Glendalough Fair (11 page)

Louis turned on his heel and headed for the door. He was reaching for the flap when Colman called, “Oh, yes, Brother Louis, come back here. There is business I forgot.”

At that, Louis could only shake his head. Colman was summoning him back, telling him “come”, as if he was a dog. Colman would not miss even the tiniest opportunity to heap indignity on him. The man was a master. But there was nothing for Louis to do but turn and stand before Colman again like an underling or a slave, and so he did just that.

“It seems,” Colman said, “that Father Finnian has decided you should have some position with the men-at-arms. Why, I can’t imagine, but Finnian has the abbot’s ear, and the abbot has influence with the
rí túaithe, so there you are.”

“Yes,” Louis said. “Father Finnian spoke to me. As did the abbot.”

“So I see,” Colman said. He waved a hand at Louis. “And I see you are already wearing your soldier outfit. We’ll see if it suits you more than a monk’s robe. I’m afraid it will be harder to remove when the flames of passion overtake you.”

Louis said nothing. He knew better than to try and make a reply.

“Very well,” Colman continued. “You saw the ‘soldiers’ on the field as you came here, I have no doubt. Pray go and see to their training. It’s just past their breakfast so I imagine they are not yet too drunk to stand.”

For a long moment Louis stood staring at Colman. And then he spoke.

“You have no difficulties with this…arrangement?”

“…With this arrangement, my lord,” Colman prompted.

“My lord,” Louis added with just the faintest taste of irony, which Colman ignored.

“No, I have no difficulties. Assuming you are worth the victuals you consume. Why don’t you go show us if you are?”

Louis stared at him for a moment more. He, Louis de Roumois, the man who had bedded Colman mac Breandan wife, would now supersede Colman as leader of the men-at-arms because Colman was not up to the task. And Colman was not bothered by that? It made Louis very concerned indeed.

And, of course, there was the other thing. Colman said he had not sent the assassin and Louis believed him, which left unanswered the very pressing question of just who had.

Louis turned and left the pavilion.

You cannot know where false friends

May lurk in wait before you.

Hávamál

There was nothing more to see in the fishing village and nothing at all to plunder, so Thorgrim and his men and Kjartan and the others made their way back down the single rutted road toward the river. The sun was well down behind the mountains now, and the ridges glowed an odd red and orange. The shadows fell deep over that place of the dead and Thorgrim could sense the uneasiness in the ships’ crews.

Had they been facing twice their number of living warriors they would have felt no qualms, would have gone enthusiastically into such a fight. But to move past those silent homes and the stiff and blackening corpses in the road, and knowing that the spirits of the dead were not at rest, nothing like rest, was unsettling. And that meant the men would really hate the next orders he had to give.

They reached the ships at last,
Dragon
tied starboard side to the wharf and
Sea Hammer
and
Blood Hawk
tied to her larboard side, and then
Fox.
Bersi and Skidi commanding
Fox
had had the good sense to throw out anchors up-current to relieve the tremendous pressure the four ships were putting on the sorry lash-up to which they were tied.

Good seamanship
, Thorgrim thought. It was about as high a compliment as he could give a man.

The ships’ crews were more than happy to get back aboard their vessels, and those men left behind to guard the ships were happy to see them. Thorgrim, still standing on the wharf and out of earshot of the men, called Bersi, Kjartan and Skidi Battleax to join him.

“It’s too dark for us to move up river tonight,” he said, “and we don’t know enough of the current here to anchor in the stream, so we will remain tied to the wharf.” The others nodded. They were not happy, he knew, but they would not argue because they understood that Thorgrim’s decision was right. Thorgrim continued.

“Someone made a bloody mess of this village. Kjartan says he does not know who it was.”

All eyes turned to Kjartan who seemed suddenly surprised the be the center of their attention. “That’s right,” he said, almost stammering. “I don’t know who did this.”

“Whoever did,” Thorgrim said, “I don’t think they are a threat to us, I don’t think they are still around. But we would be fools to not be vigilant. Each ship will send ten men and we will post guards on the far side of the village in case an enemy thinks to move by night.”

Even in the failing light Thorgrim could see the uncertainty on the others’ faces. No one looked forward to asking men to step up for that task, to be separated from their fellows and their ship through the dark hours, with some unknown threat in front of them and the village of the dead at their backs.

