Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4) (32 page)

“How is Iron Knee
?”

“He’s well enough.  I leave him.
I’m ashamed to say that I hope that Dyflin falls while I’m away.  Then it can’t be said that I let it fall.  The weight my father’s words would kill me even if the damned Irish don’t.  What do you want on Iona?  Are you finally giving up the old gods for good?  Done plowing other women and allowing other men to plow your woman?”

Godfrey disregarded Kvaran’s taunt. 
“How is Gytha?”

“My sister is fine,” Kvaran sighed
again.  He sounded exhausted with not only the conversation but life.  “She is in need of a husband.  Now why are you here?”

“And Silkbeard
?” Godfrey asked.

“My young
est son is well!” Kvaran huffed.  “Perhaps the fool Maclean was rightly concerned.  Maybe there will be bloodshed here today.  If you don’t answer me, a single call from my horn will bring my oath-sworn men to my side.  They’ll cut long before they begin asking questions.”  I heard a tap, tap against the hard floor.  “These stones will be red.”

Godfrey chuckled at the older,
frustrated man.  “There is no need for such a thing.  We are already aligned in purpose and for that I am grateful.  The gods show their favor on our union.”

“You’re in a church.  There is but One True God, Godfrey,” chided Kvaran.

“Quite right.”  Godfrey remained cheery.  “When I am in our church on Man, I say the same.  But you remember your father’s gods, no?  You remember Thor’s Woods, just north of Dyflin?  You remember the strength from the old heroes that our ancestors’ gods convey?”

There was a long pause when all I could hear was the whistling of the incessant breeze against the church’s walls.  Then, f
or the first time in the conversation, Kvaran sounded interested.  “I do,” he whispered.

“Let us make a tighter pact.
”  Godfrey tugged on his beard.  “Let’s pool all our resources to build a kingdom that sits in the crown of the Irish Sea: Dyflin, the Kingdom of the Isles, even Jorvik far to the east.  From there we step left and crush the whole of mainland Ireland.  From our throne we move right and swallow the English pissers.”

Again perturbed, Kvaran asked, “And who will be king?  You?  Am I to be your stooge?
  Your vassal?  Maybe you’d like me to empty your dung bucket?  Polish your mail?”

“Nothing like that,” assured Godfrey.  “I want whatever men you can spare while we move to finish off the bleeding corpse that is Dal Riata.  Give me those men and you will rule our joint kingdom
as the sole sovereign.”

Kvaran laughed cynically.  “And you will carry my shit for me?  May I wed your Gudruna?”

Firmly now, Godfrey answered, “I will rule as king once you pass on the battlefield or in your bed at a ripe old age.”

I remember thinking that for a king to die at a ripe age sounded awful.  Such a demise would bring a man into Hel’s hall quicker than
any other death.  Were I a king and if I made it to my good many years, I’d pick a fight with the strongest Norseman in the village just to be killed in conflict.  How else would Odin populate his hall with valiant warriors?  But Kvaran was a Christian.

“And my sons?  You think your kingship would be peaceful with Iron Knee and Silkbeard about?  They are not monks
who would be happy washing another man’s feet.”

“I’ve thought of that.  They’d serve me
to be sure.  One in Dyflin, not as king in title, but with more power and authority over the region than you, the current King of Dyflin, hold.  The other would retain a similar position in Jorvik.  From their strongholds we would launch our great, conquering raids.”

“And if you take the rest of Dal Riata today, I rule it?”

“Until the day you die of natural causes,” said Godfrey.  He placed a hand on his heart after making the sign of the cross.

“What’s more natural than a knife to the belly, eh?” accused Kvaran.

“Truly natural causes, Kvaran.  Have I ever given you reason to doubt me?  Have I not brought trade, commerce, slaves, and wealth galore to the streets within your great palisade?  My raids on the Ui Neill, have they not helped add to your strength while weakening them?  I am a descendant of a Norseman.  I am a man made by my oaths.  By Hel, I’ll bring in my priest to verify all that I say and all my promises if it pleases you.”

