“But how did you explain it to the authorities?” Mary Elizabeth wiped her cheeks, studying her grandmother with growing interest. There was more to this lady of many centuries than she had first realised. “I know I have a Canadian birth certificate, but you would have to prove parentage and all that, wouldn’t you?”
Gran nodded. “It was not easy, my dear child. Not in the least. I made up a story that I heard whimpering like a kitten outside my back door. When I went to investigate, I found you wrapped in a blanket. The police and children’s services became involved, but nothing proved me either right or wrong. I applied to take custody of you and, by the time the courts approved my application, you were old enough, strong enough, and well enough to come home with me. Mrs. Dickson remained here and helped me raise you until you were about two, then she returned to Scotland. That’s why you haven’t met her before, or, at least you don’t remember meeting her. We both remained in this time, believing it safer until you were old enough to accept your purpose, your true calling, to be the Queen of Scotland the Scottish people of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries wanted.”
“Whoa! Wait just a minute!” Mary Elizabeth held up her hands as if in surrender and pushed herself off the couch. She started to pace the room, only pausing long enough in front of Jamie to give a distinct glare as if it were all his fault. “Even if all of this were true and I am Princess Mary Elizabeth, Queen Mary’s daughter, there’s the little issue about my brother, who was already King James VI of Scotland and later King James I of England and Scotland.”
“But,” Gran held up one hand to stave off argument, “Since James was in England, the Scots became vassals and slaves of English landlords and were treated harshly and unfairly for generations. All of that history can be avoided if another rightful heir, you–” She gave her point more credence by pushing herself off the couch and coming to stand directly in front of her granddaughter. “Yes, you, Mary Elizabeth. If you were to take the reins and challenge King James I of England, you could legitimately take the throne of Scotland and keep the country a free nation for future generations.”
Jamie cleared his throat and added his thoughts. “Then we wouldn’t have this blasted ongoing conflict and demands to separate from England. We could rule our people, our way, and decide for ourselves whether or not we want to remain in the European Union.”
“Do we trust him?” Mary Elizabeth pointed a finger at Jamie while looking at Gran and Mrs. D, who had quietly remained seated on the couch.
Mrs. D just shrugged her shoulders.
Gran didn’t answer right away. “Choose your friends wisely and keep your enemies close. Always the best words of advice. I guess we’ll have to trust Jamie for now.”
“For now,” he echoed with a deep chuckle.
Chapter Twelve
Mary Elizabeth continued to pace the floors of the sitting room. Everyone else had vacated the main floor, leaving the young woman to her own thoughts and conjectures. Gran had decided to trust Jamie for now and she even insisted that he stay in the guest room. Mary Elizabeth hadn’t realised they had a guest room, but then there were so many rooms on the second floor and, surprisingly, even the third floor always locked up tight. She often asked Gran about it, only to have the topic of conversation immediately changed. Until this day, Mary Elizabeth hadn’t seen behind the locked doors of most of the house.
This room, the sitting room, or living room as some of her childhood friends had called it, had always been open. It was where visitors were welcomed, friends came to play, and it was a peaceful, comfortable place to sit and read by the fireplace on a cold winter’s night. Mary Elizabeth had fond memories of times spent in this room with her gran. She gazed at the fireplace, the hearth now cold in summer and they had no need for a blazing fire. Not that they needed a fire even in the winter with the luxury of central heating, something she would have to give up if she chose to live in the sixteenth century. That and so much more: electricity, indoor plumbing, quick and efficient transportation options.
Did she want to give it all up? She loved it, but was that job her purpose in life? Did she have another purpose? Was ruling as Queen of Scotland, five hundred years in the past, her purpose in life? Changing the time line, the course of events, may only be a means of postponing the inevitable.
So many questions. She was finding it difficult to accept her grandmother’s explanation. She couldn’t quite grasp the idea of living her life in the sixteenth century, as a princess, with Jamie at her side or as her adversary. If Jamie was the regent, his purpose would be rather limited since his assassination happened in 1570, years before Mary Elizabeth would resurface in Scotland to challenge her brother and reclaim Scotland’s right to remain free of English tyranny.
