Viking Gold (31 page)

The
next morning Redknee felt like a troll had used his head for kicking practice. He
searched the floor for his water flask, cursing when he found it empty. He
needed air. Picking his way over out-flung arms and legs, he made it to the
yard. He darted behind the stack of old barrels, dropped his breeches and
relaxed as a series of plops kissed the wet mud.

His first thought was that
Sven would give him an earful for drinking. Then he remembered.

The bitterness of the morning
whistled against his skin. Fastening his breeches, he climbed the ladder to the
ramparts. The storm had cleared and he could see across the bay. He inhaled
deeply; cold air was a welcome antidote to the staleness of the hut.

Memories from last night came
flooding back. Sinead’s insistence the Promised Land was real; Brother Alfred’s
admission he couldn’t read. Koll had wanted to throw the lying rogue out into
the storm, Redknee had persuaded him not to.

He sighed. Beyond the soft,
black sands, a carpet of gleaming turquoise stretched to the horizon. It was as
if yesterday’s storm had never been. He pulled the remnant of his mother’s
embroidery from his tunic. The green of the ivy leaves shone bright as emeralds
in the morning light. He thought of his mother and his uncle. He closed his
eyes and recalled their faces; imagining they were still alive. But the images
faded quickly; no matter how he focussed, he couldn’t hold them. His breathing
came fast and shallow as he struggled to fix the colour of his mother’s eyes.
Were they sky blue, or sea? He gripped the railing till his knuckles turned
white. Perhaps they hadn’t been blue at all. Just a murky grey-green.

Panicked, he turned to go
inside, to lose himself in the chatter of the living. As he did so, he saw a
ship enter the bay and head towards the fort. He did a double-take, but there
was no need. Only one ship boasted a great yellow sail emblazoned with a
scarlet and gold serpent.

Redknee
slid down the ladder, ran across the yard and threw open the door to the hut.
Sinead stood. She looked hung-over and bleary eyed.   

“Ragnar’s ship is in the
bay,” he said.

Her hand shot to her mouth.
“But I thought—”

“You thought wrong,” Redknee
said, before shouting at the others to get up. He saw Toki wasn’t there. He
turned back to Sinead. “Where’s Toki gone?”

“I don’t know.”

Astrid stretched her arms
above her head like a cat. “Well, we can’t wait for him.”

Redknee glanced at the door.
Astrid was right. He turned back to the others. “We have to leave here
now
.”

“We should warn Olaf,” Koll
said, fastening his sword belt.

Redknee ran back out to the
yard. “No time,” he called over his shoulder. “We can’t go out the gate anyway.
Ragnar will see us and follow.”

As Redknee spoke, the big
gate creaked open. He drew his dagger.

“Hey!” Magnus said, his face
full of surprise. “What kind of greeting is this? I’ve brought breakfast.” He
held up a brace of herring.

Redknee nearly collapsed with
relief. “Come, Magnus. I didn’t realise you’d gone. Did you see Ragnar’s ship
in the bay?”

Magnus nodded. “That’s why I
hurried back.”

Redknee peered round the
gate. The snake ship was only a few moments from landing. There was no escape
over the ice cliffs; if they left the fort, they would have to run the length
of the beach in full view of Ragnar. They were trapped.

The others joined Redknee in the
yard, each looking as tired and dishevelled as Redknee felt. A scuffling noise
came from behind the stack of barrels in the corner.  

“I hate rats,” Brother Alfred
said, crossing himself.

Koll went to investigate. “By
mighty Thor, it stinks round here.”

Redknee
blushed. Koll reappeared with a smile on his face.

“Come see what I’ve found.”

“A cesspit?” Magnus offered,
holding his nose and peering round the barrels.

“Come see,” Koll said again.

As Redknee followed Magnus,
he remembered the little white face with big black eyes he’d seen last night. A
trap door lay open in the ground, near where he’d relieved himself earlier.
Rough-hewn steps led down to a tunnel, the end of which disappeared in
darkness.

