The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) (28 page)

"Let me help you," I said, and knelt across the body from him. "He was a good and brave man, and a friend to me."

*   *   *

None of our wounded died during the night, although from the looks of his pale visage and sunken cheeks, whether Stig—the most badly hurt—would survive was in the hands of the Norns. He still had not awakened, but that was not altogether a bad thing. Because he could not stop the wound's bleeding, Cullain had been forced during the night to cut off Stig's right hand above his shattered wrist, to create a new, clean wound that could be cauterized to stop the bleeding.

When I visited the wounded men's tent in the morning, Tore was awake, although he, too, looked very pale, and he was so weak that after we spoke briefly—he insisted I relate to him in detail how the battle had progressed, after he'd been wounded—he closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

With the assistance of Regin, Torvald had taken it upon himself to see that a hot meal was cooked to break the night's fast. It was simple fare—boiled barley porridge—but filling, and each man was allowed to eat as much as he desired. I savored each mouthful of the nutty tasting, chewy mush, and thought that seldom had I enjoyed so satisfying a meal.

Hastein had been wandering the decks of all three ships and the beach, making a point of talking to each of our men. Eventually he made his way to where I was sitting, lazily enjoying the feeling of having a full belly and nothing to do.

"You did well in the battle yesterday," he told me. "I have heard of your deeds from more than one of our men."

I felt pleased and proud at Hastein's words, and also surprised—though pleasantly so—that others had taken the trouble to speak of me to him.

"Our attack across the bows onto Sigvald's ship would likely have failed but for the effect of your men's arrow fire. I had wondered why it took so long for the archers to support the attack, until I spoke with some of them this morning. Sigvald's archer—the Finn—came close to changing the outcome of the battle. No doubt your duel with him will find its way into the tales that seem to be growing about Strongbow."

Now I felt embarrassed. But it did not escape me that Hastein had called the archers my men.

"Gudfred—he seems a good man—told me that you also led the attack that cleared one of the pirates' ships. He said you fought like a man possessed by a berserker's fury. He claims he saw swords hit you but they did not cut, and he said he had never seen a blade strike with such swiftness as did yours. He said you left a trail of dead behind you as you cut your way from the bow to the stern of the pirates' ship."

I had no memory of swords striking me—in truth, I still could not recall the boarding of the ship and the fight that followed at all. But I did have several long bruises across my shoulders and back, and felt very stiff and sore from them.

"The warrior he described…. I know you to be very skilled with your bow, but in truth, I would not have known the man he described to be you," Hastein added.

In truth, I would not have either.

"If swords did not cut me, I am certain there was no magic to it," I told him. "The Frankish mail of which my brynie is made, and the thick jerkin I wear beneath it, no doubt are what saved me from harm."

"Hmm," Hastein replied. "You are, of course, now the captain of my archers. I fear it will be some time before Tore is fit to fight again."

"I thank you," I said. Hastein had once before asked me to command his archers. This time I did not protest.

"Now we must speak of a matter about which I am not pleased. I have learned that you and Einar killed one of the prisoners. I gave them my word that they would not be harmed if they surrendered."

I wondered if Gudfred had told Hastein of the incident. He had looked shocked by my actions. "Did you know that it was one of Toke's men?" I asked.

Hastein looked surprised. "I did not."

It was not Gudfred, then. That was a fact he would not have omitted.

"One of the pirates' longships—the one that grappled the
Serpent
's bow, and was tied alongside Sigvald's—was the
Sea Steed
. It was one of Toke's two ships that we have been pursuing. It was the ship that Snorre sailed to Frankia."

"How did the pirates come to possess it?" Hastein asked.

"That was what I was trying to discover. Gudfred recognized two of Toke's men among the pirates who had surrendered. I was attempting to question one of them—he had been in Frankia, with Snorre—but he refused to talk. He said I could not harm him, because you had promised their safety if they surrendered. He said he would only tell me what I wished to know if I set him free."

"Which you could not do," Hastein said. "Not without my permission."

