Failend’s head was up, her eyes bright, and she seemed alert like a deer at the edge of a pond. In the dim light it was hard to read her mood, but her mouth seemed on the edge of a smile.
“Failend,” Louis said, speaking softly and stepping back, away from Harald, the only one close by who might understand their words. “I’ve been trying to think of some way out of this.”
“Out of…what?” Failend asked. Her hand was resting on the grip of her seax, her thick hair bound behind her head with a leather thong.
“Out of the raid. On Glendalough. Some way we don’t have to be part of this abomination.”
“Oh,” Failend said. “Have you thought of anything?”
“No,” Louis said. “Have you?”
“No,” Failend said in a tone that suggested she had not really been thinking about it.
“You don’t…” Louis began then stopped, because the question he was about to ask was absurd. And yet, given Failend’s demeanor, he still felt compelled to ask it. “You don’t want to join this raid, do you?” he said at last.
“No!” Failend hissed. “No, of course I don’t.”
Louis nodded. They were silent for a moment, listening to the splashing of Thorgrim and Cónán, who had crossed the ford and now were coming back.
“Not that I bear any great love for the people of Glendalough,” Failend added, almost grudgingly.
“No great love?” Louis said. Thorgrim and Cónán stepped out of the river and Thorgrim said something in a low voice to the other Northmen. “They’re your people,” Louis reminded her.
“My people?” Failend said, and Louis could hear the rising note in her voice. “They want to hang us both for murder. After they tried to murder us first and failed. My people?”
Louis was about to make reply to the effect that it was Failend’s late husband, Colman mac Breandan, not all of Glendalough, who was to blame for that. Colman, who Louis could not help but think was killed by Failend herself, while he, Louis, unwittingly stood guard outside the house. But now they were moving again, stepping down the shallow sloping bank and into the cold Avonmore River and the chance to speak was lost.
They kept on for the next hour or more. Thorgrim and Cónán set a quick pace, but Louis was naturally athletic and had no trouble keeping up. It was harder on Failend, her stride being considerably shorter than the others, but she did not waver, and Louis could see in her expression a determination to show no weakness.
After some time they came out into open country and stopped. Thorgrim and Cónán told their men to take a rest, to have some of the dried meat they had brought with them if they wished, or a shot of the mead or ale they carried in skins.
Louis swung his sword clear and sat on the cool grass, and Failend did likewise. Louis took a drink from his skin and handed it to Failend and she squirted some of the liquid into her mouth. Good Irish ale, cool and savory like meat. Louis wondered where the Northmen had come by it. Trading with the Irish, no doubt. The Northmen had silver, and the Irish were willing to deal with any sort of vermin if the vermin could pay.
The irony, of course, was that the silver had been stolen from the Irish in the first place. The Northmen were robbing Peter so they could then buy ale from him.
Louis and Failend had not spoken since the river, but Louis had been hearing her words in his head, over and over, as he walked. With each repetition they raised more questions. He remembered back to the first time he had led the Irish men-at-arms in an attack against the Northmen. Failend had come along without his knowledge. She had joined in the fight, driven a sword right through one of the Northmen’s necks. She had told him after she was more afraid of being bored than she was of being killed.
“Failend,” Louis asked, “why are you here? Did Thorgrim tell you that you had to come with us?”
“No,” Failend said. “He didn’t say it. Not right out. But I think he intended that I should come. Like you.”
Louis nodded. “Thorgrim knows how to get what he wants. I thought he would threaten violence against you, in order to force me to come. He hit on the next best thing, holding my chest of silver as hostage.”
Even as he spoke he saw Failend’s eyebrows come together and her lips turn down to form a scowl. “Your chest of silver?” she hissed. “That silver belonged to my late husband. And me. It is my chest of silver, and that’s why I’m here. To protect it.”
Louis felt as if he had been slapped. Of course she was right, strictly speaking. But she had been with him, she was his lover. They were bound away together, fleeing the false charge of murder that had been leveled at them both. The silver was their passport, and he did not think of it as hers, per se.
“Fine,” Louis said, and he tried to sound mollifying. “That’s understandable, of course. I just did not want to think you were helping the heathens with their crimes because…”
“Because what?”
“Because you wanted to. I knew it couldn’t be that you came along for that reason.”
“Oh course not,” Failend said. “I want the silver back. Like you.” She was quiet for a moment as she drank more ale and chewed a particularly difficult mouthful of dried beef. She swallowed. “But what if I did wish to come on this raid?” she asked.
Louis was stumbling around for a reply when a soft order came down the line and the men and one woman rose to their feet again. They headed out in a long column across the open ground. The night was quiet, nothing to be heard beyond the insects and the branches moving in the light breeze and the muted sounds of thirty-five armed warriors moving at a near jog.
The moonlight revealed a bit of the countryside around them, and Louis was just starting to think there was something familiar about it, that he knew where he was, when he became aware of some obstacle in their way. Thorgrim and Harald and Cónán were spreading out, approaching the dark, hulking shapes with caution. Louis instinctively rested his hand on the pommel of his sword as he followed behind them.
