‘But England and Wessex would never allow it,’ said Sulien. ‘Is Thorfinn afraid?’
There was a long silence. Then Eochaid said, ‘No. He is like a man riding a dolphin.’
They walked. Then Sulien said, ‘But you are afraid. Of what?’
‘Of fowl-pip,’ said Eochaid. ‘Or a bad harvest.’
Sulien stopped. ‘So he hasn’t given in,’ he said. ‘Even after all these years. Even after all you and I and the others could do. Even after Rome. You would think, if you didn’t know better, that Lulach was right: that he was the son of the Devil.’ He broke off.
‘He’s the son of Earl Sigurd,’ said Eochaid. ‘You’re talking about something I’ve never been told about, and I didn’t come here to find out. Tuathal knows more than I do. He heard Thorfinn answer the Pope’s questions in Rome. And, despite what he answered, Pope Leo gave him absolution. He walked barefoot to three shrines, and he returned shriven, and has done more for the church than any King of Alba before him. Nor could anyone know that he had reservations; that he didn’t feel as we all did, treading that ground. But …’
Sulien began walking, slowly, again. ‘No one can know, but they sense it. Is that what you are saying?’
Eochaid said, ‘It hardly matters. Even if he had brought his kingship pure and intact back from Rome and launched a holy crusade such as apostles dream of, two years is not enough to sew a kingdom together.
‘Moray and the north will always be his, and the rest would have joined them in time with no more than what he was offering: equal rule, equal justice, equal worship. But with the peace breaking, he had to bring in help. And now old churches are acquiring palisades and fortified towers faster than gospel-books, and new churches appear where a Norman baron sees the need for a fortress. The mormaers agree with his policy now. But they are not unshakable.’
‘And the young leaders?’ said Sulien. ‘The men who went to Rome?’
‘For them, Thorfinn can do no wrong,’ Eochaid said. ‘But will the people follow them? The conduct of the nation means nothing to those who live in clay huts. If Odin does not bring them peace and good harvests, then it is the duty of God and the King. If either fails, it is the fault of the King, since God is without blemish. A diverse people in time of hardship need a priest-king. The English know that. Edward is anointed with holy oil: he has the power of healing, they say; he loves his chaplains and worships daily, prostrate, where he can be seen. The Emperor submits to great fasts and to flagellation.’
‘While Thorfinn builds,’ Sulien said. ‘With nothing but common sense in the mortar, and a tongue that can adjust most problems and people to scale, and an arrogance that will not connive at pretence, even if pretence is of the essence of kingship. There is nothing I can do.’
‘Nothing?’ said Eochaid.
‘Even if Lulach did not exist, there is nothing I can do,’ Sulien said. ‘If you are wise, you will not even say we have met, for he would be troubled for your sake and mine, and he will be troubled by other things soon enough.’
‘We are in good heart,’ said Eochaid. ‘It may pass. We only need peace, and events may so turn that we receive it. He may ride his dolphin to shore. I have never yet seen him lose courage.’
‘He will do his utmost for you,’ Sulien said. ‘You can trust him for that. He will need you when he turns against Lulach.’
The breeze rattled Eochaid’s springing black hair over his ears and pulled at the ends of his lashes. He said, ‘I’m sorry. You said—’
‘I said what you thought I said,’ Sulien replied. ‘There will come a day, sooner or later, when he will not want to see Lulach. Lulach will understand. But Thorfinn will be at a crossroads he cannot leave without help.’
Eochaid said, ‘If he sent for you, would you come?’
Sulien said, ‘He will not send for me.’
Before the Christmas rinds had been thrown to the pigs, Osbern of Eu had gone, in one of Thorfinn’s remaining ships, and twenty men with him, in seas as ready to rob them of life as the war they were joining in Normandy.
