One King's Way

Chapter Nineteen

“When King Halvdan knew that his son was dead,” Thorvin explained an hour later, seated comfortably on a camp-stool with a mug of bought ale in his hand, “he went into a giant-rage. He told his mother that she had lived too long, put a rope round her neck, and told her to stab and hang herself at the same time as a sacrifice to Othin, so that little Harald might join the warriors in Valhalla. She did it willingly, or so I heard. Then he found that Brand was missing, and Shef's men as well, and decided to take it out on Brand's ship and crew. But they barricaded themselves in a hall in the college of the Way, and called on some of the rest of us to protect them. Valgrim sided with Halvdan, and many of his followers too, and for a while it seemed there might be civil war even within the college of the Way.

“But Halvdan did another thing. It could not be hidden from him that Shef had been on the island of Drottningsholm, and one of Stein's guardsmen confessed that he had been invited there. So Halvdan had Ragnhild to blame as well, and swore that she should follow his mother into the mound for her disloyalty and carelessness over his son.”

“Well.” Thorvin took another pull at his ale. “He was dead the next day. Dead in his bed. Died a straw-death, like a worn-out thrall.”

“What symptoms did he show?” asked Hund, sitting close by on the ground.

“Ingulf said, henbane poisoning.” Karli, also allowed to listen to the informal council, rolled his eyes, opened his mouth to say something, shut it again as he caught Thorvin's eye.

“So then there were men gathering everywhere, and oaths of vengeance on all sides. It was said that King Halvdan's conquests would seize the chance to break free of the Westfold rule, Queen Ragnhild was supposed to be going back to her people to raise an army to send after the killers of her son, the skippers of the coast guardships all came into port to protect their own interests, Brand's crew got back to the Walrus and asked me to take to flight along with them.”

“But you didn't?” Shef guessed.

Thorvin shook his head. “There was Way business to settle first. Besides, everything quieted down suddenly. King Olaf then showed what was in his hand. Did you ever wonder,” Thorvin inquired, “why they call King Olaf Geirstatha-alfr, Elf-of-Geirstath?

The listeners shook their heads mutely. After a moment Cwicca volunteered, “Alfr is what we call alf. Like in Alfred or Alfwyn. One of the Hidden Folk, but not ugly or vicious like a fen-thurs or a mountain-troll. Elf-women mate with men sometimes, and the other way round, or so they say. They are wise, but they have no souls.”

“What happens to them when they die, then?” asked Thorvin. He looked round, observing the uncertain shrugs and headshakes of his listeners. “None of us knows, though some say they go to a world of their own, one of the nine worlds of which this is the midmost. But others say that they die. Die and then return again. And some say that the same may happen with men born of women. Now that is what King Olaf believed of himself. He said that he had been on this earth before, and that he would yet return in the person of one of his blood. Or if not—for now he has none of his blood or his brother's living—then his life would pass into some other keeping.

“He said, Shef, that he had set a test for you with Valgrim, and that you had passed it. He said that you had taken the luck of his lineage with you, and that from now on his luck and his spirit would flow through yours. And he told me to tell you that you had passed his test and Valgrim's, and he would now hold both Eastfold and Westfold for you. As your under-king.”

Thorvin rose, walked over to where Shef sat, and carefully closed Shef's hands round his own. “King Olaf told me that I was to place my hands in yours on his behalf. He accepts you as the true king, the One who is to come from the North, and asks you to return to take your proper place in his kingdom and in the college of the Way.”

Shef stared round at a ring of equally surprised faces. The very idea of an under-king did not come easily to the Norse or the English alike. A king was someone who acknowledged no superior, by definition. How could an under-king, who accepted an over-king, be a king, rather than a mere jarl or hersir?

“How did his men take this?” asked Shef tentatively. “Olaf has been supported by his brother for many years, has he not? Since they say he lost his luck to him. If the districts were thinking of revolt, Olaf would be able to do little against them. Especially if he declared himself under-king to a stranger.”

