King Hereafter (121 page)

In action, you felt almost no pain at all. Out of action, you did. Thorfinn said, ‘What does that mean?’

Tuathal’s hands did not pause. He said, ‘That you can probably either retire to Scone or escape up Strathmore without affecting that issue.’

‘Or, being disabled, I can safely surrender?’ said Thorfinn.

Tuathal finished his work and looked up. ‘You’re not crippled,’ he said. ‘But a lot of your men are, and Cormac has a leg-wound. Most could ride well enough to escape to the north. This fight held us up just a little too long. You may get inside Scone. But getting inside Scone may not save it.’

Thorfinn said, ‘It is the centre of Alba.’ He rose to his feet and looked down on Tuathal, his arm on the saddle.

Tuathal said, ‘I understand all it implies, But would it not be a gesture as great to take the remains of Scone’s people north with you to fight in consort with northmen to take back the kingdom? Instead of losing everything, you might find in disaster the unity you’ve been striving for.’

‘And Eochaid?’ Thorfinn said; and saw Tuathal’s colour become higher.

Tuathal said, ‘With you, that is not a consideration. And against me, a dishonest weapon.’

True. Thorfinn said, ‘Do my promises have any value?’

‘No doubt,’ said Tuathal, ‘you will make up your own mind. You said you would never leave Scone. You didn’t say you would kill everybody trying to get into it.’

Thorfinn said, ‘If you listen, you will hear me say in a moment that anyone wishing to escape to Strathmore has my full leave to do so.…
Here!
’

It was the first of the scouts, looking for them. The fellow dropped, gasping, from his horse, and all round the hollow, men stood up. ‘Eight hundred men, my lord King. Marching for Scone in close formation, shields outermost.’

Cormac, mounted, was at his side. He said, ‘We expected a thousand or more.’

Thorfinn said carefully, ‘We killed a hundred or more at the crossing.’ And next: ‘Could you see any women?’

‘My lord, I could see,’ said the man. ‘There are no women.’

His body had dissolved, leaving a wintry filigree of half-empty veins.

The man said, ‘My lord, there’s more. I saw a man ride up shouting. He said Earl Siward and a hundred horse were at Scone.’

‘A trick?’ said Thorfinn.

The scout shook his head. Had he been less tired, it would have been vehement. ‘They didn’t see me. I’m sure of it. And anyway—Look! He’ll tell you!’

The scout from Scone, who did not dismount at all, began shouting as soon as they saw him. The message was the same. The shipmen were tight around Scone and Perth, and now a hundred horse had joined them, under Earl Siward and my lord Malcolm and my lord Thor of Allerdale. Most of the horses he recognised as belonging to the Normans. The rest must have been Siward’s own.

Tuathal said, ‘My lord King, you cannot get into Scone.’

Cormac said nothing. His wife, too, had been at Dunkeld. Thorfinn said to him, ‘How bad is your leg?’

‘Well enough to ride to Dunkeld,’ Cormac said. The sun sheened the sweat on his face. He said to the scout, ‘Was my lord Maelmuire with the Cumbrians from Dunkeld?’

‘There were no colours of his,’ said the man. ‘My lord, I thought Dunkeld was levelled.’

Tuathal said, ‘In less than two hours, Allerdale’s foot-army will be at Scone also. My lord, whatever harm we do now to this Cumbrian army, we cannot save Scone, neither can we get into it. Nevertheless, it is for you to say. This is your kingdom and we here are your people. What do you want us to do?’

The resolution, as with most problems, was clear enough. He worked through to it in the time it took him to leave his horse and stride to the highest part of the knoll. He looked down at them all, standing, faces upturned, under his shadow.

‘No band of men I have ever known could have fought better. We set out to fight one army and found ourselves invaded by three. We tried to save Scone. Now Scone must fall. It is the heart of the kingdom, but it is not the whole kingdom. So I repeat what I said on the Earn. Angus may still be ours. Moray is certainly ours. Save yourselves, therefore. Take the valley to the north-east and the coast. Get to Lulach my stepson. Whatever the Earl Siward may take, he will not be allowed to hold it for long. God be with you.’

‘And you, my lord? My lord King, where do you go?’

The shout came from the thick of the crowd, loud against the looser cross-talk of the others.

