Loch Garman: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 7) Read online

  Loch Garman

  A Novel of Viking Age Ireland

  Book Seven of The Norsemen Saga

  James L. Nelson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.

  Fore Topsail Press

  64 Ash Point Road

  Harpswell, Maine, 04079

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by U.S. Copyright Law.

  Copyright © 2017 James L. Nelson

  Maps courtesy of Chris Boyle

  All rights reserved

  ISBN- 13: 976-0692976708

  ISBN-10: 06929776701

  To Patrick Lockard, Irishman, honorary Viking. Welcome to the clan. You have only yourself to blame.

  For terminology, see Glossary, end of book.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  The Saga of Thorgrim Ulfsson

  There was a man named Thorgrim Ulfsson, who was also known as Thorgrim Night Wolf, because some thought he was a shape-shifter and during the night would take on the form of a wolf. Thorgrim lived in the place called Vik in the land of Norway, which would later be united under the rule of Harald Fairhair.

  Thorgrim’s father was Ulf Ospaksson and Thorgrim was raised on his farm, and he grew skilled in the ways of farming. Though he worked hard on his father’s land, his love for shipbuilding was much greater than his love for farming, and he took every chance that he could to work with the local shipbuilders, of whom there were many. Thorgrim learned much about the use of the ax and the adze and the bore; he learned about shaping oak and pine and knotting and splicing rope. All this he learned in the early years of his life, along with the use of weapons, which was a skill that all young men were expected to master.

  When Thorgrim had grown to early manhood he became a hirdsman to a jarl named Ornolf, who was known as Ornolf the Restless. Thorgrim sailed with Ornolf on many raiding voyages and soon he was raised from hirdsman to a position second to the jarl himself, and was given much responsibility. This arrangement gave Ornolf more time for eating, drinking and lying with women, which he preferred above all things. During this time Thorgrim’s skill as a shipwright often proved as valuable as his skill with a sword and shield.

  After some years, Thorgrim grew wealthy in Ornolf’s service. He bought a farm and with Ornolf’s blessing married one of Ornolf’s daughters, a lovely woman named Hallbera. They had a good marriage and continued to prosper, and Hallbera bore three of Thorgrim’s children: a son named Odd, another named Harald, and a daughter named Hild. All three were healthy and strong. They worked hard and brought Thorgrim much pleasure.

  Then, when Hallbera was older, she found herself again with child, but she died in giving birth, and Thorgrim was struck with grief. By this time both Odd and Hild were married and Harald and the newborn, whom Thorgrim named Hallbera after her mother, were the only children left at home. Ornolf the Restless, true to his name, was eager to once again go a’viking, and though Thorgrim had not wanted to leave his farm before, now with the death of his wife he agreed to go. His son Harald was eager to go as well. Harald was then fifteen years of age, but broad and strong and very skilled in the use of weapons, with which he practiced whenever he was able, and Thorgrim agreed he should go with them.

  Ornolf assembled a crew of men for his ship Red Dragon and they sailed first to the land of the Picts and then across the water to Ireland. This was in the year 852 by the Christian calendar, when Olaf the White drove the Danes from Dubh-linn. In Ireland they met with many adventures, both among the Irish and among the other Northmen who were at that time sailing to Ireland in large numbers. Though they had intended to stay only for one season, they were several years in Ireland, during which Ornolf the Restless was killed and Thorgrim Night Wolf became the leader of the men, and soon after, the lord of a longphort named Vík-ló.

  While they were in Ireland Thorgrim met a man named Starri, who was known as Starri Deathless. Now, Starri was a berserker, one of those chosen by the gods to be the fiercest in battle, and to sometimes understand things that other men did not. Starri felt certain that Thorgrim was chosen by the gods, and that the gods would not allow him to leave Ireland until such time as they were ready. Thorgrim did not believe those words at first, but every time he tried to sail from that place he was flung back again, and soon he began to think Starri’s words were true.

  In the spring of their third year in Ireland, Thorgrim decided to sail from Vík-ló and go raiding along the coast of Ireland. There he fell in with a Frisian merchant named Brunhard, who was a skilled sailor in his own right. For some time Thorgrim pursued Brunhard in hope of capturing him and plundering his ships, but Brunhard always slipped away, which made Thorgrim very angry. At last Thorgrim managed to trap Brunhard, but just as he did, a great storm arose which drove Thorgrim’s ships and Brunhard’s ashore on a beach in Ireland where some were badly hurt and some were wrecked.

  Once again the gods had flung Thorgrim and his men back to the shores of Ireland and left them in a very bad way. And once again Thorgrim Night Wolf vowed he would continue on until such time as the gods allowed him to return to his home.

  Here is what happened.

  Chapter One

  Why do you not lament him, friends?

