Still, Thorgrim could not resist pointing out that they were not on holiday. “We don’t know what we’ll find when we find the fleet,” Thorgrim pointed out. “Our men could be in great danger.” He did not mention Harald specifically. He did not mention his fear that they were already dead, all of them. He hardly dare think on it himself.
But Starri only smiled. “They could be in great danger,” he agreed. “There could be a bloody fight.” To Starri this was the honey poured over the warm baked bread. He looked up at the sky and felt more spray dash over him and Thorgrim was grateful for the shelter Starri’s body provided. Then Starri looked forward and said, “Longship!”
It took Thorgrim a second to register what he said, so lost was he in his worrisome reverie. “What? Where?” he said sharply as the understanding came.
“There,” Starri said, pointing to a spot just off the larboard bow. Thorgrim leaned outboard so he could see around Starri’s legs. There was a longship rounding a headland perhaps four miles south of them. It was close-hauled, beating away from the coast, sailing a near easterly course.
In the dull, cloudy light Thorgrim could make out no details, just a grey shape on the water, but it was the unmistakable shape of a vessel under sail. “Starri, can you see anything of her? Could she be Far Voyager?”
Starri did not answer right off, but stared at the distant form in a genuine effort to determine what ship she was, but even with his eyesight, generally the keenest aboard, he could not tell. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Night Wolf. It might be Far Voyager. Or it might not.”
Thorgrim frowned. He had a choice to make and nothing like enough information to make it wisely. If he changed course to intercept the ship, and it was Grimarr’s Eagle’s Wing, then there would be no escaping. He and Starri would be butchered. Thorgrim, weary as he was, was not particularly adverse to dying in battle, and if he could take Grimarr with him, he might even welcome it. Starri, of course, wished for nothing else. But Thorgrim would not throw his life away if there was still the chance that Harald needed him, needed his help. He could not leave this world if Harald’s life was in danger.
On the other hand, if he headed toward the shore and the ship was indeed Far Voyager and she maintained her current heading, standing out to sea, he would never catch them. If they were making a run for England, if they disappeared over the horizon and left him behind in Ireland, thinking him dead, it might be years before he found them again. If he ever did.
He was still staring at the distant vessel and thinking on these things when he saw her profile change. It looked for all the world as if her wide sail was being squeezed together, but Thorgrim had seen enough ships maneuver at sea to know she was coming about, turning onto a starboard tack. She was beating up the coast, not running for England, and that settled the matter for him.
“Brace the sail square, Starri, we are going to get close in shore,” Thorgrim said. Without a word Starri cast off the leeward brace and gave a small tug on the weather side - no great hauling was required on their diminutive sail - and Thorgrim pulled the steering oar toward him a bit. The curach turned more westerly, heading almost directly for the coast.
The distant longship was sailing on a starboard tack now, on a heading that would take her up to the Irish shore. The curach was also making for land, but Thorgrim did not think there was any chance that their paths would cross unless he wished them too. The longship would not dare get as close to shore as he would with his light, shallow boat. Before the bigger vessel came too dangerously near the rocks she would have to tack again and stand off shore. Indeed, Thorgrim wondered why they had tacked when they did. Had it been his ship, and he was trying to sail north along the coast, he would have gone miles off shore before tacking and standing in again.
Perhaps they have a reason for sailing as they are, Thorgrim thought, some reason I don’t know about.
Whatever the reason, it worked to Thorgrim’s advantage. Being up-wind of the longship he and Starri could duck in among the rocks, and if it turned out to be Far Voyager then they could run down on her as she struggled to windward. But more and more he did not think he was looking at his own ship. Ornolf would have assumed command, or perhaps Agnarr, but in either case they, like Thorgrim, would have stood farther off shore.
For the better part of an hour the ship and the boat remained on converging courses, but still Thorgrim could not tell with any certainty whether or not the ship was Far Voyager. And then, for no reason that he could see, the longship tacked again, her actions hesitant and uncoordinated, and once more she stood out to sea, leaving the coast and the curach astern.
“If that is Far Voyager,” Starri observed, “and Ornolf is in command of her then he must be drunk or he must have been hit hard on the head.”
Thorgrim nodded. He knew which of the two was the most likely, though he was not convinced that either would lead Ornolf to such erratic navigation. So he held his course and soon they could hear the sound of the surf breaking on the shore, could see it churning in long white lines over submerged ledge and breaking around those rocks that thrust up through the surface.
The longship had settled on her larboard tack, drawing away from the land. If they had seen the curach at all they were paying it no mind. Had they intended to overtake the boat, they would have stowed their sail and taken to their oars, pulling directly into the wind rather tacking, a slow and tedious process.
“That is not Far Voyager,” Thorgrim said at last. They were close in to shore now, the curach riding up and down on the incoming swell. They had furled the sail and taken up the oars but now they were mostly resting on them, just giving the occasional stroke to keep the boat stern-out to the sea so they could more easily watch the distant ship.
“I think you’re right, Night Wolf,” Starri said. With the longship heading out to sea once more, they were still too far away to make out any detail, but Thorgrim was quite certain he was not looking at Far Voyager’s red and white checked square sail, nor did the line of the sheer or the curve of the stem or sternpost look quite right.
