Royal Road to Fotheringhay

by Jean Plaidy

  He cared for nothing now but the surrender of the woman. If it meant death, it must go on now. It was the first time he had seen her, stripped of her royalty. It was the first time he had discovered what a very desirable woman she was.

  He pulled her toward him and roughly caressed her body. Mary was trembling with rage and sobbing with terror. She knew that this encounter had cast its warning over her many a time. It was the meaning of those insolent looks. He would treat her now as he would any peasant over the Border. He cared nothing for the fact that she was the Queen. There was only one thing that was of importance to him; the satisfaction of his vile nature.

  She kicked and tried to bite. It was all she could do for she was pinioned. He had turned and, holding her firmly with one arm, locked the door.

  She stammered: “This… this… outrage…. It is the most monstrous thing that ever happened to me.”

  “It will also be the most enjoyable,” he said.

  “You will lose your head for this.”

  “No,” he said. “You have never had a lover yet, my Queen. Wait… have patience…. Don’t fight… and then the sooner will you come to pleasure.”

  He had torn her robe from her shoulder. She was conscious of her weakness compared with his great strength. He lifted her in his arms then as though he read her thoughts and would stress the fact that she was impotent to resist him.

  “It is no use screaming,” he said. “No one will hear. They’ll not break the door down if they do. How could they? Poor Bastian! That feeble Frenchman? Fat Margaret? Have no fear. None shall disturb us.”

  “You have gone mad,” she said.

  “It is a temporary madness, they say.”

  “You forget… I am the Queen.”

  “Let us both forget it. Queens should not bring their royalty to the bedchamber.”

  “Put me down. I command you. I beg you.”

  “I mean to… here on your bed.”

  He put her onto it. She tried to scramble up but he had forced her down. She struggled until she was exhausted. The room was spinning round her. She thought afterward that she fainted for a while. She was not sure. She was aware of his heart and hers beating together… heavy, ominous beating.

  She had no strength left to hold him off. She lay passive without resistance, without resentment or anger. There was nothing but this extraordinary, overwhelming emotion—this mingling of fury and pleasure, of a terrible shame and an unaccountable joy.

  SHE LAY ON her bed long after he had gone.

  What has happened to me? she asked herself. Why do I not send for Moray? Why do I not order the immediate arrest of Lord Bothwell? On what charge? The rape of the Queen?

  She remembered that she would present a strange sight if Lady Reres came to the room. She got up from her bed. She gazed at her torn clothes which he had thrown onto the floor. How explain them? But they would be part of the evidence she would need to bring him to the scaffold. The rape of the Queen! She could hear the words now. She could hear John Knox thundering them from his pulpit. He would say that she had encouraged Bothwell. “No,” she said aloud as if in answer to his imagined accusation. “It is not true. I always disliked him. Now I hate him. How dared he? The shame of it… the shame of it!”

  She could not shut it out of her mind. Every detail was clear in her memory. His face … his eyes… his hands, tearing her clothes.

  “He forced me,” she murmured. “He dared… and I the Queen! By now he will be speeding for the Border. He will be terrified of the punishment, which can be nothing less than death.”

  She took the torn clothes and hid them in a closet. She could not bear that anyone else should see the shameful evidence. Hastily she wrapped a damask robe about her, and smoothed her wild hair. Now she felt a little calmer. There were still red patches on her face, on her neck and her body. She touched her left cheek gently. Would those marks never go?

  She began to pace up and down the apartment. The Queen who was dishonored! The Queen who was defiled! He had planned this thing. He had known that she would be here. Moray had said once that David Chambers was his procurer and was known as “Bothwell’s Bawd.” David Chambers brought women to his house and Bothwell went there to visit them. So Chambers had procured the Queen for Bothwell. He would have lent his house for the purpose. Bothwell had clearly come from Chambers’s house and, because she was ill-guarded, he had found a way to her apartment.

  She would never be able to look the man in the face again. Indeed she would not need to. He should be imprisoned at once and hurried to execution. He should not live to gloat over his conquest. But how could she proclaim the crime to the world? She pictured herself telling Moray. “He came to my room. I could not hold him off. He forced me….”

  She imagined the smiles, the whispers. “Why did the Queen go to the Exchequer House? Oh, ’tis next door to David Chambers’s and he is Both-well’s Bawd.”

  “What shall I do?” she whispered to herself. “What can I do?”

  Lady Reres came up to the room. She should reprimand the woman. She had been careless. She and Bastian must have left some door unlatched. But how could she talk to Lady Reres of what had happened? How could she talk of that terrible thing at all?

  “Are you disturbed, Madam?” asked Lady Reres.

  “Disturbed?” cried the Queen. “No… no. I am feeling tired. I think… that I am a little unwell. I feel coming on one of those attacks which I had so often when I was in France.”

  “Should I send for a physician, Your Majesty?”

  “No … no. Rest will suffice. Leave me. I will go to bed. Rest is what I need. I do not wish to be disturbed. Oh… but… sleep here tonight. I… I have a fancy not to be left alone this night.”

