King Hereafter (51 page)

A singer had been found who could make verse in the Irish style, because in no way at all could Arnór Jarlaskáld be brought to a sense of what was required. Down from Caithness and Orkney floated the verse he was making already, in praise of his master:

So sang Arnór:

If ever a skald wrote himself out of office, it was Arnór.

And now Arnór was with Rognvald. Thinking of it, she was moved to speak to her husband as he watched the child in her arms. ‘That was the first winter you have ever spent out of Orkney. This is the first spring you have never taken your longship to sea. How do you feel?’

‘Deprived,’ he said. The infant had closed a fist round one of his fingers, and he left it there.

After a moment, it must have occurred to him that she might take him seriously, and he looked up. But she was smiling.

With infinite care, he held that year to the course he had laid out for himself, accepting the news about Orkney, accepting the formidable change in Northumbria and moving slowly onwards, having embraced them as best he might in his plans, as tree-wood might grow over a canker.

He thought to have the better part of two years before both Crinan and Siward became restive, and he had to attend to Lothian and to Cumbria and prepare for the moment when Duncan’s sons left his grasp.

At no time had he been under any illusions about that. He either killed them or he released them to go wherever they wished, when the eldest was of age. He had been to Dunkeld once to see them, and to satisfy himself that they were being well taken care of by the monks and the lay men and women who served the monastery.

He had found Malcolm a ready talker, fresh-faced and brown-haired like his father, with the promise of stocky power behind the skinny awkwardness of an eleven-year-old. Donald, at nine, was fair and sullen, and Maelmuire at five, more interested in a ball he wanted to play with than a man his nurse called
the King
, but who turned out not to be his father.

Malcolm talked and laughed, his eyes flickering; and it was easy to see that he knew just who this King was and what he had to do with his father. By questioning, his uncle found that he would like a bigger horse, and a helmet, and not to have to eat seal-meat and blood-puddings.

His uncle, who had well-defined views about bribery, agreed to the necessity for a horse, indicated that he would have to earn the helmet by good behaviour, and said that he did not often eat seal-meat himself, unless there was no other choice, but he had an uncle who did so frequently when taking part in a seal-hunt and had even been known to try bear-flesh.

As for blood-sausages, they were a favourite tit-bit among Icelanders, and he supposed that you would be glad of them if there came a bad year for the hay and the grazing and there was little else to do but slaughter what you had and eat it down to the toes and the tail. ‘In Alba,’ he had said, ‘that is not necessary, nor in Caithness or Moray or Orkney.’ Then Malcolm had asked, with animation, to hear about seal-hunts.

‘Poor boy,’ Groa had said when she heard. ‘He knows, of course, that his father set out to attack you, and died as a result. You won’t overcome that in a moment. Loyalty alone would forbid it. In any case, he probably thought you would come in with an axe and make ropes of them.’

And Thorfinn had replied, ‘Certainly I felt he entertained a few doubts about the nature and extent of my upbringing. His family are a difficult lot. There was the Fair in Mag Muirthemni, to which the Ulstermen would bring in their wallets the tongue of every man they had killed. After that, why object to a blood-sausage?’

‘Would you like me to visit him?’ Groa had said. ‘Or Lulach? There is a year between them, but Lulach would be careful.’ She did not need to add, ‘And he is not your son but Gillacomghain’s.’

‘I feel,’ said Thorfinn, ‘that Lulach would only confuse the issue. No. There is no remedy. You could read in their eyes what Duncan has said of me. You could see in Malcolm’s face that he already saw himself King, and a better one than his father. They have nothing to cling to but hatred.’

‘Until Crinan gets hold of them. Or Siward,’ Groa had said.

‘Crinan is a man in his sixties whose business is finance, not leading war-bands on behalf of children,’ Thorfinn had said. ‘As for Siward, he has taken Northumbria, but I don’t see him issuing any challenges to Hardecanute as yet. He has to set about making Eadulf’s shoes fit him first. And,
however wealthy he might be, he can’t be as rich as Emma. She will keep him in check.

‘We have a year. We have at least a year to find our own feet in Alba before anything happens.’

They had less than a year. That autumn, when the coughing would keep him walking the floor every night, and blood ran coiling into his ale-cup, King Hardecanute went to see his mother at Winchester.

A day later, the Lady Emma summoned her closest friend in the world, Bishop Aelfwin, and directed him to carry certain messages to her middle-aged half-Saxon son Edward in Normandy.

The Bishop returned; and in due course another embassy left Winchester, this time of a much more imposing sort, and carrying with it the younger sons of a number of people hoping for continued favours from the Lady, who were left as hostages with the hosts of her son Edward. And when that deputation returned, it brought with it Edward himself, Hardecanute’s half-brother, with a retinue which of design was not large but which consisted entirely of young, strong, bright-eyed Normans.

In June 1042, King Hardecanute died, aged twenty-four: the last of King Canute’s family. And Emma’s sole remaining son Edward, from dividing the glory and wealth of England with his half-brother, was left King of England, with no other rival.

