Glendalough Fair

by James L. Nelson

  The activity swirling around the upcoming Glendalough Fair was no less incredible. He had been at the monastery for more than twelve months and so had been there for the fair the year before, but he could recall none of it. He had been so stunned by his sudden reversal of fortune – from Frankish prince and commander of men to a penniless and orphaned novitiate in the course of a month, exiled to the far end of the earth - that he had been hardly aware of anything going on around him.

  That was no longer the case. Now, after a long winter at the monastery, during which nothing seemed to happen, where the days ground on in their tedious routine, now he was very aware of any change in circumstance, and he was astounded by what he saw.

  Incredible, too, were the men under his command. They were the most astounding collection of bumblers and half-wits and cripples that he had ever seen, more like a leper colony, he thought, than a force of fighting men.

  At that particular moment he was ignoring them. His attention had been drawn to a wagon pulled by two big horses and making its way down Glendalough’s main road. It was loaded with something covered by a cloth and, though it was a good quarter mile away, Louis was certain there were at least two women perched on top of whatever it carried. He had a good eye for such things.

  Whores? he wondered. That would certainly be a new thing in Glendalough, a welcome thing, he thought. But they would not be the first to arrive. Lochlánn, he was certain, had already found some of their profession during his late night excursion.

  The little whore-monger, he thought, but that was no pejorative in Louis’ opinion.

  Incredible.

  He turned his attention away from the wagon and back to the men arrayed before him.

  “Take up your spears!” Louis called and the hundred or so men slouching on the field raised their long, iron-tipped shafts and held them at their sides like walking sticks. Spears were the weapons he had chosen for them, spears to be used as pole arms. They would not be thrown. If this bunch threw their spears they would simply miss their enemy while disarming themselves.

  In the short time he had for training, Louis knew that pole weapons were the only thing they might master well enough to be more of a danger to an enemy than to themselves. Most of the men, he was happy to see, had received some training in the past, though none as far as he could tell had ever been in an actual battle.

  “Spears down!” A hundred spears went from the vertical to the horizontal.

  “Step and guard!” Louis called and the men stepped forward and the butt end of their spears swung around, deflecting an imaginary blow. Several men tripped and fell. Several others struck their neighbors. One who was struck cursed and tossed his spear aside and grabbed the offending man by the neck as others rushed in to pull him off.

  If you want to hurt the bastard, why did you throw your weapon away? Louis wondered. It was not a hopeful sign that the man’s first impulse was to drop his spear, but Louis knew better than to say as much out loud. He did not want to put ideas in the men’s heads.

  An hour after leaving Colman’s pavilion, Louis had taken up the work of training these men. The fellow he had seen drilling them before turned out to be a captain named Aileran, an old campaigner and a man who knew his business. Aileran had been working with the conscripts for days, and he had little enthusiasm left for teaching farmers the ways of the soldier, and so he was more than ready to hand that work over to Louis.

  “These sorry bastards are useless enough on a good day,” Aileran explained as he gave the men five minutes to fall to the ground and gulp air. “Last night a wine merchant got into their camp, one of these dogs that’s come for the fair. Took what silver they had in exchange for the piss he called wine. Enough to get them all stinking drunk. So they’re in fine shape today, I can tell you.”

  Aileran had walked away in disgust. Louis ordered the men to their feet. He did not introduce himself. Men such as these, he knew, would respond to a proper tone of authority, and it would keep them on edge wondering who this new man was, a man who spoke with a Frankish accent, who assumed command and expected to be obeyed.

  “And thrust!” The spears came back to their original horizontal position and were driven into the bellies of imaginary heathens. Louis doubted that actual heathens would be killed by such slow and clumsy movements. He had killed many heathens himself and he knew they took more killing than that.

  Beyond where the farmers were training in two long lines, about seventy men-at-arms were drilling with sword, shield and ax, the weapons of experienced warriors. It was to this company that Aileran had returned after abandoning Louis to the bóaire and fuidir. These were the real fighting men of Glendalough, the house guards of the various wealthy lords. They had been sent by command of the rí túaithe to serve at the pleasure of Colman mac Breandan, and so, by default, at the pleasure of Louis de Roumois.

