Fin Gall

by James L. Nelson

  “That one, Harald, is just a boy. He might not be privy to everything. How many other of these fin gall do we have?”

  “Two, my lord.”

  “Bring them here.”

  Ten minutes later the other Northmen were kneeling on the stone floor in front of Máel Sechnaill’s low wooden throne. One was called Olvir Yellowbeard and the other Giant-Bjorn, or so Flann had informed Máel. The names went out of Máel’s head as quickly as they came in. He was no more concerned with names for the fin gall then he was for names for the boars or harts that he hunted.

  He turned to the one called Giant-Bjorn, who seemed the bigger and dumber of the two. Even on his knees his head was even with Máel Sechnaill’s chest. His hair was wild, his beard was like an unkept hedge. His hands were bound behind his back.

  “What did you do with the crown?” he asked. Flann translated.

  “I don’t know of any crown,” Giant-Bjorn said.

  “The crown you took from the curragh,” Máel said, his voice growing softer, a danger sign for those who knew him.

  “There was nothing on the curragh. A few weapons, some mail shirts, we took those. There was nothing else.”

  Máel Sechnaill kicked Giant-Bjorn hard in the stomach and the big man fell over, gasping for breath. Máel waited. Giant-Bjorn shouted something, spitting in fury as he did. Flann did not bother to translate. Máel Sechnaill could guess at the Viking’s general meaning. He nodded to the guards and they lifted the fin gall and put him back on his knees.

  “There was a crown on the curragh and you took it. What did you do with it?”

  Flann translated the words. Giant-Bjorn glared. Máel did not intend to waste much more time on this. Giant-Bjorn did not know it, of course, but this questioning was for Olvir Yellowbeard’s benefit, not his.

  “What did you do with the crown?”

  “There was no crown.”

  “Are you a Christian?”

  The last question, when translated, took Giant-Bjorn by surprise. When he did not answer, Máel Sechnaill tried again. “Do you believe in Jesus Christ? Would you take him as your God?”

  Now Giant-Bjorn looked more confused than anything. “Jesus Christ, as my God? My gods are more powerful than yours. I wouldn’t crawl to your Jesus like you do!” He spit on the floor for emphasis.

  Máel Sechnaill pulled the double-edged dagger from his sheath. He had done his duty, as far as he or Father Gilbert were concerned, had offered the heathen a chance at salvation. With that, he slashed the man’s throat, the razor-sharp blade opening his neck wide. Giant-Bjorn fell on his side, feet kicking, writhing, making a gurgling sound as the blood ran over the stone floor and the life drained fast away.

  Máel Sechnaill turned to Olvir Yellowbeard, who watched with wide eyes the results of being uncooperative. It was his turn now, and if Olvir Yellowbeard knew nothing, then it would be the turn of the one they called Harald. The fact that Harald might be the son the jarl, and thus a hostage worth bargaining for, would only keep him alive for so long.

  “Where is the crown you took from the curragh?” Máel Sechnaill asked Olvir Yellowbeard. Flann translated.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  You can’t feel a battle

  in your bones

  or foresee a fight

  Hávamál

  T

  horgrim Night Wolf was caught in a river, deep and cold and fast moving. He swam hard but it did him no good. The water had him in its grip and swirled him away, and as much as he fought he could do nothing to save himself.

  He felt his body hit against rocks and drag along the bottom but there seemed to be nothing he could do free himself from the nightmare because the water was in charge and he was not. He felt his fury mounting at his own helplessness.

  And then he realized he was not helpless, that he did not have to be swept down the river. He felt the spreading fire of strength inside him, and he found he was not in the river anymore, but on the bank now, powerful and ready.

  He slipped out from under the blanket of furs, moved soft and silent among the men sleeping around the deck. There was a lookout in the bow, but he did not hear Thorgrim and he did not turn.

  Thorgrim slipped over the side of the longship and dropped to the shingle beach on which the Red Dragon was hauled up for the night. They were still a day or two’s rowing from the cove where he and Ornolf had buried the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. The last embers of the fire they had built on the shore glowed like dragon eyes in the dark.

