Winter Serpent (25 page)

The Saxon made his gestures, marking the child’s forehead in holy water. The baptism was over.

Doireann, trembling, bent to Flann.

“Have you baptized the child now because you think he is as good as dead?” she whispered in an agony.

Flann was startled by her white face.

“No, no,” he soothed her. He seemed to sense what had frightened her, and turned to look at the dimly lit pictures about them. A small smile touched his mouth. “We deal with the beginning, not the ending of things. Have you had some premonition of death in this place? Put it aside. It is dark here, but the dark is friendly, and God looks on with kindness in His heart. Now that the child is under the protection of the Church we may soon be allowed to send him away to Iona to be raised by the monks in safety.”

“Who told you I would permit such a thing?” she cried.

She turned frantically from Flann to Wilfrid, and Barra put out his hand to restrain her.

“Can you not see the wisdom of removing the child from danger?” Wilfrid asked.

She struggled to get away from them, and the child wailed. “Let her go,” Flann cried. “Let her go.”

It was but a few steps from the chapel’s gloom into the sunlight. She flung herself into the courtyard, but was pressed back by a sudden crowd of Pictish warriors. Wilfrid put out his arm to steady her.

“Be cautious,” he whispered in alarm.

Barra threw his arm in front of her and lowered his spear at the warriors. “Put up your weapons,” the king’s son shouted, coming forward. He held

a peaked helmet in his hand and as he approached he placed it upon his head. “So I see you have been hiding yourselves and have not heard the news.” He looked at Flann. “My father understood that you were to employ yourself in the school, Irishman.”

Flann was silent and held his ground. Brude turned to Doireann.

“These vagrant Northmen who plundered Lindesfarne have set ashore a monk, a captive, in Moray Firth. He bore a message for the King of the Picts: that a Viking chief now holds captive some of the holy men taken from Lindesfarne. And he is willing to exchange them for ransom. Why is he making this offer to the King of the Picts? Because the Northman sends a message that we have something which he wishes to redeem. Are you thinking now of what I will say next? Is it because you have known this thing already?”

“What are you saying?” the girl shouted. “Are you insane?”

“The monk brings the Northman’s offer of a parley by the sea; this is what I am saying. A parley in exchange for gold and one other thing. A woman and her child who are claimed to be the legal wife and offspring of this same Viking chief. And the man who makes the offer of a parley is the one who calls himself Thorsten Ljot, the cousin of Snorri Olavson.”

13

Down the roadway to the eastern sea the land fell away gradually into the flat country. Here the beaches were wide and shallow at low tide, showing glittering miles of salt flats and pools of the sea for the travelers to cross. Great flocks of sea birds fed here and as

the sound of marching men came to them they took to the air with a thunderous fluttering. The land was empty of other inhabitants, as dull and leaden-colored as the sky above.

The King of the Picts and his warriors had passed through the earth villages of the coastal Picts some miles back, and the chieftains of the tribes there had come out of their underground houses to greet their sovereign and listen to his requests for bowmen and warriors to add to his company. As all his subjects knew, the king was traveling to meet with the Vikings by the sea. The coastal Picts were not much impressed with the wisdom of such a journey. The warriors lent were few in number.

The Viking’s message had stated that he would not meet with the King of the Picts at the fort in Inverness. The Northman must have the sea at his back in case of treachery. This was reasonable. The Council of Seven had given their consent to the parley after much quarreling, and after Nechtan had
assured them he would be properly cautious. He would take nearly all the garrison of Inverness and whatever men he could gather along the way. The spot he had chosen was the farthest east of all Pictish lands, an abandoned watchtower so ancient that men had forgotten its beginnings. It was known only as Talorcan’s tower.

The flat countryside was not friendly to Nechtan’s army. They could not approach a beach or cove without the alarm of the wading birds, and alone in the vast stretches they were aware of the line of horses and men strung along the flats, the dull light glittering from helmets and weapons.

Nechtan rode at the head of the column, among his chiefs and nobles. He talked little, thinking of the decisions he must make, the weighing of the things he now had and valued, the things which he did not have and wanted. Prince Brude had been placed by his father’s side, but when Nechtan looked for him he seemed always to be riding close to the girl, jockeying for position with the Cymry warriors who surrounded her.

The king turned to look at his son. Brude’s peaked silver-and-gold helm was easily distinguished among the battered ones of the Welsh mercenaries. The girl’s presence was disruptive. Some sort of disorder seemed always to follow her. It was an ominous thing.

Brude had at last succeeded in forcing his horse close to Doireann’s pony, and he ordered Llewellyn ap Gwilym to fall back. The Welsh captain acted as though he did not hear him.

“What is it?” Doireann asked, turning. There was a flicker of a smile on her mouth.

“Why do you ride with the Cymry?” Brude asked irritably. “Come forward with me.”

“I cannot do that. Your father has ordered the Welshmen to escort me.”

“I do not like this meeting we go to,” he said in a low voice. “There may be treachery, a Viking attack, even though my father’s scouts report only one longship on the beach ahead.” His black eyes were hot. “I told you once that I would not turn back from a fight for you, and this is still true. I wished you to be confident of it.”

Llewellyn made a small noise of derision.

They rode for some time until they were interrupted by a halt to close the spaces between the marchers and the mounted men.

They were on a slight rise of sand dunes. Before them was the final expanse of the sea. The old tower stood on a promontory of boulders, a few wind-stunted trees at its feet.

Beyond it was the alien ship drawn up on the strand, its keel lightly touching the shore, its mast stepped, ready to be raised for swift escape.

A murmur ran through the Picts.

