For a day and a half Grimarr and his men remained huddled in Grimarr’s hall, the others in their small homes, fires burning in the hearth against the early Autumn cold. Vík-ló was Dubh-linn writ small, a Norse longphort a quarter the size of its northern fellow. It lay on the low ground near the mouth of the Leitrim, the land sloping gently upward from the water’s edge. High rolling hills, some miles inland, surrounded the place like some great earthwork made by giants long before and long since abandoned, left to grow grassy and humped. The hills were home to the Irish and the spirits of the land, and the Northmen did not care to meet either, so they did not venture far from their settlement.
Vík-ló boasted around two dozen houses of various sizes, most partially taken up by their occupants’ businesses; blacksmith shops, woodworkers, butcher’s shops. Plank roads ran in various directions, the wattle and daub buildings pressed close alongside, each with its small, wattle-fenced yard.
The entire settlement was surrounded by an earthen wall with a palisade that topped it in various places. No one thought that those defensive works would keep anyone out for long, not if they made a determined attack and did so in force. Happily, no one had ever done so. The Irish, who of anyone were most likely to assault the longphort, had never managed to organize themselves for such an effort and they did not seem ready to do so now. But that could change. As Lorcan mac Fáeláin amassed more power he became more of a threat to the dubh-gall at Vík-ló whom he despised.
That part of Ireland called Leinster, which included Vík-ló, was ruled by Ruarc mac Brain, and it was to Ruarc that Lorcan owed allegiance. But Ruarc mac Brain had recently married a young bride, heir to a kingdom called Tara, or so Grimarr had divined through the sparse information that filtered in from beyond the walls. These days Ruarc was gone much of the time, off to the north. His absence gave Lorcan more room to build his forces and consolidate the loyalty of those who would follow him. If he were to gain a significant amount of wealth, such as that which had been aboard Sea Rider, there was no telling how much loyalty he could buy.
But those worries were only background noise now, like the constant beating of the rain on the roof. Grimarr had more immediate concerns, such as how to dispose of the numerous dead in a way that was respectful, pleasing to the gods, and not overly burdensome or costly.
Grimarr called a council. Sandarr was there. Not because Grimarr particularly sought his advice, but because it would have been too great a mark of disrespect to exclude him, and might reveal a rift between father and son that someone with plans could exploit. There was also a man named Bersi Jorundarson and another called Hilder who were looked upon as leaders by the men at Vík-ló. The only man Grimarr would actually have wanted to take part in the council was Fasti Magnisson, who, along with Grimarr Giant, had always been considered the lords of the longphort. But Fasti’s pale, lifeless body was lying under a sail just abaft the mast step of his ship, his days of giving wise council ended.
“There’s not room enough in this longphort to bury them all,” Bersi pronounced. “And burying them outside the walls is not a possibility.”
The others nodded.
“I don’t think there’s firewood to spare in all Vík-ló for a funeral pyre for all those dead,” Sandarr added, “not with winter coming on.” This, too, was greeted by more nods. The gesture was starting to annoy Grimarr. The three men looked at him and waited for his pronouncement. There was only one option, really, but Grimarr was loath to choose it, because ships were not an easy thing to come by, and he would have need of Sea Rider if he were to get back what was rightfully his.
On the other hand, he could not just let those dead men be eaten by the swine in the streets. That would not do much to encourage the others to follow him into battle.
“Very well, we will cremate them aboard Sea Rider,” Grimarr said. “Once this cursed rain stops. They died together, they can go off to the gods together.”
Once again the others nodded. “Their swords, shields, helmets, battle axes will burn with them,” Grimarr continued. “Not their mail.”
Bersi and Hilder exchanged glances. “Not their mail?” Hilder asked. “We’ll strip off their mail?”
Idiots, Grimarr thought. “They have no need of mail in Odin’s hall. Even if they are wounded in battle, they’ll heal by night.” He did not add that mail was of great value in Ireland and hard to come by. He did not have to.
