The Raven's Heart

by Jesse Blackadder

  John stands. “That’s enough! I would not have done the things my father planned.”

  “With all my heart, I would like to believe you,” Margaret says. “But the desire for that castle has burned within you, and you never freed William from his false burden. This is a sin, John. I beg you now, put this evil plan aside. It is a secret canker that has eaten at your soul. Do not die with its stain upon you.”

  He clutches the casket, his face set, and she stares at him as if she will ignite the pile of parchment with the force of her gaze.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  She comes out with me into the courtyard, where the Queen’s guard is waiting with my horse. The sky is pewter and the wind cuts like ice. I want to get away from Tulliallan’s tall, blank walls and John’s casket with the King’s charter locked in it. I mount and look down on Margaret.

  “You could have spoken, in all these years.”

  “You, of anyone, know how the Blackadder men feel about this castle,” she says. “I was afraid to speak.”

  “I thank God for one thing,” I say. “When the Queen took me to the castle last year and would have given it to me, I turned it down. I would rather see Lord Hume and his descendants hold it than it go to you and John by such treachery.”

  I wrench the horse around and break into a gallop across the courtyard, the clatter of hooves drowning out everything. The guard is but a beat behind me as we race in the direction of Edinburgh.

  I am sickened by my own clan. The men and women of William’s own blood have betrayed him and even now they hold the means to take the castle from him, should he by some miracle win it as a reward from Bothwell. I remember the sound of him weeping and I cannot bear it. I cannot leave him in Scotland believing he owes an allegiance to such people. I must try again, no matter the danger, to convince him he is illegitimate. And I will persuade him to flee to France with me.

  A message is waiting for me when I return to Holyrood, penned in a firm hand.

  I must speak with you. I shall wait at the White Hart for the next four evenings.

  The signature is an “I’ with a flourish. I read it twice, fold it, and tuck it into my jerkin. I shall meet Isobel only when William has signed the bond and I have fled the Queen.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  The Queen’s master of pageantry, Sebastian Pages, is devising another grand masque for the evening of his wedding to Margaret Carwood, another of the Queen’s favored servants, and Holyrood is crowded with satyrs and nymphs and knights. He has saved me a minor part. I take the role of an elven creature, in green close-fitting hose and doublet, covered with embroidered leaves and branches. The final, perfect touch is a mask fashioned from leather that covers my eyes.

  We rehearse for a full day and then the actors leave. I watch carefully as they file through the palace gates. Tomorrow I will be with them and the next day I will sail on a ship leaving Leith for France.

  Then I watch until Bothwell leaves his chambers and makes his way to the Queen’s rooms. I do not want him there when I speak to William. I take Joseph Rizzio with me to bear legal witness.

  Edmund answers my knock. “Funny how whenever there’s something to do with the Humes, your daughter turns up,” he says, opening the door wider to let me in. Joseph follows and stops inside the door.

  Jock has his back to me by the fire and as I cross the room I see he is bandaging William’s finger into a splint.

  William keeps his head down, but Jock glares at me.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “Hume’s men,” Jock growls. “Said it will be his neck if they don’t get their bond.”

  William’s face is ashen. “I will not speak to you. You’re no daughter to me.”

  I stand my ground. “And Robert was no father to you, William. I have the proof.”

  “That rubbish again,” Edmund says.

  I swallow. “I have seen the charter in the church in Glasgow. It says you are the bastard son of Roland Blackadder, the Archdean. It’s signed by the King. You’re not the heir to Blackadder Castle.”

  My legs are weak. I stare at the floor as the silence lengthens. I am ready to tell him that the Tulliallan Blackadders have lied to him, but the words die in my mouth when I see he is crying.

  Edmund comes close and pushes his face into mine. “You’re lying. You want him to sign their bond and save your arse.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes.” I step past Edmund toward my father. “They’ll kill you. Isn’t it worth your life to sign it? If you’re not the heir, anyway?”

