‘He’s right, littlest Otter. It’s still cold for little ones,’ said Somerled.
‘My like cold. Mamma, my like cold.’ I knew without looking that her face would be crumpling into a tearless wail. I sympathized, as a rule, with children’s bewilderment at the world’s refusal to adapt itself around their implacable wants. Perhaps, I thought idly, that is the principal part of parenting – teaching them to bear the disappointment of how unyielding and unappeasable the world is. There is a space within your head, I tried to tell Gillecolm once, where everything makes sense and fairness reigns unchallenged. And then, unfortunately, there is a universe outside your head.
He understood. My shining boy.
They were throwing stones, the three people I loved best. Little Sigrdrifa threw one with such misplaced force she collapsed on her bottom, shrieking with infectious laughter. ‘My fall over. My fall over,’ she crowed, just in case we had missed it.
These were the things we did not talk about on that golden afternoon. Somerled’s shrunken band. Poor dear Ruaridh. The word reaching us from Man that Olaf Crobhan was stirring himself to move against us. The vassalage to David. Old Sigrdrifa’s failing strength. Little Sigrdrifa’s failure to recognize her father when he came back from his great defeat. Gillecolm lagging behind the other boys in swordplay. The Great Defeat.
These were the things we did talk about. The habits of otters and seals. Who could spin a stone across the still waters. The size of Sigrdrifa’s hands. The impossibility of Somerled and I existing before Sigrdrifa was alive. Gillecolm’s deep and passionate love for the sea.
They wandered at the shore’s edge, those miraculous beings of ours, laughing and picking up stones. Somerled and I sat watching. He held my hand as if we were young. I could feel the calluses, and I raised his fist to my lips, kissing his raw knuckles.
‘It seems impossible to be here,’ he said. ‘A bit like a dream. I will wake on an open mountainside, crying for you all.’
‘No use wasting it in thinking it a dream,’ I said.
He nodded. ‘It’s so hard, though, to grasp what is real and what is not. When both halves are so absurdly different.’
I squeezed his hand. ‘Let them be separate. No point trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.’
There was compassion in my kiss, and a lurching swell of love for him. Pity and respect mixed together form a powerful brew.
‘Thank God for you, Eimhear.’
‘And for you, Somerled.’
The children called us across to a flat rock that hung over the water. Sigrdrifa issued fat-fingered commands, and we obeyed, lying down on our stomachs so that our heads dangled over the edge of the rock. And there we were, gazing back at us. The four of us. We four. Laughing into the still depths of the loch.
The commonplace joy of that moment overwhelmed me. I let down my defences to that panic that lurked always on the horizon, from the instant I saw my first child. It raced through my limbs to my heart, which beat wildly.
Keep them safe. Keep them safe. I rolled on to my back, turning away from their smiling faces. Keep them safe. I opened my eyes to the blue sky as my heart thumped and roared its own titanic plea to an indifferent universe.
1138
SOMERLED
The ships were late. Too late. Two galleys, carrying messages to his base at Kintyre. And on one of them was a seven-year-old boy who had begged and cajoled to go along for the joy of the sail. Gillecolm. How he loves the sea, that boy, thought Somerled as he trudged up the hill to where Eimhear sat waiting. He was too young to fear it properly, as it should be feared.
At the lookout point, young Brian stood rigid, mindful and nervous of her presence beside him. She sat on the rock and Somerled watched her for a heartbeat before she saw him. It’s easy to forget to look at those we love, he thought, and he scanned her. How old was she now? Twenty-seven.
There were single threads of grey running through her hair, but her face was clear as a girl’s. Only a deep furrow in her forehead betrayed her advancing age. She frowned when she concentrated, and it had left its mark. The little Otter, the friend of his childhood, was traceable in her face, but she smiled less now, God help her. There were dark circles beneath her staring eyes; she had not slept much last night, he knew. He thought back to the first days of their love, when he had believed implicitly in her perfection. He knew now that she was riddled with imperfections. She was impatient, and easily bored. She snapped and bridled easily. She was quick to fury, but quick to mellow too. She let folk see her hidden thoughts. Sometimes she drank too much mead, and she cried at shadows. Why did these weaknesses add up to something greater than perfection, to something wholly precious?
