King Hereafter Read Free

bite.
    ‘And spoken to him,’ said Finn, watching him chew. ‘He’d just had a talk with the King. Don’t you want to know why Earl Brusi is here? You killed his brother. Or arranged for it.’
    Thorkel gave his close attention to the meat. ‘If you know why Earl Brusi is here, then I suppose you are going to tell me.’
    Finn said, ‘He isn’t here because of the murder. He’s here to complain to the King about your foster-son. Your foster-son Thorfinn, his little half-brother, who has promised him no peace, it seems, unless Brusi hands him half of Orkney.’
    Despite himself, Thorkel’s face grew red round his smile. As if he meant it, he said, ‘It seems fair. Thorfinn and Brusi are the only two brothers left.’
    Finn said, ‘Brusi is a grown man with a son to look after, and Thorfinn is a child by a different mother. Earl Brusi claims both his own third of Orkney and the third willed him by the brother you killed. King Olaf agrees.’
    ‘Does he?’ said Thorkel.
Thorfinn
, his mind said.
Thorfinn, the stupid, half-grown, cocksure little fool
.
    ‘Yes. The King promised, if need be, to support Brusi’s cause with an army,’ said his cousin Finn mildly. ‘At a price, certainly. King Olaf doesn’t give something for nothing.’
    ‘Whatever the King wanted, I’m sure Brusi would give it him,’ Thorkel remarked. The ship kicked to the current, and he flung the half-eaten mutton away.
    ‘The King wanted sovereign rights,’ said Finn, ‘over all Brusi’s Orkney inheritance. Overlordship of two-thirds of Orkney. Of course, Brusi agreed.’
    ‘Kneeling?’ said Thorkel. He laughed.
    ‘Kneeling, naturally. That is why,’ said Finn his cousin, ‘I wondered if you hadn’t picked the wrong princeling to foster.’
    Successfully, Thorkel laughed again. ‘You think I might have found the dainty young Rognvald more promising? But I should have had to kill his father Brusi first, shouldn’t I? And what would be the use, with his land under King Olaf now anyway?’
    Stupid, half-grown, cocksure little fool
. Long after the conversation had ended, the oars beat the words through Thorkel’s head. He hardly noticed the change in the stroke as the fleet came within sight of Nídarós, or the bustle about him, or the high, gilded profile of
Charlemagne
, berthed where the King had disembarked half a day earlier.
    The first time Thorkel came from his thoughts, it was to find the boat docked and on the jetty an illusion; a nightmare; a grotesque and familiar figure he had believed to be safely at home, five hundred miles west of Nídarós.
    Not the complaining Earl Brusi. Not the lovely young Rognvald his son. But a scowling juvenile, thin as a half-knotted thong, with a monstrous brow topped by a whisk of black hair over two watering eyes, thick as acorns.
    It raised one arm and called. Its voice had not even started to break.
    ‘Thorfinn,’ said Thorkel, and the word itself was a groan. Here in Norway, here in Nídarós, here on King Olaf’s jetty was the child-Earl of Caithness and Orkney. His foster-son.
    Deliberately, Thorkel Amundason stepped ashore. Deliberately, he stalked towards the belligerent brat on whom for seven long years his hopes had been centred, and stopped before him. He said, ‘Thorfinn Sigurdarson: if you have put a foot wrong, I will take you into a close-house and thrash you over the stool.’
    He did not remember, just then, that Finn his cousin was behind him. He was concerned only, as so often before, to search the boy’s face, looking in vain for what was his due in the unyielding, bellicose features, the half-grown nose, the wired lips, the challenging stare. The boy said, piping, ‘Thorkel Amundason: I am nearly thirteen years old and of full age, and you are my servant. Who gave you leave to kill men in Maere for Norway?’
    ‘My cousins,’ said Thorkel. He took the boy’s arm and turned him,walking, in the direction of the house he had been given. The boy shook himself