And then he saw what they were. They were wagons, or what was left of them. The remains of three heavy, well-appointed caravans. They had been owned by a company of players, led by a fellow named Crimthann. Thorgrim’s son, Harald, had hijacked the wagons and driven them right into the middle of the battle between the Irish and Norsemen, with him and Failend and the others in the back.
Thorgrim walked around the north side of the wagons and Cónán around the south. Louis followed behind Thorgrim. The wagons had been looted and stripped of anything of value. The wheels were gone, the traces, much of the siding had been torn away. They looked like corpses that had been picked over by vultures.
They met up with Cónán on the far side of the ravaged vehicles and he said in a low voice, “We’re close now. Right over that hill we will be able to see Glendalough.” Harald translated and Thorgrim nodded. Louis suspected that Thorgrim already knew that. He was no stranger to this terrain.
They moved on, taking pains to be quieter as they approached the crest of the hill. A week or so earlier, when Louis was last at Glendalough, there had been a sizable army of Irish men-at-arms and the bóaire and fuidir, three hundred or so men in the dúnad. If even a fraction of them were still there, this raid would be over before the Northmen even reached the far side of the hill.
They crouched as they came to the crest. Beyond it was darkness. The monastery and the town that had grown up around it were on low ground, and they were lost in the darkness that seemed to spill from the steep hills surrounding them. Louis thought he could see a few tiny points of light, the candles that burned perpetually in the big stone church, perhaps, seen through the windows that lined the nave.
Louis looked to the north, where the dúnad had been situated. Nothing. No dull glow of a dying campfire, no sign of pavilions or tents or wagons. If the encampment had still been there, Louis was sure he would be able to see something of it, but this was just empty ground as far as he could tell.
You are damned lucky, Thorgrim, for a Godforsaken
heathen, Louis thought. But he knew it was not just luck that they should find the army gone. Cónán’s men, with the advantage of looking and speaking like any other misbegotten Irish peasant, had traveled regularly to Glendalough and back while the Northmen had been on the sandbar, preparing. The Irishmen brought back daily news of the defenses around the monastic town. Neither the Northmen nor the Irish bandits were going to be caught unawares.
They waited at the top of the hill for what seemed like a long time, though Louis doubted it was more than twenty minutes. In that time there was no sound out of the ordinary, no sign of life beyond the buzzing of the insects and, once, an owl hooting in the dark.
Thorgrim said something, his voice soft, and waved his hand in a beckoning gesture. He stood and moved over the crest of the hill and down the other side. The rest followed behind, including Louis, who felt as if he were being irresistibly tumbled along, like a man caught in the surf. They were here, the monastery at their feet, and nothing had come along to disrupt Thorgrim’s plans, and Louis had hit on no strategy to stop this raid. Apparently they would be sacking Glendalough, and Louis de Roumois would be helping, and there was not a damned thing he could do to prevent it.
They were less than half a mile away, near enough that they could see the dark shapes of the homes and workshops that spread out like toadstools growing against the monastery’s wall. They could see the monastic buildings as well: the abbot’s house and the dormitory that Louis had once called home, the stables, and, looming above it all, the grand, stone-built church, a monument to St. Kevin who had brought the Christian faith to that place two hundred years before.
Thorgrim stopped and the others stopped as well. He turned and looked at Louis and beckoned him forward. Louis stepped up, huddling with Thorgrim and Cónán and Harald.
“We’re here,” Thorgrim said, by way of his son. “The church is there.” He nodded toward the dark shape in the distance. Louis could see that he had been right; there were lit candles visible though the tall arched windows. “Now we come to the part you play.”
Louis nodded.
“You know the best way to approach this place,” Thorgrim continued. “You’ll lead. When we’re near the church, half our men will go in and half will find hiding places from which to watch for trouble. You and I will be going into the church. If we move fast, and no alarm is raised, then we can be gone before there’s the need for anyone to die. Any of your fellow Christ men to die,” he clarified.
He looked at Louis and his expression seemed to say, Do you understand? Louis nodded his head. Thorgrim nodded toward the church that was all but lost in shadow. Louis stepped off in that direction and the rest followed behind.
This is like having a tooth pulled, Louis thought. It was horribly unpleasant, but when it had to be done then it had to be done, and the best for it was to do it fast and get it over with.
He moved over the open ground and crossed the road that led from the east into the town. He considered just leading the men down the road. The chances that anyone would notice them at that hour were slim. But, small risk that it was, it was still too great, and there was a good chance that Thorgrim would think it was some sort of trick.
Instead, Louis led the near three dozen men across the road and into the tall grass beyond, then down the hill to the trampled ground that marked the outer edge of the town. He had been at Glendalough more than a year and had taken every opportunity to get away from the monastery and the life there that he found so intolerably dull, and so he knew well how to sneak through those narrow dirt lanes.
They came to an alleyway that led behind a blacksmith’s shop and a bead maker’s. Louis was moving with confidence now, stepping light and quick, his ears alert for any indication that they had been seen. He realized, to his shame, that he was falling naturally back into his role as a man-at-arms and had forgotten to be disgusted with what he was being made to do.
