Lord of the Isles (Coronet Books) (21 page)

“Yes. I thank you. I was telling the Queen that my couch beckons. I have dined all too well . . .”

“Then I will conduct Your Highness . . .”

“I am sure that King Somerled and I can find our own way back to our chamber unaided!” That was Cathula, who had come to join them.

“No doubt. But it is my duty to accompany His Highness, in my father’s house,” the younger woman said quietly.

“Perhaps it is
mine
!” Affrica put in.

Somerled looked from one to the other of the three women. It was to Cathula that he spoke. “Tell Saor that he and the others should stay, if so they wish.” To the Queen he bowed. But he took Ragnhilde’s arm. “I am honoured,” he said. “Come, then . . .”

The Papal Legate appeared to be asleep.

“You obtained what you came for, my lord King?” the girl asked, as they stepped out into the night air.

“I did. Thanks perhaps, in some measure, to yourself?”

“I could say only a word. But I am glad. You will perceive something of my father’s problems.”

“I perceive also that he has a notable daughter, whatever his sons may be!”

“I do what I can. And my true brother, Godfrey, is very different . . .” At the door of his quarters she paused. “I wish you a good night, my lord. For how long do you stay with us?”

“I must leave in the morning. I left my eight ships at your St. Michael’s Haven. And my fleet awaits me at Rothesay Bay, in Bute.”

“So short a visit. I am sorry.”

“So am I. But . . . now that your father and I are in friendship and league, there will be other meetings . . .”

Cathula came, with MacFerdoch. “The others wait,” she reported. “More fools them! We are better in our bed, my lord, you and I!”

Without another word, Ragnhilde turned and left them.

“A plague on you, Cathula MacIan!” Somerled exclaimed. “You . . . you find your own bed this night!” And he stamped into the house.

In the morning they did not have to walk the miles to St. Michael’s Haven, Ragnhilde providing horses and accompanying them herself. They took leave of Olaf, genial in his bed, and got a cheerful farewell and some sort of benediction from St. Malachy, who seemed to find life unfailingly amusing, and Old Satanicus, the Devil, a foe with whom it was a pleasure to deal. There was no sign of Olaf’s bastards.

On the road back to the haven, Ragnhilde was quiet, reserved; but when they came to say goodbye at the quayside she seemed genuinely affected, although she kept glancing over at Cathula. For his part Somerled found the parting moving, and assured her he would be back. He was not usually concerned over the presence of others, but on this occasion he felt much inhibited, for some reason. The actual leave-taking was somewhat abrupt.

It was as the dragon-ship drew away from the jetty, with Cathula efficiently ordering the oarsmen in the quite complicated process, and Somerled staring back at the single slight figure who stood beside the horses watching them go, that Saor MacNeil made his comment.

“Given a year or two, that creature will be bed-worthy indeed! I swear the thought has not escaped you, Sorley MacFergus!”

He should have known better, been prepared to dodge, at least. His foster-brother’s fist caught him on the side of the head and he was spun round against the helmsman almost toppling them both, to the danger, momentarily, of the ship’s steering.

Even Cathula MacIan held her tongue thereafter.

Somerled paced out the uneven platform of greensward and stone for the third time, counting, calculating, frowning. “It will be a tight squeeze,” he announced. “The shape will be uneven. But I think that it will serve. Just sufficiently large. I make it four-hundred-and-seventy-two paces around. One-hundred-and-forty paces in greatest length, north to south. Less wide at the north than this south end, forty as against one-hundred-and-ten—as much difference as that. With something of a bite out of it yonder, at the cliff. If we brought the stonework lower there, part way down the cliff, that would help. I do not think that the shape being irregular would greatly signify. It is much the best site.”

The others, sprawling on the grass in the warm sunshine, made no comment, looking scarcely interested. This had been going on for an hour.

“It commands the head of this inner Loch Moidart, the mouths of both the rivers, Shiel and Moidart, as well as this shallow bay of Doirlinn,” he went on. “Forby, there is this wet hollow here—if I mistake not, this is a spring welling up through the rock. Water we must have. And there is stone nearby, to quarry—over there on the mainland shore. This would ease the work. I think that we should have it here.”

“As good as any,” Saor said, yawning.

