Viking Gold (49 page)

So
much for Olaf’s promise to seek vengeance for Harold.

Sinead
too, seemed different. She kept her distance from Redknee, only casting him the
occasional wary glance. Well, damn her, Redknee thought. If she wanted to throw
her lot in with the likes of Ragnar, so be it. Only Silver and Brother Alfred
paid him any notice.

When
Redknee bedded down for the night on the cold earth floor, far from the fire,
he’d never felt quite so alone. But before sleep claimed him, Mord stumbled
over. Bloody flecks still crusted his mailcoat. He pressed his face against
Redknee’s, his breath smelled of mead.

“Try
anything tonight and you’ll go the way of your weedy little friend,” he said,
drawing a finger sharply across Redknee’s throat. Then added in a slurred voice,
“though, it’s not me as wants you dead,” before lurching away towards the fire.

According
to Sinead’s reading of the
Codex
, the White Pine was two days north from
where Hawk had pulled Redknee from the river. Led by Ragnar’s guide, they set
out to find it the next day. This was, as Olaf kept telling Redknee, the point
of coming all this way, and they would be fools indeed if they didn’t take this
chance to discover Saint Brendan’s treasure.

Sinead muttered the
directions from the
Codex
as she walked: “
Go west to where the
mountains bow to the trees … where the jaws of two great serpents lock, and
between their teeth, an apple of the greenest hue.  There you will find
the Great White Pine. Beneath its boughs lie treasures enough to bring peace to
all the Earth.”

By mid-morning Redknee was
fed up with her prattle. Unable to hold his tongue, he snapped round. “Won’t
you be quiet?” he said. “We must have heard that a hundred times now.”

Sinead
opened her mouth to retaliate, but Ragnar raised his hand, cutting her off. He
turned to Redknee.

“Remember your place, troll
boy,” he said, a smile edging across his face. “If it was up to me, I’d have
you whipped, gutted and your gizzards hung out for the birds to peck. But my
daughter has a soft heart. It was she who begged me not to. And who am I to
deny my long-lost daughter?” he asked, raising his arms skyward as if thanking
the clouds for delivering Sinead to him.

Redknee glowered at Ragnar’s
back. He’d slit the bastard’s throat right now, if his hands weren’t bound. He
watched Sinead follow her father. She seemed to be walking more erect, almost
with a swagger. She wore a bronze pendant round her neck. And someone, Ragnar
presumably, had given her a white fur cloak to replace her worn green one. Snow
fox. He grudgingly admitted it suited her.

Still, he hated being in her
debt. The only reason he was staying with this doomed expedition was because he
had to know what manner of treasure lay at the end of Saint Brendan’s journey
.
Was that a weakness?
Had the
Codex
got to him? Its promises finally
woven their spell … And maybe, just maybe, he still believed he would find
something beneath the White Pine, some clue that would lead him to his father,
whether alive or dead.

He
trudged on through the forest, dead undergrowth crunching beneath his feet.
Silver stuck by his side, ears alert, wary of the strange new dynamic. Sometime
later, when Ragnar and his men had pulled ahead and Redknee’s weariness caused
him to lag, Toki dropped back beside him.

“I was sorry to hear about
Olvir,” Toki said as they fell into step. “I’m afraid Koll didn’t make it
either.”

Koll
hadn’t made it.
The news lodged like
a blow to the guts.

 “The
two of us didn’t see eye to eye, but he was a good man, worthy of
Valhalla
.”

“Look,”
Redknee hissed, spinning to face Toki. “I don’t need your false sympathy. Was
it you who led Ragnar to our camp?”

Toki
didn’t answer.

“Was
it Sinead then?”

He sighed. “What choice did I
have? Koll and Olvir were dead. The Flint People retreated into the forest. They
just left me. I think Astrid stayed with them. You were gone, I didn’t know
where. I sailed with Ragnar for years, remember? If I hadn’t helped him, he
would have been damned suspicious. Besides,” Toki said, drawing Redknee back a
little as the others walked on, “Olaf greeted Ragnar like an old friend. Almost
as if … as if he’d been
expecting him
.”

