‘I wonder,’ she said. ‘So long as you have Luloecen, you have Moray.’
In the purple darkness, her hair was Byzantine, touched with crimson where the light caught it; and the sand moved down her fine robe like silver. He said carefully, ‘Luloecen is young. He might die. I shall need heirs for Orkney and Caithness. After you have paid your way with some sons, we might have this conversation again, with a priest present.’
She said, ‘Save the price of it. Oaths never saved a man’s life, or a woman’s either. I will come on your progress. But I know these people as well as you do. When you plan your policies, I want to be there; or, one way or another, I will ruin them for you.’
‘Policies?’ Thorfinn said. ‘Whatever policies there are to be made will fall to you and your council in any case: why do you think you have Coulter? I have no policies for Moray. I have told you before. My business is in the north, and so soon as this journey is over, I shall be going back there to look after it.’
‘You were right. You are a coward,’ she said, and did not wait to watch him walk back uphill, any more than he, turning, glanced back at her over his shoulder.
TWELVE
HE TWO SOUTHERN churchmen set sail the next day; and so did Kalv; and if a winged monster hovered over his head with a corpse in its plumage, there were none with heads clear enough to notice. Or so they said later. Sulien of Llanbadarn stayed, and so did Alfgar, the Mercian heir, who had no pressing business, it seemed, back in Chester.
After that, the ritual procession through the Earl of Orkney’s new lands was over in three weeks, and towards the end the rain that had ruined the harvest began at last to stop, so that the deep mud started to dry beside the riverside settlements and there was blue sky behind the sheet-bronze of the bracken and the hill-shoulders brilliant with heather.
It was a good time to go, when meat was easy to come by because of the autumn killing, and food and hospitality would settle the tribute-score. Only, this time, their lord fed not only his retinue but the people themselves at the gathering-place for each district, and added ale and barleymeal from the wooden carts his oxen dragged behind him.
After a feast such as that, there was no trouble. The new Lady of Moray, after all, was the same as the old, and there was no one there who did not know Findlaech’s stepson, who had in any case been this way before with his men, and had given the former friends of Gillacomghain something to think about. What was more, at the end of the feasting, Findlaech’s stepson Macbeth stood up to his full height (and, God’s Judgement, he was a very tall man) and said that since God had seen fit to send them bad harvests and those in Caithness and Orkney were good, he had given orders that the surplus meal in his barns should not be sent overseas, but should be kept to trade with the Moraymen for whatever the people of Caithness might need.
The first time he sat down after saying that, the Lady Groa, flushed and smiling beside him, addressed him under cover of the consequent noise. ‘I didn’t hear you telling my uncle that the Arnmødling family were to starve this winter?’
‘If they ever make me King of Trøndelagen, I shall do what I can for them,’ said Thorfinn-Macbeth. ‘As it is, I’ve already bought the only thing the Trøndelagen had that I needed.’
Three people she knew came over to speak to her, and she talked and laughed with them. When they had left, ‘If you mean me,’ she said, ‘I don’t recall gold passing the way of my father, more than would buy him a comb-case.’
‘Is it nothing,’ said Thorfinn, ‘that I have undertaken to feed, clothe, and shelter you for the rest of your life, whether the harvest fails in Caithness or not? That is, if other harvests fail, we shall have to think again. Smile.’
‘I am laughing,’ she said. ‘Between you and Gillacomghain, I shall have that to tell that would earn my keep as an old woman at anyone’s fireside.’
Then they moved on: to Deer, to Turriff, to Formartine, to Monymusk, for the chief meeting-place of each district was still the place where the monks had come first, long ago, and where most often there remained a small monastery or a collection of huts round a chapel dedicated to one of the familiar saints. And for their last visits of all, they made their way along the frontier of Mar, where the river Dee rolled down through its broad heath-lands from the hills where lay Coulter, the bride’s dower lands.
There, because of the mire underfoot, they took to the river by barges, and for the first time there was peace to stand alone, and in silence, and watch the cloud-shadows move on the hills, and hear the thin, swooping voice of the curlew and smell the bog-myrtle hot in the sun. Then, round the next bend, they swept into the dancing curtain of gnats, and someone lit a smudge fire in a bucket, round which they crouched coughing and wrapped in their cloaks until they saw the smoke of Tullich in the lee of its hills in the distance and drew in where the boards had been laid at the mouth of the stream.
