It would be like putting an injured dog out of its misery, to take Godred out. If Somerled is engaged in Man, neither side in Galloway can blame him for failing to help – he will not be forced to gamble on a winning side. And if Malcolm’s puppyish yapping at him across the Clyde continues, if he is forced to fight to the east, well all of Man’s resources and wealth will not go awry. To Man, then. To become lord of all the isles. And then perhaps … Perhaps.
He looks across at Ragnhild, who sits straight-backed by the fire, a bundle of wool in her hands. Perhaps it is her turn on an island of women. Who is to tell him no, once Man is his? Power first, Eimhear second. Is that not what he always told himself? Why has he delayed? He could have sailed straight to Iona from the great sea battle. The Battle of Epiphany, they are calling it. Aye, but it would have angered the Manx earls, just when he needed them.
And does Ragnhild deserve to be cast aside, like so much broken crockery? She has done her best, poor soul. He imagines his sons’ faces if he turns round and tells them he is swapping their mother for Gillecolm’s.
And what of her? Did he not promise he would come back when he had the power to return? Has she not lived there, drowning in boredom and virtue, all these years, waiting for him to dock? What does she even look like? Has she run to fat, like Ragnhild?
Somerled turns back to the fire, his hand cradling his wine like a communion cup. He looks into the flames and tries to pick the colour of her hair from the riot of oranges and reds. He lets himself think of her – a rare indulgence. How can memories alone swirl with so much pain and pleasure? He thinks of her pale back, and the freckles like a star map that traced their way down to her bottom. He thinks of her laugh, and the shake of her breasts as he tupped her.
The worst thing about his memory is the way it has splintered. He has to fight to find a picture of the whole of her in his mind. He holds only parts, fragments. Traces of skin, nuggets of conversations. He wants to replay whole scenes of their life together, in full detail. Instead his mind skips, dissatisfied. Her skinny little-girl legs poke up from the waves as she walks handstands through the shallows. But the face that comes back up through the water is the new mother, clammy and triumphant, and softened permanently by this frog-like baby pushing its way into her breast.
What should I do? he thinks, bewildered by this unfamiliar lack of clarity. He is not used to being indecisive. There is no one to open his mind to. He has sent Padeen to Rome, on the pilgrimage he has always longed for. Aed, he thinks, would call for the galley to sail for Iona and damn the eyes of any who stood in his way. But Aed only has responsibility for himself. Somerled must bear the weight of all of them. He sighs. It was my choice, was it not?
He is lying to himself. He knows it. Fear is holding him back. The indecisiveness is a symptom, not a cause. He is frightened of seeming weak, frightened of arriving at her door and feeling nothing. Frightened of discovering that it is all an illusion, this great love that has sustained him all these years.
Here he is, the most powerful man in this world, and his fear dictates his actions. Even power is trumped by fear. Perhaps, he thinks, that is why the God of my father won out against the gods of my mother. Her gods knew only power; his God knew only fear.
~~~
He deals first with the easy part. He sends Brian to Thorfinn, to take the soundings of the Man chieftains. The word comes back that Man is ripe for the taking. He sends a messenger to Dublin, out of courtesy to Muirchertach, and receives back his blessing. The price is Somerled’s help in the Irish mainland, once Man and the outer isles are secure. He will pay the price willingly.
~~~
Fire. Great hanging sheets of fire, reaching up to the stars in a fury of sparks and flame. The smack of heat stuns them into silence. He wrenches off his helmet, which is warm to the touch already. Godred’s hall has taken the flames and thrown them skywards, proclaiming to all of Man that a new power is here. A baptism, an inferno for the new Lord of the Isles.
The old one has scuttled off again. To Norway perhaps, or Orkney. It would have been better to take him. But he can be no threat to them now.
Beside him, Dugald’s face is more open than he has ever seen it. Transfixed, awed by the simple majesty of a wall of fire and a crumbling dynasty. The orange light cast by the fire warms the boy’s skin, makes him ethereal in the darkness.
