Aghen waved it away. “It’s no matter,” he said. “I’ll deal with Ottar, if it comes to that.” His words sounded much more certain than he actually felt.
“So,” Oddi said, with a tone that suggested he would be grateful for a change of subject. “What labors do you have for me today?”
They were quiet for a moment as the cluster of men carried the cloth with Thorlaug Gyduson’s body inside up to the plank road and disappeared over the rise. Aghen turned to Oddi.
“Too much excitement today, and I’m afraid your already weak mind has been made weaker still by Ottar’s cup. I think we’ll take the day off. We’ve earned it.”
Oddi nodded, clearly pleased with this decision. He bid his good day and Mar did as well, and soon Aghen found himself alone, surrounded by his tools and his wood and the ships and the sea, all the things he loved, and none of those that he despised.
And that was good. His mind was in a whirl. So many things to consider, so many trails to look down to try and see where they might lead.
The next morning Oddi was back and the day settled into its normal routine. They sharpened tools, worked on Raven Eye and the other vessels, talked of what was going on beyond the shipyard. Ottar, Oddi reported, had not left the hall since Thorlaug’s death. He had sent men out to patrol the longphort and stationed those he trusted most on the top of the wall with torches, keeping a look-out through the night hours.
Aghen nodded. He had seen them. And though he did not mention it to Oddi, he, too, had been patrolling the longphort in the night.
As the days passed, the state of alarm that had tightened around Vík-ló began to ease. Fewer armed men walked the grounds at night. There were not as many torches lining the top of the wall. The sound of shouting and singing could once again be heard from the twin halls, loud and raucous, if not quite so pervasive as it had been.
Aghen the shipwright tried to make sense of it all.
He had been moving by instinct. He had no plan. He had no notion as to how Ottar would react to the violent death of his man. The idea for the wooden wolf jaws had come to Aghen and he had acted on it. He was not sure why.
I saw the wolf, he reminded himself. The wolf had appeared to him and then run off. It had not harmed him. And the wolf had come to him for a reason.
Either the gods sent it, or… He could not even make himself form the thought, though he knew what thought was there. Or it was Thorgrim himself, come to goad me into action.
Ottar’s reaction had been far beyond what he had imagined it would be. Another mystery. Though Ottar had never seemed much concerned with any man’s life, Aghen knew he would be angry if one of his trusted men was killed. Maybe even a little frightened. But Thorlaug’s death had sent him into a wild rage, and according to Oddi he had only left his hall twice since then, and that only briefly.
There were things happening here, and Aghen knew that most of it he did not understand. It was, however, becoming clearer what he needed to do.
If this makes Ottar wild with rage, then it’s a good thing, he concluded. Anything that knocked Ottar back on his heels was good.
There is opportunity here, Aghen thought. If Ottar’s in a panic, he might make some grave mistake. Aghen had no idea what sort of mistake that might be, but he guessed that when he saw it, he would recognize it. And with any luck be able to take some advantage from it.
So, four nights after the brutal death of Thorlaug Gyduson, Aghen Ormsson found himself walking slowly along the earthworks that ringed Vík-ló. He kept to the shadows. He was not hiding, not really. Not so much that he would seem suspicious if noticed, but he was certainly making an effort to not be seen.
He studied the faces of the men he could see in the torchlight. He recognized most, but he did not know their names. Like Thorlaug Gyduson, a man whose name he did not learn until long after he had sent him to Hel’s realm. These men were something new that had appeared at Vík-ló, like weeds sprung up in a familiar garden and soon overrunning it.
Aghen was making his second tour of the earthworks when he saw the man he wanted. Tall and thin, with a hook nose, Aghen recognized him right off, though he had not seen him since he had watched the bastard gleefully shoot an arrow into Valgerd’s right shoulder. The man was apparently someone of authority, as he was standing on the top of the wall and issuing orders to the others, his arms sweeping left and right.
