‘Families who need to hunt, to fish, to tend the fields and the flocks, to go a-viking to please their overlord can’t spare sons to enter the priesthood. How many priests do you think that you have, when the whole country can be served by an ambling bishop consecrated in Durham or York, with a comfortable living somewhere else?’
Thorfinn stretched out his legs and gazed at him. ‘Would we fare very much better if we had seven bishops as Brittany has, and each of them the tool of some duke or other? In any case, I thought all our ills were to be cured by the Servants of God. Or have they stopped arriving?’
‘You have seen them,’ said Sulien. With an effort, he dropped and steadied his voice. ‘Every group of Culdees lives like the next: a quiet life of prayer and isolation led by a group of old men under a prior. They are a well for spiritual refreshment. They are not the stuff with which to bind a people together and protect it from its enemies.’
‘Without the Culdees,’ Lulach said, ‘where would a king die?’
Thorfinn looked at his stepson and did not answer.
Sulien said, ‘Yes. You are right. Where does a king go when he wishes to lay down his sceptre, and the kindred are waiting to seize it? There is nowhere but a house of God. Of course, if you have the health for it, and the gold, you can go to Rome, as Eachmarcach’s uncle did, and live out your life in a hostel.’
‘There was a King of Alba went to Rome,’ Lulach said. ‘One cold winter, the ink froze at Fulda. There was a king of Alba who murdered his uncle and married his uncle’s widow.’
As before, Thorfinn did not speak.
Sulien said gently, ‘I didn’t know that. Was it the same king?’
‘I thought it was,’ Lulach said. ‘There was a king who got a child on the miller’s daughter of Forteviot.’
‘The same king?’ Sulien said. His face, watching the boy’s, was full of pity.
‘His name was Henry,’ Lulach said. ‘How would I know what kind of miller it was? Stepfather, if everyone becomes a Culdee when he grows old, won’t they all become earls and kings?’
‘What a very good question,’ Thorfinn said. He looked at Sulien. ‘Well. Go on. If you don’t want to make too much of the Culdees, what other spiritual means do we have to bind our indifferent peoples together? A brotherhood of the little saints? We have quite an assortment. Finnian and Machar and Torannan, Moluag and Triduana, Madan and Fergus and Ethernais, all with their cells and their chapels in strategic strong-points.
‘There are dangers, of course. One could hardly make much of St Cuthbert without disturbing Duncan’s monopoly, and he would be uneasy, I am sure, if we encroached on St Ninian and St Kentigern. What about our more promising alliances? Would Brittany’s St Serf and St Gobrien lock hands with ours over the seas? Would Cornwall allow our St Drostan to nod to their Drostan son of King Cunomor, and Juhel de Fougères remind us of his sister’s husband Triscandus? Would your St Brieuc and theirs remember his holy places in Alba? What about the other soul-friends of my new friends the Welsh? St Cewydd and St Tudwal and the others you are longing to tell me about? Come,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I have read your lecture for you. Don’t leave me to end it as well. You must have some new thoughts to offer.’
The boy said, ‘I am going,’ and went.
‘He has sense,’ Sulien said. He was white. He said, ‘You know it all. You know it better than I do, when you trouble to give it a thought. I can’t forgive you for that.’
‘So you have come to tell me you are leaving,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Or so I would gather, since I appear to have been given my penance.’
‘Yes, I am leaving,’ Sulien said. ‘I have to study in Ireland. You knew that.’ He paused. Thorfinn had not moved, but leaned back with his legs stretched, looking at him.
‘Am I supposed to beg you to stay?’ Thorfinn said.
Sulien’s face coloured again, and then paled. He said, ‘It is my fault. I spoke so that you heard a priest, not a friend. I have done nothing for you.’
‘Then at least we are not in one another’s debt,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Lulach will miss you.’
‘Thorfinn,’ Sulien said. ‘Thorfinn.… you know what he is.’
‘Yes,’ said Thorfinn.
Sulien could hear the harshness in his own voice. He said, ‘He has the name of a ghost. Luloecen the Fool. Luloecen of the Threefold Prophecy.’
Thorfinn stamped his feet and stood up. ‘I know. I have told you,’ he said.
