The Lord of Vik-Lo: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 3) (6 page)

  “I will not return to Dubh-linn,” Thorgrim said with finality. He did not think Agnarr would argue. Every man aboard knew Thorgrim’s conviction on that point.

  “With the wind on this quarter and us on a larboard tack we have been set far south,” Agnarr shouted. “I do not believe we could reach Dubh-linn even if we wished to, not for many days!”

  “So what then do you recommend?” Thorgrim asked. Agnarr had a better knowledge than he of the Irish coast, having spent more time there, raiding and fishing. Agnarr undoubtedly had a better knowledge of Ireland’s east coast than any man aboard.

  “There is a small longphort, called Vík-ló, south of Dubh-linn. We’ll see where we end up when this storm blows out, but if we are still alive I reckon we should be able to fetch that place.”

  “Vík-ló? I’ve heard of it. It’s no great port, the likes of Dubh-linn, if I remember right.”

  “No,” Agnarr said, pausing in his speech to work the ship through the next cresting sea. “It is much smaller by far. They are Danes there, and they are not over friendly, as you would expect from Danes, but they should give us leave to stay and give us help if we give them tribute enough!”

  “Very well!” Thorgrim shouted. He wanted to be shed of Ireland, to sail north and make the crossing to England and beyond. But that was not to be, not yet. They were being blown south, and nothing would stop that unless the ship went down to a sea-wrapped death and they had worked hard to ensure that would not happen.

  “Very well!” Thorgrim said again, and he knew that now he was trying to convince himself. “Vík-ló it will be!”

[Odin] commanded that all the dead be burned on a pyre along with their possessions. He said each man would come to Valhalla with those thing he had on the pyre with him…

                                                                        
Ynglingasaga

The funeral for Fasti Magnisson and his men was an odd affair, a compromise based on logistics and practicality and tempered by Grimarr Giant’s baser impulses. Greed, in particular.

  After searching
Sea Rider
fore and aft for any sign of the Fearna treasure, and finding none, they checked to see if the ship itself had suffered damage in the fight with Lorcan mac Fáeláin’s curachs. Seeing that the ship was in no danger of sinking
, Eagle’s Wing
took her in tow. It was a long pull to the banks of the River Leitrim, the mouth of which served as a harbor for Vík-ló, just as the Liffey did for Dubh-linn, just as other rivers did for other settlements on that long coast, all but devoid of natural harbors.

  They were still underway as the wind started getting up and the seas building, driven by the storm rolling in from the northeast.
Sea Rider
would not be towed without someone to steer her. Grimarr ordered a half dozen men to go aboard and work the ship, and he had to all but beat them to get them to obey. No one much cared to man that death ship, her decks piled with bodies, the bilges awash with blood.

  The following seas made the steering more difficult, but the wind blowing on shore allowed them to ship oars and set
Eagle Wing
’s sail with a reef in the foot. They came into the river and ran the ships up on the muddy shore, securing them with a multitude of heavy lines just as the first real punch of the storm hit. They piled the dead aboard
Sea Rider
amidships and covered them with the ship’s sail. They could think of nothing better to do with them.

  For a day and a half Grimarr and his men remained huddled in Grimarr’s hall, the others in their small homes, fires burning in the hearth against the early Autumn cold. Vík-ló was Dubh-linn writ small, a Norse longphort a quarter the size of its northern fellow. It lay on the low ground near the mouth of the Leitrim, the land sloping gently upward from the water’s edge. High rolling hills, some miles inland, surrounded the place like some great earthwork made by giants long before and long since abandoned, left to grow grassy and humped. The hills were home to the Irish and the spirits of the land, and the Northmen did not care to meet either, so they did not venture far from their settlement.

  Vík-ló boasted around two dozen houses of various sizes, most partially taken up by their occupants’ businesses; blacksmith shops, woodworkers, butcher’s shops. Plank roads ran in various directions, the wattle and daub buildings pressed close alongside, each with its small, wattle-fenced yard.

