Macbeth the King (11 page)

In the morning they moved on up the River Oich to Loch Oich, still in the mighty Glen More, halfway up the side of which they reached Invergarry, where Ewan of Lochaber had his dun. As MacBeth had anticipated, this youngish and somewhat harassed noble was more than happy to accept the Earl Thorfinn's half-brother as lord—since it ought to ensure him relief from the Orkneymen's raids, at least. If he could translate the situation into actual protection by Thorfinn, then many of his problems would be solved. For the Viking presence in the Hebrides and the West Highland coastal regions was as comprehensive as it was terrible—and of all the Viking pirates, jarls and raiders, Thorfinn was the chief. MacBeth was not a little amused, privately, over how much he was using his half-brother's name and reputation as lever in this business—but was in no least doubt that Thorfinn would do exactly the same in similar circumstances.

Turning back north-eastwards they took the south side of Loch Ness, then southwards, climbing now, up into and over the heather moors of Meallmore and down beyond into Strath-dearn, they proceeded to the pine-forest country of Badenoch, where the Thane of Rothiemurchus was important.

At length, satisfied, MacBeth turned away due eastwards for the Laigh, the low-lying, fertile plain near the coast, heart of the province and its most populous area. He had little fear for his reception there, where his family's influence was still strong. Moreover Thorfinn's base of Torfness was so situated on the coast thereof as to menace, if need be, most of that rich and pleasant land. It would be a bold thane or chieftain indeed who rejected Thorfinn's brother in the Laigh.

Out of the Highlands of Braemoray they came down to Elgin, the ecclesiastical centre of Moravia, a most holy place supporting no fewer than four castles and six churches. Here the aged senior bishop, Congal, now almost blind, actually wept on MacBeth's shoulder. He had christened him, after all. There was little need for any demonstration or angling for support here. Only the one more call now, he told Gruoch—Forres. For Nairn, a little further to the west, was Cawdor's town, and could be omitted meantime.

Forres, a dozen miles west of Elgin, near the head of the Laigh was the traditional capital of Moravia, where the great bay of Findhorn came close to the foothills of Braemoray. Here, after the fall of the Pictish monarchy at Inverness, the royal power of the Scots had been established, and a large Pictish fort transformed into a straggling palace of sorts. Here so much had happened in the story of the North that the chroniclers and sennachies for once had not required to invent and romanticise. Here great battles had been fought, great treacheries hatched, evil spells cast, notable feats performed not only in arms but in poetry, piping, racing and athletics, in design and stone—and wood-carving, in painting and sculpture. For here were schools of music and the arts, of dance and mime, of weaponry, even of falconry. Here no fewer than three kings had died evilly—Donald the Second, slain; his son Malcolm the First, slain;
his
son, Duffus murdered, allegedly by witchcraft. Presumably the witches were also responsible for the fact that when this third king's body was hidden under the bridge of Kinloss, the sun did not shine until it was discovered, weeks later. Here Thorfinn's ancestor Earl Rognvald defeated the Mormaor Malbride, and riding into Forres with the dead mormaor's head hanging from his saddle-bow, was scratched by the latter's protruding tusk-like tooth, on the thigh, and died in poisoned agony. Here the present King Malcolm Foiranach had suffered defeat by Sven Forkbeard, Canute's father, and only escaped with his life.

The Thane of Brodie was the local chieftain and distantly related. But it was important that he should be reliably of MacBeth's persuasion, here at the centre of the mortuath. So MacBeth, Gruoch assisting, made a point of being specially forthcoming, going to the trouble of occupying the dusty and neglected old palace for a couple of days, for appearances' sake, and making much of Brodie. Then, satisfied at last, he sent home all the thanes, chiefs and clerics whom he had collected, including his Ross contingent, with his thanks and general instructions.

Relieved, he turned back, east by north, with only Gruoch, Lulach and a small group of servants.

And now he was a different man entirely, sloughing off the stern, watchful, calculating dynast and reverting to his old self of quiet, contained, self-sufficiency, mild of manner, friendly. He was going to show his new wife his favourite place on the face of the earth and, he hoped, her future home.