They stood facing one another. And then Sulien knew.
‘He has told you what is to come?’
‘Long ago,’ Thorfinn replied. ‘Long ago, while you were exploring rocks and picking off hermits. A dhùdan fhéin an ceann gach fòid: its own dust at the end of every peat. We all have troubles.’
The silence lay heavy between them. ‘Send for your wife,’ Sulien said at last. ‘Send for your wife, even though she offends you. If I ask you, will you do that?’
‘The proverb,’ Thorfinn said, ‘says nothing about adding a second peat, far less a creelful. Tell me when you wish to leave and I shall load a ship for you. It is the least I can do.’
Sulien left; and did not know that Thorfinn did not at once go about the business of settling in, but stood in the empty hall, his eyes on the door he had left by.
When he spoke, it was to himself, and still in Gaelic.
‘There is a girl in the house who surpasses the women of Ireland, with red flowing hair.… She is beautiful, and skilled in many crafts. The heart of every man breaks with longing and love for her.…’
He broke off. ‘And so,’ he said, ‘you do not offer her dust, do you, Lulach?’
NINETEEN
O THE SURPRISE of all and the disappointment of many, Sulien of Llanbadarn left, and unbridled licence failed to break out. Only Thorkel Fóstri refused to recognise the phenomenon, observing tartly that if it had, no one would have noticed the difference. Starkad and Arnór and the rest, who knew better, grinned at him as they always did, and went back to where Thorfinn was planning the next summer’s sailing.
Despite Sulien’s warnings, Dubhdaleithe son of Maelmuire was allowed to follow the desire of his heart and, leaving his abbey of Deer, to settle with a group of disciples on a piece of ground by St Cormac’s chapel on the shores of the Dornoch Firth, an inlet of the sea north of Moray. His brother Aedh was given temporary charge of Deer and of Buchan, and word sent to the Lady of Moray to that effect.
The Lady of Moray, in the absence of interference from the Mormaer of Moray, continued to move about her province, calling on her bailiffs and advisors, with whom she was now on excellent terms. In the course of four months, two family groups found themselves elevated to direct service under the Mormaer, and two further districts received the doubtful blessing of a steward from the north, for whom a new lodging had to be built. In time, Groa visited these as well, and on the whole approved her husband’s choice. In return, the new stewards failed signally to tell her what her husband’s private instructions to them had been.
Before the end of the year, despite all Thorfinn’s planning, Eachmarcach got himself thrown out of Dublin by his cousin Ivar son of Harald and arrived at Canisbay half a stone lighter and with no more than two battered longships and their complement. He stayed for a month, during which Thorfinn and he shouted at each other every night for eight days, and Eachmarcach began to eat again. At the end of a month, Guthorm Gunnhildarson called, apparently by chance, and he and Eachmarcach went off to Eachmarcach’s nephew on the Isle of Man until the summer sailing could begin.
In the spring, Sulien wrote a stiff note from Moville, Ireland, in which he mentioned he had met a young monk called Maelbrighde, whom he did not like. He hoped, he said, that Thorfinn and Lulach were enjoying one another’s company.
The message came with a trading-ship bringing three dozen Frankish mail shirts, on Thorfinn’s order. The shipmaster, who had also called at Tiree, said there was interesting news of a battle in Wales in which the King of Gwynedd had died
and the throne been taken by Thorfinn’s recent ally Gruffydd ap Llywelyn. In the course of the fighting, a brother of Earl Leofric of Mercia had got himself killed, and after the battle King Gruffydd’s victorious army had lost their heads and destroyed Llanbadarn.
To the relieved delight of the hird, unbridled licence for once made its appearance that night, interrupted but not restrained by the arrival of Rognvald, Thorfinn’s nephew. Rognvald, waiting patiently until he judged Thorfinn able to understand what he was saying, reported that Duncan, King of Alba, had just made the rounds of Moray with three hundred men, living in guest-quarters and consuming his tribute, as was his right of choice, instead of having it delivered. He had stayed a week with the Lady of Moray at Brodie.
