BeccaThe Viking & The Heavenly Runes Book 2 Voyage To Aachen: Becca The Viking & The Heavenly Runes

By R.D. Ginther

Becca the Viking Book II, The Voyage To Aachen, is a wonderful continuation of Book I. With exciting battles at sea and on land, there is no end to the extraordinary strategies that Becca must employ, to ensure the safety of himself and his crew, his ship and the success of his missions. Always looking for the best in all peoples, Becca the Viking and the barbarian shows more heartfelt compassion than most other people. Yet all these things that he does are inspired from on high, and favor flows his way throughout his missions. Yet there are lessons that we can glean from Becca The Red, one of humility, kindness and generosity even towards the worst of men like Gregorio and Cheese-slicer. Becca has proven that he can fight like a brave warrior and yet have the compassion of a priest. But is there such a thing as too much compassion especially for a Viking warrior?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.A.Edwards
• Release date: Apr 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215846094

Book preview

BECCA THE VIKING

EARTH I

BOOK II

Voyage to Aachen

1.

Later, with the royal standard of Imperium Romanum and the Emperor of East Roma, Constantine VI, flying high on the mast along with his bear banner in honor of his cub bear, Becca's ship turned from the dock unmolested.

They no sooner broke into the channel beyond the Golden Horn when they met clouds, thick and dark enough to make it difficult to see any other ships. 

Still they pushed through the clouds under the covering of darkness at noon while the sun remained uncommonly black, and he and his men,  all accounted for including the two comrades in lead-lined coffins, peered ahead as far as they could, to keep in the channel, avoiding the shoals along the side. 

Can the eyes of the honorable Dead see in the darkness?  Nevertheless, the living felt the Dead were cheering them onward.

Though the route from Constantinople to Aachen via upriver on the broad Istros was the better, more direct course to take to Frankia, they turned south from the capital.

Bjorn scratched his head of thinning, sun-bleached hair as Becca ordered him turn the tiller to head south. 

South, did you say,  Captain?  he queried. 

Becca did not answer. 

Bjorn thought about it some, and his eyes lit on the coffins, their outlines visible even in the gloom.  One, Alexios’ certainly belonged back in his native soil. 

Oh! he thought. 

Riding the fast currents that poured out from the Euxine Sea, they slipped swiftly down the channel and into the Sea of Marmara, and thence to the Hellespont. 

Once they made their exit there, they had a chance to break through to the wide waters of the Great Sea,  Roma’s Mare Nostrum, the Mediterranean. 

Yet even then,  they were on alert.  Despite the safe conduct and the Emperor’s banner, they might still be blocked by imperial warships.

For that reason, Becca kept his men ready, prepared to shoot the Greek fire if he was forced to clear his sea-path.

Once there at the mouth of the Hellespont, the darkness covering the sun broke, and  the Aegean Sea's blue-green waters greeted their dragon head with spray and dancing, sparkling and foaming waves. 

From the fellow at the top of the mast, no warning was sounded.  They sailed on.  No warships darted at them to head them off!

It seemed they were in the clear.  The men all gave a cheer and shouted out, as it had been a question all down the narrow Dardanelles strait from the capital to the Hellespont whether they would face a solid phalanx of imperial warships or open waters.

But they had celebrated too soon, they discovered. 

A groan went up from the whole crew.  Becca raised clenched hands and said something unprintable about lying devils.

Just around the last headlands of Mysia, where ancient  Priam‘s Troy, Helen, Paris and Hector  had forever captured the world’s attention, they ran right into a line of ships.

Becca was astounded by the East Romans’ perfidy.  How was it the news of their coming had preceded them?  But, then, the imperial capital had excellent means of communicating over great distances of the far flung empire.  Horsed couriers whose mounts were refreshed at relay stations strung north to south across Anatolia, doves carrying messages, fire and mirror signal towers set on high promontories all down the Dardanelles—they had ample means to do it. 

The men received quick orders, and they were ready.  Even the deadly syphon gun was primed  at the prow, as the casque of Greek fire was shoved into position to feed it.

With their superior oaring and maneuverability, they stood a chance to break through even this formidable a cordon, and even eliminate them altogether. 

Becca shook his head and gritted his teeth at the task ahead.  He had no desire to inflict a fiery death on so many men as he saw manning the warships, hundreds, even a thousand by estimate.

