A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8)

by Nelson, James L.

“You’re to assemble half the hearth-guard, your most trusted men, and you’re to escort the wagons to Winchester, to King Æthelwulf. He’s still there, as I hear it. If not, you’ll deliver the tribute and then find the king to give him my letter. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, lord,” Bryning said.

  “Good,” Nothwulf said. “Then, off with you.”

  “Yes, lord.” Bryning stood, the letter held in both hands, as if he was afraid of dropping it. He nodded his respect, then turned and stepped through the outer door, closing it behind him.

  Nothwulf sighed. He had put considerable thought into this, and for all his doubts he still felt it was the best approach. Sure, he could go to the thegns, the wealthier ones who held the most sway, convince them of what should be obvious—that he, Nothwulf, should be ealdorman. But why try to win the loyalty of a dozen men when he needed only the backing of one, King Æthelwulf?

  He had known Æthelwulf for many years. His father and then his brother had entertained the king and his retinue at Sherborne when Æthelwulf had made his annual visit, and they in turn had resided at Winchester when the family traveled to see the king. Æthelwulf held him, Nothwulf, in high esteem, or so Nothwulf believed, and he had no reason to doubt it.

  Still, the uncertainty nagged at him, and it was a new sensation. His life, which thus far had moved along a well-defined route, now seemed to have become lost in some sort of wilderness.

  “We’ll get this straightened out quickly enough,” he said, softly and to himself. He did not think this current confusion was any great problem, just a little snag. Still, he could not rid himself of the idea that there were things happening which he did not understand, important things to which he was blind and ignorant.

  He stood, stared blankly for a moment at the door which Bryning had closed, then turned and stepped back into the bedchamber. A drape had been pulled over the one window, leaving the room in a twilight of darkness.

  Aelfwyn, reclining in the wide bed, half-covered by the blankets, stirred as he came in and propped herself up on her elbow with her usual lack of inhibition. Her dark hair tumbled around thin, naked shoulders, her breasts, quite exposed, looked firm and well-defined, if not overly large. She was smiling her sleepy smile.

  “Lord Nothwulf, I thought you had forgotten me,” she said with a thoroughly insincere pout. “I would have been most put out if you had. I would not have returned to your bed, depend upon it.”

  Nothwulf gave her a half smile. He thought his dealing with Bryning and the consideration of his mounting troubles had thoroughly killed his passion, but the sight of Aelfwyn, naked and waiting in his bed, rekindled it like dry straw on glowing embers.

  “Never, my beloved, never would I forget you,” he said, casting off the brooch that held the collar of his tunic closed. He grabbed the hem of the garment and shucked it off over his head and was rewarded with a smile and soft approving sound from Aelfwyn.

  “Come here, and at least pretend to love me,” she said.

  Nothwulf smiled, took a step toward her, then stopped. Aelfwyn had been in his bedchamber for some time, she had been there alone while his letter to King Æthelwulf had sat, unsealed, on the table pushed against the far wall. Nothwulf felt the first gentle nudge of suspicion assert itself.

  “What, my love?” Aelfwyn asked.

  “Oh,” Nothwulf said. “It’s just, I recalled, I wrote you a poem, my darling.” He stepped over to the table where a deed to property east of Sherborne lay open. The property bordered land owned by the thegn Leofric, and Nothwulf was in the process of making Leofric a gift of it, it seeming like a good time to keep in the good graces of that influential man. Now he snatched up the deed and brought it over to Aelfwyn, who took it from him with undisguised confusion.

  “A poem,” Nothwulf said. “I wrote it to express my appreciation of your beauty. Pray, read it, tell me what you think.”

  Aelfwyn’s gaze shifted from Nothwulf to the paper she held in her hand, and she looked as if she could not tell which of the two was more odd. “I don’t know letters, lord. I can’t read this,” she said.

  “Ah, more’s the pity,” Nothwulf said, taking the deed from her hands.

