The Treasure of the Glen (2511 words)
Lochlann mac Aed
stood before the timber walls of Gilpatrick’s tavern, looking
forlornly over the fields to his own home, Ballaòir
Tower. It was occupied by Magnus Flatnose and his men now, although
most of them were down in the meadow, digging up the ground around
the standing stones.
This circle of
twelve man-sized stones had stood on this land for as long as anyone
could remember and had gathered legends and wild tales around them,
as these things did. As Lochlann watched, one by one the men stopped
digging, to lie in the grass and drink. They were warriors, not used
to manual labour, and the holes they had dug were shallow and
scattered.
Lochlann was
about turn and join his men again in the tavern, when he noticed
Magus himself, coming up the hill alone in the afternoon heat. He was
a big man, overweight from ale, and he laboured up the slope in his
expensive-looking chainmail and wolfskin cloak. When the Northman was
within ten steps, Lochlann called out.
‘Come no
closer,’ he said, his hand going to the handle of his axe.
Magnus raised his
hands to show they were empty.
‘Heth of
Galloway. I come to parley.’ Magus spoke Gaelic, not his native
tongue, but one he gauged that Lochlann would understand.
‘Well then,’
replied Lochlann in the same language.
For a moment the
two men looked each other over. Magnus saw the toÃsech of Ballaòir.
A man younger than him, but not by much, dressed in a light wool
tunic over which he wore armour that had undoubtedly been handed down
from father to son for generations. More a farmer than a warrior, but
strong from working the land, with intelligent eyes and long blonde
hair tied up under his helmet. Lochlann saw
a tall, broadshouldered Northman, grey bearded, but still strong. He
had a bulging belly under his mail, indicating he had not pulled an
oar in many years.
Magnus
cleared his throat and spat on the ground. ‘You did well to send
your folk away before we got here. How many of your men do you have
in there?’
Magnus
made a display of looking over Lochlann’s
shoulder at Gilpatrick’s. Not much of the building was displayed
beyond the tall wooden palasade that ran all around it. All the
Northman could see was its slate roof, not thatch, that suggested
Gilpatrick was a man of means. It was a defensible house, perhaps
even more so than Ballaòir Tower.
‘Enough to make
any attempt to take it not worth your while,’ replied Lochlann.
‘You agreed this peace. You can’t have drank my home dry
already.’
‘No, no,’
admitted Magnus. ‘But hear me, mac Aed. Your lord Alan of Galloway
has offended my lord Olaf the Black, and I and his other liegemen
have been instructed to reave all between Whithorn and Annan.’
‘So I have been
told,’ said Lochlann. ‘I heard you landed at St Mary’s Isle six
days ago.’
‘You were not
misinformed,’ admitted Magnus. ‘And as we reived north, killing
cattle and burning fields, the men we slew would plead for their
lives by telling us of the treasure that lay further north. That if
we let them live, then they would tell us where to find it. They told
us of the treasure in the stones of Ballaòir.’
‘Did
they?’ asked Lochlann. ‘And did you let them live?’
‘Olaf’s
instructions were not unclear to me.’
Lochlann gestured
towards the stones. ‘Your men are making a mess.’
Magnus turned to
look. All of Magnus’s men had now given up digging and were sitting
against a wall, drinking and talking.
‘Tell me which
stone the treasure is buried under.’
‘You’ve been
digging for a day and a night, you can see that there is no treasure
under the stones. If anyone speaks of the treasure of Ballaòir
then they must mean our rich soil, our fat cattle.’
Lochlann’s gaze
moved from the stones to the fresh graves before
the tower. Three of his men, and four Northmen killed in yesterday’s
battle. At least these savage islanders had given them all a
Christian burial.
Magnus turned
back to Lochlann who still had his back to the tavern. ‘Did you
move the treasure before we got here? Is it in there?’
‘No.’
‘I have enough
men to take that hall.’
Lochlann knew
this was true but also knew it was an idle threat. When Magnus and
his men arrived, they people of Ballaòir had
already been warned. Lochlann had sent his
lady wife and the folk north, into the one of the many valleys
in the northeast. Not even Lochlann knew where his wife had taken
them, but she had a fondness for Dail Righe, and she was likely
there. The Northmen would not dare leave their boats so far behind
them, or at least Lochlann hoped it. They were already well beyond
their range, on this hunt for mythical treasures.
