I went aft to wait with Arno.

The first droman was close enough now that I could see the white of her bow wave, and make out men at her rail. Five would get you ten, I thought, that they had bows strung and ready. The cadence of their rowing was no faster than ours, but their two-man oars gave longer strokes, and their ship, if not as graceful as the long ship, had lines well built for speed.

At maybe a hundred yards they shot a few trial arrows, which fell close astern of us. The Varangians not rowing stood in the walkway with shields, ready to protect their oarsmen. One also stood by Gunnlag to protect him while he steered. At this point, Arno and I crouched with only our heads above the gunwales. A minute later the Saracens fired a small volley, and the first arrow struck the stern; we heard it thud.

Arno raised up enough to level the blaster, holding it with both hands, wrists braced on the gunwale. Then he fired, and I saw a flash at the bow of the droman, but I couldn't see if he'd blasted a piece out of the bulwark or actually hit a bowman. A bowman, I decided; I could hear men yelling, and it didn't sound like battle cries. By the flash, his next bolt hit the bow a little above waterline. The hole would have been a good foot wide, I'd think, and hopefully low enough to be taking water. But the droman came on, and a flight of arrows rose visibly from her, so Arno fired two more bolts into the massed archers in the bow.

This time we heard unmistakable screaming. He must have killed a couple of them, messily, and the droman began to veer off. That's when he lucked out. I mean, it may have been what he was trying to do, but he had to be lucky to do it: As she began to veer, he fired again and apparently hit the mast, because the mast and sail fell across the aft oarsmen.

Even with luck though, it had been great shooting at that distance, with a pistol. I needn't have worried about Arno's marksmanship.

By that time, Saracen arrows were falling in and around our stern. Our own oarsmen didn't miss a beat, but neither did those on the second droman. I don't know what their captain thought was happening on the first ship, but it didn't change his mind about anything. At about eighty or ninety yards, a volley of arrows lifted from her bow, and Arno sent two bolts into the mass of archers, then several at her bow.

The last time he touched the stud, nothing happened: her charge was exhausted. I kept my head down as the arrows started to fall-enough of them that I was surprised none of us was hit, though several stuck in Varangian shields and a number had thudded, vibrating, into the wood of the long ship.

I popped my head up for another look. Arno must have hit the droman near the waterline with at least two bolts and probably more. She was definitely slowing-probably scooping water.

Then Gunnlag bellowed an order, and our oarsmen stopped! I didn't realize what that was about for a moment. Arno yelled something in Norse, and Gunnlag looked angrily at him. Arno started talking furiously, and I suddenly realized what was going on. Gunnlag wanted to slow down and disable the other droman; he hadn't realized the blaster was out of charge. Arno was trying to get us rowing again.

When Gunnlag got the picture, he bellowed the rowers back into action. Meanwhile the third droman was coming on, not more than a quarter mile away now. By that time we were less than a mile from the beach, and the Varangians put their brawny backs into it. At a half mile, the droman slowed. She was quite a bit bigger than we were, and probably rode a few feet deeper. Apparently her captain wasn't willing to beach her.

We didn't hit bottom until we were less than fifty yards from shore. When the shallow keel grabbed the sand; the long ship jerked sharply, throwing me to the deck. But our momentum and the oarsmen's last stroke took us ten yards farther, tilting to the side. Then we sat on the bottom, resting partly on the keel and partly on the curve of our left side, the water within two feet of our gunwale.

The droman was still coming, though more slowly now, and maybe three hundred yards back. I could picture her bowmen waiting ready. The Varangians didn't waste time. Grabbing weapons and shields, they piled over the portside gunwale into waist-deep water. The surf was negligible. I followed them, holding my stunner and communicator overhead; we were all ashore within a couple of minutes.

The droman had veered off, out of bowshot. We'd come through the whole thing without one casualty. There were seventy-eight Varangians on the beach, along with one Norman, one Greek, and one holy monk from India.

PART FIVE

Once ashore and satisfied that we weren't about to be attacked from the sea, I looked around. The wide beach sloped up to a screen of trees-trees that didn't look like any I'd seen before on Fanglith. Or on Evdash either, as far as that's concerned. Their trunks were like thick rough pillars, without any branches at all. At the top, each of them had a broad crown of what looked like very long leaves, maybe twelve or fifteen feet long, that curved out and down. Each leaf came directly from the top of the trunk, which I suppose was maybe sixty or seventy feet tall.

Arno told me it was a date orchard, that the trees were date palms. I knew about dates; I'd eaten them aboard the long ship. After looking around for a minute, we walked up the beach and into the orchard, which was only about a hundred feet wide. Behind it was a field of something that looked like grass and that Arno said was wheat. I remembered wheat from Provence and Normandy, but it had been quite a lot taller there. Later in the growing season, I suppose. On the other side of the wheat field was a row of more ordinary-looking trees.

Eastward about half a mile was a little hamlet of maybe twenty small houses, plus sheds and other outbuildings. On a knoll a little way back of the hamlet stood a castle, not very big but built of stone. I would have seen it from the long ship if my attention hadn't been behind us, while from the beach, the orchard had been in the way.

We all stopped to look it over, the Varangians talking quietly in their singsong language.

"A Saracen place," Arno said to me. "Most of Sicily is peopled by Saracens, and there is no Christian church in that hamlet. If there was, we could see the cross. But this could still be Norman territory. Where Guiscard or Roger conquer Saracen ground, they leave the people to their own laws and religion. It saves no end of trouble.

"From the tower they must have seen our vessel being pursued by Saracen warships, and may have seen us run aground. That they have not sent cavalry to attack us gives me hope that this district is Norman."

He went over to Gunnlag and they spoke in Norse. Some of the other Varangians entered into the conversation; I wished I could understand what they were saying. When they were done, Gunnlag and Arno led us off across the wheat field, ignoring the hamlet and the tower, heading toward the hills. I asked Michael to find out what was going on, and he fell into step with one of the friendlier Varangians who'd been agreeable to his questions before.

The more ordinary-looking trees on the other side of the wheat field shaded an irrigation ditch. We stopped there to drink, then started across another wheat field on the other side. As we walked, Michael angled over to me.

"Some of the Varangians wanted to sack the hamlet," he told me. "Some of the younger ones don't seem very smart; their motto seems to be, act now and let the consequences take care of themselves. But Lord Arno recommended that we reach the hills before nightfall and camp in a place easy to defend. And Captain Gunnlag agreed. They don't want to risk attack in the open by Saracen knights, or get surrounded, trapped, in the hamlet. Or antagonizing the Normans, if this place has surrendered to them and been granted Norman protection.