  Lady Reres drew the curtains and the long night began. She did not sleep at all. She lived through it all again. The opening of the door… every detail until that moment when she had found herself alone with her shame and that excitement which made her heart thunder till her body was shaking.

  SHE RETURNED to Holyroodhouse next day. She could not bear to stay in the Exchequer House, although she had not finished the work she had gone there to do.

  Bothwell had the effrontery to wait upon her with the other noblemen of the Court.

  As he knelt before her, her heart thundered. He had raised his insolent eyes to her face, and his smile was conspiratorial, as though they had shared a charming adventure together.

  Her eyes kindled; her temper flared and impulsive words rose to her lips.

  Arrest that man! she wanted to say, and was almost on the point of doing so. In time she pictured the ensuing scene. Moray would ask: “On what grounds, Madam?” “On the grounds of rape.” “The rape of whom, Madam?” “The rape of the Queen.”

  There was nothing she could do unless she would expose herself to greater humiliation, and the cunning rogue, the violator of the innocent, knew it. She was conquered in her own Court as she had been in her bedchamber. She dared say nothing. She was afraid. That was the truth. She could not publicly own to her shame. She dared not face the calumnies of Knox. Consequently it seemed that he who had committed this great sin would go unpunished.

  But she would find other ways to make him suffer for what he had done. She would find some way of banishing him from the Court, for his presence there would be a constant reminder.

  Even now she could not prevent her thoughts from going over and over what had happened on that night.

  He found an opportunity to speak to her. She was tense as he stood beside her. She could almost feel again his hands tearing her clothes, forcing her on to the bed.

  He said: “Now that we are such friends, Madam, I wish to ask a favour. Do not grant Maitland permission to return to Court.”

  She turned her back. But that, in the presence of the others, was too pointed a rebuff. He had been in such high favour before to-day. If her manner towards him so obviously changed people would wonder why. They might even guess. That secret must be kep
t.

  She said in a low strained voice: “You are no friend of mine and never shall be. You need never again make a request to me, for it shall not be granted. You shall lose your head for what you have done. Do not think that because it is still on your shoulders it shall remain there.” It was difficult to put the vehemence she felt into those words, for she must keep her voice very low in case it should be overheard.

  “A pity,” he said. “I fancied you thought my person rather pleasant when we last met.”

  “You fancy, my lord,” she answered, and she forced herself to smile, “that you have behaved in a clever way. You know that I cannot denounce your conduct because of the great shame it has brought me. But do not imagine that will save you.”

  “Madam, do not pretend that last nights encounter brought any less pleasure to you than to me. It was startling… unexpected. I myself had not planned it, but how happy I am that it happened. There shall now be no holding back of all the joy we shall bring to each other.”

  “I have never heard such insolence.”

  “You have never had a lover worthy of you before, Madam. Startling, is it not? It would be easier to explain if we were alone.”

  “I shall see to it that I am never again alone with you. Moreover I shall require you to swear friendship with Lord Maitland when he returns to Court—which he will very soon do.”

  He bowed. “Madam,” he said, “your wish is law.”

  A FEW DAYS LATER she returned to the Exchequer House. It was necessary that she should do so for there was much to prepare for the Princes christening, and as she had undertaken the work, she told herself that she must finish it. She had thought on that never-to-be-forgotten night that she could never bear to be in that room again, that she could never bear to lie on that bed. Oddly enough that was just what she now wished to do.

  She could not settle down to her task. She could not decide what clothes must be bought for her servants. She could not decide what she herself should wear. She could only think of Bothwell. I did the only thing possible, she kept telling herself. There was nothing else I could do. How could I have told anyone what occurred?

  On the first day of her return to the Exchequer House Lady Reres came to announce that Lord Bothwell was below and wished to see her.

  She turned away that Lady Reres might not see her face. “No, Reres,” she said shortly. “I’m busy.”

  “He said it was a most important matter of state, Madam. He begs you to see him.”

  She did not answer, but she thought: I must show him that I have no fear of him. But this time there shall be no locking of the door.

  She told Lady Reres that he might come up and state his business if he could do so with brevity.

  He stood before her, insolent as ever, towering above her, reminding her of his strength.

  “It is a marvelous thing to me,” she said, “that you dare come to this room again.”

  “Madam, I have a fondness for this room. I shall always remember it as the four walls within which I enjoyed the greatest experience of your life.”

  “You are unbearably insolent.”

  “I but seek to speak the truth, Madam.”

  “Lord Bothwell, I will not endure your insolence. I have decided that you shall not escape punishment for what you have done. I cannot proclaim your latest misdeeds to the world since I myself was forced to play such an unhappy part in them.”

  “Unhappy! You do not know yourself. You have a great capacity for loving, Madam. You have not realized how great. But I have. Would Your Majesty cast back your thoughts to that night and be entirely honest with yourself? Will you ask yourself whether, when you ceased to fight and began to relax, you found that what I so ardently desired was not Your Majesty’s own desire?”

  She stared at him. She put out her hands as though to ward him off. He came toward her, ignoring her outstretched hands. There was nothing of the courier about him. He caught her to him and laughed. Then he bent her backward and kissed her. Knowledge of the truth came to her then. There was something in herself which called to that in him which was primitive and barbaric.

