‘Bishop, please wait,’ he shouted. Ahead the limping figure of Seosamh Ua hAodha, Bishop of Fearna, was easy to pick out as he ignored the shouts of the wounded and pressed on towards the centre of town. The two churchmen had watched the horrific events of the day from the safety of St Mary’s Church. They had been making a routine ecclesiastical trip to Waesfjord, Bishop Oisin thought, and had never believed that they would be caught up in a war. The burning of the churches outside the walls had left him aghast as he watched from the safety of St Mary’s. Buildings had collapsed, Irishmen had died, Ostmen had screamed pagan curses at Christian Normans, and an invader threatened to overcome the defences. It was all very trying.
‘Wait, Bishop Seosamh, please,’ he exclaimed again to the older man who stomped along the timber street ahead. Oisin had only inherited the bishopric from his uncle a few months before and he hoped that it would not always be this distasteful. He had believed the bishopric to be a position of comfort and riches rather than the horror that he was presented with in Waesfjord. He felt distinctly angry at Seosamh Ua hAodha as he caught up with him.
‘Bishop,’ he appealed, ‘where are we going? Should we not go back to St Mary’s, await the end of this fighting?’
‘And what will we do there,’ the older churchman asked, ‘pray?’
Bishop Oisin was about to suggest exactly that but held his tongue. What he really wanted was a large mug of ale while sitting out the horrid barbarity.
‘Ha!’ Bishop Seosamh sounded disdainful to the extreme at his fellow bishop’s timidity. ‘No, my Lord Bishop, we will do God’s work this day and stop this wanton bloodshed.’
Oisin Ua Bruaideodha swallowed. His experiences of doing God’s work had all led him towards one place – danger. And, even worse, it sometimes led to effort and exertion without profit. ‘What can we do?’ he asked. ‘What we need is a ship to take us to Veðrarfjord or Dubhlinn,’ Bishop Oisin said hopefully.
‘There is work to be done in those towns for sure,’ Bishop Seosamh said, ‘but the need here is far more pressing, do you not think?’
Bishop Oisin certainly did not but he did not dare to nail his colours to the mast in the company of his rival. ‘Yes, of course,’ he said angrily. ‘So where are we headed, to tend to the wounded?’
The Bishop of Fearna laughed deeply. ‘If you want to do that I will not stop you, but I think our talents would be best used in other areas. In the meantime, we are here.’ He nodded his head towards a longhouse – the biggest in Waesfjord. Seosamh did not even bother knocking as he hobbled through the small garden and up to the door of the building. Darkness was beginning to fall and flame light poured from between the spaces of the door frame.
‘God save all here,’ the older bishop said pleasantly as he entered the house. Eirik Mac Amlaibh got to his feet unsteadily. He had obviously been drinking and he was covered in blood from a wound on his left shoulder where an arrow shaft was still lodged.
‘Bishops,’ Eirik slurred a greeting, ‘what do you want?’
‘Simply the peace of Our Lord to return to these sorrowful shores,’ Bishop Seosamh said with a sympathetic smile.
Eirik grimaced but behind him there was a grunt and a curse from Ingólfur Andersson, who lay in a bed by the wall covered in blood.
‘Forget peace and give me a sword to get revenge on these Normans.’ Blood sprayed from his mouth as he fought to speak.
Waesfjord’s chief just shook his head. ‘Why would they make peace? They have us on our knees!’
Ingólfur screamed and snarled both at the obvious pain of his wounds and Eirik’s words. The Bishop of Fearna identified Ingólfur’s defiance and the power which he held over Eirik. The older bishop called his fellow churchman forward.
‘Tend to this poor man, Lord Bishop,’ he pointed at the wild-eyed Ingólfur. ‘He is a good Christian and has fought well and he deserves the loving peace of Holy Mother Church.’ Just a moment’s glance at the wound told Bishop Seosamh that Ingólfur had no chance of survival and Oisin could encumber the man while he conversed privately with Eirik.
‘They are not men,’ Eirik Mac Amlaibh continued, visibly shaking as Bishop Oisin passed by him, ‘they are ghouls wrapped in steel. They attack everywhere at once. They come from the smoke and the depths.’ He sank what remained in his cup, wiping his hairy chin as liquid spilled down it. He looked up into Bishop Seosamh’s eyes. ‘The Vestmen say this place is haunted but I did not believe it until today,’ he said. ‘The Normans have brought darkness to our town today. God help us.’
