SEVEN

VEIN OF DENMARK had betrayed him with Siward. Why, was for later.

This was not only vengeance for a lost son, but an invasion.

Not an invasion by Denmark, or five hundred ships would have arrived. An attempt, therefore, by Siward to possess not only Lothian but a divided Alba itself. With England’s blessing, but without England’s material support.

Without, it seemed, Thor of Allerdale. (But Gillecrist, who might have advised him about that, was dead.) And without, it seemed, his nephew Malcolm to tinge the conquest with legality. But perhaps Malcolm had refused to come.

Lacking ships, the Forth crossing here was the only sure access to Perth and Scone and Dunkeld, Forteviot, Glamis, and Forfar. For those who were sea-borne, the river Tay led, a royal highroad, to them all.

An invading army would find no resistance. Two watch-vessels at the mouth of the estuary who would fly, if they were wise. Fifty men left as insurance at Forteviot.

Having taken his strongholds, his wife, and his wealth, such an army had only to march thirty miles south to trap him here, with two thousand enemy mercenaries at his back and Siward before him, triumphant.

Siward, who had done his best to delay. Who had fought only when driven to it, and withdrawn as soon as he could. For whom the news of his ships, far from mortifying, must have signalled the approach of the far greater fleet he was awaiting. For he would know, as the nine men watching him knew, that unless Thorfinn defended the Tay, he was lost. With part of his army or with all his army, Thorfinn had to withdraw.

It crossed his mind that an hour earlier, receiving this news, he could have cut off Siward’s escape from the field and forced him to finish the battle. Instead of seventy dead, it might have cost him five hundred, a thousand, to destroy Siward’s army so that it could neither attack him nor follow him.

But then he could have turned north to the Tay in safety. With a tired army. But with an army twice the size of the one awaiting him.

One hour. So small a margin.

He wondered how long he had been silent. A short time only, for no one had spoken. He said, ‘All right. Over nine hundred have landed at Leven-mouth. Any horses?’

‘None,’ Scandlain said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘My man was quite sure.’

‘And how long ago? Two hours? Tuathal, how many garrons could they pick up in Fife?’

Gillocher broke in. ‘None. Fife is empty. We have all the garrons at Dunblane.’ His voice shook a little.

Thorfinn said, ‘Empty? This army will pass through Markinch and Scoonie. How many garrons could Malduin’s friends hide? A hundred?’

‘Not much more,’ said Tuathal. ‘But I see. If some of the nine hundred got horses, they could ride north ahead of the foot and meet the fleet as it came into the Tay, in time to protect the main landings.’

‘If they have horses,’ Thorfinn said, ‘they’ll be at the Ochils by now, and at Tay side with two hours to spare before the fleet gets into the river. They may take Abernethy, or leave it for their foot. They would certainly have time to get to the river Almond and cut off any interference from the garrisons there at Perth and at Scone, even if they can’t overwhelm them. They’ll probably try to do the same at Forteviot. It’s on the way here.

‘A courier, then, to Forteviot, Scandlain. Of the fifty men at arms there, thirty to get inside Scone, ten to Perth, and the rest to stay with the household. No fighting on the way. No sallies once they get there. Just hold these three strongholds until they are rescued. And the scout to return and tell us what he can find. Two—another man to go quickly and quietly round the burning part of the forest with word for the Normans. My lord Osbern to come here immediately. The rest to round up all the horses they can find and bring them back here, unseen if they can. I take it the signals are lit?’

‘Yes. Tayside knows trouble is coming. My lord,’ said Scandlain, ‘I don’t know if any courier can get to Forteviot before mounted men from the Leven.’

‘I do. He can. And you and he will win this day for us,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Quickly …’

He watched Scandlain go. The courier might even do it. The mercenaries had to get hold of their horses somewhere in Fife, and there were always distractions. Bishop Hrolf said, ‘I’ve lost count. How many landing on Tay?’

‘Thirteen longships, including two guide-ships of Siward’s? About eleven hundred fresh men,’ Thorfinn said. ‘They’ll come on the flood past Earn-mouth but not any further: the banks are too conveniently close for assailants, and we trust there will be assailants. They must, clearly, try to take the main citadels, and especially Scone. Then they should turn south past Forteviot and march against us. By that time, the rest of the army landed at Leven should have reached Tayside by foot and joined with them. A total of two hundred foot and a hundred horse in possession of all central Alba by nightfall, and ready to march south and fall on us tomorrow morning.’

Ferteth said, ‘We could thrash Siward by then.’

‘We could at a price,’ Thorfinn said. ‘We began evenly matched. His losses are small. If we fight now, it will be a fight to a standstill and, no matter who wins, the slaughter will be crippling. If we killed every Northumbrian, we should still have fresh troops coming against us, and Scone and Perth would have fallen.’

He drew a long breath, keeping it clear, keeping it steady, keeping it low. ‘We can’t afford to wait and let the northern army join with Siward. We can’t afford to run north. We couldn’t outdistance Siward. We should have to fight all the way, and arrive too late to save anything. We have to split our force and deal with both invasions. Remember, the one in the north is arriving in stages, beginning with a small group of horsemen from Leven who will be unsupported for at least two hours after they have arrived at the Tay. And we have five hundred horses in the lines over the bridge here.’

‘If you detached five hundred men now and sent them north? What could they do?’ said Malpedar.

‘No: I see,’ said Eochaid. ‘They might get rid of the Leven men, for a start, and help the places already being attacked. And once the ships came, they could hinder the disembarkation and delay the eleven hundred in their march, wherever they may be making for. From Earnmouth to the Almond is eight miles. To Forteviot, ten. I should like to go with them, if I may.’

