“Oh … er … wine and … cheeses,” he said. “The Sonderlanders love our cheeses. We were planning to trade for onyx stones and mother-of-pearl shell.” His eyes flicked away from Erak’s momentarily, then returned to meet the Oberjarl’s unwavering gaze.
“Of course, we had to throw our trade goods overboard when we realized we were in danger of sinking,” Zavac said.
The statement had the feeling of an afterthought to it, as if Zavac suddenly realized that Erak might ask to see his “trade goods.”
“Pity,” Erak said. “We could have used some wine here.”
Zavac smiled apologetically and spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. Erak said nothing, allowing the silence to grow to an uncomfortable length. Finally, he shifted in his chair and spoke again.
“So, I imagine you’ll want repair facilities for your ship, timber and cordage, and accommodation for your men?”
Zavac nodded. “We’ll pay well for it,” he said. “You won’t lose by helping us.”
Erak fingered his chin. He didn’t trust this Magyaran. But the ship was certainly unseaworthy and no Skandian could send it back to sea again in its current condition. There was an unwritten law of the sea about such things. Finally, he nodded.
“Very well. Work out the details and port payments with Borsa,” he said, and waved a hand dismissively. As Zavac turned to go, Erak held up a hand to stop him.
“One thing,” he said. “Tell your men to keep their noses clean while they’re in Hallasholm. I don’t want any trouble.”
Zavac nodded and smiled. “I understand. This is a quiet town and you don’t want the peace disturbed.”
Erak smiled back, but it was like a smile on the face of a shark. “No. This is a very violent town and if your men cause trouble, my people will break their heads for them. I don’t want to be paying any blood money for damage done to your crew. Understand?”
Zavac’s smiled faded. He looked for some sign that the Oberjarl was joking, but saw none. He nodded again, slowly this time.
“I understand,” he said, and followed Borsa out the Great Hall.
Erak waited until the door closed behind them, then turned and called over his shoulder.
“What do you think, Svengal?”
Svengal, his longtime second in command aboard
Wolfwind
and now her skirl, emerged from behind a curtain, where he had been concealed.
“If he’s a peaceful trader, I’m my old auntie Winfredia,” he said.
Erak raised an eyebrow. “Do you have an old auntie Winfredia?”
Svengal waved a hand. “Figure of speech, chief. Figure of speech. He’s a pirate, I’d stake my life on it.”
“I agree,” Erak said, with a grimace of distaste. “Most Magyarans are pirates.”
“I wouldn’t put it past them to have sabotaged their own ship so they could get into Hallasholm harbor,” Svengal added. “It’d be a typical Magyaran trick. Come into town, repair the ship, then rob us blind and run for it.”
Historically, Skandians had been raiders, landing ashore near towns or villages and attacking to steal any valuables they could find. They called it “liberating” the goods. More often than not, the inhabitants fled at the first sign of a raiding party. Sometimes they fought. And sometimes they won, driving the raiders off. But in Erak’s and Svengal’s eyes, that was a fair encounter. If the raiders won the fight, there were no reprisals against the defenders because they had the temerity to try to defend their property.
Piracy was a different matter altogether. Pirates—and Erak was right, many Magyarans indulged in the practice—preyed on lone ships at sea. Ships that were smaller than their own and usually only lightly armed. When the ship was captured and her cargo taken, the normal practice was to sink the ship and kill the crew, so that no trace of the pirates’ activity would ever be found.
“Keep an eye on him while he’s here,” Erak said. “Any sign of funny business, let me know.”
“Consider it done,” Svengal said. A grin touched the corners of his mouth. “Do you want me to disguise myself while I’m doing it?”
Erak frowned at him. “Disguise yourself? As who?”
“I could do myself up as my old aunt Winfredia,” Svengal said. “They’d never suspect a thing.”
Erak regarded him stonily. When he had been a simple ship’s skirl, he thought, Svengal had never showed him this sort of disrespect. Then he shook his head, remembering. Yes, he did, he thought.
“Get out of here,” he said.
“On my way, chief. And if you see an old woman hobbling around town, be nice to her. She’s probably me.”
“Are you still here?” Erak asked. But this time, there was no answer.
chapter
twenty-eight
T
raining was finished for the day and the boys were waiting to be dismissed so they could return to their quarters and rest. Sigurd, however, chose to spring a most unwelcome surprise on them.
“Team assessment!” he thundered as he strode onto the training ground. The boys looked at one another with dismay. It had been a long day. They had been practicing rowing most of the afternoon. It was hard, grueling work and their muscles ached. The news became worse with Sigurd’s next words.
“Obstacle course! Team assessment! Ten minutes! Get your kit together!”
There were audible groans from all corners of the training field. The obstacle course was a seven-kilometer track laid out around the training area, through thick woods and up and down the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains. As well as being a muscle-wrenching run, it pitted the runners against a series of natural—and, in some cases, highly unnatural—obstacles. There was a steep rock slope to descend, two streams to ford and a pit full of thick, gluey mud to negotiate. This was accomplished by swinging on a rope across the disgusting barrier. There was also a wooden wall, more than two meters high, that each runner had to climb, scramble or jump over as best he could.
At one point, a heavy rope net was staked out, with fifty centimeters clearance between it and the ground, and the runners had to crawl on their bellies beneath it for fifteen meters.
To make things a little more interesting, in Sigurd’s words, all these feats had to be accomplished carrying weapons and shields.
“That’s the way it’ll be if you’re in a battle,” he’d told them. “You might as well get used to it.”
