To Lie with Lions (54 page)

And that was true, Kathi conceded; but silently. She gazed at him with wistful affection tempered with admiration. He looked remarkably fresh. She wished, for the hundredth time, that he would marry.

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. She hoped she hadn’t given in too abruptly. She was dying to know what he was up to. She had made up her mind, long before, that she was going to make the most of her journey to Iceland. She just found Anselm a boring companion, that was all.

Nicholas came to land that afternoon, arriving in someone’s flat-bottomed boat not much larger than a Thames shout, Robin with him.

It was later than he had planned. The
Pruss Maiden
had taken time to disable; now it was lodged with the
Svipa
in the sheltered north
bay of the harbour. The fish-cleaning stations were in place on the shore by the ships, along with the trading-booths and the tents they’d brought with them. It was the usual practice, when southern fleets fished at the Westmanns. If any Icelanders had been rash enough to set up summer house, they were thrown off and their hovels re-occupied. Only the Hanse ships could operate here. Or, of course, anyone crazy enough to have captured one.

As a place of residence, the mother holm of the Westmanns had few attractions to offer. Like the parent Iceland itself, the island was uneven and wild, its surface contorted with misshapen mountains, its sea cliffs defended by ferocious rock-teeth and reefs. Against the white of the snow the bright tasselled pavilions, diced with colour, might have blown from a tourney in Florence until you saw how they shook in the wind, the snow sliding glazed down their sides. There was one spring of water, half frozen.

The scream of the birds never ceased, nor the howl of the wind, nor the surf-roar. It was not a haven of quiet.

When he left, the fishing had already begun, and the yoles were coming back to his men with their catch. One of his ship’s boats was in use, and the other, damaged by Paúel, would soon be out of the carpenter’s hands. The rest of the fishing was being done for him by the Icelanders. He reckoned that three days or four would complete it. He had some salt, but not much: most of the barrels were now filled by the pre-empted stockfish. He remained ineffably pleased about that. No one liked to handle green fish: the cold, aching toil of the gutting; the blood and the offal. But it would all fetch its price in the market. He would even fill and tow the
Unicorn’s
boat, which had carried Sersanders to the
Svipa
. The Icelanders had returned it.

He used a borrowed boat now, on his way to collect the Sersanders siblings. When at the last moment Benecke asked to go with him, Nicholas agreed on a moment’s reflection. He should be back before nightfall. And all his best men were on board behind him: Crackbene and John, Lutkyn and Yuri and, of course, Moriz. Their guns were trained on the
Maiden
, and there were watches on each of the hills. It was not impossible that another ship would arrive, but unlikely. And if it did, it would be well advised not to make trouble.

Nevertheless, to have the
Maiden’s
master at his side was not a bad precaution. Added to which, he liked the man as much as he mistrusted him.

Today, the blizzard might never have been. The sand of the strange double coastline with its dangerous surf was quite black, and even the Markarfljót strand, when he reached it, was glistening grey and not white. Only through the haze of the smoke could you see
banks of brilliant purity which might be clouds, or uplands, or mountains. There were, he noted, two columns of smoke in the sky. Robin’s head turned towards them, and away.

He walked on through the settlement, with Paúel and Robin. Women and children clamoured about them. The stench of fish was appalling. There was no sign of Sersanders, or Kathi. Then he heard what the women were saying. Robin, who was also a pupil of Lutkyn, halted beside him. He said, ‘She was longing to visit the mainland.’ He sounded apologetic.

Benecke said, ‘Something is wrong?’ Beneath the leather cap over his bandage he wore a permanent, black-bearded leer. He knew the girl had fled from her brother’s care to de Fleury. He was unlikely to believe she had come to his ship as a peace-maker.

Nicholas said, ‘They’re not here. They’ve gone inland, it seems. You’d better go back to the ship. It’ll be dark pretty soon. I’m coming anyway, to get some provisions. Then I’ll sleep here and collect the pair of them tomorrow.’

‘Where?’ said Benecke. ‘They are surely not coming back here?’ He was not smiling now. He suspected.

‘Probably not,’ Nicholas said, after a pause.

‘Then let them go,’ Benecke said. ‘Unless the girl matters a great deal, why trouble?’

