King Hereafter (26 page)

‘I should have thought,’ said the Earl, ‘that you would have had a passing introduction. He looks like something very special from inside a mountain.’

‘He’s your very image, my lord,’ Sinna said.

That struck Groa as funny, and she laughed quite a lot. When she managed to stop, she said, ‘If it had been a girl, would you have had it exposed?’

‘On the contrary,’ her husband said. ‘I had promised to rear her for Thorkel. They say you are well,’

‘Not quite well enough to give you another as yet,’ Groa said. ‘But that will mend in a matter of weeks. Blow a horn when you are ready.’ She paused and then said, ‘What priest will sprinkle the water?’

‘A bold one,’ said the Earl. ‘The Christian rites can, I think, wait. The child has already received his name: Sigurd.’

The air in her throat rose and set, like a bread-cake. He saw her looking at
him and said, ‘What did you expect? He will be the next Earl of Orkney. You must both appear there as soon as you can travel.’

‘How can I refuse?’ the girl said. ‘It surprised me that I was allowed to bear him in Moray. Or do I smell policy after all? If Lulach were dead, the mantle of Moray and Orkney would fall on this child, wouldn’t it?’

‘He could claim them. But Lulach, I have just been reliably instructed by Lulach, is about to outlive me. I am taking him to Duncan’s consecration at Scone. I know he is six years old. He will be safe. You may even want to come, too, if you are well enough.’

Her elbow jabbed the pillow again. ‘Lulach is here! You haven’t …’

‘It may be,’ the Earl said, ‘that you cannot quite be first with everything, but I have kept for you the exclusive privilege of introducing Lulach to his half-brother. He arrived an hour ago with his household. Before I send him in, I have to ask you what gift you want from me. I believe this is usual.’

Transfixed on one elbow, she stared at him. ‘What truck have we with what is usual? I have your handsome son. What else could I want? A saddle?’

‘The good manners of your father,’ said Earl Thorfinn, ‘might not come amiss. What do women like? A pair of brooches? A ring? I shall send for whatever you want.’

‘I will take whatever you give your slaves on such an occasion,’ Groa said. ‘Unless you think that, being your wife, I might ask for something more personal. For example, the band that you wear above your left elbow.’

There was a silence. Then he said, ‘I am sorry. That is for a man, and the man it is destined for is already chosen.’

‘Indeed,’ said Groa. ‘Tell me when he comes to give birth. That is a child of yours all the world will want to see.’

He made no comment on that, but only unstrapped his purse and, carrying it to her bedside, emptied upon her table all it contained. He said, ‘There is what silver I have. When the goldsmith comes next, have him make what you want, and hone the two edges of your tongue as well, if you feel that they need it.’ Then he went out.

Ten minutes later, Lulach was by her bed, his lint-white head inclined over the wrinkled scrap in her arms. ‘Sigurd,’ he said. ‘I have heard of no Sigurd.’

‘He is named after his grandfather,’ Groa said. ‘He was a man of many conquests, a great man. And Earl Sigurd’s grandfather was called Earl Thorfinn; and Earl Thorfinn’s grandfather was called Earl Rognvald, whose brother Earl Sigurd was the first Earl of Orkney, two hundred years before this. So you see he bears a very good name.’

‘Better than Rognvald?’ Lulach said. ‘Or don’t you know the answer? An old Icelander could tell you that.’

‘Then you must find one and ask him,’ said Groa. ‘What do you think of your brother?’

The clear, pale eyes frowned. ‘I know of no Sigurd,’ Lulach said.

*   *   *

The birth-feast was held a week later there at Lumphanan, and was not large, for food was scarce and any that men had in store was required for the king-making next month. The chiefs of the district came, and some of those travelling south to Duncan’s summons. By then, the fur had begun to leave the child’s back and shoulders and the wild hair was shredding and rubbing off from his scalp, so that there remained only a fair-headed infant with Earl Thorfinn’s acorn eyes and across his cheeks the small arrows of newborn dissipation.

