Beside her on the floor, Lady Huntly was sleeping, a smile on her face.
Your troubles are over, Mary thought. How long did it take before you could sleep soundly again? It has been more than three years since your lord died.
Where will I be in three years?
Where I will be in three years is where I put myself. It all lies in my own hands.
* * *
She was dressed and waiting when Darnley appeared at her chamber. She had chosen a dress she knew he liked, a greenish blue with lace at the neck, and had pulled only part of her hair back. She wore no jewellery.
Darnley had clearly not slept.
Good, thought Mary.
He smiled when he saw her, but it was a hesitant smile. He crossed the room and took her hands in his.
“Ah, my Mary,” he cried. He looked into her eyes.
“Good my lord,” she said, “you appear troubled, and well should you.” She wanted to take her hands away, but to do so would reveal her revulsion. Instead she indicated that they should take their places on the bench near one window.
Once seated, she turned to him, willing her eyes to be wide open and show nothing but concern for him.
Else I am doomed, she thought.
“Dear husband, I am distraught when I think what danger you are in,” she began. “I know not what their plans are for me.…” She hesitated, to allow him to tell her. But he was silent. “But the fact that I am an anointed queen will stay, or at least slow, their hands. I fear it will prove not so for you.”
Darnley’s pale face grew ghostly. The planes of his countenance looked lumpy.
“They are murderers,” she continued. “And not just ordinary murderers, but torturers. Else why slay David in my presence? They could have set on him whilst you played tennis, or attacked him at night when he was alone. Nay, you must question why they chose to dispatch him as they did. ’Twas not a simple killing, but a strike of terror.” She looked deeply into Darnley’s eyes. “These are twisted and desperate men. They used you … did you sign a bond?”
“Yes,” he admitted miserably.
“They have it in their keeping?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! Then they have what they wanted: the King’s signature on the murder bond, the King’s dagger in their victim. Now they can dispose of you,” she said lightly.
As she had expected, he stiffened beside her.
“Yes, dispose of you. You don’t imagine they will let you be a figurehead ruler, when they can have him instead?” She grasped her belly. “However acquiescent you are, a baby is more acquiescent. No, you have served your purpose.”
She ceased talking to allow this to sink in.
“And what mean they to do with me?” she asked, telling her voice to sound unconcerned, as if she knew already.
“To transport you to Stirling tomorrow, or the next day.”
“And then?”
“To allow the birth to take place there.”
“And then?”
“I know not.” He hung his head, showing that he knew all too well.
“Ah.” She allowed silence to fill the room. “Are we to be separated, then?”
He shrugged. They had not told him.
“For if we are separated, we are doomed. Together we can outwit them and escape the deaths they have planned for us.”
At the word deaths, he started.
“Henry”—she had not called him that except in their most intimate shared moments—“they have shown they respect neither our royal persons nor our sacred rank. They have attempted to divide us, knowing that together we can withstand them. They have succeeded in the first part of their plan: to frighten us and make us their prisoners. But the rest of their plan, to divide us and then kill us, is long from fulfillment. It depends on your helping them, until they no longer need you. But if we could escape—”
“It is impossible,” he said. “There are guards everywhere. All your people have fled.”
“All our people,” she said, taking his long bony hand in hers and squeezing it. “But they trust you. If they thought you would act as my guard—”
“They would never dismiss all the guards.”
“Is there no way to persuade them to vacate the palace? Suppose I promised them a pardon?”
“They would never believe you.”
“But if you convinced them?”
He shook his head.
I have not convinced you, she thought. Natural coward that you are, you need something more to move you.
“Ah, Henry,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. It was the first time she had kissed him on the lips in months, and she could feel them tremble under hers. He sighed and put his arm around her.
Now I will have to lead him to the bed, she thought wearily. Lady Huntly was nowhere to be seen in the chamber, having gone to take the messages to Bothwell and her son.
Obediently he followed her, and once in bed he threw off his clothes with great enthusiasm and drew the bed curtains like a boy playing at forts-and-soldiers. He ignored her stomach and instead gushed words of appreciation and adoration. Tears came to his eyes before he lost himself in action.
“Ah, my Mary,” he wept.
* * *
In her presence chamber, Mary stood demurely as the Earl of Morton eyed her. Could he know?
“The Lord James, Earl of Moray, is back in Scotland,” he said.
“And I did not call him,” she stated.
“Parliament is dissolved by proclamation of the King.” Morton shot a look at Darnley, who smiled back brightly.
He dissembles well, thought Mary. But then, I knew that.
“So there will be no attainders passed against the rebel lords of the Chaseabout Raid. How convenient.” She opened her hands and gestured, palms upward. “It is good the King is so magnanimous. For it was against him they rebelled, it was his person they evidently could not stomach. It is indeed kingly to overlook this failing.”
“Madam, will you meet with your brother? Will you receive him?” asked Morton. He smoothed his bushy orange beard.
Why does he not trim it? Mary thought irrelevantly. It is so unruly, so wiry and repulsive. It looks like a place where mites live.
“Yes. I must, so it seems.”
“He will come this afternoon, then,” said Morton. Was there a smirk hidden in the beard? He nodded curtly, commandingly, and Darnley followed him out of the room.
