FIVE

That night we welcomed Eirik home with a modest feast, and sat him in the place of honour at table. He was happy to be back in God's country, he said, and far away from the southern Scots and their interminable squabbles.

'You would think common dignity the rarest, most valuable substance in all the world, the way they ward and worry over it,' he said. 'And if any of them ever get any of the stuff, why he is the most miserable man you ever saw, for he must be on constant guard lest anyone besmirch it with a careless word.'

'Too true,' concurred Emlyn ruefully. 'I once heard of a man from Dunedin who killed a beggar for stepping on his shadow.'

'Are they all so contentious in the south?' said Ragna. 'If that is so, I never want to go there.'

'What say you, Murdo?' asked one of the masons. 'You and Abbot Emlyn have been further south than anyone hereabouts. Are the fellows so bloodthirsty as that?'

Murdo glared at the man for raising the question. 'Worse,' he muttered ominously; and, though the men asked for a story, he bluntly refused to say more.

Eirik marked his father's bad manners, but wisely passed on to other matters. He asked the mason about the new church, which was beginning to resemble something more than just a heap of rubble on bare ground. This proved a durable subject, and we finished the meal with a retelling of the work almost stone by stone.

After supper, Eirik came to me and expressed his sorrow at hearing of Rhona's sad death. I accepted his condolences, and he asked, 'What has happened to father while I was away? A bear with a sore head growls less. Is he feeling well?'

'He is well enough,' I allowed. 'A ghost has returned to haunt him.'

Eirik raised his eyebrows at this, and begged me to say more. I told him about Torf-Einar's untimely return and his lingering death. 'I begin to see now,' replied Eirik. 'The old wounds are reopened.'

'That is exactly what Emlyn says,' I replied. 'Myself, I think the two of them have a secret.'

This intrigued Eirik, and it flattered me to have my elder brother hanging on my every word, so I continued recklessly. 'Indeed,' I said, 'I think something happened while they were on the Great Pilgrimage together-something they have forbidden one another ever to mention aloud.'

Although I was speaking out of utter ignorance, I had struck closer to the truth than anyone could have known.

'Emlyn keep a secret?' wondered Eirik. 'It must be something terrible indeed.'

'Oh, aye,' I said carelessly. 'Whatever dark deed it conceals has reared its head once more, and it has made our father's life a misery ever since.'

'And it was something to do with Torf, you say?' asked Eirik.

'Perhaps,' I replied, 'but that is not what I said. Rather, it was something Torf said.'

'What did he say?'

'Why, he spoke of many things. Mostly, it was to do with his life in the Holy Land-his battles, and treasures, and the like. Father would not listen to him. He called it traveller's tales and dangerous nonsense.'

'Did he, now!'

Eirik pondered this for a moment, then asked, 'Tell me, brother, was Murdo vexed from the first? Or, might there have been a particular moment when his disposition changed?'

'From the very first,' I told him. 'From the moment he clapped eyes to Torf-Einar he was -' I halted as it occurred to me what my brother was really asking. 'No, now that I think about it,' I said, considering the matter more completely, 'it was when Torf began talking about the relics.'

This intrigued Eirik. 'Which relics?' he asked, leaning forwards, his expression keen.

'The Holy Lance, and the Black Rood. It was when I asked our lord about those two relics that he grew angry. He would never listen to anything Torf had to say about them; he said it was all lies, and he refused to hear a word of it. When I asked Emlyn about it, he declined to tell me anything. He told me it was not for him to say.'

'A very mystery,' said Eirik. Already, I could see the plot forming in his mind.

'And likely to remain a mystery. There is no power on earth to make Lord Murdo change his mind.'

'True,' allowed Eirik, pursing his lips and nodding. 'We shall see. We shall see.'

My elder brother is tireless when it comes to achieving the unobtainable. Tell him a thing is impossible, or impractical-better still, impossible and impractical-and that is the thing he wants. Nothing else will do. His ceaseless energy knows no impediment, no restraint, no limit. As a boy growing up, I watched him lavish the utmost of his strength and effort on all manner of hopeless enterprises.

Do not think I judge him over-harshly, Cait; he would be the first to admit it. You only have to ask him, and he will tell you. He glories in it! All the more so because every now and then he succeeds -as much to his own amazement as anyone's. One of his impossible achievements was gaining a bishopric at an age when most priests are only beginning to entertain the possibility of becoming an abbot. Another was Niniane. If you want to hear the tale of that courtship, Cait, ask your gracious aunt. It is a tale well worth hearing.

Over the next few days, Eirik went to work on the problem. I could see him thinking about it as he attended his priestly duties. He schemed well into the autumn with it; had I not known my brother, I might have imagined he had forgotten about it. Not at all. He was only waiting for the best possible moment to pounce. You see, he was up against a man whose capacity for daring the impossible exceeds even his own: Lord Murdo Ranulfson himself. No doubt Eirik believed that if his chance was squandered, it would surely never come again. True enough, but the Swift Sure Hand was already moving to bring about its own inscrutable purposes, as you shall see.

Just after harvest, Eirik left the abbey and went to make a circuit of the realm. He took four brothers with him, loaded a few supplies and trade goods on a horse, and set off. He was gone but three days, when he returned abruptly saying he had had a vision. Everyone gathered around to hear what had taken place.

'We were camped beside a stream,' he told us, 'and I was tending the fire while the brothers prepared our porridge. I was bending to the flames when I heard someone calling to us from the nearby wood. I looked around and asked the brothers who it could be, for all we were far from any settlement. But they heard nothing.

'I waited a little, and the voice called out again, and yet once more. Did these good brothers hear a sound? No, they never did. Here,' the bishop said, 'ask them-they'll tell you.'

'What did you hear?' demanded one of the vassals.

'We did not hear anything at all,' replied the monks.

'And while I was considering what this might mean, a man came out of the wood. He was dressed all in white, and he called me by name. When I hailed our visitor, and pointed him out to the brothers here, they could not see him.'

'We never did see him,' confessed the clerics. 'We neither saw nor heard anything at all.'

The vassals, agog at this wonder, turned in wide-eyed amazement to one another, and I began to smell a rat.

Strange to say, however, I noticed that Murdo had grown very quiet, and now wore a most thoughtful expression on his face.

'This stranger asked me to walk with him, and truth to tell, I did not want to go,' Eirik said. 'But, he said, "Fear nothing, brother. No harm will come to you." So I said, "Who are you, lord?" For I thought it might be an angel speaking to me.'

'Oh, aye,' murmured the vassals, knowingly- as if they were well used to conversing with angels.

Eirik raised his hands for quiet, and continued. 'The stranger looked at me, and said, "I am a friend, and well known to your family." And I did not know what to say to this. "How can this be?" I ask. "I have never seen you before." This brings a smile to my strange visitor's lips. "Brother Eirik," he says to me, for he knows my name, as I say. "Come, I must be about my business."