Norseman Raider (The Norseman Chronicles Book 4) (18 page)

“Godfrey,” said Killian as he reentered the room with Leif.  Leif had something to say, that much I could tell.

“What is it?  Where were you?”

“Young Leif and I found a document hoard in a set of shelves,” began Killian.

“Yes, I saw it.  We are not here to find out what this so-called king says to that so-called king in his personal letters.  We are here to get treasure!  We’ve got it and must skim out of here before Maredubb probes our lack of defenses or before Horse Ketil tells him!
”  Godfrey glanced in my direction.  “Damn, but you should have killed the traitor.”

“
Everyone says he holds sway over parts of Man,” countered Leif.  “We didn’t want to complicate things for you.”

Godfrey waved it off.  “You did well, I suppose.
  Couldn’t be helped.”  He put a hand to his mouth as he thought.  “But if you had killed him, I could have blamed it on you and then executed you for the deed.  His fellow Manx would have seen how just I am and come to my side.”

Leif and I looked warily at our king before Godfrey burst out laughing.  “I’m kidding.  Truly, you’ve done well.”

“The documents, Godfrey,” insisted Killian.

“Listen, priest you serve your purpose and nothing more!  Don’t pretend to command this strandhogg or anything else beyond the four walls of your church for which I pay!  We are here for treasure!”  I hadn’t seen the normally good-natured Godfrey this agitated
, this volatile.  He felt the threat of Maredubb closing in.

But the small, dark priest wouldn’t be cowed.  “And that is why I am telling you about the documents. 
They appear authentic.  They bear the king’s seal, King Aethelred, that is.  Maredubb must have had a spy intercept them or maybe he is in league with someone in England.  I read the documents and they speak of a mint, nearly unguarded.”

“Like the unguarded barrow mound we spent all night excavating,” countered Godfrey.

Randulfr ran in.  The experienced man was worried, which set me on edge.  “The runner came from the palisade.  Maredubb’s army is slinking toward it.  Whether or not he knows anything of our ruse doesn’t matter.  In moments some of them will be over and let the rest in right through the main gate.”

“We’re off,” said Godfrey, physically pushing us out of the room.
  Maredubb’s family still cowered at the back of the room.

Killian pushed back
on the king.

“Are you mad?  Has the insanity of Leif touched your mind?” boomed Godfrey.
  Maredubb’s children screamed at the outburst.  They buried their heads into their mother’s bosom.

“The unguarded mint,” said Killian waving a rolled up parchment in the king’s face.

Randulfr snatched the vellum.  “We’ve raided Chester before.  As a result it’s hardly unguarded now.”

Leif stepped into the fray.  “There’s another mint that has gone into a town that is
too small to support even the tiniest of garrisons.”

“That is fine,” said Godfrey, shoving again.  “Can we talk about this when we are back on Man?”

“No,” said Leif.  “King Aethelred of the English will have a full regiment there by the end of this week, with more set to arrive during the summer.  For a few more days, there is a working mint in Watchet that is essentially waiting for the taking.  We must decide now.”

Godfrey stopped his shoving.  I knew that his mind, the mind of a king reaching for more, had clasped on the idea of a naked mint, hammering out coins just for him.  I clutched the bear hide and found myself wishing for the safety of the open seas outside
.  Otherwise, inside would quickly be our prison should Maredubb rush in.

“Where’s Watchet?” asked Godfrey.

“Odin’s eye!” cursed Randulfr.  “We must go now!”

“Be still,” said Godfrey, calmly now.  “Answer me, priest.”

“It’s in Devon.”

“That’s
at the south end of my usual range.”  King Godfrey sighed and then gently stepped around the priest and others who had barred his way.  “I’ve heard of the earl there.  Strenwald is his name.  He’s strong, but not insurmountable.  I’m afraid the biggest challenge we’d face is that we don’t have enough men left.  I don’t think we should chance taking another town with so few men, do you?  What?  Are there forty-five of us still on our feet?”

“More or less,” agreed Killian.  “We can loop around the island and gather up your two ships.  We can send the three we steal and the
Charging Boar
limping back north to Man with just a handful of men. 
Raven’s Cross
and its king will then attack Watchet in Devon.”

“Attack with twenty-five men?” frowned Godfrey.  I could tell he wanted to do it. 
It’s the type of raid a true sea king would make.  Bold.  But he hadn’t become ruler by being reckless, all the time.  “I’m afraid we just can’t.  Now let’s go.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Why not recruit some of the Welshmen from the town to come with us?” asked Leif.  “Offer them a share.  You tell me the Welsh hate the English as much as you.  Well then, offer them a chance at retribution while working with a proper warrior king.  You!”

