Winter Serpent

by Davis, Maggie;

  The Viking’s message had stated that he would not meet with the King of the Picts at the fort in Inverness. The Northman must have the sea at his back in case of treachery. This was reasonable. The Council of Seven had given their consent to the parley after much quarreling, and after Nechtan had assured them he would be properly cautious. He would take nearly all the garrison of Inverness and whatever men he could gather along the way. The spot he had chosen was the farthest east of all Pictish lands, an abandoned watchtower so ancient that men had forgotten its beginnings. It was known only as Talorcan’s tower.

  The flat countryside was not friendly to Nechtan’s army. They could not approach a beach or cove without the alarm of the wading birds, and alone in the vast stretches they were aware of the line of horses and men strung along the flats, the dull light glittering from helmets and weapons.

  Nechtan rode at the head of the column, among his chiefs and nobles. He talked little, thinking of the decisions he must make, the weighing of the things he now had and valued, the things which he did not have and wanted. Prince Brude had been placed by his father’s side, but when Nechtan looked for him he seemed always to be riding close to the girl, jockeying for position with the Cymry warriors who surrounded her.

  The king turned to look at his son. Brude’s peaked silver-and-gold helm was easily distinguished among the battered ones of the Welsh mercenaries. The girl’s presence was disruptive. Some sort of disorder seemed always to follow her. It was an ominous thing.

  Brude had at last succeeded in forcing his horse close to Doireann’s pony, and he ordered Llewellyn ap Gwilym to fall back. The Welsh captain acted as though he did not hear him.

  “What is it?” Doireann asked, turning. There was a flicker of a smile on her mouth.

  “Why do you ride with the Cymry?” Brude asked irritably. “Come forward with me.”

  “I cannot do that. Your father has ordered the Welshmen to escort me.”

  “I do not like this meeting we go to,” he said in a low voice. “There may be treachery, a Viking attack, even though my father’s scouts report only one longship on the beach ahead.” His black eyes were hot. “I told you once that I would not turn back from a fight for you, and this is still true. I wished you to be confident of it.”

  Llewellyn made a small noise of derision.

  They rode for some time until they were interrupted by a halt to close the spaces between the marchers and the mounted men.

  They were on a slight rise of sand dunes. Before them was the final expanse of the sea. The old tower stood on a promontory of boulders, a few wind-stunted trees at its feet.

  Beyond it was the alien ship drawn up on the strand, its keel lightly touching the shore, its mast stepped, ready to be raised for swift escape.

  A murmur ran through the Picts.

  The longship’s dragon prow was newly painted yellow, the red eyes staring balefully out upon the land. The Northmen’s helmets could be seen above the sides. A large group of the raiders stood on the beach. They had been eating, but one of them kicked sand over the fire and ran back to join the cluster of the others about the ship.

  The Picts came up swiftly and crowded over the dunes. Here at last was the enemy, the hated sea-rovers. They called out to each other and pointed.

  Brude rode to the spot where his father and the other nobles stared down at the foe. Doireann was left in the midst of the Cymry band, her vision blocked by their bodies. Elda was close behind, the child in her arms.

  Doireann touched the heavy gold cross at her neck. It was Flann the Culdee’s cross, the precious object on which he had taken his vows. The words he had spoken to her as she prepared to leave Inverness were still in her thoughts.

  “No matter what is said or done, do not allow yourself to be removed from honor,” he had told her. “You can do much to assure justice for yourself if you remember God’s laws guide you. You have free choice of good or evil. If you choose to connive with the rest you will only begin to destroy your soul. If you choose God’s way He will strengthen you.”

  Flann had bent to her and had slipped the heavy cross over his head, holding it in his hand. It had seemed an effort for him to let it go; it had some of his goodness in it, some of his headlong Irish righteousness. She protested, but he waved her aside.

  “No,” he said. “You must wear the cross and hope that men will look upon it and consider their deeds.”

