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

by James L. Nelson

  Then he heard a voice, close by. “Master Brunhard! Master Brunhard!” There was more, but Louis could not hear it and did not care. The sounds around him were becoming more distinct. He could make out the usual clatter of a ship rolling in the waves, the sound of men moving about, this and that being shifted and dropped. There was a heaving grinding sound as well. Not continuous, but every once in a while.

  Louis wished with all his soul it would stop. He would have lifted his hands to his ears if he had had the strength.

  Then he felt the deck jar under him as someone apparently hopped aboard. He heard quick steps coming his way and then the loud, bemused voice of Brunhard above his head.

  “So, the Frankish prince is awake, is he? You may thank God, Merulf, you did not kill him. I would have been furious. All that fun, thrown away?”

  Louis felt two strong hands grab his tunic and then he was being lifted up off the deck, up onto his feet. He might have screamed with the agony of it, but he could not muster a scream so he groaned instead. He blinked his eyes open. The light was like another iron bar to the skull. He closed his eyes and felt Brunhard’s rough hand slap him on the side of the head.

  “Wake up, Louis the Frank!” Brunhard shouted. He slapped him again, shook him. Louis opened his eyes. It was the only way to make it stop.

  Brunhard’s ugly face was less than a foot from his. The Frisian was grinning through his massive beard, his strong hands wrapped in the cloth of Louis’s tunic.

  “Ah, Louis, there you are!” Brunhard said, loud enough for the words to be painful. “Please, stay awake! I have a question I must ask you.” He hit Louis again.

  Louis’s head lolled but he forced himself to stiffen his neck and look Brunhard in the eyes.

  “Here’s my question, Louis,” Brunhard said. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you?”

  Louis said nothing. Brunhard hit him again.

  “I said, ‘do you think I’m stupid’?” Brunhard said, even louder.

  “Yes,” Louis croaked, the words coming out weak and pathetic. “Yes, I think you’re a fool.”

  Brunhard grinned even wider. “You’re an honest man, I’ll give you that,” he said and hit Louis again. “But you’re wrong in this, my friend. Because I am not so great a fool as to think you would defeat the Northmen and then come bounding back to me like some loyal dog.”

  It would be pointless to try to argue, Louis could see that, so he said, “Of course I came back. I still have to drive a sword through your guts.”

  “Ha! Good for you!” Brunhard said, sounding genuinely pleased. He gave Louis a push and Louis fell back, too weak to stop himself, and came to rest still standing half upright, his rear end resting on the sheer strake.

  “But of course, you did not come back,” Brunhard continued. “You were making ready to kill poor Merulf and then run away. Good thing I gave Merulf warning that you would do that. He’s far too trusting a soul.”

  Louis’s eyes moved past Brunhard. He realized he was still aboard Galilee and the grinding was the heathen’s ship, still bound to Galilee’s side and working against the merchantman’s hull. The pain in Louis’s head was still excruciating, but his mind was starting to clear a bit. He wondered how long he had been lying passed out on the deck. Long enough for Brunhard’s other ships to turn and make their way back to Galilee’s side.

  Brunhard, Louis knew, was waiting for a reply, the next thrust in the dual of wits they had been fighting since they first met in Dubh-linn, but Louis was in no state of mind to keep that up. He looked forward. The Irish slaves were where they had been before, seated on the rowing benches, though now there were gaps in the rows of men, iron neck bands hanging empty where dead men had been removed and their bodies no doubt tossed overboard.

  Some of the Irishmen had ugly gashes and contusions. Most were blood-smeared, but if it was their own blood or that of the Northmen Louis could not always tell. They had heads down, looking despondently at the deck. They had come within a spear-trust of freedom, and it had been snatched away again.

  Louis looked beyond the side of the ship. He could see bodies floating nearby, naked bodies stripped of clothing, jewelry, weapons and armor. The dead heathens. And Irish as well. There was a long line of bodies drifting off toward the Irish shore, a few miles to the west.

