King Hereafter (135 page)

He waited. Thorfinn said, ‘He did not say as much to you.’

‘No, my lord,’ said Tuathal. ‘To me he only said that the resignation of Bishop Aethelric of Durham was likely to be asked for within weeks, and that Earl Tostig would be considering whom to appoint in his place. We left very soon afterwards.’

There was a long silence, during which the King did not allow him to drop his eyes.

At last, ‘I see,’ said Thorfinn. ‘You have not only made it possible for me to go to Chester while you are away. You have made it advisable. Will you consider unsaid all that passed between us just now?’

‘My lord King,’ said Tuathal. ‘For anything that may come between us, you, too, have only to speak one word. It is the same one.’

Despite all that, it was not easy to leave the kingdom when the time came. But, whether because of Tuathal’s serpentine mission or for other reasons, the country lay overtly placid, with only small twists and upheavals here and there, as before, to indicate what was artificial in the present state of suspension. Malcolm made no move from the south, nor were there any signs that Earl Tostig, with his Godwinsson eyes on his brother, was in the least interested in what happened north of his border.

Thorfinn provided two ships for Tuathal, of no less splendour than the one he had given Bishop Hrolf, and sent him on his way with his entourage, laden with presents for Archbishop Adalbert.

He carried with him also a great many instructions, including one to bring Isleifr back with him. Then, Thorfinn chose a dozen armed men from his household, and enough servants to attend themselves and the pack-mules, and rode west, avoiding the land that was Allerdale’s, until he came to the coast and the Orkney ship that was waiting.

Chester had grown since his last visit, both inside and outside of the Roman walls; and the wharves, which extended much further, seemed to be crammed full of shipping. They also seemed, at first glance, to be in a state of unusual disorder.

Since no advance warning to the Earl had been possible, Thorfinn’s ship had to wait until the master went ashore for his entry-permit. He came back in a river-boat flying Mercian colours and containing the guest-master of the Earl’s household. With the smoothness one remembered from other occasions, a berth was obtained for his ship, and the King of Alba, his entourage, and his possessions were transferred to the boat and taken to where an escort had assembled already to lead him in state to Earl Leofric.

Except that, as usual, Earl Leofric was absent on one of his numberless properties, and it was Godiva his lady who received him, in her own chamber bright with sewn hangings.

He was alone, having left his companions with the guest-master. He took her hand and bent to kiss her lightly, as the custom was, on the mouth. Then, stepping back, he drew from his belt-purse the fine little scarf with the needlework on it.

He said, ‘My lady? I hope I see you well. I have been seeking a chance to return this.’

‘Ah. I wondered what had happened to it,’ she said. Under her eyes, the carved laughter-shelves deepened. She said, ‘Did you notice the state of the wharves? It is what happens when you pay off eighteen shiploads of Irish mercenaries.’

She must be sixty-four, and although she was still beautiful, she looked weary. Thorfinn said, ‘None of us could ever keep up with Alfgar.’

Her smile acknowledged the sympathy. ‘Nothing stays the same for any of us,’ she said. ‘He has gone to meet some friends. I have sent for him. He may give you a surprise.’

‘I’ve been practising with Bishop Hrolf,’ Thorfinn said. He sat, and accepted a cup of wine from one of her ladies. The girl, whoever she was, stared at him and, when he returned the gaze, coloured. He spoke to Godiva. ‘I expect you met our good Bishop when he looked after Cumbria and the islands.’

‘I remember. He used to play tricks. You’re quite right,’ Alfgar’s mother said. ‘I used to think his laugh was even louder than Alfgar’s. He’s well, then? And your own family?’

She would know all that, from her messenger. So the chamber-ladies were not wholly in her confidence, and Alfgar was going to make trouble for him.

Not, of course, out of malice. If Alfgar took against anyone, he wouldn’t wait nearly thirty years to let him know it. To his friends Alfgar was loyal. To his own viewpoint he was spliced, as immutably as hemp in an anchor-rope. Thorfinn and Alfgar’s mother talked of nothing while the back of his mind went on thinking, and the girl who had served him wine sat and watched him unblinkingly. By the time the door opened and Alfgar bounded in, he had decided he was going to have to meet Thor of Allerdale.

It wasn’t Thor at all. First Alfgar, with his hair wild as a hay-sheaf and a round beard to match, trimming a face harder and redder than it used to be.