Five ways met at or near Tullich, including the pass that led north to the Don, and so it was a brisk little hamlet, with room for market-booths at the Dee crossing, and storage barns, and a good, well-built house for the toisech, the head of the family group, whom Groa knew. Gillacomghain had held this land himself, and until Luloecen was of age, his widow would have to appoint her steward for all these places, to see to their protection and their laws, their tributes and the things that made up their livelihood. She had been allowed to keep some of the men from Gillacomghain’s council, whom Thorfinn thought he could trust, and in that she thought he was right.
For the rest, they would have to see. The land was full of young men, as was all of Alba, grown up since Clontarf and Carham took their toll, and the plunderings of sea-raiders, and the seasons when armed refugees would take possession of a ness or a beachhead and stay there, raiding, until they were thrown out. In the manner that the Earls of Orkney had taken Caithness until the King of Alba had been forced to regularise the invasion, by marriage.
The land was full of young men like Thorfinn, ready to plot, to argue, to kill for their rights. But men who knew who they were and what they wanted because they had learned it at the knee of their fathers, and would act as the blood of their race told them to.
Here was a half-breed whose nature was a meeting-place, like this township, of many different roads, with a guide to none of them. If killing Gillacomghain had been necessary to bring to life Thorfinn’s conception of himself, Gillacomghain was dead.
‘What next?’ the bride of Moray said to herself as the heat and the talking began again, and the smells of roast meat, and the squeak and hoot of the music, and the roaring chant of the songs, drowning the thud of heels on the bare earth as the dancing started under the stars. ‘What next? He has done what Gillacomghain did, and next summer he will father his son, because so did Gillacomghain. Then, when there is nothing to prove, he will go to sea, because the sea gave him pleasure at fourteen. And he will be fourteen still in his soul when they lift him white-haired out of the ship, with the meeting-place nothing but dust again.’
The young Breton, whom she might have liked, said, ‘You have been thinking solemn thoughts. May I ask you a solemn question?’
‘If it has to do with my spiritual welfare, no,’ Groa said.
‘It has to do with your son,’ Sulien said. ‘Why did you give him such a name? You know what they would call him in Ireland?’
For a while, she was silent, thinking. She had not expected a Breton to know this. Then she said, ‘I do. Gillacomghain was careful to tell me.’
‘Gillacomghain chose the name?’ Sulien asked.
‘Or had it picked for him,’ the girl said. ‘He was told that he would be Mormaer of Moray, provided he so named his son. I call the child Lulach.’
‘It is a better name,’ said Sulien. ‘If it were for me to say, I should call him that always. Suggest it to … your friends.’
‘To the Earl Thorfinn?’ she said. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Only if he knows what it means,’ Sulien said. ‘And he does.’
She did not answer, and he changed the conversation. And soon, anyway, it was time to withdraw to the house she had always used when she and Gillacomghain came here. As ever, Earl Thorfinn would stay till the end. He had energy, and he guarded his drinking better than most young men of his age; but the same could be said of all his friends and kinfolk and allies from Orkney and Iceland and Caithness.
When, therefore, lying awake in the dark, she heard the muted bustle later that night, and then the sound of crisp, quiet voices unblurred by drink, she knew she was listening to the Earl’s companions even before she heard him speak himself. He said, ‘How many? Can you tell?’ and a voice she did not know answered, ‘About four hundred, my lord, I should judge. And armed.’
Thorkel’s voice said, ‘You were wise to give two feast days to Deeside. They’ll have had time to sober up at Banchory. I’ll send the messengers out, and we’d better rouse what men we can here.’
‘No. Wait,’ her husband said. ‘You say they are encamped? How well are they concealed? Do they have much baggage with them?’
The unknown scout said, ‘They are not in an exposed position, my lord, but not unduly concealed either. And they have almost no baggage.’
‘No smith, for example?’ said Earl Thorfinn.
