Fin Gall (The Norsemen)

by James L. Nelson

  Brigit lowered the basket. She nodded, and walked off. She felt in charge, in control, for the first time since the fight with the guards that morning. It was a good feeling. Brigit was used to being in control, and she liked it.

  The source of the smoke was a mile away, at least, hidden behind a low hill. Brigit and Harald crossed the open ground that ran up the hill, and then suddenly, as they neared the crest, they saw spread out below them a river, gray under the thick clouds and fog.

  They both stopped, surprised by this unexpected sight. It was not a stream, but a substantial stretch of water, half a mile wide, and rolling along to the eastward, its surface broken and confused in the rain.

  “Boyne,” Brigit said, pointing, for this had to be the River Boyne. There were no others this substantial within a day’s walk of Tara.

  “Boyne,” Harald said, nodding and smiling. The sight of water seemed to have cheered him greatly. Brigit wondered if he understood that Boyne was the river’s name, and not the Irish word for river.

  Not that it mattered in the least. Nor did the sight of the river distract her long from her goal of reaching the house beyond.

  “Come along,” she said to Harald and walked off with her young Viking following behind.

  The hill rolled down to the water, and the house stood in a clearing near the bank. It was low and stone-built, round with a high-peaked thatch roof, like a hundred poor homes in Ireland. The land around the house was trampled into mud. A big hide-covered boat was pulled up on shore. Nets were hung out on stakes, presumably to dry, though there was little chance of that.

  Fishermen... Brigit thought. She could smell fish and wood smoke and animals. She tried to picture in her mind the humble, honest fishing family that lived there, good Christian people eager to help strangers at their door. Or so she desperately hoped.

  A thin and mangy dog was laying by the doorway and it stood and growled as Brigit and Harald stepped into the trampled yard. The growl turned to a full-throated bark as they approached and he bounded away from the house, racing for them. Brigit saw Harald tense, saw him bring one of the spears up to a fighting grip, when the dog reached the end of its tether and jerked back violently into the mud.

  Brigit swallowed hard. No matter what sort of people these are, they will take Harald for a monk and won’t dare harm us for that, she thought.

  They moved closer, ten feet from where the dog strained at the end of his rope, barking like mad.

  “Is anyone there?” Brigit called, trying to make her voice heard over the ferocious barking. “Anyone there?”

  It was a full minute before the wooden door creaked open and a man stepped out, a big man, so tall that he had to stoop to make his head clear the lintel. He stepped out into the yard and looked at them. He wore a filthy, mud-caked tunic. His beard and hair were wild. He looked more a bandit than a humble fisherman.

  “I’m Brigit...” Brigit called out, but the man did not seem to hear. Then a second man stepped out for the house and he looked to be a twin of the first, just as big and filthy. They looked at her with a mix of surprise, curiosity, and something else she did not care for.

  Brigit felt her stomach knot up and she sensed Harald tense as well.

  Perhaps we should just leave, Brigit thought. She took a step back then turned. There was a third man, older than the first two but just as big. He was standing a perch behind them. There was a long club in his hand. Brigit had no notion of how he got there.

  “I am Brigit, and my father is your king, Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid!” she shouted, and that garnered some reaction at least, a faint smile on the lips of one of the twins. He stepped off, circling around to the right. He reached behind him and from an unseen sheath drew a long, heavy bladed knife.

  Harald drove the point of one of the spears down into the mud so it stood upright, quivering, and he held the other in his right hand. Brigit spared him a glance. His blue eyes were everywhere, moving from one man to the next, and he half turned so he could keep an eye on the man behind. If he felt any of the panic that she did, she could not see it on his face. He looked...intent. He did not look frightened.

  Then the man by the door leaned over and with a jerk of the bitter end released the rope that held the dog back. The animal nearly fell head over heels as it bounded away, free, trailing the rope, eyes wide, it’s lips pulled back to reveal its vicious teeth, spittle trailing as it ran, charging right at Brigit.

  Brigit screamed, hands over her face, twisting away as the dog became airborne, leaping at her throat. And then the barking changed in an instant to a howl of pain, a pathetic whimper, and Brigit opened her eyes to see the animal twisting on the ground, impaled on Harald’s spear.

