Glendalough Fair (12 page)

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.”

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.

“We are some miles up the river now, Thorgrim,” Agnarr said, breaking into Thorgrim’s thoughts. “We will reach the Meeting of the Waters by nightfall, I would think. Sooner if the current remains as it is a while longer.”

“Good,” Thorgrim said. He did not care for this nonsense, rowing through the Irish countryside, rarely able to see beyond the banks that hemmed them in. He was eager to get on with their real purpose, the raid on Glendalough. He was anxious to see if Kevin mac Lugaed would be true to his word, or if he had betrayed them already.

The fleet had been underway soon after first light, with the river growing more narrow, the banks closing in on either side with each mile made good. There was something menacing about it. Open water meant safety, room to maneuver, but now the land was inching closer in, as if making a stealthy and silent approach. When they passed through the wooded sections it grew more hemmed in and unsettling still.

Thorgrim’s eyes rarely left the banks. He was watching for watchers, looking to see if any were following their progress from shore. He was looking for riders carrying word of the Norsemen’s approach off to the minor kings who ruled that part of Ireland, men who commanded real warriors, men who could organize a credible defense if they wished. But he saw nothing.

It was well past the noon hour when Starri, up aloft, spotted the smoke. Not a single, weak tendril this time, but a number of thin columns. They were rising up beyond a stand of trees, a great profusion of green in the distance that blocked the men’s sight of all to the northwest.

“Not raiders, I don’t think,” Starri called down. “Doesn’t look like a village burning. Not enough smoke there. It looks like cooking fires to me.”

Cooking fires
, Thorgrim thought. He had reckoned they must be nearing the Meeting of the Waters; it could not be much farther upstream. Cooking fires meant men, a host of men, and if plans were unfolding as they should, those men would be Kevin’s. This was where they had arranged to meet. From here the Irish would advance by land while Thorgrim and his men continued to Glendalough in their ships.

“You men not at the oars,” Thorgrim called out. “Make ready for battle. Mail, helmets, weapons.” He stepped up onto the after deck and looked back in his ship’s wake.
Blood Hawk
’s bow was no more than forty feet astern of
Sea Hammer
. Thorgrim held aloft a sword and helmet until Bersi saw him and waved his acknowledgement and ordered his men to arms as well.

Plans were fine, Thorgrim figured, but readiness was better, because plans rarely played out as intended.

There was a bend in the river a few hundred yards ahead. Thorgrim could see it now, and he could see the smoke that Starri had reported, thin dark lines against the blue sky. A camp, he was certain. He had seen such things often enough.

“Thorgrim!” Starri called down again. “I see another river to the west. It meets this one just as that Irishman described.”

“This must be it,” Agnarr said. “Meeting of the Waters.”

“It would seem to be,” Thorgrim agreed. “The other river, the camp.” He paused to slip his arms into the mail shirt Segan held up for him, straightened, and let it fall into place. He raised his arms as Segan buckled his sword around him. “Perhaps Kevin has been speaking the truth,” he added.

Once he had donned his armor Thorgrim stepped off the afterdeck and walked toward the bow, the man stationed there stepping aside as he saw the lord of Vík-ló approach. Thorgrim rested his hand on the tall stem, the leering head of Thor six feet above him. He looked forward. The river was bending a bit to the north, and as
Sea Hammer
pulled around that bend, more and more of the stretch of water beyond their starboard bow was revealed.

Meeting of the Waters
, Thorgrim thought. He could see it now. Off the larboard bow was the mouth of the other river, the one that met the River Avoca at that place to form a sharp angle like three roads intersecting at a single spot. This is where they had agreed to meet up, Kevin mac Lugaed and his men, Thorgrim and his fleet, on that afternoon in Vík-ló with the rain driving down on the thatch of Thorgrim’s hall. Meeting of the Waters. Kevin had assured them they would know it when they came to it. And he was right.

Thorgrim looked toward the river that joined the Avoca from the west. He could not recall the name and he didn’t really care. That was not the river that would carry them to Glendalough. Thorgrim looked back over the starboard bow, toward the Avonmore, the river up which they would ascend, and he almost jumped in surprise. Here was the one thing he had not expected to see. Longships.

There were five of them, all run bow-first into the mud of the river bank. They were a couple hundred yards upstream and Thorgrim could see they were made fast with ropes running over their bows to the shore. Their masts were still stepped, yards lowered onto gallows, figureheads still in place.

Thorgrim turned and walked aft toward
Sea Hammer
’s stern. “Make ready! There are five longships tied to the shore up ahead,” he called as he walked. “We’ll know soon enough if they are friends or men looking for a fight.”

Harald fell in behind him – there was not room enough with the sea chests in place for two men to walk side by side – and followed him aft. “Are these the men who sacked that village?” he asked.

“I would guess they are, but I can’t know,” Thorgrim said. He stopped by the helmsman and turned and looked forward over the bow. “Bring the ship in downstream of those others, right there,” he said, pointing to a spot next to the closest of the distant longships. The vessels, run up on the bank as they were, looked to Thorgrim like horses staked out on a line.

“Yes, lord,” the helmsman said and nudged the tiller aft.

“These Northmen,” Harald said, pointing with his chin toward the longships, “what do they want? What brings them here?”

