The Royal Mile

by Mary Daheim

  “I can’t see that I left much out,” she grumbled. “What difference does it make if they put Darnley in a barrel and sail him off down the Firth?”

  Fraser was propped up on one elbow, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Your judgment has deserted you of late,” he commented at last. “Domesticity has softened your brain.”

  “Twaddle, Iain, that’s not so!” But Dallas had to admit to herself that perhaps she had concealed the more sinister aspects of the Craigmillar meeting from her husband. As long as Fraser was not allowed to leave Edinburgh, Dallas could keep him securely in her arms.

  “Legal methods are one thing,” Fraser was saying, as if to himself, “but when Maitland talks of James looking through his fingers, he refers to something quite different—and illegal. Such schemes smack of intrigue which could only bring ill to the Queen.”

  “I told you, they said they’d do nothing to dishonor her,” Dallas insisted as her eyes grew accustomed to the candlelight.

  “Don’t you realize by now that those self-seeking, ambitious cutthroats will do anything—anything at all—to serve their own purposes?” Fraser swung out of bed, his dark lean body outlined against the draperies. “I’ve told you often before that Scotland signifies little to them compared to their personal aggrandizement. They regard their country as I used to regard a merchant vessel—something to plunder, to use for one’s own gain.”

  “Well, there’s no point in staying up half the night fretting over their petty plots,” Dallas averred. “Come back to bed, it’s cold as a North Sea herring.”

  But it was at least five more minutes before Fraser blew out the candle and climbed back in bed. Dallas snuggled up against him, but for once he lay motionless beside her, staring up into the darkness.

  Four inches of new snow covered Edinburgh by morning. Fraser was up early and the prints of his calfskin boots were among the few tracks yet made along the High Street. The boots were new, a Christmas present from Dallas, and felt stiff as Fraser headed for Bothwell’s town house in the Canongate.

  The Border Earl was in his bedchamber, just getting dressed. Not waiting to be announced, Fraser pushed open the door and strode into the room. Bothwell stared in surprise at his unexpected guest but held out a welcoming hand.

  “Jesu, Iain, you’re abroad early! Will you breakfast with me?”

  Fraser declined as he dropped into a chair, resting one leg on the other knee. “Being barred from court and warded in Edinburgh has put me out of touch,” he said casually. “I come to find out what’s happened in my absence.”

  Bothwell paused, his arms halfway into his shirt. “I thought your wife had been at court for a fortnight or so.” The Border Earl pulled the shirt down and tucked it into his breeks. “What’s the matter, Iain,” he grinned, “haven’t you given her a chance to talk since she got back?”

  Fraser’s mouth twisted into the familiar half-smile. “My lassie talks enough, but she can hardly learn in two weeks what’s happened in five months.”

  “It’s the same old story,” Bothwell said, shrugging into a leather jerkin trimmed with lambskin. “Darnley is estranged from the Queen and mutters about getting revenge. Poxy little troublemaker.” He picked up a decanter and two elaborately cut glasses. “Whiskey?”

  Fraser nodded absently. “You’ve managed to secure a prominent place for yourself in his absence,” he said mildly. “I would have thought you’d be better informed.”

  Bothwell’s red brows drew together. “You sound a mite acerbic, Iain. Or,” he queried with the faintest hint of malice, “is it envy?”

  Fraser took his first swallow of whiskey and shrugged. “I’ve never sought power, you know that. You can make yourself King of Scotland, for all I care—as long as you don’t hurt either Queen or Crown in the process.”

  Bothwell’s laugh was forced and overhearty. “Christ, you’re in a peculiar mood this day!” He sat down opposite Fraser and took a great gulp of whiskey. “One thing I will tell you, Her Grace pardoned the Rizzio conspirators on Christmas Eve and will permit those who have been in exile to return.”

  “Morton, too?” Fraser queried over the rim of his glass.

  “Aye, all of them.” Bothwell lounged in his chair but Fraser thought the effort at looking relaxed came with difficulty.

  “That’s a mistake,” Fraser said bluntly. “They should be punished, not pardoned. I can’t imagine the Queen permitting it. Who influences her to countenance such misguided clemency?”

