Authors: Dorothy Dunnett
The south coast, gateway to Normandy, was sealed off by Godwin’s ships and Godwin’s adherents. Without waiting for official dismissal, or for the five days’ grace to which they were entitled, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Dorchester with their friends fought their way out of the East Gate of London and fled north to Essex, where Ralph, one of the favoured half-Bretons, had his castle, and where the Abbot of Ramsay, which had supplied so many bishops to Dorchester and which had already sheltered a Bishop of London, kept a fishing-boat or two at Eadulf’s Ness.
They escaped, because of their speed and the unexpected direction of their flight. The rest of the Normans, debarred from the south and the Severn, rode west to the temporary shelter of their fellow-countrymen at Ewias castle and, from there, north through Mercia.
‘You were lucky. You were lucky Earl Leofric gave you a safe-conduct,’ observed Thor of Allerdale, riding into camp at Thorfinn’s invitation to renew old acquaintanceships and hale them away, as it turned out, for a bit of boar-hunting. Thor, to whom the years of authority had brought a broader waist and a drift of sand through the fiery starkness of his hair and his beard, was full of hearty advice to the men, with most of whom, over the years, he had done some kind of business or other. His son Dolphin, made in his image, was with him.
Osbern of Eu, who saw Thor’s kind every day, said, ‘He didn’t run much of a risk. Alfgar’s going to lose East Anglia to Harold again anyway, so they’ll let Leofric make his gesture. He wouldn’t give us shipping.’
It had been Thor’s first concern: to discover which of the refugees, if any, were merely waiting to take ship back to Normandy, and which intended to stay. He had seen them all now, and identified them. There, for example, was Hugh de Riveire, whose family had helped fortify Emma’s Exeter. And hence also, one supposed, Carl Thorbrandsson, who had once run the Exeter mint.
They were all pretty well related. You could say that much. But you couldn’t say there was any clear pattern of loyalty, to Duke William or against him. Maybe Thorfinn was merely seeking a safeguard against whatever might happen south of his frontiers. Maybe he was simply protecting his trade. And maybe Osbern of Eu was doing the same. His nephew Alfred was still there in England, nursing his lands in case the Godwin family ever got kicked out again. And if they didn’t, here was Alba, all ready to be exploited under Thorfinn. Or over him. Or instead of him.
Thor of Allerdale said to Thorfinn, ‘It’s wonderful, isn’t it, how business alters partnerships? I suppose you and Carl have met a dozen times since Crinan, of blessed memory, evolved his great plan to take over Cumbria and Northumbria and persuaded Carl and your wife’s first husband that the north
would be safer without you. But of course you killed Gillacomghain and took over Moray as well, which meant that Duncan, being of limited talents, was doomed. I often wonder how clever my lord Abbot Crinan really was.’
‘Clever enough,’ said Carl Thorbrandsson agreeably. A short, springy man now in his fifties, he had no need to speak otherwise: every sensible man in Alba and England treated him with the respect due to his record. He said, ‘If Duncan died, Crinan still had his son Maldred or his son-in-law Forne to promote. Remember the five daughters of Ealdred, and the network of power across the north? Crinan wasn’t to know that my lord Thorfinn here would spare my life. Or that the husbands of two of the daughters would come to Dunkeld one day and kill him.’
‘Why talk as if it were all in the past?’ Thor of Allerdale said. ‘You still have your lands in Yorkshire, haven’t you? And Siward is still there, and Forne and Ligulf and Orm. Only Alfgar is close to inheriting Mercia, and Duncan is dead and two of his sons now in England. You heard that, Thorfinn? Donald has been brought out of Ireland again. What do you think the Godwin family will do with him and Malcolm?’
‘Groom them for the earldom of Northumbria?’ Thorfinn said. ‘They have equal claim, you might say, with Siward’s son, or Alfgar’s three, or Ligulf’s two, or Forne’s two, or Orm’s only male heir. The idea should keep Siward quiet for a while, anyway.’
‘While you annexe Lothian?’ said Thor of Allerdale, and laughed adroitly. ‘You’ll have Bishop Malduin back shortly, won’t you, now Siward sees which way the wind is blowing?’
