Glendalough Fair (5 page)

Childerich, who had the name of king [of the Franks]

Was shorn of his locks and sent into a monastery.

Annals of Lorsch Abbey

The village was already burning as they approached. The Northmen were there, but just a few that Louis could see, and they did not seem overly prepared to fight, staggering along with armloads of loot. As the mounted Frankish warriors charged down on them they dropped their loads and fled into the cluster of squat thatch and wattle buildings that comprised the village, now nearly lost in the smoke and flames.

Louis led his men on at full gallop as they chased after the fleeing Danes. They pounded down the village’s single road, swords draw. They rode straight into the smoke, then the heat of the flames, and then a lethal swarm of arrows from archers who were arrayed on either side of the road and hidden from view.

It all fell apart before Louis even knew what was happening. He saw one of his men knocked from the saddle as if he had been punched, an arrow jutting from his mail-clad chest. Another horse stumbled and its rider went over its head and landed in a heap on the ground, two arrows thumping into his back even before his body had come to rest. Then Louis’ horse reared up and shrieked. Louis saw the arrow jutting from its neck and he felt himself going down.

“Damn you! Damn you! Damn you!” In the noise and the confusion and panic it was all Louis could think to say. An arrow glanced off his helmet and the ringing and the vibration stunned him. He saw one of the Northmen leave the line of archers and race toward him, pulling a battle ax from his belt and screaming as he came. He had red hair tied in two long braids and Louis was transfixed by them. He watched the ropes of hair bouncing and swaying like serpents and seemed unable to move as the man ran at him.

Then a horse was between him and the Northman and, though he did not see what happened, he heard an ugly, guttural scream and saw a spray of blood from where the Northman’s head must have been. He looked up. Ranulf was on the horse, sword in hand, a bright stream of blood running down the blade.

Louis pulled himself to his feet, and without a word Ranulf reached down and grabbed him by the mail shirt and hefted him up, an extraordinary display of strength Louis would later realize. Without ceremony he draped Louis over the saddle as if he was going to spank him, and then kicked his horse forward and shouted to the others.

Louis could not understand the words. He did not know where they were going. He could only twist his neck and watch the country pass by, doubled over Ranulf’s saddle. They were already beyond the village by the time he realized they were retreating.

The Northmen had won a fine victory: five of Louis’s men killed outright, seven wounded, three of whom were unlikely to live. Eight were captured, and no one liked to think on what their fate might be. But for all that, the sight of so many mounted warriors apparently convinced the raiders that their luck and the easy takings were over, at least in Roumois, at least for the time being. They loaded their loot, their prisoners, their plundered stores onto the longships and pulled for the open sea.

Louis went to his father on his knees, which was not his wont. Usually he would deny his transgressions, craft excuses, attempt to ward off blame that was rightfully his, but not this time. He was no stranger to sin and error, and he never gave them much thought. But neither had he ever committed any that were so grave, so unforgivable as those he had that day. He confessed it all to his father. He stated plainly that Ranulf had been right all along, that he had ignored the man’s advice. Had it not been for Ranulf, Louis admitted, he would be dead and his body picked clean by ravens.

And his father, not always a forgiving man, forgave him. He was impressed by Louis’s sincerity, which was not something he had often seen in the boy. He not only forgave him, but he offered to allow him to continue in his soldierly pursuit if Louis in turn would promise to listen to Ranulf in the future and learn from him. And Louis did.

Impetuous, headstrong and arrogant though he might have been, Louis de Roumois was no fool, and some lessons he did not have to learn twice. When next the Northmen came to plunder along the Seine Louis listened to everything that Ranulf had to say, and soon the Danes were fleeing back to their ships, leaving their many dead and wounded in their wake. Now it was the Frankish warriors who set the traps and watched as the Northmen fell into them and died. It was, in Louis’s eyes, a beautiful thing.

A friendship was sparked between Louis and Ranulf, and eventually a mutual respect, as Louis began to master the art of war-craft, and to lead the men against their enemies in ways that were every bit as well considered and successful as those of Ranulf, and sometimes more so. Louis showed a fearlessness in battle that served as an inspiration to his men, a fearlessness born of youth and a natural skill that left him feeling invulnerable to his enemies.

