“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!”
“May it be so,” Morfydd murmured.
“As for Thorfinn,” her husband said on, “he was a strong man. He survived longer than any could have believed. In two days the rot was in his belly and half Nantes could hear his screaming. The tale is that those sounds of agony eased Sigebert for the pain of his gashed face more than wine or drugs-which he downed in quantity-and that he cursed for disappointment when Black Thorfinn was silent at last.”
For a heartbeat of the silence of grimness, naught happened in that room of Howel’s hall. Naught-save that the whalebone game-piece in Cormac’s fingers cracked across, and blood oozed from under his thumbnail, and Wulfhere’s massy muscles quivered with stress and the butt-end of the spear he held was impossibly driven deep into the hard-trodden earth of Howel’s floor. Neither man noticed what he had done. Wulfhere’s hand dropped from the spearshaft, and it stood there, and Morfydd stared in some awe.
“Blood of the gods!” Cormac snarled, snapping to his feet and his face awrithe with passion. The black link-mail of his body chimed harshly. “The filthy dog! The gods-bereft alley scavenger-Sigebert shall die! Were he Emperor of Rome, were he High-king of Eirrin, he would die for this!”
“Aye,” Wulfhere said, and his voice was that of a mean old hound as he leaned forward over the point of the spear. His bristling beard covered the leaf-shaped head. Hot, volcanic flames burned in his eyes and his voice quivered in rage. “I’ll cut the blood eagle on that trollspawn, with my own hands. It’s a thing I never did afore to any man. I never hated any enough. Yet I swear-Sigebert shall have that death.”
Morfydd had turned pale, and for another long while there was only silence.
Howel said, “Then if ye’d not heard that, I have word of another enemy to ye both that perchance ye’ve not heard either. Hengist is abroad.”
7
“Hengist!”
The startled echo of that name came from Wulfhere the Dane. He stared, and Howel of Bro Erech saw how the name alone drove thoughts of vengeance on Sigebert One-ear from Wulfhere’s mind. He took his hand from the spear-which stood, noted by all but him-to pace closer with his deep interest in his eyes. He thrust his massive head forward, as though better to hear.
“Ye be certain of this, Prince? Hengist? Somewhere in these parts?”
“Nay, somewhere to the south,” Howel said, rather hurriedly. “He came down the Narrow Sea from Kent with three galleys, and each sail bore the White Horse. My scouts and coast-watchers saw them pass these shores.” He frowned his displeasure. “I put forth in pursuit. Shameful that one should be using home waters with not a by-your-leave! Too, he’d have fetched a mighty ransom, could I have taken him alive-the which I will admit is doubtful. In any case his ships proved too swift for me to catch.”
“Hengist turned hare?”
“Surprise is on me,” Cormac said thoughtfully, “that he did not turn back and fight for the mere pleasure of it.”