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

by James L. Nelson

  “And gone where?”

  “She has gone to Dubh-linn.”

  The abbot stared at Finnian with his red, watery eyes, a gaze that seemed to be boring into Finnian’s brain and searching for his complicity in all this.

  “How do you know she had gone to Dubh-linn?” he asked.

  “Because I took her there.”

  The abbot nodded, as if Finnian had simply confirmed a thing he already knew. “And why, pray, did you do that?”

  “Because she would have gone anyway. And she probably would have been killed en route.”

  “And why…” the abbot said next, drawing the words out, “would she go to Dubh-linn?”

  “I do not know for certainty,” Finnian said, which was the truth, though he only said it in hope of softening the news that would follow. “But I suspect she is planning to raise an army of the fin gall to help her get the throne of Tara back.”

  “Why do you not know for certainty? Were you not there?”

  “I saw her safely there and then left. Dubh-linn is not a place for a man of God.”

  The abbot remained silent and motionless, and after half a minute he slowly closed his eyes. Finnian wondered if he might be praying. It would be a reasonable response. As the minutes passed, Finnian began to wonder if the abbot had actually died right there, but at length he opened his eyes again.

  “The Crown of the Three Kingdoms was not made by Christian hands, you know,” he began at last. “It was fashioned by the pagans and it carries the curse of Satan on it. Its temptation is too great for mortal men.”

  Finnian nodded.

  “You have done a good job, Father Finnian, for the most part. You have kept an eye on things as I instructed, did what you could, though the Dear Lord knows there is little a poor man of God can do to influence these…people. Now you must return to Tara, get the Crown back. With Máel Sechnaill dead there is no one we can trust with it.”

  “And how many men shall I have with me? How many men-at-arms?”

  “‘Men-at-arms’? Oh, you choose to make merry with me, I see. You shall have none, Father Finnian. Just yourself and your God-given wits. I trust that will be sufficient.”

  “With God’s grace it will be.”

  “Bring the crown back here. Throw it in the sea. Feed it to wolves, I don’t care, I should be pleased to be rid of the damned thing.”

  “Wolves. Yes, my Lord Abbot.”

  “Just see that these madmen stop fighting over it, trying to use it to their own ends. May the Lord’s blessings go with you, Finnian.” As he spoke those last words, the abbot picked up his pen and continued his writing, the interview over. Finnian stood, nodded and left. He had considered telling the abbot that he was all but certain Brigit was with child, though whose child, he did not know, but he figured the old cleric had had enough for

  one day.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  West over water I fared,

  bearing poetry’s waves to the shore

  of the war god’s heart;

  my course was set.

  Egil’s Saga

  The second time the longship Black Raven cleared the mouth of the Liffey, Thorgrim Night Wolf was at the helm. That was quite different from the first time, months before, when the fleet had stood out for the raid on Cloyne. Then, Thorgrim had been little more than a passenger, a man with no set place, an extra sword. But not this time.

  Arinbjorn had come to him, asking that he fill the role of second in command. The offer had taken Thorgrim by surprise, for more reasons than one. He had thought Arinbjorn resented him and regarded him with fear and suspicion. He had thought that Bolli Thorvaldsson had been given the dubious honor of being Arinbjorn’s second. From the way Bolli had been sulking around for the past week, shooting black looks at Thorgrim whenever their eyes met, muttering to himself, yelling at anyone who got in his way, Thorgrim guessed that Bolli had thought the same thing.

  But no, Arinbjorn insisted that he needed a man of Thorgrim’s experience and Thorgrim, feeling that every man there would be safer if Arinbjorn was kept under close scrutiny, agreed.

  Ornolf Hrafnsson, Thorgrim’s father in law, had laughed out loud when Thorgrim told him this news. “Ha! You are a fool, Thorgrim! I am proud to say you are no blood kin of mine, and sorry only that my beautiful daughter was such a poor judge of men!”

