Brigit, still draped over her abductor’s shoulder, could see only the plank road as it swept by and the feet of the man who was carrying her. He was twisting side to side, trying to see what she was doing. Another set of feet appeared, hands reaching for her, and she slashed awkwardly at them. She tried to slash at the feet of the man carrying her, but the sword was too long and the position too awkward and she could do little more than bounce the blade off his leggings.
Slashing was a failure, so she grabbed the hilt with both hands and drew it up, then stabbed down at his heels as if she was trying to spear a fish. That worked. The point of the blade skipped off his calves and caught his shoe and she rammed it home, feeling the metal lodge in flesh and bone.
The man howled and turned again and Brigit pulled the sword free and stuck the blade between his legs. She had a thought to swing it up at his crotch, but before she could even try, his legs became tangled with the weapon and he staggered. He tried to catch himself, but between his lacerated foot and the blade between his legs and the weight of Brigit on his shoulder he could not maintain his balance. Brigit felt him going over and she braced herself. She was on his right shoulder, and as luck would have it he came down on his left, so that rather than falling on her, her hip came down on his head as they landed in a heap on the plank road.
Brigit could feel the edge of the man’s helmet dig into her side as they hit the ground. The man grunted and Brigit rolled off and, miraculously, kept hold of the sword as she scrambled to her feet. She had never had any real training with weapons, as would be expected, save for sparring with wooden swords as a child with her father and the other men at Tara, but she was no stranger to the feel and use of a blade. She held it with two hands to make up for her lack of strength, and backed away slowly from the others.
She could see confusion in their eyes. The situation was changing fast, and the man who had been leading them was still sprawled out on the road, and barely moving. Then one drew his sword, and then the others did, four swords flashing out and held ready.
The man to her left took a tentative step toward her, sword leading. With a grunt of pain and exertion Brigit swung her blade in an arc, connecting hard with his and knocking it aside. Then she turned and ran.
She ran as hard as she could up the plank road. She could see Thorgrim and Harald and the crazy one whose name she could not recall running toward her and she ran toward them. Behind her she heard more shouting in Norse, and then the sound of running men coming toward her. She tried to run harder, but every muscle in her body seemed to be shouting in agony and protest. She felt a hand on her arm, a powerful grip. She tried to swing the sword at him, but she could not reach back with the blade. The fingers tightened in a crushing grip. She shouted, the one word that came to her lips, the only one that might bring any comfort and hope now.
“Harald!”
Running was not Harald Thorgrimson’s strength. He was powerfully built, but that also meant heavily built, and the things at which he excelled, such as fighting or building things or rowing, tended to augment his strength of arm and not his speed of foot. He was breathing hard as he raced down the road. He had seen men who seemed to glide as they ran, but he was not one of them. Every footfall jarred his body as he careened down the hill.
But he could see her now, and that drove him on. Every step he took brought him closer to her. Every step brought the swine who had taken her that much closer to being within the arc of his swinging sword.
He and Thorgrim were pretty well matched for speed, but Thorgrim was blown from the fight and wounded and was struggling to keep up. Starri Deathless was fast, one of the gliders, and though he was just a few feet ahead, Harald had the distinct impression he was holding back, trying to not entirely outpace his companions.
Head jarring, heaving for breath, Harald tried to see what was happening. Five men, one carrying Brigit, making for the docks. They had stopped, just for a moment, on hearing the pursuit. But they were running again, and pulling away. Making for a ship, no doubt, and if they were able to get her aboard, get underway, then she would be lost to him.
Then, suddenly, everything changed. For no reason Harald could see, the fleeing men stopped. Brigit’s hair whipped around in a wild brown tangle as the man holding her twisted left and right. And then they were down, Brigit and the man, a flailing heap on the plank road. And then Brigit was up, a sword in her hand, and running toward him.
“Harald!”
The desperation and fear in her voice was a knife to his guts. He was almost there, fifty feet, but now another of the men was grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back.
“Starri!” Harald shouted as best he could, heaving for breath, “Stop them, I beg you!”
Starri nodded and shot ahead, bounding down the road with deer-like strides, as Harald had thought he could. Ax and short sword in his hand, he let go with his berserker scream as he closed the distance. Harald could see the men freeze in place, could see swords and shields and axes held ready, the men braced like sailors holding tight as a massive wave rolls down on their ship.
The man holding Brigit seemed to expect Starri to stop and fight, not an unreasonable thought, but that was not the berserker’s approach at all. Starri came in with his ax making a great circle in front of him, catching the man’s sword and knocking it aside. He launched himself off the road and came at the Dane feet first, seemed to literally climb up the front of the man. Harald saw the man stagger and try to slash upward with his sword, but he was too slow. In a single motion Starri kicked him to the ground and used him as a vault to launch himself at the next man behind. He crashed into the man feet first, but that one had a shield and managed to get it up and take most of the impact of Starri’s flight.
Starri came down on both feet, and the man with the shield staggered back but did not fall. He was able to meet Starri’s ax blow with the shield and even took a slashing counterstroke with his sword, which Starri dodged. All this Harald saw as he closed the last few feet. He wanted nothing more than to take Brigit up in his arms, to wrap his strong arms around her and protect her and shield her, but he knew he could not do that until the threat of the armed men had been removed. And now the odds looked good.
