North Child (27 page)

I was disappointed; Tonsberg was a port town at the southern end of Njord. I had hoped to find a ship going farther north.

“What about the other vessel you mentioned? Where is it going?” I asked.

“I doubt old Thor even knows.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thor is a notorious drunkard. He got his nickname because he claims to be descended from some notorious Viking, and he acts and dresses like one himself. Thor's ship is a
knorr
and it has seen better days.”

“A
knorr
?”

“One of those old-fashioned longships built in Viking manner. Thor's is the only one I've ever seen in this harbour. The only advantage of booking passage with Thor,” added Serge, “is that he'll only charge the price of a barrel of ale. But it's out of the question. Pay Contarini's fee, and at least you know you'll arrive in Njord in one piece. You should be able to find another ship in Tonsberg, heading farther north.”

I agreed and the next morning Serge took me to the caravel. Before leaving, though, I said my goodbyes to Sofi and Estelle. At first Sofi refused to take any of the money I had gotten for my dress, saying that the weaving I had done at her cottage was payment enough, but I made her take a few coins – to pay for the map, I argued.

Estelle gave me a big hug, then handed me something small. It was the Queen Maraboo playing piece. I told her she shouldn't break up the set, but she said that her uncle Serge could carve her another and that I must carry it with me on my journey, for good luck. “To help you find
l'ours blanc,
” she said. Thanking Sofi and Estelle one last time, I headed off with Serge to the docks.

Captain Contarini was a small, hard-eyed man who grudgingly agreed to take me on board as long as I paid the full price up front and vowed to stay out of sight.

“It is bad luck,” he said, “to have a woman on board. You will stay confined to your quarters until the ship docks in Tonsberg.” Meals would be brought to me, and that was all the contact I would be allowed with the crew. Serge supervised the payment of the fee, making sure I was not cheated; as it was, I paid Captain Contarini almost all I had gotten for my silver gown.

I bade Serge farewell and the captain hustled me on board, taking me quickly below decks. We wound through some narrow passageways until coming to a small storage room. Captain Contarini handed me a bucket, a skin-bag of water, and a thin wadding of cloth for a mattress. “Do not leave this room,” he said with a frown, and slammed the door shut behind him.

I looked around my cramped quarters with misgiving. It was a grey, windowless closet of a room. I could feel the ship rocking gently on the water, and that, combined with the stuffiness of the room, already made me feel queasy. Serge had said the journey should take no more than five days. Surely I could stand anything for only five days, I thought. But I felt choked and stifled. The thought of not being able to breathe fresh air… Only five days… But my feeling of uneasiness grew. This was far worse than the castle, I thought. I did not think I could stand being locked up in that room for five days.

I went to open the door. It was locked from the outside. Captain Contarini was taking no chances.

I felt a surge of anger. I had had enough of locked doors. Using a needle from my sewing kit, I managed to pop the lock. I picked up my pack and, finding my way with difficulty, went to the deck of the ship.

Captain Contarini was furious when he saw me. While the sailors watched with interest, the captain grabbed my arm and hustled me off onto the dock.

“I will not be locked below decks,” I said before he could speak.

“Then you will not travel on my ship.”

“Very well. Give back my money.”

“Certainly not. We struck a bargain. Just because you choose not to keep your end of it, it is no concern of mine.” He turned and began to head back up the gangplank. Suddenly he swung around to face me. “And do not think of getting your man Serge to intercede. I am a good friend to the authorities here and no one will listen to the claims of an unescorted—.” The word was Portuguese, but his glance was so scathing I knew it was something insulting.

I stood there on the dock, enraged at the captain and even more annoyed with myself for my rash decision. I did not like the idea of going back to Serge and Sofi.

Impulsively I decided I would find the other ship, the one with the disreputable Viking captain.

