Margaret the Queen (3 page)

Malcolm stared, as though disbelieving his own ears and eyes.

"Bear with us, Sire," her mother said. "The dear God would not have us to be unmerciful, selfish. Let her remain."

The King clenched great fists. "No!" he barked. "Take her away." His voice quivered. "Do as I say." As his men hustled the old woman out, he turned to stamp after them. At the door he spoke again, without turning. "Maldred — see to these . . . ladies. Their needs." Then he was gone.

There was silence in the shadowy, smoke-blackened, earthen-floored chamber — into which muffled sobbing sounded from the younger sister, Christina.

"Restrain yourself, daughter," the Princess Agatha said tensely. "And you, Margaret. You should know by now that kings are not to be contravened so. The good King Edward spoiled you. We are wholly in this Malcolm's hands — and he is named a hard man." She glanced over at Maldred, suddenly realising that he was still in the cottage, and bit her lip.

"Are we not rather in
God's
hands, Mother? Has that changed? Has He spared us the storm for us to refuse His mercy to others? Because the King of Scots is heartless, must we, who need mercy ourselves, be so also?"

Christina gulped and snuffled.

Maldred cleared his throat. "Princesses," he said, "your gear? Clothing, apparel, linen? The King commands me to see to your needs. If you will tell me what I can do . . . ?"

"To be sure." The older woman turned to the young girl, who had stood throughout silent although keenly alert, absorbed in it all. "Bedding, other clothes, we have on the ship. It is dry, I hope. Or drier than these here. Magdalen, take him. Bring what is necessary for the night."

The young woman nodded, proffered an incipient curtsy, and signed to Maldred to follow her out.

Skirts kilted up, she skipped before him down to the beach, ignoring the soldiers' pleasantries. She darted a smiling glance back at her companion.

"What name do they give you? Malfred or Malfrith, was it?" she asked.

"No. Those are Saxon names," he said, a little scornfully. "I am Maldred mac Melmore, of the house of Crinan of Atholl."

"So? Is that so very grand?"

He frowned. "Not grand, no. But of ancient line. My father, Melmore, is Earl of Atholl and Abbot of Dunkeld."

"Abbot! A churchman and an earl both? So you are a bastard?"

"I am not!" he cried. "I am lawful second son. In our Church, the Celtic Church, abbots may wed. Not all, but some.
Our
abbacy is heired, hereditary. Dunkeld is the greatest of all. My father is Primate of our Church."

"Indeed," she said. They had reached the foot of the gang-plank, and without pause she went tripping lightly up the steep incline. She seemed something of a light creature altogether, he decided.

Because she had sounded distinctly unimpressed, he informed her slender back, "Moreover, my uncle was King Duncan. And my great-grandsire King Malcolm the Terrible!"

"The Terrible? Then let us hope that King Duncan was something better than either Malcolm," she called back. "For I think this present one is a brute-beast!"

Shocked, he caught his breath. She could have been overheard. There were sailors working about the galley, and Scots soldiers nearby, seeking what might be found. Even gently-born women could die, and horribly, for such a remark.

"For God's sake, watch your tongue!" he said.

Reaching the decking of the bows platform, beside the broken prow, she turned to grin at him, before moving on.

From up here the damage done to the vessel was evident on all hands, with men already seeking to effect repairs of a sort. The girl led the way down the stair to the oar-deck and along the gangway between the rowing-benches, many of which were smashed, the decking littered with the fragments of splintered oars, some blood-stained and telling their own story.

The stern quarters had suffered less. In a dark small cabin under the poop fighting-platform, his guide wrinkling up her pretty nose at the sour smell of sickness, Maldred was given an armful of feminine clothing, cloaks and furs, to carry, his companion burdening herself similarly. As they were about to leave, she turned back, to collect an object from one of the chests which cluttered the confined space.

"I should take this," she said. "Perhaps it will serve to protect our virtue from all you rough Scots!"

