帝国征程28

Harold Hardrada sailed southwest from Norway on August the 12th.

En route to England, he stopped here in the Viking earldom of the Orkneys to pick up yet more men and yet more ships to add to his already formidable fleet.

Expectations must have been high.

The Norsemen could almost smell triumph in the summer winds.

There would have been feasting, and singing and the reading of poems, some of them doubtless written by Hardrada himself.

And it may be here that Tostig joined the Viking fleet.

If he did and if he looked out at the water and saw the 300 ships, his little heart must have skipped a beat to think of the catastrophe awaiting his brother.

Together, Tostig and Hardrada would be unstoppable, invincible. Or would they?