King Hereafter (22 page)

‘It has to do with your son,’ Sulien said. ‘Why did you give him such a name? You know what they would call him in Ireland?’

For a while, she was silent, thinking. She had not expected a Breton to know this. Then she said, ‘I do. Gillacomghain was careful to tell me.’

‘Gillacomghain chose the name?’ Sulien asked.

‘Or had it picked for him,’ the girl said. ‘He was told that he would be Mormaer of Moray, provided he so named his son. I call the child Lulach.’

‘It is a better name,’ said Sulien. ‘If it were for me to say, I should call him that always. Suggest it to … your friends.’

‘To the Earl Thorfinn?’ she said. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Only if he knows what it means,’ Sulien said. ‘And he does.’

She did not answer, and he changed the conversation. And soon, anyway, it was time to withdraw to the house she had always used when she and Gillacomghain came here. As ever, Earl Thorfinn would stay till the end. He had energy, and he guarded his drinking better than most young men of his age; but the same could be said of all his friends and kinfolk and allies from Orkney and Iceland and Caithness.

When, therefore, lying awake in the dark, she heard the muted bustle later that night, and then the sound of crisp, quiet voices unblurred by drink, she knew she was listening to the Earl’s companions even before she heard him speak himself. He said, ‘How many? Can you tell?’ and a voice she did not know answered, ‘About four hundred, my lord, I should judge. And armed.’

Thorkel’s voice said, ‘You were wise to give two feast days to Deeside. They’ll have had time to sober up at Banchory. I’ll send the messengers out, and we’d better rouse what men we can here.’

‘No. Wait,’ her husband said. ‘You say they are encamped? How well are they concealed? Do they have much baggage with them?’

The unknown scout said, ‘They are not in an exposed position, my lord, but not unduly concealed either. And they have almost no baggage.’

‘No smith, for example?’ said Earl Thorfinn.

The man must have shaken his head, for one of the Duncansby cousins said,
‘That doesn’t prove anything. They’re close to home. They might still mean to attack. Thorfinn, you should wake camp and send your lady home anyway.’

By then, she had her cloak over her shift and had pulled the door open. The dark knot of men in front of her broke apart, faces turning, pale shapes in the dark, and a flicker of light from a torch showed her Earl Thorfinn’s bared brow and beaked nose and muscle-strapped shoulders. He was stripped to the waist, as he had risen.

The girl said, ‘Before she goes or doesn’t go, the lady would like to know the cause of alarm.’

‘I would give you a report if I could,’ her husband said, ‘but we haven’t decided whether to be alarmed yet or not. My brother has arrived in the neighbourhood under cover of darkness. With an army.’

‘I thought Thorkel killed your brother in Orkney?’ said his bride, puzzled.

‘That was another brother. Thorkel: we should warn lower Deeside, but I don’t want troops of men blundering in here. Can you round up what you can by daybreak and hold them out of sight, behind Culblean?’

‘And if he attacks before then?’ Thorkel said. ‘Maddan’s father was a partner of Crinan’s. Duncan may want vengeance and Moray as well.’

‘I,’ said the girl tartly, ‘am not marrying anyone else.’

‘Duncan is married already,’ said the Earl. ‘To someone well-born and wealthy in Northumbria. I know he has reason to attack. I think he won’t. I think we are being invited to make fools of ourselves. I think when he does attack, it will be with a lot more than four hundred men. If I am wrong, none of you will be left alive, I imagine, to blame me. Thorkel, take what men you need. The rest of us are going back to bed.’

‘To
bed?
’ said one of the Icelanders.

‘You can sit up nursing your battle-axe all night if you want to. But until the scouts bring me worse news than that, bed is where I shall be.’

‘And this,’ said Groa, ‘is warrior’s instinct?’

‘This,’ said the Earl testily, ‘is an excercise in the godly virtues of trust and forbearance. Who said woman was man’s guardian devil? Go and pray somewhere. That’s why I gave you a Christian wedding.’

‘While you sleep?’

‘I need to be fresh to be forbearing and trustful tomorrow. Good night.’

They were still arguing with him when she went in and shut the door.

The next morning, as the sun rose behind Culblean and whatever of armed men Thorkel had lying behind it, a showily dressed man from Appleby, lightly escorted, rode into Tullich under a jolting blue banner and announced that, with the Mormaer of Moray’s permission, his lord Duncan, prince of Cumbria, wished to share his marriage festivities. Earl Thorfinn, in a tunic Groa had never seen before and all his arm-rings, accepted the greetings amiably under the flags and the awnings of the meeting-place, with his entourage, also polished, around him. There was not an armed man in sight. The messenger was presented with a gold buckle and a message of welcome; and in an hour the Earl Thorfinn’s half-brother Duncan was with him.

