‘I didn’t reach the decision lightly. Better six healthy falcons than eight sickly ones.’
Vallon bowed to his judgement. Watching him prepare to turn the falcons loose, he thought of all the effort that had gone into their capture.
Wayland cast off the first eyas. It flapped away with clumsy strokes, tried to land in a tree, missed its footing and tumbled down through the branches. Syth cried out and ran after it. The second falcon headed out to sea, circled back and pitched on the beach.
‘Will they survive?’ Vallon asked.
‘I’ve fed both of them a full crop. They won’t feel the pinch of hunger for several days and by then they’ll have learned to use their wings. Falcons are quick learners and … ’ Wayland drew breath and shook his head. ‘No. That’s what I told Syth to avoid upsetting her. Almost certainly they’ll die. They were the weakest of the eyases and haven’t been taught to hunt.’
Vallon saw how much their loss pained Wayland. ‘Don’t reproach yourself. It’s a tribute to your skilful handling that you’ve brought the falcons this far without loss. I confess I sometimes forget that they’re the be-all and end-all of our enterprise. It frightens me to think how much our fortunes depend on them. If there’s anything you need for their welfare, ask.’
‘Fresh meat. A sixth of their body weight every day.’
‘That much?’
Wayland nodded.
Vallon stared at the brooding forest. ‘If necessary, we’ll fast ourselves rather than let the falcons go hungry.’
The falcons weren’t the only precious things they cast off. After six months’ voyaging, Shearwater’s journey had run its course. She’d been their means of escape, their seaborne home and their vehicle of trade. For weeks on end she’d been their entire world, the cramped cockpit for their dramas and passions. To her crew she had come to seem like a creature in her own right — a bluff and willing workhorse, though not without moods and whims. They knew her down to her last creak and groan, and now they had to say goodbye to her.
Over breakfast they debated the most fitting send-off. Scuttling was out of the question. Like drowning your mother, Raul said. Burn her, he suggested, or leave her nodding at anchor until the next storm broke her into driftwood. The breeze decided her fate. It was blowing offshore and so a party went on board and raised anchor and hoisted sail one last time. As the panels filled and the water began to bubble under her stem, they climbed back into the boat and rowed ashore and watched her slant away to the north until she was just a tiny silhouette on a sea as bright as the back of a fresh-run salmon.
The longship had already begun the journey upriver. In a deathly hush the company climbed into the boats, fitted oars and began to row against the sluggish current. The shore party plodded along the right bank. When Hero looked back, the sea was already out of sight. It was like a door had shut behind them.
A short way upriver they caught up with the longship stuck in rapids. It was afternoon before they struggled into calm water. At dark the two parties pitched separate camps and set guards. Next morning when they set off, rain dimpled the surface and cloud hung in rags among the treetops. Mosquitoes and blackflies plagued them, whining inside their ears, infiltrating their clothes, crawling up their nostrils. The travellers wrapped their heads and smeared themselves with dung and oil. Nothing could keep the pests off. Worst affected were the oarsmen. Unable to slap away the bloodsuckers, they rowed as if afflicted by a palsy, hunching up their shoulders to rub their inflamed cheeks and brows. By the end of the day some of them had raw wounds on their wrists and their faces were so swollen they could hardly see.
The going wasn’t any easier for the Icelanders trudging along the banks. They sank ankle deep in spongy moss that made each step an effort. They had to detour around sloughs of grey ooze and graveyards of fallen trees. Sometimes they were forced to stumble along in the river itself. Where the current was too deep and the forest impassable, the boatmen had to set down their passengers and return to ferry the pedestrians above the obstacle.
Wayland was right about the lack of game. He managed to kill enough grouse to keep the falcons on half rations, but most of the creatures he encountered were predators in a wilderness lacking prey. He saw a pair of sable streaking through the treetops like eels, and he surprised a pair of gluttons dragging out the entrails of a bear so grey and gaunt that it must have died of old age. These gluttons or wolverines were creatures new to him and he found their ferocity incredible. When the dog pranced up to them, they didn’t give an inch, spitting and snarling with faces that haunted Wayland’s dreams for nights afterwards. The dog rolled its eyes at him, asking for help. He called it off. All day it kept snarling round as if the gluttons were on their trail.
