Despite their near-royal status in the islands, Creidhe’s family dwelt in a compound that was more farm than palace, a sprawling set of low stone buildings surrounded by walled infields, somewhat east of the tidal island known as the Whaleback. The Whaleback had once been the center of power in the Light Isles. Nessa had lived there; her uncle had been a great king. When the Norsemen first sailed out of the east, Margaret and Nessa and Eyvind had been not much older than Creidhe was now. That voyage of discovery across the sea from Rogaland to the sheltered waterways of the Light Isles had begun as a search for a life of peace and prosperity. It had turned, in the space of one bloody year, into a bitter, destructive conflict that had come to an end only after most of Nessa’s folk had been cruelly slain. It was Eyvind and Nessa, Norse warrior and priestess of the Folk, who had won that peace: the two of them side by side.
What different lives they had had, Creidhe thought, watching her mother and father as they stole a quiet moment together. Nessa brushed Eyvind’s cheek with her fingers; he touched his lips to her hair. The way they looked at each other brought tears to Creidhe’s eyes. Their youth had been full of adventure: journeys, battles, struggle and achievement. Looking at them now, she could hardly imagine that. One did not see one’s own parents as heroes, even if that was exactly what they were. One simply saw them as always there, an essential part of one’s existence. Where would one be without that?
She had to ask them. But not yet. Supper first. There were men and women who lived in the household: housecarls, Eyvind called them, in the manner of his homeland. These were capable folk who seemed almost part of the family. The women had become used to Creidhe taking charge in the kitchen, especially when she wished to prepare a special meal for her father. Today someone had been fishing, and there was fresh cod; Creidhe sent Brona out to the garden for leeks, and fetched garlic and onions herself. Small Ingigerd was soon persuaded that cutting vegetables and stirring sauces and grinding herbs would be tremendous fun, and it was possible for Nessa and Eyvind to retreat to the inner room for some time alone. Creidhe told her sisters a story as she prepared the fish. It was a tale about the Hidden Tribe, those tricky spirit folk who were seen from time to time in ancient, underground places, and she made sure it was long and exciting, and allowed the children to interrupt with questions as often as they liked. It grew dark. The folk of the household gathered around the table for supper. Creidhe’s efforts were rewarded by Eyvind’s smile and Nessa’s quiet words of approval. Brona ate every scrap and carried her platter to the wash trough without being asked. Ingigerd was falling asleep even as she finished her meal.
Respecting the family’s need for privacy with Eyvind so newly returned, the men and women of the household did not linger after supper, but retired early to their sleeping quarters. It was night outside, and a sudden chill crept into the longhouse, though its walls of stone and earth were thick and sturdy. Eyvind put more turf on the hearth and they moved in closer. One on either side of the flickering oil lamp, Creidhe and Brona worked on their embroidery. Brona was making laborious progress with a row of small red flowers across an apron hem. Creidhe’s project was more complex and more personal. She called it the Journey, and worked on a small section at a time, keeping the rest folded out of sight.
It was quiet now. Ingigerd drowsed on Eyvind’s knee, held safe by the arm he curled around her. It was a shame, Creidhe thought, that the whole family could not be here together. That would happen increasingly rarely now that Eanna had completed her training as a priestess of the mysteries and retired from ordinary life to dwell in the hills alone. She must ask them tonight. This could not wait. Eyvind carried Ingigerd to her bed and tucked the covers over her. Brona pricked her finger and yelped; she sewed doggedly on for a while, then sighed, yawned, and packed her work away.
“Goodnight, Brona,” Creidhe said a little pointedly. “I’ll help you with that in the morning if you like.”
Brona flashed a grin and turned to hug first Father, then Mother. She bent to light her little oil lamp with a taper from the fire, then disappeared along to the sleeping chamber she and Creidhe shared.
“More ale?” Nessa queried. “What about you, Creidhe? Don’t strain your eyes with that fine work, daughter. You look tired out.”
“Come, sit by me,” said Eyvind. “I’ve missed my lovely girl. Tell me what you’ve been doing while I was gone. I expect Aunt Margaret’s been working you hard.”
Creidhe sat; she took the cup of ale her mother offered. Her father put his arm around her shoulders, warm and safe. If the topic were to be raised, there could be no better time for it.
“Father, Mother, I want to ask you something.”
They waited.
“It’s about Thorvald.”
Silence again, though there seemed a change in the quality of it, almost as if they had expected this.
“Today—today he was very upset. It was because—because Aunt Margaret told him about his father. His real father.”
She felt the sudden tension in Eyvind’s arm, and heard Nessa’s indrawn breath.
“I tried to help him. I tried to listen, but he was too angry. He said—Aunt Margaret told him his real father was a murderer. That’s what he said. That he killed his own brother, Aunt Margaret’s husband. And he said—” She faltered.
“What, Creidhe?” Eyvind’s tone was calm enough.
“That you sent Thorvald’s father away,” she whispered. “Banished him from the islands, so that he never knew he had a son.”
“I see.”
“Father, why is it none of you told us that story? Is it true? And wasn’t it cruel of Aunt Margaret not to tell Thorvald until now? He’s so angry and bitter. I’ve never seen him like this. There was nothing I could do to help.”