  “Why did you come back to this house?” he whispered. “Tell me that! Why… why?”

  She did not answer. She was breathless with agitation and expectation, for it was clear to her now why she had come back. It was to offer this challenge to him. It was to bring him back here again.

  He knew her even better than she knew herself.

  She had come back because he had set a torch to that desire in her which had been lying dormant. He had provoked a mighty conflagration. She desired him now with an intensity which equaled his. And when two such as they recognized their needs, nothing could restrain them.

  She felt herself lifted in his arms. It was happening again… not in her imagination, but in reality.

  THEY WERE lovers now. She could think of little else but Bothwell—the last meeting, the next meeting. The periods between were irksome times of waiting.

  Flem had become Lady Maitland of Lethington; Beaton had married Alexander Ogilvie; of the Queen’s four Marys there was only Seton left. Yet it did not seem important; no one was important but Bothwell.

  Some already knew of the relationship between them. It was impossible to keep it entirely secret; Bastian, her French servant, knew, and so, of course, did Lady Reres. Seton knew. Others whispered that Lord Both-well seemed to be in high favor with the Queen and it appeared that he would soon be taking the place, in her counsels, of David Rizzio. David’s brother, Joseph, was now at Court and Mary had given him a high place. Yet she was scarcely aware of the young man; she was aware of little but Bothwell.

  Darnley watched her. He would stay away from Court, sulking in his father’s castle; then he would return, coming to her apartments, demanding his rights. He was more despicable to Mary than he had ever been; he seemed quite repulsive. How could I ever have thought I was in love with such a man? she asked herself again and again. It was inexplicable, especially as Lord Bothwell had so often been there for her to see. She had been blind—blind to life, blind to passion, blind to love.

  Now she had miraculously lost her blindness. This was living. This was what she had been born for.

  DARNLEY WAS frightened. Maitland was back at Court, and Maitland was one of those lords who had felt it necessary to leave Court after the murder of Rizzio. This was but a beginning, thought Darnley. He knew that Moray and Maitland would now urge the Queen to pardon Morton, young Ruthven and the rest of them, restore their estates and bring them back to Court. And when they came, what would be their first action?

  Darnley was a fool, but any fool would know the answer.

  He had been present at the murder of Rizzio; he had given his support to the murderers; the murder had been done in his name—out of his jealousy of the Queen. Yet he had turned traitor. He had changed sides at the crucial moment, so the plot had failed in some way. Rizzio had died, it was true, but the Queen had escaped. She had gathered her followers about her and, with Huntley and Bothwell, had returned to Edinburgh triumphant; the murderers, in spite of all their elaborate plans, had been defeated and forced into exile. And who was to blame? Darnley!

  They would never forget and they would never forgive.

  And soon the drama would be enacted all over again; but in place of Rizzio there would be Darnley.

  If and when the lords returned, he dared not stay. And Maitland was already back.

  He was frantic. He began to make plans. He would get into touch with the Pope; he would write to Philip of Spain. After all, was he not a good Catholic—a better Catholic than Mary with her talk of tolerance? Good Catholics did not talk of tolerance. Why should he not procure the support of the Catholic world? Why should he not usurp Mary’s throne? Perhaps one day he would be King, not only of Scotland but of England as well. Moreover he was the father of the undisputed heir.

  Lennox, his father, was alarmed on hearing of his plans—for Darnley had to confide in someone, and
the only person whom he could trust was his father.

  “But, my son,” said the Earl of Lennox, “this is ridiculous. The Pope would not aid you, and the King of Spain is a cautious man. He would not support a rebel such as you would be.”

  “A rebel! I am the King.”

  “In name only. The Crown Matrimonial has never been bestowed on you.”

  “It is so unjust. I was promised. And first Rizzio frustrated me… and now it is Moray and Bothwell. Maitland is back. My old enemy. He will kill me. I know he will. He will bring the murderer Morton back, and together they will kill me.”

  Lennox, in great agitation on account of his son’s hysteria, wrote to the Queen telling her that Darnley proposed leaving Scotland for Spain.

  Mary sent for her husband. He came, ill at ease.

  “What are these wild plans of yours?” she demanded.

  “I shall not tell you.”

  “Henry, I insist.”

  “Why should I stay here?” he screamed. “What am I? You only want me to stay because you fear the scandal my departure would give rise to. Take me back. I demand to be taken back. I wish to be your husband in very truth. Let me stay with you, share your bed and board. Then you shall not have a more faithful servant.” He threw himself at her and tried to put his arms about her. She drew back in disgust.

  “Mary… Mary,” he pleaded. “You used to love me. You used to come to my chamber because, you said, you wanted us to be alone even if it was only for a little while.”

  She pushed him away. She hated to remember those times; and even now she was comparing him with another. She would never allow Darnley to touch her.

  She said: “If you attempt to put your hands on me I shall call the guards.”

  He whimpered: “What have I done? How have I changed? You used to be eager for me.”

  “If you say that again you will regret it.”

  “But I will say it… I will!”

  “Go quietly now or I shall call the guards. In the morning you may state your case before the lords of the Court.”