David the Prince - Scotland 03

by Nigel Tranter

  "Clear me this," he ordered. "And move it there." He gestured sideways, crosswise, into that central space.

  Grinning, Angus actually guffawing, his supporters did as he said, some roughly pushing away the still-standing diners there, others, including David, laying hands on the table, to heave and push it aside, at right-angles to its former position, so that it became islanded out in the middle of the hall, certain beakers and cups spilled in the process. Then its complement of benches were grabbed and dragged out. Edgar sat down centrally, beckoning David to his right hand. Angus seated himself on the King's left, Cospatrick of Dunbar on David's right, the others where they would. The dispossessed guests, looking mortified, unsure, had to go and re-seat themselves where they could.

  Up on the dais, William was glaring down at this unprecedented scene, powerful shoulders hunched, his arm dropped from his favourite now. Then abruptly he laughed loudly, and sat down. Relievedly, in most cases, all others sat also.

  Flambard pointed towards the minstrels' gallery, and music started again, if somewhat raggedly. The long lines of waiting servitors filed in bearing laden trays, platters and dishes.

  "That was good!" David said to his brother. "Splendid! I wish my friends could have been here to see it. I would never have thought of that."

  "It is but the first move," Edgar said heavily. "Rufus has all the cards." Proof of this assessment was speedily forthcoming. A resplendent character wearing a white, lace-edged linen towel over his left forearm - no doubt the Deputy Chief Butler - came hurrying down from the dais, giving orders to the servants. Swiftly it became evident what those orders were. No food or drink was brought to the Scots table.

  By the time that the last, and lowliest, of the other guests were served, Edgar's face was expressionless but his knuckles gleamed white, while his friends looked grim. William, chatting and joking with his close companions, did not so much as glance in their direction.

  "Walk out!" the Earl of Angus suggested, loudly, and there were murmurs of agreement from others.

  The King of Scots sat still, very still — and none could move until he did.

  Everywhere men watched, all but holding their breaths.

  Then there was a diversion. Up at the dais-table a man three seats from William's right rose to his feet, and rounding the table-end, stepped down and walked towards the Scots. He was in his early thirties, short-legged and wide-shouldered also, but with close-cropped dark hair and sallow angular features.

  "Henry. Henry Beauclerc," David said. "He is better. Has shown me favours at times."

  This man came up, and bowed to Edgar, not low but civilly. "I greet you well, my lord King," he said. "We have not met, I think? I was long in Normandy. But I know this young man, the Prince David. I am Henry fitz William."

  "Your renown is known to me, Prince Henry," Edgar acknowledged carefully. "We might have met under, under kinder circumstances."

  "No doubt. We may not always choose our circumstances -but we may perhaps mend them a little. Or bend them!" He smiled faintly. "If you can make room at your table, Highness, I would esteem myself honoured to sit with you?"

  Edgar drew a quick breath - as did others there, who heard. "That would much pleasure me, sir," he said, and there was no disguising the relief in his voice. He gestured to his side, his right, and David eagerly moved over, closer to the young Earl of Dunbar, to provide space.

  Henry came and sat, every eye in the hall on him. He patted David's shoulder and murmured a word or two to Edgar, then, looking up, gestured peremptorily to the nearest servitors, pointing at the empty platters. Glancing uneasily at each other, at the Deputy Chief Butler and up towards the dais, these hastily brought meats and wines. They dared not disobey the King of England's brother.

  "How is Your Highness's other brother, Alexander?" the prince asked. "Him I have met. And there are two others, are there not, still alive?"

  "Alexander, Earl of Gowrie, is well — if unruly!" Edgar answered. "Yes, Ethelred and Edmund still live - both older than I am. But they are churchmen. Ethelred - he now names himself Hugh — always has been. Edmund's. . . reform, is more recent!"

  "Ah. Brothers can present their problems!"

  At the other end of the hall King William shrugged off his glaring, and resumed his converse with his associates.

  The banquet proceeded more normally.

