Bernard Cornwell - Sword of Kings

‘No sail on her,’ Finan said.

‘She’s going into the wind,’ I said, ‘so they’re rowing. Probably a trader.’ No sooner had I spoken than the tiny scratch mark on the hazed horizon disappeared, replaced by a newly dropped sail. I watched her, the blur of the big square sail much easier to distinguish than the mast. ‘She’s turning towards us,’ I said.

‘It’s Banamaðr ,’ Finan said.

I laughed at that. ‘You’re guessing!’

‘No guess,’ Finan said, ‘she has an eagle on her sail, it’s Egil.’

‘You can see that!’

‘You can’t?’

Our two ships were sailing towards each other now, and within moments I could clearly see a distinctive lime-washed upper strake that showed clearly against the lower hull’s darker planks. I could also see the big black outline of a spread-winged eagle on the sail and the eagle’s head on her high prow. Finan was right, it was Banamaðr, a name that meant ‘killer’. It was Egil’s ship.

As the Banamaðr drew closer I dropped my sail and let Spearhafoc wallow in the livening waves. It was a sign to Egil that he could come alongside, and I watched as his ship curved towards us. She was smaller than Spearhafoc , but just as sleek, a Frisian-built raider that was Egil’s joy because, like almost all Norsemen, he was happiest when he was at sea. I watched the sea break white at Banamaðr ’s cutwater, she kept turning, the great yard dropped and men hauled the sail inboard, turned the long yard with its furled sail fore and aft, and then, sweet as any seaman could desire, she slewed alongside our steerboard flank. A man in Banamaðr ’s bows threw a line, a second line sailed towards me from her stern, and Egil was shouting at his crew to drape sailcloth or cloaks over the pale upper strake so our timbers did not crash and grind together. He grinned at me. ‘Are you doing what I think you’re doing?’

‘Wasting my time,’ I called back.

‘Maybe not.’

‘And you?’

‘Looking for the bastards who took your ships, of course. Can I come aboard?’

‘Come!’

Egil waited to judge the waves, then leaped across. He was a Norseman, a pagan, a poet, a seaman, and a warrior. He was tall, like me, and wore his fair hair long and wild. He was clean-shaven with a chin as sharp as a dragon-boat’s prow, he had deep eyes, an axe-blade of a nose and a mouth that smiled often. Men followed him eagerly, women even more eagerly. I had only known him for a year, but in that year I had come to like and trust him. He was young enough to be my son and he had brought seventy Norse warriors who had sworn their allegiance to me in return for the land I had given them along the Tuede’s southern bank.

‘We should go south,’ Egil said briskly.

‘South?’ I asked.

Egil nodded at Finan, ‘Good morning, lord,’ he always called Finan ‘lord’ to their shared amusement. He looked back to me. ‘You’re not wasting your time. We met a Scottish trader sailing northwards, and he told us there were four ships down there.’ He nodded southwards. ‘Way out to sea,’ he said, ‘out of sight of land. Four Saxon ships, just waiting. One of them stopped him, they demanded three shillings duty, and when he couldn’t pay, they stole his whole cargo.’

‘They wanted to charge him duty!’

‘In your name.’

‘In my name,’ I said softly, angrily.

‘I was on my way back to tell you.’ Egil looked into Banamaðr where around forty men waited. ‘I don’t have enough men to take on four ships, but the two of us could do some damage?’

‘How many men in the ships?’ Finan had scrambled to his feet and was looking eager.

‘The one that stopped the Scotsman had forty, he said two of the others were about the same size, and the last one smaller.’

‘We could do some damage,’ I said vengefully.

Finan, while he listened to us, had been watching Egil’s crew. Three men were struggling to take the eagle’s head from the prow. They laid the heavy piece of wood on the brief foredeck, then helped the others who were unlacing the sail. ‘What are they doing?’ Finan asked.

Egil turned to Banamaðr . ‘If the scum see a ship with an eagle on the sail,’ he said, ‘they’ll know we’re a fighting ship. If they see my eagle they’ll know it’s me. So I’m turning the sail around.’ He grinned. ‘We’re a small ship, they’ll think we’re easy prey.’

I understood what he was suggesting. ‘So I’m to follow you?’

‘Under oars,’ he suggested. ‘If you’re under sail they’ll see you sooner. We’ll suck them in with Banamaðr as the bait, then you can help me finish them.’

‘Help?’ I repeated scornfully, which made him laugh.

‘But who are they?’ Finan asked.

That was the question that nagged at me as we rowed southwards. Egil had gone back to his ship and, with his sail showing a drab frontage, was plunging ahead of us. Despite his suggestion, the Spearhafoc was also under sail, but at least a half-mile behind Banamaðr . I did not want my men wearied by hard rowing if they were to fight, and so we had agreed that Egil would turn Banamaðr if he sighted the three ships. He would turn and pretend to flee towards the coast and so lead the enemy, we hoped, into our ambush. I would drop our sail when he turned, so that the enemy would not see the great wolf’s head, but would think us just another trading ship that would prove easy prey. We had taken the sparrowhawk’s head from the prow. The great carved symbols were there to placate the gods, to frighten enemies, and drive off evil spirits, but custom dictated that they could be removed in safe waters and so, instead of being nailed or scarfed into the prow, they were easily dismounted.

‘Four ships,’ Finan said flatly, ‘Saxons.’

‘And being clever,’ I said.

‘Clever? You call poking you with a sharp stick clever?’

‘They attack ships from Bebbanburg, but only harass the others. How long before King Constantin hears that Uhtred of Bebbanburg is confiscating Scottish cargoes?’

‘He’s probably heard already.’

‘So how long before the Scots decide to punish us?’ I asked. ‘Constantin might be fighting Owain of Strath Clota, but he still has ships he can send to our coast.’ I gazed at Banamaðr that was heeling gently to the west wind and leaving a white wake. For a small boat she was quick and lively. ‘Somebody,’ I went on, ‘wants to tangle us in a quarrel with the Scots.’

‘And not just the Scots,’ Finan said.

‘Not just the Scots,’ I agreed. Ships from Scotland, from East Anglia, from Frisia, and from all the Viking homelands sailed past our coast. Even ships from Wessex. And I had never charged duty on those cargoes. I reckoned it was none of my business if a Scotsman sailed past my coast with a ship filled with pelts or pottery. True, if a ship put into one of my harbours then I would charge a fee, but so did everyone else. But now a small fleet had come to my waters and was levying a duty in my name, and I suspected I knew where that fleet had come from. And if I was right, then the four ships had come from the south, from the lands of Edward, Anglorum Saxonum Rex .

Spearhafoc plunged her bows into a green sea to shatter a hard white foam along her decks. Banamaðr was pitching too, driven by a rising west wind, both of us sailing southwards to hunt down the ships that had killed my tenants, and if I was right about those ships, then I had a bloodfeud on my hands.

A bloodfeud is a war between two families, both sworn to destroy the other. My first had been against Kjartan the Cruel who had slaughtered the whole household of Ragnar, the Dane who had adopted me as a son. I had welcomed that feud, and ended it too by killing both Kjartan and his son, but this new bloodfeud was against a far more powerful enemy. An enemy who lived far to the south in Edward’s Wessex, where they could raise an army of household warriors. And to kill them I must go there, to where that army waited to kill me. ‘She’s turning!’ Finan interrupted my thoughts.