The Galliard

by Margaret Irwin

  And he had to get her up again after only a few hours in bed to join him on horseback by five o’clock, for he had had intelligence that the rebels, reinforced with Highland troops, had marched out of Edinburgh at two that morning – with impunity it seemed, for he could not hear that the Castle guns had ever been fired on them. What then was Gordon doing? He sent another messenger to him. Those that they had sent previously might well have fallen into enemy hands; so, almost certainly, had Gordon’s to him.

  Another baffling factor was that the very important reinforcements of Lord Fleming and Lord John Hamilton had not yet arrived. They had been in touch with each other the previous day and had sent word to Bothwell that they were on their way to him. They would certainly come up some time during the morning, and he sent word back of his line of march to meet the rebels near Musselburgh.

  He seemed to be everywhere at once as he rode up and down inspecting his ranks, and Mary noted his look of sardonic vigilance as he came back to her, furious that the most part of them had not brought rations as commanded, not even their water-bottles, a serious matter on a grilling day. It was Sunday the 15th of June, the day he had appointed nearly a fortnight ago for the Border muster at Melrose.

  Spring and summer seemed to have stood still this year, for them to pack a lifetime within a few short weeks. But now – ‘I am not living just now,’ she thought, ‘I am only waiting till I live again.’

  She sat blinking her hot eyelids to gaze at the hills that were painted flat like pale blue shadows against the noonday heat haze. The hours had droned and dozed on, and still nothing happened; still no sign of Fleming and John Hamilton, still no message from Gordon, still no encounter with the enemy; only a persistent manoeuvring of both armies all the morning for the advantage of the ground.

  Bothwell had proved his quality as a general by securing his position on the high ground of Carberry Hill, and placing his field guns so that they commanded the slope up which the enemy would have to advance to the attack, after first crossing the small ravine and burn at the foot of the hill. The position was excellent for defence, and defence only was possible, for the Queen was utterly determined that she should not have the onus of opening battle on her subjects. It was sound politically, he had to admit, though grudgingly, for honourable scruples were of small use with a dishonourable enemy.

  ‘My honour’s my own,’ she told him, ‘I can’t change it to suit my enemy.’

  The military argument for the defensive, while waiting for his allies, had more force with him, for the confederate lords with all their retainers had the advantage in numbers, and particularly in trained cavalry. He saw too some foreign troops among them, slow solid mercenaries from the Rhine whom he had recognised by their odd custom of keeping ‘the better knee’ bared for climbing escalades. But despite their strength, their army sat on the hillside opposite about a mile away and seemed in no hurry to attack. As they were on the western hill they were no doubt waiting for the afternoon, so that Bothwell’s army should have the disadvantage of the sun in its eyes.

  But there might be a thunderstorm – if only there were a thunderstorm! It was hot enough for one in all conscience; the sun had a brazen glare; a few stiffly carved clouds were moving up against the parching wind; the heat had that foreboding quality that waits for the roll of thunder and the livid flash of lightning. It was part of this strange unnatural day that after half a dozen cold stormy Scottish summers she should sit on a hillside on a rock that was almost too hot to bear, and pray for a tempest!

  The water question was serious in other ways, for some of the men had slunk off to drink from the burn upstream, and got captured by the enemy. She was astonished to see how coolly Bothwell could keep his temper over this, since it was done and therefore inevitable. He had brought her water, but she felt that no amount of it would quench her thirst: her lips and throat were dry and sore, and she could eat nothing, though she pretended she had done so; any food brought on a sick and dizzy sensation. Whatever she did, she would not faint this day. She was feeling ill from the first effects of pregnancy; but neither that nor her anxiety depressed her; she was strung up to a point where courage comes without effort, and all the men who saw and spoke with her believed her entirely confident.

