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

by James L. Nelson

  “I recall that rock. I recall Fasti pointing to it, as if he wanted me to remember it. We came onto the beach that way.” Conandil pointed toward a stretch of the shoreline to the north of the rock marker. “The ship was pulled up there, and there Fasti had his men bury the treasure.”

  Harald nodded and looked out toward the coastline. There was not much to distinguish it from the rest of Ireland’s east coast; cliffs and shingle beaches and hills and scatterings of rocks just off shore. Treacherous and desolate. But that odd-shaped rock was indeed unique.

  “Well?” Grimarr said, the word like a grunt. “What did she say? Is this it?” He was still glowering, his great bushy eyebrows coming together as he scowled, his downturned lips just visible through his massive beard. He had washed the wound on his cheek. The blood was gone but the ugly, jagged laceration was clearly seen, and Harald wondered what sort of weapon had made such a wound.

  “Yes,” Harald said at last. “She says this is the place, that Fasti went ashore just to the north of that tall rock there.”

  Grimarr turned to look in the direction that Harald pointed. He looked at the shore and made another grunting noise, as if he had expected to see the treasure lying on the beach and was angry that he could not.

  “Very well, we go ashore here,” he said, then stepping past Harald he called orders forward for the sail to be stowed and the oars to be shipped. Hands ran to the braces and halyard and buntlines, and the sail was hauled up as the yard was lowered away and swung fore and aft to rest on the gallows. Those men not tending to the sail were busy lifting the oars from where they were stowed and handing them along.

  Grimarr moved aft and stepped up on the larboard rail, one hand on the tall sternpost for balance. He cupped the other hand to his mouth and shouted to the vessels in their wake, “Here! Here is the place! Follow us in, and make ready for battle!”

  He stepped down and came forward again to the break of the afterdeck, his eyes taking in the furious activity all along the length of the ship. Harald turned to him.

  “‘Make ready for battle’? he asked. “Who do we do battle with?”

  Grimarr looked at him as if the question was a great affront. He looked away without speaking, but then seemed to change his mind and said, “These miserable Irish bastards. They might well have been following us down the coast. If Lorcan has the balls he might attack us when we’re ashore. Or not. But we’ll be ready.” He did not meet Harald’s eyes but kept his gaze forward as he spoke.

  “If there is fighting,” Harald said, “I want to be with my people. With Ornolf and the men of Far Voyager.”

  Grimarr’s expression suggested that he was only just able to keep his anger in check, and to moderate his words so they might be construed as civil. “No,” he said. “You are with me, with the girl. You will translate. No more.” And with that he stomped off toward the bow and said nothing else.

  Harald watched him go. He did not always understand the ways of men. The things that made them act one way or another were often lost to him, and he knew it. His father had a gift for knowing what was in men’s hearts, but Harald did not. It was a lesson he had learned through hard use, through many misinterpretations and misunderstandings that had led to considerable trouble. And now he recognized that this was just such a situation. Something was happening here, and he did not know what it was.

  And then Conandil was at his side, pressing close as if looking to Harald for warmth. They stood alone at the forward edge of the afterdeck, ten feet from the man at the tiller, the only other person aft with them. She leaned against him and he heard her soft voice, softer even than she was generally wont to speak.

  “He’s going to kill you,” she said.

  Harald frowned, sure he had not heard right. “What did you say?” he asked. He had sense enough to speak softly, as she had, and over the sound of the oars running out and the weapons clanging against one another as they were unwrapped from their oilcloths he was certain no one could hear them.

  “Grimarr will kill you,” she said again. “When this is done. He killed your father and he means to kill you.”

  Harald wanted to look at her, but he resisted because he did not want anyone, Grimarr in particular, to see they were speaking. “Why? Why would he kill me?” So many questions were born of Conandil few words and he wanted to ask them all at once. “He killed my father? Why?” Harald had just started to feel as if he was emerging from the surreal nightmare into which he had been plunged, and now he was falling right back into it.

