He was moving at first light, and by late afternoon he was stumbling across the ford north of the longphort and making his way up the plank road toward the palisade fort and Orm’s house. There at last was the familiar smell of smiths’ fires and rough cooking and drying fish. A gang of workmen were half-way through thatching the roof of the mead hall.
Orm’s new thrall opened the door, an old and nearly toothless woman, stooped and gray. Orm, apparently, had had his fill of pretty young Irish slaves.
“Asbjorn, by the gods, what has happened?” Orm asked, sounding more annoyed than alarmed or concerned as he looked Asbjorn up and down. Asbjorn was a sight and he knew it, clothed only in Hallkel’s cloak and shoes, his hair wet and sticking out in various ways, his legs and cloak muddy. He was splattered with Hallkel’s blood but he had not bothered to wash it off as it gave him the appearance of hard fighting.
“Lord Orm, you are betrayed!” Asbjorn announced, staggering dramatically and grabbing at a table for support.
“Woman, a chair and some mead for Asbjorn!” Orm ordered, though his tone was still that of one more inconvenienced than concerned. Asbjorn sat, took the mead and drank. He was ready to eat, eat copiously, but he knew that would have to wait.
“Very well,” Orm said with a sigh, “I take it it’s Magnus who has betrayed me?”
“His treachery, Lord, is worse than I could have imagined,” Asbjorn said, and launched into his tale of Magnus’s alliance with the Irish king Cormac Ua Ruairc and their mutual search for the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. He told Orm of Magnus’s plan to use his alliance with the Irish to take Dubh-linn for himself. That was not something that Asbjorn knew with any certainly, only what he guessed at, but he related it to Orm as known fact.
He went on to describe his heroic escape, killing his guard with his bare hands, stealing his weapons and fighting the sentries to flee into the night. But by that point he could see he was losing Orm’s interest, and straining his credulity, so he wrapped it up quickly.
Orm sat silent for a moment, and then with a lighting move flung his mead cup against the wall, shattering it and making a wet spot on the daub. “May Thor rip his lungs out!” Orm shouted. “And if he does not, I swear I will!”
Orm stood and paced, back and forth, saying nothing, and Asbjorn had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Finally Orm stopped. “I have it on good word now,” Orm said, “that the Norwegian whore’s son Olaf the White is assembling a fleet to take Dubh-linn back. For all I know they have sailed already. As if that is not bother enough, now I have this to contend with!”
“My Lord, let me take care of this trouble for you. A swift longship, a hundred men or so, is all it will take. The Norwegians are under oar, we can overhaul them, and where they are, the Irish and Magnus will be.”
“You said this Cormac Ua Ruairc had a hundred men, and another forty Vikings with him.”
“My men will not fight against Danes,” Asbjorn assured him, “and the Irish have only Irish weapons and cannot stand up against us for long. One hundred Danes and we can finish this, and I’ll bring Magnus back in chains.”
Actually, he would bring Magnus back dead, so that Magnus would never again have Orm’s ear, but that was an issue for later.
For a long moment Orm sat there, staring into the fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the room. Asbjorn could see he was wavering.
“Lord, this is not the time for you to leave Dubh-linn, not with so great a threat on the horizon.”
Orm looked up sharp. “What do you know of it?” he snapped.
“Nothing, Lord! Nothing beyond what you have told me!” Asbjorn protested, but he knew at that moment he had ruined his chance to take Magnus alone. Orm was too paranoid now for that.
“I will go,” Orm said and he stood at last. “I will get a crew together for my longship and I will hunt that traitor down, and the Norwegian Ornolf as well, and by the gods I will make them all curse their mothers for bearing them.”
“Yes, Lord Orm, it is what they deserve, no more. And would it please you if I was to remain in Dubh-linn, and see to your affairs here?”
“No, it would not please me!” Orm snapped, so quick and loud it made Asbjorn cringe. He kept his mouth shut. Orm was seeing traitors everywhere now, and Asbjorn knew he had to take care that Orm did not see one in him.
* * *
Through all the dark hours of the night they made their way down the River Boyne, and Brigit, for all the time she remained awake, stared into the dark water and cursed herself for an idiot.
What could I have been thinking? She lashed herself for her stupidity. I help this animal, and he repays my kindness by raping me!
She stared at the water bubbling and tumbling around the boat.
Very well, he didn’t rape me...
Angry as she was, she could not lie to herself that way, to that degree. And she felt all the more foolish for having given herself to him willingly.
They could hear pursuit at first along the bank. The riders were shouting to one another. Brigit could make out the voice of Brian Finnliath, which pleased her, because she thought Harald had killed him. Another voice she thought might have been Flann mac Conaing, but it was hard to hear over the yapping dogs.
The men from Tara followed as well as they could, trying to keep up with the boat. But the boat was light, like a leaf on a stream, and the current was fast and it swept them away down stream, faster than riders or dogs could hope to follow in the failing light.
There was a single sweep lying across the thwarts. Harald lifted it up and fitted it into the thole pins on the transom and began to scull the boat down river, moving the sweep back and forth with an expert hand. The barking of the dogs faded and soon it was lost in the sound of the river and the light falling rain.
