Margaret the Queen (46 page)
High and clear the bull's horn ululated, its wailing notes echoing from the hill-slopes, to be drowned in a great shout from two thousand throats as the King's array leapt up out of hiding and went surging down into the haugh after the monarch, yelling, swords, maces and battle-axes upraised.
Maldred had no opportunity to observe what happened to Malsnechtan — presuming it was he — and his mounted party. On foot, without the support of the saddle-socket, holding up the large royal banner of Scotland, the silver hump-backed boar on blue, was no light task, especially when he had to keep up with the bounding Malcolm. He could not wield sword himself, requiring both hands for the staff; but he managed to draw and clutch his dirk, for some measure of self-defence. At his side Kerald, monkish robe hitched high, scorned anything of that sort, reliquary clutched tight.
So they led a tide of shouting, blood-lusting humanity down upon their shocked and utterly unprepared fellow-countrymen, doubts and scruples for the moment forgotten in a fierce and savage upsurge of elation and naked aggression.
What followed was not really a battle at all, even though individually the Moraymen fought bravely enough. But individual fighting does not make a battle, and seldom makes any major effect on the issue. They were in column-of-route, not in any defensive formation; their senior leadership was separated from their men; the host was mentally and emotionally unready. Moreover, Malcolm's tactics were sound. His first furious impact struck some way down the column, so that the head of it was forced to turn back on itself in major confusion. Thus a large part of the front half of the Moray army was largely invalidated for the moment, ineffective. And as the rear portion came hastening to its aid, the second array of the royal force, under MacDuff and Angus, launched itself down upon them from the woodland. When the reserve thousand under Strathearn, uncertain as to where if at all it might be needed, showed itself in further menace, the thing was all but over, defeat accepted, conceded. All who could of the enemy turned and fled, back towards the defile, where Madach waited.
Maldred himself saw very little of it all, being fully occupied in maintaining his position at the King's back and in keeping the boar banner approximately upright above the royal head. In fact, he did not strike a single blow throughout. Malcolm himself did all that was necessary in that respect, smiting his way forward into the tightest press with unflagging energy and complete disregard for personal safety. He favoured the battle-axe to the sword for such close combat, and wielded it with a methodical and tireless figure-of-eight rhythm which succeeded in cutting a lane of bloody ruin through the opposing throng, along which the Atholl brothers were his closest followers.
But if Maldred saw little and contributed less, save as standard-bearer, he experienced sufficient in that brief encounter to imprint the Battle of Monymusk on his mind's eye and memory for ever after. For, with Malcolm having driven almost right through the Moray column, and swinging round to seek a new series of victims, there was an inevitable brief pause in the process for those immediately behind. And in that moment or two of panting lull a small wiry Highlander who had ducked agilely under the sweep of the royal axe, darted in behind and slashed his sword up and clean across K'erald's unprotected throat. In a sudden and dreadful fountaining of blood, that inoffensive young man staggered a couple of steps onward and then collapsed in choking, ungainly death, the Brecbennoch of Columba flung out of his nerveless grasp on to the trampled, slippery grass.
Appalled, for the moment paralysed in horror, Maldred stared down at his brother, the royal banner wavering in his grip. Croakingly he found his voice, to call out, to Kerald, to God, to the King. God may have heard him, but the others did not. Malcolm was already plunging back into the thick of the fighting, shouting. And Kerald mac Melmore would hear no more until he would hear better things than this in a better place.
Maldred had seen enough of war and sudden death to know that there was nothing to be done for his brother; also to know his own duty as standard-bearer and knight. As well as demonstrating to all, friend and foe, where the monarch fought, to ensure that the realm's colours remained flying high, it was his part to protect the King's back with his own person. He could not stop, therefore, could not kneel to Kerald's jerking, ghastly body, must press on to fill again the gap which had opened behind Malcolm — the hardest thing ever he had had to do in his life. What he did do, although with a grievous swaying and dipping of the boar flag, was to stoop in his striding and snatch up the precious Brecbennoch, dropping his dirk in the process, and, clutching the reliquary to him also, in Kerald's stead, lurch on after their liege-lord.