  Louis allowed himself a few seconds to watch their practice, the smooth interplay of shield and sword as they sparred one on one under Aileran’s supervision.

  The sight of those men stirred an odd mix of emotions in Louis’s breast. They were warriors, his people. It did not matter that they were Irish; they were Christians like him and the bond of fighting men was stronger than that of the land from which they came. He wanted to join them, to train with them and prepare for real fighting. It had been so long since he had donned sword and mail, and while his muscles still remembered the lessons they had learned he did not feel the confidence he once had.

  He found it humiliating to be drilling the buffoon farmers when there were real men-at-arms with whom to work. He knew that Father Finnian and the abbot and the rí túaithe expected him to lead these men, all of them. They were looking to him to beat back the heathen invaders. He could not do that if the farmers who made up most of his troops were completely hopeless.

  But neither could he lead the men-at-arms if they did not know him and respect him.

  Maybe I’ll go spar with one of them, put him down in the dirt, Louis thought. That would do wonders to gain their respect.

  “Brother Louis?”

  Louis turned at the sound of his name. Brother Lochlánn was there but Louis did not recognize him directly. The young man had abandoned his monk’s robe and now wore a tunic and mail shirt, a sword belt buckled around his waist.

  “Brother Lochlánn…” Louis said, and before he could even ask the obvious question, Lochlánn answered it.

  “It was Brother Gilla Patraic,” Lochlánn explained. “He said you would need someone to help you. He said I was to do it.” His tone was an odd mix of confusion and embarrassment. “To be honest, I think Father Finnian told Brother Gilla Patraic to do it. Brother Gilla Patraic did not seem very happy about it at all.”

  “That sounds like the way of things,” Louis said. Two days earlier Louis would have sent Lochlánn running with a swift kick to the hind quarters, but after all that had happened he was coming to like the boy. And Lochlánn in turn seemed to have abandoned his arrogant, swaggering manner. “Did Brother Gilla Patraic provide you with the mail and weapon?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Lochlánn said. “It’s mine…I brought it with me. To the monastery. My father didn’t know.”

  Louis nodded. The boy must come from a family of some means. That would explain the rudimentary weapons training. Packed off to a monastary against his will, Louis thought. He was liking the boy more and more.

  “Very well,” Louis said, “get these men up and back to their drills.” He gave a quick jerk of his head toward the waiting men, the spear-bearing farmers who had taken advantage of Louis’ distraction to stop and lean on their spears. Some had even collapsed to the ground.

  Lochlánn squinted. “What, me? They don’t know who I am. Why would they listen to me?”

  “They’ll listen,” Louis said, “because you are wearing mail and a sword, and you will speak to them like you expect to be listened to. Don’t hesitate, don’t show any want of confidence. Speak like you were the king
of all Ireland.”

  Lochlánn nodded. He considered what he would say and how he would say it. He turned to the soldiers in training. “You men, pray let us get back to our drills!” Not the way Louis would have phrased it, and Lochlánn’s voice nearly cracked, but his tone was commanding enough that the men obeyed, though with less snap than Louis would have liked to see.

  “Well done, Brother Lochlánn,” Louis said in a voice low enough that only they could hear. He turned back to the farmers. “Back and guard! With the butt end, thrust!”

  For another twenty minutes Louis ran the men through various drills; thrusting, blocking, forming a defensive line. The practice was aimed as much at training them to hear and obey commands without hesitation as it was to build proficiency with their weapons.

  “That’s good,” Louis shouted when he could bear no more. “Pair off, drill some, one on one. Try not to wound one another this time!” The farmers lowered their spears and slowly organized themselves into pairs, taking their time so that they might get a respite from the training and some relief for their aching heads.

