He caught sight of Groa’s face. ‘I am sure you would prefer to stay,’ Thorfinn said. ‘If you do, I have not the least objection.’
* * *
By the time Rognvald got his reply, there had evacuated to Caithness from the south isles all those lendermen or others who had reason to fear a change of lord, or who wished for their own reasons to stay with Thorfinn.
On the west mainland, Thorkel Fóstri was already ensconced with a force of men three times the number of Rognvald’s, with well-stocked farms and barns to feed them from. This was one-third of Orkney to which Rognvald was not entitled, and which, lacking Norwegian support, he was to have no opportunity to encroach on.
The arrangements for some of this were already made before Rognvald ever set foot on Orkney. The rest were launched that evening, almost before the hoof-beats of his horses had faded.
In them, the Earl Thorfinn’s wife Groa took no share. Familiar with the domestic repercussions of failure, Groa kept out of her second husband’s path on the evening of Rognvald’s departure, and concerned herself with the disposal of her own household and servants. By midnight, when there were still other people’s garrons in the field and light and noise in the hall, she decided not to return there, but to sleep with the women and Sinna.
It took her some moments, when she got there, to realise that Sinna was unwilling to receive her. ‘What is it?’ said the Lady of one-third of Orkney. ‘Sinna, I’m tired.’
Sinna said, ‘Lady: tonight is your place not with your lord?’
‘Only when he’s successful,’ said Groa. ‘I expect that you remember Gillacomghain?’
‘It is still your place,’ Sinna said. ‘Thorkel Fóstri says so.’
‘Thorkel Fóstri!’ Groa stared at the Irishwoman. ‘Then it is serious. Unless Thorkel Fóstri makes a habit of discussing his lord with you? He certainly doesn’t with me.’
Sinna shook her head. She had made no effort to open the door any further. ‘Oh, well,’ said Groa bad-temperedly and turned and stalked back to the reeking hall. She had a very clear idea of how she had succeeded in sobering Gillacomghain, in the end.
She opened the hall door and an emanation of hot oil and sweat and smoke and ale fumes and foodstuffs struck her, together with the subterranean cadences of her husband’s voice, undimmed in energy, remorselessly issuing instructions. She turned and made to go out.
As she feared, he had seen her. Ending what he was saying, he rose from the high chair, threw some final words to someone in a corner, and followed her out. ‘Have I kept you from your bed? I’m sorry.’
She walked vaguely in the direction of the small stream that ran down to the shore; remembered another conversation at night, out of doors, and halted preparatory to returning, without evident haste, to Sinna’s hut. She said, ‘Not at all. I came to apply balm to your wounds at the request of the more tender-hearted of your henchmen. But you don’t seem to require consoling or sobering.’
She realised she had let someone down as soon as she heard the tone of his voice. ‘Who? Sulien?’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘Have you finished now for the night?’
‘Then Thorkel,’ he said. ‘And thank you both for your opinion of me. Whatever I run crying from, it’s not this.’
‘Well, perhaps you should,’ said Groa, caught on the wrong foot and cross in her turn. ‘You’ve lost two-thirds of your earldom without a blow struck or a word raised in anger. You did the same thing fifteen years ago. Kalv told me.’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Earl Thorfinn, ‘that I want to be reminded of Kalv at this moment. The inadequacies of a thirteen-year-old I can only apologise for. The bloodless game you saw played just now happened that way because the only alternative was full-scale war against Norway, including the Arnasons. To you that may seem a good idea, for, with Harold Harefoot busy nursing his throne and Duncan with his head in the ground acting buffer, I should have no help from the south, and, even throwing in Moray and Caithness, Magnús would overwhelm us with numbers.
‘I don’t want that, however poor a figure I seem to cut as a result. In fact, there has been time to prepare for it. Whenever there has been an over-strong King of Norway or a bad Earl of Orkney, men have simply slipped out of the islands to Caithness or the Western Isles.
‘Magnús may not have a long reign. And although Rognvald has come at harvest-time, he has several hundred men to feed through the winter with no reserves to draw on such as we have in Caithness.
