"Harry Harrison - Hammer Cross 1 - The Hammer and the Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

could of their goods and wives with them. Waiting for the mounted levy, the
thane-service
of Northumbria, to come down and do the fighting for which they earned their
estates and
manor houses. Waiting hopefully for a chance to swarm forward and join in the
harassing
of a beaten enemy, the chance of taking loot. It was not a chance which had
come to any Englishman since Oakley fourteen years before. And that had been
in the south, in the
foreign kingdom of Wessex, where all manner of strange things happened.
Nevertheless the mood of the men watching the knorrs out in the bay was
unalarmed,
even cheerful. Almost every man in the coast-watch was a fisherman, skilled in
the ways of
the North Sea. The worst water in the world, with its fogs and gales, its
monstrous tides and
unexpected currents. As the day strengthened and the Viking ships were blown
remorselessly closer in, Merla's realization had come to everyone: The Vikings
were
doomed. It was just a matter of what they could try next. And whether they
would try it,
lose, and get the wreck over with before the mounted levy Godwin had summoned
hours
before could arrive, resplendent in its armor, colored cloaks and gold-mounted
swords.
After which, opinion among the fishermen felt, the chances of any worthwhile
plunder for
them were low. Unless they marked the spot and tried later, in secret, with
grappling
irons... Quiet conversations ran among the men at the rear, with an occasional
low laugh.
"See," the town reeve was explaining to Godwin at the front, "the wind's east
a point
north. If they put up a scrap of sail they can run west, north or south." He
drew briefly in
the wet sand at their feet. "If he goes west he hits us. If he goes north he
hits the Head.
Mind you, if he could get past the Head he'd have a clear run northwest away
up to
Cleveland. That's why he was trying his sweeps an hour ago. A few hundred
yards out to
sea and he'd have been free. But what we knows, and what they doesn't, is
there's a current.
Hell of a current, rips down past the Head. They might as well stir the water
with their..."
He paused, not sure how far informality could go.
"Why doesn't he go south?" cut in Godwin.
"He will. He's tried the sweeps, tried the sea-anchor to check his drift. It's
my guess
the one in charge, the jarl what they call them, he knows his men are