‘Cowards. Fools.’
The leader stopped and turned back. My attacker shuffled backwards in the mud. I was too much trouble.
‘Do I look like his wife? Did I look like I enjoyed it? Is that how your women scream when you tup them?’
I shook and heaved with the violence of my rage.
‘And you the lord,’ I shouted at the leader, a man in his thirties decked with silver. He frowned above his beard, and I thought I was going too far even as I was beyond caring. ‘Is your duty not to people like me? To the vulnerable? To the women being raped by strangers on the roadside as you skip back to your stronghold to congratulate yourself on your magnificence? Jesus.’
A quiet voice from among the riders said with uncertainty: ‘Eimhear?’
The sound of my name checked the bile. I stood there, a little foolish, looking among them for the speaker. I saw an auburn beard and a young face, and remembered Magnus the Red, who nearly cried as we sailed across the sea.
‘Magnus? Is my father near?’
They were all looking at me. A press of faces. I felt the dirt on me, and the fox shit, and the raggles of my hair.
‘Jesus, Eimhear. I’m sorry. It’s been a year, more maybe, since …’ He paused, at a loss. The other men fidgeted and watched him, waiting for the punchline. He looked down into his beard and said softly: ‘He’s dead.’
~~~
I joined the household. I was a fourteen-year-old anomaly, with a knife strapped to my calf and a habit of starting at shadows. I was too well born to slave in the kitchen or the byres – my father was some sort of second cousin of the lord. But I had no immediate family, no one to protect me.
At first, the loss of my father was like a fog. It wreathed me, made me invisible. I couldn’t quite grasp it; the magnitude of being all alone. I watched the happy tumble of siblings with envy. I turned my eyes away when I saw mothers kiss their daughters. Dawn was the worst. We all slept together, and in the night-time I could pretend myself into being part of something. The chorus of snores and heavy breath, of childish nightmares and shushing, all was so familiar.
But when morning came, everyone separated out into their own patterns of belonging. Small children like puppies pushing into their mothers’ sides. Young couples disappearing under blankets, which bunched and smoothed, bunched and smoothed in the half-light. Grizzled warriors stretching and tousling the nearest child’s head. Babies feeding with happy whimpers. And me, creeping into the shadows, tracing patterns in the rushes. Feeling the goose bumps prickle my skin and the starkness of being untouched, unstroked, unaccounted.
At least I could swim.
I found the sea on my first free day. I left behind my chores; the mountains of fleeces, the skeins of wool so vast, so oppressive that I dreamed of them. The wool to be cleaned, carded, dyed, spun and weaved in a relentless, oppressive chain.
It was quite cold that day, I remember, and the autumnal sun was hidden by clouds. The sea was a ruffled grey, calling to me. I ran to it, checking my first impulse to run in as I was. I was not a child any more – I needed to stay hidden. I picked my way along the coast, along the rocky headland, looking for a place I could get out again. Getting in was the easy bit.
At last I found a flattish rock, with an easy scramble-to alongside. I threw off my clothes, chill enough already from the air. I dived, too quick to think about it. The sea’s ice hit me, tearing the breath from me. I spluttered upwards, cursing and laughing, the shock of it part of the joy. And there, as if a message from Somerled across the sea to say he was thinking of me, was a young seal. He watched me with big, curious eyes, and I laughed at him until I ached.
We played a while, until at last I could not bear the chattering of my teeth. Pulling myself out, I wrapped my cloak around me and watched the horizon, thinking that if I could fly, or swim like the seal, I could make my way home.
‘But where is home, seal?’
He bobbed there as if he wanted me to come back in. Why was he alone? Where were his family?
‘Are you lost too? I would go where Somerled is, but I don’t know where to find him. I know. He has probably forgotten me. But who else have I got? How can I get across the sea, seal? Can you carry me?’
As if in answer, he slipped under the waves, and was gone.
1125
SOMERLED
He was mazy with sex and blood that spring. He spent his free time with Mebd, intoxicated by her contradictions – she was slender and plump, smooth and textured. She was sweetness and darkness.
