Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

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!”