"You have the advantage of me, sir, and I cannot judge you for that," I said, "but it's clear you've no experience of partnership. I do not wish to hire your ship. I think you have some misunderstanding about me. You already told me that you know my blood and position. While I expect little from these kulaks and other rabble, I expect far more from one who claims to know my rank."
A sardonic bow. "Well, I apologize if that suits you. A breath of air and all is settled between us."
"Actions impress me more than words." I made to leave. I was, of course, playing a game, but I was playing it by following my own natural inclinations.
Gunnar, too, knew what was going on. He began to laugh. "Very well, Sir Silverskin. Let's talk as equals. It's true I'm used to bullying my way through this world, but you see the kind of company I'm forced to keep these days. I, too, was a Prince of the Balance. Now you find me a wretched corsair, clutching at legends for booty when once I crushed famous cities."
I sat down again. "While I am certain you have no intention of telling me your whole story, I suggest you let me know when you intend to sail for Vinland. Only the god-touched would venture into those seas in winter."
"Or the damned. Sir Silverskin, the course I propose to sail is directly through the realms of Hel. The entrance is on the other side of Greenland. Through the Underworld, through the moving rocks and the sucking whirlpools, through the monstrous darkness, to a land of eternal summer where riches are for the taking. The land is lush, growing wild what we cultivate with the sweat of our brows. And for wealth, there is legendary gold. A great zig-gurat made entirely of gold and mysteriously abandoned by her people. So since we venture into the supernatural world, I suspect it makes little difference whether the season be summer or winter. We sail to Nifelheim itself."
"You sail to the north and the west," I told him. "I have useful experience and something you value."
He sucked thoughtfully through one of his straws. "And what would you gain from this voyage?"
"I seek a certain famous immortal smith. A Norseman maybe."
The noise from within the helm might have been laughter. "Is his name Volund? For Volund and his brothers guard that city called Ilia Paglia della Oro by the Venetians. It stands in the center of a lake at the place where the edge of the world meets Polaris. That is where I am bound."
Gunnar was not telling me the whole truth. He wanted me to think a city of gold his goal. I guessed he sought something else at the World's Rim. Something he could destroy.
For the moment, however, I was content. The Swan was going where I wished to go. Whether the realm of Hel was supernatural or natural scarcely mattered if we sailed the North Sea in December or January. "You trust your boat completely," I observed. "I have to," he said. "Our fates are intertwined now. The ship will survive as long as I survive. I have magic, as I promised, and not the mere alchemical nonsense you hear in Nurnberg. I follow a vision."
"I suspect I do, also," I said.
CHAPTER TEN
The Mouth of Hel
When we left port a few days later, the seas were still calm. Gunnar hoped to make headway through a good autumn. We might even reach Greenland before the ice settled in.
I asked him if, beyond Nifelheim, he did not expect to find empires and soldiers as powerful as any in this sphere. He looked at me as if I were mad. "I've heard the story from a dozen sources. It's virgin land, free for the taking. The only defenders are wretched savages whose ancestors built the city before they offended the gods. It's all written down."
I was amused. "So that makes it true?"
We were in his tiny deckhouse. Stooping, he opened a small chest and took out a parchment. "If not, we'll make it true!" The parchment was written in Latin, but there was runic scattered through the text. I glanced over it. The account of some Irish monk who had been the secretary of a Danish king, it told the story, in bare details, of a certain Eric the White. He had gone with five ships to Vinland and there established a colony, building a fortified town against those whom they called variously skredlinj,
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skraelings or skrayling. This was the Viking name for the local people. As far as I could tell it meant 'whiner' or 'moaner', and the Vikings considered them wretches and outlaws.
On this evidence Gunnar was prepared to sail through Nifel-heim. I had heard similar stories from every Norseman I had known. Moorish philosophers proposed that the world was the shape of an elongated egg with the barbarian, godless races some' how clinging to the underside in perpetual darkness. In all such matters, as one is taught to do in the Dream of a Thousand Years, I remained silent. This was a dream I could not afford to have truncated. This was the last possible dream I could occupy before Jagreen Lern destroyed our fleet and then destroyed Moonglum and myself.
"So we will have only a land full of savages to conquer," I said sardonically. "And, say, thirty of us?"
"Exactly," said Gunnar. "With your sword and mine, it will take us a couple of months at most."
"Your sword?"
"You have Ravenbrand"-the faceless man tapped the swaddled blade at his side-
"and I have Angurvadel."
He pulled away some of the covering to reveal a red-gold hilt hammered with the most intricate designs. "You'll take my word that the blade has runes embedded in it which flame red in war and that if it be drawn it must be blooded ..."
I was, of course, curious. Did Gunnar carry a faux-glaive? Or did his sword have genuine magic? Was Angurvadel just another cursed sword of which the Norse folktales abounded? I had heard the name, of course, but it was an archetype I sought. Even if it were not false, Angurvadel was only one of the black sword's many brothers.
As Gunnar had hoped, the sailing was fair into the Atlantic. We stopped to take in provisions at a British settlement far from the protection of Norman law. There were only a few villagers left alive after Gunnar's men had finished their slaughter. These were forced to help kill their own animals and haul their own grain to our ship before they were in turn disposed of. Gunnar had an old-
fashioned efficiency and attention to detail in his work. Like mine, his own sword was not drawn during this time.
We sailed on, knowing it would be some while before anyone considered pursuing us. Gunnar had a lodestone compass and various other Moorish instruments, which was probably what his men considered his magic. This made it far easier to risk quicker routes. As it happens, the sea was extraordinarily calm and the pale blue skies almost cloudless. Gunnar's men ascribed the weather to a damned man's luck. Gunnar himself had the air of a man thoroughly satisfied with his own good judgment.
During the few hours we had, I talked to some of the crew. They were friendly enough in a generally uncouth manner. Few of these reavers had much in the way of imagination, which was perhaps why they were prepared to follow Gunnar's standard.
One of the Ashanti, whom we called Asolingas, was by now wrapped in thick wool. He spoke good Moorish and told me how he and ten others had been captured after a battle and taken down the coast to be sold. Bought to row a Syrian trader, they had overwhelmed the rest of the ship within an hour of being at sea and, with the few other slaves who had joined them, managed to get themselves to Las Cascadas where, he said, they had been cheated out of the boat. The others had all been killed in later raiding expeditions.