The Tower of Death

CHAPTER FIVE: Irnic Break-ax

As the four men of Raven stood in that tower of the impossible and the unreal that was real, Knud broke the benumbed silence.

“Horsemen, Cormac! A goodly troop of them, leaving the city and coming down the quayside. Men of arms. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Cormac joined Knud at the tower’s rim, looked, and saw that the Dane was correct. Too, he saw that his four were without hope of descending to the ground again ere the troop of horse-soldiers arrived. Be it so; they must meet the strangers openly, then. Cormac considered, he who’d earned a name for guile.

It did not follow that Wulfhere and all the crew must reveal themselves. Cormac liked having surprises in reserve when he dealt with strangers-particularly on their territory.

“WULFHERE!” he roared. The stentor voice he used had done credit to the Danish giant himself. “Riders will be upon us directly! They needn’t know of all of us. Be getting half the men aboard Raven, sharp, ready to defend her or take to sea if need be. Do you and the others hide yourselves in yon patch of woodland! HIDE, I said! Be not arguing, man: hurry!”

And to those with him the Gael snapped, “Come.”

While they made the swiftest descent they might, stamping and pounding down the tower’s innumerable steps, Cormac mac Art was still thinking and inferring.

Predatory kelp that climbed a twice-lofty tower to take its human victims… that smothered out beaconfires with great thoroughness and then went away… this argued intelligence to direct it. Its own? Seaweed? Was it belike a mindless vegetable mass in itself, whilst its master laired elsewhere, observing, directing-perhaps in the very city of Brigantium?

They reached the base of the tower and poured through the ironbound door.

Emerging from the tower of death, Cormac and his three faced a band of brightly-appareled Teutons who galloped down to the shore and hauled up with arrogantly superb horsemanship, to range themselves before the reivers. Staring. Waiting. Plainly these men were tense, and plainly it would take next to nothing to start them in to killing the strangers on their shore. As plainly, they were Sueves.

Moving toward them from the tower with deliberate slowness, Cormac studied the men of Galicia.

All were young, and warrior-nobles. Each bestrode a big Gothic destrier, dun or chestnut, whose harness flashed gems on leather well cared for by men in love with horses. A flame-red mantle was fastened upon their leader’s thick, broad shoulder by a golden brooch large as his hand, jewelled with garnets like shining droplets of dried blood. The tunics of him and his followers were of various hues, all bright; short of sleeve they were and hardly descending to the wearers’ bare knees. The borders of their green cloaks were crimson. Several wore shorter capes of wolf or fox fur as well. The sword each carried was a gift of his sovereign, mac Art knew, and could not be taken from these fiercely proud horse-warriors while they lived.

The hilts of those good swords thrust up from leather-covered wooden scabbards slung from baldrics and belted close on their hips; bright were those pommels, with decor of bronze and silver and gold. Sheathed at his belt each man wore a fighting knife as well; straight and heavy the vicious things were, and sharp enough along one edge for comfortable shaving. In the right hand every Sueve grasped an ax or nastily barbed spear. Shields with rims and bosses of gilded iron warded their left sides; these horses were trained to respond to voice and pressure of knee and heel.

Each man’s brown or yellow hair was coiled atop his bare head in a thick figure-eight knot that Cormac noted made all appear even taller than they were-though probably no whit fiercer.

They stared at the strangers in their land, having come from their tower.

In the last possible instant ere the silence must have been destroyed violently, the leader spoke.

“Who are you? Whence come you, and what do you here, strangers?”

The language on his tongue was a German dialect. Cormac, fluent in one such and with experience of others, was able to make answer.

“Cormac mac Art of Eirrin. It’s wind-driven I came here, in the ship you see yonder. As to what I do here-at present naught, save hope for a peaceful reception.”

Had Cormac been a praying man, surely he’d have prayed then, for Wulfhere to remain hidden and not launch one of the howling shield-charges that were his favourite tactic on land. These riders bristled suspicion as they did weapons, but the Gael had them talking.

“Is it right I am in thinking this land must be Galicia?”

The noble who led the horse-warriors laughed, showing big square teeth framed by tawny moustaches. A weapon-man he was in truth; this, Cormac could see in confirmation of his instincts.

“Aye! Galicia is it, and you must surely be from far away. You talk to Irnic Break-ax, cousin to King Veremund. I lead his comitatus.”

Cormac nodded. He was familiar with the word. A Latin borrowing, it was now common usage among the German nations, who applied it to an institution of their own; the king’s band of sworn companions. They ate with him, hunted with him, rode to war with him, and if Fate so required, died with him. There could be no greater disgrace upon a comes-companion than to save his own life from the fight wherein his lord had fallen. In return they received rich gifts and honour and the chance of an unforgotten name.

Irnic Break-ax spoke more: “Yet when I put question, what do you here? I did mean here, before this tower. Strangers may come to Brigantium in ships and be welcome. Strangers poking about the lighthouse be another matter.”

“Aye,” growled one of the comites. “None would do that for any good purpose.”

