"If he is not of the marrying kind, then he can produce no heir. Am I right in presuming that Alexander will heir the throne after him? There are two older brothers, but they are churchmen, so not able to mount the throne?"
"Yes.' Ethelred is Abbot of Dunkeld in the Columban Church - Primate, by name. He is married already - but that is permitted in that Church. Edmund has taken holy orders - if only to escape the consequences of his much wrong-doing! Neither would be accepted as King. Alexander is heir."
"And how does Alexander view women?"
"I have heard that he is . . . not averse!"
"Ah! Yet — not married either. At twenty-six years, is it? Is this your sainted mother's doing, think you? Only one of her many sons married - and he a rebel to her Church?"
David's lips tightened. "Why should you say that? Our mother was the noblest of women . . ."
"Yes, yes — all know that! Here, then, is the situation. It would please me to wed my daughter to the King of Scots. Further to draw together our two rea
lms. To the advantage of both. I
prefer such closeness and harmony to this talk of Lords Paramount and threats of force. You agree? So I wish you to go to Scotland, on my behalf, David. As it were, spy out the land for me. Discover whether Edgar is willing. And, and able! I would not wish Sybilla wed to such as my own brother William! And if Edgar is not, to consider Alexander for the role. It is a somewhat delicate task, as you will perceive. Will you do it for me?"
The younger man rose from his chair to pace the floor, frowning in concentration. "There is much here to consider . . ." he temporised.
"Would you rather I summoned Edgar here, to me, as Lord Paramount of Scotland? As William did?"
"No, no. Not that. That false claim again. No - this is better. I agree. But . . ."
"Your mislike of my daughter holds you back? You would not have her to wed your brother?"
David could scarcely admit that this was so. "It is a delicate matter, as you say, Sire. To put this to Edgar . . ."
"I would give you a letter. To be presented to Edgar - or not - once you have ascertained his attitudes, his way of living. Discreetly. You recognise the problem I face? Only you could do this for me, my friend. No other envoy would serve. Will you do it, David? You would wish to see your brothers again, would you not?
"Very well. When do I have to go?" "So soon as you are ready." "May I t
ake my friends?" "Take whom you
will . . ."
* * *
So the three young men set out on their long journey to Scotland, attended by a small escort of the royal guard, on Henry's insistence. If David was scarcely as light-hearted and carefree as the other two, at first, he fairly soon threw off most of his doubts and forebodings. He was, after all, only in his twenty-first year, and the late spring sang over the land, the larks shouted, the swallows darted, the trees burgeoned and life cried aloud to be lived, especially to young men released. For once they were their own masters, and for a quite appreciable time, yet bearing the royal authority. And there was no hurry, Henry having set no time-limit for their return, within reason. They had over four hundred miles to go, and while they had no wish to dawdle, neither did they have to push themselves or their horseflesh, even though it was the King's horses that they rode now, and could exchange these for fresh animals at any manor on their way up through England. They reckoned that forty miles a day was a fair average to keep up, but it did not matter if they covered less or more. Much depended on the terrain they traversed, the state of the roads and the quality of their entertainment
en route,
particularly casual female entertainment, a matter of some moment for young men on the loose. Consequently they tended to be selective about where they passed each night, usually avoiding the monk-run hospices of Holy Church and convenient monasteries, which travellers usually utilised, preferring small manors, especially where young women were in evidence — which quest was apt to occupy some little time most evenings. Inns and ale-houses, of course, were practically non-existent in Middle England.