  His death is good cause for a general mortality,

  It is as a cloud reaching to the saints of heaven.

  Annals of Ulster

  There were two walls encircling the monastery at Ferns. The inner one was made of stone. It was called a vallum and it was not intended as any sort of defense, at least not from an earthly threat. It was no more than three feet high and it enclosed the sacred monastic buildings—the church and the scriptorium—and those somewhat less sacred but important nonetheless—the monks’ cells and the abbot’s house and the larger building where the cloistered nuns lived and worked. The vallum marked the edge of sanctuary.

  The second wall stood several h
undred yards away from the vallum and it was a more substantial affair: an earthen rampart built up to a height of ten feet with a palisade fence mounted on top. Between the vallum and the outer wall were located the fields that grew a good portion of the food that fed the monastery, the round thatch and wattle homes of the lay people who carried on the work that the priests, monks or nuns did not. There was a brewer and a blacksmith and several woodworkers. There were stables and a creamery.

  Ferns, like so many of the monasteries of Ireland, had grown to something beyond its origins as a holy site, like some oak tree that, as it grows, finds itself host to birds and squirrels and sundry insects and rabbits and badgers making their homes around its roots. And, like the oak, once it had grown sufficiently big and valuable, inevitably someone would arrive carrying an ax.

  The heathen Northmen had come several times. They had looted and burned and enslaved. But that had not happened for some while, and Abbot Columb, who had been overseeing the monastery for many years, and had lived there for many, many years before that, had allowed himself to hope that God had taken that cup from his hands.

  And perhaps He had. But Northmen were not the only threat. And now the men with the axes were back. Axes and swords, shields and spears.

  Abbot Columb sighed.

  Mounted as he was on horseback—a rarity for him and thankfully so—his eyes were near level with the top of the heavy oak-plank gate that closed over the eastern entrance through the outer wall. He looked at the dense wood, dark brown with the soaking rain, through a steady drip of water off the edge of the cowl he had pulled up over his head.

  “Dear Lord,” he said, “if you could see fit to allow me to catch my death in this rain, I would look upon it as a great blessing.” But he did not think the Lord would oblige that easily. He had lived through six decades and a smattering of years, through sundry diseases and injuries, though several sackings by the Northmen. He did not think that the rain, cold and driving as it was, would be the end of him.

  He nodded to the frightened-looking men standing ready to swing the big doors open. They nodded back, and one at least made the sign of the cross; then they leaned back into the weight and the gate swung open.

  The muddy ground on which the abbot’s horse stood seemed to spill out of the gate and form itself into something like a road, the main avenue from Ferns to the sea to the east and, through various by-ways, to Glendalough to the north and Dumamase to the northwest and beyond that Abbot Columb did not care.

  On the clearest of days the abbot, standing where he now stood, could see for miles over the rolling green hills of Laigin. But on that particular morning the sky had closed in and the hills were lost in fog and a hundred armed men stood in a line across the road. Abbot Columb sighed again and kicked his horse in the flanks, prodding the beast to a walk. Behind him he heard the gates swing closed again.

  For fighting men they were not all that impressive, Columb noted. Those near the center of the line, and on the flanks, were full-fledged men-at-arms, the house guard, no doubt. Trained and loyal. But those in the center of the ranks did not look so enthusiastic. They leaned on spears and held shields loose at their sides or, in more than a few instances, over their heads to ward off the rain. Men who were concerned about getting wet were not men primed and ready for battle.

  A dozen feet ahead of the line a man sat astride his horse, waiting. The horse, a big stallion, black with a thick mane, was far more impressive than the tired nag on which the abbot rode. The man on the stallion, wearing mail and a steel helmet, flanked by four of his house guard, was far more impressive than the abbot himself. Airtre mac Domhnall, the rí tuath of the lands east of Ferns. A genuine horse’s ass, in the abbot’s opinion.

  Abbot Columb brought his horse to a stop fifteen feet from where Airtre mac Domhnall and his men sat waiting. “So, Airtre, what brings you to my doorstep?” he called. His voice was not as strong as it once was, and that annoyed him.

  “You know why I’m here, Abbot,” Airtre said.

  Columb shook his head. He did in fact know why Airtre was there, with armed men, but he wanted to make Airtre say it.

  “I can’t imagine what would bring you out on such a day,” the abbot said.

  “You are the keeper of the Treasure of St. Aiden,” Airtre said, holding up his hand to stop Abbot Columb’s denial before it began. “Don’t bother denying it; you waste your breath. I know the treasure exists. I’ve been told by men I trust. A portion of it is owed to me, as rí tuath. I have come to collect it.”

  Abbot Columb sighed.

