Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  Yet it was successful enough, if success was to be assessed in dead men. The Norse were amongst the fiercest fighters in the world, but here they had no least chance. Surprised, drugged with sleep and probably drink, they were able to put up no coherent defence, little defence of any sort. Individuals died fighting, but mainly with their bare hands, for few could reach their weapons. Those who got outside the shelters were overwhelmed in the rush, some pushed back inside, no doubt for swords and battle-axes and clubs, thereby cannoning into others seeking to get out and causing hopeless confusion in confined space, struggling bodies jammed close. Many smiting, stabbing Irishmen followed them in, of course to little purpose, for inside they were as tight-wedged and constricted as their would-be victims, sword-arms as though pinioned in the crush. The screams and shrieks, the thud of blows, the smell of blood and ordure, all in the flickering red glare of the flaming ships, made a fair representation of hell.

  Somerled, seeking to exert some influence, direction and leadership over the appalling situation, tripped over a tie-rope supporting the upright poles on which the great sails were suspended—and perceived the opportunity. Slashing down with his sword, he hacked until the cordage was severed.

  “The ropes!” he shouted. “Cut the ropes. Bring all down. The ropes, I say!”

  Some heard his call and saw the point. They started slashing, with him. In only a few moments the poles were reeling, the sail-cloth sagging, and down came the first shelter atop all within, Norsemen and attackers alike. The outcry from beneath was beyond all description.

  The rope-cutters ran to the next one. There proved to be five of these awnings and they brought them all down. Saor MacNeil’s party had now come up with them and, coming later, were less crazed with excitement and the more amenable. Somerled ordered them to ring round each of the collapsed and heaving shelters, to deal with the Norsemen as they struggled out—and warning them that there were many of their own companions in there also.

  So the real slaughter began. It was no battle, nothing but a massacre. After the first wild onslaught, indeed it became a wearisome killing—for hundreds of men take a considerable time to slay, when they are emerging in ones and twos under collapsed sail-cloth. It is to be feared that more than one of the Irish died also, not within the canvas or at Norse hands but as they too struggled out, assailed by their own over-enthusiastic fellows before they could identify themselves. One woman also was killed and another injured—for it was difficult in the half-light to distinguish between long-haired persons crawling on hands and knees, and all the Vikings were not bearded.

  At last it was done—or at least no further victims emerged from the awnings—and it but remained for the canvas covers, now liberally splashed with blood, to be dragged aside and such faint-hearted or inert folk as were then revealed to be despatched and the women, in various stages of undress, rescued. If not a few of these were immediately raped once more by their rescuers, this was perhaps inevitable in the circumstances—even though Somerled and MacNeil loudly commanded otherwise and went about beating back determined lechers with the flats of their swords. But there was, of course, much turmoil and excitement and much else to attend to, and due order was scarcely possible.

  Somerled was concerned about the ships position. There was plenty of flame visible to the north but it was impossible to tell from the camp site whether all the vessels were afire or captured or what. Conn might need help. Leaving MacNeil in charge of the chaotic devastation, he took about half of the gallowglasses and hurried back through the woodland to the hidden bay.

  Beyond the trees they could see fairly clearly, what with flame and the fact that it was lightening towards dawn now. There were only four ships in the bay, three blazing. The three on fire were beached in the shallows, the fourth lying a little way out. There was no sound nor sign of fighting.

  They hastened down to the shore and round it. A knot of men beside one of the beached longships produced Conn Ironhand.

  “Is all well?” Somerled demanded. “No trouble?”

  “One got away,” MacMahon said. “And one fire died out. Was it enough? And you—what of the camp?”

  “All over, there. We took them before they could make any stand. But—what do you mean? One got away?”

  “One longship. There were five. Two lying off. We boarded these ashore, easily enough. There were four men on one, asleep. We dirked them. Then waded out to the nearest other—yonder craft. There were three aboard it. They heard us coming. Then some fool fired one of these behind us—before your signal. It gave them warning on the fourth ship. They tried to fight us off, keep us from boarding. When they could not, they jumped and swam over to the fifth ship, further out. Then we saw your flame. We turned back, to light up the two remaining craft. The fifth raised anchor and sailed off. Or rowed. We could do nothing to stop them.”