Bishop Seosamh shook his head. ‘I fear it is worse than that, Eirik. It seems God is on the side of these Normans,’ he put a hand on Eirik’s shoulder examining his wound.
Eirik dropped silent, dismayed by the bishop’s words. ‘But why would God abandon us?’
‘You burned the churches outside the walls,’ Bishop Seosamh continued with an understanding frown. ‘What did you think was going to happen? That God would be pleased with the desecration of his houses?’
The Norse leader swayed even more and fell to his knees, keening and grabbing at the cleric’s clothes. ‘It was not me, bishop, but Ingólfur. He said the Norman archers would use the watch towers against us.’ He began crying. ‘Forgive me, Lord, forgive me.’ He wept like a beaten child.
‘Forgiveness is mine to give,’ the bishop said, making Eirik squirm, ‘but if God is on the side of the Normans then there is no resistance that can keep them out of this fortress.’
‘Are you saying we should surrender?’ he looked up at the churchman with hopeful eyes.
Bishop Seosamh placed a hand on Eirik’s head. ‘Tomorrow is Sunday. We will pray together for absolution and for guidance. We will see whose prayers God will hear.’ He looked over Eirik’s head to where a much-flustered Bishop Oisin closed Ingólfur’s eyes with a soft hand over his face. ‘Is that brave warrior dead?’ the older man asked. He received a curt nod and Seosamh Ua hAodha smiled secretly. He knew that Waesfjord’s defiance had died with him.
The Normans were in rapture as they entreated God’s power to give them the strength to take the heathen town whose inhabitants had burned His churches. Some of the warriors seemed to sway as they felt His spirit descend upon them.
Bishop Oisin pleaded with Eirik. ‘Do you see how they appeal for God’s help?’ he said as he pointed over the stockade at the Normans who were holding a morning Mass in front of St Peter’s Gate. ‘They appeal for help to bring the Lord Jesus’ wrath on those who burned His houses,’ the bishop continued into Eirik’s ear, ‘and against God’s vengeance there is no defence. With His help these Normans will surely swarm across our defences and slaughter everyone in Waesfjord.’ The bishop was a timid man and wanted little other than to climb into a ship and sail away from the town which he thought was doomed to fall. It had taken little for Bishop Seosamh’s words to work him into a desperate frenzy of fear.
Below Bishop Oisin, the Norman army was arrayed in all its splendour. They snarled and shouted God’s praise, spat God’s wrath, and spewed a maelstrom of religious fury on the walls of Waesfjord. They invoked His power and promised to use it for His benefit.
Eirik felt weak from his wounded shoulder and his stomach churned, whether through the amount which he had drunk the night before or from the fear he now felt, he could not tell. Probably both, he thought self-mockingly. The Ostman leader knew the decision to surrender had to come from him but he still hoped that his town could hold out against the invaders. Would Veðrarfjord or Dubhlinn come to help them? Diarmait was their enemy too, he thought, but his heart told him their rival trading towns would rather see Waesfjord in flames than taking valuable trade from their shores. Bastards, he thought. What he would do for Ingólfur’s confidant council now?
He fiddled with a frayed piece of bark which had come loose from the wooden stake of the wall, whilst behind him a number of warriors shuffled their feet nervously, waiting for orders. All fight had gone out of the Ostmen. Each one bore a wo
und from the day before and few had slept through the night. They had all expected another attack in the darkness and so many had seen out a cold night on the palisade, body jerking into action at the smallest noise from beyond the wall. Many, like Eirik, had drunk heavily until deep into the night and then, intoxicated, they had passed out asleep. In their dreams they had relived moments from the battle the day before. Now they stood on the palisade waiting to soak up yet another attack with little hope of success. Outside the walls of Waesfjord, the Normans’ Mass reached a crescendo as a priest appealed skywards for victory over the pagan inhabitants of the longfort.
