SEVENTEEN

FTER ROGNVALD, as after the little elf-wind that blisters, the islands of Orkney were never to be quite the same again.

No savage prows swept up to the strand below the great hall at Orphir: no grim hordes leaped ashore and began overrunning the land. Instead, watched by the entire population of Orkney, the three Norwegian ships sailed quietly north to the island of Westray, where stood the hall at Hfn, once the chief homestead of Brusi, Thorfinn’s older half-brother and father to Rognvald.

Long before the three ships arrived, the steading at Hfn had been emptied and all those who wished had been taken off Westray. Peacefully, the foreign Earl’s son took possession and, peacefully, he sent his first message south to his dearest uncle Thorfinn son of Sigurd.

In it, together with his warmest regards, he conveyed his apologies that necessity after an arduous voyage had caused him to quarter himself without invitation in his old childhood house-hall in Westray. It was, of course, a fact that the northern Isles, together with the east mainland and the island of Shapinsay—that was to say ninety-three ouncelands in all—had belonged to his father Earl Brusi and therefore were his, Rognvald’s, by inheritance. He had, however, encountered some delay in occupying them and would have thought it impolite to arrive without warning, and thus upset any arrangements his uncle might have made, if in any way he could have prevented it.

As it was, he hoped his uncle would have no objection to himself and his friends making their way as soon as might be to all the property which was his, and he hoped to give himself the pleasure of calling on his uncle in Orphir, or wherever he might choose to be, in the very near future. Not wishing to impose on his uncle’s hospitality, he would bring with him only two or three men to serve him on the journey. God’s blessings, he was sure, would continue, as ever, to profit his uncle and all his family, whom he was hoping to meet.

With the message, he sent a Byzantine helmet made of gilded steel with an eagle and five plumes of crimson ostrich feathers on top.

‘He has a sense of humour,’ said Groa. ‘And some courage, you will admit.’

‘He can afford both,’ said Thorkel Fóstri. ‘The last time I saw him, he was weeping on the cobbles at Nídarós because his father was going away. Where shall we receive him?’

‘Here,’ said Earl Thorfinn. ‘And since we are not having a war immediately, it would appear, we may as well restore all the furnishings, even if we have to take them all away afterwards.’

‘Shall I be there?’ Groa asked. She knew the answers to all the other questions. To fly back to Caithness now with the child would be unseemly. To invoke an army against Rognvald and throw him out of the northern islands was tempting but debarred by circumstances. To meet effrontery with effrontery was all that was left to do. She was sure her husband could manage it.

‘You’re his aunt,’ said Earl Thorfinn shortly. ‘Of course you will be there. You can discuss his jewellery with him. If this is a sample, he’s probably wearing pendicles over his ears, if not earrings actually in them.’

Having already learned to tread very warily indeed, she did not answer.

Whatever else he might have brought from his long stay in Russia and points further east, the foster-brother of the King of Norway was dressed not in knobbed robes and cataseistae but in a plain linen tunic and narrow hose, whose bindings were, however, gartered in worked gold, which also adorned his belt, his purse, his knife-sheath, his reliquary brooch, his rings, his bracelets, his necklet, and the band which confined the pure silken fall of his pale yellow hair. The face within was that of an archangel worked by a master in ivory.

It was smiling, its blue eyes celestial. ‘My dearest uncle and master,’ said Rognvald gently, ‘I kneel before you. For fifteen years have I awaited this day.’

‘It even seemed for a year or two that you might not be coming,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I hope you will stand up: the dogs are a little excited. You know my wife, Finn Arnason’s daughter. Indeed, I think we nearly shared her.’

The last sentence, if he heard it, provoked no answering riposte from Rognvald. Instead he smiled and, for the second time, sank with grace to his knees. ‘Despite the dogs,’ he said, ‘I act as my impulses tell me. You were a child and I was little more when last we met. But from Kalv I had a picture of what you had become.’ He rose and stood looking down at her, smiling still. ‘His pigments were mud.’

‘I am afraid, so are your knees,’ Groa said. ‘I am longing to hear about Kiev and Ladoga. We received your helmet.’

