“I have been thinking about the baptism,” said Mary. “Pray, come and let us talk about it.” She took his hand—limp and sweating, she noticed—and led him to a sunny spot in the solar. “Henry, would it not be a wonderful thing if the baptism was an occasion of great ceremony and importance? The Prince has the highest-ranking godparents. Why, Queen Elizabeth is sending a gold font that weighs two stone!”
“She hates our son! You know what it’s reported she said when first she heard of his birth? She groaned and said, ‘The Queen of Scots is lighter of a fair son, and I am but a barren stock!’ Now she seeks to cover her true feelings beneath this costly gift. Ha!” sneered Darnley.
“Forget that gossip. Think only of how this is an opportunity to throw Scotland open to the inspection of the world, after the recent … troubles. We could show everyone how beautiful and civilized our country is. It would help trade, it would boost our importance in the political arena.”
“What exactly are you thinking of?” His voice was cautious.
“A grand ceremony, like the kind they have in France. With fireworks, and a week of celebrations … jousting, and maybe even a bullfight!”
He frowned. “But it would be expensive,” he finally said. “How would we pay for it?”
She hated his use of the word we, but forced herself to ignore it. “I will go to the Exchequer House and review all the finances, and, if necessary, raise the money by taxes.”
“How will the Lords agree to that? Unless the ceremony is Protestant?”
“I know not. But we shall see.”
Darnley then moved over to her and took her in his arms. He kissed her, and she felt as if she would faint from revulsion. His arms tightened around her, and he tried to lead her into the adjoining chamber where he assumed her bed was.
“Nay, not now—it is noontime, the ladies are about.”
“Fie on the ladies! You’re the Queen. Turn the key and lock them out!” he jerked her toward the door.
“No, Henry, I dare not offend—”
“To hell with you!” He flung her away. “I am leaving! I see I am not received in your chambers!”
* * *
That night the first of the Bothwell dreams came. She dreamed only that he was riding with her, as he had that night to Dunbar. It was dark and rainy; she could almost feel the wet on her cheeks. When she awoke she rubbed them, surprised that they were not streaked with raindrops. She was embarrassed, as if he would know that she had dreamed about him.
But that made her think of him intermittently during the day. She wondered how he was faring in the Borders. Darnley’s remark was what had put it into her mind, she decided. Bothwell had not stressed the danger in his task, but it had to involve risks. Perhaps risks were what propelled him.
What did she know about him, really? She had arrested him after that fracas and accusation by his enemy, a Hamilton—who had turned out to be insane. On such flimsy evidence she had had Bothwell imprisoned, from which he had quickly escaped, so that for most of her reign he had not even been in the country. He was therefore a mystery to her, unlike the other nobles, whom she had come to know all too well.
He’s a nobleman, she thought, but he’s different from the rest. I know that his father divorced his mother when Bothwell was nine, and that Bothwell was sent away to his great-uncle’s in Spynie. The “Bishop” had a host of bastards and specialized in trysts with married women. So Bothwell observed all that when he was growing up … that must be where he learned about women. But where did he learn his fighting? And his seamanship? Because by the time he got his inheritance at twenty-one he was already known as a hero in the Borders and had a command at sea. I know he fought in support of my mother.…
I know so little about him, really! And yet he seems to have become my true right arm.
* * *
That night, after she had been asleep several hours, and dreamed forgettable dreams, he visited her again. She dreamed that he was holding her, kissing her. In the dream they did not speak. He merely reached for her, putting his powerful hand on the back of her head, putting pressure on her skull. He had burrowed his fingers all the way through her hair, touching her scalp. His broad face had no expression at all; it was blank. His eyes, green-brown as an October day, did not blink.
In the dream he was wearing a rough homespun shirt, such as country people wore. It was the colour of barley bread, with little nubbly imperfections in it, open at the throat, showing his collarbones.
With his other hand he held her tightly against him. He kissed her, and he ground his mouth against hers so roughly it erased all immediate sensation in her lips except pressure. She felt his body pressing against hers, as if he were a knife and she a whetstone. The pressure of his fingers on her head and her back was intense and forcing. She could feel this so acutely that she knew it was real.
