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

by James L. Nelson

  “No, no,” Starri said. “Outside, I saw a bench that looked just the thing. If I could borrow a fur or a blanket or such?”

  “It’s really no problem,” Almaith protested. “I’ve no objection to another under my roof.”

  “No, no,” Starri said again. Thorgrim could see his eyes moving around the room. “Walls, you know, walls sometimes are…bothersome to me. Hard to explain, really.”

  Almaith nodded. “Whatever you wish,” she said. “We’ve blankets and furs a’plenty.” She indicated a pile near the hearth. Starri grabbed up a heavy bundle that must have once belonged to some shaggy animal, nodded his thanks and was gone, as if afraid the roof was about to fall on him.

  Harald and Almaith helped Thorgrim down to the bed, and he found he was too tired and hurt to protest or even snarl at them. Almaith pulled a blanket up over him. He closed his eyes as she was saying something he could not hear. Wolves were baying all around him.

  It was no surprise to Thorgrim that the wolves came for him in his sleep. It was that sort of night. He was running through the woods, alone, the bracken, the trunks of the trees moving by fast as he ran, silently. Silently but not strong, not the powerful lope he was accustom to. He was limping, favoring one leg and it hurt. He could hear other animals around him, wolves, he guessed, but he did not know. He could smell them.

  And then he was in a clearing and the moonlight was illuminating the space, and it was lovely, but still he was not alone. He could see the eyes, glowing in the dark. He could hear the snarling. He knew these creatures, but they were not his friends. He wanted to cross the clearing, to reach the far side. He was not sure why, only that there would be safety there. Peace. But the wolves were in his way. His fellows, but they were in his way.

  He felt a sharp stab of pain in his side. He snarled and whirled around but he was met with a soothing sound, like a breeze through trees in full leaf or the gurgle of water running down a ship’s side, a ship sailing with just the right breeze on her quarter, heeling a bit, moving effortlessly, the wind warm, and strong enough to hold the sail full and immobile.

  He opened his eyes. Almaith was kneeling beside him and he could see the gleam of a sharp knife in her hands. He felt his muscles tense, instinct taking hold, but Almaith set the knife down and said, “Shhhhh, shhhhh…” as if to a child. Thorgrim felt his body relax. He looked down. Almaith had slit his tunic open from the hem to the shoulder and now with long and delicate fingers she peeled it back, away from his wound. The cloth was wet and his skin was wet and warm and he realized that she must have soaked the cloth in warm water to get it free of the dried blood.

  “My tunic…” he muttered. Ridiculous, but it was all he could think of to say.

  “Never mind that. I’ll sew you up a new one tomorrow. And we’ll burn the rag you’re wearing now.”

  Thorgrim laid his head back and looked up at the dark thatch above and felt Almaith’s competent fingers swabbing the wound and the dried blood around it. “Harald told me you were hurt, just before he went to sleep,” she said with her soft Irish lilt. “Foolish boy, he did not let on how bad it was. I heard you making noise in here, and then I saw the blood.”

  “Hmmm,” Thorgrim said. He could think of nothing else to say, and the warm water and her hands felt good. “It’s his age, you know. Nothing seems of any great import.”

  “I’m not sure I remember being that age,” Almaith said. “But I have no doubt you’re right.” As if in agreement, Harald made a noise in his sleep and then was silent again, his snoring light and rhythmic, like the alto to Jokul’s base

  They were quiet for a moment as Almaith carefully washed the wound and Thorgrim considered her age. He had no idea what it might be. Certainly not as old as Jokul. He did not think she could be past her twenty-fifth summer. Not even that old, he did not think.

  “There are stories in Dubh-linn about the great success you had at Cloyne,” Almaith said, wiping the water and blood from Thorgrim’s skin with a dry, soft cloth. “All you who sailed with Iron-skull. Was it such a great success, then?”

  “Hmmm,” Thorgrim said again and then realized he should elaborate. “It was a success. I could not say a great one. They fought hard, and when we finally won, there was not much to be found there.”

  “I see. That’s a shame, indeed,” she said. “Will you try for better luck elsewhere, then?”

