David the Prince - Scotland 03 (52 page)

The Constable's men led in the prisoner, clanking, shackled with iron and a rope around his neck and trailing behind, as custom required - although this young man might well assert that' he could nowise be hanged. For he could not only claim that he was rightfully an earl of Scotland, one of the
ri
,
but might choose to lay claim to the throne itself. He was Malcolm MacEth, David's nephew, and since his brother's death at Stracathro, representative of the northern and senior royal line, grandson of Lulach. Having been on the run for almost four years, he had been captured in Moray.

He bowed stiffly to his uncle, but thereafter kept his head high. He looked as though he had received rough handling.

Edward de Morville spoke up. "My lord King — I, Constable, bring before you for your royal judgment the man Malcolm by-named MacEth, styling himself Earl of Moray, although that earldom has been forfeited for rebellion. Apprehended in the said province of Moray, from which Your Grace has debarred him. Four years ago he took arms against Your Grace. That he cannot deny. I saw him with my own eyes, on the field of Stracathro. Such act is highest treason. I ask for due judgment - death by hanging."

David nodded towards the prisoner. "Malcolm - do you deny the accusation?"

"I do not." That was almost curt. A murmur ran through the hall.

"Answer with proper respect, fellow!" the Constable barked. The other said nothing.

David looked at his nephew thoughtfully. It was the first time that he had seen him for six years. "Why did you rise against me, Malcolm?" he asked. "You, who acted my loyal friend before, who brought me news of King Alexander's supposed drowning, hailing me as probable King. Then swearing allegiance to me a year later. Why change? Had I done aught to injure you?"

"No, my lord." "Why, then?" Silence.

"Answer the King's Grace, man!" the Constable cried. "I have nothing to say, Norman!"

"You must have had reason, nephew," David persisted. "If I am to judge honestly, I should know it. You changed. Why? Did your brother Angus convince you?"

"Angus should have been King. Son of your elder brother and grandson of King Lulach, last of the true line. As therefore now should I. Not you, Uncle."

"This you knew or believed before you took your oath. Before ever I sat on the Stone. Why wait, and then break the oath?"

"Because you filled the land with these!" Malcolm had to raise both hands shackled together to point at the Constable and other Normans. "Frenchmen! You flood Scotland with English monks, to bring down our ancient Church. You change all.
Our customs, our faith. You are
not the King this realm requires
..."

There was uproar in the hall, threats and outrage.

David raised his hand for silence. "I asked my nephew for his reasons. Do we abuse him for giving them? We know his reasons, even if we conceive them to be mistaken."

"Sire - the prisoner is condemned out of his own mouth," the Constable said. "I press for sentence-since there is no doubt of guilt."

"My lords - how say you?" David turned to the Justiciars on either side.

"Guilty, my lord King. Worthy of death," MacDuff of Fife said.

"Agreed," Lindsay confirmed.

"I claim death by hanging," the Constable repeated, and picked up the trailing end of the rope round the young man's neck.

"I will
not
be hanged!" Malcolm said tensely. "As m
y brother's only heir, I am an e
arl of Scotland, as well as your rightful King. You cannot hang me."

"Have you considered what is the alternative, man?" the Earl of Fife demanded grimly.

"I have."

"Blinding and emasculation!" the Justiciar added, in case there was any misunderstanding. The other inclined his head.

"That I will not have!" David exclaimed vehemently. "There will be no mutilation in my realm."

"It is the accepted penalty for treason, Sire,for those too high of rank to hang."

"Perhaps. But not acceptable,
to me."

"What then, my lord King?" the Constable asked. "Since punished he must be, his treason admitted, flaunted. If example is not made, the throne will never be secure."

"I know it, my Lord Constable. Judgment there has to be
-
but not hanging nor mutilation. I pronounce it - perpetual imprisonment. How say you, my Lords Justiciar?"

Doubtfully both his companions nodded.

"So be it. Malcolm -1 adjudge you guilty of treason, on your own admission. I sentence you to perpetual imprisonment until the day you die. But because you are my own brother's son, I myself shall be your gaoler. You will remain in my house all the days of your life, and act as clerk in my projects. This for judgment. This trial is over." He rose.

A groan arose. None there appeared to be satisfied - not even Malcolm.

When the King rode for Rook's Burgh an hour or so later, Malcolm MacEth rode with him, however hostile the rest of the company.

David found his son Henry in a dire state. He was lying on a bed, shivering and shaking violently, his complexion of a peculiarly bluish hue. Although his eyes were open, staring, he did not recognise his father. The monkish physicians from Jed-worth and Kelshaugh were utterly at a loss. They had tried every remedy they could think of, including prolonged prayer, but to no effect. None could even suggest what the illness was. Henry had been smitten suddenly, about eight days before, whilst riding with hawks. Since when no nourishment had passed his lips. Never very robust, he had been a fit enough young man, now of nineteen years; but clearly his strength was failing fast.

David was appalled, desperately worried. After Matilda's death, this menace to his only son was almost more than he could contemplate. He asked himself if indeed there could be a curse on him? Or on this Rook's Burgh? Or was it rather on all his family, the Margaretsons? Six sons of Margaret and Malcolm, and now but two male heirs, one a convicted traitor, the other direly sick.

He sat up at his son's bedside all night, in an agony of near despair.

There was no improvement, no change, in the morning. But the new day brought a new preoccupation for the weary and dispirited father. Bishop John arrived from Berwick, bringing with him that notable character widely known as St. Malachy O'Moore. Not truly a saint, in that he had not been canonised, he was nevertheless popularly endowed with more than usual piety and fame. The title of saint had almost certainly stuck to him because he had been a colourfully renowned Celtic Church abbot in Ireland, where saints were in rich supply; he had transferred to the Roman rite and become a vigorous and successful reformer in the Cistercian
-Tironensian tradition - so much so that even distant Rome itself had taken note, and he had been summoned thither. He was now on his way home to Ireland, not only consecrated Bishop of Armagh but official papal legate to that land, with full authority to build up the Romish Church and to appoint new bishops.

