‘No, sire. I am genuinely trying to protect my sister and to prevent Malcolm from overreacting to the provocation you have inflicted on him.’
‘You are impudent to suggest such a thing!’
‘Sire, please. Malcolm may not be able to discern your tactics, but I see them clearly. You could achieve what you want in Scotland without bloodshed. Let me go and try; I’ve done it before.’
Rufus smiled. Despite his foppish appearance he had become a clever and ruthless politician.
‘Very well, but don’t placate him too much. I’ve got him just where I want him.’
We made haste to Scotland and, travelling lighter and faster than Malcolm, managed to get ahead of him before Preston so that I could speak to Margaret in Dunfermline before he arrived.
The sturdy walls of Malcolm’s fortress were always a welcome sight, and Margaret looked as serene as ever.
After a long embrace, I introduced my friends.
‘Edwin of Glastonbury, Knight of England, Sweyn of Bourne, Knight of Normandy and Islam, and Adela of Bourne, Knight of Islam.’
Adela chose not to curtsy, so all three bowed deeply.
‘A lady knight, how interesting; I didn’t know women were allowed to be knights in the world of Islam.’
‘Ma’am, we are not usually, but I earned the right.’
Margaret smiled benignly, then took Adela’s hand to lead her away.
‘I’m sure you did. Come, tell me about it.’
Margaret was a wonderful host and made us all very welcome. She made a particular fuss of Adela, insisting that she sit next to her at dinner later that day.
Adela reciprocated my sister’s warmth by wearing a dress, one given to her by the Queen. It was only the second time I had seen her concede to female convention, the other time being her wedding day, and she looked as fetching now as she did then. Sweyn and Edwin beamed when they saw her – proud of her as a fellow knight, but also as a handsome woman.
Over dinner, I could not help but hear how well Margaret and Adela got on with one another. Margaret was a marvellous listener and conversationalist and made everyone feel at ease. Adela was charmed by her. Inevitably, they talked about me and I was gratified that they were full of praise for my kindness and wisdom. The only negative part of the eavesdropping concerned their misgivings about the lack of appropriate women in my life. I overheard that my greying hair and increasingly gaunt appearance should be telling me that I needed to settle down and raise a family!
Malcolm returned the next morning and, although calmer than when he had left Gloucester, was still in no mood to listen to reason.
‘I suppose you’ve come to tell me to calm down?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, your fop of a King has set me up for a fall, but I’m going to teach him a lesson. He’s not half the man his father was. I respected William and his army, but this boy is no match for me.’
‘He may not be William the Bastard, but he’s cunning, immensely rich and can call on the same Norman army his father built.’
‘I have always listened to your advice and followed it. I’m going to do it again. I’ll avoid a direct confrontation, but I’m going south to plunder and burn until he comes north again to settle with me, then I’ll retire once more to count the windfall for my treasury. But if he insists on a fight, then so be it: this time I’ll fight.’
‘I think this time you should reconsider; he’s up to something. What he did in Gloucester was far too deliberate. I smell a rat.’
‘Nonsense, he’s just an arrogant little upstart.’
No amount of cajoling could persuade Malcolm to be cautious. So, while we stayed with Margaret in Dunfermline, he launched a series of raids deep into England, returning with more to plunder each time. When he returned to his fortress in early November, I tried once more to persuade him not to go south again. My suspicions had grown as he reported only token resistance from the Normans in the west as far south as Lancaster.
‘His tactic is to make you complacent. Winter is coming; lie low until the spring.’
‘My scouts tell me his army is on the move through Mercia. When he gets to Durham, I’ll pull in my horns and parlay with him on my terms. There’s time for one more raid. I have my eye on Alnwick.’
Neither Margaret nor I could make him listen. Two days later, he was heading south yet again.
Margaret was very anxious.
‘Would you go with him and try to make him come home as soon as possible? He’s taken Edward with him – he wants to toughen him up, but he’s only a boy.’
