Erinsong (25 page)

“Always told Himself ye’d
be back one day,” Mur
taugh said as he
squinted up at Brenna. Then his still
sharp eyes took Jorand’s measure. “But God’s feet, I never
thought to see ye with a twice-cursed
Ostman
in tow.”

“This is Jorand. He’s me
husband if ye don’t mind,
so ye’ll kindly
be keeping a civil tongue in that old head of yours,” she
scolded.

“Husband, is it? There be a
strange tale worth the
telling or I’m
mistook.” He ladled out a portion of stew
and handed it to her in a wooden bowl. “Hungry?”

“Aye,” she admitted,
accepting the rich-smelling
offering with
gratitude.

“I supposed your Northman is, too,” he said
grudgingly and scooped out a bowlful for Jorand as well, jerking
his hand back when the younger man took the food from him. Murtaugh
leaned toward Brenna and asked in what passed for a whisper, “Is he
safe?”

She stifled a laugh, then
remembered the hair-raising
tale Moira
told of Jorand’s
berserkr
fury against the men who had attacked her and the
look of cold may
hem in his startling blue
eyes when he started after the raiders.

“No, he isn’t in the least safe,” Brenna
admitted. “But he can be trusted.”

“He also doesn’t appreciate being talked
about as though he isn’t here,” Jorand said.

“Speaks the fair tongue,
eh?” Murtaugh slurped at
his bowl,
dropping all pretense of deafness. “Can’t be all bad,
then.”

That seemed to satisfy the
sexton for the moment,
and he turned his
full attention to the stew. When they were finished eating, Brenna
decided it was
time for her questions. But
something the abbot had
said demanded
explanation first.

“When we first happened
upon Father Ambrose,’ he was saying
‘mea
culpa’.
Why does he seem to think all this
is his fault?”

“Och, that’s bad, it is.” Murtaugh scratched
absently at his balding pate. “I wasn’t here, ye ken, being
upriver seeing to the butchering of a couple of beeves for the
abbey’s winter table, but I got the tale straight from
Himself.”

Brenna gathered their bowls together to wash
later in the Shannon and leaned in expectantly to hear the
story.

“Ye see, the Northmen made to parley at
first, the gate being barred and all,” Murtaugh explained using his
gnarled hands to gesture his meaning. “They demanded a certain
weight of silver to let the abbey be.”

Brenna looked askance at Jorand.

He shrugged. “It’s not
unusual. Most towns are willing to pay to avoid a raid. Coming to
an agreement saves time,” he paused “and lives. Did the abbot have
the
wergild?”

“I don’t know about that foreign stuff, but
Himself had the coin and no mistake. God’s no pauper ye know,”
Murtaugh said. “But it didn’t seem right to part with the Lord’s
bounty just on the say-so of a bunch of heathens.”

Jorand made a snorting noise and the old man
eyed him suspiciously. Brenna suspected it bothered her husband to
be considered no better than the raiders.

“My Lord Abbot wouldn’t part with so much as
a mite, much good it did him. The Northmen got it all just the
same. And, as ye can see, they put the rest to the torch.”

After the lives of the
people at Clonmacnoise, the
irreplaceable
wealth of the library meant far more to
Brenna than any amount of precious metal. “So
noth
ing was saved then? None of the
books?”

“What would a Northman do
with a book? Them
being all ignorant
savages.”

Brenna knew for a fact that
Murtaugh was totally
illiterate himself,
but the old man did hold a reverence for the written word. He’d
spent hours watch
ing Brenna illuminate
the pages she pilfered from the
scriptorium. Since she was forbidden to work with the male
scribes openly, the sexton had let her steal away to his cottage to
practice her art.

“The
Ostman
devils destroyed it all,”
Murtaugh said.

“Not all.” Brenna heard Father Ambrose’
voice, faint and disheartened.

She turned to see the abbot wobbling in the
doorway, a hand to his head. He must truly be losing his wits if
he didn’t think the destruction of Clonmacnoise complete.

“They didn’t destroy
everything,” Father Am
brose said with
surety. “The Northmen took the Skellig Michael Codex. I saw the
leader carry it off.”

“What’s that?” Jorand asked.

“The Codex is a fabulous
treasure,” Brenna said, a
tiny thrill
running through her just thinking about
the bejeweled volume. “It’s a set of the Gospels and
so much more. The art folios alone are worth
more
than...” she searched her mind for a
staggering sum,
“than all the rest of
Clonmacnoise put together. The
illumination is unparalleled.”

“Then it’s worth quite a bit?”

“Aye, ye could say that,”
Brenna said. “All the gold
and jewels in
Tara would seem beggarly by compari
son. “
‘Tis too fine a thing even for a king to own. ‘Tis
truly a book that can belong only to
God.”

“And now it has fallen into
the hands of the heathen.” The abbot trudged over to join their
circle, careful to position himself between Murtaugh and Brenna, as
far from Jorand as possible. “But now,
child, what brings ye back to us from Donegal?”

“Surely, ye must know,
Father. ‘Tis the babe birthed here. Me own sister’s babe.” Brenna
folded her hands in her lap to keep them from quivering. “I’ve
tried to put it out of me head, but I can’t put it
from me heart. I need to know once and for all.
How
fares the bairn?”

Murtaugh shot the abbot a
glance that clearly said, ‘
I told ye as
much,’ but kept his lips in a straight hard line.

The abbot seemed to
consider her request, then
slowly shook
his head. “No, ‘tis best to let matters lie
as they are. Ye must trust me for this.”

