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  ‘Aye-aye,’ I reply. ‘But, begging your pardon, Skip, won’t Baldr and Dantzk need me amidships? In this swell, it will heavy work for them on larboard brace.’

  ‘For sure,’ agrees Hakon. ‘We are in for a long night. It will be trim and tack without a breather. Westerlies on this sea are restless. They will keep skipping to north or south. While they dance around, it means snappy changes for us. Halpin, Kru and Fjak on steer-board brace. I will be back-up for Baldr and Dantzk on larboard. I can still haul line!’

  ‘Shouldn’t it be me under the yard and you here at the helm?’

  ‘No!’ he replies. ‘Can’t risk you amidships. You struggle on the ropes. Your arms are soft as milk. No wonder — after the starving they gave you on Inis-dubh.’

  ‘The beatings did it — I had no appetite for the mangy gruel.’

  ‘That’s in the past. With decent victuals inside you, you will soon fill out your breeches.’

  I look at my shrunken arm resting on the tiller. A serk and breeches made of bullock-hide — once owned by the tanner of Linn-dubh — hang loose over my limbs.

  ‘The more rope I haul, the stronger I will get.’

  ‘All in good time,’ says Hakon. ‘But resting up over winter — plenty of warm ale — and sitting at Lodin’s board — will put flesh on your bones.’

  *

  A gust hits our steer-board beam. The ship lurches and heels. Rain flies off the sail into our faces. Waves sweep over the gunnels amidships. Paperkali shouts gleefully from the hold, where he has been crouching anxiously, wedged between two hives. ‘Back from the dead — Thomas Didymus, I heard buzzing in the nest.’ The monk presses his ear against the hive. ‘There it is again! Praise be to God! A miracle! Our dear Thomas Didymus is alive.’

  Hakon hollers in return. ‘On your feet, young fella, leave Thomas Didymus. Fetch a baling-ladle. Step to it — no more sitting on your arse — I want you baling.’

  Paperkali throws off his robe and runs aft to where the baling-ladles are stowed.

  ‘Rocks!’ M’lym shouts from the prow. ‘See them — two big lumps!’ About a league off larboard, grey mounds of rock jut out from the sea.

  ‘There will be a third rock, lass,’ shouts Hakon, ‘a smaller one with pointed peak. Keep your eyes peeled for it. It will be closer than the other two.’

  ‘Aye-aye,’ Skip! M’lym cups hands at her mouth to lengthen the call — a habit she picked up from Baldr — and then she is back on alert, leaning proudly forward, scanning into the darkening sea.

  *

  Fjak waits until Hakon is fore of the sail. Hakon is out of sight. He is seated on the cess-pail in the hold. When he is done on the pail — he calls it his “thinking pail” — he will come amidships and issue a string of orders. Fjak makes a show of skimming up bilge-water and ladling it over the side. Balancing the shaft of the ladle over his shoulder, he comes aft to stow it on stern deck. He sticks his face into mine. ‘The old sea-dog doesn’t fool me, tiller-man. I know what he is after.’

  I brush my shipmate aside. ‘Better get back amidships. Do you hear me, Fjak? Stand by with Kru and Halp at steer-board brace. Once we are past the rocks, the skipper will order us to change course. If I were you, I’d be at my post, when he is finished on the pail.’

  Fjak replies in mocking voice. ‘Aye-aye, shipmate!’ After a pause he adds, ‘But hear me out first.’

  ‘Spit out what you have to say,’ says I, ‘and then get back amidships.’

  ‘Squeeze Hakon for all he is worth. If you are going to do it, you may as well get paid for it!’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘The skipper is too old — and much of a coward — to go after that brother of yours. He hopes that you will do the dirty work for him.’ Fjak draws a finger across his throat — like the slit of a knife.

  ‘You are crazy, Fjak. You have it wrong.’

  ‘Why else would Hakon pay over the odds for your release?’

  ‘Skip was scratching for crew — it’s why he came for me — I know I’m not worth much as I am, all skin and bones. Believe me! He didn’t pay over the odds!’

  Fjak sniggers. ‘How little you know. Hakon was flush after he sold the ivory — he paid top-silver for you, though he got the girl and that dumb-head Kru for next to nothing. I know because I heard it from Brennan.’

  ‘You are a liar, Fjak. I don’t believe a word of it!’

  ‘Hakon took you from Drafdrit for a purpose. Can’t you see what he is up to? Are you so thick that you haven’t worked it out? Skip knows you are a killer and he is counting on how much you hate your brother.’