He had no sense of time or detail, after that, nor of danger nor anything else, save the one requirement of keeping his place close at the King's back. In fact, it was all over in only a few further minutes, and his immediate duty over. It was Madach's turn now, holding that bottleneck of a defile against the fleeing Moraymen, and, with the pursuing pressure from the haughland, turning defeat into rout. But the King left that task and slaughter to others, and Maldred did not require to be involved. Stricken, he went back for Kerald.
Because of the brevity of the engagement and the total surprise, casualties were not really heavy, in relation to the numbers present, even on the enemy side. In fact the worst killing took place in the mouth of the cleft itself, with MacDuff and Strathearn pressing the fleeing foemen against the barrier of the narrows blocked by Madach's Athollmen. But even so, most of the Moraymen escaped, thanks to the wooded and broken nature of the terrain. Many flung themselves into the Don and, lightly clad in short kilts and little else, were able to swim across safely. Some broke away downstream, southwards. Others got away by the tree-clad slopes of Pitfichie Hill.
Malcolm was less fervent in pursuit and punishment than might have been expected. Not in any spirit of clemency towards his misguided subjects but because there was still no sign of the Mormaor Farquhar of Ross, who might well be fairly close behind the Moray host. He respected Farquhar's military abilities and reckoned that the Ross army might well be a large one. He did not want his own strength to be caught dispersed and chasing fugitives. So he forbade any major pursuit, and ordered his force to concentrate again at Monymusk.
Strangely enough, to the King's wrath, Malsnechtan himself had escaped. Piety, in this instance, had paid off, and he and his small group heading for the monastery, had evidently at once recognised the hopelessness of the
Moray frontal position when the royal array made its charge, and bolted without delay before young Glamis could reach them — they being mounted, he not. Because of Malcolm's stringent orders to keep their people hidden at this early stage, MacDuff and Angus likewise had not revealed their position to the mass of the enemy by rising to intercept Malsnechtan. So he and his leaders had got clean if ingloriously away — and the Thane of Glamis was left in no doubt as to what his sovereign thought of him.
But if this was an odd circumstance of the fight, there was another even more so when, presently, Madach arrived with a group of distinguished prisoners, amongst whom was none other than Malsnechtan's mother, the Lady Malvina, Lulach's widow and for a few months Queen. What she was doing with her son's rebel army she did not divulge. Madach's people had found her, with the baggage-train coming along a discreet distance behind.
She was, to be sure, something of an embarrassment — Malcolm had, after all, slain her husband. But she might be useful to hold as a hostage against her son's future activities, possibly even against Farquhar of Ross, whose sister-in-law she was. So, after the briefest of cold greetings, she was placed in the care of Dufagan MacDuff— she was a kinswoman of his — who was told that the monarch did not wish to set eyes on her again.
They spent that night — a night which Maldred and Madach passed in sad vigil in the monastery's little timber church with the body of their brother — and much of the next day, waiting for Farquhar at Monymusk. But though their forward scouts probed a dozen miles and more northwards, they discovered no sign of him. Whether he was delayed, not coming at all, or warned of the defeat and turned back, they knew not. But there seemed to be no point in waiting in hostile country — the King was still concerned about the intentions of Martacus of Mar, so comparatively near at hand, who likewise so far had not put in an appearance but who could raise the whole country against them. He was in no position to attempt the lengthy process of full conquest of the North, with his English preoccupations ever with him. He decided that, having had a cheap victory, he would be content meantime. There were also the Orkney earls to consider.
The Atholl brothers saw the victory as less cheap.
