When Death Birds Fly

6

“The withdrawal of Rome from what had been Empire left a vacuum in the world. Pirates rushed to fill it.”

– Ricart of Lyons

Tricky and hard to navigate were the coasts of Armorica, now called Lesser Britain or Brittany. Many a granite reef lurked offshore and the tides could be deadlier than any sea monsters invented by human minds. Dwellers in Armorica must of necessity be superb seamen, or not go to sea at all.

Raven came along those coasts in full daylight and weather clear as a child’s eyes. The ship’s blue-and-green sail was a broad banner above gentle waves.

“Show a white shield at the masthead, Halfdan,” Wulfhere ordered. “Else these Celts be like to shudder and faint at sight of us.”

“Ye will not, o’course, be saying such a thing to their faces,” Cormac said. “The time’s ill chosen to provoke a slaughter.”

“Ah, nag me not, Wolf! ’Tis not as if these runaways from Saxon invaders be your own people-Britons out of Britain are they, all. And them calling themselves corsairs and squabbling like gulls over the scraps we leave! ’Tis pitiful-but I’ll spare your feelings. Mayhap there be pig-farmers amongst ’em, eh? Eh? Kindred souls!” And Wulfhere laughed.

The white shield that signified Raven’s peaceful intent was swiftly lashed to the masthead. The galley’s sail had already been lowered, so that dipping oars moved her smoothly toward the narrow strait. The oars threw crystal sparkles into the air and a bit of white foam rolled back past Raven’s stern.

On the western side of the strait, rearing gigantically from the gorse, broom and heather that covered the thin soil, stood a menhir of astounding size. More than ten times taller than great Wulfhere’s height it lofted, weighing hundreds of tons. The lost years of time had been sealed within its pitted surface as honey in the comb. The first Caesar, Caius Julius, had seen it. From this spot, it was said, he had watched his fleet put defeat on the Veneti, and even then the menhir had been ancient out of memory.

“Rider on our steerboard side, coming down to the beach,” Makki Grey-gull called out.

Cormac’s head swiveled. Aye, the horseman was there, coming swiftly with the sun blazing behind him. His mount’s hooves threw up pale spurts of sand. Richly as he glittered with golden adornment, the horse glittered no less. A magnificent purple plaide blew about him. No, no; was a Romish cloak he wore, not a Celtic plaid.

He drew rein at the water’s edge in the way that his grey horse was flung back almost on its haunches. Water surged in foam about its fetlocks. From a mouth stretched wide between moustaches the colour of a wheat harvest, the rider bawled challenge in… Latin!

“Who may ye be that in a warship you armed have come across the sea? The shield of peace at your masthead I see; still, consent or permission to land here you have not asked of my lord Howel, Prince of Bro Erech. Tell me your names and your purpose ere further you go, or as enemies be cried!”

Wulfhere bristled. Cormac grinned wolfishly and clapped a restraining hand on the giant’s shoulder. To the coast-watcher of Armorica he replied ashout, and not in the Roman tongue.

“It’s failing your eyes be, Garin son of Teregud Hundred-hands, for I know ye though I must look into Behl’s eye to see ye there! Sure and it’s a strange pass things are come to, an I not welcome to your lord Howel, whether announced or unannounced! Cormac mac Art of Eirrin am I. Your prince will be remembering the day we fought the Saxons off Cornwall.”

Raven was forging foamily through the tiny strait now, not slowing her pace. Cormac had on him a cloak that billowed behind. His helmet’s horsetail crest danced in air the while he stood gazing shoreward, wearing a smile and deigning to touch nothing save the planking under his feet.

“Cormac!” Garin cried from shore. “Och man, it’s welcome ye be to me also! It is in peace ye come? Ye speak for your shipmates?”

“My head upon it.”

Garin brandished his silver-mounted spear in acknowledgment. There would be no braying of horns, no signal-smokes to bring forth Prince Howel’s weapon-men with blades bared. Had Raven borne the menace of hostile crew, they’d naturally have slain Garin with arrows upon being challenged. The deed would not have gone unwitnessed and arms would have been raised posthaste. Little comfort would Garin have gained from that! For its danger, his position as coast-watcher was held in honour.

