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

by James L. Nelson

  “He seems to have trouble making friends,” Thorgrim observed.

  “He does. I’m not sure why. In any event, I think he’s pretty well done with the world. Irish, Norsemen, Frisians, I think he hates them all now. He wants only to get home and have his revenge. And…” Failend paused, considering her words.

  “And I think he had some affection for Harald,” she continued. “After they fought together, and came to your rescue. Of course, Harald’s the only Northman he’s ever spoken with, really. But I think he likes him, and that might be one reason he acts as he does. Certainly it’s why he came with us to try and rescue Harald.”

  Thorgrim had wondered why Louis would volunteer for all that hard marching and danger. He could feel his attitude toward the Frank changing. He cursed himself for a weak fool to let such a thing alter his opinion, but he could not help it. He could not hate any man who had befriended Harald and who had wagered his life to help bring Harald back.

  “All right,” Thorgrim said. “If you trust Louis then I’ll trust him as well.” He tossed off the fur under which they had been sleeping. He could see the gray light starting to spread along the eastern horizon.

  He stood and stretched. “Let’s see what fresh horrors this day can bring,” he said.

  Eager as he was for an answer to that question, it seemed that none was forthcoming. Thorgrim’s men slowly came awake, stretching and washing their faces in bowls of water. There seemed to be no urgency among the Irish, and so the Norsemen felt no urgency either. They stoked up the fires and made breakfast and ate, while the Irish men-at-arms did the same.

  “So, Night Wolf,” Starri asked, taking a seat next to Thorgrim, a few feet from the fire, a wooden trencher in hand. “There is an enemy near, and we know it. Will we attack today? They did not get a good night’s sleep, we know that as well.”

  “I’m not sure,” Thorgrim said. “It’s Bécc’s decision, not mine. We’re here to protect Ferns for as long as it takes them to weave our cloth.”

  “Ha!” Starri said. “I think your men are getting restless. If they don’t get a chance at doing something soon then they may well plunder Ferns anyway, and let Loki take the sail cloth.”

  “The men will do what I tell them to do,” Thorgrim said. And he hoped that was true.

  Of course it’s true, he thought to himself. He looked around the camp. His men were bored, there was no question about that, but they were a far cry from the sort of restlessness that leads to violence and disloyalty. He had seen that before, after long and miserable winters stuck in Vík-ló. But he did not think it would happen here.

  Bécc will try to cut all our throats before anyone can get too weary of this, Thorgrim thought.

  Breakfast was finished and the men set about sharpening their already sharp weapons and Thorgrim decided that the time had come to see what was going on. But before he even had the chance to call for Failend to accompany him to Bécc’s tent, one of Bécc’s men arrived, giving Thorgrim a perfunctory bow.

  “Failend,” Thorgrim said. “Please come here and tell me what this Irish whore’s son is saying.”

  Failend listened to Bécc’s man. “He says Brother Bécc desires you come and speak with him in his tent.”

  “Will we have to wait as he finishes prayers?” Thorgrim asked. Failend relayed the question.

  “He says Brother Bécc is done with prayers.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “I think I’ll ask Louis the Frank to come as well,” he said to Failend. “Two people who can understand what Bécc says might be a help. Any reason I shouldn’t do that?”

  Failend shrugged. “Whatever you wish,” she said, but Thorgrim did not have the patience to interpret the true meaning behind those words. He called to Louis and the three of them followed Bécc’s man across the open ground to the big tent standing like a rocky outcropping in the surf.

  Bécc, it turned out, was not in the tent but seated at a table outside, with several chairs scattered around it, and Thorgrim was thankful they would not have to squeeze into the dim-lit, stuffy pavilion again. Bécc gestured for them all to sit. He called to someone behind Thorgrim’s back and a moment later cups of ale were set down. Then Bécc started in.

  “Brother Bécc says the enemy is about eight miles away, and they do not seem as if they mean to fight today, but they may well march on the morrow.”