I knew how important young Edward was to Margaret. She had already lost her stepson, Duncan, who was still confined in the Norman court at Rouen. But Duncan was the offspring of Malcolm’s Norwegian first wife, Ingebjorg, whereas Edward was Margaret’s firstborn and thus very precious to her.
‘Of course. I’ll try, but Malcolm is very stubborn – I can’t make him listen to me.’
‘Do what you can and bring them home safely.’
The King did not care one way or the other whether we accompanied him or not; his only condition was a blunt instruction to stay out of his way. So, to comply with his demand and to avoid compromising our relationship with the Normans, we kept a safe distance from his raiding party, but followed close behind. At regular intervals Sweyn and Adela would go on scouting missions to look for signs of a Norman ambush.
Malcolm had only 250 men when we left Scotland, but after each successful plunder he used a company of men as escorts for the cartloads of spoils on their journey back to Dunfermline, thus progressively depleting his force. He travelled in a wide arc from west to east, sacking Carlisle, Brampton, Gateshead and the new Norman castle on the Tyne. He then turned north through Morpeth and Ashington. By the time he approached Alnwick, his force numbered fewer than eighty men.
I sent Adela and Sweyn to make a reconnaissance of Alnwick and check for surprises in its hinterland. Sweyn returned with a report about the garrison and explained that Adela had gone to watch the road from Bamburgh, where we knew there was a significant Norman presence. It was the end of a cold late-autumn day during which a bitterly cold wind had blown in off the North Sea to the east. The chilling shiver of an approaching winter made me feel even more uneasy and compelled me to go to Malcolm to plead with him yet again.
We arrived to find him making camp for the night. He had secreted his men on high ground in the forest to the west of Alnwick. The wind dropped at dusk and the first flurries of winter’s snow swirled around us as the King’s steward offered us some warm mead.
I took Malcolm to one side.
‘Alnwick is a formidable fortress. The garrison is at least thirty strong, and half of them are Norman professionals. You don’t have enough men.’
‘I’ve been looting England since I was a boy. Don’t tell me my business! My men are more than a match for thirty Normans.’
Malcolm had hardly finished his sentence when Adela came into view, at full gallop.
‘To your horses! Norman destriers, two hundred yards behind me!’
Malcolm’s men, although battle-hardened and ferocious, had taken off their mail and picketed their horses; fires had been lit and food was being prepared. The sentries, although posted, were of little value, as the Normans were coming on so quickly. Sweyn and a few others managed to get to their horses, but most were caught on the ground with only their swords and shields for protection.
In the encroaching gloom, the Normans, at least two hundred of them, came through the trees like a wave breaking on the shore and cut through Malcolm’s men ruthlessly. Masked by the trees, it was hard to see them until they were right on top of us.
Edwin was speared in the back of his shoulder by a lance, which pierced his mail hauberk and knocked him to the ground. Sweyn’s horse was killed under him when it was impaled in the neck by the sword of a Norman knight. He managed to get to his feet as the horse fell, but was slashed by several swords as he was surrounded by a ci
rcle of destriers. I saw him fall to the ground and his helmet roll off to reveal a deep wound across his forehead. The number of attackers between us meant it was impossible for me to get close to him, so I looked for Adela.
She had positioned herself next to Malcolm and his son Edward and was in the middle of ferocious fighting. After sounding the alarm, she had brought Malcolm and his hearthtroop a string of horses from the picket lines, and they had managed to get mounted to fight on more equal terms. But they were heavily outnumbered. I tried to reach them, but my path was blocked by a mass of men and horses.
Then I suffered a terrible blow to the back of my head and my memory of Alnwick came to an abrupt end.
Consciousness only returned two days later, when I became aware of hazy shapes floating above me and a distorted voice echoing in my ears. Slowly, I was able to focus better and hear more, but with greater clarity came another sensation – an almost unbearable throbbing head. The only respite to be found was in the comfort of bouts of sleep. Only after several days did the pain diminish, and I eventually began to see and hear clearly.
By then, I knew the fate of my friends. Edwin was not badly hurt; the lance had made a deep gouge in his shoulder but had only hit muscle. With the aid of a sling, his arm was healing well.