  The entire settlement was surrounded by an earthen wall with a palisade that topped it in various places. No one thought that those defensive works would keep anyone out for long, not if they made a determined attack and did so in force. Happily, no one had ever done so. The Irish, who of anyone were most likely to assault the longphort, had never managed to organize themselves for such an effort and they did not seem ready to do so now. But that could change. As Lorcan mac Fáeláin amassed more power he became more of a threat to the dubh-gall at Vík-ló whom he despised.

  That part of Ireland called Leinster, which included Vík-ló, was ruled by Ruarc mac Brain, and it was to Ruarc that Lorcan owed allegiance. But Ruarc mac Brain had recently married a young bride, heir to a kingdom called Tara, or so Grimarr had divined through the sparse information that filtered in from beyond the walls. These days Ruarc was gone much of the time, off to the north. His absence gave Lorcan more room to build his forces and consolidate the loyalty of those who would follow him. If he were to gain a significant amount of wealth, such as that which had been aboard
Sea Rider
, there was no telling how much loyalty he could buy.

  But those worries were only background noise now, like the constant beating of the rain on the roof. Grimarr had more immediate concerns, such as how to dispose of the numerous dead in a way that was respectful, pleasing to the gods, and not overly burdensome or costly.

  Grimarr called a council. Sandarr was there. Not because Grimarr particularly sought his advice, but because it would have been too great a mark of disrespect to exclude him, and might reveal a rift between father and son that someone with plans could exploit. There was also a man named Bersi Jorundarson and another called Hilder who were looked upon as leaders by the men at Vík-ló. The only man Grimarr would actually have wanted to take part in the council was Fasti Magnisson, who, along with Grimarr Giant, had always been considered the lords of the longphort. But Fasti’s pale, lifeless body was lying under a sail just abaft the mast step of his ship, his days of giving wise council ended.

  “There’s not room enough in this longphort to bury them all,” Bersi pronounced. “And burying them outside the walls is not a possibility.”

  The others nodded.

  “I don’t think there’s firewood to spare in all Vík-ló for a funeral pyre for all those dead,” Sandarr added, “not with winter coming on.” This, too, was greeted by more nods. The gesture was starting to annoy Grimarr. The three men looked at him and waited for his pronouncement. There was only one option, really, but Grimarr was loath to choose it, because ships were not an easy thing to come by, and he would have need of
Sea Rider
if he were to get back what was rightfully his.

  On the other hand, he could not just let those dead men be eaten by the swine in the streets. That would not do much to encourage the others to follow him into battle.

  “Very well, we will cremate them aboard
Sea Rider
,” Grimarr said. “Once this cursed rain stops. They died together, they can go off to the gods together.”

  Once again the others nodded. “Their swords, shields, helmets, battle axes will burn with them,” Grimarr continued. “Not their mail.”

  Bersi and Hilder exchanged glances. “Not their mail?” Hilder asked. “We’ll strip off their mail?”

 
Idiots
, Grimarr thought. “They have no need of mail in Odin’s hall. Even if they are wounded in battle, they’ll heal by night.” He did not add that mail was of great value in Ireland and hard to come by. He did not have to.

  So, when the winds died down and the rain tapered off to where leaving the warmth of the hearth was no longer an absolute misery, the men of Vík-ló descended on the river bank and the ship
Sea Rider
tied up there. They pulled the sail back to reveal the bodies underneath, undisturbed, though the few days they had laid there in repose had not improved their appearance.

  At Grimarr’s command, and over a spark of objection which Grimarr stamped out quickly and completely, the men set about the unpleasant business of removing the mail from the bodies of those who wore it. Getting chain mail off a living man was tricky enough; pulling it from a stiff and bloated corpse was a true challenge, made worse by fear that the dead would object to such an outrage and return with vengeance in mind. But finally those would no longer need protection in the earthly realm were stripped of it, and a pile of serviceable chain mail shirts lay heaped on the shore. The ship’s sail, too, and its oars, Grimarr decided, were better off remaining in the land of the living.

