There was something more that needed to be said, but I could not find the words to say it. I heard the horses come up to us, heard Olaf calling my name.
That is how I left Gunnar. With words unspoken, a debt unpaid. The worst of partings between friends.
Two days remained. I would be a man of the people in that time, protected by the spoken laws that bound all of us together. Once that was over, I would be an animal to be hunted for sport or for revenge. But if Olaf and his men thought any differently of me, they did not show it. I did not travel set apart from them, but as just another member of the company. Perhaps even as the last moments were counted away, they would still laugh with me, urge me to sing another song, hand me one last cup of ale. Then, as the sun touched the horizon, they would take up their blades and murder me without a moment’s hesitation. Such was the power of the law that bound us. And such was the outlaw’s fate.
We rode down through the valley to the south, passing mountains that held their snow even in the height of summer, listening to the calling of the waterfalls. We came to the open plains, scarred and marked by the black rock where the earth had cracked and bled many years before.
It was then that I saw them. Always behind us, another group of riders. My second escort, trailing us the way that wolves will trail a deer abandoned by its herd.
They kept a respectful distance, never close enough to be a threat, always close enough to keep us in sight. They made no attempt to hide, for they did nothing wrong. A band of men, travelling towards the sea. Björn, Snorri and the rest of his kin. I wondered if Vigdis rode with them.
They were there to see that I truly left the country, that I played no sorcerer’s trick. And if we found ourselves delayed – if a sudden storm trapped us on the land or the tides went against us – they would take their opportunity for revenge.
Not a man that I rode with spoke of the people who followed us. But from time to time, when they thought my eyes were not on them, I saw them twist in their saddles and glance back. Perhaps gauging the distance, checking that they were not riding any closer to us. Perhaps counting for numbers, to see which side would have the advantage if it came to a fight. Perhaps wishing that they were with that second band, that they rode with the hunters of men. I had no doubt that if I remained in Iceland as an outlaw, there would be plenty amongst Olaf’s men who would come looking for me.
We left behind the plains, and before us lay the fjord, the harbour, the open sea. The place they called Borg.
A coffin cast into the open sea had guided the first settlers to this place, and the dead had chosen well. A natural harbour, and farmlands that stretched far inland. We came to that first farm, where Egill Skallagrímsson now lived, and it was there that Olaf parted from us. He strutted and preened himself for the laughter of his men, preparing himself to face the most fearsome of the warrior poets as though he were wooing a lass that he loved. Only when his eyes passed over me did they dim for a moment.
His men soon scattered to attend to their own matters: visiting the traders at the docks, looking in on old friends, visiting new loves. Ragnar and I alone made our way to the docks.
He was so nervous and uncertain on land, tripping and hurrying like a clumsy child as he made his way down the rocky path to the sea. Yet the moment he laid his hand to the hull of the ship, smiling like a shy lover, he seemed to right himself: set his feet and stand tall, a man born to be upon the water.
No doubt his life would have been ended a long time before in one quarrel or another had he not shown such courage on the sea. For the people of Iceland hate nothing more than a coward, fear nothing more than the open water in a storm. For Ragnar, a man inverted, they held a kind of wary respect. For I had heard the stories: of waves that seemed like mountain ranges, of lightning dancing across the sky and thunder striking men deaf. Of the bravest warriors shaming themselves with fear, and there was Ragnar at the tiller, entirely unafraid, guiding his ship without loss through the worst of storms.
‘How does she look?’ I asked him. ‘I know nothing of ships.’
‘My shipwright has taken good care of her,’ he replied. ‘We should go tonight.’
I hesitated. ‘I had thought we would leave in the morning.’
‘Why wait? The tide will be with us, and the wind too.’
‘Where do we sail to?’
He looked at me and grinned. ‘Where do you want to go?’
‘Too great a privilege for me to choose. A mere passenger.’
‘It matters little to me. There is trade wherever we go.’
I did not answer for a time. ‘I will not choose,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘If I asked you whether I should cut off your hands or pluck out your eyes, what would you answer?’
He went pale at my words. ‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘It is one thing to choose a journey. Quite another to have it forced upon you.’ He ran his hands over the hull once again.
‘I have always wandered across the land. Perhaps you can teach me what it is to wander the sea as well.’
‘I have never cared much for the land. The men may tolerate me, but I know what they say: no woman would choose a coward for a husband. It is a lonely place for me. And out on the water I am not alone. I am not a coward.’
‘Your body is a coward. Your mind is not. I know that of you and I have not even seen you on the sea.’
‘It is kind of you to say so. Very kind.’ He blinked and looked away. ‘I will come and find you, when it is time to go. You should say goodbye.’
‘Goodbye? Goodbye to who?’
‘To the island, of course.’
I wandered alone, picking my way across the rocky paths and listening to the calling of the gulls until I had made my way to the end of the land. It seemed a fitting place to say goodbye.
The sea was not empty in front of me. There was one islet in the water; local stories spoke of it as a boulder thrown at a witch. I sat down and wrapped my cloak tight around myself, for a cold, sharp wind came from the sea. I looked out across the open ocean. I looked towards the west.
There were stories of untouched lands out there. I did not know if I believed them. For all I knew the ocean I saw was empty, perhaps even endless. Unless the songs were true and out there somewhere lay the serpent that encircled the world. I looked on the ocean and found that I was afraid of it.
No, not of it. But of what it meant, what lay upon it, and beyond it. Of countries that were not this one, of people who were not my own. Of losing my home. Of exile.
I tried to think of all the wonders that I might see. Great cities, the courts of mighty kings. Forests where the trees stretched high above the heads of men and went on as far as the eye could see. I had sung of so many places, yet I had known nothing but this island. Known long winters and brief summers, known farms and never a city, the sea but never a desert. Now I would have the chance to see the world beyond.
I looked back on the mountains, snow-touched and towering above the pale hills. I thought of the long winter ahead, the men who waited to kill me, their longing for blood, that feeling that is more than a little like love.
I heard the footsteps on the path and saw Ragnar walking towards me. Light-footed and happy, and I knew from his smile that it was time to go. That he could not wait to set out to sea, to be in the only place that he felt as a home.
He looked on me and I saw the smile fall from his face.
The oars beat the water, the sail spread like the war banner of some great giant. The sea slapped the hull and the wood moaned like a lover.