“Bishop, a bloody business, the murder of young Merewald. He was a good ealdorman. Not the man his father was, but good enough. Are you quite recovered from that shock?”
“Yes, my lord,” Ealhstan said, making the sign of the cross. “A bloody business indeed.”
“I imagine Nothwulf is not so pleased with…” The king paused, looked right and left. “Where is Nothwulf?” he asked. “I certainly would have expected him to be here.”
“Ah,” Cynewise said. “Nothwulf I believe is at his estate at Blandford.”
“Really?” Æthelwulf said, turning his eyes toward her. “At such a time as this? What business has he there that’s of greater import than what’s happening here at Sherborne? A royal visit.”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Cynewise said. She took a small bite of carrot, chewed it contemplatively. “He may not have felt as welcome in Sherborne as he might hope,” she ventured.
“Oh? And why would that be?”
“There are some…oh, my lord, these are only stories going about. Gossip, mostly, I’m loath to even say it.”
“Go on, child, go on,” Æthelwulf said in a way that Cynewise found particularly annoying. “I would hear what you have to say.”
“Well, your highness, there are some who suggest that Nothwulf was not so sorry to see his brother murdered. That he had ambitions…ambitions to set himself up as ealdorman of Dorsetshire.
“Humph,” Æthelwulf grunted. “He might indeed have become ealdorman. Might still. It’s a strange situation. Not really settled, I’d say, though you sit in that chair and your father has spoken in your favor.”
“Of course, lord,” Cynewise said. “A very unsettled situation. But there is also talk abroad…and let me say I believe none of it, and I hate to even speak it…that Nothwulf had some hand in my husband’s murder.”
At that Æthelwulf frowned and his bushy black and gray eyebrows came together. “Some hand in Merewald’s murder?” he said, sounding as incredulous as Cynewise would expect him to be. “I’ve known Nothwulf since he was a boy. He rode with me when we drove the heathens from London not four years ago. He’s a hothead, sure, but murder?”
Cynewise shook her head. “I’m loath to believe it. But there was some evidence, or so Oswin tells me. Some token of Nothwulf’s that was found among the murderer’s things. And testimony by his wife. Concerning Nothwulf’s involvement.”
Æthelwulf’s frown deepened to a scowl. “This is monstrous,” he said. “Is this why Nothwulf won’t show his face here?”
“It might well be, sire,” Cynewise said. “We’ve not heard from him for days now. I have word he’s gone to Blandford, but I don’t know with any certainty.”
“Humph,” Æthelwulf said again. “Well, I shall talk to Oswin, and we’ll find Nothwulf and I’ll talk to him as well. I have a knack for sussing out the truth, and we’ll find it, rest assured.”
“I’m pleased to hear that, sire,” Cynewise assured him.
“And I’m pleased that you were here to put a steady hand on Dorset. This sort of thing can be a bloody business, you know. It already is, with your husband’s murder, but it can get much worse. Blood running in the streets as they fight for the ealdormanship.”
“I’m only pleased that I can bring your highness some comfort in that regard,” Cynewise said. “My only desire is to see peace in Dorset…in all of Wessex. The dear Lord knows we are beset enough with enemies, what with Mercia to the north and the heathens attacking our shores. We don’t need to be fighting amongst ourselves.”
“Amen,” Bishop Ealhstan said and crossed himself and Cynewise and Æthelwulf did the same, if a little less enthusiastically.
Æthelwulf turned to Cynewise and his expression suggested that his thoughts had moved on, that he was done for the time with Nothwulf and the intrigues of Sherborne. “I did not thank you, dear, for the generous gift you made me and my court. Five wagonloads, meat, wine, cloth. It must have cost you dearly.”
Cynewise gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m happy to do what I can to support the king’s estate in Winchester. It’s you, sire, who gives so much for this kingdom.”
“Hmm,” Æthelwulf said, a sound to indicate that Cynewise had said the right thing. “Your father is a good man, Lady Cynewise, and he’s taught you well, I see.”
“Thank you, sire. He’s taught me to love my king, that’s for certain.” He had also taught her that Æthelwulf was greatly moved by even the most baldly insincere flattery, and that advice had already done her much good.
