Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7)

by James L. Nelson

  They pulled through the rain and the gloom for the remainder of the day. With the clouds thick overhead the darkness fell early. Finally, after Dragon had gone aground twice on unseen spits of sand, even Thorgrim had to admit it was too dark to go on, the banks of the river and any hazards in the water all but invisible in the muted light.

  Soon after, they found a sand bar in midstream and ran the bows of the ships up on it and ran anchors and line ashore. The steady rain had tapered off to mist, and soon even the mist dissipated, making their situation considerably less miserable. They lifted deck boards and hefted out firewood that had been stowed down out of the rain and built a big fire on the sand. They ate beef and oat cakes and drank ale and they felt their spirits lift like a beached ship on a rising tide.

  Most of the men had furs or blankets they had tucked out of the rain, and those they broke out and found a place to sleep on the sand, which was much more agreeable than the deck of a ship. Thorgrim spread his familiar bearskin out on the ground and lay down on it and Failend lay down beside him and they spread another fur over them. They pressed close, uncomfortable as their soaked clothing pressed against their skin, but they stayed that way and soon their clothes began to dry in the places where they pressed together. And when those places were dry, they shifted a bit and let another part of their clothing dry, and in that way they slept.

  Thorgrim woke in the predawn light and realized that he was comfortable, that his clothing was no longer wet. That means it will start raining again soon, he thought, and then thought, You have become one dour and unpleasant son of a whore.

  Failend shifted a little in his arms and made a soft sound, but she did not wake.

  Thorgrim knew that, much as he wished to, he could not remain bundled and sleeping in the furs. He climbed out from between, standing with a groan and flexing stiff muscles with some effort. He looked around. Dark humps on the sand marked where the others had bedded down for the night. The sky overhead was growing lighter, light enough for Thorgrim to see that the cloud cover had not broken up at all, but the rain at least was still holding off.

  He moved man to man and shook them with his foot, and soon the sandbar was filled with movement, men climbing weary and grumbling from the warmth of their bedding. They relieved themselves in the stream, made a breakfast of cold meat and bread, and once it was full light, as light as it was going to get, anyway, they shoved the longships back into the stream. They fell quickly into the rhythm of the oars, resuming their steady progress as the river wound around until it was running due north.

  The river narrowed as they pushed upstream, the current growing stronger and their progress proportionally slower. But the visibility was good, and Thorgrim was able to pick out the landmarks he had noted on his way upriver earlier: a snag of fallen trees here, a distant ringfort there, the island that Failend had mistaken for the juncture of two rivers.

  “Not so far now,” he called forward from his place at the tiller and he saw heads nodding in happy acknowledgement. There would have been much complaining if they had been made to walk, but even rowing could grow tiresome after a time.

  Then, not wanting to sound too concerned about the men’s comfort, he added, “Soon enough you’ll be standing in a shield wall and wishing you had it so easy as you do now.”

  The river, which at its mouth had been nearly half a mile wide, had narrowed to no more than one hundred feet, the trees and fields on the banks an easy arrowshot away. There was something unsettling about it, as if the shoreline were sneaking up on them, as if they were heading into some sort of trap. And because of that, no one was so very surprised when Starri Deathless, standing at the bow and looking forward, suddenly turned and ran aft with a look of urgency on his face.

  “Night Wolf! Night Wolf!” he said in a harsh whisper as he passed the aftermost rowers and bounded up onto the low deck where Thorgrim stood. “Listen! Do you hear that?” he said, cocking his ear toward the bow.

  Thorgrim frowned and cocked his ear as well and listened. Water gurgling down the sides of the ship, and the creak of the oars in the oarports. He could hear birds on shore. The breeze waving the branches of trees.

  “What?” he asked at last.

  “Fighting!” Starri said, still in his harsh whisper. “Don’t you hear it? Is your hearing gone completely?”

  It was a good question, one that Thorgrim sometimes asked himself when he considered the effects of creeping age. But he looked forward and he could see all the others, the men at the oars and those standing idle, were all straining to hear as well, and apparently failing as much as Thorgrim was.

