“Unn, get the iron,” Magnus said and one of his men drew a glowing hot iron from the fire, held it wavering in front of Kotkel’s face.
“The Crown means nothing to you,” Magnus said. “A trinket. Save your man’s life and yours as well and tell me where it is. I’ll even pay you for it.”
Thorgrim growled and struggled into a kneeling position. His mind moved in and out of reasoned thought as the rage took hold. “What crown, you whore’s son?”
Magnus turned to Kotkel. “Where is the crown?”
“I don’t know of any crown, you son of a bitch!” Kotkel gasped. Magnus nodded and Unn applied the hot iron to Kotkel’s face. The Viking shrieked, a horrible sound. The room filled with the smell of searing flesh and Thorgrim launched himself off the floor.
From his kneeling stance he pushed off and all but flew across the room, just as iron touched flesh and the sound of Kotkel’s agony masked every other sound. Thorgrim slammed into Magnus low on his back and knocking him into Unn, who held the iron. The three of them went down in a heap, but Thorgrim was up in a flash, snarling, lashing out with his feet. He caught Magnus in the jaw as the Dane tried to untangle himself, slammed his foot down on Unn’s leg, felt the bones break underfoot as Unn struggled to regain his feet.
Unn shrieked in pain, louder even then Kotkel. Magnus was half on his feet when Thorgrim lashed out again. Magus rolled out of the way of the kick, rolled right over the hot iron, came to his feet with his tunic on fire.
“You bastard!” Magnus shouted as he beat at the cloth. Thorgrim advanced on him again but now one of the other guards came forward, a big fist swinging around in an arc. Thorgrim ducked the blow, but with his hands bound up he could do no more, and the guard caught him with an uppercut from his right hand that lifted him from his feet and tossed him back on the packed dirt floor.
Thorgrim’s fight was over, with his hands tied behind his back, and his one shot at surprise spent. He spit a curse at Magnus, braced himself as Magnus delivered a jarring kick to his head. There was nothing more that he could do, beyond enduring the pain and twisting away as best he could from the direct impact of the blows. And soon he was too battered to even do that.
Magnus worked on him and the other guards worked on him, and then they paused and made him watch as they went after Kotkel, and that was the worst. Certainly Kotkel’s life wasn’t high on Thorgrim’s list of importance, still, Kotkel was his man, and to watch him twist in agony as the hot iron was applied, as his legs were broken under him, was worse than the pain of the beating he was enduring.
After a time they left Kotkel and returned to Thorgrim. They worked him until he passed out and then they doused him with water. When he was sufficiently awake they forced him to watch as they disemboweled Kotkel the Fierce, who screamed curses on the heads of the Danes until that last bit of life ran out of him and he hung limp over a pile of his own entrails. Then they turned on Thorgrim again.
Thorgrim had little doubt that he would be sharing Kotkel’s fate, and it was not long before he found himself wishing they would just get on with it. Consciousness was becoming more and more elusive - Thorgrim was not sure if he was among men or wolves now, if the blood he tasted in his mouth was his or that of something he had taken down. And just before he moved at last from the world of the fortress and the Danes to that of the woods and the pack, he heard Magnus say, “Enough. I don’t want him dead. Let him recover and we’ll talk to him again.”
Chapter Fourteen
Beware
of befriending
an enemy’s friend.
Hávamál
I
t was nearly a full day before Thorgrim was conscious again, and two more days before he was able to stand, and even that seemed incredible to Morrigan.
As Orm’s slave, and the only healer in the Viking longphort of Dubh-Linn, she had seen any number of men who had endured severe beatings. Few had been beaten like Thorgrim and lived. None had recovered as quickly.
She came three times each day to treat the prisoners and she no longer had to be secretive about it. Magnus did not want Thorgrim dead, and he convinced Orm that the Norwegian should be kept alive. Orm in turn ordered Morrigan to care for the men. It was an irony that Morrigan could appreciate.
