by V. Campbell
“Ah, there you are,” Olaf said gently, placing his hands on Redknee’s shoulders to steady him. “I thought you’d be back sooner or later.”
Redknee caught his breath. Then the words came tumbling out. “We found people – lots of people. And Ragnar too—”
“I know,” Olaf said, a smile forming on his lips. He moved aside.
Redknee blinked. Was he hallucinating? Ragnar stood a little way off, Toki and Sinead at his side. Silver growled. “What?” Redknee began to ask, “… what’s happening?”
Olaf held him by the arms. “Be still,” he said. “Nothing’s happening. Ragnar arrived earlier this morning. He thinks he knows where the White Pine is. It’s sacred to the Bear People. He’s asked for our help to find it because it’s in Flint People territory. Apparently you have friends among the Flint People. I believe you also have the book.”
Ragnar smiled wolfishly.
Redknee shook his head. “No …”
“We’re going to help him. We’re going to join together … this is the best offer we’ll get. I don’t want to fight him. Don’t you see … otherwise this whole trip – your mother’s death, my daughter Aud, Karl, Thora, even your uncle – all these deaths will have been for nothing? This way we can rescue something from it.”
Ragnar and his men, about twelve of them plus Skoggcat and Mord, made themselves at home in Svensbyan. Redknee watched in disgust as Olaf fell over himself to make them welcome. Helped by Harold, his uncle’s second-in-command fetched wood, boiled water and generally did everything he could to make Ragnar feel like a jarl. Redknee reckoned there was no point trying to speak to Olaf now: he had a new master. One he seemed just as happy serving as he had Sven. Traitor. The word rose from Redknee’s guts like bile. On Ragnar’s command Olaf had relieved Redknee of the book and his weapons and tied his hands behind his back. Now the question spun in Redknee’s mind: was Olaf just playing a clever game … or had he always been in Ragnar’s pay?
So much for Olaf’s promise to seek vengeance for Harold.
Sinead too, seemed different. She kept her distance from Redknee, only casting him the occasional wary glance. Well, damn her, Redknee thought. If she wanted to throw her lot in with the likes of Ragnar, so be it. Only Silver and Brother Alfred paid him any notice.
When Redknee bedded down for the night on the cold earth floor, far from the fire, he’d never felt quite so alone. But before sleep claimed him, Mord stumbled over. Bloody flecks still crusted his mailcoat. He pressed his face against Redknee’s, his breath smelled of mead.
“Try anything tonight and you’ll go the way of your weedy little friend,” he said, drawing a finger sharply across Redknee’s throat. Then added in a slurred voice, “though, it’s not me as wants you dead,” before lurching away towards the fire.
According to Sinead’s reading of the Codex, the White Pine was two days north from where Hawk had pulled Redknee from the river. Led by Ragnar’s guide, they set out to find it the next day. This was, as Olaf kept telling Redknee, the point of coming all this way, and they would be fools indeed if they didn’t take this chance to discover Saint Brendan’s treasure.
Sinead muttered the directions from the Codex as she walked: “Go west to where the mountains bow to the trees … where the jaws of two great serpents lock, and between their teeth, an apple of the greenest hue. There you will find the Great White Pine. Beneath its boughs lie treasures enough to bring peace to all the Earth.”
By mid-morning Redknee was fed up with her prattle. Unable to hold his tongue, he snapped round. “Won’t you be quiet?” he said. “We must have heard that a hundred times now.”
Sinead opened her mouth to retaliate, but Ragnar raised his hand, cutting her off. He turned to Redknee.
“Remember your place, troll boy,” he said, a smile edging across his face. “If it was up to me, I’d have you whipped, gutted and your gizzards hung out for the birds to peck. But my daughter has a soft heart. It was she who begged me not to. And who am I to deny my long-lost daughter?” he asked, raising his arms skyward as if thanking the clouds for delivering Sinead to him.
Redknee glowered at Ragnar’s back. He’d slit the bastard’s throat right now, if his hands weren’t bound. He watched Sinead follow her father. She seemed to be walking more erect, almost with a swagger. She wore a bronze pendant round her neck. And someone, Ragnar presumably, had given her a white fur cloak to replace her worn green one. Snow fox. He grudgingly admitted it suited her.