Stepping back into the shadows of a longhouse, Aghen watched and he waited. He waited as the man finished his instructions and paced back and forth along the wall for a bit, looking out over the palisades into the dark countryside beyond. He waited as the man spoke some last words Aghen could not hear, and then found the ladder and climbed the ten feet down to the ground.
Still Aghen waited. He looked in every direction, searching for anyone who might witness this transaction, but there was no one around. He waited as the man walked toward the plank road, passing ten feet from where Aghen stood, not seeing him there.
This is your idea of vigilance? Aghen thought. He stepped from the shadow and called to the man’s retreating back.
“You, there.”
The man visibly jumped and spun around, and he pulled his sword as he did. Aghen stepped closer, hands up in a placating gesture. The man cocked his head as he peered at Aghen in the dim light.
“You’re the shipwright,” he said. “The one who saw the wolf.”
“Yes,” Aghen said. “That’s why I need to talk with you.”
The man took a step closer, but he did not relax. “What about?”
“The wolf,” Aghen said. “The one that killed Thorlaug. I think I know something of it. I found something that might explain it all. Something Ottar would be happy to know.”
Ten minutes later they were down by the river, well beyond the shipyard, where Aghen had promised to show the man something that would be of great amazement. Aghen explained that he dared not bring it to Ottar himself, that only one of Ottar’s most trusted men should do that. But if Ottar offered some reward for it, which no doubt he would, Aghen expected a share.
The man agreed. But he did not relax in his wariness and he did not return his sword to its scabbard as Aghen led the way.
“Here it is,” Aghen said, stopping in the knee-high grass. “I found it just today.” He leaned over and retrieved his mechanical wolf jaws and held them up.
Ottar’s man squinted in the weak moonlight. “What is it?” he asked.
“It’s some tool,” Aghen said. “And I think whoever killed Thorlaug Gyduson used it to rip his throat away, to make it seem as if a wolf had done it.”
The man stepped closer, running his eyes over the long wooden shafts and the rows of iron teeth. He slipped his sword back into the scabbard and reached out with both hands. “Let me see that,” he demanded.
Aghen handed it over. Ottar’s man grabbed the handles and worked the jaws open and closed. “By all the gods…” he muttered.
“There’s this, too,” Aghen said. The man looked up as Aghen lifted a length of oak from the grass, three feet long and two inches around. His expression was just changing from confusion to fear as Aghen whirled the staff around, a powerful, accurate blow that made remorseless connection with the side of the man’s head.
Chapter Nineteen
Whenever I bring it to mind
It inflames the limits of my heart,
Cold flags over temples of the buried
The Annals of Ulster
Lochlánn felt the horse pushing back against the rush of the water, and he knew he should lead his men out of the river, but he couldn’t, not just then. He sat in the saddle, motionless, watching the heathen ship slipping away downstream.
Just moments before, the air had been filled with shouting and screams, the clash of weapons, the frantic cry of horses. And now it was quiet, the ship moving noiselessly, the weapons still. The only sound was the water—water pushing against the horses’ legs, and the splashing of the men who had dismounted and now
thrashed around looking for their comrades.
“Airt’s gone,” Lochlánn heard one of them announce. He did not turn to look.
“Gone?” he heard Senach reply. “Dead?”
“I guess,” said the first. “He’s gone. Can’t find him. I guess the current took him away.”
Airt’s gone, Lochlánn thought. He could picture that wild Northman launching himself off the side of the ship and taking Airt down into the water with him. What had become of them, Lochlánn did not see. He had had time only for a second’s glance. He remembered hoping that Airt would kill the man. Apparently he had not.
My God, my God, what have I done?
He heard another saying, “Come along, Fintain, you can sit a horse. Let me help you up.” He heard them splashing through the water, the restless whinny of the horse as they held it steady for the wounded man.
Fintain lives, anyway, Lochlánn thought. How many have we lost? He did not want to know. He wanted to ride away, leave all this behind, all this for which he was now responsible. He wanted to, but he knew he never would.
