Raider's Wake: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 6) Read online

  Because he knew now what he had to do. What they all had to do.

  He turned to Ulf and Gellir. “This pig, the one in contention, it’s still around?”

  “Uh, no, lord,” Ulf said, trying to be as deferential as he could be. “It’s like I was saying, Gellir killed the pig when it went into his garden last and next I know he has it roasting on—”

  “So the pig is dead?” Thorgrim interrupted. Both men nodded their heads. “Do you have other pigs? Either of you?”

  The two men nodded again. “I have two more, lord, left after Gellir stole the one,” Ulf said.

  “And I three,” Gellir said, grudgingly. “And some meat smoked.”

  “Excellent!” Thorgrim said, his enthusiasm mounting. “Here’s what you’ll do. As punishment to both of you for driving us all to madness with this idiocy, you will both bring your best swine to my hall when I command you, and we will slaughter them and we will roast them and all of the longphort will feast. We’ll make a sacrifice to the gods and we’ll feast and we’ll celebrate.”

  “Celebrate…lord?” Ulf asked.

  “Yes, we’ll celebrate,” Thorgrim said. “And we’ll ask the gods to bless our coming voyage.”

  Another murmur ran through the hall, more pointed and louder this time. Thorgrim heard Harald’s snoring stop abruptly.

  “Voyage, Lord Thorgrim?” It was Godi asking this time, and Thorgrim could hear the hopeful tone in his voice.

  “Yes, Godi. We’ll sail once the ships are made ready. Fine ships, sitting on the mud and filling with rainwater. It makes the gods sick to see such things. Is it any wonder they’re angry?”

  “Night Wolf!” Now it was Starri calling from his far corner. His voice was still slurred, but as with Godi, there was a new and revived quality to it. “Where do we go?”

  “We’re going a’viking, as men were meant to do,” Thorgrim said. “We’re going raiding.” The murmur swept through the hall once more, louder, like a building surf.

  “Pray, lord, might I ask,” Godi said, “where is it we’ll be raiding?”

  Thorgrim smiled at him. “Where there are riches to be had, Godi. Where there are riches.”

  Chapter Three

  When edges shall be against edges, and shields against shield,

  thou wilt be penitent…

  The Battle of Carnn Chonaill

  Thorgrim Ulfsson was not the only one pleased to see an end to the pitiless rain. Ten miles south of Dubh-linn, in a small stand of trees next to what might have been a road or might have been a shallow muddy stream, a man named Cronan and his two companions stood hunched against the downpour. The oaks spread above them, flush with their summer leaves, gave some shelter, but not much. And so, when the sound of the deluge began to taper away, and then ended completely, the men looked up with wonder and relief.

  “Damn the damn sodding rain,” the man to Cronan’s left muttered and Cronan lashed out and hit him on the side of the head.

  “Shut your fool mouth,” Cronan said, even though he himself had been right on the cusp of saying much the same thing. With the sleeve of his filthy, patched and now-soaked tunic he wiped the water from his eyes.

  He wiped both eyes, even though only one of them actually worked. The other was blind and had a milky cast to it, or so Cronan understood. He had only seen himself in a mirror once in his life, and he had not been much pleased with what he saw, but he thought he remembered it that way. He had seen his reflection in various pools of water, of course, but in water it was hard to get a clear picture of how he genuinely appeared.

  Not that he gave a rat’s turd what he looked like. The uglier, the more frightening he was, the easier it was for him to earn his living in the manner he chose.

  “Come on,” he said, nodding toward the barely visible path beaten between the trees. He rested his palm on the hilt of the big knife that hung from a rope tied around his belt and pushed his way through the bracken, his two fellows trailing behind.

  They had spent the night in the stand of trees, drenched, hungry, cold and miserable. The night before had been spent in a farmer’s hovel which, uninviting as it was, had been like some lord’s great hall compared to the woods. They had slept in the company of the farmer’s corpse, and that of his wife, whom they had killed soon after being let into that sorry place.