She went to the market to buy the herbs she needed to restore the men’s health, to make the captives strong enough to endure further beatings. The sheep-herds, Donnel and Patrick and Flann mac Conaing, had sold nearly all of their sheep, but they remained in hopes of selling the last few. Anyone watching might have wondered why Morrigan had such an insatiable interest in sheep which she did not intend to buy. But no one was watching.
“Magnus has said nothing about the Crown, but I’m sure he thinks Thorgrim knows where it is,” she said in her soft Gaelic. She and Flann were leaning on the pen, looking at the sheep. Donnel and Patrick lurked about, keeping their eyes open for anyone taking an interest in Morrigan, but no one was.
“Do you think this Thorgrim has the Crown?”
“I don’t. If he had it, Magnus would have found it, and if he had he would certainly have killed Thorgrim by now. But I do think Thorgrim knows where it is.”
“Magnus has said nothing to Orm?”
“No. He’s playing some game. Perhaps he intends to keep the Crown himself. Or ransom it.”
“These fin gall are bastards. They won’t keep faith even with one another.”
The Irish, of course, were no better, raiding one another’s lands, enslaving fellow Irishmen, sacking the churches and monasteries of their own Christian faith. But Morrigan did not bother pointing out the hypocrisy of her brother’s outrage. There were more immediate concerns.
“Thorgrim is a strong one, as strong as any man I have seen. I reckon he’ll be ready soon.”
“We have little time. The danger grows with every minute. If Magnus or Orm beat us to the Crown, we are lost.”
“Tonight, then,” Morrigan said.
“Will he be ready?”
“Tonight.”
It was well past dark when Morrigan filled her basket and pulled her cloak over her shoulders. She moved to the door, trying to be quiet. She did not know if Orm was asleep. She did not want to wake him if he was, and did not want to speak to him if he was not.
She had her hand on the latch when the door to the sleeping room opened. “Where are you going?” Orm demanded.
Morrigan turned to him, but kept her head down, her eyes averted.
“I am going to tend to the prisoners, my lord.”
Orm grunted and crossed the room until he loomed over her. She thought that perhaps he was going to take her, right then, and she braced herself, but the Dane had other things on his mind.
“Why do you think Magnus is so concerned with the lives of a few Norwegians?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my lord. Except that he thinks they may have knowledge that would be useful to you.”
Orm grunted again. It was a sound that was hard to interpret. “If you hear anything, you let me know.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And don’t be all night with the prisoners. A waste of time, healing dead men.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Orm gave one last grunt, then turned and walked back to the sleeping room. Morrigan stared at his back, envisioned the dagger plunging in, then opened the door and stepped out into the dark. The little fortress was quiet. The guards at the gate and around the Norwegians’ cell stood lethargic and bored. A few windows glowed with lamp light. Even the usual din from the mead hall farther down the plank road was less impressive than usual.
The night was quiet and subdued, and that was good. It meant the dubh gall were not as alert as they might be. Morrigan brushed the cowl off her head, turned her face up to the sky. She felt the first drops of rain from the clouds that had been building all morning. That was even better.
She crossed the compound to the dining hall where the prisoners were kept. She was a familiar s
ight to the guards, even more so since she no longer had to be clandestine about her visits.
One of the guards leaned against the doorjamb, his spear propped up against the wall. He straightened as she approached and stepped over to her.
“Good evening, Morrigan.”
“Good evening.”
The guard held out his hand and Morrigan handed him the basket, a ritual they repeated three times a day. The guard peered into the basket, shuffled the linens and cobwebs and bottles around, feeling for any weapons hidden among the strange potions. He handed the basket back to Morrigan, nodded for her to enter.
She opened the door and stepped inside. As usual, the room was black save for the light of a single oil lantern that burned on the table. Morrigan looked around at the fifty or so men within.
Thorgrim was hunched against a wall in the far corner and Morrigan wondered why he was always sequestered away from the other men whenever she came after dark. He looked over as the door opened. Their eyes met and he stood. Moving was painful for him, she could see that, but still his motion was smooth and strong.