  Bothwell offered Fraser another drink, but his guest declined. “Oh, she’s a merciful lass,” he said, refilling his own glass. “She hates bloodshed as most women do.”

  “She didn’t hate it when the Gordons were her quarry,” Fraser noted dryly. “No,” Fraser said with a little shake of his dark head, “you must give me a better motive than mercy.”

  “I know of none,” Bothwell said abruptly. He stood up, turning his back on Fraser, opening the draperies and peering out into the Canongate. “More snow,” he said after a long pause.

  Fraser had also risen and put down his empty whiskey glass on a side table. “You know,” he said with an indolence which barely masked the threat in his eyes, “I don’t meddle much in politics. But I would consider it, if I thought serious harm might befall the Queen and endanger the throne.”

  Bothwell had turned around. His skin seemed to merge with his red beard. “You talk in riddles,” he muttered. “You have been out of touch too long.”

  “I think not.” Fraser eyed the other man squarely and was amazed to see Bothwell actually flinch. “You’ve been a good friend to me,” he said quietly as he picked up his heavy cloak from a peg by the door. “You could be a good friend to Scotland. Consider that.”

  Bothwell, the whiskey glass in his beefy hand, stood staring as Fraser left the room.

  During the next few days, Dallas saw an unfamiliar facet of her husband’s character. Fraser was extraordinarily quiet, spending much of his time sitting and brooding into nothingness or going out alone in the snow-covered city on long walks. Occasionally, he roused himself to romp with the children and at meals he asked Dallas about her day but scarcely seemed to hear her replies. Even in bed, he was detached, making love to her only once during that time and then in an aloof, almost absent-minded manner.

  By turns, Dallas was annoyed, worried, and finally afraid. And on the last day of the year when she awoke to find him gone and his side of the bed cold to her touch, real panic set in.

  Flying out of the bedchamber with her hair in disarray and her furred night-robe tied loosely at the waist, she accosted Cummings at the head of the stairs. “Where’s my husband?” she demanded, dignity cast to the wind.

  Cummings arched an eyebrow at her disheveled state. “His Lordship rode out early this morning, madame. He didn’t inform me of his destination.”

  Dallas uttered a filthy one-word oath. Cummings twitched slightly but otherwise maintained his decorum. He should, he reminded himself sternly, be accustomed to Her Ladyship after all this time.

  Dallas questioned everyone in the household that morning, from Flora to the stable boy. Fraser had left just before dawn, she learned, riding out with his retainer, Simpson.

  As evening approached, Dallas paced the supper room, refused to join Glennie and Walter at the Cameron house to toast the new year, and even insisted that Ellen keep both boys out from under foot. When the city’s church bells finally chimed in 1567, Dallas stalked up to bed. She lay awake for hours, finally falling into a restless slumber as the last sounds of the revelmakers died along the High Street.

  Chapter 30

  Henry Darnley arrived in Glasgow only forty-eight hours ahead of Iain Fraser. The consort had left Stirling on the thirtieth and Fraser cantered through the city gates late in the afternoon of New Year’s Day. Glasgow lay in the heart of Lennox Stuart country, an ideal retreat for the apprehensive Darnley.

  The Earl of Lennox received Fraser coldly. He had never forgiven the bastard Highlan
der for his outspoken opinions regarding Darnley’s unsuitability as a royal bridegroom. “You are scarcely a visitor I would have expected,” Lennox remarked, offering Fraser neither a chair nor a drink. “I was of a mind not to admit you.”

  “I was of a mind not to come,” Fraser retorted, leaning against the carved mantelpiece of Lennox’s handsome drawing room. “Where is His Grace?”

  “Abed.” The earl stood in front of a long Venetian mirror, his thickening body flanked by twin sconces set into the wall. “He’s not feeling well.”

  “If I stay, will he be feeling well later?” Fraser asked wryly.

  Lennox moved away from the mirror, a deep frown creasing his brow. “I can’t say. I’m not putting you off, he’s truly ill.”

  “In that case,” Fraser said, pausing briefly to admire a portrait of the countess which hung above the mantel, “I’ll say what I must and be on my way. I can trust you to deliver the message. Your son is going to be murdered.”

