I felt grief for the man, but also fear for myself. And I felt occasional surges of careless anger as I sat, thrusting my needle through the heavy cloth of the sail. Let him die if he chooses. I will manage.
But then I would look at the broken mast, the endless sea around me, and knew I could not.
I made the final knot and gazed at my handiwork with a sense of futility. I would never be able to raise the cursed thing. With an oath that would have done Thor proud, I stood and crossed to the dying man.
Standing over him I said loudly, "All right, go ahead and die! You called Gest and Goran cowards for lowering the sail, but it is you who is the coward."
His eyes flicked over at me and I thought I saw a spark of something in them.
"I did not think 'twas the way of a Viking to slink into death like a wounded lamb," I went on recklessly.
Then Thor muttered something I could not hear, but it sounded like he was cursing me.
"You may curse me all you like, but I am not the one who has given up," I said.
He raised his head and said, his teeth bared, "I am no coward."
"Then drink this," I challenged, holding the cup of water up to his face.
"To Niflheim with your blasted water," Thor rasped. "Bring me ale."
Without hesitating I quickly went to the casks of ale and drew him a brimming cupful. I held it to his lips, but he brought up his left hand and roughly took the cup from me. While he drank I got some hard bread and smoked fish. The ale was gone when I returned, and he snatched the food from me, crumbling it into pieces that he stuffed in his mouth.
"More ale," he muttered between bites.
Neddy
THE LETTER FROM ROSE arrived just after the fall harvest.
Dear Neddy,
I am writing to tell you that I am safe and well and no longer living at the castle with the white bear. It is a long story and one I hope to tell you at the end of my journey. But I made a wrong choice, one that hurt someone very badly, so I must now undertake a journey to afar distant land—one that lies east of the sun and west of the moon.
Because you are cleverer than me, you will have already figured out that there is no such land. Nevertheless, I go there. It seems right somehow that I should journey to a place that does not exists it is where Mother always feared I would end up.
And please tell Mother the candle worked all too well. But tell her, too, that the choice to use it was mine and I do not blame her.
Just as the blame is mine, the journey, too, is mine, and I must undertake it alone. So do not try to come to me. I need to set right the wrong I have done, and when I have I will return home. Trust me, Neddy, and try not to worry.
Tell Father I love him. And tell Mother and Sonja and Willem and Sara that I miss them and hope that we will all be reunited before too long.
My love to you, Neddy.
Your sister, Rose
Rose
DURING THE NEXT FEW days the weather stayed fair. Thor continued to lie where he was while I brought him food and ale—mostly ale. He finally had me roll the cask over and set it beside him so that he could refill his own cup.
I had my doubts that ale, especially in the amounts he was consuming, was a particularly healing drink. But at least he had decided to live, and he had the constitution of an ox. Each day he gained in strength. The gray pallor was gone and the wound on his forehead was healing.
Thor was soon sitting up and, on the second day, even stood for a few minutes, leaning on a makeshift crutch I had fashioned from a splintered deck board.
As he lowered himself back into a sitting position, I asked, "Do you think it possible that Gest and Goran could have survived?"
Thor snorted, then took a long draught of ale.
"But they might have gotten hold of something to float on. They were good swimmers, and perhaps there was land..." I gazed out over the endless expanse of water. "Well, isn't it possible?"
"Anything's possible," Thor said. After refilling his cup he leaned back, eyes closed.
"I had a son once," I heard him say.
"You did?" I said stupidly. I had never pictured Thor as having any kind of life outside the ship, especially not a family.
"Egil was his name. Died at the hands of a band of thieves and murderers. Along with his mother. My wife." His voice had softened slightly as he said wife.
When he opened his eyes, they were laced with bitterness. "It is possible they would have lived if I had been there to protect them. But they died. Like Gest and Goran. And like I would have if you'd left me alone."
"Well, I couldn't leave you alone. And you saved my life, sticking me under the deck boards the way you did. 'Twas only common courtesy to return the favor."
Thor suddenly threw his head back and laughed. It was a full-throated reckless sound, and I liked the sound of it, even though I knew he was drunk.
"May I commend you on your manners?" he said.
I laughed, too, and there was some sort of softening between us. After that, if we were not exactly friends, at least Thor did not act as though I were not there.
Later that day I asked Thor if he had any idea where we were.
He finished the ale at the bottom of his cup, then looked up at me with something like a smile on his face. I thought he might even laugh again. "Hafvilla, "he said.
"Where?"
"Hafvilla. 'Tis a word in the old language," he explained. "The Vikings used it when they found they were hopelessly lost."
"I think we have been heading mostly west, since the storm," I said, attempting to be helpful.
With a shrug he refilled his cup.
"Is there any way we can rig up a new mast?" I asked, trying a different tack. "I mended the sail."
"Well, aren't you the clever seamstress?" he responded unpleasantly.
"Thor..."
He shrugged again, gazing critically around the knorr. "We might fix something up—not as tall, of course, but enough to catch a little wind."
"If you tell me what to do ... I am stronger than I look."
"Are you indeed?" Thor replied with a trace of skepticism, looking me up and down.
"And I want to learn, all that you know—about sailing the knorr, how to navigate, everything..." I said in a rush.
He was silent for a time, then he turned and stared at me, as though considering me in a new light. "You don't fancy floating around on the sea forever with a drunken old sot, eh? Well, maybe I will teach you. I'm not much good as a captain, am I?" he said, gesturing at his bound-up leg and arm. "And my ale supply will run out sooner or later."
"Sooner, I should think," I retorted.
"You'll need to pay close attention. I'll not say things twice. And I am not a patient man."
That was an understatement. Thor was ill mannered and ill tempered, and how much of either depended on where he was in his drinking. If he'd had too little, he was impossible; if too much, he was careless and impossible.
Still, he managed to cram a great deal of information into a short span of time. His knowledge of the ship and of the sea was impressive, and it was obvious how much he loved it all, which made up for his gruffness. He instructed me as I repaired the steering oar and then rigged up a short mast from deck boards. He taught me about the rigging, and even explained to me the smallest details of how the knorr had been built.