Margaret the Queen (23 page)

making a comprehensive effort to build up his strength, and securing his base for some new and major campaign. Few in Scotland had any doubts as to what the target would be.

In all this, Malcolm was not so preoccupied with domestic bliss that he failed to take precautions and some counter-measures. He commanded all his nobles, great and small, to put in hand and practise speedy mobilisation of their very largest man-power, and to ensure a high level of training. He sent out a further selection of the Atheling's Saxon refugees, to earn their keep by secretly moving amongst their kind in England and seeking to stir up a spirit of revolt. After all, the great majority of the landholders there were still Saxons, or Danish-Saxons, the Normans thinly spread. And the continuing savageries, the heavy taxations and burdensome conditions imposed by the usurpers, should be causing even worms to turn. All that ought to be needed was leadership, information, unity of purpose and a planned strategy. These Malcolm and Edgar proposed to supply. There were already patches of revolt here and there, notably that of one Hereward in the fen country of the Isle of Ely; but nothing like a unified insurrection.

The two flash-points for military adventures were, of course, always the late spring — when the rivers had sunk sufficiently after the winter rains and snows to be fordable — and the early autumn when the harvests were gathered in and labour freed. Malcolm had sent off the secret Saxon emissaries in good time, whilst the grain was still ripening; and by the beginning of harvest-time reports were filtering back. The season had been reasonably good and by mid-August cutting had started in favoured areas. One day, Cospatrick arrived from Dunbar in Lothian, summoned by the King. Quite soon thereafter Maldred himself was sent for from the orchard where he had been helping the Queen and her ladies to pick plums.

He found his two cousins closeted in an upper room of the stone tower.

"Ha — the fruit-picker!" Malcolm greeted. "I must ensure that you confine your picking to fruit not already spoken for!" He turned to Cospatrick. "This young kinsman of ours is over-partial to women's company.
My
woman in particular! There are times when, I vow, I have my doubts about him!"

"Old men married to young wives ever so doubt!" the Earl observed, a pleasantry not well received. Malcolm's sense of humour had not been highly developed.

"I have been of good use to you, Highness. With the said ladies," Maldred returned shortly.

"And shall be again, perhaps. But not with these, this time. I have a task for you. A
man's
task! You and Cospatrick did well together, in Galloway and Cumbria. You make a pair, I think. A rogue and an innocent! Those who do not trust the one, might trust the other?"

The Earl hooted, nowise offended.

"You will go south into England again. But further, a deal further. A small company, fast and secret. As before. Down into Deira. Near to York. Perhaps further still. And you will take Edgar Atheling with you."

"Edgar . . . !" That was Maldred, in protest.

"Edgar, yes. He has eaten my bread uselessly for sufficiently long. Now he can be of some use. But he needs to be watched, guided, led. Made to act the king, for once."

"Even we cannot work miracles!" Cospatrick said.

"You will make him
seem
to act. That is all. See you, I have gleaned much word from England. From our spies. This Hereward of Bourne is doing well, in the east. The whole Isle of Ely is now barred to the Norman. Edwin, Earl of Mercia, despite the promise of William's daughter Gundred, is disposed to rebel, and his brother Morkar with him. They see the Saxon cause going down for ever, otherwise. Better still, old Eldred, Archbishop of York, he who crowned the Bastard at Westminster, has suffered a change of heart. He returned to York with a rich train, booty gained at the expense of Canterbury when Stigand was deposed — and the Norman governor of York took it all from him. Claimed it was all King William's. Nor will William give it back. He does not need Eldred, any more. Now that he has this Frenchman Lanfranc in Canterbury instead of Stigand. So most of the Church is now against him — and the Church's gold!"

"And we are to do what?" Cospatrick wondered.

"Go to see these Saxons, with Edgar. Treating him as their King. When in their presence, at least. Have them to rise. Together. Arrange it — since it seems that they cannot do so themselves. See Eldred first. Over the gold. He is at Durham, in Deira. Waldeve is not there. He is at Winchester, with William, with his new wife Judith.

