Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) (38 page)

  Heads nodded at that sentiment, the first inarguably true thing any of them had said. If they were let out of their prison, they could die fighting, fighting someone, and such a death would certainly be preferable to rotting behind locked doors.

  Twenty minutes later, Morrigan was back. Ten minutes after that, the Northmen marched from the great hall, free for the first time since the night they had feasted on Irish pork.

  It was raining, they discovered, as they left the confines of the hall and stepped out into the open ground of the ringfort. The sky was dark and brooding and the rain was coming down in torrents. Wide puddles, their surfaces dancing and roiling in the downpour, were spread across the trampled ground. But the rain did not bother Arinbjorn or his men. They were filthy and stinking after their sickness and captivity, and this fresh water from the gods, on a morning that was not overly cold, seemed more a blessing than a torment.

  The marched across the grounds in a loose file, flanked by a few dozen guards with lowered spears.

  “I had thought we were supposed to be allies, now,” Hrolleif growled.

  “Morrigan is being cautious, that’s all,” Arinbjorn said. “Think of it from her side. We could easily overpower all the men-at-arms here at Tara, even without our weapons, and we have reason to do it. These precautions are insufficient, of course, but she must take them.”

  At that Hrolleif grunted but said nothing.

  They came at last to the big oak gate, fifteen feet in height, the main way in and out of Tara. It, too, was flanked with guards, and to one side, a pile of swords, spears, mail shirts, battle axes. All the weapons that had been taken from them when they had been taken captive after the feast.

  “Welcome, Lord Arinbjorn!”

  Arinbjorn looked up, shielding his eyes against the driving rain. Standing on the wall, above the gate and a little to the side, was Morrigan, a cape around her shoulders, a hood pulled over her head. Beside her, in mail and a helmet, sword hanging at his side, stood the man she had introduced as her brother, Flann. Arinbjorn wondered if he was indeed a brother to her.

  “Morrigan!” Arinbjorn called back. “You have been true to your word.”

  “Of course I have!” she called back. “You see your weapons there. Pray, let every man take what is his and arm himself. Then we go forth, fin gall and Irish, and we will fight these enemies of ours.”

  Arinbjorn turned to give the order, but the men were already swarming over the pile of weapons, pulling mail shirts over their shoulders, strapping sword belts around their waists, settling helmets on their heads. Behind them, the men-at-arms of Tara formed up, their lines more neatly dressed than the Vikings were wont to be. They were ready to go, and a moment later Arinbjorn’s men were as well.

  “We will open the gates,” Morrigan called from the wall above, and Arinbjorn looked up again. “But the enemy is hard by and we do not wish to keep them open long. My brother instructs me to tell you that you men, you fin gall, will sally forth, and the men-at-arms of Tara are behind you.” She pointed to a place beyond the walls, lost to Arinbjorn’s sight. “We can see the enemy, they are still in camp, they have not taken the field. You will have time enough to form up, and then you can sweep them away.”

  Arinbjorn pulled his sword from its sheath and raised it in a dramatic gesture. “We are ready to fight, and we are ready to kill, or to die, by the will of Odin, all-father!” he shouted.

  “By the will of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit!” Morrigan shouted back, to Arinbjorn’s discomfort, but before he could even think of anything to say the bar was lifted from its brackets and the big oak gate swung ponderously open, revealing the fields and the distant wood that Arinbjorn remembered. He turned, raised his sword higher.

  “You men, follow me! To victory or death!” He stepped forward, moving faster with each stride, and the host of Northmen flowed behind him. He could see smiles on their faces, faces that had been twisted with fury just hours before. They were free and they had weapons in their hands, and that was the most that any of their kind might desire.

  They poured through the gate and onto the well-trod ground beyond, the hundred and fifty or so men under Arinbjorn’s command. He stepped aside and with his sword directed them to form up to the north of the open gate. Behind them, fifty or sixty feet behind, was the head of the column of Irishmen from Tara. Arinbjorn smiled to himself. Those Irish, with all their spears and mail and helmets, were not as eager as the Northmen to get into the fight. They were not rushing forward as he and his men had done, but marching at a more slow and regular pace.

