Queen Hereafter Page 16

  Daily, Margaret attended to managing the royal household, ordering changes, and reviewing written records that Dame Agnes and Wilfrid, too, presented for the accounting of the so-called queen’s gold, the income from properties in Scotland now assigned to her keeping. She received individuals and small groups who arrived at Dunfermline to request the queen’s mercy and generosity, and she continually relied on the advice and the company of her expanding circle of ladies. More women had arrived at court since the wedding, and they were often invaluable in helping with Margaret’s responsibilities in reviewing storage rooms and evaluating linens and blankets, dishes, and household items. Gradually, with the help of Dame Agnes, her women, and Agnes’s husband, Arthur, a stern and acerbic steward who rarely spoke, Margaret was becoming familiar with the contents of every room, chest, and cupboard in the king’s tower. And Malcolm had made it clear that he did not much care what changes and decisions she made, so long as the needs of court and king were satisfied.

  “I believe,” she told her ladies one day, “that Dunfermline needs more elegance. Finer plate for table and hall, more tapestries and cushions, and new furnishings to suit a royal household.”

  “We still have things packed away in chests,” Cristina reminded her. “There is gold and silver plate wrapped up, along with cups and dishes and sacred vessels.”

  “We will need those,” Margaret said. “And I will order more from the trade ships.”

  “With so many poor in Scotland, perhaps you should not be seen to indulge your whims by purchasing new goods,” Cristina said.

  “I understand that there are poor folk in the king’s realm, but even so, a king’s house must reflect his status. It helps reassure the people. A threadbare king will not make his people feel secure, especially in time of war.”

  For the comfort of the growing circle of ladies, Margaret requested more chairs and benches, for they worked diligently at their needlework. Some, such as Edith and Gudrun, had small children, so a little nursery grew at Dunfermline, too, even without royal children.

  “That is your most important duty,” Lady Agatha reminded her one day as Margaret held Dolfin, Edith’s youngest, in her lap. “You must allow the king his privileges, but for the time each month that he must leave you be. Hopefully those days will soon end for you,” she said meaningfully, “when you find yourself with child. When you have produced an heir or two, perhaps a daughter as well, then you may refuse him. You may even request your own bedchamber and a separate household if you wish. It is often done.” She smiled tightly.

  “We have been married but a few months. You never separated yourself from your own husband,” Margaret pointed out.

  “My marriage was agreeable, thank the saints. Your father, God rest him, was a considerate man. But many women live apart from their husbands once they do what is expected of them. You may find it better to … keep apart from such a savage Scot,” she whispered.

  Lady Edith, seated beside Lady Agatha, laughed. “It is not so bad as your mother suggests, dear queen. How you blush!”

  Let them think what they would, Margaret decided. She would not disclose that she found the marriage bed more than pleasant. Neither would she tell them what she already suspected: that she was with child, and had been since nearly the first, a suspicion that each passing day confirmed. She had kept it from her women, but soon enough Kata would realize it, and then they would all know.

  And the more she lay with Malcolm, the more she savored secret touches and silent permissions, and the unexpected comfort of his warm, strong form beside her. The physical act was usually quickly done, sometimes leaving her strangely yearning, uncertain of the remedy except that she wanted to allow more. By the time Malcolm was snoring, she would sleep a little, or she would rise in the dark to pray at the hours of matins and lauds. She woke regularly to pray at the canonical hours, and did not want to lose that discipline, certain that her soul would suffer if she grew lazy and too comfortable.

  But that curtained bed offered a darkened hortus conclusus, hiding what her husband offered and she willingly allowed. Giving him all his will so that she could conceive a child, she felt something of his passion echo through her, a hot joy that was powerful and compelling—but she would not give that rein. He touched, he savored with expressive groans and whispers, while she enjoyed, breathless but craving in silence—and did not refuse, though it cost her in prayers later.

  She wished desperately for a child to prove to herself that what they did was not sinful.

