Glendalough Fair (14 page)

If I were a king who reddens spears

My wars would be many;

my words would not be false

Annals of Ulster

They would attack at dusk. That was the plan Louis de Roumois discussed with Aileran. As he spoke, Aileran just nodded, and said nothing. When he was done the Irishman grunted and said, “We’ll murder the bastards, we will.”

Dusk was a risk, but a tolerable one. With luck the heathens would have spent the day drinking and eating, certain, as night came on, that no enemy was coming. The fading light would make it easier to hide their approach and the sun would be more or less at their backs. The darkness that would come soon after would cover their retreat.

A night attack would have been best, of course, a surprise in the dark hours, but Louis did not think his bumbling farmers were capable of such a thing. The added difficulty of organizing and fighting in the dark was an invitation to disaster.

Ten hours after he made his plans with Aileran, Louis led his men toward the Meeting of the Waters. They took three hours to cover the distance, moving slow and quiet with scouts flung out ahead, and they approached the heathen’s camp unseen as far as they could tell. Now he and Lochlánn were once again moving along the bank of the river, seventy men-at-arms and spear-bearing farmers behind them. The rest of the men from Glendalough were secreted behind the rise that he and Lochlánn had climbed in the dark hours of the morning. They were waiting for Louis and his column to get in place.

Louis held up his hand and the men behind him came to a stop and instinctively stepped toward the tree line, even though they were not yet visible from the heathens’ camp. Louis could see the longships from where he stood. His view was partially obscured by the trees, but still it seemed to him there were more than the five that Colman’s riders had first reported. There seemed to be more like ten ships there. He frowned, but in truth he did not think it mattered.

Louis was not looking to win a victory. He did not plan on losing many men. He wanted to launch an attack, take the heathens by surprise, kill as many as he could, and then go. In a head-on battle, shield wall to shield wall, his men would be cut down in minutes. Less than half of them even had shields.

Bear baiting. That was the only way to stop the heathens’ advance. Nip at them, weaken them, make them angry. Bite them and let them bleed.

Louis stared off toward the slow-moving water of the Avoca and listened. He could hear the occasional shout or burst of laughter from the heathen camp, the sound of some heavy thing dropped to the ground. There was a breeze moving through the heavily leafed branches of the trees and that was good as it hid any sound his men might make moving through the brush. The sun was near the edge of the mountains to the west, the shadows growing long. The smell of evening was in the air.

The other half of the army, the men behind the hill under Aileran’s command, would attack first. Aileran had wanted to send the spear-men in first, to fling the untrained soldiers at the enemy, send them crashing into their ranks, leading with the wicked points of their spears. Most of the spearmen would die, but they would make the enemy stagger, and then the men-at-arms would come in after, climbing over the spear-men’s bodies to get at the warriors arrayed against them.

It was the way that sort of thing was generally done, but Louis had insisted they turn it around. Send the men-at-arms in first, let their courage bolster the farmers behind, who would then advance and do great execution with their iron-tipped spears. And behind the farmers, a few more men-at-arms to see the spear-men advanced when they should, and to cut down any who showed an unacceptable tendency to hesitate.

That was how Louis envisioned it playing out. He was seeing it again in his mind when he heard the battle cry cutting through the cool air, clear as if the man had been twenty feet away. Just one shout, a high, undulating yell, and then silence. Silence that lasted no longer than the time it took startled men to register what was going on and to respond in kind.

Louis felt himself stiffen and sensed those behind him do likewise, heard the soft sound of his men taking a step forward in anticipation. He held up his hand to steady them. From beyond the trees that screened them from the heathens’ camp he could hear the shouting build, and with it, running, the clash of weapons snatched from where they had been set down. Panic and surprise were spreading, and he pictured Aileran leading his men-at-arms down the slope of the hill toward the line of trees and the first string of sentries positioned there.