  “Well, see here, Louis,” Brunhard started in again. “I don’t want you to think yourself a complete fool. Because, I’ll be honest…and I am an honest man, you know…your plan to defeat the heathens was brilliant! And such riches! Come with me!”

  He reached out a meaty hand and once again grabbed Louis by the tunic and jerked him upright. He half turned and crossed the deck to where the heathen ship was tied up alongside, pulling Louis behind him. They stopped at Galilee’s rail, right where the two ships were butting against each other.

  “Here, have a look for yourself,” Brunhard said and he pulled Louis closer and then shoved him hard. Louis’s legs hit the side of the ship and he tumbled forward, right off Galilee and onto the captured ship alongside. He had a vague notion of what would happen next and then he slammed hard down on the longship’s deck. The impact jarred him, went right through his body like a bolt of lightning and he gave a strangled cry of pain.

  He heard laughter in response. Not just Brunhard, but the others as well, the Frisian sailors who were enjoying the show. He felt Brunhard land on the deck beside him and once again lift him to his feet by his tunic.

  “Come on, you Frankish whore’s son, look here!” Brunhard shouted in Louis’s ear. He half pulled him aft where a handful of his men had been emptying the Northman’s hold.

  “Look! Look!” Brunhard shouted. “At first it was just casks of water and dried fish and that sort of shit, but below? Look what we’ve found!”

  Louis looked down at the deck. The light made his eyes water and his head pound like a war drum, but he could see what Brunhard was pointing at. Four small chests, opened and brimming with silver and some gold and jewels as well. Several leather bags, the drawstrings untied, the glittering wealth inside visible through their mouths. It was a fortune.

  “These heathen scum, they must have been plundering the monasteries here for years!” Brunhard exclaimed. “And all that wealth, years’ worth, all stowed aboard this one ship! Louis, you’ve made me a very wealthy man! With this fortune, and of course that casket of silver I took from your bag, I’ll be rich as Crassus! I could kiss you. I won’t, but I could.”

  Louis looked up into Brunhard’s eyes and resisted making reply. He knew the tears were streaming down his cheeks, and though it was from the light, and nothing more, he knew Brunhard would not let it go.

  “Ah! I see you are weeping with joy for me!” Brunhard said. “As well you might. But there’s more happy news! I was going to kill you, you know. But then I thought, what a waste that would be! So instead I am going to set you in chains with the rest of this Irish filth and I am going to make you row to Frisia and then I am going to sell you to the first man who promises to carry you away to the Moorish countries where you will be set to work in a salt mine or some such.”

  At that Louis could remain silent no longer. “You had better kill me now,” he said, his voice still weak and pathetic. “Because if you don’t, I will certainly kill you.”

  “You don’t sound so very frightening, Louis the Frank,” Brunhard said, the smile never leaving his face. “But there may be something that will save you from the Moors.” He leaned closer, in a conspiratorial way. “You see, I never believed that you were the wandering soldier you claimed to be. I can smell royalty,” he said, and tapped the side of his nose, “and I have an idea you might be from some very wealthy house of Frankia. And so I might hold you for ransom. That would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?”

  “There’s no one would pay a goat turd for me,” Louis said and he suspected he was telling the truth.

  “Well, you’re not worth a goat turd,” Brunhard said. “But we have yet to discover what some fool
might be willing to pay for you. But see here, we can’t spend all day floating around. There were more of those damned Northmen than just the two I have dealt with, and they may be coming yet. And to make matters worse, some of my rowers were killed by the heathens, and now I have another ship to row! So we’ll get you in your chains and seated on your rowing bench and you can earn your keep for once.”

  Brunhard looked over at Galilee, still grinding against the longship, and nodded his head. A couple of Merulf’s men reached over and grabbed Louis and before he could make a sound they dragged him back aboard the merchant ship. With a kick to the backside they directed him toward an empty rowing bench. He sat down, hard, his head on fire, his vision blurred, as he felt the cool iron ring clamped around his neck.

  His mouth was open, he was gasping for breath, when Brunhard came ambling up. “Very well, Louis the Frank,” he said. “You’ve seen enough rowing I think you know how this works. And do a good job, because I’m thinking Merulf and the others are just looking for a reason to beat you senseless.”

