Death of Kings_ A Novel - Bernard Cornwell [42]
‘You’re a shipmaster?’ I asked.
‘I was, maybe I will be again. I miss the sea.’ He ran his hand along the smooth wood of her top strake. ‘Isn’t she lovely?’
‘She’s beautiful,’ I said.
‘Jarl Sigurd had her built,’ he said, ‘and only the best for him!’ He rapped the hull. ‘Green oak from Frisia. Too big for you, though.’
‘She’s for sale?’
‘Never! Jarl Sigurd would rather sell his only son into slavery! Besides, how many oars do you want? Twenty?’
‘No more,’ I said.
‘She needs fifty rowers,’ Frithof said, rapping the Bright-Flyer’s planks again. He sighed, remembering her at sea.
I looked at the carpenter’s tools. ‘You’re readying her for sea?’ I asked.
‘The jarl hasn’t said, but I hate to see ships out of the water for too long. The timbers dry and shrink. I want to float that one next,’ he pointed to the head of the cove where another beauty was propped on thick oak shafts. ‘Sea-Slaughterer,’ Frithof said, ‘Jarl Cnut’s ship.’
‘He keeps his ships here?’
‘Just the two,’ he said, ‘Sea-Slaughterer and Cloud-Chaser.’ Men were caulking the Sea-Slaughterer, stuffing the plank joints with a mix of wool and pine-tar. Small boys helped, or else played on the river bank. The tar braziers smoked, drifting their pungent smell across the slow river. Frithof stepped back onto the wharf and patted the head of the man who was painting the white line onto the strake. Frithof was obviously popular. Men grinned and called out respectful greetings, and Frithof responded with generous pleasure. He had a pouch at his waist filled with scraps of smoked beef that he handed to the children, all of whose names he knew. ‘This is Kjartan,’ he introduced me to the men caulking the Sea-Slaughterer, ‘and he wants to take a boat off our hands. He’s going back to Frisia because his wife is there.’
‘Bring the woman here!’ a man called to me.
‘He’s got more sense than letting you scum ogle her,’ Frithof retorted, then led me further down the bank past a huge heap of ballast stones. Frithof had Sigurd’s authority to buy or sell ships, but only a half-dozen were for sale, and of those only two would suit me. One was a trading ship, broad in the beam and well made, but she was short, her length only about four times her beam, and that would make her slow. The other ship was older and much used, but she was at least seven times longer than her beam, and her sleek lines were sweet. ‘She belonged to a Norseman,’ Frithof told me, ‘who got himself killed in Wessex.’
‘Made of pine?’ I asked, rapping the hull.
‘She’s all spruce,’ Frithof said.
‘I’d prefer oak,’ I said grudgingly.
‘Give me gold and I’ll have a ship built for you out of the best Frisian oak,’ Frithof said, ‘but if you want to cross the sea this summer you’ll do it in pine. She was well made, and she has a mast, sail and rigging.’
‘Oars?’
‘We’ve plenty of good ash oars.’ He ran his one hand down the stem-post. ‘She needs a little work,’ he admitted, ‘but she was a sweetheart in her day. Tyr’s Daughter.’
‘That’s her name?’
Frithof smiled. ‘It is.’ He smiled because Tyr is the god of the warriors who fight in single combat and, like Frithof, Tyr is one-handed, having lost his right hand to the sharp fangs of Fenrir, the crazed wolf. ‘Her owner liked Tyr,’ Frithof said, still stroking the stem-post.
‘She has a beast-head?’
‘I can find you something.’
We haggled, though good-naturedly. I offered what little silver I had left, along with all our horses, saddles and bridles, and Frithof at first demanded a sum at least double the worth of those things, though in truth he was glad to be rid of Tyr’s Daughter. She might have been a fine ship once, but she was old and she was small. A ship needs fifty or sixty men to be safe, and Tyr’s Daughter would have been crowded by thirty men, but she was perfect for my purpose. If I had not