The Ostmen could equal any enemy when they thought God was at their side but now most truly believed that they were abandoned to the despair of hell. The story of Eirik’s tearful supplication the night before had reached many ears and set tongues wagging, mostly through the careful endeavours of Bishop Seosamh Ua hAodha. The townspeople had been scared before the Norman attack, having heard the exaggerated stories of the foreigners’ victory at Dun Cormaic and the superhuman powers that the warriors of the small army seemed to possess. Now, following the three attacks on the walls, the people of Waesfjord were downright terrified, believing that the Normans had priests capable of sorcery that meant that their warriors could fly over the walls. How else could they have burned their beautiful and precious ships in the harbour? The townsfolk expected death at any time from the bows, trebuchets, and spears and the whimpering of the wounded, women, and children from the town reached even to the Ostmen warriors’ ears, mingling with their own fears and exacerbating their terror.
‘We are traders, not warriors,’ a Waesfjord bigwig called Harkan whispered to Eirik, ‘so get out there and barter with the Normans. Make a deal or buy them off.’ Eirik belched and nodded but did nothing else.
Across the wasteland in front of the fortress the entire Norman army were on their knees pleading to the heavens for the strength and fortitude to take Waesfjord by storm. The priest handed out the sacraments to the ranks of men in their battle lines. The ominous and effervescent murmur from the army before their walls was intimidating, the slight morning drizzle and silent ranks of Ostmen stifling. Steam rose from the whispering mouths of the Norman ranks on the cold morning air accompanied by the hum of massed voices.
‘St Ivar save us,’ a warrior called Eystein repeated again and again behind Eirik, who wiped his brow despite the morning chill. Bishop Seosamh remained silent, letting the fears of the Ostmen and the trepidation of the Bishop of the Osraighe further damage Eirik’s faltering courage. The Irishman could sense the mood of the people and revelled in it. This is why he had been sent to Waesfjord by King Diarmait: to instil fear.
The Normans stood up and dusted off their tunics, signalling the end of their entreaty towards the heavens. The walls of Waesfjord seemed to breathe in as the defenders anticipated a renewal of the attack. Shouts sounded up and down the Norman line as their leaders marshalled their army to scale the entrenched wall.
Beside Bishop Seosamh, Eirik began issuing panicked orders to the Waesfjord captains beside him on the palisade.
‘You … you there, take half your men and enforce the southern wall beside St Doologue’s Church,’ he told one man.
Óttar Mac Óttar, the commander of that part of the wall, looked on aghast. ‘You want to lose men from the main wall? We have not enough to defend it as it is.’
‘They attacked the north and the south yesterday. What is to stop them doing it again?’ Eirik shouted suddenly and angrily. He stopped himself, eyes blurry with thought as they darted from side to side. ‘Wait, they are cleverer than that,’ he licked his lips, turning on his heels and surveying the town from the height of the wall anxiously. ‘Our ships are gone, they could attack the beach. Do they have ships?’ he asked another of his captains who looked from face to face for an answer. Eirik ignored him. ‘Take another fifty men to guard the beaches,’ he ordered another man called Morten.
Óttar and several others looked on disbelievingly as their leader seemed to lose all sense of the reality of their predicament. ‘Do not divide our force,’ Óttar appealed again but his voice was lost as a din emanated from the Norman lines. They were shouting and yelling, beating their shields and stamping their mailed feet. Colourfully clothed knights were the only men on horseback and they charged up and down the line encouraging their men and working them into frenzy with encouragement, calls for great deeds and battle-tales of their forefathers. The Ostmen on the walls were silenced, awed by the Norman onslaught of noise.
‘Holy St Ivar save us all,’ Eystein began repeating again for everybody on the barbican to hear.
Eirik stood shaking his head. He turned on Óttar beside him. ‘Why haven’t you moved your men?’ he shouted, stumbling over his words. His eyes locked with those of Bishop Seosamh Ua hAodha and he desperately searched them for answers. He found none as the Irishman bowed his head, seemingly to the inevitable. Eirik stuttered something towards the bishop which Seosamh could not hear beneath the clamour coming from the Normans.
‘What?’ the churchman shouted, leaning towards Waesfjord’s commander. Eirik grabbed Bishop Seosamh by the shoulder of his woollen shift and dragged him close, wild-eyed.
