Thorfinn shoved him aside. Hero climbed into the longship and lost his footing on the sloping hull. Thorfinn caught him by the jaw and pulled him close.
‘Frankish?’
‘Greek,’ Hero mumbled.
Thorfinn’s teeth were scaled with plaque and his breath stank. ‘Did you burn my ship?’
‘No,’ Hero croaked.
‘One of the men who burned my ship had black hair. You have black hair.’
‘Do I look like a warrior? I’m a scholar, a student of medicine.’
Thorfinn nudged his chin towards the Icelandic hostages. ‘They know who burned my ship. They’ll tell me.’
The Viking chieftain let him go. He staggered toward an empty thwart. One of the Vikings lashed him with a knout.
‘Over by the English slave.’
Hero sat beside Garrick. Oars were thrust into their hands. Thorfinn began to beat on the stempost with his axe. ‘Take your time from him,’ Garrick said.
Hero studied the Icelandic prisoners as he rowed. The men looked furtive and ashamed, and the two women wouldn’t meet his eye at all. They were mother and daughter, the girl no older than fifteen. Her father had tried to protect them with his bare hands and the Vikings had tossed him overboard.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw
Their course took them between a large tabletop island and a granite coast patched with perpetual snow. Not long after noon the Vikings finished rigging the sail, bringing a blessed respite from rowing. Even under half a sail, the drakkar fairly flew, her weakened hull twisting through the waves like a snake, the wind whipping spindrift off the crests and driving showers of hail that collected in drifts against the gunwale.
The two ships stayed in contact and that evening Thorfinn directed both vessels into a rivermouth where they dropped anchor off different shores half a mile apart. The Vikings ate elk meat provided by Vallon and gave the hostages stockfish so rank that Hero gagged at the first bite. One of the pirates studied him across the spitting driftwood fire. ‘Is it true, Greek, that you voyaged from England?’
‘Further than that. Vallon’s journey began in Anatolia. Mine in Italy.’
The Viking grinned at his comrades and hunched forward. ‘Tell us. Your tale doesn’t have to be true, only entertaining.’
So Hero chronicled their journey, suitably amended, explaining that Vallon had set out to deliver a ransom for a brother-in-arms captured by the Turks at Manzikert.
Questions came tumbling. Who were the Seljuks? Where had Vallon campaigned? Had Hero visited Miklagard? Was it true that the pope ruled from a golden throne fifty feet high?
With darkness fallen and his voice grown hoarse, Hero said that he’d told enough of the story for one day. ‘I’ll go on with it tomorrow. Our journey’s been so long and we’ve had so many adventures that it will keep you entertained until we reach the forest.’
He settled himself next to Garrick and closed his eyes. He hadn’t been asleep for long when he heard men stirring and saw some of the Vikings walking away from the fire. He rolled over.
‘Where are they going?’
‘To the women. Stop your ears.’
From the darkness beyond the fire came a rhythmic panting and grunting. It stopped and one of the Vikings strolled back into the light and sank yawning onto his bedroll. The rutting sounds started again, broken by whimpers and the casual asides of the Vikings waiting their turn.
Hero stared into the fire as if the flames might burn away the pictures in his head. He sat like that until all the men had finished and had returned to their sleeping places. When he looked up, Thorfinn was regarding him with a homicidal stare. Every so often he blinked one eye and his tongue probed wincingly inside his right cheek.
Most days, wind and tide permitting, both ships set sail soon after sunrise and anchored around mid- afternoon. For the rest of the day, parties from both vessels went ashore to forage for berries and driftwood, striking out in different directions over the coastal barrens. The hostages’ basic diet was unvarying — rock-hard bread and stinking wind-dried cod that retained the texture of boiled shoe leather no matter how long it was cooked. The atmosphere on board was saturated with the smell of the stuff. It was all the Vikings carried by way of rations, and after the burning of their ship, they’d had no leisure to hunt. One of them told Hero that when they had gone into the forest, they’d found sinister totems hung from trees, some of them left only yards from where their pickets had stood watch.
‘That must have been Wayland,’ said Hero. ‘He was abandoned in the forest at birth and reared by his giant dog.’
The Vikings looked uneasily into the semi-darkness. They seemed much affected by nature’s auguries.
Thorfinn slammed the flat of his axe down. ‘Sow fright and you’ll reap terror.’ He glared at his company. ‘The dog couldn’t have raised the English youth. He’s seventeen at least and a dog rarely lives half that long.’
No one spoke. If anything, the dog’s agelessness made it more menacing.
On the third afternoon they put in at a stretch of coast sheltered by a chain of islands. The foraging party spread out and Hero found himself alone with Arne, a Viking whose mature years and easy-going manner sat at odds with his violent profession. They found patches of bilberries and crowberries and Hero fed his sugar craving until his lips were stained purple.
Arne crouched a few yards away, examining a flat rock. Hero went over. Etched into the surface were dozens of stick-figures of men hunting deer.
‘Skraelings made it,’ said Arne. ‘They follow the reindeer to the coast in spring and return to the forests each autumn. We’ll cross paths with them before our journey’s over.’
The two men sat with their backs against the stone. ‘Here,’ Arne said, handing Hero a piece of smoked elk. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’
Both men chewed away. Arne gave up on his bread. ‘What I’d give for a freshly baked loaf.’
‘Or a dish of pancakes drenched in butter,’ said Hero.
‘And honey,’ Arne added dreamily.
Hero laughed. ‘Since fantasies come free, why not a syllabub? Tart cream poured over layers of fruit and almonds. All on a base of cake sweetened with the wine of Marsala.’
Arne threw his head back. ‘Stop torturing me!’ He sighed and looked at the toy ships, the dove-grey polar sea stretching away beyond men’s reckoning. ‘Your stories. They’re not all true are they?’
‘Every word.’
‘The Frank is lucky, yes?’
‘Crafty rather than lucky.’
Arne nodded. ‘A warrior needs a strong body, but a body is no good without a head.’
Hero sensed an opening. ‘Are you saying that Thorfinn is unlucky?’
‘Be careful. The more Thorfinn is thwarted by fate, the harder he’ll fight it. He’d pull the world down over our ears before admitting defeat.’ Arne stripped a piece of heather. ‘No, it’s not luck that frowns on Thorfinn’s ventures. The age of the sea-raiders is over. The heroes have gone to their funeral fires and the gates of Valhalla are closed. Perhaps Thorfinn will be the last warrior to enter.’ Arne threw the stem away. ‘Everywhere we go, the people live in citadels. When they see our dragon-head from their watchtowers, they bar their gates and stand on the battlements, jeering and baring their arses at us.’
‘So why do you keep raiding?’
‘Famine would make a pirate of any man. I have a wife and four children and a farm that supports only two cows and twenty sheep. My meadows are so steep that I have to tie myself to a rope to cut the hay. If this expedition doesn’t show a profit, I’ll be forced to sell my two eldest children into bondage.’
Across the tundra raced a puff of grey smoke. Arne drew his sword.
