The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power...

by Sarah Gristwood

  Yes, one way and another, it really was hard not to feel almost grateful towards Lord Moray.

  Nineteen

  The queen had done so well – everyone who loved her must be proud. Vigorous as a man, at the head of her army, with loyal Scotsmen flocking to join her cause, and more of them every day.

  She sent Elizabeth word that she’d have no more outside interference in the affairs of her own land. She hoped she and her cousin could be the best of friends once more – but only after Elizabeth had declared Mary her heir, she and Darnley.

  She’d reconciled most of the lords to her, split off the few rebels who held with Moray. She’d even welcomed those old rebels, the Huntly family back into the fold. It was as if the queen’s marriage had renewed her. In what way, was somehow not discussed; not even among the Marys. The queen was kindly with them, as ever, but brisk, and somehow remote. They were all feeling their new loyalties.

  And then it happened – one day towards the end of the month, when the heather up on Arthur’s Seat had almost lost its colour. One afternoon, Seton passed without knocking through the presence chamber and into the queen’s bedroom. They’d only just got around to telling her the tailor had delivered the new mantle for her Majesty.

  There was a rustle from the tiny dining closet and the queen came out quickly, followed just a moment later by the ubiquitous Davy.

  ‘Oh, Seton, good, so they’ve brought it at last? I swear it takes more time to turn me out decently here than it does to catch up with Moray.’ There was flattery there, that the queen, as to an equal, didn’t bother to give her brother his title; but she was talking too much and too quickly.

  ‘Yes, that should do nicely – with, what, the dark brocade gown and the silver sleeves? We don’t want Castelnau writing back to France that marriage has made me dowdy. What do you think, Davy?’

  But Rizzio’s ears were cocked like a pointer’s towards the closet behind, where someone now dropped the fire irons and swore, audibly. Some man, who would not bother himself with the business of secrecy. (Another Chastelard? No. Not looking at her Majesty.)

  The queen gave a little half-shrug – ‘Enfin,’ – and stepped away from the door. Touched Seton’s arm lightly as if to say, ‘See, what does it matter, it’s you after all – welcome to the party.’ And there grinning at Seton – familiar and sandy, his clothes as stained as though he’d been dredged from the sea – was the long-absent face Seton had always called pawky.

  *

  It turned out Lord Bothwell had indeed been dredged from the sea, or nearly. Attacked on the sea voyage from France, by a pirate in English pay. He’d managed to escape in a rowboat with half a dozen men and made his way straight to the queen.

  ‘Showman,’ snapped Fleming, when she heard.

  But Seton had been wrong on one count. It seemed Lord Bothwell did know a thing or three about secrecy. He had been in secret correspondence with the queen for—

  ‘Oh, for years and years,’ said Beaton excitedly. She seemed as pleased as if she herself had made some kind of discovery. ‘I mean, we all knew she went on using him, after he went into exile.’ Back at the beginning; after the row over a woman, and his escape from the Edinburgh gaol. It seemed a lifetime away.

  ‘But we all thought it was over when – well, you know.’ When reports had come that Bothwell had been slandering Queen Mary abroad, saying she’d been a whore with her uncle the Guise cardinal, and this just when she was preparing to marry Lord Darnley! The tale itself had been given short shrift, but the court had been split in two, between those who said it was just like Bothwell to spread so vile a scandal, and those who said the whole report was a slur, put about by his enemies.

  Now another possibility occurred to Seton, unpleasantly. What if the story had been told with the connivance of her Majesty? Made up to conceal a growing intimacy – a reliance, maybe you should say.

  After all, Bothwell had always been loyal to her mother, the old queen, and this queen prized loyalty above all else. All rulers did, when they were lucky enough to find it, Maitland had once said cynically. From black pearl to unicorn’s horns, they did love a rarity. And who should understand how loyalty mattered better than the Queen’s Marys?

  ‘And none of us knew,’ said Beaton, insistently, eyeing Seton almost with compassion. Seton remembered that moment in the bedchamber. See how we trust you with our secret, so the queen had seemed to say. But there wasn’t much honour in being trusted when trust had become a necessity. And a secret wasn’t much of a secret, when it was about to be known to everybody.

