Winter Serpent Read online

  The Winter Serpent

  Maggie Davis

  There comes the dark

  Dragon flying,

  The winter serpent

  From the Nida-mountains…

  Over the heath it flies;

  Dead bodies it

  Bears on its shining scales.

  Yet now must the serpent sink.

  —ELDER EDDA

  The author wishes to acknowledge the help of the following people in making this book possible: Father James McGuckin, S.M., superintendent of Marist College Library, Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Guy Lyle, superintendent of Emory University Library, Emory, Georgia. Mr. Robert Settelmayer, superintendent of Carnegie Library, Atlanta, Georgia.

  1

  The boats came down Loch Cumhainn, riding the unseen ebb to the sea. It was early spring and the morning was cold, but colder still in the shadows of the narrowing cliffs, the cramped passage filled with drifting fog banks as chill as the touch of ghosts. On each side of the chasm the rock walls were stained with the constant drip of springs and the green growth of lichens, the only light which penetrated here an occasional shaft of sun falling from the heights. The three boats moved in silence, passing from mist into bright sunlight and back again, the cloaks and beards of the travelers, Northmen and Scots, hung with drops of water which glittered and sparkled in the dazzling, intermittent sunlight.

  The boats had come down from the head of the loch, from Coire Cheathaich where the clans of the macDumhnulls had their hall, and were now going seaward through the narrows of Cumhainn. The stillness of their passing was broken only by the steady dip of the boat paddles, the movement of a Northman lifting cold red hands to his mouth to blow on them, the small figure of the girl in the leading boat shivering, drawing her cloak tightly about her head to keep out the chill.

  They were briefly swallowed by a white bank of fog, and when they had come through it they met clear water, a burst of white sunlight, and an island set in the middle of the loch, thickly wooded, its trees dragging green leaves in the current. The Scots rested their paddles and called out excitedly, pointing to the first salmon of spring breaking from their hiding places under the island willow banks.

  The Northmen in their smallboats rustled, turning their heads to stare and commenting on the size of the fish in their slurring tongue. One of them described the length of the salmon with his hands and the others nodded and grinned. The huge figure of their leader, the Viking in the horned helmet, did not stir. He appeared to doze in his seat in the stern, the rank wolfskin pulled up about his ears, water vapor hanging in thick eyebrows and gray-streaked beard. But the girl wearing the plaid of the macDumhnulls thought she saw the slitlike gleam of his eyes as the fish leaped.

  The three boats met an eddy at the end of the island and dropped into its trough. The current which had been split by the islet midstream grew swifter, joining in a flurry of little whirlpools and drifts which pitted the surface of the water. The tranquil fog banks disappeared, replaced by a freshening draft which, like the current, seemed now to rush down to meet the far sea. The Scots’ dugout began to wallow, slipping sidewise, and the paddlers cursed loudly as they struggled to right it. The close-following Viking boats bore quickly down on the smaller craft, and the girl in the bow of the dugout clutched its sides and braced her feet, expecting the crash. But the smallboat veered off skillfully and passed them. The dugout came about.

  The girl, Doireann nighean Muireach of the clans of the macDumhnulls, her face white, looked at the boat of the Northmen now leading them. She had been terrified in the brief moment, and there was an ominous trembling in the pit of her stomach, a sudden taste of salt in her mouth. She feared this treacherous voyage, but she feared even more to betray herself; she could not be sick here and vomit like a frightened child before her enemies.

  She shut her eyes. They would soon be through the narrows. The next pass was the last and after that the boats would come out of the gorges to the wide water where the loch joined the sea. Then she would see the strange Viking camp and the Northmen’s ship anchored outside the bar and know that the journey was ended—know also that Doireann nighean Muireach, the daughter of the old chief, was from that time onward as good as dead to her kinsmen, betrayed by Calum macDumhnull her foster brother, parted from the clans and claimed only by the dread Northmen.

  The Scots in the dugout were muttering, impressed at the way the Viking boats had averted the collision. Nothing seemed to daunt the Northmen, who handled their boats in the treacherous stream with less difficulty than the native Scots in their lighter craft.