  “He thinks you and your father killed his sons. Your ship…it was their ship. I don’t know how you came by it, and neither does Grimarr, but he knows you sail their ship and he will kill you because of it. Once he does not need you anymore.”

  Harald was silent for a moment, looking out toward the land, which was growing closer with each powerful pull of Eagle’s Wing’s oars. Grimarr was standing on the rail at the bow just as he had at the stern and he was scanning the beach and the cliffs beyond.

  “How do you know this?” Harald asked.

  “Because I speak the language of the dubh-gall,” Conandil said, and she spoke the words in the Norse tongue. The accent sounded odd, and the words were not entirely right, but it was without doubt the speech of the Northmen.

  The questions crowded Harald’s mind, but before he could get even one out Conandil continued, switching back to Irish. “My father was a merchant and he did business with the dubh-gall and so he learned their tongue, and I did as well. That’s why Fasti chose me to know the secret of the hoard. Not because I could hide under the floor of the ship, though it helped. He found I could speak his language, so he told me, in case he died.”

  “But why…” Harald began and stopped. He was going to ask why she had kept that secret from Grimarr, but he realized it was a foolish question. Just as he had been foolish to think she would want to be rescued from Lorcan and returned to Vík-ló. She had been taken by the Danes to be sold as a thrall for their profit. She had no desire to help Grimarr or his people in any way.

  “I have been listening,” Conandil continued. “Grimarr and his men, they have no fear of speaking in front of me, because they think I do not understand.”

  “So why do you tell me this?” Harald asked. “Why do you care about any of this? Sure you must hate us all.”

  “Yes,” Conandil agreed. “I hate you all. But I hate you less than I hate Grimarr.” Seventy feet forward, Grimarr turned and jumped down off the rail and shouted, “Bastards! Whore’s whelp Irish bastard! Pull your oars, you pathetic shits, pull!” He came stamping aft and Conandil stepped away from Harald’s side and Harald looked up at the high ground that overlooked the beach to which they were pulling. They were close enough now that Harald could see quite clearly the two riders silhouetted against the gray sky. And just as he realized what he was looking at, and what it implied, the riders wheeled their horses around and disappeared over the far side of the hill.

  Harald turned his eyes toward Grimarr and saw that Grimarr was staring at him.

  “Get your mail on, get your sword,” Grimarr growled. “We go ashore. It’s time to seek vengeance. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Harald said. “Yes, it is.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I felt, as I slept, that above me

  stood a woman with silver headband.

  her brows were wet, the eyes

  of that bonnet-goddess were weeping.

  Gisli Sursson’s Saga

  Thorgrim Night Wolf woke in great pain, his body so stiff he thought he might not be able to straighten, but at the same time he felt oddly refreshed. He hurt, but he did not feel disabled. Indeed, he felt as if he had something to do and he now had the power to do it.

  A sound had woken him up, a familiar and exhilarating sound. He had no idea where he was, though he was fairly sure he was buried in straw. The middle of a field? No, he was lying on rough wood boards. He could tell by the stiffness in
his arms and legs that he had not moved in some time. He had no idea how long that might be.

  Once again he heard the sound that had pulled him from sleep and he realized it was the ring of steel on steel, weapon beating weapon, the sound of a fight. He reached up and began to carefully part the straw cover, unsure of where he would find himself when he emerged, or in what situation. Light began to creep in above him and he pushed more straw aside and he could see gray skies overhead, the sun well up on an overcast day. He could feel the straw was wet from recent rain so he was fairly certain he was still in Ireland.

  Men were breathing hard around him and feet were shuffling and he heard the swords beating once again. He could tell by the sound there were more than two armed men in the fight. He pushed himself up on his elbows, his head emerging from the straw. He felt a burning and itching pain in two long lines across his chest, a tightness of the skin, the familiar sensation of a deep wound part-way healed. He ignored it and looked around.

