Viking Gold (28 page)

As
Redknee followed his uncle to the foredeck, Harold appeared, hunched and pale,
at the opening to the tent. He stared at Redknee with pink-rimmed eyes. Redknee
shuffled uncomfortably. He knew what Harold wanted him to do.

Harold stumbled forward,
hands outstretched to clutch at Sven’s arm, mouth open, ready to spew forth his
twisted truth.

“
Wait
,” Redknee said,
glaring at Harold. Then he turned to Sven. “Do you think it wise, uncle, that
we continue our quest when we don’t know who is killing us off?” From the
corner of his eye, Redknee saw Harold smile.
The manipulating toad.

Sven just laughed. “Oh, don’t
worry lads,” he said, addressing Harold too, mistaking his pinched expression
for concern, “we
will
find whoever is doing this. And when we do, I’ll
personally see to it they’re hung, drawn and quartered …
as slowly as
possible
. I’m not turning back.”

Harold scowled, but Sven was
moving quickly down the deck towards Koll and the other poison victims: too
fast for Harold’s mangled body to keep pace.

Koll,
Thora and the Bjornsson twins lay side by side on the deck, their bodies pale
and motionless. Brother Alfred sat by Koll; he held his head in his lap. The
big warrior looked small, shrunken, somehow less than his six and a half feet.
His fair hair was dark with sweat and plastered to his forehead. Brother Alfred
dabbed his brow, his clothes, like Koll’s, were splattered with greenish-yellow
vomit. Sven nodded in the direction of Thora and the Bjornsson twins.

Brother Alfred shook his head
slowly. “I’m afraid they’ve given up the fight.”

“And Koll?”
Sven asked.

As if in reply, Koll began wheezing,
trying desperately to suck air into his mouth as fast as he could. Suddenly his
breathing shortened, his face turned blue as convulsions twisted his body off
the deck.

“He’s choking,” Brother
Alfred said. “It’s what killed the others. We must do something to help him.”

Redknee glanced up at his
uncle. “Sinead will know.”

Sven stared dully at his best
warrior gasping and spluttering for his life. It was no way to go. To be denied
the halls of
Valhalla
was a cruel end. “Get her,” Sven whispered, so
quietly Redknee wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly until Sinead was actually
there and Sven was urging her towards the patient

Sinead knelt beside Koll,
pressed her ear to his chest and listened. “There’s no antidote for wolfsbane,”
she said. “Our only hope is that he’s strong and hasn’t taken too much of it.
All we can do is try to keep him breathing.”

Redknee
and Sinead sat with Koll through the night. They kept him cool with
water-soaked rags and held up his head so he wouldn’t choke on the stinking green
vomit. With each breath, his chest rattled like dice in a cup but still he
fought on. Eventually, as a small yellow sun rose on the horizon, Koll took his
first clear breath. He had passed the worst.

Two
more days were spent bringing Koll back to health. Sinead was a good nurse;
efficient and kind. All thoughts of the Promised Land, of outing the traitor by
baiting them with the
Codex
, vanished from Redknee’s mind as he assisted
her in tending to his friend.

When
Sven told Koll of Thora’s death, he roared like a mother bear with a dead cub,
smashing two barrels against the side of the ship. In his grief, he refused to
allow Thora to be buried at sea. Sinead eventually managed to persuade him of
the sense in it by giving him a length of fine lemon coloured linen she’d
embroidered with flowers to use as Thora’s shroud.

After
the burial, Redknee found his uncle standing alone at the prow. He looked
older. His skin hung heavy across his cheekbones. Redknee sensed it was the
wrong time to ask about the
Codex
, but he had to know; couldn’t wait any
longer.

“Uncle,” he said in what
sounded, even to him, to be a pathetically feeble voice. “May I speak to you?”

Sven turned to face him
fully. “Of course.”

Redknee gulped down his
nerves. “When the old man in Kaupangen gave you the
Codex
, was that the
first time you’d seen it?”

Sven nodded. 

“Then what about this?”
Redknee took his mother’s embroidered cloth from his pouch. “It has the pattern
of five ivy leaves, the same as surrounds the unicorn in the
Codex
. My mother
stitched it shortly before I was born as a gift for the infant Astrid.”

“Give that here,” Sven said.

Redknee handed over the
yellowed square.

Sven turned pale. “Where did
you get this?”

“Ivar gave it to me,” Redknee
said defensively. “He thought I should have something of my mother’s.”

Sven crumpled the cloth into
a ball, turned to face the sea and drew back his arm. Redknee felt the blood
drain from his face.

“Stop!” he shouted, dashing
forward and snatching at the cloth. As Sven shrugged him off, he heard the rasp
of snapping fibres. He stumbled backwards, staring at the ragged fragment
between his fingers: it contained just two ivy leaves and a curl of green
foliage. He looked up; anger coursed through his veins as his uncle calmly
dropped the rest of the cloth into the sea.

“Why did you do that?”
Redknee shrieked, gripping the rescued portion to his chest. “That was all I
had left of my mother.”

Sven shook his head sadly. “It’s
years since I saw that cloth. I’d forgotten it existed. I remember her sewing
it quite clearly. It was high summer. Her belly was full with you and she found
it hard to move quickly or to travel far. She used to berate herself for being
so slow, for spending time in such womanly pursuits. She longed to be out in
the forest, or on the mountains. Even training with her sword. Her spirit was
wild. A bit like yours …”

His voice drifted off and
Redknee was reminded of the time in the training yard when the same faraway
look had come over him. 

“I’m sorry I reacted the way
I did,” Sven said, collecting himself. “It was a shock, seeing the cloth so
suddenly.”

 “So it’s true,” Redknee
said. “My mother
did
see the
Codex
many years ago.”

Sven sighed. “I knew this
time would come.”