Groa was surprised at the richness of the gifts men brought with them, until she realised that men pay to propitiate.

She saw her husband on the occasion of the feast, but at no other time. Two weeks after that, in a litter, and accompanied by the combined households of Moray and Orkney, she moved to the mouth of the Dee, where the infant would remain with his guard and his wet-nurse until she returned. Then, with Earl Thorfinn and her older son Lulach, she set out for the sacred hill in mid-country where her husband’s brother was to be made King of Alba, and she, the Lady of Moray, would stand for the first time before all these alien peoples as the Lady of Caithness and Orkney as well.

Or, as Sinna had said, when the baggage-train came from the north with her clothes-chests and her horse-harness and her ornaments, ‘He may be a troll with a troll for a son, but he is king of the north, my heartlet, and you are his lady. Show them what an Arnmødling is.’

Afraid
, she thought.
And short-tempered. And lonely
.

O THE DISAPPOINTMENT
of some of his vassals, the new ruler Duncan neither ate, mated with, nor took a bath ritually in horse-flesh.

He did however, fill the riverside haugh by the Moot Hill with newly built halls and service-huts to supplement the old booths and pavilions that men used when they met to pay tribute or argue for justice. The first thing that everyone saw, sailing up the wide river Tay, or travelling overland from the north or the south, was the little monastery by the ford in the distance, dwarved by the new buildings and the hosts of brilliant banners. Flags flew also from the fortress of Perth on the other side of the river, where the new King was staying with his Northumbrian wife and her babies.

The Earl of Orkney and Caithness had brought his own canvas, above which fluttered the banner of Moray, alone. He and his household were barely installed when a message crossed the water from Perth, inviting the lord Macbeth and his lady to sup with his half-brother Duncan.

Notified, the lord Macbeth’s wife dressed accordingly and was interested to see, when she presented herself to her husband, that he, too, had adopted Saxon attire. His eyebrows rose. ‘Did you wear that thing when you came with Gillacomghain?’ he said.

It had caused Sinna some trouble to keep the fine linen uncrushed on the journey so that the veil flowed down her back and swathed her cheeks and neck without blemish. Groa said, ‘I shall do better than you with your tunic. The hall at Perth is famous for draughts. If you are Macbeth, what am I? Margaret?’

‘Silent, if possible,’ he said. If he thought it dangerous to trust himself unsupported in the stronghold, he said nothing of it. But Thorkel was left behind, and he took to serve them only house-slaves and Sinna, with a few of the well-born of Moray as escort and attendants.

The King’s lodging at Perth was well built, as was that of Forteviot, a short ride to the south. Passing the confluence of the Tay and the Almond, one could see from the boat the height of the split-trunk stockade, and the
thickness of the gatehouse, and the cone helms of men on the wall-walk. A smell of food and the crying of children drifted over the water.

The presence of old men and of children were the mark of any event of importance to a nation, for they were the memory-stream. But where were the old men of this nation? The last monarch had died in November, and gathered here now were the young contenders, with their brides swiftly married and swiftly made pregnant, and the children who would vie with each other in turn. In two or three days, Duncan would be consecrated as King of Alba because for twenty years his grandfather had proclaimed him as such, and for ten had made sure, by dint of his sword and his silver, that no rival lived who could challenge him.

Until the young men, like Groa’s husband, grew rich. Until the children, like her two sons, grew up.

At the gatehouse, Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld and father of the King-elect, waited to conduct them inside, and trumpets blew as they met. ‘To warn them to get out their knives?’ Groa said.

‘To warn us to keep our mouths shut,’ the Earl said; and, walking forward, greeted with apparent cheerfulness the lord Abbot with the soft brown beard skeined now with grey whose coins, they said, financed every war in England and Denmark and lined purses from Cologne to Pisa.

‘And here is a change!’ the lord Crinan said. ‘I bear greetings from Canute to his housecarl, but am afraid to deliver them, so splendid have you become. The Lady of Moray is, of course, more beautiful than before, despite her company. You have a son, lady. May he be blessed.’

