Macbeth the King (5 page)

He held out an imperious hand. "MacBeth mac Finlay—greeting!" he said. "Last come—save one! But none the less welcome for that, grandson." He had a deep, vibrant voice with just the hint of a lisp.

MacBeth dropped on one knee to take and kiss that firm, freckled, outstretched hand—and shut his eyes lest he would see scarlet blood on it as he did so.

"I came so soon as I might, lord King. This is a far cry from Ross. I have brought twelve hundred. Another five hundred from my westlands follow, under the Thane of Gairloch."

The King nodded. "Yes. You all I welcome, my friends. In this pass." He paused, as though perhaps the welcome might have been otherwise in different circumstances. "But where, grandson, is that other awkward brother of yours?"

"Neil, sire, is down at the camp, seeing to my people."

"I do not mean that viperish one, man! I mean the ravenous—Thorfinn, my Mormaor of Caithness."

"As to that I know not. I am not
that
brother's keeper! I have not seen him since the Feast of the Assumption. When
you
may remember that he came visiting me. And Moray. And you did not!"

The monarch's glittering eye glared balefully at this grandson for a moment. Then he turned towards the others at the table, and waved a hand. "You will know all here?"

MacBeth inclined his head. His glance ran over the Mormaors of Lennox, Strathearn, Fife, Angus, Mar and Atholl, and the Thanes of Glamis, Monteith, Gowrie and Breadalbane. And Duncan mac Crinan, now being styled Prince of Strathclyde.

"I know most, yes, and greet all. Although I do not know the priest. And this lord." he gestured towards a swarthy individual, richly clad.

"That is Echmarcach mac Ranald mac Firbis, King of Dublin. Claimant of my sub-kingdom of Man. If your Norse friends can be dispossessed! And the good Malduin is the new Bishop of St. Andrews. In whose gentle hands are all our souls!"

MacBeth was sorry for the new bishop, true primate of the Church, although the title of Primate of All Scotland still went with the hereditary Abbacy of Dunkeld. His predecessor, Alwin, lately dead, had had a sore road to travel with Malcolm Foiranach. He looked a mild and studious man, his Celtic tonsure, of the front part of his head only, adding to an already high and scholarly brow. The other, the swarthy Irish kinglet, was presumably a distant kinsman of Malcolm's—and therefore of his own—the King's mother having been a princess of Leinster. This Echmarcach was one of Thorfinn's most constant targets—as were most others whose lands fronted the Irish Sea. MacBeth bowed to them both, and then turned back to the King.

"What of Canute?" he asked.

"Aye, Canute." The royal voice went thinly rasping, like the scrape of steel. "The bold Dane! He...lingers, boy. He burns and slays his way through my Lothian, but does not hasten. His van is already at Stirling, facing us. But Canute delays. And slays."

"His numbers?"

"Some say two-score thousand, some more. English, Danes, Norwegians, Northumbrians. A mighty host."

"So many. So you wait? While Lothian burns. And, no doubt, the Merse and Teviotdale also."

"Could you do better, stripling? With a foe four times as many, and more. Led by one of the greatest conquerors in Christendom."

"Hear MacBeth, the Scourge of the North!" Duncan mac Crinan mocked, from the other end of the table. He was a pale, thin, reedy young man of twenty-seven years, the same age as MacBeth, good-looking but not in a strong way, hair so fair as to be almost white, but his skin of an unhealthy-seeming pallor. Indeed his by-name was Duncan Ilgalrach, the Bad-Blooded.

MacBeth ignored his cousin. "Perhaps not. But I might seek to bring Canute here the sooner. Coax him, that the land might be spared his burning and slaying. Make as though to move to meet him. Attack his van across the river. Not with your full force. How far off is he?"

"We heard last that he was at the Avon. Linlithgow," Lennox said, whose territory was nearest and who was providing the informants and scouts. "By now he could be at Ecclesbreac, or Falkirk as the Saxons name it." He pointed. "The smokes are sufficiently near for that."

"It is not too late..."

"No!" the King said. "Think you I have not considered this? We might not win back to this strong position. Be trapped beyond the bridge and causeway. It is not worth the hazard." That sounded sufficiently final.

"So you but wait?"

