Anderson, Poul - The Demon of Scattery.pdf - Poul Anderson - chomikbob7

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Bill

The Demon of Scattery

POUL ANDERSON &

MILDRED DOWNEY BROXON

Once in the war between elves and trolls, it happened that Skafloc fled

England to seek help among the Sídhe. He was a mortal who had been

fostered by elvenkind; he bore with him the halves of the sword called

Tyrfing. Could that weapon be forged anew, it would bring victory to his

folk. They were in sore plight. But no smith could mend it save Bolverk,

the blind giant afar in Jötunheim.

Mananaan MacLir befriended Skafloc in Ireland, and they set sail

together on the quest. Though their boat was small, her hull and rigging

were charged with the force of Mananaan, who had been a god before the

White Christ came, and who was still a might to reckon with on deep

water. Also, at the prow danced the figurehead of Fand his lady.

Farther northward the twain fared than a man-built ship would have

gone before making landfall. Darkness lit by aurora fell over the sea.

Icebergs went like moving mountains; from them welled frost. Strange

beings prowled half-seen around the strakes. Again and again must

Mananaan strain to the utmost his powers over wind and wave.

Yet even on the hardest passage, times will come when seamen find

naught to do but sit and spin yarns. It staves off the loneliness.

Thus Mananaan, at ease on a bench, regarded Skafloc, who held the

rudder. Tall was Mananaan and fair to see, with clear features,

greenish-gold locks, and eyes that held the changeable hues of ocean. His

green cloak, white tunic, golden torque and armlets bore the only bright

colors within the rim of sight. He strummed a harp as he said, low and

slow:

"My friend, you are steering toward more than you know. You steer

toward your fate, and what that might be I cannot tell. Yours is the blood

of strangers; what burdens you is not the geas my people know. Now the

world and the halfworld are changing, and I think all Faerie lies under an

unforeseeable doom.

"Even so, from what was, we can draw some understanding of what is,

and perhaps of what shall be. I am thinking on a thing that happened in

Ireland near a hundred years ago. Kindred of yours were caught in it, and

at the end even I played a part. What it all meant lies outside my ken. I

wonder if any god knows what really happened, unless he be too great for

me to speak with.

"But told from the human side, the tale can be followed. It may

enlighten you in some way. If not, it may at least pass a few hours of our

voyage.

The vikings reached Scattery Island on the first of April. This was a day

of cold winds off the sea, noise and spray in the air, clouds at whose hasty

shadows the sun cast spears. Whitecaps chopped across the Shannon

mouth and the river itself ran darkling. New leaves tossed in the woods

along either bank; spring green rippled over plowlands. Smoke blew in

rags from the farmsteads yonder, but Halldor made out no folk and few

kine. Everybody must have fled when the ships hove in sight.

No. On the holm before him, the monks straggled from their chapel,

milled briefly about like ants whose nest has been trampled, and ran for

the tower. They had only one or two small curraghs, which could ferry but

few of them away in time, and he had caught them unready, at their

devotions. Norse dragons swam fast. Besides, the monks had their church

treasures to ward, and a stout place wherein to stand siege.

From the tiller of his craft, Halldor gazed down its crowded length to

his goal. He had ordered the sail struck and oars out. Forty men, two to a

shaft, cast their strength into the work, and Sea Bear drove forward with

her hull a-shiver. Some chanted together to help keep the beat, "Tyr hold

us, ye Tyr, ye Odin—" hoarse amidst thole-creak, wave-splash, rig-thrum

of a mast not yet unstepped. Helmets gleamed on their heads, ringmail on

the shoulders of those who owned it. Proud on the foredeck as lookout,

shining in iron, Halldor's son Ranulf laid hand on the snarling beast-head

mounted at the prow.

His father's glance dropped, and brows drew into a scowl. A woman

knelt in the hull below Ranulf's feet. Though cowl and flapping cloak

covered most of her, Halldor saw clasped hands and knew she was calling

on her White Christ—in a whisper, but it might reach far. He touched the

small silver hammer at his throat and drew Thor's sign.

The steering oar bucked, to let him know it wanted his full grasp. He

shrugged off his faint misgivings. Her saints and angels had helped her

naught when the Norsemen sacked her convent some days agone and

Ranulf ran her down across a field. Indeed, she was the only one who was

taken away, he and some of his friends finding her sightly enough to be

worth her keep out of their shares of food and drink… for a while, at least.

Halldor turned his mind toward the other two ships, Arrow-Egil's

gaudy Reginleif and Sigurd Tryggvason's Shark . Good, they were still

where he wanted them, aft of his to starboard and larboard. He hadn't

been sure of that, for although their skippers and he had sworn

brotherhood, they had merely agreed to follow his redes as long as they

deemed those to be sound.

Several more had called him over-careful. He was a fine seaman, they

admitted, but no viking. He had not let himself get angry. It was true; he

was a trader, raiding not because he wanted to but because he must. He

had answered mildly that he had not kept himself alive through five and

forty winters by using his head only for a hat rest.

