by Jane Yolen
“Lay not hands on me, for I will not be handled!” Ruthven roared, drawing his pistol and brandishing it in Erskine’s face.
Erskine staggered away, as if driven back more by a curse than by the threat of a bullet.
“Davie!” I cried out. “Take care!”
But he stood as if paralyzed, a mouse mesmerized by the roaring lion.
The other intruders now piled into the room, shouting curses. In the confusion, the table overturned, spilling food and wine in all directions. Candles toppled to the floor—save one that Lady Argyll managed to snatch up—and the room was plunged into near darkness. In the struggle, I was knocked to the floor and almost rolled into the fire.
I heard the queen cry out.
Then a squeal.
Davie!
Getting to my feet, I tried to make my way to him, thinking to shelter him behind me. Surely these men would not strike a girl. But at that very moment, Ruthven turned and came towards me. In the light of the single candle, his face was demonlike, his teeth bared in a vicious snarl. He pushed past me and marched back into the bedchamber. Behind him came his men, dragging Davie. Two of them had hold of his arms; a third wound his fingers in Davie’s black curls.
“Davie!” I called.
“Justizia! Justizia!” He cried out in Italian. And then in French, “Sauvez ma vie, Madam! Sauvez ma vie!” Finally, “Save my life, Madam! Save my life!” Each cry was more pitiful than the last.
But no one could save him, for two of Ruthven’s men held us at bay with drawn swords and pistols while the rest dragged him away.
Arms outstretched, the queen sobbed loudly as Davie disappeared into the room beyond.
That was the moment I saw my chance. Diving to the floor like a tumbler, I scrambled between the legs of the guards, upending one. When I ran into the antechamber, I saw Davie being forced into an alcove.
He spotted me and in his terror cried out my name. “Nicola!”
Ruthven turned, saw me as well, and lashed out with the back of his hand. He struck me so hard, I was sent spinning to the stone floor and lay dazed, a tumult of voices echoing in my head.
I do not know how long I was down. When I woke, as if from a nightmare, I was alone in the chamber. On the spot where I had seen them drag poor Davie, the floor was stained with blood.
Pushing myself up, I ran to the stairs. More patches of blood stained every step. I started down so swiftly, it is a wonder that I did not take a tumble and crack my foolish skull.
“Davie!” I cried. The only answer was an echo of my own voice.
I reached the landing where baggage was piled before being carried up to the royal apartments. There lying backwards over the lid of a trunk lay Davie’s poor, twisted, bloodstained body. A bald-headed porter was bent over him, stripping off his rings.
“You filthy scavenger! What are you doing?”
The porter looked up unabashed, fingering a jeweled earring. “He was an ungrateful knave and deserved his fate,” he said, an awful epitaph for my only friend.
Fato! Suddenly I remembered Davie speaking the word so long ago when we looked at the cards in his room. Fate. For friendship’s sake I would dare it.
Running at the porter, I pushed him with both hands. He glowered and tried to return to his ghoulish task. So I swung with all the anger I had left, and raked my nails across his cheek. He fell back from my attack, touching the scratches, finding blood on his fingers.
“I will have your eyes next if you do not leave him in peace,” I shouted. “And the queen will have your head!”
The porter edged towards the door. “The queen will be lucky to keep her own head before this night is out.” He spat as he spoke, the flecks spattering between us. Then he darted off.
I turned and touched Davie’s dear face with trembling fingers. Tears poured down my cheeks, hard as an Edinburgh rain. He had been stabbed more times than I could count.
“Oh, sweet friend,” I whispered. “To be so hated....” Then I leaned over and embraced him as best I could.
Wandering into the corridor, I heard orders and cries of alarm shouted behind me as the queen’s guards were forced to surrender their weapons.
I stumbled along as though lost in a strange realm. Would I be next to die? I wondered. Would the Maries? Would the queen? I put my hand over my heart, remembering the bodies hanging from the balconies and railings of Amboise.