Then, stooping a little, another fair-haired man whose hands would not keep perfectly still, and whose obstinacy in spite of it could be felt. He had been half right. Leofwine of Cumbria, whose fingers had trembled like this over the money-bag when he and Cormac stood on the steps of St Peter’s. But of course Cormac was dead, and by failing Thorfinn in that war, Leofwine must carry that, as well as other things, on his conscience.

The last man to enter was the one he had not expected: had not even thought of for four years, since Eachmarcach of Dublin died at his hand in a silly Welsh brawl over booty.

Guthorm Gunnhildarson had the stocky build and brown hair of his uncle St Olaf, rather than the Herculean height and fair hair of his uncle King Harald of Norway; but he arranged his moustaches in the willow-fashion King Harald favoured, as was only right in one of King Harald’s dearest cronies.

Like Kalv, who had once been his comrade, he was a man whose company you enjoyed and also put up with. Like Kalv, his ways had nothing in common with kingship. Because of him, Eachmarcach had died, so that Diarmaid took Dublin and added his grain to the weight that had tipped the balance of fate against Alba.

Guthorm was the cause, but anger would serve nothing here, even had Guthorm achieved it from malice any more than Alfgar might. Men were what they were. This was your material and you could only do what you could with it. To Alfgar, Thorfinn said, ‘I came to see Leofwine and Guthorm: what are
you
doing here?’ and saw the hard-drinking face split, like sheaves to the fork, in its joy.

Alfgar bellowed, his fists on his hips. ‘You are old! Other men shrink when they are old! You are in your forties and old, and you are high as a ship’s mast, and your hair is dyed black. You dye it!’

‘Every night,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And my beard-bristles every morning before I get up. Come and see.’

‘I have to give you a bed?’ Alfgar said. ‘Have I one wide enough? Look at the saucer-eyes of the girl over there! Thorfinn-Macbeth is all they ever talk about. I tell them you have a red-haired concubine you call a wife and, unless they can outmatch that one, they may as well put up with what Mercia has to offer them. Are you winning?’

‘I am alive,’ said Thorfinn. ‘So, it appears, are you.’

‘A man of reason,’ Alfgar said. He jerked a thumb at Leofwine. ‘I told him. He thought you would kill him.’

‘My lord is mistaken,’ Leofwine said.

‘He is not the first to do what he did,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And perhaps will not be the last. Nevertheless, I suppose there is something you want to say.’

Leofwine put his hands behind his back. ‘I did not fight against you,’ he said. ‘If I did not fight
for
you, then neither did your men of Orkney. Perhaps our reasons were the same.’

‘That they expected Earl Siward to defeat me? I don’t think so,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And in fact, as you see, we managed to survive, even lacking your help. It seems a pity. Whatever lands you now hold, you might equally have held under my banner.’

‘Oh, I can see how it happened,’ Alfgar said. ‘I’m not suggesting it was the right thing to do. After all, as you say, Siward didn’t take Alba. But Leofwine and Thor hold valuable land, and Northumbria is a powerful neighbour. If they’d refused to help and Siward had won, they would have lost everything. As it is, their position next to Tostig is none too happy. That’s why he and Guthorm are here. Let’s go and talk.’

Thorfinn stood where he was. He said to Leofwine, ‘As it was, you
preferred to see Cormac and Ferteth and Eochaid and Malpedar and Gillecrist lose everything.’

‘Do you think I don’t know it?’ Leofwine said. ‘I remember Rome. I remember everything. If I let myself think of it, I would be afraid to die. But I had to choose between Cumbria and Alba.’

Thorfinn stood thinking, perhaps for a long time. No one spoke. Then someone said his name, and he lifted his eyes to Leofwine’s and said, ‘Then I hope you are sure that you made the right choice.’ The misery in Leofwine’s eyes surprised him.

The Norseman, who had not so far spoken, said, ‘Save your wrath for me, cousin. The saddest day of my life was when I realised Eachmarcach lay dead at my feet and I had lost a friend for some silver. I had the silver made into a statue. It stands over St Olaf’s shrine. But it won’t bring Eachmarcach back.’

‘I don’t suppose it will do much to turn Diarmaid out of Dublin either,’ Thorfinn said. ‘But that, I suppose, was not your first thought. Everyone seems to be afraid of dying these days. Perhaps Leofwine should have something fashioned for your St Werburgh, Alfgar? He has the silver. Unless it is all going to Gruffydd?’

Alfgar said, ‘You’re an uncomfortable devil. Are you going to talk with us, or are you too easily offended?’

‘I will talk with anyone,’ he said. ‘So long as they do not imagine they are speaking to a friend.’