Then, as dreams do, abruptly Bothwell faded like a ghost in the morning light, melting and floating away. Mary awoke to find her gown up above her waist and her hair twisted around her neck. She was drenched with sweat from the heavy covers, and fought free of them. Then she lay on her mattress and let the cool breeze from the window flow over her, until she began to shiver.
XXXII
Mary was at Traquair House, a mellow old estate in the valley of the Tweed, in the Borders, that had once been a royal hunting lodge. Now it was the ancestral home of yet another Stewart cousin, John Stewart, fourth Laird of Traquair, who was the captain of Mary’s guard and had helped in her escape from Holyrood. He had invited the royal party to come and spend a week hunting in the forests surrounding the house, which abounded in game, both large and small. There had been, at one time or another, wildcats, wolves, bears, and boars, as well as stags and elk in the woods.
She had brought Darnley, knowing how he loved hunting and hawking. Trying to force herself to endure his company, she hoped that this would be a safe way to do so. He would spend his time outdoors, in the company of others she had brought—Bothwell, Mary Seton, and her French secretary, Claud Nau. Afterwards he would be too tired to be demanding. And if he were—well, it had to be faced.
To further distract him, Mary had insisted on bringing baby James, in tow with his fat wet nurse, Lady Reres. That should also occupy Darnley—so she hoped.
Seeing Bothwell again somewhat embarrassed her, after the dreams. She felt ashamed of them, as if he knew about them. He would find them demeaning. But in person he now seemed different, and she was glad she could see that the dream-Bothwell was only a creation of her own mind. This one was more affable, shorter, and had peeling skin from the sunburn he had gotten from his long hours of riding.
“I’ve had great success in the Borders the last month,” he had told her. “Of course, the glorious full moon we had in July helped.”
“How so?” she had asked, curious.
“Why, the moon is the goddess of all cattle thieves,” he said. “The Scotts even have as a motto, ‘There’ll be moonlight again.’ And so there was. As the moon rose so huge for three successive nights, it allowed me to bag an entire band that were just in full raid, so to speak. They await your justice in the autumn. You are coming, are you not?”
“Yes. I promised.” She smiled at him. “I am pleased you could come a bit north to join us for this type of hunting. Tell me—where have you been riding?”
“Oh, we chased the Kerrs around the countryside. Ran them through the wastes of Liddesdale and Eskdale, splashed through the waters running all through the Borders. But now my men can carry on for a bit on their own. I needed to attend to some other business, so it’s just as well I have a few days off duty.” He had smiled, and suddenly she remembered that Lady Reres was a sister of that old mistress of Bothwell’s—what was her name? Janet Beaton, the one who still looked like a young girl, even at fifty. Witchcraft. They said she was a witch. Did he have “business” with that family still?
“A fine pack of hounds,” Bothwell was saying.
Sir John’s
master of the hounds was bringing out his hunting dogs, fallow hounds and buckhounds. They were straining at their leashes.
“Oh, you’ll go, my boys, you’ll go,” said Sir John tenderly, stooping down to let them crowd round him and lick him. “Hello, Jethro, how’s the paw? Quite better?”
Mary looked up at the sky, where dark clouds raced across, making fleeting shadows on the ground.
“It will not rain,” Bothwell assured her. “That is the way clouds behave here. They run free, like the outlaws.”
“I am grateful that there are fewer outlaws since you took over as Lieutenant of the Borders,” she said.
“Oh, there are just as many of them, and half are waiting for your judgement. The Elliots still cause great trouble.”
Sir John, mounted on his hunting bay, led them out the gates and toward the hunting forest. Mary rode abreast of Bothwell, her velvet bonnet with its feather perched on her elaborate mound of hair, her back straight as a board. She leaned over to continue talking to him as they trotted along the path.
