The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (29 page)

  Sandarr heard a snapping of cloth and looked up at the weather leech of the square sail. It was starting to curl, the ship turning too far up into the wind. Sandarr wasted no more than a few seconds wondering how to tell Lorcan what to do before he realized there was no way he could. He turned and ran aft, bounding up to the afterdeck and taking the tiller from Lorcan’s hands. He pulled it back and
Water Stallion
turned to leeward and the curl in the sail straightened as the wind came aft once more.

  He looked at Lorcan. He did not look happy.

  The rest of the men did not look happy either, but their discomfort came from other sources.
Water Stallion
was heeling now, her starboard rail nearly scooping the seas, the sail and rigging straining as they held the growing breeze. To a mariner such as Sandarr it was a beautiful thing. The ship was alive beneath his feet. But to the Irish, farmers and soldiers and various other breeds of landsmen all, it was frightening, the ship seemingly on the edge of control, racing through an element in which they could not live.

  Sandarr could see the discomfort on their faces. And it only grew worse as here and there men started vomiting on the deck. He wanted to tell Ronnat to tell them to puke over the leeward side, but he did not think they would be willing to lean their heads over the sea, and besides, Ronnat was not looking too well herself.

  Once again Sandarr looked astern. Half a mile separated
Water Stallion
from the other vessels, and still no one was coming in pursuit. Rather, the three ships in their wake seemed to be engaged in some elaborate dance, spinning around one another in an odd, silent ritual. He had no idea of what they might be doing, and he did not care. He did not think there was any chance
Water Stallion
would be taken now.

  He shifted his gaze out to windward. The overcast had lifted a bit and he could see for several miles at least. He liked what he saw, which was nothing, an empty sea, a succession of low rollers, nothing to cause any concern. He breathed deep. He felt happier than he had felt in a long, long time. The land was all confusion and treachery and hurt. The sea was just the sea. Pure. Dangerous but uncomplicated.

 
Water Stallion
stood on for the better part of an hour, Sandarr lost in his thoughts, driving the ship along close-hauled, making five or six knots on a course that took them directly away from the shore. The plan they had agreed upon was to head north along the coast, to bring the ship into a river that would let them get close to Ráth Naoi, Lorcan’s ringfort, and there figure what to do next. It was Sandarr’s intention to stand well out to sea and then tack. With the wind as it was, they would reach far up the coast before they had to tack again, and by making long boards they would only have to do that a few times before they fetched the river mouth. Since no one else aboard understood such maritime considerations, they did not argue, and Sandarr did not think they would.

  But once again he was wrong.

  Lorcan’s voice pulled Sandarr from his thoughts, his words like some animal’s grunting.

  “Lorcan says we are getting too far from land,” Ronnat said.

  Sandarr looked over at Lorcan and then at the men huddled on the deck. He could see concern on their faces, concern that was approaching fear. Some were craning their necks to look aft at the gray hump of Irish shore they were quickly leaving astern. None of them seemed to be enjoying this as Sandarr was.

  “Tell Lorcan we must head out to sea, and then turn back to land. It is the only way we can sail north.”

  Ronnat translated. She did not look any happier than the rest, and Sandarr did not like the tone he heard in her voice.

  Lorcan listened and took half a minute to digest the words. Then he replied and Ronnat said, “Lorcan says you are to turn the ship now.” There was no equivocation in her voice, and none in the expression on Lorcan’s face.

  “Ask Lorcan what, by all the gods, he thinks he knows about any of this,” Sandarr said. “Tell him if he is afraid he can go and sit with the others and I will call him when I need him.”

  Ronnat did not translate. She just glared at Sandarr. And then she said again, slower this time, “Lorcan says you are to turn the ship…now.”

  Sandarr looked from her face to Lorcan and back to hers. They were frightened, heading so far out to sea. Worse still, the further they sailed from shore the more dependent they were on his expertise. Him, a Norseman, whose trustworthiness would always be in question. Way out on the deep water, under the power of the mysterious sail, Lorcan was no longer in control and he did not like it. Even Ronnat, whom Sandarr had always thought of as an ally, was no longer on his side.

  And that left him with very little room to maneuver.

  “Very well,” Sandarr said. “We will never reach the river by nightfall if you will not listen to me, but I suppose I am not in command here. Lorcan, take the tiller and put her about when I give the word.”

  He stepped aside as Ronnat relayed the instructions. He knew that she would not know how to translate them, and Lorcan would not understand them even if she did. But that was fine with Sandarr. A little humiliation dumped on Lorcan’s head would remind the great Irish ox that he knew nothing of ships and the sea.

  Lorcan stepped over and took the tiller. Sandarr could see him struggling to wipe the uncertainty from his face. Without a word, Sandarr went forward and pointed to half a dozen men on the larboard side and directed them to the larboard brace, and a few more he sent to the starboard brace. Others were ordered by way of gesture to the leeward sheet and he personally went forward to where the tack was rove through the beitass and made fast to a cleat inboard.

  “Very well, Ronnat, tell Lorcan to put the helm a’lee!” Sandarr shouted, but Ronnat just stood there, silent, unsure of what any of that meant, and even more unsure of how to render it into Irish. Lorcan looked equally confused.