  “Brother Louis, have your heard from Father Finnian at all?” Brother Lochlánn asked as they stood side by side watching the new-made soldiers take the first desultory swipes at their partners.

  “No, nothing yet,” Louis said. Finnian had left the day after asking Louis to take up this duty, off to Líamhain to beg more men-at-arms from Ruarc mac Brain. He had urged Louis to begin training, to not delay. At the same time he asked that Louis keep the threat of the heathens to himself. Finnian did not want to start a panic. Louis suspected that was mostly because he did not want to jeopardize the success of the Glendalough Fair.

  “You know…Lochlánn,” Louis said. “I wonder if we might leave off the ‘Brother’ when we address one another. We must act as men-at-arms now, not men of God. Not that the two cannot exist together.”

  “Of course they can, we are warriors for God,” Lochlánn said. “But how shall I address you? Sure, I cannot call you ‘Louis’, your position is far too much above mine for that.”

  “A good question,” Louis said. The boy was embracing humility and deference to rank faster than Louis would ever have hoped. “I am not sure…I am still new to your language and have not had the chance to learn the words your soldiers use. I’m not sure how I should be addressed.”

  But in truth Louis was sure. He should have been addressed as ‘Lord’. His status, his real status, not that of a novitiate at Glendalough, was far above Lochlánn’s, far above Finnian’s or the abbot’s or Colman mac Breandan or even the local rí túaithe. He was the son of a count of a Frankish kingdom and he ranked far above any of the petty pretenders to nobility in that great cow pasture called Ireland.

  But he also had sense enough to not insist that his true position be recognized or acknowledged.

  “What would be appropriate?” Louis asked. “I am not the leader of these men, you know, Colman mac Breandan is.”

  “But you are second to him, and beside, Father Finnian says you are to have the real command, and we may thank God for it. What if we called you ‘Captain’? Captain Louis de Roumois?”

  Louis considered that. It had the right tone; martial, authoritarian, it spoke of rank earned through experience and not simply given because of social standing.

  “Very well, you may call me ‘Captain Louis de Roumois.’”

  Their conversation had been punctuated by the sound of spear shafts cracking against one another and the grunt of men struggling through their drills, but now a shout of outrage drowned that all out. Louis and Lochlánn turned to see one of the farmers on the ground, his right hand clamped over his left arm, blood spilling from between his fingers. The training had stopped as all eyes were on the wounded man.

  Without a word, the bleeding man climbed to his feet, snatching up his fallen spear as he did, and before he was fully upright he swung the spear and hit his opposite number on the side of the head. The man went down like his bones were gone and then suddenly everyone was in motion, some swinging at others or clubbing with the butt ends of their spears, some ducking, some trying to break up the fighting men.

  Louis and Lochlánn watched the melee. They did not try to interfere. The men-at-arms had also stopped drilling and now stood at a distance taking in the fun.

  “There’s nothing an Irishman likes more than a good fight,” Lochlánn explained. “But they like fighting one another more than they like fighting the heathens.”

  The two of them watched for a minute more. There seemed to be no order to the brawl, no one faction against another, but rather every man trying to get his licks in. No one had impaled anyone else on a spear point, at least, and Louis took some comfort in that.

  Then Louis heard one of the farmers yell, “Lord Colman!” It was not a greeting but a warning to the others. Louis turned. Colman mac Breandan had come up behind him, on horseback no less, and with the soft ground and the chaos on the field Louis had not even heard him.

  One by one the fighting men left off the brawl and stood or lay where they were, huffing for breath and looking up at their mounted superior. Colman spoke, the sound of his voice more grating to Louis than the worst screeching of a rusted door hinge. “Very well done, Brother Louis. These are some real fighting men you’ve trained here.”

  Failend was behind him, mounted on a horse of her own. In the light of day the bruise on her face was painfully visible, black and purple and red. She wore no expression at all, or nearly none. Only someone who knew her well would have seen the disgust and contempt beneath the immobile mask of her face.

  “I’m glad you approve,” Louis said, but Colman had not missed his glance toward Failend.