  He turned and took a step away, then turned back again. “Oh, yes, one other thing,” he said. “We’ll put ashore tonight, and then I think I will let my men have that slave girl of yours. Well, mine, now. Either way, I’ll see you get a good view of the festivities.”

  He turned and walked off at his frenetic pace, leaving Louis to watch his back and burn with loathing and fear and humiliation. He felt the iron bar turning in his skull.

  For the next few hours they rowed, and Louis’s entire being was concentrated on the oar in his hands, the back of the man in front of him, the steady lean forward, dip the oar, draw it back.

  It was not as easy as it had seemed, and just as Brunhard had suggested, Merulf and the others were looking for their chance at him. So when his stroke was off, when the blade of his oar skipped over the surface rather than dig into the water, when he came close to fouling the man in front of him or behind, he was struck. A rope or a fist or a foot, they used them all, but they did not miss a chance to deliver punishment.

  They pulled through much of the day, the wind having failed them, and only as evening came on did a breeze fill in, enough for them to set the square sail and give the exhausted rowers a rest. They stuck close together, all the ships of Brunhard’s fleet, including the captured longship, not much bigger than Wind Dancer, but much finer and faster.

  Conandil had been taken aboard Wind Dancer, but Louis gratefully took a ladle of water from the slave girl who was left aboard. She was battered, dirty, and she looked as if she was stunned, as if she, and not Louis, had been hit hard in the head. But she delivered the blessed water, quickly and silently.

  As the ship heeled slightly in the breeze, Louis leaned against the sheer strake, hunkering down so he would not be choked by the iron collar around his neck. He felt sleep washing over him. He wondered if Merulf or the others would beat him if he dozed off. He decided they probably would, but he was too far gone to care.

  Then he woke with a start, aware that something was happening, something sending a ripple through the ship. He opened his eyes and looked around. Merulf and the others were looking aft, peering around the tall sternpost. He heard their low talk, heard mention of Northmen. He leaned over as far as he was able, looked aft himself. He scanned the horizon. Nothing there that he could see.

  And then there was. So far off it was little more than a speck, lit up orange in the late day sun. A speck that held steady, seemed stationary. A ship’s sail. Another of that fleet of Northmen, in their wake.

  The sight moved Louis not in the least. It meant nothing to him, made no difference. Irish, Northmen, he was a slave now, property of whoever owned the ship to which he was chained.

  It did make a difference to the Frisians, however. They moved quickly to take in the sails, despite the fair wind, since the sails were what made them visible over so great a stretch of water. The oars were passed along to the rowers, and soon Louis found himself once again at the monotonous work of rowing.

  But not for long, this time. The light was failing as the day ended, and Wind Dancer turned her bow toward the shore and the other vessels followed her in, the Norseman lost in the gathering dark. Soon the little fleet was once again run up on the sand, food, water, ale off-loaded, a fire built where it was mostly shielded by the ships from view from the sea.

  Louis sat on the beach, still chained to the others, and greedily ate what little food he was given, drank the water that was brought in a ladle. The pounding in his head was mostly gone away, but every other part of him ached. And deep inside, at the core of him, beyond the physical, he felt despair, complete and all-consuming. He no longer cared what happened to him, or to anyone else.

  And so, when he heard Brunhard coming over to him, he did not even bother to look up.

  “Louis! You look tired!” Brunhard said. Louis did not respond.

  “I’m talking to you, you Frank bastard,” Brunhard said, and there was more menace in his voice now. He put the toe of his shoe under Louis’s chin and lifted his head, forcing Louis to look up at him. “I promised you some entertainment,” he continued, “and now you get it.”

  He saw a struggle to his left, off by the light of the fire, a muffled shout, and then he saw Áed and a couple others wrestling Conandil to her feet. Conandil fought like a wild animal, but she was a small one, and strong as she was her strength was nothing compared to that of the sailors. It was not a hard fight, or long. They half carried, half dragged her over toward where Louis and the other slaves sat in their chains.