  She sat under the small shade afforded by the great Standard of Scotland, its red lion rampant against a yellow ground. Everything round her was red and yellow – the brass on the guns flashing in front of her, the hillside burning with the gold of whin and broom and buttercups, with scarlet sorrel and bright red bilberry and the young shoots of the bracken stretching out their uncrumpling rusty-coloured fists. At her feet was a jewelled mosaic of minute flowers, as brilliant as any in the Italian paintings at home, and no taller than the short sheep-nibbled turf; flaming pink, blue far brighter than the sky, and the tiny astonished faces of wild pansies; all these glories of the unconsidered grass made her long to enjoy them here alone, instead of staring at them hour after hour, waiting for the enemy to attack, while the sun slipped farther to the west, and still the storm did not break, either in the air or between the hostile armies.

  What was happening beneath the bright surface of this summer day? The men were grumbling, doubtful; she saw it in their faces. She believed that many had slipped away as well as that small company at the burn. She was, conscious of their uneasy murmurs all round her though she could not hear them, conscious of both heaviness and excitement, a foreboding worse than thunder in the air. Something was going on that she did not know about; she would have to know soon. As she rose and walked a little way to stretch her cramped legs, she knew.

  Right in front of the vanguard of their army, the enemy had planted their banner, stretched between two pikes in the full light of the sun. It was a large sheet painted in garish colours with figures more than life-size – the naked corpse of a man lying under a tree, and beside him a crowned infant with the words coming out of his mouth, ‘Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord.’

  Bothwell jeered at it when next he came up from among his troops.

  ‘No men worth their salt would bother their heads about that. It’s their thirst that’s worrying them, and the delay; but I can’t afford to lose the advantage of this ground by attacking, not until Fleming and John Hamilton come up.’

  She was certain at that moment that they would not come, and that he was too. But he seemed entirely calm and cheerful. She somehow forced herself to feel it too, since that was the best way to seem it, but deep down she could not lightly dismiss this new form of propaganda. It was crude but effective, striking at the very roots of an army’s belief in victory, the belief that it has a right to victory. Ordeal by combat was still practised as a form of justice on the Border, in the faith that God would give conquest to the innocent.

  She suggested riding with him again down the ranks to talk with the men; this had already had great effect, for her air of careless courage had obviously heartened them at the time. He welcomed it gladly if she were not too tired, he asked anxiously, and then broke off with an exclamation of delight – ‘By the faith of my body, they’re on the move at last!’

  A troop of the enemy’s horse, about fifty of them, were trotting down the opposite hill, past their outposts, and coming towards them. But no general movement followed, and he saw at once that they were intending a parley.

  The French Ambassador, Philibert Du Croc, had come to try and bring about a peaceful settlement, and with him Monsieur d’Oysel, who had lately revisited Scotland with diplomatic messages from Paris for his chief. He had been personally gratified to find that Bothwell had taken to heart his reproaches on being ‘all stone’, and had refuted them by ravishing the Queen, having (‘it is seen’) first murdered the King. He thought Mary far more sympathique as the probable murderess of an odious husband than as the sexually cold ‘mermaid’ he had first believed her; and was inclined to congratulate Bothwell on her having paid him the greatest compliment possible in a woman.

  Du Croc shared hi
s opinion, though not so affectionately, and more from a natural tendency, cultivated by Catherine de Medici’s diplomacy, to believe the worst of everyone.

  He was as dry, crisp, small, neat and elegant as his companion was large, loose, unbuttoned and fluid, flapping his handkerchief about his moist face, the steam exuding from his bald head whenever he uncovered it, like the dawn mist rising from a rosy mountain.

  The two Frenchmen were brought to the Queen while Bothwell was busy again with his troops, and Du Croc, after kissing her hand with brisk reverence, spoke of the horrors of civil war, how shocking a thing it would be if so good a Princess as herself should wage battle against her devoted subjects.

  ‘They have an odd way of showing their devotion,’ she replied coolly, looking with tired eyes at the straight small figure before her, dapper and dark, that cut up the sunlight into a dozen smart points and angles as he waved that sharply peaked hat in his hand. How dared he advise her not to make war on her subjects, when she had twice forgiven them for making war on her?

  And this was the third time.

