When Death Birds Fly

16

The girl’s body shone voluptuously in the moonlight. Thick pale hair hung down a smoothly muscled back, and water splashed about her thighs as she waded toward the bank. Many moon-silvered drops gleamed on her flesh or fell rolling, from her arms. She reached up to grip the twisted root of a tree for purchase.

Knud the Swift burst from the water behind her. She squealed at the digging of his fingers into the flesh of her well-curved hips with a celerity that fully justified his name-which the girl did not know. She called him by the name he had given her: Wiliulf.

She gripped the tree’s root harder. Knud had lifted her slipping feet clear of the stream’s bed. Still, as he was obviously not about to let go of her, she didn’t mind. She hooked her feet behind his powerful calves and settled her rump firmly against his belly. He made connexion from behind. She gasped; he grunted. They were both very busy for a while. The heavy tree-root was almost torn out.

Lying on the bank beside her, Knud sighed pleasurably. Was his own long-held belief that peasant women were best. For one thing, they were not expected to be virgins. No dynasties or estates depended on their being kept untouched for marriage. An they bore children, so much the better. A child was another pair of hands to work, and therefore always wanted. Thus peasantish lasses might lie with whomever they pleased with little fear of consequences. And they did. They knew a life of heavy toil lay ahead of them, and that they would be old all too soon. They were eagerly inclined to take their joys whilst they could.

The girl nestled against him. Her wet flesh felt cool. Was a pleasant feeling, the night being hot. Knud fondled her. She purred with enjoyment.

“Stay among us Wiliulf,” she cajoled. “It’s good fertile land hereabouts. We do not oft go hungry.”

“I’m a warrior, dear. There be places for me in the army of the Roman king. What should I fight here? Marauding crows?”

“Better than having the war-birds come for you when the fighting is over! Your limbs would stay whole, at least.”

She meant it. Knud found that downright insulting. He slapped her hip with force sufficient to make her yelp. “I can keep my limbs against most men’s efforts to maim them-when I have ax or sword! Syagrius be the likeliest man to give me one. I’ve earned my eating here, and a bundle of food to take me further on my road. I cannot be staying.” For courtesy’s sake, having been well reared, he added, “Not even for you, love.”

The very young woman was disposed to sulk.

She did not continue long when she realized it would gain her naught, and Knud began tickling her again into the mood.

Considerably later she left him, moving soundlessly across the ripe fields toward her family’s hut. The door stood wide in the hot night, its opening curtained with sacking. From the forest’s edge, Knud watched her go. Then he turned, and made his way by winding forest paths to where his comrades were encamped. Several times as he approached he whistled, soft and low. He’d no wish to come upon Cormac and company carelessly, be like to receive a spear’s point ere he could say his name. True, Prince Howel’s foresters had scouted the area close, and reported no trace of ambush or any armed force. Knud had spent five days in the village itself without being seized or coming to harm. He grinned reminiscently. No harm had befallen him indeed! Quite the opposite.

Even so a man could never be certain what might be concealed within a forest of these dimensions. Nigh thirty men that Knud could swear to, for instance, and not a peasant in the village yonder had any suspicion. Belike it could hide a thousand with ease. His comrades would be vigilant. Trust the wary man from Eirrin for that.

“Knud?”

“Myself! Aye and ye sound like… Atanwald?”

“Aye, Swift one.”

An obscure form showed itself, hand outstretched in the sign of peace. A scale byrnie glimmered faintly in the darkness beneath the forest roof. “Be sure of my voice ere ye come closer, lad. We’d not wish to be over-suspicious and kill each other. ’Twere a joke to make the gods laugh.”

“I know ye, man. Lead me to the Hausakluifr.”

Knud was soon in the encampment. He was roundly cursed for accidentally kicking a sleeper wrapped in a long cloak. Erelong Cormac and Wulfhere were awake and ready to give listen to his intelligence.

“All be as the little wench made claim, Captain,” Knud said. “They talk of little else in that pigsty village. I’ll wager it’s the mightiest thing to have happed there in a lifetime. Sigebert’s hunting, and the dogs, and the way he carried off Cathula. He paid for her, mind. The girl’s mother died. Horribly. Not long since, her father burned in his hut. All the village believes it was a drunken mischance-their ‘God’s’ will and justice. I’ve even talked to the priest.”

“Could he understand you?” Cormac asked.

“By the World Tree! My Latin is not that poor!”

“Was the priest’s Latin I had ill thoughts about,” Cormac said. “An it’s like unto most of his kind he is, the garbled mess he calls Latin would be sounding better from a kittiwake. He supports Cathula’s tale, does he?”