The Prior got up. He had wiped the blood from the reliquary and only a little remained, stuck in the filigree of its thick little roof-disc. Back in Scone were the embroidered vestments, the golden book-shrines and chalices, the great painted gospels which could be replaced one day, precious though they were. Back in Scone were the monks, Eochaid’s family. And the Stone of Inauguration, upon which the Kings of Alba were enthroned. And the long, jewelled box containing the rod, without roses or leaves, that was the wand of his kingship.

Of all of these, Eochaid was the guardian. Thorfinn said, ‘You and Ferteth and Cormac will go, with five hundred Strathearn men. In a moment, I shall tell you how.’

Cormac of Atholl said, ‘Can you beat Siward with five hundred men gone?’

Thorfinn said, ‘I think we can beat him with two thousand gone, provided the Normans remain. We shall have to. You and your horsemen will be facing four times your numbers by the time the foot-army from Leven has joined up with the eleven hundred from the ships. But less than three hours after that, fifteen hundred footsoldiers of ours could be there, provided they start within the next half-hour.’

Cormac said, ‘They’ll arrive having marched thirty miles.’

‘The Leven army will have come just as far. The ship-borne army will have had five hours of marching and fighting. With your help, and that of the Forteviot men, the main citadels may still be standing. And with what we have left here, we can stop Siward’s army from joining the others.’

Tuathal said, ‘We shall only have two-thirds of Siward’s force. Less. But we can certainly hold them up.’

‘Don’t you see?’ said Bishop Jon. ‘They’ll want to be held up. The longer he thinks he’s pinning us all down here, the better chance, surely, Siward thinks he is giving the fleet to take Perth and Scone. Cormac, O hound of feats, you’ll have to steal those horsemen away the equal of an army of angels for silence.’

‘About that,’ said Thorfinn, ‘I shall have something to tell you. Then I shall speak to the men. Then we shall move. There is no time to say what should be said. But this is a matter for concern, not a matter for despair. Siward is fighting from greed, whereas we fight for our homes. We will win.’

He had not mentioned Dunkeld. No one had mentioned Dunkeld. Dunkeld, which would be attacked: nothing surer. But, first, Scone and Perth had to fall. And twelve river-miles and three hours of marching lay between Scone and Dunkeld, Crinan’s monastery, Cormac’s monastery. Where Groa was.

‘Bottom pudding!’ said Siward of Northumbria. ‘Do all the cooks come from Bamburgh? Take it to Ligulf and bring me some meat. What d’you see?’

Forne of Skirpenbeck took away the bowl, although that was not his business, and came back with a leg of pork, the burnt seaweed still sticking to it. He said, ‘They’ve got the news, on the other side. Bishop Aethelric saw the King addressing the army, and some sort of movement is starting.’

‘Is it, by God!’ Siward said. He got up, taking the meat, and, setting his teeth in it, walked to the edge of the forest. His cheek-hairs moved as he chewed, and his beard glistened with fat.

He swallowed. ‘Aye. They’re trying to cover it, but they’re mustering. They’re withdrawing men to go north. But how many? What would you do if you were Thorfinn?’

‘Retire to Orkney with my red-haired wife and forget about Alba,’ said Ligulf, strolling up. ‘He’s withdrawing a lot. Look at that. Mind you, I’ve seen better-managed secret dispersals.’

Forne said suddenly, ‘Is he withdrawing a lot? Look more closely.’

Everyone peered. The two Maldredssons came up, and the fool Malduin, who had, however, made all this possible. Siward said, ‘I can see the Normans already in line, and a lot of foot behind the banners and awnings.’

‘A lot of foot, with a lot of spaces between,’ Forne said. ‘It looks a good many at first glance, but I doubt if there are five hundred men there ready to leave. Could Thorfinn be tricking us?’

‘Could Thorfinn be a Norseman?’ said Ligulf. ‘If you think half his army has withdrawn, you’re going to attack him, aren’t you? And what a shock you’re going to get when you find his full army there, all but a hundred or two.’

‘Hence the apparent poor cover. He’s right,’ said Forne. ‘The scouts say it looks at first glance as if thousands are leaving. It’s only five hundred. We shouldn’t attack.’

‘Of course we shouldn’t attack,’ said Siward. ‘So long as you give me something better than bottom pudding, I’m willing to sit here till nightfall if need be.’

‘He’ll try to provoke you,’ said Forne.

‘Personally, it seems,’ Ligulf said. ‘He’s coming himself, a bishop on either side, to address you from mid-field. Or no. Before mid-field and out of bowshot, more’s the pity. I can’t quite hear him, but the gutturals sound very insulting. He seems to be speaking Norse.’

He was speaking Norse, and it was more than insulting. Earl Siward’s tunic creaked with the force of his breathing. Thorfinn had not even troubled to wear his helmet. On either side of the black ridge of his brow, the soot-black plaits were looped, Viking-style, under the leather band of the hla, confining his hair in case his head became bared in battle. His father had been killed in the Brian war when his helmet-buckle had been slashed apart.

He was still speaking. Siward jerked his head, and a hail of arrows and javelins sped rustling from the forest on either side of him and thudded, in sufficient reply, into the ground between himself and Kalv’s nephew by marriage, who had won a kingdom and thought he was no one’s vassal yet.

The King waited a moment and then turned back, his bishops following. Earl Siward made a joke that was barely repeatable, even when changed into Anglo-Saxon, and pushed past Bishop Malduin into the forest, laughing and biting into his pork. It would be entertaining to see what the fellow would try to do next. It would teach him. It would teach him to strut about Lothian and Cumbria, treating Siward like some English underling.

