Fin Gall (29 page)

             
“You there,” he pointed to one of his men, “take up that shovel. Dig, right there.”

             
The man nodded and grabbed the shovel, jamming the blade into the gravel.

             
“Careful, you idiot!” Cormac shouted. The crown was probably not buried deep. He did not care to have that ancient symbol of Celtic power sliced in two by some fool with a shovel.

             
The soldier curbed his enthusiasm, digging carefully, scraping layer after layer of pebbles and sand away. The men holding the torches crowded close, to let the light fall on the hole, and the rest crowded up to them, eager to catch the first glimpse of the near-mythical Crown of the Three Kingdoms.

             
As the hole grew wider and deeper, Cormac grew more annoyed. “You men with the torches, step back. The rest of you fools, stand away. Niall, set a guard around the beach. We are just asking to be attacked here, with every eye staring into a hole in the ground!”

             
Niall Cuarán shuffled the men away, gave out orders for watchers to be stationed at all the approaches to the beach. Cormac stared with irritation at the growing hole in the beach, shuffled with irritation as Niall Cuarán, rather than remaining with the men, came back to watch the digging.

             
“This is absurd,” Cormac said after twenty minutes of careful excavation. He pointed to the other discarded shovels. “Get some more men digging here.”

             
Minutes later there were five men with shovels, tearing at the beach, and Cormac’s mood was not improved by realizing that the shovels the fin gall had left were his, taken from his baggage wagon that morning.

             
The hole grew deeper and deeper, and when finally they dug so deep that the bottom of the hole was continually filling with seawater, they began to dig outward, expanding the area of the search.

             
As the men with the shovels began to flag, more men were brought in to replace them, and eventually men to replace those. All though the dark hours they dug. When the torches began to sputter out, men were sent to collect brush and wood and a fire was built at the edge of the hole so that the diggers could see, so the firelight would illuminate that first glimpse of gold, glinting out from the mud. All night long men fed the fire, while others flung dirt from the hole.

             
Dawn came grudgingly through the thick overcast. Cormac stirred, realized that he had fallen asleep, though he could not even recall sitting. He stood quickly.

             
The men were still digging, but with little enthusiasm. The hole was twenty feet wide in any direction, and six feet deep, down to where the seawater flooded in. The horizon was empty, the fin gall were long gone. There was no crown.

Chapter Thirty-One

The warrior’s revenge

is repaid to the king,

wolf
and eagle stalk

over
the king’s sons.

                          
Egil’s Saga

              F

lann mac Conaing made his weary way from the guards’ barracks to the main house. His wet cloak weighed him down, but not half as much as the anticipation of the coming interview.

              Máel Sechnaill was at breakfast in the outer room of his sleeping chamber. The guard outside the door announced Flann, and Máel beckoned him in.

             
“It’s the fin gall, Lord Máel, the young one,” Flann made his halting start.

             
“Humph,” Máel Sechnaill said, stuffing a hunk of coarse bread into his mouth. He chewed, swallowed. Flann waited. Máel Sechnaill would surely choke to death if he was given the news with his mouth full.

             
“What of him?” Máel asked. “Did he die from the questioning?”

             
“No, Lord. Not that one. The young one, the one called Harald.” Flann did not remind Máel Sechnaill that Harald was the important one, the grandson of Ornolf who had the crown. He thought it best if Máel did not remember this.

             
“Yes, yes,” Máel said with a wave of his hand. “My daughter’s little pet. What of him?”

             
“Ah...well...it seems he has escaped...”

             
Máel looked up sharp at that. “Escaped? How?”

             
“We’re trying to learn that, my Lord.”

             
“No matter. We’ll hunt him down.” Máel Sechnaill stood, and now he had an eager look on his face. “Have some sport out of him.”

             
“There is one other thing, my Lord...” Flann felt his guts turning into some viscous substance. “It seems he stole your daughter, Lord. He stole Brigit.”

             
Máel Sechnaill froze. He stood absolutely still. His eyes burned into Flann’s. Even after decades of combat, including three near fatal wounds, it was the longest, most frightening thirty seconds of Flann’s life.

             
“He...stole her?”

             
“Yes, Lord.” It was a lie, of course, a calculated lie. The guard was clear on the point - the fin gall was not stealing Brigit, Brigit was helping him escape. But Flann could not tell Máel Sechnaill that. It was too much. “Sir, he...”, Flann continued and he was cut short.

             
“Why are you standing here, you God forsaken idiot? Why are you not hunting him down?”

             
“My Lord, I have turned out the guards, with dogs. They are on the trail now, and I...”

             
“Damn the guards! Damn them, you pathetic fool! Rouse the rí túaithe, have them get their men to arms! Immediately! I want every man-of-war riding out of Tara in twenty minutes. We will come down on this fin gall son of a bitch like the wrath of God!”

             
“Yes, Lord!” Flann said, turned to rush off and get the army camped at Tara started. Máel stopped him.

             
“Flann mac Conaing,” he said, and Flann stopped and turned back. He did not like the tone in his king’s voice.

             
“Yes, Lord?”

             
“You brought this wolf into my house. You and your sister, and your damned clever notions. I have not forgotten.”

             
Flann waited for Máel Sechnaill to say more, but he did not. He did not have to.

             
“Yes, my Lord.” Flann hurried out the door, past the other sleeping chambers to the great hall where the rí túaithe who were not too drunk or too hung over would be having their breakfast. He burst through the door, knocking a slave girl and her tankards of ale to the floor.

             
“To arms! To arms! The fin gall has escaped and stolen the princess Brigit!”

             
For a moment no one moved or spoke. They looked at Flann, stunned into silence as Máel Sechnaill had been. Flann could practically hear the reckonings going on in their thick heads. The man who rescued Brigit from the fin gall would certainly win her esteem, and Máel Sechnaill’s as well.