 
I will send them in first
, Arinbjorn thought. Why throw away the lives of his men, men who would be the most effective on the battlefield? He would order the men-at-arms in first, to take the shock of the attack, and then his men would sweep in and finish the enemy off.

  He turned to wait for the men-at-arms to come through the gate so that he could direct them to where he wanted them. The Irish were still within the ringfort, ten feet from the gate, and then he heard Flann shout something and to Arinbjorn’s surprise they came suddenly to a stop.

  “Get out here, you cowardly bastards!” Arinbjorn shouted, but he had not even completed the sentence before the ponderous gates swung shut again

and he heard the sound of the bar dropping in place.

You battle-windswept warriors,

I wish you’d suffer

loss of giant’s laughter

and good fame both

                                                      The Saga of the Confederates

The drumming of the rain on the roof of the marquee made it hard to hear the hushed conversation. It also made Father Finnian grateful to not be plodding along some miserable excuse for a road or huddled in some peasant’s pathetic, leaky hut. Ruarc mac Brain’s tent was roomier, better furnished and more comfortable than the homes of many of the poor farmers with whom he had stayed in his travels.

  “My only wish is to bring stability to Brega,” Brigit was explaining. “My father longed for the Crown of the Three Kingdoms, but I am not so eager to wear it. Until we are at peace within our own kingdom, I don’t see how we can hope to unite the three and defeat the fin gall.”

  Ruarc, who was seated across the small table from Brigit, nodded in agreement. The three of them, Ruarc, Brigit and Finnian, were the only occupants of the marquee. The servants had been sent away. Outside, two guards flanked the entryway, visible whenever the canvas that covered the door flogged in the wind.

 
This has the blessings of God
, Finnian thought. It was he, Finnian, who had arranged for Ruarc mac Brain and his troops to be here, but God had delivered up Brigit just when she was needed. Finnian had been staggering in the dark, feeling his way, unsure if any of what he was doing was right. And then like Abraham’s ram in the thicket, Brigit had appeared. The sense of relief he felt was like nothing he had experienced before.

  “As long as Flann sits on the throne, there will be no peace in Brega,” Ruarc said. “The
rí túaithe
will not rally to him, and soon they will be fighting one another. And Flann made it clear to
Breandan mac Aidan
that he would not willingly give the throne up.”

  “When I am on the throne, secure on the throne, then the
rí túaithe
will come together,” Brigit said. “And then I can begin to strengthen the alliance with the Uí Dúnchada of Leinster.”

  Something in the way she said that pulled Finnian from his musings. He looked over at her. But she was not looking at him. She was looking at Ruarc mac Brain and Ruarc was looking at her in a way that suggested to Finnian something deeper going on. There were undercurrents in their talk that went beyond simply discussing who would rule what.

  He was just wondering if he should excuse himself when a voice, loud and urgent, ended the discussion. “My Lord Ruarc! Something is happening at Tara!”

  Ruarc was out of his seat and out of the marquee before Finnian and Brigit had even quite understood the implications of this. They both leapt to their feet, but Finnian put a hand on Brigit’s arm. “One moment,” he said. He grabbed a cloak that was tossed onto Ruarc’s camp bed and draped it over her shoulders, pulling the hood up over her head. “I am sure my Lord Ruarc would not mind,” he said, and the two of them ducked out of the tent and into the hard rain and what appeared to be total chaos.

  Men were rushing in every direction, snatching up swords, spears and shields, fitting helmets on their heads. “To arms! To arms!” they could hear someone cry and the cry was taken up around the camp as men stumbled to grab their weapons and stand ready for action.