Then see Edwin of Mercia. He is holed up in his hill country, at Haddon-in-Peak, near to Derby. Coax him, with promises of Eldred's money. Then, if you can reach him, this Hereward. Who seems to be the best fighter they have got. In any rising, Edwin of Mercia will have to seem to lead it, under Edgar. He was King Harold's good-brother and commander. But in truth, the Fenman Hereward should lead, I think. You must contrive it."

"Contrive is a notable word, cousin! And you? What will you be doing, while we contrive all this?"

"I shall have a fleet ready. To sail a host south when I hear of the first Saxon success in arms," the King said levelly.

"Aye!" Cospatrick commented grimly. "But, only then?"

"Only then."

They were to ride two days later. The next morning it was the Queen who sent for Maldred. She was at her now daily task of washing the feet of six poor pilgrims, sent down from the cashel, before feeding them and despatching them on their way to the veneration of St. Serf's relics at Loch Leven. He waited while she finished, frowning his distaste, although unwittingly.

"You do not approve, by your looks, of what I do, Maldred?" she put to him when the pilgrims were sat down to eat at the table she had provided nearby, Magda supervising.

"No," he agreed bluntly.

"You see it as lacking in dignity? As does Malcolm. As it is, indeed. But that is why I do it. To shed dignity. Do you not see? I am endangered always with this dignity, of being a queen, of power and wealth and men bowing down to me. There is deadly danger in this. To me, Margaret. That I forget that I am but a mortal sinner, like all others. So I do this, for my soul's good. To remind me, and others."

He shook his head. "I say that it is too much, Highness. Overdone, you might say. Unsuitable. In such as yourself. Almost pride, of another sort!"

"Spiritual pride? Surely not, Maldred? That I am on the watch for, always. If it was not unsuitable for our Blessed Lord, is it so for me?"

He shrugged, unable to answer her. "Your Highness sent for me?"

She sighed. "Yes. I learn that you are leaving us tomorrow. On a mission into England. With my brother. It is my hope that you will do some small mission for me also, on your way?"

"To be sure. If I can."

"I am greatly concerned, Maldred, for all the poor Saxon captives in this land, brought from Northumbria and sold into slavery here. That I, a Saxon princess, should sit on the Scots throne and yet these my countrymen be in hard bondage here, is grievous. I would have them all released, but Malcolm says that is not possible. They all have been sold, moneys paid for them. To free them it would be necessary to repay the buyers. So — I need money, much money. None other is concerned for them — so I must be."

"But
..."

"You will be visiting Saxon lords in England, Maldred. Ask them for help. From me. Say that you are my envoy. That I ask, beg them to help their fellow-Saxons in distress. Go to the churchmen in especial. Go to Walchere, the new Bishop of Durham. He is a friend. Or was, when he was Prior of Hexham. And ask Eldred, Archbishop of York. You have to see him, Malcolm says. At Durham. He is very rich. You will do this, my friend — for my sake?"

"If it is your command, Highness . . ."

"It is
not
my command. It is my humble request. The plea of Margaret Atheling to her good friend Maldred mac Melmore. That only."

He was moved. "I shall do what I can."

"I thank you. Here is my ring. Take it. As sign that you speak for me. And . . . God bless you, Maldred. And, and aid Him by taking some care of yourself. . . !"

* * *

They rode the following morning, early, to a warm send-off from the ladies — for with Edgar going, all the Athelings were involved — Maldred receiving an unexpected and full-on-the-lips kiss from Magdalen at the last moment, which sent him on his way distinctly bemused. Although with only the same size of escort as before, some two hundred helmeted and leather-jerkined horsemen, they made a much more distinguished company. For with the Prince Edgar was a group of his own nobles, almost all that were left of the original refugee party, including Merleswegen, Siward Barn or Beorn the Dane, Archil, Edric Spur and Bartolomeo Leleszi, or Leslie, a Hungarian. Like Edgar himself, none of these approved of Cospatrick, indeed none had any real enthusiasm for the venture at all. As a result, they tended to ride apart, to the rear of the column, with Cospatrick and Maldred ahead — which suited the latter very well.

