Dubh-linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2)

by James L. Nelson

  For a minute she just stood and let her eyes adjust. It had been dark enough outside, but it was darker still inside the monastery building. Soon the blackness began to resolve itself into forms – a hallway, a series of doors, a wooden chest against a wall. Before her father’s death she had served as head of all households at Tara. As such, she had on occasion inspected the work of the servants and slaves who had been sent to clean the brothers’ quarters, so she knew which door she needed. She hoped the arrangement of the rooms had not changed since she had last been there.

  Brigit took a careful step, then another. She began to move down the hall, running her hand along the wall, counting the doors as she passed. She felt no panic, no fear, just a determination to do what she needed to do, and that surprised her. So much in the past few months had surprised her, but nothing so much as these new insights into herself.

  Three, four, five… She could hear thick snoring sounds from behind the doors, the well-fed monks and priests of Tara taking their rest. Six, seven, eight… Her shin slammed into some dark object she had not seen. She stumbled, and whatever she had hit made a scraping noise on the floor. A curse ran through her mind and she paused and listened, but the noise seemed not to have alerted anyone.

  She moved on. Another door, and then she was there. She paused for a moment. She was too calm. She stirred up images in her head of Conlaed slapping her across the face, of his hands crushing her throat, and she felt the anger and the fear rising again. She thought of her father lying in wake and tears welled up in her eyes. She grabbed the wooden latch on the door, lifted it, and slipped inside.

  The cell was darker even than the hall. Brigit could sense his presence, but she could see nothing. She took a tentative step deeper into the room, hands in front of her. And then from out of the dark came the soft voice of Father Finnian.

  “Brigit? Brigit, dear, is that you?”

  “Father Finnian! Oh, Father Finnian!” She said the words softly, with a tone of desperation and a stifled sob. Despite the darkness she could see him now, a darker shape just a few feet from her. He was not in his bed, as she had expected. She hoped he was dressed.

  “By our Blessed Mother, girl, whatever has happened?” he asked, but rather than answer Brigit flung herself at the priest, arms open. She felt her face press against the course wool of his robe, felt his strong arms wrap around her. He held her, and did not ask for further explanation.

  She pressed herself against him and sobbed all but noiselessly into his robe, as the emotions she had manufactured a moment before were overwhelmed by the genuine thing. All the terror and the loss and the agony of the past hour, the past week, the months since the Crown of the Three Kingdoms and the fin gall had both come to Tara and ripped her life apart like a knife through thin cloth, it all flowed from her eyes now and soaked into the dark brown cloth of Finnian’s robe.

  Brigit had a sense for time passing, but no notion of how much had passed. As she cried herself out she recalled that time was short, that this catharsis was a luxury she could not afford. She pushed herself away from Finnian, not enough to break his hold on her, just enough for her to look up into his face, which she could now discern, inches away.

  “My husband…” she began, choked up, swallowed, and began again. “My husband…tried to kill me….”

  “Oh, you poor dear thing,” Finnian said. He sounded concerned, but not surprised. “Are you hurt, at all?”

  “Yes…I’m…. I’m hurt, some. Not so bad. Conlaed…I killed him. He was choking me, I pulled his dagger from his belt…”

  She felt Finnian’s right hand lift off her back and she knew he was making the sign of the cross on himself. “You’re sure, girl? You’re sure he’s dead?”

  “Yes.” She pushed further away from him, so that she was looking into his eyes, and his arms were no longer wrapped around her. When she spoke, her voice sounded more determined than afraid. “I have to leave Tara. I have to go now.”

  She could see Finnian shaking his head. “Why do you have to do that? Sure if Conlaed was trying to kill you, there’ll be no harm come to you for what you’ve done.”

  “They’ll see me burn at the stake for this. Morrigan, Flann. You know they are only looking for a reason to be rid of me.”

  Finnian was quiet. He said nothing in response. Because, Brigit was sure, he knew she was right. She waited for the obvious questions. Do you mean for me to go with you? You expect me to help in this? But those questions did not come because Finnian apparently knew the answers already. Instead he asked, “But how will we ever get unseen out of Tara? There are guards at every gate, every way in or out.”

