Margaret the Queen

by Nigel Tranter

  His hearers listened, angry and depressed — Edgar, Waltheof, Merleswegen, Siward Biorn, Bishop Ethelwin and one or two others besides Cospatrick's group. Edwin was not there — indeed there was a story that survivors had actually seen the Earl being struck down by his own men, during the later shambles at Pymore, presumably blamed for that debacle. None, not even Cospatrick, had suggestions to make to deal hopefully with the situation — other than to ensure that they sold their lives dearly.

  Hereward declared, then, that he had not defied the Conqueror for all these months by hanging on in hopeless entrenched positions. He was going to move out, before it was too late, before dawn indeed. His fenmen would melt away into their marshes, to reassemble in due course somewhere else. There were sufficient boats available around the Ely island to carry away most of those who might wish to flee. But they would have to go in ones and twos, to infiltrate in the darkness. No mass exodus would get through.

  There was little enthusiasm for this course, much disagreement. Many of the Saxons declared that they were not going to scuttle off again like water-rats, into the unknown fens. They had had enough of fleeing cravenly. They would fight here, where they had at least some advantage, fight and die if need be, repelling the invaders. Also many were wounded and in poor state to face hurried and hazardous journeying in boats. Presenting a strong front, if they repulsed the first assault, they might well win not unfavourable terms from the Normans — so said Morkar, and most concurred.

  Hereward was adamant. They could do as they would. He was for off. Already they had caused him much trouble and loss. And he advised against any bargaining with Odo, who would renege on any terms.

  Thurstan agreed with his friend, and advised flight. He himself must remain with his abbey here, his simple duty before God.

  Cospatrick, brows raised towards Maldred, nodded.

  Hereward had the rights of it, he maintained. This was a campaign, not one battle. They must save what they could, to fight another day in better circumstances. The Scots would accept Hereward's offer to get them out of Ely as quickly as possible.

  Surprisingly perhaps, Edgar, who was not good at making up his mind, came to a decision and threw in his lot with Cospatrick without being asked. No doubt the security of far-away Scotland beckoned him, however much he might deplore the company he must keep to get there. None of the Saxons sought to dissuade him.

  So it was settled. Hereward reserved a few boats for his own use and then sent word that his people should disperse as best they could, in small numbers, to reassemble when they could, in the Wisbech area to the north. He, and those who wished to accompany him, would move off at midnight.

  In the end, only Bartolomeo Leslie, the Hungarian, Merleswegen and the Thane Archil, chose to accompany Edgar, with the dozen or so surviving Scots. Farewells were brief, and save with Thurstan, with few regrets on either side. Defeat and disaster make for simplification of relationships.

  Hereward led his little string of boats out on to the dark waters soon after the abbey bells had tolled twelve. Torches were glowing along the line of the building causeway, and campfires by the score gleamed all along the western shore. No doubt many of the Norman seaborne crews had landed by now to east and south, but in darkness on strange ground these were unlikely to mount any attack until daylight.

  Hereward held close inshore for a while, waiting until he calculated that he was opposite a waterway to the north through Burnt Fen, actually one of the many channels of the Great Ouse. A quiet but steady row across half-a-mile of water brought them to this without challenge — or so their guides assured the visitors, for these could make out little or nothing in the gloom.

  A little way up what was presumably the Ouse, however, they ran into trouble when the leading craft was suddenly confronted by a line of boats stretched across the river, only a few yards ahead. Hereward, as the shouts rang out, waved up his other craft on either side of him and drove straight in at the barrier, standing in the bows, sword swinging and yelling his own slogan. In a few hectic and confused moments of slashing and rocking and flailing, they cut their way through — for the barrier was only one boat thick — and rowed on little the worse. Hereward declared that here was something the Normans did not know how to do. Had the enemy boats been linked together by ropes, and held broadside on, and double-ranked, it would have been very difficult to get through. They had probably been alerted by previous escapers from Ely using these Ouse channels.