I found the longship after some hunting. It was off in a little-used part of the harbour, but I knew it at once. There was no other ship like it. It was long and slender, with a single mast, and it sat low in the water. The curving bow and stern posts were indistinguishable from each other, except that there was a steering oar at the rear, and when I got closer, I could see that the bow had a carved figurehead. Because the figure was so weather-beaten, I had trouble making out what kind of beast it was, with its staring eyes and fierce, bared teeth, but I thought it was a bear. Which could be a good omen, I told myself.

There seemed to be no one about, so I stood, gazing at the ship. Despite the longship's peeling paint and worn appearance, I liked its lines. I noticed there was cargo on board, lashed down and covered with animal skins.

“You there!” came a harsh voice from behind me. He was speaking in Njorden. “What do you want?”

I turned to face an enormous man with a long, bushy beard and a pair of fierce blue eyes. He had long, bushy hair as well, and both beard and hair were butter yellow, though streaked with grey. Over his broad shoulders he wore a cloak that was fastened by an intricately wrought brooch, the metal tarnished. A long knife in a leather sheath lay against one hip, and around his neck was a necklace from which dangled what I recognized to be the silver hammer of Thor; it, too, was tarnished.

“Pardon me,” I replied quickly. “I was admiring your ship.”

“Njorden, are you?”

I nodded.

“Then get along to your mother. The harbour is no fit place for a maid,” he said dismissively, and he boarded the slender ship with an easy grace despite his size.

“I am looking for passage to Njord,” I called to him.

“You'll find none here,” he said without glancing in my direction.

“I understand you journey north.”

“I carry only cargo, not passengers.”

“Please, sir. I will work. I must get to…”

“No!” he thundered, this time glaring at me with those fierce eyes.

“Forgive Thor's ill manners, miss,” said a voice behind me, also in Njorden. “He is short on ale.”

I turned to see two men. They were rough-looking in garb and hygiene, but there was a twinkle in the eye of the smaller of the two, the one who had spoken. He was slight in build, though he looked agile and his thin arms were roped with muscle. His skin was deeply browned by the sun. He moved quickly as he boarded the
knorr
and went to a sea chest, on which he settled himself comfortably, leaning up against the side of the boat, his hands behind his head.

The other man was fair haired, tall and slow moving, with a broad, ugly face. He said nothing, though he looked calm and not unkind. He nodded at me as he, too, climbed on board.

“Ask if she cooks, Thor,” said the small man. “I don't think I can abide another sea journey eating your cooking.”

“I can cook,” I said quickly. “And I'll pay for my passage besides.”

“Listen to that, she cooks and has a dowry.” The small man grinned. “Tell me, are you betrothed, maid, for if not, I would make a fine husband for any…”

“I'll snatch out that flapping tongue of yours, Gest, if you don't get to work!” Thor bellowed.

The small man rose quickly and began to do something with the rigging.

“Please,” I said to the man called Thor. Though he was intimidating, I managed to look him straight in the eye. “I haven't any money…” I began.

He snorted. “Be off with you. You've wasted enough of my time.”

“But I do have this…” I continued, undeterred. I took out my leather wallet. I hated to give up another of my beautiful dresses, and so soon after the first. But I had to travel north.

As I shook out the gold dress, all three men stared. But then Thor growled, “What do I want with a lady's gown?” He pointedly turned his back on me and returned to his work.

The one called Gest said, “Don't be a fool, Thor. Why, you could buy a brand-new
knorr
with what you'd get in Paris for a dress like that. And you could fill its hold with enough ale to last a year, to boot.”

Thor slowly turned back, his face showing a flicker of interest. “Give it here,” he said, stepping back onto the dock. He ran the glittering fabric through his dirty calloused fingers. “Very well. I'll take you north,” he stated gruffly.

“Oh, thank you,” I said.

“I'll have this now,” he said, taking the gown from me. “We leave at sundown.” Roughly he folded up the golden fabric, and tucking it under his arm, he set off for town.

“You won't get nearly as much as it's worth, here in La Rochelle,” Gest called after him. But Thor ignored him.

Gest shrugged. “The man's got a mighty thirst on him.” He turned his attention to me. “Well, welcome aboard the good ship
Sif,
” he said. “What's your name, lass?”