So, when the winds died down and the rain tapered off to where leaving the warmth of the hearth was no longer an absolute misery, the men of Vík-ló descended on the river bank and the ship Sea Rider tied up there. They pulled the sail back to reveal the bodies underneath, undisturbed, though the few days they had laid there in repose had not improved their appearance.
At Grimarr’s command, and over a spark of objection which Grimarr stamped out quickly and completely, the men set about the unpleasant business of removing the mail from the bodies of those who wore it. Getting chain mail off a living man was tricky enough; pulling it from a stiff and bloated corpse was a true challenge, made worse by fear that the dead would object to such an outrage and return with vengeance in mind. But finally those would no longer need protection in the earthly realm were stripped of it, and a pile of serviceable chain mail shirts lay heaped on the shore. The ship’s sail, too, and its oars, Grimarr decided, were better off remaining in the land of the living.
Of the sixty or so dead men laid out on Sea Rider’s deck only Fasti Magnisson was of such status as to warrant a thrall to accompany him to the next world. That was fortunate, because thralls, like mail, were scarce in Vík-ló. They were a luxury few in the squalid longphort could afford. Most prisoners who were taken on raids were quickly sold.
Fasti had a thrall, however, who served in his household, which, along with Grimarr’s, was the most substantial in Vík-ló. Grimarr had half a mind to add her to his own household, but he realized that would never do, that his oldest friend could not be sent off to the next world with never a servant to aid him. So the thrall, whose name was Mor, was informed of the journey on which she would be going and given food and as much mead as she wished. When she was nearly incoherent with drink, the top of her head was cut off with one clean stroke of a sword so that she might join her master in the place to which he was bound. Her body was carried aboard Sea Rider and laid at Fasti’s side and then all was in readiness.
Once again Eagle’s Wing took Sea Rider in tow, pulling her through the choppy water where the river current met the incoming sea. They towed her just beyond the mouth of the River Leitrim and anchored her where her remains would not be in the way of ships coming in or out. Following in solemn procession were the other ships at Vík-ló; Bersi’s Water Stallion, Hilder’s ship, Fox, and the ship Wind Dragon owned by a man named Thormod.
Tar and turpentine was poured out on Sea Rider’s decks. A flaming torch was tossed aboard and the hands at Eagle’s Wing’s oars pulled the ship to a safe distance, where the other ships sat rolling and pitching in the swell. Eagle’s Wing’s crew pulled the long oars in board and let the ship drift with the others as the flames consumed Sea Rider and the men with whom they’d fought. Grimarr watched as the fire reached up around the base of the mast, climbing up and spreading out fore and aft. In the heavy overcast the flames were brilliant, red and yellow and white. They rose up high above the ship’s rails until Sea Rider looked like some great floating dish overloaded with flames, a bowl of fire.
It was, undeniably, a beautiful sight, a fitting start to the final voyage of Fasti and the others. The only thing that marred the loveliness of the scene was the fact that Sea Rider was missing the fine, carved figurehead that graced the ship’s stem, a round swirl of carved oak Grimarr was accustomed to seeing arched high above the ship’s deck. It had not been in place when they had driven Lorcan and his men from the ship, and Grimarr had assumed Fasti had ordered it removed as they approached the shore. But the search that had failed to produce the treasure failed to produce the
figurehead as well. Its absence made the ship look stubby and out of balance.
The smell of burning wood and tar and then burning flesh came vaguely to the men aboard Eagle’s Wing, even though they were well to windward of the pyre. The crackling and popping of the ship and her crew as they were consumed, the dull roar of the inferno, were pronounced over the soft breeze from the east.
As he watched the flames engulf the longship, Grimarr in Eagle’s Wing’s stern felt numb, numb all over, like he had been standing for some time outside on a frigid day, like he had just woken up and was still heavy with sleep. He watched the flames take hold of the rigging and run up aloft until the shrouds and stays became vivid blazing lines against the gray sky.
He watched as the ship, her crew and his long-time comrade in arms Fasti Magnisson were turned into so much smoke and ash and whisked aloft, up to the place where the gods took such men.
