Wolfskin (17 page)

The second day brought a thick blanket of cloud. On the
Golden Dragon,
Ulf could be seen squinting at his sunstones, trying to fix his
course. As long as there was the smallest patch of blue somewhere in the sky, a man who had the right skill could catch the sun's light in the crystalline depths of these stones and use it to help find his way. Ulf had brought ravens, as well, but he would not release them yet, for the fleet had not journeyed far enough from Rogaland; the birds would simply turn and fly straight for home. The true test would come in a day or two, if the wind stood fair.

Some of the passengers had begun to get their sea legs, and among these was a lively infant of perhaps three years old, a sturdy little fellow with a dangerous bent for exploration. His mother was prostrate, retching and moaning; the other folk tried to curb the child, but what with the rocking of the boat, and the need to keep out of the crew's way and tend to those who were sick, it was no easy matter. There was a girl, the boy's sister, a fair-haired lass of about fourteen, sweet-featured and quiet; she hauled the infant back from trouble time after time with soft-voiced reprimands, but it was a bit like ordering the wind not to blow, or the tide not to come in. This was a boy who would make a fine sort of man, if the gods let him get that far.

Toward midday, the girl was busy tending to her mother, and most of the others were rolled miserably in their damp blankets trying to shut out a world that had grown suddenly too difficult. Eyvind was coaxing the restless cattle into sampling grain from a bucket when he spotted the small lad scaling the knarr's side to perch precariously astride the rail, a hair's breadth from tumbling over and down to the chill surge of the sea. There was nobody near the boy; the crew were rowing, or steering, or sleeping, and Firehead was in the stern keeping an eye on the other boat and shouting orders as necessary in that strange seaman's tongue:
Aaar-dup! Eee-way!
The child teetered; the swell rose; two crewmen moved into position to swing the whisker-pole. As soon as they did that, the whole vessel would shudder and shift, and even those lying on deck would need to hold on, not to be tumbled hither and thither. Eyvind opened his mouth to shout a warning, but the crewmen moved too fast, the whisker-pole swung across, shifting the great crackling sail, and the knarr juddered and swung after it, obedient to the wind. The boy toppled and fell, and quick as a flash, a man who had been hidden from view because he was leaning over the side, retching the last drops of bile out of his tortured gut, reached to grab one small arm, hooked his own foot under the ledge that skirted the oar ports, strained to haul in his shrieking catch before the wind and the waves snatched the two of them off the boat into a last cold embrace. Eyvind
sprinted across the slanting, slippery deck, and now others too saw Somerled hanging there, his foot, jammed under the railing, the only thing that kept him and the boy from the ocean's icy grasp. The wind rose, bearing the child's screams away from his lips as if they were of no account whatever. Somerled's face was the color of fresh cheese, his jaw was set grim, his hands gripped white-knuckled around the child's arm. He did not have enough purchase to pull the lad to safety, and his foot was beginning to slip now, the boot leather tearing under the strain.

“Help me, will you?” he hissed through tight-clenched teeth as at last Eyvind reached his side. Both taller and stronger than Somerled, he had no trouble reaching down to seize the child under the arms and lift him to safety. The boy's screams subsided to hiccupping sobs; his sister, ashen-faced, took him in trembling arms and proceeded to scold him roundly, with tears of fright glinting in her blue eyes.

“All right?” Eyvind inquired as Somerled eased his cramped arms, and unhooked his foot with extreme caution, as if it might be hurting quite a lot.

“Yes,” said Somerled faintly, “or maybe no. Excuse me,” and he leaned back over the rail, his stomach heaving anew in protest at the knarr's relentless movement. It took a while. “Perhaps that's all, until next time,” Somerled observed, straightening up and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “My brother must be crazy. Who'd do this by choice?” Then he looked up and saw the girl standing before him with the child, now quiet, in her arms.

“Thank you,” she said, looking at him under her lashes. “You saved his life. Thank you so much.”

Somerled appeared quite taken aback, as if he did not think what he had done was in any way remarkable. “It's nothing,” he said, reaching out to pat the child rather awkwardly on the arm. “Don't mention it.”