“I think that is Bersi Jorundarson’s ship, the one they call Water Stallion,” Thorgrim said.
“If so,” Starri said, “we’ll find no friends aboard there.”
“No,” Thorgrim said.
They drifted and watched the distant ship and Starri said, “See there, Thorgrim, there’s something in the water.” He was pointing off to the south, over the larboard side of the boat, the side on which he was sitting. “It might be a log. You have not had good fortune of late in your meeting with logs.”
Thorgrim looked off in the direction Starri was pointing. Something was adrift in the water, brown and gleaming about fifty feet away. It had a curious appearance; if not a log, then certainly something else made of wood, but even from a distance it did not look like anything that might have been crafted by nature alone.
“Let’s have a look, then,” Thorgrim said. He intended to continue south in any event. If this ship was not Far Voyager, then Far Voyager would likely be found around the headland from which she had come.
Thorgrim pulled his oar and Starri held his and the curach spun around on her keel and together they took up the rhythm of the stroke. It took less than a minute to close the distance with the object in the water, and the closer they drew the more it became clear that whatever it was, it was not something that had randomly sprouted from the earth. Rather, it was rounded and smooth in a way that no log or driftwood would be.
“Seems like a carving of some sort,” Starri said as they saw it bobbing up on the swell. They gave one more pull and then they were alongside and they could see it was indeed a carving, a ship’s figurehead, a long neck that ended in an elegant curl of wood that turned in on itself, round and round like a whirlpool. The whole thing was maybe five feet long and intact, right down to the tenon that once fastened it to the stem of whatever vessel it had been a part of.
“Off a wrecked ship, perhaps?” Starri asked.
“Perhaps,” Thorgrim said. The incoming swells washed over it but it did not move, the waves did not push it toward the beach, and Thorgrim could see there was a rope tied near the middle, the other end of which disappeared into the water. “But look, it seems to be anchored,” he said.
Starri nodded. He scanned the water beyond. “See there?” he said, pointing to a spot just twenty feet in-shore from where they bobbed in the sea. “A nasty ledge, it looks like. Maybe this was put here as a marker.”
Thorgrim looked up as well. There was indeed a dangerous ridge of rock just below the surface twenty feet away, but the incoming waves did not break over it, and so there were none of the telltale lines of white water to warn mariners approaching the shore.
Thorgrim frowned. “Maybe,” he said. It did not seem very likely to him, but then again if someone made a habit of sailing those waters they might want to have such a marker. It was a mystery, and Thorgrim had already given it more thought than he cared to.
“Well…we may never know,” he announced. He picked up the loom of his oar and Starri picked up his, and without a word they pulled together. The curach gathered way, working its way south along the coast, south in search of Far Voyager, in search of their fellows, in search of Harald Thorgrimson.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I greet the sword’s honed edge
that bites into my flesh,
knowing that this courage
was given me by my father.
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
There had always been something odd, to Harald’s mind, about jumping into the sea.
It was that instant transition from dry to wet, warm to cold, standing to swimming, that seemed so unworldly. And this time it was odder still. For the second or two that he and Conandil hung in the air, plunging down toward the gray-green water, he was very aware of the world above the surface, the angry, surprised shouts of Grimarr’s men, the roar of outrage from Grimarr himself, the long oars below him, which he would just barely miss hitting on his way down. Or not.
And then he struck the water, cold as he imagined it would be, but he was no stranger to cold water, having grown up swimming in the fjords of his native Norway. The sea swallowed him up, and down he went, the sensation at once familiar and strange, sound blotted out, light diffused in the twilight of the near-surface.
He let himself sink, knew from long experience he had to let the momentum stop before he kicked back to the surface. He was aware of Conandil lifting clear of his shoulder as his greater weight and vertical entry into the sea drove him deeper than she was likely to sink.
I wonder if she can swim? he thought. He felt his downward momentum stop. He looked up. The surface above was dim-lit by the gray sky, and he could see in silhouette Eagle’s Wing’s oars, motionless, the great bulk of her hull, and Conandil, thrashing like a speared fish.
Harald gave a kick and a downward sweep of his arms and drove himself up, coming up beneath Conandil and grabbing her by the waist as he pulled for the surface, clear of the oars. Her flailing arms and legs told Harald that she could not swim, but as the two of them broke the surface and came out into the daylight again, he realized it was worse than that, that she was in a blind panic. She screamed, a poor effort as she was half-choked with water. She coughed, sputtered, spit, screamed again. She clawed at Harald’s head and neck and in her mindless terror tried to climb him, to climb clear out of that unsolid world.
“Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” Harald shouted. “I….”
He got no further. Conandil put her knee on his shoulder and tried to stand, which drove Harald under once again and left her with no support, which in turn pushed her hysteria to new heights.
Harald was not panicked. He kicked sideways, came up not under Conandil but beside her, beyond the reach of her arms. He was not unfamiliar with the ways of terrified people in the water. He had pulled non-swimmers to safety before.
