The right answer, of course. But a grasp of diplomacy did not guarantee an easy life, or a comfortable one. The Archbishop threw the apple away, frowning, and his brother dropped back. Bishop John said, ‘The King has been baptised. My information is that he plans to use both secular and spiritual help, with a bias so far to the Celtic church.’
‘Thorfinn?’ said the Archbishop. He stopped, and so did everyone else. They formed a neat circle. He said, ‘Hardly a civilised name.’
Bishop John said, ‘His baptismal name is Macbeth. He has just had his elder son renamed Paul.’
Paul. The Archbishop raised his eyes to the wide, cloudy sky. Next to St Stephen, it was no secret that Paul was his own preferred saint. One had to remember, however, St Paulinus of York, and even St Paul Aurelian of the Batz Islands. He said, ‘Why has he named his son Paul?’
‘My lord, I do not know,’ said Bishop John. ‘Except that it was through a Paul Hěn, I believe, that the ancient saint Serf or Servanus performed his ministrations in Orkney. The missions bringing the first Christian witness to Orkney are, happily, of the deepest interest to this King. Already, relics have passed between two shrines to St Serf: one in Alba, and one near Aleth, in Brittany. Other apostles of the Orkney Isles are to be favoured: St Brendan of Culross and St Kentigern of Culross, Wales, and Glasgow, on whom the King has commissioned a history.’
Bishop John hesitated, and the Archbishop waited. Bishop John said, ‘You will recall, my lord, that St David of Wales was closely connected with Léon in Brittany, and was himself brought up by Paulinus, the pupil of St Germanus, to whom there is a chapel in Cornwall.’ He paused again. ‘That is what I meant when I said the King was displaying an interest in the Celtic church.’
Archbishop Adalbert gazed at the Irishman, his expression kind. The Irishman turned red and looked at the other bishops, all of whom were gazing elsewhere. The Archbishop said, ‘I must give you the benefit of the doubt. You do understand what you have been saying?’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Bishop John. ‘That is, I hope so. I think so.’
‘It was for the sake of my health, in that case,’ said the Archbishop, ‘that you wasted ten minutes in wandering chatter while withholding the sole cogent item? I seek to add lustre to God’s shrine in Bremen. Now you tell me of a monstrous, an unequivocal move to unite the primitive church in those places where, so far, the hand of Rome, the hand of Cluny, the hand of Canterbury or of Bremen, has stretched but has not yet been taken?’
His voice calmed. ‘You do understand what is happening in Brittany?’
‘My lord, yes,’ said Bishop John. ‘But this alliance may be no more than temporary. To acknowledge Rome, the King must acknowledge England or Norway.’
The Archbishop walked forward and the circle opened, quickly, as it always did. Because his gaze had brushed the doors of his palace, these, too, now stood ajar, waiting. He said, ‘I have no difficulty in comprehending the position. You said, however, that Norway was friendly?’
‘A surface peace,’ said Bishop John, ‘I greatly fear. Also, there are rumours that King Magnús’s health is not good. Should he expire, his uncle King Harald would make a formidable enemy for an Earl of Orkney who was also King of Alba.’
‘Then it seems to me,’ said Archbishop Adalbert, ‘that the first step this church should take is to remove that fear. Norway and Alba shall be led, as free peoples, to worship side by side at the same precious altar. Two letters.’
The bishops kept silent. ‘From the Pope?’ said his brother Dedo.
The Pope was in Pesaro, dying and writing rambling letters—my soul-friend, my sister, my wife and my dove—to the stone face of his sweet church of Bamberg. The Archbishop knew Suidger through and through from his Halberstadt days: well enough to push him into the papal chair he himself didn’t want. To the end, Suidger had rained privileges on him, with letters styling him vos. Suidger wouldn’t write the sort of letter he wanted written now. Nor, perhaps, would the Emperor. But neither of them would know about it until it was done.