  It was warm now as she grasped it for comfort and courage. Its size and plainness were conspicuous against the finery she wore. She had been dressed in clothes taken from the king’s treasure for this journey; her gown was of yellow silk which looked to be the state dress of some long-dead Pictish princess. A narrow circlet of silver and rubies had been set upon her head by Nechtan’s own hands. It was too small, and bit into the skin of her forehead, but it helped to remind her to be careful of her hair, intricately dressed by the Pictish women into six plaits twined about with glass beads and hung with silver tassels. The beads rattled whenever she moved her head, and she thought ruefully that in her splendor she must resemble the Pictish version of the trussed and beribboned pigs served up for the Easter banquet.

  One of the Cymry moved his horse to one side, and she had a clear view of the beach and the ship resting there. New-painted, it did not resemble either of the longships she had remembered in Cumhainn.

  The Picts stirred restlessly. Many of the bowmen had seen their villages raided by the Northmen, and it was hard for them to stand waiting and watching. The Vikings were formidably armed. The size of their battle-axes and swords made the bows and spears of the Picts look primitive and fragile by comparison.

  For long minutes they appraised each other, the wild little Pictmen with their tattooed faces and naked bodies, and the scowling, massive Teutons.

  Wilfrid, bishop of Inverness, was the first to move forward. He dismounted and advanced alone and on foot down the sandy slope to the water. His pace was unhurried and his tall bishop’s hat flattened out in the brisk wind.

  “Let us have nothing but peace on this assembly,” he said, his voice carrying clearly. “This parley is for the sake of those now held captive by the Northmen. It is for these lives that we come to bargain.”

  A voice familiar to Doireann answered him. It was Sweyn’s deep bellow. “We come to parley with the King of the Picts,” it announced, “and not with a priest.”

  Wilfrid did not move.

  “You will soon have words with him,” he answered. “Yet remember this, Northman: Nechtan is king of this land, yet I am the speaker for the One God who rules the world. It was God’s men you took from Lindesfarne and so you will hear my words also in the parley and speak under my rule of peace which is invoked in God’s name.”

  With this Wilfrid made the sign of the cross in the air and turned his back on the Viking band. The Saxon bishop was indeed a brave man.

  Brude and Lugh the steward were the next to ride forward. Doireann craned curiously to see them.

  There was Sweyn; one could not miss that massive figure with the great beard, the hands placed confidently on the hips. Close beside him was the knobby-kneed warrior in thonged hose who was Sweyn’s steersman, Braggi. Now she was remembering. And that was Gunnar Olavson with the black-painted shield. Her heart was pounding.

  “I am Brude, son of Nechtan of the Picts,” the prince was saying. “The king comes! Bring forth your leader.”

  The Old Cruithne spurred his pony down the slopes at full gallop, looking fierce and gnomelike. A man came forth from the Vikings to meet him.

  “I am the Jarl of the longship,” the voice said in its miserable Gaelic. “I am called Thorsten Ljot, the Scarred One, and I am a berserkr of the berserkir.”

  Sweyn stepped forward and marked a deep groove in the sand at their feet with his battle-ax.

  “Here I will speak with Nechtan, King of the Picts,” the Jarl stated.

  “My father has brought tents,” Brude informed him, “where chieftains may sit a
nd pass the cup and speak as befits men of rank.”

  The Jarl was unimpressed.

  “When chieftains gather together it is the one with the mightiest sword who says where the speaking shall take place.”

  “In this case it is a Northman who stands with fifty men at his back and a king who comes with three hundred,” Brude reminded him.

  The Norseman looked up at the Picts outlining the dunes.

  “The wise king does not let his eyes deceive him. Where is strength? On the sand hills or hidden in the ship before him? Or on the wave unknown and unseen?”

  A murmur swept the mass of little men. They looked uneasily to the horizon of the sea.

  The child Ian, in Elda’s arms, gave a fretful bellow. The sound carried. Sweyn looked up at once and shaded his eyes with his hands, scanning the ranks of the Picts. He pointed to the Cymry band and said something to the Jarl.

