Hawk Quest

‘Drogo will be waiting for us in Norway,’ Hero said.

‘Let him wait. We’ll be stopping only long enough to drop off the monks.’

Hero watched the ships grow small.

Vallon clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Forget him. We have work to do.’

Preparations for their voyage took three days. Wayland recruited a gang of children to trap birds for the falcons. The company would be taking the horses and they loaded enough fodder and water for a voyage that might take two weeks. They repaired the sail and rigging, recaulked the hull, fitted the rudder with new lashings of walrus hide.

It was after midnight when Raul told Vallon that everything was shipshape.

Vallon looked at the whorls of stars. ‘In that case, let’s be off. Hero, fetch the monks. Raul, get the horses on board.’

At the time of night when most people sleep deepest, Shearwater crept out of harbour. Only the harbourmaster was there to see them cross the bar. He held a burning torch. ‘Come back soon,’ he called.

‘We will,’ Hero shouted.

He knew that he’d never return to Iceland except in thought and memory, but memory went deep and thought cut across space. He watched the flame on the shore recede until it was no more than a mote, then he turned to face the starry universe with a flutter of excitement mingled with dread.

The White Sea and Rus XXVIII

They rounded the Reykjanes peninsula next evening and set course south-east. During the night Hero took a sighting on the Pole Star to fix their latitude. Next morning dawned misty, the sun floating through layers of vapour like a dwarf red moon. Cloud-dappled skies by noon. Two days more saw the Westman Isles falling astern. The wind blew light from the south-west. If it held, it would carry them north of the Faroes.

Emerging into another tranquil dawn, Vallon was woken by Raul’s shout.

‘Icelandic ships ahead!’

Vallon made his way forward and studied the flotilla picked out against the rising sun.

‘What do you make of it, Captain?’

‘They’re not waiting for us. They must have lost time picking up Drogo’s men.’

‘Do you want me to change course?’

‘No need. We’ll lose them sooner or later. Until then, we might as well tag along. Their navigators know the sea-road better than we do.’

Raul glanced at him. ‘Hope it ain’t out of order, Captain, but what did you do to rile Helgi?’

‘Well, telling can’t do any harm now. By chance I happened upon his sister while she was bathing in a hot spring.’

‘Naked?’

‘Not a stitch.’

Raul whistled. ‘I ain’t laid eyes on her. Is she as beautiful as they say.’

Vallon smiled. ‘Lovely as Venus, but too hot-blooded for me.’

They shadowed the convoy for two days, settling into a relaxed shipboard routine. Vallon practised his English, went over the accounts with Richard, played chess. Hero monitored their position and held stilted conversations with the monks. Wayland and Syth fed the falcons each morning and removed the soiled moss from under their perches. Garrick tended the horses in the hold. In the long intervals of lying about doing nothing, the company listened to Raul and Wayland’s account of Greenland and its wonders.

‘Oh, I wish I’d come with you,’ Richard kept saying.

They saw no sign of the Faroes and quit looking after the fifth day. Wisps of cirrus heralded a front moving up from the south. Around noon on the sixth day, the horizon disappeared behind a curtain of black cloud trailing a frayed and dingy hem. Raul and Garrick upturned the ship’s boat across the stern thwarts and lashed it down. Wayland and Syth carried the falcons down to the stern half-deck. The monks also retreated below. Vallon remained on top with Raul.

The sky darkened. A few drops of rain pecked on the deck and the ship curtseyed before the first gust of wind. A slate-grey downpour advanced hissing across the sea and engulfed them. Vallon ran for the boat and squeezed under with the others. The rain fell in torrents, peening on the hull and bubbling over the deck. Vallon watched Raul steering through the deluge like some hairy Neptune. He grew chilled and stiff. He stuck it for as long as he could, then made his way to the helm.

‘I’ll take over.’

Shearwater dipped over the crests with ponderous grace, spray bursting over her bow. The rain pelted down, soaking Vallon to the skin. The four layers of thick woollens he wore didn’t keep him warm, but they provided enough insulation to maintain his body in a just-about bearable equilibrium. At dusk Wayland relieved him and he crept to rest under the boat. He woke in pitch blackness to half a gale. Flurries of rain rattled against the sail. He crawled out and groped his way to the rudder. Wayland was still at the helm.

‘How’s she standing up to it?’

‘We came through worse on our return voyage.’

Another burst of rain spattered against the sail. Bile rose in Vallon’s gullet. He huddled on a thwart, blinking into the sluicing dark, sniffing up dewdrops on the end of his nose. The point came when he could no longer keep his stomach corked. He rose heaving and spewed over the side. Down he sank again until the next fit of vomiting, and so it continued all night.

At break of day he voided his gut one last time and stared apathetically at the dull sky. The rain had slackened to a scudding drizzle. The convoy was nowhere within sight. Raul was back at the helm. Vallon listed across the deck. ‘Are we on the right course?’

‘No. We’re being blown north-east.’

Vallon sighted along the combers. Changing course would put them beam on to the seas. Even if they weren’t swamped by a big one, the ship would take a hammering. ‘This won’t last for ever. Run with it.’

Two days later the wind was still blowing and Vallon was beginning to worry about running out of ocean. ‘The Norway coast can’t be far ahead,’ he told Raul. ‘Organise a bow watch.’

Towards evening the wind tailed off and the sun flared briefly in the west. A rent opened in the clouds and stars sparkled in the void. Somewhere a phantom moon. It had grown much colder.

When Vallon took the next watch, the sea was beginning to settle and the sky to the north was clear. He searched for the Pole Star and found it high overhead. ‘Hero.’

Hero peered out from under the boat.

‘Work out our position if you can.’

Hero tried a dozen times to take a reading. ‘It’s no good. The ship’s pitching too much.’

‘What’s your best estimate?’

Hero studied Polaris. He checked the horizon. ‘We’re a long way north of where we should be.’

‘How far?’

‘I don’t know. Five hundred miles. Maybe more.’

‘That’s impossible.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll try again when the sea’s calmer.’

Hero returned to bed. Vallon raised his eyes to Polaris. The star stood much higher than it had the night they left Iceland. The waves rolled northwards in an endless herd. Shearwater had been running before the wind for more than three days. They could easily have covered five hundred miles. He stared over the crests. So where was Norway?

The night passed and a vague grey light rose in the east. The swell was settling and only the occasional