Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) (13 page)

  “You asked me to help you get away from Tara. I know you, girl, and I know you did not run away with no thought of where you are running to. And where would that be?”

  Brigit did not answer immediately. She had known, of course, that this moment would come. She had put considerable thought into it, sitting on the edge of her bed, beside the body of her dead husband, as his blood dried on her clothing.

 
Where can I go?

  She had sat in silence, but the question had been screaming in her head. Any of the minor kingdoms which she might hope to reach on foot were either loyal to Flann, as the heir apparent to the throne of Tara, or too afraid of him to dare give her shelter. Any kingdom so far away as to be beyond Flann’s sphere of influence would be too far to do her any good. They might give her shelter, might let her live out her days there, might even let her marry into the family of the
rí túaithe
, but no more. And she was not interested in any of those things. She cared about one thing alone, and that was taking her place on the throne of Tara, and her child after her.

  And there was only one place where she might find an ally who could help her do that.

  “There is one place I might go, Father,” she said at last. “The only place. Dubh-linn.”

If old age awaits this battle-spear

then my dreams lead me astray.

                                                              Gisli Sursson’s Saga

Even before the
Black Raven
was made fast to the shore, Ornolf the Restless was there, standing in mud up to his ankles, roaring his greeting, roaring drunk. Thorgrim watched Harald approach his grandfather, arms out, watched Ornolf take the boy in a bear hug. With Ornolf, massively built, with a great hedge of gray and red beard and long hair tumbling in every direction, it was very near to being literally a bear hug.

  “Thorgrim! Thorgrim!” Ornolf shouted out. “Come here and explain to me how someone so girlish as you might have sired a man such as Harald, here! I know my daughter was not disloyal, so it must be something else!”

  Thorgrim looked over at Arinbjorn and Arinbjorn gave him a half smile, a cock of the eyebrows. Thorgrim nodded and a moment of understanding passed between them, a flash of a connection they had never before shared.

  “I have a father-in-law, too,” Arinbjorn confided. “You had best go.”

  Thorgrim put a foot on the gunnel and vaulted over, his soft leather shoes sinking deep in the mud of the River Liffey. He heard a soft splash behind and knew that Starri Deathless had followed. Arinbjorn, he was certain, would wait until a gangplank was rigged, which even at the moment his men were struggling to do.

  “Thorgrim!” Ornolf still had Harald firmly in the grip of his left arm and he held up his right arm to hug Thorgrim, all the while keeping a grip on a half-full goblet in his hand, an impressive feat. Thorgrim held out his arms and gave Ornolf the obligatory hug, a half-hearted effort, but Ornolf did not seem to notice as he crushed father and son in return. The old man’s strength and endurance never failed to astound.

  “There are some impressive tales being told about my grandson’s deeds at Cloyne, some mighty impressive tales!” Ornolf said, releasing his grip. His voice was louder than was quite necessary, but at least he had stopped shouting. “You were mentioned as well, Thorgrim, seems you had some part in it.”

  “’Tales?’” Thorgrim asked. “How could tales be told, the fleet is only now returned?”

  “Ha! Don’t be a fool!” Ornolf replied. “You know that word travels faster than the swiftest ship. The gods carry tales of brave deeds ahead of the men who do them.”

  Thorgrim nodded. It had to be true that the gods brought word ahead and whispered it in the ears of those ashore. He had seen before how tales of great deeds had spread faster than was humanly possible.

  “Now who is this fellow?” Ornolf asked and the three turned to see Starri standing, silent and unmoving, a few feet away.

  “This is Starri,” Thorgrim said. “He played a great part in the fighting, saved my life and Harald’s more than once, I should think. Starri, this is my father-in-law, Ornolf of Vik.”

  Starri and Ornolf clasped hands and Ornolf said, “You have a look about you. One might take you for one of those berserkers, and if so, it is no matter to me. There are some won’t be civil to berserkers, until they need them to take all the risk in battle, but I’m not one of those.”

  To that Starri just nodded and held Ornolf’s hand. Then Ornolf said, “Come, let us get us to the mead hall! They will be drinking the health of you fellows soon, and if Ornolf is too old and tired to garner any glory for himself, at least I can gather some of the reflected glory of my grandson! And my son-in-law, of course.”