Magnus’s
arithmetic was the same as Lochlann’s. There were no more than a
dozen men behind the wooden walls of the tavern, and Magnus’s fifty
would certainly be able to take it. The cost was too high though; he
would end with twenty dead or injured men. Twenty less men to pull
oars on their return to the Isles, and twenty widows and their orphan
to sort out with inheritances and patronages on his return.
He was not here
for war, he was here to please his lord, but also for personal gain.
All the way from St Mary’s Isle he had heard of the “treasure of
Ballaòir”, from men desperate for their lives.
At first he thought it lies born from fear, but when he heard the
tale repeated again and again the decision to reave far into the
mainland was too tempting to resist. The gold lay within “the
stones of the land” he had been told, but now perhaps, he was
musing that it may just have been stories all along.
Magnus
said no more to Lochlann and went back to his men. ‘Pick up
those spades!’ he commanded in Norse. ‘A double share to the man
that strikes on the gold!’
…
When Magnus came
to speak to Lochlann the next morning he was in a poorer humour.
‘Three days now
Magnus. As I told you, there is no gold under those stones.’
Magnus growled
and thumbed the handle of his sword that lay strapped to his waist.
‘I could gather folk from your land and have them killed before
your walls.’
‘Those that did
not go with my wife will be well tucked away by now. All for miles
around will know of your presence. It may not be long before my
Lord’s men come to winkle you out of my tower.’
Lochlann knew
what to say to Magnus to make him worry, who was already itching to
be back out to sea again. Keeping the boats in one place for too long
invited trouble.
They watched
Magnus’s men dig.
‘We are cattle
farmers,’ said Lochlann, not for the first time. ‘We have no
gold.’
‘You lie. All I
heard was talk of it. Ancient treasure, as old as the Romans, handed
down from father to son. Carefully guarded and well hidden.’ Magnus
gestured at Ballaòir Tower, at Gilpatrick’s
tavern, at the looted and burned houses of the village. ‘Look how
you prosper. No wonder we pushed you out of your tower so easily.
Your men are so well fed they barely fit their mail!’
‘I have not
heard these tales.’
‘All of you
Scots are liars.’
Magnus could tell
that Lochlann was a clever man, be he, Magnus was a clever man too.
He tried to read the other man’s face. ‘The stones, the stones,
all spoke of the stones. But I assumed buried under them. Perhaps
then it is not under, but in? The gold is in the stones?’
He watched to see
any change in Lochlann’s expression. Did he flinch just then? He
turned and went back to where his men were digging. ‘Search the
houses for hammers and mallets!’ he shouted at them. ‘We’ll
crack the cursed things open!’
…
Another day
passed and when Lochlann stepped through the tavern gates, he saw
three bodies hung from the oak tree that stood closest to the walls.
They looked like commoners that had unluckily stumbled into the
clutches of the Northmen. A man, a woman and a child, a family
perhaps, but not one that he recognised.
When Magnus saw
him, he came cursing up the hill towards the tavern, red faced and
angry, sweating under the summer sun.
‘I’ll keep
hanging the bodies of any of your folk I lay hands on until you give
me the gold, son of Aed,’ spat Magnus. ‘A fine crop for you to
harvest.’
‘I can’t
conjure gold from the air, not matter how many of my people you
kill.’
‘If the lives
of your folk won’t move you, them how about your property? As
comfortable as I have been inside your home, I could still burn it to
the ground.’
At this Lochlann
seemed, for the first time, to be at a disadvantage. ‘Please. If
you must do that, then so be it. But first retrieve the reliquary
from the chapel.’
Magnus grinned
like a wolf scenting blood. ‘Of value to you, is it?’
‘Yes, why yes,’
stuttered Lochlann. ‘For it contains a piece of the true cross.’
‘I’ll see it
burnt then, if you don’t hand over the treasure.’
‘And then see
yourself burned in eternal damnation for such a crime!’ scoffed
Lochlann.
Magnus paused to
weigh the promise of gold against his soul. He did not much care for
religion, but he was a superstitious man. And although he would not
admit it to Lochlann, Olaf had ordered his liegemen to leave any
relics they came across unmolested.
‘You want it,
come and get it,’ snarled Magnus.
‘I have your
word that I may return to the tavern once I have it? None of your
Northerner tricks?’
‘You have my
word. Come!’
