Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4)

by Jason Born

  I shoved Aoife to the ground in order to rush to the king, and to protect her from the melee that would follow.

  With my shield raised, I ran headlong into the outskirts of the clump of enemy swordsmen. Two of their men fell over from the force of my blow. Randulfr dispatched them both before they could rejoin their brethren.

  Gudruna snuck in behind me. She stabbed with that short sword with remarkable efficiency. Time and again her thin arm snuck under my raised sword and protected my side.

  Godfrey smacked a man across his face with the edge of his shield. Teeth flew. One of them bounced off my check.

  I spat in the face of my opponent. He did the same to me. My blood burned with fierce anger. I pulled out my father’s saex. With my shoulder, I repeatedly heaved up and into my shield until one of my thrusts forced his war bark up. I rammed the small blade into his belly. He wore leather mail. It was surprisingly strong, for I felt my momentum check. It infuriated me all the more. I used the whole of my arm, body, and legs to drive the short sword through the armor and into his flesh. He melted.

  More of Godfrey’s crew came to our aid. They added force to our push. Slowly, methodically we slaughtered the Dal Riatans. We caught the bloodlust. We felled them like trees being harvested for the longboats. They crashed into one another. They formed a corpse street. I stepped on them. We slipped, but the might and support of the partial shield wall kept us upright. At last my shield boss met Godfrey’s.

  The king’s eyes widened. At first they gave his characteristic sparkle. He even opened his mouth to say something sarcastic, something funny. The king was doing what the old gods had created his family to do. His new Christian God seemed to merely tolerate his actions in Midgard. “Good of you to arrive, Halldorr!” A rock smashed into his cheek.

  We looked toward the village. What was left of the town’s men had reorganized. They’d looted ours and the dead soldiers’ weapons. Some had gathered helmets.

  Gudruna pushed past me. She screamed, light shield lofted, weapon raised. Alone, the queen ran straight toward the newly assembled enemy.

  The joy left Godfrey’s face. He frowned, instantly recognizing her voice. “Kill them! Protect the queen!” He pointed his dripping sword. I could just see the unmistakable ‘+UL’ near the guard. The rest of the manufacturer’s name was blanketed with Dal Riatan blood.

  Our hearts swelled to protect the one grown woman among us. Our bloodlust was in full lather. We allowed it to run. By now though, we’d assembled properly and didn’t sprint like the wild men of Ireland’s inland regions. Only a handful of the other ships’ men had arrived. It was more than enough.

  Gudruna was already fighting against three men, parrying their blows deftly when we arrived. Leif snatched the queen from her suicide run. She was roughly tossed behind us as we advanced. We hemmed the last of the town’s defenders in between two shield walls, ours and the one from the newly arrived ships. We closed in a frighteningly controlled manner, shields locked, swords and spears bristling.

  The townsmen rethought their position. Their faces showed fear, without a cut, their blood drained, their hearts sank. They looked over their shoulders at their families and monks who fled in the opposite direction. Spears and shields crashed to the ground. Metal clanged. The defenders went to their knees and held their hands up behind their heads. I heard them try to use Latin to speak to us, which Killian had said was a universal language. I understood not their words, but their meaning was plain enough. They wanted to surrender.

  Next to me, Godfrey cursed. He looked back at his queen and growled. The king panted and for a moment, I swear to you, it appeared that he was coming to his senses. His mind was taking control of his body after the bloodletting. Godfrey was angry at his queen, yes, but most of us had survived.

  Then King Godfrey peered through the town and saw a lone tree that sat in a vast pasture north of town. There he saw the last of his men who’d been executed a year earlier. The man’s body, weather beaten and animal eaten, still rocked in the breeze at the end of a fraying rope. The rest of his crew from the previous raid was still piled high in the sheep dung heap. The king rubbed his cheek where the stone had hit earlier. He winced. His palm came away red. Godfrey’s face contorted. It showed rage.

  Godfrey called out to us. “Finish the defenders. If they wish to die without a sword in their hands, so be it. We’ll take what’s left of their families as plunder.”

