by V. Campbell
Redknee glanced round. The others were waiting for him to make the decision. He reached out and lowered Koll’s sword. “We need to take the chance.”
Koll nodded and went first. Redknee waited as the rest followed. He was about to go too when he felt something missing from his pouch. His mother’s embroidery. He must have dropped it running to warn the others.
Sinead was half way into the tunnel, the Codex tucked safely under her arm, when she saw Redknee pause. “Aren’t you coming?” she asked.
Redknee glanced in the direction of the gate. Ragnar’s men would be here soon. Damn. He couldn’t leave the cloth. “You go,” he said, “and take Silver with you. I have to find something.”
Sinead nodded reluctantly and called to Silver.
The pup cast Redknee a doleful stare.
“On you go,” he said.
After a moment’s hesitation, Silver bounded down the steps allowing Sinead to close the trap door behind him.
Hearing footsteps beyond the gate, Redknee half ran, half skidded across the yard and into the hut. Last night’s fire still smouldered in the pit and hunks of uneaten seal meat lay on the floor. Ragnar would know someone had been here, but he needn’t know it was them.
Seeing the scrap of yellow linen in a corner, Redknee grabbed it, stuffed it in his tunic and hurried out to the yard as the gate swung open. He dived for the barrels, rolling to a stop in a puddle of sticky mud. Had they seen him? He listened as Ragnar’s men entered and started searching. Heart pounding; he fumbled for the latch. Footsteps approached. Where was the damn thing? Then a gap, no wider than his head, opened in the ground and he slid into the darkness.
Redknee landed on a soft mound of damp earth. A torch spluttered to life and he saw the almond shaped eyes of the girl in the scarlet dress. “Where are my friends?” he asked.
“They’re waiting for you,” she said simply.
He followed the strange girl along the tunnel. “Do you live here?” he asked, running his hands along the smooth earth walls.
Gisela nodded. “Some of the time.”
Other, smaller tunnels, branched off at right angles. “Making these must have taken a lot of work.”
“Oh, they’ve been here for years. Since before I was born.”
The girl’s dress was the colour of rowanberries and its gold trimmed hem swished about her ankles as she walked, catching the flickering torchlight. She seemed untouched by the mud and darkness around her. “Why do you live here?” he asked eventually.
“You’ll see,” she said, glancing over her shoulder and smiling. A dimple pinched her cheeks.
Redknee knew he should be wary – afraid, even. Somehow, the hypnotic swoosh of her skirts, her smile, her calm voice, meant he wasn’t.
She led him to a chamber as long as Wavedancer’s hull and wide enough for three men to lie flat. He gauged they were deep underground, maybe as deep as Wavedancer’s mast was high. Thick furs lined the earth floor and richly coloured tapestries hung from the walls. A large table sat in the centre, laden with all kinds of meats and fruits Redknee had never seen before. Behind the table, on a finely carved oak throne, flanked by guards, perched a boy, who was, perhaps, a couple of summers younger than Redknee. It was hard to tell, because the boy shone in the torchlight as if bathed in the very essence of the sun. His skin glowed a pure white and his hair fell across his shoulders like wisps of summer cloud. But it was his eyes that intrigued Redknee, for they lacked a band of colour round their black cores.
Amid all this, it took Redknee a few moments to realise Sinead and the others were already in the chamber, standing against the far wall, waiting for him. He relaxed when he saw they weren’t manacled and still had their weapons. On seeing Redknee, Silver bounded forward.
“Please,” Gisela said in a gentle, but firm, tone. “Bow before the Boy King.”
Redknee bent low, removing his wool hat.
The Boy King stood over Redknee. “I am Thorvald,” he said in a voice not yet broken. “Tell me – is that your ship in my bay?”
Redknee shook his head. “That ship belongs to Jarl Ragnar, come from the Northlands. Ours is damaged and lies in a bay half a day’s walk to the east.”
Thorvald reflected on Redknee’s answer. “You’re afraid of this Ragnar?”
