No point in trying to explain. Just keep them wondering a little while longer.
“What do you make of our friend behind?” said Sigurth to Vestmar, indicating the Norfolk laboring a long mile in their rear.
“It's a clumsy rig, but he can sail it,” replied Vestmar briefly. “One thing, though. He doesn't know his way. See the lookout on the yard, and the skipper leaning over the prow looking for shoal water?”
“Plenty of that around,” said Sigurth. He turned to look inland. A coast nearly featureless. The two small islands of Neuwark and the Scharhorn already passed. The silty current of the Elbe stirring beneath the keel, and then nothing till the base of Jutland and the fought-over lands between Denmark and the Empire of the Germans.
“All right. Strike sail. Get the men to the oars. And get someone in the bow with a lead-line.”
Vestmar gaped, almost voicing a protest. A lead-line, he thought. But I know the Elber Gat like I know my wife's backside. And if we strike sail those bastards back there will be hurling their iötunn-rocks at us while we break our backs to get away. He swallowed the words and turned on his heel, calling hoarsely.
“We're gaining on them,” called Shef. “Cwicca, stand by the mule!”
Ordlaf did not reply. He looked tensely at the sky, looked again at the ship they were pursuing, took the lead which his crewman in the bow had passed to him. Sniffed the mud sticking still to the wax at the end of the lead cylinder on the five-fathom rope. Stuck a tongue out, tasted it.
“What are you doing that for?”
“Don't know,” muttered Ordlaf. “Sometimes you can tell if there's shellfish, what kind of sand it is… If there's a shoal coming up.”
“Look,” snarled Shef. “He doesn't know where he is either, he's had a man in the bow swinging the lead this last two miles, just like you. Keep behind him, and if he doesn't run aground you won't.”
Not as easy as that, young lord, thought Ordlaf, not as easy as that. There's other things, like the current—see him sliding through it like a snake while it grips our keel. And the wind, and these blasted squalls of rain coming down. And the tide. Is it still making? Now if I was at home in Yorkshire I'd feel it in my bones when we got to the full. But here in foreign parts who's to know when it turns? Can't be far off.
“Another quarter-mile and we're close enough for a shot,” called Shef. “Get the oars out bow and stern. Just leave space clear round the mule.”
As the grinning men heaved awkwardly in the short chop of the waves, the Norfolk picked up another trifle of speed, began visibly to close on the long dragon-shape ahead. Shef stared, estimating range and bearing.
“Right, that'll do. Take a good aim, Cwicca. Ordlaf, swing her to the right, no, to starboard, so we can shoot.”
As the Norfolk swung to the steering-oar, the sail canted round. Yells of rage from Cwicca as its lower edge blocked his view. A scurry of sailors hastily heaving the ropes to brail up. Ordlaf cursing furiously as the oarsmen faltered in their stroke and the prow swung further, steadied, lurched back. As the sail finally jerked up out of their way Shef and Cwicca gaped for a moment, wondering where their quarry had gone.
“There!” In the instants of confusion the Frani Ormr had jinked like a hare, spun to port, and was now directly stern on to them, moving away at a frantic speed, oars flashing like the last moments of a race.
“Too far for a shot now,” yelled Cwicca into Shef's ear, beside himself with excitement.
“They can't keep that up for long. Ordlaf, take us in after her.”
Ordlaf hesitated, eying the long ripples of shoal water either side of the fleeing Viking. Shoal water half a mile wide between two long banks just showing. Beyond that, a waste of unknown banks and channels leading for miles to the featureless German shore.
The memory of the other skipper's lead-line reassured him. Dangerous water, but he doesn't know it either. If anyone strikes, he'll strike first. The Norfolk heeled round, bringing the wind on to her other beam, spread sail again and headed for the narrow channel in her enemy's wake.
That'll do, thought Sigurth, feeling the faintest grate of sand under his keel. We're through, at the very top of the tide. He caught a glint of relief in Vestmar's eyes as well, hastily dropped. One of the rowers blew out his cheeks and, greatly daring, raised an eyebrow at the helmsman. They had felt the pull of the sand under their blades these last minutes, had rowed shallow automatically like the seamen they were. Now they could feel the water deepening again. Maybe the Snake-eye had not lost all his luck. Maybe…
Behind them Sigurth could see the English ship still coming on, the hammer and cross half-visible on her sail. And behind her a squall blowing across the flat open estuary, a squall that would catch up with her… Now.