It was not all a heartening and spirited spring-time jaunt however. Large areas of land they had to cover were little better than man-made deserts, where the effects of the Conqueror's heavy hand were everywhere evidenced. It had been William's set policy, ably continued by the second William, deliberately to devastate huge tracts of territory, for one reason or another, to remove the Saxon population, to creat
e
empty zones around key fortress castles, to punish whole districts or merely to provide warnings, or to allow his great lords to establish their own depopulated wildernesses as hunting-parks, on the New Forest model. It was eighteen years since the Conqueror had died, but the traces remained all too evident. The black of the burning had largely disappeared under green growth, but broken, deserted villages and whole towns were commonplace, farms, mills and cothouses mere shells, former cultivation-rigs growing only reeds, thistles and scrub-thorn, rivers and streams spreading into marsh, trees and gibbets bearing their skeletal fruit at every crossways. Sometimes for half-a-day the travellers rode without seeing an occupied house. This, as much as the rich manors, was the Normans' England Henry had inherited.
They went by the shortest route, by Inkpen and the Marlborough Downs and the Cotswolds to the Vale of Evesham, keeping west of the hilly spine of the land thereafter through Mercia to the Mersey and on to the Ribble. After eight days they entered Strathclyde, over the Lune, north of Lancaster
-
one of the Montgomery brothers' earldoms, which stil
l showed ample signs of Henry's
own strong hand, as punishment for the recent rebellion. In theory, as they crossed Lune into Cumbria, they entered Scotland, for the ancient kingdom of Strathclyde, stretching from the Clyde right down to here, had been ostensibly incorporated in the Scottish realm since 1018. In fact, Cumbria, this southern portion, was practically independent although having no other overlord than the King of Scots. It had a Scots governor, usually styled Earl of Cumbria, at Caer-luel, in the north; but his sway was of the sketchiest, the position more title than fact. Prince of Strathclyde was the official title of the heir to the Scots throne; but as far as Cumbria was concerned, and Galloway also, it was mainly an honorary designation.
Skirting the great Cumbrian hills they came down to the Eden valley to Caer-luel on the tenth day out, to rest there for a couple of nights. The present Earl of Cumbria was Dolfin, David's own second-cousin, son of the late Cospatrick first Earl of Dunbar and March and brother of the young Earl Cospatrick who had been in Edgar's party at the unhappy Crown-wearing. He was an amiable, if somewhat bovine man, who was glad to see visitors. He took them hunting in the high fells and moors around the Roman Wall area by day, and by night they had no reason to complain of lack of enthusiastic feminine, company. Hugo and Hervey were quite reluctant to leave.
Now they crossed Esk into Scotland proper, immediately and strangely into a different land. Cumbria had been hilly and with its own wildness; but here the hills were everywhere, sterner suddenly, the rivers swifter, foaming, the land somehow challenging, untamed. David's heart lifted to it, nevertheless, the exile returned if only temporarily. It was many years since he had seen his native land, having had to be content with his dreams of it. Now it spoke to him in no uncertain voice, even this extreme south-western corner of it. His companions, curiously enough, saw it merely as a harsh and barren country, suitable for the barbarians their friend had the misfortune to be connected with. They hoped, without conviction, that it might improve.
Until this they had kept to a fairly consistently northerly course, but now, because of the seemingly impenetrable hill-masses ahead, they must detour. They were making for Edinburgh in Lothian, which Edgar had chosen to use as his capital, instead of his father's Dunfermline; and this entailed crossing the entire grain of the land, against the lines of mountain ranges and rivers. So they swung right-handed, eastwards, up Eskdale into the tributary valley of the Ewes Water and over the watershed to the head of Teviot. Now they were into the vast area known in Scotland as The Forest, or sometimes Ettrick Forest, covering most of the land between Northumbria and Lothian, a terrain utterly different from the forests of England in that most of it was not tree-covered at all but endless hills of grass and mosses and heather. There were woodlands too, in the valleys and sometimes climbing high. Clearly it all abounded with game, deer, both red and roe, boar, hares, brown and blue, feathered game including some great birds as large as turkeys which the local folk called capercailzies, duck and wild-geese and herons in the low grounds of the lochs and rivers and marshes, and whirring grouse on the heights. But as well as these there were large herds of wild cattle, which could be dangerous as they were warned, especially the massive white bulls with the enormous curling horns. And the two nights they passed within the confines of the Forest — for travel therein was inevitably slow, with no true roads, only winding paths through valleys, often flooded, and over passes - they heard the howling of wolves. Here there was no question of seeking out choice lodging and female company, for settlements were few and far between, villages almost non-existent, and they were thankful to enjoy the modest shelter and simple fare of small Celtic Church cashels, which seemed more like rude stockaded forts with grass ramparts than monasteries.