Thorvin smiled. “No-one had any time to say anything. After all these years Olaf moved like—like a Ragnarsson. He burned Ragnhild's brother in his hall, before he could get his boots on. He had all the prominent men of the Eastfold who had spoken of revolt and independence brought to him in their shirts with ropes round their necks, and made them beg for their lives. He called a full meeting of all the priests of the Way, in conclave with the fire burning, and made Valgrim say in conclave how he had tested you, and made him admit that you had passed. There was no standing up to him. And now he is out, going from Thing to Thing in his own territory, making the men of each district accept his authority—and yours.”

“And what about Ragnhild?” asked Shef. “How has Olaf dealt with her?”

Thorvin sighed. “She got away. Went back to her father's territory somewhere. I believe Valgrim went with her. His followers were convinced by Olaf, mostly, but his spite against you was too strong. He felt you had bested him.”

“Still. The way is clear for us to go back. Back to Kaupang, and then back to England. How soon would you be ready to start, Brand?”

Brand scratched his head. “We have the two ships here, Walrus and Guthmund's Seamew. But you have picked up a lot of people coming across the country, the ships will need to be provisioned for so many passengers. Two days after next dawn.”

“So be it,” said Shef. “We return south two days after next dawn.”

“When we first met,” said Thorvin, “you said you came from the north. Now you are very quick to want to return to the south. Are you sure that you have come as far as you need to along the Northr Vegr, the North Way?”

“You mean there's places north of here?” muttered an unidentifiable English voice from the circle of listeners. “I thought only trolls lived north of here.”

Many hundreds of miles to the south, in the great palace of the Archbishop of Cologne, the plotters who had removed Pope Nicholas met again. Not all of those present at the first meeting had returned: Hincmar of Rheims was missing, delayed by his own affairs. But his absence was more than compensated by a throng of lesser prelates, bishops and abbots from the length of the German-speaking lands, all now ready and eager to be associated with the founders and rulers of the famous Lanzenorden. Archbishop Gunther looked round at them with both satisfaction and contempt. It was good to find so many supporters, a good sign too of the weakening of the power of the new Pope that so many were ready to attend a gathering that old Pope Nicholas, at least, would have denounced as treasonable. Yet as numbers increased, so strength of purpose was diluted. These men here were followers of success. Success would have to be provided for them. Fortunate that there was so much.

Gunther's chaplain and assistant Arno was coming to the end of the report he had been invited to deliver. “So,” he concluded, “recruitment to the Lanzenorden continually increases. Teams of priests and guardians have entered all the northern lands. Many captives have been rescued or ransomed and sent home, among them many of our brothers in Christ enslaved over many years by the heathen. And while we move freely into the heathen lands, their assaults on us and on our Frankish brothers have ceased, or slackened.”

Because they are afraid to come down the Channel, Gunther thought grimly. They fear the English apostates, not us. He let none of his doubts show on his face as he led the applause. As it died down another voice cut across Arno's smiling satisfaction. The voice of Rimbert, the ascetic, Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen and the major force in the spread of the new Order.

“Yet for all this,” he said. “For all the recruits and the money and the slaves rescued, we are no nearer the Order's true purpose. We have not found the Lance, the holy relic of Charlemagne. And without that all our success is as a tinkling cymbal. As vain as the ribbons on a strumpet's sleeve.”

Gunther shut his eyes for a moment as the grim voice rasped on, opened them to note the alarm spreading across many faces. For if the saintly Rimbert did not believe in his own creation, who else should?

“Yes,” replied Arno, shuffling his papers. “That is true. Yet I have reports here from the most daring of our teams sent into the heathen lands, a report sent by the English deacon Erkenbert, strong in the strength of the Lord, at the instructions of his commander Bruno son of Reginbald.”

The very mention of Bruno's name, Gunther noted, created a wave of relief. Even Rimbert nodded acceptingly, not continuing with his denunciation.

“The learned Erkenbert reports that he and Bruno and their men penetrate ever deeper into heathendom, fearing no persecution. They test every king and kingdom for signs of the Lance at work, and have found nothing yet. Nevertheless, the learned Erkenbert says we must remember that it is a gain in knowledge every time one learns nothing.”