He never knew which girl was going to greet him – the tender one, or the spitting one. Both had their advantages. He did not, in truth, care much what she said. He was there to dive into her, to float on her, to lose himself so completely he did not know where to find the sky or the earth. And always, at the back of his mind, was the image of her as he first saw her, blood-smeared and naked, straddling the corpse of the man before him. He told himself the attraction was fierce despite the lingering image.
He tried to tell Aed a little of it. But the big man laughed. ‘Christ’s bones, boy, you’re sixteen. Any woman would get you pumping. She’s got her own teeth, and she’s smaller than your smallest cow. What more do you need?’
His mother did not like her. But Sigrdrifa was preoccupied with ordering the new hall. She had rifled through it avariciously, like a fat, voluble merchant, holding up treasures and shouting to Oona.
‘The cauldron, did you see its like? Did you? Did you? And these …’ She waved some spoons at the smaller woman. ‘Antler, and carved by a master. A master. Thor kissed him on the brow when he whittled these. Kissed him. Kissed him on the arse when he made these.’ She held some scales, the pans of thin tin-lined bronze and the links made of fine-wrought figures of eight.
Father Padeen scolded her for her greed. ‘A thought for the dead, Sigrdrifa,’ he said, ponderously.
‘Piss on the dead,’ she replied. ‘They should have set a better watch.’
He mumbled a prayer and raised his eyes.
‘I feel sorry for your God,’ she said.
‘Why?’
‘On the first day he made the light, and then the earth, and then all that moves and breathes. And now all the poor bastard has to do all day is listen to you moan at him.’
She skipped from place to place, and Somerled left her to order the domestic horde. The rest he shared out in a solemn ceremony. Thanks to St Colm Cille and the Lord first, and the prayer read from a beautiful bible that made Padeen weep when he saw it, bless him. Then a careful reckoning, weighing and doling out. The rifled armrings. The small pile of hack silver. The tafl boards. The swords and shields and spears. The stocked sea chests that sat in the longship. The longship that made his breath catch in his throat every time he saw her. They had found her pulled up on the stony shore beyond the hall, where Ruaridh said he had seen her. Dragon-prowed, broad-beamed. She had seen better days. She was not big – the timbers that formed her keel were stunted compared to some Somerled had seen. But she was his.
A strange thing, to pull on the life of a stranger. It was the big man, the one that Mebd killed, who had been lord here. An incomer, she said; a younger son of one of the lesser northern jarls, who had set off as a youngster to ravage the southern isles with Magnus Barelegs and stayed when the demon died. The women were mostly captured, like Mebd. She had been seized from the Irish mainland in a summer raid.
She told him of her home; of the river running to the sea and the soft rain that fell like a blessing. And he, when she asked him earnestly to let her go back, would say, ‘Soon, my darling, soon,’ but not mean it. He would watch her lips move, and wait for her to stop talking so he could kiss her again.
So, here he was. With the Northman’s woman, and all his goods. His boots, which moved like supple skins on Somerled’s feet. Yet he struggled with his fortune. It seemed too easy, this slipping on of an older man’s life. He would catch sight of himself in the river, wearing his stolen finery, and n
ot recognize himself. He would long to tear the boots from his feet, to feel the crunch of heather beneath his toes.
He felt as if success had pulled him into fragments that did not quite match. The warrior, the son, the lover, the leader, the poet. The boy. Broken shards, which, if pieced together carefully, would make something formless.
There were moments of joy, too. Moments when his new life, his stolen life, filled him with a fizzy, spiteful glee.
Mebd told him stories, sometimes, when he could not sleep. He liked to hear of Cú Chullain, the great hero and nemesis of her namesake Queen Mebd. She told him about the druid who foretold an early death for the young warrior.
‘Which would you choose?’ she asked one sunlit day, as they sat on the boulder by the loch, looking across the water. ‘Glory, or a long life.’
‘Both.’ I am Somerled. Girl-tamer, Norse hammer, sword-bringer. He scrambled to his feet, and throwing his head back as the life surged like a tide, he shouted it: ‘I will have both.’ And at that moment, he believed it.