He needed a lesson for that. For the death of Osbern his son, he needed another lesson, which he would receive also.

The next hour was, of course, highly unpleasant. Although there was no question of rising to it, the means of provocation were ingenious. Shield-hung hurdles were brought out into the field, and bowmen and slingshot-throwers behind them began to shred the trees with a descending curtain of missiles. He had to put archers and javelin-throwers of his own up all the climbable trees before he had them on the run, and lost a dozen men to no purpose.

The heat and the gnats were the next burden. As the sun rose into clear skies and burned down on the plain of the Forth, you would say the exposed army opposite would have the worst of it, despite their shields and their awnings.

But there in the open air they escaped the shimmering body of heat from the blaze on the other side of the highway. And since the wind changed, the smoke, once so unwelcome, had drifted north-east; and the armed hosts native to the wood had arrived in their thousands to attack the armed host that was not.

The army became restive. The army wanted to get out of the trees. The army wanted to slake its thirst and, rightly, was not prepared to believe their Earl when he quoted the number of ale-casks destroyed in the fire. A group of men who had come with Leofnoth found a broached cask and began to drag it out of the rear of the wood, and Siward had three of them hanged. He noticed that someone had moved the few horses they had managed to round up, and sent two men to find out where they had been taken. A shout from the front of the wood called him back to the edge of the field, where men were watching a group of the enemy busy with spades on the high ground to his left, near the wood where they stationed the Normans. Supervising the diggers was a large man he recognised as the Irish-Scandinavian bishop from Saxony whose name be believed to be Hrolf.

Forne said, ‘They’re diverting the stream to come through the wood.’

‘Then shake your fist at them,’ said Earl Siward, slapping his neck. ‘For, by God, they don’t know it, but they couldn’t do us a better service. I’d send out and help them if it wouldn’t spoil everything.’

It was only a little after that, and before the damming had got very much further, that Ligulf said, ‘Siward?’

The Earl of Northumbria objected to the way Ligulf addressed him. He said, ‘Well?’

‘Send a man up to look at that part of the army,’ Ligulf said, ‘Is it as thick on the ground as it was?’

His best climber was standing by. Earl Siward snapped his fingers, and the man darted off. Siward said, ‘Where? I see. They’ve shifted them.’

‘Where to?’ said Ligulf. ‘Look along the line.’

‘It looks the same to me,’ Siward said. The banners are all there.’

‘They would be,’ said Ligulf. ‘Here’s your man.’

‘Well?’ said Siward. Could Thorfinn be tricking us? Could Thorfinn be a Norseman?

‘My lord Earl,’ said the climber. His chest was heaving. ‘The men on the right wing and the men on the left have lost half the ranks behind them, although they’re spread out and from the front it looks just the same. My lord, fifteen hundred men must have gone.’

‘What?’ said Siward of Northumbria.

‘What a pity,’ said Ligulf his brother-in-law. ‘And we have wasted all this time resisting provocation, which was just what they wanted. But now, my dear Siward, I think the time has come to be provoked.’

‘God blind him!’ Siward said, ‘Is Thorfinn still there?’

‘Yes, my lord. I could see his helmet,’ said the scout.

Fifteen hundred men on their way to the Tay. No, two thousand altogether, including the horsemen who had already left. But fifteen hundred whom he had time to catch, provided he finished this business quickly. Against him, after all, was a force now only two-thirds of his in size, and lacking the Normans.

He said, ‘Prepare the men to give battle. To form up as before, but this time quietly. This time we shall surprise them. This time, they will not dream that we are coming until they hear the trumpet and see us marching upon them. In half an hour we shall be riding north, victors.’

In the event, however, the victorious half-hour expired and Siward of Northumbria was not even aware of it. For the army of Alba, it seemed, was not at all unprepared for the sudden emergence of the enemy from the wood and only waited politely, as before, for the troublesome stream to be crossed, together with a number of novel earthworks of Bishop Hrolf’s devising, before throwing itself in neat but different formation against Siward’s lines.

In the van, as before, flashed the white-and-gold helmet of Thorfinn, towards which Siward spent all his great strength in fighting. It was with anger and astonishment, therefore, that he found, confronting that royal figure at last, that the face under the helmet was the minatory one of Bishop Hrolf.

He would have had no hesitation in sending the Bishop back to Saxony by celestial transport, save that at that moment the Normans emerged again from the wood.

He had seen them leave with his own eyes. Ligulf had seen them, too. It was all Ligulf’s fault.

The half-hour went by, but neither army, killing and being killed, was aware of it.

Under the same sun, Thorfinn of Orkney and Alba had crossed the river and was riding north with a handful of men and a fresh horse collected, with all else he required, at Dunblane. He led them round the range of the Ochils and swept through the strath down which the river Allan poured on its way to the Forth far behind him. In due course, he would meet with the Earn, flowing north and east in the opposite direction to add its waters to those of the Tay eight miles east of Scone.

Also behind him were fifteen hundred of his own men on foot, with Bishop Jon leading them.

Ahead, it was easy to see where Eochaid and the five hundred horsemen had already passed, leaving churned earth and dung on either side of the cart-wide stones of the road. All the steadings the King went by were empty, although hearth-fires still burned; and there was no one at the little monastery of Dunning. Eochaid would have taken the monks with him for safety, and those of Muthill as well. Or perhaps they had gone with their people to comfort them.

Then, just short of his hall at Forteviot, the King came across the first group of injured. Not men-at-arms, but a lad of eleven and another not much older, supporting an elderly man. He stopped.