  *

  Late that afternoon, as the day was drawing in, Seton went to the grove in the gardens. The night before had been a stormy one, but this was still the ghost of a beautiful day. The winds had brought down the yellow leaves. They crowded the ground, rustling reproachfully.

  Once again her feet took a familiar course, to the grass maze, and she tried to follow the path that led to its heart. Fleetingly she thought of her brother George, instructing her to foster the Darnley match. He seemed never to be at court now, to see into what difficulties the match had led them. Seton had always liked certainty, but that seemed to be hard to come by.

  The crisp leaves rustled as her feet kicked through them, but they were thick enough to cover the path. And this time, for the first time, she could not find her way.

  *

  Having Bothwell back made all the difference. Perhaps it didn’t exactly put things on a new footing, since the queen had the rebels on the run already – but when they rode out again, with Bothwell commanding one wing of the army, the rebels simply melted away.

  Moray and a few followers fled south, (and a cool welcome he’d have in Elizabeth’s country; Protestant or no, he was a man who had raised his hand against an anointed prince). Which left the rest of them there, in Scotland, with the divisions between them plain to see.

  Darnley hadn’t wanted Bothwell home, of course. They’d had to divide the honour of commanding the force – Darnley’s father Lennox, Argyll, Huntly – and Bothwell. Coming back from that last victorious raid, his boy’s face above the pretty gilt breastplate had been sulky. But that wasn’t the worst of it, not nearly.

  ‘He really seems to think he’s king,’ Fleming, scandalised, said to Seton. You had to remember Fleming had royal blood in her veins (and whatever dealings Maitland might have had, he’d always, more or less, held by the throne). ‘Not even joint sovereign to rule with her Majesty, but over her.

  ‘He really seems to think that just because he’s on top in bed, he can ride over her roughshod like any Jock with any Jenny. Him! That – that boy!’ It was indiscreet, of course, but the way Lord Darnley was behaving made indiscretion standard practice. It wasn’t primrose velvet and puppy dogs now – he wanted Europe’s rulers to acknowledge his rights to hold the reins of the country. Randolph wrote to England that he was carrying on so proudly ‘he seemeth a monarch of the world’, instead of one called king of Scotland, and that only by courtesy.

  The latest was that he’d suddenly become more Catholic than the queen herself, and really, thought Seton, if there were anything could put one off the true faith… It was Beaton voiced the thought, as they processed demurely back from mass one morning, leaving Darnley ostentatiously on his knees…

  ‘Strange, how one can almost think of Master Knox more kindly.’

  *

  Before winter really set in, Seton was allowed home for a week or two. As she rode into the stone court it felt the same, and yet different. Her brother George was waiting to swing her down from the saddle, but as they turned towards the house they were interrupted by a melancholy raucous cry.

  Seton turned to George in a consternation that was only half feigned.

  ‘Peacocks,’ he said, pointing upwards – and sure enough, there on the high wall, looking down at them disdainfully, a bundle of blue tailed off into a cascade of feathers. Iridescent, the colour changing, like some silk the queen had been sent from Ita
ly.

  Seton’s eyebrows went up in mocking query.

  ‘Isobel wanted them,’ said George defensively. ‘We’ll bring them in when the snow comes. but it turns out they adapt to our climate better than anyone would have thought.’ Like his sister, as he didn’t say.

  With a rush of warmth welling up inside her, Seton’s smile was understanding as they turned towards the door. There had indeed been a growth, a progression, here, she thought. As marriages go, George and Isobel’s was happy. And it was good, very good, to see George again – to feel that, never mind what else happened, they were still family.

  Before going in to greet Isobel, they both, without discussing it, did a strange thing. Their feet turned left instead of right, into the family chapel.

  As the light and the scent and the colour poured round them, Seton thought, this is it. This is what the queen is fighting for, and so she should be. This was life, against the chill stillbirth of the presbytery. Impulsively she turned to George.