***

Jorand felt the pain that
flashed across Brenna’s face, sharp as a knife to his ribs. The
pudgy churchman may have been head of this smoldering
abbey,
but the abbot had no power over
Brenna now. Not if
he had anything to say
about it.

He rose to his feet and,
fists clenched, leveled Father Ambrose with a dead stare. “You
will tell her what she wants to know and quickly, or no god
will
deliver you from the fury of this
Northman.”

To his surprise, Brenna
leaped between them and
planted her
splayed fingers on his chest.

“No,
not
like this,” she pleaded. “He’s
been through too much already.”

“I haven’t even started yet.”

“No, no violence,” she said with adamancy.
“There has to be another way.”

Jorand glared at the abbot. “An exchange
then,” he offered with grudging reluctance. “If I tell you the name
of the man who holds the Codex, you must tell Brenna where to find
the child.”

Emboldened by Brenna’s unexpected protection,
the abbot dusted off his cassock and met Jorand’s gaze. “And what
good does a mere name do us here in the House of God? Think ye we
shall pray for the blackguard after this desecration?”

“Is there nothing we can do to persuade you,
Father?” Brenna asked.

“I can think of several things.” Jorand bared
his teeth in an expression he was sure the churchman couldn’t
mistake for a smile.

Brenna frowned and put a restraining hand on
his forearm. “Please, Father. We’ve come so far and not knowing
vexes me beyond bearing. I can’t return to Donegal without finding
out what became of Sinead’s bairn.”

“I sympathize, my child, but ye wanted
nothing to do with the babe when it was born,” the abbot said,
placing a speculative finger to his lips. “Now if ye were to find
and return the Codex intact, that might be an act of contrition
worthy of reward. But alas! The Codex has passed from the hands of
civilized men. How do you hope to retrieve it?”

“She can’t,” Jorand said wearily. “But I
can.” He’d hoped to avoid this, to let his past sink back into
forgetfulness, but if there was a God, as Brenna insisted, He
seemed unwilling to let Jorand get away with it.

“How can ye do that?” Father Ambrose
asked.

“Because I know the man who
took it. His name is
Kolgrim,” Jorand
said.

“Ye remembered.” Brenna gaped at him.

“
Ja
, I remembered his name,” Jorand
said, hoping that much would satisfy her for now. He couldn’t bear
to tell her more.

Murtaugh glared at him, probably suspecting
he was somehow involved with the sacking of Clonmacnoise, but the
abbot was quick to jump at the chance to have his treasure
restored.

“Ye may indeed know the
villain, of that I’ve no
doubt,” Father
Ambrose said. “But the world is wide.
How
will ye find him?”

Jorand felt an invisible
noose tighten around his
neck. “I know his
homeport. I know where he’ll be.”

“Then by all means, go. God’s blessing on ye
and the worthy task ye have set for yourself.” The abbot seemed to
forget Jorand’s unfortunate heritage for a moment and sketched a
benediction with his right hand.

“Keep your blessings to
yourself. All I want is your
word,” Jorand
demanded. “The truth about the
child’s
whereabouts for the book. Agreed?”

Father Ambrose hesitated
for only a moment, then
nodded solemnly.
“I’ll tell Brenna about the child.”

Jorand wheeled around and
stomped away, furious to be forced to this untenable position, but
un
able to run from it. He heard Brenna’s
light footfalls
pattering behind
him.

“Where are we going?” she
asked when she caught
up with
him.

‘“
We
are going nowhere,” he said without much
hope. “You’re staying here and I’m bound to
retrieve
that damned book.”

“No, please, ye can’t leave
me,” Brenna said, cling
ing to his arm.
“Will ye be in harm’s way?”

“Probably.”

She had no idea how much.

“This concerns me, too.
Ye’re only doing this so I
can find
Sinead’s child. If ye are going into danger
because of me... I’m your wife, Jorand. I must needs
be at your side.”

He stopped. He knew he
should just keep going, but he couldn’t bear to tear his arm away
from her.
Then he made the mistake of
looking at her. Her hair
was flying out in
all directions, her face grimy from
the
smoke, but her soul shone shining clear and pure
from her silver-gray eyes. She didn’t have a clue
what
she was asking.

“Brenna,” he said, cupping
her cheek in his palm.
“If you come with
me, it’ll be hard.”

“When has it been easy for
the likes of us?” She
smiled at him, the
little crooked smile that made his
insides
melt. So trusting. When she looked at him
like that he wanted to slay dragons for her.

How would she feel when she
discovered
he
was
the dragon?

“Please,” she said,
worrying her lower lip with her
little
white teeth. “I cannot bear to see ye go alone.”

Utterly conquered, he
folded her into his arms and
hugged her
fiercely. “And I can’t bear to leave you.”

He kissed her hard, wanting
to fall into the oblivion
he found in her
loving. But she was not so easily dis
tracted and pulled back from him, fixing him with a
determined gaze.

“So where are we bound?” she asked.

To Hell, most like,
he wanted to answer. Instead he
just said, “Dublin.”

The trip back down the Shannon and out to sea
passed by in a blur for Jorand. If only he’d told her immediately,
right when his memory came back, perhaps then she’d have
understood.

Coward!

He cursed himself
regularly. Each day he told him
self now
was the time. Brenna needed to know the whole truth. But then she’d
say something about her hopes and plans that made it impossible for
him to speak.

He concentrated on
navigation, on trimming the sail more often than it needed,
anything to keep his mind off what waited for them in the Norse
enclave
on the banks of the river Liffey.
And each night, as Brenna curled against him, he found himself
unable
to keep from reaching for
her.