Margaret the Queen (25 page)

Mercia, once an independent kingdom under the mighty Offa and Penda, was now much shrunken to a Midlands territory of something over one thousand square miles comprising much of the spine of England, its perimeters now largely occupied by the Normans who had carved whole new earldoms out of it. In consequence, Edwin and his brother Morkar ought to have been in the forefront of any opposition to the invaders, as their father Alfgar had been, their sister Eldgyth married to the late King Harold. But, although fighters, they were not of the same calibre and stuff of leadership. It was the Saxons' great misfortune that in their major hour of need, the generation of leaders seemed to have sunk to the second-rate. The cream of the race, of course, had fallen at Stamford Bridge and Hastings.

The travellers came, on the fifth day, into the high Peak area of Derby-in-Mercia, above the Derwent valley, where Edwin now roosted in a hilltop eyrie, once the site of a British fort, now little more than a robber's hold and a poor establishment for the successor of the ancient Kings of Mercia, once the most powerful in England. Their great castle of Tamworth, thirty-five miles to the south, was now the seat of an arrogant Angevin baron. Always on the watch for trouble, Edwin's guards intercepted the newcomers miles before they reached their goal, and so they were escorted up the steep corkscrewing track to the fort in fine style, the royal banner of the Athelings, specially sewn by the princesses at Dunfermline, flying bravely at their head.

The effect, however, was somewhat wasted, for although it was not much after mid-day, both Edwin and his brother Morkar were so drunk as barely to be able to greet the visitors coherently. This, of course, was the great weakness of the Saxons, and undoubtedly the reason for many a sad defeat. The Scots were hard drinkers too, but not to rival these. The Saxons drank ale, mead and cider with a sort of unquenchable enthusiasm, the more so since troubles had descended upon them.

Edgar was considerably offended at receiving little in the way of royal welcome. After all, he had once gone through a ceremony of proclamation as king, at which Edwin had been present. The consequent sulks perhaps helped to explain the less than white-hot Saxon enthusiasm for his cause.

There was nothing that they could usefully achieve that day, for the brothers were not quite so inebriated that they could not give orders for the visitors to be feasted — and plied with drink, naturally, of which it would have been unmannerly for the hosts themselves not to partake. As a result they were carried to bed eventually drunker than ever. Cospatrick and Maldred decided that they must circumvent this process somehow, and perhaps use the same tactics as at Durham — without the unfortunate necessity for early-morning religious exercises.

So at least two of the visitors were up betimes next day and awaiting the Saxon earls in what passed as their hall when eventually they came down for breakfast, both within a few moments. They were both big shaggy men, with full beards and shoulder-length fair hair. The Saxons, unlike the Normans, did not much go in for hair-cutting and shaving. Edwin, in his early thirties, was stocky and inclining to corpulence; Morkar, two years younger, was less heavily-built, less hearty. Now, they looked at their early-risen guests a little doubtfully. They knew Cospatrick sufficiently well, after all, his quality and repute; Morkar indeed had been one of the many who had for a little been Earl of Northumbria, in its recent troubled story — hardly a matter for congratulation with the representative of the original displaced line.

"A good day to you, friends," Cospatrick called out genially, for all that. "You are the better for a night's sleep, I vow!"

Uncertain how to take that, the brothers exchanged glances, muttering something vague.

Retaining the initiative, their formidable visitor went on almost without pause, "Have you thought further? To improve on what we spoke of last night?"

Again the blank stares. Clearly last night was something of a closed book for the Alfgarsons.

"Can you not commit
more
men? And more swiftly? We — or at least King Malcolm — can find the money."

"Men . . . ?" Edwin wondered.

"Money . . . ?" Morkar said.

"To be sure. You can do better than a mere three thousand, I swear. You could double that, God's Blood! And, who knows, we might double the gold."

Bewildered, the others eyed each other. "What three thousand? And what gold?" Edwin demanded. "Are you out of your wits, man?"

"Do not say that you have forgotten? Or would resile from your promises? In the sacred cause of England! And Mercia. The downfall of Norman William?"

Edwin sat down heavily at the board, calling for meats. And for ale, of course. He gestured mutely to his guests to sit.

Maldred took a hand. "My lord Earl — how many men
can
you muster? In short time. And how many later? In a few more days."

"Muster for what?"

"For battle, what else? You will not defeat the Norman sitting here." That was Cospatrick again.

"I have not many men. Since York. Aye, and Stamford and Senlac
..."

"Your earldom is still large, widespread. With many men on it. Do not tell us that Mercia has lost all its fighters? Or its will to fight!"

"We have fought all too much. And with little but sorrow to show for it."

"We
could give you something to show for it, man. Or do you want it all to go to this Hereward?"

"A plague on Hereward! In his fenland mud!"

"William also has reason to say a plague on Hereward and his mud!" Maldred reminded.

Morkar spoke. "This of gold, money? What do you mean?"

"I mean that King Malcolm — and King Edgar, to be sure — know well that the Saxons are prevented from putting their full strength on the field, having lost so much treasure as well as blood, by robbery, by taxations and long warring. So we have collected much treasure. The Archbishop Eldred has been generous. We can pay for men. Help to feed the fires of war!"

"So-o-o! This payment? How much?" Morkar was evidently a man concerned with things economic.

"Sufficient."

'.'To raise and feed and arm many men requires much money."

"Even when the fight is your own? The enemy your oppressor? The cause yours, not ours?"

"What is your, or your King Malcolm's, interest in this?" Edwin asked. "Why are
you
seeking to have us fight?"

