The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (10 page)

  None of that Thorgrim felt compelled to explain to Grimarr, so he said only, “You know how these young fellows are, they pick up languages like they were bad habits.”

  Grimarr grunted. Now he too appeared to wrestling with a dilemma, and Thorgrim could well imagine what it was. Grimarr seemed to think the girl had knowledge of some important thing, knowledge he wanted. There was no other reason he would be so eager to know what an insignificant Irish thrall had to say. If that was true, he would not wish to share that information with others, particularly not Norwegian strangers who had just come from the sea.

  On the other hand, he had no other way to communicate with her.

  Like Thorgrim, Grimarr did not struggle long with his decision. “Very well, come here…Harald,” he said, standing and gesturing toward the girl. Harald stood, as did the others, and they approached the girl, making a semi-circle around her. For the first time since Thorgrim had noticed her, she looked up, her eyes darting from one man to the other. She was not as young as Thorgrim had first thought, not a girl, but a woman of eighteen years or more. He could see she was pretty under the dirt and the tangle of hair. Her expression was no longer unreadable. She was afraid.

  Grimarr turned to Harald. “Ask her where Fasti hid it all, and tell her I’ll cut her damned throat if she lies,” he demanded.

  That was met with silence from the others. Then Ornolf said, “What by all the gods are you talking about?”

  Grimarr looked around, his expression defensive. “That was…you see…actually none of this is any of your damned business.”

  “This is none of our business,” Thorgrim agreed. “This is your business and we want no part of it. We just want help in fixing our ship, and for that we are willing to help you with this problem. But Harald will not understand her answers if he does not understand your questions.”

  Grimarr met Thorgrim’s eyes and Thorgrim could not miss how very much the man looked like a bear, and one that had been cornered by hunters. And, like a bear, Grimarr might react in any number of unpredictable ways. Finally he said, “Very well, I will tell you. But you must swear an oath that what is said in this room will not be spoken outside these walls, not unless I speak of it first.”

  Thorgrim, Ornolf, Harald glanced at one another. An oath was not a thing to be taken lightly. But Thorgrim had been truthful when he said he had no interest in Grimarr’s business so it would be no great hardship to swear an oath to keep silent about it. And then Grimarr sealed the bargain.

  “If you give your oath, and the boy can translate this thrall’s words, then I will give you all the aid I can to repair your ship,” he said. “If not, you must leave Vík-ló this day. You have seen too much already.”

  Thorgrim looked at the others and gave a little nod and the others nodded as well. “As you wish, Grimarr, we’ll swear your oath and we’ll accept your help,” he said. “We want nothing more than to get back to our homes.” He knew he was speaking for himself, mostly, that the others were not as desperate as he to return to Vik. But as leader of his band of men he was willing to make his ambitions their ambitions.

  They swore their oath. Grimarr looked from man to man, as if once more trying to take their measure, and Thorgrim had an idea this must be some secret the Irish girl held.

  “Here is what happened,” Grimarr said at last, almost grudgingly. “Fasti and I led a raid on a monastery at a place called Fearna. The silver we plundered was…tolerable. We split it between our ships, but my ship,
Eagle’s Wing
, began to take on water. So we beached the ships and put the silver we had aboard Fasti’s, and he continued on to Vík-ló alone.”

  “You put your half of the plunder aboard another man’s ship?” Ornolf asked, his tone incredulous.

  “Not another man’s. Fasti’s,” Grimarr said. “There is no other I would have trusted thus, but Fasti, I did. Just a league from Vík-ló, Fasti was attacked by this Lorcan I spoke of, him and his Irish warriors in a swarm of their ridiculous boats. We overtook them just as the fighting was near its end. Every man aboard Fasti’s ship was killed. But the Fearna plunder was not aboard, and the Irish would not have had time to remove it. We searched everywhere, there was nothing. Nothing but her.” He pointed with his hedge of a beard toward the girl.

  The others nodded their understanding, and Grimarr continued. “Fasti must have stopped and hidden the plunder ashore somewhere. Might have suspected Lorcan would attack him as he did, maybe saw the Irish following them along the shore. This little whore must have seen where he hid it. She didn’t get under the deck planks on her own. Fasti must have put her there, and I think he did it so that she could tell us where the Fearna plunder is hidden. In case Fasti and all his men were killed. Which they were.”