  ‘She’s stronger in our favour now – she is really. Even if—’ she broke off. Didn’t say, even if it’s only to placate Lord Darnley.

  ‘She is that,’ – Seton was always touched by the country burr that came into his speech occasionally – ‘even if it does lead her into some strange company.’

  It was only much later, she didn’t know how, she realised George wasn’t talking about Lord Darnley.

  *

  George wasn’t the only one to ask her about David Rizzio – not by a long way. The questions seemed to be ringing in her ears all the length of her stay. Was it true he told the queen exactly what she should do? Was it true (this in hushed whispers) that he and Lord Darnley…? Was it true (even quieter, and even more zestfully) that he and Queen Mary…?’

  But at least the household was galloping into its Christmas preparations, and she could always divert Isobel that way.

  They were down in the kitchens one morning, where the cooks were starting to prepare the Christmas sweets. Seton’s mouth watered to the smell of the lemons boiled in sugar syrup for the succade. The raw fruits glowed bright and strange in the Scottish light. They must have cost a fortune: truly, Isobel was settling into her position as a great lady. Seton picked one up off the scrubbed table, and sniffed, appreciatively.

  Once upon a time, the alien sight and scent would have made her nostalgic for the warmer gardens of the south, of France, where such things were to be had more readily. Not now. Something had shifted in her, too. Scotland was where she was supposed to be.

  As if on cue, Isobel spoke suddenly, looking down into the pot where spiced breadcrumbs were being stirred in claret for the gingerbread, so as not to have to catch Seton’s eye.

  ‘You know Mary, you’ve changed.’ She struggled to answer Seton’s look of enquiry. ‘You’re more… I don’t know…’ A mixed scent came up, of ginger, and aniseed, and cinnamon. ‘More… spicy!’ They both burst into giggles, like children at a party. Seton carried the memory with her, when she returned to court.

  But as she reached the queen’s apartments, she realised her little tales were going to be of small concern for many a long day. Each of the maids seemed to have taken on an added self-importance, a slight pleased air of secrecy. They’d wondered, even before Seton went away, but now clearly…

  ‘Yes, it’s true – we’re sure now,’ Fleming said privately. ‘Her Majesty has missed her courses again, and the doctors say it’s past the likeliest time for a woman to miscarry.’

  *

  But things were not well in the court, despite this best of good news. Bound once again to her perch behind the queen – tied down even though her jesses were of the softest Spanish leather – Seton couldn’t be sure if the balance of power there had shifted in some way, or if the brief break itself had changed her again, so that she now saw more clearly, as though with a stranger’s eye.

  Davy’s rise had never seemed to her to have any more consequence than the bubbles in a beaker of ale. Now she saw it as – well, as Maitland might see it – as a dangerous anomaly.

  It was as if the different dangers in the court she’d seen before were now the many heads of the hydra. One thing at least; while Rizzio was everywhere, Darnley stayed away and that was a good thing – surely?

  The week before Christmas, the liveried heralds were to proclaim Moray and his rebels outlaw at the Merkat Cross. Seton didn’t know what impulse made her struggle the long dank mile uphill from Holyrood to hear them, with no more than a manservant to watch her back and keep her company.

  She was chilled to the marrow by the buffets of wind that came up from the wynds, curving away from the spine of the royal mile like ribs from a backbone.

  Old Bridie used to tell her stories of the witches from the north who sold winds to sailors, knotted on a string; undo the knot and a wind would come, to blow your ship on its way. There were snowflakes now, riding the winds like waves and Seton shivered. But the thought of what waited, down by the warm palace fires of Holyrood, made her wish a witch wind would rise, to whirl them all away.

  She was not the only one who had come here from the palace. From the other side of the crowd a dark familiar figure nodded to her, gravely.

  When the heralds had bawled their business, Maitland made his way over, and cocked his head, questioningly. Haltingly, Seton tried to explain the pressure building in Holyrood – the feeling of a cauldron coming up to the boil – that had made her desperate to get out.