  And so the four of them trudged off, up the plank road, past the tight packed houses and workshops, though the low hanging smoke and the ring of hammers, the soft growl of saws, up toward the mead hall, which had been partially burned by Thorgrim and his men when Dubh-linn had been in Danish hands, but now was fully repaired by the Norwegians who held the longphort.

  Thorgrim did not feel much like celebrating. He was tired, he felt the black mood setting in, and he wished only to be left alone to brood and to think of home. But in this circumstance, and with Ornolf in the lead, he had little chance for escape. Nor did he care to leave Harald unattended under the tutelage of his grandfather.

  The mead hall was built in the Scandinavian style and loomed above them like a cliff as they approached, giving it an oddly menacing look in the dying light of the late afternoon. The big doors hung open, a rectangle of glowing light, as if the interior itself was on fire, and noise and smoke rolled out. Ornolf all but pushed Thorgrim and Harald in ahead of him.

  For Thorgrim Night Wolf there was no sensation, save perhaps that of stepping into his own home, more familiar than that of stepping into a mead hall. The smell of roasting meat, spilled drink, of many men packed together, the roar of their shouted and drunken conversation, the occasional scream of a thrall, the banging of wooden plates and mugs, the whole scene lit by a massive fire burning in a hearth, a fire that sometimes flared and filled the hall with light and sometimes died away and threw the place into shadow, it was at once familiar and soothing and stimulating. He stepped further into the big room. The noise, loud even before their entrance, seemed to grow, to swirl upward like a flock of birds rising together.

  Ornolf grabbed Thorgrim and Harald’s hands, raised them up, said, “Ha! They’ve been waiting on you!” And as he said it the rising sound burst into cheers, shouts, plates, fists and knife hilts banged on wooden tables. Up by the fire, Hoskuld Iron-skull stood with the other jarls and they raised their cups and joined in the shouting. Harald was grinning wide. There was a time, Thorgrim knew, when he too would have devoured such recognition like the most savory of meals, but now it only embarrassed him.

  Starri leaned forward and spoke in Thorgrim’s ear. “Thorgrim, did you storm the very gates of Asgard, and loot the treasure of the gods? I must have missed that, but sure such enthusiasm could be for nothing less.” Thorgrim could hear the smile in Starri’s voice, and he smiled himself, a grim smile. In his present mood, any other man who said such a thing to him would have paid a dear price for it.

  The afternoon turned to evening and then nighttime with the familiar debauchery; drinking, feasting, the old songs sung with more emphasis on volume than melody or tune. The sound of rutting in the shadows. Tales were told, insults traded, toasts drunk with enthusiasm. Ornolf had not budged from Dubh-linn since returning there with Olaf the White, and he seemed to Thorgrim to have ensconced himself in the mead hall like some benevolent jarl, ordering the thralls about, summoning up more food and drink, insisting this man sit in one place, this one in another.

  And to Thorgrim’s surprise, the men and the thralls in the hall seemed to listen to him, and do as directed, but he suspected that this was due more to their finding the old man amusing than recognizing any authority he might have.

  “Ah, Thorgrim!” Ornolf said, settling himself with care on the bench on which Thorgrim and Harald sat. To Thorgrim’s annoyance he handed a fresh cup of mead to the already red-faced and unsteady boy. “This Dubh-linn is all a man could want! Women everywhere, Irish women, good and subservient! Fresh food! Every day, I tell you, the gates open and the farmers and the sheep herders and the fish mongers and what not bring their goods into town. These Irish may hate us, but damn me if they don’t like selling to us for silver and gold!”

  “This is not our home,” Thorgrim said, taking the cup from Harald’s hand and drinking deep from it.

  “Exactly!” Ornolf roared. “From Vik we must cross the seas to plunder. Here, we sail down the coast, take what we wish, and use the silver to buy food and drink from the very people we took the silver from in the first place! What could be more convenient than that?”

  “Ornolf has a point,” Starri said, one of the few things he had said all evening, then poured mead down his throat as if the words had parched him.