Thorgrim faced another problem. He did not want to leave the ships because he feared the mischief the men might get into in his absence. He did not trust Kjartan any more now than he had at Vík-ló. Less, in truth. He saw the possibility of betrayal, or that the men’s fear of the spirits could overwhelm them.

But he also did not want the men to think he was unwilling to go into that place of the dead. Luckily, he had another means to show he was not afraid of whatever might be out there.

“My son, Harald, will lead the men from
Sea Hammer
,” he said, confident that not only would Harald do it, but he would be bitter if not allowed to. “Each of you pick your men, and a trusted man to lead them, and we will see them posted at any possible approach to the village.”

Twenty minutes later the sentries were gathered on the wharf, and an hour after that they were positioned in a cordon around the far side of the village, looking out toward the dark countryside beyond. Thorgrim and Bersi went with them to see they were well placed. They returned to the wharf with only the light of the waning moon to guide them. Kjartan was waiting for them.

“Thorgrim, Bersi,” he said. He voice had its usual confidence and swagger, but it carried a false note as well.

“Yes, Kjartan?” Thorgrim said. He was curious to see where this would lead.

“My men, as I said, were impetuous. All but forced me to leave Vík-ló when we did. I don’t want you, either of you, to think I deserted you, or had any other plans but to join you in this raid.” He paused, waiting for Thorgrim or Bersi to acknowledge those words, but neither man gave him the satisfaction, so he went on.

“It was always our intention, my intention, that we would join in this raid on Glendalough. Part of your army, Thorgrim. We would do so now, if that’s agreeable.”

Thorgrim and Bersi exchanged glances. They had not discussed this. They had not thought they would ever see Kjartan and his ship and men again. There was always an advantage in having more swords and axes if they met any real opposition, even if it did mean sharing the plunder among a greater number of men.

Bersi said nothing. He would leave the decision to Thorgrim, as Thorgrim guessed he would.

“Very well, Kjartan. I’ll not ask you to give an oath, but only to give your word that you’ll fight with us. And recognize that on this raid, I command.”

“Yes, yes, of course. I give my word to that,” Kjartan said, a little quickly.

“Very good,” Thorgrim said. He shook Kjartan’s hand, and Bersi did as well.

In truth, Thorgrim was happy to have Kjartan’s men with him to augment his force, but that was not the only reason he agreed to let them join in the raid. He was also curious. Kjartan was a lot of bad things; greedy, dishonest, untrustworthy. But the man was not a coward. Thorgrim had fought in the shield wall with him, and he knew Kjartan was brave enough in the face of even an overwhelming enemy. And yet now he was afraid, and Thorgrim wanted to know why.

The men said their good nights and Thorgrim stepped off the wharf, across
Dragon
’s deck, and onto his ship, which, though just launched days before, was already taking on a familiar and comforting aspect. He found his sleeping place in
Sea Hammer
’s stern and laid down on the furs piled there and felt the black mood come over him like a rising tide.

The black mood. It was a senseless rage that sometimes came on him when the sun went down, and it blotted out all reasonable thought. No one could approach him. When he slept he dreamed of wolves, and sometime the dreams let him see things others could not. Sometimes he woke up in a different place from where he had gone to sleep.

Some people believed he was a shape-shifter, that when the black mood enveloped him he would take on the form a wolf. But Thorgrim himself did not necessarily think that was true.

In Thorgrim’s younger days the black mood came over him almost every night, though he found that the older he grew, the less frequently he was tormented by it. But that night it was back.

For some time he looked up at the stars, the most familiar and unchanging things in all the world, as the anger came over him. Then he shucked off the covers, stood and looked out at the moonlight on the river. He watched as the water stopped its flood, grew slack and then reversed direction, flowing out into the sea and making the ships rafted to the wharf pull and strain on the anchor lines set over the bows.

Finally, as the first hints of dawn appeared over the eastern horizon, he laid down again and let sleep wash over him. He dreamed, but he did not dream of wolves, and it seemed like only moments later that he felt someone shaking him to consciousness.

Thorgrim opened his eyes. Segan was pointing to the men who had built a fire ashore and were cooking an oatmeal porridge for breakfast. Soon after, the sentries came in from their vigil with nothing to speak of, save for a pig that had been killed with a spear-thrust, mistaken for someone sneaking through the brush. There was no talk of eating the creature; they had a pretty good idea of what the pig had been dining on.

