“Your two shoulder companions. Not to mention your fellow bailers and oarswomen. They’re old hands—they’ve sailed with me a dozen times—and they will counsel you and caution you. They’re accountable to me.”
Solveig was aware of Bergdis’s warm shoulder leaning into hers and of the cool space between her and Odindisa.
“And if you come to harm,” Red Ottar said very deliberately, “so will they.” He paused. “Hear that, Turpin?”
“I do.”
“I swear it, my friend,” said the skipper, wagging his right forefinger. “Now! Five men, four women, two children. We’re a team of eleven, and we all have our own duties and bring our own skills. Your skill, Solveig, is to carve and to give me all your carvings to pay for your passage.”
Solveig nodded. He’s strong, she thought. I like that.
“Your duties,” Red Ottar continued, “are to help Bergdis cook and to assist Bruni Blacktooth with smithing and carving. Do you understand?”
“I do,” said Solveig.
“You may think we’ll have plenty of time once we’re under sail,” Red Ottar told her, “but it’s never like that. There’s always something to be done.”
Red Ottar turned to Torsten.
“So,” he asked, “when can we set sail? What do you say, Torsten?”
Torsten said the weather was set fair. “Not only that. The wind’s behind us.”
“The wind’s behind us, and my rival Ulrik’s already ahead of us,” said Red Ottar. “He left last night.”
“Tomorrow at dawn, then,” Torsten declared.
“Once we’ve sailed out of this lake and through the waterway to the sea,” the skipper told Solveig, “our first landfall will be Åland. One big island. Hundreds of little ones. Like the moon surrounded by the stars. It’s two days and two nights from here.”
“We’ll head straight for it,” Torsten said, “unless the wind worsens.”
“Åland,” said Odindisa in a singsong voice. “It’s alive with magicians.”
“Pff!” spit Red Ottar. He gave Slothi’s wife a sharp look.
“You know I sometimes see what others cannot,” Odindisa went on.
The skipper clapped his hands. “Nonsense!”
Odindisa turned to Solveig and gave her a look, half wild, half lost, as if she were caught between worlds.
“Åland, then,” Torsten repeated. “And after that, east, east all the way to Ladoga. At least five days and five nights from Åland.”
“I saw two dancers turned into stone,” Odindisa said dreamily.
“Odindisa,” snapped Red Ottar, “I’ll flatten you into a pancake.”
“Shall I show the girl around?” Torsten asked.
Solveig’s heart leaped. She couldn’t wait to ask the helmsman about her father.
But Red Ottar said, “I’ll come too. I’ve got to check the cargo.”
“We’ve already checked it,” Bruni Blacktooth told him. “Slothi and Vigot are both aboard, watching over it.”
“Even so.”
Solveig could see how proud of his boat Red Ottar was. He led the way across the landing stage and slapped her planks.
“Oak,” he said. “Green oak planks. I saw them being split in the forest. She’s only a yearling, you know.”
“She’s beautiful!” exclaimed Solveig.
“Look at that curve and sweep.”
“Like waves,” said Torsten. “Like my wife.”
“She’s my sea wife!” said Red Ottar. “The keel’s all one timber, forty feet long. Know about ships, do you?”
Solveig shook her head. “Not really. Little ones. Cobles, skiffs. But I’ve never been aboard a boat half as fine as this.”
“Come on, then,” said the skipper. His eyes were fox-red and shining.
Oh! As Red Ottar marched Solveig up to the bows and back to the stern and from side to side, she felt so lighthearted that her feet scarcely touched the deck. In her ears she heard words her father used to say:
“My high prancer! My salt stallion!
One curlew calls and my heart
leaps within me, my thoughts roam
over the gold and glitter . . .”
“Pace her out,” Red Ottar told Solveig. “Get
L.M.T. L.Ac. Donna Finando
William R. Forstchen, Newt Gingrich, Albert S. Hanser