Somerled watches his son watch the blaze. He watches his men’s faces as the roof catches and fires, the crash and burn of the timbers echoing across the bay. How men love destruction. How little they care, when their blood is reddened by victory, that there are treasures melting in that hall. They do not care that it was a wonder of its age, that hall, proclaiming its master’s domination of the Western Seas with its vast timbers, its forbidding angles. When he saw it close to, as his fifty-eight galleys sailed brazenly into Man’s great bay, spitting spears and arrows, he gawped like a child.
Yet now, with Godred in flight and his men turned or cowed, now it burns and he feels his soul leap and crackle with the flames. Why? he asks himself. Why are we compelled to destroy what is beautiful?
EIMHEAR
I know immediately that something does not make sense. These men are too sullen, too shifty to be simple pilgrims as they claim. They arrived at dusk, in a big, sleek galley. They are richly dressed. Their leader, the one who calls himself Olaf, made some strange excuse to Eua for not crossing to Iona, despite the last light sheening on the still water of the Sound.
They claim hospitality and we give it, moving among them with soup and bread. Olaf is restless. He twitches; drums his fingers on the table. He scarcely eats. There is something sinister in his contained energy. He boils like a warrior before a fight; but here we are on the Island of Women, with no one to fight but the cows.
Sigrdrifa is sitting with Padraig, the stonemason’s eldest boy. He is a good boy; tall and broad-shouldered like his father. He brought her a bunch of flowers picked from the machair in Iona, and carried across the Sound amid the mocking of his peers. He laughed with them and clasped the flowers tighter, offering them up to her with a diffidence that made me like him all the more. He will be a stonemason like his father. Once I thought she would marry a prince. Now I wish for her the gift of relishing a quiet life. A small, happy life led to the sound of axe chipping at stone. A life in which there is joy in the two ends of a stone-carved circle meeting.
Somerled once said he loved me for my questing soul. God grant her a restful soul. God grant her …
I hear his name. The man Olaf is asking about my daughter. Is she Somerled’s daughter? he wants to know. He gets the reply, and his dark face gleams. Across the room, my daughter laughs. She is young and she is pretty, and her innocence cuts through the heavy air of the room like clear water tumbling on granite.
Oh Lord. Oh my Saviour.
I watch him, this Olaf, watching her. He follows her, his gaze intent under hooded lids. His eyes flick up, they flick down. My hand wraps itself around the handle of a knife. I imagine using it, and the rush of his men to avenge him.
I will her to look at me, but she has eyes only for Padraig. The boy shifts in his seat, as if made nervous by the strength of my stare. He looks up to find me watching them, and he blushes red. Oh bless him, and make him strong. I stand, still staring at him, and jerk my head to beckon him to the shadows beyond the fires. He whispers something to Sigrdrifa, and I see her turn and search for my gaze, all imploring hope.
In the corner, I wait for Padraig, and watch Olaf’s eyes eat my child.
‘Lady,’ begins Padraig, his voice a little too loud.
‘Shh,’ I hiss. One of Olaf’s men is watching us. I keep my face smooth, pushing away the deep-frowning fear. In a light whisper I say:
‘Look playful, boy, we are watched. She is in danger, I feel it. No. Do not move, I beg you. They must not smoke us. Listen. I will draw this Olaf into talk. You get her away. A boat if you can. Smuggle her to Mull. You have somewhere to go there?’
/> He nods, and bless him, he keeps calm and pulls on a mask of lightness and banter.
‘When shall I bring her back?’
‘When they are gone. And if she comes back whole and safe, you shall have her as a bride, if she wishes it. No, boy, stay calm. Only if she wishes it, mind.’
He nods and walks back over to her. She looks up at him, and across at me. She knows something important has passed, but she can’t work it out. I watch Olaf watching her frown and I walk forward.
Loudly I say: ‘Who are you, to ask for Somerled’s daughter?’
‘A humble pilgrim.’
There are smirks from his men.
‘Are you friend or foe to the Lord Somerled?’
He looks at me properly then, for the first time. He has been more busy eyeing the youngest of the girls, though he is my age or older.
‘Who are you to ask the question?’
‘I was Somerled’s woman. He spat me out on to this island when he married that bitch from Man.’
