Viking Gold (26 page)

A few insipid “
Ayes
”
trickled round the campfire.

There was a time Redknee
would have sided with Olaf and Magnus. If it wasn’t for the prospect that his
father might be out there somewhere, he would have stood and been counted with
them. But as it was, the chance, albeit remote, that he was following in his
father’s footsteps, was enough to spur him on. Ulfsson’s words had been enough
to convince him of that.

Redknee spoke as Magnus sat
down. “What the book says is true. I know this because I have met a man who I
believe has been to the Promised Land.”

“When?” Olaf shouted

“In
Iceland
; Astrid
took me to him. The man, Ulfsson was his name, had sailed with her husband.
They left
Reykjavik
two years ago looking for
Greenland
.
Instead they reached a land far to the west where the people spoke no known
language.” He thought of adding the bit about the disappearing warriors, but
decided it would not help the case.

“Where is this man now?” Olaf
asked, his voice dripping with derision. “Find him, and let him speak for
himself.”

“He can’t,” Redknee said. “He
was killed in a tavern brawl.”

“How convenient,” Olaf said.
“Tell me, how do we know this Ulfsson’s land, if Ulfsson even exists, is the
same as the Promised Land of the
Codex
?”

Redknee had no answer to
this, but Sinead saved him from providing one by climbing onto a rock and
coughing.

“Some of you might not know
me. I’m the servant girl you took from the monastery of Rock Fells in
Ireland
.”

Oh, by Odin’s all-seeing eye,
Redknee thought, she might be pretty, but why did she have to stick her nose
into everything? Others agreed, because a murmur went round the group, peppered
with insults about her slave status. At least no one called her a traitor.

Sinead ignored the remarks
and went on. “Olaf says the rumours about the Promised Land are lies. But I
often heard the monks talk of the place. About how Saint Brendan was said to
have visited it. There are no more learned men in the whole world than the
monks of
Ireland
. We can trust their judgment. If they say the
Promised Land exists, I believe them.”

“She lies!” Someone shouted.

A rotten apple sped towards
her from the midst of the group; striking her on the forehead. She staggered;
Redknee thought she was going to fall. He dashed forward, but Astrid was
quicker. In a flash, she had stepped up and offered her arm for balance. She
stared at Sinead the way a fox eyes a chicken. This was no act of charity.

“May I?” Astrid asked,
nodding at the rock, though it didn’t sound much like a question.

Disoriented, Sinead nodded
dumbly and stood down.

Astrid ascended the rock that
had become their
de facto
hustings. Her cool stare silenced the
hecklers. She began confidently, with no trace of the hesitation or anxiety
she’d shown on their arrival at
Reykjavik
. The contrast thrilled Redknee; it should have
terrified him.

“As some of you may know, my
husband is in
Greenland
. It is my belief that this is another name for the
Promised Land of your legend. My husband is a great man – a respected leader
and fearless warrior. I want to help him settle there and I will give a
thousand coins of Arab silver to each man who helps me.”

Chatter rose from the crowd.
Astrid’s offer had captivated them.

But Olaf wasn’t finished. He
stood in front of her. “Are we going to take orders from these, these …  
women
?”
He spat the last word as if it was a piece of indigestible gristle.

Doubt
twisted, knife-like, into the assumptions of every man present. Redknee could
see it in their faces, the desire for riches, for adventure, for glory versus
the safe, easy route that would preserve their lives but end forever their dreams
of immortal renown.

In the end, Sven, who was the
better diplomat and still held the respect of his men, saw his opportunity writ
large in the big, simple faces before him. It was not bravery they lacked, but
clarity. He would give them that.

“Astrid will grant a thousand
coins of Arab silver to each man who will search for her husband. I will join
her, but I will add this promise – that each man who helps me reach the
Promised Land will receive forty acres of fertile land and as many jewels as he
can carry.”

A cheer went up from the men.
The decision had been made. They would continue on. Redknee prayed that hope
had not, after all, fooled them into eating scraps.

Olaf
placed the alcohol-soaked rag across his son’s back with care. Harold juddered
in pain. Olaf grabbed him to his chest and stroked his hair. The sway of the
ship seemed to soothe the father but not the son. Harold’s eyes had withered.
They were devoid of hope, like those of an old man. Death-bed eyes.

Redknee let the tarpaulin
fall back into place and turned away. He still had Harold’s ivory-handled
dagger hanging from a loop on his belt. It didn’t feel a like a prize now. It
felt like a warning. Had revenge played a part in Olaf’s eventual, and somewhat
reluctant, decision to continue on with them? It wasn’t like the big man to
give in. It wasn’t like Harold to forgive a trespass. When Redknee had asked
his uncle, he just laughed.

“Olaf is still my most
trusted man,” he’d said. “He understands his son did wrong so I’m sure he
harbours no grudge against you for Harold’s lashing. But he’s been through a
lot. He needs time, and space, to see what an opportunity the Promised Land is.
The fact he’s decided to join us, when he could have stayed with Ivar and
Matilda, means he’s starting to come round.”

Redknee had nodded at Sven’s
explanation. Privately he wondered if his uncle’s desire to find the Promised
Land hadn’t begun to curdle his brain.

Dismissing these thoughts as
best he could, Redknee tucked the dagger into the folds of his tunic and
wandered along the deck. It was three days since they’d left
Iceland
. The
seas grew colder. Frost dusted the planks, even at
midday
. When he woke in the
mornings, he could see his life-breath floating in the air. Sinead reassured
him the chill wouldn’t leach his inner vapours unless it became
much
colder. She delighted in puffing shapes from between her pursed lips and
watching as her life-breath disappeared into the frigid sky. Wasteful, Redknee
thought. And not quite believing her, he huddled up to Silver at night all the
more.