Arno looked up, saw that this thought had proved too hard for all his audience, and tried again. He was speaking to an audience at least theoretically literate, and could afford an appeal to writing. “He means that if one has a list of names—like the list of witnesses to a charter, each one written below the other.” Puzzled nods from most of the bishops and abbots, following so far. “Then every time one crosses such a name off, there are fewer names left to consider. If one crosses every name off but one, then that one must be the one you seek. So, you see, even a negative result—even finding a nothing—tells you something.”

Silence greeted this exposition. Faces looked by no means convinced. Archbishop Rimbert finally broke it.

“The efforts of our brothers in heathendom are beyond praise,” he said. “We must support them with every man and every mark we can raise.” He looked round challengingly. “I say, every man and every mark! Yet for all that, I do not think the Lance of Longinus, the Lance of Charlemagne, the Lance of the Emperor-to-be: I do not think this will be brought to light by the hand of man alone.”

While Brand and Guthmund sought out provisions for their sail south, Shef spent much of his time wandering round the great meeting, half way between a shire-court and a summer fair, watching how the Norse-folk did their business. Those of his band who could be allowed to wander freely did the same, but there were few of them—Cuthred remained under guard at all times, and the runaway slaves never left the perimeter that Shef had marked out except to visit communal latrines, in groups with Brand or Guthmund supervising.

The Thing was a strange custom, Shef concluded. Rightly speaking, it had not happened yet. Round about Midsummer's Day was the traditional time for the Gula-Thing, still some weeks off. At that time many law-cases would be decided by the thirty-six chosen wise men of the Thing-lands, the three fylkir of Sogn, Hord and the Fjords. These were the areas that provided so many of the horde of summer pirates that sailed south every year. It was therefore no easy business to summon a man for murder, for land-disputes or for a paternity case at midsummer, when they might be, or pretend to be, away. So a kind of reduced court met much of the time, trying usually to get some agreement without the matter going to the final decision of the wise. At the same time trade and business of many kinds never ceased, with ships continually coming and going.

Shef was amazed at the wealth on display. England was a rich country in land and in food, he had realized during the short period that he had ruled some of it. But the Viking lands had had coined silver and even gold flowing in to them for two generations or more. The well-off among them would pay high prices for luxuries, making it worth while for strongly-manned ships to come up from the south, past the pirates of Rogaland. And the flow of materials from the north included luxuries that Shef had never seen. He was, now, rich himself from the taxes of East Anglia, some portion of them held by Brand in the Walrus for his use. At Brand's urging Shef bought for himself a hooded coat of the best waterproof sealskin, the hood fringed with wolf hair on which a man's breath would never freeze, even in the coldest weather. A two-edged sword of the finest Swedish steel, its hilt cut from the twisted horn of some fabulous beast of the northern seas that Brand called a narwhal. A bag for sleeping in, sealskin again on the outside, wool on the inside, with between them a thick layer of down from the northern birds. Shef, reluctant to spend money which he never felt was his, had nevertheless spent enough nights shivering in thin clothes and blanket to be ready never to feel cold again. He had marveled at the patience with which these goods were assembled, wondering how long it would take to trap and pluck the rare eider-birds that gave the best and warmest down in the world. But Brand had laughed when he mentioned this.

“We don't catch them,” he said. “We make the Finns do that.”

“Finns?” Shef had never heard the word before.

“Up north,” Brand pointed, “where Sweden and Norway run close together, beyond Halogaland where I live, the world turns into a place where no man can grow anything fit to eat, not rye, not barley, not even oats. Pigs die of cold, and cows have to be stall-fed all winter. There the Finns live, without houses, in skin tents, wandering from place to place with their herds of reindeer. We put tribute on them, the Finn-skatt, the Finn-tax. Every man of them has to pay so much a year, in skins, in furs, in down. They spend their time hunting and fishing, so it goes easily for them. What they catch beyond their tax, we buy off them and sell all together to the traders here or further south. The kings of the world dress in furs caught by my Finns, and they pay kings' prices too! But I buy the stuff in the first place for butter and cheese. No Finn can milk a cow, and no Finn can walk past a bowl of milk. It is a good trade.”

