We have sailed under full wind. If any among us has misgivings, we don’t voice them. Maybe we’re simply too busy for misgivings—learning the new tasks of sailing, staying alert to both land and sea, surviving. We turned out to be only nine in the end: Ragnhild and Thyra, Unn, Ingun, Grima, Jofrid, Matilda, Osk, and me. All of them were part of the king and queen’s household except Jofrid. The four women who said nothing at our meeting never appeared at the fjord bank. None was part of the royal household, so there’s no reason for anyone to suspect they might have information about us. If they simply continued to say nothing, no one in Heiðabý would know anything about us beyond the fact that a boat went missing. But even if those women did talk, it’s clear the kings’ men must have gone looking in the wrong places. Perhaps they followed the coast to the north, or went to nearby islands, or crossed the sea to Skáney. We, instead, went south and then east—east and east and east.
