Odinn's Child (31 page)

'
N
ONE OF US
can escape the Norns' decision,' said Brodir heavily. He was fastening the buckles and straps of his mail shirt. 'We can only delay the hour and even then we need the help of the Gods.' Brodir's fingers were shaking as he did up the straps, and I thought to myself that he was not as trusting as Thrand. Brodir's mail shirt was famous. Like Thrand's helmet, it was reputed to have supernatural qualities. It was said that no sword or javelin could penetrate its links, rendering its wearer invulnerable. Yet I judged that Brodir did not believe in the magic qualities of his armour but wore it only as a talisman to bring good luck. Or perhaps there were few mail shirts large enough to fit the leader from Man.

Brodir's contingent, nearly seven hundred men, was getting ready for battle. Our position was on the extreme right of Sigtryggr's grand alliance of Dublin Ostmen, Sigurd's Orkneymen, King Mael Morda's Leinstermen and sundry Irish rebels who had taken this chance to challenge the domination of the Irish High King. Behind us, an arrow-shot away, was the landing beach of sand and shingle onto which the keels of our ships had slithered at first light that morning.

The plan had been to catch Brian Boruma off guard. For the past ten days the allies had been gathering in Dublin in response to King Sigtryggr's request that they arrive before the great Christian festival at the end of March. I thought this was an odd calendar to set for such staunch Old Believers as Sigurd the Stout and Brodir, but at the long, long war council in the king's hall which preceded our deployment Sigtryggr had explained there was a reason for this unusual deadline, a reason based on intelligence which Gormlaith had supplied. While married to Brian Boruma, she had detected that her ex-husband was becoming more and more obsessed with his religion as he grew older. Apparently the Irish High King had vowed to her that he would no longer fight on the high and holy days of the Christ calendar. It was blasphemy, he had said, to do battle on such sacred occasions and such days were ill-fated. When Sigtryggr mentioned this, some of the Norse captains exchanged nervous glances. Sigtryggr had come closer to the mark than he knew. Rumours of Brodir's raven dream had spread among the Norse and there were many who thought we had no business pursuing our campaign after such an ill-starred start. Brodir had not revealed the content of our visions on the beach at Man, nor had I — the source had been Ospak. From Man he had promptly sailed to Ireland and marched to Brian Boruma's camp to offer his services to the Irish High King. Ospak must have expected a vast haul of loot from Dublin because, that very day, he cheerfully submitted to being baptised by the Irish priests. On the other hand he put such little store by his conversion that he lost no time in spreading word about the raven dreams and how they foretold that Brodir and his men were doomed.

Gormlaith herself spoke at Sigtryggr's council of war and she was very persuasive. Brian Boruma's personal prestige had been vital to his previous military success, she told the hard-bitten war captains. His army rallied to him personally. That was the Irish habit. Their warriors flock to a clan chief considered to be lucky, and when it comes to a battle they like to see their leader at the forefront of the charge. So Sigtryggr's grand alliance would hold a crucial advantage if it brought the High King's army to battle when Boruma himself was unable to participate for his misguided religious reasons. The one day of the Christian calendar that Boruma was sure to refuse to carry weapons was the gloomy anniversary of the White Christ's death. Brian Boruma regarded it as the holiest day of the year, and there was no possibility that he could personally lead his men into battle on that day. Gormlaith had also pointed out that the morbid nature of such an anniversary would further dishearten the High King's forces. Some of his more devout troops might even follow their master's example in refusing to bear arms. Her logic impressed even the most sceptical of the council, and there was not a single voice raised in objection when Sigtryggr set Good Friday as the day most suitable for our attack. Sigtryggr also suggested that Earl Sigurd and Brodir might go back aboard their ships the previous evening and pretend to sail off. The hope was that Boruma's spies stationed on the hill overlooking the river would report that many of Sigtryggr's allies were deserting him, and the High King would be further lulled into inaction.

