Fin Gall (31 page)

             
Morrigan turned. Ornolf was seated on a sea chest on the other side of the afterdeck. He had a cup in his hand. He took a long drink and wiped his ample beard with his sleeve.

             
“Where is Thorgrim?”

             
Ornolf nodded toward the shore. “Gone off to have a look around. Make sure there are none watching us.”

             
Morrigan nodded. She was not happy to be left alone here, with Thorgrim off. But Ornolf seemed to be in one of his rare, subdued humors, judging from the fact that he had not yet suggested fornication, despite Morrigan’s having been awake for a full minute.

             
“Is this the beach? The beach where the crown is buried?”

             
Ornolf nodded. “We rounded the headland under oar, with the wind on our prow. Thorgrim insisted we keep the dragon’s head mounted.” He nodded toward the bow and the long tapered figurehead lashed to the stem. “Not everyone was happy with that. Most figure it’s only good spirits will be frightened off by such a thing. The evil ones don’t care.”

             
Morrigan did not care either, about such nonsense. “Have you dug it up yet?” she asked eagerly.

             
“No. No hurry, we are here for the night in any case. Better to make sure none of those sheep-biting Irish are ready to fall on us again, before we reveal its whereabouts.”

             
That made sense, so Morrigan did not argue, despite her great eagerness to get at the Crown of the Three Kingdoms, to hold that ancient and powerful thing in her hands. “When will Thorgrim be back?” she asked, but Ornolf only shrugged.

             
“Hard to say, with Thorgrim,” Ornolf said after another drink. “In any event, you don’t want to talk to him now, not with the sun going down.”

             
Morrigan looked out toward the beach. She had noticed that before - Thorgrim could be more kind than she would have thought a fin gall could be, but when the darkness came on, he seemed to change, his mood growing black along with the sky.

             
“Thorgrim is a singular man,” Morrigan said. “Why does the anger seem to come on him with the dark?”

             
“Huh!” Ornolf made a chuckling sound. “You don’t know?”

             
“No.”

             
“Thorgrim is a shape-shifter. That is why he is called Kveldulf. Night-Wolf. Do you know what a shape-shifter is?”

             
“No.”

             
“Of course not. You Christ followers don’t know anything. On some nights, when the darkness comes, Thorgrim changes. From what he is.” Ornolf seemed to falter in his explanation. “He turns to a wolf.”

             
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Morrigan said, the words no more than a whisper, and she made the sign of the cross.

             
“Sure, you would be right to use what charms you have. Thorgrim can be a dangerous man. After the change.”

             
Morrigan was silent for a long moment. She of course did not believe in such things as men turning into wolves. At least she had grave doubts. “I think that is nonsense,” she said at last, with as much conviction as she could muster.

             
“You do, do you? Well, how do you think he knew those Irish were there, following us? Or how he knew to bury the crown in the first place. This magic allows him to see things you and I can’t see.”

             
Morrigan thought on that for a bit. “Aren’t the men afraid of him?” she asked.

             
“They keep clear of him, when the night comes on. But shape-shifters like him don’t turn on their own. And they know things, as I said. See things. They can be a great benefit.”

             
Again Morrigan was silent, trying to understand all this. Finally she asked, “You have seen him? Yourself? Turn into a wolf?”

             
“Well,” Ornolf began but he was interrupted by the sound of feet padding up the gangplank. It had grown much darker, and they could just make out the shape of Thorgrim as he came up over the side of the ship. Morrigan made the sign of the cross again, though she could not help but notice that Thorgrim was not, in fact, a wolf.

             
He came aft, with the dark, scowling night-look on his face, and sat down heavily. There was mud on his shoes and a tear in his trousers. He looked at Ornolf and then at Morrigan, then looked at Morrigan again and squinted, as if trying to look into her mind, and Morrigan realized she was staring, as if she was staring at some freakish creature she had never seen before. She quickly looked down at the deck, then out at the beach, which was nearly lost in shadow.

             
“Well?” Ornolf asked.

             
“The Irish soldiers are not here. They are probably still digging up the other beach. There are some sheep herds a mile or so to the north. Nothing else.”

             
Ornolf grunted. “Good. Let us get this damned thing that’s given us so much trouble.”

             
He stood and Thorgrim stood as well. Thorgrim held out a hand for Morrigan, almost grudgingly, and she took it and he helped her to her feet. They grabbed up shovels and headed for the gangway. Amidships, Svein the Short lit a torch and followed behind.