They recognised him, or perhaps the gold band round his helmet. The man sank to his knees, but the boys were too excited to care. A group of thirty horsemen had come against Forteviot from the east an hour before, and had tried to set fire to it with burning arrows, and strike down the defenders with slingshot and spears. They were getting the best of it, too, for there were only serving-people left and a few armed men, since the rest went off north with the courier. But then my lord Prior of Scone had appeared like a miracle, with a great army behind him, and had killed every horseman. You could see them for yourself, past the next bit of wood. And they had been asked if they wanted to stay in the fort, since more soldiers had now been put into it, but they thought, since they couldn’t fight, they would rather go and hide with their people.

Tuathal dismounted and helped the man up, and the King himself bent over and spoke to him, for that was all there was time to do. Then he spurred on to Forteviot. Men would always fight for Eochaid, and Ferteth and Cormac of course were their Mormaers. Men, it seemed, were ready to fight for himself, as well.

At Forteviot, he went no further than the gateway to pick up more news. More than a hundred enemy horsemen had arrived from the Levenmouth landing two hours before noon. Thirty had cut through Glen Farg straight to Forteviot. The rest had overrun Abernethy and crossed the Earn higher up, by the last ford before it flowed into the Tay.

There the intruders had divided. Fifty had continued upriver, on a course that would take them to Perth and to Scone opposite. Fifty had remained where they were, on the Tayside meadows called Rhind, where the estuary narrowed to river.

‘So that is where the landings will be. What look-outs do we have?’

‘Plenty on the north side of Tay, my lord. I doubt we’ll have lost our man on Moncrieffe Hill.’

‘We’ll put another there. And Prior Eochaid?’

‘Has gone to Scone, my lord, with fifty horsemen. He said that was all he would need. My lords of Strathearn and of Atholl have taken the rest of the horses to Rhind. It’ll be four hundred and fifty of them against the fifty enemy horse waiting there, and easy enough, you would think. But they say there’s a fleet coming upriver, and it may get to Rhind before they do.’

‘It won’t,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And, in any case, there are fifteen hundred men marching behind me. Can you hold out until they get here?’

‘Of course, my lord King,’ said the captain of Forteviot. ‘They’ll have this hall only when we are all dead.’

The words followed Thorfinn as he flung his horse away from the gates. Confidence was a great thing. Under that roof, Erlend had been born. Behind him, Tuathal’s fractured voice said, ‘Marching behind us? They can’t get here for five hours.’

‘Oh, they might manage it quicker,’ Thorfinn said. ‘If Siward is chasing them.’

Tuathal said, ‘I don’t suppose you mean that, but I’d prefer not to have heard it.’

‘Save your breath,’ said Thorfinn. ‘And start to think how best to welcome fifteen enemy ships who want to offload an army.’

The longships were beautiful, and worth all he had paid King Svein of Denmark. The only thing wrong with them was that they flew the Northumbrian flag, and not his.

They were already in sight when Thorfinn with Tuathal behind him rounded Moncrieffe Hill and dashed into the flat plain of Rhind, where the Earn joined the Tay. Distant in the big river, the line of vessels threaded the sandbanks, the sinuous pattern of poles moving past the green northern slopes of the estuary. Their wells were crammed with cone helmets and glittered with shield-hoops and the faggoted filaments that were spears. They looked like vessels infested with hornets.

In front of the King, the marshes and mud-flats of Earnbank were already filled with struggling men as his own dismounted vanguard disposed of the last of the fifty intruders from the Forth landing. He sent someone to round up loose horses and looked for Cormac and Ferteth. Knots of horsemen, as far as the eye could see, were moving along the banks of the Tay, firing the jetties that were not already broken, and two ferry boats crowded with men were in midstream on the Tay, hazed with smoke as they struck tinder into their torches.

Cormac appeared and said, ‘These horsemen were Swedish. Some Northumbrians and three Fife men. They’re all dead. I can only get forty over the river before the ships come, and they won’t have horses.’

‘They may discourage a landing on the north shore,’ Thorfinn said. There were bits of cornland and thatched buildings all over the firmer ground and the slopes of the hill behind him, some of them fired by the early arrivals but many intact. He said, ‘There’s cover. Let’s get the horsemen out of sight. And the bodies. They’ll want to land on this side anyway. It’s where they’ll be expecting the Levenmouth army to arrive in two or three hours to support them. They may not even know of the bogs.’

‘Ghilander and Fothaid are with them. They do,’ said Cormac; and plunged off, shouting orders.

Ferteth at his elbow said, ‘I heard. I told the men along the banks not to come back, but stay to harry the march between the hill and the river. They’ll hide.’

Thorfinn said, ‘If the landings take place on the north side, they’ll have to look for more boats upriver and get themselves across till we can come.’

‘I’ll tell them,’ said Ferteth.

‘No. Send someone. I need you,’ Thorfinn said. ‘It’s here, as they land, that we’ll need all the ingenuity we can get.’

It was hardly past noon and in a few moments eleven hundred fresh fighting-men would be stepping ashore. Against them were five hundred men, less the fifty Eochaid had taken to Scone. Men who, since sunrise this morning, had fought in Siward’s first battle and had ridden thirty miles and more to arrive here, with two further skirmishes.

They looked, as he felt, high-hearted and tireless. It would not last. But it was another moment, another gift from life, to put with the others.

He had orders to give, and he gave them, swiftly making his rounds, and was ready when the first dragon-ship turned its baleful golden jaws to the land and ran towards him.

The dragon-ships had been promised no opposition.