The man must have shaken his head, for one of the Duncansby cousins said, ‘That doesn’t prove anything. They’re close to home. They might still mean to attack. Thorfinn, you should wake camp and send your lady home anyway.’
By then, she had her cloak over her shift and had pulled the door open. The dark knot of men in front of her broke apart, faces turning, pale shapes in the dark, and a flicker of light from a torch showed her Earl Thorfinn’s bared brow and beaked nose and muscle-strapped shoulders. He was stripped to the waist, as he had risen.
The girl said, ‘Before she goes or doesn’t go, the lady would like to know the cause of alarm.’
‘I would give you a report if I could,’ her husband said, ‘but we haven’t decided whether to be alarmed yet or not. My brother has arrived in the neighbourhood under cover of darkness. With an army.’
‘I thought Thorkel killed your brother in Orkney?’ said his bride, puzzled.
‘That was another brother. Thorkel: we should warn lower Deeside, but I don’t want troops of men blundering in here. Can you round up what you can by daybreak and hold them out of sight, behind Culblean?’
‘And if he attacks before then?’ Thorkel said. ‘Maddan’s father was a partner of Crinan’s. Duncan may want vengeance and Moray as well.’
‘I,’ said the girl tartly, ‘am not marrying anyone else.’
‘Duncan is married already,’ said the Earl. ‘To someone well-born and wealthy in Northumbria. I know he has reason to attack. I think he won’t. I think we are being invited to make fools of ourselves. I think when he does attack, it will be with a lot more than four hundred men. If I am wrong, none of you will be left alive, I imagine, to blame me. Thorkel, take what men you need. The rest of us are going back to bed.’
‘To bed?’ said one of the Icelanders.
‘You can sit up nursing your battle-axe all night if you want to. But until the scouts bring me worse news than that, bed is where I shall be.’
‘And this,’ said Groa, ‘is warrior’s instinct?’
‘This,’ said the Earl testily, ‘is an excercise in the godly virtues of trust and forbearance. Who said woman was man’s guardian devil? Go and pray somewhere. That’s why I gave you a Christian wedding.’
‘While you sleep?’
‘I need to be fresh to be forbearing and trustful tomorrow. Good night.’
They were still arguing with him when she went in and shut the door.
The next morning, as the sun rose behind Culblean and whatever of armed men Thorkel had lying behind it, a showily dressed man from Appleby, lightly escorted, rode into Tullich under a jolting blue banner and announced that, with the Mormaer of Moray’s permission, his lord Duncan, prince of Cumbria, wished to share his marriage festivities. Earl Thorfinn, in a tunic Groa had never seen before and all his arm-rings, accepted the greetings amiably under the flags and the awnings of the meeting-place, with his entourage, also polished, around him. There was not an armed man in sight. The messenger was presented with a gold buckle and a message of welcome; and in an hour the Earl Thorfinn’s half-brother Duncan was with him.
They had not met for four years. Their last confrontation had been at Chester when the Earl Thorfinn had sat at ease on Leofric’s longship, waiting for Duncan to drown.
Of the men standing now by the Earl, Alfgar of Mercia remembered that, and Sulien of Llanbadarn, who had helped lift him from the water. Since that day, living in daily commerce with Cumbria, both young men had had occasion to meet Duncan and his father King Malcolm of Alba. And because Gillacomghain had paid his Mormaer’s tribute to Malcolm, his widow Groa knew Duncan as well, as did those men of Tullich who had been fit enough to rise from their mattresses that morning.
They knew Duncan, but all they knew of Thorfinn was that, in Gillacomghain’s place, tribute would be required of him by his grandfather. And that he was neither paying taxes to Norway for Orkney nor tribute for Caithness to anyone.
Duncan said, ‘Greetings, brother. Being old in years, our grandfather the King could not be present at your marriage, but bids you accept the wine that you see, and this cup as his bride-gift.… It has been my privilege once or twice before to embrace the bride. Do I have your leave?’
‘If you can reach,’ said Thorfinn of Orkney.
