“Lord,” the fisherman, said, “what know we of Hengist, or such great ones? He may be hereabouts-sith ye say it, so it must be-but he’d not confide in us.”
“Play no games!” Wulfhere snarled, suddenly tiring of his own. “I know Hengist’s hereabouts. I know how quickly word gets around. Tell me, or by Odin, I’ll have your lives! I can see ye’re brothers!”
At a gesture from their chieftain, two Danes seized the taller fisherman and bent him over a rowing-bench. Wulfhere lifted his outside ax.
“A good thing there be two of ye,” he rumbled. “I can spare one, to show the other my mood is no trifling one. Once more only-where be Hengist?”
“With Fritigern Redjowl, on Fritigern’s Isle!” the second fisherman howled. “At Fritigern Redjowl’s scalli, on the southern point. Although he may be out harrying-lord.”
“Nay, he will be there,” Wulfhere said confidently. He grinned. “He expects us. Well now, ye pair, we’ll just be taking ye with us until we know whether ye lied or not. An ye spoke true, we’ll set ye free with no harm done. Even reward ye, maybe. An ye’re lying-” He made a throat-cutting gesture, and an ugly noise in his throat.
The two fishermen were bound and stowed neatly out of the way.
Muffled oars moved the galleys through the night, standing well out to sea from Fritigern’s Isle. Named for a chieftain now long in his burial-barrow, it was ruled-or its southern half was-by a descendant of his bearing the same name, to which had been added the cognomen Redjowl. Host to Hengist!
Ere dawn, the Danes and Armoricans found a tiny islet barely large enow to boast a cove in which three galleys could lie hidden. Cormac despatched scouting parties to cover its every yard of ground to ensure that they had the miniature isle to themselves entire. They would bide here through the day, and move against Fritigern Redjowl’s guest in the evening.
Mac Art spent nearly all the day in weary, stubborn debate with Wulfhere: the Gael insisted and insisted that their object was to regain Raven, and. but secondly to do death upon Hengist. Meanwhile sentries kept watch from the islet’s meagre heights, to warn should any ship come near. None did. Nor was the argument conclusive, and with dusk they put forth.
The Armorican galleys lay to a scant mile offshore from Fritigern’s skalli. This was as near as they were to go, and men looked glumly on the ten Danes chosen by lot. These, with Cormac and Wulfhere, stood ready to enter the sea. They wore leggings and bullhide shoon only. Scabbarded swords were slung over their backs so as not to hamper them. Saxes, the wicked one-edged fighting knives of the tribe for which they were named, hung sheated at their hips. That aside, they went without shield or armour and nigh naked: twelve men, bare to the waist, against an island of foemen not known for gentleness.
On the deck, five big casks were ballasted with stones to float with a particular side up. That had been tested. Lowered over the wales with care, they bobbed and floated as they ought. To the top of each barrel was attached an earthenware firepot in which glowing embers were snugly cached. They would last, for the water was slack and calm, between tides. Gazing upon those gently bobbing casks, Cormac mac Art showed teeth in a wolfish grin that was not handsome.
Twelve men slid quietly into the sea. Two or three to a cask, they gripped rope loops attached, to them and commenced to swim with a steady leg-beat. The barrels provided support for the men who pushed them.
“Fortune attend you,” Drocharl said in low tones.
Cormac had rather the Armorican had, not said even that. Sound carried marvelously well across nighted water, which was why he and those with him had care not to break the surface with their frog-moving legs. The shore neared. Fritigern Redjowl’s skalli grew, and details became more discernible. Somewhere yonder lay Raven. She’d be drawn within the stockade sure, and guarded like a chest of gold. It scarcely mattered; they meant not to strike directly for Raven.
The little waves of slack tide plashed gently on the beach. Cormac noted the wedge of rock that ran down to the water and out a ways. Peering, squinting, he descried a faint glitter of helm and spearhead. Shortly the scrape of a spear’s butt on rock confirmed the presence of a sentry. Cormac’s eyes sought more knowledge. Farther along the beach, four Saxon warships lay on the sand ready for instant launching, with yards lowered and sails clewed up. Eyes narrowed and feet constantly working, Cormac smiled thinly in the darkness.
Those ships were essential to his plan. Nor had he merely guessed or hoped they would be there. Cormac mac Art was more thorough than that. He had known it. Fritigern Redjowl’s men were professional pirates no less than the Gael and this was midsummer, the height of the plundering season. Those vessels yonder would not be laid up in boat shelters until the onset of winter.
His steadily beating legs sent him that way, silently.
Two bored caries stood guard over the ships. Irksome or no, Cormac stood long minutes braced in shoulder-deep water with rocks under his feet, until his eyes and ears assured him that there were no more. At last he was satisfied of it. It was time to move.
Quietly, he made his way along the edge of the rocks, squirming on his belly in the sand for the last few yards. The gritty stuff clung to his wet body and leggings. For camouflage, all the better. The sentry, standing atop the ridge of rock, did not see him coming.
Two steely hands took him by the ankles and jerked him down so swiftly he had not time to yell. He struck the sand with a muffled thump. A powerful hand seized his throat, choking back any outcry, and the point of Cormac’s sax drove ruthlessly through his eye into the brain. The sentry died with hardly a spasm.
Knud was at Cormac’s side almost before the Gael had beckoned. He donned the dead man’s helmet and hung the shield on his back to hide his bare torso. Taking the spear, he replaced the sentry atop the rocks while Cormac squirmed past him. Wulfhere came following, his brine-soaked beard sweeping the pale sand as he crawled.
Almost, Knud felt sorry for the pair of Saxon caries guarding the ships. Almost.
Cormac cut his man’s throat. The sand drank his blood thirstily as Cormac laid him down in the shadow of the ship. Wulfhere strangled the other; although a brawny fellow, the carle had no more chance against the terrible Dane than a kitten. Wulfhere lowered the corpse with a low grunt of disgust. He’d rather have met the wight openly, with weapons. Sneaking through the dark was not the way he preferred to fight, and he knew he and Cormac were one in that. He comforted himself by thinking of the shock Hengist was going to have, in just a little while more.
The gates of Fritigern’s skalli were a bare furlong away. Guards paced the log ramparts. Most carefully, Wulfhere’s men carried ashore their five casks. They set to work among the ships in the concealing night. First they saw to the fire-pots. The embers were blown to redness out of their beds of ash, then fed with tiny bits of kindling. This down between the ships’ sides, where the glow was unlikely to be seen from a distance. With sailcloth to muffle the noise, they knocked the end out of each cask.
The barrels were half-filled with pitch.
Bundles of pitch-smeared flax, wrapped in leather for waterproofing, had been lashed to each. Men unwrapped the flax and spread it about. They positioned the barrels of pitch directly under the loosely-clewed sails. The long ash oars, forty to a ship, were stacked together in close lattices. They would add nicely to the sudden infernoes created by the firing of the pitch: no wood burned more beautifully than ash, green or old!