Margaret the Queen (49 page)

"Aye, so say I. Only
...
if the Welsh could be made best use of, properly led
...
They are bonnie fighters.

Cumbria stretches down almost to Wales. Speaks the same language. Cospatrick covets Cumbria also. Does he think that he can raise a Cumbrian army? With your brother Madach? They have not fought, as a folk, for a century. If they could be brought to it also
..."

"I know not, sir. Cospatrick did not speak of that. But . . ."

"Four armies — the Scots, the Northumbrians, the Cumbrians and the Welsh — all facing south and east together. Would that not cause the wretched Saxons to rise? Then together to throw the Normans into the sea! Before William could return from France." Malcolm took a pace or two back and forth beneath the apple-trees. "I have to think on this. Consider well. I shall tell you tomorrow what I have decided."

And abruptly as he had come, he left them there.

Margaret was looking troubled now. "Does this mean war, Maldred?" she asked.

"It could," he allowed. "But may not. He may refuse to do it."

"I think not. You have baited your hook too well!"

"Not I!" he protested. "I am against the project. I but brought the word. From Cospatrick and your friends."

"You think that it will not succeed?"

"I do not say that. Cospatrick believes that it can, and should. But it will succeed at a price."

"Bloodshed? Men's lives?"

"That, yes. But — I was thinking of other cost. The Church."

Magda all but groaned. "Maldred has become a great churchman, of late," she complained. "Not holy, prayerful. But only in the style of it all, in rule and doctrine. He was not so before."

"When the Church, my
father's
Church, is threatened, would you have me to care nothing?"

"You see the Scottish Church as threatened by this, Maldred?"

"Can it be otherwise, Highness? Bring the great bishopric of Durham and all the Northumbrian and Cumbrian Church into Scotland, under the overlordship of English archbishops, and how shall the small Columban Church stand against them? Already you have made inroads, with your Holy Trinity here, and this of St. Andrews. Our Church is not built for fighting — save for the individual souls of men. It is a missionary Church, working from small houses, not a great united array like yours, taking commands from above, from Rome and Canterbury and the like."

"But, do you not see that your people could benefit from uniting with the rest
of Christendom? Could gain greatl
y? You talk only of losing, Maldred. What of gaining? Is your small Church so perfect that it cannot be improved?"

He shook his head helplessly. He would never change her, convince her. And she
could
be right — although he did not think so.

They left it at that, and went to see the new church. The choir or chancel, to the east, was finished now, or sufficiently so for it to be used for services; and very fine it looked — although disproportionate in its dimensions as yet, too high for its length. But that would be altered once the huge, pillared nave was finished — which would take years yet, apparently. Even meantime, however, it was such a place as Scotland had never seen, splendid, dignified, rich, even awe-inspiring, the candle-light and soft radiance from the stained-glass windows gleaming on gold and jewelled magnificence everywhere.

"How say you to this, Maldred friend?" the Queen asked.

"It is a noble pile," he admitted. "But. . . ?"

"But the poor will not worship here any more fervently, I think, than at the humblest Columban shrine."

"Yet the faithful poor come here by the hundred, from near and far, to see it. Pilgrims. Hence my ferries."

That silenced him. She took his arm as though in consolation.

Next day, Malcolm gave Maldred his answer to take back to Monk Wearmouth. If Cospatrick sent him word and proof that he could raise a Cumbrian army to take part in the enterprise, and that the Welsh would join in in strength, then he would agree to lead a large Scots force down into Northumbria. In the early autumn, once the harvest was in. As to the Church, that was clerics' business, not his. Fothad and Dunchad and Melmore could see to it. Maldred to return and report. That was all . . .

The Scots marched
southwards in fine fettle — as well they might. For too long, thanks to Norman William, they had been denied this sort of activity, armed venturing, the spice of life. The expedition to the North to counter Malsnechtan — now turned monk in Deer Abbey, it was said — scarcely counted, for it had been very brief, against their own countrymen, with little scope for individual initiative and self-help. For seven years William's truce, if that it could be called, had held, and life had been better for such as churchmen and womenfolk than for men with real blood in their veins. During all that time the King had been irascible, at odds with all, like many of his lords, or else mooning lovesick over his holy Saxon woman — no state for any King of Scots. Now Malcolm was in his element again, doing what he most enjoyed, cheerful, even amiable in his surly fashion.

It was a great host, eight thousand strong, in the nature of things more of a demonstration in strength, a showing of the silver-boar flag, than an actual invasion force. Admittedly this might not augur too well in the important matter of spoil and pillage — but that remained to be seen.

Maldred had joined the array at the Tweed crossing, with seven hundred men of Lothian, the Merse and the Borders; so that, with the four hundred Athollmen who then put themselves under his command, he was in a position to control fully an eighth of the army — more than any other single leader, even Dufagan MacDuff — a strange situation for that young man. Madach was to come over with a force from Caer-luel by North Tyne, Rede, Coquet and Aln, to meet the host at Alnwick.

They went slowly, for most were not horsed, and fifteen or sixteen miles a day was good marching for an army thousands strong. Which gave those who were mounted a lot of time on their hands. And idle hands, especially in former enemy territory, are
easily tempted, so that main
taining discipline was a constant preoccupation of the leadership. Despite the King's strict commands that, on

this occasion, pillage and rape were forbidden, in the interests of local goodwill, not a few Northumbrians suffered — after all, this had been normal procedure for generations. Malcolm had to hang above a score of the independently-minded — including a group of Maldred's Borderers who looked on such activities as practically their livelihood — before he won approximate acceptance of this unnatural policy. It was all the harder for the monarch to impose, in that he himself was amongst the most tempted of all.

