"I think not yet awhile. Are you in such haste to be rid of me?"
"Lord, no! I but feared that you might."
"Feared? You did? Do I bow my grateful thanks?"
Warily he eyed her, and changed the subject. "This of going off amongst the poor, of choosing to speak with them. Why does she do it? What does she seek?"
"Why, she loves the poor. Or so she says. As Holy Writ prescribes! They are to be cherished and comforted."
"Why?"
"Maldred, have you no Christian charity in you? If you have not, you will not get far with your new Queen!"
"I meant, what is comforting the poor to do with being a queen? I would not harm them, misuse them, tread them under, as some do. But this cosseting such folk, I do not understand."
"I think that she does it as her duty. She desires to be queen not only of the powerful and the rich, but of all. She has seen sufficient of what can happen to the poor. Is that not good, proper?"
He shrugged. "I do not know. But I think that Malcolm will scarcely consider it so."
"Then your Malcolm will have to learn. Like the rest of you! Will he not? Learn much."
He chewed on that for a little, thoughtfully. Madach came up.
It was quite some time before the King and Queen returned. The entertainment and the drinking had gone on apace, and the hall was growing progressively noisier, the company less restrained. In the circumstances, it would not have been surprising if Margaret had suggested a fairly prompt retiral; but in fact it was now Malcolm who was for off and Margaret who seemed to wish to linger on, moving around and making herself pleasant. None, of course, might retire from the hall before the monarch, and the Princesses Agatha and Christina were soon adding their pressure to the bride and groom to make a move — although Edgar was too drunk to care. Presently Margaret could no longer decently delay, and she turned to cast a last and almost panic-stricken look around the hall as her husband grasped her arm strongly. Her eye caught Maldred's and for a moment he almost believed that there was a kind of appeal in it. Then she was led away, with all sober enough to do so rising in valedictory salute.
As they disappeared, Maldred slammed down on the table the beaker he had been drinking from, and without a word to any swung about and marched out of the other doorway with a slightly unsteady gait. He was, in fact, just a little drunk himself. Magda, at least, noted his departure.
Next day Margaret Atheling was calm, poised and contained, if rather more reserved, less outgoing than she had been recently. Apparently she had been very early at her devotions, despite all the circumstances. Malcolm, for his part, was more forthcoming than usual, almost genial, with something of a proprietary air. He seldom let his new wife out of his sight.
The feasting and celebrations went on — as indeed they were to do for the rest of that week in one form or another, not all at Dunfermline, with the royal couple honouring the houses and tables of such of the nation's great ones as lay within a half-day's journey; for Malcolm was not so besotted with his new acquisition as to forget the threat from England. He kept his armies mustered — and a great trial they were to their various assembly areas — and was ready, with his lords, to join them at short notice.
The Queen gave no outward sign that she found the married state any ordeal — unless an actual increase in religious exercises could be so construed. These had to be held early in the morning, in view of the full day's activities, and were performed alone or in the company of the monk Turgot — who clearly had made a major impression on Margaret — her husband certainly not co-operating. Magda, who still did duty as principal lady-in-waiting, even though less closely than heretofore, said that her mistress was apt to emerge from these devotional sessions showing signs of tears — although whether from religious ecstasy or otherwise, who could tell? Hitherto her orisons had not produced such reactions.
Malcolm, it seemed, developed his own views on this matter, for at the end of that first week he sent the man Turgot packing, back to Durham. The next day, Low Sunday, the Queen kept to her room. But thereafter she appeared to be more or less herself again, another marriage-hurdle over.
There were those at Court who hoped that it would not be so very long before the other Athelings themselves, and their hangers-on, likewise got their marching orders. Magda, commenting on this, suggested that Margaret might indeed be less affected by such eventuality.
