Andrew Offutt: The Tower of Death

In darkness the fishing boat came to the waterfront of Nantes.

Its precious load was covered with sacking and old fish-nets. The three who rode in it wore long enveloping cloaks of coarse wool, under which they carried their helmets. One was a flame-haired giant; another was dark, scarred and leanly muscular; the third likewise black-haired, the single Dane of such colouring in Wulfhere’s crew. Black Thorfinn, he was named.

They moored the boat before a dockside warehouse. One end of it had been made into living quarters and a grog-shop, where any might come and go with a ready excuse, if not always without suspicion.

Wulfhere and Cormac were too striking to show themselves even in such a place, and made their way to a less public door. There they knocked in a certain rhythm. A balding Gallo-Roman in stained tunic came to let them in. He did not look at all a financial match for Philip or Desiderius Crispus, which was as he liked it.

“Cormac,” he said in greeting. “Skull-splitter.”

“Our very selves. And Thorfinn ye’ll not be knowing.

He has no word of Latin, Balsus, but give him to drink and he will not pine for conversation. He’s here to help with our load.”

More than that, he provided excuse for them to talk among themselves in Danish if they wished. The advantage was that Balsus Ammian would comprehend not a word. Cormac’s early life had not left him a trusting man.

“Plunder,” the merchant said, closing the door and replacing the bar. He found the word about as enticing as gout, to hear him, but his dark eyes gleamed. “It is a bad time for trade, Captain, but aye, we can discuss it.” To the brutal-faced hulk attending him he said, “Back to your bouncing, and tell Clodia we have guests warranting our best. Hungry, thirsty guests new from a sea voyage.”

The chucker-out’s nose had told him as much. With a grunt, he went through to the grog-shop, whence were borne odours of sausage, ale, wine, tar and sweat on gusts of argument, laughter, bawdry and alleged song.

Balsus led the way up creaking stairs to a room hung with cheap tapestry and rugged with sheepskins. Its odour was musty, but the pirates had sat in far worse. The lamps Balsus lit from his candle, puffing, burned scented oil. Cormac wondered idly how much could be got from rendering their host, and him wheezing like a walrus ashore after a rise of stairs…

They threw off their wadmal cloaks, and seated themselves with a creak and chime of battle-harness. The chairs held firm, even Wulfhere’s. They had been in this house erenow.

“Well, Captain,” Balsus said, “I’d never ask you-no, no, far from me the thought-to talk business neither drunk nor dined. You are famished, not so?”

A nod from Cormac and a vehement rumble of Wulfhere’s belly assured him it was.

“But a hint, an intimation while you eat-perchance a sample?” The hand of Balsus flashed in air, fingers partway curled into graspy claws.

Cormac, who yet carried his helmet in the crook of his arm, produced from it a wooden casket, and something else. That something glinted in the lamplight with gold and lapis lazuli and breathtaking jeweller’s art.

It certainly took their fence’s breath, and his face showed agony at the need to handle it casually. The bauble dangled, turning on its fine chain, from his graceless fingers, the sigil of a writhing winged serpent. His skin seemed to tingle at its nearness. It had not the look of mere ornament, though it was that, and wrought by a master; it impressed as a formal talisman.

Might it be? Cormac, watched him closely.

“It’s forgetting the casket ye seem to be,” the Gael murmured, and set down his helmet beside his leg.

“Time and to spare,” returned the merchant, dissembling too late. “One doesn’t wish to be hurried. By Saint Augustine! Frankincense!”

The aroma pervaded the room above that of the lamps.

“And more of the like yonder,” Cormac told him. “Spices, gums, jewels, and rolls of silk still dry in their covers. Our finest haul yet, so let us be having no more natter of how bad is trade nowadays. Your hands do betrayal on ye, man. It’s downright palsied with eagerness they are.”

“H’m. A splendid haul, yes. Not to be denied, but such-distinctiveness-brings its own problems, good my sirs. Makes it all but impossible to dispose of, do you see?” The fingertips of Balsus now massaged his palm.

Cormac stared back at him, unwinking. His hard boned face looked more sinister than ordinarily. Wulfhere, no fool, did not try to match that intimidating performance. He simply looked benign, and patient with his fellow man’s gaucheries.

Into the room and the moment, breaking the tension, came Balsus’s daughter Clodia.

A shrewd, spirited presence she, possessed of redbrown eyes and dense red-brown hair, with hips a-sway and skirt a-rustle. The tray she bore upheld an ale-jug large as a bucket, and four pewter tankards. Had been a goodly feat of strength on her part to bring it upstairs, but she knew it would last, in this company, one avid breath after it was poured.

The healthily-constructed young woman set it down on the table with gusty relief.

“Captain Wolf!”

She perched on his knee, took Cormac’s face between her hands and kissed him with knowledge and willingness enough to melt the grimness from his mouth. Nor was Cormac over susceptible. She knew him from the days when he had led his own crew of reivers from Eirrin, wherefore she and her father called him “Captain” even yet, for courtesy’s sake-a fancy to which Wulfhere was not mean-minded enow to object.

“And our walking menhir all shaggy with lichen!” she added, bussing Wulfhere with equal warmth. “You need not tell me. My beloved father has been trying to cheat you again.”

She poured the heavy brown ale. The three did not so much drink as breathe it in. She poured again, this time including her father in the round, and that finished the jug. Clodia put it aside.

“Garth”-this was the chucker-out-”will be waddling in like a goose with a keg in his arms. Sausage and cheese and a roast sucking-pig will come after; the man who ordered it will be desolate to hear that it fell in the fire, but we’ll feed him costless on something else-ohh!”

Her eyes had fallen on the Egyptian sigil. She picked it up with a murmured, “Beautiful,” and was about to slip it over her head when Balsus snatched it away. He did more. He struck her fiercely and snarled a curse.

Seeing Cormac’s eyes upon him, coldly speculative, he muttered something about “the jade’s getting above herself.”

The Gael knew well there was more. Balsus Ammian’s daughter had a business head as good as his own, and better judgment of men. Not only for her services as barmaid did her father have her attend such meetings as this. No. Something about the pendant itself had aroused his touchy possessiveness. Balsus must be deeply moved, else he’d conceal it better.

That , Cormac thought, will increase our profit from this night.

He wondered what the bauble’s significance might be.

Clodia had retreated to Wulfhere for comfort, which he charitably provided with a hand up her skirt. Her tears quickly dried, she fussed and wriggled and slapped him lightly without making aught of real efforts to get away; she did glance sidewise to see the effect of this byplay on Cormac. He was paying not the least attention; no care on him if Wulfhere were to set her astride his lap and go him to work in earnest.

The edge removed from his thirst, Cormac poured down his ale at a slower rate. His custom was not to touch wine until business was settled, and until they had food in them, their trading would not even be discussed. But there was news to be had that did not bear directly upon business, and Cormac had always an ear for news.