To everyone’s profound relief, the next day dawned sunny and warm with a steady wind. Ajax, Tanis, and Lin unfurled the sail early in the day, and Yrsa made them oat cakes for breakfast. Svanbjörn and Brother Paweł sat down with Skíði for the better part of the morning, teaching him more Latin.

When it was nearly time for the noontime meal Lin tugged on Skíði’s tunic sleeve. “Ship cooking to learn, yes?” the strange, small man asked in his strangely accented way. “Ajax want you to learn.”

Skíði nodded, remembering this, and stood to go with Lin to the front of the ship. Lin unpacked from a chest under the net a small stand, a brazier which he put on top of the stand, and a pot.

“Fire to make know, yes?” Lin asked. Skíði puzzled this out and nodded. “You, fire to make. I to watch.”

Skíði took the tinder box from Lin and swiftly lit a small pile of wood shavings. As he slowly fed it twigs and other small pieces of wood, Lin nodded and turned to open another small chest.

“What food to make you know?” Lin asked.

Skíði thought about it and shrugged. “Mostly stews and porridge. I can cook meat over a fire, but it’s wasteful.”

Lin nodded. “Wasteful is. Meat or fish stew?”

“Both.”

“You to know what is this?” Lin held up a turnip.

“That’s a turnip.” He nodded over to Yrsa. “Yrsa grew them in our garden.”

“Turnip is called?” Lin asked, looking at the root vegetable and shrugging. “I am thinking radish?”

“Radishes are red,” Skíði explained.

Lin shrugged again, apparently accepting this. “To know how to cook?”

“Yrsa usually chops them up and puts them in stew or roasts them.” He spied into the food chest. “Is that stockfisk?”

“What is?” Skíði pointed and Lin nodded. “Ah yes. We trade for. Lasting long. Is taste…” And here Lin made a face of disgust. “But for a year, still good.”

“You have to cook it right,” Skíði said with a laugh.

“To learn for me?” Lin asked with a shy smile. “I learn you ship cooking, you learn me cooking bad dry fish.”

“Stockfisk.”

“Bad dry fish,” Lin said insistently. Skíði laughed, and they set to peeling the turnips. When they were done peeling, Lin handed him a roll of leather. “Open. Smell. Tell what go with bad dry fish.”

Skíði unrolled the leather, finding inside two rows of small vials, a small fortune in spices. He opened one to smell, finding it sweet and pungent.

“What is this?” he asked, looking down at the small, star shaped pods.

“Anise,” Lin answered without looking up from chopping the turnips and dumping them in the pot.

Dutifully, Skíði gave a cautious sniff to each vial, pausing occasionally to ask Lin what they were. Three he set aside as possibilities. Four he set aside also, as ones he knew would work with the stockfisk. The others he put back. Some were interesting, but wrong to go with the dried fish. Others were too new and strange to him. Finally he smelled all of the spices together and selected two to put back.

“These,” he told Lin when the strange, small man had finished cutting the roots. He handed over the five vials and rolled up the leather again.

“This also,” Lis said, reaching down into the food chest and pulling out a small, dry, yellow orb. He cut the thing into quarters and replaced three of them back into the chest.

“What is it?” Skíði asked.

“Lemon, dry. Good with bad dry fish. Better fresh, but dry good.” He dropped it and the cut turnips into the pot, added water, and put the pot on the fire. He started to pick up the stockfisk to put in, but Skíði stopped him.

“We want to add that near to last,” he explained.

Lin looked doubtful, but instead opened each vial of spice and measured a small amount in his hands before putting it in the pot. When the water was boiling and the turnips were soft but still firm, they added grain. Finally, Skíði let him add the pieces of stockfisk. A hearty, but distinctly fishy, smell overtook the ship, and Lin nodded. They put some of the stew into a bowl and brought it to Ajax for approval.

The merchant took a bite, paused, and looked at Skíði. “Boy, did you teach Lin how to cook with stockfisk?” Skíði nodded and Ajax murmured what sounded like a prayer. “I am promoting you to second cook. Lin is good with anything fresh, but you Norse with your dried, salted, sometimes pickled fish… he’s baffled.”

