Margaret the Queen by Nigel Tranter Read Free Book Online

and whitewashed in more typical Scots style.
    "That . . . that . . . ?" the Princess Agatha exclaimed. "Is that it? We have come to . . . this?"
    "That is Malcom's Tower, yes. I told you that it was no palace, no suitable house for a king, Mother. Or even a modest thane . . ."
    "The King has houses, palaces, at Forteviot and Dunsinane and Kincardine," Maldred interrupted. "Forts and raths amany. But he prefers to live here. He chose to build this tower and house. He is not a man for great palaces and large Courts. A warrior-king."
    Without comment the visitors moved on down into the Glen of Pittencreiff.
    There, at the foot of the eastern spine of the central mound, was the first line of defence, a moat, water drawn from the burn that threaded the valley, with a drawbridge. Here the chief steward awaited them, to conduct them through a gatehouse-pend in the perimeter walling and up the slope, zigzagging, to a point where the spine had been cut through laterally with a wide and deep trench or dry ditch, across which was a second drawbridge. Beyond this, the first of the buildings arose, all stone here, with an arched and fortified entrance to an elongated narrow central courtyard. Within the entrance a young woman stood, backed by attendants.
    "Greetings, Highness," Maldred called, strongly. "The lord King sends his royal salutes." Which, in fact, was a lie; Malcolm had not so much as mentioned his wife. "I bring the Prince Edgar of England, his lady-mother and sisters and some of their people. Seeking your royal clemency and aid.. In flight from Duke William." He turned. "The Queen's Highness, the Lady Ingebiorg Thorfinnsdotter."
    "I thank you, cousin," the Queen answered gravely. "My husband is well? Good. I greet the Prince Edgar again, warmly. And bid the princesses welcome to my house." She was a fresh-faced, round-featured, big-boned creature, not beautiful but pleasant-looking and unassuming, only daughter of the great Thorfinn Raven Feeder, Earl of Orkney. Malcolm had married her soon after attaining the throne on the death of King Lulach, as a politic gesture to ensure that the late Thorfinn's sons did not trouble him as their father had troubled his. They were second-cousins, their grandmothers being sisters, daughters of Malcolm the Second, The Destroyer — although the King was now forty-seven while she was only twenty-five. The marriage could scarcely be called a happy one. Maldred bore the same relationship to the Queen.
    The visitors dismounted, to make due obeisance to their hostess and to be led within. The ladies all eyed the Queen interestedly, for her story and Malcolm's behaviour towards her were well known.
    "So that is the daughter of the famed Thorfinn the Mighty!" Magdalen of Ethanford said quietly, as she and Maldred followed their principals up the climbing courtyard. "She scarcely looks a female Viking!"
    "A pity that she is not more like her sire."
    "Why?"
    "She might do better, live the happier. She is too gentle for the King."
    "Ah. I can believe that he would require steel in a woman. They have no children?"
    "Yes. Two princes. There they are, waiting in the tower doorway. With the wolf-hounds. Duncan and Donald." I Two small boys, about nine and eight years, watched tne procession, one scowling, one grinning. ] The Queen led her guests not to the tall stark tower that frowned over all from the crest of the mound, but into the doorway of the secondary and lower building on the right — which proved to be really a fairly typical Celtic hall-house attached to the ke ep but utterly different from it in style and accommodation, a commodious, comfortable, sprawling establishment. Malcolm had built it on to his tower at his new wife 's urging, when he still paid s ome heed to her wishes, she hating his Norman keep from the first sight of i t, however defensively strong. They came into the great hall of the house, a vast apartment which took up a full half of the entire building, right to the