‘Ran loves us,’ Egil looked at the twinkling lights.
‘She must love them too,’ I said, nodding at the two nearest pursuers.
I wondered why they were so persistent. Had they recognised Spearhafoc? Her sail and the sparrowhawk on her prow were distinctive, but she rarely sailed this far north. Maybe it was simply that she was a pagan ship, lacking the cross that Christians displayed so prominently. Did they think we were a raider? Yet why pursue us so hopelessly? For a time the two larger ships had used their oars and they did close the distance, but some time in the night the wind freshened again and Spearhafoc slid away from them. ‘We’re doing Coenwulf a favour,’ I told Egil when he woke from a brief sleep and took the steering-oar from me.
‘A favour?’
‘If those are the only ships Constantine has on this coast then we’re drawing them away from Coenwulf. He should be grateful.’
‘There must be more ships,’ Egil said. We knew Constantine kept a fleet of around twenty ships on his east coast to protect his land from Norse raiders, and those ships, though not enough to defeat Coenwulf, could have caused him endless trouble. His fleet was supposed to sail up the coast, keeping in touch with Æthelstan’s ground forces, ready to supply them with food, ale and weapons. I had escaped from Coenwulf’s irritable command, but my only justification for that escape was the excuse to look for Constantine’s fleet and it was more than possible we had passed their anchorage in the night. If that fleet heard about Coenwulf’s ships they would surely sail south to confront him, and we should have been ahead of them to warn him of their coming, but the four ships were herding us ever northwards. I spat overboard. ‘We should be going south,’ I said, ‘looking for his damned ships.’
‘Not while those four are there,’ Egil said, then turned and looked at the far moonlit ships. ‘But they won’t last long,’ he said confidently, ‘and nor will you unless you get some sleep. You look like you just crawled out of your grave.’
I slept, as did most of the crew. I thought I would wake after a couple of hours, but I woke to the rising sun and to hear Gerbruht bellowing from the steering platform. For a moment his words made no sense, then I realised he was shouting in his native Frisian. I stood, wincing at the stiffness in my legs. ‘What is it?’
‘A trader, lord!’
I saw that Gerbruht had slackened our sail and we were wallowing close to a wide-bellied cargo vessel. ‘They all went north!’ The helmsman, a stout, thick-bearded man, shouted. The Frisian language was similar to our own, and I had little difficulty in understanding him. ‘Fifteen of them!’
‘Dankewol!’ Gerbruht called back, and called to our crew to sheet in the sail again.
The wind was at our stern. Spearhafoc lurched as the sail bellied, and I staggered against the steps. ‘We’re still going north?’
‘Still going north, lord,’ Gerbruht confirmed cheerfully.
I climbed to the steering platform, looked south and saw no ships.
‘They abandoned the chase,’ Gerbruht said. ‘I reckon they thought we were Viking and just chased us off!’
‘So who went north?’
‘Constantine’s fleet, lord.’ Gerbruht jerked his head towards the cargo ship that had settled on an eastern course. ‘She was in a harbour and saw them leave three days ago. Fifteen big ships!’
‘You trust them?’
‘Yes, lord! They’re Christians.’
I touched my hammer. Three dolphins were keeping pace with Spearhafoc and I took their appearance as an omen of good fortune. No land was in sight, though to the west a heap of white cloud showed above Constantine’s realm. So his fleet had gone north? Why? I was sure the news of Æthelstan’s invasion had not yet reached this far north or else those fifteen warships would be heading south to play havoc with Coenwulf’s fleet. ‘We should go south,’ I said.
‘Lord Egil told me we should look for their ships, lord.’
‘Their damned ships went north! You just told me that.’
‘But north to where, lord? Orkneyjar?’
‘Why would they go there? Those islands are ruled by the Norse.’
‘I don’t know, lord, but last night Lord Egil said we should sail to Orkneyjar.’ There was a plaintive tone to his voice. Gerbruht was a Frisian and a fine seaman, never happier than when a steering-oar was quivering in his capable hands, and he plainly wanted to keep running with the wind rather than struggle south. ‘Have you been to Orkneyjar, lord?’ he asked.
‘Once,’ I said, ‘but we can’t go there now.’
‘Lord Egil said we should visit.’
‘Of course he did! He’s a bloody Norseman and wants to drink with his cousins.’
‘He says we’ll get news there, lord.’
And that, I thought, was true. I doubted the fifteen ships had gone to the islands unless they were looking for a fight with the Norsemen who ruled there. More likely Constantine wanted his fleet on the western coast, hoping to make more trouble in Cumbria, and the fleet’s commander was taking advantage of the stretch of fine weather to sail around Scotland’s treacherous northern coast. And that meant that any news at Orkneyjar would likely be an absence of news. If the Scottish ships were not in the islands then they must have gone west. ‘Where is Egil?’
‘Sleeping, lord.’
I knew Æthelstan would want me to go south, but the lure of the wind checked me. Bebbanburg was safe with Finan in command, and I had no wish to tie myself to Coenwulf’s fleet, which, if it had extricated itself from the Foirthe,
