The snow turned from grey to pink, and her shadow flickered before her, ahead of the maundering sledge. The runners ran to a halt, and two fur-cloaked horsemen overtook her in a flurry of snow.
One was Thorkel Fóstri. The other was Thorfinn, who was out of the saddle before she could stand, and was holding her, her face deep in the warmth and the softness between glove and shoulder. She began to shake, and he tightened his grip. Then he said, ‘Groa. Will you ride back with Thorkel Fóstri?’
She lifted her head, without looking up at him. ‘Let him go. Please. Thorkel Fóstri?’ She made to twist round, but Thorfinn’s grasp only tightened.
Behind her, she heard the swift jingle as Thorfinn’s foster-father dismounted, and then his quick breathing, and Thorkel’s voice saying, ‘Go back with her. I’ll see to it.’
Then Thorfinn’s hands dropped. He said, ‘That isn’t what she meant. Go away, both of you. Rognvald has to be dealt with.’
‘He’s waiting for you,’ Groa said. ‘He knew you would follow.’
Thorfinn said, ‘My foster-father: you will neither track us, nor will you look for us until first light.’
‘As you say,’ said Thorkel Fóstri.
‘On the hilt of my sword,’ said the King.
Thorkel Fóstri said, ‘He may give you promises. They mean nothing.’
‘That is for me to judge,’ said the King. ‘How much does your promise mean?’
‘That is for you to judge,’ said Thorkel Fóstri harshly, and, dropping his hand on the cross-guard, took the oath asked of him. Then, turning, he faced Groa and, holding pommel and reins, offered her his help to spring into the saddle.
The flare in its socket showed her the fire-haze round Thorfinn’s black hair, and the two tongues of cheekbone and jaw, and the predatory nose, lit bright as the gold of a weathervane. His eyes, deep as cup-markings, brimmed with shadow. He said, ‘Quickly. I shall come,’ and stood waiting until she was in the saddle and Thorkel mounted behind her, the reins in his hand. Then, as they turned to go, he put foot to his own stirrup and was off.
Her hands round Thorkel’s hide coat Groa watched, chin on shoulder, as the flare disappeared into the darkness and the sound of hooves faded, going fast but not so fast that he could not read the trail by the light of his torch. It would not take long for him to catch up with Rognvald, since all Rognvald wished, and all he had worked for, was to be caught.
What happened then was fated to happen, and only a faint heart would put it off from day to day or year to year. Only a faint heart like hers.
SEVEN
HE TRAIL was indeed easy to follow, for by now it was late, and deep cold had crisped over the snow, so that the hoof marks of Rognvald’s horse were like ink on a piperoll, or like the marks of an Arabesque poem: alluring picture and message at once.
Down through the shallows of a fast, icy stream he was led, and up and over a rise, and then wheeling down to the flat, frozen face of another loch, where his horse found ice and staggered briefly, as he saw from the scars the other horse also had done.
Then the trail looped round again, and for a moment he saw far away and a little below him a circle of flares in the darkness, masked and unmasked by the black moving figures of men, and a single light, travelling swiftly, making towards it.
Thorkel Fóstri had obeyed, then, and taken Groa to safety. At a guess, he would not return. The oath on the sword-hilt might give him pause, but not very much. More than that was the knowledge that he could not return, anyway, in time to alter the outcome. And that someone had to stay at Brodgar to control Rognvald’s men and his own when both sides came to guess what was happening.
Thorfinn knew Rognvald’s hird-leader, a hard-faced man from Westray called Styrkar who had escaped to Russia with Harald Sigurdsson. He was sensible enough, one would hope, to realise that extra bloodshed was useless, and to persuade his men to let well alone and camp by the lake for the night. No one, he supposed, would leave for Orphir now.
The trail turned east. The dash-marks made by the whipping harness had gone: Rognvald had taken time to pull it up, free of the galloping hooves. When she cut it, Groa must have had no hope of rescue. He wondered what she had meant to achieve, and then remembered the knife.
