The work began. Timber came from the north, great lengths of it already well prepared, reflecting Ulf’s talent for taking calculated risks. Only the oldest oaks could provide the massive pieces required for the vessel’s keel and mast blocks. The wood was well seasoned, and supple from storage in marsh water. In addition to these forest giants there were many trunks of smaller size, and as soon as these were unloaded Ulf’s shipwrights began to instruct a veritable army of workers, both freemen and thralls, in the delicate use of axe and adze to shape sweetly curved strakes and strong, resilient ribs. The floorboards were fashioned from pine: these would not be nailed down, but left free to be lifted as required for bailing or storage. Men wove caulkings from wool and horsehair; others worked on the oars, the pale pine wood shaped to a graceful taper, the lengths graded so they would strike the water as one, for all the curve of the ship’s side. It was a full winter’s work. Sails were woven in bold stripes of white and red, and a master wood-carver labored long hours over a great piece of oak heart, fashioning the dragon’s head that would adorn the prow. The carver’s apprentices worked a fine eagle mask on the tiller.

As the great task unfolded, even the most skeptical members of Jarl Magnus’s court were captivated. The vessel surpassed any they had seen before. She was massive as a great whale, yet sleek as an otter. Ulf named her the Golden Dragon.

There were fifteen benches; a crew of thirty oarsmen would be required, and five or six more to perform the multiplicity of other tasks: bailing, handling the sails, fending off attackers. And they’d need a crew for the knarr, which would bear the women and children, the thralls, the stock, and the best part of the supplies. Ulf watched the longship grow, strake overlapping delicately curved strake, oar ports neatly covered with little round shutters, each carven with its own small motif, for the pair of fellows who specialized in this field of work liked to add their own touch. Some were runic; such a vessel should bear an acknowledgment to the gods on whom her safety in open seas must depend. But there were little creatures too: a dog, an owl, a beaver; and one or two carvings of men and women who were—how could one put it?—at play, one might say. One hoped these would not prove too much of a distraction for the oarsmen.