If only they would respect the official flag of their Emperor Constantine VI, their last legitimate emperor!  Were there still enough men of integrity left in the navy, bold enough to do what was right and let their safe conduct writ be honored?

The warships were moving their oars, and they were moving out to encircle him, Becca saw.  If he did nothing very soon, they would be trapped, rammed on all sides and boarded and dispatched in hand to hand fighting by superior numbers.

Becca, not knowing how to stop the coming conflagration and so many deaths, did something rare for any young man of his time, or any time—he prayed!

Cheese-Slicer chose this inconvenient moment to rush up to Becca and suggest his idea of how to deal with the encircling imperials.

What? Hard-pressed, distracted, Becca was about to shove him away, but then what did Cheese-Slicer say?

Captain, we do not have to fight them all!  No, no!  Return to the Hellespont, and hold a spot on the northern shore right by the entrance.  It is still dark over that whole region, and they will not know we are there.  They will split up, some ships continuing up the Straits toward the capital, the others holding the entrance.  Then we can decide what to do with them, they might all give up and sail back to the capital, eh?

It was a brilliant ploy, to be sure.  It just might be pulled off.  But considering the dubious source...?

Becca looked hard at the man volunteering the advice telling him the captain what to do to save his own ship.

He saw it was worth a try, really their only chance to save their own lives as well as the imperials’ lives, not to mention the hundreds of galley slaves chained to their benches below decks. 

The order given, they swung around and sped back into the Hellespont, and the winds sweeping up channel favored them. 

They took up their spot to wait on the northern shore as the light declined and darkness settled.  Any ship that found them there, they would incinerate, of course, as they would have to fight their way out. 

2.

Resting there, enfolded by darkness as they were panting on their oars, they all hoped the darkness would not soon blow away as it had just beyond the entrance to the straits.

Presently, they saw lanterns beading the warships as they came in and then passed by them in the pitch darkness, one by one.

Becca counted five of the twelve initially, and hoped for more.  After some little wait, numbers six, seven, eight, and nine also passed quickly in succession,  following their strategos commander at the head of the line who was returning to the capital in haste, in order to make sure Becca would not make it out and escape on the northern river route to Frankia.

As the strategos already knew, a story for Charles the Great had already been concocted by clever liars in the state department—that Becca’s ship foundered on shoals in the Euxine Sea and all lives were lost.

He felt no qualms whatsoever when he heard it.  That was the express duty of state department officials, was it not?  Lying through their smiles! Their business was always in devising lies, and thus it would always be.

Meantime, the tally hadn’t gone beyond nine. 

That left three warships.  Hours passed,  wearyingly, irritatingly, getting on their nerves, and the mariners, without a word from Becca needed,  flexed their muscles to stay alert. 

Cheese-Slicer had replaced Bjorn during the previous shift.  He was standing more or less, but less and less, slumping at the tiller, hardly an example for alertness. 

Becca pushed  Cheese-Slicer down on his own bench, so he could revive.

He himself stood, his eyes peering into the darkness for more lanterns, more ships.

Becca heard the Cheese-Slicer once again.

Sire! he whispered in the darkness.  They won’t be coming after the others.  They have orders to remain and hold the entrance to the straits till hell freezes over.

Once again, Becca thought the remarkably reformed thief might be right, somehow.  The remaining imperials were taking too long.  They must have received orders, to sit tight, just as Cheese-Slicer said. 

How did he know such things?  And he was always so certain too!  It could not be explained!  He knew Cheese-Slicer was nothing but an old reprobate pagan, who thought one god was as good as another, when it came to doing him a favor.  So which god of his was doing him all these favors?

Now what was he to do?  Fight them and destroy them?  Three warships with several hundreds of men?

He couldn’t stand there forever and stare into the darkness, but, then, he didn’t have to.  Winds suddenly began blowing into the straits, revealing the three ships positioned at the entrance, though they had to anchor in order to keep that formation.

Now! Captain!  Give them a warning shot of the Greeks’ nose snot!

Becca was beside himself.  Cheese-Slicer had been right so far, was he right all the way out of this net thrown by the imperials?

Becca risked his own sanity taking this course Cheese-Slicer suggested, but he ordered a shot from the dragon head.

Then they all watched the three imperial warships, to see what they would do.

