He did not try and speak, for the wind took words and shredded them, as it flattened his clothes to his ribs and whipped his hair and beard, so that it looked as if it grew out of one side of his head only.The oars bowed, the crew grunted with effort, eyes fixed on the stroke men – no-one beat time, like they did on Arab and Greek ships; what would be the point in sneaking up on a strandhogg raid while hammering a drum?We were not silent, all the same. Short Serpent crabbed, rattling and creaking, up the wide river, which was stippled by that chill lout of a wind, bulling over the floodplain like a rutting elk, sweeping and swirling down the river, crashing through the fringing of trees on both banks.I stood on the mastfish and smiled and grinned at the rowers, who had stowed their ringmail; half of them were naked to the waist and sweating hard despite that wind and because of it, too – it circled and beat sometimes on the steerboard, sometimes running into the teeth of the prow beast.