8
MALCOLM FRETTED, AND his lords with him. He had been very patient, none could assert otherwise. But at this rate they would not reach Kilrymont for many hours yet, perhaps not even by nightfall. Yesterday they had not covered a score of miles. He had accepted, when he agreed to take Margaret and her women with him, that the journey would take longer. Alone, he could have covered the forty miles from Dunfermline in a day, easily enough. But here they were, nearly at noon on the second day, not yet at Corn Ceres. Not because the women could ride no faster, but because of this everlasting and time-wasting concern for the most useless folk in his kingdom, beggars, cripples, lepers, vagabonds, even slaves, on all of whom his new wife seemed to dote. Where such were concerned time and trouble — and his own royal wishes, seemingly — were of no account. Nor his money. Already practically all of the silver coin he had brought with him had been expended — not in defraying expenses and rewarding suitable subjects, but handed out like some priest's broadcast benedictions on all the riff-raff of Fife. It was not to be borne.
"My dear," he said loudly, interrupting Margaret's interrogation of the half-naked slut with two bairns at heel. "A mercy — enough! You desired to see Kilrymont — St. Andrews. We shall never win there if we stop for all this land's scum and trash. Your soft heart does you credit, no doubt. But we require wits as well as hearts. I have a realm to rule. Affairs await me. We could have been at St. Andrews by now — and we are not yet at Corn Ceres. Mount, lass — and let us be on our way, in God's good name."
There were murmurs from most of the illustrious company, not actually spoken agreement, for the Queen was the Queen, but leaving no doubt as to how they felt. Even Maldred nodded his head.
Margaret looked up, but kept a hand on one of the children's doubtless louse-ridden tangle of hair.
"To be sure, my lord — if that is your command," she said mildly. "But is God's good name not as well served by cherishing His lambs, as the Lord Christ commanded, as in hastening to this council? And these unhappy folk are part of your realm, are they not?"
"As fleas are pan of the hound-dog, perhaps!" the King jerked. "Come, I say."
She sighed, but inclined her head dutifully, and turned back to her horse. Maldred, who had aided her to dismount, stepped over to help her up to the saddle again. But on an impulse, Margaret turned back, and sweeping off the fur-lined travelling-cloak she wore, draped it round the part-bare and unwashed shoulders of the other young woman — who shrank within it almost as though it had burned her.
Malcolm snorted and heeled his beast into movement, not waiting for his bride of two weeks to mount. That cloak had been a present from himself.
As they rode on, Maldred reined over to his chosen place at Magda's side. "Foolishness," he said, low-voiced.
"On whose part?" she wondered.
He raised his brows. "Her's — the Queen's. To offend the King unnecessarily is never wise. This King in especial. Ingebiorg discovered that!"
"Your King does not know what he has taken in hand!" the girl said briefly. She spurred forward, to offer her own less handsome cloak to Margaret — and had it refused, but with a smile.
They were riding over the higher ground of Craigrothie towards the Howe of Fife, perhaps one hundred strong; and although the April sun penetrated thin high cloud to give a noonday brightness, an easterly breeze off the sea made it cool enough for cloaks to be welcome. Malcolm was leading at a spanking pace now, but the Queen at least was having no difficulty in keeping up, for she was an excellent horsewoman. It was old Duncan, Earl of Fife, who was protesting, gross and bumping
about in his saddle like a basket of peats. Gradually he fell behind, with only a group of his own thanes lingering to escort him.
Presently MacDuff caught up with the Queen nevertheless, if not his monarch and one-time companion-in-arms, just short of Baltilly. It was a scene of rural industry which had halted Margaret, late-spring ploughing proceeding on the rigs of Baltilly township. There were four teams at work on the gentle slope, three of them stolid plodding oxen pulling the heavy wooden ploughs, with small boys goading the brutes on with pointed sticks and thin skirling cries, these last all but drowned in the screechings of the wheeling, swooping flocks of seagulls which followed each team to snatch up the worms and grubs from the new-turned soil. Two stooping men steered each massive plough. It made an inspiriting, timeless picture. But it was not at these that Margaret was looking, but at the fourth team. Instead of eight oxen, this plough had still more numerous haulers, double the number indeed, although making no faster headway. But these were men and women, who dragged, bent almost double in their harness, stumbling, staggering, whilst the boys attendant used not goads here but whips to improve the pace. Even at a hundred yards or so of range it was noticeable how fair was the hair of most of these plough-pullers.
