Fin Gall (4 page)

Chapter Five

By the Prince’s Truth fair weather comes in each fitting season...

                                                                    Testament of Murand

                                                           
Ancient Irish Morality Tale

              H

unched against the cold, his cloak pulled up over his helmet and his mail shirt, Máel Sechnaill mac Ruanaid, of the clan Uí Néill
, stood in the dark in the down-pouring rain. Round about him were his bodyguards, that small, elite band of fighting men, the core of the kingdom’s professional soldiers. Behind the bodyguard were men of the houseguard. They were, in all, twenty men-at-arms.

             
Máel Sechnaill was the rí ruirech, the high king of Tara, heart of the Irish kingdom of Brega, and could summon an army of hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand, if he needed them. But twenty was enough for the night’s business.

             
The soldiers shuffled a bit, uncomfortable in the weather, but they made no sound that would carry over the beating rain.

             
The men of the bodyguard were half Máel Sechnaill’s age, and Máel was careful to show no weakness around them. If the others began to flag on a march, Máel Sechnaill increased his pace. If a man was sleepy on watch, Máel Sechnaill stood watch with him. When an Irish king appeared weak, or crippled by age, then the aspirants to his throne, or the rulers of neighboring kingdoms, would be on him like a pack of wolves.

             
Máel heard movement through the brush ahead. The bodyguard tensed, spears came up to the ready, and the front guardsmen stepped up on either side of their king, as was their proper position. A voice called out, the messenger still unseen in the dark and rain.

             
“Flann mac Conaing, come back, my Lord.”

             
“Come,” one of the guardsmen replied. Flann mac Conaing, chief councilor and head of the bodyguard, resolved out of the dark, a black shape carrying sword and shield. He, too, wore mail, a luxury limited to the king and the elite ranks of his people. Two men of the bodyguard followed behind Flann.

             
“My Lord,” Flann said with a quick bow. “They are laying in wait still, but I see signs they are preparing to leave. Ten men in all.”

             
Máel Sechnaill nodded. “How are they armed?”

             
“Swords, axes, spears and shields. Two have mail.”

             
“Very well.” Máel turned to the bodyguard. “They are abandoning their watch, but they may give us answers still. We follow Flann mac Conaing. Be quick. They’re better armed than us. Let the ones wearing mail live.”

             
Máel Sechnaill drew his sword - like the mail, it was the province of the elite - and headed after Flann. It had been a year or more since he had carried his sword into combat. It was many years since he had fought in a nameless little skirmish such as this, but this fight was different. The men they were hunting did not belong to some pathetic band of thieves, out stealing cattle. They were a threat to Tara, and the kingdom of Brega itself, and Máel Sechnaill could afford no failure.

             
The Irishmen moved silent though the dark, the mud sucking at their soft leather shoes. Rain dripped from the edge of Máel’s helmet and he blinked and wiped his face. To his left, Máel could see the high ground on which ran the road from the kingdom of Leinster, south of the River Liffey, to Tara. It was along that road that any delegation from Leinster would have to travel.

             
Flann mac Conaing held up his arm, crouched low, headed off to his right, gesturing for the other guardsmen to go to the left. Máel Sechnaill followed behind the guardsmen, crouching like Flann, his joints protesting the damp and the awkward position. But for all the discomfort, he reveled in the stealth of the attack. This is what they could do, the Irish, move unseen through the dark. Their enemies were bears, powerful and blundering, but they were foxes, swift and cunning.

             
They slipped over the road, nearly crawling, the mud splattering in their faces, half tumbled down the bank on the other side. A thicket of coarse brush grew along the road, good coverage, which is why the enemy had chosen that spot.

             
The guardsmen led the way, and a moment later Máel Sechnaill could see them, the watchers crouched by the road forty feet away, their eyes looking south. Máel stepped up. He would take the lead now. With gestures he spread the guardsmen out until they formed a line, spears held at waist height. “Stand ready,” he said, softly.

             
Máel turned and faced the enemy, adjusted the grip on his sword. He could feel his heart pounding, the blood coursing through him. The aches and soreness were gone - he was no longer a fifty-year-old king, but a young prince, vital and strong, fearless, bold.

             
He raised the sword, took a step forward and another and the bodyguard moved in unison with him. He was slowed by the mud, but not too much. He felt a battle cry build in his throat. He was twenty feet from the enemy before they realized something was amiss. Dark shapes turned to meet them, revealing white faces - in the muted light Máel could see expressions of shock and surprise. The battle cry flew from his mouth, a long, keening wail, and at his side the bodyguard shouted as well.

