Sworn Brother

Kjartan gave me a shrewd glance and I wondered just how much he knew.

'She's well, though we don't see much of her now. Either she's at her father's place in Northampton or she travels overseas as Knut's representative.'

At that point a trumpet sounded. The felag was called to attend to a meeting in the great hall and Kjartan turned to go. 'I hope we'll have the chance to remember our days in Northampton and London,' he said.

The meeting was packed. Every Jomsviking, whether veteran or recent recruit, had assembled to hear what Kjartan had to say. He was escorted into the hall by two leading members of the felag's ruling council, who introduced him to his audience. He spoke clearly and firmly, and his soldierly bearing and battle injury made his audience listen respectfully. His message was clear enough: King Knut, ruler of England and Denmark and rightful heir to the throne of Norway, invited the Jomsvikings to join his cause. War was looming. The enemies of the king — Kjartan described them as a league of resentful earls forgetful of their oaths of loyalty, warlords from Norway and Sweden, and a false claimant to the Norwegian throne - were assembling an army to challenge Knut's authority. King Knut, of course, would crush them, and in victory he would remember and reward those who had helped him. There would be much booty to distribute — here an appreciative murmur rose from the listening warriors — and there was fame to be won.

Kjartan reminded his listeners of the renown of the Jomsvikings, their illustrious history and their prowess as fighting men. Finally, he proffered the bait that, all along, he knew would most tempt his audience. 'King Knut holds you in such high regard,' he announced, 'that he has authorised me to offer each one of you fifteen marks of silver if you agree to fight on his behalf, half to be paid now, and half to be paid on the conclusion of the campaign.'

It was a munificent offer and characteristic of Knut's statecraft: silver coins rather than iron weapons were his tools of preference.

When Kjartan had finished speaking, a senior member of the Jomsviking council rose to reply. It was a generous proposal, worthy of a generous ruler, he began. He himself would recommend acceptance, but it was the custom of the Jomsviking assembly that any member of the felag could state his views, whether for or against, and he called upon anyone who wished to express an opinion to speak up. One after another, Jomsvikings came forward to address the assembly. All were in favour of accepting Knut's offer, which was not surprising. The advance payment of fifteen marks for every man was an enticing prospect and it seemed that further discussion was a mere formality. Until Thrand spoke.

He had been sitting with the other members of the council, and when he rose to give his opinion a hush fell on the gathering. Everyone in the hall also knew that he was a survivor of the original felag.

'Brothers of the felag,' he began, 'before you make your decision whether or not to accept the King of England's offer, I want his emissary to answer one question.' Turning to Kjartan, he asked, 'Is it true that in agreeing to join King Knut's army, we could find ourselves fighting alongside, or even under the command of, Knut's deputy in military affairs: the leader of the royal huscarls, his earl known as Thorkel the Tall?'

The man standing beside me abruptly sucked in his breath, as though a raw nerve had been exposed. Behind Thrand several older members of the council looked uncomfortable.

'And am I right in thinking,' Thrand continued, 'that this same Thorkel, more than thirty years ago, broke his Jomsviking vow when he, with his crew, turned tail and abandoned his brothers who were left, unaided, to fight the Norwegian Haakon and his fleet?'

A terrible hush had fallen over the assembly. A few paces from me someone was whispering to his neighbour the story of the disgrace, when the honour of the Jomsvikings was shattered.

Kjartan rose to give his answer. All could see that he had been shaken. He had not anticipated this. Thrand's question implied that no Jomsviking should go to the assistance of a man who had betrayed the fellowship. We waited expectantly. The pause lengthened slowly and became an embarrassment. I felt sorry for Kjartan. He was a soldier, not a diplomat, and he could not come up with the fine words to wriggle out of the dilemma.

When he finally spoke he was hesitant. 'Yes, Knut's most trusted earl is the same Thorkel who was a member of your fellowship. Thorkel has become a great war leader, won riches, earned the confidence of the king. I believe that you should be proud of what he has become, rather than remember what happened thirty years ago.'

His words made little impression. I could feel the scepticism of the crowd grow around me, their mood suddenly changed. Kjartan felt it too. He knew that his mission was on the verge of collapse. He scanned the faces of the crowd. I was standing close to the front, looking up at him and, like all the others, waiting for him to continue. Our eyes met, and suddenly Kjartan announced.

'You don't have to take my word for it. One of your own brotherhood has met Thorkel the Tall at King Knut's court, and he can tell you about him now.' He beckoned to me and, after a moment's surprised hesitation, I stepped forward to stand beside him. He gripped my elbow and whispered in my ear, 'Thorgils, for the memory of Edgar the huntsman, try to say something to make them accept my proposal.'

Turning to face my audience, my breath seemed to leave my lungs. A couple of hundred warriors were looking at me curiously and I could scarcely breathe. For the first time in my life I had been called upon to address a large gathering and my mind was in turmoil. I realised that I held the balance between two men to whom I owed great debts: Thrand, who had been my mentor over the years, and Kjartan, who had stood by me when I was in desperate need in England. I had to find a middle way without dishonouring either man.

Odinn came to my rescue.

I cleared my throat and, stammering over the first few syllables, said, 'I am Thorgils, a follower of Odinn, and I have always let the High One be my guide - Kjartan is my friend and I know him to be an honest man, so I believe he is carrying an honest message. Thrand is also my friend and has told me of the cowardice of Thorkel and the others in the fight against Earl Haakon. Yet I have seen how high Thorkel the Tall then rose in the court of King Knut, and I know that he would never have achieved such fame and wealth if he had stayed to fight and die. So I say — let Odinn's wisdom guide you, and accept this as his sign. Seventy survivors of our felag came before Earl Haakon for judgement, and this is the seventieth of the High One's sayings.'

Here I paused to draw breath before reciting:

'It is better to live than to lie a corpse,

I saw flames rise before a rich man's pyre

and before his door he lay dead.'

Kjartan saw his chance. He quoted the next verse for me.

'The lame rides a horse,

the handless is herdsman

The deaf in battle is bold

No good can come of a corpse.'

A low mutter of approval came from the crowd, and a voice from the back shouted, 'Forget about Thorkel. Odinn had other plans for him. I'm all for the accepting Knut's silver.'

One by one, the members of the council spoke up and all were in favour of Kjartan's proposition. Only Thrand failed to speak. He sat there silent, and on his face was the same distant expression that I had seen while he gazed into the ship's wake and thought of the defeat at Hjorunga Bay.

As the assembly began to dissolve, Kjartan took me aside to thank me. 'Your speech made all the difference,' he said. 'Without it, the men would not have committed themselves to fight for Knut.' Then he smiled. 'With my wooden leg, I liked the bit about the lame being able to ride a horse. But I'm not sure that when I get back to London I should tell Gisli One Hand that, according to you and Odinn, he should become a cowherd.'

'It was All-Father Odinn who spoke through me and swayed the minds of the audience,' I replied. What I did not tell Kjartan was that, after a month in Jomsburg, I knew that the new order of Jomsviking could never resemble the felag Thrand had known. The new Jomsvikings were driven by their thirst for silver, not glory, and in the end they would have accepted Knut's bribe whatever Thrand had said. By citing the High One, I had given Thrand a reason to accept their decision with no loss to his own sense of honour or duty to his fallen comrades.

We were summoned to earn our fifteen marks of silver early in September. Knut moved against the forces massing to oppose him, and sent a messenger to tell the Jomsvikings to join his fleet, now on its way from England. His messenger slipped into our citadel disguised as a Saxon trader because Knut's enemies already lay between us and the man whose pay we had taken. To the west of Jomsburg a great Norwegian force was raiding Knut's Danish territories, while their allies, the Swedes, were harrying the king's lands in Skane across the Baltic Sea. This left the felag dangerously isolated and our council met to discuss how best we should respond. After much debate it was decided to send two shiploads of volunteers, the most experienced warriors, to run the gauntlet and join the king. The rest of the Jomsvikings, fewer than a hundred men, would remain to garrison the citadel against any enemy attack.

'Stay and complete your training,' Thrand advised me. He was packing his war gear into the greased leather bag which also served as his sleeping sack while on campaign. As one of the most experienced fighters in the felag, he had been appointed second in command of one of the two ships in our little expeditionary force. My speech in defence of Thorkel the Tall at the assembly seemed to have done no damage to our friendship, though Thrand was so taciturn that it was difficult to tell what he was thinking.

'I've already volunteered to join the expedition,' I told him. 'If I'm to take Knut's silver, then I feel I ought to earn it. Besides, our battle drills are becoming very repetitive.'

'As you wish,' said Thrand. He slid his sword halfway out of its scabbard to check the blade for rust, and then carefully eased it back into the sheath. The scabbard was lined with unwashed sheep wool, the natural oils in the fleece protecting the metal from decay. As an added precaution he began to wind a linen strip around the hilt to seal the gap where the blade entered the scabbard. He paused from the work and looked up.

'Be warned: Knut wants the Jomsviking as warriors in his line of battle. That is what you have trained for. But if it comes to a sea action, all that training is next to useless. There's no chance for the swine array or shield walls. Ship fights are close up and brutal. Most of the engagement is pitiless and chaotic, with a good deal of luck as to who emerges the victor.'

That afternoon I went to the armoury to withdraw my weaponry for the expedition. When I had been a new recruit, the crippled armourer had been casual, issuing me with a mail shirt in need of repair and the weapons that were closest to hand. This time, knowing that I was going into action, he took greater care, and I emerged from the armoury with a helmet that fitted me properly and a byrnie of a new design. Attached to the helmet was a small curtain of mail that hung across my lower face, protecting my throat. He also produced for me a good sword with an inlaid metal handle, two daggers, half a dozen javelins, an ash spear and a round limewood shield, as well as a short-handled battleaxe. When I stacked this assortment of weaponry on the ground beside Thrand, he commented, 'if I were you, I would change the grip on that sword. Wrap that showy metalwork with tarred cord so that your hand does not slip when your palm gets sweaty. And you'll need a second shield.'

'A second shield?'

'Every man brings a second shield. Nothing fancy, just a light wooden disc. They'll be arranged along the side of the vessel — there's a special slot along the upper strake to hold them — and they'll make a fine display. In my experience much of warfare is decided by appearances. Strike fear into your enemy by how you look or act before the first blow and you've won half the battle.'

A spoked wheel with alternating fields of red, black and white was the pattern that the council chose for our insignia, and I had to admit it looked imposing when the shields were set in place. They gave our two ships a professional air, though a trained eye would have noted that the vessels, like the Jomsviking harbour, were antiquated and in a poor repair. The two drakkar, longships of medium size, were all that now remained of a Jomsviking fleet of thirty vessels, the great majority of which had been sunk or captured in Earl Haakon's time. These two survivors were leaky and their timbers were suspect. The felag's shipwrights had struggled to make them seaworthy, caulking seams and applying a thick layer of black pitch to the outside of the hulls. But the deck planks were warped and cracked, and there were splits and shakes in the masts. Fortunately the Jomsburg lowlands grew flax so we were able to obtain new sails and rigging at short notice. But nothing could hide the fact, as we set out on a bright and crisp September day, that our two vessels were unhandy and slow, and their sixty-man crews were badly out of practice as sailors.