As MacDuff came up, puffing, the Queen, tight-lipped, halted him with an upraised hand, and then pointed.
"My lord of Fife — these!" she exclaimed, her voice uneven for once. "This, in your Fife! Must I believe what I see?"
The Earl glanced at her sidelong from small pig-like eyes. "Hech, hech — they are but slaves, lady," he panted. "Saxon slaves."
"I am Saxon, my lord! Have you forgot?"
MacDuff moistened his lips. "Prisoners. Taken in the fighting. Better drawing a plough than slain, are they not . . . ?"
"Are they yours?"
"No, no. Not mine." He turned in his saddle. "Machan, these are your lands, are they not? Machan here, Highness, is Thane of Ceres."
"Then, my lord of Ceres, is this your doing? Treating my countrymen — aye, and women too, God forgive you — worse than brute-beasts!"
The youngish dark man looked more surprised than embarrassed. "I bought many slaves, lady. Paid my lord King well for them, too. These no doubt are some of them."
"And this is how you treat fellow-Christians?"
"They are but prisoners, Highness. Won fairly in war. What would you have? Bought with good money. Honest work will not hurt them."
"How much did you pay for them, sir. These countrymen of mine?"
"I bought forty, men and women. And I paid forty silver pieces for them."
"I would have thought thirty more apt! What our blessed Lord was valued at! You shall have the thirty for these, my lord. There are . . . how many? Sixteen, there. You have a good bargain, do you not? Three-quarters of your purchase-price for less than half your goods! I buy them. You shall have your money, never fear. Now — go and release those unhappy people. Loose them. And tell them that they are free."
"But, Highness . . . now?"
"Now, sir. They are mine now. Buy you oxen for your ploughing. You shall have your thirty pieces of silver in good time, I promise you. Maldred — aid you my lord of Ceres in this. And see that these poor Saxons understand that they are free. Come, my friends." And she touched up her mount.
When Maldred and Ceres rejoined the Queen's party it was within the place of Corn Ceres itself, a pleasant and quite large township on the banks of a sizeable stream in a shallow wooded valley, presided over by the thane's rath on one knoll and a cashel of hutments within a wall on another. Margaret was dismounted again, and in the midst of a small crowd, mainly women and children and the aged. It was astonishing how such folk seemed to flock to her as by some instinct. When these saw their own lord ride up, they began to move back warily, and disperse; but the Queen halted that, beckoning them closer again. She was holding by the hand a small boy who had great running sores on cheek and neck and arm. She looked up.
"How then, Maldred? You saw those poor folk released?"
"Yes, Highness. They thank you. They were very grateful. But. . ." "But, Maldred?"
"They did not know what they should do. Do now. Where to go. Prisoners still..."
"They are not prisoners now, but freed. Did you not tell them so?"
"Yes. But — where are they to go? What to do? They are still strangers here, if not enemies. At least, as slaves, they were housed after a fashion, and fed. Now. . . ?"
"We must see to this, Maldred. They should return home. To Northumbria. I shall speak with the King's Highness on this. Meantime, my lord of Ceres here, must see that they lack neither food nor shelter, until they can be sent back. No doubt they will work, decently, honestly, not like cattle but as free men. You hear, my lord . . . ?"
As though not only Ceres but Malcolm himself had heard, at this juncture a horseman arrived from eastwards, none other than Maldred's brother Madach. He rubbed his chin over what he saw there by the burnside.
"Highness — my lord King sent me," he said. "To see what's to do. He is at Pitscottie — beyond there. Five miles on, from here. He is . . . concerned at the delay."
