‘You have had a hard summer,’ Groa said. They were at Orphir at the time. Because, in their fecundity, the Earls of Orkney had had so often to divide Orkney among numbers of sons, the islands were plenished in every quarter with Earls’ halls, all commodious and built of good timber from Norway. And because the pasture was rich enough, except where the flagstones lay underground, the landed men, the gaeingar of Orkney, were able to pay their Earl’s winter tribute in food and malt from each ounceland which from quarter to quarter would keep the Earl and his hirmar and his guests until the seas opened again in the spring-time. And if there appeared a shortage of anything, a boat or two sent on a calm day to Caithness would replenish the storehouse.
Since the Moot Hill enthronement, Groa had come to know Caithness as well as her husband’s mysterious Orkney. Until then, she had seen it twice. Once, as a pregnant, mutinous child in a brief landing at Duncansby. And once, three years after that, when Gillacomghain had dragged her north to share in the war which was to place his nephew in Caithness, aided by that treacherous fleet from the south under Carl, son of Thorbrand of York. The strange little war that changed her life.
The burned hall at Thurso had been rebuilt. In the event, Thorfinn had not taken her there, but to a new hall set on the heights overlooking the wide sweep of sands on the other side of the river. She had also stayed briefly at Duncansby, at Freswick, and at Canisbay, where stood the most recent hall-house of all, on the high ground which looked down to the little thatched church of St Drostan’s and the strand which ran along to the jetty at Huna. Two miles offshore lay the long green flank of the island of Stroma, with its snout pointing eastwards into the eddies.
The white shell-sand and the yellow sand of the rocks, the great broken headlands of sunlit red stacks circled with seabirds brought back, like the tide surging into a geo, the memory of all she had lost when she lost Austråt; and in the red cliffs and green turf of Orkney, she came face to face with her childhood itself. To her husband’s young church-friend Sulien, when for the third night she had barred herself, weeping, into her box-bed, she had said through the door, ‘It is nothing. I have come home, and among enemies.’
But she was not among enemies, because when, the next day, shame drove her to dress and to show herself, neither Skeggi nor Thorkel nor Starkad nor Arnór nor any of the argumentative host of her husband’s immediate circle made any comment, nor, when she met them, did their women. Sulien, even-tempered as ever, was kind as she knew he would be, and made no overtures. Earl Thorfinn, who had been away fighting, they said, brought back with him the same unmoving face and the disrespectful, impersonal tongue that made her hackles rise and drove her to untangle her wits and put them to use quickly once more.
Lulach, under the tutelage of Sulien, and of the big Abbot Dubhdaleithe of Deer, was growing, she saw from time to time, like a wand. The infant, in the women’s hall with his nurses, was fat and happy.
She was not among enemies: she had learned that, and she must not forget it. On the contrary. She was among people who did not hate their property, but conserved it and took care that no harm should befall it. She could hope to finish her days in peace and even in some sort of contentment, could she learn to think like a piece of good grazing-ground.
Even if you have nothing else, you have a partnership. What idiot had propounded that? The Mercian woman whom Earl Thorfinn admired. To whom, evidently, it was all too plain that there was nothing else in this marriage. And she had been wrong, at that. Nine months before that, there had been several intervals of four minutes each which might count, legally, as evidence of a union. Since then, there had been none.
From the time Sigurd was two months of age, she had prepared, silently, for the expected accosting; and none had come. Her husband had brought her to Caithness and then had vanished to Ireland, and from Ireland down to Alba, where he had stayed, or been kept, until autumn.
Thorkel Fóstri had brought her in his absence to Orkney and had been the first to introduce her to her husband’s own lands. If, when Earl Thorfinn came back, he was told anything of her three-day retiral, she had no means of knowing. Only, after the feasting on the first evening of his return, he did not even spend the night in the same hall, never mind lift the latch of her partition. And it was the same the following night, and the next.
On the fourth day, they had moved north to the mainland at Birsay, and the hall there had no room for the women, but only one separate chamber at the end for the lord and the lady.
