The mounted man, named Faílbe mac Dúnlaing, raised his sword and shouted, “Go! Go!” He kicked his heels into his horse’s flanks and the beast leapt forward and the men behind did likewise, twenty horses streaming past Abbot Columb and his tired mare, and behind them another forty men on foot, armed with spears and axes and many wearing leather armor and bearing shields. Faílbe was the rí tuath of the lands to the west of Ferns, a friend of the monastery, a wealthier man than Airtre, and soon wealthier still once Columb compensated him for his efforts in driving Airtre away.
As those men who had gathered for the defense of Ferns charged out of the gate, Brother Bécc mounted and led the monastery’s twenty-man house guard after them, so that they, too, might join in the fight. Columb might not have the Treasure of St. Aiden, but he was not without resources.
As the last of the soldiers raced past, Columb swiveled his horse around and took a few steps forward to where he could see out the still-open gates to the battlefield, if such it could be called, beyond.
The mounted warriors streaming out of the monastery gates seemed to have taken Airtre and his men entirely by surprise. The Irish did not as a rule fight mounted. They were more likely to use their horses to get to a fight and then dismount and do battle on foot. But Columb and Faílbe had agreed that the terrifying sight of a massive horse and sword-wielding rider pounding down on them might be just the thing to make Airtre’s men break and run.
And they were right. Columb could not see much, with the rain and the distance and the press of men, but he could see the soldiers who formed Airtre’s line frantically taking up their shields and positioning their weapons and bracing for the shock of the riders barreling into them.
Airtre himself and his men-at-arms were not so thrown off by the surprise. They began to move immediately, riding toward the threat, swords held high, spears leveled. But Faílbe’s men all but ignored them, going instead for the vulnerable, lightly armed, frightened men in the line.
It worked just as they had hoped. The horsemen were still fifty feet away when the first of Airtre’s unhappy, conscripted soldiers flung his weapons aside and ran, followed almost instantly by the next and the next. By the time the riders reached the place where the men had been making their stand, they were all in flight.
Despite that ignominious retreat, there were still some men ready to fight. Airtre and his warriors, too proud to run without first making a stand, spurred their horses forward to meet the attack. They charged into Faílbe’s riders, exchanging blows with swords, lunging with spears, swirling around and around in that odd dance of mounted combat. The ring of steel on steel, the shouts of fighting men came in sharp bursts through the muting rain.
Columb watched with interest. The only question really was how long Airtre and his men would keep it up before they, too, ran off, and if many would die before they did. Columb really did not care to see men die, not even men like Airtre, and he said a silent prayer that God might break Airtre’s will and send him running off.
It was not long at all before the prayer was answered. The fight was entirely one-sided, hopeless for Airtre and his men-at-arms once they had been abandoned by most of their men. First one of Airtre’s guard, then another and another broke off from the melee, spun his horse around and raced off down the muddy road, where the foot soldiers were already nearly lost to sight. Airtre was last to go, but go he did, and well before his escape could be cut off.
Brother Bécc was willing, indeed eager, to pursue Airtre to the end of the earth and tear the man’s liver out when he got there. But he had only twenty men under his command, and that was not enough, even against such poor soldiers as those Airtre commanded, and Faílbe’s men had no intention of pursuing the defeated men.
This, too, was planned. Much as Columb loathed Airtre and his greed and ambitions, he did not want to precipitate a slaughter of Airtre’s men. Faílbe, for his part, did not care to go chasing all over the countryside while leaving his own tuath unprotected. So it was agreed: Faílbe would drive the insolent raiders away from the monastery at Ferns, but would do no slaughter beyond that.
And Faílbe was a man of his word. His horsemen chased Airtre’s no more than a hundred yards down the road, making no real effort to catch them, then reined to a stop and watched them racing off over the dull green fields. When at last they were certain that the raiders were leaving and would not be back soon, they turned and walked their mounts back toward the monastery gates.
