Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5)

by James L. Nelson

  She looked over the side, watching the shore slip past, the clear water roiling over the stones on the riverbed. She was not sure she had ever moved so fast. Perhaps galloping on horseback. But that was a wild, jarring and short-lived experience. Now, as she was swept along, there seemed to be no motion at all. And yet she was moving so quickly.

  Her eyes moved inboard and aft. There were only six men rowing, three on each side. The current, she guessed, was doing the bulk of the work, and the men at the oars were mostly just keeping the ship pointed in the right direction.

  They were Northmen rowing, of course. The Irish were strangers to ships and such, and so they had little work to do now that the vessel was underway. They sat on the various chests that Failend guessed would serve as rowing benches if the other oars were being used. They ate and drank and talked in low voices. Some slept.

  The Irish gathered in small groups and the Northmen gathered in their own small groups. They were separated by their languages and their very different cultures, but there was still a companionable quality to the whole scene. These men were not that different, Irish bandits and Norse raiders. Together they had just pulled off a bold move against Glendalough. They had relied on one another, had fought side by side. They had made one another considerably wealthier.

  Cónán stood on the afterdeck with Harald and the strange one, Starri, the one she had been expected to heal. He was doing better, much better. He was walking about and his color was good and he seemed to have regained most of his strength. The Irishwoman, Cara, had worked a near miracle, though if Starri and Harald and the others wished to believe that she, Failend, had had anything to do with that, she would not disabuse them of the notion. It did her no harm to be thought a valuable person to have around.

  Thorgrim was steering the ship. His eyes were everywhere, sweeping the banks, occasionally looking behind them, but mostly looking ahead, downstream.

  He must see me when he looks forward, she thought. She wondered if his eyes lingered on her at all, what he was thinking if they did. She wondered what he made of her. He was a hard one to know. Even if she could speak his language, she guessed he would be hard to know.

  Thorgrim was about the same age as her late husband, she thought, maybe a bit younger, and that was all the similarity they enjoyed. Colman had been running to fat and was of no great height, and what hair he had left was a mousy gray. Thorgrim, while not overly tall, was taller than Colman, and there was a hardness about him that Colman had lost long before. Thorgrim’s hair was dark and long and tied behind his head with a leather thong. His beard, like his hair, was also thick and dark, and both were shot through with gray.

  He did not seem like a cruel man or a wanton killer. Certainly Failend’s worst fears about what would happen to her in the Northman’s hands had not come to pass. Nothing like. Still, there was something dangerous about Thorgrim. In some ways he seemed exactly her image of what a Northman would be. In others he seemed nothing like it at all.

  Kveldulf, she thought, toying in her mind with the strange Norse word. Night Wolf. That’s what they call him. What a strange name to call someone.

  “You helped them.”

  Louis de Roumois spoke for the first time since they had put out into the river, and Failend jumped in surprise. She felt a flush of embarrassment, as if he had caught her in the act of thinking about Thorgrim Night Wolf.

  “What?” She let her eyes linger on Thorgrim for a second more before turning to Louis.

  “You helped them,” Louis said. He was speaking softly but putting as much emphasis as he could into the words. “At Glendalough, you helped them. You helped to plunder the church. You showed them where the garden was. Why would you do that?”

  Failend’s embarrassment shifted into anger. “You helped them as well. You showed them the door on the side of the church.”

  “I had no choice and you know it, with Thorgrim holding our hoard of silver. Without that we have no means of escaping Ireland.”

  Failend’s eyebrows came together and her lips turned down as if they were moving of their own accord. She was not sure how the silver had become their silver, as opposed to her silver, or when it was established that they meant to escape Ireland.

  “Besides,” Louis continued, “I was only pretending to help them. I knew the boy, Trian, would be sleeping in the sacristy. I sent him to warn Lochlánn of the raid. That’s why the men-at-arms arrived when they did.”

  Failend’s eyebrows bunched closer still. You betrayed us? she thought, and she was about to say as much when she recalled that she was not supposed to be on the side of the Northmen and the bandits.

