Margaret the Queen Read online

  Margaret the Queen

  Book Jacket

  Series: Scotland [2]

  Tags: Historical Novel

  MARGARET THE QUEEN

  'Sixty Scots, Pictish and Dalar kings lie buried on lona, Highness. All of the most ancient line in Christendom. Have you forgot?'

  She looked at him, her lovely eyes untroubled. 'No, Maldred, I have not forgot/ she said. 'But there is a time and a tide for all things. For standing still and for moving on. For holding fast and for pointing forward and renewal. I believe that God, in His wisdom, sent that great storm to bring me to this northern land for a purpose. His purpose. In all humility I say it. For myself, I am nothing .. ‘

  Also by the same author,

  and available in Coronet Books:

  Lords of Misrule

  Mac Beth the King

  Montrose: The Young Montrose

  Montrose: The Captain General

  The Wallace

  The Patriot

  MacGregor's Gathering

  David the Prince

  Robert The Bruce Trilogy:

  Book 1 - The Steps to the Empty Throne

  Book 2 - The Path of the Hero King

  Book 3 - The Price of the King's Peace

  Margaret the Queen

  Nigel Tranter

  CORONET BOOKS Hodder and Stoughton

  Copyright © 1979 by Nigel Tranter

  First published in Great Britain 1979 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited

  Coronet edition 1981 Second Impression 1984

  British Library C.I.P.

  Tranter, Nigel Margaret the queen. I. Title

  823'.914[F] PR6070.R34 ISBN 0-340-26545-0

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not. by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Printed and bound in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a division of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent (Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square, London, WC1 3DP) by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk.

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  In Order of Appearance

  MALDRED MAC MELMORE: Second son of the Mormaor or

  Earl of Atholl.

  MALCOLM THE THIRD (CANMORE): King of Scots.

  GILLIBRIDE, EARL OF ANGUS: Great Scots noble, former

  Mormaor.

  HUGH O'BEOLAIN, HEREDITARY ABBOT OF APPLECROSS: Great noble.

  EDGAR ATHELING: Saxon prince. Grandson of Edmund Ironside and rightful King of England.

  PRINCESS AGATHA OF HUNGARY: Mother of above.

  MARGARET ATHELING: Sister of Edgar.

  CHRISTINA ATHELING: Sister of Edgar.

  MAGDALEN OF ETHANFORD: Saxon attendant on the princesses.

  INGEBIORG THORFINNSDOTTER: Queen, wife of Malcolm.

  DUNCAN MAC MALCOLM: Prince of Strathclyde, elder son of Malcolm.

  DONALD BEG MAC MALCOLM: Younger son of Malcolm

  and Ingebiorg.

  DUNCAN MACDUFF, EARL OF FIFE: Great noble. Hereditary Inaugurator. Ivo: Celtic Church Abbot of Dunfermline.

  MADACH MAC MELMORE: Eldest son of Earl of Atholl.

  Brother of Maldred.

  COSPATRICK MAC MALDRED: Formerly Earl of Northumbria, cousin of the King.

  WALTHEOF MAC MALDRED: Styled Earl of Cumbria.

  Brother of Cospatrick.

  PAUL THORFINNSON, EARL OF ORKNEY: Elder son of

  Thorfinn Raven Feeder and brother of Queen Ingebiorg.

  ERLAND THORFINNSON: Governor of Galloway. Younger brother of above.

  GODFREY CROVAN OF ISLAY: Later King of Dublin and Man.

  FOTHAD THE SECOND : Celtic Church Bishop of St. Andrews. Chancellor.

  TURGOT: A Cluniac monk, from Durham.

  WALCHERE, BISHOP OF DURHAM: A Lorrainer.

  ELDRED, ARCHBISHOP OF YORK: Saxon prelate.

  EDWIN ALFGARSON, EARL OF MERCIA: Saxon leader.

  MORKAR ALFGARSON: Brother of above.