A few men lay on the battlefield, wounded, perhaps killed, and Abbot Columb moved his horse to one side to allow a cart to pass through the gates to collect them up. Faílbe and Brother Bécc rode past the wounded with hardly a glance. They came in through the gate, their men-at-arms, mounted and otherwise, trailing behind. They reined to a stop in front of the abbot.
“I congratulate you on the victory God has given you,” Columb said. Faílbe nodded, gave a weak smile as if he found that idea slightly amusing and nothing more. Brother Bécc crossed himself and bowed his head, then looked up again.
“There is food and ale and a fire in the hall for you and your men,” Columb said next, and that was greeted with greater enthusiasm.
True to Columb’s promise, the food and drink were plentiful, the fire in the hearth in the center of the floor built to a height that nearly threatened the thatch overhead, and it was not long before Faílbe and his men were full and nearly dry, their corporeal needs satisfied at least, and that was as much as Columb could hope to do. The abbot did not think they were the sort who worried too much about their spiritual needs.
“Let me raise a glass, Abbot,” Faílbe said.
He and the abbot were seated at the head table, the remains of their meal in front of them, the light of the fire dancing off their steaming clothing. Bécc, too, sat with food and drink in front of him, but there was nothing that Columb could read on the man’s face. That was usually the case. He wondered if that was because of the monk’s natural stoicism or the damage his face had endured. Both, the abbot concluded
Columb lifted his cup. Faílbe had already raised quite a few glassfuls to his lips, but Columb would begrudge him nothing after the aid he had given that day.
“To the Treasure of St. Aiden,” Faílbe said. His face was adorned with his half-amused smile so Columb raised his glass higher still.
“To the Treasure of St. Aiden,” Columb said. “May it continue to not exist. As a story for children it is trouble enough. I can’t think what agonies it would bring if it were real.”
The two men smiled. And drank. And Brother Bécc drank and said nothing.
The damned Treasure of St. Aiden… Abbot Columb thought.
“Well, I thank you, Faílbe mac Dúnlaing,” Columb said next, “for coming to the aid of the monastery. The Lord looks kindly on such things.”
“Let us hope,” Faílbe said. “I can use all the help I can get. But of course I am happy to come to your aid, Abbot, when I am able. Which I am now, but might not be soon.”
“Things are stirring to the north?” Abbot Columb asked.
“Things are stirring in the household of the rí ruirech, Tuathal mac Máele-Brigte,” Faílbe said. “There are those in his family who would cut his throat to gain the rule of Laigin, and I think they soon will. Right now they're all too busy intriguing against each other to worry about us here. But if Tuathal is killed, his successor might turn his attention this way. And if that happens I will be lucky to save myself, let alone a monastery.”
“We will pray that does not happen,” the abbot said.
A sudden draft made the candle flames dance, the sound of the rain came louder, and the two men looked up to see the door to the hall flung open. A very wet, very weary messenger stood in the frame, looking for the one to whom he should speak. His eyes settled on the abbot and his guest, men of obvious authority, and he pulled the door closed and hurried over.
“This does not bode well,” Faílbe said as the two watched the rider approach.
>
“Abbot Columb?” the man asked, stopping at the head table and giving a shallow bow.
“Yes,” Columb said. “And this is Faílbe mac Dúnlaing, to whom you should also give honor.”
The rider looked at Faílbe, gave another shallow and impatient bow, then turned back to Columb. “I come from Abbot Donngal, from the monastery at Beggerin,” the man said.
Columb nodded. The monastery was about fifteen miles south, overland, right at the mouth of the River Slaney. “Yes?” he said.
“The abbot begs to say that the Northmen have landed there!” the messenger gasped. He had clearly been wanting to get these words out for some time. “The heathens! There are hundreds of them, many hundreds, and a fleet of ships, and he is sure they are set on slaughter!”
Columb nodded again, unable to work up as much enthusiasm as the wet rider. “I see,” the abbot said. “And is there anything Donngal would have me do about this?”
