The Lord of Vik-lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3)

by James L. Nelson

  If there was one bit of good luck it was that Ornolf the Restless finally drank himself into insensibility and collapsed on the after deck in a great wet heap of wool, hair and fat. Harald dug out some furs that were wet but not as wet as most and he covered Ornolf where he lay.

  “Old age is finding your grandfather, I fear,” Thorgrim said. He was taking his turn at the tiller and Ornolf’s great body was sprawled out only a few feet forward of him.

  “Why do you say so?” Harald asked.

  “He lasted but one day,” Thorgrim said. “The Ornolf of old would not have been felled by just one day of drinking in the midst of such a storm. He would still be shouting at the gods and pouring mead down his throat. I hate to think what it says about me, that Ornolf should appear so feeble.”

  It was in the dark hours on the second night of the storm that Thorgrim could feel a lessening in the wind, could feel the motion of the ship change as the seas began to settle down. He said nothing, as he thought mentioning this would bring bad luck, but he could tell in the tone of the men’s voices and the increased talk that they sensed it as well.

  Dawn revealed the coast of Ireland, still there, closer than it had been, but not dangerously so. The seas were down enough and the wind moderated sufficiently that Thorgrim allowed someone beside Agnarr to relieve him at the helm while he and Agnarr stepped over to the starboard side and peered to the west.

  The skies were still dark and gray. Low clouds like torn veils flew past and blotted out parts of the land under their lee, but they could see enough to get some sense for where they were, or at least Agnarr thought he could.

  “Perhaps the gods are done toying with us, for now, anyway,” Agnarr said. “See there?” He pointed to a high, rocky promontory jutting out from the land, a dark shape against a dark shoreline, details invisible if the dull, leaden daylight.

  Thorgrim looked where Agnarr pointed. “Yes?”

  “I believe that is the cape just south of Vík-ló. See how it rises up and then to the north the shore flattens out, there?” Agnarr’s finger swept north along the shore. “Vík-ló is at the mouth of a river, and I believe that river runs through the low land just there.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He had no way of knowing if Agnarr was correct. “Very well. If you think that is Vík-ló, then we shall set a course for there. If you’re right, the gods have at last done us a favor by not setting us down wind of that point of land. We would sink before we could work our way back to windward.”

  As it was they were still in danger - serious danger - of sinking before they could get their ship to the Danish longphort. By keeping Far Voyager on a larboard tack they had been able to keep her damaged strakes mostly out of the water, but now they had to turn and run down wind and the pressure would again be on the weak part of the hull. But there was nothing for it. It was a race between the inflow of the water and the time it would take to run the ship up on the beach and there was no way to know which would happen first except by trying.

  On Thorgrim’s orders the sail was cast off, the yard hoisted and swung into place. Agnarr turned the ship on the crest of a wave, a nicely timed evolution that saw Far Voyager all but spin in place. Her flogging sail rippled and filled as the next wave lifted her, and then she was running before the wind and sea, her sail a lovely symmetric curve, her wake riding up and down on the seas astern.

  They closed quickly with the coast and with every foot of progress Agnarr became more convinced that they were indeed on a course for Vík-ló. Thorgrim, watching his men flinging buckets and helmets-full of water over the side, no longer cared if they were or not. It did not matter. They would have to beach Far Voyager at whatever place they fetched up, and if there was no place to beach her they would have to run her onto the rocks and take their chances in the surf. Once they made it to shore the ship would not swim long enough to take them out to sea again.

  “Father, look!” Harald shouted, pointing just off the starboard bow, and before Thorgrim could say “What?” Harald was up on the stern rail and halfway up the curved sternpost, his fingers finding a grip in the serpent’s scales carved in the hard oak.

  “There, father, smoke!” Harald was still pointing. Thorgrim looked in the direction he indicated and after a moment of squinting and turning his head he saw it as well, a column of black smoke rising from somewhere ahead. It was difficult to see against the dark band of the shore, and the wind pulled it apart as it rose up in the sky, but it was without a doubt smoke.