  The earl’s face sagged with shock; he and Darnley had been expecting treachery but nothing as extreme as this.

  “You lie!” he cried, advancing on Fraser, his hands clutched in front of him like beefy claws. “You hate my son! Why would you give me such a warning?”

  Fraser held his ground, calmly regarding the earl with his cool, steady hazel gaze. “I don’t hate your son. He’s an unprincipled and dissolute young fool unfit to rule Scotland.” Lennox’s florid complexion turned an unhealthy purple at the blunt words, but Fraser continued: “My opinion of him has nothing to do with my reason for being here. If your son is assassinated, the Queen will bear the blame and Scotland will be thrown into turmoil. I won’t stand by and see that happen. I’ve given it much thought these past days, weighing my own personal prejudices and well-being against the good of the realm. I finally decided I had to come and warn your son.”

  The empurpled skin was beginning to pale as Lennox lowered himself into a chair. “God’s blood!” he whispered. “My poor laddie!” He sat with his chin almost resting on his chest, staring down at the tiled floor. Then he looked up at Fraser, who still stood by the mantel. “Who? Who plots this terrible crime?”

  But Fraser would reveal no names. “The warning is sufficient. I’ve broken ward to come here, I’ve gone against my own interests. You’ll have to be satisfied with what I’ve told you and take your own precautions.”

  Still stunned, Lennox remained immobilized in his chair as Fraser walked towards the door. “Can I believe you?” the earl muttered. “You may have tricks of your own.”

  “Nay,” Fraser replied, “my word is good. You and your countess saved my lassie’s life once. Though there’s little else I like about you or your son, I could never forget that. Now we’re even.”

  Fraser had grown so accustomed to moving about the city unmolested that he was surprised when two armed men hailed him just west of the Calton Burial Ground. They were dressed as moss-troopers and Fraser recognized them as Bothwell’s men.

  “Who are ye? Where do ye go?” the taller of the two men demanded.

  “Iain Baron Fraser of Beauly,” Fraser responded. “And this is my man, Simpson. I’m returning to ward myself in Edinburgh.”

  The two Borderers looked at each other. They had both seen Fraser at Hermitage with Bothwell in years gone by. But they had their orders.

  “You are an outlaw, Iain Fraser,” the taller man said. “The Queen has ordered that you be placed in the Tolbooth until your case can come before Parliament.”

  “The Tolbooth is where I’m headed,” Fraser replied easily. He dismounted, signaling for Simpson to do the same. “I have a letter from Her Grace. Would you like to see it?”

  Neither of the men could read a word beyond their own names but they would not admit that to Fraser. Their eyes were wary but both of them nodded. They could pretend to read the letter, and then hustle the Highlander and his companion off to the Tolbooth, confident of having performed their duty.

  Fraser started to reach inside his jacket with his left hand; but his right fist flew out, catching the first man squarely on the jaw. Simpson fell on the other Borderer, knocking him to the ground. Both the moss-troopers had gone for their dirks. Fraser’s leg swung up, catching the taller man on the forearm. A sickening crack sounded upon impact and the man’s arm fell uselessly to his side, the dirk falling to the ground. The second man had been pinned down by Simpson, who wrenched the weapon out of the Borderer’s hand and threw it into a snowbank.

  Fraser and Simpson leapt back onto their horses. The man with the broken arm was crying out with pain. A handful of peddlers and farmers were coming up from the New Port, but Fraser could not spot any more moss-troopers among them. He put his spurs into Barvas’s flanks and galloped away from the city.

  There was no mistaking Fraser’s handwriting this time, though obviously the message had been written in haste. Dallas had received a parcel that morning which contained a finely woven shawl in the Fraser tartan. The note from her husband had been tucked inside the material.

  “I’ve gone north for a short time since it appears my welcome in Edinburgh has worn thin. Wrap this shawl around you until my arms can take its place.”

  Dallas glared at the sprawling signature, then whirled on Glennie, who had stopped off for a visit on her way from the Grassmarket. “Devil take him!” Dallas screeched, flinging away the shawl and kicking at it in mid-air. “Devil take his ugly shawl, too!”

  “I think it’s rather lovely,” Glennie commented placidly. “At least he sent you a present.”

