Suddenly Malcolm’s hairy face replaced the puppy in her vision. He was just like a stray dog too, she thought with a smile. She had even told him so. Would he be as happy to see her as the puppy?
Now that they were almost back she could admit it—yes, she had missed him. Maybe Malcolm needed her too, just like the puppy. How could she resist one who depended on her so? But there was her vocation to consider. Ever since childhood, she had known she was called to do the Lord’s work. Could she give that up to follow the call of her own heart? Or was it possible that her call was simply changing—that she could live for Christ in a Scottish castle as well as in a nunnery?
Margaret slept fitfully that night.
Midway through the following morning, the splash of the anchor sounded overboard. Skiffs were lowered. Margaret scanned the shoreline as she waited. Neither man nor beast was in sight. Why had no party been sent to meet them?
When the rowers were in position, she and her mother and Edgar and Christine climbed down over the sides. They rowed to shore, waited for the horses to be unloaded, then rode inland to the castle.
Margaret urged her mount into a canter when they were half a mile away, reaching the castle before mother, sister, and brother. She jumped off her horse, quickly tethered it, and ran inside. The sound of her footsteps echoed softly on the floor with vacant lifelessness. It was obvious the castle was empty. One by one a few servants began to appear.
“Where . . . where is Malcolm?” exclaimed Margaret, with hardly a greeting to the familiar faces.
“The King and his army are away, my lady,” answered one of the men.
“How long?
“They have been gone a month.”
“And due back?”
“No one knows when to expect them, my lady.”
Margaret sighed, tried to manage a smile, then walked to the kitchen, continuing out the back door, glancing this way and that. There was no sign of the little dog. He would no longer be a puppy anyway, she thought with a disappointed smile.
She returned inside as her mother, sister, and brother were entering and greeting the servants. Margaret walked upstairs to her previous guest quarters, but stayed only a few minutes. She ate a silent meal with her family, the little group dwarfed by the all-but-empty great hall. In the afternoon, she went walking toward the village, but was in no mood to visit her children and friends. She could not shake off the doldrums. The rest of the afternoon and evening passed drearily.
The next day, shortly before noon, suddenly Margaret heard the thunder of many hooves approaching. She ran to her window.
The army had returned!
There was Malcolm riding at the head of it. How majestic he looked with his armor gleaming, his wild beard flying in the wind!
The next instant she was flying down the stairs. Then, trying to calm herself, she slowed to a swift walk. But her effort to retain her composure was altogether useless.
Malcolm burst through the tall oak doors of the castle as if he were a dozen men, making more noise than a legion, the scabbard of his sword clanging against the doorpost, his great boots echoing across the wood floor.
Margaret flew down the last of the stairs as he crossed the wide entryway. He galloped forward with great strides, face aglow.
“Margaret!” he exclaimed.
Without realizing what was happening, she found herself swept up and in his arms. She did not resist his embrace.
“Our scouts informed me of the arrival of your ship,” he said. “We turned immediately for home.”
“I am happy to see you again, Malcolm,” she said softly, her heart beating a little too quickly. She could not have imagined how good it would feel to be swallowed up in such manly strength.
“Oh, Margaret—you cannot know—”
Heedless of Agatha’s descending appearance now on the stairs, Malcolm’s great fingers tenderly stroked Margaret’s long hair as he spoke.
Sensing her mother’s presence, Margaret came to herself. How could she have allowed this to happen? She tried to take a step back, but only felt the answering pressure of Malcolm’s huge frame clutching her tightly.
“Margaret,” he said, now whispering in her ear. “Please say you will marry me.”
Margaret’s face reddened. Her heart began to pound even more rapidly than before. The hot awareness of her mother’s stormy approach mixed fear and confusion with what Malcolm had said.
What words had she just heard?
But Agatha now paused on the bottom step and came no farther, as if no longer daring interfere with her daughter’s destiny.
