Fin Gall (30 page)

             
Brigit was there with him. He could see the fear in her face. “It’s all right, it will be all right,” he said, hoping the tone at least would covey some comfort, but as far as he could see it did not.

             
He took the bread and meat from her, placed it on one of the thwarts. The dogs were louder, and clearly headed for the cottage. They were hunting dogs, and Harald had no doubt the dogs were hunting for them.

             
Harald scooped Brigit up in his arms. She gave a little gasp of surprise and he lifted her over the gunnel and set her down beside the bread and the meat. He grabbed the gunnel and shoved. The boat began to slide toward the water, but it was harder going than he had anticipated. He realized he should not have put Brigit in first, but it was too late, and he did not want to appear foolish, taking her out again.

             
He pushed. The boat slid half a perch. And then the dogs broke over the low hill to the south and came tearing down at them, at Harald and the boat.

             
Harald looked at the dogs, looked at the river, looked back at the dogs. He could not take Brigit out of the boat now, not with the dogs there, and he could not get the boat in the water before the dogs were on him.

             
Kill the dogs first,
Harald decided. He snatched the spears out of the boat. He hated dogs. Why did these damned Irish have so many dogs?

             
The first of the pack was two perches away and racing for him with open mouth and lolling tongue. The light was fast fading and it was difficult for Harald to see. He wiped the water from his face and eyes, dropped to one knee and held the spear in front, the butt end of the shaft against his foot. It was a boar hunting technique, but it worked on the over-eager dog, as the animal charged right onto the point, impaling itself and dying with never a sound.

             
Harald released the spear, grabbed up the second one, swung the butt end like a club at the next dog. He hit the animal, made him cry in pain and surprise, but that dog and his fellows were not as eager as the first. They kept their distance, barking and snapping, as Harald thrust and swung with the spear.

             
He was backing away toward the boat when he heard the sound of hooves. He was not surprised. Packs of dogs of course would be followed by riders, men who were determined to run him and Brigit to ground. They were the hunted, now.

             
“Odin, All-father, I could surely use your help!” Harald shouted out into the mist. He backed away, took a last swing at the pack, and then swung himself up into the protection of the boat, the sides too high for the dogs to clear.

             
Brigit looked more frightened than ever. She looked at him with a question on her face and he wished to all the gods in Asgard he could speak her tongue, but he could not. He grabbed her by the cloak and pulled her down onto the bottom of the boat, hidden from view, and half laid on top of her, pulling the monk’s robe over them both. He lifted himself up, just slightly, and peering over the gunnel.

             
It was only one rider, and Harald gave a thanks to Odin, as this was certainly the best he could have hoped for. The horse followed the path the dogs had taken, the rider reining to a stop in the muddy yard. One man, wearing a green tunic with a big red and white cross on it, the symbol of the Irish Christ God.

             
Harald ducked low again, out of sight. It was not a question of hiding - the dogs were baying all around the boat - it was just a matter of gaining a tiny bit of surprise.

             
Harald could see nothing. His nose was full of the smell of the wet wool. He heard the horse moving closer, cautious steps toward the boat. He readjusted his grip on the spear, shifted his foot to get a better purchase on the bottom of the boat.

             
The horse made a snorting sound, very close by, and Harald judged the moment. He threw off the monk’s robe, leapt to his feet with a shout. The rider was there, just half a perch away, and he wheeled his horse in surprise. Harald cocked his throwing arm. Brigit pushed herself up from the bottom of the boat. She shouted, “Master Finnliath!” and Harald threw the spear.

             
It was a good throw, straight and strong, but the horseman was ready for an attack. His shield was up and the sharp spear point embedded itself in the wood. The horseman was knocked off balance with the impact and Harald leapt from the boat and landed in the soft mud.

             
The dogs were nipping at his legs and he kicked at them as he raced for the man on the horse. The spear, still embedded in the shield, was swinging wildly around. Harald grabbed hold of the shaft and pulled, yanking the rider clean off the horse.

