Brandewyne, Rebecca (46 page)

Wulfgar
nodded his agreement; and quickly, they loaded their provisions, then started
to push the vessel into the water. But then Yelkei paused, her head cocked a
trifle, listening intently, her eyes narrowed and alert.

"Someone
comes— Nay, there is no cause for alarm," she reassured him as he reached
for his battle-ax. " 'Tis Owain the Bard."

Now
Wulfgar could hear, as well, the harper's rich, melodious voice, singing in
hushed tones, and see the light of the whale-oil lamp he carried in one hand,
flickering like foxfire in the mist. His wild Celtic harp was still, secure in
the leather drawstring case
that hung at his shoulder, along with another sack
that contained his belongings. From beneath the strands of his long, dark chestnut
hair that whipped about his face in the wind, Cariad's glowing eyes peeked from
where she, too, clung to his shoulder.

"Owain,
what do you here?" Wulfgar asked quietly at the bard's approach.

"Since
your lady wife returned to Usk, many nights has she sat beside the fire in the
great hall, cradling her son at her breast, and telling him tales of the
Northland, and of his mighty father, Wulfgar the Dane. Now, it comes to me that
there is a song in my mind and in my heart which will not go away, and I must
learn the words to the melody." So saying, he set the whale-oil lamp and
his sack down on a thwart of the sailing boat, then laid his harp carefully in
the bottom for safekeeping. After that, he, too, bent his back to the task of
shoving the vessel into the water. "Come. We must hurry. King Ivar was
already astir when I slipped away, and on his face as he glanced at your empty
pallet, my lord, was a strange and haunting smile that I did not care to
see."

Swiftly,
between the three of them, they launched the sailing boat into the mist and
water. Then Wulfgar took up one oar and Owain, the other, while Yelkei sat in
the
stern, her hand on the tiller. Much to Wulfgar's surprise, the bard's slender
hands proved as sure upon the paddle as upon the strings of his harp; but then
Wulfgar remembered that Usk, too, lay at the edge of the sea, and that Rhowenna
had spoken of often riding the white-foamed waves, in a peculiar round boat she
had called a coracle. No doubt, having been her father's harper, Owain, also,
was no stranger to boats or to water. Rhythmically, the oars rose and fell in
the imperceptibly thinning mist until, finally, the vessel was far enough from
shore that the paddles could be drawn in and that Wulfgar could hoist the mast
and the lugsail, and secure them. With a plaintive sough that echoed the
distant cry of the night creatures, the freshening wind caught the white,
four-sided sail so it billowed wide, sending the vessel skimming over the
quietly rippling waves.

By
now, dawn streaked across the horizon, the sun pale and grey in the sullen sky
pierced the last wisps of lingering mist, so the glimmering river wended like a
riband of long, dark silk before them. Wulfgar took the tiller from Yelkei
then. Squatting in the bottom of the sailing boat, she opened the sacks of
provisions they had brought, filling wooden bowls with chunks of cold meat, a
handful
of berries and nuts, and a thick slice of hard bread each, and, from a leather
flask, pouring cups of mead. In silence, the three of them broke their fast,
eating hungrily; for their exertions and the cold air had quickened their
appetites. Even Cariad devoured the tidbits Owain fed her until the meager meal
was done. Wulfgar felt ashamed that they had no better to offer the bard; but
then he reminded himself that he and Yelkei had planned for only two, and that
Owain had accompanied them of his own free will and so must accept what was
given, without complaint.

The
wind stayed with them; and the days of their journey passed peacefully as they
wound their way west along the little river, then north up the Great Ouse to
the Wash, finally turning east into the North Sea, rounding the mammoth bulge
of East Anglia to follow its coast south. As the winter wore on, the weather
grew steadily colder. But Yelkei had brought a firepot to warm them; and when
the sea grew too rough for sailing, they put in to shore, where they foraged
for supplies and, dragging the vessel onto the sands, turned it upside down
over themselves for shelter if there were no other to be found. They took turns
spelling one another at the tiller; and now and then, to pass away the time,
Owain withdrew his chessboard from his bag,
and he and Wulfgar played long, fierce
games of strategy and battle. But more often, observing Wulfgar suddenly grow
silent and gaze off into the distance, lost in reverie, dwelling on his
thoughts and memories of Rhowenna, the bard brought forth his harp and sang
ballads of Walas that echoed the haunting ache in Wulfgar's heart for his lady
wife.

