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

by James L. Nelson

  Harald took up the grips of the two oars at the forward thwart and lifted the blades from the fast-moving stream. He loved rowing, any sort of rowing. He loved taking the oar of a longship, the steady, rhythmic pull, the challenge of enduring, hour after hour. But there was no art in that, save for maintaining the stroke.

  Rowing a boat was something else. A pull here, a backed oar there, playing with wind and current, making the craft perform just the way you wanted it to perform. It was like riding a horse only better, because a horse had its own will, but a boat had only a variety of forces acting on it, forces that could be harnessed and made to work to the boatman’s advantage.

  For a moment, holding the warm grips of the oars, Harald was able to forget that he was a prisoner of these Irishmen, kind as they might be, and tied to a thwart and on his way to Ferns where his next captors were likely to be much less pleasant.

  He dropped the larboard blade onto the shore, against which the current was pressing the boat, and gave a hard shove. The bow of the boat, which had been facing upstream, swung away so the boat came athwart the river and the tumbling water swept it away.

  Harald brought the oars down into the water and gave a pull on the larboard to steady the boat in midstream. As he guessed, there really was not much rowing needed: the Bann was fast in those higher reaches and it swept the skin-covered boat along, the grassy fields and muddy banks passing down either side.

  This won’t do, Harald thought. At any moment they would come to a bend in the river, and he did not credit the Irishmen with enough sense to let him know before they ran into the bank. He pushed the handles of the oars down so the blades came out of the water, then swiveled around on the thwart so he was facing forward. Happily, the rope to which he was tied to the thwart was long enough for him to turn fully around.

  He heard the Irishmen snatching at their spears as he moved, no doubt thinking he was playing some trick, but he ignored them. The boat was starting to spin sideways and he brought the oars down a bit and stroked to starboard and pulled to larboard and brought it back again, straight and midstream.

  “What are you doing?” Cathal asked from the stern.

  “Can’t see where I’m going, looking behind,” Harald said.

  “You can row like that?”

  “Sure,” Harald said.

  “Them Northmen, they taught you all this?” Cathal asked.

  “Yes. Like I said, the man to whom I was a thrall, he ended up treating me like a son. Taught me all the things a heathen would teach his son. Like how to row a boat.”

  From behind, Harald heard Cathal make a grunting noise, like he wasn’t sure how much of Harald’s tale he could believe.

  It was trickier, to be sure, rowing and keeping the boat on course while facing forward, working the oars opposite of how he was accustomed to doing, but Harald had rowed that way often enough that it was not a great hardship. Soon he had the feel of it, and with a stroke here or there he was able to keep the odd Irish craft centered in the stream, which was growing wider and deeper as the miles passed down the sides.

  Deeper, but not uniformly deep. The Bann made a wide turn to the west and Harald gave a pull on the larboard oar to sweep the boat around the bend, and as the river opened up before them he could see the rippling water that marked a shallow ford, running from bank to bank.

  Wonder if the water’s deep enough for us to pass, he thought and gave the issue no further consideration. Either it was or it was not, and they would know soon enough.

  As it happened, it was not. Twenty yards on, the bow of the boat ran into the shallows with a grinding sound. The Irishmen, who had been relaxing on the thwarts and very much enjoying this mode of travel, were tossed forward, two of them right into the bottom of the boat. He heard a scrambling and a thump behind him and he was sure that Cathal had grabbed up his spear, ready to stick it in Harald’s back if this was some sort of trick.

  “Looks like a shallow spot,” Harald said. His eyes were fixed on the bottom of the boat, forward, looking to see if there was any damage to the wood frame or leather skin, if the waters of the Bann were flowing into their boat. But it seemed intact, what he could see of the bottom beyond where Corcc was thrashing like a fish trying to get himself upright.

  “What happened?” Cathal asked, suspicion in his voice.

  “We hit some shallows,” Harald said.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Well,” Harald said, “I think everyone who is not tied to a thwart should get out and pull the boat over the shallow bit.”