“Someday you must tell me more about the different Border families. I wish to know; I have heard, for example, that the Kerrs are left-handed and that their stairs spiral to the right instead of to the left so they can use their sword arms unhindered. Is that true?”
“Aye,” said Bothwell. “Not all of them are left-handed, but a large number are, ’tis true. In the Borders they call all left-handed people ‘ker-handed,’ ‘car-handed,’ or ‘corry-fisted.’”
“Is it also true that here in the Borders a male child’s hand is held back from the christening so it remains unhallowed and free to murder?”
Bothwell threw back his head and laughed so loudly the other four turned around.
“No. That is a tale,” he finally said. “Good Christians can murder as well as anyone else, ’tis no hindrance. Why, Lord Ruthven, who just expired across the border in Newcastle, beheld an angel choir on his deathbed, did he not?”
“So they say,” Mary replied. “But I would not like to answer for his whereabouts now.”
Sir John sounded his hunting horn, and the hounds were unleashed. “From here on in, the forest grows denser. Let us not become separated. Two stags were sighted a mile or so from here a fortnight ago.” Raising his arm, he led them single file.
The trees grew closer and closer together, a mixed forest of oak, birch, and pine, and overhead the branches began to mesh and weave together to form a roof. They fell silent. Up ahead they could hear the scampering of the hounds through the underbrush.
But after an hour, no game had been sighted, not even a hare. Suddenly they came upon the remains of a great stag, stretched out in a small clearing. Evidence of a campfire was nearby.
“Poachers,” said Sir John, shaking his head. “That they could be so bold—could come so near the estate!”
They passed the stag, already picked clean by carrion crows, and continued riding. A mile or so farther on they saw two more deer, likewise slaughtered. Sir John pulled his mount to a halt and just stared.
“It seems your game wardens are blind, incompetent, or bribed,” said Darnley in a haughty tone. “And obviously, Lieutenant, your writ does not run here.” He glared at Bothwell.
“Come, let us try a bit farther,” said Sir John. He attempted to keep his voice calm.
But within five miles they found four more poached deer, and no live ones.
“I am leaving,” said Darnley, wheeling his horse around. “Clearly we would do better at hawking on the moor.”
Before Mary could stop him, he was trotting off.
“He will get lost,” she said to Sir John. She was embarrassed, like a mother having to make sure her headstrong five-year-old does not come to harm.
“I will attend him,” said Sir John with a knowing smile, turning back. Seton and Nau followed him. “Lord Bothwell knows his way.” In a moment they had disappeared from view in the dark, narrow forest path.
“I agree with Lord Darnley for once,” Bothwell said. “There is no point in hunting today. Poachers have been bold here. There is nothing left for us.” He blew on a small whistle he carried. Sir John’s huntmaster answered it with a call of his own and Bothwell then blew several notes, instructing him to bring the hounds back to the kennels.
As they emerged from the forest, Bothwell said, “I’ve no mind to return to Traquair House, nor am I in the mood for hawking. Tell them I’ve gone toward Ettrickbridge on business that will occupy me the rest of the day.” He reined in his horse to change direction, and saluted her. “You know the rest of the way; you can see the house from here.”
“Let me go with you!” she suddenly said. “I would rather ride than hawk.”
“I have business to attend to as well. Personal business.”
“I will not hinder you.”
“Very well.” He touched his horse’s flanks with his spurs and set out south, away from the Tweed River and toward the Yarrow, skirting Minch Moor.
The hills were not high, but they were wide and rounded and swelling, like a nursing mother’s breasts. One after another they rose, all covered with short, bushy heather, gorse, and moss, and spotted with grey stones. Overhead the sky was a dappled dome of white and grey and blue.
Bothwell rode as fast as possible on the stretches where it was fairly level, but going up and downhill he had to slacken his pace. Seeing him in this setting, where he seemed to belong as much as the lichen-covered stones and the native hawks soaring overhead, it was hard for Mary to remember that he had spent time abroad and had a fashionable wardrobe at his disposal.
