The tale of Cú Chullain wended on, as Fergus took all this in, the seventeen-year-old hero’s feats growing larger and more extraordinary as the poem piled verse upon verse. As if to hammer it home with a double axe, Aed shouted across the table: ‘And what age is Somerled? Seventeen. That’s how old. Seventeen.’
Further down, he saw Sigurd telling Callum of the raids on Man at the waning of last summer, of the men killed and the spoils shared. Suddenly all the brimming confidence spilled over and left him empty. If they knew, he thought, why we ravaged Man last summer. How I sought to wipe myself clean of the shame. How I sought oblivion in the sound of sword on shield, and good men died because of it. Tormod, and Domnall’s father Oengus. And all the while his own father sat in his new-built hut near the beach like a mad yet faithless hermit.
Guilt piled on shame. Padeen had told him that this was a foolish reaction. That Tormod and Oengus had chosen their life, and in doing so had chosen their death. Somerled knew he was right, and hated himself for his qualms. Did Cú Chullain mope about because men died in his war with Queen Mebd? Didn’t Achilles save his grief and guilt for Patroclus? Foot soldiers die. Pawns are taken.
He heard his name called, and put on a smiling face.
Fergus was speaking. ‘… and you only lost two, I hear, in your raiding on Man.’
Somerled nodded. Just two. It sounded good, did it not? Two. Grim Tormod, and Domnall’s father. Domnall had cried at Oengus’s broken body. ‘I do not believe, Cousin Fergus, that men should be wasted.’
The old man nodded, appraising.
‘Tell me,’ said Somerled, ‘something of your home.’
‘Why?’
‘To help me raid it.’
Fergus smiled. ‘Fair. You’ll have passed it. Up the Sound and round. When you can see Coll on a clear day, then veer right. A good place. A settled place. Some twenty families paying tribute to the hall. Men to fill three galleys when called.’
‘Only we don’t have three galleys any more,’ said Callum.
‘No,’ said Fergus. Silence settled as Somerled waited for more, and Fergus turned his weary gaze down the hall to where Thorfinn and Ruaridh were taunting some of his men. Somerled watched the warriors’ muted response, and caught Aed’s eye across the table.
~~~
Somerled sought out Aed after the meal. He stood beside the big man at the pit beyond the hall, their piss streaming thick with ale. There was something afoot, they agreed. Something coming. A challenge or a proposition. Somerled, feeling the lightness of his seventeen years, didn’t say, what should I do? He didn’t say, tell me how to handle this sly old man.
But Aed, with the cleverness of a man who pretends to be all brawn, understood his unspoken appeal.
As they walked back to the hall, they paused. They could see the smoke rising, and hear the laughter and the drunken singing. The moon above the sea was thin and painfully crisp. Beside him Somerled saw the big man’s head go back, and the happy sigh as he gazed at the stars spread out above them like a complex weave. The gods’ own blanket
‘You know,’ said Aed. ‘When I was a little lad, I wanted to be a poet. Don’t tell the boys, Somerled. But here was my trouble. I was too big. All the little fellows would set themselves up to fight me, for if they brought down the big man, they won all the fame. So I had to fight, and be the best at it. The bigger you get, the wider a target you make.’
Somerled nodded. He could see his breath pooling in the night air, and he remembered how only a handful of years had passed since he would have thought himself a dragon with such a torrent of smoke appearing.
He watched his breath come and go, while Aed grinned at the stars. ‘Come on then,’ said Aed, slipping an arm across his shoulders. ‘Back in to the slippery bastards, and let’s see if we can tickle it out of them.’
~~~
It came the next day. Fergus had borrowed a line from Somerled, and the two of them sat by the burn, ignoring the misting rain and watching the salmon twisting under the water.
‘Spears are easier when they’re so plentiful,’ said Fergus.
‘But where’s the fun, if it’s too easy?’ Somerled replied.
