King Hereafter (130 page)

‘You know what happened. You know how many died. You know how many are no longer active because of their wounds. It is what my lord Lulach and the Lady have spent all winter finding out. And you know how many men it takes to plough, to cut wood, to build, to launch a fishing-boat. I will not lose any more in battle. For, whether the battle is won or lost, Alba will die.’

‘So?’ had said Bishop Hrolf. ‘Next time, you make no stand? They overrun, if they wish, Angus and Moray as well, and you withdraw before them?’

Thorfinn had held that council at his bedside, and he had been very tired; but to Groa, who was there, it had been clear, for once, how much it mattered to him to have this understood and accepted.

He had said, The invaders got what they wanted. Booty. Revenge. Ravaged land lying open for them to take when the spring comes. There is no reason for them to want any more. It would be madness for Allerdale or for Northumbria to return and march north. There is no treasure left that they can be sure of. They could never drive cattle or take corn back from such a distance, and they must know that now I should bring back all my ships, and any built over the winter. None of them could settle in safety so far from home. And if they come too near the northern limits of Alba, they threaten the north, and the north is untouched and would descend on them. It has saved us this winter with its granaries and its storehouses, and it will do so again.’

She did not remember who had said, at the point, ‘My lord. I would rather see men of the north in Fife and Atholl and Lothian than men of Northumbria.’

She did not remember, because none of those close to Thorfinn would ever have said that again. But he had answered, if with less than total candour. ‘To the men of Bernicia, the southern part of Alba is the kind of land they are used to, and in Lothian the same language is spoken. But even among the men of Moray who fought beside us, there is little desire to move out of the lands that they know; and in Caithness it is not only a different tongue, it is a different habit of life. They would be more alien to the south of Alba than any enemy could be.’

The voice had said, ‘They accepted you. And the men you brought south. There is Celtic blood, I thought, in Caithness as well. And in Orkney.’

Whoever it was had no sense. And Thorfinn, for his own sake, was going to have to close the discussion. But he had only said, ‘Mormaer can speak to mormaer, but to bring down an army would be a different matter. It would in any case lead to little but a fresh arousal of war, and still without prospect of
clearing the country. No. There is land here, in Mar and Moray, that has only to be cleared. The refugees who have been with us all winter can stay if they wish. Nor shall I stop anyone who wants to return south, even if the south is held by Northumbria, so long as they understand that they will have no security. But the land cannot begin to live again until the men are replaced. And the land cannot wait for our children to grow.’

It was Morgund, surprisingly, who had said, his face flushed, ‘So you would give over Alba to English vassaldom?’

‘No,’ had said the King. ‘I should allow Malcolm my nephew, if he wishes, to plant his standard at Scone and call himself, if he wishes, King of Alba. And then when I had the power, I should expel him.’

The noise round his bed had been like the clashing of cymbals, and she had seen him relax, in spite of the weariness, and knew that he had them convinced. What she did not know was whether he believed it.

So now the spring had come that was to determine their fate, and there was no threadbare army of Thorfinn’s poised south of the Forth or the Tay, under whoever was left of his leaders, waiting to confront whatever the new ruler of Northumbria should choose to send against them.

Nothing happened. A hesitant dwindling began to occur among the refugee communities in Mar and on the Angus border. Families, dragging a handcart or riding garrons and leading pack-mules, began circumspectly to drift southwards towards their former homes. The people of Angus, their loyalty still untried since Kineth their Mormaer had gone south and taken his following with him, let most of them through.

Those who did not emerge had been killed by Angus men for their goods as much as for anything else, it was believed. The rule, the achievement of all that golden time after Rome, was already dispersing, thought Groa with bitterness. Soon, without time or men to repair them, the roads and bridges would begin to give way also, that all through the winter had made possible the great accounting, the conveying of food and succour that the defeat had made necessary.

Only in peace was progress possible. The wars of Rognvald had robbed Thorfinn of the profit of the first half of his reign. And now the wars of Northumbria were destroying the fruits of all he had done in the interval.

In Thorfinn himself, there showed no such awareness: no least resentment over his fate, even when, at last, the reports began to come in from his watchers. Malcolm had entered the Lothians with intent, clearly, to settle. But this time, instead of Siward’s thousands, he brought only the exiles from Fife and from Angus with their weapons, followed by the wagon-trains of the new occupiers.

