King Hereafter (96 page)

‘Yes,’ said Thorfinn. ‘Adèle of France’s young and numerate offspring. The brother of Tonnerre and Nevers and the husband of Hadwise of Sablé. Lulach talks of him. Why?’

‘Lulach?’ Alfgar said. He waited, and then said, ‘Well, thank God there’s something you don’t know. There’s been a battle at Credon, or Craon. The place by the Loire. The winner was Geoffrey of Anjou. He’s made your friend Robert le Bourguignon hereditary seigneur of Craon under his lordship.’

Gratifyingly, Thorfinn sat up. ‘Which links both parts of Burgundy with Anjou; with the Aquitaine; with the Cotentin; with the Pays du Caux; with Coucy and Marie, Cambrai and Lille … Alfgar, you will make a
very
intelligent Earl of Mercia,’ Thorfinn said.

Through the years, Alfgar had become at least intelligent enough to recognise that questioning Thorfinn about his machinations was perfectly useless. He said, following his only lead, ‘Then what does Lulach say?’

Thorfinn said, ‘Lulach says that because of a nephew and a great-grandson of Robert the Burgundian, there sprang a new line of kings for England and Scotia, and some love-songs.’

Alfgar leaned forward and embraced one hand with the other. ‘Then it’s a marriage?’ he said. ‘You’re making Lulach your heir?’

‘He also says,’ Thorfinn continued, ‘that because of Robert’s great-nephew, the seats of Lulach’s descendants were occupied by Jerusalem, although against the monks of Loch Leven even Jerusalem failed.… A marriage? Perhaps. My heir for Scotia? I have not yet declared him. The kings that are to come? They will not spring from me, nor from Lulach. Does it matter? I have trouble enough with the problems I have. How do you expect to get rid of the Godwin family?’

Alfgar let his hands slip between his knees, where they dangled frustratedly. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘how you have patience to hear out that rubbish of Lulach’s. I could find you an old woman any day who would be more entertaining, and even capable of a shrewd guess now and then, if you must dabble in that kind of thing. The Godwin family? Well, the King’s made a start against them already. That’s what the meeting here was about.’ Alfgar’s skin had turned pink. ‘Thorfinn, I can’t tell you the details.’

‘Then don’t,’ said Thorfinn unemotionally. ‘Just tell me which of his heirs
the King has invited to visit him. And when.’

‘Eustace of Boulogne, Emma’s son-in-law. In September. A visit to his stepson in the West Country.’

‘But since Godwin is strong in the West Country, that is not where he will meet his challenge. May I guess?’ said Thorfinn.

‘My God, no,’ said Alfgar, getting up. ‘You know too much already. I only told you because I was sure Emma would find a way of sending a hint. You ought to be warned.’

‘No. Eachmarcach ought to be warned,’ Thorfinn said. ‘When you own the whole of central England, from the west coast to the east, what will you do with it?’

‘Divorce my wife,’ said Alfgar. ‘Do you still want yours? You could marry my mother.’

‘There must be other remedies,’ said Thorfinn. ‘You might send to King Svein, He always has some girl he is trying to get rid of. At the very worst, they could teach your wife a thing or two. I don’t know how he or King Harald find the energy to make war on one another. It is, I suppose, lucky for Eustace.’

‘Married to Emma’s daughter?’ said Alfgar. ‘I don’t think even Dover—’

He stopped.

‘Now you are going to worry,’ said Thorfinn kindly. ‘Perhaps I should get on my way before you drop any more secrets. Would a cup of wine be too much to expect?’

Shrewsbury was not much out of the way on the road to Alba from Coventry, and Thorfinn had a troop of armed men and a safe-conduct.

Sulien, who was waiting for him, needed neither. In a little chamber lent by the abbot, he said, ‘Yes. I shall let Eachmarcach know. Be careful. Leofric and Siward are not a good team, and the King can only reflect Emma or react against her. You have a good man in Bishop Jon.’

‘I thought so. The other one, Hrolf, should be there by the time I get back,’ Thorfinn said. ‘With any luck, we shall keep them. Do you hear much of Thor of Allerdale?’