Sweyn had fared much worse. The gash to his forehead ran from his left temple across his forehead and over his right cheekbone. The nose guard of his helmet had saved his life, but his handsome young face had suddenly become the battle-scarred mien of a thirty-year-old warrior. He had also suffered several deep cuts to his arms, back and shoulders and had lost a lot of blood.
Only through a stroke of immense good fortune had his life been saved. A Norman knight who had trained with him in Rouen had recognized him, even though he was lying on the ground and his face was covered in blood. The knight’s quick reactions in stemming the flow of blood from his many wounds had prevented Sweyn from bleeding to death.
Adela had also been badly injured. Standing between Malcolm and several Norman attackers, her shield arm had finally succumbed to a rain of blows that left her body exposed. She was then struck by a sword on the left shoulder that had been so badly damaged in Sicily, and her chest was smashed by a mace, a weapon much loved by Norman knights.
Her collarbone was now shattered into even smaller pieces than before and she had broken several ribs down the same side. She was in great pain, breathing was a constant agony, and movement of any kind was impossible. There was also the likelihood of internal bleeding – something which, it was presumed, would soon kill her.
Sadly, an even worse fate had befallen Malcolm and Edward. The hearthtroop defending them soon dwindled to nothing as the Normans closed in. Eventually, they were the last men standing and, although Malcolm pleaded for his young son to be spared, they were hacked to pieces like cornered animals by a throng of Norman knights. At the vanguard was Robert of Mowbray – a tenacious warrior and Lord of Bamburgh, who had been asked by Rufus to lay and spring the trap to snare Malcolm – and Arkil Morael, Steward of Bamburgh, a huge man with a bloody reputation for wielding his battle-axe to murderous effect.
Robert of Mowbray was intensely loyal to King Rufus, having been generously pardoned by the King for his part in the rebellion of 1088. As we suspected, Mowbray had been tracking Malcolm’s progress and had waited until his force was small enough to be vulnerable. He had picked a moment when Malcolm was at his most complacent – when the Scottish King thought he had his quarry holed up in Alnwick and he was the hunter but, in fact, he was the prey.
Yves de Vescy, Lord of Alnwick, had been told to retreat behind the walls of his fortress, to offer no resistance, but to post look-outs on all routes to the settlement. As soon as Malcolm’s force was spotted, the look-out was to ride to Bamburgh to alert Lord Mowbray. Mowbray had his men ready to ride at an hour’s notice so, when he heard of Malcolm’s approach, they were able to cover the fifteen miles from Bamburgh to Alnwick in under three hours.
Malcolm did not stand a chance.
Worse news arrived from Dunfermline within a few days. On hearing of the deaths of her husband and son, Margaret had taken to her bed and, within three days, was dead herself. How she died immediately became the subject of rumour. Cynics suggested she took her own life, while romantics believed she died of a broken heart. Either way, my beloved Margaret was dead and Scotland had lost one of its most revered queens. I had suffered some dark moments in my life but, lying motionless in great pain, with my friends badly injured, and knowing the sister with whom I had shared so much during our traumatic childhood was dead, was almost too much to bear.
I thought back to our earliest years together in the royal house of Hungary, in a strange land and among people with an even stranger language. My father, the Atheling Edward, son of Edmund Ironside, had been exiled as a boy with his twin brother, Edmund, in the time of Danish rule in England. After a long and complicated journey via the courts of Scandinavia and Russia with Emma, King Cnut’s wife, constantly plotting to have them killed, they had arrived in Budapest to find a peaceful refuge under the benign protection of Andrew, King of Hungary.
Sadly, my uncle Edmund died shortly afterwards, but my father prospered and married my mother, Agatha, a first cousin of Henry IV, King of Germany and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Unfortunately, although their union gave us the distinction of a lineage stretching back to both Alfred the Great and Charlemagne, that was the extent of their contribution to the lives of their children.
Margaret, the firstborn, was seven years older than me, and the shy and awkward Christina was my senior by five years. While my parents enjoyed life at court, my father hunting and my mother embroiled in the romances and intrigues of the nobility, we were left to the care of wet nurses, nannies and governesses, none of whom spoke English.