  Presently William clapped his hands for entertainers, and after a moment in filed a troupe of dancers, about a dozen of them, in colourful and fairly diaphanous dresses, long-haired pretty creatures, girlish, none over seventeen by the look of them, cheeks rouged, bared shoulders powdered white. The musicians struck up a languorous rhythmic melody, and the dancers proceeded to swan gracefully in couples up and down the central space - with the Scots table inevitably somewhat in the way. At first all was most decorous and pleasing, the performers willowy, supple but virginal, schooled to perfection in step and timing— although their efforts were greeted by hoots and catcalls from the all-male gathering, led from the dais. Then the music began to speed up and to change its character as well as its tempo. The dancers responded, their chaste and artistic movements becoming jerkier, more angular, less restrained. Soon the .dance had become quite wild, although still in fair time with the music, with much kicking and bending and parting of legs. This exercise revealed that the long flowing skirts were, in fact, slit front and rear, almost all the way from ankles to waists, frequently displaying much or all of the said active legs. But revealing more than that, as the high-stepping and cavorting became ever more abandoned and the dancers were apt to be bared momentarily right up to their crotches, where all were seen to be possessed of male genitalia, the bouncing breasts above proving to be skilfully artificial.

  Now the performers, panting with their exertions, slowed with the music to a less violent exercise, replacing it with a disciplined but lewd and highly indecent posturing, in pairs still, thrusting and weaving, bending and twisting to each other. The watchers cheered and egged them on with both advice and insults.

  The Scots party sat uncomfortably throughout. There were no prudes amongst them, and most were necessarily fairly tough in their attitudes. But this sort of behaviour was new to them, unthought of for entertainment. Edgar in especial looked unhappy, frequently glancing sidelong towards his younger brother. They had been strictly brought up by a determined saintly mother.

  "You do not admire my brother's tastes and diversions, Highness?" Henry Beauclerc wondered. "Yet you, like he, remain unwed."

  Edgar reached for his wine beaker and did not answer.

  David spoke. "Is this not evil, my lord Henry? Against all God's laws? Can a realm prosper when such as this is practised openly by rulers?"

  "Do not ask me, young man - since none others ever do! What is evil? Is there such a thing as evil? Or are there but offences to others, inconveniences, inexpediencies and the behaviour of others contrary to one's own?"

  "There is evil!" the boy said, with certainty. "Is not disorder evil? Untruth? Worst of all, cruelty, unkindness, man's inhumanity to others. So our lady-mother taught us — and she knew.''

  "Ah, the good and clever Margaret! Perhaps not all of us had your . . . advantages, lad. And yet —did not His Highness your brother, here, act with scant kindness towards your uncle, as I heard? King Donald. I heard, even in far Normandy, that when he defeated him in battle, he put out his two eyes and sent him to his kitchens to act as the scullion. For the rest of his life. Was that evil? Or was it . . . justice?"

  It was the youth's turn to remain silent. He had wept one sleepless night when he had heard of that dire deed of his brother, three years before. He could by no means defend it.

  Edgar did, if abruptly. "Would you have had me slay him? Take his life? My own father's brother. It was that — or what I did. He had twice grasped the throne. Once from Duncan, our half-brother, once from myself. He would have done so again. Is he better in my kitchen? Or in the grave?"

  "So it was justi
ce and expediency — not evil." Henry waved a hand towards the dancers. "And this - this could be folly, misdemeanour, balourdise — but is it evil?"

  "Yes," the two brothers said.

  The dancers retired, to loud applause, and a single singer with a lute came in. There was no doubt about the sex of this one, at least, for dressed in the height of fashion, he nevertheless wore an enormous image of an upright male organ strapped to his groin, flesh-coloured, perhaps three times the size of even the most ambitious, and this he waggled and flapped as he minced and capered, strumming his lute the while. As he broke into a song, catchy and tuneful but quickly evident as obscene as his appearance, Edgar mac Malcolm suddenly rose to his feet.