Once more Margaret tried to step back. This time Malcolm yielded and gently released her. But he continued to gaze expectantly into her face for an answer to his question. Nervously Margaret glanced down. Now for the first time did she notice his appearance.
“What is that on your tunic?” she gasped.
“Oh,” Malcolm fumbled, glancing down. “Only dirt and grime.”
Margaret took another step back, now glancing up and down to behold more closely the dark red splotches covering him.
“Malcolm,” said Margaret, her face suddenly ashen, “—it’s . . . it is blood!”
The King did not reply. He was a soldier. What was the harm in a little—
“It is dried blood, Malcolm,” repeated Margaret. “Whose blood is it?” Her face was suddenly full of a very different kind of passion than what he felt.
“I don’t know—we were . . . we have been—”
“Where have you been? I must know!”
“We were in England.”
“Doing what, Malcolm?”
“There are rebels—those who oppose my kingship. There are regions that are rightfully mine.”
“Malcolm, that is England, not Scotland. You are not King there!”
“I have lands where I must maintain control of—”
“Oh, Malcolm—how could you!” Her voice was low but intense.
“I am King of this kingdom,” he explained, his voice beginning to rise, “and there are times—”
“Oh, you wicked man,” she murmured, appalled at the brutality now all too evident on every inch of him. “I cannot stand the sight of you!”
“But I just asked you to be my Queen.”
“How can you even think I would marry a man who takes killing so lightly!”
Margaret spun around and ran across the floor, past her mother, who stood watching the explosion in mingled shock and delight, and up the stairs to her room.
His face red, he yet uttered not a word. The instant the echo of Margaret’s steps were gone, Malcolm turned and strode from the castle in angry mortification.
Upstairs, Margaret threw herself on her bed and sobbed. A hundred emotions she had never felt surged through her. Nuns never encountered things like this!
At the stables, the King stormed about fuming and cursing.
“I was an idiot to love such a pious woman!” he cried. “I will send them all back to England the moment their ship is turned around! I should have known better!” he cried. “Me—love a nun! The thing is preposterous!”
Even as the words exploded from his lips, however, he knew that even if Margaret was the most unreasonable, religious, prudish woman he had ever known, he couldn’t help loving her.
He continued to rant across the dirt floor, kicking wildly, sending tufts of straw flying about, grabbing tools and whips and hurling them across the floor. Aware of the storm with their master in its eye, the nervous horses moved uneasily in their stalls.
Yet . . . he couldn’t help it, cried Malcolm as a shovel crashed against the wall opposite, its handle splintering—he loved her!
Nine
An hour later Margaret heard a tentative rapping on her door.
She continued lying on the bed, her face buried in two pillows. The knock sounded again. Still she did not respond.
She heard the door open.
“I . . . I came to apologize,” she heard a voice b
ehind her.
She turned and lifted her head.
There stood Malcolm, the most timid, sheepish, and irresistible expression spread across his face. He had changed his clothes and washed. No sword hung from his side.
“I am sorry you were offended,” he said softly. “We Scots are not as refined as you English.”
Margaret forced a smile.
“I am sorry for my outburst,” she said, wiping at her tears. “I was confused. I know being King must be difficult, with rebels everywhere. I will try to understand.”
Margaret rose from the bed and stood before him.
“Could we try again,” said Malcolm, “and pretend I only just now rode in . . . wearing a clean tunic?”
Margaret smiled, then could not prevent a musical little laugh.
“I am willing,” she said.
“Then I shall say it again—I missed you.”
“I missed you too, Malcolm,” she replied softly. “I am happy to be . . . back home.”
His heart soared.
They gazed into one another’s eyes a long moment. At length Malcolm opened his arms in invitation. Margaret approached, slowly reaching around the great waist with her arms as the huge embrace of the King closed gently around her.
This time she did not pull away.
King Malcolm III of Scotland and Margaret, princess of England, were married at Dunfermline Castle in 1070. The kingdom rejoiced. Already his subjects had grown to love the new Queen almost as much as her husband did.
Ten
As the peat-ambered burns of the Scottish mountains trickle and flow downward, their waters mix with that of lower rivers and eventually tumble into that great repository where all waters end. There the concentrated brown of the Highlands must yield up its individuality to the blues and greens of the sea.
So the Celtic blood of Pict and Scot merged in time with that of Angle and Saxon and Briton and Scandinavian—each contributing its rich and ancient hue to the amber stain of Caledonia’s stream of descendnts. And with the passage of yet more generations, they would mingle as well with the Norman strain from the Continent. Thus were infused six founding, interrelated bloodlines to flow in the veins the people the world would come to know as Scots.
And as no stream or river can hold back the surging ocean’s tide, neither can the hand of man hold back the flow of love. And it was the love of a man for a woman which eventually would allow the southern Norman sea to flood the Celtic rivers and peat streams of the north, known now only to the fading memories of its bards as Caledonia.
In the mid-eleventh century, most of Scotland spoke a mixture of Gaelic and ancient Pictish. Malcolm, however, brought the English tongue back with him from the south. Thus did the language of Scotland—that first and most vital cultural foundation stone—begin to shift. Margaret accelerated the cultural diluting of Caledonia’s ancient waters by adding the Latin and French tongues to the Scots court.
And her influence was felt in many other areas as well. She influenced the land—as Jewish Esther of old, who, by marriage to the merciless Persian Xerxes, influenced the direction of her nation—because she won the favor of everyone who knew her.
How Margaret grew to love a ruthless man such as Malcolm was as great a mystery to many as it remained to her mother. Yet love him she did. And with Margaret Queen in Scotland, many English men and women, displaced by the Norman invasion, came north to settle in Lothian. Their presence gave English custom and taste a fertile environment in which to flourish.
If she was not exactly given Esther’s gold scepter with which to execute her will, Margaret influenced the north country in subtler ways. Fine clothes and food were to her taste, along with ornate decorations and beautiful silks and tapestries. Fine French wines were substituted for Malcolm’s strong ale. Balls, dancing, banqueting with English and French music, entertainment by the harp and the ballad—all these and much more took their place in her court. And it could not be denied that Malcolm, when he was not plundering England, encouraged the changes instituted by his wife and enjoyed their pleasures.
Religion no less than culture flourished during Margaret’s reign. Though she had given up her dreams of a church vocation when she married Malcolm, she remained a woman of deep faith, and her personal piety could only influence the nation toward good.
In Margaret’s view, the practices, customs, and piety of the Celtic priesthood had become so lax since Columba and Aiden’s time as to border on infidelity. She therefore set out to reorganize and restructure the Scottish church and to restore the priesthood, scattered over the years, to the isle of Iona. She built a tiny chapel for herself high on the castle rock at Edinburgh and oversaw construction of a church at Dunfermline, later made into a Benedictine abbey by her son, David.
But Margaret’s faith did not limit itself only to ecclesiastical reform and personal worship, it also extended itself in service. The poor were her special concern. Almost daily was she among them, ministering to those about her with no less dedication than if she had taken the vows of chastity instead of those of marriage.
Those who lived in the few hamlets and throughout the countryside within the environs of Dunfermline, poor though most were, were proud of their beautiful Queen and mighty King. He was fearsome to behold, it was true, rumored to possess a fierce temper. Yet one glance from the lady Margaret’s face was enough to swallow any anxieties one might harbor concerning her husband. A smile from her lips could melt the countenance of the surliest grouch in the kingdom.
The people did not have to gaze upon the Queen from afar, for Margaret was in the habit of walking and riding among them nearly every day. She would sit on her favorite rock outside the castle, encouraging any who wished to visit with her. If no one came, she sat and peacefully read her Bible, always ready lest any shy man or woman might desire an audience but take longer to approach.
