Well, anyhow, the ship was abroad, but we had three boats and took one of these. Besides myself, Thorgunna, and Helgi, Hjalmar and Ketill went along, with Grim and Gerald. I saw how the stranger winced at the cold water as we launched her, and afterward took off his shoes and stockings to let his feet dry. He had been surprised to learn we had a bathhouse—did he think us savages?—but still, he was dainty as a woman and soon moved upwind of our feet.
There was a favoring breeze, so we raised mast and sail. Gerald tried to help, but of course did not know one line from another and got them tangled. Grim snarled at him and Ketill laughed nastily. But erelong we were under way, and he came and sat by me where I had the steering oar.
He had plainly lain long awake thinking, and now he ventured timidly: «In my land they have… will have a rig and rudder which are better than this. With them, you can criss-cross against the wind.»
«Ah, so now our skilled sailor must give us redes!» sneered Ketill.
«Be still,» said Thorgunna sharply. «Let Gerald speak!»
He gave her a sly look of thanks, and I was not unwilling to listen. «This is something which could easily be made,» he said. «I’ve used such boats myself, and know them well. First, then, the sail should not be square and hung from a yardarm, but three-cornered, with the third corner lashed to a yard swiveling from the mast. Then, your steering oar is in the wrong place—there should be a rudder in the middle of the stern, guided by a bar.» He was eager now, tracing the plan with his fingernail on Thorgunna’s cloak. «With these two things, and a deep keel—going down to about the height of a man for a boat this size—a ship can move across the path of the wind… so. And another sail can be hung between the mast and the prow.»
Well, priest, I must say the idea had its merits, and were it not for fear of bad luck—for everything of his was unlucky—I might even now play with it. But there are clear drawbacks, which I pointed out to him in a reasonable way.
«First and worst,» I said, «this rudder and deep keel would make it all but impossible to beach the ship or sail up a shallow river. Perhaps they have many harbors where you hail from but here a craft must take what landings she can find, and must be speedily launched if there should be an attack. Second, this mast of yours would be hard to unstep when the wind dropped and oars came out. Third, the sail is the wrong shape to stretch as an awning when one must sleep at sea.»
«The ship could lie out, and you could go to land in a small boat,» he said. «Also, you could build cabins aboard for shelter.»
«The cabins would get in the way of the oars,» I said, «unless the ship were hopelessly broad-beamed or unless the oarsmen sat below a deck like the galley slaves of Miklagard; and free men would not endure rowing in such foulness.»
«Must you have oars?» he asked like a very child.
Laughter barked along the hull. Even the gulls hovering to starboard, where the shore rose darkly, mewed their scorn. «Do they also have tame winds in the place whence you came?» snorted Hjalmar. «What happens if you’re becalmed—for days, maybe, with provisions running out—»
«You could build a ship big enough to carry many weeks’ provisions,» said Gerald.
«If you have the wealth of a king, you could,» said Helgi. «And such a king’s ship, lying helpless on a flat sea, would be swarmed by every viking from here to Jomsborg. As for leaving the ship out on the water while you make camp, what would you have for shelter, or for defense if you should be trapped there?»
Gerald slumped. Thorgunna said to him gently: «Some folks have no heart to try anything new. I think it’s a grand idea.»
He smiled at her, a weary smile, and plucked up the will to say something about a means for finding north even in cloudy weather—he said there were stones which always pointed north when hung by a string. I told him kindly that I would be most interested if he could find me some of this stone; or if he knew where it was to be had, I could ask a trader to fetch me a piece. But this he did not know, and fell silent. Ketill opened his mouth, but got such an edged look from Thorgunna that he shut it again; his looks declared plainly enough what a liar he thought Gerald to be.
The wind turned contrary after a while, so we lowered the mast and took to the oars. Gerald was strong and willing, though clumsy; however, his hands were so soft that erelong they bled. I offered to let him rest, but he kept doggedly at the work.
Watching him sway back and forth, under the dreary creak of the tholes, the shaft red and wet where he gripped it, I thought much about him. He had done everything wrong which a man could do—thus I imagined then, not knowing the future—and I did not like the way Thorgunna’s eyes strayed to him and rested there. He was no man for my daughter, landless and penniless and helpless. Yet I could not keep from liking him. Whether his tale was true or only a madness, I felt he was honest about it; and surely there was something strange about the way he had come. I noticed the cuts on his chin from my razor; he had said he was not used to our kind of shaving and would grow a beard. He had tried hard. I wondered how well I would have done, landing alone in this witch country of his dreams, with a gap of forever between me and my home.
Perhaps that same misery was what had turned Thorgunna’s heart. Women are a kittle breed, priest, and you who leave them alone belike understand them as well as I who have slept with half a hundred in six different lands. I do not think they even understand themselves. Birth and life and death, those are the great mysteries, which none will ever fathom, and a woman is closer to them than a man.
The ill wind stiffened, the sea grew iron gray and choppy under low leaden clouds, and our headway was poor. At sunset we could row no more, but must pull in to a small unpeopled bay and make camp as well as could be on the strand.
We had brought firewood along, and tinder. Gerald, though staggering with weariness, made himself useful, his little sticks kindling the blaze more easily than flint and steel. Thorgunna set herself to cook our supper. We were not warded by the boat from a lean, whining wind; her cloak fluttered like wings and her hair blew wild above the streaming flames. It was the time of light nights, the sky a dim dusky blue, the sea a wrinkled metal sheet and the land like something risen out of dream-mists. We men huddled in our cloaks, holding numbed hands to the fire and saying little.
I felt some cheer was needed, and ordered a cask of my best and strongest ale broached. An evil Norn made me do that, but no man escapes his weird. Our bellies seemed all the emptier now when our noses drank in the sputter of a spitted joint, and the ale went swiftly to our heads. I remember declaiming the death song of Ragnar Hairybreeks for no other reason than that I felt like declaiming it.
Thorgunna came to stand over Gerald where he slumped. I saw how her fingers brushed his hair, ever so lightly, and Ketill Hjalmarsson did too. «Have they no verses in your land?» she asked.
«Not like yours,» he said, looking up. Neither of them looked away again. «We sing rather than chant. I wish I had my guitar here—that’s a kind of harp.»
«Ah, an Irish bard!» said Hjalmar Broadnose.
I remember strangely well how Gerald smiled and what he said in his own tongue, though I know not the meaning: «Only on me mither’s side, begorra.» I suppose it was magic.
«Well, sing for us,» asked Thorgunna.
«Let me think,» he said. «I shall have to put it in Norse words for you.» After a little while, staring up at her through the windy night, he began a song. It had a tune I liked, thus: