King Hereafter (16 page)

‘It’s a good phrase,’ said Godiva. ‘Does it mean something?’

‘It means,’ said Alfgar, ‘that he has reminded them that he expects to collect tribute from them in the same way that his late uncle did, and that when they forget, he sends a boat over to burn a few steadings until they remember. He’s got a cousin to manage it for him, they say.’

‘Moray,’ said Godiva thoughtfully. She realised that the Abbot had dropped out of the conversation. ‘Really,’ said the Lady of Mercia, ‘I can barely follow the import system of Lichfield, never mind the Western Isles, but I expect the church is quite expert in all this. How very good of you, my lord Abbot, to come to Chester yourself. And no doubt you will be writing to Sulien and giving him your news. Perhaps,’ said the Lady of Mercia, ‘if I can find a clerk who is not too busy, which isn’t likely, you would take a message to Sulien from me as well? We must not lose sight of that charming young man.’

‘Which one?’ said Alfgar; and laughed when his mother landed a kick on his ankle.

As with any battle, the waiting beforehand was the worst of it.

In spite of the heat outside and the blinding flash of the sea, none of the five boat-companies could bear to stay inside the high, dark hall in Thurso where Thorfinn sat with those of his household who had not been sent away.

All the old people of Thurso had gone by now, and all the women and
children. Through the low passes and the broad farmlands that led north from Moray, all that was valuable had been hidden and all who could not fight had gone to safety while Gillacomghain’s army came marching up from the south. And now those who were left were still waiting: for the message from the west that would tell them that Carl Thorbrandsson’s ships were sailing north towards Duncansby to block Thorfinn’s back door.

Sulien said, for the third time, ‘Five ships are not enough. He will have eleven.’

‘Five ships of our kind will be enough,’ said the Earl Thorfinn. ‘Any more, and he would suspect something.’

There was no impatience in his voice, or even in his face, that Sulien could see. Landing on the jetty at Duncansby, sending up to the steading to tell Earl Thorfinn that Sulien of Brittany and Llanbadarn was here, he had wondered whether his tutors were right: whether his unshakable interest in people and affairs was a sign of an irresponsible nature, when all his soul should be committed to the vocation for which he was training.

Some of their anxiety, at least, was groundless. Wealth and power for their own sake held no attractions for him. He was young enough to despise those bishops who turned from the world of the spirit to fill an office of state or rule a province fit for an earldom. Saving souls was his concern, he told himself. So the chance encounter at Chester with this odd Earl of Orkney had caught his imagination.

He had seen men of power in Brittany who, by lifting a finger, could cause a town to be sacked or a countryside wasted. All that also was within the compass of this grim, self-contained Earl from the north, only two years older than himself, and making his way, as was Sulien, in a culture not wholly his own. Then behind the cool hostility he had sensed something else, and had ventured to appeal to it; and had been answered.

He might have thought himself mistaken, in the five years that followed, had not the Lady of Mercia brought his name up quite recently and, listening, agreed with him. ‘Since he freed Alfgar, if for his own ends, you may feel free to canonise him, my dear Sulien. But no. I see you are serious. There is a person there, though a little astray so far: on that I agree. Also, there is wit. You found it.’

‘I thought so,’ said Sulien. He paused. ‘The men about him don’t seem of much use.’

‘It does seem a pity,’ had agreed the Lady Godiva. ‘And, of course, intrigue against him everywhere. I heard only the other day from a shipman of some meeting to take place in Brechin. What about, I don’t know, but the monks had discussed it abroad because the lord Abbot Crinan was coming. They needed cushions.’

Sulien had said, ‘I hope you sold them some filled from your nettlebeds. I’m leaving soon to study in Ireland.’

‘I know,’ had said the Lady Godiva; and had smiled.

So that, because of the smile as much as his own inclinations, he had found himself stranded in Brechin in the course of a singularly erratic voyage to
Ireland; and, having heard what he had heard, had taken the logical step and brought his tidings here.

