‘Whose?’ Ellen prodded. ‘Surely not mine. With what little influence I have, you canna expect to gain anything by my endorsement.’
‘Maybe that is exactly why I seek it,’ I said. ‘Because you have nothing to lose and nothing to gain. You simply know what is right and what is not. And I need to know from you, from someone who isn’t in the thick of it, if what I am doing is right.’ My heart pounded. I realised I put more store in her opinion than anyone else’s in my life. ‘Do you … do you think that I am right in what I do, Ellen?’
‘You want the truth.’ It was not a question. I nodded, urging her to speak. To my anguish, Ellen shook her head. ‘I do not think it is right, Your Grace, if you will forgive me. I think someday you will have to choose a side, or you will lose the respect of both.’
I nodded again, taking in her words, knowing she was right and knowing with as much certainty that what she was asking me to do was impossible.
Ultimately, her opinion, as I knew it would, changed nothing.
Maybe that, too, is why I sought it.
18
The Crown of Flames
‘I am leaving for France,’ Albany told me. This time he called upon me and my heart stirred as it always did at the sight of him, though he appeared weary and careworn. ‘They demand to know what happened, why we lost control at the Border. It is my hope to return with more men and more arms.’
I nodded. ‘I expected so.’
‘Did you?’ he asked me. ‘Because I do not know what to expect from you, madam.’ Albany’s tone revealed a genuine sense of hurt. ‘I know you keep the English abreast of our military situation, just as you keep us abreast of theirs.’ His slate grey eyes made an appeal his words would not.
‘When I married King James,’ I began, reaching out across my writing table to take Albany’s slim hand in mine. I found in it a ready, strong grasp. ‘When I married the king, my father told me to remain a daughter to England before I was a wife to Scotland. Ever since I have endeavoured to be both. But my father never prepared me for what being a mother to Scotland would be like, nor the sister to England. Everything has changed, except one thing: I was meant to bring peace between both kingdoms.’ I bowed my head, still holding the duke’s hand. ‘To that end I will work, by whatever means necessary.’
Albany nodded. ‘Then I suppose this is no more than I should expect. Thank you, at least, for your honesty.’ There was a sense of mourning in his tone. He sighed; it was a warrior’s sigh, one of pure exhaustion mingling with the dread of more battles to come.
‘Be safe, Jehan,’ I urged, squeezing his hand.
He disengaged, reaching up to cup my cheek. His eyes, those anguished stormy orbs, were the saddest I had ever seen. I leaned into his hand, revelling in the closeness. His lips parted as if to speak, but no words ever came. He dropped his hand. I longed to seize it, to press it to my cheek once more, to take him in my arms, anything that would assuage his grief and my own for the impossible position I now found myself in.
But he turned. And walked away.
It was a sight I was growing used to from the men in my life.
No sooner did Albany leave than I was struck with smallpox. My skin was on fire, my throat raw, and welts made itching, festering roses upon my flesh. My strength was sapped, reminiscent of my many births, yet there was no joyful end to reward me for this hell. Ellen braved tending me, but most of the court stayed away for fear of contagion. Imprisoned in fitful slumber, I gave way once again to the dread blackness that overcame me so many times before …
All is smoke. I am running through it; it is so thick, filling my lungs, burning my eyes … Jamie appears, my Jamie! I am here, Jamie! Oh, Jamie, how I have longed for your direction … But as he reaches me it is not Jamie I see, but Albany. I reach out to him only for him to fade into the smoke, curling around him like the fingers of a dragon’s whisper. Angus appears then, his lips twisted into his confident smirk. I stretch my arms out only for him to become enveloped in the dusky haze and at once Angus transforms into old Bell-the-Cat. I smile at my beloved councillor in greeting as he is enveloped in smoke, taken from me again.
At once my father is there. The smoke that swirls around us dissipates at once and we are bathed in blinding white light. He is stretching his arms out, holding in his hands a crown of fire. Emblazoned upon it is a thistle entwined with a Tudor rose.
‘This is who you are,’ Father says.
