Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) (37 page)

  Flann stood as well, putting as much aggression as he could behind the move, and when he spoke his voice was loud, his anger palpable. “There will be no agreement as long as that grasping villain will dare keep his army on the soil of Brega. You may tell your Lord Ruarc that we will not be cowed by his threats. He may fling his men against our walls as much as he wishes, he will find no quarter here. By God, if he wants bloodshed, sir, then he shall have it!”

  With that Flann turned his back to Breandan and stormed out of the room, a servant frantically pulling the door open for him so that he did not have to break stride. Breandan kept his eyes on Morrigan; he did not watch Flann exit. “Well?” he said, as if sensing that Flann’s word was not the last on any subject.

  “You have heard my Lord Flann’s words, Breandan mac Aidan. You may take them back to your master, and may God have mercy on us all.”

  Breandan did not argue. He could see that they were done. He bowed and the rest of his delegation bowed and they turned and made for the door through which they had come.

  Morrigan remained motionless, alone in the room, staring at the door long after the men had gone. The whole thing had played out pretty much as she had imagined it would. Flann had done well, he had shown only strength and fearlessness, and that was a good message for Breandan to bring back to Ruarc. But it did not change the underlying truth of the situation.

  If Ruarc chose to take Tara by force, then he could. The walls and gate would not hold out for long. For that matter, the people within the ringfort might be starved out in a matter of a week or so, if Ruarc chose to lay siege to the town rather than risk the lives of his men. The
rí túaithe
would most certainly not involve themselves in this affair. They would not pick sides, and if they did, they would likely go with Ruarc, because Ruarc had the stronger position.

 
We need an army, we need to deliver a wound to Ruarc
, she thought, but she knew that the men-at-arms at Tara were outnumbered three to one. If they went beyond the gates of the ringfort they would be butchered.

  And then she saw the spark of an idea. She caressed it, blew on it gently, let it flicker and grow and burst into life.
Yes
, she thought.
Yes, here is a notion…
If it did not play out as she envisioned, then they were no worse off, and if it did, then half a dozen problems were solved with a single stroke. A faint smile played over her lips. The hardest part, she realized, would be making Flann see the wisdom that was so clear to her.

Let us make our drawn swords glitter,

you who would stain wolf’s teeth with blood…

                                                                             Egil’s Saga

Arinbjorn White-tooth stood on the raised dais of the great hall, the place that he reckoned was reserved for the king of Tara and his retinue. The hall was much as he had imagined, and this was the place that he had imagined as his place, above the heads of the rest, in the king’s seat at the center of the table. But of course there was no table, no seats, nothing but a big, empty room in which, far from being feasted, they were being held prisoner.

  One hundred and fifty men, scattered over the packed dirt floor, gathered in little groups according to old friendships. It was dark, with only a little daylight sneaking in around the edges of barred shutters and rendering the whitewashed wattle walls gray. The upper reached of the ceiling, the heavy wooden beams, the tight thatch, were all but lost in the gloom.

  There
had
been a feast, of course, and Arinbjorn had allowed himself to believe the Irish had gratefully served it up in tribute, so terrified were they of him. And that in turn had landed him and his men there, shuttered up in the great hall, prisoners, the most shameful of conditions, and all his earlier fantasies of ruling Tara and bedding Brigit served only to mock him now. They had been played for fools, him and all his men, and now they were stripped of their weapons, their freedom and their manhood.

  All but Thorgrim. Thorgrim Night Wolf.

 
Thorgrim, Thorgrim…
Arinbjorn thought, the name coming to mind frequently and unbidden. It was certainly no coincidence that Thorgrim and his son and the lunatic Starri, whom Thorgrim counted as a friend, were the only ones to have escaped. This had all been Thorgrim’s doing, all this treachery.

  Arinbjorn had figured that out once the effects of the poison had passed, once he realized that Thorgrim was not among the prisoners. It was Harald Thorgrimson who had brought that traitorous bitch Brigit to him, with her tales of the riches to be had at Tara, and Harald was too dim witted to think of such a plot on his own. He did not act without Thorgrim’s explicit instructions.

 
Damn him, may he end as carrion for crows and vultures!
Arinbjorn thought as the frustration got the better of him. He had insulted Bolli by putting Thorgrim in his place, just so that he might go into battle side by side with Thorgrim and run a sword through him when the chance presented itself. Thus would he use Thorgrim to help him gain Tara and free himself from being in Thorgrim’s debt, all with a single thrust.
And now see how it has turned out!

