Magnus made a rumbling sound which seemed to denote disapproval. “I don’t know about this,” he said. “I don’t owe you any favors, Somerled. Besides, I’m losing half my Wolfskins for the summer, and not all of them will be coming back, I suspect. Generous I may be, but I’m not a fool.”
“Indeed not, my lord,” Somerled agreed. “Still, young men should be offered such experiences, I think. A little exposure to far places and alien people can but strengthen their attachment to home, their loyalty to their own.”
Eyvind could not make himself speak. His heart still thumped with shock. He bit his lip, willing Jarl Magnus to say no. He had not the least wish to sail over the sea to some godforsaken island, nor to linger there, tilling fields and feeding chickens. He was a warrior; his job was here, fighting the Jarl’s battles and keeping him safe. How would Thor find him, so far away? And what on earth had got into Somerled to ask such a thing? It was just as well Eyvind was the Jarl’s favorite, or he might end up not seeing Signe again for a whole summer.
“My lord Jarl.”
Eyvind blinked. His brother Eirik had risen to his feet and was speaking now.
“This suggestion is clearly not to your liking, and I understand the reasons for that. But it’s a good notion. After the battle in the east, where my brother acquitted himself so well, your borders are very secure in that quarter. Your new alliance with Thorvald Strong-Arm here reinforces your support in the north. It seems unlikely you will face any real threat before summer’s end. Enough of your Wolfskins remain to guard you and deal with anything that might arise. Don’t forget the three young men we’ve trained, who are all too eager to put their skills on display. The best of them will be chosen to take Hakon’s place, when we return. I think you could spare my brother until harvest month. The change would be good for him, and I’ll undertake to look after him, and bring him back safe. I’ve no intention of staying on in those parts myself.”
Eyvind glared at him but Eirik would not meet his eye.
“Hmm,” said Magnus. “We must let the young warrior choose for himself, I suppose. Let it not be said that I held him back. What do you say, Eyvind?”
One could not give a plain answer to this type of question. “My lord, you know I want nothing more than to serve you with axe and sword, and to follow the will of Thor. I will do whatever your lordship wishes.” This was as close as Eyvind might come to saying he did not want to go.
“Have you room for another on your longship, Ulf?” Magnus asked with a smile.
Ulf was not smiling. “Eyvind is a valiant warrior, another like his brother,” he said. “Him, I have no objection to, though he has surprised me today.”
“Very well,” Magnus said. “There is nothing touches the heart so much as a fine display of loyalty between friends. These two young men have impressed me: so different in appearance, in talents, and in bearing, and yet so thoughtful for each other that they might almost be brothers. Both shall go; but, Eyvind, I need your promise that you will stay a season only. We’ll have work for you here as soon as the nights begin to lengthen.”
“Yes, my lord.” Eyvind’s heart felt like lead. A whole summer with no raids, no battles, a whole summer with no Signe. A pox on Somerled, and a pox on Eirik. When had he ever said he wanted to go voyaging?
“No settling down and setting up house with some buxom native girl, now,” the Jarl grinned.
“No, my lord.”
Folk began to talk again, and Eyvind spoke to his brother in a furious undertone.
“Why did you say that? You must know I don’t want to go. I don’t know why Somerled asked, everyone knows I want to stay here.”
Eirik smiled without mirth. “Look at Ulf,” he said flatly. “There’s your answer. You’re the one who got Somerled invited on this, when his own brother was afraid to take him. If he’s coming, you’re coming. I’ve got a job for you, one you’ve done before.”
“What job?” Eyvind watched Ulf; perhaps that pinched look on his features really was fear, though he couldn’t imagine why.
“Keeping your friend out of trouble,” said Eirik. “Off you go, then. We sail at dawn; you’d better go and say good-bye to a certain lady. It’s a long time till harvest.”
