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perfect ship, so Thorgrim had made many changes to her before setting out for the last time from the harbor of Dubh-linn. He had stepped her mast a bit further after, added an additional shroud and altered the footing of the beitass. He would have liked to give her a somewhat wider sail with a deeper drop, but sails were not to be had in the Irish longphort. He had removed the thwarts on which the rowers sat, preferring to let the men sit on their own sea chests, lashed to the deck. He had given her a longer and wider steering board.
      Some of the changes had been more superficial but in Thorgrim’s mind at least no less important. Her hull had been oiled but Thorgrim had it scraped clean and coated with a mixture of tar and varnish for a black, gleaming appearance that he felt was more impervious to rot. The carvings at the stem and stern had been replaced. Thorgrim knew there was no dishonor in sailing a ship that had belonged to a man you killed, assuming you had killed him in fair and honorable combat - which Thorgrim had. Still, to leave that man’s carvings on the ship did not seem like a lucky thing to him.
      Dubh-linn had craftsmen aplenty, and it was no difficulty in finding a skilled carver who could make a new head, a winged sea-beast to adorn the bow with its tail at the stern to help Far Voyager in her long eastward passage, a figure that would cleave the waves ahead, part the water for his ship’s passage. And just to be sure luck and the gods would sail with them, Thorgrim had ordered three bullocks to be sacrificed on board and copious amounts of wine poured fore and aft.
      When at last Far Voyager had moved down the Liffey to the open sea she was a very different ship than the one Thorgrim had taken from the Danes. A better one, he reckoned. Twenty-four men pulled at the long oars, another twenty-eight stood ready to relive them, or to set the sail on Thorgrim’s command. The ship was heavy laden with supplies, with the bounty they had taken from Tara, and with trade goods from the prolific craftsmen in Dubh-linn, goods which Thorgrim was sure would fetch a nice profit in his native Norway, or at some port en route .
      Now, ten hours later, Far Voyager ’s bow rose to the seas, cresting the wave, knifing through it, twisting her way down into the trough. It was a pronounced motion, but not so bad, not as bad as it would get in a few hours as the storm built in intensity.
      Thorgrim looked back over his shoulder as the ship rose to the next wave. Ireland was a long, low dark line on the horizon, growing more obscure in the thickening weather. He had meant to stand offshore on a long board, tack and sail north westerly, arriving back on the coast near sundown, at a point well north of Dubh-linn, where they might beach for the night. He meant to work his way north along the coast until he reached the north-eastern-most point of land, and there cross the open water to England. They would then sail north around Scotland where he might hope to find welcome and refuge in the many Norse settlements along that coast.
      That was the plan. Now, ten hours into the voyage, it was all in jeopardy.
      The wind, which had some southing in it, had come more northerly over the past few hours, making it harder for Far Voyager to progress up the coast at all. The seas were building and Thorgrim could hear the pitch of the rising wind in his ears. The coast of Ireland was under their lee, the wind and seas threatening to pile the ship up on the killing rocks, and it was not so many hours until night came on. The most reasonable thing for Thorgrim to do was to turn and run for the safety of Dubh-linn, wait out the storm and begin the voyage again. But he was done with Dubh-linn, and would not even consider a return.
      “Harald! Agnarr!” Thorgrim called out. “Round up some men and see everything is lashed down tight! Double check all the lashings! Then let us see about rigging some sort of shelter to