Perhaps I should have remained with Troupe Brufort. I could have married my cousin Pierre and raised a crop of baby acrobats. What was a rap on the head compared to a knife in the breast?
Then through a window I saw a band of townspeople assembling in the courtyard, all of them waving pitchforks, cleavers, and knives. They were calling out for the queen.
For the queen. Calling her “Our Mary” and “Our Sovereign.”
I realized in a rush that the uproar from the palace had brought them racing to protect her. They needed to be told what had happened.
I tried one door. Then another. And another. But at each a sentry blocked my way and would not let me past.
“I am the queen’s fool,” I told the guards. “I am on the queen’s business.”
But they looked at my disordered hair, the blood on my dress, and would not let me through.
That was when I heard Darnley addressing the crowd from a window of the royal chambers.
“Have no fear, good people,” he called, his hateful, reedy tenor voice floating above the courtyard. “I am safe. So is the queen. Return to your homes and sleep well.” Then he went inside.
There were some grumbles amongst the crowd, low mutterings. And then someone shouted, “Come oot again, Darnley, ye silly man. Tell us aboot the fuss.”
Someone else cried out, “Show us the wee queen.”
“Is the wee bairn safe?” a woman added.
But gradually, when there was no more information, the crowd dispersed. I wept afresh to see them go, to see their honest Scottish instincts baffled by Darnley’s deceit.
I knew that the queen would have addressed them herself if she could. She must be in her chambers, held prisoner.
Or worse!
That last thought was almost too terrible to contemplate, and it lent wings of panic to my feet. I darted back to the west wing, where two armed guards now blocked her doorway.
“Step aside!” I told them sharply. “I have to see the queen.”
I must have been a dreadful sight, stained as I was with Davie’s blood, my eyes ablaze with anger and fear. One of the guards made to stop me but the other held him back.
“It is only the fool,” he said. “Let her pass.”
I climbed the stairs desperate to find the queen safe, yet afraid, too. Was she alive? Was she injured? Was the babe in her womb still well? These fears tumbled about in my head like small boats in a rain-swollen river. I could not see the safety of the shore. The stairs seemed longer than I remembered; it took ages to get to the top.
But when I burst into her bedchamber, there she was: alone, sitting on the bed, weeping. But alive.
Alive!
“Madam,” I whispered.
She looked up and stood, less quickly than she might have done because of her condition.
“Nicola!” she cried and opened her arms to me.
I ran over and we embraced, and this time I was not at all worried about touching her.
“Thank God you are safe, Nicola! What news do you have of Davie? The guards will tell me nothing. Nor will the king send word.”
Should I have lied? Should I have given her a night of calm sleep?
I could not. She was the queen. I forced the words out, as if saying them for the first time made everything true.
“He is dead, Majesty.” I touched one of the bloodstains on my dress. “Murdered.”
The queen sank back onto the bed and for a moment I thought she was going to weep again. But she did not.
“No more tears,” she declared in a calm voice. “I will think instead u
pon revenge. And so should you, dear Jardinière, for Davie was your friend as well. So should you.”
30
GAMBIT
Revenge?” I breathed the word. I felt it like a sharp spike under my breastbone. ”For Davie!”
“And for me,” the queen said, her cheeks the color of a new rose. “These conspirators intend to murder more than Davie.”
I took a step back, my worst fears spoken aloud. “They would not dare murder you, Madam?”
“Once Darnley has the crown matrimonial, I will be no more use to them. Only dear Davie stood in their way. And now he is gone.”
“Oh, mon Dieu!” I fell to my knees, put my head in my hands, and wept, my dreams of heroism drowned in a storm of tears.
Leaning forward, the queen smoothed my hair. “There, there, child. I believe we are safe for this night at least. Else they would have killed us already.”
Suddenly I sat back. “Majesty, the townsfolk came racing here to Holyrood with pitchforks and cleavers. To save you.” My nose began to drip and I passed a hand under it. “They will not let that viper Ruthven touch you.”
