Dubh-linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2)

by James L. Nelson

  “Finnian? What might Finnian have been doing there?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” Morrigan said. “Hearing their confession, perhaps?” In truth, of the many things she suspected, she considered that the least likely.

  So they cleared the debris slowly, and Morrigan kept a watchful eye on the work, to see that nothing was missed and that nothing of value – a jewel, a coin, a shapeless yellow clump that might have once been a ring or a gold arm band – went missing.

  Morrigan watched nearly every moment of the excavation. She watched as the layers of debris were pulled away, starting with the highest parts of the roof, on top of the heap, down through the collapsed walls and the interiors of the rooms. It was not until the third day that they found the body.

  “Don’t think you’ll want to look at this, Mistress,” said thick, hairy Ronan of the Gate who was overseeing the work. “It ain’t fit,” he added as she brushed past him and through the knot of workers staring down at the blackened ruin at their feet.

  It had once been a person, that much was clear. The general outline was there; arms, legs, a withered, black nob that had been a head. It was shriveled, all clothes and features gone, stiff in an unnatural way and so small that at first Morrigan thought it had to be Brigit. But the more she looked the more she realized it could have been any of them. Or none of them. There was no way to tell.

  The work went on, and soon it was all cleared away, until there was nothing more than a big blackened, roughly square patch of earth. No more bodies were found.

  What could this mean? Morrigan asked herself, and the answer, she knew, was, Anything. Or nothing. Could a body be so burned up in a fire that there would be nothing left? She did not know. Could the remains of one body survive the flames, but another not? Again, she had no answer.

  And that was the thing that was driving her to distraction. She did not know. She needed information. She could not act without it. And so the relief she felt was almost beyond measure when, a week after the fire, Patrick came riding hard through the gates of Tara, leapt from his horse and informed her, sotto voce, that Princess Brigit had been found.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Now, folk-warder, befit thee well

  the red-gold rings, and the ruler’s daughter;

  hale shalt, hero, hold these twain…

  The First Lay of Helgi the Hunding-Slayer

  Mud sucking at his shoes, Arinbjorn stepped carefully over the flats on which Black Raven had been drawn up. The ship was sitting proud on the rollers, propped vertical by timbers under the bilge and stripped of her rig and oars and other semi-permanent equipment. From somewhere aft he could hear the screech of a plank being ripped free of the sternpost, the clench nails that held it to its fellow plank protesting as they straightened. He picked up his pace. Beside him, Bolli Thorvaldsson tried to keep up, but with a stride a third shorter than Arinbjorn’s it was a struggle.

  “Hold there!” Arinbjorn called. “Hold!” He had blithely told the shipwrights to do whatever was needed to make Black Raven seaworthy, sure that he had wealth enough to pay. But Thorgrim’s words, his observation concerning the shipwright’s ability to find work equal to Arinbjorn’s ability to pay, had really found their mark as Arinbjorn realized the raid on Cloyne had not been as profitable as he thought. Now he wanted to make certain that the shipwrights did not do to him what he and his fellow Vikings had done to Cloyne and any number of other Irish towns.

  Arinbjorn and Bolli came around the after end of the ship. One of the ship carpenters was there, a heavy iron in his hand, the butt end of the plank sticking out at an odd angle where he had levered it away from the frame. Another, big, young, not so bright looking, his apprentice no doubt, stood by a few feet away with a hammer in his hand. He looked like Thor, or, more correctly, a mockery of Thor.

  “What are you about?” Arinbjorn demanded. Even as the words left his mouth he realized it was a mistake to sound so indignant before he knew if the fellow was doing needed work or not. But it was too late.

  “Getting at the rot under this strake,” the shipwright said. “And what concern is it of yours? Who are you?”

  “Arinbjorn Thoruson,” Arinbjorn replied, with as much haughty dignity as he could muster. Bolli stepped behind the shipwright, a dagger in his hand, looking for all the world as if he was going to kill the man, though in truth they would wait to get the shipwright’s bill before they considered that option. Instead, Bolli began poking at the wood of the sternpost and the strake with the weapon’s needle point. The apprentice did not move.

