King Hereafter (33 page)

In Northumbria, the five husbands of the five daughters of Earl Ealdred continued to work hard at their communal interests in apparent amity and without public reference to the shifting power-groups into which the five frequently found themselves falling. The sole unaffiliated member, Alfgar of Mercia, was aware that the dominant brother-in-law was proving to be Siward of York, aided by Duncan of Alba, but could not find out what they were up to.

The frontiers of the large provinces lying south of the rivers Forth and Clyde in Alba became more confused than they had been even in the late
Malcolm’s reign, as families from Cumbria or Westmorland or Yorkshire moved into new land, or land already held by their ancestors. Many of them were Norse and Irish in origin, and some could even trace their forebears back to the sons of the first Earl Thorfinn of Orkney who fought in York with Erik Bloodaxe.

Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, with his son’s permission, spent less time in his houses in England and more in the vicinity of Dunkeld in Alba, where his son-in-law Forne already had a hall-house. He kept his houses in Shrewsbury and in York, as did Carl son of Thorbrand, whose first favour from the new King Harold Harefoot was a licence to operate the mint in the Lady Emma’s former possession of Exeter.

Off the west coast of Alba, trouble developed among the friends and allies of Orkney.

Thorfinn’s cousin Ghilander in the western island of Colonsay sent a cutter to Caithness asking for the support of Thorfinn’s fleet; and at the same moment, and for the same reason, an identical appeal was dispatched by Eachmarcach, King of Dublin. Warned by the signals moving from beacon to beacon, Thorfinn got to Thurso in time to receive both, and within a day his fleet was in the water and heading west. ‘Who,’ said Arnór Earlskald, ‘is Diarmaid son of Dunchadh Mael-na-mbo of Ireland?’

‘Someone you’re going to hear a good deal more about,’ said Thorkel Fóstri. ‘Call him
son of cow-chief
if you prefer it. His father was King of the Ui-Ceinnselaigh in Ireland, and his son has ambitions to be King of all Leinster, beginning with burning Water ford to the ground; and King of the Foreigners of Dublin, beginning with trying to edge Eachmarcach out of the post.’

Arnór looked alarmed. ‘Dublin?’ he said.

‘I don’t think,’ Thorkel said, ‘you are going to perish under the raven banner in Dublin, but you may very well have a difficult moment or two in the Western Isles. Diarmaid has been nipping at Galloway and the islands without much success so far, because Thorfinn has some ships there. But now Diarmaid’s sent a good, strong force to take a few easily fortified places in the Western Isles and plunder the trading-ships as they pass up and down to Dublin. It’s not the first time, you know. He and his family did the same to Gillacomghain.’

Thorkel had no objection to frightening Arnór. Speaking to Thorfinn later, it was different. Then Thorkel said, ‘Listen, and tell me that I’m wrong. You haven’t got enough ships to fight Diarmaid’s whole fleet. You should have waited for the rest to come up from Galloway. There’s a limit to what you owe Eachmarcach.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I don’t owe Eachmarcach anything. Every ship Diarmaid plunders is losing me a tenth of its cargo in tolls. From the Outer Isles he’ll take Skye, and from Skye he’ll move back into the west coast and Lochaber.’

‘And you’ll stop him with six ships against twelve?’ Thorkel said. ‘Success has gone to your head.’

‘These days,’ Thorfinn said, ‘we seem to have only one topic. However. Since you are so obsessed with Rognvald, perhaps you would look over there and tell me if you agree that the three ships behind us are his?’ His fastened hair, plaited for righting, exposed the tall basket-brow to the sun, and the niche under each sharpened cheekbone from which sprang the unit of mouth and jaw; the single prominent lobe that lent his face its unremitting, saturnine expression, like the mask of a wolf-hound, and hid whatever he might be thinking, as now.

Thorkel looked behind. There was no mistaking the three ships, with their crane-necks and the blue-and-white netted sails bearing down from their rudder-side. And as they got closer, no mistaking the glitter of steel from within them.

