The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (8 page)

  “That was a most disappointing effort,” Lorcan said when he had regained his voice. “Now, Fearghus, you may show us your hospitality.”

  Furious, silent, and impotent, Fearghus ordered the gates to the ringfort open and he led the way in. Soon Lorcan’s men were warming themselves in Fearghus’s hall, eating great quantities of his food and drinking his drink as if they were honored guests. Lorcan himself sat at the head table where he insisted Fearghus join him.

  When their clothes were finally dry and they had eaten and drunk their fill, Lorcan stood and clapped Fearghus on the shoulder. “And now we will take your cattle and be gone,” he said. He summoned his men in a voice that filled the room. They gathered and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” Fearghus called, the first words he had spoken since entering the hall. He had had held out longer than Lorcan had imagined he would, and that won him some of Lorcan’s respect. Lorcan stopped and turned.

  “Very well,” Fearghus said. “You are right, Ruarc mac Brain is gone from here these days, and has all but given up rule. I’ll…support you. Stand with you. Lord… Lorcan. Tell me what you need of me.”

  For a long moment Lorcan just looked at him and did not speak, letting Fearghus twist with uncertainty and fear. Finally he spoke.

  “Very well, Fearghus. I will take but half your cattle, and you will give it willingly. When the time comes, you and your…men…will stand with me. You understand?”

  Fearghus’s expression was not one of a man gladly joining forces with another, but when he spoke his voice was clear, and there was only a hint of bitterness and rage. “Very well,” he said. He paused again, and then added, “I am with you.”

  Lorcan nodded and said no more. He turned and led his men back out into the rain. They trudged to the smaller ringfort where the cattle were housed, swung open the gate and drove half of the animals out. As he wheeled his horse around, Lorcan said to Fearghus, “I am a merciful man, so I will pretend I do not even know about the other cattle you have beyond the hill there.” He dug his heels in his horse’s flanks and left Fearghus behind.

  The remainder of the day was taken up with the not so glorious task of driving the beasts across the countryside to Lorcan’s own fields. Once back at Ráth Naoi, Lorcan ordered one of the newly acquired cattle slaughtered and roasted. His weary men feasted well for the second time that day before dragging themselves off to their beds.

  By the next morning the rain had tapered off to little more than a heavy mist, which in Ireland hardly constituted rain at all. Sunrise was a few hours gone when a messenger arrived from the hills to the south of Cill Mhantáin, what the Norsemen called Vík-ló. Lorcan kept a man there watching the longphort, always watching. With him was a horse and rider to carry word back to Ráth Naoi. The Northmen were fast becoming a serious threat to Lorcan, enough to warrant such vigilance.

  “The dubh-gall have been hiding from the storm these past days,” the messenger reported, “but now they are out and doing something aboard that ship you attacked. It’s been run up on the mud this whole time, abandoned, but now they are doing something.”

  Lorcan considered this. Was it possible the plunder from Fearna had been aboard all along? Were the Northmen just now taking it from its hiding place?

  “Show me,” Lorcan said, standing and taking his fur cape from the bench where it was drying before the fire.

  It took less than an hour to cover the few miles to Cill Mhantáin. Lorcan and the messenger tied their horses to a tree beyond the high ground that hid the Norse longphort from sight, then climbed to the crest of the hill and down the far side. The town the dubh-gall called Vík-ló lay spread before them, the pathetic low dirt wall, the palisade. Lorcan knew he could overrun the place in minutes if he had men enough, and he was getting them.

  At last they came to the thicket on the slope from which Lorcan’s men kept their vigil, the better part of a mile away but as close as they dared get. From that place, which looked down on Vík-ló, they could see anything that was happening out of doors, and even if they could not see every nuance of what the Northmen were about they could see enough.

  The watchman posted in the brush looked up, startled at the sound of their approach. On seeing who it was, he pointed toward the waterfront and said, “There, Lord Lorcan.”

  Men were indeed swarming over the longship, and Lorcan recognized it as the one against which he had led the attack. Another ship, Grimarr Giant’s he believed, was out in the river, riding at anchor, and still more men seemed to be preparing the other three ships for sea, pulling the oars down from the gallows and untying the ropes that held them to the shore.

  Lorcan squinted, cocked his head, tried to get a better look. He could not divine what exactly was taking place. They might have been removing the plunder from Fearna, but he did not think so. There seemed to be no urgency about them.

  “Have they removed anything from the ship?” Lorcan asked.

  “Something, I cannot tell what,” the lookout answered. “They were some time about it. Whatever they took is piled up in a heap on the plank road.”

  Lorcan grunted.
Not treasure, then, they would not pile treasure in a heap on the road.
And suddenly the ship was moving, sliding out into the water, and oars sprouted from the sides of the other ship as if it had suddenly grown wings. Grimarr’s ship slowly gathered way and Fasti’s fell in astern and Lorcan realized the one was towing the other. One by one the others were pushed into the river and the oars run out the oar holes. Soon all the longships at Vík-ló were pulling for the mouth of the river.

