Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7)

by James L. Nelson

  It did not happen so much anymore, he found, with the passing years. So infrequently, in fact, that he had not recognized the signs at first. But he did now. And he knew he still had to speak with Bécc. And that meant he had better do so now, before the black mood grew worse. Which it inevitably would do.

  “Failend!” he snapped and a moment later the young woman appeared out of the growing dark of the night. The flames lit up her skin with an orange glow, and Thorgrim could see a hint of apprehension on her face, and he realized he had barked her name in a way that was harsh and unnecessarily commanding.

  Rein this in, rein this in… he thought, and he knew he must, but he did not know if he could.

  “I must speak with Bécc,” he said, nodding his chin toward Bécc’s big tent. “Please come with me.”

  Failend nodded and they stepped off over the grass and the places where the soldiers’ feet had beaten the ground to mud and stopped outside Bécc’s tent. Thorgrim nodded to Failend.

  “Brother Bécc?” Failend called through the canvas flap over the door. “Brother Bécc, it’s Thorgrim, come to speak with you.”

  Bécc called them in and they stepped out of the dark into a tent well lit with oil lamps and outfitted with a table and a pallet for sleeping. This, Thorgrim understood, was not Brother Bécc the Christ priest, who would gladly share the simple rough conditions of his soldiers. This was Bécc the warrior, who understood a leader of men had to see that the men understood him to be their superior in every way. Including the conditions in which he ate and slept.

  Bécc gestured toward a bench across the table from where he was seated and Thorgrim and Failend sat. Thorgrim noticed Bécc’s eye running Failend up and down. Damaged as Bécc’s face was, it was hard to read his expression. But it was not lust Thorgrim saw. It was curiosity. The last time Bécc had seen her she had been wearing a brat and a leine. Women’s clothing. Irish women’s clothing. And now she was dressed like a man, and a Northman at that, with a seax hanging off her belt.

  But he had no further reaction, beyond that one, curious glance, and as soon as they were seated he began to speak.

  “Brother Bécc says that our enemies are camped to the east and will be advancing soon. He says his men and yours will lay in wait for them, but where will depend on which way they come.” There was something about Bécc that seemed to impress Failend; Thorgrim could hear it in her voice. Maybe he was considered a holy man, like the abbot. Or maybe it was the damage to his face, a wound that looked as if it would have killed a lesser man.

  Thorgrim found Failend’s reaction odd, but in normal circumstances would not have given it more thought than that. Now, with the black mood coming on, he found it somewhat grating.

  Then Bécc was talking again. “Brother Bécc asks if your men will be ready when it’s time to move, and if you are certain you can count on all their loyalty, even though they are defending a Christian monastery.”

  At that moment Thorgrim realized he had had enough. He could not bear Failend’s deference to Bécc, could not tolerate any question as to the loyalty or readiness of his men. He stood quickly.

  “Tell this fellow my men will fight who I tell them to fight, when I tell them to fight,” he said. He was speaking to Failend but his eyes were on Bécc, who returned his stare, unwavering and expressionless. “Tell him we are ready to fight this very instant, and we will be ready tomorrow or whenever we are needed.”

  With that Thorgrim turned and ducked out of the tent and was off into the night.

  Thorgrim was already out of the tent by the time Failend stood and translated his words to a somewhat startled-looking Brother Bécc. “Thorgrim is very worried about his men,” she added by way of explanation. “They have no tents or bedding or such, and he feels strongly for their discomfort.”

  Bécc nodded. “I understand. A good leader worries about his men.” He paused a moment and held Failend’s eyes with that uncompromising gaze and Failend braced for what would come next: a sermon on the evils of consorting with the Northmen or wearing a man’s clothing, questions as to why she was doing what she was doing, assurances that she was damning her soul for eternity.

  “Thorgrim and his men,” Bécc began at last, “they will be ready, correct? They’ll fight? Even though they are fighting to defend the very people they plunder?”