Raven left the strait astern. Before her spread the Mor-bihan, the Little Sea, some hundred square miles of sunlit water shading with depth from green to amethystine purple. Many islands it contained, though some were no more than sandbars. They disappeared occasionally or regularly with the tides, Cormac mac Art knew well. When the tide ebbed, some of them linked together in ship-biting barriers barely visible. Threading a way among these natural traps could be difficult or worse. Cormac watched close; so did others.

“By Wotan,” Wulfhere muttered, scratching at brine within his beard where it was wont to crust. “This be like trying to navigate in a wash-tub. Slow, slower there with the stroke! An we run aground in this Bretonish pond the shame will be crimson, and I’ll flay someone!”

Slowly, slowly they oared past a brackish lagoon whose white sand beaches were swept by the tails of tiny lizards. Rushes, marram grass and sea-thistles clung along its shores.

Then Raven received the blessing of deeper water once more.

The hall of Prince Howel was builded on the largest island in the Mor-bihan, one of the few that was never submerged. Circular in plan, the keep lay within a complex of ditches, earthworks, and dry-stone fortifications. Thus the hall was proof against all and aught save a determined assault by great numbers of seasoned fighting men.

The problem of taking it did not interest Cormac or Wulfhere, save as a problem for amusement. It seemed unlikely that a force sufficiently mighty would find cause for the expense of coming against such a place. Mac Art was passing happy to arrive here as friend.

Raven’s herringbone of oars backed water briefly. Her two iron anchors went out with great splashes. The ship lay still upon the sea. Despite the sign of peace she displayed, peasant folk were running for shelter within the isle’s fortification. Mothers snatched desperately at their children and Cormac shook his head at the jumbled mix of Celtic and Romish clothing.

“Blood of the gods! Best we be going ashore and content them.”

“Aye,” Wulfhere agreed, turning to his steersman. “Ordlaf: ye will command until we return. Enforce their behavior, I care not how.” And he let his cool gaze pass over the rest of the crew.

Ordlaf Skel’s son grinned. “They will behave, Captain.”

Wulfhere and Cormac waded ashore shieldless. Wulfhere bore his huge-headed ax as a matter of course, and Cormac’s sword in its metal-chaped scabbard lay across his shoulders, against the splashing of his companion’s enormous feet. Out of the water, he buckled it normally about his hips.

Up the shelving beach they strode, and gained the firmer footing of the path to Prince Howel’s hall. Ere they had covered the third part of the distance, they were met by a bard of middle rank, in company with two warriors.

The bard, a red-haired young man freckled in extreme degree, gave them formal greeting.

“My lords! I am Oswy… the prince sits in judgment this forenoon, else he’d have met ye on the shore, and he has charged me to say so. In the mean time, it is his command that all ye wish be done.”

“And that be fine of the Prince Howel,” Wulfhere rumbled. “For the present, all I want is for my men to come ashore and beach my ship. And when they’ve done that, to stretch their legs a little. And for myself-about three vats of ale.”

By the look Oswy gave the northerner, attempting to take in his vast dimensions at a distance of four feet and failing, he half believed that so much would be required. He said “Naught in that exceeds my authority, God knows! And yourself, my lord?”

“One vat will suffice me,” the dark-armoured Gael said.

With sea-salt astringent on their skins and the taste of it itching in their throats, they two came to the open grassy space outside the prince’s hall. Crowded the area was, with the bright retinues of the two chieftains here present for litigation, and with Howel’s own retinue as well as lookers-on.

In a chair draped with rich fabric sat Howel himself, Prince of these Britons become Bretons. Howel was a strongly built man whose moustaches were long and reddish. His wife, the Lady Morfydd, had seated herself on the grass beside his chair. Her green-skirted legs were curled neatly under her in disregard of her own high rank and station. Yet she was no fool, this woman. Despite her youth her long black hair was stranded with grey, and it was said that her eyes could see into the human heart or into the time-to-come.

Howel was hearing a case and pleas, and the proprieties of giving them attention took precedence over those of greeting visitors. Thus he did not glance at the approaching weapon-men from the sea, and Cormac understood. His hospitable intent was manifested by serving wenches, who brought the pirates a jack each of honey-coloured ale. Wulfhere did not so much as drink his as breathe it in with one long inhalation.

“Another,” he said, hardly gasping, and sat to pull off his sea-wetted footgear.

“And for me,” Cormac said. “It’s gone this will be by the time ye’re after returning.” And he too sat, and removed his boots.

