A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8)

by Nelson, James L.

  At that Aelfwyn smiled. She actually smiled and the expression was sincere. “Do you really think so?” she asked. “Do you really think you have any power at all in this shire? Are you such a fool?”

  Nothwulf frowned. He did not like Aelfwyn’s words, but of greater concern were the sounds coming to him from beyond his bedchamber, muted sounds of shouting, running feet. Something was going on, something that should not be going on at that late hour. He tried to ignore it, concentrate on the business at hand, which was certainly worthy of all his attention.

  “I have no power?” Nothwulf asked, taking a step forward, brandishing the iron candle holder. “Then, pray tell me, who does? Oswin? That simpering fool you call your lady?”

  There were footsteps now, running, coming closer. Nothwulf could not ignore that fact any longer. Assassins coming to kill him? Oswin and his men? They had killed half his hearth-guard. Now Nothwulf’s household would be easy enough for them to overrun.

  “I asked you a question,” Nothwulf said, “and you’ll answer me now or by God I’ll break your head.” He took another step, raised the candlestick.

  But Aelfwyn had heard the footsteps as well, and she stepped back and smiled once more.

  Does she know who’s coming? Nothwulf wondered. Or did she just understand, as he did, that whoever it was, whatever reason they were running toward the bedchamber, it was likely to change everything in the space of a heartbeat.

  “Someone’s coming,” Aelfwyn said. “If you’re going to kill me you better do it fast.”

  Nothwulf pressed his lips together. Aelfwyn was making an ugly joke, but she was not wrong. If he was going to do this, he had to do it now, while there were no witnesses, no one to hear Aelfwyn’s pleas of innocence.

  He took a step toward her and held the candlestick higher and Aelfwyn gasped and took a step back and the sneering smile on her lips vanished. Then the footsteps grew louder and stopped and a fist pounded on the door.

  “My lord! My lord!” Bryning’s familiar voice, with an unfamiliar note of urgency.

  “Come!” Nothwulf shouted. He heard the latch on the door lift and Bryning’s footsteps behind him, then heard Bryning’s intake of breath.

  “What the devil?” he said. Nothwulf spared a glance at him, saw his wide eyes staring at Aelfwyn, naked and brandishing a knife. “What is going on?”

  “He’s gone mad!” Aelfwyn shouted. “Pray, save me! He’s trying to murder me and I don’t know why!”

  Bryning did not move.

  “Give it up,” Nothwulf said. “Bryning won’t fall for your whore’s tricks.” Nothwulf straightened and lowered the candlestick. He stepped back, next to Bryning. “This whore’s betrayed me, but I don’t know who she’s betrayed me to. We were just discussing that.”

  “Yes, lord,” Bryning said, and then he seemed to recall why he was pounding at the door in the late hours of the night. “Lord, the hearth-guard at your brother’s house—Cynewise’s house—they’ve been called out, lord, and it’s said they are coming to arrest you. Oswin is leading them.”

  “Arrest me?”

  “Yes, lord.” Nothwulf did not bother asking how Bryning knew this. Bryning had his ways, and that was why Nothwulf kept him well paid in whatever currency Bryning wished.

  “Lord, half our hearth-guard are dead, killed with the wagons,” Bryning said, his voice somewhere between pleading and panic. “We can’t fight the ealdorman’s guard, beg your pardon…” Bryning knew better than to refer to anyone save Nothwulf as the ealdorman, but there was nothing else he could call the men coming for him now.

  “What are you saying?” Nothwulf asked.

  “We must flee, lord. I’ve turned out what’s left of our hearth-guard. They’re mounted and ready, but we must hurry, lord. I beg you.”

  Nothwulf nodded. There was no choice, he could see that. He turned to Aelfwyn. “Get your gown on, you’ll come with us.”

  “No!” Aelfwyn cried. “No, never!” she turned the dagger over and held the needle-sharp point to her breast. “I’ll kill myself first.”

  “Very well, then, get on with it,” Nothwulf said.

  Aelfwyn’s eyebrows came together. “What?”