For two months, while the fighting swayed back and forth overseas, Bishop Hrolf, released by the same storms from sentinel duty in the islands, took it upon himself to oversee the defences of the more vulnerable parts of the mainland. He asked everyone who had been to Denmark about the barracks at Trelleborg and Aggersborg and Fyrkat. He enquired about the uses of ancient hill-forts, and discoursed on the adaptation of antique buildings for military purposes—to wit, the Colosseum in Rome and the amphitheatre at Arles. He pointed out the aptness of Roman strategic sites for present-day purposes, exemplifying Cramond on the river Forth and Cargill by the river Tay. He had reason to believe, he said, that the Normans in Herefordshire had made good use of the Roman building-materials ready to hand, and there was no reason why others should not do the same. He walked all over Lyne picking up blocks of red sandstone ashlar and pointing out the old grooves and cramp-holes. He found the quarry they came from. He quoted, to the irritation of his more sensitive colleagues, an Irish poem on the subject of forts:
‘The fort over against the oak-wood
Once it was Bruidge’s, it was Cathal’s.
It was Aed’s, it was Ailill’s,
It was Conaing’s, it was Cuiline’s,
And it was Maelduin’s.
The fort remains after each in its turn
And the Kings asleep in the ground.’
There were times when men went and made confessions to Bishop Hrolf, to stop him talking about engineering. Finally, the only one listening to him was Thorfinn, who listened to everybody, usually while doing other things, disconcertingly, at the same time.
He had good reason, of course. Olaf of Norway was not the only sea-lord, veteran of countless shipboard battles and raids, to find a straightforward land-conflict beyond him. And if he required a tutor, Thorfinn could have found none better than the Normans, natives of a crowded, belligerent duchy full of strong young barons fighting for power.
Such was not the condition of Scotia, whose disparate regions, lacking the same resources and manpower, had begun to knit together under a King whose descent embraced them all. In recent years, all her wars had been frontier battles, fought round her coasts to repel raiders and oust alien settlements. Of a massive invasion such as England had suffered under Canute and his father from Denmark, or such as Duke William was resisting now from the King of France and Geoffrey of Anjou, Alba had no experience.
That the kindred of Osbern of Eu and the kindred of William fitzOsbern with their friends had succeeded in carrying Duke William to a resounding victory against the invasion of his combined enemies was therefore news of more than ordinary importance. It came in the spring, when men’s minds were occupied more with the new wave of cattle-fever than with wars far overseas.
To that, also, the King had given a great part of his attention, but when, late in the spring, word came of the sighting of ships from Normandy in the Clyde, he left his wife and household at Perth, where they had stayed a full week, and rode with a small retinue westwards to meet them.
He came back without warning, overriding his own harbingers and flashing through the opening gates and straight to the hall, heralded only by the flag streaming above him. The hall-door slammed.
Groa heard it, emerging from the dairy with her steward. Of the few men with Thorfinn, she had recognised Osbern of Eu and the Riveire boy, and the sallow face of Gillecrist of Strathclyde. As the rest of the retinue began to come, straggling, into the yard, Groa dismissed her steward and went to her rooms at the other end of the hall, where Anghared, Ferteth’s wife, was sewing stockings and talking to Eochaid’s sister Maire, who was teaching one of Sinna’s girls how to embroider.
They stopped talking when Groa entered, and she could feel their eyes on her back as she stood at the window, watching.
The yard was full of movement: of boys leading the incoming horses off to the stables, and bringing fresh ones. More men entered the hall
by its main door, and several times someone came out beckoning and stood on the steps, issuing orders. Three horsemen left, members of the armed household, and someone of greater consequence accompanied by three or four servants on garrons but no pack-mules. It could have been Tuathal.
Through it all, she could hear, as probably no one else could hear, the ground-bass of Thorfinn’s voice through the heavy timbers in the hall. Not raised, for that would be unheard of. But speaking shortly, as in the hunting-field.
She was not needed, so she did not interfere. A serving-man, sent to the kitchens, reported that they were already busy, having had their instructions, and in due course she and the women attending her ate where they were, in the chamber. By that time, many more men had arrived, swirling up through the yard to be sucked into the hall, as if it had become the quiet, humming centre of some whirlpool of power. The yard was still noisy with jangling harness and talk at dusk when the women had gone and the bracket-torches below the fiery sky to the west glowed like running water dyed red.