             
The Irish rolled into the enemy with a momentum that could not be checked. To his left Máel saw one of the watchers stand, a huge man with ax raised, shouting in his Norse tongue, but before he could even swing the ax he was skewered on the end of an Irish spear.

             
Another loomed in front of him. Máel Sechnaill had a glimpse of a thick yellow beard, helmet, mail. He parried a sword thrust, lunged, felt the tip of his sword scrape on links of iron.

             
The Viking knocked Máel’s sword aside with his shield, slashed at his attacker and Máel deflected the blow with his own shield. Among all the Irish, Máel was the only one whose weapons were a match for the Vikings, but that did not matter because the Irish had surprise and numbers on their side.

             
Máel slashed at the Viking and their swords met with a ringing sound, a jarring impact that was painful. Máel saw another of his men charging, spear level at the Viking’s throat and he stepped in, pushed his own man aside.

             
“Alive! I want this one alive!” the Irish king shouted.

             
Then more of the bodyguard were there, behind the Viking and on either side of him, spears level. The Viking looked around, his face was a mask of rage, and he roared out, but if they were words in his Northern tongue or just noise Máel Sechnaill could not tell.

             
The Viking swung his sword in a great arc and one of the bodyguard pounced, grabbed the mail-clad arm, pinning it back. Another grabbed the shield, and for all his rage and struggle the Viking was pulled down, shouting and thrashing, the bodyguard barely in control.

             
Máel Sechnaill stepped up, stood above the struggling men. He reached out with the tip of his sword and scribed a long flesh wound across the Viking’s throat, just deep enough to be painful, and that seemed to have a calming effect on the man. He ceased struggling, looked up at Máel Sechnaill, eyes wide, mouth open. He spit out some words, but to the Irish king they were babble.

             
Flann mac Conaing appeared on the road above, his mail shirt making a metallic rustling as he moved. He climbed and slid down the embankment to Máel Sechnaill’s side.

             
“We had one killed, two wounded, slightly, my lord,” Flann reported. “The Norsemen are all killed. Forgive me, the one wearing mail was killed by accident.”

             
“No matter,” Máel said. “We have this one.” He pointed at the now motionless Viking sprawled at his feet. The men who had brought him down were now standing on either side of him, their feet pinning his arms and legs.

             
“Remove his helmet,” Máel ordered, and they did, but still Máel saw only defiance in the man’s eyes. For a moment the Irish king was silent, staring into that foreign face. They were a plague on his land, these fin gall, these white strangers. He turned to Flann. “Did you find anything?”

             
“No, my lord. Some food, weapons, nothing more.”

             
Máel nodded. “Ask him where he is from.”

             
Flann, who was well-traveled and had spent enough time in the Norse countries to have a decent command of the language, turned and spoke to the man on the ground. For a moment the man just looked at him, his expression pure hatred. Then he spat out a single word.

             
“He says ‘Jelling’, my lord, which is in the Danish country.”

             
Máel stepped up and smacked the side of the man’s head with the flat of his sword, hard enough to make the man grunt with pain. “Ask him again.”

             
Again the Viking answered with a single word. “Dubh-linn.”

             
“Ask him how he knew that a delegation from Leinster would pass by this way.”

             
Flann translated the words. “He says they knew nothing of any delegation. They were looking for travelers to rob.”

             
That was a lie and not a terribly convincing one. When the Norsemen raided the Irish countryside they did it in large bands, on horseback. They sacked monasteries and kings’ halls. They did not lie in wait in the brush by a roadside, where they might be lucky to capture half a dozen cows driven to market.

             
Máel Sechnaill held his sword straight out, the blunt tip an inch from the Norseman’s eye. The prisoner jerked and twisted his head, but he could not move far, and always the tip of the sword was there.

             
“Tell him he loses his left eye first, then the right.”

             
Flann translated, and the Viking seemed to understand that he had pushed the king’s patience to its limits. The words poured out.

             
“He say that he was ordered by Orm, who is king of Dubh-linn,” Flann said when the Viking had stopped at last. “They were to lie in wait until a group of men passed, not peasants, but men from a royal court. They were to kill them all and take what they carried.”

             
“And what was it they carried?” Máel asked.

             
The Norseman gave a single word.

             
“A crown,” Flann said.

             
For a long moment Máel Sechnaill stared at the Viking, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The Crown of the Three Kingdoms... How did this foreign whore’s son know about it? Does he know what it means?

             
“Ask him how he knows about the crown. Why he thought it would be passing this way?”

             
Flann asked, and translated the answer, which was that the man did not know any of that, that he was doing as he had been told by his king.