He could hear cries in the ugly language of the Northmen, and in Irish as well, but he could not make out the words. The sentries had done their first duty, which was to alert the camp. Now, with luck, they would do their second, which was to sacrifice themselves to slow the attackers, to die under the men-at-arms’ swords until the rest could grab up weapons and get into the fight.

Lochlánn was beside him, sword in hand. His face was white like a corpse in the rain, his eyes wide, the fear in them as sharp as a fresco. But all he said was, “Should we advance now, Captain?”

Louis shook his head. The timing was the thing here. The longer they waited, the more effective their attack would be, but they could not wait until Aileran’s men had all been killed. He turned his head and listened. He could hear the shouts of the men, the ring of weapon on weapon, the screams of the wounded, the sounds he knew so well. He felt a thrill run through him, felt himself pulled toward it like a hound on a fox’s scent, and he made a conscious effort to remain still.

And then he knew it was time to go. “Let us advance, slow. Keep behind me,” Louis said. He stepped off along the riverbank, moving fast but cautiously, pushing the branches aside with the shield in his left hand. He did not want his men to be seen until he was ready for them to be seen.

It was less than a minute before he reached the place where the trees and brush yielded to the wide muddy bank and the open field where the heathens’ camp was arrayed. Louis stopped there, right at the juncture of tree line and open ground. It was pandemonium before him, as he had hoped it would be. Men were shouting, running back and forth without direction. They were snatching up weapons and shields and racing off to the sound of the fight. Few wore mail – they had not expected to do battle that evening.

The ground rose gently inland from the river, enough that Louis could not see the actual fight, but there were Northmen and Irish racing in that direction and he knew it was time to take some of the pressure off Aileran and his men.

“Come on, now!” he shouted, drawing his sword and raising it above his head. “With me! Advance!” Louis felt his blood pumping. Excitement like St. Elmo’s Fire danced through him as he moved forward, building in speed. The weight of his mail shirt, the jingling, chinking sound it made, the snug fit of his helmet, the delicious feel of sword hilt in hand, it all took him back to that time before the great upheaval in his life, back when he had only to drink and whore with his fellows at night and kill Northmen by day.

“With me! Advance!” he shouted again. He looked left and right. The men-at-arms were with him, just a pace behind, ready to slam into the enemy and cut them down without mercy, because mercy was not a thing the heathens understood or deserved. And Lochlánn was at his side, sword in hand, mouth open in a scream of rage, and Louis knew he would be fine now that the waiting was over and the fighting had begun. He would make a fine warrior, Lochlánn would, if he lived through the next hour.

They reached the edge of the camp where a few score men were still in the process of arming themselves, some taking the time to drop mail shirts over their heads.

“At them! At them! Kill them!” Louis shouted and the others took up the cry as he had ordered them to do. He wanted the enemy to know that they were there. He wanted them to know that now there were killers at their backs. Nothing would spread panic quicker than that.

Louis was the first into the fight. The man before him – Irish, Louis realized, he could tell by the clothes - had time only to lift his sword in defense. It was a weak defense. Louis knocked the sword aside and drove the tip of his blade into the man’s stomach, felt that familiar sensation of resistance and then give and then the scream and the wrenching and twisting of the blade as the man collapsed.

By habit Louis pulled the blade free before the man could fall on it, straightened and looked around for the next to take him on. A small man, wiry and red-haired, pale eyes wide, sword and shield in his hand, came charging up. Louis stepped toward him, adjusted the grip on his sword. And then Lochlánn was there, pushing right in front of Louis, swinging wildly at the Irishman.

The Irish warrior took Lochlánn’s stroke on his shield. He drew his blade back as Louis stepped up and shoved Lochlánn aside, pushing him clear just as the blade darted forward. Lochlánn stumbled and Louis drove his sword into the red-headed warrior’s side, just below his arm. He felt the tip glance off bone and then keep going. The Irishman stopped and the blood erupted from his mouth and Louis pulled the sword free.

