'My brother is right for once, Floki,' Bjorn added, looking up from the spoon into whose handle he was carving a swirling pattern. 'Osric is favoured. Like Sigurd. And whilst he's with us, we're favoured too.' He resumed working on the spoon. 'That's what I believe.'
'That weird eye of his tells me everything I need to know,' Bram said in his gruff voice. Then he shrugged. 'Sigurd brought him aboard. It's up to him.' I looked at Sigurd who sat polishing his mail brynja with a lanolin-soaked cloth. Sea air is bad for mail and Sigurd rubbed meticulously at the rings round the neck that showed signs of rust. He said nothing, but he was listening.
Floki pulled the thongs from his plaits and shook out his hair, black as a crow's wing. 'Since laying eyes on him we've kindled a fire in this land, turned its people against us. Our brother Arnkel has been carried to Óðin's hall and we came within a strake's width of a grave below the waves to be gnawed by fish until the end of days,' he said through twisted lips. He held up a palm. 'I know he warned Jarl Sigurd of the White Christ priest's treachery, but old Asgot believes the boy is dangerous. Ask him, Bram.' It was a challenge. 'Let us hear what the godi says.'
All eyes turned to Asgot, who stood gripping Serpent's top strake and staring out across the wind-stirred waves. He turned to face us, his watery grey eyes narrowed in thought. 'Yes, Floki, at first like you I thought the boy was a curse on us. But now . . .' He shrugged. 'Now I am not so sure. It is never an easy thing to know the mind of Óðin All-Father. Óðin the One-Eyed,' he added, staring at my blood-eye. 'The All-Father can grant a great warrior favour in battle,' he said slowly, nodding his grey head, 'but he will take that favour away just as easily.' He snatched something invisible from the air. 'You can ask Jarl Sigurd why Óðin does this . . . if you do not already know. Why he can let good, brave men die.'
Sigurd held his brynja outside the shadow of the great sail, examining the iron rings in the sunlight. 'Óðin needs great warriors,' he said, frowning at his own work. 'He must gather fallen heroes to his own hall in preparation for the last day, when he will have to fight the final battle against the giants and the armies of the dark lords.' He laid the mail across his knees and looked at his men. 'You all know this, have known it always,' he said, 'for we learn it from our fathers who learned it from theirs. Those in Valhöll even now prepare for Ragnarök, the last battle.' Asgot nodded and Sigurd shrugged his broad shoulders. 'But these are the end of days,' he said. 'Ragnarök draws closer and Óðin gathers his army as he must. The boy is not to blame. That is what my heart tells me. The All-Father has given Osric to us for some purpose. Even you, Floki, cannot be sure this is not so.' Black Floki gave a slight nod, as though half accepting his jarl's words, and Sigurd began to rub the cloth across the iron rings once more. 'We will know soon enough if the gods have deserted me,' he said, not looking up from his work.
When I looked at Sigurd with his bright blue eyes, long yellow hair and full beard, it seemed impossible that his gods could desert him before he had filled his cup with glory. He was a jarl, a leader of men and a fierce warrior. He was a Norseman with a thirst for fame. I knew then that I would follow him off the edge of the world.
For two days and nights we sailed out of sight of land, using stars, cloud patterns and the flights of birds, so that any Englishmen watching from the shore would not know in which direction we were going. Then, when Sigurd was sure it was safe, Knut set the rudder to steer Serpent back towards land, her sail harnessing the wind so that the red dragon's wing flapped eagerly.
'This is a king's life, hey, Osric!' Svein called. At last, he had forgotten about his defeat at the tafl-board. Serpent's hull sliced through the waves and I had to turn my ear from the wind to hear him better. '. . . being carried by the wind like an eagle!' he called. 'A king's life!' A great smile split the giant's beard. 'At last Njörd has sent us a good wind, hey! I did not join this fellowship for the rowing!'
'You chose to join, Svein?' I asked with a smile. 'I don't remember having much of a choice.'
'Well, you row like a Norseman now, by Thór! You should thank Sigurd for making a man of you.'
'You don't know you've been born!' Olaf shouted. 'None of you idle halfwits does! When I was your age, Osric, we always rowed. Rowed till our hands bled and our backs cracked. My father would call us women for raising her sail at the first belch of wind.'
'That's because in your day they had no wool to make sails,' Bjarni teased. 'The gods hadn't made sheep yet!' This brought a deep chorus of laughter which fed on itself until not a man aboard had dry eyes.