Macbeth the King (39 page)

"If in peace, why six longships filled with men? A thousand men!"

"I am Earl of Orkney, and do not sail with less."

"Then you do not enter Nidaros, Earl of Orkney."

"A God's name—why?"

"Because I do not trust you, Raven Feeder. I fought you at Waternish of Skye. And will fight you again, if I must."

"Ha! You were with Magnus. You do well to fear me, then! Where is your King Sven?"

"He is not here."

"Where, then? I have come a long way to see him."

"He has returned to Denmark. These three weeks. He is at his house of Roskilde." Thorfinn swore.

MacBeth touched his brother's arm. "Tell him that I am here—the King of Scots. Come to see his master also. Say that I promise him and his no harm. He has no reason to fear
me."

But when this information was shouted across, the Jarl Eric was no more forthcoming. If the King of Scots sailed in bad company, he announced, he must take the consequences. They would not land at Nidaros.

The Abbot Ewan came forward, and asked to be allowed to say something—although he clearly found the shouting difficult. He said that he was an abbot of Holy Church in the King's and earl's company, and could assure all, in Christ's good name, that they came in peace. Nidaros was known as a holy place, sacred to Saint Olaf the King. They respected its sanctity, as a place of pilgrimage.

This plea was likewise bluntly rejected.

"God's Blood, fool—then we will land elsewhere and come and burn you and your miserable town!" Thorfinn raged.

"Try it, Raven Feeder! Your ravens will not feast here—save on your own carcases!"

There was a roar, as the earl raised a pointing hand. "You are a dead man, for that, Eric Jarl! None speaks so to Thorfinn Sigurdson." He turned, to shout to his own people. "Heat the pitch-barrels. Fire-arrows. Prepare fire-arrows..."

Again MacBeth spoke, gripping the other's elbow. "Wait, man. Do not be a fool, also. Think. What will fighting here serve? We came to treat with Sven, not to offend him. Leave this Eric and his town. Go see Sven in Denmark, if you will. Complain there..."

"Fiend seize him—I do not complain! I act! If you swallow insults, I do not. Even if we do not land here, fire-arrows over yonder sea-wall and ramparts, into the harbour, will burn shipping and sheds..."

"And ruin your mission! If it was of sufficient importance for you to come all this way, seeking Sven, it is sufficient to leave this churl to his own ill manners and sail for Denmark. For if you burn and slay here, you must needs go home. Or go on to Rome. For you cannot see King Sven."

Thorfinn drew a great breath. "A curse on you and all white livers!" he burst out. He flung away, and raising a fist, shook it at the unseen speaker in the fort. "I shall deal with you another day, Eric Jarl!" he cried. "Start praying!" Then he turned on his own oar-master. "Row, damn you—row!" He pointed back down the fiord, whence they had come. He flicked a hand at his sail-master to trim the sail, and snatching out his sword, began to slam-slam-slam at the gong furiously.

Pulling round in a tight circle, the dragon-ship beat off westwards again, the other vessels of the squadron getting out of the way quickly.

None spoke for a little. Then, curiously, it was Martacus of Mar who raised voice, at the King's elbow.

"A bad business," he commented, in his hesitant voice. "But, if I had been in this Eric's place, I might have done the same!" He had to repeat that, to make himself heard above the gong's clangour. "That town will not hold 500 men, much less our thousand."

The King nodded.

All but Thorfinn gazed back at Nidaros on its peninsular site within the twisting river-mouth, at the two wide and intersecting streets—wide to lessen the danger of fire, for all the houses were of wood—at the great long-house on its eminence, which was the Kongsgaard or royal palace, and at the multi-roofed and gabled timber church of Saint Clement, with its gleaming gold paint. The sense of anti-climax was strong.

MacBeth quickly turned back to his brother. He recognised well how bitter a draught must have been this snub and mortification for the all-conquering Raven Feeder, more especially in front of his own sons.

"How far to Denmark, Thor?" he called, seeking to keep his voice as casual as he might, when the gonging ceased. "To this Roskilde?"

Thorfinn glanced at him, almost glaring, then shrugged. "Three days sail. Four."

"Further than we have already come?"

"Yes. Roskilde is on Zealand. Down the Kattegat. Far down."

"This Sven, ruling two kindgoms—is Roskilde his true home? As it was his uncle's, Canute's?"

