The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (43 page)

  “Give way all! Easy!” Thorgrim called, raising his voice just enough to let the men on the rowing benches know that this was not a moment for mistakes or inattention. But now the rowers were looking toward the shore and the water breaking over the reef and the remains of
Water Stallion,
so they likely had figured that out already. The oars swept aft, giving
Fox
just a bit of forward momentum while the seas pushed her astern and the opposing forces held her more or less in place.

  “Good, keep that up!” Thorgrim called. He leaned over the side. The figurehead was there, still thumping against
Fox
’s strakes. He reached out with the long gaff he held like a spear in his right hand and snagged the rope, one end of which was tied around the figurehead, the other disappearing into the dark water. Hand over hand he pulled the gaff back aboard until he could put his hand on the slick, wet cordage.

  A dozen men were standing behind him, eager to get their hands on the rope and help pull. Godi, an obvious asset in any heavy work, was foremost among them. He reached out and grabbed part of the line and handed it aft and more and more of the men took it up.

  Hand over hand they heaved away, the rope running over the ship’s rail, scraping sea weed and sundry creatures off as it come aboard. It was easy at first as they hauled in the slack. Then suddenly the weight was on it as they lifted whatever it was that anchored the figurehead in place, and they grunted with the strain, and the real work began.

  Whatever was at the far end, lost in the deep, seemed to grow heavier with each foot they hauled. Thorgrim felt the lacerations in his chest pulling and threatening to burst, which worried him, but at the same time he thought their present difficulties a good sign. They were pulling up something substantial, in any event. He hoped it was more than a rock

  “Anyone not on an oar, come pull this bastard rope!” Thorgrim called, trying and failing to keep the strain from his voice. Men charged aft and took up the line and Thorgrim felt the burden lifted as more arms and shoulders tailed into the work.

  Thorgrim let go of the rope, now well manned, and stepped up to the ship’s rail. The line was coming up from the deep, like a cable from another world, and there was something unsettling about it. And then suddenly there was something else, a shape materializing out of the dark, and Thorgrim gave an involuntary start.

  It rose higher and Thorgrim could see it was something box-like, another good sign. “Here it comes!” he called. He heard a buzz run through the ship. And then it broke the surface, gushing water, and the men hauled it up level with the rail. A box of some sort, three feet long, two wide, a foot deep, wrapped in tar-covered cloth.

  “Hold!” Thorgrim called and the men stopped pulling and those closest to Thorgrim stepped up and helped him heave it up over the rail. There were grins fore and aft. No one knew what was in the box, but they had a pretty good idea, and it made them happy. Better yet, the rope did not end there, but continued back over the side and down into the water, and there was still considerable weight on it. This was apparently not the only box.

  Men pushed aft and grabbed up the rope again and continued to pull, and soon another box, identical to the first, broke the surface, but still the rope was not at its bitter end. They hauled more, and another box and another was pulled from the water. In the end, five tar-cloth wrapped boxes were heaved up over the side and set streaming on the deck before they found the frayed end of the rope.

  “On the oars, pull, pull!” Thorgrim called. Their first concern was to get clear of that treacherous shore. The rowers knew it, and they pulled with a will.
Fox
gathered momentum and soon she was well away from the reef and the rocks that lay strewn just off shore.

  Thorgrim pulled a knife from his belt, aware that every eye that could see him was watching with an anticipation that bordered on lust. He cut the rope away, cut the tarred cloth and peeled it back. Underneath was a perfectly unremarkable wooden chest. He undid the hasp and carefully swung the lid open. The dull light of the overcast sky gleamed on silver; silver candle sticks, silver chalices, silver coins, silver plates, silver crosses, and interspersed among that, bits of gold, jewelry, chains, censers and the like. The Fearna treasure.

  There was quiet at first, a preternatural hush. And then someone laughed, and then the rest began cheering and howling and laughing, slapping backs, men hugging. Starri Deathless looked down at the treasure and shook his head.

  “Very well, Night Wolf,” he asked. “How did you know?”

  Thorgrim drew a long breath. He did not know, of course, he had guessed, and for once the gods had decided to play along.

  “When I thought on it, I couldn’t see where Fasti would have had time to bury it,” he said. “He would not have risked going ashore in the dark, not in these waters, and the Irish were watching by day. The only reason we thought he buried it was because the thrall, Conandil, said so. But she had no reason to tell any of us the truth.”

  “You’re right,” Starri said. “Fools that we were, we took her on her word, even knowing how these Irish will lie.”

  “Then you and I saw that figurehead,” Thorgrim continued, “anchored as it was, and that made little sense. It was a while later that it occurred to me why it was there.” There was more, of course. In conversation with Bersi, Thorgrim had asked, casually, what the figurehead on Fasti’s ship had looked like. Bersi had described quite accurately the bit of carved wood he and Starri had seen. And then Bersi added that, oddly enough, the figurehead had been missing when they had set the ship on fire.

  Thorgrim did not mention that discussion. It did not hurt his position to look far more prescient than ordinary men.

