Viking Gold (30 page)

All eyes followed the
direction of Olvir’s outstretched hand. On the other side of the bay, a small
wooden fort faced the darkening sky. If they ran, they would reach it before
the storm hit.

“Do you think my husband is
there?” Astrid asked, eyes lighting up.

Even from this distance, the
place looked ramshackle.

“I don’t see any smoke,”
Redknee said. “I think it’s uninhabited.”

Redknee
pounded on the gate and waited. Silence. He glanced up. Ravens kept watch from
the parapet, mocking him with their glassy eyes. One began to caw. His brothers
joined in. Their screeching filled the sky. Still no movement from inside.

“There’s no one here,” he
said, pressing his shoulder to the gate. To his surprise, it gave way.

The gate opened onto a dirt
courtyard. Old, broken barrels were piled high in one corner. Behind them, a
rickety ladder led to crumbling ramparts. Redknee made a mental note – someone
would have to keep watch. He called to Silver. When the pup failed to appear,
he turned to see him waiting by the gate. Redknee whistled. Silver tilted his
head, placed his right paw across the threshold then snapped it back as if
burned. Sighing, Redknee gripped Silver by his scruff and dragged him forward.
The pup’s joints locked, his paws digging parallel furrows in the mud.

“Come on,” Redknee said,
bundling him into his arms and nuzzling his ears. “There’s no one here.”

“The pup’s right,” Olvir
said, sliding an arrow from his quiver and placing it on his bow. “This place
rattles my bones.”

The group fanned out slowly,
weapons drawn, eyes alert. At the back of the yard stood a small wattle and
daub hut, roofed with shingles. Old rope held a misshapen door in place.
Redknee motioned to the others to stand back. He put Silver down and gave the
door a kick; it flew open in a cloud of dust.

By the pummelling of his
heart, Redknee fully expected a dozen berserkers to charge forth, blood
dripping from their bearskins, biting their shields and swinging cudgels the
size of small skiffs. In fact, the only movement came from a startled rat
scuttling towards the door, its pink tail brushing Redknee’s toes as it
escaped.

The room was dark inside, and
empty apart from a bench. A black circle in the dirt floor, evidence of a fire,
was the only sign of recent human habitation. Redknee relaxed and lowered his
sword.

Astrid peered over his
shoulder. “I’m not spending the night in
there
,” she said, wrinkling her
nose and pulling her rabbit fur hood over her head.

“Where else do you suggest with
the storm closing in?” Redknee asked.

On cue, a fat raindrop landed
on his forehead, and a moment later, pounding rain filled the yard. They all
piled inside the hut and Sinead set about laying a fire with driftwood she’d
collected.  

Astrid stood at the edge of
the room with her men-at-arms. “This
can’t
be one of my husband’s
forts,” she sniffed.

“Plonk your royal arse on
that,” Koll said, dragging the bench in front of her. “And stop moaning or I’ll
throw you on the fire.”

“I should have one of my men
whip you for insolence,” she said, wiping the bench with her sleeve.

“Watch your step,” Koll said.
“My wife is dead. Poisoned. You had the wolfsbane. You’re the main suspect. It
was only because Magnus vouched for you that you’re not already dead. So I
wouldn’t get too cocky, because I’m watching you, and if you do anything to
make me think you did it … well, by Odin’s eye, I won’t think twice about
wringing that pretty white neck of yours.”

At this, her men-at-arms
stepped between them. Koll straightened to his full height. Astrid’s men only
came up to his chin. “Well,” Koll said, smiling, “who wants to go first?”

“Stop it!” Redknee said,
worried for his friend’s weakened state. “We have to get along.”

Koll nodded and backed away.
“I’m going to find something for dinner,” he said, stalking out into the rain.

Redknee sighed. Though he
tried not to show it, Koll missed Thora badly.

“This place feels wrong,”
Olvir said, shuffling closer to Sinead’s fire. “All those ravens watching us.”