A fully manned drakkar offers little comfort to her crew. By the time we had loaded aboard all our weapons and equipment, the spaces between the sea chests which served as our oar benches were so crammed with gear that there was very little room to move about. Our only gangway was a walkway of planks, laid along the middle of the vessel to connect the small platform in the bows of the drakkar with the stern deck, where our captain stood. He was a squat thug of a man, a Jute who had lost one eye in a minor skirmish and the wound made him look like a bandit. Indeed, as I glanced round at my companions with their diversity of homelands and racial features, I thought they looked more like a pirate crew than a trained fighting unit. The truth was that we were hired mercenaries, setting out for money and the chance of loot — I wondered how long our discipline and our loyalty to the felag would last.

Our inexperience showed in the chaos of our embarkation. We found our places about the drakkars, unlashed the oars from their stowage and fitted them to the thole straps. Men took practice pulls with their oars to test their length and find their own best position. Unless they were careful, they knocked into their neighbours or struck the man sitting directly in front, hitting him in the back with the loom of the oar. There were oaths and angry grumbling in several languages and it was some time before our captain was able to order the lines to be cast off. Our drakkars pulled slowly out of the harbour, their oars moving to an uneven beat as though we were two crippled insects.

The current was in our favour once we emerged through the disused harbour gates, and as we rowed towards the river mouth it became obvious which of our oarsmen had learned to row on rivers and lakes and which were proper seamen. Those from calmer waters pulled their oars in a long fiat sweep, while the experienced mariners used a shorter, chopping action, and of course the two styles did not match. So there were more oaths and arguments among the rowers, until our drakkars began to pitch and roll on the first waves from the sea, and one of the river rowers sprained his wrist. Luckily there was a brisk east wind to speed us on our way, so we hoisted our brand-new sail, hauled the oars inboard and relaxed, leaving the Jutish captain and his helmsman to steer.

'Thank Svantevit for this wind,' said the Wend beside me, reaching inside his shirt and producing a little wooden image of his God. He found a niche for the talisman beside his seat and put it there, then nodded towards the flat shoreline on our left. 'Anyone know this coast?'

A man three places from us must have been a Sjaellander, for he answered, 'Used to sail past it with my uncle when we were bringing his farm produce to Rugen. Not much to see, but easy enough once you know the channels. Have to watch out for sand and mudbanks, but there are plenty of creeks and bays handy for shelter if the wind blows up.'

'Rich country?' asked another voice hopefully.

'No, just farmlands; nothing of note until you get to Ringsted and that's Knut's domain, so I guess we'll be on our best behaviour if we stop there.'

'We won't be making any stops,' said a heavily bearded Skanian, one of our Danish volunteers. 'Rumour has it that Knut's fleet has left Limfiord and is heading for the sound and we're to rendezvous with him there.'

He spat over the side, and watched the spittle float away in our wake, judging the speed of our vessel. 'She's no racer,' he commented. 'In a wind like this she ought to be half as fast again.'

'Ballast's all wrong,' said a voice from somewhere amidships. 'She's too heavy in the bow.'

'Reckon the mast isn't stepped quite right either,' came a third opinion. 'Should be shifted aft a hand's breadth and the main halyard set up tighter.' As the discussion gathered pace I realised that sailors could spend as much time discussing the rig of their vessels as warriors in barracks spent comparing the merits of weapons.

That evening we landed on a stretch of deserted shore to make a meal and rest. There is no cooking hearth aboard a drakkar, so the crew eat cold food if they do not land. We brought the vessels close inshore, turned stern on, and after setting anchors to haul them off next morning, we backed water with the oars until the sterns touched the sand. That way, if there was an emergency or we needed to depart in a hurry, we could scramble aboard and leave in double-quick time. Not that we expected trouble. Few villages could muster enough men or courage to dispute the landing of two shiploads of armed men. The only glimpse we had of the local inhabitants was the distant figure of a shepherd running away down sand dunes to take a warning to his people. He left his flock behind, so we butchered ten of his sheep and feasted.

Next morning the wind was fluky, changing in strength and direction as we resumed our coastal passage. But the sun shone in a sky flecked with high, fast-moving white clouds. It felt like a holiday as we headed onward under sail, keeping well offshore.

'Wish all campaigning was like this,' commented the Sjaelander, who was proving to be the ship's chatterer.

By now most of the crew had learned how to make best use of the cramped space, stretching out on the lids of the storage chests that held their war gear. Folded sails and padded jerkins were their cushions. Thrand, I noticed, never joined us. As we sailed onward, he took up his position on the little foredeck, standing there watching the forward horizon or, more often, scanning the shoreline as we moved steadily northward.

Shortly before noon I became aware that Thrand's gaze had not shifted for some time. He was looking towards the land, his attention fixed. Something about his posture alerted me to turn around and look back at our captain. He was glancing in the same direction too, and then looking astern at the waves and sky, as if to check the wind speed and direction, and watching the bronze weathervane on our stern post. Everything seemed to be in good order. Our two ships were moving steadily forward, nothing had changed.

The Sjaelander, who had been stretched out on his back enjoying the warmth of the sun on his face, lazily rolled over on his side and raised his head to peer over the side of the drakkar. 'Soon be passing the entrance to the Stege Bight,' he said, and then, 'ah yes, there it is, I can see sails on the far side of that little island. They must be coming out from West Sjaelland.' He rolled back on his side and settled himself comfortably. 'Probably merchantmen on their way out to the sound.'

'If so, they've come to trade with swords not purses. Those are warships,' said the big Dane. He was standing on the oar bench, an arm shielding his eyes from the sun's reflection on the water, as he looked towards the distant sails. There was a sudden stir among our crew. Men sat up and looked around, several got to their feet and squinted in the same direction.

'How do you know they're warships?' asked one of the Wends. He had been one of the river rowers and this was clearly the first time he had been to sea.

'Some of those sails have stripes. Sign of a fighting ship,' answered the Dane.

I looked at our own new sail. It was unmarked. 'Maybe they'll mistake us for merchant ships as well.'

'I doubt it,' said the Dane. 'Merchant ships don't carry low, broad sails like ours. Their sails are taller and not so wide. As soon as they clear the island and get a good view of us, they'll recognise the outline of a drakkar hull and know we're not a pair of harmless trading ships. However, this may be a piece of luck. West Sjaelland is ruled by. Earl Ulf, one of Knut's liegemen, and those ships could be on the way to reinforce Knut's war fleet. We'll be able to sail in company with them and if we run into the king's enemies they'll think twice about attacking such a large force.'

When the strange ships emerged from behind the dunes and into plain view, we saw that the big Dane had been correct, at least in part. Five ships came out from the sound. Three were drakkars like our own and two were trading knorrs, apparently under escort. Their position put them slightly upwind of us, and we watched them set their course to match our track, gradually closing the gap between us, as if to join us.

It is a commonplace to say that everything happens slowly at sea until the last moment, then all is haste and flurry, but it is true. For a while very little happened as all seven vessels carried steadily on their way — the five Danish ships sailing in company while our own helmsmen kept the two Jomsviking vessels close together, no more than fifty paces apart. As the gap between us and the approaching squadron dwindled, we gazed across at the strangers trying to learn more about them, until eventually our own Dane was able to confirm that they were indeed Earl Ulf s men. He knew the earl's livery and even thought he recognised some of the warriors aboard. Their two knorrs were clearly troopships carrying Danish levies, and their slower speed meant that the junction between our squadrons was leisurely.

Finally, in early afternoon, the leading Danish drakkar had pulled slightly ahead of her consorts, and was close enough for our Jutish captain to call out a greeting. 'Well met,' he bellowed, cupping his hands around his mouth so the sound carried over the waves washing along his vessel's side. 'Any news of Knut's fleet? We go to join the king.'

There was a long delay and I saw the Danish captain turn to consult his colleagues on the aft deck. Then he looked back at us and shook his head to indicate that he had not understood. He gestured for us to slow down so the ships drew closer, and held his hand to his ear.

'We go to join the king!' our skipper called out yet again. The Danish captain stepped up on the bulwarks of his ship, and one of his men reached and gripped him by the belt to hold him steady as if a slightly smaller gap would make the sound carry more clearly. 'Have you news of the royal fleet?' yelled our captain, adjusting the helm so that the wind spilled from our sail and our drakkar lost speed through the water.

'Watch out!' — a sudden roar from our fore deck. Most of our crew swung round to see Thrand standing there, waving an arm in warning. Those who did not look at Thrand saw one of the Danes on the aft deck stoop down and produce a javelin, hidden behind the bulwark, and hand it up to their skipper. He drew back his arm and threw the missile across the narrowing gap. Either it was a very lucky throw or the Dane was a champion spearsman, for the weapon flew across between the ships and struck our Jutish captain in his side. Even above the sound of the waves I heard the soft thump as the metal point of the weapon sank into his unprotected ribs. The Jute staggered and fell, knocking down the helmsman. There was a rush of feet, and Thrand raced past us along the central walkway, his feet pounding the boards. He reached the aft deck, leaped to the helm and flung his weight on the bar, heaving it across so that our vessel sheered away downwind, and presented her stern to the attacking Danish ship.

'Ease the starboard sheet, square away,' he shouted.

The rest of us had been taken completely off guard. We were sitting or standing, numb with shock.

'Jump to it!' bellowed Thrand. He glanced back over his shoulder, judging the distance between our vessel and the hostile Danish longship. Our drakkar's sudden swerve had taken the Danes by surprise and for a moment they had overshot their quarry. There was confusion on their deck as they too adjusted sail to follow in our wake. 'I thought Ulf s people were king's men,' shouted the Wend beside me.

'Not all of them, it seems,' muttered the Sjaellander, as shocked as any of us by the sudden attack. 'There's treachery somewhere.'

Our entire crew was in turmoil. Some were searching for shields and weapons, others frantically donning their padded jackets, and opening the store chests to pull out their byrnies. Only a handful who were sensible enough to attend to the ship were checking that sheets and halyards were set up taut, and our venerable drakkar was sailing to best advantage.

Our consort, the second Jomsviking drakkar, had seen the ambush and was also adjusting sail. Our sudden swerve had taken them by surprise too, and we nearly collided with them as we changed course, passing within ten paces of the startled crew. That close encounter was nearly their undoing, for we were to windward and, as we passed, we took the wind from their sail and their drakkar lost speed. The pursuing Danes promptly switched their pursuit from us to our floundering consort. They swooped in close enough to launch a barrage of spears and stones, which rained down on the hapless Jomsvikings and we saw several men fall.

Now the Danes were roaring in triumph. One of them held up a red-painted shield, the sign of war. A warrior seated ahead of me cursed and left his oar bench to run aft to the stern deck, javelin in hand. He made ready to throw, but Thrand, without even looking round, reached out and held his arm.

'Don't waste the weapon,' he said. 'They are out of range. Keep your strength for rowing if it comes to that.'

By now our consort had managed to adjust her sail to the course and was beginning to pick up speed. The captain of the leading Danish longship was unwilling to close and board her in case we turned back to help and he found himself tackling two drakkars at the same time. We watched his crew delicately spill the wind from her huge sail with its red, green and white stripes, so she slowed in the water and allowed the two other Danish longships to catch up. The troop-carrying knorrs were left behind now that the trap was sprung. The Danes were intent on finishing off their prey, but they would do so in their own time.

