‘Or else that’s what he wants us to think,’ Wace put in, ‘so that he can draw us in closer.’
‘Into his snare,’ Eudo added, his expression sour.
‘What would be the purpose of that?’ I asked. ‘He has no need to risk an open battle with us. More likely he’s simply decided to stay behind his walls at Jarnborg, and wait to see what we do.’
They all were silent for a few moments while they contemplated that. We sat in a circle on oak sea chests aboard Wyvern as she rocked gently from one side to another on the incoming tide. The wind was up, howling through the bare branches of the trees on the shore.
‘How do we find this fortress of his, then?’ Wace asked.
‘Finding it is easy,’ Magnus said. ‘If you sail a few miles further up the fjord you can see it clearly from the water. It stands atop a rocky promontory that juts out to the north, at the far end of the island from here, overlooking a wide bay where he keeps his ships.’
Eudo raised an eyebrow. ‘You know it well, do you?’
‘I came here once before, two years ago,’ Magnus said flatly. ‘Just as Haakon murdered your lord, so he was responsible for the deaths of my two brothers. I wanted revenge, and tried to storm Jarnborg, but only succeeded in leading several of my retainers to their deaths. Now their blood is on my hands.’
Suddenly I understood what he’d meant before, when he’d told me that hosts numbering in the hundreds had not managed to take Haakon’s fortress. The thought that he himself had been there, had thrown himself and his army against its walls, hadn’t so much as entered my head. But if he had already tried and failed, what made him think things would be any different this time? Even with Eudo and Wace and the crew of Wyvern to swell our numbers, we only had around one hundred and thirty men at our disposal, and he could not have expected their support when he had first agreed to this venture, back in Dyflin. Was it desperation that had driven Magnus on this course, as it had driven me?
‘In that case you’ll be able to tell us the best way of approaching Jarnborg,’ Eudo said.
‘There’s a sandy cove about halfway along the island, on the north-western side, if I remember rightly,’ Magnus replied. ‘It can’t be much more than an hour’s march from Jarnborg. We can land there, providing that he doesn’t send forces to drive us off.’
‘He won’t,’ I said. ‘Not if his nearest refuge is an hour’s march away. He’ll wait for us to come to him.’
‘Assuming that we land without meeting any trouble,’ Eudo said, ‘what then?’
‘Somehow we have to draw Haakon out.’
‘Either that, or find a way into his stronghold that doesn’t involve a direct assault on its walls,’ Wace suggested.
I turned to Magnus. ‘Is there such a way?’
‘Not that I can recall. The promontory’s summit is ringed all around with a high palisade, beyond which steep bluffs lead down nearly all the way to the water’s edge. There’s only one gate leading in, and only one way, too, of reaching that gate, across a narrow neck of land to the south of the crag. It’s exposed, and the enemy would see you coming from half a mile away or more.’
‘What about an approach by water?’ Wace asked. ‘Is that possible?’
‘There are landing places at the foot of the bluffs, yes, but you can only reach them in a rowing boat or coracle or some other small craft. You couldn’t get a whole army up that way.’
‘Perhaps not, but Haakon is less likely to be expecting an attack from that direction,’ I said. ‘Could a handful of men make the climb, using the cover of darkness?’
‘By night?’ Magnus asked scornfully. ‘You’d be as like to slip and break your neck. Besides, even if you did manage to make the ascent, how then would you get inside the fort? The gate is the only way in or out, so far as I know.’
That was a problem, certainly, and one to which it was hard to see a solution. It looked as if our only hope, then, was to try and draw Haakon out. But how?
One thing was for certain. We needed to see this place for ourselves, and try to ascertain just how many men he had, so that we knew exactly how strong a foe we faced. Only then could we start thinking properly about a strategy that would either get us inside Jarnborg, or else entice them out, so that we could give battle on our own terms.