Harald was still careening down hill, his stride less of a run than a controlled and prolonged fall. It was clear enough to him that he would not be able to stop in any meaningful way, so he did not. He set his eyes on the man to the right of where Starri and the other were fighting. He was waiting, sword and shield at the ready, and Harald charged straight at him. He came in swinging as Starri had done, knocked the man’s sword aside, twisted, and hit his shield full force with his right shoulder, slamming into him with all the power behind fourteen stone of bone and muscle running full tilt downhill.
The impact effectively stopped Harald, who stumbled a few steps more but remained upright. The man with the shield flew back, his feet coming higher than his head as he lifted clean off the ground and came down again five feet from where he stood. He was still rolling when Harald recovered his step, raced over, put a foot on his shield and finished him, though from the angle of his head Harald wondered if the fall had not done him first.
Thorgrim and Starri were still fighting, but their adversaries were backing away. In a moment they would be running – Harald had seen that often enough to know the signs. He turned and looked back up the road. Brigit was there, the sword still in her hands, but drooping, as if it was suddenly too heavy for her to lift. She looked frightened and relieved and grateful all at once, and Harald felt the overwhelming urge to go to her and hold her. And then he heard the sound of the men coming up from the river.
He turned back. He saw torches and the fire glinting off helmets and swords and spear tips. They were moving fast. Ten or fifteen men. The rest of the company from the ship to which they were taking Brigit. Harald felt his heart sink, his stomach turn. So close. They had fought against such odds, had chased the sons of whores down to the water, had ta
ken Brigit back in the final moment.
And now these bastards would take her in the end, and he and Thorgrim and Starri would die.
He turned his back on the advancing company and raced back to Brigit’s side. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, and despite her shock and pain she kissed him back. Then he grabbed her shoulders and spun her around.
“Run!” he said in a harsh whisper, in the Irish he had learned from Almaith. “Run! There!” He pointed to a dark place, a narrow space between two houses. He and Thorgrim and Starri might be able to hold the rest off long enough for her to lose herself in the narrow streets and alleys of the longphort.
“No…” she said, but she did not sound very sure.
“Run!” he said again and gave her a little push, then turned to face the new threat. They were maybe thirty feet away, weapons drawn, spreading out in a semicircle as they advanced. The one Thorgrim had been fighting was sprawled out on the ground, and Thorgrim had found a shield somewhere and was making his stand against the advancing hoard.
I should have thought to grab that fellow’s shield, Harald thought, recalling the man he had bowled over. Too late… Thorgrim was looking wary, his eyes everywhere, taking little steps back as the rest came on.
Starri Deathless, on the other hand, was grinning, grinning wide, and spinning his ax in his hand. His eyes were sweeping over the advancing warriors like a hungry man presented with an expansive feast and not sure where to start. He was nodding slightly to himself, and dancing from one foot to the other.
An odd quiet fell over the scene as the armed men closed with each other. The men from the ship may have felt the odds were much in their favor, but Harald imagined the limp bodies strewn around the plank road gave them pause. They would take their time, advance with caution.
Then from the dark behind them, the quiet was split by a howl, an animal howl, like a wolf, but worse than that, a high-pitched, yelping, corkscrewing sound that made Harald jump and sent a chill through him. The howl was joined by another, and then another. Harald shifted his gaze fast, back and forth, not sure where the greater threat lay.
He glanced over at Starri. The berserker also wore a confused look, and then Harald saw realization cross his face. His grin disappeared and he shouted, “No! No, no, no, no, no!”
Harald turned to face this new threat. Anything that struck fear in Starri Deathless was not something he wanted at his back. Into the light from the torches, running, leaping, screaming, came a shirtless Nordwall the Short at the head of ten fellow berserkers, most similarly dressed, some more casual. Their weapons flashed in the light. They came down the plank road like a flash flood, parted around Harald, around Thorgrim, around Starri and crashed over the Danes arrayed for a fight, and the Danes went down
before them like dried reeds.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Vikings will come across the sea,
they will mingle among the men of Ireland
there will be an abbot from among them
over every church
Berchán, Irish Prophet
Father Finnian was four days riding from Dubh-linn to Glendalough, more than thirty miles of muddy tracks called roads, rolling hills, thick woods through which he had to all but cut a path. He heard wolves often enough, but they kept their distance. Sometimes he could see the ocean from the high headlands, and he liked that.
There was a town on the coast, which the Irish called Cill Mhantáin. It was prosperous and growing, for the same reason that any other Irish town was prosperous and growing, and that was because the Northmen had taken it and turned it into a genuine trading port. The Northmen called it Wykynlo. But Finnian’s brief stay in Dubh-linn had given him his fill of the Northmen and he had no wish to go there, and soon his path took him inland, onto higher ground, skirting the mountains to the west.