The outcome of the chase was clear from the start. Our drakkars were built to an outmoded design. Old and worn-out, they could not match the speed of the Danish ships and the inexperience of our crews increased our handicap. The landsmen among us fumbled vital ropes and got in the way of those who knew what they were doing as they went about the delicate task of extracting the best possible speed from our drakkar. These novices were harshly commanded to sit still and shift position only when ordered to, and then to move smartly to the place indicated and stay there until instructed otherwise. They were movable ballast. The only time they were actively involved was when Thrand, who had assumed command, ordered every loose item on board, except our weapons and oars, to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. Then the landsmen were set to prising up from the bilges the heavy stones which acted as our ballast and tossing them in our wake. But it made little difference to the pursuit. We watched the splashes as the pursuing Danes lightened their vessels too and slowly gained on us.

With the wind directly aft, our hope was that we could keep ahead of the chasing Danes long enough to evade them in the darkness or, better, meet friendly vessels from Knut's war fleet who would scare them off. Until then every member of our crew watched intently, trying to gage whether the gap between ourselves and the pursing longships was increasing or diminishing. Occasionally we glanced across at our consort, who copied our every manouevre and stratagem because it was vital that the two of us kept together. For when — not if — the Danes caught up with us, at least the odds would be no worse than three to two against us.

The Gods, whether Wendish or the Aesir, seemed to smile on us. The wind, which had continued to be erratic, picked up strength. This helped the older vessels because, in a strong wind, there was less difference in their speed against the newer Danish ships, and the more ground we covered the better were our chances of meeting Knut's fleet. So we kept up full sail, even though we could all hear the mast foot grinding in its wooden socket. The wind raised a succession of fast-moving swells which swept beneath us, heaving up the ancient hulls and making them twist and groan. The swell turned into long breaking waves, the spray flew back from the bows and as our craft began to swoop and sway the stress on the elderly hulls became more and more obvious.

That was when disaster struck. Perhaps it was the absence of ballast, or it might have been the clumsiness of her inexperienced crew which brought our companion, the second Jomsviking drakkar, to make a fatal error. The accident happened so suddenly that we did not know whether a main sheet snapped or the mast step slipped on the keelson, or whether it was just plain bad fortune that a larger swell lifted up our accompanying drakkar's stern at the very moment she dipped her bow to leeward and skidded sideways on the forward rush of water. The drakkar abruptly buried her nose in the back of a wave, tripped and slewed, and water began to pour into her open hull. Without her ballast to hold her steady, her sail was driving her forward at full tilt, and the inrush of water plunged her even further downwards. She ran herself underwater. One moment she was sailing at full speed on the surface, the next moment she was on her side, bow down and half submerged. The halt was so abrupt that most of her crew were flung headlong into the water, while the remainder were left clinging onto the stern deck, which was all that was left above the surface of the sea.

From the Danes came a roar of triumph and there were frantic signals from the leading longship, clearly the commander of their squadron. In answer the vessel nearest to the stricken drakkar swiftly dropped sail, put out oars and began to row, bearing down on her disabled victim. As our own boat fled on, we looked back, unnerved, and saw the Danes reach our comrades. They began spearing them like salmon trapped in a net, stabbing repeatedly downward on the swimmers. Those who were not massacred, had already drowned, pulled down by the weight of their mail. There would be no survivors.

Only Thrand seemed unmoved by the calamity. He stood on the aft deck, gaunt and intense, the helm still in his hand, his face showing no emotion as he kept his attention fixed on the set of our sail, the strength and direction of the wind and the balance of our vessel. Just twice he glanced back over his shoulder at the slaughter in our wake and then — without warning — he suddenly pushed across the helm so that our drakkar heeled over and came hard on the wind, heading for the distant shore. He gave no explanation for the sudden change of course, and once again the abruptness of the manoeuvre caught the Danes by surprise. We gained a few precious boat lengths on them. Along the oar benches we looked at one another, wondering what Thrand had in mind. Not one of us challenged his decision. From the moment he had seized the helm, he became our unquestioned leader. I swivelled in my seat and looked forward over the bows. Ahead the Sjaelland coast stretched away on either hand, low and flat without any sign of a harbour or a channel into which we might escape. Yet Thrand was aiming our vessel straight towards the distant shore as if he had a plan to save us.

The captains of the two Danish ships must have been equally perplexed because the furious pace of their pursuit slackened while they conferred, shouting across the gap between their vessels. Then they decided that, whatever we intended, they could still overhaul us before we reached the land. I saw their white bow waves surge up again and the slant of their masts increase as the two ships hardened up against the wind and resumed the chase. Aboard our drakkar the entire crew except for five sail handlers had scrambled to the windward side to improve the vessel's trim. Even the greenest of our recruits now knew that our lives depended on how well we coaxed our venerable vessel to her best performance.

Slowly and inexorably the Danish ships gained on us, while in the far distance the third of their vessels, having finished off our comrades, hoisted sail and set out to join in the hunt. We could only sit and watch the advancing enemy, and note how the best of their warriors had assembled in the bows, ready to hurl javelins at our helmsman the moment they were in range, hoping to strike him down and cripple our flight.

One of the Wends reached under his oar bench, pulled out his chain-mail shirt and began to tug it over his head.

'That'll drown you if we capsize,' warned his neighbour. 'Didn't you see what happened with our other drakkar?'

'Makes no difference,' the Wend replied. 'I don't know how to swim.'

The tension mounted as we watched the shoreline rush closer. It still appeared featureless, a low, sandy, yellow beach backed by dunes and sea grass. The place was uninhabited. There were no fishing skiffs drawn up on the beach, no houses, nothing — only gulls circling hungrily, squabbling amongst themselves over a shoal of sprats.

'No one lives here. It's too barren,' said the Sjaellander who had previously sailed this coast. 'There are only shallows, mud-banks and the occasional sand spit.'

The Danes very nearly caught us. Their leading ship was close enough for the first javelins to be thrown, and an arrow or two whizzed overhead, but without any harm. Judging his moment, Thrand again pushed over the rudder bar and altered course abruptly. Our drakkar swerved, and like two greyhounds which overshoot the hare as it jinks, the Danish vessels overreached and had to check their onward rush before they picked up the hunt again. Thrand had managed his manoeuvre well. The leading Danish ship cut across the bows of its companion and for a few moments there was confusion as they adjusted sails to avoid a collision.

By then Thrand had turned our drakkar back onto her original course and once again we were heading straight for the shore at full pace. He was staring forward intently, ignoring the chasing ships behind him as we sped towards the strand. We were already in the outer surf before I understood what he intended. Ahead of us a long outer bank of sand ran parallel to the beach itself. Waves were breaking across the ridge of the sandbank, washing into the shallow lagoon which lay on the far side.

'We're going to smash to pieces when she hits,' muttered the man seated next to me. 'At this speed she'll burst her planks like a barrel loses staves when the hoops let go.'

'We've no choice,' I answered. 'It's either that or be run down by the longships.'

Our course did seem suicidal. In the last fifty paces approaching the sandbar our drakkar was picked up by each wave and flung forward bodily. We heard the surf hissing all around us. Our bellying sail continued to drive the vessel onward, the pace never slackening, until our progress had a wild, lurching motion. When the water shallowed and the waves became steeper, I saw Thrand suddenly snatch out the bar from the rudder. A moment later the rudder blade, projecting below our keel, struck the sand beneath us and the rudder head swung forward. Now we were completely out of control, without any steering. A sudden scraping shock ran through the hull as the keel hit the ridge of the sandbar. Then came a deeper hissing sound as the keel ploughed on through the sand, and we felt the hull scrape on the sandbank beneath our feet. The impact snapped the mast. It toppled forward, taking the sail with it and knocking the foredeck man into the water. Luckily he grabbed the side of the ship as he fell and managed to hang on, dangling there until he could heave himself back aboard. For a moment the drakkar floundered on the flat crest of the sandbank, her mast lying over the side, sail dragging in the water. But the sheer weight of her headlong rush had carried her to the crest of the submerged barrier, and a moment later a fortunate wave broke at just the right instant and washed her over the sandbar. With a grinding, slithering wrench our vessel scraped into the lagoon, more of a wreck than a ship.

The pursuing Danes promptly put up their helms and swerved away. Their captains had seen how close we had come to complete destruction. 'Reckon their keels draw maybe a span more water than we do,' commented one of our sailors. 'Reckless to try the bar and risk such fine new ships as theirs, not like our ramshackle old hull.'

'She did us well, didn't she?' enquired one of our landsmen. 'Yes' answered the sailor. 'For now.'

'What do you mean?' the man asked, but after a moment's thought he added, 'we're trapped, aren't we?'

Before anyone could reply, Thrand called for our attention. He stood on the stern deck looking down at us as our crippled vessel floated gently on the lagoon. After the hustle and panic of the chase everything had gone so quiet that he barely had to raise his voice. 'Brothers of the felag,' he began, 'now is the time we honour our oath to our fellowship. Even now our enemies are patrolling the sandbank, searching for a channel where they can safely enter the lagoon. When they find it, they will advance on us and we must prepare to fight and, if the Gods so decide, die as Jomsvikings.'

We had a respite before the Danes came at us again. We spent the interval cutting away the wreckage of the mast and disposing of the sail, and the tallest of our men waded ashore to collect large stones where a small stream washed into the lagoon and had exposed the bedrock. Then we put our drakkar in fighting trim, the decks cleared fore and aft, our sea chests arranged to make a fighting platform, and every man armed and wearing his byrnie and knowing his battle station. Thrand himself took up position once again on the bow platform, where the extra height of the upswept bow would give him best advantage. I went to join him, but he gently pushed me back. 'No,' he said, 'I need men here who are battle-tried,' and he beckoned to a Gothlander to join him. I was puzzled because the man seemed slightly mad. While we had been readying the ship for battle, he had stayed off to one side by himself, muttering and laughing into his beard, then suddenly scowling as if he saw an imaginary demon.

'Thorgils, there is something more important you must do,' Thrand said quietly. He was unwinding a cloth which had been tied around his waist like a sash. 'Go aft to the weathervane,' he continued. 'Remove the vane from its staff and in its place put this.' He handed me the cloth. The fabric was a dirty white, old and frayed. 'Go on,' Thrand said sharply, 'Hurry. It is Odinn's banner. It flew when we met Earl Haakon.'

Then I knew. Thrand had told me about the banner when I was his pupil in Iceland, but he had not mentioned that he was speaking from personal experience. Odinn's flag bears no emblem. But in battle all those who truly believe in the All-Father can read their fate upon it, for they see the figure of Odinn's bird, the raven, upon the cloth. If the raven struts and spreads its wings, then victory is assured. When it lowers its head and mopes, defeat is due. As I fastened the cloth to its staff, I tried my hardest to see the raven sign. But I could detect nothing, only a few creases and ancient stains on the fabric.

The banner hung limp from the staff, for the wind had died completely. I glanced up at the sky. It was the calm before a storm. Far to the north black clouds were gathering and the sky had an ominous, heavy overcast. In the distance I saw the flicker of a lightning strike and much later heard the faint and distant echo of thunder. Thor, not Odinn, seemed to be the God of that day.

