Oh, my determination had grown fierce in the harsh certainty of my predicament. All else-my life before, and, yes, ever after-was as nothing beside the hard grit of my new-found fortitude. If the decrees of happenchance required firmness, I would be a rock, a very fortress of resolve.
On the day the four longships sailed from Bjorvika, I hardened my heart to my new vocation: advisor to a marauding Sea Wolf whose gold-lust would consume the lives of many. Harald Bull-Roar meant to seize all he could set hand to, and his grasp was great indeed.
Whether King Harald's plan was madness itself, or pure cunning, could not, with any lasting satisfaction, be decided. Opinion swung all too readily both ways, and often vacillated from one extreme to the other depending on the day and the direction of the wind. When the wind howled cold and raw from the north, everyone grumbled that it was insane to leave the warmth and safety of the hearth so late in the season. When the sun shone fair and the breeze blew brisk from the west or south, they all agreed that no one would expect a raid so late in the season and that this fact alone would win them much plunder from the unsuspecting inhabitants of Miklagard.
Rain or sun, it was all the same to me. I maintained my place in the king's company, anticipating his next command, but keeping my distance. I did my duty, performing my service as a slave, but extending myself no further. If Harald's evil ambition was to be restrained, it would have to be by God's hand, not mine. I was that vessel made for destruction-that jar of promise, perfect from the master potter's hand, but marred in the kiln, and now deserving only to be crushed beneath his heel and cast away.
But God is good. He took pity on me and sent me friends to comfort me. Gunnar and Tolar, anxious to be forgiven five years' tribute, had decided to go to Miklagard after all; as their own lord, Ragnar Yellow Hair, refused to support the king's raiding scheme with either men or ships, they were given places aboard Harald's. This cheered me immensely, for I had missed them more than I knew. And since I was no longer Gunnar's slave, they treated me as one of their own.
We were but two days at sea and I was sitting near the stern with my back to the rail, soaking up a brief ray of sunshine near the end of a rain-riven day, when I heard a voice say, "You are looking sad, Aeddan."
"Am I?" I opened my eyes to see Gunnar, Tolar and another man standing before me. The stranger was tall and fair-haired, his ruddy face well-creased and his pale eyes cast into a permanent squint from gazing at the horizon in every kind of weather.
"You look as if you have lost your only friend," Gunnar said, pursuing his observation.
"I suppose it is because I am missing my nice dry bed in your barn. It is difficult to sleep on the bare board of a bouncing ship."
Gunnar turned to the stranger. "You see? I told you he was Irish."
"He is Irish all right," the man observed placidly. "My cousin Sven once had an Irish woman. He got her in Birka for six bits of silver and a copper armband. She was a good wife, but had a very bad temper and would not allow him any other women. Always she said that she would gut him like a fish if he even thought of bringing another woman home. This vexed him sorely, I believe. She died after only five years-I think it was a wolf got her, or a wildcat. That was unfortunate for him. Sven could not easily afford another wife like that."
"Unfortunate indeed," I agreed. "You are the king's helmsman. I have seen you with him. I am Aidan."
"And you are the king's new slave," said the stranger. "I have seen you also. Greetings to you, Aeddan. I am Thorkel."
"We have sailed together before-Thorkel, Tolar, and me," Gunnar said. "This is the third time for us, and everyone knows the third time brings very good luck."
Tolar nodded sagely.
"They are saying you are a Christian," the pilot informed me. "They are saying it is bad luck for the king to trust a Christian; they fear it will prove poor raiding once we get to Miklagard." Thorkel paused, distancing himself from the rumour-mongers. "Well, people say many things; most of it is foolishness, of course."
"Aeddan is a priest," Gunnar declared blithely, raising a hand to my overgrown tonsure. "He speaks very well for his god. You should hear him sometime."
"So?" wondered Thorkel. "A Christian priest? I have never seen one before."
"It is true," I affirmed, and resolved to find a razor somewhere and restore my tonsure.
The seaman passed a speculative eye over me, and made up his mind at once. "Well, even so, I cannot think trusting a Christian is any worse than trusting one's luck to the moon and stars, and men do that readily enough. I think you are harmless though."
