Hawk Quest

‘That’ll teach you to follow strange voices in the night.’

‘He spat his vile humours over me,’ Richard cried.

‘Both of you shut up!’

In silence they rowed to the ship. Hero told Vallon about the causeway and nothing else. Cuthbert had descended with his lamp to the shore again. Vallon looked away from it into the dark sky.

‘The wind’s easing all the time. Raise the anchor.’

The crew strained over the oars, heading around the point. Cuthbert followed them along the shore as if to light their way. They had almost reached the tip of Lindisfarne when out from the mainland crept a column of flares, processing over the face of the sea like communicants bound for midnight mass.

‘Forgive my outburst,’ Richard said, brushing Hero’s shoulder. ‘I was shocked.’

Hero reached up and for a moment their fingers locked. ‘Of course I forgive you.’ He gave a long groan. ‘What an awful day it’s been.’

Cuthbert’s voice carried faintly across the water.

‘What’s he saying?’ Richard asked.

Hero choked back tears. ‘Benedicti sitis peregrini. Bless you, pilgrims.’

XIX

They scraped north for two more days and late on the second afternoon they nosed into the mouth of a wide firth, rounding a great plug of basalt almost hidden behind a blizzard of seabirds. Shearwater sailed through the birds’ fishing grounds. Boobies sheared the sky in their thousands, folding back their wings and plummeting like darts into the waves. Emerging from the storm, the company found themselves in a busy sea-lane. Edinburgh was only a short run down the southern shore of the firth. Vallon told Snorri to hold a northward course.

‘Ain’t we putting in at the capital?’ Raul asked. ‘We won’t find a better place to take on trade goods.’

‘The Normans will have an embassy there. If they find out we’ve landed, they’ll demand our arrest. With invasion threatening, the Scots won’t refuse them.’

‘Handing us over to the Normans ain’t going to stop them invading.’

‘I know, but the Scots will want to avoid any provocation,’ said Vallon. ‘Giving us up would be a sop that costs nothing.’

Raul wasn’t happy and vented his discontent to Wayland. ‘We ain’t going to make our fortunes by ducking every hazard.’

Although Wayland refused to be drawn, his own attitude to the voyage was beginning to sour. All they had left for food was bread and enough water for two cups daily. Conversation had dried up and Syth no longer sang as she worked. His skin itched and burned with saltwater sores.

By midnight they’d passed the firth’s northern point. On they sailed, steering by the light of a pared down moon. Early next morning, under a pastel sky, the weary crew rowed into the bishopric of St Andrews and tied up inside a breakwater.

Wayland had expected something grander and Raul was disgusted, complaining that the town didn’t even have a proper harbour. On a promontory north of the city, masons were at work on a church tower; otherwise, the only buildings more than one storey high were a few shingled houses on the waterfront. The rest of the settlement was a muddle of shaggy hovels.

Vallon and Raul rowed ashore with Snorri to find lodgings and sound out the prospects for trade. Wayland mooched on deck, watching the comings and goings on the quay. The port was used by traders from across northern Europe, and Shearwater’s arrival attracted little attention. Among the groups of Scots dressed in plaid were swaggering Norsemen wearing baggy breeches gathered at the knee.

It was afternoon before the shore party returned. They’d met with a representative of the civic governor who’d arranged accommodation for them in a house reserved for merchants. Vallon told the company that the governor had invited him to dine on the morrow, and that the outlook for trade was limited. At this season of the year there was little grain to be had. They might find some malt, and there was a sawmill five miles out of town where they could buy timber. Raul and Wayland would go there the day after tomorrow, when they’d rested.

The company transferred ashore, leaving Snorri and Garrick on board. Worn out by their voyage, the crew retired to bed early. Vallon had a room to himself at the top of the house. The others paired up according to ties of friendship or habit. Syth and the dog were segregated in the kitchen, a place overrun by rats that scrabbled in the straw and fought over the greasy cook pots. On the morning Wayland left for the sawmill, he found her curled asleep in the passage. Light from the door fell on her face. He studied it more closely than he’d dared do when she was awake, pulled her blanket over her shoulders, and joined Raul in the morning sunshine.

The sawmill was in a forest clearing that sloped down to a shallow loch. Raul knew his timber and proved a shrewd bargainer, rejecting the trees that the mill owner tried to fob off on him. This one had been felled too hard and had the shakes. That one was too knotty. Another was marred by a vein of soft brown pith. ‘It’s foxy,’ said Raul, and stared disgustedly at the surrounding pines. ‘Truth is, compared with Baltic wainscot, none of this wood’s fit for anything but burning.’

When Raul had made his selection, Wayland helped lever the squared trunks on to a sledge. Bullocks dragged the load to a wagon waiting on the road. With time on his hands, he found a log of straight-grained ash and cleft it with a handaxe to make arrows. A boy approached and offered to sell him a creel of trout caught in the lochan that morning. They weighed three or four to a pound and Wayland wrapped them in moss and cooked them in embers for the midday meal. He and Raul ate them with bannocks by the waterside, then they just sat with their thoughts. A breeze swished through the treetops. Fish dimpled the surface of the loch. Across the water a lime-washed steading stood seated on its reflection. A man was chopping wood outside it, the sound of each blow not carrying until he’d raised the axe for the next stroke. Blue hills footed in shadow far to the west.

Raul nodded towards the cottage. ‘Think you and Syth would be happy there?’

‘Hm?’

‘You’ll be planning to settle down. Raise a family.’

Wayland was shocked. ‘It never crossed my mind.’

Raul gave his leftovers to the dog. ‘I wasn’t much older than you when I left home. Never stopped travelling since, never been to the same place twice. You get weary after a while.’

‘You’ll be able to settle with your share of the profits.’

‘Aye, I’ll find a resting place sooner or later.’ Raul stood up, clasped both hands above his head and stretched. ‘Ah, well. Mustn’t weaken.’

Wayland took a last look at the hills and followed him back to work.

They hiked into town under a benign sunset and picked their way down alleys that were little more than open drains. Ahead of them a lean sow and her litter of striped piglets slurped at a trickle of effluent. She raised her head and flared her snout. Wayland stopped and put his hand across Raul’s chest.

‘It’s only a piggy-wiggy,’ said Raul.

A moment later both of them were quick-stepping backwards before the sow’s grunting charge. They took a turn at random and went down the next lane.

‘What a shit-hole,’ Raul said when they reached the next muddy crossroads. He looked around him like a man planning an escape. ‘Where do you reckon a fellow might find a drink in this dump?’

‘Forget it. Vallon told us to return in good time.’

‘Just a cup to wash the sawdust from our throats.’

‘Not me.’

A man came out of a house and went off down the street. Raul ran after him, calling. Turning, he trotted backwards. ‘Sure you won’t come?’

Wayland shook his head and returned to the lodgings.

That evening Syth paused by his seat when she served him supper. He looked up. Their eyes met and held. She moved on and Wayland glanced around, certain that the others must have sensed the current that had passed