Winter Serpent (16 page)

The monk, Flann, was telling of the year he had spent among the Frisians of Charlemagne’s kingdom, and also of a trip he had taken on a trading boat to Birka in the Scandia Sea.

“Yes, I have seen the Fingall, the fair-haired ones, as they are called by the Gaels,” the monk was saying. “There are many tribes of them, the Swedes, the Norse, and the Wends, and then the Duthgall, the hated Danes.”

Comac Neish looked very interested.

“So you now have seen these sea raiders, the scourge of Eire?” he asked. “A scourge, yes,” the monk said, turning to him. He was a longlipped,

solemn man, by his accent an Irishman also, and he looked appraisingly at the Ard-Ri’s warrior. He brushed his hand along the top of his head, along the peculiar Culdee tonsure shaven from ear to ear, which marked the men of the Irish church. He looked thoughtful.

“Yes, I have seen the sea raiders,” the monk repeated. “I have seen their ships, their women and their children, their villages. And the hideous temples
of their gods. There they make human sacrifice to Thor and Odin by slaying men and maidens, by hanging them from trees or strangling them and throwing them into the sea. They would have killed me in Birka had they known that I was a Christian priest, for they hate Christians, and most especially Charlemagne, the king of the Franks. I tell you, I saw them, and I was afraid.” A youth called Diarmidh, one of the Ard-Ri’s warriors, laughed at this.

“Now, Flann, the Gaels and the Scots are not afraid of the sea Danes or their gods.”

“Are they not?” the monk said softly. He looked at the group about Comac Neish, at the hunters from Eti leaning toward the fire. “They come to destroy us, these pagans from the past. They will leave Eire and Britain in ruins and in flame!”

Donn felt that he must say something to turn the conversation away from its course.

“Well,” he said, scratching his head, “this is no new thing. We have seen sacking and pillaging before. Britain is never free of pirates. The Scots and the Irish have been pirates in their time!”

“The Picts are always telling tales of the Northmen and how they have raided their coasts in the east,” one of the men from Eti volunteered.

“Well, I do not know the Northmen or the tribes of Birka,” Diarmidh laughed, “but it is well known that every Pict has an ear to the ground to tell what his neighbor is boiling in his pot. And no race spreads more idle gossip.” “Yes, let us talk about the Picts,” Donn blurted. They all turned to look at him and he reddened. Comac Neish and his warriors looked knowingly at
one another.

“It is no idle gossip,” Flann the Culdee insisted. “We who call ourselves Christians in Britain will soon be faced with the hordes of the pagan come to destroy us. We will taste of the evil of the old gods which we have renounced fully, I pray God.” He shot Comac a quick look. “In his present state the pagan is damned, for in thinking he worships the ancient gods he follows the path of evil. He does not worship Odin and Thor, but only the image of himself, filled with lust and cruelty and blown up into virtue. This is the secret of their inhuman bravery. It is fitting that they have taken the foul image of the great worm, this Winter Serpent which decorates the prows of their ships and which is to them a symbol such as the cross is the sign of the kingdom of the One God. The dragon is the sign of their despair. For they believe in the end of the world and the fall of their gods. There is no hope in them, not such as is offered to us in the redemption of Christ and the kingdom of Heaven.”

The warriors shifted their feet restlessly and looked at each other, but the monk’s ringing voice continued.

“Look into yourselves, men of the Gael, and see if we now are strong enough in our Christian faith to overcome the onslaught of the pagan Northmen!”

His voice was drowned in a chorus of shouts.

“Will we fight with Christianity,” one of the hunters wanted to know, “or with swords?” There was laughter.

Donn macDumhnull jumped up and went to the top of the tower to shout down for more ale. It was more than he could bear to sit and listen to the Culdee monk add to the Ard-Ri’s suspicions. How could he talk of peaceable Vikings now?

“Where are you bound now in Cumhainn?” Comac Neish asked the monk pleasantly.