He rode ahead of her, not looking back, confident that she did not need watching. They were traversing landscape that was a green-grey-brown, strewn with rocks, the rounded bare hill tops encircling them, the wind moaning softly as it combed through the stiff dead gorse. Little streams of clear water, called burns, flashed in the intermittent sunshine as they tumbled down the mossy banks, rushing into the black pools below.
As they descended one of the hills and approached a clump of trees bordering a burn, Mary realized that she was hungry. They must have been riding for hours, but she had not kept track of the time. Looking up at the sky, she saw a bright spot through the clouds that told her it must already be midafternoon. For hours she had not thought of anything but the overwhelming landscape around her. Everything else, including thoughts of Darnley, had been blotted out in the majesty of the skies and hills, and the clean wind blowing through them.
Abruptly Bothwell stopped, and dismounted. “Are you not hungry?” he asked, as if he had read her mind.
“Aye,” she admitted, dismounting.
“You have the endurance of a soldier,” he said admiringly. “Of course I had heard of your tirelessness in the Chaseabout Raid. And I saw it myself right after the Riccio murder. But anger can act as a powerful spur. Today you were not angry. It was a truer test.”
“You were testing me?”
“Only as I test all things, to see what they are made of. I cannot help myself.” He smiled, as though confessing a secret fault. Then he led his horse over to the burn, and let it drink the clear brown water.
“Why is it brown?” she asked.
“Because of the soil and peat it flows through,” he said, cupping a handful of it. “But look. It is absolutely clear, and clean. The brown is not dirt or mud. Drink it.”
She bent her head down and sipped the water until her lips rested on Bothwell’s palm. The cold water was slightly flavoured, with a tingling freshness.
“It is better than wine,” she finally said.
“Aye.” He wiped his hands on his breeches.
They sat on a boulder by the side of the burn and shared Bothwell’s food: hard cheese, smoked meat, and heavy barley bread. Around them the hills watched, naked and silent.
“How can anyone find his way about?” Mary finally asked. “It all looks the same—vast and tractless.”
“That is why only a native can enforce law her
e,” he said, chewing his bread. “Your brother the Lord James, as an outsider, could not. Nor, begging your pardon, could your royal father, King James V.”
At the mention of those names, she was suddenly transported back to court and its old concerns.
“Let us not speak of these things,” said Bothwell, again reading her mind. “You wanted to know more of the Borders, so let us speak of the code of honour here. It is: never betray anyone to the law, offer hospitality to all, and never break a promise. That is all. Only three things. And they vow thus, ‘I swear by Heaven above me, Hell beneath me, by my part of Paradise, by all that God made in six days and seven nights, and by God himself.’” He leaned his head on his arm. “Is it not simple?”
“You are fortunate to belong to a world that you understand,” she said. She pulled herself back further from him, in a way that only she was aware of.
“I understand it, but my true place in Scotland and in my own home was disrupted when I was still only a boy. My father divorced my mother and I was sent away; and just before that, I saw my father betray George Wishart, so that he was burnt at the stake. My father lied to him, right in my presence, swearing he’d be safe. Then he arrested him and turned him over to his enemies. You can see why I have no use for liars, why I hate them so.” He bent down and carefully folded the cloth his food had been wrapped in.
“Ah.” She sighed and twirled a piece of spongy moss in her fingers. “Fortunate is he who knows his own world and is allowed to live in it.”
“We often find that we must choose our own world, decide for ourselves where our home will be, then hack out a place for ourselves. Come.” He gathered up his horse’s reins. “I have a bit more to patrol, then a visit to pay.”
Patrol? Had he been doing that all along? He had not seemed particularly worried or watchful.
“The area seems empty and quiet,” he said, again reading her thoughts. “We are not in the territory that sees much activity. But I wanted to make sure.”
Over more swelling hills they rode, as the sun sank lower. There seemed to be no place where a man could hide, save behind the occasional drystone dividing walls running over the hills. But as the mists began to rise gently from the low-lying areas, she was not so sure. The mists, thin at first, quickly thickened as the sun sank behind the hills.
Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles Page 52
