“It has come to my attention,” announced Heidir the Bold, respected leader of the Varangian Brigade, one sunny spring day as the placid waters of the Dneiper carried us carefully southwards, “that this crew lacks certain hallmarks of civility which ought to befit gentlemen such as ourselves.”
Torsten set down the stick he’d found in the goose nest which he’d been using to clean the wax out of his ears. “Whaddya mean, boss? Don’t the people we come across call us ‘sir’ and pause to let us through when we go past?”
White-haired Melrakki elbowed him in the ribs. “Sweet Torsten, that’s because when you walk past with a huge axe, no idiot is going to say “Hey! You stepped on my toe” or “Hey, that’s my apple”.”
“Unless they have a bigger axe,” said Hrjota, who was at that moment cleaning his own axe lovingly.
“Or it was a particularly valuable or delicious apple,” said Grautr.
“What I mean is erudition!” cried Heidir. “How do we expect to be taken seriously by the citizens of the Queen of Cities if we can’t communicate with them? None of us speak any Latin. This issue must be remedied before we reach Constantinople.”
“I speak Latin,” said Sten modestly.
“I’m sure it will be fine,” said Berger. “We can just figure it out when we get there. Look, I already got the Rus tongue pretty good just by listening to people.”
“Yeah, but that’s because Rus just sounds like normal Norse if you had a load of berries in your mouth,” said Gunnarr the surgeon. “You ever heard someone speaking Latin? It makes you sound like a drunken donkey with a sinus problem. And Greek! Don’t get me started on Greek.”
“But how are we supposed to learn Latin?” asked Smali.
Heidir looked pleased. “We shall find ourselves a teacher.”
“I can teach Latin. I speak really good Latin,” said Sten.
“Where?” said Melrakki. “Dear leader, I’m sorry to remind you, but we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Oh yes,” said Heidir, “old Frodr said he had a plan for that.”
We all turned to face Frodr. He was lying against the bulwark with his arms folded over his long beard staring into the middle distance. After a beat or two we realised he was asleep. Torsten nudged him with his foot.
“Ah! Ahhh! Bloody Christians everywhere! Gerrof, gerrof!” cried Frodr. Then he looked around and realised we were all expecting something from him. “Yer what? Come on, spit it out!”
Heidir cleared his throat. “Respected Frodr, where did you say we could find someone willing to teach us Latin?”
Frodr blinked. “Latin? Why on earth d’ye want to learn Latin? Language of puffed up peacocks and lady-men if ever there was one.”
“Presumably,” said Melrakki loudly, “so we can extract money from those peacocks and lady-men in the most effective way possible when we reach Constantinople.”
Recognition blossomed in Frodr’s eyes. “Constantinople! Of course, why didn’t ye remind me before. Stupid, stupid crew, always dancing around the point. Have to wait for ages before they actually tell you what you want to hear. Why, I remember as if it were yesterday – ”
Heidir said, “Frodr. The port.”
Frodr grinned. “Sir. Not two days’ downstream of here there is a port. I remember it well from when I sailed this very river when I was a boy. In that port one can buy fruit, wool, slaves, bronze, a great many things of value. And once one has bought such things one can take them downriver and sell them at three times the markup in Constantinople. It is for this reason that in this port we can expect to find many people who can speak Latin, and we must be able to persuade one of them to come with us to teach us Latin in exchange for passage southwards. Maybe even if we’re lucky he’ll be able to read. That’d really blow the tops off your little brains, wouldn’t it.”
And so it was settled that the Varangian Brigade took it upon themselves to find a teacher of the heathen tongue of Latin.