Viking Gold

by V. Campbell

  “Could be,” Redknee agreed. “Or they could just be a dirty mark.”

  “I don’t think that matters. The important thing is, this means we’re nearly there.”

  “We’ve been at sea over a week since Sinead found her supposed map, and still no land,” Olaf said, staring out to sea. “We’ve only water enough for two more days.”

  Redknee had opened the Codex on an up-ended barrel and was studying it … with little success. Consequently, he didn’t have an answer that would allay Olaf’s fears.

  Toki peered over Redknee’s shoulder. “Let me have a look,” he said. “I studied a map when I sailed down the Volga with Ragnar.”

  Redknee shuffled aside. Koll still thought Toki’s association with Ragnar as a soldier for hire meant he wasn’t to be trusted. But if he knew how to read a map, that made him invaluable.

  Toki furrowed his brows, held a huge, grubby thumb up to the picture and closed his left eye.

  “What’s he doing?” snapped Olaf. “He looks like he’s about to take aim.”

  “I’m measuring the distance between what Sinead thinks are the Sheep Islands and Iceland. It took seven days to sail between them, right?”

  “So?” Olaf said.

  “Well, on the map, the distance between the Sheep Islands and Iceland is half the length of my thumb.”

  “What’s the distance between Greenland and the Promised Land?” asked Redknee.

  Toki measured up again. “It depends where I take the distance from, but about the length of my thumb, due south west.”

  “Does that mean it should take us about another four or five days?” Redknee asked.

  “I reckon so.”

  Olaf turned to face them properly. “If it does,” he said. “We’ll all be dead, for we’ve only water for two.”

  That evening, Redknee found Toki by himself, making repairs to his deerskin boots with a bone needle and waxed thread. Redknee shot a glance round the deck. Everyone was busy, they wouldn’t be overheard. “I must speak with you,” he said, sitting down.

  “If it’s to do with the map, my reckoning was very rough—”

  Redknee shook his head. “I wanted to ask about my family. You knew my parents before I was born.”

  Toki nodded and continued sewing his boot where it had split.

  “When I was at the waterfall, Ragnar said something I thought strange.”

  “Go on.”

  “He said he looked after my mother when my father left her to go raiding sixteen or so years ago. He said he and I were more alike than I knew.”

  A faraway look came over Toki’s face; he paused in his work, his needle glinting in the fading sun. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I do remember that. But it doesn’t mean—”

  “There’s more.” Redknee lowered his voice. “Right before my uncle died …” Toki leaned in. “… when he was showing me how to use his battleaxe … my uncle said that Erik Kodranson was not … was not my father.”

  Toki turned white. After a long moment, he managed to speak. “You sure he said that?”

  Redknee nodded. “Do you think he meant—”

  “That Ragnar is your father?”

  “I’ll not believe it.”

  “As you shouldn’t.” Toki looked thoughtful. “Have you considered Sven was lying?”

  Redknee shook his head.

  “Then again,” Toki added, “there is another man he could have meant, who stayed with Ragnar around then.”

  “Who?”

  “Ivar visited Ragnar’s longhouse in the spring of that year to announce the birth of his daughter.”

  Instinctively, Redknee turned to look at Astrid. She was weaving silver ribbon through her long blonde hair, taking great care to smooth each section with the palm of her hand. Their colouring was the same. But a deeper resemblance? He hoped not.

  They sailed due west for two more days. With still no sight of land, Olaf imposed rationing: A third of a turnip and one slice of meat per man each day. Magnus snorted at Olaf’s attempt to impose order. Though, to Redknee’s relief, he shied away from an outright confrontation – Olaf had his sword back. It seemed everyone was suspicious of everyone else. Koll and Toki slept with their weapons drawn. Magnus stayed, recluse-like, at the tiller. And when Olvir shot a fulmar for the pot, Sinead was quick to take it off his hands, her suspicions having remained since the day of the poisoning.

  Sinead also gathered the silvery fish that jumped, twisting and flapping, onto the deck. Her haul numbered twelve and meant they enjoyed a good meal that night.