  “Don’t look too rotten to me,” Bolli reported.

  The shipwright renewed his grip on the iron bar and turned toward Bolli. “You a ship carpenter, then? Look, why don’t you go back to your grave digging or cleaning privies or whatever by Thor’s arse you do and leave an honest man to his work?”

  This was not going as Arinbjorn wanted, and it was only getting worse, and Bolli was not helping. Arinbjorn liked to have an ally, a second. He had intended Thorgrim Night Wolf for that office, as his advisor and assistant, had guessed there was status to be had by having a man such as Night Wolf answer to him, but that had not worked out so well. Thorgrim was too independent by far. But Bolli’s fortunes were on the wane, his ship Odin’s Eye too worn out to go to sea again, his men largely deserting him. He was eager to associate himself with Arinbjorn and would do Arinbjorn’s bidding. Now Arinbjorn had to hope he did not prove himself an even bigger liability that Thorgrim.

  The two men, Bolli and the shipwright, stared at one another, and then Bolli grunted through his hedge of beard and stepped away. Arinbjorn saw the shipwright relax his grip on the heavy tool. The apprentice’s body seemed to sag with the release of tension.

  No, Bolli is not so great a problem as Thorgrim, Arinbjorn thought. Thorgrim had been a problem for Arinbjorn at Cloyne and he still was, a bigger problem than even Thorgrim himself appreciated. The Night Wolf had come out of Cloyne a great hero, but only because he had ignored Arinbjorn’s direct order. A generous offer of three shares for Thorgrim and Harald, two for the others, had bought Thorgrim’s discretion. But the price was high, and the take at Cloyne had not been spectacular. The number of slaves they had captured drove their price in the market down. Black Raven required work and others needed paying. Olaf the White would have his take. In short, Arinbjorn could not afford to pay Thorgrim what he had promised.

  Thorgrim might protest that he did not care about the gold and silver, but Arinbjorn had no doubt that would change if the promise was withdrawn.

  Damn him, damn him… Arinbjorn thought, his frustration mounting. Thorgrim was apparently looking only for a way home, but now this new opportunity had come up, brought to him by that shapely little Irish princess the way a thrall brings drinking horns in a mead hall, one that could change everything for Arinbjorn. Could he afford to pass it up? What would Thorgrim do when Arinbjorn informed him they would not, in fact, be sailing for Norway soon?

  “So you want me to get on with this or not?” the shipwright asked.

  “Huh?” Arinbjorn said. “Oh…”

  He recollected himself, coughed and went on. “The situation is thus. I thought I could spare a few weeks for you to set things right, but an… opportunity has come up, and I will need the ship swimming again in three days. Four at the outside.”

  “Opportunity, is it?” The shipwright perked up at that. Every man in Dubh-linn, despite his professed calling, was keeping a weather eye out for that one raid that would make his fortune.

  “Can’t really talk about it now,” Arinbjorn said. “We’ve only just stumbled upon it.” He meant to diffuse the shipwright’s interest, but he could see his vague answer was having the opposite effect. But perhaps he could use that. “I need you to just get done what you can, have her ready to sail in the next few days,” Arinbjorn went on. “Just coastal sailing. Then maybe I can let you in on what we have planned.”

  “Two days. Three days, latest, she
’ll be ready for whatever you can send at her,” the shipwright said with a smile.

  Yesterday you said it was two weeks it would take you, you thieving bastard, Arinbjorn thought, but he just smiled and said, “Good, then.”

  He and Bolli trudged back through the mud, back up to the plank road and the cluster of homes and workshops. “Will you ask Iron-skull to come on this raid?” Bolli asked once he and Arinbjorn were on firmer footing.

  “Iron-skull? I don’t know….” It had only been a day since Harald had brought Brigit to him, a day to digest all the possibilities and implications of this new twist of his destiny. Brigit, by her account, was the true heir to the throne of Tara, but a pretender sat on it now, in a seat none too secure. If Arinbjorn and the army he assembled could topple the pretender, put her on the throne, then the wealth of Tara would be theirs. She did not care about that. Rents, taxes, she would build the kingdom’s fortune back up quickly enough, as long as the throne was hers.