  Then, from out in the night, came a muffled cry, an unintelligible shout. They paused and were quiet and heard another shout, clearer this time.

  “Fire! Fire!”

  They stood silent in Finnian’s cell and listened. It was as if the night outside had exploded. Shouting from every quarter, feet running, and soon the sound of the church bells ringing an uncoordinated and frantic toll.

  “We’ll leave now,” Brigit said, speaking louder than she had yet done. “We’ll leave this instant. No one will see us go.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  [Ireland] flows with milk and honey,

  There is no shortage of wine, fish and birds

  And it is remarkable for its deer and goats…

  Breda, 8th Century

  Dubh-linn…the gods play with me… Thorgrim Night Wolf stood at the bow of the Black Raven and indulged in rare and uncharacteristic self-pity. He knew it was like some exotic and expensive treat, delicious in small amounts, but something a man could soon become over fond of. And when that happened, it would be the end of him.

  But at that moment, with the light mist falling, with all they had endured for the past weeks and the little they had to show for it, with the accursed Dubh-linn opening up before them as the Ravens swept the ship up the River Liffey, Thorgrim decided the time was right for a taste.

  All this to get back to Vik, and again I am returning to Dubh-linn…

  Not that it was at all a surprise. He had known from the outset that they would be returning to the longphort. It was what Arinbjorn had promised on Thorgrim’s agreeing to sail with him. They would join Hoskuld Iron-skull’s raid, return to Dubh-linn to sell what plunder they wished to sell there, then sail for Norway. But in the mood that Thorgrim found himself, reason played no part.

  The longphort of Dubh-linn laid spread out on the banks of the river and climbing up the low hills that ran up from the water. There were dozens of houses and outbuildings. Squat, square little structures, some plank built in the Norse style, some wattle and daub, built shoulder to shoulder, each with its neat peak of thatch, each plot of land framed by wattle fences that sliced up the brown, trampled earth into somewhat regular spaces. A thin column of smoke rose from each of the houses, rose in the still air and mixed into a wispy cloud that hung over the town and reached Thorgrim’s nose even from that distance. The sky was gray, the river was gray, and it gave the entire town a gray aspect, as if color was as scarce as sunshine in that country.

  A dozen ships were pulled up on the muddy banks or tied to the few wharves built out from the shore, the sleek longships that carried the raiders and the beamy knarrs that carried the tons of cargo that flowed in ever greater amounts to and from the Irish port. It put Thorgrim in mind of the great Danish trading center of Hedeby, and the way it was growing he imagined it would soon rival Hedeby in importance. Beyond the houses and workshops, holding it all in like a belt drawn too tight, a broad earthen wall topped by a post and wattle fence separated the Norse town from the country beyond. Ireland, furious at this invasion, but in its chaotic state helpless to stop it.

  Across the water Thorgrim could hear the occasional ring of a hammer, the thud of something heavy dropping into place, the shouts of men engaged in some unseen work. The people of Dubh-linn were not just men gone a-viking. They were blacksmiths and carpenters and shipbu
ilders and jewelers and merchants, and it seemed to Thorgrim that their numbers had increased just in the short time he had been gone. They had their homes, they had their wives, Norse or Irish. They were there to stay.

  Not me…not me…

  The raid on Cloyne had not been a great success, but neither had it been an absolute failure. Once Hoskuld Iron-skull had led the rest through the gates that Thorgrim and his band had opened, all resistance disappeared like smoke in the wind. The town’s defenders, the swifter ones, fled to the tower, scrambled up the ladder and pulled it up behind them, leaving the rest to throw their arms aside and beg for quarter, which was generally granted, since they were young men, fit enough to take up arms, and not too swift of foot, and therefore having great potential for the slave market.

  With the bulk of the population sequestered in the tower, the Vikings had taken their time in plundering the town. They found food stores, livestock, a few trinkets, more unlucky Irish who would be heading for the slave markets. They did not find much else. Even in the monastery, even in the church, they found only a few bits of silver, a chalice, a few small plates, nothing of great quantity or quality.