"We wait, yes. Let the Dane take the hazards. He can achieve nothing against us without crossing that bridge and causeway. When he does so, let him beware! You will perhaps learn, young man, to enlist the
land
to fight for you, when you lack men. If you live so long!"

"I but thought to bring some aid to your subjects of Lothian, Sire."

"If that other rebellious grandson of mine, Thorfinn Sigurdson, would but come, as commanded, and bring his longships into the Scottish Sea, I could make a sea-borne descent on the Lothian coast, behind Canute. And both give him pause and bring relief to the people. That is what I have been waiting for."

"Thorfinn is a treacherous Viking barbarian!" Duncan declared. "I said that we could rely on him only to fail us!"

"Thorfinn is his own man. And a better man than you, Duncan Ilgalrach!" MacBeth told him.

"Quiet, dolts!" the King snapped. "Thorfinn Sigurdson is
my
man, for Caithness and Sutherland. And he had best remember it. I gave him that mortuath, as a bairn. I could take it back."

It was on the tip of MacBeth's tongue to question any man's ability to do that; but he thought better of it and changed the subject somewhat.

"For a landing on the Lothian shore, could not MacDuff supply sufficient vessels?" he asked.

"I have only slow and unarmed fishing-craft. Canute will have his own longships—he always has. Attacked, these would be as Iambs before wolves," Duncan MacDuff, sixth Mormaor of Fife and Fothrif, was a red-faced, bull-like young man, short of neck. His peninsular domain of Fife was almost an island.

"When you have finished teaching us our business, grandson, perhaps we may eat?" Malcolm said, and waved peremptorily to the waiting servitors, who had been about to present a meal of cold meats and ale when the Rossmen arrived.

As a grandson of the King, and one of those in line for the throne, MacBeth as of right took a seat near the head of the table—not too close to the monarch, for comfort's sake, but a goodly distance from Duncan mac Crinan, whom he loathed. With his so evident unpopularity with the King, there was no competition to sit beside him on the part of his fellow mormaors; but Glamis, one of Angus's thanes, came. He was a man of middle years, and one of the most renowned of Malcolm's generals, and so of sufficient independence to follow his own line somewhat and sit where he would.

"Greetings, MacBeth," he said. "Your father was my good friend. I rejoiced that Gillacomgain got his needings."

"You were there, friend? I cannot think it well done, nevertheless."

"The burning?" The other shrugged mailed shoulders. "It was not done prettily. Or as I would have it. But he is better dead. The Lady Gruoch—what of her?"

"She is well," he was told briefly. "And safe."

The other eyed him. "Aye," he accepted.

The King was watching them. Perhaps he could lip-read. "The woman Gruoch?" he said. "You hold her?"

"I give her shelter, sire. Only that."

"Shelter is as good a word for it as other! But—watch how you tread that bird, cockerel! She is dangerous."

MacBeth rose, pushing back the rough bench and all but unseating his neighbours. "Lord King!" he jerked. "That lady is fair. And virtuous. And has suffered. If you miscall her, I must leave your table."

"Ha—so that is the way of it! Hush, man—sit down and eat your meat." Malcolm, grinning, pointed a leg of lamb at his grandson. "Be not so delicate of skin! I but jested. Save your heat for Canute. Sit—and teach Glamis there how to fight battles!"

"That I would not think to do, sire."

"Forby, I agree with the Lord MacBeth. We should have sent a force across the bridge."

"The more fool you, then! Am I surrounded by fools? There is only one way to deal with Canute. Thank you your God that I know how to do it."

None might controvert that, and the meal progressed in more subdued fashion.

MacBeth excused himself as soon as he might, and went back down to his own folk. As far as was possible he would seek to keep his distance from his grandsire and his entourage.

Next day they watched Canute's main array arriving, hour after hour, company by company, some horse but mainly foot—for though this was in name an English army, it was Danish led, with many Norse contingents from the Danelaw and Northumbria; and the Norsemen were not really horsemen.

It was a strange sensation for fighting-men to stand there idle all the long day and watch the enemy mass grow in strength. Towards evening, the watchers on Craig Kenneth could see a group move forward from the centre of the English front to a point a little east of the bridge. It was too distant to distinguish individuals but the Scots leadership had little doubt that it was their enemy counterparts. Presently other men began to carry down what were evidently rafts to the muddy banks of the river. Clearly these were to ferry over probing parties.