Do not revert, cried Mary silently. Blessed Mother, do not let him revert back to them. She started shaking all over.
“Madam, take this soothing drink,” said Lady Huntly, pressing a glass into her hands. “And when you have done, there is this cheer: I have gotten your messages out. Both men await your next instructions with troops and horses.”
“I pray it is not all in vain. The next part of my task involves many other people, and can so easily go awry,” sighed Mary, sipping the frothy drink. “It frightens me, it is so delicately balanced. Like my clock.” She indicated the little clock she had had in her chambers since childhood, the one that had struck the hours when the Cardinal came to tell her that the date of her marriage to François had been finally fixed. These days it struck erratically, and no clockmaster had been able to correct it.
“My brother is the next part of my task … my staged reconciliation with him. Oh, but his hand was present last night … he struck the fifty-seventh blow. Beware the Bastard, they said.…”
She ran her hands over her own arms nervously, but hated touching herself; she felt ugly and violated from having let Darnley take her, as if her skin were contaminated. Quickly she turned her head to look outside. The fickle March weather had turned again, and it was warm and sunny. Piercingly blue skies arched over the palace grounds, and the grass under the winter mat was showing emerald green. The windows were open, and a bee bumped against the leaded panes and then flew in.
Wherever did he come from? Mary wondered. It is too early for bees. Could he have been wa
iting, biding his time, all winter?
Like the Lord James?
How bold of him to return. Who had summoned him? Or was he in such close contact with the rebels that he himself monitored the murder and knew when to return?
The bumblebee flew from wall to wall in the chamber, seeking a flower. He meandered along the tapestry, buzzing.
There are no flowers in March, Mary thought. Bee, you seek betimes. Therefore you will die. Like all of us who guess wrong.
A sharp rap on the chamber doors, followed by an unfamiliar soldier’s announcement: “The Lord James Stewart, Earl of Moray.”
Mary rose and clasped her hands in an imitation of serenity.
Into the chamber came Lord James, his eyes warm, an expression of tenderness, concern, and apology on his face. He came toward her humbly, beseechingly, like a little boy testing his parents’ mercy for some childish prank.
She felt herself responding to what she wished were true, rather than what she knew to be true.
“Oh, James!” she said. “If only you had been here, none of this would have come to pass!” She held out her arms and embraced him. “It is so good to have you back!”
Neither of them mentioned the reason he had been away from Scotland.
“A sorry business,” he murmured, holding her. “And now, alas, we must do all we can to heal the rift that has come upon Scotland.”
Now he will dictate to me, she thought. He will pronounce the terms of the traitors.
“You will have to pardon everyone,” he said, as if he had just thought of it. “Those who fled with me and those who rose against Riccio. All these parties must be reconciled so that we can start all over.”
She kept her face buried against his chest so he could not see her expression.
“We will gather in your chamber later today,” he said, and she could feel the words rumbling from his deep chest, as well as hear them. “Morton, and Ruthven—”
“Not Ruthven!” she cried.
“—and Maitland and myself,” he continued calmly.
“Is Maitland a traitor as well?” she said, pulling away. “I knew full well he was envious of Riccio and felt slighted, but I presumed he was too civilized to dabble in murder.”
James smiled his false, remorseful-little-boy smile. “The civilized feel hate and passion just as other men,” he said. “Queen Elizabeth and her minister Cecil are not above murder and plots—why not Maitland? Besides, why is it ‘treason’ to kill a foreigner?”
Yes, why not Maitland? Why not John Knox, for that matter? she thought. “And when may I expect you?” she asked, keeping any hint of expression from her voice.
“Later this afternoon. First we must gather at Morton’s house.”
* * *
Morton’s house lay conveniently near Holyrood, in a close with its own stable and a private courtyard. It had a large enough solar on the first floor to accommodate all the conspirators, and as the afternoon wore on, they filed in and stood talking pleasantly as if this were a joyous occasion, a betrothal celebration, perhaps. Ruthven shuffled to a chair and propped his feet up on a stool, but the killing seemed to have enlivened him; he did not look nearly as sickly as he had the previous evening. Lord James, attired in fresh clothes he had miraculously found at the ready at Morton’s house, now exuded an air of calm majesty. Maitland, who had been absent from Edinburgh, seemed reinvigorated by his timely sojourn in the country. Only Lord Lindsay of the Byres was as unhealthy looking as ever, his lips cracked and broken, his eyes with black circles. A number of lesser members of the party milled about: Lord Sempill, Patrick Bellenden, James Makgill, Kerr of Fawdonside, and several Douglases.
“We meet with the Queen before supper,” said Morton, holding up his hands for attention. “Just a few of us. She’ll sign a pardon for us … for all of us, absent and present. And then, when once we have that paper exonerating us, we shall keep the Queen in custody. Who shall reign, you may ask? Why, we have a king—King Henry!”
“Shall the Queen be kept in captivity all the days of her life?” asked Lindsay. Spittle flew from his lips, and he dried them with the back of his hand. “I know of no such instance in history. Not in the monarch’s own country. ’Tis true James I was an English prisoner for many years, but—”
“Let her be taken to Stirling, and there fall ill and fail to recover.” The clear, smooth voice of Lord James spoke.