“My dear Scots,” the queen whispered. “If I could only promote all those honest pawns into knights. But they will not be able to stand against armed guards with only pitchforks and cleavers. If the serpent really wants to bite me ...”
I sobbed again.
The queen pulled a square of linen from her sleeve. “Here, Nicola. No need to ruin that poor dress further. Dry yourself and sit by me. We must come up with some sort of plan. But—oh dear—I have never been any good at this sort of thing.”
She spoke lightly, as if to comfort me, and I must admit that it worked. Though my chest still felt tight, the storm of tears had passed. I sat by her on the bed and handed back the linen square.
With that calmness came a sudden canny thought, as if a measure of Davie’s cunning had seeped into me with his blood.
“Majesty,” I said hurriedly, “was it Lord Darnley who gave Ruthven and his men access to the private stairway?”
For a moment she looked away, biting her lip. “Yes.”
Now I saw—as Davie had done from the beginning—that it was the king who was key to the entire chessboard.
“Then ...” I said slowly, “who holds the king, wins the game.”
She turned back to me. “The game, Nicola?”
I smiled sadly. “Your uncle, the duke, taught me more than he taught the King of France, I think, when he showed me how to play chess. We must take this king of yours.”
She gazed at me intently. “Brava, Nicola!” she whispered.
“Where is Darnley now?” I asked.
“In his own apartments, the door locked between us. As it will stay. Forever!”
I stood, went over to the window, and looked down. We were a long way from the courtyard—three full stories. I trembled, but did not let the queen see that, for she was counting on me with Davie gone.
By great good fortune at that very moment Darnley poked his head out and breathed deep of the night air. I had seen him do this before when drunk, trying to quell the heaving of his stomach.
I tiptoed back to the bed. “Majesty ...”
“Do not suggest an escape through the window, Nicola,” she whispered hoarsely. “Even had we a rope to lower to the ground, I am in no condition with a child in my belly for such an adventure.”
“Could you persuade the king to open his secret way for you?” I pointed to the locked door.
“It would scald my tongue to speak a single kind word to him.”
“But suppose ...” I said, raising my hand when she opened her mouth to object again. “Just suppose he came to you as a supplicant, begging your forgiveness and obedient to your will?”
The queen stared at me as though I had suggested we both sprout wings. “Nicola, I have not the spirit for jesting right now.”
“I speak as a fool, yes, but not in jest. Lord Darnley is weak of mind and easily swayed, is he not?” I knew the answer already.
“Like a dandelion seed puffed this way and that by the wind. Especially an ill wind.” She laughed bitterly.
I put a finger to my lips to quiet her. “Then ... perhaps, Madam, my foolishness might sway him as easily. Have you some token I might take to him?” Please, I thought, make it so.
She looked at me quizzically, then went to a small bedside chest and took out a large brooch studded with sapphires. “He has always admired this,” she whispered. “As he has my kingdom, he may as well have this bauble, too.”
I took the brooch from her carefully, never having handled anything so magnificent. Then I fastened it under the folds of my skirt, where it could not be seen. But, I thought, where I can reach it easily.
“How will you get to the king’s apartments?” Queen Mary asked. Her voice never raised above a whisper. “The door to our private stair is locked from his side and the entrance to his chambers will be well guarded.”
“Perhaps you cannot climb down,” I said quietly, “but I have only myself to carry. His window is open and it is no great distance.” No further, I thought grimly, than the depth of a grave.
“We have no rope.” She looked around the room. “Except the bellpull?”
“Not strong enough,” I said. “Nor long enough.”
“The bedsheets?”
I nodded. “You are better at these games than you think, Majesty. The bedsheets will do.” I hope.
“I forbid it, child.”
“Your Majesty,” I whispered, “I am almost seventeen, a child no longer. There is another child we need worry about now.” With an intimacy that bordered on insolence, I placed my hand flat on her stomach.