"Now the Dane will learn his first lesson!" the King said.

Even at that range it was possible to perceive the chaos which developed as the raft-parties reached the north shore. Clambering up the steep banks of slippery mud in itself was barely practicable. But what followed was infinitely worse. Some of the marshland surface looked comparatively firm—until an attempt was made to tread on it, which revealed the greenery to be no more than a thin skin of moss and scum masking deep black mire beneath. There were tussocks and clumps of reeds, but though a man might be able to stand on one of these, to move to another was frequently impossible. Nowhere could anyone move more than a few yards in any direction, however agile. None of the probers got more than a hundred yards from the river, and few that far.

The English leadership group turned back towards the town.

"Now they will try other points, upstream and down,"

Malcolm declared. "And will find none better. And tomorrow, Canute will assail the bridge."

Just in case the enemy chose to do this before waiting for the next day, part of the Scots army stood guard all night along the causeway.

In the morning, however, although the English preparations for an assault were evident, with the massing of men around the bridge-head, it was a small deputation under a flag of truce which presently came forward over the bridge, to where the first Scots ranks waited just out of bowshot from the south bank. The Scots command watched from Craig Kenneth.

In a little while a mounted figure came riding back, while the deputation waited in mid-marsh. It proved to be young Donald, son of the Thane of Doune, in command at the bridge-head. He announced that Canute, King and Emperor, requested speech with Malcolm Kennethson, in peace and amity.

The King spat out an oath. "Go tell Knut mac Sven that I know of no emperor save that of the Romans. That if he comes in peace to my realms, why does he bring scores of thousands of armed men? And tell him that I am an old done man and that if he wishes speech with me, he must needs come to me, not I to him. Across yonder bridge and causeway!"

In something over an hour the youth was back. "Sire," he panted. "The King Canute sends word that he will be happy to meet you in mid-causeway. He desires to speak with you on a number of matters of concern to you both. In especial your tribute to him for the Scots realm, of which he says he is overlord. And of the benefits of belonging to his empire, along with the English, the Danes, the Norse, the Swedes, the Irish and others."

"Ha! Then go tell the Dane that if he desires tribute he must needs come and collect it, like lesser men. And that I will meet him in mid-causeway only with a sword in my hand. That is all."

Now there was major activity in the Scots camp—for Canute could scarcely ignore that. Companies began to pick their way down through the marshland, hundred upon hundred. From this north side there were firmer approaches, almost tracks, with cattle wading in the pools and water-meadows. From these it was possible to penetrate quite deeply into the swamp, although by round-about routes. The defenders had had plenty of time, and labour, to cut and lay miniature causeways and platforms of brush-wood, branches and tree-trunks, all leading to various sections of the true causeway, on either side, rather like the pattern of veins in an inverted leaf. Along these the Scots moved until they were flanking their fellows who lined the causeway itself for most of its mile in length.

Canute's attack was sudden, and fierce as it was unsubtle. At the blowing of a bull's horn, a mass of swordsmen and spearmen carrying painted cowhide shields, came racing down to the bridge, and across. The Scots defence was placed well back from the bridge-end, to be out of range of English arrows. The shield-carriers ran to as near these as they dared, and then flung themselves down on the causeway and into a rough formation, so holding their shields one above the other to create a fairly solid barrier, which arrows could not penetrate, so that the Scots archers were frustrated. Some of the enemy had already fallen to these, but most survived. Now another wave of the English came running out—or, since these were all bowmen, they may well have been Welshmen, the finest archers. These raced on, to the cover of the shields, where they crouched, strung arrows to their bows, and commenced to shoot without delay.

Now it was the Scots turn to fall back, lacking any such barrier of shields, and well within bowshot. As they did so, more enemy came on, in surges. When these were in position, the shieldmen made their next leap forward.

So that was to be the pattern.

It would have been an excellent pattern, for the enemy, had it not been for Malcolm's flanking forces out in the moss. These were unable to penetrate to the south end of the causeway, so that they could not affect the early stages of the advance. But as the Scots defenders fell back, every move brought them, and the English, nearer—as was the plan. Each retiral covered perhaps 150 yards. At the fourth, the range was right and the waiting men, crouching in bog and slime, could act at last.