He walked forward and she turned to him, her face bleak.
‘Where is he? Why did you let him go?’
‘I’m sorry. But he is seven. How could I not?’
She turned back to face the sea, compulsively, as if by looking she could will the galley home. ‘They are seven days past their time.’
‘You know the sea. They could be sheltering in some bay with the tides and wind against them.’
‘Seven days,’ she said. ‘Seven.’
The seven stretched to eight and into nine. She lost weight, lost substance to the point where it seemed as if only the power of her staring eyes was keeping her upright. She clung to the lookout rock like a limpet. No one could talk her down. Sigrdrifa kept her little namesake away; her mother’s too-fierce hugs and wild eyes were terrifying the little girl.
Sometimes she clung to him. Other times she screamed at him. Your fault. This is your fault.
~~~
He woke into darkness, knowing she was not next to him. He knew she was at the rock, waiting for dawn. He shifted under the warm furs, reluctant to rush up, to share her pain. I’m sorry, he whispered to the space where she should be.
A small, warm body climbed in next to him, pushing her face into his neck. Little Sigrdrifa, who believed herself too old now to cuddle up to her father when there were eyes watching, wrapped herself into him.
‘Is he dead, do you think?’ she whispered.
‘Hush, now, my littlest Otter.’
‘You never tell us things we might not want to hear. You make Mother do it. You’re a coward.’
He could feel her sobbing, the way children do when they know they have gone too far. He pushed her hair back from her face, feeling the astonishing silk of her skin against his oar-hard hands. She was right. A keen-eyed little one, who missed nothing.
‘You should sleep,’ he whispered.
‘I can’t. I’m scared.’
‘Stay with me, then, littlest Otter. Do you know something? At night, when it’s dark and the water’s tossing and turning, otters sleep afloat on their backs. Like this, darling one. I’ve seen it. I know. And they say, though I haven’t seen this, that they sleep holding hands, so the tossing of the water won’t part them. So hold my hand, little one. There. Shh, now.’
~~~
Do you remember? Eimhear said one time, as the dusk brought the promise of another sleepless night. Do you remember when he was born? Do you remember all those nights I sat up rocking him, rocking him? Do you remember how he never stopped smiling as a toddler, how he would pick himself up from a fall and laugh?
Do you remember when we were children and we found that sailor’s body on the beach, and his skin had sort of melted from the sea, and the crabs had eaten his nose, his eyes? Do you remember?
Another time, they watched the sea as a squall swept across its surface, trailing a squat, low cloud. The edges of the sky were silver, and the sea clear here, pitted there. They could see Mull, its fierce peaks reaching heavenwards. The whole majestic sum of it seemed to mock their preoccupation with one small boy; one tiny, freckled lost boy. How could he not be lost, in all of this?
‘Your mother is right,’ she said. ‘Our God makes no sense of this. Her gods are fierce and petty, malicious and fractious. They make sense when he i
s lost.’
‘Come. Our God loves us. He watches us in the darkness.’
‘You watch in the darkness before you kill.’
‘He loves you. He sent his son.’
She looked at him with contempt. ‘He can keep his son; I want mine back. Love, Somerled? If God loves me, why is he torturing me? You love me. Would you? Either he hates us, or he views us all with a sort of monstrous indifference. Nothing else makes sense.’
‘It’s not true.’
‘Is it not? There’s more sense in the gods being bastards, human-shaped.’
‘Could a small, petty God have made this?’ He drew his arm across the horizon, taking in the sea and the mountains, and ending with his hand lightly on her cheek.
She pressed his hand, gripping on to it as if he could save her.
‘And what is all this?’ she said, so softly the wind muffled her words. ‘What is all this weighed against my son? Oh my son. My son.’
What will we do if he doesn’t come home? thought Somerled. How will it be? She will break. His panic and fear frothed up into an inarticulate cry at the sea: ‘What shall we do?’
Ten days stretched into eleven. On the twelfth, she stopped talking. She was sinew and nerves and wild eyes. Her lovely face was a skull and her hair – well, the vivid glory of it was streaked with grey.