But his thoughts were not on those men. They were, instead, off to a place he did not generally allow them to go, a path he resisted stepping down with all his considerable strength. He was thinking of his sons. Not Sandarr. Sweyn and his brother Svein. They were younger than Sandarr and they were dead. The memory of that fact was worse than any of the many sword thrusts Grimarr had suffered and so he tried not to remember it.
But when Grimarr was attendant on some death ritual, as he was now, and he was quiet and there was no violence with which to keep his feelings at bay, he could not help but think of them.
The younger boys were not as clever as Sandarr, but that had never bothered Grimarr. Grimarr did not put too much stock in clever; a man could be too clever by half. Courage and honesty and strength, those were the qualities a man should have, and Sweyn and Svein had those in abundance.
“You are thinking of my brothers,” Sandarr said. Grimarr had not realized he was standing so close.
“I am,” Grimarr said gruffly.
“Me too. I can’t help it. At such a time as this.”
Grimarr grunted. He did not wish to speak at that moment. It was nearly half a year since Sweyn and Svein had been killed, but the wound to Grimarr’s spirit was still open and bleeding.
“Fasti will join with Sweyn and Svein this day,” Sandarr said. “My brothers died in honorable combat. Sure they feast with the gods, as Fasti will.”
Grimarr grunted again. Sandarr was right, and he was saying the right words, so Grimarr did not entirely understand why Sandarr’s words grated on him so. Perhaps he resented the fact that Sandarr had lived when the others had died, that Sandarr had chosen caution over boldness and that choice had proved the smart one.
“Yes,” Grimarr said at last, feeling as if he had to say something. Like it or not, Sandarr was the only son left to him. “We may thank the gods that they were killed in honorable combat.”
Grimarr stared vacantly at Sea Rider as her immolation come to its end. The rigging was burned through and it fell snaking and flaming down onto the deck. The mast seemed to be tilting a bit, though it was hard to tell with the air distorted by the intense heat. And then the tilting became obvious, the mast leaning aft bit by bit until the momentum built and it came down like a felled tree, and a great burst of flame and sparks roared up in its wake.
The ship was lower in the water now and Grimarr guessed that the heat was opening up the seams. There could be little left but a charred shell, the earthly remains of her men turned into the spirits of the flames. She listed a bit toward Eagle’s Wing, revealing the flames still consuming her deck and thwarts, the wood glowing bright orange. Of her men there was nothing to be seen; the flames were too bright to reveal what lay beneath, and Grimarr was happy for that.
Sea Rider rolled a little further and she seemed to settle into the seas, like a tired man reclining on a soft bed. Inch by inch she went down, the water coming up her gracefully curved sides until just her sheer strake and her proud bow and stern could be seen. Then the water was over the strakes and with a great hiss and a cloud of steam Sea Rider slipped beneath the gray seas and was gone.
For a long moment more the men aboard Eagle’s Wing continued to stare at the place where Sea Rider had gone down, the swirling water, the bits of debris, some still burning, that floated above the spot. Grimarr imagined the blackened hull sinking down, down, settled soft onto the muddy bottom.
“Very well, let us get the oars out,” he growled, and slowly, quietly, the men pulled the oars down from the gallows and passed them along. Then from overhead, a young man named Otr called down to the deck. He was the most nimble of the crew and Grimarr sent him up regularly to search the horizon, because Grimarr did not care for surprises.
“What is it?” Grimarr asked.
“It’s a ship, Lord Grimarr,” Otr replied. “Some many miles away yet. But it seems to be making for us.”
Chapter Seven
A slaughter was inflicted on the foreigners at the islands of eastern Brega, and another slaughter of them at Ráith Alláin…
Annals of Ulster, 852
There was a dream that came to Lorcan mac Fáeláin every night, or nearly so. A golden chalice, heavy and bejeweled, sat on the top of a table. It was an arm’s length away, he had merely to reach out and take it up. There was no one around, no one to stop him. But when he stretched out his arm the chalice was just beyond his grip. He struggled and fought to extend his arm that last little bit but no matter what he did he could not grasp the prize.
Lorcan did not need a priest or a druid or any reader of dreams to tell him what it meant. It was clear enough, a truth that he lived every day.