"He is said to winter there. In summer, I was told, he came here. To Norway."

"We shall do better there, I think. Than in this barren land. Denmark is said to be a kinder place."

"Kindness I do not seek. Only a man to face!"

They left it at that.

The ships were rowed down the long fiord, with the westerly breeze in their faces now, and the sails all but furled. Thorfinn looked at the two or three fishing-havens they passed with an assessing eye, as possible targets for his resentment, but managed to restrain himself. His companions kept their distance.

But once the open sea was reached and they turned southwards, the motion of the waves, the handling of the sails, the rowers' chanting and the general demands of seamanship amongst the offshore islets and skerries, restored Thorfinn most of the way to his normal self. Men relaxed noticeably—although not at the oars. Speed appeared to be in greater demand than ever.

They reached Cape Statlandetnes, the most westerly point of Norway, with the sunset staining the sea on their rudder-sides, and the flotilla much strung out, some of the skeids, swift-sailers as their name meant, being hard put to it to keep up with the great dragon-ship, fiercely driven as it was, with its thirty-two rowers' benches against their twenty-four. With darkness falling, however, Thorfinn relented and allowed the oars to be shipped, for with the turn of the coast they now had the wind on their steering or starboard beam, and the sails could carry them adequately. Beneath the lypting, the stern-platform, that night, Thorfinn got roaring drunk; and all who knew him congratulated themselves that he would be his normally cheerful and hearty self in the morning.

The weather changed next day, and rain-storms and bright intervals succeeded each other regularly, with a gusty veering wind which raised the seas. But since all the gusts were from points westerly, and they were now heading ever more into the south-east, parallel with the South Norway coast, making for the Skagerak, their pace was little affected. Despite the heaving decks and driving rain-squalls, the wrestling-matches, shield-fights and similar contests were resumed.

They sighted the Danish coast fine on the starboard bow as the sun rose on the third morning, Thorfinn declaring it to be the Skagen Horn itself, the most northerly tip of Jutland, entirely pleased with himself—although Biorn, who was really shipmaster, muttered that he reckoned it to be Hirtshalsnes, twenty-five miles to the south-west. Perhaps fortunately for them all, the earl proved to be right, as presently they were able to identify the long narrow peninsula of Skagen itself and the coast falling away southwards, and congratulations were called for—and well received.

But MacBeth's assumptions that they would reach their destination by that evening were negatived by his brother, who declared that they had 120 miles of the Kattegat to cover before they reached the great Isefiord, off which the Roskilde Fiord branched, and then thirty miles of that, it being almost as long as that of Trondheim, with Roskilde town at the very tip. Indeed another eight or so miles and it would have cut Zealand in two. They would lie up overnight in the mouth of it, as they had done at Trondheim, and make their approach up the narrows in daylight.

Evening saw them entering the great, almost land-locked bay-like expanse of the Isefiord, between two headlands only a mile apart. It made a very different landfall to the Norse one, with no mountains nor even hills, no islands and few reefs or skerries and cliffs, but long sandy shores, low promontories, green soft slopes and much broad-leafed woodland. Villages could be seen on either side of the rapidly widening fiord, which was really a large salt-water lake. There was much coastal shipping evident. Thorfinn declared that the Danes would not need to light signal fires here to inform of their approach.

With no islands to shelter behind, they sailed in at the mouth of the Ise, more like a firth than a fiord, and after a mile or two, avoiding villages and signs of population, found a quiet shallow bay on the west side, where they dropped anchor. The cattle and sheep grazing nearby were a strong temptation for Vikings who had had to live on dried meat and smoked fish, rancid butter and hard bread, for the last five days; but Thorfinn forbade all shore-going. There was much coming and going between the ships, and the ale at least was still plentiful.

The next morning's first light revealed a surprise, as the mists lifted. A line of vessels, longships, and skutas and galleys, was stretched across the mouth of their bay, motionless, waiting, fully a score of them.

Thorfinn stared, and then slapped his thigh and laughed loudly. "Here is the kinder reception!" he cried. "They wait on us, whoever they are." He grinned. "So, then—let them wait! Let
us
eat in comfort, break our fast, then we shall see to them."

MacBeth stroked his little beard. "If they wait on us, Thor, then let us show an equal civility. They must have sailed through the night. They also will be hungered. Send one boat, with greetings, to their leader. Declare who we are, and request his company to break fast with us, whoever he is."