             
One of the big knives was in Harald’s hand and he stabbed down at the man’s throat but the man caught his wrist and held it. Harald tried to force the knife down, but the man on the ground was very strong, stronger than he was, Harald could tell. He reached around for the other knife, and suddenly he was knocked sideways, knocked right into the mud, the knife flying from his hand.

             
Dog...
was all he could think, one of the dogs had leapt at him. He grabbed the second knife from his belt, scrambled to his feet, crouched low and ready for an attack. Brigit was standing over the man on the ground, and it appeared that it was she who had knocked him down, but that made no sense.

             
“No!” Brigit cried. She shook her head. “No!”

             
Then Harald remembered. He remembered the guards at the gate, how Brigit did not want them killed. She could not bear to see her fellow Irish killed. Fair enough.

             
The man on the ground was half up, struggling to his feet, still off balance from his fall from the horse. Harald stepped up and kicked him hard in the stomach. Through his soft shoes he could feel the mail shirt under the tunic and he knew his blow would not be very effective, but it was good enough, tossing the man back to the ground. It would gain them seconds.

             
“Come along!” Harald shouted, waving and running for the boat, but Brigit did not move. “Come along!” he said again, with more authority to the order.

             
“No!” Brigit said. She used that word a lot, and Harald was beginning to wonder what it meant. Perhaps that she was afraid. It was the gate all over again.

             
He advanced on her and this time she hit him, hit him hard, right on the jaw. It surprised him, and it hurt, and without thinking he started to hit her back, swinging his fist around in a reflex reaction, stopping just inches from her face as he realized what he was doing.

             
Brigit had her face in her hands, shying from the blow, and she did not see it coming when Harald scooped her up again and tossed her over his shoulder.

             
The horseman was on his knees, sword drawn, and he swung the blade in a wide arch, but Harald sidestepped him, raced for the boat with Brigit over his shoulder, screaming, pounding his back and kicking her legs. The dogs were leaping and barking and snapping but they did not bite.

             
With his left arm and shoulder Harald heaved on the boat, pushing it toward the water, and now, free of Brigit’s weight, it began to move faster. Brigit twisted around and began hitting Harald on the back of the head.

             
“Odin and Thor, what a burden these women are!” Harald shouted in frustration as the stern of the boat hit the water and it began to float free. He tossed Brigit over the gunnel, into the bottom of the boat, aware that he was not being as gentle as he had been before.

             
The horseman was on his feet and charging for the boat. He shouted something that sounded very much like “Brigit!” and swung his sword at Harald’s head.

             
Harald ducked and felt the blade swish past. Hands on the gunnel he leapt, both feet off the ground, and kicked the man hard in the chest, sending him sprawling. There were more riders now, Harald could hear the hooves pounding as they rode hard, but he did not have time to look. He shoved the boat farther out into the river. Brigit had picked herself up and was looking over the side of the boat, down into the water. Harald gave one last shove and swung himself over the gunnel as the boat floated free.

             
The man on shore was shouting something and now Harald could see the other riders charging up, he could see their armor gleaming dull in the fading light. But it was too late for them.

             
The boat drifted further from the shore and then the current caught it and swirled it away down river. Harald felt a great sense of relief. He was afloat. He never had any doubt, ever, during his captivity, that his father would come for him. Thorgrim Night-wolf would hunt for his son and bring him home. And he would come by water. It was the Viking way. And now he, Harald was on water too, and could go to a place where he and his father would meet.

             
Harald caught his breath, then looked over at Brigit, who was sitting on a thwart. He smiled at her, and she flung the piece of meat at his head.

Chapter Thirty-Two

You have not often fed

wolves with warm flesh.

                            
Egil’s Saga

              T

he
Red Dragon
put out to sea, driven by her long oars and then the makeshift sail, after Ornolf’s men yielded the beach to the Irish. Soon the ship was engulfed by the dark and the rain. The land was lost entirely in the gloom, save for the three torches on shore, and soon those too were swallowed up.

             
Morrigan stood aft, where she generally stood, because that was where Thorgrim stood and so it was the only place on the longship she felt at all safe. She stared out into the dark. It was an odd sensation, this sailing through the night. Morrigan had little enough experience with ships. She had never been at sea in the dark before. There was something frightening and wonderful about it, all at the same time.