A few of his men flinch forward at this; but he raises a hand to hold them.
‘You are Eimhear? Yet I heard you were a great beauty.’
His cronies laugh.
‘Time ravages women, my lord.’
‘Why do you call me that?’
‘It is clear that you are a man of consequence. Of great worth.’
Beyond his head, I see my daughter slowly rising, holding Padraig’s hand. I see her moving back towards the shadows. But still, they need to skirt the back and leave by the door near Olaf.
‘I can tell you things of Somerled, my lord. For whisky. For what else is there to comfort an old woman in her dotage? I can draw you a map of his lands, and where to land unseen, to creep up behind.’
He leans forward, interested now.
‘Do it,’ he commands.
I drop to my knees at his feet. With my knife, I scratch on the floor. His men move in to watch, crowding in on me.
‘Here is the castle, my lord. Here the entrance to the loch. And here, there is a blind spot for the lookout – who is here.’
‘It is a long time since you were there, woman.’
‘Aye, but he is a man of habit, who thinks himself safe in his own nest.’
I point again at the place, where a hidden jag of rocks will drown their black souls if they ever think to try it.
They ask me questions. I try to be convincing. Behind their bent heads, Sigrdrifa escapes into the darkness.
~~~
Later, I hear his drunken shouting. ‘Where is she? Where is Somerled’s daughter? Where is the bitch?’
The door flies open.
‘You know. Where is she?’
‘I do not—’
The blow sends me reeling across the room. Pain thunders in my head.
‘Where is she?’
A full punch, which cracks my head backwards against the wall. Oh Lord. Oh my Christ. Where are you?
A blow to the stomach. I crouch over, beast-like, spitting blood on to the floor. I hear the sound of his excitement; his sharp-drawn breath, his panting.
He pushes me down, tearing at my dress. I try to scream, and his hand comes over my mouth, over my nose, so that I cannot breathe. This is drowning. This is the water coming over my head. This is not knowing which way is down, which is up. Bubbles flying both ways; panic insisting on an impossible breath.
This is his fist pushing inside me, his quick breath loud in my ear.
This is a pain that swells like a rip tide.
This is him pushing himself inside me, as someone, somewhere, laughs.
He judders and moans. Pulls himself upright. Takes his hand from my mouth. I try to bite it, but he is too quick. I can’t even do that much. He laughs. Then he spits in my face, and as his gob slides down my cheek he says: ‘Tell Somerled that Godred, son of Olaf, King of Man, fucked his woman.’
1157
SOMERLED
He knows something is not right as soon as his feet touch the ground. Gillecolm, who was left in charge with Aed, stands alone to greet him. Was Gillecolm’s face always lined, always so sad? No.
‘Father,’ says the boy without preamble. ‘Father, it is Aed.’
‘Dead?’
Aed’s son Fingal, a brawny man with the look of his father, pushes his way to the front of the boat. His older brother is with Dugald in Man. He did well this season, Fingal, thinks Somerled. I must tell Aed. Aed.
Fingal jumps down next to Somerled. He is Gillecolm’s age; they are boyhood friends. Gillecolm looks at his friend as he shakes his head.
‘Not dead. A sickness.’
They walk quickly towards Aed’s house. One week ago now, Oona found Aed lying still, eyes open. He cannot move, cannot speak. Gillecolm has sent messengers to the wise men in Ireland, to Alba, to Norway, even to London to try to find a cure.
The hall is dark, stuffy from a stoked fire. Aed is propped on furs. His eyes flicker to Somerled when he enters. His mouth is a strange twist, with pap running down the side of it where Oona’s spoon has missed. His body is a mockery of itself, an unlikely assembly of skin and bone and wasting muscle.
Somerled pauses in the doorway. It smells of sickness and old age and death. He forces himself to walk in. He kneels heavily by the old man’s bed.
‘Aed,’ he says. ‘Aed.’
Oh Jesus.
Fingal stands in the doorway. He pulls off his cloak, and his muscles swell across great broad shoulders. The pulsing health of his young body draws all eyes. Oona, Aed and Somerled watch him as he comes forward. His youth is a reproach and an offering to his father.
