Margaret the Queen (21 page)

"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 s
uffer 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 bless
you>
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 anticipated 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."

"Maldred — you?"

"None. We gave it all away yesterday."

She paused in her bandaging, tipping lips with pink tongue. Then she nodded, to herself. "Brother Oswald," she said. "Two gold pieces from the satchel you carry."

The Benedictine all but choked. "Princess! Highness — no! That, that is not for giving away. That is Maundy Money. Especial gold. Not for, not for. . ."

"But two pieces, Oswald."

"It is being taken to the Bishop of St. Andrews. Left over from the King's distribution. To be kept until next Maundy Thursday. You cannot give it to these, these . . . people."

"These coins you carr
y, Oswald, were minted especially, yes. From gold taken from Northumbrian churches. Crucifixes, pattens and the like. By my husband. Melted down. I say that this is none so ill a use for some of it."

"But it has been especially blest. The Bishop? And the King? He gave it to me to carry. Trusting me, the only churchman in his train."

"Which was fortunate. I shall speak to the King. And to Bishop Fothad. It was, after all,
my
suggestion that this Maundy Money should be minted and distributed. Two pieces, Oswald."

Unhappily the monk opened his satchel slung from a shoulder, extracted a leather bag and picked out from it two shiny coins. They were very small and roughly stamped as with a seal, but gleamed authentically yellow gold.

"Give them to the good Abbot. That will more than pay for your provision, will it not, my friend?"

Cormac took the money almost gingerly, turning the pieces this way and that. Almost certainly he had never handled a gold piece before. Even silver coins were seldom seen in a Celtic cashel.

"You are very good, Highness. Most kind . . ."

"Then see that the kindness extends to all these, sir, this feast-day. Food for empty bellies. So long as the money lasts. I shall remember you and your monastery in my prayers. And seek news as to how you fare. See you, of your goodness, to this boy hereafter. These sores require dressing daily." She rose, the lad released at last. "Now, if you will give us your blessing, Father Abbot? I, and all here, I fear, need it!"

Only the Benedictine did not bow the head for that sudden and hurried benediction, he undoubtedly considering non-Romish blessings as invalid if not positively blasphemous. Margaret possibly felt a little the same way, but recognised the uses of tact to sweeten determination. They mounted and rode on.

Needless to say they never caught up with MacDuff, much less the King; and it was almost dark when eventually they crossed the wide Muir of Muckross to enter the curious community of Kilrymont or St. Andrews, weary and hungry, having eaten nothing substantial since setting out from Balgonie in the morning — such minor provision as had been carried, gone with Malcolm's party. By that time, the little bag of Maundy Money was barely half-full, for they had come across other scenes and situations which wrung the Queen's heart; and having once made a start upon the gold pieces, she was not to be restrained. Gold, to be sure, was of no use to common poor folk, however needy. So she had exchanged some of the pieces at the hospices of Blebo and Strathkinness, for lesser coins, not without some difficulty and even suspicion on the part of the clergy. She paid for more food distributions, handed out largesse and ransomed more slaves. When Maldred, and even Magda, suggested that this might be over-doing it and that there might well be major trouble with the King hereafter, Margaret quietly assured them that this was how it must be. She must start as she intended to carry on. When she had agreed to wed Malcolm, at his continual urging, she had told him that she would marry not only the man but the realm; that she had no desire to interfere in his rule and governance but that the people, the ordinary folk, the poor and needy, would be her especial care. Malcolm perforce had accepted that. He must learn that she had meant what she said.

None of her party, even Maldred, had ever before been at St. Andrews. Arriving in semi-darkness, they gained but little notion of the town, save that it was extensive and very evidently on the rocky edge of the sea. It was a strange place altogether, in name and character as in the comparative isolation and remoteness of its situation, stuck out near the very tip of the thrusting horn of Fife. Its name apparently was not really St. Andrews at all, but
Kilry
mont-in-Muckross, and the saint's appellation referred only to the bishopric. Yet the Bishop's own church was not called that but St. Mary's on the Rock; and the large abbey was named after St. Regulus or Rule, not Andrew. There were no fewer than seven churches here, although some were very small and none stone-built — save for the tall tower of St. Regulus, built as a place of defence rather than worship. Not one was dedicated to St. Andrew.

They found their way to Bishop Fothad's house without difficulty, even in the gloom, for it was much the biggest building in the town, a fine hall-house in gardens and orchards, at the neck of a rocky little headland on which stood St. Mary's. It was in fact bigger and finer than Malcolm's palace at Dunfermline, the Ard Episcops, or King's Bishops, obviously taking their position seriously. The newcomers discovered that Malcolm, with the Bishop as Chancellor, was now in conference in the main hall. So they settled down to eat in the lesser hall. And while they ate, Margaret asked the Abbot Nechtan of St. Regulus to explain the peculiar situation of this church-city, which she had never fully understood, which was not the Primate's seat, nor yet the true centre of authority, these being at Dunkeld and Iona respectively.

According to Abbot Nechtan it had all started when Bishop Regulus of Patras, in Greece, was driven ashore here after his long voyage, bringing with him three fingers, part of an arm, the knee-cap and one tooth of the blessed St. Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He had been fleeing from the invading Emperor Constantine and brought the precious relics with him, warned in a dream that wherever his vessel was forced ashore, there should he set up a church and shrine to contain them. Hence St. Regulus Abbey. In due course the name of St. Andrew had become as much used as Kilrymont. Himself, he would have preferred his abbey to be called St. Andrews instead of St. Regulus, who was after all the lesser saint. But the King's Bishops had adopted the style of St. Andrews for themselves, ten of them before this Fothad the Second.

Margaret, sensing a certain hostility creeping into the Abbot's voice and recognising possible rivalry, with abbots being in some ways superior to bishops in this Columban Church, steered the subject elsewhere. When did this happen, she wondered? According to her understanding of history, Constantine the Great reigned in the late third and early fourth centuries. She had not heard that Christianity even came to Scotland as early as that. Or was it another Constantine?

The Abbot coughed and declared that it was most certainly Constantine the Great. They were greatly favoured, here in Fife, in the blessed light of the Gospel reaching this hallowed spot before all others.

Maldred opened his mouth to speak — for this was not the story his father, the Primate, told — but closed it again when a younger keen-eyed Keledei further down the table, who had been introduced to them as the priest of St. Peter's here, raised his voice.