The writing-clerk had come, with his boy and the materials. Indoors, the Archbishop sent the company away, including Bishop John, and seated himself on his down cushion and had some apples brought. He chose one, conscious of the impeccable taste that had led him to buy its impeccable platter, and bit into it while he thought of his letter. When he began to dictate, it was without any hesitation at all:
Adalbert, Archbishop, servant of the servants of God, to Harald, King of the Norwegians, greetings and benediction …
Afterwards, he walked to his window and stood for a long time, considering the walls of his magnificent half-built basilica on its little eminence above the distant, gentle flow of the Weser.
Svein of Denmark. William the Bastard in Normandy. The Emperor Henry and his namesake, the monarch of France. The young, ambitious men now growing up and seizing office in Brittany and Anjou, in Wessex and Mercia in England. Macbeth, the King of Alba and Orkney; Harald of Norway, the former war-lord of Byzantium.
Suddenly, Europe was full of young princes, standing, looking at one another.
It would be a pity if, among those who toiled in God’s vineyard, some profit was not to be had from it all.
The day before the wedding, Finn Arnason sat on his favourite bench outside the door of his fine hall at Austrat and called to his daughter’s husband Thorfinn.
‘So! What do you think now of Harald, King of the Norwegians? Do you suppose that Archbishop Adalbert intended this when he set out to meddle between you?’
‘Of course,’ said his daughter’s husband placidly, from his shady seat opposite. ‘Why else turn down the papal tiara? When the forthcoming war has destroyed Byzantium, Russia, and Norway, whom will you discern in the dust but Archbishop Adalbert, the new Eastern Patriarch? … What, as a matter of interest, has King Harald done with his first wife while preparing to marry an Arnmødling?’
‘Sent her back to Russia, if he’s wise,’ said Finn Arnason, and grinned broadly at the blur under the leaves.
An extraordinary man, as Groa had said: tall as a mast, with this cavernous voice. Sixteen years she had been married, and since he was twelve years old Thorfinn had been to Norway only once.
Finn said, ‘It will break Kalv’s heart to miss seeing his other niece marry a king. But King Harald hasn’t forgiven him, any more than Magnus did before he died. And at least, things being as they are, it is safe for you to visit Norway at last. And that, I take it, was part of the Archbishop’s purpose.’
‘Well,’ Thorfinn said, ‘I hope your niece Thora bears no grudges for the way it has been achieved. Does she mind being made second wife?’
‘Thora?’ said Finn’s wife from the doorway, her arms full of pressed linen. ‘To get away from Giske and her Erlingsson uncles, she would marry a soap-boiler, far less a man whose gold would tax twelve men to carry it. Did you see the robe King Harald sent to Sunnmøre, and the jewels? Besides,’ said Bergljot, retreating into the house and addressing her daughter Groa, whose arms were full of garments also, ‘the Russian wife has only two daughters, and if anyone will make sons, it is Thora, who is not my idea of a womanly woman. There. That is the last of it. The girls have done all the rest. I tell you, I should not care to dress this family for a royal wedding every day. Sit down and talk to me. You are happy?’
Over the years, the Lady of Orkney and Alba had exchanged messages with her parents in Norway, and twice in recent times Finn or Bergljot had managed to cross the German ocean to see her, but not her husband, for friendship with Thorfinn was too dangerous. So Groa already knew that her mother’s fair hair had faded, and that the fine skin was marked just a little, and that her tread had more weight. She knew that her father’s pale blue eyes, so like those of Kalv his brother, saw you clearly when you stood close at hand, and hardly at all at a distance.
She had forgotten, though, through the long years getting used to Thorfinn, how serious they both were. She said, ‘Yes. Very happy.
’ She glanced through the sunlit square of the door and beyond to Thorfinn’s solemn face. Of its own accord, her mouth smiled.
Her mother said, ‘He looks well, your husband. He has recovered?’
‘Of course. It was more than a year ago,’ Groa said. One did not want to go into all that. Rognvald’s funeral at Papay Minni; the hunting down of his men at Kirkwall. The day she found Thorfinn gone and realised he had set sail for Norway to confront King Magnús and force him to pardon him.
He had come back from that with his life—just. And when Magnús had died, it seemed possible that the whole trouble would flare up again, now that Harald was fully King. A rich and powerful war-lord, and ambitious. And cruel, people said.