Others believed in him. They started arriving not long after the raid, drawn by the story of the boy warrior who had taken on the big man from the north and stolen his life. Sixteen years old and bathed in glory, and his men with not so much as a scratch on them. The tale grew bigger with the telling, and Somerled’s men swelled with pride. His band grew.
They came in ones and twos, landless and lordless, wanting to be part of something. Some pure Norse, and others pure Gael, but mostly of twisted parentage. The foreign Gaels, the Gall-Ghàidheil. Fierce and proud. Quick to take offence and slow to forgive. Brave. Odin-touched and reared on tales of Fionn mac Cumhail. A double-headed axe of a legacy to live up to.
And all the while, Gillebrigte sat and stewed himself into a whisky-fuelled agony, watched by a nervous Sigrdrifa.
~~~
‘What shall I do about Iehmarc?’
Padeen clicked his irritation and completed the cast, the line arcing through the sky and the hook sinking into the water with a token ripple.
‘Sorry.’
The priest turned to him, grinning.
‘No matter. Don’t apologize to anyone, Somerled. You are the lord.’
‘Yes, of course, I’m …’
He trailed off, and they laughed. Somerled felt light, absurdly happy. Like a girl escaping chores. They could see the hall below, the stream from this small loch trundling down the hill to run alongside it. Small figures bustled purposefully. Smoke pushed cheerfully to the white sky. Somerled could almost forget his theft of it. He could almost imagine that he had not been the thing in the darkness, watching.
‘Iehmarc,’ said the priest softly. ‘You should not have offered him clemency, Somerled.’
‘A strange thing for a priest to say.’
‘I am not talking as your priest, but as your adviser.’
‘My mother would accuse you of hypocrisy.’
Padeen smiled. ‘If I fart, your mother accuses me of hypocrisy.’
The water ruffled in a gust of wind, sending shivers up Padeen’s line. He pulled, gently, moving the hook through the water.
‘He would have hated me if I had made him kiss my arse. I am trying to shore it up, not make it worse.’
‘Listen, Somerled. Nothing makes a bitter man more bitter than being offered a kindness by a man he hates.’
Somerled thought about this. He turned his face into the rising wind and let it blow his hair back from his face. Why do other men have to be complicated? he wondered. Why can’t it be like the Bible? I say jump, they say how high. If I say jump, my crew will ask why.
‘I made a mistake then. But how do I fix it?’
‘Now I can’t help you, Somerled. I cannot, as your priest, give you the advice necessary.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you? Well then,’ he said as his line began to twitch and jump. ‘Just bear in mind that our kind do not take to tyranny. Be clever, Somerled. Always be clever. Brawn is easy, but it is never enough.’
~~~
They moved through the fog like a whisper. The calm sea was dimpled ahead, furrowed behind, as the oars churned the water. They were moving well, he thought, for all their soft palms and long beaching. Aed looked pleased, he saw, and he mimicked the easy, knee-rolling gait of the big man as they moved forward. Aed held the steering oar with a light touch. Somerled held on to the backstay, which stretched tautly down from the top of the mast, and concentrated on looking the part.
Inside the fog it was warmer than it should be. The last gasps of summer outweighed the cloud. The breeze conjured by the galley’s momentum was welcome on his clammy forehead. He raised his face to it, as if drinking in the wisps of cloud that floated above their heads. They were quiet, the men. No songs now, not this close. Just the bite and pull of the oars, the rushing drops as the blades emerged and shook off the sea, and the creaking of the oars in their ports. They were a few men light; this ship could take twenty oars a side. But it was a still day, and the eighteen men he had kept her moving sweetly across the water.
This fog was heaven-sent, he thought. They called him the lucky one. Luck. That gift from God that shone on him like a halo. And now, in this first raid with his new, bigger crew, this glorious fog had come to hide their approach. Sigurd was at the prow, counting the strokes and estimating their speed. They would turn in, soon, to hug the coast and look for the landmarks. They would have to creep slowly then. But this rushing speed was a joy. He looked anxiously towards Sigurd. If the man’s renowned sea skill deserted him, they would be in trouble. Luck and skill combined. That was the secret.