“Do you think it’s trolls?”
Sinead asked, joining them.

“Or a trick,” said Brother
Alfred. “Maybe Ragnar already got here in the night.”

As they debated the merits of
entering the tunnel, a young woman with hair the colour of roast chestnuts
climbed out and blinked in the sunlight. “I’m Gisela,” she said, smoothing down
her scarlet over-dress. “Won’t you follow me?”

Koll’s sword wavered a hair’s
breadth from the woman’s throat. Silver flattened his ears and growled. Gisela
merely smiled and turned back down the tunnel.

Sinead placed her hand on
Redknee’s arm. “Let’s not go. I fear it’s a trap.”

“Or trolls?” Astrid sneered.
“I say we take the risk. Maybe she knows something about my husband.”

Redknee glanced round. The
others were waiting for
him
to make the decision. He reached out and
lowered Koll’s sword. “We need to take the chance.”

Koll nodded and went first.
Redknee waited as the rest followed. He was about to go too when he felt
something missing from his pouch.
His mother’s embroidery.
He must have
dropped it running to warn the others.

Sinead was half way into the
tunnel, the
Codex
tucked safely under her arm, when she saw Redknee
pause. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.

Redknee glanced in the
direction of the gate.
Ragnar’s men would be here soon
. Damn. He
couldn’t leave the cloth. “You go,” he said, “and take Silver with you. I have
to find something.”

Sinead nodded reluctantly and
called to Silver.

The
pup cast Redknee a doleful stare.

“On you go,” he said.

 After a moment’s hesitation,
Silver bounded down the steps allowing Sinead to close the trap door behind
him.

Hearing footsteps beyond the
gate, Redknee half ran, half skidded across the yard and into the hut. Last
night’s fire still smouldered in the pit and hunks of uneaten seal meat lay on
the floor. Ragnar would know someone had been here, but he needn’t know it was
them.

Seeing the scrap of yellow
linen in a corner, Redknee grabbed it, stuffed it in his tunic and hurried out
to the yard as the gate swung open. He dived for the barrels, rolling to a stop
in a puddle of sticky mud.
Had they seen him?
He listened as Ragnar’s
men entered and started searching. Heart pounding; he fumbled for the latch.
Footsteps approached.
Where was the damn thing?
Then a gap, no wider than
his head, opened in the ground and he slid into the darkness.

Redknee
landed on a soft mound of damp earth. A torch spluttered to life and he saw the
almond shaped eyes of the girl in the scarlet dress. “Where are my friends?” he
asked.

“They’re waiting for you,”
she said simply.

He followed the strange girl
along the tunnel. “Do you live here?” he asked, running his hands along the
smooth earth walls.

Gisela nodded. “Some of the
time.”

Other, smaller tunnels, branched
off at right angles. “Making these must have taken a lot of work.”

“Oh, they’ve been here for
years. Since before I was born.”

The girl’s dress was the
colour of rowanberries and its gold trimmed hem swished about her ankles as she
walked, catching the flickering torchlight. She seemed untouched by the mud and
darkness around her. “
Why
do you live here?” he asked eventually.

“You’ll see,” she said,
glancing over her shoulder and smiling. A dimple pinched her cheeks.

Redknee
knew he should be wary – afraid, even. Somehow, the hypnotic swoosh of her
skirts, her smile, her calm voice, meant he wasn’t.

She led him to a chamber as
long as
Wavedancer’s
hull and wide enough for three men to lie flat. He
gauged they were deep underground, maybe as deep as
Wavedancer’s
mast
was high. Thick furs lined the earth floor and richly coloured tapestries hung
from the walls. A large table sat in the centre, laden with all kinds of meats
and fruits Redknee had never seen before. Behind the table, on a finely carved oak
throne, flanked by guards, perched a boy, who was, perhaps, a couple of summers
younger than Redknee. It was hard to tell, because the boy shone in the
torchlight as if bathed in the very essence of the sun. His skin glowed a pure
white and his hair fell across his shoulders like wisps of summer cloud. But it
was his eyes that intrigued Redknee, for they lacked a band of colour round
their black cores.