He is carrying his axe, his weapon of choice.
He sets the axe next to the bed, and draws his mother’s shrunken body into an embrace. Aed’s eyes flicker to the axe, and back again to Somerled. He grunts, spittle falling out of his mouth. He grunts again. His eyes flick urgently back to the axe.
‘No, Aed. No.’
Then, for the first time in the great span of years they have known and loved each other, Somerled watches Aed cry. The tears run down his twisted, frozen face, and the snot gathers in shameful bubbles at the bottom of his nose.
Somerled, who has not cried since that day long ago when his life ended, feels the answering prickle in his eyes, and to save them both, he leans forward and whispers into his friend’s ear, his eyes fixed unblinking on the yellowing wool of the rug Aed rests on.
‘I will do it, then, my friend. You have been waiting for me, old man. I will do it.’
~~~
Afterwards, a kind of madness takes him.
Somerled hides himself in a shieling up in the mountains, cold though it is. He hunkers down, beastlike. He thinks if he has to see a face, he will stab it bloody. If he hears a human voice, he will rip out the throat that made it. Tries not to think beyond the act of being alive. Wake up. Fish. Eat. Sleep. Hunt. Eat. Sleep.
Sometimes he does not bother. He lies under furs and listens to the rain. He listens to the rumble of his belly; feels his bladder rise. He wishes he could find a silence in his own mind. He has outward silence up here. Only the rushing of water and the calling birds break it. Sometimes it makes it worse, amplifying the voices in his head to a terrible shout. Sometimes it soothes.
They leave food for him at the foot of the mountain, like offerings to an ancient god. He will not see them. He especially will not see the-priest-who-is-not-Padeen, who bothered him as he sharpened the axe. Who told him that it would be a sin. Who told him that God would prefer Aed to linger on in his travesty of a body. The priest who scampered alongside him as he walked up the hill from the smithy with the sharpened axe, arguing with him and shouting at him when he would have been alone with his thoughts, alone with his prayers.
It took Fingal and Gillecolm to hold the priest back. Oona was elsewhere. With her daughters and the other women. He could not hear their keening. It was a windy day, made to snatch away the sounds of their grief and scatter them to the horizon.
; He wanted to close his eyes. He did not want his last memory of Aed to be this one. He knows the power of memory, Somerled. Knows how one brutal image can chase away the rest, leaving a man to fight to find the happy faces in his mind’s eye while the pained, hurt, lost ones crowd in unasked.
But he could not close his eyes and risk missing Aed’s proffered neck. He could not let his cowardice make Aed’s passing more difficult. There was no great declaration at the end. No outpouring of thanks and love. ‘Goodbye, old friend,’ said Somerled, and Aed looked up at him with unreadable eyes. When they closed, those dear eyes, Somerled raised Fingal’s axe to the sky and let it fall.
~~~
He comes down the hill at last. He sets his face into a fury that forbids questions. They all scuttle round him, afraid. He is a magician, he finds, a wizard. He can conjure silence from rooms full of chatter. He can send children running with the flick of an eyebrow. He can make servants invisible. He can make women pretend to swoon for him, as he beds them mechanically and to mutual dissatisfaction.
There is one thing this sorcerer cannot do. He cannot conjure love. He cannot spin its invisible threads, pick his boys up and ravel them in twine. He would bind them tighter. But here they are in front of him. Angus with a purple eye and a bloody nose. Ranald all bleeding fists and defiance. They are grown men, near enough. Old enough now to come raiding with him. He should not need to separate them, brawling like drunkards at a feast. Olaf stands behind them, awkward on tall limbs he has not yet learned to use.
He can see Gillecolm in the distance down by the shore. Staying out of it. The boys are talking over one another, words tumbling in a stream of justification, accusation and plaintiveness. He watches Gillecolm as he deftly skins a seal, holding its head with a tenderness at odds with his task. His two small sons, Sigurd and Fergus, watch as he slowly slices the skin away from the flesh, careful not to break it. He works quickly with the point of his knife, easing the skin from the bloodied carcass.
The Winter Isles Page 27