             
She looked forward. She could just make out the Norsemen sitting on their sea chests or leaning on the side of the ship. They did not look particularly happy, and she imagined that they were worried about the trolls and the sea monsters and whatever other nonsense they conjured up in their thick pagan skulls.

             
Morrigan made the sign of the cross and knelt down. In a soft but strong voice she began the Lord’s Prayer, which she knew would do more to protect them than all the spitting and sacrificing and appealing to false gods that the fin gall could muster.

             
She was about to move on to one of the Psalms when she became aware of a certain restiveness. She looked up. Most of the men were shooting angry looks back at her. She crossed herself again, quickly, and stood.

             
Stupid heathen fin gall...
she thought. She found a place on the deck near where Thorgrim stood at the steering board and went to sleep.

             
She woke to a morning of heavy overcast and gray, marching waves, capped with curling white water, but the rain was mostly gone. She pulled herself to her feet and stood, gripping hard to the ship’s rail. The motion was unlike anything she had ever felt, a swooping and rolling and pitching and her stomach heaved with every twist of the ship.

             
She looked around the edge of the sail but there was nothing to see but water, inhospitable gray ocean sweeping clear away to the edge of the world. She looked to the right, peering at the horizon, but still there was nothing but water and Morrigan began to panic.

             
What are they about? Are they leaving Ireland, and me with them?

             
Morrigan whirled around. There, on the larboard side, several miles off, was the shoreline, dark gray and green and low down in the sea.

             
Most of the crew were awake already, moving around the deck, engaged in various shipboard tasks. They looked more relaxed now, even cheerful, despite the fact that they were so far from shore and the waves, to Morrigan’s mind, seemed alarmingly big.

             
Thorgrim, who had been sleeping on the deck beside her, stirred and sat up. Morrigan glared down at him and there must have been something about her appearance that he found amusing, because he smiled, which made her want to slap him.

             
“Good morrow,” he said.

             
“Is that Ireland?” Morrigan snapped, pointing toward the shoreline.

             
Thorgrim stood slowly and looked out over the rail. “Ireland?” he said.

             
“Don’t mock me,” Morrigan said.

             
“Yes, that is Ireland. Even the
Red Dragon
does not sail so fast that we might leave Ireland behind in one night.”

             
“Why are we so far from land?”

             
Thorgrim grinned and Morrigan was certain she would have hit him at that moment if she was not suddenly afraid she would vomit, so she clenched her teeth and glared.

             
“We stood off shore all night. There are rocks, close to land. A great danger in the dark.”

             
“And trolls too, I suppose? And evil spirits?”

             
“Those too.” Thorgrim’s hand went to the cross and the hammer around his neck, a gesture Morrigan had noticed he did more and more frequently.

             
“How are we to find the crown now?”

             
Thorgrim looked out toward the land again. He seemed to be really studying it. “That headland, there,” he said, pointing. “Just around there, there lies the beach where I buried the crown.”

             
“How do you know?”

             
“I recognize it.”

             
Morrigan was mollified at first by Thorgrim’s confidence, but as the
Red Dragon
continued her rolling and swooping motion she soon found her concern for the crown, or Máel Sechnaill, or Ireland itself, waning until she cared not a whit about any of it. She curled up on the deck, hugging her cloak close to her, wishing it would all stop. She fell in and out of sleep.

             
Some time later the men forward built a fire in a portable stove and cooked pork they had taken from the baggage train. A quirk of wind brought the smell to Morrigan’s nose, and she leapt to her feet and leaned over the side of the ship. She retched, miserably, and tried to vomit, but there was nothing in her stomach.

             
Thorgrim came to her side. He had a cup in his hand. “Here is water with a little mead mixed in. Drink this, it will help.” There was genuine concern in his voice, actual tenderness. Morrigan would not have thought the fin gall capable of such a thing. She took the cup and drank and relished the liquid in her parched mouth. It helped.