Four days upriver the boat carrying Vallon’s company passed an old woman sitting on the bank beside the body of an old man. It was the woman Helgi had escorted from the abandoned Icelandic ship. The dead man was her husband.
One of the Icelanders called out. She raised cloudy eyes and said she didn’t want any help.
‘What’s going on?’ said Vallon. ‘Why have the Icelanders left her behind?’
‘It’s her own choice,’ Raul said. ‘She doesn’t want to go on. Her husband was all the kin she had.’
‘Let me talk to her,’ said Hero.
Vallon glanced upriver. ‘Don’t take too long. There’s another rapid ahead.’
Hero and Richard stepped ashore. Raul tossed a spade after them. ‘We’ll be leaving them where they drop before the journey’s over.’
Hero approached the old woman and cleared his throat. She peered at him.
‘Goodness. You’re one of the outlanders.’
He sank down beside her. ‘How did your husband die?’
‘Weariness. Despair. His heart stopped and those two men of Helgi’s just slung him on to the bank. You’d think they didn’t have fathers of their own.’
Hero put an arm around her thin shoulders. ‘We’ll bury him and when we’ve said a prayer we’ll take you back to our boat.’
She looked up and Hero glimpsed in her features the ghost of youthful beauty. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘Erik and I have been together sixty years. I’m not leaving him now.’ She patted Hero’s hand. ‘You go on. I’m quite content.’
Richard leaned over. ‘Don’t you have any other family? Isn’t that why you were sailing to Norway?’
Shadows flitted over the woman’s face. ‘All our children and grandchildren are dead. Ah, it’s a bitter fate to outlive your offspring. Our youngest died last spring. With him gone we were unable to work the farm. Erik decided to sell it and return to Norway. That’s where he came from. We met when he sailed to Reykjavik on a merchant ship. Such a handsome man. Erik has family near Nidaros and he said we’d go and live out our days near his sister’s farm. He never did take to the Icelanders. Too clannish, he said. Too busy looking after themselves to bother with the wants of others. We’d be happier among his own kind. I wasn’t so sure. Better stay with what you know, that’s what I told him.’
‘I’m sure Erik’s sister will welcome you.’
The old woman snorted. ‘Imagine the fit she’ll have if I turn up at her door. Seventy-eight years old, nearly blind and penniless.’
‘You said you had money from the sale of your farm.’
‘Helgi’s men took it from Erik when we left our ship. That Caitlin said they’d look after it for me.’ The old woman pulled Hero’s head down. ‘She’s a bitch,’ she whispered. She nodded emphatically. ‘When you see her in a new dress and brooch, remember who paid for it.’
Hero glowered upriver before turning back to the woman. She paid no heed to the mosquitoes crawling in her thin white hair. ‘Vallon will make sure they return the money. In any case, you don’t need silver to come with us.’
‘That’s kind, but what then? I won’t last long in this filthy forest. Even if I lived, I don’t want to end my days as a pauper in a strange land. No, here I stay.’
&nb
sp; ‘You’ll perish of cold or hunger. Wolves and bears will devour you.’
She smiled and patted their hands. ‘You’re nice young men. You’d better be going. It will be dark soon. Your friends will be starting to worry about you.’
Raul came jogging through the trees. ‘Vallon wants every man pulling.’ His eyes were on the woman.
‘She says she won’t leave him. You try reasoning with her. I don’t know why, but sometimes your coarse logic works where finer reasoning fails.’
Raul formed his features into the benign goofiness of someone dealing with a half-wit. ‘Now then, mother, you come along with us.’
Her face set. ‘Go away.’
Raul laughed, gripped her under her shoulders and began to lift. She gave such a shriek that he set her back down. ‘All right, mother. Have it your own way.’ He scooped Hero and Richard out of the old woman’s hearing. ‘You’re wasting your time. She’s made up her mind. Now come away. We have to get clear of the rapids before dark.’
