Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking Age Ireland (The Norsemen Saga Book 2) (39 page)

 
Who by Loki could that be?
Arinbjorn wondered. The man looked like he might be drunk. Indeed, he would have to be, to be wandering around in the open like that, with two armies facing off and him seeming to not even notice.

  There was something familiar about him, his size and shape and the way he moved. Arinbjorn squinted through the rain. And then it hit him.
Harald?
he thought.
Harald Thorgrimson?

They had slipped back into their familiar roles as easily as pulling on a worn pair of shoes; Ornolf loud, commanding and outrageous, Thorgrim doing the actual leading, making the decisions that were really Ornolf’s to make when Ornolf could not be bothered to make them. It was not an arrangement that was meant to fool anyone, and it didn’t. It was simply the most pragmatic division of labor, each man acting as his strengths dictated.

  Thorgrim did not want their presence revealed. He understood that surprise was the most precious of weapons, and like so many precious things, once it was lost it could not be had again. So, by his command, only he and Ornolf and a few others stepped from the tree line to the place where the road ran out of the woods and the ground opened up and rolled away to the walls of Tara, standing proud on the crest of its hill. There was little chance that the small knot of men would be seen from as far away as the ringfort, or the cluster of tents at the other end of the open ground, but even still they hung toward the edge of the wood, standing in the bracken that lined the road, lost against the trees behind them.

  He had meant for the rest of the men to remain back and out of sight, but that was as likely to happen as the tide was to stop flowing at his command. So, like the tide, the men had inexorably crept forward, inching closer, seeping into the open places at the edge of the trees. But they knew what Thorgrim wanted, and they kept hidden by the arboreal cover, never exposing themselves as they maneuvered to a place where they could see what was going on. And since they did not threaten to ruin the gift of surprise, Thorgrim did not try to order them back.

  “See here,” he said, pointing toward the ringfort. Across the distance Thorgrim could see some movement, which he interpreted as the big oak door swinging open, and a moment later men emerging, marching out in a something akin to a military fashion, but not so disciplined as good and experienced troops would be.

  “What do you make of them?” Ornolf asked.

  “I can make out little at this distance,” Thorgrim said.

  “Ha! Your eyes dim with your advancing age, Thorgrim Night Wolf!” Ornolf said. Thorgrim smiled. He knew that Ornolf, his senior by nearly two decades, would reckon himself lucky if he could distinguish the fort from the hill on which it sat. Instead of pointing that out, however, he turned to Starri Deathless, who was with them in the bracken.

  “Starri, what do you make of this?” All of Starri’s senses - hearing, sight, touch, smell - seemed preternaturally acute. He took a step forward and held his hand up to his forehead to shield his eyes from the rain, the way someone who did not live in Ireland might shield his eyes from the sun.

  “Armed men,” Starri said at last. “More than one hundred, sure. But I don’t think they’re Irish. Their armor, shields, the way they organize themselves, they look more like Norsemen.” He swiveled and looked off in the other direction. “Whoever they are, they have the attention of the men in that camp. Look at them, racing around like chickens when a fox is among them!”

  Starri found that all very amusing, though Thorgrim could not really see anything in the distant camp beyond the suggestion of movement, or, at Tara’s gate, the shuffling of the men clustered there. For some time no one spoke as they watched the two distant armies and waited to see what would happen, to see who would do what. It seemed to be a standoff, the two forces holding each other in check, neither one willing or able to make a move. It had a brittle feeling, like standing on new frozen ice, knowing it might break underfoot at any second.

 
Who are they
? Thorgrim wondered, looking at the men who had just come out of Tara.
If not Irish, then who?
If they were Norsemen, then the most likely answer was that they were Arinbjorn’s men. But he could not imagine why Morrigan would go to the trouble of poisoning them all and taking them prisoner just to hand them back their weapons and let them go.

 
Something to do with this armed camp?
he wondered. Might Arinbjorn have made a pact with Morrigan, freedom for him and his men in exchange for fighting this new host? That made sense. Thorgrim could well picture Arinbjorn’s desperate negotiations to free himself from an Irish prison. There was very little he would not promise, Thorgrim guessed.

  “Now what?” Ornolf asked, pointing toward Tara.

  “They are forming a shieldwall,” Starri said.

  Thorgrim could see they were moving again, the cluster of men at the gate, but as to their forming a shieldwall, he would have to take Starri’s word on that. He could not make out that sort of detail.

  “Only the Irish could take a simple thing like a battle and turn it into such a damnable mess!” Ornolf roared. “What by Thor’s ass are they doing, and what are we going to do about it?”

  “We’ll know more once Harald and Brigit are back,” Thorgrim said. “But this looks like their fight, no business of ours.” There were two things working on Thorgrim now. The first was that he could see the chance for plunder had dropped off precipitously with the appearance of not one but two armies. The second was the realization that the ship in which Ornolf had come was in fact his ship, taken by him from the Danes. He had a ship, and that meant he now had the means of returning to Vik without putting himself in debt to some whore’s bastard like Arinbjorn.

