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Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise forMATTHEW HARFFY
  3. BY MATTHEW HARFFY
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Maps
  8. Epigraph
  9. Contents
  10. Place Names
  11. One
  12. Two
  13. Three
  14. Four
  15. Five
  16. Six
  17. Seven
  18. Eight
  19. Nine
  20. Ten
  21. Eleven
  22. Twelve
  23. Thirteen
  24. Fourteen
  25. Fifteen
  26. Sixteen
  27. Seventeen
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. Thirty-Eight
  49. Thirty-Nine
  50. Forty
  51. Forty-One
  52. Forty-Two
  53. Forty-Three
  54. Forty-Four
  55. Forty-Five
  56. Forty-Six
  57. Forty-Seven
  58. Forty-Eight
  59. Forty-Nine
  60. Fifty
  61. Fifty-One
  62. Fifty-Two
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Sixty-Two
  73. Author’s Note
  74. Acknowledgements
  75. About the Author
  76. An Invitation from the Publisher

There was some initial reticence from a few of the carpenters. They looked at the giant Norseman, with his bristling beard and thick mane of hair, and perhaps saw a raider and a killer, rather than a shipwright. But as soon as the first timber was brought from the nearby woods, dragged behind a pair of oxen supplied by Mancas’ steward, and Runolf began to split the wood, and then fashion the long beam that would become the keel, any scepticism there had been, vanished.

Runolf read the grain of wood the way I read ink on a page. He saw the lines of a ship and its beams and thwarts in his mind’s eye as I saw the curls and lines of letters in my mind before I scratched them into vellum. He was a master of his craft, and all who watched him as he worked the wood, and measured out the plan of his ship, were left in no doubt of his skill. Within a few days of our arrival, the settlement was abuzz with activity. Smoke hazed over the river from the cook fires and the forge, where a smith and a couple of apprentices spent all day forging the rivets that would be needed. The sound of hammering was ever present, as the glowing iron was shaped and beaten on the anvils, and as wooden wedges were driven into the seemingly never-ending supply of logs that were brought from the forest to the south.

At the end of each day Runolf was exhausted. He was supervising every aspect of the construction; travelling to the oak forest before the dawn to select the correct trees to be felled, then overseeing the splitting and planing of the strakes, informing the smiths of the correct size and length of their rivets, and of course, actually shaping and joining the bones of the ship together. Once he had paced out the length and created the keel, with its upward curve at each end, we all marvelled at the size of the thing.

“It is a beast,” said Hereward, awe in his voice. It was well over thirty long paces in length, and would be some seven paces broad in the belly. “This will be the longest ship ever built in all the kingdoms of Britain.”

Runolf grinned.

“Anything is possible,” he said. “But there is still much to do.”

That was certainly true. Could such a massive craft be built by the men of Uuiremutha, who until then had constructed nothing larger than a coast-hugging merchant ceapscip? I could see the doubt on their faces, but Runolf seemed undeterred. And his skill and self-assurance buoyed the builders.