by Jane Yolen
Just then the door banged open and in walked the king in mud-spattered hunting gear. Close behind him came Lord Ruthven, a hawk-faced man with the unblinking eyes of a snake.
Davie and I leaped to our feet. One does not sit when the king is standing, but I had to repress a shudder.
Davie showed no such alarm. “Here comes the little lion now,” he whispered to me, “and one of his keepers.”
Neither of the men acknowledged us. The king strode across the room, calling out loudly for food and drink as he pulled off his leather gloves. Then, warming his hands before the fire, he turned his handsome, arrogant face upon Davie and me.
“There stands as unlikely a pair of cards as I ever drew from the deck—the knave and the jester,” he said. “What trick should we make with such cards as these, Ruthven?”
He looked to Lord Ruthven to laugh at his jest, but was met with a calculating stare. Ruthven remained at the far end of the room, as though the warmth of the fire was an enemy to his icy nature. Finding no ready audience in Ruthven, the king ambled towards me.
“You have not yet delivered that kiss you promised, pretty fool,” he drawled.
“I made no such promise, sir!” I stepped backwards.
“Oh, no?” He raised an eyebrow over one elegant eye.
I repressed yet another shudder and said in my light fool’s voice: “I recall, Majesty, that you stole a kiss, like a brigand.”
“I heard you distinctly,” he purred, grabbing me by the shoulder. “You pleaded with me to commit further robbery. You are not calling your king a liar, are you? That would be treason.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Ruthven moving towards us while Davie stood frozen, eyes flickering back and forth between the king and his companion. My foolery could not save this situation. I would have to speak the foul truth and hope to shock the king.
“Sire, a traitor is a man who would betray his queen wife,” I said, wriggling to free myself and failing. “If the queen knew of this outrage to her fool ...”
“The queen does not wish to know. I should hardly be surprised to learn that she disputes my very existence!” His hand snapped out and caught my face in a vicelike grip.
I tried to protest, but my mouth was squeezed too tight.
“Yes, pout those rosy lips,” the king said. “I fancy I will dine sweetly on those cherries, and more besides.”
All at once, Davie seized the king by the arm and tried to pull him away. “Think of your position, my lord,” he warned.
The king narrowed his eyes. “Touch me again at your peril, you misshapen frog. I’ll have your ugly head on my wall.”
Ruthven came from behind and shoved Davie away, almost knocking him into the fire.
“Is this your field then, Davie?” the king asked, wrapping an arm around my waist. “Is no one allowed to plow it but you?”
Davie made another feeble attempt to reach me, but Ruthven blocked his way. “You interfere in things that are not your concern, Riccio.”
All the while, the king pressed me against him, keeping one hand across my mouth so that I could not cry out.
Just then the door opened and the queen walked in with Bothwell and the Earl of Huntly right behind. She had a rolled up parchment in her hand.
At the sight of his wife, the king spun me around and released me. Then he stepped away, his hands wide apart, like a boy who has been caught stealing biscuits from the kitchen.
Halting abruptly, the queen placed one hand over her breast. “What is happening here?” she asked in a tight voice, looking from the king to me to Davie and back. Ruthven she ignored altogether.
“I was having a joke with the fool, as I am sure you jest with your own intimates,” the king answered airily. “Have you never played such a game with bonny Signor Monkeyface?”
The queen’s eyes were coldly furious. It was the look I had seen when she had ridden off after Lord James. “What you call play, sir, decent men call scandal.” She advanced on him, the hand with the parchment upraised as she would to a misbehaving dog. “Bad enough you shame me outside the walls of my palace. Oh, yes, I knew of it, but have said nothing, thinking that you were still young and would change. But to do so here in my own parlor—I would that you choke on your shame!”
The king fell back before her. “I see I am as unwelcome here as ever.” It was a weak attempt at defiance. “Come, Ruthven, we will find our amusement elsewhere.” He turned and walked past her and out of the door.