  The fog landed thick and fast in the afternoon of the second day. It made Olaf more nervous than he was already and served to heighten the mood of mistrust onboard. Redknee stood at the prow, but he struggled to keep watch, hardly able to see his own right hand through the murk. He needn’t have worried, for they were barely moving. The big square sail sagged against the mast like a discarded stocking, dragging their spirits with it. A brisk wind petered out to nothing; full-grown waves regressed to juvenile ripples. They crept along like this for many hours, scarcely moving, as if the sea wanted to hold them there forever. Or perhaps she wished to guard the secret of the Promised Land – her finest jewel.

  The similarity with Saint Brendan’s journey, as told in the Codex, wasn’t lost on Redknee. Saint Brendan and his monks had entered a dazzling miasma right before sighting the Promised Land. And it was then, when they were at their lowest point, when they had lost all hope and were about to give up, that Saint Brendan had finally found what he’d been looking for all along.

  Thinking on this, Redknee sought Sinead. He found her sitting with Brother Alfred, wrapped in sheepskins, the Codex balanced on her lap. Sinead had learned to read by looking at the apothecary’s labels, then by studying the recipes for herbal cures. Hers was not the high Latin of Church documents. Brother Alfred, on the other hand, although he couldn’t read, had more knowledge of monks and their affairs. He was helping her decipher the last few passages that still eluded her understanding. It was a slow process.

  Redknee sat beside them, pulling a spare fleece over his own shoulders, for the fog had brought a bitter chill. Sinead turned to the page he’d heard her read to Gisela in the tunnels, the one with the picture of the silver-leafed pine tree. He watched as her lips formed the alien sounds. He followed her eyes and the sounds began to merge with the shapes on the parchment.

  “Why do you read that page over and over?” he asked.

  “There’s one part that puzzles me. Brother Alfred is helping me work it out. It comes just after the passage about crossing the river. It says: ‘They crossed the river and found the land was filled with streets of gold for as far as the eye could see. ’”

  “Is that the part you don’t understand?”

  “That’s just it. A street would have to be built by people. But nowhere in the Codex does it say the Promised Land is inhabited. Except, of course, for the youth who greets Saint Brendan. But I’d taken him to be symbolic.”

  Redknee remembered Gisela’s claim about the fearsome disappearing warriors. He shook his head. “Maybe all the people died,” he said, firmly pushing aside Ulfsson’s stories in the same vein.

  “Perhaps,” Sinead said, chewing her thumb nail worriedly.

  Suddenly the call came down the ship: “Land, land! Land ahead!”

  Redknee turned. Olvir was waving his cap in the air. Everyone, Redknee included, ran to the prow as large grey cliffs loomed out the fog. “About!” Redknee shouted, rushing for an oar, using it to help Magnus steer. “Come about, now!”

  Koll and Toki grabbed oars too and Wavedancer wheeled around. The force threw Redknee to the deck. He scrambled to his feet. Magnus was still at the tiller. “Keep her line steady,” Redknee shouted. “And watch for rocks!”

  Magnus nodded. He had many days experience at the helm and his hand was firm. They could rely on him. Wavedancer slid past the cliffs unscathed. The wall of granite seemed to go on forever.

  �
�Where will we land?” Sinead asked.

  Redknee looked up. The cliffs rose skywards until they faded into the mist. They could not drop anchor and climb them. Nor could they risk sailing too close and puncturing the hull on hidden rocks. “We need to wait until we reach a natural harbour,” he said.

  And so they followed the line of the cliffs south until the darkness melded with the fog. Redknee lit a torch and joined Magnus at the tiller. The yellow flames reflected in his eyes.

  “I’ll stand at the prow and light the way as best I can,” Redknee said. Nightsailing close to shore was dangerous, treacherous in unfamiliar waters. But it was too deep to drop anchor, so they had no choice. At least the sea was calm. They didn’t have to worry about angry waves smashing them against the cliffs.

  Magnus nodded. Then, as Redknee started towards the prow, he added, “Wait.”

  Redknee turned. Magnus looked older than his nineteen summers; spidery lines framed hollow grey eyes, his skin sallow, the corners of his mouth pinched and dry with tiredness.

