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

by James L. Nelson

  They walked up the plank road, not so different from that of Dubh-linn, though smaller, and the buildings pressed up against it were not so densely packed. The rain was all but gone, and men and a few women moved about in their yards and along the road. Missing was the constant undercurrent of sound one found in Dubh-linn, the hammering and the creak of carts, the lowing of cattle, the dull roar of fires, the tangle of human voices talking, yelling, arguing, laughing, the general sense of activity. Vík-ló was more quiet by far.

  Thorgrim and Ornolf walked side by side, with Bersi beside them. Harald came astern, and behind him the rest of Bersi’s men. They were quiet at first as they walked up the gently sloping road. Thorgrim could see ahead of them the earthen wall and the gate where the plank road terminated. He could see two houses, larger than the rest, flanking the road, and he guessed it was to there they were headed.

  “Have you been long in this country?” Ornolf asked. His tone was jovial and disarming in a way that Thorgrim did not think he himself could manage to sound. I am becoming a miserable old bastard, he thought. Even I would not care to be in my company.

  “Above a year,” Bersi said. “I came with a fleet from Hedeby. I can’t say I meant to stay this long, but Vík-ló has much to recommend it.”

  “I would imagine!” Ornolf all but roared. “Have you been to Dubh-linn? There is a longphort! These Irish women flock there, because there is silver and gold to be had, and we Northmen do not live like pigs like the Irishmen do!”

  Before Ornolf’s rant could build any greater momentum, they arrived at one of the two large houses. Bersi knocked on the door. There was a pause and he raised his hand to knock again when a voice like an angry bear came through the door, the thick oak planks barely muffling the sound.

  “What is it?”

  “Lord Grimarr? It’s Bersi. The master of the ship that just arrived would beg a word of you!”

  Beg was not the word Thorgrim would have used, but he let it go. They waited again, and then the voice called, “Enter!”

  Bersi opened the door and they stepped in, into the thick air of the closed-up building, a fire burning in the hearth, the smell of cooked meat and spilled drink and men and wet furs. It was a familiar smell, one that might not even have registered with Thorgrim, save for the fact that it had been so notably absent since they had put to sea.

  Bersi had called this Grimarr’s hall, and such it was, though it was just barely large enough to warrant that title. The peak of the timber frame ceiling, supporting heavy thatch, rose twenty feet above the rush-covered floor. The space was twenty feet wide and thirty long with an oak table taking up much of it. At the far end, all but lost in shadow, Thorgrim could see wattle partitions segregating off other rooms, sleeping chambers, likely.

  Seated at the table in the dim-lit room was a man whom Thorgrim assumed was Grimarr Giant, and if so, he was aptly named. Even seated the man’s size was plain, his shoulders massive, thick hair and beard, the sleeves of his tunic cut far wider than those of most men. The table in front of him looked undersized. Grimarr did not look happy.

  “Lord Grimarr,” Bersi said, “this is Thorgrim Ulfsson. Of Vik.”

  For a moment Grimarr and Thorgrim looked at one another. Neither man spoke. Then slowly Grimarr stood, turning to face Thorgrim as he did, a move that was clearly intended to carry menace. Not that Grimarr intended any harm – Thorgrim did not think that was the case – he just wanted the newcomers to feel intimidated. But Thorgrim did not feel intimidated. It had been many years since Thorgrim Night Wolf had felt intimidated.

  “Ha!” Once again Ornolf broke the silence. “My son-in-law is very rude!” He pushed his way past Thorgrim, hand outstretched and Grimarr, his surprise evident, took the hand. “I am Ornolf Hrafnsson. They call me Ornolf the Restless. A jarl in East Agder, very powerful, my fame proceeds me, I have no doubt.”

  Grimarr, wordless, just looked at Ornolf and allowed his hand to be shaken.

  “There, you see, leaders of men like you and me, we recognize one another!” Ornolf went on. “The boy is my grandson, Harald. He’ll be a great jarl someday, see if he won’t. I take orders from Thorgrim here, because he has a ship and I do not. Mine was burned up fighting the Danes. Damned Danes. No offense intended, mind you, these were other Danes.”

  “Indeed…” Grimarr was able to say at last.