  Thorgrim moved along the surf line, low and swift, alert, and disappeared into the brush that ran down to the beach. There were enemies out there, he could feel them in his bones. Dangerous men. A lot of them. He moved through the low brush, instinct guiding him, his footfalls lost in the sounds of lapping waves and the cry of nightjars.

  His eyes felt like they were glowing as they pierced the dark. His mouth was partway open. His breath came in soft pants as he moved. There was someone nearby, Thorgrim could smell him, and though he could see only dark shapes under the sprinkling of stars, his nose told him infallibly where the man crouched.

  Thorgrim circled around wide, stepped from the brush into an open place and moved at a silent loping trot over the wet grass. The smell of the man came powerfully to his nose - dry sweat and wood-smoke and mead and the sharp smell of iron. And then he saw him, crouched down against the dark brush, looking toward the beach where the longship was grounded out. Watching. He did not see Thorgrim Night Wolf coming up behind.

  Thorgrim was twenty feet back when he stopped. It was entirely his decision whether the watcher lived or died, and the watcher did not even know it. But this was not the watcher’s night to die, at least not by Thorgrim’s hand. The gods or the spirits of the land or the trolls in the woods might have different plans, but Thorgrim did not care about the watcher, only about who had sent the watcher there. He turned, loped off up the hill, inland, away from the sea.

  The camp was a mile or so from the beach, well inland, where it would not be detected easily. Thorgrim moved at an easy pace, and once he had gained the high ground of the hill that sloped up from the water his nose told him exactly where it was. He passed three more watchers spread out along the way, placed so they would see any man who tried to slip by.

  The camp was well guarded, too, huddled in a clearing surrounded by a stand of oaks, with men posted on all quarters. If it had been on open ground, Thorgrim would not have dared approach. But the men who had picked the spot had looked to the stand of trees to shield them, which it did, and it shielded Thorgrim as well.

  He moved through the trunks, his feet falling on a carpet of leaves and sharp acorns. The smells were everywhere now, overwhelming his senses - smoldering coals and cooked food and unwashed men. Horses. Many horses. He could hear them shifting nervously and making little snorting sounds.

  He came to the edge of the trees and peered out through the bracken. There was a guard there, tense and alert, looking out into the night. At one point he looked directly at Thorgrim, as if he was looking him in the eyes, but he did not see the Night Wolf.

  Thorgrim circled the camp. There had to be nearly two hundred men there. Most were huddled on the ground, but there were also tents, two of them, big, circular tents, like a nobleman might carry on campaign. They glowed from the inside, lanterns still burning, even at that hour.

  Around the back side of the camp he came on an odd sight, a fat man, stripped nearly naked and covered in filth, with a chain around his neck, staked down to the ground. A guard sat on a rock nearby, bored, while the fat man quietly sobbed. There was something familiar about the fat man, like he was part of some dream Thorgrim had had, but Thorgrim could not place him.

  He circled the camp twice, took in all he could. These men were his enemies. In younger days he might have begun to kill them right then, one at a time, killing silently and methodically. But he was older now, and he knew that thinking had to come first, planning, and then the killing if the killing
was the thing to do. He slipped off into the dark.

  Thorgrim awoke in the pre-dawn. He was tired, as if he had been running all night. The strength was gone from his arms and legs. He was not sure he could move. He could feel dirt on his hands.

  Morrigan was sleeping beside him, her back pressed against his chest and his arm was around her but he did not recall how they had come to be that way.

  With a groan he pushed himself up on his elbow and looked around. There was no hint of the morning sun. Overhead the stars had wheeled around in the sky, the only sign that time had passed at all. The Red Dragon was moving gently in the lapping waves, creaking and grinding on the shingle.

  The night began to resolve in his mind, like a fog clearing away to reveal an unfamiliar landfall behind. He remembered the watchers. He remembered the camp.

  Thorgrim sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. Morrigan stirred, rolled on her back, propped herself up on her elbows.

