Glendalough Fair (7 page)

Louis was about to ask who the one in nominal command might be - the obvious question - but before he did, the answer came to him.

Colman mac Breandan.

“Actually, Father,” Louis said, “that might be a bigger problem than you think.

I have traveled on the sea-god’s steed

a long and turbulent wave-path

Egil’s Saga

On the day after Kevin mac Lugaed left Vík-ló, the sun came out and Kjartan Longtooth and his men were gone.

It was first light when Harald brought the news to Thorgrim. The boy, vigilant to a fault, often woke before dawn to patrol around and see how things lay. Thorgrim approved. He used to do the same when he was Harald’s age, when rising from his bed was a more effortless proposal.

“Father?” Harald said, soft enough to wake Thorgrim, not loud enough to alarm him. “Father?”

Thorgrim stirred, sat up. The sleeping chamber was awash in the gray dawn, enough that he could see Harald’s face without a lamp. “What is it?”

“I was down by the river…” Harald began and Thorgrim could hear the reluctance in his voice. He wanted to tell the boy to just say what he had to say, but he held his tongue.

“
Dragon
was gone from her mooring,” Harald continued. “I thought maybe she had dragged it, or broken free and drifted out to sea on the tide. So I went to get Kjartan but he was gone, and his weapons as well. And Gest and the rest of Kjartan’s men were gone, too.”

Thorgrim flung off the fur that covered him and was on his feet in an instant, the rage that Harald feared already in full flower. “May the gods damn him, that son of a….” Thorgrim shouted and then stopped. He cocked his head and listened. Something was missing, some sound, some undercurrent of noise that had always been there and now was not.

He turned to Harald. “Has it stopped raining?”

“Yes,” Harald said, confused, apparently, by Thorgrim’s abrupt change of tone.

“Really?” Thorgrim asked. “Does it threaten to rain again?”

“No, father. The sky is clear. Or it seemed clear, anyway, but the sun was not yet up.”

And then, as if Odin himself had opened the gates of Asgard to show it off to the world, a beam of sunlight came in through the chinks in the shutter on the eastern wall. Thorgrim stepped toward it, transfixed. It seemed more an unearthly vision than a shaft of light. He moved toward the door, faster with each step, jerked it open and stepped outside.

To the east the sun was rising from the sea, blazing right down the plank road, spewing its brilliance from a point just above the horizon right to Thorgrim’s door. Steam was rising from the thatched rooves and the thousand puddles, great and small, scattered around the longphort. Thorgrim closed his eyes and felt the heat of the sun on his face, and suddenly the disappearance of Kjartan and one of the longships and fifty of the warriors from Vík-ló did not seem terribly important at all.

All around Vík-ló men and women staggered out of their homes and looked with wonder at the sky as if they had never seen such a thing as blue overhead. They looked sideways at the great blaze of fire hanging in the east like something they had only heard of in the ancient tales.

And then as their astonishment ebbed, they began to act. Clothing, bedding, furs, all manner of things that had seemed soaked through to the point where they would never be dry again were dragged out of the dark, damp recesses of the buildings and spread out in the sun. Doors were flung open and the kindly spirit of the warm breeze moved through the homes, carrying the damp and chill and despair off in its arms.

Thorgrim saw the sun and the breeze as a gift from the gods, a good omen. He could not recall the last time he had received such a sign that luck was with him, but this surely was one, and it made him happier than he had been for many months. With the coming of the sun that morning Thorgrim could only hope that it would continue, that the gods would favor him for one day at least, because this was the day that his new ship would first taste salt water.

They had been waiting for some relief from the rain. Launching a ship was a serious business, both in terms of the practical considerations of seeing her safe into the water and the spiritual concerns of assuring that she was sent off in a way that was pleasing to the gods, a way that would bring the ship and the men who sailed in her good luck. Thorgrim, indeed all Northmen, considered both to be of equal importance, and neither could be best accomplished in a blinding downpour.

They had been nearly ready to launch the ships when Kevin mac Lugaed and his men had arrived, forcing Thorgrim to postpone it once again. While the Irish were there the day was given over to feasting and further negotiations. It was not a day for blessing ships. And privately Thorgrim did not wish to launch the vessels in the presence of Irishmen and followers of the Christ god. He did not think that would bring them luck.

When the Irish took their leave at last, Thorgrim decided he could wait no longer. If the gods would not stop the deluge, then it was not for him to bide his time in hope that they would change their minds. Rain or no, he would see the ships rolled into the river where they belonged. It was the bold move, and the gods liked bold moves, and now with the gift of a warm and blinding sun they were expressing their approval.

All of Vík-ló came down to the river to see the two new longships swim for the first time. Everyone understood the importance of this moment, with the possible exception of the few Irish wives and slaves. There was an air of excitement, of anticipation, but also a sense of gravity in the gathered crowd. This was more ritual of faith than festival and it had been a long time in coming.

Dragon
, Kjartan’s ship, now off somewhere beyond the horizon, had been the first of the three ships they had built over the course of the winter. She was smaller than the other two, but not much smaller. She was well-built, a good looking vessel that sat well in the water. Very much the creation of Aghen, the master shipwright, who used nothing more than his eye and his years of experience to oversee her construction, shaping her as she was built.

The next ship was
Blood Hawk
, built for the command of Bersi Jorundarson. She had been given the skald’s poetic name for the raven, a nod to Odin and a not so subtle request for his blessings. The last to be completed, largest of the three, with thirty row ports per side, was Thorgrim’s
Sea Hammer
, named thus to be pleasing to Thor, who could give them good weather or ill, depending on his mood. With his former ship burned to the waterline, and with it all the bad luck it carried, and the new fleet so named in honor of the gods, Thorgrim dared to indulge in a meager bit of optimism. The fine weather told him he was not a fool for doing so.