This time travelling was ever so complicated and confusing. The fact that she had witnessed her own birth and rescued herself from certain death, from the hands of the queen’s gaoler as well as the hands of the regent simply blew her mind away. And, even though Gran had taught her to communicate—both verbally and in the written form, in Latin, old French, and Gaelic – her command of the English language was so twenty-first century, with all its colloquialisms and contractions. Not to mention all the swearing that was quite commonplace even amongst the upper class.
She resumed her pacing, making her way to the front window. She pulled back the drapes that were frequently closed to protect the space from the harsh sunlight that penetrated this room in the summer months, or so she’d been told. So many things Gran had said over the years, she now realised, were basic evasions of the truth. She didn’t know what or who to believe.
As she peaked outside, she noticed several black cars with tinted windows pulling up in front of the house. Several men stepped out, dressed in black and donning black tinted glasses. They eyed the house's façade, stopping when they noticed Mary Elizabeth’s figure at the window. As they passed nods between them, they started walking, no, marching toward the front door. A tremor cascaded down her spine. She stepped back quickly, allowing the drapes to fall back into place.
“Gran,” she called out, her voice feeble as fear penetrated her core. What was there to be afraid of? She scolded herself. This was the twenty-first century and the heart of Rosedale in upscale Toronto. What could possibly threaten her here?
She didn’t want to wait to find out. “Gran.” She yelled even louder this time, making a dash for the front hall. “We have company.” She ran up the stairs, heading for the private study in the back. She knew she would find Gran there, along with Mrs. D. She assumed Jamie was in the assigned guest room.
She barged into the study and pulled the door shut behind her, locking it securely as Gran had taught her to do, though why, she had never understood until today. Turning to face the two surprised older women, she repeated, “We have company, and they don’t look friendly.”
“Time to go,” Mrs. D insisted. Standing up abruptly and reaching out to pull Gran along with her.
Gran, now dressed in period garb, nodded, grabbing an item from her desktop as she scurried after her faithful friend. Looking at Mary Elizabeth over her shoulder, she summoned her forward. “The adventure begins. I am glad you are still dressed in your traditional clothes.”
“We are all dressed for the time,” Mrs. D remarked. Like Mary Elizabeth, she still wore her sixteenth century outfit. Even Gran had donned an elegant sixteenth-century robe, one that Mary Elizabeth had never seen before, except in book illustrations of women in the royal Scottish court.
“What about Jamie?” Mary Elizabeth asked, not sure if she cared what happened to him. She wasn’t sure if she trusted him yet.
“No time. He’s probably already gone ahead.” Gran followed Mrs. D toward the bookcase in the corner and motioned Mary Elizabeth to follow. “Come.”
Mrs. D pulled out the thick volume of a biography about Mary Queen of Scots. Fitting, Mary Elizabeth thought as she watched the wall give way to a narrow space and an equally narrow staircase that,
surprisingly, didn’t lead down, but up. What could possibly be up higher in the house that would protect them? As far as she knew, the third-floor rooms, though locked, were empty and the attic had been shut off from the rest of the house years ago.
Mrs. D pushed Gran and Mary Elizabeth up the stairs and followed after herself, pulling the hidden doorway-slash-bookcase firmly closed behind them and flicking a lock in place.
Just in time. A huge crash indicated that whoever had just arrived in those black cars was now invading their home.
“Who are those people?” Mary Elizabeth gasped as she pulled herself up the steep staircase, following her grandmother into a dark void of unknown dimensions. “And where are we going?”
“Somewhere safe, but not in this time,” Gran replied, not altering her ascent as she answered.
“Probably agents of the English court,” Mrs. D puffed from behind Mary Elizabeth.
“Which court?”
“Your brother’s. He knows you are coming and he wants to protect his realm. All of it.”
