‘And if we’re unlucky?’
‘We die.’
I had never sailed the Ligan. I knew the river was tidal for a few miles upstream, and deep enough beyond the tidal head to take boats almost as far as Heorotforda, but I also knew it was a difficult river. The Ligan’s last few miles flowed through dense marshland where the river divided into a dozen shallow streams that changed their courses over the years. I had seen ships using those channels, but that had been years before. And we were very close to the tide’s ebb, when the water would be at its shallowest. If I was unlucky we would go aground and then there would be blood in the Ligan.
Our rowers were weakening, our pursuers were nearer, and once we turned into the Ligan we would be rowing against the current. ‘Pull!’ I shouted. ‘Pull! Your lives depend on it! You can rest soon, but pull now!’ I could see that the freed slave girls, crouched in the bows with the children, were crying. They knew just what they could expect if the bigger ship caught us.
We were close to the end of the northern reach, but Waormund’s ship was now only a hundred paces behind. I prayed he had no bowmen on board. I watched the river’s northern bank appear as we began the eastwards turn. Trees grew in the marshes and the Ligan’s channels threaded those trees. ‘Poplars,’ I said.
‘Poplars?’
‘Just hope the mast doesn’t catch on a branch.’
‘Mary, mother of God,’ Finan said, and touched his cross.
‘Pull! Pull! Pull!’ I shouted and heaved the steering-oar over, and the Brimwisa turned across the river’s current and headed for the Ligan. She slowed immediately, no longer helped by tide or river, and I bellowed at the oarsmen again. The big ship was following us, close enough now for a man to try throwing a spear that fell into our feeble wake just a few paces short. ‘Pull!’ I bellowed. ‘Pull!’
And we slid out of the Temes into the clearer water of the Ligan and the oarsmen were grimacing, hauling on the looms, and still I bellowed at them as we turned into the widest of the Ligan’s channels. To the left, driven deep into the river’s margin, were four giant stakes. I wondered if they were markers, or perhaps the remnants of a wharf, then forgot them as the steerboard side oars touched bottom and I hauled the steering-oar towards me and shouted at the oarsmen to keep rowing. There was a small island of reeds ahead. Did I go to the left of it or to the right? I felt panic. It would be so easy to go aground, but just then a small ship nosed into view behind a screen of poplars. The ship was little more than a barge, loaded with hay, and she was aiming towards the easternmost channel. I touched my hammer again and thanked the gods for sending a sign. ‘Row!’ I shouted. ‘Row!’
The helmsman of the barge would know the river, and know just which channels had enough depth to float his heavily laden barge. He was using the ebbing tide to carry his cargo down the Ligan and, once at the river’s mouth he would wait for the flood tide to float him and carry him up the Temes to Lundene. He had four oars, scarce enough to move the vast load, but the tides would do most of his work.
Our rowers could clearly see Waormund’s ship, and see the mailed and helmeted men crowded into her prow. The oarsmen were bone-weary, but they pulled hard and we slid up the easternmost channel, passing the hay barge, and again our steerboard oars struck the river bed and I screamed at those rowers to keep pulling. Another spear was thrown and hammered into our stern post. Finan plucked it loose. The men on the hay barge watched us open mouthed. The barge’s four oarsmen were so astonished at our sudden appearance that they had stopped rowing to stare at us, while the steersman just gaped and his ship slewed across the river. There was a bellow of anger from behind as Waormund’s ship slammed into the barge and veered into the eastern bank. Men lurched forward as the big hull grounded.
And we rowed on, struggling against the current and the last of the ebb. I let the oarsmen slow, content just to make a walking pace as we slid between the marshes. Waormund’s ship was aground, but men were already leaping overboard to shove her back into the channel. The hay barge had gone ashore on the other bank and its crew had been sensible enough to leap overboard and flee through the marshes.
‘So we’re safe?’ Finan asked.
‘They’ll be afloat soon.’
‘Jesus,’ he muttered.
I was gazing ahead, trying to pick a course through the tangled waterways. Our oars touched the river’s bed every few strokes, and once I felt the shudder of mud beneath the keel and held my breath till we had slid into deeper water. The branch of a poplar brushed our furled sail’s yard and scattered leaves on the rowers. Birds fled from us, their wings white, and I tried to discern an omen in their flight, but the gods had given me the gift of the hay barge and offered me nothing more. An otter slid into the water, looked up at me for an instant, then dived out of sight. We were still rowing through marshes, but ahead of us the land rose almost imperceptibly. There were small fields
