King Hereafter

by Dorothy Dunnett

  In the field, William had shown himself both brave and resourceful. Somehow he had survived the attempted assassinations, the palace revolutions of his childhood, and was beginning to gather about him men who were willing to gamble their fortune with his, as well as others who were still not committed, and yet others who might, before he grew any stronger, take any chance that presented itself to push their own claims.

  He was inventive, in his tactics, in his use of equipment. He was harsh: his brutality in the taking of Alenčon was such that the war against him collapsed and men’s lives, you might say, were thereby preserved in the end. Canute had done that, in his earliest days, when he mutilated the Saxon hostages confided to him. Then had entered upon a wise and just rule, marked by church endowments and by pilgrimage.

  As Thorfinn had done at the start of his reign, in Fife. And had followed the same pattern afterwards. It was a standard sequence of conquest, and not confined to pagans. Only that year, the Emperor had hanged Manichee heretics in Goslar, so Isleifr had told him.

  So there was much to admire in William, bastard son of Duke Robert of Normandy, whose ancestors and Thorfinn’s were the same. What Thorkel Fóstri wished he knew was whether Thorfinn admired the new Duke, or whether he felt as he, Thorkel Fóstri, had once felt and still sometimes did, looking on a younger, able, ambitious man with all his future before him. He wished he knew, because, sooner or later, for the sake of his country, Thorfinn was going to have to choose.

  Eventually, they talked themselves out; or at least the talk became overlaid by the preparations for the Christmas feast, only two weeks away, and those matters of business that had been laid aside for the Earl’s attention: the visits he had to make, and the people he had to see. Paul, at seventeen, had begun to take his share in the running of the islands under Otkel, and his father the Earl must be shown the results and discuss them; with Erlend, a silent eleven, listening avidly.

  There was the building on the island of Birsay to visit, with Bishop Jon to explain the niceties of the church and of the hall, both of which were roofed and full of carpenters attempting to produce a cathedral and a palace in time for the celebration of Yule.

  It would have been inconsiderate of the King and his wife to spare them their self-imposed task; to dismiss the sweating craftsmen to their homes to enjoy the feast-time in front of a longfire with their wives and children, or drinking with the Earl in his comfortable timber hall, well fired and warmly hung, on the opposite shore.

  It would have been inconsiderate, and the possibility was not discussed, although Groa, moving from hall to hall with her husband, took the chance to pack a few extra boxes with thick clothes and blankets, and spent a little time during her last call at Orphir studying the crucifix Bishop Jon had pinned over her bed and wondering whether or not it would be Christian to pray for a wind.

  Just a small wind; for a small wind was all that was needed to make the passage between the shore and the island of Birsay difficult for a large number of people. A wind large enough to make it certain that no Yule feast could be held, and small enough to allow the workmen and their womenfolk and the hall people who were over already to cross to the shore and spend Christmas with a clear conscience at home.…

  It was perhaps less a prayer than a wish, in its final form; but by the time the Queen went to bed that evening, it looked almost as if she had been heard.

  That day, Arnór Jarlaskáld had made one of his erratic descents upon Orkney, and the talk in the hall was worth listening to, as was the singing, but it was as well that the women should know when to leave. Preparing for bed in the new wing that was not now a new wing, after the fire that seemed so long ago, Groa heard the chorussing and the laughter, muffled through two walls, and smiled.

  In two hours or a little less, it would end, and Thorfinn would come in, a little drunk or more than a little drunk, as he could afford to be only in Caithness and Orkney, and so deliver himself, briefly, into her charge.

  God knew she did not want him lowered by doubt, or by pain, or by despair, as Lulach had once seemed to accuse her. But, now and then, she wanted to be at his side when his mind was still and there was nothing there but the sweetness within the forbidding exterior; and the love.

  She awoke to a door banging. All the doors of the hall and its adjoining chambers were fitted with strong latches, and were closed at night; to find one left loose was unusual. She lay, half asleep, listening to the blustering wind outside her shutters, and then, satisfied by the sound of steps somewhere outside, and the decisive snap as someone shut and latched the loose door, she went to sleep again.