Ruthven cast a quick glance around the room, assessing the mood of the queen and her men, then followed the king.
Once they were gone, the queen sank down on the seat by the fire and dropped the parchment she was carrying. When Davie tried to speak to her, she waved him back.
“All of you leave me,” she said, “but Jardinière.”
Davie bowed, picked up the piece of parchment, then left with Bothwell and Huntly.
I knelt in front of the queen. “Your Majesty,” I began, my palms both sweating. “I swear that I did nothing to invite ... nothing to encourage ...” Please Lord, I prayed, let her believe the truth of it.
“He needs no encouragement, Nicola,” she said. “I have been aware longer than I care to admit what sort of man my husband is. And I have always known your heart, my loyal fool.”
For a moment we were both silent, and I could measure the time by the hard beating of my heart. Then the queen said suddenly, “Did you know, dear Jardinière, that I was born in this very castle?”
I shook my head.
“I had hoped that being here would work some healing magic between the king and me. We need that now more than ever.”
She met my questioning gaze and rubbed a hand gently over her belly. “I am carrying his child, the child who will one day rule Scotland. And—if Elizabeth does not marry and bear—this child will rule England as well.” There were tears in her eyes.
Ignoring all propriety, I placed a sympathetic hand on her knee, searching for something—some song or story to comfort her. Then I looked up again and realized that there was no need.
She was smiling, and the tears she was shedding were tears of joy.
29
MURDER
Though he moved back to Holyrood, Darnley was in no way improved by the prospect of becoming a father. If anything, he got worse. His drunken parties became notorious. Tavern wenches were sneaked in and out of his bedchamber by day and by night. It was disgusting behavior and we all tried to keep word of it from the queen.
“Darnley and the queen are rarely together now,” I told Davie as we walked into the queen’s chambers. We had met by chance in the hall and Davie held the door for me.
He smiled broadly at me, which lent but little beauty to his face. Still, I smiled back. And suddenly it was as if our differences had never happened.
I said over my shoulder, “I sleep in a cot by her side, should she need to rise in the night. She will have no one else.”
Did I boast? Perhaps. But it was sweet to be the queen’s dearest fool again. And sweet to have my best friend back.
I was wearing the new silver-piped dress the queen had had made for me, and my hair was caught up in a silver net. I knew that I looked well enough in it, and wondered if Davie noticed. But he spoke of other things.
Compliments, I thought with sudden understanding, were what Davie reserved for the queen, not her fool. It did not hurt me as it once might have.
Davie said plainly, “Darnley knows that once the queen has an heir, she has even less need of him.”
So I replied as directly. “And if it is not a boy?”
He smiled again. “It will be.”
“As if you could know. ”
He smiled again, this time his face full of mischief. “You notice how Darnley is referred to less and less as the king and more and more as the queen’s husband. Have you noticed?”
“I wasn’t aware of that.” In fact I tried to be unaware of Darnley, since the very thought of him m
ade my stomach hurt.
We crossed the antechamber towards the stairs to the queen’s bedroom.
“No?” Davie said. “Well, it pains him like a nail hammered through his foot.”
I stopped and turned. “Fortunes do change, Davie,” I warned him quietly, “just like the seasons. For a while the queen did not ask for me, now she does. You and I were friends, then we fell out, now we are friends again. Of all people you know how changeable folk are. Be careful of the enemies you make.”
This time Davie laughed, but there was a bitter note in it. “My enemies should be careful of me!” he said, striking himself on the chest. He seemed to be becoming dangerously swollen with pride again.
“Oh, Davie—perhaps I should tell you Maman’s story about the good girl who spoke in rubies and pearls but whose prideful sister had only toads and vipers fall from her lips.”
Taking me by the hand, he stared into my face. “Perhaps you should, Nicola. But not now. Now we dine with the queen, and I will bring her the latest gossip from France. Pearls from my lips.” He dropped my hand and went before me up the stairs, going slowly on his shortened leg.
