The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) (31 page)

A handful of us—myself, Einar, Gudfred, and the Ravens—had remained at the encampment with Hastein, to continue searching it. "Sigvald and his men must have robbed passing ships of silver, as well as these goods," Hastein said. "No doubt he has hidden it somewhere nearby—probably buried it." We questioned Skjold, but he claimed he had no knowledge of any buried treasure.

The Oelanders and their women had also remained at the encampment, waiting there for the ship to come around. Most of the women looked harshly used, and some had fresh bruises on their faces and bodies. We learned that it was the two youngest of the nine stolen women who had died: Osten's wife, who had been but fifteen years of age, and another man's daughter, even younger still. Both had been comely girls, according to Nori. Their youth and beauty had caused them to be the most frequently abused by the pirates. It had proved more than their hearts and bodies could stand.

Rauna had retreated to her tent after she had heard Hastein and Gudfred speak of her father's death, and she had not come out since.

"What do you intend to do with her?" Hastein asked me.

The question caught me by surprise. "I? Nothing." Once the pirates had been slain she had ceased being a concern to me. In truth, I had given her no further thought at all, after we'd begun searching the encampment.

"It
is
strange. Would you not agree?" he asked. "You and her father meet in battle, and you best him. Though you are an enemy and a stranger to him, before he dies he asks you to find his daughter and give her something. You agree, although you have no belief that you will ever do so. Then, just days later, you find her. I do wonder what was in the pouch. I wish you had looked."

I suspected where Hastein was going with this. He saw the work of the Norns in it. I did not. He was wondering if the Norns had caused my path and that of the girl's to cross for some purpose. But no doubt the Finn had expected us to search for the pirates' encampment after the battle. He had known that if we did, we would find his daughter there. There was nothing more to it than that. It was not so strange, after all.

I shrugged. "She is not my concern," I said.

Hastein's gaze shifted to something behind me. "Ah," he replied. "Then it is also not your concern that the Oelanders appear to have plans for her."

I turned to look where he was staring. Two men—Nori and Osten—were standing in front of Rauna's tent. As I watched, Osten lifted the flap that covered the entrance into it, and started to step inside. He hastily backed away and shouted angrily, then walked over to where Rauna had piled branches of various sizes beside her fire ring. Sifting through them, he selected a stout limb the length of a man's arm, and strode back to the front of the tent.

I did not know the girl—she meant nothing at all to me—but I did not wish to see her beaten, or possibly even killed. I trotted across the clearing to the tent, Hastein following close behind.

"What is happening here?" I asked.

Osten, who was clearly very angry—his face was a dark shade of red, and his breathing was ragged—snapped, "This is no concern of yours."

Until moments before, I would have agreed completely.

"Osten's wife was stolen by the pirates," Nori said, as if that explained what was happening.

"We know that," Hastein replied, sounding impatient.

"They killed her. They killed my wife Bera. This is one of their women. I am taking her," Osten added.

I wondered for what purpose he wanted her. To replace his wife? As a slave? To kill? "And the stick?" I asked.

"She tried to cut me just now with a knife, when I told her she was to come with me. I am going to teach her to obey."

"You will put down the stick and leave," I told him. As I spoke, I shifted my bow to my left hand, and rested my right lightly on my belt, just above where my dagger hung in its scabbard. Osten took a step back when I did.

"The pirates took his wife and killed her. He has a just claim," Nori protested.

"I am sorry your wife was taken, and that she died," I told Osten, ignoring Nori. "But this girl had nothing to do with that. And she is under my protection. It was a promise I made to her father before he died. I will not break a promise made to a dying man."

Osten was angry, but he did not have a death wish. He was but a simple farmer, not a warrior. He dropped the stick, turned, and walked off, his gait stiff and awkward from the anger in his body.

"It seems she is a concern of yours, after all," Hastein said, an amused expression on his face. "What do you intend to do with her now?"