Still, he hated being in her debt. The only reason he was staying with this doomed expedition was because he had to know what manner of treasure lay at the end of Saint Brendan’s journey. Was that a weakness? Had the Codex got to him? Its promises finally woven their spell … And maybe, just maybe, he still believed he would find something beneath the White Pine, some clue that would lead him to his father, whether alive or dead.
He trudged on through the forest, dead undergrowth crunching beneath his feet. Silver stuck by his side, ears alert, wary of the strange new dynamic. Sometime later, when Ragnar and his men had pulled ahead and Redknee’s weariness caused him to lag, Toki dropped back beside him.
“I was sorry to hear about Olvir,” Toki said as they fell into step. “I’m afraid Koll didn’t make it either.”
Koll hadn’t made it. The news lodged like a blow to the guts.
“The two of us didn’t see eye to eye, but he was a good man, worthy of Valhalla.”
“Look,” Redknee hissed, spinning to face Toki. “I don’t need your false sympathy. Was it you who led Ragnar to our camp?”
Toki didn’t answer.
“Was it Sinead then?”
He sighed. “What choice did I have? Koll and Olvir were dead. The Flint People retreated into the forest. They just left me. I think Astrid stayed with them. You were gone, I didn’t know where. I sailed with Ragnar for years, remember? If I hadn’t helped him, he would have been damned suspicious. Besides,” Toki said, drawing Redknee back a little as the others walked on, “Olaf greeted Ragnar like an old friend. Almost as if … as if he’d been expecting him.”
They spent the night inside a limestone cave with the kind of echo children love. It was no place for a private conversation.
Ragnar called to Redknee as they sat down to eat. “Troll boy,” he said, “didn’t I first meet you in a cave like this one?” Redknee narrowed his eyes and turned his back on Ragnar’s laughter. It was going to be a long night.
Brother Alfred brought Redknee some food. The monk held out a plate of bones and meat scraps. “It’s all that’s left,” he apologised. “I’ve given you some of mine too. Help keep your strength up.”
Redknee motioned to his hands bound behind his back.
Brother Alfred blushed and lifted a scrap up to Redknee’s mouth. Redknee shook his head. Brother Alfred left the plate and slunk away. Damn their charity. He wasn’t hungry. Besides, he’d just seen the person he wanted to speak to slip outside.
Redknee counted to twenty before following Toki into the night. A rustling noise came from behind a nearby bush, a moment later, Toki appeared.
“I need to speak to you in private,” Redknee said.
Toki glanced towards the cave mouth. They were outwith earshot. He nodded.
“The story you told; about the two brothers who double-crossed their friend. Sinead thinks it was aimed at her. Was it?”
Toki shrugged. “As much as anyone.”
“But was it a true story – based on real events, the events of my father’s … of Erik Kodranson’s death?”
“No-one died in my story.”
“That’s what’s been annoying me,” Redknee said. “If Sigurd is my Uncle Sven – not very well concealed, I have to say.”
“It wasn’t meant to be. By Odin’s eye, I thought you’d have worked it out long ago. When I realised you hadn’t, that you were still rooting around in the muck and coming up with nothing, I knew I had to set things straight somehow. That yarn was my best attempt.�
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“Why not just tell me outright?”
“Because I wasn’t certain. I’m still not.”
“Not certain about what?”
“What happened to Erik, to your father—”
“— if he was my father.”
Toki nodded. “I’m not certain what happened to Erik Kodranson after Sven took him off to recover from his injuries. All I know is he was never seen by anyone again. At least, no one who knew him before.”
“That’s it,” Redknee said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. And it’s obvious, isn’t it?”
Toki shook his head.
“Sven killed him. Sven killed my father.”
Chapter 35
They followed a mighty river up stream on foot for the next two days, keeping the roar of the water to their left. Sometime towards late afternoon on the second day, the landscape widened. The river slowed, turning from a deep churning blue to silt-laden brown. A huge flood plain stretched before them. Gulls swooped across the big grey sky, dived among the reeds. Silver pricked up his ears, instantly excited.