Godfrey halted in his path.  I sighed again.  This time it was not relief. 
The king tugged his beard, asking, “Can you arrange all this in the last few moments that we have?”

It was
Killian’s turn to push the king out the door.  He wore a mischievous grin as he grabbed the parchment from Randulfr.  “Come, sire.  We have to go.  You’ll see that Leif and I have already assembled another fifty men for your crews.  They have strong backs and are armed.  We’ve split them among the three ships and keep their weapons locked up for now – until we are away from here and can trust them.”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” asked Godfrey
, feigning anger.  Behind his scowl he was laughing again.  The king was enjoying all the events of his future raid on Watchet in his mind’s eye.

“I tried to tell you.  B
ut then I saw that you’d have to come to the decision on your own.”

Godfrey shrugged as we went down the narrow set of stairs to the main floor of the keep.  Our footsteps echoed against the bare stone walls.  “I suppose you’re right.
  And so, if you’ve got this Welsh army built for me, we won’t have to go limping around with just one boat and twenty-five men?”

“No, King Godfrey,” said Leif.  “You
’ll attack the mint at Watchet with over ninety men and five ships.”

Godfrey was pleased.  He grinned in the dim light provided by the sputtering torches along the stairwell.  “Twenty men per ship is not many, but it will be enough.”
  We didn’t have an army.  We had a start, though.

Loki burst through the door.  “
Time to go!  Maredubb is in the town.”

. . .

“We’ve lit the other boats!” called Loki.

We ran into the bailey
on his tail.  I still carried the bear pelt.  Long ago we had taken the time to close the twin doors of the curtain wall.  Nonetheless, we all glanced in that direction as if Maredubb’s men would come pouring through or over at that exact moment.  They did not, but we heard shouts.  We heard the footfalls of horse.  They were just outside.  If they didn’t attack the fortress, which they ought not, they would clamber down to the docks and attack us there.

Godfrey led us down the steep steps carved into the cliff.  They were slippery from the night sea air and the king slipped onto his rump, skidding partway down.  He got up swearing.  We ran down after him, Killian hoisting his robes as he went.

“Push away!  Push away!”  Godfrey was waving his arms frantically.  We could see that the boats were no longer moored, but sat just off the rickety wooden docks.  The force of the sea coming in and the strength of the river going out reached a kind of détente and thereby allowed the boats to bob, nearly stationary.

Magnus acknowledged
the order with a wave.  He barked to the men and they drove the blades of their oars into the docks, leaning into them.  The boats slowly came to life.

I looked left at the main path that led from the town down to the docks.  It was packed with fast approaching riders.  Maredubb!
  Next to the path, the boats that we left behind were turning into a conflagration.  Loki had been wise to set fire to the only means Maredubb would have to pursue us.

Godfrey hit the short flat area of land at the bottom of the cliff and sprinted toward his would-be boats.  He jumped,
launching over the waters.  He whacked his chest into the gunwale, and dug his fingers like claws in order to hang on.  The strong hands of strangers, his Welsh volunteers, pulled him aboard.  Leif jumped.  Randulfr leapt.  Both made it in similar fashion to the king.  Loki careened forward and used one of the oars that jutted from an oar hole as a footfall.  He jumped his way up it, and the next oar, until he sprang into the ship.

Killian had the presence of mind to throw the rolled letter describing the location o
f the mint onto the nearest craft.  The short priest jumped with all his might as the boats eased further away, but did not make it over the chasm.  He bounced off the bulwark and splashed into the river.  It was deep there and his heavy robes became heavier with water.  Killian struggled.  His arms flailed.  The water churned.  His head snuck beneath the surface.

I cursed
.  Instead of leaping to save myself, I thundered to a halt.  I again peered left.  Maredubb was perhaps twenty yards away, his angry, red face illuminated by the growing blaze.  I returned my eyes to the departing ship, saw Aoife, and launched the balled hide at her.  She was surprised and its force slammed her down to the planking.  “Throw us a rope!” I shouted and jumped into the river after Killian.

I realized then that I still wore my chainmail.  I plunged down just as had the priest.  But I was young.  I frantically kicked my feet and pumped my arms until I rammed into Killian from beneath.  I pushed us up out of the water just when a rope splashed down next to us.  Each of us grabbed on and felt the welcoming tug from our comrades and the pilfered boat’s progress.