Instead he pulled his eyes from the ship, which was moving toward a bend in the river and would soon be lost from sight in any event, and wheeled his horse around. Most of the men who had ridden with him were still in their saddles, he was pleased to see. Most had spears in hand and shields on arms and were watching the heathens’ ship disappearing down river, as he had been doing.
He looked over their faces. He expected to see fury there, or disgust, or some sign that they were done with this whole venture. But he saw none of that. He saw only what he took to be a patient resolve, the faces of soldiers who were waiting for orders, and who would follow them when they came.
Senach gave his horse a nudge with his heels and rode over to Lochlánn’s side. “Airt’s killed, and Cerball. Didn’t find either of them. Fintain and Colcu are wounded, but they’ll be fine. That’s it. Not too bad for a bloody fight like that.”
“Not too bad,” Lochlánn agreed, which was not at all how he felt about the whole affair.
It had been his idea, of course. Standing on the sandbar where the heathens had made their camp, he had resolved to go after them and hit them hard. He had thought at first to set the trap in the same spot where Louis de Roumois had set it before, when they had done so much hurt to the heathens coming up river. But it occurred to him that the heathens might expect that.
What’s more, Louis’s trap had relied on archers, which they did not have, and on the heathens having to tow their ships over the shallows, which might not be the case this time. A new plan was needed, so they rode hard to get ahead of the heathens’ ship and explored the banks of the river until Lochlánn found the spot he thought most suited.
It was not as ideal a spot, but Lochlánn guessed that the heathens would not be expecting an attack there. And judging from the frantic scramble he had witnessed aboard the ship when he and his riders had first come from the trees, he reckoned he was right.
“Did you see him?” Senach asked.
Lochlánn nodded. “I saw her, too,” he said. Louis de Roumois and Failend. Neither Lochlánn nor Senach was certain they had been with the heathens at Glendalough. Senach thought he’d seen Failend in the middle of the fighting. The boy, Trian, had said Louis sent him with the warning. But still it was not clear if the two of them had joined with the heathens or not. Until now.
“They were up in the front of the ship,” Senach said, “and they were fighting side by side with the heathens.” Lochlánn nodded. He had seen that as well.
At least, he had seen Failend fighting. There was no question in his mind. He had seen her swipe at the riders with her short sword, had seen her take up a spear and fend off the attackers. He had seen Louis as well, sword in hand, but he could not say he had actually seen the man engage in combat.
Of course, he had seen none of it clearly. It was not like he had been sitting back watching the whole thing as if it were some pageant on a stage. He had been in the middle of the fight, had been fully engaged, and anything he had seen had been only in quick glimpses and fleeting impressions.
You only think Louis stayed out of the fight because you want to think that… Lochlánn scoffed at himself. You saw what you were hoping to see. But still he was not so sure.
Fintain was settled on his horse, but it took a minute for him to get his feet in the stirrups and look as if he would not fall off. Senach turned his horse so he was facing Lochlánn and he did the one thing Lochlánn would not have expected. He smiled.
“That was a damned good fight,” he said. “I’ve been in some bloody scrapes, but that one we’ll be talking about when we’re old men by the fire. Horsemen against a ship!” He shook his head.
Lochlánn was not sure what to make of that. He had been chastising himself, mentally flagellating himself for having led these men into such a place of death. And here Senach was delighting in it.
He tapped his horse’s flanks and took the animal closer, so he and Senach could talk without being heard. The rest of the men were in a line ten feet up river. Most had secured their shields on straps over their backs and were slumping in their saddles, feeling the great wave of exhaustion that comes on the heels of a battle’s surge.
“Senach, are the men angry about this? What are they thinking?” Lochlánn asked. These were his men now, but he was not one of them, and he was very aware of that fact. And he was grateful to have Senach by his side, because Senach was indeed one of them and had their measure.