The girls exchanged a look and departed; Cormac and Wulfhere also looked at each other, nodded in appreciation, and gave attention to the proceedings.

The case being heard seemed to involve client-ship. One of the Armorican chieftains wanted to attach a man to his retinue. The man’s kin were impugning the proffered contract because they would lose by it. The matter took some time to settle, and twice loud angry voices had to be quelled.

Cormac yawned, thinking that there were advantages even to being an outlaw. When someone wished to join one’s crew, and one was willing to have him, the newcomer simply sprang aboard. After that, did he talk or shout out of turn, one bade him shut his face. If he did not, one dealt with the problem most directly. That necessity did not arise, under Cormac and Wulfhere. The Gael did oft proclaim that one should not kill unless it was necessary-and was wont to add, and prove, that all too often it was necessary. Wulfhere made no such ridiculous statement in the first place. Nor did crewmen wish to tangle with a captain who looked as if he could handle a Frost Giant or two-or might have been sired by one-and on a passing large human mother, at that.

The proceedings ended eventually. By then, lounging bootless in the sun and with ale warming his innards, Cormac paid no mind as to the prince’s decision and did not see where went the individual desired by a chieftain. Howel’s duty to his people was done for the nonce; he could greet an old acquaintance.

“By Morgan the sea-queen!” he swore, gripping Cormac by the hand while the gathering disintegrated in all directions with a buzz as of bees at their springtime swarming. “Cormac mac Art, ye be welcome here as a Saxon’s death, I vow! Ah… no offense, Wulfhere.”

The Dane was puzzled. Luckily, it did not occur to him that he could be confused with a Saxon. Prince Howel stood smiling while the two shod themselves. The three passed within his hall then dim and cool under its thatch: Under their soles fresh rushes rustled on an earthen floor that many feet had stamped iron-hard, over the years. A double circle of pillars of red yew-wood upheld the roof, while brilliant tapestries adorned the walls. A servant hurried to spread furs and soft leather cushions over the marble steps of the hall’s dais, speckled like bird’s eggs.

“Cormac,” the Armorican ruler said,’ wonder’s been on me whether ye yet lived; we received word of that business in Nantes, and that ye’d escaped whole. Afterwards came naught but rumors. The tale that seemed most likely was the least pleasant; that ye’d attempted crossing the Sea of Treachery to Hispanic coasts, and had been swallowed by the waters.”

“Attempt! Wulfhere said, with indignation. “We did it, and the seas thrice as high as the mast and raging. Oh, it tried to swallow us, right enough!”

“Aye, was a feat though I say so,” Cormac put in smoothly, channeling the talk lest Wulfhere give away too much. “And little it-”

“Ye two crossed that hellpit the Basques call Bay of Biscaya?”

Cormac nodded. “And little it-”

“A feat indeed!” Howel said, and his moustachioes streamed in the air as he gave his head an impressed jerk. “Drink that ale yourselves and bring wine for me and my guests!”

Cormac waited a moment longer, but Howel was looking expectantly at him and seemed not disposed to break in again. “And little the feat profited us,” the Gael said, rather hurriedly. He went on normally, “At Garonne-mouth we’re after making the finest haul I’ve yet seen, and in Nantes we lost it to a prancing customs man, as ye’ve seemingly heard. We lost a man there also-Black Thorfinn, and a good man too. Two choices the Roman warships left us, to cross the sea of Treachery or be taken. So far off course were we blown that we nigh missed Hispania’s coast altogether! Last of all we had to fight our way clear of some angry Basques as we were returning north. It’s sore depleted our crew is, Howel. It is on us to return to Dane-mark, for more men.”

Cormac leaned back on his elbows on the dais-become-couch.

“Aye,” Wulfhere said, absently or so pretending, while he looked after the servant who’d gone to fetch them wine. Following the lead of his blood-brother of Eirrin, he did not attempt to tell of the things Cormac had left out of the account. No mention had he made of their service with King Veremund the Tall. Best leave it so. This Breton should not be encouraged to speculate that Raven might hold more than hard tack, smoked salmon and salt fish, and some thin ale. He was, after all, part of the legacy of Rome: a pirate.

Easy will that be, Wulfhere thought. Even our own men do not suspect!