First, after a few raven’s wingbeats, their anchors were yanked up.  Banks of oars lifted and dipped into the water.  Their rudder-men setting the ship’s course,  they fled, straight past the dragon ship and up the channel toward the capital!

Three of them apparently thought they were finished, being so few in numbers against a Varangian vessel  equipped with Greek fire, and they had none since their commander took his with him.  Had they not been told Becca’s ship had Greek fire?  Perhaps not.  That would explain their shock and consequent flight.

Such was the gist of the thinking on board anyway. 

All the Fifty, including Cheese-Slicer as a member of the crew after this wonderful advice proving true counsel, leaped to their feet, shouting and celebrating!

Their cheers for Cheese-Slicer, for they had heard his whispers to Becca and they passed them along all the way to the stern, showed that he was now fully accepted back into the brotherhood.

3.

After all those hours of nervy, white-knuckle tension, Becca was covered with sweat.  So was the crew.

Becca decided something out of the ordinary was just the thing the doctor ordered. 

Men, take a good, long swim!  Eat something, drink some wine,  change your clothes, and then we will depart.

A big sigh and a cheer went up, as the crew scrambled and could not obey fast enough.  Several men dove in the water, clothes and all, not wanting to wait.

It was most unlikely, Becca reasoned, that the imperials would bother them now, as the tail of three ships, feeling Greek fire hot on their tail feathers, pursued the body and head of the flotilla all the way to the capital. 

Once there, the three ships might not even catch them, not until they reached the exit of the Bosporus, after straight sailing through the Sea of Marmara.

By the time that squadron turned around, Becca knew he and his ship would be long gone out of reach.  In fact, the commanding navy imperials in the capital, once they heard he had gotten away, might even let him go altogether, since he was apt to destroy their ships if they challenged him again.

The shore being so close by where they anchored,  Bjorn and the other men jumped in, and swam to shore, then bathed and skylarked for the next hour or so, just the right medicine to revive their spirits.

As for Cheese-Slicer, he had no particular liking for water.  It didn’t refresh him so much as terrify him.  Despite his natural buoyancy, due to his fattiness, he was certain he would sink like a stone to the bottom. 

Stay on board, Becca ordered him, and a sigh of relief showed he had feared having to get his toes in the dreaded water with its big, lurking, man-slicing sharks. 

Becca waited until they were finished, then he left Cheese-Maker at the captain’s bench to hold the ship where it was in his stead, and, pulling off his armor, clothes and weapons,  slipped over the side by a rope. 

The feel of the water on his whole body was glorious!  Swimming round the ship, all the strain and stress of the many hours and days previously endured, was washed off his body.  The imperial prison’s taint, too, was washed away.  He felt new-born!  Alive again!  He felt fully himself, after the dark stain of the foul murders of Alexios and Torkel  with Hasayn’s part in them all, washed away from his mind and soul at last. 

Of course, he would never forget.  He could never forget.  But he felt gloriously freed of the dark web that Hasayn and his people like him had spun to entrap, to pull down all mankind, if they could possibly do it. 

4.

The dragon ship, happy as a sea bird skimming the waves after its dinner of silver fishes,  sped  south toward the turn to Cypros, the Copper Island.

Becca recalled Alexios had told him that was the route to go if he wished to sail there.

Asking the way along the coasts of islands at various cities, they were well treated by local city officials and imperial commanders, due to their safe conduct pass and the imperial insignia on the flag they carried.

Invited to land and join in festivities, they had to decline,  Becca informing the disappointed officials that they  had a serious mission to perform,  to return Alexios’ remains to his native home.

Just the mention of this endeared them to the islanders, old and young, and the coffins were soon heaped with garlands and bouquets of their finest flowers.

They made their way, port to port, island to island, royally supplied with provisions, to Alexios’ island home—its mountains rising up high and forested above the sea.

They inquired at Cypros’  westernmost cape,  at the first little waterside village to the south of it,  for directions to Alexios' city.

It had to be a big shoreside city, by Alexios’ own description, nestling somewhere on the southern coast, so  that narrowed the search even without the name.

After several inquiries,  calling out the family name for  Alexios, his description of his home and family to people on the quayside docks in the ports, they were directed to the city of Neapolis. 

