Erinsong (34 page)

Inside the
jarlhof,
Thorkill
dismissed the rest of the
populace and
called for a large trunk to be brought from his chamber.

“I can’t believe it,”
Solveig muttered. “You have
your pick of
all a man owns and you choose a worth
less
book.”

“Wait till you see it before you complain,
daughter,” Thorkill admonished. He unlocked the trunk, drew out a
parcel, wrapped in oilskin, and handed it to Jorand. “It’s
yours.”

When Jorand unwrapped the
package, it was as though a living rainbow glowed in his hands.
Pre
cious stones gleamed in riotous color,
sending shards
of light dancing along the
smoke-blackened beams
of the
jarlhof.
The front and
back of the bindings were
encrusted with
jewels.

“I promised I’d see the
Codex safe in your hands,”
Jorand said in
Gaelic as he crossed the room to deliver the incredible treasure
to Brenna. “I always keep my promise.”

“So I see,” Brenna said,
lifting trembling hands to re
ceive the
unspeakably beautiful book. She’d been able
to look at it only once before and knew as ornate as
the
cover was, the artwork inside was far
beyond anything she’d ever imagined. “I thank ye...
husband.”

Solveig snatched the Codex
from her hands, growling a string of Norse at her. Jorand started
to
grab it back, but Thorkill stopped him
with a hand to
the chest.

“Never get between your women in a fight,”
the master of Dublin advised.

“No,” Jorand said as he
shoved past Thorkill and
reached for the
Codex. “I won it for Brenna. Give it
back.”

Solveig picked up a long
knife someone had left on
one of the
tables and waved it toward him threateningly. “Unless you wish a
large wound, husband, I advise you to stay where you are. I will
decide how
the spoils are divided between
your two wives.”

She opened the book and
slashed the binding. The folios of illuminated manuscript fluttered
to the floor
like so many oak leaves in
autumn. Then she put
down the knife and
swayed back toward Jorand, her
chin
jutting toward.

“I find I can no longer be
the wife of a man who can’t even kill his opponent in the
holmhring,”
Solveig said
evenly. “We both know I have grounds for divorce. You have become
like one of those eu
nuchs from Miklagard
since you took that little Irish
to bed.
No man would willingly avoid my couch if
there wasn’t something seriously wrong with his
man
hood.” She delivered a ringing slap
across Jorand’s face and her lips turned up into a malicious
smile.
“Now
we’re
even
.
You have
grounds as well. Expect
witnesses and a
declamation tomorrow morning.”

Bejeweled cover clutched to her chest,
Solveig turned and strode from the hall with the dignity of
retreating royalty. She stopped under the lintel and turned back to
face her husband.

“Know this as well,
Jorand,” she said with a sly smile. “Being a widow had its rewards.
When I was yours, my bed was never cold. Men lined up to
con
sole me and I accepted their comfort
without a back
ward glance. You will be
easy to replace.”

She turned with a flourish of her
ermine-trimmed cape and slipped into the night.

Mutely, Brenna knelt to
pick up the scattered pages, but her heart sang inside her chest.
Jorand
was about to be freed from his
Norse wife. Then she
jerked back the reins
on her joy.

He hadn’t been the one to make that
choice.

“I’m sorry,” Jorand said as he stooped to
help her retrieve the damaged treasure.

“ ‘Tis not your fault,” she
said, carefully arranging
the delicate
parchment in the correct order. She forced herself to concentrate
on the Codex to avoid thinking about what Jorand’s divorce from
Solveig might mean. Gold filigree on the pages caught the
torchlight and gleamed as she inspected a
Chi-Rho
page devoted to the
adoration of a symbol for Christ.
She knew
the creation of that one page had consumed months of the
illuminator’s life.

“But she took the most valuable part,” Jorand
said, his mouth hard as he glared after Solveig.

“Sometimes, what’s inside
is more valuable than the outside. The Almighty has caused the
earth to yield thousands of gemstones. But the artist who
worked this manuscript is no more. His like will
not
come again on earth till the last
trumpet sounds.”
Brenna laid a reverent
hand on the stack of loose pages, an astounding collection of
artwork and the
Word of God. “I’ll not
begrudge Solveig a rock or two
when she’s
left me the true treasure.”

She bit her lip. Did he
think she meant he was the
treasure? Her
heart certainly seemed to think so.

“I imagine the abbot will see things
differently.”

“Mayhap,” she conceded,
then let her gaze drift down from his tired face to the bloody gash
on his chest. No matter what the morrow held, she was so
thankful he was alive. “Ye’ll be needing a bit of
tend
ing, I’m thinking. Come ye back to
the church with me and I’ll bind your wounds.”

That offer brought a smile
to his lips. He put an
arm around her
shoulders and started to lead her out
of
the
jarlhof.

“Stay a while,” Thorkill commanded. “Let your
woman go, but I have need of you yet this night, Jorand.”

Jorand motioned for Bjorn
and Rika to see Brenna
to Father Armaugh’s
little church. Then he joined Thorkill by the fire.

Kolgrim was seated there as
well, his arm stuck
out at an unnatural
angle. He raised a horn to his lips
and
drained it in one long drink, obviously trying to
dull the pain of the splintered limb. When he
low
ered the drinking horn, Jorand saw
that Kolgrim was
white as the chalk cliffs
on the Isle of the Angles.

His enemy was in agony.

Good.

“Not that I care, but
what’s urgent enough to keep
Kolgrim from
the bonesetter?” Jorand asked.

Sweat beaded on Kolgrim’s
forehead and his jaw
ticked with the
effort of ignoring the pain of his bro
ken
bone. Jorand’s own wounds throbbed, but they
were minor compared to Kolgrim’s obvious
suffering.

