So Maitland fetched him one winter night to Earl Morton’s house and brought him into an inner room where the Puritan sat before a scanty fire, where the figures of Patrick Ruthven and Lord Lindsay showed in the half-obscurity of the twilight which only one badly burning lamp dispelled.
The young King sat down heavily at the table on which was a worn cloth. He seemed sick, and shuddered in a fevered way; he had looked much altered. They all knew how his wife tormented him, thrusting him out of the council chamber and from her bed and board, and all knew whom it was she put in his place.
The four wary, experienced men considered him, curious at so much wretchedness, doubting him too, so young, untried, seemingly so inconstant. His father was a known traitor, and he had been spoiled in his youth by his ambitious mother. Was he an instrument who would break in their hands?
He sat mute, taking no heed of any of them, waiting for William Maitland to speak, for he always had difficulty with words.
Quietly the Secretary of State began to discuss the murder of the Italian. It was something that must be done, that had been long decided upon, but the question was the manner of it. Neither Ruthven nor Lindsay could see any difficulty there — let the rat be taken as he was creeping up to his hole, on the stair outside his chamber where he slept with his brother Giuseppe. Would it not be easy enough to wait there for him and slit his throat before he had time to squeal?
Morton thought so too. There were plenty of men who would undertake such work — notably that good fellow George Douglas or Archibald Douglas of Wittingham. Morton began to praise these two men — whom he had found so useful — as spies, as forgers, as false witnesses.
Maitland knew them and approved of them. In person they were accomplished gentlemen and charming companions. Archibald was a parson and a Lord of Session and Morton was his benefactor and patron. For the excitement of it and a little money he would undertake the work. George, the Angus bastard, also was clever at this kind of thing.
The King interrupted by looking up from the table and raising his hand as if entreating silence. His face was quite distorted in the light of the crude lamp. Lindsay threw another log on the fire and a great gust of wind rattled the old casement and the shutters.
“I want him,” whispered the young man, expressing himself with difficulty and under great emotion, “taken in the Queen’s presence.”
Morton and his friends were surprised at this brutality, which they rather admired. They had not thought Henry Stewart possessed of so much spirit. But Maitland put his hand to his throat as one who feels his gorge rise.
The King rose stiffly. He told them in a few rough words that the Queen was going to have a child, but it was not his and that only Rizzio’s death in her presence, in her arms if need be, would satisfy him.
“I have been betrayed,” he said sullenly, “there’s nothing left but this. I thought to be a king” He checked himself, smiled, and motioned to Maitland. “Come, leave them to it. They know the way of it, I’ll undertake everything. You must believe me now.”
He asked Maitland to help him from the room for he felt quite weak and stick. Morton nodded approvingly, tugging at his red beard: Lindsay and Ruthven’s suspicions were silenced. If that were the case it was no need to fear the King would betray them or hang back.
“In the Queen’s presence,” said Maitland, “that might mean to kill her too, and the child?”
No one spoke. Maitland smiled to himself. Perhaps after all as well that way as another. In any case, Moray would return and she would be as nothing. Then the child, the Queen and David’s child. Was the fool right there?
He offered the heavy young man his arm and guided him into the street where the wind was harsh and cold and the sky overcast.
They walked slowly under the swift, wind-driven clouds and he spoke, more to console himself than his companion, who hung on him in what seemed the apathy of despair.
“Well, sir, you’ve had your lesson early. Perhaps you’ve had your flash of nobility, your hope of honour, but now you see that we are gross and the world base. Here there is nothing grand, nay, nor even tragic. Which of us can deny his senses and which of us can avoid such a base, bloody business as we are on to-night?”
They moved cautiously, for they had come on their secret errand without a light or a servant — there was a moon but it was fitful. Out of this windy dark came the young man’s voice.
“She lets him in and shuts me out. She laughs at me, she pulls me up and down and so has from the first. Now tell me, Maitland, you who are so wise, why did she take me? I did not think of her at all, I did not want her. If she would fool me was it for a play?”
“It is of no importance,” said Maitland softly, “nothing she does is of any importance.”
The young man did not understand and he began to mutter incoherently.
To Maitland, the whole affair was incredible, fantastic, yet, he was determined to go through with it partly because he never endeavoured to stop the inevitable and partly because there was just the chance that through this act of brutal violence she might somehow be saved. He dared to think of her as purged, punished, and redeemed.
*
The spring was very early for the north; even in March there was a softness in the air. The Queen lay in bed and longed for flowers that would not come yet, however eager the spring might seem.
Her thoughts were drowsy, self-indulgent, all her passions were at a low ebb. She wanted to be quite alone, she would have no one near her, not even Mary Seaton. She turned over old fantasies, half-forgotten dreams in her mind.
As she moved, she sighed, remembering the child to be born that summer. She did not know if she were glad or sorry; she liked anything that tried her courage, that saved her pride, and this did both. She did not wish to be barren. It was noble to blossom, to bear fruit; it would be noble to be the mother of a king or of a woman like herself who would wed a king.
