Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6)

by James L. Nelson

  Forward, some of the men were sleeping, some eating their midday meal, some sharpening weapons or talking and laughing among themselves. Thorgrim could feel his impatience mounting. Waiting was a big part of his life. It was a big part of the lives of any warrior or seafarer. But that did not mean he liked it.

  “Vestar!” he called forward and the young warrior who was sitting on the foredeck with some of his fellows stood and made his way aft.

  “Up aloft with you, see what you can see,” Thorgrim said. Vestar nodded, swung himself into the shrouds. A few moments later he was settled at the masthead.

  For a long time he said nothing. Sea Hammer pitched and yawed, giving the man aloft a wild ride and making his job that much harder.

  “The headland’s no closer!” he shouted at last. “I can’t see…” Then he paused and the pause did not go unnoticed. Fore and aft heads turned to the masthead.

  “Sails!” Vestar shouted. “I see sails…I think. Pretty far off….I’m not certain… Looks like…one, two…three!”

  Thorgrim nodded to himself. Vestar could be wrong, of course. He had not been so certain about what he had seen. But Thorgrim knew that anyone in Vestar’s position would be shy about making a definitive statement, unless he was more certain than he was letting on.

  And Vestar was not wrong, Thorgrim was sure of it.

  Ah, Brunhard, you bastard, I have you now, he thought, and even as the words formed in his head he heard the volume of the wind build, heard its note grow sharper in pitch.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  O'er the sea from the north there sails a ship

  With the people of Hel, at the helm stands Loki;

  After the wolf do wild men follow….

  The Poetic Edda

  Any given piece of rope will bear only so much strain before it parts. It will come straight and tight, like an iron bar. It will stretch and grow narrower and make little popping noises. If it is wet, the water will be squeezed out like ringing out a cloth.

  And then suddenly, unpredictably, it will part. At some point along its length it will break with an audible and often destructive force, snapping back, injuring or killing anything in its path.

  That was how Brunhard viewed luck. A lot of weight could be put on luck if it seemed to be holding. It could be stretched. But, as with a rope, one had to take great care to not stretch it too far.

  Brunhard had a good sense for that. He had a unique ability to see when his luck was reaching the point of blowing apart. It was what had kept him alive all those years and made him a wealthy man, as well. And he knew he was reaching the breaking point now. He could hear the popping sounds, see the water squeezing out.

  “Aloft there, what do you see?” he called out peevishly. The slaves were still rowing Wind Dancer despite the breeze picking up from the north east. They were not moving very fast. In part this was because there were not as many slaves, some of them having been sent off aboard the captured longship, and in part because Brunhard did not want to go fast. Not yet.

  “No ships or sails astern of us, Master Brunhard!” the man sitting at the masthead called down. They had sent him up in a loop of rope so he could remain there longer than he might if he was just hanging on. Brunhard wanted eyes aloft. He wanted information the very moment it was to be had.

  “Are you just looking astern?” Brunhard called back. “What lies ahead of us?”

  He watched the man kick off the mast and swivel around still hanging from the rope. He seemed to be having fun with his acrobatics, and that annoyed Brunhard even more.

  “I see the cape, Master Brunhard! To the south, ten miles, perhaps! The coast seems to be just beach. No rocks and no ships there!”

  I know the coast is all beach here, you damned idiot, Brunhard thought. He knew every inch of this coast. That was not his concern right now.

  He was concerned about the longships, both the one he had captured and the one they had been trying to capture. Wind Dancer and the other ships had set their course south to get away from the stalking Northmen. The captured longship with Áed, Louis, and the Irish slaves aboard had set its course north to intercept them and spring their trap.

  Brunhard had been moving slow as he headed for the cape. The plan had been for Áed and his men to capture the second longship and then turn south and rejoin the merchantmen. They would transfer the plunder into Wind Dancer’s hold, redistribute the slaves who had survived, and then leave Ireland astern, making the crossing to Wales once they had raised the cape above the horizon.

