The Burning Land

“Treachery,” I said. The Seolferwulf was worth a thegn’s annual income from a substantial estate and Guthlac must have realized we carried coin on board. His men would find it hard to capture the ship while Osferth and his band defended the pier’s end, but drunken men in a tavern were easier prey. I feared he could hold us hostage and demand a huge ransom, and so Sihtric slipped constantly through the back door, returning each time with a shake of his head. “Your bladder’s too small,” one of my men mocked him.

I sat with Skade, Finan, and his Scottish wife, Ethne, in a corner of the room where I ignored the laughter and songs that were loud at the other tables. I wondered how many men lived in Dumnoc, and why so few were in the Goose. I wondered if weapons were being sharpened. I wondered where all the gold in the world was hidden. “So,” I asked Skade, “where is all the gold in the world?”

“Frisia,” she said.

“A large place.”

“My husband,” she said, “has a stronghold on the sea.”

“So tell us of your husband.”

“Skirnir Thorson,” she said.

“I know his name.”

“He calls himself the Sea-Wolf,” she said, looking at me, but aware that Finan and Ethne were listening.

“He can call himself what he likes,” I said, “but that doesn’t make it true.”

“He has a reputation,” she said, and she told us of Skirnir and what she said made sense. There were nests of pirates on the Frisian coast, where they were protected by treacherous shoal waters and shifting dunes. Finan and I, when we had been enslaved by Sverri, had rowed through those waters, sometimes feeling our oar-blades strike the sand or mud. Sverri, a clever shipmaster, had escaped the pursuing red ship because he knew the channels, and I did not doubt that Skirnir knew the waters intimately. He called himself a jarl, the equivalent of a lord, but in truth he was a savage pirate who preyed on ships. The Frisian Islands had always produced wreckers and pirates, most of them desperate men who died soon enough, but Skade insisted that Skirnir had flourished. He captured ships or else took payment for safe passage and by so doing he had made himself rich and notorious.

“How many crews does he have?” I asked Skade.

“When last I was there,” she said, “sixteen small ships and two large.”

“When were you last there?”

“Two summers ago.”

“Why did you leave?” Ethne asked.

Skade gave the Scottish woman a speculative look, but Ethne held the gaze. She was a small, red-haired, and fiery woman whom we had freed from slavery, and she was fiercely loyal to Finan, by whom she now had a son and a daughter. She could see where this conversation was going, and before her husband went into battle she wanted to know all she could discover.

“I left,” Skade said, “because Skirnir is a pig.”

“He’s a man,” Ethne said, and got a reproving dig in her ribs from Finan.

I watched a servant girl carry logs to the tavern’s hearth. The fire brightened and I wondered again why so few men were drinking in the Goose.

“Skirnir ruts like a pig,” Skade said, “and he snorts like a pig, and he hits women.”

“So how did you escape the pig?” Ethne persisted.

“Skirnir captured a ship which had a chest of gold coins,” Skade said, “and he took some of the gold to Haithabu to buy new weapons, and he took me with him.”

“Why?” I asked.

She looked at me levelly. “Because he could not bear to be without me,” she said.

I smiled at that. “But Skirnir must have had men to guard you in Haithabu?”

“Three crews.”

“And he let you meet Harald?”

She shook her head. “I never met him,” she said, “I just took one look at him and he looked at me.”

“So?”

“That night Skirnir was drunk,” she said, “snoring, and his men were drunk, so I walked away. I walked to Harald’s ship and we sailed. I had never even spoken to him.”

“Stop that!” I shouted at two of my men who were squabbling over one of the Goose’s whores. The whores earned their living in a loft that was reached by a ladder, and one of the men was trying to pull the other off the rungs. “You first,” I pointed at the more drunken of the two, “and you after. Or both of you together, I don’t care! But don’t start a fight over her!” I watched till they subsided, then turned back to Skade. “Skirnir,” I said simply.

“He has an island, Zegge, and lives on a terpen.”

“Terpen?”

“A hill made by hand,” she explained, “it is the only way men can live on most of the islands. They make a hill with timber and clay, build the houses, and wait for the tide to wash it away. Skirnir has a stronghold on Zegge.”

“And a fleet of ships,” I said.

“Some are very small,” Skade said. Even so I reckoned Skirnir had at least three hundred fighting men, and maybe as many as five hundred. I had forty-three. “They don’t all live on Zegge,” Skade went on, “it is too small. Most have homes on nearby islands.”

“He has a stronghold?”

“A hall,” she said, “built on a terpen, and ringed with a palisade.”

“But to reach the hall,” I said, “we have to get past the other islands.” Any ship going through what would doubtless be a shallow and tide-torn channel would find Skirnir’s men following, and I could imagine landing on Zegge with two crews of enemies close behind me.

“But in the hall,” Skade said, lowering her voice, “is a hole in the floor, and beneath the floor is a chamber lined with elm, and inside the chamber is gold.”

“There was gold,” Finan corrected her.

She shook her head. “He cannot bear parting with it. He is generous with his men. He buys weapons, mail, ships, oars, food. He buys slaves. But he keeps what he can. He loves to open the trapdoor and stare at his hoard. He shudders when he watches it. He loves it. He once made a bed of gold coins.”

“They dug into your back?” Ethne asked, amused.

Skade ignored that, looking at me. “There’s gold and silver in that chamber, lord, enough to light your dreams.”

“Other men must have tried to take it,” I said.

“They have,” she said, “but water, sand, and tide are as good a defense as stone walls, lord, and his guard is loyal. He has three brothers, six cousins, and they all serve him.”

“Sons?” Ethne asked.

“No children by me. Many by his slaves.”

“Why did you marry him?” Ethne asked.

“I was sold to him. I was twelve, my mother had no money, and Skirnir wanted me.”

“He still does,” I said speculatively, remembering that his offer of a reward for Skade’s return had reached Alfred’s ears.

“The bastard has a lot of men,” Finan said dubiously.

“I can find men,” I said softly, and then turned because Sihtric had come running from the tavern’s back door.

“Men,” he told me, “there’s at least thirty out there, lord, and all with weapons.”

So my suspicions were right. Guthlac wanted me, my treasure, my ship, and my woman.

And I wanted Skirnir’s gold.