  There was a pause, and then Cathal grunted, apparently realizing there was little choice in the matter. One by one the Irishmen clambered over the side and into the stream. The water reached just halfway up their calves, but free of their weight the boat was able to float above the ford. But just barely. Now and again the bottom made an ugly scraping noise as Cathal and the others pulled it over.

  Harald, still bound to the thwart, pulled the oars in from the tholes and rested them on the bottom. Cathal was on the larboard quarter and another of the Irishmen to starboard, and they had a clear view of him, so there was not much he could do without being seen.

  He raised his arms straight up, stretching his back muscles as one might do after having spent some time at the oars. He leaned over to his right, stretching the muscles in his sides. He straightened again and leaned over to his left and with one hand blocking the view of the other he took a quick pull at the knot that tied him to the seat.

  Harald had studied the knot as the Irishman had tied it, knew where to pull. There was no chance he would actually get it free in the heartbeat’s time he had to work on it. But he got it part of the way undone, and that was good enough. For now.

  It was not long before the boat was over the shallow place and the Irishmen, wet from the knees down, climbed back aboard and continued their peaceful journey. Harald kept up his work at the oars, starboard and larboard, keeping the boat in the middle of the river. It occurred to him that if there were no more shallows then he was not likely to get another chance at loosening the knot before they reached Ferns, in which case he was not sure what he would do.

  But he need not have worried. A half mile later the boat was once again aground and once again the Irishmen climbed grumbling into the water to haul it clear. Harald stretched his muscles once again. And the knot came a bit looser.

  The River Bann grew wider and slower as they drifted southwest toward Ferns, and their progress downstream slowed as well, but none of the Irishmen seemed to mind. The day was warm, the motion of the boat easy, and one by one they eased into more relaxed positions and closed their eyes and enjoyed the ride.

  Harald glanced back over his shoulder. Cathal’s eyes were closed, his face relaxed, his hands crossed over his chest. He turned back, facing forward once again. One more tug of the knot and the rope would come free, he was sure of it. But could he make a grab for it in such a way as to not interrupt the rhythm of his stroke and alert the sleeping men? That he was not so sure about.

  He was looking past the bow, trying to picture in his mind how he would do this, when he saw them. Half a mile away, on the south bank of the river. A line of men, close to a hundred it seemed. He could see bright spots of color that long experience told him were painted shields. They might have been Airtre’s men, but Harald did not think so.

  He felt a twist of excitement in his gut. It made no sense that his father and the others would be way up here, but the band he was looking at certainly appeared to be an army of Northmen.

  And then he realized that the boat was starting to spin in the current because he had been ignoring the oars. He brought the blades down quick and they splashed in the water and he heard movement behind him, a kind of low groan as Cathal came awake.

  “Something happening?” he heard Cathal call from behind his back.

  “No, just a little eddy, knocked us off course.”

  Cathal grunted and Harald prayed that he would fall
asleep again. He even thought of suggesting it, but he knew by now that Cathal was not that stupid. He wondered how good the man’s eyesight was.

  “Hey!” he heard Cathal say next, loud and emphatic, and he knew then that his sight was good enough to see the men downriver. “Who’re they? There, who are they?”

  “What?” Harald said.

  “Down the river there, there’s some damned lot of men! Who are they?”

  “How would I know?” Harald said. “An Irish army. Maybe from Ferns? Or one of the rí túaithe’s men?”

  “Irish?” Cathal said. “Maybe they’re heathens.”

  “Heathens? Here?” Harald said.

  “Didn’t you say you came here with the damned heathens?” Cathal asked

  “Well, yes,” Harald said. “But they were down at Loch Garman. The heathens wouldn’t be way up here.”

  “You were,” Cathal pointed out, but before Harald could protest he added, “Run the boat up on the bank, there. I’m not so sure those are Irishmen.”