 
What the devil…
he wondered. He stepped from the thicket and walked up the hill again, his eyes on the distant ships, the messenger and the watchman with him. As he climbed higher, more of the coastline and the sea beyond opened up to him. He watched the ships as they slowly moved toward the mouth of the river.

 
Damn them, damn their black hearts,
Lorcan thought. Nothing filled him with rage as much as the sight of the longships, and he knew why. The longships gave the Northmen command of the sea. They meant that the heathens could strike at will with a speed no Irishman could match, could strike into the heart of Ireland by way of the wide rivers and be gone before any Irish army could even reach the field of battle. They could carry Irish plunder and Irish slaves beyond the horizon to lands Lorcan could not even imagine.

  The longships, oak-built, sleek and powerful as sharks, were akin to some great magic. It was a magic that the Irish in their pathetic hide covered boats, sorry wicker frame constructions, or their few fat, lumbering awkward sea-going cargo ships could only hope to emulate. The longships could cross oceans and return again. The longships could disappear beyond the edge of sea and sky and then reappear where ever they chose. The longships were power incarnate, and as long as the Northmen had them and the Irish did not then the Irish would never match the strength of the
gall
.

  And the Irish would not have vessels like those of the Northmen anytime soon because building such a thing was a dark mystery, even more so than sailing one. It might as well have been magic conjured up by the heathen gods for all the understanding Irish boat builders had of how to construct such a craft. Lovely and curvaceous, quick through the seas, able to weather ungodly storms, sailed with their great tangle of ropes and cloth, the longships were as indecipherable as the Norse tongue and Lorcan hated the men and their ships because he envied them so.

  He watched in silence as Grimarr’s ship towed the other out beyond the mouth of the river, the others following behind.

 
Are they leaving, all of them, off on another raid?
Lorcan wondered. He had been waiting for a chance, a time when most of the warriors were gone from Vík-ló, to sack the longphort and burn it to the ground. Only two ships had gone to Fearna - too few to give his warriors much hope for success. But now it seemed they were all getting underway. Lorcan felt a building excitement in his gut.

  And then they stopped. Grimarr’s ship came side by side with the vessel it was towing, while the others drifted to a standstill and seemed to wait where they were.

  “What are they doing?” the lookout asked.

  They watched in silence a moment more before the messenger answered, “I do not know.”

  Lorcan said nothing, though he had an idea of what they were about, and if he was right they would know soon enough. Then, just as he had envisioned, a flame appeared, a bright spot in the muted daylight, flying through the air like a shooting star. A torch thrown into the bottom of the longship. A moment after that the entire ship was ablaze, while Grimarr’s vessel pulled a safe distance to windward.

  “They are burning their ship!” the lookout cried, as stupid an observation as Lorcan could imagine. “Why would they burn their ship, lord?”

  “It is a funeral,” Lorcan said. “These heathens burn their dead, or bury them with their weapons at their side. They think they need them in whatever world they go to. They probably killed some poor slave to send him along as well.” From the corner of his eye Lorcan saw the two men make the sign of the cross but he could not pull his eyes from the burning ship.

 
Damn them…
A longship was something beyond his power, yet the Northmen thought so little of it they were willing to burn one for their senseless pagan ritual.

 
How will we ever defeat these people
? Lorcan wondered, giving over in his mind to doubts he would never express out loud.

  And then, as if God was trying to reinforce the futility of resisting the heathen invader, the lookout pointed further out to sea and said, “Look there, Lord Lorcan! Another of the Northmen’s ships is coming!”

  Lorcan followed the pointed finger. Far off toward the horizon in the north east he could see it, the unmistakable image of a longship, its big square sail set and driving it before the wind. It was too far off to make out any details, indeed it was so far that no one would have recognized it for a longship if they were not intimately familiar with the sight of such a vessel, which Lorcan, to his great dismay, most certainly was. More of the heathen Northmen, bound for Cill Mhantáin. His country.

 
Damn them…
he thought again.

Though the east wind has toyed

with the shore-ski this week

I weigh that but little

the weather’s weaker now.

                              The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

At no time did the water stop gushing in through the rent in
Far Voyager
’s hull, and at no time did the men stop their frantic bailing. But the cloth that Starri had worked over the leak and the shields and other reinforcements Thorgrim had wedged over the damaged planks from the inside slowed the water so the seas gushed less rapidly, the men bailed less frantically. All through the miserable day and the more miserable night the men kept at it, by turns bailing and resting.