  They should have seen the sails of Áed’s ships to the north by now, if all had gone according to plan. The sun was just past its zenith, the day was getting on, and yet there was no sign of them.

  How damned long does it take to kill a bunch of heathens? Brunhard wondered. But of course there were many things that might have gone wrong. The treacherous Irishman Broccáin and Louis the Frank might have succeeded in leading a mutiny and taken the ship. Áed and his men might have captured the Northman and decided to sail off and keep the plunder for themselves. The ship might have sprung a leak and sunk.

  Or, the worst of all possibilities, the heathens might have killed Áed and his men and taken the ship back. That was the scenario that most worried Brunhard. Not that he cared about the lives of Áed or any of his other men; he didn’t, save to the extent that they were useful to him. But if the heathens had taken back their ship, then they might now be coming after Wind Dancer and the others. The warrior crew of even one longship, even a small one, would be too much for the few men who sailed Brunhard’s merchantmen.

  Silef, the most trusted of all Brunhard’s sailors, was at the tiller, only a few feet away. “We should have seen Áed and the ships by now,” he offered, the only man aboard who would have dared give Brunhard his opinion. And even Silef’s opinion Brunhard did not welcome, at least not in that instance. Silef was unlikely to think of anything that Brunhard had not already thought of himself.

  “Yes, I know,” Brunhard said, trying by the tone of his voice to indicate that further discussion was neither needed nor welcome, but Silef went on anyway.

  “Áed might have run off. Or he might have been killed.”

  “Yes,” Brunhard said.

  “If he was killed, the heathens might be in our wake, even now,” Silef said. “And even so, that’s only two of the heathens accounted for.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Silef said. “There were four of the bastards after us. We captured the one. The second Áed went after this morning. But there were still two more. And those two were the big ones.”

  Brunhard frowned. He hadn’t thought of that. “One of them I wrecked,” he said and even he could hear the defensive tone in his voice. “Sail on fire? You must have seen it; it was quite spectacular.”

  Silef coughed and spit phlegm over the side. “I saw the sail on fire,” he said. “I didn’t see it wreck.”

  “Well, of course it wrecked! Swept right into the rocks!” Brunhard said, but even as the words left his mouth he felt an uneasy sensation in his gut. Because Silef was right. They had not seen it wrecked.

  “Very well, it wrecked,” Silef said. “That still leaves one more out there somewhere.”

  Brunhard felt the rope of luck pull tighter, heard the popping sounds increase. He looked up at the masthead, out astern of Wind Dancer and then out to weather. Nothing. Nothing but land to starboard, and open ocean in every other direction. But of course the lookout would have told him if that was not the case. And if he failed to tell him, Brunhard would have flayed him alive on the foredeck.

  “We have a breeze now,” Brunhard said, ostensibly changing the subject though in fact he was addressing the immediate concern. They were moving slow and doing so on purpose. That was the proper thing to do if Áed was trying to catch up with them, but it was the worst possible choice if the Northmen were in their wake.

  “Yes, the breeze is getting up,” Silef prompted. “Maybe
we should make some use of it.”

  And with that, Brunhard came to a decision. To hell with Áed and the Northmen and their ship and plunder, he thought. His luck was stretched too tight. He had the slaves that remained aboard his ships, he had his cargo, and most of all he had the plunder from the one longship. That was enough. More than enough to make this perhaps the most profitable voyage of his life. He was a greedy man, and he knew it, but he was not so much of a fool as to let that greed destroy him.

  “Let me take the tiller. You see to getting the sail set,” Brunhard said, stepping up and taking the oak bar as Silef surrendered it. He looked up at the masthead. “Aloft, there! Take a last good look around! We’re going to lower you down so we might set the sail!”

  In a moment the ship, which had settled into the monotonous work of rowing slowly south, was a riot of activity. Oars were run in and stacked, lashings on the sail cast off. The lookout was lowered to the deck and the halyard to raise the heavy yard was stretched along.

  “Anything?” Brunhard asked the lookout as he came aft.