Olvir was right, Redknee
thought. There was something strange about the fort. Suddenly he realised
Silver was missing. He ran outside; rain blurred his vision; mud sucked at his
feet. He searched the yard; found the pup cowering behind the pile of old
barrels, shivering in the cold.

“
There
you are,” he
said, folding the slip of sodden fur into his arms. But Silver seemed more
interested in staring over his shoulder at a shadowy crevice among the
rain-lashed barrels. Redknee heard a scratching noise as something; a rat perhaps,
disappeared into the dark. Silver squirmed as Redknee carried him inside, but
the fire seemed to persuade him of the sense in staying. He made straight for
the hearthside, stood in front of Astrid and, ignoring her shrieks, vigorously
shook himself dry.

It was only as Redknee
settled that his mind began to order what he’d seen Silver staring at – a small
white face, with black, peering eyes. A boy’s face. Redknee hurried back outside,
searched the yard, but the boy was gone. When he returned to the hut, he asked
Toki, who was sitting nearest to the door, to keep watch.

Toki nodded. No one wanted
uninvited visitors in the night.

The
storm rattled the shingles until the hut felt like the inside of a drum. It had
been dark for some time when Koll returned with a seal draped over his
shoulder. He looked better than when he’d left, stronger, his vigour restored,
as if he’d drawn strength from the power of the elements. Too bright, perhaps.

“Right,” he said, dropping
the carcass in front of the fire and shaking his hair dry. “Let’s get this
feast started.”

“Do you think Olaf is
alright?” Sinead asked.

“Impossible to see past your
nose. I was lucky to stumble upon this old lump of lard,” he said, slapping the
seal’s hindquarters. He dug into his cloak, producing a pigskin flask. He held
it out to Redknee. “Take it. The gods have been hard on you, lad.”

“No more than you,” Redknee
said.

“Ach, take it.”

Redknee took the flask and
tipped his head back. The liquid burned his throat as it went down. He wiped
his lips and offered Koll a slug.

“No. Have more. You deserve
it. Besides, I’ve my own supply.” Koll’s eyes glittered in the firelight as he
produced two more flasks from inside his cloak.

Soon
everyone was enjoying the mead and telling stories. Koll told a tale of how
Sven, when only nine, had killed a wolf that was terrorising the village, with
his bare hands.

“Ah,” Koll said, finishing
off his flask and patting Redknee on the back. “He was a brave one, your
uncle.”

When his turn came, Redknee
told a story about how, just last year, Thora had caught him stealing wheat
cakes straight off her griddle. She’d chased him round the village and half way
up the mountain with her broom. He hadn’t managed more than one bite before
she’d wrestled them back.

“Ah, she’d been making those
for me – for our anniversary,” Koll nodded sadly, remembering. “Six years since
she accosted me in Kaupangen market. I’d just bought new tongs from her father
– she grabbed my ear and accused me of paying with bad coin …” Koll sighed. “I
fell in love on the spot.”

Redknee stared into his
flask. It was nearly empty.

“Come on,” Koll said, “Let’s
cheer the lad up. Brother Alfred, you must know some happier stories.”

“Not as colourful as yours,”
Brother Alfred replied.

Redknee stumbled to his feet.
The room spun beneath him. Faces jumped out of focus. “
She
has a story,”
he said, pointing at Sinead. “Tell us what the
Codex
really says.”

Sinead shrank against the
wall. “I thought you wanted nothing more to do with the book.”

Redknee hiccupped. “I want to
know the secret of a treasure so powerful it stole the life of my uncle. So
powerful, Ragnar is chasing us t
t
o get his hands on it. So powerful, you
won’t let the book out your sight.”

Sinead tightened her grip on
the
Codex
. “I haven’t had the chance to read it yet.”

“Read it now,” Redknee said.
“With my uncle dead, we need to know if there’s any point continuing his
quest.”