“Not dressed the way they were,” Mary Elizabeth argued, as she struggled to keep up with her grandmother, who was almost running up the steps. “They had the appearance of a James Bond type of secret service.”
Gran paused only briefly. “Then we had better get out of this time. It appears that even the powers that be of the twenty-first century want to prevent you from changing time and keeping Scotland free and independent.”
They reached the top of the stairs, or so it seemed. There was nothing else, nowhere to go, just a final step. “What now?” Mary Elizabeth gasped.
An explosion from below erased any answer and she felt herself hurtling through space. She landed with a heavy thud. The ground was wet and mushy and she was soaked, already shivering uncontrollably. She pushed herself into a sitting position and tried to wipe the cold slush off her hands. Looking around, she tried to take in her surroundings. It was dark and all she could see were shadows. There was nothing familiar about it.
“Gran,” she called out between chattering teeth. “Mrs. D.”
“Over here.” Mary Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief when she heard Gran’s voice. She started to crawl her way in the general direction. It was cold—bitter cold—and the ground was hard, like ice, and covered in soft slushy stuff. To top it off, it was snowing. Mary Elizabeth could feel the white flakes landing on her head, her face, and her bare hands. She shivered some more and pulled her tartan wrap more snuggly around her shoulders. It didn’t help, as it was soaking wet, too.
As she made her way toward her grandmother, Mary Elizabeth’s eyes started adjusting to the pitch black. Dark shadows towered overhead and waved at the white flakes that materialised out of the black sky just before they landed on the three unprepared victims below.
“Where are we? And in what time period?” she asked, the questions tumbling over each other in her mind as she struggled to grasp all that had transpired in just a short time. “And what was that blast?”
“Our fail-safe protection,” Mrs. D struggled to sit up, her voice a little shaky. “All transport sites have a protective device that explodes should any unwanted visitors try to intrude.”
“We can never go back to that house in Toronto,” Gran added, grasping her granddaughter’s hand when she felt her presence next to her. “At least not in this time. The house is no longer there, and neither are those spies.” She took several long breaths before continuing. “We must be in the forest surrounding Fotheringay Castle. The date should be somewhere around February 1587. I hope we did not overjump and miss our connection. You are going to see your mother. She is expecting you, but her time is short.”
“Fotheringay! That’s where she was beheaded!” Mary Elizabeth gasped. “Are we here to stop the beheading?”
“No, child.” Gran let out another deep sigh. “It is too late for that. But your mother has something for you and you need to speak to her so she can help you in your journey to the throne of Scotland.” She patted Mary Elizabeth’s hand fondly. “The journey begins today.”
Mrs. D shushed them. “Someone comes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“Bonjour,” a woman’s voice called out hesitantly in French, softly, as if she was avoiding detection, but also wanted to be heard. “Is that you in there? Is that you, Queen Marie?”
“Lady Jane! Is that you?” Gran broke the silence, calling out in a gentle, but clear voice, her French rolling off her tongue as if she had never spoken another language.
“Oui, my Queen, Marie de Guise. It is I. Where are you?”
“Over here.” Gran pushed herself off the ground, nudging the others to do so as well. “It’s Lady Jane Kennedy, my daughter’s maid. We can trust her. She will take us to the queen.”
“I thought my mother only surrounded herself with Mary’s,” Mary Elizabeth noted.
“She did, initially,” Gran explained. “But time and situations changed. Her staff was cut drastically when she was imprisoned in England, and her household staff had to be approved by her cousin, Queen Elizabeth. If there was any doubt or concern about one of your mother’s attendants, they were quickly dismissed, or worse, they simply disappeared.”
“Executed.”
“Probably.” Gran wrapped her arm around Mary Elizabeth. In a continued soft voice, she spoke in English. “Speak clearly when you speak English or French.” She spoke with urgency and conviction, determined to feed her granddaughter with as many words of wisdom as she could in a short time. “No contractions or slang and definitely no swearing. You must speak the lingo of the time. That is the way I instructed you to speak and now you know the reason.”