Of course, the Earl had no idea he was coming; had never heard of him in the intervening five years, unless Alfgar had gossiped. Might have no time for churchmen barely out of their teens who spoke Breton-Gaelic. Might, with justice, distrust anyone who broke a journey to Ireland by way of Brechin for motives which were not entirely evident.

In the event, it had been the same tall, black sparrow-hawk of a youth who had moved out of the steading at Duncansby and stood at a great distance, looking; and then had covered the slope to the jetty in a matter of seconds to stand before him, considering.

He must have looked apprehensive. ‘It’s all right,’ said the Earl Thorfinn. ‘We only eat Christians in Lent.’

He could feel the colour rush back to his face. Sulien said, ‘Don’t be deceived by the skirts: I got converted in Anglesey last week. I’m saved for the High, the Equally High, and the Third.’

‘Then come in,’ said the Earl. ‘What are we waiting for? There’s a Valkyrie longing to meet you. Or at least we can manage a Norn.’

‘I know. Fridgerd Gamli’s daughter,’ Sulien said rashly, and hurried on without waiting. ‘I want to talk to you. I have news, which I will give you, but I must make a condition.’

Then, of course, the Earl complained, walking him back to the house. But when they were in private and the condition had been outlined and met, the Earl did not utter a word, for Sulien told him all he had learned at Brechin from the voices floating out of the monks’ little window.

What had taken him to Brechin in the first place, and what impelled him to betray Gillacomghain, Earl Thorfinn did not ask, either then or during all the weeks of planning that followed, through which Sulien stayed under his roof.

Why he stayed, he was not himself sure, although the ostensible reason was easy to find. He had made a condition, and the Earl no doubt thought that he would remain to see it carried out. There was a fascination, too, about watching a group of capable men preparing for war. He himself came from a family of warriors: anyone who had land these days could hardly, by definition, be anything else. He listened in on the councils, and had opinions to give when he was asked. He wrote to Llanbadarn, and to Ireland, to say that he would not be coming just yet, and someone from a little monastery in Deerness enclosed the note and sent it off in the next suitable ship, with a reassuring cross on the seal.

He took the chance also to mention to Thorkel the foster-father, of the appraising glances, that no doubt the Lord, Who had directed his footsteps to Caithness, would direct them away again in His own good time. Which baffled the good Thorkel, he felt, as it ought to.

Now the moment for battle had come, and he sat with Earl Thorfinn and his captains in the cool dark of the old hall at Thurso, awaiting the signal that would scatter them all. He was not supposed to fight, because of his calling. In spite of this, he had planned for some time to deceive the rest when the time
came for him to follow the old and the children to safety. He had planned to hide himself aboard one of the warships and emerge into view when at sea.

Whether the Earl was a mind-reader he was unaware. But certainly something the Earl chose to say brought home the truth that in war the amateur who must be protected was a burden known to bring about the deaths of more first-class men than might the enemy. It had caused Sulien to change his intention.

He was thinking of it as the shouting began outside, telling that the message had come and it was time for the five vessels to leave for their appointment. He said to Earl Thorfinn, ‘Well: here or hereafter, then,’ and smiled, to make it casual; while Thorfinn’s face produced the abbreviated expression he was coming to recognise as a contented, valedictory insult.

He waited until the ships had all set out, the square sails arched into the red evening sun, and then found his horse and rode off, away from the battle that was not his, to be shown for the first time, had he known it, a glimpse of the much longer battle that was.

T WAS NEVER
a handicap to the skald Arnór to write verses about a battle he hadn’t been in.

He protested mildly when, having crossed the Pictish Firth in one of Thorfinn’s five ships at no very great speed, he was dumped on the jetty at Sandwick; but only mildly, for the sails of Gillacomghain’s friends were close behind, bright as a fresh twig of gorse on the cold, running waves.

