In High Places

by Bonny G Smith

  And so, confident and self-assured, Cecil made the slow, tedious journey north to Yorkshire. He arrived at the manor, made himself presentable, and followed Mistress Seton, the queen’s chief lady, out into the garden. It was a balmy, pleasant day; the sky was blue and the sun played behind puffy white clouds that blew by intermittently on the wind. The manor house of Sheffield was built on a hill; the garden was on level ground that gave way to a very slight slope as one walked towards its edge. Already he could see the sunlight changing the colors of the valley floor from dark green to light green to yellow as the the shadows of the passing clouds disappeared into the bright afternoon sunlight.

  “I will leave you here, sir,” said Seton, when Mary, her back to them on the stone bench, came into view. Cecil nodded and continued his trek down the slope.

  Two ancient alder trees flanked the stone bench, which was reached by a pathway of flagstones. Just as his step sounded on the last but one, the wind rose, the sun went behind a cloud, and it seemed as though a cold finger touched his spine. The queen, having heard his step, arose and turned to face him.

  At first it seemed as if his head had split and suddenly he was two separate and distinct beings. He had often been called upon to divide his attention between two people, two topics of conversation, or when alone, even to attempt doing two things at once; but this was different. One part of him was awestruck and enthralled, greeting the Queen of Scots; this part of him was looking into eyes that reflected the luminous green of the alder leaves with the sun shining through them.

  The other part of him was caught as if in a nightmare, one in which one tries to run but cannot, while some fearsome, nameless phantasm closes in. The feeling of stark terror that seized him turned to a reasonless horror when Mary Stuart held out her white hand to be kissed. He knew he must take the hand and hold it to his lips; he did so and at the touch of her skin on his own, the part of him that longed to succumb was struck by lightning, the thunder deafening in his ears; but the detached part of his brain, the part of him that was still Sir William Cecil, felt as if he were sinking below the waves of a dark ocean.

  And then amidst the lightning, and the thunder that was the buzzing in his ears, the engulfing waves, another startling thing happened.

  As if two heads were not enough to contend with, a third Cecil detached itself from the others. The cold, stern diplomat, aware of what was happening and yet powerless to stop it, and the eager mindless supplicant whose skin thrilled and burned to the touch of Mary’s hand, both receded and in their place was a man whom he had never known existed inside the casing of flesh, the bones of the skull that were Sir William Cecil, Secretary and servant to Queen Elizabeth Tudor and loving husband to Lady Mildred.

  This Cecil gazed hungrily at the exquisite vision that was the Queen of Scots; he drank in the emerald of her eyes, the red highlights glinting on her chestnut hair in the dappled sunlight afforded by the branches of the alder trees, swaying in the gentle breeze. This Cecil absorbed the dazzling essence of the woman standing before him and wondered what she would look like naked, what it would be like to lie with her in a bed and feel her limbs entwined with his own, what delicious sensations might be afforded by cupping her breasts in his hands.

  For a long moment that seemed like an eternity neither of them spoke. The sun came out from behind a cloud and the roaring in his ears died down. He had seen the demon and faced it down. A feeling of unmitigated shame washed over him as he realized that even so, he was aroused. He, Cecil, whose honor was without question, whose fidelity to wife, queen, God and country was both a byword and an example to lesser beings.

  And then just as suddenly as they had appeared, the three Cecils fused back into one and he was himself once more. But he was ashamed, abashed as he had never been before. This woman, this siren, this devil’s spawn, had, without speaking a word, reduced him to the state of a rutting beast. And seemed not even to know it, or be aware of it.

  He was astonished to realize that all of this had happened to him in the few seconds that it had taken for her to rise, turn, and offer him her hand.

  “Your Grace,” he said, evenly, steadily. He brushed the demon hand with reluctant lips. “I come merely to make your acquaintance and to beg an audience for the morrow. Will you forgive an old man who must retire early to his bed after so long a journey? I fear me that I must withdraw to my apartments with a sup of broth and a hot brick to my back.” He knew it was a cowardly thing to do; but he felt so tired, as though he could no longer stand after his ordeal.

