Glendalough Fair (19 page)

Once Niall had left him, Kevin allowed a hint of a smile to play across his lips. He was pleased. He knew that he could not control events as if he was ordering slaves here and there. Only a fool or one consumed by hubris could think otherwise. A man was lucky if he could control what he himself did; there was no certain way to make others do as you wished. Once you involved just one other person in your plans then control was lost, and Kevin’s plans involved hundreds.

No, he could not control things. He could just put the pieces in place, arrange them as best he could, see what happened, and then take his advantage from that. And so far things were working out better than he could ever have hoped.

Thorgrim and Ottar would never join forces, so they would never be a threat to him. It was far more likely they would kill one another. At the same time, whoever these bastards were who had attacked their camp – and Kevin had to guess it was men-at-arms from Glendalough – they would be far too occupied with the heathens to even noticed Kevin’s army taking a long march around to the north and west.

Thorgrim, Ottar, these whores’ sons from Glendalough, they could all kill one another here on the shores of the River Avonmore and leave Kevin mac Lugaed in peace to sack the monastic city. The hint of a smile blossomed into a genuine grin.

To the heedful comes seldom harm,

for none can find a more faithful friend

than the wealth of mother wit.

Hávamál

Colman mac Breandan sat at the table
in his pavilion. The man standing on the other side of the table had finished his tale and now stood waiting for some response. He did not fidget. He was not the sort to fidget.

It was quiet as Colman thought about what the man had just said
. He could hear the sounds of other men outside, quite a few men now; the men-at-arms
and the bóaire and fuidir
come back from the Meeting of the Waters, and the men-at-arms sent by Ruarc mac Brain whom Father Finnian had just that morning led into the dúnad. Not the two hundred Finnian had hoped for, but nearly that number, and good men, too. Good, well-trained and experienced fighting men.

Slaughtering the heathens would present little problem with such an army as that assembled. Or so Colman had thought when they had first marched into camp. Now he was not so certain.

For the past twenty minutes Colman had been listening to the tale of the fighting at the Meeting of Waters and what had come after. It made him angry at times, and also relieved, and curious as well. So much going on in so short a time.

“Nine longships, you said?” Colman asked at last.

“Yes, lord,” Aileran said.

Aileran was the only other soul in the pavilion. Failend had been sent away with Colman’s assurance he would deal with her at the proper time. Louis de Roumois had not even made an appearance. He was apparently conferring with Father Finnian rather than begging an audience with his proper superior, and that annoyed Coleman. He had expected Louis to show up eager to tell his tale, at which point Coleman would have sent him on his way like the miscreant boy he was. But Louis’s absence had denied Colman that little pleasure.

“Nine longships…” Colman muttered to himself as he worked out numbers. “Could be as many as four hundred of the sons of whores.”

“Yes, lord,” Aileran said.

“And the men with that traitorous bastard Kevin? At least a hundred?”

“Yes, lord.”

“We are outnumbered,” Colman said. It was an observation. There was no panic in his voice or in his heart. But there was concern. If the heathens were to overrun Glendalough he could lose a great deal. Not everything - he had land and holdings and interests spread all over that part of Ireland - but he could lose what he had in the monastic city. And he could lose his sinecure as commander of Glendalough’s defenses and the generous income that went with it. He could lose reputation.

“We
are
outnumbered, lord,” Aileran agreed, and he sounded even less concerned than Colman. “But the heathens seem determined to stick to the river and that will make it hard for them to attack. I don’t think this Kevin mac Lugaed is much of a threat. At Meeting of the Waters we were up against his men, mostly. They did not fight to any great effect. And Louis de Roumois, he’s a man who knows his business.”

Colman looked up sharp and Aileran made a throat-clearing sound. “Beg pardon, lord. I was just saying…”

“Yes, yes,” Colman said, waving his hand as if driving away some annoying insect. Aileran, like all the men in the dúnad, indeed like all of Glendalough was aware of the tension between
Colman mac Breandan and the young Frank Louis de Roumois. Most imagined it was due to Louis’ being asked to take direct command of the troops. Others guessed at more intimate reasons.

It was clear to Colman that Aileran was trying to downplay Louis’s part in the fighting at Meeting of the Waters, his clever planning, his inspired use of untrained men. But Colman could hear the unspoken praise in his telling of the story.

“With the heathens so numerous here,” Colman continued, “I’m wondering if we shouldn’t go back to Glendalough, make our defenses there.”

Aileran, despite his apparent new-found respect for Louis de Roumois, was still Colman’s man, the most experienced soldier in Colman’s ad hoc army. And Colman was still in command of the defenses of Glendalough, whatever the priest Finnian might think. Before the arrival of Louis de Roumois, Colman had looked to Aileran for support, and he would continue to look to him when the Frank was gone. Which would hopefully be soon.