             
They marched down the springing gangway and crunched across the gravely beach. Thorgrim led the way and he moved with none of the uncertainty he had displayed on the other beach while pretending to look for the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. The Vikings spread out on the beach or sitting around the small fire they had blazing began to fall in behind.

             
Ornolf had explained to them all what the crown was, after Morrigan had explained it to him and Thorgrim. Ornolf told the men how it had happened to be buried on the beach, and why they now had to retrieve it and bear it up to Tara.

             
It had surprised Morrigan to realize that Ornolf and Thorgrim were the only ones of the Northmen who knew of the crown’s existence. But none of the others had raised the least objection to a task that was unlikely to gain them any spoils. They were loyal to their leaders, these fin gall.

             
Thorgrim stopped two perches from the water’s edge and looked down. There was a flat rock at his feet, and scratched on it, faintly seen in the torchlight, was a single rune, a straight line with two shorter lines coming off at an angle to the right. No one would have seen it who was not looking for it.

             
“The rune means wealth,” Ornolf told Morrigan. “Very lucky. See, the stone is undisturbed.”

             
Thorgrim lifted the stone and tossed it away, revealing the recently turned earth underneath. He took his shovel and stuck the blade gently in the ground and began to toss the dirt aside.

             
Morrigan realized she was holding her breath. All her life she had heard of the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. Most people thought it was no more than a myth, but she knew differently. And since it had first come to light that the crown was ordered given to Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid, and had gone missing, there was little else she had thought about. And now it would be in her hands.

             
The Vikings stepped closer, peering down into the hole. Thorgrim wielded his shovel gently, digging deeper, and then he stopped. He handed the shovel to Snorri Half-troll and got down on his knees. He scooped some earth away with his hands and then pulled a canvas bundle from the hole, brown and dirt-covered.

             
Thorgrim stood and the Vikings took a step forward. Gently, Thorgrim unwrapped the canvas. Morrigan pressed her hands to her mouth. She felt a tingling down her back.

             
The canvas fell away from the crown and Thorgrim held it high for all to see. The light of the torch fell on the gold and the jewels and Morrigan sucked in her breath. It was magnificent. Like nothing she had ever seen, and she had been raised in the seat of the high king of Tara.

             
The gold was thick and substantial and glowed a deep, rich yellow. On each of the filigrees that ran around the upper edge of the crown there was mounted a precious jewel - a diamond, a ruby, a sapphire - and Morrigan could just see in that light the elaborate and delicate etchings that arched and swirled over the surface of the crown. It was unearthly. She had never seen its like. She had to have it in her hands.

             
But instead, Thorgrim handed the crown to Ornolf, who frowned and turned it over in his hands. “Not a bad piece of work, for your Irishman,” he pronounced and handed the crown to Snorri Half-troll, who also examined it and then passed it on. For the next minute or so the crown was passed from one heathen hand to the next, defiled by the touch of the barbarians, until Morrigan could stand it no more.

             
“Give me that!” she snapped as Egil Lamb passed it in front of her to Sigurd Sow. She snatched it from Egil’s hands, held it tight, ready to fight anyone who tried to take it back. The fin gall looked at her, surprised, but no one made any attempt to take it back.

             
“Very well,” Morrigan announced, emboldened by the fact that she was not challenged. “I will keep a care of this, until we reach Tara.”

             
“Why you?” someone asked from the crowd.

             
“Because I am the only one here who is not a damned thief and a murderer!” she snapped.

             
The Norsemen were silent for a moment, then Ornolf broke the silence with his great bear laugh. “She’s right, you know! By the hammer of Thor, the little vixen is right!”

             
And with that the others laughed as well and headed off, back to their fire, leaving Morrigan clutching the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. And now that it was in her hands, she did not think she could ever let it go.

Chapter Thirty-Three

A bad friend

is far away

though
his cottage is close.

                          
Hávamál

              I

t took Asbjorn the Fat four days to make his way back to Dubh-linn, and the only easy part was convincing Hallkel Half-wit to assist him. Indeed, it took only a fraction of Asbjorn’s persuasive powers before Hallkel was for all practical purposes Asbjorn’s thrall.

              Hallkel used the butt of his knife to knock the collar off Asbjorn’s neck. He gave up his cloak and his shoes so that Asbjorn, stripped nearly naked, would have some cover. He went ahead, scouting the way back toward Dubh-Linn, in case there were more ambushes, with Asbjorn following a dozen perches behind.