  The twin with the knife howled in rage and charged, blind and senseless. Brigit felt Harald’s arm push her aside as he stepped up, arm cocked, and launched the remaining spear at the man’s chest. Man and spear met ten feet from where Brigit stood and the impact of the missile made him stagger, but did not halt his charge. Brigit screamed again but Harald just stood in front of her, shielding her, as the man stumbled and fell dead at their feet.

  Harald leapt over his body, grabbed the shaft of the spear that had killed the dog and pulled it free, whirling around with the iron point level. The other two were advancing from opposite directions, but carefully, unwilling to make the same stupid, fatal mistake the first had made.

  Harald backed away, keeping himself between Brigit and the two men moving toward them. The older one had his club held high, and the remaining twin now held a knife like his brother had.

  “Did you hear what I said?” Brigit shouted in frustration. “I am the daughter of Máel Sechnaill! He will reward you if you help me!”

  Why do they not even speak?

  The one with the club moved in, stepping quick, while the other circled around, so that Harald could not watch them both.

  “Harald!” Brigit warned. “Watch behind!” There was a branch, four feet long and thick around as Brigit’s arm, on the ground where someone had been cutting wood. She picked it up and held it like a club.

  She turned to look back at Harald. The man with the club was no more than ten paces away. Harald shouted, the first sound from his throat, a wild battle cry. He cocked his arm and then hurled the spear forward. The older man twisted sideways and then back, a look of triumph on his face that he had avoided the weapon.

  And then the look was gone as he and Brigit, in the same instant, realized that Harald had not actually thrown the spear at all, had only pretended to, and in that fleeting second of the man’s confusion Harald threw the weapon for real. The iron point found it’s mark in the man’s chest, knocking him back so he fell flat in the mud, twisting in agony, screaming and clawing at the spear shaft.

  Harald whirled around, in his hands the knives taken from the guards at Tara, just as the third man charged. The Irishman was a good foot taller than Harald and a hundred pounds heavier, and he came on like an enraged animal, eyes on Harald. He did not see Brigit swing the branch in her hand, seemed unaware of her until the branch slammed into his shins and he stumbled, eyes wide, and Harald slashed his throat open as he fell.

  He went face down in the mud. His hands clawed at the brown ooze but he made no sound. Harald and Brigit stood over him, gasping for breath. And then his hands stopped and he did not move again.

  Harald looked up at Brigit, and as his breath returned he nodded his head and smiled. Brigit smiled back, a weak effort, then turned around, bent double, and vomited.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Spying and prying

  the predator eagle

  approaches the ocean.

  Hávamál

  T

  his fog is a good thing, Thorgrim thought. We are lucky to have it...

  He looked warily over the Red Dragon’s gunnels, half a cable length over the water to where everything was lost in the thick, white mist.

  We just need to keep a sharp eye out for rocks and such, he
thought. There were navigational hazards in the fog. And there were evil spirits as well that hid in the mist, and Thorgrim knew that it was those that were truly worrisome.

  He was not the only one glancing nervously out into the fog. He could see men all along the deck look up now and then and stare outboard. Once they heard something splash in the water nearby and every head jerked up at once. Some of the men gasped. Thorgrim thought Svein the Short might even have wet his trousers.

  The Norsemen did not like fog.

  Happily, most of the men on board the Red Dragon had something to occupy themselves. Ever since the longship had put to sea for the second time that morning, now loaded with all the plunder of the baggage train, the men had been working at tearing the tents apart and reassembling the fabric into a sail.

  They went at the seams with knives, cutting them up into their individual panels, and then Thorgrim assembled the panels on the deck, trying them first one way and then another until at last he had come up with the best arrangement. Then the men took up awls, needles and sinew thread and began to furiously stitch as the longship wallowed in the milky netherworld.

  Thorgrim fingered a corner of the sail and tried to distract himself. It was waxed linen, and not as heavy as he would have liked. Nor did they have extra cordage to sew diagonal reinforcements onto the sail, as they would if they were building a new one. It was not ideal, but it would hold up to a moderate breeze and drive the longship much faster than anyone following on horseback could travel.