  “But you must read it to me, lord, please? I would be delighted to hear you speak of my beauty. And in a poem, no less. No man has ever written me a poem before.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” Nothwulf said. He put the deed back on the table, turned and approached the bed, undoing his trousers as he did. “But it truth, my poetry is terrible. Let me show you instead what I think of your beauty.” And that seemed enough to please the girl. She gave a small laugh and rolled onto her back, spreading her arms in welcome.

  The candles which had been left burning on the table were mere nubs when Aelfwyn finally rolled out of bed and collected her gown from the floor. “I must go, my lord,” she said, struggling into the garment. “My lady will surely miss me by now.”

  “Your lady…the lady Cynewise,” Nothwulf said, trying to sound casual, as if he had only a vague interest. “How does she do?”

  “Oh, not well, lord,” Aelfwyn said. She picked up a mirror from the small table that held the wash basin and angled it to see her reflection. She frowned and ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Not well?”

  “No, lord. She has no idea what to do. I think she wants nothing more than to return to her father’s home and be done with Dorset. I would too, were it not that I must leave you. She thinks one thing, the thegns tell her another. She’s like a leaf blown about in the wind.”

  “Indeed? Does she think at all that she’ll give up this notion of being ealdorman?” Nothwulf could hear the suppressed eagerness in his voice as he asked that, and he hoped Aelfwyn did not. And it did not seem that she did.

  “She doesn’t want to be ealdorman,” Aelfwyn said, deftly tying the cloth of her headrail around her head and tucking the ends in place. “She wants you to be ealdorman. But there are some thegns, I think, who try to convince her that she should be.”

  “Who? Why would they do that?” Nothwulf asked.

  “I don’t know who. Many of the thegns speak with her, but in private, and I don’t know who says what. But my lady tells me that she thinks some of those men hope to control her.” She stepped over to the bed and kissed Nothwulf one last time, a lingering kiss.

  “But they know they could never control you,” she added. “And when you’re ealdorman, you’ll forget all about me.”

  “Nonsense,” Nothwulf said. He slapped her on the bottom and she let out a shout of mock outrage, then turned and was gone.

  Nothwulf lay in the bed for some time longer. Aelfwyn’s scent lingered in the warm air and he breathed it deep, enjoying it.

  I’ll miss her, once she and Cynewise are sent packing back to Devonshire …he thought. But no sooner had the thought occurred to him than he recalled those damned gold goblets owned by Bishop Ealhstan. And following on the heels of that image, a memory of Cynewise’s father, whom Nothwulf had met once. Powerful, commanding, Ceorle , the ealdorman of Devonshire. And with that he felt his warm, luxurious post-coital glow melt away like snow on a warm spring day.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Alas, o holy Patrick

  That your prayers did not protect it

  When the foreigners with their axes

  Were smiting your oratory!

  Annals of Ulster

  After all the men-at-arms had scrambled up and over the dune, there were, save for the dead and wounded, only two Irishmen left behind on the sand: Faílbe mac Dúnlaing and Brother Bécc.

  When the shield wall collapsed they had rallied the men for a rearguard, a line of the most trusted warriors to hold off the heathens long enough for the others to get away. Faílbe and Bécc, as fitted their station, had stood at the center of that defense, and once the bulk of the men had gone up and over, only then did they think to follow.

  They were in deep shadow, far from the fires, which were starting to
burn low. They were not fighting, because there was no one to fight. It seemed that the heathens did not even know they were there. When the last of the Irish shield wall had collapsed, when the last of the men-at-arms had raced off into the night, the Northmen had given up the battle. They had won. They apparently saw no need to chase their enemy off into the marsh.

  It had been a disorganized assault, the heathens flinging themselves at the Irish. If Bécc and Faílbe’s men had not been thrown off by the surprise appearance of the ships, they would surely have turned the attackers back. But the men-at-arms were disorganized as well, tired from marching and fighting, dispirited by the sudden turn of fortune, and there was no way that Bécc could rally them for a stand.

  He knew that. But it did not make him any less furious.

  The shield in his left hand was half shattered, and the grip of his sword was slick with either blood or sweat, he was not sure which. He dug his heels into the sand and looked left and right for the next attack, the next enemy he could beat down. But there was no one. The nearest of the heathens was fifty feet away, near the closest of the fires, and if he or any of his fellows could see Bécc and Faílbe in the shadows, they did not seem to much care.

