Isolde

By Walter Eastwood

The saga continues. Isolde is a young woman left alone in a manscape of greed, lust, and an unforgiving church. Her husband and family disappeared from the face of the earth while her father's unique distillery was mysteriously dismantled in a blink of an eye. Traveling alone with her daughter across ancient England searching for her husband in Hogs Breath, she learns that they are alone and desolate. Failing to locate her family after the death of her father, she returns to Wexford on the Island of Ireland to rebuild the broken distillery with the help of the twenty-four able bodied men her father left to protect her. With an impressive brain, willful determination, and a warrior-like attitude, she battles the church, the law, and the royals who all want what is hers. She is the only person alive who knows how to make her father's highly valued whisky, a product that men of these times would gladly kill to possess. Antagonists appear at every turn, from mason leaders to Vikings, and Isolde must combine every possible resource to survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 16, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667862484

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© Walter Eastwood, 2022

Print ISBN: 978-1-66786-247-7

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66786-248-4

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Contents

BOOK ONE

1. Isolde

2. A New Beginning

3. This Is the Place

4. Killed by an Angel

5. Settling

6. What’s Going on with Isolde

7. What’s Next

8. Silago

9. Goodbye Lough Gile

10. Moving Right Along

11. On the Trail to Wexford

12. Cavan

13. Love the Rain

14. Lots of Villages

15. And Now This

16. Men so Foul

17. Oh, Papa!

18. Love Is Blind

19. The Last Miles

20. What a Nice Dog

21. The Last Raid

22. Edward Takes the Lead

23. Grytha

24. Thank the Gods for Vikings

25. Could This Be the End?

26. Is There No One to Save Her?

27. New Beginnings

28. Reconciliation

29. The Fat Men Don’t Know When to Quit

30. Awash in an Ocean of Dumb

31. Who Do You Think You Are?

32. Shite

33. Big Man Thane

34. God Has Mysterious Ways

35. Pyre

36. The Real Winners Sweep In

37. We Have Her! Huh?

38. Kinda Traditional

39. Growth

40. Greed Is One’s Own Enemy

41. While the Cat’s Away

42. It Could Be Worse

43. A Boy and His Mission

44. Rider

45. Finelli Is in an Uproar

46. Can’t Run These Horses Fast Enough

47. Shite and Fan Come to Mind

48. You Can’t Hide from Death

49. Temporary Relief

50. Free at Last

51. Aftermath

52. I’ll Be Safe Now

53. Meanwhile

54. McFlatery Has One More Stone to Turn Over

55. Open That Fucking Door

56. Kind of a Sad Ending

57. First a Slap and Then Their Comhchiallacha Mhi Na Meala

58. I’d Rather Not

59. Ah, the Power of the Priesthood

60. Like the Flu, They Will Go Away

61. This Is How You Do It

62. Another Army Is on Its Way

63. Lull

64. Snail War on Two Fronts

65. Land Ho

66. Spies, Spies, and More Spies

67. Brodder Steps Up

68. Shock and Horror

BOOK TWO

1. Unlikely Homecoming

2. Hero My Arse

3. I Know I’ve Told You This Before

4. The Barn

5. Let’s Catch Up

6. Why Didn’t I See It?

7. The Crossing

8. Got Some Great News

9. The Staff

10. Who the Hell Is Babar?

11. Past Is Past

12. In Box Number One

13. Home Again

14. Bitchin’ King

15. Weddings, Battles, and Such

16. The Last Time Managers

17. The Wars

18. What Battle?

19. What in Allah’s Name?

20. A Look Back

21. Partying Down

22. Where’s Sean?

23. Month’s End

24. Salvation?

25. Dark Turn

26. The Gathering

27. What’s Next?

28. Homeward Bound

29. Here We Go Again

30. New Direction

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER 1

Isolde

This could be the end of it all. As her men died around her, Isolde fought off the angry Viking leader bent on raping and killing her. She refused to scream, denying him any additional pleasure from his brutal attack. Memories of a similar assault just a few years ago exploded in her mind. In that time, she was saved at the last moment by the man who would come to be her future husband. But her savior then was not here now. He was lost somewhere in time three years ago. Disappearing with him was the rest of her family, a mystery she had yet to solve.

