The four Marys, always in the Queen’s company as they were duty-bound to be, overheard the criticism with bad grace.
But they soon forgot their resentment and became infected by the Queen’s enthusiasm and enjoyment, as they continued with their journey overland to the Loire. There a beautifully decorated barge was waiting to carry them along the great river towards the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where the royal children were supposed to be waiting to meet them. On the journey Marie even became much better-tempered with Guthrie Jamieson. Or perhaps it was because she was enjoying herself that she no longer noticed the Earl so much.
During the long journey both Mary’s guardians, Lord Erskine and Lord Livingstone, fell ill, but Duchess Antoinette’s formidable presence overcame all difficulties. She was always well-prepared to cope with any misfortune. It was even rumoured that she kept her coffin at the entrance to her private chapel, and she was always dressed in black.
She told Lady Fleming and Marie, ‘The King is away campaigning at present, but will return soon. But he has left orders about the precedence that Mary has to be given. Mary has to walk before his daughter, the Princess of France, firstly because she is going to marry the Dauphin, and secondly because she is already a crowned queen of an independent country.’
‘And I’m also told,’ the Duchess continued, ‘that the King has sent written instructions for the thorough cleaning of the castle of Saint-Germain. Every corner, every nook and cranny, has to be absolutely spotless, in honour of the Queen’s arrival.’
As it turned out, so detailed were the King’s instructions and so thorough the cleaning operation, that the royal children were still waiting at the medieval fortress of Carrières when Queen Mary and her suite arrived there.
By that time Marie had coached the Queen diligently in French and she had proved so quick and eager to learn, she was already able to hold quite a reasonable conversation in the language. The Duchess of Guise had tutored the Queen in the ways of the French, and special attention was paid to preparing her for the important day when she would meet her future bridegroom.
Even more important still was her first meeting with the King. But that was still some time away. First there was the meeting with the French royal children. The result of all Marie’s efforts was that the Queen could greet the royal children and converse with them quite happily in their own language, and the meeting went exceptionally well. But what delighted Marie more than anything was the meeting of the Queen and the Dauphin, Francis. She knew that Mary was a kind-hearted child, generous in spirit and in practice. Her tenderness towards the frail little Dauphin, however, touched Marie’s heart and gave an insight into the Queen’s character that would always stay with her. It was obvious that, from the moment they met, the Dauphin liked Mary.
The meeting with the King of France was as successful as the meeting had been with his children. He came to the nursery once they’d eventually arrived and settled in the castle of Saint-Germain. Marie marvelled yet again at the royal child’s grace and charm. The King of France was clearly impressed, describing Mary as ‘the most perfect child I have ever seen.’
When the King visited the nursery he always brought with him a beautiful cultured lady that Marie assumed to be the Queen. She learned later that the woman, who took such an interest in the royal nursery—the children’s education, ailments, food, their general upbringing—was Diane du Poitier, the King’s mistress.
The true Queen was the sinister Italian, Catherine di’ Medici. It was rumoured that Catherine had already caused the death of more than one person at the Court. It was even said that she dabbled in sorcery and the occult at the castle of Blois. Marie soon realised what a dangerous woman Catherine di’ Medici was. However, they did not see too much of her and Marie’s fears faded.
Often Marie thought how lucky she was. Fully occupied with the world of the royal child, Marie hardly saw the Earl of Edinburgh. The terrible events in Scotland had faded far into the distance, and only occasionally did the nightmare of the murder return to haunt her. Then one day when they were at the castle of Blois, an ambassador from Scotland came to pay court to the King and brought much news and gossip from the country of her birth. One piece of news that filtered down to the royal nursery was about a man being executed for the murder of the Duke of Glasgow.
Marie went cold with horror. A wave of guilt crushed her, as the terrible realisation dawned that some poor unfortunate had suffered in her place for the crime she had committed.