  “Yes,” Failend said. “Thorgrim may be a heathen, but his word is as good as a Christian.”

  “Good,” Bécc said. “Because, as I’m sure you know, without the Northmen we are greatly outnumbered, and Ferns will be sacked. There will be no cloth for sails.”

  “Yes. I understand that. And so does Thorgrim Night Wolf.” With that Failend ducked out of the tent and into the cool, damp night air. Off in the distance the fire that the Northmen had lit was burning high and she could see men silhouetted against the flames, like the ancient druids who once ruled in that land before the coming of the True Faith.

  She walked a few paces toward the fire, then stopped and let the night engulf her. She had been surprised and frightened by Thorgrim’s behavior, but then she had remembered. The black mood. Night Wolf.

  Harald had told her about it, nearly a year before, the first time she had seen it come over him. He had told her what supposedly became of Thorgrim in those moods. Actually, he had not really told her so much as hinted at it. She did not speak much of the Northmen’s language at the time, and did not really understand what he was saying. It was after that, over the passing months, in conversation with others, she had formed a picture.

  The Northmen believed that Thorgrim’s spirit could take on the form of a wolf and prowl the night. His body remained as it was, apparently asleep, but his spirit, his soul, formed itself into a beast of prey. A wild thing. A killer.

  Failend did not believe it. Not entirely. There was nothing in her faith that allowed for such things, nothing in anything she had ever learned that suggested that such a thing could be real. But at the same time she knew there were many things she did not understand, and there were even things the priests and monks and abbots did not understand. So how was one to know?

  But she did know one thing with certainty: when the black mood was on Thorgrim he was to be avoided. No one, not even Harald, would get anything from him but a surly and frightening response. The sole exception to this, for reasons no one seemed to understand, was Starri Deathless. The Northmen said it was because Starri, like Thorgrim, had a special connection to the gods.

  This Failend knew to be false of course, since there were no “gods”, only the Trinity, and though she liked Starri she was hard pressed to think the Holy Spirit would shine his light on him. She shook her head, there in the anonymity of the night. These were mysteries too great for her to unravel.

  She continued on, approaching the fire around which Thorgrim’s men—her people—were gathered. As she walked, her left hand rested on the hilt of the seax hanging from her belt, the weapon that Thorgrim had given her. She was used to the feel of it now, and her hand moved without thought to that place, holding the weapon steady as she walked.

  Ten feet from the fire, right at the point where the heat was verging on painful, she stopped. She turned her head left and right, raising her arms as if she, too, were one of the druids worshiping the flames. But in truth, it was the heat she was relishing, the heat that drove away the pervasive damp.

  She felt someone stepping up beside her and she glanced over, then glanced again and half turned toward him. Louis. Louis de Roumois. Former novitiate at the monastery at Glendalough. Frankish prince. Her former lover. Now her…enemy? Fellow warrior? She did not know what.

  “Good evening,” Louis said.

  “Good evening,” Failend replied. They stood for a moment, silent, looking into the flames. They had not really spoken more than a few words in passing since Louis’s shocking arrival on the beach, his becoming once again an involuntary part of Thorgrim’s band of warriors. And Failend knew that they had not spoken mostly because she ha
d been avoiding him, because she did not want to have the discussion she knew they must have. Because she did not want to feel as if she had to justify her actions to him.

  But here he was, and this thing could be avoided no longer.

  “This seems to suit you, this heathen life,” Louis said, and despite the hint of playfulness in his voice, Failend flared.

  “My life,” she snapped. “Not your affair.”

  Louis raised his hands, palms up. “Not my affair,” he agreed. “But when Thorgrim and I saw each other, the first time, on the beach…when we crossed swords… you stepped in between us.”

  Failend nodded. She suspected Louis was angry about her interfering in a matter of honor, because he was a man and thus an idiot about some things. And so she braced for his criticism, and she was ready with her reply.

  “I never thanked you for that,” he said. “So, I thank you now.”