She inclined her head and smiled into the lord Abbot’s eyes. From this man’s schemes had come the fire that had killed her husband Gillacomghain. Through the kinsmen of his son, this man had tried to claim Caithness and had failed. Beside her, Earl Thorfinn said, ‘We thank you. He has no teeth as yet, but they will grow.’

‘Then when he is old enough, tell him to eschew bad advice,’ my lord Crinan said. ‘Or walrus-fangs will hardly avail him. Edith is here with her sons. And Wulfflaed my daughter, who has borne a son of my name. I have become a patriarch.’

‘I hear my lord Duncan is also a father,’ Groa said. It did not do to appear entirely dumb.

‘Two sons,’ said the lord Crinan, smiling. ‘The elder named Malcolm after his dead grandfather. And his sweet wife is already near her time with a third. Dear Alba! Your air is sweet with the laughter of children.’

The hall door had opened, and the uproar within signified neither sweetness nor laughter. ‘That is,’ said the lord Abbot amiably, ‘at times they also behave like their elders. My son, here is your fellow, the other fruit of your mother Bethoc, of blessed memory.’

Perhaps because of his round, russet cheeks: perhaps because of his lack of height: perhaps because of the smooth-bedded eyes, his youthfulness was always the first of the prince Duncan’s characteristics. Even now, it came to mind first as he turned, despite the pale tunic deep-banded with gold and
silver embroidery, and the gold glittering on his knife-sheath and buckle, and at the neck of his tunic, and from all the rings on his short hands as he closed them on the upper arms of his brother and then folded them tightly over the white veil of his brother’s new wife while he kissed her full on the mouth.

It was an objectionable kiss, from which Groa did not draw back, although when he released her, she saw from the watching eyes about her that it had been marked and even anticipated. One of the observers, naturally, was Duncan’s wife Ailid, whose condition perhaps accounted for a few things other than her expression of muted dislike. Beside her was a three-year-old boy with red cheeks.

At her side, Groa’s husband had shown no concern while Duncan embraced her, and she had not sought to catch his attention. But now, presenting himself to Duncan’s lady, the Earl neither gave her his hand nor saluted her, but merely bowed and remarked, ‘And this is your young
pjokk?
He looks healthy.’

She was short, like Duncan, and had to look up a long way. ‘I fear I do not know your language,’ she said. This is my son Malcolm, the prince of Cumbria.’

The Earl studied her. He remarked, ‘You might enjoy learning Norse. Malcolm will have to speak it in Cumbria. In Cumbria, they will call him
lang hals
, long-throat, because they think that is what
Moel col
means.’

‘I am told,’ said my lord Duncan’s wife, ‘that you have another name also when you are in the north. Do you worship Thor, that you are named after him?’

Black as a cockchafer, the brows of Earl Thorfinn were bent on her. ‘When I am in the north,’ the Earl said, ‘there is an old polar bear whose health I am particular about, like Eirik the Red. When I come south, I tend to worship anything. There is a lady over there who could be your very twin. Is she your sister?’

‘I have three sisters here,’ said my lord Duncan’s wife. ‘One of them is married to a kinsman of your lady wife’s. You will see him there, too. Siward, son of Thore Hund.’

Her uncle Kalv’s nephew. Across the hall, Groa could see him now, a heavily built young man, with his head flung back, laughing. The last time she had seen him was at Tullich, when Duncan and Siward and Forne had come to one of her bride-feasts. Where she had heard the indiscreet words of young Alfgar the Mercian:
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?
And she remembered what, obliquely, Earl Thorfinn had answered.

It seemed likely, therefore, that Earl Thorfinn himself would not want to ask the next question, since it was important. So she asked it herself, with a degree of silliness she could see fulfilled all Ailid’s expectations of her. ‘Four sisters!’ said Groa. ‘Now, I know one of them is married to Forne’s nephew, isn’t she? Do I remember aright? But who has married the fourth?’