  After that there were no further incidents, as they crept and crawled their way through the maze of nightbound waterways, reaches and channels which constituted the River Ouse's ultimate approach to salt water. Moving almost due north now, dawn did not seem greatly to expedite their progress for white mists now rose from the marshlands, to no improvement. Nevertheless, when at last the sun rose and dispersed the mists, Hereward assured that they had made good progress. This was St. Mary Magdalen Fen near Watlington, and they had covered some twenty-five miles — perhaps sixteen as the crow flew. This was all part of his own unconquered terrain and there was little chance of them being pursued now.

  They rested and refreshed themselves at the village of Wiggenhall, where Hereward was received as a hero even if the others were eyed with suspicion. Quite a number of his men from Ely were already here. He was leading them, he told his passengers, as he left all but one of the accompanying boats there, to the port of Lynn, where they ought to be able to find a deep-sea fishing-vessel to put them at least some of the way back to Scotland. They would have to go carefully, for Lynn was probably where the Norman boat-fleet had started from — although it was not normally in Norman hands — and they might have left some of their people there. He would go on ahead and do what he could to And them a ship. But such would cost money. However, that was the one thing that they had sufficient of, was it not?

  Hereward was as good as his word, and presently he came back to escort them into Lynn's west shore, where, with no sign of Normans about, he presented the fugitives to a surly East Anglian skipper, two-thirds Dane, who would take them as far north as Whitby Eskmouth, no further — for a price. They did not haggle, even though Cospatrick grumbled that they were not buying the ugly, smelly craft, only hiring it.

  Gratefully they said goodbye to Hereward, telling him that he was the finest Englishman they had encountered, and wishing that there were more like him. Wishing him well in his warfare, they pressed on him a substantial contribution from their treasure, declaring that it could not be in better hands. Even so, that man was doubtful about accepting. He seemed to have a suspicion of gold, a rare affliction.

  He was going back to continue the struggle, he said — and the travellers felt somehow shamed as they waved him farewell from the smack's deck.

  They put to sea almost immediately.

  11

  MALCOLM CANMORE DID not like failures, and made the fact sufficiently clear as he stamped up and down his hall-floor at Dunfermline, glaring at the three returned travellers before him.

  "I tell you, the Saxons' weakness and folly are no excuse for your own," he berated them. "You knew what to expect. You, Cospatrick, I set in command. You, Edgar, claim their obedience. You both knew my wishes, my orders. As did you, Maldred. Yet you allowed prideful half-wits and wilful dullards to over-rule you. To the ruination of all."

  "I protest!" Edgar rose at the table. "I will not be spoken to so. Like some scullion . . . !"

  "Sit down, man. Back to the board from which you are fed! Under this my roof in which you and yours are housed. Have you any other? Board or roof? Then think well before you lose these! In this realm I speak as I will — and do more than speak." He turned. "You grin, Cospatrick — you grin! I could make you grin much otherwise — and should, by God!"

  "No doubt, Highness. I but relish your humour — you who speak so loud here, but scarce so loud in Saxon-land! They scarce hear you, there, I fear. Even the prince, here, had difficulty in making his voice heard. Those Saxons have deaf ears and a
loud pride. Have you ever tried to lead a Saxon army, cousin?"

  "From all I hear none led the Saxons. They were like the swine in Holy Writ."

  Maldred blinked at that. To hear Malcolm quoting Holy Writ was new. So much for marriage.

  "I am no swineherd," Cospatrick observed. "But we carried out your commands as best we could, lacking your royal presence. Which might have worked miracles! And if it had been a Scots fleet and host which sailed to Lynn and Ely instead of a Norman one, all might have been otherwise."

  The King eyed him levelly. "No such Scots fleet was to be sent before I had word of some success."

  "I sent word of the gold. And we have seen no sign of any fleet, any number of ships, assembled here in the Scottish Sea or the Firth. I fear that you were not anticipating that word of success!"

