“Jolly good!” exulted the sword. “A Chinaman, eh? Crafty, they are. Not
that I’ve encountered ’em m’self, y’know, but I’ve heard stories. As
long ago as down in Byzantium– I’d better describe my career for you,
what?”
Its voice shifted into recitation gear. “Briefly put, except for Viking
expeditions I was in Norway until the battle of Hafrsfjord. There we
stood, a thin mail-clad line– But that ruddy Harald Fairhair had the
vict’ry. Not wishing to live under him, my then warrior–Trygvi
Sveinsson, good man of his hands, they called him the Fierce, tell you
about him later– joined a crew in Denmark and won a homestead in
England. A generation or two afterward we were converted–fine white
robes they gave the newly baptized; quality declined deplorably as time
went by–and what is this bloody heresy these days?–but I kept up the
side, ruthlessness and so forth, best’s I could. Was at Stamford Bridge.
Accounts of it absurd, dead wrong, near’s I can gather. There we stood,
a thin Anglo-Danish line–Ahem. A while after the Norman Conquest, my
then wielder left the country, like many Englishmen, to join the
Varangian Guard down in Constantinople. Jolly good engagements we had
there, I can tell you. And I shall. He came back with quite a decent sum
of money and reconciled himself with the Normans. His son–”
Fotherwick-Botts paused, as if to catch the breath he didn’t need,
before going relentlessly on: “But enough outline. You’ll want the
details. To go back to the beginning, when the dwarf delivered me to
Egil Asmundsson and he went off to take vengeance–no, damme, justice it
was, justice–on Herjolf the Pugnosed, they met in a meadow–”
“Oh, my God,” I muttered to Ginny. “What’ve we let ourselves in for?”
She shuddered. “I’m afraid this is one of those ancient enchanted swords
that, when they’re drawn, tell of every battle they ever fought,” she
whispered back. “At least, he will, poor devil, after lying so long
silenced. And before then, in the Christian period, he could only talk a
little bit, secretly, to such of them as wouldn’t be horrified and throw
him into the sea for a piece of pagan witchcraft. Suddenly, now, he can
cut loose–I mean speak freely to us.”
“–I hewed into Herjolfs shield,” Fotherwick-Botts told us, “but Egil
did not let him twist me aside in the cleft. Common trick back then–”
“Judas priest,” I gasped, “three centuries’ worth, or whatever it is?
How’ll we get any sleep?”
“We can sheathe him,” Ginny replied. “With proper apologies, of course.
He’ll start where he left off when we draw him again. I hope we can
persuade him to glide over most of it, but I’m afraid we’ll hear a great
deal before he’ll give us any real help. We’d better keep this suite
through tonight, at least, and not take the train but rent a broom to go
to London. Slowly.”
“I say, are you paying attention?” barked the sword.
I’d have groaned louder if I’d known of the more important disaster
hitting us meanwhile at home.
————————————————————————
23
—
And yet it was only an overture, a few pips and tweedles before the
devil’s band started to play for us in earnest. We heard of it together
with what was much worse, when it barely registered on our awareness.
Later we sorted out the facts as best we could, because this too we must
deal with, but at the time it seemed almost incidental. Nobody imagined
the eventual consequences. If we had–well, that’s useless. If an
elephant were little and round and white it would be an aspirin.
My reconstruction of events is partly guesswork. No matter. This whole
account isn’t for publication. Too explosive, as well as being often too
personal. It’s going under hundred-year seal. Maybe after that it can
give some kind of unforeseeable help to somebody in the unforeseeable
future. A warning, if nothing else.
Things began when Alger Sneep of the IRS called on Thursday and demanded
to speak with us. Will, who’d established himself in our house,
explained that we’d gone away. No, he didn’t know where or for how long.
“Ha,” said Sneep. “This makes investigation urgent. Please prepare to