“It didn't seem like nothing to me,” the girl ventured, her cheeks turning a delicate pink. “And thank you, too.” She glanced at Eyvind and quickly away, as folk sometimes did with his kind. “My brother's always getting into trouble,” she went on shyly. “I'll try to look after him better. And I'm sorry you're so sick.”

Somerled did not reply, but he watched the girl as she made her way back to her mother's side and settled her small brother with bribes of salt fish and wrinkled apples. Then one after another of the crew came forward to clap Somerled on the back and congratulate him for his quick thinking, and comment that they'd like to share an ale with him, only it would hardly be worth it since he'd be lucky to keep it in his belly long enough to enjoy
it. Somerled had become a sort of hero.

Firehead did not shake his hand and grin and make friendly jokes. Firehead had not moved from where he stood in the stern of the knarr, alone. But he watched with narrowed eyes, and Eyvind read the look on his hard features and was uneasy. It was unfortunate, he thought, that Somerled had traveled on the very same craft as this taciturn fellow who might or might not have once gone by the name Sigurd. Yet, if Somerled had been on the
Golden Dragon
with Ulf and Margaret, that lad would have fallen overboard and drowned. You could never second-guess the gods. Still, Eyvind would be glad when they reached their destination and could pay off the knarr's crew and get on with things. Maybe Somerled's newfound popularity would set him in better stead with his brother. One could always hope.

The weather got rougher, so rough they could not go under sail. They used the oars as best they could to keep within sight of the longship. The passengers grew quieter and the stock noisier. A crewman was heard threatening to wring the gander's neck if it didn't leave off that wretched honking. Eyvind shoveled cattle dung over the side and tried to ration the grain. He did notice, once or twice, that the fair-haired girl was talking to Somerled quite a bit, and he wondered what the two of them could possibly have in common. Since Somerled was still spending half his time leaning over the sea retching, he was surely less than an ideal companion. Once, Eyvind saw the girl slip as a wave caught the knarr, lifting the bows high, and Somerled's arm come out quickly to steady her. If anything, Eyvind was pleased by this development. She was a little young, certainly, but if she took Somerled's mind off his brother's wife, that surely had to be good.

On the fourth day, Ulf released one of his ravens. The bird circled the fleet and flew off westward. They waited. By nightfall the creature had not returned, and Ulf conveyed to the other ship by shouts and signs that he was well pleased. It seemed their course was true.

Eyvind had had little sleep, but he was used to that. A warrior is trained to endure far worse hardships. That night he slumbered lightly, for all his weariness, and woke abruptly while it was still pitch dark. He could not identify what he had heard. He only knew it meant danger. Not the boat: it was moving steadily and slowly, sail reefed, anchor trailing. The folk slept safe under the awning, the stock were mercifully quiet. He could see the fellow on watch in the bow, up beyond the sleeping area. All seemed well. But he had heard it. Eyvind got quietly to his feet, and there it was again: not
creaking timbers nor snore of man or woman, not moving water nor cry of sea creature, but something wrong, something out of place. A hissing gasp, a wheeze of expiring air, a sound born of pain. He moved. A hunter has sharp eyes and sharper ears. Something dark by the rail on the port side: perhaps only Somerled being sick again? No, there were two men here, and the one bent over the rail was held there forcibly, pinned down by the other. The redheaded man had a grip on Somerled's hair and was pushing his head downward, crushing his neck against the rail. Somerled's left arm flailed helplessly, his right was twisted up behind his back at an impossible angle. It was his gasp Eyvind had heard, the sound a man makes when he has not quite enough time to breathe before his throat is constricted once more. And Firehead's fierce whisper, “That's for today…and that's for yesterday…and that's for what you did before…”

Eyvind was there in two great strides, grabbing Firehead by the arms. The fellow was strong; his fingers were most reluctant to give up their deathlike grip on Somerled's hair. Eyvind applied a well-practiced technique involving a knee to a particular point in the back, and Firehead gave a grunt of pain and released his hold. Somerled crumpled to the deck, sucking in a strangled, croaking breath. Eyvind backed Firehead against the knarr's rail, holding him fast with a cunning grip on the neck. Firehead had stopped struggling, realizing, perhaps, that it was pointless when the man who held you was a Wolfskin.

