Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6)

by James L. Nelson

  Brunhard’s ships were not like that. On either side, the decking ran bow to stern, with just the center open, and rowing benches were mounted by each of the oarports, a dozen per side. Such an arrangement made sense now, in Louis’s mind. Louis had never bothered to ask Brunhard what cargo he would be carrying across the sea. It never occurred to him to care one way or another. But again, it never occurred to him that Brunhard would be carrying slaves.

  Louis had come to like the Frisian over the course of the past few days. They had spent nights drinking in the hall, along with Brunhard’s crew and various other hangers on. Brunhard rarely stopped talking, which would be insufferable in most men, but he had a gift for telling a tale, and a sharp sense of humor, and he was a very entertaining fellow, which was why a crowd generally gathered around him. He spent freely, kept the food and ale coming, laughed easily and welcomed nearly all. He was well known in Dubh-linn, and well liked.

  “Now, most of these slavers who come to Dubh-linn,” Brunhard continued, “they’re willing to buy whatever sorry cripples those thieving Norse bastards sweep up from the countryside or the churches. But not me. I make deals, you know, the best deals. These men here, they were taken in battle. They’re men-at-arms, house guards, in the main. Sure, some are just farmers called up for service, but most are fighting men. Strong and well fed.”

  “Really?” Louis said. This was more interesting. “How do you happen to get them?”

  “These Irish, they are always going to war with one another. It’s not hard to find some Norse chieftain willing to join with one of these Irish lords to attack his neighbor. The fighting men turn out to defend their land, the other lord overwhelms them with the aid of the Northmen, and my ships are full of good, strong slaves.”

  “I see,” Louis said. It made perfect sense to him. He had been in Ireland long enough to know that what Brunhard was saying was the truth. The easiest thing to do in that country was to get one minor kingdom to go to war with another, and the Northmen, who had allegiance to none of them, were always happy to wade in.

  Still, Louis had not been so comfortable when he learned that slaves would be their cargo, and he was less so now. He had no quarrel with slavery; trading slaves was not so different from trading wine or ironwork or hides or any of the thousands of things that were traded all over the world. He had slaves at home; most people he knew had slaves. They were no less a part of his world than cows or dogs.

  But for all that, Louis could not quite ignore the fact that these were men, and worse, they were fighting men. His people. He had known many Irish warriors and fought beside them and even come to love a few of them. Fighting men deserved honor, even in defeat.

  “Excuse me now, my Frankish friend,” Brunhard said. “I must get these lazy bastards to work.” The last of the slaves had been seated on the rowing benches and Brunhard headed toward the bow, making his way down the centerline with his odd, waddling gate.

  Louis watched him go. He moved his eyes over the men at the rowing benches, a dozen per side. The slave trade was like the butcher’s trade, he figured. It was a part of life, and he was happy to enjoy its benefits, but he did not particularly wish to see how the whole thing happened.

  Brunhard stopped at the bow and turned to look at the slaves on the benches, who were dutifully looking at the deck at their feet. They were battered and sullen men, just what Louis might have expected. But they were not broken. There was still a spark of defiance in them, he could see that. He was happy that it was there. He did not like to see such men crushed, though of course any defiance would only mean trouble for Brunhard and his men, and that could mean trouble for him.

  Next to Brunhard stood the big Irishman, Áed, and him Louis did not like. Capturing fellow Irishmen on the battlefield and selling them into slavery was one thing, in his mind. That was part of the warriors’ world. But serving a Frisian master like Brunhard by brutalizing his own countrymen, that was closer to treason than Louis could countenance.

  And beyond that, there was just something repugnant about the man. He was the sort whose presence made your skin crawl. Even Brunhard did not like him. Louis could tell. But he imagined Brunhard kept him around because he was damned good at his vicious work.