  Of all the things he might have said, that was the last one she would have expected from any man, at least any man who was not a coward. And Louis, for all his faults, was no coward. At least, she had never thought so before.

  “Thanks?” she said. “Why do you thank me? Do you think Thorgrim would have killed you?”

  “No, no,” Louis said. “I would have killed him, I’m certain. No heathen would best me with a blade. And then his men would have killed me. So be it. No, the thing of it was, you explained to Thorgrim why I did what I did. You made him see I was no traitor, I was acting as a prisoner, an honorable prisoner in those circumstances, would act.”

  “So, if you wanted him to know that, why didn’t you say it yourself?” Failend asked. But Louis did not answer, nor did he have to, because even as she said it she knew why. “Because that is not the sort of thing a man would say.”

  Louis nodded. “I would sound like a coward, trying to excuse my actions, even if I knew my actions were just.”

  Failend looked back into the flames. So much had passed between them over the course of the last year.

  Failend’s last act as the wife of Colman mac Breandan had been to slash his throat open and run off with the stash of silver he had buried in the floor of their house. The silver had been stored in a silver casket, the same casket Thorgrim had given to Abbot Columb as a down payment on their sailcloth. Louis had stolen it from her, and she had been furious. But the more she thought about things, the more her fury had subsided, and in its place, grudgingly, came a different emotion. Gratitude.

  In Glendalough, as wife of Colman, she had been drowning. But it wasn’t air that she cried out for, it was something else, but what that was she did not know. She tried to satisfy the need with men—that was how she had come to know Louis—but that had not done it.

  Then, when Louis had gone to battle, she had come along. Not with Louis’s permission. He didn’t even know she was there. But neither did he stop her when he discovered she was, nor did he send her home. He let her stay. Gave her a chainmail shirt.

  And Failend found what she was searching for. Not the fighting and killing. The sense of being alive that went along with taking such risks. Gambling it all. Life and death.

  They had been captured by Thorgrim and the rest, and in the company of the Northmen Failend had found the ultimate expression of that life. The Northmen were in the land of their enemies. They were in constant danger, and yet they brought danger with them. They were hunted and they were feared. It was enormously thrilling.

  “You’re not a prisoner now, you know,” Failend said. “You can leave if you wish. There’s no reason for you to stay with these heathens you so despise.”

  She looked up at Louis and he was smiling, but not in an amused sort of way. “Where would I go?” he asked. “Back to Glendalough to be hanged? Back to Dubh-linn to find another ship? That didn’t work out so well. No. When I fought for Glendalough I hated the heathens, just as I hated them back in Roumois. The Irish weren’t my people, but at least they were Christians.”

  “They still are,” Failend said.

  “And for all that, they tried to hang me. Hang us, really. No, I’m done with the Irish. I don’t give a tinker’s damn about them, about the heathens, about the Frisians, anyone. Now I only want to get home, and have my revenge on my brother, and I’ll fight alongside anyone who can help make that happen.”

  “Thorgrim can help make that happen,” Failend said. “The heathens, they’re not so bad. No better or worse than any others, it seems to me.”

  “I think you’re right,” Louis said. “I can’t talk to any of them, really, except Harald, though I’m learning some of their language. We fought together, me and Harald.” He fell silent, and then a moment later said, “You’re happy?” It sounded like a genuine question.

  Failend nodded. She had never really given much thought to happiness. But yes, she had to say she was happy.

  “Thorgrim is good to you?” Louis asked next.

  Failend nodded again. “Thorgrim’s a good man,” she said.

  Louis made a grunting noise and Failend waited for his disagreement on that point, but instead Louis said, grudgingly, “I know.”

  They were quiet again for some time, and then Louis said, “Do you love him?”

  Failend pulled her eyes from the fire, looked at him, wondered why he was asking. Was he hoping to rekindle their romance? Looking to create some rift between her and Thorgrim? Curious?

