Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  She had a husband, only a stone’s throw away in the royal apartments. Even now, his wife awaited.

  “No,” he heard himself saying. Or had he actually said it? It would be double adultery, plus violating the Queen’s person: treason. All she had to do was scream for her guards.

  But she would not. He knew that. She was brave and headstrong and not afraid of desire. She bested him in that; for all his adventures, he had never had to risk anything for them. He had pursued desire only when it was easy, never when it was compelling or dangerous.

  Desire washed over him and drowned his thoughts. They fell to their knees in the open space behind the altar.

  “Block the door,” she said. He had expected her to demur about the altar and the holy place. He rose to his feet and, feeling in the dark, jerked a heavy chair over against the door.

  “No lights—no sound,” he whispered. “No one would think to enter.”

  She gave a low, sweet laugh that inflamed his already throbbing body.

  “I am alone,” she said. “I cannot believe it. I am never alone. This little chapel … so old … it makes me shiver.… Scotland was at the end of the world once … sometimes it still feels like it.” Her breath, and voice, were coming in little gasps. “I want you to take me, take me away, to the far side of the earth—all those places you sail to, the places you’ve known—the Indies—”

  “Hush! You are mad!” He stopped her mouth by kissing her. Her mouth opened under his, trembling.

  It was as cold as a tomb in the little chapel. Outside the wind had picked up, and there was a soft, fluttering noise as snowflakes hit the two little windows. The chapel would be blanketed with snow, covering them.

  He must lay her down. The stones were icy cold and uneven. He fumbled with his cloak, finding the catch, and removed it to spread it on the floor.

  “Lie here,” he whispered. The altar was only a few inches away; he brushed it with his shoulder as he quickly undid his laces and removed his lower garments. Naked on his lower body, he could not keep from kissing her. He let his lips search out the hollows of her neck, her soft ears, her cheeks. She was almost crying with desire and response.

  He put his hand under her dress. It was too cold for them to remove most of their garments. He felt her feet, how chilled they were, and ran his hands slowly up her leg, encased in a knitted stocking. Her leg was long and firm. Carefully he peeled the stocking down, caressing her leg. She moaned softly and seemed almost to go limp. He let his hand brush against the soft secret part of her, but took it away. This was to be their only time together, as it must be, so he would not hurry it on and have it end so soon.

  He raised himself up and inched across her gown, crushing the velvet and brocade. He kissed her at the waistband and felt the flesh beneath it shrink back and then expand. He kissed her ribs, then her breasts, swollen—he knew—just under the velvet he was staining with the moisture from his mouth as he kissed it. Beneath it, even through two layers of cloth, he could feel her nipples hardening and standing erect. Now his whole body tightened and he was so excited he felt himself about to burst.

  “Call your guards, punish me,” he whispered. “Nay, you are too merciful, you would never do so.…”

  In answer she kissed him, first brushing his lips with her tongue, tracing all the dips and swells of it, then opening her mouth and tasting him. She reached down and managed to remove her silken drawers, pulling them off over her shoeless feet, and then sank back onto her back, with him between her legs. Two layers of clothing, her gown and petticoat, separated his nakedness from hers. Now she was running her hands over his bare muscular buttocks, trying to press his skin directly against hers, as if somehow that would burn the intervening cloth away.

  “I melt … I cannot bear this.” Her voice was choked and far away. “End my torture.”

  Slowly and almost solemnly, he pulled himself away from her and, sitting back on his heels, lifted away the voluminous cloth of her skirts. The warmth and smell of her naked flesh, her secret parts, was unmistakable. The time was here; it could be delayed no longer.

  He lowered himself toward her, holding her, positioning himself on his knees. He was trembling. His knees were shaking. The injured arm, in its bandage, was clumsy. His abdomen, with its fresh and tender scar, felt ripples of heat throbbing within. He was going to die if he did not end this.

