“I’ll be back in the morning,” Asbjorn said as he backed off the ship, his tone a threat. Thorgrim struggled against the men who held him but they knew better than to let go, even if it meant a thrashing after the port reeve was gone.
Asbjorn hurried off and when he was lost in the dark Thorgrim shook off the men and stamped aft. Stupid, stupid... he thought. The black mood didn’t strip him of his senses, at least not after the blind fury had passed. He knew that he had made a grave error, but he had been unable to fight the spirits that possessed him. He could still see that offensive fat finger wagging at him.
He leaned against the sweeping sternpost and looked up the rise at the longphort of Dubh-linn. There were lights burning here and there, and the windows of the mead hall glowed from the fire and lanterns inside. He could hear the sound of the revelry, like a soft land breeze blowing down to the river.
Danish? Dubh-Linn is Danish now? How could that have happened?
Quite easily, Thorgrim realized. Danes and Norwegians often fought side by side, but just as often they fought one another, in the same way that the English and the Irish were generally so busy fighting amongst themselves that they had nothing left to fight off the Norsemen.
He thought of the crown. The dream had told him not to bring it to Dubh-linn and now he saw why. But even without it, they were in a precarious situation.
“Sigurd Sow,” Thorgrim called as he walked forward again. Sigurd stood. He looked nervous. “Come with me. And you five.” With a sweep of his arm he indicated half the men left on board. “The rest of you keep a bright watch while we’re gone.”
“Where are we going, Thorgrim?” Sigurd Sow ventured.
“To find Ornolf. We have trouble, and now I’ve made it worse. It can’t wait.”
Chapter Eight
A clear head
is good company
Drink is a dangerous friend.
Hávamál
A
sbjorn the Fat ran up the plank road until his heaving breath would not allow him to run a foot more. He stopped, gasped, cradled his aching finger in his left hand.
Asbjorn envisioned problems as if they were one of those intricate carvings beloved of Norse artists - long, snake-like creatures all tangled around one another. His thoughts followed along each of the paths until he could see where it led; to danger, to opportunity, to nowhere.
He thought of those Norwegians, stupid sons of bitches, sailing right into a Danish longphort with a hold full of plundered Danish goods. Could he derive some benefit from keeping them a secret? His mind followed along that path. He started up the hill again.
No. Orm would find out about them one way or another, and if it was from someone other than Asbjorn, then Orm would think his port reeve either conniving or incompetent. And Asbjorn was not incompetent.
He hurried up to the fortress, passed by the guards at the gate without even acknowledging them, hurried across the inner yard. He paused, let his breath come back, then crossed to Orm’s door and knocked. He was about to knock again when Orm called for him to enter.
The main room of Orm’s house was lit with a single candle and the glow of embers in the fireplace. Orm was adjusting his tunic as he crossed the room, his bare legs and feet white in the dim light. Asbjorn wondered if he had been rutting with his slave girl. If so, he would not be happy for the interruption. He would not be happy in any event.
“What is it?”
“That longship, it came in at sundown? They are Norwegians.”
“Norwegians?” Orm frowned, wrinkled his brow. Asbjorn knew that this news would strike home. Rumors had been floating in for some time of a fleet assembling under Olaf the White. There was not a day since Orm had taken Dubh-linn from the Norwegians that he did not expect them to arrive in force and take it back.
“What do they want?” Orm asked.
“To trade, it would seem. I don’t think they realized things have changed here.”
“Hmmm. I wonder...”
“I managed to inspect their cargo, before I was attacked. Filled with trade good. Danish trade goods, and no explanation of where they came from.”
“You were attacked?”
“Brutally attacked, by half the crew. I just managed to escape.”
Orm ran his eyes up and down Asbjorn’s person. He did not look like he had just survived a brutal attack, so Asbjorn hurried the conversation along.
“They arrive here with stolen goods, attack the port reeve, act as if they do not know Dubh-linn is a Danish longphort... They are either very dumb, or are playing at some game.”