But such a commonplace deception had clearly failed. Already depressed by whispers about Odinn's ravens, our troops were further discouraged by the sight which greeted us as we came ashore. Drawn up on the hill facing us were the massed ranks of the High King's army and clearly they had been expecting us. Even more clearly, they had no compunction about spilling blood on the holy day. 'Would you look at that?' said one of Brodir's men who was standing next to me as we began to form up. He must have been a shiphandler rather than a fighting man as he was poorly equipped, carrying only a javelin and a light wooden shield, and had neither helmet nor mail shirt. 'I can see some of Ospak's men in the line right opposite us. That fellow with the long pike and the grey cloak is Wulf. He owes me half a mark of silver, which he never paid after our last dice game, and I didn't dare press him for the debt. He's got a foul temper, which is why everyone calls him Wulf the Quarrelsome. One way or another, that's a debt he and I are likely to settle today.' Like me, the shiphandler had been assigned to the rearmost of the five ranks in our swine array, the standard formation for a Norse brigade. It places the best armed and most experienced fighters in the front rank, shield to shield and no more than an arm's length apart. Youngsters like myself and the lightly armed auxiliaries fill up the rearmost ranks. The idea is that the shield wall bears the brunt of any charge and is too dense for the enemy to penetrate, while the lightly armed troops can make some minor contribution to the contest by hurling spears over the heads of their fighting colleagues. Quite what I was supposed to do, I had no idea. Brodir had told me to bring the two so-called 'fighting dogs' on shore, but there was no role for such fanciful creatures in the swine formation. Not that the two hounds were in the least interested in biting enemy flesh. They were nervously darting from side to side and getting their leads in a tangle. As I hauled on the dogs' collars, I glanced across to my left, and with a sudden shock of surprise I recognised at least a dozen of the Burners among Earl Sigurd's Orkneymen. The Burners had sworn their oath to Sigurd the Stout and now they were obliged to do their duty. Just beyond their little group rose Earl Sigurd's famous battle standard with its symbol of the black raven. The sight caused me to have a sudden doubt. Had I misinterpreted my dream? I wondered. The iron-beaked birds who had swooped into the attack from far afield and torn men's flesh, were they Brodir's enemies? Or did they symbolise the arrival of Sigurd and his Orkneymen across the Irish Sea, following the raven banner to wreak havoc on Boruma's host?

My confusion was increased by this familiarity of friend and foe. Here I was fighting alongside men who would have counted me their enemy if they had known of my role in Kari's vengeance. And the sailor at my side was standing in the battle line facing a companion with whom, until a month ago, he had rolled dice. Nor was this mutual recognition restricted to the Norse warriors. 'Are you there, Maldred?' bellowed one of our front-rank men. He was a big, round-shouldered, grey-haired warrior, well armoured and carrying a heavy axe, and he was shouting his question across the gap that separated the two armies. 'Yes, of course I am, you arsehole!' came an answering cry from the High King's forces. From the opposing rank stepped a figure who, apart from his

stature - he was slightly shorter - and the fact that he wore a patterned Irish cloak over his chain mail, was almost indistinguishable from our own man. 'No more farting about, now's the time to see who is the better man,' called our champion, and while the two armies looked on and waited as if they had all the time in the world, the adversaries ran forward until they came within axe swing, and each man let loose a mighty swipe at the other.

Each deflected the blow with his shield, and then the two men setded down to a bent-kneed crouch as they circled one another warily, occasionally leaping forward to deliver a huge blow with the axe, only for the other man to block the blow with his round shield and take a retaliatory swing which failed to connect because his enemy had jumped back out of range. When the two men lost patience with this alternate thud and leap, it seemed as if they reached some mutual pact of self-destruction, for in the instant that one man flung aside his shield so he could raise his axe with both hands his opponent did the same. Suddenly the contestants were charging at one another like a pair of mad bulls, each determined to deliver the mortal blow. It was the man with the cloak who struck first. He knew he had the shorter reach, so he let go of his axe as he swung. The weapon flew across the last two feet and struck the Norseman a terrific blow on the side of his face, laying bare the bone. The Norseman staggered, and blood sprayed from the wound, yet the surge of his charge and the momentum of his blow carried him forward so that the strike of his axe smashed down on the Irishman's left shoulder, cutting deep into the neck. It did not behead the victim, but it was a killer blow. The Irishman fell first to his knees, then slowly toppled forward face down on the mud. His conqueror, dazed and disorientated, with blood pouring down his face, lasted only a few moments longer. As the two armies looked on, the Norseman wandered in a circle, tripping and lurching, the side of his face smashed open by the axe, and he too fell and did not rise again.

