Fin Gall (27 page)

             
“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.

             
“There!” The man pointed out to sea.

             
The rest looked where he was pointing, and at first they did not see anything, save for the gray water rolling away toward the misty horizon.

             
“Where?”

             
“Off there, my lord, to the northward.”

             
They looked again, and that time they saw it. At first they had been looking for a ship near shore, but this was a mile or more away.

             
For a minute they stared at the ship, growing more indistinct in the fog. Finally, Cormac Ua Ruairc turned to Magnus. He turned slowly in the saddle, deliberately, and Magnus saw in his eyes something that went well beyond his former anger.

             
“You told me,” Cormac said, speaking slowly, “that they had no sail. And yet...”

             
The four heads looked back at the distant ship. There was no mistaking the shape. A longship under sail. If the crew of the
Red Dragon
had not had to spend hours in the fog sewing the thing together, or so Magnus imagined, then they would have been well over the horizon by then.

             
“They have a sail now, I perceive,” Magnus said. “Thanks to you.”

             
“Me?” Cormac nearly choked on the word.

             
“What do you think they made a sail from, you stupid Irish half-wit? They sewed it together out of your tent! Yours and this...this...buggering lap dog of yours! If you had it in you to campaign like a man and not some silly woman with your tents and your wagons and your damned slaves this wouldn’t have happened!” Cormac was not the only one there who could be pushed too far.

             
“Are you...you mean to tell me, they are the ones that ambushed the wagons? The fin gall?”

             
“Of course, you fool! Any idiot could see that, straight off.”

             
Cormac looked to Niall Cuarán, looked out to sea, looked at the messenger. He clearly was not accustomed to men speaking to him in that manner and it had thrown him.

             
“Now,” Magnus broke the silence, hoping to swing the momentum his way, “Let us get the men and ride hard to the north. That sail will not drive them fast, and if the wind gets up any it will blow to ribbons. They are still ours.”

             
Cormac still did not speak. But Niall Cuarán did.

             
“My Lord Cormac,” he said, and his tone was calm, almost bored. “This pathetic dubh gall came to you with assurance that he alone could find the Crown of the Three Kingdoms, which clearly God wishes for you to wear. We took him at his word. Now we find that all he can do is tag along the shoreline, following this ship. We can do that. As it turns out, we have no need of him.”

             
“No need of me?” Magnus roared. “Without my help, Ornolf will gather up the crown and sail off and you will never see it again, you miserable worm.”

             
“Oh, indeed?” Niall Cuarán said. “And what do you plan to do? What indispensable knowledge do you bring, besides suggesting we follow along on shore? If we had attacked them last night, as my Lord Cormac suggested, they would have told us by now where the crown is hidden. Instead, they have plundered our wagons and now are sailing off.”

             
“You could not have made them talk. They may be from Vik, not Danes, but they are still Norsemen and tougher than any Irish sodomite.”

             
“You miserable bastard!” Cormac shouted and his hand went for his sword but Magnus was faster than that. Any hope of an alliance against Orm was over now. Now there was nothing for Magnus to do but save his own life.

             
Thorgrim’s sword flew from the scabbard. Cormac’s messenger had the look of an experienced soldier, clearly the most dangerous there, but beyond the reach of Magnus’s blade. Magnus lunged, drove the tip of his sword into the flank of the messenger’s horse. The horse shrieked, reared, bounded away, the rider struggling to hang on.

             
Magnus turned to Cormac, who had his sword clear of the scabbard. Cormac swung his sword; Magnus caught the blade with his own, turned it aside and lunged. Cormac screamed in surprise, threw himself back to avoid the reach of Magnus’s blade. Behind him, Niall Cuarán acted as if he was trying to get into the fight.

             
Cormac was half out of his saddle and Magnus saw his chance. His men would have to fend for themselves, it was his life in the balance now. He pulled his sword back, backhand, and smacked the butt of Cormac’s horse hard with the blade. The horse reared, Cormac clinging to the saddle. Magnus reined his horse over hard and put the spurs to its flank.

             
The horse bolted away, racing inland. Magnus did not care where he was going, he needed only to put distance between himself and Cormac’s men.

             
Behind him, he heard the scream of the horses, the shouts of outrage, but he did not look back. He just rode. Time to think later. Now was the time for escape.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I have wielded a blood-stained sword

and howling spear; the bird

of
carrion followed me

when
the Vikings pressed forth.