Like all her husband’s possessions, it was well built and well kept, and rushes were already laid and hangings up before they arrived. Soon, the carts and the panniers of the eyki would be emptied and the hall dressed in readiness for the first of the feasts which would introduce to this district the child who would be their next earl, and his mother. She had seen the baby passed from end to end of the rollicking boards like a sheep’s pluck during one of these feasts, and remembered Finn’s tale of how the Wends served the young of their conquered, tossing them from one man to the next on their spearpoints. Her husband said, ‘Are you cold? You are supposed to have a fur cloak for weather like this.’
For a minute, for two minutes perhaps if she were fortunate, they were alone by the bedchamber entrance. She said, ‘Instruct me. Where do we each sleep?’
‘Ah,’ said the Earl Thorfinn and looked at her. ‘Is this a conversation we should be having outside?’
‘Since the subject is tenant-service,’ Groa said, ‘I suppose it might take place anywhere. Indeed, gather the elders round the thing-field if you wish.’
‘Bring in the hammer the bride to hallow,’ he said. ‘All right. Let us make a pilgrimage round the graves of my fathers and see what the trolls have to say. Take my cloak.’
Round every house-stead there were burial mounds: some no more now than hummocks in the sandy turf. Before the priests came, a man’s kindred were not driven far from their hearth-stones when their days on earth were finished, and you could get good advice, the wise-women said, by lying at night near the haugs, and good dreams by using their turf for a pillow. Groa said, as the wind caught her hair, ‘You would hear that Fridgerd had died.’ His cloak was made of wolfskin and lined with red wool, so heavy that the wind hardly lifted it. ‘She went back to Iceland and ended her life as a nun.’
‘I expect I ought to believe that,’ the Earl said. ‘After all, so did Gudrun, and how many husbands did she have? Four? And got rid of at least one other suitor. Did Arnór make a long, tragic poem?’
‘He hasn’t made any poems since he heard,’ Groa said. ‘Why didn’t you take him to Ireland? He would have a harp-bag full of deathless eulogies to console himself with. Unless you ran from every battle?’
‘As you see. What is it, then? You want me to act the husband? In fact, or just for the women?’
The wind whipped her breath away. She stopped and faced him. ‘Indeed, I am suffering from no more than curiosity and a certain suspense,’ Groa said. ‘I understood there was some urgency in the matter. But if you have the pox or another wife, you may consider the enquiry withdrawn.’
‘Good,’ said the Earl. ‘Then shall we go back? I miss my cloak.’
She did not move. ‘Do you have another wife?’
‘I thought of Emma,’ said Earl Thorfinn, ‘but she’s fifty-three if she’s a day, and I have nothing to offer her that she could make use of anyway. No. While your relatives are doing so well, I am quite content with the present arrangement. I was under the impression that you might be content with the present arrangement as well. We have a Mormaer of Moray and an Earl of Orkney in the making. It would be a pity to go to all that trouble again and produce a daughter for Rognvald to marry.’
‘I thought that you had already promised the first girl to Thorkel,’ Groa said.
‘I had. Thorkel wriggled out of the arrangement,’ the Earl said. ‘I thought him chicken-hearted. I still think him chicken-hearted. He believed that you and I should be prevented from breed
ing.’
‘In that case, he must be relieved at the turn of events,’ Groa said. ‘I don’t suppose, since you no longer require me, that I might be allowed to take Sigurd to Norway and stay for a while with my parents?’
‘I may have given the impression that I don’t require you,’ the Earl said, ‘but I didn’t invite you to take leave of your senses. The first act of Magnús’s advisors would be to hold you and the baby as hostage.’
‘Why? How could your plans affect Kalv?’ Groa said. ‘Or could I guess?’
‘I’m sure you can guess,’ Earl Thorfinn said. ‘But don’t act on it, that’s all. As for the next generation, I feel we might review the matter, say, in a year.’
‘You do?’ Groa said. ‘But is this the Thorfinn that Arnór sings about? What nations may fall to your axe before another year and nine months come to pass, and yourself all unprepared? Lulach and Sigurd cannot be expected to take care of everything. I must say,’ said Groa, warming to her subject, ‘that this must be the first time in history that a war-lord has planned his procreation to coincide with his strategy. What happens if you lose Moray and Orkney? You’ll have a surplus.’
