Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

The younger king’s eyes narrowed. “One cannot be sure,” he admitted slowly. “I believe Syagrius began to wonder about him. Not suspect him; merely wonder. Had it been more than that, Syagrius would surely have had him slain rather than sending him from the court. The fellow was given a post in Metz, and he’d no choice save to accept it. It is there he now abides. I have heard that he met with misfortune at the hands of robbers, but his hurts were not mortal. I shall reward him for his services after we have conquered Soissons.”

This rang true because for the most part it was true. Clovis had lied only about the city to which his agent had been dispatched by the Roman king. Was Nantes, not Metz, and the post he had been given there was that of customs assessor for the district. The wight’s name was Sigebert. Misfortune had been his indeed, although many said it was richly deserved, and now referred to him as Sigebert One-ear. He had been so unwise as to lay trap and cross swords with the pirates Wulfhere the red-beard and Cormac mac Art.

Sigebert’s fate had been maiming and disfigurement at the hands of one of their men, Clovis had been informed, and he remembered.

Sigebert, too, remembered.

Yet none of this really mattered to Clovis or Chlovis or Chlodwig or Hlovis or-Roman-style-Chlodovechus, King of the Salian Franks. It mattered to Sigebert, and to the two pirates. Even now the fact was drawing Wulfhere and his black haired, blue eyed Gaelic partner to the grimy fringes of Clovis’s plan to conquer Soissons.

“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.