Orm nodded. He turned away, stared into the fire, as he often did when deep in thought. “Where are they now?”
“At the hall.”
“Send Magnus. Tell him to keep his mouth shut and listen. Find out what he can.”
“Yes, my lord,” Asbjorn said.
Of course Magnus would be dragged into this thing. Asbjorn’s mind began to follow the trail of the winding beast. He was looking for the path that would end in the defeat of the Norwegians as well as the final humiliation of Magnus Magnusson. Or better still, Magnus’s death.
Thorgrim led his small but well-armed band up the plank road toward the mead hall. The night was quiet and the noise from inside grew louder as they approached. It was the raucous noise of half-wild men far from home and beyond even the limited constraints their domestic life imposed upon them. Thorgrim could hear snatches of song, bits of poetry, laughter, shouts and screams, both male and female. He frowned and pressed on.
The door to the hall gaped open and Thorgrim stepped inside, stepped from the dark, still night to the fire-lit, roaring world of the hall. The building was fifty feet long and thirty high, just one big room with an oak table running nearly the full length. A massive fire burned in a fireplace at the far end, and oil lanterns hung from the ceiling at regular intervals, casting an orange light and leaving deep shadows all around.
It was crowded with men. Big men, well armed men. Drunk men. They hoisted cups to their mouths, let mead run down their chins and filter through dense beards as they drank. The plates that littered the table were mostly empty now. The scattering of bones and crumbs and chunks of half-gnawed foodstuff were all that was left of the on-going feast.
Women were few but there were enough of them. They moved through the throng, keeping cups full, bringing more food to the table, enduring the Vikings’ indelicate words and hands. Slave girls, some Norse, some Irish, Thorgrim was not so consumed by the black mood that he did not notice how pretty most of them were.
He walked farther into the hall. His arrival, with a gang of armed men at his back, caused not the slightest reaction from the crowd. He could see his own men scattered among the hall, sitting in small knots by themselves or engaging in the general revelry. If they had figured out yet that they were a few Norwegians among Danes, they did not show it, nor did it seem to matter. They were all Vikings, doing what those people did best.
Harald was sitting somewhere near the middle of the hall, looking young in that company with his ruddy, clean-shaved face. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes slightly glassy. He might be able to row like a man, but he still could not drink like one, certainly not one like his grandfather.
As to fornicating, Ornolf had apparently not got to that part of the instruction. There was a girl on Harald’s lap, a pretty young thing with dirty blond hair and a slight figure. Harald was laughing like he was enjoying every minute of it, but Thorgrim knew his boy and he could hear the false note, the look of profound embarrassment under the mask of pleasure.
“Harald!” Thorgrim barked.
Harald looked up. His face grew redder still. He said something to the girl, pushed her off his lap so she landed on her rear end on the floor, and hurried over to Thorgrim.
“Father! Is there trouble?” Harald’s hand went unbidden to the hilt of his sword.
“Could be.” Thorgrim had to talk loud, louder than he wished to, just to b
e heard. “Where is Ornolf?”
Harald’s face flushed again. “Uh...over by the fire, I last saw him...”
Thorgrim nodded. Whatever Ornolf the Restless was up to, Thorgrim did not care. Nor would it embarrass him. He was a long way from fifteen years old.
He headed off toward the back of the hall, threading his way through the crowd, stepping over those sprawled on the floor, the ones who had gone man to man with their cups and lost. How many times, he wondered, had he been in the middle of this exact same scene? It was like Valhalla, the same wild feast repeated night after night. He wondered how, in the afterlife, it did not lose its charm. In his present mood, the atmosphere was not doing much for him.
Ten feet from the fire and he could feel the heat on his face. He wandered off to his right, toward the shadows in the corner. He found Ornolf the Restless there, amid a pile of furs and blankets. His leggings were down around his ankles. He was on top of a slave girl, furiously humping away. The girl’s whole body jarred with each powerful thrust. Her eyes were wide and she was gasping for breath, but if that was due to passion or that fact that she could not breath with Ornolf on top of her, Thorgrim could not tell.