His eye glinted. It pleased Nicholas to notice his injured arm, tucked into his jacket. At the same time, he cursed Katelijne Sersanders. She should have stayed. Then they could all have gone back on board, and he would have paid someone to find and bring back her brother. And if they didn’t find him, he could damned well hide here till some ship came. For choice, a greedy big Hanse ship from Lübeck.

Nicholas turned from the Danziger’s black, cynical eye to the clear supplication of Robin’s. Nicholas sighed. He said to Benecke, ‘What did you hear?’

Paúel Benecke smiled. He said, ‘I heard the word
Einhyringr.’

‘All right,’ Nicholas said. He had made a criminal slip over that vessel. There was no way he could keep it from Benecke. He turned his back on the crowd and made the best of it. He said, ‘The
Unicorn
hasn’t gone home.’

‘It hasn’t come here,’ Benecke said. ‘We should have seen it, or heard.’

‘No,’ Nicholas said. ‘It hasn’t come here. But they all know where it’s gone. So did Sersanders. He’s taken his sister and set off by sea to the mouth of the Thjórsá. From there, they’ll ride to the Bishop at Skálholt. Then, with his help, they’ll cross to the Danish Governor’s
house near Hafnarfjördur and either join the
Unicorn
there, or ride down to the south coast at Grindavik. As I said, the
Unicorn
didn’t go south. It circled the Westmanns, and came straight back to the south-west of Iceland.’

He kept his voice even. He didn’t feel like keeping it even, because he knew he had been fatally stupid, and his only comfort was that Benecke hadn’t guessed either. Nicholas said, ‘Didn’t you wonder about the
Unicorn’
s cargo? All that salt … Yes, of course Martin was going to fish. But all those small, compact high-value bales in addition? We thought it was barter for stockfish.’

‘By the Virgin!’ said Benecke. His teeth showed neat as pebbles within the black beard. ‘Your cannoneer might have told you. He knows, if anyone knows, what the ingredients of gunpowder are. My poor Nikolás, Martin has gone to buy sulphur at Hafnarfjördur! And unless you lift the guard from my ship, you cannot stop him!’

It was difficult, after that, to maintain any ascendancy. They did return to the ship, where Nicholas acquired certain equipment, and left behind certain explicit orders for which he would one day be thankful. It was all he did leave behind: Benecke insisted on coming back to Markarfljót with him, and in the end he gave in and took Robin too. If they were going to wander about, he would need an intermediary posted at Markarfljót. That would be Robin’s job. Robin, who had hoped to wander about with him, agreed in a way half jubilant, half subdued. Then they all three left the ship, and returned to the shore they had just left.

They passed the night as Sersanders had done, in Tryggvi’s ill-smelling hut. Tryggvi was not there: he had put to sea with Sersanders and Kathi, with a son to help with the rowing and to handle the ponies they would hire when they landed. On winter-weak beasts, it would be a day’s ride to Skálholt, or more.

It sounded a laborious journey, but it was safer than most. In theory, you could make the whole trip directly on horseback, but that was to ignore all the rivers: those fast, swollen Icelandic rivers that dragged men and horse into crevasses and overturned ferries in spate. Nicholas was thankful that Kathi had not chosen that way. And for the journey from Skálholt, she would have the help and advice of the Bishop.

From the beginning, Benecke set out to irk him. ‘Let the fools go,’ was his refrain. He said it again, as they sat in the hut before bedtime, drinking an anonymous soup provided by a crone and two giggling girls. ‘The
Unicorn
may have loaded and gone before they get there.’

‘Will it?’ said Nicholas. Robin was nodding: sleep would mend the hurt of his banishment. Nicholas felt no remorse.

Paúel Benecke replied with an amiable sarcasm. ‘You think the Danish deputes should impound the
Unicorn
, since it is not a tax-paying ship from the Hanse? They should. But your friend is astute. Your friend Martin has guessed that a small gift to the Governor and the Bishop may not go amiss. There is no such thing, you see, as an absolute monopoly.’

‘You surprise me,’ said Nicholas.

‘Do I?’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘So, how far will you put yourself out for this girl? For that is all it amounts to. There is no other reason for following.’ He paused. ‘Of course, were you to release me and my ship, we could waylay the
Unicorn
for you, and expose those improper practices.’