He laughed, and it was clear and musical, like his voice. ‘It was, of course, for your dwarf,’ he said. ‘I suppose you keep several? I know you have bards. I got someone to sing one of the latest poems:

‘That is something the rest of us envy you. There are no bards singing the praises of Rognvald.’

‘I shall ask Arnór if he has a friend,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Here are some men you may know. And some wine.’

It was half an hour before he had finished greeting everyone, and another hour before the chatter at the board died away. He had kissed Thorkel Fóstri on both cheeks and given a gold ring, quietly, to the girl who brought his wine. At length—

‘We have begun to know each other, dear Thorfinn,’ he said. ‘And that is good. But still there are matters between us that must be settled before we may be comfortable and love one another as uncle and nephew should. Should we speak of this alone?’

‘There is no need. You have asked for the share of these islands that used to belong to the Earl Brusi your father. Indeed, you are settled there. You have a claim to them. I shall not dispute it,’ Thorfinn said.

‘How should you dispute it?’ said Rognvald, smiling. ‘You are my dear uncle and kinsman whom I trust, and I would not weary you by mentioning the matter, except to thank you for your stewardship over the years. I said as much to King Magnús when I told him I was yearning to hold my odal lands in Orkney again, and when he gave me my title of Earl and the three warships that perhaps you saw. I said that I had known you when you were young and knew your mind, and that you would return, willingly and freely, the heritage that was my father’s, and also the second third of the isles, that King Olaf kept in fief, and which King Magnús has now seen fit to give me.…

‘This is a hall my father loved,’ Rognvald said, ‘and I see you kept it as he had it, except for what the years may have done, here and there. But you have your other lodging, I know, in west mainland, for when you tire of your rich lands in Alba. You will not grudge your own kindred the means by which to make a living. I told King Magnús as much.’

His face, mobile and lovely, looked up wistfully into Thorfinn’s black, impassive visage.

Thorfinn said, ‘The wind gets noisier every year. Would you mind repeating what you have just said? You wish me to give you two-thirds of Orkney?’

An expression of sorrow flickered across Rognvald’s face and was gone. ‘King Magnús wishes it,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you don’t remember paying homage to Norway in King Olaf’s day, but Thorkel here will remind you. The northern third is mine, through my father. And the southern isles fell to King Olaf after the killing of my uncle Earl Einar, and he kept these in fief. My father had them in his lifetime, and King Magnús has given them to me his son now. Making one hundred and eighty-eight ouncelands in all. You still have west mainland and Rousay and Egilsay. You might even, for a consideration, look after Orphir for me. I would not have you deprived.’

‘Thank you,’ said Thorfinn. ‘Do you know, of us all, my lady wife here turns out to understand you best. She said you had courage. And a sense of humour.’

Rognvald’s smile became deeper. He had a dimple. ‘As does everyone in this hall, I trust your wisdom,’ he said. The men who follow you and me expect us to recognise what is fair, otherwise what are their prospects under us? Young as he is, even King Magnús strives hard to hold by this rule, now that he has attained his majority, with none to act for him.’

Finding that her eyes were stretched to their uttermost, Groa dropped her lids and unclasped her fingers. The meaning of all that was unmistakable.

Kalv is no longer regent. Don’t expect him to be able to save you for your wife’s sake. Even if you lose your head and attack me, your men probably won’t follow. You are not as young as you were, and no beauty.

She considered her husband. That at least was true. And he was twenty-seven.

Earl Thorfinn said, ‘Well, Rognvald, you put your case excellently. I think I see exactly what you mean. I shall send you my answer with as little delay as may be. Now, I expect you wish to get on your way while it is daylight.’

Being summer, it would be daylight for another five hours.

Rognvald said, ‘Is there something you cannot understand?’

‘No,’ Thorfinn said. ‘No, I can’t say there is. But we in Orkney like to give proper thought to anything new. You will be told as soon as we have a reply for you.’

He got up, and so, raggedly, did his company. After an interval, Rognvald stood as well, followed by his three men. He said, ‘I had expected to finish this business today. In fact, I can hardly halt my plans to move into this hall by next week.’