So the Herons swung, climbed, ran, crawled, slid and waded along the course. The event was another time trial and Hal was confident that they were making reasonable time. The more capable and athletic runners, like Stig, Jesper and the twins, helped those less able to negotiate the course. But the final obstacle was their undoing. It was a thick pole, six meters long, set three meters above another muddy pit. At least, the boys all hoped fervently that the substance in the pit was mud. There were dark mutterings that it was something even more unpleasant—and the rancid smell from the pit did little to dispel such rumors. Edvin muttered that he’d heard the town’s pigsties seemed to be remarkably clean in recent days.
Seven of the eight Heron teammates managed to negotiate the log—with differing degrees of difficulty. Stig and Hal ran it easily. Jesper was equally light-footed. That was befitting of someone with Jesper’s light-fingered habits, Hal thought. The twins moved at a more sedate pace, all the while throwing insults at each other. Stefan edged along sideways, crouched nearly double, his tongue sticking out between his teeth as he went, mumbling encouragement to himself. Edvin, after a near disaster, when he only managed to save himself from the pit by a last-minute grab at the log and an undignified scramble back onto it, eventually sat and straddled the pole, inching his way along it to safety.
But the log was Ingvar’s downfall—literally.
He clambered onto its smooth, rounded surface like a great, clumsy bear. He crouched fearfully. He was barefoot and his toes were visibly curling in an instinctive action, as if his feet were trying to grip the log. He rose to full height, arms outstretched, wavering dangerously.
“Come on, Ingvar!” the team yelled.
He took one wobbling, uncertain step. His arms windmilled. He crouched again on hands and knees, peering hopelessly around him.
“How far off the ground am I?” he called.
Hal hesitated, then, knowing that Ingvar couldn’t see very well, he replied, “Barely twenty centimeters!” He figured that if Ingvar didn’t think there was a two-meter drop below him, he would manage the log more easily. But Ingvar wasn’t fooled. He remembered he had climbed a lot farther than twenty centimeters to get onto the log.
“I know that’s a lie!” he shouted, clutching the log desperately. “I can’t manage this. I’m sorry.”
“Do it the way Edvin did it!” Stig yelled.
Ingvar frowned. Of course he hadn’t seen Edvin inching his way across the log.
“How was that?” he called back, his voice quavering.
“Straddle it and slide along on your behind!” Edvin yelled. Ingvar thought about that and nodded slowly.
“That might work,” he said. He carefully sat down, dropped his legs to either side of the pole, gripped it in front of him with both hands and began to inch along. Instantly, he began to yell with pain.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow-ow-ow!” he bleated, stopping a third of the way across.
“What’s up now?” Hal asked him, looking round toward the track that led to the finish line in frustration. Ingvar’s hesitation was costing them time, he knew. And that was something they didn’t have.
“Splinters, Hal. Splinters. I can’t go any farther like this,” Ingvar called piteously and Hal’s shoulders drooped. He looked at Stig.
“We’re going to have to guide him across,” he said. Stig took a pace back in horror, looking at the evil, glutinous mass in the pit.
“Are you kidding? If he falls, he’ll take us with him.”
“We’ve got to, Stig. It’s the only way. And every team member has to complete every obstacle.”
As it turned out, Stig’s words were prophetic. Ingvar did fall, and he did take them with him. And he did so three times before they squelched, stinking and covered in muck, off the far side of the pole.
As they reached the far side, it was noticeable that their teammates edged away to give them plenty of free space.
“Thanks, fellows,” said Ingvar.
Hal gestured wearily with a dripping, filth-covered hand. “You’d do the same for us,” he said.
Ingvar looked down at himself, then at his two helpers. His sight wasn’t too good but there was nothing wrong with his sense of smell.
“No,” he said deliberately. “No, I wouldn’t.”
They squished their way to the finish line, where they were greeted by howls of laughter from the other teams. Even Tursgud’s sense of humor, which had been noticeably absent since his fight with Hal, seemed restored.
“Looks like Hal Who fell in the poo,” he called, causing a fresh burst of hilarity. Hal, seething as he was, had to admit to himself it was a pretty good sally. He squelched up to Sigurd, who backed away, grinning.
“Herons reporting in, sir. How did we do?”
Sigurd looked at him, his head to one side. “You’re kidding, of course,” he said.
Hal shrugged. “I guess we came last then?”
Sigurd made a note on one of his many sheets of parchment.
“You came so last,” he said, “you’ll probably still be last in
next
year’s training program.”
Two days later, Hal brought the
Heron
into the harbor. The three teams had just finished a trial navigation exercise and
Heron
had finished well ahead of the other two boats. She was faster in just about all conditions, except under oars and running with the wind dead astern. He was pleased with the way his crew were settling down. They were familiar now with the ship’s unusual rig and even Gort, who was skeptical at first, seemed to be impressed by
Heron
’s ability to sail closer to the wind than the two square-rigged ships. Although, at this stage, Hal hadn’t demonstrated her full capabilities in that regard. No sense in letting Rollond and Tursgud know what they were up against.
As they ran the
Heron
onto the beach, Hal pointed to the long black ship beached farther down the strand. He’d noticed her earlier when they had left the harbor, but he’d been too busy to ask about her then.
“Whose is that?” he asked Gort.
The instructor grimaced distastefully. “She’s Magyaran. She was dismasted in a storm. Erak is letting her crew do repairs,” he said. His expression left no doubt what he thought of Magyarans and their ships. Hal opened his mouth to ask more but he was interrupted by Sigurd, who was striding along the walkway at the top of the beach.
“Assessment!” he bellowed. “Wrestling! At the Common Green! Fifteen minutes!”
There was a flurry of activity as the brotherbands hurried to stow yards, sails and masts and make their ships fast. Then they doubled to the Common Green, a large, grassy field in the center of Hallasholm, where the town’s inhabitants were each entitled to graze two animals.