A spear splashed into the water next to my head.  Then a second whirred by.  I turned to see that Maredubb’s army was fanning out along the shore.  An arrow, tipped with fire skipped into the air and rammed into the hull of one of Maredubb’s boats, but Brandr leaned over and batted the flames out with his bare palm.

King Maredubb walked over to the man who had launched
the flaming arrow and punched him.  “Those are my boats!  They contain my treasure!  I’ll not have them at the bottom of the Irish Sea.”  The archer remained on his feet and gave his king an impudent stare.  Maredubb bristled, cowing the man to more properly avert his gaze.

Godfrey leaned on the gunwale with one arm.  In the other he held up Maredubb’s bear hide.  “And we have a bit of your personal effects.”

“You are a liar!” shouted Maredubb.

“All men are liars,” laughed Godfrey.  “You probably tell yourself you are handsome!”  I heard a raucous round of laughter from the ships
. Even our new Welshmen guffawed when Godfrey’s words were translated for them.  I clung to the rope, choking on salt water.  Killian, in turn, clutched onto my mail.  We pulled further and further away.  Maredubb slowly walked along the shore parallel to us.  Godfrey continued, “But I kept my word.  You’ll find that your family is in fine condition.  Your treasury is half full.  I am no liar.”

Horse Ketil limped up from the crowd of soldiers.  He stopped at the end of the narrowing beach where the king had been forced to do the same.  “You lie about your strength, Godfrey!” shouted Ketil.  It sounded like it was painful for him to talk. 
With the inferno behind us at the docks, I could see that my beatings had left him with serious wounds.  Black, dried blood caked his forehead.  His nose was the consistency of minced flesh.  “Now it is not only I who know about your weakness.  A rival king, an enemy, now knows just how anemic you are.  Maredubb knows just how tenuous is your grip on Man.”

“
I’ll get my ships back.  I’ll get my treasure back.  You will repay this debt with usury, Godfrey!  With usury,” called Maredubb.

Then the winds caught our sails and we danced into the sea.

PA
RT II –Watchet!

CH
APTER 6

It took us less than a day to swing north around the island and retrieve
Raven’s Cross
and
Charging Boar
.  Tyrkr had seen the approach of our foreign ships from the sea and was prepared for a proper fight against our men.  That is, until he saw the grinning face of Leif.

“Not a peep,”
Tyrkr said in his accented Norse as we came in close.  We did not slide our commandeered boats into the shore.  Instead, we rowed backward to slow our progress and tossed out the anchor.  There was no sense in grounding, then tipping over, our less agile prizes.  Even if they weren’t fine warships, Godfrey would be able to peddle them in Dyflin, which was the most bustling of Norse centers in the Irish Sea.

“
I heard horseman above.  Turf Ear and I went up to investigate.  The riders scoured the larger beach nearby, but missed this altogether.  Do you have the treasure?  Where did you get the army?  Did the draugr come to life?” asked Tyrkr when he saw all the strangers who populated our ships.

“Something like that,” said Leif as we began to transfer men to
Raven’s Cross
and
Charging Boar
.  King Godfrey returned to his flagship, relieving Turf Ear from his watchman’s post. Leif and I climbed to our tub.  The new Welsh volunteers were dispersed evenly among the ships so none could overpower us should they try.

The entire operation took mere moments after which we were once again pulling out to sea.  This time we needed the oars and felt fortunate – Killian had called it a blessing – to have our Welsh sailors with us.  They sat on the rowing benches next to our men and tugged
at the oaken blades.  There were some fits and starts as the inexperienced Welshmen began.  Leif shouted at a few.  I heard Godfrey do the same aboard his boat.  Randulfr had taken his boot off and was swatting a man with the sole in order to teach him the rhythm.

“The treasure must have been great.  Was the ancient king there?” asked Tyrkr.

“King was there,” I muttered.

Aoife finished my thought.  “Treasure like a dried turd.”

“Then where do the boats come from?  And the army?  And why does the King Godfrey look so pleased to be heading home with no treasure?” asked Tyrkr. He cranked his oar as if it were a part of him.  The novices were beginning to pull in time.  The familiar grate-slap began.  I loved the grate-slap.  The oar would creak ever so slightly where it laced through the oar hole.  The fat blades would slap the sea water as the rowers finished leaning forward and brought their hands up to their chests.  It was a motion and sound that would repeat itself over the next two hundred fifty miles until we sailed around a couple major headlands, into the Mor Hafren, and into Watchet for more riches.

“While you
ladies were lounging on the beach,” began Aoife, “we men were capturing an entire city.”

Tyrkr looked at me incredulously.  “Sixty men capture a city?”

