“Is that all you are planning to bring?” Yrsa asked three days later, in the early light of pre-dawn, seeing Skíði’s bag.

“I have a change of clothes and a knife,” he told her dismissively. “I doubt I will need much else.”

“Bring your bow,” Brother Paweł advised. “You may need to hunt on the way to… wherever we are going.”

“Rope is also a good idea,” Svanbjörn said, passing him a length of it. “You can never have too much rope on a journey, or nearly.”

“If you’re going for your bow, get your fishing pole too,” Yrsa called after him as he turned to go back into his small room. “Sea or river, there are always fish.”

Skíði sighed, but stowed the length of rope in his bag and went to get his bow and fishing pole. After he had retrieved those they sent him to get a whetstone for his knife, extra fishhooks, and the ring his mother had left for him. This he tied on a cord around his neck.

“Is this not too much?” he asked uncertainly. “There is not much room on that ship, and Ajax will doubtless have things with him he wants to trade.”

“Your bag is also your pillow,” Svanbjörn said, ignoring him. “You may want to pack an extra change of clothing for padding.”

“And perhaps a cloak,” Yrsa added thoughtfully. “Who knows how long we may be gone, or how cold it will be in… wherever.”

“And what next?” Skíði asked, exasperated. “The deer in the smoking shed?”

“Well, perhaps not the whole thing, but that is not at all a bad idea, Skíði…” Brother Paweł mused. Skíði threw up his hand and went to get another change of clothes and his cloak.

Finally, they pronounced he had packed enough and they went down the hill in the early dawn light toward the shipyard. The three brothers, Jol and Galti supporting Biarn, met them halfway to the inn. The two groups waved, wished each other well, and continued on.

They found Ajax in the shipyard already, standing beside what looked like a fully loaded ship with Lin and a young woman they did not know. She was dark, like Lin, with black hair and honey-brown eyes. She wore pants and a tunic like a man.

“This is Tanis, our other oarswoman,” Ajax said shortly. “Get your gear stowed under the net at the fore and we’ll get underway.” He held out a hand to Skíði. “Map?"

Skíði dug into his shoulder bag and pulled out the map. He looked down at it for a moment, not wanting to part with it, but sighed and handed it to Ajax. As Yrsa, Brother Paweł, and Svanbjörn stepped onto the ship, he looked back up the hill at Visby. When would he see it again? Did he want to see it again? With a shake of his head he stepped down into the ship, promptly stepped into a bucket, and fell.

Ajax roared with laughter, as did Tanis and Svanbjörn. Even Yrsa and Brother Paweł chuckled as they stowed their packs under the net at the front of the ship. Lin did not, but helped Skíði to his feet. Skíði disentangled himself from the bucket, flushing.

“Alright, boy,” Ajax said, still half laughing. “Lesson one for being on a ship: Always watch where you step.”

“Noted,” he grumbled, picking his way carefully over to the front of the ship an throwing his bag under the net. “Any other useful advice?”

“Yes,” Ajax said more seriously. “You’ll be one of the port side oarsmen, along with Svanbjörn and Lin, at least for today. I may shuffle everyone around once I know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. ‘Port’ is left, by the way. Yrsa, Tanis, and the monk will be the starboard oarsmen, or the right.”

“There’s only two oars on each side,” Skíði noted.

“You’ll be rowing in shifts.” Ajax looked up at then down to the crew, and stepped onto the ship. “Let us be on our way, then.”

Skíði sat on one of the rowing benches and waited as the others filled in around him. Ajax and Lin undid the ropes holding the ship moored to the dock and, at Ajax’s command, they started to row out of the harbor. Skíði knew he was no weakling. He had walked all over Gotland his entire life, and he had to carry deer home with relative regularity. He had chopped all of the wood for their cabin since he was ten years old. But immediately he knew why Ajax had called him a skinny boy.

Rowing was hard work.

But he was determined, and so he kept rowing. They rowed out of the harbor and into the straight between Gotland and the mainland. Once they were firmly out of the harbor, Ajax stopped calling the order to row, and shouted a series of incomprehensible orders to Tanis and Lin. The pair immediately set to hauling on ropes.

“We’re lowering the sail,” Ajax called to the four rowing. “The wind is good and with us, and with luck we’ll need not row for the rest of the day.”

“May Njörðr aide us farther in our journey,” Yrsa said, looking out at the calm sea.

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“Hrmph. May Jesu Christo aide us,” Brother Paweł harrumphed.

“Whoever you like,” said Ajax, “as long as the wind holds like this. Otherwise it’s back to rowing.”

“Wind hold today, I think,” Lin said, looking up at the sky, and then turned to Tanis and started speaking fluidly in a language Skíði did not know. He frowned back at them, wondering what they were saying, and in what language.

“Latin!” Svanbjörn supplied from the other side of him. Skíði turned back to find the older man had turned around to face him. “I know some, but Brother Paweł surely knows more. Ajax and Lin will speak it fluently. Tanis is new to me, but she seems to speak it well enough.”

“Where does it come from?” Skíði asked.

“Far to the south of here. When I was a younger man traveling with a merchant, many of the places we traveled to spoke Latin to us. It is a common trade language.” Svanbjörn glanced at Yrsa and Brother Paweł, who were bickering in a companionable fashion about religion again.