  “I’m a kind man, Louis, you know that,” Brunhard said. “So I’ll give you a choice. Either I have her first, or Áed does. But you get to choose.”

  Louis looked up at the Frisian. He thought nothing, felt nothing.

  “Choose,” Brunhard growled. “Or by God I’ll see it’s worse for her than you can imagine.”

  Then another voice called out, from farther down the chain of slaves. A bold voice, strong and commanding. Irish.

  “No,” the voice said.

  Broccáin mac Bressal, Louis thought. Conandil’s husband.

  Áed was already moving, closing the distance to Broccáin, ready to punish the man for the outrage of uttering that single word, but before Áed could reach him, Broccáin said, “We can make a bargain, you and me.”

  “Hold!” Brunhard said, raising a hand to stop Áed before he reached the Irishman. He turned to Louis. “What did he say?”

  “He said he wants to make a bargain with you,” Louis said.

  Brunhard turned to Áed. “Is that what he said?” Áed nodded. Brunhard laughed, a loud and genuine laugh. He stepped away as if Louis was already forgotten, moved toward where Broccáin was seated. “And what possible means do you, a pathetic slave, my own property, have to bargain?” he asked and Áed translated the words.

  “The heathen ship we took today,” Broccáin said, “it was loaded with plunder. I saw it, we all did. A fortune. And now there’s another following us. And it, too, is probably filled with plunder. Why have one ship when you can have two? You and your men, keep your hands off the girl and we’ll take this second ship for you.”

  Brunhard listened to Áed’s translation, but he kept his eyes on Broccáin, as if evaluating the man along with the words. “If I want to take the heathen ship, I’ll take it. I don’t need to bargain with you,” he said. “Who do you think you are?”

  “I am Broccáin mac Bressal. I command these men. Or I used to,” Broccáin said. “If I tell them to fight, they will fight. If I tell them not to fight, then you will not have men enough to defeat the heathens.”

  For a long time Brunhard was silent, staring at Broccáin, evaluating the situation. Then he said, “Why do you care so much about this girl?”

  “She’s my wife,” Broccáin said, and Louis knew he was taking a terrific gamble in admitting that. He was handing Brunhard the one thing he could hang over the Irishman’s head. But Broccáin understood that as well,
and so he continued to speak.

  “You say I have nothing with which to bargain, and you’re right. But neither do you. You’ve taken everything from us. We’re slaves. If you take our lives you’ll do us a kindness. But the girl, Conandil, she’s something I’ll make a bargain for. Keep her safe, and we’ll deliver the second heathen ship.”

  Again Brunhard was quiet as he considered this. Louis could practically hear the thoughts churning in the Frisian’s mind. Could he believe Broccáin? Was Conandil really his wife, would he really do this to save her? What was the risk to Brunhard and his men? What were the rewards?

  And Louis was pretty certain he knew what the stout, greedy, big-mouthed shipmaster would decide, because the same considerations that led him to attack the first ship were now persuading him to attack the second. There was no risk to Wind Dancer or Brunhard’s own hide. He did not even have to risk Galilee. He could send the captured longship. If he lost that, and the slaves with it, it was no great thing, not with the heathens’ plunder he now had. And if they took the second Northmen’s ship, the potential reward was enormous. The first longship had taught them that.

  “Very well,” Brunhard said to Áed. “Tell this Irish bastard he has a deal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  [W]ork a ship for its gliding, a shield for its shelter,

  a sword for its striking, a maid for her kiss…

  Maxims for all Men

  Harald stood at Blood Hawk’s bow, looking forward, south over an empty sea. Behind him, the steady, monotonous creak of the oars in the oarports, the occasional soft murmur of the rowers speaking to one another. They had been rowing all day. And they would row all night. They just didn’t know it yet.

  There was nothing to see ahead of them. For a few hours that morning they had watched Dragon slowly opening up the distance as she sailed south, searching for Brunhard’s ships, getting ready to play her part as sheep dog, herding the merchantmen into Sea Hammer’s open jaws.