by Jane Yolen
He shook his head and his hands tightened on my shoulders. “Nicola, even those lairds loyal to her do not know what to do. How can you and I act, who have no armies to hand?”
Tears sprang into my eyes. “What matters is to find some way to free her. Only that. I have nothing to lose but the queen. Perhaps that makes me freer to fight for her.” I pulled away from him and sat down on a small wooden bench.
But Joseph was not finished. “Nicola, think—think! How many of the Scots nobles will actually want to help even should she become free? An infant king upon the throne suits them very well. There will be a series of regents and a council of lords ruling the country. By the time King Jamie comes of age, the lairds will have lined their pockets with gold many times over.”
“You make things sound beyond our control,” I whispered.
“Things are beyond our control, Nicola.” He gazed at me beseechingly. “It is folly to think otherwise. The queen is locked away in an impenetrable fortress on an unreachable island. What do you think we can do?”
“I do not know,” I confessed with a weary shake of my head. “Call it folly, if you will, but we must still try.”
Joseph raised his eyes to the ceiling, spread out his hands, and gave vent to a loud string of Italian curses.
“Do not be angry with me,” I begged him tearfully. “You know I cannot abandon the queen.”
“I am not angry with you,” he said. “I am angry at myself for being such a fool that I cannot leave you.” And so saying, he took two great steps over to the bench and gathered me up in his arms.
Before we could speak further, a hidden door in the panelled wall opened and the four Maries walked into the room.
42
MOUSE AND LION
Joseph and I sprang apart, like deer startled in a copse. But we continued to hold hands.
It had been a long while since I had seen the Maries together.
Regal Mary led the way. She still had that high tilt of head, but was less animated than usual. In fact, all the Maries were curiously subdued. The flickering candlelight cast deep shadows over their faces, which seemed to make the mood even more somber.
How sad that a reunion of such oldfriends should take place under these troubling circumstances, I thought.
I turned from Joseph to greet them and they each kissed me, one cheek, then the other, and nodded at Joseph. Then we went into the great dining hall and sat uncomfortably around a great oak banqueting table as though for a meal, but without a thing to eat before us. Pious Mary had drawn the heavy velvet curtains so that no one might spy on us.
Just so, I thought, ministers sit to plan a war.
Pious Mary was the first to speak. “Thanks to the intervention of Mistress Maitland’s husband,” she said, “I have been given permission to join the queen at Lochleven.”
I cast a glance at Regal Mary, so recently married to that chameleon, Maitland. Had she been uneasy being the intermediary between her new husband and Pious Mary? After all, Maitland had never seemed the queen’s most loyal councilor. Regal Mary’s cheeks had spots of red, a glow not of health but—I thought—of embarrassment.
Regal Mary said in a casual voice, “William is doing all that he can to ensure the queen’s safety and comfort. He must be careful, however, for if he falls out of favor with the other lords, she will have no friends at court at all.” All the while she spoke, her hands wrangled with one another.
“What about Lord James?” I asked. “How can he allow his queen and kinswoman to be treated like this?” And then I remembered how he had been put to the horn by the queen and his lands almost forfeit. Was he paying her back now?
“Lord James has made common cause with that vulture Knox,” Jolly Mary reported. I had never before heard her merry voice so soured. “While Lord James bolsters the Protestant cause, Knox lauds him from the pulpit. One dirty hand washing the other.”
“Can you not raise enough men to free the queen?” I asked.
Joseph put a hand on mine. “Remember Lochleven is on an island. Such a movement of men across the loch would be seen.”
“And,” added Regal Mary, “my husband says that would only guarantee the queen’s immediate execution.”
A gasp ran around the table. I was not the only one to make a noise.
“Execute a queen?” I said, rising. “They would not dare.”
“You forget,” Joseph said quietly, pulling me down, “she is queen no longer.”
“She was forced to sign the abdication,” I retorted.
“Nevertheless,” Regal Mary said, “by law she is no longer queen. It is much simpler to execute someone who was once queen than...”
The rest of her sentence was shortened by the loud sounds of Pretty Mary bursting into tears.
I handed her a square of linen and she covered her mouth with it, stifling the sobs.
“If the queen is to escape,” said Pious Mary, with an unaccustomed air of authority, “the plan must be executed from inside Lochleven. But she has not had any of her own retainers with her before. Now, however ...”
“Hurrah!” cried Jolly Mary.
I turned and looked at Regal Mary—Mistress Maitland. She smiled tentatively as if unsure of herself.
“God will bless you,” I whispered to her.
She looked down at her hands and the tears started at the edges of her eyes.
Pious Mary cleared her throat and we all looked at her again. “I am allowed a maid to accompany me.”
We were silent for a long moment, then all at once her meaning was clear.
“Me,” I said standing. “You must take me with you.”
She smiled, and it was the perfectly composed smile of a nun who is certain in her mind of salvation. “I had it in mind all along.”
“Even if you cannot free her, you can at least lighten her spirits, said Pretty Mary, her face scrubbed free of the tears. ”Take her some lovely things to comfort her. I have a doublet and skirt of white satin and some cambric and linen cloth. She will want shoes. We have the same size foot. And good sheets. Maybe dry plums, and netting needles and ...”