* * *

Spynie was a strange place to find on a seaboard of cliffs and rocks and lofty sand-dunes, a great loch trapped behind the dunes, shallow, irregularly shaped, four miles long by almost three across, flanked by quite steep little oak- and pine-forested hills on the landward side, and dotted with islands, large and small. Once, long before, some north-easterly storm had blasted a gap in the barrier of dunes, and the sea had got into the Laigh, to flood and fill the hollow pastureland and hillocks behind. For a while it had been an almost landlocked tidal bay, with even fishing-havens, rather like the somewhat similar Findhorn Bay some miles to the west, nearer Forres. Then the sand had gradually reasserted itself, and the dunes had built up again and the bay became a loch. For, during the sea's prevalence, it had eaten back and back, to tap the course of the Duffus or Black Water of Spynie, which now flowed in here instead of debouching on the main coast, replacing salt water by fresh, trapped. So here, in the heart of the fair and fertile Laigh of Moray, called the Garden of Alba, where frosts were little known and summer lasted three weeks longer than anywhere else in Scotland, was a great fresh-water loch, where fish abounded, wildfowl flocked and flighted and deer swam out to graze on the islets. It had been a boyhood paradise for the young MacBeth, and would never lose its grip on him. He had been only fourteen when his father was murdered, and his mother had had to flee with him to Ross. It would probably be true to say that the loss of Spynie had taken longer to heal in the boy's subconscious than had that of his father.

Gruoch was amused but also touched at her husband's eagerness that she should gain the best impression of his beloved Spynie at the first viewing, his almost boyish anxiety that she should like it. And it would have been strange had she not done so. Surmounting the oak-forested Hill of Findrassie, after some miles of woodland, suddenly the loch opened before them, serene, fair, that golden day of early August, the calm water deeply blue, with green islands, yellow sandy bays and inlets, dark rush-beds and white banks of meadow-sweet, all rimmed with forested banks to the south, braes of pasture and tilth to the east, and to north the long barrier of sandhills range upon range. Near the centre of this south side, some three hundred yards out from the shore, was the largest of the islands, artificially enlarged with tree-trunks, stone and soil, so that it was half a crannog, to cover about four acres. On this, amongst orchards and bowers and gardens, rose a long low hall-house similar to that at Rosemarkyn but larger and not cluttered with stables, byres and other domestic offshoots, timber-built but clay-coated and whitewashed. On other islands nearby were the domestic offices—the Hounds' Isle, where the hunting-dogs were kennelled; the Horse Isle, with the stables; the Ice Isle, where food was stored underground in artificial ice-caverns, the ice brought in winter from the Heights of Brae-moray. Further away was St. Ethernan's Isle, where was the church, and the Isle of Spirits where the dead were interred. And away at the western end of the loch was Rose Isle, where there was a Keledei college. All the domestic sites were connected by an elaborate system of stone causeways some two feet below the surface of the water, so that access was not dependent on boats. Over all seemed to hang an air of abiding tranquillity.

Gruoch gazed all but spellbound, in delight—and looking from that prospect to his wife, MacBeth had to swallow his emotion at the sheer beauty of both.

"It is beyond all lovely," she breathed. "A dream of peace, of content. So quiet, so sure. No evil thing ever happened here, I swear!"

"If it did, I never heard of it," he said. "My mother, Donada, called it the
Dorus Neamh,
the Gateway of Heaven. And she had the sight."

She nodded. "The sight, yes. How strange that this should have been the haven of Malcolm the Destroyer's daughter!

Oh, thank you, my love—thank you for bringing us here."

"It is yours from now onwards, my dear. All yours. Come."

They rode down to the shore, telling the servants to wait behind with Lulach—for this was only for themselves. As he urged his garron into the water, he warned her, "Ride close behind, and turn only when I turn. This causeway twists and bends like any serpent. So that none shall gain the island who do not know it. But—the route is not something that I shall ever forget, I think."

Picking their zigzag way out to the Hall Isle, MacBeth eyed the house a little anxiously, now that they were coming to close quarters, afraid of dilapidation.

"I should perhaps have sent men to make good any damage, clean all, before I brought you," he said. "Thorfinn keeps watch on it, when he comes to Torfness. She was his mother also..."

"No," she assured him. "This is as I would have it.
Our
place. I would cherish it, clean it, with my own hands. This is not for others..."