  That truth heaped more coal on Bécc’s fury, a fury that already burned hot. He had abandoned his fight with Thorgrim, given it up at the very moment he might have struck the bastard dead, because he felt it was his duty to be with his men, even as they were running off. He regretted that now. He regretted preserving his own life when he might have sacrificed it to send the heathen Thorgrim off to hell.

  Faílbe, standing on his left side, hit Bécc’s shield with the pommel of his sword. “Come on,” he said, jerking his head toward the dune behind them. “Our men are safe, let’s go.”

  Bécc scowled, looked at Faílbe and then at the heathens. Then back at Faílbe. He did not know what to do.

  “Let’s go!” Faílbe said, more emphatically. He turned and began to climb the steep dune and Bécc followed. He did not think about it, he just followed, as if his legs were obeying Faílbe’s order even as his mind was still debating it.

  They crested the dune and looked out over the silent expanse of the marsh, then Faílbe stepped down off the rise and began heading north where the monastery at Beggerin lay unseen in the dark. It was there, Bécc was sure, that the men would have stopped their retreat. It was there they would have collapsed in exhaustion on the ground, too tired to defend themselves if the heathens had pursued them, and thankful to the Lord above, and the saints and angels, that they had not.

  Bécc looked down at his shield, and in the dim light he could see that the wood slats were hanging in pieces from the iron rim, so he tossed it aside. He wiped the blade of his sword on the hem of his tunic and slipped the weapon into its sheath. The only sounds were his and Faílbe’s soft footfalls and the jingle of their mail, and, muted and far back, the sounds of the Northmen in the aftermath of the fight.

  They walked on. Bécc was exhausted to the point of near collapse, and at the same time his rage drove him on like he was being prodded with a dagger point—a strange sensation indeed. His head was swimming, his steps were both determined and unsure. His thoughts had spun off to some place he did not recognize.

  Victory had been pulled from his grasp, and Bécc’s anger had grown and transubstantiated into something much worse, something much more profound. Fury, perhaps, but that word did not quite encompass all that Bécc now felt. His entire life, from boyhood until the moment he had given himself to God, had been one of anger and violence. But he had never felt anything such as he felt at that moment.

  It’s the righteous anger of the Lord , Bécc thought. I am God’s weapon here, and His anger flows through me like a river.

  They walked on, side by side, the soft sounds from the beach receding behind them. Finally Faílbe spoke, and his voice sounded odd and out of place.

  “You fought well, Brother Bécc. Of course you fought well…what I mean is that you did well in leading the men. All that anyone could do.”

  Bécc made a grunting sound. “I failed,” he said. “I failed the men, and I failed the Lord my God.”

  “You failed no one,” Faílbe said. “You…no one…could have guessed those damned ships would arrive when they did.”

  Bécc made another grunting sound. The Lord knew the ships would arrive when they did, sent them to test him, Bécc was certain. A test he failed. But it was not too late for redemption. As long as he lived, it was not too late for that.

  “We have some time before first light,” Bécc said. “Time enough for the men to rest, and then we can move them over the marsh before the sun’s up. We can fight again at dawn. Not try another night attack. The heathens will surely be drunk by then, and never expecting our return.”

  Faílbe stopped in his tracks and turned toward Bécc. “Are you serious?” he asked.

  Bécc frowned. It was an odd question. If anything, he thought that suggestion was too obvious to be worth making.

  “Of course I’m serious,” Bécc said. “The heathens are still here, and we have not done our duty to God until we’ve driven them off.”

  “It’s not always clear what our duty to God is,” Faílbe said. “We did what we thought God wanted, and we failed. Perhaps that means God does not wish us to throw away any more Christian lives.”

  Bécc shook his head. He was not even sure how to approach this. “We cannot suffer heathens to pollute our shores, not one moment more,” he said. He could hear the note of desperation creeping into his voice, but there was nothing for it. “Those whores’ sons are near spent, and they’re close at hand. We have the men, good men, trained men. We would be pissing on God’s gift to let this chance pass.”