  Time told soon enough, and now she was well along with child. She had been feeling ill in the mornings and sometimes at night, she had a taut thickening in her lower belly, and her breasts were full, tender. And she was yawning, pale, and even less inclined to eat.

  Gathering courage, she went to her mother and told her. Lady Agatha seemed pleased—she rarely saw her mother smile and saw only a glimmer of that now—and said that Margaret must not let her husband mount her any longer. But she liked the comfort he gave her, and she did not tell him yet.

  Soon the other women knew, too, excited but discreet. Lady Eva said little, but one day brought her harp to the solar and played and sang what she said was an old Gaelic lullaby. The exquisite melody brought tears to Margaret’s eyes, and she asked to hear it again, wanting to learn the song to sing to her own little one.

  “My dear,” Lady Agatha cautioned one day, “remember that a woman must not express too much joy or anticipation over a child until it is born healthy and thrives.”

  Lady Edith brought little Dolfin to the queen’s circle. Willful and affectionate, prone to messy kisses and stubborn demands, he climbed into Margaret’s lap and seemed content in her company. That gave her joy, and she began to look forward to her own child, hoping that her babe would be healthy, despite the fears her mother introduced. She prayed daily for its protection, and she asked Eva again for the lullaby, which she learned to sing softly.

  WHEN MARGARET FELT the delicate fluttering that meant the child was healthy and vigorous within her, she knew she must tell Malcolm what she had withheld. That night when he rolled toward her, his hands hot and eager, she told him the reason he should not, could not now.

  He upped on an elbow in the darkness. “So! Good! Are you well?”

  “I am. The babe will come at the end of the year or just after, I believe.”

  “A son,” he said, rolling back on the pillows. She could hear the grin. “A strong son!”

  “The babe could be female,” she pointed out.

  “God gives me sons. I have three or four already, and we will have more.”

  Now she sat up. “Several? I have heard of two.”

  “Duncan and Donald, aye. Ingebjorg’s sons. I have another two—or it is three?” He grinned.

  “What! You should know!” Margaret burst out. He did not answer, and she wondered if he kept a mistress, even now, with a new bride. “Where are your sons? How old are they?”

  “Inga’s sons are nine, I think, and five. Old enough to be fostered out, as is the custom here, though it is early for the youngest, but we arranged it. Angus of Mar keeps Donald, the youngest, and my brother, Donal, mormaer of the Isles, has Duncan, the elder. I have two other sons elsewhere, grown men, housecarls in Atholl, northwest of here. I do not see them much. As bastards, they will inherit property from me, but no throne. Good young warriors,” he admitted with a grunt.

  “Bring Ingebjorg’s sons to court. I am a stepmother and soon to be a mother, and I will have our children know one another. Then they may not be rivals in the future if questions arise over who shall be king and who shall be less than that. I have asked this before, sire.”

  He sighed. “True. I see that Margaret’s sons will have an ambitious mother,” he teased.

  “I would defend any of them,” she said, not laughing. “I want to meet Inga’s sons.”

  “Very well, I will have them brought here. They are good lads, handsome and dark as their mother. And more spirited
.”

  “Well, they are young boys,” she said pragmatically. “What was their mother like?”

  “Loved God and despised me,” he said. “I killed her husband, with whom she had a heart match. Lulach was a fine warrior, but he called himself king when Scotland belonged to me.”

  “A heart match,” Margaret repeated softly. She and Malcolm did not have such—very few noble couples did. For a moment she yearned … then gathered her wits. What use wasting good thoughts on unattainable things? “Why did you kill Lulach?” She shuddered. “The life that some men lead, as warlords reckoning hard with each other so that death is incidental rather than a heinous sin to regret all one’s life—it is not easy to understand.”

  “It was a necessity. Killing in war is waived by the Church, I understand, with certain penances. Never bothered much with those,” he said. “No time for such fuss. I will take my chances with hell.”