  “No, Master Brunhard,” the man said.

  “Well, to hell with them, we’re done waiting,” Brunhard said, the words really directed at himself, since he was not in the habit of explaining anything to the near worthless men who manned his ships.

  “Yes, Master Brunhard,” the lookout said. Brunhard made a dismissive gesture with his hand and the lookout scurried off forward.

  Brunhard watched him go and his eye fell on the slave girl, the wife of the Irishman, Broccáin. He wondered if she would understand what it meant that they were setting the sail, if she would realize they were leaving her husband behind, that she would be off to the slave markets without him.

  The men should have their chance at her tonight, he thought, and they’ll be glad of that. But he felt the breeze on his face and heard the first snapping of the sail as it was let loose from its lashings and he thought, Or maybe not.

  The wind was filling in from the northeast and becoming more easterly, and the sky, which had been clear at dawn, was overspread with clouds now. In Brunhard’s experience in those waters that generally meant the wind would be getting stronger before it died again. Maybe much stronger.

  Perhaps we should run the ships ashore for the night, he thought, but he could not shake the realization that there was at least one, maybe two longships out there, and he did not know where they were. There were rivers and inlets and various hiding places along much of the Irish coast, but not here. Here there was just a long, almost straight stretch of beach, where Brunhard’s ships would be easily seen by any passing vessel.

  There was a harbor just north of the cape, the mouth of a river, but the sandbars there were tricky and shifting. There was a better than even chance his fleet would run up on those and there the Northmen would find them, helpless to even run.

  Time to leave, Brunhard thought. He knew it in his gut. It was time to leave the coast of Ireland astern, head off across the sea, make his was to Frisia. He would be back in Dubh-linn next summer, but for now his time was out. High winds, foul weather did not worry him too much. It was a short crossing. They had only to survive the night and they would see the shores of Wales the following day.

  “Haul away!” he heard Silef shout, and the men began to heave on the halyard, and the slaves as well, those who could lay hands on the rope. The yard rose off the gallows and was swung athwartships as the sail spilled out and bucked and twisted in the breeze.

  Brunhard looked astern. Galilee and Two Brothers were also setting sail, following Wind Dancer’s lead. He looked ahead. The cape was visible to him now, a low, dark line along the southern horizon that disappeared suddenly as if the end had been cut off with a knife. They were close enough now.

  He pushed the tiller away from him, just a bit, turning Wind Dancer a bit more easterly. He would keep easing around to the east so they passed within a few miles of the end of the cape. From there he knew he had to keep as easterly a course as he could. That would not be so very easterly in this wind, but the coast of Wales was a broad target. He was unlikely to miss it.

  Silef had the beitass rigged out over the larboard side and a half dozen men were hauling the corner of the sail down to the end of the spar. More men were heaving the starboard sheet aft. The sail, full of wind now, bellied out to leeward and Wind Dancer heeled over, the water rushing down her side. Brunhard took a deep breath. He loved this. Usually it made him deeply happy. But his mind was filled with too many worries just then for him to get much pleasure from the set of the sail, the feel of the ship underfoot.

  He looked up at the masthead, considered sending the lookout back up. The man had been getting quite a ride before. Now it would be much worse as Wind Dancer, sailing nearly as close to the wind as she could get, began pounding into the seas.

  To hell with the lookout, Brunhard decided. He didn’t need a lookout. He was going to sea, leaving the land astern, leaving the damned Northmen and the damned Irish in his wake. There was only empty sea ahead, and he didn’t much care what was behind.

  He nudged the tiller some more, bringing the bow around even more easterly. As Wind Dancer lifted on the waves he could see the cape more clearly, that familiar headland. There was always a play of emotions when he saw that point. Trepidation, because they were leaving the land now and heading out into the unpredictable sea, where strange and mysterious things lived, and storms could come from nowhere. But there was optimism as well. Because that cape meant he was bound away for Frisia. Home.