Her husband, Barrett, had vanished, along with his father, King Athelstan; his mother, Queen Aelic; and his younger siblings. After the death of her father, she returned to Hog’s Breath only to find herself and Patricia alone. It was then she had embarked on a vain and desperate search for her family with no closure. Not a soul in Hog’s Breath knew of their whereabouts. At nearly the same time, she had lost all those she loved, including her father. Add to that, her father’s distillery mysteriously disappeared as if by magic, and everything Athelstan had provided them was gone. All the nuts and bolts, the kettles, the cookers. Everything that had made it possible for Papa to build their unique facility had disappeared; she should have seen it for what it was—an omen.

In her search for Barrett and his family, Isolde later found that it was the same in Hog’s Breath. Tons of farm machinery and brewing equipment furnished by Athelstan had disappeared into the void. Also gone were the breeding animals and teaching materials Athelstan had given them, without which it would be impossible for both breweries to function. These building materials had, over time, transformed the backwoods village into the dominant economic capital of Mercia. This included the huge steel container in Aelic’s backyard that had brought Athelstan to Hog’s Breath. It had been relocated there from where it had first appeared the day Athelstan had arrived outside the village proper and where he had defended himself from several groups of men in the employ of the local magistrate soon after his appearance. The site was located near Hog’s Breath’s where the Mercian economic revolution began.

Soon after the mysterious vanishings of family and brewery in Wexford, Isolde had returned to Hog’s Breath to solve the mystery surrounding her missing mate. What she found was a vacuum in leadership that had sent the kingdom Athelstan had created into a tailspin. It became clear to Isolde that some members of the village were blaming their situation on her, the only outsider left. She had to begin the process of ensuring her daughter’s future and not become an obstacle to her own success. So, to avoid offending future buyers of her whiskey, she gave up the search for her family and returned home to Wexford to rebuild her life. She needed to restore her father’s business from the ground up; she could not abandon her daughter’s birthright. She also needed something to fill the emptiness left by the loss of her husband and his family.

There were no long-drawn-out divorces or weeks and weeks of tears after the death of a loved one. Not in this world. You were expected to be up and on your feet in days. That’s just how people coped with these kinds of tragic events that were all too common in the twelfth century. There was putting aside life’s woes and forging on. Following her unsuccessful three-month investigation, Isolde returned to Wexford to begin her life without Barrett, which she did in grand fashion.

After a long and stressful, yet extremely successful, three years, shite hit the meat pie as Norsemen once again raided Wexford, an event that had occurred several times over the last few centuries due to the village’s location near the sea on the River Slaney. It has been the way of Vikings for a millennium. The standard practice had always been that before robbing a village of its wealth, you killed off the men, then raped the women. So, when a band of Norsemen entered her estate, Isolde believed she would suffer a horrible rape before being killed, along with all the women on her staff. Patricia, her daughter, would be kept alive, only to become a slave, then later a wife of one of these heathens. That thought gave her no comfort as the ugly Viking neared. A flash of brilliant white rage blinded her with anger at Barrett because he was not there to save and protect her. The old thoughts that had haunted her early years alone were of her family and how they had abandoned her and Patricia.

Her second child was born in the fourth year after Barrett and the rest of the family had vanished. Brodder was an old, rather odd name passed down through her new husband’s Norse ancestry. Not in any position to argue for a Christian name, she had accepted it. In her mind, she chose to think of him as Brin, a name she’d always fancied. A year after their harrowing meeting, she had agreed to marry him, becoming a sort of queen, wife of the self-proclaimed king, and there was not a soul on the island who would argue over his title, due to the size of his band. She had come to terms with her reality, which was that this new man in her life would be able to protect her, her daughter, and her son, along with their distillery, keeping them safe from outside forces.