  THURSTAN, ABBOT OF ELY: Saxon leader.

  HEREWARD LEOFRICSON, THE WAKE: Lord of Bourne. Saxon leader.

  DUNCHAD, ABBOT OF IONA: Co-Arb or Chief Abbot of the Celtic Church.

  WILLIAM OF NORMANDY, KING OF ENGLAND -THE CONQUEROR.

  DONALD BAN MAC DUNCAN: Son of Duncan the First. Half-brother of Malcolm.

  ALDWIN, PRIOR OF WINCHCOMBE AND JARROW: Saxon.

  ROBERT, DUKE OF NORMANDY: Eldest son of the Conqueror.

  EDWARD MAC MALCOLM: Eldest son of Malcolm and Margaret.

  ETHELRED MAC MALCOLM: Third son of Malcolm and Margaret.

  ETHELREDA: Daughter of Cospatrick.

  EDGAR MAC MALCOLM: Fourth son of Malcolm and

  Margaret. Later King.

  SIR ROBERT DE MOUBRAY, EARL OF NORTHUMBRIA:

  Norman noble.

  WILLIAM THE SECOND (RUFUS), KING OF ENGLAND: Second son of the Conqueror.

  Part One

  1

  MALDRED, SICKENED AT it all, turned away. He was not a particularly squeamish youth, but on this raid he had already seen enough savagery and sheer brutality to last him for many a day. He did not protest, however, not any more. Malcolm the Third, by-named Canmore, King of Scots, was not the sort of monarch who accepted criticism gladly from any man, or woman, in especial from an eighteen-year-old — even though he was a kinsman, in cousinship.

  The distraught woman's screams would have drowned out any protests, anyway. No sound came from either of the children any more, at least — one, a tiny naked baby which had been still at breast, now lying crumpled some forty feet below the cliff; the other, a yellow-haired two-year-old already beginning to be carried away by the river's current, where it curved round the cliff-foot — the Wear it was called, apparently. No sounds either now emanated from the two men of the little household back there, lying in their own blood, presumably the woman's husband and father. They sprawled at the door of their cot-house, the reed-thatched roof of which was blazing fiercely and sending up great murky clouds of smoke, carried on the gusty and chill east wind off the sea to join the vast pall which lay over all that Northumbrian land northwards and westwards, whence the army had come, the product of scores, hundreds of other burning homesteads in their path, all with their quota of slain.

  The King was not looking at the hysterical woman, any more than at her late family. He stared seawards, into the south-east wind, pale-blue eyes narrowed, watching the three ships which had just been spotted and pointed out to him, far from clear as they were in the poor visibility and clouds of spindrift of the storm's aftermath. That they were making, limpingly, for the river-mouth was clear enough however, whatever else was not. There might be more behind, as yet not visible.

  King Malcolm turned to the group of his thanes and captains who sat their shaggy garrons behind his own — lords, rather; Malcolm, who had been reared here in Northumbrian England, did not like the old Scots terms, and thanes were now lords, mormaors now earls, after the Saxon-Danish custom.

  "What think you?" He spoke jerkily, and in the English tongue, not in his native Gaelic — which for a dozen years now the others all had had to practise. "These ships? Are they in trouble? Are there more?" His eyesight was not of the best. "I can see three only . . ." An explosive curse burst from his lips, and he swung in his saddle to stab a blunt finger towards the screaming woman whose cries were preventing the others from hearing him properly. "Silence me that tru
ll, fools!" he shouted.

  One of the dismounted soldiers raised a fist and struck the woman full on the mouth, a great blow which flung her headlong to the ground, there at the edge of the little cliff, her outcry reduced to a snuffling, strangled sobbing.