  ‘It’s like a boil, and you know it will hurt to have it lanced. But you can’t stand the feeling of it growing on you, and it will have to be done in the end, so get it over with – do you see? It’s as if something has to give, you have to – I don’t know – sacrifice something… I know it’s just an old idea, and silly.’

  She didn’t see Maitland’s hooded eyes veil, as he turned away.

  Twenty

  Seton handed a hovering servant her gloves, smoothing the rich cuff automatically. ‘Hot wine,’ she said to the man, briefly. It wasn’t that there hadn’t been enough and more to drink at the wedding. But somehow the very sight of Bothwell padding down the aisle was enough to make you cross yourself, look over your shoulder, and take comfort wherever it could be found – and at the bottom of a beaker would do.

  But the queen had made the match and all involved – all the men involved – had taken to it gladly. The Earl of Bothwell, her Majesty’s great supporter, marrying Lady Jean Gordon. Sister to the present Earl of Huntly – her Majesty’s other great supporter, these days, never mind how his father rebelled. Nothing might seem more fitting – Lord Bothwell, proficient but poor, rewarded with access to the Huntly money.

  No one cared that Lady Jean was fast in love, a love returned, with Alexander Ogilvie of Boyne. Seton herself had come upon them, walking side by side in the palace gardens, too well-trained to clasp hands but with an intensity that made display unnecessary.

  Had they known then? Their faces had been gloomy. Known, at least, that Huntly’s sister would not be permitted to follow some fancy. She was a serious girl. Who knew how she’d get on with Bothwell the buccaneer, but no doubt she’d do her duty. As for Ogilvie… a man was bowing before her, and Seton was blowing the powdery spices off the surface of her wine when a sound in the next room made her set down the beaker sharply.

  Beaton was bent, as if in pain, over the table there, still in her wedding finery. Furiously, rhythmically, she was tearing at something between her fingers, and her mouth was working soundlessly.

  ‘Beaton what is it? Tell me!’

  Seton seized the frantic hands to quiet them and found something soft between her fingers – a mass of fringe and tinsel she recognised as a scarf her Majesty had been wearing that day. Seton could see the queen, flushed with the heat of her pregnancy, tugging it off her white neck, damp with sweat.

  ‘Beaton, tell me – what’s happened? Is it her Majesty? Here,’ – dashing back into the other room she seized the beaker of wine and Beaton drained
it greedily.

  ‘She – do you know – do you know what she told me?’ Beaton was gulping on the words as if they were being forced out by her extremity.

  ‘She told me there’d be another wedding soon, and wouldn’t that be lovely?’ Beaton’s voice rose to a falsetto, in bitter imitation of Queen Mary’s gaiety. Seton opened her mouth to ask, whose wedding, but the question died away.

  ‘It was me,’ Beaton whispered. ‘It’s going to be me. Me and,’ – Seton could hardly make out the words – ‘and Alexander Ogilvie.’

  Seton jerked back as if she had been stung and Beaton stared at her out of a face in which a deep anger was beginning to drive the tears away.

  This was disaster. This was cruelty – and worse, it was stupidity. If Ogilvie had to have a wife to replace Jean Gordon, like a child who needed another toy, then why in heaven’s name did it have to be Beaton?

  Of course the queen had every right to dispose of her servants in marriage, but – don’t we mean any more to you than that? Seton begged her mistress, silently. Us, your Marys?

  We gave you our hearts as well as the service of our hands, and does that just make us better pawns, to be moved around the board more easily? I know that to use people is part of a ruler’s task but please, oh please – sharply, Seton pulled herself up, gazing at Beaton with something like dismay.

  Please what? Please say we matter, and not just if we can be placed usefully? Please say you see us as we are, four girls named Mary, who have their own hopes and fears and lives, and do not exist only to show you advantageously.

  ‘And Thomas…’ Beaton said with a sigh that was almost a hiss.

  Seton started again, nervously. Randolph. She’d rarely heard the ambassador’s given name, but of course this news would hit him badly. Perhaps there had never been any future for Elizabeth’s envoy with the Scots Queen’s Mary, but you don’t only find love where there’s a prospect of marriage and family. Who should know that better than Seton? She pushed the thought away.