  Her legs encircled him, drew him in. They were long and slender and met, locked, over the small of his back. He felt himself enter her, slide down through her dark, open, and waiting passage of self. But there was still something held back; she was almost a virgin in her hesitant movements, her unsureness. It was more delicious than anything he had ever tasted or experienced, this virgin ripeness. Suddenly he was afraid he would explode, would disintegrate and give her no pleasure at all in the suddenness of it.

  “Oh, my dearest love,” she was whispering, moving against him. As her body moved, her head moved with it, making her voice fade in and out, next to his ear, then farther away.

  This was wrong, wrong, wrong.… Part of him recoiled in sudden fear. This was not safe in any way … it was worse than an ambush on the moors, it screamed out its folly and danger.… Then a wave of the purest pleasure he had ever experienced kindled in him and spread upward, engulfing his whole being. He was on fire.

  She was crying out, clutching his back, tearing his doublet. He could hear the pearls popping off, could hear them striking even the stones beyond his spread cloak. Her back was arching and her legs had started jerking. She was about to scream. Quickly he covered her mouth with his own to stifle it. Her body had gone wild, convulsing spasmodically. Then suddenly his own began to explode, and he felt the stores of his long-hoarded passion breaking forth, flooding her, swamping himself.

  She was shaking and shuddering, clawing at his velvet-padded shoulder. She tore her mouth away, gasping.

  And then, suddenly, all that passed away and they were merely lying on the floor in a cold little chapel. Mary reached out her arm and touched the base of the altar. She steadied herself and her breathing slowed. Embarrassed, she coughed.

  She struggled to sit up, to regain some control. Her hand flailed out, searching for her discarded clothing. Her other hand, shaking, pushed back her sweat-soaked hair from her cheeks. Her breathing was still ragged.

  Bothwell’s thoughts were racing: What have I done? What will happen? He had trouble bringing his mind into focus when his body had not returned to normal; his heart was still pounding. He took Mary’s hand, doubled it in his own against his chest. “Please have no regrets,” he finally said. “I promise never to speak of it, nor remind you of it in any way. But you must know that I will treasure this forever—as a memory, not as a presumption of any power or favours.”

  She did not answer, but bowed her head and continued to try to dress herself. Quite suddenly he was touched with love for her.

  He dressed himself. He did not wish this time to end. She stood up and, picking up his cloak, handed it silently to him. He took it and slung it over one shoulder.

  “We are married to others,” he whispered, finally.

  “I know that well,” she answered, her voice quiet in the dark. “I love you, Lord Bothwell. I have long dreamed of you, and in such a manner. I think I was seeing it before it happened, that in some way my mind snatched pictures from the future. So I have lived with this a long time.”

  “What is it you have lived with?”

  “With what has happened.”

  “But what has happened? What can it mean for us, married as we are, and you a reigning Queen?”

  “That I do not know. Only that I love you.” Without waiting for his reply, she removed the barricading chair and pulled the door open. The blast of the wind, wet with snow, slapped him.

  The door closed. She was gone. He did not even hear her footfalls on the stones outside, so soft were her shoes.

  He smoothed out his cloak and draped it around his shoulders. He ran his
hands over his hair and put his hat on. Then he, too, opened the door and made his way across the upper courtyard and to the lighted quarters of the guest apartments. Pray God there was no one dicing or singing in the outer chambers, no one who would beckon to him.

  But it was very late. How long had they been in the chapel? Surely it had not been long, although it had seemed so at the time, the timeless time. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed.

  He entered his own apartments. The servants had also retired. In his own bedroom, Lady Bothwell was sitting up, writing by candlelight. She was still dressed, and nodded to him with a bland smile.

  “It was pleasant, was it not?” she asked sweetly.

  “Aye.” Hurriedly he undressed himself behind a screen and, in sleeping attire, made for the bed. He settled himself, and when his wife came to bed, he pretended to be fast asleep.

  * * *

  The next morning he awakened early, if he could claim to have slept at all. It had been a strange night of Mary’s continual presence in his mind and heart and even, it seemed, in his body: his wounds had been stretched by the exertions and now they ached. The contortions on the floor had left him with scraped knees and a crick in his neck—lest he should fool himself into believing that nothing had happened.