"We
...
I
...
what is it?" She had produced an oddly-shaped silver casket, richly chased.

She opened it, to show him inside a crucifix, strange in that although it was studded with diamonds, it was made of very rough wood, dark, almost black.

"This is the Lady Margaret's most prized possession," she told him. "It is called the Black Rood — made from a piece of the true cross. Given her by her grandfather, King Stephen of Hungary —
Saint
Stephen she calls him. . ."

"The true cross? Do you mean . . . Christ's cross? From Calvary in the Holy Land?"

"Of course. Whether it is truly that or no, who can tell? But she believes it — they all do. And they are a very holy family!" The girl wrapped relic and casket in a fur rug, and gestured him out.

"How did they get it? This King Stephen? If it is truly Christs's cross." Maldred kept glancing at his companion's bundle with some awe.

"From the Emperor, I think. The Emperor is kin to King Stephen. He would get it from the Pope, at Rome. He is King of the Romans. But — it could be any piece of old wood. It looks no different from any other, to me. Although I would not say so to the Lady Margaret, you understand! She would have me starved for days. If not flogged. . . !"

"Flogged? The Princess? Never that, surely!"

"Perhaps not actually flogged, no," The other flashed her impish smile. "But punished severely, oh yes. She could impose harsher penances than any priest, that one."

"But . . . but
...
I cannot believe that. She is kind, good, beautiful. She pleaded for that old woman
..."

"Ha — another one! You men are all alike. You see a fair face, fine eyes and a bed-worthy woman's body, and you are lost! For a little, at least! You esteem all softness and mild gentleness. But the Lady Margaret is more than that. She is good, yes — too good, perhaps. But strong too. She has steel in her — as unbreaking as any man's sword. So watch you, young Maldred mac Whatever-it-was! Standard-bearer you may be — but do not try your standard on Margaret Atheling, if you would keep it flying! Or on Magda of Ethanford either. So you are warned!"

"I, I . . . am not
...
I have no such
...
I would not think of anything of the son . . ."

"Liar! I have seen where your eyes rove. And the look in them."

Sidelong he considered her, over his bundle. He had never encountered a creature such as this, so outspoken, so lacking in modesty, so sure of herself. Scots girls were not like this. Nor any Saxon woman he had met hitherto.

"You are quite wrong," he told her. "Much at fault. About me, at least. I am not a knight yet — but I shall be. I respect women. Seek to cherish them."

"Knights are the worst!" she asserted, but smiling again. "But — never heed me, Maldred — or not overly much. I do not think that you are all bad. Indeed I would say that you are the best of the Scots we have seen here, as yet. Better than that King of yours, certainly. Or that arrogant lord who met us." They were back to the village, now wholly taken over by the Scots host, its occupants banished into the oncoming night. "I am Magdalen, daughter of Oswin, Lord of Ethanford," she confided. "I think my father sent me, to attend the princess to Hungary, to be rid of me! Like most other men he does not like the truth from female lips!"

Maldred did not attempt to argue that.

Reaching the cottage, he did his best to make the interior as tidy and comfortable as possible for its new inmates. There were no real furnishings, only the roughest of built-in timber bunks, benches and a table, some wooden platters and chipped earthenware pots. Not that the ladies were complaining — after all it was a considerable improvement on the cramped, dark and noisome cabin on the galley. He scoured other houses for additional items, and though he did not find much suitable, he was rewarded for his efforts by kind words of praise and thanks from the lovely Margaret — and a raised eyebrow from Magdalen. He said that he would go and see what was the position about feeding. The Prince Edgar did not seem to be concerning himself greatly about his womenfolk's wellbeing.

The entire village smelled of roasting beef, with cattle-beasts being cooked whole above a score of fires. At the commandeered church, Maldred found the King and his lords using the altar as a table, round which they sat drinking ale, and coughing somewhat, whilst soldiers aloft dug a hole in the thatched roof to let out the smoke from a well-doing fire of church furniture — since the building was provided with no fireplace or flue. Malcolm was still questioning the Atheling — who looked uncomfortable — closely as to King William's dispositions and possible strategy.