“Yes. We shall not find better on Loch Moidart. See—go down to the tideline and gather me driftwood. To drive in as stakes. To mark out the lines of it. Then we shall cut the turf. That the builders make no mistakes.”

Saor passed on the command to the lounging oarsmen. He was much too great a man, Chamberlain of Argyll, to go gathering driftwood sticks.

“Where will you find masons, in Moidart?” Cathula asked, toying with sea-pink flowers. “You cannot expect herders and fisherfolk to build you castles. It will be long before this one, or others, will be more than a dream, I think.”

“Not so,” he said. “These folk can hew and carry stone. Cut and fetch timber. Clear the site. Lay the foundations. Then, when my master-mason comes, they can work to his orders. He will go from site to site, showing them how. It will take time, yes—but greatly
less
time than if all was left to skilled masons . . .”

They were on the top of a mound, a knobbly knoll of grass and outcropping rock which rose like the stopper of a flagon in the centre of the tidal narrows at the head of Loch Moidart, the north-east head not the south-east at Kentra Bay. This was the place where the Norse of Ivar Blacktooth had had a small base, behind Eilean Shona, which Dermot Maguire had been sent to destroy, four years ago now, at the Battle of Moidart, if so it could be called. The mound, some one-hundred-and-twenty feet high, was in fact a tiny island, called Eilean Tioram, drying out at low-water, and with an excellent sheltered anchorage between it and Shona, where at least a score of longships could lie, although only Somerled’s dragon-ship and one escort lay there now. Its base no more than a few acres, the summit narrowed to an uneven little plateau, part grass, part rock, of the measurements Somerled had called out. It was on the small side, admittedly, for a castle, and of distinctly unusual outline, for every inch of the ground would have to be utilised; but its other advantages were evident.

This was the furthest north of Somerled’s ambitious scheme to bind together, encircle and protect his new kingdom with a chain of strongholds, not after the Celtic ramparted-fort style nor yet of the Norse stockaded hall-house type, but stone keeps within high curtain-walls after the Norman fashion, as at Castle Sween and David’s Rook’s Burgh, on a smaller scale. He had already chosen sites at Duart and Salen on Mull, Dunstaffnage in Lorne, Mingary on Sunart—and hereafter intended to prospect others in Islay, Jura and other islands, and in Kintyre and Cowal. His friends saw all this as a folly of grandeur, but he reckoned that these strongholds would well repay their cost and trouble in serving notice on marauders and raiders to keep out of his domains.

Somerled, who only acted the king when strangers were present, and not always then, was digging into the wet patch and gaining assurance that it was indeed a fortunately-placed spring, when a man came running across the wet sands from the south shore, calling. He was a local fisherman and when they could hear his shouts his message was that there was a large fleet beating up into the outer loch, apparently from the south.

Somerled was both astonished and at a loss. Who this could be he had no idea; and what the situation called for, from himself, was equally in doubt. The fisherman could tell him no more than that there were a great many ships, a mixed fleet of galleys, longships and transports or merchanters, with no identifiable markings.

Somerled had to see for himself. He ran down the side of the mound, to cross the tidal sands whence the man had come, to the Doirlinn shore, and there promptly to clamber up the quite steep hillside to a viewpoint high enough to see seawards beyond the intervening point. He had to climb quite some distance, panting, before he was rewarded with the panorama of the wide outer loch.

There was no exaggeration as to the size of the fleet, nor the fact that at least some of the ships were heading in towards them in the inner loch. He counted between eighty and ninety vessels.

“Who is this? And what do they here?” he demanded. “Could they be Manxmen? Or Irishry? This is no Norse raid . . .”

“They are sending ships in to seek out what is here,” Saor pointed out.

“They will not see our two craft from out there.”

“Four ships only. And they sail in openly. This is no invasion. Forby, why invade Moidart?”

Leaving a couple of men to keep watch, they hurried down to the shore again and signalled for the dragon-ship to come for them, judging that they would be better aboard. If, in fact, they were assailed, and by overwhelming numbers, they could row their two vessels behind Shona Beg, beach them on the north shore and take cover in the woodlands there, with an infinity of empty country behind them.

When the four strange galleys came sailing up the inner loch and round the point into view, however, they displayed no aspect of hostility. Perceiving Somerled’s two craft lying there, the leading ship turned in towards them, leaving the other three lying off—clear enough indication that no assault was intended.