Though Cypros was ruled jointly by an agreement with the imperial East Roman Greeks of Constantinople made with the Caliphate Arabs in 688,  the recent slave taking raid by Hakim and his Arabs was well remembered and still feelings ran high about it. 

Despite they were Varangians, barbarian Danes and Norse,  yet they were warmly welcomed by all. 

Becca and the crew could not understand such a response, and had to wonder how sincere it was.  They could see why the islands not raided wouldn’t hold grudges against foreign seafarers, but Cypros too?

Alexios, unfortunately, could not explain it, why they weren’t rebuffed.  He must have known there were groups of sear-faring Arabs who did not honor the treaty.  Since the Arabs had left the island to the Imperial Greeks of Constantinople to rule over as overlords, the Caliphate in Damascus and Baghdad shared only the taxes from the island with the imperials.

Not respecting this amicable arrangement that avoided full-scale war over the island,  a particular slave-ship captain, Hakim, being opportunistic,  thought why not?  For very little trouble,  he could stage a small attack and collect his share of the taxes himself  in the form of slaves! 

5.

They were led straight to the home of his family, and his aged mother and father happened to be home, with some younger brothers still present.  Soon relatives and neighbors flooded in to the premises, as the news of their coming and their purpose sped round the city.

It was not good news Becca brought and the Cheese-Slicer translated into Greek, but a cause for many tears, though they had been resigned to hearing such bad news ever since the raid.  Yet Becca did everything he could to break the news gently.

In one sense, however, they could draw comfort.  He wouldn’t be suffering slavery in a foreign country the rest of his life.  He was home. 

Death is death.  The weeping was deafening.  Mourning women came in from the community around and joined in. 

In deference their distinguished guests’ comfort,  for they were perceived as benefactors of Alexios,  elders came and took Becca and his men to a palace nearby, where the Patriarch of Constantinople had a somewhat neglected but still splendid residence for the winter months in the north, though patriarchs seldom journeyed so far south as Cypros anymore.

Here Alexios’ flower-heaped coffin was to be brought in and set in the high hall that had been the venue for  the patriarch’s official church dealings in the past, the few times he was in residence.

Given rooms all along the upper level, which looked down on a pillared court of three stories,  Becca’s men brought in their lockers and set up for a stay.

Beaches were not far off, being just below the palace where it occupied a high ridge of rock.

A steep path led down, its steps cut in the living rock, and there they went, rather than bathe in the palace’s marbled-paved pools which held fish but had not been used or cleaned in long years.

As for  meals, the women from Alexios’ home came and brought them meals that they and the community around provided.

The Fifty (if Cheese-Slicer was accepted as an honorary crew member, and he was big enough to be counted as two in total) were a lot of hungry men to feed, but when they weren’t dining on the many hot dishes brought in from the neighboring kitchens (not the palace’s, for the cook had long since retired to a monastery in the spired rock caves of Cappadocia),  the patriarch’s orchards supplied an abundance of lemons, oranges, pomegranates, figs, pistachios, and almonds. 

Other than fresh fruit, nuts and berries, the spicy dishes and rich desserts preferred by the Cypriots soon took its toll.

Northerners could not deal with so much spice, sweets and wines.  So they turned to blander fare, preferring to invite in the citizenry and the poor of the city, to enjoy what was beginning to give them bellyaches.

Fresh fish and other seafood, of course, were abundant for the mere asking anytime from frequent venders passing by the palace.  These the men fried themselves on fires they tended on the grounds, using tree limbs and branches blown down in tempests from the sea.

Becca called for the coffin to be brought from the ship by his men, leaving the other hero under a canopy on board under guard.  He remained several days in the palace, as Alexios’ remains were taken and prepared as custom dictated in that Christian city. 

As in all hot climates, the body could not be displayed, though embalmed in Constantinople, after so long a time had passed.  So the coffin remained sealed.  However, a beautiful, gilded and painted portrait of him was brought from the home and displayed on the coffin lid.  Embroidered cloths of spotless linen draped it.  Flowers covered it as well as the floor all around.  Candles by the dozens were lit and kept being refreshed by others. 

6.

The Patriarch from Constantinople not being present to officiate  (he was iconoclast, against the use of holy images in churches,  and he favored icons as a Chalcedonian Christian), a local bishop stood in for him in the ceremony was held in the local church.