  Mary smiled at him; she who had known the great weariness of travel replied, “I understand, indeed, I do. Please, Sir William, rest now and we shall speak again on the morrow.” After all, she thought, what was one more day amongst so many? She was disappointed, but he did look so exhausted that her heart went out to him. He must be fifty if he was a day; and that was a great age, after all.

  Cecil bowed himself from her presence, but as shattered and fatigued as he was, he had to resist the urge to run back up the hill to the manor.

  ###

  To his utter dismay, Cecil soon discovered that sleep offered no refuge to his disturbed peace of mind. All through the night he was plagued by erotic dreams such as he had never before experienced. Each dream began with Mary in a different setting; she was a siren, risen from the sea, come to prey upon him on dry land; she was Eve offering him the forbidden apple. In seemingly a hundred guises she came to him. Each dream stopped just short of fulfillment due to some untoward interruption, and in these dreams, such interruption was frustrating and unwelcome. Towards dawn the last dream became a nightmare when the disruption to his climax was the presence of his wife. Mildred appeared and caught him, with Mary, naked in a bed. But she was not angry, she did not rail at him for his infidelity; she simply wept, sad, bitter tears that fell like raindrops. He awakened from this last dreadful dream to find himself in a cold, shivering sweat. The light was gray and he could hear rain drops tapping the glass of Bess’s precious mullioned windows.

  With this final indignity, he knew himself defeated even in slumber. What was he to do? A man must sleep, after all. But those other two Cecils had free reign whilst the judicious, faithful Cecil slept, and there was no preventing them. Never had he known such unbridled lust, and he, with the best wife in the world! He was shamed to own that had he been a papist, he would have been on his knees at this very moment, confessing his sin and begging forgiveness and absolution.

  And then he did sleep, for when he awoke next, the sun was shining and the rain had stopped. As he lay there, what had begun as a smoldering anger in his beast flared and burst into flame. Fully awake now, he threw back the covers and called for his man. There was no reason to tarry here at Sheffield. There was to be no parley with the Queen of Scots, no negotiation. He would simply deliver the queen’s messages and be gone as fast as his horse would carry him.

  ###

  He had been remarkably neutral up to this point about the information that he was to impart to Mary Stuart. Elizabeth’s orders to her cousin were neither a request nor an ultimatum; they were demands. But now he was quietly furious; his anger had reached a calm, white heat. The Queen of Scots had made a fool of him, haunted his dreams so that he had had no rest, no healing sleep. Now he anticipated the moment when he must inform her that she was not to be restored to her throne, and all of Elizabeth’s other mandates, with a malicious relish of which he would not have believed himself capable. He longed for the moment when he would see her pain, her disbelief, her fury. After riding high all these months on what he knew to be her false hopes, it would be he who had the privilege of casting her back down into the depths of despair. He wanted nothing so much at that moment as to see her sunk in misery and broken upon the very rocks in the sea where her sister sirens sat and lured men to their deaths. What evil hour had seen such a one born to walk upon dry land to lure men to their ruin?

  “Sir William?” said a tentative voice, a voice that laced thro
ugh his ears like a silken thread. He looked up to see her standing before him, the Earl of Shrewsbury standing protectively by her side. Oh dear, he thought. Another victim! He could tell by the proprietary air which the earl exuded…one could almost touch it, the atmosphere was so thick with it. He had up to now dismissed Mary’s legendary charisma as fancy, as superstitious nonsense. But now he knew better. Henry VIII had possessed it; Elizabeth possessed it to a certain degree. Elizabeth’s sister, Mary Tudor, had not had even a shadow of it, and had failed miserably in her bid to rule England. But what wicked alchemy had combined to result in Mary Stuart, who exuded sexual magnetism like a flame emitted heat? It suddenly dawned on him that Elizabeth was very much aware of, and bitterly jealous of, her cousin’s ability to ensnare others with her personality. This explained her upsetting outburst as he prepared to travel north. Well, he had passed the test she set him. That the trial had been a baptism of fire that had cost him his self-esteem and shattered his peace of mind he would never tell her.