I shook my head. "Which I
would
not do. I swore an oath to slay all of the men who helped Toke kill my brother Harald and the others, up on the Limfjord."

"Hmm," Hastein murmured. "But by killing him you broke
my
promise, which I had given."

I shook my head again. "You promised the pirates that if they surrendered, neither you nor your men would kill them. Those were your words. I did not kill Toke's man. He asked to be set free, so I put him over the side. It happened that he could not swim. He drowned.
I
did not kill him. The sea did."

Hastein stared at me in silence for a long time, his face expressionless. Eventually I realized that he was struggling to keep a smile from showing. "If you made that argument before the lawgiver at a Thing," he finally said, "if a lawsuit had been brought against you over this man's death, I have grave doubts that it would keep you from being ordered to pay wergild. But it is a clever argument, nonetheless. I must remember it." Now he did smile, and shook his head. "
You
did not kill him; the sea did. And after the sea took his comrade, did the other of Toke's men talk?"

I nodded. "He did," I answered, and related what Skjold had told me. By the time I finished, Hastein's face had taken a look of cold anger.

"Toke is not a foe to be taken lightly," he said. "It was a clever move in this game we are playing to set the pirates upon us. He did not even know for certain that he was being pursued. He gambled a ship on the possibility that we were following him, and on the chance that he could use the pirates to strike at us. It was a gamble that he won. But he may come to regret it. Before, I hunted him solely for the wrong he had done to you and your folk, and for the niddingsvaark of killing the women and children in the attack up on the Limfjord, after their safety had been promised. I wished to see him brought to justice, but in truth, I was not willing to continue pursuing him indefinitely. Now it is a personal thing for me, as well as for you. I have lost good men to Toke's treachery. I will see their deaths avenged."

He shook his head slowly, and sighed. "But I fear that now we may have lost the advantage of greater numbers we held before. If we meet Toke now—if we are able to catch him—it will be a much more even fight."

The long peal of a horn sounded a warning note. With the coming of daylight, Hastein had moved the sentries inland from the ships, to form a perimeter around our camp.

"Jarl Hastein," one of the sentries called, "men are approaching."

Eight riders made their way down the side of the distant ridge and crossed the gently sloping grassy fields that lay between it and the beach. Nori, the headman who had acted as spokesman for the Oelanders the night before, was in their lead.

Hastein and I walked over to the fire Torvald and Regin had built in front of the tent for the wounded. Besides Torvald, Gudfred and Einar were among the men gathered there. We arrayed ourselves behind Hastein as he stepped forward to meet the islanders.

"Greetings," Nori said, as he dismounted. "I hope you and your men passed a peaceful night." He glanced at the open-fronted tent and the wounded men lying inside, then beyond to the row of bodies, now draped with a tent awning taken from the captured ship to protect them from the birds. Several crows had already passed low overhead since daybreak, no doubt attracted by the smell of death.

"Have you plans yet for your dead?" Nori asked.

"It is a matter I had intended to give thought to this day," Hastein answered.

"We would join you in honoring them. And as I spoke of last night, we wish to hold a feast to give thanks to the gods, and to you and your men, for the defeat of the pirates. These"—he indicated the men who had ridden into our encampment with him—"are also headmen of villages upon this island. Let me present them to you."

After introductions had been made, Nori continued. "We have spoken among ourselves, and have decided to delay the feast until two days from now. That will give us more time to prepare for it. We also need time to select the horses for our sacrifice and to properly ready them. With your permission, may our feast not only be one of thanksgiving, but also a funeral feast to honor your slain?"

Hastein nodded—so deeply, it was almost a shallow bow. "My men and I are grateful for the honor you show our comrades."

"Good. It is settled, then," Nori said. "We will hold our sacrifice as the sun rises from the sea, two days hence. If you would join us, we would be grateful. Your men are welcome, too. Then we will cook the meat from the sacrifices during the day, and at dusk, we will feast together."