Ruarc mac Brain’s authority grew weaker the more often he was gone, off with his little whore at Tara, where he now spent more time than he did at Líamhain, his seat of power in Leinster. The local rí túaithe were not happy about this, and Lorcan was able to exploit that fact. His influence was growing daily, thanks to his own strength and cunning. Rule of that part of Ireland could be Lorcan’s; it was there for the taking. Yet it remained just beyond reach. The frustration and anger Lorcan felt in his dream world was nothing compared to that which he felt when he was awake.
So close, so damned close!
The dubh-gall were a thorn in his side, but they had their uses, such as their sacking the monastery at Fearna which Lorcan intended to turn to his advantage. The loyalty of the rí túaithe could be had in many ways, but the easiest was to simply buy it with silver, and silver they had at Fearna in abundance. Lorcan had intended to sack the monastery himself, but when he received word that the dubh-gall were bound for that place he saw his opportunity. Let Grimarr Giant and Fasti Magnisson carry out the raid, then take the silver and gold from them. That would spare Lorcan any repercussions from preying on his fellow Irish (though it happened often enough he did not think there would be any great outcry) and enhance his reputation as one who would stand up to the heathens.
So damned close…
After the dubh-gall had finished with Fearna, Lorcan and his men followed the longships from the shore. Happily their progress was slow, the winds light and contrary. One of the ships, it seemed, had started taking on water, so the dubh-gall had beached it, and from his concealed spot Lorcan watched as all the plunder was loaded aboard the second vessel which sailed off on its own. This was too good, a gift from God. Lorcan had anticipated attacking both ships at once, resulting in a hard fight of evenly matched sides. But now it would be two to one.
Lorcan continued to follow the ship’s progress, watching every foot of her voyage - or so he thought. He had sprung his trap with perfect timing, had cut down the dubh-gall bastards as they came. He had personally split Fasti Magnisson’s skull like firewood and taken great pleasure in doing so. But the plunder from Fearna was not on board. Lorcan had not had the chance to tear the ship apart in his search, but he had seen enough to be sure it was not there.
Fasti must have stopped somewhere along the way and hidden it ashore. It was the only explanation. Where, though, Lorcan had no idea. The only ones who mig
ht have told him where it was were the Irishmen and women taken captive at Fearna. They must have been aboard when the treasure was hidden but Fasti’s men had killed them all as the curachs swarmed toward the longship.
Lorcan mac Fáeláin had raged over the missing plunder, and over the untimely arrival of Grimarr Giant. But Lorcan was not the sort of man who let rage slow him, nor did he temper it with drink or pointless vengeance or despondency. Rage only made Lorcan redouble his efforts, which was why, in his thirty-eight years on earth, he had risen from second son of an insignificant rí túaithe, a man no better than any of the bedraggled peasants he ostensibly commanded, to someone on the cusp of ruling over most of Leinster. He did not intend to stop there.
After failing to secure the Fearna treasure, Lorcan and his men returned to the ringfort at Ráth Naoi. The fort formed the epicenter of his rule, just a few miles to the northwest of the Viking longphort at Vík-ló. As soon as they had gained the shelter of the heavy-framed wattle and daub building with its high-pitched thatch roof that served as Lorcan’s hall, the only rectangular building in the ringfort, save for the small stone church, before they had even removed their soaked outer garments, Lorcan informed his men that those who had not been severely wounded during the attack on the longship would accompany him on a cattle raid once the worst of the storm was past. To the north, a prosperous farmer named Fearghus was offering some resistance to Lorcan’s growing influence. It was Lorcan’s intention to show him just why that was inadvisable.
The following day was spent in tending to the wounded, burying those who did not survive, and preparing for the raid. Dawn was still hours away when they set out the day after, the storm still near full strength. Twenty of Lorcan’s men, those most able and trusted - and least wounded - rose, ate, donned fur robes and hats, mail, helmets, and weapons. They knew better than to think Lorcan might postpone his raid for so minor a thing as a blinding storm, despite driving rain and wind that pulled at capes and beards.
The Lord of Vik-lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) Page 6