  Malcolm Canmore repeated his questions. He was a stocky, thick-set man of forty-seven, with a head strangely over-large for the rest of him — hence the by-name of Ceann-Mhor or Big Head — a shock of dark, curling unruly hair only partially restrained by the gold circlet around his brows, his down-turning moustaches cruel, to join a beard forked in the Danish style. The gold circlet alone distinguished him as monarch, for he was dressed no more finely than many of his men, and some of his nobles were considerably more grand. His whole appearance indeed seemed to relate him to his mother's blood rather than his father's. For, although he was the first-born but illegitimate son of Duncan the First, whom MacBeth had slain, boasting the blood of possibly the oldest line of monarchs in all Christendom, reaching far back into pagan times, his mother had been no more than the miller's daughter of Forteviot, not Duncan's queen. Be all that as it might, Malcolm the Third was one of the most successful warriors and shrewd manipulators of his day, even though the notion of mercy, as of gentleness, was not in him.

  The consensus of the Scots lords was that the three ships were damaged by the storm and heading into Wearmouth's bay for shelter. One, a long low galley, Danish by the look of her, of the longship breed, was in front, being rowed in, her great single square sail, tattered in ribbons, streaming in the wind. The two other vessels were larger, but more clumsy, traders, cargo-carriers by the look of them, one with a mast gone. If any had borne the usual markings of flags or painted identities on the sails, these 'had not survived the storm. The general opinion was that they were not war-inclined.

  "There is a fourth ship, Highness," Maldred mac Melmore of Atholl said, his young eyes keenest. "Some way to the south. See, rounding the headland. The spray hides it somewhat. . ."

  "If four, how many more? What is it, boy? A warship or another merchanter?"

  "Not a longship or galley. One like these other two. . ."

  "Good. Better pickings from traders than from soldiers, I say! We will down to this haven and receive them, I think! Suitably. Bide you here, lad. You have good eyes, at least! If not much else. Watch you for other ships. Bring me word if there are more. And if any are war-galleys."

  The King reined his horse round to move off, and his eyes lighted on the fallen woman again. She lay unmoving, but whether she was conscious or not could not be seen, for her clothing was now thrown up over her head and shoulders, her white lower half laid bare. The man who had struck her was now kneeling over her, busy, another dragging her ragged clothes higher.

  "Animals!" Malcolm roared, heels kicking his mount forward at the same time as he whipped out his great two-handed sword from its sheath at his back. Over woman and active, grinning men he rode, slashing downwards with the edge of his blade as he went, beating both the soldiers to the ground in red ruin. "Curs! I said silence her, not breed on her! Colbain — if these two are not dead, hang them. I will be obeyed, to the word." And he rode on without pause.

  This forward section of the Scots punitive force, some twelve hundred mounted men, streamed after him, down towards the harbour and village of Wearmouth in St. Cuthbert's Land, taking the savaged would-be rapists with them. Rape was no offence in Malcolm's eyes; indeed it was so commonplace on that expedition as to be wholly unremarkable. But disobedience and undisciplined behaviour in the royal presence were altogether another matter.

  Maldred of Atholl was left on the cliff-top beside the burning hovel, with a twitching, moaning woman and two dead cottagers.

  He went to her and pulled down her pitiful clothing, very much aware of her rounded white nakedness and the dark triangle at her groin — but aware also of the great bruising on the soft flesh, bruises he guessed had been caused by the hooves of the King's horse rather than by the rough handling of the soldiers. He sought to comfort the creature, but she was only semi-conscious and beyond his feeble aid. There was nothing that he could do, no shelter even into which he might drag her. Sighing, he left her, and went back to gazing seawards into the chill wind.

  Presently he decided that there were no more ships coming. Weakly, uncomfortably, he did not look at the woman again, but went for his garron and rode downhill for the river-mouth.

  All four vessels were now in the shelter of the estuary, but standing off a few hundred yards out, as though uncertain of their landfall and reception — as well they might be, with a large armed force drawn up and awaiting them. In England, or most other lands, in the year 1069, it paid to be discreet where numbers of men were in evidence. Perhaps the seafarers contemplated turning and facing the angry, snarling Norse Sea again, rather than risk such a welcome. Yet, seen thus at fairly close quarters, the damage to the ships done by the storm of the last two days was sufficiently evident to make anything such unlikely in the extreme. All four craft were in a sorry state. Even the galley, probably the least affected, was sorely battered, its rearing prow, once bearing a proud eagle's or dragon's head, broken off, the decked fighting-platform at the high bows stove-in at one side, and great gaps amongst the rowing benches.

