Queen Hereafter

by Susan Fraser King

  “How does Margaret fare now?” he asked.

  “She will recover once we are on land.”

  “This is my doing,” he said, looking at the shoreline crowded with docks and ships, and buildings higher on the hill. “I insisted on tricking her into the boat, and now she is ill. Is there any danger to the child? It is early days yet.”

  “I am sure all will be well.” Eva spoke carefully, flatly.

  “Margaret takes her oaths, her prayers and penances, all to heart,” he muttered. “She rises in the middle of the night to pray like a nun, fasts even while carrying a child, though she has a dispensation for that. She gives away her clothing and thinks only of the poor, the suffering, as if she were somehow at fault for what is wrong in the world.”

  “She is a good and kind soul, though demanding of herself.”

  “Aye,” he said quickly. “And too many around her agree with her, pander to her, let her do these things to herself. Her own mother and sister complain that nothing is good enough and induce her to more prayers and confessions, as if she were doing them wrong.” He frowned deep, looking down at her. “But you, Aeife—you are her friend.”

  “I am a king’s hostage,” she reminded him. “But I love your queen well.”

  “I will not forget this.” He turned and walked away.

  TWILIGHT SHONE PURPLE over the rippled water of Leith port, where dozens of vessels moored at a large stone quay. Merchant knorrs, the great wide, low ships loaded with goods, floated on the waves farther out in the bay. Above the harbor, Margaret could see the high crested rock and fortress of Dun Edin just a league away. She gasped at the majestic sight, and felt almost as impatient as Malcolm to be gathered and going, though she felt nervous, too, about to enter the king’s largest royal center.

  Housecarls from Dun Edin came to meet them with extra horses and carts, but Margaret insisted on riding a horse into the city. She did concede to using a small saddle so that she could hook a knee over the low pommel, a gentler way to ride preferred by some ladies.

  Wearing a clean white veil and a gown of pale blue, she draped a lightweight cream-colored cloak elegantly over her shoulders, and sat tall. Feeling dizzy and weak after a half day’s sickness on the water, she was determined to enter Dun Edin—which Malcolm sometimes called Edinburgh in the Saxon manner—in a dignified way as the newly arrived queen.

  As they left the harbor, she noticed a cluster of people walking away from the shore toward the road that curved north and east around the firth. Seeing their walking sticks and telltale scallops and badges, she recognized them as pilgrims. Twisting in the saddle to watch them, she saw one of the Dun Edin housecarls riding beside her.

  “Pilgrims, Lady,” the young man said. “They must have been turned away from the ferry boat that crosses between here and Fife. They will walk instead, and sleep along the road. We see it often here. Few can afford the ferry passage or the price of an inn.”

  Margaret listened, watching the people trudge onward. She saw two women helping an older man who was hunched over, progressing slowly with the use of a stick. She turned to the Dun Edin guard and drew out her purse to hand him a few coins.

  “Here, sir. Go to those people and give them the fee for the ferry. And give them enough for a meal and a night in an inn as well, as it is already evening.” Smiling, accepting the silver, he rode off. Margaret turned to find Malcolm watching.

  “We will run out of coins at the rate you give them out, Lady,” he said.

  “Aye, but we will garner a wealth of good will,” she answered.

  “I have married me a wise queen,” Malcolm remarked to De Lauder, who laughed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They think you a generous king, sire.

  —BISHOP TURGOT, Life of Saint Margaret, TWELFTH CENTURY, QUOTING QUEEN MARGARET

  The cliff-sided hill on which the citadel stood overlooked the sea in one direction, hills to the other. Dun Edin itself, a stone and timber fortress, was sometimes called by its older name, Castellum Puellarum or the Castle of the Maidens; legend claimed that some ancient Pictish king had kept his several daughters guarded there, Malcolm told Margaret.

  The place looked formidable on its high perch, with an outer palisade of stone and one side melded with the massive rock into a sheer drop. Inside, Margaret saw scaffolding in places where Malcolm had ordered wooden buildings rebuilt with stone. She had seen the stone castles built by Normans, and she felt proud that the King of Scots was learning from the enemy to transform his own fortress into an impregnable stone castellum.