  Killian, with his arm wrapped in a hastily applied bandage, ran in front of us. “Godfrey, don’t do this. The men we slaughtered on the beach at Watchet were soldiers. And English,” added the Irish priest. “These men are protecting their lives and families. They are Christian brothers like you and me. Don’t do this. You’ve won. You’ve taken the stronghold of the island. Don’t let your revenge go too far.”

  “Halldorr,” shouted King Godfrey.

  “Lord!” I answered.

  Godfrey scowled at the queen. He looked again at his dead men from last year. “Escort the priest out of my way.”

  I frowned at Killian and reached for his shoulder. The priest wasn’t going to be able stop the butchering. He was stopping the battle thrill I momentarily felt, however. I suppose Godfrey was doing that too. I grabbed Killian’s vestment and jerked him back through the lines and held him there. Side-by-side, we watched all that unfolded next.

  When it was done I realized that I had released the priest, who stood quietly next to me. Gudruna had moved next to us. My eyes burned. I hadn’t blinked all the while during Godfrey’s murder of the town’s would-be protectors. I squeezed them shut and open. Someone’s blood oozed into them, burning them more. I wiped it away with a dirty paw.

  Killian spoke softly. “Hubris and anger usually get a man killed quickly. Sometimes a king can delay such retribution, but it comes. It comes.”

  I met the priest’s eyes, saying nothing in return. “I’ve broken many vows to serve King Godfrey,” said Killian. “At first I thought it was best to placate him. It would allow me to come close and show him my faith, its quiet power, its justice, its mercy. He is to be a Christian, after all, so how much work would I have to do? That’s what I thought. But instead of him drawing closer to Christ, I faded with him. My natural tendencies for adventure were exploited by the evil one, by Godfrey. We didn’t improve in our walk. We didn’t progress like the pilgrims we are to be. The king and I have both gone backwards to act more like your ancestors. I’m a Christian in faith, but a pagan in deeds.” His shoulders and head slumped.

  The first of the fires began to catch. All around, men looted. They pulled what they could from houses and shops and from the monastery. Most of the richest wealth had been taken in previous raids, but there was always more hidden. There wouldn’t be after this strandhogg. The men were thorough. Holes were dug in floors. Cracks were searched, crevices scoured. The booty was piled in the green grass that was temporarily colored red.

  The priest silently stepped away. He bent to pick up his sword and after cleaning it off, carefully slid it home. Killian disappeared over the lip of the ravine and climbed down to the ships. I wondered if I would ever see him again.

  “He’ll be back,” said Gudruna, reading my thoughts. “In mind and spirit, Killian loves the shield wall. The king has told me as much.”

  “The king also told you to mind the house while he was gone,” barked Godfrey as he strode past us to pay his respects to the bodies left from last year’s slaughter.

  . . .

  “Divide the bounty up among the crews,” the king said to us.

  The priest’s attitude had infected me. I decided I didn’t want any of the wealth taken after murdering those men for no reason. I was angry with myself for not stopping it. Yet, I was even angrier with myself for having such thoughts. Those were not the ideals of my people. My people lived for war. Our men wanted to populate the great halls of the gods. How else would we do that but with slaughter and battle? I sat stewing. It was to be the first time my soul ex
perienced the inner turmoil that the Christian faith demanded. In so many ways it was more difficult, much more of a challenge than the simple, outright cleaving of your opponent. I kept these thoughts to myself.

  Randulfr dragged a captive into the circle of light formed by the campfire. The man, his arms bound around a stick behind his back, was the abbot who had taken the place of the one Godfrey killed the previous year. His face was bruised. Two trails of blood snaked their way down in front of his ear from a wound somewhere amidst his short hair. I was struck by his lack of fear.

  The chief of the monks was thrust to the ground. One of his knees struck a pebble. He winced, then closed his eyes and mumbled Latin. When his eyes reopened, the abbot was again at peace. He appeared in better mental condition than I felt.

  “Why the soldiers?” snapped Godfrey. “They sounded Irish or Welsh to me.”

  The abbot met the king’s gaze and slowly pointed with his nose at the king’s chest. “Underneath that mail, my son, what do you wear? Against the skin of your chest, what rests there and feels the beat of your heart?”