“Listen, Conandil…” he shouted, but Conandil was faster and more nimble than most of the others Harald had saved, who were all men. She flailed and kicked and managed to get hold of his tunic before he could get clear, and once again she was climbing up his front, finding her hand-holds by digging into his face and scalp with her nails and grabbing fist-fulls of his hair.
Once again Harald went down, but this time he did so on purpose and not because Conandil was driving him under. He knew she would let go before the water closed over her, and he was right; she released her talon grip and beat at the sea and Harald watched her from the safety of his submerged vantage.
He kicked sideways again, this time making sure to come up behind her. She turned her head in his direction. Her mouth was open, her eyes were wide and round like miniature shields, the pupils the bosses in the center. She was splashing like a child at play, though there was nothing playful about the panic in her face as she grabbed out in Harald’s direction.
Harald took one kick toward her, encircled her small body with his powerful arm and drew her close. He pressed her against his chest, and for all her kicking and flailing it was effortless to hold her that way. Pinned as she was, with her back to him, she could not reach him with arms or legs.
“I have you, I have you, you’ll be all right,” Harald said. He had the presence of mind to speak Irish and he felt her terror ease just a bit, like a rope under tension that’s slacked away, and the manic kicking and jerking grew noticeably less manic.
Harald spit water and looked around. It seemed he had been fighting with Conandil for a long time, but he knew it could not have been more than a minute, probably much less. They were just off Eagle’s Wing larboard bow, the longship looming over them, the rails crowded with men staring down, the bank of oars motionless. Everything seemed to hang in balance, and then one of the Grimarr’s men, standing near the bow, raised a spear, extended his left hand toward Harald, and cocked his right arm to throw.
“No! No!” Grimarr’s voice cut through the stunned quiet. He grabbed the spearman by the shoulder and pulled him aside. Harald could see that Grimarr’s left hand was awash in blood. “You’ll kill the girl, you idiot!” Grimarr roared. “Someone, get in there and get her!”
Harald, looking up from the water, could sense as much as hear a murmur run through Grimarr’s men. No one moved, no one seemed eager to leap into the sea after Harald. Not everyone could swim, in fact most could not, and even those who could did not care to fling themselves into deep water, to fight a warrior who had proven himself, and to face whatever might be lurking in the depths.
“Ah, you cowards, you damned cowards!” Grimarr shouted, though he made no move to plunge in himself. “Starboard oars, give way!”
Harald twisted around so he could look behind him, which was easier to do since Conandil, exhausted or passed out from fear, had quit struggling. Far Voyager was a couple hundred yards away and making for them. Whether or not they had seen Harald jump he could not tell, but they were coming for Eagle’s Wing and the only reason they would do that was to get Harald back. That realization gave Harald a flash of hope, and with it a renewed strength.
And then Far Voyager was lost to sight as Eagle’s Wing surged ahead, swinging to larboard as she did. Starboard oars, give way, those had been Grimarr’s orders. They made sense to Harald now. Grimarr had seen Far Voyager as well, and he was putting his ship between her and his escaping prisoners.
May the gods damn him… Harald thought. With his one free arm he dug into the water, kicking hard, Conandil trailing alongside. He spit water and stroked desperately for the bow of the ship, frantic to get around it before he was lost from Far Voyager’s sight. His shoulder bumped against the smooth, curved strakes of the ship and he pushed off and kicked harder.
Eagle’s Wing was turning, but she was not making much headway, and for that reason alone Harald was able to reach the stem. He extended his arm and grabbed the curved oak member that made up the very bow of the ship. The vessel, massive, unyielding, pushed him sideways through the w
ater as it turned. Harald pulled and kicked and suddenly he and Conandil were around and he was looking down the starboard side at the bank of oars rising from the sea, swinging forward in unison, then coming down again and pulling as one.
The bow of the ship slid past and Far Voyager was closer still. Harald heard Grimarr’s voice shout, “Starboard, hold, larboard give way!” The oars on the starboard side came down, motionless in the water, the larboard pulled and Eagle’s Wing began her ponderous turn in the other direction, once again aiming to cut Harald off.
They are trained well, Harald thought, despite himself.
He sensed a motion overhead. He kicked off with his feet from the side of the ship, looking up as he did, and saw the blade of an ax whip past his head, the man wielding it hanging over the ship’s side and clinging to a rope with his left hand. Harald kicked again, opening up the distance, but now the bow of the ship was swinging back toward him.
He kicked and stroked, one-armed, putting more water between him and the longship, but he knew he could not keep this up, that they would run him down before Far Voyager came up with him. He was tiring, feeling the effects of the fighting on shore, the numerous blows to the head, the life-draining cold of the sea, the savaging Conandil had served out, the effort of hauling himself and her through the water. When he was spent and could no longer keep clear of the ship, someone among Grimarr’s crew would find the courage to get in the water and take Conandil from him. He understood that.
Eagle’s Wing’s bow swung past and once again Harald was looking at the larboard side, the oars moving together. He kicked clear of the side of the ship but his strength was going. He was ten feet from Eagle’s Wing’s side and he heard Grimarr call “Larboard, hold!” and the oars on the larboard side came down in the water and the motion of the ship slowed with the drag of the blades.
The Lord of Vik-lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) Page 25