  Margaret stared, hardly knowing how to answer. “What of Lulach?”

  “I had the right to be king. My great-grandfather, also called Malcolm, and my father, Duncan, ruled Scotland one after the other. Macbeth bested Duncan, hand to hand, and took the crown, so when I was old enough—my kinsmen made sure of it—I pursued Macbeth for his treachery and finally took him down as he deserved. Lulach claimed the throne that was mine, with the backing of the northern leaders. I took him down, too, and claimed his queen as my right, and got two princes upon her.” He seemed proud of that, puffed up by it.

  “Poor Ingebjorg, to be taken from her home and married against her will,” she said, feeling wholly sympathetic.

  “She was treated well, and we made a certain peace between us. She bore a third child, but lost it and took ill, and asked to retire to a convent. I sent her to Northumbria. She did not last long after that,” he added, nearly a mutter.

  “God rest her. She was Norse?”

  “Aye, the daughter of a jarl of Orkney. Thorfin was his name.”

  “Were you fond of her?” Truly, she wanted to know.

  “She gave me sons,” he said, as if that explained it all. “She was a gentle girl. When she was ill, she asked me—” He stopped. “She wanted news of her two children with Lulach, a boy and a girl, but their kin had hidden them away in the north. I would not help her find them.”

  “That was harsh,” Margaret said quickly. “Where are they now?”

  “With Lady Gruadh, their grandmother, as far as I know. Nechtan is the son.”

  “Of course! So they are Eva’s half siblings? Did she know Queen Ingebjorg?”

  “I cannot say. Her grandmother would like to stir rebellion on behalf of Nechtan mac Lulach. He would be about fifteen now, I think.”

  “A little younger than Edgar.” Her heart ached for Ingebjorg’s children. “Send for your sons, the two little princes. They are young enough to need a stepmother rather than fostering, and they should know their father. I want your promise that they will be brought here soon.”

  Malcolm chuckled. “You will be a lioness of a mother, I think.”

  DUNCAN AND DONALD arrived within a week of each other, when late summer bloomed lush and the sky glowed pale violet well into the night. The younger, Donald, came with his foster father, Angus of Mar, whose daughter was one of Margaret’s ladies and whose eldest son was among Malcolm’s guards. At five, Donald looked about with great dark eyes, brave but wary, and showed keener interest in the wolfhound’s pups than anything else.

  Duncan, the elder at nearly ten, arrived a week later with a party of Highlanders led by his uncle, Donal Ban. Malcolm’s older son had his father’s curling red-brown hair, stubborn jaw, and broad build. He responded politely to Margaret, but his gaze followed Malcolm. He had no interest in a stepmother when his father was a warrior-king.

  With relief, Margaret noted that Eva took time to show the boys a kind welcome, speaking to them in their native language, for both princes were fostered in Gaelic-speaking households. Eva explained to the queen that the boys were kin to her Moray family, for they shared a mother with her half siblings. Margaret relied on Eva’s help as translator as she got to know her husband’s sons.

  Their uncle, Donal Ban, stayed a fortnight, and Margaret never wished so hard that someone would leave her home. Malcolm and Donal argued at every turn, in council, at supper, in the training yard, despite their claims that they supported each other as king and noble. A mormaer in the western isles, Donal was as large as his brother, though blond, and the ire in his brown eyes was so formidable that Margaret avoided him.

  “Ban means ‘fair one,’ ” Malcolm told her. “And he might be fair where I am ugly—but I am king, and he is not.” He laughed bitterly. Years of separation after the death of their father, King Duncan, when Donal was raised in the Hebrides and Malcolm in Northumbria, had not fostered brotherhood. But both knew the value of their alliance.

  Margaret became so determined that her child and Malcolm’s offspring would be close brothers that she assigned Duncan and Donald a small bedchamber with one manservant between them and requested that Father Otto tutor them together. And she asked Malcolm to order his swordmaster and housecarls to train the boys at weapons together as well.