Eyeing the oncoming galley keenly, Somerled suddenly exclaimed. “On my soul—it is Malcolm MacEth, my good-brother! The Earl of Ross. There, in the stern. Save us—what brings him here? And with a fleet . . .?”

The galley drew alongside and the Earl Malcolm, waving, clambered over on to the dragon-ship’s stern-platform.

“Sorley!” he cried, hand out. “At last, I run you to earth. I have been seeking you all over Argyll! My salutations! I have been at Ardtornish and Tobermory and Islay and Mingary. From there they sent me here . . .”

“If you had sent me word, man. But . . . it is good to see you, Malcolm. It must be three years? Four? Is all well? How is my sister? And my young son, Gillecolm? I have been thinking to send for him. Now that I have matters here in hand. It is time. He will be eight years . . .”

“Gillecolm is well. As is my wife. He and Donald, our son, are notable friends. He asks if he is prince now, to crow over Donald. Since you call yourself king!”

“That—that is little more than a device, Malcolm. It serves a purpose. But what do you do in these parts? And whose great fleet is that, out there?”

“It is mine, man—mine. And three thousand men. All mine.”

“Sakes!” Somerled stared. “What is this? What are you at?”

“I am going to unseat David Margaretson—that is what I am at, Sorley! I am on my way to Morayland, there to rouse our folk. I am by rights Earl of Moray now—although David says that he has forfeited the earldom. But the folk will support me. All the North will. I have sure word. And more than the North—all Celtic Scotland.”

‘But . . . are you crazed, Malcolm? Your brother sought to do that, and failed. Died.”

“Angus made his mistakes, chose the wrong time. And was unfortunate. Even so, had he not been struck down, in the battle, and his people lost heart, he would have been King today.”

“That I doubt, man. But, for all that, he was more of a warrior than you will ever be, Malcolm! If he could not do it, why should you?”

“I tell you, had he not been slain at Stracathro . . .”

“What makes you attempt this now? You had no notion of it before. When last I saw you . . .”

“The time is ripe. David is much occupied with Northumbria. King Henry of England is sick, dying, they say. There is going to be great trouble in that land, since he leaves no son. David is pledged to support the succession of the Empress Maud, the daughter of Henry and of David’s own sister. But Stephen of Blois, Henry’s nephew, is also claiming the throne, as grandson of the Conqueror. There will be war. David has always claimed Northumbria, as part of his late wife’s inheritance—her father was Earl there. He claims it for their son Henry. So, in this broil, he seeks to put himself in a good position to take Northumbria if this Stephen wins the day, as seems likely . . .”

“Yes, yes—I know all this. But think you that David will be so engaged in Northumbria that he will be unable to defend his own kingdom? I say that this is folly.”

“Henry may die any day—and then David will move fast. Southwards. I have to be mustered and ready, in Moray, to move as fast as does he! I tell you it is a notable opportunity. Moreover, there is the Church—the chance to bring back our Celtic Church to power. Rome is in disarray—this scandal of the two Popes, Innocent and Anacletus. The Romish Church is at war with itself, some for Innocent, some for Anacletus, many not knowing where to turn. Scotland could have her own Columban Church again. Many abbots and bishops have urged me to move. I tell you all the North, hating the Margaretsons and their Normans, and disavowing the Roman Church, will rally to my banner, I am assured.”

“Who so assures you? Who has urged you to all this, man? Beyond a few churchmen?”

“Many. Earl Colban of Buchan. Melmore of Atholl. Fergus of Galloway . . .”

“That snake! He has betrayed David more than once. Has married Henry of England’s bastard daughter, now . . .”

“Perhaps so. But he could aid me on to the Scots throne.”

“No man can trust Fergus.”

“He could bring in Man. His daughter is now Olaf’s queen . . .”

“Olaf will not rise against David—that I swear! He is bed-bound and seeks only peace and quiet.”

“He has sons, of much spirit I am told. Fergus has influence with them. The Manx fleet is great . . .”

“These are all but dreams, Malcolm. Merest hopes. You will require more than these to win a kingdom . . .”

“You won one, with less! With
you
aiding me, Somerled, we shall win Scotland. And then . . .”