  The old man was holding court in the mead hall, as was his custom, sitting in his familiar seat near the back of the big open room, an oak table spread before him. It was midafternoon, and few men were there, and Thorgrim was alone at Ornolf’s table.

  Thorgrim took a long drink, set the cup down, nodded his head. He did not say anything. He knew that it would be pointless, that Ornolf would mock any defense he might offer. For Ornolf, mocking was like urinating, and he would continue to let it flow until he was emptied out, and then he would settle down and be sensible again.

  And it was worth waiting for that, because when he wished to be, Ornolf the Restless could be sensible indeed. People dismissed the jarl as a drunken, debauched old fool, and that was a mistake. He might indeed be drunken, debauched and old, but he was no fool. It was not by accident that he had become as wealthy and powerful as he was.

  “Think, Thorgrim, think. Why would such a slippery eel as Arinbjorn want you to be his second in command?”

  “I have thought about it, you may believe that or not. I reckon he wants me there to keep him from getting into any real trouble, and to get him out of it when he does.”

  “Because you are such a genius? You are such a brilliant warrior? No other man on this raid is capable of rendering such service?”

  Thorgrim shrugged. “Arinbjorn wants this to be his raid. He is putting it together and he has not asked Hoskuld Iron-skull or any of the jarls more powerful than him to come along. He wants no challenge to his leadership.”

  “You are a challenge to his leadership.”

  “Me? Everything I have is back at Vik, as you well know. I have nothing here but a small part of my share of the plunder from Cloyne. Before that, I had only what Arinbjorn was willing to lend me. I am unique among the host here at Dubh-linn. A leader with experience but no money and no men to lead. I am uniquely suited for Arinbjorn’s needs.”

  Ornolf grunted and took a long pull from his cup. “You make sense, for once in your life. But Arinbjorn owes you money, does he not?”

  “He said he would pay Harald and me three shares from the take at Cloyne but he has not. But I’ve told him I don’t want the silver. I want only passage home to Vik.”

  “Yes, but the offer has been made, and that means he’s given his word, and he can’t back out of it without dishonor. I would not go into battle with men who owe me money. Too much chance for mischief. That is why I have grown so old and wise.”

  “And why I shall die a young fool,” Thorgrim said.

  “Too late for you to die young,” Ornolf pointed out. “But not for my grandson, and he is the one who has my concern.”

  There was wisdom in Ornolf’s words. He thought the old man was right to be skeptical. Thorgrim, in fact, had considerable doubts of his own, all of which he had no choice but ignore as he threw himself into the preparations for the raid. The raid on Tara. The attempt on Brigit’s life had sealed it like a blood oath.

  The commander of the Danes, the one named Sweyn, had survived the fight. He had been knocked unconscious when Brigit fell on his head and so missed being run through by Thorgrim or Starri. When the rest fled, he had been left behind, thought by his comrades to be dead. It was not hard to get him to talk. He had no particular loyalty to those who hired him, and since they were unlikely to pay him for his failure, he felt no need to suffer torture to keep their secrets.

  The Danes were from Wykynlo. Hired by an Irishman who called himself Donnel and who said he spoke for very powerful people in the kingdom of Brega. Sweyn had assured Donnel he did not give a rat’s ass who he spoke for, or where they came from. He was interested only
in the silver they offered, which was plentiful, with more to come.

  Their instructions were to sail to Dubh-linn and take the girl. They were told where she would be found. Take her and bring her to Wykynlo for Donnel to confirm their having done the job, and then they would be paid the balance of their due. As to the girl, she was theirs to do with as they wished. The only stipulation was that if she were to remain in Ireland, she could not remain alive.

  Brigit insisted that this was confirmation of everything that she had told them. Harald agreed entirely, though Thorgrim suspected that Harald’s reasoning was clouded by more primal urges.

  Arinbjorn, however, felt as Harald did. If the people ruling Tara thought Brigit was so dangerous that it was worth paying to have her killed, then the tales she told must be true. As he discussed it with Thorgrim - the weak defenses of Tara, the lack of men-at-arms, the people rallying to Brigit - Thorgrim could see Arinbjorn’s face light up with the vision of easy wealth and martial glory. There would be no talking him out of this. He would go to Tara and Harald would, too, and Thorgrim could not send his son into that maelstrom while he stayed safe behind.