Her contorted face under Duncan’s stiff one, the girl could only hope that he thought she was smiling in welcome. Whatever height King Malcolm had bestowed on his daughter, there was no doubt that her two sons did not share it. Thorfinn, son of Sigurd of Orkney, looked down on his half-brother Duncan, son of Crinan, lord Abbot of Dunkeld, whose head reached to his shoulder. Duncan was round-faced and russet, with fine brown hair and a thick, large moustache, soft as bran. His chin was shaved, as was the Earl’s. It was one of the few things they had in common. Groa said, ‘The cup is beautiful. I do not know your friends … Or …’
‘You know one of them,’ Duncan said as she hesitated. The moustache spread over the firm, coloured cheeks as he smiled. ‘Your uncle Kalv’s nephew Siward. His father is a great man in England these days, since he helped kill King Olaf. Siward lives in York now, where his wife is. He and I married sisters.’
More than the face, she remembered the broad chest and wide shoulders from her visits to Thore Hund’s house long ago. The fur-trader’s son was a big man, and older than her husband, she would judge, by quite a number of years. Earl Thorfinn said, ‘I don’t think we’ve met. How is Carl son of Thor brand since his sea voyage?’
Siward opened his mouth. Duncan said quickly, ‘You are talking of what happened to Gillacomghain. That is a matter we all want to forget, I am sure, especially with your lady present. We live nearer to King Canute than you do, and are not always free to act as we should wish. I have an introduction to make. My lord Crinan my father has sent you his daughter’s new husband to wish you well of your marriage and Moray. This is my lord Forne.’
‘Ah,’ said the Earl. A man stepped forward, smiling, and Thorfinn addressed him. ‘I thought once of marrying your wife, but I was told she was reserved for a union much more important. So you are Duncan’s good-brother. And mine then, also.’
‘I am glad,’ said the man called Forne. ‘I am to tell you from my lord Crinan that he bears you no grudge for the death of his partner’s son Maddan. I act for him in Dunkeld from time to time, so we may meet.’
He looked like a man used to business; quietly dressed and clear-eyed and with hands not so hardened with weapons but that they might even have guided a quill-point. His speech had been Saxon bent to Norse, which they had all used, including Duncan; but when later they moved indoors to eat and drink with the Moraymen, talking of nothing, they all heard him speak Gaelic, of a sort, such as the
y used in the mixed races in Westmorland. Skeggi said to his cousin the Earl, ‘Who is he? There is Norman there.’
‘That is what I was thinking,’ Earl Thorfinn observed. ‘We shall find out soon enough. And I can tell you another thing, if you are sober enough to take it in. His nephew Orm is married to a third of those Northumbrian sisters.’
Alfgar had overheard. ‘It’s better than war, isn’t it? An empire trussed up in marriage ties, from the west sea to the east across all northern England. I wonder who is the architect? Your grandfather King Malcolm? Duncan here? Or …’
Duncan, with Groa leading him, was approaching the board.
‘The Abbot of Dunkeld,’ Thorfinn said, ‘I make no doubt, is a powerful man who, like the White God Heimdall, lies awake at night listening to the grass growing all over the world, and none of it under his feet.… When we have all drunk enough, my brother, no doubt you and I should converse.’
Something crossed the unchanging, apple-cheeked face and was gone. ‘I brought Siward and Forne with me for that very purpose,’ Duncan said.
‘Then I suppose I had better take two of the serving-girls with me, to see to our wine, or the balance will fail,’ Thorfinn said. Sulien, who was becoming used to his tongue, saw Alfgar staring. Sulien said, ‘If there’s any wine going, I don’t think Thorkel would want to be missed. I saw him come in a while back.’
The bar of Thorfinn’s brows lifted as he looked at his brother. ‘Would you object to my foster-father? He’s not as quick as he used to be.’
The bright skin was a little redder, but the smile was the same. ‘Bring whom you like,’ Duncan said. ‘We are not going to quarrel.’
‘I’m glad of that,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Will you lie down and let me walk over you here, or wait until we get to the meeting-house?’
Duncan’s moustache spread in a brief, answering smile, but he did not trouble to answer. Thorkel arrived, laid a hand on his foster-son’s shoulder, and said, ‘Whether you want me or not, I’m coming in with you. Will you keep a leash on your tongue?’
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