  It was an alliance. And why not? The Northmen had been in Dubh-linn for nearly twenty years. They were not strangers to Ireland, they were part of the land now, a contending power. That woman who had translated, Almaith, was married to a Norse blacksmith, and many other men in the longphort had Irish wives, half-breed children. The Irish came every day to trade. Norse, Irish, the distinction was blurring.

  Which led Arinbjorn to the next logical thought. Why should this Brigit rule alone? If she and I conquer Tara together, should we not rule Tara together? That part had formed slowly in his mind, like a ship coming out of a fog.

  A fog. That was right. His mind had been like a fog. A fog formed by his desire for her; immediate, powerful, as impossible to ignore as thirst.

  No sooner had she swept into his room then he had been her slave, her fool. She was beautiful, proud, bordering on haughty, commanding. It was laughable to see that idiot Harald Thorgrimson panting over her, as if she would have any business with a boy such as that. She had come looking for a man, and she had found one in him.

  “Not Thorgrim, though?” Bolli asked.

  “What?”

  “Thorgrim. Night Wolf. You won’t ask him on the raid?”

  “Oh. Yes, certainly I’ll ask him. Him and his boy. They’ve proved themselves good men in a fight.”

  Bolli grunted, said no more. Of course Thorgrim is coming, you fool, Arinbjorn thought. Harald was apparently Brigit’s connection to the men of Dubh-linn, though how that had happened, Arinbjorn could not imagine. Harald would not be left behind, and Thorgrim would not let his son go off a-viking without him. Which was fine. Arinbjorn was moving men around like pieces on a game board. As he positioned himself to sit on Tara’s throne, to lie in Brigit’s bed, so he positioned Thorgrim and Harald to be on the field of battle with him, where men died brutal deaths and often times no one saw it happen, and thus Arinbjorn might be rid of them.

  Not so long ago a Dane, Thorgils, set himself up as king of the Irish people, Arinbjorn reminded himself.

  And the Irish people drowned him…

  Thorgils was a fool, then. I am not a fool.

  Thorgrim Night Wolf was angry, more angry than he could recall having ever been, blazing in red hot fury. Harald wanted to talk to him in private. He took him away from Jokul’s house, led him down by the banks of the river, and now Thorgrim saw why. He understood. In fact, he understood a great deal more than he had even an hour before.

  His back was turned toward his son and he was looking out at the darkening sky to the east, but he was not seeing that, or anything. He needed to speak, and he was wrestling to get command of his voice, to get to a place where he could open his mouth and trust what would come out.

  He turned on Harald, his cloak making a sweeping motion as he spun around. “You went to Arinbjorn? Behind my back? Arinbjorn? Do you have any notion of what an untrustworthy snake that man is?”

  Harald stood like a tree, arms at his side, not a flicker of fear in his face, and in some far off place in Thorgrim’s mind he was proud.

  “Arinbjorn is a snake? Well, you seem to have plenty of business with him!” Harald returned.

  Thorgrim could hear the note of uncertainty, but only someone who knew Harald very well would have recognized it. Two years ago, even a year ago, Harald would have crumbled by now under Thorgrim’s gaze, if they had every come to this point. Which they would not have done. Because Harald would never have stood up to his father in this way.

  “I use Arinbjorn to my ends. Our ends. And now you have undone it all! Do not think you can play in these affairs of men? You are a boy!”

  “I am not a boy, by all the gods! If there’s a…I can see a chance, one when it’s worth taking! You would never be party to this. I know enough of the affairs of men to know that. So I went to someone who might! Someone who commands men, and a ship, which you do not!”

  That last hit home. Thorgrim felt the blow. But, as in a brawl with fists or weapons, he was too angry to be slowed by it. “If you are not a boy, than you are a fool of a man! Arinbjorn was our way home, and now you have distracted him with this Irish nonsense! You think there is anything to be gained staying in this wretched place? Can’t you see that what you have done will keep us from our home that much longer?”