‘God has abandoned us! Save us, Lord Bishop. Save us, we repent!’ Eirik was frantic now and he fell to his knees, begging Seosamh to make his plea to God on his, and his town’s behalf. ‘God is protecting the Normans,’ he shouted, loud enough for many to hear. All eyes fell on the army threatening their town. Sure enough there were no injured or dead men outside the walls wearing Norman clothes. If anything, there were more men facing the walls than there had been the day before. The intensity continued to build.
‘Do you want me to go out and talk to Diarmait?’ Bishop Seosamh asked Eirik. The Norse leader looked like he did not know what to do but nodded his head violently. ‘Send out a herald,’ the churchman screamed. ‘Quickly, before they attack.’
Bishop Seosamh Ua hAodha could not hide his smile. He had served his king and pride swelled his chest. He had also served God by bringing peace to the confrontation between the two armies. It had been a good day. He had fulfilled his task and he would be rewarded.
‘Bishop,’ Diarmait Mac Murchada greeted Bishop Seosamh with a massive smile, ‘how good it is to see you, my friend.’ He planted an enormous hug across the old man’s shoulders before doing the same to a shocked and nervous-looking Bishop Oisin. The younger man had heard the stories of this great enemy of the Osraighe as he grew up and involuntarily cringed as Diarmait grabbed him. Domhnall Caomhánach and Robert FitzStephen stepped forward to greet the two envoys from Waesfjord and Diarmait introduced them. They stood in front of the walls of the town where every man could see the encounter.
‘So the Ostmen are pissing themselves or what?’ Diarmait asked with a laugh. ‘Well done, Robert, well done indeed.’ He threw an arm over FitzStephen’s shoulders and presented him to the two bishops with pride. ‘This is the man who planned our assault, how did you find it?’ he asked in Irish.
‘Terrifying,’ Bishop Oisin said honestly in the same language. He giggled momentarily before revisiting the horror inside the walls in his memory.
FitzStephen grimaced as it was translated. ‘It would have been better to have captured the town rather than have them come out and surrender. Next time it will be different.’
Diarmait cackled. ‘You are too hard on yourself, my boy. It was well done. Well done.’ He turned towards his two visitors who he directed towards a large tent erected behind the Norman lines.
‘So what are their demands?’ Diarmait asked seriously of Bishop Seosamh when the group of men went through the curtain doors of the tent. Fionntán Ua Donnchaidh and Hervey de Montmorency were already there sitting at opposite ends, the old Frenchman with his back to the Irish warrior who FitzStephen had tasked with watching his rival. Robert nodded a greeting to Fionntán and sat down beside him. He pointedly ignored the French nobleman who, he was sure,
had tried to murder him during the fight for Waesfjord.
‘They want peace, that is all,’ Bishop Seosamh accepted a chair and a trencher of stew from a pot steaming in the centre of the room. ‘And their chief man will accept any terms to obtain it.’
Fionntán translated the conversation for FitzStephen. The Norman interrupted the dialogue just as Mac Murchada was about to speak. ‘Tell them to open the gates, throw down their arms, and swear fealty to King Diarmait. If they refuse we attack,’ he said and shrugged suggesting that it would not cost him a second thought to burn the fortress-town to the murky ground upon which it stood.
Bishop Seosamh was stopped for a second as he listened to the translation but the churchman was unmoved. ‘I agree with Sir Robert’s demands. Dead and dying lie in the streets and their headman whimpers like a child. He will agree to whatever I tell him,’ he continued eating his food.
‘My only demand is that they submit fully to my sovereignty and rule. If they refuse we will slaughter their men, take their cattle, and sell their wives and children as slaves,’ Diarmait calmly spoke to the bishop. ‘So eat your fill, my friend, and then get back to the town. I will expect their representatives’ submission by midday.’
The bishop nodded and began talking quietly to Bishop Oisin who seemed amazed at the ease of the negotiations to save Waesfjord. He had thought that there would be more raised voices, more arguments, more bartering. He was not so stupid as to believe that he was not being manipulated. But what could he do? There was no profit in rocking the boat. Not for the first time he wished that he had his warriors to hand.
King Diarmait joined FitzStephen and Fionntán at the other end of the wooden table. It had been removed from St Michael’s Church the night before, much to the derision of the priests. ‘So the day is ours,’ the Irishman said with a smile as he sat, ‘and now it is time for a little revenge.’ He meant his business with Dubhlinn.
Swordland Page 32