  With his face still turned away, William gestures. I step forward and pull the parchment out of my cloak, creased and crushed from its travels. There is a quill and inkpot on a table nearby. I cross to it, ink the quill, smooth the paper, and hand them to him.

  He scribbles with a desolate scratching sound and thrusts it back at me. I blow on the ink to dry it, then lay it down and scratch my name. Joseph crosses the room and quickly scrawls his own signature below William’s. It is done.

  “You think I betrayed you, but I have only tried to help,” I say. “Come to France with me, William.”

  William raises his face to me. For a moment I think there is a glimmer of hope in his eyes and then he springs from his chair and rushes at me, grasping my shoulders and pushing me halfway across the chamber toward the door.

  “Get out of here,” he growls. “Take your damned bond and your damned witness and get out.” Then he leans close and whispers so no one else can hear, “I beg you.”

  I stand still in surprise.

  Edmund pushes past him and takes my arm. “Go and fawn over your Queen while there’s time.”

  He drags me to the door. Joseph has already crossed the room and walks out in front of me. I twist against Edmund, trying to look back at William, but he has turned away.

  “Father!” I call. Edmund gives me a final shove through the door and slams it. I sprawl to the ground.

  Joseph helps me to my feet and then leaves me. I cannot let myself weep.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  To celebrate her safe return from Glasgow with the King, the Queen dines in the great hall with her full household and those of her lords who are loyal.

  “Come in disguise,” she says to me as I help her dress. “Remind me of happier times so I can believe they will come again.”

  I draw on some noble finery that I have not worn in a long time and look at myself in the mirror. Although I am growing too old to pass for a lad, my disguise still works. I have spent so much time as a man that I have absorbed the stance and the mannerisms and no one seems to notice how clean-shaven I remain. In France I shall always live as a man, I decide. I will forgo love, even, for the freedom this life gives me.

  The Queen does not sit on the dais, but in a show of affection, takes her meal at the head of the long table. The dinner is unusually fine for so late in winter and she smiles warmly on us. She has some of her color back and laughs from time to time at things Bothwell says.

  I watch them. Their bodies lean together. She smiles and touches her face. He drinks a lot and eats well. It has always been like this with her favorites. She draws us close to her and binds us with caresses and sweet words. She began with easy targets: her ladies-in-waiting, her poet, her secretary, me. She knew the potency of her charm, and she made us each feel special and needed, as if her life would be so much poorer without us. She has played on the greatest desires of each of us, binding us to her with love and favor.

  What is it that Bothwell most desires?

  He told me, back when speech flowed freely between us, that it was to serve his Queen with honor. But I do not know what honor means for him now, this man with wife and mistress already, sitting where the King would be seated if he were here. He is a man and a soldier and a noble. If he were any other, I would believe the worst of him, but Bothwell lives by a complex moral code.

  “I wish to drink to our new lovers,” the Queen says when the plates have been cleared, and the servants
are moving around the table topping up the wine.

  “My dearest La Flamina and her beloved Maitland, who waited so patiently to be joined. Your happiness is apparent.” A cheer rises around the table as we all raise our cups and La Flamina blushes prettily.

  “And my master of creation and pageantry, Sebastian Pages, and my loyal Margaret Carwood. If you serve each other with the love and loyalty you have shown to me, it shall be a marriage in heaven indeed.”

  We lift our cups again and drink to them.

  “Now let us dance as though spring were upon us and we were young again and without a care.” She claps her hands for the musicians to begin.

  For years, to be in the Queen’s household meant to dance every night, but that has fallen away since Rizzio’s death. Tonight she has made sure the best wine is in our cups and our feet are ready to be merry. She and Bothwell lead us in the pavane.

  She dances toward me and it is as if the years suddenly dissolve and there is a young Queen reaching to take my hand, so tall and exquisite that she holds the country in thrall, and I would die for her in a moment.

