Macbeth the King (28 page)

"That would take a deal of contriving," Strathearn said.

"No doubt, my lord mormaor. But if others can do it, we can."

"Excellent, Ewan mac Gillachrist," MacBeth praised. "All will now see why I chose the Abbot of Abernethy for Judex. I commend his policies. More particularly in that it touches upon another subject which I would raise. This is the matter of training in useful labours and crafts. There are over many idle folk in the realm. We all" know it. Not all are vagabonds. Some are honest and could be useful, but lack skills. Most lack the will or understanding to
seek
training. Training in crafts and trades. Schools should be set up—craft-schools. Many monasteries have such—but these are for their own church folk. What better than the good Abbot Ewan's trade companies and guilds to establish such training schools? To pass on and improve the skills and standards he spoke of?"

Since this did not appear to be going to cost those present anything, it was agreed, however sceptical the majority.

"That is the end of the King's proposals for this Council," the Chancellor said. "Does any present have other matter to raise, for the King's guidance?"

"I have," Bishop Malise of Inverness announced. "It is the matter of droves and pasture. Our cashel of Inverness, like many another of Holy Church, sends droves of cattle from our Highland pastures to the low country in autumn, and to markets. In the past, these droves have always moved freely on green and drove roads, as on the highways, all over the realm. But of late certain lords, thanes and land-holders have been halting the free passage of the droves and demanding toll, or payment for grazing consumed as the beasts pass through their territories. Is this not contrary to the law and ancient custom of our land?"

Most of the churchmen supported that, strongly.

"My understanding of the matter is that it is an age-old law of the land that all cattle and stock on the move, with their drovers, can halt for one night anywhere, without payment, save on land enclosed by a dyke or wall, on growing corns and hay meadows," MacBeth said. "So in my mortuath courts of Moray and Ross I have always upheld. High Judex—you have made study of the laws. How say you?"

"That is correct, Highness. With this addition—that no beasts may be pastured overnight within four stones'-throw of any vill, hamlet or township. And that all are properly herded and controlled. Such is the law."

"Then I pray that all land-holders present will hear and conform," Bishop Malise said. "Or I, and many another, will come to you, my lord Justiciar, for redress."

"Do that," the King said.

No further complaints or issues being forthcoming, the Chancellor closed the session, with the declaration that another

Council would be called in due course, within the year, or earlier should events make it advisable. Reports would then be made as to how the decisions taken this day were being effected. Almost relievedly the Council stood, as the High King and his mormaors left the hall.

In the abbot's lodging thereafter, where they were quartered, MacBeth looked at his two brothers.

"I rejoice that you both are my friends!" he told them. "For God help me if you were my enemies!"

Thorfinn laughed. "You should rejoice rather that you have such honest councillors. You need the like, Son of Life. All men do, but kings in especial. Notably kings strangely besotted with merchants, candlemakers, women and the like!"

"I have different notions of what is required of the King than have you, Viking."

"Clearly, yes. You might have made a passable bishop."

"And you, Raven Feeder, one of the idle robbers and sorners who could do with being taught an honest trade!" Neil Nathrach declared.

"Hark to our household viper! He who prefers war to be fought on his own doorstep rather than on the enemy's."

"I do not. But traitors should be rooted out before they stab better men in the back."

"I am not to suffer from lack of advice, then," MacBeth commented. "But of a mercy, could I ask that my brothers at least offer it to me a mite more privily?"

It was the
fourth summer of MacBeth's reign, and the fourth good harvest in succession. Men were saying that God Himself must be with the King, for in the memory of the oldest such a succession of excellent seasons could not be recollected. The barns were full, the girnels overflowing, the mills busy, the haystacks like regiments behind all the rigs, the brewhouses and makings never so productive. The cattle, too, were fat and sleek, and the milk rich and plentiful, for the pastures had been as good as the rest. And not only had these been years of plenty but of peace likewise; for, almost unheard of as it was, there had been no war, no sizeable resort to arms even. King MacBeth had said that he intended his to be a reign of peace; and somehow, whether it was by his achieving or a higher power's, peace there was, within all his borders.

