Father Eochaid smiled. Thorfinn said, ‘The name of Archbishop Herimann, though great in Cologne, is unknown in this country. We should prefer to keep it so.’
‘Ah,’ said Bishop Jon, and gave a great sigh of pleasure. ‘The particular deviousness of the Dublin man: that is what I missed the most, back there in Cologne. That is not to say that there is no intrigue in the Empire: far from it. But it is of very modest dimensions, much to do with simple forswearing and an access of assassination now and then. I knew,’ said Bishop Jon, ‘that, did I get to fathom you, I would find a place where a plumb-bob would fall in a twist.’
He studied Thorfinn, his jaw meeting his lips. ‘You’ll need a rest, come the winter.’
The dark face was unsurprised, ‘I’m taking one,’ Thorfinn said. ‘In Orkney. The mormaers here will have seen enough of me. I have an heir with a sixteenth birthday to celebrate. And the lendermen will require to see their new Bishop.’
‘You want me to come?’ said Bishop Jon.
‘Of course,’ said Thorfinn. ‘We have a cathedral to build.’
The winter came: a sparkling winter of pleasure; and Thorfinn was God without noise: in merriment but also in silence.
Instead of sailing, he rode north with his wife and Bishop Jon and their servants, gathering familiar faces as he went—Ghilander and Kineth, Gillocher and Morgund—to attend the baptismal feast of Lulach’s first son at Forres.
He knew from an earlier visit that the Shaveling of the Snow did not share its father’s brilliant hair, but was dun-coloured, like Finnghuala the white-shouldered, its mother. But Lulach regarded his son and his wife with the same untroubled affection he gave to all the world, and from the warmth of men’s looks in his hall, and the teasing of their wives, it was easy to see that he had found his place and was well able to fill it.
From there, the King took the north road again, sharing the company of Malpedar and Mael-Isu for a while, and then met in due time by Hlodver and by Odalric, each with his party of welcome at the boundary-stone of his region.
The change from autumn to winter came on the journey, when, to start with, the hillsides were clothed to the top with coloured tree-plumes, coarse-stitched with the black of the firs. Then, one morning they awoke to a powder of snow, white and grey and grey-white on the hill-shoulders, and later, high in the passes, looked up to mountains cloaked with grey conifers, stiff as winter fox fur on a robe.
There were no icy peaks, blue and white, like the spires by the Temple of Mercury, nor did the rivers boil at their sides, jade-green from the snow-caps of summer. As they reached the northernmost point of the mainland, the land became one of low, gentle contours, fostering the snow-thatched longhouses and cabins of small communities. Houses with the mud paths beaten round them to the spring and the close-house, the peat-stack, the barn and the byre and where, fitted into the wall, did you open a door, was a broody goose or a piglet, or a breathing heap of new pups, rump on paw, their slit-eyes fastened in slumber.
Because the cavalcade carried the raven banner, not the white one, it was recognised all the way, and people ran out to greet them, to ask questions, to make a complaint to Odalric and the King, who would listen and promise to make answer. If a woman brought new-laid eggs, Thorfinn would take and carry them himself, as he would knock on a door himself, on the rare occasions they sought water or news that was not to be had for the asking.
Then he would fold his great height down on a bench and talk and listen for a while, and, rising, would leave what he thought they would accept from the King who was still the Earl of Orkney. And then would bring Bishop Jon in to bless them.
Once, Groa thought to apologise to their new Bishop, fresh from the comforts of Cologne, for the slowness of the journey.
‘Ah, no,’ said Bishop Jon. ‘ ’Tis the missionary spirit. Thus were all the great saints, from Patrick onwards. The skills are the same, whether it is the kingdom of heaven or one of this earth that you are offering.’
Because it was late, the Pentland Firth was as stormy as she had ever seen it, but, like Thorfinn, Bishop Jon appeared to possess a stomach made like a wolf-trap.
Then they were home.