‘I dinna want it!’ I cry. ‘I want a home, a husband, and a family. Please give it to someone else!’
Father shakes his head, smiling as he is absorbed into the light, part of its brilliance, and I am alone.
All that remains is the flaming crown …
As my strength ebbed back into me, a slow tide of resilience I came to rely upon throughout my life, messages about the state of the realm were relayed to me. I found them far more preferable than the messages from the beyond, no matter how discouraging they were.
Henry had sent his most able soldier, the Earl of Surrey, Thomas Howard, to the Borders. It was clear Surrey did not regard me as his former niece any more. I was something to be taken care of, and not in the nurturing sense. I was a matter to be dealt with. Surrey was as changeable as anyone, being a Howard. I knew that family switched allegiances to whoever wore the crown at the time, from Edward IV to Richard III and then to my noble father. They set their sights, always high, accordingly. In this, I suppose, we were alike but were both reluctant to admit it.
Surrey laid waste to the Borders with more ferocity than ever and raided the town of Kelso, burning homes and ravaging the land. Though I was saddened at the devastation, I reminded Surrey that if he was planning to make any impression on the Scots lairds, it was them he must attack at Edinburgh. The loss of life of the peasants on the Borders mattered little to them. But what would motivate a Scots noble more than an attack on his homeland was the common persuader of most men: money.
In turn, Surrey urged me to view my son, now eleven, as a king near his majority. It was time that Little Jamie sued for peace with his uncle in England himself. Backed by Henry’s strength and my son’s new independence, I would be viewed with more favour from the people.
Despite a passionate speech Little Jamie wrote himself being read before Parliament at the Tolbooth, which I drew enough strength to attend and listened to with a chest near bursting with pride, his pleas for peace with England fell upon deaf ears. All that was granted him was new guardians and more freedom to hunt and hawk around Stirling.
Surrey’s response to the lairds’ decision was to blow up the abbey at Jedburgh with gunpowder and burn the town. It was 20 September, and Albany had returned from France with the promised men and munitions. There was hope for a victory yet, and my allegiance would be with the victor. Despite Ellen’s caution and Albany’s regret, I remained a good sister and told the English of Albany’s forces, of his magazines, his cannon, and his weaponry. If my lot must be cast with the English, I would not let them go into battle in ignorance.
Albany marched on Wark Castle on a day as stormy as his eyes, with Frenchmen as his front line, dragging their cannon through the mud and the muck. As the weather escalated into a violent blizzard, Albany and his army were forced to an understated retreat.
My poor gallant duke had lost. And thus I knew before long I would lose him, too.
Despite the instability of the realm, I was afforded a few delights, chief among them being able to keep company with my Little Jamie at Stirling. I was at last able to stay with my son and I relished it. Little Jamie, the reason I lived, was a lad to do a mother proud. He was born to be king; it emanated from him, it was him. He was as talented in music as his father and me, as athletic as his uncle Henry (with far more grace and cool, self-assured elegance), and as studious as his uncle Arthur. He was regal, growing handsome, and I knew deserved to reign in his majority sooner than expected. It was as if he knew his would be a more challenging lot than that of most kings more fortunate t
o reign at a more suitable age and somehow his mind and body adapted, maturing beyond his years; perhaps it was in his breeding.
We often spent time in his apartments with his tutor David Lindsay, a faithful friend who had known Little Jamie since he was a bairn. There we would sing and play games; Little Jamie would recite his lessons, impressing me with his memorisation and insightful perspective on the realm.
There, with his little court, we indulged in one of my favourite pastimes: singing. I strummed my lute and sang to him the ballads his father taught me and some from home. Little Jamie had a clear, strong voice and was as fast a learner in verse as anything, and I loved harmonising with him.
One afternoon after I finished one such ballad called ‘Edward,’ I was treated to a hearty round of clapping by the King’s Carver, young Henry Stewart.
‘That was amazing, Your Grace!’ he blurted, his lips spreading into a full smile, revealing bright, straight white teeth. He ran a hand through his tousled blond locks, flushing at the breaking of protocol.