‘Meanwhile, my fleet is safe, and still the biggest in northern waters. A few successful landings; a good summer’s trade; a generous disposal of booty, and the popular opinion of me will rise.’ He had come to a halt, speaking quietly, outside Sinna’s door.
‘At least you and Arnór haven’t lost confidence in one another,’ Groa said. ‘He must make a song out of it. So I scuttle to Moray, and you turn pirate? Because of one blustering child?’
‘Weren’t you impressed? You ought to have been. Everything he said and did has been planned for a very long time. Even at a distance, you could see it taking shape. I could do nothing to prevent it, and he knew it. Whatever else he is, he is not a blustering child. He is, in fact, just two years younger than I am.’
He paused. ‘It seemed likely that he would claim the south isles as well. I had prepared for it. And there are some prospects other than piracy. That was why we went to the enthronement. That was why there was more than one reason for cultivating Eachmarcach. I have land on the southwest coast, now.’
‘I see,’ said Groa. ‘What you have had is a success. Allow me to congratulate you and wish you a very good night. If you have any bad luck, send for me.’
She had come, against her inclinations, to bind up his wounds, and he had none. Or if he had, he had found a consolation for them in a field which had already received the weight of Sulien’s disapproval.
He has a taste for intrigue, as an ox enjoys salt, Sulien had said. The Earl of Orkney had lost two-thirds of his islands and, for all one could tell, was enjoying it.
If anyone had told the red-haired Lady of Orkney that her husband’s people would show they had missed her when she returned to her own lands of Moray, she would have been pleased but disbelieving: but so it transpired. What her husband thought about her reception, no one knew. Earl Thorfinn, whatever he was doing, set a pace of his own that was hard enough to keep up with, without trying to understand him as well.
In Orkney, matters settled. Rognvald made no effort to seize what did not belong to him, and was considerate to the bonder in the two parts of the islands which he had moved into. The only landowners likely to be resentful, as Thorfinn had predicted, were those who, like Thorkel Fóstri after Earl Sigurd’s death, had had to leave their homes and property to begin a new life elsewhere. On the other hand, there was plenty of land, some of it already farmed by other branches of the same Orcadian families. And Thorfinn, as he had told his wife, had made sure that they would have little chance to repine.
The summer passed, and the winter. Magnús, King of Norway, sent his gjaldkeri to exact rents from both Earls of Orkney, which both Earls of Orkney paid without demur. Duncan, King of Alba, at his father’s request, sent his father to Moray to collect what was due to him there. The lord Crinan did not see Groa, who was staying elsewhere, but received his rents from Thorfinn’s steward and gleaned some interesting information about the situation in Orkney.
The Lady Emma began to store silver again.
In Norway, Kalv Arnason and his brother Finn fell out over the departure of Rognvald, which otherwise caused some general satisfaction, as removing a dangerous favourite from King Magnús’s side. Although conscious of no immediate improvement in his status as demoted regent, Kalv threw himself with enthusiasm into the common occupation of harassing Denmark, and, as a result, the Lady Emma’s son Hardecanute was prevented yet again from crossing the sea to attend to his late father’s kingdom of England.
In England, Hardecanute?
??s dilemma was noted. His half-brother and joint King, Harold Harefoot, settled into his throne, drew a long sprinter’s breath, and informed his stepmother the Lady Emma that her presence in England was no longer convenient.
In Northumbria, the five husbands of the five daughters of Earl Ealdred continued to work hard at their communal interests in apparent amity and without public reference to the shifting power-groups into which the five frequently found themselves falling. The sole unaffiliated member, Alfgar of Mercia, was aware that the dominant brother-in-law was proving to be Siward of York, aided by Duncan of Alba, but could not find out what they were up to.
The frontiers of the large provinces lying south of the rivers Forth and Clyde in Alba became more confused than they had been even in the late Malcolm’s reign, as families from Cumbria or Westmorland or Yorkshire moved into new land, or land already held by their ancestors. Many of them were Norse and Irish in origin, and some could even trace their forebears back to the sons of the first Earl Thorfinn of Orkney who fought in York with Erik Bloodaxe.
