Chapter 32

””I hope you don’t mind if somebody else navigates the ship out this time, Stian? There are some others who need practice it.””

””Not at all, Tofi. Not at all.””

Maybe I should have just relaxed, but I went down to find Baggi.

“Baggi, is there any place where I could help? Anything I could do?”

Even though I used the Old Language while talking to Tofi and Toki, we had agreed that Anglon would the language used while sailing. Everybody knew enough of it and there could be times when confusing languages might turn fatal. All the men were motivated to learn the Old Language, but there were good reasons not to use it since if the wrong person accidentally heard it ... well, the results might be bad.

Baggi turned and looked at me, scanning me from my toes to my hair.

“Had you been any heavier, you could have been used as extra ballast, but you’re way too skinny for that.”

The crew members around him looked almost a bit shocked at first, but then somebody started laughing, and soon all of them were laughing or giggling. I smiled, too, and shook my head.

“I could answer that, ‘Screw you, Mr. Boatswain’ - but I happen to know that you have been totally screwed lately, and there probably is nothing left to screw. But I got the message and I’ll stay out of the way.”

Once the laughter had subsided, Baggi came to me and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Seriously, Stian, during our winter journeys you have probably worked and done more than anybody else. Now sit back and watch - and try to figure out how we can make some lucrative deals.”

That request made me almost wince since I had no idea if we could make any good deals down there. The problem was that I had no idea if we had anything the people there wanted. I knew that they had things we wanted in our Kingdom, but I wasn’t at all sure what we had to offer. Okay, there were both gold and silver mines here, but gathering meaningful amounts of gold and silver would take some time. Especially if we wanted to remain unnoticed. Okay, usquebae was something that wasn’t made there - but they had high quality brandy and wine. Then we also had plenty of salt cod - and even more dried and salt cod together with some chopped cabbage that has been pickled in brine. Not really a delicacy if eaten almost every day, but something that would be needed during long journeys if we wanted to stay healthy.

At least we had money for the first few journeys because of Elise and her friends. The problem was that because they were my friends, and because I might need to betray them sometime in the future, I would like them to make a nice profit before then. I sighed. Birgit, Elise and some friends had helped me get started with this business, but I would still need to do the work myself. Maybe there would be people who would find that dried and salt cod a delicacy. Maybe there would be people who would prefer smoky usquebae over their own smooth brandy.

I almost surprised myself when I noticed that I really could enjoy the trip around the North Cape this time, even if it occasionally rained, and the wind up there wasn’t any nice puff but a real hard gale. Still, I didn’t get sick, unlike some others, and used the available moments collecting all the bits and pieces of information that the few experienced sailors of our crew had heard during their time on those vessels. Rumors, yes - but together with what I had learned in Aston, it was the only information we had. I would prefer a trading partner who would not be too big for us, some country to which we would be a small enough trading partner but not a threat with our two ships with a few guns, but to which we would be a big enough trading partner to be taken seriously - and to which we would be big enough so that they would not try to rob us.

“Getting through that strait - The Big Strait - is a risk.”

Anglon. Even with Tofi and Toki, we now spoke Anglon on this ship. I nodded to the older men.

“I know. However, these two ships should be quite fast and if we get past that strait in the morning, we should be able to do it. Then there are those guns...” I shook my head. “Still, I don’t know.”

Now it was Toki who shook his head. “No, Stian, you are right. We need that practice and it might be even a good thing if we would need to practice with those guns a few times. According to the rumors, those places out there can be quite dangerous.”

I had to smile when I looked at Toki. “I had no idea that you listened to those rumors, too.”

The older man shrugged. “All sailors do - and they also gossip. They can be worse than the old women. Especially old sailors.

“Sometimes it might be those rumors that keep you alive. Like the knowledge about those giant waves that can come out of nowhere and destroy any ship or boat. It probably has something to do with the sea depth, but nobody is sure. There are just those rumors.”

I looked at Tofi and he saw the question in my eyes.

“If we go there, through that strait, there’s one of those areas on the way. An area where some of those rumors have started. I thought that you needed to know.”

Then he broke into a grin and looked at Toki who was also smiling.

“But as I said, those a very, very rare events - and I’d like to see and feel that area.”

I shook my head again, even if I couldn’t help smiling a bit. “Now I know why the others think that you two are totally nuts.”

Tofi snorted. “Like you weren’t! We heard more details about that army of Trolls.”

Maybe I was. At least I liked those two brothers - and it seemed that we had agreed our first target. The isle of Sicels. I hoped that some of those books I had stolen - vocabularies - would be of some use, since Kara would not be with us this time. I really hoped so.

I felt quite good as I decided to go and see Snorri. Our clock maker had prepared one clock that was now in the captain’s cabin and he had another clock in his own little cabin that he shared with Caladwen. That man was still a sort of a mystery to all of us, even to the Elves and Agnetha, who should have known all the people who were forced into this world back then. They knew him, yes - but he and his family hadn’t been one of those groups. They were just a young family that had come to that area by accident and they had not interacted with the other group at all, not really, in Aston.

But both the Elves and Agnetha were sure that the man had not been called Snorri back then. That wasn’t much to start with, but I still felt obliged to keep on trying.

””Good day. I hope that everything is fine here.””

I still refused to use Anglon with him, even though he had never responded to me when I used the Old Language. Like now it was as if Snorri hadn’t heard me at all, but Caladwen nodded and smiled.

“Everything is fine with us, Stian. Which reminds me that this is a good moment for me to get some food. I’ll be back soon, my love.”

Love. Caladwen called Snorri ‘my love’ and he had nodded in response. In a way he seemed to be a fully functional man if you spoke to him with Anglon. Just not very sociable. I hoped that Allynna had been right when she had insisted that I should keep on speaking to him in the Old Language. I might have wondered myself why I should keep on talking to him like that even if I got no response. It would have been much easier to discuss the practicalities directly in Anglon. My women sometimes claimed that I could be hard-headed. Maybe I was a bit hard-headed. Maybe I should still be now. A bit. Just a bit. I cleared my throat.