“We’re turning around!” he shouted to the crew, once he’d spotted what he’d been looking for. “We’ll sail into the bay!”
It had all come back to him now. For so many years, when Sivrit had forbidden him from speaking his father’s name, and Allogia had taken his memories, this had been struck from his mind. He’d needed to feel the deck sway beneath his feet again, in this place, on this water, and now the memories returned to him, down to the smallest detail.
The bay was exactly where Olav had thought it would be. His crew moored the ship and he allowed them to disembark, though he forbade them from lighting any fires. He climbed onto the high, stony embankment and watched the sea. At dawn on the second day, the ship he had been waiting for came into view. He recognized both the ship and sail. He even recalled its name—Wolverine. Was it possible this very ship was still sailing, after all these years? If not, the ship currently rocking in the waters before them was the Wolverine’s twin. Olav watched it sail into the port at Cape Loksa. If his newfound memories were true, the ship would stay for three days. That’s how long it would take to sell its human cargo to the slave traders. The crew would then spend a day drinking in the port’s tavern, and return to the ship for another hunt. They would hurry to gather their harvest before the summer ended. Autumn storms made the risks higher than the potential gains.
Olav had calculated this moment endlessly. And now, when the time had come, as the Wolverine made its way for its next journey, Olav went down to his men and said, “Shields on deck. Prepare your weapons. I promised you a hard fight, and I vow to you it will be worth it. On deck. We go without a sail, only oars.”
The slave hunters had set a straight course east. Olav waited until the other sail was as small as a flower petal on the horizon, then he ordered his men to raise their own sail.
“Kanugård, leap!” he shouted. “Let’s see how much you’re worth.”
The wind hit the massive square sail, and the chase began. He knew he needed to strike his target on the open sea, so no help could come to them from land. He risked losing them, but the risk made the blood course through his veins all the faster. The Wolverine was heavy and hard to steer; it had been built to take thirty or forty slaves on board. The distance between the two ships grew smaller with every breathless moment; they were gaining. Two, three long breaths of wind and they’d be sitting on the Wolverine’s stern. He checked how smoothly his sword slid out of its sheath. Geivar appeared at his side.
“What are you doing? Do you want to batter them?” he exclaimed. “Kanugård won’t survive that, we have an unarmored bow.”
“No, I want to kill their crew and take their ship, my friend.”
“Boarding? Have you done that before?” Drops of water shone in Geivar’s beard.
“Not yet. This will be my first time!” Olav laughed.
“Fuck! Friend, either we will all die, or…”
“Or what?” Olav asked, and suddenly he could smell the filthy sail in front of them. Only the Wolverine could stink like that.
“Or you truly are a king,” Geivar shouted over the roar of the waves.
“You’ll find out today,” Olav said. Then he called to the crew, “Hooks! Prepare the hooks, we’re boarding that ship!”
The Wolverine has gunwales higher than half the height of a man. We’re going to have to jump up, not down, he thought.
They could see Wolverine’s crew searching frantically for weapons. Their helmsman was asking “What’s happening?” because he could see the ship of thirty armed men coming toward them. Olav moved the helm at the last minute so the gunwales ground together.
“Throw the hooks!” he roared.
And he heard the metallic crunch. Five of the six thrown hooks had found their marks. He let go of the helm and threw himself at a rope, not taking a shield with him. Then he was jumping over onto their deck. He heard his men behind him. He slipped on the wet boards, but he didn’t fall, just knelt. The perfect time to draw his sword. He scanned the deck as he stood: three groups of six men. That was all right. For a moment shorter than a breath, he saw their fear and hesitation. He lifted his sword and shouted:
“Kill the headhunters!”
He didn’t wait for his men, but moved ahead and cut down the first slaver in his path. It wasn’t the first drop of blood that he’d spilled, but none had been so satisfying. For the first time, he was doing something just for himself. He wasn’t paying off a debt. He was fighting for himself, for his family.
The fight was short. They had the slavers outnumbered.