Margaret was our saviour, constantly telling us stories about an England she had never seen, describing it as an idyllic kingdom where, since the Cerdician King Edward had replaced the Danish kings in 1041 and remained childless, I would one day rule. She taught us the basics of English and insisted that when we were alone we only spoke English together. As a result, when we returned to England in 1057, I quickly became fluent.
The return to England was traumatic for all of us. My mother was taken ill – or so she said – and never left Budapest, and my father died in mysterious circumstances within days of us arriving in Kent. It was said he had been poisoned, and there were many potential culprits, including King Edward himself, for whom my father was a rival claimant to the throne, and Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, who had travelled to Budapest to bring us home. But I always doubted that it could have been Harold and remain convinced that it was Edward’s doing.
In fact, it was Harold Godwinson who arranged for our immediate flight to Scotland and the protection of King Malcolm, an act of kindness that no doubt saved our lives. Although Malcolm Canmore was not the kindly host that Andrew of Hungary had been, at least we were out of the reach of those plotting to kill us.
At length, I realized that my reminiscing was only making my depression worse. I decided to break the spell of my melancholy by concentrating on the future and on the well-being of my friends.
It was not easy, but with an improvement in my physical condition came a revival of my spirits.
We were being cared for by the monks of Tynemouth Priory, a recent foundation in a bleak but beautiful position facing the sea at the mouth of the Tyne. Malcolm and Edward had been buried in the grounds on the order of Roger Mowbray, who wanted to insult their memory by insisting that they be buried on English soil. Malcolm’s men suffered even greater indignities. The bodies of the dead were thrown into the sea at Alnmouth, a few miles from the ambush, and the survivors were mutilated in various ways before being sent back to Scotland in carts.
Few made it back alive.
As soon as I was reasonably coherent, Roger of Mowbray came to see me with Arkil, his large and brooding steward. Although civil,
he came directly to the point.
‘The King requires an explanation. Why were you with the King of the Scots when we attacked?’
‘Please tell the King that I was doing what I said I would do when I sought his permission in Gloucester to come to Scotland. I was trying to persuade King Malcolm to return home and cease his raids.’
‘So, why did you and your knights raise your swords in the attack?’
‘I would have thought the answer to that was obvious! We were trying to defend ourselves. Your ambush was executed in the murk of dusk, and you were on us like a bolt of lightning. In the mayhem, it was every man for himself.’
Roger looked at me intently and paused for a moment before answering.
‘Very well, I and the King have our suspicions and, as I’m sure you know, he has little regard for you. Nevertheless, he is prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt and has instructed me to give you an escort to Westminster for yourself and your party. You are to travel as soon as you are well enough. He will see you there.’
‘Thank you, Lord Mowbray. That is appreciated – as are your care and hospitality at Tynemouth Priory.’
I went to see Adela every day, but her improvement was slow. To our great relief, any internal bleeding had stopped and had not been life-threatening. Even so, her bones took a long time to heal and, after several weeks in bed, she was still very weak. Edwin and Sweyn were soon fit and well, although Sweyn’s scars were very prominent, as they would be for the rest of his life.
21. Vision of Beauty
It was the middle of February 1094 before we were able to begin our journey southwards. My request to travel to Scotland to pay my respects at Margaret’s grave was denied, but I was allowed to pay homage at Malcolm and Edward’s resting place. They had been interred close to the edge of the steep cliffs above the sea – a dramatic place that I felt sure Malcolm and Margaret would have approved of, had it been in Scotland.
We stayed at Durham on our journey, where much work was in progress. William of Calais, who had been appointed Prince Bishop by old King William in 1080, had just begun work on a cathedral to match the great churches of Normandy. Huge timber scaffolding was being erected to give the masons platforms from which to build the mighty walls. At ground level the stonework was already as tall as a man at the eastern end. The crypt had been dug out and the great stones of its columns were being dropped into place by fascinating mechanical devices made from pulleys and ropes, powered by the muscle of men and oxen.
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