barrels being loaded next to his. How were they going to get through the chain? Hemming would never allow it to be opened at night.
There was the sound of approaching shouts and many feet on the shore. The shouts became a chant: ‘More wine! More wine! More wine!’
‘Get back to your stingy master and come back here with a gift fit for a king!’ It was the skald, shouting from the shoreline.
‘The chain opens for no one!’ It was the voice of one of the men on the boat. ‘Wait till tomorrow. You can make do with ale until then.’
‘More wine! More wine! More wine!’
The skald spoke again: ‘Don’t try to get out of it, you serpents. They’ll open the chain soon enough if you tell them you’re off on an important mission from the king himself!’
‘More wine! More wine! More wine!’
‘Hey, Feggi, lower the chain!’ shouted a voice.
‘Chain down! Chain down! Chain down!’
‘Gladly, if the king says so!’ The voice of the chain guard was very close.
‘Hemming, Hemming, grant us wine! Hemming, Hemming, grant us wine!’
Vali felt himself shaking and cursed himself for his fear.
‘Lower the chain. Never let it be said that I don’t listen to the will of my people!’ It was Hemming’s voice. The king had been drinking by the sound of him. Vali almost laughed. From what he had seen of Hemming, he was a serious man who wouldn’t care to get too drunk. Sometimes, though, he would have to show his people he was one of them.
Vali heard the oars lift and the boat moved forward. There was the stiff clank of the lowering chain and the boat slid out into the main channel, the crowd cheering it on.
Vali regretted not killing the wolfman — it would have increased his chances of escape many times if Hemming had thought him dead. All he could hope was that Veles had come up with a better plan than he had managed himself.
The journey was a long and uncomfortable one. He tried to concentrate on the rhythm of the oars, to take his mind off the cramp in his legs. Then the boat stopped and the boy whispered to Vali to keep quiet. Other men got on and the boat began to move again. Vali guessed there had been a change of oarsmen.
He was in agony now but didn’t dare move to ease his legs. He tried to sleep but it was impossible. Eventually, when numbness had dulled the pain, he smelled the sea and saw light through the cloth draped over his barrel. The boat was still. He had to get out, he thought, or he wouldn’t ever be able to move again. As he shifted, he felt a hand push him back down.
‘Not long now,’ whispered a voice.
‘Veles?’
‘Your servant always, my lord.’
Despite his agony Vali gave thanks to Loki that Veles was on his side. The Obotrite was the cleverest man he had ever met.
His barrel was lifted again and Vali felt he was going to be sick. Then he was put down — on another ship, as far as he could tell. He heard the barrels being lashed down and realised he must now be on an ocean-going vessel preparing for the rigours of a sea voyage. Again, Veles’ voice was close by.
‘As soon as we are far from the shore you can come out. I apologise for your cramped accommodation, but be assured I had the barrels made specially for this purpose. They are commodious compared to normal vats. You will be free to stand soon.’
‘Thank you, Veles. You’ve taken great risks for me.’
‘Thanks are welcome, especially when princes speak with gold,’ said Veles.
‘What will you do if Hemming finds out it was you?’
‘I am the king’s most valuable servant, so I doubt he’ll suspect me,’ said Veles. ‘Rest assured the blame will all be yours. Now be quiet. We are still inshore and there are men close by.’
Vali heard the creak of a rope and the sound of the sail taking the wind, but no one spoke. For an age he waited. He could no longer feel his legs at all, apart from his knees, which had been rubbed to rawness against the sides of the barrel. He heard a tap.
‘Out,’ said a voice, and the cloth was pulled away.
Vali couldn’t move at all at first but eventually managed to push himself to his feet, bending to massage the blood back into his legs. Then he climbed out of his barrel, blinded by the sun.
‘Veles,’ said Vali, ‘even if I never walk properly again, I am forever in your debt. I-’
He felt a thump in his guts, so hard he puked. He fell to his side, his hands grasping for support, his head banging against one of the stays of the ship’s hull. His sight began to adjust to the sunlight and he heard a familiar voice.
‘The merchant sold you.’
He blinked and rubbed at his eyes, coughed and looked up. The warrior’s identity seemed to assemble in Vali’s mind from a collection of parts — the long deep scar running from the forehead to the lip, the massive body, bigger than any man he had ever seen, the tattoos covering every inch of his flesh in scenes of battle and destruction, the pelt of the white bear draped over him.
‘Remember me, prince?’ said Bodvar Bjarki. ‘You said you wouldn’t forget.’
33
The journey north felt like a dream to Adisla. The midnight sun turned the sea to boiling blood as it dipped towards the horizon and when it rose again it cast crystal shards into a sky of fragile blue. Sea mists came and went, the coastal mountains looming and then fading away, massive but fleeting. The temperature dropped as they moved up the coast — not to freezing, though ice was visible on the mountaintops, but to a grey numbing cold.
There was no true darkness, no rest from the leering of the Danes. Only the strange foreigner with his filed teeth and his drum seemed to stand between her and them. She had no oar to row, no sail to work and, huddling terrified at the prow of the ship, she was frozen. The man with the drum tried to help, but his attempts to hold her were unpleasant. He was ugly, frightening and stank of fish, though there was no lust in what he did. He just put his arms around her and squeezed.
She shrugged him off.
‘It is normal,’ he said. ‘Be cold then.’
He brought her food — fish from the ship’s pot, boiled reindeer, hunted and cooked when they stopped to camp. He was a dead shot with his little bow — a curious squashed-looking thing. The reindeer he brought back to the boat had just one arrow in it, embedded behind its ear. There had been no stressful wounded chase for the creature and the meat was tender and lovely.
It was the foreigner who slept next to her in an improvised tent on the beaches, keeping her from sleep as he watched her with those strange blue eyes, but keeping her from harm too with the broad knife he kept at his belt.
Soon the midnight sun turned from the side of the ships to behind them. They moved among islands that seemed no more than mountains rising from the water, past immense bays and wide silver beaches where sea eagles wheeled against brilliant skies. Great pine forests stretched up huge slopes, and where the mountains parted there were glimpses of vast green plains.
The ends of the earth were supposed to be this way, and as the fogs swept over the boat she wondered if this was the road to Nifhelm, the misty hell she had learned about at her mother’s knee. The lands of men were called Middle Earth for good reason. There were other areas, realms of gods and giants beyond their own, and mortals had no place there. Was that where the longship was going?