"Indeed, my Lord Madach? I am humbly sorry for that," Margaret returned — and actually sounded so. "As you see, we are detained. So much requiring attention. Here we await heated water and salve brought from the monastery. This child suffers grievously. My noble husband and lord would not have a child to suffer needlessly, I vow, if I can aid. Go tell him, Madach, since His Highness has important matters to see to at St. Andrews, to press on. Not to wait for me. I shall come after, in my own time. Maldred here will attend on us women. That is best."
Madach looked doubtful, but Maldred nodded to him, briefly.
The Queen turned to the huffing and puffing MacDuff of Fife and his impatient-looking party. "My lords — go on, all of you. Join the King. I shall do very well, never fear. All who would be on their way to St. Andrews, go."
With ill-concealed relief practically all the men of the company reined forwards, with the old Earl. Madach saluted and went with them, leaving only Maldred, the Benedictine Oswald and one or two servitors with the Queen and her ladies.
As they went, a group of monks arrived from the cashel of St. Cyr, two bearing a steaming cauldron of water. One, older, introduced himself as the Abbot Cormac and declared that God would assuredly bless the Queen's Highness for her works of mercy.
"Would He not more conveniently blessyou> my friend, and yours, had the mercies been done rather by His Holy Church?" Margaret asked.
The Abbot looked a little put out, but rallied. "Noble daughter — Holy Church never ceases in its work of ministering and prayer for sinful and distressed mankind. But there are so many . . ."
"To be sure, so many." She did not pause in her sponging of the boy's sores with one hand while she held him tightly with the other, as he wriggled to escape; but she gestured with her fair head around at the watching crowd, now grown the larger, so many of them underclad, thin, wasted, diseased. "All these, at your monastery door!"
"We do what we can, Highness. But we have no great resources. Our cashel is poor, save in the spirit. But we pray continually. Prayer is above all necessary, efficacious, my daughter."
"Yes, Father. I pray also. And shall pray for you, my friend, that your works of mercy may be increased and made . . . manifest, more manifest, here at Ceres. The salve now, please — ointment."
"There are more folk here than is usual," Abbot Cormac asserted, defensively. "Many of these have come from afar. Not our own folk. It is the Feast of St. Donnan. We prepare to go in procession to bless the holy wells here. There are five of them. Very sacred, very curative, God be praised."
"Indeed. This boy and his mother have not heard of them, it seems! Now — clean cloth to bind this up." She looked round. Clearly the monks had nothing such with them. Nor the bystanders.
Magda sighed, knowing what must be. Yesterday Margaret herself had cut away part of her own shift for bandaging. Grimacing, she anti
cipated the Queen's plea, and turning to Maldred, raised the front of her skirt.
"Your opportunity, Maldred mac Melmore!" she murmured. "Your dirk, man. Not your stares!"
"Thank you, my dear," Margaret said, smiling.
Flushing, Maldred drew his dirk, and stooping, made a distinctly bungled job of cutting away a fair proportion of the white linen underskirt, seeming to take an inordinate time about it. There were exclamations and some laughter from the crowd, even the monks much interested. Magda turned her eyes heavenwards.
"Cut it in two parts, Maldred," Margaret instructed. "And hold this child." She took the material and plunged it into the cauldron, to wash it. Wringing it as dry as possible, she bound the boy's arm and neck efficiently.
While she worked, she spoke. "This of the Feast of St. Donnan — that is the name? I am glad to hear of it, my friends. No doubt, as well as the procession you spoke of, there will be some true feasting, as is suitable?"
The Abbot cleared his throat. "Some, some modest provender, Highness. For a few of the faithful."
"For all, surely — all, sir. Is your saint interested only in a few? Christ died for all, did He not?"
"To feed many would cost more than we possess, lady. You must understand. We are not rich . . ."
Margaret turned. "Magda — have we any money left?"
"No, Highness."
Margaret the Queen Page 15