Sixteen years later, her second husband had taken over her father’s distillery, handling sales and delivery—a job she had done for her father when he was alive which, for a girl in any century, was difficult, and if not for her guards would have been impossible. She had, from the beginning, learned all she needed to know by helping her father in the brewing process and hauling kegs of whiskey around the island, which afforded her the opportunity to see towns and villages beyond Wexford.

After reconstruction, her operation was now the largest in the land, as others were trying to mimic her recipes and success. A few men, who were important workers in the distilling process, had left her employ to start their own companies. In total, seven family-run businesses were now producing whiskey. No one person outside of the proprietor knew the whole process, so those attempting to copy Isolde’s methods often came up short. They had stolen her recipes but had problems from the get-go, resulting in inferior products. Keeping the many steps in the process to herself afforded her a simple copyright. In going out on their own, a few of the ingrates inadvertently combined the bad with the good alcohol causing disruptions in many a man’s gastric system. Even so, quite a few chose to continue consuming the foul-tasting shite because it was cheaper and always available. Due to the side effects, including death, after drinking the methanol-rich brew, its cost to the customer was greatly reduced.

To be sure, her Norse king had a variety of skills beyond killing and pillaging neighboring hamlets—an industry that eventually became a troublesome burden to her and to him as well. In the long term, he modified his behavior and became a model citizen, no longer practicing his old Norse ways. But his size and overpowering demeanor might have been why pub owners often bought more barrels of whiskey than needed. Competing brands were an insult to her, and sometimes barrels of them ended up mysteriously broken, spilling their innards over the piss-drenched, foul-smelling alleys.

Even after all these years, Isolde reserved a small amount of anger at the two men she’d called her husband. One had abandoned her and her child, and the other, by necessity, she’d accepted as her mate. In time she wondered why she fretted over the giant’s intrusion into her life, and she’d even learned to love him. And although Barrett had left her and Patricia to cobble together a life, every time she was alone with her daughter, she always forgave him.

Within a day of Bob’s visit at the bowling alley, completely ruining a great line, which sounded familiar, three members of Athelstan’s clan readied themselves for one more trip through time. If they were lost to time, she reasoned, her youngest children would be better off orphaned in the future than in the past. Bob assured them that this trip would be easier and simpler than Athelstan’s solo trip had been.

The three years Barrett had spent in the future were astonishing and kept him from thinking too much about his past life, but he still missed Isolde. Since Bob had given them a chance to collect her and their daughter, and because of their new assignment and what looked to be an easy fix concerning the directives from the EGC, he’d spent the last few weeks sporting a broad grin.

In his parents’ home, two of the time travelers were readying themselves for their journey into an unsure past. Barrett, though, was hunkered down in the church’s genealogy library, once again studying the old collection of names. He had gleaned much information from the billions of names stored in the largest collection of family histories in the world through which he’d frantically searched for Isolde. He’d gone over the history of just his mother because Athelstan’s up-line did not yet exist; after all, his heirs were now in the future. Through his investigation, he’d come to believe that the records he had found in earlier searches, which suggested his daughter, Patricia, had married into the Kennedy clan, were wrong. Memories that had been lost, anecdotal writings, which included names and associations that were just not true, were nevertheless passed on to others who believed the writings of their ancestry and again passed along the same misinformation.

Barrett was running out of time, but then he came upon an old photocopy of a page from an ancient Bible found buried beneath the floors of a twelfth-century church that had served the village of Wexford. A series of names were listed, two of which made his hair stand up. It read, On this day of our Lord, Isolde and the Norseman King Gotar are joined in holy matrimony. It went on to read that although her mate was never a member of the Church, Isolde was a great contributor. Also stated in the scant bit of writing were the words, Joining them at the altar was her daughter, Patricia. His heart skipped a beat.