“Angry?” Senach sounded surprised by the question. “No, they’re pleased. These are fighting men. They’re always happiest when they’re fighting and have a captain who’s not afraid to fight.”
“Really?” Lochlánn said. “Won’t they want to return to Glendalough now?”
Senach shook his head. “They saw Louis, there on the ship. They want him. They want to see justice for Aileran. And they want their revenge on the heathens, for all the evil they’ve done. And don’t forget…all the plunder from the church at Glendalough is on that ship, along with anything else the heathens have stolen.”
Now it was Lochlánn’s turn to smile. Of course, he thought. The plunder from Glendalough.
It was not honor or vengeance alone that drove these men. There was a fortune aboard the ship. Even if most of it would have to go back to the church, there would certainly be enough that some would find its way into their purses. And of course, only the church’s wealth had to go back to the church. Anything else aboard would be considered proper spoils.
“So, we should…?” Lochlánn asked.
“We should get out of this damned river and go after the heathens once more,” Senach said.
And that was what they did. Lochlánn spurred his horse on and with a wave of his arm led the men back toward the bank, then up and onto the grassy field that ran off to the north. They found the road again, the road that roughly followed the course of the river, and headed off at an easy pace. They could no longer see the heathen vessel, but they knew where it was. That was the good thing about tracking a ship in a river—there was only one path it could follow.
They rode on as evening approached and the first drops of rain began to fall. They found a small farm enclosed by a dubious ringfort and asked if they could spend the night, though the request was really more of a demand phrased as a question. With eighteen armed, weary, and impatient horsemen behind him, Lochlánn was not surprised that the farmer readily acquiesced.
Before they put the horses up, Lochlánn called for two volunteers to ride down to the river and scout out where the heathens had stopped for the night. When all eighteen of the men volunteered, Lochlánn picked the two youngest and least weary looking and sent them on their way. They were not gone long. Supper was still being prepared over the smoky fire in the hearth when they returned and reported the heathen vessel run up on the opposite shore not two miles away.
The men ate, they drank, they found places on the dirt floor to sleep
. The house was cramped and filthy and smelled of stale sweat and years of bad cooking, but the men, listening to the rain drumming down on the thatch, were grateful for it. Lochlánn gave the farmer silver, more than the food and drink and hospitality were worth, and that secured the man’s enthusiastic and continued cooperation.
He and Senach sat on the raised platform that lined one of the walls. They drank a nasty brew the farmer called ale and spoke as softly as they could and still make themselves heard over the men’s bovine snoring.
“Here’s the thing of it,” Lochlánn said. “It seemed the heathens had twice our numbers, at least. We have the horses, we have the men-at-arms, we’re on our native land. But in the end we can’t beat them if they outnumber us so.”
Senach nodded. He drank, made a face, looked down into his cup, then drank again. “But what do we do? Sure, we can’t go back to Glendalough and ask more men. Brother Gilla Patraic expected us back two days ago. He won’t be happy, and you can bet he’s spoken to the abbot. They’re not likely to let us find more men-at-arms. I’d rather fight a hundred heathens than get a tongue lashing from either of those old men.”
Lochlánn nodded. He had been at the receiving end of Brother Gilla Patraic and the abbot’s rage plenty of times.
“Very well…” Lochlánn said. He took a drink and stared into the fire and let his mind toy with the various possibilities. And then a thought came to him.
“You recall, on the last day we were fighting the heathens, back at Glendalough,” he said, “there was one of the rí túaithe showed up on the field. Kevin mac Lugaed, of Cill Mhantáin. You recall?”
Senach nodded. “He makes his home at Ráth Naoi,” he said. “That’s but two days’ ride from here.”
“Exactly,” Lochlánn said. “He has men; he’s already shown he has an interest in fighting the heathens.”
“You must go to him, see if he’ll give you men-at-arms,” Senach said. “Me and the rest, we’ll stay and keep watch on the heathens. I’ll send word where they’ve gone.”
Night Wolf: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 5) Page 19