I merely nodded.

“
You might be surprised what motivated men can accomplish,” answered Aoife.  “We took two thousand captives and demanded ransom from some pock-faced Welsh king.  We took his boats.  We took his hungriest of men.  They now serve a real sea king.  Godfrey is only just beginning.”  The little beast was like us all.  She’d follow a winner as long as the winds were fair.  Aoife no longer blamed Godfrey for the empty barrow.  She had forgotten about the horrors of the brief battle in the castle bailey less than a day before.  Her confidence had returned.

“And we go back to Man to build his army?”
asked Tyrkr.

“Someday,” said Leif.

Magnus leaned on the steering oar, pushing it to starboard. 
Charging Boar
veered to port so that Tyrkr tipped toward the gunwale.  Aoife scoffed at him as if she were now an experienced seaman.

“We go to take a mint and bring home even more treasure,” I said.

Godfrey’s longboat had pulled ahead. 
Charging Boar
followed close behind, to starboard.  The three stolen ships followed in a third line, more or less abreast of one another.

“I thought Godfrey wanted an army and revenge,” said Tyrkr.  “He’s got his army.  Now all we have to do is scurry to wherever this Dal Riata is and kill a few of them for revenge.”

I shrugged.  “I guess kings always want more coins.  It will make gathering up men and arms easier.”  I justified Godfrey’s actions as if I understood affairs of state.  In truth, I knew nothing and was along for adventure and a treasure of my own.  I hoped to survive long enough to spend my small share from Anglesey and what would come from Watchet.  If I managed that, I thought I would retire to Man and find a fat woman to hump.  Perhaps I could buy the rocky farm from the blind farmer who had presented his case at the Tynwald.  I thought I could count on both Godfrey and Killian to speak a fair word for me.

Then I remembered that we had to not only run to Watchet, but that Tyrkr was right.  If I made it through the raid on the mint, I had to survive our retribution on the Dal Riatans.  I sighed, deciding then and there to give up my dreams of a farm and family.  I would be a raider, dead or alive.  I would be like a ship on the sea.  I would put up my sail and catch the wind, allowing it to blow me where it would.
  The norns wove my fate.  That’s what I decided.

I’ve made many such ‘decisions’ in my life.  They were steel in my heart at the moment I made them.  They were stone and iron.  I’ve abandoned all of them as if they were but thin parchment.  As the years went by, I abandoned this decision, too.  But that day I was a raider.

I looked up at the flag on the mainmast.  It hung limp.  There was no wind.  Still, the backs of strong men propelled us on to a mint.  I had no idea what a mint looked like.  My people had yet to mint a single coin.  We used money.  All of it, however, came from foreign shores.  We’d dump ourselves onto one of those shores and I’d seize my next chance for glory.

. . .

The daylight was lasting longer which made for more time to travel – a good thing for eager King Godfrey.  It made the men rowing grow ever more exhausted, however.  I took my turn at the rower’s bench, my youthful back heaving against the heavy seas.  I and my fellow Greenlanders fared well enough.  Godfrey’s more experienced raiders performed ably, of course.  They never complained, except where experienced soldiers were expected to whine.  Their backs rippled.  Their hands clenched.  The grate-slap wore on.

The Welshmen, new to the world of professional seamanship, coped with less success.
  After the first full day of rowing, we sidled the small flotilla into a cove.  Killian and Godfrey assured me we were still in Wales.  The Welshmen could not have cared if we had rowed all the way to the icy fjords of Hel or the fiery depths of the Christian Hell.  As soon as the boats skidded or the anchors dropped, they collapsed to the decks, moaning.  They weren’t a fat or lazy lot.  They were fine at whatever their vocations had been thus far, I’m sure.  But they weren’t seamen – not yet anyway.  Their sore backs and shaking arms would make their shields and spears feel heavy when the raid began.

Godfrey took pity and allowed them to bypass watch that first night.  This made his experienced men hate him, but his new Welsh crews love him.  I suppose that is forever the lot of a ruler.  Even a parent of more than one child, I imagine, will always anger one with a decision in favor of the other.  And what was Godfrey but our father, our patron?

In the quiet of that night, the only sound was the crashing of waves elsewhere along the shore or the small lapping of the sea against our hulls.  I wondered about my father – my first father.  How would life have been different had he survived?  Had he, Olef, raised me?  Would I have even remembered that my first, true father ever ran with a man called Erik?  Erik was exiled along with his own father from Norway.  Erik was, in turn, exiled from Iceland.  Both banishments for the same reason – murder.  Would I have ever had an occasion to cross paths with a king, let alone serve one?  Or, would I have been rutting with a fine woman under the hides of animals that I had taken?  Would I, aged twenty-one winters, already have two or three children of my own?