The messenger straightened a bit, frowned a bit. “Well, if there are any who could come to the aid of Beggerin, the abbot says that would be most pleasing to God.”
God, indeed, Abbot Columb thought. “Well, there is naught that Ferns can do. We have only a small house guard, not much more than does Beggerin.” He turned to Faílbe. “What say you? Can you bring your men to aid Beggerin?”
“I cannot,” Faílbe said. “Once the heathens have had their way with Beggerin they will come up the rivers, and that means they will soon come to my lands. It’s my duty to see to the safety of my own people first.”
Columb turned back to the young man standing wide-eyed before him. “Please tell your abbot what you heard here, and thank him for his warning. I am sure God will protect Beggerin from the ravages of the heathen. But first I beg you to dry yourself and have some food and drink. On a night such as this, I don’t think that the heathens will be at our doors anytime soon.”
Chapter Two
Much have I fared, much have I found.
Much have I got of the gods:
What maidens are they, so wise of mind.
That forth o'er the sea shall fare?
The Poetic Edda
It was just a few hours after the Northmen came ashore near the mouth of the River Slaney that word was brought to the monastery at Beggerin. It was brought by a young sheepherder who had wandered down by the steep, sandy banks that overlooked the beach. He had been searching for a stray ewe, eager to find it before the rain set in.
The sheepherder had never seen a Northman in his life, had only heard tales of their depredations, which seemed to grow more awful with every telling. Still, he knew immediately that these were Northmen he was looking at now. No Irishmen had ships like that. No Irishmen would so boldly drive a vessel up onto the beach with a storm rolling down on them. No Irishman, by his lights, could look so thoroughly terrifying.
The first of the longships seemed to fly up onto the beach and the sheepherder had not lingered long after that. He turned and ran, flinging his crook aside, forgetting his sheep entirely. His destination was the monastery at Beggerin, which was about three miles away over generally open country.
There was no other place he thought to run because there was no other place of any importance for miles around, and if the heathens were coming, then they were coming for the riches at Beggerin. He knew too little of the ways of Northmen to wonder why, if they were coming for Beggerin, they did not just sail to Beggerin, which was at the mouth of the river, rather than beach their ships where they did.
He did not stop running until he reached the gates of the monastery. There he was ushered in and made to tell his breathless tale to one man after another in ascending order of authority until at last he was brought before Abbot Donngal, a wizened, arthritic man whom the sheepherder found far more terrifying than he did the Northmen.
The sheepherder—panicked, young and not terribly bright—had not bothered to actually count the number of ships or heathens he had seen. As he ran he reimagined the scene on the beach over and over in his head, like a recurring nightmare. Each time he saw a few more ships and a few more blood-seeking heathens clambering ashore.
By the time Abbot Donngal had heard the report and called for a rider to race for Ferns, the sheepherder had conjured up a dozen ships and several hundred raiders assembled on the beach beyond the rolling fields. This was the word that the rider carried north. As he did, the priests and monks and nuns and lay people of Beggerin secreted away the wealth of that place. They hid the silver and gold plates and chalices and incensors and monstrances and candlesticks, the manuscripts on which they had so long labored, and anything else they cared to preserve from the wrath of the Northmen, in the many hiding places they had so long ago prepared.
Thorgrim Night Wolf, standing on the sandy beach, would have been surprised by the number of ships and heathens reportedly assembled there. By his count there were only ninety-three Northmen, the remaining crews of two longships, about a dozen Irish warriors who had joined them, another twenty or so Irishmen who had been slaves aboard the Frisian ship, and one Frank whom Thorgrim had been talked out of killing.
There had been about a dozen Frisian sailors as well, the crews of two of the slave ships the Irish had been aboard, but the Irish had soon beaten them all to death. Already the ravens and gulls were taking their first tentative stabs at their corpses.