Seen close to, the house had lost some of its clay plaster, swallows nested in the thatching, the orchard and gardens were overgrown. But there was nothing that a little time and energy would not put right. And the interior proved to be dusty, with some bird-droppings, but undamaged. For none were likely to misuse or even enter a house that Thorfinn Raven Feeder watched over.

He carried her in over the threshold in the old tradition, not omitting to kiss her comprehensively in the process.

"This is where we start a new life, Gruoch nic Bodhe mac Kenneth!" he told her.

"Yes, Mormaor of Moray and Ross. And start you by fetching me wood and peats and tinder and flint. 1 want fires burning on every hearth. And water, much water. And cauldrons and pots and cloths, many cloths."

"Yes, Princess..." he said.

* * *

Six happy, full and busy weeks they spent in the House of Spynie, or
Dorus Neatnh
,
setting it, and themselves, in order. They cleared up and refurbished the old house and filled it with satisfactory things, like the scent of cut flowers, dogs and puppies, the aroma of peat-reek and birch logs, and love, love above all, and laughter. Even Lulach, a quiet and reserved child, blossomed out. They had servants to help them, to be sure, especially in the gardens; but the important things they did themselves. MacBeth had to be much away, in Forres and Elgin and elsewhere, naturally, seeing to the affairs of the mortuath—for he was concerned that these should not be allowed to intrude on the peace of Spynie; but he endeavoured to be home each night—save for the one brief visit he paid to Ross and Neil Nathrach at Inverpeffery, for an assize of judgment. He had never known such fulfilment and happiness.

It was not all work and domestic activity. They hunted deer in the forest, hawked for wildfowl and herons in the reeds and marshes, fished in the loch and the sea, explored the cliffs and caves and sand-dune country.

One day MacBeth took Gruoch to the Borg-head of Torfness, which lay only five miles to the west. Indeed, they could just glimpse the tip of its tower from Spynie, at the far end of the sand-dunes. It was remarkable by any standards and an unlikely place to find on that open Moray seaboard and in the same vicinity as Spynie. A great red rock outcrop thrust from the sands here, rising to quite a height and projecting out to sea in the form of a half-mile-long ness or headland, Torfness—actually Thorfinn's Ness, called after Thorfinn Skull Cleaver, a mighty ancestor of the present earl. Here the Jarl Rognvald, first Earl of Orkney—he who had died of tooth-poisoning—had built a borg, and used the ness as a breakwater and haven for his longships, on the site of a Pictish fort and cashel, as a base for terrorising fair Moray, fortifying and garrisoning it strongly. His successors had maintained and extended this menacing outpost of Orkney, so that now there was a small town here, supplied almost wholly by sea, self-sufficient, having no relations with the surrounding country—save for the occasional minor raid—but secure because of the threat of Thorfinn's name and fame. Three longships were always stationed in the harbour. Here Gruoch had fled from the pyre at Inverness.

MacBeth had no difficulty as to entry, of course, and found the captain of the borg, old Gunnar Hound Tooth, gruffly amiable and remarkably well-informed as to what went on in Moray and further afield. He had no word of his master Thorfinn, however, last heard of operating in the Irish Sea. The couple were well entertained, and MacBeth showed his wife the sights of the place, the beacon-light which was the key to a whole chain to rouse the entire coast; the ramparts of the old fort, now incorporated in the borg's defences; and, best of all, the extraordinary underground baptistry cavern and well-chamber, with a magnificent pool, ten feet square and four feet deep cut in the living rock, fed by an ice-cold spring, in which crystal font the Keledei had immersed their early Pictish converts. The famed Pictish bull carvings, too, were unique, their meanings now lost.

It was almost six weeks to the day from their arrival at Spynie, in late September, that their idyll at the
Dorus Neamh
was shattered—although that is perhaps an unkind way to describe the arrival of a brother. But when the Earl Thorfinn appeared on any scene, peace, quiet, tranquillity, fled. Especially when, as on this occasion, he had brought lively company—and not just Thorkell Fosterer and his usual uncouth crew.

He arrived quite unheralded and unexpectedly that quiet September evening, in a riot of noise and laughter, of bulls' horn wailings and bellowings, the cruder and more boisterous for having a woman with him. He yelled his greeting as he came splashing hugely across the causeway, roaring joyously when one of his Vikings fell in, not following the zigzags with sufficient care. He made no attempt to ensure that the lady immediately behind him did not do likewise.