  *

  ‘Stand by at the helm,’ shouts Hakon from amidships.

  ‘Aye-aye, Skip.’

  ‘Stand by, tiller-man, stand by to face the wind head-on. We are going to turn the sail lengthwise. Our yard will be hauled stem to stern. Hear me! I am taking every ounce of air out of the sail.’

  Aye-aye, Skip.’ I have no time to puzzle his words.

  ‘Stand by at the prow,’ shouts Hakon.

  ‘Aye-aye, Skip,’ returns M’lym.

  ‘Hold on tight, lass,’ Hakon adds as an afterthought. ‘The bows will take a dipping.’

  ‘Holding on, Skip.’

  ‘Hold onto your saints, Paperkali,’ Hakon shouts with a touch of jest in his voice.

  ‘Amen,’ replies the monk.

  ‘Stand by, larboard beam!’

  Aye-aye, Skip — aye-aye.’ Baldr first and Dantzk soon after.

  ‘Stand by, steer-board beam!’

  Halpin and Fjak are only at arm’s length from Hakon amidships. They shout their instant return, loud and crisp, as if the skipper stood at three leagues away — or on the far end of the sea.

  Kru is unmoved. All is silence for him in the wind. The deaf-mute has eyes fixed overhead on the leach-head of the sail where the steer-board brace is attached to the yard. Hakon shakes Kru by the shoulder to draw his attention. Skipper points to the reefing lines hanging loose half-way up the sail. He shows Kru a sign of three fingers, shows two, and then three again. Kru nods — an exaggerated jerk of the chin — he understands. Hakon taps his elbow to finish the command.

  *

  While we complete Hakon’s lengthy manoeuvres, there is still a glimpse of daylight to be seen in the west, not the warm glow of setting sun — long since fallen under the horizon — but a narrow strip of light, stretching pale and cold under a bank of rain-clouds. The last light of day weakens as we approach it. Day will be swallowed from below by the black jaws of sea.

  Behind me, when I quickly glance astern, I see that the moon has risen unnoticed east in our wake.

  The face of the moon has almost waxed to the full — lacks only a sliver to complete — but its roundness and brightness are dulled by cloudy night. A watery sky creeps into the void and drowns the moon. Wisps of low cloud race past us from the west, and cross the drowning moon in their path. Patches of pale moonlight spill briefly over sail and deck — and over my hand on the tiller — only to be stolen away by blackening clouds that leave the ship under longer spells of darkness. Far overhead, the bowl of night, filled to the brim with rain, has emptied the sky of stars.

  *

  Our yard is lowered down-mast by a quarter and our sail shortened by a third, shortened as far as reef-lines allow. Hakon takes his first reckoning of the night from where the moon rose in the eastern sky and sets a course heading west. We sail close-hauled; beating into a brisk north-westerly, steadied by shortened canvas, our prow dipping into the waves. Before us in regular motion fore and aft, the black sea rises and falls against a blacker horizon. The Meuris heaves forward into the night. The prow jerks from one side to the other. The ship is like a hound with his nose to the ground, but with the ground-swell moving under him.

  The moon barely escapes from cover, but as it rises in the sky, it throws a passing hint of silvery light through the clouds. Baldr scans overhead, above the mast, off larboard beam. When there is a brief glimmer of light
to work out the moon’s stealthy passage, he calls a reckoning. Hakon studies our wake, judges our swerving passage over the water. Thereafter I’m ordered to pull ‘half-turn in’ or ‘half-turn out’ to keep us moving west.

  *

  ‘Land ahead, Skip,’ shouts M’lym from the prow, while we slip into a rare spell of moonlight.

  ‘Not land, I reckon, at least not yet, my dear,’ replies Hakon. He steps past Paperkali in the hold and joins M’lym at the prow.

  ‘Cliffs there!’ shouts M’lym in excitement. ‘See, another headland!’

  ‘Well spotted, lass,’ returns Hakon. ‘I see them now — a big shape and a little shape — they are what we call the Salty isles.’

  ‘Why salty?’ asks M’lym.

  ‘Ah,’ answers Skip with a ready smile. ‘When there is a storm, the sea froth blows off the breakers. It sticks to the rocks like salt on a leg of meat.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a rib of mutton,’ says Paperkali. He emerges from the hold, carrying a cess-pail. ‘Sailing at night makes my belly rumble.’