Crinan, Abbot of Dunkeld, with his son’s permission, spent less time in his houses in England and more in the vicinity of Dunkeld in Alba, where his son-in-law Forne already had a hall-house. He kept his houses in Shrewsbury and in York, as did Carl son of Thorbrand, whose first favour from the new King Harold Harefoot was a licence to operate the mint in the Lady Emma’s former possession of Exeter.
Off the west coast of Alba, trouble developed among the friends and allies of Orkney.
Thorfinn’s cousin Ghilander in the western island of Colonsay sent a cutter to Caithness asking for the support of Thorfinn’s fleet; and at the same moment, and for the same reason, an identical appeal was dispatched by Eachmarcach, King of Dublin. Warned by the signals moving from beacon to beacon, Thorfinn got to Thurso in time to receive both, and within a day his fleet was in the water and heading west. ‘Who,’ said Arnór Earlskald, ‘is Diarmaid son of Dunchadh Mael-na-mbo of Ireland?’
‘Someone you’re going to hear a good deal more about,’ said Thorkel Fóstri. ‘Call him son of cow-chief if you prefer it. His father was King of the Ui-Ceinnselaigh in Ireland, and his son has ambitions to be King of all Leinster, beginning with burning Water ford to the ground; and King of the Foreigners of Dublin, beginning with trying to edge Eachmarcach out of the post.’
Arnór looked alarmed. ‘Dublin?’ he said.
‘I don’t think,’ Thorkel said, ‘you are going to perish under the raven banner in Dublin, but you may very well have a difficult moment or two in the Western Isles. Diarmaid has been nipping at Galloway and the islands without much success so far, because Thorfinn has some ships there. But now Diarmaid’s sent a good, strong force to take a few easily fortified places in the Western Isles and plunder the trading-ships as they pass up and down to Dublin. It’s not the first time, you know. He and his family did the same to Gillacomghain.’
Thorkel had no objection to frightening Arnór. Speaking to Thorfinn later, it was different. Then Thorkel said, ‘Listen, and tell me that I’m wrong. You haven’t got enough ships to fight Diarmaid’s whole fleet. You should have waited for the rest to come up from Galloway. There’s a limit to what you owe Eachmarcach.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I don’t owe Eachmarcach anything. Every ship Diarmaid plunders is losing me a tenth of its cargo in tolls. From the Outer Isles he’ll take Skye, and from Skye he’ll move back into the west coast and Lochaber.’
‘And you’ll stop him with six ships against twelve?’ Thorkel said. ‘Success has gone to your head.’
‘These days,’ Thorfinn said, ‘we seem to have only one topic. However. Since you are so obsessed with Rognvald, perhaps you would look over there and tell me if you agree that the three ships behind us are his?’ His fastened hair, plaited for righting, exposed the tall basket-brow to the sun, and the niche under each sharpened cheekbone from which sprang the unit of mouth and jaw; the single prominent lobe that lent his face its unremitting, saturnine expression, like the mask of a wolf-hound, and hid whatever he might be thinking, as now.
Thorkel looked behind. There was no mistaking the three ships, with their crane-necks and the blue-and-white netted sails bearing down from their rudder-side. And as they got closer, no mistaking the glitter of steel from within them.
They were full of armed men. Far more full than Thorfinn’s longships, which carried only their normal complement. Three ships against six might seem harmless enough, but, crew for crew, it was the trick of Deerness again, but this time not in their favour. Thorkel said, ‘The puppy’s flying the raven of Orkney.’
‘He has the right,’ Thorfinn said. ‘If he can keep it.’
Over their own ships, like a comber, had run a confusion of glitter and colour and sound as men seized their shields and spears and the steersmen twisted, taut, waiting for orders. Thorkel’s arm began to rise and Thorfinn held it down. ‘Wait.’
Thorkel said, ‘You’ll never have a better chance.’
He did not need to say any more. The leading ship was close enough now for an arrow-shot. It was more than close enough to see the single blond man, unarmed, standing alone in the prow with a white shield gripped at arm’s-length above him.
‘Kill him if he kills me,’ Thorfinn said and, unarmed as Rognvald was, walked up to his own prow and faced him. The space between the two ships slowly vanished. The shouting in all the ships died. On the crane-ship Rognvald lowered the shield, and his hair, given back to the sun, blew transparent as Syrian silk about his bare neck. He was smiling. He called.