His scouts, also, it would appear, had been industrious in what they conveyed to their lord Malcolm.
Your uncle is lying in Mar, sick or dying or discredited, with a broken and leaderless army. From Angus south, the land is yours if you want it
.

‘So he will occupy Lothian, at least,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And then perhaps Fife,
when he feels safer. He can still recoil if we move. But why none of Allerdale’s people? And why no word yet of Siward’s successor?’

Sometimes, after a long meeting, his weariness would show itself as now in impatience, but only when he was alone with her. Daily, his strength had come back. He could walk freely, although he was not yet on horseback, and could hold light things in his hands, and lift his arms, with care, nearly to shoulder-height. She had never seen whatever agonising work had gone into that. One day he could run on the oars of a galley and one day he could lift his arms: it was the same thing.

While the seas were still closed by storms, the absence of free communication with the south was his greatest hazard. With Cumbria lost and Northumbria an enemy, he had to rely on word brought him by spies, and the distance was too great for many to be successful. Later, when his ships could move, it would be different.

But even the fretting was better than the news, thought Groa, when it came.

First, an indication that, at last, Thor of Allerdale was settling the areas he had conquered. And that, like Malcolm, he had contented himself so far with the southernmost lands, and had brought no more men-at-arms than might be needed to protect a new colony. Certainly not enough to constitute an invasion, or to indicate that he meant, in the near future, to move further north.

‘What is happening?’ Thorfinn had complained. ‘What is happening in Northumbria?’

Then next day, he knew.

He had chosen to go hawking, with a company of about a dozen, Groa among them. It was his fourth day on horseback. His second and his third had been spent riding slowly through the camps and farmsteads about Monymusk, talking to whomever he could find, from the saddle. Close to Monymusk and within daily report of him, they felt themselves his friends and showed it. What he wanted to know for himself was the mood of the people further off, Groa well knew, and would test it as soon as he was able, however accurate the reports she and Lulach had already given him. But, meantime, an appearance spread confidence. The King is well and with us again.

So, also, today he was hunting because now he could balance his falcon and cast her. With Anghared and Maire, Groa rode a little apart so that she need not watch him. Lulach, braver than she was, watched him all the time, and would turn for home before the King ordered it.

It was a mettle that neither Paul nor Erlend had. Thorfinn, much though he loved them, had always seen them quite clearly. ‘
Paulatim
, or little by little,’ he had once called his elder son, with rancourless affection. It was perhaps as well. There could only be one man in that mould.

He was fresh, though, when the messenger cantered up, for they had not been out long, and his falcon had made her first kill, which pleased him. Because he was a little apart, he heard what the message was first, and, seeing his face, the others kept back until the interview ended.

Then Bishop Jon said, ‘News, my lord?’

‘Belatedly,’ Thorfinn said. The bird shook her head, attracting his attention. He hooded her and gave her to someone else to hold. He said, ‘Who said that Alfgar would never be so foolish as to risk losing the favour of Wessex? You, Hrolf? After Earl Siward died?’

‘What has he done?’ said Bishop Hrolf. His voice was louder than Thorfinn’s had been.

‘Poor Alfgar,’ Thorfinn said. ‘He tried to seize Northumbria, it would appear. Relying on the bribes he had placed out in Ireland.

‘He failed. He was taken before the council in London. They stripped Alfgar of his earldom and outlawed him as a traitor to the King and the nation. He fled the country, taking the troops of his household along with him, and is in Ireland now, raising an army.’

His horse, feeling the pressure removed, began to fidget and sidle, and Groa saw him command her, hard, by the flank. The mare stood silent, nostrils wide with indignation. Tuathal said, ‘Then who has been given Northumbria?’

‘The man meant, I suppose, to have it all along,’ Thorfinn said. ‘The King has offered the earldom of Northumbria, Huntingdon, and Northamptonshire to Tostig, Earl Harold’s younger brother. And Tostig, of course, has accepted.’

Bishop Hrolf said, ‘Hence the odd conduct of the two bodies of settlers.’