  “There!” Starri said, as if what he heard should have been clear to all. “Did you not hear that?”

  Thorgrim was about to reply when Ulf, pulling the second oar aft on the starboard side, said, “I heard that! Steel on steel, it sounds like.”

  Starri nodded. The others shifted their heads in hope that it would help. Then another man called, “Yes, I heard that!” Heads nodded.

  Concern for his own hearing was starting to mount when, finally, Thorgrim heard it as well, a small ringing sound, steel on steel, as Ulf said. And then a noise that might have been falling water or wind in trees but which he recognized from long experience as the distant sound of men shouting. Battle sounds. They were coming from the north. They were coming, in fact, from near the juncture of the River Slaney and the Bann.

  It seems like my friends have run into one another, Thorgrim mused. He pushed the tiller away, turning Dragon toward the eastern shore. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Godi, in command of Fox, was doing the same.

  “We’ll run her up to the bank and tie her off, and then to arms!” Thorgrim called forward, his voice loud, whispering clearly unnecessary. The men gave an enthusiastic pull at the oars and Thorgrim called, “Ship oars!” Sixteen long sweeps came running inboard and were snatched up by those standing ready and hefted up onto the gallows on which they were stored.

  Thorgrim twisted the tiller and brought Dragon near parallel to the riverbank just as the way came off her. If Harald had been there he would have already been balancing on the sheer strake, ready to jump, rope in hand. But now it was Starri, who pushed off the edge of the ship and seemed to fly across the gap to the shoreline, hitting the grass on the low bank and rolling and coming to his feet.

  Starri, of course, had neglected to take a rope with him, but others had fished them out from the place where they were stored and now hurled the coils ashore while some of the other, more nimble men followed Starri across. There was a flurry of activity, lines tightened and tied off to the stoutest trees they would reach, weapons handed across, shields lifted from the shield racks, and in barely any time at all, more than ninety men were under arms, standing in the wet grass, ready to advance on their enemy. Whoever that might be.

  “We’re going to keep near the trees,” Thorgrim called, “and move quiet as we can. We have no idea of what’s going on here.” He slung his shield over his back, felt it thudding against his mail shirt. He looked over at Starri. The man was stripped to the waist, as he always was prior to a fight. But his axes were still thrust in his belt and he was not doing that odd, whirling thing that he did as the madness crept over him and that told Thorgrim his spirit was still in Midgard, the world of men.

  “Starri,” he called, and Starri came bounding over, his movements more like a deer than a man. “You go ahead, fast and quiet as you can, see we’re not going into any sort of trap.”

  Starri nodded and then he was gone. Thorgrim turned to the others, waved them forward, began to move at a near run north, skirting the river bank, keeping in the shadow of the trees when he could, though there were few shadows to speak on under the gloomy, cloud-blanketed sky.

  The sounds of the fight grew louder, more prominent as they advanced. A fight but not a grand battle. This was not a clash of armies, but something less than that. Thorgrim could hear the swords against swords, swords against shields. The shouting.
The scream of horses.

  Horses, he thought. Horses meant men of consequence. The Christ priest from Ferns, who was clearly not a priest at all, or at least had not always been a priest. He was a warrior. There was no mistaking that, not for Thorgrim and anyone who knew a warrior’s look.

  He turned to Failend who was walking beside him, bow in hand, arrows in a quiver on her back, her seax hanging from her belt. “What was the name of the Christ priest we met at Ferns?”

  “They are all ‘Christ priests’ at Ferns,” Failend said.

  “The warrior, the one who had half his face cut away.”

  “Brother Bécc.”

  “‘Brother Bécc,’” Thorgrim said, trying the strange Irish name on his tongue. “I’ll wager we’ll be seeing him again shortly.”

  They pushed through a stand of trees, getting wet from the water that dropped from the leaves, and came out on the far side, an open field that rolled up to the crest of a hill, and Starri Deathless, standing on the crest of the hill, framed against the gray sky, and waving for them to join.