‘My lord Thorfinn! Uncle! Am I welcome?’
‘It depends,’ said Thorfinn, ‘what you bring.’
Rognvald was so close that they could see the design on his hlā. He was still smiling. ‘Three hundred men,’ he said, ‘to fight the son of Domnall Ramhar, provided I have half of the booty.’ The red tongue of his crane-head turned and lay side by side with the gold beak of Thorfinn’s grey goose. The sea, surging between the two ships, slapped their sides.
Thorfinn considered his nephew, then lifted his voice. ‘When you have an equal number of ships, you may have an equal share of the booty. One-third, provided your men bear their proper share of the fighting.’
‘They are, for the most part, your men,’ Rognvald said. ‘And you should know therefore how they were trained. Man for man, you do us less than justice.’
Thorfinn shrugged. ‘Did we invite you?’
‘Very well,’ said Rognvald. ‘But when you do, it will be a different story. Have you apian?’
‘To round Skye,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I hear Diarmaid’s nephew uses the broch and the fort-hill in Bracadale.’
‘I have better news than that,’ Rognvald said. ‘I hear that he has a fort in Loch Dunvegan and is there at this moment. Give me a light boat and I shall go ahead and scout for you.’
‘And rouse them against us?’ murmured Thorkel Fóstri. He stared at Thorfinn agreeing, and watched, without speaking, the manoeuvres between ship and ship that eventually gave effect to the plan. Then it was over, and the cutter, the smallest and fastest of Thorfinn’s fleet, was drawing smoothly away westwards in front of them while, behind, the three dragon-ships fell into line with their own.
Thorfinn, returning, stopped beside his foster-father and lifted the bar of his brows. ‘I marry into your family. Why don’t you trust mine?’
‘Because I don’t want to die at the whim of a knave and a madman,’ Thorkel Fóstri said.
‘One-fourth, they say, depends on the fostering. The rest,’ Thorfinn said, ‘comes from my native wit. Rognvald was hungry last winter. I saw to that. He needs cattle and money, not only now but so long as he stays on the islands. He will have to earn them.’
Against the noises of men and the sea-hiss and the creaking, there was silence. Then Thorkel said, ‘I see. Then, of the two of you, I will follow the fourth that I fostered. As for the other one and three-fourths, you will have to excuse me.’
<
br /> Rognvald did not betray them; but that did not save either side from what lay ahead. For although the son of Domnall the Fat, Diarmaid’s brother, had posted some men at the rock of Dunvegan, which they took, the main part of his fleet was elsewhere.
‘You were right,’ said Rognvald to Thorfinn when uncle and nephew met, breathless and bloody on the weed-thick shore below the fortress. ‘The main part of the Irish fleet is in Loch Bracadale. At least there is none here to warn them that we are coming.’
He had fought without restraint, and cleverly, for his body had the good proportions that make for perfect balance in every movement, and, as Groa had once remarked, he had courage.
‘We had to clear out Dunvegan anyway,’ said Thorfinn mildly. ‘Take your crane-ship again and Thorkel will lead you south round Duirinish and into the loch. I had a fancy to try something else. Between the head of the loch here and the north of Loch Bracadale is not a great distance. Men could cut through on foot and be in Bracadale before the ships had cleared Loch Dunvegan. Men with fire-arrows, perhaps? The Irish fleet may be in the inner loch, but they also might be in Vatten or Caroy. If I take a hundred men, we shall come down the shore at their backs as you and Thorkel sail into the loch. At the very least, we can find and get rid of their scouts and discover where the main fleet is. Will you follow Thorkel?’
‘No,’ said Rognvald. ‘Highly though I think of him and his family. My ships are all large, but yours are not. I don’t know the country, but there are men here who do, and you tell me the distance is short. Let me take the men across the neck to Loch Bracadale. And let me carry two of your ships.’
Thorkel had arrived. ‘What?’ he said.
In front of him, the immense, disjointed young man he had fostered gazed thoughtfully down at the compact body and fair, amused face of his half-brother’s still younger son Rognvald.
‘The idea has some merit,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Who can tell us about the path between the two lochs?’