Brand shook his head again. As they stood he had been feeling the ship heave gently beneath him, even in the Thames backwater, trying to estimate how she would feel in the open sea. A ton and a quarter of weight, much of it high up so that the machine stood higher than the gunwales. Sail pressure way off center-line. A wide yard so they could spread plenty of sail, he noticed. But tricky to handle. He had no doubt the fisherman knew his business. And there was no question what a hit from one of those rocks would do. Remembering the fragile frame of every boat he had ever sailed, their planks not even nailed to the ribs, but lashed with sinew, Brand could see the whole construction springing apart in a moment, leaving an entire crew struggling in the sea. And not even Sigurth Snake-eye’s own fifty champions could fight against that.
“What are you going to call her,” he asked suddenly. “For luck.” His hand shot automatically to the hammer pendant on his chest. Ordlaf copied his gesture, fishing from under his tunic the silver boat of Njörth.
“We’ve got ten of the battleships,” said Shef. “I wanted to call them after the gods of the Way, Thor, Frey, Rig, and so on, but Thorvin would not allow it. He said it would be bad luck if we had to say ‘Heimdall is aground,’ or ‘Thor is stuck on the sandbank.’ So we changed our minds. We decided to call each ship after one of the counties in my realm, and as far as we can we will crew her from that county. So this is the Norfolk, over there the Suffolk, the Lincoln, the Isle of Ely, the Buckingham, and all the others. What do you think?”
Brand hesitated. Like all sailors, he had deep respect for luck, and no wish to say the ill word that might bring down bad luck on the enterprise of his friend. “I think that once again you have brought a new thing to the world. It may be that your ‘Counties’ will sweep the seas. Certainly I would not care to encounter one, and men do not call me the timidest of the Norsemen. It may be that the kings of England will be the sea-kings in the future, and not the kings of the North.
“Tell me,” he went on, “where do you mean to make your first cruise?”
“Across to the Dutch shore,” said Shef. “Then up along the coast past the Frisian islands and into Danish waters. That is the main route the pirates come. We will sink every pirate ship we see. From then on any who wish to invade us must take the long sea-crossing from Denmark. But in the end we will destroy their bases, seek them out in their own home-ports.”
“The Frisian islands,” muttered Brand. “The mouths of the Rhine, the Ems, the Elbe, the Eider. Well, I will tell you one thing, young man. All that is pilot water. You understand what I mean? You will need a pilot who knows the channels and the landmarks, so he can find his way by smell and hearing if he needs to.”
Ordlaf looked stubborn. “I’ve found my way all my life with no more than lead, lookout and log-line. Nor do I feel my luck has got any the worse since I left the monks who were my masters and found the gods of the Way.”
Brand grunted. “I say nothing against the gods of the Way.” Again, both he and Ordlaf touched their protecting pendants, and this time Shef, with a self-conscious gesture, reached also to pull out his strange ladder-like charm, the token of his patron Rig. “No, the gods may be well enough. But as for lead, lookout and log-line—you’ll need more than that off Bremen! I say it, I, Brand, Champion of the men of Halogaland.”
The listening workmen shifted and muttered. Some of those new to the yards nudged each other, pointing at the unfamiliar pendant of Rig.
Sun slanted through the high windows of the great library in the cathedral of Cologne, to fall on the open pages of several books spread across the massive lectern. Erkenbert the deacon, his short frame barely able to see its upper edges, stood lost in thought. He was alone. The librarius, knowing he had the archbishop’s favor, and approving the intentness of his research, had left him to himself, even with the great and precious Bible, written on the skins of eighty calves.