Queen Hereafter Read online

  “Does that matter so much, if the intent is clear?” Eva asked.

  “Christ did not take Sundays off from fasting in the wilderness,” Father Otto said crisply. “Also, the Celtic monks shave their heads from ear to ear and do not look like monks. The Scottish church differs in the rite of baptism, too. And it is quite shocking to see men and women sharing monasteries here, with women allowed positions of authority over men. Not to mention,” he said, “the prayers in Gaelic.”

  Eva frowned. “Can we not delight in our differences and learn from each other for the good of all?”

  Margaret raised her brows, looking thoughtful. But Father Otto waved a hand as if Eva had spoken pure babble. “There are some barbarian practices in parts of Scotland that should be corrected for the good of all.”

  “Our church is not barbarian, but dedicated to deepening our knowledge and to celebrating the beauty in all aspects of holy studies and traditions,” Micheil said.

  “Outdoor masses are spoken beneath stone crosses carved with pagan symbols,” Father Otto said. “Surely you can understand why some of these things must be changed.”

  “Beauty and artistry are considered close to God here, and we honor the ancient traditions of the Gaels by blending the new form with the old,” Eva argued. “And we pray in our own beautiful language, for that is closer to our hearts, and adds to the teachings of the Church.”

  “Truly, it is a lovely thought,” Margaret told Father Otto.

  “Beauty is a luxury and vanity. We must turn our thoughts to proper worship.”

  As the discussion continued, Eva thought of the leather writing case that Lady Gruadh had given her, along with parchment scraps, a little pot of ink, sealing wax, and feather quills with sharp nibs. Her grandmother wanted news: perhaps Eva could tell her of this. But though it might be loyal to tell Gruadh what she heard, it also felt like a betrayal of the young queen, who had shown her kindness.

  Besides, she told herself, her grandmother awaited a report with substance: fuel for rebellion. Sending any news of the court was a risk, but so far, Eva could say little more than that the foreign queen was beautiful, educated, and intelligent; that she could debate with learned priests and was gentle and charitable; she was strict about fasting and prayer; and that she was quick and healthy with a child. Still, Lady Gruadh would relish knowing that her successor was sometimes temperamental and demanding, or that she knew no Gaelic, and insisted that the king wash regularly and wear nicer garments.

  There was little to report of Malcolm, beyond that he rode off frequently with the prince of England and a host of men, going south to play havoc and to skirmish with Normans. Eva had seen some evidence in support of Lady Gruadh’s belief that Margaret plotted a religious and cultural reform, but not to Scotland’s ruin. Margaret seemed interested only in improving the Scots’ chances in heaven and reputation in the earthly world. And it was all talk, so far as she could see. The only true changes were domestic improvements to the king’s tower and household.

  News of Ingebjorg’s two little sons by Malcolm would interest Gruadh, she decided. The two little boys remained at Dunfermline, smart lads being tutored up for leadership, and plans were for them to stay with their father and stepmother at least until Margaret’s winter confinement and probably longer. Margaret, who had quickly become fond of the boys, knew the value of family not only for the children but for Malcolm’s image as king, too. Gruadh had worried some about Ingebjorg’s sons, so news of their well-being would be worth precious ink and parchment.

  As for the manuscript Malcolm had commissioned, Eva had heard nothing about it. Yet she had been at court for months, and must send word of what she knew, fulfilling at least some part of her promise.

  Keeping a late hour that night while Wynne and Matilda slept soundly on their cots, Eva wrote out all she knew for Gruadh. The nib of her quill whispered over the parchment piece, and at last she sanded it, blowing gently, folded it, and sealed it with a blob of wax, into which she pressed part of her cloak brooch. Her grandmother would recognize the pattern in the curve as belonging to Eva.

  The next day during breakfast, Eva stood pouring some warm, greatly diluted spiced wine into cups for Lady Juliana and another of the ladies. She looked up just as a man entered the hall to speak with Sir Wilfrid and Robert De Lauder. Early that morning she had noticed several men arriving in the courtyard, dismounting to walk toward the tower for a meeting with the king, but she thought little of it. Now she looked more closely at the older man, a fierce warrior, gray and past his prime yet still powerfully built.

