King Hereafter (45 page)

‘What I am saying,’ said Alfgar, ‘is that Duncan’s sons were at Dunkeld, and that ‘Thorfinn has driven out every man of Duncan’s in the neighbourhood and put a ring of steel round Dunkeld that would defy a good thought to get past it. Does that look like the work of an innocent savage?’

‘No. But it looks, at last, like the work of a king,’ Godiva said. ‘Except that it would upset your father, I would suggest that you go to Fife and see if you can talk to Thorfinn and find out what he is going to do.’

‘Would you believe it,’ Alfgar said, ‘but that is just what my wife’s sister was saying?’ He laid his handsome head in his mother’s lap and twisted round to look up at her, grinning. ‘What would you give to go in my place?’

Godiva thought. ‘Your wife, and your wife’s sister, I believe,’ she said.

Wearing all his arm-rings, and with his golden hair combed, Rognvald went to Tarbatness and called on his uncle’s wife.

He found Groa gone, and only the monk there, and her two sons, and forty armed men under the command of Killer-Bardi, who would not let him land.

Rognvald called him up to the skiff, and gave him a twisted gold finger-ring, and patted the bulwark of the other man’s ring-mail shirt, pensively. ‘Would I ever blame a man for following orders? Tell the prince that the Earl his nephew congratulates him on his good fortune in the south. Should he be held there by affairs, he can rest assured that the Earl his nephew will take good care of the north in his absence.’

The words did not please Killer-Bardi, nor the fact that the young Earl, when he uttered them, was clearly sober.

The Earl Thorfinn of Orkney, they said, had taken over the guest-quarters of the monastery of Kinrimund, on the east coast of Fife, next to the hall of the Bishop of Alba, who was absent.

So the lord Crinan, father of the dead King Duncan, was told when he found himself barred by armed men from access to his own monastery of
Dunkeld, on the river Tay, where his three young grandsons had lived since their mother died.

With a hardihood characteristic of all his long career since the day when he married King Malcolm’s only daughter, Crinan of Dunkeld took his excited son-in-law Forne by the arm, turned him round, and proceeded with his sober retinue of some thirty riders to follow the course of the river Tay south to the borders of Fife, and then across to the coast where Thorfinn and his army had halted.

The path Earl Thorfinn had taken was not hard to follow. Smoke still lingered among the burned houses, and the scavenging birds were about, jostling in glistening crowds on the ground, rising screaming with anger at each interruption. They passed cairn after cairn of freshly piled stones, some already scattered by wolves.

Apart from Forne, the men he had with him were his own, and seasoned. They rode straight-backed and silent: they had seen this before. When Vikings were defied, or cheated out of their protection money, they behaved in just this way: in Ireland; off the Welsh coast; in Man. They left behind them blood and legends. Already the bardic verses were being sung, celebrating the death of his son and the Earl’s victory:

They were yelling that at the camp outside Dunkeld when he left, and it had upset Forne.

It might be that Forne was right. On the face of it, the appearance of thirty unarmed men with an abbot could offer no threat to the victor of Tarbatness in the midst of his hosting. But the victor of Tarbatness, pitchforked out of Orkney into this particular arena, might well have lost his head. Or at best, he had Viking stock to impress: was of Viking stock himself. The signs, as they began to ride, were not good.

On the other hand, instructions of some kind had been left at Dunkeld. No one tried to stop them departing, although they were offered no boats. And although there were Thorfinn’s men at the first ferry-crossing on the Earn, they were not stopped there either, although they were asked their business. The leader, Crinan judged, was a Caithness fellow; but there were at least two Gaelic-speakers among the small group of men, perhaps trained in Moray. After a short consultation, one of these joined Crinan’s party to act as guide and to save him annoyance, it was suggested.

It seemed likely that he, Crinan, knew the way to Kinrimund better than they might do, but he made no objection, and when they reached the first of two armed camps they passed on the way, he was clearly expected. Indeed,
the well-dressed man in charge asked politely if he might have the services of my lord Abbot’s priest for two of his wounded, and Crinan let the man go readily, and told him to take his time, while he sipped ale with the leader and engaged in conversation which told him very little.