They had expected some throwing of stones and worse from whatever straggle of peasants ventured down from the hills to the banks, and that they received. They were not even disturbed by the burning jetties, or the waiting batons of flame and black smoke that fenced the narrowing river beyond them. They did not intend rowing so far. Where they would land on the southern bank of the Tay was a spit of fine, shoaling sand lifting to watery meadows. Longship keels had no need of jetties, except to unload dry-shod merchants and unwieldy cargo. The springing swan-bows, neck by neck, would slide homing into the sand-flats like silk.

They were surprised to see leather helmets and the glitter of ranked steel among the rock-throwing denizens of the north bank and to receive several arrows, harmless in the teeth of the wind, as they began to swing round to the south shore to accomplish their landing. Bows and arrows being the staple of every river vessel’s equipment, their archers shot back, with the wind, and had the satisfaction of seeing a few men and youngsters impaled.

On the south bank, on the other hand, all was as it should be. Drawn up waiting for them were their friends: the men landed early that morning by their companion ships at the mouth of the Leven. The helmets and the shields were the same: they had designs you could hardly forget if you wanted to. And some of them were already quelling the fires on the landing-stages.

The men on the shore cheered, shaking their swords and their spears, and the men on board the two leading ships cheered as well, as the seamen leaned forward, swinging the seventeen-foot oars for the stroke that would lift the prows safely home to their beaching.

A valance of stones appeared in mid-air and fell, knocking oar blades and oarsmen.

A fringe of arrows, whistling, followed it, thudding into wood, flesh, and leather. Men screamed. The leading longships, interrupted in mid-stroke, swung helplessly, half on and half off the shore-bank and fouling the ship close behind them. Archers and men-at-arms, knocked off balance, thrust and twisted and swore in both ships. In their sterns, men jolted over the gunwales found themselves swept away, sinking in midstream. Off the prows, the first man to jump knee-deep into the water clutching a mooring-rope met three feet of good German steel.

The fifty men on the shore, whose shields were not now familiar at all, were in the water before anyone else, and started boarding. Following them was another double line of fifty, risen from nowhere. And then more and more, running from all directions. And there all the time, a line of kneeling archers, letting fly from behind their ranked shields.

Each ship carried seventy-five men, closely packed, with little room to swing sword or axe against roaring trolls high on the gunwales, who walked on men as on a highway and brought steel, thick and thin, hissing down, cleaving and searing. The fighting groups overbalanced into the shallower water and continued struggling there, ignoring the arrows beginning to fall from the following ships of the line, swinging up, oars flashing to fill the breadth of the river. The fighting spread from the two helpless ships to the third rammed behind them, now cramped fast with a grappling-iron and rocking with incomers from the two dying vessels ahead.

A trumpet blew on the land. A fourth and fifth longship, shipping oars, slid to the rear of the third and locked, pouring fresh men over its stern. The dragon-ships of midstream, abandoning the dead in the first and the second, thrust forward and, turning rapidly in, ran up on shore further upriver and began to land men fast, under a renewed fall of arrows. On the bank, the trumpet twittered again, and the water became full of spray and hurtling bodies as shoremen left their attack and threw themselves back on the sand.

Some of them, racing in from the river, met and clashed with running parties of mercenaries, cutting straight from their landings to intercept.

Horns from the fleet drew back the mercenaries. To shouted commands, they threw up their shields and ran to take up defensive formation. Soon, behind a barricade of shields and of steel, the helpless ships were drawn off, and the rest of the crippled fleet began to come in, two by two, and make their proper landings.

The misleading welcoming party with its treacherous shields had quite vanished, but for the dead and the wounded in the three leading ships and on shore. As the disembarked men were being lined up to march, a detail of mercenaries went from heap to heap, spitting those who still lived and removing what valuables they could discover.

It was when, on their leader’s orders, they went to search the huts and hovels and woods beside and ahead of them to find signs of retreat or of ambush that the news they brought back seemed to unsettle their leader and the noblemen from Northumbria and from Fife whom he conferred with.

Indeed, he gave the Northumbrians a taste of his temper.

‘Four hundred horses,’ he said. ‘My men say there are traces of at least four hundred horses. The men who attacked us just now all have mounts.

‘They will not, therefore, have retreated. They lie ahead, and since they can travel at twice our pace, we may be sure that for all the length of our march we shall be subject to ambush. I was not told, when we left, that I should have to fight a running battle with four hundred horsemen. I was told that a band from Levenmouth would be waiting, with a further support from the same source in three hours. I was told that your Earl Siward had the army of Alba immobilised in the south, and expected to overwhelm it. What has happened?’

But the men from Northumbria and from Fife did not appear to know. And so, black with anger, hot for revenge, the nine hundred invaders, who had once been eleven hundred, marched, sword in hand, towards Scone.

A third of the way towards Scone and when the running fight with the marching shipmen was at its hottest, the good news came to Thorfinn. Eochaid and his fifty horsemen had overcome the special detachment from Leven and were safely inside the monastery.

Two-thirds of the way towards Scone, Thorfinn withdrew what was left of his horsemen and, leaving the damaged nine hundred to continue their march, raced on to Scone himself, with all the men he had left.

He had sent word to Eochaid, and the gates opened. Around him in the yard, his men made water anywhere and, long-throated, poured down the mead and the ale and snatched bread and cheese while the monks clustered over the wounded. Eochaid said, ‘My lord!’

‘It’s other men’s blood,’ Thorfinn said. He caught a towel and, dragging his helmet off, scoured his face and his neck. He said, ‘They’re three miles away; about eight hundred and fifty. Did you get horses?’

‘Forty left of our own, and thirty of the besiegers’. They’ll be fresher than yours.’

