Part 33 (1/2)

”I don't believe-”

”You will. You are the seventh son of the seventh son, you know. But not the seventh son of your mother.”

Ragnor frowned.

”Your father took her from these sh.o.r.es years ago. She was a healer, a pagan child, brought to the church. Your father was blessed-or cursed-with the way of power. Your mother knew the way of the earth.”

”You're a fool, old man. How can you know all this?”

”To you, he is Odin. To the Romans, Jove. He is greater than they ever knew, but one and the same. And so I know.”

The monk left him. Later that night, he asked Hagan about his father. Hagan, enjoying a fat leg of the holy men's sheep, shrugged. ”Three wives. Maida, whom he loved as a child, my mother. Ingrid, whom he stole from the Danes. Elspeth, your mother, whom he seized from a raid just north of here, many years ago.”

Later, as they sailed away, he saw the monk at the stairs of the monastery again, watching them go. The monk lifted his hand.

Angry, Ragnor did not respond.

They did not return to Norway. News of their exploit with the monks traveled, and rather than making them appear weak, they found that their services were being sought by many n.o.bles, of their own kind ruling the isles, of the various lords of the peoples of Scotland, and the rihts, or kings of Eire well. They even traveled down to Sicily. Hagan listened to those who would hire their services, and as was the right among Nors.e.m.e.n, the men were free to choose to fight or to refuse that particular battle.

Ragnor found himself returning again and again to the monastery they had first ravaged, intrigued by the abbot there, the books, and the many languages the monks could speak. He returned his share of the silver reliquaries they had taken.

”And what do you want for these?” the lean, sharp-nosed abbot asked him.

”Languages.”

”What?”

”I want to learn languages, as you speak them. The Latin with which you write, the Gaelic I hear in the villages, the English of the lower countries. Then French and-”

”One by one, lad. One by one,” the abbot told him.

And so, he became a regular visitor.

As time went by, Ragnor learned to join the fighting, and with each season that pa.s.sed, he became more adept at the art of warfare. Among the Vikings, many came to him to ask him what he thought of a particular battle. ”Dublin is a town founded by a Viking. Now the king asks us to fight against interlopers from the north. That is a good fight.”

He agreed it was a good fight. And he discovered, when he was convinced of the valor of a fight, he could be savage. There were times when he could take life with a vengeance, and yet, he always remembered the way he had felt when Olaf died, and he refused to allow wanton murder of peasants, women, children, and the aged in any place where he fought.

Revenge, he had noted, could make murderers of those who had been downtrodden. It was amazing, he had discovered, when their force had won the day for a threatened people, just how quickly those people could turn, ready to cut out the hearts of their foes, once they had power.

They fought for the king of an isle off the western coast of Scotland, a battle they fought against a group of Danes, very much like their own.

The king of the isle rewarded them with a smaller island to call their own. They grew wealthy, and others joined them. The men took wives-some willing, and some coerced.

They traveled home and brought riches with them, but Ragnor had no desire to stay. In the time he had been gone, his mother had died. His father had gone a-Viking a different way, and though he felt a deep loss at his mother's pa.s.sing, he had not known his father well, and though respected and awed, he had not been in Ragnor's life enough for him to greatly miss his presence.

He was sorry forever, for the void he felt in many ways. There were so many questions he might have asked.

His uncle, however, was still the jarl. He a.s.sured Ragnor that his mother, though originally taken as a slave, had been among their people many years, and had been loved, and had been honored with the greatest of funerals; her byre had burned brightly on the fjord throughout a long, moonlit night.

”There is so much my parents might have told me,” Ragnor said.

”Perhaps there is not as much to tell as there is to learn, and only time and life can be the teachers we really need,” his uncle told him.

With little then to hold him to his old life, Ragnor returned with Hagan and their many men to their isle off the western coast of Scotland.

By his thirtieth year, he had his own home, cattle, sheep, and horses. He had not married, but neither was he lonely. There were many women in his life, strangers in faraway places, captives who were eager to please, and housemaids who were willing to serve. His brother and he had formed a bond of real friends.h.i.+p and led their large army of mercenaries together.

That year, they were called upon by the rich chieftain two days south of them, inward on the river. Ragnor traveled with Hagan to speak with the chieftain.

Their people were being taken and killed. Not far away, foreign enemies had come in and decimated a village. They were dark invaders, fierce, with small, slim, horses that disappeared into the night; darkness was when they wished to strike.

The people were terrified of them. They did not just come and kill. They could slip through the defenses at night, with no one knowing, and more of their children would be gone.

The mission appealed to Ragnor. But on their return trip, they stopped at the monastery from which they had first stolen the silver. Ragnor wasn't sure why, but he was keen to talk to the old abbot he had so strangely defended, a man whose name was Peter.

Peter seemed to be expecting them. He had soup and bread ready, and he listened avidly to everything Ragnor and Hagan said. ”The evil has come,” Peter said.

”Bah!” Hagan told him. ”They are foreigners- cowards, as Ragnor would say, who only fight the unarmed, the weak. They prey upon women.”

”Are you telling us not to go?” Ragnor queried, for his friend seemed so strange.

”No, you must go. And you must not just kill these infidels. You must destroy them, utterly. They will use any weapon: hands, fists, teeth. Yes, teeth, you must beware in battle.

They are an ancient enemy. I think they are the lamia of the ancients in the East; they bring not just death but infection. They are everything against G.o.d.”

”If your one great G.o.d were so powerful, he would destroy them.”

”G.o.d has created man with a heart and a soul. A man may fight for good or for evil.”

Hagan was aggravated. ”A man's cause is good; his enemy's cause is bad.”

Peter ignored him. He stared at Ragnor. ”Beware.”

”We will destroy them,” Hagan said confidently. ”We will return to our isle, gather our s.h.i.+ps, and go to the chieftain, and there, build and create his defenses for him. Then we'll rout his enemies!”

Two weeks later, they had made the journey. Yet, even as they steered their boats through the river pa.s.s, they could see ahead. As they neared the village, where so recently Hagan and Ragnor had been welcomed and beseeched for help, they saw nothing but burned-out farmsteads and the rubble of homes.

They brought their longboats in, and the men all stared at the carnage in silence.

Gudric, the Rune Sayer, shook his head. ”Turn back!” he told Hagan.

Hagan would not be persuaded. ”We go in. We see if any are living; we promised our aid, and we will see to the dead.”

Even Ragnor felt a hesitance as they stepped ash.o.r.e. He knew that his brother felt it, but Hagan didn't believe in allowing cowardice to rule a man's actions.

They had just gone ash.o.r.e and seen the death, and the flies, when Eric, left behind to guard the s.h.i.+ps, called out to them.

More s.h.i.+ps were coming. To his amazement, Ragnor saw that a s.h.i.+p of monks was coming; Peter stood aft, tall and straight against the wind as the s.h.i.+p followed theirs.

The monks all carried swords.