  “So, can we sit, discuss how we might help each other? One great man to another?” Ornolf asked.

  Grimarr glanced over at Bersi as if looking for guidance, but there seemed to be none coming from that quarter, so he said, “Yes, have a seat. I’ve had no good fortune today, so I may as well piss away my drink on the likes of you Norwegian dogs.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Ornolf roared and he sat and Harald sat and, more reluctantly, Thorgrim and Grimarr sat. Thorgrim had seen this play out before, Ornolf creating so grand a presence that he could bowl over any obstacle in his path. At times he, Thorgrim, wished he could do the same, but he knew he did not have the temperament for it.

  Grimarr called for drink and a servant appeared, nodded, disappeared into the other end of the house. And it was only then that Thorgrim noticed the girl.

  She was seated by herself, across the room from the hearth. The low flames from the fire cast a dim yellowish light around the space, and with the heavy overcast there was hardly any daylight to speak of, leaving her all but lost in the gloom. But Thorgrim could see her now. She was young, fine boned and small. Her hair was in a tangle.

  She was not dressed like a Norsewoman but rather wore Irish clothing, a loose-fitting leine and over that a brat, worn in the manner Thorgrim had often seen in Dubh-linn, where Irish and Northmen readily mixed. They were the clothes of what the Irish called the bothach, poor tenant farmers. They were not fancy, though they may have once been clean and neat, and not the torn, filthy, unkempt rags they were now.

  Servants appeared from the far end of the house, drinking horns were handed around and filled, Ornolf raised his horn to Danes everywhere and managed to make the words sound sincere. They drank. The door opened and the gray light of the day, the cool, wet air flowed in. With it came a young man, perhaps a little past his twentieth year. He stepped through the door with a noticeable limp and shut it behind him.

  “This is my son, Sandarr,” Grimarr said, as if he was being forced to admit something. Sandarr walked painfully to the table and sat at the end of the bench opposite his father.

  Ornolf raised his horn and cried “Sandarr!” then introduced him to the others. Sandarr nodded in acknowledgement of each man, showing nothing of his father’s smoldering hostility.

  “Danes, Norwegians,” Grimarr continued, as if he had never been interrupted, “any are better than these damned Irish. We cremated my oldest friend, Fasti Magnisson, this morning. Killed aboard his ship when these Irish dogs surprised him. They killed him and all his men.” He took a drink, nodded toward the girl sitting in the dark corner. “She’s the only one left alive. The whole ship’s company, killed, and only her left alive.”

  At that, all heads turned and looked toward the girl. She did not meet their eyes, but rather continued to stare off at some indeterminate place in the room. There was no expression on her face.

  “Was it just her good luck to have lived,” Thorgrim asked, curious despite himself, “or was she spared for some reason?”

  Grimarr turned his great head in Thorgrim’s direction, sunk his fingers into his beard and scratched. He considered Thorgrim for a moment before answering, as if trying to determine if he should answer at all. “She was spared,” Grimarr said at last. “She was taken at Fearna. We took a number of thralls during that last raid. She was hidden under the deck planks of Fasti’s ship. By Fasti himself, I have to guess.”

  He said no more, and the others were silent, until Ornolf posed the obvious question: “Why would he do that?”

  Grimarr shrugged. “I have my ideas, but I don’t know for certain.” He nodded toward the girl wi
thout looking at her. “She is the only one who would know the truth of it.”

  They drank again, and again said nothing. And then it was Harald’s turn. “Why don’t you ask her?”

  Grimarr looked up at Harald as if he had said the stupidest thing imaginable, though it seemed to Thorgrim a reasonable question. “Because she does not speak our language,” Grimarr said at last, “and there is none in Vík-ló can speak hers.”

  To the men who had come from Dubh-linn this was surprising indeed. “None?” Ornolf asked. “In Dubh-linn the Irish swarm over the place like they own it! The men come to market, the women come to marry. Half the damned longphort is Irish.”

  “Not here,” Grimarr said. “Not now. Before, those Irish who lived nearby would come to sell their goods. But now the jarl, or whatever the Irish call their petty kings, the man who rules here abouts, has put a stop to it. Lorcan is his name. It was him killed Fasti and his men. Lorcan would drive us out of here, so he’s put a stop to any Irish coming to Vík-ló, no one is allowed to sell cattle or food of any sort to us.”