Amid all this, it took
Redknee a few moments to realise Sinead and the others were already in the chamber,
standing against the far wall, waiting for him. He relaxed when he saw they
weren’t manacled and still had their weapons. On seeing Redknee, Silver bounded
forward.

“Please,” Gisela said in a
gentle, but firm, tone. “Bow before the Boy King.”

Redknee bent low, removing
his wool hat.

The Boy King stood over
Redknee. “I am Thorvald,” he said in a voice not yet broken. “Tell me – is that
your ship in my bay?”

Redknee shook his head. “That
ship belongs to Jarl Ragnar, come from the Northlands. Ours is damaged and lies
in a bay half a day’s walk to the east.”

Thorvald reflected on
Redknee’s answer. “You’re afraid of this Ragnar?”

“We believe he doesn’t come
in peace.”

“And why is that?”

Redknee glanced at Sinead,
the
Codex
was
still pressed tightly to her chest. “We have
something he wants.”

Thorvald followed Redknee’s
gaze. “Jarl Ragnar wants that girl?” he asked incredulously.

“He wants the book she holds
… and her power to read it,” said Redknee, already worried he’d revealed too
much.

Gisela stepped forward. “Does
the flame-haired girl have the new magic?”

Thorvald laughed. “Our Gisela
is fascinated by the new magic, as she calls book reading. She’s my court
sorcerer, my
erilaz
. I think she’s worried her divining powers will
become obsolete.”

Astrid bristled beside
Sinead. “Can you tell me, Sir, if you have seen my husband? His name is Gunnar
Osvaldson, he is Jarl of Reykjavik and I believe he may have come this way in
search of
Greenland
, which some say is the Promised Land.”

“
This
is
Greenland
,” Thorvald
said. He glanced at Gisela who nodded for him to continue. “But I haven’t met
this Gunnar you speak of.”

“But where are the never
ending fields of rye and crystal clear waterfalls?”

Thorvald smirked. “Our
parents were told those lies too, so they would settle here. Unfortunately, the
land is mostly barren.”

“So … there are
no
green fields here?” Astrid asked.

“There are some, but not
many. Barely enough to support us.”

Astrid shrank back, a frown
on her face.

“Why do you live in these
tunnels?” asked Redknee.

Thorvald lowered his eyes.
“Because I carry the curse; like my father and grandfather before me, my skin
cannot bear the sun.”

 “He will die if he goes
outside,” Gisela said, stepping up to the dais and resting her hand on her king’s
shoulder. “Of course, some of our subjects live above ground, so they can grow
and collect the food we need. But we have all our meetings, all our important
ceremonies, down here.”

Astrid
cornered Redknee in the tunnels during their welcome feast.

“Wait!” she said, catching up
with him. “I would speak with you alone.” Her hair shone gold in the light from
the wall torches and her silvery-grey dress, though marked and muddied from
their journey, still glimmered like Arab coin. She looked like a princess. She
drew closer to him until her their eyes were level. She smelled faintly of
lavender.

“I feel we are nearing the
Promised Land,” she whispered. 

“Do you? I fear Brother
Alfred’s false clues have sent us on a wild goose chase.”

Astrid shook her head. “My
husband believed
Greenland
and the Promised Land were one and the same. But he
was wrong. Instead I believe he found the Promised Land while looking for this
…” she made a derisive sweeping motion with her hand, “this
wretched
place. If we have reached
Greenland
, then we are nearly there. Remember what Ulfsson said
in the tavern?”

Redknee thought back to
Iceland
, but
it was the memory of their swim in the lagoon that came to him, not Ulfsson’s
weather-beaten face. “You don’t know if the place Ulfsson went to is the same
as the Promised Land Saint Brendan speaks of in the
Codex
. By Odin’s
eye, you don’t even know if Ulfsson spoke the truth. He was a drunk.”