“Ornolf!” Thorgrim shouted.
Ornolf looked over at him, annoyed, but his face brightened when he saw who it was. “Thorgrim! Glad to see you’ve stopped your moping around and come join us!”
“We need to talk,” Thorgrim said.
“So, talk...” said Ornolf, never losing a beat. Thorgrim knew Ornolf was perfectly capable of copulating like a bull caribou in rut and holding a conversation at the same time, but with the black mood on him Thorgrim could not do it.
“Talk to me when you’re done,” he said and walked off. He paused near the fireplace, at the edge of the chaos, like standing at the edge of a thundering surf. The men he brought with him had melted away, joined with their comrades in the bacchanal, but that was fine. Thorgrim had wanted a show of force coming up the road, but he did not need it here. If the Danes turned against them, there was not much his six men were going to do.
“Here, have a drink with me!” a voice roared out, near by, close enough that the man did not need to shout as loud as he did. Thorgrim felt the blast of fetid breath. He turned. The man was huge, six inches taller than Thorgrim and fifty pounds heavier. He held out a cup. Mead sloshed over the sides.
Thorgrim took it and drank, nodded his thanks.
“A polite man would offer a toast,” the big man said and there was an edge of anger to his words. Thorgrim felt the rage mounting, despite all his efforts. He raised the cup in a half-hearted gesture.
“Are you too good to toast with me?” the man said, stepping closer. Looking for a fight. Thorgrim had seen this bastard’s type often enough. This night he chose the wrong man in the wrong mood.
“Well?”
Thorgrim took another sip then tossed the remainder of the mead in the man’s face. The man spluttered, wiped his eyes. Thorgrim wound up and hit him in the side of his head with a force that sent shockwaves of pain through his hand and arm, and the big man went straight down, like the bones in his legs had vanished.
Thorgrim considered the unconscious giant as he flexed his fingers. His hand hurt but his mood was much improved.
“Thorgrim!”
Thorgrim staggered, as if Ornolf’s voice had physically struck him, then realized that Ornolf had slapped his back. The jarl was holding his trousers up with one hand, and he tied them as he spoke.
“I do dearly love to go a-viking,” Ornolf said. “But these long ocean voyages...no women...it’s hard on a man.” Copulating always put Ornolf in a thoughtful mood. “There are plenty of women here, get yourself one,” he suggested.
“Perhaps,” Thorgrim said, and though he loved to be with a woman as much as any man, still when the evening’s foul mood came on him he could not stand the thought. “Did you know that Dubh-linn is a Danish longphort?”
Ornolf squinted like he was confused. “It’s Norwegian,” he said.
“Not any more. Or so the port reeve tells me. The Danes under some bastard named Orm drove the Norwegians out less than a year ago.”
Ornolf looked around, wide-eyed. “Well, it seemed a lot of these whore’s sons were Danes, but I did not know they had control of the longphort.”
“And here we are with a hold full of plundered Danish goods.”
Ornolf gave a wave of his hand, dismissing Thorgrim’s concern. “No matter. These sons of bitch Danes are as greedy as any men. A good price and they won’t care a damn if we took these goods from their mothers, and humped them in the bargain!”
“I broke the port reeve’s finger. Or nearly did,” Thorgrim said.
“Damn me! And I thought you were having no fun at all tonight!”
Thorgrim looked away, irritated by Ornolf’s refusal to see the seriousness of their circumstance.
Or maybe I’m just an old woman... Thorgrim thought.
But now someone else was approaching, a tall and well formed man, clean-shaven with silky hair hanging down his shoulders. He was well dressed, clothes that projected money and power. His blue eyes were mostly steady, but he took in everything.
“Good evening, gentlemen,” the stranger bowed, courteous but not overly so. “My name is Magnus Magnusson. You are new to Dubh-linn, I believe. I welcome you.”
“And who are you,” Thorgrim asked, “to welcome us?”
“No one of consequence.” Magnus’s tone was disarming.
“Pleased to meet you!” Ornolf thrust a meaty hand at Magnus, and Magnus took it and shook.