As the rain drummed down with sudden April fury Ordlaf peered tensely over the bow. The leadsman's voice in his ear rose to a shriek: “Two fathom now, skipper, two fathom and I can see the shoal!”
“In oars,” bellowed Ordlaf in the same moment, “furl sail, stand by to back off.”
Too late. As he shouted, one of the oarsmen, swinging stoutly but unskillfully, felt his oar turn under him, twist and throw him bodily off his bench, half over the side. Jammed in the sand, the stout ash wood held the weight of the driving ship for an instant, dragged her over, snapped into splinters. As the ship heeled, more oars caught, throwing the rowers this way and that. The last gust of the squall caught the sail, drove the keel on to the crest of a wave. Dropped her with a grinding thud on the sand. For seconds there was total confusion as Ordlaf and his mates, yelling frenziedly, kicked men out of their way, heaved ropes, seized oars, tried first to boom the ship off the bank on to which she had run, then to prop her at least on an even keel. Slowly the noise died, the landsmen, their king included, huddled nervously in the center of the boat. Shef found himself facing a pair of reproachful eyes.
“We didn't ought to have done it. Run aground right on top of the tide. Look—” Ordlaf pointed over the gunwale at the sandbanks already appearing to either side, as the sea started its long six-hour ebb.
“Are we in any danger?” asked Shef, remembering the way Ragnar's two knorrs had run aground and gone to pieces before both of them two long springs before.
“No, not danger of breaking up. It's soft sand, and we hit fairly slow. But they took us in proper.” Ordlaf shook his head with rueful admiration. “I bet that skipper there knew where he was to the inch. Swinging away with that old lead-line, and just drawing us on. And now a mile off and making his way back to sea.”
Shef looked round sharply, suddenly conscious of what might happen if the Snake-eye and his picked crew came wading across the shallows. But they were nowhere to be seen. He stepped to the prow and looked slowly and carefully right round the flat gray horizon, looking for the mast, the Raven banner that had been flying in front of them not ten minutes before. Nothing to be seen. In some inlet or creek the Frani Ormr was lurking like a poison snake, waiting for the tide and clear passage out. Shef sighed deeply, tension released, and turned back to Ordlaf and the silent crew. “Can we get off before nightfall?” Ordlaf shrugged. “We can try and kedge her off. Keep everyone busy.”
Hours later, the mood round the stranded ship had lightened, lifted by hard work, sweat and a growing feeling that at least the battle had been won, even if some of the enemy had got away.
The dropping tide—fifteen feet of drop in these parts—had revealed to everyone what the Norfolk had done. She lay now half a mile from the main Elbe channel, in a shallow valley between two long sandbanks, with runnels and streamlets stretching in all directions through the rounded hillocks of the shoals, broken here and there only by planks and ribs from long-forgotten wrecks. At first Ordlaf had had the crew over the side, digging round and under the keel with the intention of dragging the boat bodily backward the way she had come. As the tide fell and the distance to the main channel became clear, they had abandoned that idea. Not more than sixty or seventy feet ah
ead there lay another deep-water channel, still ten feet or more deep even with the tide almost out. Clearly the Ragnarsson skipper had reached it, knowing well it was there, and then swung right or left while his enemy's attention was distracted. Inland towards Hamburg and the main channel, or out to sea by some unknown route, it made no difference now. Now the business of the Norfolk's crew was to drag their ship the few feet needed to get her over the almost imperceptible crest of the shoal, and then down and into deep water. Already they had dug the sand away in front of her so that her bows now pointed definitely if gently down. But to shift her before the night-time tide, they needed a purchase.
Ordlaf had rigged one rope already, fixed at one end to the ship's anchor firmly planted in hard sand, passed round the base of the mast, and then handed to thirty men hauling together. The ship had stirred, groaned. Remained motionless.