  “A plague on it! So they escaped? To tell!”

  “We could not help it, lord. She lay too far out. We would have had to swim. And they were warned. There was no chance for us. And your command was to light the fires . . .”

  “Yes, yes. You have done well, Conn. I am not blaming you. There must have been more men aboard this other, if they could row off.”

  “We could not tell, in the dark. And we were busy with the fires, see you . . .”

  “Aye, the fires. We must douse them. Is it the ships burning, or just gear, tarred ropes, oars, shrouds . . .?”

  “Gear, yes. Anything that we could find that would burn. Some of the timbers may have caught, by now . . .”

  “Then we must have them out. At once. These vessels are valuable to us—the more so now that one has escaped to tell. Come—wet sand, weed, shingle, anything which will douse the flames . . .”

  With many hands it was not difficult to extinguish the fires. They found only one of the ships badly damaged, and that only to its upper works, which would not make it unseaworthy in summer seas. Leaving a guard to set matters to rights aboard, Somerled took the rest back to the encampment site.

  There they were greeted by much celebration and noise, singing, women skirling, Saor with his hands full. He reported three-hundred-and-twenty-four Norsemen dead and none wounded nor prisoner, eighteen women retrieved, some subdued, some hysterical, and considerable provisioning and liquor—as would be apparent. The gallowglasses were for cutting off all the Norsemen’s heads and hanging them up by the hair on trees, but he had held them back, to know Somerled’s wishes—although some heads might already be off.

  Somerled said no. He accepted that it was normal Viking custom—indeed the Norsemen went to quite elaborate lengths in the matter, washing the blood and dirt out of their victims’ hair and combing it and their beards and moustaches before hanging the heads in neat rows, in batches of a score at a time, for easy assessment. Few Hebridean communities had not experienced such a display. But, although it might be poetic justice—and Somerled prided himself on being a poet in the heroic tradition—he felt that it was here unsuitable. Moreover it could well have an ill effect on his Irishry, who were wild and ungovernable enough as it was. Besides, it would all cause delay and he had more important matters to attend to. So, no decapitation. He would tell them so.

  Much blowing of his bull’s horn and eventually he succeeded in getting most of his roystering crew together, although some were already too drunk to pay heed. Somerled addressed them.

  “You have done well,” he said. “You have cleaned up this nest of adders. I thank you. Your reward you shall have, never fear. But the task is only half-done. One of the longships has escaped us, sailed. We know not where, as yet. But there are many more Norse raiding-bands around these coasts, some just across the Sound of Mull no doubt. We know that, at least. And nothing is more sure than that the escaped craft will make straight for one of these, probably the nearest, with the news. They will not know fully what has happened but they will know enough to bring down their friends upon us. You have it?”

  He paused, to let tha
t sink in. There was an uneasy muttering.

  “So we are not finished yet, my friends! We may have to do some fighting! But you are fighting-men, are you not? And you have done no fighting yet. So now we need to know . . .”

  He was interrupted. Two reeling individuals came bawling hoarsely behind him, one carrying a severed head, by the hair, in one hand and a leathern wine-flagon in the other, his companion bearing two more heads. They were singing soulful songs of Ireland, not each the same song.

  “Quiet, you!” Somerled barked.

  They paid no heed, holding up their grisly trophies triumphantly. It was light enough now for all to see the sightless eyes and dripping, torn necks. Still more affecting for the others was to see that the two singers’ bare arms were almost entirely hidden beneath gold bracelets, the broad bangle-like ornaments which the Vikings wore as honourable marks of courage and endurance.

