King Hereafter (52 page)

Now. She said, ‘It seems I am being foolish. But I should like, now that I am here, to wait for the ships coming back. Lulach does not know Caithness or Orkney.’

Thorkel Fóstri hesitated again. Then he said, ‘The King said, if you came,
that I was to ask you not to make the journey to Orkney. He will explain, he said.’

She smiled and nodded and walked away slowly, leaving him to his embarrassment. The dear and prescient lover or the clear-sighted King: one or other had guessed what she would do, and probably why. She would not go to Orkney.

After that, the wait was a long one, but she did not waste her time. From Thorkel Fóstri she borrowed half a dozen of his shaggy, big-headed garrons, and with these and one of her younger women, and sometimes with Lulach, she rode from one group of steadings to the next along the coast, and sat with the womenfolk, and walked out with the children to the shore.

East towards Duncansby, she stood on the broken, glittering shell-sand, white and lilac, of Sannick Bay and spoke of the ailments of geese, and the making of tallow from sheep-fat, while the fulmars rose and fell with motionless wings in the salt airs round Duncansby Head, and she thought of another grey goose, but did not speak of it.

They were repairing fish-nets at Huna, beside the grooved block of slate where the fish-hooks and the needles were rubbed, and the knives and swords, at a pinch, to keep them brilliant. At Huna, she stood with her back to a hurdle of dark trunks of seaweed and looked at the long dolphin shape of the island of Stroma, with white spray breaking and breaking under its neck, to the east. But she did not ask to be taken over, for the steward of Stroma was an Orkney man.

Then she rode west to where the biggest headland of all stood dark red against the afternoon sky, and set her pony up round the lochans and bogs to the top, where she tied it to a rock and climbed to where the pony could not go but a man or a woman could lean on the wind as into the bosom of God and look upon the whole sunlit world of green grass and blue sea, from the land’s edge that lay towards Norway to the smudged snow-capped peak of Ben Loyal, far to the west, pointing to the way her husband’s ships had sailed.

There was nothing now on the sea but a trio of fishing-boats, and a wide merchantman hurrying west, and the birds. And to the north, Hoy and Stroma and Ronaldsay, of the forbidden Orkneys.

Her skirts jerked and tugged and the wind boxed her ears with soft woollen hands while her hair wrapped itself round her throat. She pulled her shawl over her head and forced her way down and back to her garron.

Below the headland was the beach the fleet most often used, and she took Lulach there, where, two miles long, the olive-brown wave-shadows moved in, one after the other, towards the unbroken sheen of the sand.

That night, in the field, helping Lulach lift the saddle from the wide, unkempt back of his garron, Thorkel Fóstri said, ‘Luloecen, I would ask you something.’

The white head came up, and the clear eyes. ‘Luloecen?’

They were alone. Thorkel Fóstri stood with the saddle between them and said, ‘What did you say to your stepfather? What did you tell him that brought the King and your mother together?’

The pale eyes were steady. Lulach smiled. ‘They were married,’ he said.

‘He had to have children,’ Thorkel said. ‘You made him your prophecy, and he knew what he must do, and what he must not do. Then, at Tarbatness, he allowed this to happen. Why?’

‘Can’t you guess? I told everyone,’ Lulach said, ‘when I was Snorri. I told him her destiny. He is a great man, but only a man.’

‘What did you tell him?’ said Thorkel, and started back as the boy snatched the saddle from his arms and, hugging it, circled him.

‘It’s written,’ said Lulach. ‘But you cannot read, can you?’

Next day, the sun-signals began to run all along the coast from the west to tell that the Earl’s fleet had been sighted, and by afternoon all the King’s friends were in Thurso, waiting. Those folk who ran out to the headland saw the longships approaching in convoy: fourteen coming in where fourteen had set out; and then the five ships of Earl Rognvald altering sail to make for the east mainland of Orkney.

The rest turned for the beach, and the rivermouth.

Four years ago, Thorkel Fóstri had let Lulach go down to the wharf for this sort of home-coming, and Lulach had watched the Earls come drunken home and had been present at the encounter afterwards, whatever it was, that had ended in Sulien’s departure.

This time, leaving both the Lady and Lulach in the hall, Thorfinn’s foster-father went down to the shore himself to see the King’s dragon come to her dock.