They
spent the night inside a limestone cave with the kind of echo children love. It
was no place for a private conversation.

Ragnar called to Redknee as
they sat down to eat. “Troll boy,” he said, “didn’t I first meet you in a cave
like this one?” Redknee narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Ragnar’s
laughter. It was going to be a long night.

Brother
Alfred brought Redknee some food. The monk held out a plate of bones and meat
scraps. “It’s all that’s left,” he apologised. “I’ve given you some of mine
too. Help keep your strength up.”

Redknee motioned to his hands
bound behind his back.

Brother Alfred blushed and
lifted a scrap up to Redknee’s mouth. Redknee shook his head. Brother Alfred
left the plate and slunk away. Damn their charity. He wasn’t hungry. Besides,
he’d just seen the person he wanted to speak to slip outside.

Redknee counted to twenty
before following Toki into the night. A rustling noise came from behind a
nearby bush, a moment later, Toki appeared.

“I need to speak to you in
private,” Redknee said.

Toki glanced towards the cave
mouth. They were outwith earshot. He nodded.

“The story you told; about the
two brothers who double-crossed their friend. Sinead thinks it was aimed at
her. Was it?”

Toki shrugged. “As much as
anyone.”

“But was it a true story –
based on real events, the events of my father’s … of Erik Kodranson’s death?”

“No-one died in my story.”

“That’s what’s been annoying
me,” Redknee said. “If Sigurd is my Uncle Sven – not very well concealed, I
have to say.”

“It wasn’t meant to be. By
Odin’s eye, I thought you’d have worked it out long ago. When I realised you
hadn’t, that you were still rooting around in the muck and coming up with
nothing, I knew I had to set things straight somehow. That yarn was my best
attempt.”

“Why not just tell me
outright?”

“Because I wasn’t certain.
I’m still not.”

“Not certain about what?”

“What happened to Erik, to
your father—”

“—
if
he was my
father.”

Toki nodded. “I’m not certain
what happened to Erik Kodranson after Sven took him off to recover from his
injuries. All I know is he was never seen by anyone again. At least, no one who
knew him before.”

“That’s it,” Redknee said.
“That’s what I’ve been thinking about. And it’s obvious, isn’t it?”

Toki shook his head.

“Sven killed him.
Sven
killed my father.”

They
followed a mighty river up stream on foot for the next two days, keeping the
roar of the water to their left. Sometime towards late afternoon on the second
day, the landscape widened. The river slowed, turning from a deep churning blue
to silt-laden brown. A huge flood plain stretched before them. Gulls swooped
across the big grey sky, dived among the reeds. Silver pricked up his ears,
instantly excited.

“
Where
the jaws of two great serpents lock, and between their teeth, an apple of the
greenest hue,”
Sinead said, staring at the slow marshy water. When she
turned round, her face was set in a smile. “We’re looking for another river,”
she said.

“Another
river?” Redknee asked. “Why’ve we been following this one for two days then?”

Sinead
shook her head. Her copper curls snagged on her white fox fur. “We’re looking for
where another river meets this one.”

They
walked on, skirting the edge of the river, now so wide and slow it could now
almost be called a lake. The waters were deep. Unfathomable. And then they saw
it.
An apple of the greenest hue.
Sitting in the current from a new
river that entered the lake at right angles to the river they’d followed, was
an almost perfectly circular island. Evergreens covered the banks, but, even
from five hundred paces, they could see, rising from its dark core, the
uppermost branches of a tree that dwarfed the rest.

“The
stalk in the centre of the apple,” Sinead said.

Ragnar
came up behind her. “Never mind that,” he said, looking for a place to cross.
“We’re going to have to build a raft.” 