Gifts as well. The king loved gifts, gifts of any kind, as long as they were the finest to be had. She guessed that the five wagons that had been sent to the king under her name had been loaded with the finest. Oswin had assured her that was the case. Nor would Nothwulf, who was no fool, have sent anything less to win the king’s favor.
Cynewise nibbled on her carrot and thought, Thank you, Nothwulf, you sorry bastard, wherever you are…
Chapter Twenty-Five
[Y]our new-tarred ship by shore of ocean
faithfully watching till once again
it waft o’er the waters those well-loved thanes.
Beowulf
Thorgrim felt as if he were being engulfed by fire. His fury was blinding, utterly consuming, his vision distorted as if he were looking through heat and flames. Bécc had beaten him. Not once, but again and again. Tricked him, led him by the nose, tricked him once more. Killed his men, taken his longphort. He himself had been carried off the battlefield, wounded, defeated, while Bécc still lived.
Four men were holding him fast on Sea Hammer ’s deck as he fought against them. The wound in his side was rippling pain and he could feel the warm blood under his wet tunic, but his passion was driving him past all that. He was desperate to vault over the side and charge back at the beach and finish the fight with Bécc that had started months before. The fate of the ships, the men, himself, were of no concern to him now.
And then two things happened nearly at once that quenched the fire, at least for the moment. Harald climbed aboard, pulled over the sheer strake by his fellow warriors and dumped on the deck. The sight of his son brought Thorgrim partway back into the land of reason. And just as that happened, Thorgrim became once more aware of the howling wind, the black sky and the flashing lightning and thunder just overhead. His ship—his fleet—might still be within the protective arms of the bay at Loch Garman, but it was nonetheless in grave danger.
His ship in danger.
Thorgrim reacted to the thought the way a mother reacts to the crying of her child. He shook off the men holding him and they let go and stepped back, not sure what would follow. The shaking motion tore at the wound in his side and he gasped, but he still did not know how bad the wound was.
Nor did he have time to worry much about it. His mind had already left the fight on the beach and turned to matters of seamanship. He was near Sea Hammer ’s bow, looking out past the stem toward the swarms of Irishmen on the beach. The ship’s oars were out and moving and Sea Hammer had already pulled far enough from the water’s edge that none of the Irish could have reached her if they wanted to, which in any case they did not seem too eager to do.
Thorgrim turned and looked aft. The oars were haphazardly manned, some double-manned, some not even run out. He headed aft, hunched over just a bit, moving fast down the ship’s centerline, hand pressed against his wound, calling orders as he did.
“Two men on each oar! Quickly, now, you sorry bastards! Move! Hall, Godi, get the rest of the oars down from the gallows! Come along, we’ll be driven back on the beach before you whores’ sons get another stroke in!”
He reached the small after deck and stepped up, then leaned over the side and looked out over the water. The wind was from the northwest now, and blowing harder than he had felt it blow in a long time, whipping his long, wet hair against his back and face. He could see his ship was being set down to leeward even as the men strained at the oars to drive th
e ship into the wind.
He crossed the small deck and looked over the starboard side. The other ships were also pulling away from the beach, opening up the gap between themselves and the Irish warriors ashore, and they, too, were having a hard time of it, struggling to counter the strength of the wind.
“We’ve got to turn, got to turn,” Thorgrim said to himself. They were backing Sea Hammer away from the beach, but the men at the oars could not put half as much power into the stroke pushing the oars to go astern as they could pulling them to go forward. He had to swing the bow around, but it would not be easy.
He stepped to the edge of the deck. His wound was throbbing terribly and so painful that it seemed as if the spear point were still embedded in his flesh, but he ignored it as best he could.
“Listen to me!” he bellowed, and there was power enough in his voice to be heard over the shriek of the wind. “We must turn to starboard, get her bow into it! On my command, larboard will back water, starboard will pull! You sons of bitches had better row like Loki has you by the balls or we’ll be on the beach for the Irish to cut our throats!”