  And she gasped, suddenly recognizing her great-uncle, Kenneth Macduff, mormaer of Fife. When Wilfrid pointed toward the other end of the room where Eva stood, Macduff nodded and crossed the space with a sure and heavy stride.

  Eva stepped away from the other women to greet him more privately in the open middle of the great room. Years had passed since she had last seen him. He had sent her out of Fife and to Moray when she was eight years old and orphaned, and had not inquired after her since. Given that dubious gesture of affection, she was not sure what to say to him now.

  Nodding, Macduff paused a few feet away, for all his brawn and natural authority looking oddly like a sheepish boy afraid to come closer. Eva crossed her hands calmly in front of her. She had learned a little grace from Queen Margaret already, she thought, lifting her head.

  “Uncle,” she said quietly.

  “Eva, it is good to see you again,” he said in Gaelic, his voice rumbling low. “You have grown to beauty. You are … so like your mother.” He smiled a bit sadly.

  “And my father,” she amended, not meaning her reply to sound quite as sharp as it did. “You did not send greetings when I arrived here in court. Perhaps you did not know.” Surely he did, she thought, if he was free to ride into the yard just after dawn and be accepted straightaway for an audience with the king. He knew the king’s business.

  “I heard so, but I was not free to travel to Dunfermline until now. I came as soon as I could. Eva, I have the king’s promise that you will be well treated in his custody.”

  “You know my circumstances, then?” She felt a flush brightening her cheeks.

  “I do. And I support his decision. Your grandmother has played the thorn in Malcolm’s side too often. All of Moray will take care with you in the king’s keeping. You do understand that.”

  “Partly,” she said. “The greater part of me just wants to go home.” Saying the words suddenly made her feel like weeping; her breath caught. “Can you speak to the king about that?”

  He shook his head. “This is necessary.”

  “You were never much inclined to watch over me,” she answered flatly.

  “I knew you would do well in Moray. It was a good place for you to grow.” He smiled a little. “You would not have become such a renowned harper without your grandmother’s coddling.”

  “My mother was the first to teach me,” she pointed out. Macduff looked away at that, and an awkward silence filled the space between them.

  “Eva,” he said then. “I sent you to Moray to protect you … from him.” He tilted his head toward the door, as if to indicate the lord of the house, the king. “At the time, I feared for you, as the only one of Lulach’s pups within reach.”

  “I never knew,” she said, watching him intently then, with a sort of hunger to hear more. “Why did you not tell me?”

  “Tell a small girl that the king might harm her? I gave you up. It was necessary.”

  Now it was her turn for silence, for glancing away. “Thank you.”

  “I sent word,” he said. “I sent gifts. Did you like them? The black pup, the dappled pony?”

  “I never knew they were from you,” she said, astonished. The hound and the pony were at Elgin still, favorite companions since her childhood.

  He nodded once, curtly. “I am not surprised. Well.” He blew out a breath. “Eva, I would like to hear you play for the king’s company this evening, but I
have some business elsewhere.” He reached out a hand, broad and weathered.

  She slid her fingers into his and felt a grip that was strong, warm, rough. Protective somehow, she thought. “Thank you, Uncle.”

  “No need. I come to court now and then. We will visit again.”

  “I am certain to be here,” she said, “at least for a while.” He smiled a little, and turned to leave.

  Before the ladies left the great hall, Eva saw Sir Wilfrid speaking to a young messenger, handing him some rolled documents that Margaret had signed. Minutes later, Eva hurried out to the bailey to walk alone, desperately in need of a little air for an aching head, she had told the queen’s ladies. Seeing the messenger about to mount his horse, she crossed toward him.

  “Sir,” she said, knowing that would flatter him, for he was that young, though old enough to messenger alone. He turned to look at her. “Do you ride north?”