  On the other hand, what Louis had done did not seem right to her. It was all very complicated. Then she thought of another line of attack.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Failend hissed. “The whole idea of us going on that raid, the whole reason we were to help the heathens, was so they could plunder the church without having any of our people killed! We wanted to avoid a fight, don’t you recall? You might have gotten Lochlánn killed, doing what you did.”

  “Or I might have helped him kill all the heathens,” Louis hissed back. “That’s what we were supposed to be doing all along. Killing heathens. Don’t you recall?”

  They sat in silence for a long moment.

  This is easy for him, Failend thought. He’s certain he’s right, as usual. Never mind that Lochlánn and the rest want to hang him for murder. And me, too. He never doubts he’s doing the right thing.

  But she did, which was so surprising to her. She should have been as morally certain as Louis de Roumois that the only correct thing to do was to fight the heathens at every turn.

  Yet she was not so sure.

  Kveldulf, she thought. An odd language. She was picking up bits and pieces of it, the odd word here or there.

  “You helped train them,” Failend said, breaking the silence. “Before we went to Glendalough, you helped train the bandits.”

  “That was before I knew we would be plundering our own people,” Louis said.

  “They’re not your people,” Failend said. “Your people are in Frankia. Your brother is in Frankia, and he wants to murder you. The people at Glendalough are Irish, and they want to hang you. Do you see the difference?”

  Louis looked into Failend’s eyes and was quiet for a long moment. Failend returned the stare.

  “See here,” Louis said at last, his tone more reconciling. He put a hand on her arm and she noticed how delicate his fingers appeared. Not like Thorgrim’s. She had noticed that Thorgrim’s fingers looked strong, but battered, like something well built that had seen a lot of hard use.

  “Yes?” Failend said.

  “Thorgrim was true to his word. About the silver. He gave it back to us. Now, if he lets us go, we can do as we planned. As we talked about. Find a ship to Frankia. Where I do have some friends.”

  “‘If he lets us go?’” Failend said. “Are we his prisoners?”

  “Well, I…” Louis began and then stopped as Failend’s meaning sunk in.

  After the long march back from Glendalough they had climbed aboard the ship with the others as the vessel was shoved into the river and swept away downstream. They had not even asked, before doing so, for the return of their silver or if they might go free. Thorgrim, however, had never given any indication that he still considered them prisoners.

  “I guess I don’t know if we’re free to go or not,” Louis admitted. “We’ll have to stop for the night. When we do, we’ll speak with Thorgrim. If he gives us leave to go we’ll continue on. To the coast. Like we were doing.”

  “We’re going to the coast now,” Failend pointed out.

  “What?”

  “We’re going to the coast now. Aboard this ship. We’re heading downstream toward the coast. And going safer and faster than we would be if we were on foot.”

  “You’re right,” Louis said. “So, we stay aboard the ship? Let the heathens take us to the coast, an
d then we bid them adieu?”

  “Yes,” Failend said. “Then we leave them.”

  And go to Frankia. Because that was what they had planned. What they had decided upon. What she wanted. As far as she could tell.

  Chapter Sixteen

  O god of the sword-spell,

  You’re unwise to withhold your wealth

  From me; you’ve deceived

  The sword-point’s reddener.

  The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

  Sixty feet aft, Thorgrim Night Wolf gave a small push on the tiller and watched as Sea Hammer’s bow moved slightly toward the south bank of the river. The men at the oars were pulling with a slow and steady rhythm, just enough to move the ship a bit faster than the current, so the rudder would have some bite in the water and he could keep the ship from spinning like a leaf.

  Starri Deathless was talking.

  His health was much improved. Both he and Harald claimed it was the magic of the Irishwoman in the mail shirt, Failend, though as far as Thorgrim could see, the other one, Cara, had done most of the healing. Not that it mattered much. Starri was on the mend, and that was the important thing.