He saw eyes locked on him, grim faces, some men nodding even as they kept up the stroke. They were already straining at the oars, and it was about to get worse. Thorgrim looked out to windward. Fox was about fifty yards away, right on their starboard side, and it would only be with the best possible luck that they did not collide as Sea Hammer made her turn. He looked back at the men.
“Now!” he shouted. “Larboard, backwater, starboard stroke!”
And they did as Thorgrim commanded. Each one of the men, raiders of long experience, had spent countless hours pulling oar, and now they reaped the benefit of that mindless labor. Their muscles were hard and taut and the motion of the stroke deeply ingrained. Backwater, stroke, they understood the commands as if by instinct. Every hand was pulling an oar, even Starri Deathless, who longed to die in battle but was terrified of dying at sea.
Thorgrim took two steps aft and laid his hands on the tiller, as familiar to him as the stroke of an oar was to the others. He pulled it aft to help Sea Hammer in her turn to starboard, but it was the oars that were driving her now.
Or not. Thorgrim looked past the bow and he could see that the ship was not turning, that the force of the wind was holding her in place as she turned broadside to it and pushing her down toward the beach. Once her keel touched it was over, and Bécc’s army, his overwhelming army, would swarm over the sides.
Pull, pull, you bastards, pull , Thorgrim thought, but he did not bother speaking the words because he knew that the men forward were pulling with every last bit of strength they had left.
And then the balance of forces shifted. Oar stroke and gale winds had held one another in check, but now the power of the oars began to win out. Thorgrim saw the stem begin to turn, the beach seemed to shift to the left as Sea Hammer began to turn to the right.
The men saw it as well. Looking after, they would see the sea and land beyond the sternpost moving in the opposite way and they would know they were gaining in their struggle. Thorgrim saw a few smiles here and there among the grimacing, red, straining faces.
Don’t smile yet , he thought.
The ship continued to swing, moving faster as the oars gained power, and Thorgrim felt the wind shift from the starboard beam forward as the bow turned up into the storm. The hair that had been whipping the left side of his face now began to stream aft, and beyond the bow the land turned faster and faster.
Good, good, good, Thorgrim thought. They were doing it, turning the bow through the eye of the wind, and soon Sea Hammer would be pointing northeast, with the wind on her larboard side, and then they would be able to claw their way across the wide bay to the beach near Beggerin, where at least they could run ashore with Bécc’s army a good day’s march away. Let the storm blow out, get to sea, back to Vík-ló, build his army again….
“Larboard, pull! Starboard, pull!” Thorgrim shouted. Sea Hammer ’s bow had made it through the wind. They needed now only to row, to drive the ship forward, and with that speed through the water Thorgrim could use the steerboard to set the course.
As one, the men on the larboard side lifted the blades of their oars from the water, paused to get in time with the rowers to starboard, then dropped their oars and pulled, leaning back into the stroke, the muscles of their arms and legs bulging with the strain, the rain washing over them as if they were standing under a waterfall.
Thorgrim could feel the tiller bite, could feel Sea Hammer begin to gather momentum. He looked out past the bow as the ship turned. Sea Hammer had been the last of the ships to leave the beach, the crew waiting for Thorgrim, Godi, Harald and the rest to get aboard. The other seven ships were already underway, struggling to get sea room, to pull clear of the beach and out into wider water. They fanned out ahead of Sea Hammer as they fought their way into the wind.
Fox was closest to them, just off the larboard bow and about a hundred feet ahead, and her men seemed to be having a hard time of it. They were still trying to make the turn through the wind, but their rowing was uncoordinated, and not all the oarports had oars thrust through. There had been no organization as the men flung themselves back aboard the ships, and Thorgrim guessed that some of them were well manned, and some were not.
He looked to the starboard side. Oak Heart was about two ship lengths upwind, and Thorgrim thought he could make out Asmund’s large frame standing on the afterdeck. His rowers were hard at it, the blades rising and falling, driving the longship into the wind and the increasingly steep chop. Oak Heart would pass ahead of Sea Hammer comfortably. But only if Fox was able to get clear.