  “You have no Irish thralls here?” Thorgrim asked.

  “Some,” Grimarr said. “None that speak more than a few words of our language, so they’re no use. And they’re not to be trusted. They run away. It’s damned hard to keep an Irish thrall in an Irish longphort if you don’t have men enough to watch them constantly. Sandarr has a thrall seems devoted to him, doesn’t try to run, but she speaks no Danish.”

  “What’s your secret, then?” Ornolf demanded of Sandarr.

  Sandarr shrugged. “I feed her. I don’t beat her. She probably lives better in my household then in whatever shit-hole pig sty she lived in before.”

  “Most prefer their Irish sties,” Grimarr said. “That’s why we sell them in Scotland or England as quick as we can. But now we have none can translate this bitch’s words.”

  Thorgrim met Harald’s eyes and an unspoken discussion passed between them. Thorgrim’s natural tendency would be to give up nothing, to secret away any advantage he held until it could be used to its fullest. On the other hand, they needed Grimarr’s help, and this might be a way to secure it.

  Thorgrim took a deep pull from his drinking horn, time enough to come to a decision.

  “My son, here, Harald, he speaks the Irish tongue,” Thorgrim said.

  Grimarr looked at Thorgrim and then Harald, surprise and unbelief mixed on his features as if they had just announced themselves as having come from the gods. “The boy speaks Irish?” he asked. “How does he come to do that?”

  “We stayed in the home of an Irish woman in Dubh-linn,” Thorgrim said. “He learned from her.” It was, in truth, more complicated than that. Harald had fallen in love with the princess Brigit nic Máel Sechnaill, who now ruled at Tara, and he had set about purposely to learn her language to better further his courtship. She had taught him a profound lesson in treachery, and there was little chance he would ever see her again. But in the months that Thorgrim was convalescing in Dubh-linn, Harald had continued to master the language. The boy seemed to enjoy it, and Thorgrim suspected he took added pleasure in knowing something that his father did not.

  None of that Thorgrim felt compelled to explain to Grimarr, so he said only, “You know how these young fellows are, they pick up languages like they were bad habits.”

  Grimarr grunted. Now he too appeared to wrestling with a dilemma, and Thorgrim could well imagine what it was. Grimarr seemed to think the girl had knowledge of some important thing, knowledge he wanted. There was no other reason he would be so eager to know what an insignificant Irish thrall had to say. If that was true, he would not wish to share that information with others, particularly not Norwegian strangers who had just come from the sea.

  On the other hand, he had no other way to communicate with her.

  Like Thorgrim, Grimarr did not struggle long with his decision. “Very well, come here…Harald,” he said, standing and gesturing toward the girl. Harald stood, as did the others, and they approached the girl, making a semi-circle around her. For the first time since Thorgrim had noticed her, she looked up, her eyes darting from one man to the other. She was not as young as Thorgrim had first thought, not a girl, but a woman of eighteen years or more. He could see she was pretty under the dirt and the tangle of hair. Her expression was no longer unreadable. She was afraid.

  Grimarr turned to Harald. “Ask her where Fasti hid it all, and tell her I’ll cut her damned throat if she lies,” he demanded.

  That was met with silence from the others. Then Ornolf said, “What by all the gods are you talking about?”

  Grimarr looked around, his expression defensive. “That was…you see…actually none of this is any of your damned business.”

  “This is none of our business,” Thorgrim agreed. “This is your business and we want no part of it. We just want help in fixing our ship, and for that we are willing to help you with this problem. But Harald will not understand her answers if he does not understand your questions.”

  Grimarr met Thorgrim’s eyes and Thorgrim could not miss how very much the man looked like a bear, and one that had been cornered by hunters. And, like a bear, Grimarr might react in any number of unpredictable ways. Finally he said, “Very well, I will tell you. But you must swear an oath that what is said in this room will not be spoken outside these walls, not unless I speak of it first.”