  “Sometimes,” Magnus said, “it gets lonely back here. Always on watch, always vigilant. Hardly anyone comes to speak to me.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Redknee said. “I doubt my torch will do much good tonight anyway.” He perched on a chest near Magnus and took a crust of bread from his pouch. Magnus smiled and accepted it gladly.

  Redknee spoke to Magnus as they crept through the night. He kept his torch high to get the best light they could; though it was an almost futile exercise in the eerie, fog-swamped sea.

  He learned Magnus was an orphan, both his parents having died of the sweating fever when he was a boy. Since their death, he’d been looked after by the village, staying first in Karl’s longhouse, then with Koll and Thora. He explained he’d been a quiet and withdrawn child after his parents died, that was why Sven had thought him suited to the long, still hours manning the helm. But Magnus, like the rest of them, had never been on such a long voyage. Enough was enough. Redknee sensed Magnus felt undervalued.

  “Although no one says so,” Redknee said, staring into the inky blackness beyond the halo cast by his torch, “we all know manning the tiller is the most important job on the ship.”

  Magnus sighed. “I know that. Sometimes it just feels like I’m invisible.”

  As the darkness faded to smoky grey, Olvir joined them, bringing with him bowls of steaming soup. “Is this it?” he asked, leaning against the gunwale and looking up at the endless cliffs. “I mean, is this really the Promised Land?”

  “I think so,” Redknee said, digging into the chunks of boiled turnip sprinkled with herbs. Only after he’d taken several mouthfuls did he remember Sinead’s warning – Thora had used Olvir’s catch in the poisoned stew. Redknee suddenly felt his throat burn. He gasped for air, clawed at the skin on his neck, knocking his bowl to the floor.

  Magnus glanced up from his breakfast. “Everything all right?”

  “You don’t feel it?” Redknee asked, struggling for breath. “You don’t feel it hot – searing your tongue, your windpipe?”

  Magnus nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, it’s good.”

  Redknee looked down. Silver was licking the spilled soup, his pink tongue working between the planks, finding every last piece. Oh no, not the pup too. Silver glanced up. Guilt laced his golden eyes but he did not look sick. In fact, he looked quite well. Redknee dared to open his mouth, dared to breathe in. He found the action cooled his throat.

  Olvir looked round from where he’d been watching the sea. “You disliked the soup?”

  Redknee’s eyes darted between Olvir and Magnus’s bemused faces. Sinead would have him believe one of them was the traitor. He couldn’t see it, not Olvir anyway. What did he have to gain in sabotaging their voyage? He’d volunteered to come; he knew nothing of Ragnar; had no connection with his uncle’s dubious past.

  Redknee found his voice, “The soup is good,” he said. “I’m just feeling a little sea-sick.”

  Unperturbed, Olvir scratched a fleabite on his arm. Blood oozed from the scab, staining the surrounding skin. “It would be a shame,” he said, “if we’d come all this way and couldn’t land. I’m itching to go exploring.”

  Redknee cricked his neck so he was looking up to where the cliffs faded into the mist. “We’ll find a way to go ashore.”

  Olvir smiled simply and Redknee felt an icy shudder pass through his body. What if there was no way ashore? Please, he thought. Please let there be a harbour somewhere along this infernal rock. But the cliffs stretched on.

  “Here,” Olvir said. “Let me take the torch.”

  “No—”

  Olvir reached up and eased the baton from Redknee’s fingers. “You can’t do everything.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. “Were you born in the Sheep Islands?” he asked, yawning.

  Olvir nodded. “My parents were shepherds. They moved there about sixteen years ago. From the Northlands. Ivar went to the mainland to find settlers. I think they sailed with him just after Astrid was born.”

  Toki had said Ivar had visited Ragnar to announce the birth of his daughter. Redknee fought to keep the excitement from his voice. “Did your parents ever mention Ivar’s time in the Northlands? About him visiting Ragnar, perhaps when my mother, Ingrid, was a guest of his?”

  Olvir thought for a moment; then shook his head. “They came from an area of pastureland in the south – near the land of the Danes. I know they travelled north with Ivar before sailing. Maybe they all stayed at Ragnar’s longhouse then?”

