“Trap your specimen pirates first,” Proculus advised with wise cynicism.
“Right you are. I want Wulfhere and Cormac mac Art!”
“Merciful Saviour,” Philip the Syrian whispered.
Fleet Commander Athanagild grinned broadly.
“My lord Count, your pardon,” one of the curiales said. “I know little of individual pirate captains. Of these two I have not heard.”
“By God,” Athanagild grunted, “had you my job, you’d know their names! Or were you trader, or seaman or pirate of any sort. My lord?”
“By all means tell him.”
“Wulfhere of the Danes is a giant. He’s all of a foot taller than I, with the bones of an ox, a chest like a wall, and a crimson beard to cover half of it. Hausakliufr is he nicknamed in his own language-the Skull-splitter, and not for compliment’s sake. Battle is the greatest joy of this colossus’s life-the plunder’s but an excuse. His fellow Danes are hardly a weak-kneed lot, but they outlawed him because he was too dangerous to have around. Somewhat more to the point, there’s no bolder or more expert sailor on the northern seas.”
“You sound, sir, as though you had encountered the man.”
“I’ve seen him,” Athanagild owned, and the words came betwixt clenched teeth. “Aye, and heard him laugh at me through a gale. None would make a better display on a gibbet.”
“And the other?”
“Cormac? That one’s an exile from Hibernia, one of the few reivers wild enough to sail with Wulfhere. He’s dark as the Skull-splitter is red, a master of the sword, and subtle-brained. Wulfhere loves him for his battle-prowess and relies on him for his crafty advice. No snakes in Hibernia, eh? This Cormac mauled our coasts with a Celtic crew of his own, some years agone. One ship these two have, and sixty followers, and with that they’ve raked Britain and Gaul and Spain as if there were naught to oppose them but wax men with paper weapons.”
“I want them!” Guntram said harshly, and was momentarily nonplussed with no table to bang. “With all their fame, they’ve but one ship and none to avenge them. What’s more, it was these very two lifted the king’s pretties from the pack train.”
The disparaging scorn in his last phrase rang clear. Too canny to say it out in such words, or indeed in any words, Guntram despised his king. Alaric the Second, King of all the Visigoths, the old soldier considered a disgrace to his father’s name. Despite his rage at the piratical activity along his shores-and inland-the young king preferred to buy erotically skilled women from Egypt and the Levant to beguile his nights, rather than warships to patrol his coast. Guntram almost snorted, thinking of it; indeed, his nostrils flared.
Honest Gothic lasses with broad hips for bearing, and no knowledge of degenerate tricks; these had been good enow for Alaric’s father Euric-and aurochs horns to drink from. No question, the race was declining. The younger generation would never carry it to century’s end, but fourteen years off.
Well… business.
“I want them!” he repeated, and glared at the merchants. “And you objects are going to help me take them. Do not think elsewise!”
“Impossible, my lord!” Desiderius Crispus cried. “I do not deal with these men, nor does the Syrian. I keep myself informed. Did they barter their loot in Burdigala at all, I would know of it.”
“True, it’s true, my good lord!” The confirmation burst eagerly from Philip. “Their buyer is in Nantes, in the Roman kingdom.”
“Nantes,” the count growled. “And the name of their buyer?”
“I do not know, my lord. By Saint Martin, it’s the truth!”
Though Guntram eyed them narrowly, he did not hector them the further. He’d sharper pins than that to jab these two with.
He said sharply, “Your oath in a saint’s name settles it. It must be true. The part about Nantes is right, in any event, and it’s fortunate for you that I happen to know. I’ve had a spy there of late; the same that uncovered your own shifty dealings, so y’see he knows his word. He traced the man through a customs official he found to be corrupt. The Dane and his partner deal with one Balsus Ammian. Know you aught of him?”
“My lord Count, I do.” Desiderius said, and Guntram saw his surprise was real enow. “But it would seem… not so much as I did think.” He watched the count make an impatient gesture; Guntram had not fetched in Desiderius to flatter his choice of spies. “Aye. Balsus Ammian dwells by the waterfront and makes great affectation of being one step from poverty, but in truth he’s no less rich than-”
The merchant stopped suddenly.
“Than you are?” Guntram suggested. “Aye, that tallies with my man’s description. We talked until late last night.”
The merchants’ mutual thought was easy to guess: I must learn who this spy of Guntram’s is. Which, of course, was why he was not present at this meeting they now knew Guntram had planned, and planned well.
“An I find ferrets of yours within sniffing distance of his name,” the count said genially, “I’ll see your bones picked bare and rattling in the wind. Understood?”
Under those innocently staring blue eyes, they did assurance on him that they understood.
“So. Let’s get on, then. These piratical swine have shown that they too keep themselves informed. I mean to tempt ’em with a cargo they can scarce resist. Wine, for the most part, but with a treasure of lighter goods, and none of the dangers of fakery; the lading will be true. It will sail from Narbo, and around Hispania hither. Word will be let fall. The Dane and the Gael, if I judge them aright, will not waylay the ship off the Hispanic coast. They will choose to take it within comfortable distance of their market-and Athanagild will be waiting.”
Guntram paused but long enough to glance at Athanagild; the commander nodded with enthusiasm.
“And do you, sirs, know the best part of all?” Guntram went amiably on. “It is you who will public-spiritedly provide the bait, and at your own cost.”
The merchants broke into a babble of protest. Proculus silenced them by gazing dreamily at the ceiling and murmuring, “Treason. The knives. The clamps. The hot lead.”
Count Guntram nodded approval. This Proculus fellow might be snobbish and finicky, but once he got into the spirit of things the man was downright useful.
“But my lord,” Desiderius bleated, “they may succeed after all!”
“In which case you will have to take your losses, now won’t you? But aye, it’s a thought. I should like them to have a nasty surprise awaiting then in Nantes, in the event they do. It requires thought. But you have more to tell me yet. You may not traffic with Wulfhere and Cormac, but you are to betray to the full measure of your grimy knowledge the pirates you do buy from. Either they are taken and executed within the year-hooves of the Devil, within the season!-or you, dear sirs, suffer in their places. Well, sirs, I am waiting.”
They did not force the noble count to wait overlong.
CHAPTER ONE: Trap for A Pirate
At the mouth of a reedy creek perched a raven with whetted beak and talons flexing. Dark was the predator, with sharp eyes for that which would feed her. Yet this raven was no bird, but a ship. And unlike her namesake, Raven was no scavenger of corpses, unless it were the great sprawling corpse of Rome’s empire in the west. She was a fighting bird.
Two men stood in her bow in the morning light. Athanagild had described them without error, save in one point only. Yet still he had not conveyed their presence; to accomplish that would require a bard aflight on the inspiration of his demon.
Wulfhere was immense, and no less; a man huge of height and thew, with fire-blue eyes under thickets of brow and a beard like a conflagration. Though he was restless with waiting, he moved not save to fondle the great ax he held across the front of his body and, once in a while, to sigh. At such times his scale byrnie expanded as if it were hard put to contain him. That was but illusion, though a remarkable one. On the Danish giant gleamed heavy golden buckles, studs, and armlets. His war-gear was adequate and more. In his belt gleamed the whalebone hilt of the broad-bladed dagger sheathed there, and a smaller ax was tucked through that same broad thick belt at his other hip. Against his knee leaned a shield like a scarred moon of battle.