  “You are not rí tuath over these lands, and even if you were it would give you no authority over the Church,” the abbot pointed out. Airtre mac Domhnall, of course, was well aware of all that. He was not collecting taxes due him; he was raiding the monastery, but also looking for some veneer of an excuse for doing so.

  “That is a matter of some dispute,” Airtre said. He wiped the rain from his face and ran gloved fingers through his beard.

  “Tuathal mac Máele-Brigte is rí ruirech, the high king,” Columb replied. “If you feel you should enjoy a share of a treasure that does not exist, you must take the matter up with him.”

  Airtre smiled. “Tuathal is quite a distance from here, and he has his hands full trying to keep his own family from cutting his throat. And I don’t think he will succeed.”

  This was true, and Columb knew it. There was great intrigue and a struggle for power among those who aspired to rule Laigin, as there so often was, and Airtre was happy to capitalize on the confusion.

  “See here,” Airtre continued, and Columb could hear the man’s patience draining away. “I am done discussing the matter. Pray, open the gates and let my men through. I don’t wish any harm to the monastery. I want only to take what is rightfully mine.”

  “You are truly a man of God,” Columb said, his voice flat, with no hint of either sincerity or irony. “There is nothing I can do. Even if I keep the gates shut, our sorry dirt walls will not hold you out for long. So give me leave to warn the sisters of your coming that they might retreat to their house, and then we will open the gates.”

  “Very well, Abbot,” Airtre said, with traces of both triumph and suspicion in his voice. “My man Ailill will accompany you, if that’s acceptable.”

  Abbot Columb shrugged. It did not matter to him. So the man at Airtre’s left side spurred his horse forward, and as he approached Columb, the old abbot turned his own mount, and side by side they rode toward the monastery’s gate, which was swinging open to greet them.

  The Treasure of St. Aiden… Columb mused as he rode through the driving rain. Here was an ancient tale that had plagued him for years, and abbots of the monastery before him. No one, of course, believed that the treasure had been secured by St. Aiden himself, who had founded the monastery almost three hundred years earlier. That was simply the name given to this alleged hoard of gold and silver and such that was supposedly hidden somewhere within the walls, hidden so well it had been overlooked by the successive bands of Northmen who had sacked the place.

  Neither Columb nor anyone else knew where this legend had come from. It was true that Ferns was a wealthy monastery, and the abbot and a few others, a very few, knew the truth of why that was. But there was certainly no Treasure of St. Aiden.

  At least he has not gone up into the hills, Columb thought. If there was one advantage to the legend of the treasure, it was that men like Airtre or the heathens before him came looking for riches at the monastery and did not go blundering around the hills to the north. And that, to the abbot, made this sort of annoyance, the sort that Airtre was visiting on them, worth it.

  The abbot glanced over at the man named Ailill who was riding beside him. They walked their mounts through the gates. Columb pulled his reins a bit and his horse veered off to the right and Ailill did likewise.

  There was a cocky arrogance on the man’s face, so typical of these young warriors, Columb thought. They rounded the end of the gat
e where dozens of armed and mounted men in the abbot’s service had been hidden from view. Columb tried not to take any satisfaction as he saw Ailill’s expression turn from haughty to surprised to panicked.

  Ailill began to make a strangled cry, but before he could get much sound clear of his throat, four men were on him, dragging him down from his saddle and into the mud. Three of the men pressed feet down on his shoulders and legs while the fourth used his foot to press the man’s face down in the soft earth to keep him from crying out.

  Standing over the man, sword drawn, was Brother Bécc mac Carthach. Brother Bécc was wearing a padded tunic under a mail shirt, and there was nothing in his dress or gear that would suggest he was a monk—which he was—save for the large, crude wooden cross that hung from a leather thong around his neck.

  Bécc looked up at Columb, his long dark hair plastered to his head. Only one eye, the left eye, was visible on his half-ruined face. The other eye, along with the flesh on the right side of his face, right down to the bone, had been eliminated by the downward slash of a Northman’s sword in a fight long before Bécc had sought refuge in the church.

  Incredibly, the man had not died. Hard scar tissue had grown over the place where his eye and his skin had once been, and Bécc had given thanks to God and devoted his life to the service of his Lord, bringing his devotion and his particular abilities to that cause.

  Now, as ever, he looked to Columb for direction. Columb shook his head. No more communication was needed, and Ailill did not even know that the abbot had just spared his life. Bécc gestured toward one of his men, who stepped over and quickly gagged and bound Airtre’s squirming man-at-arms.

  Columb turned his eyes from Ailill, still sprawled in the mud, to another man, mounted, wearing mail and a helmet, sword also drawn, watching from a dozen feet away. The man looked up from the thrashing Ailill and met Abbot Columb’s eyes. The abbot nodded his head to this one as well, and as with Bécc, no more words were needed.