“Kolgrim’s got news, and he
wouldn’t tell all during the feast. Said it wouldn’t do to speak
it in the hearing of so many ears. If you’d killed him, Jorand, he
wouldn’t be able to finish his tale.” Thorkill’s brows met
over
his long, thin nose. “Now, what was
important enough
for me to interfere in
the
holmhring?
It
had better be good
.”

“You mean to rule this
island,
ja
?”
Kolgrim said,
breathing heavily between
his words.

Thorkill nodded gruffly.

“I ask you, can it be done by the sword
alone?”

“You think we can’t
outfight these miserable little
Irishmen?”
Thorkill demanded.

“Not that,” Kolgrim said.
“Of course we can defeat them. I mean, once the battles are done,
can you hold
Erin?”

Thorkill frowned.

“I think I know what he’s
getting at,” Jorand said,
surprised
Kolgrim would be so far-thinking. “We can
take the island by force, raze the monasteries and burn their
farmsteads. We can kill their chieftains, but for each one we put
down, another will take his
place. The
Irish outnumber us by a long stretch. We’ll
be fighting forever to hold this rock.”

“Exactly.” Kolgrim’s wary eyes flickered with
grudging respect at Jorand. “Unless you win the hearts of the
Irish, you’ll not hold Erin more than a short spate of
winters.”

“Win their hearts? Bah!”
Thorkill paced like a caged bear. “Even if I wanted to, how would I
go about doing
that?”

“My tongue is fair cleaving
to the roof of my mouth,” Kolgrim said, holding out his empty
horn
for more mead. Thorkill filled it and
Kolgrim knocked
it back. “Jorand here has
shown you the way.”

What did he mean by that?
In the week since his re
turn to Dublin,
Jorand had given Thorkill nothing of
strategic importance. He meant it when he told Brenna he
intended to stop Thorkill.

Perhaps Kolgrim’s pain was
making him stupid. Jorand knew the splintered bone shifted each
time Kolgrim moved. If it wasn’t set properly, and soon,
his enemy could lose the use of the arm. The
thought
caused a smile to flicker across
Jorand’s lips.

Kolgrim stifled a groan as
he waited for the alcohol
to dull the
throbbing. “The Irish hold as much store
in lineage as they do in might when it comes to their
rulers. Join your blood to one of theirs. Take an
Irish
queen for yourself.”

Thorkill’s eyes shifted
back and forth as he rolled the idea around in his mind. “So you
think an Irish
wife will make the natives
willing to follow me?”

“Not an Irish wife. An
Irish queen,” Kolgrim said.
“Join yourself
to the right house and this island will fall
into your hand like a ripe plum. And I know exactly
the one for you to take. Moira, Queen of the
Ulaid.”

Jorand schooled his
features into a blank mask to
hide his
shock. He reached for his own horn and took
a long gulp, not trusting his voice to speak.

“She’s beautiful, as people
of this island count beauty.
Fair of face
and form,” Kolgrim went on. “I’ve seen her
with my own eyes and in this case, the rumors don’t do her
justice. She’s only worn the crown
for
four months, but already the people of Ulaid think
the sun rises and sets on her tight little arse.
And I’ve got
it on good authority that
this Moira’s not only a queen,
she’s the
daughter of another king, Brian Ui Niall of
Donegal. You’ve already got Dublin as your stronghold
in the south. Take Moira of Ulaid as your queen
and
you’ll control the northern clans as
well.”

Thorkill tugged
thoughtfully at his beard. “Back in
the
Northlands, fostering was useful for binding allies. Raise a man’s
son in your home and you’ve got them both for life. And fosterlings
make admirable
hostages if the bond is
broken. If the Irish aren’t dis
posed to
follow willingly,” Thorkill mused, “I’d think a queen of Erin with
a blade hanging over her head would serve the same purpose as a
fosterling.”

Jorand watched helplessly
as the leader of Dublin fell under Kolgrim’s spell. Thorkill was a
ruthless warrior, but he depended on his lieutenants for strategy.
In the past, Jorand had offered advice and
counsel alongside Kolgrim. With a pang, he realized
there had been a time when he’d have lent his
sup
port whole-heartedly to Kolgrim’s plan.
Now the idea
of Brenna’s sister being
abducted and forced into a
union with
Thorkill left a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Ulaid is far to the North.
We’d need to take most of the ships and men to launch an assault on
their strong
hold,” Jorand said, wondering
whether Ulaid had a
stone tower like
Donegal with successive levels and
ladders
designed to outlast the most determined
siege. “Besides, I’ve seen an Irish keep from the
in
side. If they’re well-provisioned,
Ulaid can hole up
and wait for the rest of
the clans to rally to his defense.”

“Fearghus of Ulaid helps us
with that. He’s just buried his father and come into his kingship,
so his defenses aren’t what they should be,” Kolgrim reported.
“And he’s an arrogant braggart from all
reports, so the likelihood of reinforcements from
sur
rounding clans is slim.”

“Still, a raid of this sort
would take too many men from Dublin,” Jorand argued. “What kind of
victory
would it be if you gained an Irish
queen in the north while you lost your stronghold in the
south?”

“By Loki’s hairy toes! You
sound like an old woman, Jorand.” Kolgrim turned his gaze back
to
Thorkill. “If you listen to my plan, it
won’t take that
many men. Your smallest
dragonship will do it.”
Kolgrim shifted
his weight on his seat in obvious discomfort. “If we but wait till
the next full moon, Moira
of the Ulaid
will nearly come to us.”