  “What do you make of it?” Agnarr asked. He, too, was squinting toward the land.

  “Not a hearth fire, or some such. Too much smoke by half.”

  Starri Deathless, who had been sitting hunched against the side of the ship obsessively sharpening his knife, stood and sheathed the weapon. “I’ll go up and look,” he said. He trotted forward, grabbed one of the shrouds supporting the mast and climbed, squirrel-like, up aloft, an action that seemed to require no more effort from him than did the walk forward.

  A moment later he was perched on the yard and looking west. “I can see flames!” he reported. “Whether they are on the land or something burning at sea I cannot say!”

  “Well, it would seem we’ve found some sort of town,” Agnarr said, cheerfully. “Now we have only to see if they will welcome us or cut our throats.”

  Thorgrim, a practical and cautious man, when caution was called for, prepared for both possibilities. He ordered the serpent’s head removed from the bow to indicate that they approached with peaceful intent, and to avoid frightening the spirits of the land. He instructed each of his men to keep their tongues still, to let him alone speak. He prayed that Ornolf the Restless might remain asleep, but he ordered mead to be held in readiness to pacify him if he did not. He told the men to keep their weapons out of sight but to be prepared to snatch them up in an instant if need be.

  With his sheep’s clothing thus arranged, Thorgrim Night Wolf steered his ship toward the land. No one ashore would doubt that the Far Voyagers had been forced to beach the vessel, there was clearly no subterfuge there. With the strain put on the ship’s fabric by the mast and sail, the cracked strakes had opened further. The water began to pour in at twice the rate it had been, and once again the bailing took on a frantic aspect.

  Whatever had been burning had stopped burning by the time Far Voyager closed with the coast, and Agnarr was all but certain that they had found Vík-ló. “There, do you see where the water tumbles white?” he said, pointing forward beyond the larboard bow. “That’s the mouth of the river. The Leitrim, they call it.”

  Thorgrim nodded. He could see columns of smoke now, thinner trails rising up from beyond the low, gray-green shoreline, hearth fires from the buildings at Vík-ló. They continued on for another half hour and then Thorgrim ordered the sail stowed and the sweeps brought out. Absent the pressure of the mast and sail the leaking decreased, which was a relief to the weary men. But now they had to row, which was less of a relief, particularly with the seas still lumpy and coming from astern.

  They were just crossing the bar and closing with Vík-ló when Ornolf finally stirred. He moaned and shifted and turned under his heap of furs and Thorgrim thought, Not now, Ornolf, by all the gods! But Ornolf sat up and looked around, eyes half open, his beard and long gray and red hair in a tangle. Harald, who sat nearby, saw his grandfather rise from the deck and handed him a cup of mead. Without a word Ornolf took it and drank it down.

  Thorgrim hoped he would lay down again, but the old man showed a bit of his former self and struggled to his feet. “That Harald’s a good boy,” he said, “I have brought him along right.”

  “Yes, you have,” Thorgrim agreed.

  Ornolf squinted at the shoreline, which he had not been able to see from the deck. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “Vík-ló, or so Agnarr believes,” Thorgrim said.

  “Vík-ló? Damned Danes in Vík-ló, they’ll cut our throats,” Ornolf said.

  “Better to die with weapons i
n our hands than drowning, which we would surely do otherwise,” Thorgrim said and Ornolf grunted in agreement.

  Fore and aft, on either side, the wet and exhausted men sat on their sea chests and took long, rhythmic pulls at the oars, and with each stroke Far Voyager’s beautifully tapered hull shot forward. The northern bank of the river seemed to drop away as they rounded the point, and there beyond it, huddled against the south shore, sat the longphort of Vík-ló.