Whenever the royal entourage was seen leaving the castle, men, women, and children alike would pause in their work, hoping to catch a glimpse of the lovely young Queen from the south. She was ever ready with a kindly smile to cast abroad to any and all—be they King or beggar—and her subjects coveted the privilege of being the recipient of such a treasure. The Queen was so gentle and beautiful that it was all they could do not to stare when she chanced to pass by. If she rode near enough and an onlooker had the good fortune to catch her eye, even briefly, it was a moment never to be forgotten.
Margaret’s influence over her monarch husband was as powerful and mysterious as her sway over the people of the land. At one thing, however, was Margaret as utterly unsuccessful as her mother had been—teaching Malcolm to read. Yet in such reverence did the King hold his wife’s scholarship that he kissed her devotional books and, upon occasion, stole some of her favorites when she was away, that he might present them back to her, bound and decorated in gold and precious jewels.
Eleven
The advancing sophistication and polish of his court, however, and the spirituality of his wife, did not end Malcolm’s raids into Cumbria and Northumbria. Great as was Margaret’s influence over the King in certain areas, he yet remained a cruel warrior.
These were times when authority was demanded and submission given. Homage determined rule, authority, and the extent of sovereignty. Whoever commanded the power to compel his peers to bow the knee and do homage—he it was who ruled the land. If an oath of loyalty would not be given, the sword decided the matter.
When Kenneth MacAlpin formed the kingdom of Alba out of the Scots and Picts of ancient Caledonia, it had been comprised of that region north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, just south of Stirling and north of Edinburgh. Likewise, the kingdom of England had first been created out of the ancient southern kingdoms of Wessex, Sussex, and Kent. As the years passed, England had expanded northward, Scotland southward.
By the reign of Malcolm’s father, Duncan I, the kingdom of Scotland had grown to include the regions of Lothian, Strathclyde, and even Cumbria, the latter of which ha
d been leased to Scotland by English King Edmund in 945.
When the two strong kings came to their respective thrones in the mid-eleventh century—William I, the Conqueror, in England and Malcolm III, the Great Head, in Scotland—no distinct boundary between England and Scotland existed. Armies of both invaded and counterinvaded, ravaging the middle lands in a bloody arena of conflict—Northumbria, Cumbria, and southern Lothian. The provinces of northern England were called slaughterhouses for good reason; corpses by the hundreds had been left to rot on the open ground after raids by both kings.
As was the case with all strong military leaders, conquest was as important as rule. William was not satisfied to have placed all England beneath his feet. The fact that a strong King of fierce reputation existed in Scotland meant that eventually he must be conquered too.
Once his English conquest was secure, therefore, just two years after Malcolm’s marriage to Margaret, William the Conqueror led a great army of horsemen north, accompanied by a fleet of ships sailing up the coast. He invaded Scotland in huge force, led his army to Stirling, forded the great river, and rode on to the Tay.
Malcolm was a warrior, and courageous. But he was smart enough to know that in this instance resistance was futile. His army was severely outnumbered. To fight would mean annihilation. He therefore sent word ahead to William, announcing his surrender. He met the Conqueror at Abernathy, at the heart of ancient Caledonia, and performed a formal act of homage to the English King, bowed his knee, kissed the Norman’s hand, and declared himself King William’s man.
Satisfied, William returned with his army to England. Malcolm had preserved his life, his throne, and Scotland’s peace.
But what did his submission mean? The answer to such a vital question was perhaps unclear even at the time. And it grew even murkier as years passed. The ambiguity would confound and torment English-Scottish relations for hundreds of years thereafter.
The question was: Did Malcolm submit to William as the King of Scotland? Was his act thus a tacit subordination of the entire kingdom of Scotland to the English King? Or did Malcolm intend submission only with respect to those lands he held in English territory—namely, Cumbria and Northumbria—giving, therefore, merely the loyalty a feudal landholder owes his King?
An Ancient Strife Page 35
