King Hereafter (128 page)

And so the rebuilding began; for the next morning, in one searching exchange, Thorfinn and the best of his advisors gleaned all they needed to know of the rest of their situation: what was occurring in the world outside their borders.

They gleaned it with difficulty, for rest had restored Bishop Hrolf’s appetite. When, washed and tended, he awaited the first tray of the day, he was heard to enquire of his fellow Bishop what the feeding was like.

‘Need you ask?’ said Bishop Jon, pumping air into and out of his face. ‘The fruit and fat of the land, and the gifts of the sea in abundance. Here it comes.’

The bowls arrived, and were placed before the four men. Bishop Hrolf peered into his. ‘You were saying?’

‘A small collation of gruel,’ said Bishop Jon blandly. ‘ ’Tis a low diet for us poor, bed-ridden mortals. You were saying?’

‘I was saying that I rode twenty miles only yesterday,’ said Bishop Hrolf. ‘Had I known I would starve for it, I would have ridden in a different direction.’

‘What would you enjoy?’ asked Thorfinn.

The tone was enough. Bishop Hrolf turned, with suspicion.

‘Yes?’ said the King.

Bishop Hrolf gazed at the rafters. ‘A bit of venison, maybe, with apples or leeks and some bread. Fish and eggs—there should be eggs. And not even wine: I should be content with ale, provided it’s well brewed and seasoned. Now, would that be a sin? Even a small bird took bread to St Paul and St Antony.’

‘Your small bird will serve you,’ said the King, ‘when you have finished talking.’

‘You want to know whom you can trust?’ Bishop Hrolf said.

‘Who could afford that luxury?’ Thorfinn said. ‘No. I want to judge something much simpler. What, in their own interests, are all my fellow-rulers and would-be rulers likely to want to do next?’

Bishop Hrolf’s powerful lips scoured the spoon. ‘Thor of Allerdale? I’ve told you about him. The death of a son was not a thing he took lightly, I believe, but he is a man who cuts his losses. Leofwine and Dunegal of Nithsdale would not march against you, but they couldn’t prevent their men joining Thor, which they did. Nor are they likely to refuse the land Thor could give them, which he will. They have a difficult time of it in Cumbria, with Siward stretching his eyes towards them, if not towards you, and Thor had little choice. I would expect Wessex to get a good share of the Alston silver from now on, which is what they wanted. And I would expect our friend Earl
Siward to be surprised at the reply he gets from Allerdale if he tries to act the overlord in those parts.’

‘Even if he claims to be acting for Malcolm the son of the prince of Cumbria?’ Thorfinn said.

Bishop Hrolf sent down three more spoonfuls of gruel. ‘If he does that, Thor will be ready. He’ll send an appeal for aid straight to King Edward of England, his one true overlord. Anyway, Thor thinks there’s not much to fear now from Siward. Siward’s hands are too full.’

‘With the rising in his own Northumbria? We heard rumours,’ Thorfinn said.

‘If you heard it was Alfgar meddling, then you heard right,’ Bishop Hrolf said. His spoon droned round the bowl, scouring it, like a man bruising mustard. ‘Not openly, of course. Yet. But his claim to Northumbria is as good as Siward’s. It was only his bad luck, I gather, that the Lady Emma chose Siward thirteen years ago to get rid of the previous incumbent.’

‘But the attempt failed, and Earl Siward is still in charge. Suppose Earl Alfgar were to try again. What would Thor do?’ said Thorfinn.

Bishop Hrolf dropped the shining spoon in its bowl and planked both on his table. ‘Now, that does worry Thor,’ he said. ‘So far, he and Alfgar have got on reasonably well together, but Harold of Wessex is now favouring Mercia, and if Alfgar adds Northumbria to his father’s empire, Cumbria will be nothing but an isolated pocket between Mercia and you, with all Thor’s shipping threatened from Chester.’

‘So in Thor’s place,’ said Thorfinn, ‘you would look further up the west coast, wouldn’t you, to our lands on the river Clyde? It’s where Thor landed the force that took Dunkeld.’

‘You’re right, of course,’ said Bishop Hrolf. ‘Allerdale has begun moving men up into that part of Strathclyde already, with no real opposition. And Siward is letting him, whether he planned to or whether he has no alternative. So that at present no one power holds the land crossing between the Clyde and the Forth. And further north still, the west coast is held by your men of the north. It could be worse. But, meantime, you are cut off from Mercia and your ships have no sure anchorage between the Western Isles and the harbours of Mercia and of Wales. I’m dying of hunger.’