They were full of armed men. Far more full than Thorfinn’s longships, which carried only their normal complement. Three ships against six might seem harmless enough, but, crew for crew, it was the trick of Deerness again, but this time not in their favour. Thorkel said, ‘The puppy’s flying the raven of Orkney.’

‘He has the right,’ Thorfinn said. ‘If he can keep it.’

Over their own ships, like a comber, had run a confusion of glitter and colour and sound as men seized their shields and spears and the steersmen twisted, taut, waiting for orders. Thorkel’s arm began to rise and Thorfinn held it down. ‘Wait.’

Thorkel said, ‘You’ll never have a better chance.’

He did not need to say any more. The leading ship was close enough now for an arrow-shot. It was more than close enough to see the single blond man, unarmed, standing alone in the prow with a white shield gripped at arm’s-length above him.

‘Kill him if he kills me,’ Thorfinn said and, unarmed as Rognvald was, walked up to his own prow and faced him. The space between the two ships slowly vanished. The shouting in all the ships died. On the crane-ship Rognvald lowered the shield, and his hair, given back to the sun, blew transparent as Syrian silk about his bare neck. He was smiling. He called.

‘My lord Thorfinn! Uncle! Am I welcome?’

‘It depends,’ said Thorfinn, ‘what you bring.’

Rognvald was so close that they could see the design on his
hlā
. He was still smiling. ‘Three hundred men,’ he said, ‘to fight the son of Domnall Ramhar, provided I have half of the booty.’ The red tongue of his crane-head turned and lay side by side with the gold beak of Thorfinn’s grey goose. The sea, surging between the two ships, slapped their sides.

Thorfinn considered his nephew, then lifted his voice. ‘When you have an equal number of ships, you may have an equal share of the booty. One-third, provided your men bear their proper share of the fighting.’

‘They are, for the most part, your men,’ Rognvald said. ‘And you should know therefore how they were trained. Man for man, you do us less than justice.’

Thorfinn shrugged. ‘Did we invite you?’

‘Very well,’ said Rognvald. ‘But when you do, it will be a different story. Have you apian?’

‘To round Skye,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I hear Diarmaid’s nephew uses the broch and the fort-hill in Bracadale.’

‘I have better news than that,’ Rognvald said. ‘I hear that he has a fort in Loch Dunvegan and is there at this moment. Give me a light boat and I shall go ahead and scout for you.’

‘And rouse them against us?’ murmured Thorkel Fóstri. He stared at Thorfinn agreeing, and watched, without speaking, the manoeuvres between ship and ship that eventually gave effect to the plan. Then it was over, and the cutter, the smallest and fastest of Thorfinn’s fleet, was drawing smoothly away westwards in front of them while, behind, the three dragon-ships fell into line with their own.

Thorfinn, returning, stopped beside his foster-father and lifted the bar of his brows. ‘I marry into your family. Why don’t you trust mine?’

‘Because I don’t want to die at the whim of a knave and a madman,’ Thorkel Fóstri said.

‘One-fourth, they say, depends on the fostering. The rest,’ Thorfinn said, ‘comes from my native wit. Rognvald was hungry last winter. I saw to that. He needs cattle and money, not only now but so long as he stays on the islands. He will have to earn them.’

Against the noises of men and the sea-hiss and the creaking, there was silence. Then Thorkel said, ‘I see. Then, of the two of you, I will follow the fourth that I fostered. As for the other one and three-fourths, you will have to excuse me.’

Rognvald did not betray them; but that did not save either side from what lay ahead. For although the son of Domnall the Fat, Diarmaid’s brother, had posted some men at the rock of Dunvegan, which they took, the main part of his fleet was elsewhere.

‘You were right,’ said Rognvald to Thorfinn when uncle and nephew met, breathless and bloody on the weed-thick shore below the fortress. ‘The main part of the Irish fleet is in Loch Bracadale. At least there is none here to warn them that we are coming.’

He had fought without restraint, and cleverly, for his body had the good proportions that make for perfect balance in every movement, and, as Groa had once remarked, he had courage.

