Glendalough Fair: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga) (Volume 4)

by James L. Nelson

  “Good,” Ottar said. “Once it is dark one of us should take his men and move around that way.” He pointed toward the north. “At first light we can fall on the Irish from two sides. They won’t expect us to divide our men that way.”

  Thorgrim looked off in the direction Ottar was pointing and he saw what the man had in mind. If they managed to get in place unseen then they could attack the Irish in the front and on their left flank at the same time. Ottar was right. The Irish would not expect that. It was not a bad plan.

  But it also seemed too clever by half for Ottar. Why was he suggesting it, Thorgrim wondered, and why the sudden interest in cooperating?

  “I can see your mind work, Night Pup,” Ottar said. “You wonder what trick I’m playing. The answer is none. I care only about killing these bastard Irish and taking their silver and having their women. I leave it to you to decide who will go north and who will remain here. You see? No tricks. I let you decide.”

  Thorgrim stood. Ottar still towered over him, but standing made things a bit more even. “Very well,” he said. “Me and my men will go north. We’ll stay out of sight. At first light you attack, and once the Irish make ready to fight you in their front we will attack their flank.”

  Ottar nodded. He looked around at the others. He said nothing. Then he turned and limped back to his own men.

  “He cannot be trusted,” Kjartan said, speaking the words like a simple statement of fact.

  “Probably not,” Thorgrim agreed. “But he and his men will start the fight, and once it is begun they’ll have no choice but win or die. If they do not start the fight at all then there will be no dishonor to us if we withdraw. Like Bersi said. The dishonor will be Ottar’s, not ours.”

  Thorgrim spoke those words with a certainty he did not necessarily feel. We go into battle outnumbered three to one, with men we cannot trust to fight and no place to go if we are beaten, he thought.

  Still, he was sure he had been in worse situations, even if he could not at that moment recall when.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  The first prey was taken by the heathens…

  and they carried off many prisoners,

  and killed many and led away very many captive.

  Annals of Ulster

  Like the others inside that fur-strewn wagon, Louis de Roumois was wondering what the hell was going on outside.

  They were moving fast, that was clear. The oxen seemed have galloped away with the wagon, running faster than he would have thought such ponderous beasts capable of running. The wagon was tipping and thumping and groaning with the strain. It seemed impossible that it had not yet turned on its side. What Louis did not know was whether any of this was happening for a reason, or if it was all beyond human control.

  He looked around at the men and women seated near him. Crimthann’s people were terrified, holding on tight to anything substantial they could grab. The heathens were not nearly so frightened, but they seemed not to know any more than Louis did about what was going on.

  The wagon took a sickening tilt to one side and Louis was certain the wheels had come off the ground and that they were going over. He put an arm around Failend and held her close, hoping to provide some cushion if they were flung across the interior. But, incredibly, the wagon came down on all four wheels again with a jarring crash that tossed two of Crimthann’s men to the floor. The wagon staggered on for a minute more, then came to a stop so fast that Louis and Failend were flung forward, tumbling into the one called Olaf.

  Louis could hear screaming and shouting outside the wagon and then the back door was flung open and Harald was there, yelling at his men in their native tongue. Louis could not understand the words, but the men leapt to their feet and snatched up weapons and tumbled for the door, and Louis guessed it was a call to arms.

  And that meant there was a battle taking place. Through the door Louis could see the other two wagons, both of which had managed to turn on their sides. Harald’s men were climbing out of those as well, while around the wagons Louis could see men-at-arms – Irish men-at-arms – standing in a dazed confusion or running or lying wounded or dead on the ground.

  “Come on!” he said to Failend. He stood and pulled her to her feet and pulled her to the door in the back of the wagon. He stopped and peered out. The Irish were running back toward Glendalough, and from the other direction a line of screaming Northmen were racing toward them. It was madness, chaos, and it was their only chance of escape.

