Viking Gold (39 page)

“Ivar visited Ragnar’s
longhouse in the spring of that year to announce the birth of his daughter.”

Instinctively,
Redknee turned to look at Astrid. She was weaving silver ribbon through her
long blonde hair, taking great care to smooth each section with the palm of her
hand. Their colouring was the same. But a deeper resemblance? He hoped not.

They
sailed due west for two more days. With still no sight of land, Olaf imposed
rationing: A third of a turnip and one slice of meat per man each day. Magnus
snorted at Olaf’s attempt to impose order. Though, to Redknee’s relief, he
shied away from an outright confrontation – Olaf had his sword back. It seemed
everyone was suspicious of everyone else. Koll and Toki slept with their weapons
drawn. Magnus stayed, recluse-like, at the tiller. And when Olvir shot a fulmar
for the pot, Sinead was quick to take it off his hands, her suspicions having
remained since the day of the poisoning.

Sinead also gathered the
silvery fish that jumped, twisting and flapping, onto the deck. Her haul
numbered twelve and meant they enjoyed a good meal that night.

The fog landed thick and fast
in the afternoon of the second day. It made Olaf more nervous than he was
already and served to heighten the mood of mistrust onboard. Redknee stood at
the prow, but he struggled to keep watch, hardly able to see his own right hand
through the murk. He needn’t have worried, for they were barely moving. The big
square sail sagged against the mast like a discarded stocking, dragging their
spirits with it. A brisk wind petered out to nothing; full-grown waves
regressed to juvenile ripples. They crept along like this for many hours,
scarcely moving, as if the sea wanted to hold them there forever. Or perhaps
she wished to guard the secret of the Promised Land – her finest jewel.

The similarity with Saint
Brendan’s journey, as told in the
Codex
, wasn’t lost on Redknee. Saint
Brendan and his monks had entered a dazzling miasma right before sighting the
Promised Land. And it was then, when they were at their lowest point, when they
had lost all hope and were about to give up, that Saint Brendan had finally
found what he’d been looking for all along.

Thinking
on this, Redknee sought Sinead. He found her sitting with Brother Alfred,
wrapped in sheepskins, the
Codex
balanced on her lap. Sinead had learned
to read by looking at the apothecary’s labels, then by studying the recipes for
herbal cures. Hers was not the high Latin of Church documents. Brother Alfred,
on the other hand, although he couldn’t read, had more knowledge of monks and
their affairs. He was helping her decipher the last few passages that still
eluded her understanding. It was a slow process. 

Redknee sat beside them,
pulling a spare fleece over his own shoulders, for the fog had brought a bitter
chill. Sinead turned to the page he’d heard her read to Gisela in the tunnels,
the one with the picture of the silver-leafed pine tree. He watched as her lips
formed the alien sounds. He followed her eyes and the sounds began to merge
with the shapes on the parchment.

“Why do you read
that
page over and over?” he asked.

“There’s one part that
puzzles me. Brother Alfred is helping me work it out. It comes just after the
passage about crossing the river. It says:
‘They crossed the river and found
the land was filled with streets of gold for as far as the eye could see. ’
”

“Is that the part you don’t
understand?”

“That’s just it.
A street
would
have to be built by people. But nowhere in the
Codex
does it say the
Promised Land is inhabited. Except, of course, for the youth who greets Saint
Brendan. But I’d taken him to be symbolic.”

Redknee remembered Gisela’s
claim about the fearsome disappearing warriors. He shook his head. “Maybe all
the people died,” he said, firmly pushing aside Ulfsson’s stories in the same
vein.

“Perhaps,” Sinead said,
chewing her thumb nail worriedly.

Suddenly the call came down
the ship: “Land, land! Land ahead!”

Redknee turned. Olvir was
waving his cap in the air. Everyone, Redknee included, ran to the prow as large
grey cliffs loomed out the fog. “About!” Redknee shouted, rushing for an oar,
using it to help Magnus steer. “Come about, now!”