“We believe he doesn’t come in peace.”
“And why is that?”
Redknee glanced at Sinead, the Codex was still pressed tightly to her chest. “We have something he wants.”
Thorvald followed Redknee’s gaze. “Jarl Ragnar wants that girl?” he asked incredulously.
“He wants the book she holds … and her power to read it,” said Redknee, already worried he’d revealed too much.
Gisela stepped forward. “Does the flame-haired girl have the new magic?”
Thorvald laughed. “Our Gisela is fascinated by the new magic, as she calls book reading. She’s my court sorcerer, my erilaz. I think she’s worried her divining powers will become obsolete.”
Astrid bristled beside Sinead. “Can you tell me, Sir, if you have seen my husband? His name is Gunnar Osvaldson, he is Jarl of Reykjavik and I believe he may have come this way in search of Greenland, which some say is the Promised Land.”
“This is Greenland,” Thorvald said. He glanced at Gisela who nodded for him to continue. “But I haven’t met this Gunnar you speak of.”
“But where are the never ending fields of rye and crystal clear waterfalls?”
Thorvald smirked. “Our parents were told those lies too, so they would settle here. Unfortunately, the land is mostly barren.”
“So … there are no green fields here?” Astrid asked.
“There are some, but not many. Barely enough to support us.”
Astrid shrank back, a frown on her face.
“Why do you live in these tunnels?” asked Redknee.
Thorvald lowered his eyes. “Because I carry the curse; like my father and grandfather before me, my skin cannot bear the sun.”
“He will die if he goes outside,” Gisela said, stepping up to the dais and resting her hand on her king’s shoulder. “Of course, some of our subjects live above ground, so they can grow and collect the food we need. But we have all our meetings, all our important ceremonies, down here.”
Astrid cornered Redknee in the tunnels during their welcome feast.
“Wait!” she said, catching up with him. “I would speak with you alone.” Her hair shone gold in the light from the wall torches and her silvery-grey dress, though marked and muddied from their journey, still glimmered like Arab coin. She looked like a princess. She drew closer to him until her their eyes were level. She smelled faintly of lavender.
“I feel we are nearing the Promised Land,” she whispered.
“Do you? I fear Brother Alfred’s false clues have sent us on a wild goose chase.”
Astrid shook her head. “My husband believed Greenland and the Promised Land were one and the same. But he was wrong. Instead I believe he found the Promised Land while looking for this …” she made a derisive sweeping motion with her hand, “this wretched place. If we have reached Greenland, then we are nearly there. Remember what Ulfsson said in the tavern?”
Redknee thought back to Iceland, but it was the memory of their swim in the lagoon that came to him, not Ulfsson’s weather-beaten face. “You don’t know if the place Ulfsson went to is the same as the Promised Land Saint Brendan speaks of in the Codex. By Odin’s eye, you don’t even know if Ulfsson spoke the truth. He was a drunk.”
“But it is, I’m sure of it. How many large islands can there be off the coast of Greenland?”
Redknee shrugged.
“I need to see the book for myself. We can’t trust Sinead to tell us the truth. For all we know, she might be lying too. She is a Christ-follower.”
“Why should I help you find your husband? What’s in it for me?”
“I thought you wanted to reach the Promised Land.”
“I did. Like you
, I thought someone I cared about would be there. But now I see it was a false hope. To be honest, I wouldn’t care if we turned round and headed for home as soon as the damage to Wavedancer’s hull is fixed.”
Astrid placed her hand on Redknee’s arm. “You mustn’t do that,” she pleaded. “Don’t you see? We’re so close to wealth beyond imagining. You think I still love my husband, and in many ways, I do. But he left me. I don’t know if I can forgive him for that. I ruled Reykjavik on my own for two years. Me – a mere slip of a girl! I had to use cunning where I lacked strength, and it made me brave. The people who settle this Promised Land with us will need leaders. It seems to me that you and I … we would make a good team.”
The torchlight flickered in the black depths of Astrid’s pupils as she reached up on tiptoe and placed a kiss, gentle as falling rain, on Redknee’s lips.
