Leo IX, a native of Alsace, succeeded to the Papacy in AD 1049. Four years later he gathered an army of Italians and German volunteers and led it in person against the Norman invaders who had occupied Sicily and southern Italy. The papal forces were defeated and the Pope captured and imprisoned for some months.
My gaolers released me without notice on the morning of 26th October. They acted without explanation also, merely indicating in their vile French that I was free to go. Their continued and studied lack of respect for my person, however, suggested unwilling compliance with outside pressure, which could have been nothing but the intervention of the Emperor. The prospect of this had been all that sustained me through the tedium and discomfort of my captivity. Henry had held his hand on purpose, of course, partly to emphasize his disapproval of my recent actions, partly without doubt as a reminder that in some sense I owed my enthronement to his good Offices.
My delight at returning to Rome was tempered by apprehension about what might have been in store for me there. But I found the City perfectly quiet and Hildebrand the Benedictine had kept everything safe. I had sent ahead and he was waiting up for me in the yellow saloon, where a cold supper had been laid. He greeted me with a precise blend of reverence and warmth. He was a little thinner since June, I thought, perhaps a little harder too. He had seen much of the world for one who was still barely thirty years old, enough at least to understand Germany, and that was much.
I had not asked for a doctor, but he had caused one to be present, a Greek by the look of him, with a white beard to signify great knowledge. He prodded me, took my pulse, looked at my tongue. When he made to bleed me I threw him out.
‘Let me bring him back tomorrow, Lord,’ said Hildebrand. ‘You are not well. Those Norman pigs have starved you. Was your highness at least dry?’
‘Most of the time. I need rest and good food, fresh food.’
‘Assuredly. Eat now, Lord. You enjoy these little birds.’
‘No, I am too tired. Pour me wine.’
As he handed me the cup, he said quietly, ‘I thought to have no ceremony. It seemed not to be called for.’
‘No indeed. Even these few are too many. Have the goodness to remove them.’
One inclination of his head and it was done.
‘Hildebrand, who would have thought that an uncouth rabble like that could put those brave fellows of mine to rout? The Supreme Pontiff a common prisoner. Arrest them all, my boy, all who are in Rome; hunt down the others and fetch them here. All — Gerard, Frederic, Valerian, Florentinus, Otho, the Spaniard and the one with the stutter. All my captains, all those who robbed me of victory. Confine them here. All of them.’
‘There, be calm, Lord. They shall be fetched, all of them.’
‘See they are.’ I coughed a trifle and took some water, then more wine, with a sparrow’s wing to nibble at. ‘Well, what waits tomorrow?’
‘Many things, great and small. None pressing. Few pleasing. Some plaguing, as Peter Damian rebuking you for usurping the Emperor’s function by your activities as a soldier.’
‘Never mind him.’
‘Perhaps we need not, but your highness had better mind an accusation of heresy from Michael Cerularius.’
‘There must be something in the air of Constantinople that rots the brain. Does Michael, a mere bishop, really know no better than to offer a direct challenge to my authority? I shall have to cut him off altogether.’
‘He will have earned it, Lord. Now one pleasant matter. There is a king in Rome, most eager for an audience with your highness. I think I never saw one more truly eager, high or low.’
‘What king?’
‘Of Scots or Scotland, Macbeth by name. Having quite given you up, as regrettably some few had, he had petitioned the Cardinal Vicar-General for an audience and professed himself overwhelmed to learn he might after all be privileged to be received by your highness. He was most particular that you must consult your own health and comfort in the matter. A touching rogue. It might amuse you, Lord.’
‘Amusing or not, I will see him. Of course I will. I must make any friends I can. If he cares to call on me I will receive the king of Vinland. How is he attended, this Macbeth?’
‘Most suitably, by someone I took for a kind of freebooter. He was here, King Macbeth was in Rome, three years ago on purpose to see your highness, but you were abroad then, peregrinating beyond the Alps.’
‘Yes, yes. Such persistence merits reward. Arrange it.’
‘It is done, Lord. Provisionally. Noon, not tomorrow but the day following. Now your highness must retire,’ said Hildebrand, calling servants. ‘And sleep late.’
When, not much refreshed even by twelve hours in a good bed, I rose the next afternoon, Hildebrand was soon in attendance again with, among much else, information about Scotland. The country, or the territory inhabited by Scots, was confined to that part of the mainland of Britain which lies north of the Firth of Forth. Here and over neighbouring regions from the furthest shores of the Irish Sea to those of the North Sea, there ranged at different times bands of Irish, Picts, Scots, Britons, Angles, Cumbrians, English, Danes, Norwegians contending in prolonged and obscure struggles. That part of northern Europe had been a turbulent place for centuries and seemingly still was.
At first sight Scotland was no concern of mine. The Church was well enough established there, and Macbeth had shown himself well disposed to her in the dozen years of his rule. I had no means of controlling events. There was only one bishop of the Scots, at the unwalled city of St Andrews, and his influence was purely local. What monks there were had no power. Clearly, the key to control of the Scottish Church lay in the sovereign. If I could win some personal regard from Macbeth, I might be laying the foundations of something that might, again, prove useful in any future trouble with England. And that there would be trouble with England sooner or later, perhaps in my time, perhaps after many years, I had not the slightest doubt.
I hardly know what I had expected to encounter the noon following, certainly not the tall, fair-haired, blue-eyed figure in his late forties who was presented; I thought he might well have had a Norse ancestor as well as Norse neighbours. His companion, introduced by my usher as Captain Seaton, short, broad, heavily bearded, with a look of stupid ferocity, was much more my idea of a Scotchman. As the two knelt before me I bestowed on each a salutation appropriate to his rank.
So as not to overawe my visitors excessively I had received them in a small throne-room built two centuries before by my predecessor Agapetus II and not two storeys high, none the less worthy of its function with sumptuous new frescoes, sculptures in the round and jewelled appointments. The soldier, if that was what he was, kept his eyes straight in front as though fearful of taking in his surroundings; his master glanced here and there without disrespect, without astonishment either, his attention soon caught by the most unusual piece on view, a grotesque carved-oak Calvary the bishop of Rennes took out of some church there and sent me for my forty-seventh birthday, my first after being consecrated.
The king’s dress gave further mild surprise; not deer-skins and foot-rags but a rich gold-edged surcoat that would not have disgraced the Emperor Henry himself, an inner garment of dark-red silk, high Spanish shoes, a short, stout cross-hilted sword, plain but with some elegance in the workmanship, and below the throat a curiously shaped crucifix, evidently silver but of a pretty bluish tinge, which I promised myself I would have off him before he took his leave. What manner of tribal chieftain was it who wore these things?
As was my custom when receiving royalty, I had had my seneschal install near the dais and at right angles to it a heavy chair with a high and elaborately carved back representing scenes of martyrdom. Mounted on a shallow platform, it was in no sense a throne but it did elevate the monarch in occupation a sufficient distance above the commonalty. Here King Macbeth sat, well enough at his ease with his blue eyes reverentially lowered. Without much confidence in being understood I asked in simple Latin a question about his earlier visit to the City.