Robert Howard - Sword Woman and Other Historical Adventures

They were an array of war-eagles: Murrogh, Brian’s eldest son, the pride of all Erin – tall, broad-shouldered, mightily muscled, with wide blue eyes that were never placid, but danced with mirth, dulled with sadness or blazed with fury; Murrogh’s young son Turlogh, a slender, supple lad of fifteen with golden locks and a frank eager face – tense with anticipation of trying his hand for the first time in the great game of war. And there was that other Turlogh, his cousin – Turlogh Dubh – Black Turlogh, who was only a few years older, but who had already his full stature and was famed throughout all Erin for his berserk rages and the cunning of his deadly axe-play. And there was Meathla O’Faelan, prince of Desmond or South Munster, and his kin – the Great Stewards of Scotland, Lennox, and Donald of Mar, who had crossed the Irish channel with their wild Highlanders – tall men, somber and gaunt and silent. And there was Dunlang O’Hartigan, and O’Hyne, chief of Connacht. But O’Kelly, brother chief of the O’Hyne, and prince of Hy Many, was in the tent of his uncle, King Malachi, which was pitched in the camp of the Meathmen, apart from the Dalcassians, and King Brian was brooding on the matter. For since the set of the sun, O’Kelly had been closeted with the King of Meath and no man knew what passed between them.

Nor was Donagh, son of Brian, among the chiefs before the royal tent, for he was a-field with a band ravaging the holdings of Mailmora in Leinster.

Now Dunlang O’Hartigan approached the king, leading with him Conn the kern.

“My king,” quoth Dunlang, “here is a man who was outlawed aforetime, who has spent vile durance among the Gall, and who has risked his life by storm and sea to return and fight under your banner. From the Orkneys in an open boat he came, naked and alone, and the sea cast him all but lifeless on the sand.”

Brian stiffened; his memory was as sharp as a whetted sword, even in small things.

“Thou!” he said. “Aye, I remember him. Well, Conn, have you come back, and you with your red hands?”

“Aye, King Brian,” answered Conn stolidly. “My hands are red, it’s true, and so I would like to wash off the stain in Danish blood. I slew wrongfully, well I know, but no sorrow of mine can undo the act.”

“And you dare stand before me, to whom your life is forfeit?”

“This alone I know, King Brian,” said Conn boldly. “I am the son of a man who was with you at Sulcoit and the sack of Limerick, and before that followed you in your days of wandering, and was one of the fifteen warriors who remained to you, when King Mahon your brother came seeking you in the forest. And I am the grandson of a man who followed Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks, and my people have fought the Danes since the time of Thorgils. You need men who can strike strong blows and it is my right to die in battle against mine ancient enemies, rather than shamefully at the end of a rope.”

King Brian nodded, somewhat absently. “You have spoken well. Take your life; your days of outlawry are at an end. King Malachi perhaps would say otherwise, since it was a man of his you slew – but – ” he paused; an old doubt ate at his soul as he thought of the king of Meath.

“Let it be,” he repeated. “Let it rest until after the battle – mayhap that will be world’s end for us all.”

Dunlang stepped toward Conn and laid hand on the copper collar.

“Let us cut this away; you are a free man now.”

Conn shook his head. “Not until I have slain Thorwald Raven who put it on my neck. I’ll wear it into battle as a sign of no quarter.”

“That is a noble sword you wear, kern,” said Murrogh suddenly.

“Aye, my lord,” answered Conn. “Murkertagh of the Leather Cloaks wielded this blade until Blacair the Dane slew him at Ardee.”

“It is not fitting a kern should wear the sword of a king,” said Murrogh brusquely. “Let one of the chiefs take it and give him an axe instead.”

Conn’s iron fingers locked about the hilt.

“He who would take the sword from me had best give me the axe first,” he said grimly. “And that suddenly.”

Murrogh’s hot temper blazed suddenly and with an oath he strode toward Conn who met him eye to eye and gave back not a step.

“Be at ease, my son,” ordered King Brian. “Let the kern keep the blade; he has striven hard to gain it.”

Murrogh shrugged his mighty shoulders and then his mood changed.

“Aye, keep it and follow me into battle; we shall see if a king’s sword in a kern’s hand can hew as wide a path as a prince’s blade.”

“My lords,” said Conn, “it may be God’s will I fall in the first onset – but the scars of slavery burn deep in my back this night, and may the dogs eat my bones if I am backward when the spears are splintering.”

And while King Brian communed with his chiefs on the plains above Clontarf, a grisly ritual was being enacted within the gloomy castle that was at once the fortress and palace of Dublin’s king. With good reason did Christians fear and hate those looming walls; Dublin was a pagan city, ruled by savage heathen kings, and dark and fearsome were the deeds done therein.

In an inner chamber in the castle stood the Viking Broder, somberly watching a ghastly sacrifice on a grim black altar. On that monstrous stone writhed a naked frothing thing that had been a comely youth; brutally bound and gagged he could only twist convulsively beneath the dripping inexorable dagger in the hands of the white-bearded wild-eyed priest of Odin.

The blade hacked through flesh and thew and bone; blood gushed in horrid torrents to be caught in a broad copper bowl, which the priest, with his red-dabbled beard, held high, invoking Odin in a frenzied chant. His thin bony fingers tore the yet pulsing heart from the butchered breast and his wild half-mad eyes scanned it with avid intentness.

“What of your divinations, priest?” demanded Broder impatiently.

“If ye fight not on Good Friday, as the Christians call it,” said the priest, “your host will be utterly routed and all your chiefs slain; if ye fight on Good Friday, King Brian will die – but he will win the day.”

Broder cursed with cold venom. “A noble choice is left us, by Thor! Yet if I fall, I would take Brian with me to Helheim. Enough of such mummery! We go against the Gaels on the morrow, fall fair, fall foul!” He turned and strode from the chamber.

He traversed a winding corridor and entered another, more spacious chamber, adorned, like all the Dublin king’s palace, with the loot of all the world – gold-chased weapons, rare tapestries, rich rugs, divans from Byzantium and the East – plunder taken from all peoples by the roving Norsemen; for Dublin was the center of the Vikings’ wide-flung world – the head-quarters whence they fared forth to loot the kings of the earth.

A queenly form rose to greet the sombre sea-king. Kormlada, whom the Gaels called Gormlaith, was indeed fair, but there was deep cruelty in her face and in her hard scintillant eyes. Of mixed Irish and Danish blood, she looked the part of a barbaric queen, with her pendant ear-rings, her golden armlets and anklets and her silver breast-plates set with jewels. But for these breast-plates her only garments were a short silken skirt which came half-way to her knees and was held in place by a wide silk girdle about her lithe waist, and sandals of soft red leather. Her hair was red-gold, her eyes light grey and glittering. Queen she had been, of Dublin, of Meath and of Thomond. And queen she was still, for she held her son Sitric and her brother Mailmora in the palm of her slim white hand.

Carried off in a raid in her childhood by Amlaff Cuaran, king of Dublin, she had early discovered her power over men. As the child-wife of the rough Dane, she had swayed his kingdom at her will, and her ambitions increased with her power.