  Of the sixty or so dead men laid out on
Sea Rider
’s deck only Fasti Magnisson was of such status as to warrant a thrall to accompany him to the next world. That was fortunate, because thralls, like mail, were scarce in Vík-ló. They were a luxury few in the squalid longphort could afford. Most prisoners who were taken on raids were quickly sold.

  Fasti had a thrall, however, who served in his household, which, along with Grimarr’s, was the most substantial in Vík-ló. Grimarr had half a mind to add her to his own household, but he realized that would never do, that his oldest friend could not be sent off to the next world with never a servant to aid him. So the thrall, whose name was Mor, was informed of the journey on which she would be going and given food and as much mead as she wished. When she was nearly incoherent with drink, the top of her head was cut off with one clean stroke of a sword so that she might join her master in the place to which he was bound. Her body was carried aboard
Sea Rider
and laid at Fasti’s side and then all was in readiness.

  Once again
Eagle’s Wing
took
Sea Rider
in tow, pulling her through the choppy water where the river current met the incoming sea. They towed her just beyond the mouth of the River Leitrim and anchored her where her remains would not be in the way of ships coming in or out. Following in solemn procession were the other ships at Vík-ló; Bersi’s
Water Stallion
, Hilder’s ship,
Fox
, and the ship
Wind Dragon
owned by a man named Thormod.

  Tar and turpentine was poured out on
Sea Rider
’s decks. A flaming torch was tossed aboard and the hands at
Eagle’s Wing
’s oars pulled the ship to a safe distance, where the other ships sat rolling and pitching in the swell.
Eagle’s Wing
’s crew pulled the long oars in board and let the ship drift with the others as the flames consumed
Sea Rider
and the men with whom they’d fought. Grimarr watched as the fire reached up around the base of the mast, climbing up and spreading out fore and aft. In the heavy overcast the flames were brilliant, red and yellow and white. They rose up high above the ship’s rails until
Sea Rider
looked like some great floating dish overloaded with flames, a bowl of fire.

  It was, undeniably, a beautiful sight, a fitting start to the final voyage of Fasti and the others. The only thing that marred the loveliness of the scene was the fact that
Sea Rider
was missing the fine, carved figurehead that graced the ship’s stem, a round swirl of carved oak Grimarr was accustomed to seeing arched high above the ship’s deck. It had not been in place when they had driven Lorcan and his men from the ship, and Grimarr had assumed Fasti had ordered it removed as they approached the shore. But the search that had failed to produce the treasure failed to produce the figurehead as well. Its absence made the ship look stubby and out of balance.

  The smell of burning wood and tar and then burning flesh came vaguely to the men aboard
Eagle’s Wing,
even though they were well to windward of the pyre. The crackling and popping of the ship and her crew as they were consumed, the dull roar of the inferno, were pronounced over the soft breeze from the east.

  As he watched the flames engulf the longship, Grimarr in
Eagle’s Wing
’s stern felt numb, numb all over, like he had been standing for some time outside on a frigid day, like he had just woken up and was still heavy with sleep. He watched the flames take hold of the rigging and run up aloft until the shrouds and stays became vivid blazing lines against the gray sky.

  He watched as the ship, her crew and his long-time comrade in arms Fasti Magnisson were turned into so much smoke and ash and whisked aloft, up to the place where the gods took such men.

  But his thoughts were not on those men. They were, instead, off to a place he did not generally allow them to go, a path he resisted stepping down with all his considerable strength. He was thinking of his sons. Not Sandarr. Sweyn and his brother Svein. They were younger than Sandarr and they were dead. The memory of that fact was worse than any of the many sword thrusts Grimarr had suffered and so he tried not to remember it.