Return to Fanglith

"Lord Arno believes that if there are Saracen knights in the castle, they are too few to attack us. But the Saracens use pigeons-a kind of bird-to carry messages from one place to another. The steward of this castle could easily have sent word to some nearby lord that a shipload of Christians has come ashore here.

"Then, by darkness, Lord Arno and some other will go down to the hamlet and see what they can learn- nd out if this district has indeed been conquered by Normans."

If the district was hostile-still under Saracen rule- and if the castle's marshal had sent a message to some governor by bird or mounted messenger, would we be attacked that night, I wondered? It seemed to me that if a Saracen force came after us, they'd better be a large force; seventy-eight Varangians plus a Norman knight might give them more than they bargained for.

Plus one Evdashian rebel with a stu

I wished I'd been able to raise Deneen, though. I counted back on my fingers. This would be the fourth night since she'd left for our uninhabited island. At best I couldn't expect her to be powered up again till the sixth, but I'd still try every now and then.

None of us was used to hiking. The Varangians and Michael weren't even used to being on land-not lately anyway-and neither was I for that matter. While Arno seldom walked far, and probably never had; he was born and raised a horseman. So the rugged hills were pretty hard on us. Probably less on the Varangians, though. Rowing, the way they did it, worked the thighs hard, and it certainly worked the heart and lungs.

Of course, the Varangians had a lot more to carry. Each of them wore a heavy sword. Some of them carried a long-handled battle-axe over one shoulder, and others a bow and a quiver of arrows. All of them carried a shield, most an ornamented round shield that Arno told me was Byzantine. But some had a long, rectangular shield slung over their backs, almost big enough to hide behind.

If we were attacked, I'd have to do without, at least until I could scavenge one from someone who'd been killed-preferably a Saracen if it came to that. Not that I had anything against the Saracens; I might like them better than Normans or Varangians. But I'd committed myself, and besides, I had an "in" with the Varangians, as a holy monk.

After drinking our fill at a brook, we made camp on a hilltop, where anyone would have to walk or ride up a steep slope to get at us. If we were surrounded, sooner or later we'd have to fight our way down to water, but even I could see that the brook wasn't defensible.

One thing we hadn't been able to bring from the long ship was food. My stomach was complaining already. It threatened to be a long night, and tomorrow didn't show much promise either.

Then Arno started back to spy out the hamlet, taking Michael with him because the Greek could speak Arabic. With them gone, there wasn't a man in camp that I could talk to or understand. I very definitely hoped they came back.

Even as tired as I was, it took me quite a while to fall asleep. Which was unusual. The Varangians had bedded down all packed together-for warmth I suppose. To me though, they smelled too bad for such close quarters, and I slept a little way off from them. I was cold and hungry, and my muscles were starting to stiffen up again. About the time it got dark, the moon came up, too little past full to tell the difference just by looking. When I did get to sleep, I kept waking up or half waking up from cold and the stony ground, but I only got up once, to relieve myself.

When it was daylight, nearly sunup, I awoke for good. I was really stiff again, from rowing, and maybe partly from hiking up hills and sleeping on the hard ground in the cold. For the first time, I really looked around. Four or five miles south was the sea, with no trace of warships, although I could make out a couple of what I supposed were fishing boats. In every other direction were rugged hills, mostly bare. Here and there were patches of scrub, and in some of the ravine bottoms there were trees. To the north, the hills rose to become mountains.

Arno and Michael were back, but they were still sleeping so there was no one to tell me what they'd found out. It looked as if something had happened, though; each was wrapped in a blanket. I limped down the hill to the brook and took a long drink, then limped back up, my stomach growling. Water didn't make much of a breakfast. By the time I'd gotten back to the top of the hill, I was warm again, and the worst of the soreness was gone. The sun was looking at us over the next ridge east, and Arno and Michael were both awake.

No one seemed in any hurry to get on the trail.

I went over to Arno. "What did you find out?" I asked.

He gri

"They also told him that the Normans had captured Palermo, and that there is fighting in the west, and over east around Troina."

"How did Michael get away?" I asked. "Wouldn't it have seemed suspicious for him to leave, under the circumstances?"

"It was no problem. They gave him a mat to sleep on and went back to bed themselves. After giving them time to go to sleep, I slipped inside and killed them. Then I ate my fill and we left."

From a purse he hadn't had the day before, he took a few dates and gave them to me. I stared at them a moment before eating, and even as hungry as I was, they didn't go down easily. I could see why Arno might feel he had to kill them, but he'd said it as casually as if it meant nothing to him. And I suppose it hadn't; he was a Norman.

"When are we going to start hiking again?" I asked. "Or aren't we?"

"Gu

It was on toward midday when we left. By then we'd eaten a half-grown goat. The shares were small, but they helped. Most of the others were footsore-Michael and Arno the worst of all. The ground was rocky, and I was the only one with stiff soles on his boots. In fact, I couldn't see how their soft-bottomed shoes could possibly last across the mountains. Maybe they could make some kind of shoes out of goatskin, I decided.

After the first half hour of hiking, I got loosened up enough that it didn't go badly at all, but by late afternoon I was bushed again, and hungrier than I could believe! So was everyone else, and we started taking quite a few breaks. Also, it got a lot colder as we got higher up. We'd come to several stone huts, but no one was staying in them. Arno said they might be for herdsmen-that sheep had probably been grazed in these mountains before the Norman invasion. I wondered what sheep ate here. By the looks of the bushes, something ate twigs-perhaps the goats.

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