Two days hence? I knew that our men needed to rest after the battle, and our dead needed to be sent properly on their way to the next world. But how far ahead of us would Toke get in that time?

"We will burn our dead before the feast," Hastein told Nori. "It is our custom." He glanced toward the shoreline where our ships were pulled up against the beach for a moment, then turned back to Nori and added, "We will burn them in the ship we captured—the one we took from Sigvald, the pirates' captain. It will be their death ship."

Nori looked beyond Hastein toward Sigvald's ship, and his face took on a pained expression. "It is a fine ship," he said wistfully, then added, "We have no ships here upon Oeland now. We had three, but the pirates burned them when they first came."

I had noticed, in the light of day, that further down the cove was what looked to be the charred remains of a boathouse—it could not have held a ship as large as the Gull, but was long enough to have held a small longship or a knarr—and the blackened outlines of several other buildings nearby. That, I supposed, was some of the handiwork of the pirates. The sight had reminded me of Frankia, of a ruined village I had happened upon there. It was a shame we could not have kept the other two captured ships, to give to the Oelanders.

Nori continued. "We managed to save some of our small-boats by dragging them up from the shore and hiding them, but we have no ships now." He sighed heavily, and was silent for a time, as if hoping Hastein might speak. Finally he continued, "We have a boon to request of you."

I wondered if he was going to ask Hastein for Sigvald's ship—he clearly longed to have it—but he did not.

"You took prisoners, did you not? In the battle?"

"We did."

"The pirates did not make their camp upon Oeland. The entire summer they have remained nearby, but we do not know where. At first they raided us often, stealing our food and beasts whenever they could catch us unawares. After a time, they would come every few days and require us to provide them with food, in exchange for not attacking us. They called it tribute. They also stole some of our women-folk, in their first raids. We would know if they still live. And if they do, we would know where they are being held. Your prisoners will know."

"We will question them," Hastein told him.

*   *  *

Because Skjold had already spoken freely to us once Einar and I had convinced him that it was the prudent thing to do, he seemed the logical place to begin. Gudfred and I escorted him from the captured ship to the shore, where Hastein and the islanders were waiting. He was willing, even eager, to cooperate.

"Sigvald and his men built an encampment on the large island in the channel between Oeland and the mainland," he told us. "The same island behind which we were lying in wait for you. There is a small cove on the back side of it which provides a secure anchorage that is hidden from the channel and protected from storms. The encampment is there. And they built towers on each end of the island, from which to watch the northern and southern approaches of the channel for ships."

"The islanders say some of their women were stolen by the pirates. Are any of them on the island, at the encampment?" I asked.

Skjold nodded. "They are. There are seven of them. I heard there used to be more, but…."

"But what?" demanded one of the men who had come with Nori. He had a long, light brown beard that fell halfway to his waist, and his face was twisted by an angry scowl.

"But two of them died. That is what I heard. It was before I came—before I joined them."

"Did Sigvald leave any men to guard the encampment?" Hastein asked, "Or were they all aboard the ships that attacked us?"

"He left six men on the island," Skjold answered. "To guard the women and watch over the camp."

"Will you carry us across the channel to the island?" Nori asked Hastein. "Will you help us find our women and bring them home?" He paused for a moment, then added, "We have no ships."

"Do not forget the watch towers," Skjold warned. "They will see you coming long before you reach the island."

Nori stuck his finger into his mouth, wetting it, and held it aloft. "The wind is blowing from the east, off the sea," he said. "In the morning, early, there will be fog over the water. If we cross the channel in the morning, in the fog, they will not see us."

Torvald stepped forward. "Hastein," he protested. "We do not know these waters. Sailing a ship in fog, in unknown waters, is dangerous. We could lose the
Gull
if she hits a rock and her hull is pierced."

"There will be no danger to your ship," Nori assured Hastein. "Before the pirates came, we often fished the waters off that island. Along its center, opposite Oeland, the beach is sandy and the sea offshore there is shallow and free of rocks. I will show you the way."