Tim Severin - King's Man

I spent the next two weeks trying to learn as much as possible about the man on whom I was being sent to spy, and the more I learned, the more I feared that Harald was overreaching himself if he thought such a wily ally would cooperate. William the Bastard attracted gossip like rotting meat attracts flies. His mother, it was said, was a tanner's daughter whose heart-stopping beauty had caught the eye of the Duke of Normandy, and their illegitimate child was only seven when he had inherited the ducal title. Against all expectations the youngster had survived the power struggles over his inheritance because he possessed what the Christians liked to call 'the devil's luck'. On one occasion a hired murderer got as far as the boy's bedroom, and he awoke to see his would-be killer struggling with his guardian, who had taken the precaution of sleeping in the same room. The murderer cut his guardian's throat but made such a commotion that he was forced to flee before he completed his mission. Even William's marriage was the subject of lurid description. Apparently he had married a cousin, although his own priests had forbidden the union as too close to incest, and, to add spice to the gossip, it was rumoured that his bride was a dwarf who had borne him at least half a dozen children. On one point, however, all the rumours and speculation met: William of Normandy had shown himself to be a master of statecraft. He had connived and fought until he had secured his grip on the dukedom he had inherited, and now he was the most feared warlord in France, as powerful as the king of France himself.

This, then, was the man that my lord had sent me to evaluate and perhaps ensnare within Harald's grand design. It would be a dangerous assignment, and I was not at all sure that I still had the mental agility or the subtlety to act the spy. If I was to carry it off, it would only be with the help of Odinn, himself the great dissembler. It would be my last effort, and a distraction from the pain of losing Runa.

I began by acquiring my own disguise. I decided to wear the simple brown robe which would mark me as a humble monk. At Harald's court there were enough Christian priests for me to observe and copy their mannerisms, while the Latin I had learned in Ireland was more than good enough to mimic their prayers and incantations. The only dilemma I had was about my tonsure. Discreet enquiry among the priests revealed that the shape and manner of my haircut could be significant. Apparently the area of the scalp that was shaved, the length of remaining hair and the way it hung could indicate a White Christ devotee's background in the same way that the painted pattern on a shield indicates a warrior's allegiance. So I chose to have my head shaved completely of its last few remaining white hairs. If questioned, I would say that it was in honour of St Paul who was, according to the priest I interviewed, completely bald.

A cog took me from Norway south to its home port of Bremen and then towards the coast of Normandy, where I intended to disembark. This cog was a vessel that I had never experienced before, and I was ill at ease throughout the voyage. Designed for cargo carrying, the sides of the ship rose rather too high out of the water for my liking, and the bow and stern were made yet more clumsy by high wooden platforms. I thought the cog resembled a large barn that had somehow floated out to sea, though I had to admit that she was uncommonly capacious. The cog on which I sailed carried twice as much cargo as any ship I had ever travelled on, and as she waddled down from port to port I watched her hold fill up with stores that was clearly war material. There were bundles of shields, bales of sword blades, flax cloth for tent making, large quantities of ship-building nails as well as more humdrum gear such as boots, spades and bill hooks. Our ultimate destination was Rouen, Duke William's capital.

Njord the sea God, however, imposed a different outcome on our voyage. The cog loaded her final batch of cargo in Boulogne — a mixed consignment of metal helmets, tanned hides and pickaxes — and was working along the coast when, in the early afternoon, the weather turned against us. It was a typical spring gale when the sky swiftly darkens, clouds come scudding up from the west, and heavy bursts of cold rain spatter the sea with exploding raindrops. The sea, which had been a neutral blue-grey, turned a greenish black, and as the wind gathered in strength the swells began to mount and grow more violent until they toppled and broke. At first the cog's size and weight made her seem impervious to the deteriorating conditions, but eventually the waves which are Njord's servants gradually took control. Our Bremen skipper did his best to find shelter from the storm, but as luck would have it the gale had caught him at a point where he had no safe harbour to run to. So he ordered the sailors to shorten sail and tried to ride out the worsening conditions. Our deep-laden ship wallowed sickeningly as the waves rolled under her keel, and the wind buffeted the high bow and stern. It required all the steersman's skill to keep her riding to the seas, and it was impossible to prevent her drifting downwind as her slab sides acted as an unwelcome sail. As the wind shifted further into the north, I saw the skipper begin to look alarmed. He sent his crew below decks to fetch up the spare anchors from the bilges and get them ready on the heaving deck.

By now the rain was so heavy that it was impossible to see more than an arrow's flight in any direction, yet it was clear that the cog was being driven towards the unseen coast and into danger. I took care to conceal my own unease - priests are not supposed to be experienced mariners - but I noted how the waves were becoming shorter and steeper, and I suspected we were passing over shoals. That suspicion became a certainty when the

churning of the waves began to throw up a yellow tinge of sand and mud. Once or twice I thought I heard the sound of distant breakers.

Then, abruptly, the rain stopped and the air around us cleared as if a hood had been lifted from our eyes. We turned to look over the lee rail to see where the wind had brought us. The sight brought an urgent command from our skipper. 'Let go all anchors,' he yelled.

Away to our port side, less than half a mile away, was a low shoreline. A beach of grey sand, glistening with the recent rain, sloped gently towards a ridge of dunes, and behind them rose a barrier of bone-white cliffs. To a landsman's eye it might have looked as if our cog was still far enough from land to be in deep water and safely clear of danger, but our skipper knew better. The gradual slope of the beach and the white crests of the waves between us and the shoreline told him that we had entered shoal ground. At any moment our vessel's keel might touch bottom.

The crew scrambled to carry out their captain's orders. Their greased leather sea boots slithered on the slippery deck as they wrestled the largest of our anchors, a great iron grapnel weighted with bands of lead, across to the side rail and heaved it overboard. The anchor rope flew after it, the first few coils disappearing quickly, but then suddenly slowing as the anchor hit the sea floor close beneath the surface.

'Jump to it!' bellowed the captain. 'Get the second anchor down.'

This time the anchor was smaller, a wooden shaft with a metal crossbar, easier to manage but less effective. It too was flung overboard, and by now the skipper had run forward and laid his hand on the main anchor rope. He was feeling its tremor, trying to sense whether the anchor itself had dug into the sea floor and was holding firm. His conclusion was evident as he shouted at the crew to throw out more anchors. 'Everything!' he yelled. 'She's dragging!' Desperately the crew obeyed. Four more anchors were tossed into the sea and their anchor lines made fast to strong points on the deck. But these emergency anchors were feeble affairs, the last one no more than a heavy rock with a wooden bar thrust through it, intended as a fang to bite into the sand.