“You did?”

“Yes,” Sven said, looking him
full in the face. Sorrow clouded his grey eyes. “I don’t see what harm it does
to tell the truth now. It was all so long ago and much has happened since.
You’re right about the Kaupangen merchant. I didn’t get the book from him this
spring. It was plunder from a monastery I raided with my brother about a year
before you were born. We took our ship up the Irish coast. Times were different
then. The monasteries were unprotected. Yet we heard tales they contained great
wealth. It was too tempting. The place where we got the book; it is the place
Sinead hails from.”

“Sinead says she heard the
monks talk of the legend of Saint Brendan when she was a child. She’s desperate
to read the
Codex
.”

A thin smile crossed Sven’s
face. “About Sinead:. I doubt she poisoned the stew, but I still don’t trust
her. I fear, as a Christian, her loyalty will always be to the monk who wrote
the book – if there are Christian secrets within it, she will seek to keep them
from us. And I suspect her links with Ragnar. Her departure with Mord and
return to us was too convenient.”

“I’ve heard Ragnar was with
you when you plundered the monastery. Is that how he knew about the book?”

Sven nodded slowly. “We were
good friends once, Erik, Ragnar and I. But Ragnar double-crossed us. He ran off
with the plunder. He thought he’d taken the book, but he made a mistake. It was
the only thing he left your father and me.”

“Is that what started the
feud?”

Sven nodded. “I took the
Codex
to your mother in the
Sheep
Islands
. That was when she made the embroidery. Then I left
her to find Ragnar and settle the score. But Erik found him first, with tragic
consequences.”

Redknee took this in. His
father had hunted Ragnar down to avenge his double-crossing. “So, my father
wasn’t a coward?”

“Erik?” Sven asked.

Redknee nodded.

“Not if you look at it like
that. Though it’s true he ran when he found himself losing.”

“But why did you keep the
book hidden for so long?”

“The monks said it told of a
voyage to a fabulous land. They were very angry when we took it. Tried to beg
with their lives.” Sven laughed. “Even offered us their secret hoard of gold.
But we thought a book
that
valuable must be worth taking. To be honest
though, I didn’t really believe their stories. And what could I do with it? I
couldn’t read the book words. So I hid it away. I didn’t tell anyone about it
because I knew Ragnar wanted it, and I didn’t want him to get his hands on it.
Not after what happened to Erik.”

Redknee nodded. He could
understand that.

“But,” Sven continued, “when the
harvest looked like failing this year, I thought maybe it would fetch some
coin. I took it to the merchant in Kaupangen. The man I went to is no ordinary
trader. He has travelled in the lands of the
Gaul
and the Rus. He is master
of their languages and expert in their folk tales. He even speaks the words of
Rome
. When he
saw the
Codex
, with its fine leather cover and bright pictures, he
nearly collapsed. He said it was the lost book of Saint Brendan and he knew a
man who would pay handsomely for it in gold.”

“Was that Ragnar?”

Sven nodded. “After your
father died I put it about that Ragnar had double-crossed us. I acted angry,
saying Ragnar had stolen everything we’d taken from the monks. If Ragnar
believed we didn’t have the book there was a chance he wouldn’t come after us.
It seemed to work. I know he used the coin he stole from us to employ
mercenaries. He took his new men-at-arms raiding down the
Volga
. It was
only when I went to Kaupangen last month that I realised he was back and he was
looking for the
Codex.
”

“Why didn’t
you
go
after him to avenge my father’s death?”

Sven sighed. “Lad, I just
didn’t have the stomach for it. Your mother rejoined me and we moved north,
beyond the Oster Fjord to a remote part of the northlands. Then Ingrid gave
birth to you, and, well, things changed. Life moved on.” Sven smiled weakly;
slapping Redknee on the back. “Come on,” he said. “I’ve had enough reminiscing
for one day. It’s time for your training.” He took two Dane-axes from an
armoury chest and handed one to Redknee.

Redknee turned the axe in his
hand. This was how his father died. Felled by an axe in his back. “I have one
last question. Before we start.”

“Go on,” Sven said, moving
into position opposite. “But it better be quick, I fear the daylight will not last
long.”

Redknee looked at the
horizon. Crimson streaked the pale sky. He sighed. He didn’t want to ask again.
But felt he had to. “Did—”

“Yes?”

“Did Ragnar
really
kill my father? It’s just, my mother, before she died, she seemed
so
sure—”

Sven lowered his axe, leant
his big frame on the helve and sighed. “Alright lad. It’s time you knew the
truth. I banished my brother from our village.”

“What?”

“It’s true. He didn’t die
fighting Ragnar. I sent him away.”

Redknee’s mouth turned dry.
“Why?”
he croaked. “Why did you do that to my father?”

Sven circled Redknee, axe in
hand. He no longer looked so weary. “My brother was a restless man.”

“All Vikings are restless.”

His uncle smirked. “He became
obsessed with the
Codex
. The fool got as far as
Iceland
. When
he returned empty-handed, the failure sent him mad. He killed a man he thought
was trying to steal his precious book.”

“You lie.”

Sven shrugged. “Believe what
you like. But it is time you knew. My brother, Erik Kodranson, is not your
father.”

The
impact sent Redknee flying forward. At first, he thought he’d been struck from
behind. Then he saw everyone else was sprawled on the deck too.
Wavedancer
creaked to a stop. Redknee looked round, confused. They were in the middle of
the ocean with no rocks in sight. He scrambled to his feet and peered over the
rail. Lurking beneath the hull, twice the length of
Wavedancer
, was a
huge grey fish.

Olvir joined him. “What is
it?”

They both ducked as a mighty
tail fin rose from the water and smashed against the rail, showering the deck
in splinters.

“It’s a sea monster,” Sinead
cried. “Come to eat us!”