As to ships, there were only three, and of those only one was on the beach. That one was Blood Hawk, the longship he had given his son Harald to command. Harald had run Blood Hawk up alongside Thorgrim’s ship, Sea Hammer, which was sinking. Sea Hammer’s men leapt aboard and Harald drove Blood Hawk onto the sand. Now Sea Hammer was still out there, fifty yards from the water’s edge, the relentless seas pushing her closer with each set of waves. Thorgrim and the others could do nothing but wait and see how much of her would eventually come ashore, and if what did come ashore might be considered a ship or just so much shattered wood.
“There,” Thorgrim said, pointing to a few bulky bits of debris doing an odd dance in the surf as they rolled back and forth. “Those look to be barrels. Roll those up onto the shore. And over there…” He pointed to another spot just to the north. “That may be more of them.”
The sun was setting, the late afternoon light gloomy and foreboding under the heavy cloud cover. The wind, which had been blowing hard from the east all day, had picked up even further, and now had a decidedly cold note to it, made worse by the fact that all the men and both women on the beach were soaked through.
The men on either side of Thorgrim scattered north and south along the shore to wrestle out of the water whatever they could get their hands on. Thorgrim turned his attention out beyond the breaking waves. In a quirk of timing and maneuver his beloved Sea Hammer had launched itself off a wave and come down on the afterdeck of the Frisian slave ship they had been chasing since Dubh-linn. Thus locked together, the two ships had driven ashore in the building wind and went finally aground fifty feet from the beach.
Thorgrim’s son, Harald, stepped up beside him. “Brunhard’s ship doesn’t even look like a ship anymore,” he observed.
Thorgrim grunted. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. Brunhard was the master of the slave ship on which Sea Hammer had fallen, the man who had eluded Thorgrim for days, burned Sea Hammer’s sail, nearly wrecked the longship. Thorgrim had wanted very much to kill the man, but it turned out that one of his slaves, an Irishwoman named Conandil, had beat him to it. A disappointment, but hardly the worst Thorgrim had suffered.
“Here, the bow might be coming free!” Harald said, a young man excited by the destruction he was witnessing. A big set of waves had swept in, lifting the partially intact bow section of Brunhard’s ship, wrenching it free from the stern on which Sea Hammer rested, twisting it and flinging it toward the beach. It was the only part of Brunhard’s ship that still looked at all like a part of a ship. The after end had been ground down into its component parts between Sea Hammer’s bow and the shallow sea bott
om near shore.
“Let’s hope Sea Hammer fares better,” Thorgrim said. As battered as his ship was, it still seemed more or less intact, and Thorgrim still held out hope it would be driven ashore in such a way that it could be made whole again.
“Let’s hope,” Harald said, but he did not sound optimistic.
“Here, Night Wolf, do you think Njord will see fit to spare your ship, or tear it apart?” This was from Starri Deathless who stepped up on Thorgrim’s other side.
“You know I don’t like to guess at what the gods might do,” Thorgrim said. “Guessing just invites them to do the opposite.”
“So, maybe you should guess that Njord will tear your ship apart,” Starri suggested, and Thorgrim could not tell if he was serious or making a joke. Either way, that did not seem like a very good idea.
“I don’t think Njord is simple enough to fall for such a thing,” Thorgrim said.
Over a stretch of fifty yards of beach Thorgrim’s men and the Irishmen were surging in and out of the waves, grabbing what they could and pulling it up onto the sand. Barrels, sections of planks, spears, broken sections of spars, some with bits of sail and rigging still attached, rowing benches, all of it was coming up into the shallow water.
They were still going at it as the sun began to set behind the thick layer of clouds and the colors faded to grays and browns and blacks. The first drops of rain began to fall and Thorgrim had no doubt it would be a deluge even before it was full dark.
He looked up and down the beach. He could see quantities of shattered planks and rowing benches strewn like wrack on the coarse sand.
“Here, you men, listen to me now!” he called and the hundred or so men stopped their trudging through the surf and turned toward him. “Let’s take that shattered wood, any pieces long enough, and lean them up against Blood Hawk’s side, the inland side. We’ll make a lean-to. It won’t be much, but it will be something.”
Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7) Page 2