  Malcolm switched his attack. "With the gold and siller you gained from that archbishop — who is now dead, I learn — you ought to have been able to buy half the men in England, man!"

  "Men gold will buy — but not wits, leadership, in their masters."

  "Who got the moneys?"

  "Many. But chiefly the Earl Edwin, now slain. And his brother Morkar." "And what is left?"

  "That." Cospatrick whipped a single gold crucifix on a chain out from within his tunic and tossed it over the table in front of the King. "It will serve for your lady-wife, the Queen, perhaps." He spoke casually, but his glance caught Maldred's in the by-going, with its message.

  That young man swallowed. Was his silence being bought? Blatantly? A contribution to the Queen's cause, which he had made so much his own. And in return he was not to reveal that he knew that there was a great deal more treasure left than that. Edgar would not know of it, never having been informed of the extent of the hoard. Cospatrick, it seemed, was aiming to keep the gold.

  Malcolm picked up the handsome crucifix, shrugged, and set it down on the table again. "She shall have it, when she returns. And no doubt will thank you. A pity that there was not more." But that was as casually said. To do him justice, the King had never been greatly concerned with money and material wealth.

  Maldred did not speak.

  "It was Saxon gold. Given for the Saxon cause," Edgar mentioned — and was ignored.

  "Tell me of this battle. Of Ely?" Malcolm said. "How it went. The Norman's methods for victory."

  "It was no battle, cousin. The Normans used their forces skilfully, yes. But the Saxons defeated themselves. Would not heed us. That was at this Pymore Fen. A slaughter. Later, what happened at Ely itself, after Hereward won some of us clear, we know not..."

  "I know. Morkar, your brother Waltheof, and the other fools attempted a fight of sorts. Then yielded to the man Odo, the Bastard's bastard brother. On terms. Whereafter, he hanged some of them and sent the others marching in chains, at horses' tails, to William at Winchester!"

  "In chains? Hanged? Who? Which? Do you know?"

  "Morkar and Waltheof, the earls — that I know. In the chains. Siward Biorn. Even Bishop Ethelwin — another churchman..."

  "Ethelwin! The good Ethelwin!" Edgar wrung his hands.

  "Waltheof would rather have died, I say, than walk in chains," Cospatrick said harshly.

  "And Thurstan? The Abbot Thurstan?" Maldred demanded.

  "I know not. No abbot was named to me. I had the word through a ship-master two days back. Into Dysart. From the Humber. Who travelled more quickly than you, it seems."

  "We were much delayed. Had no little difficulty," Edgar said. "At the hands of rogues and scoundrels."

  "Your Saxon subjects!" Malcolm observed unkindly.

  "So that is Odo of Bayeux!" Cospatrick exclaimed. "Chief Justice of" England! My foolish brother! At least they were warned. Hereward told them how it would be. I urged Wattie to come with us . . ."

  "These are weak men. They will talk," the King interrupted, almost accusingly. "When William questions, they will talk — nothing surer. They will tell him of you, Cospatrick. And the Scots part in this mismanagement folly. So — we may look for trouble, in due course. From William. He will not forget it." "Are you blaming that on me?"

  "If it had been a victory, you would have taken the credit, would you not?"

  The cousins stared at each other.

  "So I am to be the scapegoat? I will not thole it, Malcolm, I tell you -— I will not thole it!"

  "You will thole whatever I put upon you, cousin. You are one of my earls, now. Remember it, always. And now — begone. All of you. Out of my presence. God help me, I have sufficient to trouble me . . . !"

  Thankfully Maldred made his escape.

  He discovered that the Queen was not presently at Dunfermline. She was, in fact, at Malcolm's summer palace, the Ward of the Stormounth, up between Gowrie and Atholl. She was pregnant, now six months gone, it seemed; and the palace gossip was that since she would no longer allow the King to lie with her, he found it more tolerable to have her out of his sight. So he had sent her to the Ward for the interim. Another version was that he had found himself to be so badly in need of a rest from religious devotions and family piety that some such device had been essential. Also he could no longer stand the presence of the Princesses Agatha and Christina, and all had been packed off. Magda, of course, had gone with them.