This time, there was a difference, of course. She had been away for little more than a month, not for a season. She had been, in the main, collecting her dues from those lands in the west which owed tribute, therefore she and her fellows were little marked, although a sharp eye could see a hack or two that had not been there before.

But the chief difference lay in her mode of arrival. To commands that hardly carried over the water, her sails dropped. As she rowed her way into the rivermouth, with the same regulated efficiency, the larboard oars lifted as she slid to her berthing. The decks were clear of clutter, and the men, when the plank was down and they began to lift their boxes ashore, shouting and talking, were the leave-taking crewmen of a royal fighting-ship, not a horde lurching home from its viking.

The King came down the plank quite soon, talking to someone. His helmet under his arm was sea-tarnished and his open hide jacket stained with salt, but otherwise he could have stepped straight to a council-board, you would say. Then he turned to Thorkel Fóstri, and his foster-father saw how his brown skin glowed, and how the clear, far-sighted look had returned, so familiar that he had never realised until this moment that it had been missing. The King said, ‘We have lost no one, not even Rognvald, and have had a successful voyage. The Lady is here?’

‘With Lulach. In the hall,’ Thorkel Fóstri said. ‘Before you go in, I have news for you.’

‘Well?’ said the King.

It was not easy to speak. As the ships emptied, those whose steadings were here, over the beach, or along the riverside set off whistling for home; but the rest were already making their way to the hall, where by custom the home-coming feast would be spread, with their hands sluiced and their beards combed and their boxes on their backs, to put where they could see them.

Thorkel Fóstri said in a low voice, ‘Word came this morning from Dunkeld. A trader sailed up the Tay to do business at Perth, or so he claimed. He landed a force somewhere out of sight. They marched to the monastery, and forced the gates, and took away Duncan’s two older sons, Malcolm and Donald. They have gone, no one knows where.’

The King listened, his head a little bent. His foster-father said, ‘I left men on guard on that monastery, and on the riverbank, and at the ferry. I shall have them all hanged.’

‘No,’ said the King. ‘No. I told them myself that it was likely to happen, and if it did, they were not to make more than a show of force, since the thing was being done secretively and not in proper fashion. I said that when Malcolm was twelve, he could choose whether to stay in Alba or not.’

‘He has made no choice,’ Thorkel Fóstri said. ‘Someone has taken him, who means no good to you and perhaps none to the boys either.’

‘Now, that is foolish,’ said his foster-son. ‘The boys would be of no use to anyone dead, that is obvious. No. I know where they are.’

They had reached the door of the hall. ‘How can you know?’ Thorkel said.

‘Because I have just come from Crinan,’ said the King. ‘I told you we had a few pirates’ nests to smoke out for our own good and Eachmarcach’s. At least his brother’s son will trouble him no more: Rognvald stormed ashore and came back with his head. Then, while they laid about Kintyre, I took my ship into the Waver and saw Thor and Crinan.’

‘So that’s where they are,’ Thorkel Fóstri said. ‘With their grandfather.’ Drawing to one side, he stood under the eaves and thought about it.

‘You might have thought so, but Crinan doesn’t want children on his hands, or to trouble with war,’ the King said. ‘He would like his rents from Dunkeld, and I have told him they will be sent to him, but that Dunkeld is still closed to him, as it was before the boys left. The youngest is still there, and has to be paid for.’

‘And the other two?’ Thorkel asked.

‘Rumour had it, said Crinan, that Forne his son-in-law hoped to get hold of them. If he did, they were to go to one of their aunts. Crinan’s guess was that it would be to Kalv’s nephew, the new Earl Siward of Northumbria.’

Thorkel thought about Kalv. He said, ‘He will rear them in York, a permanent threat to you. Did you expect that?’

‘I suppose so,’ the King said. ‘It was always likely. Nor is Crinan quite innocent, of course, of his share of plotting. Eachmarcach says that Maldred has been canvassing freely in Ireland for someone to take the younger boy, Donald. His guess is that the boy will go to Downpatrick, and not to Siward, thus halving the risk. Siward, after all, can’t be sure yet that the new King
Edward will let him keep Northumbria. And Malcolm is still very young: he might sicken and die. I am rather pleased, indeed, that, whatever fate overtakes my poor nephews, it won’t be under my roof.’