  Starri continued to shake his head. He grabbed the split arrowhead that hung from his neck and rubbed it.  “Thorgrim Night Wolf, you are favored by the gods,” he said.

  “Ha!” Thorgrim said. “I would hate to see how they treat those they don’t favor.”

  Behind him, Agnarr pushed the tiller a bit and
Fox
turned more northerly. The wind was against them now, and the men at the oars were in for long hours of pulling before they beached again for the night. But the sight of the treasure of Fearna had given them renewed vigor and they pulled with a will.

  The spoils would not be theirs alone, of course. They would share it with Grimarr’s men, the men who had liberated it from Fearna in the first place. It was only just that they do so, and trying to refuse would lead to more ugliness, and no doubt bloodshed as well. But there was treasure enough that they would all be wealthy, Thorgrim’s men and Grimarr’s, too.

  They were bound back up the coast, bound back to Vík-ló. The season was late now, too late to put to sea even if they had a ship, which they did not. Thorgrim would talk with Aghen, the master shipwright. They would talk about what qualities make for a good ship, and over the winter months they would build it, and it would be new, built by him and his men from the keel up. It would be untainted by the past and it would not carry the bad luck of the ship they took from Grimarr’s sons.

  Thorgrim would get what he needed from the Danes of the longphort; wood, rope, tar, ironwork, tools. Because he was not a guest there anymore, not a visitor or a stranger.

  When the dead had been sent off with proper ceremony and the wounds of the battle had started to heal, Bersi Jorundarson came to Thorgrim. He came on his own behalf, and at the behest of some of the other leading men of the town. With Grimarr Knutson and Fasti Magnisson gone, there was no one who commanded the longphort, no one to hold the disparate parts together and keep them from spinning off on their own. No one to lead. And after the bold stance against the Irish, and the part Thorgrim had played in it, the men of Vík-ló knew who they wished to see in that place. They would swear an oath to Thorgrim if Thorgrim would accept it.

  He did not want to. He did not want to stay in that squalid longphort in Ireland. He wanted to sail to his home and settle on his farm and never go a-viking again. But he could not sail for home because he had no ship, and even if the gods dropped one from the sky he did not know if he would have men enough to make up its crew.

  So he agreed. He would build a ship and he would take the oaths of the men there and he would be the chief of them. Whenever he had tried to leave the shores of Ireland, the gods had flung him back, again and again. Perhaps if he agreed to stay, then the gods, mercurial and capricious, would let him go. So he agreed. He would stay. He would be lord of Vík-ló.

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Other books in The Norsemen Saga:

Fin Gall:                                           

Book I of the Norsemen Saga
        

Dubh-linn:

Book II of the Norsemen Saga

Ægir
– Norse god of the sea. In Norse mythology he was also the host of great feasts for the gods.

Asgard
- the dwelling place of the Norse gods and goddesses, essentially the Norse heaven.

athwartships
– at a right angle to the centerline of a vessel.

beitass
- a wooden pole, or spar, secured to the side of a ship on the after end and leading forward to which the corner, or clew, of a sail could be secured.

berserkir
- a Viking warrior able to work himself up into a frenzy of blood-lust before a battle. The berserkirs, near psychopathic killers in battle, were the fiercest of the Viking soldiers. The word berserkir comes from the Norse for “bear shirt” and is the origin of the modern English “berserk”.

boss
- the round, iron centerpiece of a wooden shield. The boss formed and iron cup protruding from the front of the shield, providing a hollow in the back across which ran the hand grip.

bothach
– Gaelic term for poor tenant farmers, serfs

brace
- line used for hauling a
yard
side to side on a horizontal plane. Used to adjust the angle of the sail to the wind.

brat
– a rectangular cloth worn in various configurations as an outer garment over a
leine
.

bride-price
- money paid by the family of the groom to the family of the bride.

byrdingr
- A smaller ocean-going cargo vessel used by the Norsemen for trade and transportation. Generally about 40 feet in length, the byrdingr was a smaller version of the more well-known
knarr
.

curach
- a boat, unique to Ireland, made of a wood frame covered in hide. They ranged in size, the largest propelled by sail and capable of carrying several tons. The most common sea-going craft of mediaeval Ireland.
Curach
was the Gaelic word for boat which later became the word curragh.

derbfine
– In Irish law, a family of four generations, including a man, his sons, grandsons and great grandsons.

dragon ship
- the largest of the Viking warships, upwards of 160 feet long and able to carry as many as 300 men. Dragon ships were the flagships of the fleet, the ships of kings.

dubh gall
- Gaelic term for Vikings of Danish descent. It means Black Strangers, a reference to the mail armor they wore, made dark by the oil used to preserve it.
See
fin gall
.

ell
– a unit of length, a little more than a yard.

eyrir
– Scandinavian unit of measurement, approximately an ounce.

félag
– a fellowship of men who owed each other a mutual obligation, such as multiple owners of a ship, or a band or warriors who had sworn allegiance to one another.

fin gall
- Gaelic term for Vikings of Norwegian descent. It means White Strangers.
See
dubh gall
.