With breakfast finished they were underway once more, each ship pulling clear until
Sea Hammer
was able to cast off from
Dragon
’s side and take the lead going up-river. The tide was still on the ebb, and the going was slow as they pulled against the stream. The green banks rolled past. In some places the river moved through wide fields that stretched away into the far distance. In other places thick woods crowded down to the shore so that the longships appeared to be rowing through a steep, green gulley.

Thorgrim watched the water’s edge as his ship moved upstream.
Kevin was right about the flood, in any event
, he thought. The river was clearly higher than normal. In some places where it had jumped the banks trees came right up out of the stream like massive reeds, the current boiling around their trunks. In other places the water had completely overwhelmed the river’s edge and now lapped the green meadows above.

They pulled for an hour and then Thorgrim ordered the rowers switched out and they continued on. A man was stationed up in the bow keeping a lookout forward, and Starri stayed in his hawk’s perch at the mast head, but they sighted nothing of interest or alarm.

An hour or so after noon they passed by another village huddled against the river bank, less impressive even than the first. And like the first, there was a dead quality to the place, nothing moving, no one to be seen. They did not bother to stop.

The sun was once again heading for the edge of the distant mountains when Thorgrim called Agnarr aft.

“This Meeting of the Waters that Kevin spoke of, do you know how far up the river it is?” he asked.

Agnarr shook his head. “I’ve heard from others that there’s no mistaking it, a fork where two rivers meet, but how far from the sea I don’t know.”

“Very well,” Thorgrim said. “We had better tie up for the night. Soon it will be too dark to tell the water from the land.”

A quarter mile further they found a place where the river bank was steep and the water deep enough to bring
Sea Hammer
right against the shore. Thorgrim steered the vessel in and Starri scrambled up the bank, and soon the ship was tied fore and aft, the others astern of her. They spent the night there with sentries once again spread out in the dark, and this time they encountered nothing at all, not even a pig.

The sun rose into a cloudless sky the following morning, heralding another in an unprecedented stretch of fine weather. It made the men nervous. They figured there would be a price to pay for such a gift. The gods were not a beneficent lot.

A dead man south of me, a dead man to the north,
they were not the darlings of a worthless army.

The Annals of Ulster

Incredible,
thought Louis de Roumois. That word had popped into his head many times over the past few days, to the point where he was no longer certain what he was thinking of when it did.

There were any number of possibilities. The weather was one. By the standards of Roumois it was nothing out of the ordinary, but by the standards of Ireland, or at least what Louis had come to think of as the standards of Ireland, it was near miraculous. For the second day the sun was out, the air was warm, the steam had stopped rising off the land and now things were dry, actually dry. Louis could not recall the last time he had felt dry. Even when it was not raining, the damp and the chill were so pervasive that everything felt wet.

The activity swirling around the upcoming Glendalough Fair was no less incredible. He had been at the monastery for more than twelve months and so had been there for the fair the year before, but he could recall none of it. He had been so stunned by his sudden reversal of fortune – from Frankish prince and commander of men to a penniless and orphaned novitiate in the course of a month, exiled to the far end of the earth - that he had been hardly aware of anything going on around him.

That was no longer the case. Now, after a long winter at the monastery, during which nothing seemed to happen, where the days ground on in their tedious routine, now he was very aware of any change in circumstance, and he was astounded by what he saw.

Incredible, too, were the men under his command. They were the most astounding collection of bumblers and half-wits and cripples that he had ever seen, more like a leper colony, he thought, than a force of fighting men.

At that particular moment he was ignoring them. His attention had been drawn to a wagon pulled by two big horses and making its way down Glendalough’s main road. It was loaded with something covered by a cloth and, though it was a good quarter mile away, Louis was certain there were at least two women perched on top of whatever it carried. He had a good eye for such things.

Whores?
he wondered. That would certainly be a new thing in Glendalough, a welcome thing, he thought. But they would not be the first to arrive. Lochlánn, he was certain, had already found some of their profession during his late night excursion.

The little whore-monger
, he thought, but that was no pejorative in Louis’ opinion.

Incredible
.

He turned his attention away from the wagon and back to the men arrayed before him.             

“Take up your spears!” Louis called and the hundred or so men slouching on the field raised their long, iron-tipped shafts and held them at their sides like walking sticks. Spears were the weapons he had chosen for them, spears to be used as pole arms. They would not be thrown. If this bunch threw their spears they would simply miss their enemy while disarming themselves.