  “I agree with you, Thorgrim,” Hoskuld had said as they watched their men pull the interior of the church apart. “These people, they knew for some time we were coming. They have hidden everything of value.” Hoskuld had already tried extracting information from some of the prisoners, and he could be very persuasive, but in the end he concluded that they were genuinely ignorant. Thorgrim agreed. Peasants, in his experience, would only endure so much to protect the wealth of their lords and masters, and that threshold was pretty low.

  Thorgrim pulled his eyes from the depressing sight of Dubh-linn, with which they were rapidly closing, and looked over the other ships of the raiding voyage, Thunder God, Serpent and the rest, each pulling with a steady rhythm up the river. They had their yards swung fore and aft and lowered, and the menacing carved heads that had adorned their stems were removed so as not to frighten any spirits of the land that might be inclined to be helpful. If such there were, Thorgrim guessed they had been brought from the Norsemen’s homelands. There was nothing native to Ireland that would welcome the Vikings.

  He continued to turn, scanning the ships, fully aware that this was only an excuse to glance aft at Harald and see how the boy was doing. He was at his place, fourth oar from the stern, larboard side. From behind he looked much like the others, a bit shorter, perhaps. Only the shock of long yellow hair, bound loosely by a piece of string, gave his identity away.

  “He’s fine, you know.” Starri Deathless made this observation without looking up. He was seated on the planks which made up the foredeck on which Thorgrim stood. He was sharpening a two edged dagger to an absurd level of perfection. He worked at the blade with a whetstone, then tried the edge on the hair of his left arm. Thorgrim could see a series of bare patches where previous tests had shaved him clean, but Starri just frowned and applied the whetstone again.

  “The men reckon Harald has your luck,” Starri continued. “They like him. Thorgrim Night Wolf’s luck without any of his miserable attitude.”

  “‘Miserable attitude,’ is it? That’s something, coming from the likes of you.”

  Starri made no reply to that, just smiled and continued to fiddle with his knife. If Harald’s reputation was much raised among Arinbjorn’s men, it was thanks both to his bold deeds and Starri’s relentless recounting of them. Proud as he was of his son, Thorgrim did not think it was his place to brag about him. Bragging about the exploits of one’s children, he figured, was nearly as bad as bragging about one’s own exploits, and he recoiled from the thought of doing that. But Starri felt no such hesitation.

  After the fight, Thorgrim had found the berserker by the gate, slumped against the hay wagon. He thought the man had finally won his voyage to Valhalla, but no, Starri was still alive and unharmed. He had collapsed to the ground in despair, and as soon as Thorgrim asked him if he was unhurt he wailed that he was fine and began weeping bitterly at the injustice of it all.

  Once the anguish of surviving the fight had passed, Starri was quick to sing Harald’s praises, relating to anyone who would listen the incident with the hay wagon and the fire at the gate. Thorgrim discovered that Starri could tell a story well, and even behave in something approaching a civilized manner when he was not in a bloodletting rage. The berserker went so far as to compose some verses, which he recited in the evenings, and though he was no skald, they were not bad, and were much enjoyed. Harald blushed and stammered throughout, and genuinely did not know how to respond to praise, which in Thorgrim’s mind was a mark of true humility, the right kind of humility, a warrior’s humility, and it made him prouder still.

  Thorgrim’s first encounter with Arinbjorn White-tooth after the fighting had ended was odder even than his meeting with Starri. Arinbjorn had seen him first, called out his name, and when Thorgrim turned Arinbjorn approached with arms outstretched and his well-known smile on his face. “Thorgrim Night Wolf!” he shouted, embracing Thorgrim enthusiastically while Thorgrim took a tentative stab at returning the affection.

  “The gods smile on you still!” Arinbjorn continued. “You have won the day for us! I made the right choice in asking you to join me on this voyage, there can be no doubt of it! The truth of that is on every man’s tongue.”

  Thorgrim pulled away and just nodded. Words were not his weapon of choice and he was not sure what to say. There was a false note in Arinbjorn’s words, of course. Thorgrim had ignored the man’s orders, had gone into Cloyne despite him, though only the two of them knew it. But there was a deeper subtlety to what Arinbjorn was saying. The words, the tone, had a conspiratorial quality, as if suggesting that the raid had been their mutual plan all along, or at least that the others should be made to believe as much.