Koll and Toki grabbed oars
too and
Wavedancer
wheeled around. The force threw Redknee to the deck.
He scrambled to his feet. Magnus was still at the tiller. “Keep her line
steady,” Redknee shouted. “And watch for rocks!”

Magnus nodded. He had many
days experience at the helm and his hand was firm.  They could rely on
him.
Wavedancer
slid past the cliffs unscathed. The wall of granite
seemed to go on forever.

“Where will we land?” Sinead
asked.

Redknee looked up. The cliffs
rose skywards until they faded into the mist. They could not drop anchor and
climb them. Nor could they risk sailing too close and puncturing the hull on
hidden rocks. “We need to wait until we reach a natural harbour,” he said.

And so they followed the line
of the cliffs south until the darkness melded with the fog. Redknee lit a torch
and joined Magnus at the tiller. The yellow flames reflected in his eyes.

“I’ll stand at the prow and
light the way as best I can,” Redknee said. Nightsailing close to shore was
dangerous, treacherous in unfamiliar waters. But it was too deep to drop
anchor, so they had no choice. At least the sea was calm. They didn’t have to
worry about angry waves smashing them against the cliffs.

Magnus nodded. Then, as
Redknee started towards the prow, he added, “
Wait
.”

Redknee turned. Magnus looked
older than his nineteen summers; spidery lines framed hollow grey eyes, his
skin sallow, the corners of his mouth pinched and dry with tiredness.

“Sometimes,” Magnus said, “it
gets lonely back here. Always on watch, always vigilant. Hardly anyone comes to
speak to me.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Redknee
said. “I doubt my torch will do much good tonight anyway.” He perched on a
chest near Magnus and took a crust of bread from his pouch. Magnus smiled and
accepted it gladly. 

Redknee
spoke to Magnus as they crept through the night. He kept his torch high to get
the best light they could; though it was an almost futile exercise in the
eerie, fog-swamped sea.

He learned Magnus was an
orphan, both his parents having died of the sweating fever when he was a boy.
Since their death, he’d been looked after by the village, staying first in
Karl’s longhouse, then with Koll and Thora. He explained he’d been a quiet and
withdrawn child after his parents died, that was why Sven had thought him
suited to the long, still hours manning the helm. But Magnus, like the rest of
them, had never been on such a long voyage. Enough was enough. Redknee sensed
Magnus felt undervalued.

“Although no one says so,”
Redknee said, staring into the inky blackness beyond the halo cast by his
torch, “we all know manning the tiller is the most important job on the ship.”

Magnus sighed. “I know that.
Sometimes it just feels like I’m invisible.”

As
the darkness faded to smoky grey, Olvir joined them, bringing with him bowls of
steaming soup. “Is this it?” he asked, leaning against the gunwale and looking
up at the endless cliffs. “I mean, is this
really
the Promised Land?”

“I think so,” Redknee said,
digging into the chunks of boiled turnip sprinkled with herbs. Only after he’d
taken several mouthfuls did he remember Sinead’s warning – Thora had used
Olvir’s catch in the poisoned stew. Redknee suddenly felt his throat burn. He
gasped for air, clawed at the skin on his neck, knocking his bowl to the floor.

Magnus glanced up from his breakfast.
“Everything all right?”

“You don’t feel it?” Redknee
asked, struggling for breath. “You don’t feel it hot – searing your tongue,
your windpipe?”

Magnus nodded
enthusiastically. “Yes, it’s good.”

Redknee looked down. Silver
was licking the spilled soup, his pink tongue working between the planks,
finding every last piece.
Oh no, not the pup too.
Silver glanced up.
Guilt laced his golden eyes but he did not look sick. In fact, he looked quite
well. Redknee dared to open his mouth, dared to breathe in. He found the action
cooled his throat.

Olvir looked round from where
he’d been watching the sea. “You disliked the soup?”