But it also meant weakness and fatigue, a blurring of her faculties, a slackening of her cleverness. She wanted to sleep and rest, but if she did she could not keep a watchful eye on all the events about her which she sensed just below the surface of her official life.
She would be more important because of the child, enriched both as a queen and a woman. But she might die.
Mary Seaton disturbed the Queen’s meditations. It was almost evening, would she rise and take supper?
She asked if her husband had been to her apartment that day.
Mary Seaton said “No,” nor yet to the Abbey as she thought. He was probably abroad with the Antony Standens flying his hawks and hounds as usual, or playing on the tennis court. It had been a fine day and seemed nearer April than March.
The Queen sighed, remembering the King as she had seen him in what seemed a moment of transfiguration on the throne in the audience chamber. She sighed again, recalling it was Sunday and that she had not been to Mass.
Yes, she would rise and come to supper and Lady Argyll might be bidden. She named one or two other officials of her household who were amusing, talked lightly of current events, who would afterwards play cards or billiards and help to pass the time. David! yes, David must be there, of course. He would play; if she could not have flowers or sunshine she would have sweet music.
Mary Seaton lowered her eyes and said nothing. She called in the French girls and they discussed preparations for the dressing of their mistress.
When she was fully arrayed in her discreet, fashionable clothes there seemed no change in her tall figure, and by candlelight and with the aid of Mary Seaton’s careful painting and hair curling, there was no change in her smooth lovely face, though daylight had recently shown her beauty had diminished.
*
The Queen sat at supper in her little closet between her bedroom and the audience chamber. Her spirits had risen suddenly for no reason at all, except that everyone else was so gay and good-humoured.
The room, though small, was very cheerful. She had furnished it ex
quisitely and it sparkled like a casket of gems with the bold red in the arras, a golden-bound agate service on the table, gildings on the chairs, gold again in a stiff brocade which shut out the March night from the windows. Everyone was easy, relaxed, full of news and gossip which the Queen always loved to hear — odds and ends and scraps of politics, tales from the city, jokes and stories.
Lady Argyll, who was very kindly treated by the Queen although her husband was a rebel in hiding, began to talk of Lord Bothwell because she knew this would be a pleasing subject. The Queen had pardoned him before everybody and had done him great honour in his recent marriage with Jane Gordon.
And now, leaning back in her chair on the arm of which sat Florestan the monkey, she listened with interest. Her eyes rested on the Italian where he sat opposite her, pleasant, humble, holding his own by reason of her favour and nothing else among these great people all born his superiors, by his jokes which were shallow but amusing, his comments which were superficial but sounded clever. She liked his audaciousness as she liked the cap of saffron velvet which he, by her express permission, wore on his long bronze hair.
The door in the audience chamber opened and the King came into the room. His appearance struck a note of discord.
He sat down beside his wife without speaking and she, also in silence, continued to feed Florestan the monkey with the dark plums preserved in sugar. It was this kind of sweetmeat she had been eating when, dressed as a page, she had spoken privately to Henry Stewart the night of the festival she had given for him in the long gallery. She remembered this as she caressed the monkey in the hostile silence.
The King scowled at her guests. He did not like Lady Argyll and her brother, Lord Robert Stewart, the Governor of Holyrood House, nor Arthur Erskine, now the Captain of the Guard, not only because they were friends of Moray but because they were so often with the Queen and, the young man believed, working against him. But, whilst he gave them quick looks of disdain, he took no notice whatever of David Rizzio, who had so far dared his fortunes as not to rise when the King entered but remained negligently leaning on the table-board.
The Queen, with a casually indifferent air more stinging than a rebuke, asked her husband if he had supped and he said: “Yes, in my chamber below with Lord Morton, Ruthven, and Lindsay.”
She wondered why he had come. Three nights ago he had tried to force his way into her apartment, threatening to break the door down and so at last she had opened it. When he had found David Rizzio inside with his piles of papers, he had turned on his heel and gone out without a word and the Queen had thought she would be rid of him for some while.
She looked over her shoulder. She was used to his heavy silences but this seemed to hold a menace she had not noticed before. She continued to feed the monkey, laughing at his snatching hands and puckered, wrinkled face. She was angry with her husband for his boorishness, no doubt he was mad with jealousy of David. Well, let him make himself as agreeable and useful as the Italian and he might look to find the same favour.
Lady Argyll and her brother began talking together in embarrassed whispers. The Italian was in no way discomfited, but seemed to enjoy the wrath of the King as if he were master of them all.
Then suddenly Henry Stewart did the last thing his wife would have expected of him. He put his arms round her waist and kissed her on the cheek exactly at that moment as Lord Ruthven, who had been mentioned as one of the company dining with the King in the rooms below, entered through the door in the newel stair which had admitted the King.
Ruthven wore armour and his visor was pulled down. As he stood blinking in the light, the King’s arms tightened round his wife’s waist.
The Italian, from whose face the smiling insolence had been wiped away by a sudden fear, rose instantly from his place at the table and went into the far corner of the room, which was so small that he was still close to the others.