Dragon
had been launched a week before in the driving rain. Now, as the sun rose higher in the east, spreading warmth and long shadows over the shipyard and the river bank,
Blood Hawk
and
Sea Hammer
would follow her in.

By the time Thorgrim reached the river, preparations were well underway.
Blood Hawk
had already been eased off the keel blocks and now rested on rollers, a series of logs of similar diameter over which she would be hauled to the water.
Sea Hammer
was being moved onto her own set of rollers, sixty men using levers and blocks and tackle to transfer that great weight. The ship was big and ungainly on land. It was not her element.

Thirty feet from where the men were working
Sea Hammer
off the blocks, a horse and an ox stood tethered to a stake. Their role was not as beasts of burden. It was far more important than that: they would serve as a sacrifice to the gods. Their blood would soak into the fresh wood of the vessels and if the sacrifice was acceptable, then Odin, Thor and Njord could be expected to look kindly on the ships’ future voyaging.

Thorgrim watched without comment as his ship was eased down onto the rollers. He watched as lengths of timber were used to shore her up and keep her from tipping to one side or another. He was ready to start bellowing orders if need be, but the need did not arise. The men who crowded around
Sea Hammer
knew their business.

“They’re ready to go, Thorgrim,” Aghen said, stepping up to Thorgrim’s side. The shipwright’s tunic was smeared with tar and tallow and had little chips of wood clinging to it. There were chips of wood in his beard as well. He wore just a bit of a smile, but Thorgrim recognized it as the man’s most profound expression of happiness.

Thorgrim nodded. The two of them had spent quite a bit of time in one another’s’ company over the past half a year, enough that they could communicate a great deal while never speaking a word. Such was the case now, and each man knew what the other thought, and that thought was,
Well done. Well done
.

Once
Sea Hammer
was safely eased down onto the rollers, Thorgrim gave the word. The horse and the ox were killed and their blood was let to run into a silver bowl. A great fire was kindled to roast their flesh. Thorgrim stepped aboard
Blood Hawk
first and then
Sea Hammer
, accompanied by Aghen and Bersi, Skidi, Harald and Starri Deathless, whom many of the men at Vík-ló had come to regard as lucky and blessed by the gods.

Bersi held the silver bowl out to Thorgrim and Thorgrim dipped a pine bough into it. He lifted the branch, dripping with the
hlaut
, the blood of the sacrificed animals, and flailed the bough fore and aft, starboard and larboard, sending showers of crimson onto the deck and the strakes, the mast steps, steering oars, stems and sternposts. He chanted prayers to the gods as he did so and the only sound that could be heard were his voice and the swish of the pine bough and the lap of the water in the river, rolling against the banks as if eager to take possession of the ships.

When he was done he shouted an order and a hundred eager hands grabbed on to the sheer strakes of the two ships and heaved them toward the water. He and Harald and Starri remained aboard
Sea Hammer
, keeping their balance with some difficulty as she made her rough, jarring way to the river, and Bersi and some of his men likewise remained aboard
Blood Hawk
.

The two vessels slid into the near-still water at almost the same moment, their bows dipping down as they dropped off the last roller, then surging up again like restless stallions. They settled and floated free on even keels and the men of Vík-ló cheered. They cheered and cheered, the shouts coming like waves from their throats. They cheered for what they had accomplished, they cheered for the end of winter’s misery, they cheered for the fine vessels floating tethered to the bank, the water-steeds that would take them to sea, take them a-viking, take them to where they wished to be, which was not the squalid longphort of Vík-ló.

The ships had been launched just as the sun hit its zenith and the tide its fullest state. It was some hours after that, with the sun moving toward the west, that Thorgrim and the lead men of the longphort sat at the table in the great hall, the remains of a meal spread before them. The evening light spilled in through the western windows, lighting the room in a way no fire could.

It had been a long and tiring day, and the fine weather and the successful launch of the two ships and the considerable amount of mead and wine that had been consumed dulled the edge of fury the men felt at Kjartan’s betrayal. And, in truth, his leaving was not really a betrayal at all.

He had sworn no oath to Thorgrim, and what cost had been accrued in building
Dragon
he had paid for from his own share of the plunder. His leaving in the night had only felt like a betrayal, and that was enough to make the men furious, for a time. But by the time they gathered at the end of the day to discuss what they would do next, Kjartan and his band had all but dropped from their minds.

Skidi spoke first. He was a blunt man and seemed to have no guile in him, which Thorgrim reckoned a good quality. On the other hand he made little effort to check his speech, saying what was on his mind, never caring what effect his words might have, which was not always so helpful.

“This Irishman, this Kevin, he had a lot to say, as these Irishmen will,” Skidi said. “But I am not sure I believe a word of it.” Heads nodded at this, all save for Thorgrim’s.

“He did have a lot to say,” Thorgrim agreed. Kevin had told them of the monastery at Glendalough, one of the finest, and one of the richest in Ireland. It had been plundered before, but not for some time, which meant the wealth would likely have been built up again. The Christ worshipers, Thorgrim had observed, did not care to be without their gold and silver.

This information - the monastery at Glendalough, the potential riches – was something that the Northmen already knew. But Kevin told them more than that, information that was news to them.

He told them that there was a river, or more correctly a series of rivers that would lead them from the sea nearly to Glendalough’s walls. Most of the journey could be made in their longships. It might be hard work getting the vessels upstream, but the return, when they were loaded down with plunder, would be simple enough with the lift of the current.

Bersi had raised a concern then. “I’ve heard of these rivers,” he had said. “I’ve heard from men who have seen them, and they say a longship cannot float on them. I hear they’re deep enough for maybe half the distance to Glendalough, and then they’re shallow and rocky.”