Men brought in the repast, vast quantities of beef with oaten cakes, and little else. Maldred used the King's authority to have no insignificant portion carried off to the ladies' cottage. With the rough if plentiful ale it was scarcely delicate feeding for princesses, but all that was available — and, as they asserted, better than they would have had on the ship. Again they expressed their gratitude to the young man — as well as to their Creator in a lengthy grace-before-meat, worthy of a better feast. They had a further task for Maldred, after they had eaten. Would he go to try find their chaplain and confessor, one Oswald? He was a young Benedictine monk of Durham, who had been lent to them by Bishop Ethelwin to replace their true confessor, Anselm, fallen sick. They had become separated in the confusion of the flight from the Humber, when the monk had gone searching for his bishop. But they had heard that Bishop Ethelwin was on one of the other ships, and possibly Oswald was with him. They had prayed Almighty God for his welfare.

Maldred was less than enthusiastic about this errand, but said that he would do what he could. There were no quays or wharves for deep-draught vessels at Wearmouth, so the other three ships remained at anchor in the bay. There had been some slight coming-and-going with small boats, but the visitors' reception by the Scots had been cool to say the least, King Malcolm having no wish to be burdened by the useless remnants of a defeated Saxon army. So, other than the royal party from the galley, the refugees were remaining in their ships meantime.

Maldred found a little boat on the pebble-strand amongst the fishing-craft, little more than a coracle, and pulled out in the dusk of the October evening to the three vessels, an uncomfortable proceeding, however short, for even in the sheltered bay the sea was choppy. At the first ship he came to he shouted to ask if the Bishop of Durham was aboard, and was directed to the next craft. There, with a seaman agreeing sourly that there were more than sufficient clerks below, he climbed a rope-ladder and went in search of his quarry.

If the galley had shown damage at close quarters, this vessel revealed greatly more, the decks a tangle of rigging and cordage from a broken mast amongst shattered woodwork, men working everywhere to clear the havoc and make what repairs were possible. There was much more, and better, accommodation here than on the galley however, and Maldred wondered why the royal party had chosen the latter. It was much faster, to be sure.

The sound of chanting led him below to where the clerical company were evidently celebrating the evening office, discomforts and mishaps or none. He found them at least in better heart than most of the passengers in that crowded ship, although two of the eight or nine priests were injured, and the old Bishop Ethelwin had an arm broken when he had been thrown against a bulkhead by the violence of the storm.

The monk Oswald was indeed there, probably the youngest of the party, a sturdy, red faced but serious-seeming man in his early twenties, in the black habit of the Benedictine brothers, his shaven tonsure somehow looking out-of-place on a head more apt for a helmet — on the crown of the head, of course, in the Romish fashion instead of above the brow as was the Celtic Church usage.

When the chanting ended, Maldred explained his mission. Although most of the clerics looked with scant favour on the Scot, the young monk seemed eager enough to return to the princesses, and apparently pleased that they had remembered him. Bishop Ethelwin expressed no objection to his departure, asked heedfully after the royal ladies, and sent the two young men on their way with a rather awkward left-handed benediction — it being the right arm which was broken.

Thankful to escape from the smells below decks, Maldred led his companion down to the heaving boat. There he was positioning the oars to row back to the shore when Oswald insisted on taking one, rolling up the wide sleeves of his habit to reveal quite muscular and hairy forearms. Clearly he was used to handling small boats. He did not appear to be a companionable or particularly friendly character, but he curtly explained that he was the youngest son of a small Northumbrian thane from a coastal area near Alnwick, called Amble, and had used such craft for inshore fishing since childhood. Maldred, who was not strong on monks and clerics generally, thought that this one might be less obnoxious than some.