“We need another rope,” said Ordlaf. “With a straighter pull if we can get it, and room for the rest of the lads to heave. Best if we could fix it over there.” He pointed to the sandbank the other side of the channel in front of them, maybe thirty yards wide.
“Have you got one long enough?” asked Shef.
“Yes. And we've fixed up another anchor out of halberd-heads. We just got to get it over there.”
Shef heard a silent appeal. The Norfolk, big as she was in comparison with other vessels of her day, was far too small to carry even a dinghy in the cramped space that had to hold everything, crew and provisions. She had instead a tiny craft made of skin over a pole frame, more a coracle than a canoe, hard to steer and easy to capsize. Ordlaf or any of his Norfolk fishermen could handle it, but they were busy at skilled tasks. Any of the landsmen who made up the rowers and mule-team would certainly capsize it and drown.
Shef sighed. An hour before he had drawn out the last of the ship's scanty, daily-renewed store of firewood, and told Cwicca to light a fire on the sand, rig the ship's great iron kettle, and make what he could out of the hard rations: flour, salt fish and barley meal. To a hungry man the smell beginning to rise from the kettle was tempting. He looked at the sun already sinking down the sky, considered a night spent struggling in rising water, and gave in.
“All right. I suppose I was a fenman before they made me a jarl or a king. I'll do it.”
“Can you handle it?”
“Watch me. If I didn't have the anchor to carry I could swim over in a dozen strokes anyway.”
Ordlaf's boatswain loaded the anchor carefully in the bottom of the coracle, keeping sharp edges away from the hide, made certain the rope attached ran freely. Shef looked again at the kettle, calculated the distance and the chances of an upset, and removed the gold circle he wore as a sign of rank. He handed it to Hwithelm, a handsome youth of noble family and impenetrable stupidity who had been forced upon him as his ceremonial swordbearer, and who was already carrying his sword-belt.
“Hold that till I come back.”
Hwithelm frowned at the casualness of the gesture, but slowly accepted its sense. “And your bracelets, lord?”
Shef thought for a moment, then slowly pushed the gold bracelet he wore on each bicep down and over his wrists, passed them to Hwithelm. They were unlikely to fall off, but if the coracle tipped over, as was likely enough, who knew what might happen?
He strolled to the edge of the channel, settled himself in the coracle, accepted the paddle, and shoved off. A difficult craft to steer with only one paddle and an awkward weight in it that brought the sea to within three inches of the gunwale. The trick lay in a twist of the paddle to straighten her up with every stroke. Cautiously Shef navigated across, tormented all the while by the smell of food, splashed ashore, dug the anchor in to cries of direction from Ordlaf. Then, with more haste as he heard the sounds of pottery bowls being served out, scrambled back in for the return crossing.
The rope was stretched across the channel. Easier than paddling was to sit with his back to the ship and haul himself along the rope, hand over hand.
Slowly Shef realized that the shouting from the ship had changed its tone, become urgent, frantic. He turned to the left, as he always did with his one eye, to see what was happening. Nothing visible, but Ordlaf with a look of horror on his face gesturing and pointing. Pointing to the right.
Shef swung hastily the other way, almost overturning the coracle with the jerk. For a moment all he could see was a black bulk throwing white water, almost on top of him. Then his mind took in what it saw.
The Frani Ormr bearing down on top of him, oars flashing, bow-wave curling to either side of the narrow channel. With mast stepped and snake-prow and dragon-tail removed she had lain concealed, no higher than a war-canoe, behind some nameless and invisible bank, watching her opportunity. Now she had seen it and was coming down as if to ram and trample her frail enemy under. In the same instant that he recognized the boat Shef saw a scarlet-caped warrior leaning over the prow, a mighty spear balanced in his hand. His teeth showed in a grimace of hate and concentration. In that instant Shef knew that there was no chance such a man would miss his throw. The arm went back, the spear poised.