XIII
THE Bishop of Moray had felt no guilt at all. On the contrary, he thought he’d managed the unfortunate incident of the murder of the Duke of Glasgow with great skill and cunning. On that fateful night, Murdo McKeever had been waiting outside the door of the bedchamber as usual to attend to him. Every evening, as far back as the Bishop could remember, long, long before he had become a Bishop, Murdo had attended him and prepared him for bed.
The servant was old and decrepit and should have been dispensed with years ago. However, the old man had young grandchildren to provide for since the death of their parents and Murdo’s own wife from the plague, and he had pleaded so pathetically to be kept in his service that the Bishop had relented and allowed him to continue working. But the chances were that, despite the shadows of the passageway and the old man’s short-sightedness, Murdo had seen Marie run from the Duke of Glasgow’s bedchamber with the Duke’s blood on her clothes. Just in case he’d seen anything, Murdo had to be dealt with. So much was at stake. The Bishop could not gamble on Murdo keeping quiet. He had to be silenced.
The Bishop had taken him by the arm and led him into the Duke’s room. Murdo gasped in horror at the sight of the Duke’s bloodstained corpse lying prostrate on the floor. He began to tremble so much that the Bishop lifted a jug of whisky from a nearby table and filled a goblet. He drank from it himself, then he held it to the servant’s lips.
‘This will give us both strength,’ he said, encouraging the old man to quaff deeply. Spluttering and coughing, Murdo eventually managed to push the goblet aside. The Bishop took another drink.
‘Go and look closer, Murdo. Tell me if he is dead.’
Violently shaking, Murdo crouched down beside the body.
‘He’s dead all right, maister.’
‘Let me have the dagger.’
Murdo struggled to his feet, clutching the weapon.
‘No, on second thoughts,’ the Bishop raised his hand, ‘just wait here. Watch over the poor man until I return.’
‘Yes, maister.’
The old man looked helpless and confused, but as eager to please him as ever.
‘You are a good and loyal servant,’ the Bishop said in an unprecedented expression of praise. He even smiled at the old man although his eyes shifted from the crumpled face as it lit up with surprise and gratitude.
‘Thank you, maister.’
‘I won’t be long,’ the Bishop told him before leaving the room.
Downstairs in the great hall the revelry had become a mindless, drunken rabble. He raised a hand to quieten them. They fell silent.
‘I have terrible news,’ he called out. ‘Our good friend and generous host has been attacked in his bedchamber as my poor child was saying goodnight to her mother. She has been denied her future, her home, her husband. The Duke was set upon and brutally murdered while she was with her mother and myself in the room next to his bedchamber.’
He had been heard in a drunken stupor by people who looked half asleep. He had meant to go on to say that they could rest assured that he would do his best, with God’s help, to discover who had perpetrated the deed. But before he could say another word, the whole company had let out a sudden roar of grief as the meaning of his announcement had sunk in. As one man, they had stampeded from the hall, knocking candles over and plunging much of the place into darkness as they surged towards the passageway and up the stairs.
‘Machar! Machar!’ some of them were shouting as if they did not, or could not,
believe that he was dead. They had to see for themselves.
The Bishop hurried after them and knew by the second roar, this time of rage, that they’d reached the Duke’s bedchamber.
Shouting at the top of his voice—‘In God’s name, stand aside!’—he pushed his way into the room and forced himself between them and the terrified Murdo, who stood there dumbfounded, his mouth agape, still clutching the bloodstained dagger in his trembling hand.
‘Gentlemen, I implore you, keep calm!’
Still there were shouts of ‘Kill the murderer, burn him!’ and ‘Tear him limb from limb!’
‘Listen to me! Justice will be done,’ the Bishop shouted back, and held up the gold cross he wore round his neck. ‘But in the name of Jesus Christ, I command you—calm yourselves. Tomorrow morning we will gather in the forecourt at first light. Then justice can be seen to be done.’ They fell back from the cross, muttering, still unsure.
The Bishop continued, ‘I shall personally see him locked in the dungeon tonight. You have my word as a man of God that he shall be secured until tomorrow.’
Deflated, they turned away and, silent now in their grief, they disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.