Good for you, thought Shef. It must be a difficult tax to collect.

Trading done, he had walked over to the area where legal cases were settled. Most of the time, just men standing in groups, fully armed, leaning on their spears, but listening for the most part to what their friends or their adversaries had to say, and to the advice of the wise men of their district. The Gula-Thing had strict laws, but few men knew what they were, since they had never been written down. It was the task of the wise to learn as much law as they could, or all of it if they wished ever to be law-speakers, and to announce it to disputants. They might then wriggle or quibble, try to find other laws more suitable for their case, or simply intimidate their opponents into accepting a cheap settlement, but they would not simply deny the law existed.

Yet there were some matters, often involving seduction, rape, adultery or woman-theft, where the law might be clear but where passions ran high. Several times during the two days Shef heard voices suddenly raised and the clang of weapons. Twice Hund was called away to patch and bandage, and once men rode away with set faces and a corpse of their own slung over a horse.

“Someone will get burnt out over that one,” Brand remarked. “Hard men round here, they can get away with things for a fair while. Then the neighbors get together, come down and torch the place. Kill everyone who tries to get out. Works even on berserks, eventually. As the poem says:

On the second afternoon, as Shef lounged in the sunshine watching Guthmund bargain furiously for two barrels of salt pork—his bargaining tactics were much admired, even by the victims, who swore that they could never believe a famous abbey-robber could express such passion over a mere clipped penny. Then Shef noticed men's attention start to waver, heads turn, and then a general drift begin up to the stones of the doom-ring. Guthmund broke off, releasing the pork-merchant's collar, slapped his money down, and began to follow the drift, Shef hastening after him. “What's up?” he asked.

Guthmund had picked the story out of the crowd. “Two men agreed to settle their business Rogaland-style.”

“Rogaland-style? What's that?”

“The Rogalanders are poor, couldn't afford proper swords till recently, just carried cutlasses like the one you had, or timber-axes. But they really mean business just the same. So if they decide to fight a duel, they don't square off inside an enclosure marked with hazel twigs, or fight a formal holmgang like you did once. No, they stretch out a bull's hide, and both men stand on it. Not allowed off. Then they fight with knives.”

“That doesn't sound too dangerous,” Shef ventured.

“First they tie their left wrists together.”

The place for duels of this kind was in a hollow, so men could line the sides and watch. Shef and Guthmund found places high up. They saw the bull's hide carefully laid out, the contestants brought forward. A priest of the Way spoke words which they could not hear, and the two men slowly stripped off their shirts and stepped out in their breeches alone. Each held in his right hand a long, broad knife, like the seax-knife Shef's catapult-men carried, but with a straight blade and sharp point—a stabbing weapon as well as a chopping one. A leather rope was tied first to one wrist, then the other. Shef noted that there was maybe three feet of slack left. Each man took half the slack and held it in his bound left hand, so that the fight began with the backs of the left fists touching. One man was young, tall, with long fair hair braided down his back. The other twenty years older, burly and bald, an expression of grim anger on his face.

“What's it about?” Shef muttered.

“Young one got the other one's daughter pregnant. He says she consented, the father says he raped her in the field.”

“What does she say?” Shef asked, remembering similar cases from his own time as a judge.

“I don't think anyone asked her.”

Shef opened his mouth to ask further, realized it was too late. More words spoken, a ritual request to accept mediation, now impossible to take without shame. Two headshakes. The law-speaker stepped carefully off the bull's hide, made a signal.

Instantly the two men were in motion, springing round each other. The father had stabbed at the first flicker of the judge's hand, stabbed low under the linked hands. But at the same moment the young man had dropped his slack and sprung back to the full extent of the rope.

The father dropped his slack too, snatched forward at the rope trailing from his enemy's wrist. If he got it he could hold the younger man to him, keep him no more than one arm's length, perhaps pull him close and stab him in the body. But to commit yourself to a mortal stroke left you open to a mortal counter. In this kind of duel it was easy to kill your enemy. If you cared to give him the chance to kill you.