  "Enough!" he jerked.

  All his party rose also, of course, even Henry, although he delayed for a moment.

  "I thank you, my lord Henry, for your courtesy," the King of Scots said, shortly. Then drawing himself up, he looked towards William at the dais, and nodded his head in the merest suggestion of a bow. Turning, he stalked to the nearest door, his people after him.

  Unknown as it was for any guest to leave the monarch's presence lacking express permission, none could confidently assert that this applied to another monarch, even William. That man, as abruptly, laughed loudly - as dutifully did most of his supporters. The singer sang on.

  The Scots party returned to St. John's Hospice. David went to his own palace quarters, where were his sisters. And Henry Beauclerc walked back to his place at the dais-table and resumed his seat, ignored by his brother.

  * * *

  The next day's Crown-wearing ceremony was, in fact, something of an anti-climax, certainly nothing worth the Scots having made all their long journey to attend. But then, it was not meant to be. It was merely an excuse, to remind them and all others that William was master and that the King of Scots must come at his bidding. Any other pretext would have served equally as well. It was not directed only at the Scots, of course, but at all Rufus's feudal vassals, the Norman baronage in especial, which his father the Conqueror had set up and which by its very nature was liable to become uppish and out-of-hand. The native Saxon chiefs and ealdormen were now little trouble, fairly thoroughly cowed. But some of the new Norman earls and lords had waxed altogether too powerful for the King's liking, some owning as many as two hundred manors. William greatly blamed his father for so lavishly rewarding his old comrades-in-arms-or allowing them to reward themselves. So every now and again he held a Crown-wearing demonstration, just to remind all concerned of their true position, of his powers and their subordination, at which it was obligatory to attend, on summons. It was, in reality, just a sort of repeat of the coronation, much foreshortened. There had not been one for four years.

  A herald came that morning to command that the King of Scots be in position in the forecourt of the cathedral by one hour before noon. Edgar treated this instruction with reserve, especially when young David arrived at the hospice with his two sisters, shortly after, and mentioned that they had been told that they must be in their place inside the church only twenty minutes before noon. So it was evident that their elder brother was going to be kept hanging about outside, like some underling, for almost an hour, with the ceremony itself not starting until mid-day. He decided to delay his appearance considerably.

  The two Scots princesses, from the nunnery at Romsey Abbey, aged nineteen and sixteen years, were attractive girls, however unflatteringly dressed - as was to be expected in daughters of the beautiful Margaret Atheling- but very different in appearance as in character. The elder - actually she had been christened Eadgyth, given a Saxon name like all Margaret's children, but had always been called by her second name of Matilda - was a tall and very lovely creature, fair-haired, well-built, prominently-breasted, with a quick wit and equally quick temper.. Whereas Mary was more like David, slight, dark, quiet, with fine eyes and a thoughtful expression. They greeted their elder brother warmly enough, but they did not really know him very well, for one way or another most of his life had been spent apart from them. And they held it against him somewhat that he had never managed — if he had really tried - to get them out of the clutches of their Aunt Christina, Abbess of Romsey, and a monastic life which Matilda in especial loathed. They were not nuns, in fact, but had long been treated almost as such by their sternly pious aunt. This was hardly the occasion for much discussion on that long-standing problem, and William Rufus's part in it, but the subject did not fail to come up, if briefly.

  In due course, as it drew on towards mid-day, the herald arrived back in some agitation, to demand, in the King's name, why the lord Edgar of Scotland had not appeared, as commanded, before the cathedral. He must come, at once. The herald was considerably more upset before, sometime later, the royal party, with the other Scots notables, set out eventually in a distinctly leisurely progress through the climbing streets, thronged even more notably, to the higher part of the city.