And now had come this summons. King Harald proposed to take to wife her cousin Thora, and his great-niece the Lady of Alba and Thorfinn her husband were both warmly bidden to the marriage-feast.
Homage for Orkney had not been mentioned, but she well knew that it would arise before the visit was over, and that Thorfinn, accepting, had made his dispositions, which so far appeared to possess only negative qualities. He had brought two longships only, and a retinue such as would not disgrace a king on a visit of state but would pose no threat to his host-country either. He had brought Lulach but not the two heirs to Orkney. He had brought her, without the guards that might have been expected, for, after all, the King was to marry an Arnmødling, and to harm an Arnmødling would rouse the whole of Trøndelagen against their new King.
Her mother said, ‘He is well, and you are happy, but you have no more sons?’
Groa brought her gaze back. ‘I thought I told you,’ she said. ‘We lost two.’
Her mother said, ‘Children are lost every day. That does not make you barren. I shall send a woman to you.’
‘I have seen women,’ said Groa. ‘And men. If you think it will help, of course I shall see whom you like. Otherwise, there is no need to concern yourself. It is better sometimes that there should not be too many royal children.’
‘You quote your husband,’ said Bergljot. ‘And you? You are content to have only three men to follow you, and no more than two of them whole?’ She noticed Lulach then, in the corner, and flushed, for she was not an unkind woman.
Groa smiled at her son, who smiled back. ‘Lulach doesn’t mind,’ Groa said. ‘He says he would sooner have a saint for a nephew than a king for a brother.’
‘A nephew?’ said her mother. ‘It is his stepbrother, it seems to me, who has been given the name of a saint. Why let your husband change the good name of Sigurd to Paul? There are none of that name in our family.’
‘Nor in his,’ Groa said. ‘But if he thinks it is wise, then I have no objection. To change from Ingibjorg to Margaret caused me no trouble. I forgot to tell you: Kalv sends you his love.’
‘Kalv!’ said her mother. ‘That fool! But he saved your husband’s life, I am told, in the fight against Rognvald. I expect he did the right thing. Magnús might have invited Kalv back, but I don’t think he would have lived long at Egge. And now he is a great man in the Western Isles?’
‘He is rich enough,’ Groa said. ‘He controls all the Sudreyar and collects tribute, and goes sailing with Thorfinn and with Guthorm and with Eachmar-cach of Dublin when the pirates come raiding.… You know Eachmarcach is King of Dublin again? It doesn’t stop Kalv complaining.’
‘When Kalv stops complaining, he will be dead,’ Bergljot said. ‘And what, I wonder, will King Harald make of your husband tomorrow? As you know, Halfdan my father was a tall man. But I have never set eyes on a man to equal Harald in stature before. I doubt if the King my uncle is used to a man he cannot look down on.’
Outside, the men were rising, and Groa got up, too, signing Lulach towards her. ‘Then tomorrow,’ Groa said, ‘should provide a useful experience, should it not, for both of them?’
The wedding between King Harald of Norway and Thorberg Arnason’s daughter was marked by a feast in the royal hall at Nidarós that lasted three days and three nights.
True, that of the King’s other wife Ellisif had gone on for a month, but the Greek style of worship was different, and the Grand Duke Jaroslav had in any case two other daughters whose gifts he wished to impress upon bystanders.
In the course of it, as predicted, the King of Norway and the King of Alba met for the first time face to face and discovered that, unique for each, their eye-level was the same.
‘Ah,’ said the King of Norway, standing before the High Seat in Magnús’s old timber hall by St Olaf’s. ‘The Earl of Orkney, I believe. Had your nephew killed you, I was going to marry my great-niece your widow.’
‘Indeed,’ said Thorfinn, ‘I expected it.’ He bowed to the bride, a thickset, freckled girl covered with jewels, who smiled broadly in return. ‘In fact,’ said Thorfinn, ‘your great-niece my wife was studying Russian until the very last moment. I have brought a trifle for you both as a memento of … Orkney. We are honoured to be under your roof.’