  “Helm a’lee! Come up into the wind, we are coming about!” Sandarr shouted, the clarification utterly and purposefully unhelpful. Still no one reacted. With exaggerated exasperation, Sandarr stamped aft and pulled the tiller from Lorcan’s hand and pushed it forward.
Water Stallion
swung up into the wind, turning nimbly with the considerable momentum she carried, the square sail flogging as it came edge to the wind, then coming aback as the wind got on the wrong side.

  The ship began to turn faster and to heel to leeward. Sandarr straightened the rudder and made his impatience evident as he gestured for Lorcan to take the helm again. Lorcan did, holding it steady, and Sandarr stamped forward, casting off the starboard brace, waving his hand to the men at the larboard brace to indicate they should haul away, taking the tack in hand and casting it off.

  Everything was confusion and chaos, that much was clear to even the most land-bound aboard. Slowly the yard came around, the hauling made difficult by the wind on the wrong side of the sail. Then the sail began to flog once more as the edge passed through the wind, and then it filled on the starboard tack and was quiet and Sandarr gestured for the men to make the sheets fast and to help him shift the beitass to the starboard side.

  All in all it was an ugly, unseamanlike and uncoordinated maneuver, and Sandarr hoped it made the point, loud and clear, that they could not sail the ship without him. He remained amidships, showing the men how to set things to rights, coiling the lines, adjusting braces, sheets and tacks, driving home the truth that when it came to working the vessel, he alone possessed the magic, he was the indispensable one.

  It was twenty minutes after they had tacked that Sandarr looked aft again. Lorcan was still at the tiller, and he was pushing it just a bit and testing how the ship reacted, then pulling it and doing the same. Tiny adjustments to the ship’s course, but Sandarr could see in his face and in his stance that he was unraveling the mystery of this thing, this rudder, this ship.

  The Irishman looked up at the sail, and out to weather, and Sandarr thought,
Oh, no, you great ox, don’t start thinking you have any notion of how to run a ship on your own…

  Sandarr turned and looked back toward the now-distant beach from which they had come. One of the other ships was underway at last, the Norwegians’ ship. Their sail was set and they were on a course to weather the headland and no doubt continue north, back to Vík-ló. They seemed to be paying no attention to
Water Stallion
and Sandarr did not imagine they would. The Norwegians had no dog in this fight.

  The other ships, his father’s
Eagle’s Wing
and
Fox
, were still hovering off the beach as if unsure of what course to take. Sandarr had every expectation that they would come in relentless pursuit of
Water Stallion
. Certainly Bersi would be advocating for such a thing, if he was still alive. But they did not appear to be doing any such thing.

  Next, Sandarr looked forward, beyond
Water Stallion
’s bow. There was something small and light-colored moving against the dark swath of land. He thought it was a sea bird at first, but then realized it was moving too slow to be that. He let his eyes rest on it, wondering what it was. And then he realized it was a sail, a small one, probably one of those Irish boats, those curachs, with a mast and sail rigged. That was unusual; the Irish were generally happier rowing rather than sailing, but not so very unusual as to warrant consideration.

  Sandarr spared no more thought for the Norwegians or the curach. He had bigger concerns. Lorcan seemed to be getting his sea legs, or at least he seemed to think he was, which for all practical purposes was the same thing. With every fathom of distance they closed with the shore, the Irishman’s confidence appeared to grow, his fear of the ship and the sea to diminish.

  And that begged the question, one that Sandarr could not help but contemplate;
If Lorcan thinks he can sail this ship himself, then what need will he have of me?

  He was mulling those uncomfortable thoughts when Ronnat appeared at his side. “Lorcan would have a word with you,” she said, then turned and walked aft without waiting for a reply, confident, apparently, that Sandarr would follow.

  And he did, because he could see no advantage in not doing so. He stepped up onto the afterdeck. Lorcan was holding the tiller, his eyes moving from the sail to the windward horizon to the shore that stretched away down the larboard side, his massive arms making small, almost delicate adjustments to the helm. He spoke.

  “What ship is that?” Ronnat translated. She pointed toward the lone vessel standing out toward the headland. It was several miles away, but clearly seen, even as the sun was starting to grow lower in the west.

  “That is the Norwegian ship,” Sandarr said.

  “Why does she sail off on her own?” Lorcan asked and Ronnat translated.

  “I don’t know,” Sandarr said, “save that they are not part of my father’s fleet.”

  Lorcan pointed with his massive beard toward the other ships, quite far off now and still milling around the beach. “Why do they remain there? What is their business there?” he asked.

 
Does this fool take me for some sort of druid, or mind reader?
Sandarr thought, but said only, “I don’t know.”

  Lorcan listened to Ronnat’s brief translation and he glared at Sandarr as he did, making his suspicions clear. He was silent for a long moment, running his eyes over the far horizon again and the Norwegian ship and the others. Then he spoke.

  “We will capture the Norwegian ship,” Ronnat said.

  Sandarr frowned. The arguments crowded together in his head. “Why would we want to do that?” he said at last. “We have a ship now, and we can barely sail the one.”

  “Lorcan says two ships are better,” Ronnat replied with Lorcan’s words. “Those men on that ship have been in battle, they will be weak, and we are fresh. And many.”

  Sandarr looked out at the Norwegian ship, then up at the sun, then back at the Norwegians. He did not give a goat turd for what Lorcan wanted, one ship or a thousand. His thoughts were centered on what would be best for him, Sandarr, what course of action would lead to his becoming lord of Vík-ló, the reason he had come to work with Lorcan in the first place. Further obstruction, thwarting of Lorcan’s plans, was not it. He could see that. He nodded.