She was an Arnmødling, and pure-blooded Norse. They both owed their upbringing to the Norse way of thought, overlaid and changed in its turn by the time they had spent, both of them, among the Picts and the Gaels of the province of Moray—he for six years with his stepfather Findlaech, and Groa for four with Gillacomghain her husband. She would have made Gillacomghain a good child-wife: grimly obliterating from her consciousness that part of their personal lives that she found repugnant, and building upon what was left, until she had made a place for herself, organising, guiding, advising the people less capable who looked to them.
As the first Lady of Alba, she had no such sinecure; no well-defined niche; no well-defined people, only a vast land of river and mountain and forest which offered two courses only to its ruler and his lady. They could take its tribute, and use it to make a life for themselves where they chose, free of any care other than guarding it. Or they could look further off than their own lives, or the lives of the races within it, and consider what might be needed to bring such a land into order.
He now knew which he wanted to do, and he knew that it was the decision Groa had expected of him. That, too, lay behind her fear of Rognvald, and her contempt for him; that the road that stretched before him should be blocked at the outset by a single spoiled youth.
But that was too simple a view. Rognvald was not a child. He had fought and fought bravely in Russia. At Stiklestad, as a boy, he had dragged the wounded Harald from the battlefield. He could have stayed in Norway as the King’s foster-brother and found great honour there. But he had chosen to come back to Orkney, the land of Brusi his father, and seek the Thorfinn he remembered, the other Earl of Orkney, the son of his grandfather’s old age.
It might have worked. There was so much that was good in Rognvald—his courage, his vigour, his imagination, the stylish grace he applied to most things—that it would have worked, had he found the Thorfinn he remembered, unencumbered by marriage; lord of part-Orkney and Caithness alone, and not also of a great province and now a kingdom which would take him south, away from the hearth of his kindred.
And now the imagination, the sense of mischief were being employed against him. He had been afraid of it on the lake when it came to him suddenly that Rognvald was no longer with them. And when, not very long after, he was thrown to the ground by Rognvald’s men and held there, in a series of movements that could have appeared accidental, he knew that it was part of a plan, and that the plan must involve Groa.
They had released him quite suddenly: as soon as Starkad, hearing his name called, had begun to come to his help. But by the time he had raced to the shore, Rognvald was off in the sledge and there was nothing he could do but run for the horse-line, shouting to Starkad as he went. Only after he was mounted did he discover Thorkel Fóstri, also mounted, beside him.
But all that was now far behind, in the stadir country, the land farmed by his hirdmen. Thormod’s steading had been passed, and now he heard the dogs barking from Geirmund’s, but saw no blazing lights: with a feast going on at the loch, there would be no one there in any case but a few slaves and the children. The trail swung wide, and he went on, through the bitter white night, in his circle of blustering torchlight: on to the east away from Stenness and Orphir. On into the dale country of frozen marsh and low hills where no farms were to be found, only the mounds of the dead where the haug-búi watched.
Not the family mound of one’s ancestors, where, unless one forgot to pay due respects, the walker after death would lie quietly. But the mounds they said the first settlers from Norway had found, two hundred years since: the tombs of the giants who had built the great rings of Kjallar, of Odin, whose monoliths, men said, might walk every Yuletide down to the water to drink and which, if yo
u stood in their way as they came rumbling back, would slake the last of their thirst with your blood.
He had seen, racing after Groa, the marks of the hooves and the sledge-runners heeling over just such a mound, and now there were more, all about him. So Rognvald did not fear Odin, whatever they had taught him at Novgorod. It was more than he could say, despite Sulien. Or perhaps the White Christ also employed his Norns, and the name of one of them was Luloecen.
Then, as if the name had called it into being, a casting-spear flashed, once, in the light of his torch.
There had been no least sound of warning, and it was brilliantly thrown. Thorfinn flung himself on the neck of his garron, dragging the horse’s head round, and as he did it, felt for and hurled the torch from him.
It did not go out. It arched through the black air and lay, spluttering, thirty feet off. Its light sparked on the spear vibrating in the ground under his horse’s trampling feet.