‘You seem surprised, Master Stewart,’ I quipped, unbothered by the breach in etiquette. ‘Did you not know we could sing?’
His tanned cheeks flushed a deeper shade of rose. It was rather endearing. ‘I did not, Your Grace, if you’ll pardon me. I have never been here when you and His Grace were singing; this is the first time I have heard you. Your voice is … well, I already said, it is amazing!’
I laughed at his awkwardness. ‘Do you sing?’
‘I do,’ he admitted.
‘He does sing, Mother,’ Little Jamie informed me. ‘Quite well; We have heard him when We go riding.’
‘You ride with Master Stewart?’ I asked; I had thought I knew all of my son’s companions and this surprised me.
‘Why, yes,’ Little Jamie said. ‘His company delights us.’
I smiled at this. ‘Well, join us in a song, won’t you?’ I invited. ‘I adore music; it is a Tudor weakness.’
‘Music is never a weakness,’ Henry Stewart ventured. There was something in his boldness that charmed me. It wasn’t cocky, like Angus. It was unbridled, innocent. Young. ‘Music pulls us through life!’
I laughed again. His wide blue eyes sparkled with merriment. He did not look at me as if I was stout and scarred from the ravages of smallpox. I cannot place how he looked at me. But I welcomed it.
I thought his company was going to delight me, too.
My joys were predicated by pain, always. In this, I was kept in check, I suppose, by God, by my son’s government. By myself. I was enjoying my time with my son and my newfound friend, Henry Stewart. But in these gains was a loss, a loss I foresaw but never prepared for.
Albany was getting his longed-for wish.
He was returning to France.
Again I welcomed him into my chambers while he said his farewells. Though he was still invested as regent, his powers would be challenged when he was not in the kingdom, as they always were. He knew it and so did I. But the advantages of this would not be dwelled upon as yet.
Now was not a time for scheming and strategy. Now was a time for farewell.
I greeted him wearing a soft mauve velvet gown with a cream satin kirtle. I would never tire of velvet; it was my favourite material and suited my complexion, softening it, and I could almost believe my scars escaped notice. I felt beautiful in velvet and I needed to feel beautiful; there were few enough other pleasures afforded me.
‘You look exhausted,’ I observed of my old friend, gesturing for him to take a seat in one of my fine velvet plush chairs before my warm fire. We had spent many a long afternoon in front of crackling fires, talking and sipping wine. It should not change now, even if it was his last visit.
‘I am,’ he confessed, in his handsome low voice. He leaned his chin in his hand, regarding me with soft eyes. ‘I once said that I’d rather have my legs broken than return here,’ he added with a slight chuckle that revealed no humour.
‘I have felt the same,’ I said. ‘But Scotland was our destiny, it seems. We canna fight her, so we fight for her.’
‘Strange, isn’t it?’ he returned. ‘And now I am leaving at last. My wish will be realised. I will serve France in the capacity I am needed as I hoped to do. And yet I am sad.’
‘Why sad, my lord?’
‘For having to leave you,’ he admitted, his voice soft as an angel feather. My heart lurched. Tears stung my eyes. I blinked them away.
‘Oh, my dear lord, why now? Why tell me now?’ I breathed.
‘Whom would it have served to tell you before?’ he challenged. He sighed. ‘You not yet rid of Angus, my popularity here waning by the hour. You had bigger things to worry after and so did I. We would have complicated it and neither of us needed more complications.’
‘I would have been too much for you,’ I assured him, attempting to lighten the moment with humour. ‘As I always am. You would have been unfaithful and I could not have borne it. Not from you, whom I esteem as the finest and noblest of gentlemen.’
‘It isn’t that you would have been too much,’ Albany told me. ‘It is just that you never found a man who was enough for you.’
I smiled at this. ‘How cruel is life,’ I said, feeling it a pointless observation. We knew well how cruel life was, better than many. ‘So that is why everyone leaves,’ I added, my tone thoughtful. ‘Because they are not enough and I am too much.’