Ornolf was up as well, sitting at the table, having mostly recovered from his beating. Morrigan could only marvel at the strength and endurance of the Northmen.
Thorgrim took up the lamp and accompanied Morrigan over to her first patient. It was their routine now. She had tried to look after Thorgrim first, right after his encounter with Magnus, but he would not stand for it.
Olvir Yellowbeard’s wound was mending nicely, and the yarrow had killed the rot before the rot killed Olvir Yellowbeard. The one called Giant-Bjorn was still alive, how, Morrigan did not know. In fact, she was starting to think he might live, and she was happy to think her healing arts might have had something to do with it, but she knew in truth it was mostly the Viking’s inhuman strength.
There were fewer patients now. Ornolf needed no further care, though she gave him herbal wine and yarrow mead out of kindness. Two others were also healed enough to require no treatment.
“And this one?” Thorgrim nodded to the boy near the corner. They knelt beside him. He was still wet with sweat and restless, his face flushed.
“The fever still has him.”
“I see,” Thorgrim said. There was a feigned disinterest in his voice, and it did not fool Morrigan. As she treated the boy, she could not help but see how much his looks favored Thorgrim. They were not built the same - the boy was more broad and stout - but around the eyes and the mouth there was a great similarity. And the nose.
“What is his name?”
“Harald.” Thorgrim was straining to keep any feeling from his words. Morrigan could hear it in his voice.
“Harald is still in danger. But he is strong, like all you fin gall, and he is young, which is in his favor.” She pulled a bottle of yarrow mead from her basket. “Help me.”
Thorgrim shuffled closer and held Harald’s head up as Morrigan tipped the bottle to his lips. She had never said a word to young Harald, he had been delirious or unconscious every moment she had known him, but still she had taken a liking to the young man. There was something honest about his face, a lack of cunning that she found refreshing. It would take young men like this, fin gall who might accept the love of Christ, to bring the Viking slaughter to an end.
“Good.” They eased Harald’s head back onto the blankets. Morrigan looked around the room. Everything ten feet or more beyond the flame of the lamp was lost in darkness. There were no guards. They did not like to be in among so many of their enemies.
“Come here, let me look at you,” she said to Thorgrim and Thorgrim came over to her, kneeling beside her. Morrigan held the lamp close as she examined Thorgrim’s various bruises and wounds. She poked at a wicked laceration along his arm. “Mending nicely,” she said.
She emptied the contents of her basket and made up a yarrow poultice and wrapped it around his arm. She opened the basket’s false bottom and with a nod told Thorgrim to look. The dozen daggers hidden there gleamed in the flame of the lamp.
Thorgrim looked down at them, then up at Morrigan. He said nothing.
“Orm will kill you all if you don’t escape,” Morrigan said, breathing the words. “I can do no more for you than this.”
“We need no more than that,” Thorgrim said, nodding to the weapons. “But why are you doing this? There is nothing you Irish love more than to see us Norsemen kill each other.”
“I have healed your men. I don’t want to see them killed. Besides, I’m a Christian. I can’t stand by as innocent men are butchered.”
Thorgrim smiled, a thing Morrigan had rarely seen, and she knew her words would not fool this one.
“You must think I’m a child, like Harald,” Thorgrim said. “Since when do you look on any of us Vikings as ‘innocent men’?”
They heard a grunt, like an animal waking up, and the sound of goatskin shoes on the hard-packed floor. Ornolf the Restless came lumbering over, and with some effort knelt beside Morrigan.
“What’s all this talk?” he asked. “Is it about Harald?”
Morrigan studied his face. Ornolf had expressed no concern over any of the others. Why is the jarl Ornolf concerned about young Harald?
“Morrigan has brought us these,” Thorgrim said, nodding toward the basket. Ornolf leaned over and looked down and his face brightened like the sun breaking through clouds.
“Sweet Odin!” he said, though he had sense enough to speak no louder than a whisper. “We’ll butcher them all!”