Well before they reached Alnwick, the second day after fording Tweed, a party of riders came fast to meet them, in the Dunstanburgh area. It proved to be Madach mac Melmore himself, with escort, in some agitation.

"Ill news, Highness," he called out, even before he drew rein. "Ligulf Thane is dead. And his Northumbrian host in disarray."

"Fiends of Hell!" Malcolm burst out. "What is this, man? Dead? Ligulf? What a God's Name are you saying? Has there been battle? Already?"

"No, sir — no. It was murder. Poisoned. Gilbert the Sheriff did it. At Gateshead. Where the Northumbrian army awaited you
..."

"Save us — poison! What fool's tale is this?"

"No tale, cousin — truth. The Sheriff of Northumbria, this Gilbert, is kin to Bishop Walchere. Who appointed him. He was at odds with Ligulf. Jealous of his influence with the Bishop, they say. Influence which should have been his, the Sheriffs. He was against this Scottish project also, it is said. So, while they waited for you, sir, he had Ligulf poisoned. He is dead himself now. For the Northumbrians, who much loved Ligulf, went crazed with anger. They took the Sheriff and hacked him in pieces. And now all is uproar at Gateshead. They are blaming the Bishop, and others round him. Because Gilbert was his kin. Saying that they are betrayed by foreigners and Flemings
..."

"Damnation — Ligulf dead! This changes all. He was the one I trusted. Without him . . . !" The King beat his clenched fist on his saddle-bow. "I mislike the stink of this! If such can go on in this accursed Bishop's camp. What now?"

"The Prior Aldwin of Wearmouth has gone to Durham to fetch the Bishop, Highness. To calm and reassure the army. The Benedictine Turgot he sent to Alnwick, to inform you. He was weary with travel, so I came myself . . ."

"Monks! Clerks!" Malcolm exploded. "God forgive me for being fool enough ever to enter into dealings with such cattle! And Cospatrick — what says that fox to this?"

"Cospatrick is down on
the Welsh marches, Highness. Wit
h a force from South Cumbria. Linking up with the Welsh under Griffith ap Cynan. He knows naught of this."

"He should have told me, warned me, of this snake Gilbert's opposition."

They marched on for the Aln, the leaders at least in a highly doubtful frame of mind.

Turgot, waiting at Alnwick with the Caer-luel force, could tell them little more. Only that he suspected that the real mind behind this sorry business had been one Leobwin, who was the Bishop's domestic chaplain, and very close to him. His was an evil influence, Turgot admitted; and although a Saxon, some said a bastard brother of the late Earl Waldeve, he was known to be against the Scottish move, much against. . .

The monk got no further than that. Malcolm, his heavy features thunderous, dismissed him from his presence, fist raised.

So they moved on southwards, towards Tyne.

They never reached Gateshead — where apparendy Ligulf had assembled his army, so as to intimidate, without actually attacking the Normans building the great new castle at Monkchester across the river, with their quite small resident protective garrison. Prior Aldwin himself reached the Scots at Morpeth the next day, still a day's march from the Tyne, in dire distress. Indeed, he could scarcely gulp out his tidings, in sorrow and alarm. Brought to the King, he actually wept.

"It is all over!" he exclaimed. "All is lost. The good Walchere
...
is dead. Burned. Burned to death. God rest his soul. A blessed martyr, no less! God rest his soul. Dead. And all come to naught. . ."

"Christ God!" Appalled, Malcolm stared at him. "Another of them! Have you all run mad, man?"

"It is true, all true, Sire — the sorrow of it. The men were crazed, crazed. Ligulf's men. I went to Durham and brought the Bishop and his company. To speak and reason with them. I, I do greatly blame myself, now, God knows.

They would not heed him. Only shouted against him, that he had slain Ligulf. That he and that Leobwin, the chaplain, had betrayed them all. That they were foreigners and betrayers. They clamoured against them, threatening. I left them then. To try to get help from some of the thanes, Ligulf s friends. But, but
...
I was too late . . ." The man's voice broke.

"They slew him then? The Bishop?"

"Oh, the sin of it! Yes, slew him. They were threatening his life. He and his company from Durham, about five-score, with Leobwin, fighting off the angry soldiery, took refuge in the sanctuary of St. Mary's Church, at Gateshead. There the soldiers barricaded them in. Piled brushwood all around and set fire to it. All was ablaze when I got back with the lords. Walchere, and all within, were dead, burned. Not one escaped
..."

"Saints a mercy! So — all comes to naught!"

All around the King stared at each other as the significance of all this sank in.

"This Northumbrian army?" MacDuff broke in. "What of it now? Who commands, clerk?"

"None seems to command, sir," Aldwin wailed. "All is confusion. With Ligulf and Walchere both dead, none knows what to do. All authority is gone. The army is dispersing, men going to their homes. All is chaos
..."

"Then the sooner that we also go home, the better, I say!" Dufagan declared. And there were cries of agreement around him.

"But — all is not lost yet," Madach protested.
"We
are here in strength. The Northumbrians only need to be rallied — a strong hand. The South Cumbrians and the Welsh are mustered. All Cospatrick's work. . ."

"A plague on Cospatrick's work!" the King exclaimed. "But . . . this must be considered. I shall hold a council. At once. That church we passed — Morpeth. Back to it. Have the host to camp meantime in this common land. We must consider
..."

So a council-of-war was instituted in the modest church of the Blessed Virgin at Morpeth, amongst the Scots leaders. There was much divergence of view. Most probably agreed with MacDuff, advocating an immediate return to Scotland — with, happily, no further need to restrain themselves from spoil and pillage. Some supported Madach that the project should go on, arguing that