             
The rí túaithe broke like surf on the rocks, leaping from their seats, vaulting over benches, calling for pages, armor, horses, for their men to turn to, to take up arms. Flann had never seen them move so fast, not even when the dinner bell was rung.

             
It was not quite the twenty minutes that Máel Sechnaill had ordered, but near enough, when all of the men-at-arms at Tara were mounted up - those who had horses - or turned out armed for the march. Of the three hundred who had gathered for the attack on Leinster, nearly two hundred were left. Most of the levy had drifted away, back to their farms, but the professional soldiers and the rí túaithe had little reason to leave, when life was so bountiful and free at Tara.

             
And now they were moving out. And the seriousness of their mission did not quell their excitement, pleasure, and their hope that it would end in great personal advancement and gain.

             
Máel Sechnaill led the army. He wore the armor that had been put away when the attack on Niall Caille, rí ruirech of Leinster, had been postponed. Flann rode beside him, wearing helmet, mail and tunic, a cloak pulled over those. He was soaked through and miserable, though to be sure he would have been miserable in any weather.

             
Brian Finnliath came pounding up on his horse, reined to a stop. Over his mail shirt was his trademark tunic, a green garment with a bold white and red cross on the front. “I have men with dogs off in every direction, Lord,” he reported. He was breathing hard and he had a desperate look on his face. Brian Finnliath loved Brigit like she was his own daughter. Indeed, he was often more a father to her than Máel Sechnaill. “But forgive me, Lord, it is hard going, tracking in this rain, that washes signs away.”

             
Máel Sechnaill said nothing, and no one dared say anything more to him. He scanned the horizon. From his mount, on the high hill of Tara, he could see for miles, until the green countryside was lost in the rain and mist. Water dripped from the edge of his helmet like rain running off the eaves of a roof, but he seemed not to notice. He squinted into the rain, his pale blue eyes all but lost in folds of skin.

             
Flann shifted in his saddle. He was starting to think he should say something when Máel Sechnaill finally spoke. “He will go to the water,” Máel said. “He is a Norseman and the Norsemen are drawn to the water. Master of the Guards!”

             
“Sir!” Brian Finnliath tried to steady his horse.

             
“Get your men and dogs, get them on the north road. Fan them out, cover as much land as you can. We will split up, follow behind. But as sure as my hope of heaven, they are making for the River Boyne.”

              At first, Harald did not hear the dogs. He came to in that warm, soft place where he and Brigit had so enjoyed each other. Still half asleep, he was aware of being wrapped in a wonderful sensuous feeling before he had any real idea of where he was.

             
He felt the girl beside him, and that was the first memory to come back, and he found himself instantly aroused and ready to have her again. Indeed, that idea seemed to wipe out everything else, the desire so strong that no other rational thought could penetrate.

             
He rolled over and gently pushed on Brigit’s shoulder and moved his body over hers. She had shown him a lot of fancy things before, things he had known nothing about, and while it was all undeniably good, now he just wished to get right to the central business.

             
Brigit was still asleep but she made a little cooing sound that drove Harald wild and he thought he might explode right then. But for all that, as he became more awake, he became more aware of some ill-defined warning vying for attention with his lust.

             
He ran his lips along the lovely line of her neck, moved his hand over her breast, and at that instant the voice in the back of his head broke through, loud enough to be heard.

             
Dogs!

             
Harald whirled around and sat up and stared into the dark. He felt Brigit stir, put her arm around his waist, and then push herself up on her elbow. He felt her eyes on him, but his focus now was beyond the wattle walls of their cottage.

             
Dogs...

             
Not a great hunting pack, but more than one, that was certain. A mile away? Perhaps. Maybe closer.

             
Harald flung the blankets off and leapt to his feet, searching out his clothes in the dim light. He found his trousers lying in a heap where he had kicked them off. He snatched them up and danced around the room, pulling them over his legs.

             
Brigit was looking at him now, wide-eyed. He pointed to his ears and pointed to the wall and nodded and she nodded as well. He picked up her dress and tossed it to her and made a gesture of hurry, which he hoped she understood.

             
He grabbed his tunic and slipped it over his head. It was damp and cold and uncomfortable. He had lost the chance to dry it over the peat fire, but he had been in no position to think of such things when he had flung it to the floor.

             
He moved across the cottage, snatched up a spear, and opened the door, just a crack. The yard was lit in a dim, blueish light and a heavy mist was falling. Harald was disoriented, there was a dream quality to everything. What time of day was it? Morning? No. It had been morning when they arrived at the cottage. They had slept through the afternoon. Evening, then.

             
He felt better now that he knew what time it was, but the dogs were getting closer, much closer. He turned to Brigit. “Hurry!” he urged, and was rewarded with a glance at her naked body as she pulled the dress down over her head.

             
Harald picked up the monk’s robe, the two knives and the second spear. Brigit was flinging her cape around her shoulders. There was a loaf of bread and some meat on the table by the fire. He pointed to those and Brigit nodded and picked them up.

             
Harald headed for the door, gesturing to Brigit as he walked, and she followed, a hunted and wary look on her face. They stepped out into the cool, wet evening. The dogs were just over the far rise, judging from the sound. At least Harald did not have to think about how they would escape. He already knew that, knew it the second he had laid eyes on the cottage.

             
Half running, Harald led the way around the cottage, past the white, bloated bodies of the three bandits. He tossed the monk’s robe and the spears into the boat pulled up on the shore. It was a curious looking thing, a twenty-foot long wooden frame covered in sewn hide, unlike anything seen in the Norse countries. But still it was a boat, and as such it gave Harald a measure of optimism and hope.