A look was exchanged between her parents, a complicated look. Eyvind took his arm away from Creidhe’s shoulders and clasped her hand instead.
“Did you talk to Margaret about this, Creidhe?”
“No. She told me to wait until Thorvald was ready to tell me. But . . .”
“But you couldn’t wait.” Nessa’s tone was dry, but not unkind. “Creidhe, this is Margaret’s story, and Margaret’s secret. It was her choice to wait and tell Thorvald when she judged he was ready. Those were terrible times. To dwell on what had happened was to set a barrier between your father’s people and mine that would keep us at enmity all our lives, and would be passed on to our children and our children’s children. There had been enough hatred and cruelty. We made the decision, in those early days, to put it behind us. We didn’t forget; one carries such memories in one’s mind forever. But we chose to move on, all of us. I suppose now it will be discussed more widely. Thorvald is sure to talk to his friends, you included.”
“Eanna knows what happened, Creidhe,” Eyvind said quietly. “One cannot follow the calling of priestess without the knowledge of history. She has kept it to herself, as we promised Margaret. That was for Thorvald’s sake.”
Creidhe said nothing. It hurt, sometimes, to be nobody special, even though she had no great ambitions for herself. It hurt even more that her parents hadn’t trusted her to keep a secret.
“I had an interesting talk with a man called Gartnait at the Thing on Sandy Island,” Eyvind remarked, apparently changing the subject completely. “A chieftain from the Northern Isles, a fine-looking young fellow of around two-and-twenty, very well-mannered and courteous. He asked me about you, Creidhe. It seems talk of you has spread quite far.”
“Talk? What talk?”
Eyvind smiled. “Nothing bad, or I’d not have spoken so fair of the fellow. You were described as a model of young womanhood, highly skilled in all the domestic arts, and far from ugly into the bargain.”
“Eyvind!” Nessa frowned at him.
“His exact words were a good deal more complimentary than that. In fact, your virtues were enumerated at quite some length, but I won’t repeat them for fear of giving you a swollen head, daughter. It was clear the y
oung man’s interest had been sparked by what he’d heard of you. He’s looking for a wife.”
“Oh.”
“You’d have liked him, Creidhe,” her father said. “He was an honest, open sort of man, with a ready smile. And handsome—did I say that? You will need to start thinking of this some time soon. You know how important this is, not just for yourself but for all of us. For the islands.”
“This is not the first such inquiry your father has had,” Nessa put in.
Creidhe stared at her mother, sudden hope making her heart race. Had Thorvald said something at last?
“Creidhe,” Eyvind said quietly, “we wondered how you would feel about going away for a while, perhaps with your Aunt Margaret to chaperone you. A stay in the Northern Isles would do you good, expose you to a wider circle, allow you to mix and give you some respite from your domestic duties here. You work yourself very hard, my dear. A visit over the summer would be easy to arrange. We have friends there. I’m not pushing an alliance with this Gartnait; you’d meet many folk. It would enable you to be seen, and put you in a position to get to know both him and others. You could make your own judgments then.”
“You know the importance of a good choice,” Nessa said. “If we do not nurture the blood line, the identity of the Folk is quite lost. It is your children, as well as Brona’s and Ingigerd’s, who will carry forward the royal line.”
Creidhe did know; one did not grow up in such a family without an understanding of the royal descent, and the significance of marriages. Nessa had been the only surviving kin of the great Engus, last king of the Folk in the Light Isles. She was his sister’s child, and as the royal succession came through the female line, it was vital for her daughters to marry men with impeccable credentials, since their sons would have a claim to kingship. As Nessa herself had no surviving sons, this was doubly important. It still mattered, even though the islands were governed by council now and no longer chose kings.
“You must wed wisely,” Nessa added.
There was a silence.
“I thought we were going to talk about Thorvald,” Creidhe blurted out suddenly, finding herself on the verge of tears for no good reason.
“We are talking about Thorvald, Creidhe,” said her father gently.
She felt herself grow cold; a weight lodged in her heart. There seemed to be nothing to say.
“You asked for the story,” said Nessa. “We’ll tell it, but I suggest you take Margaret’s good advice and keep it to yourself. This is Thorvald’s dilemma and hers. They are best left to deal with it in their own way. Thorvald’s father was a man called Somerled; he was indeed Ulf’s brother, and came here to the islands in that first expedition, the same that brought Eyvind to this shore.”
“Ulf wanted peace.” Eyvind took up the tale. “He made a treaty with King Engus, Nessa’s uncle. All seemed well. But Ulf died. He was murdered under very odd circumstances. My people blamed the islanders, and war broke out. There was—there was great ill-doing. Many died.”
Nessa glanced at him, a little frown on her brow. In the soft lamplight, with her pale skin and wide, gray eyes, she looked very young, not at all like a mother of four daughters. She reached out and took her husband’s hand. “My own people were all but wiped out,” she said gravely. “My uncle died, my cousin, everyone close to me save Eyvind and Rona.” Nessa paused. The loss of her old mentor, the wise woman who had taught both Nessa and her daughter Eanna the mysteries of the ancestors, was still fresh, for Rona had lived long, passing peacefully with the coming of last spring. “It grew clear to me and to your father that Somerled, who had become leader after Ulf’s death, was responsible for the wave of fear and hatred that had gripped the islands. Your father was very brave. He confronted Somerled at risk of his own life and proved him guilty of his brother’s murder.”