             
Asbjorn used Hallkel the way he would have used any thrall. He sent him for wood to build fires at night, and off to the small ringforts they passed to beg or steal food. Hallkel, terrified of being caught up it the retribution Magnus would suffer, as described by Asbjorn, made every effort to bring comfort to his master. But for all his efforts, there was little comfort to be had, running from their enemies, exposed to the rain and the cold night air, walking for miles every day. Asbjorn’s feet bled and his stomach was in a constant agony of hunger.

             
The two men assumed at first that Magnus and his Celtic allies would try and hunt them down. They hurried across open ground, moving from one hiding spot to the next, pausing to see if there was anyone on their trail before moving on. But as the first day passed, and then the second, with no pursuit, they gave that up. They walked boldly down the road, across open fields, their only goal to reach Dubh-Linn and the safety of the longphort.

             
By the evening of the third day, even Asbjorn, who had no head for directions, knew where he was, and where away sat Dubh-linn. It gave him an immense sense of relief. Anyone they might now encounter would be one of Orm’s men. He, Asbjorn Gudrodarson, would live.

             
Sometime in the black hours of the morning, with Hallkel Half-wit snoring loud and sleeping the dead sleep of the stupid, Asbjorn slipped the knife from his belt and slashed Hallkel’s throat. He did not need anyone at Dubh-linn who might contradict the story he would tell Orm. He did not need tales of his humiliation tossed around the mead hall for the amusement of the mob.

             
He was moving at first light, and by late afternoon he was stumbling across the ford north of the longphort and making his way up the plank road toward the palisade fort and Orm’s house. There at last was the familiar smell of smiths’ fires and rough cooking and drying fish. A gang of workmen were half-way through thatching the roof of the mead hall.

             
Orm’s new thrall opened the door, an old and nearly toothless woman, stooped and gray. Orm, apparently, had had his fill of pretty young Irish slaves.

             
“Asbjorn, by the gods, what has happened?” Orm asked, sounding more annoyed than alarmed or concerned as he looked Asbjorn up and down. Asbjorn was a sight and he knew it, clothed only in Hallkel’s cloak and shoes, his hair wet and sticking out in various ways, his legs and cloak muddy. He was splattered with Hallkel’s blood but he had not bothered to wash it off as it gave him the appearance of hard fighting.

             
“Lord Orm, you are betrayed!” Asbjorn announced, staggering dramatically and grabbing at a table for support.

             
“Woman, a chair and some mead for Asbjorn!” Orm ordered, though his tone was still that of one more inconvenienced than concerned. Asbjorn sat, took the mead and drank. He was ready to eat, eat copiously, but he knew that would have to wait.

             
“Very well,” Orm said with a sigh, “I take it it’s Magnus who has betrayed me?”

             
“His treachery, Lord, is worse than I could have imagined,” Asbjorn said, and launched into his tale of Magnus’s alliance with the Irish king Cormac Ua Ruairc and their mutual search for the Crown of the Three Kingdoms. He told Orm of Magnus’s plan to use his alliance with the Irish to take Dubh-linn for himself. That was not something that Asbjorn knew with any certainly, only what he guessed at, but he related it to Orm as known fact.

             
He went on to describe his heroic escape, killing his guard with his bare hands, stealing his weapons and fighting the sentries to flee into the night. But by that point he could see he was losing Orm’s interest, and straining his credulity, so he wrapped it up quickly.

             
Orm sat silent for a moment, and then with a lighting move flung his mead cup against the wall, shattering it and making a wet spot on the daub. “May Thor rip his lungs out!” Orm shouted. “And if he does not, I swear I will!”

             
Orm stood and paced, back and forth, saying nothing, and Asbjorn had the sense to keep his mouth shut. Finally Orm stopped. “I have it on good word now,” Orm said, “that the Norwegian whore’s son Olaf the White is assembling a fleet to take Dubh-linn back. For all I know they have sailed already. As if that is not bother enough, now I have this to contend with!”

             
“My Lord, let me take care of this trouble for you. A swift longship, a hundred men or so, is all it will take. The Norwegians are under oar, we can overhaul them, and where they are, the Irish and Magnus will be.”

             
“You said this Cormac Ua Ruairc had a hundred men, and another forty Vikings with him.”

             
“My men will not fight against Danes,” Asbjorn assured him, “and the Irish have only Irish weapons and cannot stand up against us for long. One hundred Danes and we can finish this, and I’ll bring Magnus back in chains.”