‘We can’t just leave her to die.’
Raul pulled off his cap and slapped it against his thigh. He stared into the sky. ‘You’re right. Talk to her again. Soothe her.’
Hero held the old woman’s hands. He couldn’t remember what he said and never finished saying it because Raul stepped behind the woman, raised his crossbow and shot a bolt into the back of her neck.
Another day’s rowing and dragging brought them to the first of the three lakes sketched by Thorfinn. One glance at the empty horizon told Vallon that they could only cross it by boat. He ordered Raul to supervise the building of a raft large enough to carry the horses and most of their cargo. With the raft in tow, they headed away from land next morning, the boats loaded to the gunwales. They were on the lake for two and a half days and several times came close to foundering. All the time they were aware of how vulnerable they were to attack from the longship.
From the southern shore their route took them through waterways separated by raised bog which the shore party crossed like flies caught in honey.
It turned bitter cold. At night the wind moaned through the trees and wolves howled in the distance. Black ice webbed the ponds at dawn and at noon the dark sun bored down through corridors of fog. The monotony of the forest and the constant discomfort frayed their nerves. Tempers gave way under the strain. A clumsily wielded oar, the refusal of wood to burn, the upsetting of a dish — the slightest irritant was enough to bring men to blows.
Food ran short and the Vikings suffered most because the salmon they’d caught rotted for lack of salt. Smoked elk and salt fish, together with mushrooms and berries, kept Vallon’s party going, while the Vikings and their prisoners were thrown back on stockfish so putrid that it turned their bowels to flux.
The Icelandic baby died and was buried on the riverbank with scant ceremony. Then one of the Vikings disappeared. He’d gone foraging and strayed from his companions. They searched until dark before giving up. The missing man had been one of the Viking hostages and Wayland agreed to track him. The falconer picked up his trail about a mile from the river and read the man’s increasing desperation as he circled, backtracked and finally wandered off into a swamp. Wayland followed for as long as he dared and then made his way back to report that the Viking was dead.
A day later another Viking met with a fatal calamity. A gale was blowing from the north. The longship had reached a fork that Thorfinn swore hadn’t been there on his last expedition. He sent men upriver to scout for the right channel. Wayland and Raul accompanied one of the parties, pushing through wind-lashed thickets of alder and willow. The trees thrashed with a violence that drowned all other sounds.
Emerging into a clearing, the dog stopped in mid-stride, one foot crooked to its chest, its tail sticking up.
Ahead of them one of the Vikings was parting a tangle of shrubs. ‘Back!’ Wayland shouted.
‘What?’ cried the Viking.
A blast of wind carried away Wayland’s response. The Viking forced himself into the thicket and a huge dark ogre heaved up and flattened him with a blow too quick to see. The bear crashed away into the raging forest. When Wayland reached the stricken man, he saw that something was terribly wrong with his face, and then he realised that the man had no face at all.
His companions half-led, half-carried the victim back to the longship and set him down against a tree. He rocked back and forth, screaming and clawing at his bloody mask. Thorfinn paced with a face like thunder, then he ran at the man, kicked him over and brought his axe down into his chest.
Freezing rain fell all next day and it was well after dark before Vallon’s company managed to get a fire going. They sat shivering around the hissing flames, replaying the trials of that day’s journey, knowing they would have to do it all again.
Raul spat into the fire. ‘Fuck it.’
Vallon looked up, his face all edges in the fireglow. ‘Something you want to share with us?’
‘It ain’t just the shitty journey. Thorfinn’s going to make his move soon. He ain’t going to see his men starve while we go to bed with tight bellies.’
‘He’ll attack before we reach the next lake,’ said Wayland. ‘The one called Onega.’
‘What makes you so sure?’
‘Because once we cross it, we’ll be in Rus.’
‘The Vikings say it’s as big as a sea,’ Raul added. ‘There ain’t no way we’ll get everyone across in our boats. Either we have to beg Thorfinn to take some of the Icelanders or we have to capture the longship.’