I had barely lashed the banner in place when the Danes appeared, rowing along the length of the lagoon. They must have found a safe entry channel through the sandbar. Seeing that we made no move to escape and were helpless, they paused deliberately to lower their masts for fighting action. Then they set course to approach us, one from each side, forcing us to divide our defence. But to carry out the manoeuvre they had to row, and this cancelled out their advantage in numbers because a third of their men stayed seated as oarsmen. Also they failed to anticipate how well we had prepared. Their first over-confident approach was met with a hail of the stones and rocks we had gathered, which caught them completely off guard. The Danes could respond only with a few arrows and thrown spears which did little harm, while our barrage of well-directed missiles sent three of their men sprawling on top of their comrades at the oars. Our second barrage was even better aimed and the oarsmen on both Danish ships hurriedly backed water as their captains ordered a temporary withdrawal while they reassessed the situation. It was then that I heard a strange, wild howling burst out. Looking round to where Thrand stood on the foredeck, I saw that the Gothlander had thrown off his helmet and removed his byrnie. He was now standing on the foredeck, naked from the waist and baying like a wild animal as he faced the enemy. He was a hulking, hairy-chested man and his pelt of body hair made him look a gross animal or a troll. He was raving and grimacing, now leaping up on the top rail and dancing in derision as he hurled insults at the enemy, then jumping down to the deck and capering back and forth and waving his war axe so wildly that I thought he would accidentally strike Thrand, who stood beside him. Eventually the berserker quietened down, but then picked up his shield and began biting its top edge furiously.

The savage sight made our foes even more cautious and for their second attack they took their time. They circled our ancient drakkar like a pair of wolves despatching a lame stag. In unison they darted in, one from each side, and then quickly pulled back after the warriors on their bow platforms had thrown a javelin or two and drawn our response of stones and rocks. Three or four times they launched these brief attacks until they saw that our supply of missiles was exhausted, then they came again, this time to close and board us.

I was standing in the waist of our drakkar, facing the starboard side so all I saw was the onslaught from that direction. It was terrifying. Four heavily armed Danes stood in the bows, ready to leap down on us as their vessel struck us amidships. They were big men, and made even bigger by the fact that they had the advantage of height and towered over us. Remembering our war instruction, I stood upon a sea chest and overlapped my shield with the Wend beside me on my left, while the man on my right did the same for me, though it was difficult to find secure footing on the uneven platform. We tried to slant our spears upward, hoping to impale our enemies as they leaped down upon our deck, but our awkward stance made the shield wall ragged and unstable, and the spear points wavered. As it turned out, our preparations were ineffectual. We were braced for the shock of the oncoming bows when, behind us, the second Danish ship rammed our vessel amidships, and our drakkar gave a sudden lurch so that we stumbled and slipped, and our shields separated, leaving wide gaps between them. If our enemies had been alert they could have burst through the gaps, but instead they misjudged. The first of the Danes jumped for our vessel too soon, and only his right foot landed on the edge of our drakkar. He stood there momentarily off balance, and I had the presence of mind to step forward and thrust the metal rim of my shield in his face, so that he overbalanced backwards and fell into the sea. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a spear point come from behind me and pass over my left shoulder to thrust neatly into the unprotected groin of the second Danish boarder. The Dane doubled up in pain and grasped the spear shaft. 'Like sticking boar in a forest,' said my companion the Wend with a satisfied grin, as he wrenched the weapon free. He had little time to gloat any further. The Danish longship was well handled. Their oarsmen were already swinging the vessel so she lay alongside us and the rest of their fighting men could board. A moment later there was a thud as the two ships came together and there was a yelling, stampeding rush as our enemies leaped into our ship.

If the Danes had expected an easy victory, they were quickly disillusioned. The Jomsvikings may have been inept sailors, but they were dogged fighters. We held our own, against odds of two to one, and the first Danish onslaught was met with skill and discipline. We remembered our training and we fought as brothers. Shoulder to shoulder with the unknown Wend, I deliberately jabbed my spear point into the shield of the next Dane to charge us, and his onward rush drove the weapon deep into the wood. Then I twisted on the spear shaft so the shield was forced aside. At that instant the Wend stepped forward nimbly with his axe and struck the unprotected Dane at the base of the neck, felling him as neatly as an ox in a slaughterhouse. I heard the Wend give a grunt of satisfaction. I tugged my spear to retrieve it, but the weapon was stuck fast. I abandoned it, as I had been trained to do, and stepped back into line, reaching for the battleaxe that hung by my left shoulder. On all sides men were shouting and roaring, and there was the constant thud of blows and the ring of metal striking metal. Over the clamour I heard the shout of the Danish captain calling on his men to fall back and regroup. Suddenly the enemy were at arm's length, backing away from us and then scrambling aboard their longship, which was then pushed clear and drifted free.

In the breathing space which followed I turned to see what had happened behind us. Here, too, the initial Danish attack had been beaten off. Several bodies lay on the deck of the other vessel, which had also pushed away from us. Our own losses had been minimal. Half a dozen wounded and one man dead. The wounded were slumped on the deck and their sea chests, moaning in pain.

'Close up! Stand fast! There'll be another attack,' came Thrand's shout. He was still on the foredeck, the shield on his left arm splintered and battered, and a bloodied battleaxe held loosely in his right hand. Instantly recognisable, he alone of all the Jomsvikings had chosen to wear the old-fashioned battle helmet with its owl-like eye guards, while the rest of us wore the armoury's conical helmets. Thrand's antiquated war gear reminded me of our time-honoured battle standard and I squinted aft at Odinn's banner. The flag was now flapping and snapping in the wind. In the heat of battle I had failed to notice that the leading edge of the storm was now upon us. The sky was black from horizon to horizon. Gusts of wind tore the surface of the sea. I felt the old drakkar swing as the wind buffeted her ancient hull. We were drifting, all three ships, across the surface of the lagoon and towards the shallows. I also caught a glimpse of the third Danish longship. She was arriving with fresh men aboard and soon the odds would be three to one. I knew then that we had no hope. I glanced again at Odinn's banner, but still saw only the plain white cloth slatting in the gathering gale.

The Danes were shrewd. The crew of the newly arrived longship lashed their vessel to another one and the two ships together formed a single fighting platform. Then they rowed upwind of us, shipped their oars and began to drift down on our drakkar. Now they had no need of oarsmen. Every one of their men was free to fight. Their third vessel positioned herself to attack, once again, on our opposite side.

The crunching impact of the rafted longships stove in our drakkar's topmost plank. I heard the ancient wood crack as the vessels collided. Our boat heeled with the weight of the sudden rush of the main Danish fighting force as their warriors jumped aboard. Some tripped and stumbled, and these men were despatched with an axe blow to the back of the head. But the sheer weight of comrades piling aboard behind them pushed their vanguard forward and broke our line. We were forced to give way and in a pace or two found ourselves back to back with our comrades who were trying to defend themselves against the attack from the opposite side. We fought viciously, either in desperation or because we believed in our oath to felag. Certainly not a single Jomsviking broke ranks. Spears were useless at such close quarters so we hacked with axes and stabbed with daggers. It was impossible to draw or to swing a sword. Shields were thrown aside as they split or splintered, and soon we were relying on our helmets and byrnies to turn aside the weapons of our enemies.

Gradually we retreated, step by step, towards the stern of our drakkar, our dwindling band packed so tightly that when the Wend beside me took an axe blow in the neck, his body stayed upright for several moments before it eventually slipping down at my feet. My shield arm shook to the impact of blows from the Danish axes and clubs, and the leather-bound shield began to disintegrate. I gasped for breath through the chain-mail curtain which hung across my face. My whole body ran with sweat within the padded jacket under the byrnie. Rivers of sweat ran down from my helmet and stung my eyes. I felt desperately tired, scarcely able to swing a counter-blow with my own axe. From sheer exhaustion I longed to drop my shield arm and rest. My vision blurred with glimpses of open-mouthed, yelling Danes hacking and thrusting and slashing, sometimes the blows directed at me, sometimes at my comrades on each side. I began to stagger and sway with a strange lassitude. I felt as if I was wading through a swamp of mud that sucked at my feet and legs.

I was slipping away into oblivion and a great blackness began to gather around me when an icy stinging sensation flicked at my eyes. Peering past the noseguard, I realised that our battle was shrouded in a sudden summer hailstorm. A clatter of large hailstones struck my metal helmet and suddenly my feet were slipping and skidding on the crunching white surface that covered the deck. It became very cold. The hail was so intense that gusts of the squall blew ice grains under the rims of our helmets and into our faces. It was difficult to see the full length of the drakkar, yet in the distance I glimpsed Odinn's banner waving at the stern post. I blinked to clear my eyes, and it might have been my utter exhaustion or the roaring of the blood in my ears that affected my sight, but I saw the raven, black and bloodthirsty, and it turned to look towards me and slowly lowered its knowing, wise head. At that moment a great agony erupted in my throat. My breath stopped.

I woke to a terrible pain in my gullet every time I breathed. I was lying face downwards, wedged between two oar benches. My left arm was trapped underneath something heavy which proved to be the corpse of the Abdorite who had been our instructor at Jomsburg. In his death throes he had toppled across me, pinning me down. Cautiously and painfully, each breath drawn as gently as possible through my tormented windpipe, I wriggled clear and raised my head to look along the length of the vessel. I could hear nothing except the faint slap of waves against the hull. There was no movement, no one standing on the deck. Everything seemed very still, and dark. It was night-time and our drakkar was silent. Pain sliced through me as I shifted my weight and carefully eased myself along the thwart. I heard a groan, but could not tell where it came from. All around me the oar benches were littered with bodies, Danes and Jomsvikings together. Dizzy from the effort, I began to crawl towards the foredeck where I had last seen Thrand.

I found him slumped down on the deck, his back against the bulwark. Even in the dim light I could see the rent in his byrnie over his chest. He was still wearing his antiquated helmet and I thought he was dead until I saw the faint movement of his eyes behind eye guards.

He must have seen my crab-like approach for his voice said softly, 'Odinn must love you, Thorgils.'

'What happened? Where are we?' I croaked. 'Where we met our fate,' he replied. 'Where are the Danes?'

'Not far away,' he said. 'They withdrew to their ships when it became too dark. Nightfall came early in the storm and they dread killing anyone in the dark in case the victim returns to haunt them as undead. At dawn they will return to finish off the wounded and strip the corpses.'

'Is there no one left?' I asked.

We fought well,' he answered. 'None better. The Jomsvikings are finished.'

'Not all of them. I can help you get away from here.'

Thrand made a faint gesture and I looked down. His legs were stretched out flat on the deck before him and I saw that his right foot was missing.

'Always the weak point in a ship battle,' he said. 'You defend yourself with your shield and someone crouches beneath a thwart until you are close enough for him to hack at your leg.'

'But I can't abandon you,' I said.

'Leave me, Thorgils. I'm not afraid to die.' And he quoted the High One:

'The sluggard believes he shall live for ever

If the fight he faces not

But age shall not grant him the gift of peace,

though spears may spare his life.'

Reaching forward, he grasped my forearm.

'Odinn sent that storm for a purpose. He brought the early darkness to preserve you from the final slaughter of the wounded. You must go now and find King Knut. Tell him that the Jomsvikings kept their word. He must not think we failed to honour our hire. Tell him also that Earl Ulf is a traitor, and inform Thorkel the Tall that the dishonour of Hjorunga Bay has been expunged, and that it was Thrand who led the felag to their duty.'

He sank back, exhausted. There was a long silence. I was so tired that, even had I wanted to, I felt I had no strength to leave the drakkar. I only wanted to lie down on the deck and rest. But Thrand would not let me. 'Go on, Thorgils, go,' he said softly, and then as if there was no doubt, he added, 'you saw the raven. Defeat was Odinn's will.'