‘Why halt them?’ said Thorfinn. ‘If we are still here, we are still here, and I am sure there will be room of a kind for everybody, although it might be uncomfortable for some. If you find there is no need to come south yet, of course, so much the better for both of us.… Here are your horses already. I cannot remember,’ Thorfinn said, ‘when I have seen such a fine pair of spurs. I hope you will remember not to use them too freely in Orkney. It is not Kiev, as you notice. There is small room for manoeuvering and a great number of big, harmful boulders.… An uncle’s blessing upon you.’

Everyone could see the gravity in the delicate face as Rognvald listened to that. Then the white-toothed smile returned, and, without haste, Thorfinn’s nephew made his farewells, gathered his men, and rode off.

‘What …?’ said Thorkel Fóstri.

‘I have saved my face,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And one-third of Orkney. If you think you could have done better, you are welcome to try. Otherwise you wait a week and then send a message complying. I shan’t be here. I shall be in Caithness for the rest of the summer.’

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.’

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?’

‘I can,’ said someone; and described it. At the end, Thorkel shrugged his shoulders and looked at the others. ‘So it can’t be done. Let’s get out to the ships.’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Rognvald. His colour high and his eyes blue with excitement, he looked like Baldur come back to earth, and Thorkel hated him. ‘I beg your pardon, but it can be done, if I do it. I don’t speak from vanity. This is a matter much practised in Russia.’

‘Of course,’ said Thorfinn. ‘I’d forgotten. What, then? Axemen for rollers. Fresh men to fight, as well as for porterage. A courier, who will signal to us from the point, and a set of agreed signals … It couldn’t be done at nightfall? No, we want them on board.’

‘No,’ said Rognvald. ‘And, in any case, noise would travel … Do you know, uncle mine, that I was beginning to find the summer dull? I begin to have some hopes for the future.’

‘Why not take Arnór with you?’ Thorfinn said. ‘He has made up one verse for me already. Arnór, how does it run?’

Thorkel Fóstri swore under his breath, and Arnór looked from one to the other, sulking. ‘Which one, my lord Earl?’

‘Never mind. I shall recite it myself,’ Thorfinn said, and did.

He broke off. ‘Kin-Betterer of the great Turf-Einar? Doesn’t that apply to you as well?’

Rognvald considered. ‘Certainly,’ he said, ‘Turf-Einar was equally my ancestor. The verse might refer to either of us.’

‘It was intended for you. There is no doubt about it,’ Thorfinn said. ‘And all the time I believed it was a prayer for my own success, and even gave the skald some reward for it.’

He turned to Arnór. ‘There is no question of it. You stay and cross the isthmus on foot with the ships and Earl Rognvald, who will give you a suitable present for your fine invocation on his behalf. The ring I gave you may be returned any time.’

The men already boarded thought there was a lot of laughter on shore and were keen to know the cause, but Thorkel, when he arrived, said shortly that he had no idea and if they were to get to their next battle in time, they had better set sail and be quick about it. Which, knowing Thorkel Fóstri, they did, looking inquisitively over their shoulders at the mob of men and the golden head still on the shore.

Late that night, the seven ships under Thorfinn stole their way into an anchorage and, making fast, lay locked together, gently rocking in silence while the men slept. Then the blackness around them turned to tablets of black and less than black and somewhere, a long way off, a blackbird announced a cherried sentence and the watch on each ship, stretching, began to move bending from man to man. The wind had dropped.

They entered Loch Bracadale with the sunrise, rose-coloured oars laying darkling folds on the rose-tinted pool of the fjord. A dusting of guillemots, asleep on the water, roused and dived with almost no sound, leaving pink and verdigris rings on the surface. A charcoal rock needled with cormorants became suddenly bare, and from the shore came the scalloped cry of an oyster-catcher, joined after a moment by others. Then the longships slid past, and the sounds died away.

