Authors: Giles Kristian
'We're in the storm's maw, Ealhstan,' I said, touching
Serpent
's top strake and wondering how she would fare in the chaos of a violent storm. The old man was gripping one of the sheet blocks, his knuckles bone white. 'And we'll soon be in its belly,' I said. I had never been at sea in a storm and I was terrified.
'Next time, we'll sacrifice a younger bull before we leave the fjord, Asgot,' Sigurd shouted to his godi. He stood at the ship's prow, one hand gripping the neck of the dragon staring dully out to sea with its red eyes. He grimaced. 'That sack of shit Haeston sold me was a threadbare old beast.'
'Only a fool would insult a god like Njörd with a poor beast,' Asgot replied accusingly. 'Anger one of the kinder, less powerful lords of Asgard if you must. Baldr perhaps. Freyja even, if you don't mind your cock shrivelling and dropping off,' he said, clutching his groin and shaking his head so that the bones in his hair rattled. 'But never Njörd, Sigurd. Never the Lord of the Sea.'
Sigurd bent his legs as
Serpent
rose and dipped. 'I swear old Njörd's appetite grows, godi,' he said, watching the heavens. 'Furl the sail, Uncle! Let's wet the oars and take her out there.' He nodded southward. Since the previous night, the coastline had promised only jagged rocks and sheer cliffs, and if the wind turned to come up from the south both ships would be tossed against them and broken. And so we gripped the oars and bent our backs, heading out to sea against a swell that kept dropping away so suddenly that my oar bit only the white hair that was spreading across the waves.
Night was falling and Sigurd had to make a decision that would seal our fates. We had to get away from the rocky coast, but row too far and we could lose our way, for the cloud would veil the stars and we would sail blind.
The reefing ropes whipped left and right as though the wind came from all sides at once. My oar's blade struck the white crest of a wave as I glanced over my shoulder at the distant cliffs, before
Serpent
's bow rocked into the sky. She gave a great creaking sigh that seemed to say, Don't look back, Osric, there's just us now. No land, no safety, just wood and nails and flesh.
'Any further and we'll lose sight of land!' Olaf shouted above the swirling wind that whistled through the oar ports. 'There's no way of knowing which way the storm is heading, Sigurd! We'll have to ride Rán's daughters!' Rán's daughters were the waves, and as
Serpent
's prow struck, they leapt across her top strakes to slap our faces and sting our eyes.
Sigurd frowned, salt water dripping from his hair and beard. The wrong decision could see his men drowned. But if they were afraid, they showed little sign of it. Some invoked their chosen gods. Black Floki challenged Njörd Lord of the Sea to do his worst, but the men around him cursed and told him to shut his big mouth. We rowed hard, as though muscle and sinew could challenge the might of wind and wave. But water was pouring in at the oar ports and the oars themselves were in danger of snapping under the swell's pressure. Rain and seawater drenched us, my face stung from the salt and I found it impossible to row in time with the others.
A great crack of thunder filled the world. 'Enough, lads! Get the oars in!' Sigurd called. 'Eric, tell Glum we're going to ride this one out,' he shouted, pointing to the oil lamp in its hollow horn sheath. Eric nodded, wiping rain from his brow as he took up the lamp and stumbled over to
Serpent
's seaward side, grabbing hold of the sheet to steady himself. We stowed the oars, plugged our ports with leather bungs and prepared for Njörd's fury. Suddenly I was jealous of Eric, who had been given a task that would steer his thoughts from fear. 'Take in the shields!' Sigurd shouted, and I stood just as
Serpent
's dragonhead prow lurched skywards. I stumbled into a chest and was flung back, striking my head on an oak rib.
Beside me Ealhstan made a long guttural sound as another peal of thunder split the night. He clung to
Serpent
's top strake, already looking like a drowned man. Something hit me in the chest as I lay in a sloshing pool of seawater. It was a length of tar-stinking rope.
'Tie the old man down or his bones will be washed overboard!' Svein the Red shouted as he staggered, unrolling the spare sail to help cover the small open hold at the base of the mast. 'And have a word with Óðin All-Father!' the red-bearded giant added with no hint of a smile. 'I don't swim well.'
