Lovable Viking's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

By morning the longship pulled hard for open water. Franklin sat chained at his oar, red beard crusted with salt, pulling half-strokes and glaring at Marcus's back. The iron dragged at his wrist with each stroke. The other men rowed in silence, but Marcus felt them listening. Franklin muttered under his breath, and two benches over, a man laughed. The chain had cowed Franklin, but it had not made the crew love the rule. It had only given Franklin something to bleed against, out loud, where all could hear. Marcus knew the danger. A beaten man poisons a crew slowly, one grievance at a time. He could break Franklin again. But another beating would only prove Franklin's point: that the rule was fists and nothing more. So Marcus did something else. At midday he called for oars up. He walked to Franklin's bench and knelt. He took a key from his belt and unlocked the iron from Franklin's wrist. "Stand up," Marcus said. Franklin stood, rubbing the raw skin. The crew went still. Benjamin, at the next oar, gripped his shaft and watched, the same way he had watched in the yard. "You said the rule was only my fists," Marcus said. He spoke loud, for all of them. "In the yard I turned my back to your axe. You know why I didn't die." Franklin said nothing. "Because a man who kills women and children is a man his own crew won't follow." Marcus set the chain in Franklin's hands. "That night, my back to your blade, it was you who couldn't swing. Not me who stopped you. You. Because some part of you knows I'm right." Franklin's jaw worked. His eyes flicked to the watching men. "You want me to thank you for the irons?" "No. I want you to carry them to the sea and drop them." Marcus stepped back. "You're free. If the rule is only fear, leave at the next port. Take who'll follow. But if you stay, you stay because you choose the rule. Not because I chain you to it." The longship rocked. Franklin held the heavy chain, and every man waited to see it splash. He looked at Benjamin. He looked at the two who had followed him to the farmstead. None of them moved to back him now. Franklin walked to the rail. He heaved the chain over. It hit the water and sank. Then he sat back down at his oar. "I'll pull," he said. "For now." It was not loyalty. Marcus knew that. But Franklin had chosen the bench with his hands free, in front of the crew, and the muttering stopped. The poison had a name now, and its name had sat down and taken up the oar. Marcus had traded a controlled enemy for a free man who might yet turn — and the crew had seen him do it.