  “They are of different ages and skills,” he argued. “Duncan is ready for more challenge.”

  “They must learn to protect each other. And I want them to stay here until our child is born, and as long as they can after that. Promise me.” The more the swell of her belly showed, the more she discovered that Malcolm was prone to grant her requests.

  “Very well, but you must not coddle and spoil them. They should be allies as men, true, for one day the eldest will be king and his brothers must support him.”

  “I hoped that one of our sons would be king someday,” Margaret said.

  “My older sons were born of a legitimate queen. My father and grandfather fought to establish primogeniture—the right of firstborn to inherit the throne—in Scotland, when the Celtic system of alternating kinsmen was the tradition. And so we follow primogeniture now.”

  “Our son’s blood will be the more royal,” she said, “with the kings of Scotland and Ireland on your side and kings of Wessex, Hungary, and Russia on mine.”

  “They will all be worthy kings, Margaret,” he said. “Each one has a right. Let God determine some of this, eh?”

  But she felt an irresistible urge to protect her unborn child, an undeniable ambition on its behalf. Her heart quickened with that, even as her child turned and grew within.

  FOCUSED ON THE INTRICATE fingering of a melody on the harp, Eva tried not to think about the loneliness she felt, the yearning for home that had not cleared as quickly as she had hoped. With the king away again, the queen was hosting a small supper for her kinfolk and ladies and a few others. When her song ended, Eva sat at the table with the queen and the rest, nodding thanks at compliments, and sipped a little wine. She ate some hot soup, too, a beef stock thick with onions, as conversations went on around her. Listening, she was poised to remember anything of interest for her kin in the north. She disliked the assignment, but it was hers to do.

  Margaret spoke with the Benedictine priest and the Celtic priest about theological matters that Eva did not completely follow. The queen showed impressive knowledge, even wisdom, for one so young, quoting scripture and flowing easily from Latin to English. When Brother Micheil’s English failed him in a complex answer, he turned to Eva.

  “Please,” he said in Gaelic, “explain, for I do not have the English for it, that we Scots do not disrespect Rome, as this Benedictine thinks, simply because we do not follow the Roman rite. Tell them clear as you can that we have the Irish rite, the Scottish, the Welsh, and so on. What we practice in Scotland began in Ireland hundreds of years ago, nurtured by Patrick and Columba and conveyed to Scotland. Remind the priest, and the queen, too, that we are very far away from Rome, and so our tenets support the Gaels as well as Mother Church. Tell them,” he urged.

  “I will,” Eva agreed, and pati
ently translated what he had said. The queen nodded and was about to reply when Father Otto, who also listened, interrupted.

  “Scottorum toti mundo contrarii, moribus Romanis inimici, non solum in misa sed in tonsura etiam,” the priest said. “Scots are contrary to the whole world, so said the good Gildas, who also cautioned that the Scots go against the Roman rite in many of their practices.”

  “Who is Gildas?” Eva asked.

  “A learned scholar who lived long ago,” Margaret answered. “I have read his history. He had little praise for the Celtic style of worship. Yet I do see the worth in many of the Irish and Scottish rites, and I want to know more.”

  “We should all be concerned,” Father Otto said, holding up a lecturing finger, “about the danger to the souls of the Celtic people if they do not follow proper forms determined by Rome. On the final Day of Judgment, they will wish they had obeyed. And the Scots must change their ways for political reasons, too, if they want the support and respect of the rest of the world.”

  Brother Micheil sat straight. “Our tenets are spiritual and worthy,” he argued.

  “They are,” Margaret said hastily. “The differences are small, yet significant.”

  “What differences?” Eva asked, intrigued.

  “The calculation of the date of Easter each year, which changes, is one dispute,” Margaret told her. “The day Lent begins is another. The fast must be forty days according to the Church, but from what I understand, the Celtic calculation comes out to thirty-five days, as they do not count Sundays and begin on Thursday rather than Ash Wednesday.”