“Well, lord, I think there’s a better way than giving them the ground betwixt here and Glendalough,” Aileran said, his words coming slow and thoughtfully. “The heathens, like I said, are keeping to the water, taking their ships upriver as far as they are able, which will be damned far in this flooding. That might give us a better chance.”

Colman looked at Aileran and frowned. The words were coming from the man’s mouth, but Colman was pretty sure they had originated in Louis de Roumois’s head. But what of it? If the Frankish son of a bitch was indeed a good soldier, then Colman could use that to his advantage. Let Louis lead the men to victory. Any such victory, and the reputation and spoils that came with it, were easily enough usurped when all was done.

“Very well, then, we’ll do it your way,” Colman said. “Now, this assassin, the one who came for the Frankish whore’s son?”

“Yes, lord. It was like I told you,” Aileran replied.

“Tell me again.”

“Well, Captain Louis, he was sleeping off by himself, away from the men…” Aileran said, and Colman thought,
You are a miserably bad liar
, but he let it go.

“And this son of a bitch,” Aileran continued, “comes from I don’t know where. I heard them fighting and run over.”

“You’re sure it was the same man? The same Frankish bastard who showed up here a fortnight past?”

“Yes, lord,” Aileran said. “I’m sure of it. I had a good look at him at first light. After he was dead, lord.”

Son of a bitch, these lying dogs!
Colman thought. He could picture the new-minted Frankish coins he had hidden in his home in Glendalough, the few he carried with him in his purse. Given to him as down payment for a job that needed doing, but then this whore’s son apparently decided to do the job himself. Or maybe he had been instructed to do it, to save the cost of paying Colman the balance of the fee when the job was done.

If this bastard was going to do it himself, why involve me at all
? Colman wondered, but the answer was obvious enough to a man such as him, one used to manipulating others. If the killer failed they would have Colman as a back-up. If he was caught then Colman would have to help him or risk being implicated.

Damned Frankish curs, never to be trusted
, Colman thought. He looked up at Aileran again.

“Brother Louis did not have the chance to speak with him?”

“No, lord. They were still going at it, hammer and tongs, when I cut the whore’s son down. He never spoke a word that I could hear.”

“Good,” Colman said. “Good.” He looked down at the table once again and turned the various considerations over in his mind. Was that bastard the only one, or were their others? Did it matter? He had been paid for a service, at least in part, and in truth it was a service he would have been happy to perform for free.

“Very well, Captain,” Colman said, looking up at Aileran again. “You did good work and I thank you.” He picked up the purse that was lying on the table, heard the Frankish silver clinking inside the soft leather bag. “Now, there is more I need of you.”

Good is health if one can but keep it,

and to live a life without shame.

Hávamál

The river was growing shallow, but Thorgrim did not notice. He was tending to Starri, still wrapped in his fur nest in
Sea Hammer
’s stern.

They had stitched Starri’s wounds closed that morning, working on him while the men at the oars pulled the longship upstream against the current and Agnarr manned the steering board. Harald had offered to do the sewing, thinking himself skilled at that task, but Thorgrim had enough ugly scars on his body, made uglier by Harald’s handiwork with needle and thread, that he said he would do it himself.

He worked slowly, drawing the flesh together as best he could. Sometimes Starri flinched when the needle pierced his skin, sometimes he did not. When the wound on his chest was done they rolled him on his side and Thorgrim stitched up his back, and then they laid him flat again. Thorgrim mixed broth with ale and made Starri drink. Starri opened his eyes and looked up at him. There was confusion there, and a faraway look.

“Night Wolf,” he said, the words barely a whisper. He said no more, but Thorgrim knew it was a question and he knew the answer Starri was seeking.

“You were wounded, Starri. But you are still among the living.”

Starri closed his eyes and nodded his head, just a bit, and then drifted off to sleep again.

“You did that well, father,” Harald said. He and Thorgrim were looking down at Starri’s seemingly shrunken form. “The stitching. But aren’t there herbs or poultices we could apply?”

Thorgrim shook his head. “I don’t know how those are made,” he said. “Those are the arts that women know. Me, the others here, we can stitch wounds and splint broken limbs. But real healing? That’s women’s knowledge.”

He looked up beyond the confines of the ship, larboard and starboard. The river was still wide here, four or five rods from bank to bank, and Thorgrim could see it was running above its normal confines, the water lapping over grassy fields rather than the pebbly or muddy banks that would normally form the river’s edge.