  Louis heard Brunhard say something, low, and Áed shouted, “Okay, you bastards, look up!” On both sides of the ship heads lifted, looked forward. “This man is Brunhard,” the big Irishman continued. “He is your lord. He owns you, all of you, and will do with you as he wishes. And the first thing he wishes is that you miserable turds learn to row this fine ship so you may row it clear to your new home across the sea. So you will do as you are told, and if you do not, you will get the end of a rope, and if you do wrong again you will get much, much worse. Do you understand?”

  On either side, heads nodded. The sailors, grinning, lifted the oars from the deck and handed them to the bewildered slaves, then cast off the lines that held the ship to the wharf. Wind Dancer drifted clear of the pilings and Áed shouted out orders for the men to run their oars through the row ports. He paced fore and aft, swinging a rope end in his hand, screaming at the men on the benches, which did nothing to make their job more comprehensible.

  The other sailors stationed themselves around the ship, ropes in hand, eyes on the rowers. But they were Frisians, Louis knew. They could not speak the Irish language, and could only give directions by pantomime and brute force.

  Louis looked out over the side of the ship. Brunhard’s other vessels were also getting underway, oars run awkwardly through the row ports. Brunhard came ambling back along the deck, his eyes everywhere, his face still locked in that great, wide grin. He stepped up beside Louis.

  “So, Louis the Frank, you never did tell me how long you have been in this country. Do you speak the language of these Irish curs?”

  “No,” Louis lied. “Not much. I have a few words here and there, enough to get me to the mead hall in Dubh-linn.”

  “Why did you come to Ireland?” Brunhard asked. Brunhard liked being the center of things; he did not spend much time inquiring about the lives of others.

  “I came with some fellows of mine. Franks. We thought to make our fortunes, but we did not. And now I am the only one left alive.” Louis fabricated the story as he spoke, but he felt sure that Brunhard did not care enough about anyone other than Brunhard to doubt his words or even make further enquiry. And he was right.

  “Ha! Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Franks are too ignorant to make their fortunes in such a country as this. And not just Franks. Most men are, beside me. Now, watch this,” he said, nodding forward. “This is always a fine amusement.”

  The Irish slaves had the blades of their oars down and they were holding them motionless as the current swirled Wind Dancer and Brunhard’s other ships down the river and out toward the sea. Áed was up in the bow, the rope end in his grotesquely large hand held at his side, his mouth in a scowl. “When I say stroke, you bastards pull the oars!” Áed shouted.

  “What’s he telling them?” Louis asked.

  “He’s giving a lesson on how to row,” Brunhard said. “I don’t speak this barbarian language. I just leave it up to Áed. Cruel, filthy bastard he is, he knows how to do this job.”

  “Now stroke!” Áed shouted and the men at the benches leaned back and Wind Dancer gathered way. “Lift your oars!” Áed shouted next and all but one of the oar blades came dripping from the water.

  The one man, two benches back from the bow, larboard side, had apparently not understood and Áed was on him like a bolt of lightning. The rope end came down hard on his back and he gasped and his eyes went wide, but he had the look of a hard man and did not flinch. “Lift your oar, what do you think that means, you stupid whore’s whelp?” Áed shouted and this time the man understood and lifted his blade from the water.

  Áed continued to prowl aft, stopping a few feet in front of Brunhard and Louis, then turning so the rowers, facing aft, could see him. “Once again, you sorry turds,” he
shouted. “Stroke! Lift your oars!”

  It was smoother that time, more coordinated, the oars coming down, pulling, lifting nearly as one. “This is no great art,” Brunhard said to Louis. “Even these brutes can learn it quick, with a little practice and the right motivation. We’ll row clean out of the river and once clear of the land we’ll try backing and turning and such as that. If we get into some sort of trouble we may need these animals to know their business well.”

  “What kind of trouble might we get in?” Louis asked.

  Brunhard looked at him and smiled. “You Franks really are as stupid as I thought, aren’t you? This is the sea, Louis, the sea. There is trouble to be found all over. Rocks, winds, storms, fog. And that’s not even reckoning with the bastard Northmen who’ll steal the last crust of bread from an honest merchant such as myself. Even if all goes well you’ll be lucky to arrive in Frisia with your life. I can guarantee you not all of these bastards chained up forward will.”