‘Not yet,’ said Thorfinn. ‘England? Germany?’.

Bishop Hrolf sighed. ‘A Failure of Bread. The plight feared most by mankind. Very well. England. Harold of Wessex is flexing his ambitions daily, but has competition from young brother Tostig. Germany. The Emperor is at Goslar, trying to find a new Pope with Hildebrand’s help after a little passage of arms against Baldwin of Flanders. The Emperor has also been feasting Bishop Ealdred and Abbot Alfwine, the rumour goes, as lavishly as if they were Godwinssons, and has encouraged Archbishop Herimann to do the same.’

‘How Ealdred must be enjoying it,’ Tuathal said from across the room. Putting down his bowl, he swung his legs out of bed with an agility increasing daily. ‘Six months in Cologne? I wonder what he is buying? Psalters, chalices,
statues, ideas for new churches …’ He stepped across and, lifting a spoon from the rushes, cleaned it on a sheet-corner and restored it to the board on Thorfinn’s sheets. Tuathal said, ‘I take it that Ealdred’s mission has as much to do with the Pope-making as it has with trade and the return of the Athelings?’

‘Thank you,’ said Thorfinn. ‘You may also take it that I can manage the rest by myself.’

His bowl was still half full. Tuathal, finding Bishop Hrolf’s eyes upon him, turned aside and stepped back to his own bed. Bishop Hrolf cleared his throat. ‘Of course the Pope-making matters. The Athelings are the Saxon heirs to the English throne and enjoyed the protection of the Emperor and the late Pope, but how might another Pope feel? One could imagine what use Duke William might make of the exiles in Normandy. He was, after all, promised the reversion of England himself. Also, a Pope of Hildebrand’s choice might share Hildebrand’s distaste for Archbishop Adalbert.’

‘But the ultimate choice of Pope will be the Emperor’s,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And, so far, he has always chosen wisely. The trouble lies in finding someone brave enough to accept. What else?’

‘Some Irish gossip,’ said Bishop Hrolf. ‘Kells and Armagh, it seems, are at one another’s throats again.’

Thorfinn’s collation, too, was finished. He left the bowl on its board and leaned back, slackening. ‘It’s a pity,’ he said. ‘But we never could look for help from there. Now Eachmarcach has gone and Diarmaid is still successful, as I suppose he is, all we can hope for is that every faction remains absorbed in killing another.’

‘Your hope,’ said Bishop Hrolf, ‘is being realised. But, in some quarters, Mercian rosettas are making a difference.’

‘Alfgar’s money? Alfgar is recruiting in Ireland?’ The immense voice, for a moment, lost a little of its compression. ‘He’s a fool. Harold of Wessex supports Diarmaid. If Earl Harold finds out, there’ll be trouble.’

‘It depends,’ said Bishop Hrolf. Since the incident of the spoon, he had made no further reference to food. ‘If Alfgar wins Northumbria, he will be a force even Wessex will find it hard to withstand. And, what’s more, he’s followed your policy. He’s cultivated both Bretons and Normandy. While he’s excommunicated, Archbishop Juhel can’t do much but amass money, but that he is doing with the greatest success. And Duke William’s attention at the moment is held by the wars with Mayenne and Anjou, so that he won’t be anxious to lose any more fighting-men overseas, but that may change.’

‘I didn’t know there were any Normans left,’ Thorfinn said. It was the first sign of real tiredness. Then he said, ‘So what is Siward doing to protect himself? He hopes to move north, I suppose, in the spring, and take over Lothian and as much to the north as he can be sure of keeping. But he can’t afford to leave Northumbria empty of loyal followers.’

‘He’s kept the mercenaries,’ Bishop Hrolf said. ‘Or as many of them as would stay with him. And a great many of them did, so they said in Allerdale, when they were offered double rates for the winter. They’re all in camp
outside York with the rest of the men Siward thinks he can depend on.’

He rolled out a lip and sent his nose down to meet it. ‘I’ve never been in favour of holding large numbers of men in one place. The Romans could do it. The Romans had drains. But come the warm weather, there will be camp-sickness, and it could jump the wall into York in a night.’

‘Good,’ said Thorfinn. ‘You said you were hungry?’

Unspoken messages crossed the room and altered Bishop Hrolf’s answer. ‘Hungry?’ he said. ‘And how could I be, with my fine bowl of gruel stranded there in my belly like a ball of thread in an old, empty sack?’