  Louis hopped down to the ground and helped Failend down after him. “We have to run!” he shouted.

  “Where?” Failed asked.

  And that was the question. Where? Not toward the Northmen, clearly. But they could not go to the Irish either. Word would have gone out that they had murdered Aileran. They would probably both be hanged as soon as they were discovered. Certainly Colman would insist on it, before they could start talking.

  “Glendalough,” Failend said.

  “What?” Louis asked.

  “Glendalough!” Failend said. “We’ll go to Glendalough!”

  Louis shook his head. “Glendalough? Are you mad?”

  “No, see here. All the soldiers will be in the field. There will be no one there, at least no one who will know us. My husband has a hoard buried in the house. Let’s dig it up. We’ll need silver if we are ever to escape.”

  Louis looked over at the town, dull gray and brown and green in the mist. Glendalough. It was brilliant. Failend was right. Anyone who might cause trouble for them would be in the field, not in the city. The town would be in chaos, and it was easy to disappear into chaos. Perfect.

  “Let’s go!” Louis said. The Northmen were closing fast and the Irish were running for the high ground distant and the two of them were alone by the wagons, save for the wounded and the dead. “This way!”

  They ran in the direction that the Irish were running, just two more men-at-arms fleeing the Northmen. But as they did they angled their course off toward the town, leaving both sides behind. They hoped no one would notice them.

  Must keep ahead of the damned heathens…Louis thought and he picked up his pace. He took three long strides before he remembered that Failend’s legs, which he loved so dearly, were much shorter than his. She would not be able to run so fast. He turned and saw she had already fallen behind, and he slowed so she could catch up.

  “Louis!” she gasping as she stumbled toward him. She pointed off to the right and Louis turned to look. Most of the heathens had stopped once they reached the wagons but Harald’s men had gone chasing after the fleeing Irish. They were coming back now, and two of them had spotted him and Failend and they were coming toward them, swords drawn.

  “Behind me, get behind me!” Louis shouted and he hoped to God she would obey. He and Lochlánn had trained her with a sword, but just a bit, and he knew that a little knowledge could lead to a lot of trouble if one over-estimated one’s skills. But Failend did not argue. She drew her sword but stepped aside, putting Louis between herself and the heathens. Louis drew his sword as well.

  The two men were slowing to a walk, making their approach with some caution, splitting up so that they could come at Louis from two directions. Louis did not recognize them. They must have been in one of the other wagons. Judging by the way they moved and held their weapons they did not seem to think Louis and Failend would be much trouble, their cautious approach notwithstanding.

  We have no time for this, Louis thought. He would have to eliminate this threat, and do it quickly.

  Both men were still just beyond the reach of Louis’s sword when Louis turned hard on the one to his left, lunging straight and true. The man leapt back, and as he did, the one on Louis’s right moved in fast, leading with his sword. It was what Louis knew he would do.

  Louis spun back, caught the incoming blade with a wide, sweeping motion, knocked it aside, stepped in and kicked the man hard in the stomach. The man doubled over. Louis brought his knee up and connected with the man’s face.
Through his leggings Louis felt the man’s nose break as he was flung back. Louis whirled to meet the first Northman just as the man’s long sword came swinging around in a wide arc aimed at Louis’s head.

  Louis ducked and the blade made a whirring sound as it passed inches above him. Louis slashed at the man’s legs and he felt his sword bite. The Northman shouted and fell forward, blood welling from the rent in his leggings.

  “Come on!” Louis called and he and Failend began running again. The two heathens on the ground would stay on the ground for some time, but if any of the others had seen that fight they would come swarming like bees.

  Louis glanced behind to be sure Failend was keeping up with him, but he did not dare slow enough to see what the enemy – heathens or Irish – were doing. He crested a low hill and could see Glendalough spread out below, the velum and the outer wall, the big church, the low, crude buildings. He could see Colman’s house. He could see hundreds of people jamming the streets and swarming over the square. It was every inch the chaos he thought it would be.