  “Fie, Glennie, he wouldn’t rest until he could be off somewhere, skulking about like a common criminal! Why didn’t I marry someone peaceable like Walter or Donald?”

  “You’d have perished from boredom,” Glennie said drolly as she watched her sister stomp up and down the supper room. “But it mystifies me that Iain is said to be under penalty of arrest if he returns to Edinburgh. Why did he leave in the first place?”

  Dallas plopped down onto the divan. “You think he told me? A fortnight ago I woke up one morning and discovered he wasn’t there.” She folded her arms across her bosom and thrust out her lower lip in a full-fledged pout.

  “Maybe he’ll send for you,” Glennie suggested, trying to mollify her sister. “Though I hope you wouldn’t leave before Tarrill’s wedding.”

  “I most certainly won’t,” Dallas avowed. “Just because he beckons a finger at me, don’t think I’ll race off like a simpering country maid! Yet,” she went on, waggling a finger at Glennie, “these marriage arrangements upset me mightily. The Queen has all but given her blessing to those pesky Protestants and their stiff-necked faith. Now Tarrill and Donald can’t even find a priest to marry them!”

  Glennie smiled sadly. “That won’t bother Donald, since I think he’d have balked at being wed in the old faith. But Tarrill is upset, so am I. Yet what can we do?”

  “Listen to Knox rant and rave, I suppose,” Dallas said sourly. Glennie had to agree, but though she sympathized with her sister, she decided it was pointless to stay any longer and endure Dallas’s ill temper. “I’d best be going, dearest, since Walter should be home with the boys soon. He took them sledding by the Nor’ Loch.”

  “How nice,” Dallas remarked in a tone which indicated she didn’t much care if Walter had taken the boys to Peru. In fact, she thought angrily, for all she knew, that was where Iain Fraser might have gone, too.

  A short time later the Queen left for Glasgow amid much rampant speculation. Darnley had been very ill with smallpox, though some uncharitable souls said his disease stemmed from more sordid causes. To speed his recovery, his wife wished to take him to Craigmillar to bathe in the adjacent mineral springs. But Darnley refused: He’d been warned, he’d not walk into a trap.

  But ultimately lured by promises of a reconciliation with Mary, Darnley decided it was safe to leave Glasgow, as long as he could choose his place of residence. He mulled over several possibilities, finally selecting a small bu
t pleasant house in Edinburgh recommended by Sir James Balfour. Situated on a slope overlooking the Cowgate, the house had originally been connected with the old collegiate Church of St. Mary’s and was known as Kirk o’ Field.

  Darnley traveled by litter, arriving in Edinburgh on February first. During the next few days, the Queen and members of her court moved back and forth between Holyrood and Kirk o’ Field to visit the royal convalescent. Mary even spent several nights there in a room directly below her husband’s.

  Neither Dallas nor Tarrill joined the court that week; both women were occupied with the wedding, scheduled for February seventh. The ceremony would be held in the West Kirk, known before the Reformation as the Culdee Church of St. Cuthbert. From there the wedding party would proceed to a banquet at the Exchequer’s house. The Exchequer had graciously offered his home for the festivities and insisted that Donald and Tarrill spend their wedding night under his roof. Though the couple had leased a flat in Blackfriars Wynd, they accepted the invitation. Since the Queen and many of the courtiers would attend the postnuptial festivities, Tarrill decided that after such a wearying day, it would be as well to stay on at the Exchequer’s house rather than going to their own flat.

  While Glennie helped Dallas and Tarrill with the trousseau and other preparations, Marthe and Flora fell back into their familiar pattern of bickering, and Walter and Donald tried to keep out of the way. It was a hectic week, almost busy enough to keep Dallas’s mind off of her husband.

  Iain Fraser, in fact, was not as far from Edinburgh as she imagined. Heavy snows had prevented him from going as far as Beauly, and though he had spent a few days on the fringes of Fraser country, he turned south again by the end of January. While Dallas rushed between her old family home and the town house, Fraser was at Callander, some twenty miles northwest of Stirling. It was there, in a small but tidy inn, that Fraser was approached by a Gaberlunzie man.