  “I’m asking the questions,” said the king. Gudruna sat next to Godfrey. The pair certainly hadn’t made up. They had more immediate matters to tackle.

  “And I will answer them all, lord king.” The abbot didn’t mock Godfrey. His sincerity was disarming. “Help me understand a few things.” The man paused as he lifted his knee off the pebble and adjusted himself into a more comfortable position. “Help me and I’ll answer all your questions with the veracity of Christ.”

  Godfrey examined his prisoner and gave a long sigh. He reached into his collar and fished out a gold chain. From it dangled a simple golden cross. “Is this what you wanted to see?”

  “That will do, yes. I met your father once.”

  “Many men crossed the path of my father. Many of them didn’t survive the encounter,” quipped Godfrey.

  “Harald of Bayeux was a fighter, but was no brute. He came to the faith with earnestness. I met him around that time. You know that was part of the reason he abandoned Normandy. He didn’t like the heathens in Rouen, their slave markets.”

  “And another part of his reason was that the Normans were getting better at cornering the markets for goods beyond thralls. He wanted something left for his son to inherit. Harald wanted his son to become a king,” said Godfrey.

  The abbot sniffed. “You,” he said to me. “Will you scratch my forehead?”

  I looked at Godfrey, who nodded. In turn, I told Aoife to scratch the man’s head. She got up from where she sat next to the king and complied.

  “Thank you, lass. You’ve fallen in with a rough bunch.”

  “Not rough enough,” she said.

  The abbot faced Godfrey. “Harald was a man of action. He was a Norseman, but not of old. He, as I say, was no monster. His raids were quick and if they could be painless, were. He avoided many of the Christian lands, for he wanted alliances with them. In a practical sense, Harald wanted trade.”

  Godfrey scoffed, “You’re testing my patience. Haraldsson will get trade. He will get alliances. He’ll get it all his way.”

  “I fear Harald’s son will get it all and more.”

  King Godfrey raised himself to his feet. He walked to the crouching abbot. Godfrey rested his hands on his hips. “I have in my belt a great sword. It is the sword of a king, a conqueror. I am done reminiscing with you. Answer my questions.”

  The abbot frowned. He appeared genuinely disappointed. “Very well. The soldiers came just weeks ago. They began to build a fort across the island, on the northeast end. The fort is hardly begun so the soldiers all lived in what was that village.” With his bruised head, he pointed to the cracking and smoking silhouette. It was the second village I’d destroyed that year.

  “Were they Irish?”

  The abbot slowly shook his head. “No. Most were of the native Dal Riatan. Others, though, said they came from Wales. They served a king down there called Maredubb.”

  Godfrey and Randulfr exchanged glances. “Why would they be here if they serve Maredubb?” asked Randulfr.

  The abbot attempted to shrug, but the rope and stick behind his back pinched. “You’re reaching the extent of my knowledge, I’m afraid.”

  Leif threw a log he’d been whittling into the fire. A small burst of sparks scattered into the sky. “I know why they were here.”

  “Let’s stop with the mysteries,” commanded Godfrey.

  “Of course.” Leif scratched his arm. “You’ve let the whole world know you meant to come to Dal Riata. You want it firmly and forever in your Kingdom of the Isles.”

  “So? That is a king’s right.”

  “All men of power want more. That’s how they protect what they’ve already got. You expand into the frontiers so that your enemies are fighting and dying there, rather than attacking and stealing from your capital. That’s what my father’s done in Greenland. The skraelings are forever on the run. My father’s just a jarl, but a king does much the same on a grander scale.”

  “And your point?”

  “A crafty man doesn’t tell his enemies where he will attack next.”

  “But a strong king can afford to do so,” answered Godfrey. He held his arms out and showed us all the campfires that dotted the landscape. “When a king is mighty, with a string of fortune, and a growing army, he can get away with telling the enemy exactly what he will do. The idea is that the enemy, weaker, can do nothing about it.”