“Where the jaws of two great serpents lock, and between their teeth, an apple of the greenest hue,” Sinead said, staring at the slow marshy water. When she turned round, her face was set in a smile. “We’re looking for another river,” she said.
“Another river?” Redknee asked. “Why’ve we been following this one for two days then?”
Sinead shook her head. Her copper curls snagged on her white fox fur. “We’re looking for where another river meets this one.”
They walked on, skirting the edge of the river, now so wide and slow it could now almost be called a lake. The waters were deep. Unfathomable. And then they saw it. An apple of the greenest hue. Sitting in the current from a new river that entered the lake at right angles to the river they’d followed, was an almost perfectly circular island. Evergreens covered the banks, but, even from five hundred paces, they could see, rising from its dark core, the uppermost branches of a tree that dwarfed the rest.
“The stalk in the centre of the apple,” Sinead said.
Ragnar came up behind her. “Never mind that,” he said, looking for a place to cross. “We’re going to have to build a raft.”
The air beneath the Great White Pine, as the Codex called it, was still and dark. In truth, its needles were a shimmery blue-green, not white at all. Nonetheless, the Great White Pine stood as tall as forty men, and at least three times as high as any tree Redknee had seen. Its trunk was straight, and so thick it took five men with outstretched arms to circle it.
Redknee walked around it, agape. Five huge roots emerged from the ground, like a giant’s legs meeting its torso, seeming to heave the earth up with them. It reminded Redknee of the tales his mother told of Yggdrasil, the world tree. The tree that connected the realm of men to the realm of the gods. The place where Odin hanged himself to learn the secret of all things. Redknee’s heart quickened. He stumbled on a long snaking root, skidded across the loamy earth. This was no normal tree, but a gallows. A place where knowledge leads only to death.
Brother Alfred hurried over and placed his hand on Redknee’s shoulder. “You’re pale. What ails you?”
Redknee stared up at the Great White Pine. Its boughs stretched far above his head, like the bars of a prison wall. He blinked. He saw the faces of the others looking down at him. His eyes regained focus. He saw that it was only a tree. A simple, stolid, tree.
“Nothing,” he said, gathering himself together. “I thought I saw someone … a body … hanging from a branch.”
Sinead stared doubtfully at him, then, seeming to decide he wasn’t worth the trouble, turned to Ragnar. “The Codex says the treasure lies beneath the tree,” she said, then added in a brusque voice, “we should dig.”
Mord handed out spades, and everyone except Redknee started digging.
“You’ll need to cut me loose,” Redknee said, “if you want me to help.”
Ragnar hesitated, then nodded his agreement. Magnus, hurried over. He fumbled with the rope for a moment before managing to cut Redknee free. Redknee saw a flash of pity in his old friend’s eyes.
“I’m watching you, troll boy,” Ragnar said. “So don’t try anything stupid.”
“Are we supposed to be digging in any particular place?” Mord asked.
Sinead shook her head. “The book doesn’t say where exactly. Just that the treasure is beneath the tree.”
“We’ll never cut through these roots,” Mord said, prodding one with the toe of his boot.
Ragnar stared at his son. “Just get on with it. We’re nearly there. Think about what you’ll spend your share on.”
Mord grinned. “Aye, father, I’ll buy myself the best looking wife in all the Northlands.”
It was slow work. The earth was cold and hard. Sweat soon dripped from Redknee’s brow. Eventually Ragnar said they could stop to eat. The hole Redknee had dug was little more than waist deep. He put down his spade, climbed out and sat on the grass, nestling between the giant roots of the White Pine for warmth. Sinead handed him a skin of water. He took it from her without a word.
Despite digging all afternoon, and making a good number of pockmarks in the ground, they’d found nothing. Redknee doubted the Bear People guide could be trusted. They only had the guide’s word this was the White Pine of the Codex.