  Maldred, next morning, sought permission to go visit the Queen, and received curt dispensation.

  * * *

  The Ward of the Stormounth was a pleasant smiling place, even for almost November — for it was as late as that in the year, the fugitives from Ely having taken over a month to win their way back to Scotland. The Ward, just over thirty miles due north of Dunfermline, as the crow flies, was almost twenty more by the shortest road Maldred could ride, round the Cleish Hills, past Loch Leven, through the Ochils, across Tay at St. John's Town of Perth, and up to the junction of Tay and Isla thereafter, into the fair land of the Stormounth, which comprised the foothill country of the Highland Line between Blair-in-Gowrie and Dunkeld. Maldred covered it in seven hours of hard riding however, thankful to be off on his own, free of difficult companions, outwith the oppressive atmosphere of Malcolm's palace — and feminine company ahead. Occasionally he sang as he rode, albeit tunelessly.

  The sight of the great rock-and-heather mountains ahead of him always gave him a lift of the heart, anyway — he was, after all, an Athollman and these were the hills of home to him. They drew him on now, blue slashed with deep purple shadow, above the russets and sepias of the autumn woodlands. The Ward was set amongst those coloured woodlands, on the crest of a grassy ridge of the rolling foothills to the west of the Loch of Clunie. Although called a palace it was nothing of the sort, no more than one more extensive hall-house, with clustered outbuildings, set like so many another within the circular turf-and-stone ramparts of an early Pictish fort. The Picts had always an eye for a fine site, with scenic as well as defensive advantages, for they were an artistic people with a great sense of beauty and form. This site was particularly lovely, not grand or impressive but gentle, sylvan, retired, really now a hunting-lodge in the lap of the mountains yet not difficult of access, lying between Dunsinane and Dunkeld.

  The sun was sinking behind the forested Birnam hills to the west when Maldred rode up and into the courtyard. He was hardly dismounted, and shouting for a groom, when Margaret herself came running out to greet him, Queen, pregnant or none, laughing, calling out, arms wide. And she was heart-breakingly lovely, despite her prominent belly, flushed, sparkling-eyed, the picture of health, like some harvest-goddess indeed, rather than any demure Bride of Christ.

  "Maldred — my good and dear Maldred!" she cried, clasping him to her and kissing him on one cheek and then the other. "You are safe back. Thank God! It has been long, long. Oh, it is good to see you. We feared for you — for you all."

  Somewhat overwhelmed, and very aware of that belly pressing against him, he made incoherent noises and stirred a little within her grasp. He was, after all, in only his twentieth year and had never before been embraced
by another man's pregnant wife, much less that of his dread monarch — greatly as he admired the embracer.

  Perhaps she perceived his slight embarrassment. She drew back, but still held him, at arm's length now, to examine him frankly.

  "Are you well?" she demanded. "You look more thin — as I do not! But . . . none so ill. I praise the dear Lord." She recollected. "And Edgar? Is my brother well? Returned also?"

  "Well," he nodded. "Scarce content, but well enough."

  "You were not successful, then?"

  "No. Leastways, not in the main. In the prince's business, it was a sore disappointment. But ... in other matters we did none so ill." He turned to his horse, which a groom was now beginning to lead away, and from the saddlebag extracted an obviously heavy leather satchel. He held it out to her. "You laid a mission upon me, lady. Here is the result. See — you will require both hands, for it is weighty."

  "Maldred — you did not forget! Oh, my dear, I thank you. So good, so kind." She tried to open the bag but could not, finding that it took her all her strength to hold it. She set it down on the courtyard cobblestones then found that she could not stoop to open it because of her great stomach.