It was much easier this time around with the new directive; there was less to gather because Athelstan assumed that the strong economy he had created in Hog’s Breath would assuredly carry the villagers forward. The time-travel container they would need this time was smaller because they were not going into transference toting seventy-five tons of equipment, as he had done before. There was no point in studying history concerning their intended transference location; winners of wars always wrote what flattered them and could not be counted on as gospel. So, extensive planning was necessary. He knew there was only one thing that could be counted on—that someone would always need killing. So, this time around, weapons made up the bulk of materials they’d take with them. No Spam or other canned meats. Missing were a lot of items he’d fretted over as a novice time traveler. They were heading to his daughter-in-law’s home. Surely, what little they required during their short visit would be found there in Isolde’s distillery.

Barrett, of course, was concerned about the time that had passed in Isolde’s life. Bob had said that he too was concerned because their insertion would be some twenty years after they’d left Mercia. Isolde would be in her forties, and Patricia would be a grown woman. Although only three years had passed in his timeline, through transference, he would enter his wife’s timeline twenty years her junior, nearly the same age as his own daughter.

Once ready, they entered the container, which had been stored in the same warehouse as before. Only Bob was there to see them off. The three children left behind were adamant about staying in the future. They had no wish to be confronted by the vagaries of an impossible chance of survival, and Wayne and Charles had no intention of being away from their friends. Alisha had plans that included interviews with several university deans, and besides, they could fend for themselves—after all, their parents and brother would be gone only a few minutes. But that minimal speck of intrusion could not be guaranteed, so they opted out.

CHAPTER 2

A New Beginning

The blade sounded like a wail from the throat of an angry banshee as it swung from the back of Gotar’s broad shoulders. Like a sidearm pitch in a long, nearly flat arc, the blade entered the farmer’s neck and did not stop until his head was separated from his torso. This unlucky farmer once had an arsenal of fighting skills he’d acquired during his time in King Fergus’s army while defending his homeland from another scary horde of Norsemen coming, as they often did, to pillage and loot. He knew full well he would not survive this day’s assault and would be the first casualty at the hand of Gotar in what was to become his new land.

Gotar, himself a castoff from the land of Gute, had not chosen to raid this area through any conscious thought. These unfortunate people were simply living near where his boats had landed, which they did only because the gentle surf made for a safe landing, where much of the rest of the coast was rocky outcrops. This farmer and the nearby villagers would provide Gotar with wealth, food, and shelter, and he was pleased with the blessings Odin had bestowed upon him.

This Irish island, as in England in the early centuries, had churches full of wealth that sat idle and were easily taken from defenseless peasant priests. It was an expedient way for Gotar to pay for the food and supplies his band would need in the immediate future, and if at some point he decided he would need to be a good citizen, well, he could change his ways. As it was, Vikings reserved their marauding for people of distant lands. They rarely sacked their neighbors because if they did so, the whole tribe would have to be eradicated to prevent reprisal. There was the fact that no community had all the resources needed. For example, if you were to kill off the only living blacksmith in the village, and you had none, well, the answer speaks for itself.

Gotar found himself and his small band of Vikings on these beaches because of a lottery. In his native land, overpopulation was a huge problem due to the many mountains that sided their coastal village, which left only small patches of tillable earth on which to farm. This was especially acute in and around Gute where there was a large meadow in which crops could be grown. Even if he were able to pay for food and supplies, there were none to be had. The problem was universal in the small region surrounding Gute. By the law of the land, a ratio that limited the number of people to the amount of available food was set. When the number of people exceeded a prescribed, agreed upon benchmark, a culling took place where a calculated number of men and women and their children would be forced to leave their land. They were chosen by drawing straws, casting runes, or throwing axes. The lottery took place in roughly ten-year cycles, sooner if there were signs of hungry children. There were one hundred citizens who drew short straws this day, an arbitrary number deemed necessary by the chief of the clan. It was after a lengthy, drunken free-for-all, these unlucky citizens had appointed a leader and set about selecting where they were to sail, which had started a new round of violence. Some wanted to travel across the northern seas to England, others east. In the end, the group of one hundred became two separate bands of nomads after an uncivilized debate. The result was that each group chose to go in a different direction.