Others raised a mutter of agreement, and sounding through it came tones of unease and even fear.

Cormac asked bluntly, “Why?”

Irnic looked at him hard, obviously considering putting the sea-stained rogue in his place. Yet Cormac impressed as one who did not require to have this pointed out. Salt-crusted armour, faded nondescript cloak and all, he was a man who commanded other men. Irnic was such a man himself; he recognized the breed.

“Because,” he said, “the tower has of late become haunted and accursed.”

Cormac believed him.

“My lord Irnic, I never set eyes upon it erenow. Nor had I heard of it, save as a famous feat of building.”

“Mayhap. We will make investigation of that. Gisivald, look after our guests and see they do not grow lonely. No harm is to befall them.” Irnic’s unspoken “yet” hung in the air like a hanged felon, and yielded about as much comfort. “They are not, though, to go aboard their ship, nor is the ship to leave.”

Dismounting, he chose four men and led them into the tower of death. Cormac, Hrut, Hrolf and Knud stood well aside, in plain view of the score or so seafighters aboard Raven, the band of Suevic horsemen-and, so they judged and hoped, of Wulfhere and his small force within the nearby wood. The situation balanced on an ax-edge. Fortunate it was that all involved were used to such.

“Ahoy, Cormac!” Ivarr yelled from Raven’s low waist. “Ye bear weapons still, I see. Be ye needing help, or shall we bide as we are?”

The Danish words baffled Gisivald. “What said he?” the Sueve demanded.

“He’s asking if need is with us for rescue. Shall I answer him?”

“Aye-carefully.”

“Remain aboard, Ivarr! It’s none so bad our chances are, of seeing out the day with our weapons dry.” His words were uttered as much for Wulfhere as Ivarr of the sharp eyes. “It’s king’s men these be. I’m thinking when they leave we will have to go with them. Nor have I objection to that. Ah-should they be ordering ye to come ashore unweaponed, or to surrender Raven, ye know what answer to give, the very moment ye’re able to stop laughing.”

“That suffices,” Gisivald said sharply. Too prolix an exchange in a language he could not understand was not to his liking, and his voice and tone showed it plain.

In time, Irnic Break-ax’s head appeared over the tower’s rim, tiny as a fly against the shining blue above him. After shouting intelligence that Cormac possessed already, the Sueve made descent and emerged. Question and answer were bandied.

“The same as before,” Gisivald said at last, with moroseness.

“Aye. Men tracelessly slain-save that one is not there. Rechiaric.”

“It’s a broken body we’re after finding among the rocks by the water’s edge,” Cormac offered. “Mayhap that’s your missing man.”

The Sueves went to the place along the quay on which stood the lighthouse, and examined the body.

“By his garb and accoutering, that’s Rechiaric,” Gisivald opined in a dull voice. “Eye of Wotan, little else is left to know him by!”

He lifted hard-clenched fists to the sky, and swore bitterly by other gods the Church dismissed as heathen devils. Cormac, impassively listening, took note with pleasure that any power the Dead God’s priests might have among these men seemed scarcely to go deep. The Goths had imposed the Arian doctrine once, as a matter of form; however, naught Cormac heard had ever implied that forced acceptance had lasted long-or greatly impressed.

The man Rechiaric’s shapeless corpse was wrapped in a mantle over-bright for a shroud. Scarlet and green, the Gael mused, were colours to be alive in. Five spare horses the Sueves had brought along, which now their comrades would never ride. The body went across the saddle of one, lashed in place. The others, cold in the high tower, could be fetched down later.

“Four horses, and four strangers to take before the king,” Irnic said. “It’s an omen, clear as sunlight! Who says nay?”

He was asking his comrades. It was Cormac who made answer.

“We will accompany ye,” he agreed. “Not as prisoners, though; we’ll be retaining our arms. Else must ye take us along as ye take that one.”

He jerked a thumb at the horribly shapeless package across the fifth spare horse.

“It’s not impossible,” Gisivald said.

“Not impossible, no.” Irnic surveyed the four strangers. “Unnecessary is what I’d call it. There be twenty aboard yon dark ship, by my reckoning. Twenty of us remain here to watch them, leaving ten or a dozen to-escort our guests. Who have not the look of riders born.”

Cormac disputed him not, and ignored Suevic chuckles. A good man, he thought, who’d observed his ship from the lofty window. Then a sudden thought and idea flashed upon the Gael. At first it seemed madness; yet it might work. There was none in this distant, largely isolated land able to prove it a lie… Clodia had nerve and ability to play the part… Surely the lass deserved a better time than she’d been having.

Besides, it might somehow be useful. Cormac turned.

“Ivarr, send the Lady Clodia ashore. We ride to audience with the king, and it’s fain, I am to present her. There be no reason why a noblewoman should kick her heels in the scuppers.”

Ivarr, looking as if the world had turned upside down, nevertheless obeyed.

Clodia joined them in a seeming daze. At sight of her damp, sandy clothes, and the tangled mare’s nest of her hair, Cormac was less sure she could carry it off; although the sea-crossing they had made would amply explain her appearance. He’d make assertion he had disguised her as a tavern bawd for some reason.