Footsteps echoed down the corridor followed by a loud gasp. Startled, Redknee pulled away. As he did so, he saw the hem of a green dress disappear round the corner. Sinead.
Astrid laughed. “Ignore the slave girl. She means nothing.”
Redknee stood in the doorway of the main hall. Long tables heaved under bowls of pickled herring, smoked gull, chicken legs and platters of blackberries and rosehips. Sinead sat halfway down one of the tables, in the middle of the throng. She was laughing as she helped herself to the brightly coloured feast. Silver sat nearby, a bone between his paws. Astrid was right – Sinead was getting uppity for a slave.
Redknee slammed his hand into the wall leaving a fist-shaped dent in the packed mud. By Odin’s eye, Astrid was right. They’d come so far, turning back when they were likely almost at the Promised Land would be stupid. Worse still, it would be a waste of so many lives, his mother’s and uncle’s among them.
You give up – you die. That’s what his uncle had said. But look where it got him!
Redknee shook his head. Damn, he had to know what the Codex actually said before he could make a decision. There was only one person who could tell him that and he’d seemingly just blown it with her. Making up his mind, he brushed the mud from his fist and walked, casually as he could, towards the table in the centre of the hall.
“So,” he said, his voice wavering as he slipped onto the bench beside Sinead, “are we still on the right course for the Promised Land?” Nothing like getting straight to the point.
The merriment disappeared from her eyes. She popped a blackberry in her mouth and shrugged. “How should I know?”
Ah. She was going to be difficult. “Because you can read the book,” he said patiently.
“I thought you wanted to go home now you know Erik isn’t your real father.”
Redknee faltered. “Well, yes, I did decide that. But, now I’ve thought about it, I realise we’ve come so far, it would be stupid to turn back.”
“What did Her Royal Highness promise you?”
Redknee inhaled sharply. “If you mean Astrid, she’s had nothing to do with my change of heart.” He lowered his voice so the others at the table couldn’t hear him. “You’re the only one who can read the book and you believe it tells the truth about the Promised Land. That’s enough for me. But I need to know for certain before I commit the others to going further. I need you to show me what the book actually says.”
“Before you commit the others to going further – how do you know they’ll follow you? Olaf, for one, seems set on his own plan.”
Redknee hung his head. She was right. Who was he fooling?
Sinead folded her arms across her chest. “And you make a poor liar.”
“Come on,” he said, changing tack. “You know you need me if you want to reach this Promised Land.”
She contemplated him for a moment. “First I want to know what will happen to Brother Alfred.”
“Because he lied?”
She nodded.
“The others are angry. Especially Koll. But I doubt he’ll do anything about it, he’s still cut up about Thora.”
Sinead spun round to face him, eyes alive with excitement. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I came looking for you …” her voice trailed off and Redknee realised she was remembering she’d seen Astrid kiss him.
“Go on,” he said, not wanting her to ask about it.
“Well, it came back to me this morning, after we left the fort. When Magnus returned with the herring for our breakfast, it reminded me who provided the fish for the stew. All the other ingredients Thora added herself. I saw her do it. But not the fish. It was given to her fresh.”
“So who gave her the fish?”
“Two people. Olvir gave her a fresh-caught salmon; Magnus, a brace of herring.”
Redknee looked over to where Olvir and Magnus were sitting at the end of the table, their faces pink with laughter and good ale. “You think one of them poisoned the stew?” he asked, with more than a hint of incredulity.
Sinead bit her lower lip. “Possibly …” As she spoke, Astrid crossed the room and sat between Olvir and Magnus. She whispered something in Magnus’s ear. The steersman laughed and passed her a plate of food.
Sinead opened the Codex at the page with the unicorn. The gold leaf shone in the flickering torchlight of the small chamber Thorvald had given them for sleeping. Redknee took the remains of his mother’s linen square from his tunic and placed it on the table beside the ivy border. The green trefoil shaped leaves were identical to the ones circling the unicorn, right down to their twisting stems and thick, splayed veins.