For four years Louis and Ranulf and their men fought off the Danish incursions. Their mounted warriors were known in the northern countries and feared. Louis de Roumois had found his calling.

He loved the life of a soldier. Riding, fighting, drinking, whoring, he loved it all. He loved his men and they loved him, and they would have happily followed him through the fiery gates of hell without so much as pausing for a sip of water. The heathens’ vision of paradise, their heaven, Louis knew, consisted of a life of fighting and feasting, and though he would never say as much out loud, at least not sober, he understood why.

Four years, the happiest four year of his life, and then it came to an end. Louis was adept at seeing dangers on the battlefield but he was not so quick to see them in his own home.

He had become, in those four years, a man to whom others looked for leadership. The warriors of Rouen loved him and obeyed him. If he needed more soldiers he had only to send word and the men-at-arms of all the neighboring regions would rally to his banner.

The people of that province loved him as well. They saw him as their protector, the handsome young man on the black steed who rode in to fight the heathen raiders and kept their homes safe.

It would have been no great trick for Louis to set himself up to succeed his father as count of Roumois. Such a title usually went to the eldest son, but in Frankia that was not always the case. Louis, however, was enamored of the life he led and had no interest in rule. The very thought that he might use the power and status he had amassed to take his father’s office never occurred to him. But it did occur to his brother, Eberhard.

On a cold February day in the year 853, with the wind blowing desultory flakes of snow around the great house at Rouen, their father died. He had been ill for some time with a wet cough and a fever. The doctors treated him with various herbs, examined his urine with learned and serious expressions and bled him copiously, but he died all the same. It was only then that Louis realized the effort to which Eberhard had gone to prepare for that very moment.

The late Count Hincmar was still lying covered on his deathbed when Eberhard ordered the arrest of Ranulf and the captains of the men-at-arms who served under Louis. The rest were stripped of their weapons, mail, and horses and put under the guard of troops loyal to Eberhard, house warriors he had organized in secret. Louis could do nothing to stop any of it. He could only look on in horror and rage and wait for the ax to come down on his neck or the knife to slip between his ribs.

But that final stroke never came. Louis was allowed a liberty of sorts as his brother solidified his rule over Roumois. He was allowed free movement in the house and on the grounds, always under the watch of at least one armed guard he could see and, he guessed, several whom he could not. He was not allowed a horse and he was not allowed to leave.

Five days after their father’s death, on the day his body was laid to rest in a marble sarcophagus in the church at Rouen, Louis was summoned to his brother’s chamber, the great room from which their father had once ruled. Eberhard had begun making use of it even before Hincmar’s death, even as the old man lay coughing out his life. Louis stepped through those familiar doors, half expecting to see his father sitting there, unhappy to see his brother instead, comfortable in Hincmar’s chair.

“Brother,” Eberhard began, “our late father, you know, was always concerned for your education, and for the state of your soul. He never thought this soldiering was any means of gaining heaven.”

“Our late father was happy to see me keep the Danes from burning Roumois to the ground,” Louis said. “If you are going to kill me, you had better have another who can do that office.”

“Kill you?” Eberhard said with a tone that sounded like genuine surprise. “I would not kill you, brother. What a thing to say. No, quite the opposite. I want you to have life, eternal life. Like father, I fear for your soul. I think it’s time you abjured the way of the soldier and its inherent sinfulness. Tell me, have you ever heard of the monastery at Glendalough? In Ireland?”

And that was it. Eberhard did not dare kill him because he was too popular with the men-at-arms and with the people, or so Louis came to realize. Second sons were generally given over to be warriors or churchmen. Louis had picked the first and now his brother was forcing the second choice upon him. It was not unprecedented, not at all. Louis the Pious had bundled two of his troublesome half-brothers off to the monastery. But they, at least, had remained in Frankia. Eberhard was making certain Louis was much further removed.

