Here, we get a crucial insight into the "secret of [Thorfinn's] success", but even as Dunnett provides Thorkel Fostri's bitter assessment, she also provides Tuathal's reflections on what Thorkel says, making a simple statement complex in the best ways. I end up appreciating the insight into the main character, even as I feel for Thorkel's frustration year after year. (And yet Thorkel deserves some of that frustration . . . and if you've read the novel, I'll bet you'd agree. "Year after year" refers both to Thorkel's relationship over time with Thorfinn and to my yearly rereadings.) There are worthy ponderings possible here: about leadership, about problem-solving, and about reciprocity and the mysteries of connection and admiration.
I'm putting Dunnett's passage below the photo of knife and novel. (The point of view, here, is that of Tuathal, Prior of St. Serf's, as the POV shifts throughout the novel, usefully so.)
'Envy? He despised Kalv. Kalv was a fool,' Thorkel had said. 'There was only one man he envied.'
'He hated Thorfinn? Always? I suppose he must have done,' Tuathal had said, thinking aloud. 'Or the Lady Emma would never have risked making Siward her buffer between the rest of England and Scotia. But then, what if Siward had tried to take over Scotia?'
'Twelve years ago? Against Thorfinn's manpower, and his money, and his fleet? Even with England and Denmark behind him,' had said Thorkel Fostri with scorn, 'I doubt if he would have got a levy over the Forth. And England wouldn't have backed him. Magnus had Norway then, remember, and half a foot in Orkney already through Thorfinn's nephew Rognvald. England would rather have had Thorfinn in Scotia, I can tell you, than Siward or Norway.'
And that, thought Tuathal, was still true. Despite Thorfinn's present weakness, it was still, thank God, true. He had said, 'And Thorfinn? He's used to dealing with princes these days. Does he resent being forced to barter with someone . . . '
He had paused, having caught Eochaid's eye, to rephrase the question, but Thorkel Fostri's voice, at its most sardonic, had taken him up. 'Someone like me, from the barbarous north? Haven't you noticed yet that Thorfinn is prouder of being Earl of Orkney than he is of ruling Scotia? He fought for Orkney and won it, against men just like Siward. His own kind. He knows them too well to despise them.'
His own kind? Thorfinn was three-quarters Celt. They were not his own kind. Tuathal had said, 'So it's just another negotiation? Thorfinn neither likes nor dislikes Kalv's nephew? I find it hard to believe.'
To which Thorkel Fostri had answered in a way he had not expected. 'When did you ever know whether Thorfinn likes or dislikes a man? He takes them for what they are, and deals with them accordingly. It's the secret of his success. You don't fight the sea by getting angry at it, or persuade it to be kinder by loving it.'
The bitterness was plain to all to hear. Eochaid had got up and left, and he, Tuathal, had asked only one or two questions more.
He was not embarrassed. It merely appeared to him a paradox worth someone's attention: how a man such as Thorkel described could inspire what Thorkel undoubtedly felt for him.