  “The gods were not happy, Night Wolf,” Starri was saying. “I don’t know what you did to offend them so. Who knows why the gods do what they do? Maybe they were not pleased that you joined with the Irishman, Kevin. He really used you, you know. Played you for a fool.”

  “Yes,” Thorgrim agreed. Starri had spent the last few weeks lying on his back, unable to do much more than shift his head and moan. Thorgrim was starting to miss those days.

  “Can I ask who this Kevin is? This Irishman?” Cónán asked, the first thing he had said in some time. Cónán was not one to talk a lot, a trait Thorgrim appreciated. The Irishman’s surprising grasp of the Norse language, he had explained to Thorgrim, was the result of time spent in the company of fin gall raiders a few years back. That explanation had come like a confession. It seemed Cónán expected him to be angry at the deception, but he was not. He would have done the same thing.

  “Kevin’s an Irish lord of some sort,” Thorgrim explained. “We traded with him when we had Vík-ló. Kevin… what was his name, Harald?”

  “Kevin mac Lugaed,” Harald supplied. He was the only one among the Northmen who could pronounce Kevin’s name, and so the only one who could remember it.

  “Ah!” Cónán said, smiling with recognition. “Kevin mac Lugaed. Sure, he’s a crafty one.”

  “You know him?” Thorgrim asked.

  “Know of him. After Lorcan was killed fighting you lot, Kevin managed to make himself rí túaithe of Cill Mhantáin. By that I mean he’s a king of the lands to the north of here. Like what you heathens would call a jarl. Makes his home at a ringfort at Ráth Naoi. Which Lorcan was also kind enough to leave for him.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He knew some of that history, though in more general terms. “Well, Kevin came to us when we were at Vík-ló and wanted to trade,” he explained. “He dealt fairly with us, I won’t lie about that. Then he suggested we join together on this raid on Glendalough. And then he betrayed us. And now he’ll die for it.”

  Cónán smiled. “You have it all worked out, then?”

  “I know how this will end. I haven’t figured out how we’ll get there, yet.”

  The day wore on, and the Avonmore continued to sweep them along toward Meeting of the Waters. The men at the oars were switched out, the women made the midday meal and served it on wooden plates, with cups and horns of ale, and the countryside moved steadily past Sea Hammer’s long, low sides.

  As the sun began to drop, Thorgrim kept an eye out for a decent spot to beach the ship for the night. When at last a wide, sandy length of shoreline came into view he pushed the tiller over and ran the bow up onto the soft ground. As usual, Harald was first overboard with a rope to make the ship fast.

  It was some hours after that, the sun down, a fire burning on the narrow beach and the men well into the mead and ale, that Thorgrim found Cónán seated with his men.

  Thorgrim sat down beside him. “How do you know of this Kevin whatever-he’s-called?” he asked. “The one who betrayed us?”

  “Oh, I make it my business to know what’s going on in the country hereabouts,” Cónán said. “It’s how I stay alive. Keep my men and women alive. Make us rich.”

  Thorgrim smiled. “You don’t seem very rich,” he said.

  “I’m richer now,” Cónán said. “And you wait. I’ll be richer still.”

  They were quiet for a few minutes, drinking and looking into the dancing flames. “‘Richer still,’” Thorgrim said at last. “I might be able to help you with that.”

  “Really?” Cónán said. “You don’t seem very rich, either.”

  “Oh, but I am,” Thorgrim said. “I have wealth at Vík-ló like you’ve never seen. It was taken from me, but I mean to take it back. Kevin has silver, too. Gold. I mean to take that as well.”

  “You’re more interested in revenge than silver, I can see that.”

  Thorgrim grunted. “I’m interested in both.”

  “Revenge can be expensive,” Cónán said.

  “If it costs me my life, that will not be too high a price,” Thorgrim said. “I don’t know much about your Christ God, but my gods would not be pleased if I were to let such betrayal go unanswered. Even if the gods didn’t care, I couldn’t endure it. I wouldn’t be much of a man if I could. So, yes, I will have my revenge and I’ll pay whatever price I must.”

