Foxmask (3 page)

“What, Creidhe?” Eyvind's tone was calm enough.

“That you sent Thorvald's father away,” she whispered. “Banished him from the islands, so that he never knew he had a son.”

“I see.”

“Father, why is it none of you told us that story? Is it true? And wasn't it cruel of Aunt Margaret not to tell Thorvald until now? He's so angry and bitter. I've never seen him like this. There was nothing I could do to help.”

A look was exchanged between her parents, a complicated look. Eyvind took his arm away from Creidhe's shoulders and clasped her hand instead.

“Did you talk to Margaret about this, Creidhe?”

“No. She told me to wait until Thorvald was ready to tell me. But . . .”

“But you couldn't wait.” Nessa's tone was dry, but not unkind. “Creidhe, this is Margaret's story, and Margaret's secret. It was her choice to wait and tell Thorvald when she judged he was ready. Those were terrible times. To dwell on what had happened was to set a barrier between your father's people and mine that would keep us at enmity all our lives, and would be passed on to our children and our children's children. There had been enough hatred and cruelty. We made the decision, in those early days, to put it behind us. We didn't forget; one carries such memories in one's mind forever. But we chose to move on, all of us. I suppose now it will be discussed more widely. Thorvald is sure to talk to his friends, you included.”

“Eanna knows what happened, Creidhe,” Eyvind said quietly. “One cannot follow the calling of priestess without the knowledge of history. She has kept it to herself, as we promised Margaret. That was for Thorvald's sake.”

Creidhe said nothing. It hurt, sometimes, to be nobody special, even though she had no great ambitions for herself. It hurt even more that her parents hadn't trusted her to keep a secret.

“I had an interesting talk with a man called Gartnait at the Thing on Sandy Island,” Eyvind remarked, apparently changing the subject completely. “A chieftain from the Northern Isles, a fine-looking young fellow of
around two-and-twenty, very well-mannered and courteous. He asked me about you, Creidhe. It seems talk of you has spread quite far.”

“Talk? What talk?”

Eyvind smiled. “Nothing bad, or I'd not have spoken so fair of the fellow. You were described as a model of young womanhood, highly skilled in all the domestic arts, and far from ugly into the bargain.”

“Eyvind!” Nessa frowned at him.

“His exact words were a good deal more complimentary than that. In fact, your virtues were enumerated at quite some length, but I won't repeat them for fear of giving you a swollen head, daughter. It was clear the young man's interest had been sparked by what he'd heard of you. He's looking for a wife.”

“Oh.”

“You'd have liked him, Creidhe,” her father said. “He was an honest, open sort of man, with a ready smile. And handsome—did I say that? You will need to start thinking of this some time soon. You know how important this is, not just for yourself but for all of us. For the islands.”

“This is not the first such inquiry your father has had,” Nessa put in.

Creidhe stared at her mother, sudden hope making her heart race. Had Thorvald said something at last?

“Creidhe,” Eyvind said quietly, “we wondered how you would feel about going away for a while, perhaps with your Aunt Margaret to chaperone you. A stay in the Northern Isles would do you good, expose you to a wider circle, allow you to mix and give you some respite from your domestic duties here. You work yourself very hard, my dear. A visit over the summer would be easy to arrange. We have friends there. I'm not pushing an alliance with this Gartnait; you'd meet many folk. It would enable you to be seen, and put you in a position to get to know both him and others. You could make your own judgments then.”

“You know the importance of a good choice,” Nessa said. “If we do not nurture the blood line, the identity of the Folk is quite lost. It is your children, as well as Brona's and Ingigerd's, who will carry forward the royal line.”

Creidhe did know; one did not grow up in such a family without an understanding of the royal descent, and the significance of marriages. Nessa had been the only surviving kin of the great Engus, last king of the Folk in the Light Isles. She was his sister's child, and as the royal succession came through the female line, it was vital for her daughters to marry men with impeccable credentials, since their sons would have a claim to kingship. As
Nessa herself had no surviving sons, this was doubly important. It still mattered, even though the islands were governed by council now and no longer chose kings.

“You must wed wisely,” Nessa added.

There was a silence.

“I thought we were going to talk about Thorvald,” Creidhe blurted out suddenly, finding herself on the verge of tears for no good reason.

“We are talking about Thorvald, Creidhe,” said her father gently.

She felt herself grow cold; a weight lodged in her heart. There seemed to be nothing to say.