The girl with the wide eyes said, ‘My lord! If you will hold your cup, I will fill it again.’

He let her. It was an old ruse. Given enough, men had been known to come flushed from a meeting and follow the first pretty face they could see. And then, with any luck, there was a half-royal son in the world, together with all that implied.

He had been fourteen years old when Thorkel Fóstri had taught him to have to do with no one but thralls and slave-girls who could be sold, child unborn, to another land. He had never told Groa that. But, of course, the same must have been true in Norway, and probably still was.

Norway, as might be expected, was what they talked of in Alfgar’s room when the door had been shut and a man posted on guard outside it.

It was not the first thing, of course. Alfgar had to explain what went wrong in Northumbria, and how he had outwitted Earl Ralph outside Hereford, and how much the Godwin family now feared him.

The Godwinssons had needed a lesson, and the fate of Hereford had provided just that. The devastation had been a pity. Once you allied yourself with the Welsh and the Irish, it was, unfortunately, what you let yourself in for. But it had been successful. Whole opposing armies had left the field unhurt when Earl Harold decided to offer him amnesty instead of battle. With Tostig Godwinsson hovering on his borders, Thorfinn must wish he were in the same position himself.

Thorfinn did not rise to it. ‘Did you hear of Sulien?’ he said.

‘Sulien? He was at Llanbadarn when Harold was in the Golden Valley. He
sent to ask if he could help either of us. But Harold had already decided on his spokesman,’ Alfgar said. ‘Sulien is all right. I keep recommending him, but he doesn’t want to leave St David’s and his family. A mistake, in my view. Your Normans didn’t do you much good.’

‘On the contrary,’ Thorfinn said.

‘Oh? Well, the Saxons coudn’t work with them here. If they had, we shouldn’t have had such an easy time at Archenfield,’ Alfgar said. ‘Anyway, Duke William must like you about as little as he likes that thick fool Earl Ralph. You killed all his best men for him, and left him to fight for Normandy with what’s left. I hear Svein of Denmark let you down as well.’

Thorfinn said, ‘Alfgar. I am not going to help you clear Tostig Godwinsson out of Northumbria. I have no men. And the Godwin family are too powerful everywhere else.’

‘I know you’ve no men,’ Alfgar said. ‘And who said anything about Northumbria? I’d like to have taken it, but it was only a small trial attempt, that was all. No. The attack against Earl Harold has to be made against Earl Harold’s land. Leofwine agrees with me, and so does Thor of Allerdale, and so does Guthorm here.’

Thorfinn said, ‘You’ve just got East Anglia back, and your father has never held richer land or been higher in favour. What are you trying to prove?’

‘That I can outwit the Godwin family,’ Alfgar said. He looked angry. What he was trying to prove, of course, was that he was a greater man than his father. It was a common disease in a family with one son and an elderly father still in the seat of power and admired for it.

Alfgar said, ‘What do you take me for?
I’m
not about to provoke Harold Godwinsson, and you may be sure my father does not even remember he has a son somewhere, except when the King takes his arm and consoles him. Next time, the attack will be by somebody else.’

Neither Guthorm nor Leofwine said anything. Thorfinn said, ‘You will have to do better than that, if you want my interest.’

Leofwine said, ‘Tell him.’

Alfgar said, ‘Well, the time has never been better, has it, for an attack on the upper reaches of the Severn? Gruffydd of Wales is still there, with his mountain men, armed and lurking in the passes. Whether anyone helps him or not, he’s going to fight the Saxons on his border until he dies. Last time, I brought him my own household and the Irishmen, and it wasn’t enough, that’s all. Also, they weren’t like Eachmarcach’s Irish. These were men of the half-blood, kin to the kind that Duncan took out of Cumbria, and that never did him any good, whether at Durham or against you at Tarbatness. I wouldn’t advise you to use them, even if they would come, which I doubt.’

‘I’ll remember. So you looked round for another army to invade Herefordshire with King Gruffydd, and since Guthorm is here, I don’t see there is much of a mystery. You are asking the help of King Harald of Norway? Or you already have it?’ said Thorfinn.

Alfgar looked at Guthorm, who smiled. He was not young any more, and his face and neck were white with nicks and scars. Under his hair on one side,
you could see that he had only the bit of one ear. He said, ‘A fleet is on its way now. It should land before midsummer. Magnús, King Harald’s young son, will be on board. I am leaving to join King Gruffydd today to muster and join them.’