  They would have liked to wait out the rain there for a few days, but there was too great a risk that some neighbors or one of the local rí túaithe’s men would come snooping around. When dawn came they took what they could find of value, which was practically nothing, and all the food they could carry, and left.

  Cronan paused near the edge of the woods, where the thinning trees gave him a view of the road that ran beside it, a long, undulating brown band cutting through the green fields and disappearing over a distant hill. Pools of water stood in random low spots and the once dusty path was now dark brown mud, but it was not much churned or rutted as no travelers had passed that way for some time. The weather had not been particularly accommodating for travelers the past week or more.

  But that would change. Unimposing as this road might be, it was one of the chief thoroughfares between the lands to the south and the ever-expanding Norse settlement of Dubh-linn, already the largest city in all of Ireland. The Irish might fear and despise the Northmen, but not nearly as much as they loved the chance to profit from them.

  The foreigners in Dub-linn, the heathens, the fin gall, had silver and they had goods from the lands across the sea and they were in need of Irish meat and grains and ale. What the heathens did not buy for their immediate use they would buy to carry to trading centers in Frisia and Frankia and the northern countries. Where once only the warriors’ longships made their way to the Irish coast, now more and more tubby merchant vessels were calling on Dubh-linn to fill their holds with goods rather than plunder.

  And much of it flowed along this road. And so it was along this road that Cronan and his men secreted themselves, in hopes of relieving some of those travelers of their goods, and generally their lives.

  “Here, Cronan, look there!”

  Corcc, the one Cronan had struck moments before, was nodding to the south. Cronan squinted his one good eye in that direction. There was something moving on the road, most likely someone on horseback. Cronan suspected that Corcc could see the figure perfectly well, that anyone with proper eyes could, but he could see only a blurred figure. Despite that, he was not about to ask Corcc or his other man, Murchad, what they could see.

  The three men stood silent and motionless as the distant figure approached. Finally, when Cronan was certain enough of what he was looking at, he spoke. “Rider,” he grunted. “A single rider.”

  “Yes,” Corcc said. “All by himself. Looks to me to be a monk or a priest or some such.”

  Cronan grunted his agreement, though he still could see nothing but a blurry figure astride a larger blurry figure. Still, that told him a lot. One man alone on a horse would be an easy target if they timed it right, sprung on him before he could bolt away. A man on a horse was likely a man with something worth stealing. At the very least the horse could be sold for something. In the unlikely event that there was a saddle as well, it would be worth considerably more.

  “All right, get down, you stupid bastards,” Cronan growled. He crouched down on one knee and the other two did the same. “You wait until I say the word, then it’s right at him. Corcc, you get his reins.”

  Corcc grunted. “Ain’t like we never done this before,” he muttered and Cronan hit him again.

  They fell silent, and soon even Cronan could see it was indeed a single man on horseback and he appeared to be a priest or a monk. At least he appeared to be wearing the robe of a priest or a monk, though it was hard to tell, as the cloth was soaked clean through and clung to the man and the horse.

  They could hear the sounds of the horse’s hooves now, not the soft clop of hoof on packed dirt but a squishing sound as each foot sunk inches deep in the mud
and the weary animal pulled it free to take the next step.

  Priest…Cronan thought. He had no concerns about killing a priest. Some did, thought that their souls would be in jeopardy, but Cronan had long ago given up worrying about that. He figured that his soul was so far beyond the possibility of redemption that he might as well take what he could from this world and not worry about the next. There were at least two priests he could recall whose fat guts had felt the thrust of his knife.

  And there was the other one. The one he had never forgotten. It had been north of Dubh-linn, a year or two earlier. Just two priests on the road, and Cronan had tried to kill the one, but the priest had laid a hand on his arm, just laid it there, it seemed, but it had stopped Cronan in mid-thrust. And then he had said, simply, “Don’t do that,” and somehow Cronan had not been able to gut the man. It was some kind of priest magic, and it had frightened him. And then the priest had even asked for food, and Cronan had yielded that, too.