She looked at me gravely, then covered my hand with her own.
I set to work at once, stripping a pair of sheets from her bed and knotting them tightly together. Then, with her help, I maneuvered the table out of the supper room and we picked it up and carried it to the window—not daring to drag it because of the sound. There we tied the end of the sheets to a thick table leg.
Looking out the window again, I saw a sentry strolling below. As soon as he disappeared around a corner, I threw the end of my makeshift rope over the ledge.
Kicking off my shoes, I hiked up my skirts, then slung a leg over the sill. I took hold of the sheet with both hands and spoke to the queen as casually as I could.
“Once I am down, Madam, and into the king’s chamber,” I whispered quickly, “you must pull the rope back into the room before anyone below catches sight of it.” And do not be slow!
“I will, Nicola. You can count on me. But what if the king becomes ...”
The word lustful hung in the silence between us.
I shook my head. “Say a prayer to Our Lady for me, and that will be my best protection.” Or a kick where it will harm him most!
I wished I were half so brave as I sounded. Half so brave as in my own thoughts. My heart was beating in my breast like a carpenter hammering nails.
Lowering myself by the makeshift rope, I began down, moving right hand below left. All the while, I planted my feet as firmly as I could against the grey stone.
Inch by slow inch I descended. It seemed impossible that I would complete my journey before a guard came by again and spied me. Glancing up, I saw the queen. She nodded her encouragement.
“Go on,” she mouthed at me. “Hurry.” And something else. I think it was, “Godspeed.”
I felt the sheets give as the table shifted slightly and feared the knots were about to come loose and send me plunging helplessly down the full three stories.
For a moment I could not move. But the queen’s prayers must have worked, for the line held. I looked up and she nodded again.
I started down once more and, having reached the end of the sheets, felt around with the tips of my toes till I touched the open window. Then my toes found the bottom of the casement itself and I positioned myself on the stone sill.
There was no sound from w
ithin. Silently I thanked God that the king had not spotted me. Nor had any guard. I let go of the sheet, stretched out my arms, and pressed my palms hard against the jambs of the window. It was all I could do to hold in a whoop of triumph.
Seeing me secure, the queen began reeling in the sheets while I surveyed the room before me. Darnley was seated with his back to me, so absorbed in his contemplation of the fire in the hearth, he had not heard a thing. There was a small table beside his chair on which sat a bottle and a half-filled glass of wine.
Carefully I sat down on the window’s sill, then edged down to the floor. I crept up to his chair, making no sound in my stockinged feet. How to best attract his attention without starting an alarm?
Before I could come to a decision, Darnley let out a long sigh, then stood up, and turned around.
His eyes grew wide with astonishment and his hand leaped for his dagger. Then realizing who I was, he demanded, “Where in damnation did you come from?”
“Through the window like a bird,” I replied lightly.
He glanced at the window, then back at me scowling. “Well, little bird, I will toss you out again. We will see how well you fly.”
“Your Majesty,” I said with a deep curtsy, “if you wish me to fly away, I certainly will. Only let me finish the small errand I was engaged to do.”
He eyed me suspiciously. “What errand?”
“The queen beseeched me—so humbly I could scarcely bear it—to make my way here and bring back word that you are unharmed.”
“Unharmed?” he repeated, staring at me. “What harm should come to me now that I rule undisputed in Scotland?”
He spoke boldly but his pale brow was slick with sweat and his right hand trembled involuntarily. He reached for his wine cup. It was clear he had had little stomach for the night’s horrors. He probably had not counted on all the blood.
The blood! My dress was still stained with it. Darnley was trembling because of it!
He set the glass down again without tasting it.
“What harm could you come to?” I touched the bloody spots on my dress for emphasis. “That is exactly what I asked the queen. But I could not abate her anxiety. She gave me this as a token of her continued love.” I turned my back, reached under my skirt, undid the brooch, then turned and offered it to him with a flourish: “Voila!”