“You do not look a man of no consequence,” Thorgrim observed.
“I am an associate of Orm’s who is lord of Dubh-linn, that much is true,” Magnus said.
“So you are a Dane, then?” Ornolf asked. “The lot of you here, Danes?”
“Yes,” Magnus said. “But it is no matter. Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, we are all here of a purpose. Settle this savage place. Establish trade.” He smiled, the kind of smile meant to win converts.
“There, Thorgrim, you see?” Ornolf roared. “I have been telling Thorgrim,” Ornolf said to Magnus, “that you Danes are not nearly the treacherous sons of whores most make you out to be.”
“Indeed,” Magnus smiled. “We are not.”
“Well, then,”Ornolf said, “I would be proud to drink with you and call you friend.”
Be your friend’s true friend, to him and his friends, Thorgrim recalled the old saying. Beware of befriending an enemy’s friend.
Who are the enemies, he wondered, and who the friends?
Chapter Nine
A man should drink
in moderation
be sensible or silent.
Hávamál
F
or a man of no consequence, Magnus Magnusson commanded a lot of respect, or so it appeared to Thorgrim Night Wolf. With a word Magnus cleared a half dozen men from the table so that he and Ornolf and Thorgrim would have a place to sit in relative private. With a wave of his arm and a nod, mead and wine and food appeared.
“So,” he said, after they had all drunk deep and Ornolf had set into the chicken, “you have been lucky in your raiding?”
Thorgrim made a low growling noise, despite himself. He did not care for questioning, could see that this Magnus was too smooth by half. But he understood that it was his own rash actions that had put them in a compromised position, so he held his tongue.
“Lucky?” Ornolf raved, spitting bits of chicken. “Damned unlucky. England was a paradise once, gold everywhere, monasteries and churches bursting with the stuff. You just had to bend over to gather it up. Now? Picked bloody clean. Back when I was your age, when men had balls, we took all there was. Not a damned thing left!”
“Really? I had heard your hold was quite full.”
“Heard?” Thorgrim asked. “From who, the fat one who was poking around our longship?”
Magnus smiled. “Asbjorn. A fat one indeed. I heard you
nearly broke his finger. I’m sorry you did not cut his throat.”
Thorgrim nodded. That was good to hear, anyway, that Asbjorn was not universally loved. “We’ve had some luck, despite what Ornolf says.”
Magnus nodded and his thoughts were moving down some new path. “You were off the coast, in this last storm. Any luck then? Find any of these Irish out at sea?”
Thorgrim shook his head.
“Ha! Irish at sea?” Ornolf raged. He stopped, looked at Thorgrim. His smiled faded. “Oh, no. Not a damned one.”
Thorgrim looked at Magnus. The Dane had not missed that, Ornolf’s awkward retreat.
“You’re certain?”
Thorgrim leaned back and folded his arms. “We had some luck. A trader, loaded to the gunnels. Danish, it turned out. I think you can guess why we are keeping it to ourselves.”
“And that was it?”
Thorgim’s eyes met Magnus’s and held them, and for a long moment they just sat there, unmoving, each staring the other down. Thorgrim thought of the young nobleman he had fought for the crown, the moment when they had gripped one another, each holding the other in check. This was like that, but here it was will and not brute strength.
“That was it.”
Magnus looked away and nodded, but the nod seemed to be in answer to his own internal question, and not anything that Thorgrim had said. Then he turned back and smiled, as if any unpleasantness had been whisked away.
“Still, it was a lucky take,” Magnus said. “And we Danes are not too worried, when a man has goods to sell, where he got them. It’s a dangerous world, you know.”
“Ha!” Ornolf roared. “You’ve said it! Dangerous as long as Norwegians are at sea, and led by Ornolf the Restless! A drink with you, Magnus Magnusson!”
Ornolf held his cup aloft, and so did Magnus and they drank. Magnus raised his hand and the master of the mead hall appeared as if conjured up by the Dane.
Fin Gall Page 5
