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Amundason shortly. Beneath it all, that was his fear.
    ‘No. He needs me,’ Thorfinn had said.
    ‘
Needs
you?’
    ‘It’s the talk of the islands. King Canute has summoned my grandfather to do homage for Cumbria.’
    ‘Then I suppose he will,’ Thorkel had said. ‘Cumbria is important to him.’
    ‘Yes. But he might not be allowed to keep Cumbria,’ Thorfinn had said, ‘unless he can convince Canute his overlord that he can stop me from helping King Olaf.’
    Around them, the routine of loading had gone on. Thorkel had said, after a while, ‘But you are a vassal of Olaf’s.’
    ‘Not for Caithness,’ Thorfinn had said.
    His stare was unwinking. Thorkel had stared back. Malcolm and Gilla-comghain had done homage to Canute for Moray. It didn’t give Canute rights over Moray. It did give him leave to use the harbours and provisions of Moray in pursuit of his war against Olaf. Thorkel said, ‘You think your grandfather will want you to pay homage for Caithness to
Canute?
’
    ‘To allow Canute rights in Caithness,’ Thorfinn amended. ‘And perhaps even in my third of Orkney.’
    ‘And will you?’ Thorkel had said. It had sounded jocular, such was his alarm and despair.
    ‘What do you suppose?’ was all Thorfinn had answered. And, turning, had boarded the ship and sailed south.
    That was last week, and Thorkel had heard nothing since. Of what had happened last week he had said nothing at all to Kalv Arnason. Now he was listening to Kalv, and half-agreeing to a Norwegian marriage, and wholly agreeing when Kalv said once more, as he did on departing, ‘Tell the boy, wherever he is. Stick to Olaf and Norway. It’s the best chance we’ve all got of survival.’

FOUR
    ake me think like a man
, the twelve-year-old Thorfinn had said to Thorkel his foster-father, and for a while, it was true, had taken Thorkel for tutor.
    Make me act like a man
, he had said also; and for that, his tutors were many and various, and the foremost of them all was the sea.
    He had others, mostly men older than himself, whom Thorkel knew about and put up with. Most of them were on board with Thorfinn now as he sailed south to answer his grandfather’s summons. First for fighting was Skeggi Havardson his father’s nephew, twenty years Thorfinn’s elder and his standard-bearer. First in mischief was a man older still: Eachmarcach, the nephew of King Sitric Silkbeard of Dublin.
    On his way south to Cumbria, Thorfinn had diverged to take on board Eachmarcach, who spent his time sailing the western seas, looking for trouble. Learning where they were going, Eachmarcach laughed until he had to be slapped on the back., A broad, freckled man with a tightly curled ginger thatch, the heir of Dublin had little reverence for King Malcolm of Alba, Thorfinn’s grandfather. And he could imagine (he said) King Malcolm’s face when he saw himself, Eachmarcach, in Thorfinn’s company.
    Thorfinn, who could imagine it too, grinned but said nothing of moment, being doubled up in the midst of a wrestling-match. He had been a nuisance of a boy, and was growing up to be a nuisance of a man, it was obvious. The ragbag of crewmen who sailed with him found him amusing.
    Arrived in no great haste at his rendezvous, Thorfinn left his ship and its crew on the coast and rode inland on the horses provided, taking with him Skeggi and Eachmarcach and such housecarls as an earl’s train demanded.
    That journey, too, was remarkable less for its speed than its eccentricity. When they reached the place of King Malcolm’s Cumbrian camp, it was to find it all but deserted, apart from a waiting guard and a few hostages. King Malcolm’s army had moved south to the Mercian border. King Malcolm himself, with his household and Duncan his grandson, was in Mercia, England, summoned there on short order by Canute to pay homage for hisprovince of Cumbria. The Earl Thorfinn, ran the order, was to join him in Chester immediately.
    ‘Will you go? I burned Chester once,’