The earl punched his brother on the shoulder. "Well said, Son of Life! To be sure. That is good. Young Paul shall go." He bellowed across to his son's skeid, anchored close by. "Paul, boy—stir yourself. Get out your oars. Row out to yonder ships. Seek out the chiefest. Tell them that Thorfinn Raven Feeder of Orkney and MacBeth King of Scots come visiting Sven Estridson. Thank the leader for his escort. And say that we would have him greet the day by eating with us, he and some of his. You have it? Then off with you."

It took a little time for Paul's ship to up anchor and row the half-mile out to that waiting fleet. But thereafter things moved promptly enough; indeed movement became general. A central longship came forward alongside Paul's, to row back with him; another, a skuta of fifteen benches, turned and set off swiftly, purposefully, in the opposite direction, up-fiord; and the rest of the line of ships stirred and moved forward slowly into the bay some way, in a gesture eloquent enough of strength and warning.

"They send to inform Roskilde as to who is come," MacBeth interpreted. "And while accepting our invitation, seek to show us who is master here. This man knows what he is at."

The leading longship was also flying a raven banner, but three ravens on red, signifying presumably the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden—although of the last, Scania alone was still under Danish rule. Its sail, like those of most of the fleet, was striped red and white vertically. The men on its high lypting were all armed and armoured, wearing bulls' horned helmets.

"Come aboard, friends," Thorfinn hailed, as they drew near. "I am the Earl of Orkney, of whom you will have heard. And this is King MacBeth of Scotland, my brother. Are you of King Sven's people?"

"I am the Jarl Einar—Einar Einarson," a voice came back. "Sent by King Sven to welcome whoso visits his realm, for good or ill. If indeed you be the King of Scotland and the Earl of Orkney, we are the more honoured."

"Come then, Einar Jarl, and see for yourself. Our provision we would share with you. It is modest shipmen's fare—but come eat with us."

The newcomers drew alongside, and a tall, good-looking young man, hair so fair as to be almost white, led a group of others in jumping aboard the dragon-ship. Well-built as he was, however, he still had to gaze up at Thorfinn, as had his companions, and his bulls' horns, however fierce, looked less so beside the other's mighty winged helm. Amongst them all, MacBeth in his simple saffron kilt and leather jerkin was scarcely to be noticed. Save perhaps for something about his carriage.

The Jarl Einar nevertheless, after a quick glance from one brother to the other, bowed to MacBeth. "Lord King," he said, "your fame is known to us. Thorfinn Jarl, you also. The Raven Feeder's is a name none takes lightly." That upturned gaze was wary, assessing.

"Save that Eric of Trondheim!" the big man growled. "We put in to Nidaros, seeking Sven. But that oaf would not so much as have us to land."

"No? That was uncivil. But perhaps he feared you, Raven Feeder? Some men, I think, might do so. Was Eric Jarl not with Magnus Olafson in that of the Hebrides, three years back?"

"Those unhappy days are past, Jarl Einar," MacBeth said. "Now we seek only peace and goodwill. And much thank you for coming to meet us. Here is the Abbot Ewan, of Holy Church..."

"Though you knew not who we were!" Thorfinn interrupted, less affably. "Who did you expect to find here?"

"We did not know. But...there are many raiders. Wends.

Goths. Svears. We have our own pirates in these seas, King MacBeth. As, I understand, have you." The young man's glance flickered towards Thorfinn. "Not all bringing peace and good will!"

"Come, eat," the earl said shortly.

So presently, escorted by the large Danish flotilla, the Orkney ships were conducted across the Isefiord to a narrow, almost hidden opening on the other, eastern, side, only a few hundred yards in width, which proved to be the entrance to the Roskilde Fiord, its two headlands, strongly fortified, reminding MacBeth of his own Sutors guarding the Cromarty Firth. In a mile or two, the fiord opened out somewhat and took a major bend southwards. Thereafter it was like sailing up a wide lowland river through a fairly populous countryside of marshland, pasture, farms and woods, a soft-seeming land to have produced the warlike Danes.

They had a score of miles to go, the central third of it through narrows where the tide-races taxed the oarsmen and strung out the entire convoy to a great length. But once this was past, with the group of low islets at its southern end, they were into a wide and placid lake, ringed by villages and homesteads, and at the far south tip the smoke of what was obviously a large town.