  They found Ruarc beyond the tents, looking out over the long stretch of open ground between them and the ringfort. He was flanked by Breandan mac Aidan and a few of his senior men, and they were talking in low voices and pointing here and there, seemingly oblivious to the madness behind them.

  “Princess Brigit, Father Finnian, pray join us,” Ruarc called, welcoming them in among the others. “See here.” He pointed toward Tara. “Men have come out, do you see them, before the gate?”

  Finnian squinted through the rain. He saw them at last. Quite a few men. More than a hundred, certainly. Distance and weather made it hard to see, but it appeared that they wore helmets and mail, or most did, the armor shining dull gray in the rain and low clouds. Finnian could see spots of color, which he guessed were painted shields.

  “Are they men from Tara?” he asked.

  “I would imagine so,” Ruarc said, “though why they have left the safety of the ringfort and taken the field I can’t imagine. I would not, if I was in Flann’s position, and I didn’t think he would. That’s why we weren’t ready for this.”

  They may not have been ready a few minutes before, but they were nearly so now, the men forming up behind and to either side of Ruarc and the other lead men. Ruarc’s men-at-arms were not a bunch of farmers filling out their military obligations to their lord, they were professionals and it showed.

  “What will you do, my Lord Ruarc,” Brigit said, “if I may make so bold as to ask?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Ruarc said. His words were slow and measured, as if he was working out his options as he spoke. “Once we’re formed up we’ll advance into the open, get some fighting room. But I won’t attack them, I’ll let them make the first move so I can see what they have in mind. I’m tempted to think they’ve made a terrible blunder, but I know Flann better than that. There’s something acting here that I have yet to see.”

  Finnian felt his stomach knot up. He had hoped that this might all be accomplished without bloodshed. Both he and Ruarc had thought the show of force would be enough to make Flann and Morrigan see the benefits of a negotiated peace. But now it looked as if they meant to fight, and it would be a bloody affair if they did. And that in turn meant he had precious little chance to make anyone see reason. Once steel met steel, that chance would be gone for good.

  “They’re making a shieldwall,” Breandan mac Aidan said. In the distance Finnian could see the men rushing here and there, organizing themselves, moving from an amorphous cluster into a line, an unbroken line with shields held chest high, dull colored dots against the brown walls of Tara.

  “Form our men up!” Ruarc called, loud but calm. There was no edge of excitement or alarm in his voice; he might have been calling across a yard for his groom to bring his horse. But behind them the men-at-arms fell into a line of their own, ready to counter any move the enemy might make. Finnian was impressed and heartbroken all at once. Irish fighting Irish. It was not right, and no wonder that the Northmen had so easy a time setting themselves up in that country. It made him ill.

  He turned his eyes from the men before Tara and swept the field, and was surprised to see a lone figure, one man, walking across the open ground. No one else seemed to have noticed him, or if they did, they did not think he was worthy of comment. One man. Not even walking so much as staggering, seemingly oblivious to the great machinations around him.               And then Finnian realized who he was. It was the young Norseman who had escorted Brigit nic Máel Sechnaill to Ruarc’s camp.

 
Now, I wonder what he’s about,
Finnian thought.

  Arinbjorn felt the panic rising like a fast moving tide and he struggled to keep above it. It was not fear of the enemy or the possibility of injury or death, it was fear that Morrigan had once again played him for a fool. That, he did not think he could endure.

  “What by the name of Thor is the meaning of this?” Hrolleif the Stout roared out as the big doors shut behind them. It was the very same question that was shrieking in Arinbjorn’s brain. The buzz of conversation, the talk of the confused men around him grew louder, louder even than the rain drumming on Arinbjorn’s helmet, louder than the screaming questions in his head. He wanted to tell them all to shut their mouths, but he did not dare because he was afraid they would not listen.

  “There, look!” Ingolf called and pointed downhill and across the wide expanse of open, grassy field. There was a camp in the distance, about three quarters of a mile off, the camp that Morrigan had been pointing toward. Presumably that was the enemy with whom Thorgrim had joined up. Then, suddenly, Arinbjorn was struck by the truth, coming like a cowardly punch from the blind side.