“Yes Gran,” Mary Elizabeth answered, then corrected herself. “I mean, yes Grandmother.”
A shadow appeared, abruptly stopping any further instructions. “Come. We must move quickly,” she said.
“Oui!” The conversation continued in old French, barely more than a whisper. They didn’t converse much, knowing that there were spies everywhere. If they were at Fotheringay, they were in the heart of England, the realm of Queen Elizabeth I, and she was known to have spies in every corner of her domain.
Gran took Mary Elizabeth’s arm and linked it in hers. The women followed their guide, moving as quickly and quietly as the rough terrain and thick woods would allow. Lady Jane stopped suddenly and motioned silence. She hustled everyone into a crouch behind a thick hedge. The thunder of horses’ hooves accompanied by the clatter and creak of leather indicated riders of some distinction.
“She came this way,” a man’s voice announced as the horses pulled up short and stood panting and stomping their feet impatiently. “I know she did. The darkness and the dense forest will make further pursuit impossible until daybreak.”
“We must track her,” another voice insisted. “She may lead us to the queen’s daughter.”
“Queen Mary, you mean? You cannot possibly believe that tale of a young Princess Mary Elizabeth whisked away at birth and coming to claim her inheritance at the Scottish Queen’s last hours.”
“I can and I do believe it. I overheard the captive Queen herself telling one of her maids that her daughter was coming to see her. The Scottish Queen may be many things, including a traitor to our fair Queen, but she is not one to fall for fanciful tales of missing princesses, unless the tale is based on truth. If there is a missing Scottish princess, Queen Elizabeth would award us greatly for bringing her to court. Now let us go and find her, before she finds her way to her mother’s side.” The horses paced restlessly.
Reins jangled as the riders manoeuvred the horses around. “We shall look this way and then turn back. Lady Jane could not have gone far.”
“So, it is the fair lady’s maid that you seek.” A soft chuckle erupted amongst the mounted men. “Are you sure you are not just looking to her for your own pleasure?”
“Enough banter.” The voice was obviously one used to command. The sound of hoof beats clattered away, ta
king the voices along with them.
“They will return.” Lady Jane stood cautiously once she was sure the horses had moved far enough away. “We must make haste. Come, I know a back entrance and there are appropriate clothes for you to change into.” Mary Elizabeth noticed, even in the dim light, the maid’s assessment of their attire. “Cannot have you traipsing around the castle like Scottish ladies, now can we? That would certainly set off alarm bells and have you all arrested for treason.” She waved the group forward and they continued their jaunt with great stealth, now more than before, knowing that there were men intent on their capture.
The spires of a castle appeared before them in silhouette. “This way.” As they moved closer so the silhouettes towered over the group, Lady Jane directed them around a corner sheltered by tall hedges. She pulled open a thick, heavy door, pausing when its creak invaded the space like a piercing siren. Satisfied with the silence that followed, Lady Jane ushered the ladies into the castle. She pulled the door closed behind her, slowly so it wouldn’t screech. Thankfully, it didn’t. She grabbed a lit torch off the sconce on the wall, obviously one she had left earlier to light her return, and continued along a narrow passageway and up some stairs. She paused at the top of a second set of stairs, waiting for the others to catch up.
“In here,” Lady Jane whispered as she abruptly stopped and pushed open a door that led into a tiny chamber. She proceeded to light the candles on the ledge over the cold hearth and then placed her torch in the sconce by the door. “It is a storage room. I have all of Her Majesty’s gowns hanging here, waiting to be needed. Her chambers lack the space and she has little need for multiple changes of clothes. Not like she did when she ruled at Holyrood. Those were grand days.” Lady Jane quickly wiped a tear from her eye before turning to assess the ladies before her.
“I have just the gown for you.” She beamed. “A gown fit for the princess that you are.” She reached for a lovely, high neck, white lace gown with a full skirt adorned with sparkling stars embroidered in gold thread.
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