Thorgrim looked back over the larboard bow and he saw what he feared he would see. Fox had failed to get through the wind and now she was falling back, spinning out of control, her men unable to drive the ship through the punishing wind. She was blowing down toward Sea Hammer ’s path, but Thorgrim was not worried about that. Fox would pass ahead of Sea Hammer and not hit her. But she would hit Oak Heart if Asmund continued on his course. And with the rain and Sea Hammer blocking his view, Thorgrim was sure that Asmund could not even see Fox and the danger he would soon be in.
“Oh, by the gods…” Thorgrim muttered. They had almost made it clear. But now disaster was forming under his bows, and there was nothing he could do. Shouting a warning would be pointless. He could barely be heard aboard his own ship over the howling storm.
Fox was drifting fast, her oars moving sporadically, and Thorgrim guessed that most of the rowers had dropped from exhaustion. Oak Heart was still pulling hard, shooting ahead, Asmund, unable to see Fox , was thinking that his only concern was passing in front of Sea Hammer .
And then Asmund saw the danger. With one stroke Oak Heart shot ahead, one hundred feet beyond Sea Hammer ’s bow, far enough ahead of Sea Hammer that he could see Fox drifting down on him. Thorgrim saw Oak Heart turn to starboard, turning away from the oncoming ship, but it was not that simple. There were sandbars downwind of Oak Heart and if she turned too hard she would be set down on them and the wind and seas would beat her apart. The short chop was already breaking white on the shallow water over the bars. Asmund did not have much room to escape.
In fact, he had no room. Before the crew of Oak Heart had given one more pull Fox slammed into her, bow to bow, their stems locked like men arm wrestling, and they began to drift downwind. And now they were directly in Sea Hammer ’s path.
There was only one reasonable thing for Thorgrim to do, and that was to push the tiller away, turning Sea Hammer to larboard and letting the two disabled ships drift down onto the sandbar. There was nothing he could do for them, and there was no reason to lose Sea Hammer and the men aboard her as well.
It was the reasonable thing to do, so of course Thorgrim dismissed it out of hand. Instead he pulled the tiller a bit toward him, aiming Sea Hammer at the bows of the two ships ahead, aiming like an arrow at the point where they were locked together. The men at the oars
pulled and Sea Hammer shot ahead and Thorgrim was glad that they were looking aft, that none of them could see what he was about to do.
“Harald!” he shouted. “Harald, come here!”
Harald was pulling an oar, but he looked up at Thorgrim’s call and without hesitation stood and bounded aft. He stopped at the break of the afterdeck and looked up at Thorgrim, blinking rain from his eyes.
“Yes, Father?”
“We’re going to hit those ships,” Thorgrim said, nodding forward. Harald turned, hesitated for a second, then turned back, eyes wide with something that looked like panic.
“Fox is disabled, undermanned,” Thorgrim shouted over the wind, loud, before Harald could protest. “When we pass by, you throw them a rope and we’ll take them in tow, you understand?”
He glanced down at his son. Harald nodded and then dropped to his knees to fish a rope out from under the afterdeck. It was insane, of course. The men of Sea Hammer could hardly drive the one ship against the wind. Towing another vessel would likely be impossible. But Thorgrim was curious now to see if it could be done. If not, they would all be pounded to death on the sandbar, but with the reckless madness on him, Thorgrim did not much care about such things.
The rowers leaned forward and pulled back and Sea Hammer drove grudgingly into the wind. The rain was coming down so fast it was filling the ship’s bilge, the water starting to lap over the deck boards. That meant considerably more weight, the keel deeper in the water, the vessel more sluggish and hard to row. Not good.
“You men!” Thorgrim called out. His throat was starting to ache with the effort of shouting over the storm and the water that choked him every time he spoke. “You get ready to pull your oars in fast when I give the word! You hear?”
Heads nodded, the stroke never altered. If they hit the two ships with the oars out, the shafts would be snapped like twigs and then there would be no hope at all. Thorgrim looked over at Oak Heart on his starboard side. Asmund, reliable, competent, had seen Sea Hammer coming, had seen the danger to his own ship, and had ordered the oars in on his larboard side.
A Vengeful Wind: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 8) Page 25