  Maldred reined up and dismounted beside his scowling, heavy-shouldered cousin. "No more ships', my lord King," he reported. "Nor any sign of any enemy force to the south, either. On land."

  Malcolm nodded, unspeaking. He was, on the whole, a silent man.

  "These timorous shipmen grow tedious, Highness!" Gillibride, Earl of Angus declared. He was a youngish man, dark, saturnine, slightly-built but of a smouldering fierceness of nature, who had only recendy succeeded his father, the old mormaor. "Shall we put out these boats here and hasten them somewhat?" He gestured towards the numerous fishing-cobles drawn up on the shingle of the boatstrand nearby.

  "They will not sail away," the King said briefly. "We have them, and they know it."

  "Why waste men on what will fall to us anyway, with a little patience?" the Abbot of Applecross asked. Knowing Hugh O'Beolain, Maldred did not esteem that to be any gentle reminder of Christian charity towards the unfortunate. All abbots of the Celtic Church were not necessarily that way inclined; the hereditary ones, like this O'Beolain of Applecross, were quite as military as, say, some of the Norman bishops.

  Maldred himself spoke up. "They will not know who we are. Any more than we know them. They may be friends, not enemies. If you spread your royal banner, Highness, they might come. Reassured."

  Some of the nobles round the monarch grinned at the notion that sight of the standard of the present King of Scots might reassure anyone as to a kindly reception. But Malcolm himself nodded, and signed to young Cathail mac Lachlan, son of the Earl of Buchan, who shared the duties of royal standard-bearer with Maldred, to unfurl the great blue Boar flag of Scotland which, because of the difficulty of keeping it flying in high winds, had been carried wrapped round its staff.

  Whether as a result or not, the galley at least made a move shortly thereafter. Long oars were put out and the vessel headed slowly for the boatstrand. It was, of course, the only one of the four which could make land thus, with its shallow draught and forefoot construction able to run up on to a shelving beach, where the heavier conventional trading-ships required quays and jetties.

  The damaged vessel drew in, and some of the Scots moved down to the strand to receive her. A gang-plank was run down from the shattered bows-platform to the shingle, as the galley grounded, and three men came down it, their rich clothing wet and weather-stained. It was to be seen that some of those who stood at the plank's head to watch were women.

  Of the trio, the one in the centre was youngest, thin, almost emaciated, with a slight stoop, very fair hair, and

  a way of screwing up his eyes as though short-sighted.

  "That looks like the flag of Malcolm of Scotland," he said. He spoke a strangely accented English, with a hesitancy
of enunciation which nevertheless did not lack authority. "Is it so?"

  "It is," the Earl of Angus agreed, less than respectfully. "Who are you?"

  The other ignored that. "Take me to the King," he commanded.

  Angus grinned. "Beware how you crow here, cockerel!" he jerked, but turned and led the way back to the waiting Scots leadership group at the top of the shingle-bank.

  As they came near, Malcolm, staring, drew a quick breath, leaning forward. Clearly he knew now who came.

  "These offer no names, Highness," Angus reported. "And come from beyond this sea, I think." And to the newcomers, "Down, fools — on your knees! Before the High King of Scots."

  That was ignored likewise. The pale young man spoke. "King Malcolm — we meet again. I thank God that it is you."

  "Edgar!" the King said. "Edgar Atheling!"

  Angus stared, and swallowed. He had been telling the man who should have been King of England to get down on his knees. He muttered something, scarcely an apology for it was not in that man's nature to apologise for anything, but in protest that he had not known. The Saxon paid no attention.