To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [207]
It did not take them long to decide what to do. The fishermen of Markarfljót proceeded to pack up their stocks and abandon the station.
Part of the work was completed that evening, while the Englishmen were too far away to do harm. Robin helped. Already the sheer bulk of the catch was overwhelming; by the end of the season, every man could have his tail-mark on six hundred cod, to pay for all he must buy for a year. To have it seized was to lose life itself. So the fish were packed first, to be rowed up the coast and stowed underground inland, in safety. By the time darkness fell, many of the boats had already gone to the west and some of the huts were half empty. The Svipa knew what was happening. It was aware that its lifeline with Robin was lost. If it wanted his news, it would have to send its own skiffs to collect it.
That night, Robin was too tired to sleep. Like the others before him, he had been given a place in the cabin of Tryggvi, and had succeeded in lying alone without offending his daughters – an exercise in tact which his father had taught him some time ago. His father was always gentle with women; even unreasonable women like Kathi.
Thinking of Sersanders and Kathi, he remembered something Tryggvi had happened to say about the Icelanders’ dislike of their foreign tithe-levying bishops. He had heard the same grumbling in Orkney, which led him to wonder whether the Bishop of Skálholt and Bishop Tulloch might not have much in common. It would explain how Sersanders had felt sure of a welcome in Iceland – a welcome spoiled by the Hanse-owned Pruss Maiden. Had the Maiden not arrived before time, the Unicorn might have expected to fish unmolested, and unmolested escape with her sulphur. Martin of the Vatachino was sharp.
He remembered other things Tryggvi had told him about Herra Oddur, the bailiff. Sersanders had wanted to go hunting gyrfalcon. He should have been stopped, Tryggvi had said. It was dangerous. There were bears about. One couldn’t blame Tryggvi for obeying the bailiff and not staying at Skálholt. Fortunately, Robin himself had no conflict of duty to worry him. He would be of little use in a sea fight with the Charity. And if – when – M. de Fleury arrived, he would certainly expect his page to be waiting.
Forty miles to the north, in a basalt chapel the size of a hen-coop, the awaited party lay stricken with sleep, having launched on a journey none of the four would have chosen, however wild some of them were.
Left alone in the last hours of daylight, they had been forced to hurry through rivers and snow, to escape a night in soaked clothes in the open. They had also been forced to hurry by Nicholas who, abetted by Kathi, had transformed his fatigue into an antic simulation of energy which had astonished Glímu-Sveinn and induced the disgusted Danziger to compete, loudly complaining.
Even when tumbling, numbed, into the chapel, they had been given no rest, but had been set to finding writing materials. None was to be had. On their travels over the mainland, they had passed other churches like this, with the bowls of curds set on the altar and the stockfish stacked at the walls, together with the priest-farmer’s boxes of tackle. Sometimes the pastor’s own empty coffin would lie on the steps, prudently completed when wood could be had. Other mortals, with worse luck or less foresight, might be found at the back of the church, neatly stitched into wadmol and patiently awaiting the next season’s timber.
There were no corpses here, which was as well, considering the building was eight feet in width, and only a small man could stand head unbowed. There was no paper either, and the only Gospel the altar produced was a heavy old block made of wood, on which oaths had been