  Not everyone could see Thorgrim’s part in this. For a day and a half, Hrolleif, who had consumed a superhuman amount of the roast pork, was too sick to speak, and when he had partially recovered, and found himself a prisoner of the Irish, he was too furious to make a reasonable reply to anything. Indeed, he seemed to blame Arinbjorn for their situation.

  Ingolf was skeptical as well. “Why would Thorgrim do this? What has he to gain?” he asked when Arinbjorn had laid out his suspicions.

  “He’s in league with the Irish whore, don’t you see?” Arinbjorn explained.

  “Which one? The one we brought with us from Dubh-linn, or the one who poisoned us?”

  “Both! I don’t know. It is just clear to me this is his doing. He knew the one who poisoned us of old. Why is it that he alone and his son and the other one, Starri, they alone escaped?”

  “The gods favored him?” Ingolf suggested. “He was smarter than us? I don’t know, but I don’t see how any of this would have been in his favor. If I find that Thorgrim is befriended by the Irish, if they have done him honor, then I will find truth in your words. But for all we know, he and his son were killed by the Irish and fed to the dogs.”

  Ingolf’s words did nothing to allay Arinbjorn’s suspicions about Thorgrim, but they did convince him that Ingolf, too, was part of the plot in some way and that he, like Thorgrim, must die once the chance presented itself. This he relayed to Bolli Thorvaldsson, who was the only one of them whom he still trusted completely. And Bolli made certain that word spread throughout the company of prisoners, word of Thorgrim’s treachery, of how he had sold out Arinbjorn’s men for his own gain.

  It was a message that the men heard, and were inclined to believe. Surely it made more sense that they had been betrayed by one of their own than that they had been played for fools by some Irish wench. If the latter was true, it might suggest that they were not as clever as the Irish, and that was a thought to be dismissed out of hand.

  For all of Arinbjorn’s insights into the circumstances of their imprisonment, however, there was not much that could be done as long as they remained locked up in the great hall. So Arinbjorn, alone with Bolli on the dais, made plans. “We will escape this prison, Bolli,” Arinbjorn said, his voice low and conspiratorial. “Either by tricking these Irish or….”

  He got no further than that. A key turned in the lock of the small door to the side, the door through which food and drink was passed, though it was not above an hour since they had been given the tough bread and weak beer that constituted their breakfast. This was some other business. Heads turned at the sound; some men stood and faced the door. A good turn of events or bad, either way this promised to be a break in the unbearable monotony of the days past.

  Arinbjorn, too, faced the door. He watched it swing open to reveal a pair of guards, well-armed, spears held ready to impale any who might rush them. None of the Norsemen moved, so the guards took steps aside and Morrigan passed between them. She cast an inquisitive look around the great hall, as if assessing the condition of the men inside, like a farmer looking over his herd. Finally her eyes moved to the raised area on which Arinbjorn stood.

  “Arinbjorn,” she called out in her clear, strong voice. Once again Arinbjorn could not help but notice what a beauty she was, her long, dark hair tumbling around her shoulders, her strong, slim body obvious even under the loose fabric of leine and brat. “Arinbjorn, would you accompany me? I would have a word with you.”

  A bit of a smile played over Arinbjorn’s lips. Morrigan, he imagined, had finally realized the great danger she had brought to all of Tara, trying to fool him, bringing him and his men within the walls of the ringfort. Now she would try to back her way out of the trap in which she had put herself.

  “Very well,” he said, trying to sound as if she was interrupting some important business. He hopped down from the dais and strolled toward her. Morrigan’s face remained unreadable, but he could see on the faces of the guards the frustration that his unhurried pace was causing.

 
That’s good,
he thought.
They should know I do not hurry for them
. But once he was within arm’s length of the door, one of the guards reached in and grabbed a handful of his tunic and jerked him through while the other slammed the heavy oak door and locked it behind. Arinbjorn found himself in the passage outside the great hall. There were four guards in all with spears at the ready. Morrigan stood before him. She was a foot shorter than he was, at least, but with her posture and her air of confidence she did not seem in the least diminutive.