  “What is it?” she asked in a whisper.

  Thorgrim shook his head. He was not sure yet. It was all coming into focus. Morrigan waited, silent. She was a patient woman, Thorgrim had noticed it before. He liked that.

  “There are men out there,” he said at last. “More than a hundred. They’re watching us.”

  Morrigan looked with wide eyes toward the beach as if she might see this army gathered in the dark. “Who are they?”

  “I don’t know.”

  For a long moment they were silent. Morrigan pressed closer to Thorgrim, pressed herself against him, which surprised Thorgrim but did not displease him.

  “Magnus,” Morrigan said at last. “Magnus or Asbjorn.”

  “Who?”

  “They were the foremost of Orm’s men, the dubh gall who lorded over Dubh-linn,” Morrigan said. “Before I killed him. Now his men will be looking for us.”

  “Yes.” Thorgrim remembered now. It seemed a long, long time ago. Of course it would be Orm’s men. It had not made sense to Thorgrim that no longships had come in pursuit. In that wind it would have been easy enough to catch the Red Dragon, easy enough to overwhelm her poorly armed crew. But with the Red Dragon stripped of her sail, men on horseback could easily keep up with her, and never be seen.

  They heard a grumbling, shuffling, banging forward and they tensed. Thorgrim’s hand fell on the hilt of his sword. In the starlight they saw Ornolf, like an old bear stumbling off to hibernate, clambering up over the side of the longship. He held his trousers up with his right hand and only after he had gained the deck did he pause the tie them.

  “Ornolf!” Thorgrim called in a harsh whisper and the jarl made his way over. What little mead they had pillaged on their way out of Dubh-linn had been divided up among the men, and Ornolf’s share amounted to far less than he would generally have consumed, so Thorgrim had reason to think the jarl would be somewhat clear-headed.

  Ornolf knelt on the deck. He looked at Thorgrim and Morrigan and gave them a lascivious grin which Thorgrim ignored.

  “There are men out there,” Thorgrim nodded toward the beach. “One hundred and more. Maybe two hundred. They’re camped a mile inland but they have watchers in the brush.”

  Ornolf turned and looked toward the beach, just as Morrigan had, and like Morrigan he could see nothing.

  “How do you know?” Ornolf asked.

  “I saw them,” Thorgrim said.

  Ornolf studied Thorgrim’s face. “Was it a wolf-dream?”

  Thorgrim hesitated. “Yes,” he said at last. He really was not sure.

  Ornolf nodded. Thorgrim knew that for his father-in-law, a wolf-dream was the strongest possible proof of a thing. And indeed they were rarely wrong.

  “They are Orm’s men. They must be,” Morrigan said. “They must have guessed we would retrieve the crown. They’ll attack once we have it.”

  “Damn the crown, then!” Ornolf said, loud enough that several men shifted and made grunting noises.

  “Without the crown, my lord Máel Sechnaill will never release Harald,” Morrigan said. “I wish it was not so, but it is.” There was a note of sincerity in her voice, and it surprised Thorgrim.

  The three of them were silent, the night filled with the lap of water, the rustle of leaves in the morning breeze, somewhere on shore.

  “Very well,” Ornolf finally said. “We’ll get the crown, we’ll bring it to this whore’s son, Máel Sechnaill.”

  Yes, Thorgrim thought. But it is different now.

  Before, they were the hunted. They were the dumb goose that does not see the stalker creeping up behind. But now they were the wolf, who allows pursuit until the time is right for him to turn and attack.

  “Let us mount the dragon’s head on the prow again,” Thorgrim said. “If there are any spirits in this land, let them know that in us they have something to fear.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Men with black, keen spears

  will blight the fruits of noble rule.

  Irish Poem of Prophecies

  I

  t was not Brigit’s duty to care for the hostages. It annoyed her father that she did so, her, the daughter of the rí ruirech of Tara. But it was her nature to want to help those who were weak, who could not help themselves.