‘A man needs to feel he is like the king of something,’ Albany told me. ‘A peasant, the king of his hearth, of his fields … A queen needs a king and nothing less. A lesser man cannot bear the competition with the kings who surround you – Henry and James. He will become undone by his inferiority, even if he does not mean to be.’
Ellen had once told me the same, in a manner of speaking. As had my father. And my Jamie …
‘I suppose I expected more from those I loved,’ I said. ‘I wanted to be viewed as a wife, not a queen.’
‘You, madam, are always a queen,’ Albany said with a slight chuckle. ‘You cannot even pretend to be otherwise. And,’ he added, tilting one of his well-sculpted brows, ‘beware of expectations. They ruin us. When we expect anything of anyone, we are asking them to fail.’
‘Do I expect too much, then, in hoping a man can be faithful to me?’ I asked, feeling wretched, cursing my vulnerability revealed so naked and raw before this man.
Albany shook his head. ‘I daresay, madam, you should not expect faithfulness, friendship, or anything at all. But if you get it, treat it as a fleeting gift, the rarest of jewels, as you have been to me. A rare, fiery jewel.’ He rose, approaching me and reaching out to tuck a coppery lock that had strayed from my hood behind my ear.
‘I am rare enough to admire from afar, but too fiery to keep,’ I said brokenly, clinging to his hand, pressing it to my cheek.
‘Maybe that is what makes you shine above the rest,’ he told me.
I looked up, meeting his dove grey gaze, unable to hide the tears welling in my eyes. ‘I would rather be ordinary. A pearl or a diamond,’ I said, fingering the strand of pearls I wore forever about my neck.
‘Pearls are for mourning, and diamonds are hard and unfeeling,’ Albany told me.
‘But people love them,’ I countered. ‘And people keep them.’
‘I will keep you.’ Albany’s voice was soft as he laid a hand across his breast. ‘I will keep you here.’
It would have been any courtier’s perfect line, but from Albany it rang with the utmost sincerity.
I wanted to beg him to stay, to marry me, and promise him we could rule together. He was closer to a king as a duke than an earl; he would not compete with Henry or Little Jamie, he would rule by my side. But I knew better than that. I would never take his dream of returning home to France away from him. I would not disgrace myself or our friendship with such pleas.
I would let him go.
Albany stooped down, tilting my chin up with his fingertips. With the greatest gentleness, he leaned in, pressing his lips t
o mine in a warm, soft kiss. There was no lust in it; it embodied our respect, our friendship, our honour.
Long after Albany departed I sat before my fire, my hand pressed to my lips, clinging to the moment.
It was the sweetest kiss I had ever received.
If Henry and I agreed on anything, and we seldom did, it was that Little Jamie’s minority should be ended. It was time he ruled as king in full; it would save him from the ambitions of the men who surrounded him and perhaps compel Scotland to further solidarity. Henry’s letters were full of grand schemes. He wished to break his daughter the Princess Mary’s betrothal to the Emperor Charles V and instead forge an alliance between her and my son. Though I considered this, I was also aware any betrothal between the cousins would offend France greatly, and I never knew when I would need France as an ally.
I mulled this and other things over in the company of Little Jamie and Henry Stewart, whom I called Harry. I could not bear to address him as I did my brother; while many called him Harry, I never had. Henry was my brother. Harry was my friend.
I began to spend more time with this young Harry, maybe to distract myself from pondering what might have been with Albany and remembering what had been with Angus. Or maybe I was set on proving I could still capture the heart of someone handsome and virile. Harry was six years my junior, but the age difference mattered little; we enjoyed each other, and the rapport he had with Little Jamie was genuine. I could not have asked for more. We began to ride together, hawk together, sing and read together, sharing our time and meals, most often with the king, but sometimes not. When I needed to discuss the matters of Little Jamie’s future, I preferred Harry alone.
‘I canna imagine wedding him to Mary,’ I told Harry one evening as we took a quiet supper in my apartments of game hens in a cream sauce, with sweet wine, rich cheeses, and bread to accompany them. ‘If I agreed to such a union, Henry would control them both to suit his own ends and I could not bear that. Little Jamie needs to stand on his own, which is why it is vital that his minority be ended.’
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