Voyages were nothing new to Eyvind. He was not troubled by the movement of the ship under his feet, or the way the sea somehow got into every corner, including boots and leggings, tunics and cloaks and hoods, so that being wet became constant. He was used to the way the skin chafed and itched, and the constant stink about the place. He did not mind having to row; the winds were fickle within the sheltered waters of Freyrsfjord, and progress was slow under sail. What made this voyage different was what came next. Beyond the skerry-guard, one could no longer hug the coastline, putting in at night to camp on shore, make a fire, and sleep tolerably warm and dry in a tent. Instead, the ships were heading out into open ocean, toward a realm whose existence was more legend than known reality, more story than substance. Navigation must be guided by intuition, not visible markers; the very lives of the entire complement of passengers, crew, and stock were dependent on Ulf’s ability to weigh unknown risks and find the right decisions. A storm, or contrary winds, or unexpected attack would soon set them off course, and if they missed their destination, who knew what lay between those regions and the very edge of the world? It came to Eyvind that Ulf was indeed a man of great courage, and of vision, for he sailed forth with little more than a dream to guide him. Eyvind admired that greatly, though he took care not to express his opinion in Somerled’s hearing. Still, when Ulf told him both he and Somerled would be traveling on the knarr, Eyvind put up no argument. There was stock to convey, after all, and Eyvind was good with animals, being farm-bred. Besides, with eight oars on the knarr and a crew of only ten, it was evident that he would be able to make himself useful.
Many folk lined the shore to salute their departure, but Signe did not come down. Her farewell to Eyvind had been tender and secret, its message conveyed more by touch than by words. It had been strange; it almost seemed to Eyvind like a good-bye that was forever, though he’d assured Signe he would be back in the autumn. Hadn’t he given his word to the Jarl?
Even before the sheltered coastal waters gave way to open seas, the folk they carried grew sick. Women staggered to the side to heave their breakfast up; children failed to do so, and spewed forth on whatever was nearest. The crew ignored them completely, save for curt commands to get out of the way when necessary. It was their job to convey the cargo to the islands, not act as nursemaids. The folk huddled in the bows of the knarr, their small bundles by them. The stock were closer to the stern, tethered to iron rings set in the decking. Ulf’s dogs had traveled on the longship, a small mercy. The cargo was loaded below, and beneath it the knarr bore a ballast of smooth river rocks. For all that, she rode higher in the water than the Golden Dragon with its smooth lines and great bank of oars. Eyvind had never traveled in a cargo boat, and wondered how they would manage to keep up, burdened with their whey-faced complement of nonsailors. But the knarr surprised him. In open sea, with a following wind, she moved swift and steady as a small, neat bird, the square sail carrying her on an easy, stable course. At most, they needed four oars, and generally none. The Golden Dragon, by contrast, seemed to be employing both oars and sail to make progress, and it became a challenge not to go too far ahead and lose sight of her. This crew was experienced. They had sailed much farther south than Eyvind had ever traveled on Magnus’s raids; they had taken a load of walrus tusks and fine furs westward from the Frankish coast across to a trading center called Lundenwic, a full day’s journey. Still, this voyage was daunting even for them. Nobody liked the idea of nights at sea, and a ship full of puking infants, shivering women and useless thralls did nothing to improve the prospect.
The sounds made a pattern; the ship’s timbers creaked as the ocean tested her strength, the water slapped against her sides, the crew sang ribald ditties as they bailed or rowed or worked yard or till
er or whisker-pole at the master’s shouted commands, cries as harsh and strange as some great seabird’s call: Aaar-dup! Aaar-dan! Eee-way! All learned to duck and dodge when they heard that, or they might find themselves engulfed in a rolling expanse of wet canvas. And one must stay well clear of the whisker-pole, which was used to change the set of the sail in order to take advantage of even the most contrary wind. As in the longship, the knarr’s tiller was on the starboard side; the tillerman had arms like a blacksmith’s and needed all his strength, for the thing could buck and jerk under the sea’s violent surges like some wild creature. The man they called Firehead, who spoke to nobody but his crewmates, appeared to be much valued among these hard-bitten seamen. It was he who assumed control while the ship’s master snatched a brief rest. At times he took his own turn on the tiller, and those were the only times when Eyvind saw something resembling peace on the fellow’s brooding features. Gazing ahead into the dark surge of the swell as he kept the knarr on her steady course, Firehead’s eyes lost their dangerous look and seemed instead to be seeing something else entirely, something that was not on the ship or in the ocean but far away in a place only he could catch sight of.