'Can you see the High King anywhere?' I heard someone ask in front of me.

'I think I caught a glimpse of him earlier, on horseback, but he's not there now,' a voice replied. 'That's his son Murchad over there on the left. He seems to be in charge. And his grandson is that cocky youngster dressed in a red tunic and blue leggings.' I squinted in that direction and saw a lad, younger than myself, standing in front of one of the enemy divisions. He was turned to face his men, Irishmen to judge by their dress, and he was waving his arms as he declaimed some sort of encouraging speech.

'Dangerous puppy,' said a third voice, 'like all his family.'

'But no sign of the High King himself, are you sure? That's a bonus.' It was the same man who had asked the first question, and by the plaintive tone in his voice I guessed he was trying to find some courage to cheer himself up.

'Not much different from us then,' said a voice sourly. We all knew what he was talking about. King Sigtryggr had not expected to dupe the High King with the fake withdrawal of his Norse allies; he preferred to dupe his own allies. When the longships had withdrawn the previous evening, Sigtryggr had promised to be ready on the beach next morning to join forces with us. But we found waiting for us only Mael Morda's Leinstermen and several bands of bloodthirsty Irish volunteers from the northern province, Ui Neills they called themselves. From Dublin's garrison there was just a handful of troops, but the best of them, Sigtryggr's personal bodyguard, were entirely absent. They had stayed behind to protect Sigtryggr himself and Gormlaith, who had chosen to watch the outcome of the battle from their vantage point behind the safety of Dublin's walls. It was hardly a cheerful beginning for our own efforts, and I suspected that some of our men would have been happy if King Sigtryggr's face had been at the opposite end of the blows from their battleaxes.

I had little time to ponder King Sigtryggr's duplicity. At that moment the enemy line began to move. It came at us not in a single organised rush, but as a ragged, rolling charge, the Irish first letting loose a high keening scream, which overlaid the deeper roar of their Norse allies. They ran forward in a broken torrent, brandishing axes, swords, pikes, spears. A few tripped on the rough ground and went sprawling, vanishing under the feet of their companions, but the ones on top rushed on, determined to gather as much speed as possible before they hit the shield wall. When the collision came, there was a massive, shattering crash like oak trees falling in the forest, and into the air flew an eerie cloud of grey and white sprinkled with bright flecks. It was the dust and whitewash from several thousand shields that had been carefully cleaned and repainted before the battle.

The thunderous opening crash immediately gave way to a confused, indiscriminate chaos, the sound of axes thudding into timber and stretched cowhide, the ringing clash of steel on metal, shouts and curses, cries of pain, sobs of effort, the scuffling grunts of men fighting for their lives. Somewhere in the distance I heard the high, wild, urgent notes of a war horn. It must have come from the High King's army because we had no war trumpeters as far as I knew.

The two opposing battle lines lost all formation within moments. The conflict broke into swirling groups, and I noticed how the Norsemen tended to fight with Norsemen and the Irish with Irish. There was no cohesion, only larger clumps of fighters clustered around their own war leaders. Sigurd's raven banner was the centre of the largest and most unified group, and Brodir's contingent appeared to be the chosen target for the men who followed Ospak. My own role in the conflict was minimal. The two war hounds panicked at the sound of the initial collision between the armies and bolted. Foolishly I had tied their leads around my wrist and the dogs were so strong that I was plucked off my feet and dragged ignominiously over the ground, until the leather thongs snapped and the two dogs raced free. I never saw them again. I was scrambling back to my feet, rubbing my aching wrist to restore the circulation, when a light spear thudded into the ground beside me, and I looked up to see an Irish warrior not twenty paces away. He was one of their kerns — lightly armed skirmishers — and thankfully both his aim and courage were inadequate to the situation. Just as I was realising again that I was unarmed, apart from a small knife hanging inside my shirt, the Irishman must have thought he had ventured too far inside the enemy lines, and he turned and scampered away, his bare feet flying over the turf.