  “Get on with it. Kill yourself. I haven’t much time.” He handed the candlestick to Bryning and hurried across the room to where his tunic lay in a heap. He grabbed it up and pulled it over his head, certain that Bryning would keep Aelfwyn from plunging the knife into him.

  He pulled the tunic down and grabbed his trousers and pulled those on, then took up his sword belt and belted it around his waist, adjusting the hang of the weapon. He looked over at Aelfwyn. She had made no move to end her life. In fact, she had not moved at all.

  “As I thought,” Nothwulf said. He crossed the room and Aelfwyn followed him with wide eyes, but still she did not move. He wrapped his fingers around her hand and pulled the knife free and tossed it aside.

  “We’ll have the truth, or my men will have their pleasure, but either way we’ll find some use for you.” He grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the door.

  “Lead on, Bryning,” he said. “I trust you already have some idea of where we’ll go.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I sing 'neath the shields, and they fare forth mightily

  safe into battle, safe out of battle,

  and safe return from the strife.

  The Song of Spells

  Starri Deathless, recovered at last from the bitter disappointment of once again surviving battle, had settled himself at Dragon ’s masthead. It was his given place in such circumstances, rowing across hazard-strewn waters, enemies lurking on every shore.

  He was not, however, keeping a lookout for any of those potential dangers. He was looking in the one direction from which there was no danger: the beach astern, from where they and the late Ketil’s men, now Thorgrim’s men, had just shoved off.

  “Ha! I see them now, Night Wolf!” Starri cried down at the deck, then twisted back until he was again facing aft and called to the Irish men-at-arms ashore. “You’re too late, you dumb bastards, and you may thank your God we have gone, or we’d be adorning ourselves with your guts!”

  Thorgrim had been quite certain that Bécc would return, and it would not take the man long. He felt like he knew Bécc now, knew how he thought. He even respected him, at least the warrior in him. Most men would have turned for home, leading their wounded, exhausted warriors away from the fight. Not Bécc.

  Nor was Thorgrim averse to fighting. But he would not fight when it was pointless, and fighting Bécc that morning would have been pointless. Ketil’s men had been drinking hard, and then fighting hard, and even the ones who were not wounded were ready to drop where they stood. His own men were in much the same condition. And while Thorgrim was sure they could have beaten the Irish men-at-arms a second time, there was nothing to be gained from fighting them again. It would be a hard fight, and the Choosers of the Slain would carry off many of his own men.

  And that was a concern. Bécc could replenish his forces from the countryside; he could probably raise two or three times the number of men under his command, if the need was great enough. The Northmen had no such luxury. There were precious few ways to augment a heathen army in Ireland.

  “We’ll cross back to the longphort,” Thorgrim announced, soon after Ketil’s men and Jorund’s men had agreed to serve him. “Collect up whatever’s worth taking and get it aboard the ships, and the wounded and the dead as well, and we’ll put off.”

  There were nods of approval. The men on the beach did not look as if they wanted another fight that day. They moved as quickly as they could, collecting up the food and the ale and the weapons on the beach, carrying the wounded men aboard the vessels as gently as they could and laying them on the deck boards amidships.

  They took the dead as well, the Norse dead, in any event. On Thorgrim’s orders they were hefted aboard Dragon , laid around the mast like cordwood ready for a burning at the stake. There were not t
oo many, seven or eight men, but it would not do to leave them for the crows and wild pigs. They would be given a proper send-off, not for their sake, but for the good of the living. It did a man’s attitude no good to think his own body might be left to be torn apart by scavengers on a foreign land.

  The sky to the east was just showing hints of gray when the crews of each ship arrayed themselves along the sides and heaved their vessels back into the calm water of the bay. There was nothing to hear but the soft lapping of the sea on the shore and the thump of soft shoes on deck planks as the men climbed aboard, and the gentle grind of long oars thrust through oar ports larboard and starboard.

  Six ships, and from them six voices gave the muted order to give way. Twelve banks of oars came down in the water and the ships moved silently away from the beach. One by one they spun in their length and with Dragon in the lead began the two-mile pull to Loch Garman.

