sound like the cracking of a bull-whip. I rolled over and kicked Thormod, but Thormod was already awake. ‘It will be the ice going,’ he said.
And a Kievan on the other side of the lodge added, ‘There’ll be clear water from here down to the Inland Sea in a few days’ time.’
Spring in the land of the Rus proved to be a wet and muddy time. The blocks of broken ice piled up and dammed the Dnieper, so that soon there were floods all across the marshes; and for a while, the world that had been frozen under white snow seemed foundering in black mud. But it was spring! Pipits flittered among the alders along the river-bank that were suddenly frithy with dark catkins. The long-ships were run out from the high-crested keel-sheds down on to the slipways. And the ship-building that had begun with timber felling in the autumn got into full swing, so that all day long the waterside of Kiev rang with shipyard sounds: adze on timber, hammer on anvil, the shovelling of great fires that steamed the light planks into shape for the sides of the newvessels. And everywhere was the smell of pitch and new timber and the sharp tang of burning cattle-dung, and the green freshness of the spring.
And spring passed into summer: a dry hot summer of dust blowing in from the steppes, and quick-piling thunderstorms; and for a little while there were nightingales, and brief bright dusty flowers, cornflowers and crimson poppies along the edges of the barley.
Back in the early spring the messengers had begun to come and go, riding the small sturdy tarpan, the half-wild ponies of the Steppes, carrying the Khan’s summons the length and breadth of the Rus country. And soon, from all directions, by boat down the waterways that fed into the Dnieper, and on horseback raising the summer dust behind them, the fighting men began to gather; while long-ship after long-ship came sweeping down-river from the north, bringing fresh Viking crews from the Baltic shores, eager for the fighting and the promise of gold that our northbound friends of the Great Portage must have shouted broadcast.
While it was still early summer, another Embassy came up from Miklagard; two of the great red-painted naval galleys of Byzantium; one of them clearly the escort, while on board the other, a little group of men in rich light cloaks as gaily coloured as flower petals, held themselves proudly aloof on the afterdeck.
I mind looking up from a rope that I was splicing, to see them come, and asking of the world in general, ‘Could it be that they are bringing the Princess?’
Orm, who was working beside me, laughed. ‘They’re businessmen, the Byzantines, they don’t pay until the payment has been earned.’
‘They’ll be here to see why we haven’t come yet,’ said someone else.
‘Na, na, they’ll know that it takes time to raise sixthousand fighting men and the ships to carry them. Just to see how the thing goes.’
And watching them come up-river at racing speed, the rowers tossing up their oars at the last instant, so that they slid alongside the jetty under their own way. Thormod said, ‘Yon was well done! These men of Miklagard are seamen in their own fashion.’
Orm nodded, his eyes screwed up against the sun-dazzle off the water. ‘Though I’m thinking ’twould be interesting to see how they would handle a keel in Sumburgh Roost at ebbtide.’
As summer went by, the low ground around Kiev became an armed camp; and ship after ship went down the slipways; and all along the strand up and down-river of the city the long keels lay like basking sea-beasts, old and flank-scarred by many voyages, young and green-timbered with their first seafaring yet ahead of them. And still the weapon smiths worked on, forging the great two-handed swords and the war axes of the Viking Kind.
At last, with the late summer drying out in grey dust and the first sparks of another autumn already showing here and there among the maples, close on a year after the
Red Witch
came
And a Kievan on the other side of the lodge added, ‘There’ll be clear water from here down to the Inland Sea in a few days’ time.’
Spring in the land of the Rus proved to be a wet and muddy time. The blocks of broken ice piled up and dammed the Dnieper, so that soon there were floods all across the marshes; and for a while, the world that had been frozen under white snow seemed foundering in black mud. But it was spring! Pipits flittered among the alders along the river-bank that were suddenly frithy with dark catkins. The long-ships were run out from the high-crested keel-sheds down on to the slipways. And the ship-building that had begun with timber felling in the autumn got into full swing, so that all day long the waterside of Kiev rang with shipyard sounds: adze on timber, hammer on anvil, the shovelling of great fires that steamed the light planks into shape for the sides of the newvessels. And everywhere was the smell of pitch and new timber and the sharp tang of burning cattle-dung, and the green freshness of the spring.
And spring passed into summer: a dry hot summer of dust blowing in from the steppes, and quick-piling thunderstorms; and for a little while there were nightingales, and brief bright dusty flowers, cornflowers and crimson poppies along the edges of the barley.
Back in the early spring the messengers had begun to come and go, riding the small sturdy tarpan, the half-wild ponies of the Steppes, carrying the Khan’s summons the length and breadth of the Rus country. And soon, from all directions, by boat down the waterways that fed into the Dnieper, and on horseback raising the summer dust behind them, the fighting men began to gather; while long-ship after long-ship came sweeping down-river from the north, bringing fresh Viking crews from the Baltic shores, eager for the fighting and the promise of gold that our northbound friends of the Great Portage must have shouted broadcast.
While it was still early summer, another Embassy came up from Miklagard; two of the great red-painted naval galleys of Byzantium; one of them clearly the escort, while on board the other, a little group of men in rich light cloaks as gaily coloured as flower petals, held themselves proudly aloof on the afterdeck.
I mind looking up from a rope that I was splicing, to see them come, and asking of the world in general, ‘Could it be that they are bringing the Princess?’
Orm, who was working beside me, laughed. ‘They’re businessmen, the Byzantines, they don’t pay until the payment has been earned.’
‘They’ll be here to see why we haven’t come yet,’ said someone else.
‘Na, na, they’ll know that it takes time to raise sixthousand fighting men and the ships to carry them. Just to see how the thing goes.’
And watching them come up-river at racing speed, the rowers tossing up their oars at the last instant, so that they slid alongside the jetty under their own way. Thormod said, ‘Yon was well done! These men of Miklagard are seamen in their own fashion.’
Orm nodded, his eyes screwed up against the sun-dazzle off the water. ‘Though I’m thinking ’twould be interesting to see how they would handle a keel in Sumburgh Roost at ebbtide.’
As summer went by, the low ground around Kiev became an armed camp; and ship after ship went down the slipways; and all along the strand up and down-river of the city the long keels lay like basking sea-beasts, old and flank-scarred by many voyages, young and green-timbered with their first seafaring yet ahead of them. And still the weapon smiths worked on, forging the great two-handed swords and the war axes of the Viking Kind.
At last, with the late summer drying out in grey dust and the first sparks of another autumn already showing here and there among the maples, close on a year after the
Red Witch
came
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