Five yards of heavy chain they had with them-pure silver, Veremund’s payment for their lifting his seaward curse. And well they deserved it, both men thought. Had been Cormac ancliuin’s idea to tarnish it black to resemble plain iron, after which they’d used it to replace a portion of Raven’s anchor chain.

Ah, that crafty brain of his, Wulfhere thought, smiling now as he saw the returning servant, pleasantly laden. What better hiding place?

Was not that Raven’s commanders mistrusted their own men. Was merely that two might keep a secret, whereas twoscore never could. Meanwhile, Wulfhere thought further, Cormac seemed to trust this Howel. But… keep the secret! He scratched meditatively under his eagle’s nest of a beard, where sea-salt was crusted on his jaw.

The two, Briton and Eirrish, knew each other of old, from the days when Cormac had led a crew of Eirrin’s reivers in many a fight. They had shared ventures and danger and loot, for Howel was corsair as these folk called it. Yet would be foolish to tell him what they had elected not to tell their own crew. He was, after all, a pirate.

Morfydd joined in the talk with the freedom of a Celtic woman.

“Will you wonder if misfortune dogs you?” she asked, her strange hazel eyes all shifting depths and glimmers. “You have nowhere to go with your successes. When you have no home but the wide sea, the wide sea drinks all that you have. Meseems you should seek a secure base of your own. Cormac; sea-chieftain Wulfhere-have ye never thought of taking service with some great lord? Many must there be who would welcome your prowess and experience, and make ye both rich!

Wulfhere grinned broadly. Cormac, expressionless of dark scarred face, said, “Mayhap it’s a sound notion ye have, Lady Morfydd.”

“Aye!” his partner laughed. “The hard part were to find one great lord who’d not have us cut down on sight, on our reputations alone! Well and well… who knows but that we can do even that? Mayhap we will be attempting it! We have need of building up our crew though, lady. It is why we make for my land of the Danes again.” He swigged his wine with contentment. “Prince Howel: might we be making some ship’s repair on this your shore?”

“Indeed! More, all supplies ye have need of are to be yours. A comrade of Cormac mac Art may ask and have aught short of my right arm-or Morfydd!” Howel seized her in his arms and kissed her fiercely.

The talk turned then to old times that Wulfhere Skull-splitter had not shared, and a board game beloved of the former companions. Bored, he broke in at last:

“Why make ye your home on this island, Prince? Surely all things save victuals must be fetched from the mainland, and likely some of that.”

“Aye true,” Howel said, a bit absently as he was busy at setting up the pieces for the game between him and Cormac. “Ye forget that I look to the sea, Wulfhere. It brings me tribute, and plunder. Besides, I care not for the stone walls of Vannes, or to have the Church droning in my ear night and day. Bishop Paternus has his see in the town. Ha! Paternus croaks that the corsair trade is mortal sin, but I’ve yet to see him refuse a gift I gained by the plying of it!”

“A charming preacher of the slave religion!” Cormac pushed a game-piece forward.

Howell was truculent: “Look at me. See you a slave?”

Cormac’s smile was thin as heifer’s milk. “No, Howel-and I see on ye the neck-torc of your ancestors. And there be no cross upon your person.”

All fell silent. Cormac was out of step with the times. The Church of the cross-worshipers-a Roman execution symbol to him, and no more-was not for him. It had weeded up in the east somewhere, to spread through Rome’s Empire and become its church. Aye, and into Eirrin, where a black-robed priest had done treachery on his father, and on him. Of its tenets he could make neither head nor tail… nor alpha nor omega. The “Friends” as they’d begun, or “Saints” as they later styled themselves; Cross-worshipers, or “Christ-ians”-these seemed all to agree that the founder of their belief had been crucified by the Romans as the rabble-rouser he was, and then risen from his very tomb-a borrowed tomb, at that. In most other things they were fanatically and often sanguinely at odds. Some said he had been a man. Some maintained that he was a god. Some said both at once, a god sort of masquerading as a man. Some avowed that he was neither, but a different order of being. Some claimed that he had always existed, others that he had not. No matter what their claim or belief, these saints were prepared to kill everybody who disagreed with them. The cult thrived on death. Its symbol, fittingly, was a gallows of Rome. Knowing that they believed all was going to be wonderful for everyone once they had died, Cormac mac Art wished them speedy attainment of such happiness.