  They had opened up a half-mile of water between them and the shore when Bécc and his men appeared, just as Thorgrim had guessed they would. He could not see them of course. Even if he had been at the masthead like Starri, he would not have been able to see that far. But Starri could, and he whooped with delight.

  “Come on, Bécc, you great Irish sheep-buggerer!” Starri shouted. “I’ll wait for you on the other shore!” And then, in a display of balance and coordination that was stunning even for him, Starri stood with his feet on top of the shrouds, turned his back to the Irishmen on the beach, dropped his leggings as far as they could go and exposed his narrow, hairy posterior to the morning light.

  The men on deck laughed and groaned, caught between amusement and disgust. Starri began to wiggle and gyrate and the groans grew more pronounced. Thorgrim happened to look up at that moment, caught a glimpse of Starri’s antics, and quickly brought his eyes back to deck.

  I could have happily lived my whole life without ever seeing that, he thought.

  It was not long after that Starri called down, “There they go, Night Wolf! Those Irish dogs are slinking away, tails between their legs!”

  Thorgrim risked a glance aloft and was relieved to see Starri’s leggings were back up and he was in his usual perch.

  “Glad to hear it, Starri!” he called up. “Now would you keep an eye out for sandbars?”

  “Of course, Night Wolf!” Starri called, shifting his position to see forward. Thorgrim did not actually care what Bécc and the Irish were doing right now. He did not have to care, because he had ships and the Irish did not. With ships the Northmen could cover the distance to Loch Garman in very little time, whereas it would take Bécc a day at least to get there. Such was the advantage of being water-borne, and such was the reason that the Northmen were able to unleash such devastation on the Irish.

  They crossed the bay without incident and closed on the beach at Loch Garman, where Sea Hammer and Blood Hawk still sat on rollers, where woodchips mixed with the shingle, and makeshift tents and smoldering fire rings dotted the place, all enclosed by the wide arc of the earthen wall they had thrown up for defense.

  Thorgrim walked forward along Dragon ’s deck and the men parted for him. He skirted the heap of dead men amidships, covered over with an old tarpaulin, and hopped over the bow and down onto the damp sand. One by one the other ships pulled for the shore, running their bows aground at even intervals, oars coming in like great birds folding their wings.

  The only men who had been left in the longphort were those unfortunate enough to be on guard duty on top of the walls when Thorgrim made the decision to go. They came ambling over now, eager to hear of the fighting they had missed.

  They certainly would have been able to hear the fight, Thorgrim mused. It must have driven them to madness to hear a battle so close, but to have no way of joining in. He wondered if they had soothed their disappointment with mead. He saw red eyes, mussed hair, sallow complexions and he guessed they had done just that.

  Thorgrim walked further up the beach. Behind him he heard his men climbing over Dragon ’s side and following him ashore. He ran his eyes over the longphort, the all too familiar longphort. It had a look of semi-permanence, the sort of ingrained, settled look of a place whose occupants have been there for a while, and intend to remain a while longer.

  Thorgrim shook his head. Time to go , he thought.

  Jorund’s ship, Long Serpent , had followed Dragon in and now Jorund came ambling over. The long twin braids in his beard, weighted down with beads at their bitter ends, bounced off his mail shirt as he walked. He stopped at Thorgrim’s side and joined him in scanning the area enclosed by the earthen walls. He nodded his head.

  “You’ve done a lot,” he said. “You and your men. You didn’t mean to stay here?”

  “No. Just to keep the Irish out, long enough for us to fix our ships.”

  Jorund nodded. “That’s your ship there?”

  “Yes,” Thorgrim said. “Sea Hammer .”

  Jorund nodded again. “Nice ship. Nice lines. Not too narrow at the beam, like some.”

  “Thank you,” Thorgrim said. Other than saying kind words about Harald, there was little Jorund could have said that Thorgrim would find more pleasing.

  The two men walked further up the beach and Thorgrim indicated where Jorund’s men could make their camp, setting up sail tents for shelter and digging pits for fires. Thorgrim told Jorund to have his men and the late Ketil’s men bring what supplies they had and deposit them with those already stacked near the big fire ring, those that Thorgrim had bought from Beggerin and Ferns.

