To Lie with Lions

by Dorothy Dunnett

  ‘You will hear it. The smoke will darken. There will be a smell of sulphur perhaps. It can happen quickly, or it can delay for some days. But long before the explosion, you will be travelling west. All those who live in the plains are preparing to round up their beasts and do the same. My family too. I have just come from there. We can be with them in an hour, if we hurry; and travel together to Skálholt by dark. Come. Come.’

  ‘And Sigfús?’ said Kathi. ‘Did you find him?’

  Glímu-Sveinn looked at her. He said, ‘He is dead. I followed his tracks to the farm, but the farm was no longer there. The shaking had brought down the snow, and a landslide of boulders beneath it. The wreckage was strewn all down the hill, and there was nothing of the farmer and Sigfús but a bloodstained shoe and some rags. I left them. I had to find my own home.’

  If Sigfús dies because of the Flemings, I will kill them. Glímu-Sveinn had meant it. But Fate had buried Sigfús in the end and, faced with the danger to his own house and his duty – to his credit – to his travellers, Glímu-Sveinn had not wasted time on a search. Whoever lived at his home – elderly parents, sisters, infants – needed him more.

  Nicholas said, ‘We are grateful that you came back, and for your offer to help us. I have only one thing to ask, very quickly. Does one mountain unsettle another? Are you afraid only of Hekla?’

  ‘Hekla is nearest.’ The Icelander paused. ‘It has been known. Hvallavellir disturbed can rouse Hekla.’

  ‘And Katla?’ Nicholas said.

  ‘It is not impossible. But it is a nightmare I for one will not contemplate.’

  ‘No. Take us to your house,’ Nicholas said. ‘And on the way, if you can, take us past the place where Sigfús was killed. We should speak of it to his widow, if we meet her.’

  Sersanders’s expression changed, and he opened his mouth. Before he could mention the cub, Nicholas said, ‘But of course we must hurry. Lead on.’

  During the journey, they spoke very little, each of them braced for what might be going to happen. The soft ground beyond the geysirs was difficult, and the ponies jibbed at the ropes which held them together instead of the dog, left behind to herd Glímu-Sveinn’s animals. The ferryman’s hut, when they reached it, was empty, and the river itself seemed to have tilted, with shallows where there had been none before, and deeper currents racing like horses. The water was saddle-deep in such places, and the ponies paddled like crabs, before scrambling up the steep opposite bank. Even the roar of the upper creek and the falls seemed thinner and lighter.

  After that, oddly, the wind came once again, whistling and whining from a different direction and erratic in force. It stripped the snow from the ground and hurled it into their faces in long stinging swathes, stopping their breath. Before them, the layers of lava displayed arching streamers of snow, coldly bridal. Despite the chill and the buffeting it restored, for a while, a sense of healthy normality; even the clamour of it was welcome. Then the wind dropped as abruptly as it had risen, and the veils cleared to show them the glaciers again, and the rough whitened ground, and Hekla, with a brown column of smoke puffing into the sunless air. Near at hand lay a vast black escarpment, its lower slopes burdened with snow. Glímu-Sveinn said, ‘There was the farm.’

  Kathi made to ride forward, but the Icelander stopped her. ‘The snow is soft. We do not know how deep it is. It is best not to go near.’

  ‘Let me try,’ Nicholas said, and dismounted. Immediately, Sersanders slid off his horse.

  Benecke said, ‘We should hurry.’ In his voice was more than impatience.

  Kathi said, ‘Yes, Anselm. Come.’

  ‘I must just –’ Sersanders said. He began walking forward. He hadn’t even taken a pole. Nicholas watched him, his hand at his throat.

  ‘Well stop him!’ said Kathi, with exasperation.

  Glímu-Sveinn had begun to urge his pony forward. Nicholas said, ‘No. Give me a pole and some rope.’

  ‘Why?’ said Benecke.

  ‘I’ve found it!’ shrieked Sersanders suddenly. They could see him up to his knees in soft snow, attempting to dig something out with his hands. As he spoke, he half sank out of sight and hauled himself out again. Then he started tugging again.

  Nicholas began walking towards him very slowly. Behind him, Benecke was using his one useful arm to detain Kathi. Benecke said, projecting his voice, ‘If you pull anything out, you could dislodge all the snow piled above you.’