This had been in Armagh, in the north of Ireland, where a number of

crews were lying over between fall and spring rather than go back to

Norway…

Halldor had been asking everyone about the western coast; he had

learned Irish several years earlier. At last he had fared thither on

horseback with a few trusty companions. To those he met along the way,

he said he was a messenger; but he always looked about him, and beheld

the richness of the land. On his return, Egil and Sigurd were ready to

listen. They were from Thrandheim too and knew him of old.

The three sat in a wattle-and-daub hut. Eye-smarting smoke drifted

thick below the thatch. From the rafters hung meat the farmwife had set

to cure before she and her family were driven off. Rain pattered on the

roof and lay pooled outside the wicker door.

"Pickings ought to be good along the lower Shannon," Halldor said.

"Our folk have not been that way in a long time. Farmsteads, monasteries,

churches with their golden vessels—all lie waiting for us. Of course, others

besides me know this. We should start early, to arrive first. From the way

the season has gone thus far, we might safely embark a little before the

equinox."

They were somewhat surprised, but took him at his word. He was not

called Halldor the Weatherwise for nothing; throughout his life he had

paid close heed to sea and sky, and thought much about what he saw.

Sigurd did frown and say, "Um-m-m, we'll be just three shipsful. Man

for man, the Irish fight as well as our own lads. If a chieftain thereabouts

can quickly gather a host, we might have a nasty surprise."

"Halldor, of all men, has surely planned against that," Egil answered.

However well meant, his words smote painfully. During the past

summer, the second he spent in viking, Halldor had been ambushed

ashore and lost Ivar, the older of his two living sons. Soon afterward,

Ranulf had arrived from home in his father's trading vessel, ablaze with

the wish to leave sixteen years of boyhood behind him.

"I have," Halldor said as steadily as might be. "We want a base that we

can hold against attack. Not that I reckon it likely we'll be set on in force.

However, it's well to be ready. It's also well to have a place where we can

rest in safety, tend our ships and gear, maybe share out the plunder if it's

ample—for you know I want to end this cruise as soon as I've piled up

what wealth I need." He drained his beer horn and beckoned through the

murk of the hut for a thrall to bring him more. "Spying," he said, "I've

found the right spot, too: an eyot settled by none but Papas."

"Christian kirkfolk? Good!" More than greed roughened Egil's voice.

Like many Norsemen, he saw witchcraft and bad luck in a faith that

scorned all other gods.

—And so, while the last winter winds howled—but less mightily than

usual, as Halldor had foretold—they had set forth west and then south

along Ireland, raiding as they went. At first, not much was left for them.

Later they struck an untouched convent, but it yielded scant loot. Now,

soon after, they had turned into the great river and were approaching

Scattery Island…

The clangor of a bell, blown downwind to his ears, roused Halldor from

those flitting memories. That near had he come, rounding a spit at the

north end to seek the sheltered bay on the east side. A half mile to

larboard was lesser Hog Island; the nearer shore of the mainland lay as far

again beyond. The sound loudened with every leap of his craft: clearly

from a big bell, whose bronze would fetch a hefty price in Norway. The

peals cried out of the tower which loomed over Scattery. Heaven whistled

and scudded around it.

Entering the bay, he squinted in search of the best ground, for there

was no dock. Crow's-feet wrinkles deepened around light blue eyes in a

broad, high-cheeked, broken-nosed face. Grizzled yellow hair and

close-cropped beard glistened with spindrift. The hauberk clashed on his

burly frame when he leaned hard against the tiller.

Scattery was itself small, about a mile long north-and-south, half a mile

wide, low-lying in the water. Trees along the western rim were a

shield-wall against storms for wattle-and-daub huts and a tiny stone

church huddled not far from the strand. Otherwise he made out garden

plots, grass and wildflowers beyond—and, near the church, the round

tower. Of grey stone, skillfully dry-laid, that thing reared a hundred feet or

more to its conical slate roof. Windows stared from each floor like sockets

in the skull of a saint. The wooden door was ten feet aloft, reached by a

ladder which the monks had pulled after them.

The vikings rowed slower now, until shingle grated beneath Sea Bear' s

keel. Ranulf was the first overside. "Yuk-hei-saa-saa!" he screamed, the

old battle yell. None of the warriors who had stood to their weapons and

straightway followed him said aught, for nobody was here to fight.

Oarsmen drew the sweeps inboard, dropped them clashing amidst the

benches, took up their stowed arms, and likewise jumped. Had foes been

on hand, Halldor would have been in the lead. As was, he could make fast

the rudder, out of harm's way, before he too sought the bow and sprang.

The Irishwoman, Brigit, was kneeling there abaft the foredeck. Beyond

her he glimpsed the real hammer he kept in its rack, hallowed to Thor. A

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