Fergus glanced up at him. That quick, searching look again, as if trying to weigh the boy in front of him – measure him out in hack silver.
Somerled’s irritation spilled over. ‘Christ’s blood, man,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t look at me as if I’m speaking in riddles. We’re just talking about salmon.’
Fergus grinned suddenly, and Somerled realized it was the first time he had seen a real smile from the man. His green eyes near disappeared back into their wrinkles.
‘You are right,’ said the older man, and the grin, if possible, seemed to widen until he was all teeth and crinkles. Christ, thought Somerled, I preferred the bastard when he was dour.
‘So here it is,’ said Fergus. ‘When the old chief died, we were left …’ he paused, searching, or so it seemed, for a benign word, ‘rudderless. The Norsemen, the ones settled between your land and ours, they sensed it – like blood to a hound. The branch that should take the chief’s place, well, there’s daughters and an idiot. So that leaves a space, and we’re all in it, growling at each other.’
‘You? Or your son?’
The old man grinned. ‘Aye, maybe. But we’ve a more immediate problem, Somerled. We’ve had skirmish after skirmish, and we’re losing. We’re too busy growling at each other to let one man lead. A band with a council instead of a chief.’ He let out a mangled yelp of disgust.
‘Ah. I see.’
‘Now look, you’re a young one. I can’t very well parade you in front of men twice your age and say, here’s a chief for you. But you’ve been fighting small wars. If you join us, you’ve enough men to be biggest dog in the pack. This is a chance to prove yourself. These are hard, ugly bastards we’re talking of. Based in a glorious sea loch, off the Sound of Mull. Loch Aline.’
Somerled felt the telltale twitch on his line. He looked down into the thrashing water and saw a silvery flash of salmon.
‘Why me?’
Fergus grinned again. ‘There’s no one else. You’re a cousin of sorts, so you’re eligible. You’re not tainted with the tangle of the past years. You have just enough men to claim leadership, but not so many that you can take it by force. And those Norse bastards killed my youngest boy.’
Somerled looked away from the burn, to the old man’s ridged face.
‘And if I acquit myself, you’ll back me for the chieftainship?’
‘Well, lad, the rules of tannistry would say you’ve an even chance against, say, my boy Callum. I’ll not promise, exactly.’
Somerled felt the line tug. He concentrated on the fish, not risking another look to the old man next to him. It swerved and slid under the water, seeking a way out but already lost. He registered, as usual, that second when he knew it was caught, but the fish kept the illusion that escape was possible. If fish had illusions. Concentrate.
‘I tell you something, Fergus. If I land this big sod, I will come with you, and I will fight with you.’
‘Well catch the bastard then,’ said Fergus.
Somerled thought for one long second that he had misjudged the salmon, that he would lose it. Who had misplaced illusions now? But he held on, gentle and persistent. As it tired, he risked a flip, and out it came, the water sucking at its silver scales and falling back in a shower of drops. It landed with a thump on the boggy grass. Above its thrashing and gasping, Somerled raised steady eyes to Fergus.
‘When do we start?’
~~~
They stood together a while in the morning mist. The men and the women and the children, heads bowed under the sky. Father Padeen led them in prayers, the great man’s voice rich and rare as it echoed across the hushed glen.
They intoned Christ’s breastplate that morning. There was comfort in the familiar words, in the looping rhythm of the incantation. Sigrdrifa, he knew, found this song moving, despite her resistan
ce to the Christian God. Her face was fierce with not crying, so that the grooves in her forehead deepened into crags. Those who did not know her would think she was angry. Gillebrigte stood with her, drooping and quiet. He would shake soon, if he didn’t get a drink. Quiver and judder, turning his blood-red eyes to the cup. He was insisting on coming along. Let him, said Aed. What harm could he do?
Christ’s cross across this face,
Across the ear like this,
Christ’s cross across this eye,
Christ’s cross across this nose.
Christ’s cross across this mouth.
Christ’s cross across this throat.
Christ’s cross across this back.
