the tower, where all the people were hungry. The men cried up to them to be sensible and come down and taste their roast, but they paid no attention to this invitation and began shortly to sing afresh.
Thorkel and Orm sat munching together, listening to the singing from the tower.
“Their singing is hoarser than usual,” said Thorkel. “They are beginning to get dry in the throat. If their drink is finished, it cannot be long before they will have to come down.”
“Their plight is worse than mine, and yet they sing,” said Orm; and he contemplated a fine piece of mutton mournfully before putting it in his mouth.
“I think you would make a poor songster in any church tower,” said Thorkel.
The same day, around dinnertime, Gudmund returned from a-viking inland. He was a large, merry man, with a face that still bore traces of old wounds he had received when a bear had clawed him; and he now rode into the camp, drunken and voluble, with a costly scarlet cloak flung across his shoulders, two heavy silver belts around his waist, and a broad grin in the center of his yellow beard.
This, he cried, as soon as he spied Thorkel, was a land after his own heart, wealthy beyond imagination; as long as he lived, he would never cease to be grateful to Thorkel for having tempted him to come here. He had plundered nine villages and a market, losing only four men; his horses were tottering beneath the weight of their booty, though only the choicest articles had been selected, and following them were ox-carts loaded with strong ale and other delicacies. It would be necessary in due course, he added, to get hold of several more ships, with plenty of cargo-room, to take home all the booty that they would, in a short time and with little expense of effort, have gathered in this excellent land.
“Besides all this,” he concluded, “I found a procession of people on the road—two Bishops and their suites. They said they were envoys from King Ethelred, so I offered them ale and bade them follow me here. The Bishops are old and ride slowly, but they should be here soon; though what they can want with us is not easy to guess. They say they are coming with an offer of peace from their King, but it is we, and not he, who shall decide when there is to be peace. I suspect that they also want to teach us Christianity; but we shall have little time to listen to their teaching with such fine plunder to be had everywhere.”
Thorkel roused himself at these tidings and said that priests were what he had most need of just now, for he was anxious to get his arm set properly; and Orm, too, was pleased at the prospect of being able to talk to a priest about his sore head.
“But I shall not be surprised,” Thorkel said, “if the errand on which they have come is to ransom our prisoners and those people up in the tower.”
A short while afterwards the Bishops rode into the town. They were of venerable aspect, with staffs in their hands and hoods covering their heads. They had with them a great company of outriders and priests, grooms, stewards, and musicians; and they pronounced the peace of God upon all who met their eye. All of Thorkel’s men who were in the camp came to gaze at them, but some shrank away when the Bishops raised their hands. The people in the tower broke into loud acclamations at the sight of them and began again to ring their bells.
Thorkel and Gudmund showed them every hospitality; and when they had rested and had given thanks to God for their lucky journey, they explained their mission.
The Bishop who appeared to be the senior of the two, and who was called the Bishop of St. Edmund’s Bury, addressed Thorkel and Gudmund and such others of the Vikings as had gathered to hear what he had to say. These, he said, were evil times, and it was a great grief to Christ and His Church that men did not know how to live peacefully with one another in love and tolerance. Fortunately, however, he continued, they now had in England a King who loved peace above all other things, and this despite the magnitude of his power and the legions of warriors that lay awaiting his command. He preferred to win the love of his enemies rather than to destroy them by the sword. King Ethelred regarded the Northmen as zealous young men who lacked counsel and did not know what was best for them; and, after having consulted his own wise counselors, he had decided on this occasion not to march against them and put them to the sword, but rather to point out peacefully to them the error of their ways. He had, accordingly, sent his envoys to find out how the gallant chieftains of the north and their followers could be persuaded to turn their thoughts toward peace and abandon the dangerous paths which they were now treading. It was King Ethelred’s desire that they should return to their ships and depart from his coasts to dwell in their own land in peace and contentment; and to facilitate this and win their friendship for all time, he was ready to give them such presents as would fill them all with joy and gratitude. Such royal munificence would, he trusted, so soften the hardness of their young hearts that they would learn to love God’s holy law and Christ’s gospel. If this should come to pass, good King Ethelred’s joy would know no bounds and his love for them would become even greater.
The Bishop was bent with age and toothless, and few of the Vikings could understand what he said; but his words were translated for them by a wise priest of his suite, and all those who stood there listening turned and stared at one another in bewilderment. Gudmund was seated on an ale-butt, drunken and contented, rubbing a little gold cross to polish it, and when they explained to him what the Bishop had said, he began to rock backwards and forwards with delight. He shouted to Thorkel that the latter should lose no time in replying to this excellent discourse.