As he
approached the stern, Redknee saw Astrid exchange a word with Magnus at the
tiller. The presence of Astrid and her four men-at-arms had upset the on-board
dynamic. They kept to themselves near the stern; had their own rations of
pickled mutton; duck eggs; even turnips and a small pouch of horseradish. But
they didn’t share. This annoyed the rest of the men forced to survive on the
scraps Olaf had scavenged from the tiny island where they’d sheltered from the
volcano.

Seeing Redknee, Magnus gave
Astrid a curt nod and turned to stare back out to sea, his eyes shuttered;
blank and impassive as the dull waves.

Redknee avoided Astrid’s cool
stare – she still hadn’t forgiven him for stopping her sacrifice to Frey – and
turned back towards the prow. Thora sat with Koll and the Bjornsson twins,
swaddled in bear furs, only the pink tip of her nose peeking out. The wind
caught a scrap of their conversation. They were discussing the treasure.
Not
again
, Redknee thought, when he heard Thora declare she would have brooches
of jade and five slaves just to braid her hair.

Koll saw him. “Join us,” he
said, waving. “We have a chunky fish stew.”

Redknee shook his head. It
was time he spoke to Sven about the origins of the
Codex
and its links
with his father. The unicorn and ivy embroidery on his mother’s cloth was
evidence enough of a connection. Toki’s story about how Sven believed Redknee’s
father had worked out the location of the Promised Land, perhaps even found it
for himself, if Ulfsson was to be believed, made speaking to Sven critical.
Since they’d left
Iceland
, the tale had burned in Redknee’s mind, hotter than
the flames of
Mount
Hekla
.

Redknee clenched his hand.
Everything pointed to Sven having lied. How dare he keep the truth from him?
His uncle was nothing but an interloper in his father’s longhouse, living, as
he had done for the past sixteen years with Redknee and his mother. Living as
jarl
in his father’s stead. He’d put off speaking to his uncle long enough. Long
enough by far.

Sven
stood at the prow, his arm slung over the red and gold dragonhead, cloak
billowing in the wind. His desire, nay, Redknee thought, desire wasn’t a strong
enough word. Obsession,
that
was it. His uncle’s obsession to reach
Greenland
, lest
it be the Promised Land, had made him impatient. Redknee could almost picture
saliva dripping from his uncle’s mouth as he watched for that first glimpse of
Greenland
’s
famous lush hills. Sven hadn’t sat, hadn’t slept, hadn’t turned his eyes from the
horizon since they’d left
Iceland
. He even took his whale stew standing, oblivious to
the brown liquid sloshing over his fine blue tunic.

As Redknee approached his
uncle, Toki crossed the deck ahead of him and tapped Sven on the shoulder.
Redknee paused. He would know what Toki had to say to his uncle. Until now, the
big warrior had kept his distance from Sven, fearful, Redknee had assumed, of
retribution for defecting to Ragnar’s band.

But when Sven saw it was Toki
come to join him, he smiled and threw his arm round the younger man as if they
were long lost brothers. Redknee halted. It was not the reception he’d expected
for Toki, given Sven’s threats to him in the barn.

“You have to hear this!” a
female voice called.

Redknee turned to see Sinead
beckoning him to join her. Sinead, Olvir and Silver were sitting with Brother
Alfred, listening as he told one of his stories. Green, blue and gold eyes wide,
watching every hand gesture the little monk made as he wove his story in the
air, like the weaver threads the weft into the warp.

“Come on,” she said. “It’s
really good.”

Redknee glanced back at his
uncle. He and Toki were deep in conversation. Redknee sighed. He supposed he
could wait. Where, after all, could his uncle go on a longship?

Redknee joined Sinead on one
of the thick furs. Silver nuzzled close. Try as he might to focus on the monk’s
tale, Redknee couldn’t help straining to hear the conversation going on behind
him. But the wind stole the meat. More disturbingly, Redknee could picture two
sets of eyes further down the ship, father and son, marking his back.

Brother
Alfred was wittering on about some land of milk and honey. Apparently, it was
promised by Brother Alfred’s God to his favourite people many summers ago.
Sinead was enthralled by the tale, but it left Redknee cold until the monk
reached the bit about a sorcerer who caused a great sea to part, allowing him
and his people to escape the evil king’s army.

“Once Moses and his people
had passed safely through the
Red Sea
,” the little monk went on, “the waters came rushing
back, drowning the pursuing soldiers.”

“Were the chosen people
freed?” Sinead asked. “Did they find their land?”

Redknee huffed. Typical. It
had to be a story about slaves to keep Sinead interested.

Brother Alfred shook his
head. “Not quite yet, little one. For the people didn’t appreciate everything
God had done for them. They took to worshipping false idols made of gold and
precious jewels. This enraged God and he banished them to forty years of
wandering the desert.”

“So they never got their milk
and honey?” Olvir asked with disappointment.

“Well, they did eventually.
After their forty years of wandering were finished and they’d learned their
lesson. But Moses, their leader, and the one who’d set them free from slavery,
never got to see the new land.”

“Why not?” Sinead asked.

Brother Alfred shrugged.
“He’d done his part. It was time for him to join God.”

“That’s stupid,” Redknee
said. “Moses put in all the effort – he should have got the reward.”

The little monk pressed his
hands together as if in prayer and tilted his head thoughtfully to one side.
“Sometimes,” he said carefully, “a reward is not exactly what you expect it to
be.”

Once
Brother Alfred had finished his story, Sinead pulled Redknee aside. “I’ve been
thinking about Karl’s murder,” she said in a low voice. “I’m worried your uncle
might still accuse me.”

“But Karl was killed around
the time of the horse fight,” Redknee said, placing a hand on her arm in an
attempt to reassure her, “and you were with me then.”