  The next time she woke, it was to the slamming of the same door and the thud of two others further away. In her own room, the door was still latched, but was rattling, with a rhythm she could hear repeated outside in the strong, irregular fluster of a wind from the east, with the hiss of a roused sea behind it.

  The bed beside her was empty, but there were men in the yard: she could see a glimmer of light between the shutters and hear a flotsam of voices now and then, when the wind died.

  They would be securing the boats, and perhaps some of the stock, and looking to the hay and peat-stacks. Orkney lay on the track of the Atlantic winds: every bush in Orkney was wind-pruned; every hill was marked and terraced with wind-stripes. Everyone knew what to do. It lacked five days to Christmas, and it might be, with a good wind and a following swell, that they might not have to spend Christmas at Birsay. She went to sleep, smiling.

  The third and last time she was wakened that night, it was by the voice of her husband saying, ‘What it is to have a clear conscience. My Queen, there is a gale and a high tide coming together, and the general view is that the women and children might be better off up in the hill-houses.’

  She surveyed her husband. She had heard of storms great enough to flood some of the booths near to the shore, but never one that had thrown more than spray on the walls of the longhouses. The inland sea at her door might be seven miles across, but it was enclosed on three sides by islands.

  Beside her, the lamp suddenly rattled and she felt her hair lift. Behind Thorfinn, the door slammed shut with a force that made her bed jerk. He said, ‘Come.’ If he had drunk anything at all, it had left him.

  He had a lantern lit by the time she had dressed, wrapping herself last of all in the big, hooded cloak she had brought for Birsay. He said, ‘Have you a basket? Take your jewel-box. And these.’

  What he pulled out and flung on the bed were garments of his own: a thick jacket and breeches and boots. He said, ‘In a high wind, the cloak will pull you over. Now come.’

  At such times, you did not disobey Thorfinn or even talk to him. She saw the weight he had to exert to drag the door open. And that was an inner door. Then she was in the empty hall, with all the candles blown out and only some lamps guttering here and there. And finally Thorfinn laid hands on the outer door and began to move it, fraction by fraction, as if it were a gravestone, until she could force her way out. Literally force her way out against a baffle-wall of inimical air that leaned against her, pressing unevenly. It sucked out the air in her head and her lungs, and she twisted her head sharply, snatching breath from the folds of her cloak. Then she felt a hand on her elbow and the voice of Bishop Jon said, ‘I’ll take you.’

  Then she was battering her way at his side, thrown by her cloak, along the stout southern wall of the building and then hurled free round its corner and sent, propelled by the wind, at a staggering run up the hill that led inland, with Bishop Jon, in leggings and jacket as Thorfinn had been, with his arm locked in hers, acting as drag-anchor and lantern-bearer at once.

  She could not look round. But behind her she could hear, all over the bay, the scraps of men’s voices shouting, and the rumble of rollers as the ships were drawn up to safety, and the lowing and bleating of animals being driven uphill. Once, a dog squealed and went on squealing in pain, and a flying plank, grazing her shoulder, reminded her of what a high wind could do.


  They had nearly arrived at the first of the longhouses scattered over the hillside, belonging to the families who stayed in Orphir all the year round and cared for the land and the hall on behalf of the Earl. Bishop Jon said, ‘Sinna and some of your own women are there already. They will be glad of your company. And all the men, you understand, will be needed to make things secure. High tide is at seven in the morning. It will be dark, which is troublesome, but the wind hasn’t been blowing so long. It may spend itself before the next one.’

  He did not remember, perhaps, that she came from Trøndelagen and knew about the sea. Whether the storm blew itself out quickly or not, the seas it moved took longer to reach their height, and longer, too, to die away. The next high tide, twelve hours after this one, was the one they had to be afraid of. The vigil in the longhouses was going to last for a day, and perhaps for part of the next night at least.