Two new clan leaders were agreed upon and given the responsibility of ensuring that each clan would survive wherever they landed. In the end, one group headed east through Russia, where it once again split, and a smaller number headed south to Greece, where they put down roots. Their descendants still exist there, both in Russia and Greece.

Gotar Gulbrandsen was the chosen leader of the group destined to sail west past England leading fifty people east by sailing on three vessels into the North Sea. Before the drawing of straws, some who admired Gotar tried to convince him to demand a fight to the death with the tribal chief and take control of the Gute clan, but he had no wish to war with his own people. Taking land from Christians, he didn’t see as a problem; warring with his own, a man who’s only concern was the clan’s best interest, did not appeal to him.

He was selected as leader because he was a seasoned navigator and an even better warrior. He made the choice to bypass the western shores of England because so many Vikings had ravaged those settlements in the past, and Gotar thought there would be nothing left for the taking. Deciding instead to sail the northern shoreline of England and around North Umbria, they would sail past picturesque lands where the earls of Orkney dominated. They sailed farther north and around the tip of Scotland, passing between the islands of Swona and Stroma, through the straits of Orkney, then south to the eastern shores of Ireland. Gotar wished to occupy an area where he hoped to provide his countrymen shelter and land on which to farm.

With the northern shores of Donegal on his port side, he sailed south into Donegal Bay, a calm and welcoming body of water. He landed his people on the shallow shores north of Leitrim. After they anchored, it was Gotar who was the first to climb over the ship’s gunwale, jumping into the icy waters, then wading to shore. Stepping onto the rocky beach, he turned to his shipmates and, in a loud roar, declared, "Dette er stedet!" This is the place!

CHAPTER 3

This Is the Place

The giant Norseman looked almost childlike as he sprinted up the high sand dune, which ran for miles along the western shore. Seagrasses swayed in the gentle fall breeze, their heads drooping from the weight of heavy seeds. He was thankful they had arrived in time to set up living quarters before Ireland’s harsh winter began. As he rose to the top of the dune, he could see off in the distance huge tracts of farmlands that stretched for miles north and south. This was indeed the place. Properly farmed, it could feed all Gute’s people and many more.

His eyes focused on a lone farmer who was harvesting grain using a scythe, cutting a swath with each stroke, leaving small piles of wheat in neat bundles as he continued down the ripe seed rows.

Niall was expecting his oldest son to be along shortly, scythe in hand. Together, more than an acre would be laid to await thrashing by the women, which was their shared backbreaking duty. In the meantime, he enjoyed the familiar sounds: the swish, swish, swish of his scythe as it laid down the ripe wheat, the rhythmic whoosh of the surf just over the dunes, and the shrieking of the gulls as they flew circles in the azure sky, waiting for him to leave so they could swoop down and devour his crop.

He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of metal on metal, the unmistakable clanking of swords rattling in scabbards. He raised his scythe in a defensive stance and took a quick look over his shoulder. His son, Wairin, was at a safe distance, and he prayed that if he saw what was about to happen, he would gather the rest of the family and lead them away to safety.

The farmer was no stranger to battle; he had fought in his king’s army, earning this land in return. Yearly taxes were collected as an insurance policy, which in turn provided protection in case of an invasion. As Niall watched the huge Viking approach, he knew that his tithe to King Fergus would not provide his family the protection they needed this day. Bracing himself, he drew back the scythe. It was heavy and large, but it could not protect him against the long sword the invader wielded. Niall had no doubt he was going to die. Due to the size and mass of the scythe and the length of the arc the weapon would need to travel, it would be easy for the experienced Gotar to step into his space before he even started his forward motion. Halfway through Niall’s swing, simple matters of physics spoiled his chance of survival. As the farmer’s weapon reached its apex, Gotar’s sword came forward in a chopping motion, much like the motion Niall used to fell the wheat. Even as the sword contacted Niall’s neck, the scythe continued on its intended path, flying from the man’s hands as Gotar’s sword caught Niall just above his wrist after passing through his neck. As the farmer’s body crumpled to the ground, Gotar was pulled forward by his blade, embedded in the dead man’s wristbone.