Brigit would have thrown herself over the side to escape, but that was as much as suicide because she could not swim. She wondered if it would be a mortal sin, since her intention would not be to kill herself, even if that was the likely outcome. Surely not a mortal sin, for then would it not be a mortal sin to go into combat against great odds?
She dismissed the whole line of reasoning. She was not ready to give up her life yet, not when she still had the strength and will to escape the fin gall.
Her thoughts wandered to the piece of meat lying back toward the stern where she had flung it at Harald’s head. She was very hungry, but did not want to get any closer to Harald, lest she reinforce whatever insane notion he had concoted. She tore a piece of bread from the loaf and stuck it in her mouth. It took quite a bit of chewing to get it down, and by the second piece her jaw ached so she gave it up.
For some time she just stared out into the dark and down at the water and cursed herself and tried to think how she might avoid being carried back to Norway as the unwitting bride of some lunatic young Viking. She thought about hitting Harald over the head with something, but there was nothing sufficiently big and heavy in the boat that she might use. Nor did she think she was strong enough to deliver a blow that would do any damage to his thick head.
She fell asleep at some point in the night, sleeping fitfully across her thwart.
When she woke it seemed oddly dark - not nighttime dark, but something different. She looked up. Harald had lashed the monk’s robe to the gunnels to form a shelter over her and keep the steady drizzle off her as she slept. She found that very annoying.
She sat up, ducked under the makeshift shelter. It was full daylight, a milky white dawn with a steady drizzle that gave a gray cast to the bright green country along the riverbanks. Harald was still at his place in the stern, slowly and steadily sculling the boat down stream. Brigit wondered if he had been at it all night. He seemed as fresh as if he had just hopped out of a feather bed. She found that even more annoying.
Harald looked at her and smiled his toothy smile and that was the most annoying of all. She looked around the boat for something to heave at his big, dumb head. There were nets and ropes of vario
us size and some smaller tools, but nothing that would be really satisfying to throw.
As she searched for a weapon, it occurred to her that escape would be easier if the fin gall did not know she wanted to escape. She closed her eyes, summoned her resolve, then met Harald’s eyes and rewarded him with a big smile. The look of pleasure on his face made her even more eager to throw something at him, but she held fast to her subterfuge.
What now, what now? She desperately had to urinate and it was making it hard to think. How am I supposed to do that, in this idiot boat?
And then the plan came to her, seemed to spring full born into her head. She took a step aft, smiling at Harald. She pointed to the bank, a clump of brush and trees near a bend in the river.
Harald frowned and shook his head. Brigit pointed again and again Harald shook his head.
How on earth am I supposed to make this fool understand?
Brigit sighed, made a squatting motion, pointed to the bottom of the boat. Harald’s white skin flushed red and he suddenly looked very uncomfortable. He nodded his head in agreement, then fixed his eyes on the river bank by the trees, as if it would be lost forever if it left his sight for a second.
The boat ran silently into the mud and came to a stop. Harald pulled the sweep in and made ready to climb out, but Brigit swung herself over the gunnel and dropped into the stream below. The water was up to her ankles and the mud grabbed at her shoes but she did not mind, as she was already all but soaked.
She looked Harald in the eye and as emphatically as she could pointed to his seat in the boat, trying to convey the idea that he was to remain there. Harald was still blushing and he wore a very uncomfortable look. He nodded his head and patted the seat beside him, indicating his unwillingness to interfere with any female issues.
“Good,” Brigit said out loud. She rewarded Harald with a smile and then slogged through the mud and clambered up the river bank and into the thick brush growing there.
The branches grabbed at her cloak and tangled her hair as she fought her way though the undergrowth. She looked back to see if Harald seemed at all suspicious, but the river and the boat were already lost from sight. She pulled up her skirts and squatted and relieved herself, a great relief indeed, and when she stood again she felt vastly more able to take action. She fought on through the bracken and came at last to the far end of the copse, where the thick brush yielded to open fields, rolling away to the distance.
That was easy, she thought, but she was not free yet, she had to remember that. Still, she was sure her father’s men would be following the Boyne east, hoping to intercept them before they reached the sea. All she had to do was follow the Boyne west to meet up with them. But first she had to get well away from Harald.
Across the open ground there was another clump of brush and trees, no more than a quarter mile away. She stepped out into the open ground and moved fast toward the next hiding place. Again and again she looked over her shoulder, making certain that she kept the trees on the riverbank between herself and the boat. She wondered how long Harald’s discomfort would keep him from coming in search of her. Long enough to get to the next hiding place, or the one after that, she hoped.
She ran, lifting her skirts and cloak out of the way, splashing through the wet grass. She felt her breath coming harder but she did not slow, save to turn and check that the trees still blocked Harald’s view of her, and that he was not chasing after her.
She was heaving for breath when she reached the next hiding place, crashing into the brush and dropping to her knees. She looked back the way she had come as she tried to regain her breath. Harald was not following, which was good, but her feet had left a clear path through the wet grass and she would be easy enough to follow when he finally decided he should go looking for her.