They had not met for four years. Their last confrontation had been at Chester when the Earl Thorfinn had sat at ease on Leofric’s longship, waiting for Duncan to drown.

Of the men standing now by the Earl, Alfgar of Mercia remembered that, and Sulien of Llanbadarn, who had helped lift him from the water. Since that day, living in daily commerce with Cumbria, both young men had had occasion to meet Duncan and his father King Malcolm of Alba. And because Gillacomghain had paid his Mormaer’s tribute to Malcolm, his widow Groa knew Duncan as well, as did those men of Tullich who had been fit enough to rise from their mattresses that morning.

They knew Duncan, but all they knew of Thorfinn was that, in Gillacomghain’s place, tribute would be required of him by his grandfather. And that he was neither paying taxes to Norway for Orkney nor tribute for Caithness to anyone.

Duncan said, ‘Greetings, brother. Being old in years, our grandfather the King could not be present at your marriage, but bids you accept the wine that you see, and this cup as his bride-gift.… It has been my privilege once or twice before to embrace the bride. Do I have your leave?’

‘If you can reach,’ said Thorfinn of Orkney.

Her contorted face under Duncan’s stiff one, the girl could only hope that he thought she was smiling in welcome. Whatever height King Malcolm had bestowed on his daughter, there was no doubt that her two sons did not share it. Thorfinn, son of Sigurd of Orkney, looked down on his half-brother Duncan, son of Crinan, lord Abbot of Dunkeld, whose head reached to his shoulder. Duncan was round-faced and russet, with fine brown hair and a thick, large moustache, soft as bran. His chin was shaved, as was the Earl’s. It was one of the few things they had in common. Groa said, ‘The cup is beautiful. I do not know your friends … Or …’

‘You know one of them,’ Duncan said as she hesitated. The moustache spread over the firm, coloured cheeks as he smiled. ‘Your uncle Kalv’s nephew Siward. His father is a great man in England these days, since he helped kill King Olaf. Siward lives in York now, where his wife is. He and I married sisters.’

More than the face, she remembered the broad chest and wide shoulders from her visits to Thore Hund’s house long ago. The fur-trader’s son was a big man, and older than her husband, she would judge, by quite a number of years. Earl Thorfinn said, ‘I don’t think we’ve met. How is Carl son of Thor brand since his sea voyage?’

Siward opened his mouth. Duncan said quickly, ‘You are talking of what happened to Gillacomghain. That is a matter we all want to forget, I am sure, especially with your lady present. We live nearer to King Canute than you do, and are not always free to act as we should wish. I have an introduction to make. My lord Crinan my father has sent you his daughter’s new husband to wish you well of your marriage and Moray. This is my lord Forne.’

‘Ah,’ said the Earl. A man stepped forward, smiling, and Thorfinn addressed him. ‘I thought once of marrying your wife, but I was told she was
reserved for a union much more important. So you are Duncan’s good-brother. And mine then, also.’

‘I am glad,’ said the man called Forne. ‘I am to tell you from my lord Crinan that he bears you no grudge for the death of his partner’s son Maddan. I act for him in Dunkeld from time to time, so we may meet.’

He looked like a man used to business; quietly dressed and clear-eyed and with hands not so hardened with weapons but that they might even have guided a quill-point. His speech had been Saxon bent to Norse, which they had all used, including Duncan; but when later they moved indoors to eat and drink with the Moraymen, talking of nothing, they all heard him speak Gaelic, of a sort, such as they used in the mixed races in Westmorland. Skeggi said to his cousin the Earl, ‘Who is he? There is Norman there.’

‘That is what I was thinking,’ Earl Thorfinn observed. ‘We shall find out soon enough. And I can tell you another thing, if you are sober enough to take it in. His nephew Orm is married to a third of those Northumbrian sisters.’

Alfgar had overheard. ‘It’s better than war, isn’t it? An empire trussed up in marriage ties, from the west sea to the east across all northern England. I wonder who is the architect? Your grandfather King Malcolm? Duncan here? Or …’

Duncan, with Groa leading him, was approaching the board.