For some days, the Lady Emma received no one. Then she sent for and kissed her son Edward, and gave him a ring, which he later had valued, and presented rolls of cloth to Ralph her grandson and to her nephew Osbern, who had come from Normandy with him.

To Bishop Aelfwin, who had stood behind her chair throughout, she gave the head of St Valentine, for her dear son Hardecanute’s redemption.

‘What now?’ said Groa.

‘Now,’ said the King of Alba, ‘I go sailing with Rognvald.’

HORFINN!’ SAID
R
OGNVALD
; and his dog Sam, which was of the small kind that kills rats and frequents badger-holes, barked and barked.

‘That is,’ said Rognvald, ‘my lord King, you are welcome. The lack of ceremony I must apologise for. It crossed my mind, when I saw the dragon, that it was Thorkel Fóstri again, with his sour, miserly face, come to nudge my beam in case I collect the wrong rents. But I see it is yourself.’ He looked down and Arnór Jarlaskáld, within his arm, looked up and smiled. Rognvald said, ‘Or perhaps you have come to ask me to take care of your third of Orkney? We all notice you have little time for it now.’

Although he had spoken of lack of ceremony, there were forty men standing around him on the beach-head, and he had raised his voice just a little so that all he said could be heard.

The King his uncle did not interrupt him. Behind Thorfinn on the jetty stood only Starkad his standard-bearer, although there were others in the skiff that still bumped in the water. The longship he had come by stood off in deeper water. This time, it was not
Grágás
, but the great dragon presented by Canute, its shields and banner announcing beyond all doubt the presence of the King of Alba. When Rognvald had finished, the King said, ‘I have my own rents to collect, and thought we might sail in company. Also, there is some trouble in Kintyre and Galloway where Eachmarcach’s brother’s son seems to have forgotten whose land it is. I have promised to call for Eachmarcach on Man and see what can be done about it.’

‘With one ship?’ said Rognvald. ‘I have to tell you, my uncle, that if you are asking me or my men to come and help you, it would seem that you presume a little too much on the warm feeling I have for you.’

‘I have eight more ships waiting off Saviskaill,’ said the King. ‘Do you wish to come? I should like to leave on the next tide.’

Rognvald dropped his arm, and beside him Arnór stood looking from one of his masters to the other. On Thorfinn’s face nothing could be read, and Starkad behind was as impassive. But in the skiff, the faces watched, grinning and eager: Orkney and Caithness faces known to them all.

Thorfinn’s men, then, would still fight for him. And if he, Rognvald, took every ship he could spare, he would still be outnumbered.

Rognvald smiled. ‘How well you know me,’ he said. ‘Of course I will come, provided there is a proper agreement about the booty.’

‘I thought I told you,’ said the King. ‘We are rent-collecting.’

‘Of course,’ said Rognvald. ‘But I am sure Eachmarcach’s brother’s son has some goods that don’t belong to him and that he isn’t likely to have need of very soon; and there might even be some men of Diarmaid’s about with a ship or two low in the water: I hear he has made himself King of Leinster at last. There is only one matter that pains me.’

‘Yes?’ said the King.

‘There is the dog. He has just got into my ways, and I shall have to leave him behind. Or, as you see, he would kill himself barking at vermin. You will come to the hall? And your
merkisma
r?’

‘Why not?
Gu
borgar fyrir hrafninn:
God pays for the Raven, they say. It is only fair that you should find the price of the ale. Arnór, what verse have you been making?’

Arnór opened his mouth.

‘Indeed,’ Rognvald said, ‘up to this moment I have to tell you that he has been too busy to put nail to harp-string. But now, perhaps, that will change.’ And, laying his slender hand on the King’s arm, he walked him up the slope to the hall.

After three weeks, Groa could bear it no longer and, taking Lulach with her, set sail from the Tay to Caithness, where she joined Thorkel Fóstri at Canisbay.

Thorkel Fóstri was angry with her. ‘What are you afraid of? If Norway is going to push its claim to Denmark and to England, now that Hardecanute is dead, it will need all the friends it can make. Magnús isn’t going to fall out with a man who is not only King of Alba but holds Caithness and a third of the Orkneys as well. And Rognvald is too shrewd to cross Magnús,’

‘That is not what I am afraid of,’ said Groa flatly. ‘Although I think you are wrong. It’s my belief that when Rognvald looks at Thorfinn, he sees neither a king nor a kinsman, but a man two years older than himself by whose orders he was publicly thrashed. And what Magnús wishes or does not wish is not likely to enter his thoughts.’

Thorkel Fóstri stood, his arms folded, and looked at her. ‘Rognvald never forgets what King Magnús wishes,’ he said. ‘But if not that, what do you fear? The fighting? Thorfinn is a master, and he doesn’t let his skills rest between battles: they cost him too much. Or …’ He hesitated, and then evidently decided to speak. ‘Or is it Rognvald himself? There is nothing you need fear there, now.’