In the short time he had for training, Louis knew that pole weapons were the only thing they might master well enough to be more of a danger to an enemy than to themselves. Most of the men, he was happy to see, had received some training in the past, though none as far as he could tell had ever been in an actual battle.

“Spears down!” A hundred spears went from the vertical to the horizontal.

“Step and guard!” Louis called and the men stepped forward and the butt end of their spears swung around, deflecting an imaginary blow. Several men tripped and fell. Several others struck their neighbors. One who was struck cursed and tossed his spear aside and grabbed the offending man by the neck as others rushed in to pull him off.

If you want to hurt the bastard, why did you throw your weapon away
? Louis wondered. It was not a hopeful sign that the man’s first impulse was to drop his spear, but Louis knew better than to say as much out loud. He did not want to put ideas in the men’s heads.

An hour after leaving Colman’s pavilion, Louis had taken up the work of training these men. The fellow he had seen drilling them before turned out to be a
captain named
Aileran, an old campaigner and a man who knew his business. Aileran had been working with the conscripts for days, and he had little enthusiasm left for teaching farmers the ways of the soldier, and so he was more than ready to hand that work over to Louis.

“These sorry bastards are useless enough on a good day,” Aileran explained as he gave the men five minutes to fall to the ground and gulp air. “Last night a wine merchant got into their camp, one of these dogs that’s come for the fair. Took what silver they had in exchange for the piss he called wine. Enough to get them all stinking drunk. So they’re in fine shape today, I can tell you.”

Aileran had walked away in disgust. Louis ordered the men to their feet. He did not introduce himself. Men such as these, he knew, would respond to a proper tone of authority, and it would keep them on edge wondering who this new man was, a man who spoke with a Frankish accent, who assumed command and expected to be obeyed.

“And thrust!” The spears came back to their original horizontal position and were driven into the bellies of imaginary heathens. Louis doubted that actual heathens would be killed by such slow and clumsy movements. He had killed many heathens himself and he knew they took more killing than that.

Beyond where the farmers were training in two long lines, about seventy men-at-arms were drilling with sword, shield and ax, the weapons of experienced warriors. It was to this company that Aileran had returned after abandoning Louis to the bóaire and fuidir. These were the real fighting men of Glendalough, the house guards of the various wealthy lords. They had been sent by command of the rí túaithe to serve at the pleasure of
Colman mac Breandan, and so, by default, at the pleasure of Louis de Roumois.

Louis allowed himself a few seconds to watch their practice, the smooth interplay of shield and sword as they sparred one on one under
Aileran’s supervision.

The sight of those men stirred an odd mix of emotions in Louis’s breast. They were warriors, his people. It did not matter that they were Irish; they were Christians like him and the bond of fighting men was stronger than that of the land from which they came. He wanted to join them, to train with them and prepare for real fighting. It had been so long since he had donned sword and mail, and while his muscles still remembered the lessons they had learned he did not feel the confidence he once had.

He found it humiliating to be drilling the buffoon farmers when there were real men-at-arms with whom to work. He knew that Father Finnian and the abbot and the rí túaithe expected him to lead these men, all of them. They were looking to him to beat back the heathen invaders. He could not do that if the farmers who made up most of his troops were completely hopeless.

But neither could he lead the men-at-arms if they did not know him and respect him.

Maybe I’ll go spar with one of them, put him down in the dirt,
Louis thought. That would do wonders to gain their respect.

“Brother Louis?”

Louis turned at the sound of his name. Brother Lochlánn was there but Louis did not recognize him directly. The young man had abandoned his monk’s robe and now wore a tunic and mail shirt, a sword belt buckled around his waist.

“Brother Lochlánn…” Louis said, and before he could even ask the obvious question, Lochlánn answered it.

“It was Brother Gilla Patraic,” Lochlánn explained. “He said you would need someone to help you. He said I was to do it.” His tone was an odd mix of confusion and embarrassment. “To be honest, I think Father Finnian told Brother Gilla Patraic to do it. Brother Gilla Patraic did not seem very happy about it at all.”

“That sounds like the way of things,” Louis said. Two days earlier Louis would have sent Lochlánn running with a swift kick to the hind quarters, but after all that had happened he was coming to like the boy. And Lochlánn in turn seemed to have abandoned his arrogant, swaggering manner. “Did Brother Gilla Patraic provide you with the mail and weapon?”