Every movement was agony as I took off the heavy byrnie. Its chain-mail throat guard had stopped the sword slash from taking off my head but had left me choking. I dragged off the padded undercoat and pulled myself across to the gap in the bulwark where the Danes had smashed into us. I was too bruised and exhausted to do anything more than lower myself though the gap and into the lagoon. The shock of the cold water revived me for a moment and I tried to swim. But I was too tired. My legs sank downward and I resolved to let go of the boat and allow myself to drown. To my surprise my feet touched the ground. Our drakkar must have drifted far enough into the shallows for me to stand. Slowly, half swimming, half walking, I headed for the shore, until I was able to lurch up the beach. My feet sank into the drier sand, and I stumbled over the first clump of dune grass and fell. I picked myself up, knowing that I had to put as great a distance as possible between myself and the Danes.

As I crossed the first of the dunes I looked back towards the drakkar and saw a point of light. It was a tiny burst of flame. It died down and then flared up and grew brighter. I remembered the pitch which the shipwrights had used to revive our ancient vessel inside and out, and knew that she would burn well. But whether it was Thrand who set the fire, or some other survivor of the fight, it was impossible to tell. I only knew that by daylight the last warship of the Jomsvikings would have burned down to the waterline.

It took me nearly two weeks to walk or, rather, stumble to Knut's headquarters at the town of Roskilde. I was crossing the lands of Earl Ulf, whom I knew to be a traitor, so I avoided human contact, skirting around villages and sleeping under hedges or in the lee of earth banks. I have no clear memory of how each day of that grim journey was spent, only that my nights were filled with terrible visions of violence and death. When it rained, I awoke shivering with cold and fear, the rain drops on my face reviving images of grotesquely swirling storm clouds, the vanquished raven and an image which at the time had seemed so malevolent that I had buried it deep in my thoughts — a black hag riding on the wind. Once or twice I could have sworn that Thrand sat somewhere close to me in the shadows, a pool of black blood leaking from his leg. I lay numb with despair, wondering if my second sight had summoned his ghost from the dead, only to realise that I was alone and close to madness. When hunger drove me to knock on the doors of cottages along my path to beg for charity, my throat was so badly bruised that the inhabitants thought I was a mute. I had to gesture with my hands to make myself understood. They gave me scraps of food occasionally. More often they drove me away with kicks and curses, or set their dogs on me.

In the end it was Odinn who relieved my plight. I crept into Roskilde like a vagrant, filthy and wild-eyed, and was promptly arrested by a sentry. Odinn had arranged that Kjartan, the one-handed huscarl, was commander of the guard that day, and when I was brought before him, he looked at me with astonishment.

'Thorgils, you look as though you have been chewed over by Nidhoggr, the corpse-tearer!' he said. 'What in Thor's name has happened to you?'

I glanced towards my captor, and Kjartan took the hint. He sent the sentry back to his post, then made me sit down and eat a meal before he heard my story. My battered throat allowed me only to swallow a bowl of lukewarm gruel before I told him of the ambush and destruction of the Jomsviking expedition sent to join Knut.

When I finished, Kjartan sat silent for a moment. 'This is the first I've heard of it,' he said. 'Your battle with the Danes was fought at a place so remote that no one knows about it. I presume the victors put to sea after binding up their wounds and, if they were Earl Ulf’s men acting treacherously, then they would have kept quiet because events overtook them.'

'What do you mean?' I asked hoarsely.

'While you and the Jomsvikings were waylaid off Sjaeland, the king and his fleet caught up with his enemies off the coast of Skane. There was a great battle in the estuary of Holy River. Both sides are claiming the victory, and frankly I think we were lucky that we did not suffer a major defeat. But at least the Swedes and Norwegians have been thwarted for the time being.' Then he paused and asked, 'I need to be sure about this - when did you say the Jomsvikings were ambushed?'

'I lost track of time during my journey here,' I said, 'but it was about two weeks ago.'

'You had better tell your story to the king in person. I can arrange that. But don't say a word to anyone else until you've had your audience with him.'

'I would like to tell Thorkel the Tall,' I said. 'Thrand's last words to me were that I was to inform Thorkel that the dishonour of Hjorunga Bay had been wiped away.'

Kjartan looked at me. 'So you don't know about the changes at Knut's court.'

'What's happened?' I asked.

'You can't speak to Thorkel, that's for sure. He's dead. Died in his bed, amazingly enough. Never expected it from such an inveterate warrior. So he'll never get Thrand's message unless the two of them exchange news in Valholl, if that's where they have both gone. Thorkel's death was a setback for Knut. The king had appointed him regent here in Denmark, and when he died Earl Ulf took his place.'

'But it was Earl Ulf’s men who attacked us,' I blurted.

'Precisely. That is why it would be wise if you did not tell anyone else about the Jomsvikings' ambush.'

Kjartan must have had considerable influence with the royal secretariat because my interview with the king took place that same evening. It was held in secret, away from the king's official residence. Only the three of us were present - Kjartan, myself and the husband of the woman I still loved.

For the first time I was able to see Knut close to, and of course I judged him jealously. The king was on his way to an official banquet, for he was wearing a brilliant blue cloak held at the right shoulder by a gold buckle, a tunic of fine linen with a thread of gold running through it, gold-embroidered bands at the hem and cuffs, scarlet leggings and cross gaiters. Even his soft leather shoes had lines of gold stitched in square patterns. He radiated authority, privilege and virility. What impressed me most was that he was almost my own age, perhaps three or four years older. I did a quick mental calculation. He would have been leading an army while he was in his teens and I was still a youngster in Vinland. I felt inadequate by comparison. I doubted that Aelfgifu had found me a satisfactory substitute. Knut had a magnificent physique, well-proportioned and robust. Only his nose marred his good looks. It was prominent, thin and slightly hooked.

But that deficit was more than made up for by his eyes, which were large and wide-set and gave him a level, confident gaze as he stared at me while I stumbled huskily through my account.

When I had finished, Knut looked at Kjartan and asked bluntly, 'Is this true?'

'Yes, my lord, I've known the young man for some time and I can vouch for his honesty as well as his bravery.'

'He's not to tell his story to anyone else?'

'I've told him not to, my lord.'

'Well, he's certainly earned his pay. How much did we promise the Jomsvikings?'

'Fifteen marks of silver each man, my lord. Half in advance. Final payment to be made after they had fought for you.'

'Well, that's a bargain! They fought, it seems, and now there's only one of them to collect his pay. I'll double it. See to it that the paymaster gives him thirty marks. And make sure, also, that he's kept out of sight. Better yet, arrange to have him sent away, somewhere far off.'

The king turned on his heel, and was gone. Knut's brusque dismissal left me wondering whether he knew about my affair with Aelfgifu.

As Kjartan escorted me back to his own lodgings, I dared to ask, 'Is the queen, Aelfgifu, I mean, is she here with the king?'

Kjartan stopped. He turned to me in the darkness, and I could not see his expression but his voice sounded more serious than I had ever heard him. 'Thorgils,' he said, 'let me give you some advice, though I know it is not what you want to hear. You must forget Aelfgifu. Forget her completely, for your own safety. You do not understand about life at court. People act differently when they are close to the seat of power. They have particular reasons and motives and they pursue them ruthlessly. Aelfgifu's son, Svein, is now ten years old. He takes after his father in looks and manner, and she is ambitious for him to be Knut's heir rather than the children of Queen Emma. She will do anything to further his chances.'

I tried to interrupt. 'I never knew she had a son; she never told me.'

Kjartan's voice ground on remorselessly, overriding my halfhearted objection. 'She has two sons, in fact. If she failed to mention them to you, that makes my point. They were fostered out at an early age. They grew up in Denmark while Aelfgifu was in England. Right now she's playing for very high stakes — no less than the throne of England. If she thinks that you are a threat because of anything that happened at Northampton . . . I'm not accusing you of anything, Thorgils. I just want you to realise that Aelfgifu could be a danger to you. She has a ruthless streak, believe me.'

I was stunned. First I had lost Thrand and now my cherished vision of Aelfgifu was smashed. Mother of two, ambitious royal consort, deceitful, conniving — this was not the sweet, high-spirited woman whose memory I had cherished these two years past.

Kjartan's voice softened. 'Thorgils, give thanks to Odinn that you are still alive. You could be a corpse along with your shipmates on the drakkars. You are young, you are free of restraints and from tomorrow you'll have money to spare. Tomorrow I'll take you to see the king's paymaster and you'll have your royal bounty. Look upon Knut's wish to be rid of you as another sign that Odinn protects you. The court is a snake pit of intrigue and you are best away from it. You may think that the king was generous in his payment to you, but if the Danish vessels which attacked you had reached Holy River in time for the battle, King Knut might have lost his crown. And monarchs do not like to know that they are in another's debt.'

His last observation made no sense. 'I don't understand how the defeat of the Jomsvikings could have saved the king. We never reached the rendezvous. We were no use to him,' I said.

'Think of it this way,' Kjartan replied. 'Recently Knut has been increasingly mistrustful of Ulf. He fears that the earl is plotting against him and your story of the ambush of the Jomsvikings confirms Ulf s double dealing. His ships attacked the Jomsvikings, knowing them to be reinforcements for the king. They did not expect any survivors to live to tell the tale. But as it turned out, the ambush delayed Ulf’s ships so they missed the vital engagement at Holy River. Had they been there, Ulf might have felt strong enough to switch sides and join the Swedes. And that would have been the end for King Knut.'

I thought that Kjartan was being overly cynical, but he was proved right. Soon afterwards matters came to a head between the king and Earl Ulf. They were playing a game of chess when Knut, a chess fanatic, made a wrong move on the board. Ulf promptly took one of his knights. Knut insisted in replaying the move, and this so angered Ulf that he got up from his seat, tipped over the chessboard and stalked out of the room. Knut called after him that he was running away. Ulf flung back the jibe that it was Knut who would have run away from Holy River if Ulf’s force had not fought on his side.

That night the earl fled for sanctuary in Roskilde's White Christ church. It did him little good. At dawn Knut sent a huscarl to the church with orders to kill Ulf. There was uproar among the Christians that murder had been committed in one of their churches. But when I heard the story, I felt a more immediate chill. Ulf was married to Knut's sister. If a brother-in-law could be assassinated in the struggle for the throne, how much more likely a victim would be the queen's illicit lover.

'I need the details!' said Herfid excitedly. 'It's perfect material for a saga — "The Last Fight of the Jomsvikings!" Can you describe to me the leader of the Danes? Was there any exchange of insults between him and Thrand? Hand-to-hand combat between the two of them? That would be a nice touch, to catch an audience's imagination.'

'No, Herfid, it was just as I described it. Chaotic and savage. I didn't see who chopped off Thrand's foot and I don't even know who led the Danes. At first we thought they were on our side, on their way to join the king. But then they attacked us.' My throat hurt. Sometimes, when I was tired, my voice suddenly changed pitch like a boy in his puberty.

By a happy coincidence Herfid was travelling on the ship that Kjartan had found to take me clear of court intrigue. Herfid had finally given up his attempts to find a permanent job as a royal skald, and was heading back to Orkney where the new earl might have work for him. 'Knut's got too many skalds as it is,' Herfid lamented. 'Sighvatr Thordarsson, Hallvardr Hareksblesi and Thorarin Loftunga, not to mention Ottar the Black, who is his favourite. They didn't welcome more competition.' He looked woebegone. 'But if I could compose a really good saga about the Jomsvikings, that might get me some attention.'

'I think not, Herfid,' I said. 'Knut may not want to be reminded of the episode.'

'Oh well ... if you ever change your mind. Meanwhile perhaps you could tell me some of the Irish sagas you heard when you were in that country, maybe I could work parts of them into my own compositions. In exchange I'll give you a few more lessons on style and structure. They could prove useful should you ever decide to make a living by story-telling. Besides, it will help pass the hours at sea.'