They had chosen to make for Sandwick, Thorfinn said, so that it would appear that they were running for help to Thorkel Fóstri and whatever men he could muster. He would prefer it not to be known that Thorkel and the whole strength of Orkney were already on the mainland with the Caithness men, waiting to give Gillacomghain’s army, in due course, the welcome it deserved.

Arnór watched the skiff go back to Thorfinn’s ship with mixed feelings. If this battle went badly—and it was five ships against eleven—he would have to find a new master. He was only here anyway because this was where his foster-mother said he would make his reputation. So far in his life, his foster-mother had been generally right, but the gifts of wise-women do not last for ever, and he did not want to look a fool at Hitarnes because she had got some prediction confused. He just wanted to be more famous than his father Thord son of Kolbein would ever be, now that he thought more of his cows than his verses.

To the ships from Berwick, the state of affairs was quite clear: either some rumour had caught Thorfinn’s ear in Caithness and he had made up his mind to escape, or he and his ships were merely crossing to visit his earldom in Orkney and had caught sight of the other fleet rounding the headland. He would not, perhaps, recognise the Northumbrian banners—or perhaps he would: he had been in York, they said, in his days with King Canute. But in any case a strange fleet sailing north in such numbers was not likely to be a friendly one, especially one packed with men as this was. Thorfinn could choose—to run for the shore and risk being overwhelmed and his five ships burned where they lay, before help could come. Or he could fight at sea, with the small chance that one ship or two might cut free and run in the confusion.
The crewmen on the Berwick ships had been warned to watch out for that.

It surprised them, as they got closer, to see how long and how low-built the Caithness boats were, taking the sea almost to the gunwales. Then the leading ship turned to the right, having dropped her passenger, and the sun struck red on the gold of her sternpost and lit the raven banner flown from her mast. Carl Thorbrandsson said to his shipmaster, ‘She’s going north-east round the coast. If we catch them before they round the point, they’ll have to stand with the wind facing them and the sun in their eyes. Can we do it?’

‘Unless they dump their cargo,’ the shipmaster said. He had been through Orkney waters before, as most of them had for their trading; and there were drawings. He knew better, for example, than to cut straight across to Sandwick and intercept the Caithness men there. There were skerries opposite Sandwick, and more you couldn’t see, under the water. He said, ‘He’s a young one, isn’t he? You’d think he would have better advice than that.’ They were overhauling the five ships very fast, with the wind behind them and the ropes taut and the men coming into battle-fever, with the noise rising, and the clashing of shield to shield, and snatches of chanting, bellowed from ship to ship, and laughter and the glinting of shaken spears and white teeth under the flash of the helms.

Ahead, the five ships turned, like haddock perceiving the net, and fled out to sea, the course of a madman. They held it for five minutes, during which the eleven Berwick vessels drove like harrows over the water. Then the Caithness ships stopped.

They stopped because, as if pulled by one hand, the sails of all five collapsed, leaving five rocking poles. At the same moment, like the limbs of an insect, thirty oars sprang from the near side of each ship and pulled her round to face the sun and the oncoming fleet from Northumbria.

For a moment, the five ships remained there, idling on the brisk waves, with the blinding sun lighting their prows as the southern fleet grew closer and closer. Close enough to see the men who rose to their feet, score upon score of them, in the five Caithness ships, with their spears held high and their axe-blades laid on their shoulders, with a ragged continuing yodel of derision that bounced off the waves. Close enough to see, briefly, the gold helm and red shield of the man they were fighting against, a tall, brooding predator on the bow. Close enough to see the raven banner above the man’s head falter and flap and then, changing direction, begin to blow cleanly towards them.

The Northumbrians were good seamen, and quick. Almost before the wind reached them, the orders had gone singing out, and the oarsmen got to their chests while the sails came rattling down, flapping and swirling about them. The Caithness boats stood where they were, oars gently moving, and waited while the eleven ships of the enemy settled down to the long, hard pull against the new wind, across the space that separated them from their adversary.