  She leans close to whisper to me privately. “I have missed my handsome Robert. I do not think I can bear for you to leave me.”

  She has caught me unawares and my heart, traitorous creature, leaps.

  “I must do things you can barely imagine,” she says, close again. “I have lost so many that I have loved. My mother dead, Francis dead, my uncles dead, my child fostered, and one after another my closest companions leaving me.”

  “You still have Seton.”

  “I will always have Seton. But your love is a slippery thing. I believe I have it and I find it gone from my grasp. I mourn its loss, only to find it has returned.”

  I put my hand to her impossibly small, taut waist as I did that night five years ago. My heart pounds. She has me bound as tight as ever.

  “I ask you this as a friend,” she says as we come face to face again. “Stay with me, my raven. Stay in spite of no reward. Stay because you love me. Stay because you cannot bear to leave.”

  My breath comes fast. Since the night she first held a sword at my throat, love and danger and desire collided, and those things have been entwined in me ever since.

  “I cannot leave you,” I say, and it is true.

  She smiles, her intimate smile as though we are the only two in the room. As if tonight we will disguise ourselves and run out into Edinburgh’s streets, two young men without fear. As if we will race our horses through the park tomorrow and ride high up Arthur’s Seat before climbing the summit on foot to see Scotland spread out below us.

  Then she spins and advances to the next partner.

  I sit the next dance out, taking up a cup of wine and swallowing it to try and gather my wits. How can she turn me to her purpose so easily? How can a handful of sentences bind me again? I have let down the guard on my heart at my own peril.

  “Does something ail you?” Bothwell comes up silently behind me and I jump.

  “I am quite well, my Lord.”

  He looks me up and down. “I have not seen you dressed thus for some time.”

  “The Queen likes it,” I say.

  He seats himself beside me. “What did you say to your father?”

  I swallow. “It’s private.”

  “I have never seen him so despairing, even after he let the Elliots escape from Hermitage.”

  “I had to make him sign the bond.”

  Bothwell strikes the table with his fist, making me jump. “I told you to leave it with me! Have you delivered it?”

  I hesitate. It’s momentary, but he sees it. “You must not give it to them.”

  I move away from him. “Your protection is not enough. They broke William’s finger this night. Next time it will be his neck.”

  “The castle is not lost to him,” he says. “You may walk away from it, being young and a fool, but I intend to restore it to him. I do not want Hume having such a bond.”

  I jump to my feet. “The promise of a castle is no use to a dead man!”

  His hand flashes out and he grabs me by the wrist. We both feel the jolt of physical contact between us. I wrench my arm away and take flight, weaving through the dancers and out of the great hall. He is but a few steps behind me when I reach the corridor. He catches me by the shoulder, turns me, and pins me to the wall.

  “Where is it?” he demands. When I refuse to answer, he puts his hand on my chest.

  As the parchment starts to crackle I lean forward and kiss him hungrily. I am keeping the bond away from him, I tell myself and then I forget the bond as he presses his body against mine and kisses me as though he is starving. Is it the Queen who has awakened such ravenous appetite in both of us?

  At last I pull my mouth away, breathing heavily.

  “William is not the heir,” I say. “I have seen the proof, under a king’s signature. He has no right to the castle and even you cannot change that.”

  I slip under his arm and run. This time he does not come after me.

  The kiss is what seals it. I can trust nothing in this place. My own desires can rise up and take me by the throat, my own heart is treacherous and my body is not to be trusted. I must leave. I must hand the parchment to Isobel and bring the madness to an end.

  Fifty-two

  We practice for the Queen’s masque all day. When at last Sebastian calls the rehearsal at an end, I throw on a heavy cloak against the cold, leave my mask in place, and follow the other elves and faeries and goblins outside. A light snow has fallen during the day and the air smells of more to come later.