While Eyvind took a turn on an oar, and helped calm the frightened stock, and even shared out hard bread and apples among the passengers huddled together on the forward deck, Somerled also was far from idle. It was not long before one and then another of the crew commented that the lord Ulf’s brother was no mean hand with a line, and could tie a knot as well as any of them, and that it wasn’t every nobleman’s son who would step up and give a hand, especially when he’d just been sick as a dog over the port railing into the sea. Firehead made no comment at all. When the crewmen rested, in turns, Somerled sat among them, listening to their tales of exotic ports and even more exotic women, laughing appreciatively, and putting in a few stories of his own that soon had the men in stitches with laughter. It was a side of Somerled that Eyvind had never seen, and it seemed to him something of a miracle, for his friend had ever been aloof and disdainful among working folk.
The winds died down before nightfall, which pleased everyone. The sail was lowered, the oars stilled; they dragged an anchor, for here even the longest line could not find the sea’s floor. Lanterns were lit at bow and stern, and the men put up a makeshift tent for shelter. Not far off in the fading light, the long, dark form of the Golden Dragon could be seen riding low in the water, her own lamps tiny points of light which moved crazily against the mysterious, breathing darkness of the ocean. Eyvind stood watching as stars emerged in the night sky, one, then two, then a whole great pattern of them from edge to edge of the world. He felt the immensity of that black expanse of water around them, a sea so vast that no land could be sighted in any direction, not by the man with the best eyes in all of Norway. These ships were so small, so fragile, though they had seemed strong and dauntless on the safe shores of Freyrsfjord. Would not the coming of dawn snuff out each one of those tiny stars that now shone so splendidly in the inky sky above him? Perhaps the same dawn would see the frail craft of Ulf’s venture extinguished as well, sunk by a freak wave, overturned by the sudden breaching of a whale, or driven off course by spring gales to splinter on some half-submerged reef. Perhaps their human cargo—leader, warrior, crewman, innocent woman, and infant—would perish one and all, gone as quickly as those small stars that faded in the coming of the light. We think ourselves so grand, thought Eyvind, so brave and strong. But before this, we are like chaff in the wind, like bubbles on the stream. The thought did not frighten him. He felt only a great sense of calm and of quiet, and he stood there long, gazing out into the deepening night as crew and passengers settled to sleep as best they could, and two men stood watch.
The second day brought a thick blanket of cloud. On the Golden Dragon, Ulf could be seen squinting at his sunstones, trying to fix his course. As long as there was the smallest patch of blue somewhere in the sky, a man who had the right skill could catch the sun’s light in the crystalline depths of these stones and use it to help find his way. Ulf had brought ravens, as well, but he would not release them yet, for the fleet had not journeyed far enough from Rogaland; the birds would simply turn and fly straight for home. The true test would come in a day or two, if the wind stood fair.
Some of the passengers had begun to get their sea legs, and among these was a lively infant of perhaps three years old, a sturdy little fellow with a dangerous bent for exploration. His mother was prostrate, retching and moaning; the other folk tried to curb the child, but what with the rocking of the boat, and the need to keep out of the crew’s way and tend to those who were sick, it was no easy matter. There was a girl, the boy’s sister, a fair-haired lass of about fourteen, sweet-featured and quiet; she hauled the infant back from trouble time after time with soft-voiced reprimands, but it was a bit like ordering the wind not to blow, or the tide not to come in. This was a boy who would make a fine sort of man, if the gods let him get that far.