The story was thin, but it would do. Clodia-“the lady Clodia”-must convince by manner alone.

The Sueves were rocking with laughter at the three Danes’ attempts to mount the tall Gothic war-horses. In their cold homeland was naught but ponies. Nor was the stirrup known among these men of the western world. The Persians had long used it, having borrowed the invention from the fierce Asian nomads they fought incessantly, but all of forty years would pass ere the great horse-general Belisarius would make it standard among the forces of the Empire. More decades would pass while the idea spread through the western kingdoms, until a simple iron device became the seed of the way of life that would replace Rome’s. In the mean time Hrolf, Knud and big Hrut Bear-slayer provided the Sueves with a deal of merriment in their efforts to mount.

Their concealing mirth gave Cormac a moment to speak to Clodia. Few and imperative were the words he used.

“Carry this off, girl, and it’s linen and unborn lamb’s wool ye’ll be walking in, belike. Fail, and it’s tears of blood ye’ll be weeping.”

Clodia blinked. She’d spent the better part of a tormenting week on the sea. She’d grown to hate it. Too, there had been trying times both previously and after. Her head ached, and her stomach felt like a snail curled within her. The girl from Nantes was a far, far stretch from her best. Even so… he must be thinking her very slow. She forced thought from her exhausted brain.

“I’ll carry it off,” she whispered, with a coolness of voice and mien that indicated she was already entering her new role.

After a smile of grim approval, Cormac applied himself to getting a leg across a dun charger his clumsiness made restive. He performed better than any of the Danes for all that he was long years out of practice: Eirrin had tall splendid horses, and Cormac had ridden as a boy.

At last mounting in a bound, he clamped his right leg tightly while he lifted Clodia to perch before him. They set out, the Sueves matching their pace to the abilities of the strangers. They moved slowly. Within the narrow extended tongue of forest whose tip ended barely a stone’s throw from the towering lighthouse, Wulfhere Hausakliufr watched them leave.

“Hel gnaw their bones!” he snarled. “The sows’ abortions, the bow-legged sons of mares! That I let them ride away with my shipmates under guard! Nay, we can still make a raid to fetch them back, lads! This forest allows us cover even to the city wall. None knows we be here. With such advantage, can we not strike and win against ten times our number? What say ye?”

From his score of slayers came a fierce acceding rumble like a storm’s first warning. Natheless, some shook their heads. Wulfhere glowered about, ice-eyed beneath thick brows like flame.

“Surt’s burning sword! What ails you holdouts? D’ye fear Cormac will be slain and we make trouble? Small likelihood of that. He’s not bound, nor even disarmed.”

“And that’s why, captain,” Makki Grey-gull stuck out his lip gloomily. “They four went not like prisoners. Think ye Cormac had accompanied them with never a blow struck, an they had not spoken him fair? What’s in his mind I cannot say. I’m just thinking we should wait and see.”

Jostein the Grinner supported him. “He brought the wench ashore-Lady Clodia. He’d not have done that were he thinking of battle. He’s some trick under his helm, sure. He shouted as much-at the top of his voice.”

Wulfhere simmered with ire, and clutched his huge ax for self-control until his knuckles were as fleshless. And saw the force of their arguments.

“Well, this much is true,” he grumbled without pleasure. “Can any man talk his way out of such a situation; the Wolf’s he. Nor will we help his case do we rush in hewing.”

“Aye!” Makki said eagerly. “An those horse-riders intend murder-” (this from a man with eight lives to answer for in the land of his birth) “-there’s no preventing it now. But we can take such a vengeance that all the world will know of it, beginning with that lot.” He gestured at the twenty Sueves between them and Raven. “With Ivarr and the lads aboard, we outnumber ‘em twofold, and have ’em from two sides. We can crush them as grain milled in a quern. Or capture most living, to ransom Cormac and the rest, an that seems the better course. Those be their king’s own hearth-companions, Wulfhere. It’s good bargaining-counters they’d make.”

Agreement was upon the others by this time. Wulfhere gnawed strands of his fiery beard, not liking to wait, and yet aware this was but his notorious lack of patience.

“Look you,” he growled, “we will tarry till night falls or something else occurs. We will keep close watch on Raven, and these fools who think they be guarding her. Suppose dusk is here and no word has come; then we go aboard again, and should any try to prevent us, their women will bewail them. Although… I scarce think it will mean waiting so long as that. Even a city like Brigantium cannot be that deep asleep.” He showed his men a piratical grin.

Jostein gave vent to a jaw-cracking yawn. “Talking of sleep, let us wake in shifts of five, as when we stand night watches. I long to stretch out on soft leaves, and here we have ’em.

The others gave even more ready agreement to that. Wulfhere was astounded. His men must be growing soft. Granted, it had been a strenuous few days, but they had eaten and enjoyed a full night’s sleep, and done naught since save row a mile or two, and talk much. Dane-mark was not breeding them as she once had.