“That’s everyone,” Thorolf soon shouted, searching the deck. “Everyone.”
“Search for anyone who might be alive,” he shouted, before pulling back the heads of those on their bellies, searching the faces of those on their backs. Five were bald with beards. None of these had taken his mother; they’d have to have been fifty years old today.
“I have one,” Thorolf called, lifting a small, lean man by his long, dirty hair.
Olav crossed to them, stepping over corpses.
“What’s this ship called?”
“Wolverine,” the prisoner mumbled, sputtering with blood.
“How many years on the water?”
“Five, maybe si…” His eyes were already closing.
“Did you know any other ship that bore the same name?” Olav asked, needing answers before it was too late.
“Every one of ours…” the other said, and died.
“Throw the scum overboard, and the others too,” Olav snarled, pointing at the corpses. “Search the ship.”
There were two iron-clad chests on the front deck. Two more in the back. Nothing else.
“The helmsman probably had the keys.” Geivar spat overboard, where they had thrown the bodies moments before.
“It doesn’t matter. Every one of you has an axe. We’re going back to the Kanugård, and we’ll open the chests on land.”
“Olav, if you don’t want the families of these wolverines to search for you, we should sink this barge,” Geivar said.
Olav Tryggvason looked him in the eye and replied:
“I want their sons to know that their fathers have been punished. This wasn’t banditry. It was revenge.”
* * *
They reached land the following evening. On Olav’s orders, the men chopped open the chests. Four were filled with silver. Grzywnas, Arabian coins, even some ore chunks.
“Blood silver,” Olav said. “The output of but a few ventures. This is what the lives of two hundred people are worth.”
“For this silver, thirty modest people could live quite nobly,” Geivar laughed.
“What’s in the fifth chest?” Olav asked Ingvar, pointing to a smaller case he hadn’t noticed on board.
“See for yourself,” Ingvar said, throwing aside the splintered lid.
There was a weather vane inside. Olav took it out. It had the triangular shape of a flag, forged in sheet metal, with a meager snakelike ornament. It was plated with gold. Olav lifted it so the men could see, and the setting sun lit it with a red glow.
“The silver is yours,” he shouted. “Let the thirty men who have come here with me live richly for it. I took my revenge, and now I take this, for me and for Kanugård.”
They stood motionless, surprised, among the heavy chests, hardly believing what they’d heard. Their leader wanted none of the coin they had claimed? But Olav left them there and walked back to the deck alone. He climbed the mast, the first time since he’d been a boy in the fleet on the Dnieper. He fastened the weather vane.
There was a fire burning when he returned to land. His crew were gathered around it with their swords bared. Geivar stepped out, showing teeth filed to a point and painted a gray-blue.
“My sword and I belong to you, Olav Tryggvason,” he said.
Ingvar followed. “You are my leader. I will sail wherever you steer.”
And Eyvind, Thorolf, Ottar, Orm, Vikarr, Torfi, Lodver, Rafn.
; “Whatever you say will be our command.”
All of them stepped forward, until Varin was the last one left, the second one, apart from Geivar, to have his canines painted.
“I’ve been waiting for you, my king,” he said. “My father fought beside yours, in Viken, before the widow Gunhild condemned King Tryggve to death. After his death, we were forced to leave our home and go into exile, as did all of the king’s men. A whisper passed from one mouth to another, though; that your mother escaped the trap set for her and was running east, but no one ever learned what became of her. I had lost hope that it was true.”
“Today, you fought for Queen Astrid, Varin,” Olav said. “I know that she is still alive, and I will find her.”
“We’ll find her together, King,” Varin replied, and knelt before him.
* * *
They sailed the Baltic, moving west, stopping at ports and harbors. They asked after slave traders, pretending to be interested customers. One name was repeated: “Gudbrod from Bornholm.” They weren’t that far away now, one or two days at most. At night, Olav sat on deck and stared into the murky waters.
“The Kanugård didn’t escape the fight completely unscathed,” Geivar said, joining him.