             
Actually, he would bring Magnus back dead, so that Magnus would never again have Orm’s ear, but that was an issue for later.

             
For a long moment Orm sat there, staring into the fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the room. Asbjorn could see he was wavering.

             
“Lord, this is not the time for you to leave Dubh-linn, not with so great a threat on the horizon.”

             
Orm looked up sharp. “What do you know of it?” he snapped.

             
“Nothing, Lord! Nothing beyond what you have told me!” Asbjorn protested, but he knew at that moment he had ruined his chance to take Magnus alone. Orm was too paranoid now for that.

             
“I will go,” Orm said and he stood at last. “I will get a crew together for my longship and I will hunt that traitor down, and the Norwegian Ornolf as well, and by the gods I will make them all curse their mothers for bearing them.”

             
“Yes, Lord Orm, it is what they deserve, no more. And would it please you if I was to remain in Dubh-linn, and see to your affairs here?”

             
“No, it would not please me!” Orm snapped, so quick and loud it made Asbjorn cringe. He kept his mouth shut. Orm was seeing traitors everywhere now, and Asbjorn knew he had to take care that Orm did not see one in him.

* * *

              Through all the dark hours of the night they made their way down the River Boyne, and Brigit, for all the time she remained awake, stared into the dark water and cursed herself for an idiot.

             
What could I have been thinking?
She lashed herself for her stupidity.
I help this animal, and he repays my kindness by raping me!

             
She stared at the water bubbling and tumbling around the boat.

             
Very well, he didn’t rape me...

             
Angry as she was, she could not lie to herself that way, to that degree. And she felt all the more foolish for having given herself to him willingly.

             
They could hear pursuit at first along the bank. The riders were shouting to one another. Brigit could make out the voice of Brian Finnliath, which pleased her, because she thought Harald had killed him. Another voice she thought might have been Flann mac Conaing, but it was hard to hear over the yapping dogs.

             
The men from Tara followed as well as they could, trying to keep up with the boat. But the boat was light, like a leaf on a stream, and the current was fast and it swept them away down stream, faster than riders or dogs could hope to follow in the failing light.

             
There was a single sweep lying across the thwarts. Harald lifted it up and fitted it into the thole pins on the transom and began to scull the boat down river, moving the sweep back and forth with an expert hand. The barking of the dogs faded and soon it was lost in the sound of the river and the light falling rain.

             
Brigit would have thrown herself over the side to escape, but that was as much as suicide because she could not swim. She wondered if it would be a mortal sin, since her intention would not be to kill herself, even if that was the likely outcome. Surely not a mortal sin, for then would it not be a mortal sin to go into combat against great odds?

             
She dismissed the whole line of reasoning. She was not ready to give up her life yet, not when she still had the strength and will to escape the fin gall.

             
Her thoughts wandered to the piece of meat lying back toward the stern where she had flung it at Harald’s head. She was very hungry, but did not want to get any closer to Harald, lest she reinforce whatever insane notion he had concoted. She tore a piece of bread from the loaf and stuck it in her mouth. It took quite a bit of chewing to get it down, and by the second piece her jaw ached so she gave it up.

             
For some time she just stared out into the dark and down at the water and cursed herself and tried to think how she might avoid being carried back to Norway as the unwitting bride of some lunatic young Viking. She thought about hitting Harald over the head with something, but there was nothing sufficiently big and heavy in the boat that she might use. Nor did she think she was strong enough to deliver a blow that would do any damage to his thick head.

             
She fell asleep at some point in the night, sleeping fitfully across her thwart.

             
When she woke it seemed oddly dark - not nighttime dark, but something different. She looked up. Harald had lashed the monk’s robe to the gunnels to form a shelter over her and keep the steady drizzle off her as she slept. She found that very annoying.

             
She sat up, ducked under the makeshift shelter. It was full daylight, a milky white dawn with a steady drizzle that gave a gray cast to the bright green country along the riverbanks. Harald was still at his place in the stern, slowly and steadily sculling the boat down stream. Brigit wondered if he had been at it all night. He seemed as fresh as if he had just hopped out of a feather bed. She found that even more annoying.

             
Harald looked at her and smiled his toothy smile and that was the most annoying of all. She looked around the boat for something to heave at his big, dumb head. There were nets and ropes of various size and some smaller tools, but nothing that would be really satisfying to throw.