  “God in His Heaven!” Somerled swore. “Here are a pair requiring a lesson, indeed! And by the Powers they shall have it!” He strode over to the bibulous pair, snatched the dangling head from the one with the bottle and, swinging it in an arc, brought the gory thing smashing against the man’s brow, who went down as though pole-axed. Then he rounded on the other repeating the blow and adding a return swipe which toppled the fellow headlong. Kicking them where they lay, he tossed the grinning trophy on top of one and called for Saor MacNeil to come and strip the bracelets from the miscreants’ arms. All spoils were to be divided equally amongst the entire company, he had said. He repeated that loudly. The message was important. Keeping a hold over these Irish was difficult and called for constant exercise of judgement. They were not his own men, only loaned to him. A firm hand was necessary, essential—but they might well resent this treatment of their two drunken comrades by what they might name a foreigner. So the sharing of the loot amongst all was emphasised as counteraction.

  The growling sank away and Somerled went on. “We need to know where that longship would go. Whom it will warn first. It will be able to go but slowly, for it will have only a few men aboard, I think, only enough to man a few of the oars. We must be after it. But where? Do our fishermen know?”

  “No, lord,” one of them answered. “How should we know that?”

  “Did they never speak of other Norse bands, outposts, settlements? There must be many. This was a large encampment. It would have outposts, for sure, around these coasts. The chances are that this longship would head for the nearest of these.”

  No-one ventured a suggestion.

  “Unfortunately you have slain all the Norsemen here, or we might have won something out of a prisoner! But what of the women? Have any of them heard anything to aid us?”

  Silence, save for the groaning drunks.

  “Come, you—do not tell me that near a score of women have not heard something in their traffic with these Vikings, something which we could use. Speak up. Have you all lost your tongues as well as your maidenhood?”

  There was some ribaldry at that. Then one female voice was raised.

  “They spoke often of Kingairloch, lord. Of Loch a’ Choire, with Kingairloch at its head. They were sent there at times. Two or three crews would go. They would be gone for some days, then back. They misliked it there. There was no, no . . .”

  “No women, heh? At Kingairloch? That is on the east coast of this Morvern? A score of miles? Looking across to Lismore Isle? That would be an excellent place for commanding the narrows of Loch Linnhe and the Linn of Morvern. Just the place for an outpost. So—they could be going there. Any other? Mull is nearer—or parts of it.”

  Another woman’s voice spoke, but indistinctly.

  “Louder—let us hear you.”

  “Eric Half-Priest did not love Harald Oarbreaker, lord. I think that they would not go to Aros.”

  “Aros? That is on Mull, is it not?”

  “Yes. Across the Sound from the mouth of our loch, of Aline. Vikings are there, under this Harald. But they are unfriends of Eric here.”

  “Ah. Eric was leader here? And he was at odds with this Harald at Aros? Now we are learning. I know that there is often bad blood between the various Norsemen. Would you also say Kingairloch, then?”

  “Yes, lord.”

  “What of Lismore? The island across the Linn? It would be a fairer place to dwell than at Kingairloch.”

  “But less safe, lord. Less hidden. Less easy to defend.”

  “Ha—there speaks a woman of some wits! Then, since we have no better scent to follow, we shall make for Kingairloch on Loch a’ Choire. With all speed. There are four longships in the bay. We shall take three. They are but little damaged by fire, Conn says. There is no time to be lost if we are to prevent all the Viking coasts being roused against us. Before we are ready. So hasten. Down to the bay. Leave all here until we come back—although take the gold if you will. For sharing. The women to find their way back to the clachan. The fishermen to come with us . . .”

  There was the inevitable grumbling, but no real trouble, although getting the men away from that encampment and down to the bay took longer than Somerled would have wished. And quite a lot more than gold bracelets and the like was carried along—together with the incapable drunks.