‘Thank you, maister,’ Murdo sobbed. ‘God bless you. You are a guid man.’
‘You understand I must take you down to the dungeon? But do not fear. I shall do my best for you. I will return before first light and speak to you again. Meantime, I must think what can be done for the best.’
The old man nodded.
The Bishop awoke with a start to find daylight streaming in through the windows of his bedchamber. In a panic, he raced down the damp, evil-smelling stairs to the dungeons. He prayed that all was not lost, and he was relieved to find all was silent, except the turnkey snoring at his post.
He shook the man awake. The turnkey started to apologise but the Bishop ignored him and ordered him to open the door of Murdo’s cell immediately. At first he could see nothing in the pitch blackness of the cell and he called for a candle. In the flickering light he could just make out a vague shape. Huddled in a corner, Murdo looked like a bundle of bones covered in rags. The Bishop heard the squeaking of rats and the candle reflected in rodent eyes, making them gleam wickedly as they scurried away through the blackness.
‘Murdo?’ The Bishop leaned over him.
The old man made an attempt to struggle up but was gasping for breath and obviously in pain. He was clutching at his chest. Suddenly, from above, came the noise of an angry rabble crashing down the stairs.
‘My grandchildren.’ Murdo put a hand out, caught at the Bishop’s robe, and held on to it with desperate strength. ‘What about my grandchildren?’
‘I will take care of them,’ the Bishop assured him. ‘I will take them into my home and bring them up as if they were my own son and daughter. Have no fear.’
The old servant nodded and a look of gratitude and relief filled his eyes before they closed, the Bishop hoped, for the last time. Outside, the crowd was screaming for vengeance.
‘I think he’s dead,’ the Bishop announced as he emerged from the dungeon to face them.
‘Justice must be done.’ The cry echoed off the damp stone walls. ‘McNaughton must be avenged.’
They pounced on Murdo’s inert body, dragging it up the steps from the cell and out into the courtyard. There, although it was now obvious their victim was already dead, they tore the pathetic corpse apart and flung the pieces on to a dung heap. The Bishop looked on, horrified but relieved. It could all have been so much worse.
Much later, after the Bishop and his party had returned to Spynie, he sent for Murdo’s grandchildren. They lived in Murdo’s cottage in the grounds of the palace. Joseph and Agnes McKeever had been devastated by the news of Murdo’s fate. They were thirteen and twelve years old respectively, but neither of them shed a tear. Perhaps they believed that, at their age, it was too childish. For whatever reason, they just stared at him stony-faced.
‘I did my best for your grandfather,’ he assured them, ‘but he took a seizure in the end. The people were angry and desperate for revenge. But he felt nothing. God in his infinite mercy had, by that time, taken his spirit.’
He then explained to them about the promise he had made to old Murdo.
It was true that God worked in mysterious ways. Everything had been resolved for the best. Marie was far away in France. He’d packed her mother off to live with an ancient aunt on Orkney. There she could be of no danger to anyone. He’d said it was for her own peace of mind, but it was very much more for his own. He had kept his word as a Christian and a gentleman and taken Joseph and Agnes McKeever into his palace. He had even given them into the care of an excellent tutor, Mr Fraser—Marie’s old dominie. It would be easier, he decided, to find Agnes a husband if she had the polish of some learning and sophistication. Although at twelve years she was already becoming a pretty young woman. Not as beautiful as his red-haired Marie, but with her dark eyes and black hair, there was a strange smouldering quality about her that was, to say the least, intriguing. Her brother had the same dark brooding look, and both of them were strangely quiet.
Of course, the Bishop didn’t see them very often. They had their own quarters in the palace and their paths only crossed occasionally. The brother and sister answered any questions the Bishop put to them politely but briefly, and that was all. They gave no thanks, and showed no gratitude. The Bishop was disturbed by their strange behaviour but decided it was wiser not to pursue the matter. He wondered if they ever suspected anything. Yet how could they? They had not seen their grandfather alive since the Duke’s murder and so had no opportunity to hear any protestation of innocence from the old man.
