The event he had not thought of occurred in February, and news of it reached him ten days later in Monymusk, when the hospice was empty except for someone with a sprained knee, and the grass was already beginning to green a little over the death-mounds at Forth-side and by St Cathán’s and Scone and on the top of Dunsinane Hill.
The news that the bloody flux, as Bishop Hrolf had predicted, had broken out in the crowded war-camp in York and had spread over the wall.
The news that Earl Siward of Northumbria was dead; and Bishop Malduin of Alba with him.
The man who brought it came from a merchant’s family who had traded with Orkney back to Earl Sigurd’s day. Groa’s steward Breasal brought him straight to the hall, where the King and his mormaers were together. A moment later, Groa herself arrived and dropped to a stool beside Thorfinn, listening silently as he questioned the man.
Thorfinn saw her and knew she was thinking of Siward. A lout of a boy from the pagan household of Egge, posted between Norway and England during the dangerous wars of Olaf and Canute; son of one of the men who had struck down King Olaf, Siward had hewn out the blocks of his fate and built them himself into an earldom, with the descendant of bishop-princes and earls for a wife.
All that he had possessed and more was in his grasp. Yet he had not met the death Kalv had, or Groa’s father was preparing to meet, half blind in the bows of his warship. He had lifted himself at last, so it seemed, helpless and stinking and running with filth like an infant, and had them pack his legs with his breeches, and lower the weight of his chain-mail over his shoulders, and fit over his head the polished helm with the thick boar defiant on top.
Then, taking the weight of his shield in one hand and the haft of his gilded axe in the other, he had pulled himself to his full height and stood for a moment, before he hurtled into the great fall that would kill him.
For he was Siward of Northumbria, he said. And would not die like a cow in the straw.
He had left behind him one living infant, Waltheof. And Northumbria, open to the four winds.
Open to the kindred of the other four sisters of Siward’s wife: Orm and Ligulf and Forne and Alfgar, and Duncan’s older son Malcolm. To the sons of Maldred and Osulf their cousins. To the sons of Carl, even, whose sister had once married Northumbria.
And to Earl Harold of Wessex and his brother Tostig, who were not only cousins of King Svein of Denmark but, like King Svein, were nephews of Eric Hakonsson of Lade. Eric Hakonsson, who had been created Earl of Northumbria by King Canute his brother-in-law, and whose son had once, long ago, collected the Orkney tax from Thorkel Fóstri.
The Anglo-Saxon line then, against the Scandinavian, in the old, old rivalry for Northumbria.
‘Who will get it?’ said Tuathal.
‘Who can oppose Wessex?’ Thorfinn said.
‘Alfgar,’ said Groa.
‘He’s reckless enough, I grant you,’ said Bishop Hrolf. ‘But Leofric and Godiva are not. And when his father dies, Alfgar will have all Mercia so long as he keeps Harold’s favour. No. Not Alfgar, I’d say.’
‘Wessex has no other rival for wealth,’ Lulach said. In debate, he could lead, but never, one noticed, drew conclusions.
‘But would Northumbria accept Wessex?’ said Bishop Jon.
Morgund, who was sometimes shrewd, said, ‘Perhaps not, if all the Anglian rivals banded together. But would they?’
‘They might, for a short time,’ said Bishop Jon. ‘Unless Wessex were to provide against it. By appointing one of their number, perhaps, as vassal under Earl Harold. My lord, what do we know of your nephew Malcolm?’
Silence while they all looked at him.
What did he know of young Malcolm?
That he had lived in Dunkeld with his brothers, like a frightened cub in its bolt-hole, after his father King Duncan had died.
No shame to him: he had been ten years old. The flickering eyes and the animated tongue, asking for a bigger horse and a helmet. And not to have to eat seal-meat, like his barbarian uncle from Orkney, who had slaughtered his father.