“Everything does. The village wenches are rolling their eyes and making guesses about her fate… they pretend to be appalled, but they giggle even whiles they bite their lips, ye know?” Knud spat on the ground. “Despite what ye said, Cormac, I’d never ha’ believed even a sounder of Britonish peasants could accept a Dane as a Frankish vagabond! Certain I was they’d know me for the liar the instant I said aught so ridiculous! Yet they believed me. They could not tell the difference.”

He fell silent, brooding on that in disbelief and some outrage.

Cormac grinned. “Forget fretting, Knud. Not one of them’s been more than a league from the village in his life’s days, remember. Well then ’tis settled for me; it’s honest our Cathula is.” He ceased to smile. “By which token, it’s a bargain Lucanor of Antioch has made with that bloody hearted Frank. Now we can be certain-Sigebert and Lucanor are yonder in Nantes, and teamed.”

Since the black owl’s talons had smitten Wulfhere, he had become morose and silently brooding amid his pain. Now he spoke.

“We have another chance to slay Sigebert, and Lucanor with him! This war of Franks on Romans Howel avows is in the making… it helps us. Do the Franks march on Soissons and conquer, all the land will be in uproar. Nantes will seethe with panic like a broken nest of ants! Fleeing country folk will howl at its gates in multitudes. In such confusion we can enter-and leave again with none remarking us!”

“An these things happen, Wulf.” They looked at each other: blood-brothers.

They settled to sleep. Knud wondered, half hopefully, whether he ought not return to the village for another day or two-just to be wholly sure there was naught he’d omitted to learn… His comrades brayed him down. Were the women of this village so eager that he could not bear to depart? They were assured the village priest was the man to ask about that; Knud felt sure that despite what the black-robe said in church, he’d likely had every nubile girl for a league around and some of the wives into the bargain.

With the sun’s rising they made a fire and roasted venison killed by Howel’s foresters. Cormac and Wulfhere allowed a big cheery blaze, as they meant to leave the vicinity anyhow. Nor were they overly strict about smoke.

By this means did the messenger from Vannes find them. Himself a forester end expert tracker, he’d have trailed them to the camp in any event. The odour of woodsmoke merely made it simple for him. He’d traveled most of the way with an armed party, but finished his journey alone. He bore ill news, he said, the Lady Morfydd having despatched him to bring it them.

“The Lady Morfydd?” Cormac repeated. “Not Prince Howel?”

The men shook his heed. Short-legged, heevybodied end bald he was, clad in deerskin tunic leggings. “The prince is wounded,” he said bitterly. “He may die yet.” And he glared at Cormac as though blaming him personally.

“How?” Cormac snapped. “By whom?” There was that in his and sudden complete attention to make the man think again about voicing his own feelings on the matter, or doing aught at all save answer the question fully.

“Hengist, lord. He came with three Saxon longships, end raided the Mor-bihan in full daylight! The prince was newly returned to his keep on the island. Hengist made no attempt to storm it, for he could never ha’ taken it in any case with three ships’ companies. He stole your ship-”

“What?” That from Wulfhere, in a bellow. “Raven stolen?” He made three titan’s strides and seized the forester. He lifted the man as if he were a doll. “Hengist, ye say? Ye dare tell me he has lifted Raven from out the Little Sea? From your master’s own doorstep? What were his coast-watchers doing to prevent it?”

The forester said into Wulfhere’s congested face, “The coast-watchers died to a men! My master the prince led a sortie down from the hall to prevent those Kentishmen’s launching your ship. ’Tis how he came to be wounded. When he fell, his warriors carried him back from the fray and covered his retreat wi’their lives-”

“And allowed Hengist to have my ship?” Wulfhere howled.

He shook the forester like a flapping sail. Even while the men turned grey in that grip, rage got the better of his common sense. With a violent curse, he spat full in Wulfhere’s eyes end reached for his hunting knife.

Wulfhere dropped the man in sheer astonishment.

The man crouched, his skinning knife point upward in his fist. “Rot your ship, and your vast self with it!” he snarled. “Would ye’d both been destroyed ere my lord took a wound for you!”

With a strangled bellow, Wulfhere reached for his ax.

An attack of prudence came on the forester. He wheeled, dodged between two Danes, end vanished down a game trail with alacritous churning of short legs. Wulfhere blundered after him, enraged. He found that his quarry had disappeared into the nigh impenetrable brush. Wulfhere hunted about, beating the undergrowth with his ax. It availed naught.

“I lost him,” he growled, returning to the campfire. “Brave little rooster!”

“I’d guessed as much,” Cormac said drily. “There’s only green on your beloved little toy there. Ye needn’t be hoping to see him again, either. He’ll not show his face whiles we two remain in Armorica.”

Wulfhere shrugged massive shoulders. “He’d delivered his message. Hengist! The bastard! He must ha’ learned we be guests of Howel’s. Word would get about.”

“Aye. It’s we he wanted. We were not present when he came avisiting, so he took our ship instead.” Cormac’s hard fingers clenched over his sword-hilt. “Desire is on him that we seek him out to regain Raven. Damn!”