  He wanted to order the men to sew faster. Every moment that Harald was out there, someplace where Thorgrim could not protect him, was agony, a slow, burning agony. It was torment enough to have his progress toward his son slowed to the pace of the longship under oar. To be wallowing motionless in the spirit-bound fog was nearly unendurable.

  But the men were stitching as fast as they could, and there was nothing for Thorgrim to do there, so he dropped the fabric and walked back to the afterdeck. The driving rain had tapered off to a drizzle. Ornolf was sitting on a sea chest, drinking the mead liberated from the Irish.

  “The men will not be pleased if you drink that all,” Thorgrim said.

  “Ha! Even Ornolf could not drink this all!” he said. “Well, perhaps I could.”

  Thorgrim leaned on the impotent tiller and tried not to look out into the fog. Morrigan threaded her way through the men and came aft.

  “Come, have a drink with Ornolf, my darling!” Ornolf roared but Morrigan pretended he was not there.

  “I perceive the men are worried,” Morrigan said to Thorgrim in a low voice. “Is there something wrong?”

  “It’s the fog.”

  “What of the fog?”

  “It makes the navigation hard when you can’t see the shore. There could be rocks, or such.”

  Morrigan nodded. Thorgrim didn’t tell her about the evil spirits. He wasn’t sure she would believe him. He fingered the cross and the hammer of Thor around his neck.

  “Will you be able to find the place where the crown was hidden?”

  “Yes. And then what?”

  “We bring the crown to the man whom God has deemed should wear it. Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid.”

  “How? Over land? There is an army ashore, waiting for us.”

  “Somewhere north of here, not far, there’s a river that runs into the heart of Ireland. The River Boyne. It will take us to within a day’s walk of Tara.”

  Thorgrim nodded. The longships were shallow draft, in part so that they could work their way up rivers and allow the Vikings to raid far inland. If they could get to Harald by water, that would be a good thing. The Vikings were always more comfortable on water.

  Forward, Sigurd Sow and Snorri Half-troll, working opposite ends of the head of the sail, stood and pulled the fabric taut. Thorgrim straightened. The stitching was done. The sail was an ugly, misshapen thing, an embarrassment for a lovely longship like the Red Dragon, but it was a sail, a functional sail, and it was much, much better than nothing.

  “Come, let us bend that on!” Thorgrim shouted, stepping forward, desperately glad to have some seamanlike challenge to occupy his thoughts.

  In short order the head of the sail was lashed to the yard, the sheets and bowlines rigged. Thorgrim thanked Thor and Odin for tricking the Danes into leaving the rigging when they stripped Red Dragon of her sail. The best sail in the world would have been useless without it.

  Thorgrim looked fore and aft. All was ready. He nodded his head and the men at the mast hauled away on the halyard, and foot by foot the yard jerked up the mast, and the sail spread to the soft, wet breeze.

  “Sheet home! Haul away, your lee brace!” Thorgrim cried. The long tapered yard swung around. The sail fluttered, collapsed, then filled to the wind. The Red Dragon heeled over, just a bit, heeled and stayed heeled under the pressure of the sail. The men were silent. Then up from below, from the place where hull met water, came a soft gurgling sound, a murmur, the gentle noise of water rushing past. The Red Dragon was alive once more.

  Thorgrim looked with delight at the curve of the sail, and while the ugly thing would have horrified him in the past, now it was the most beautiful thing he had seen. His eyes moved down the mast and then outboard. Around the edge of the old tents he could see the longship’s dragon head, returned to its rightful place on the bow.

  And beyond that, only whiteness, and Thorgrim felt the old anxiety return. They were underway, to be sure, plowing a wake though the gray sea. But they were sailing blind, and into what, only the gods could tell.

  Cormac Ua Ruairc was in an absolute fury. Even Niall Cuarán, whom Magnus had decided Cormac was buggering, seemed to shy away from the ruiri of Gailenga.

