Banners of the Northmen (23 page)

Konal stood by the door, chatting with some of the older boys who followed him everywhere. He had become a hero to the boys left behind who longed to join their brothers and fathers in adventure. His stories were exaggerations of the greatest sort, but they eased tensions and so Runa tolerated them. She noticed he wore the sword she had given him, and placed the other beside the door. If it offended anyone, all appeared absorbed in quiet conversation and unconcerned.

Gunnar tugged her sleeve, drawing her out of her thoughts. "Allow Konal to sit with us. I want to hear his story about Old Man Winter again."

The space beside her remained empty, and it felt wrong at Yuletide. Her palm stroked the smooth wood, and she smiled at Gunnar. "Very well."

She caught his eye and beckoned him to the table. Picking his way through the tables, he wore a sheepish smile. "I see you've changed your clothes to something more befitting the jarl's wife."

"And though you're still covered in mud, I've been asked to invite you to my table."

"We want to hear about Old Man Winter again." Gunnar stood, and stepped from his bench. "Take my seat."

"There's room here." Runa could not look directly at Konal. "Sit beside me for the feast."

Konal approached as if he feared the charge of a hidden boar. He paused before the open seat. Runa noted Elin and a few other heads turn toward them. "Are you sure?"

"My son has asked for you, and I spoil him. Sit and celebrate Yuletide with us as you would with your own family."

The warmth of him next to her was comforting. He was big, solid, and confident. She was tired of trying to be all of those things for her people. Even if it was foolishness, a man's presence beside her gave her freedom to enjoy the celebrations.

Meager bowls of salted whale meat and onions in soup and half mugs of beer comprised their feast. Her stomach rumbled, having only eaten a little at breakfast. Even still, she scooped out portions of meat into Gunnar's bowl. Konal watched this, blushed, and began eating. A few moments later, he spooned chunks of meat into Runa's bowl.

"I'm used to eating much less. Being at sea, you know."

The celebration stretched on. Ornolf, the old man who had helped rescue Konal, played songs on a cow horn pipe. The older men recounted brave fights and outrageous legends. Riddles were asked and answered. Konal shared his stories of Old Man Winter and of his mystifying homeland, Ireland. Such a place with such people seemed impossible to Runa, but then neither would she have believed in the Faereyar Islands were they not her home. The celebration lacked the drunken raucousness and levity the men always added. From the heavy sighs and faraway looks of the other women, she knew she was not alone.

By the end of the celebration, Konal remained with her on the bench, though many others had returned home or found a place to sleep on the floor. Gunnar had curled up under the bench with his cloak covering all but the top of his head. Thora had long since taken Hakon to his bed.

"This is the greatest Yuletide I can remember," Konal said, turning on the bench to face her.

"I've had a few worse, but many better. It was not much of a feast, not even a proper meal."

"It is a difficult time for your people. But it seems odd that no one exchanged gifts. You don't have such a custom here?"

Runa laughed. "Food and health are gifts enough. With the men gone, and threats from the north, no one thinks of gifts."

Konal nodded and stroked his beard in thought. Then he sat up straighter and smiled. "As your guest, it is shameless of me to have no gift."

"You were wrecked at sea. No one expects you to have prepared a gift."

"Ah, but I have!" He reached to his neck and pulled open his gold torc. Holding it in both hands, he offered it to her. "Gold. Only the slightest bit that I owe you for saving my life."

Runa leaned back as if he waved fire at her. Glancing about, no one else observed them. "That is a heavy gift, and I cannot accept it."

"Do not insult me, but take it." He smiled wider, and slid closer on the bench. "This is a trifle to me, no matter how valuable you think it is. Would you not exchange gold for your life and think it a worthy trade?"

The gold sparkled in the low light, winking orange points playing on its coiled edges. Up close it looked smaller than it did on Konal's neck.

"Your people would benefit from such a gift."

"Food is better than gold."

"But you will take this anyway. With my gratitude."

He slid closer, gesturing to clasp the torc to her neck. Her breath became shorter and her heart pounded. His rough hands brushed aside her hair, then gently pulled the torc onto her neck. The cool metal made her skin tingle, weaving from the base of her neck down to her toes. Pulling the pliant metal together, he leaned ever closer. Runa felt herself falling toward him, his smiling face and bright eyes filling her vision. His hands slid to her shoulders.