  “I do,” he said. “I am to carry messages from the queen to her tenant farmers.”

  Eva had hoped that would be the case. “I have another note for you to carry,” she said, showing him her parchment, folded into a tight, thick square. “It must go to Loch Leven, to the monastery there. Do you know it?”

  “Of course I know it. Saint Serf’s.” He took the packet. “I need more than the usual fee, as I must pay the ferryman to cross over. Unless you wish the ferryman to deliver it to the gate.”

  “You take it in directly,” she said urgently, certain that so far no one had noticed a young woman talking to a young man on that bright, cool morning, as the servants and housecarls were busy with their various tasks. The horse sidestepped, its flank further hiding Eva from sight. “This must go into the hands of the abbot of Saint Serf’s, and only him. Drostan is his name.”

  The boy frowned. “I will do nothing devious. What is this?” He turned the parchment over.

  “It concerns myself, my religious mentor, and God. Will you read a list of my sins, when the abbot of Saint Serf’s himself waits for it?” At least part of that was true, she thought.

  “I cannot read. This will cost you the riding fee and the ferry.”

  She pressed silver into his palm, the coins chinking. “Please tell the abbot that I am doing my very best here in all ways.” She turned and fled, crossing the bailey to arrive in the corridor as Margaret and her ladies were leaving the great hall.

  “Eva! Your cheeks are pink and your eyes are so bright!” Margaret smiled. “The high color suits you. Come, walk with me. I want to hear more about the Gaelic north, and you are the perfect person to tell me. If I can learn a little more about their history and their customs, I can better understand the Scots and their church, too. And I do so want to understand.” She smiled and tucked her hand into Eva’s arm, drawing her along. “I heard your uncle was here today. Did you enjoy a good reunion?”

  “We did,” Eva said, and left it at that.

  Chapter Eleven

  There is one from whom I would love a long look

  For whom I would give the whole world

  —IRISH, SEVENTH CENTURY

  Autumn overtook summer’s bloom, and Malcolm’s sons stayed on. Donal Ban rode off before harvest time after a dispute so loud, with fists pounding tables, that Margaret winced as she heard it above stairs. She breathed a sigh of relief to see Donal gone, and though Malcolm stormed about, he calmed after a few days, saying that the boys would remain with him until the new one was born at year’s end. The uncle wanted the oldest, Duncan, returned to him sooner. Malcolm had refused. Mar, who kept small Donald, waited amiably on the king’s will.

  Malcolm took time to visit many of his properties, including the grand fortress at Dun Edin across the wide firth, as well as his other royal properties throughout Scotland. But Margaret could not travel and felt disappointed, for she was impatient to see more of the land and to meet Scots beyond Dunfermline and Fife.

  “After the child is born,” Malcolm promised, “we will go on progress for you to see our other residences and the whole of the land. I want the Scots to meet their new queen.”

  She felt tired but well, and kept pace with prayers and household duties. As chatelaine of the king’s households, she had much to do. But one day she felt such a headache upon standing that she collapsed to the floor. A day’s rest cured it, and she resumed her routines, reassuring others that she was strong, and telling herself that she must keep to her prayers and duties equally.

  Malcolm went south and returned with a physician, a surly Saxon who thought much of his abilities. He had been ousted from Northumbria with thousands of others, and hoped for a place in the royal household. But when Master Bartholomew questioned Margaret closely in private and asked to see a cup of her urine, she refused. When he informed her that her strict habits would harm her babe, she was both offended and alarmed. She would never compromise her child’s welfare, but feared slacking off of her obligations and the regular penances and light fasts that kept her, so she hoped, cleansed in soul and body.

  “I will not see him again,” she told Malcolm. “I have no need. I have my women, and I have my priests.” Within days, she learned that the physician had boarded a knorr for Flanders, with a note of praise from Malcolm and a bag of coins on his belt.

  “No physicians, then,” Malcolm told her, “but you must give up fasts. Even Brother Micheil and Father Otto have mentioned this to me. You are too thin for a woman bearing a child.”