  He took her to the biggest house, whose womenfolk she knew well. On the landward side, they had opened a shutter a little and she could see inside. It was packed with women, young and old, and with children. She could see Erlend, looking angry. She said, ‘Have you enough men?’

  He stopped, his back to the wind. ‘My lady,’ said Bishop Jon. ‘We have enough men for what is needed down there, but not enough to stand guard over the longhouses; not until after the tide. All of the houses are in good shape, and there should be no trouble. But if trouble comes, it’s able-bodied people with a head on their shoulders like yourself and your friends that will be needed.’

  At the door, she stopped for the last time. ‘It’s a south-east wind, isn’t it? What about Deerness and Copinsay and Sandwick? What about Sanday and Stronsay? And the Pentland Firth? Thurso?’

  ‘Do you think,’ said Bishop Jon, ‘that your husband and his forefathers have never seen storms before and don’t know what standing orders to give? He’s just taking precautions. Arnór will make a verse about it tomorrow.’

  Someone had made a pronouncement on it already. The Gods are never so dangerous as when they wake from sleep. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, because, whatever she said, he would have a patient answer. St Columba, too, had been nice to his importunate gardener. ‘Ah, beloved! ’Tis thou should be lord of this monastery!’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Groa. ‘We’ll be all right. Go and do what you can. And be careful.’

  Then as he turned away, she went to the door already opening for her.

  ‘I don’t see,’ said Paul, ‘why Erlend had to go to the houses. He’s strong. And he’s sensible.’

  It was the first time he had spoken to his father since the crisis began, although he had never lost him to sight, not for a moment. It was the first time that he had seen his father do anything but ride about and talk to people and sail boats and race and jump and swim and lay wagers at horse-fights on feast days and drink. He was good at sports, and he could handle a boat better than any of the other men’s fathers. But he never seemed to go to war, as other men’s fathers did. He never even settled a quarrel by fighting. He seemed to like the easy life down there in Alba, or feasting with Popes and with Emperors further south.

  People spoke of the great times when he fought sea-battles all over the Sudreyar and further south, in England and Ireland and Wales, but he, Paul, had not been there and didn’t remember them. He didn’t remember much of the fighting in Orkney, even, when the man they called Rognvald, who must have been his cousin, was killed.

  Men spoke of that as if it was a heroic thing, but it was Thorkel Fóstri, he found, who had done the actual killing, and his father wouldn’t speak about it at all.

  He was proud of his father, who was an earl and a king, but he wished his father stayed in Orkney all summer, as Otkel did, who had taken his son fighting once, when pirates tried to take over Foula. Because Earl Thorfinn wasn’t there to give permission, Otkel had not taken Paul with him, although Paul had begged. He had been fourteen years old. His father had been given Grágás at fourteen, and had gone with Thorkel Fóstri raiding the tribute-lands.

  Since then, his father had told both Thorkel and Otkel to take his son Paul with them whenever there was prospect of fighting, but there had never been anything worth speaking of, except an Icelandic trader who hadn’t paid his toll and had to be stopped in the Firth, or, once, a small flotilla of ships from Ireland that had fled when they saw them. He was well trained. He had had mock fights enough, and some of them pretty dirty. But he had not been able to show anyone, yet, that he was anything but what his father now was: a rich man who did what he liked because he was King and everyone was polite to him.

  It surprised him, therefore, that his father should be here, in the thick of the night and the storm, helping with the heavy, difficult work as well as directing it.

  With his height and arm-span, of course, his father had an advantage. When the horses, being bridled to lead them to safety, panicked and lashed out in the dark, threatening to do worse harm to the buildings than the wind would, it was his father who forced his way between them and dragged out the pair who were causing most trouble. When the roof of the cooking-stores threatened to blow off, it was his father who held a mat over it, wooden shingles spurting and whirling about him, until the thing could be bound down and weighted.