  “Ha! It’s no Dubh-linn!” Ornolf pronounced, and he was right. The Danish town was a third the size of Dubh-linn, built on low ground and boasting perhaps thirty low, thatched buildings. In sunshine, on a summer day, it might well have looked inviting, but under the dull sky and the muted light, after days of heavy rain, it looked brown and drab and weary. But that did not concern Thorgrim Night Wolf, because splayed out at the foot of the longphort, deposited there by years of runoff carried down from the far hills by the River Leitrim, was a wide bank of mud, half awash, that would cradle Far Voyager like a babe in its mother’s arms. Four other ships were already resting there.

  “You men at the oars, double time now, double time!” Thorgrim shouted. “And stroke! And stroke!” The men leaned hard into the oars and Far Voyager knifed ahead, her speed building with each pull. The men knew what Thorgrim was about. They knew he wanted to run the ship as high up on the mud as he could and they knew this last effort would be the end of their misery for a while so they pulled with the will of finality.

  Far Voyager shot across the mouth of the Leitrim and closed quick with the south shore. Thorgrim looked over the side. He could see glimpses of the bottom as the river shoaled toward the bank. He could see mud below them and he wondered that the ship had not yet grounded, but she only drew a few feet, and with the momentum of the men pulling oars she skated closer and closer to the town.

  And then she slowed and stopped, so fast the men were knocked off balance, a few actually tumbling off their sea chests as the mud grabbed the bottom of the ship and checked her way. For a moment they were silent and everything around them was silent. All the noise to which they had become accustomed - the moaning wind, the beating rain, the slap and shudder of the seas striking the ship, the creak of the rigging, the rush of water down the sides - it was all gone. It seemed strange, unsettling.

  Then Ornolf shouted in his considerable voice, “The Far Voyagers have arrived! Bring out the women! Bring out the drink!” and the odd mood was gone like so much smoke. The men laughed, grinned, stood and slapped one another on the back, found wineskins and mead. This was the release from having stepped so close to the edge of death and then stepped back again. Thorgrim knew it well.

  He, too, was grinning. For all he had seen and done in his life he was still not immune to this sort of reaction. And then he noticed the gang of men on shore, a dozen or so, standing at the end of the plank road, clearly come to see this new arrival. They were well-armed, which was hardly cause for concern as all Northmen, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, it did not matter, all were in the habit of arming themselves whenever they stepped from their homes.

  Behind the dozen armed men stood more, holding long planks, a man at each end. They tossed their boards into the mud alongside Far Voyager, one after the other, until there was a relatively dry line of planks out to the ship. The man in front approached, and the others followed behind. The laughing aboard the ship died away as Thorgrim’s company saw the armed men coming toward them.

  Thorgrim stepped off the afterdeck and walked forward to where the newcomer stood beside the ship. Ornolf followed behind.

  “I am Thorgrim Ulfsson,” he said to the man. The fellow was younger than Thorgrim, well-made, with long brown hair bound behind and a beard that could not be called sparse. He looked along Far Voyager’s deck, fore and aft, before he spoke.

  “I am Bersi Jorundarson,” the man said. There was a hint of wariness in his voice, as well there might be. It was good to be wary when one did not know to whom one was speaking. Thorgrim was wary as well. But if Bersi Jorundarson was a man of influence in Vík-ló, which Thorgrim assumed he was, then he wanted the man’s trust because he needed his help.

  “Please, come aboard,” Thorgrim said. “You men,” he turned to his own crew, “rig out that gangplank and be quick about it!” The gangplank was put over the side and first Bersi and then the others came up the narrow board and hopped down to the deck.

  “Where do you come from, Thorgrim Ulfsson?” Bersi asked, but Ornolf interrupted before Thorgrim could answer.

  “Get some drink for these men!” he shouted to the company in general. “Have you no manners, guests aboard our ship and not a drink offered them?” Thorgrim smiled. Sometimes the old man knew just the tone to strike.

  Cups of mead were passed along to Bersi and his man and Thorgrim said, “We come from Dubh-linn.”

  “And before that?”

  “I am from Vik, as is my father-in-law, the jarl Ornolf,” Thorgrim said, indicating Ornolf with a nod of the head. “The rest of these men…they are from all places, as seamen are wont to be.”