  Áed continued to shout and the Irishmen chained to the benches quickly picked up the rhythm of the oars and Wind Dancer settled on a heading for the open sea. Brunhard’s crew moved along the centerline, keeping their eyes on the men at the oars, lashing them with their rope ends on occasion and for no reason that Louis could see. Just to keep them from growing too confident, he guessed.

  The shoreline seemed to slip past at an amazing speed, the ship driven by the pull of the oars and the ebbing tide that swept it along. On either side, Brunhard’s other two ships kept pace, the slaves on their benches also falling into the rhythm of the stroke. The mouth of the river moved past, and Louis could see nothing but the headland to the north, and to the east and the south, only the open sea. The wind was light and the seas rolled in a moderate swell. The afternoon was warm, the sky blue overhead.

  Once again, Louis felt his spirits buoyed. Here was an unbroken, watery way back to Frankia. He knew it was not that simple, that there were many hundreds of treacherous miles between him and his home, but he was now clear of Ireland, and nothing but sea between him and the revenge of which he dreamed.

  “Now we teach these whore’s sons about rowing,” Brunhard said to Louis, then took a step forward. “Áed!” he called. “Set these bastards to it!”

  Áed nodded and turned to face the rowers, who had now settled into a regular stroke. “Now we teach you whore’s whelps something about rowing a ship!” he shouted in Irish. “This is the starboard side,” he said, pointing to that side with his rope end. “This the larboard. Any man who forgets that will wish his mother had drowned him, do you hear me?”

  He continued in that vein, instructing the rowers how to hold their oars on one side and pull on the other to make the ship turn in her length. He instructed them in backing their oars to give the ship sternway. He showed them half a dozen other ways to work the oars to move the ship in various directions. He and the sailors doled out curses and beatings with the rope ends as the bewildered Irishmen on the benches slowly learned the tricks of moving the ship to Áed’s command.

  Louis looked out beyond Wind Dancer’s deck. One of the other two ships was half a cable length off to the north, the other off to the south, and they were doing the same thing: turning and backing and stopping under the power of their oars.

  “How long have you been at this trade?” Louis asked Brunhard.

  “Years!” Brunhard exclaimed. “Many years! Sure, I’ve made mistakes, lost several fortunes. Clever as I am, it took me some time to come up with this way of doing things.” He made a sweeping gesture to indicate the slaves arrayed before him. “But now I have it all worked out, and I know every damned inch of the coastlines from here to Frisia, know every trick of the winds and the tides. Now the money rolls in with every voyage and soon I will give it all up and buy a great hall filled with ale and whores!”

  Louis nodded. He had no doubt that Brunhard would do just that. It seemed to him he had never met a man who took a bigger bite out of life than Brunhard the Frisian.

  “Áed!” Brunhard shouted. “That’s well. Let us make way now!”

  Áed nodded, shouted out a few orders and then the slaves began to pull together, driving Wind Dancer in a straight line, and the man at the tiller eased it over so the ship settled on a southerly heading, the coast of Ireland stretched out along the starboard side.

  “We follow the coast south,” Brunhard said to Louis, “and when we come to the great headland, and if we have not all been murdered by the bastard Northmen who swarm around here like flies to shit, then we will sail east to Wessex and along that coastline and see if those bastards don’t cut our throats. Then we will cross the sea again to Frisia and then you may be on your way to Frankia where you may copulate with goats, as you Franks are so fond of doing.”

  “That’s sounds like a fine thing,” Louis said. “The goats in particular. So you’ve trained these poor bastards at the oars well enough?”

  “Not quite,” Brunhard said. “All I have left to do now is to kill one of them.”

  Louis paused before making reply. He was not sure he had heard Brunhard right, or if he had, whether or not the Frisian was making a joke. “Kill one of them?” Louis asked.

  “Yes, of course,” Brunhard said. “Look at them. I teach them to row, they learn, they think that they have done a good thing. They become confident, forget that they are my property, no more, of no greater importance than the whetstones I bring to sell. So, I kill one, and it reminds them that they are nothing at all.”