  ‘I know a song about mutton,’ says Halpin. ‘It is about a holy man who can’t go through the night without waking to fill his belly.’

  This raises a roar of laughter from Dantzk.

  Paperkali takes the jest in good heart. He pretends to throw the contents of his pail at Halpin.

  ‘Are we going south of the isles, Skip?’ asks Baldr.

  ‘No,’ replies Hakon. ‘Too big a risk to go south. We can’t depend on the moon. Stand by, lubbers! Stand by to turn about. We will pass across the causeway — north of the isles — it will be under water at high tide. The Meuris will sniff his way over the shallows.’

  Hakon goes straight to Kru and passes on ship’s orders in mute signs. As Skip leaves the prow, aye-ayes are returned briskly fore to aft. From Fjak a startled ‘aye-aye’ last of all — it is not the first time I’ve seen Fjak fall asleep on-board, standing upright — or in a semblance of standing — with his elbow on the gunnels and both legs jammed against the thwarts.

  *

  Hakon has the ship on a bearing across the causeway between the Salty Isles and the mainland. Close to high tide: the water is as deep as it will get, but we have barely clearance under the hull.

  ‘Pull out, tiller-man, pull out!’ yells Hakon. ‘Now easy does it!’

  ‘Aye-aye, Skip.’

  ‘Baldr, tell me our depth.’

  ‘Less than two ells under keel — down from three.’

  ‘Keep calling depth, man!’

  ‘Aye-aye, Skip.’

  All eyes of the crew — to larboard, to steer-board, to prow — are on the lumpish water that stifles the ship’s passage. We have wind in the shortened sail. Close-hauled, our teeth into the north-westerly, the stiff canvas should be enough for us to make headway. But we have slowed almost to a standstill. The shallows under us are dense with weeds and sea-grasses and kelp. In daylight the undergrowth would be green and slimy, but in sparse moonlight strands of seaweed are a dizzy froth of sickly grey. We are passing through kelp-water. Weedy tentacles of kelp, broken loose from the seabed, are strewn into our path by the tide. It is a wonder that we can move at all amid the churning, tangled mass.

  *

  The tide has turned. It runs against us. Ahead of the ship, under racing water, is the causeway that links the isles to the shore. All we see in moonlight is an arc of seething bubbles along the surface of the waves. The line is the causeway. The line is the overflow — the flow against us — it is what we have to cross. Sea-water tumbles over the shallow sill, gushing towards us like land-waters over a weir.

  The overfall casts a kelp-laden stream swiftly across our bows. The ebb breaks off seawards to larboard beam. We must make it to the overfall; we must use what wind we have to leap across, otherwise the flow will turn our bows. If the stem of the ship is forced around, disaster will happen in a trice. There won’t be time to flip our sail to larboard and run to safety downwind. We will be a plaything of the tide. By low ebb, come daylight, we will end up somewhere off-shore grounded on the seabed, or worse — holed over rocks.

  The hull shudders under us.

  M’lym shrieks. ‘What is that?’

  ‘I heard it too,’ shouts Fjak at once.

  ‘Barnacles,’ returns Dantzk, ‘the keel has touched bottom.’

  ‘One ell’s depth to lar-board!’ calls Baldr firmly.

  ‘Hell’s teeth,’ yells Halp. ‘We are going aground.’

  ‘Saints preserve us,’ cries Paperkali. The monk lifts his eyes to the night sky.

  ‘Thralson,’ shouts Skip. ‘Tiller full inboard! Give the sail leeway!’

  I jerk tiller-shaft to my left — feel my arms weak — hold fast with both hands. ‘Done, Skip!’

  Nothing happens under us, only a swish of kelp, a grinding of barnacles.

  ‘All hands to stern deck, lubbers.’ Hakon hurriedly passes signs to Kru. He taps his elbow — for Kru — repeats his command for the rest of the crew. ‘Hear me! All hands aft.’

  Bare feet helter-skelter over the boards. Halp is first to join me.

  ‘Move it, Fjak,’ screeches Hakon. ‘Get your arse to stern deck!’

  M’lym and Fjak join the crew aft. Hakon stays amidships.

  ‘Baldr,’ shouts Skip, ‘Slacken leeward sheet! Give the sail five ells of line. Five ells! No more!’

  ‘Aye-aye, Skip!’ Baldr loosens and re-fastens. ‘Done, Skip.’