"I do not know," I replied.

"You should decide quickly," he said. "The
Gull
will be here soon."

After he left, I called into the tent, "Rauna, come out. The others are gone now. We need to speak."

After a few moments, she pulled the flap aside enough so that she could peer through the gap she'd made. Seeing no one but me, she pushed it aside and stepped out. She was holding a small knife, with a narrow blade and a handle made of carved bone, in her right hand. Seeing my eyes on it, she slid it into its leather scabbard that was hanging from the belt around her waist.

"Did you speak the truth?" she asked me. "Did you make a promise to my father to protect me?"

For few moments I was silent, weighing what to say. "No," I finally said, shaking my head. "I promised only to give you the pouch."

"So you lied."

I nodded. "Yes, I lied."

"And when you made your promise to my father, you did not know who or where I was. Were your words to him a lie as well?"

"They have not proved to be. I found you, and I gave you the pouch."

From her expression she did not find my answer convincing. I did not blame her.

"What do you wish of me? What do you plan to do with me?" she asked. "And do not lie this time."

"Nothing." That was certainly true, or so I hoped. "Do you have somewhere you can go? To your people perhaps?"

"I cannot even escape this island," she said. "How do you think I can find my people?"

I sighed. "I gave you my word that if you did not warn the others or flee, you would not be harmed. I have not lied to you. Gather your things together. We will take you from the island on our ship."

"And after? What will you do with me then?"

"I do not know. We will see what can be done."

*   *  *

It was a good thing that the voyage from the pirates' island back to our camp on Oeland was a short one. The
Gull
's deck was crowded with the bundles and barrels of goods we took from the pirates' encampment, plus the Oelanders and their women. Torvald grumbled at the added weight, and insisted that we discard some of our ballast stones so the ship would not ride too low in the water and be in danger of swamping if a wave should wash over her.

Rauna's possessions added considerably to the clutter on deck. The tent, even when folded up, made a sizable bundle, and the poles which had comprised its frame—which she'd insisted on bringing, though I suggested she could cut more when she needed them—were so long that the only place they could be stowed without causing a problem was on the raised rack where the longest oars were kept and the boom and sail were secured when we were not at sea. The remainder of her goods she had packed into three large leather bags, each with two straps sewn to them so they could be hauled on one's back. She did not travel lightly, and clearly did not appreciate how scarce space is aboard a ship.

"All three of these are yours?" I asked, nudging one of the leather bags with my foot. I could not imagine what one girl could possess to fill them up.

"Some of what is in them is mine. Most of it belonged to my father and my mother."

"Where is your mother?"

"She is dead."

I wondered again how she and her father had come to be a part of Sigvald's band.

I added the three bags and the bundled tent to the heap of cargo filling the center of the
Gull
's deck and led Rauna to the stern. At Torvald's direction, the Oelanders had settled themselves in the bow, just back of the raised fore-deck. I thought it best to keep her away from them, for Osten had glowered angrily at us when we'd come aboard. "That is mine," I told her, pointing to my sea chest, which for now was pushed against the ship's side just in front of the raised stern deck. "Stay close to it. Do not wander about and get in the way."

Torvald was in the stern now, too, still fretting over the ship's balance. "Why is she aboard?" he asked.

"We cannot just leave her on the island," I answered. From the look on his face, I could see that he did not agree. "Are you going to acquire a woman on every voyage we sail on?" he grumbled.

"What did he mean?" Rauna asked, after Torvald had stomped off toward the front of the ship.

I ignored her and began removing my weapons and armor to stow them in my sea chest. As soon as I opened it, I realized that lying in plain view inside was her father's quiver and arrows. I'd kept the arrows because I'd thought they would be matched in weight to his bow. I did not need another quiver, but I'd thought the leatherwork on this one was finely done, so I'd kept it anyway.