Christ’s cross across this side.
The words wound on, and Somerled spoke them without thinking, letting them settle his nerves, letting them ease the clenching tension in his body. After would come the work, the packing of the boats with salt fish and cured meat, the oatcakes and the cheese, and the jugs of ale. All the necessary goods to keep their bodies hard and fierce and full. Yet here on the beach was where the real preparation was done; here with the skuas diving and the herring gulls calling and the low, smooth voice of the priest slathering them in Christ’s mercy.
Christ’s cross my sitting,
Christ’s cross my lying.
Christ’s cross my whole power
Till we reach heaven’s king.
Christ’s cross across my church,
Across my community.
Christ’s cross in the next world,
Christ’s cross in the present day.
From the tip of my head
To the nail of my foot,
Christ, against each peril,
The shelter of your cross.
Till the day of my death,
Before going in this clay,
Joyfully I will make
Christ’s cross across my face.
As they made the cross he felt sheltered. He felt whole and unblemished, and as if the words were a powerful spell that would protect him. Fuller, taller, he watched his men prepare the galley. His first test. His first big outing against a seasoned, wary, angry foe. Lord Jesus, he prayed silently, make me worthy.
EIMHEAR
I thought often about blood.
Pinned in there, in that fort, all the women spun into the same cycle. In the few days before, the place boiled and hissed. Simmering feuds spilled over, small slights tumbling into unforgivable wrongs. Then, one by one, we started to bleed and the atmosphere lightened and calmed. There was a relief in the bloodletting; it seemed cleansing, somehow, or soothing.
Is it the same for men? Is this why they have to manufacture their perpetual small wars? I understand that there is no option in one sense. Wealth and fame come only in battle; unless you are born to it, what other way is there for a man to advance? But that is not how they approach it – for them it is not a calculated thing, but a driven thing. In the days before a raid, cooped up, they boil and hiss like the women.
Did God plan our monthly blood so that we could understand this male thing that looks so much like stupidity? What other reason can there be for this messy absurdity? Father Padeen told me once that God’s plan was infinite. Look at the bee nosing in a flower then spinning an intricate honeycomb. God’s work. If it is all a plan, why this need for bloodletting? Where does that sit in his purpose? Why create Adam in all that glorious detail but set within him the urge to destroy? Is destruction the necessary end to creation? Is that why children always break their mothers’ hearts, one way or the other?
I tried to talk to the lord’s bishop about this, but he shooed me away as if I were the inquisitive bee. I tried to talk to the lord’s wife, Gràinne, about it. She looked at me as if I were touched.
‘We need our men to fight, to protect us,’ she said, slowly, as to a child.
‘Aye, but who from? Other women’s men. If everyone stayed at home instead of looking for reasons to knock each other’s heads off, we would not need protecting, and neither would the other women.’
The women cast looks between each other. Skeins of wool dripped from their fingers as if skin and thread were the same.
Little Sadhbh piped up, her mischievous eyes shining. ‘And what if all the men sat at home growing cabbages, Eimhear? Who would we fight over and sigh over? Give me a warrior over a cabbage farmer.’
There were giggles and nods.
‘But if all the men farmed cabbages,’ I said, ‘then there would be other things to find attractive. We only think we must sigh over the warriors because they are the ones with status, with power. What if status and power were granted to whoever grew the most cabbages?’
They were laughing now, at the image.
‘Imagine the lord sitting at home growing cabbages,’ said one.
Sadhbh put on a low, growly voice. ‘I demand manure! Only the best among you are worthy of the best pig shit.’
I smiled along, and fought with the inevitable tangles in my wool, watching the smooth threads looping as if by themselves from the other women’s hands. Gràinne thought I was deliberately poor at the work; she could not understand how anyone with sufficient wit could be so stupid with their hands. The laughter died away, and the gossip resumed. Who looked at whom; which husband was playing foul. I tried to join in, so that I would not be different.