A second spear glinted, hissed, and sank, with a thud, full into the garron’s broad chest. The sky wheeled. The broad foot-rest of the stirrup, swinging, trapped Thorfinn’s foot. The horse fell, with Thorfinn under him. He felt the ringing blow as his shoulder and head struck the ground. And then, with its scream still half-voiced in the air, his horse’s weight, like one of the monoliths, fell across him and he heard, before he felt it, the bone snap in his leg. He lay still, and someone laughed.
Not the walker after death. But Rognvald, still mounted, picking his way delicately from the further side of a grave-mound to its top, from which he looked down, smiling at his uncle, the distant torchlight glimmering on his fair face and the hands busy below it, stringing his hunting-bow. Then, taking his time, he reached for an arrow and fitted it, smiling still.
There was time to see the silver chasing on the little weapon, and to observe that Rognvald still shot Tartar-fashion, with the shaft to the right of the bow. He was the best archer that Thorfinn had ever seen. He could aim and hit the hooves of a horse galloping immediately in front of him. He would have his sport, without doubt, before he killed him.
Thorfinn said, without very much breath, ‘You’ll get the same results, without any more bloodshed, if you leave me. My leg is broken.’
The arrowhead did not waver. Rognvald’s even teeth gleamed. ‘But,’ he said, ‘think of the pleasure I’d miss. They might still track you. And, alas, there is the spearhead in your horse to betray my share in it. I am afraid there will be bloodshed between your men and mine, whatever I do.… Let me see. I am, I’m afraid, a little lacking in practice.’
The wind had dropped. In the stillness, the arrow came with the sound of a gnat and, burning down the skin of his neck, sank into the snow by his shoulder. ‘No,’ Rognvald said. ‘It seems I still have the knack.’ The second arrow was already fitted.
He would have twenty, perhaps. His horse would spoil his aim a little: it was surprising, in fact, that he had not dismounted. But presumably art demanded that he should bestride the mound on his horse—beautiful, golden, deadly as Alexander—and teach fear to an ugly man who was his only rival. The second arrow came, and struck through his hair; and the third, and pinned him to the snow by the skin of his shoulder.
He was using, Thorfinn saw, trefoil barbs, each with three cutting-edges, not one. The pain was as nothing compared with the pain of his leg. The pain of his leg was as nothing compared with a sense of tragedy born of nothing so trivial as this, his death in the snow. He said, ‘You will plunge Orkney into war, and perhaps Alba. Rognvald. This is child’s play.’
‘No,’ said Rognvald. ‘You, an old man’s mistake, clinging bumping and crying to the cross-axle of some foreign kingdom: that is child’s play. I am performing a favour for you, as well as Alba.’
Thorfinn said, ‘Siward will take Alba. Then Orkney.’
‘If I let him,’ said Rognvald. ‘I imagine Siward and I will have quite a lot to say to each other, once you are dead.’ And the fourth arrow came, scoring his wrist and burying itself in his roggvarfeldr. He sank his palms in the snow and tried again to pull himself free. The snapped bones ground in his leg, and the snow round his hand began to turn black. His head swam and he stopped, breathing quickly. ‘Keep awake,’ Rognvald said, and, fitting the fifth arrow, his teeth gleaming, turned it delicately so that the barb pointed at the other man’s loins.
If it hit, he could not keep silent. On the other hand, it was a difficult shot. His shaggy cloak, his roggvarfeldr, lay in folds over what was exposed of his body, and the bulk of the horse shielded him from the waist down from the distant, dancing light of the torch. Rognvald would not know whether he had made a hit or not until he heard him scream.
Then he would scream. And it would not be unexpected after that if he fainted. And after that it would not be surprising if, baulked of his sport, Rognvald decided either to come down and rouse him or come and finish him off with his own hands. But, at any rate, to come down …
The arrow sparked. There was a tearing thud as it drove through the fleeces. He had screamed before he had time to know whether or not it had hit him. And then he felt the shaft hard against the inside of his thigh and knew it had not. Then he screamed again with the full power of his great voice, and on top of the mound Rognvald’s horse, alarmed, suddenly trampled.