  We come to the gates laughing and red-cheeked, still playing at being enchanted creatures and teasing the guards. I dawdle and flirt and wink as if I am in no hurry. Dusk is falling and at last we spill out of the palace gates and hurry up the Canongate to enter the city walls before darkness falls. As we pass through Netherbow Port, I allow myself to become separated from the elves, faeries, and goblins and in a moment I am alone in the jostle of Edinburgh’s citizens making their way home for the evening.

  I stand still for a few moments, savoring my freedom. I am tempted to go straight to Leith tonight and board any ship that is waiting. If the Queen can still stroke my cheek and change my mind, if I can still hunger for Bothwell in spite of it all, then nothing is safe. I cannot trust myself anywhere.

  But darkness is coming down fast and the men who broke William’s finger in warning are somewhere in the city. While my elven disguise has let me escape the palace, I am not inconspicuous on the street. Already I am attracting glances. I cannot go to Leith discreetly, dressed like this. I must have help.

  ≈ ≈ ≈

  “I never thought you would have the strength to leave,” Sophie says, as I warm myself by her fire. “Not with the hold she has over you.”

  “But I have done it,” I say. “I must deliver the bond to the Humes tonight, and then I will sail for France.”

  Sophie takes a sip of wine. “Have Red deliver it.”

  “Isobel has asked to see me.” I reach inside my jerkin, draw out the note, and hand it to her.

  She reads it. “Surely you don’t trust her?”

  “She’s been trustworthy so far. She could have killed me at Stirling, but she did not.”

  “Let me send Red to get her,” Sophie says. “We’ll bring her here and give her a taste of being afraid.”

  She orders dinner and has the servant lay it out on a small table near the fire. It’s a rich, meaty stew and the aroma of it makes my mouth water. But she insists we wait until Red returns.

  He has found Isobel and he brings her into the chamber, hands bound and mouth gagged. He has frightened her, I can see. She is dressed far too richly for a tavern, in the trappings of a nobleman, her long hair poking out under a wig.

  He pushes her down to the floor—not hard—and pulls off the gag. I step forward. She looks up with relief on her face and I remember how young she is.

  “Your safe passage wa
s promised. You can trust me,” she says, rubbing her wrists.

  “But I cannot. Your men broke my father’s finger last night. I care to keep my bones in one piece.”

  She looks around warily. “Where are we?”

  “I have been to Glasgow and seen the records,” I say. “You were right. William is illegitimate. I have your bond, signed by us both, legally witnessed by the Queen’s own secretary.”

  Isobel starts to rise and Sophie gestures for her to take a chair. She pours her a cup of wine and hands it to her. I can see Isobel shaking.

  “I came to tell you something,” she says. “Lord Hume let me believe Blackadder Castle would be mine one day. But when I returned from Stirling at Christmas, he had given it to my brother. James has already moved in there with his family and stationed a garrison there. Alexander and Catherine were forced out of their chambers and into the visitors’ quarters. Even Beatrice was pushed to a smaller chamber.”

  “But doesn’t the castle belong to Alexander?” I ask.

  “Lord Hume controls the property of all his clan.”

  Her lip trembles slightly and suddenly I feel sorry for her. She is scarcely more than a child and even she has now felt the might of Lord Hume turned against her.

  “What has this to do with Alison?” Sophie asks.

  Isobel looks down at the floor. “Beatrice was distraught about the move and she wondered why the Blackadder line had suddenly been usurped. She says there is something suspicious in this whole matter and she must speak with you and William.”

  “You cannot trust her,” Sophie says to me. “She has said already she wants the castle for herself.”

  Isobel raises her head. “Lord Hume removed Alexander from the castle without a second thought. What else might he have done?”

  I shake my head. “You walk a dangerous path, Isobel. Do you have any idea what it means to be an enemy to your own blood?”

  The color rises in her cheeks. She looks flustered and drops her gaze to the floor again. “Beatrice has begged me to find out what really happened to Alison’s son,” she says.