Freya
- Norse goddess of beauty and love, she was also associated with warriors, as many of the Norse deity were. Freya often led the
Valkyrie
to the battlefield.

halyard
- a line by which a sail or a yard is raised.

gallows
– tall, T-shaped posts on the ship’s centerline, forward of the mast, on which the oars and yard were stored when not in use.

gunnel
– the upper edge of a ship’s side.

Hel
- in Norse mythology, the daughter of Loki and the ruler of the underworld where those who are not raised up to Valhalla are sent to suffer. The same name, Hel, is given to the realm over which she rules, the Norse hell.

hird
- an elite corps of Viking warriors hired and maintained by a king or powerful

jarl
. Unlike most Viking warrior groups, which would assemble and disperse at will, the hird was retained as a semi-permanent force which formed the core of a Viking army.

hirdsman
- a warrior who is a member of the
hird
.

housecarl
- member of the elite bodyguard of a Danish or English king or nobleman, not unlike the Norse
hird
. The term dates from the latter part of the Old English period

jarl
- title given to a man of high rank. A jarl might be an independent ruler or subordinate to a king. Jarl is the origin of the English word
earl
.

knarr
- a Norse merchant vessel. Smaller, wider and more sturdy than the longship, knarrs were the workhorse of Norse trade, carrying cargo and settlers where ever the Norsemen traveled.

leine
– a long, loose-fitting smock worn by men and women under other clothing. Similar to the shift of a later period.

levies
- conscripted soldiers of 9
^th
century warfare.

Loki
- Norse god of fire and free spirits. Loki was mischievous and his tricks caused great trouble for the gods, for which he was punished.

luff
– the shivering of a sail when its edge is pointed into the wind and the wind strikes it on both sides

longphort
- literally, a ship fortress. A small, fortified port to protect shipping and serve as a center of commerce and a launching off point for raiding.

luchrupán
– middle Irish word that became the modern-day Leprechaun.

Odin
- foremost of the Norse gods. Odin was the god of wisdom and war, protector of both chieftains and poets.

perch
- a unit of measure equal to 16½ feet. The same as a rod.

Ragnarok
- the mythical final battle when most humans and gods would be killed by the forces of evil and the earth destroyed, only to rise again, purified.

ringfort
- common Irish homestead, consisting of houses protected by circular earthwork and palisade walls.

rí túaithe
– Gaelic term for a minor king, who would owe allegiance to a high king.

rí ruirech
– Gaelic term for a supreme or provincial king, to whom the
rí túaithe
owe allegiance.

sheer strake
– the uppermost plank, or strake, of a boat or ship’s hull. On a Viking ship the sheer strake would form the upper edge of the ship’s hull.

shieldwall
- a defensive wall formed by soldiers standing in line with shields overlapping.

shroud
– a heavy rope stretching from the top of the mast to the ship’s side that prevents the mast from falling sideways.

skald
- a Viking-era poet, generally one attached to a royal court. The skalds wrote a very stylized type of verse particular to the medieval Scandinavians. Poetry was an important part of Viking culture and the ability to write it a highly-regarded skill.

sling
- the center portion of the
yard
.

spar
– generic term used for any of the masts or yards that are part of a ship’s rig.

strake
– one of the wooden planks that make up the hull of a ship. The construction technique, used by the Norsemen, in which one strake overlaps the one below it is called
lapstrake construction
.

swine array
- a viking battle formation consisting of a wedge-shaped arrangement of men used to attack a shield wall or other defensive position.

tánaise ríg
– Gaelic term for heir apparent, the man assumed to be next in line for a kingship.

thing
- a communal assembly

Thor
- Norse god of storms and wind, but also the protector of humans and the other gods. Thor’s chosen weapon was a hammer. Hammer amulets were popular with Norsemen in the same way that crosses are popular with Christians.

thrall
- Norse term for a slave. Origin of the English word “enthrall”.

thwart
- a rower’s seat in a boat. From the old Norse term meaning “across”.

Ulfberht
– a particular make of sword crafted in the Germanic countries and inscribed with the name Ulfberht or some variant. Though it is not clear who Ulfberht was, the swords that bore his name were of the highest quality and much prized.

Valhalla
- a great hall in
Asgard
where slain warriors would go to feast, drink and fight until the coming of
Ragnarok
.

Valkyries
- female spirits of Norse mythology who gathered the spirits of the dead from the battle field and escorted them to
Valhalla
. They were the Choosers of the Slain, and though later romantically portrayed as Odin’s warrior handmaidens, they were originally viewed more demonically, as spirits who devoured the corpses of the dead.

vantnale
– a wooden lever attached to the lower end of a shroud and used to make the shroud fast and to tension it.

Vik
- An area of Norway south of modern-day Oslo. The name is possibly the origin of the term
Viking
.

wattle and daub
- common medieval technique for building walls. Small sticks were woven through larger uprights to form the wattle, and the structure was plastered with mud or plaster, the daub.

yard
- a long, tapered timber from which a sail was suspended. When a Viking ship was not under sail, the yard was turned lengthwise and lowered to near the deck with the sail lashed to it.