  He pulled his gaze from the fire and looked at Cónán and added, “But there’ll also be plunder. Quite a bit.”

  Cónán considered that. “So you want us to stay with you? Help you plunder Ráth Naoi?”

  “If that’s where Kevin is found, then yes.”

  Cónán nodded. “I hadn’t considered that,” he said, which Thorgrim was quite sure was not true. Cónán struck him as the sort who was always considering every possibility that came his way. “Let me see what the others think.”

  The next morning Thorgrim ordered all the plunder from the church at Glendalough piled onto Sea Hammer’s deck and he divided it up among the men, Northmen and Irish. It was what he had agreed to do, and it also served as an enticement to Cónán and the other bandits, a suggestion of what might be waiting for them at Kevin’s stronghold.

  The takings were weighed out into even piles. Those things that were too big to be part of any one man’s share, such as candlesticks and plates, were hacked apart so that the smaller bits could be distributed. The mood was buoyant, smiles all around, save for two of Cónán’s men who, by way of punishment for some crime, were getting nothing, and Louis the Frank, who seemed disgusted by the whole affair.

  Thorgrim offered a share to him and to the woman, Failend, because it was only right that he did. They both declined. Failend, at least, was polite about it.

  “What I wish to know,” Louis said, “is what’s to become of Failend and me? Are we your prisoners still?”

  “Prisoners?” Thorgrim said, with Harald translating. “No. You kept your word, you helped us. I’ve given you back your hoard. You may go whenever you wish.”

  “And if we wish to stay with you until you reach the sea? To take passage with you?”

  Thorgrim shrugged. “You’re welcome to stay. If there’s fighting, your sword will be welcome as well.” Louis had not done much fighting at Glendalough, Thorgrim had noticed, but then they had agreed he did not have to. Failend, however, seemed unable to stay out of the fray. They might both be helpful yet.

  The camp on shore was broken down, Sea Hammer loaded and shoved back out into the river, the men settled at the half-dozen oars needed to keep the ship in the middle of the stream. The air was warm and it was still dry, but the sky had clouded over and Thorgrim could smell the rain coming. That was no matter. If anything, he was happy for it. Things had been going their way, everything working out as well as it could, and it made him nervous. If rain was the worst the gods would throw at him, the
n he would be grateful for it.

  They passed familiar landmarks as they pulled downstream. Thorgrim and his men had passed that way only once, on their way upriver to Glendalough, but still Thorgrim recognized many of the points along the way: a beach where they had spent the night, another where they had buried two wounded men who had died. Thorgrim had a good memory for landmarks, and even if he had not, those places were etched in his mind like runes on a stone at a crossroads.

  They came around a bend in the river. A straight run for a quarter mile lay in front of them, and at the end a ripple of water that marked where the bottom shallowed out. Harald stepped up beside him and for some time they stood in silence and looked at the riverbanks and the roiling water beyond the bow.

  “This was where they ambushed us, isn’t it?” Harald said. He spoke softly, for no real reason, but Thorgrim understood why. There were spirits here. This was a place where many men had died. They were not to be disturbed.

  “Yes, it is,” Thorgrim said, also speaking low. “Those woods, there, that’s where they were hiding.” It had not happened so long ago, and Thorgrim could see it all clearly. Ottar had been in the process of hauling his deep ships up over the shallows. The Irish had been waiting in the woods, hidden, bows strung, arrows ready.

  It occurred to Thorgrim that Louis the Frank might have been with them. Was the ambush his doing? Thorgrim wondered.

  And then another thought came to him. “Harald, get our men under arms. Shields, swords. Spears. Have them get their mail on.”

  Harald looked at him. “Do you think…again?”

  “I don’t know,” Thorgrim said. “Just a feeling. But I’ve been expecting an attack all along. Better we should be ready.”

  Harald nodded and hurried forward, spreading the word in a low voice. The Irish were confused by this order, surprised. It took them a minute to understand what they were being told to do, and why. But the Northmen understood and they leapt to prepare. They had all been there the last time, and like Thorgrim, they remembered.