I was still wondering about the past when I heard Killian’s voice echo across the waters.  “Wake yourselves, the king wishes to depart with the tide before the sun arrives.
  Move!  Slough off the joy of your dreams.”

Several men from the surrounding boats grumbled
, to which Killian replied, “Oh, my brothers, you know what the friend of Job says, ‘The mirth of the wicked is brief.’  What are we but wicked, Christian or pagan alike?  Now, you may complain, but then with your lips flapping you may miss time for a morning meal.”

The mumbling halted and men stirred to life.  I ate some of the stores of bread from Man.  It was dark and I didn’t bother to see if it was mold
y.  I’m sure it was.  Bite after bite crawled down my gullet.  I washed it down with a pot of ale.

We rowed nearly straight southward for most of the day.

We saw a fishing boat.  When its crew saw us approaching, they promptly turned and raced back toward the protection offered by shore and civilization.  We laughed at them, for had we wanted to, Godfrey’s ship alone could have overtaken the fishermen in moments, put them all to the sword, and taken their catch.  It seemed like a lot of trouble, though, especially when the true prize of our sea romp would be worth so much more.

We turned to starboard when we saw a large promontory of land, the last large peninsula of Wales, the Welshmen said.  It took many long hours to navigate around it as
we kept the land to our port.

Godfrey drove us long into the night, something that again caused grumbling, but I understood.  He shouted over the waves that tomorrow would bring us to Devon, Watchet specifically, if the maps were to be believed.  He wanted us there early and fresh.  Better to work hard today and rest for the night rather than work at the oars all day before immediately sliding into a beach and battle.  Eventually, even the king was tired
.  He had spent time at the rowing bench to goad his followers into working harder.  By the faint moonlight we found a broad, sandy beach for the night’s camp.  So tired were we that none of us bothered to see if we ran straight into a village.  Godfrey had such distaste for the defensive abilities of Welsh settlements that he would have still blindly slid into shore even if we weren’t exhausted.  Afterward, he did have the sense to place several watchmen around the hills that led down to the beach.

Night passed uneventfully.  Morning came.  We covered ourselves in armor and belted on our weapons.  We gave the Welshmen their weapons, a gesture that immediately improved their
morale.  Our rowers went to work, facing aft.  It would be our last glimpse of Wales as we again struck a southerly course.  Soon, I would lay eyes on England for the first time in my life.

It would be a strandhogg, not at all like my first ever raid on Anglesey.  There
, we went ashore, hoping for stealth in order to steal a hidden treasure.  We ended up with treasure in a wholly different manner, of course.  But Watchet, I’d soon learn, would be more like every other raid that I’ve experienced.

It was to be rapid, loud, and deadly.

. . .

We rowed on to Watchet through thick fog.  I cursed and heard other men cursing the weather, for though we knew that the town and mint were just a short distance south, the fog might find us coming ashore ten English miles or ten English feet from our target.

For his part, Killian spent the time shouting encouragement over the rhythms of our oars.  “What a blessing is this mist,” he’d say.  “God gave the Egyptian pharaoh a plague of frogs.  He gives the English a plague of fog.”  And then he added, “And raiders!”  I think he said it more to keep the tired Welshmen rowing, but his booming voice did serve a more immediate purpose.  Since we could not see a fadmr in front of our noses, we could certainly not lay eyes on the other boats.  As long as we could still hear the priest’s wailing to port, those of us on
Charging Boar
knew our small fleet was together.  There was no guarantee that, though we remained near one another, we sailed a true course.

I had just settled my back at rest against one of the T-shaped oar racks in the ship’s center
.  Aoife, my slave who had yet to perform more than the most modest of tasks for me, sat next to me.  I had given her the remainder of ale from the bottom of my pot.  She sipped at the meager ration and licked her teeth to clean the film of sleep from their surface.  “You know, Halldorr,” she began.

“You ought to call me master or sir or even lord,” I said unconvincingly.

To my surprise the girl paused and gave my suggestion some thought.  She drained the last of what was now her ale and blew out a large breath through puffed lips.  “I think not, Halldorr.  If we are to be fellow warriors, at least I as your skjoldmo for a short while, then we ought to speak as equals.”  I chuckled at her being a shield girl, which is what skjoldmo meant.  But I suppose that her use of the word at least partially explains why many years later, in a land not yet discovered by my people, I would call my own little daughter Skjoldmo.