Eyvind smiled faintly, though his blue eyes were troubled. “As I recall it, it was your mother’s courage that tipped the balance. Without her, all would have been lost.”
“I don’t understand,” Creidhe said, struggling to make sense of this. “Where does Aunt Margaret fit in?”
“Despite what he did,” Eyvind said, “Somerled was not a wholly evil man. At least, I did not believe it of him, and nor did Margaret. We saw some hope for redemption in him, a spark of kindness, of goodness that might become more, given the right nurturing. There was a time when Margaret was very lonely. Ulf, fine man though he was, was always busy with his own projects, and I think she suffered for that. Somerled admired her greatly. Subtlety and cleverness had great appeal for him. In Margaret he saw something he found only rarely: an equal. But in the end theirs was not a happy alliance. She could not tolerate what he did in his quest for power.”
“But she bore his child. And yet you exiled him.” It seemed very cruel, even if the man had been a murderer. It seemed not at all the kind of penalty loving, generous Eyvind would impose.
“I was faced with a choice. Under the law he himself had instituted, I could have sentenced him to death. That was what Somerled wanted. He had always been fiercely ambitious. For a season he had been king here. Now he was defeated; even those who had supported his actions were deserting him. He had nobody left. He begged me to kill him. The sentence I decreed was a measure of the fact that I still had faith in him, even after the terrible havoc he had wrought. It gave him another chance to change his path: to learn to walk straight. I thought I was being merciful. To Somerled, the punishment I imposed seemed cruel beyond belief.”
“He left this shore without knowing Margaret carried his child,” Nessa said. “Rona knew. I guessed. But Margaret did not tell him, nor did she speak of it to me until Somerled was gone. That would have made no difference to Eyvind’s decision. Somerled was not fit to remain in the islands. He treated my people with contempt. Many thought Eyvind’s decree too merciful; they feared Somerled’s return. He was a man who could wield great power. He influenced people through fear, and fear is a potent weapon. But Eyvind made him promise never to come back. He made him promise to do his best to change. Whether Somerled kept to that, I suppose we’ll never know.”
“Why would he promise such a thing?”
“Because of this,” Eyvind said, rolling back his left sleeve to show the long scar that ran up his inner forearm. Creidhe had always thought this a legacy of the life her father had once led as a Wolfskin warrior; his body bore its share of the marks of combat. “Somerled and I were blood brothers, sworn to lifelong loyalty. He challenged me with that bond at the end, and at the end I held him to it. Then I sent him westward across the ocean. Perhaps it was, after all, a sentence of death. In all these years, we’ve never had any word of him.”
Creidhe was speechless. This was like something from an old saga, the kind full of gods and monsters. It was surely not real life.
“It’s true, Creidhe,” her mother said. “Those were terrible times. Eyvind and I were lucky; our love for each other made us strong. The ancestors warned us all along that our path would be hard, yet they told us we were doing right. Some very old powers stepped in to aid us in the end, but it was human courage that won the day. You must not think harshly of your Aunt Margaret, although she lay with a man who was not her husband. She’s a strong woman, and proud. Her life has been lonely because of the error she made then. She has never forgiven herself for it.”
“She has Thorvald.”
“Yes. And she loves her son, even though he is a daily reminder of the sorrows of the past. I imagine she will speak of this to him, and explain it as best she can. I hope he will listen, and not judge her too severely.”
“He spoke little of her,” Creidhe said slowly, “except to call her cruel for holding back the truth for so long.”
“Would Thorvald have dealt with it better last year, or the year before?” asked Eyvind mildly. “He’s still a boy, for all his eighteen years. He’ll come to terms with it in time. The lad still has some growing up to do.” His expression was thoughtful.
“Father?” There was a question Creidhe knew she must ask, although she did not want to hear the answer.
“Yes, daughter?”
“I would not like to think folk would judge Thorvald on the strength of what his father did. It seems—unfair—that people might think him—unsuitable—because his father performed an ill deed all those years ago. It seems to me—I think a person of good judgment should disregard that, and assess Thorvald on his own merits.” This was very hard to say. “That is what I plan to do. He’s still the same person he was yesterday.” Tears were close; she blinked them back. “I hope you will remember that, when you speak of sending me away to the Northern Isles.”
“Oh, Creidhe,” Nessa said with a sigh. “We wouldn’t be sending you away; don’t think of it like that. It’s an opportunity. Your circle is so narrow here in Hrossey.”
“Father?”
“Daughter, I am taken aback that you would think me capable of such prejudice. You should know I always judge a man on his own merits, not on his lineage or the deeds of his kinfolk. Thorvald is not Somerled; he is his own self, and far more Margaret’s son than anyone else’s. I do not weigh him with the burden of the past on his shoulders.”
“And yet you want me to go to the Northern Isles and make friends with some chieftain I’ve never met?”