  “Yes,” she said. “I…yes…I think so.”

  Louis nodded. “Does he love you?” he asked.

  That was an easier question to answer. “No,” she said. “Thorgrim loved his late wife. He loves Harald. Beyond that, I don’t believe he loves anyone.”

  “I see,” Louis said.

  “Don’t mistake me,” Failend said. “Thorgrim’s affection for me is strong. Stronger, maybe, than his affection for anyone. Anyone besides Harald. But he does not love me.”

  It had taken Failend some time to puzzle that out, lying next to Thorgrim in the dark, pondering the odd twists and turns of her short but interesting life. She had finally settled on that insight. And she knew she was right and she knew that she had to be content with that reality. And she realized that she was, and that was good, because it was not likely to change.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Breaking bow, or flaring flame,

  ravening wolf, or croaking raven,

  routing swine, or rootless tree…

  be never so trustful as these to trust.

  Hávamál

  Thorgrim’s mind had been all clarity and understanding, and now it was a great jumble, chaos, a confused sea, and it was driving him to madness.

  The path had been clear before, like a trail through the woods, well used, the bracken cut away, the edges sharply defined. Repair the ships. Secure the sailcloth through silver and force of arms, not against the monastery but against its enemies. Those who might prevent the Christ men from weaving the cloth that Thorgrim and his men needed.

  Stitch up the sails, bend them on. Rig them and sail away, off to Wessex if the gods would allow it. Back to Vik.

  But now that clarity was gone and he could not force his mind to hold one solid thought long enough to examine it. It might be the black mood working over him. Or it might not. It was more uncertainty. More madness.

  He stumbled away from the fire, away from the camp of the Irish and Northmen, unlikely allies, off toward the open country. He was vaguely aware of having spoken to Bécc, but he could not recall what he had said. He could only remember the moment when he could no longer sit in that tent and maintain the pretense of civility. When he had to go.

  Failend had been there, he was pretty sure. Must have been. Without Harald he had no other way to speak to these Irish.

  Harald… That was what the madness was all about. Harald was gone…somewhere. Thorgrim was having a hard time remembering. A prisoner? No. Not that.

  Wherever he was, it was not good and it gave Thorgrim a sense of helplessness. Somehow, before, he had been certain of
what he would do to get the boy back, but now he did not know, because he could not recall where Harald was, or what danger he was in.

  He staggered to a halt and looked out over the dark country. There was nothing, nothing at all to see. Any trace of daylight was long gone and the heavy clouds above blocked out any stars or moonlight that might have illuminated the rolling hills. Behind him, Thorgrim could hear, faintly, the sounds of his men as they drank their ale and dried themselves by the fire and sang songs that must have seemed like animal cries to the Irish.

  He dropped to his knees, suddenly overcome with exhaustion. His arms hung at his side, his mouth hung open. Iron-tooth tugged at his belt. He was in the throes of it now, the black mood.

  Such a long time, such a long time… he thought. It had not come on him in…longer than he could recall. He thought it was done with him, like the frantic energy of youth, passed on out of his aging bones. But maybe not. He slumped over on his side; he closed his eyes.

  And then he was dreaming. Wolf-dreams, which he had known for certainty would come, had known from the moment he had felt the first stirrings of rage earlier that day and had understood its nature.

  He was running, running in a way his weary legs could not run anymore: fast, effortless, silent. The grass was moving underfoot at a terrific pace, a horse’s gallop, but his breathing was easy and measured. He could feel the muscles rippling under his skin as he ran. He felt powerful. And better still, his mind was clear. There were no conscious thoughts, no words coming to him in this most profound of slumbers. Just clarity.

  The smells of the night and the country moved past him, a parade of scents, sometimes jumbled together, sometimes clear and distinct. There was wet earth and damp grass, there were cows, far off, hints of smoke. There was the cool night air that carried its own scent with it. Each of these he could pull apart and examine like it was a solid thing, something held in his hands.