Then, two years later, Malcolm had been hauled out of Dunkeld and planted in the York household of his other uncle, the Earl Siward, with a suddenness that must have been nearly as frightening. And from there, almost immediately, drawn by the smooth policies of the Lady Emma to some casual harbour at the English court, with a little land set aside somewhere to feed and clothe himself and his servants, and a court officer given the job, when he had time, to complete the training his father had never troubled to give.
Now he was a man of twenty-five, well grown and less than backward, still, with what he thought he should say to an uncle. Two years before, he had received, one must assume, the added support of his brother Donald, brought back from a different exile in Ireland by Earl Harold. And yet, never in all those years had he shown until now a flicker of spirit; the least trace of a desire, never mind an endeavour, to leave his modest shelter in the south and reclaim any part of the home he had once known.
Fosterlings accepted their fate in different ways, as did exiles and hostages. Between the three, the demarcation, it had to be said, was not always clear. There had been a great English monarch called Athelstan who had filled his house with high-born young men who were the seals he required for every alliance. Good or bad, all those he’d heard of had made their mark in some way on leaving their foster-father. King Athelstan’s nephew Louis d’Outremer had crossed the sea to make himself King of the Franks. The Breton Alain Barbetorte had landed at Dol with an army and flung out the Normans. Indulf the son of Constantine of Alba had returned to Alba and taken the throne, Hakon son of Harald Fairhair of Norway had gone back to Norway at fifteen and exiled his older brother.
It told you, perhaps, what Athelstan’s household had been like.
Until Earl Harold sent him to Siward, the oldest son of King Duncan had done nothing; nor had he been given a wife. Someone had thought less of his chances than the Emperor had thought of Edmund Ironside’s son. And yet, once put into the field, he had borne himself, they all said, like a man. Indeed, after St Cathán’s he had fought when he had no need to, attacking Dunsinane until he had worn out the company following him.
Thorfinn said, ‘Malcolm? I think he thought that other people would make his fortune for him, as they had arranged the rest of his life. I suppose he has only just realised that there is nothing for him in Wessex, and that the Northumbrians will only follow him if they see a promise of fresh lands in Alba. Make him Earl of Northumbria, and he would be dead in a week, from Osulf’s knife or Ligulf’s poison, and I’m sure Harold of Wessex knows it.
‘Alfgar is too powerful to appoint. None of the northern leaders other than Alfgar is strong enough to hold Northumbria on his own, and that includes Thor of Allerdale. Nor could even Harold do very much for a weak leader. I think he will put in someone from the house of Godwin. It would make sense. A barrier against myself and my more inconvenient alliances. And the assurance also that, come the spring, all the most belligerent blood in the north will be moving out of England and into the land in Alba and Lothian earmarked for them last summer by Siward.’
Groa said, ‘So Bishop Malduin’s death will make no difference? However small Malcolm’s following, or whether he is there or not, you think the new Earl of Northumbria will encourage the armies of last year to return in the spring and take possession? Leading them, perhaps, as Siward did?’
They had paid off the mercenaries, the messenger had said. Thorfinn said, ‘I don’t think anyone new to Northumbria would waste his own energy or that of an army in marching into Alba next month. I do think the new Earl, whoever he is, will encourage those who were promised land to go and take it. If Allerdale does the same, and if the young mormaer-families of Fife and of the late Bishop still follow Malcolm, they might contrive to fill Lothian and Fife after a fashion, with Angus further north left open between us. It is what I should do in their place. No confrontation is possible, with our numbers, and they might
not have very much more. We could harry one another, but with Angus between, it wouldn’t be very easy, or very profitable. They would need ships, but those they have.’
‘What you are saying,’ said Tuathal, ‘is that this may not be bad news. It lessens the risk of another invasion. It increases the chance of a peaceful occupation of most of Alba, perhaps as far as Scone but not very much further?’
