Vikings came in 875 A.D. and the majority of place names in Cumberland are of Norse origin.
An Eirik Randgrith, a Norwegian sea-king turned farmer, established a log-and-stone fort on the present site of the castle. This was near the small village of Graefwulf, which was destroyed 50 years later.
The present village of Cloamby replaced it about thirty years afterwards. These events took place between
900 and 980 A.D.
Randgrith means Shield-Destroyer. Randgrith was supposed to have been a huge man, very strong, and given to fits of melancholy and violence. His grandson was presumably converted to Christianity, but the
Randgriths were suspected of heresy for a long long time. At least 20 of them over a period of 600 years were burned or hung for witchcraft. Despite this, the family managed to retain their lands and even add to them at times.
Cumberland was held alternately by the Scotch and Normans for a long time. In the 17th-century
Civil War, the Cumbrians were generally loyal to the Stewarts.
Sometime in the 13th century, Randgrith became Grandrith by a metathesis probably influenced by the Norman “grand.” The name is now pronounced Grunith.
The family was always distinguished by a large size, great strength, and a tendency to mental instability and eccentricity. It has usually been content to keep to its own part of the country or to go far abroad. It has been conservative, if not reactionary. It had clung to the old religions fiercely, although often secretly. The evidence is that the family privately worshipped the old Germanic gods long after
Cumberland was ostensibly Catholic, and that it remained Catholic long after Cumberland was ostensibly
Protestant.
I told Trish that the Grandriths were related, to the Howards and the Russells and the royal family, not that that meant anything to me. I told her the story that William II, or Rufus, the Conqueror’s son, had raped a Lady Ulrica Randgrith, who gave birth to his son. It is recorded in the family chronicle (but a hundred years after the event) that Rufus was responsible for the gray eyes of the family. (This is, of course, genetic nonsense.) It is also recorded that Rufus was killed in the New Forest, not by Walter Tirel or Ralph of Aix, but by the brother of the raped woman.
While I talked, the sun set behind the Atlantic to the left. England became a dark bulk with a few scattered lights, which were actually large towns. Then I swung out towards the middle of the sea, still only about ten feet above the moon-sparkling waters.
I thought of my ancestors and their country. When I first came there as lord of Grandrith Castle,
Catstarn Hall, and Cloamby Village, I had not known my family history. Or even the history of England.
Later, after much reading and travel, I understood much more. Yet I have never been entirely at ease on my estate or in England. I feel as if I were born of African earth and have no ancestors. The past was dissolved when I gave voice to my first cry on the seashore by the equatorial jungle.
32
My agent, stationed in the forest near the castle, responded to my call. Trish listened in.
I said, “Any news of Lady Grandrith yet?”
“Nothing, sir,” the man said. “All we still know is that she left London to come here. She should have been here hours ago and may be. There were lights in the castle for about an hour, sir, but I couldn’t get close enough to see who was using them. The drapes in the hall windows are closed tight, sir. I can’t see any activity there, but I get the impression that there’s much going on.”
“Have you heard from the other man?” I said, referring to his companion.
“No, sir. The situation is the same as when I last reported. He went to investigate the castle and the hall; he said he might knock on the door and pretend to be a lost traveler; I never heard from him again.”
“Have you found out anything about the two strangers who were buying such large supplies of food and liquor in Greystoke?” I said.
“Nothing, sir. They left before I heard about them so I couldn’t put a tail on them. If Noli’s men have moved in, as we suspect, then they may have been his.”
“Ask him if he’s heard anything from Doc or anything about him,” Trish said eagerly.
The agent said he had heard nothing, but then he’d been out of contact with the London men for about 6 hours.
“Have you been able to look in the garage or the barns?” I said.
“No, sir. They’re both still tightly locked and the windows are curtained. If there are an unusual number of cars in there, I can’t find out without trying to break in. And as you said ...”
“That’s right,” I said. “I don’t want to let them know that anybody’s on to their game.”
His voice had not sounded quite right, but there was much static, due to the storm approaching from
Ireland. I said, “We’ll be landing on the strip in approximately one hour. You be ready to cover us, because if Noli is in the hall or the castle, he and his men will come swarming out. We’ll run into the woods and then plan our strategy from there. Signals as arranged. Four blinks by me, six by you.”
“Right, sir. Four and six.”
I shut off the transceiver. The man had not quite sounded like my agent, but perhaps it was he, and he was taking this opportunity to warn me. The signals had been three blinks by me and five by him.
I told Trish what I suspected. She said, “If they’ve got him alive, they’ll get everything out of him. And they’ll kill him when they realize he’s tricked them.”
“They’ll kill him, anyway. And he’s probably already dead. They must have gotten everything from him. That voice was close to the real agent’s, but not quite close enough.”
I did not, of course, tell her that the man holding Catstarn Hall and Castle Grandrith might be
Caliban, although I doubted it. Noli had a head start on him. If Noli was there, then Caliban might be in as much danger as I. Noli would try to double-cross Caliban, and Caliban must know that. Perhaps Caliban was amused by this, and stimulated, since it made the odds greater against him.
I turned the radio back on. We were approaching a black wall, the storm from Ireland. The weather reports said that its front was now over Keswick and moving east. The rain was heavy with winds at 40
miles per hour. The plane bored into the blackness and began bucking. At the same time, I pulled her up, because I did not want to run into a vessel. At three thousand feet, I was picked up by the coastal radar, and the challenges started coming. I gave them a false identity, said I was an Irish flier blown off course.
The identity lasted about six minutes. On receiving information from Ireland, the station challenged me again and told me to land or I would be shot down. I did not know how they were going to manage that, since I doubted they would send a missile against a small plane and no military plane would find me while the storm was progressing.
However, I pretended engine trouble, made a last-minute appeal, and dived the plane. The lights enabled me to pick up the sea surface just in time; even so we must have been licked on the underfuselage by the waves. Surface vessels or no, I clung to a twenty foot ceiling and did not pull her up until I saw lights. This should be Whitehaven, and from here on I had to maintain at least a five-thousand-foot ceiling.