Redknee’s eyes darted between
Olvir and Magnus’s bemused faces. Sinead would have him believe one of
them
was the traitor. He couldn’t see it, not Olvir anyway. What did he have to gain
in sabotaging their voyage? He’d volunteered to come; he knew nothing of
Ragnar; had no connection with his uncle’s dubious past.

Redknee found his voice, “The
soup is good,” he said. “I’m just feeling a little sea-sick.”

Unperturbed, Olvir scratched
a fleabite on his arm. Blood oozed from the scab, staining the surrounding
skin. “It would be a shame,” he said, “if we’d come all this way and couldn’t
land. I’m itching to go exploring.”

Redknee cricked his neck so
he was looking up to where the cliffs faded into the mist. “We’ll find a way to
go ashore.”

Olvir smiled simply and
Redknee felt an icy shudder pass through his body. What if there was no way
ashore?
Please
, he thought.
Please let there be a harbour somewhere
along this infernal rock.
But the cliffs stretched on.

“Here,” Olvir said. “Let me
take the torch.”

“No—”

Olvir reached up and eased
the baton from Redknee’s fingers. “You can’t do everything.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled. “Were
you born in the
Sheep
Islands
?” he asked, yawning.

Olvir nodded. “My parents
were shepherds. They moved there about sixteen years ago. From the Northlands.
Ivar went to the mainland to find settlers. I think they sailed with him just
after Astrid was born.”

Toki had said Ivar had
visited Ragnar to announce the birth of his daughter. Redknee fought to keep
the excitement from his voice. “Did your parents ever mention Ivar’s time in
the Northlands? About him visiting Ragnar, perhaps when my mother, Ingrid, was
a guest of his?”

Olvir thought for a moment;
then shook his head. “They came from an area of pastureland in the south – near
the land of the Danes. I know they travelled north with Ivar before sailing.
Maybe they all stayed at Ragnar’s longhouse then?”

“Possibly,” Redknee said.
He’d thought he might learn something from Olvir, but the boy knew little about
his parents’ lives before they arrived in the
Sheep
Islands
.

Later
that morning Redknee stood with Silver on the sun-splashed deck, the night’s fog
a distant memory. Around him, crenellated rocks had bowed to creeping sands.
Long, flat beaches stole, finger-like, into the sea, snaring the waves in a
maze of turquoise lagoons. Beyond all this, a crown of plush hills brushed a
confident blue sky.

“I believe,” Redknee said,
turning to find Koll had joined him, “we have found our landing spot.”

Koll nodded his agreement.

A hush had come over the
ship; gone was the cacophony of excitement, the clatter of voices, the robust
anticipation of previous landings. Instead, wide eyes strained to devour every
detail, every nuance, every colour, of this first sighting of the Promised
Land.

They lowered the sail and
rowed through an inky channel to a harbour as good as any Northlandic fjord.
When the shore was still several ship-lengths away, Redknee leapt into the
water and started swimming. He heard a splash and a moment later Silver drew
level with him, his grey-tipped ears and black nose just visible above the
water. By Odin’s eye, the pup grew more fearless by the day.

Redknee hadn’t planned to
jump in. Perhaps it was Sven’s voice, speaking to him from beyond the grave.
Whatever the source of the impulse, Redknee powered through the water,
scrambled onto the beach, and, collapsing to his knees, drew
Flame Weaver
,
plunging its shimmering blade deep into the sand.

“I claim this virgin land as
my own,” he said breathlessly, as Silver circled him, “and in the name of my
noble uncle and protector, Sven Kodranson.”

Behind
him, he heard
Wavedancer
mount the beach. He turned to see Harold’s
deformed frame blocking the sun. For a moment he thought the whelp was going to
kick sand in his face, as he had done the time they were back in the
Northlands, training. Instead, Harold just laughed and shuffled over to his
father’s side.

Redknee stood. The others
were heading up the beach towards the dunes. He pulled
Flame Weaver
from
the ground and followed.
Yes
, he thought,
who is the shame of the
Vikinger now?
Yet behind him, the sands were already moving, healing the
wound rent by his sword.