  It had happened. And suddenly he was gripped with fear about what would or could or might happen next.

  Beside him his wife stirred, sighed, and then rolled over. Her sleeping form offered him a sort of comfort—the only physical comfort she had ever offered. But that was only because she did not know. If she ever did … this was not the same as Bessie Crawford. No, this was … what? Treason? Not exactly, since it was the Queen’s desire as well. And the King was not a real King, so cuckolding him was not treason, either, as the English Parliament had made it a treason to cuckold Henry VIII.

  Henry VIII, the Queen’s great-uncle. The lusty old goat with his lusty she-goat of a sister—that blood ran in the Queen’s veins, and what was not Tudor was Stewart, which was never icy. The Queen’s blood was so hot last night it would have bubbled had it been spilt on those chapel stones.…

  The memory of it excited him, much to his shame. Dwelling on lovemaking like a country girl was embarrassing. Better to think about what it meant, and what it could lead to: trouble. Immense trouble, beside which Jock o’ the Park and his two-handed sword was nothing.

  To be the Queen’s lover was to risk getting her with child. There were time-honoured provisions for a King’s bastard, but it was significant that there was none for a Queen’s.

  To be the Queen’s lover was to risk the twisted wrath of her strange, unpredictable husband.

  To be the Queen’s lover was to risk making enemies of all the other men, the councillors, who were not. They would see him as a male Diane de Poitiers, a threat to them and their power.

  To be the Queen’s lover would be to discredit her to her religious enemies, the Knoxian common people, who would be scandalized and possibly try to have her removed from the throne. They called her “whore” already, as the Roman “whore of Babylon,” but this was different. There was nothing the Bible-patting congregation of the faithful hated worse than the sins of the flesh.

  He actually shivered, hearing their shrill cries in his mind. He had seen the glee with which the proper citizens of Edinburgh ducked scolds, gossips, and adulteresses, pelted them with fruit, and had them whipped and even branded. And if they knew the Catholic Queen had rolled naked on the floor of a chapel with one of her married courtiers—

  He felt sick. He lurched up from the bed so suddenly he awakened his wife Jean, as he grabbed for the vase de nuit to vomit into. The sight and smell of what was already in there completed the task and he heaved everything up from his stomach.

  Jean murmured something solicitous and climbed out of bed to get him a towel to wipe his face. She dabbed it in water and then tenderly cleaned off his face.

  “You look dreadful,” she said, examining his reddened face and bloodshot eyes. “You must have eaten something tainted.”

  “Aye.” He got up off his knees and made his way shakily over to the table, where a bottle of wine was kept. Anything to chase that vile taste from his mouth.

  “I pray you, return to sleep,” he said. “It is too early to be up.” He sloshed the wine around in his mouth and then swallowed it. He wanted to sleep, too. Now perhaps he could.

  As he crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over himself in the chill of the early dawn, the small amount of wine in his empty stomach gave him a strange soothing feeling.

  There was one last thing: to be the Queen’s lover—to be this Queen’s lover—was to live in Paradise. She was the woman he had long ago dreamed of possessing—beautiful, passionate, perfectly fitted to him in the dark. In those few moments she had proved able to match and answer all his desires, unspoken and untouched until now.

  * * *

  At midmorning, several hours after his second arising, Bothwell had a visitor: the Lord James.

  “May I?” asked James. “I trust I am not disturbing you?”

  “No, not at all,” Bothwell forced himself to answer in a hearty fashion. His stomach still felt queasy, but he had satisfied himself that he looked well enough, and had taken exceptional pains in his dressing and toilet. “I was only waiting until time to go to the bullfight in the royal park.”

  “Yes, there are a mighty lot of festivities!” sneered Lord James, and in his clenched mouth Bothwell saw all ascetics. “May I?” he repeated.

  Bothwell waved him in, then took him back to an inner chamber where they would not be disturbed. “It must be urgent business that brings you here, directly, to me this early. What is it?” Bothwell hated delays and circumvention.