They came to the stone wall that surrounded the monastic ground, no more than five feet high, more a symbolic marker of sanctuary than real defense. He stopped and heard the sound of the men behind him stopping as well. They were well hidden in that place, both from the monastery and the town. Louis peered over the wall. Nothing. No one moving. He would have been very surprised if there was.
He turned to Thorgrim and Harald and Cónán. “We’ll go over the wall here,” he said. “Just those who are going to the church. The men standing guard, they should stay here. Less chance of being seen, and if there’s any threat it will come from the town. There will be no one in the church,” he said, and as he did, another thought came to him. He hesitated, just for a heartbeat, but it seemed Harald did not notice the small catch in his words.
Thorgrim nodded as Harald translated. Cónán nodded as well. Thorgrim looked over the wall, looked around the alley, taking in what little he could see. Louis had the notion that he was checking to see if there was some trick being played, some betrayal. But he saw nothing because there was no trick being played. Not yet.
With a quick word to his men, Thorgrim put his hands on the top of the wall and hoisted himself up and dropped to the ground on the other side, the only sound a soft thud and the light tinkling of chainmail. Louis followed behind. He backed into the shadow of the wall and crouched, as Thorgrim was doing. Then one after another the others followed, making a line pressed against the wall, all ten of the Northmen and Failend as well, with Cónán’s outlaws remaining on the other side, keeping watch.
For a moment they stayed motionless and quiet, watching and listening for any sign they had been seen, but there was nothing. Louis stood and beckoned the others and they moved quickly across the open ground to the great stone church that loomed mountainous above them. They stopped again, shoulders and backs pressed against the rough stone wall.
“There’s a side way in, more hidden,” Louis hissed to Harald and Harald hissed to Thorgrim. Thorgrim nodded.
“Sometimes the monks pray all through the night,” Louis continued. “I’ll go in first, make sure the church is truly empty.”
Harald translated. Thorgrim made a short reply. Harald said, “I’ll go with you.”
Louis nodded and the two of them left the others, skirting along the stone wall, keeping in what shadows there were, Louis leading the way. They came at last to an unimposing wooden door sunk into the side of the nave, a door for utilitarian rather than ecclesiastical purposes. Louis paused, looked left and right, then lifted the latch and swung the door in.
It moved silently for half a foot then gave a squeal. Louis sucked in his breath and stopped pushing. He and Harald stood there, silent, listening. The sharp, high note had sounded as loud as a thunderclap in the still night, but Louis realized that even Thorgrim and the rest had probably not been able to hear it.
Slowly, an inch at a time, Louis pushed the door open. It gave one more tiny squeak and then it was wide enough for both Louis and the somewhat broader Harald to get through. Louis stepped in. Harald followed behind.
There were candles flickering at the various altars scattered around the nave, and they gave off enough light that patches of the interior were illuminated, though barely, while much of it remained in deep shadow. The flames glinted on silver and gold on the high altar and on the reliquaries and the gilded and bejeweled covers of holy books on their stands.
“I see no one here,” Harald whispered. He sounded nervous, but Louis did not think it was fear of being discovered, or having to fight. From what Louis knew of Northmen, Harald would have welcomed a fight. He guessed, rather, that it was fear of being in a Christian church. Fear of Christian magic he did not understand.
Good, Louis thought.
“No, no one here,” Louis agreed. “Back there”—he pointed to the door to the sacristy behind the altar—“that’s where the monks sometimes go to pray.”
“All right, let’s look there,” Harald said.
“That’s the tabernacle, where God himself resides,” Louis whispered. “Have a ca
re as you pass that way.”
Harald’s eyes went a bit wider. He looked at the tabernacle and then back at Louis. “I know nothing of these things,” he said. “You go. I’ll keep a watch here.”
Louis nodded, his expression one of understanding and sympathy. He left Harald there, crossing the nave, his soft shoes making only a slight rustling sound in the rushes strewn on the floor. His eyes darted left and right. There was no one. The church was empty.
But not entirely. He was fairly certain of that. He had only remembered at the last moment, when they reached the monastery wall, and he knew that if he was right this might be his one chance to stop the plundering of Glendalough.
He stepped up onto the altar and made the sign of the cross. He snatched up a lit candle and crossed to the sacristy door, then gently pushed it open and stepped though. The small flame cast a circle of light ten feet around, falling on a few ornate chairs and a wooden trunk that Louis knew contained vestments and albs.
He took another half dozen steps. In the far corner he could see a shapeless hump of wool cloth and he knew it was the boy, Trian, who did all the menial and dirty tasks around the church. The novitiates and the younger monks all knew, though the abbot and senior monks did not, that he had a secret way into the sacristy where he slept nights, having no other home.
Louis took three quick steps over to where the boy lay sleeping, knelt and clapped a hand over his mouth. Trian’s eyes opened wide and he began to thrash his way out from under the blanket, but Louis held him fast and made reassuring sounds.
“Shh, shh, shh, Trian, it’s only me, Brother Louis,” Louis said, aware that that might not be so comforting if the boy had heard rumors that Louis was a murderer. “It’s all right, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5) Page 9