  “Your Grace,” he said, rising to his feet. He stared at the proffered hand as though it were a snake and strove to hide his recoil from it. But this time when he touched her, his intense anger, his absolute loathing for her, protected him.

  Mary had chosen as her venue for this meeting a small, cozy room, but it was too warm for a fire, even though the rain in the night had cooled the air. The hearth smelt slightly acrid, and of dead ashes. He raised his eyes to hers and a feeling of profound relief washed over him; he had touched her hand, kissed it, and felt nothing. He had prevailed.

  And now it was time to start this fiend, who sat smiling in the guise of a beautiful woman, down the path to her destruction.

  ###

  Mary sat expectantly, her hands folded in her lap. Cecil noticed that she wore a purple gown; purple for royalty. Well, nothing could change her royalty; she was the Queen of Scotland. But she would never reign over that land, or any other, ever again. Between them, he and Walsingham would see to that! He lifted his face and gazed into her eyes. He had stared the devil down once; he could do it again.

  His icy blue eyes regarded her glittering green ones without blinking. “I am come, Madam, to inform you on behalf of Queen Elizabeth that there will be no restoration for you to the throne of Scotland.”

  For a moment incredulity held her speechless; and then the fire in her eyes revealed the demon inside. “But I have agreed to all of Elizabeth’s conditions!” she cried.

  Cecil, whose sharp eyes missed nothing, caught out of the corner of his eye the movement of the earl’s hand. It had been resting on the arm of the chair in which he sat, next to Mary. The tell-tale twitch had revealed that he had sought to place a restraining hand, or perhaps a soothing hand, on her arm, but had checked himself just in time. He said nothing.

  Cecil continued to look straight into Mary’s eyes as he spoke. “There are two reasons, Madam, why that is irrelevant,” he said. “The first is that the Protestant Lords of the Congregation refuse to have you back in Scotland. So far from it, in fact, that they clamor for Your Grace’s execution…as do many in England.”

  Mary said nothing for a moment, but the iron grip she had on the arms of her chair and the narrowing of her glittering eyes revealed her great anger. “What is relevant, sir,” she said, in a voice so quiet that Cecil had to strain his ears to hear her, “is that I am the Queen of Scotland by right of birth. No matter where I am or what I am doing, nothing can change the fact that, whilst I live, I am their anointed queen.”

  For a few moments the words “whilst I live” hung menacingly upon the air.

  “The second reason,” replied Cecil, completely ignoring Mary’s words, “is that I have here,” and with that he reached into his doublet and pulled out a parchment, “a copy of a letter from your Secretary of State, Maitland of Lethington, advising Your Grace to agree to any and all conditions in order to gain your freedom, because once back on your throne you would be bound to honor none of them.”

  Even had she tried to deny it, the scarlet flush that started at the base of Mary’s neck and rose with incredible speed all the way to her hairline would have given her the lie. She knew it; he knew it. Instead of refuting the letter, she simply waved a derisive hand. But it did trouble her that her letters were being intercepted; she should have known. She would have to be more careful in future.

  Suddenly realization dawned. “So my perfidious cousin seeks to usurp my throne! Well, she shall not have it! There are still those who would die to see me restored to my birthright!”

  “I do not doubt it!” snorted Cecil. “But, no. It is you, Madam, who are treacherous and false. No, the Earl of Lennox is now the Regent of Scotland, in your brother’s place.”

  “The Earl…? No,” cried Mary. “No! There is no one more against me than he! He cannot have charge of my kingdom and my son! I forbid it!”

  Cecil met her haughty expression with a steely, penetrating gaze continued on. “The Earl of Lennox is the boy’s own grandfather; surely Your Grace can have no objection to that? And he is Catholic. His regency is supported by the King of France, the King of Spain…and the pope.” Cecil guffawed. “So you see, Madam, that so intent are the Protestant Lords of the Congregation on keeping you from the throne that they are willing to stomach a Catholic regent.”