  It was broad daylight before they reached the ships. They found that Conn’s people had cleaned up the vessels fairly well, and the fire-damage was indeed only superficial. The great sail of one of the craft proved to be badly burned however, so there was no question as to which ship to leave behind. Dividing up the company into three groups of between sixty and seventy, Somerled gave Saor and Conn each a command and took the largest vessel himself. It did not require long to make them ready for sea, all oars and sails being to hand. None had a full crew of oarsmen, of course, but there were enough to man sixteen-a-side, two men per sweep. Without delay, Somerled beat the great gong which furnished each stern-platform, first in a resounding tattoo to signal a start, then in the regular rhythmic beat to time each oar-stroke, a beat which would increase in tempo as men got into the swing of it, muscles were tuned up and the speed rose.

  The dawn breeze was south-west; and once out of the little bay of Achranich their course down-loch was south-west, so there was no point in hoisting sails. Gongs booming, they raced each other for open water.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Sound of Mull lies approximately north-west and south-east, for some twenty miles, between that great island and the mainland peninsula of Morvern, averaging perhaps one-and-a-half miles in width, major artery for all that complicated seaboard, since it gives access to Lorne, Appin and Lochaber. Loch Aline opens near the bottom end, through a narrow strait in which the tide runs strongly. As the tide was now making, the oarsmen had to row hard to win progress. It took half-an-hour to negotiate that half-mile, which was galling—save in recognition that it would no doubt have taken the undermanned Norse craft considerably longer.

  In the open Sound beyond, as his leading vessel swung eastwards, Somerled scanned the waterway keenly for shipping. All he saw in the bright morning sunlight were a few small fishing-boats. It was early yet.

  They could hoist sail now, with the wind favourable, but Somerled still kept his oarsmen hard at it, so that they drove down-Sound at a spanking pace. Almost at once, after leaving the loch-mouth, they passed a headland on the left where the ruins of a large hallhouse rose on a shelf above the cliff, like fangs. That man eyed it sombrely. As well he might, for this was Ardtornish, his old home, from which the Norsemen had driven his father, mother and self all those years ago, the last of the Thane of Argyll’s houses left him by the invaders. One day, he would build up Ardtomish again, he promised himself.

  Five miles down the Sound, keeping fairly close to the north or Morvern shore, they approached a much wider water, seeming almost an inland sea so landlocked did it appear, bordered by the mountainous bounds of Lorne and Appin, Mull, Lochaber and Morvern, blue slashed with shadow in the morning sunlight. Perhaps ten miles across, this vast basin, the Firth of Lor
ne, represented a veritable hub of seaways, for into it, like the spokes of a wheel, entered the Sound of Mull, the Sound of Kerrera and the large sea-lochs of Etive and Creran and Linnhe, as well as lesser ones. Like a spearhead thrusting down into this from the north was the long narrow island of Lismore, the Great Garden, green, fertile and low-lying, here dividing the mouth of Loch Linnhe into two channels, the Linns of Morvern and Lorne. Northwards into the first, Somerled turned his longships.

  He was all vigilance, for this was, as it were, the main highway of the southern Inner Hebrides, or Sudreys as the Norse called them, as well as of much of the fretted mainland coast, the most favoured and sheltered navigation route through a sea notorious for its hazards equally with its beauty, of sudden storms and cross-winds, of overfalls and whirlpools, littered with a myriad of skerries, islets and reefs. It had been busy indeed before the Vikings came; but their devastations and massacres had depopulated the land and driven peaceful shipping from the sea-lanes. Nevertheless, the Norse themselves would use these waters inevitably, to a great extent, and it behoved wise men to sail warily—although, to be sure the sails of all three ships bore the black spread-winged raven device of the Norse and so would not be assumed to be dangerous.

  Only two or three more fishing-boats dotted the sparkling waters.

  A little less speedily, for the wind was now abeam not behind them, they beat up the long eastern coast of Morvern, close inshore to be the less conspicuous. They could see all often miles ahead here, but there was no sign of the escaped vessel. Somerled grew anxious that they had guessed amiss. He had hoped to have seen it in the distance. But to turn back now would be profitless; for if the escaper had in fact made for Mull, to Aros or one of the other havens therein, by now it would be too late, the Mull Norsemen would be roused, and they might find themselves confronted and outnumbered. They had to go on.