  “Bécc knows this how?” Thorgrim asked.

  “Brother Bécc says he has scouts out in the countryside,” Failend translated Bécc’s words, “and he has managed to get information out of the prisoner.”

  “I see,” Thorgrim said. “What else has he learned from the prisoner? My prisoner?”

  Thorgrim waited for Bécc to answer, and Failend to translate. “He says he knows that the enemy are about one hundred men strong, about the same as our numbers, but many of them are not men-at-arms.”

  “With their leader now taken prisoner, why do they still fight?” Thorgrim asked. “I might think they would all just go back to their farms.”

  “Brother Bécc says that the second in command is a man named Tipraite, and he is very ambitious,” Failend relayed when Bécc was done answering. “Brother Bécc says Tipraite will not stop just because Airtre is taken. Indeed, Brother Bécc says he is more likely to press on for Ferns in hope that Airtre is dead and he might have all the glory and plunder to himself.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “So, tomorrow?” he said. “It’s not some holy day that will require us to stay in camp again?”

  Failend gave him a look that signaled her annoyance. Thorgrim ignored her. She was taking every opportunity to say “Brother Bécc” because she knew it irritated him, which meant she in turn was irritated with him for any one of several possible offenses. She translated his question. Bécc looked confused as he answered.

  “Brother Bécc says tomorrow is the feast day of St. Athanasius, but that will not prevent us from going into battle.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Thorgrim said. “Ask Bécc what he plans, if he means to let the Irish…the enemy, that is, I know they are all Irish…come to us or will we meet them?”

  Failend and Bécc went back and forth. “Brother Bécc says he does not want Tipraite to get any closer to Ferns than he is. He says we’ll march out at first light and hope to catch them unprepared. He says that he will know how to align his men and yours once he has seen the ground on which we are to fight.”

  “Very well,” Thorgrim says. “That seems sensible.” Which it did. As any good lie should.

  They discussed a few more matters: the amount and quality of the food that Thorgrim’s men were being provided, the quality of the men-at-arms under Bécc’s command and those who fought with Tipraite. The progress that the weavers of Ferns were making on Thorgrim’s sailcloth, a subject about which Bécc claimed to be wholly ignorant.

  They took their leave soon after, and the three of them, Thorgrim, Failend and Louis de Roumois, made their way slowly back toward the Northmen’s part of the camp. They walked in silence and finally stopped near the low-burning fire in the fire pit.

  “What did you think of what Bécc had to say?” Thorgrim asked Failend.

  “I thought he sounded honest,” Failend said. “What he said about meeting the enemy as far from Ferns makes sense to me. Not that I know much about such things. But I don’t know if we can trust him.”

  Thorgrim considered that. He thought Failend was right on all accounts.

  “Ask Louis what he thought of Bécc’s words,” Thorgrim said to Failend, and Failend did. Louis, as Thorgrim anticipated, shrugged before he spoke.

  “He says he thinks Bécc is probably a fine soldier,” Failend said. “He says being a fine soldier means he cares only about protecting Ferns, and he’ll turn on whoever he thinks is the greatest threat. And it’s likely he thinks the biggest threat are the Godless heathens, regardless of whose side they claim to be on.”

  Thorgrim listened. He considered those words. He thought that Louis was probabl
y right as well.

  Or they might all be wrong. Bécc might be genuinely looking for Thorgrim and his men to help defeat this army coming for Ferns. One way or another, they would soon be in desperate battle with an enemy looking to crush them. The problem was, they still didn’t know who that enemy would be.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Great thy gain if thou learnest:

  I bid thee be wary, but be not fearful;

  (Beware most with ale or another's wife.

  And third beware lest a thief outwit thee.)

  The Poetic Edda

  The Irishman in command of the cart and the horse and the four men was named Cathal and he proved to be as talkative as any of the Irishmen Harald had met, and that was quite talkative indeed.