Toward midday, the girl was busy tending to her mother, and most of the others were rolled miserably in their damp blankets trying to shut out a world that had grown suddenly too difficult. Eyvind was coaxing the restless cattle into sampling grain from a bucket when he spotted the small lad scaling the knarr’s side to perch precariously astride the rail, a hair’s breadth from tumbling over and down to the chill surge of the sea. There was nobody near the boy; the crew were rowing, or steering, or sleeping, and Firehead was in the stern keeping an eye on the other boat and shouting orders as necessary in that strange seaman’s tongue: Aaar-dup! Eee-way! The child teetered; the swell rose; two crewmen moved into position to swing the whisker-pole. As soon as they did that, the whole vessel would shudder and shift, and even those lying on deck would need to hold on, not to be tumbled hither and thither. Eyvind opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the crewmen moved too fast, the whisker-pole swung across, shifting the great crackling sail, and the knarr juddered and swung after it, obedient to the wind. The boy toppled and fell, and quick as a flash, a man who had been hidden from view because he was leaning over the side, retching the last drops of bile out of his tortured gut, reached to grab one small arm, hooked his own foot under the ledge that skirted the oar ports, strained to haul in his shrieking catch before the wind and the waves snatched the two of them off the boat into a last cold embrace. Eyvind sprinted across the slanting, slippery deck, and now others too saw Somerled hanging there, his foot, jammed under the railing, the only thing that kept him and the boy from the ocean’s icy grasp. The wind rose, bearing the child’s screams away from his lips as if they were of no account whatever. Somerled’s face was the color of fresh cheese, his jaw was set grim, his hands gripped white-knuckled around the child’s arm. He did not have enough purchase to pull the lad to safety, and his foot was beginning to slip now, the boot leather tearing under the strain.
“Help me, will you?” he hissed through tight-clenched teeth as at last Eyvind reached his side. Both taller and stronger than Somerled, he had no trouble reaching down to seize the child under the arms and lift him to safety. The boy’s screams subsided to hiccupping sobs; his sister, ashen-faced, took him in trembling arms and proceeded to scold him roundly, with tears of fright glinting in her blue eyes.
“All right?” Eyvind inquired as Somerled eased his cramped arms, and unhooked his foot with extreme caution, as if it might be hurting quite a lot.
“Yes,” said Somerled faintly, “or maybe no. Excuse me,” and he leaned back over the rail, his stomach heaving anew in protest at the knarr’s relentless movement. It took a while. “Perhaps that’s all, until next time,” Somerled observed, straightening up and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “My brother must be crazy. Who’d do this by choice?” Then he looked up and saw the girl standing before him with the child, now quiet, in her arms.
“Thank you,” she said, looking at him under her lashes. “You saved his life. Thank you so much.”
Somerled appeared quite taken aback, as if he d
id not think what he had done was in any way remarkable. “It’s nothing,” he said, reaching out to pat the child rather awkwardly on the arm. “Don’t mention it.”
“It didn’t seem like nothing to me,” the girl ventured, her cheeks turning a delicate pink. “And thank you, too.” She glanced at Eyvind and quickly away, as folk sometimes did with his kind. “My brother’s always getting into trouble,” she went on shyly. “I’ll try to look after him better. And I’m sorry you’re so sick.”
Somerled did not reply, but he watched the girl as she made her way back to her mother’s side and settled her small brother with bribes of salt fish and wrinkled apples. Then one after another of the crew came forward to clap Somerled on the back and congratulate him for his quick thinking, and comment that they’d like to share an ale with him, only it would hardly be worth it since he’d be lucky to keep it in his belly long enough to enjoy it. Somerled had become a sort of hero.
Firehead did not shake his hand and grin and make friendly jokes. Firehead had not moved from where he stood in the stern of the knarr, alone. But he watched with narrowed eyes, and Eyvind read the look on his hard features and was uneasy. It was unfortunate, he thought, that Somerled had traveled on the very same craft as this taciturn fellow who might or might not have once gone by the name Sigurd. Yet, if Somerled had been on the Golden Dragon with Ulf and Margaret, that lad would have fallen overboard and drowned. You could never second-guess the gods. Still, Eyvind would be glad when they reached their destination and could pay off the knarr’s crew and get on with things. Maybe Somerled’s newfound popularity would set him in better stead with his brother. One could always hope.