  “Not me. And not Arinbjorn. He told me that after Cloyne he was bound for Norway, and I shall sail with him. Me and Harald. It’s why we agreed to go on the raid on Cloyne.”

  “I see,” Almaith said. She stopped her work and looked in his eyes for the first time. “Jokul will certainly miss Harald,” she said. “And I will miss you. Do you miss your wife?”

  Thorgrim did not answer immediately. “My wife is gone,” he said. “Childbirth. Two years gone, now.”

  “I’m sorry,” Almaith said, and Thorgrim could see the genuine sympathy in her face, in her deep brown eyes that seemed to shine in the dying light of the fire. She turned back to the gash in Thorgrim’s side, applied a poultice and a dressing. She worked in silence and Thorgrim closed his eyes and took comfort in her ministrations. The fire was low but he could feel its warmth, and her hands moved with the surety of a healer. Too long, too long, since he had enjoyed a woman’s touch. Not carnal gratification, that was one thing, and he had not been without that, but rather the loving touch of a woman who cared.

  Almaith smoothed the dressing down over Thorgrim’s wound, sat more upright and shuffled closer to him. She set her hands lightly on his chest. “The poultice will help,” she said, soft, nearly a whisper. “If it shows no sign of mending by morning I’ll have to sew it.”

  Thorgrim nodded, but he was lost in her eyes, and her words, which seemed to not really be about his wound at all. She was beautiful. Even in the light of day, which hid no imperfection, she was beautiful, despite the hard years of being married to Jokul. In the glow of the fire she was the kind of vision that could send any man into a berserker’s frenzy. She leaned a little closer, the fabric of her leine clinging to her and revealing the strong body beneath.

  “Thank you,” he said, soft, to match her tone. He reached out and stroked her arm. She reached up and gently took the silver charms around his neck in her fingers.

  “You wear Thor’s hammer,” she whispered, “and you wear a cross. That’s an odd thing.”

  “I am grateful for the help of any god,” Thorgrim said. “In truth, the cross was given to me by a woman I knew. An Irish woman.”

  Almaith rubbed the thin silver cross between finger and thumb. “A friend?” she asked, but the tone of her voice suggested there was more to the question.

  Thorgrim thought of Morrigan, and their time together, brief as it was. Iron-tooth had been taken from him, and she had returned it, somehow, left it stuck in the deck of his ship with the cross hanging from it. She may well have used magic to do it, he did not know, he had no notion of how she had conjured it there. “Friend?” he said. “I really don’t know.”

  Almaith let the cross go, but her hand remained pressed against him, warm and delicate, the fingers twining through the hair of his chest.

  Can I do this? he wondered. Take another man’s wife, under his roof? She was his for the taking, he could see that, and the less cerebral parts of his body had already made their decision. He would not take a friend’s wife, that he knew, but Jokul was hardly that.

  In truth, Jokul was not much of a friend to Almaith, either. He treated her more like a thrall than a wife, berating her and ordering her around, giving her the back of his hand on occasion. It had always annoyed Thorgrim greatly, but he did not think it was his place to say anything, him a guest in their house, albeit a guest who was paying a handsome rent for the privilege.

  Yes, this could happen, he concluded. But not that night, not with Almaith’s hands still sticky with his blood, his wound tender, his body aching. He gave her arm a light squeeze. “Thank you,” he said again.
“I know your hands will be quick and sure, whether sewing a tunic or a sword wound.”

  She gave him a touch of a smile, a wistful smile. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, gently, held them there. They were impossibly soft; in the hard world of men and ships and weapons and battle, he had forgotten that anything could be so soft and inviting. She stood, the bowl of bloody water in her hands, and was gone.

  Thorgrim fell asleep again. He did not dream of wolves.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The wielder of iron must rise

  early to earn the wealth from his bellows…

  Egil’s Saga

  It was a shout, a full-throated yell that jarred Thorgrim from his sleep. He rolled over and his hand fell on Iron-tooth’s grip and he all but shouted in pain as he wrenched the wound in his side. And then he heard Jokul’s booming voice.

  “Harald! You’re back, boy! Good news, good news, that! Lots to do, you know, now that you’re all rested up! Ah, Thorgrim Ulfsson! Glad to see you too, never doubt it! Good voyage, as I hear it! Lots of plunder, so they are saying! Almaith, you lazy bitch, get some breakfast for these men!”

