King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett Page A

Malcolm’s middle-aged brother Gillacomghain had gathered a war-band and, moving north, was sitting in Caithness, where he had laid claim to the ancient tax-rights of the Mormaers of Moray and Caithness.
    Skeggi and his brother, up from Freswick, were among those who lowered the man from his horse, yelling for someone to go for the wise-woman while their faces were like new suns for happiness. Everyone had known that this was likely to happen, with Thorfinn away, as soon as the older brother started to fail. It promised a good war, with a lot of fine raiding, and they were well prepared.
    It had to be said, of course, that Gillacomghain was well prepared as well, having been stockpiling Canute’s pensions for even longer than Thorkel. And that Gillacomghain in this particular claim might have a backing that Thorfinn’s birth wouldn’t win him: the support, in men and weapons, of Thorfinn’s grandfather.
    For if Canute remembered his promise at Chester, the conquest of Norway would make Thorfinn a force to be measured: the owner of two-thirds of Orkney as well as the whole of Caithness.
    It was a promise in which Thorkel placed little faith. But to Gillacomghain, as to Malcolm of Alba, the threat of it would be enough. In their place, there was little he’d stop at to check Canute’s grip of the north through Thorfinn.
    While Skeggi swept the heavens with cries about beacon-fires and horses, message-tokens and ships, Thorkel’s mind was addressing his foster-son.
And where are you today, Thorfinn, in your house with two storeys, and your rich middle-aged widows who give you arm-bands to pass on to your door-keeper?
    In the event, it took a week of fighting to clear Gillacomghain and his men out of the Black Isle and back to the south side of the Moray Firth. In the course of it, Thorkel saw more than once the coarse yellow hair and stocky figure of Findlaech’s nephew as he ran with his men, but among the men were few that he could recognise from Findlaech’s day.
    It was possible, then, that not too many of the farmers and fishermen of Moray had enjoyed the switch of masters when their old Mormaer, Thorfinn’s stepfather, was burned. It explained why the present attack had been driven off with such speed, although his own precautions accounted for some of their luck.
    A mixed blessing. Next time, Gillacomghain knew, he must look outside of Moray for the army he would bring over the firth. Perhaps to King Malcolm, who had been sparing of his support this time, it would seem. Or to the Irishmercenaries of the west, who would fight for the kind of silver Gillacomghain now had.
    Thorkel commissioned a shipmaster going to York to bring him back three dozen Swedish axes, and sent Steingrim Salmundarson west on the tax-boat with an order to buy Frankish swords in Dublin—three of them, with their hilts on. He had some leather coats sewn, and rode round the coast on his garron to see how the new ships were shaping.
    The ship from York came back with news of two marriage contracts. Prince Duncan of Alba had chosen a wife: a daughter of Ealdred of Bernicia, the land where Alba and England met on the east coast. With that marriage would come the inheritance of Ealdred’s father, who once had ruled all Northumbria. And the even greater interests of Ealdred’s mother, the only child of Durham’s first Bishop-magnate.
    It meant that, from the west coast to the east, the north of England could expect to see a good deal of the rulers of Alba. And it made one wonder if Duncan’s marriage had taken place with or without Canute’s blessing.
    The second contract tied another knot between the same families. By this, Maldred, Duncan’s half-brother, became wed to the same Ealdred’s semi-royal stepsister. The stepsister was related both to Canute’s chief wife and to his personal viceroy in Denmark. Which disposed of all doubt. Canute knew, all right. Despite the hazards, Canute was prepared to see Alba strengthen its stake in