“No
, I don’t need your priest.”  A wrinkled hand came into the light and pointed to the statues that lined the walls.  “The saints listen.  I’ve got my monks here on Iona.  I’ve got my own priests in Dyflin.  That’s quite enough.”

“
Oh, Kvaran, my priest is a fighter,” countered Godfrey.  “He’s a good man.  You’d like him.”

“Oh, I’m sure I would,” said Kvaran sardonically.  Then his tone softened.  “I’m sure I would.  Priests and monks are no worse than any man. 
When they are good they lead men to the True Faith.  When they are bad, like any man, they are prideful and greedy.”

Godfrey was shaking his head.  “I didn’t come to talk of churchmen. 
Do we have an alliance?”

Kvaran was silent in his dark alcove.  Godfrey let him stew.  High above
, a pigeon fluttered into the church through one of the gaping holes left behind by years of strife.

“
And after you take Dal Riata,” Kvaran chose his words carefully, “you’ll send your army of miscreants to Dyflin, not as conquerors, but as liberators?  Together with the Leinster clan, we’ll drive the bastard Ui Neill into the thrall markets as the spent commodities they are?”

Godfrey
didn’t hesitate.  “In the summer.  It’s too late to plan a new campaign this year.  By the end of winter Dal Riata will be secure on my back.  I will turn my front to you and my men and I will bleed with you.”

“Oh, I do hope that our side is not the one that bleeds.
”  Kvaran carefully said his words.  “I give you what men I will.  You give me a vast kingdom.  You have an agreement.”  I saw a thin arm extend out into the main part of the church.  Godfrey clasped the forearm.  The extended hand grasped my king’s forearm.  They held each other’s arms for a solid heartbeat.

“Now, I’ll wait for you to send word to Dyflin for your men,” breathed Godfrey as he stood tall in the church.
  “In a matter of days our vast armada will row from here and swamp Dal Riata.”  Kvaran chuckled.

Godfrey marched out through the door, leaving Kvaran and me behind.  I could hear my king enthusiastically shouting to his men to gather
for the good news.

Inside the church, Kvaran
mumbled under his breath, “He should have his woman do his negotiating.  Better to look at and shrewder.”

Kvaran
gave a low whistle.  One of his men walked out from another alcove.  He’d been hidden the whole time.  “What is it, lord king?”

“The monster
, too,” said Kvaran.  I couldn’t see Dyflin’s king, but he must have pointed in my direction.  The guard looked right at me and waved me over.  I stood and as I approached saw that Kvaran used an existing gap in the wall’s stone carvings to peer out and see what was coming to him.  He’d known I was there the entire time.

The guard patted me for weapons.  I had none.  When I turned to face the mysterious king, I could still only see his red shoes. 
His face was concealed in shadow.  “You are my witnesses to the transaction that just took place.  I’ve got a man on my side and a man on Godfrey’s side.”

The guard nodded.  I agreed as well.

“Good, then you know that I agreed to support Godfrey,” said Kvaran.

My head bobbed up and down.

“Then you also know I never told Godfrey any amount of men or supplies that I’d give.  He asked for my support in his endeavor.  I gave it.  In return, I am king over it all.”

CH
APTER 11

The guard and I were witnesses.  It pained me but I agreed with the wily king of Dyflin in his telling of the accord.  Kvaran didn’t have to send word to Dyflin.  He didn’t have to supply much of anything.  The men he had guarding the walls in his market town were all necessary just to keep the wild men of Ireland at bay, he said.  Shrewd Kvaran had gained a renewed alliance with the potential to further acquire wealth and prestige from Godfrey’s toils.  All he had to give in return was a band of the ten men who had been lounging on the shores of Iona while he sulked in the dark recesses of a church.  Even that was generous of him, for Godfrey and he had clasped arms on such vague terms.