The reeds jutting up from the river bed were bending slightly under the pressure of the moving stream and his men leaned into the oars as they pulled against it. With the water high and the river wide, the current was not so bad here, but he wondered how long they would be able to stem it, and how long it would remain deep enough for their keels to pass over the bottom.

Ottar and his five ships had taken the lead, despite Thorgrim’s best efforts to get underway first. That had annoyed him, and he had allowed himself the luxury of indulging his anger. But as he did he had a vision of his children when they were much younger, racing to breakfast after morning chores. He recalled marveling at how silly they were, Harald and Odd fighting each other for the privilege of being first. Their sister would be seated, her breakfast begun, while the boys were rolling on the floor pummeling one another.

When he thought of it that way he no longer gave a goat’s turd whether he was first or not. But that was not a sentiment universally shared. As Ottar’s ship pulled away from the bank, Harald had said, “Father, if we double the men on the oars we might overtake him, the bastard.”

“No,” Thorgrim said, his anger burned away like mist. “It does not matter.”

They continued up the river all through the morning, and the enemy did not show themselves, and the only threat seemed to be the threat of rain, which grew more pronounced every hour.

As Starri slept, Thorgrim fished out a small piece of whalebone from among the sundry supplies he kept stowed below the afterdeck. All morning he had been trying to recall the correct runes one should use to bring about healing, and he was now reasonably certain he had them right. It was a tricky thing, as the wrong runes could do more harm than good, but Thorgrim had confidence enough in his memory that he sat on the afterdeck, pulled his knife from its sheath and began to carve the geometric shapes into the dull white bone.

It took the better part of a hour, and when he was done Thorgrim placed the whalebone under the furs that covered Starri, then stood and stretched cramped muscles and looked out toward the shore to the north east. The land looked as it had for much of their journey upriver: sometimes it was open country with rolling hills that rose like cresting waves to the higher mountains west, sometimes it was thickly wooded with the oak and maple coming right down to the water’s edge. In some places where the river had jumped its banks the trees came right up out of the water.

The countryside was open now, lush Spring fields spreading off in the distance, some spurts of brush here and there, sharp rushes that stood out dark green against the duller grass of the fields. Thorgrim looked north and south as far as he could see, and he saw only land. There was not an animal, not a man or a woman in sight.

“Agnarr,” he said. “Have you seen anything of Kevin’s men?” He himself had been so busy tending to Starri and carving his runes that he had spent little time watching the shore.

Agnarr shook his head. “I don’t think I have,” he said. “Sometimes we’ve seen riders in the distance, and wagons. Bound for Glendalough, I would guess. The fair. Sometimes we’ve seen men walking, but they looked to be peddlers. None of them looked to be Kevin’s men-at-arms.”

Thorgrim nodded. There were several possibilities. Kevin might be far ahead of the ships, or keeping his men out of sight, keeping his movements hidden from the enemy who had attacked them. That would have been the smart thing. Or Kevin might have met that enemy and been beaten. Or he might have abandoned his new allies entirely. Any of those was equally possible, and since he had no means of discovering the truth of the matter, at least not yet, Thorgrim did not concern himself with wondering.

“I think Ottar is aground,” Agnarr said, his voice rising a bit in excitement. Thorgrim turned from watching the shore and looked past
Sea Hammer
’s bow.

Ottar’s longship, at the head of his fleet, was four hundred feet or so up river from
Sea Hammer
, and the water around it was churned up into short chop by the shallows. In other places the river tumbled over rocks or swirled in eddies near the banks or flashed dull white in the weak sunlight that came through the overcast.

The crew of Ottar’s ship appeared in chaos as if they had been set on by a swarm of bees. The lovely, symmetrical rhythm of the oars had devolved into a flailing mess, with some of the long sweeps still down, some coming up out of the water, some fouling others ahead or astern. Some of Ottar’s crew were on their feet, some still sitting. The ship lay motionless in the stream.

Thorgrim could see Ottar himself, right at the stern, waving his arms. He thought he could make out the sound of Ottar’s bellowed commands. He strained to make out the words, but could not.

I can just imagine
, he thought.

Then order seemed to reassert itself. The oars disappeared into the ship and the men flung themselves over the sides, landing thigh-deep in the water, keeping hands on the sheer strake to stop both them and the ship from being swept away. Then they began to pull.

Foot by foot Ottar’s crew hefted the longship upstream. Thorgrim saw lines tossed to the men in the water and they abandoned their hold on the ship’s side and tailed onto the lines, heaving away and walking up through the shallow water like teams of oxen. The ship, unburdened by her crew and now lighter by seven or eight hundred pounds, moved easily over the shallow place. A minute later the men aboard the next ship in line were also leaping over the sides.

