Excerpt of The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker

Ragnvald danced on the oars, leaping from one to the
next as the crew rowed. Some kept their oars steady to
make it easier for him; some tried to jostle Ragnvald off
when he landed on them. The wind from the mountains, a
breath of lingering winter, swept down the fjord,
whistling through the trees that lined the cliffs. But
under the bright sun, Ragnvald was warm in his wool shirt
and heavy hose. He had worn them during the whole journey
back across the North Sea, through the storms and mists
that separated Ireland from home.
He touched the bow post and hung on for a moment to catch
his breath.

“Come back,” called Solvi. “You cling like a woman to that
dragon.” Ragnvald took a deep breath and stepped out onto
the first oar again. His friend Egil held this one, his
bleached hair shining in the sun. Egil smiled up at
Ragnvald; he would not let him fall. Ragnvald’s steps fal-
tered as he leapt back the other way, against the
direction of the oars’ motion, the sun shining in his
eyes. He moved more quickly now, falling, slipping, each
upstroke catching him and propelling him onto the next
sweep, until he reached the stern again and swung over the
gunwale onto the more stable deck.

Solvi had offered a golden arm ring to whoever could make
it the length of the ship and back, stepping from oar to
oar as the men rowed. Ragnvald was first to try, for Solvi
valued daring. He thought after he stood on the deck again
that his run might have been one of the best, hard to
beat, and he grinned. A lucky star had lit his path on
this jour- ney, finally guiding him away from his dour
stepfather. He had not suc- cumbed to disease in Ireland,
when so many others had died, and now he had earned a
place on Solvi’s ship for another summer’s raiding. He had
grown into his long limbs over the winter, no longer
tripping over his feet with every step. Let any of the
others match his run.

“Well done,” said Solvi, clapping him on the back. “Who
will chal- lenge Ragnvald Eysteinsson?”

Solvi’s forecastle man leapt out next. Ulfarr was a grown
man, half again as wide as Ragnvald in the shoulder, with
a long mane of hair, yellow from the lye he used to
lighten it.

“This is a game for young men, Ulfarr,” Solvi called out.
“You wear too much jewelry. The goddess Ran will want you
for her own.”

Ulfarr only took a few steps on the oars before his shoes
slipped and he fell into the water with a splash. He
emerged breathing heavily from the cold, clinging onto one
of the oars. Solvi threw his head back and laughed.

“Pull me up, damn it,” Ulfarr said.

Ragnvald reached over and hauled Ulfarr in. Ulfarr shook
his head like a wet dog, covering Ragnvald with seawater.

Egil tried his luck next. He looked like a crane as he
clambered over the gunwale, gangly and awkward where
agility was needed. Ragnvald winced, watching him. Still,
Egil almost reached the bow before losing his footing. He
clung on and only wet his boots before Ragnvald helped him
back in. Ragnvald settled on a pile of furs to watch his
other competitors as they tripped and splashed.

The high walls of the fjord slipped by beside them. Snow
from Nor- way’s great spine of mountains turned into the
water that cascaded down the cliff faces in waterfalls
where the spray caught the sunlight in a scattering of
rainbows. Seals, plump and glossy, sunned them- selves on
rocks at a cliff’s base. They watched the ships go by
curi- ously, without fear. Longships hunted men, not fur.

Solvi stood at the stern of the ship. He applauded good
attempts and laughed at the poor ones. He only seemed to
be giving the race half his attention, though; his eyes
moved constantly, flicking over cliff and waterfall. He
had shown the same careful watchfulness when they were on
a raid, which had saved his men from the Irish warriors
more than once. The Irish fought almost as well as
Norsemen did.

Ragnvald had studied Solvi on this voyage, for he merited
it: both clever and good at winning his men’s affections.
Ragnvald had not thought to find those characteristics in
one man—so often a boaster and a drinker won many friends
but was too careless to live long as a warrior. Ragnvald’s
father, Eystein, had been like that. On this jour- ney all
of Solvi’s men had tales of Eystein, and seemed
disappointed that Ragnvald was not more like him, a man
whose stories were still remembered a decade later, a man
who abandoned his duty when it suited him.

Solvi laughed at another attempt, another fall, another
one of his men who climbed, dripping, over the gunwale and
flopped on the deck, chest heaving from the cold water.
Solvi had a narrow, hand- some face, with high cheekbones,
red like ripe apples. In infancy his legs had been badly
burned by a falling cauldron left to spill, rumor said, by
one of King Hunthiof’s lesser wives, jealous of the regard
he showed Solvi’s mother. Solvi’s legs had healed well—he
was as deadly a fighter as any Ragnvald had ever seen—but
they remained bowed and crooked, and shorter than they
should be. Men called him Solvi Klofe, Solvi the Short-
Legged, a name that made him grin with pride, at least
when his friends said it.

On the other side of the ship another warrior leapt, and
nearly fell. Solvi laughed and shook an oar to try to
dislodge him. Few men re- mained to challenge Ragnvald’s
feat. The pilot’s son, slim and sure- footed as a mountain
goat, was the only other who had completed the challenge,
dancing stern to bow and back to stern again.

Behind them sailed the five other ships that still
remained in Solvi’s convoy. Here and there others had
turned off, to return sons back to their farms and
fishermen back to their boats. Before that, other ships
had taken other paths to islands on the inner passage,
where their cap- tains called themselves sea kings, their
kingdoms made of no more than rocks, narrow channels, and
the men who would flock to their raiding cries. Solvi’s
father called himself a sea king too, for though he
demanded taxes from the farmers of Maer, he refused the
other duties of kingship, and maintained no farm at
Tafjord.

It was early in the year yet, time enough for another raid
across the North Atlantic to winter over again, or a short
summer trip to the unprotected shores of Frisia. Ragnvald
was glad to be going home, though. His sister, Svanhild,
and the rest of his family waited beyond the foothills of
the Keel, as did his intended, Hilda Hrolfsdatter. He had
won a pair of copper brooches for Hilda, worked by the
Norse smiths of Dublin. The Norse king there had given
them to Ragnvald as a reward for leading a daring raid
against an Irish village. They would look well on Hilda,
with her height and reddish hair. In time, she would
oversee the hall he planned to build on the site where his
father’s hall had burned. Ragnvald would be an experienced
warrior by then, as thick with muscle as Ulfarr, and wear
his wealth on his belt and armbands. Hilda would give him
tall children, boys he would teach to fight.

Ragnvald planned to claim her at the ting this summer,
when the families of the Sogn district gathered. His
family had an understand- ing with hers, though they had
not yet gone through the betrothal ceremony. He had proved
himself raiding, won wealth to buy more thralls to work on
the farm at Ardal. Now that he was twenty, and counted a
man, he could marry Hilda and his stepfather would have no
more reason to withhold his birthright, his father’s land,
from him. Over the winter he had also found a silver
necklace that would suit Svanhild perfectly. She would
laugh and pretend not to like it—what use had she for
silver when she spent her days tending cows?—but her
eyes would sparkle and she would wear it every day.

Solvi called Ragnvald and the pilot’s son to him. He
touched the thick gold band circling his arm, forged by
Dublin goldsmiths, set with carnelian and lapis. A king’s
adornment. If he meant that for a gift, he was a generous
lord indeed.