  As the royal escort advanced slowly up the long hill that fronted the castle, Margaret saw crowds of people gathering to cheer and shout, and she lifted a hand to wave tentatively. Even in the growing darkness, she could see that many of them wore tattered clothing and were barefoot and unwashed, and some held out their hands to beg. Children and adults clustered along the sloped street where a straggling chain of houses, shops, and vendor stalls leaned. The street ran muddy with rain and sewage. Some of the people slept in the streets, for she saw pallets, blankets, and sagging tentlike shelters in corners and side lanes. Dogs wandered the streets, and children walked with them. The stench in the air was so strong that she wrinkled her nose against it.

  A few people ran forward to tug at the hem of her cloak and gown, frightening her and startling the horse, and the housecarls chased them off. Suddenly the crowd looked more like souls of hell begging for succor and release than happy people welcoming their queen. She realized then that most of them implored her in English rather than Gaelic or the Scots tongue.

  Margaret turned to Wilfrid, now riding at her left side. “These are not Scots—but Saxons!”

  “Aye, fugitives who have nowhere to go,” he said. “Thousands of Saxon slaves were taken into Scottish homes over the last two years. Countless more have come north since, looking for hospitality … and for hope as well.”

  “Hope?” Margaret looked at him.

  “They know that the royal Saxon family fled north and found welcome in Scotland and that many fugitives have found homes here, mostly as slaves and servants, but it is a life. Now other refugees pray that the royal Saxons in Scotland will make sure their people are cared for, especially with you as queen here. Who else do they have now?”

  STANDING BY THE WINDOW in the great hall of the keep that thrust high on the rock of Dun Edin, Margaret leaned against the frame, shuttered open, to gaze out over the town. The hour was well past matins and gone so dark that she saw torches and bonfires flare here and there in the town, beneath a sky sparkling with stars. Beyond she could see the black gleam of the port.

  “Come to bed,” Malcolm said gruffly from there. “The hour is late.”

  Margaret sighed and drew her indoor cloak closer over a loose shift. She had rested a little and had risen for midnight prayers, asking for help for all the troubled souls who lived in the king’s town without shelter, food, or necessities. Unable to sleep now, she rested her hands on the slight swell of her belly. Only recently she had known that she had conceived again, and after her arrival in the town, the thought of her own little ones kept her awake.

  “I keep thinking of the children,” she said. “So many small ones in need, though my own sons sleep content in their cradles and the newest one is safe in my womb. Too many have no cradle, or even a mother, to hold them while they sleep at night. Too many will lack food when they wake in the morning.”

  Malcolm sighed and sat up in the bed. “Margaret, we cannot feed them all.”

  She turned. “Can we not?”

  “It is too much for anyone to undertake. Pray for them. It is all you can do. It is enough.”

  “I suppose so. I am tired, and will take to bed. The bells will ring out soon enough—I heard them from some church nearby—and the next hour of prayer will come all too soon.”

  “You have the ears of a hound, to hear the bells so far. Sleep through next time,” he said. “We have been journeying for days,
and your health is more important than prayers. Have you eaten this evening?” he added.

  “Of course,” she said, having only tasted her supper. “I cannot sleep through and miss a prayer appointment. Nor can I ignore the plight of so many outside our gates. I want a place in God’s good heaven one day, my lord.”

  “Huh,” the king replied. “We see the poor at our gates nearly every day here, with the crowds in the streets of this town and nearby areas. My steward sees that they are given the scraps that we have to spare.”

  “Almsgiving with scraps of food?”

  “Aye. So we can sleep soundly at night. Do not fret over it.”

  Nodding in silence, she went to the bed and slid in between the bed linens. Malcolm, weary, rolled over and soon began to snore. The bed was unfamiliar and larger than theirs at Dunfermline, but its deep, comfortable feather mattress lured her quickly to sleep.

  Before she drifted off, she reminded herself that a queen must look after the people in her husband’s kingdom as if they were guests in her own house. And, remembering Wilfrid’s remark, she felt responsible, as a Saxon, for refugees from her outlawed brother’s kingdom, too. But she ached deepest of all for the children in need of even the simplest comforts.