  He was in a cart, and beyond the cart he could see dead men lying on the ground and four men doing battle over their corpses. Or, more accurately, pausing in the midst of doing battle. They were staring at one another, catching their breath, and by their positons relative to one another he could see that it was in fact three men against one.

  Thorgrim was still shaking off the profound sleep from which he had just emerged, but he was aware enough to see that the three men were Irish, dressed after the fashion of what the Irish called the fuidir, small time farmers, tenants of the air forgill who in turn owed allegiance to the rí túaithe. They were not warriors. That much he could see from the tentative way in which they held their swords.

  The man they were facing was a Northman, clad in the familiar tunic and leggings and holding a battle ax. He wore no mail or helmet, and in his semi-stupefied state it took Thorgrim a moment to realize it was Starri Deathless.

  Starri held his ax in one hand, low and off to the side, and he was beckoning to the three men with the other. He was grinning. This was not a fight Starri was taking too seriously, it was more a form of recreation.

  As if by some signal all three men attacked at once, each making an awkward lunge with his sword. Starri’s ax described a wide circle, knocking the blades aside as they came, knocking the first clean out of the attacker’s hand. Starri stepped in and kicked the man in the center hard and doubled him over, then took a slashing swing at the one to his left. The man screamed and jumped back out of the way and had the presence of mind to at least make a feeble jab with his sword.

  The man in the center, the one who had been kicked, was straightening, and though Starri could easily have killed him with a single blow of the big ax he chose instead to kick him again, knocking him to the grass, then turned on the one whose sword he had struck from his hand. That was enough for that man, and for the two others besides. The one who still held a weapon threw it at Starri and he and the other turned and fled, while the third man scrambled to his feet and raced after them.

  Starri held up his arm to shield himself from the flying sword, which bounced off and fell at his feet, then he took three steps after the Irishmen, shouting, “Cowards! Come back here and fight you miserable cowards!” but there was no real conviction in his voice, as if he had already lost interest in the brawl.

  “Starri!” Thorgrim spoke, and his voice was like a croaking sound. “Starri!”

  Starri pulled his eyes from the fleeing men and looked over at Thorgrim, startled to hear his name spoken. “Night Wolf!” he said, his face brightening with recognition. “There you are!”

  Thorgrim pushed more straw off himself and then climbed awkwardly out of the cart, taking the hand that Starri offered. He straightened slowly, careful not to tear anything open, working the knots from his limbs.

  “By Thor and Odin, Night Wolf…” Starri said. Thorgrim looked at his friend and he could see the uncertainty on his face. Starri reached out a finger and poked him in the chest.

  “What?” Thorgrim asked.

  “You’re…you’re certain…you’re alive, am I right? You’ve not come from Hel or some such place?”

  “Of course I’m alive, Starri, are you mad?” Thorgrim said, and then thought, That’s a foolish question.

  He looked down at himself. His tunic was hanging open with two great rents across the front. The cloth was stiff with dried blood and the skin beneath was coated in blood as well, and where his skin was not bloody it had a pale white pallor. He looked at his hands and they, too, were coated in dried blood. Bits of straw clung to every part of him. He could only imagine what his face, beard and hair looked like.

  “Oh,” Thorgrim said, “I see. No, fear not, I am very much of this world.” He saw Starri visibly relax. He looked around. There were four dead men lying about the cart. “Did you kill these men?” he asked.

  “No,” Starri said. “They’ve been dead some time, a day at least. You must have killed them. It was the ravens that led me here. I figured, where there are dead men, then Thorgrim Night Wolf is likely nearby.”

  Thorgrim looked down at the nearest corpse and could see that the man had indeed been dead for a day or two at least and that the ravens had been at him. His bloated, black and mutilated body was not a lovely thing to look on. Thorgrim walked around and looked at the others. A fifth one lay some distance away.

  “See here, Starri,” Thorgrim said, pointing to the upturned face of the man at his feet, or at least what was left of his face. “Isn’t that Grimarr’s man? Hilder?”