 
Oh, you cunning bitch…
he thought, then, speaking loud so the others could hear over the driving rain, he said, “This is what the Irish are about. They know we’ll do anything to have our revenge on Thorgrim and those other traitors, so they’ve sent us out alone to fight their battle for them!”

  He was pleased with those words, the sound of them, so he continued on in his most inspirational tone. “Very well, then, if they won’t fight like men, then I say we kill them all, all those yonder with Thorgrim, and then we come back and kill every one of the miserable, lying bastards at Tara as well!”

  He had expected a rousing cheer to follow this bold statement, but he received only bewildered looks. To Arinbjorn’s further discomfort, though not his surprise, Hrolleif was the first to speak, prefacing his remarks with a great clearing of his throat, followed by a great glob of spit hurled in the direction of the distant camp.

  “Thorgrim?” he roared, which seemed pretty much the only volume at which he was capable of speaking. “No one but you cares a turd about Thorgrim! How do you even know he is over there? Who told you that?”

  Arinbjorn did not answer, because he realized how stupid the answer would make him appear. Unfortunately, the truth was not hard to guess, and Hrolleif did, and guessed correctly.

  “By Odin’s one festering eye!” he roared. “Was it that Irish bitch, Morrigan? Thor’s hammer, is there anything she could say that you wouldn’t believe? If she told you she could squat down and shit silver ingots you’d stand there with your hands under her arse!”

  Arinbjorn could feel his face flush and flailed around looking for a suitable reply, but there was none at hand. Happily, Ingolf saved him. “Look there!” he cried. “They are going to arms!”

  All eyes turned from Arinbjorn and Hrolleif to the distant camp, where the men seemed to be racing around like ants on an overturned hill. There was something rushed and disorderly about their actions, as if they had been taken by surprise, and it was no wonder if they had been. Whoever they were, if they had come to fight, they probably did not think the men at Tara would leave a perfectly intact ringfort and meet them on the open ground. Arinbjorn knew that he certainly would not have done so, given a choice.

  “It appears they are well armed and their numbers are great,” Ingolf continued. “We have no dog in this fight. We have our weapons, we have our freedom. Our ships are likely still where we left them. Let the Irish kill the Irish, I say, and let us return to Dubh-linn.”

  This met with considerable approval among the others, heads nodding, voices murmuring ascent. Arinbjorn pressed his lips together. Desperate as he was to do so, he did not dare order them to prepare to attack the enemy across the field. He was all but certain he would be ignored, and that would be more humiliation than he could endure.

 
Thorgrim!

  “We can’t just turn our backs and walk away,” Hrolleif said, giving Arinbjorn a faint glimpse of hope, until the big man added, “If they do attack, and we’re unprepared, they’ll murder us all. We need to form a shield wall and back away across the field, keep our faces and our shields toward the enemy as we retreat.”

  This, too, was met with general agreement. No orders were given or needed. The Norsemen knew well how to form a shieldwall and they did so, quick and neat. Arinbjorn could see the effect that the move had on the enemy in the far camp. The men who had been rushing chaotically about tumbled into place, making a formidable line of troops, mail-clad, helmeted, stretching from one end of the camp to another. In numbers and equipment and discipline they made the Vikings look weak and puny.

  “Very well,” Hrolleif shouted. “Stand ready to move back. Nice and easy, we’ll be ready for these bastards if they charge, but if they stay put it’s back to the ships for us.” All eyes were locked on the distant men-at-arms, waiting, waiting for them to make a move, to roll forward and charge the shieldwall and turn the standoff into a bloody fray.

  All but Arinbjorn. Something had caught his eye and he half turned and looked across the field, right in line with the flank of the shieldwall. A single man, walking slowly along, as if he was out for a stroll, except that he seemed to be all but staggering as he plodded through the driving rain.