With no sound at all, but with a glory that bludgeoned the senses, the furnace doors were thrown finally open, and the spires and pinnacles of the mountains of Skye stood suddenly stark before them, against mighty rivers of scarlet and brass.

On Thorfinn’s ship, no one spoke. The grey goose flamed, and its shadow moved, shortening. ‘On such a day,’ Thorfinn said, ‘it would not be a hardship to die.’

Sharply, Thorkel Fóstri turned his head. ‘You have seen a sunrise before.’

The air could be drunk: fresh and cold, with a smell of peat-smoke and seaweed. Thorfinn said, ‘Not like this one.’

The sea-loch with its green islands began to open before them. Thorkel Fóstri said, ‘Was that the knoll?’ and had hardly spoken when, from the rising ground on their left, a shield flashed once, and paused, and then several times more.

Rognvald had arrived at Loch Vatten, the ancient stronghold of Snaebjorn his grandfather’s cousin. And the Irish flotilla of warships was still in the inner loch, the long finger of water that ran six miles inland to Drynoch. There were ten of them.

‘Then they’ll be at Loch Beag,’ Thorfinn said. ‘There’s a fort just inside the entrance. All right. There’s no hurry now. It will only be a matter of moments before their look-out wakes up, wherever he is. I thought you had a mail shirt?’

‘It came undone,’ Thorkel Fóstri said. ‘And the smith has been too busy to mend it. Don’t offer me yours: I couldn’t stand the weight of it.’

‘I wasn’t going to,’ Thorfinn said. ‘You’ll just have to fight better than usual.’

The shields were out now, and the spears, and the sun, high and yellow and normal, flashed on the bossed leather jackets and the polished cones with their tangs over cheekbone or nose, and the heavy barred gloves and grey ring-tunics. Arnór held Thorfinn’s weapons: the gilded axe and the helmet from Canute, and the painted red shield: the good hide stretched over a framework that had once been Sigurd’s, with a spiked and engraved boss in the centre that Sulien had told them was Breton.

The green island of Wiay lay ahead of them. From its rear, a square of blue sail appeared, luminous in the low sun. Following, crowding, were others. The wind had risen, and was against them.

Thorkel Fóstri turned and looked over the water to where, out of sight, Thorfinn’s nephew Rognvald was waiting, with a hundred armed men and two ships, to burn the tail of Diarmaid’s nephew. ‘I have changed my mind,’ Thorfinn said. ‘I would rather Diarmaid’s nephew died today. Let us go and arrange it.’

Afterwards, they said that the crimson sunrise, like the dark afternoon at Stiklestad, had been its own harbinger. Afterwards, the loch received heavier bodies than the black and white feathers of guillemots, and the water became red all over again.

The Irish ships, in the end, were destroyed. They fought, in their first confrontation, with an abandon the Orkneymen had neither expected nor experienced before, but found themselves slowly borne back towards Vatten. When the two ships of Rognvald closed in from the rear and attacked them, they went into a blood-frenzy that reminded Thorkel of all he had heard of the berserkers.

Yet these were Irishmen, men of Leinster, out for a roving life and some booty and to satisfy the ambitions of a dangerous kinsman just coming into the peak of his powers.

‘They’re terrified of Diarmaid. They must be terrified of Diarmaid,’ yelled Thorkel Fóstri to his foster-son as he hacked, swearing, at the throng of big-shouldered men who had begun to find their way over his gunwales.

He heard Thorfinn snort something in reply and had the satisfaction of seeing the shield-wall of men beside him advance and push the invaders back into their own rocking boat before something punched him hard in the ribs and he turned round to fight it. Then he found that he couldn’t turn round, because of the haft of the spear that was stuck in him.

Late in the afternoon, when the Irish ships were emptied and sunk and the land forts destroyed; when the Irish dead had all been buried and covered with stones, against the wolves; and their own dead and wounded placed on board the nine ships with their booty, Thorfinn had time to kneel by his foster-father where he had been laid in the stern. Rognvald was there.

That day, Rognvald had been everywhere. Without him, it was clear, their own losses would have been even greater. And while they sailed at their ease through the night, he and his men had achieved the porterage of the two ships that had turned the whole battle. Bit by bit, now that there was time, the scale of that endeavour had begun to emerge.