Much later, when it was dark and the yard was quieter at last, the door from the hall opened, and then her own, and Thorfinn came in.
The anger of his arrival was gone, beaten underfoot by hard work, like men treading cloth in a trough. There lingered perhaps an echo of grimness, and an echo of something else: an expression she had seen on the faces of men who have just loaded ship for a voyage. There were no overtones of distress, and none even of weariness, although she was a better judge of these things than most people.
She finished what she was doing, which was pouring wine, and carried a cup to him in silence, since any enquiry seemed pointless. He waited until she was seated, and then said, ‘Precautions, that’s all. King Edward has let young Malcolm go. He’s been sent north to Northumbria to join his uncle Siward.’
‘Why?’ said Groa.
‘Opinion varies. Duke William’s success? It looks as if he is going to hold Normandy. Also, there’s news from Quedlinburg through St Omer. Edward Atheling has a son, heir to the English throne if Edward dies. And Pope Leo is ill, and not expected to live.’
‘In prison? He’s dying in prison?’ said Groa.
‘No. He’s been freed by the Normans in return for full recognition of all their conquests to date in Italy. He wrote to Greece: I look forward to the day when by the Eastern and Western Emperors together, this enemy nation will be expelled from the church of Christ and Christianity will be avenged. But Constantine didn’t answer.’
‘All your work,’ said Groa. ‘All your work in Rome.’
‘Oh, there is always work,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Only the picture changes, and one’s work must change with it. We are not dealing with Emma. We are dealing with Earl Harold Godwinsson of Wessex, who has quite different ambitions.’
‘Including infanticide?’ said Groa. ‘Does Earl Harold know where Edmund Ironside’s new-born grandson is? Do you know?’
‘What you can be sure of,’ said Thorfinn, eluding the question, ‘is that the Pope and the Emperor Henry both know, and that one is dying while the other enjoys indifferent health and has only a three-year-old son to succeed him. If I were Harold of Wessex, which I’m glad I’m not, I should send a polite embassy soon, preferably under Bishop Ealdred, to extract the child before someone else has a better idea. As his guardian, Harold would have fifteen years before the boy became anything to be reckoned with. And it would encourage Duke William to forget any silly ideas about the succession that King Edward put into his head.’
Groa said, ‘If you were Harold of Wessex, I might get some direct answers. Why has he sent Duncan’s eldest son north, after he has been kept at court all these years? Isn’t Malcolm a rival for Siward’s earldom?’
‘Nearly everyone you can think of is a rival for Siward’s earldom,’ Thorfinn said. ‘But, without a faction behind him, he isn’t much danger, although I suppose he could combine in time with a cousin or two. An outbreak of strife in Northumbria would suit Harold very well, I imagine, especially if Siward got himself killed in the course of it. They could appoint English-trained Malcolm as Earl and steer him from Wessex. And if Malcolm got killed, they always have Donald. An inexhaustible supply of Duncanssons. What’s Maelmuire like? You’ve seen more of him than I have.’
She paused, collecting her thoughts and studying his face at the same time. It gave nothing away.
‘Religious,’ she said. ‘In spite of Cormac, whom he loves. Nineteen, with a big appetite and nice manners: Cormac again. Takes a long time to learn anything new, but perseveres. All his friends are younger than he is. He doesn’t like girls, but is fond of reading and has to be summoned by relays of hand-bells from his chief joy, the herb-garden.’
‘He doesn’t like single girls. What about you?’ Thorfinn said.
‘We are friends,’ Groa said. She searched his face again with her eyes. ‘The tact did not pass unnoticed. Why should this topic matter? You talked about everything else as you usually do. Why should I feel Maelmuire is important?’
‘I don’t know Duncan’s other sons,’ Thorfinn said. ‘That’s all. Stop trying to think. You’ll grow wrinkles.’
It was said with no expectation of diverting her, and she paid no attention accordingly. She said, ‘So the precautions are in case Siward decides to promote Malcolm as King in your place? Is that likely?’