  Thorgrim, Ornolf, Harald glanced at one another. An oath was not a thing to be taken lightly. But Thorgrim had been truthful when he said he had no interest in Grimarr’s business so it would be no great hardship to swear an oath to keep silent about it. And then Grimarr sealed the bargain.

  “If you give your oath, and the boy can translate this thrall’s words, then I will give you all the aid I can to repair your ship,” he said. “If not, you must leave Vík-ló this day. You have seen too much already.”

  Thorgrim looked at the others and gave a little nod and the others nodded as well. “As you wish, Grimarr, we’ll swear your oath and we’ll accept your help,” he said. “We want nothing more than to get back to our homes.” He knew he was speaking for himself, mostly, that the others were not as desperate as he to return to Vik. But as leader of his band of men he was willing to make his ambitions their ambitions.

  They swore their oath. Grimarr looked from man to man, as if once more trying to take their measure, and Thorgrim had an idea this must be some secret the Irish girl held.

  “Here is what happened,” Grimarr said at last, almost grudgingly. “Fasti and I led a raid on a monastery at a place called Fearna. The silver we plundered was…tolerable. We split it between our ships, but my ship, Eagle’s Wing, began to take on water. So we beached the ships and put the silver we had aboard Fasti’s, and he continued on to Vík-ló alone.”

  “You put your half of the plunder aboard another man’s ship?” Ornolf asked, his tone incredulous.

  “Not another man’s. Fasti’s,” Grimarr said. “There is no other I would have trusted thus, but Fasti, I did. Just a league from Vík-ló, Fasti was attacked by this Lorcan I spoke of, him and his Irish warriors in a swarm of their ridiculous boats. We overtook them just as the fighting was near its end. Every man aboard Fasti’s ship was killed. But the Fearna plunder was not aboard, and the Irish would not have had time to remove it. We searched everywhere, there was nothing. Nothing but her.” He pointed with his hedge of a beard toward the girl.

  The others nodded their understanding, and Grimarr continued. “Fasti must have stopped and hidden the plunder ashore somewhere. Might have suspected Lorcan would attack him as he did, maybe saw the Irish following them along the shore. This little whore must have seen where he hid it. She didn’t get under the deck planks on her own. Fasti must have put her there, and I think he did it so that she could tell us where the Fearna plunder is hidden. In case Fasti and all his men were killed. Which they were.”

  Thorgrim met Ornolf’s eyes, and he knew the old man was thinking the same thing he was: T
his Fasti betrayed Grimarr and the fool can’t see it. But it was clear enough that Grimarr would never believe such a thing, and Thorgrim did not much care as long as his ship was repaired, so he said, “That’s quite a story. Now Harald will find out how close your guess might be to the truth.”

  Harald stepped toward the girl and squatted down on his heels so they were all but eye to eye. The girl’s eyes moved over Harald’s face and Thorgrim saw the wariness there, but he saw something else as well. Hope, perhaps? Harald was not a bearded, scarred brute like the others. His hair was yellow like fresh straw and what beard he had was barely visible. His eyes were blue and honest looking, they lacked the hardness that Thorgrim’s had, a hardness that came with age, hard use, and grief.

  In a soft voice Harald began speaking to her, and though Thorgrim had never learned more than a few words of Irish he thought Harald had asked her name. He heard him say “Harald” and guessed he had told her his.

  And that was all too much for Grimarr. He grabbed Harald by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet and growled, “You aren’t asking her hand in marriage, you make this Irish bitch talk and tell you where Fasti hid the plunder. And tell her I’ll kill her if she lies.”

  Thorgrim was halfway to where Grimarr stood, hand on the hilt of his sword Iron-tooth. He would not let his men be treated in such a manner, Harald in particular. But Ornolf stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Grimarr,” Ornolf said in his avuncular way, “let the boy talk to her as he will. He’s good with the girls, you know, and he’ll get an honest answer from her. If she’s terrified she’ll just tell you any lie to save herself.”

  Grimarr took his hand from Harald’s shoulder and looked around. He seemed the sort of man who thought any situation was best handled in the most brutal manner, and that any other approach was a waste of time. But he appeared to accept Ornolf’s words, even if he did not entirely believe them.

  “All right,” he said to Harald. “Speak to her your way. Just get the truth from her.”