  The prospect of launching a full-scale attack on the seat of the high king of Brega had Starri behaving like a wolf with the taste of blood in its mouth, and more in the offing. He did not concur with any of Thorgrim’s objections. That did not ease Thorgrim’s mind. If Starri considered a plan to be sound and reasonable, then it probably was a seriously bad idea. That truth aside, Thorgrim understood from the first that he would be joining them, and taking his place in front of the shieldwall.

  And so, a week and a day after the berserkers had overrun the Danes and taken prisoner those few they had not killed, after Starri, once again denied entrance to Valhalla even while standing at the very gates, had collapsed to the ground, weeping bitterly, Thorgrim found himself gripping the Black Raven’s hard oak tiller and looking down the length of a very unhappy ship.

  Brigit insisted from the outset that she would be coming along and no one seemed terribly inclined to argue. As they prepared to get underway, Harald had, of course, been very solicitous of her. He had seen to her comfort, setting her up with a sea chest on which to sit, furs to protect her against the ocean wind. He had apparently been under the impression that he would be allowed to remain with her and continue to comfort her during the voyage up the coast, but Arinbjorn had other ideas. He had sent Harald forward to take his place at an oar, and Harald had obeyed, grudgingly, while Arinbjorn inserted himself into the role of Brigit’s protector.

  Thorgrim kept his own council. It was not his affair, and Harald would not have welcomed his interference.

  Now, as the longship pulled for open water, Arinbjorn was standing beside Brigit, communicating as best he could with the few words of Irish he seemed to have picked up recently. Brigit in turn was nodding, paying just enough attention to avoid appearing rude, and doing only a tolerable job of hiding her discomfort. Harald, working his oar, was shooting dark looks aft at the little scene.

  Bolli Thorvaldsson, now third in command, was standing in the bow, looking out to sea. He had spent much of the past week pissing on Thorgrim’s good name, until half the ship’s company now looked on Thorgrim as Loki’s bastard spawn. Word got back to Thorgrim, in some cases carried by his friends, in other cases by people hoping to see Thorgrim run Iron-tooth through Bolli’s guts.

  Thorgrim considered doing just that, calling Bolli to answer for the things he had been saying, challenging him, and killing him. But that would only serve to solidify the divisions among the crew, those loyal to Bolli, those loyal to him. What’s more, he was still aching from the fight with the Danes, and his wound, though it was healing, was painful and tight and he did not seem able to muster the energy for the task.

  And then, at last, they were underway, with the green headlands at the mouth of the river falling away as the Black Raven cleared the estuary. Thorgrim felt the motion of the ship underfoot change as the first of the ocean rollers lifted the bow and moved along under her. It was a moment he loved, the moment when the embrace of land, and all its considerations, was left astern, and the new motion of the ship signaled a new element, and the simplicity of man, ship and sea.

  Thorgrim half turned and looked astern, larboard and starboard. There were two other longships with them, Hrolleif the Stout’s Serpent and another of similar size named Dragon Slayer, commanded by a man named Ingolf who was from Borgund. All told about one hundred and sixty Viking warriors. Not a particularly large force, but if Brigit was at all right in her assessment, enough to overwhelm the weak defenses of Tara.

  The headlands fell astern and Thorgrim felt the fresh breeze stirring in his beard and lifting the hair that lay across his tunic. Instinctively he turned his head into it, his face like a weathervane gauging the direction from which it blew. Southwest, a good quarter to set sail for the course they would be steering, but he kept his mouth shut.

  It was about five minutes later that Arinbjorn apparently gave up trying to communicate whatever it was he was trying to communicate to Brigit, stood up, looked astern and then up at the weather vane at the mast head. “Thorgrim,” he said, the cheerful note in his voice just a little off key, “this seems a fair breeze for setting sail. What say you?”