  ‘What?’ said Sersanders. His face, red in the whiteness, was beaming. ‘It’s the bear! Unblemished pelt! Come and help me!’

  His voice echoed. Nicholas listened, and swore. Once this had happened to him, in the Alps. Correction: he had made it happen. This time, the hapless Sersanders yelled, and a rumble answered him from over his head. Nicholas uncoiled his rope and hurled one end as far as he could towards Sersanders who, staring up, noticed and caught it. He had wrapped it once round his wrist when the avalanche fell.

  It pulled Nicholas with it. He felt the drag on his arm as Sersanders was tossed down the slope far ahead of him, and then himself lost control of the rope under a shower of angular rubble. He lay, mildly concussed and empty-handed until the movement and noise died away, and then threw off the snow on his shoulders and lifted himself cautiously up to look round. Behind, Benecke was still holding Kathi but the Icelander, gripping rope, was on all fours and crawling forward. He was carrying two planks of wood.

  Nicholas said, ‘Throw them. I’ll find him.’ He didn’t have to speak very loudly.

  Glímu-Sveinn said, ‘What is that?’

  The knot was sodden: Nicholas had to drag off one glove, and pull the thing over his head. Then he let the stone hang, without answering. The vast, heavy silence had fallen again. It made it easier to concentrate, and also more difficult. The pendulum started to swing. Nicholas said, ‘He is over there. Give me a board. Follow me if you like.’ Behind him, he heard Kathi’s low voice, talking to Benecke. He followed the pendulum. His hand was so numb that he felt none of the cord’s violent friction. He was confident of success. The avalanche had been brief, and Sersanders had been braked by the rope and couldn’t be deeply buried. They had to find him quickly, that was all.

  Skilled at moving over the snow, Glímu-Sveinn led, and Nicholas followed, articulating directions. The pendulum had no doubts about where it was going. At the place where its swing was most violent, Glímu-Sveinn carefully pushed down his pole, and met resistance. Together he and Nicholas dug, and Adorne’s nephew was there, half stifled and shocked, and with an ankle-bone snapped, but alive.

  Returned to his horse, wrapped in wadmol, he sat with chattering teeth while Nicholas faced Glímu-Sveinn. ‘What was that?’ said the Icelander. The man from Danzig, mounted again, was gazing thoughtfully at them both, while Kathi bent over her brother, padding and binding his ankle. Nicholas could not see her expression.

  Nicholas said, ‘It was a pendulum. It’s often used overseas to find water. Sometimes it can find people too.’

  ‘Anyone can do it?’ the Icelander asked.

  ‘If they have the knack. Glímu-Sveinn, there is someone else under the snow.’

  Kathi looked up. ‘Bodies,’ the Icelander said.

  ‘No. Someone living. It could be the farmer, or Sigfús. But it would take longer to find him.’

  ‘Why?’ said Benecke.

  ‘I knew Sersanders,’ Nicholas said. He turned to Glímu-Sveinn. ‘How near is your home? Could you take the others there, and come back for me?’

  The pale blue eyes stared at his. ‘There is nothing there. This young man needs attention. We must go.’

  ‘There is something there,’ Nicholas said. ‘Someone. A man.’

  Kathi said, ‘It is not the bear, Glímu-Sveinn. Nikolás-riddari has a gift. He can find people.’

  ‘And nails?’ said Paúel Benecke. ‘Is that how you did the trick with the nails? A magician, forsooth.’

  Nicholas could think of nothing to say. There was blood in his hair and his f
ace stung, but he hardly felt it. His head felt swimmingly empty and his chest, by contrast, unpleasantly tight. He said, ‘If we leave it, it will be too late.’ He spoke directly to Glímu-Sveinn, with a sort of irritated anger which increased as he found the man was looking away. Then he saw, to the right, a mounted figure approaching them: a white-bearded man who was hailing them in Icelandic. Glímu-Sveinn called back, and turned.

  ‘My father’s brother, come to tell me to hurry. This is what you will do. You and he will look for this person. I will take the rest to my house and return. If you have not found him, you leave. Hekla is smoking.’

  ‘It isn’t Hekla,’ Nicholas said. He felt he had said it before, and was annoyed at having to repeat it.

  Benecke made a remark. ‘You said the danger was in the south, as we were coming here. Isn’t that Hekla?’

  ‘No,’ said Nicholas. ‘Further south. I think it is Katla.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Benecke said, after a pause. ‘One would have to think of our ships.’