  Tears clouded Mary’s eyes. “Why is she doing this to me?” she asked. “Why?”

  “Why?” asked Cecil. “I will tell you why. The Bishop of Rome…” he noticed Mary wince at the misuse of the title, “has seen fit to excommunicate Queen Elizabeth. Whilst the queen is an enlightened Protestant, so that such nonsense matters not to her, it still matters a great deal to her English Catholic subjects. Therefore, the queen’s privy Council has advised that England can no longer risk having a Catholic sovereign on the throne of a neighboring country.”

  “The French,” said Mary, “will never stand for this! They will invade England and toss your pretend queen from her throne! And then we shall see whose head the people clamor for, Sir William!”

  Sir William chuckled softly. “No, Madam. Pius thought to instigate a new crusade on your behalf with his ill-timed excommunication of England’s sovereign lady. But as you can see…no one, including the French, who have done precious little to help Your Grace thus far, have thought your cause worthy of either the expense or the effort. Not to mention the fact that both King Charles and King Philip were sore annoyed at Pius for placing them in such an awkward position! You, Madam, have already been deposed and forced to abdicate your throne by your own people; while the Bishop of Rome’s excommunication has simply made Queen Elizabeth even more loved by her subjects, for the grave insult, and for the danger in which such an action places her. And the French certainly will not make any move against England whilst the parley continues for Queen Elizabeth’s hand in marriage to the Duke of Anjou.”

  Mary remembered Henri, Charles’ younger brother, as a lively ten-year-old at the court of France. He was handsome and clever even then. But married to her cousin, and all but King of England! “That is a ridiculous proposal,” she retorted. “There are eighteen years between them. Elizabeth is an old woman.”

  Cecil shrugged. “Thirty-seven is not so old,” he said. “And all the better for the queen, to have a young, vigorous husband!” He knew that the negotiations between Elizabeth and Queen Catherine for her son’s hand would never come to fruition; he knew Elizabeth too well to expect that she would ever marry. But whilst the talks went on, England and France were allies against Spain, and the French fervor to help Mary back onto to her throne was cooled.

  Cecil shifted in his chair and leaned forward. “Further discussion is useless,” he said. “Your Grace will immediately ratify both the Earl of Lennox’s regency in Scotland, and your abdication, that sound government in Scotland may proceed.”

  Mary arose so suddenly that both men were taken aback at the quickness of her movement; she was as swift and lithe as a cat. “I will never agree to either!”
she cried. “Trouble me no more about renouncing my crown, for I am resolutely determined rather to die! You may rest assured, sir, that the last word I speak in this life will be that of a Queen of Scotland! Now, go from my presence, and I pray you, do not return!”

  “You, Madam,” said Cecil coldly, “do not give the orders here. From now on, you will be close confined in Sheffield Castle; you will be allowed neither visitors nor letters. My Lord of Shrewsbury?”

  A stunned Lord George snapped to attention; he had been following each parry and thrust as though he had been witnessing a tennis match. “Yes, My Lord?” he said.

  “This is the queen’s order; you will see to it immediately.”

  The earl bowed and said, “Yes, My Lord,” and departed the room.

  Cecil stood and turned his cold gaze back onto Mary. All of a sudden the wish to harm, to injure, to inflict pain upon her overrode all calm judgment. “You ought to be grateful, Madam, to my queen and your cousin; it was only she who thought to allow the Tribunal to end without finding Your Grace guilty of adultery and murder. It is only because of Her Grace’s wise action that you can even think to regain your throne. But I assure you, Madam, that you never shall. You bring only misery, death and destruction to all with whom you come into contact. Even now your son is motherless because of your rash actions, poor judgment, and lust for Bothwell. Oh, and fear not; Prince James is being well-schooled. His grandfather has told him how evil you are; that you murdered his father that you might marry your lover. You have even worked ill to poor Sir Francis Knollys, a man who tried his best to help you. He was not at his beloved wife’s deathbed because of you. His heart is broken and can never be mended. So stay in your prison, Madam, where you can bring no further harm to either those who love you, or those who hate you. I am amongst the latter.”