  “If you say so,” Harald said, but now he was desperately looking for a way to get downriver. Whoever the men downriver were, he had to reach them. If they were Irish, he was no worse off than he was now. If they were his father’s men, he was saved.

  “Up to the bank, I said,” Cathal growled, a warning in his tone.

  “I am,” Harald protested. “But I have to find a spot where I can get to the bank.” He looked past the bow. The river was moving around a wide, easy bend and he could see the water rippling over a sand bank extending out from the shore on his left. A couple of easy pulls of the oar and he could maneuver the boat around it. But instead he drove on, straight ahead.

  “I’ll go against the bank there,” Harald said and then the bow ran up on the shallow bar and the Irishmen in the boat were jarred half off the thwarts.

  “Run aground,” Harald said.

  “I see that,” Cathal said. “You two!” he called to the men seated forward of Harald. “Climb out and see if you can pull us over the sand to the river bank!”

  Muttering, the two men, Corcc and one whose name Harald had never caught, climbed over the side, which was not what Harald had hoped for. He wanted all of them to go overboard, as they had before, but Cathal was apparently too suspicious for that.

  Harald looked back over his shoulder and met Cathal’s eyes. “None of your tricks, now,” Cathal was saying. To Harald’s surprise he saw that Cathal held his sheath knife in his hand, held it ready to fight.

  “What tricks? I’m tied to the thwart!” Harald said. “And it damn well hurts, too.” He pulled the oars in and laid them resting on the sides of the boat. He felt the bow bobbing as the two men in the water grabbed hold and began to pull. Harald reached down and ran his finger between the cord around his ankle and the skin beneath, as if to sooth the chafe. With his left hand he reached up and jerked the last turn of the knot around the thwart and the line fell free.

  “Hey, you!” was as much as Cathal was able to shout. Harald leapt to his feet, snatching up one of the oars as he did. He brought it back over his shoulder and swung it wide and hard at Cathal’s head.

  But Cathal was quicker than Harald would have guessed. He ducked and the oar sailed over his head and made solid contact with the man to Harald’s right, hitting him in the chest as he was standing and knocking him clean out of the boat.

  Cathal lunged, coming in low, knife in hand. Harald grabbed the loom of the oar with both hands, holding it like a staff, and swung the butt end up as Cathal came at him. The oar caught Cathal’s shoulder and knocked him back into the stern of the boat. The man on Harald’s left had his hands up. Harald brought the oar back in a way that could have broken the man’s skull and said, “Over you go.”

  The man needed no more convincing. He nodded, half stood and flung himself over the side. Harald turned back to Cathal, who was pulling himself up. He braced for another attack, but Cathal stopped and held up his hands.

  “Peace!” he said. “Peace! I can see the whole tale you told was a lie. You’re a heathen through and through. All I ask is that you don’t hurt my men, all right? Just promise you won’t hurt none of my men, because you have to admit it—we done right by you, treated you right, save for tying you up, which we had to do, you understand.”

  Harald frowned. The man’s pleading seemed a bit excessive, given that Harald had not yet hurt any of them in any significant way. He was about to say as much when he caught a hint of movement from the corner of his eye. He jerked his head around in time to see Corcc swinging one of the oars around, an oar he had found time to grab while Cathal was blathering from the stern of the boat.

  Harald had just enough time to half raise the oar in his hand, just enough time to silently curse himself for a fool, when the blade of Corcc’s oar hit him alongside the head and the warm light of the day turned black.

  Chapter Thirty

  The first prey was taken by the heathens from southern Brega…

  they carried off many prisoners, and killed many

  and led away very many captive.

  Annals of Ulster

  “Well, either they ran aground or they don’t care to come downstream and meet us,” Starri said.

  Thorgrim made a grunting noise. They were standing on the southern bank of the River Bann, a gently winding stream that varied between twenty or thirty yards wide at that point. Starri had seen it first, a boat, apparently, coming toward them, riding the current. Starri had said there were a handful of men on board, but Thorgrim’s eyes were not good enough for him to see if that was true. Probably was. Starri was usually right about such things.