The older man's snatch missed, the younger one was leaping away, keeping near the edge of the hide. Suddenly he stretched forward, slashed his enemy across the back of the arm. A shout as the blood showed, a sneer in answer from the wounded man.

“Easy in this game to give a scratch,” Guthmund remarked. “But a scratch won't settle it. Loss of blood, if it goes on a long time—but it never does.”

The fight had reached a kind of pattern, one man trying to close, stabbing always underneath the two arms, jerking and grabbing at the rope that joined them. The other ignoring the rope, keeping away, flicking quick slashes at arm or leg, but taking care not to let his knife catch, to trap him for an instant.

He did it once too often. The bald father, bleeding from a dozen minor wounds, took yet another slash high up on the left biceps. Caught the retreating hand, the knife-hand, with his own tied left. Started to twist it savagely, shouting something Shef could not catch over the crowd noise. The seducer lashed out with his own left hand, desperately trying to catch the other's knife-hand in his turn. But the older man had twisted, holding the knife away behind his body out of reach, feinting to thrust low, then high, twisting the caught wrist all the time.

With no other hope left the trapped man kicked both feet off the ground, tried to catch the other's thighs in a scissors grip, sent him staggering. As the two fell locked to the ground Shef saw blood spurt, heard the groan of released breath from the spectators close up. The judge stepped forward, pulled the two men apart. Shef saw one knife jutting from deep in the chest of the young man. As they rolled the other over he saw a second hilt standing up from the older man's eye.

Women were shrieking, rushing forward. Shef turned to Guthmund, ready to rebuke a system that lost a woman husband and father in the same heartbeat, and a child father and grandfather. But the words died in his throat.

Cuthred was striding down the hollow, spiked shield in one hand, sword in the other. Behind him trailed Fritha and Osmod, Udd a pace or two after them, all carrying crossbows but looking helpless. As Shef started to shove his way forward, he heard Cuthred's crazy voice lifted in pidgin Norse.

“Bunglers! Nithings! Have to be tied together not to run away. Hold a man to be cut. Fight an Englishman, why don't you, one with hands free. One hand tied, give you choice. Hornungs, sons of drabs! You, you there.”

White spittle was flying from his mouth, and a circle was steadily widening round him, leaving him isolated with the two dead men at his feet. Staring down, Cuthred slashed suddenly at one of them, opening a great gash across the young man's dead face. He began to stamp his feet and breathe in great gasps, ready to charge the entire crowd.

Shef stepped in front of him, waited for recognition to show in the mad eyes. Reluctant recognition.

“They won't fight,” said Shef slowly. “We'll have to find a better time. And striking a corpse is foul play, Cuthred. Foul play for an ordwiga, a herecempa, a frumgar like yourself, a king's champion. Wait for the Ragnarssons, for the killers of your King Ella.”

Cuthred's face worked at the string of honorifics, all of which he had earned in former life as captain of the King of Northumbria's guard. He looked at his bloody sword, at the corpse he had struck, threw his weapon down and burst into racking sobs. Udd and Osmod closed on either side, took his arm, started to lead him away.

Mopping sweat, Shef turned to meet the disapproving look of the duel-judge, the law-speaker.

“Mutilating a dead body,” the Norseman said, “is punishable by a fine of…”

“We'll pay,” said Shef. “We'll pay. But someone ought to pay for what has been done to that live one.”

The next morning, Shef stood by the narrow gangplank leading to Brand's prized and cherished ship, the Walrus. Guthmund's Seamew, already loaded, rocked easily in the water twenty yards out, a row of faces looking over the low gunwale. Loading the ships had not been an easy business. Each rowed eighteen oars a side and carried a normal crew of forty. To this had had to be added Shef, Hund, Karli and Thorvin, the eight men of the catapult crew, the four women they had rescued from Drottningsholm, Cuthred, and the train of runaways they had attracted in their ride across Upland and Sogn—nearly thirty all told, a large number to add to the cramped quarters of two narrow ships.

But now they were not all there: Lulla, Fritha and Edwi of the catapult crew, all missing. Had they been cut off somehow? Were they being hidden somewhere in the Thing area, destined for slavery or revenge, or even sacrifice? At the thought of his men being strung up on the temple trees of some backwoods town, Shef's patience snapped.