And then, at last, a mast and a shout of joy from the lookout that brought him running up the hill like a boy. He couldn’t look at her as the ship drew closer and they registered her unfamiliar lines, her stranger’s prow and, at last, the banner of Olaf Crovan streaming to the south in the fresh wind. He couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to see how it would break her.
‘They may have news,’ he said at last. ‘Why else would he send a galley? Look! They’re unshipping the prow beast. They come to talk, perhaps; perhaps there is news.’
They walked down the hill together, her hand a shivering claw on his arm. They stood on the beach and waited as the strangers moored, as the chief of them jumped into the shallows and waded ashore.
He was about an age with Somerled; a tall, powerful man with an easy smile.
‘You are Somerled?’
Somerled nodded, weariness in every limb.
‘I am Thorfinn Ottarson, sent as an emissary by Olaf, King of Man and Lord of the Isles. He sent me to tell you that we picked up some castaways on a beach down in Islay, under the cliffs at Oa.’
Somerled felt Eimhear’s hand tighten on this, heard her indrawn breath like a death rattle.
‘One of them,’ said this Thorfinn, with a glance at Eimhear, ‘is your son, Gillecolm.’
‘Oh Jesus, oh Jesus,’ she moaned, all the tension leaking out of her in the sound, and her knees gave and she sank to the ground, doubled up and weeping.
Somerled crouched down next to her and smoothed back her hair, shushing her as you would a child. He looked up at Thorfinn. ‘And he is well?’
‘Quite well, Lord Somerled.’
‘Where is he?’ Somerled’s eyes slid past Thorfinn to the galley behind him, where Gillecolm clearly was not lurking.
Thorfinn looked embarrassed suddenly. Shifty. Oh Lord, what now? thought Somerled. Am I to play Job? Or, God help me, Abraham? Where will I find the strength?
~~~
In the hall, Eimhear found her poise. She straightened her spine, cracked her head into place, pulled on a polite mask. Sigrdrifa, rare tears streaming, bustled round to make the visitors welcome.
They exchanged the usual pleasantries: the wind, the tides, the likelihood of a blow. Somerled paced through them impatiently. Fergus was with him, at his left side, and he leaned on the old man’s wiliness, let him do most of the talking while he tried to piece together the implications of Gillecolm being Olaf Crovan’s hostage.
He heard, with half an ear, Fergus talking Thorfinn round to the main point, pushing him to the bounds of politeness. Eimhear’s fingers rolled out an impatient tattoo on the edge of her chair. She stared at Thorfinn with the intensity she had turned on the horizon, boring through him as if she could force him to produce her child with some magical sleight of hand.
Sigrdrifa brought warmed ale for Thorfinn, and something in her face told Somerled she had spat in the horn.
Jesus, he thought. Let’s get to it.
‘… my king is desolate at the ill feeling between our two houses. Desolate. He feels that we would be better placed to be friends. He has some trouble with the northern isles, and suggests, Lord Somerled, that as friends, the two of you might be well placed to teach the wild Northmen how to be good Christian subjects to their Lord.’
Somerled nodded. God, he could do with an alliance with Man now. He could do with some raiding, too. Some hack silver to replenish his coffers, some slaves to trade for arms and men. But, but? There was something else. Why would Olaf trust him? How?
‘The king is treating his hostage, Gillecolm, with all the courtesy due to the son of a respected enemy. But how different it would be if he were the son of a friend.’
Somerled laid a hand on Eimhear’s arm. They would get nowhere if she sprang at this Thorfinn and ripped out his throat with her sharp otter teeth.
‘And how much better, how infinitely better for all concerned if the boy were a relative. As a relative, of course, he would be free to come and go between our two lands, honoured in both. Free as the wind.’
A relative?
‘The king,’ continued Thorfinn, looking at Fergus with a studied, casual air, as if they were having a fireside chat in a port far from home, ‘has a daughter.’
A daughter?
Somerled’s mind was foggy with lack of sleep. He didn’t understand, but he saw others did. He saw it in their indrawn breath, in their eyes, which swivelled to Eimhear. She looked calm, as if an old, suspected truth had been revealed to her.