The horse he rode had been borrowed from a wealthy farmer whose land he had crossed a few miles south of Dubh-linn. The farmer’s compound consisted of two goodly ringforts, one to enclose his home and sundry outbuildings, the other to house his animals. The man had two dozen cows and three horses, an abundance worthy of one of the more prosperous of the rí túaithe. Finnian suggested that the farmer might show his gratitude for the blessings the Lord had rained down on him by lending one of the horses to aid him, Finnian, in doing the Lord’s work. Explained that way, the farmer seemed willing enough to comply.
When Finnian thought back on it, however, he had to admit that willing was not exactly the right word. Grudging might be closer to it. And despite Finnian’s celebrating mass in his home, the man was equally grudging when it came to giving up the prodigious amount of meat, cheese, soft white bread, cakes, fresh vegetables, fruit and wine that he, Finnian, told the farmer he would need for the trip. But give he did.
Finnian assured the farmer that he would return the horse on the way back, if he could. And with that he was off, meeting with driving rain that same day. His horse, the sorriest of the three in the farmer’s stable, plodded unhappily through the mud, the burden it carried on its back growing ever heavier as Finnian’s robes were soaked through and through.
It was sometime after dark when the two of them, Finnian and the horse, came upon a decrepit little hovel set back from the road, a man and his wife living there with three young children of indeterminate gender. Finnian knocked and was allowed in. He bowed and introduced himself. The five in the house looked at him wide-eyed, fearful and suspicious. They seemed to take it for a near certainty he would kill them all.
Introductions over, Finnian pulled out the sack containing the food the farmer had given him and served the family what was beyond question the finest meal they had ever eaten in their hardscrabble lives. Soon after, they all went to sleep, though Finnian was quite certain one or another of them remained awake all night, keeping an eye on him.
The next morning he celebrated mass as the sun was coming up, consecrating some of the farmer’s fine white bread as the host. He doubted that these people had received the Lord more than half a dozen times in their lives, and never with bread like that. The family was grateful, he could see that, and more comfortable with his presence, but still they never stopped looking at him as if he was a druid of old who might transubstantiate all of them into newts or some such creature.
And so it went for the next few nights, with families who rarely saw a stranger trying to make sense of this odd priest who rode up to their door, offering blessings, holy mass and food that seemed too good to be of this world. In the end he wondered how many tales he had spawned, to be passed down through the generations, intimate family legends of how St. Patrick himself had once appeared at the family’s door.
It was late on the fourth day, well after dark, when he urged his weary horse through the gate in the stone wall surrounding the monastery at Glendalough. He found the stable boy, asleep in the straw, woke him and gave him half a loaf of bread and a large, shapeless lump of cheese. The boy’s eyes went wide and his tongue all but fell out of his mouth. It was probably more food than he had ever had for himself in his life, and it bought a considerable level of care for Finnian’s plodding but faithful horse.
That done, Finnian made his way into the monastery, and before removing his wet robes spent half an hour in the chapel, giving thanks for his safe delivery there. He asked the Lord for guidance, because the Lord knew that he would need guidance, and lots of it, to negotiate the epic debacle that was taking place at Tara. He had come to Glendalough to see the abbot. He did not think much guidance would be coming from that quarter.
He met with the abbot after morning prayers, in the room that he used in the front of the church, to the west of the altar. The church was small, but stone built with a small, round tower jutting from the roof. The abbot was seated behind a heavy oak table; the same place Finnian had last seen him, which was a little more than a year before. Indeed, it looked as if the abbot had not moved from his place in all that time.
“Father Fin
nian,” he said. He was writing, the tip of his white quill making circles in the air, the black ink forming into tight little letters on the vellum parchment. He did not look up. He was very thin, very pale. He looked weary. Just as he had the year before.
At length he put down the pen and swung his face up to Finnian. He waved with his fingers toward a chair and Finnian sat. “You are well, I trust, my Lord Abbot?”
The abbot grunted. “You trust I’m well? It’s four hundred years since dear Patrick and Palladius brought the Irish out of the darkness and I’m not certain the half of them know the difference between a priest and a druid. But yes, I am as well as might be expected. Though I imagine it is not good news that brings you here.”
“No. Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid was killed before he could solidify his control over the Three Kingdoms. I wrote you about that.”
The abbot nodded, which seemed to take great effort. Finnian waited for him to say something, but he did not, so Finnian continued. “Flann mac Conaing has taken the throne, but he is not secure enough yet to invoke the authority of the crown.”
The abbot nodded again. Finnian waited again. Finally the abbot spoke. “Flann mac Conaing? Has he a claim to the throne?”
“He could make one. He is kin to Máel Sechnaill. But Brigit nic Máel Sechnaill still lives, and she has better claim.”
“Then why is she not ruling there?”
“Flann has secured the support of the rí túaithe. He means to hold the throne. Or more to the point, his sister, Morrigan, means to see him hold the throne.”
“And Brigit? What of her? Will they murder her?”
“They might well try. She was married…” Finnian thought back. Three weeks ago? Four? Was that possible? It seemed months, many months before. But no. “She was married last month. She…it seems she killed her husband. As he was trying to kill her. She has left Tara now.”
Dubh-linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) Page 22