  “Bring down your tents to this point,” Sweyn said abruptly, “and set them up. We will meet as you wish.”

  14

  The Picts sat down. The short men were not accustomed to standing for long; they much preferred to squat on their haunches, their spears and bows spread out before them. The Irish warriors drew to one side and the Cymry followed their example, stretching out on

  the sand to rest. The Picts did not relax their vigilance; they watched unblinkingly while the tents were set up between the two hosts.

  Barra led Doireann’s pony to a clump of beach grass and the two women sat down on a woolen cover beyond the rise of the dunes. They ate some of the food they had brought with them and Doireann nursed the child and played with him until he was tired. After a while he slept, and as the watery sun was not warm she covered him with a robe.

  She sat for a long time, waiting, and when Brude came to her she was dazed with the wind and sun, and her eyes burned.

  “Bring your serving woman and the child,” he told her, “and come with me.”

  “What is it?” she asked. “Can you tell me what has happened?”

  “I would tell you if I knew myself,” he answered. “All I know is that I have been sent to fetch you.”

  The line of Picts rustled with whispers as she descended to the beach, and the Northmen greeted her with interested stares.

  The tide had crept in and was lapping its way toward the mark which Sweyn had made with the battle-ax. Doireann thought as she passed that the water would soon be seeping under the tents if they did not hurry with their bargaining.

  The only occupant of the smaller tent was Wilfrid, the bishop of Inverness, looking extremely drawn and tired. He was holding his head in his hands as she entered with her servant, but lifted it, and managed a smile.

  “I have been praying for guidance,” he said earnestly. “God in heaven knows I am no fit judge for these matters without knowledge of His will.”

  “And what have you found God’s will to be?” she asked him. He gave her a sharp glance.

  “I have been listening these past hours to the Northmen describe the sufferings of the captives they have taken from Lindesfarne. The Vikings made it plain that every hour the captives remain in their hands they will be tortured. As evidence they name names and produce bloodstained clothing and tell how this one and that have withstood the agony. Truly they are brutal savages! I know many of the named ones and the identification they make seems truthful. Some are my kinsmen.”

  He paused, and his face showed its suffering.

  “One is but a boy, a student who was at the holy schools, son of a noble thane. Two others are fine scholars recently returned from St. Gall in the land of the Germans. All are men the world needs. As opposed to this, the man called Sweyn Barrelchest speaks glowingly of the Norse Jarl’s regard for you and his desire for his child. They both give reassurances as to your good treatment should you be restored to them. It would seem the Northmen hold their women in high esteem. That is, those they call legal wives. You have never claimed they mistreated you, is this not so?”

  “What would you have me say?” she cried. “I have not been tortured as were these captives. But I, too, was a captive. I was despised by them, used by this very Jarl for what he wanted. Treated like a slave because they knew I had been betrayed by my own people. Yes, taken by force by this man who now claims his regard for me, and gotten with his child unwillingly.”

  “Yet you love this child now, and will not let him be taken from you. No, I am not accusing you, but in Christ’s name, consider the men who are now suffering. I could not ask you to sacrifice yourself, for you have not come to God, being still unbaptized. To offer yourself would be an act of great faith, and you are not ready for this. Yet it might be this Norse chieftain would agree to a Christian marriage.”

  A cry of betrayal broke from her.

  “No, no,” Wilfrid said hastily. “I would not send a woman of Christian family to dishonor or death, if such was the case.”

  “Still, you have been weighing the thought of my return. This sacrifice, as you call it. And my uncle? Is his honor more steadfast?”

  The Saxon bishop stared at her in unconcealed bitterness.