  Thorgrim and Agnarr relieved one another at the helm and kept
Far Voyager
hard on the wind on a larboard tack as they worked the ship through the seas. In the daylight hours, through the rain and drifting fog, they caught an occasional glimpse of the Irish shore, a low, dark line miles to leeward. And even when they could not see it, they felt its presence, like the spirit of death. The wind was setting them down on that deadly coast as they kept
Far Voyager
clawing her way off, and between their efforts and that of Ægir, god of the sea, their distance off shore did not change much as the storm swept them to the south.

  If there was one bit of good luck it was that Ornolf the Restless finally drank himself into insensibility and collapsed on the after deck in a great wet heap of wool, hair and fat. Harald dug out some furs that were wet but not as wet as most and he covered Ornolf where he lay.

  “Old age is finding your grandfather, I fear,” Thorgrim said. He was taking his turn at the tiller and Ornolf’s great body was sprawled out only a few feet forward of him.

  “Why do you say so?” Harald asked.

  “He lasted but one day,” Thorgrim said. “The Ornolf of old would not have been felled by just one day of drinking in the midst of such a storm. He would still be shouting at the gods and pouring mead down his throat. I hate to think what it says about me, that Ornolf should appear so feeble.”

  It was in the dark hours on the second night of the storm that Thorgrim could feel a lessening in the wind, could feel the motion of the ship change as the seas began to settle down. He said nothing, as he thought mentioning this would bring bad luck, but he could tell in the tone of the men’s voices and the increased talk that they sensed it as well.

  Dawn revealed the coast of Ireland, still there, closer than it had been, but not dangerously so. The seas were down enough and the wind moderated sufficiently that Thorgrim allowed someone beside Agnarr to relieve him at the helm while he and Agnarr stepped over to the starboard side and peered to the west.

  The skies were still dark and gray. Low clouds like torn veils flew past and blotted out parts of the land under their lee, but they could see enough to get some sense for where they were, or at least Agnarr thought he could.

  “Perhaps the gods are done toying with us, for now, anyway,” Agnarr said. “See there?” He pointed to a high, rocky promontory jutting out from the land, a dark shape against a dark shoreline, details invisible if the dull, leaden daylight.

  Thorgrim looked where Agnarr pointed. “Yes?”

  “I believe that is the cape just south of Vík-ló. See how it rises up and then to the north the shore flattens out, there?” Agnarr’s finger swept north along the shore. “Vík-ló is at the mouth of a river, and I believe that river runs through the low land just there.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He had no way of knowing if Agnarr was correct. “Very well. If you think that is Vík-ló, then we shall set a course for there. If you’re right, the gods have at last done us a favor by not setting us down wind of that point of land. We would sink before we could work our way back to windward.”

  As it was they were still in danger - serious danger - of sinking before they could get their ship to the Danish longphort. By keeping
Far Voyager
on a larboard tack they had been able to keep her damaged strakes mostly out of the water, but now they had to turn and run down wind and the pressure would again be on the weak part of the hull. But there was nothing for it. It was a race between the inflow of the water and the time it would take to run the ship up on the beach and there was no way to know which would happen first except by trying.

  On Thorgrim’s orders the sail was cast off, the yard hoisted and swung into place. Agnarr turned the ship on the crest of a wave, a nicely timed evolution that saw
Far Voyager
all but spin in place. Her flogging sail rippled and filled as the next wave lifted her, and then she was running before the wind and sea, her sail a lovely symmetric curve, her wake riding up and down on the seas astern.

  They closed quickly with the coast and with every foot of progress Agnarr became more convinced that they were indeed on a course for Vík-ló. Thorgrim, watching his men flinging buckets and helmets-full of water over the side, no longer cared if they were or not. It did not matter. They would have to beach
Far Voyager
at whatever place they fetched up, and if there was no place to beach her they would have to run her onto the rocks and take their chances in the surf. Once they made it to shore the ship would not swim long enough to take them out to sea again.

  “Father, look!” Harald shouted, pointing just off the starboard bow, and before Thorgrim could say “What?” Harald was up on the stern rail and halfway up the curved sternpost, his fingers finding a grip in the serpent’s scales carved in the hard oak.

  “There, father, smoke!” Harald was still pointing. Thorgrim looked in the direction he indicated and after a moment of squinting and turning his head he saw it as well, a column of black smoke rising from somewhere ahead. It was difficult to see against the dark band of the shore, and the wind pulled it apart as it rose up in the sky, but it was without a doubt smoke.

  “What do you make of it?” Agnarr asked. He, too, was squinting toward the land.

  “Not a hearth fire, or some such. Too much smoke by half.”

  Starri Deathless, who had been sitting hunched against the side of the ship obsessively sharpening his knife, stood and sheathed the weapon. “I’ll go up and look,” he said. He trotted forward, grabbed one of the shrouds supporting the mast and climbed, squirrel-like, up aloft, an action that seemed to require no more effort from him than did the walk forward.