  As Harald tore eagerly into the rough bread and smoked beef that the Irishmen gave him, Cathal delivered a lecture concerning the dangers of the road on which they were traveling, the bandits and the wolves and raiders, Irish and otherwise. He pontificated on the weather and how wearying it was, this travel back and forth, how little their difficulties were appreciated back in Ferns.

  Harald ate, chewing with some difficulty the dense breakfast, grateful when Cathal offered him a jug of ale. There were several questions floating around in Harald’s head. Why did they travel this road back and forth to Ferns? What work had they been set upon? Where exactly were they going, and why were there so many bandits and such out here, seemingly so far removed from anything of any worth?

  He did not ask. He did not want to appear too curious. And he did not want to encourage Cathal to keep talking. But soon he had eaten, if not his fill then at least enough to sate him, and with a word from Cathal they were underway again, rolling slowly along the soft dirt road.

  “You were raised in Dubh-linn, you say?” Cathal said.

  “Yes, that’s right. My home was north of there, near Tara, when I was captured. After that I lived mostly in Dubh-linn, save for when we went a’viking.”

  “Really?” Cathal said. “Ha! I had never thought I would ever talk with one who had gone a’viking, except maybe to curse him for a dirty cur. And what is Dubh-linn like? Is it as vast a place as they say?”

  As they walked Harald described Dubh-linn, the crowded streets, the tradesmen, the great mead hall and the lesser halls of the nobles on the higher ground. He described the docks and the longships and merchant ships tied there, the men from Frankia and Frisia and Wessex and all the countries from which the Northmen sailed, all coming to that place for trade or plunder.

  What he described was mostly true, with a few embellishments that he created from thin air even as he spoke, but Cathal and the others seemed to enjoy it all. They were amazed by the things he said, even the things that were true, and it was clear to Harald that none of these men had seen much beyond Ferns and the place to which they were heading and the road that connected them.

  “And their women?” Cathal asked. “Do the Northmen and these other strangers, do they bring their women with them?”

  “Some,” Harald said. “But most of the women in Dubh-linn are Irish. Like me. Some were thralls who married their masters and some came to the longphort for other reasons, and now they have made husbands of the Northmen.”

  “And the people around Dubh-linn, they bring their goods to be sold across the seas? Their sheepskins and wool and such that they make?” The very notion of those things that were produced in Ireland being sent across the seas to be sold in markets in Frisia and Frankia, in Hedeby and Birka, seemed nearly incomprehensible to this man.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Harald said. “There are ships coming and going all the time, during the seasons when they are able.” Of course, the sheepskins and wool were only a small part of what was being shipped out to the markets across the seas. The foremost commodity was slaves, Irish slaves, but Harald did not mention that part. He had the idea that Cathal was just starting to warm to him, even though he might still suspect he was really a Northman, and he did not want to sour the man’s impression. Even if the Irish themselves were as much a part of the slave trade as the Northmen.

  The sun climbed higher in the sky, the day still thick with cloud, but brighter than it had been the past week, and the six men and the cart continued their weary travels. The road moved up and down the hills over which it ran, but more up than down as they moved slowly up into the higher country. They came at one point to a place where the road forded a shallow river twenty feet wide and they trudged knee deep through the cold water, taking care on the smooth stones that lined the bottom.

  “What river is this?” Harald asked.

  “This is the Bann,” Cathal said. “It runs clear down to Ferns. If it was deeper this far up we could float down it, right to the monastery, and be done with this damnable horse, forsaken by God.”

  They moved on, and if Cathal seemed to have forgotten Harald’s promise to provide protection, Harald did not. He kept his eyes ahead, and looked carefully at each stand of trees they passed, every ditch in which bandits could secret themselves. He saw nothing. Once in the distance he saw a small rath and what he took to be some people working in a field, but they paid the travelers no attention.