Ten men!  The rest of
his crew, Kvaran required them be left behind on Iona so that he could safely make his way back home.  We received ten men!

Godfrey moan
ed at his foolishness the whole way down the shore to our ships.  Killian grumbled at the king’s stupidity, though the diminutive priest had the sense to do it in only certain company, for our king spent the rest of that day angrily throwing dried nuggets of sheep dung at a sun-bleached piece of driftwood.  In between his fits of irritation, the king challenged some of his warriors to wrestling matches.  Such was his fury that Godfrey was able to throw much larger men to the ground.  He won with punches, kicks, and gouging where none of those were permitted.  The losers, seeing the king’s mood, dared not complain about the nuances of rule infractions.

Godfrey
had promised to make Kvaran king in his place.  He’d sworn in a church.  The rub, of course, was that Godfrey would do all the fighting.  I’ll grant you that Kvaran was old and his days on the throne were to be numbered, but ten men?  Gudruna was not pleased when she found out what her man had done.  “He took my idea and dashed it against the rocks of that church!” she said.  “King Godfrey is brave.  He is good in the shield wall.  I should do his negotiating.”  The queen was right.  It mattered not.

After sleeping for just one night on our beached ships, far away from Kvaran and the rest of his troop, we left Iona.  The winds had shifted against their natural course and we moved eastward, directly into them.  Our sails were stowed.  The oars were not.  I sat on a chest aboard
Charging Boar
next to the men.  The oar’s wood felt smooth in my hands.  I pushed it down and leaned forward.  I pulled the oar handle up and slowly leaned back.   I hauled the blade through the glistening morning seas.  The work was back-breaking and methodical.  It took me no thought other than the memories housed in my young, bulging muscles.  I peeked over the gunwale and watched our blades slice into the waves.  They came out dripping their reflective waters back into the deep.  Again they dove.  Like the rhythmic, beautiful grate-slap sound, the motion repeated itself.  It felt like my pumping heart beat at the same rate.  I was one with our ship, which was at one with the sea.  Many men would become bored or angry with the chore.  I felt at home breathing in the salty smell of the sea, working as all men should.  Scanning my fellow raiders, I saw that only a few felt as I did.  The rest performed the job, no more.

The men aboard every
other ship in our fleet fought wind and wave as they attempted to move their oars in time.  Their work was not good enough and so they made poor time against the wind to Lismore. 
Raven’s Cross
danced poetically with oars shifting in unison.  Most of the mercenaries, though tough like hogs’ hides, knew nothing of the ways of the sea, however.  On the ships where they outnumbered experienced men, their oars rattled and fought against one another.  I heard clacks and swearing in several languages echoing over the swells.

At that moment, I recalled the ropes I had gotten from the witches.  Their knots were supposed to harness the energy of the wind.  Untying one of those knots was to change the wind
’s course.  Perhaps it would alter the intensity of the breeze, too, pushing us fast on the surf rather than slapping us in the face.  I briefly toyed with the notion of calling for a break at my oar so that I could test the witches’ magic.  The men of the fleet would welcome the respite.  Once word got around that I had been the savior of their backs, I would be called a hero, minor, fleeting, but hero, nonetheless.  I stayed put.

My pleasures were simple: a good woman, mead, the hunt, crops, and the sea.  I had become a raider who traveled by the oceans.  Wealth, I fancied it as much as the next man.  Riches taken from another, my mind was fine with the thought.  Others would happily take it from me if I chose to be weak.  I’d rather
be strong and take it from them first.  So, during those times, serving Godfrey, I was a raider who went a-Viking with and for his king.  But the sea, that day, was me.  It beat the back of my uncovered head.  It blew my long, blonde hair around into my face.  I reveled in the moment.  My compatriots, be damned.  The ropes remained stowed.  The knots stayed cinched.

Soon I questioned my decision.