  Thorgrim broke into a run, his mail, shield and Iron-tooth thumping against him as he humped up the hill, the sound of ninety men behind him. He reached Starri and the top of the hill and stopped and looked at the field beyond while the rest spread out in a line on either side.

  It was a battle. A small battle, as Thorgrim had guessed. A couple dozen men on foot, half as many on horseback, swirling over the fighting ground, swords gleaming dull, blades banging on wooden shields, foot soldiers thrusting with spears, blocking with shields. A few lay motionless in the grass.

  “Irish,” Godi said, standing at Thorgrim’s side. “Irish fighting Irish. I wonder who they are.”

  “I don’t know,” Thorgrim said. “But I have a pretty good idea.”

  “Well,” Starri said, “why do we just stand here?” His arms were starting to do the jerking thing. “Let’s get into the fight, Night Wolf!”

  Thorgrim shook his head. “I think I know who they are,” he said. “But I don’t know on whose side we should fight.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  May the Trinity, which is powerful over all,

  distribute to us the boon of great love;

  The king who, moved by soft Latin,

  redeemed by Patrick's prayer.

  Annals of the Four Masters

  Airtre mac Domhnall was well impressed with the way he had handled things, right up to the moment that grotesque son of a whore Bécc and his men had burst screaming from the wood line, swords raised, spears leveled.

  He had been impressed with himself pretty much from the moment he had seen the Northmen’s ships run up on the beach and started laying out his plans. And that was good, because his opinion of himself had been brought pretty low by his defeat at Ferns, and then lower still when his wife, Lassar, flogged him with her silent contempt.

  On the beach, with the ships lying before him like some vast offerings, he had climbed down from his horse, walked slowly around the wooden behemoths. There was no damage that he could perceive. It made him suddenly suspicious, thinking this might be some sort of trap. He looked quickly up and down the beach. Nothing that he could see. He formed his men up in a defensive line in case of surprise and then continued his inspection.

  “What think you, lord?” asked Tipraite, now his senior captain after Abbot Columb’s capture of Ailill.

  “I don’t know,” Airtre said truthfully. “I can’t imagine how these ships came to be here. But they are of great value to us, I can tell you that.”

  Tipraite made a grunting noise. “How is that, do you figure?”

  “I don’t know,” Airtre said, and again he was being truthful. He did not know, but he understood in his gut that somehow these ships would be of use to him, one way or another.

  But to use the ships he had to retain possession of them until he figured out where to take them, and how. He would need a lot of his soldiers to defend them if the Northmen came to take them back, and he could not deprive Rath Knock of the protection of his soldiers. Nor would those men called up for service be much willing to stand around on the beach for very long. If he used up all the year’s military service they owed him just protecting the ships, then he would be hard pressed to call them again when he needed them.

  Then his eyes fell on the oars. He frowned. He looked at the long pole that sat on the vertical supports. He did not know what it was called but he did know that there was usually a sail tied to it. But now there was none, and none on the second ship as well.

  “These ships,” Airtre said. “The Northmen row them with the oars, or they sail with a sail, right?”

  Tipraite nodded. “As I understand.”

  “But other than that…I mean, if they have no sails and no oars, they have no way of moving the ships, isn’t that right?”

  “As far as I know,” Tipraite said.

  And there was the answer. Take the oars, and even if the Northmen did come, they would have no way to move the ships until they fetched new oars or sails.

  It was simple, beautiful, and it worked just as Airtre had hoped. He ordered his men to take the oars out of the ships and carry them far inland and hide them. Then they returned to the beach to further consider what to do with their find.

  It was then that the Northmen attacked, a short, sharp fight which left a few of Airtre’s men dead, but not so many that it need concern him. And when the Northmen found that the oars were gone, it meant that Airtre had them at his mercy.