  Edgar found Flambard the Justiciar in charge outside the great church, who greeted him coldly but with a hint of relief. The group of notables assembled there were no more forthcoming. But then, none of them looked particularly happy or pleased to be present anyway. Edgar recognised only a few, including the Earls of Surrey, Shrewsbury and Warwick, but most were unknown to him. He guessed that all were in much the same situation as himself. These three he knew certainly were not William's friends, so probably the others were not cither. None, so far as he could see, had graced the dais-table last night. Like himself, they were being used, forced to take a prominent part in this ceremony, as indicative of their dependence upon and subservience to King William.

  David and his sisters were hurried off by one of Flambard's minions, to take their allotted places in the cathedral. The rest of the Scots party were ignored entirely.

  David was surprised to find himself being led up through the already crowded church of St. Swithin to quite a prominent position near the chancel-steps, amongst the great ones. This was a new experience, for hitherto his family had been almost entirely disregarded by the Red King and left in no doubts as to their unimportance. After last night's performance, it would be foolish to imagine that this represented any change of heart. So, when he and his sisters were placed at the front of the chattering, richly-clad throng in the south transept, facing into the crossing, he decided that they were there to be seen, for William's own purposes - and these were unlikely to be kindly. He perceived, directly opposite, Henry Beauclerc standing, a little way apart from the rest in the north transept, but with two ladies, both over-dressed and neither beautiful. The prince waved a greeting to David.

  "Who is that?" Matilda asked. "Someone prepared to know us!"

  "Prince Henry, the King's brother. The one we told you of, who aided us last night. I do not know the women."

  "The taller one is the Princess Adela, Countess of Richmond and of Blois. She came to Romsey with another sister, the Abbess of Caen, in Normandy, last year. I do not know the shorter one. Probably another of the King's sisters."

  They gazed around them at the vast congregation —although it was not really that, for almost certainly this was not to be any occasion for worship. William was wholly irreligious, hating all priests and priestcraft; and the chattering, noisy company gave no indication of being aware that they were in a sacred edifice. No doubt the cathedral was being used merely because it was the largest building in Winchester.

  Henry surprised again by coming strolling over to them. "A good day to you," he nodded, casually friendly. "Not improved by wearisome waiting! For myself, I mislike all such mummery." He was speaking to David but his eyes were on Matilda. "I vow that your royal brother, too, will be glad when it is over.

  Is this . . . are these beautiful creatures your princess sisters? Make me known to them, I pray you."

  "This is Matilda. And here is Mary, my lord Prince."

  "Ah, yes - Matilda. And Mary. I am lost in admiration." He took Mary's hand and raised it to his lips, and then Matilda's -and
hung on to it. "My eyes feast. I swear that I am going to enjoy this day's tiresome nonsense after all!" He looked into the older girl's eyes, frankly admiring.

  "You cozen, my lord," she said, gently withdrawing her hand. "Amongst all your Court beauties, male as well as female, we are not for your notice!"

  "Ha!" he observed. "That is the way of it, is it? Wit, as well as loveliness! My tastes, I would assure you, Princess, are not my brother's! Nor any of my family's, for that matter." He grimaced, and turned back to David. "Do you tell me, my young friend, that you have been hiding away this, this treasure in Romsey Abbey all these years?"

  "We have been there, yes, for six years, my lord. As to hiding, I know not."

  "Being hidden, perhaps," Matilda amended quietly. "Not of our choice."

  "Sb-o-o! You would be out therefrom?" "Yes."

  "I think, then . . ." he began, when the blare of trumpets interrupted him, a stirring fanfare echoing and rebounding amongst the lofty stone walling.

  Henry bowed to the girls, shrugged ruefully at the same time, and walked unhurriedly back to his own place just as his brother made his entry from the chapter-house doorway.

  William was dressed magnificently today in cloth-of-gold seeded with pearls, beneath a scarlet cloak trimmed with miniver and thrown back, a jewel studded belt around his ample waist. He had an ungainly walk as he strutted to his throne-like chair placed isolated just above the chancel-steps and in front of the screens which partly hid the choir and high altar. Behind him trooped his personal entourage.

  Sitting, and the others arranging themselves behind him, a motley crew, mainly men younger than himself, the King raised a hand for silence.