  ‘I am thinking of them,’ Nicholas said. ‘I am not going with you. After we get out this man, I go south.’

  ‘Without a guide?’ Benecke said.

  ‘I shall find one. You see,’ Nicholas said, ‘they are expecting the explosion from Hekla. They will have to be warned.’

  ‘And if you are wrong?’

  ‘Then that will be best of all,’ Nicholas said.

  They must have gone, after that, for he found himself alone in the snow with Glímu-Sveinn’s uncle, who immediately launched into angry abuse. Then the old man crawled about hawking and spitting, and complaining at everything Nicholas did. But like his nephew, he was a master of locomotion over treacherous ground, and accepted directions, although he cackled with temper when the directions proved wrong, as they often did. Then suddenly the sense of Sigfús came flooding in, as had never happened before with someone he didn’t know, and the pendulum span higher and higher, and Nicholas pointed and spoke.

  The old man got there before him, but even when both of them dug, there was nothing to see, and he had to keep urging the old man to continue. Then his numbed fingers stubbed against something that could have been a rock or a board or a box, but proved to be a sleeping man’s head, with a half-melted cavity around it. From the drinker’s nose, Nicholas would have guessed it was Sigfús, even without the old man’s surprised croak. They pummelled him like a piece of blue steak all the time they were digging him out, and wrapped him in everything they could find, and started a fire with a door and a section of table. And all the time the old man was perfectly silent, although he still spat now and then.

  When they heard the hooves coming back, there was only one hour left of the day, and the brown smoke of Hekla had merged into the violet-blue of the night. Nicholas had expected Glímu-Sveinn. With him were Kathi and Benecke.

  Glímu-Sveinn said, ‘You found him.’

  The uncle, roused, launched into a mucilaginous monologue. Nicholas let him rant. He felt physically beaten, as might be expected after his recent experience. He felt the sickening lethargy that came with the pendulum. It had almost felled him in Venice, when he had used this power to hunt down his son. This jealous power.

  He knew, beyond doubt, that he had been right about Katla. And his ship was there, a few miles off shore, unaware and waiting for him. A pony tossed its head with a chime of its bridle and he received the image, at once, of a bowl, and a carob seed tapping and tapping. Nostradamus had also been right.

  Glímu-Sveinn was speaking. Glímu-Sveinn was saying, ‘The junfrú has said this has happened before. You are a sorcerer.’

  Nicholas got to his feet. It was an effort. He said, ‘My magic is white. My ship carries a priest.’

  There was a silence. Then Glímu-Sveinn said, ‘Your spirit tells you that the furnace of Katla is about to burst through her ice? You know how terrible this will be?’

  ‘Help me to warn them,’ Nicholas said.

  Glímu-Sveinn said, ‘The Markarfljót valley will flood with torrents of ice. Scalding water will rush through the rivers, molten rock through the fields. All that lives in the sandur will be swept out to sea, and the parboiled bodies of fish and of men will toss through the arks of their houses. Any ships within reach will be swamped.’

  ‘Help me get there in time,’ Nicholas said, ‘and my ship can save people.’

  ‘And mine,’ Benecke said. ‘I am coming. So is Katelijne. Sersanders would be with us, but for his injury. He will be taken care of by Glímu-Sveinn’s people; they and Sigfús will see that no harm comes to him now. Are you not proud of us, selfless as we are?’

  ‘Yes. We need a guide,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘I will come,’ said Glímu-Sveinn. ‘My uncle will see to the household.’ He looked defiant and uneasy at once. The rest of his family were fishing from Markarfljót. Because a buried man had been found, he was placing his trust in another man’s instincts.

  It hurt to smile. Nicholas smiled and said, ‘Let us guide each other. Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Lead me to your bliss.’

  Chapter 28

  DURING THE DAYS of his absence, the caravel of Nicholas de Fleury rocked in the harbour of the Westmann Islands and received, with its fish, those ounces of information which contrived, despite everything, to travel from Hafnarfjördur and Skálholt. As first one day passed, then a second, Father Moriz prevailed upon Crackbene to invite on board Stanislas the lodesman of the Pruss Maiden, and share the news with him.

  From Nicholas and Paúel themselves, they knew of the Unicorn’s insolent expedition, and of Sersanders’s intention to rejoin his own ship with his sister at Hafnarfjördur. They knew Nicholas and Paúel had set out to pursue them.

