Chapter 2 The Jarl's Summons

The camp was a knot of purpose. Men moved between the longhouse and the shore, carrying rope, dried meat, weapons wrapped in leather. The Grey Fang sat in the shallows, her keel buried in dark sand, her oars laid out along the beach like bones. Aldric worked without speaking. He checked the oar-locks one by one, running his thumb along the iron where the wood had worn smooth. He loaded water-skins into the forward hold, then the salted fish, then the coils of rope. Each item placed with the care of a man who understood that at sea, a loose cask or a frayed line could mean the difference between home and the bottom. Torben worked beside him. Father and son moved in a rhythm that needed no words — pass, place, secure. When the loading was done, Torben handed Aldric a leather satchel. "Extra whetstones. Pitch for the hull. Do not open this unless I tell you." Aldric nodded and tucked the satchel into the space beneath the stern seat where Jarl Sigurd would sit. It was Bren who came to him on the third day. Aldric was sitting on a rock at the waterline, sharpening his axe, when Bren dropped down beside him. The red-haired raider had grown broader in the shoulders since the winter. His scar had faded to a pale line, but it still pulled at the corner of his mouth when he smiled. "I hear you will sit in the ranks," Bren said. "My father says so." "Your father sits fourth row, port side. A good place. Solid. Safe." Bren tossed a stone into the water. "I mean to sit second row, starboard. Closer to the rail. Closer to the boarding." Aldric did not look up from the axe. "Sigurd assigns the seats." "Sigurd assigns. But Sigurd watches. He watches who is eager. He watches who flinches. I do not flinch, Aldric. I never have." "I know." Bren was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "There will be fighting at the shrine. You understand that? Not trading, not posturing. Fighting. King Harald does not send gentle men." "My mother told me about the shrine. The drowned god. The oaths." Bren's smile changed. It became something sharper. "Your mother told you old wives' tales. The shrine is real. The oaths are real. The gold hidden in the rocks is also real. That is why we go." Aldric looked at him then. "You think this is about gold?" "I think a man who says it is not about gold is a man who has never been hungry." Bren stood and brushed the sand from his legs. "When the time comes, stay close to me. I will show you how a man earns his seat." He walked back toward the settlement, and Aldric watched him go. On the fifth day, Jarl Sigurd summoned Aldric to the longhouse. The interior was dim. Smoke from the central fire rose through a slit in the roof and drifted in slow coils. Sigurd sat at the high bench, his silver arm-ring gleaming in the firelight. Vondra stood to his right, one hand resting on the row of rune-stones that hung from the beam above the door. "Sit," Sigurd said. Aldric sat on the bench across from the jarl. He kept his hands open on his knees, palms up. It was the posture of a man who came in peace. "Your mother was Yrsa," Sigurd said. "She came to Sortholm as a girl, after her village was burned. Your father took her in. He was a good man then, and he is a good man now." "He is," Aldric said. "Yrsa spoke to me before she died. She asked that I look after you. Not as a son — I have sons of my own, and they are enough. But as a man of Sortholm. As a man of the Grey Fang." Aldric said nothing. The fire cracked and sent a shower of sparks up through the roof-slit. "You have sat in the prow for five seasons," Sigurd continued. "You have watched the horizon. You have carried messages between ships. You have never failed in a task I set you." "I have not." "Good. Now I set you a new task." Sigurd leaned forward. The firelight caught his blind eye and turned it to glass. "You will sit second row, starboard. You will carry an axe and a shield. You will be in the boarding party." Aldric felt the words settle on him like a cloak of chainmail. Second row. Boarding party. That was the place for proven men, for men who had drawn blood and taken plunder. "Jarl—" "I have made my decision. Vondra brought me a rune-stone. It fell in your name." Vondra spoke. His voice was low and dry, like wind through dead grass. "The rune was Othala. The rune of inheritance. Of what is passed down. It fell when I asked the stones who should stand at the shrine." "That is one stone," Aldric said. "One cast." "One stone, one cast, one answer." Vondra's eyes were dark and steady. "The stones do not repeat themselves for the sake of a man's doubt." Sigurd stood. "You will prepare. You sail in five days." Aldric rose and bowed his head, as was the custom, and walked out of the longhouse into the pale afternoon light. The fjord stretched before him, grey-green and still. The Grey Fang sat in the shallows like a beast waiting to be woken. He found his father mending a sail on the frame behind their house. Torben looked up and saw the expression on Aldric's face, and he set down his needle. "Second row," Aldric said. "Boarding party." Torben was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Your mother would have told you to be brave. She would have said it with that voice she had, the one that made you believe you could walk through fire." "And you?" Torben picked up his needle again. "I will say this. In the boarding party, the first man over the rail dies more often than not. If you go over, go fast. Do not hesitate at the gunwale. The men behind you are pushing, and if you stop, they will push you into the water." Aldric nodded. "And if a man comes at you with a blade," Torben continued, "do not try to be clever. Hit him. Hit him again. Clever men die with clever expressions on their faces." That night, Aldric sat alone on the rock at the waterline. The fjord was black. The stars were sharp and cold overhead. He could hear the water lapping at the stones, a sound as old as the place itself. He thought of the shrine his mother had described — the drowned god, the oaths written in stone, the blood-debts that bound men across generations. He did not know if he believed in gods or oaths or the power of rune-stones cast on a wooden floor. But he believed in this: the men of Sortholm sailed together. They bled together. They came home together or they did not come home. He would not be the one who flinched. In the morning, he went to the shore and helped load the last of the provisions. Bren was there, working on the starboard oars, and when Aldric approached, Bren looked at him with that sharp smile. "Second row?" Bren said. "Second row." "Then we will sail side by side. Try to keep up, Aldric." Aldric took his place at the oar and said nothing. The wood was smooth under his hands. The rope binding the oar-handle was tight and new. He pulled once, testing the resistance, and felt the blade bite into the water. Somewhere behind him, Vondra was chanting. The words were old, older than Sortholm, older than the language the men spoke now. They rose and fell with the rhythm of the tide. Aldric did not understand them. But he felt them in the wood of the oar, in the salt on his lips, in the steady beat of his own heart. Five days. Then the sea. ---