“Get all the men off,” he shouted to Brand. “You too Guthmund. We can muster a hundred men between us. We'll go through this place and turn every tent over till they hand our men over. Anyone doesn't like it, he'll get a bolt in his belly.”

Shef became aware that Cwicca and the others were not reacting with the enthusiasm he would have expected. They had donned their glassy expressions, always a sign they knew something they did not dare to reveal.

“All right,” Shef said. “What's up with those three?”

Osmod, usually the spokesman on difficult occasions, spoke up. “It's like this,” he volunteered. “We've been walking round, some of us, looking at things. And all they're talking about here is catapults and crossbows and that. They've heard a lot about them, don't know how they work. So we said, naturally, that we knew all about catapults, and as for crossbows, well Udd here practically invented them. So they say—by this time they'd stood us all a drink or two—they say, ‘very interesting, do you men know what's happening down south?’ ‘No,’ says we, naturally enough, since we don't. So then they say…”

“Get on with it!” Shef bellowed.

“They're paying big money for experienced catapult men, men who know how to build and shoot them. Big money. We think Lulla and Edwi and Fritha have decided to go in for that.”

Shef stared for a moment, uncertain how to react. He had freed those men. They were landholders back in England already. How could they go off and take service with anyone, leaving their lord? But then they were free men, because he had freed them…

“All right,” he said. “Forget it, Brand. Osmod, the rest of you, thank you anyway for staying. I hope you won't lose by it. Let's get on board and get going. Back in England in two weeks, if Thor sends us a wind.”

He did not, or not immediately. All the way down the long fjord from where the Gula met the Sogn to the open sea, the two boats pulled steadily into the teeth of a fresh breeze, low in the water from their weight of passengers and stores. Brand spelled the rowers, rotating the male passengers with his own men.

“Get round the ness,” he remarked. “Wind'll be on our beam then, we can stop rowing and sail south. What's that ahead?”

Round the point of the promontory that guarded the Gula-fjord, little more than half a mile away, came a ship. A strange ship, not like the traders and fishing-boats they had passed half a dozen times already. Her blue and white striped sail bellied in the breeze behind her, a pennant flew from her mast, blowing towards them so they could see it only fitfully as a gust took it wide. Something wrong with her sail. Something wrong with her size.

“Thor aid us,” said Brand at the steering-oar. “It's one of Halfdan's coastguard ships. But she's got two sails. She's even got two masts. I never saw such a thing in all my born days. What have they done all that for?”

Shef's one sharp eye caught sight of the banner, the Gripping Beast design on it.

“Turn,” he said. “Get us out of here. It's Queen Ragnhild. And she means us no good.”

“It's a big ship, but we're two to one, we can fight her…”

“Turn,” shouted Shef, recognizing something about the motions of the men on deck.

Brand caught on in the same moment and sent the Walrus heeling round in a turn so violent that the rowers were sent skidding along their benches. “Back starboard,” he shouted. “Pull backboard. Now pull together. Pull hard, get the stroke up. And drop the sail and sheet home, you in the waist there, help him, Narr, Ansgeir. Guthmund…” His voice carried over the water to their companion lagging a furlong behind. The Walrus, wind now behind her, began to scud back the way she had come.

Watching the pursuing ship, Shef, as he had expected, saw her yaw to bring her beam round. “On the word, swing her hard to starboard,” he said quietly. “Now.”

The Walrus swung briskly round. At the same moment Brand shouted to his crew to lift their oars, let the boat run freely under sail. The oars heaved smartly together out of the water. A hum in the air, three oarsmen together span out of their seats, landed in the belly of the ship, cursing or moaning. Shattered pieces of oar flew up in the air, splashed slowly into the sea. The mule-stone that had smashed through them just above head-height flew on, hit the water, bounced from wave to wave to wave before sinking.

“They were talking about fitting one of those,” said Brand. “But they said she'd never take the recoil. Must have rerigged her internally along with the two masts.”