  Starri walked over and looked down at the man, then shrugged. “I’m not certain. Maybe. I’m not good at remembering faces, even when they are all still there.”

  It was starting to come back to him, bits of it, flashes of memory, but so like a dream that Thorgrim could not be certain that what he was remembering was not a dream. Had he killed these men? He could not recall.

  Grimarr. He had some reason to want vengeance on Grimarr.

  “Those men you were fighting, might they have done this?” Thorgrim asked.

  “No,” Starri said with certainty. “They were following the ravens, like me, the dogs. They came to loot the corpses. But I saw them first. They were mine to loot.”

  Thorgrim nodded as if this made sense. “Where are we? And why are we here?”

  Starri took a long breath. “That’s a tale, Thorgrim, I can tell you. And I don’t know it all. Grimarr came down just before the ships sailed and said you had been killed by the Irish in a raid. But I did not believe him. So I went overboard as the ship was backing off the shore, and I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Grimarr…” Thorgrim muttered to himself. He looked up at Starri. “What do you mean, ‘before the ships sailed’?”

  “The ships. They sailed,” Starri said, and then apparently sensing that Thorgrim needed further explanation added, “Far Voyager, Grimarr’s ship, the other two. They went to sea to gather up the hoard from Fearna, the one the other Dane hid.”

  “How long past?” Thorgrim asked.

  “At first light this morning,” Starri said. “Grimarr came down before they got underway and spoke to all the men. He showed us your cloak, and it was cut up and bloody and he had your sword. He told them all you were dead and they must avenge you by killing as many of the Irish as they could.”

  Images floated in Thorgrim’s mind. Grimarr and his sword. Pain like a glowing hot metal bar pressed to his chest. Blood in his mouth. He could make no sense of it.

  “The others thought I was dead? Harald? Ornolf?”

  Starri nodded. “They had no reason to think you were not. They saw the cloak.”

  Thorgrim did not bother asking Starri why he alone did not believe it, because he knew Starri listened to voices no other man could hear. “And they’ve gone to sea?” Thorgrim asked instead.

  Starri nodded.

  “We must get back to Vík-ló. Do you know the way?” Thorgrim asked next.

  “Ahh…” Starri said, looking around as if t
he very idea had never occurred to him. Thorgrim looked in the direction from which the cart had come. He could recall almost nothing of what had happened, but he figured it was a good guess that the cart had come from the longphort.

  “This way, I think,” Thorgrim said, pointing down the muddy and rutted road.

  Starri nodded. “I think you are right, Night Wolf,” he said. They took a few moments to relieve the dead men of their weapons and their purses and then together headed east, toward Vík-ló, or at least where they hoped Vík-ló would be.

  As it happened, the longphort was closer than Thorgrim had dared hope, and once they crested the next rise they could see it off in the distance, an ugly brown and gray bruise on the green countryside pressed tight against the River Leitrim. How Starri could have been unsure of where the town lay was a wonder to Thorgrim, but he knew that such things as a sense of direction were not among Starri’s strengths.

  A half dozen thin columns of smoke rose from the houses of those who had not sailed with the fleet, but beyond that there was nothing they could see from that distance that indicated any great bustle of activity. Vík-ló looked all but deserted.

  “Grimarr is gone?” Thorgrim asked. “And Bersi?”

  “All of them,” Starri said. “Nearly every fighting man is gone from Vík-ló, or so it seemed to me.”

  They walked on, and the walking became less painful as Thorgrim’s muscles warmed up and his stiff joints loosened a bit. There was no one to be seen in the countryside in any direction save for a few desultory cattle, which was hardly a surprise. No Irishman would care to come so close to a Danish longphort, and no Dane would care to be caught outside the walls.

  The sun was off to the west and dropping toward the horizon, a bright white disk behind the unbroken gray of the clouds, like the shield of a god. Late afternoon, Thorgrim realized, maybe four more hours of daylight. He felt a growing sense of urgency, though he still had no idea of what he would do.