[right][h2]Kjartan Knudsen[/h2][/right]
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The touch still lingered as Kjartan made his way into Lynn. To call the impromptu community of wood and canvas shacks a town was being generous. In truth it was a collection of wooden shacks built around a Roman ruin that had once served as a storehouse for the salt of an empire none of the Danes who now sheltered amid its grandeur could ever understand. To the Kjartan, the Romans might have been gods. He had once seen the great stone arches that had carried water to Lunden and stood beneath stone that seemed hung in the air, higher and stronger than anything built since. Even the Christian Churches, built of brick and stone, were dwarfed by the ruins of a ghostly empire.

Familiar faces leapt out at Kjartan as he made his way through the shelters; warriors he had fought alongside, merchants who had done business with, and one or two women whose favours he had enjoyed. The muddy paths that crisscrossed the space sucked at his tall boots and more than once he had to step over human shit. Disease would come soon if this continued. Keep to many folk in a space to small for them  for too long and people would begin dying.

Canvas roofs twitched in a strong wind that blew in from the ocean and he could see, in the distance, the white beaches where he knew small troupes of Saxon slaves worked a half salt pans to the white crystals as they dried in the sun. The Romans had built hundreds of such pits, enough to need the building in which he now stood, but most had been eroded with time; there were simply not enough people to work them. Not on the scale the Romans had managed.  

It was strange to think that he would be sailing away from England. For so many years he had fought to reach the rolling green fields until he had made it, at last, and then he had fought to take his own small portion of it. Now it was all for nothing, of all it, for nothing. Danish fortunes were waning in England, any fool could see it. Even in Northumbria there were rumours of uprisings and more attacks from the Scots. The English were on the march in Wessex; they had at last solved the Danish problem. No Jarl wanted to throw away their men against fortress walls and all of southern England was covered with fortified Burghs now; more were being built every year. Those Danes who remained were converting to Christianity - the nailed God was winning the war. 

He looked down at his hands. They were still strong, the hands of a warrior, but a thousand small cuts had turned them into a mess of white scars that cross-crossed everywhere. The tip of his left thumb was missing, lost during a skirmish with the armies of Wessex. He had a limp on cold days - he had been thrown from a horse - that hurt when the worst of weather was closing in. He was not a young man anymore. 

The distant wave tops were starting to show white flecks as a grey wall of rain advanced southward toward Lynn. More rain. He was sick of the rain. Was there anywhere in the world that it did not rain? A glance over his shoulder revealed the small forest of masts above the few ships that had arrived so far. Tomorrow they would begin travelling North. A stop in Northumbria, perhaps the Norse settlements in the very north of Pictland, and then West. 

West. To the unknown lands.

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The storm blew itself out overnight. Only two shelters collapsed and one burned with its occupants inside. More ships had arrived as well, swelling the population to the point where to many folk were crammed into too small a space. Fights broke out as men angry and humiliated by Thetford looked for any excuse to vent their rage. The dead of Thetford, those of the fyrd - unburdened by armour - had begun to float downriver now and some became wedged beneath the hulls of the longships drawn up on the soft sand.

Kjartan shoved one of those bodies clear with a spear as others stood to the gunwales and grunted as they thrust the longship into the running current with their oars. The river snatched at the hull, trying to twist it and drive them backward downstream. He could hear the whisper of sand as it caressed the hull - a glance overboard revealed only a muddy swirling mass that streamed out beyond the longship as it drew into deeper water. 

He looked over the crew and was happy to see some new members, mostly women, had joined them during the night. It was evident that they had their own demons, it appeared that no one among this crew could not, but all looked capable fighters. Åse had chosen them well. The lady herself was standing nearby, her own face turned into the breeze, toward the ocean. She must have felt his gaze, turning her head to catch his eye. She smiled and he felt his heart warm.

"North, steersman, north and then west."