“But who's crewing the mule?” asked Shef, still watching the ship behind them trying to make up lost distance, alert for any second swerve that would bring the mule round to bear. It was fortunate this was a stern chase and Ragnhild's men could not shoot over the bow. “Renegades of mine? But where would they have got them from?”

“The Way has been very interested in all that you did,” put in Thorvin, standing close to Brand. “They built copies of all the machines you made. Valgrim could have built the mule and found a crew. Some of his friends are priests of Njörth, would know how to rebuild a ship. What are we going to do? Run back into the Gula-fjord and hope to fight them on land?”

Shef was once more staring intently at the activity in the bow of the pursuing ship. She had lost way by turning beam-on to shoot, and now both were under sail the Walrus and her consort were making ground with every wave. The ships had begun half a mile apart. Now they were certainly more than that. Even at that distance, though, Shef was certain that he could make out a tall figure, a tall female figure, standing in the very prow of the ship, long hair streaming disheveled. Ragnhild coming after him. Chasing him, however fast they sailed, into a long fjord with no other exit. And they were certainly doing something strange in the prow there. Could they have built a mule that did not need to be bedded low down and centrally in a ship?

Light showed behind Ragnhild, fire, a strong fire blazing brightly. At the same moment Shef's brain recognized the motions of the men round it. He had never seen a catapult being wound from in front of it before, but that was what they were doing—had been doing, for they had just jumped back to clear the view for the shooter, just like Cwicca's crew. Not a mule, one of the great dart-shooters he had used himself to release Ella and to break Ivar Ragnarsson's army.

As Shef turned to shout at Brand to swerve again, he saw the light suddenly coming straight at him with inconceivable speed, rising and falling slightly a bare six feet over the waves. Involuntarily, Shef cringed. Bent forward, arms over belly, sure the machine would send the great javelin-size bolt straight through body and spine.

A thump just below his feet, sending him staggering. Instant reek of burning tar, burning wood. Brand yelling hoarsely and a lurch as he abandoned the steering oar to look over the side. Then Shef was shoved aside by men running up from the waist of the ship with bailing buckets, trying furiously to lean over far enough to reach the water, scoop it up, throw it on to the great fire-arrow that had slammed into the Walrus, come clean through her rear planking three feet from Shef's leg, was now setting fire to planks and thwarts at once.

“Use the drinking water!” shouted Brand. The driblets of sea-water his crew were bailing up from the waves barely within reach were making no impact on the mass of pitch and tar on the bolt's head, jammed through the planks. And the fire was spreading. If it caught the sail… A man ran from the water-barrel by the base of the mast, lost his footing and fell, bucket going wide into the bilge. Others hesitated, torn between the sea just out of reach and the water-barrel too far away.

Cuthred slouched from his place near the bow. No-one had ventured to ask him to row. He had an axe in his hand. Standing over the fire-arrow, he smashed three strokes down through the Walrus's frail planking, bent over the side, thrust the bolt further through till the blazing head stood well out from the ship's inner side. Swung the axe again, shearing through the thick wood with one blow. Picked up the severed head, ignoring the flames that ran up his arm, tossed it over the side. As Cuthred turned sneering to Brand, Shef realized that the ship behind them had yawed again.

Machine-war, he thought sickly. It comes too fast. Even a brave man wants to stop, to shout “Wait till I'm ready!” Helplessly, he saw the mule-stone come blurring towards him, again seeming to come directly at him, not the ship, him personally, aiming for his rib-cage, to shatter the thin bones and crush out the heart.

The stone hit the water thirty yards short, bounced like a child's skimming-stone, bounced again, and hit the Walrus like a hammer just forward of the steering-oar. Planks stove, a rowing-bench hurled from its socket, green water poured through. But only a hole, not the complete shattering and disintegration of a ship struck on keel or stem-post.

You were a king before, Shef told himself. Now they say you are an over-king. And what are you doing? Cringing. Waiting for help from a madman. This is not the way for a leader. You have destroyed men from a distance before. You never thought how you would behave when the other side had all the machines.