‘Yes.’ Thorfinn tipped the ale-jug into his open mouth, and his throat became his own again, and the rest of his body. He said, ‘Give me the ten Forteviot men, mounted, and the best horses you have in exchange for our worst. That gives Cormac three hundred mobile men outside to harry them with, once the shipmen settle down to besiege you. Then the foot-army from Forth should be here to help you in about three hours from now. Do you want Ferteth to come in beside you?’

‘You’ll need him. You have your own Perth to guard, over the river. We can hold out for days. You know that,’ said Eochaid. ‘Is there any news from the Forth?’

‘We know the fifteen hundred got away and are coming. Bishop Jon sent word. We don’t know how Siward’s battle went. We should have news any moment. Look. Arrows and throwing-spears. We pulled a handcart off one of the ships.’

‘Keep the arrows,’ Eochaid said. ‘My flock aren’t archers.’

Thorfinn had already noted that among the fighting-men and the monks and the household there were women, and boys with clubs in their grip, and old men with axes. Not everyone had taken shelter in the hill-forts. He said, ‘They have been fighting beside us, too, all the way along.’

‘You sound surprised,’ said Eochaid. ‘These are their brothers and sons who are riding with you. And don’t you remember your home-coming from Rome? Do you think they don’t care who protects them?’

There was nothing, it seemed, that he was able to say. Eochaid lifted his hands to his neck and began to unfasten the chain of the Brecbennoch. Behind them, men were hurrying and horses trampling and snorting as Ferteth and Cormac prepared to withdraw. Eochaid said, ‘Why not take it? We have faith enough here. We shall save Scone if God wills it. And the invader will reach Dunkeld only over our bodies.’

The chain was warm. The little relic-house, five inches long, hung from his fist. Thorfinn said, ‘It deserves better than I can give it. I shall take it to Tuathal.’

‘Take?’ said Eochaid. His fresh horse was waiting, with the King’s saddle on it.

Thorfinn said, ‘There are friends of Malduin’s with the ship-army. Fothaid and Ghilander. We cut out a Fife man and made him tell us the plan for the men they dropped on the Forth. The foot-army from Levenmouth is coming up through Glen Farg and expects to cross the Earn at the nearest main ford and march to their friends here at Scone. They would double the numbers against you. They won’t be allowed to. I’ve sent Tuathal with a hundred horse to catch them in the ravine at Glen Farg.’

‘A hundred against nearly nine hundred?’ said Eochaid.

‘He won’t stop them all. But he might hold the rest at the Earn until our fifteen hundred come up from the south.’

‘And you are going to help him? Alone? There are still twenty Forteviot men here,’ Eochaid said. ‘And horses for them. Take them. I shall expect to see you back with your new army. You and Tuathal and Bishop Jon.’

‘In this world, it is a possibility,’ Thorfinn said.

It was time to mount. For the first time that day, he felt the ache of loss, and without real reason. He gave the only gift in his power and, removing his eyes from Eochaid’s, dropped on one knee.

Eochaid’s hand, still marked with ink, touched his hair, and he received Eochaid’s blessing.

Then he rose quickly, and mounted, and turned his horse with his knees while he fastened his helmet and the Forteviot men collected behind him.

Then, without looking back, he left Scone.

It was seven miles to the river Earn ford. He crossed the Tay from Scone to his fort of Perth on the opposite side and transmitted encouragement, he hoped, to its captain. After that, he turned south, on a fresh horse, with twenty fresh men beside him and the afternoon sun hot on his right.

He had been fighting, one way or another, since just after noon. He had been fighting or riding since three hours after sunrise this morning. And there were six hours to get through before sunset.

The toisech among the men with him wanted to talk, and he was sharp with him, because he had to think. Later, he relented. To think was one thing. To shut his eyes as he rode was another.

Three and a half hours after noon, he was close enough to the Earn to hear the shouting and deduce that the army landed that morning at Levenmouth had completed its march northwards through Fife and even its struggle, harassed by Tuathal, through the defile of Glen Farg, and was now here, on one side or the other of the Earn crossing. Then, rounding a hill and thundering over the plain to the river with goat-dung flung from his hooves, and smashed heads of ripe barley, and mussel-shells, he was able to see what was happening.

Tuathal had crossed the Earn and was on this side, strung out with what remained of his hundred horsemen.

On the opposite side were the men who had marched up from Levenmouth. More than eight hundred mercenaries, but not in battle order. Or only those detailed to keep guard against any hint of attack from Tuathal’s side of the river.

Behind, the remaining hundreds lay on the grass; or sat chewing, their satchels open beside them and their leather flasks between their dusty cloth knees. There seemed to be a lot of wounded. Tuathal had made a good job, then, of his ambush.

After that, of course, Tuathal had had to drop his attack and race to be first over the river, since he could not face eight times his number in the open plain between the Glen and the crossing. And the mercenary army, logically enough, had taken full advantage of the respite. Whether to care for their wounded or because the men had rebelled, tired from the long day’s march and from the fight in the defile, they were being allowed to eat and to rest.

After all, they must expect to see very soon traces of the hundred of their number who had found garrons and arrived here before them. They would expect to learn of the success of the Tay landings, and to set off on the seven miles that would take them to the central strongholds of Alba, already besieged by their fellows.

Behind them lay Fife, tamed or docile or empty. Further south lay Lothian and the plains of the Forth, in the grip of Earl Siward’s army. They would not expect the taking of Perth and Scone to be easy, and night would fall long before they could send back to clear out Abernethy and Forteviot, or before they could press on the further twelve miles to Dunkeld. There was time to rest. By their lights, it was sensible; even necessary.