  Her nobles, he said, longed to surrender and kneel before her, if she would separate from the Duke of Orkney.

  ‘Monsieur,’ said the Queen, ‘you must have heard the Proclamation of these lords, publishing their intentions. Three are acknowledged. The first, “to deliver me from the captivity and prison in which I am kept by the Earl of Bothwell”; the second, “to avenge the death of the King”; the third, “to save the Prince”.

  ‘It is a strange impudence to pretend to “save the Prince”, who is now in their hands alone; stranger, to “avenge the King’s death”, of which they one and all acquitted the Duke of Orkney; strangest of all, to deliver me, who am no prisoner, and to insist on separating me from the very man whom they vowed, in writing, to support in marrying me. The harangues have one object only, to confuse and disturb the public mind. But I cannot believe they would have effect on the diplomatic.’

  And after this severely formal and incisive speech she gave him a sudden smile, so intimate, dazzling and mischievous, that his discomfort was changed in a flash to the discovery that he was the one civilized man to whom she could talk as an equal among a tribe of savages.

  He shrugged, but with a world of sympathetic comprehension. ‘You know what they are!’ he murmured, his eyebrows two acute black angles against the sun.

  ‘I know. Tell them I will overlook everything, on one condition – that they will leave my husband alone.’

  ‘Their only condition, Madam, is that you leave him.’

  ‘That,’ she said, ‘I will never do.’

  At that moment Bothwell rode up on his black charger. Du Croc, seeing the look that passed between them, knew that his job was hopeless. They would never give up each other unless – yes, that might possibly work with such types, both passionate and headstrong – they did it for each other’s sake.

  Bothwell asked straight out, ‘What are they at? Am I alone the object of their enmity?’

  Du Croc answered, ‘The nobles are the Queen’s loyal and humble servants, and,’ he added in a lower tone that only Bothwell and the Queen could hear, ‘your mortal enemies.’

  But Bothwell was determined that his men should hear, and his answer rang out through the scorching air:

  ‘Their hatred is from envy of my favour. Fortune is free to any who can win her. There is not a man of them but wishes himself in my place.’

  He looked at the girl standing there in the short scarlet skirt, her bright hair waving in the hot breeze, and never had she felt herself so much a Queen. His pride in her brought tears to her eyes; she longed to tell him that they were because she was so happy.

  He was not the only one to see them. ‘The Queen,’ said Du Croc, ‘is full of goodness. She cannot bear to shed the blood of her subjects.’

  ‘The best way to prevent it,’ said Bothwell, ‘is for the subjects to return home. Tell them,’ he added, ‘that if they prefer it to a battle, I will meet any champion of equal rank that they care to send out against me in a single combat.’

  ‘It is what they themselves proposed,’ Du Croc replied, ‘to send a round dozen such champions, one after the other, so that if the first fail, the twelfth may succeed! I hardly thought it worth while to repeat so impossible a programme.’

  The Queen gave a sharp cry. ‘They mean to wear you down by a succession of duels till the last can kill you easily!’

  ‘When the Queen and your army, left leaderless,’ finished Du Croc, ‘would be at their mercy.’

  He assured them that he would do his best to negotiate with the rebels by conveying to them the Queen’s promise of a free pardon if they would disband. He rode off, d’Oysel accompanying him only to the bottom of the hill. The Ambassador outlined the dispatches he would send by him the next day to the King of France. Du Croc was taking long views; he thought it likely that Bothwell would have to leave Scotland, and in that case it would be excellent to secure his services for France.

  ‘I shall feel bound to acknowledge to His Majesty that the Duke seems to me a great captain, showing undaunted confidence in the face of appalling difficulties. He is a gay and skilful leader. I have taken real pleasure in watching him and his movements this day, for he sees how determined his enemies are against him, he knows he cannot count on the half of his men, yet he shows not the least sign of weakness or wavering.’

  ‘What has happened to his accursed allies?’ d’Oysel let out on a perspiring groan. ‘There’s not a single lord of note on his side.’