Jogging obstinately at his side as he strode back to the hall, she kicked the wolfskin, hitched it up, and stumbled again. Cross and perverse, she added, ‘My lord Earl?’ enticingly.
He stopped, and the sky was blotted out. He took hold of each of her arms, and even through the wolfskin he made sure that it hurt. ‘You want my services, do you?’ he said. ‘You may have them. Tell me. I can make a beginning now, if you want. There are not so many people about. And from now on—am I right?—you want my unstinted duty, as often as you can accommodate me, through the twenty-four hours of each day and the seven days of each week until, I suppose, you become too old to conceive every year and take, like other wives, to finding and bringing home girls for me? … I agree. Over there is a place out of the wind. The ground is soft. What are you waiting for?’
Locked in half-mocking, half-bitter badinage, drunk with word-play, she had forgotten the mongrel he was. She had never known what his boundaries were. She had never known him at all. The fire sparked and the insults stung and glittered and it was all real, and she was standing alone in limbo with no guidelines at all.
Her body shook as it had at Inverness when she had brought the spears down on his ship and Sigurd had been conceived. She said, ‘Let me go. Please let me go. I meant none of it.’
‘You didn’t, did you?’ he said, and released the cloak, and walked off, alone, into the hall.
So now she talked with half her mind to Thore Hund in Orphir, and with the other half thought, despite herself, of what the Lady of Mercia had said. Even if you have nothing else, you have a partnership.
For the short time she had spent in her husband’s company: for those two days at the Moot Hill, it had been true.
Now she again had his company, in public at least. And here was Thore of Huntingdon at her side, a grizzled windbag of grumbles and gossip and father to Siward, who had land in his father’s shire and in York and had lost no time in marrying one of the five Northumbrian sisters whose kindred, hand holding hand, stretched from sea to sea.
The Lady of Orkney sat down. ‘Never mind Earl Thorfinn and his energy,’ Groa said. ‘Tell me what you have been doing.’
The winter passed. When news came in, she made sure of hearing it.
The empire of Canute the Great, lord of England, Denmark, Norway, friend to Emperor and to Pope, was slipping bit by bit from the young, the greedy, the grasping and inept hands he had left it with.
Of the two sons of Canute’s wife Alfiva, Svein at twenty-one had already shown himself a poor ruler in Norway, and had long since fled to the safety of his half-brother’s kingdom in Denmark. Thirteen days after Canute’s death, there met on the Danish-Saxon frontier at Oxford the Danes of London and the thanes north of the Thames led by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who chose as king Harold Harefoot, Svein’s nineteen-year-old younger brother, to guard all England on behalf of himself and his half-brother Hardecanute in Denmark.
After wasting half the day, rumour said, arguing against the decision, Earl Godwin of Wessex, Emma’s friend, had been forced to bow to the majority, and had even found it in his heart, in succeeding weeks, to send one or two little gifts to King Harold. The Lady Emma, it was reported, had been allowed to retire to Winchester with her late husband’s housecarls, and was entrenched there, awaiting the arrival of Canute’s third and last son, her own cherished Hardecanute, from Denmark.
The year turned, and Hardecanute had not yet left Denmark. The Lady’s mourning at Winchester was, however, tempered by a visit from her stepson Harold Harefoot. He relieved her of all her late husband’s treasure-chest, and left quickly. Svein, his older brother, died suddenly without ever reclaiming Norway. Magnús of Norway, now aged twelve, began to show every sign of waging war on the late Canute’s Denmark.
They discussed it endlessly in Orkney over the boards, and Groa listened.
‘What is Harold Harefoot like?’ Sulien asked.
‘Stupid,’ had said Thore Hund. ‘And greedy. He’s meant to rule England jointly with his half-brother, but I don’t trust Harefoot not to take the throne for himself, and then Emma will have to look out. She can’t fly to Normandy now.’
‘She may not need to,’ said Earl Thorfinn. ‘You forget the family she had by her first husband.’
‘I’m not forgetting anything,’ said Thorkel Fóstri. His face was red. These days, Thorkel did not like to be contradicted by Thorfinn. ‘When Canute’s father took over England, Emma left her two Saxon sons in Normandy. Edward and Alfred. They must be in their thirties, and Emma treats them as if they don’t exist. Canute’s son is to rule, not the Saxon boys.’