Two weeks later Louis was sent to Glendalough to study with the monks and to copy out manuscripts and to eventually take his priestly vows. He took to monastic life the way a fish takes to a hook, fighting and struggling and gasping for breath. Of all the novitiates, he was not the abbot’s favorite. In truth he and his bad attitude and his subtle insubordination were barely tolerated. On those few occasions when he prayed, he prayed to be cast out of Glendalough and sent packing back to Roumois. But that never happened, and Louis guessed it was because his brother sent heaps of silver to the monastery to make sure they continued to suffer Louis’s presence.

The path that had led him to where he was now, naked in the driving rain, as completely alone and miserable as a man could be, was long and twisting. And as he stood there, a new thought occurred to him. In his haste to get past Colman’s sword he had left Failend to the fate of her furious husband. When it came to bedding her he had been eager and unhesitant, but when she stood in need of defense he had slinked away like the coward he was.

By God, I am despicable, a slave, a ruined man,
he thought. He guessed that tears were rolling down his cheeks, though in the rain he could not tell for certain. He started walking along the wall toward the gate that led to the monastery grounds, no longer concerned about who might see him in his nakedness. He was ready to just drop to the ground and let the rain and the mud cover him up.

He staggered as he walked, the mud grabbing his feet, so lost in his despair that he was unaware of anything outside his sphere of agony. And so he was startled enough that he jumped when a voice called out, “Brother Louis?”

He turned toward the sound. On the other side of the wall stood Father Finnian, one of the priests of the monastery. He had a half smile on his face, a look of vague amusement as he reached up and unclasped the broach that held the cape over his shoulders and said, “Here, Brother, you look as if you are in need of this.”

In thy home be joyous and generous to guests

discreet shalt thou be in thy bearing,

mindful and talkative, wouldst thou gain wisdom…

Hávamál

No sooner had Godi closed the door then Sutare opened it again. He stepped in and held it open. Out of the wind and driving rain came a hooded figure in a long robe which, when dry, might have been any color, but soaked through as it was looked coal black. The figure stepped further in, and behind him came a man bearing a long pole from which hung the raven banner, wet and dark and dripping on the floor, and behind him another half-dozen well-armed men.

The man with the hood reached up and pulled back the soaked cloth to reveal the full face and short, neatly trimmed beard of Kevin mac Lugaed. Despite his small stature and unassuming appearance he seemed to wield considerable authority in that country that the Irish called Cill Mhantáin, part of the region known as Leinster.

Thorgrim crossed over to Kevin as the last of his men entered and the door was pushed closed against the wind. “Welcome,” he said and extended a hand, which Kevin took. The Irishman replied, something in his native tongue, some acknowledgement of the greeting. Harald was there, but he did not bother to translate.

Segan approached, showing more supplication to Kevin than he ever showed Thorgrim, and took Kevin’s cloak. The clothes underneath were no more dry than the outer garment but that did not hide their quality, the best suit of clothes Thorgrim had yet seen on Kevin, and he guessed that silver was flowing from various directions into the man’s purse.

He took the Irishman by the elbow and led him over to the fire. Segan reappeared with a horn of mead for him and one for Thorgrim. Such hospitality was expected of a host, and Thorgrim genuinely wished to make his guest comfortable. But not too comfortable. If negotiations were to follow it would be to Thorgrim’s advantage to be warm and dry while the Irishman remained soaked and miserable.

Kevin stood in front of the fire for a moment, silent, looking into the flames, shuffling as close as he could without singeing himself. He took a deep drink of mead then turned to Thorgrim and spoke. Harald, standing at Thorgrim’s side, translated.

“He says, ‘What think you of our Irish weather, now spring has come?’” Kevin wore the hint of a smile as he waited for the answer.

“Tell him the weather is what I would expect of a country so clearly and so deservedly cursed by the gods.”

Harald translated. Kevin smiled broader and spoke again.

“He says, ‘There is only one God, and he has indeed cursed this land,’” Harald said.

Thorgrim smiled and lifted his horn and Kevin did the same and they touched them together. This was perhaps the third or fourth time the men had met, and each of their meetings had been more beneficial than the last.