Sitting now beside Thorkel’s quiet body, he said, ‘I’ve been able to take the spear out. If he doesn’t bleed any more, he might live. But the man who knew most about these things on my ship is dead.’

‘And on mine, too,’ Thorfinn said. Thorkel was yellow-white and breathing harshly, and the cloths over his side were stained red. Thorfinn said, ‘We should get back quickly. How many have you lost?’

‘Thirty men,’ Rognvald said. ‘Some of them yours. This will bring Diarmaid after us.’

‘Us?’ said Thorfinn. ‘We have some men to ransom, and some stock from the forts, and a quantity of reasonable swords and belts and gear that will fetch money. But it seems little enough to make anyone eager for more.’

Rognvald smiled. His face was blackened with metal-dirt and smeared blood, and with his helmet removed, his hair clung darkened and dull to his head. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I needed the booty, and wish it had been more. Nor would I hope for a battle of that sort more often than I deserve it. But yesterday I was dead, and today I am alive. You do not know what you have done.’

‘Allowed you to take two-thirds of Orkney?’ said Thorfinn. Squatting on Thorkel Fóstri’s other side, he had not ceased watching the wounded man’s face.

‘And saw to it that if I needed food, I could not get it,’ Rognvald said. ‘It was a clever move, and I could have complained to King Magnús, as I would have done had you refused to move out of your trithing.’

‘But you didn’t,’ Thorfinn said. ‘He’s too busy?’

‘Don’t you know, even yet, why I came back to Orkney?’ Rognvald said.

Then Thorfinn looked up. Rognvald’s gaze, waiting for his, took and sustained it. Thorfinn did not look away, but his face held no expression. Rognvald said, ‘I am the dog at your heel. Everything I have ever done has been an attempt to be like Thorfinn.’

There was no one within earshot, and no escape either. Between them, Thorkel Fóstri groaned and was silent.

‘What do you want?’ Thorfinn said.

‘This,’ said Rognvald. ‘I knew only one way to make you give it me.’

‘To sail with me?’ Thorfinn said. ‘But surely—’

‘But surely not,’ Rognvald said. ‘Your brother’s son, the rival claimant to Orkney? You would never have let me within your doors unless I had forced you. I am not a bad fighter, on sea or on land. But if you find me an encumbrance, you can always tell me.’

‘And you will go?’ Thorfinn said.

‘No,’ said Rognvald, smiling again through the dirt. ‘But you can always tell me.’ He rose, and then sat down again.

‘What is it?’ Thorfinn said.

‘Shall I be brave, or shall I make you sorry for me?’ said Rognvald. ‘I had an argument two days ago with a man with an axe, and he got the better of me for a moment, before I killed him. I have a cut on one thigh.’ He leaned his head back against the bulwark and looked at Thorfinn. His skin, naturally fair, had turned pallid. Then, bending forward, he unfurled a stained cloth from above his right knee.

The wound was freshly re-opened, and so deep that Thorfinn could see the white bone. He said, ‘You walked all night with that?’

‘With an eye, naturally, to this moment,’ Rognvald said. ‘I inflicted the cut on myself, to tell the truth, but I hope you won’t tell anyone.’

He was no fool. From no angle could he have produced so deep a gash by his own hand. And to prove or disprove his story, one need only question his men. He was rebinding the wound already himself, smiling a little. He said, his eyes on what he was doing, ‘Have I persuaded you? Are we partners?’

‘I suppose I might have expected this,’ Thorfinn said. ‘You are really fishing for Arnór.’

‘No. You may keep Arnór,’ Rognvald said. It was an assent, however oblique, and he knew it. He said, ‘Thorkel won’t like it. Nor will your beautiful wife.’

‘I’m not sure that you will like it,’ said Thorfinn, ‘when you know what I have in mind to do. But if you will undertake to carry all of my ships whenever I find it convenient, I have no doubt that we will make a team to astonish the Empire.’

‘Or Duncan?’ Rognvald said.