The wind whipped the white hair from the waves and the ship creaked and moaned at the sea. I stumbled to Ealhstan, whose legs were trembling with the effort of fighting the ship's roll, and put my arm round him. 'Come, old man, you're not getting off this surf dragon without me,' I muttered in his ear, and he nodded and together we blundered to the mast. I sat him on the keelson, blinking through the stinging spray, and threw the rope around him and the mast. When I had made the knot, the old man put a hand to my cheek. 'We'll get through this,' I shouted and gripped his thin wrist. Bile had risen hot in my chest and my head swam with sickness.
Sigurd had unfurled the great square sail and he and Olaf and three others fought with bowline and forestay and backstay, moving in harmony with the ship so that it seemed they might remain standing even if
Serpent
capsized. They were trying to harness the wind rather than oppose it, but they were losing. I wiped my eyes against the driving rain, struggling to see
Fjord-
Elk
. She was sometimes thirty feet above us, then thirty below, her crew like wooden figures carved into the ship's deck. She looked like a god's toy.
'No, Uncle!' Sigurd roared into the wind. 'We can't win this one! Get her sail down before we're tipped out like bad mead.'
'Aye, she'll tear to shreds!' Olaf agreed as he fought with the sail. And so, with the sail down and no oars in the water, we were helpless.
'Sigurd's given
Serpent
to the fate maidens!' a man named Aslak called over his shoulder, clinging to a sheet block. 'The Norns will craft our future now.' Each man gripped his chest of belongings and the ship's top strake, waiting to see what future, if any, the Norns of fate had woven for him. Each man except Sigurd. He stumbled across
Serpent
's deck, dipping his hand into a sodden leather bag and giving each man a coin, which they tucked deep inside their clothing with a nod of thanks. He passed by Ealhstan and came to me and I looked up at him as the wind howled and the thunder roared in my ears.
'I give them gold in case tonight we sleep in Rán's kingdom at the bottom of the sea!' he shouted with a grimace that could have been a smile. 'She will only receive those with gold and it seems she is casting her nets today. Rán is a greedy bitch, hey, Asgot!' he called to the old godi, who shouted something back and threw his hands heavenward, causing Sigurd to grin mischievously. Sigurd suddenly gripped the top strake as
Serpent
rode up a great wave, its dragonhead nodding to the gods before plunging down towards cruel Rán's kingdom and her hall lit by dead men's gold. 'Here, boy.' He removed the amulet of one-eyed Óðin from round his neck and passed the leather thong over my head. 'Now remind the All-Father who you are!' he shouted. 'Tell him to spare us so that we might do great things in his name!' His blue eyes and the white foaming crests of Rán's nine daughters were the only colours in a dark, threatening world. 'If Óðin listens, I will free you!' he shouted. 'If not, I'll give you to Njörd!'
I was drenched and trembling and I did not move. I touched the carving round my neck and wondered if Christ or His angels could see me wearing the heathen figure. Christ sees all, Wulfweard had said.
'I can't do it, lord!' I exclaimed, swallowing the vomit in my throat and grabbing
Serpent
's top strake with both hands. I spat the foul taste into the sea. 'Óðin will not listen to me!' I barked. On steady legs, Sigurd drew his long knife and held it up for all his men to see. I stared at the blade, knowing it was about to cut my throat, but still my limbs would not obey me. His blue eyes bored into me and then he turned, took Ealhstan's head in one great hand and held the knife beneath the old man's chin. 'Leave him!' I yelled and grabbed Sigurd's wrist and instead of knocking me back down he stared at me. 'You won't harm him!' I said, clutching the wrist as though to let go was to die.
Sigurd blinked slowly and gave a slight nod and I took this to mean he would not kill Ealhstan and so I let go of his arm and stepped back, somehow keeping my footing as a great wave washed over me, burning my eyes with its cargo of salt and making me retch. When he had lowered the knife I turned and picked my way to
Serpent
's dragonhead prow, where I stood with one arm round the beast. Then I called to the sky.