“He will get his wish. Ah, wait! The five men left to finish work on Raven! Yon fellow said Howel’s coast watchers were all slain, but I frighted him off ere he said what became of our own!”

“Right. Thought was on me of that very thing,” Cormac said, shooting Wulfhere a look and sounding bitter. “It’s in my mind that we have no need of him to tell us. We can both guess.”

Wulfhere swore thunderously. Whirling up his mighty ax with both hands, he struck it deep into the mossy log whereon he’d sat a few moments since. All the power of his giant’s body went into that strike, and much frustration. The heavy log split from end to end so that it fell in halves. Fat grubs writhed in its partly rotted center and thousand-leggers scuttled.

“Take up your gear, wolves!” the redbeard ordered. “We march for Vannes, and thence we take ship for Howel’s island. We march hard!”

There was no protest. They, too, had heard all.

“An other insults be bandied when we reach the Mor-bihan, Wulfhere, do keep your ax still,” Cormac counselled. “Doubtless others will be feeling as yon forester does. Morfydd herself well may.’

“What? Blaming us for this?” Wulfhere was taken aback. “Why, Howel’s a reiver himself! ’Tis the risk of the game. He might ha’ met Hengist on the open sea at any time.”

Cormac’s thin lips parted in a wry half-smile. “Well done. Good hard sense that is, and none can gainsay. And how much difference might it be making to a woman whose man lies at the point of death? Or may have died, for aught we ken.”

“Get of Loki,”, Wulfhere said, scratching pensively within his beard. “I’d not thought. Well-let us hope he lives. He’s a good man, that Howel.”

“Among the best,” Cormac said quietly. Then, abruptly, “Let’s march.”

March they did. The Roman road through the forest still existed and not even a legion in the days of Julius Ceasar or Trajan could have bettered the time Wulfhere’s Danes made in reaching Vannes. Nor did they pause there. Another day saw them landing on Prince Howel’s island estate. Lady Morfydd did not rant or shriek at them, but Cormac knew he’d been right about her feelings. He suspected that she had wept violently and raged violently too, since Hengist’s raid. They found the slim, broad-hipped woman strongly under control, determined to be just-and seething inside, against them.

Their five Danes had indeed been slaughtered in the fighting on the beach. They had been the next fatalities after Howel’s coast-watchers, among whom had been Garin. Prince Howel was laid low with a wound that might yet prove fatal. He could not rise, or even speak. Morfydd’s was the voice that commanded in Bro Erech.

“What mean ye to do?” she asked.

“Follow that old bastard and take Raven back from him!”

Morfydd stared. “And you with two dozen men left to you? Captain! If ye be fixed on suicide, there are simpler ways! Besides, how can ye follow him? Ye no longer have a ship.”

“Howel’s captains have several,” Cormac said. “Fury’s on them for vengeance against the White Horse, and they’ll follow us to gain it-even if they do partly blame us for what has happened. I have a plan, Lady.”

“Which they may not care for,” Morfydd said.

“It’s accepting it with joy they’ll be, when they hear the greatest risk is to be ours. That ought to blunt the edge of their resentment.”

Morfydd hesitated. Was in her mind to forbid the business without hearing Cormac’s plan. Wisdom stayed her. In their present mood, her husband’s corsair captains might well defy such orders. These were experienced men all. She could count on them to reject a plan that seemed mad. Besides, she too desired vengeance for Howel’s wounds. She became practical:

“What of Sigebert?”

“It’s truth the girl Cathula’s after telling us,” Cormac said. “Our mage Lucanor has leagued with the Frank, it seems.”

“Then might it not be better to deal with them first? Wulfhere’s injury-”

“Will not stop me fighting!” the Dane snarled. “It does but sting me to a fouler temper to cleave Saxon heads! I’ve carried all before me in seafights when I had worse wounds on me.”

He might have thundered on. Instead, becoming aware of Morfydd’s proudly lifted head and angry stare, he drew a deep breath. “Nay, Lady, I be your guest; and that was mannerless. Ye spoke with my welfare. in mind. See-I know risk of death whether I fare against Sigebert or against Hengist of Kent. One did not drown in a tempest on yester day, so one slips on a balky gangplank and breaks his neck on the morrow. Who knows what’s fated? I know only that I’ll not leave my ship-my ship!-to a gaggle of Kentish Jutes.”

Nor was that all. Were it necessary, Cormac and Wulfhere might have taken another fine ship for their use, anywhere they pleased; even from the Jutes of Kent in Britain, in just retaliation.

What they could not replace was the five yards of chain riveted to Raven’s forward anchor, tarnished black with great care and thoroughness to make it seem only plain iron. For in truth it was pure silver, and they must have it were they ever to reach the north and hire a master shipwright for King Veremund.