“You asked for the story,” said Nessa. “We'll tell it, but I suggest you take Margaret's good advice and keep it to yourself. This is Thorvald's dilemma and hers. They are best left to deal with it in their own way. Thorvald's father was a man called Somerled; he was indeed Ulf's brother, and came here to the islands in that first expedition, the same that brought Eyvind to this shore.”

“Ulf wanted peace.” Eyvind took up the tale. “He made a treaty with King Engus, Nessa's uncle. All seemed well. But Ulf died. He was murdered under very odd circumstances. My people blamed the islanders, and war broke out. There was—there was great ill-doing. Many died.”

Nessa glanced at him, a little frown on her brow. In the soft lamplight, with her pale skin and wide, gray eyes, she looked very young, not at all like a mother of four daughters. She reached out and took her husband's hand. “My own people were all but wiped out,” she said gravely. “My uncle died, my cousin, everyone close to me save Eyvind and Rona.” Nessa paused. The loss of her old mentor, the wise woman who had taught both Nessa and her daughter Eanna the mysteries of the ancestors, was still fresh, for Rona had lived long, passing peacefully with the coming of last spring. “It grew clear to me and to your father that Somerled, who had become leader after Ulf's death, was responsible for the wave of fear and hatred that had gripped the islands. Your father was very brave. He confronted Somerled at risk of his own life and proved him guilty of his brother's murder.”

Eyvind smiled faintly, though his blue eyes were troubled. “As I recall it, it was your mother's courage that tipped the balance. Without her, all would have been lost.”

“I don't understand,” Creidhe said, struggling to make sense of this. “Where does Aunt Margaret fit in?”

“Despite what he did,” Eyvind said, “Somerled was not a wholly evil man. At least, I did not believe it of him, and nor did Margaret. We saw some
hope for redemption in him, a spark of kindness, of goodness that might become more, given the right nurturing. There was a time when Margaret was very lonely. Ulf, fine man though he was, was always busy with his own projects, and I think she suffered for that. Somerled admired her greatly. Subtlety and cleverness had great appeal for him. In Margaret he saw something he found only rarely: an equal. But in the end theirs was not a happy alliance. She could not tolerate what he did in his quest for power.”

“But she bore his child. And yet you exiled him.” It seemed very cruel, even if the man had been a murderer. It seemed not at all the kind of penalty loving, generous Eyvind would impose.

“I was faced with a choice. Under the law he himself had instituted, I could have sentenced him to death. That was what Somerled wanted. He had always been fiercely ambitious. For a season he had been king here. Now he was defeated; even those who had supported his actions were deserting him. He had nobody left. He begged me to kill him. The sentence I decreed was a measure of the fact that I still had faith in him, even after the terrible havoc he had wrought. It gave him another chance to change his path: to learn to walk straight. I thought I was being merciful. To Somerled, the punishment I imposed seemed cruel beyond belief.”

“He left this shore without knowing Margaret carried his child,” Nessa said. “Rona knew. I guessed. But Margaret did not tell him, nor did she speak of it to me until Somerled was gone. That would have made no difference to Eyvind's decision. Somerled was not fit to remain in the islands. He treated my people with contempt. Many thought Eyvind's decree too merciful; they feared Somerled's return. He was a man who could wield great power. He influenced people through fear, and fear is a potent weapon. But Eyvind made him promise never to come back. He made him promise to do his best to change. Whether Somerled kept to that, I suppose we'll never know.”

“Why would he promise such a thing?”

“Because of this,” Eyvind said, rolling back his left sleeve to show the long scar that ran up his inner forearm. Creidhe had always thought this a legacy of the life her father had once led as a Wolfskin warrior; his body bore its share of the marks of combat. “Somerled and I were blood brothers, sworn to lifelong loyalty. He challenged me with that bond at the end, and at the end I held him to it. Then I sent him westward across the ocean. Perhaps it was, after all, a sentence of death. In all these years, we've never had any word of him.”

Creidhe was speechless. This was like something from an old saga, the kind full of gods and monsters. It was surely not real life.

“It's true, Creidhe,” her mother said. “Those were terrible times. Eyvind and I were lucky; our love for each other made us strong. The ancestors warned us all along that our path would be hard, yet they told us we were doing right. Some very old powers stepped in to aid us in the end, but it was human courage that won the day. You must not think harshly of your Aunt Margaret, although she lay with a man who was not her husband. She's a strong woman, and proud. Her life has been lonely because of the error she made then. She has never forgiven herself for it.”

