“The oarsmen slept at their benches; there was nowhere else. We passengers sheltered in the hold, out of the crew’s way. Most of us were sick. Matha, the king’s councillor, was worst affected. The endless rocking motion of the ship, the confinement below made his belly churn. He could not keep anything down but sips of water. When the ship was under sail we were allowed on deck, but Matha could not go up.

“On the second night, what we had most feared came to pass. In the darkness we were seized by contrary currents and borne far west of our intended path, west and then north into seas uncharted. We woke to driving wind, to waves tall as mountains, on which Freyja was tossed about like a child’s toy. There would be no going by sail—the sail would be torn to shreds as soon as it was raised. There would be no going by oars, for the strongest crew of rowers could not hold firm against such seas. We clung to whatever we could find—benches, oars, ropes, each other—and prayed for a miracle.

“The storm had come from nowhere. All that endless day, all the lonely and fearful night, and long into the next day it bore us onward. Heavy cloud blanketed the sun. What little light penetrated the thin veil revealed here two men, here three huddled close against the spray, faces like those of wan ghosts. Paul and I took turns in the hold with Matha, who could not be left on his own. I saw in my brother’s eyes a reflection of my own thought: What matters this seasickness now, when all of us teeter on the brink of death?”

Felix had his audience spellbound. Now that he was telling the story at last, he was far calmer. I had heard a poet’s voice from him before, and it was present again in this grim telling. Even Knut seemed captive to the tale. The Norseman sat very still, eyes straight ahead, and I wondered if he was living it again.

“The tempest snatched seven men from our crew,” Felix went on. “Six were washed overboard by a wave that came close to swamping us. One was knocked into the sea by a length of loose timber flung at random by the wind. He was the crewman most skilled with the steering oar. I wondered if we would all be picked off in the same way, leaving Freyja to sail on with a cargo of vain prayers and fearful memories.