That night, Thorkel Fóstri gave a great feast for them in their own hall at Orphir, and the next night in Sandwick. Then, as each door was flung wide for the Earl, returned hallowed from Rome with his Bishop, the old friendships burst into flame and were renewed, and deepened, and new ones were born of the next generation. And with the little hills and the lochs, the turn of a road and the rise of a mound, the unrolling of a rocky inlet or the disrobing, new-bathed, of a shining quarter of sand, the familiarity made itself known that was as old as the understanding of hunger, and of the haze of light on the breast, and of the smiling face over it.
After two weeks of it, when there was no one they had not seen, Thorfinn rode out one morning and did not come back, either that night or the next.
Then, when, despite her knowledge of him, Groa worried, reports began to come in: he had been seen on the island of Sanday; he had borrowed a boat from a different beach and had set out to sail her from island to island, alone.
A week afterwards, he came back without explanation, as he had gone.
Once, after Rome, he had disappeared in the same way, but only for two days; and even those had caused a stir, as no doubt he had known.
Then, it had not been enough, and he must have realised that also. This time, a different person came back, blessed at a different altar, and hallowed by the power of the sea, and the salt air, and silence.
That night, he said, ‘I meant to tell you. The Emperor has his son. After three daughters, Agnes has borne him an heir.’
He had unpinned her hair and was letting it fall through his fingers. Groa said, ‘I thought you had noticed.’
His hands continued their slow task. ‘It is always the right time, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Groa. No child is worth another illness of yours. We have enough.’
She turned and, detaching his hands, held them in hers. ‘I did want you to have a last son,’ she said. ‘But I am barren.’
His eyes changed; he sat quite still, his hands clasped in hers. Then he said, ‘You are saying that I may love you when I wish and there will be no illness?’
She could not see his face through the haze. ‘So they say,’ Groa said.
‘What gift have you given me,’ he said, ‘that can compare with that?’
Soon after that, from their old hall on the shore opposite Birsay, they walked across the causeway to the island with Bishop Jon and their sons and half a hundred high-spirited friends with a great deal of advice to give, and inspected the low walls that were all that could be seen of the old Pictish chapel and its boundary-stones.
Bishop Jon was analytical.
‘Well, now,’ he said. ‘Thinking back to Sceilg Mhichil and Inishmurray and Inishbofin of the early Fathers in Ireland, what you have here is surely a site fit for a King of Companies, with a cooked, crisp pig in the meat pot, and a vessel of mead on the table, with its goblets beside it. Do you want my opinion in the Norse language?’
‘If I can understand it,’ Thorfinn said.
‘It will serve,’ said Bishop Jon shortly.
In the event, the church that was to be known as the cathedra, or bishop’s seat of Christ Church in Birsay, occupied a good deal of the King’s time that winter in Orkney. Arnór Jarlaskáld, arriving for a circumspect visit at Yule, found the evening talk round the longfire, of drainage gulleys and flag-setting and the cutting of sandstone, too technical for his liking, and asked the Lady, when he could get her away, about the broad, nimble Bishop with his spruce assembly of tongues that clacked their way through his speech, turn about like a weaving-shuttle.
Groa explained. ‘They’re rebuilding the church of the old Pictish monastery. And now they have the feel of it, they’ve decided to knock down part of Earl Sigurd’s hall and build a better one. With heating-flues, and a water-channel, and a bath-house outs
ide. Some of the houses are being rebuilt as well, and they are to repair the slipway. Bishop Jon,’ said Groa reflectively, ‘says that in the old days, to pay a builder to put up a wooden oratory with a stone church and round tower could cost thirty cows.’
Arnór, whose tongue had become sharper in his years in Norway and Iceland, said, ‘Thorfinn will have to decide whether he wants an engineer or a cowherd, it seems to me. Or, better than either, a land full of vassals who will sweat gold for him. It is well seen that churches come expensive. Should Isleifr come back with such plans for Skalholt when he goes to Bremen to fetch his bishopric, I doubt his fellows may not let him into Iceland.’
‘It may be,’ said Groa, whose tranquillity these days nothing could disturb, ‘that you should have talked to the Pope yourself, Arnór, about all these things. I am sure that, despite his expenses, you will find Thorfinn as open-handed as he used to be when you sing us your verses. I hear King Harald is a poet himself?’
