The old shipyard lay below the hall, beside black water that the salt and current kept from freezing solid. It smelled of pitch, wet ropes, fish and rusty nails. Ragned's new ships stood higher up, beneath shelters. They were guarded by boys with spears, far too important for their size.
The bad hulls lay farther off.
There the boards creaked even without wind. The sails were kept in heaps rather than on racks, because all the good cloth had long since been taken. Old oars with cracked blades crowded against the wall.
Borri Wedge sat on a log, whittling a tiny wedge with one hand. The other hung motionless by his belt. Borri had a narrow face, hard lips and pale, angry eyes.
He did not even look up.
"I don't mend disgrace."
Steinar stopped before him.
"A pity. I was told you were one yourself."
The knife in Borri's hand went still.
Someone snorted behind an old hull. Steinar did not turn: he already knew someone was always hiding among the old ships.
"Who told you?"
"The song."
Borri raised his eyes.
Interest appeared in those pale, angry eyes. It seemed Borri had long been waiting for someone to say plainly what had been done to him.
"The song says I dropped a keel by the jarl's shore."
"Did you?"
"I dropped the keel because three young fools took away the supports too soon. One of them now wears a silver clasp and calls himself Ragned."
Steinar crouched beside the cracked hull. The wood looked poor from the outside: grey stains, black seams, one plank by the prow bowed like a rib after a blow. But beneath his fingers it was sounder than he had expected.
"How much?"
Borri gave a hoarse laugh.
"You've come to buy it?"
"No. I've come to give you a reason to rob me."
"You have nothing worth stealing."
Steinar removed two thin arm-rings from his wrist. They were modest, but real silver. His mother had given them to him before she died, when he still believed younger sons were given a place too, if they kept quiet long enough.
Borri looked at the arm-rings, then back at the hull.
"For those you'll buy a hole, a crooked keel, three wet oars and the curses of every sailor who ever went west of the outer skerries."
"What if I add the cup?"
Borri saw the empty cup and stopped mocking him.
The old craftsman ran his fingers along the inside of the rim. His bad hand trembled.
"Who gave you this?"
"Hroald. So everyone could laugh."
"Then for once your father did something useful without knowing it."
Borri rose and kicked the cracked hull with the toe of his boot.
"This ship is bad for raiding. Ragned would be right if he said so. The hull answers the rudder poorly and rides low in the water. You won't burst into someone else's inlet in it and make everyone gasp. But in the western waters, endurance matters more than courage. The keel is old, but the wood has been steeped in salt for years and does not fear the water. Seal the seams with fish glue and rig a short sail, and the ship won't race, but it will arrive."
Steinar looked at the grey hull.
It would arrive.
The words were ugly and unheroic. No one sang of such things in the hall. But Steinar needed a ship that would arrive more than he needed any of the swords above the hearth.
Behind him, hands clapped.
Ragned had not come alone. With him were three young warriors and Ketil Salt, a merchant with soft hands and the face of a man who had never taken anyone's side for nothing.
"Brother," Ragned said. "I thought you were looking for a quieter grave. But you've already chosen a trough."
The warriors laughed. Ketil looked at Ragned first, and only then smiled with the rest.
Steinar rose slowly.
"At least a trough can hold what is put into it."
Ragned looked at the empty cup and smirked.
"Then don't put yourself in it. Even that will want to spit you out."
Borri stepped forwards, but Steinar raised one hand by the barest degree. The old craftsman stopped, angrier still.
Steinar did not answer: it suited him for Ragned to think his younger brother harmless, for Ketil to see nothing but a foolish purchase, and for Brand to hear that Empty Cup had spent his last arm-rings on waterlogged rubbish.
Saiva stood behind the warriors. This time she did not hide. She watched not their faces but what they did: the arm-rings, the empty cup, Borri's fingers on the crack and Steinar's brief gesture that had stopped the old craftsman.
She saw too much.
Ragned left, still laughing. Ketil lingered at the edge of the yard and swiftly counted the hull, the old craftsman, the arm-rings, the cup and Saiva with his eyes. Then he disappeared after Ragned.
Borri spat into the snow.
"By tomorrow the whole hall will know."
"Let them."
"Do you understand what you've bought?"
Steinar ran a palm over the old keel.
"No."
Borri snorted.
"Good answer. Those who think they understand the sea before they set out are usually the first overboard."
Only then did Saiva come over.
"You bought more than a ship," she said.
Steinar turned to her.
"What else?"
She looked at Borri, then at the cup.
"You gave work back to a man who is still angry with the sea. That is worth more than a hull."
Borri grunted.
"The songstress is cleverer than the jarl's son."
"That is no feat in our hall," Saiva replied.
Steinar wanted to say that in their hall only a beautiful death was counted a feat. But he held his tongue.
Saiva noticed that too.
By evening Ketil was already sitting beside Ragned, quietly telling him what he had seen by the old shore.
Empty Cup was gathering around his ship the people the hall had learned not to notice.
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