  Thorgrim met Ornolf’s eyes, and he knew the old man was thinking the same thing he was:
This Fasti betrayed Grimarr and the fool can’t see it
. But it was clear enough that Grimarr would never believe such a thing, and Thorgrim did not much care as long as his ship was repaired, so he said, “That’s quite a story. Now Harald will find out how close your guess might be to the truth.”

  Harald stepped toward the girl and squatted down on his heels so they were all but eye to eye. The girl’s eyes moved over Harald’s face and Thorgrim saw the wariness there, but he saw something else as well. Hope, perhaps? Harald was not a bearded, scarred brute like the others. His hair was yellow like fresh straw and what beard he had was barely visible. His eyes were blue and honest looking, they lacked the hardness that Thorgrim’s had, a hardness that came with age, hard use, and grief.

  In a soft voice Harald began speaking to her, and though Thorgrim had never learned more than a few words of Irish he thought Harald had asked her name. He heard him say “Harald” and guessed he had told her his.

  And that was all too much for Grimarr. He grabbed Harald by the shoulder and pulled him to his feet and growled, “You aren’t asking her hand in marriage, you make this Irish bitch talk and tell you where Fasti hid the plunder. And tell her I’ll kill her if she lies.”

  Thorgrim was halfway to where Grimarr stood, hand on the hilt of his sword Iron-tooth. He would not let his men be treated in such a manner, Harald in particular. But Ornolf stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Grimarr,” Ornolf said in his avuncular way, “let the boy talk to her as he will. He’s good with the girls, you know, and he’ll get an honest answer from her. If she’s terrified she’ll just tell you any lie to save herself.”

  Grimarr took his hand from Harald’s shoulder and looked around. He seemed the sort of man who thought any situation was best handled in the most brutal manner, and that any other approach was a waste of time. But he appeared to accept Ornolf’s words, even if he did not entirely believe them.

  “All right,” he said to Harald. “Speak to her your way. Just get the truth from her.”

  Harald nodded and he squatted down again, and again he spoke softly to the girl, and though Thorgrim could not understand the words he could hear the tone in his son’s voice, friendly and with no threat of violence in it. The girl listened. She nodded, she said something, a single word. Then Harald spoke again. Then he paused. And then the girl began to talk.

Congalach son of Mael Mithig…king of Laigin, plundered Áth Cliath, and took away valuables, and treasure, and much booty.

                                                                
Annals of Ulster

It was a few hours past midnight, the time when vigilance was at its lowest ebb. Lorcan’s horse climbed the gentle slope of the hill overlooking Vík-ló, its hooves making barely a sound on the still-wet sod. Lorcan half expected his arrival would take the watchman by surprise. He thought he might catch the man sleeping, and if he did he would cut his throat. But the watchman must have guessed Lorcan would return with the messenger, and he was waiting. He stepped out of the shadows as Lorcan rode up, said softly, “My Lord Lorcan?”

  Lorcan grunted and climbed down from the horse and the watchman took the reins. The cloud cover had broken up and a quarter moon threw just enough light for Lorcan to make out the shapes of the houses of Cill Mhantáin, what the dubh-gall called Vík-ló, angular and unnatural looking, scattered around the space within the earthen walls. The light from the moon shining on the River Leitrim made a bright pattern in the rippling water that reminded Lorcan of well-polished chainmail in fire light.

  The moon had been a help on Lorcan’s journey from Ráth Naoi, but he had made that ride so often now that he felt certain he could do it even on the darkest of nights. With Ruarc mac Brain spending so much of his time at Tara, Grimarr Giant and his heathen Northmen followers were becoming more of a problem for Lorcan than was the Irish
rí ruirech
. The more entrenched the dubh-gall became in their ship forts the more they interfered with the politics of Ireland. The more they plundered, the richer they became and the more they altered the landscape of power.

  “Is she here?” Lorcan asked.

  “Yes, Lord,” the watchman said. “I’ll fetch her.” He disappeared into the dark and Lorcan continued to stare hatefully at Vík-ló spread out below him. He had put a stop to all trade with the dubh-gall, hoping to starve them out, but it was a futile gesture; he had known from the start it would be. As long as they had their ships, their cursed, cursed longships, they would not be starved out. His decree had inconvenienced them and no more.

  He heard the sound of soft leather shoes on the grass and once again the watchmen appeared out of the dark, this time leading a young woman behind him. The woman had a great shock of red hair, bound behind, just visible in the moonlight. She was dressed poorly and in the Norse fashion. But Lorcan knew her. Her name was Ronnat and she was Irish, a slave in Vík-ló.
Thrall
was what the dubh-gall called them; to the Irish she was a
cumal
.