But, at last, up Wedale and the head of the Gala Water, they won out of the northern outskirts of the Forest and could look down from the final escarpment upon the wide-spreading and fair coastal plain of Lothian, with the blue Scotwater and the hills of Fife beyond, a magnificent prospect after the days of the constriction of hills and woods. More isolated and lower hills rose like stranded whales out of this fertile plain, some quite dramatic in shape, none more so than the great crouching-lion outline, near the coast, which David remembered as being Arthur's Chair after a long-dead Celtic prince, with nearby the rugged rock of Dunedin, around which lay the small town of Edinburgh - and journey's end, they hoped.
They still had three hours' riding to reach that town, through populous country now, as fair as any they had seen. It was evening before they were able to gaze up at Dunedin's awesome, soaring rock, seen now to be crowned with the ramparts of an extensive fort, with stone buildings within. David's father, in the last years of his reign, had built something like a Norman-style castle, foreign to the Scots rath or hallhouse tradition, within the ancient Pictish fort, principally so that he might keep Lothian - and Cospatrick of Dunbar, its lord -under better control; and Edgar, with no love for the Celtic part of his heritage, had elected to reside mainly in this eagle's nest of a hold.
Unlike Winchester and most Norman-held towns, Edinburgh was not a walled city, and the travellers had no difficulty in entering, even at dusk, nor in making their way up the steep track to the fort. There was a deep ditch, drawbridge and gatehouse there, but the guard was slack and unsuspicious, allowing the riders in without hindrance or much questioning. Hugo and Hervey were censorious.
To David it all brought back a flood of sad memories. When last he had been in this place, in 1093, twelve years before, his beloved mother, already ill, had died on word being brought of the death, in Northumberland, of both the King and their eldest son, By treachery. In one grim day David had lost mother, father and brother. His Uncle Donald had seized the throne and Edgar, who had brought the evil news, had taken his two younger brothers and two sisters, and fled with them to England and into Rufus's clutches. Perhaps they would have been better to have stayed and sought the mercy of their uncle, for Donald Ban was not a savage man . . .
The household in the bare and uninviting buildings of the fortress appeared to be notably small and undistinguished, quite unlike a King's Court. There was certainly no feminine touch here. All present were strangers to David, mainly Normans, and seemed to him at first glance a dispirited lot, with nothing of the illustrious about them. After the Winchester Court it was all shabby, dull and a great surprise. The greater surprise still was that the King was not absent, as they at first assumed, but retired to his bed for the night.
The initial reaction was that perhaps the quest about Edgar's attitude to women was already answered — for it was only dusk, still hours before midnight. But no embarrassment was evinced by the castle steward, only glum looks. So, leaving his friends to refresh themselves at a less than well plenished table, David went off to his brother's bedchamber, the same room in which their mother Queen Margaret had died.
When he saw the King of Scots lying on the great bed, he was shocked. Edgar looked almost like an old man, only thirty years as he was, thin, grey-faced, hollow-eyed, his yellow hair faded, lustreless. When he sat up, staring unbelievingly at the sight of David, his shoulders were seen to be bent, his body wasted, brittle-seeming.
"Davie! Davie?- is it true?" he all but croaked. "Is it in truth yourself, Davie? A man, now. I am not dreaming . . . ?"
"It is myself, yes. But. . . you!" David went forward to the untidy bed, to clasp his brother around the slumped shoulders - and as good as winced at the frail feel o
f him. "Edgar- are you sick? Ill
? You, you do not look well . . ."