The beasts he saw penned by the camp were only enough, he judged, to feed the company for a couple of weeks, and there was no sign of other plunder. When they left, he watched as they moved out of the woods and across the planked bogs and the beaten earth of the heath-paths, and saw more than once the tracks of cattle disappearing up into the high ground between the Firth and the Leven.

The hill-forts were occupied, and Thorfinn had not yet marched to clear them out. Or perhaps, since they would be full of leaderless cottagers and their families, he did not think it worth while. So the cairns belonged to the chiefs and their followers who had gone to his son Duncan’s hosting and had survived Tarbatness to fall to the same enemy here. It had been one of his fears that a hundred of Duncan’s men might at some point jump out of a spinney, slaughter his unwanted guides, and demand to be led on some hopeless crusade. It was, in part, the reason why he had made every man lay down his arms before they got to Dunkeld. Weapons were no defence under these circumstances, nor were hordes of panicking men.

Only careful negotiation was going to get them out of this, if anything could. Provided that somewhere at the end of the journey there was a young man able to negotiate.

On the sandy banks of the Eden, looking across to the smoke of Kinrimund, Forne said, ‘Well, you were right. He didn’t have us killed at Dunkeld, so we have been allowed to pass through and see him. I forget what you said about getting out afterwards.’

Crinan did not reply. His son-in-law said, ‘I thought you said this place was small.’

‘It’s a Pictish monastery,’ the Abbot said. ‘Or was once. The place was called Cenrigmonaid. On a headland between two good beaches. What you see is the smoke from his men’s cooking-fires. Are you hungry?’

They had made camp themselves the previous night, for fifty miles in a day was more than he now cared to travel. He had slept well. He knew that Forne was afraid and disconcerted. Forne was an able man, unlike his own late son, and it would do him no harm to be shaken up. Without waiting for his answer, Crinan led the way down to the ford and splashed over. On the far side, as they approached, a mounted escort moved up, awaiting them.

It seemed that someone had broken into the Bishop’s store-room and perhaps even his tithe-barn. There were woven hangings with Saxon designs running along three of the four walls of the biggest apartment of the timber-built palace. In front of the Release of Peter was a carved oak chair, painted and gilded, with nobody in it, and nearby on the rushes another chair and some stools with velvet cushions on them. The wainscoting under the hangings was carved, and so was the board at one end of the room, on which were set
candles and a pitcher, together with a number of handsome goblets. There was an embossed silver plate.

A clerk, writing in a corner, laid down his quill and rose, with no undue haste, lifting his wide sleeve-corner over the desk-stand. ‘My lord Abbot; my lord. I trust you have had a good journey? … Allow me to offer you wine. We serve ourselves, being in camp as you see. The Earl hopes to be with you directly.’

The late King’s father smiled and said the right things, aware that Forne had glanced at him. If Thorfinn was using his old title, it only meant that he was giving nothing away. As only living grandson of a king, he could already lay claim to a greater, as his bard at least knew.

It was not that, but the presence of the house-priest himself that was significant. Crinan received his cup, smiling, and said, ‘And you are of the Bishop’s house, my friend?’

A subterranean voice from the doorway said, ‘He is from Deer monastery. Thank you, Master Eochaid.’ And as the clerk smiled, bowed, and prepared to leave the room, Thorfinn of Orkney walked in, crossed to the carved chair, and seated himself with deliberation, his empty hands on its arms. Then he waited.

The silence did not disturb Crinan. He examined his stepson as he knew he was being examined, and noted the changes.

The height was there, as he remembered, but now filled in: the great muscles of chest and biceps and shoulder had knitted across so that there was a compactness lacking before. Now Earl Sigurd’s son moved better: stood better; sat better—not, he would guess, as a matter of practice but because sinews trained to war will keep their suppleness for every exercise.

He looked at the young man’s face. Any man, if he acted well enough, could conceal his uneasiness. No man whom he had ever known could hide the signs of a leader stretched beyond his capacity. A cough, perhaps; or an irritation of the skin; or the fine play of the muscles by the eye or by the lip that no physician he knew had been able to conjure away unless he took the man’s office with it.