  “I eat sparingly but well,” she said in defense. “And I tend to my prayers and fasts as I see fit.”

  But she noticed that Malcolm sometimes served her with his own hand an extra portion or a sweetmeat at the table. She could never bring herself to taste another sweetmeat after her father’s passing, but she nibbled other foods to please Malcolm. Her stomach had always been a little finicky and discontented after eating certain foods. But sometimes she simply felt the need for more penance—her temper had grown short of late and she could not tolerate that, even in herself—and so she sometimes fed the dogs under the table rather than eat the food herself.

  Eva, seeing this, whispered to her to stop. “The dogs have had enough,” she said. “You have not.”

  “A little edge of hunger keeps me vigilant,” Margaret confided. “It reminds me that some do not eat as well as we do here. Besides, my figure is too full, too lush and earthy of late.”

  “It is as it should be,” Eva said. “Take care.”

  But Margaret felt compelled—she could not eat more, could not indulge herself, and needed to keep to her strict regimen. Something within her demanded it.

  With her kinswomen and her ladies, she left Dunfermline now and then to visit nearby sites, agreeing to travel by cart just to get beyond the confines of fortress and glen. Accompanied by Brother Micheil or Malcolm’s housecarls, she visited chapels and hilltop crosses and sites that boasted of long-ago saints. With or without their holy history, the places were remarkable to her for their natural beauty, and she looked forward to seeing more of what had become her adopted homeland, though her advancing pregnancy curtailed her travel soon enough.

  Yet she felt in good health, and gradually tried to eat more, certainly sleeping more than was her habit. Carrying a child suited her, made her calmer; even her mother commented kindly on it. When she developed a taste for hot, crisp oatcakes and cooked carrots, the increased appetite embarrassed her.

  “Wanting carrots means you are carrying a boy, and the reason is obvious,” Dame Agnes said one day, grinning while Margaret blushed.

  By late autumn, her girth was awkward, and by Advent she and her women were completing the little garments and linens they had been stitching for months. Over Yuletide, she began to meet potential wet nurses invited by Dame Agnes and a very helpful Wilfrid. After speaking to a few local women whose infants were nearly due or whose babes had recently died, Margaret decided on a granddaughter of Mother Annot, Mirren, whose daughter had died unexpectedly in her cradle. Margaret empathized with the young woman’s
heartbreak and liked her quiet grace, a good quality to pass on to her own infant through a nurse’s milk. She asked Mirren to keep her milk full for the royal infant to come.

  Old Annot offered to act as midwife, having delivered many babes in more than fifty years, and Margaret granted her a generous fee, glad to have a familiar attendant for the birth. In her spare English, Annot said it was an honor. She and Mirren moved to a room in the tower, and the wait went on.

  ON THE EVE of the Epiphany, at the end of Christmastide, her labor began. Margaret felt heavy, dull aches of such pressure that she could not always catch her breath. Pacing the room, she anticipated the birth, relishing it as one of the real tests of courage and power she could face as a woman. She knew the great risks, yet felt strangely unafraid, even excited. Heaven and hell would both challenge her that day, and she wanted to triumph, wanted to tap the stronger spirit that she knew resided within her.

  So she welcomed the struggle, endured it in silence but for murmured prayers. She obeyed Annot’s advice, translated deftly by Eva, who remained calm and by her side throughout. Margaret fell to her hands and knees on the bed as an unyielding power ripped through her body like a gale through a glen. When Annot and Kata pulled her upward to sit, squatting and striving, she pushed until she felt the child slip slick from her, and gasped. Annot caught it, wiped the squalling and red-faced little thing quickly, and held it up as Kata held out the swaddling.

  “A son, a fine little son,” Kata said in German, then English. “Listen to his strong cry!”

  Margaret sat up, exhausted and exhilarated, while her mother wiped her face, smoothed back her damp hair. Kata held a cup to her lips, filled with a cool, sweet drink of herbs and water that Annot had prepared for her. “Your labor was very quick, only a few hours. It was easy!”