                                 
Egil’s Saga

              I

t was just before daybreak when the half-dead guards were discovered. Brian Finnliath, master of the guards at Tara, found them on his morning rounds. They were crumpled in a heap by the south gate and he thought they were drunk. Very drunk, lying in the mud, oblivious to the cold, driving rain.

              He gave one a swift kick, then the other, but got no response, not even a moan. He looked closer. They had been stripped of their weapons. One had a vicious bruise on the side of his head.

             
Flann mac Conaing was alerted. Huddled under a wool cloak and cowl to protect against the downpour, Flann followed Brian across the compound. The guards had been left where they lay, so that Flann might see them undisturbed. The light was gathering by then, and Flann could clearly see the bruises, the fact that their weapons were gone, the south gate ajar.

             
“Was there no disturbance last night?” Flann asked. “No thieves, intruders of some sort?”

             
“No, sir.”

             
Flann stared at the gate. If someone had knocked at it, and the guards had gone against their orders and opened it, then the strangers might have killed the guards and gained entry. But wouldn’t the intruders have closed and barred the gate? The open gate would raise an alarm. But if it was someone escaping Tara, then they would not be able to bar the door from outside the wall.

             
Why would someone have to do this? If they wanted to leave, they could just leave.

             
Flann regarded the motionless bodies of the guards. “It would have taken more than one man to kill them,” he said.

             
“Yes, sir,” Brian Finnliath agreed. “You’re sure they’re dead, sir?”

             
Flann looked at the man, annoyed. “I assumed they were dead. Did you not check?”

             
“Ah, no sir.”

             
“Well, check, damn you!”

             
They were not dead. Incredibly, their hearts still beat, their mouths still drew breath. Flann had them carried to the guards’ quarters, stripped and set in beds with wool blankets. He paced. He wondered if he should report this to Máel Sechnaill. He decided to wait until there was something to report.

             
One of the guards groaned, rolled his head. Flann stepped over, hopeful, but the man was still far from awake. Flann resumed his pacing.

             
Who was there who would need to escape from Tara?

             
He stopped pacing. “Brian Finnliath, quick, send men to check on the fin gall prisoners.”

             
Oh, damnation, this is not good...

             
The one guard was coming to, muttering a few words, when Brian’s men returned. “The fin gall that was questioned by Máel Sechnaill, sir, he’s still in his room. He’s not in good health, sir. The other one, the young one, he’s not to be found.”

             
Flann mac Conaing sunk his head in his hands as he contemplated this disaster. He looked up. “Turn out the guard. Get dogs. We have to hunt that little villian down.”

             
Brian Finnliath began issuing orders.

             
My lord Máel Sechnaill must be told,
Flann thought to himself, but every bit of him resisted doing so. This whole notion of taking the fin gall hostage had been his idea, his and Morrigan’s, and Harald’s escape would be seen as a colossal failure on their part.

             
He wondered at the effect that Morrigan had on him, her ability to talk him into whatever notion she had in mind. She was a strong woman, too strong for her own good, at times.

             
The guard on the bed moaned and his eyes fluttered open and Flann knelt beside him.

             
“Are you awake?” Flann asked. The guard’s eyes roamed around the room then fixed on Flann’s face. He looked confused.

             
“Who did this to you?” Flann asked.

             
For a long time the guard did not respond, just looked into Flann’s eyes, as if trying to recall all of his life up until that point. “Water,” he said at last.

             
Impatiently, Flann ordered water for the man and he drank and that seemed to revive him more.

             
“Who did this?” Flann asked again.

             
“The fin gall,” the guard said at last. “The yellow-haired fin gall. Dressed...like a monk.”

             
Flann nodded. “But not alone,” he said. “He’s a boy, he did not overpower two guards by himself.”

             
“No,” the guard agreed.

             
“Who, then? Who helped him?”

             
“Brigit.” The guard closed his eyes again. “Brigit Sechnaill mac Ruanaid.”

              They left the three dead men and their dog where they fell in the mud and approached the house, moving cautiously, as if they were sneaking up on it. The horror she had just witnessed, the terror of the moment, the squalor of the cottage had not dissuaded Brigit from her desire to get near a fire.

             
They came up with the door and Harald held up his hand for Brigit to stop and she did, pulling her cloak further around her shoulders. She was ready to let Harald take the lead once more, aware that her own leadership had nearly gotten them killed.