“You can let me go,” he muttered. “I've no quarrel with you.”

“What sort of fool are you?” hissed Eyvind. “You nearly killed him! Your job's to sail this thing and follow Lord Ulf's orders, not strangle his family! What am I supposed to do with you?” Cautiously he released his grasp. Firehead stared back at him, his face reduced to a mask of moonlight and shadow in the rocking dark. Beside them, Somerled was getting slowly to his feet. His breathing sounded tight and painful.

Firehead spat on the deck. “I've told you,” he said flatly. “But you wouldn't hear me. He's at it again; he'll never change. Haven't you seen him with that girl, the one with the young brother? But no, you wouldn't notice, you're blinded by the promise you made. You should have let me finish this now.”

It was as good as telling them who he was; who he had once been.

“We thought you might be able to put that behind you,” Eyvind said quietly. “Not let it poison your whole life. My mother thought you might have come back. There's always been a place for you at Hammarsby. It's
your home as much as it is mine and Eirik's.”

“There's no going back.” Firehead's tone was bleak. He turned and walked away, down to his watch in the stern, and the darkness swallowed him.

“Are you all right?” Eyvind whispered to Somerled, who was touching his throat gingerly. “We'll have to report this to the ship's master; he nearly killed you.”

“No need,” Somerled croaked.

“But—”

“Leave it, Eyvind. This will work itself out. Trust me.”

“But, Somerled—”

“Leave it, will you?”

The next morning Ulf released a second raven, and they observed its direction before hoisting sails and following after. The wind was strong from the north, there was a relentless swell, and progress was both fast and uncomfortable. All longed for the voyage to be over.

As for what had happened the night before, both Firehead and Somerled appeared to have forgotten it. Each behaved as usual, the one occupied with sailing the ship, the other still spending most of his time doubled over the rail. Somerled was no seafarer. Eyvind was beginning to relax, thinking that there was not so far to go now, and perhaps they might get there without further trouble, when there was a sudden bellow from the stern of the knarr, followed by a chorus of shrieks from the passengers. The bull, which had been growing increasingly restless as the days of close confinement and lurching movement went on, had begun to jerk its head about with some violence, snorting and stamping. Two stout ropes tethered the creature to iron rings set in the decking, but it was not hobbled. Such fetters would pose too great a risk of breaking a limb if the ship's movement caused a fall, and this fine animal was to be the foundation of Ulf's breeding herd. Now its angry struggles had broken one of its tethers, leaving only a single length of rope to restrain it. Sensing freedom close, it continued to buck and twist and pull at this last bond, roaring its anger. The heifers raised their voices in support; the sheep, chickens, and geese joined in hysterically, driving the bull to more strenuous efforts. And suddenly, amidst the cacophony of animal noises, there was a sound of splitting timber as the pine decking started to give beneath the onslaught of the creature's hooves. The crewmen backed away, oars abandoned. The women screamed, gathering children in close. Little imagination was required to picture what damage a beast of that size, with those horns, could do to ves
sel and passengers before it might be checked or leap overboard in its frenzy. The head jerked anew, the horns scythed through the air. Folk cringed. Who could get anywhere near, even supposing anyone were foolish enough to try?

They say a Wolfskin does not know fear, not as a normal man does. It did not occur to Eyvind to stand back. Arming himself with a looped length of rope, he moved in on the crazed bull, holding the tether unobtrusively by his side. He made his progress slow and quiet, balancing each step against the knarr's movement. On the other side, Firehead was edging in behind the thrashing animal. He had seized a short pole with an iron hook on one end. Because they had done this sort of thing before, catching stock for branding or gelding, there was no need for either man to speak; each knew his part. Firehead would try to get a purchase on the remaining tether, or the horns, while Eyvind moved in to loop the rope on and secure it. They'd need to be quick; the single restraint was starting to give, and the boards beneath the bull's hooves were cracking and splitting. The animal was kicking at random, and the swinging of its head grew ever wilder.