  With line played out from the stern, the leach runs slack at the back of the sail. The leach flutters like the wings of a bird, flutters from tip-to-top — all the way from its bottom clew to yard height. Hakon stands, the only man amidships. He waits with gaze fixed aloft. At his feet, the mast groans in its footings. Timbers creak at the thwarts. Luff of the sail lifts off its fastenings; tightens; strains to larboard. Tiller-shaft shakes my wrists. Canvas billows out; opens leeway; heaves our bows forward. Hull heels to larboard. The Meuris leaps over kelp-water — aft-loaded, crew at the tail — nose over wave towards the overfall — towards the arc of seething water above the causeway. Stem lifts. Prow jerks. Rudder cuts kelp like a knife — a bounding thrust into the moonlight — the sea-hound scuds over the causeway, scuds free into the night.

  *

  We have lost the moon. It melted into black overcast sky and disappeared. We keep the sail tight and steer a constant course into the wind. We head west — what we believe to be west — but we have no way of knowing if the wind in our faces blows from north-west, as before, or if it has veered to another quarter — west or north — even south. While Baldr took reckonings in moonlight, we could name the wind and be sure of it. The moon has deserted us. And so also has our certainty

  *

  The weather turns warm and wet. A steady downpour beats the sail. Rain rattles the gunnel rails, batters our heads and faces and spills down our beards. The warm spill of rainwater softens our hands and feet. It makes our grip on rope and wood uncertain. When the deck moves unexpectedly — from the roll of a heavier wave or a jerk of wind in the yard — our bare feet skid under us on the boards.

  The ship’s prow dips and rears. Sea-water awash on fore-deck. We must be flooded fore of the thwarts where Paperkali’s bee-hives are stowed in the hold. From the helm I can’t see that far; can’t see the monk or his hives, what with the surge and fall of sea-spray in the darkness. Our hull lies low in the waves. I hear frantic scooping and tipping as the crew bale from the bilge for all they are worth. Groans from Fjak. No other voices, no one’s face in view. From aft, where I stand braced at the tiller, I see only shadows moving amidships, staggering shadows amid the over-spray hurled from the waves. I have no idea whose hands are on baling-ladles or whose hands are on pails.

  *

  My eyes are blurred by rainwater. I blink upwards into darkness, scouring in vain for a sight of the mast-head, or a glimpse of the yard, or an outline of the ship’s sail. Hakon told me to keep a weather eye aloft. ‘I leave it to you, Thralson,’ he sai
d before he took up his stance amidships. ‘Keep turning into the wind. See to it that we stay close-hauled to larboard.’

  Skip’s orders are clear. If the sail widens into the wind, I must edge the tiller-shaft gently inward — a gradual adjustment — I daren’t risk over-steering while the sail is close-hauled. A small shift of the rudder could take a ship head-on into the wind. If our sail squares off, and backs against the mast, it will throw us into a heel — a sudden heel and crewmen will be overboard.

  But if the sail squares too close to the wind, I need to correct it at once, otherwise our beam will be hit by a sudden side-draught. The tiller-shaft has to be pulled sharply outward. ‘No delay!’ said Hakon. ‘But wait for the prow to turn before straightening the rudder.’

  I have the cockle-shell given to me by Baldr — the heart-shaped shell on which the old man had etched a sign of the cross. It is strung on a leather thong around my neck. With my thumb I rub the smooth inner hollow of the shell, rub it three times for luck.

  ‘Thralson.’ Hakon’s voice pierces the darkness. ‘Pull in — a half-turn and straighten — keep your sail tight, man!’

  *

  M’lym is first to see it — a streak of pale light off larboard bow. We are not expecting dawn in that quarter. If it is dawn, our bearing will be south-east. We will be off-course, heading in the wrong direction. The Meuris will be sailing away from land. M’lym calls Baldr to the prow and together they scan for daylight in what might prove to be the eastern sky.

  No over-spay. The surge has slackened. The hull settles on a tidy swell in a black sea. I can see aloft to the masthead. All of the shortened sail is in clear sight. It is close-hauled and billowing — trimmed moments before — still tacked to larboard. I can make the grey tops of waves approaching the stem. No horizon. No moon. No rain. Only darkness — the kind of darkness at sea before dawn, in which the wake of the ship lengthens and stays in sight.

  ‘Could have been lightning over the water,’ says Baldr, when the streak of light fades and dies. ‘Lightning afar off and now passed over the horizon. What do you think, Skip?’