Macbeth the King (44 page)

The Abbot Ewan spoke briefly. "He speaks sense."

"Yes, Thor—they are right," MacBeth said. "We gain nothing by losing patience now. Two days will pass. We would wish to see this Rome and its wonders. We shall see it first, instead of after. I would not throw away my kingdom's weal for two days."

Seeing his opportunity, Sir Roger went on urgently. "His Holiness sends you greetings. And meantime, he puts the Clemente Palace at your disposal. Near the Colosseum. You are his guests. It is large. He knows that you have many men. All will be provided for. He has commanded me to remain with you. To see to your comfort and entertainment. It will be my pleasure..."

Slightly mollified, the visitors were preparing to accept the situation with better grace when the cardinal, who had been standing by with disapproving expression, spoke again, in Latin.

"Gifts," he said. "Gifts for His Holiness should be presented
before
audience. That is the custom."

"Gifts...?"

"It is the custom for suppliants and visitors to bring gifts for the Holy Father." The prelate raised two fingers over them in a sketchy gesture which might have meant anything, and left them to re-enter the palace.

"Fiend sicze him—sieze all of them!" Thorfinn had gathered sufficient of that to understand. They had indeed Droughts presents for the Pope. MacBeth had brought a gold loving-cup and a handsome enamelled mazer, also a chestful of coin, for he had been told that at Rome a fair supply of money might gain more, and more swiftly, than many fair words; and his brother had brought a white bear-cub—which, however fetching, had been a considerable nuisance throughout the voyage, requiring an inordinate amount of fish. They had scarcely expected their offerings to be solicited so openly and peremptorily, however.

Despard again sought to explain. The exchange of gifts was traditional, he pointed out, arising from the early Christians' offerings to their priests, and to help pay for the Elements of the Mass. But of later years advantage had sometimes been taken of the custom to insinuate gifts of a different sort, with intent to insult or injure the Pontiff, even items treated with poison. So now inspection had to be made beforehand. Moreover, the young man added with a smile, it had in fact become customary to bring along also a gift for the introducing official, the Chamberlain of the Day!

Sending for the Viking bodyguard from the barracks, they assembled in the courtyard between the mounted statue of Marcus Aurelius and the tall Egyptian obelisk of Thotnes—which Sir Roger said was the highest in the world, brought from Thebes. Then they marched off back whence they had come for some way, along the broad avenue between the Capitoline, Caelian and Aventine Hills which, they learned, was called the Via Sacra, or Sacred Way. Before they reached the Colosseum again, with the great triumphal arches of Trajan and Constantine, another square opened, here called a forum or piazza, and off this was another fine church, St. Clemente's, erected apparently over an ancient Mithraic temple. Behind this were the quarters assigned to them, a long rambling range of buildings, part magnificent, part shabby and indeed semi-ruinous. It was certainly sufficiently commodious for their great numbers, and the Norsemen took it over with the cheerful expertise of hardened campaigners, with neither respect nor complaint—but already on the look-out for women. Roger Despard said that the Normans' own quarters and barracks were nearby, and that he would have provender, cooks, blankets and the like sent along at once.

Thorfinn despatched a party to bring most of the remainder of his company from the Tiber-side, leaving only a small guard on the ships.

So, although they were somewhat reluctant at first to admit it, commenced an enjoyable interlude for the travellers, a holiday indeed—which, truth to tell, when the two days’ interval was up, none were so eager to see ended. There was so much to see and experience in this, the greatest city of the world, awe-inspiring even for those not easily overawed or particularly interested in history and antiquities. Despard made an attentive and knowledgeable guide, and the leaders of the northern party grew quite attached to him as a likeable young man. He brought some of his Norman colleagues to aid in conducting them round the city—for sightseeing could scarcely be done by the thousand—and these proved friendly also, and informative. Of course these knights were themselves of Norse extraction, as their name indicated, descendants of the Vikings who had settled in northern Gaul, even though their blood was now much mixed with that of the Franks.

