Fin Gall (35 page)

             
“Máel Sechnaill is just a man, and he does not command some grand army, not even with the fyrd called out, which it is not. Don’t be such a damned...don’t worry so much.”

             
Niall looked up sharp at Cormac. They had been two days at the ringfort while they waited for some word from the people sent out around the countryside. Tempers were getting short. There was a sense among the men that their luck was running low.

             
Whatever retort Niall may have come up with was cut short by a pounding on the door that made both men turn quick and look. Cormac’s men were on their feet, swords drawn.

             
A voice came muffled through the oak and iron-bound door. “Lord Cormac! It is Fintan, come with news!”

             
One of the men by the door lifted the bar and swung the door open and Fintan, wet and mud-splattered, came into the room and bowed to Cormac. “Lord Cormac I rode north along the banks of the River Boyne. There I met with some sheep herders who told me a longship had passed by, bound up-river.”

             
“Indeed. Ireland is filthy with the damned Norse. What makes you think it is the longship we are seeking?”

             
“I can’t be certain, that’s true. But the sheep herder said there were no more than a dozen shields in the longship’s shield rack, which was true of the one we sought. Some of the shields were bright painted, such as those the dubh gall carried, and some leather, such as ours. And the longship carried its dragon head mounted, and not stowed away, as the Norse generally do when they approach the land.”

             
Cormac nodded. It could be another longship, but he doubted it. This description matched too closely the one they were chasing. He began to feel a surge of optimism. For three years he had thought about little other than getting his hands on the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. He had come so close, and then had the dream snatched away. But here it was again, dangling like a carrot on a stick.

             
Why would the fin gall be on the River Boyne?
Cormac wondered. Perhaps they were intending to plunder inland. Perhaps they were going to fall on Tara, which was best reached by passage up the Boyne.

             
Cormac sat upright.
Tara!
Perhaps the fin gall were in league with Máel Sechnaill. There were plenty of Irish kings who had held their noses and made alliances with the filthy Norse intruders for their own gain. He had. Why not Máel Sechnaill?

             
The more Cormac thought on it, the more certain he became, and the more desperate he felt to stop them.

             
“Get the men ready to move,” Cormac snapped at Niall Cuarán. “Fintan will lead us to where the longship is. We will not stop until we have taken them, or have been cut down trying.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Repay laughter

with laughter again

but
betrayal with treachery

                             
Hávamál

              T

he Red Dragons backed off, warily, watching the riders as they raced off west with Harald prisoner. They retreated to the line of trees, which would protect their backs in case the horsemen turned and bore down on them. Overhead, the sky grew blacker and far off the thunder began to peal. The Norsemen looked warily at the thick clouds, wondering on whom the gods would unleash.

              Thorgrim Night-Wolf paced, twenty feet in front of the rest. Back and forth. Every once in a while he would look out across the field to see if anything was happening. He hoped desperately that the Irish would attack. He did not think he could rally the men for an attack on them.

             
Back and forth, hand gripping and ungripping the hilt of the unfamiliar sword. The men did not speak to him. They did not dare, and that was fine. There was nothing to say in any event.

             
It was Egil Lamb who broke the silence. He had managed to climb one of the scrawny trees and was peeking out through the prickly foliage. “Riders coming!” he called.

             
Men who had begun to relax, just a bit, scrambled to their feet, weapons ready. “Just three!” Egil called out a moment later.

             
They could see them soon enough, three mounted men riding across the open country. There were no others, no riders sweeping in for a flank attack. At least not that the Norsemen could see.

             
It took twenty minutes for the riders to cover the ground. Half way to where the Norsemen were formed up they stopped and held something aloft, then continued on, the object still held high.

             
“It’s a shield, they are carrying a shield on a spear,” Egil called from his perch. An imitation of the Viking custom of running a shield up to the top of the mast to indicate that a ship coming from sea had peaceful intentions.

             
“Now we will see how things lie,” Ornolf said. He, of all the men, had dared to come and stand beside Thorgrim. He no longer trusted Thorgrim’s judgment, Thorgrim knew it. He was assuming the command that was his to take. That was fine. Thorgrim was worried only about Harald now.

             
The riders approached, slowing as they came within a long spear throw of the Vikings, and then they stopped.

             
“We have come to talk,” one of them called out. He spoke good Norse with a thick Celtic accent.

             
“Come and talk,” Ornolf called. “We won’t harm you, if your word is good.”

             
The horsemen walked their mounts forward until they were a perch away from the Norsemen, no more. “My name is Flann mac Conaing, and I am the chief council of Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid, who is high king of Tara and the land of Brega.”

             
Ornolf stepped forward. “I am Ornolf Hrafnsson, jarl in the territory of Vik, and these are my men.”

             
“Ornolf Hrafnsson, you are the one I have come to speak with,” said Flann. “And one called Thorgrim.”

             
Thorgrim stepped forward, stood beside Ornolf, fought the temptation to cut them all down, all three Irishmen, raised shield or no.

             
“I am Thorgrim.”

             
Flann nodded. “We have a hostage, by the name of Harald Thorgrimsson. He is one of your men?”

             
Thorgrim and Ornolf remained silent. After a moment Flann gave a nervous cough.

             
“In any event, I have it on good authority that he is your son, Thorgrim, as his name would suggest, and grandson to Ornolf. And that being so, I imagine you want him back. Alive.”

             
“You have other men, too,” Ornolf said. “Stolen from Dubh-linn. Olvir Yellowbeard and Giant-Bjorn. What of them?”