That was all, for others were waiting. Afterwards, Thora and her mother Ragnhild got to the storehouse where the gifts were guarded and found Thorfinn’s chest and had it unshackled.
Inside was a woven gold headdress, and a silk over-robe of many different colours, embroidered with pearls. Ragnhild said, ‘We must show this to Harald at once.’
‘No! I shall wear it!’ said Thora. ‘Today the silk robe from my husband, and tomorrow the gift of my cousin’s husband of Orkney.’
‘Are you a fool?’ said her mother. ‘Have you listened to nothing I told you? He is the King of Alba, not merely the Orkney husband of your cousin, and this is sent to remind you. Harald’s silk robe was Greek. This is from Cathay. Harald’s jewels were set by Byzantine craftsmen. This headdress is Saracen. Such a gift brings with it a message. I have gold. I have a fleet. I have rich friends on the Continent. We must show this to Harald at once.’
‘Then may I wear it?’ said Thora.
Her mother gazed at her. ‘He will either rip it to tatters,’ she observed, ‘or he will have you wear it at once. Perhaps you can influence him one way or another, if it means so much to you. You are his wife. If you don’t listen to me, still instinct must count for something.’
Then the contests began.
Seated with the rest round the wide, grassy space beside the half-finished church, Groa said to her husband, ‘The dress Thora is wearing. Isn’t that the one you gave her yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ said Thorfinn.
Since Rognvald, things were different with him. Groa waited, and then said, ‘You thought she might not put it on. It means that Harald has taken no offence?’
‘It means,’ Thorfinn said, ‘either that your cousin Thora surprised him last night, or that I am going to have to fight my way through half these contests.’
Then the horse-battle came to an end and a shadow stood over them, belonging to a man of King Harald’s sent to suggest that the Kings should try the first throw in the wrestling-match.
Thorfinn stood up, and Groa jumped to her feet.
‘She didn’t surprise him,’ she said. ‘Shall I go and sit by her?’
Thorfinn surveyed her. ‘I shall fight for my throne,’ he said, ‘if I must. But pay for it with the customs of my marriage-bed I cannot yet bring myself to do. If you give her any news that will make Harald’s pleasures one iota stronger or sweeter, I shall divorce you and buy in four concubines.’
Finn Arnason, waiting for her to sit down again, wondered why his daughter was laughing so much, and then wished she were closer, for he thought, before she lifted her hand to her cheek, that he saw the glitter of tears on it.
The wrestling was the first of the contests between the two Kings. Challenged or challenger, each of them fought in every competition that followed, on that afternoon and the next, and men said that, in all the time kings had been married or buried in their day, Trøndelagen had never seen anything like it.
Because it was sport and not war, the trials were reasonabl
y short and the weapons were reasonably blunted. It did not prevent men being hurt, or even being killed, but it helped one family take its prejudices out on another without being called to law for it, and it made men merry, and it beggared some and made others rich men for life with the wagers.
The Kings were not immune. At the end of the first day, after exercise with spear and axe and sword, with horse and with bow, Thorfinn’s dark skin, when he pulled off his tunic, was suffused with weals and bloody contusions, and the King of Norway, smeared with unguents by his loving bride, alarmed her by lying back on the mattress and smiling in quite a new way from between the long flaxen moustaches that lay with his beard on the blond, matted fur of his chest.
‘Tonight,’ said King Harald, ‘I am tired; and you will do all the work.’
By that time, it was already clear that, physically, the two Kings were equally matched. And the following day, although they still took part in all the games that took place, it was apparent that no dramatic conquest was about to take place and neither King was going to help his reputation one way or another by continuing. Then, after the feast, King Harald challenged the King of Alba, in public, to a game at the tables, with dice.
It had been a long banquet, and the women had already been given leave to retire, including, at length, the bride Thora, who today had displayed all the lethargy that men had come to admire in a consort of Harald’s. Groa said, ‘Shall I stay?’
‘No,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And take your father away.’
She smiled, her hand hard on his shoulder. ‘What are you gambling for?’
‘Nothing small, you may be sure,’ Thorfinn said. The tone of his voice said something, and she answered it with her hand and smiled again, leaving.
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