Chapter 1

'So it's a money matter that's troubling you?' I asked. I had been a clerk once, in holy orders, until a misunderstanding concerning a novice nun had caused me to flee the west coast forever. As a result, I thought I knew a thing or two about finance. 'Then what you need is someone who understands how to raise money. A trader. A clerk maybe?'

She stared at me from under hooded lids.

'Do you offer yourself?' she murmured.

'Don't trust him.' Thorir hissed. 'These Irish clerks are all out for their own profit. You'd lose more than you'd make with this one.'

'I'm no clerk,' I blustered. It was true; I hadn't been one in years: I'd found plenty of better ways to swindle the unwary. 'I merely make a suggestion. Offer advice, you see.'

'Have you any other advice to suggest?' Inghen asked.

I smiled. Finally, we were getting to the point. I reached inside my jerkin for the map.

'Let me introduce myself,' I said, as I pulled out the piece of parchment. 'I am Conchobar of Connacht, son of Muirtearch the Merchant whose galleys ploughed the waters of the Irish Sea and the Hebrides for many years. His fleet is gone now, I'm afraid, as is the old man himself, God rest his greedy soul, my inheritance with him. Somewhere off Anglesey they say. I was a young lad when he went down, and through many years of poverty my poor mother and I thought all his wealth was lost.

'But one day, about four years ago, a man came to our little bothie near Roscommon; an old man who I failed to recognise. But my poor dear old mother, who was in the last days of a fatal illness, knew him as my old father's first mate, Febal. He'd escaped the foundering of my father's fleet, only to be caught by the Welsh and sold into slavery, in which state he'd remained until he raised enough wealth to buy himself free. He'd escaped the sinking ship with only one thing of worth, and he hadn't wanted to sell that, d'you see...'

'Frankly, no,' Inghen broke in, leaning forward. 'I don't see. What are you blathering about, Conchobar of Connacht? How will this help me buy myself a new fleet?'

'Patience,' I remonstrated gently, ignoring a dangerous look from the woman. 'What Febal brought back with him, what he'd treasured through years of toil and the lash, was this parchment. My father thrust into his hands as the storm hit the ship, with the instructions that it should be given to me, his heir. Look!'

I unfolded the parchment on the table before them, and the Vikings all leaned forward, staring at the faint lines. Impatiently, Inghen shouldered them aside, and tore the parchment from my hands. She peered at it in the light of the lamp.

She looked at me.

'A map,' she stated. I nodded.

'What does the map show?' she asked.

'If you can read the passage beneath it...' I suggested. She shook her head resolutely.

'I can read runes perfectly well,' she told me. 'But your Christian scribbles mean nothing to me.'

'Well...' said I, and snatched the map back. Thorir gave me a baleful glance, but I ignored it. I was in my stride by now.

'The map shows the Hebrides,' I stated. They nodded. All of them had realised this much. I went on. 'It also reveals the location of the island Innis Scathach, the Isle of Shadows, where legend tells us the Fomorian hero Conaing MacBalor was buried with his warriors around him...'

'The who?' Thorir demanded. 'We know little of your local legends.'

I smiled at him. 'Fomorians,' I began, 'were evil sea-dwelling monsters, vicious creatures who terrorised Erin in the ages that followed the Flood. Deformed creatures who lurked around the margins of civilisation and preyed upon sea-travellers. There are some who say they initially poured out from Lochlann, or Norway as you would call it...'

An angry growl rose at this, but I shrugged carelessly.

'I only repeat hearsay,' I told them. 'But to return to the point. The Fomorians, who were also the gods of the aboriginal tribes of Erin, who the Gaels conquered hundreds of years ago, were worsted, mostly wiped out, by the invading Tuatha De Danaan, whom my pagan forebears worshipped as gods, much as you worship old kings and giants like Thor and Odin...'

'Thor and Odin are gods, you Christian fool,' Inghen hissed. 'Get to the point. Your long-winded account makes me wonder if a knife in the bowels might not shorten it.'

I swallowed nervously. I'd pushed things a bit too far, perhaps.

'Conaing MacBalor was one of the few Fomorians to escape the great defeat of Magh Tuired, where the Tuatha De Danaan crushed their evil forever. He fled across the sea, where he met with Manannan MacLir, the sea-god, who was always a fierce foe of the sea-demons. They fought near Innis Scathach, and Manannan defeated him and his warband, burying them in a barrow on the island, with all the loot they had amassed in a thousand piratical expeditions. For hundreds of years, the location of Innis Scathach was a mystery to the people of Ireland. But it would appear that my father discovered it in his travels, and now...'

'And now you'll tell us how to reach it,' came a sneering voice from behind me. I turned in my chair to see the booth entrance was crowded with Vikings, all of them with drawn swords or axes at the ready. Bjorn had drawn his own weapon and was facing them, but the expression on the face of the speaker - a broad shouldered man with a small fringe of beard, a gold-chased helmet, and a broadsword in his single hand - suggested that he thought the man's posturing absurd.

'Hvirvil Einhandi,' murmured Inghen the Red. Then this was the Viking chieftain from whom she had cut her wonderful sword! 'So you want more than just your sword back.'

'True,' said Hvirvil. 'I want revenge, as well. But I do expect a return of the sword you stole. I'm afraid I need it, Inghen.'

Pushing back her stool, Inghen stood up and drew out her blade. She looked quietly at it, then her demure gaze flickered up to her opponent.

'You want it back?' she said lightly. Then her face twisted like a harpy's. 'You'll get it back - three feet of Irish steel in your heart!' And she threw herself over the table towards the one-handed man.

I ducked as she passed through the air inches from my head, and pitched from my stool onto the hard tavern floor. There I remained throughout the battle as Inghen's Vikings surged forward to aid their chieftainess and Hvirvil's warriors returned the onslaught. At one point, I tried to grab the map, but Bjorn's heavy boot crashed down on my hand as I tried to get out from under the table, and then his foe, a spiky-headed Dane from Hvirvil's crew, collapsed on the table with blood leaking from a mortal wound just below the belly. After this, I gave up, and waited for the roar of battle to subside.

Across the bar from where I was crouching I could see Inghen the Red and Hvirvil Einhandi struggling at the centre of the fight. The barkeep had come out from behind his barrels and seemed to be pleading with his remaining patrons (the battling Vikings having scared off the rest of the clientele) to cease their struggle before the watch were roused. But after coming too close to Inghen and Hvirvil's fight, he suddenly sank back into the barrels with a slit windpipe. Very nasty, I thought to myself, feeling reassured that my own chosen vantage point was far superior.

Inghen was whipping into Hvirvil like a hurricane, but the one-handed warrior put up a masterly defence, despite his disability. These Norsemen and Danes are supremely tough, and can put up with almost any kind of punishment. The pair hacked at each other with their vicious blades, cutting and parrying, their booted feet stamping on the blood-soaked sawdust beneath their feet as they flung curses into each others' teeth. But they must have been evenly matched. I saw no signs of either triumphing.

It was the same with the two forces. Though men had fallen on both sides, and dark shapes writhed beneath the tables, their steaming guts puddled around them , while others lay silent in pools of blood and brains, neither side seemed able to take control of the place of slaughter. It was nothing like the battles the bards sing of, where heroic champions hack down thousands of the foe with little disadvantage to themselves: it was, rather, a bloody mess. But eventually, it seemed that Inghen's forces were winning.