  The two of them, watchman and cumal, stopped a few feet before Lorcan. The woman bowed low and murmured, “My Lord Lorcan.” Then she straightened and her eyes went to a place just above Lorcan’s shoulder. She was frightened, he could see that, but there was nothing he could do, or cared to do, about it.

  “What have you learned?” Lorcan demanded.

  The mounted messenger had come to his hall at Ráth Naoi, bringing word that there was information to be had from Vík-ló. The messenger had arrived near midnight. Lorcan had set out immediately. He wanted news.

  “There was a girl aboard Fasti’s ship. Grimarr found her. After you…” Her voice trailed off as she looked for a way to describe Lorcan’s defeat without saying as much and so incurring Lorcan’s wrath, but Lorcan did not have the patience for such niceties.

  “Yes, what of her?” he demanded.

  “She…was hidden. Under some boards, on the ship, Lord, and Grimarr thought Fasti must have put her there.”

  “Grimarr found her right after the fight?”

  “Yes, Lord. Before the ship was even towed to Cill Mhantáin.”

  Lorcan looked sharp at the watchman. “And I am only hearing of this now?” he demanded, his voice deep, low, an animal sound which visibly frightened the watchman and the girl.

  “Lord, there was none could speak to her,” the watchman protested, taking a step back. “No one knew if she had aught to say,”

  “There’s but a few in the dubh gall town can speak our language, Lord, few who could speak to her,” the girl said, “and no one was allowed near her. We did not know if she was worth your attention…” The words spilled out as if they might form some defense against Lorcan’s anger but Lorcan waved them away.

  “So why do you send word to me now?” he asked.

  “Some strangers arrived a few days after the fight. Fin gall. One of them could speak Irish, so he questioned the girl. I didn’t hear it myself. Few are allowed near her, and those only dub gall, no Irish.”

  Lorcan grunted and scratched at his beard. He looked up at the watchman and gave a jerk of his head and the man bowed and disappeared into the dark. When Lorcan and the girl were alone again he said, “Go on.”

  “What I heard,” the Irish girl said, “was that when the young fin gall spoke to her, in front of Grimarr Giant and the others, she had a great deal to say. She told them she had served the monks at Fearna and was taken captive there. She said when they were on the ship – she must mean Fasti’s ship – they could see your men following on land and the dubh gall feared an attack so they stopped in the night and hid the plunder ashore. When they went ashore to hide it, Fasti brought her along. She did not know why. But then, when you and your men attacked in the curachs, Fasti hid her under the boards. She understood none of this, but Grimarr thinks it was Fasti’s way of getting word to him where the Fearna treasure was hidden. Even if he was killed in battle. Which he was.”

  “And the girl knows where the treasure is? She told them where to find it?”

  “I do not believe so, Lord. She said she would know the place if she saw it, but she could not tell them where it was.”

  Lorcan stared off toward the glinting moonlight on the water. There were miles upon miles of coast between the place where he had seen them shift the plunder to Fasti’s ship and the River Leitrim where he had had the pleasure of splitting Fasti’s skull. The plunder from Fearna could be anywhere along that rugged shore. Unless one knew exactly where to look for it, it was pointless to even try.

  He sensed the girl shifting nervously but he ignored her.
Grimarr Giant, you whore’s son bastard
, he thought as he looked toward the dark longphort. Once, he had thought he might work with Grimarr, that together they could defeat Ruarc mac Brain and both enjoy the benefits of Ruarc’s defeat. The Northmen were bold warriors, Lorcan would not deny that. There was no army in that part of Ireland that could stop a force made up of the dubh gall
and his own men. All of Ruarc’s lands would fall to their swords.

  They had actually met, Lorcan and some of his chief men riding through the gates of Vík-ló and welcomed by Grimarr and Fasti. The Northmen were not such fools that they were blind to the possibilities. And then it had come to an end, all communication stopped. Lorcan did not know why. It was only some time later that he learned the truth.

  Grimarr’s sons, Sweyn and Svein, had died, killed while in the pay of Irishmen. It had changed Grimarr. Rage had always been a part of who he was, a very big part, but now it seemed to consume him entirely. He would not fight alongside any Irishman, he would not negotiate, he would not even speak to one. Lorcan did not know who had killed Grimarr’s boys, but Grimarr gave the Irish a big portion of the blame, and so what had almost become an alliance became instead a sworn enmity.