“I know, a board on deck broke. I told you it was my first time.”
“Will you drink, chief?” He offered Olav a cup.
“No.”
“We need to change those boards soon. And we need a proper port for that.” Geivar took a few sips and asked, “Why didn’t you look behind you when you jumped onto the Wolverine?”
“I heard you.”
Omold sat by the mast and hummed,
Silent and thoughtful
Should be a king’s son,
Brave in battle,
Ruthless in command …
Varin joined Olav and Geivar on the deck.
“Tell me about the widow Gunhild,” Olav asked him.
“The last of the Ynglings, the great Norwegian kings, Harald Fairhaired, had many sons from many wives. One of these was Eric, who killed his own brothers in his thirst for power, and so won himself the name ‘Bloodaxe.’
“He took Gunhild as his wife, the daughter of the Danish king, a woman just as hungry for power and not afraid of using witchcraft. Bloodaxe committed many a murder with her at his side, and the people began to hate him. After Eric’s death, Norway was ruled by his sons, one after another, but it was Gunhild who stood behind each of them.
“The people cursed the reigns of her and her sons, so much so that she felt the threat of their anger, and worried they might rise against them. So, she rid herself of detractors, one by one, until only one remained: Tryggve Olavsson, your father, a grandson of Harald Fairhaired and one of Eric the Bloodaxe’s nephews. Through plots, betrayals, and lies, she brought about the battle in which Tryggve Olavsson died. Then, she sent her armies to find your mother, who was pregnant with you. You can tell us the rest, my king.”
“Don’t call me ‘king,’ I haven’t won my kingdom back yet. I haven’t even found my mother, who risked her life by leaving Norway with me in her belly. She gave birth to me during her escape, hidden in the reeds of Lake Rond, when the widow Gunhild’s men were searching the banks. Only after dusk, once they’d left, did she come onto land with me and rest in an old boathouse.”
“You can command me not to call you king,” Varin said, “but one day you’ll return, and they will name you one, because royal blood is priceless, and today it runs only in you, Olav. Norway has had no king since the death of the last of Gunhild’s sons. It has the northern lords, the jarls of the land, but it doesn’t have a king.”
“But there is Jarl Haakon. He leads the other jarls, does he not? And was named viceroy to the Danish king,” Olav said.
“Exactly, my lord. He’s the viceroy of a foreign ruler, in whose name he rules our country.”
“Jarl Haakon,” Omold the bard interrupted, “is strong and beloved by the people, but he doesn’t have a drop of Yngling blood in his veins. The country is ruled by foreign leaders, and no man gains honor from that. But before you sail to reclaim the Norwegian throne, you must have allies and a fleet, to defeat both Jarl Haakon and the Danes who rule him from afar.”
“And I will have it,” Olav said.
“Like the weather vane with a snake, the sigil of the Yngling dynasty,” Varin nodded.
“Fortunate is he who will win for himself a good name and fame…” Olav sang under his breath. Then he stopped suddenly and rose to his feet.
“Can you hear that?”
“What?”
Olav lifted his head. The night was moonless and cloudy, but he hadn’t been mistaken; the weather vane was spinning in the wind.
“A storm is coming.”
The wind was indeed picking up, and after several warm gusts, the Kanugård was thrown over a wave. Lightning ripped across the sky.
“King,” Varin called out, holding on to the gunwale. “Allow me to take the helm. I’ve lived through many a storm.”
Olav gave it to him without a second thought. Baring his painted teeth, Varin maneuvered the ship so it faced the waves, steering into them rather than under. It worked with the first, but the second wave broke over the deck.
Geivar and Olav threw themselves toward the sails, but Ingvar and Omold were already there.
“Olav, with me on ‘two’!” Geivar ordered. “You go to the ropes.”