  “As fair as we could want,” Thorgrim agreed.

  “Right, then,” Arinbjorn said, and in a louder voice called, “Let’s get some hands to set sail!”

  At that, Starri Deathless, who had been sitting against the starboard side just aft of the aftermost rowing station, leapt to his feet. No one ever asked Starri to man an oar. No one thought he could keep his attention focused long enough to maintain the monotonous rhythm, and once an inattentive oarsman like Starri fell out of sync, then all was chaos. But when it came to working in the rigging, no one was Starri’s equal.

  The long yard was lowered and swung fore and aft, the position it generally was in when the ship was under oars. Before anyone else had even registered Arinbjorn’s order, Starri was up on the yard, straddling it as if he was riding a horse and casting off the line that held the sail tightly lashed to the spar. He was already a third done before Bolli grudgingly ambled aft, took the tail end of the halyard off its cleat and laid it along the deck. On either side of the ship, the men maintained their steady pull of the oars and waited for the next order to come.

  Starri finished with the lashings and hopped back down to the deck. “Ship oars! Take up the halyard!” Arinbjorn called and the men gratefully ran their long oars in, laid them on the rack on which they were stored, and moved quickly to their various stations. Thorgrim could feel the motion of the ship change as the forward momentum dropped away. A dozen men grabbed on to the halyard, ready to haul the heavy yard and sail up the mast. Others took up the braces that would swing the yard athwart ships, ninety degrees to the ship’s centerline. Still others took up the tacks and sheets that would hold the lower corners of the sail down at the most efficient angle to the wind.

  “Haul away!” Arinbjorn called next and the dozen men on the halyard pulled, the yard jerked up the mast a couple of feet and the sail began to billow out. Hand over hand, in the same steady rhythm they employed on the oars, the men heaved away on the halyard and the yard made its slow climb aloft.

  And then it stopped.

  “Haul away!” Arinbjorn called again and the men pulled, the strain clear on their faces, but the yard did not move. Thorgrim ran his eyes aloft. A stray bit of rope, frayed and twisting in the breeze, was jutting from the sheave in the mast through which the halyard passed.

  “Halyard’s jammed!” Thorgrim called. Arinbjorn squinted aloft, but before he could give any orders, Starri leapt into the rigging with the agility and frenetic energy of a squirrel. He pulled himself aloft hand over hand, his legs wrapped around the shroud up which he was climbing. Black Raven was all but stopped in the water now and starting to roll more heavily in the swell, but that seemed to have no effect on Starri’s effor
t. He reached the masthead as quickly as if there had been a ladder to that spot, and with his legs and one arm still wrapped around the shroud he jerked on the stray bit of rope, then jerked again and it came free. He looked down at Arinbjorn and waved the bit of rope at him.

  “Haul away!” Arinbjorn called and the men took up their rhythmic pull once again and the yard resumed its steady climb up the mast. The men at the braces swung it amidships as it went up. The sail flogged and snapped and Starri remained where he was, ostensibly to clear away any other jam that might occur but mostly, Thorgrim suspected, because he liked being up there.

  At last the yard reached its highest point and Starri climbed onto it and settled himself into his self-appointed job as look out. The men at the sheets hauled the lines aft and made them secure and the big square sail, checkered red and white, filled and bellied out and the ship gathered momentum once again. Even more than when she was under oars, the vessel felt like a living thing, a powerful but slightly skittish horse, a creature that was dangerous to those who could not control her, swift and agile to those who could.

  Thorgrim breathed deep. He loved this, loved it with all his heart. The salt water, the tiller in his hand, the roll, pitch and yaw of the vessel, the pull of the sail. He and Brigit were alone on the little deck aft, and he thought to smile at her and nod to let her know all was well. He doubted she had been to sea very often, if ever. He pulled his eyes from the luff of the sail and looked her way, just in time to see her toss off the fur blanket, swivel

  around and vomit noisily over the side.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  [M]en with black keen spears

  will blight the fruits of noble rule.