Fin Gall (9 page)

Chapter Eleven

The unwise man

is awake all night,

worries
over and again.

                    
Hávamál

              T

he spear thrust did not kill Harald Thorgrimsson. He was born of the stock of Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless and it would take more than one battle wound to bring him down. But soon after, the fever set in, the silent murderer in the night. It frightened Thorgrim far more than the gaping, bleeding wound to Harald’s shoulder. The wound was a physical rent to the body, it was what it was. But the fever was brought by spirits he could not see, and did not
know how to fight.

             
They were held in a big room inside the stockade fort, a room used as some sort of garrison eating hall, Thorgrim guessed, judging by its size and by the heavy table that ran most of its length. No sooner had they been captured on board
Red Dragon
than they were dragged to that place, Harald shrieking with pain as they hauled him by his arms, Thorgrim, all but unconscious, his head spinning, trying to fight back, his son’s screams worse than knife thrusts.

             
Magnus’s soldiers had tossed them into the big room. The rest of the
Red Dragon
men were already there.

             
Of the sixty-three men who had sailed with Ornolf the Restless into Dubh-Linn, fifty-one remained. Two had managed to drink themselves to death on Magnus’s free mead. Nine who had woken, as Thorgrim had, with spear points to their throats, had come up fighting. Between them they killed twelve of Magnus’s men dead before they were hacked down. Four more had been tossed wounded into the prison.

             
The eating hall was not an ideal cell, since it had several windows as well as the door, but it was most likely the only single room big enough to hold them all.

             
For three days they festered in prison. Their circumstances were grim. The food was putrid and scarce. The wounded could do no more than suffer with what little care their fellows were able to provide. Two of them teetered at the gates of Valhalla, with no hope of a proper send off.

             
Ornolf the Restless spent most of the time raging, but with nothing fermented to drink his raging took on a decidedly morose and self-pitying tone, even if it lost nothing in volume. What their fate would be, they did not know. No one came to the prison, save for the thrall who brought their food.

             
But for all that, Thorgrim Ulfsson kept the men in good cheer. That was part of his genius, when the sun was up and the spirit of the wolf was not upon him.

             
On their fourth day as prisoners, Thorgrim climbed up onto the table. It was part of their daily routine now.

             
“I have a verse,” he shouted, “about our great Battle of the Mead Hall.” That was what, with grim irony, they had come to call the drunken night on which they had been betrayed.

             
“Let’s hear it, Thorgrim!” shouted Snorri Half-Troll, and the others agreed. Nothing, Thorgrim understood, held the men together so well as a sense of shared history, and nothing gave them that sense better than verse, even ironic verse. It was as much a part of the Norsemen as fighting and farming.

             
Thorgrim spoke in the loud, clear voice of the skald.

             
              Bold Ornolf stood,

             
              more like god than man.

             
              And any drinking horn

             
              or woman come to hand

             
              so he boldly took them on

             
              until with heavy brow

             
              and penis limp

             
              he fell, as ever warrior in battle did.             

              The men were smiling now, their misery for the moment forgotten. They shouted approval. Thorgrim let them yell. It was a release for them, and it gave him a chance to think of what he would say next. Thorgrim generally made his verse up on the spot.

                            And round about him came

             
              the eaters of the dead

             
              and feasted they on Ornolf’s flesh

             
              and blood, thick with mead which

             
              still through his body ran

             
              until those very Valkyries

             
              fell drunk...

              For ten more minutes Thorgrim extemporized his heroic verse until all the men were smiling and even Ornolf seemed somewhat amused. That would bolster them for a while. Their spirits were like a sinking ship, and Thorgrim held the only bucket. He bailed as much as he could, but he did not know how long he could hold out.

             
He climbed down from the table. Harald and the other wounded men were arranged in a far corner, made as comfortable as possible on cloaks and tunics offered up by the others. Thorgrim stopped by each man, asked how they were doing, offered some words of encouragement. Giant-Bjorn, a spear wound deep in his stomach, another in his chest, was beyond talking. Thorgrim put a hand on his pale skin, thinking he had finally passed on, but his flesh was warm still. Giant-Bjorn still hung on to life with a stubbornness that had always been his.