The first had taken place just a month and a half after the Irish army under Lorcan mac Fáeláin had attacked Vík-ló and had been crushed by the Norse defenders. Lorcan had been killed, and dozens of others with him, including most of his chief men who had been in the forefront of the fighting. Grimarr Giant, lord of Vík-ló, had been killed as well. In the course of thirty bloody minutes, the entire structure of power and rule in that part of Ireland had been tossed in the air and blown away like chaff.

After the fight the Northmen had seen nothing of the Irish until the day Kevin rode up to the walls of Vík-ló. He had approached the earthworks with caution, forty armed men behind him. Thorgrim had been summoned to the wall as soon as it was clear the riders were making for the longphort. He brought Harald and Bersi with him. He did not know why the Irishmen had come, though he had some idea which he kept to himself. And that was a good thing, because his idea was entirely wrong.

The Irish delegation was just beyond a comfortable arrow shot when they stopped and Kevin called out in a voice calculated to sound commanding.

“He says he is Kevin mac Lugaed and he is the lord of this area,” Harald translated, “and he would ask safe conduct to speak with the lord of Vík-ló.”

The shouted negotiations continued on for a few minutes more, but once it was clear to Thorgrim the Irish did not have men enough to pose a threat to Vík-ló, and once Kevin felt confident he would not be killed or bundled off to the slave markets in Frisia, the gates were open and the riders came through.

Kevin missed nothing: the rebuilt walls and palisades, the stacks of logs and cut wood down by the water, the smoke rising from the two halls and the blacksmith shop and the various homes. Thorgrim could practically see him calculating the power and the wealth of the longphort. He wondered if spying was the real reason for the visit. He assumed the Irishman had come to try to dislodge the Northmen from Vík-ló, to either tell them to leave or bribe them to leave, depending on the strength of Irish arms.

Kevin mac Lugaed, it turned out, had not come to threaten or bribe. He had come to trade. The men of Vík-ló, he figured, would be in need of food and drink, particularly with winter coming on. He suspected that the Northmen had a considerable amount of silver and gold, a thing that he needed to bolster his status and to keep his men happy and loyal. Surely, he thought, a deal could be reached.

“Perhaps,” Thorgrim said, speaking through his son. “Perhaps not. I don’t know if you are even in a position to make such deals. Who are you, exactly?”

Kevin mac Lugaed was not offended by the question, and Thorgrim was starting to understand that he was not the sort of man who would ever take offense when there was money on the table.

“I am the rí túaithe
of the lands around here, including Cill Mhantáin, which you Northmen apparently call Vík-ló,” Kevin answered.

This was translated and Thorgrim and Bersi nodded. Kevin continued on. “Before, I was of the
aire forgill
, the Lords of Superior Testimony, not the rí túaithe, you see….” Harald translated. Kevin saw the looks of confusion on the Northmen’s faces. He waved his hand.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The point is, Lorcan was killed and most of his men were killed, and as it happens I am the man of highest rank still left alive, and so I am now lord of these lands. And that is why I have the authority to bargain with you. And I wish to bargain with you, because it is in my interest to do so. And I think it will be in your interest to bargain with me.”

And it was. Kevin’s arrival had been timely, because Thorgrim, as newly-minted  lord of Vík-ló, was just starting to worry about the very problem of keeping his men fed and sufficiently inebriated throughout the long winter months. At the time of Kevin’s arrival they were still able to make the voyage to Dubh-linn in the diminutive
Fox
and bring supplies back to Vík-ló, but soon the winter weather would close that down. Thorgrim did not know how they would supply themselves after that. And here the answer came riding in from the hills like a gift from the gods.

Thorgrim did not trust Kevin, of course, or at least he was wary of him, as he was of all Irish. But Kevin proved as good as his word. Wagons loaded with sacks of flour made from barley and rye, barrels of ale, smoked meat, dried fish and wine soon rolled up to the gate in Vík-ló’s earthen wall. The quality was as good as Thorgrim had dared hope, which was not very good, but it beat starving by a league. Thorgrim had paid Kevin in silver for the foodstuff, a bit more silver than it was worth, and Kevin had gone away greatly satisfied.