It was not this enhancement which exercised Bishop John however; it was the news he brought from the Vatican. Innocent had more or less won his battle with Anacletus apparently, wh
o had reti
red to Lombardy leaving his rival Pope in possession of Rome. Innocent was bearing down predictably on all his opponent's supporters — which included Scotland. He had declared that the Bishop of St. Andrews was not truly a metropolitan, and that Scotland was indeed, and always had been, subservient to York. He would require all Scottish bishops, beginning with John of Glasgow, whom he conceived to the main source of disaffection, to make their humble submission to Archbishop Thurstan, on pain of papal dismissal from their sees. Hence this Papal Legate's return to Ireland via Berwick and Rook's Burgh, to convey this ultimatum.

John was much perturbed, naturally; but David, in his present state of anxiety, was scarcely in a condition to devote as much attention to the matter as it deserved. He declared that he would still support Anacletus, and ignore Innocent's fiats, until such dme as there was no doubt as to the Pope's identity and authority.

St. Malachy - whose real name was Maelmadoc Ua Morgair - did not seem i
n the least put out by the reacti
on at Rook's Burgh to his message from Innocent. He was an oddity, both in appearance and behaviour, a little birdlike man, but a cheerfully sardonic bird, a crow perhaps, and markedly unlike the normal notion of any bishop, much less a metropolitan or legate. He chuckled a lot, cracked his finger-joints, and appeared to consider the entire human scene with a sort of cynical amusement - an unlikely reformer. The clerics around David did not know whether to be impressed, upset or to look down their noses at this near-mountebank.

It was Alwin, however, David's chaplain, who recollected that St. Malachy had,
amongst his other semi-fabulous
endowments, a reputation for healing, back in Ireland — no doubt much exaggerated. When the King heard this, clutching at any straw, and besought the little man's aid for Henry, it was to be pooh-poohed and assured that such talk was only foolish tattle, not to be taken seriously; besides, he had not done any healing for a long time. But when David insisted that he should at least come and look at the sufferer, he allowed himself to be led up the twisting turnpike stairway.

In the bedchamber he eyed the shaking, staring young man, rubbed his blue and
jutting chin, and quite quickly broke into one of his chuckles.

"Oho, oho!" he said. "It's the Devil that's in him! The Old One, Himself! Yes, oh yes - old Satanicus in person! We know each other well, Satanicus and I, so we do - the old rascal!" And he laughed aloud.

"You mean . . . ? You mean that he is possessed? Devil-possessed? Henry . . . ?"

"I would not just be saying possessed, David my son - no, no. Borrowed, maybe - taken loan of, just. The Old One likes innocents, especially young ones. He is old, you see. So do I, mind you - so do I. I am getting old, too . . ."

"But - what is to be done? You cannot just stand there and laugh, man! Is there nothing that you can do?"

"Och, well - maybe, maybe. Och, yes — we'll get Him out of there, to be sure. Water! He does not like water, does old Satanicus - cold water. He likes the heat, you see, the old rascal. Water . . . ?"

He looked around. There was a bowl of water on a table, which David had used for bathing his son's fevered brow, although to no effect. St. Malachy took this, slopping it, and laughing as it spilled. He dipped a finger in, as though to test its temperature, nodded, and then raised another finger to make two, to mutter the briefest of blessings and sketch the sign of the cross. Then moving to the bedside he proceeded to flick and splash the water over the twitching figure in both generous and haphazard fashion, spilling more than he used but soaking everything around, including himself and the King.

"Out! Out! Out!" he chanted
, through chuckles. "Out, I say – I,
Maelmadoc Ua Morgair say it! Enough, Satanicus you old devil!"

The water supply finished, he handed the empty bowl to David, and without another word started for the door.

"But . . . Bishop! What now?" the distraught father cried. "What now?"

"Och, let him be, let him be," he was told.

"But
...
is that all? All you can do?"

The Legate did not pause, but looked over his hunched shoulder. "Have some confidence, my son - confidence. That's it - confidence. This time he will not die - this time, mind." And he went off through the door cheerfully.

David looked at his soaking son. The eyes were closed at last, and the twitching had stopped.

Next morning the fever had gone and Henry, though pale, had lost the blue colouration. Weak but lucid he shook no more.

Although all at Rook's Burgh were loud in praise and thanksgiving, St. Malachy appeared to think nothing of it. He brushed away wonder, questions and thanks alike. He must be on his way, he said, with God's work to do in old Ireland. David, heaping him with gifts, sent him, with an escort, by Annan and Kirk Cuthbert's Town, with a message for Fergus to provide a ship to take him across the Irish Sea.

David and all his friends rejoiced as Henry progressed steadily and grew strong again. The months that followed were the happiest since Matilda had died, with Yule celebrated again as it should be - in Scotland, at least. For that winter and the following spring there was dire famine in England with the failure of the harvest and pestilence amongst cattle - men said as a judgment on King Henry, whose savagery was increasing strangely, his rapacity for taxation almost crazy. In the belief that the coinage was being debased, he had all the moneyers of the kingdom, who minted the silver for him, to the number of over fifty, and chopped off the right hands of all but four. At one village in Leicestershire, Huncot, he hanged forty-four persons at once, charged with robbery. And so on. There was dire civil war in Norway too, that year of 1135, with Sigurd's death, his two sons competing for the throne, with Harold Gillichrist winning, blinding his brother Magnus and sending him to a monastery. But in Scotland there was peace.