No one rose to the bait, to his disappointment, and Thorfinn was not even listening, but answering someone’s query about boar-nets.
In any case, it was unwise to probe. Thor of Allerdale got up, found his son, and flung himself, with enthusiasm, into the business of sport, while making a private resolve to send Leofwine soon to pay a short visit to Alba.
Leofwine’s ideas of policy were rubbish, but there were times when his defects were useful.
Bishop Malduin came back at the beginning of winter, when the Normans were all safely ensconced in their temporary quarters in the great timber camp round the Moot Hill of Scone.
That, too, had been effected smoothly because Thorfinn’s second step, on arriving home with his vastly more amenable guests, had been to call a council of his own magnates in Perth.
Because he had taken the precaution of testing the views of the more important beforehand, some of those with furthest to travel, including Thorkel Fóstri and Lulach his stepson from Moray, were in Perth already.
It was therefore before a large gathering of leaders from all parts of the country that Thorfinn introduced one by one the men who had escaped the vengeance of the Godwin family in the south, and affirmed that, for the good of the kingdom as well as by reason of friendship, he had offered harbour to any who wished to remain in the country.
Because of the weather, he spoke to them indoors, in the big timber hall above the river, and his voice filled it without difficulty, against the rustle of rain on the roof and the hurrying, orderly turmoil in the yard outside: the rap of horse-hooves and the rumble and thud of wood being unloaded from wood, and the voices of men from the jetty, impatient to get in from the wet. A profound smell of seething meat unrolled from the door-jambs and made common cause with the smell of hot ale that lingered from the welcome-cauldron.
To his mormaers and abbots and bishops, to his clerks and his toisechs, including those men who had been with him in Rome, it was familiar, and they gave him a reasonable hearing, for a man of reason was what they had found him to be.
‘Many of them,’ said Thorfinn, ‘are friends and associates of yours already, as well as of mine. They would have me tell you that they are not here as beggars. What they have brought with them will feed them for a long while, and will pay their way for longer.
‘What they require after that, if they remain with us, they have offered to pay for with services.’
He broke off and allowed the change of air that followed his words to become a murmur half heard, wholly heard, and then silence again. Thorkel Fóstri, standing with the rest, saw his King wait and draw breath, and felt ashamed because still, after all these years, the admiration in him should have to fight with the envy.
Thorfinn said, ‘You know what has happened in Ireland. You know that our western shores are now at risk, whereas in the last years we have had peace to repair the damage latter wars have done, and to prepare for prosperity. I would have you know that I am not prepared to throw away all that has been done in these years in a bid to reclaim my rights or the rights of my father in Ireland. The laws and the programme I have laid down will continue. But if danger should offer, from whatever source, we now have a shield: the men you see with me, and their followers.’
How old was Osbern of Eu? In his fifties, Thorkel Fóstri calculated. The scar on his face, serrated now as he smiled, was an old one. Not young, but in full fighting vigour, and the veteran of God knew what campaigns, in Normandy or out of it. The newest tactics, the newest weapons: Osbern of Eu and his friends would earn their keep, all right.
Thorfinn was speaking again. ‘In two or three years, I hope, we shall ourselves be restored, and armed, and ready to defend our country against any aggressor. Until then, we owe the best living we can offer to those who share our burdens. The force is, as you see, presently in winter quarters here at Scone. In the spring, it will disperse. The west coast is the source of greatest concern, and especially that part nearest Ireland and furthest from Orkney. Tribute-hills and gathering-places exist in every quarter and will provide a temporary encampment, but fortifications will have to be built, and lands allotted to feed the defenders and house them.
‘All that will be done with as little disturbance as possible, and with the
advice of the leaders of every community. I am also proposing,’ said the even, formidable voice, ‘to make available to some of our friends lands in the valleys south of the Forth and the Clyde that are at present under the supervision of no one and have been neglected since the time of Malcolm my grandfather. In this way, our guests may be supported without depriving any existing household of its livelihood. They have agreed to this. They have also agreed that, for the length of their stay, they will put themselves under the law and the leadership of this land, and will accept and subject themselves to our justice.’