‘Nothing to worry you,’ Sulien said. ‘You can’t put a bishop in Cumbria yet. But at the same time Thor is far too interested in power and money to strike up a friendship with Siward. I should say, however, that you might expect your Bishop Malduin to make a recovery soon.’

‘I thought of that,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Siward needs to know what is happening. How annoyed Malduin is going to be. Rival bishops: alienated land and dues. Even priests who, now and then, may know more than he does. His wife will hate it even more.’

‘From which I gather that you feel you can handle it,’ Sulien said. ‘I’m glad. The air of gloom, I suppose, was because Alfgar had been discussing money.’

‘Conversation with Alfgar always turns on money,’ Thorfinn said. ‘His parents have been endowing churches like jackdaws. I don’t like Llanbadarn in the middle of this. Not with a wife and young family there. Why not bring them north to me in September?’

‘Alfgar will look after us,’ Sulien said. ‘He is wise six inches deep, and loyal eight inches.’

‘Well, if he becomes dead nine inches, come to me,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And don’t mistake me. I am fond of Alfgar.’

‘Did I belittle him?’ Sulien said. ‘I beg your pardon, and his. What is it, Thorfinn?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the King. ‘There is nothing wrong that I can see. Conditions change every day, and I deal with them. I enjoy it.’

‘So you have much to lose. It’s a common experience,’ Sulien said.

Later, he stood in the grounds and watched Thorfinn and his men ride round the curve of the river until the bulk of the town in its loop hid them from him. He wished Bishop Jon were not, to his recollection, quite so business-like; and that Bishop Hrolf, of whom he had heard, were not quite so practised an engineer.

He wished Bishop Malduin were dead, and enjoined on himself, quickly, an act of contrition.

Whatever lay ahead for this kingdom, the presence or absence of Sulien was not going to alter it.

‘What do you mean,’ Groa said, ‘his laugh isn’t loud any more? Is Alfgar ill?’

‘No. Only growing tired of his wife. Don’t you notice,’ Thorfinn said, ‘how soft my laugh has become lately? What do you make of Bishop Hrolf?’

‘Large, powerful, and given to practical jokes. He is an expert on drainage,’ Groa said. ‘And he has a loud voice and no wife. Should we do something about it?’

‘No,’ said Thorfinn. ‘He might lose his interest in drainage.’

The summer waned, profitably.

The Irish masons, fresh in from Govan, reported that the vineyards of Gaul had suffered in the unfortunate squabble between the seigneurs of Neustrie, and Eachmarcach was importing wine from Cologne and Wissant this year. They began to build a round tower at Abernethy and repair another at Brechin in Angus, and took the ladders inside with them at meal-breaks so that they could give Eachmarcach’s purchase the attention it merited. Then Bishop Hrolf climbed up a rope with his crucifix, and the masons all emerged with the ladders and crept down them, crying.

An Icelandic vessel trading wool cloaks and pumice and sulphur delivered a smith and three carpenters with their families from Totnes and Guernsey, and reported that you could hardly walk past St Paul’s church in London for the brawl going on between the new Bishop’s men and the men of the Archbishop of Canterbury, but that the Archbishop of Canterbury seemed to be winning. The King, they said, had stalked off to Gloucester.

The smith set up a furnace and forge next to the blooms of iron Thorfinn had brought back from the Rhine and began to make a number of objects, including plough-shares. The carpenters went further north, smacking their wives’ heads when they complained.

A man collecting hides and unloading bolts of cloth and holy-water pots at the mouth of the Dee said that all the pigs about Winchester were being killed ahead of time for the feast the Lady Emma was giving for her daughter’s new husband and the army of courtmen and servants he had brought from Boulogne. He rolled down some salt he had forgotten, and remarked that everyone would have square heads and thick accents in England soon at this rate: had they heard that Earl Godwin’s son Tostig had got himself married to the sister of Baldwin of Flanders?

A clerk from Abingdon, delivering books, gold thread, and a present of two velvet cushions from a heavily armed pack-train, said that the King’s nephew Ralph had taken his stepfather round all the new castles on the Welsh border, and that Count Eustace had been able, so they said, to spare him a few experienced men to add to the excellent officers who had crossed the sea to man them already. Bishop Ealdred, who had failed to drive off that nasty attack by the Welsh only the other day, would no doubt be thankful.