  It is no more than the Christian thing to do, she thought to herself, seated on the stool by Harald’s bed. Máel Sechnaill would have preferred the fin gall in the stone-built prison, eating the scraps that the hogs left behind, and not in the royal house, eating the king’s food, but that was not how hostages were to be treated. Not as long as Brigit was part of the royal household.

  The king did not like it, but they were cut from the same cloth, Brigit and Máel Sechnaill, and the rí ruirech would rather remain silent than argue with his daughter.

  Harald was asleep now, the remnants of the first real meal he had eaten since he arrived at Tara sitting on a trencher on the table and scattered across the floor.

  She had tried feeding him broth, after the fever broke. She spooned it into his mouth, thinking that in his weakened state his stomach would not tolerate solid food. Harald, the Norseman, felt differently.

  He used gestures, it was all they had to communicate. He gently pushed the broth away and with his other hand made eating gestures. Brigit shook her head, pointed to the broth, thinking that he did not understand that this was food. Harald shook his head, made more emphatic eating gestures, along with exaggerated chewing. Brigit smiled and nodded. Real food. Harald was a strong young man and he was ready to eat.

  The minor kings, the rí túaithe who had gathered at Tara for Máel Sechnaill’s attack on Leinster had not left. They still hoped for some action, or to attract the king’s favor, or even better, Brigit’s favor. They enjoyed feasting, slaughtering calves at a prodigious rate, and as a result there was an unusually ample supply of hearty fare to be had, at any hour. Brigit sent word for one of the slave girls and gave her instructions. Ten minutes later the girl returned, the trencher piled with beef and kale cooked in drippings, coarse bread and butter as well as a bowl of porridge and a horn full of mead.

  Harald’s eyes went wide when he saw the food, and his face had that look of desire that Brigit generally found directed at herself. He sat up, swung his feet over the edge of the bed. He swayed a bit, then steadied himself. He paused to regain his balance then reached for the trencher and attacked it like a Viking.

  Brigit tried to gesture for him to go slow, tried to communicate that it might be dangerous for him to wolf down the heavy food, but his hunger eclipsed his reason. He tore in, and all Brigit could think of was the way her father’s hunting dogs went after a chunk of meat tossed into the middle of their pack.

  Brigit sat back and watched with a mixture of delight and not a little revulsion as Harald went at the food with his knife and fingers. The rí túaithe were not the most decorous of men, but they seemed absolutely delicate in comparison to the way the young Norseman ate.

  It took Harald about ten minutes of chewing, ripping, swal
lowing and wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his none too clean tunic before he set the trencher down and laid back with a contented sigh. He looked over at Brigit for the first time since the food had arrived and smiled at her, a smile so warm and full of genuine affection that the memory of his eating habits fled from her mind. He said something, she had no idea what, but the tone sounded very much like “Thank you.” He paused, and then added, “Brigit.”

  “You’re welcome, Harald,” she said and he smiled and nodded.

  They sat like that for some time, and then Harald fell asleep again, his mouth slightly open, his breathing soft and steady, with none of the labored rasping of his fevered sleep. Harald, she decided, must have an extraordinary constitution. She would have expected him to be far more wasted by the fever than he was. He seemed as if he had just woken up from a nap.

  Youth... she thought. She reminded herself that he was only a few years younger than herself.

  Brigit remained where she was, watching him as he slept, the strong jaw, the yellow hair swept back behind his broad shoulders.

  Is this the face of a heathen murderer? she wondered. She thought of the great atrocities that had been done to her people by the Vikings, the sacking of the monastery at Iona where dozens were butchered, the destruction of Rathlin and Skye, the rape of Inishmurray off Sligo and Roscam in Galway Bay.

  Were those Harald’s people?

  Then she recalled watching from her window at the royal house of Gailenga as her father ripped the living guts from her husband, Donnchad Ua Ruairc. The fact that he deserved every second of the agony he suffered, and she knew it, did little to lessen the horror of the memory.

  Brigit gave a sigh that encompassed all the weakness of men, then stood and stepped quietly from the room.