  They lost the spices. ‘Innocent of pepper as Paulinus’s cook,’ said his father cheerfully. ‘Most of it up my nose. Erlend? He’s too light on his feet. The wind would bowl him over. He’ll be a good man to help the women.’

  Which was satisfactory. Erlend, six years younger, needed someone to speak up for him, sometimes.

  His father’s face was bleeding a little, and there was more roofing coming down somewhere. A spray of trotter-bone pegs hit the ground and bounced into the darkness, followed by the crack and snap of thin flags flipping and breaking. A handful of what he thought was heather thatch caught him in the face, but it wasn’t: a corn-stack had been pushed over and some of the netting had burst. He ran to help and found that, instead of repairing it, men were thrusting what they could into carts, still under its netting.

  The carts rocked as they worked. As soon as they were taken from shelter, they began to slide on locked wheels over the yard, and then to tilt. The door came off a shed full of tools, and spades, even, were turning over and over; while a flock of rods kept for wattling thrust through the air, cruel as arrows.

  One of them put a man’s eye out. It was the first of the really bad injuries, and Paul saw it. He was looking at the man, screaming without being heard, blood coming from between his fingers, when Paul himself was attacked by something thin and cold and slippery that whipped round his neck and stayed there, tugging, as if it wanted to pull his head off.

  He put up his hands and found it was a long strand of seaweed. Lokki-lines, they called them, the older people. Seaweed torn from the beach, all that distance away. There had been shore-foam on the beach yesterday. The old people had a name for that as well. The Draug’s vomit, they called it. They said it meant death.

  ‘Got a new collar?’ his father yelled. ‘Look. There are some sacks over there that wouldn’t go into the barn. They’re well pinned down, but it would be a pity to lose them. Can you get some of them into the hall? And the stuff from that shed. The torf-skeri and shovels.’

  He disappeared and Paul, leaning on the wind, began work on the bags. They were full of wool. It was hard to hold them and pull the hall-door open, and every time he did it, the row of shields on the wall clapped about, booming like gongs, and the wind-path swept through the rushes grew broader. They had the malt-sacks in there already, he saw, and heaps of oars, nearly as high as the tapestry. The fire had roared itself out and the ash in the centre flushed up grey with each entry and lay over everything.

  Each time he went out, there was more seaweed flying about, and great handfuls of sand, slapping into your face or your clothes. One of the sacks was ripped from his arms as he struggled yet again with the hall-door, and the soft tufts of plucke
d wool, black and brown and light brown and milky, flowered into the air like a dandelion clock and were blown away just as quickly.

  His father’s voice roared, ‘Leave that! It’s time to go.’

  Paul looked round. There were still a lot of men about, and a few lanterns, so that you could see dimly. A knot of men came from the shore at a staggering run, carrying another who was crying. He could see men coming away now, too, from where the ships had been put: the first job, and the heaviest he had shared with his father. The noise from the shore was much greater: a familiar hiss and booming he had heard often before with a big tide on the make, but muffled now because of the deafening sound of the wind. He shouted, ‘When are you going?’

  ‘When the yard is clear,’ his father yelled back. ‘See you up on the hillside.’

  ‘I’ll wait,’ shouted Paul.

  He saw his father’s palm come up in acceptance, and then his father disappeared again, blundering forcefully into the wind, checking the groups of men coming inwards towards him. Paul could hear, intermittently, the resonance of his voice through the noise in the throat of the wind, and the roar from the shore that was becoming louder and louder.

  How close was the sea? As a good leader should, his father was making sure that no one was left in its path; that no man, taking a last wistful thought to a neglected fishing-boat or a skiff or a hoard of nets he had forgotten, should dash back and drown for his folly.

  But a tide could come quickly, and no one was there now on the rocks to watch it advancing.

  It came to Paul that he could watch it advancing from the roof of the hall. He knew the footholds. He had often helped with the thatching.

  He hurtled round the end of the building, into the cross-draughts and eddies of its sheltered side, and started to climb.