“No, he didn’t,” Lochlánn said. “It’s mine…I brought it with me. To the monastery. My father didn’t know.”

Louis nodded. The boy must come from a family of some means. That would explain the rudimentary weapons training.
Packed off to a monastary against his will
, Louis thought. He was liking the boy more and more.

“Very well,” Louis said, “get these men up and back to their drills.” He gave a quick jerk of his head toward the waiting men, the spear-bearing farmers who had taken advantage of Louis’ distraction to stop and lean on their spears. Some had even collapsed to the ground.

Lochlánn squinted. “What, me? They don’t know who I am. Why would they listen to me?”

“They’ll listen,” Louis said, “because you are wearing mail and a sword, and you will speak to them like you expect to be listened to. Don’t hesitate, don’t show any want of confidence. Speak like you were the king of all Ireland.”

Lochlánn nodded. He considered what he would say and how he would say it. He turned to the soldiers in training. “You men, pray let us get back to our drills!” Not the way Louis would have phrased it, and Lochlánn’s voice nearly cracked, but his tone was commanding enough that the men obeyed, though with less snap than Louis would have liked to see.

“Well done, Brother Lochlánn,” Louis said in a voice low enough that only they could hear. He turned back to the farmers. “Back and guard! With the butt end, thrust!”

For another twenty minutes Louis ran the men through various drills; thrusting, blocking, forming a defensive line. The practice was aimed as much at training them to hear and obey commands without hesitation as it was to build proficiency with their weapons.

“That’s good,” Louis shouted when he could bear no more. “Pair off, drill some, one on one. Try not to wound one another this time!” The farmers lowered their spears and slowly organized themselves into pairs, taking their time so that they might get a respite from the training and some relief for their aching heads.

“Brother Louis, have your heard from Father Finnian at all?” Brother Lochlánn asked as they stood side by side watching the new-made soldiers take the first desultory swipes at their partners.

“No, nothing yet,” Louis said. Finnian had left the day after asking Louis to take up this duty, off to Líamhain to beg more men-at-arms from Ruarc mac Brain. He had urged Louis to begin training, to not delay. At the same time he asked that Louis keep the threat of the heathens to himself. Finnian did not want to start a panic. Louis suspected that was mostly because he did not want to jeopardize the success of the Glendalough Fair.

“You know…Lochlánn,” Louis said. “I wonder if we might leave off the ‘Brother’ when we address one another. We must act as men-at-arms now, not men of God. Not that the two cannot exist together.”

“Of course they can, we are warriors for God,” Lochlánn said. “But how shall I address you? Sure, I cannot call you ‘Louis’, your position is far too much above mine for that.”

“A good question,” Louis said. The boy was embracing humility and deference to rank faster than Louis would ever have hoped. “I am not sure…I am still new to your language and have not had the chance to learn the words your soldiers use. I’m not sure how I should be addressed.”

But in truth Louis
was
sure. He should have been addressed as ‘Lord’. His status, his real status, not that of a novitiate at Glendalough, was far above Lochlánn’s, far above Finnian’s or the abbot’s or
Colman mac Breandan or even the local
rí túaithe
.
He was the son of a count of a Frankish kingdom and he ranked far above any of the petty pretenders to nobility in that great cow pasture called Ireland.

But he also had sense enough to not insist that his true position be recognized or acknowledged.

“What would be appropriate?” Louis asked. “I am not the leader of these men, you know,
Colman mac Breandan is.”

“But you are second to him, and beside, Father Finnian says you are to have the real command, and we may thank God for it. What if we called you ‘Captain’? Captain Louis de Roumois?”

Louis considered that. It had the right tone; martial, authoritarian, it spoke of rank earned through experience and not simply given because of social standing.

“Very well, you may call me ‘Captain Louis de Roumois.’”

Their conversation had been punctuated by the sound of spear shafts cracking against one another and the grunt of men struggling through their drills, but now a shout of outrage drowned that all out. Louis and Lochlánn turned to see one of the farmers on the ground, his right hand clamped over his left arm, blood spilling from between his fingers. The training had stopped as all eyes were on the wounded man.

Without a word, the bleeding man climbed to his feet, snatching up his fallen spear as he did, and before he was fully upright he swung the spear and hit his opposite number on the side of the head. The man went down like his bones were gone and then suddenly everyone was in motion, some swinging at others or clubbing with the butt ends of their spears, some ducking, some trying to break up the fighting men.