I have to keep going... she thought. She forced herself to her feet and pushed on through the tall growth, toward the far side of that stand of trees. She had to find the next hiding place, but not get so far from the river that she lost her way. She thought of the bandits Harald had killed back at the fisherman’s cottage. There were plenty of dangers for a woman on her own in that wild country.
She came at last to the far end of that patch, where once again the open fields stretched away. There was a rider, half a mile distant and coming toward her. She felt a great surge of hope. Bandits and peasants did not ride horses. This one had to be a noble, or at least a man of wealth, and if he was either of those, then he was most likely one of her father’s men, out searching for her.
She kept to her hiding place, watching the man as he came closer. He had a red cape around his shoulders, a tunic over what she guessed was a mail shirt. A man of wealth, to be certain. She wondered why he was riding alone. Not that it mattered. Any man of means in Brega owed his allegiance, his fortune, even his life to Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid.
Brigit made to step from the undergrowth, but then hesitated, some warning sounding in the back of her head. This is ridiculous, she thought, but still she paused.
And then she thought of her wet track through the grass, the easy trail for Harald to follow. The Norseman had beaten down every attack against him. But this fellow on the horse, he looked as if he would be a match for Harald.
“You there!” Brigit stepped boldly out of the wood. Two perches away the man on the horse reined back in surprise, the horse spinning a tight circle before the rider had it under control.
“I am in need of help!” Brigit called, walking confidently toward the man. “I am Brigit mac Ruanaid, daughter of Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid. Princess of Tara.”
The rider had his mount under control now, and he rode the few paces to where Brigit stood. A handsome man, light hair, with a few days’ growth of beard on his square jaw. He looked down at her. He did not speak. It made Brigit nervous.
“My father will reward you, handsomely, if you bring me safe to Tara.”
The man on the horse smiled. He spoke. Brigit heard the word “Magnus” which she thought might be the man’s name. But she understood nothing else, because, to her horror, he did not speak in her lovely, lilting Gaelic, but rather in the coarse, rough tongue of the Vikings.
Chapter Thirty-Four
The good dream-woman
led me, the poet, to sleep
there, where soft beds lay.
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
M
orrigan felt her whole world rocking, as surely as the Red Dragon rocked in the swells rolling in toward the mouth of the Boyne.
They spent the night on the beach where the crown had been recovered, a restless night with watchers stationed at intervals inland, looking for any sign of the Irish army that had been following behind.
Morrigan did not let the Crown of the Three Kingdoms out of her sight. In truth, she did not let it out of her grip. She loved the feel of it, the weight of it. She held it in her lap and put her hands under the coarse cloth and ran her fingertips along the cool metal, feeling the intricate designs etched in the surface, the smooth, hard stones embedded in the gold. When no one was watching she unwrapped the canvas and stared at the dull yellow band and buffed it with her sleeve to make it shine. She had never, in her life, seen its like, and it took hold of her like nothing ever had.
Well into the dark hours she sat up on the afterdeck, the crown pressed tight in her lap, until Thorgrim Night-Wolf came back from his rounds of the watchers. She looked at him close, though she could see little beyond shadows in the dark. But she could see with certainty that he was a man, fully a man. If he was a shape-shifter, he was not shifting tonight.
“You are awake, still?” Thorgrim asked, standing over her. “How are you?”
She clutched the crown tighter. “I am well,” she said. As much as getting possession of the Crown of the Three Kingdoms had worked oddly on her mind, so too had Ornolf’s revelation about Thorgrim. The old people, the ones who still half clung to the old religions, talked of such things as men who became wolves. Morrigan dismissed it
all as nonsense.
But she could not deny that Thorgrim seemed to know things that other men did not, and she had never seen a man who could fight like him. Ireland was a land infused with magic, and it was hard to dismiss such a thing as this. She found herself frightened and fascinated, all at once.
Thorgrim took his leave of her and made his way forward. She watched as he moved among his men - Ornolf’s men, really, but it was clear to her who was really in command - talking to them in low tones. He was a good leader. Strong, unyielding, and yet he cared about his men. She had seen that even back at Dubh-linn, when she first came to tend to their wounds.
Morrigan leaned back on the rail and hugged the crown to her chest. Her mind wandered off to thoughts of the incredible wealth that the crown represented. The gold and jewels alone were worth more than she or Flann would see in several lifetimes, and they with their close ties to the very king of Tara.
Such a thing as this, hidden away, given out by rich abbots to wealthy kings.
Finally Thorgrim stepped aft. “I’m worried,” he said.
“Worried?” Morrigan came out of her reverie with a guilty start.
Thorgrim sat on the chest beside her. “I am worried about Harald. I am getting a sense for trouble with him. Something is wrong.”
Morrigan wanted very much to ask him if this was a wolf dream, but she did not dare, and part of that was because she was afraid to hear the answer. “Do you...get these feelings?”
“Oh, yes,” Thorgrim said. “It is sometimes as if Harald and I have one mind. I know when he is in trouble, or if he is in a good way. It has always been thus.”
Morrigan thought about that. “Does Harald also get such feelings?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes he does, sometimes he knows how I am, or what I will do. But he does not see as clearly as me.”
Fin Gall (The Norsemen) Page 24