The captain taking us towards Orkney was in a hurry. It was late in the season to be attempting the trip, but he was a man with weather luck and his crew trusted his judgement and sea skill. Herfid, by contrast, probably knew at least a hundred poetic phrases for the sea and its ships, but had no practical knowledge. He made a singular impression on our hard-bitten crew as he walked about the deck referring to the little vessel as a 'surge horse' and a 'twisted rope bear', even 'a fore-sheets snake'. When we cleared the Roskilde anchorage the waves became 'the whale's housetops', and the jagged rocks were 'the water's teeth'. I noticed several crew members raise their eyebrows in astonishment when he referred to our hard-driving skipper as a 'brig elf, and I feared the captain had overheard.

Fortunately, just when I was thinking that Herfid was going to get himself tossed overboard for his presumption, we ran into the sea race off the tip of Caithness. It was an intimidating experience, as unnerving as anything I had yet experienced at sea, except perhaps for being wrecked on the Greenland skerries, but I was too young to remember that. The west-going tide ripped past the headland, creating overfalls and strange, swirling patches of water, until it seemed we were riding a huge river in full spate rather than the ocean. I could see why his men trusted our captain so implicitly. He timed his vessel's entry into the race with perfection. He thrust boldly into the torrent just as the tide was gathering, and we were swept along like a wood chip on the spring flood. Our vessel began to make a strange swooping motion, lifting up, then sliding forward and down as if we would be sucked to the bottom of the sea, only to rise again, check, and begin the next plunge. It required prime seamanship to keep the vessel straight. The captain himself manipulated the side rudder, which Herfid had called 'the broad-blade ocean sword', and by some smart handling of the sheets the crew made sure that we did not broach and roll. We hurtled through the race, our ears filled with the grumbling roar of the tide.

Poor Herfid fell silent as the motion of the ship increased. Soon he had found his way to the rail and was hanging on to a mast stay, then in a sudden lurch he was doubled over the rail, throwing up the contents of his stomach. He was bent in that position for some time, retching and heaving miserably. When we were clear of the waves, and the motion had subsided enough for the skipper to be able to relinquish the helm, he sauntered over to Herfid and asked innocently, 'And what do you call the sea -"breakfast swallower" or "vomit taker?'" Herfid raised his green-white face and gave him a look of pure loathing.

Birsay, the home of the Earl of Orkney, was just as I remembered it — a modest settlement of a few houses huddling behind tussock-covered sand dunes. As a port of call, Birsay only existed because it was on the crossroads of the shipping lanes between the seas of England, Ireland and Iceland. The anchorage was so exposed to the fierce winter gales raging in from the west that the local boats had been hauled ashore and secured in half-sunk sheds or bedded behind barriers of rock and sand. Our captain had no intention of staying a moment longer than necessary in such a dangerous place, and he paused only long enough for us to visit the long hall to pay our respects to the earl, and for Herfid to ask permission to stay.

Like Knut, the new Earl of Orkney was of the coming generation — energetic, ambitious and completely without qualms. His name was Thorfinn, and Herfid was in luck. The young earl was looking for a skald to enhance his reputation and Herfid was given the job, initially on approval. Afterwards — as I learned — his post was made permanent when Thorfinn heard that he was becoming known as 'the Mighty', a phrase that Herfid had used to describe him.

To my astonishment, the earl's grandmother Eithne was still alive. I had not seen her for almost eight years, yet she seemed to have changed hardly at all. Perhaps she was a little more stooped, and even more of her hair had fallen out, so that she kept her headscarf knotted securely under her chin. But her mind was as alert as ever.

'So another battle nearly killed you,' she wheezed at me by way of greeting. I was not surprised. Eithne was acknowledged to be a volva, a seeress, and there was little that she did not know or divine. She was the one who had told me that I was a spirit mirror, my second sight occurring most frequently when I was with someone else who had the gift.

'There's something I want to ask you about,' I said. 'There was a vision which I do not understand, and I have not mentioned to anyone as yet.'

'Tell me about it.'

'It was during a sea fight. In the midst of the battle a hailstorm suddenly lashed us, chilling us to the bone. The wind which brought the hailstones always seemed to be in our faces, never to hamper our enemies. It blew so powerfully that it turned our arrows, nor could we hurl our spears against it. It was unearthly. Everyone thought so. Some of our men from Wendland and Witland cried out that magic was being used against us.'

'What did you think?' the old woman asked.

'I think our enemies had a supernatural ally. I saw her — it was a woman — she appeared in the hailstorm. At first I thought she was a Valkyrie come to carry away our dead, for she seemed unearthly and she rode the wind. But this woman was different. She had a cruel face, a cold eye and was in a frenzy, shrieking and raging at us, and pointing at us with a claw-like hand. Whenever she appeared, the hail flew thicker and the wind came in stronger gusts.'

Eithne gave a snort of derision at my ignorance. 'A Valkyrie indeed. Have you never heard of Thorgerd Holgabrud? That's who you saw.'

'Who's she?' I asked.

'Thrand could have told you,' she replied. 'She appeared at Hrojunga Bay, the first time the Jomsvikings were defeated. She is the patron Goddess of the northern Norwegians. Earl Haakon, who led the battle against the Jomsvikings, sacrificed his own seven-year-old son to her to obtain the victory. That sacrifice was so powerful that, even now, Thorgerd Holgabrud returns to ensure the extinction of the Jomsvikings. She is a blood drinker, a war witch.'

I must have looked sceptical because Eithne reached out and gripped me by the arm. 'Listen to me: signs appeared in Caithness and Farroes soon after the great slaughter at Clontarf. There the Valkyries did appear to Old Believers — twelve Valkyries, riding horses. They set up a loom in each place, using the entrails of dead men as weft and warp, fresh skulls as the loom weights and a sword as the beater. An arrow was their shuttle. As they wove, they sang of the men who had fallen. You may never have heard of Thorgerd Holgabrud, or her sister Irpa, but those Wends and Witlanders were right. A volva was working against you that day, someone invoking the hailstorm and the gale and inciting Thorgerd to fight against you. Learn from this event. Be on your guard against those who use the occult to defeat you.'

I forgot her words over the next few months and paid the price.

I arrived back in Iceland to find that Grettir was now a legend. Against all odds he was still at large and evading every attempt to hunt him down. What made his survival all the more remarkable was that no outlaw had ever had such a high bounty put on his head. Thorir of Gard had redoubled the reward he and his family would pay to anyone who killed or captured Grettir, and several bounty hunters had tried and failed to collect the prize money. I heard a great deal of chuckling about the fate of one of them. Grettir had overpowered him and forced him to undress and return home in only his underclothes. Other stories were more far-fetched and reminded me of when Grettir and I had robbed the barrow grave together. It was claimed that Grettir had thrown an evil troll-woman to her death over a cliff, that he had swum under a waterfall and found a giant living in a cave carpeted with men's bones, that he had shared a remote cave with a half-giant. On one point, everyone was agreed: Grettir was now living on an island in the north-west fiords.

'Why doesn't someone get together a group of like-minded fellows to go and capture him?' I asked.

My informant, a farmer from Reykholt with whom I was staying overnight, shook his head. 'You should see the island he's chosen for his retreat,' he said. 'Sheer cliffs that are near impossible to climb. The only way to the summit is by ladders and Grettir hauls them up whenever he sees a strange boat approaching. And he is not alone. His younger brother Illugi is living there with him and there's said to be a servant as well. A man called

Glaum or some name like that. There may be others, too. It's difficult to be sure. Grettir has allowed no one on the island since he took it over, though I've heard that the local farmers are furious. Previously they grazed a few sheep on the flat top of the island. Someone would go ashore, lower down a rope and the sheep would be hauled up one by one. After you got the sheep on the summit, you could go away and leave them there without a shepherd. There was no way the animals could get off.'

He said the island was called Drang, meaning 'sea cliff, and it was in the mouth of Skagafiord.

'Is there any way of getting out there?' I asked.

'There's a story that Grettir occasionally swims ashore, but that's impossible,' the farmer said. 'The island is too far out in the entrance to the fiord, and there are powerful currents that would sweep away a man and drown him. I think that tale is pure fantasy.'

It was odd, I thought to myself, how a farmer would believe in trolls and giants living under waterfalls, but not in a man's ability to swim long distances. Yet I had seen Grettir do just that in Norway.

When I stood on the shore of Skagafiord a few days later, I understood why the farmer had been so sceptical. Drang Island was far in the distance. Its shape reminded me of the massive blocks of ice which occasionally drifted into harbour at Eiriksfiord in Greenland when I was a boy. These ice mountains had stayed in the channel for weeks at a time, slowly melting. But the ice blocks had been a cheerful, sparkling white tinged with blue, and Drang Island was a dark, square, brooding oblong. It gave me the shivers. The thought of swimming across the intervening expanse of sea — I could see the tide swirl — was daunting. Someone on the mainland must be acting as a go-between, occasionally rowing out to the island to bring supplies and news.

I made a circuit of the fiord's shoreline, staying at one farmhouse after another, claiming to be looking for land to buy. Already I was travelling under an assumed name as I had no wish for Gunnhildr and her father to learn that I was back in Iceland. The only man to know of my return was Snorri Godi, that wily old chieftain, on whom I had called in order to discuss the redemption of my fire ruby. He still held the gem in safe keeping, and I had left with him the bulk of my silver hoard, asking that he wait before handing on the cash to Gunnhildr's family so that I had time to meet Grettir. I kept only enough silver with me to show the farmers of Skagafiord that I could afford their land prices.

I quickly identified the farmer most likely to be Grettir's contact. He owned the farm closest to Drang and there was a landing beach and boatshed on his property. More important, he was not a member of the group taking its lead from Thorbjorn Ongul, the chief landholder in the region. Thorbjorn Ongul I judged to be a hard man. Everything about him was off-putting. He had a scarred eye socket. He had lost the eyeball in his youth when his stepmother had struck him in the face for being disobedient and had half-blinded him. Now he was surly and belligerent, and obviously a bully. "We'll get that bastard off our island, if it's the last thing I do,' he assured me when I raised the subject of Grettir on the island. 'Half the men around here are too faint-hearted to take any action. But I've been buying out their shares of the island — we used to own it jointly — so that whoever takes the decision about its future, it'll be me.' He paused, and looked at me suspiciously. 'Anyway, what's your interest in the place?'

'I just wondered: if I get a farm around here would I be able to purchase a share in the island and put some sheep on it?'

'Not without my permission, you couldn't,' he said rudely. 'By the time you finalise any land deal, I'll have seen to it that I hold the majority share in the island. Grettir is dead meat. He's due for a surprise, the murderous son of a bitch.'

I returned to the farmer whom I had guessed was supplying Grettir on Drang. Sure enough, when I offered him enough silver, he agreed to row me over to the island after dark. He warned me, however, that Grettir was dangerous and unpredictable. 'You want to be careful,' he said. "When the mood is on him, the outlaw turns violent. He swam over from the island last autumn and broke into my farm building. He was looking for supplies, but I wasn't at home at the time. So he stripped off his wet clothes, lay down by the fire and went to sleep. Two of the women servants walked in on him and found him stark naked. One woman made some sort of giggling remark about his penis being rather small for such a powerfully built man. Grettir had been half-asleep and heard the remark. He jumped up in a rage and grabbed for her. The other woman fled and Grettir proceeded to rape the woman he got his hands on. I know that he's been out on that island for a long time, but it was a brutal thing to do.'

