The days passed slowly and sweetly aboard The Fearsome Beast. Flojer took to calling Halvar Kakyi, which meant little captain, and Mira’s heart melted every time someone used the jest-name. Each day, Halvar would sit in Fell’s lap for a time—pretending to row. When off duty, Fell would take the boy to the head of the ship near the edge where the sea could spray him to “get him used to the taste of Hyrold.” This terrified Mira far more than Halvar. The child simply got a shocked look on his face and spit the salty water away, leaving Fell laughing. When the men sang, the Little Captain would gurgle along, and this earned him endless adoration.

“He wants to raid!”

“We need only set him ashore, and he will do the rest for us!”

“This one will be wild; remember my words.”

“It is in his blood now!” they warned Mira. “You will never take him from the sea.”

Rowan took up the oar as well. If one didn’t know his history, they would believe he had always been Norser. He looked every bit as fierce as the others, singing and heaving in tandem. And when the rowing men alternated, he would drink with those off-duty as one of them.

The crew seemed elated to be at sea, invigorated to be sailing towards an unknown battle. Their drinking often turned into theorizing about where they could be going and then into shouting. “To treasure and women or to the great halls!”

“To new lands and new sights!”

It was on the way to Byernen that Halvar first began to pull his body along the deck. He was not quite crawling—it was a terrible, floppy mess—but still, he moved himself, and Mira had never felt such pride.

“The sea makes him strong,” Flojer remarked, watching the child flail towards her. “Hyrold has already noticed him, I think.”

Mira knew the captain was loyal to Arik (for she knew Arik wouldn’t allow her to sail with someone he mistrusted), but she was comforted by the man all the same. Flojer was always watching her and Halvar, and whenever their eyes met, he would give her a small reassuring nod. You are doing well, this nod seemed to say to her. Mira could not explain why or how, but Flojer reminded her of her father.

“How does one become captain of a ship?” she said one night as they supped.

Flojer laughed. “He kills the old captain.”

“Of course,” Mira said. “Surely people must try all the time?”

He laughed again. “They do, but if a captain proves good, and his crew is pleased with the raiding, they are loyal and do not let anyone harm him.”

The second-in-command was a man named Freyt. Both Fell and the captain told Mira to be wary of him.

Flojer said, “He is one of Arik’s finest.”

Fell said, “He is here to spy on us.”

The man was gruff with an ankle twisted poorly from a spar gone wrong long ago and not as lively as the rest of the crew, but he kept to himself. It was explained to Mira that if Flojer should die from something other than murder, Freyt would take command.

Most of the crew were a fair bit older than Mira, but there was one green boy of about eighteen aboard—Yarlav, son of Flojer. With a broad, flat face that gave the impression of someone unable to tell a lie and hair so white it seemed almost invisible, Yarlav appeared more eager than any of the others to be rowing. He’d jump into action with fervour whenever requested to do something, and often, he was the first man to vomit from the drink when off-duty. The men taunted him and pushed him around—giving him the worst tasks like rowing where the sea sprayed the harshest and cleaning up vomit.

Mira had not expected the voyage to be pleasant but was overcome by the majesty of it. She was in awe of the way the waves made men bond, in the way everyone found a flow onboard the ship so that they weaved in and around each other, completing tasks instinctually and mindlessly, without needing to communicate. She found herself caring for the crew, cleaning the sores on their hands that came from rowing and checking up on them throughout the day.

“How are you faring today?” she would say, and they would laugh and promise in a flirtatious tone that they were doing much better having spoken to her.

Mira learned that all the men aboard were from a village called Gyden. The town was so small that they had only one ship, and even then, The Fearsome Beast did not host as many men as other ships.

“Norser think because Gyden is so far south it is not truly Northern,” one man said.

“But this is false thinking.”

“Each of the men from Gyden fights with the strength of seven Norser.”

“At least,” agreed another. “And when Yarlav is bigger and more practised, we will say nine Norser, ten even.”

Yarlav frowned when this was said, and the man reached over and messed with Yarlav’s hair snickering as the boy pushed him away.

“It is the most feared of all ships,” another said.

“You fill the girl’s head with nonsense.”

Everyone sat up straighter—they hadn’t known that Flojer was listening.

“Yes, my crew is strong, but this is not what makes them great. They are watched by the gods. They obey the gods—this is what is important.”

“Always he says this,” Yarlav whispered to Mira when his father walked away. “Always he says the day will come when the gods ask something special of us. He says he does not prepare us to raid; he prepares us to do the work of Hyrold.”

The oldest man on the crew was named Aslak, and Mira feared him more than any of the others—even Arik’s spy. He was not thick like the other Northmen but thin and lanky with grey hair. He was the ugliest man she’d ever seen—his face was squished and smooshed all in the wrong ways. It did not help that he always looked furious, and when Mira’s eyes met his, she knew in her bones the man was capable of dark and twisted things. Mira kept away from Aslak as best she could.

Aslak heard what Yarlav said and scoffed at the boy. “You have never rowed on another ship, so you cannot understand your father’s words.”

***

The next time Mira spoke with Flojer, she asked him about what Yarlav and Aslak had said. “You believe your ship works for Hyrold?”

The captain laughed. “All ships row for Hyrold, whether they know it or not, but my ship especially.”

Flojer explained that it was usually easy for all those who wanted to raid to find a ship since more men made for safer raiding. Things were different in Gyden. Whenever a man came of age and asked Flojer to join the crew, the captain would hike deep into the mountains and pray over it. He took only those Hyrold approved of.

Many questions surfaced, but Flojer read her mind and answered before Mira could ask them.

“All of those aboard my ship I have prayed over. Hyrold was most pleased with me the day I asked him about you and those you travel with.”

“Freyt?” she said.

Flojer laughed. “He is a complicated one. He is a snake, to be sure, but one that I must keep on board. Hyrold has not told me why.”

“Aslak?”

“A rare man. Hyrold refused him three years in a row, but he asked me to pray a fourth time and then Hyrold allowed it. Something very important happened in those three years, I think. I am most curious to see his role in our quest.”

Mira’s eyes wandered to the gold-tinged clouds far off in the distance. This is why they love the sea, she thought. In every direction, there was nothing but light and water. Peace and freedom.

“I am afraid Arik will have Halvar stay on board even during the raids. I do not think this is safe. What if… wherever you’re sent… what if men come on board?”

Mira hadn’t meant to lay her feelings out so bluntly, only Flojer was easy to talk to, and her mind could not stay away from the thought for long.

“I have thought of this as well,” Flojer said. “If this is what happens, I will leave more men on board during the raiding than normal.”

Mira thought of Fell attacking someplace without enough friends by his side. “But then the men might not be safe—”

“Yes. That is the cost. But to me, a child is worth more than a man. So this is what I will do.”

From that day on, Flojer took to having Mira come to his cabin during the day so he could teach her how to measure maps and judge by the stars and the shadows of the sun on a little dial which way to steer. He taught her the words for parts of the ship as well as the words for each direction. Back home, there had been only four: north, south, east, and west. On a Northern ship at sea, there were dozens.

He taught Mira how to judge the speed of the ship and explained how far they could go in one day with a crew that was tired or a crew that was energized. He also taught her about having a crew, about the ailments that could strike aboard a ship and which fruits to keep to deal with these illnesses, and how to choose the drumming songs to suit the weather and the men’s moods.

“Why are you teaching me all of this?” she said one day when the water was calm.

Flojer shrugged. “Hyrold told me to.”