MacBeth was more interested in the sightseeing than was his brother, and most of the Vikings, and with Farquhar, Martacus and Abbot Ewan was happy to visit so much that he had heard of and more that was unknown to him. They saw the circular papal castle of Sant'Angelo, fortress of Rome, formerly the Tomb of Hadrian, on the Tiber; the most splendid church of all Rome's 300, Saint Maria Maggiore; the Campus Martius, or Field of Mars; the Mamertine Prison at the foot of the Capitoline, really a deep vaulted well, where Saint Peter traditionally had been incarcerated; the famed Catacombs, also underground; the Colosseum itself, with its breathtaking magnitude, with stone seats for 50,000; and scores of other features too numerous almost to absorb and memorise. The great engineering works, aqueducts, sewers, fortifications, bridges and walls, much interested them and were an eye-opener as to what could be done with stone, to visitors from a notably stone-rich country.

But it was not all sightseeing, in hot and trying conditions. MacBeth especially had long discussions with Despard and the Normans, and learned a lot that was valuable to know, and not only about Rome and the Popes. As a soldier and a ruler he was especially concerned with the military skills and theories of these Norman knights, whose expertise in the arts of war was renowned—and which accounted for their employment here as the papal bodyguard. Their cavalry tactics particularly interested Macbeth, for he had always been very much aware that mobility in warfare could frequently be the deciding factor, and he recognised the effect on morale of horsed fighter over foot, something little considered by either the Norsemen or the English. Indeed, so thoroughly did he question them on this subject, that the Normans offered to provide a demonstration of cavalry and knightly skills and tactics, in the cool of the second evening, on one of the many grassy open spaces of the Caelian Hill. This proved to be an exciting and valuable occasion, something of a tournament, with mass and individual displays of combat, horsemanship, manoeuvres and weapon-handling, by the steel-clad knights and their practised and armoured mounts. MacBeth there and then decided that he must introduce trained cavalry into his army, somehow.

He sought more information, too, about Pope Leo himself—whom clearly Despard admired. He was a German of Alsace, named Bruno of Egisheim, and had been Bishop of Toul when the Emperor Henry the Third selected him for the papal throne after forcibly deposing three Popes. The papacy had, of course, been in a scandalous state of decadence for long, especially in the 1030s and 1040s, election obtained by bribery, intrigue, violence, even murder. In less than one hundred years twenty-eight Popes had died by poison, strangulation or cold steel. Popes had been paraded on asses through the streets with their noses and tongues cut off. One, Formosus, had managed to die in his bed but months later was dug up, made a mock of by his successor, and his corpse thrown into the Tiber. Benedict the Ninth had been only twelve years old when elected. And at one time there were three Popes in Rome. The Holy Roman Emperor, Henry, had at length been forced to act, and in 1048 the tough and ascetic Bruno had been installed as Bishop of Rome under the name of Leo the Ninth, charged with the enormous task of cleaning up the Holy See and restoring its authority. In the two years he had achieved much; even though there was still more to be done. Bribery was now practised only secretly by senior churchmen, corruption was greatly reduced, immorality no longer countenanced and open, and a measure of austerity introduced into the huge papal establishment. Moreover the city itself had benefited, there was less tyranny and oppression, and the poor aided and cherished in some degree. Leo was apparently much concerned over the poor, for he came of humble stock, and the surest way to his heart was through charity to the downtrodden, Despard declared.

MacBeth was interested in this. He said that he had been advised that he must be prepared to hand over money, much money, to obtain satisfaction from any Pope; but this sounded otherwise? The Norman agreed that money was always useful in Rome, as elsewhere; but that if he distributed some part of his treasure to the poor, first, the Holy Father would quickly get to hear of it, and it might well be better spent than in greasing the palms of greedy intermediaries.

So, in their movements about the city, MacBeth made a point of distributing his largesse and, since he had only a day or two to do it in, in princely fashion—which produced its own inconveniences and Thorfinn's scorn. Moray was the richest mortuath in Scotland, and he had considerable wealth, apart from the national treasury, which was usually empty. He had, in fact, made little differentiation between the realm's gold and his own—to the benefit of the former.