The farmer's story depressed me. I had known that Grettir was moody and unpredictable. I had seen enough examples of his loutish behaviour for myself. But he had never before been violent towards women. According to rumour, he had even been saved from capture several times by women who had taken pity on him and hidden him in their houses. I was appalled that he should use rape to punish what was nothing more than impudence. I began to fear that prolonged outlawry had unhinged Grettir, and he had become half-savage. It made me wonder what reception my sworn brother would give me.

I paid the farmer handsomely to deliver me out to Drang under cover of darkness on the next windless night, and to keep my presence secret. He landed me on the small shelf of beach below the sheer cliff face, and I heard the splash of his oars receding in the distance as I felt my way to the foot of the wooden ladder he had told me I would find. All around me in the darkness I could hear the rustlings and scratchings of roosting seabirds, and my nostrils were filled with the acrid smell of their droppings. Cautiously I felt my way up the rickety wooden rungs, pulling myself up step by step. The first ladder brought me to a ledge on the cliff face. Groping around I found the foot of a second ladder leading even further upward. I wondered at Grettir's confidence that he should leave the ladders in position at night, not fearing the approach of an enemy.

It was when I had reached the flat crest of the island and was stumbling my way forward through tussock grass that I tripped over the body of his lookout. The man was sound asleep, wrapped in a heavy cloak and half buried in a shallow trench. He gave a startled grunt as I trod accidentally on his legs, and I sensed, rather than saw, him sit up and peer in my direction.

'Is that you, Illugi?' he asked.

'No, it's a friend,' I replied. 'Where's Grettir?'

The half-seen figure merely grunted and said, 'Well, that's all right then,' and sank back into his hole to return to sleep.

Fearful of stumbling over the cliff edge in the darkness, I sat down on the ground and waited for the dawn.

Daylight showed me that the summit of the island was covered with pasture, closely cropped by sheep. I could see at least a score of animals. In every direction the surface of the island stopped abruptly, ending in thin air where the cliff edge began. Only behind me, where the wooden ladder reached the summit, was there any access. And between me and the ladder I could see the little hump of cloth which marked the location of Grettir's watchman. He was still asleep.

I rose to my feet and went in search of Grettir. I could see nothing except for the sheep grazing quietly. There was no hut, no cabin, no sign of habitation. I walked across to the west side of the island. It took just a couple of hundred paces and I was at the cliff edge, looking straight down several hundred feet to the sea. I could see the white shapes of gulls circling and wheeling far beneath me in the updraughts. Puzzled by Grettir's absence, I turned back, retraced my steps, and searched towards the south end of the island. I had almost reached the lip of the furthest cliff when, coming round a large boulder jutting up from the soil, I came upon my sworn brother's home. It was a dug-out shelter, more like a bear's den than a human dwng. He had scraped out the soil to make an underground chamber roofed with three or four tree trunks he must have salvaged from the beach, for there were no trees on the island, not even a bush. Over the tree trunks was laid a layer of turf sods. A smoke hole at the back of the dugout provided a vent for the smoke from his cooking fire. It was a bleak, miserable place.

Grettir must have sensed my presence. I was still taking in the depressing scene when he emerged from the shelter. I was shocked by his appearance. He looked haggard and worn, his hair grey and streaked, and his skin was grimed with soil and smoke. His eyes were red-rimmed from the foul air in the dugout and his clothes were tattered and squalid. I realised that I had not seen a freshwater spring on the island, and wondered how he and his companions found their drinking water. Washing clothes did not seem possible. Despite his grotesque and shabby appearance, I felt a surge of pride. There was no mistaking the self-assurance in the look my sworn brother directed at me as, for a moment, he failed to recognise who I was.

'Thorgils! By the Gods, it's Thorgilsl' he exclaimed and, stepping forward, gave me a great hug of affection. He stank, but it did not matter.

A moment later, he pulled back. 'How did you get here?' he asked in astonishment, which for a moment turned to suspicion. 'Who brought you? And how did you get past Glaum?' Glaum must have been the lazy sentinel I had stumbled on.

'All of Iceland knows that you are living on this island,' I replied, 'and it wasn't difficult to work out who your ferryman is. He dropped me off last night. As for Glaum, he doesn't take his duties very seriously.'

At that point, a second figure emerged from the dugout behind Grettir. It had to be his younger brother Illugi. He was at least ten years younger than Grettir, thin and undernourished looking, with black hair and a pale skin. He too was dressed in little better than rags. He said nothing, even when Grettir introduced me as his sworn brother, and I wondered if he was mistrustful of my intentions.

'Well, what do you think of my kingdom?' said Grettir, waving his arm expansively towards the southern horizon. The entrance to the dugout looked down the length of Skagafiord to the distant uplands on the mainland. To left and right extended the shores of the fiord, and rising behind them were the snow-streaked flanks of the mountains. 'Wonderful view, don't you agree, Thorgils? And practical too. From this spot I can see anyone approaching by boat down the length of the fiord, long before they reach the landing beach. It's impossible for anyone to sneak up on me.'

'At least in daylight,' I murmured.

'Yes,' said Grettir. 'No one has been bold enough to try a night landing previously, and in future I'll not trust that lazy servant Glaum to keep a look out. He's idle, but he amuses me with his chatter, and the Gods know, one needs a bit of humour and light-heartedness out here, especially in winter.'

'What do you live on?' I asked. 'Food must be very scarce.'

Grettir showed yellow teeth through his dirty tangle of beard. 'My neighbours kindly donate a sheep every couple of weeks,' he said. 'We ration ourselves, of course. There were about eighty animals on the island when we took over, and now we are down to about half that number.'

I did a quick mental calculation. Grettir had been living on Drang for at least a year, probably longer.

'There's one old ram who'll be the last one to be eaten. He's quite tame now. Visits the dugout every day and rubs his horns on the doorway, waiting to be petted.'

'What about water?' I asked.

'We gather rain, of which there is plenty, and when we get really short, there's a freshwater seep over on the east, in an overhang. It oozes a few cupfuls of water every day, enough to keep us alive.'

'Enough to keep four people alive?' I asked.

Grettir took my meaning at once. 'You mean you want to stay?' he asked.

'Yes,' I said. 'If you and Illugi have no objection.'

So it was that I became the fourth member of the outlaw community and for almost a year Drang Island was my home.

Grettir was right: there was no shortage of food on the island, even with an extra mouth to feed. We were able to fish from the beach whenever the winter storms abated, and Grettir and Illugi had already saved an ample store of dried fish and the smoked carcasses of seabirds. For vegetables we ate a dark green weed which grew luxuriantly on the slopes too steep for the sheep to graze. The succulent leaves of this weed — I do not know its name — had a pleasant salty taste, and gave welcome variety to our diet. We had neither bread nor whey, the staple of the farmers on the mainland, but we never went hungry.

Our real struggle was how to keep warm and dry. The roof of the dugout kept out the rain, but the interior was constantly damp from the wetness rising up through the soil and we found it impossible to keep our garments dry. The fireplace was at the back of the dugout against the great boulder so that the stone reflected every bit of precious heat. But the ever-present problem was the scarcity of firewood. We depended on the chance discovery of driftwood. Each day one or other of us would descend the ladders and make a circuit of the island's narrow beach, hoping that the sea had brought us its bounty. Salvaging a good-sized log suitable for firewood was a greater cause for satisfaction than bringing back a string of freshly caught fish. When we found a log or dead branch, however small, we used ropes to hoist it back up the cliff and put it to dry in a sheltered spot. Then we would use an axe to chop the driftwood into kindling or shape a log to keep the fire at a gentle glow all night.

Grettir and I spent many hours in conversation, sometimes seated in the dugout, but more usually out in the open air where our discussions could not be overheard. He confessed to me that he was feeling more and more worn down by his long period of outlawry. 'I've lived over two-thirds of my life as an outlaw,' he said. 'I've scarcely known any other condition. I've never married, never been able to drop my guard in case there is someone ready to kill me.'

'But you've also become the most famous man in Iceland,' I said, trying to cheer him up. 'Everyone knows of Grettir the Strong. Long ago you told me that your reputation was all that mattered to you and that you wanted to be remembered. You've certainly achieved that. The Icelanders will never forget you.'

'Yes, but at what cost?' he replied. 'I've become a victim of my own pride. You'll remember how I swore no one would ever drive me away from Iceland by sending me into exile. Looking back, I see that was a mistake. I trapped myself here with those words. I often regret that I have travelled no further than Norway. How I would have loved to see the foreign lands you have known — Vinland, Greenland, Ireland, London, the shores of the Baltic Sea. I envy you. If I were to travel abroad now, people would say that I am running away. I have to stay here for ever, and that means until someone catches up with me when I am weak or old and kills me.'

Grettir looked out across the fiord. 'I have a premonition that this view is the one I will live and die with. That I will finish out my time on this small island.' Disconsolately he threw a pebble over the cliff edge. 'I feel cursed,' he went on. 'Everything I do seems to have the reverse effect of what I intend. If I start something for the best of reasons, it usually turns out quite differently. People are hurt or harmed by my actions. I never intended to kill that young man who insulted me in the church in Norway, and when I burned those unfortunates in that shore house it was largely their fault. If they had not been so drunk, they would have escaped the fire, which they themselves started.'

'What about that woman over at the farm? I'm told you raped her.'

Grettir looked down at the ground and mumbled his answer. 'I don't know what came over me. It was a black rage, not something I'm proud of. Sometimes I think that living like a hunted animal makes you into an animal. If you live too long away from normal company, you lose the habits of normal behaviour.'

'What about your brother Illugi? Why don't you send him away from here? He doesn't have to be bound to your fate.'

'I've tried a dozen times to persuade Illugi to go back home,' Grettir replied, 'but he is too much like me. He's stubborn. He sees my outlawry as a matter of personal pride. No one is going to dictate to him or his family what they should do and he has a strong sense of family. That's how we were brought up. Not even my mother wants me to surrender. When Illugi and I said goodbye to her before coming here, she said that she never expected to see either of us alive again, but she was pleased we were protecting the family's good name.'

'Then what about Glaum?' I said. 'What part does he play in all this? To me he seems nothing more than a lazy lout, a jester.'

'We met Glaum on our way to the island,' Grettir said. 'It was pure chance. Glaum is a nobody. He has no home, no land, nothing. But he's amusing, and his company can be entertaining. He volunteered to come to the island with us and until he decides to leave I'm willing to let him stay. He tries to make himself useful, collecting firewood, helping haul up the ladders, doing some fishing, generally being about the place.'

'You're not concerned that Glaum might try to attack you, like Redbeard, hoping to gain the bounty money?

'No. Glaum's not like that. He's too lazy, too weak. He's not a bounty hunter.'

'But there's something foreboding about Glaum,' I said. 'I can't define what it is, but I have a feeling that he represents misfortune. I would be happier if you sent him away.'

'Maybe I will,' said Grettir, 'but not yet.'

'Perhaps matters will improve,' I suggested. 'I've heard it said that if a man survives outlawry for a span of twenty years then the sentence is complete. In a couple of years that will be the case for you.'

'I think not,' Grettir answered gloomily. 'Something is bound to go wrong before then. My luck is dire and my enemies will never give up. My reputation and the reward for my death or capture means that any young hothead will have a try at killing me or taking me prisoner.'