Vallon placed a log on the fire. ‘Let me get this straight. Right now we’ve got what the Vikings covet — food, treasure and women. They’ve got what we need — a ship. And if we take it, we can find our own way to Rus.’
‘That’s it.’
Vallon patted the ground and stared off.
Raul shuffled towards him. ‘How are you going to do it, Captain? You want me and Wayland to set an ambush?’
Vallon formed his words carefully. ‘The Viking hostages didn’t seem too happy with Thorfinn’s leadership. Hero, you formed the same opinion.’
‘Yes, sir, but if it came to a fight, they’d face us as one.’
All of them watched Vallon coming to a decision. He scooped up a handful of litter and tossed it into the fire. ‘Light a torch. It’s time to pay a call on Thorfinn.’
Wayland wrapped tow around a branch, doused it in seal oil and dipped it into the flame. By the light of the torch he led the company towards the Vikings’ camp. Drogo and Fulk hurried up.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To challenge Thorfinn.’
The Vikings’ fire appeared across a swathe of wind-toppled trees.
‘Thorfinn!’
Shades darted across the firelight. ‘Frankish!’
‘The truce is over. It’s time to settle our differences.’
‘How?’
‘By combat. You and me. Daylight tomorrow. Winner takes all.’
‘Where?’
‘Here.’
‘I’ll be there. Sweet dreams, Frankish.’
XXXV
Vallon took himself away from the camp and made up a bed under a spruce. He didn’t think about the fight. A calm and empty spirit is the right frame of mind for combat. That’s what his swordmaster had drummed into him all those years ago. He could remember his exact words. ‘You’re showing too much emotion. Don’t let your mind influence your body or your body influence your mind. Got that?’ Vallon smiled. His swordmaster had been one of the most peppery characters he’d ever known.
The rain stopped and a hard frost set in. Snug under layers of furs and fleeces, Vallon slept the night through. Raul and Hero crept up at dawn. ‘Look at him,’ Raul whispered. ‘Usually he sleeps like hellhounds are on his trail, and then on the eve of combat he slumbers sound as a babe.’
Vallon was smiling at some pleasant memory that fled when Hero’s hand touched his shoulder. He yawned and blinked around. The hoary shapes of the trees floa
ted through freezing mist. The ground was stiff with frost. Steam rose from the basin that Hero offered him. He splashed water into his face.
‘I’m glad you passed a restful night,’ Hero said.
Vallon stretched his shoulders back like a rooster heralding daybreak. ‘I would have slept sounder if the Vikings hadn’t been making such a racket.’
‘Arne told me that they always get drunk before going into battle.’
‘Amateurs.’
‘Can I bring you anything to eat?’
‘God, no.’
Vallon saw a boiling cauldron slung from a trivet above the campfire.
‘Hot water and clean cloths,’ said Hero. ‘In case you’re wounded.’
Figures drifted from the camp. Drogo stepped forward bearing his armour and helmet on his shield. He held them out with his eyes averted. ‘You’ll need these.’
‘I thank you,’ said Vallon. ‘I’ll try to return them in the same condition.’ He knew that the armour wouldn’t offer much protection against Thorfinn’s axe.
‘Have you decided your tactics? The Viking must have a foot advantage in reach.’
Vallon scratched the back of his neck. ‘I’m not going to slug it out with him. I’ll keep moving and hope to wear him down until an opening presents itself.’
‘Watch your footing on this surface. One slip and it could be all over.’
‘Drogo, this isn’t my first sword fight.’
‘I wish you’d let me challenge him.’
‘I’ve never doubted your courage. It’s who you direct it at that I question.’
Vallon addressed his company. ‘If I win, we’ll try to persuade the Vikings to accept my command. It shouldn’t be too difficult to bring them over, judging by what we’ve learned during our passage.’
‘If the fight goes against you,’ said Raul, ‘I’m not serving under Thorfinn. Wayland says the same.’
‘Of course not,’ Vallon said. ‘Have your crossbow ready and kill him before he can cry victory. Wayland should be able to spit a couple more before they can use their swords.’
Hawk Quest Page 48