  “I’ll take a couple of men, we’ll go up and get that boat,” Starri said eagerly, but Thorgrim shook his head.

  “No time, and one boat won’t do us much good,” he said.

  “But what if they give word that we’re here?” Starri argued. “Alert the countryside?”

  “The only place we’re worried about alerting is Ferns,” Thorgrim said. “And they have to row past us to get there. They do that, we’ll stop them. Now we have to press on.”

  They had reached the banks of the Bann not long before, guided there by the grudgingly cooperative lord of the rath in which they had hidden from Bécc’s men. They had walked there through the dark hours, rested some as the sun came up, and then made the rest of the trek in the growing light. Once they reached the river, Thorgrim ordered the men to rest again, and to have a meal of the food the lord of the rath had generously provided in exchange for silver.

  Failend came over to where Thorgrim was sitting, crouched down beside him. “The man who guided us here, he wants to know if he can leave us now,” she said.

  Thorgrim looked past her, to where the lord of the rath was standing, tired and impatient. He had, it seemed, finally come to understand that the heathens would not cut his throat just for their own amusement, but that did not mean he wished to remain in their company.

  “No,” Thorgrim said at last. “Tell him I can’t let him go now. Tell him once we reach Ferns he can go.”

  He watched the quick play of emotions over Failend’s face, the certainty that her fellow Irishman would vigorously protest, the realization that Thorgrim would not care in the least. She nodded and stood.

  “And tell him,” Thorgrim added, “for his sake, that this river better lead to Ferns like he said it does. And if he thinks it won’t, he’d better tell me now before I find it out on my own.”

  Failend nodded, turned, and went back to deliver Thorgrim’s words which were bound to both disappoint and frighten the man.

  Soon after, they saw the boat. They watched its approach, watched it stop half a mile away. But by then Thorgrim was anxious to move and did not want to waste time letting Starri retrieve it.

  “Let’s go,” he said to Starri and Godi nearby and Godi translated his quiet words into loud orders which got the seated and reclined men back on their feet. There was a rustle and clatter as weapons were take
n up from where they had been dropped, shields slung over backs, spears hefted and rested on shoulders. Thorgrim turned southwest and began to make his way along the Bann, the rippling, tumbling water to his right, nearly a hundred warriors at his heels.

  And, he was all but certain, the monastery of Ferns ahead of him. The lord of the rath had not changed his story about where this river would lead, which made Thorgrim fairly confident that it was the Bann, and it would lead to Ferns. The Irishman would know that lying, or even being wrong but not speaking up, meant death at the heathens’ hands.

  They continued their long march along the bank, the line of warriors stretched out in a most undisciplined way, but Thorgrim did not mind. He knew these men well enough, knew that they could be counted on to do what they had to do. They might not have much discipline while walking beside an Irish stream, but in a shield wall they would stand stout as trees, and fall wounded or dead before their courage wavered in the least.

  The sun was well past the midday zenith when Thorgrim called for the men to rest once more and waved Starri up to him. “I don’t want to come around a bend in the river and find we’ve stumbled on Ferns,” he said. “My wish is to approach in the dark and fall on the monastery at first light. So I need you to scout ahead and find out where this place is, and come back to the rest of us and let us know. Understand?”

  Starri nodded. Thorgrim knew it drove Starri to madness to have to move as slowly as a column of one hundred men moved, and this scouting mission would come as a great relief.

  “You may take more men with you, if you like,” Thorgrim said. “Just name them.”

  “Very well,” Starri said, running his eyes over the gathered men. Thorgrim hoped Starri would choose well, because if he did not, then he, Thorgrim, would make the right choice for him. There was no one better than Starri for a task such as this, no one as quick or stealthy or tireless, but still Thorgrim did not entirely trust the berserker to not make a mess of it. Sometimes Starri could be a bit too enthusiastic.