  “So where is the boy?” Ornolf demanded. “Been gone a long time. I hope he and his princess didn’t stop to rut like wild boars in the woods. He’s my grandson, you know, so if that’s what they’re about we might be hours waiting for his return.”

  Ornolf’s voice was like the rain - a near constant sound and nearly devoid of meaning. So, like the rain, Thorgrim hardly even heard it after a while. His eyes ran over the storm-swept field, from the ringfort to the camp, trying to imagine what the next move would be. Whatever it was, he did not think it would involve them. Once Harald was back, they would return to the river. To his ship.

  It was then that Thorgrim saw the man walking toward them, far off but headed in their direction. He was walking slowly, with no apparent purpose, not strolling so much as staggering, as if he might have been drinking. He was still fairly far off, and the rain made it more difficult to see, but there was something very familiar about his shape and the way he moved.

  “Starri,” Thorgrim said.

  “Yes. It’s him.”

  “Harald?”

  “Harald Broadarm. Your son. Yes, that’s him. He’s alone.”

  Thorgrim nodded.
Alone….
That spoke volumes. And then another thought occurred to him. “Is he wounded?”

  Starri shielded his eyes and for a moment did not speak. “I can’t see that he is,” he said at last. “But I can’t see that he isn’t. He’s walking along fully exposed in the face of two armies and doesn’t seem too concerned.”

  “I’m going after him,” Thorgrim said.

  “I’m going with you,” Starri said.

  “No,” Thorgrim said. “This whole thing hangs in the balance. If we tip it too far it will all go.”

  “Two will not tip it. More will, but not two.”

  Thorgrim considered this. Two might tip it, or they might not. But Starri was a good man to have when he could be kept in control. What’s more, if Harald had to be carried back across the field, Thorgrim was not at all certain he could manage by himself.

  “Very well, let’s go,” he said, and the two of them stepped from the brush, stepped into the ankle high grass and headed off across the green, green fields and through the driving Irish rain.

Harald was walking because that was what his legs seemed to be doing, though not through any conscious decision that he had made. Each step appeared to be taking him back to the place from which he had come, but he was not really sure and certainly did not care. He did not care about any of it. There really was no place he wanted to be.

 
And now you may go…
That was what she had said.
And now you may go…
He heard the words sounding over and over in his mind, like the constant peal of a bell. Standing in the tent, free of the rain for the first time in hours. The candlelight had played off her wet skin. Her clothes clung to her body, which was still lithe and strong, though the soaked fabric, tight over her belly, made her… condition…more obvious than it had ever been. She had that haughty look that she could get. It made her more beautiful than ever.

 
And now you may go…
As if he was some servant, some stable hand to be dismissed. He walked along. He heard her voice.

  “You are carrying our child!” he shouted into the rain, but the words came out as more of a protracted groan than as real communication.

  Harald had no idea whose tent they had been in, but clearly Brigit did. Her words had stunned him like a club to the side of the head. If they had not, if he had been able to think, he would have pulled his sword from his sheath and killed them all, save for Brigit. Killed them all and taken Brigit back to where she belonged. He would have killed them or he would have died in the attempt.

  Instead, he had been so dumbfounded by her casual dismissal that he could do nothing but obey. He was halfway back to his own people before it dawned on him what he should have done.

  “How could you do this?” he cried. The depth of this betrayal was more than he could wrap his mind around. He thought of those times when they had sailed out of sight of land, when he had looked down into the sea below the ship and wondered how many miles deep the water ran. It gave him an unsettled feeling, bordering on panic, to think on it. This feeling was akin, but now he had no ship below him; now he was sinking down, down into the darkness.

  He was pretty sure that he was crying, but with the rain he could not tell, which was something of a blessing. Water ran down his face, into his eyes, which were not really focused anyway, so at first he did not see the two men moving toward him. When he did, he stopped in his tracks and blinked the rain away. He reached for the hilt of his sword, but he realized he did not have the will or the strength to even defend himself, so he let his hand drop to his side once again.

  They drew nearer, and Harald could see there was something undeniably familiar about them. He wiped more rain from his eyes and watched them approach. And then he recognized them.

 
Father? Starri?
Of course
… he thought. He had been walking back to them, back to his people, without even thinking about it.

  The sight of the two men coming for him filled him with hope and comfort, like stepping out of a cold night into a home with a fire blazing. That was what his father had always meant to him.

 
He was right…
The realization dawned on Harald.
About Brigit, about all of it, he was right….
And with that thought, all of the good feelings were gone, and in their place, humiliation, despair. He, Harald Thorgrimson, Harald Broadarm, had been so certain. He had learned to speak the Irish language. He had insisted he did not want to return to Vik, that his new life was in Ireland. He had defied his father on that point, had actually fought with him. He had envisioned himself on the throne of Tara.

  And Thorgrim had been right all along. It was more than Harald could stand.

 
No, no, no…
he thought. His father would not gloat or hold it over him, but that would make it worse, in its own way. His grandfather would laugh. He could hear it.

  No, he could not stand it, any of it. He would do what he should have done. He would take Brigit back or he would die in the attempt. Now, of course, that second option was all but certain, but that was no matter. He could not go back to his people, not after having been played for such a fool.