Jolting back, she nearly tumbled from the bench. Konal fell away, his face flushed. She stared at him, horrified.

"Your presumption is staggering." Her voice fluttered with emotion, but she did not want attention and held it low. "You cannot buy me with gifts of gold."

"That was not my intention," he said, voice loud enough to cause Gunnar to stir and head lowered in sleep to rise.

"Your intentions are clear enough." She stooped to rouse Gunnar, who moaned but sat up squinting in the low light. "Good night to you, Konal."

Dragging Gunnar to her bedroom, she left Konal on the bench with his head lowered in shame. She closed the door, flung the gold torc into a corner, and went to bed. Within moments, she rose again and drew the bar lock across the door, unsheathed her short sword, and rested it against the bed.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

January 29, 886 CE

Thin ice clung to the banks of the Seine where Ulfrik stared at the smoke from the roofs of Paris curling into the smudgy winter sky. The walls were chipped and cracked, stained with age and streaked with burns, but still encircled the island city. The air smelled of burning wood and mud, which sucked at his boots and seeped into his toes as he paced the banks. Mord and Toki joined him in his daily routine of glaring at the city and its stubborn towers. If angry stares and mumbled curses could break stone walls, Paris would have long been turned to rubble.

The catapult on the opposite bank snapped forward, launching a dead cow over the walls. Ulfrik could not help laughing at the ridiculous shape of a cow flying through the air, something he never expected possible. After all these idle months, catapult ammunition had been depleted and now only shot carcasses or trash. Two of the remaining three had broken beyond repair, and the strange olive-skinned men who mastered them had either died or fled. Only one remained with a lonely crew who barely knew their machine. In the mist beyond, the silhouette of the mired siege tower threatened to fall over. Men gambled on the day it would crash in final defeat.

Ships without crews drifted at anchor along the Seine. They tugged at their ropes, as if wanting to flee the city and sail north again. The others gathered next to him.

"How many of those ships have been emptied of their crews?" Toki asked.

"Dozens of ships have been orphaned," Mord answered. He kicked a rock out of the mud, then tossed it at Paris. "Hundreds died on those walls, and others have disappeared into the countryside. We might soon have only ghosts to sail those ships."

"The new men mix well with ours," Ulfrik said, aiming for a more positive conversation. "They're eager to prove themselves, and get rich."

"No one came here for any other purpose." Toki stood aside Ulfrik and Mord, all three men squinting at the gray tableau before them. "Raiding hasn't been too much profit, not with all the nearby churches sacked."

"We'll have to take them farther afield to fresh lands," Ulfrik said. "They've fought well enough beside our Nye Grenner men. A few I've been glad to see leave us, but most are good men. It's a shame to waste them sitting in trenches and staring at walls that never change."

"Lord Ulfrik," Mord said. "My father believes these Franks cannot last much longer and their will to fight is thin. Their emperor is in a far off land I've never heard of before, and he cannot protect them."

"Humbert claimed the Christian god protects this city, and I wonder if it's true." Ulfrik glanced at both men, whose frowns deepened."Maybe our gods cannot fight the Christian god in his lands. If Ander were alive, I'd ask him to cast his rune sticks and tell us."

The sober thought silenced the group. Ulfrik bit his lip, wishing he could find a way through the walls. The bridges and their towers had halted all progress. Any attempt to move past them, even on foot, was impossible. Days earlier, Sigfrid had filled the shallows by the southern tower with debris and felled trees and tried to march men past it. Arrows and fire rebuffed them, and the garbage now clung to the pilings of the wooden bridge. As long as the bridges held, Paris could not be bypassed or surrounded. With only two hundred men to defend it, Paris could not stand if surrounded by all the Danes at once.

"Curse those bridges," Ulfrik muttered.

"Maybe ghost crews could sail ghost ships over the bridges," Mord said with a laugh. "It might be the only way to get through them."

"Ghost ships ..." The words slipped from Ulfrik's mouth as a plan formed in a flash. It was daring plan, and a bold plan, entertainment for the gods, and it was bobbing on the waters before him every day since they had dug into their trenches. "Mord, that is what we are going to use. Ghost ships!"