The longship’s dragon prow was newly painted yellow, the red eyes staring balefully out upon the land. The Northmen’s helmets could be seen above the sides. A large group of the raiders stood on the beach. They had been eating, but one of them kicked sand over the fire and ran back to join the cluster of the others about the ship.

The Picts came up swiftly and crowded over the dunes. Here at last was the enemy, the hated sea-rovers. They called out to each other and pointed.

Brude rode to the spot where his father and the other nobles stared down at the foe. Doireann was left in the midst of the Cymry band, her vision blocked by their bodies. Elda was close behind, the child in her arms.

Doireann touched the heavy gold cross at her neck. It was Flann the Culdee’s cross, the precious object on which he had taken his vows. The words he had spoken to her as she prepared to leave Inverness were still in her thoughts.

“No matter what is said or done, do not allow yourself to be removed from honor,” he had told her. “You can do much to assure justice for yourself if you remember God’s laws guide you. You have free choice of good or evil. If you choose to connive with the rest you will only begin to destroy your soul. If you choose God’s way He will strengthen you.”

Flann had bent to her and had slipped the heavy cross over his head, holding it in his hand. It had seemed an effort for him to let it go; it had some of his goodness in it, some of his headlong Irish righteousness. She protested, but he waved her aside.

“No,” he said. “You must wear the cross and hope that men will look upon it and consider their deeds.”

It was warm now as she grasped it for comfort and courage. Its size and plainness were conspicuous against the finery she wore. She had been dressed in clothes taken from the king’s treasure for this journey; her gown was of yellow silk which looked to be the state dress of some long-dead Pictish princess. A narrow circlet of silver and rubies had been set upon her head by Nechtan’s own hands. It was too small, and bit into the skin of her forehead, but it helped to remind her to be careful of her hair, intricately dressed by the Pictish women into six plaits twined about with glass beads and hung with silver tassels. The beads rattled whenever she moved her head, and she thought ruefully that in her splendor she must resemble the Pictish version of the trussed and beribboned pigs served up for the Easter banquet.

One of the Cymry moved his horse to one side, and she had a clear view of the beach and the ship resting there. New-painted, it did not resemble either of the longships she had remembered in Cumhainn.

The Picts stirred restlessly. Many of the bowmen had seen their villages raided by the Northmen, and it was hard for them to stand waiting and
watching. The Vikings were formidably armed. The size of their battle-axes and swords made the bows and spears of the Picts look primitive and fragile by comparison.

For long minutes they appraised each other, the wild little Pictmen with their tattooed faces and naked bodies, and the scowling, massive Teutons.

Wilfrid, bishop of Inverness, was the first to move forward. He dismounted and advanced alone and on foot down the sandy slope to the water. His pace was unhurried and his tall bishop’s hat flattened out in the brisk wind.

“Let us have nothing but peace on this assembly,” he said, his voice carrying clearly. “This parley is for the sake of those now held captive by the Northmen. It is for these lives that we come to bargain.”

A voice familiar to Doireann answered him. It was Sweyn’s deep bellow. “We come to parley with the King of the Picts,” it announced, “and not
with a priest.”

Wilfrid did not move.

“You will soon have words with him,” he answered. “Yet remember this, Northman: Nechtan is king of this land, yet I am the speaker for the One God who rules the world. It was God’s men you took from Lindesfarne and so you will hear my words also in the parley and speak under my rule of peace which is invoked in God’s name.”

With this Wilfrid made the sign of the cross in the air and turned his back on the Viking band. The Saxon bishop was indeed a brave man.

Brude and Lugh the steward were the next to ride forward. Doireann craned curiously to see them.

There was Sweyn; one could not miss that massive figure with the great beard, the hands placed confidently on the hips. Close beside him was the knobby-kneed warrior in thonged hose who was Sweyn’s steersman, Braggi. Now she was remembering. And that was Gunnar Olavson with the black-painted shield. Her heart was pounding.

“I am Brude, son of Nechtan of the Picts,” the prince was saying. “The king comes! Bring forth your leader.”

The Old Cruithne spurred his pony down the slopes at full gallop, looking fierce and gnomelike. A man came forth from the Vikings to meet him.

“I am the Jarl of the longship,” the voice said in its miserable Gaelic. “I am called Thorsten Ljot, the Scarred One, and I am a berserkr of the berserkir.”

Sweyn stepped forward and marked a deep groove in the sand at their feet with his battle-ax.

“Here I will speak with Nechtan, King of the Picts,” the Jarl stated.

“My father has brought tents,” Brude informed him, “where chieftains may sit and pass the cup and speak as befits men of rank.”

The Jarl was unimpressed.

“When chieftains gather together it is the one with the mightiest sword who says where the speaking shall take place.”

“In this case it is a Northman who stands with fifty men at his back and a king who comes with three hundred,” Brude reminded him.

The Norseman looked up at the Picts outlining the dunes.

“The wise king does not let his eyes deceive him. Where is strength? On the sand hills or hidden in the ship before him? Or on the wave unknown and unseen?”

A murmur swept the mass of little men. They looked uneasily to the horizon of the sea.

The child Ian, in Elda’s arms, gave a fretful bellow. The sound carried. Sweyn looked up at once and shaded his eyes with his hands, scanning the ranks of the Picts. He pointed to the Cymry band and said something to the Jarl.

“Bring down your tents to this point,” Sweyn said abruptly, “and set them up. We will meet as you wish.”

14

The Picts sat down. The short men were not accustomed to standing for long; they much preferred to squat on their haunches, their spears and bows spread out before them. The Irish warriors drew to one side and the Cymry followed their example, stretching out on

the sand to rest. The Picts did not relax their vigilance; they watched unblinkingly while the tents were set up between the two hosts.