‘The Abbot of Dunkeld,’ Thorfinn said, ‘I make no doubt, is a powerful man who, like the White God Heimdall, lies awake at night listening to the grass growing all over the world, and none of it under his feet.… When we have all drunk enough, my brother, no doubt you and I should converse.’

Something crossed the unchanging, apple-cheeked face and was gone. ‘I brought Siward and Forne with me for that very purpose,’ Duncan said.

‘Then I suppose I had better take two of the serving-girls with me, to see to our wine, or the balance will fail,’ Thorfinn said. Sulien, who was becoming used to his tongue, saw Alfgar staring. Sulien said, ‘If there’s any wine going, I don’t think Thorkel would want to be missed. I saw him come in a while back.’

The bar of Thorfinn’s brows lifted as he looked at his brother. ‘Would you object to my foster-father? He’s not as quick as he used to be.’

The bright skin was a little redder, but the smile was the same. ‘Bring whom you like,’ Duncan said. ‘We are not going to quarrel.’

‘I’m glad of that,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Will you lie down and let me walk over you here, or wait until we get to the meeting-house?’

Duncan’s moustache spread in a brief, answering smile, but he did not trouble to answer. Thorkel arrived, laid a hand on his foster-son’s shoulder, and said, ‘Whether you want me or not, I’m coming in with you. Will you keep a leash on your tongue?’

‘No,’ Thorfinn said.

The ensuing hour took five hours to pass.

At the end of it, Groa, peering from the toisech’s house amid the chatter of women and children, saw the neat wooden door of the meeting-house open and those conferring begin to come out. There were, reassuringly, five of
them. She saw other heads turning sharply: those of Sulien and Alfgar, who had been doing nothing in particular with a group of men at the foot of the cross, and those of the Icelanders and the Caithness men engaged in their perpetual dicing.

The five men set off for the hall. Excusing herself, Groa left the women and followed.

There was a crowd in front of the door, including the prince Duncan and his friends, apparently on the point of departure. Duncan looked the same, except that he had a blue patch under each eye and his nose was pale. Thorkel had bags under his eyes as well. Earl Thorfinn and the man Forne were unaltered. She took part in a long, false-hearty muddle of leave-taking and, when the Cumbrian party was finally mounted, watched it ride off to the west, no doubt to join the four hundred armed men who had never been mentioned. ‘Why the army?’ she asked of Earl Thorfinn.

‘It saved the prince asking for hostages,’ said the Earl. ‘And he reckoned he was safe anyway, when we were too drunk to respond, or too fearful. Would you like him for a husband? You would never end as a widow.’

‘There are several ways of never becoming a widow,’ the girl said. ‘Two of them at least seem to be available to me without having to move to another marriage. Are you serious? Was he thinking of offering for me?’

‘What do you think the attack on Thurso was all about?’ the Earl said. ‘If I had died and Gillacomghain had died, there was Moray sitting about in a hut waiting for Duncan or Maddan to marry it. He still wouldn’t mind having you for his secondary wife, Danish fashion, if anything happened to me. If it does, you should accept the offer. It can be a profitable business. Look at Alfiva running Norway.’

‘Look at Norway about to rise against her,’ said Thorkel. ‘I told you to keep your tongue off Siward. If his father and Kalv rebel and throw out Alfiva, you’ll find the Earls ruling Norway again, with the Arnasons in the lead. Isn’t that what we all want?’

‘And you think the Earls could stand against Canute?’ Thorfinn said.

‘Maybe they can’t. But what makes you think
you
can stand against Canute?’ said Thorkel. ‘You sat in there just now and promised the use of your fleet and your Caithness men to keep Malcolm’s east coast safe against Canute’s son Svein if war breaks out in Norway. Are you mad? Canute is your lord for all Orkney. Two of his churchmen have just been up at your wedding. He’ll send the Danish fleet up, and you’ll lose everything.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said the Earl. He cleared a space on a hall bench and sat on it. ‘Canute’s having trouble in Normandy. He’ll have his hands full if there’s a rebellion in Norway. In any case, by offering to guard the coast, I’ve saved Duncan’s face. I said I could pay him no tribute for at least a year, and he accepted it. I’ve also said I’ll join him with longships to help clear the Norse out of Galloway.’

‘Why?’ said Alfgar.

‘Because King Malcolm … or someone … wants sole possession of the western coast north of Cumbria,’ said the Earl. ‘Galloway and Govan and the
old Glasgow churchlands, and Kintyre and all the islands next to Ireland that give a good base for striking, or trading, or whatever you may want.’