  “Louis!” Failend gasped. Louis stopped and turned. Failend was doubled over, heaving for breath. He stepped over to her.

  “Are you hurt? Wounded?” he asked.

  She shook her head. She was breathing too hard to speak. Louis let her gulp air and looked back the way they had come. The heathens had gone no further than the overturned wagons. The Irish were several hundred yards away, and between them there was nothing but green grass and patches of mud and a smattering of dead and wounded.

  “The fighting is done. For today,” Louis said.

  Failend had straightened by then, though her mouth still hung open. “How do you know?” she asked, and those were all the words she seemed able to speak.

  “They’re done,” Louis said. “There’s no fight left in those men, on either side. I can see as much. They must have been fighting some time before that heathen driving the wagon crashed into them.”

  Failend nodded. “What will they do?” she asked. Her voice was returning.

  “The Irish, I think, will get their men in the best position they can and make ready to fight tomorrow. It’s what I would do, if I was still in command,” Louis said, surprised by the involuntary bitterness in his voice. “We’ll see if it’s what your hus…what Colman does.”

  “The heathens will stay and fight again?”

  “I don’t know,” Louis said. “If I had my guess, I would say they are discussing that right now. Or at least they will be soon.”

  For a few moments they stood watching the armies in the distance. No one seemed to be looking back at them, two lone figures hundreds of yards away on a battlefield strewn with men, living and dead.

  “Let us go,” Failend said. She nodded toward Glendalough at the bottom of the long slope on which they stood. They turned and headed downhill through wet, knee-high grass.

  Even from a distance they could see that the muddy streets were scenes of madness, much like Louis imagined Judgement Day would be. The heathens were coming and everyone in Glendalough, the hundreds who lived there and the hundreds more who had come for the Glendalough Fair, were frantic to get away. The grass yielded to trampled earth as they came closer to the town. Louis and Failend walked on, and finally the trampled earth became a street that ran between the close-packed wattle and thatch buildings to the town square.

  Carts creaked and groaned their way through the crowds, men with their families trailing behind led horses or donkeys laden with as much as they could bear. Peddlers and merchants hefted their wares on their backs like pack animals and stumbled along. All were moving as directly away from the distant armies as they could. They did not seem to care where they were going, only that they were leaving the town and the warring men behind.

  Louis and Failend pushed their way through the crowd, weaving and twisting past the squat ugly buildings they knew so well, low wattle and thatch constructions that served as homes and workshops: the potter, the woodworker, the blacksmith. The door to the latter building hung open and Louis looked in as he passed. The tools were gone, and the bellows and even a stool that he knew usually stood in the corner. Only the anvil remained, and Louis imagined the smith was loath to leave it behind, but had little choice.

  They pressed on. People were shouting, children were crying, beasts were whinnying and lowing and snorting. Two men were rolling in the mud and beating one another with their fists, but no one paid them any attention.

  “Madness,” Failend said. They came out of the far end of the street and into the square. Most of the stalls which had been so laboriously constructed over the past weeks were empty, the merchants who had taken them having packed their goods and fled. Some had collapsed, their frames and thatch trampled in the mud. Panicked livestock, sheep and goats and pigs, raced through the crowd, lending another level of chaos to the scene.

  Louis and Failend cut across the square, across the flow of traffic, which made the going harder, but finally they reached the fence that delineated the border between Colman’s home – Failend’s home – and the square. Here Failend stopped. She turned to Louis and put a hand on his chest.

  “Wait here,” she said.

  Louis shook his head. “Why?”

  “Someone must look out, in case the soldiers come,” she said. “Besides…” She faltered a bit, then continued. “This is my house. If I’m caught taking my husband’s silver they cannot call me a thief. Or it will be harder, anyway. But they could hang you.”