Shef stepped up to the stern again, leaving the others to deal with the leak. Ragnhild's ship was still coming on behind them, while men worked to wind their machines, prepare for their next shots. One or other would sink them, once they had learnt to hold their hand till they were in proper range. Meanwhile they had come back under full sail almost to their starting-place. Shef could see a crowd down by the Thing-harbor, watching them. And just in front lay the island, the Gula-ey, on which the Thing itself had been held in years gone by. Shef eyed the narrow channel between it and the shore, considered the size of Halvdan's warship, remembered the trick Sigurth Snake-eye had played on him. He did not think an experienced Viking skipper would fall for that one.

He caught Brand by the shoulder, pointed. “Take us through there.”

Brand opened his mouth to argue, closed it as he caught the tone of utter certainty in Shef's voice. Silently he leant on the oar, steered between rocks, waved peremptorily to Guthmund to follow. After a few moments he ventured to say, “We'll lose the wind in a moment.”

“All right.” Shef was watching the ship behind. As he expected, she had shifted course. Not going to follow. Going to go round the island to the left as they had to the right. Take the wind on the beam, keep up speed, overhaul the two ships she was pursuing, destroy them at close range. Probably their skipper thought his enemies intended to beach and escape on foot. Ragnhild would have a plan for that too.

But for a few moments the island would be between them.

“On the word,” said Shef quietly, “furl sail, turn, and row back as fast as ever you can. Once we're past it'll be a rowing match. With a ship that size and with that much extra weight, we're bound to win.”

“Unless she just sits and waits for us. Then we're rowing back to face catapults at fifty yards.”

Shef nodded. “Turn now.”

The Walrus and Seamew turned together, began to row back, the men at the oars heaving in an intent silence. The only noise they could hear Shef realized, was the hum of voices on the shore a hundred yards away. He hoped pointing fingers would not give his plan away. What Brand said was right. This was like two children chasing each other round a kitchen table. If the chaser just stopped, the one who doubled back would run right into him. Shef did not think the chaser would stop. That ship there, however experienced the skipper, was commanded by Ragnhild, he knew. She would not stop to think. She wanted to run him down. Besides that, he had seen the men lining the bulwarks, waving weapons and shouting. They had acquired machines, but they did not think like machine-warriors yet. Their instinct and training was to close and overwhelm, to break the line by force and weight. Not to sit back and shoot from a distance, use their weapons' range.

As the Walrus scudded out from the channel and back the way they had come, Shef looked over the starboard quarter. Relief filled him. Halvdan's ship had raced round the island, realized too late what had happened, was only turning now in a flurry of flapping sails. Badly handled, too. The crew and skipper had evidently still not worked out the problems of their two-mast rig. Nearer a mile off than half a mile, and no chance of catching up. Brand's oarsmen were throwing their weight on the oars now, one of them singing and the rest giving the refrain each time they swayed their oar-handles forward. Three men were bending planks back into place, plugging gaps with sealskin and sailcloth. The way was clear to run out into the open sea and south again.

Karli caught Shef's arm and pointed ahead. A small skiff, rowed by one man, paddling out from the harbor to intercept them.

“It's Fritha,” he said. “Must have changed his mind.”

Shef frowned, stepped forward to the bow again, seizing a rope. As the Walrus came up on the small skiff he heaved the rope across, saw Fritha grasp it. He made no attempt to haul his boat alongside but abandoned it, dropping the oars and swinging himself waist-deep through the water till he could clutch the Walrus's side. Shef seized his collar, heaved him over, stood looking down forbiddingly.

“What happened? Silver not paid on time?”

Fritha gasped, struggled dripping to his feet. “No, lord. I had to tell you. The Thing is full of the news. A ship came in ahead of that one there. We knew the queen Ragnhild was coming before you did. But the ship said another thing. As she sailed up the coast, she—the queen—told every harbor along the coast that if you escaped her she would pay a bounty for your head. A great bounty, all her inheritance. Every pirate in Rogaland is looking for you now. All along the coast. Two hundred miles of it.”

And Rogalanders are poor, Shef reflected, but they really mean business. He looked at Thorvin.

“It seems the way south is blocked. I will have to be the one who comes from the North after all.”

“We say the words,” said Thorvin. “But the gods put them there.”