Then a horribly strange event took place. The scythe, still in flight, headed toward Niall’s son, coming to what he thought would be his father’s rescue. As he stood behind Gotar with an axe, preparing to attack the Norseman, the still-moving scythe continued its passage through the air and struck the brave young boy in his chest, point first, penetrating his heart. Niall never saw the scythe’s sharp end lodge in the young lad’s torso. No parent wishes to outlive their children, and as it happened, his son died a mere second after him, saving him the pain of the loss. The family was not safe.

CHAPTER 4

Killed by an Angel

As if sent by an avenging god, an arrow was loosed, catching Ibor in the neck. The second Viking to climb over the dune fell to the ground, dead without much of a sound. Depending on your point of view, it was either a lucky or unlucky shot, as the wielder of the deadly missile was Niall’s ten-year-old daughter, Asa.

Gotar readied his sword and turned toward the source of Ibor’s assailant. Standing outside the entrance of their mud hut was the young archer, and behind her was the wife and mother of the two who lay dead in the field. Asa dropped her weapon and ran to her mother’s side. In the home were three older boys who’d heard her screams, grabbed the only fighting implements they could find, and streamed outside. Gotar stepped toward the fatherless young warriors, ready to cleanse them from his new property. Bild grabbed his father’s longbow and three arrows his sister had dropped. He let them fly at the large group of strangely attired men standing over the bodies of his father and brother. His heart sank as all his arrows missed their targets.

Within minutes, there were only seven young girls left alive, along with their mother to tend to them, all of whom would become Gotar’s slaves. He did nothing as the young warrior retrieved her bow and returned to her mother’s side, ready to defend her. He was oddly proud of this little waif who had avenged her father’s death. She walked forward without fear and stood over her father. "Dia a bneith leat papa." In the moments that followed, Gotar licked the blood from his sword and watched as the rest of the dead man’s family joined her. They stepped forward without fear, as if they knew they would not be harmed, and stared at their dead father and brother with bewildered looks. Only one cried—the young lad’s mother. Later, he allowed the woman and girls to bury their dead, then ordered them to stay in the small mud hut until he returned from his search of the area.

After several more farmers and their families were dispatched, again sparing the women, and beginning with this go-round, young boys were also allowed to live. Looking around at the enormity of land to be tended, male hands would be needed to make their future viable. After enough nearby homes were commandeered—new occupants assigned to each—Gotar and the band of Vikings returned to Niall’s farm. The group circled Gotar and awaited his guidance.

We will bury Ibor, he told them, and allow the survivors to bury their dead and give them a moment of peace. They all deserve our respect.

Men, women, and children gathered large, flat rocks. Ibor would be buried in the traditional Norse way. If he had been a man of the sea, he would have been placed atop logs and straw piled in a small boat. Then the boat would be set afire and pushed out into the waters to burn. But Ibor was not a seafarer, he was a farmer, so they gathered stones and arranged them into the shape of a boat, the traditional land burial. A hole was hollowed out in the soil into which Ibor was placed. The body was wrapped in a blanket woven by his mother, two men rolled him to the side while another tucked the wrap under his body, after which he was rolled into a resting position. Twine was strung around and tied in decorative knots the length of his body. When completed, handfuls of earth were sprinkled on the corpse by each mourner as they passed. Then three men covered his body with a mound of dirt and patted it smooth using their broad blades. When that was done, the children piled stones over the grave to create a tumulus. Only then were words spoken, as a short promise to him was said by all.

Lo, Ibor has risen, and now he sees his father.

Lo, Ibor finds him as he holds his mother’s hand.

Lo, Ibor was called this day to Valhalla.

Lo, together we rejoice for those who fight with Odin.

Gotar turned to the farmer’s young daughter, Asa, who was now the head of her household by virtue of her defense of the family. Referring to her father, he said, He was not a warrior, but he died as a warrior.