  It was right about then that Brunhard would usually swear he was done with sea voyaging, that once he set shore in Frisia he would wander no more. He had riches enough. Why did he put himself through this?

  This was his ritual every time he sighted the cape, but this time, he realized, it was different. This time he really was done. He had the Northmen’s plunder and Louis’s casket in his hold, and that was a great store of wealth. The men on the crew might think they were going to share in it—Brunhard had assured them they would in order to retain their loyalty—but once they reached Frisia they would find out to their sorrow that the silver was Brunhard’s, and Brunhard’s alone.

  They might get the wages they were owed for the voyage, or they might not, but they would not get even the smallest share of the silver.

  He looked astern. Galilee and Two Brothers were smaller than Wind Dancer and their masters less skillful in ship handling and already they were struggling to keep up.

  “Silef!” Brunhard shouted forward. “Luff the sail a bit, let these lazy, incompetent bastards gain on us!”

  Silef nodded, eased the tack on the larboard side, spilling wind from the sail. Wind Dancer’s motion through the water changed noticeably and her speed dropped off and soon the two smaller ships had drawn to within a hundred yards. Brunhard waved to Silef and half a dozen men hauled the sail taut again and the ship slowly began to regain her speed.

  And so it went as the day wore on and the three ships plunged along, making as much easting as they could. That meant a course closer to southeast, but that was good enough for Brunhard. Sometime before dark they would come about, and near the middle of the night they’d come about again and, come morning, that should put them right where they wanted to be.

  It would not be a pleasant night, but Brunhard and the sailors were used to that. And at least it was not raining, and there was little indication it would start soon. Not that it would matter all that much. The spray thrown up as the bow pounded into the seas had already soaked them nearly through.

  Silef sent one of the trusted men aft to relieve Brunhard of the tiller, and Brunhard, realizing how weary he had become, relinquished it willingly. He stepped over to the weather side of the small afterdeck and leaned against the side. His body was motionless but his eyes were everywhere, running over the set of the sail, gauging how far astern the other two ships had fallen, judging their distance to the cape and the amount of leeway they were making, whether o
r not they were in danger of being blown down on the land.

  We’re fine, fine… he thought. They would weather the cape with ease on that heading, stand out into open water. By the time the sun went down they would be out of sight of land.

  He shifted his gaze to weather, staring off in the direction from which the wind was blowing. A wave passed under the bow and lifted it high, obstructing the view forward. Then the stern went up and Brunhard looked out toward the horizon. And he gasped. And he felt his stomach tighten.

  And then the stern came down again and the horizon was lost to sight. “Silef!” Brunhard roared. “Send the man with the sharpest eyes aloft! I thought I saw a ship to weather!”

  Silef acknowledged with a wave, called an order to one of the men, and a moment later the man was climbing up one of the weather shrouds. With the sail set he could easily stand on the yard and hang onto the mast and have as comfortable a perch as a man might find aloft on the pitching and rolling ship.

  There was silence fore and aft, but nearly every eye was turned toward the masthead, as if watching the lookout would make his report come quicker or more accurately. Brunhard was just about to call up in frustration when the lookout called down.

  “It’s a ship! A mile, maybe a little more! No sail set. Might have oars out, I can’t see for certain!”

  A ship? Brunhard thought. A ship? He frowned. Of course there’s a ship, we’re on the damned ocean, he thought. It could be any sort of ship. The chances were that it was a merchantman that would turn and run like the devil was after him at the sight of their three sails.

  But he found no comfort in that thought. And he could not shake the memory of how the heathen who had been plaguing them had taken his ship offshore just a few days earlier and waited for them to put to sea before he pounced. It made Brunhard more angry than frightened to think that he could have fallen for the same thing a second time.

  Brunhard turned to the man at the tiller. “Fall off, some,” he shouted. The man pulled the tiller toward him and Wind Dancer began to turn to starboard, her bow swinging away from the wind. “That’s good, hold her there!” Brunhard said. He looked astern. Two Brothers and Galilee were following behind.