He took a swig from the pigskin, leaned back and looked up. The sensation was dizzying. A river of grey bark stretched, almost endlessly it seemed, towards the heavens. He closed his eyes. The fear that gripped when they first arrived had gone. But in its place came a growing doubt. Even if this was the White Pine, did he really expect to find the key to his father’s whereabouts here? Beneath some old tree? No. Sven had killed his father. That was all there was to it. There was no mystery to be solved. No clue to be found. Telling Redknee Erik wasn’t his father was just another one of Sven’s lies.
Yet … did he really believe his uncle capable of killing his own brother?
Silver moseyed over to him. He stroked the pup absently behind the ear. “Eh,” he said in a low voice, so the others, who sat not far off, wouldn’t hear. “Am I the biggest fool that ever lived? Searching for a father who, if he isn’t dead, likely abandoned me. A father I’ve never known. And looking for him here, of all places, so far from home?” Silver stared back uncomprehendingly, then began licking Redknee’s face. Redknee grunted and gently pushed the pup away.
“Perhaps Sinead is right,” he said, glancing over to where she sat laughing with Ragnar and Olaf. “What difference does it make if I ever find him, or even who he is? It won’t change anything. I need to start planning for myself.”
Then he saw it, barely visible among the natural lesions in the bark. He looked again. His eyes did not deceive him. He stood. Raised himself on tiptoe for a better look … etched into the trunk, faded and worn, but definitely there, was the crude outline of a unicorn followed by a series of what Redknee now knew to be Latin script. He called to Sinead before he could stop himself.
She rushed to his side and he pointed to the carving, surprised no one had seen it before.
“It’s Latin all right,” she said.
Ragnar joined them, a piece of half-cooked fish in his hand. “What does it say?”
Sinead squinted. “It’s faded. It’s a long time since Saint Brendan came here – if he wrote it. But I think it says Deus providet.”
Ragnar frowned. “Speak Norse girl, we don’t all have the advantage of a monastery education.”
“I think it means … ‘God provides’.”
“What does that mean?” Ragnar asked.
Brother Alfred opened his mouth to speak, but Mord cut him off. “It means,” Mord said, picking up his spade and starting to dig again with renewed vigour, “that not only are we in the right place, but we’re going to be very, very rich.”
“Well, everyone,” Ragnar said turning to the others, who by now were all listening. “This is confirmation.
You’ve seen the Christian monasteries. How wealthy they are. Their God provides. It says so here. What are you waiting for? Fall to!”
Mord threw his hand in the air. “Look what I’ve found!” He held up a stone, as big as a man’s hand and so black it shone in the gathering dusk. Everyone stopped digging and crowded round. Silver’s tail wagged.
“What is it?” Sinead asked, taking the piece from Mord and examining it for herself.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he said.
Sinead looked at her newfound brother with a blank expression.
Mord turned to Ragnar, his face aglow. “Father, I have found the first piece of Saint Brendan’s treasure.”
Ragnar frowned. “Why does it have such a sharp edge?”
“Because it’s a spear head,” Sinead said. “It’s not a jewel at all.”
Someone in the small group sniggered. Redknee thought it was Skoggcat. Mord snatched the stone back. “You’ll see,” he said, slipping it into his leather pouch and picking up his spade, “this is just the first of many.”
“The Irish girl is right.”
Everyone turned. Hawk stood at the edge of the clearing. Running Deer, her brothers and Hiawatha were with him.
“Who is this speaking the Norse tongue?” Ragnar demanded.
Hawk stepped forward, his hand placed lightly over the hilt of his sword. “I speak the Norse tongue because I was once a Northman,” he said. “I sailed to this place two winters ago with my fellow Icelanders. I too came looking for Saint Brendan’s treasure.”
Mord’s eyes narrowed. “Did you find it?”
Hawk shook his head. “And I doubt you will either.”
“You lie,” Mord said. “Tell me where you have hidden it, or I’ll slice you open from nose to knee.”
Hawk fastened his hand round his sword and grinned. “I’d like to see you try.” As Hawk spoke, a band of about twenty warriors carrying tomahawks and bows filtered into the clearing behind him.