  A moment later he was perched on the yard and looking west. “I can see flames!” he reported. “Whether they are on the land or something burning at sea I cannot say!”

  “Well, it would seem we’ve found some sort of town,” Agnarr said, cheerfully. “Now we have only to see if they will welcome us or cut our throats.”

  Thorgrim, a practical and cautious man, when caution was called for, prepared for both possibilities. He ordered the serpent’s head removed from the bow to indicate that they approached with peaceful intent, and to avoid frightening the spirits of the land. He instructed each of his men to keep their tongues still, to let him alone speak. He prayed that Ornolf the Restless might remain asleep, but he ordered mead to be held in readiness to pacify him if he did not. He told the men to keep their weapons out of sight but to be prepared to snatch them up in an instant if need be.

  With his sheep’s clothing thus arranged, Thorgrim Night Wolf steered
his ship toward the land. No one ashore would doubt that the Far Voyagers had been forced to beach the vessel, there was clearly no subterfuge there. With the strain put on the ship’s fabric by the mast and sail, the cracked strakes had opened further. The water began to pour in at twice the rate it had been, and once again the bailing took on a frantic aspect.

  Whatever had been burning had stopped burning by the time
Far Voyager
closed with the coast, and Agnarr was all but certain that they had found Vík-ló. “There, do you see where the water tumbles white?” he said, pointing forward beyond the larboard bow. “That’s the mouth of the river. The Leitrim, they call it.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He could see columns of smoke now, thinner trails rising up from beyond the low, gray-green shoreline, hearth fires from the buildings at Vík-ló. They continued on for another half hour and then Thorgrim ordered the sail stowed and the sweeps brought out. Absent the pressure of the mast and sail the leaking decreased, which was a relief to the weary men. But now they had to row, which was less of a relief, particularly with the seas still lumpy and coming from astern.

  They were just crossing the bar and closing with Vík-ló when Ornolf finally stirred. He moaned and shifted and turned under his heap of furs and Thorgrim thought,
Not now, Ornolf, by all the gods!
But Ornolf sat up and looked around, eyes half open, his beard and long gray and red hair in a tangle. Harald, who sat nearby, saw his grandfather rise from the deck and handed him a cup of mead. Without a word Ornolf took it and drank it down.

  Thorgrim hoped he would lay down again, but the old man showed a bit of his former self and struggled to his feet. “That Harald’s a good boy,” he said, “I have brought him along right.”

  “Yes, you have,” Thorgrim agreed.

  Ornolf squinted at the shoreline, which he had not been able to see from the deck. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Vík-ló, or so Agnarr believes,” Thorgrim said.

  “Vík-ló? Damned Danes in Vík-ló, they’ll cut our throats,” Ornolf said.

  “Better to die with weapons in our hands than drowning, which we would surely do otherwise,” Thorgrim said and Ornolf grunted in agreement.

  Fore and aft, on either side, the wet and exhausted men sat on their sea chests and took long, rhythmic pulls at the oars, and with each stroke
Far Voyager
’s beautifully tapered hull shot forward. The northern bank of the river seemed to drop away as they rounded the point, and there beyond it, huddled against the south shore, sat the longphort of Vík-ló.

  “Ha! It’s no Dubh-linn!” Ornolf pronounced, and he was right. The Danish town was a third the size of Dubh-linn, built on low ground and boasting perhaps thirty low, thatched buildings. In sunshine, on a summer day, it might well have looked inviting, but under the dull sky and the muted light, after days of heavy rain, it looked brown and drab and weary. But that did not concern Thorgrim Night Wolf, because splayed out at the foot of the longphort, deposited there by years of runoff carried down from the far hills by the River Leitrim, was a wide bank of mud, half awash, that would cradle
Far Voyager
like a babe in its mother’s arms. Four other ships were already resting there.

  “You men at the oars, double time now, double time!” Thorgrim shouted. “And stroke! And stroke!” The men leaned hard into the oars and
Far Voyager
knifed ahead, her speed building with each pull. The men knew what Thorgrim was about. They knew he wanted to run the ship as high up on the mud as he could and they knew this last effort would be the end of their misery for a while so they pulled with the will of finality.

 
Far Voyager
shot across the mouth of the Leitrim and closed quick with the south shore. Thorgrim looked over the side. He could see glimpses of the bottom as the river shoaled toward the bank. He could see mud below them and he wondered that the ship had not yet grounded, but she only drew a few feet, and with the momentum of the men pulling oars she skated closer and closer to the town.

  And then she slowed and stopped, so fast the men were knocked off balance, a few actually tumbling off their sea chests as the mud grabbed the bottom of the ship and checked her way. For a moment they were silent and everything around them was silent. All the noise to which they had become accustomed - the moaning wind, the beating rain, the slap and shudder of the seas striking the ship, the creak of the rigging, the rush of water down the sides - it was all gone. It seemed strange, unsettling.