“Impossible! She would have her own physicians, her own cooks,” objected Ruthven.
“Cooks and physicians can be bribed,” James persisted.
“Not French ones!” This time Lindsay spat deliberately.
Lord James rocked on his heels, a smirk on his face. “So I see no one disagrees with my suggestion, but only with the plausibility of its success?”
“I am not sure I understand entirely what your suggestion is,” Maitland protested.
Lord James laughed. “Now that your innocence is on record, may I ask if you would agree, in principle, that the reign of Queen Mary has been an experiment which has failed? A Catholic Queen who has been unable to control her Protestant country, and who has proven herself weak and in need of a man’s guidance? But in her folly and lack of discernment, she has chosen unworthy men like Riccio to lean on, alas.”
“Yes. I would agree,” Maitland admitted.
“Good. Then I trust that you, like all of us, would welcome better days.”
* * *
Mary opened all her coffers, searching for the white face-paint she had kept from a masque in France. At the time she had packed it up, she had berated herself for the sentimentality of keeping it. But it had been the last masque in which François had danced. To leave it behind seemed a betrayal. I will throw it away later, she had promised herself. When I am ready.
She found it in the bottom of the largest oaken coffer, buried beneath exercise books from her tutoring days with the French schoolmaster, outgrown riding habits, and her first communion dress of white satin and lace.
She pulled it out and found the coloured clay within the pot to be dried and hard. But she went to her pitcher of washing water and added a few drops to the material, mixed it, and almost cried with relief and gratitude when she saw the hard material turn to liquid.
Expertly she dabbed it on her face—first in little dots on her nose, cheeks, chin, and forehead, then she spread it out over her skin. Instantly her complexion grew ashen. She added a bit to her lips, then smiled in satisfaction. She looked ill.
* * *
The four men stood before her, dressed in their best: brocaded doublets, shining with gold thread, linen collars edged with lace trim, rich capes lined with fur. Morton, Ruthven, Maitland, and the Lord James. They held their hats in their hands, but there was no hint of subservience in their manner. Their eyes—deep brown, cat’s-iris yellow, grey, and hazel—met hers boldly. By her side, Darnley stood stiffly. Pray God he does not falter! she thought. She did not dare to smile at him or even look at him, lest it advertise their complicity. The morning in bed was now eight hours old, and his body memory was likely to prove faulty. Blessed Virgin, help me! she cried silently.
“Your Majesty, my beloved sister,” James began, stepping forward slightly. He smiled his sweet-little-boy smile. “We are all rebels to some degree,” he said, “in that we have all failed to give complete, unthinking obedience to our anointed Queen. We confess it.” He jerked his head toward his comrades, who nodded for him to continue. “Just so we are all rebels in the same manner toward God. But that does not mean we have joined the ranks of God’s enemies, nor of yours. Nor does it mean that, having seen—or believed—Your Majesty to be misled or fallen under the influence of evil councillors, we were wrong to stand against them. Just so the prophets were constrained to do in ancient Israel.”
He stopped, realizing that the evil influence over whom he had rebelled was standing just a few feet away.
“Your Majesty”—he bowed to Darnley—“I was wrong to have resisted you and attempted
to block your marriage. Forgive me; I was blind.”
Darnley smiled nervously. He noticed Mary’s long, graceful fingers moving, fingering a brooch on her bodice. It was a ruby tortoise. With a start he remembered it had been given her by Riccio. For safety.
“You rebelled, and caused us to lead an army against you!” he said. But then he got a warm memory of putting on his gilded half-armour and riding out in the yellow September sunlight.
“Yes, to our shame!” said James. “But I have paid for it. I have endured exile in England, and a rating by the Queen there—”
“Our sister Elizabeth does not encourage rebels,” said Mary.
“Indeed not.” James laughed and then they all joined in.
“Tell me, brother, what it is you want,” Mary said in a gentle voice.
The smile faded from James’s face. “An unqualified and complete pardon. For all the rebels, of whatever cause.” He gestured toward the three men. “We have all gone astray, like the sinners we are. And what does Scripture say? ‘There is none that doeth good, no, not one.’ But the quality of a ruler, as of God, is to have mercy. ‘I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’”
“And what would I receive in exchange for this pardon?” she asked. “Besides the spiritual blessings, of course.”
“A united Scotland,” said James quickly. “There have been troubles, misgivings … as in the early stage of a marriage, we have been learning to live together, learning one another’s habits—”
“Like treason?”
“That word—”
“Is an ugly word. It describes an ugly thing,” she insisted.
All four of the men fell to the floor. Their knees hitting the smooth wood made thumping noises, only slightly muffled by their thick hose.
“Forgive us,” they cried. “Look not on our sins, but on thy great mercy. Let us start anew—let us make this our true wedding day!”
Ruthven’s knee was right over the clotted blood from Riccio’s murder. When he shifted his weight, Mary heard a slight crunch as he ground the crust of it under him.
May he stain his fancy breeches with an everlasting stain! she thought.
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 48