I thought of how Davie’s intimacy with the queen aroused not only Darnley’s envy but that of many Scots lairds. They felt the same of me, of course, only as I was a girl and the queen’s own fool, they could excuse it. But they did not excuse Davie. So I tried once more to warn him.
“I have heard that you exercise control over who is admitted to the queen’s presence,” I said. “And that you make the nobles pay you for an audience with the queen. Davie—is this wise?”
He stopped abruptly, turned slightly, and glared at me over his hunched shoulder. “Surely you understand what I am doing, Nicola. In the queen’s present condition, she should be disturbed as little as possible. And if I demand some recompense for arranging an audience ... well, that only serves to discourage those whose business is unnecessary.” Then he smiled his monkey smile, as if to say: Aren’t I the clever boy?
I drew in a breath to keep from answering back, then stopped right where I was, thinking what a dangerous game Davie was playing.
But Davie continued on without me and was already on the final step. I had to lift my skirts high above my ankles to catch up.
“Davie,” I said softly in Italian in case anyone should overhear, “you know there have been threats made against you. Everyone says so. Take care! Take ... care!” My voice almost broke in two.
He spun around and looked at me disdainfully. “Talk, talk, nothing but talk, Nicola,” he said, also in Italian. “The Scots will boast, but rarely perform their brag.” Then he turned on his heel and walked towards the room where the queen was already entertaining her guests.
“Majesty,” he called, arms upraised, “the news from La Belle France has arrived. And such news! Wait until you hear ...”
I sighed. My poor Davie. His pride had hardened so much, nothing could dent it. The queen’s favor only served to make him more daring.
Queen Mary was seated in the small supper room that extended from the far left corner of her bedroom enjoying a late night meal with five or six of her courtiers. The Countess of Argyll was at the table while the others—all men—stood at various points around the room.
As I approached, my eye went to the stairway on the right which led down to the king’s chambers. Would he come to dine tonight? That door had not been opened of late and it did not stand ajar now. Fine! As far as I was concerned, each day away from the king was a holiday.
The queen greeted Davie and me merrily. “Come in, come in, sweet friends. Though where you shall sit I do not know. As I have brought an extra guest,” she joked, folding her hands across her bulging belly, “there is hardly room for us all.”
A ripple of good-natured laughter went around the little room. It was cramped indeed, but made cozy by the glowing fire and the golden light of a dozen candles. The queen enjoyed this kind of intimacy with her friends, all the more since she had grown so distant from her husband. A place was made for Davie at the table, and I settled myself on the floor by the fireplace.
“So far away, Jardinière?” the queen asked. “Why not sit there by the countess?”
“Forgive me, Your Majesty, but I am so cold, I prefer the embers from the coal to the members of the court,” I announced. The fire crackled at that moment, as if putting an exclamation point to my sentence.
Everyone laughed and the queen added, “Would that I could sit by the fire with you. But once down, how would I get up again?”
Davie put his hand out to her. “As to that, Majesty, you would have my hand, which always follows my heart.”
The queen applauded his words, as did the others. I did not, thinking how he saved his compliments for when it would do him the most good.
Laid out on the table were bowls of Soupe de la Reine, Veal Floury, cold mutton pies, raisins, dates, almonds, and honeyed wine, from which we were invited to help ourselves. Davie began at once, but I was not hungry. I was still annoyed with him. My anger filled me so much, I wanted nothing to eat.
For a moment the room was full of light chatter led by the Countess of Argyll, then the queen broke in. “What of the news from France that you promised, Davie?”
“For dinner or dessert?” he asked.
They all laughed and shouted, “Now! Now!”
So Davie began a series of wicked anecdotes from France, many of them pointedly against the dowager Queen Catherine, all the while stocking his plate. Davie always did love good food.
I sat by the fire stony-faced for most of his recitation, but the fire had gotten too hot for comfort, and I rose, moving to the table.