It was an unheard-of stroke of good fortune. The longer they stayed, the more chance it gave Bishop Jon’s army to arrive. The fifteen hundred men who had set off north from the Forth directly after the first struggle with Siward and who must be less than two hours away at this moment, marching up Strathallan by the way he had come himself, passing Dunblane and Forteviot.

Tuathal, spurring up to him, said, ‘You see. We tired them out.’

The Prior had taken his helmet off. He looked the way all the Forth army looked now, with brown keel-marks under his eyes and his riddled skin beaten like metal. Then he asked, ‘Eochaid?’

His eyes were on the casket. ‘Triumphant in Scone,’ Thorfinn said. He unclasped the chain and signed to the toisech, who was hovering, to lead his men to join the rest on the riverbank. The relic came free, and he held it out.

‘You are to have it,’ he said. ‘I am merely the messenger. Scone is invested, but there are three hundred horsemen of mine in the neighbourhood to keep everyone unhappy. Have you heard from Bishop Jon?’

‘No,’ said Tuathal. ‘I was hoping you had. Neither of my couriers came back.’ He took the chain and held it. ‘You should have this.’

‘It will be safer with you,’ Thorfinn said. ‘You will fight harder, but I am the target. Anyway, I have my axe.’

Tuathal’s sharp eyes relaxed. He said, ‘What will we poor priests do when you conquer, against a double invasion and your own new fleet turned against you?’

Thorfinn put his horse in motion, walking beside Tuathal’s down to where their own men waited on the riverbank. In relays, they, too, were resting. The wind brought the smell of sweat and horses and metal and beaten grass and sweet clover. Also, the sharp odour of food. He said, ‘If we conquer. It depends on the south.’

He dismissed from his mind, because it was of no concern at this moment, the fate of the army he had left fighting Siward. He had weakened his own side by subtracting two thousand men. But he had left them the inestimable advantage of the eighty Normans on their strong horses.

Face to face, these two armies would have to fight one another to a standstill, for neither could afford to give way. He knew what the losses might be. He knew that Siward, finally, might have just enough extra power to prevail, upon which his men had their orders: to give way; to appear to fly; to cross the Forth somehow at the wide ford, having got rid of the bridge. And to stand at the ford as long as humanly possible, denying the Northumbrians the crossing until they were forced to give way.

By then, very likely, there would be nothing much of an organised army left on either side, and both sides would be exhausted. He would expect no man, having come through that, to set out to march thirty odd miles to the Tay, this side of nightfall. Equally, he was safe from any remnant of Siward’s army on foot.

He had thought that perhaps Osbern or some of his friends still on horseback might have got through, provided the fighting was over. That none of them had could be a bad sign or a good.

Meantime, all that mattered were the fifteen hundred marching men who, however tired they might be, would still be able to save them. He said, ‘Your couriers didn’t come back. Send two more. Send two of the Forteviot men: they’ll ride faster.’

He saw from the look that crossed Tuathal’s face that he was understood, even before he himself tossed someone his reins and, dismounting, walked down through the men, rallying them; stopping to talk to the wounded; lifting from the food-baskets some bread and a piece of mutton in passing. The look that recognised, no matter what their hard fighting and their successes so far, that all the future hinged on the army they were now waiting for. And that if that army did not come, the invaders would very likely prevail.

Half an hour passed. He remembered it afterwards as the oddest part of the day. In the heat of the afternoon, both armies lay quiet, somnolent after the long hours of nervous exertion and the effects of the warmth and the food. Thorfinn sent Tuathal to sleep for ten minutes and, when he returned, dropped in his place on the bare earth of an old wattle barn, asleep before he stopped moving.

Seven miles off behind him, Eochaid and Ferteth and Cormac were fighting to save Perth and Scone from the army besieging them; and here, motionless under the sun, were a hundred men who could help them. Except that if they moved away, there would be nothing to hinder the army couched over the river from crossing and flinging their full weight against Scone before his own men from the south could arrive.

One made one’s decisions and stood by them. And when there was a chance to rest, one did not waste it.

Tuathal wakened him just after four. ‘The other side seem to be stirring. Ours are standing to arms.’

No courier had come from the south. However fast the army was marching, the Forteviot men would take an hour to reach them, and another hour to come back. Unless, of course, they met an incoming messenger on their way.

Patience.

He talked to Tuathal and then to the toisechs as he put on his mail shirt again and took up his helmet. The golden fillet and the richness of his dress and his harness were all he carried that would identify him, for his banner was on the Forth and his pennant had long since gone. But, with his height, it was enough. When he appeared, riding, and the sun flashed on the gold, his own men turned as they stood with their spears and called to him, ‘Albanaid!’

He raised his sword and answered them with the same word. It did not, now, bear the stamp of Duncan on it. Nothing did.

The men across the river marshalled themselves into lines and raised their banners.

‘Cathail macDubhacon, fighting in Siward’s hired army. May he go to hell with his pains, as he deserves,’ said Prior Tuathal.

Thorfinn looked at the banner. ‘Osbern had a favourite saying. La laiterie ouverte rend les cats friaunds. Alba, I agree, is not a dairy. But still, I should prefer Cathail and his friends captured, not killed.’

‘You expect too much,’ said Tuathal.

‘I used the word prefer, not expect,’ Thorfinn said. ‘Why do you suppose they are moving like that? To try the next ford upriver?’

‘There’s no advantage in that,’ Tuathal said. ‘Our horse would get there before they do.’