With a tear in her eye, not understanding what he was saying, the young Irish girl reached up to hold his hand. With those words, they moved onward. There was no prolonged period of mourning in the Viking community. The dead were now with Odin and all their ancestors, and that was cause for joy.

The mother, pointing toward Gotar, said to her children, Now he is our new lord. He will watch over us. Pragmatism was the rule. Grieving was over in a matter of hours, as the survivors began life with their new guardian without ever looking back.

As Gotar’s wealth grew, there was an upside for all of Ireland, which was that he never killed for sport. In his care, he had the farmer’s wife, her two young children, and five additional young girls, all of whom had had the misfortune to be staying in her home when he had arrived. They were there to help reap the ripened seed. While they waited for the fields to be cut, Abigale had been teaching the young group the art of basket weaving—a skill Gotar would be thankful for because they would require many baskets when all the fields were stripped clean of seed. The girls would be slaves first, then as time passed, they would become wives to the young men of the clan who had come with him. Soon there would be other young men captured; instead of being killed they would be allowed to live after they demonstrated ongoing obedience. In time they would join in as clansmen as more and more villages were sacked. As was common, many children became the wards of unknown men from other lands through the acts of war. That is if the new lords had enough wisdom to allow them to flourish.

Thus was the beginning of Gotar’s first year in Ireland. It was also the year Isolde returned from England to spend time with her father, who had become severely ill. At that time, he owned the only distillery on the island—or in the known world—which made it the best one. Athelstan’s gifts of superior barley and lessons in malting made her father’s whiskey even grander. Thankful for all his gifts in this manscape of demagogues and an entire population of assholes, it was going to be difficult for her to keep and protect.

CHAPTER 5

Settling

For the next two years, Gotar and his tribe of Norsemen worked the seized lands. The farm on which he now resided was located northwest of a small village that sat on the north side of Lough Gile. That settlement, Silago, was the home of fishermen who bartered with local farmers—swapping fish for vegetables and grain—to round out their food stores. In the spring, the lough provided salmon, white-clawed crayfish, and brook lamprey, while trout and other fish were harvested from the rivers and streams that fed Lough Gile.

It was this village that felt the first real full-scale attack by the Norsemen. Robbing and pillaging were a necessity in the beginning because they had brought with them nothing to trade. Then, having taken over the farms all around Silago, they needed supplies. At this time, they had no real community of interest with these people and wouldn’t until something changed, so pillaging it was.

In their next onslaught, five farmers were killed, their survivors enslaved. They continued to allow young boys and girls to live, along with a small number of women to tend to them. It was practical of Gotar to let many of the younger boys survive, using them for the hard labor it took to farm. It was a black-and-white issue, and after the first culling’s, when a number of rebellious boys had their skulls bashed in, the rest smartened up and fell in line. Older women and mothers who were allowed to live tended to the growing number of children. Warriors had no time for any task that would take them away from farming, and the need to shore up their dwindling supplies became paramount. They traveled great distances to find stores.

Before long, Gotar and his tribe had more than seventy-two hundred acres of farmland, much more than what was needed to feed his growing band. In fact, what he was tilling now would feed the entire population of Gute many times over. He needed more slaves.

There were seven young, single women of his original clan, and they were eager to accept the young men he chose for them as husbands. The only eligible boys were the Irish lads who his band had collected over the past few weeks and had learned the lessons of obedience. As new husbands, they were allowed to move freely among the encampments. Those lucky few became hands of Gotar. Survival was determined by how useful you were to the clan. If there were any who showed signs of rebellion, well, there was the rock pile at the center of the village square, which was left covered in the dried blood of malcontents, a clear message for all to see. After two short years, Gotar had established a docile workforce. It was at the beginning of the second year that he instituted a wage for workers. His tribe’s original men and women, who acted as a council, protested this practice as untenable.

Why pay when they will work for free? one shouted.

It was then Gotar had an epiphany. He removed their slave label and freed them, starting with the new husbands. With this freedom came a small stipend and