'Óðin All-Father! Lord of the North! Save us from this storm! Remember me, Óðin! Remember me!' I don't know where the words came from, but I hurled them into the teeth of the storm, into the wall of whipping wind that swallowed them down. It ate my words as though I was nothing, and yet my defiance drew hot blood through my veins and stilled my trembling. 'Save us, Óðin! Save us and we will honour you!'
Serpent
reached the summit of a giant wall of water and then fell so steeply that she almost flipped over. I still clutched the wooden carving of the All-Father, holding it aloft, and as the ship righted herself I was flung forward over the prow, but I grabbed the top strake, and hung chest deep in the freezing water until something grabbed my shoulder and hauled me up, flinging me into the ship as though I were a codfish.
'Ha! Rán's daughters spat you back out, boy!' Svein the Red roared, beaming from ear to ear. 'Englishmen must taste foul! Those bitches will usually take anyone they can get their claws into!' I crouched in the hollow of the ship's bow, terrified and appalled, because I believed the Lord Christ had tried to drown me for invoking a heathen god. I shivered. Then I vomited, spewing up warm seawater on to
Serpent
's seasoned timber hull.
On hands and knees I crawled to the mast, to Ealhstan, afraid that if I stood Christ or Njörd or any other god might see me and fling me back into the cold sea. And there I sat as the old carpenter scoured me with eyes as cold as opals. Water dripped from his top lip and he spat it away in disgust.
'I had to do it,' I said. 'What choice did I have?' But Ealhstan shook his head and closed his eyes and though it could have been to rid them of stinging salt water, I believed it was so he did not have to see me; me who had prayed to a heathen god and suspended my soul above Hell's fire.
Then Olaf pulled a dry fur from the hold and gave it to me. 'Here, boy, you did well,' he said, frowning as though wondering what I was. Behind him I saw Sigurd. He had two hands on
Serpent
's top strake, his face turned up to the night sky. And he was smiling.
The storm broke. The low black cloud which had been the belly of the beast split apart to reveal a forest of stars. The seas fell and the stinging rain died, and for a time I feared the elements were simply regrouping to return and finish us off. After all the noise it was eerily quiet aboard
Serpent
. The men's low voices and the rhythmic creak of seasoned oak replaced the fury of wind, rain and sea. I tied back my hair with a length of tarred twine and sat at my place on
Serpent
's port side, gripping her top strake with white hands and looking out across the grey sea.
'Don't worry, little brother. He's had his fun with us,' Sigtrygg said, slapping my back as he bent to scoop up water with a thin-lipped pail. Pools sat in the hollows of the sail that covered the hold, and our feet sloshed through water so that half Sigurd's men were busy bailing. 'Old Njörd will leave us alone now.' Sigtrygg was a fierce-looking warrior whose face was ruined by lumpy scars, though it was clear he had never been handsome.
'How do you know?' I asked him, daring to take one hand from the hull. I found the smell of wood and tar somehow comforting, now that
Serpent
had fought for us and won. She had ridden the storm and I felt grateful to her.
'You're never safe at sea, Englishman,' Njal called from the steerboard side. His grin parted his fair beard through which he was tugging a comb. 'But that is what makes it so much fun!' The grin became a scowl as the comb stuck in his saltmatted hair and refused to budge.
Sigtrygg flung another pailful over the side, the water reflecting the starlight before splashing into the sea. He bent again. 'Somewhere some other mean bastard who thought it would be fine to sacrifice a half-dead bull is having a bad night,' he said, straightening. 'So long as it's not us, I couldn't give a fart.'
'We'll give Njörd your breeding bull next time, Sigtrygg,' Sigurd said, holding out his hand to me and nodding towards the Óðin amulet at my neck. I gave it to him and he put it over his head before helping Olaf inspect the sail for damage. The wind had stretched it, but it would retake its shape overnight. 'Better still, he can have you,' the jarl added, thumping Sigtrygg's soaking back. 'Get the oars out, lads!' he called. 'We've had our fun tonight.' And where they might have moaned at having to row again, the Norsemen seemed relieved to be taking a grip on
Serpent
once more; oars and steerboard rather than wind and waves controlling where she would go.