  The ships, he knew, could be useful, but only so useful, since none of his men knew much about working them. But two ships filled with Northmen, the bringers of death, joining with him in sacking Ferns—that would be useful indeed. Let the heathens do the bulk of the work, take the bulk of the casualties and the blame. And then, somehow, he would find a way to turn on the Northmen and drive them back into the sea. The Treasure of St. Aiden was by rights his, and he had little intention of sharing it with heathens.

  It was in negotiating with the heathen chief, Harald, that Airtre’s genius came to full flower, by his estimation. He had traded oars for help in sacking Ferns, and even traded Harald himself for the imbecile groom who attended to the horses, whom Airtre had passed off as his own son.

  If this Harald was important enough to lead a third of Thorgrim’s men in retrieving the ships, then he was a hostage of value, enough so that Thorgrim would not risk losing him. Or so Airtre hoped.

  He had the idea that Harald was not the most quick-witted, and he had managed to throw him further off by treating him poorly, then suddenly and inexplicably doing just the opposite. He had gained some useful information that evening. He had learned, among other things, that Harald was not the only one among the heathens who could speak the Irish language. And that was good. Airtre had feared he would have to bring Harald with him to translate when he met with Thorgrim, something he wished to avoid. He would rather that Harald and this Thorgrim not speak to one another. Not confer in their foreign language.

  And he also learned that Thorgrim might be playing two sides against each other.

  The morning after his interview with Harald, Airtre and Tipraite and five other of the mounted house guard rode out of the dúnad, the camp of an army on the move. With them, on foot, were a dozen spearmen. They were bound for the place where the River Slaney and the River Bann met.

  They were not the only ones awake. Even as they left the camp behind, the rest of the army was at work, some making breakfast in big iron kettles hung over campfires, others breaking down the tents and pavilions and loading them into wagons, and hitching oxen to the traces. They would follow, more slowly, and get in position to join with the Northmen in attacking the monastery. There would be no falling for Abbot Columb’s tricks this time. No talking. The Northmen would go in first, and those barbarians could not even speak the language.

  They had about nine miles to cover, due west, and it would be a tricky thing. Not the travel itself; that was relati
vely simple. The land was easy there, rolling hills and fields and even a few muddy, bare strips of earth that passed for roads. No, the tricky thing was that they would have to pass fairly close to Ferns, and Airtre did not know if that bastard Bécc, that former warrior who now pretended to be a man of God, as if that would save him from his sins, would be patrolling the lands around the monastery. Certainly after Airtre’s first attack, and now the arrival of the Northmen, the monastery would be more cautious and alert.

  So Airtre had led his little band on a route well to the south of the monastery, beyond where he would expect Bécc’s patrols to be watching. He knew he would have to fight Bécc and his men, and perhaps Faílbe’s as well, if the man came to Abbot Columb’s aid once again. And that was not a problem. He looked forward to that fight. But not until he could launch it on his own terms.

  Once he was well south of Ferns, Airtre found the road that would lead to the juncture of the Rivers Slaney and Bann where he expected to meet with Thorgrim. Thorgrim Night Wolf. The road was muddy and soft from the driving rain, which had thankfully let up that morning, and the men on foot opted to walk on the grass that bordered the road rather than slog their way through the mud.

  They crested a hill, and beyond them they could see more fields, rising and falling gently with the land, the usually bright green grass now dull-looking in that light. And cutting through the countryside like a dark vein, the River Slaney, a hundred feet or more wide at that point. From there he could not see the Bann, but he could see the stands of trees that followed the narrower river in places and marked its progress northeast toward Ferns.

  He looked to the south, his eyes carefully tracing the route of the Slaney. And there they were, less than a mile away, moving slowly, hardly seeming to be moving at all, but unmistakable: two heathen longships.

  Airtre allowed himself a bit of a smile, but inside he was feeling immense and unquenchable relief. There were any number of things that could have gone wrong, near infinite possibilities for miscommunication and betrayal and simple changes of plans. Infinite reasons why the heathens could not or would not join in his attack on Ferns. But here they were. Just as he planned.