They were in Thorfinn’s hall-house at Sannick at the time, above the sandy sweep of the bay under the headland. Thorfinn, his hair wet because he had just stuck it into a barrel, said, ‘How do you know all this?’
The dimple showed. Rognvald with the passing of years had only grown, at twenty-eight, more ethereal. ‘I was visiting Groa,’ he said. ‘Your wife. I had found a pair of gerfalcons I knew she would like.’
‘Gerfalcons from where?’ said Thorfinn evenly. He looked, Rognvald noted, as if the founts of energy were less prodigal than once they had been.
Rognvald conveyed astonishment. ‘From Brims Ness,’ he said. ‘I suppose you don’t grudge your wife a couple of birds now and then. I knew it hadn’t occurred to you that she’d like them.’
‘And?’ said Thorfinn.
‘And what?’ said Rognvald. ‘After Eadulf’s visitation, anyone could guess that your dear brother was going to be a little short of provender for his courtmen this year, and you were going to be the provider. I must say, however, he doesn’t share your admirable restraint in the marriage-couch. If I hadn’t been there, I don’t know how your wife might have fared. You know, of course, that his own died of milk-fever. He is in the market-place.’
‘Indeed. Do you think anyone will pick him?’ Thorfinn said.
Rognvald laughed. ‘Next time you say that, loosen your knuckles. He did say that I was to tell you that he was sending to ask Finn Arnason for his daughter in marriage, since you seemed to have voided the bargain. He also said,’ said Rognvald, picking up a cloth from the floor and wiping, gracefully, the puddled ale from the board between himself and his uncle, ‘that he wished to have a little talk with you about the tribute from Caithness. He’s a simple fellow, isn’t he?’ said Rognvald, putting the cloth fastidiously down on the floor again. ‘But I think perhaps you will have to give the matter some thought, if you want to keep Moray. Perhaps you don’t.’
‘Not if I’m going to lose all my gerfalcons,’ Thorfinn said.
Rognvald waited. When nothing happened, he said, ‘I suppose you know how much Duncan hates you.’
‘Does he? On the other hand,’ Thorfinn said, ‘the Lord of Ossory is dying, I’m told, so that none of his Irish friends will be too anxious to leave home just at present, and of course Duncan’s wife’s uncle has just relieved him of half his strength on the border. If I were you, I shouldn’t take it all too much to heart. Groa probably liked it.’
‘Dear Christ,’ said Rognvald simply. ‘What offence are you waiting for, that you will swallow whatever this silly man offers you?’
‘The one he comes and offers me out of his own hand and mouth and not other people’s,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Have you ever climbed that stack out in the sea there? We were just making a wager on it.’
The golden hair shone and the eyes sparkled. ‘No. But I’ll wager I’m faster than you are,’ Rognvald said; and a moment later they were down on the strand with twenty others and pushing off two of the skiffs.
A Salmundarson got his shield on top first, with Thorfinn just behind him, and no one hurt except a kinsman of Isleifr’s who broke his leg in three places and never walked the same way again except on an incline.
They agreed that it was good to have Rognvald back.
Later, the extraordinary gales arrived, and swept cows off the headlands into the sea, and broke down sacred trees, and bowled wicker huts like birds’ nests from end to end of the plough-rigs. At the autumn’s end, Thorfinn came back from his sailing with two shredded sails in Grágás and three others dismasted; but in spite of it he had visited Eachmarcach in Man and cleared the sea for him, as well as re-establishing his victualling and repair bases in Cumbria and Galloway, and reminding Diarmaid son of the Cow-Chief whose land it was. His third cousin Thor, whom he happened to meet in the course of it, was glad to pass the time of day with him, and he even had occasion to pick up a little carrying-trade which gave him a profit on a brief trip to Exeter.
On the way home, he stopped off at the Dee estuary and sent a longboat up to Chester with a silk cloak for the Lady of Mercia, as a result of which her son Alfgar came out himself to bring him back to the hall.
In the boat, they talked business. In the hall, Thorfinn walked over to the Earl of Mercia and said, ‘I came to tell you and your wife that the killing of your brother was by no desire of mine. I needed Gruffydd the year before and I may need him again, but not against you.’
