Fin Gall (19 page)

             
“That’s a start. And it must be ended as soon as it starts.” Morrigan’s face was set hard as she spoke, the words coming sharp and fast. “The abbot of Glendalough understands that. That is why he decreed the crown should go to my lord Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid, who of all the kings can best drive this plague from our home. And I understand it.”

             
“And Orm knows of the crown as well,” Thorgrim said. The Danes were safe in Dubh-linn as long as the Irish were fighting one another, but an alliance of the three kingdoms could easily drive the Norsemen into the sea.

             
“So,” Thorgrim said, “you have kidnaped my son in order that me and Ornolf should help you rid Ireland of our own people?”

             
“Your people? They are Danes, I thought they were not your people.”

             
Thorgrim smiled. She is quick, he thought.

             
“What think you, Thorgrim?” Ornolf asked, pointing toward the column of smoke to the west. “Should we land, see what there is for the taking?”

             
Thorgrim saw the anger flash in Morrigan’s eyes. “Pray do not lose sight of the mission we are on,” she said.

             
“She’s right,” Thorgrim said. “Our only concern now is to help the Irish drive us from their land. Besides,” he added, looking at thick smoke, like a black finger of God pointing toward the desecration of His temple, “I reckon there isn’t much left there worth taking.”

Chapter Twenty

Vikings will come across the Sea,

They will mingle among the men of Ireland.

                                            
Berchán, Irish Prophet

              T

he monastery at Baldoyle was well sacked and Magnus’s men were happy. He counted among them the men who had come with Asbjorn the Fat as well. After this raid, he did not think they would put much stock in what Asbjorn had to say.

              The Vikings had come up over a low rise a half a mile from the dirt and wattle wall that circled Baldoyle - not the largest monastery in Ireland, but respectable. Like all Irish monasteries, Baldoyle was in essence a self-sufficient little village. Unlike most villages, however, it could be counted on to have silver, gold, jewels.

             
At the foot of the wall was a ditch, and thorn bushes grew along the top, and it represented not the least impediment to the Norsemen.

             
Magnus stood in the saddle. “Danes, follow me!” he shouted, sword held over his head. He pounded off toward the monastery, riding over the tilled fields that surrounded the enclosure. Behind him came thirty-five Vikings, the full host, less those left to deal with Asbjorn’s cart.

             
Asbjorn himself was at his side, riding hard, trying for all he was worth to keep up. But he was no horseman, and his horse was carrying far more weight than the other animals, and soon Asbjorn fell behind and Magnus alone led the men to the gates.

             
The monastery was in panic. They could see it from a few hundred yards away. Farmers, the bóaire, cowmen, as the Irish called them, rushed for the shelter of the walls, families in tow. Brown-robed monks urged them on as they shoved the wooden gates closed.

             
Idiots,
Magnus thought. Everything the raiders wanted was within the walls of the monastery - the bóaire were in more danger inside than out. But that was not his concern, not at all.

             
The tilled ground gave way to a plank road and the horses sounded louder still as they raced for the palisade gate. There were men on the walls now, archers, perhaps half a dozen of them, but Magnus was caught up in the frenzy of the charge and they did not worry him. Twenty feet from the wall and he felt an arrow pass close by his head. Another glanced off his mail shirt at the shoulder, ripping his tunic and hanging up in the cloth, beating against his legs as he rode.

             
But the Danes had archers as well, and they reined to a stop, whipping arrows at the heads that appeared over the wall. Magnus charged for the gate, pulled his horse to a stop beside it. It was eight feet high, no more. Magnus kicked his feet out of the stirrups and stood on the saddle. He swung his shield around on his arm and took hold of the top of the gate.

             
A spear flew at him from an oblique angle, missed, struck the man beside him square in the chest, sent him screaming to the ground, but another man was there even before the first was down. Magnus pushed off his horse’s back, vaulted the fence, came down hard on the packed earth inside the monastery.

             
He was still recovering from the drop when the first of the monastery’s defenders was on him, a monk in long robes, sword over his head, shouting in his Gaelic tongue, and he died at the end of Magnus’s sword before he even began to swing his own.

             
Christ-men
, Magnus thought with disdain. They were not bred to the sword like Norsemen were.

             
There were more men from the monastery coming at him, monks and the bóaire armed with clubs and a few spears, but no real fighting men that Magnus could see. He shouted, stepped into the attack, the sword singing in his hand. The Norwegian’s sword. Thorgrim. A fine blade, made finer for being a trophy of war.

             
The defenders of Baldoyle fell as they came. Magnus and Kjartan Swiftsword and a few others, standing shoulder to shoulder, formed a shield wall that would not be broken. Behind them, others who had come over the wall knocked the bar from the gate and swung it open. Horses pounded through, into the former sanctuary. The fight was over.

             
“The church! The church!” Magnus shouted up to the mounted men, pointing to the largest of the dozen or so buildings within the circular walls, a formidable plank-built structure with a high thatched roof and a big wooden cross mounted on that. If there was anything to be had here it would be in the church, and it had to be secured before the monks carried it off.

             
The horsemen kicked their mounts on, pounding off for the church. What little defense there was of the monastery had collapsed entirely, and now the monks and the bóaire were fleeing in every direction. Families were racing for the smaller gate at the far end of the compound. There were men and children who would make valuable slaves, women for the pleasure of the Viking hirdmen. At another time Magnus would have had them rounded up, the valuable bounty of a successful raid. But he did not have enough men to deal with captives. He had brought no chains. And he had far bigger things planned. He needed smoke.