             
Thorgrim came at last to Harald, his face flushed red and beaded with sweat, he breathing raspy. Thorgrim’s stomach twisted up and he clenched his teeth to keep his face from showing what his heart felt. His boy, his beloved boy.

             
Thorgrim tried to show no preference for Harald. He tried to treat all the men, all the wounded, the same. It was how Harald wanted it, nor was it right for a man to show favoritism to his son, when his son was one among many warriors.

             
There was another reason as well. Thorgrim did not want their captors, Magnus or Orm, to know that Harald was his son and Ornolf’s grandson. They would use Harald to get to the leaders. Torture him, kill him in front of Thorgrim and Ornolf, whatever it took. And if they did that, Thorgrim genuinely did not know what would happen. It would not be good, in any event.

             
He knelt beside Harald, as he had with the others.

             
“How are you, boy?”

             
Harald opened his eyes. “I’m fine...” Thorgrim had warned him not to say “father” as long as they were prisoners.

             
Thorgrim nodded. The boy was not fine. The fever was eating him alive. Thorgrim picked up one of the charms he had arranged around the boy’s bed, a small silver hammer of Thor, and rubbed it between his fingers. It was not helping, nor were his prayers to Odin or Thor. He would have made a sacrifice to the gods if there was anything in the prison to sacrifice. Thorgrim had considered offering himself up to the gods, finding something with which to cut his own throat, but the thought of leaving Harald and the others to Ornolf’s leadership alone dissuaded him.

             
I know a hundred ways to kill a man, but nothing of saving one
, Thorgrim goaded himself.

             
Something had to be done or Harald would die. Thorgrim rested his hand gently on Harald’s arm. “You rest, boy. Sleep, that’s the best medicine.” Thorgrim did not know if that was true, but it was the only medicine he knew.

             
When Harald had closed his eyes and his breathing became more regular, Thorgrim unlaced his goatskin shoe and pulled it off. Hidden in pockets on the inside were six gold coins. He fished one out and pulled his shoe on again.

             
The eating hall was ringed with guards since the room itself was none too secure. Thorgrim stepped up to one of the windows, looked right and left. What he saw was not encouraging. Hard, pitiless men with swords, spears and shields.

             
He moved on to the next window and there he saw a likely candidate, a man whose face did not carry that edge of cruelty.

             
“Hey, there!” Thorgrim said in a loud whisper. “Hey!”

             
The guard turned and scowled, but there was less malice in the expression than the man had intended. “What?”

             
“Come here.”

             
The guard glanced around. None of the others seemed to care. It was not the first time the prisoners had spoken to the guards, so the man approached.

             
“I have wounded men in here who have not been cared for,” Thorgrim began. “I’m afraid for their lives.”

             
The guard could not help but smile at that. “You should be afraid for all your lives, all of you Norwegian pirates.”

             
“No doubt. But I still have to do what I can. Is there anyone in the longphort skilled with medicine?”

             
The guard frowned. Thorgrim held up the gold coin. The guard’s eyes went a little wide, though he tried to control himself.

             
“This is all I have,” Thorgrim said. “Bring someone who can help my men, and it’s yours.”

             
The guard nodded slowly. “There is someone,” he said.

             
They came for the leaders before anyone came to help Harald. Later that day the door opened and Thorgrim looked up, hoping to see his guard leading an old crone, her basket of healing herbs on her arm. But instead he saw armed men barging in the door, with spears held ready, and they looked as if healing was the last thing they had in mind.

             
Thorgrim stood as the guards entered. Behind them came a big man, with the presence of command, and Thorgrim guessed this was the Dane, Orm, whom Magnus had mentioned. And behind him stood Magnus himself, and beside Magnus, the fat man whose finger Thorgrim had nearly broken.

             
“Forgive me,” Orm said, arms spread in a magnanimous gesture, “I hope I am not interrupting anything important.”

             
Thorgrim spit on the floor. “More important than talking to the likes of you.” He looked past Orm, past the others, hoping to see some avenue of escape. But there were enough armed men beyond the door to make it impossible.