Thorfinn said, ‘Somewhere between here and Dunkeld there must be a party with the Lady of Alba, and my lady of Atholl with her. Perhaps Dunkeld is not burned and they are still there. Before I leave for the north, I mean to search for them. I need no company.’

‘You have it, however,’ said Tuathal. ‘Do you imagine Cormac or I will leave you with that task?’

It was odd. It was Earnside over again, with every man who could ride
fighting for his attention. To ride, searching. To stay with him, for whatever purpose.

He must have worn an unaccustomed expression, for Tuathal suddenly smiled and said, ‘You see. You see how greatly your lady is loved.’

He did not want to speak again, and it was Tuathal who discarded the wounded and chose escorts for them and mustered the fit men, mounted and ready to leave. Cormac said, ‘My lord King,’ and stopped. Cormac’s face was grey, and the brown wash over his horse’s flank was overlaid with fresh red.

He said nothing when they eased him from his horse and laid him down. Thorfinn said, ‘Rest. The others will help you to move when you can. We shall find them and bring them back safely.’

Cormac said, ‘Maelmuire.’

‘What could he do?’ Thorfinn said. ‘It was his family. I shan’t harm Maelmuire.’

He saw the relief, and left quickly, for there was nothing more he could say. He had two hundred men, and Tuathal and the Brecbennoch; and somewhere out there, within half an hour’s ride under the evening sun, was what was left of Dunkeld and a party of valuable women, strongly escorted, making—one would expect?—a leisurely journey to Scone in order to arrive there when all the fighting was over and the citadel had surrendered and the flag of Malcolm or Siward would greet Groa, entering, and not that of her husband.

If Groa were still alive.

No man of standing would harm her. Her value, as bride or hostage, was priceless.

Of the two thousand men Thor of Allerdale had brought against him from Cumbria, it might be that one or two had no particular standing, but had reputations of other kinds to maintain. And for some mistakes there was no remedy other than destroying the evidence. It happened on strand-raids as well. There was really no remedy.

They had split into groups. Being who he was and what he was, he applied his mind all the time he was riding, marshalling the facts as he knew them, judging as best he could the immediate effects of what had happened, and then those of more lasting potential. Without that, he could hardly counter-plan. And although he might guess Malcolm’s motives, or those of Thor or of Siward, he did not yet know for certain. About escape he did not think at all, for he had already reviewed the possibilities and could do nothing further.

The observing part of his brain combed the low, tumbling landscape of bog and hill, copse and spinney, for signs of a detachment of riders, or a few riders surrounded by foot. He had sent a small party of mounted to cross back over the river to the rear of the marching troops from Dunkeld, in case the captives were taken down that side. They had been given a trumpet, to use in extremity only, for the horsemen at Scone would be riding this way soon enough, once they knew the King of Alba was here.

For the same reason, all Thorfinn’s search at the outset was confined to the
land stretching between Scone and the riverbank, for at any moment Siward’s horse might arrive. They quartered the ground, keeping just within each other’s view, to render horn-signals unnecessary. Thorfinn himself took the river, from above the crossing up to the grass-grown Roman fort at Cargill. If they came down towards Scone on this bank, any party would expect to cross the Tay hereabouts.

This, at least, was the way the Cumbrian army had come, clearly marked by the swathe of its trampling. Below Cargill, he saw something dark by the riverbank, and beyond it another: a wooden rectangle half-embedded in reeds. Rafts, hewn upriver and brought here to form a rough bridge. Hewn perhaps from the trees that had already provided the leafy disguises.
Lulach, I know; I remember. I pay the lip-twisting eyrir. I blame neither you nor the Norns, but only myself. My life is my own, and I will not surrender
.

Unless he kept a clear head, he would not have a chance to surrender. Thorfinn brought his horse to a halt and studied the river. On the far side, another raft had been left, not this time afloat but conveniently high on the far bank, at a place where the crossing was easiest.

Waiting for someone?

He held up his hand, and the twenty men with him slowed and surrounded him. He spoke. One spurred off to talk to the group under Tuathal. Then he and his men cast about and, finding what cover they could, dismounted and lay full length, waiting.

The horses, led out of sight, walked slouching, like beaten stallions after a horse-fight. Thorfinn lay behind a spread of low gorse and propped his brow on his hand, forbidding his eyes to close. He wondered how many of his men, lying like this, would not wake even if a group of horsemen came over the low ridge on the other side of the river and began to make their way down to the raft. He wondered how, if the waiting lasted too long, he was ever going to rise. With a rustle, Tuathal slid down beside him.