At
last came the day when they sailed past the mouth of the river Stour; and
Wulfgar's heart swelled within his breast, for he knew that their journey to
the
Siren's
Song,
lying
in wait for them at the mouth of the river Blackwater, was nearly at an end.
But then, staring off into the distance, at the far point of land that was the
Naze, Yelkei said abruptly, "Wulfgar, your eyes are younger and keener
than mine, and mine are blinded by the morning sun, besides. See you a white
sail there on the horizon, coming hard and fast upon us?" and as he
glanced to where she pointed, he spied another vessel bearing swiftly toward
them.

"
'Tis only some fisherman, most like, who seeks to net an early catch,"
Wulfgar said, but with a sinking heart, he realized that it was none other than
Ivar the Boneless, and a frisson that had nothing to do with the frigid winter
air chased up his spine.

His
hand trembled a little on the tiller, with
the sudden surge of adrenaline that
coursed through him. Somehow, Ivar must have learned the contents of the
messages that had passed between Yelkei and Flóki, Wulfgar thought, and upon
realizing he, Wulfgar, had fled and discovering he had gone west by boat, along
the little river, and not southeast by horse, Ivar had known the route Wulfgar
must follow. Taking the shorter, overland route, Ivar had mounted up to ride
southeast from Thetford and, in Colchester or some other place, had got a
vessel to intercept Wulfgar at the Naze, to cut him off, to drive him into the
island-riddled harbor formed by the inward curve of the small peninsula. The
islands... At the thought of them, grimly did Wulfgar understand then, down to
his very bones, what Ivar intended— the
holmganga,
the island going,
which was the name given to a formal duel between two
Víkingr
warriors.

Like
fathomless, twin abysses in her yellow countenance, Yelkei's black eyes
swallowed the wan light of the faded winter sun, while Owain's own green ones
glittered with the brilliance of raw green stones; and his indrawn breath was
so sharp that Cariad cluttered nervously and hid her pointed face against his
neck as the oncoming sail quickened its pace, seeming to shoot forward like
some strange
and fantastic bird winging its way upon the wind. Steady, Wulfgar held the
tiller, so their own sailing boat stuck to its speed and course, he seeing no
other choice but to enter the harbor and to hope that they could hide among the
islands. For although his vessel leaped valiantly across the waves, it was not
so fast as Ivar's own, which, little by little, gained on them, so Wulfgar knew
he could not turn and outrun it. Unbidden into his mind came the memory of his
hooking Ragnar, his father, and hauling him like a seacow aboard the
Siren's
Song;
and Wulfgar knew that Ivar would not hesitate to bring his sailing
boat alongside them and, to prevent them from fleeing, use his own grappling
hooks to secure their vessel.

Rapidly,
Ivar closed the distance between them, until it seemed to Wulfgar that he could
hear his half brother's mocking laughter on the wind, could glimpse the
fluid-boned hand that guided the second tiller so skillfully— as it ever had
held a tiller in their youth, when they had fished among the fjords along the
coast of the Northland. Wulfgar could remember how Ivar had laughed at him
then, too, at his own clumsy, inexpert handling of the tiller, in comparison to
Ivar's own deftness. The memory was so vivid that although those days were
twenty years gone and he
could now hold his own against any who sailed the high seas, Wulfgar felt
suddenly as awkward as he had then as a lad, the butt of Ivar's malicious
jesting; and his hand tightened so hard on the tiller that he fumbled its
course, and Ivar's sailing boat drew ominously even nearer.

Hide-and-seek
they played then, among the small islands, flitting along the shorelines,
Wulfgar's face bleak as he now saw that although he had dared to hope
otherwise, Ivar was not alone, but was accompanied by Halfdan. Wulfgar knew
that he could not fight them both, that together, they would kill him. Then,
afterward perhaps, Ivar would discover that Rhowenna was still alive, had borne
her husband a son, and then she and Leik would never be safe so long as Ivar
lived. It was this thought that frightened Wulfgar most of all. For Yelkei and
Owain the Bard, he had no fear; his half brothers would slay neither, afraid of
the spaewife's power, revering the harper's talent. For his own self, Wulfgar
feared only for Rhowenna's and Leik's sake. For them, he
must
prevail!