‘All right. I kept the best question to the last,’ Thorfinn said. ‘What is the gossip about Denmark?’

‘That you were a fool to trust Svein to get your ships for you, but that you had no alternative,’ Bishop Hrolf said. ‘It’s thought that Svein’s cousin Harold had something to do with changing his mind, but that it was largely a matter of money. King Svein was paid twice, once by you and then by Siward, for the same fifteen ships. And with Siward and Wessex on his side, he felt you couldn’t retaliate.’

‘Really?’ said Thorfinn.

‘Well, that was the view of the moderates,’ said Bishop Hrolf. ‘The rest thought that Svein only agreed to do it on condition that they brought him your head. Otherwise, he would drive you into Norway’s arms, and, even with Wessex and Siward, he would be in danger of going under.’

‘Now that, knowing Svein, I find very convincing,’ Thorfinn said. ‘So how worried he must be, to find Siward back in York, Thor back in Allerdale, Malcolm sitting in a hole in the border somewhere, and myself alive and no doubt about to make a firm alliance with my wife’s cousin’s husband in Norway. Can we turn it to account? What do we need most?’

‘Ships and money,’ said Tuathal from the opposite side.

Thorfinn looked across at him. ‘Ships we shall have, of our own building, in time. Money, I agree, is wanting. We’ve lost the silver mines, and we’ve lost all the treasure in store from Dunkeld southwards. On the other hand, while there isn’t a Pope, Adalbert is all-powerful in the northern church, and anxious to expand his future patriarchate, while Svein is equally anxious to have Adalbert’s support and, of course, the Emperor’s in his conflict with Norway.’

Tuathal said, ‘Oh, my good Lord. No.’

Bishop Hrolf, less well acquainted with the mind of the King, took a fraction longer to guess it. ‘You mean to send King Svein a complaint?’ he said.

‘I mean,’ said Thorfinn, ‘to send him a demand for double the money I paid him for the fifteen ships I didn’t get. Or I shall make an alliance with Norway against him. You, when you are well, will be my ambassador.’

Bishop Hrolf gazed at him. Bishop Jon, from the other side of the room, said, ‘My lord … I thought an alliance with Norway was out of the question.’

‘Of course it’s out of the question,’ said Thorfinn. ‘What has that to do with it? That will settle Denmark. And tomorrow, when the others arrive, we shall
decide what we want to happen in Scotia. There. Do you hear them outside, my lord Bishop? Here comes the rest of your repast.’

The door opened. Smells of undreamed-of allurement filled the bright room.

‘We thought you might be hungry,’ Thorfinn said. ‘But a little drowsy after, perhaps. The delay was also to punish you for inflicting your absence upon us. Don’t let it happen again.’

‘Except when you send me to Denmark,’ said Bishop Hrolf. His face had flushed. To his shame, saliva also swirled down his throat.

‘In Denmark,’ said the King, ‘you will be feasted as never man has been feasted before. King Svein won’t dare do otherwise.’

Later, when the food had gone and the lay brothers were there in a bustle of linen and bandages, Tuathal crossed and sat on the board-edge of Bishop Hrolf’s bed.

When he wanted, the stentorian voice of Bishop Hrolf could be very quiet indeed. ‘His hands?’ he said.

A screen of men divided them from Thorfinn. Tuathal said, ‘The strings of his shoulders are cut. He makes trial of his arms and his hands all the time, and the power is coming back slowly. He makes little of it, nor do we. He has his life.’

‘Is it known?’ said Bishop Hrolf.

‘There was no need. He will make sure he is well enough before he leaves here.’

Men moved, and Tuathal smiled and drifted away from the bed.

Bishop Hrolf lay back and closed his eyes in the slothful wake, it might seem, of his meal.

So many weeks, and a spoon would not stay in his hand: what of a sword? What of the people, for whom the King must be unblemished,
dianim?
What of the country, whose only hope was to nurse this intelligence, so that it might steer them all out of chaos and avoid the war against which they had no men and no leader?

He lay unstirring still, as if sleeping, save that now and then his lips moved a little. And, watching him, two at least of his friends understood, and in their hearts added their prayers to his.

HE YEAR CHANGED
, and then began to unroll, like a wheel in turbulent country; like an unreeling ribbon of Groa’s weaving that once, long ago, he had spoiled with his blood. A spinning ribbon in which, peg by peg, the device switched without warning, producing a new assortment of patterns, a new set of boundaries, a new line of direction, a mischievous disorder of design that tested his strength to the limit through the most powerful tenet by which he lived: Adapt and survive.