  “He has a point,” Thorgrim agreed, “but how long it will remain true, I can’t say. For all the high talk here tonight there was not much plunder to be had at Cloyne. Worse, these Irish might start helping each other. If they unite as one, we cannot defeat them.”

  “Ha! We won’t live to see that!” Ornolf declared. “They’ll keep on fighting each other like the wild dogs they are!”

 
Wild dogs…
Thorgrim turned aside, weary of the conversation, and looked into the fire. For all the time he had been damned by the gods to spend in Ireland, he had really known only one native of that country. Morrigan, the thrall. She was beautiful, a healer, a woman who had suffered much. And she was dangerous, complicated, like one of the floating ice mountains of the northern seas, the lovely and quiet part above the surface, so much more unseen below. And that was the part that would wreck you.

  Morrigan was all Thorgrim knew of Ireland, her and Almaith, the blacksmith Jokul’s wife, from whom they rented a place to sleep. For Harald it was different. Harald had been to Tara, which was apparently the seat of the high king of those parts, whisked away by Morrigan and used as a pawn, though treated well enough. He told a story of a royal household as fine as any to be found in Norway, a ringfort with a church and many houses. A place worth plundering, Thorgrim imagined, though it would be no easy business, not like Cloyne.

  There was a woman, too. Brageet, or some such. Thorgrim had trouble with the strange Irish names. Brigit. That was it. Harald had been circumspect in his talking about her, but Thorgrim could see there was much to the story that Harald was not saying. The boy had the subtlety of a battle-spear up the backside.

  A scuffling brought his attention back, a catch in the ambient noise, a shift of tone. He looked up. There was a certain tension in the hall. Thorgrim had been aware of it, but had given it no thought. But now, looking around at the fire-lit faces, flushed and sweating, he could sense a breaking point. Those men who had not been with them at Cloyne were growing weary of the celebrations, the self-congratulatory attitude of the victors. Because they had not been part of the raiding party, they were looking to punish someone who was. And that person was Harald.

  Thorgrim had not seen this play out, but still he was not surprised. Harald had managed to consume about a third of the various drinks that Ornolf had handed him, despite Thorgrim’s best efforts to take the cups from his hand. The boy, unused to drinking so hard and fast, had staggered across the room, no doubt looking for a place to relieve himself, and had staggered into a big, foul-looking beast of a man with one eye sealed shut by a vicious scar that ran like a narrow valley across his face.

  The hall was too loud, Harald and his antagonists too far across the room for Thorgrim to hear their words, but he did not have to. He had heard them all before, the same stupid fight played out in the same mead halls up and down the coast of Norway and in Hedeby as well.

 
What do you mean by running into me, huh, boy?

 
Nothing. I mean nothing by it. Accident.

 
Accident? I’ll teach you a lesson about disrespecting me…

  Or some variation on that tired theme. Thorgrim was on his feet as the scarred man grabbed a handful of Harald’s tunic and cocked his fist. If Harald had been sober, then Thorgrim would have given even odds that the scarred son of a whore would get the worst of it, but Harald was far from sober.

  “You hit the boy, you’ll answer to me!” Thorgrim shouted but no one heard his words or indeed paid him any attention.

  Then, with a shriek that turned every head in the hall, Starri Deathless launched himself off the bench, took three steps along the table and launched himself off that, coming down on the hard-packed dirt floor inches from the scarred man, inches from Harald. The mead hall fell silent. Motionless. Like a tapestry, a still rendering of Starri standing where he had landed, the man gripping Harald’s tunic in one hand, his other hand a cocked fist, Harald’s eyes wide and glistening. Then Starri twirled around and bowed deep at the waist, bowed to all who watched his performance, spread his hands as if calling for applause.

  Silence. And then the hall seemed to erupt with laughter, shouts, applause. Starri bowed again.

  Thorgrim pushed his way through the crowd, closed with the scarred man who still had Harald by the tunic. “Come friend,” he called. “Let the boy go, let us all drink together.” If Starri could so cleverly throw water on this fire, Thorgrim would not ignite it again.