  “Lord Arinbjorn, first, please let me apologize for what we have done,” Morrigan began, her words reinforcing what Arinbjorn had already come to understand about her fears. “It was an unkind thing, true, but, pray, try to see our position. An army of Northmen descending on us. We quite unable to defend against you. It is no secret what your people have done to other towns and monasteries in this country.”

  Arinbjorn nodded his head in gracious acknowledgement. “I understand, of course,” he said. “It was Thorgrim who put you up to this, is that not right?”

  “Thorgrim…?”

  “Thorgrim Ulfsson. The one they call Night Wolf. I know that he put you up to this, that this treachery was his doing, it is no secret.” Arinbjorn saw the look of understanding sweep over Morrigan’s face and he knew that this thrust had found its mark, more confirmation that he was correct in his assessment of the situation.

  “Yes,” Morrigan said. “Exactly so. Thorgrim was the one who came up with this entire scheme. To undermine you.”

  “Of course. He’s not nearly so clever as he thinks. Is he with you now, in Tara?”

  “No, no. Nothing of the sort,” Morrigan said, shaking her head, her expression now distraught. “A man like that, he’ll betray anyone. I should have known that. I should have spoken with you, then I would have met with an honest man. Thorgrim has abandoned us and joined with our enemies. They are camped just outside our walls. We need you, Arinbjorn. We need you and your men to join with us in battle, to defeat Thorgrim and the men with him, so that the riches of Tara will be ours.”

  Arinbjorn nodded, but in truth this was sounding a little less promising. “‘To defeat Thorgrim’, you say?”

  “Yes,” Morrigan said, her tone brightening now. “They are but seventy men or so with Thorgrim, but my men-at-arms are afraid to take them on. If you join with us, however, we will outnumber them two men to one. My men will fight if you will lead them, and then victory will be certain.”

  This made sense to Arinbjorn, but there was still one significant problem. “We have no weapons,” he pointed out. “They were…we lost them when…” he stammered, then stopped. They both knew perfectly well what had become of the Norsemen’s weapons, but Arinbjorn did not care to say it out loud.

  “We have your weapons,” Morrigan said. “They will be returned, all of them. With our thanks and apologies.”

  “You will return our weapons? Just like that?” Arinbjorn felt a little flame of suspicion kindling in his head. “You fooled us once, and I don’t care to let it happen again.”

  “We did what we had to do,” Morrigan said. “I’ve told you before, the safety of my people, of Tara, is all I care about, and I will do what I have to do. And if that means fighting with the fin gall, then that is what I will do. I am not offering to give you your weapons, your freedom, for nothing. Fight with us, against Thorgrim, and those things will be yours.”

  Arinbjorn nodded. Put that way, Morrigan’s offer seemed reasonable. Had she been trying to trick him, she would have offered anything. But here she was making it clear that her offer was good only if they joined in the fight against Thorgrim and his new band. That made the offer seem far less suspicious. And, as it happened, far more tempting to Arinbjorn.

  “I must discuss this with the lead men,” Arinbjorn said.

  “We do not have much time. Thorgrim and his men are at the gate. I will give you half an hour and then I will come for your answer. You must let me know then.”

  With that, Arinbjorn was returned to the great hall in as rough a manner as he had been withdrawn. He recovered himself and called for Bolli and Ingolf and Hrolleif. They gathered on the dais and Arinbjorn explained the situation, and Morrigan’s offer.

  “Lying bitch!” Hrolleif exploded. “Are we to believe her again? Hasn’t she played us for fools enough?”

  “She explained why she did what she did,” Arinbjorn replied, “and I for one am satisfied with her explanation. As I suspected, this was mostly Thorgrim’s doing. She wants revenge as much as we do. She offers us the chance.”

  “It is not clear to me just how Thorgrim is involved here,” Ingolf said. “Did she tell you what part he played?”

  “She didn’t have to,” Arinbjorn said. “She told me Thorgrim was part of this, which I already knew and told you, and that is all we need to know.” He hoped Ingolf would drop this line of questioning, because he realized when he tried to explain Thorgrim’s part, that he really did not know at all what it was, only that he had done something, and that their captivity had been the result.

  “Here is the matter, boiled down,” Bolli said. “We stay in here, like swine ready for the slaughter, or we take Morrigan’s offer and gain the chance for freedom. If she puts weapons in our hands, we cannot lose. Even if we die, it is a better death than that of prisoners or slaves.”