Conditions otherwise were very different, also. Instead of harsh winds and rain, snow-streaked hills, rivers in spate, flooded ground and bogs everywhere, they rode pleasantly through a smiling land of bracken just beginning to turn to gold and heather to purple, of waving yellow corn, not yet ready to cut in these central uplands, of blue lochs and sparkling rivers, and the young folk of the country up with the herds of cattle, sheep and garrons in the idyllic summer life of the high pastures. In consequence they made much better time, for Cospatrick was not disposed to linger, whatever the others would have preferred — and from the beginning he made it entirely clear who was in command, as indeed had Malcolm before they started. They followed approximately the same route as in February, although saving some time by not having to follow the more secret ways, since no trouble from Galloway was looked for. They managed to reach the head of Annandale by the first night, resting at a lonely hospice dedicated to St. Patrick, the Saxons, not in the best of training after their enforced idleness, quite exhausted. The next day was less demanding, down Annan, to cross Esk into Cumbria, to pass the second night at Caer-luel.

Unfortunately the Earl Waltheof was not present, being up in the fells of Geltsdale hunting deer. Nothing would do, however, but that fast messengers should ride forthwith, night or none, to bring Waltheof back without delay, no excuses to be countenanced.

So they had a restful day following until a grumbling Waltheof turned up in the afternoon
— to grumble still more vehementl
y when he was told by Cospatrick to prepare for an immediate journey of some duration. Protests were unavailing — he was to come with them, on the orders not only of his strong-willed elder brother but of the King of Scots his liege-lord. His knowledge of
Cumbria, and his authority as governor, would be helpful.

Waltheof was only a little less unpopular with the Saxons than was Cospatrick; he had never actually taken sides against Edgar in the past, but he had refused to support him.

So the great riding was resumed, and little the more harmoniously for Waltheof's sulky presence. They had little expectation of involving any of the Cumbrian lords in their project, for though these might hate and fear the Normans, they almost equally disliked the Saxons, from whom they had suffered much in the past, themselves being of Celtic blood, similar to the Welsh. Cumbria indeed was a strange land politically, ostensibly paying allegiance to the Scots throne but in fact all but independent, and remaining so mainly on account of its remote situation and awkward hilly and waterlogged terrain. That it would not long remain clear of the Conqueror's clutches was the message the visitors sought to put over, to the one or two distinctly suspicious chiefs they made contact with. But their main concern was to ensure that their presence and progress was not reported to the Normans in the south. They made a strong enough company to have little fear of actual attack from local levies. And Waltheof's presence helped.

They followed the Eden valley south-eastwards for forty miles, up through ever-rising moorish hills, by Lazonby and Kirby Thore and Appleby, to Stainmore under the high fells of Warcop and Lune. They were near the Deira border here, but in these lofty and little-populated moorlands, cattle and sheep pasture, there was little or nothing to mark divisions, save occasional cairns of stones. Nevertheless, from here onwards they would have to go more warily, less speedily. There were no hospices for travellers in such empty Pennine uplands, and for the first time the lordly ones, as well as the escort, camped under the open sky, by the now narrowing Eden at Musgrave.

The further south and east they had come, so had grown the aura of fear, the preoccupation with oppression, the tales of slaughter and rapine and terror, the weight of it beginning to loom like a pall over the land ahead. And, inevitably, the sullen wariness of the local people. Anyone who had campaigned with King Malcolm knew well about slaughter and pillage; and this whole land had suffered terribly for centuries previously under the assaults of the
Danes and Vikings. But these, more or less haphazard, episodic, almost casual, however grievous for the victims, were not to be compared with the Norman terror ahead, which was an expression of deliberate policy, systematic, comprehensive, merciless. Entire areas, it seemed, were turned into smoking deserts, whole towns wiped out, populations butchered, not as acts of war or reprisals but merely as warnings to others, or to create wide buffer zones around particular spheres of influence. Here, the steel-clad Norman knight, the so-efficient fighting machine and alleged symbol of chivalry, was looked upon as the Devil Incarnate, a scourge worse than the Black Death. The travellers could not but be affected, in some measure, the need for caution and secrecy borne in on them.