Read Online The Long Hunt (The Strongbow Saga) by Judson Roberts - Free Book Online

cup and bowl and wooden spoon that served as my mess kit, and at least some part of my considerable hoard of Frankish silver coins—I would carry with me on the coming voyage.
    But I had won ten whole pounds of silver coins for Genevieve's ransom, paid reluctantly by her father, Count Robert. And added to that already significant sum was my share of the silver paid by the Franks' King Charles to ransom the city of Paris and buy the retreat of our army from his kingdom. Of the seven thousand pounds of silver—most, like Genevieve's ransom, paid in Frankish deniers—the four commanders of the army, Ragnar, Hastein, Ivar, and Bjorn, had each claimed one hundred pounds as their due. The rest had been divided equally among the one hundred and twenty ships of the fleet, to be further divided among each crew according to their felag.
    In the Gull 's crew, Hastein, as captain, was entitled to five shares under the felag. Given the huge sum he'd won as a commander of the army, he'd graciously relinquished those shares, so a greater amount could be divided among the rest of us. The shares of our fifteen dead had been set aside, to be given to their families. My portion, including my extra half share for serving as the ship's blacksmith, added almost two more pounds of silver coins to the profit I'd won on the campaign.
    Many of the Gull 's crew—and for that matter, most of the warriors of the army—had won far more wealth in Frankia from looting than from their share of the final ransom. I had not. Other than the fine sword and armor I had stripped from the body of Leonidas, Genevieve's cousin whom I'd slain, and the long spear that had belonged to a Frankish cavalryman I'd killed, I had acquired only a few items of value by theft. All of them—two silver candlesticks and an ornate silver cup, the kind the Christians called a chalice—I had taken from an altar in a small room I'd happened upon in the Abbey of Saint Genevieve, in Paris on the day I had led a party of warriors there to secure it. I had not, of course, told Genevieve, after we'd later become reacquainted, that I had taken these things. I felt certain she would have thought less of me for stealing from her convent, and her God. 
    The coins paid for Genevieve's ransom had conveniently been transferred to my possession in two sturdy leather sacks. I pulled them now from the sea chest and set them on the bed, then dumped the rest of my silver—loose coins, cup, and candlesticks—out of the chest and onto the bed beside them.
    How much to take, and how much to leave behind? What might this voyage bring—what needs that would require silver?
    I had acquired the habit of carrying at least ten or so coins in the small pouch I always wore on my belt, in which I kept my flint and steel, a small whetstone, and the comb my mother gave me. That clearly was not enough for a voyage of unknown duration. Searching through my sea chest, I came upon the small leather bag I'd filled with iron arrowheads that I'd found in a storeroom in Count Robert's island fortress in the middle of the Seine River in Paris. I dumped the arrowheads out, rolled them up in a piece of sheepskin I cut from one of the hides that had been used to cover the sleeping chamber's floor, and tucked them back into the chest. I decided that I would take with me as many silver coins as the bag would hold, and would leave the rest behind, in a safe hiding place.
    I was filling the leather sack with coins from among the loose coins I'd dumped on the bed, when a shadow darkened the entrance to the chamber. I glanced up and saw Astrid standing there, holding a wooden chest in her arms. Several pieces of folded clothing were on top of it. Her face was still discolored by the bruises from the blows Toke had struck, but over the past few days she had otherwise recovered somewhat from the attack, and no longer seemed in a daze, or cowered whenever someone approached her.
    "This is for you," she said, and held out the