‘We had to clear out Dunvegan anyway,’ said Thorfinn mildly. ‘Take your crane-ship again and Thorkel will lead you south round Duirinish and into the loch. I had a fancy to try something else. Between the head of the loch here and the north of Loch Bracadale is not a great distance. Men could cut through on foot and be in Bracadale before the ships had cleared Loch Dunvegan. Men with fire-arrows, perhaps? The Irish fleet may be in the inner loch, but they also might be in Vatten or Caroy. If I take a hundred men, we shall come down the shore at their backs as you and Thorkel sail into the loch.
At the very least, we can find and get rid of their scouts and discover where the main fleet is. Will you follow Thorkel?’

‘No,’ said Rognvald. ‘Highly though I think of him and his family. My ships are all large, but yours are not. I don’t know the country, but there are men here who do, and you tell me the distance is short. Let me take the men across the neck to Loch Bracadale. And let me carry two of your ships.’

Thorkel had arrived. ‘What?’ he said.

In front of him, the immense, disjointed young man he had fostered gazed thoughtfully down at the compact body and fair, amused face of his half-brother’s still younger son Rognvald.

‘The idea has some merit,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Who can tell us about the path between the two lochs?’

‘I can,’ said someone; and described it. At the end, Thorkel shrugged his shoulders and looked at the others. ‘So it can’t be done. Let’s get out to the ships.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Rognvald. His colour high and his eyes blue with excitement, he looked like Baldur come back to earth, and Thorkel hated him. ‘I beg your pardon, but it
can
be done, if I do it. I don’t speak from vanity. This is a matter much practised in Russia.’

‘Of course,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I’d forgotten. What, then? Axemen for rollers. Fresh men to fight, as well as for porterage. A courier, who will signal to us from the point, and a set of agreed signals … It couldn’t be done at nightfall? No, we want them on board.’

‘No,’ said Rognvald. ‘And, in any case, noise would travel … Do you know, uncle mine, that I was beginning to find the summer dull? I begin to have some hopes for the future.’

‘Why not take Arnór with you?’ Thorfinn said. ‘He has made up one verse for me already. Arnór, how does it run?’

Thorkel Fóstri swore under his breath, and Arnór looked from one to the other, sulking. ‘Which one, my lord Earl?’

‘Never mind. I shall recite it myself,’ Thorfinn said, and did.

He broke off. ‘
Kin-Betterer of the great Turf-Einar?
Doesn’t that apply to you as well?’

Rognvald considered. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘Turf-Einar was equally my ancestor. The verse might refer to either of us.’

‘It was intended for you. There is no doubt about it,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And all the time I believed it was a prayer for my own success, and even gave the skald some reward for it.’

He turned to Arnór. ‘There is no question of it. You stay and cross the isthmus on foot with the ships and Earl Rognvald, who will give you a
suitable present for your fine invocation on his behalf. The ring I gave you may be returned any time.’

The men already boarded thought there was a lot of laughter on shore and were keen to know the cause, but Thorkel, when he arrived, said shortly that he had no idea and if they were to get to their next battle in time, they had better set sail and be quick about it. Which, knowing Thorkel Fóstri, they did, looking inquisitively over their shoulders at the mob of men and the golden head still on the shore.

Late that night, the seven ships under Thorfinn stole their way into an anchorage and, making fast, lay locked together, gently rocking in silence while the men slept. Then the blackness around them turned to tablets of black and less than black and somewhere, a long way off, a blackbird announced a cherried sentence and the watch on each ship, stretching, began to move bending from man to man. The wind had dropped.

They entered Loch Bracadale with the sunrise, rose-coloured oars laying darkling folds on the rose-tinted pool of the fjord. A dusting of guillemots, asleep on the water, roused and dived with almost no sound, leaving pink and verdigris rings on the surface. A charcoal rock needled with cormorants became suddenly bare, and from the shore came the scalloped cry of an oyster-catcher, joined after a moment by others. Then the longships slid past, and the sounds died away.

With no sound at all, but with a glory that bludgeoned the senses, the furnace doors were thrown finally open, and the spires and pinnacles of the mountains of Skye stood suddenly stark before them, against mighty rivers of scarlet and brass.