Lochlánn was laying on the ground. “Don’t get in front of me, don’t ever get in front of me!” Louis shouted. Lochlánn, wide eyed, nodded, and Louis figured he was safe enough on the ground, so he turned back to the fight.

The men-at-arms were fully engaged, and more and more of the Northmen were heading toward this second line of fighting. Louis could see Aileran and his men a hundred yards away. They had fought their way through the tree line and were making a bold stand on the edge of the open ground.

Louis’s men had cut through the first of the disorganized enemy, but now the Irish warriors, Kevin mac Lugaed’s warriors, were forming and gathering and advancing. They were making an organized attack, after a fashion, some with shields, some without, a few wearing mail.

“Men of Glendalough, with me!” Louis shouted. He lifted his sword, looked around. They were with him. He advanced on the Irish line, his men making a blunt dagger-point of warriors with himself at the tip. They were screaming when they hit the enemy, their swords, shields and battle axes in motion. The Irish stood their ground, fought back, met them sword for sword where they could. But there was a great difference between going into a battle prepared and doing so after being taken by surprise, and the stunned Irish fell under the weapons Louis’s men wielded.

They fell, but not all, and those who did not stood their ground and closed the gaps in the line and fought with a determination that impressed Louis, enough that he almost regretted the mortal shock he was about to visit on them.

“Spear-men! Advance! Advance!” he shouted and now it was the farmers’ turn. Louis knew that fighting brought on a kind of madness in any man but the most cowardly. Once the weapons began to clash fear was set aside, compassion and reason swept away, and each man thought only about driving his weapon into his enemy’s guts. He hoped it would be thus with the bóaire, once they had seen the men-at-arms do battle. And it was.

The farmers were screaming as they charged into the fight, spears held level, passing between Louis’s men-at-arms and driving into the Irish beyond. The effect was shocking and bloody. Men who a second before had been fighting sword and shield against men-at-arms were skewered by the long iron-tipped ash shafts striking fast and unseen. Men dropped, clutching their guts, others slashed wildly at the spear points. And as the Irish made their flailing defense against this new threat, the men-at-arms kept up their deadly work.

Lochlánn was on his feet again, standing shoulder to shoulder with Louis, working his sword and shield as Louis had taught him. His face was streaked with blood but his movements seemed unimpaired, so Louis figured he was in no bad way.

“At them!” Louis screamed again, making his voice as loud and manic as he could. He did not know if he had screamed in Irish or Frankish but it made no difference. The enemy were on the verge of panic, he could see that, and that last wild banshee scream had pushed them those last few inches. As Louis’s men surged ahead the men before them broke and ran, dropping weapons and shields, stumbling over the dead, racing to someplace of safety.

That’s it
, Louis thought. That was all he wanted to do. They had hurt them, they had shown them that the sacking of Glendalough would be no easy thing, that they faced an enemy of real fighting men. He had planted doubt and recrimination.

Lochlánn was starting to chase after the running men and Louis tried to grab him but he did not have a free hand, so he shouted, “Lochlánn, stop!” and happily Lochlánn heard and stopped.

“Your horn,” Louis shouted. “Now!” Lochlánn looked at him for a second with stupid incomprehension. And then the words filtered through the fog of the boy’s momentary insanity and he nodded and grabbed the horn he wore hanging around his neck. He put it to his lips and blew, a long, sharp, clear note. It was the only note he could play on the thing, but it was all they needed, a call to retreat that would cut through the battle noise, that he and Aileran’s men would hear equally well.

The men-at-arms formed up and stepped back, colliding with the spear-men who were still too dazed from the action to recall what was expected of them.

“You men, let us…” Louis began, turning to face the men behind, and then stopped. Ten paces behind the spear-men stood Failend. Her hair was wild, her face streaked. It might have been dirt or blood. She held a short sword in her hand and it was glistening red. One of the Irish warriors lay at her feet, writhing in death agony, and before Louis could speak Failend lifted the sword and plunged it down into the man’s neck.