One King's Way

at the prow with oars to boom off floating debris.

All the way down the stream they saw the signs of devastation, burnt farms, burnt villages. Men called from the banks as they saw the standard flying, were hailed, told to rig their boats and follow. By the time the Fearnought reached the sea, a small armada of four- and six-oared boats trailed in her wake. At the sea itself, the fishing villages of Finnmark yielded larger craft. Shef reorganized, commandeering the largest boats, filling them with men from the smallest.

“You can't take them very far like this,” protested Hagbarth. “They can't carry enough water for one thing. No, don't tell me, I know. Obey orders. You have a plan.”

As the Fearnought and her tail of small craft nosed down the Finnish Bight, as the Swedes called the deep gulf between Swedish Finnmark and the land opposite, they sighted a cluster of small islands. Piruusi, hitherto silent, came to Shef and pointed.

“Finns on those islands,” he said. “I cross sometimes, on ice. Sea-Finns.”

Shef motioned to Ottar, put him, Piruusi and a clutch of his Finnish followers into a boat, told them to bring on every boat and man they could. They pressed on under light sail, waiting for the challenge that must come from King Kjallak's coastguards.

Ali the Red, skipper of the Sea-bear, patrolling the seas towards the Finnish Aland Isles, saw the strange sail bearing down on him, and approached cautiously. He had heard tales of strange and strangely-armed vessels, and had no mind to take needless risks. The rag-tag of sails behind, he scanned and dismissed. Fishing boats of the broken men, scavengers only. In any case, as they saw his striped sail and that of his consort, he saw them veer in unison and scud away. But what were they doing on the strange ship? The knorr miscegenated with a Frankish cog? Trying to flee as well?

“She's in range for a long shot,” snarled Osmod. The former captain of halberdiers was in a state of barely- controlled rage, had been ever since he realized his longtime friend and comrade Cwicca was facing a Swedish noose, as sacrifice to Frey and Othin.

“Stand away from the mule,” Shef ordered. “Get down in the hold, all of you. Hagbarth, you too. Now, Osmod, you're in charge. Turn this ship around and sail away, in flight.”

Osmod gaped. “But I can't sail a ship.”

“Yes you can, you've seen them do it often enough. Now you do it. Karli, Wilfi, and me, we're your sail-crew. Cuthred, take the steering oar.”

“Well,” said Osmod uncertainly. “Which way's the wind. Cuthred, turn the front bit away from the wind, um, to the left. Karli, you take that end of the yard, and Wilfi, that end, and turn it round so the wind is behind it. Christ, Thor, I mean, what happens next?”

While Hagbarth held his hands over his eyes, the Fearnought lumbered into flight, the very image of an undermanned trader on a maiden voyage. Watching, Ali grinned into his red beard and brought his two ships slanting expertly across to intercept.

“Get your heads down,” ordered Shef. “Forget the mules. One crossbow each and another to hand.”

He waited till the Sea-bear was almost alongside, her gunwales lined with fierce bearded faces, spears poised to board, before he gave the word to rise. Anyone can wind a crossbow, as Udd had said two years before. Even easier when they had only to be cocked. At ten yards' range even the most inexpert could not miss, and at ten yards' range the stout iron quarrels went through wood and mail, flesh and bone as if they were so much canvas. As Shef's archers dropped their first crossbows and reached for the second, it was already clear there would be no need for another volley.

Hagbarth stepped from ship to ship trailing a rope, looked at the few instantly demoralized survivors and ordered them to make fast alongside.

“Now the mule,” said Shef, looking at the desperately turning consort vessel. “One rock over their heads, Osmod, and tell them to throw their weapons overboard.”

A short time later, his fleet now consisting of three strongly manned large craft with dinghies and pinnaces in tow, Shef's armada moved on for the Swedish shore. Behind them, in small boats so loaded their gunwales were within inches of the water, the disconsolate coastguards surviving argued whether to try for the Aland Islands and the Finns, or the Swedish shore, to face their king's vengeance.

The men of the Lanzenorden, for all their prowess, had made few converts among the Swedes, at least among the men and the native-born. The congregations they protected had mostly been drawn from the slaves, Christians when they were brought to the land. Some were Germans, some Frisians or Franks, the majority English and Irish. The Ritters felt little kinship with them. They enjoyed the experience of imposing their will on the Norse who had persecuted them for so long, enjoyed realizing that power was largely a matter of concentration. When a Viking army thousands strong came down on some town or village in the West, of course they seemed superior. When fifty armed and trained Germans appeared in the middle of a Swedish village with a population of two hundred, it was the same story. If the natives ever concentrated against them, it would be a different matter. But there was no loot to be won, it was no-one's responsibility. The Lanzenorden wintered in peace, but not in content. The rank and file were bored, forbidden to get drunk or lord it over the handsome Swedish women. Erkenbert the deacon feared his chances of promotion were vanishing, stuck here far from the center of affairs. Bruno the leader fretted alone in his quarters. He had not found the lance of Charlemagne. If it was anywhere it was far away in the north in another country. The God in whom he trusted seemed to have deserted him.

When the frantic knocking sounded on the door of the knights' quarters, they sprang out of their torpor, chessboards flung to the ground. Weapons were seized from walls, men struggled into their armor. Someone opened the door cautiously. A thin shabby figure scrambled in.

“They've taken them,” he babbled.

“Taken who?” snapped Bruno, alerted by the uproar. “Who's taken who?”

The fugitive's wits seemed to desert him, faced by hostile looks and bared weapons. Erkenbert stepped forward, spoke in English to the frightened man.

“He is from Hadding,” he reported. “The town ten miles off, where we have held Mass. He says that this morning soldiers of King Kjallak came, rounded up all the Christians who have attended our services—they had a list—and took them away under guard. It is said by the Swedes, with great satisfaction, that they are to be sacrificed to pagan idols at the great temple, maybe in five days' time.”

“A challenge for us,” said Bruno, looking round and grinning. “Isn't that right, boys?”

“A challenge to the holy God,” said Erkenbert. “We shall meet it as did the holy Boniface, who smote the great pillar Irminsul of the Saxons unharmed, and converted the pagan Saxons from their unbelief.”

“I heard a different story,” muttered one of the knights. “I'm a Saxon myself. But anyway, how are fifty of us going to get a bunch of sacrifices away from the whole assembly of the Swedes? There'll be thousands of them there. And the king, with his housecarls.”

Bruno slapped him violently across the back. “That's why it's a challenge,” he shouted. More soberly, he added, “And don't forget, they believe that things must be done in certain ways. A challenge must be answered. If I challenge the king, he'll have to fight, or put in a champion. This isn't going to be a battle. It will be a show of our strength—of God's will. We'll face them down. Like we've done before.”

His men looked uncertain, but discipline was strong, and faith in their leader even stronger. They began to collect their weapons, packs and bedrolls and horses, working out the march in their heads. Five days. Fifty miles to pagan Uppsala. No trouble, even over muddy roads. But it would be difficult to come at the assembly of the Swedes with any element of surprise. Suspicious, too, that they had been, left unharmed, when one might have expected firebrands in the thatch and men outside at dawn. Maybe King Kjallak of the Swedes had thought ahead of them. Was expecting their coming. Had prepared a welcome. The two priests of the mission found a queue at their doors of men waiting to make a confession, and ask for shrift.

Chapter Thirty