Now the Christians held power in all the lands that had once been part of Rome’s empire. Their enclaves strengthened in Persia and Arabia. They had “converted” the Ethiopians, and too the invading Goths and Vandals. They were likely to do the same to the Franks within a generation. Their numbers grew in otherwise uninvaded Eirrin itself; the Irish seemed to take seriously their pacifist preaching and grew isle-bound and unambitiously pacific.

Cormac loved the Christians as he loved the wasting leprosy.

“Talking of cities,” Wulfhere said, seeking to break his comrade’s dark reflections and slice through the tension among old friends, “I would be asking questions in Nantes, Prince.” Moving restlessly, he tested a spear from the wall for balance and heft, found it good, and nodded praise to Howel. “’Tis but two days’ sailing distant. Questions concerning that Frankish dog Sigebert, who slew Thorfinn! Mayhap ye can be telling me. Be Sigebert there yet, or did he die of the wound our comrade Black Thorfinn dealt him ere he was himself cut down?”

Howel of Bro Erech appeared troubled. He moved a piece on the game-board and affected not to hear. His wife shook her head.

“It will not be solved in that fashion, my lord,” Morfydd told him quietly. “Cormac will be learning for himself, an you do not tell him. Silence can achieve naught, save maybe to mar your friendship.”

“Aye.” Howel gnawed his moustache and his fingers drummed silently on his thigh. “Thorfinn did not die that night, Cormac-or until three nights later.”

Behind the corsair prince, Wulfhere’s bulk stiffened. He grounded the spear he held. His knuckles paled on the stout shaft he gripped He waited.

Cormac had grown very still. He forgot the move he’d been about to make as he forgot the bone game-piece he held in sinewy fingers. He said tonelessly, “Tell me the rest.”

“It could not have been!” Wulfhere snarled. “By the All-Father! I saw a Frankish soldier’s ax sink into Thorfinn’s very side, and after that Sigebert put sword through his belly. I say I saw it! We’d never have left him while we escaped, else!”

Cormac watched Howel.

“True,” Howel said in a subdued voice. “He should have died then and there. Was Sigebert’s doing that he did not. He had physicians brought in at once, and Sigebert had them tend Black Thorfinn to prolong his life all they could. Not to save him, you understand? The man was beyond saving, with his guts pierced and a lobe of his lung torn open. No, Sigebert had it done so that Thorfinn would linger in pain, while the Frank drank heavily to numb his own pain to face and ear-and saw that Thorfinn had no such aid. He is a fiend from Hell, that one, and whate’er the pit that spawned him, it should take him back!”

“May it be so,” Morfydd murmured.

“As for Thorfinn,” her husband said on, “he was a strong man. He survived longer than any could have believed. In two days the rot was in his belly and half Nantes could hear his screaming. The tale is that those sounds of agony eased Sigebert for the pain of his gashed face more than wine or drugs-which he downed in quantity-and that he cursed for disappointment when Black Thorfinn was silent at last.”

For a heartbeat of the silence of grimness, naught happened in that room of Howel’s hall. Naught-save that the whalebone game-piece in Cormac’s fingers cracked across, and blood oozed from under his thumbnail, and Wulfhere’s massy muscles quivered with stress and the butt-end of the spear he held was impossibly driven deep into the hard-trodden earth of Howel’s floor. Neither man noticed what he had done. Wulfhere’s hand dropped from the spearshaft, and it stood there, and Morfydd stared in some awe.

“Blood of the gods!” Cormac snarled, snapping to his feet and his face awrithe with passion. The black link-mail of his body chimed harshly. “The filthy dog! The gods-bereft alley scavenger-Sigebert shall die! Were he Emperor of Rome, were he High-king of Eirrin, he would die for this!”

“Aye,” Wulfhere said, and his voice was that of a mean old hound as he leaned forward over the point of the spear. His bristling beard covered the leaf-shaped head. Hot, volcanic flames burned in his eyes and his voice quivered in rage. “I’ll cut the blood eagle on that trollspawn, with my own hands. It’s a thing I never did afore to any man. I never hated any enough. Yet I swear-Sigebert shall have that death.”

Morfydd had turned pale, and for another long while there was only silence.

Howel said, “Then if ye’d not heard that, I have word of another enemy to ye both that perchance ye’ve not heard either. Hengist is abroad.”