He heard Rognvald swear, and saw his thighs close and his wrist furl the reins. He saw, without surprise, that Rognvald’s horse was not going to rear, or throw him, or do anything useful except dance a little until it felt the whip on its haunches. He saw, with stupefied disbelief, Rognvald’s horse suddenly buckle and, bowing its neck, begin to roll over and over to the foot of the mound, where it lay silent and then began, rhythmically, to squeal. And he saw Rognvald drop from the saddle with a cry that became suddenly hollow, then stopped, for no reason that he could see. For he could not see Rognvald, either: only the unbroken white globe of the mound, and the threshing black bulk of the horse at its foot.
Silence fell. The injured horse rustled and grunted intermittently. The horse across his legs was growing cold, and so was he, despite the cloak. Soon, lying no doubt where he had been thrown on the other side of the mound, Rognvald would come to his senses, and then it would begin all over again, but at close quarters. Before that he must, if he could, get his legs free.
He was just strong enough, he thought, to do it. The handicap was the pain, which threatened his senses. After the third attempt, he could hardly see for the sweat and blood pouring into his eyes, and his arm was wet from wrist to shoulder where he had pulled himself free from the arrow. But he had got one knee up just a little, and in a moment the weight on the broken leg might be eased. There was no sound from Rognvald.
There was still no sound from Rognvald ten minutes later when, free of the carcass, Thorfinn lay with his eyes closed, an easy target and, at that moment, an uncaring one. Then, at the foot of the mound, the horse again started to scream, and, lifting himself, Thorfinn got to a knee and then to one foot, his weight on the strong wooden shaft of his scabbard.
Using it as a crutch, he groped his way slowly to the base of the mound and then subsided, out of reach of the thrashing hooves. The horse was alive, but would not walk again. He drew his sword and, waiting until it took breath, cut its throat. If Rognvald heard, he might guess what had happened. Or he might, with luck, think merely that the beast had collapsed.
Thorfinn sat and looked up at the mound. There was no sound, and nothing to be seen. Rognvald, then, must still be unconscious. It was odd, because the thickness of the snow, you would say, would have saved him from the worst of the fall. Nor was it very likely that he was lying in ambush just over the brow of the hill. He had the arrows: Thorfinn the sword. It was very much in his interest to shoot before Thorfinn got too near. He wished, too late, that he had thought to leave his cloak beside his dead horse, thus deceiving Rognvald at least for a moment into thinking he was still there. But already the cold and the loss of blood were making him shiver, and soon the torch would lose the
last of its light and Rognvald would see nothing anyway. Meanwhile …
Meanwhile, here were reins, and Rognvald’s whip in its socket, and with the edge of his sword he could fashion himself some sort of splint, as quickly as may be. And that done, there remained only one course of action that appealed to him. Somehow, he must edge his way up the slope of the mound to the top. And, somehow, find out what had happened to his half-brother’s son who was trying to kill him.
He had pulled himself halfway up, his hands gripping the heather under the snow, when he heard the sound, so short that he could hardly detect whether it was the voice of a man or of an animal. Then, when after a pause he resumed climbing again, he heard it once more, and for longer.
The first time, it had appeared to come from the other side of the mound. This time, it came from within it.
Whatever god belonged to the mound, it had saved him once. Or rather, you might say, looking about, that there was nothing odd about the accident to Rognvald’s horse. You could see, from the black crevices under the turmoil of hoof prints, how uneven the mound-top was, under the snow. The horse had caught a foreleg, clearly, in one of these and had lost its balance, throwing Rognvald as it fell.
Thorfinn pulled himself a little higher and looked about. Yes. There, strewn about like straws in a salt-pan, were Rognvald’s arrows, scattered as he dropped. There was a cleared place in the snow where something heavy had fallen. And here another, so black in the whiteness that he could not tell what lay underneath: heather or rock.
He drew back just in time.
What lay underneath was neither heather nor rock, but sheer space. What had tripped Rognvald’s horse was not a twist of heather but a crevice in the ground. A crack beside many others into which all the top of the mound was seamed and broken and all of them, it seemed, surrounding something that was not a slit but a hole large enough to take a man’s body. Thorfinn moved, bit by bit, to the edge and looked over and down.