Lochlann
hesitated but then leapt forward to stay close to Magnus. There was
only one man at the door, who was surprised to see the tower’s
previous owner arrive. Magnus barged past him and ushered Lochlann
inside. The toÃsech was dismayed to see his furniture overturned and
broken, his possessions scattered everywhere, and rotten food and
worse all over the floors.
‘You show
little of your wealth in your house. There was nothing worth
stealing,’ remarked Magnus as they went through the main hall to
the chapel.
‘Does that not
tell you I am a man of modest means?’ asked Lochlann.
‘A man of
hidden means, perhaps.’ They were now in the small shrine. Nothing
here had been touched, much to Lochlann’s surprise. The cross still
stood on the altar and all the tapestries remained on the walls. The
reliquary sat before the cross, a plain wooden box. Lochlann opened
it and saw that the contents had been undisturbed, the splinter of
the true cross still lay wrapped in cloth. He let out a loud sigh of
relief.
Magnus looked
over Lochlann’s shoulder with idle curiosity. Although it was
evidently Lochlann’s most prized possession it looked valueless to
the Northman. Such things were not worth stealing, in his opinion. A
man could be cursed because of it. Lochlann closed the box and
stepped to one side. Magnus looked at him with sudden guilt.
‘What, you
think me a pagan? That I would desecrate the house of Our Lord?’
accused Magnus, then suddenly changing his tone he asked, ‘is that
tapestry worth anything?’
He pointed at the
large woven wall hanging behind the altar, so old and faded that its
scene was barely discernible.
‘Maybe when my
father bought it back from Ghent, but its threadbare and worthless
now.’
‘Your lady wife
kept a clean house, but this thing is the dirtiest object in the
whole place,’ Magnus held up a candle to the tapestry. ‘It’s
Christ on the cross?’
‘Indeed, yes,
but take care! It’s as dry as tinder.’
Magnus put down
the candle and turned to Lochlann. He appeared to weigh the idea of
slaying the other man right there in the chapel. Lochlann stepped
back and put his hand on his axe hilt.
‘I’ve told
you, Magnus Flatnose. The treasure of Ballaòir is
our cattle. They’ve all been sent to Dronfres for slaughter though.
Every year it is thus. Soon our drovers will bring back another herd
to fatten on our bounteous land. That’s where our gold is.’
Magnus continued
to study the tapestry. He ran a hand down it then looked at the soot
on his fingertips.
‘Please Lord
Flatnose,’ pleaded Lochlann with his hand on the box. ‘What I say
is true. I swear it here on a portion of the True Cross.’
Magnus sighed,
defeated. He had tarried at Ballaòir too long.
They already had plenty enough treasure and time was pressing, he
told himself. He had no wish to desecrate a church and now only
desired to leave. In a sudden flash of frustration he took his sword
and slashed at the tapestry. The dusty old object leapt, blowing soot
and dust everywhere, into their faces and mouths. Seemingly surprised
at his own outburst, Magnus stepped back coughing and waving his
hand. Then, ignoring Lochlann, he left the
tower, called to his men to pack their things and was gone within the
hour.
Lochlann went
over to Gilpatrick’s and sent his most cunning man to follow the
Northmen to the coast, to make sure it wasn’t a trick. The man
arrived back in the morning to tell him that Magnus was gone, having
returned to St Mary’s Isle and set sail.
Content,
Lochlann made sure the folk that Magnus had hung were buried,
and sent word to Dail Righe that his wife might return. As his men
began the long process of setting his holdings to rights, he looked
over the excavated and broken stones. These Stones of Ballaòir
had stood there since the time of the Romans, old but not ancient,
built by Lochlann’s ancestors as a ploy, a distraction.
Objects to build myths around.
He
entered the tower, finding it strange to be the only occupant. It was
usually such a busy place, full of noise and activity. Now everything
was upset and overturned. He stepped gingerly over splintered wood
and rotten food, then entered the chapel. All was as it had been left
the day before. The tapestry had a foot long tear in it, a flap of
fabric hanging down from Magnus’s angry blow. Lochlann
stepped closer and looked into the darkness, at the sooty wall that
lay behind the cloth. He saw a glint of gold. How close the Northman
had come to discovering the secret, he marveled. Lochlann licked his
thumb and reached into the hole to smudge over the mark where
Magnus’s sword had struck.