So it was in a distinctly different frame of mind that the three of them, MacBeth, Thorfinn and Ewan, presented themselves at the Lateran Palace again a few minutes before midday on the Eve of Saint John the Baptist, Sir Roger again in attendance. This time another cardinal, one Guido Scelba, was waiting to receive them, and they were conducted, without delay, along what appeared to be miles of statued corridors, through marble halls and ornate painted reception-rooms, to the audience-chamber. Here, between ranks of cardinals, bishops and other clerics, they were led by their Chamberlain of the Day towards the papal throne at the far end of the noble apartment, on its three-stepped plinth, where a burly figure sat, a plainly-clad friar at one shoulder and a line of Norman knights behind.

Leo, the only man sitting in all that company, was unremarkable in face as in person, a thick-set, red-faced individual with a fringe of greying beard, blunt peasant features but small shrewd eyes. He wore a gorgeous cope stiff with gold and precious stones, and a mitre much taller than the Celtic type, round the base of which was a jewelled tiara. The man at his shoulder was very different, a lean and sallow ascetic with burning eyes, dressed in a simple hooded dark robe of wool, with a leather girdle, no doubt the Cluniac monk Hildebrand of Tuscany whom Ewan had told them was the Pope's right hand and whom he had brought with him from Germany, a zealot for reform and strict discipline, largely the power-behind-the-throne indeed.

Some distance off Cardinal Scelba halted and announced them. "Pilgrims to kneel before the Throne of Grace," he intoned, in Latin. "The King of Scotland, by name MacBeth. The Count of Orcady, by name Thorfinn. And the Abbot of the Erse Communion, by name Owen. They prostrate themselves before Your Holiness."

The three visitors remained notably upright, bowing in differing degrees, Thorfinn scarcely at all.

"Welcome to the Holy See, my sons," the Pontiff said. He had a slow, deep voice, almost guttural.

They moved closer to the foot of the three steps, and so stood, flanked by their escort. Despard whispered again.

"It is customary to kiss His Holiness's toe."

MacBeth remained unmoving, expressionless; but his brother growled, in the Norn, "Customary for mice, perhaps—not men!"

The Pope spoke—and, to their surprise, in the same Norse tongue. "None would mistake you for mice, my northern friends! Bears perhaps, but not mice!" He smiled faintly. "The Celtic Church abbot I remember."

Thorfinn looked a little taken aback. MacBeth bowed again.

"Your Holiness, we greet you," he said. "And rejoice that you can speak our tongue. We have come far to see you. On your own invitation. Brought by the Abbot Ewan, here. We have waited these two days, patiently. Enjoying your hospitality. We are now glad to see your face."

"Then I hope, King MacBeth, that I do not gravely disappoint. I am but a poor simple man, and unworthy. But my office is otherwise. The kissings and trappings are not for myself, but for the Lord Christ's Vicar on earth."

MacBeth inclined his head but did not comment on that.

"Your faith does not accept my office, I am told, my son? Yet you come to visit me. And have brought notable gifts, which I gratefully accept—for Holy Church. The little bear I have called Peter—who was also interested in fish!" The flicker of a smile again. He still spoke in Norn. It was not dissimilar to some of the North German dialects, of course. Apart from Hildebrand presumably, who although an Italian had long lived in Germany, and the Normans, none other there would be likely to understand what was being said.

"We accept Your Holiness as Bishop of Rome. Which is the greatest see in Christendom. And acknowledge your great power in many matters," MacBeth answered carefully.

"I understand. And it is that power which you wish to invoke, I think?"

MacBeth paused, and then nodded. "You speak plainly, Holiness. As well as in our northern tongue."

"I am a plain man, Sir King. As I recollect my conversation with your good abbot, you wish me to support you, as against my own bishops?"

MacBeth looked around him. He had hardly expected to have to enter into any exposition of the historical and ecclesiastical situation between Galloway and Northumbria before a hallful of prelatical watchers, even if most would not know a word that he was saying. He shrugged.

"To remind you, then. I am concerned with peace between my realm and England, between the Celtic Church and yours of Rome. I have maintained that peace for the ten years of my reign. But now the Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of York are laying claim to the spiritual rule of my province of Galloway. Saying that it was once a bishopric of their Church."

"And it was, my son?"

"It was, yes. But that bishopric died out 300 years ago. The former small kingdom of Galloway has long been part of the Scots realm, and the Roman Church has had no presence there."