"I told you not to eat the eels from this river. They're no good for your head." Toki guffawed but Mord understood immediately.

"The abandoned ships, your want to use them to defeat the bridges."

Ulfrik was already stomping through the mud to find Hrolf. "We're going to send those ships up the river and through the wooden bridge. It's coming down before this day is over."

Heart racing, he had found a way through this stalemate. His thoughts turned to family,
Runa, I might yet be home by summer!

K

"You are either a brave man or a fool." Hrolf looped his arm around Ulfrik's shoulders as they stood facing the river, far downstream from Paris. "But if this succeeds, your name will live forever."

"It is my desire and plan that more than my name lives on."

Hrolf laughed, but Ulfrik studied the three ships lashed together in the middle of the river. Ghost ships was the name Mord gave them that morning, a fitting description. The men who had widowed these ships would now take revenge on the city, if only as ghosts sailing with Ulfrik. Behind him, scores of men came to watch the start of the spectacle. Many more had gathered closer to the wooden bridge, ready to follow on the collision of the ships with the bridge. Loud voices proclaimed victory and celebrated the vengeance awaiting them in Paris. Ulfrik shared their lusts, but did not share their confidence in utter victory.

Men who had completed loading barrels of oil on the ships now pulled away in small, flat-bottomed boats. Wind bent the tops of distant trees, their bare branches like skeletal hands pointing towards Paris.

"It is time," Ulfrik said to Hrolf. Gunther stood at his right, his single eye squinting at him.

"Your son wanted to join me, but I forbade it. Then he told me he could swim, and that might be useful."

Gunther nodded, but did not reply. Hrolf guided Ulfrik by his arm. "Go to meet Sigfrid before you begin. He will steal your glory if this scheme works, but scorn you if it fails. You are certain of your plan?"

Ulfrik glanced at Mord who waited with Toki and Snorri by the small boat that would ferry them to the ships. "I am. But Sigfrid has been as useful as a twig in a sword fight. Everyone will know what I did for this siege before the sun sets."

Hrolf hissed but kept a smile as they neared Sigfrid and his circle of jarls and hirdmen. "Be more respectful of Sigfrid, even if you're not off the mark. Don't bring me troubles, Ulfrik."

"Another great plan from your clever man!" Sigfrid wore his mail and sword, a shield slung cross his back and a dented helmet tucked under arm. His clear eyes gleamed with excitement as he strode forward to clasp Ulfrik's arm. "You are a brave one too. If you succeed, I will cover your arms in gold bands."

Not even meeting Ulfrik's eyes, he turned to the gathered crowd and sought their admiration for generosity. The sycophantic group cheered or stomped their feet.

"You are a generous lord," Ulfrik said, inclining his head.

"I am here to offer you my aid," he said with a sudden and feigned gravity.

By drowning in your armor?
he thought, and the vision of Sigfrid toppling from the ship in his armor made him smile. "Granting me three ships is aid enough."

Sigfrid had claimed all the widowed ships that he could, which Ulfrik heard had caused friction with Hrolf. Few things were more valuable than a good ship. Sigfrid hugged Ulfrik, then pushed him toward the others as the crowd shouted encouragement.

"You are all brave men," he said when they arrived at the banks. Toki had already boarded the boat, and stood when Sigfrid addressed them. "Destroy that bridge, and show these Franks they are not so cunning as they think."

Ulfrik sat with his three companions as Sigfrid and another man helped launch their boat. Toki began to row as they slipped into deeper waters, and the crowd at the river bank began to move upstream for a better view of the attack.

"Sigfrid will cover my arms in gold bands if we succeed."

Snorri rolled his eyes and Toki chuckled. Mord spit into the river, a sour twist on his face. "Aye, and then he'll cut them off your dead body when no one suspects. My father doesn't trust him, at least where gold is concerned."

Ulfrik raised his brow at Mord, but then they arrived at the ships. They were not high-sided ships which was likely why Sigfrid parted with them. Once on the deck of the first ship, Ulfrik patted the rails. "Unless the wind gusts, these ships aren't going to be strong enough to take down the bridge."