  Lorcan had heard stories of the atrocities Grimarr and his men had carried out at Fearna, and it was sickening, even to a man such as himself. For Grimarr, this was no longer about wealth or money, or so it seemed to Lorcan. It was about vengeance. And that was a good thing, because if Grimarr was driven by vengeance he was more likely to do something stupid, something that Lorcan could exploit.

  He looked back at the girl, who was still fidgeting. “Is there more?”

  “No, Lord, I was told no more,” she said.

  “Very well,” he said. He lifted the small silver brooch he had been rubbing between his fingers and handed it to her. She took it and he saw her eyes go wide. “You may go,” he said

  She nodded, made a shallow bow, then turned and headed back toward the longphort, her mop of hair glowing dull in the moonlight. How she got in or out he did not know or care, as long as she was able to do so. No one in the longphort knew she spoke the Northman’s tongue, save for the man who had given her the information she had just passed along. She was his link, and happily she could be bought off with trinkets. There were others in Vík-ló who would not be had so cheap.

 
So be it,
he thought. The means of getting his hands on the Fearna plunder was there, within those earthen walls, no doubt under guard in the big house of the Northman Grimarr Knutson. That plunder represented the wealth Lorcan needed to secure the loyalty of the
rí túaithe
and the
aire forgill
. Whatever Lorcan had to pay to discover where it was hidden along the coast, it would be a tithing compared to the treasure’s value.

Her name was Conandil. Harald had told Grimarr that, and Grimarr showed not the least interest in that fact, acting as if he had not even heard. But the more Conandil spoke, and the more Harald translated, the more Grimarr became very interested indeed.

  Grimarr Giant’s was an odd reaction, Thorgrim could not help but notice. The big man leaned forward, as if trying to physically gobble up every word. As Conandil’s story spooled out, her voice soft and lilting, but strong, steady, not cowed by terror, Grimarr became alternately delighted, angry and suspicious. He glanced nervously around at the assembled men, each of whom was staring at the girl, intrigued and curious. Thorgrim could see he was not pleased to have so many ears listening to this tale.

  Once, as Conandil described going ashore to hide the plunder, Grimarr cut her off with a growl and an upraised hand. He told Harald to silence her. Harald relayed the words, Conandil closed her mouth and then Grimarr did not know what to do next.

  He stared at Conandil and she stared back, meeting his eyes. Grimarr clearly did not want to share this with the others, but he had no choice. Sandarr was his son, Bersi one of his chiefs. They had been on the Fearna raid, which meant part of the plunder was theirs. They had fought Lorcan. They had a right to be privy to this.

  Thorgrim and his party were strangers but the Irish girl could only speak by way of Harald. And Harald’s knowing was as good as Thorgrim and Ornolf’s knowing, or so Grimarr seemed to conclude.

  “Tell her to go on,” he growled at last.

  It was a most interesting tale, to be certain. Thorgrim listened the way he might listen to a skald reciting verse about the exploits of some long dead king. It was entertaining, but it was of no importance to him. He had sworn an oath not to mention it. And, more important perhaps, he had no interest in exploiting any of this. He did not want his men to learn of their proximity to a hoard of silver. He wanted to repair his ship and be on his way.

  Grimarr was as good as his word. Better, even. As the next high tide approached, he sent two dozen of his men down to where
Far Voyager
was made fast to the shore, the rising water having all but lifted her out of the mud. Grimarr’s men and Thorgrim’s men went aboard, and together handed ashore all the food and water stores, the cargo, the plunder they were bringing back to Vik, the sea chests, the arms and shields and furs and spare cloth. They unshipped the yard and sail and handed that ashore, and the beitass and the oars and the oar gallows as well.

  With the ship thus lightened she rode higher still, entirely free of the mud’s grip, and with planks and rollers and line, with blocks and tackle and the combined strength of eighty men they hauled her up above the tide line, pulled her dripping from the estuary. They made a line fast to her masthead, hove her down and rolled her on her side until the shattered planks were high enough off the ground that Thorgrim and his men could get at them. They cut away the cloth that Starri and the others had bound over the injury, the great bandage to stop sea water from bleeding into the hull, and each man shook his head in amazement that
Far Voyager
had not gone to the bottom.