  “The gods have been good to us all, Arinbjorn,” Thorgrim said at last, no trace of rancor or condemnation in his voice. He could all but see the relief on Arinbjorn’s face. But why should he say anything else? Arinbjorn might plume himself with feathers he did not earn, but it did no harm to Thorgrim and his men. Everyone in the Viking camp knew who it was who opened the gates of Cloyne, and who had remained in their tent. Thorgrim would not suffer a blow from another man, a blow to his person or his reputation, but Arinbjorn’s silliness did not amount to so grave an injury.

  “The gods bless us, but you have helped them along,” Arinbjorn continued, his enthusiasm not abated. “When the loot is divided up, and the Black Raven’s share given out, you and your son shall have three shares. And the others with you shall have two shares.”

  “That’s very generous,” Thorgrim said, “but it is not necessary.”

  But Arinbjorn insisted, and so Thorgrim agreed. He could see that Arinbjorn was looking to purchase silence, which he would have had for free, but the fact was that Thorgrim still needed Arinbjorn. Thorgrim did not think the prospect of finding a ship to Vik had improved any in the few weeks they had been gone. Arinbjorn White-tooth was still the best, and perhaps only chance that he and Harald had of making their way home.

  Starri Deathless stood up from the foredeck and slipped his dagger into his sheath. It was a simple move, but when done by Starri it took on a poetic quality. Powerful, sinewy and lithe, the man seemed to float up from the deck as much as stand, like a bird unfolding its wings and taking flight. One second he was down, the next he was up. Thorgrim had never been able to move like that, and it had been years since he could even come close. He wondered how old Starri was. Not young. Thirty summers gone, at least. Maybe forty, fifty. You could not tell with a man like Starri.

  “What in the name of Thor is around your neck?” Thorgrim asked, noticing the trinket for the first time, bound by a leather thong and hanging against Starri’s thin chest. Starri took it up between two fingers, examined if as if seeing it for the first time.

  “Your arrowhead,” he said.

  Thorgrim took it from his fingers and ex
amined it closer. It was not his arrowhead, strictly speaking, but some Irishman’s arrowhead, the arrowhead that had split itself against Iron-tooth’s blade. “Why do you have that?” Thorgrim asked.

  “Why do you not? A sign of the gods’ respect? Odin may just as well have leaned down and kissed you on the head, and you toss it away like so much garbage. But I snatched it up as soon as you did. Picking up your scraps, like a dog under the table.” There was no malice in his tone. He was just explaining how things were. Indeed, Thorgrim was often surprised by Starri’s generally even temper, what with his being a berserker and all. Maybe the occasional berserker rage purged madness from his system, like a good thunderstorm driving the heat away.

  Hoskuld Iron-skull’s Thunder God was the first of the longships to reach the muddy place where the vessels would beach. The bow ran up onto the shore, the way was checked, and the men leapt over the low sides and grabbed hold of the gunnels, running the shallow draft ship further up on shore, with Hoskuld standing like some fur-covered monument on the deck aft.

  Sea Dragon was next, then Serpent and Eagle’s Sword and then Black Raven. Thorgrim staggered a bit as the bow touched and the way came off. He looked aft. Harald, of course, was the first to his feet, the first to have his sweep stowed away, the first to vault over the side. Their eyes met. Harald grinned, and then with the ease of youth he was over and up to his waist in the river.

  The rest of the crew followed, going over the low rail as if they were abandoning the ship is a great panic. Thorgrim, taking advantage of his status as a wealthy and powerful, if temporarily displaced, leader of men, chose to remain dry, as did Starri, who, as a recognized madman, felt free to do pretty much whatever he wished.

  One of the Black Raven’s men came forward, a length of braided walrus hide rope in his hand. Thorgrim stepped aside as he tossed the bitter end to the others in the water and made the inboard end fast. Thorgrim looked aft. Other than the man with the bow line, Arinbjorn and the helmsmen were the only others still aboard, and he knew he could ignore the jarl no longer. He walked aft between the rows of sea chests, larboard and starboard, that made up the rower’s benches. The decking underfoot was set into notches in the ribs but not secured, making it easier to take up and gain access to the bilges for storage, or for bailing, and every few feet Thorgrim could feel a board move as he stepped on it.