“Yrsa was saying the other day that you have both known Ajax for a very long time,” Skíði said quietly. “He’s not so much older than I am. How did you meet?”

“He used to travel with his father and older sister all the way from Greece, far to the south, up to Visby and farther north. They brought with them silks and paintings, sometimes stone carvings, and would leave with furs and cedar.” Svanbjörn stroked his beard, clearly lost in memory. “Ajax’s father had a larger ship than this one, but a smaller heart and mind than his son.”

“What do you mean?” Skíði asked.

“Hmmm. Well…” Svanbjörn took a deep draft of water out of a skin. “Perhaps I should have you talk to Ajax about that. It is not my tale to tell, I am thinking.”

“But Svanbjörn—”

“No, Skíði. No, it is not for me to tell. It is for you to ask, you have every right to know, but it is a better question for Ajax.”

Skíði frowned. “What do you mean I have every right to ask?”

Svanbjörn shrugged. “Would you like me to teach you some of the Latin I know?”

“You are changing the subject.”

“It will be very useful on our journey, no matter where it takes us,” he continued as though Skíði had not said anything.

Skíði rolled his eyes. If Svanbjörn wanted to change the subject, there was usually no getting him back on topic. “May as well,” he said with a long suffering sigh.

Svanbjörn thought for a moment, stroking his beard as he tried to decide where to begin. At last he leaned forward. “Very well. Let us begin simply. To greet one person in Latin, you say ‘salvē’. To greet a group of multiple people, it is “salvēte’. Now try to greet just me.”

“Salwe.”

“You are very close. Try again, but elongate the ‘ē’. Salvē.”

“Salwē?”

“Good.” Svanbjörn pointed to Yrsa and Brother Paweł. “Try greeting them, now. Salvēte, remember.”

Skíði turned to the other two, who were still bickering, and said, “Salwēte, Yrsa, Brother Paweł.”

“Salvē, Skíði,” Brother Paweł said absently. “That’s not the point, Yrsa, the point is…” And then he stopped, held up a hand and turned to Skíði and Svanbjörn. “ Are you teaching the boy Latin, Svanbjörn?”

“Yes,” Skíði answered before his teacher could answer. “He is avoiding answering a question.”

“By teaching you to say ‘hello’ in Latin?” Yrsa asked, raising an eyebrow. “That is an unusual form of diversion, brother.”

“The boy needs to learn!” Svanbjörn objected. “And… I should let Ajax tell him about—”

“Ah,” said Yrsa. “Yes. That is so.”

“What’s this?” Brother Paweł asked.

Skíði shook his head. “I suspect he will tell you to ask Ajax.”

“Skíði is correct.”

Brother Paweł raised an eyebrow. “About…? Svanbjörn, what are you and Yrsa hiding?”

There was a stretched moment of silence as Svanbjörn and Yrsa glanced uncertainly at Skíði, and Brother Paweł glared back and forth between the two siblings. Skíði wonder who would break first. His foster family were all of them very stubborn. Yrsa and Svanbjörn could hold their own against the old monk, but Brother Paweł had been known to out-stubborn them before.

This was not such a day. After several long moments, Brother Paweł snorted and stood. “I will ask young Ajax, then.” And he walked over to where Ajax was seated at the helm and started conversing with him in what sounded like more Latin.

“Anyway,” Svanbjörn continued as though nothing had happened, “in Latin you say ‘sum’ if you want to say ‘I am’…”

Some hours later, the sun setting over a red sky as clouds moved in thick and low over the calm sea, Svanbjörn finally relented. Ajax lit a lantern and Lin got out a pan. Soon there was the smell of grilling fish. They had eaten pickled eggs and some of the smoked deer Brother Paweł had packed for their midday meal.

“Do you think these clouds will bring rain tonight?” Yrsa asked Ajax.

He squinted upward at the clouds for a long moment. “I doubt it.” He took and offered plate of fish from Lin. “Red sky tonight, clear tomorrow, so the wisdom goes. Lin will take the first watch tonight, then Tanis.”

They ate in silence. Skíði wasn’t sure the silence could be called companionable. They mostly hadn’t known all known each other long enough. True, Svanbjörn and Yrsa seemed to know Ajax fairly well, and were at least aware of Lin, but neither of them seemed to know Tanis. Ajax, Lin, and Tanis didn’t know Skíði or Brother Paweł at all. Still, it wasn’t an awkward silence. It was a silence that promised future conversation.

After the evening meal they broke into small groups. Svanbjörn took Brother Paweł aside and the two began whispering urgently. Yrsa and Tanis sized each other up, then sat together talking quietly about what sounded like clothing. Ajax and Lin were speaking at the helm in a liquid language that Skíði didn’t think was Latin.

And so Skíði was left alone to his own devices. After standing and watching each group for several moments, he shook his head and staggered over to sit in the space between the rowing benches. He looked up and watched the clouds blot out the stars. He watched as the thick clouds closed out everything. There were clouds, there was ocean, and there was the ship. He was farther away from home than he had ever been in his entire life.

It had to be worth it.