  Louis frowned and thought about that before he spoke. “You just pick one and kill him?” he said at last. “Sure, there must be a better way to keep them in line?”

  Brunhard turned and met Louis’s eyes. A hint of the smile was still on his lips but any trace of amusement was gone from his eyes, and his voice. “Don’t tell me my business or question what I do, you Frankish turd, or it’s over the side with you. You may not have the balls for this kind of work, but do not question those who do.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Louis said. He took care to put no deference into his voice, no tone that would suggest he was cowed by Brunhard’s words.

  He did not fear Brunhard, though it did occur to him that there was nothing keeping the man from tossing him overboard at any time. When he had first come aboard Wind Dancer, carrying all his worldly goods in a sack over his shoulder, Brunhard had taken careful note. The man’s eyes had lit up when Louis paid him silver for the voyage. Brunhard, he was sure, had guessed there was more of that to be had in Louis’s sack, and he was right. If Brunhard told Áed and a few of the brutish sailors to grab him up and toss him over the side, then the contents of the sack were his.

  Louis understood that he would not be sleeping soundly until he stepped ashore in Frisia.

  But he was not thinking about that at the moment. He was still mulling Brunhard’s casual resolve to kill one of these slaves. Louis was a warrior; he was not shy about killing. But he was also a Christian and a gentleman, and he despised senseless brutality. Now he was wondering if the Frisian would indeed do it, and if so how bad it would be.

  It was not long before he had his answer.

  Chapter Ten

  [T]o the heedful comes seldom harm,

  for none can find a more faithful friend

  than the wealth of mother wit.

  Hávamál

  Starri Deathless called out from his perch at Sea Hammer’s masthead. “They still have not seen us!” he shouted. “By the gods, they must be blind!”

  He had been up there on and off since dawn. All told he had spent more time that day clinging to the top of the mast than he had on deck. He came down to eat and drink on occasion, and to relieve himself over the side. That last business he had in fact tried to do from the masthead, and only the outraged shouts of his fellow warriors and an unequivocal order from Thorgrim had brought him grudgingly to deck.

  Thorgrim had no idea how the man could stay up there so long, alternately clinging to the shrouds or with
his legs wrapped around the mast or actually seated on the very top of the mast. In his best days, years before, Thorgrim could have tolerated that position for an hour at best. But Starri, like a bird of prey, liked to be up high, ready to swoop down.

  “What are they doing, Starri?” Thorgrim called out.

  “They are just rowing, rowing,” Starri called down. “Like they haven’t got a care in the world! And from what I can see, they have no great skill with the oars!”

  “Rowing?” Thorgrim called back. “Banks of oars on both sides?”

  “Well, Night Wolf,” Starri called down. “Even I can only see one side of a ship at a time, so I know only that there are oars on their starboard sides. But since they are not going in circles, I would guess there are oars on the larboard sides as well.”

  Thorgrim nodded to himself. Odd, he thought. Merchant ships rarely carried men enough to man banks of oars. Too much cost. Generally they had only a few oars for use in harbor, and relied only on the winds the gods provided for free when they were out at sea.

  Well, no matter, Thorgrim thought. They are here now, and soon they will be ours.

  They had been waiting a day and a half for this moment, since catching Kalf Hrutsson and then letting him go. Waiting for this Brunhard and his three fine ships laden with goods which Kalf swore to the gods would soon sail from Dubh-linn.

  Thorgrim decided that they would remain at sea through the dark hours of night. If they did not, if they sailed off to find a beach and hauled the ships ashore, there was a good chance they would miss their quarry.

  As the sun fell in the west the four ships had gathered and lashed themselves together and the captains met aboard Sea Hammer. Fostolf of Dragon had been the most vocal in his opposition to Thorgrim’s plans. In truth he had been the only one in opposition.

  “We’re too far south of Dubh-linn here, we might still miss him,” Fostolf argued. “We should get right in the mouth of the river, anchor there and wait.”