So they left Monymusk and the Don to return southwards, Malcolm assuring the Abbot that he would not forget his vow to raise the status of the monastery, along with its change of dedication from St. Drostan, Columba's nephew, to St. Andrew. What he thought of this, and his transference to St. Andrew's bishopric instead of the Abbey of Deer, he did not announce. As well, which may have affected his attitude, they left behind a long and specially-erected gallows bearing a row of dangling corpses, senior prisoners taken in the rout, as demonstration of how Malcolm, High King of Scots, looked upon rebellion. They did not leave behind Malsnechtan's baggage-train, which proved to be unexpectedly rich; whether this had been for possible bribing of support further south, or an indication of supreme confidence in the result, was not known.
Not left behind, either, was the Church's newest abbot, Kerald mac Melmore, wrapped in plaids and slung between two garrons, for burial at Dunkeld, the Brec-bennoch of Columba with him.
19
Maldred had never
looked to see Wearmouth again, nor hoped to. That he should be riding there dressed in his oldest clothing — not that he was any sort of stylish dresser — and in the company of only two false friars, Cospatrick and his man Patie's Dod, seemed unlikely to say the least. His reluctance to be doing anything of the kind had been pronounced. But Cospatrick had been pressing, if not peremptory. And he had come to respect that man's assessments and urgencies as usually valid, however much his motives might sometimes be suspect. The Earl had insisted that it was expedient for Maldred to make this surreptitious, indeed secret, journey into Northumbria — and when the younger man had demanded for whom or what it was expedient, he had merely been told that Prior Aldwin, and to a lesser extent the monk Turgot, had especially sought his presence. Why, was not forthcoming — although Cospatrick almost certainly knew more than he was telling — and suggestions that the monks could have come to Dunbar or Ersildoune if they were so anxious to see him, had met with the reply that they were afraid to venture into Scotland contrary to Malcolm's express commands since they had refused to take the oath of allegiance to him. All of which, whilst not satisfying Maldred, was superficially reasonable. And, of course, while Cospatrick was not actually his master, as a sort of steward of his two earldoms, Maldred had to take the older man's wishes very much into account.
So here the three of them were, riding unobtrusively through dangerous, lawless and ungoverned Northumbria, a year less a month after the defeat of the Moray rising, a friar on a jennet, a serving-brother on a heavy garron and a nondescript traveller on the most broken-down nag in the Ersildoune stables.
They had had to make a wide detour, increasing by half again the length of their journey, in order to avoid the Tyneside area where, at the first possible crossing of the river, after the estuary, the Normans were laying the foundations of a great new stone castle, at Monkchester, site of a one-time Roman fort, and wherein was their only permanent presence north of Tees — meantime at least. So the travellers had come south from Teviotdale over Carter Fell into Redesdale, and down Rede to cross Tyne eventually at Corbridge, near the great Roman Wall, before turning eastwards by Gateshead and Boldon. Cospatrick rode throughout with an easy confidence and familiarity, bestowing blessings now and again as the notion took him. Clearly this was all well-trodden ground for him, and he entirely at home in his role — remarkable considering that he had once been undisputed lord of all here.
They came down to the estuary and bay of the Wear, ten miles south of that of Tyne, on the third afternoon — for clerics apparently did not hurry on the road — unchallenged and without having seen a single Norman. Wear-mouth, on this sunny June afternoon, looked very different from the day nine years before when Maldred had first seen it, in storm and war. Moreover, coming to it on the other side of the estuary, at Monk Wearmouth where was the original settlement from Lindisfarne, the Scots army had never reached this south side, where at Bishop's Wearmouth was the monastery of St. Michael to which they were now headed. This did not at all seem to be the place where, in stress and bloodshed, he had first met Magda — and Margaret.
St. Michael's, a Benedictine priory, was likewise a notable contrast to the establishment their monkish hosts had been seeking to build up at Melross, a settled, extensive, stone-built place founded in 930, with a fair church; not so venerable as the St. Peter's church across the water in Monk Wearmouth where Malcolm had taken up his quarters that evening of 1069, and which had been in fact originally a Columban foundation, where the Venerable Bede had lived and written.