‘Yes,’ Thorfinn said. ‘My lord Malcolm, I suspect, skipped north as soon as he could, before he became embroiled in any unpleasantness. Allerdale’s coast lies towards Ireland. He may have had to await Tostig’s leave before he could expand his territory.’

‘They say Tostig is greedy for land,’ Groa said.

‘But Earl Harold is still afraid of Norway,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I don’t think Malcolm will find himself marching north in the van of a mighty army of Northumbrians under Tostig’s banner. I think, for one thing, that Tostig will find quite enough on his hands for a while in reconciling the disappointed kindred of the late Siward’s wife. But we should talk about it.’

He turned his horse and set it into a trot, back the way they had come. Bishop Jon, jogging alongside, said, ‘Again, ’tis not all bad news. A pity for the Earl Alfgar’s sake. He would have been a good neighbour, and we’ll lose a friend for our shipping in Anglia. What other harm has it done?’

In the open air, one could not say
Be quiet!
unnoticed. Uttering the words in her heart, Groa stayed in the rear, while Thorfinn rode on in silence. Then he said, ‘It has locked Malcolm out of Northumbria. I don’t think it matters, so long as he continues to sit on the doorstep doing nothing.’

Bishop Jon said, ‘He’ll have to do more than that if he wants to win a good following.’

‘Well,’ said Thorfinn, ‘we shall just have to see that he doesn’t win any more following than he already has. Do you suppose it will be difficult?’

The tone invited no answer, and, in fact, a moment later the King touched his heels to the horse and rode on a good deal more roughly than his powers would warrant.

After a bit, Lulach spurred also and caught him. What did Lulach know about Thorfinn and Alf gar and boyhood?

Enough, it seemed. Groa swallowed and rode on sedately. Recognise it; assimilate it; put it behind you. The pattern has changed again, and you must change accordingly.

April came, and then May, and the seas opened, but there was no further word of what Alf gar of Mercia might be doing in Ireland, and no threatening move came from the English settled in Lothian or the Cumbrians to their west. Malcolm, it was said, had sat down beside the church of St Cuthbert next to the rock of Dunedin, with one or two ships always prudently beached in the estuary.

Thorfinn, too, had brought his ships back from the Western Isles and some from Orkney as well, although he had to leave them a few to protect themselves with. No trading-vessels went out from Orkney or Alba that year, although he needed the silver. The ships they had built in the winter hardly compensated for those he had lost in July.

Instead, the trade came to him, with the news from the Continent. The ships that brought it sailed from Dol round the Pentland Firth to the river Findhorn, where he presently was, and aboard them were two familiar figures.

Thorfinn had been in his hall of Forres only a few hours when word was brought that ships had arrived and were enquiring as to his whereabouts. The day’s ride was the longest he had made yet, but, without waiting, he strode down to the wharf, as he had done at the time of his wedding, with Lulach and some of the young captains following.

Coming ashore was not Juhel of Dol, despite the Archbishop’s flag at the masthead, but one of the many he had thought to have forfeited life next the burning forest by the Forth crossing. Flodwig the Breton said, ‘My lord King? We thought you dead, and perhaps you thought the same of us. I have orders to buy from you, but the chief cargo I am to bear each way is tidings.’

There was no surliness in his face or his voice, and no false lightness either. Thorfinn said, ‘I was told you had all died or been captured. I have had no messages since.’

‘You were ill. They told me at Inverness. No. I had a leg-wound—it’s healed—and Siward’s men took me halfway to Durham after I’d told them how wealthy my family was. But then I escaped and got a ship. There is someone else here who knows you. We called at Wareham and the Sheriff insisted on coming aboard. He says you’ll recall him from Rome.’

Even had there been no business between them, he would not have forgotten Alfred of Lincoln and the impertinent tilt of the eyebrows that recalled the English hostel, and the polite boredom of Bishop Hermann, and the vast, effortless diplomacy of Bishop Ealdred. They, too, had been looking for the Archbishop of Dol, whom he himself had removed from the wrath of the church. Bishop Ealdred and his party had no grudge against Dol. Only,
when petitioning the Pontiff on behalf of one’s royal master, it is not wise to be seen openly favouring an excommunié.