King Hereafter Read Online Free PDF Page A

might be a jar of good wine, if he felt generous.
    But seldom money. That, he used to say, was for his traders to worry about. He supplied the ships, and he protected them: what would he do with money at Egge? If he wanted some good Irish slaves or a sword, the traders would find them for him.
    Somewhere at Egge, Thorkel was inclined to think, must be a stout wooden chest crammed with thin silver pennies and hacksilver.
    There were eight merchants this time, including a man Thorkel knew well, married to one of Kalv’s sisters. Kalv had also brought Siward, a nephew of his young wife’s whom Thorkel had never met, and who looked quarrelsome.
    Kalv was carrying, as a guest-gift, some of the finest beaver skins Thorkel had ever seen. Praising them, Thorkel placed them on a swept space on thehall floor. The next time he looked, Kalv’s nephew, leaning back, had stretched out his heels on them.
    Thorkel raised his eyebrows. Kalv, swearing, leaned forward and hooked out the bundle so that his nephew nearly slid after it. Siward sat sharply up. Although uncle and nephew, there was not much to choose between them in age; but whereas Kalv was spry and sinewy, Siward was built like a bullock. Then one of the prettier serfs put down a platter of pork, and Siward swung his knees in and stretched like a bow for the ale-horn.
    Under cover of the eating and talk, Kalv said, ‘So your foster-son is away. I am astonished. Now,
that
—’
    ‘—is a bargain I must wish I had never made. When I decide to leave to fight Saracens, I shall let you know, Kalv, in time for your next year’s arrangements. Naturally, the boy is away every summer. So are you.’
    ‘On business,’ said Kalv. ‘What is
his
business? He should be learning to rule.’
    The nephew Siward lifted a loaf and pulled it apart. ‘According to gossip,’ he said, ‘Thorfinn’s brother Earl Brusi is doing the ruling while Thorfinn roves about, spending his taxes. What’s wrong? Has he fallen in love with his suit of rings and his axe? He does still own a third of Orkney, doesn’t he?’
    Thorkel Amundason shrugged and, smiling, passed him more bread. ‘He likes adventure,’ he said. It was true. Young men did fall in love with fighting. It was truer to say that Thorfinn’s love affair had been with the sea ever since, at fourteen, he had got his first longship. Thorkel had no reason to think his foster-son backward in attaining the normal accomplishments with girl-serfs, but it was the vessel
Grágás
he had married.
    It was not what Thorkel had foreseen when he saw himself lord in effect of the Orkneys. But he had Caithness and a third of Orkney to rule in the boy’s absence, which for most men would be power enough. Remembering Nídarós, Thorkel said, ‘And what of Rognvald in Norway? Homesick as ever? He must be sixteen.’
    ‘Homesick?’ said Kalv. ‘With every courtman in Norway fighting the next for his favour? Rognvald, let me tell you, is the new Baldur. Cultivate Brusi’s son and you’ll never go wrong. Pity he isn’t a girl. Marry him to Thorfinn, and their son would be master of Orkney.’
    ‘Under King Olaf,’ said Thorkel.
    ‘What else?’ said Kalv. His self-importance, as always, was maddening. ‘I had the impression you were under King Olaf at present. The way things are, you’d better stick to him anyway. Canute isn’t content with ruling England and Denmark, that’s obvious. But for Olaf, you might find Canute overrunning Norway and the whole of Alba as well, right up to your Caithness frontiers and beyond, if he felt like it. And your uncle-burning neighbours in Moray won’t stop him. The story goes that they’ve paid Canute homage already.
    ‘I should worry about that, in your shoes. If Canute ever got a grip of Alba, the Moray cousins would push you out and rule the whole of the north. I suppose that’s why they burned Thorfinn’s stepfather. What are they called?Malcolm and Gillacomghain? That’s what I mean,’ explained