Inside the hall, it was too crowded even for benches, and men were coming out into the sunlight, talking, with a filled ale-horn in one hand and a piece of roast meat in the other. The noise, already deafening, intensified into a roar of welcome as men saw the King was entering. They made a passage for him through the long room, banging on the posts or the wall-shields or their platters and cups with their knives.

From the doorway, he had seen his wife’s red hair burning beside the high chair, with the boy’s white head next to her. He reached his lady and kissed her hand and then her cheek, leading her to the other tall chair next his own, and ruffling the boy’s hair as he moved. Then someone called for silence and he spoke; and at the end there were cheers and the noise broke out again. Someone brought him wine.

Groa said, ‘According to Lulach, you have a new name. Walter, son of Fleance. That is, if you killed someone named Makglave. Did you?’

‘Now you come to mention it,’ Thorfinn said, ‘I have his head somewhere. As to names, I am at the moment far from impoverished, but if Walter appeals to you, then by all means appeal to me by it.’

‘Forne had a grandson called Walter,’ said Lulach. ‘And a son called Alan.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ said the King. ‘Who will tell me news of my family, or have you all done nothing but grow two feet taller, as I observe?’

They told him the news, broken into, as he allowed on such occasions, by the overtures that came from the men standing about them, by way of observation or question or merrymaking of some sort. There was no way of avoiding it, and no way of shortening it. With the discretion he now knew was part of her, Groa introduced only the lightest of topics and, in the course of the long evening, asked only three questions, harmless in themselves, that showed him her mind.

The first time, she said, ‘Where is Isleifr? He went with you?’

He had watched her search for the big Icelander who, since Skeggi’s death, had acted as his standard-bearer when Thorkel was absent. He said, ‘Isleifr continues to bear a charmed life, but in Ireland. I have sent him to Sulien. If you can guess why, I shall give you the Lombardian earrings a merchant sold me in Ramsay, if I can get them back from the girl I gave them to. Lulach, you are not allowed to reply.’

‘Isleifr in Ireland? I didn’t know of it,’ said Lulach placidly. He was a tranquil child, and stirred to light laughter by the smallest things. All his mother’s guesses, of intent, made him laugh, and when they all failed, he listened, smiling, to his stepfather supplying the answer.

‘Isleifr wants to be a priest,’ said the King. ‘As his father was a leader and a holy man in the old faith before he was converted. And since Isleifr has set his heart on it, I thought that Sulien could best find him a place to begin his studies. He will come back, I hope. Meanwhile, we shall look after young Gizur and Dalla until she has her new child, and then send them to join him.’

‘To Ireland?’ Groa said, and her eyes scanned his face. ‘But if he wants to serve in Iceland, and I suppose he does, won’t he have to look to Bremen for some of his training?’ She paused. ‘You’ve thought of that.’

‘It wasn’t difficult,’ Thorfinn said. ‘He can study in Saxony later.’

‘Of course,’ Groa said. ‘I see it. Softened by Celts, at least he will have a foot in both cultures, and a child brought up in each. Poor Dalla.’

Then she changed the subject, a little too quickly.

The second time, when the noise had risen and men’s attention had started to slacken, she said, ‘Did Thorkel tell you the news?’ And when he nodded, she said, ‘We hear that cousin Siward has arranged a new Bishop of Durham much to his liking. Called, I think Aethelric’

‘Now, there,’ said Thorfinn, ‘is a victory of faith over sin. The family has come a long way, I must say, since Ølve’s pagan feast at Sparbu. A spiritual tutor for cousin Siward. Six strokes for indenting with the teeth the cup of salvation. I wish him well of the entire affair.’

‘Do you?’ said Groa. ‘I’m glad.’

And the third time: ‘Why can it be,’ Groa said, ‘that no one is quoting Arnór Jarlaskáld? Did his invention fail him, with two masters to serve?’

‘I would blame his courage rather than his invention,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Indeed, he left his harp at home, for fear one of us should demand a panegyric and the other would kill him. When he saw there was no trouble between us, he took to the ale-jar out of sheer relief.’

He looked at her, and his voice faded. He said, ‘It won’t be long now.’

It was long. It was night before the hall was empty of all but the young men who slept there and Thorkel Fóstri waiting to speak to him. The boy had gone to his sleeping-quarters long since, and Groa to the hall-room they shared, where she would look at him presently and judge whether or not he wanted to talk, or whether or not he required to talk, whether he knew it or not.