             
Flann thought about that before answering. “They were wounded when they arrived at Tara. They did not survive their wounds.”

             
Thorgrim pressed his lips together, tight.
Murdering bastards...
he thought. His hand reached for the hammer and cross around his neck.
Odin, all-father...Christ...protect Harald from these bastards...

             
“You have something we want,” Flann continued, “and it is of little use to you in any event. The crown. The Crown of the Three Kingdoms.”

             
“What makes you think we have this crown?” Ornolf asked.

             
“Because it has all been arranged, far beyond what you can understand. Why else would you come up the River Boyne, with so few arms and a ship so poorly fit out?”

             
“Very well, the crown for the boy,” Thorgrim said. He was finished with fancy talk. “How shall it be done?”

             
“At first light on the morrow,” Flann said. “In the middle of that open ground.” He pointed to the rolling country over which he had just ridden. “Where we took your boy this morning. I will ride out alone with Harald, you, Thorgrim, will come alone with Morrigan and the crown. We will exchange there and go our ways in peace.”

             
Thorgrim frowned. This Flann mac Conaing knew that Morrigan was with them. Flann was not lying about the intricate arrangements. Thorgrim did not trust him. There was no one in all of Ireland he trusted now, including Ornolf the Restless, his father in law. There was no one he trusted, save for Harald.

             
“Very well, it is agreed,” Ornolf said.

             
“Very well,” Flann said. “On the morrow, at first light.” He wheeled his horse and the three riders headed back the way they had come, moving at an unhurried pace, as if they had no fear at all. The Vikings watched them go.

             
“Good,” Ornolf said at last. “Tomorrow we get our boy and say good bye to this cursed land.”

             
Overhead the thunder cracked again, much louder. The first drops of rain began to fall. Thorgrim had a very bad feeling.

             
We bring them the crown and Morrigan, we get Harald. They cannot betray us, if it is just this Flann and me on open ground.

             
And then another thought came to him. He looked around. “Where is Morrigan?” he asked.

             
Crouched in the brush, Morrigan waited and listened. She could hear the sound of heavy drops hitting the leaves, could see the splat of the rain on her cloak as the storm moved in overhead. It would make for a miserable night, but a safe one. No one could track her in a downpour, with night covering the wood.

             
She had been sitting, quite still, for half an hour by her estimate. No noise of pursuit, no one crashing through the woods after her. With all of the fin gall tracking Harald, she imagined they were not thinking of her. By the time it occurred to them to look, it would be too late.

             
She stood and grimaced as cramped muscles stretched. In her hand she held her basket of medicines and food. It was heavier now with the weight of the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. Somehow, Harald had freed himself. Thorgrim did not need the crown now.

             
She moved off through the woods. Night would come early with the storm building in the west. Soon she would not be able to see and then she would have to find a place to curl up, some place that offered a modicum of protection, but until then she wanted to get as much distance as she could between herself and the longship.

             
She was walking west, generally following the River Boyne. Sometimes she was in trees and sometimes she was in open country, but it was all her land, her Brega, and she felt safe there.

             
It was starting to get fully dark when she first smelled the smoke. She paused and sniffed and looked around. The wind was out of the west, coming on the front of the rain. Somewhere ahead of her there was a fire burning. She wondered if there was a cottage ahead, and if so, did she dare approach. The thought of a warm house on such a night was tempting, but she was not sure she could risk it.

             
Let me see what this is, Morrigan thought and she headed off in the direction of the smoke, moving slowly and stopping often to listen and to look. She did not want to be seen unless she chose to be seen.

             
To the northwest, closer to the river, Morrigan could see a stand of trees, the occasional snatch of smoke whipping out from the wood.
Not a cottage, then, some poachers or traveling merchants or some such,
she thought. Someone seeking some protection for the storm among the trees. She did not want to cross the open ground while there was still light in the sky. She found a place where the grass was tall enough to hide her, and she crawled into the middle and waited.

             
Twenty minutes later the rain was falling in earnest and the thunder like the handclap of an angry God rolled over the countryside. The daylight was all but gone. Morrigan could make out dark shapes and darker shapes, and no more. She stood and picked up her basket and headed toward the stand of trees and the promising smoke rising from there.

             
Morrigan reached the trees and began to slip through them, and soon she could catch glimpses of a fire burning in a small clearing in the wood. She moved cautiously, easing down with every step so as not to snap a twig or trip on some obstacle, but with the rain and the thunder she doubted she would be heard if she was playing a war drum.

             
Near the edge of the clearing she stopped and peeked through the tangled bracken. There was a horse tethered to a tree. A blanket had been strung between trees to form a rude shelter, and under that a small fire sputtered and crackled and blazed.

             
Morrigan looked longingly at the fire, as longingly as she had ever looked at one of the noblemen’s feasts at Tara while she herself and all those of her class had near starved in the late spring famines. She wanted to sit under that blanket, warm her hands over that fire.

             
Her eyes moved to the man sitting beside it and she tried to make him out, to see what sort of a man he appeared to be. If he had a horse, then he was a man of means, but that certainly did not mean he would not harm her. She knew better than that.

             
There was something familiar about him, she was sure of it, though in the dim light she could not make out the features of his face.
One of the rí túaithe who frequented Tara? Perhaps.

             
The rain was running down her face and she wiped it away. The fire in the clearing began to sputter and the man added more twigs. He leaned toward the flames and blew on the coals, and in that instant the fire flared and illuminated his face as if a lantern had been unshuttered in front of him.