“Enough,” Regal Mary said sharply. “You make this sound like a day at a holy day fair, while we are speaking of rescue.”
“Nicola,” said Joseph, taking a gentle hold of my arm and pulling me back into my seat, “think about what you are doing. This is not our land. From the start, we have been regarded with contempt and suspicion for our foreign speech and for our faith. We can leave now and make a new life where we will not be in danger from these quarrelsome Scots.”
I turned to him. “You are the hunted man, Joseph, and you must go while you can. But my name is on no one’s list.”
It was not what he wanted to hear. His face closed in on itself, becoming pinched and sad.
“I will stay,” he said. With an effort at lightness, he added, “There must be someone to make a worthy ballad out of your adventures, Nicola. I cannot leave so important a task to some rough-tongued Scotsman.”
“Oh, Joseph!” I cried.
“If you will not run away with me,” he said with a shrug, “then we will both have to remain in the lions’ den a little longer.”
I turned to the Maries and asked, “When do we leave?”
“In the morning,” Regal Mary said, standing.
“You knew all along....”
“That you would go? Of course. It is in your nature. But I ask one favor of you, Jardinière.”
I nodded and she came over to hand me a gold ring decorated with a finely-wrought picture of a lion and a mouse.
“I know that story,” I said. “The mouse saves the lion.”
“You told it to us many times,” Regal Mary said smoothly. “Tell it again to the queen, and give her this token. Say that she has many small friends ready to chew through her bonds.”
“We will need sharp teeth, my ladies,” Joseph said. “Very sharp teeth indeed.”
43
ISLAND PRISON
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Lochleven was not that far from Edinburgh in miles, not far from Stirling Castle, either, but it might have been the end of the world for all of that.
At the first sight of the loch, my heart sank. The flat grey water looked forbiddingly cold. It mirrored a flat grey sky.
Out on the rugged little island in the center of the loch, the squat five-story keep rose up like a fist.
I shuddered. From where we stood, I could see there was scarcely a ribbon of land between the surrounding castle walls and the rocky island shore.
Climbing from the carriage, I whispered to Pious Mary, “An army could not make a successful assault here.”
She nodded. “May God help us.”
I understood at that moment that if there were to be any kind of rescue, it was up to Mary and me.
I squared my shoulders and lifted my head. I had gotten the queen out of Holyrood. I had survived Kirk o’Field. I would not let a little thing like an island prison defeat me.
“We can do it, Lady Mary,” I told her. “We mice have very sharp teeth.”
She did not answer. But she smiled.
Our escort was under strict orders to turn back once we were at the shore. The bowmen along the castle battlements watched as we made our farewells. We knew they could not hear us, but still we spoke in low voices.
Pious Mary told the captain of our guard, “Give my father my love. And tell Mistress Maitland the mice have arrived.”
He gave a curt nod and then the carriage and its escort turned and started back towards Castle Seton, leaving us to the grey loch and the island prison.
At a jetty, a boatman helped us into his small vessel and began rowing us towards the island. The creaking and splashing of the oars was loud enough to alert any castle defenders of our approach.
No sneaking in, I thought.
Suddenly a solitary heron sailed over-us, its long extended neck like a lance. Then it was gone, to the farthest shore.
The mirrored water reflected only a few bare trees and the dreary Lomond hills massing on the horizon. I could feel my insides constrict, as if I had fallen into the water.
The boatman spoke not a word; I fancied his lips were frozen shut by the rising mist and cold. I began to shiver and Mary pulled her cloak more tightly about her as we neared the island, as though the castle itself were the source of the chill.
As soon as the boat reached the shore, three soldiers with drawn swords marched out from the castle gate. Bounding ahead of them like a hare before hounds came a youngish man who gallantly offered a hand to Mary. She hesitated a moment, then accepted his assistance. I clambered out without any help, and stood well away from the soldiers, pulling my cape tighter still.
Behind us the water lapped sullenly at the shore, a bleak reminder that we were now cut off from all help.
The young man turned to the soldiers. “Put yer swords away, lads. This is hardly an invasion,” he commanded. Then he turned back to us. “My apologies, ladies. My brother keeps the guard on constant alert. It makes them edgy.” He pushed unruly curls away from his face and grinned.
Mary acknowledged him with only the slightest of nods.
“Well ...” he said, “welcome to Lochleven, then.” He made an absurdly formal bow. “I am George Douglas, brother to Lord William Douglas, lord of this castle. I hope we can make ye comfortable.”
“I am Mary, daughter of Lord Seton,” Mary responded with imposing dignity. From the way she fingered her rosary, I guessed that she was nervous. “And this is Nicola, my maid.”
George Douglas acknowledged me with a nod and I gave him a quick curtsy, as if I really were but a lady’s maid. Then he ordered his men to carry our baggage—what little there was of it. We followed him through the gate under the eyes of dozens more armed soldiers and under an increasingly dismal sky. I saw now, even more than before, that any attempt to free the queen by force would be futile indeed.
The great square block of the stone keep towered over us.
