Raven Read Free Page B

where we all could see him and he roared defiantly as though we were going into battle.
    So we rowed. And Serpent turned, so that her prow was skewed against the wind, which meant that the swells were hitting us side on, rocking the ship violently, and only a finger’s length of freeboard kept the Dark Sea from swamping us. By now Olaf had reefed the sail three times, reducing its area drastically; what was left he could control, though we could not sail any closer to the wind.
    ‘Good to see her up and about,’ Penda said from the bench behind me, and I saw Cynethryth bailing with the others, her clothes, once fine but now tatty and torn, clinging soppingly to her frail-looking body. For weeks I had barely laid eyes on her, for she had been recovering in a makeshift tent at Serpent ’s stern from the harm done her in the Frankish convent from which we had rescued her. Before, back in Wessex, she had warned us of her father’s betrayal and that had saved men’s lives, and now she was as much a part of the Fellowship as anyone. Besides which, men thought she was my woman. I had thought so too for a time. Now I knew I had been a fool. Perhaps Cynethryth had loved me once, or at least been fond enough. But perhaps she had bewitched me so that I would do her bidding, which I had done by saving her father. Though Ealdred was dead now, and by Cynethryth’s hand too, andthat might have been too much for her to take. Or maybe the nuns in Frankia, who had thought the girl possessed by Satan, had cracked Cynethryth’s mind with their cruelty, for they had beaten and starved her half to death. Whatever the truth, Cynethryth had not come near me for weeks.
    ‘She hates me, Penda,’ I said gloomily, pulling the oar and watching Cynethryth through stinging eyes. She was on her knees in the frothing water, gripping the sheer as Serpent rolled. Olaf, Bothvar, Ulfbert and Wiglaf were still fighting with the reefed sail which was soaking wet and heavy, and I knew that the ropes would be tearing the skin from the Wessexmen’s fingers for they were unused to the work.
    ‘She was always too good for you, lad,’ Penda said. ‘But my guess is her hate isn’t sitting square on you. The girl’s been through rougher seas than this. She needs time.’ Serpent skewed again and surfed down an enormous wave and I turned to see that her steering oar was completely clear of the water; then we cut up the face of another wave and I heard Bjarni howl with the terrified joy of it. ‘And we need a wave to wash that old bastard overboard,’ Penda added and I knew he was talking about Asgot who was helping Cynethryth to her feet, his lank, bone-plaited hair stuck to his wolfish face. Somehow the old godi had sunk his claws into Cynethryth, which was the strangest thing because she was a Christian, or at least she had been.
    ‘Land!’ someone yelled and whoever it was had better eyes than me for when I turned I could see nothing but murk. But my job was to row until Sigurd or Olaf told me to stop and so I rowed and Serpent proved herself against that storm, so that we came to a narrow estuary, one of many inlets that looked to grow increasingly shallow from the breaking plunge of its mouth towards its head amongst the rocky hills.
    ‘Steady now!’ Olaf called from the stern. The yard was lying lengthways along the deck now that we needed the control that only oars can give, and Olaf and Asgot were either sideof Jörmungand with fathom ropes, clinging to the sheer strake and continually testing the depth as we neared the shore; no easy thing in an angry sea. Even above the wind’s wailing and the men’s shouts I could hear the furious suck and plunge of the breakers amongst the rocks and that is a cold-terror sound when you are in a boat. Somewhere above, gulls were crying. I caught the tang of slick green weed. So close now. I half expected to hear the splintering of wood at any moment, but I bent my back and pulled the oar and then Sigurd