  Well, I’ll gut this one, if he don’t do what I want, Cronan thought. I’ll gut him even if he does.

  The rider was ten feet away and still had not seen the three men concealed in the bracken. He hardly moved as he rode, just swayed with the motion of the walking horse, right up until the moment that Cronan shouted, “Go!” and sprung to his feet and Corcc and Murchad did as well.

  They burst out of the brush and the man on the horse looked up and Cronan could see the shock on his face. He jerked the reins to spin his mount around, but Corcc was there as ordered. He grabbed the reins and yanked them from the man’s grasp and held them tight as the horse, surprised as the man, whinnied and pulled.

  Cronan was at the priest’s side, his big knife drawn and held in front on him, close enough to the rider that he could easily stick it in the man’s stomach. Murchad was around the other side and he, too, had a long knife drawn and ready.

  “Get down,” Cronan growled. “Get down easy and slow.” The man nodded though his face betrayed no fear. Cronan squinted at him, trying to see if this was the same priest from years before. He could not tell for certain, but he did not think so. This one was younger, it seemed. Cronan did not think he would have the chance to get much older.

  The horse had a saddle, which Cronan was pleased to see, and saddlebags which seemed full, and that was even better. The priest swung a leg over and slipped easily to the ground. His hands were held up at shoulder height as a show of supplication, though it would do him no good.

  “I’m a man of God,” the young priest said. “You don’t want to do me harm.”

  Cronan cocked his head and regarded the man. He had some sort of accent, like he was from a country over the seas. “Where you from?” Cronan demanded.

  “The monastery at Glendalough,” the priest said.

  “Before that,” Cronan said.

  “I am from Frankia. I am studying at the monastery.”

  Cronan frowned. Monastery at Glendalough…he thought.

  He had only a vague idea of where Frankia was, and only a slightly better idea of where Glendalough was located. But he did know that Glendalough was a prominent and wealthy monastery. And that made him very curious indeed about what was in the saddlebags.

  “Look, my friend,” the priest said. “You don’t want to injure a man of God. Let me give you a blessing and I’ll be on my way.”

  “‘Man of God’,” Cronan spat. He had seen enough men of God to know he would be perfectly happy killing one if it meant getting at the riches hidden in his saddlebags. And he knew better than to let this bastard keep talking. Too much of the priest’s slippery words and those weak fools Corcc and Murchad would be on their knees begging forgiveness.

  “Here, man of God,” Cronan growled. He took a step toward the priest and whipped his knife up in an underhanded arc meant to rip through the man’s stomach and up under his rib cage. He could almost feel the familiar sensation of blade splitting flesh as his arm swept upward. And then it stopped.

  Cronan looked down in surprise. The priest’s left hand had grabbed his wrist and was holding it, immobile. Cronan tried to jerk his hand back, but before he put the least effort into it the priest’s right hand grabbed the handle of the knife and twisted it out of Cronan’s hand. The gesture was effortless and Cronan could only watch as the knife was plucked from his fingers.

  The bandit looked up at the priest’s expressionless face, expecting some admonition, some call to repent, but the priest said nothing as he thrust the knife forward into Cronan’s belly. Cronan felt a strangled cry come from deep inside and he staggered back, hands around the blade of the knife, the warm blood already running over his fingers. The pain was radiating out from the wound, but not so much pain that Cronan could not speak or act.

  “You son of a bitch!” he shouted and then grit his teeth and grabbed the handle and pulled the knife free. He had no doubt he would die of the wound, but he meant to take this bastard with him.

  He held the knife tight, the handle slippery with blood. The priest had his arm up, reaching behind his back, and to Cronan’s horror he drew a long, gleaming sword from a scabbard that must have been secreted under his robe.

  “What in hell?” Cronan said. The sword came down in an arc and Cronan heard the swish of the blade cleaving the air and then he heard nothing more.