“My family is staying in the keep. The queen’s quarters are there as well,” he said. “Though first she was lodged in the Glassin Tower.”
“As far as possible from the landward shore,” Mary noted.
George Douglas shrugged. “My brother moved her soon after she came. He says the Tower House is more easily guarded at night. Though where he thinks the queen might go ...” He said nothing further.
By the time we got to the keep, rain was spitting down. I glanced over at the loch, where the once glassy water was now pitted.
We opened the heavy door and, one after another, walked up the narrow stairway, George Douglas in the lead.
The Tower House, which they called the keep, was certainly the most substantial building on the island, with five floors. We entered on the second floor through a cross-barred iron gate.
“Unusual,” Mary commented dryly.
A wooden screen reduced the draftiness of the hall, and when we came into the presence chamber itself, there was the queen sitting against an oriel window and gazing out at the far shore.
George Douglas cleared his throat and she turned, leaped up, and almost danced across the room to greet us.
“Ah, the purest jewel of my Maries and the prettiest flower in my garden!” she declared. “What a welcome sight you are!”
At the sight of her, my breath stopped and I felt as frightened and as happy as I had that first evening we had met in the garden at Rheims. She was not radiant as she had been then, where only one death had stood between her and all the world’s goodness. But she was alive.
Alive!
And I was with her.
I gave a great curtsy, sweeping down before her. “My queen!” I said.
She pulled me up and looked at me for a long time, as if drinking me in. “I knew Mary was coming, but you, Nicola—you are a wonderful surprise.”
How dim a portrait she presents, I thought, who once shone like the sun. She had a terrible pallor. The simple wool dress she was wearing, with but a touch of lace at collar and cuffs, emphasized the awful thinning-down of all her features. She was bone on bone, her sufferings lending her an ethereal air which had a beauty all its own. But she was still the queen.
George Douglas fell on one knee before her. “I will have quarters prepared for your ladies, Madam,” he said, “and as ever I stand ready to fetch anything you need.”
She smiled wordlessly at him; he rose and left the room.
As the door closed after him, Mary raised an eyebrow. “I had not expected to find such a queen’s knight in this cold place.”
The queen smiled. “He is quite the gallant, and my one friend here. Until this moment, that is.” She reached out, took our hands and, for a moment, said nothing. Then she smiled and an old beauty returned to her face. “Come, ladies, tell me all your news. I hunger for it more than food.”
We sat together near the window, knee to knee to knee. I noticed the queen did not like to stray far from the view of the loch and the shore beyond. It came to me suddenly that it was all the kingdom that was left her.
Outside the rain sputtered and coughed, like a man with a catarrh. The single heron flew silently back over the loch towards the nearer shore.
“There is much to tell,” Mary said. “And little.”
So we told her what we could, and then she asked me about Joseph.
“He stays in Scotland for your sake, Madam,” I said. “Hidden but near.”
“I suspect, rather, he stays for you, my dear,” she said. “You see—even through the worst of my ills ...” She sighed and held a hand to her breast. “Even then I could not help but notice his devotion. But he must leave while he has the chance.” She turned her head for a moment to look out at the loch.
“I told him to go,” I said, my voice suddenly miserable. “But he would not.”
The queen looked back at me. “I commend his constancy,” she said. “But I would not have his death on my conscience.”
“Nor mine, Majesty,�
� I whispered. “But it is your welfare we should be concerning ourselves with, Madam.”
Mary nodded, adding briskly, “You have been unwell, Highness. It is easy to see, for it is written across your face.”
“Ah, Mary Seton, ever the flatterer,” the queen said, smiling. Then her face went serious again. “It is true that I was ill for many weeks after coming here. I miscarried twins in the Glassin Tower, a last bitter legacy from Lord Darnley. Armed guards stood over me day and night as I struggled with the pain.” She laughed but there was no merriment in it.
Oh dear queen, I thought, who was once so happy.
“What they thought might happen,” the queen continued, “I do not know. I had scarce the strength to crawl from my bed, much less attempt escape. By the time the lairds came by with their papers of abdication, I had not the will to resist them.”
“I knew it!” I cried, grabbing up her hands in mine. “I knew it!” Then, realizing what I had done—touching her without permission—I set her hands back in her lap again with infinite care.
“We all knew it,” Mary said. “Madam, there are many in your kingdom who still consider you the queen.”
Queen Mary sighed and looked out the window again, where the rain had begun in earnest. I could not help but feel that the very heavens were weeping the tears I was trying to keep in check.
The queen said very quietly, so quietly we had to lean forward to hear, “I think they hoped I would have the decency to die.” She smiled sadly out at the loch, which was now almost obscured by a heavy curtain of rain. “I did not oblige them.”
“An obligation,” I said, in the bright voice I used as fool, “that they dare not compel.”
She turned back and looked at me. “I have missed you especially, my dear little fool. And have thought of you often. What would Nicola say, I ask myself. What story would she tell me?”
“If any thought of me gave you peace, Madam,” I said, clasping my hands as if in prayer, “then I have proved my worth.”
“You have done that already a hundredfold,” she said.