Ordlaf grinned. “He’ll see much to stretch his eyes at, lord, however far he’s sailed. Things no one has seen before.”
“Truth—right there is a thing that I have not seen before,” said Brand. He waved at a pit a few yards off. Inside it was a man pulling one end of a six-foot saw. Another stood on the huge log above pulling on the other. Ready hands held the plank as they sawed it from the log.
“How does it work? I have only ever seen planks hewed out with adzes.”
“Me too, till I came here,” said Ordlaf. “The secret lies in two things. Better teeth on the saws—that is the work of Master Udd. And teaching these blockheads here”—the men looked up grinning—”not to push the saw, just take turns pulling it. Saves a lot of wood and a lot of work,” he added in a normal voice. The plank eased to the ground, caught by helpers and the two sawyers changed places, the one beneath shaking dust and shavings from his hair. Shef noticed as they changed over that one wore round his neck the Hammer of Thor, as did most of the workmen on the site, the other an almost indistinguishable Christian cross.
“But that’s nothing, sir,” Ordlaf went on to Brand. “What the king really wants you to see are his pride and joy, the ten ships we’re building to his design. And one of them, lord, now ready for your inspection, finished while you were in Winchester. Come and see.”
He led them through the gate of a stout palisade to a ring of jetties projecting out into a still backwater of the river. There in front of them lay ten ships, men working on all of them, but one, the nearest, evidently complete.
“Now, sir Brand. Did you ever see anything like that this side of Halogaland?”
Brand stared, considering. Slowly he shook his head. “It is a big one, right enough. They say the biggest oceangoing ship in the world is Sigurth Snake-eye’s own Frani Ormr, the Shining Worm, that rows fifty oars. This is as big. All these ships are as big.”
Doubt clouded his eyes. “What are the keels made of? Have you taken two trunks and joined them? If you have, well, maybe on a river or off the coast in fair weather, but for deep sea or long voyage—”
“All single trunks,” said Ordlaf. “What you may be forgetting, sir, if you don’t mind me saying so, is that up there in the North where you come from you have to work with the wood you can get. And while I can see men grow big enough up there, it isn’t the same for trees. What we got here is English oak. And say what they like, I’ve never seen better wood or bigger wood.”
Brand stared again, shook his head again. “Well and good. But what in Hel have you done to the mast? You’ve—you’ve put it in the wrong place. And raked forward like a—like an eighteen-year-old’s prick! How is that going to shift a ship that size?” Honest pain filled his voice. Both Shef and Ordlaf grinned broadly. This time Shef took up the tale.
“The whole idea of these ships, Brand, is that they have only one purpose. Not crossing the ocean, not carrying men with spears and swords, not carrying cargo.
“These are ships for battle. Ships to battle other ships. Not by coming alongside and having their crews board each other. Not even by doing what Father Boniface tells me the ancient Rome-folk did, by ramming. No: by sinking the other ship and its crew along with it, and doing it from a distance. Now there’s only one thing we know that can do that.
“You remember the pull-throwers I first made at Crowland that winter? What do you think of them?”
Brand shrugged. “Good against people. Wouldn’t like to have one of those rocks fall into my ship. But as you know, you have to be the right distance to get a hit. Two ships, both moving…”
“Right, no chance. Now what of the twist-shooters we used against King Charles’s lancers?”