We stayed in our eastward direction, with land close by on the north.  As we moved farther and farther, the land from the south began drawing nearer.  We entered what I would call a fjord.  The Scots, I’m told, call it a loch.  This loch was known as Linnhe and its tide was flowing out to sea so that we battled against the wind and the tide.  The frequency and volume of muttering from the men increased.  Our armada became spread out wider as
Charging Boar
and
Raven’s Cross
pulled farther ahead of the others.  ‘The knots?’ you may ask.  I was too stubborn to change my mind.  Though my back began to tire and ache, I chuckled to myself, especially when others groaned.

My shipmates thought me mad.  I probably was.  I probably am.

. . .

The time for the midday meal came and went.  That is when we would have seen Lismore had we been under sail with a favorable tailwind.  In shifts we took momentary breaks to eat
salted fish and then piss over the gunwale.  Some of the men rested their backs on the useless mast, pressing against its smooth wood in order to ease a kink.

I ran the ste
ering oar while Magnus took my spot on the rowing bench.  That’s when Killian shouted from
Raven’s Cross
.  “Lismore!”  The sleeve of his robe fell back to his elbow as his pale arm jabbed repeatedly from the prow of the king’s ship.

Godfrey shoved Aoife out of his way.  He stepped over men and arms and baggage as he moved to join Killian next to the dragon’s head.  The king used one hand to steady himself on the forestay.  The two, king and priest, conferred.  Godfrey barked an order to Randulfr, who ran the rudder. 
Raven’s Cross
eased over toward us slowly.  Gudruna plopped onto a rowing bench and turned away so that her husband wouldn’t see her.

Leif brought over a ragged piece of parchment on which Killian had hastily copied Godfrey’s map.  We looked at it and compared it with the island that drew nearer.  “Not a good representation,” I said.

“He’s a priest,” said Leif in answer.  Killian had drawn Lismore in the shape of a fat cross.  In reality it was a long, slender island that ran from the southwest to the northeast.

“Where’s
the main settlement?  Where’s the monastery situated?”

Leif shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Killian’s map doesn’t show.”  He pointed off to starboard, where there was much activity aboard the king’s ship.  “But it seems that Godfrey means to land soon.”
  I followed Leif’s glance.  Men were slipping their heavy mail or their hard leather jerkins over their heads.  Belts were strapped.  Spears secured.  Bows found.  Even some arrows were located as men rutted through the luggage like hogs searching the forest floor.  Helmets adorned heads.

“
Around to the south!” shouted Godfrey over the wind.  “Follow us!  We’re not here to sneak up on them from the rocks on the northwest like we did last time.  We go directly to the monastery and town.  We go in fast so that the cowardly bastards don’t have time to run inland.”

I peered over my shoulder to the rest of our fleet straggling far behind us.  “Shouldn’t we circle around or rest until they catch up?” I asked young Leif.  Why
I asked a babe for advice, I’ll never know.  But I always, for my whole life, deferred to Leif.  Perhaps it was because his father was my second father.  Erik took me in when he could have rapped my head against a rock as a sacrifice to Odin.

“No, Godfrey knows what he’s doing,” said Leif softly.  He cupped his hands to his mouth and called back to Godfrey, “We’ll be ready!”  Godfrey nodded and went back to growling at the men aboard his ship.  The king slapped Brandr on his helmet with his palm.
  Brandr returned the gesture.  Godfrey seized his man’s shoulders and shook them, laughing.

“Just like he knew what he was doing at Anglesey?  What about Watchet?  Without us, he would have been crushed in both situations,” I grunted.

“I gave him Anglesey’s capital.  I’ll grant you.  It was Aoife who saved us at Watchet.  You were a mere butcher in both cases.  Gudruna gave him Edana.”  Leif began calmly suiting himself for the coming fight.  “And Aoife and I will be at the king’s side even if the rest of his army is not.”  Leif looked to Gudruna.  “I’d say Godfrey will have all he needs.”