With the gossipy Cheese-Slicer providing information from every quarter, Becca was kept abreast of developments. 

Bishop Theophilus came to officiate, arriving after  a day and a half’s journey on horseback on  across the Troodos mountains. 

News had come to him via a messenger dove  from the Neapolis church eldership, concerning the imperial-ensigned ship bearing the body of native son Alexios, after being rescued by the Varangians from lifetime slavery among the Arabs.

This same news, as more details became known and were circulated,  captivated the hearts of  the island’s people.  They all heard that foreign mercenaries from the icy Northlands, thinking so highly of their Alexios, a young scribal student at the time of his capture by slavers, had suffered death defending his benefactor, the captain!

Surprising Becca and the Fifty, the crowds that came flocking to the scene to do them and Alexios full honors gave them the idea he must have been a royal prince.

No, not exactly in title and lineage, but certainly in noble, Christian sacrifice of himself for the sake of his worthy benefactor and rescuer!  That fact was explained to Cheese-Slicer by a friend of his family, but he didn’t like that as much as he liked telling the Northmen Alexios had been royal, born a prince in direct line for occupying the throne in Constantinople, once the wicked Irene was gotten out of the way!

That Becca had bought him in the slave market on Malta was not a problem for any of them.  They all knew how Christians fared as slaves to Muslims.  Purchase had been the only way to retrieve him from captivity and to preserve his life.  If Becca and his men had attacked Hakim’s ship, Alexios might well have been thrown overboard with any other Christian slaves to drown, rather than an Arab let any Christian survive while he suffered defeat, death and disgrace at the hands of infidels. 

7.

Hundreds of people from all over the island attended the ceremonies, as the news of Becca’s imperial banner, mission and noble rescue had excited the Cypriots’ admiration. 

For those reasons, a  very big crowd  gathered from the city and the whole area round Neapolis  including a number of neighboring cities and numerous mountain villages.  All came to see the Imperial Varangian envoy, as they understood his office (and Cheese-Slicer richly, imaginatively embroidered it), and do proper respects to their hero of a Cypriot, Alexios.

After the ceremony of the last rites, at the gravesite in the garden of the Patriarch’s palace,  Becca  threw into the open grave his own tokens of love. 

Simple but meant from his heart, they were some  Danish emblems of his own, a wooden rune inscription he carved out the name of Christos,  a wooden cross of the Northern kind  with some flowers given to him in gold and silver, which he held back from the wages he was paid, for his mother, father, and family. 

Becca and the Fifty returned to the ship,  removing  belongings from the palace,  many villagers and townspeople and also the family following them.

Much fresh food, bread, cheeses, and fruits of the kind their stomachs would not trouble themselves about, were given to them in covered baskets, along with supplies of fresh water and wine.

Becca, before they cast off, gave the parents an additional good sum of gold in a bag, enough to keep them well into their later years. 

It was gold the strategos had given him, and the very thought of the treachery inflicted on him by the strategos and the ruling Constantinopolitans made him want to give it up, rather than the sight of it reminding him of all the unpleasantness endured at their hands.

Cheese-Slicer did his duty interpreting, though again he could not restrain himself from slipping in embellishments, or embroidery, at various points.

This is not a gift from me to you,  Becca said, but these are  your son's earned wages, for I cannot repay all his service to me.  Not at this time, I regret to say!  But when I am able,  if I cannot deliver it in person,  I will send my gift by a messenger.  And I must tell you his family, know that he was my friend too, not just my servant.  He came to me as a servant, but he left me as a friend."

This straight-forward statement was translated by Cheese-Slicer.  It came out as: 

"My lordly hosts, I salute you all.  Here is my gift from our of the golden cup of the beneficence of my noble heart, and is it not worthy of your gratitude?  But I am not so poor as these gifts may seem to some of you lordly people.  Oh, no!  I have much more heaped up in my palace in the north, that I will send a portion from to you by and by.  A chariot of gold with prancing white horses will convey it to you!  Keep the chariot and the gold from my overflowing coffers.  I shall not miss it.  You need it more than I!  My love to you and to the revered son of thy copious loins!  We of the North will light a great ship afire in his memory on our return, a custom we Northmen reserve for fallen kings and heroes fighting in defense of our country.  Your son, too, fell in defense of one of us,  for which