  The implication was clear: they were all one army now, and they would share supplies like one army. Thorgrim paused to see if Jorund would object, if he was unwilling to join his forces with Thorgrim’s so completely. But Jorund only nodded once more and made no comment about that arrangement.

  The rest of the day was spent in setting up a temporary camp for the new men, and off-loading the four new ships, new at least to Thorgrim’s fleet. Jorund’s ships, like Thorgrim’s, had seen some hard use. That was chiefly the reason, Jorund explained to Thorgrim, that they had sought the shelter and the convenient beach at Beggerin. They had meant to haul the ships ashore and attend to their increasingly needed repairs.

  Once Jorund’s ships had been off-loaded of supplies, they were also stripped of oars, sea chests, deck planks, masts, yards, sails, rigging and anything else of significant weight. That done, rollers were set on the beach and ropes run through the oarports. Once the tide had reached its high mark, every man in the longphort tailed onto the ropes, and one by one the ships were hauled, groaning, creaking and dripping from the water until they sat propped up and land-bound on shore.

  With the vessels settled propped up and dry, they made an inspection of them: Thorgrim and Jorund and the captains of the other three ships and crews.

  A man named Asmund commanded Oak Heart , the second of Jorund’s ships. He was tall and thickly built and not much given to talk, which Thorgrim appreciated. The two ships which had been under Ketil’s command were Black Wing and Falcon. Black Wing had been Ketil’s ship. After his death, courtesy of an Irish sword, command fell to a man named Halldor. He was shorter than Thorgrim, young and talkative, with a broad, quick and easy smile. In that way he seemed the opposite of Asmund, but Thorgrim was inclined to like him as well, though he would not form any real opinion until he had something on which to base it.

  Falcon was the smallest of the four new ships, forty or fifty feet long and pierced for eight oars per side. It was commanded by a man named Hrapp, a regular sort of man with a thick black beard and black hair bound up in a long, braided tail.

  Once Jorund had made introductions all around, the men went from ship to ship, inspecting hulls from inside and out, discussing what needed to be done and what could be done, there on the beach, with only the tools and resources on hand.

  They wasted little time with talk. Once decisions had been made, once priorities had been set and tools and materials allocated, they set to work, each of the crews t
o their own ships. Thorgrim was satisfied with the knowledge and skill the captains seemed to possess—more than satisfied with Jorund, who seemed to know as much as any shipwright about the ways of longships—and he did not think it would be so very long before all the vessels, those that had been long in his fleet and those just joined, would be ready to take to the sea.

  The rain held off, despite the heavy layer of clouds, and they worked until the first hints of darkness fell over Loch Garman. Thorgrim relieved the men walking patrol on the top of the walls and replaced them with some of the men who had been with him for a long time and with some of the men who had just become part of his army.

  Two pigs, recently purchased from Ferns and butchered that morning, had spent the day roasting over low flames in the big fire pit in the center of the longphort, the smell driving hungry men to near madness. Now the well-cooked beasts were taken down and the flames stoked up until they rose taller than the tallest man there, and the men tore into the pigs with a will. Evening turned into night, barrels of ale and mead were broached, and the tired men settled around the pit, some talking, some singing, but most silent.

  Thorgrim sat on a short length of log just far enough from the fire so that the heat was bearable. Failend, Harald, Godi and Starri were with him and they ate and drank in silence and stared into the dancing flames. Soon Jorund appeared out of the dark, and with him the captains of the other ships: Asmund, Halldor and Hrapp.

  “We brought mead,” Jorund said, indicating a small barrel that Asmund held in his arms. “Not the goat piss we’ve been drinking, some genuinely fine stuff we’ve saved.”

  “In that case, you’re welcome to join us,” Starri said, gesturing toward unoccupied spots on the logs. Asmund broached the barrel and Thorgrim made introductions for those who had not met and soon they were dipping cups into what was indeed superior drink.

  “Do you mind if I ask,” Jorund said, “why did you leave Vík-ló? There are stories that pass around, ship to ship.”