‘I am glad you told me,’ Leofric said. ‘But Alfgar here is your strongest advocate. We understand policy, and the need to adapt it. You are running the same risk as my brother.… Do you have news from the south?’
‘Only what you have,’ Thorfinn said. ‘The Lady Emma has sent to Denmark, and her son there is gathering ships and an army. He may take them to Bruges, but won’t attack England, they think, till the spring.’
He paused. His hair had been barbered, Godiva saw, for this journey, and in spite of the hard sailing, he was well and expensively dressed. He said, ‘You probably know that the Hungarians have got rid of their latest king, Peter. He’s escaped to Conrad’s son, the new Emperor of the Romans. Whether with or without the royal Saxons, the sons of Edmund Ironside he was supposed to be harbouring, isn’t known.’
‘But I’m sure you’ll find out,’ Alfgar said. ‘Your exquisite kinsman of Orkney must surely have heard them talked of in Russia—not that I would expect you to discuss anything as prosaic with that princeling about. Duncan can speak of nothing but your nephew since he came back from Moray.’
‘I heard,’ Thorfinn said, ‘that he had been sizing up the situation.’
‘Are you surprised? My lord Duncan didn’t like one of you sitting on his grandfather’s north coast, and he likes two of you still less, especially now Magnús is growing a beard over there in Orkney. You know Duncan’s wife died?’
‘And I know the implications,’ Thorfinn said.
Godiva said, ‘Forgive us if we don’t go into the implications. Have you had a message from Sulien?’
His face gave nothing away, but she knew she had been understood. ‘There is nothing I can say,’ he said.
‘Come and eat, then,’ said Alfgar. ‘Did you hear about Llanbadarn?’
After a bitter winter, the King of England, Harold Harefoot, died at Oxford in March, aged twenty-four.
The news came to Bruges, where the Lady Emma waited in exile, with her son Hardecanute and sixty hired ships and an army. On its heels came the Bishop of London, to tell Canute’s widow that her stepson Harold was dead, and to offer the crown of England to her son by Canute, Hardecanute of Denmark.
Emma’s three years of exile were finished. In June, she returned to her household in Winchester, and her favourite son was crowned King of England. His first act was to have his half-brother dug up, his head cut off, and his body flung in the Thames.
Although hard to follow, it set the tone for the next half a dozen. Hardecanute announced a massive new tax imposition, and appointed as his regent in Denmark his young cousin Svein, son of the late Canute’s sister Estrith or Margaret.
Svein, who had already decided he was wasted in Sweden, accepted humbly, and all over England the earls sat up and took notice, while Magnús of Norway sent King Hardecanute his congratulat
ions and asked warmly after his health.
Groa, moving from Turriff to Deeside with her five-year-old son and her household, was overtaken and stopped by a fast-riding group of men led by Skeggi, whom she knew but did not approve of. With no preamble, he instructed the Lady of Moray to turn round her troop and accompany him forthwith to the community of St Cormac by Tain.
While excellent in his day at running across rows of oarlooms, Skeggi was less practised at handling young matrons.
‘Lulach!’ said Groa. ‘What has happened? Something has happened to—’
‘Not at all,’ said Skeggi crossly. ‘What could happen to Lulach? You’ve to go and join him, that’s all. Earl Thorfinn’s orders.’
It had been raining. Her garron shook its mane, and horse-smelling spray covered her face. ‘My lord Thorfinn would like us in Tain? I wonder why?’ Groa said. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Sigurd’s cheek bulging where Sinna had fed a cake into it.
‘I don’t know,’ Skeggi said. ‘It’s taken us two days to find you. Where’s your man, and I’ll give him his orders?
‘Never mind,’ Groa said. ‘I’m sure you are as tired as we are with riding. Come to the next lodging with us and tell me about it.’
Skeggi said, ‘I’ve told you about it. Unless I get you back soon, he’ll have my skin for windows.’
‘And if you don’t come with me, so shall I,’ Groa said. ‘Which is it to be?’
She had thirty men with her, to his eight. Her steward, trotting back to them now at her signal, was not a man he knew well. Skeggi rode to meet him and stopped him in the road. ‘I’ve to take her up to Ross. Thorfinn says. She won’t go.’
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