The
air beneath the Great White Pine, as the
Codex
called it, was still and
dark. In truth, its needles were a shimmery blue-green, not white at all.
Nonetheless, the Great White Pine stood as tall as forty men, and at least
three times as high as any tree Redknee had seen. Its trunk was straight, and
so thick it took five men with outstretched arms to circle it.

Redknee walked around it,
agape. Five huge roots emerged from the ground, like a giant’s legs meeting its
torso, seeming to heave the earth up with them. It reminded Redknee of the tales
his mother told of Yggdrasil, the world tree. The tree that connected the realm
of men to the realm of the gods. The place where Odin hanged himself to learn
the secret of all things. Redknee’s heart quickened. He stumbled on a long
snaking root, skidded across the loamy earth. This was no normal tree, but a
gallows. A place where knowledge leads only to death.

Brother Alfred hurried over
and placed his hand on Redknee’s shoulder. “You’re pale. What ails you?”

Redknee stared up at the
Great White Pine. Its boughs stretched far above his head, like the bars of a
prison wall. He blinked. He saw the faces of the others looking down at him.
His eyes regained focus. He saw that it was only a tree. A simple, stolid,
tree.

“Nothing,” he said, gathering
himself together. “I thought I saw someone … a body … hanging from a branch.”

Sinead stared doubtfully at
him, then, seeming to decide he wasn’t worth the trouble, turned to Ragnar.
“The
Codex
says the treasure lies beneath the tree,” she said, then
added in a brusque voice, “we should dig.”

Mord handed out spades, and
everyone except Redknee started digging.

“You’ll need to cut me
loose,” Redknee said, “if you want me to help.”

Ragnar hesitated, then nodded
his agreement. Magnus, hurried over. He fumbled with the rope for a moment
before managing to cut Redknee free. Redknee saw a flash of pity in his old
friend’s eyes.

“I’m watching you, troll
boy,” Ragnar said. “So don’t try anything stupid.”

“Are we supposed to be
digging in any particular place?” Mord asked.

Sinead shook her head. “The
book doesn’t say where exactly. Just that the treasure is beneath the tree.”

“We’ll never cut through
these roots,” Mord said, prodding one with the toe of his boot.

Ragnar stared at his son. “Just
get on with it. We’re nearly there. Think about what you’ll spend your share
on.”

Mord grinned. “Aye, father,
I’ll buy myself the best looking wife in all the Northlands.”

It
was slow work. The earth was cold and hard. Sweat soon dripped from Redknee’s
brow. Eventually Ragnar said they could stop to eat. The hole Redknee had dug
was little more than waist deep. He put down his spade, climbed out and sat on
the grass, nestling between the giant roots of the White Pine for warmth.
Sinead handed him a skin of water. He took it from her without a word.

Despite digging all
afternoon, and making a good number of pockmarks in the ground, they’d found
nothing. Redknee doubted the Bear People guide could be trusted. They only had
the guide’s word this was the White Pine of the
Codex.

He took a swig from the
pigskin, leaned back and looked up. The sensation was dizzying. A river of grey
bark stretched, almost endlessly it seemed, towards the heavens. He closed his
eyes. The fear that gripped when they first arrived had gone. But in its place
came a growing doubt. Even if this was the White Pine, did he really expect to
find the key to his father’s whereabouts here? Beneath some old tree? No. Sven
had killed his father. That was all there was to it. There was no mystery to be
solved. No clue to be found. Telling Redknee Erik wasn’t his father was just
another one of Sven’s lies. 

Yet … did he really
believe his uncle capable of  killing his own brother?

Silver moseyed over to him.
He stroked the pup absently behind the ear. “Eh,” he said in a low voice, so
the others, who sat not far off, wouldn’t hear. “Am I the biggest fool that
ever lived? Searching for a father who, if he isn’t dead, likely abandoned me.
A father I’ve never known. And looking for him here, of all places, so far from
home?” Silver stared back uncomprehendingly, then began licking Redknee’s face.
Redknee grunted and gently pushed the pup away.