Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) (16 page)

  She gave him a touch of a smile, a wistful smile. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, gently, held them there. They were impossibly soft; in the hard world of men and ships and weapons and battle, he had forgotten that anything could be so soft and inviting. She stood, the bowl of bloody water in her hands, and was gone.

  Thorgrim fell asleep again. He did not dream of wolves.

The wielder of iron must rise

early to earn the wealth from his bellows…

                                                                       Egil’s Saga

It was a shout, a full-throated yell that jarred Thorgrim from his sleep. He rolled over and his hand fell on Iron-tooth’s grip and he all but shouted in pain as he wrenched the wound in his side. And then he heard Jokul’s booming voice.

  “Harald! You’re back, boy! Good news, good news, that! Lots to do, you know, now that you’re all rested up! Ah, Thorgrim Ulfsson! Glad to see you too, never doubt it! Good voyage, as I hear it! Lots of plunder, so they are saying! Almaith, you lazy bitch, get some breakfast for these men!”

  Thorgrim rolled back slowly, sure he had pulled his wound open yet again, but he did not feel warm blood spreading under the dressing Almaith had put there. It occurred to him that the sleep he had enjoyed in camp on the field of battle had been more restful and undisturbed than that to be found in their rented quarters.

  Through half opened eyes he looked up at the window that fronted the street. The first streaks of a clear dawn were visible to the east, and somewhere down the road a cock began to crow. He looked up at Jokul. The man snored like a bear and he looked like a bear, with the massive arms of a lifetime swinging a hammer, the broad stomach of an adulthood spent eating and drinking well, and a black beard that sprawled across his face like a hedge left untended for generations. Thorgrim looked over at Harald. Incredibly, Jokul’s enthusiastic welcome had not caused him to stir in the least. 

  Jokul crossed the room, nudged Harald with his toe. “You hear me, boy? Lots to do!”

  “He’s pretty well done in,” Thorgrim said, the words coming out in a scratchy growl. “Long night. Many long nights. I don’t reckon you will get him to stir.”

  “Nonsense! Young boy like that, strong as a horse, they’re always ready to go.”

  Almaith came in, a bundle of kindling and small pieces of split firewood in her arms. She dumped the wood by the hearth, poked at the coals with a thin stick. “Let the boy sleep, Jokul,” she admonished. “You’ll get your free work out of him, I have no doubt, but let him sleep now.”

  The smith glowered at her but in the end said nothing. Often enough Almaith doled out as many harsh words as she received, and that made Thorgrim happy. It always had, even before their moment, earlier, in the dark hours.

  Thorgrim let his eyes linger on Jokul’s face, wondering if he would see any sort of suspicion there, but there was nothing beyond the usual irritability. Then the smith grunted and turned and left the room.

  Almaith stoked up the fire and hung an iron pot over the flames and soon the porridge inside was bubbling, filling the room with a warm and savory smell, and that at last got Harald stirring. He sat up, looked stupidly around until he had his bearings, then rubbed his eyes and stretched. Thorgrim was still in his bed, a rare luxury. He had no reason, none at all, to rise from his mat of furs. The realization startled him. There was not one thing that was demanded of him that day. It was comforting and unnerving, all at once.

  “How is your wound?” Almaith asked in a neutral voice.

  “Better. I think the bleeding has stopped,” Thorgrim said.

  “Good. You may be spared my needle.”

  “Oh, no need of that,” Harald offered. “I sewed him up, back at Cloyne. Sewed him well, I don’t reckon that will come free.”

  Thorgrim nodded. “Yes, he did sew me up,” he said. Harald’s fine stitching had already come apart several times, but Harald seemed to have forgotten that.

  “Yes, well done,” Almaith said. She ladled porridge into a shallow wooden bowl, turned to Harald and said something in Irish. She spoke slowly and Harald took a moment to puzzle it out, then replied in Irish as well. Thorgrim smiled. This interest in language was unexpected. Blacksmithing, carpentry, seafaring, any of those things Harald was eager and quick to learn, but the more academic areas of knowledge had always held little interest to him.

  Almaith replied, again in Irish, and handed the bowl to Harald, who took it with a word of thanks and dug in. Thorgrim sat up. The remnants of his tunic were hanging off his shoulders and he carefully peeled them away and let them drop.

  “This is Jokul’s, it will certainly fit.” Almaith tossed a small linen bundle, one of Jokul’s leines. “I’ve already started in on a new tunic for you.”

  “Thank you,” Thorgrim said. He pulled the garment over his head. The linen was fine and white. Jokul was making good money at his trade.

  Jokul himself was back, his mouth opened to say something. He saw Thorgrim, scowled, opened his mouth to speak again and stopped again. From out in the yard a scraping sound was drifting in through the window, and beneath it a squeaking like a mouse, but rhythmic.

  “What by Thor’s hammer is that?” Jokul asked, turned and headed for the door. Harald watched him go, looked down at his porridge, looked back at Jokul, clearly torn between curiosity and hunger, but when Thorgrim stood and headed for the door, the leine flowing around him, Harald followed.

  Thorgrim actually had a pretty good idea what the sound was, and he figured he had better get in the middle of it before the blood started to flow. He could tell from Jokul’s bellow of outrage that he had guessed right. He walked barefoot down Harald’s split-log path to the work area in the front of the house. Jokul was waving his hands in the air, trying through his fury to form a sentence. Starri Deathless was sitting at his grindstone, the heavy wheel spinning, applying the blade of one of Jokul’s swords to the stone. Sparks flew in a hundred arcs of orange light.

  “Who in the name of Odin are you? You miserable little….” Jokul managed to piece together. His arms came down, hands balled into fists. Thorgrim stepped up, stepped between him and Starri.