He ended, and surveyed them all. Because of the height of the dais, he had remained seated, as had his companions, and, like them, he wore only the heavy tunic and wool cloak of riding-length, not the long robes of ceremony. He said, ‘I accept their word, and am satisfied with this arrangement. But I will not impose it against strong views to the contrary. Is there any disagreement?’
No one stood up and said, as Killer-Bardi had when the idea was first mooted, ‘I don’t know what you want to bring in strangers for. We’ve always been able to defend ourselves without any trouble.’
Bishop Jon had scotched that, in his odd Scandinavian with the strong Irish accent. ‘True enough,’ had said Bishop Jon, ‘when there were twenty sons to a family, and all a ruler required was enough land to feed himself and his concubines. But Christian observance, I would remind you, is putting a stop to that, and the practice of lifting someone else’s cattle whenever it’s mealtime.’
And Thorfinn himself had made the other half of the point. Alba had always had to call in mercenaries. And would have to get help where she could, until she could grow enough and earn enough to keep her own sons to fight for her.
So, although a few people cleared their throats, it was only Leofwine of Cumbria who finally stood up and said, ‘My lord King … I mean no disrespect, but over a matter of land, all of us want to be careful. In Alba and Strathclyde and Cumbria, there’s waste land, and undrained land and uncleared land enough to feed any number of families; but to reclaim them needs time and labour. Meantime, when their resources are done, these men will have to live off something, and if they’re fighting, they’ll have no time for harvest or sowing. So, at the best, they’ll have to be helped from ready-made land.’
He paused. ‘There are ways round that,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And in good years, they can be paid in food anyway. But, of course, care will have to be taken. Was that all your point?’
‘Well,’ said Leofwine, and hesitated under a row of blue Norman eyes. He said, ‘My lord, they have land, surely, in their own country, and battles enough to satisfy any man, whether for Duke William or against him. What’s to prevent them taking a man’s land here and then putting it under a caretaker while they rush back to Normandy when their own property is under attack or they see a prospect of extending it?
‘We may get nothing out of this bargain. We may even lose our young men, if they get tired of clearing woodland and fancy going back, instead, to fight with Viscount Nigel in another Val-ès-Dunes, or with my lord fitzOsbern in another Domfront, or with Anjou in Maine, for that matter. Then you lose everything.’
‘I will answer that,’ Thorfinn said, ‘and then, if they wish, our guests may have more to say. Firstly, the men you see here who are landowners in Normandy and also head of their houses will remain here for only one winter. While they enjoy our hospitality, we shall have, I hope, an exchange of mutual profit, and in the spring they will return home. The Normans who remain in England and the Normans who remain here must be drawn from those who have forfeited their land overseas, or who are of a cadet line and have none. As long as the House of Godwin is in power, it is hardly feasible for a man to own land and manage it on both sides of the water.’
‘But they will go back in your ships,’ Leofwine said. Discomfort had turned his face scarlet, but he spoke up loudly none the less. ‘And I can think of a few younger sons who may go back with them.’
‘So can I,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And our Norman friends in their turn have already told me of kinsmen of theirs who want to come here and join us. There is always a traffic in young fighting-men. You cannot halt it. And, provided they come back—and I think they will—I don’t object to seeing the Alba of my sons in the hands of experienced men who have learned leadership at the flank of an expert. I think it worth trying. Is there anyone who still does not?’
Because the smell of food seeping into the hall was growing stronger, and because Bishop Malduin had not yet heard the news and been dispatched on his furious mission from York, no one had anything of moment to add, beyond a disarming speech of thanks delivered by Osbern of Eu. Thus ended the second stage of the planned Norman influx, without causing grievous offence to any one of Thorfinn’s present subjects barring the one he had omitted to tell in the first place, which was Groa his wife.
She did not tax him with it. The thing was too trivial, and he was too busy.
So was she. She had taken upon herself the settling of the womenfolk of the Norman castlemen, who included cheerful Welsh bedfellows as well as resentful if legitimate Norman ones. Flodwig, the only son of the last Archbishop of Dol, who seemed to have been their principal interpreter in Herefordshire, performed the same office now, and the transition from Cumbric to Gaelic she herself could now manage with small trouble.