  This Cathal must be the worrying sort, Harald concluded. He saw no sign of danger and could not imagine why anyone would want to rob them in the first place, the near worthless horse and cart being the most precious things they had. He thought again about asking Cathal where they were going, what it was they hauled to Ferns in the cart, but he did not. He still feared that the Irishmen might greet his curiosity with suspicion.

  “Not so long now,” Cathal said, nodding up the road. “Just over this rise and we’ll see it.”

  See what? Harald wondered. Cathal talked as if he expected Harald to know where they were bound.

  They trudged up the hill and came to its crest and Cathal said, “There.”

  Harald had no idea of what to expect, but what he saw would not have impressed him much in any event. The river they had crossed, the Bann, had veered away from the road and out of sight, but now it bent back, nearly meeting with the road about half a mile away. At that place stood two small cottages, round with thatched roofs in the Irish fashion. There was no ringfort around them, which was unusual. A small wisp of smoke was rising up from one of the buildings; a couple of horses stood nearby, tethered out.

  “Hmm…very nice,” Harald said. He did not know what else to say.

  Cathal shrugged. “The roof don’t leak,” he said, which was apparently the best that could be said for the place.

  They moved on, continuing along the road, and a few moments later one of the other Irishmen said, “I don’t know what those lazy whores’ sons are up to, but they don’t seem to be doing much work.”

  In fact, no one seemed to be doing any work. There was no one in sight. Harald could contain himself no longer.

  “Who’s there? What work should they be doing?” he asked.

  “Well, there’s half a dozen of the bastards we left there, and they should be doing some damned thing. Work to be done, you know,” Cathal said, which did not clarify things in the least.

  “Well, a couple of them look like they’ve decided to take a nap,” Harald said, pointing.

  “What?”

  “There,” Harald said, raising his hand a bit farther. “Looks like two fellows there sleeping in that field.” A few dozen yards from the nearest house Harald could see two men sprawled in the grass, motionless. Asleep, apparently.

  Cathal came to a halt and the others did as well. The man in the cart pulled the horse to a stop. “Asleep?” Cathal turned to the others. “You see them, over there?”

  The other men nodded. A moment before they had looked bored and weary. Now they looked apprehensive. Afraid.

  “What?” Harald asked. “What is it?”

  “It’s…I don’t think those two are sleeping,” Cathal said.

  Harald looked from Cathal to the men in the field, and now he could see t
hat indeed they did not look like men sprawled out in sleep. They looked like men who were lying dead where they had been cut down.

  “Let’s leave this place, quick,” one of the Irishmen said, and that prompted the others to take a step back. Harald could sense that they were seconds from turning and fleeing.

  Wait,” Harald said, holding up a hand. “Shouldn’t we go and see what happened?”

  “Whoever did this, they might still be there,” Cathal said.

  “Exactly,” Harald said, and then he realized that in Cathal’s mind that was a reason to avoid the place. He turned and looked at Cathal with a frown. “Well, you can stay here if you wish, but I promised to serve as a guard to you, so I mean to go and see what’s acting. There may still be some alive.”

  Cathal glanced back at the others. He sighed. “Very well, let’s go. Least we can give those poor bastards a proper burial.”

  “Good,” Harald said. “Now, most likely if the bandits are still there then they’ve seen us. Let’s keep moving as if we don’t suspect anything. Keep your cudgels hidden, but be ready to take them up quick.”

  The Irishmen nodded. Harald walked back to the cart and hoisted himself up, lying down in the bed. It was covered with loose gravel. It seemed as if Cathal and the others had been hauling rocks to Ferns. Odd.

  “What are you doing?” Cathal asked.

  “My clothes, I’ll stand out,” Harald said. “I don’t want them to see me. When you get near that first building, say, one hundred feet before you reach it, you let me know.”

  “All right,” Cathal grumbled and his tone seemed to imply that he thought Harald was trying to get away with something.