  “Jokul, this is Starri Deathless. He was with us at Cloyne. He stayed the night out here. With Almaith’s blessing.”

  “Well, what does he think he’s about now?” Jokul spluttered. Spittle flew from his mouth.

  “Sharpening,” Starri offered. “Good blade. Yours?”

  “Mine? I made it, if that’s what you mean!” Jokul bellowed.

  Starri nodded. “Made it? You impress me, smith. Very fine blade. Takes an edge well, as good as any I’ve seen.”

  “Of course it does!” Jokul shouted, the volume no lower but the tone softened by the compliment. “You think I’m some miserable apprentice, banging out nails and door hinges? I made the finest blades in Trondheim and now I make the finest blades in Dubh-linn!”

  Starri nodded and set the grindstone spinning again. Thorgrim wondered at the truth of Jokul’s words. He probably was the best smith in Dubh-linn. Trondheim? Unlikely. If he was, he would never have left Trondheim.

  “And,” Jokul continued, the anger mounting again, “I know damned well how to sharpen a blade!” He held out a meaty hand, a wordless demand for the return of his property. Equally wordless, Starri handed it to him, hilt-first, taking great pains to avoid cutting himself on the two-edged blade. Jokul took the weapon and Thorgrim watched him surreptitiously test with his thumb the edge Starri had put on it, saw the thin red line appear and the minor eruption of blood, which Jokul wiped on his leggings.

  “Still, if you have some insane need to sharpen blades,” Jokul said, calmer now, “I have some awaiting their owners that you may have a go at.”

  Starri nodded.

  “And it’s a quarter eyrir silver a week for staying here,” Jokul concluded as he turned and headed back toward the house.

  Almaith, true to her word and swift of finger, spent the next couple of hours stitching together a new tunic for Thorgrim, made up from a deep blue wool cloth of which she had a few ells on hand. Thorgrim assured her he would pay for the fabric and the work. She insisted there was no need for payment. He insisted he would pay anyway, repeating his insistence several times until at last she snapped at him to leave her alone.

  He wandered out into the yard, watched Jokul working a length of steel into a blade, Harald working the bellows, Starri working at the grindstone, moving the blade rhythmically against the rough wheel, his body rocking slowly with the work, entranced by his task. Thorgrim wandered back inside. The luxury of idleness was not one that he actually enjoyed.

  When Almaith was nearly done with the tunic, Thorgrim took it from her, despite her protests that he could not go out wearing such a thing, not a bit of decorative braid at the neck or cuffs. “You’ll look like some beggar, wandering the streets,” she protested.

  “Then maybe some rich man will give me money enough to pay you for your work,” he said, pulling off Jokul’s leine. “But I could never look like a beggar in this fine piece of work, braid or no. In any event, I have important business to attend to,” he added, which was not entirely true.

  He faced her, wearing only his leggings which were belted around his waist, and he saw her eyes flicker over his bare chest and arms. Because he could not stand watching other men work, or fight, or do anything, and not take part himself, he had not grown soft as had many men of his age and status. Almaith seemed to appreciate this, the symmetric curves of the muscles of his arms, his broad chest and hard stomach.

  “Your wound?” she said, softer than the words needed to be said. “It’s not torn open again?”

  “No, it seems to be mending well.”

  “Let me help you with your tunic,” she said. She stood and took the garment. She examined the dressing on Thorgrim’s wound, a hand resting softly on his chest. Outside Jokul was arguing loudly with a customer. She helped ease the tunic over Thorgrim’s head, easy, so the wound did not pull open, then tugged it down and smoothed it in place.

  “A fair job,” she said, frowning at the tunic’s fit.

  “A perfect job. Fits like a man’s sword fits in his hand.”

  “Or thrust in his scabbard,” she suggested.

  Thorgrim smiled. Almaith wrapped his belt around his waist and fastened it loosely, with Iron-tooth hanging at his left side. The Northmen, she knew, did not go abroad unarmed. She draped his cloak over his shoulders and fastened the corners with a bronze brooch, the stylized faces of three warriors worked into the design.

  “So what is this business of yours, that’s so important you must go out with clothes half made?”

  “I must see Arinbjorn.”

  “Arinbjorn, who will take you away from us?”

  “Or so he says. I’m hoping to find the truth of it.” The words seemed to catch as they made their way from his throat. He was counting quite a bit on Arinbjorn, more than he ever cared to count on any man beside himself. And he knew with near certainty that Arinbjorn was not a man to be counted on.

  The sun was well up and Dubh-linn in full bustle when Thorgrim left Jokul’s house and headed up the plank road. Despite what he had said to Almaith, he had only a vague notion of where he was going or what he would do, beyond escaping the confines of Jokul’s house.

  He wandered through the market. Rickety stalls of saplings and canvas lashed together housed sellers of meat, vegetables, herbs, fish, small silver pendants, cloth, nearly everything one might look for in one of the big market towns of Scandinavia. People shouted in the Norse language and in Irish, with a few others mixed in. Dubh-linn, begun as a longphort, basically a fortification to protect the ships that overwintered there, was quickly becoming a significant market town, a center of commerce, import and export. Dubh-linn was no longer just a thorn in the side of the Irish kings, it was becoming a significant factor in the on-going struggle for power waged between those who would unite Ireland under their rule.

  Thorgrim marveled at the crush of people - men, women, children. He was no stranger to crowded streets and market towns, but he had not expected to find such as this in Ireland. But here were merchants and craftsmen and farmers, brewers, even priests of the Irish faith, the Christ men, all crowded into the open market and narrow lanes of the Norwegian longphort, so many hundreds of sea-miles from Norway.

  He continued up the road, knowing where he had to go. Frustration and annoyance were on the horizon, he could see that, and he did not care to head in that direction. But it had to be done.