  The chasm ahead bent to form an angle and the clansmen dug their paddles quickly. The dim tunnel the last of the narrows was the haunt of an evil water spirit, a kelpie, who lived in the black holes of the cliffs. The Scots were afraid of the place and the unseen menace in the shadows, and they wished to get through it as fast as possible and into the clear water beyond. But the Viking boat which had taken the lead went no faster, the Northmen still rowing their measured stroke. There was no calling out from among them; there were no comforting cries such as the Scots uttered to cheer themselves. Instead the Northmen looked about them with impassive faces, confident, their yellow hair flung back by the spray, their leader still sleeping unconcerned in the stern of his boat as it bobbed and lurched over the shoals. And then, finally, when they had come to the last turning, the current sucking away into the black caverns under the cliffs, a young Viking in a deerskin cap threw back his head to whistle a long, fluting note which passed in descending repetition among the crags, returning to the listeners like the eerie sound of the voice of the water kelpie.

  The Scots turned their fearful faces to each other. They were hearing with their own ears the voice of the water kelpie answering the Northman’s call. This was the proof, then, of what they had been told: that the Vikings were the masters of all bodies of water and the spirits in them. They could sail unchallenged in the most dread of places because of their magic power which was a gift from their heathen gods. Now the clansmen of the macDumhnulls knew how foolish they had been to think they could be safe from such raiders, protected from the sea and the pirates in it by the length of Loch Cumhainn. Protected from other invaders, perhaps, in other times past, but not these northlanders, the terrible Vikings whose skill was as great as magic and who had indomitable cunning. The Scots had seen the proof: the very spirits of Cumhainn answered their call and allowed them to pass, not once, but twice. For these smallboats of the Northmen had the day before been pulling upstream, in the opposite direction, making their way deep into the land of the macDumhnulls, to the head of the loch where they would find the clachan—the village—and the house of the chief. And the boatmen and the girl in the dugout had been in the village, not knowing what was about to begin.

  The day had begun in an ordinary way, affected only by the usual bustle of the spring season. The Picts were moving the flocks down to the summer pastures on the coast and they came into Coire Cheathaich as they passed to meet kinsmen and seek out the chief and learn his wishes for the coming season. The yards about the chief’s house were crowded early with flocks and families of both Scots and Picts, and some brisk trading was taking place over the winter furs which they had brought with them.

  As the fires were being lit for the morning meal a band of Picts who had started for the coast turned back, bringing the word which was being passed from mouth to mouth among the dark people. The Cruithne, as the Picts called themselves, had seen a Viking longship on the coast to the south, coming up from the Mull of Jura. They were certain it was the feared Northmen, the gossip said, for the ship bore a dragon bird painted on its sails.

  Close behind this news came the Scottish sea watch who had traveled all night from his pos
t on the headlands, along the cliffs of the loch. The Viking ship had anchored outside the mouth of Loch Cumhainn in the sea, and ferocious-looking men with horns on their heads were coming across the bar in smallboats to make a camp there. Already, the sea watch had cried, the Northmen were cutting down trees to build a log house.

  The clansmen of the macDumhnulls and the Picts who were gathered at the village had rushed to Calum macDumhnull, the chief, and foster brother of Doireann nighean Muireach, and had cried: What does it mean that these Norse pirates are building a house now and making pens for the cattle? Do they mean to settle here and take our land from us?

  Calum the toiseach, the chieftain of Cumhainn, could only sit biting his nails before their alarm, his red hair hanging disheveled, hiding his eyes.

  “Do we attack them?” his Scots warriors had shouted They pressed about the man who had taken the place of the old chief, and shook their spears, crying their anger. Calum squirmed, his hands about the copper badge at his neck. He had wriggled down into the chief’s chair so that he could not meet the look of those about him.

  “Now what shall we do indeed before the Northmen?” he said feebly. “They are, according to what we have heard, most cunning and terrible. Ah, God, if we do something, let us be cautious, not hasty!”

  The clansmen stared at him. They began to lower their shields and mutter uncertainly. But Sine, the chief’s wife, was in no doubt as to what should be done. She began to shriek that they must gather the livestock and the children and the valuables and leave the Coire, leave the bay and its village, for it was plain the Northmen would soon be upon them. The clans must run for the dun, the fortress over the mountain, or to some other place of hiding and safety.