They passed out bowls to the rest of the crew. They all took appreciative bites, and Tanis sighed happily.

“This is good,” she said. “My previous encounters with stockfisk, less so.”

“Yrsa knows more about it that I do,” Skíði mumbled, flushing.

“Yrsa can also help with the cooking, then,” Ajax decided. He barked a short sentence to Lin, who responded calmly. “Alright. Yrsa will cook the morning meal, the boy will cook the noon meal, and Lin will make the evening meal.”

“That works for me,” said Yrsa. “I am better in the morning than most.”

“That is settled, then.” And with that decided, they ate happily. After everyone had finished eating, Lin and Skíði collected the bowls from the crew. Lin showed Skíði how to wash them, and they started to put them away.

“Where are you from?” Skíði asked as they put away the last few dishes.

Lin smiled a little sadly. “Far south, more far east, I am from.”

“Do you miss it?”

Lin thought about this, looking out over the sparkling water. Finally he looked over at Ajax, smiled, and shook his head. “No. Happy, I am. People, miss. Places, no.”

“People? Like your parents?”

Lin shook his head. “Parents not know.”

“I’m sorry, Lin. Me too… not knowing my parents—”

But Lin was shaking his head. “Monk, Yrsa, Svanbjörn, are parents to boy Skíði.” Skíði opened his mouth to object, but Lin held up a hand and said firmly, “Parents.” He looked pensive then. “I raise by… how to say?” He caught Tanis’s sleeve as she passed.

She listened to him speaking quickly in Latin, and turned to Skíði. “Lin was raised by a Taoist sage.”

“Yes.” Lin said. “What Tanis say.”

“What is a Taoist?” Skíði asked.

Lin turned to Tanis.

“Oh no,” she said, “you get to fumble through that one yourself.” She continued on her path to Ajax. Lin looked after her a little forlornly.

“So?” Skíði asked again, raising an eyebrow.

Lin sighed. “Taoist is… how to say? Taoist follow Tao.”

“What is Tao?”

Lin shook his head. “In saying, you not know. Tao is Tao.”

Skíði scratched his head, not really understanding. “That’s… not…”

Lin nodded. “Not help, is. But Tao is. Is water.” He touched the sea. “Is air.” He gestured around them. “Is ship.” He tapped the bottom of the ship. “Is all… and is nothing. In saying, losing.”

“Sounds weird.” Skíði scratched his head again. “Well, I suppose our gods seem strange to you also.”

“I am having gods also,” Lin said with a smile. “River, ocean, air, metal, fire, earth. All gods having.”

Skíði puzzled through this all through the rest of the day. Lin’s religion was so different from Yrsa and Svanbjörn’s. It was indefinably different from Brother Paweł’s religion, with it’s oh so defined God. And what did Ajax and Tanis believe in? Were they Christian, like Brother Paweł? Did they believe in the Norse gods like Yrsa and Svanbjörn? Or were they like Lin, believing in something new and possibly harder to define?

What did Skíði believe?

He lay awake that night, looking up at the distant stars. Maybe that was what he believed in… stars. He believed in stars. He believed in the power of the ocean. He believed in the moon. He believed in the sun. After four days in the sun, he knew he had better. He was redder than a ripe apple in a few places. He drifted slowly to sleep, counting the stars.

He awoke some unknown time later to rain hitting his nose. He sat up, groggy. Lin, who had the first watch, waved to him. He waved back and rolled over, hiding his head under his blanket and trying to sleep again.

No sooner had he gotten to sleep again than there was crack and a loud, long peal of thunder. The rain began to pour down in sheets, drenching his blanket all the way through. Skíði sat up with a yelp at the cold, thick rain, as did everyone else. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked through the sky.

“Tarp!” Ajax yalled above the thunder. “Get the tarp out!”

As Lin and Tanis rushed with him to the fore of the ship, lightning flashed again and the ship gave a mighty heave, knocking all of them off their feet. Skíði slowly rose to his feet, gasping, and gaped.

Standing at the prow of the ship was a strange, large, hairy man. Clutched in his fist was a hammer with a short stock. He surveyed them all gaping at him and growled in a low voice, “Where is my son?”