“You must sing for us later, David,” Queen Mary said. “You have not done so in a long while.” As she spoke, she held out her hand for me, and I put my warm hand in hers.
“My throat is quite raw from discussing the business of the Parliament,” said Davie. “I can barely outcroak a frog.”
“Then you must play the lute and Nicola here can sing,” the queen insisted. “Some of the jolly Italian songs perhaps?”
Davie shrugged. “I have so little time to practice I will make a worse din than the bagpipes.” But he said it in a way that everyone knew he was jesting.
Just then I heard a noise from the bedchamber and leaning forward, saw Darnley appearing from the private stairway looking very pale and drawn. Too many late nights, I thought. And too many low wenches! There was a hush in the room and I recoiled instinctively, glad now that I had not eaten, for it would have come right up into my throat.
The queen was probably the most surprised of us all, but she kept her composure. “Make room for the king,” she said.
Darnley squeezed in and took a place at the table, reaching immediately for the wine jug.
The moment he had appeared, the conversation died. Now the queen made an effort to resume it, asking him two or three trivial questions which he answered with only a few grudging words.
I wondered why he had even bothered to come up, since he was obviously taking no pleasure in the company. He carefully avoided looking at Davie, who now addressed him directly.
“How fares your kinsman, Lord Ruthven?” Davie asked, popping a grape into his mouth. “I hear he is abed with the fever.”
Darnley shifted uncomfortably. “I believe he is now much recovered,” he muttered, taking a deep draught of wine.
As though conjured up by the mention of his name, Lord Ruthven suddenly appeared at the door of the king’s private stairs. If he was recovered, he did not look it. His face was white as ash, his eyes rimmed with crimson, as if he were deathly ill still or—worse yet—possessed. Strangest of all, he wore a metal breastplate, with a sword and pistol strapped to his side. I thought he looked ready for war and not the queen’s dinner room.
An awful hush fell over the conversation. The Countess of Argyll put a hand to her breast. Even the courtiers were still.
Of us all, only the queen was not cow
ed by Ruthven’s appearance.
“Lord Ruthven,” she said curtly, “I sent you no invitation to supper. ”
Ruthven’s flinty voice cut through the room like a jagged knife. “Let it please Your Majesty that yon man David Riccio come out of your chamber, where he has been overlong.”
“Davie is here at my request,” she answered sternly. “Have you lost your wits, man, that you speak to me like this?”
“That man has offended against your honor,” Ruthven said.
The queen turned to her husband. “Is this your doing?”
Looking down, the wineglass still in his hand, Darnley muttered, “I know nothing of this.”
The queen then turned back to Ruthven. Her hands gripped the table with such power, the knuckles went white. “Leave here now,” she told him in a steely voice, “or I will brand you a traitor.”
“I will not go while he yet remains,” said Ruthven, pointing an accusing finger at Davie. “While good Protestant lairds who have served you languish in exile, this misbegotten, devilish creature has made a place for himself at the heart of your court.”
All the warmth of the hearth left me in an instant, and I went stone cold. My temples pulsed: danger, danger. But I could not move.
As Ruthven spoke, armed men emerged from the private stair, gathering at his back. No one had yet drawn a sword, but the threat alone was devastating. There were gasps from the standing courtiers and the countess put a second hand to her breast.
“I warn you, sir,” the queen said. “And will not again.”
Davie suddenly jumped up from his chair, pressing against the window, as far as possible from the armed men.
“Sir,” Ruthven said to Darnley, “take your wife to you.”
Now Queen Mary stood, her hands held protectively over her belly, and I reached to help her. But Darnley was quicker than I, seizing the queen in his arms and pulling her to his side.
Ruthven charged into the center of the room, heading for the window where Davie cowered. Everyone fell back before him except the queen’s equerry, Arthur Erskine, who summoned the nerve to try to hold Ruthven back.