“The kingdom of the Picts,” the other said shortly. The Irish warrior drew back, surprised.

“Man, have you not heard the Culdees were driven out of the north these eighty years and are forbidden to set foot there by order of the King of the Picts? It is a Saxon Church which now shrives them!”

“I have heard some such thing,” the monk said calmly.

“There is a mist coming in from the sea,” Donn said with satisfaction when he returned. “Warm weather makes thick weather; that is a true thing. There will be no travel in the glens this night.”

Comac Neish grinned.

“Yet we must leave you, macDumhnull, for we have visiting to do yet in the Coire,” he said.

Donn gaped at this.

“In the Coire?” he said stupidly. “No, not tonight. The fog. Your horses.” He closed his mouth, licked his lips. What had he done? Calum would never understand this.

“Yes, in the Coire,” Comac Neish answered. “Besides, we are no strangers to fog in the glens. Lend us a Pict to show the way.”

“If you have misfortune, it will be said I did not give you hospitality for the night,” Donn protested.

A pinpoint of angry light showed in the Irish warrior’s eyes. “And do you think we will have a misfortune?” he said softly.

“No, no.” Now Donn was angry. “But do not blame me if you fall into the loch and break your necks.” He stamped away to call for the horses.

“I think the dun captain grieves to see us go,” Diarmidh told his chief as they rode away. Comac Neish turned to look back at the fort. Donn’s words were true; the weather was treacherous for travel, the air thick and warm in the curtain of fog. The torches held by the warriors of the dun before the fort were only globes of light hung in the vapor, the stone tower a dark mass behind.

Comac raised his arm in a gesture of farewell and then turned and settled himself in the saddle. The trail was upward at a steep angle and he must guide his mare carefully, restless as she was under his hands.

It was quiet in the forest and the men and beasts went slowly, straining their eyes for that which they could not see. The air was heavy as smoke, the leaves dripping overhead and the water rushing underfoot ominously, with the sound of a false springtime sent from Tir nan Og to trap them and lead them astray into fairyland.

The bracken and small trees of the dun clearing were soon replaced by dense woodland, oaks towering above to form a canopy of unshed leaves as dark as a cave. The Ard-Ri’s warriors had difficulty in keeping their mounts from crowding each other too closely, half-blinded as they were by the fog.

Comac reined in his horse for the third time and she stumbled. The only proper mounts for these glens were the runty highland ponies, sure-footed as sheep. A tall man made a sorry picture as he bumped along on the back of one, his heels dragging the ground; but for all their shortcomings they were made for the dangerous mountain tracks. The sorrel mare was a beautiful animal but nervous, and Comac wished now that he had left her in Dunadd.

They came out onto an open space in the hills, a high pasture strewn with boulders. The track was lost in the dead grass underneath, and the riders spread out among the waist-high rocks, following the figure of Adda, the Pict leading them on foot.

Comac heard one of his warriors calling to him. “Are you still with us, Comac?”

He laughed.

“Are you so foreign to the glens that you are afraid you will fall into the loch?”

“What loch?” came the muffled voice. “I can scarce see the hand before my face.”

“Strain your eyes then, and tell me how near we are to Bhelach nam Bo.” There was a baffled silence broken by the noises of their gear, bronze
shields against saddles, the tinkle of metal on the peytrels, the copper collars of the horses.

“We need the Culdee,” the voice said again. It was Eoghan, the son of the steward of Dunadd. “We need him so that he might cheer us with his tales of Viking terrors. I feel as though I am traveling the road to the Land Where Time Stands Still and could use a godly man to keep the ghosts from my back. Look you, Comac: if there are any druids conjured up by our talk, then it would be a night like this they would be choosing.”

Comac smiled. The glens were the dwelling place of all fairy folk, and if the old gods or ghosts of their priests lingered here they could find no better
place than this half-world of forest and fog. It seemed that any moment they might come upon the figure of Cuchulainn sitting by a rock, his bronze spear in his hand, his head cocked for the sound of their horses’ hooves. Or the lonely white-clad figure of an Old One with his branch of mistletoe, waiting to throw a spell over them.