There were those who attributed this happy state of affairs to Divine Providence directly, and only incidentally to the present monarch, as an immediate result of MacBeth's cherishing of Holy Church. For he had gone out of his way to support and work with the churchmen to a degree hitherto unknown in Scotland—or for that matter in most other lands, although Saxon Edward, England's new king, who was gaining the byname of The Confessor, was religious almost to the point of mania, but showed it not so much by working with the Church as by dominating it. This MacBeth did not attempt, being far from pietistic. But he endowed the Church with lands and property, and employed many churchmen in his processes of government, with remarkable results.

MacBeth was indeed attending a conference of churchmen at St. Andrews, with his Chancellor Bishop Malduin, when couriers arrived hot-foot from Dunsinane with the grim tidings. The Mormaor Crinan of Atholl had risen in arms, denounced MacBeth as usurper and murderer of his son, and called upon all true men to rally to his standard and to proclaim his other son Maldred king. Crinan's force, already large, was marching southwards from Dunkeld.

MacBeth was, in fact, utterly unprepared for this development. There had been no least warning nor hint of trouble. He had no significant number of men mustered in arms—nor could he possibly assemble any army locally, in time to meet this Atholl host. Here, at St. Andrews, in the East Neuk of Fife, forty miles from Dunsinane, he was on markedly unfruitful ground for raising troops; for although MacDuff himself was not there, having fled the country, and thought to be with Maldred and Siward in Northumbria, his Fife people had not suddenly attained any marked love for the King, most of his thanes keeping their chilly distance. And before MacBeth could reach areas where he might successfully muster men, Angus to the north or Strathearn and Lennox to the west, Crinan would be between him and the last two, and occupying the Fortrenn central region.

There was one comfort. Gruoch and the young people were in the north, at Spynie, where they sought to spend most of the summer months. So they would be in no danger meantime.

MacBeth made up his mind quickly. There was little that he could usefully do here—apart from sending out urgent calls to the mormaors and thanes to muster. There was much shipping at St. Andrews, for the churchmen did a considerable trade in the products of their farms and mills, looms and brew-houses. He would take ship forthwith to Moray, where he could raise many men quickly from his own mortuaths, and bear down thereafter on Crinan from the north. It would mean largely sacrificing the south, with Fortrenn, to his uncle's occupation meantime—but that was the lesser evil.

Requisitioning the swiftest vessel in port, a converted galley which stank of a variety of cargoes, and leaving the Chancellor to send out the orders for mobilisation, MacBeth embarked and set sail with the first tide across the mouth of the Firth of Tay, within four hours of the arrival of the news.

By water the journey was a bare 160 miles, and with summer seas and a south-westerly breeze they made good time. He reached Torfness in under the twenty-four hours, borrowed horses from Gunnar Hound Tooth and was home at the
Dorus Neamh
an hour later.

Gruoch's joy at seeing her husband was tempered by her wrath at Crinan and her indignation with anyone who would support him—as presumably many must be doing if he had an army strong enough to challenge the King. She was a woman of spirit and vigour with nothing meek about her. In the past she had held that MacBeth should have dealt with his soured uncle in no uncertain fashion and in his own time, instead of leaving him alone, isolated in Atholl, she holding much the same opinion as Neil Nathrach—and indeed Thorfinn. Her husband's reasoning that Crinan was getting to be an old man, known to be lazy, and that there had been more than enough blood shed in her family already—and moreover that it might well produce the feared violent reaction from Siward—she held to be mistaken. Now, however, she refrained from any I-told-you-so attitude, but asserted that Crinan must be crushed once and for all.

MacBeth needed no urging to action. He sent for Neil, from Cawdor, and all the other Moray thanes and chiefs, requiring immediate mobilisation and a meeting of the leaders at Forres in two days time. He rejected Gruoch's suggestion to send for Thorfinn's aid, however. He was not going to go running to his half-brother whenever he was in trouble. Thorfinn thought that he could not govern Scotland without him, and must be shown otherwise. Besides, Thorfinn would almost certainly be away at his summer hosting—possibly why Crinan had chosen to strike at this moment—and he was not prepared to ask Thorkell Fosterer for help in the affairs of Scotland.