  Louis de Roumois felt his sword’s perfectly honed blade hit the Irish bandit’s skull and split it with barely a pause in its downward momentum. The filthy bastard was dead but still on his feet, mouth open, eyes rolling off in different directions, as Louis pulled the blade free, spun around and drove the tip into the chest of the other one holding his horse’s reins.

  The second man made a strangling sound as the sword tore through his lungs. Louis pulled the blade back quick, done with that one, wanting to get at the third. He ducked around the horse’s head even as the second man was staggering back. His death would not be instant, like the first’s had been, but still the life was draining from him fast.

  The third man, the youngest, apparently, had time enough to register what was going on, unlike the first two men. That was a great advantage, but the man did not have the presence of mind to do anything with it. Instead of turning and running as fast as he could, he backed carefully away, hands up, eyes wide, as if things would be all right as long as he didn’t startle the man with the sword.

  Louis took two steps in his direction. At some other time he might have taken pity on the young man, let him run off, but the past month had all but driven pity from Louis’s heart. He brought the sword back over his left shoulder, settled both hands on the grip and swung it around in a powerful backhand stroke. The Irish bandit made a strangling sound, half surprise, half terror. His hands were still up and Louis’s blade neatly severed the right hand, just at the wrist, barely pausing as it hit his neck and kept on going.

  The sword did not decapitate the man, but near enough. His head flopped at an odd angle and he was tossed onto his side by the force of the blow. He came to rest in the mud of the road with his head just barely attached by a strip of flesh. The blood coursing from his rent neck was mixing with the standing water on the road to form a dull red liquid.

  For a few heartbeats Louis remained where he stood, sword pointed at the ground; then he drew back quick to the en garde position and turned left and right. Prudence and training dictated that he would not drop his guard until he was certain all enemies were dead or gone.

  Nothing. Louis de Roumois was alone with his horse and the three dead men scattered around him. He heard only the rustle of wind in the branches and the snorting and pawing of his mount, a well-trained animal that had not been startled by the sudden violence, but rather had stepped a few paces back and remained where he stood. Beyond that there was nothing.

  He lowered the sword, rested the tip on the ground and sighed. This sort of thing was no more than he had come to expect during the few hellish months he had just spent wandering like some poor soul in purgatory around the Irish countryside.<
br />
  After the disastrous attempt to crush the Northmen who had sacked Glendalough, Louis retreated with the rest of the men-at-arms under the command of Lochlánn mac Ainmire, a young former novitiate whom he himself had trained. They were bound back to Glendalough where, Louis knew, he was likely to be hanged for a murder he was wrongly thought to have committed. That was a fate he did not care to experience, so he slipped away from the weary column of horsemen and, unnoticed, he rode off north.

  But he did not remain unnoticed for long. He had covered a few miles, no more, before he saw the horsemen coming up over the hill away to the south, riding as hard as their weary mounts would carry them. They were coming for him, of that he had no doubt.

  He drove his heels into his horse’s flanks, pushed the poor, tired animal into something like a run. He had a decent lead on the men behind him, but he knew that could change in an instant. One twist of the horse’s ankle, one stone in a shoe and he was done for. He had to open up the lead while he could.

  Louis charged up the next hill and down the far side, the riders coming for him temporarily blocked from view, which was good, but what lay before him was not good, not good at all. A wide river, roiling and tumbling along, a river too deep and fast for the horse to cross, Louis was all but certain. He could turn right, race off to the east, but he had an idea that the Northmen under Thorgrim’s command would be found there, and they were at least as big a threat as the men behind him.

  So he turned left and ran off to the west. It gave him a bit of an advantage, since his pursuers would not know he had done that until they, too, crested the hill. But it was also pretty much the opposite direction in which he wished to travel.

  By the time the men behind him had come over the hill, Louis had greatly increased his lead. For another hour or so they continued this fox and hound chase over the rolling green country, but finally the men behind gave up, slowed to a stop, watched for a few minutes as Louis put more distance between them, then turned and walked their horses back in the direction from which they had come.