  The men hesitated, still watching Calum macDumhnull, weighing the protection of Loch Cumhainn against the coming of the Northmen. But the chief’s wife was already loping about the hall like a madwoman, throwing over boxes and sacks, looking for those precious possessions which might be left behind for the Vikings to destroy. In her terror she managed only to gather a strange assortment of things: the knives from the cooking hearth, a joint of half-eaten mutton, a bowl of wheat flour which she struggled to keep balanced in her arm, and finally one or two of the silver drinking cups.

  Sine’s unreasoning shrieks and the path of disorder which she left behind her made the crowd uneasy. They began to stir about, affected by her terror, and then they began to scramble and shout among themselves. They were no better at gathering up their portions than the chief’s wife had been, and as the confusion grew, the wiser ones who had left their families and flocks outside the gates of the village slipped away, leaving the clachan and the chief’s house to their fate.

  In Coire Cheathaich a great many of the macDumhnulls were convinced that the Northmen were nearly upon them, and their courage melted away. A great roar arose from the clans as they struggled to take what was theirs and get their families to a place of safety. Mingled with the voices of wailing children, the barking of dogs, and the bawling of cattle and sheep were the cries of the men, the desperate commands which went unheeded. Through it all Calum macDumhnull sat in his chair, his knuckles at his mouth, only a few of his men left to stand with him. And at last, with the days passing, the place emptied itself and it was quiet.

  At midday Coire Cheathaich had the look of a deserted village. There were some few of the macDumhnulls left. They had stayed, believing that the loch could not be penetrated nor the chief’s house attacked. They were better off, they declared, behind the wooden walls of the stockade than in the sheep tracks of the mountains. But these few made only a handful.

  In the empty yard a lone chicken had scratched in the dung pile. A furtive dog trotted toward the milking house, wagging its tail. The bodachs, the old men too infirm to travel, sat by the steps of the chief’s hall and whispered their tales of foreboding. Beyond, at the gates, they could see the lone spearman standing his watch, looking down on the waterway of Cumhainn in the direction from which the invader must come.

  In the chief’s hall those who were left in the Coire gathered about Calum macDumhnull. They were not an impressive group, only some Scots servants of the house, some Picts and their women, their faces fearful under their blue tattoos, two boys anxious to prove themselves in battle, and a dozen of Calum’s renegade warriors. And Doireann nighean Muireach.

  The figure of the old chief’s daughter looked strange and out of place in the Coire. The other young women, full of the tales of how the Vikings raped and tortured their captives, had fled. But Doireann nighean Muireach, with the undaunted pride which had marked her father, had remained, enjoying Calum macDumhnull’s predicament. She had taken fierce pleasure in her foster brother’s dismay and his useless words. She was the last of the old chief’s line and had suffered much under Calum’s hand. Now she stood with her plaid cloak thrown over her head, her arms folded in it, not moving. She had said that she would not abandon her father’s hall to any enemy, whether it be kinsman or foreigner. And, watching her, those remaining in the Coire acknowledged the strange fact that a young girl should show so much courage and Calum macDumhnull, the chief, so little. Calum, fidgeting, glowered his hatred.

  The day passed slowly, the group which was huddled together in the house spending its time retelling the tales which the bards had brought from Ireland and the accounts of the terrible deeds of the Northmen.

  It was said, they repeated, that the Norse pirates cut off the eyelids and tongues of their victims, leaving them staked out on the turf to die slowly; that these Northmen had impaled Irish warriors with their own spears, leaving them stuck to the doors of the village huts, dying but still able to watch the rape of their women and the slaughter of their children and old ones. It was both terrible and strange that the Vikings had such an interest in death. They had been heard to say that they believed it was the true test of a man, that all men feared death, and they admired only those who could greet it boldly. But how could one meet death boldly in the hands of the Northmen, who had made such a hideous art of it? Yes, these northlanders were inhuman, and they burned with a fierce hatred of all things Christian and had no mercy for the Celts or Britons. It had been terrible, also, to hear of the destruction, and the Northmen’s talent for leaving nothing undone: the bodies of the slain, even, laid out like cordwood and stripped, the clothing sorted and carried off.