  By the second day after their departure, they were receiving further snippets. Faster than anyone expected, the Unicorn had picked up its sulphur and gone, allowing barely enough time for Adorne’s nephew and niece to have joined it.

  Later, one of the yoles arrived and delivered a message. Tryggvi and his son had returned, those Icelanders who had escorted Sersanders. Because of a shortage of horses, Sersanders and his sister had been unable to ride on from Skálholt and had thus missed their ship. So far as Tryggvi knew, the pair were at Skálholt still.

  ‘In the custody of Nicholas and Benecke, by now,’ le Grant said. ‘I’d like to have seen Sersanders’s face when they arrived.’

  ‘It cannot be easy for his sister,’ said Father Moriz. ‘How strange that Tryggvi was dismissed. And that there should have been no suitable horses.’

  ‘And that Martin should turn round so quickly. Still,’ said Crackbene. ‘Now de Fleury will bring the young people back. They will start a choir on the way, I shouldn’t wonder.’

  John le Grant grunted. He said, ‘You’ve just about got all your fish?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Crackbene. ‘Stanislas is pleased. We are full, and the Maiden is starting to load. If de Fleury comes back by nightfall tomorrow, we could sail the next day, the quicker the better. There’s word of an incoming ship.’

  ‘Nicholas could come back faster than he went out,’ said John. ‘I don’t know why he went round by sea, when he only had to cut across a few rivers. He might be coming down the Markarfljót by now, if he’s feeling less timid. He might be arriving today.’

  They heard the horn from the hill an hour later; followed at once by the watch with the news. ‘A three-masted ship, Master Crackbene. Some distance off, but the fishermen know it. Sir, it’s the English privateer called the Charity. And it’s under Jonathan Babbe, with his own special crew of Hull men.’

  ‘Is it, by God,’ said John le Grant. His freckled skin had turned red.

  ‘They say he drives every other ship off the grounds. They say he came into this harbour last season, and killed every man who didn’t make way fast enough. They say he landed boats wherever he could, and seized the fish and slaughtered anyone who resisted. They say –’

  ‘We know,’ Crackbene said. They had discussed th
is: he had orders to deal with it. Peaceful incoming ships were to be left unmolested. Ships displaying aggression were to be engaged by both the Pruss Maiden and the Svipa, which would share any booty or prisoners. Crackbene’s eyes were bright with anticipation.

  John said, ‘I’ll go and see to the guns. Stanislas will need help with his masts.’

  ‘I’ve signalled him over,’ said Crackbene. ‘He can pick up his bows and his gunpowder now, and when you’re ready, you can check over his cannon.’

  ‘You are arming the Pruss Maiden?’ said Moriz.

  ‘We’re no match for the Charity on our own. So long as de Fleury holds Paúel Benecke hostage, the Pruss Maiden will do as she’s told. If Benecke’s dead, we hope no one will find out till later. Meanwhile, let’s climb a hill. I want to look at this fellow Jo Babbe.’

  They climbed the hill. The air was searingly cold, but the wind hardly fluttered their cloaks. Over the thick, lazy swell of the sea, the fishing-boats were curvetting towards home. The gulls and seals had all gone. In the silence the surf sighed, and lingered, and whispered. Moriz said quietly, ‘John?’

  ‘I see it,’ the engineer said. ‘It’s big, but we could take it, the two of us, if we have to. He’s becalmed, I would say. He may not even get here before nightfall. We’ll be in position outside before then.’

  ‘John,’ said Moriz again. ‘Look at Hekla.’

  *

  Robin of Berecrofts stood on an opposite height, also looking.

  He climbed this cliff every day, frequently soaked by the waterfall which flowed over it. The cliff was part of the long range of mountains which formed the base of the Eyjafjalla glacier, and the waterfall was the meter by which the fishermen of the Markarfljót measured the wind. If the waterfall climbed into the air, they didn’t go out.

  From the cliff, he could see across to the Westmanns, and mark the yoles and the dogger as they plied in and out with their catch. He couldn’t see the Svipa or the Pruss Maiden, but he knew they were there. All the messages Crackbene had received had come from him. It had eased the hurt to his pride to realise how essential was his role by the shore, a link between M. de Fleury and the boats. Only since the smoke from Hekla had thickened, he wished M. de Fleury would hurry.