“Well,” Sinead began,
carefully laying the
Codex
on the floor and opening it at the picture of
the unicorn. “It tells of Saint Brendan the Navigator, an Irish monk who lived
more than four hundred years ago.”

“We
know
this,” Koll
said, rolling his eyes.

“Yes. But what you don’t know
is Saint Brendan found a vast land, larger than all the Northlands. Larger
even, than all the kingdoms of Christendom. Saint Brendan found a new world.”

The little group listened to
the rain as it continued to pound the timber roof. No one had expected the
Promised Land to be so big. True wealth did indeed await them.

Astrid spoke first. “This
must be the land my husband’s man, Ulfsson, told of.”

“Perhaps,” Sinead said. “But
that’s not all. The book says the Promised Land has fields of emeralds, rivers of
sapphire and streets of burnished gold.”

“Ah,” Koll said. “Now we get
to the important bit.”

“There’s
always
gold,”
Toki said dismissively. It was the first time he’d spoken since they arrived at
the fort.

“You don’t believe the book?”
Sinead asked.

Toki tilted his head and
fixed her with a cynical look. 

“Well …” Sinead sounded less
certain now. “It says here: ‘
after enduring months at sea, and much
hardship, Saint Brendan came to a land where everything was made from gold and
precious jewels’
– the houses, the furniture, the plates, the barrels –
every last thing.”

“This reminds me of Moses’
hardship in the desert before finding the land of milk and honey,” Brother
Alfred said.

“The one who freed the
slaves?” Sinead asked.

Brother Alfred nodded.

“I like that.”

“Don’t get your hopes up,”
Astrid said. “My husband took more than twenty slaves with him to this promised
land.”

“I hope they’ve risen up and
killed him,” Sinead said, lunging at Astrid and knocking her to the floor.

“Girls!” Koll shouted, pulling
Sinead off Astrid. “Save your fighting for Ragnar.”

Astrid glared venomously up
at Sinead. She called to the leader of her men-at-arms, who, having had rather
a lot of mead from his own secret stash, stumbled noisily to his feet. “Egil,”
Astrid said imperiously, “have this slave whipped.”

“I’ll not be whipped,” Sinead
said, kicking at Koll’s shins. “I’m the
only one
who can read the
Codex
.”

Egil approached Sinead
cautiously, as one might a rabid dog.

“I’ll not read if you whip
me,” she said.

“Ha,” Astrid snorted.
“Brother Alfred can read your stupid book.
If
it holds anything worth
knowing.”

“Brother Alfred can’t read
like me.”

“What do you mean?” Redknee
asked.

“Ask him yourself.”

Everyone turned to stare at
the little monk.

“Is this true?” Redknee
asked. “Can’t you read?”

Brother Alfred blushed. “… A
little,” he said, lowering his eyes, before adding, “not really. The truth is …
in the monastery … I was only a gardener. I tended the vegetables. The turnips
were my pride and joy. I grew the biggest, juiciest ones in five burghs.”

“But the stories you told?”
Olvir asked, his voice flat with disappointment.

“My stories are all true,
though I didn’t learn them from books. I used to sneak inside after my duties
were finished and listen to the educated monks discuss the bible.”

“Why are you here, then?”
Redknee asked, standing over Brother Alfred. “Do they often send gardeners to
be missionaries?”

“No. I wanted to spread the
love of God. I don’t need to be able to read of God’s love to know of its
truth. Besides, no one else was brave enough to come to the Northlands. So they
sent me. I would point out that Jesus was only a carpenter.”

“
What
?” Koll asked.
“Not a warrior?”

Brother Alfred shook his
head.

“You’ll never baptise me now,”
Koll snorted, folding his arms across his chest.

“What about the things you
read from the
Codex
?” Redknee asked, leaning forwards, mead trickling
from his flask onto Brother Alfred’s head. “Were they all made up? Have we been
following the wrong clues?”

Brother Alfred nodded slowly.
“I was ashamed to admit I couldn’t read – and I thought … I thought your uncle
would kill me if he knew I was of no use.”