‘A daughter,’ said Somerled, slowly. ‘For Gillecolm?’
‘No, Lord Somerled. For the boy is a product of a handfasted marriage, we understand, and my king is a very strict Christian, who doesn’t see such unions as quite the thing.’
Somerled nearly laughed at this blatant lie, but held it in. He watched Thorfinn’s face tighten.
‘No, Lord Somerled. Ragnhild, a lovely girl, would be for you.’
Oh Christ.
~~~
‘We must,’ she said.
‘No.’
They lay pressed against each other in the darkness. How often had they lain like this? He thought of all the times, now that their love was worn and comfortable, that they had just slept. All the missed hours of talk and sex and togetherness.
‘No,’ he said again, his voice muffled in her hair.
‘Somerled, if you do not let me do this to save Gillecolm, I will hate you. And then we will be broken anyway.’
‘We will rescue him. Fight Olaf Crovan.’
‘You wouldn’t get in the harbour. He’s too strong. Leaving my fate to one side, this alliance would suit you.’
‘No.’
‘Yes. I am not a fool, Somerled. We have never recovered from the mauling by David. You need this. Otherwise you will be like your father, and wither to a nonentity.’
‘Better a nonentity with you.’
‘Perhaps. But not with a me that you have robbed of a son.’
‘What if you stay here? I will build you a shieling above the loch, my darling, and come to you there.’
‘Oh, my summer heart. And have you dishonour Olaf Crovan’s daughter? He would eat you. Spit you out. I must go to the Island of Women.’
‘Oh Lord, no. Not there. You don’t belong there. Marry someone else. I will try not to kill him.’
‘No. I will not marry someone else.’
She cried, then, for the first time. Shuddering sobs that he felt through his skin, into his bone.
‘So we are caught in a trap, my Otter.’
‘Utterly. Completely caught.’
They slept a little, perhaps. He was wrapped in her, and when he spoke he
did not know if he was awake or asleep. ‘What will I do without you? How will I bear it?’
‘Shh, my summer heart. You will bear it because you will bear it. And so will I. At least you will not be on the Island of Women. You will be tupping some little Norse princess.’
‘Don’t.’
‘Sorry. Kiss me. I am here.’
But you will not be here. You will not be here.
~~~
The severity of the place oppressed Somerled. The long, narrow hall had plain walls, with a small fire at one end and deep slits for windows. A bleakness of white, and grey and weathered stone. And if it oppressed him, what of her? She who loved beauty and colour, who he’d seen cartwheeling down a beach, laughing at a pink sunrise.
Beside him he saw her face clenched tight, her eyes narrowed.
‘Jesus,’ she muttered. ‘Would a bit of scarlet kill them, the creatures?’
‘The setting, though, love. There’s a beauty …’ He waved his arm towards the door, closed on the beauty of the island-scape; the riotous autumn colour of the hills sweeping down to the sea. A small island, hemmed between Iona and Mull. The Island of Women. Like an afterthought, a stray comma between the huge mountainous island of warriors and its small holy sidekick.
Across the strait, with its startling turquoise waters, the men of Iona prayed and worshipped. The women here did all the backbreaking, soul-sapping, spirit-crushing work women do everywhere. The clothmaking and the peat-cutting and the cheesemaking and the child-rearing and the backside wiping and the cleaning. His mother liked to point out that the monks wouldn’t have the women on the holy island, but they would take their labour.
There were cliffs to the side of the main hall, low echoes of the sheer faces of Mull. He waved his arm inarticulately at the birds circling above. ‘Beauty …’ he tried again. He trailed off as he saw her face turn to him, and the cold contempt on it.
‘Don’t. There’s nothing you can say.’
They were ushered towards a stone cross, before which knelt a cluster of holy women. Here, there were tapestries and furs and attempts to soften the stone. It was as if this was the only part of the place that mattered, and all the rest was a dull waiting room before the prayers. They could only see the backs of their bent heads, and the flicked-up eyes of the grey-haired woman at the front, which registered them and flicked back down again.
The Winter Isles Page 18