  “It’s you who wants to go home! Not me! Did you ever ask if I want to go with you? If I want to return to that farm, forsaken by Odin, and those stinking animals? Did you? My grandfather has chosen to stay here and maybe I do, too!”

  Thorgrim staggered back a step. He shook his head. “Stay here? Why…what could possibly make you want to stay here?” But he knew the answer.

  “Brigit. She wants me to stay. She loves me. And I love her.”

  Despite himself, Thorgrim laughed. There was nothing that Harald could have said to more perfectly demonstrate that he was indeed just a naïve boy with no understanding of the ways of the wicked world.

  “Loves you? She loves you like a butcher loves his pigs, raising them up so he can slaughter them. I don’t know what has gone on between you, what happened before, but any fool can see she is using you. You are but a piece, a minor piece, in whatever game she plays.”

  “A ‘piece’, is it? How would you know that? You don’t even speak her language. But I do, and here is the truth, father. She means to sit on the throne of Tara, which is her right, and she means for me to rule with her. By her side. I am to be king here.”

  And Thorgrim laughed again.

  “By the gods, father, do not laugh at me! I will not stand it.”

  “Oh, you won’t, eh? And tell me, what proof do you have of this Irish bitch’s lofty plans? Why in all Asgard would she want you to share her rule?”

  “Because I am the father of the baby that grows in her belly.”

  In the cross-current of shocks that had come that night, this was the most powerful yet, and it knocked Thorgrim well off course. When he regained his composure, he spoke, his voice no more than a growl.

  “You are a fool. I have raised a fool.”

  Harald took a step closer, and his tone matched Thorgrim’s, the same note, a higher key, his finger pointing like a dagger. “Do not call me a fool.”

  Thorgrim’s hand lashed out, fast as ever he delivered a thrust in battle, and his open palm caught Harald on the side of the face. The young man was knocked sideways, bent nearly double, but his feet stayed fixed where they were. He did not stagger under the impact. He straightened. In the fading light Thorgrim could see the red mark on his face where he took the blow.

  “Do not call me a fool,” Harald said again, his tone unwavering defiance.

  Thorgrim’s hand lashed out again, but this time Harald’s hand was there to meet it, his right arm moving across his chest so fast that Thorgrim did not see it. He grabbed Thorgrim’s wrist in a powerful grip and the two stood there, faces just inches apart, eyes holding eyes, arm pushing on hand, so that both of them, man and boy, trembled from the exertion.

  Thorgrim could see the fury in Harald’s
eyes, a thing he had never seen before, and a stew of emotions churned in his father’s heart; anger, pity, sorrow, fear. But none of that was in Harald’s eyes. There, it was fury alone, a pure vein of emotion.

  They stood for what seemed a long time, pushing one against the other. Thorgrim could feel the pull and tear of the wound in his side. He had expected his son’s arm to fold under the pressure, once he started applying real force, but it did not, and Thorgrim could not believe the strength the young man possessed. Harald Broad-arm…

  Then Harald, angry beyond thought, cocked his left arm for an uppercut. Thorgrim felt the slightest lapse of power in Harald’s grip as his focus shifted to the other arm and Thorgrim knew it was over. He moved by instinct and muscle memory alone; there was no thought at all, no consideration of what he was doing. He twisted his arm in a tight circle, broke Harald’s grip, and used the momentum to hit Harald square on the side of the head.

  This time his son staggered, stumbled back two, three steps, his hand pressed against his face. Thorgrim dropped his arms to his sides. Sorrow and guilt, that was all he felt now. How has it come to this? My boy?

  “By Thor and Odin, son, I am so sorry,” he said. His hands remained at his side. He hoped Harald would hit him in return, though he knew that redemption would not come that easy, far easier than he deserved.

  Harald did not hit him back. He dropped his arms to his side as well, pulled his eyes from Thorgrim’s face, and walked away, walked back up the road. Thorgrim watched his back as he strode off. He wanted to say something, to call out, but there were no words in his mouth. He hoped his son would turn and come back, but he knew he would not, nor did he.

  Thorgrim turned toward the river, his face into the sea breeze, and he wept.

  Chapter Twenty-Three