  “Are you surprised to see her with me, Brother Louis?” Colman asked. “I dare not let the whore out of my sight. She might hump half of Glendalough in the time it takes me to come out here and see what a failure your efforts are.”

  “Brother Louis is now addressed as ‘Captain’, Lord Colman,” Lochlánn said helpfully before Louis had a chance to stop him.

  “Oh, ‘Captain’ is it?” Colman said, amused. “Not Lord High Admiral or something more befitting your exalted place?”

  “‘Captain’ will do,” Louis said, once again trying and failing to put enough irony into the reply to annoy Colman.

  “That is ‘will do, my lord,’” Colman corrected. “No doubt in Frankia you too would be called ‘Lord’ or ‘Highness’ or some such,” he continued. “But of course we are not in Frankia. For some unknown reason you have been exiled from your beloved land and now you are just some sorry little nothing in an Irish monastery. Pray, why is it you can’t go back to Frankia?”

  Louis glared at Colman, Colman returned the look with one of amusement. Louis wondered how much of his past was known to the man. Father Finnian seemed to know quite a bit. Had he shared it with Colman? Finnian had never struck Louis as a man who told tales.

  But he must have told Colman something. Finnian had convinced Colman to give Louis command of the men being rallied to fight the heathens, and he would have had to offer a reason as to why that was a good idea. Louis had reasonably expected Colman to make loud and vocal objections, but so far there was nothing beyond the smirking condescension. Louis found himself at once relieved and suspicious.

  “In any event, my lord,” Louis said, “it is good to see you have finished with your breakfast at long last. Have you come to train with

  the men?”

  “Train?” Colman said. “Dear God, no. I have come to tell you we have word from the coast, and that word is that the heathens have arrived at the River Avoca.”

  “Arrived at the river?” Louis asked.

  “Some pathetic fishing village was sacked,” Colman said. “Most likely by fin gall. Maybe Frankish marauders. All those godless savages from across the sea are one and the same to me.”

  “And they are coming up river?” Louis asked, his irritation forgotten in the light of this news. />
  “Yes, that is what heathens do,” Colman said. “We would not concern ourselves with them otherwise. I trust your men are ready to march forth and meet them?”

  Ready? Louis thought. Two months of this training and then perhaps they would be near ready.

  “Yes, Lord Colman, they are ready,” Louis said.

  That claim was demonstrably nonsense and Colman chuckled. “I am pleased to hear it,” he said. “We’ll begin our march in two hours’ time. We can cover five miles by nightfall, I should think.”

  You can, you fat bastard, you’re on a horse, Louis thought. What of these other poor, half-drunk whores’ sons? But he said nothing. He wanted to get these men moving. He knew that the further from Glendalough that they checked the heathens’ advance the better.

  Colman ran his eyes over the sorry looking troops spread out before him. “If we’re lucky,” he added, “the fin gall will find themselves tripping over the corpses of these miserable creatures. Maybe that will stall them long enough for the real men-at-arms to do their work.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Do not be the first to kill

  nor provoke into fight

  the gods who answer in battle.

  Gisli Sursson’s Saga

  The current in the river was not with them, but neither was it running hard against them, and that was something for which to be thankful.

  Thorgrim Night Wolf stood at the forward end of Sea Hammer’s afterdeck, his eyes moving over the river bank like a hawk on a lift of air watching a field below. He took note of the reeds, half their length buried in the water, but still tall enough to reach up into the air. They stood up right now, whereas the day before they had leaned downstream, as if pointing the way back to the sea and safety. Then, the men at the oars had been fighting the current, the work hard, the progress slow.

  It was different now. Thorgrim guessed that some miles behind them, past the village of the dead, the sea tide was on the rise and it was pushing water up the River Avoca, forcing the current to a standstill, river and sea like the shield walls of two armies shoving against one another. Like all good things, it would not last. In another few hours they would be fighting the current again. But for now it was a relief and it was welcome.