“She has Thorvald.”

“Yes. And she loves her son, even though he is a daily reminder of the sorrows of the past. I imagine she will speak of this to him, and explain it as best she can. I hope he will listen, and not judge her too severely.”

“He spoke little of her,” Creidhe said slowly, “except to call her cruel for holding back the truth for so long.”

“Would Thorvald have dealt with it better last year, or the year before?” asked Eyvind mildly. “He's still a boy, for all his eighteen years. He'll come to terms with it in time. The lad still has some growing up to do.” His expression was thoughtful.

“Father?” There was a question Creidhe knew she must ask, although she did not want to hear the answer.

“Yes, daughter?”

“I would not like to think folk would judge Thorvald on the strength of what his father did. It seems—unfair—that people might think him—unsuitable—because his father performed an ill deed all those years ago. It seems to me—I think a person of good judgment should disregard that, and assess Thorvald on his own merits.” This was very hard to say. “That is what I plan to do. He's still the same person he was yesterday.” Tears were close; she blinked them back. “I hope you will remember that, when you speak of sending me away to the Northern Isles.”

“Oh, Creidhe,” Nessa said with a sigh. “We wouldn't be sending you away; don't think of it like that. It's an opportunity. Your circle is so narrow here in Hrossey.”

“Father?”

“Daughter, I am taken aback that you would think me capable of such prejudice. You should know I always judge a man on his own merits, not on his lineage or the deeds of his kinfolk. Thorvald is not Somerled; he is his own self, and far more Margaret's son than anyone else's. I do not weigh him with the burden of the past on his shoulders.”

“And yet you want me to go to the Northern Isles and make friends with some chieftain I've never met?”

He smiled. “And yet I want you to go, although I'll miss that roast mutton terribly.”

“I have to think about it,” Creidhe said, swallowing hard. It was as good as an edict, what they had said and what they had so carefully not said.
We do not think Thorvald a suitable husband for you
. She almost wished they were not so sweet and tactful, the two of them, so she could scream and yell and stamp her foot at them. Inside her head was a jumble of feelings clamoring to be released, and there was no way to let them go. Creidhe rolled up her embroidery and rose to her feet.

“Goodnight, Father. Sweet dreams, Mother.”

“Creidhe—” Nessa began. But Creidhe had turned her back, heading for bed. It was only when she had snuffed out the lamp and wriggled under the covers next to the sleeping Brona that she let her tears fall. It wasn't fair. None of it was fair. The ancestors played tricks sometimes, and turned things all awry. If she'd been at all interested in Gartnait from the Northern Isles, this would have been simple, since the fellow seemed to view her as a catalog of feminine virtues without so much as meeting her once in the flesh. Gartnait was probably exactly as her father had said, a fine specimen of young manhood and utterly suitable to father a future king. Why did she have to love the one man in the world who hardly seemed to see her on some days, and on others treated her as if she were no different from a boy? It just wasn't fair.

“Creidhe?” Brona's voice was muffled by layers of blankets. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” sniffed Creidhe, moving closer to the warmth of her sister's body. It might be spring, but the air was bitterly cold, and even in this well-made house, little drafts stirred in corners. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

It was like a curse, a darkness that would hang over him for the rest of his life, shadowing every step he took. It was one thing to have a heroic dead father whom one had never met, a man who was remembered, still, as leader of the first bold voyage from Norway to the Light Isles. It was quite another to discover your father was a crazed murderer, a tyrant who had unleashed a tide of blood and terror on the islands. Thorvald did not want to acknowledge, even to himself, what that seemed to mean. Striding along the track toward Stensakir with a violent wind whipping his hair out behind him and
tugging at his cloak with insistent, cold fingers, he shrank from the terrible truth that had hit him like a hammer blow after the first numbing shock of his mother's news. But he could not shut it out.
This made sense of everything
. His legacy was not Ulf's but Somerled's, not light but darkness, not order and sanity but discord and chaos. This was the missing piece of a puzzle. It told him why he had always felt outside the world of other people, why he could not smile and clasp hands readily, why he turned on those who tried to befriend him, despite himself. It gave the reason why, some days, he felt as if he carried his own gray cloud of misery with him, which nobody else could see. No wonder he'd never fitted in. No wonder he'd never felt a part of things. No wonder he had so few true friends.