Everyone else, the clergy, the parishioners, the servants, all praised the Bishop for being so good to the family of Murdo McKeever. The man must have been overcome by the madness of senility to have committed such a crime, everyone said. Senility, combined with and probably accentuated by drink, because he’d reeked of whisky, it was said. Nevertheless, for the Bishop to have been so good and generous to the man’s family after what he’d done …
‘The family are innocent of any crime,’ he’d pronounced. ‘As a man of God, I cannot allow them to suffer. I feel it is my Christian duty to do what I can for them.’
Even the Archbishop of Glasgow had praised him for his saintliness. Yes, saintliness, they all said. Except for Joseph and Agnes McKeever, who said nothing.
Machar McNaughton had been extremely proud of his son, and had tried everything in his power to secure Gavin’s release from captivity in England. But to no avail. On the night he was murdered, he was to hand over the ransom demanded, but the Earl of Edinburgh had had other plans.
And so Gavin McNaughton rotted away in an English dungeon, unaware that he was the new Duke of Glasgow. He thought that his captors would demand ransom money from his father, but as the months passed, he gradually began to realise that he had been abandoned. Why had no-one come? Surely the price demanded was not so high for a man of the Scottish nobility?
Then, at last, a message reached him from Scotland. It was from McNairn, his father’s factor, who managed the Naughton estates, and it told him that his father was dead, murdered, and there was no money to pay the ransom. Apparently his father had large debts, and the English were demanding two thousand gold pieces. There was only one way of escape, the letter said, and that was to mortgage the estates and the castle itself.
Gavin sat in his cell, sunk in a deep depression. He could not believe what was happening to him. Finally he decided—if he had to mortgage the castle, so be it, he would do just that. It would be a damned hard struggle to pay back the ransom money, and it would mean risking everything his family had built over the years—but what else could he do? Only with his freedom could he discover who had murdered his father and take his revenge.
By the time the mortgages had been arranged with the English moneylenders, and he had finally been released, nearly a year had
passed since Machar’s death. When he arrived at Naughton Castle, he found it almost deserted, with only a few of the old retainers left. It was so different from the happy scenes he remembered from his childhood. He found the factor hard at work sorting through a pile of papers and accounts.
‘Old Jock McNairn, as I live and breathe! It’s good to see you!’ Gavin shouted in welcome.
Jock turned around to see the young Duke standing before him. ‘Maister Gavin! I thoucht ye were nivver comin’ hame.’
‘I’m here all right,’ said Gavin, striding over to shake the old man vigorously by the hand. ‘But I see the castle has changed nearly as much as I have.’
‘Aye, ye’re right enough. Ye’re baith luikin’ older!’
‘Where is everyone? The castle is so quiet.’
‘Well, it’s been a sare fecht since the Maister was killt, a right sare fecht. I’ve had to let a’body go, there wis nae money tae pay them.’
‘I’m sorry Jock, but I must know what happened to my father.’
‘It wis terrible. Jist terrible. The Bishop of Moray wis here wi’ his dochter. A beautiful young wumman. She and yer faither were to be handfasted that very night. They went upstairs efter the banquet, and we nivver saw him alive again. Appairently, one of the Bishop’s men did it, a chiel by the name of Murdo McKeever. …’
‘Murdo McKeever! Are you sure?’ Gavin could not believe what he was hearing.
‘Aye, Murdo McKeever. They tore him to bits like a rag doll when they heard.’
‘But McKeever was an old man. I remember him well—the Bishop’s own manservant. How? Why?’
‘I dinna rightly ken. Efter it was a’ over, the Bishop left wi’ his dochter and his pairty. I dinna ken whaur they went. But naebody rightly kens.’ A tear glistened in Jock’s eye, as if it had only happened yesterday, but Gavin could not believe what he had been told. He made up his mind to travel to Spynie and hear the whole sorry tale from the Bishop of Moray himself.
Burning Ambition Page 9