Two days later—which was the very minimum time allowable for his chief men to assemble from so wide and difficult an area, and such as O'Beolain, for instance, would be unable to make it from Applecross by then—the council-of-war was held in the old palace of Forres, over a score of the leadership of the two mortuaths attending. There was, in fact, one unexpected participant, in the person of Gunnar Hound Tooth, from Torfness, uninvited but determined to be involved, the old Viking declaring that he was as much concerned as any of them in ensuring that the wretched Karl Hundison, as he called Crinan, should not be allowed to upset a situation satisfactory for himself and his master. Crinan had always been anti-Norse.

MacBeth explained the general situation to all, pointing out that it was possible that by now Crinan might have been joined by a force from Northumbria, under Siward or one of his lieutenants, even under MacDuff.

"Will Crinan know that you are here, in Moray, my lord King?" the Thane of Brodie asked. "Will he be prepared for an attack at his rear?"

"That I cannot tell you. I commanded the Chancellor and the others at St. Andrews to keep my departure by ship secret. But whether they could do so, who knows? We must reckon with Crinan knowing that I am here."

"Then he could make our march south difficult. We have to go through near fifty miles of his Atholl, and by a score of passes. Any of these, held strongly against us, could much hold us up. In especial Drumochdar, Killiecrankie and Dunkeld itself. These, strongly manned by Athollmen, could cost us dear to force. If they did not halt us altogether."

To murmurs of agreement, MacBeth nodded. "I know it. Therefore I think that we must march otherwise. Not by the routes he would expect us."

"Let me send to the earl. Or to that ape Thorkell," Gunnar put in. "At Orkney. Give me five days, no more—and you may
sail
your army south in two-score longships, which no passes nor ambushes can halt."

"I thank you friend—but no. We must not be dependent upon the Earl Thorfinn's shipping. Moreover, we might have to wait for many days more than five for sufficient ships, if my brother is away hosting, or in Galloway. We must strike at once. I plan to march tomorrow, with such force as is already assembled, leaving the rest to follow on, so soon as may be."

"March where, Highness?" Duthac of Alness asked. "If the passes are held against us?"

"Crinan cannot hold every pass in Drumalbyn, with most of his Athollmen with him in Fortrenn. If he expects me to march, he will I think seek to man the main passes on the main routes. So we must use others. Where he would not expect us."

"What others are sufficient to take hundreds, thousands, of armed men?" Neil demanded.

"I can name you not a few. They are not strung on any one road. So it will mean much marching and counter-marching. And over difficult country. But nothing that Moraymen and Rossmen cannot master. It will take us longer, yes—but not longer than in waiting for ships. Or being held up in defended passes."

They waited doubtfully. "We cannot hide a march of thousands," Neil objected. "Crinan will learn of our coming, our line of march. And move men to halt it."

"Not if we go only through the highest, emptiest uplands where no men are. There is much of such country in our Drumalbyn, especially in Atholl. We could not do it in winter. Nor in any other season than high summer, and after four good years. It will be sufficiently dry, the peat-bogs firm. There will be the summer shielings of the high pastures, yes. But the herders and lassies at the shielings are scarce the sort to send off hurried messengers to the glens and townships so fast as to get word ahead of us. I say that we can surprise Crinan. And then fight him on ground of
our
choosing."

He had their interest, even some enthusiasm now.

"How do we start?" Brodie asked. "Which way, Highness?"

"I have thought out some possible routes. But others—the Thane of RotWemurchus here—may better them. He will know the northern parts better than any, I think. We make for the Spey and up to Rothiemurchus. Then turn up Glen Feshie instead of Glen Truim or even Glen Tromie. Feshie will take us fifteen miles through the southern Monadh Ruadh, unseen. Then over the high backbone of the land to Glen Geldie. There we are on the borders of Atholl and Mar. We could go down Tilt—but better down to the head-waters of Dee. Follow Dee down to Glen Clunie in Brae Mar. Gathering some Marmen as we go. Then up Clunie and over its mounth and down Glen Shee beyond, to Strathardle and Strathericht. That is East Atholl, and settled country, so we would have to choose some side glens to bring us down into Gowrie, near Blair or Drumel-lie. Then we will be at Crinan's back, whether he is in Fortrenn or Dunkeld."