  Indeed, she would do something, but she was not certain what.

  THE TALL, GRACEFUL QUEEN led the rest of her ladies like a pale swan with cygnets following. Eva walked behind Margaret through the darkest hour before dawn as they all headed down the wooden steps of the timber-built tower that crowned the rock on its northernmost side. Ahead of Eva and the others, Margaret went steadily downward, her long, loose hair rippling like golden mist down her back under a veil of translucent silk, her gown a creamy glow in the light of oil lamps carried by Wynne and Matilda.

  They followed the queen out the entrance and down those steps, and across the bailey to a small square wooden building. Inside Eva saw a tiny chapel with a simple altar, a carved ivory cross hung above it. For a while they knelt in prayer, and then Father Otto, who had come with them to Dun Edin, entered to conduct Mass, though the place was crowded. When they departed the chapel, Eva stepped outside into the fresh, sweet air just as the sun rose over the sea. She paused to watch the light bloom, while Margaret joined her.

  “That is a peaceful little chapel,” Margaret said. “But old. Perhaps as the king is rebuilding, he will consider replacing it with stone. I will suggest it.”

  In the great hall, a separate one-story building adjacent to the tower, breakfast waited on a table for the queen and her ladies. Margaret had requested that her custom at Dunfermline of hosting a simple meal after morning prayers be continued. They were greeted by Sir Parlan, Dun Edin’s steward, a red-bearded man with a limp, the injury acquired when he had saved Malcolm’s life in a skirmish; the deed had elevated him from housecarl to steward. His daughter, Ella, helped her father to oversee the daily needs of the household.

  Now, Eva saw a trestle table filled with platters of steaming oatcakes, an iron kettle of porridge, a platter piled with sliced wheels of cheese. Pouring a cup of golden ale, already diluted with water for morning consumption, she gave it to Margaret and poured another for herself.

  “Will you eat, Lady?” she asked. “There is a great deal of food here.”

  “It truly is a generous amount,” Margaret said, and accepted an oatcake from Kata, who spread it thick with butter. But when Kata handed her porridge in a small rock crystal bowl, along with a small golden spoon, Margaret shook her head.

  “Eat some for the child then,” Kata urged.

  “Oh, very well,” Margaret said, and swallowed a spoonful.

  Eva nibbled some cheese, noticing that the queen seemed distracted, looking at the table. When Wilfrid entered the room, Margaret hurried toward him, the crystal bowl and spoon still in her hands. She spoke earnestly to him, and beckoned Parlan into their discussion. Bowing his head in assent, Wilfrid escorted her to the door, while Parlan summoned the servants to speak to them.

  “What is it?” Eva asked Juliana, who came to stand beside her.

  “The queen’s almoner says there are several people at the gate asking for charity. Parlan said their alms are generally whatever is left after meals, but the queen says that is not enough, on her first day here in Dun Edin. There is Wynne—she was just speaking with Parlan.” Juliana turned toward Eva’s maidservant, who came near.

  “The queen says the poor are to have whatever is here,” Wynne told them. “She says our souls will be cleansed by giving, and we can wait for the next meal.” Looking sour, she began to gather up food with Matilda’s assistance. They wrapped oatcakes in linen cloths and stacked empty porridge bowls, and Wynne took hold of the wooden handle of the small black kettle that held hot porridge.

  “We can help,” Eva said, and Juliana joined her to pick up wrapped cheeses and gather cups and a jug of watered ale.

  Outside in the cool air and sunlight, Eva and the others crossed the bailey and proceeded down the slope toward the entrance gates. Nearly two dozen people had already been allowed inside, she saw, and more waited for the housecarls to admit them.

  Margaret stood with Wilfrid as the strangers, mostly women and children with a few older men, came forward. They were shabby, grimy, yet proud—Eva saw not a beggar among them, but heads high as they looked around, protecting their children in their arms or beside them. The queen walked closer, graceful and elegant, her long gown of pale green wool and a cream-colored cloak sweeping the cobbles. Within the group, she looked beautiful and ethereal as she held out her little bowl and spoon and bent to offer a taste of porridge to a small girl. When the girl’s mother thanked the queen, Eva heard English rather than Gaelic.