Here was a half-bred kinglet from the north in enemy country, with blood on his hands and the father of the dead man confronting him. What could he make of it?

In the face opposite, he could see no tell-tale signals as yet. The eyes studying him in turn were brown as a Spaniard’s; the weathervane of a nose unstirred by irregular breathing; the mouth closed and perfectly still. Where it clung to his neck and his temples, the black hair was wet, as if the prince had been moving quickly through the heat of the campfires and the September sunshine, but his linen tunic-robe was fresh: the gold arm-bands glittered under the short sleeves, and gold flashed from the links of his sword-belt, which he had not taken off.

Crinan waited a long time at ease, sipping his wine, while Forne sat breathing quickly beside him. Then Crinan said, ‘I am here because I need your help, and because I think you need mine.’

‘Not the bereaved father?’ Thorfinn said.

‘No more than the bereaved brother,’ Crinan replied. He knew precisely what had happened to Duncan: there had been no shortage of people to tell him. It interested him to know why Thorfinn had not finished off both his stepbrother and his stepbrother’s army, and what had prompted him to send Duncan south by sea, with his men. You would say that a more experienced commander might have guessed what would happen. You would then wonder how experienced Thorfinn might be.

This was not the time to probe that, but to avoid it. Crinan said, ‘I don’t have to tell you the importance of Cumbria. In return for my wife’s interest in Dunkeld, I made it possible for both my son Duncan and his grandfather to rule there.’

‘I am sure you are right. If I have occasion to see Hardecanute, I shall remind him of your good offices under his father. Meanwhile,’ said Thorfinn, ‘your grandsons will do as well under my care at Dunkeld as they would in Cumbria. Perhaps better.’

‘I think,’ Crinan said, ‘that the world will expect of you a little more candour than this. Alba is without a king, and there is no one of the royal kindred left alive, save yourself and these three boys. In two years, Malcolm will be twelve, and his own man. If you claim him for fostering, you must release him then. If you claim him as hostage, then you claim the throne also, by implication. Is that what you want?’

‘Do I need to claim the throne?’ Thorfinn said.

Crinan continued to smile, but would not have cared to admit how much skill it needed. The brevity of these responses was upsetting, and also the weight of knowledge behind them. He had learned not to expect shouting, but he had expected aggression.

Instead, neither Teltown nor Duncan’s death had been mentioned; and now this. What Thorfinn had implied was true. Legitimate or bastard and of whatever line on the opposite side, the kings of Alba had to fulfil only three requirements. They had to be of the royal blood within four generations; they had to be whole and without physical blemish; and they had to excel, in strength and in leadership, any one of their rivals.

Children, therefore, were debarred until they had grown to manhood; and so had developed the tradition by which first one branch of the royal line and then another would take the throne.

Sometimes several branches would flourish and the choice become a matter of war and contention between them. Sometimes a king would do as Malcolm had done, who had destroyed all his rivals until there was none left to follow but his two grandsons Duncan and Thorfinn.

Duncan to hold Cumbria and add to it Alba, when the time came. And Thorfinn to act as a buffer in Orkney and Caithness against the ambitions of Norway, and later, when this became inconvenient, to be killed or returned safely to the confines of Orkney by the attentions of Gillacomghain.

But then Thorfinn had killed Gillacomghain and, by taking his widow, had extended his rule to Moray as well. An aged man, within two years of his
deathbed, Malcolm had been able to do nothing about that. Or perhaps, studying Thorfinn’s nature, he had reached the conclusion that nothing need be done about Thorfinn. He had employed him to help defend his coasts, and had lost some coastal bases in the process, which he might have thought fair exchange, having no fleet of his own.

As for the rest, Thorfinn had shown no particular interest in Moray, never mind in expanding his landholding southwards. Sailing, fighting, and roistering in his patrimony in Orkney were all he asked from life, it would appear; and once the handsome Rognvald appeared, he had ceased to take any interest either in his young wife.