"We also hate William. He threatens Cumbria, in Scots Strathclyde. Malcolm is now wed to Edgar's sister. He believes that we must act together."

"But with
my
men!"

"And others. Many others. Malcolm prepares a fleet, has a great army mustered. We have been winning promises from Saxon lords. Many are ready to march. But look to you, my lords, as leaders."

"You offered them moneys also?"

"Some. The greater part of it had to be kept for you. Who can field most men, should lead." Cospatrick shrugged. "And of course, for this Hereward."

There was a pause. "He is a small man. Of no importance. With a band of cut-throat fenmen. What need has he of moneys?"

"He has taken William's measure. Fought him for more than a year. Made the Isle of Ely a refuge for many. Broken men, yes — but men who are fighting. Are not these better than earls' men who will not, my friends?"

Another pause as, angrily, they chewed and gulped. There was a hostility between the Mercian brothers and Hereward of Bourne. There was even a tale that he was of illegitimate kin to themselves, possibly because of nothing more than that the fathers of both were named Leofricson.

"A thousand armed men, well led, are worth much gold," Morkar observed.

"Two thousand are worth more. Three thousand, more still!"

Again silence.

"Maldred — shall we say a chalice with one hundred gold pieces for these good lords? How think you?"

Nodding, Mald
red went back up to
their chamber, where two of Cospatrick's own men kept guard on their treasure. He counted out the coins into a suitable large golden cup.

Back at the hall the brothers' eyes gleamed when they saw the chalice, itself worth more than the pieces which filled it.

"Yours," Cospatrick said, pushing it across the table. "And more, much more. If you will find the men."

"How much more?" Morkar insisted.

"How many men can you raise . . . ?"

Gulping down his ale and taking a rib of beef with him — since he could hardly carry away eel-pie — Maldred left them to their unsavoury bargaining.

By mid-day Cospatrick was satisfied — or as nearly so as was possible, with inebriation setting in again for their hosts. They had the promise of three thousand men within the week —and no more gold to change hands until these were mustered and ready to march. He and Maldred left Edgar, Waltheof and the others of their party to keep the Alfgarsons up to scratch and to help marshal the assembly. Also to send out messengers to the thanes and lords they had visited on their way, to tell these that the Earls Edwin and Morkar had joined King Edgar in armed uprising, and to bring or send their contingents to the muster in the Peakland heights forthwith. With a mere dozen horsemen as escort now — for this was to be a
very
secret expedition — they set out, with two Mercians as guides. They took their treasure with them.

They had almost as much country to traverse as they had had from Durham to the Peak — one hundred and thirty miles or so. But this was very different country, low-lying, fertile, once populous and almost wholly Norman-occupied — save for the devastated areas. In fact, it was these dire stretches of man-made desert which made the journey a practical proposition, for by using their grim reaches for route, however circuitous, linked together by night-marches and detours to avoid danger-spots, they were able to accomplish a large part of their difficult travelling unobserved, or at least unaccosted.

But it made grievous and terrible riding, through what should have been a good and lovely land. Most of the burning and sacking and killing had been done during the previous two years, so that green growth had sprung up partly to hide the fire-blackened desolation. But it was still all there beneath, the sour acrid dust of it rising around them only partially to overcome the stench of rotting carcases of man and beast. Out of the growth rose the charred skeletons of roof-timbers and door-posts and trees, from all too many
of which the grisly fruit of fl
esh-tattered and shrunken bodies still hung, amidst flocks of obscene birds. They rode through many dead villages and small towns, and unnumbered farmsteads, with the only life the rooting swine and half-wild poultry. And rats. The rats were everywhere, legion. Maldred for one felt sickened to the heart of him.

They went east by south, avoiding Alfreton and Derby, to cross Erewash near Codnor and so into the welcome fastnesses of Sherwood Forest. Southwards now, giving Nottingham a wide circuit to the Vale of Witham and Ermine Street into the levels of Kesteven, with water becoming ever more of a problem, standing, seeping, flooding water. To avoid the marshes they turned more and more into the south, through the worst devastated areas, to cross Welland near Stamford. Now Peterborough lay ahead, and here they were particularly circumspect, for it was known to be an armed camp, the headquarters of the Norman forces arrayed against Hereward, its great monastery the late Canute's favourite retreat when he had turned religious.

Now they felt their way needfully into the no-man's-land where the scouting parties of both forces might be operating. It quickly became real fenland, waterlogged with meres and pools and ditches everywhere, appalling country to fight over unless born to it, and disastrous for cavalry — hence the Norman failure here. Their Mercian guides were useless in this extraordinary terrain. All they knew was that somewhere ahead was the Isle of Ely, a great tract of firmer ground in the quaking watery wilderness, twenty-five miles across no less, almost the last quite unconquered corner of all England. Horses were a positive hindrance here. Landmarks were almost non-existent, any sort of straight course impossible. Soon the travellers were utterly lost, floundering in more than their footsteps.

Happily they were not long in being picked up by a patrol of Hereward's fenmen, in what proved to be Wimblington Fen, before they had wandered too far, with a seemingly impassable water-barrier ahead — and not over-gently treated by their rescuers, who were predictably suspicious of all strangers. These took them, by devious ways, and eventually by flat-bottomed scows, used apparently for cattle transport, across a wide open channel above which an early-autumn haze obscured the further prospect, until there rose above it all the roofs and spires of St. Ethelreda's Abbey of Ely itself, an unlooked-for sight in those endless flats.