Comac shook himself.

“Comac,” Diarmidh called, urging his mount forward, “did you notice the face of the Culdee monk in the dun?”

“No more so than any long-faced Irishman with the Culdee tonsure. Now there is the face of a druid from out of the past, but with a Christian cross hanging about his neck!”

“Ah, do not say this,” Diarmidh said quickly. “I only meant that the monk should be familiar to you, for he taught illumination at Kells when I was at the school in Eire, and were you not there also at that time? He worked upon the many-colored book of the Gospels, and it was said he had a marvelously fine hand. He was one of the three brothers of the Ui Cinnsealaigh who were known as the scourge of Aileach before they took their vows. They gave up arms and warriorhood to take holy orders, and one became the illustrator I speak of, one is now lay abbot of Monahincha, and the other fell into some sort of trouble. I do not remember what it was now, but it is said he put aside his vows and fled the holy house. A trouble of the mind, of the faith, I think it was, and not a woman or a blood feud or the like. But shortly after this happened the other brother, this Flann the Culdee, left the monastery at Kells and began his wandering. To find his brother was the reason given, and in due time he did this work he mentioned among the Frisians. This is what he was referring to in the dun.”

“And what was the name of the monk who vanished, this one of the Ui
Cinnsealaigh who had the disturbance of his faith?” Comac asked.

“I have it in my mind that his name was Kevin, although there are many Kevins among the Ui Cinnsealaigh, this being their name saint. But the bards say this third brother now roams the forests of Dalriada here in the land of the Scots as a wild holy man, a hermit.”

They would have talked further but the path dipped and they forded a small stream on the valley floor where the horses became entangled in a troublesome bog hung with creepers and vines. The Pict slipped through easily ahead of them, but the horses became excited as they were slashed by unseen branches. The party dissolved in confusion.

Comac shouted to the Pict to wait for them while the horses were brought to higher ground.

“We should have traded these fine horses then for one good highland pony, eh, Adda?” Comac said when the Pict had rejoined them.

The man laughed.

“This is but a wee trail left by the feet of the sheep, and not intended for mounted warriors. But you would hurry, and this track goes the straightest.”

“I am satisfied,” the tall man assured him, “if with all this you think we will reach the village by daylight.”

The man’s pug face looked sly.

“Oh, it is the quickest and the shortest, yes. Look, I will show you.”

He took the reins from the horseman and led him to a tussocky place where the faint outlines of the footpath showed clearly. A few wet indentations marked the ground.

“We are not the only ones traveling quickly who have passed here this night.”

Comac leaned from the saddle to examine the tracks, and then looked full into the face of the squat man. He was not sure whether the other showed him the evidence of Donn’s messengers in a desire to help, or merely out of the sense of mischief which filled all the Picts. But he knew it would be a mistake to question the man further.

They had traveled all the night and the sky was lightening very slightly over the last ridge which separated them from the inlet of the sea. A winter bird woke as they entered the pass and fluted an inquiring note into the air. Comac saw from the corner of his eye that the others crossed themselves and said a prayer for the success of the new day.

Adda had topped the crest ahead of the horsemen and stood in the freshening breeze, his skin kilt flapping. He was beckoning them on urgently.

“See, men of Dunadd,” he exclaimed. “Look there!”

Comac followed the length of the other’s arm with his eyes. From where they stood the whole of Cumhainn from sea to the Coire could be seen, but now the view was blemished by rolling fog and uncertain light. Still, it was not hard to detect pinpoints of light flaring at the far end.

“The Fingall!” Adda pointed. “The Fingall’s hall burns, and their ships!”

8

The air was stifling within the Northmen’s log house. The sea fog drifted in through the roof thatch and hung mingled with hearth smoke in the rafters. It was a suffocating mixture, difficult to breathe, and Doireann slept poorly. The weight of the child