  “Not unlike the Greek’s Cassandra, huh?” asked Killian, shuffling into our midst. I smiled when I saw that he had not hurled himself onto his sword or the rocks. Gudruna was right. I believe that he was working at being true to the One God. But when Killian was knitted together in his mother’s womb, a thread was woven in that craved adventure. It’s a thread that never would have seen use had Godfrey not thrust himself onto Man.

  Godfrey and Gudruna smiled at seeing the priest’s return. Killian rested a hand on the abbot’s shoulder. The abbot refused to meet eyes with our priest. The prisoner looked away. Killian’s melancholy returned.

  “Cassandra or the norns, whatever,” Godfrey huffed. “They know the future. My enemies know the future. In it they die.”

  Young Leif kicked at the earth, making a furrow with his foot. “You’re right, lord king,” said Leif, in a way that clearly said that he thought the king was wrong. “What I mean is that since the Dal Riatans knew you were coming in force, they had to ally themselves with another. And who else has reason enough to want to fight you other than Maredubb? It makes sense. It was his treasury you used to build this army. The people here would want to ally with a man who doesn’t raid their churches, someone who is a true Christian.” Both the abbot and Killian grunted their agreement. “Horse Ketil probably helped with the introductions.”

  Godfrey smiled. “Aethelred too. I’ve given him cause. Why not just say that everyone is against me?”

  The king was not taking the news with the proper gravity. We all shook our heads. The queen said, “Yes, and given time, Aethelred may send a force against you. But Aethelred is safely in London. Maredubb, whom you’ve seen with your own eyes, is just a few days sailing from here. His army is either already in Dal Riata or preparing to invade Man while we are busy fumbling up here for your silly revenge.”

  Godfrey at last paused to think rather than banter. He turned to the abbot. “So is this true. Does Maredubb have an entire army in Dal Riata? Or, was it just these few men?”

  The abbot peered up at the king’s face which was illuminated with the flashing campfire. “At last you cut to the heart. Your questions come full circle, king.” The abbot said the last word with not a little derision. “I’ve been instructed to give you a challenge. King Maredubb awaits you. He doesn’t hide behind the walls of his Aberffraw. He will not attack your stronghold on Man.”

  “A great sea battle!” exclaimed Godfrey. My sea-king was excited at the prospect.

  “No, none of you raiders wil
l have the benefit of your longships if you accept the contest.” The abbot straightened himself as best he could. “How fitting that you and your priest, falling back to your old gods as you do, will meet your true Maker in the place where the ancient kings used to be crowned. Maredubb is calling you there. The pagans that haunt it will kill you.”

  “Dunadd,” breathed Killian.

  CH

  APTER 12

  Godfrey left fifty men on Lismore. It was not enough to truly hold the island if someone meant to invade it, but he’d never left any presence in the wake of his previous raids. Those fifty men were to travel across the narrow middle of the island and finish the fort begun by the island’s would-be defenders. The rest of us sailed for Dunadd. Gudruna, her secret clearly out, rode aboard the king’s flagship.

  Charging Boar was designated a thrall ship. Four other ships in our small fleet carried slaves as well. We carried eight women and three boys who stood at the precipice of manhood. These Dal Riatan prisoners, taken from the woods outside the village, were bound tightly to the ship’s ribs. They were in the way of our work. It would be worth it though, for once we finished our task in Dunadd, Godfrey had said, the slaves would bring about a great profit at the thrall auction in Dyflin. The Islamic Empire often sent merchants this far north. The rich Moors or Berbers or Arabs never seemed to tire of receiving expendable labor. The men, it was told, would be neutered and turned into house servants. The female thralls, like women slaves everywhere, would be put to multiple uses.

  With the extra bodies onboard we bumped into each other more than ever. Tempers flared despite having won the King of the Isles a new island, regardless of the fact that Godfrey and those serving him had a new source of wealth from which to draw. I was still a little surly.

  Magnus cut across the wake left behind by Raven’s Cross in order to find less choppy seas. Our ship was temporarily buffeted so that I brushed up against Leif. He was forced to push down onto the thin wooden bars of a cage in which we’d placed chickens we pilfered. The cages had been roughly handled during loading, turned upside down and right side up again and again. Leif withdrew his hand and looked at the palm. It was smeared with the white and brown of manure.