“I remember Mord talking about a map. Have you found one?” he asked.
Sinead shook her head. “But this page is interesting.” She traced the outline of the unicorn with her finger. Her nails were short, chewed. Ground-in dirt etched the creases at her knuckles. Redknee was struck by how different her hands looked to Astrid’s smooth, white ones. Unlike Astrid’s lavender scent, she smelled vaguely of chicken stock and vegetables; a hearty winter soup rather than a spring blossom.
“In Christian mythology the unicorn represents Christ. It’s said only a true maid can tame the unicorn and entice it to lay its head on her lap.”
“Really?” he asked, unsure what else to say. He had no experience of maids of any sort, true or otherwise.
“But here I think it relates to finding what you seek – which in this case would be the Promised Land.”
“The unicorn is a clue?”
“I don’t know. If it is, it’s not obvious. There’s lots in the text about the places Saint Brendan passed on his voyage. Look,” she said, turning the page. As she did so, her hand brushed his. Instinctively he snatched his away and immediately felt awkward without knowing exactly why.
Seemingly unaware, she pointed to a section of spidery black writing. “Here it mentions the Island of Sheep.”
“Read it to me.” His voice sounded dry, croaky.
She looked hesitant.
“Go on.”
“All right, but I read slowly.”
“I’ve got plenty of time.”
“So … well, here it begins about the sheep – ‘On the fourth day Saint Brendan and his men reached an island. When they sailed round the island they saw large streams of water, full of fish, and deep, rocky canyons hiding secret lagoons with water the colour of newly hewn emeralds. Walking round the island, they found many flocks of sheep – all of one colour, brown. The sheep were so numerous the ground could not be seen at all.’”
“That’s the Sheep Islands,” Redknee said excitedly. “Where Ivar had his farm.”
She nodded. “There’s more.” She flipped the pages of the Codex to about halfway. “Listen to this – 'There appeared to the monks, through the clouds, a high mountain in the ocean, not far towards the north.’”
“The volcano on Iceland?”
She continued. “'The mountain spouted flames up to the ether. The whole thing, from the summit right down to the sea, looked like one giant pyre’”
“Does it say anything about Greenland?”
&nb
sp; She turned the page. “It’s not explicit; this is the closest description I can find: 'A pillar of crystal appeared to them in the sea. When they tried to see the top of it, they could not – for it was so high. It was higher than the sky.’”
“That’s the icebergs off the coast!”
“I can’t think what else it could be.” She closed the book. “I think your uncle knew all this. I don’t think he needed Brother Alfred at all.”
“But how?”
“I don’t know. But if he didn’t, then the fact we’ve got this far is nothing short of a miracle.”
“What happens next? Are we nearly there?”
“It seems we might be.” She reopened the book a few pages from the end. “Listen to the description of the last place they visit:'They sailed for forty days towards the west—’”
“Wait – that’s the same number of years as Moses was in the desert. Do you think it’s significant?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is forty a magic number in Christianity?”
“I don’t think so. Shall I go on?”
He nodded. Forty days at sea still to go! She’d better not tell Olaf.
“'At the end of the forty days, a great fog enveloped them. After the space of an hour, a mighty light shone all around and their boat rested on the shore. On disembarking, they saw a wide land full of trees bearing fruit as in autumn. They walked for many days, and still they had not found the end of the land.
“One day they came upon a great river, too wide to cross. A youth met them, embracing them with great joy and calling each by name. The youth said: “There lies before you the land you have been seeking. At its heart lies the White Pine. You have almost reached it. Beneath it, you will find that for which you have been looking. The jewels of this land are nothing as compared to that which lies beneath the White Pine.
“Return then, to the land of your birth, bringing with you the fruit of this land and as many of the precious stones as your boat can carry. In many years time this land will become known the world over, when persecution of the Christians shall have come.’ – I think that means now,” Sinead added, “with all the attacks on monasteries by you Northmen.”