             
Thorgrim set a couple of thick furs on the deck. “Lay down,” he said, easing her onto the bed. “We will be closer into land soon, and the seas will not be so rough.”

             
Morrigan looked at him with more gratitude than she had felt for anyone in a long, long time. “Thank you,” she said.

             
Thorgrim shrugged. “You cared for me when I was wounded,” he said. “And for Harald, which is far more important. And you, with plenty of reason to hate us. Us dubh gall.” He smiled when he said that.

             
Morrigan shook her head. “The Danes are dubh gall. You are fin gall.”

             
“Ah, I see.”

             
Morrigan closed her eyes. When she opened them, Thorgrim was still there, looking at her. She did not want him to leave, not then. She wanted to hear his voice.

             
“Why does Ornolf carry such a beautiful sword, with silver inlaid, and you such a plain one?” she asked.

             
Thorgrim looked down at his sword, which lay in its sheath on the deck beside her. He picked it up as if he was discovering it for the first time. “This is not my sword,” he said. “This is one I took at the mead hall when we escaped. My sword is a Frankish blade, far better than Ornolf’s. His name is Iron-tooth.”

             
Fin gall, like children,
Morrigan thought.
Naming their swords...I imagine they give their penises such fearsome names as well.
“Why don’t you have him... it...now?”

             
“Iron-tooth was stolen. In Dubh-linn, by some whore’s son named Magnus Magnusson. Do you know him?”

             
“Yes.” Arrogant, vicious, plotting Magnus Magnusson. He had caught her alone once, at the mead hall, where she had been sent for a breaker of ale. He raped her. Not because he wanted her, but because she was Orm’s.

             
“Yes, I know Magnus. And he
is
a whore’s son.”

             
“I pray to the gods that I will meet this Magnus again, so I may kill him and get my sword back. It’s a great dishonor, to lose one’s sword. Worse, to have your enemy carry it.”

             
Morrigan’s eyes moved from the sword to Thorgrim’s face. He had a far-away look, a despondent look, and Morrigan’s heart went out to him, even though it was just a stupid piece of iron, an instrument for killing. Though perhaps he was thinking about more than the sword. “Don’t you hate me,” she asked, “for my part in stealing Harald?”

             
Thorgrim did not answer right off. He looked out to sea for a moment, then back at her. “If there is one thing we Norsemen understand, it is vengeance. It is as much a part of who we are as longships and farming. We do not love our enemies, like you Christ followers say you do. We take our vengeance on them. So I know why you did what you did, and I don’t hate you for it. The same way I don’t hate the wolf that kills my cattle, though I will kill him for it.”

             
“Will you kill me, for what I did?” The thought of dying right then did not seem so unwelcome.

             
“Not unless I have to. I’m grateful that you made sure Harald was safe. A Viking would have cut his throat.”

             
Morrigan smiled and her stomach turned and she was not sure it was the motion of the ship in that instance. She had assured Thorgrim that Harald was safe. But Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid was a hard man. You had to be, if you wished to survive a week as a king in Ireland. She did not, in all honesty, know that Máel Sechnaill would be scrupulous in preserving the hostages’ lives. She closed her eyes and prayed for Harald’s safety, and as she did she fell asleep.

             
It was some time later - she did not know how long - that Morrigan opened her eyes. She lay still on her bed of fur. Things had changed. The light was different now, and she realized she must have slept through the bulk of the afternoon. The motion of the ship was different as well, the swooping and rolling was gone and the ship was very steady.

             
“Thank you, dear Jesus,” she said out loud, but soft, as she understood that the heathens did not care to have the name of the true God spoken on board their ship.

             
She sat up. They were not far out to sea any longer. The point of land that Thorgrim had mentioned was now close by on the larboard side and the men were at the oars, pulling to get the ship around the far end.

             
Morrigan lay down again, and when she woke the next time, the longship was pulled partway up on a beach, with lines running ashore and a gangplank over the side. Armed Vikings were at various places along the shore. The sun was making a dull spot of light through the thick clouds as it headed toward the west. The smell of grass and dirt was strong on the offshore breeze.

             
“Good morrow, my beauty!”