  They were standing among the wet and bloated dead at the site of the ambush. Cormac was kicking the corpse of Vestein Osvifsson, still face down in the mud. He was shrieking in a weird, high-pitched voice. He was shrieking in his native Gaelic, and by the look on Niall’s face, Magnus was glad he did not understand the words.

  At last Cormac left off kicking the dead man and rounded on Magnus. “Bandits? You think bandits did this?”

  Magnus shrugged. “Who else?”

  “Who else? You stupid... Damned peasant bandits with sticks and clubs could not have done this! Armed men! Trained men! That’s who did this!”

  “Perhaps it is Máel Sechnaill,” Magnus suggested. “Perhaps he knows you are loose in his kingdom, and he is hunting you down.”

  Magnus did not really believe it, but he knew the idea would shake Cormac up and he was right. The Irishman paused, his eyes went wide with the thought, and then he shook his head, as if trying to fling the idea away with the water that whipped from his hair.

  “That whore’s son Máel Sechnaill did not do this! If he was here we would be fighting him right now, and your filthy guts would be in a pile at your feet!”

  Cormac swung himself up on his horse again, walked the animal down the road to where the wagon tracks rolled out of the mud and onto the green field. “Did you follow these tracks, see where they led?”

  Magnus shook his head. “No. I have bigger concerns than wondering who stole your precious tent. So do you.”

  “Do not tell me my business, you sheep-biting dubh gall.” With his eyes on the sodden ground, Cormac began to ride along the tracks made by the wagons’ wheels, the track Magnus had followed just a few hours before.

  Magnus had done everything he could to discourage Cormac from examining the sight of the ambush. As it was, their “partnership” was not working out at all as Magnus had envisioned. If Cormac discovered, as Magnus had, that it was Ornolf who had staged the ambush, then it would destroy what tiny bit of reputation Magnus still enjoyed with the Irish king.

  But he had not succeeded in keeping Cormac away. Cormac insisted on seeing where the fight had taken place. Niall Cuarán, as ever, tagged along like a faithful dog.

  “These tracks run down to the sea,” Cormac said, still walking along the path through t
he grass.

  Magnus looked up, out to sea. The fog had lifted somewhat, visibility was two miles or better to the place where the horizon was lost in the light rain. The Red Dragon was nowhere to be seen.

  “Why would anyone take the wagons toward the sea?” Niall Cuarán asked. “I should think they would take them inland.”

  Stupid troll, Magnus thought. If they had not smoked it yet, perhaps they were too stupid to figure it out at all.

  From north up the road they heard a horse’s hooves, a rider coming fast, and they wheeled their horses around. It was one of Cormac’s men. He reigned to a stop. He was breathing hard.

  “My Lord Cormac! The fog has thinned! We’ve sight of the fin gall ship!”

  Cormac looked out to sea, looked down at the tracks in the grass, looked at the messenger, unsure which way to go.

  “Very well,” he said and spurred his horse back toward the scene of the ambush. He met Magnus’s eyes as he rode past. “We will leave it for some other time to discover who engineered this colossal failure of yours.”

  Of mine? Magnus spurred his horse to follow Cormac. So any blunder is my fault, that’s how it’s to be? Still, for all his outrage, Magnus felt a tremendous sense of relief that the Red Dragon was under their eyes once more, as well as a profound dread of what might Cormac might find when he saw her.

  They threaded their way through the bodies once more and then spurred their horses on to a gallop, riding hard over the wet shore road, north up the coast in pursuit of the fin gall. Cormac’s horse kicked mud back at Magnus until Magnus had to wipe his eyes and face and move his mount off to one side to be clear of the spray.

  They rode along the cliffs that dropped down to the sea below, rode past their own men, Irish and Danes, who were spread as watchers along the shore. “Move up, move up, the fin gall are spotted!” Cormac shouted as they rode, spurring his men to join in the chase.

  They rode hard for several miles, until at last they had left all their men behind, and it was only Cormac and Magnus, Niall Cuarán and the messenger who were on the road, riding north. They came to a high point on the shore, a grassy rise that stood a couple of perches above the rolling fields. The messenger rode up to that high place and reined his horse to a stop and the others did the same.