‘I should not dream,’ Nicholas said, ‘of putting you to any such trouble. As for our strays, I put them on shore, and promised to lift them. If we find them at Skálholt, I hope you will support me with the authorities.’

‘I wonder,’ Paúel Benecke said. ‘I might denounce you as an unlicensed pirate, and return to do as I please with my ship.’

‘The first half would be easy,’ Nicholas said. ‘But I am afraid that if you returned to the harbour without me, my master gunner would be seized with alarm. Do you want to come then, or not? Robin could take you back now if you wish. You have the use of only one arm.’

‘But I do not keep my brains in my arm. No, I shall come with you, Nikolás,’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘And disport myself in this fishy Paradise guarding the smouldering portals of Hell. I hear there have been horse carcasses found, and cattle-sheds fallen in splinters. I hope you have weapons, or spells.’

‘Of course,’ Nicholas said. He had weapons. He had no intention of arming Benecke. He saw no reason, indeed, to believe him.

That night, they slept in the cabin Sersanders had used. When, half awake, Nicholas heard the girls creep giggling in, he told them to go, without consulting Paúel. Robin appeared to be sleeping.

He used the remains of the night hours to think, as once he had used calculation to neutralise music. The aridity of one part of his life was not something he normally dwelled on. When not in the same house as Gelis, he found it possible to repress that particular hunger reasonably well, as he could train himself to drink water. There had been times when the need had disappeared, and others when he had been able, in his own interests, to harness it. This night on shore, although unplanned, had called for no particular effort; but the frank
availability of the girls, and a sudden sense that there had been commerce here, stirred a current kept carefully stagnant.

He was forced to recognise it next day, when the soaking, stormy boat-trip was behind them and the hooves of their low, shaggy horses were tripping through uneven snow on the way north to Skálholt. The first climb up from the shore had been toilsome, with the Danziger and the horse-minder behind, and the menhir of Glímu-Sveinn himself in the lead, the spare ponies plodding between them. Then they left the roar of the river and entered silence and sunlight, with no sound but the jingle of harness, and the snuffling white breath of their mounts, and the occasional deep-chested bark of the dog Glímu-Sveinn had brought with him.

Strung over the snow, the piebald ponies glowed in the oil-yellow afternoon light, their manes erect, their shadows prancing beside them. They kept their even, hobby-horse gait over an invisible track which ran from one man-made cairn to the next; for under the snow on each side was a lava-field, and on top, sticky sepia and white, lay the boulders and blocks which had not been created or tossed there by man. And beyond that were the heights.

It was upon these that Nicholas rested his eyes as he rode: upon the swooning battlements and immaculate cones of a landscape moulded by chance, random as primaeval shapes under sand; rounded; melting; softly enamelled with snow.

The snow was not white. The snow was the yellow of cream, and the shadows on it were blue. The snow shone in the sun, and the breeze of their passing was fresh on their cheeks, but so light in itself that it hardly stirred heavy cloaks, or parted the pale, heavy fur of the dog. And so transparently clear was the air that the eastern glaciers lay, rank upon rank, as if iced on the blue of the sky for a feast, or a wedding.

In Edinburgh, there had been gales. In the lands that he knew, there was no terrain like this, nor such light. Nor such golden, golden light.

Behind Nicholas, the Icelander did not speak. Gradually Paúel Benecke also fell silent, and Glímu-Sveinn rode alone by the dog which looked up at him from time to time, its feathered tail waving. Once, a flock of ptarmigan rose, white on blue in the sparkling air, and once an eagle passed with its shadow, to a frisson of bird-cries below. ‘Take heed of any falcon you see,’ Glímu-Sveinn said. ‘Emperors have given a coffer of pearls for our falcons.’

His eyes on the eagle, Nicholas made no response. Into his mind had come something grave, to do with his child. Part of his consciousness told him that, whatever it was, it was not fatal. Part of his mind
attempted to turn his thoughts back to the present: to the beauty and silence through which he was riding. He wished he could soar alone, like the eagle. Or that one person was with him, to whom he could say:
Match this beauty, this white and gold beauty, with yours
.

It would soon be time to camp. As the sun declined, so, like dancers unveiled, the far-off slopes and ridges and gulleys revealed themselves to the altering light. Curves and lines in the snow gleamed like script; harness dazzled, and where the horses had stepped, a crusted sparkle of gold rimmed the prints.