Such
was the violence of this thought that his hand tightened once more on the
tiller, inadvertently hauling the sailing boat off balance, so that it rocked
on its keel, then heeled hard to one side, and he could hear it scrape
upon the bottom
of the shoals just off shore. Cursing himself vehemently for a fool, he
hurriedly steadied the vessel, attempting to turn it back away from the
breakers that rushed in upon the snowy island strand. But it was too late. The
sailing boat was running up onto the sands; and whipping around a near point of
the island, where he must have been lying in wait for them, Ivar was upon them.
They would never get the vessel pushed back out into sea fast enough to escape,
Wulfgar realized with a sinking heart. Hastily lowering the mast and sail, then
leaping out into the icy, frothy combers, he, Owain, and Yelkei dragged the
sailing boat inland instead, so it would not be dislodged and carried away on
the waves. Once the vessel was secure, Wulfgar hurriedly threw off his cloak
and stripped off his tunic, scarcely feeling the chilly wind against his bare
skin as he mentally prepared for the fight he knew must come. Then, grabbing
his shield from the bottom of the vessel and drawing his battle-ax from its
scabbard at his back, Wulfgar stood, waiting for his half brothers to reach
him, feeling somehow as though he had been waiting all his life for this
moment, as though, at long last, his destiny lay at hand.

Now,
Ivar and Halfdan were lowering their own mast and sail, jumping into the
breakers
to haul their own sailing boat up onto the beach drifted with snow and rimed at
its edges. When it was done, they began slowly to walk toward Wulfgar. In that
instant, it seemed that his world contracted sharply to that place where they
stood upon the island shore, as though the gods or some other unknown force had
deliberately woven it into a cocoon of grey silk spun from the leaden winter
sky, sealing beyond it the cold breath of the wind, the frosty murmur of the
sea, hushing the day, although it was only that his heightened senses shut the
sounds out and became so keenly attuned to his half brothers that they all
three seemed to breathe as one. Ivar's eyes shone with excitement, triumph, and
even a hint of madness in that moment as he came finally to a halt a few feet
away, his body as taut and graceful as a wolf poised for attack, and his smile
was a wolfish smile, as though he scented victory at hand.

"A
good race, Wulfgar. But now 'tis done, and we are come near to the end of our
game, I am thinking. You have deceived me once too often for me to let you slip
through my fingers yet again. What a pity for you, when you have so much to
live for, after all, eh, Wulfgar?" Ivar paused for a moment. Then he
continued softly. "For she is alive, your lady wife, is she not?" The
question was
stated in such a way that it did not demand an answer; so Wulfgar knew that
Yelkei had been right that night in the abandoned great hall when he had first
learned that Rhowenna lived: His eyes had given away the truth to Ivar.
"May I ask how? Nay? Ah, I understand. You think that if you remain
silent, Wulfgar, I'll believe that I'm wrong and that, truly, she is dead. But
I will not, I assure you." When still he received no response, Ivar
shrugged, laughing softly. "No matter. I was merely curious as to how you
managed to deceive me. However, perhaps I can guess: 'Twas some dark Eastland
potion of Yelkei's, no doubt, which brought on a sleep so deep that it
resembled death... ?" He turned to the spaewife, his eyes hard and angry.
"By Odinn! If you were not a true spaewife, I'd slay you where you stand,
you meddlesome old witch! Still, you will be deservedly punished, I am
thinking, when Wulfgar lies dead at my feet; for he has ever been the child of
your heart, has he not?"

"I
do not want to fight you, Ivar," Wulfgar insisted, his voice low but
vibrant with emotion. "I do not want to kill you. Despite everything, we
are brothers—"

"You
are no brother of mine, you bloody, upstart bastard, but a mockery the gods
sent here to earth to plague me!
I
am Ragnar Lodbrók's
greatest son!
Yet every time I gaze upon you, 'tis like looking into a polished-bronze mirror
and seeing a stranger staring out of my own eyes, a stranger who is somehow
even greater than I. The Greeks have a name for what you are to me, Wulfgar: my
nemesis. I cannot suffer you to live; I cannot suffer you to die. Still, one
way or the other, once and for all, this day will end what is between us! And
when you are dead, Wulfgar, I promise you: I will sail my mighty Dragon Ship to
Usk; and there, I will take your lady wife for my own, my whore, and I will
slay your son— for she
did
give you a son, did she not, your fair
Rhowenna? Aye, a son like his father— ever to haunt me, like a ghost, lest I
destroy you both!"