Shef hurled himself instantly over the side, down into the water, plunging desperately for depth. A great surge in the water pressed him further down till he felt the sand grate on his chest, for a moment he felt as if he would be caught between keel and sea-bottom, he scrabbled furiously up and away. Something struck him a glancing blow on the side of the head, an oar digging deep, and he dived again. Then his lungs would bear no more, he had to surface and breathe, but the surface was not there, he fought his way up with frantic strokes…
Shef shot gasping into the air a few yards behind the Ormr's stern, stared wildly round him, struck out for the nearest shore. Found himself back on the sandbank where he had sunk the anchor. On the opposite bank someone had turned over the kettle, swords and halberds were being thrown to men clustered round their ship, a line of helmets showed over its gunwale as the dozen crossbowmen wound their weapons. Ordlaf was shouting directions, preparing to fight off an assault over the sand. No chance of bringing the mule to bear as the Norfolk lay, bows on to the channel and in any case tilted half over on one side.
The Frani Ormr was turning in her own length in the narrow channel, port oars pulling, starboard reversing. Turning not towards the Norfolk, but towards Shef, standing isolated on the wrong side of the deep water. Shef contemplated a plunge and a dozen strokes back to his friends, hesitated, imagining the harpoon plunging into his back as he swam. Too late. The prowless Ormr was stroking steadily towards him, a handful of men clustered by the side watching him intently.
Shef backed away, further up the sandbank, out of easy javelin range, wondering what came now. He was weaponless and alone. A cry and the oars stopped their beat, remained jutting out from the rowlocks. A man stepped over the side, on to one, walked down it in sailor's goatskin shoes, jumped the last feet on to the hard sand. A young man, Shef saw watching warily a dozen yards away. But tall and strong, with a gold bracelet round one biceps.
A rush of air overhead, and another. Crossbow bolts from the Norfolk, trying to help. But a long carry from stranded ship to channel and then across the channel, and the bulk of the Ormr in the way. Shef backed further as the young man drew his sword. Three more men stepped on to oars and made their way towards him. Shef, sparing just one glance from his nearest enemy, recognized all three: Halvdan Ragnarsson, who had umpired his holmgang at York, Ubbi Ragnarsson the grizzled, and between them Sigurth, who had taken Shef's eye at Bedricsward. As if remembering, Shef's empty eye-socket suddenly gushed salt water. The Ragnarssons held axe, sword and spear. All three wore mail. The young man closest to Shef did not.
Shef turned and began to run down the sandbank. It took him away from the Norfolk, but that could not be helped. If he stayed where he was, they would kill him, if he ran across the bank he would be floundering in water again in a few strides. Mistake, he realized an instant later. He was running the same way as the Ormr was facin
g, and she was keeping easy pace with him on his right, shielding his pursuers from the crossbows and with men ready for a shot with bow or javelin. He veered to the left, hearing feet pounding on the sand behind him. The bank came to an end. He hurled himself straight out into the water in a flat dive, took three, four, powerful strokes, felt the sand under his belly again and scrambled to his feet once more.
A dozen strides and he risked a look over his shoulder. The young man had hesitated on the edge of the water, but was splashing through it, no more than waist-deep. The Ragnarssons were behind, older men and weighed down by their mail, but spreading out to cross the little channel yards apart and cut off any break back. In front of him, and on both sides, there lay nothing but a confusion of rounded banks, with pools and shallow runnels draining to the main channels. Every now and then one of the runnels was a deep one. That was where they might catch him, still swimming as Sigurth aimed his spear or the young man caught his heel. But if he got enough of a lead he could swim one of them and get away. Men in mail would not be anxious to try a deep channel, and would lose sight of him if they did.
Shef turned as the young man reached shore, and ran again. Ran just a little slower than his best, swerving and glancing over his shoulder every dozen yards, as if terrified. Fifty yards and splash through a shallow pool. Fifty more and round a steeper bank. The Ormr a furlong away now and powerless to intervene, the Ragnarssons spread out and calling to each other to keep him in sight. The tall young man's panting easy to hear as he closed the gap, raising his sword every few strides as if hoping to strike. Vikings were poor runners, Shef remembered grimly.
He swerved through another knee-deep rivulet, leapt up the other side on to firm sand, and swung round.
The young man paused in the water, then grinned exultantly and leapt forward, sword up for a forehand cut. Shef sprang inside the blow, both hands grabbing the right wrist, and backheeled his enemy's legs from under him. Both went down with a thud on the sand, the sword bouncing away.
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