  Margaret looked toward Wynne and Matilda. “Give them alms of food,” she said quietly. “Lady Eva, please help them.” Silently Eva came forward, as did Juliana.

  In the midst of the crowd, a small curly-haired child of about a year cried piteously in the arms of an older girl, who jostled her while holding the hand of a toddler who sniffled as she looked up at the women doling out food. Breaking off a bit of cheese, Eva stooped to give it to the little girl, then offered some to the crying child. He buried his face in the oldest girl’s shoulder, who took it to feed it to him. “Thank you, my lady,” she said in good Saxon English.

  “I had not expected to see so many poor in Dun Edin,” Juliana said soberly as she and Eva poured ale into cups that were quickly shared and passed to others.

  Lady Agatha and Princess Cristina joined them, watching as others gave out the food and drink. Eva came near to pick up some oatcakes from Wynne. “Lady Eva,” Cristina said, “if your people in the north still think poorly of Malcolm Canmore, send this word to them—the king helps many here.”

  “This day’s deeds belong to the queen more than the king,” Eva said.

  “Margaret knows the value of charity,” Lady Agatha said proudly. “She honors the old custom of royal almsgiving to the needy.”

  “My sister knows the advantage of showing generosity at the king’s door,” Cristina added.

  Certainly Margaret was clever as well as charitable, Eva thought as she handed broken pieces of oatcakes to some of the people. The queen walked among the crowd, her veiled head easily visible as she greeted those at the gate. Malcolm and Scotland would indeed benefit from this, Eva was sure.

  Nearby, the fussy baby still wept in the older girl’s arms, and the toddler now wailed, too. Eva watch as Margaret offered her spoon to the baby, who mouthed it hungrily and opened his mouth for more. Margaret obliged.

  “Dearling,” she told him gently, “you may have as much as you like.” While she fed him, Eva offered a bit of oatcake to the toddler, who took it, sniffling. Then Margaret smiled at the older girl who held the baby. “What is your name, girl?” she asked.

  “I am Gertruda. My little sister is Inga, and this is our brother Alfred.” She hefted the baby.

  “Ah, Alfred,” Margaret said solemnly to him. “My great-
great-grandfather had that good name. Alfred the Great, they call him. Where did you come from, Gertruda?”

  “We lived with our parents near York,” she answered. “But they are gone, and our home is burned. I brought Inga and Alfred north hoping I could find work as a servant, but we have been turned away because the little ones are an extra burden. We came to Dun Edin because I was told we could find alms at the gates here. But we have never had alms so fine, and this not even a feast day!” She smiled, winsome, skin freckled, brown hair framing her narrow face.

  “Was it Normans that took your parents and your home?” Margaret asked.

  The girl looked down, nodded. “My mother told me to bar the door when they came to our house in the night, but I was not quick enough, and they came inside because the bar was not there. They … killed my parents … I hid in the clothes chest with the little ones.”

  “Dear God,” Margaret said.

  “Then we ran,” she said. “And we met people who were also fleeing, and they took us north with them. A priest said I must seek forgiveness for this wicked punishment, so I pray each day.”

  Margaret gasped and handed the empty bowl to Eva. “None of this is your doing, Gertruda. Do not think it.” She touched the girl’s shoulder.

  “I know,” Gertruda said, but her lip quivered. “But we are doing fine, Alfred and Inga and me, and a priest in the town says he will find a priory to take us in.”

  “Gertruda,” Margaret said. “You see that man over there, with the white beard? He is my almoner. Go to him and tell him that the queen says you are to stay in the queen’s household. You are good to your brother and sister,” she said, “and you would be good to my little ones. We need another maidservant in the nursery, where these two little ones will be welcome, too. Go, now.” She turned the girl toward Wilfrid, who watched them now. “Talk to my steward.”

  As the girl walked up the hill, Margaret glanced at Eva. “I could not let them leave,” she said. “I could not have slept in my bed, wondering where they slept.”