  Bersi nodded and drank and his men drank as well. He did not seem filled with joy to be in the company of men from Vik, he himself no doubt being a Dane, but neither did he seem much concerned.

  “Why do you come here?” he asked. Thorgrim could feel his irritation rising with each query, particularly as he did not yet know Bersi’s status at Vík-ló, whether he was important enough to expect answers to this interrogation. But Thorgrim held his temper in check and made himself be civil. He reckoned he had patience enough for maybe three more questions. After that he was not sure what would happen.

  “We left Dubh-linn last week,” Thorgrim said, “bound for Vik, but we hit a floating log and sprung planks. There.” He pointed to the ungainly reinforcements on the hull, the beitass still pushed against it, holding it on place. “We were sinking, and the winds would not allow us to return to Dubh-linn.” He did not add that he would have drowned before returning to Dubh-linn.

  “I see,” Bersi said. “That was very unlucky.”

  “It was,” Thorgrim agreed. “But tell me, do you command here at Vík-ló? I must speak with whoever commands here, to make arrangements for repairing my ship.”

  “Me, command? No, no,” Bersi said. “I have men under my command, but Grimarr Knutson is the lord of Vík-ló. He is known as Grimarr Giant. He shared rule with another, Fasti Magnisson. They were old friends. But Fasti was killed in a fight with the Irish, just a few days ago. We have sent him off to the gods, him and the men who died with him. Now Grimarr is in a foul mood. He sent me to see who you were.”

  Thorgrim nodded. This Bersi does not rule here, but he at least has been sent by the one who does, he thought. It is good I was not rude to him. But Thorgrim had to admit it was Ornolf, not himself, who had won over these men of Vík-ló.

  “Well, you have seen who we are, and the damage our ship has suffered,” Thorgrim said. “We have much work to do to set her to rights, and little time if we are to sail before the weather prevents us. May I ask you for permission to work on our ship here, and some assistance? We have some silver with which to pay.” They had, in fact, quite a bit of silver, but Thorgrim was not about to say as much.

  Bersi Jorundarson frowned and looked around the ship, and Thorgrim could see he was struggling for an answer. Finally he said, “I cannot tell you yes or no. You must speak with Grimarr Giant.”

  “If it is Grimarr Giant that I must speak to, then pray, lead me to him.”

  Again Bersi hesitated. “He is in a foul mood, and much occupied, as well…” he said, repeating his earlier objection.

  Thorgrim’s sense of the man that Bersi was began to form like a figure coming out of the mist. Bersi might be a leader of men, but he was not a particularly decisive or commanding individual. That could well have been why this Grimarr Giant put him in authority. Bersi was no rival for his command.

  After another moment of pointless looking around Bersi came to a
decision. “Very well. He is in his hall now. I will take you to him. You may take two men with you. The rest will remain aboard.”

  “Very well,” Thorgrim said. He stepped aft and picked up his belt and buckled it around his waist, adjusting the hang of the sword. He waited for Bersi to tell him that he and his men could not come armed, which would have been a problem, but Bersi said nothing.

  There are three of us, a dozen or more of them, Thorgrim thought. It’s no matter to them if we are armed or not.

  He stepped forward to where Bersi and his men stood waiting. He spread out his arms. “Lead on,” he said.

  Chapter Nine

  I’m ready to tread this isle

  where combat is tried

  - God grant the poet victory –

  a drawn sword in my hand.

  The Saga of Gunnlaug Serpent-Tongue

  Two men. Bersi Jorundarson had allowed Thorgrim two men to accompany him. He chose Ornolf and Harald.

  Ornolf, for all his faults, was a wealthy and powerful jarl, a man well-respected in his own country and not nearly as big a fool as he played at being. Harald was young, still quite naïve despite all the voyaging he had done and all the time he had spent in the world of men. If there was one part of a father’s duty that Thorgrim understood, it was that he had to teach his son how to navigate that world with strength and cleverness enough that he might prosper. Here was an opportunity to do just that.