‘It’s too early to say,’ Thorfinn said. ‘We can only hold open our minds, and our plans. There is another point. The Fife lands of Kinrimund are not hereditary to Bishop Malduin and his family. They belong to the Bishop of Alba. Lands usurped from me are my affair, and, so soon as I can, I propose to deal with it. But lands usurped from the church are the affair of the church. Any widow, stepson, half-brother, or protégé of the late Bishop Malduin my cousin who touches those lands will confront the full power of whatever authority consecrates the new Bishop of Alba.’
He had reminded them of intention. Malduin son of Gilla Odhrain, Bishop of Alba, appointed to be the glory of the Gaeidhil in this land, had been the son of Thorfinn’s father’s sister. Trained in Ireland from childhood, and then seduced by Durham and York, there had been nothing left, in the end, worth even hatred. He wished to remind them of that, too.
There was a pause. Then Lulach said cheerfully, ‘So there is a decision you churchmen will have to face before the year is very much older. Who is to be the next Bishop of Alba?’
Thorfinn looked at Bishop Hrolf, who looked at Bishop Jon, who inflated his entire face, section by section, round the broad elk-nose, pale with sequestration. ‘There seems,’ he said, ‘little doubt about that. We thought it prudent to take advice before now of our fellows. We have discussed it for some time with the King. I mentioned it myself to Archbishop Herimann, at the King’s suggestion. There is no question in the minds of any one of us. The next Bishop of Alba should be Prior Tuathal.’
He gazed at Tuathal’s blank face and then in turn, with a touch of anxiety, at the others. ‘The only pig of a question, now, is who should consecrate him?’
That was February. March came, and after the winter of death and prostration the land began to stir again, and the people. And every man’s eye looked to the south, from which, if they were lucky, the news would come; and if they were unlucky, the marching armies.
The plan made in the first weeks of Thorfinn’s convalescence had altered, but from the decision that was its pivot, nothing would shake hint. He would lose no more men.
At first, they did not believe him. Peasants and thralls clung to their land, no matter who took the lordship, and survived, unless the new lord wished to set an example or clear the land for some colony of his own.
There were some such settlements in Alba. But there were also hillsides and riverbanks filled with peoples who were all of one blood, and who would fight for their land with their peat-spades; with stones tied to firewood if need be. And for the leadership of a land to recoil from battle, as it seemed this King proposed to recoil, was to deny all the wars of their fathers, and their courage.
Ten years ago, thinking him ignorant, Thorfinn’s advisors might have said as much. This time, they listened to what he had to say.
‘We defended Lothian when we had a land full of men, and the Normans. Three armies invaded us, and we had no choice but to resist, or what you see in Fife and Lothian and the south part of Atholl would have occurred also in Angus and Moray. And we did not know then that Siward would leave.
‘You know what happened. You know how many died. You know how many are no longer active because of their wounds. It is what my lord Lulach and the Lady have spent all winter finding out. And you know how many men it takes to plough, to cut wood, to build, to launch a fishing-boat. I will not lose any more in battle. For, whether the battle is won or lost, Alba will die.’
‘So?’ had said Bishop Hrolf. ‘Next time, you make no stand? They overrun, if they wish, Angus and Moray as well, and you withdraw before them?’
Thorfinn had held that council at his bedside, and he had been very tired; but to Groa, who was there, it had been clear, for once, how much it mattered to him to have this understood and accepted.
He had said, The invaders got what they wanted. Booty. Revenge. Ravaged land lying open for them to take when the spring comes. There is no reason for them to want any more. It would be madness for Allerdale or for Northumbria to return and march north. There is no treasure left that they can be sure of. They could never drive cattle or take corn back from such a distance, and they must know that now I should bring back all my ships, and any built over the winter. None of them could settle in safety so far from home. And if they come too near the northern limits of Alba, they threaten the north, and the north is untouched and would descend on them. It has saved us this winter with its granaries and its storehouses, and it will do so again.’
She did not remember who had said, at the point, ‘My lord. I would rather see men of the north in Fife and Atholl and Lothian than men of Northumbria.’