They pulled the heavy ropes, their muscles straining. The sail was already soaked and heavy with water. If another wave broke over the ship, the sail would be heavy enough to break the mast. They pulled again, with the last of their strength, a final violent tug, and Olav thought his spine would shatter. It didn’t. Omold was already placing the sail on trestles and Ingvar was tying it up. Olav and Geivar, red from the effort, collapsed on deck, hearing Varin’s order:
“To the oars! Now! We need to maintain speed.”
A sailless ship was easy prey for the increasingly strong waves. Eyvind, Ottar, Orm, and Thorolf were already rowing. Olav and Geivar made their way to the benches on all fours. They grabbed the wooden blades.
“Maintain speed!” Varin shouted, maneuvering the Kanugård onto the crest of a furious, mercurial wave.
For a moment, their oars cut through air, because they had risen too high for the paddles to catch water, until the ship slid along the surface again. One, two. They moved, keeping rhythm. One, two. Olav lost track of time, only coming to when he realized the wind was weakening.
At dawn, they found themselves drifting. The men began scooping water overboard. A sail was shredded, a cover was damaged, but the mast remained upright. The weather vane stood atop it still, as if the night and storm had been merely a bad dream. The horizon was a green line. There was land ahead.
“To the oars,” Olav called, collapsing beside his crew.
“You’re lucky, Olav Tryggvason,” Varin called with a grin. “We have survived.”
“Not yet, Varin. Call me ‘lucky’ once our feet are on dry land, and we’ve found shipwrights and a good port.”
“And a hot dinner! Then I’ll call you a god, my king.” Varin bared his painted teeth.
They rowed until the sun was directly overhead. The beach before them had golden sands, and a forest stood on a high dune. Then they saw the small boat making its way toward them from land.
9
POLAND
Astrid stood on the bow of her boat and shielded her eyes from the sun, watching the ship with no sail approach. She hoped it was … well, it was strange, but she was hoping it carried a person who she wasn’t even certain was real. And she had the horrible feeling that the storm had changed everything. Last night’s dream had been a dark one, and she had many reasons to believe in her dreams.
This was the first and only time Mieszko had given her a task, and she desperately wanted to fulfill it. To earn the happy flash of green in the eye of the duke she loved as a father but wasn’t bold enough to call by that name.
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“Leszko,” she said to her helmsman. “Do you think that’s them?”
“I’m not here to do the thinking, my lady. I’m just here to ensure your ship sails wherever you command.”
“Damn you.”
Mieszko was waiting for messengers from the king of Sweden, Eric. And he sent her as his daughter and, as he called her, his “eye in Wolin,” to intercept them when they reached the edge of the Baltic. The storm that had hit last night had come about quickly and unexpectedly, and was so strong that even Dalwin, as experienced as he was with rough waters, had said, “Bloody hell! Perun has fucking smashed the Baltic.” And her grandfather swore so rarely.
They were sending patrol boats from Wolin to search the nearby coasts for the messengers, and she had stepped onto one of them because she couldn’t sit still. She was terrified of disappointing Mieszko. And she was one of the few to know what the great Eric’s messengers would be sailing with. She knew more than little Świętosława, her sharp and beloved sister.
“Leszko, can you see anything? Are they pulling a white flag up the mast?”
“Your eyes do not deceive you, my lady.”
“Snekke. Twelve … no, sixteen benches. Without a sail. What’s shining on the mast like that?”
“If that’s a weather vane, then it must be pure gold, my Wolin lady.”
“Gold? Perhaps these are royal men. Why don’t they have Eric’s sigil on their mast?”
“Maybe the storm stole it?”
The storm, the storm. The god of the seas. The god of life. The one who gives death in waves. A beautiful death.
“Leszko, how would you choose to die?”
“Diving into the waves, my lady. Or between the legs of a woman.”
“Oh, hush!” she admonished, but he had managed to ease her anxiety some.
The ships were approaching each other now. She could see the silhouettes of the oarsmen. Yes, it was a weather vane that shone on the mast. The sail must have been ripped to shreds in the wild winds of the storm. No sigils. Eric, the king of Sweden, should have a golden boar on the mast, but the storm might have claimed it.
The Widow Queen Page 10