“Rose,” I replied.

“Rose, is it? I am Gest, at your service, and this is my mate, Goran.” The fair-haired man nodded at me. “I don't suppose, Miss Rose, you know how to make raspberry cake out of salt pork and hard bread?”

“Perhaps not, but I can manage
rommegrot,
if you have a measure of wheat flour,” I said.

A wide smile creased his face. “Ah, bless you, child,” he said.

“May I ask,” I said, “where exactly this ship is headed?”

“You may well ask. The destination is upward of Suroy, but with old Thor at the steering oar, you never can tell. If he's full of ale, which is what that golden dress is headed for, he's likely to steer us into a storm cloud thinking he's found Valhalla.”

I felt giddy with excitement. Suroy was near the top of Njord and this was just what I'd hoped for, though I was also a little uneasy at Gest's words. I could only pray that he was exaggerating.

I decided to use the time until sundown to write a letter to my family. When I was done I went back to the caravel and, keeping out of sight of Captain Contarini, managed to find a friendly sailor who was willing to take my letter – along with the last of my coins – across to Tonsberg, and then make sure it got from there to Andalsnes. Of course, I had no guarantee he would do as he said, but I sensed an honesty in him, as well as a dislike for the way his captain had treated me.

It was approaching twilight when I found my way back to the
knorr.
But before I even saw the ship, I could hear Thor singing at the top of his voice.

“
Reach for your mead horn and raise it high.

Odin the great! Thunder god Thor!

Balder the mild, and Freya sweet.

We toast until Valhalla is reeling!
”

As I came up to the
knorr,
I smelled a strong stink of ale.

Thor was sprawled at the rear of the ship, his hand gripping the steering oar. Gest greeted me cheerfully, helped me aboard, and gestured to me to take a seat. “Could be a rocky departure,” he warned.

“Ready to cast off?” he called to Thor.

Thor kept singing.

Gest nimbly unfastened all the ropes binding the boat to the dock, and he and Goran pushed off. The sail filled and the ship lurched forwards. “That old souse won't give up the steering oar for the life of him,” Gest muttered as he passed me, grabbing at a rope that was whipping around the deck.

Anxiously I gazed ahead at the seawalls protecting the entrance to the harbour. We looked to be heading straight towards the starboard one, but eventually Thor heaved the steering oar and we just cleared it. He laughed loudly and then resumed his song. We were out on the open sea.

“We are lucky,” Gest said. “We have a southeast wind.” It served us well for the first two days of the journey.

I had never been on anything larger than a rowboat, much less a ship such as this. It was clinker-built, Gest told me, which was a style of boat building that involved overlapping the planks in a fashion that made it shimmy through the waves like a sea-dwelling snake.

Surprisingly, I took to life aboard the
knorr
without difficulty. Gest had predicted I would get seasick, being such a landlubber, but I did not. I loved the sea wind on my face and the feeling of skimming the waves.

On the second day of the journey, we spied the brooding white cliffs of the land called Anglia to the northwest. If I had not known better, I would have thought the cliffs were snow-covered, but Gest told me they were white because of limestone, a chalky rock.

Soon we came out on Njordsjoen, the sea I had travelled through in a sealskin, borne by the white bear.

The journey was uneventful for the next five days. I learned how to cook on a
knorr
when the water wasn't too choppy, using a small cauldron hung on a tripod. My cooking was only just adequate, given what I had to work with, but Gest praised me lavishly – mostly, I think, to annoy Thor. Gest was an extremely amiable, entertaining travelling companion, while Goran remained silent, and Thor spoke only to the two men, ignoring me almost completely.

Eventually Thor sobered up, at least for a time, and it became clear that he knew his boat and the seas – and that he would have been a very good captain, were it not for his weakness for ale. Gest had been right; most of what Thor got for the golden dress had gone to buying casks of ale. They were stowed in the sturdiest part of the storage area below decks, and Thor visited there frequently, refilling a smaller cask that he would keep at his side.