  “Possibly,” Redknee said. He’d thought he might learn something from Olvir, but the boy knew little about his parents’ lives before they arrived in the Sheep Islands.

  Chapter 27

  Later that morning Redknee stood with Silver on the sun-splashed deck, the night’s fog a distant memory. Around him, crenellated rocks had bowed to creeping sands. Long, flat beaches stole, finger-like, into the sea, snaring the waves in a maze of turquoise lagoons. Beyond all this, a crown of plush hills brushed a confident blue sky.

  “I believe,” Redknee said, turning to find Koll had joined him, “we have found our landing spot.”

  Koll nodded his agreement.

  A hush had come over the ship; gone was the cacophony of excitement, the clatter of voices, the robust anticipation of previous landings. Instead, wide eyes strained to devour every detail, every nuance, every colour, of this first sighting of the Promised Land.

  They lowered the sail and rowed through an inky channel to a harbour as good as any Northlandic fjord. When the shore was still several ship-lengths away, Redknee leapt into the water and started swimming. He heard a splash and a moment later Silver drew level with him, his grey-tipped ears and black nose just visible above the water. By Odin’s eye, the pup grew more fearless by the day.

  Redknee hadn’t planned to jump in. Perhaps it was Sven’s voice, speaking to him from beyond the grave. Whatever the source of the impulse, Redknee powered through the water, scrambled onto the beach, and, collapsing to his knees, drew Flame Weaver, plunging its shimmering blade deep into the sand.

  “I claim this virgin land as my own,” he said breathlessly, as Silver circled him, “and in the name of my noble uncle and protector, Sven Kodranson.”

  Behind him, he heard Wavedancer mount the beach. He turned to see Harold’s deformed frame blocking the sun. For a moment he thought the whelp was going to kick sand in his face, as he had done the time they were back in the Northlands, training. Instead, Harold just laughed and shuffled over to his father’s side.

  Redknee stood. The others were heading up the beach towards the dunes. He pulled Flame Weaver from the ground and followed. Yes, he thought, who is the shame of the Vikinger now? Yet behind him, the sands were already moving, healing the wound rent by his sword.

  They camped on the beach that night, warmed by a fire of driftwood that smelled of seaweed as it burned. The fine weather meant they didn’t need the tarpaulin from the ship for protection
. Almost as soon as they’d arrived, Sinead had gone looking for food, finding a colony of big pink crabs in one of the lagoons. She plunged them into boiling water, then, with the help of Koll’s smithing tongs and a wooden mallet, she prised the juicy white meat from the shells. It was a fitting delicacy for their first meal in the Promised Land.

  “You know,” Koll said, shoving the last of the crabmeat in his mouth, “this place doesn’t look half bad – though there’s a distinct lack of precious jewels. Tomorrow I’m going to take a bow and explore those hills.” He pointed to the high, rolling landscape behind them that resembled the hulls of an upturned fishing fleet.

  Toki sat furthest from the fire, his face half in shadow. “We should find a headland first, secure our position,” he said, working a piece of driftwood with his knife. “We don’t know enough about this place yet.”

  “You speak as if we’re staying,” Olaf said. “The sooner we find this damn treasure and get home, the better.”

  “And leave ourselves defenceless to Ragnar’s attack?” interjected Magnus.

  Redknee cleared his throat. “Come Magnus, no-one here really believes Olaf betrayed us in the tunnels.” He turned to Olaf. “I want to find the treasure too, but Toki is right, we must make ourselves secure.”

  After much debate, it was decided a scouting party would venture into the woods the next day with a view to finding the best place to set up camp. Olaf huffily declared that he and Harold would stay to guard Wavedancer. Brother Alfred, fearful of the toll a climb would take on his soft feet, offered to keep them company.

  Only Astrid seemed uncertain about what she should do. As the fire burned low, she addressed Toki, who was still carving the piece of wood in his hand. “When you say secure … do you mean from wild animals?”

  “I mean wild people,” Toki said, and smiled.

  Brother Alfred crossed himself. “If there are heathens on this island, I will find them and tell them the ways of Christ.”