‘You are wondering,’ Arnór said, ‘nor do I blame you, how a man like myself can stay with a King who dealt so harshly with your uncle Kalv Arnason and caused your father to desert, against his noble will, to King Svein of Denmark. It is hard,’ said Arnór. ‘But an artist has a responsibility to his art, as you will concede, and things are difficult enough, considering that King Harald will not even hear your father’s name spoken, although I’m glad to say he has nothing against those members of your family who elected to stay in Norway. You will have heard that Earl Siward of Northumbria is pressing for his daughter to marry your cousin John, son of Arne Arnason who fought for King Olaf?’
‘No,’ Groa said. ‘No, I hadn’t heard of it.’
‘It is well, then,’ said Arnór, ‘that two lines of the same blood should have a friend who can pass between them with news. You were asking about King Harald’s verse. I should not care to repeat it.’
‘Rats would fall dead from the roof. Is it so bad?’ said Thorfinn, coming in, fresh and cold from the rain.
Arnór jumped. ‘My lord. No. Not to say bad, for one whose trade is quite other. But—’
‘Then recite us some,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And then, to sweeten the after-taste, give us some of your own.’
And so, his jauntiness fully returned, Arnór recited.
‘Now I have caused the deaths
Of thirteen of my enemies;
I kill without compunction,
And remember all my killings.
Treason must be scotched
By fair means or foul
Before it overwhelms me:
Oak-trees grow from acorns.’
‘I suppose,’ Thorfinn said, ‘the Archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen must be quite thankful that King Harald is taking his spiritual business somewhere else. Now we want you to compose something suitable for Paul’s festival that the Bishop will also find to his taste. They are both across on the island should you want them.’
They were always across on the island. The seamaster’s ability in Thorfinn that had lent itself so readily to his early training in Dover and Exeter had found its way to his elder son, and that, together with the seawater of Orkney that ran in his blood, set him at the feet of Bishop Jon, who knew more of engineering than any of them. ‘Although,’ he would add, ‘you need Hrolf. Hrolf will teach your masons. Wait until Hrolf comes.’
In turn, Paul himself came under scrutiny, as became apparent when Yule was over with its joyous anarchy: its blend of haustblot and Christian festival that the new Bishop from Viking Dublin and from Cologne conducted without a mistake. Then, as the day of Paul’s manhood drew near, the Bishop said to Thorfinn, ‘You hold this feast in Orkney. This son, therefore, is not your heir for the whole kingdom?’
That week, they were in Orphir. What had happened once in Orphir the Bishop knew; or if he did not, could have guessed from the charred timber that showed sometimes among the new, when a chest was pulled from the wall.
He knew also of the other fire, on the mainland, that had made the Queen, Groa, a widow with a young son. The white-haired son Lulach, whose child he had baptised in Moray.
Thorfinn said, ‘My sons were reared in Orkney and Caithness, in the expectation that those were the lands they would rule. My stepson was brought up in Moray for the same reason.’
Bishop Jon sat down and inflated, as was his wont, the thinking cavities of his face. ‘But,’ he said, ‘you fell heir to Alba. They were still young. You must have made plans.’
Thorfinn lifted and brought across the yew gaming-board that would preserve them from interruption and sat down opposite, with the bag of pieces in his other hand. He tipped them out.
‘Orkney was my skin, and Alba my coat,’ he said. ‘I accepted Alba in tutelage. But until four years ago, I was contending for the earldom in Orkney. I secured my line here, for it needs a strong rule to hold it. And Lulach was the rightful heir of the Mormaer of Moray.’
‘I understood from your wife,’ Bishop Jon said, ‘that you were the rightful heir. Findlaech your stepfather was the Mormaer, she said. But never mind. It is your move. So the future of the rest of Alba did not matter? Or not until four years ago?’
Thorfinn made his move. ‘Four years ago, I governed a collection of tribes,’ he said. ‘I thought perhaps it could be done in my lifetime. I thought one could expect no more than that, and not even that if war came.’