  “I have long heard that perfidy is the child of the Picts, and now I well believe it. From the first I protested your presence here, thinking of your safety. I knew the King of the Picts was committed to some scheme of his to set your future child upon the throne in spite of your unpopularity with the Council of Seven and the Northumbrians. I had presumed he would not waver from his plan. But now the wily old man sits upon a stool in his tent and sips Spanish wine and bargains this way and that, rolling the advantages about on his tongue. The point is, how much are you worth? He has asked the Northman if he will settle for the return of only the infant in exchange for a pledge of freedom from attack on the Pictish coasts. The Northman said no to this, explaining that he could speak only for his own ships and those of his cousin Snorri Olavson, not the rest of the raiding Norse bands. Not to mention the Danes. He insists he will have the child and its mother, too. There is much time taken up in discussion of your beauty and your worth, the King of the Picts protesting that you are his sister’s daughter and bound to his protection. The Northman points out that he has the legal right to you since bride gold was paid properly in Calum macDumhnull’s house, and that you were found to be a virgin when you came to his bed. He is certain that the child you bore is his own. And so it goes, back and forth. It is a bitter fact that these pagans seem to deal with more truth than your Christian kinsmen.”

  “I see you are impressed with how noble they are!” she cried.

  “No one who has watched them boast of their cruelty can look upon them with admiration,” he said soberly. “They take such pride in their ferocity that it goes beyond cruelty, beyond madness almost, I can only think of it as proof of their ancient barbarity. It is like looking into the depths of an old, forgotten, very deep well to look into the eyes of these men. It is like going back to the beginning of time and hearing its echoes.”

  “And what of my uncle?” she asked impatiently. “Has he said nothing to them of his plans for me and how he would have an heir at any price?”

  “He has been willing to defy church law for it, and also the power of his chieftains, it is true. But now he sees the glitter of Viking gold and the fame which the rescue of the captives would bring him, If you carried his grandson within you this would be a different thing. Then I think he would attack the Northmen here and now, and try to send the ones he could capture to Northumbria for their angry justice. I do not know. I am not clever with these violent strategies.”

  “Then Nechtan would benefit much by my betrayal?” she asked. He nodded reluctantly.

  Elda began to sob loudly. Wilfrid was startled by the sound and turned to rebuke her, but Doireann stopped him.

  “Do not scold my woman. She sees, all too plainly what you have not admitted to yourself. My fate does not concern you or God, for all you have besought Him to reveal His will. The only will we need know is that of t
he Old Cruithne, the King of the Picts.”

  Wilfrid would have spoken again but the flap of the tent was pulled aside. A gust of wind rushed in and two men with it.

  The tent seemed to bulge with their presence. Sweyn Barrelchest stood with his head barely clearing the ridgepole. The giant with him was forced to half-crouch. They leaned forward on their drawn swords, shields slung on their backs. They surveyed the Saxon bishop in his church robes and the two women.

  Wilfrid rose to meet them, and for the first time that day he seemed inadequate. “You have asked to see the woman and the child. Here is the woman,” he

  said, indicating Doireann. “Is this the one you spoke of?” Sweyn bent and peered into her face.

  “Now, who is this under all the little beads and the crown?” He winked at her. “Yes, this is the one, the woman called Doireann nighean Muireach, and I paid bride gold for her in the house of the chieftain of Cumhainn.”

  Behind him Doireann could see the stooped figure of the Jarl. He wore a close-fitting helmet without wings or horns, and it was set back carefully from the scar on his forehead. His hair was long, doubled back in loops. Both Northmen were decked in all manner of jewelry, both silver and gold, and they wore light summer tunics and no ring mail. The Jarl’s face was as expressionless as ever.

  “This is the woman I claim as my wife,” he said, looking at her. “What do you say to this?” Wilfrid asked Doireann.

  “I do not acknowledge these foreign pirates, savages, and common thieves,” she answered promptly. “They are said to be nameless dogs and outcasts from their own land. They are not important to me.”

  Wilfrid was shocked, but before he could speak Sweyn cut him off.

  “You need the flat of my hand against your backside, tassel-headed princess of the Picts,” he roared. “Is this the way to speak before great chiefs and men of rank and royal blood of the Norse? We have braved much to seek you out, seeing that the Jarl esteemed your worth. But then you would not understand this, as I have seen that the Scots and the Picts are all too anxious to give up their women if there is a good price in it.”