‘No,’ said Thorfinn. ‘Or not very. We have, I admit, been less vulnerable in the past than we are now, but Northumbria alone could never expect to overrun Alba. And Siward knows that the moment he steps from his chair, a family friend will do his best to replace him. If Siward had been strong, Harold of Wessex would never have sent Malcolm to him. Harold wants Northumbria for the Godwin family, not an inflated Siward or a Scotia so weak that Norway could step in and settle there.’
‘But you are sending round to put everyone on his guard, just in case. In the spring, when they’re busy,’ said Groa.
‘It’ll take their minds off the cattle-fever,’ said Thorfinn. ‘Cease to concern yourself. My herb-garden, like Maelmuire’s, is being looked after by others. My sage will flourish without you: my pennyroyal and rue, my mint and poppy and southernwood, my parsley and radishes. Like Strabo’s gladioli and lilies and roses, I keep you for sweetness’ sake only.’
She smiled at him, accepting the love and the irony both, and allowed him to end the discussion.
So it was serious, whatever it was.
And, for the first time, he was not going to tell her.
He went to Kinrimund at the end of the month, on the heels of two silly clashes between troops from the new church-fortresses in Lothian and their opposite numbers in the property of St Cuthbert.
The results might have been worse: a number of cattle lost from one side to the other, some barns and carts burned, and half a dozen women held hostage and returned in other than mint condition.
Between feuding families, almost a normal occurrence. Among edgy garrisons, with military pride an ingredient, something to be squashed immediately. With Osbern of Eu and a group of his own leaders and their following, Thorfinn had visited the Lothians and made his views known to the offending bands with frightening precision.
That was when, without awaiting Rogation Week, the air over Alba became filled with the smell of split wood and turned earth and the dank odour of freshly laid mortar as men carried out the King’s orders and places of refuge and defence were repaired and strengthened from the west side of the kingdom to the east. From Glamis, her home for the moment, Groa moved about her concerns with the farm people and tried to ignore the rumble of wagons taking felled timber to the palisade, or men with pickaxes and shovels on their way to Dunsinane, where the old ring-fort below the watch-station had received new stone-and-earth walls, and shelters for folk as well as animals.
It was coming close to midsummer, and a time when every man had more than enough work on his own land; but Bishop Hrolf, rendered pentecostal amid the dusty glory of his chosen element, dispensed his
rota of tasks with a bone-clear, indisputable justice that only the hardier ever disputed, and then under plain fear of excommunication.
It was to Bishop Hrolf, indeed, arriving unexpectedly that evening with Prior Tuathal behind him and a string of riders as hot and soiled, though not as cheerful, as he looked himself, that Groa expressed her surprise.
‘Of course you are welcome. Breasal will show you where to go, and then you must come back to the hall. You will know: the King has left for Kinrimund. I thought he meant to take you both with him.’
Wood-flour clad the heated planes of Bishop Hrolf’s brow and cheeks and gloved the powerful crag of his nose save, endearingly, for the double fingermark where he had blown it. Tuathal, in a leather helmet borrowed from someone, had wiped his face, seamed with infilled pock-marks like a well-repaired amphora.
Bishop Hrolf said, ‘Ah, Kinrimund. Very wise. Enough is enough. No, my lady. The King is better advised to deal with this himself. A pity. For myself, a great pity. But no one can say Bishop Malduin has not received latitude. Every courtesy and consideration. But there are temporal rights as well as temporal privileges, and a kingdom must be ruled. Excuse me.’
Groa looked after the Bishop as he retreated. Prior Tuathal, also watching, remained at her side.
‘He’s embarrassed,’ said Tuathal. ‘After all, he and Bishop Jon were brought in because Malduin wasn’t doing his job. You know, probably, that Malduin wouldn’t have anything to do with the fortifications in Fife and the Lothians, and would only release his land-workers when under a direct order from my lord your husband.’
She knew. At Abernethy, when she had teased Bishop Malduin over his squirrel, the confusion of allegiance from which he was suffering had been very plain. He was Thorfinn’s first cousin, and his very revolt against his heritage had driven him into the arms of Siward and Durham. Now, with this new drive of Thorfinn’s, when the adherence and co-operation of every man was important, it was a matter that must be resolved, and seen to be so.
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