Thorgrim could not help but smile. His son was strong and brave and tireless, but he was not always the most clever, particularly when the tension was rising. Thorgrim hoped age and experience would cure that.

“I don’t know, son,” Thorgrim said. “I don’t know anything more of these men than you do.”

Harald nodded, then turned and looked forward in the direction in which Thorgrim and every man not on an oar was looking. The tide had turned, or perhaps they were too far up river now to feel any effect from the sea, but either way they were pulling against the current and their approach to the landing place was slow, deliberate, and closely watched by the men on shore.

Thorgrim could see them as they closed the distance. A crowd of men, too many to guess at numbers. He could see points of color that he imagined were shields on men’s arms.

“Night Wolf!” Starri called. He was still at the mast head.

“Yes?”

“I can see tents, a score of tents at least, set just back from the bank. The smoke is coming from there.”

Tents
.
A war camp
, Thorgrim thought. Whoever these men were, they were prepared for some serious campaigning, ready to leave their ships if need be and advance overland.

Who are you, you miserable sons of whores?
he wondered.
Is Kevin there as well? Or did you kill him and his men?

The helmsman began to turn
Sea Hammer
to starboard, bringing her in toward the shore. He was doing a good job, playing the current, setting up higher than he normally would and letting the stream push the ship down to where he wanted her to be. Thorgrim did not feel the need to issue orders. Harald left his side and headed forward and with a few other men wrestled out two of the long walrus hide ropes they would use to tie the ship to the shore.

Starri Deathless came down the backstay hand over hand and dropped to the deck beside Thorgrim. They were closing fast with the shore. Thorgrim studied the men lining the river bank, watching them.
Do we go ashore and confront them, or pull for the middle of the river
? This was the moment in which he had to decide, though in truth he knew he had decided already.

“What think you, Starri?” Thorgrim asked.

“Those fellows ashore are gawking like farmers at some festival. They are not making ready to fight,” Starri said with undisguised disappointment in his voice.

“I think you’re right,” Thorgrim said. What men he could see numbered about the same as his. There were a few banners flying on staffs above their heads, but the warriors were not arrayed for battle. If it was a trap, they would walk into it, but they would do so willingly, and they would show no hesitancy or fear.

Off his starboard side Thorgrim saw the other ships turning as well so that they would each come to rest downstream of
Sea Hammer
. Then he saw Godi, standing just forward of the afterdeck.

“Godi, get my banner,” he said, and the big man nodded and headed forward to find it. Segan had sewed it up back in Vík-ló, and did so with surprising skill. Thorgrim had never had a banner before but he guessed he should have one now to reflect his new status. Segan had cut up some of Grimarr Giant’s old tunics to make the flag, a grey wolf’s head on a red swallowtail pennant.

Godi pulled the banner staff from where it was stowed on the larboard side and stepped aft, unfurling the pennant as he walked. He stood just behind Thorgrim holding the red flag aloft as
Sea Hammer
’s bow ran up into the mud and the ship came to a gentle stop. Downstream, the other ships ran up on the shore as well, their oars rising with a neat symmetry and disappearing inboard.

Under Harald’s direction the men of
Sea Hammer
ran a gangplank over the bow and out to dry land. Thorgrim, of course, had no qualms about leaping into the mud in which the bow was lodged. He had done it a thousand times. But now there were strangers watching, and they had to see that he was no fisherman or half-starved merchant captain. He was the commander of these vessels, the Lord of Vík-ló, and not a man who muddied his feet going ashore.

Once things were ready Thorgrim stepped forward, the massive Godi walking behind with the banner snapping overhead. Thorgrim stepped onto the gangplank and walked down the sloping wood. Godi stepped on behind him and his great weight made the board sag and nearly toppled Thorgrim over into the mud, but happily he retained his balance.

Thorgrim reached the grassy bank and looked around. There were a hundred or more expressionless Northmen watching him, some with shields, some without, some in mail and some not. The sun was dropping lower in the west and washing the host with orange light that glinted off helmets and the bosses of shields. But no one had a weapon drawn, and that told Thorgrim that he had been right. The men on shore were not preparing for battle. Not yet, in any event.

He ran his eyes along the banners waving above their heads. Boar’s heads, eagles, there were none that he recognized. And then he saw one he did. A green banner, a raven with wings spread splayed across it.

The Irishman
,
Kevin
…Thorgrim thought.
Apparently he has found some other allies.

Without looking, Thorgrim knew that Harald was at his side and he saw Bersi coming over the bow of
Blood Hawk
, and knew Kjartan and Skidi would join him as well. And then the crowd of men parted and Kevin was there, smiling his broad smile, his sharp-cut beard as neat as ever, his hand extended. He took Thorgrim’s hand and spoke and Harald said, “Kevin says welcome and they were waiting for us. Won’t you come to his tent where we can drink and eat and talk.”

As Harald spoke, Thorgrim kept his eyes on Kevin and nodded as he listened. Kevin turned and they walked through the crowd of silent, watching men. Thorgrim followed, and behind him Harald and Godi and then the captains of the other ships.

The camp was laid out in a field several hundred yards wide and ringed by woods that stood like a palisade wall. The trees hid the camp from view of the countryside beyond, and Thorgrim assumed Kevin had put men in the trees looking out for anyone approaching. It was a good position.