~~~
I remembered the conversation at the next homecoming. The men had been gone for the whole spring, and now most of the summer. The harvest was threatening to come early, and the women were beginning to fret. Where were they? Who would wield the scythes?
The chapel was filled with candles. Prayers rose skywards from dawn to dusk, as if the Lord in all his wisdom would change his plan in reply to our pathetic squeaking. Still, it gave comfort, I suppose.
I felt my lack of concern then. One of the younger warriors had been circling around me. He had fair hair and smiling eyes. I was beginning to think, perhaps, perhaps. But something held me back. Some unarticulated promise made when I was too young to pledge it. I joined the other women looking out towards the southern hills, and I made the right noises. But I called him home with my head, not my blood.
At last, when Gràinne had marshalled the old men and young boys left behind, and handed out scythes to the youngest among us, the cry went up that they were coming home. We scrambled to the highest point, laughing and calling. But the words died on our lips as we saw them. They were ragged and bloody. They were too few. Even from here, we could see they were too few. They had no dogs, no horses. There was just this slow limping forward, like a wounded pup making its way home.
We rushed out, feet wet in the morning dew. Each searched for husband, brother, father. The cries of lament began to rise until Gràinne shouted, ‘Enough!’ in her bishop’s voice, and we quietened down. The men looked at us with dark-pooled eyes and tangled beards.
We propped them up, and walked them in. Inside, Gràinne rapped orders, and the fort came alive with bubbling water and stewing meat and the squeals of dying goats and chickens. We unwrapped foot coverings that dripped with pus, we cleaned out sores as wide as my hands. We swallowed our retches and our nervous giggles out of respect for these poor ruined men.
Everywhere there was blood. Crusted, dried. Fresh, as filthy rags unpeeled the skin.
They fell on the food; more than one of them was violently sick within minutes of gorging himself. We held their heads and wiped their cheeks and set another plate in front of them.
The lord survived. My fair-haired admirer did not. Sadhbh’s father and her intended were lost, and I knew her thoughts as she looked about the room at the outnumbered men surrounded by women and saw her future stretch forward into endless solitary barrenness.
They began to tell us what had happened. Who had wronged whom. Who needed revenge. Why it was their battle and not someone else’s. How it was not their fault that they had lost, and how these few had escaped. I walked away, looking for ways to be us
eful. They talked as if it mattered. As if the whys were more important than their tattered bodies and lost friends. As if they had choices. There will always be another wrong. There will always be another battle. And some poor, stupid bastard will always have to lose.
1128
SOMERLED
Somerled followed Callum, flitting between the dark trees. They moved as if tracking deer, placing their feet with tender care, wary of snapping branches and the echoing rustle of bracken.
They came at last to the edge, where the oaks stopped and the tangled scrub fell away over the edge of the crag.
‘There. Loch Aline,’ whispered Callum.
Somerled crept forward on his belly and stuck his head over the side of the crag. There below him stretched a long, shining loch. His heart leaped like a salmon.
The early sun had found the still water, sheening it with silver. Low tide, and the edges of the sea loch were left bare where the water had retreated. The line between land and sea was absurdly clear: black rock striped with light grey, like a tidemark of grime on a boy’s neck. The absurd comparison made him smile. He set his face straight again, conscious of Callum’s presence.
Be practical. The steep, rocky sides of the loch made for a sheltered anchorage. It would be some gale that ruffled this water. And at the back, cupped by the towering crags, was a grassy, fertile plain begging to be planted. It was about three boats long and ten times as wide. Behind this, a wood, full of ancient trees that would make a man as many ships as he could take. Such ships!
On the water, ridiculously sheltered, were six galleys, doubtless hewn from those same trees. They barely moved, just swung lazily at anchor.
At the mouth of the loch, a gap to the Sound of Mull. He’d sailed past it enough times, that opening. It was narrow enough that with men on each side the whole entrance would be covered by spear and arrow. You’d need a high tide and a sure hand to thread a path through.
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