  Faílbe shook his head, and though Bécc could barely see his face in the dark, there was a quality of finality to the gesture. “Our men are spent, more spent than the heathens. They’re hurt and many are dead, or will be soon. There’s no fight left in them. We’re done here.”

  “Done?” Bécc said. “What do you…?”

  “We’ll make our way back to Ferns at first light. Protect our homes if the heathens mean to come inland, which I’m not sure they do. They’ve not moved from the beach in a week. We’ll speak with the abbot, see what he thinks of all this.”

  Those words were like a knife in Bécc’s gut. We’ll speak with the abbot… It was bad enough, this failure in the eyes of God, but God at least rarely made his displeasure immediately known. Not so the abbot. Bécc had already failed the man once, made a great festering mess of dealing with Thorgrim and the renegade rí t uath Airtre mac Domhnall. And now this. How could he return to the abbot with yet another tremendous failure to his name?

  He couldn’t. It was as simple as that.

  “No,” Bécc said. “No.”

  Faílbe was quiet for a moment, apparently trying to decipher that single word. “No?” he said at last. “No to what? Speaking to the abbot?”

  “No, we will not leave the heathens in peace. Not when we have an army here to crush them.”

  “Brother Bécc,” Faílbe said. “You fought well, and I appreciate that. And the abbot will as well. But these are my men. I am the rí túaithe, I command here. I’ve made my decision.”

  He turned back the way they were heading but Bécc’s hand shot out, grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around so they were once again facing each other. He saw Faílbe’s head turn to look at the impudent hand still gripping his shoulder, and Bécc removed it. Not quickly, but he removed it.

  “See here, lord,” Bécc said. He was speaking low, teeth clenched, trying to control the animal that was raging inside him. “I will not allow us to make such a mistake.”

  “You will not allow it? You?”

  “This is not my affair, it’s God’s affair, and I will…”

  “God?” Faílbe said, incredulous, the sound of the Lord’s name on the man’s lips infuriating to Bécc. “See here, Brother Bécc, the Lo
rd saw fit to place me above you in the order of things, and so if you wish to do His bidding…”

  Bécc’s mind was a whirl, he felt as if he were trying to see in a smoke-filled room, to make sense of any of this, to form a single thought. He felt his arm reach around behind him, his hand fall on the grip of the seax that hung from his belt.

  They were just moving shadows in the dark, Bécc and Faílbe, but Faílbe did not fail to see the gesture. “You bastard, you dare...” Faílbe cried, his voice loud with surprise and outrage.

  Bécc jerked the seax from its scabbard and brought it around from behind his back. There was no thought, no decision made, he was just moving now.

  But so was Faílbe. His shield was still gripped in his left hand and he moved it in front of him as Bécc brought the seax around. The iron rim of the shield hit Bécc’s forearm and knocked it aside and Bécc saw the man twist as he reached for a weapon of his own.

  But it was too late for that. Faílbe’s time on earth was finished. He had defied Bécc, God’s chosen weapon, and so he would be smote like the armies of old. Bécc grabbed the edge of the shield with his left hand and jerked it aside, throwing Faílbe off-balance as he did. Faílbe made a small, strangled sound, surprise and recognition of the end, and Bécc drove the seax into Faílbe’s chest.

  The point of the weapon was sharp, the blow delivered with tremendous power. The steel parted Faílbe’s mail and the point went right on through, right into the man’s chest. Bécc heard the gasp and expulsion of breath as he drove the weapon in until it was stopped by the hilt. He felt the liquid warmth of Faílbe’s blood as it poured over his hand.

  They stood like that for the few seconds it took Faílbe to die, they remained fixed in that place until Bécc felt the dead man’s knees buckle and he let Faílbe slip to the ground, the seax drawing free as he fell.

  For some moments they remained motionless, Bécc listening, Faílbe dead. There was nothing out of the ordinary that Bécc could hear, no sounds that were different from what he had heard just moments before. He had no sense for how loud his struggle with Faílbe had been, how far Faílbe’s outraged cry had carried, but it seemed that no one had heard it but Faílbe and him. And neither of them would be telling tales.