  Louis frowned. He did not like this, not at all. But what she said made sense. They had discussed Colman’s hoard as they walked toward the town. Possession of that wealth would mean freedom, escape. It meant purchasing horses and passage to Frankia, it meant lodging, and bribing anyone who needed bribing in order for them to make their way to safety. The silver and gold and jewels hidden in the big house meant life, and without it they would soon be hunted down like wolves and killed,.

  “Very well,” he said. “I’ll stay outside and keep watch. Don’t be long.”

  “I won’t,” Failend said. “I’ll try not to be. Colman sometimes moves his hoard. If it’s not buried where I think it is it might take me some time to find it. So don’t worry if I’m not right out. I’ll come for you or call out if I need your help.”

  She reached up and kissed him. Then she turned and walked through the gate and up to the big house, so grand by the standards of the Irish, the site of such heights of pleasure for Louis de Roumois, and such depths of despair.

  Failend slowed as she approached the door, that familiar door. It occurred to her that it might be barred from the inside, but she doubted it. Cautiously she lifted the wooden latch and felt no resistance. She lifted further, careful to make no noise, and when she felt the door was free she pushed it open just wide enough for her to squeeze through.

  She stood in the twilight interior and listened. She could still hear the sounds of panic in the streets, but muffled now by the thick wattle and daub-built walls of the house. She heard the scurrying of mice somewhere up above, in the thatch, perhaps. She heard nothing else.

  Because Colman was a wealthy man he had windows fitted in the house, two of them, with glass, high up. They let the dull light of the rainy, misty late afternoon fall around the big room, leaving the interior of the house washed in greys and blacks. Failend could see the raised floors against either wall with their piles of furs, and the hearth and the pot hanging over it, the table and chairs, yet another mark of wealth. It was all so familiar, her everyday life for the past four years. She knew she would not miss it at all. None of it.

  She moved across the room to where a tapestry hung down the wall, a lovely piece of work with colors that leapt out when the sunshine fell on it. She stepped behind the cloth and let it drape naturally over her slim frame so that in the dim light there would be almost no chance that anyone would see she was there.

  There was no need for her to search out Colman’s hoard. She knew exactly where it was burie
d. In the four years they had been married he had never moved it, only dug it up on occasion to add more silver. She could see that the rushes and the dirt that covered it were undisturbed, so it must still be there.

  She told Louis she had to look for it because she needed time. How much, she did not know. Maybe more time than she would get. It was a gamble, but it might well pay off, and that meant it was worth fifteen or twenty minutes at least.

  She stood motionless. The only sound that was not muffled and distant was that of her breathing. She had no way to judge the amount of time that passed. It seemed she had been there a long time. But she knew that, waiting as she was, she could expect the minutes to crawl by at a maddeningly slow pace.

  Louis will come looking for me if I am too long in waiting, she thought. More minutes slipped by, and then she heard a sound from deep in the house. Not mice this time, but a person, certainly, coming in through the kitchen door that opened onto the alley behind. Sneaking in, hoping to remain unseen.

  Welcome home, Failend thought.

  Still she did not move. She heard the footsteps, soft on the hard earth floor and rustling through the rushes scattered there. She heard them stop as the newcomer paused and looked around and then, apparently satisfied, continued on.

  Three or four more steps and then more rustling as a layer of rushes was brushed away, and then the faint scrape of metal on dirt. A knife, Failend guessed. She stepped silently from behind the tapestry. Twenty feet away, kneeling with his back to her, digging in the dirt, was Colman mac Breandan.

  His shoulders rose and fell as he worked, clearing the earth away from what Failend knew was a small silver chest packed full with a few jewels, a few bits of gold, and a considerable amount of silver. Broaches, arm rings, finger rings, hack silver, coins, Colman had amassed an impressive hoard. Nor was this his only hoard, but Failend doubted they would have the opportunity to relieve him of the others, hidden in other halls and sundry shops and mills that Colman owned in that part of Ireland.