‘Thank you,’ said Thorfinn mildly. ‘I was talking about Emma’s first daughter, Goda. Report has it that Goda’s husband has died, and that for her next, she may be looking to Flanders.’
They all glanced at one another. No one appeared to think elaboration was necessary. Blessedly, the skald Arnór said, ‘Is that a good thing?’
‘It’s an interesting thing,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Especially as her mother Emma must be arranging it. The Counts of Flanders own Lille and are close to several places, such as Bacqueville-en-Caux, which serve houses of coiners and bankers. Has it occurred to nobody to wonder where Emma gets all that money from, and why it was removed so very quickly?’
Skeggi said, ‘Canute’s treasure. Thorkel said.’
‘Well, we know he had treasure,’ Thorfinn said. ‘He had a great many lands which paid tax to him, and he had his toll-profits from the big ports, and the profits of justice, and all the rest of it. But, all the same, his spending was of the same order. So was Emma’s. You are unlikely to find the body of St Florentine on a tree.’
Groa said, ‘According to Thore Hund, Crinan’s name is not on the new lists of moneyers. Not for Lincoln or York or Shrewsbury.’
Since she left Norway, there had not been a moment like it. Everyone turned and looked at her.
‘Go on,’ said her husband.
‘Thore says that he gave up the dies for all three of his mints within days of Canute’s death and withdrew his share of the silver before Harold Harefoot or anyone else could judge what it amounted to. It’s probably somewhere in Yorkshire. Thore mentioned something else. There’s a new moneyer appointed to Nottingham. Name of Forne.’
‘Crinan’s son-in-law. And next door, of course, to Lincoln. It used to be said,’ Earl Thorfinn said, ‘that one or two of the moneyers of Lincoln, with the blessing of the church, made a nice profit every year minting coins and forging weapons for less well-equipped lands to the east. Has Emma been planning, by any chance, to finance an invasion by Hardecanute?’
‘You know her,’ said Groa.
‘Then I think she has, and probably still is, if she can get the money together. Perhaps,’ said Earl Thorfinn thoughtfully, ‘we should accord Abbot Crinan a momen
t’s attention. On the one hand, he seems to have links with Denmark and with Emma, but he may have had to withdraw meantime from these. He does have connections, we know, with Emma’s Devon and with quite a few powerful families on the borders of Normandy and Brittany. Are Crinan’s interests banking, or trading, or usury?’
‘Lulach calls him Banquerius,’ Groa said.
‘Bailiff: treasurer: tax-collector. I suppose he is all of these,’ Sulien said. ‘I know he has connections with Germany, but so have a good many churches, including my own. If they don’t get shipwrecked in Scotland, you’ll find Celtic monks moving all over Lorraine and the Empire. One die-cutter can serve Cologne and Metz and Verdun and Laon and Mouzon and Toul.’
‘I knew about Cologne. I didn’t know there were Irish in the Toul bishopric,’ said Earl Thorfinn.
‘Run by Bruno le Bon, the Emperor’s cousin,’ Sulien said. ‘He’s also cousin to the Bishops of Metz and Verdun, and both of them have Irish monks, too. Bruno’s related to everybody. If Crinan starts using Dunkeld as a tool to get inside that network, he’d better watch out. He’ll get his fingers burnt.’
‘What do you mean?’ Groa said. She had never seen Sulien excited before.
‘I mean,’ said Sulien, ‘that, in most places, churches are the only buildings that have towers and strong walls and people who can read and count and make jewellery and money and organise food-producing and trade and be sure of protection and convenient hospitality wherever they travel with a regular basic income of contributions to do it all on. Therefore, the number and quality of a nation’s churches are coming to matter more than the number and quality of her great lords, because the churches are united under their spiritual leader more than the great lords are, under their king or their emperor. And that if the power of the Roman Emperor and the power of the Popes should continue to amount to the same thing, then it will be very hard to prevent the churches that don’t conform—the monastic settlements, the Celtic churches—from becoming like St Jacques and St Clement’s and St Vannes and St Symphorien, a colony enbalmed in the stomach of a bishop’s cathedral. On the other hand, if the churches don’t take a lead—’
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