. . .

The men, who now sang loudly while lugging
Raven’s Cross
one oar bite at a time across the fjord, propelled the craft ever faster.  It skipped ahead of
Charging Boar
on our starboard side.  I heard Godfrey’s voice boom some indecipherable command and Randulfr hauled on the steering oar.  The king’s ship danced across our path, making a true course for the south side of the center of Lismore.  I had to quickly follow Randulfr’s lead or we would have rammed the king’s port and sent us both to Hel’s depths.

Godfrey was eager.  He raced his ship toward a low, rocky outcropping that sat like a lopsided shelf which angled out of the sea.  Just based on the cliffs on either side of the shelf and the shape of the island, I suspected that there would be a more suitable beach or shingle on which to land just a bit farther east.  Leif
, and even Tyrkr, said as much.  But Godfrey had waited for his revenge on Lismore for as long as he could.  I saw him scramble up the bow of
Raven’s Cross
.  With one arm he clung to the brightly colored, elaborately carved dragon prow.  In his right hand he drew his shining blade, his +ULFBERHT+, and stretched it out ahead just as his longship’s keel began skidding to a halt on the flat rock.  Killian and Aoife rolled onto the decking.  Several rowers toppled backward into the man behind, or more precisely, to the fore of, them.

Godfrey splashed down.  His men poured over the sides.  Loki slipped on algae that had grown on the rocks in the shallow water.  He went down face first.  His knees struck the rock.  He fought the light undertow while pawing like a hound.
  Loki was weighted down by the armor.  His feet slid off the ledge and he began sinking.  He would have been our first casualty of the day had Killian not grabbed a hold of Loki’s hair and held him steady.  Brandr wrapped his arms around the priest’s waist and together they hauled Loki upright.  Alone, Godfrey was already climbing up a narrow ravine that led up to the island’s plateau.

“Stow the oars!” screamed Leif when we were just five fadmr from the shelf.  It would be a tight fit, for there was just enough room for two ships there.  Our rowers made quick work of lacing the oak handles out through the holes and handing them back aboard.  It would do no good to lop off our oars by ramming them into the stern of
Raven’s Cross
.  I bit my lip then sent
Charging Boar
skidding alongside the king’s ship.  Our keel bit so that we came to rest with our starboard side kissing Godfrey’s port.

Godfrey had disappeared above.  His men followed close behind.  Only Randulfr, seemingly the only responsible one, lingered.  He stretched a long rope that was tied to a knee aboard the king’s ship all the way to a single spire of a rock and tied it off.  Randulfr knew that if the tide had been rushing o
ut while we came in, the waters would soon rise and lift our ships free.  They might still be smashed against the rocks, but at least they wouldn’t drift away.

I slapped on my dented helmet and grabbed an extra spear.  We jumped over our portside gunwale and chased after the
reaching king.

The reaching queen chased after her own version of glory.

. . .

I made it to
the top of the ravine and peeked over my shoulder.  A few of the other ships would arrive in just several heartbeats.  However, since the rock shelf was packed, they would have to continue on and find a more suitable place to land, a spot like the one we should have found in the first place.

The unmistakable clang of steel clashing brought my head back into the moment. 
Before me was stretched a short, rolling plain that led to a town.  The open ground’s deep green grass was buckling down for the coming winter as each blade tipped its head and faded to a sadder hue.  We were arriving up ahead in piecemeal fashion to what was shaping up to be a battle.  Our tactic was not a brilliant one because we never once formed the shield wall.  We never once could coalesce our force into a single fist so that we could drive the unlucky souls at Lismore into the ground in one motion.  That would have been merciful to the defenders.  After a few moments and a few deaths they could have thrown down their weapons and surrendered.  We wouldn’t even have had our bloodlust up.  Most of the island’s defenders would have survived to sheer their sheep after the coming freeze and inevitable thaw.