  “A blunt fellow, as everyone agrees,” said James. “Regarding the business with Morton and the other murderers—are you going to speak to the Queen? I think you can persuade her.” He looked directly into Bothwell’s eyes with the cruel level gaze of a hawk.

  Did he suspect?

  “Why me? You are her brother, and have always been her chief minister.”

  “Oh, stop the flattery. Since your injury in the heroic antics down in the Borders, and your heartrending escape from death, your word is law with the Queen. Anything you ask, she’ll grant.” He continued looking at him, with a look halfway between a glare and a stare. “Your sword wounds have brought you much credit.”

  “But why would I want the Riccio murderers back? And for that matter, why would you?”

  “Morton was a good man in many ways.” Lord James chose his words carefully and took his time in selecting them. “Darnley double-crossed him. He knows Darnley better than you or I or even the Queen does. Some say you only come truly to know a man after he betrays you.” James paused. “Since our talk at Craigmillar, I have been at deep pains pondering how we might keep our word to the Queen to free her from Darnley. I have come to believe that Morton will know the best way.”

  Yes. Murder him. So that is the plan, thought Bothwell. That is what is to be done? We let his most deadly enemy back into Scotland, a kinsman who has been betrayed by him, and who has already murdered once.… Bothwell felt queasy again. What if they find out my secret, how will they use that?

  “Will you speak to the Queen soon?” Lord James was saying. “Of course the rest of the councillors will urge it as well, but if you add your voice to ours and Queen Elizabeth’s—”

  “I said I would, didn’t I? If you advise it.”

  “Oh, I do advise it.”

  “Very well. I’ll do it as soon as an opportunity presents itself.” Bothwell felt as though a great pit were opening up under him. Murder and adultery and treason, all at once, were difficult to get used to in only a few short hours. He smiled wanly.

  “Good.” Lord James stood up. There were to be no pleasantries about the weather, the ceremonies, or the distinguished visitors, then. Just right to the point: the murder. “I do believe you could persuade the Queen to do anyt
hing these days. Even signing her own death warrant.”

  He knew!

  “I am only joking,” said Lord James, raising his eyebrows. “I must say, you look a bit ill. Perhaps you should avoid the bullfight. Too much blood. But do speak to her today, if possible.”

  * * *

  The expensive, week-long festivities were to come to a tumultuous close with an elaborately staged battle to capture a make-believe castle erected near the King’s Knot. It was in the best tradition of France, for a Castle of Love to be stormed by lovesick knights, and defended by cruelles dames sans merci. For six weeks John Chisholm, a Scotsman who had studied this art in France, had laboured to construct it, and rumour was there was to be a spectacular finale. All were requested to attend, as it had been hideously expensive to bring into being.

  Bothwell—who, far from seeking out the Queen to speak with her, had studiously avoided her—had attired himself in his best clothes, selecting the wine-coloured doublet with topaz stones outlining the gold-braided design, and puffed satin breeches over his silken hose. A velvet cap with feather completed the ceremonial costume of the most powerful lord in the land.

  He joined the throngs streaming out of the castle gates to descend to the grounds where the spectacle would be staged. Just then French Paris tugged at his cloak.

  “A message for you,” he said. “I don’t know who brought it; it was thrown into the room all wrapped up, and covered with wax.”

  Bothwell drew back from the jostling, overdressed crowd to break the seal and read it.

  I pray you, come now to my private chamber.

  That was all. He wadded it up and stuffed it into his waistband. Then he melted away from the chattering crowd.

  * * *

  The Queen’s apartments were deserted. He opened the outer door, the one leading directly to the public rooms; there were no guards in the anteroom. Then he entered the ceremonial public chambers with their smooth paved floors, their silent tapestries of classical deeds and loves and labours, meant to give weight and formality to proceedings. No one there. The throne, carved and gilded, stood empty underneath its canopy. He passed through the three outer chambers and entered the private ones. The Marys, the servers, all were gone. The cushions lay dozing like rotund cats in the coming gloom. Only one candle stand had been lit, and the feeble light showed poorly against the bloody red of the sunset through the western window panes.