  Thorgrim rolled back slowly, sure he had pulled his wound open yet again, but he did not feel warm blood spreading under the dressing Almaith had put there. It occurred to him that the sleep he had enjoyed in camp on the field of battle had been more restful and undisturbed than that to be found in their rented quarters.

  Through half opened eyes he looked up at the window that fronted the street. The first streaks of a clear dawn were visible to the east, and somewhere down the road a cock began to crow. He looked up at Jokul. The man snored like a bear and he looked like a bear, with the massive arms of a lifetime swinging a hammer, the broad stomach of an adulthood spent eating and drinking well, and a black beard that sprawled across his face like a hedge left untended for generations. Thorgrim looked over at Harald. Incredibly, Jokul’s enthusiastic welcome had not caused him to stir in the least.

  Jokul crossed the room, nudged Harald with his toe. “You hear me, boy? Lots to do!”

  “He’s pretty well done in,” Thorgrim said, the words coming out in a scratchy growl. “Long night. Many long nights. I don’t reckon you will get him to stir.”

  “Nonsense! Young boy like that, strong as a horse, they’re always ready to go.”

  Almaith came in, a bundle of kindling and small pieces of split firewood in her arms. She dumped the wood by the hearth, poked at the coals with a thin stick. “Let the boy sleep, Jokul,” she admonished. “You’ll get your free work out of him, I have no doubt, but let him sleep now.”

  The smith glowered at her but in the end said nothing. Often enough Almaith doled out as many harsh words as she received, and that made Thorgrim happy. It always had, even before their moment, earlier, in the dark hours.

  Thorgrim let his eyes linger on Jokul’s face, wondering if he would see any sort of suspicion there, but there was nothing beyond the usual irritability. Then the smith grunted and turned and left the room.

  Almaith stoked up the fire and hung an iron pot over the flames and soon the porridge inside was bubbling, filling the room with a warm and savory smell, and that at last got Harald stirring. He sat up, looked stupidly around until he had his bearings, then rubbed his eyes and stretched. Thorgrim was still in his bed, a rare luxury. He had no reason, none at all, to rise from his mat of furs. The realization startled him. There was not one thing that was demanded of him that day. It was comforting and unnerving, all at once.

  “How is your wound?” Almaith asked in a neutral voice.

  “Better. I think the bleeding has stopped,” Thorgrim said.

  “Good. You may be spared my needle.”

  “Oh, no need of that,” Harald offered. “I sewed him up, back at Cloyne. Sewed him well, I don’t reckon that will come free.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “Yes, he did sew me up,” he said. Harald’s fine stitching had already come apart several times, but Harald seemed to have forgotten that.

  “Yes, well done,” Almaith said. She ladled porridge into a shallow wooden bowl, turned to Harald and said something in Irish. She spoke slowly and Harald took a moment to puzzle it out, then replied in Irish as well. Thorgrim smiled. This interest in language was unexpected. Blacksmithing, carpentry, seafaring, any of those things Harald was eager and quick to learn, but the more academic areas of knowledge had always held little interest to him.

  Almaith replied, again in Irish, and handed the bowl to Harald, who took it with a word of thanks and dug in. Thorgrim sat up. The remnants of his tunic were hanging off his shoulders and he carefully peeled them away and let them drop.

  “This is Jokul’s, it will certainly fit.” Almaith tossed a small linen bundle, one of Jokul’s leines. “I’ve already started in on a new tunic for you.”

  “Thank you,” Thorgrim said. He pulled the garment over his head. The linen was fine and white. Jokul was making good money at his trade.

  Jokul himself was back, his mouth opened to say something. He saw Thorgrim, scowled, opened his mouth to speak again and stopped again. From out in the yard a scraping sound was drifting in through the window, and beneath it a squeaking like a mouse, but rhythmic.

  “What by Thor’s hammer is that?” Jokul asked, turned and headed for the door. Harald watched him go, looked down at his porridge, looked back at Jokul, clearly torn between curiosity and hunger, but when Thorgrim stood and headed for the door, the leine flowing around him, Harald followed.