             
Harald stepped up to the door and peered inside, looking left and right. He held one of the big knives in each hand, and with the handle of one pushed the door further open and took a step inside.

             
Brigit followed, standing just outside the door as Harald moved slowly into the one room building. The smell of the place wafted out of the door - cabbage and fish and peat fire and musty wool.

             
Then Harald was back at the door, an odd look on his face. Troubled. Disturbed by something inside. Brigit frowned and stepped forward, but Harald blocked her way, and he looked as if he was not sure he should let her enter. But the rain was falling hard and the cottage held the promise of a fire and it was going to take more than one young Viking to keep her out.

             
She pushed past Harald, who yielded to her, and stepped gratefully inside. It was dark, the only light coming from the low peat fire burning in the fireplace in the center of the single room, over which hung an iron pot from a crane. In various corners of the room there were pallets of straw, blankets and furs, benches, all the trappings of a peasant’s cottage on the banks of the Boyne. The warmth was delicious. Brigit’s eyes moved beyond the fire. She gasped, put her hands to her mouth.

             
Two people lay dead. A man and a woman. The man was face down, a staff clenched in his hands, the only weapon a poor fisherman could manage. The woman beside him must have been his wife. She lay with one leg over the man’s back, eyes open and staring at the ceiling, a great red blossom of blood on her dress.

             
She must have fought hard,
Brigit thought. Those men, dead in the yard, would not have killed her quick if she had not.

             
Harald said something that had the tone of an apology and stepped around her. He grabbed up a blanket from a pallet by the wall and draped it over the woman, then picked her body up and carried it outside. He did the same with the man, then came back inside. Death swarmed around the cottage, but the fire was warm.

             
The peat had burned down to little more than embers. Harald picked up a stick and poked at it, but not with any confidence in what he was doing. Peat fires were unknown to Norsemen. Brigit gathered bricks of peat from where they were stacked against the wall and deftly added them to the fireplace. Soon the embers flared and the fire caught the newly added fuel and the flames leapt high, illuminating the room and the sundry detritus stored there.

             
Harald stepped over to the door, positioned himself just inside and looked out to the yard beyond. There was no way to know if the three bandits they had killed were the only ones in that raiding party. The young Norseman stood silent and still, the knives ready in his hands, his eyes sweeping the cottage yard. He put Brigit in mind of an animal, a hunter, keen and alert for prey, or for danger.

             
Brigit understood the need for vigilance, but the fire was too seductive. She stared into the flames, leaping and wavering. She undid her cloak and tossed it aside, let the warmth sweep in waves over her soaked dress.

             
She was shivering, despite the fire, and the weight of the wet fabric seemed to pull her down. She stole a look at Harald - he was still staring out at the approaches to the cottage as if nothing else existed.

             
Brigit stepped away from the fire and snatched up a blanket from a pallet against the wall. It was course wool and smelled of wood smoke and sweat but it was dry. Quick as she could, with her eyes on Harald’s back, she stripped off her dress and let it fall in a heap at her feet. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. It was long enough that it swept the floor around her feet. She stepped back to the fire. The shivering stopped as she stood, dry and wool-wrapped, by the blazing peat.

             
Brigit stared into the fire, the lovely fire, and her mind wandered off into some other place. Her thoughts were vague and disjointed, lost in the wild twisting of events over the past twelve hours. Tara... It seemed so far away. The warmth on her skin was wonderful. There was something wicked about standing there, naked, save for the wool blanket, the handsome young Norseman mere feet away. It gave her a little thrill. Pulled from her life at the court of Tara, she felt as if she had been pulled from everything that regulated her life.

             
After some time - Brigit had no idea how long - Harald turned away from the door. He said something in a soft voice as he stepped toward her. His tone was reassuring, even if the words were meaningless. He set the knives down and pulled the monk’s robe over his head, struggling to free himself from the wet garment. He tossed it aside, and seemed to just then realize that Brigit was naked, save for the blanket.

             
His eyes went wide and he stepped closer to her, then hesitated, unsure of what to do, and Brigit found that charming.
So much for wanton raping and pillaging
, she thought.

             
Harald took another tentative step. Brigit smiled at him and he smiled back and closed the distance with her. He put his arms around her in a rough hug, pressed his lips against hers, kissing her hard. She pulled away. There was longing in his eyes, confusion at her resisting.