Bite, heave, up. Bite, heave, up. Bite, heave, up. He called the rhythm in his head. It dispelled thought, calmed his jittery nerves. Bite, heave, up. Bite, heave, up. Bite, heave, up. Somerled. Luck-bringer, foe-killer, death-dealer. Bite, heave, up. Bite, heave, up.
At last they turned landwards. Slowly creeping. Somerled imagined the settlement they were approaching, going about its business in the fog. Perhaps they felt safe – no one would be mad enough to brave the sea roads in this thick fog. Or perhaps they felt unaccountable slivers of fear. The fog was eerie. It enveloped the familiar and turned it into the other. A fairy realm unleashed.
They jumped out into waist-high water, stifling the usual cold-water jokes. Somerled slapped Sigurd Horse-face on the back for his astonishing feat of navigation, and the man grinned as he pulled on the lightened boat, scraping it up the shingle. Ruaridh, their silent scout, set off to show them the path. They had caught him, once, spying on them. But he had pretended to be addle-witted and had run when they had taken their eye off him. Big bastards, he said. Gall-Ghàidheil, from their speech.
A rustling raid, Somerled had told his band. Fast in, fast out. Hit them. When they fall back, grab anything that bleats or squeals and head back – Aed and his crew to cover the fighting retreat. No women, unless they came easily. A short blooding raid – not full war. Not yet.
So here they were, creeping through the God-brewed fog, along the heathery, rocky mounds that littered this coast.
At the top of one of them, they crouched. Silent still. Below them they saw and heard shapes moving in the whiteness. Like ghosts, they were. And if they seem ghostlike to us, what will we seem to them? thought Somerled. He passed the word along. When we run at them, scream like banshees. Scream like the fairy folk come alive. On the signal. On the signal.
Hush now. Hush.
‘Now!’ he said, and they burst across the brow of the mound, calling and screaming and ululating. The noise would have spooked the dead, and Somerled joined in, raising his voice in a high-pitched scream that juddered as he ran down the rocky hill.
‘Fuck!’ shouted a voice behind him, as someone fell, and Sigurd suddenly appeared from behind him, somersaulting down the hill with a cry that was genuine. He lay at the bottom, but they didn’t have time to stop. They screamed onwards, falling on the warriors who leaped at them out of the mist. One lunged at Somerled
, a jabbering, frightened man with wide eyes and the stench of piss about him. Somerled sidestepped his rush and kicked him on the arse as he ran past, and Thorfinn finished him off, the shower of blood startlingly red against the fog.
Suddenly it was quiet. Somerled realized the flaw in his plan, as the fog turned from friend to enemy. ‘Quick!’ he screamed, imagining an unknown enemy regrouping in the cloud cover. ‘Grab and retreat!’
He picked up a chicken, which promptly shat all over his arm.
Around him the warriors grappled with livestock. Somewhere, a woman screamed. ‘Retreat!’ he shouted. ‘Retreat,’ and the bastard chicken pecked and shat again, until his arm was covered in scratches and crap and the giggles were catching in his throat.
They met by the galley, laughing madly most of them. Even Sigurd, his face scratched and bloody from his somersaults through the gorse. They threw the animals in, a shrieking jumble of feathers and wool. Aed appeared over the hill, a bull calf under his arm. He slung it over the side and the white-eyed animal scrabbled for purchase on the smooth deck with its hooves, skidding and shitting with fear.
They pushed off, jumping in from the shallows and finding their way in some order, despite the strange hilarity that had overtaken them.
‘All here,’ said Aed, smiling. Somerled felt his cheeks flush. He had not thought to check. What kind of leader was he?
They came over the hill then, screaming defiance. Some of the crew not rowing slapped their arse cheeks at them, and the laughter carried across the water like a final insult. Between the chests, huddled around the mast, the animals that the men had caught floundered and squealed.
‘Hey, Sigurd,’ shouted Oengus. ‘Did you train as a tumbler? Couldn’t tell your arse from your head as you rolled down that hill.’
Sigurd grinned, a little sheepish.
‘Did you see their faces when we roared out of the mist at them?’
The Winter Isles Page 8