  Thorgrim actually had a pretty good idea what the sound was, and he figured he had better get in the middle of it before the blood started to flow. He could tell from Jokul’s bellow of outrage that he had guessed right. He walked barefoot down Harald’s split-log path to the work area in the front of the house. Jokul was waving his hands in the air, trying through his fury to form a sentence. Starri Deathless was sitting at his grindstone, the heavy wheel spinning, applying the blade of one of Jokul’s swords to the stone. Sparks flew in a hundred arcs of orange light.

  “Who in the name of Odin are you? You miserable little….” Jokul managed to piece together. His arms came down, hands balled into fists. Thorgrim stepped up, stepped between him and Starri.

  “Jokul, this is Starri Deathless. He was with us at Cloyne. He stayed the night out here. With Almaith’s blessing.”

  “Well, what does he think he’s about now?” Jokul spluttered. Spittle flew from his mouth.

  “Sharpening,” Starri offered. “Good blade. Yours?”

  “Mine? I made it, if that’s what you mean!” Jokul bellowed.

  Starri nodded. “Made it? You impress me, smith. Very fine blade. Takes an edge well, as good as any I’ve seen.”

  “Of course it does!” Jokul shouted, the volume no lower but the tone softened by the compliment. “You think I’m some miserable apprentice, banging out nails and door hinges? I made the finest blades in Trondheim and now I make the finest blades in Dubh-linn!”

  Starri nodded and set the grindstone spinning again. Thorgrim wondered at the truth of Jokul’s words. He probably was the best smith in Dubh-linn. Trondheim? Unlikely. If he was, he would never have left Trondheim.

  “And,” Jokul continued, the anger mounting again, “I know damned well how to sharpen a blade!” He held out a meaty hand, a wordless demand for the return of his property. Equally wordless, Starri handed it to him, hilt-first, taking great pains to avoid cutting himself on the two-edged blade. Jokul took the weapon and Thorgrim watched him surreptitiously test with his thumb the edge Starri had put on it, saw the thin red line appear and the minor eruption of blood, which Jokul wiped on his leggings.

  “Still, if you have some insane need to sharpen blades,” Jokul said, calmer now, “I have some awaiting their owners that you may have a go at.”

  Starri nodded.

  “And it’s a quarter eyrir silver a week for staying here,” Jokul concluded as he turned and headed back toward the house.

  Almaith,
true to her word and swift of finger, spent the next couple of hours stitching together a new tunic for Thorgrim, made up from a deep blue wool cloth of which she had a few ells on hand. Thorgrim assured her he would pay for the fabric and the work. She insisted there was no need for payment. He insisted he would pay anyway, repeating his insistence several times until at last she snapped at him to leave her alone.

  He wandered out into the yard, watched Jokul working a length of steel into a blade, Harald working the bellows, Starri working at the grindstone, moving the blade rhythmically against the rough wheel, his body rocking slowly with the work, entranced by his task. Thorgrim wandered back inside. The luxury of idleness was not one that he actually enjoyed.

  When Almaith was nearly done with the tunic, Thorgrim took it from her, despite her protests that he could not go out wearing such a thing, not a bit of decorative braid at the neck or cuffs. “You’ll look like some beggar, wandering the streets,” she protested.

  “Then maybe some rich man will give me money enough to pay you for your work,” he said, pulling off Jokul’s leine. “But I could never look like a beggar in this fine piece of work, braid or no. In any event, I have important business to attend to,” he added, which was not entirely true.

  He faced her, wearing only his leggings which were belted around his waist, and he saw her eyes flicker over his bare chest and arms. Because he could not stand watching other men work, or fight, or do anything, and not take part himself, he had not grown soft as had many men of his age and status. Almaith seemed to appreciate this, the symmetric curves of the muscles of his arms, his broad chest and hard stomach.

  “Your wound?” she said, softer than the words needed to be said. “It’s not torn open again?”

  “No, it seems to be mending well.”

  “Let me help you with your tunic,” she said. She stood and took the garment. She examined the dressing on Thorgrim’s wound, a hand resting softly on his chest. Outside Jokul was arguing loudly with a customer. She helped ease the tunic over Thorgrim’s head, easy, so the wound did not pull open, then tugged it down and smoothed it in place.