She did not remember, because none of those close to Thorfinn would ever have said that again. But he had answered, if with less than total candour. ‘To the men of Bernicia, the southern part of Alba is the kind of land they are used to, and in Lothian the same language is spoken. But even among the men of Moray who fought beside us, there is little desire to move out of the lands that they know; and in Caithness it is not only a different tongue, it is a different habit of life. They would be more alien to the south of Alba than any enemy could be.’
The voice had said, ‘They accepted you. And the men you brought south. There is Celtic blood, I thought, in Caithness as well. And in Orkney.’
Whoever it was had no sense. And Thorfinn, for his own sake, was going to have to close the discussion. But he had only said, ‘Mormaer can speak to mormaer, but to bring down an army would be a different matter. It would in any case lead to little but a fresh arousal of war, and still without prospect of clearing the country. No. There is land here, in Mar and Moray, that has only to be cleared. The refugees who have been with us all winter can stay if they wish. Nor shall I stop anyone who wants to return south, even if the south is held by Northumbria, so long as they understand that they will have no security. But the land cannot begin to live again until the men are replaced. And the land cannot wait for our children to grow.’
It was Morgund, surprisingly, who had said, his face flushed, ‘So you would give over Alba to English vassaldom?’
‘No,’ had said the King. ‘I should allow Malcolm my nephew, if he wishes, to plant his standard at Scone and call himself, if he wishes, King of Alba. And then when I had the power, I should expel him.’
The noise round his bed had been like the clashing of cymbals, and she had seen him relax, in spite of the weariness, and knew that he had them convinced. What she did not know was whether he believed it.
So now the spring had come that was to determine their fate, and there was no threadbare army of Thorfinn’s poised south of the Forth or the Tay, under whoever was left of his leaders, waiting to confront whatever the new ruler of Northumbria should choose to send against them.
Nothing happened. A hesitant dwindling began to occur among the refugee communities in Mar and on the Angus border. Families, dragging a handcart or riding garrons and leading pack-mules, began circumspectly to drift southwards towards their former homes. The people of Angus, their loyalty still untried since Kineth their Mormaer had gone south and taken his following with him, let most of them through.
Those who did not emerge had been killed by Angus men for their goods as much as for anything else, it was believed. The rule, the achievement of all that golden time after Rome, was already dispersing, thought Groa with bitterness. Soon, without time or men to repair them, the roads and bridges would begin to give way also, that all through the winter had made possible the great accounting, the conveying of food and succour that the defeat had made necessary.
Only in peace was progres
s possible. The wars of Rognvald had robbed Thorfinn of the profit of the first half of his reign. And now the wars of Northumbria were destroying the fruits of all he had done in the interval.
In Thorfinn himself, there showed no such awareness: no least resentment over his fate, even when, at last, the reports began to come in from his watchers. Malcolm had entered the Lothians with intent, clearly, to settle. But this time, instead of Siward’s thousands, he brought only the exiles from Fife and from Angus with their weapons, followed by the wagon-trains of the new occupiers.
His scouts, also, it would appear, had been industrious in what they conveyed to their lord Malcolm. Your uncle is lying in Mar, sick or dying or discredited, with a broken and leaderless army. From Angus south, the land is yours if you want it.
‘So he will occupy Lothian, at least,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And then perhaps Fife, when he feels safer. He can still recoil if we move. But why none of Allerdale’s people? And why no word yet of Siward’s successor?’
Sometimes, after a long meeting, his weariness would show itself as now in impatience, but only when he was alone with her. Daily, his strength had come back. He could walk freely, although he was not yet on horseback, and could hold light things in his hands, and lift his arms, with care, nearly to shoulder-height. She had never seen whatever agonising work had gone into that. One day he could run on the oars of a galley and one day he could lift his arms: it was the same thing.
While the seas were still closed by storms, the absence of free communication with the south was his greatest hazard. With Cumbria lost and Northumbria an enemy, he had to rely on word brought him by spies, and the distance was too great for many to be successful. Later, when his ships could move, it would be different.
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