water. They shuffled on.
The bridge to the next island almost caught them by surprise. They shuffled round a small spit of land, and saw it in front of them, not twenty yards off, and plain to see, two tall men leaning on their javelins. Could even hear their muttered conversation. Quickly the two intruders pulled back into shelter.
“What we ought to do,” whispered Shef, “is make a detour out to sea, to keep well away from them.”
“Don't fancy that,” muttered Karli. “I want to keep where the ice is thick.”
“If the ice wasn't thick enough, she wouldn't have told us to take it.”
“Women are funny. And she could be wrong. Anyway she's not out here with fifty feet of cold water under her.”
Shef reflected for a moment. “Let's try this, then. We'll start from here, and go parallel with the bridge, where the water's shallowest and the ice thickest. But we won't walk, we'll crawl. Keep right down, there's not so much for them to see. Anyway, they're watching the path, not the ice.”
As they set out, crawling awkwardly in their heavy clothing, beards skimming the ice, Karli began to wonder. If the ice is so thick, why are these Norwegians only guarding the bridges? Why are they guarded at all? Are these people just stupid? Or does the queen…?
His friend was yards in front of him and moving like an angry adder. No time for debate. And the ice seemed thick as ever. Karli crawled quickly behind, trying not to eye the seeming safety of the log-bridge twenty yards off.
As soon as they reached the second island both men crawled to the side away from the bridge, slithered round behind another of the many tiny spurs jutting out from the shore, stood up and bolted once more into the cover of the trees, breathing hard. The cold of the ice had bitten through their layers of wool and leather. They put their weapons down carefully, pulled off the sheepskin mittens Brand had given them, blew on frozen hands. Carefully Shef eased a leather bottle from its belt-sling, pulled out its stopper.
“Winter ale,” he muttered. “The last of it.”
Each took a long pull. “Tastes like ale,” muttered Karli, “but it doesn't feel like it. You can feel your gullet glowing as it goes down, no matter how cold it is. Shame we can't make this stuff where we come from.”
Shef nodded, thinking again for a moment of water freezing on ale, of steam leaping from a hot blade. No time to pursue that thought.
“Drottningholm's the next island,” he said. “We know the king isn't there, and that no men are allowed to sleep overnight on it. One more crossing…”
“And we're like two cocks in the hen-roost,” completed Karli.
“At least we can see what the queen wants from us.”
I know what she wants from
The bridge this time was easy to spot, but well away from the point where they caught their first sight of Drottningsholm. They stood in the trees, looking across and calculating the odds. They were on the western point of another small bay, Drottningsholm perhaps a furlong off. The eastern point was another furlong away, and the bridge ran from its tip to the further island.
“Just as easy to start from here as go over near the bridge,” said Shef. “And we won't need to crawl. We're far enough away so no-one will see us from the guard-post, and we'll be getting further away all the time.”
“All right,” said Karli. “I guess if the ice was going to break, it would have broken by now. We've seen no holes in it. It hasn't creaked or anything.”
Shef gripped his shoulder, took his spear in both hands, and set out across the flat, black, windswept expanse.
“All right, where is he?” Brand stood in the doorway of the fetid communal hut, glowering down at the eight Englishmen facing him. He had been drinking worriedly in a tavern in the port of Kaupang with Guthmund and their crews, when he had been called away by news that the Way-priests' conclave had ended. After a brief interview with Thorvin he had headed straight for the quarters Shef shared with Karli, now treated as his body-servant. Found both missing, and headed on to the catapulteers' hut.
Faced with an angry man nearer seven feet high than six, the ex-slaves reverted to servile custom. With imperceptible shuffles they moved into a tight group with at its front Osmod and Cwicca, the burliest and most self-confident of them. Their faces took on a look of stony ignorance.
“Where's who?” said Osmod, playing for time.
Brand's enormous fists opened and closed. “Where—is—your—master—Shef?”
“Don't know,” said Cwicca. “Ain't he in his quarters?”
Brand took a step forward, murder in his eye, paused as he saw Osmod, once captain of the halberdiers, cast a quick glance towards a rack of weapons. He turned, marched out, slamming the door.
Outside Hund, Shef's childhood friend, now a faithful priest of Ithun, stood patiently in the crusty snow. “They won't talk to me,” Brand snarled. “You're English. They know you're his friend. See if you can find out what's up.”
Hund stepped into the hut. A murmur of voices, all talking English in the thick Norfolk dialect common to them all. Finally Hund appeared, beckoned Brand once more into the hut.
“They say they don't know for sure,” he translated. “But putting one thing and another together, they're fairly sure he got a message of some sort. They suspect that he has gone to visit the queen Ragnhild at Drottningsholm. He has taken Karli with him.”
Brand goggled. “Gone to Drottningsholm? But no man's allowed on the island overnight. And the bridges are all guarded.”
Cwicca grinned, his gap teeth showing. “That's all right, skipper,” he said in the Anglo-Norse pidgin of the Wayman army in England. “We're not so dumb. We know that. If he's gone, he'll have slipped across on the ice, see? We went down and had a little look this afternoon. It's still plenty thick enough, no sign of cracking.”
Brand stared at Cwicca and the others, horror evident on his face. He tried to speak, failed, tried again.
“Don't you English fools know anything?” he said in a hoarse whisper. “In the fjords this time of year, the ice doesn't crack. It rots from the bottom up. Fills with water. Then one morning it isn't there any more. It doesn't crack. It just sinks!”
The wind struck them with redoubled force as soon as Shef and Karli were well out on their last stretch of ice, as if they had come out from under the lee of some unseen headland. With it came a whirl of horizontal, driving rain. Shef flinched as the first drops struck his face, expecting stinging hail or ice-storm. Then he put his hand up to the drops that trickled down his face, and wondered. Rain. So the frost had broken. Would they be able to get back, once across? No time to worry about that now. And in the rain they had no need to fear being seen by the bridge- guards.
“Listen,” he said to Karli. “I don't like this rain. The ice may crack. We can both swim. The thing to do, if it cracks under us, is keep your head up. Don't get caught under the ice and not know which way to turn. If we're in a hole in the ice, swim to the edge of it and put your weight on the ice. If it cracks, go forward and try again. When we get to somewhere thick enough to bear us, crawl out and keep crawling. And Karli, tuck your sword in your belt again. You may need two hands.”
As Karli fumbled to obey, moved by some impulse, Shef looked up at the dark shore still a hundred yards in front, hefted the ‘Gungnir’ spear in his hand, trotted two paces forward, turned and hurled the spear ahead of him. He saw it streak forward, land, and skid on along the ice, its clatter drowned by the hiss of the rain.
As his foot came down he felt the ice give. Both men stood motionless for a moment, listening for the crack. Nothing. Still ice under their feet.
“Maybe it just came loose from the shore,” muttered Karli.
They stepped on, cautiously, planting their feet with utter delicacy. One step. Two.
Cold bit into Shef's boot as he put it down. Water. A puddle on the ice? Water in the other boot. Suddenly the cold was at his knees, his thighs, he felt his vitals retract convulsively. Shef stared round for the break in the ice, but there was nothing there, his feet were still planted solidly but the ice was dropping beneath…
The black water closed over Shef's head and he found himself struggling desperately to stay afloat. There were hands round his neck, clutching from behind, hands like Ivar's, as if Ivar were back from the dead.