The next time Kevin arrived Thorgrim could not help but notice that his clothes were a bit finer than the last, his men better fitted out. He wore a gold chain around his neck. He and Thorgrim, along with Bersi, Skidi and Kjartan, ate and drank and discussed expanding their trade, and soon Kevin was selling the Northmen cloth and grindstones and coils of rope along with the meat and fish and ale.

The next time he came he brought women. Just a few, and not slaves, but Irish women who were looking for men, for husbands. Thorgrim imagined that after all the carnage of the past summer there were not Irishmen enough left for all the young women and new-made widows.

Thorgrim almost turned them away, knowing that a few women among all those men could be more of a problem than none at all. But by the time he and Kevin had even begun discussing it, word had raced through the longphort and there would be no way to send the women away without starting an ugly war.

The commerce between Vík-ló and whatever passed for the kingdom of Kevin mac Lugaed continued to grow and prove beneficial to all concerned. Thorgrim and Kevin developed a friendship, of sorts. Thorgrim was not so sentimental or soft in the head as to think Kevin actually liked him, or was pleased by the presence of the Northmen on Irish soil. Their friendship was more superficial and self-serving than that.

And so, as the rain lashed his hall and the fire in the hearth popped and hissed and flared, Thorgrim Night Wolf found himself wondering once more what Kevin mac Lugaed was bringing to him, what new bargain, what intrigue he had concocted during the long winter nights.

They stood at the edge of the flames and continued to speak by way of Harald, each man asking the other how things fared for him and the men and women under their authority, both probing none too subtly for information, for some advantage. The door opened, bringing with it a blast of cold and wet and Bersi stepped in, wrapped like a farm wife in a wool blanket. A few minutes after that Skidi Oddson joined them

Segan brought drinking horns for the newly arrived men and refilled Kevin’s as quick as the Irishman could drain it, as Thorgrim had instructed. He hoped it might make Kevin a bit less crafty, a bit more open in his speech, though in truth he had never seen the man in the least affected by drink that he could tell.

At last, their legs growing tired, Thorgrim ordered a table and chairs brought close to the fire and the four men and Harald sat. No introductions were needed. Bersi and Skidi had both been part of the earlier bargaining. Kjartan as well. Thorgrim knew it was better to make his chief men part of such things rather than let suspicions grow into distrust and anger.

Segan put a platter of roasted beef, cheese and brown bread on the table. Thorgrim said, “All right, Kevin, you have drank enough of my mead, what new thing brings you to Vík-ló?”

Harald was halfway through the translation when the door opened again and Kjartan came into the hall. He wore no mail this time, just a hood and cloak which draped over the sword hanging at his side. His eyes darted around the space, a quick assessment of potential threats. He did not know what he was stepping into and he was wary.

“Night Wolf, you sent word of a meeting,” Kjartan said.

Thorgrim said nothing at first, letting his emotions settle before he replied. He wanted nothing more than to drag Kjartan back out into the rain and finish what they had begun, but this was not the moment. Not with Kevin watching their every move, gauging any weakness, even if he could not understand the words they spoke.

“Yes,” Thorgrim said at last, spitting the words like they were sour in his mouth. “Kevin mac Lugaed has come to speak with us. You have the right to join this council.”

And then I will kill you
, he thought.

Kjartan pulled up a stool and sat. Thorgrim looked at Kevin, who was understandably confused by the Norse jabber, the sudden and obvious tension in the room. He looked at the other men, but their expressions were unreadable. He turned to Kevin once more and said, “You were telling us what business it is that brings you here?” he said.

Kevin leaned back and took a long pull of his mead as Harald rendered Thorgrim’s words into Gaelic. His eyes moved around the table, taking each man in turn, gauging him, getting the sum of him. Then he spoke. Harald translated.

“Kevin says, ‘Have you men ever heard of a monastery called Glendalough’?”