The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (26 page)

The squanderer of the sea’s fire

today offered me a broad untempered

blade and a whetstone with it that was

too little to take as compensation.

                                                             The Saga of Ref the Sly

When the sun came up that morning, turning the impenetrable blackness into a dull gray, and revealing with its indifferent illumination several miles of ocean, the coast of Ireland was still in sight. Thorgrim, sitting as he had been through the dark hours at the steering oar they rigged over the curach’s transom, was happy to see it.

  Starri was hunkered down on the weather side, huddled and miserable. He was not pleased at all to be out at night on the big water in a small boat, vulnerable to those phantoms of the darkness and the sea swirling about him, dangers that could not be faced with an ax or a sword. He greeted the rising sun with visibly relief.

  “Night Wolf!” he said brightly as the coast slowly resolved itself out of the mist, running north to south along the starboard side, a dark, low line in a dull gray world. “Here I thought sure you had sailed us right to Hel, but I see you have not!” He was wrapped in a blanket against the cold and he peaked out like some creature looking warily out of its burrow.

  “I believe that’s Ireland,” Thorgrim said. “Might be Hel. They might be one and the same, for all I know.”

  They had been underway since late afternoon of the previous day, two hours after Thorgrim’s eyes had lighted on the curach pulled ashore at Vík-ló. Most of the Northmen had dismissed the thing as silly, a child’s toy, not a sea-going vessel. But Thorgrim could see the potential of such a boat; light but well-built, with the sort of lines that could weather moderately large seas if handled correctly.

  What’s more, they had no other choice. The only other vessel in sight was the longship
Wind Dragon
, which they could not have sailed by themselves even if it had not been half-burned by the Irish raiders.

  They set right to work. From the various stacks of rigging and gear piled on shore they found two long oars, and with axes hacked them to the proper length for a mast and a short yard. They found line for a rudimentary halyard and stays and shrouds. It was not a lofty rig – Thorgrim did not think the light hull, ballasted by her two-man crew and what scant provisions they were able to assemble, would stand up to too much pressure aloft.

  The sail was scavenged from the stack of
Far Voyager
’s cargo and material that had been left behind when she sailed. It was, in fact, the very cloth that had saved the ship weeks before when Starri had stretched it over the side to slow the water jetting in through the stove planks. They dug through the pile of empty casks that would be filled with water for the voyage home, dried beef and pork, spare bedding, tools, buckets of tar, coils of rope, spare oars, all the things they had not bothered loading for the short jaunt down the coast, looking for things that could be of use to them now.

  And at the center of that pile, all but buried, lay much of the treasure that Thorgrim’s crew had amassed in their raids, in particular their bold feint at Tara the previous spring. Some of that plunder, consisting mostly of silver with a smattering of gold and jewels, had been divided out and was now stowed down in the men’s sea chests aboard the ship. But much of it was still here, secured in small chests and waiting disbursement.

  They had left it behind because they had thought Vík-ló a safer place than a ship on the high seas, but Thorgrim was no longer sure that was the case. Vík-ló did not seem terribly safe anymore. But there was nothing for it now. They certainly could not take the plunder aboard the curach. Thorgrim could only hope for the chance to return and collect it up before they sailed for home, but he no longer knew if that chance would come. He had no idea what was happening beyond the southern horizon, and it was that uncertainty and anxiety that drove him on.

  Thorgrim pulled the cloth free, cut it to size and rigged it to the yard. The workmanship was not something he would have been proud to show off, but with his growing fear for the fate of his son and his men it was enough that this lash-up would last through what he hoped would be a short trip south.

  They loaded a sack of dried meat and bread and a small breaker of water aboard and pushed the boat out into the fast-moving river. The sun was dropping in the west as they took up the oars and pulled for open water. Once they were clear of the shore they set the small square sail, the yard swung nearly fore and aft, and then they settled on thwarts on the weather side to hold the boat more level as the northeast breeze drove it along.

  The wind had not deserted them all night, blowing at strengths that ranged from moderate to threatening. While the sun was still above the horizon Starri suggested, in a most circumspect way, that they might consider beaching the frail wood and leather boat and sleeping ashore. But Thorgrim would not tolerate such a delay and Starri did not press the issue. Soon after that it was no longer an option, because once the light of day was gone entirely it was too dangerous to try to feel their way through the rock-strewn waters off shore and hope to find a beach that was not pounded by surf. So they sailed on.

  The skies were overcast and no stars could be seen, leaving Thorgrim with no reliable way to judge their course. He knew only that the wind and seas had been taking the boat on the larboard quarter since they had cleared the River Leitrim, so he kept it that way and hoped those things would not change dramatically during the night. He angled the bow a bit more to the east so they would tend to sail away from shore, rather than toward it, to compensate for any leeway they might make. There was nothing more he could do beyond holding as steady a course as possible and waiting for the light of day or the sound of seas breaking on the deadly shore.

  Now, with the coming of dawn, he saw that the gods had been pleased as they so often were with his making the bold choice.

  “Here, Starri, let’s brace that yard around a bit,” Thorgrim said, nodding up toward the sail. During the night they had worked their way farther off shore than Thorgrim had intended, and now he meant to alter course to the west and close with the land.