The Queen’s alert glance flickered for an instant on the Italian, then turned steadily to hold Ruthven.
“I thought, sir, that you were ill, that you were in so bad a case that I thought of visiting you.”
“Madame, I have strength enough for my duty,” replied the armed man sourly.
“I do not like your words nor the roughness of your coming,” exclaimed the Queen, rising and snatching her husband’s arm from her waist.
“I have not to do with you, madame, but with that villain,” and he nodded towards the Italian drawn up against the further wall, yet no more than twelve feet from Lord Ruthven. “Come forth, Signor Davie, this is no place for you.”
“It is the place where I have put him,” retorted the Queen, haughtily.
“Let no more be said of that for honour’s sake!” exclaimed Ruthven, advancing on the Italian, at which the Queen cried out:
“I command you, as your Sovereign, to leave my chamber!”
She looked at her husband for a second where he stood motionless by the loaded supper-board. His gaze was on Lord Ruthven and his expression different from any that she had seen on his face before.
Robert Stewart and Arthur Erskine had risen in their places. The Queen spoke to them, bidding them, in a steady voice, to turn out Lord Ruthven from her presence, and they advanced on him, but he shouted out:
“Do not touch me, for I will not be handled!”
At this, as if it were a signal, the door into the audience chamber was thrown violently open and on the threshold stood Lord Lindsay with eight men behind him, all in armour.
“Am I to be murdered?” demanded the Queen.
“Madame, we would put down our lives for you,” replied Ruthven harshly, “but there is one here who must take his punishment.”
At that the Queen placed herself in front of the Italian, who was cowering in his corner. Lindsay and his men advanced, knocking over the supper-table so that the dishes and meat, the preserved fruits, the lights and the bottles of wine were spilled over the skirts of Lady Argyll, who stood dismayed and useless between her brother and Arthur Erskine who, seeing they were overpowered, remained silent.
Lord Ruthven, cold and passionless, plucked the Queen away from where she stood with arms and skirts outspread in front of the Italian who was whimpering and kissing a relic in a crystal case.
“Take your lady wife, sir,” he ordered the King.
The closet was so crowded that it was impossible for anyone to move. The only light was a torch held by a man behind Lindsay, and one candle on a sideboard, for most of the candles had gone out with the overturning of the table and the soft scented wax had been trampled underfoot with the filigree dishes and the sweetmeats, and the glass. But the King moved to the wall and held the Queen there against the tapestry.
Ruthven seized the shrieking Italian, snatched off his cap, and passed him to the man behind him as if he had been a rag doll. He was hurled from one to another, lurching, plunging, bruised, soon half-naked, bleeding and screaming. He was thrust through the press of armed men out into the bedroom and so into the Chamber of Presence, while the Queen lay still as a corpse in her husband’s grasp. She would not submit to the indignity of a useless struggle. She closed her eyes as the Italian was dragged past and put her fingers to her ears as his screams echoed through the hot room.
The King released her without a word and followed the other men out of the room. A pretty little French clock in the corner struck eight — the whole business had taken no more than five minutes.
The Queen sank down on the floor. There was one candle burning above the low bed in the corner and Lady Argyll made her way to this and from it lit several others which she placed on the sideboard.
The Queen rose and stumbled towards the door in the audience room, but this had been bolted.
“What will they do to him?” she whispered.
“I suppose, madame, they intend to bring him to trial.”
“For what offence?”
“Madame, come away to the bedchamber. Maybe they will return.”
“Where is you
r brother?” asked the Queen, “and Arthur Erskine?”
“Madame, I do not know. They have been forced away with the others.”
“Then we are quite alone?”
“Yes, madame. Come into the bedchamber.”
Lady Argyll held aloft the candle and the Queen stared down at the confusion, the things on the floor, the dishes of agate and mother-of-pearl, the lace cloth stained with wine, the dish of preserved plums, and among it a twist of grey fur and two thin hands held upward.
“Oh, Florestan! See, they have killed Florestan!”
The Queen stooped and gathered up the dead monkey and burst into dry and desperate sobs.
Lady Argyll, who had seen the King’s face and who feared that the night’s work would not be over, drew her mistress into the bedchamber through which the Italian had been dragged. The outer door was fastened. Listening there Lady Argyll could hear nothing.
*
The Queen crouched on the bedstep with the dead monkey wrapped in a linen cloth on her knees.
Lady Argyll could not induce her to move or to speak, although she reminded her of her child and begged her for his sake to keep her courage.
But when the bolts of the outer door were drawn the Queen did look up.
“Perhaps they have come for me now. Light more candles.’’
Lady Argyll obeyed with hands that shook like the flames that leapt up under them.
Two men entered the bedchamber — the King and Lord Ruthven.
“Well,” said the Queen, looking up from where she sat with the dead monkey on her lap, “what have you done with David?”
“Madame,” replied Lord Ruthven, “do not speak that name.”
The King passed him and leant against the tester of the bed. “Do you mourn for David?” he asked.
She answered: “It shall be dear blood to some of you if his is spilt.”
The Queen's Caprice Page 17