“I would know why she brings us this gift,” Thorgrim said. Morrigan could see his mood darkening.
“Why?” Ornolf said, louder than Morrigan thought was prudent. “Who gives a damn why?”
“Because it might be a trap.”
“Trap? Ha!” Ornolf said. “That bastard Orm is going to string us up and pull our guts out with a hook! Who cares if it’s a trap?”
Thorgrim scowled. Morrigan said nothing. But they both knew that Ornolf had hit on the truth of the thing. The Norwegians were dead men, and they faced the worst kind or death, bound up like swine and horribly butchered for the amusement of the Danes. She offered them a chance to escape, or barring that, the chance to die with weapons in their hands. There was no need for debate.
“You must go tonight,” Morrigan said.
“We go tonight,” Ornolf assured her.
Chapter Fifteen
One may know your secret
never a second.
If three, a thousand will know.
Hávamál
T
horgrim Night Wolf pressed one hand against the thatch of the ceiling to steady himself and worked the blade of the dagger into the dried reeds. He was standing on the back of Skeggi Kalfsson, who was on hands and knees on the table. Skeggi’s back was so broad and solid that Thorgrim might as well have been standing on the table itself.
Thorgrim slashed sideways. The thatch gave way before the razor edge of the knife, falling like soft rain on the table and Skeggi below.
“Another,” Thorgrim said softly and Snorri Half-troll handed him a new knife as the edge on the old one grew dull. Thorgrim worked at the thatch as quiet as he could, though even he could barely hear the sound of the blade over the beating of the rain that had begun to fall.
More thatch fell and Thorgrim could feel rainwater seeping thought the remaining layers. “Put the lamp out,” he whispered and someone snuffed out the flame. Thorgrim sliced away at the remaining reeds and they fell away and he smelled the fresh night air and felt the cool rain on his face.
He tapped on Skeggi’s back with his toe. Slowly Skeggi raised himself to his knees as Thorgrim stepped onto his shoulders, then Skeggi pushed himself to his feet, easing Thorgrim up and out the hole he had just cut in the roof.
It was raining hard and the thatch was slick. Thorgrim thrust his knife in among the reeds and used it as a hand-hold to keep from sliding off, and when he knew he was secure he looked around.
There were always half a
dozen guards encircling the dining hall, but he could seen none of them now. They were huddled under the eaves of the roof, he guessed, seeking what shelter they could find. The fortress gate was barely visible through the night and the rain. There were guards there as well, Thorgrim was certain of it, but he could not see them either.
He rolled on his stomach, his hand still gripping his knife, the rain beating hard on his tunic and head, running in rivulets through his beard. He put his head down into the hole he had cut. “Come on,” whispered.
Snorri Half-troll’s head appeared through the hole and he was lifted up on Skeggi’s strong back. He climbed swiftly onto the roof, scampering away, driving his knife into the thatch as he moved, as if trying to murder the prison itself. One after another the men came through the hole until there were six in all, half a dozen gleaming daggers, the other six held in ready in the room below.
The men spread themselves along the roof and then the little burst of movement was over and it was still again, the rain driving down hard on the longphort of Dubh-Linn, as if holding the town under its palm.
Thorgrim looked around. He clenched the hilt of the dagger in his hand, felt every muscle taut and ready. The lingering pain from his beating was gone, those places on his body that had been tender and sore were burning hot and pulsing with energy. He was the predator now, and his pack was on the hunt.
He looked left and right. The men were watching him, waiting. He nodded his head and pulled the dagger from the thatch, felt himself begin to slide down the pitched roof. Left and right his men did the same, pushing themselves ever so slightly as they slid down the slick thatch.
The edge of the roof was a black line with even deeper blackness beyond, the edge of the void, and on the other side was a fight to the death. Thorgrim could feel the wildness building. His feet came off the thatch and he pushed off and jumped for the ground he could not see, hit it and went down into a crouch, felt the mud and water splash up against his face.
Fin Gall (The Norsemen) Page 9