  “Yes, Thorgrim, certainly, but let me attend to this first,” Starri said. He shucked off the blanket and stepped nimbly to the leeward side, then up onto the boat’s rail. With one hand on the shroud for balance, he fumbled with his tunic and leggings and then with an audible sigh relieved himself into the sea. Thorgrim wondered how long Starri had been holding off, unwilling to lean out over the black water, or, worse yet, expose his manhood to whatever lurked below the surface.

  Business finished, Starri dropped back into the bottom of the boat and adjusted the trim of the yard as Thorgrim swung the bow to the west. Then Starri relieved Thorgrim at the tiller so Thorgrim could take his turn at the leeward rail, and when that was done he served out a breakfast of dried meat, bread and water.

  The day grew warmer with the rising sun and though the warmest days of the summer were long past it was not unpleasant, running nearly before the wind as they were. They approached the coast of Ireland at an oblique angle, their course a little west of south. Soon the details of the shoreline became more clear, the jagged rocks and the breaking surf, the long stretches of beach and the rolling hills further inland. The gray overcast thinned as the sun rose, and the day grew warmer still, the visibility greater.

  “You know, Night Wolf, there’s much to be said for this small boat sailing,” Starri observed. He was standing on the weather rail, holding the shroud and leaning back, feeling the motion of the boat in his legs, letting the breeze whip his hair. Every once in a while the right combination of wind and wave would send a spray of salt water high into the air and shower him where he stood and he whooped with the exhilaration of it. Had it been anyone but Starri Deathless this behavior would have annoyed Thorgrim in the extreme, but Starri being who he was, Thorgrim knew it was pointless to be annoyed with him. Besides, his standing on the rail helped keep the boat on a more even keel and thus increased her speed.

  Still, Thorgrim could not resist pointing out that they were not on holiday. “We don’t know what we’ll find when we find the fleet,” Thorgrim pointed out. “Our men could be in great danger.” He did not mention Harald specifically. He did not mention his fear that they were already dead, all of them. He hardly dare think on it himself.

  But Starri only smiled. “They could be in great danger,” he agreed. “There could be a bloody fight.” To Starri this was the honey poured over the warm baked bread. He looked up at the sky and felt more spray dash over him and Thorgrim was grateful for the shelter Starri’s body provided. Then Starri looked forward and said, “Longship!”

  It took Thorgrim a second to register what he said, so lost was he in his worrisome reverie. “What? Where?” he said sharply as the understanding came.

  “There,” Starri said, pointing to a spot just off the larboard bow. Thorgrim leaned outboard so he could see around Starri’s legs. There was a longship rounding a headland perhaps four miles south of them. It was close-hauled, beating away from the coast, sailing a near easterly course.

  In the dull, cloudy light Thorgrim could make out no details, just a grey shape on the water, but it was the unmistakable shape of a vessel under sail. “Starri, can you see anything of her? Could she be
Far Voyager
?”

  Starri did not answer right off, but stared at the distant form in a genuine effort to determine what ship she was, but even with his eyesight, generally the keenest aboard, he could not tell. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Night Wolf. It might be
Far Voyager
. Or it might not.”

  Thorgrim frowned. He had a choice to make and nothing like enough information to make it wisely. If he changed course to intercept the ship, and it was Grimarr’s
Eagle’s Wing
, then there would be no escaping. He and Starri would be butchered. Thorgrim, weary as he was, was not particularly adverse to dying in battle, and if he could take Grimarr with him, he might even welcome it. Starri, of course, wished for nothing else. But Thorgrim would not throw his life away if there was still the chance that Harald needed him, needed his help. He could not leave this world if Harald’s life was in danger.

  On the other hand, if he headed toward the shore and the ship was indeed
Far Voyager
and she maintained her current heading, standing out to sea, he would never catch them. If they were making a run for England, if they disappeared over the horizon and left him behind in Ireland, thinking him dead, it might be years before he found them again. If he ever did.

  He was still staring at the distant vessel and thinking on these things when he saw her profile change. It looked for all the world as if her wide sail was being squeezed together, but Thorgrim had seen enough ships maneuver at sea to know she was coming about, turning onto a starboard tack. She was beating up the coast, not running for England, and that settled the matter for him.

  “Brace the sail square, Starri, we are going to get close in shore,” Thorgrim said. Without a word Starri cast off the leeward brace and gave a small tug on the weather side - no great hauling was required on their diminutive sail - and Thorgrim pulled the steering oar toward him a bit. The curach turned more westerly, heading almost directly for the coast.

  The distant longship was sailing on a starboard tack now, on a heading that would take her up to the Irish shore. The curach was also making for land, but Thorgrim did not think there was any chance that their paths would cross unless he wished them too. The longship would not dare get as close to shore as he would with his light, shallow boat. Before the bigger vessel came too dangerously near the rocks she would have to tack again and stand off shore. Indeed, Thorgrim wondered why they had tacked when they did. Had it been his ship, and he was trying to sail north along the coast, he would have gone miles off shore before tacking and standing in again.

 
Perhaps they have a reason for sailing as they are
, Thorgrim thought,
some reason I don’t know about.