“Just getting the men over the side lightened Ottar’s ship enough for her to pass over the shallows,” Agnarr observed. “I didn’t think it would.”

“Nor did I,” Thorgrim admitted.

“I wonder how many more miles we can get upstream before that will no longer work,” Agnarr said.

“I don’t know,” Thorgrim said. “Not many, I’ll wager.”

He looked down the length of
Sea Hammer
’s deck. His men, those not at the oars facing aft, had also seen Ottar’s ship take the ground, and they were already pulling lengths of walrus hide rope out from the storage places under the deck boards and stripping off tunics in preparation for going over the side. Fifteen minutes after that, they too were up to their thighs in water, pushing their way against the current, hauling
Sea Hammer
over the shallow, pebbly bottom of the river.

An hour was spent dragging the nine ships upriver over the shallows before they were able to climb back aboard and take up the oars, driving the vessels north and west. They pulled for another hour and a half before they touched ground again. Ten minutes later they were once more hauling the ships over slick rocks against a racing current.

It was then that the rain set in. The ship right ahead of
Sea Hammer
, the last ship in Ottar’s fleet, had just touched the bottom when the first few drops began to fall: fat, noisy drops that left wet spots as big and round as silver coins on the dry wood of
Sea Hammer
’s deck.

“Here it comes,” Thorgrim said. He had already prepared an oil cloth to stretch over Starri’s sleeping place. Now he unrolled it over the line he had rigged fore and aft and lashed the corners down tight, making a tent of sorts.

He looked up in time to see Harald go over the side. He and most of the others had stripped off their tunics and the skin of their bare backs was white in the muted light of the afternoon. The tow ropes rose from the deck and stretched taught as the crew tailed into them, and
Sea Hammer
was pulled bodily forward. The vessel just ahead, Ottar’s ship, shuddered as her keel scraped along the bottom, and Thorgrim could hear the grinding sound of oak on gravel.

He leaned over and looked down through the clear running water. He could see the stones on the river bed, many hues of brown and red and white and black.
Sea Hammer
moved easily over them, not touching at all in her transit.

This may be it,
Thorgrim thought,
this may be the last time we will do this so easily.
The next shallow place would likely have less water still, and then they would have to offload gear to get the ships up river. Would it be worth it? Or would it be better to leave the ships and make their way to Glendalough overland? How many men would they have to leave behind as ships’ guards? Could they afford to leave that many? These were questions that would need answers soon.

By the time the men had hauled
Sea Hammer
past the shallows and climbed back aboard, the rain was coming down hard, a steady downpour that Thorgrim was certain would become a deluge within the hour. He looked down at Starri. The tent seemed to be effectively channeling the water away from the wounded man, but for the rest there was nothing to be done but to endure the rain. Those who had shed their tunics to go in the river pulled them on again, though the clothes were now as wet as if they had never been taken off.

For the next few hours they rowed through the driving rain. Finally, as the evening gloom settled early on the river, Thorgrim ordered
Sea Hammer
run ashore and the other ships in his fleet followed suit. Ottar, however, showed no sign of stopping. His ships continued up river until they were lost from sight around a distant bend.

“Father,” Harald said, his voice a loud whisper, his anxiety clear, “Ottar is getting ahead of us, leaving us behind.”

“Let him,” Thorgrim said. “I won’t play his games. If he wants to take on these Irish without us he’s welcome. He and his men will be slaughtered.”

They used their sails to make tents large enough for all the crews to huddle under, save for the sorry few who were posted out beyond the river as guards. They had no fires, but the night was not terribly cold and they were not as miserable as they might have been. At first light they made their breakfast on bread and dried fish and then pushed their ships back into the river. The rain, which had let up in the night, set in once more with a willful malice.

They came up with Ottar’s fleet two hours later. The river had narrowed considerably, the forest closing in on either side, the banks steep so that it seemed they were pulling into a gully, as if the wide stretch of water was a road though a forest.

Ottar’s ships were not in any sort of order and they were not underway. It seemed to Thorgrim like inexplicable confusion, but as they drew closer he could see that three of them at least were anchored in the stream, and the first two were being dragged though yet more shallows.

Harald, having finished his trick at the oars, was standing by Thorgrim’s side. “Ottar’s aground again, I see,” he said.

“Yes,” Thorgrim said. “But it’s worse this time. See how they’ve taken much of the weight out of the ship.”

Ottar could not get over the shallow river bed, it seemed, just by relieving the ship of the weight of its crew. While gangs of men hauled the vessel up stream, others followed with the yard and sail, barrels and bundles of oars that had been tossed overboard and now floated astern. The crews of the anchored vessels were unloading spars and gear and stores as well.