She stared at it for a few moments and then said, in a quiet voice, "That belonged to my father. My mother made it for him." She raised her eyes and looked at me, staring into my face. I had paid little attention to her features before. Her hair was the color of rye standing in the fields, at the end of the summer when it is dry and ready to be cut: too light to be called brown, but not pale golden either, like the color of Harald or Sigrid's hair. She had twisted it into a single long braid that hung down the center of her back. Her face had strong, high cheekbones, lightly dusted with freckles, and above them her eyes were a pale blue in color, with just a hint of gray, like the sky as evening approaches. They were glistening now with tears.

"On the island," she continued, "the man who is your leader…he said you killed my father."

I'd been wondering when she might say something about this. I was surprised she had not done so already. It made me feel very awkward, speaking with the daughter of a man I had slain.

"There was a battle out on the sea. You do know that, yes?" I asked her. She nodded.

"The pirates—the men your father was with—they attacked our ships. We fought them, and we defeated them. Most of the pirates were slain in the fight. Your father was among those who were killed."

"But was it you who killed him?"

I did not want to speak of this. I sighed and said, "He killed some of my comrades. He tried to kill me. Yes, I shot the arrow that felled him."

Now let this matter be, I thought, but she would not.

"If you killed him with your bow, how could you have spoken with him?"

"After we cleared—after we captured the ship he was on, I found him lying on the deck, where he had fallen. He still lived, but he was dying. He asked me if it was I who had shot him. When I told him that I had, he asked me to give you the pouch he was wearing around his neck."

I hoped she would not want to know more about how her father had died. I did not want to tell her that Gudfred had stuck his sword through her father's throat.

"What happened to his body?"

The same that had happened to all of the pirates' dead aboard Sigvald's ship. While we were being towed behind the
Gull
and the
Serpent
toward Oeland, we had thrown them overboard.

"We put it into the sea." I told her. As I said the words, I wondered if having done so would keep his spirit bound to this world.

"What happens to your people after they die?" I asked.

Her brow wrinkled in a frown and she shook her head. "I do not understand."

And I did not know how to explain. Did her people die at death—was that the end of their existence—or did they have spirits that could go on to another world, as those of our folk did? The spirits of my father Hrorik and my brother Harald had gone after their deaths to Valhalla, the feast-hall of the gods, who honored brave men and great warriors by welcoming them there. My mother was there, too, taken by Hrorik to be his consort in the afterlife. The spirits of all those among our people who were not great warriors went to Hel, the land of the dead, unless their spirits became bound to this world and they became draugrs. But I did not know if the Finns had spirits that lived on after their deaths. Did all men?

"I knew he was dead," she suddenly volunteered. "His spirit came and told me, on its way to the other side."

"The other side?"

"The spirit world."

Her words gave me a sense of relief. I did not regret killing this girl's father. He had been an enemy, and would willingly have killed me. But now that she was, for at least a brief time—through no wish of my own—in my care, it would have been even more awkward than it already was if I had also condemned him to be a draugr by preventing his body from receiving a proper burial.

"You saw your father's spirit?" I asked. After his death, Harald had more than once appeared to me in dreams. But I had never seen him when awake.

"It was in the evening of the day of the fight out on the water. I was at our tent, laying wood for a fire to cook the night meal. I did not know, at the time, that there had been a fight out on the sea. I only knew that the ships had gone out in the morning to hunt, and I was expecting that they would return soon. I heard a strange noise above me, a croaking voice that seemed to be saying my name: ‘Raa-naa, Raa-naa.' I looked up, and there was a raven in the tree above me. When our eyes met it nodded its head, and then flew away. In my heart I knew it was my father, and that he was telling me he had died."

"Your people become birds after they die?" It seemed a very strange belief.

She shook her head, and looked at me as if she thought me dim-witted.

"The raven allowed my father's spirit to enter its body, to get a message to me before he left this world completely and passed to the other side."

I thought it unlikely.

"Where is this place your people's spirits go to?" I asked.