Thorfinn said, ‘They’re not dividing their forces, either. But they might. Why don’t we send half our force forward, parallel to theirs? We can soon send on the rest if we have to.’

The men, revived by their rest, were excited and restive. Leaving a toisech in charge, Thorfinn rode on with Tuathal and the advance group. After a moment, he said, ‘They’re striking away from the river, and south. It’s Forteviot.’

‘Can you be sure?’ Tuathal said. He had put a sleeveless tunic over his shirt of mail, and the Brecbennoch clung to it, undisturbed by the pace of his horse.

‘I can’t be sure,’ Thorfinn said. ‘That’s why they’re doing it. If we gallop on and pack ourselves into Forteviot, they simply turn and race for Scone, crossing the river unhindered. If they turn all their power on Forteviot, we either have to do nothing or cross the river ourselves and give battle. We should not only lose, against eight times our numbers, but we might well tempt the Forteviot garrison to come out and rescue us, and the fort would be taken.’

Tuathal said, ‘If Bishop Jon’s army is near, this little force will walk straight into its arms. It can’t be far off. It can’t be far off.’

‘Whistle up your other half, then,’ Thorfinn said. ‘All we can do is keep pace on this side until we see what will happen. By Forteviot, we can cross the Earn anywhere, if we have to. If Bishop Jon and his stout men arrive, as you say, we shan’t have to.’

The other army, obscured now by scrub and by trees, continued to move gently south, nor, said the scouts, was there any diminishing of its numbers. Tuathal said, ‘They’re taking their time, aren’t they?’ and broke off.

‘They were,’ Thorfinn said. ‘That was an order by trumpet, repeated twice. And that, my lord Prior, is a jog-trot. They’re in a hurry now, all right. And they’re still making south. So they haven’t heard of Bishop Jon and his army. So if they run fast enough, they’ll run into its jaws, and Bishop Jon can say a prayer over Cathail. Let’s keep up with them.’

Behind him, the horses moved to a trot, and he could feel the wariness giving way to disbelief, and the disbelief to the first stirrings of a dazed expectancy.

Everyone knew they were riding towards Bishop Jon’s army. And so was the enemy. Above the rustle and thud of the hooves, he could hear the voices of Tuathal’s riders behind him calling to one another, quipping breathlessly, their voices still surprised. Without anything said, Tuathal turned in the saddle and held up a flat palm for silence.

Silence was not in fact necessary. But open jubilation or even jeering might be unwise. Perhaps this was merely a ruse to trick them into a crossing at Forteviot.

Perhaps it was not. In which case, the less the other army suspected, the better.

It seemed a wise edict, if a bit over-cautious. The band of riders obeyed it sufficiently. Battle-excitement was something no one would expect to extinguish. When, far in the distance, a familiar rider was seen approaching on their side of the river, and then behind him another, the wise edict found itself swept aside, and the men behind Thorfinn gave a snatched cheer, and then went on cheering.

The riders were the Forteviot men. The men sent south an hour ago to bring back news of Bishop Jon’s army.

Tuathal said, ‘It’s too soon. They must have got news at Forteviot.’

And then, ‘They’re … O Mary, Mother of Christ. Keep them off.’

‘Not now,’ said Thorfinn.

It was too late. Whatever news the couriers had to tell, the men behind would have to hear it. They had stopped cheering and calling already and, instead of speeding, the sound of their hoof-beats had slackened.

The galloping men in the distance came closer.

White faces: cracked voices shouting. These were not the outriders of a large and powerful army sweeping to join them: an army visible, if they rode hard, in half an hour.

These were men unmarked by battle who screamed indistinguishable news as they rode, so that over the river and through the trees you could glimpse the turning masks of grinning enemy faces, while on this side of the river the King put up his hand and Tuathal and his men came to a halt.

Silence fell. The horses pawed, shaking their manes and switching tails, and harness jangled. Faced with that band of silent men, the two riders’ headlong rush veered and slowed, and one of them dropped to a loiter. Everyone saw him slide suddenly from his horse and bend, retching and whistling, into the grass.

The other rider rode up and stopped.

The other rider said in a whisper, ‘Save yourselves.’ His eyes were fixed on Thorfinn.

Thorfinn said steadily, ‘We will. Tell us what you know. Bishop Jon’s army?’

‘Cut to pieces. The Normans, too, that escaped Siward and joined them. Forteviot’s burning. Do you see the smoke now? They do, over the water. They’re going to strip the bodies and finish the killing.…

‘It was the surprise, you see,’ said the Forteviot man. ‘Not the numbers, although there were enough of them. They were waiting at Ruthven Water. By St Cathán’s church and the monks’ houses. Bishop Jon and my lord of Riveire and the rest came marching up, suspecting nothing. My lords, save yourselves, there is nothing any man can do there.’

‘Who was waiting at St Cathán’s?’ said Thorfinn. He put all the skills he had ever learned into the timbre of his voice.

The man drew a long breath and spoke clearly.

‘A great army of men, my lord King, splendidly equipped with many banners, and two of them gilded. One was the flag of Thor of Allerdale. The other was the royal standard, they say, flown by my lord Malcolm, King Duncan’s eldest son.’

He choked, and his chest leaped. ‘My lord, the kingdom is lost.’

Thorfinn said, ‘Fife is not Alba. Scone is Alba, which can be rescued. Dunkeld is Alba, which is still safe.’

‘My lord!’ said the Forteviot man. ‘Dunkeld fell early this morning. Allerdale’s army came from there. And a thousand men stayed, they were boasting, to level the church and the hall and the monastery and then leave to do the same to Scone and to Perth.

‘My lord King, there is nowhere to go. Alba has fallen.’