             
Smid Snorrason was on his knees going through the purse of one of the dead farmers, an exercise not likely to yield much. “Smid, leave that,” Magnus said. He looked around. To his right stood one of the larger buildings in the monastery, a round building with thatched roof that he guessed to be the monks’ residence.

             
“There.” He pointed to the building. “I want that burned. I want it burning in five minutes. There’ll be nothing worth having in there.”

             
Smid stood, nodded, and hurried off.

             
Asbjorn the Fat, last of all, came riding through the gate, red-faced and puffing. “Humph,” he said, looking around the monastery, the fleeing defenders, the Vikings racing for the church. “Orm will not be pleased,” he said. “Orm will not be pleased.”

             
“Shouldn’t you be attending to your precious cart?” Magnus asked, pulling the dangling arrow from his tunic.

             
“This is a distraction,” Asbjorn said, ignoring the dig. “We are after the crown.”

             
“Oh, see here,” Magnus said. “A cart, of all things! And food in the barns and store houses, I’ll warrant. And gold and silver in the church.”

             
Asbjorn said nothing. There was nothing for him to say. With the longship still in sight off shore and the men reveling in plunder he was not going to convince anyone that the raid was a bad idea.

             
Magnus left him and walked toward the church, the energy from the fight draining from him. There was still fighting going on, shouting and the clash of steel, little pockets of violence where those who could not escape from Baldoyle fought their last, but it was nothing of any real concern. He looked around. There was a small orchard within the monastery, kitchen gardens and workshops, and a scattering of round wattle-and-daub built houses. Magnus had sacked a dozen like it.

             
The big church was near the center of the compound, secluded by a wood fence with a cemetery to one side which Magnus guessed would be put to use again that very day. One of the Danes was scaling the thatch roof, sent up by Kjartan Swiftsword, Magnus was certain, to see that they were not taken by surprise. Some monasteries had lookout towers for that purpose, but Baldoyle did not. Magnus wondered if building one would become a new priority.

             
The church was cool and dark inside and Magnus found it hard to see until his eyes adjusted to the gloom. Two men in monk’s robes lay dead by the alter, sprawled out in pools of their own fresh-spilled blood. They had tried to keep the trappings of their faith from the heathen’s hands and had died in the effort.

             
“Not the richest monastery,” Kjartan Swiftsword complained. At his feet was a pile of silver and gold - chalices and incensers and candlesticks and a gold box like a little treasure chest. Magnus picked up the gold box and opened the lid. Inside, resting on a bed of rich red cloth, was a small bone, a human finger bone by the looks of it. Magnus frowned and wondered what sort of religion led men to enshrine small bones in gold boxes.

             
Behind him, one of Asbjorn’s men tore the jewel-studded cover off a thick book, tossing the useless pages aside. Three more men worked at prying the gold inlay off of the high alter. They were not gentle in their business.

             
“No matter. There’ll be more in the workshops,” Magnus said.

             
There was a shout from outside, a reply from somewhere. Magnus turned as one of his men came in through the big front door. There was some urgency in his step.

             
“Lord Magnus, Vifil Ketilsson is on the church roof. He says he sees riders, coming from the north.”

             
Magnus nodded. “I’ll come.”

             
He walked down the center aisle of the church, between the rough benches, and stepped blinking into the sunlight. The building he had sent Smid to burn was fully involved, the flaming thatch sending great plumes of black smoke up into the blue sky. He looked up at Vifil Ketilsson who stood with one foot on either side of the high peak of the church roof.

             
“Vifil, what do you see?”

             
“Riders, Lord Magnus. Fifty or more, coming from the north. Riding fast.”

             
Asbjorn was there and he made a disgusted sound. “That’s marvelous! Thanks to you we are now trapped in this stupid place!”

             
Magnus did not bother to reply. “Kjartan,” he said to his man who had stepped from the dark of the church, “place archers on the walls, near the gate, and form up the men inside in a shieldwall. But not all of them. I want five men left to finish gathering up anything here worth having.”

             
“Yes, Lord Magnus.”

             
Asbjorn was in full fluster. “Are you going to ask my opinion on the distribution of men? Do I have some say over how my own men are used?” Asbjorn considered it a rhetorical question. Magnus did not.

             
“No. You have no say,” Magnus said, and strode off for the gate.

             
The riders were easily visible by the time Magnus mounted the ladder leaning against the earth wall and found his footing among the thorn bushes on the top. Vifil was wrong about the numbers. Perhaps it had been wishful thinking. There were closer to a hundred men. Sun glinted on armor and spear points. Two bright banners floated aloft above the riders. Far behind them, two wagons bounced along, drawn by a dozen horses. It was an Irish war party, fully outfitted, and bound for Baldoyle.

             
Magnus looked around. A dozen archers were fanned out along the wall, and behind the gate most of the remaining men stood in a line, round shields overlapping, swords in hand, ready to counter an enemy who came though the gate as they themselves had done less than an hour before.

             
Magnus looked north again. The riders were lost from sight behind the column of black smoke roiling up from the monks’ home, but soon they were visible again. Their pace had not slackened.