as any Christ cathedral and, in them, the great ships and all around them the iron men to go in them. Ships and men enough to make a kingdom.
Why have the Norns brought me here, to this beach, Crowbone wondered, binding the thread of my life into the frayed remains of Grima? My greatness is lifted up by the last act of the jarl of the Red Brothers, as sure a sign of Odin watching over me as a one-eyed face appearing in the blue sky.
He brooded on that the rest of that long night and into the dawn, while men moved to fires and left the pyre to collapse into ash and sparks, hushed and reverent and awed by everything that had happened, swift as a stooping hawk, on this dark and lonely beach.
In the morning, they howed Grima’s ashes up in a decent little mound, marked out with light-coloured stones plundered from the shingle and circled in the shape of a boat to show a man from the
vik
lay here. Then they packed up their sea-chests and started to board the two ships.
Crowbone, last to leave, turned to look at the stone-ringed mound of Grima’s howe, a fresh scab just above the tideline, as far removed from the north mountains as you could get. Crowbone wondered if his
fetch
would be content with that.
He walked away, feeling the unseen eyes on his back from under that boat-grave, thinking on a band of sworn-brothers and the wyrd of their last leader, old, alone and dying on a distant shore.
FOUR
The Frisian coast, a day’s sail later …
CROWBONE’S CREW
ONLY the Norse do not fear the dark on the open sea. At least, so any who travel on the whale road tell folk. The truth is that only the whales do not fear the night sea – but men from the north sail it anyway, when the likes of Greeks and Englisc and Saxlanders and Franks give in and snag their ship close to the shore with ropes.
Grima’s gift-ship was called
Skuggi
and it well-matched the name, Crowbone thought, for it was pitch-tarred all over the hull so that the wood was as black as if it had been burned, though streaked with salt and gull shit here and there.
Skuggi
meant shadow to most people, but northmen took more from the name, to them it spoke of an ominous shade, a spectre.
The sail did not make the ship or name sweeter, for when it was hauled up it was the colour of old blood. Crowbone was well content, all the same, for this was a proper
drakkar
of twenty oars a side – old, Onund said, and stiff with new wood here and there, but sound.
Fast, too – they had to leash the Shadow so that Hoskuld’s panting Swift-Gliding could keep pace. Crowbone had left Rovald and Kaetilmund on board the
knarr
, just to make sure the new steering oar kept Hoskuld on the same course; he needed Hoskuld yet, to point out this Drostan to him when they found him, but the trader was more reluctant and scowling than ever since Berto had whacked him with an axe handle, ruining his attempt to be the figure of a warrior.
They had a long, good sail that day. Crowbone had confirmed men in their old standings, so that the Shadow’s shipmaster was still Tjorvir Asmundsson, who was called Stikublig. Stick-Starer was an apt by-name for him, since he spent a lot of time throwing little wood chips over the side and watching intently to judge the speed, the better to work out where they were.
Crowbone was content; with the men working at familiar things it seemed little had changed save for the jarl standing next to the steersman and a few new faces. Mar and Kaup and some others knew that everything had changed but, by the time they ran up on a quiet shore, the crew seemed happier than they had been at the start of the day.
Fires were lit and food cooked; Kaup surprised Crowbone and others by making something tastier than they could have done themselves from little twisted packets of herbs and spices he had hidden round himself in various places. The crew who knew him well chuckled at the delight on the new faces.
After they had finished eating, in the thin light before
Why have the Norns brought me here, to this beach, Crowbone wondered, binding the thread of my life into the frayed remains of Grima? My greatness is lifted up by the last act of the jarl of the Red Brothers, as sure a sign of Odin watching over me as a one-eyed face appearing in the blue sky.
He brooded on that the rest of that long night and into the dawn, while men moved to fires and left the pyre to collapse into ash and sparks, hushed and reverent and awed by everything that had happened, swift as a stooping hawk, on this dark and lonely beach.
In the morning, they howed Grima’s ashes up in a decent little mound, marked out with light-coloured stones plundered from the shingle and circled in the shape of a boat to show a man from the
vik
lay here. Then they packed up their sea-chests and started to board the two ships.
Crowbone, last to leave, turned to look at the stone-ringed mound of Grima’s howe, a fresh scab just above the tideline, as far removed from the north mountains as you could get. Crowbone wondered if his
fetch
would be content with that.
He walked away, feeling the unseen eyes on his back from under that boat-grave, thinking on a band of sworn-brothers and the wyrd of their last leader, old, alone and dying on a distant shore.
FOUR
The Frisian coast, a day’s sail later …
CROWBONE’S CREW
ONLY the Norse do not fear the dark on the open sea. At least, so any who travel on the whale road tell folk. The truth is that only the whales do not fear the night sea – but men from the north sail it anyway, when the likes of Greeks and Englisc and Saxlanders and Franks give in and snag their ship close to the shore with ropes.
Grima’s gift-ship was called
Skuggi
and it well-matched the name, Crowbone thought, for it was pitch-tarred all over the hull so that the wood was as black as if it had been burned, though streaked with salt and gull shit here and there.
Skuggi
meant shadow to most people, but northmen took more from the name, to them it spoke of an ominous shade, a spectre.
The sail did not make the ship or name sweeter, for when it was hauled up it was the colour of old blood. Crowbone was well content, all the same, for this was a proper
drakkar
of twenty oars a side – old, Onund said, and stiff with new wood here and there, but sound.
Fast, too – they had to leash the Shadow so that Hoskuld’s panting Swift-Gliding could keep pace. Crowbone had left Rovald and Kaetilmund on board the
knarr
, just to make sure the new steering oar kept Hoskuld on the same course; he needed Hoskuld yet, to point out this Drostan to him when they found him, but the trader was more reluctant and scowling than ever since Berto had whacked him with an axe handle, ruining his attempt to be the figure of a warrior.
They had a long, good sail that day. Crowbone had confirmed men in their old standings, so that the Shadow’s shipmaster was still Tjorvir Asmundsson, who was called Stikublig. Stick-Starer was an apt by-name for him, since he spent a lot of time throwing little wood chips over the side and watching intently to judge the speed, the better to work out where they were.
Crowbone was content; with the men working at familiar things it seemed little had changed save for the jarl standing next to the steersman and a few new faces. Mar and Kaup and some others knew that everything had changed but, by the time they ran up on a quiet shore, the crew seemed happier than they had been at the start of the day.
Fires were lit and food cooked; Kaup surprised Crowbone and others by making something tastier than they could have done themselves from little twisted packets of herbs and spices he had hidden round himself in various places. The crew who knew him well chuckled at the delight on the new faces.
After they had finished eating, in the thin light before
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