His forebodings came true in the early spring. This was the season when the farmers would normally bring out their sheep to Drang and leave them there for the summer grazing. Doubtless this prompted them, under Thorbjorn Ongul's leadership, to launch a plan to retake the island. A young man from Norway, Haering by name, had arrived in the area. Like everyone else, he soon heard about Grettir living on Drang Island and of the huge reward being offered for his death. He contacted Thorbjorn Ongul and told him that he was an expert climber of cliffs. Haering boasted that there was no cliff which he could not scale single-handed and without ropes. He suggested that if he could be landed on Drang without Grettir knowing, he would surprise the outlaw and either kill or wound him so severely that the others would be able to storm the island. Thorbjorn Ongul was shrewd. He decided that the best way to approach Drang without alerting Grettir's suspicions would be in a large, ten-oared boat with a cargo of live sheep. From his boat he would call up to Grettir, asking for permission to land the animals. Ongul calculated that Grettir would agree because he had already depleted the flock on the island. Meanwhile Haering would climb the cliffs on the opposite side of Drang and creep up on Grettir from behind.

Grettir and I worked out Ongul’s stratagem only after it had failed and it was a narrow escape. We saw the ten-oared boat approaching from a great distance down the fiord, and watched as it slowly drew closer. Soon we could see the four or five men aboard and the dozen or so sheep. Haering himself was not visible. He must have crouched down and hidden among the animals. Ongul was at the helm and steered for the landing place at the foot of the ladder leading up to the summit. But he took a slightly unusual course and, at the time, we failed to understand why. There was a short interval when the boat was so close under the cliffs and passing round the end of the island that it was lost to sight from anyone standing at the cliff top. This was the moment when Haering must have slipped overboard and swum ashore. Moments later Ongul and his boat reappeared in view, the oarsmen rested on their oars, and Ongul shouted up to Grettir, asking him to agree to let more sheep graze on the island. Grettir called back down, and the negotiations began. Grettir, usually so alert, was hoodwinked. He warned Ongul that the moment anyone tried to climb the ladders, the upper ladder would be withdrawn. Meanwhile, with a great deal of deliberate fumbling, the men in the boat began to get the sheep ready to be hoisted.

Unknown to us up on the summit, Haering had begun to climb. The young man was inching his way up the cliff face by a route which no one had attempted or even imagined possible. It was, by any standards, an extraordinary feat of agility. Unaided, the young man managed to find one handhold after another. He hauled himself upward past the ledges of nesting seabirds. Sometimes the rock face leaned out so far that Haering was obliged to cling on, hanging by his fingers as he searched for a grip, then clambered upwards like a spider. His feet, to prevent them slipping, were clad only in thick woollen socks, which he had wetted to give them a better grip.

I know about the wet socks because it was I who first saw Haering after he had hauled himself over the topmost rim of the cliff. It was the old grey ram which alerted me. Grettir, Illugi and Glaum were clustered at the top of the ladder, looking down at

Ongul and his farmer colleagues as they discussed the landing of the sheep. Their attention was completely distracted. By contrast, I had deliberately stayed back from the cliff edge so I could not be seen from below. No one apart from the farmer who had brought me to Drang knew that I was on the island, and it seemed a good idea to keep my presence a secret. So I noticed the sudden movement among the sheep grazing near the cliff edge opposite where Grettir was standing. The animals raised their heads from grazing, and stood stock still, staring out into space. They were alarmed and I saw them tense as if to flee. The old grey ram, however, trotted confidently forward as though he expected to be petted. A moment later I saw a hand rise over the cliff edge, as if from the void, and feel around until it found a grip. Then Haering's head appeared. Slowly, very slowly, he eased himself over the rim of the cliff until he was lying face down flat on the grass. That was when I saw the wet socks and noted that, to lighten himself for the climb, his only weapon was a small axe tied with a leather thong to his back.

I gave a low whistle to warn the others. Grettir and Illugi both looked round and immediately saw the danger. As Haering got to his feet, Grettir said something to Illugi, and it was the younger man who turned and advanced on a now-exhausted Haering. His older brother stayed behind in case his great strength was needed, with Glaum's help, to haul up the wooden ladder.

Poor Haering, I felt sorry for him. He was utterly spent by the spectacular climb, and instead of finding Grettir and Illugi alone on the island, he now found himself confronted by four men, and without any advantage of surprise. He unslung the axe. He may have been a superb mountaineer, but he was an inexpert warrior. He held the axe loosely in from of him, and when Illugi struck at him with a sword the axe was knocked spinning out of his grasp.

Haering offered no further resistance. There was something manic about Illugi's headlong rush at the unarmed young man. Illugi may have felt that his refuge had been violated, or maybe he had never killed a man before and was desperate to finish the job. He ran at Haering wildly, swinging his sword. Unnerved, the Norwegian turned and fled, running in his socks over the turf. But there was nowhere to go. Illugi chased his prey grimly, still cutting and slashing with his sword as Haering dodged and turned. He ran towards the boulder which masked the entrance to the dugout. Perhaps he was seeking to shelter behind it, but he did not know the lie of the land. Beyond the rock the ground suddenly fell in a steep slope at the far end of which was the edge of the cliff. From there to the sea was a sheer drop of four hundred feet. Haering ran headlong down the slope towards the precipice. Perhaps he thought his speed would carry him far enough out. Perhaps he panicked. Maybe he wanted to die by his own hand and not on Illugi's sword. Whatever his intention was, he ran straight to the edge of the cliff and without hesitating flung himself outward . . . and continued running, as though still on solid ground. His legs and arms flailed as he dropped from view.

I joined Illugi at the cliff edge, crouching cautiously on the ground and then crawling forward on my belly, so that my head looked out over the vast drop. Far below, the cliff climber's body lay broken and twisted on the beach. To my right Ongul's people had seen the tragedy and were already rowing to the spot to retrieve the corpse.

No other attempt was made to dislodge us from Drang during the next three months. Probably Haering's death had shocked the farmers who supported Ongul and anyhow they had their summer chores to do. Grettir, Illugi, Glaum and I stayed on the island. The friendly farmer visited us only twice, bringing us news from the mainland. The main event was the death of Snorri Godi that winter, full of years and honour, and his son Thorodd — the man whom Grettir had spared - had succeeded to the chieftainship. I wondered if Thorodd had also inherited charge of my fire ruby which I had left in his father's safe keeping and if Snorri had told him of its history.

My sworn brother reacted glumly to the news of Snorri Godi's death. 'So vanishes my last hope of obtaining justice,' he said to me as we sat in our favourite spot near the cliff edge. 'I know that Snorri refused to take up my case at the Althing when we first arrived back in Iceland and you went to see him on my behalf. But as long as Snorri was alive, I nursed a secret hope that he would change his mind. After all, I spared his son Thorodd when he tried to kill me and win his father's approval. But now it is too late. Snorri was the only man in Iceland who had the prestige and law skill to have my sentence of skogarmadur annulled.'

After a short pause Grettir turned to face me and said earnestly, 'Thorgils, I want you to promise me something: I want you to give me your word that you will make something exceptional of your own life. If my life is cut short at the hands of my enemies, I don't want you to mourn me uselessly. I want you to go out and do the things that my ill luck has never allowed me to do. Imagine that my fylgja, my other spirit, has attached itself to you, my sworn brother, and is at your shoulder, always present, seeing what you see, experiencing what you experience. A man should live his life seeking out his opportunities and fulfilling them. Not like me, cornered here on this island and becoming famous for surviving in the face of adversity.'

As Grettir spoke, a memory came back. It was of the day when Grettir and I were leaving Norway, and Grettir's half-brother, Thorstein Galleon, had said goodbye. He had promised to avenge Grettir's death if he was killed unjustly. Now, sitting on a cliff top on Drang, Grettir had taken me one step further. He was asking me to continue his life for him, in remembrance of our sworn brotherhood. And behind the request was an unspoken understanding between us: neither Grettir nor I expected that he would live out the full twenty years of outlawry and reach the end of the sentence imposed upon him.

The conversation had a remarkable effect on me. It changed my perception of life on Drang. Previously I had been despondent about the future, fearing the outcome of Grettir's seemingly endless difficulties. Now I saw that it was better to enjoy whatever time there was left for us together. The change of season helped my pessimism to lift. The arrival of the brief Icelandic summer wiped away the memory of a dank and melancholy winter. I watched the tiny island change from a remote, desolate outpost to a place full of life and movement. It was the birds that did it. They arrived in their thousands, perhaps from those distant lands which Grettir dreamed of. Flock after flock came in until the sky was filled with their wings and their constant mewing and screaming mingled with the sounds of the sea and the wind. They came to breed, and they settled on the ledges, crevices and tiny outcrops of the cliffs until it seemed that there was not a single hand's breadth that was not occupied by some seabird busily building a new nest or refurbishing an old one. Even in Greenland I had not seen so many seabirds clustered together. Their droppings ran down the cliff faces like streaks of wax when a candle gutters in the draught, and there was a constant movement of fluttering and flight. Of course, we took their eggs, or rather we took a minuscule portion of them. This was when Grettir was at his best. With his huge strength he lowered Illugi on a rope over the cliff edge so that his young brother could gather the eggs from the ledges while the angry gulls beat their wings around his head, or if they stayed on their nests, shot green slime from their throats into the face of the thief. Perhaps the proudest moment of all my relationship with Grettir was when he turned to me and asked if I would go down the precipice on the rope and I agreed. As I dangled there, high above the sea, swinging in space, with only my sworn brother's strength to prevent me falling to my death like Haering, I felt the satisfaction of utter trust in another.

So the summer weeks passed by: sudden rain showers were interspersed with spells of brilliant sunshine when we stood on the cliff tops and watched the whales feeding in the waters around the island; or we traced the evening spread of white mist over the high moors on the mainland. Occasionally I would go by myself to a little niche on the very lip of the precipice and lie on the turf, deliberately gazing across the void and imagining I was no longer in contact with the solid ground. I hoped to achieve something my seidr mentors had long ago described to me: spirit flying. Like a small bird beginning to take wing, I wanted to send my spirit out over the sea and distant mountains and away from my physical body. For brief moments I succeeded. The earth fell away beneath me, and I felt a rush of wind on my face and saw the ground far beneath. But I never travelled far or stayed out of my body for long. I had brief glimpses of dense forest, a white landscape and felt a piercing cold. Then, like the fledgling which flutters uncertainly back to the branch, my spirit would return to where I lay, and the rush of air on my cheeks often proved to be no more than the rising wind.

The intrusion of awful dread into this pleasant life was shocking. The day was bright and fresh, and the waters of Skagafiord had that intense dark blue into which one could look for ever. Grettir and I were at a spot where the small black and white seabirds which nested in their millions regularly flew towards their nests, a row of tiny fish neatly arranged in their rainbow beaks. As they skimmed low over the cliff, riding up-draughts, we would rise from ambush and with woven nets on sticks pull them down from the sky and break their necks. Smoked over our fire, their dark brown flesh was delicious, a cross between lamb's liver and the finest venison. We had netted perhaps a dozen of the birds when we heard Illugi call out that a small boat was coming down the fiord. We gathered at the cliff edge and saw a little skiff rowed by just one man heading our way. Soon we could make out Thorbjorn Ongul at the oars.

'I wonder what he wants this time,' said Grettir.

'He can't be coming to negotiate,' Illugi commented. 'By now he must know that we can't be shifted, whatever he offers us, whether threats or payment.'