  They were chilled in the Coire by their own whispering, but Calum gave no order to stop it. He could not; his eyes were on their lips as fearfully as any other’s. Yet he could not leave his house and go into the mountains. He had connived to gain the chieftaincy at Muireach’s death; some even said he had done murder for it. He could not let it go now.

  It was almost sundown when they heard the gate watch crying that two boatloads of Northmen approached the Coire. They were coming not in rushing attack, but slowly, as if to show they were peaceable.

  Calum and his warriors snatched up their spears and rushed out to the gates. There was only a small group of the Northmen, it was true, and this heartened the Scots. Calum and his men went down to the shore. The women and the old men came cautiously after. The Viking smallboats came straight on into the little cove which formed the Coire and ran aground in the reeds. Calum and his men held a wavering line before them, copper shields up, spears pointed at the invader.

  The Northmen seemed in no hurry. They sat in their boats for a long moment, surveying the small knot of clansmen on the shore, the wooden houses of the Coire, the women and aged men close by the gates. Then carefully, quietly, they slid over the sides of the boats and waded ashore, almost to the spot where the Scots chief and his men were standing.

  The Northmen were half a head taller than the macDumhnulls, and their battle gear was massive. They carried swords and battle-axes but, curiously, no spears. Their shields were small but well-made, of wood and leather overlaid with iron. They looked at Calum macDumhnull with the squinted eyes of men who follow the sea, and their beards were plaited, woven
with ribbons, and made golden with lime bleach. In all, their appearance was terrifying. Their size, the foreign set of their faces, the bleached hair and mangy furs they wore, the ragged tunics under beautifully fashioned ring mail marked the feared and unknown. The man in the forefront, their leader, was big even for a Northman, big in belly as well as in chest. His helmet carried the largest branching horns and his graying beard hid most of his face. The pirates held themselves arrogantly; beside them Calum’s warriors seemed rustic and clumsy.

  The Viking leader ground the tip of his sword into the sand and it stuck there. He rubbed his hands briskly.

  “Chieftain, I am called Sweyn Barrelchest. I speak your tongue,” he rumbled. He stared down at Calum, and then his small eyes passed on to the Scots warriors the men and women in the background. “So now, I will tell you this: this seems a fair place. And we have come to deal fairly, in a peaceful manner. We have come to trade for those things which we need.”

  No one could speak. The clansmen stared back at the Northmen, turning the words over in their minds. If this was true, then they were saved. But they could not believe it. Calum macDumhnull took off his cap and crushed it in his hands, making a show of considering the matter.

  The Northman waited patiently for an answer, his eyes on Calum’s face, and when it was slow in coming he looked annoyed. He repeated his speech.

  Calum swallowed hurriedly at this. He had started to speak, stopped, and then started again. What he said was not clear, only that he, the chief of the macDumhnulls in Cumhainn, would be glad to talk of any trading. And he stuttered that they should come into his hall. The old Viking accepted, and his band followed him, bunched together warily, suspicious of dark corners and of sudden movements.

  When the leader who called himself Sweyn Barrelchest had been seated at the high table with a cup of ale in his hand, he allowed himself a little curious craning, looking about the long hall of the Scots chieftain, at the meat smoking in the rafters, the curtained partition for sleeping quarters down one side of the house, and the disorder which gave evidence of the inhabitants’ terror. Then his gaze fell on Doireann nighean Muireach bringing a bowl of honey to the table, and it stopped. The long piece of her tartan was pulled forward over her face, but the short-sleeved, short-skirted arasaid showed her legs and the roundness of her arms as she leaned over to put the bowl before him. Her rank in the house demanded that she observe the law of hospitality and serve him personally, but her half-hidden face showed her unwillingness. The Viking put his finger into the dark honey and looped it deftly; he washed it down with beer, and his eyes over the rim of the cup followed her back to the hearth. Abruptly, he bent his head toward Calum macDumhnull and began to bargain for meat and beer and fresh water, which the Northmen claimed they needed.