  ‘I’d rate his chances all the higher for that, since it leaves him sole command. But he hasn’t the men. And those he has, don’t see why they should fight to make him King.’

  D’Oysel repeated his words to Bothwell on his return; they aroused an uncomfortable echo of Mary’s warnings against the marriage. He had thought that nothing could make his ‘lambs’ turn against him. Now he was not sure. D’Oysel pressed the advantage home. ‘In any case, you’ll never get moss-troopers in inferior numbers to cross a ravine and charge uphill against trained professional soldiers, many of them foreign.’

  ‘Yes, I saw their Cologne blades, curse ’em. But my men don’t lack courage – you’ve seen that in the old wars here.’

  ‘A thousand times, my friend. But you have not the half of them here. And this is not a war fought for any issue that’s clear or acceptable to them. They are not being invaded; they hear that the Queen is in no danger; the lords declare their devotion to her; their only demand is that she shall separate from you. Well then – separate!’

  Bothwell swung round on him, but d’Oysel was waving his fat hands in explanatory gesture. ‘It is for the moment only. Give yourself time. Get into touch with Gordon – he holds most of the Highlands – with the Hamiltons and Fleming.’

  ‘I was in touch. I sent them my line of march. I’ve been expecting them every moment. I know well I’ve not got the strength to attack until they come up. And Gordon’s in Edinburgh Castle – I don’t know what it means – only I know Gordon wouldn’t have failed me.’

  D’Oysel flapped a vast shrug that threatened to heave his melting bulk out of his clothes. He saw now that his friend’s cool gay courage, that had so impressed Du Croc, was hiding a desperate perplexity, and he admired it the more for that. The young man was no fool; he could see as plainly as his older and more experienced friend that he was playing a losing game. Far better to leave it, then, till a better moment.

  ‘They have sworn to safeguard the Queen,’ he said. ‘Let her go with them now. She may be able to secure the Prince, and then they can no longer hold him as a hostage over her. In a week or two you will have assembled your allies and more troops.’

  ‘I’ll never trust her to them. Something must be done. I’ll pull the men together somehow. They’ve begun to drift away fast – it’s this cursed inaction, it’s sapping them.’

  D’Oysel saw in his angry eyes a glimpse of the baulked rage that had been steadily eatin
g into his heart during these maddening hours of inaction. But in a flash it disappeared and his voice rang out with the old confidence, now that at last he could make a decisive gesture.

  ‘If I show them a good fight it will put heart into them as nothing else could. Explain that to the Queen. I can’t wait.’

  Before d’Oysel could expostulate he sprang on to his war-horse, rode to the front of the army, and sent a herald to the enemy’s lines with a challenge to single combat.

  The other side took a long time finding someone to accept. At last they put forward the professional libeller, James Murray of Purdovis. A bonnet laird (let alone one of his character) was scarcely an equal champion; if Bothwell were to meet his enemies one after the other it was essential to begin with the most important. He named the Earl of Morton for his opponent. Morton accepted, chose the broadsword for his weapon, delayed in coming forward, and finally sent word that be would give up the privilege of the duel to his friend, Lord Lindsay.

  As well he as another, said Bothwell who had not forgotten Lindsay’s threat, after Rizzio’s murder, to ‘cut the Queen in collops’.

  She was in sheer panic terror for him; whether he won or lost, it would make no odds, they would all fall on him in a body and hack him to pieces.

  Bothwell could believe many things of the confederate lords, but not that they would use the sacred trust of chivalry to cover treachery. Her agony stabbed him but spurred his anger. ‘For God’s sake, don’t try to hold me back from giving battle in the only way that’s possible now. I’ll not be a coward even for you.’

  On that he rode out to the place appointed for the duel, leaving her standing there, dry-eyed and still, all her thoughts trembling into nothing, and the whole hot coloured scene round her a white void.

  Would he ever come back? If only he would come back she would do anything, anything, she would leave him for the time, go with the lords as they asked, do anything in the world that would bring this hopeless impasse to an end.