‘We can see a party approaching from the other side of the river. I’ve called some men back and put them lining the bank on this side. Do you want us to cross?’

‘No,’ said Thorfinn. ‘It might be anyone. If it is the women, the escort might have orders to kill. I want them on this side, and close.’

He made himself play out the moves like a battle-game on a slab of scratched stone. The sound of hooves in the distance: how many hooves? The rising of a dark, moving body of people against the sinking sun on the low horizon. How many people? How many horses? And as they came closer: twelve footsoldiers, with shield and with spear, surrounding a group of three horses, each doubly laden. And walking beside them and behind them, six horses bearing men in mail shirts, fully armed with swords and with knives …

Two of the horses spurred ahead and, with the help of some of the footsoldiers, had a raft launched and ready before the laden garrons came up.

The double burdens were women, their cloak-hoods pulled over their faces
and their cloaks pinned beneath. From their skirts below, you could tell they were women, but nothing showed of their age or their quality or their comeliness. If one was Groa, he could not guess which.

Getting the party across, there was a lot of talk among the men, and a lot of exertion. The horsemen were senior, by the sound of them, and nervous enough to make bad jokes now and then. The footsoldiers were sullen: afraid, perhaps, of missing their share of the pillage.

On the near bank, a quarrel broke out as the raft came to land, and the two horsemen who had forged over already turned back, speaking sharply to deal with it. The women, unaided, began to scramble ashore, their skirts floating and tugging, while behind them the other riders took to the water, the spare horses with them.

The first of the women appeared, alone, at the top of the bank.

Thorfinn waited. He waited until all six prisoners stood on the grass, and the horsemen, and the wrangling footsoldiers.

Only one man stood near enough to threaten the women. Thorfinn swung his right arm and let fly with his axe.

It fell, cleaving through helmet and skull, and the dead man was expiring still when arrow and spear struck his fellows. Thorfinn ran forward and snatched his axe as he ran.

His men sprang for the soldiers still living. He made for the women. For the tallest and slimmest, who, from the way she fled to him, was not anyone’s serving-maid, or Eochaid’s sister, or Ferteth’s widow.

He slowed and stood, the sobbing tale of relief in his throat, and found dragged ajar the dangerous door that led back to the things that were normal and dear. He realised suddenly how he must look, weary and dirty and covered with blood. And what she would already have endured on his behalf, through the long day of treachery and betrayal.

So he stood, with, no doubt, ruefulness of a kind on his face, and waited as she came, light as air, to their meeting; and flung back her hood; and, raising her hand, drove the knife in it straight for his throat.

Even when tired, he was quicker than most men. He took the stroke twisting into his shoulder and killed the soldier in skirts with his own knife, wondering, as the blood flooded warm through his shirt, if it was the last thing he was to do. The other masqueraders, he saw, had already flung off their cloaks. Three of his men fell to their steel, but only three. He killed two of the skirted assassins himself.

Then the shouting in his ears was overtaken by the shouting further off: a great deal of it. He heard his own name, and his battle-cry rising thin and disorganised into the air from the hilly ground over which all his horsemen were scattered.

The other noise was quite different, although it came from men’s throats also, to rouse and to rally. A cry that was not scattered at all, but rose from men in their ranks who could now be seen sweeping towards them. Men advancing as this party had done, from over the banks of the river. Men driving down from the north and herding his horsemen before them. And men
from the south and the east, from the direction of Scone, who were not on foot at all, but on horseback, and who bore streaming among them the banner of Siward of Northumbria.

Tuathal said, ‘Here is your horse. Can you? Or with me?’

A twice-burdened horse would never escape. He said, ‘Get me up.’

And, once in the saddle, he spoke again. ‘Strathmore. If not, Dunsinane.’ Then his horse was galloping, north and east, and the others coming after him.

At first, the footsoldiers were the danger, for they threw spears, although there were almost no bowmen. One could do nothing but ride low and slash, like the Normans, in passing. His sword slid from his hand and was lost, which was a pity, but he laid his axe over the pommel and bound it to his wrist with the slack of his rein, over and over. Then he slashed the reins, and his horse, feeling the jerk, tossed its head as it raced. He could control it with his thighs. It was as tired as he was.