‘Will he?’ said Prior Tuathal. ‘He lost a lot of men in that attack and nearly got himself killed. I wonder if Bishop Ealdred is losing his touch?’

‘For conciliation or for running?’ Thorfinn said. ‘That’s Harold Godwinsson’s country. The Bishop can’t be nice to the Welsh and stay friendly with Harold. And anyway it’s been a bad summer and the cattle are fatter on the Saxon side of the border. When’s the lead coming?’

Exactly on time, the lead came in from Cumbria and was unloaded at Scone by men with oyster-catcher beaks fastening their jackets. The shipmaster and his clerk, taking ale at the priory, were unsurprised to find the royal consignee there, as well as Prior Eochaid and the man Cormac of Atholl.

That was great news, then, said the shipmaster, for those that didn’t like foreigners, although how the fools thought you got in your wine and your pepper and your sword-blades without them was a different matter. A great brawl there had been on the south coast as that fellow Eustace of Boulogne had come to take ship across to his country. Some said it was over the question of where his men should sleep for the night. Some said, since he married the King’s sister, he expected the King to let him take over the castle of Dover. In Earl Godwin’s country! Of course, the men of the town were in arms in a moment, and so were Eustace’s men. Twenty killed on each side, and Eustace back raging to Gloucester to ask the King if this was how he treated his kinsmen.

Well, that’s been known, said the shipmaster; and everyone knew what kind of answer they’d get from Edward. Or thought they knew. But, Mary, Mother of Christ, not this time. This time, King Edward called Earl Godwin before him and told him straight to his face to go off and harry his townspeople of Dover for the harm they’d done to his sister’s husband.

Did Godwin agree? Could his lordship
see
Godwin agreeing? He turned on his heel, said the shipmaster, and went off and collected an army. Held it fifteen miles out of Gloucester, with young Harold and Tostig, and challenged the King to send out Count Eustace and all his men and turn out the foreigners left in the castle.

‘I don’t think,’ said the King, ‘that I can bear it. Could you tell me the rest of it quickly?’

Oh, if there’s that much of a hurry, said the shipmaster, two words will do it. Wessex isn’t England, though some think it is. The King sent horsemen out, and before you’d know it, armies from Mercia and Northumbria and even from young Ralph his nephew in Hereford were there at Gloucester, nose to nose with the Godwinssons.

Those that don’t like their landlords, said the shipmaster, were all for letting them flatten each other and giving us all a fresh start. But the bishops got preaching, as usual, and the upshot was: hostages taken on both sides, and the Godwinssons to come to London to answer charges in front of the council.

More than which, said the shipmaster, weighing the bag in his hand, he could not be expected to say, the meeting in London not having been held yet.

He left.

‘Poor Edward of England. He’s bungled it,’ said Cormac of Atholl
.

‘He thought the south coast would accept Eustace. How unfortunate,’ said Thorfinn
.

‘They might get rid of the Godwinssons,’ Eochaid offered
.

‘They might. But without Eustace, they’ll be back. One contender dismissed. When, do you think,’ said Thorfinn, ‘ought we to expect Bishop Malduin to forsake York and be drawn to his needy pastoral cure in Kinrimund?’

‘When the Godwins have gone,’ said Cormac of Atholl. ‘Give him a month.’

ND SO,’ SAID
Thorfinn affably to Bishop Malduin of Alba, ‘the Godwin family have got themselves outlawed, and you are fit and burning once more to respond to the call of your office. So bad deeds are balanced with good. I hear the Queen of England, Earl Godwin’s daughter, is in a nunnery?’

‘That is correct. Earl Godwin himself, with three of his sons, is in Flanders, which is, of course, the home of Tostig’s new bride. And Harold and one of his brothers have, I believe, made their way to Ireland from Bristol.’

‘Pursued slowly by Bishop Ealdred, who reached the quay too late to wave. And my lord Siward is pleased?’

The Bishop said, ‘The King called out all the militia. That of Northumbria formed only part of the force.’