Bishop Jon picked up a piece. ‘But now,’ he said, ‘you look like having a kingdom. And if it is not to break up when you die, the people must be able to look to the future. The King of England is childless, and the contention is pulling his kingdom apart. You have sons.’
‘You are winning. What was the stake?’ Thorfinn said. In his turn, he picked up another piece and put it on the board. He said, ‘After me, there must be a strong Earl of Orkney. It cannot be held from the south. Paul is a man, and has been reared for the task. He knows little of the world outside Orkney, and wants to know less. And the people know he is theirs.’
‘So Paul stays. And Erlend?’ said Bishop Jon.
‘A boy of nine, who worships his older brother, and speaks mainly Norse. I planned that they should rule the north together,’ Thorfinn said. ‘If I were given ten years of life, and brought him south now, the people might come to accept him. You have won that piece also.’
‘But they accept Lulach now,’ the Bishop said. ‘He has Gaelic and some Norse; he holds Moray now and is popular; he is known in the south both for himself and as your stepson, and he shares what your people are coming to feel for you and for your lady wife. What I am saying, and what you must also have recognised, is that Lulach your stepson is your natural heir for Alba, and perhaps for all Scotia as well. Why not, then, announce it? Your sons of Orkney will not surely be hurt? Your wife surely does not object?’
‘She knows,’ Thorfinn said. ‘So does Lulach himself. Be satisfied. Your church will continue. You have won the game.’
‘So I have,’ said Bishop Jon. He looked down. ‘Did we decide what we were playing for?’
‘Time?’ said Thorfinn. At which Bishop Jon laughed. For although he would have preferred a little more candour, he supposed, from Thorfinn’s viewpoint, that it was quite an amusing remark.
* * *
‘It sounds,’ said Groa later, like one of your less successful conversations. I hope you paid him for winning, in something you could afford.’
‘It was unavoidable,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Although it wasn’t particularly pleasant.’
‘I thought you were rather pleased with him,’ Groa said.
‘I was. I am. Always remembering that, but for the Emperor and Archbishop Herimann, the amiable Jon would not be here at all. They are bound to want to know who the next King of England will be, and therefore whom we are supporting. And what I do in Cumbria will tell them that.’
‘But Alfgar advised against sending Erlend to Cumbria,’ Groa said. ‘You remember. He doesn’t get on with Thor of Allerdale.’
‘What Alfgar suggest
ed,’ Thorfinn said, ‘was that we send Erlend to him for the rest of his fostering. Or to his parents Godiva and Leofric. It’s the same area. Erlend will use the same languages. If the south-west of Scotia were to fall to him, he would know as much as Duncan ever did about it.’
Groa said, ‘Alfgar’s wife and Siward’s wife are sisters.’
‘And so are or were the wives of Duncan, Ligulf, and Orm. I haven’t forgotten,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Perhaps, after all, our intentions will appear less than blatant. You can rely on Godiva to see that nothing happens to Erlend. And to be parted from Paul won’t be a bad thing for either. For one thing, Paul must marry soon.’
‘Must he?’ said Groa. ‘Whom would you elect to have a grandson in Orkney?’
She saw him consider the point, and concede it.
‘I can’t imagine. An elegiac poet with very poor connections, possibly? So we mustn’t marry off Paul. Did I ever mention,’ said Thorfinn, ‘how much I dislike having my conjugal rights interfered with by your unfeminine taste for debate?’
The circumstances of the discussion, as it happened, had arrived at a condition that robbed his words not only of sting but of any relevant content whatever.
‘No,’ said Groa, with difficulty. ‘But if you will start all over again, I could try another approach that might please you.’
THIRTEEN
HE GOLDEN MONTHS continued to pass.
This time, when the King moved from Orkney, other men from the north journeyed to Atholl and Moray and Fife in his company, for now they had acquaintances there, and prospects of business, for the isolation of the north had been broken.
With them also travelled the King’s younger son Erlend, on his way to Mercia. He was conducted not by the King or his mother, which would have made of the journey an act of state, but by Odalric of Caithness, whose family had reared him for two years already.
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