Mary Queen of Scotland and the Isles

by Margaret George

  Another great explosion tore the fabric of the entire structure, and a pillar of fire shot out the top and into the dark night sky.

  What if Mary had been in there, as Darnley had planned?

  Feeling dazed, he made his way back to Holyrood, hugging the back streets and skirting the tumbledown portions of the wall. He had to tell Mary what had happened, had to see her to dispel the horrible vision he had had of her inside the conflagration.

  People had rushed out into the streets, shrieking and pointing. Pulling his cloak over his face, he made his way through them. It was too dark for anyone to identify him, but his innate caution was operating even in his shaken state.

  He reached the postern door of Holyrood in his wing of the palace. He turned to go to Mary’s apartments, but it was too late. The passageways were filled with gibbering servants and guards. He could not risk seeing her privately. Quickly he made his way to his own room, stripped off his clothes, and dived into his bed. The clothes had not lost their body heat before there was a knock on the door. One of the palace guards rushed in.

  “What is the matter?” asked Bothwell, rubbing his eyes.

  “The King’s house is blown up, and I think the King is killed!”

  “Fie! Treason!” cried Bothwell, bolting out of bed, and grabbing his clothes.

  The Earl of Huntly, blond hair tousled, came running in, followed by the earls of Argyll and Atholl.

  “We must go to the Queen!” said Bothwell, pulling on his last boot.

  They streamed out into the passageway and rushed toward Mary’s apartments. The entire antechamber was filled with frightened servants.

  “A noise like twenty cannon!” cried Mary Seton, clutching at Bothwell’s sleeve. “Oh, sir, what was it?”

  “How the devil should I know?” he snapped, pushing her aside. Did people suspect him already?

  “Treason! They are coming for us!” wailed one of the French pages.

  “Be a man, then!” said Bothwell. “Stand and fight!”

  The Queen’s inner door stood open, and she was standing just within, clad only in her sleeping gown, her hair loose and tangled. She turned a puzzled, imploring look at him.

  “There has been an ungodly noise, like thunder and guns,” she said. “What terrible thing has happened? Has there been an attack?”

  Bothwell took a deep breath. It was he she was asking, not anyone else in the room.

  “No. A horrible accident. The King is dead. Killed by an explosion in his house,” he said.

  “Dead?” She looked uncomprehending.

  “Dead,” he said, fixing his eyes on hers.

  “Do we know that?” said Huntly. “All we know is there has been an explosion. We don’t know the extent of the damage, or if anyone survived. Why do you say that?” he challenged Bothwell.

  “Unless he was well beyond the vicinity of the dwelling—unlikely at this hour and in his condition—he had no chance.” I made sure of that, he thought. When I have to kill, I make sure it is carried out. But I do not relish it—unlike the rest of you.

  Mary slumped against Madame Rallay—in shock or relief?

  “Go,” she said softly. “Go and see what has happened.”

  “Aye.” With pleasure, he thought.

  Motioning to the others, he left the chamber.

  * * *

  Mary stood watching from her window as Bothwell and the men made their way across the courtyard and up the Canongate. Smoke was still visible far to the left, marking the place where Kirk O’Field had stood. Outside, in the streets, was a tumult.

  Darnley was dead. How had it really happened? Had the powder accidentally gone off, or had it been deliberately lit? What had Darnley said when Bothwell apprehended him?

  “Your Majesty.”

  She turned and saw Sir John Stewart of Traquair standing behind her.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said weakly, waving the others away and drawing him aside. “You were there.”

  “No, Your Majesty, I was not.” He looked saddened and embarrassed. “Bothwell left me behind here to protect you in case Darnley had sent assassins after you. So I did not see what happened. I only know … they are saying that Bothwell and his men are the ones who did it. He—or rather, someone claiming to be him and his friends—were seen passing up and down the High Street through Edinburgh, carrying the powder. Tonight.”

  “But he was with us all night!”

  “I know. But whoever wishes the people to think otherwise staged the actors well.”

  Mary was shaking. It was not only she or Darnley who was to be a victim tonight, then. It was Bothwell as well. Someone else had discovered Darnley’s plot and the gunpowder and had decided to use it to eliminate both Darnley and Bothwell together.

  Who? Lord James?

  But then he would want to eliminate me next.

  Does he? Where is he now? He said St. Andrews, but—

  She collapsed in shock.

  * * *

  She awoke and saw that daylight had come, filling her chamber with murky light. She tried to move and felt a great heaviness and pain in her belly. There were thick cloths and oozing stickiness under her.

  Someone was dabbing her face. The warm, scented water felt soothing.

  “You have had a heavy onset of your monthly courses,” said Madame Ralley, close to her ear. “There was much blood, clots, and other matter. But it is over now, and there should be no further pain. Should I call Bourgoing?”

  “No.” He must not know. Had Madame Rallay guessed? But it must not be a matter of record.

  The child was gone. Or had there ever been one? Perhaps all the symptoms had been due to strain, and there had never been a child at all.

  She began to laugh, hysterically. I needn’t have gone to Glasgow, she thought wildly.

  “Sssh. Stop!” said Madame Rallay. She jerked her head toward the door. “They will think you are laughing about his death. They will think you are not unhappy about it. Then they may wonder if you know more about it then you should.”

  Indeed I do, she thought. I know he meant to kill me.

  * * *

  An hour later she was up and dressed and had taken some nourishment. She had to be ready for whatever news Bothwell brought.

  “Madam,” he said, when at midmorning he, along with others of the lords, stood in her chamber, “it is passing strange, what we found.”

  “In the hot, smoking stones, the crushed and cooked bodies of his chamber valets were found,” said Huntly. “And there was not a stone left standing; the house was totally demolished. It lies in a heap, smouldering and steaming.”

  “But the King was not there.” Bothwell’s voice rose. “No, not anywhere in the house. It was five o’clock this morning before we finally found him, eighty feet away.”

  “Untouched by the fire,” said Huntly.

  “But dead,” said Bothwell. “Very dead. Naked, too, at least below the waist. There he lay, his privy parts exposed to the carrion crows, his legs hard-frozen. Beside him lay his valet, Taylor. And on the ground all sorts of things: a rope, a dagger, a chair, furred jackets.…”

  “No wound?” Mary asked.

  “No wound, no cut, no bruise, no burn. Just dead,” said Bothwell. “Mysteriously dead.”

  “We had him carried into a nearby house and decently covered. Even now he is being conveyed here, where you may behold his body,” said Huntly.

  “And we will accompany you,” said Maitland, who had appeared at her side unannounced.

  She did not feel able to walk even beyond her chambers, but she knew if she demurred, it would be taken as a clear sign of guilt. The room was filling up with people, all with bright, curious, accusing eyes. They were all looking at her—all except Bothwell. Alone of all people, she wanted him to look at her, to sustain her. But he was purposely looking elsewhere.

  “Very well,” she said, offering her arms to Huntly on one side and George Seton on the other. She moved stiffly out of the room.
/>
  A sheet of nothingness had enveloped her. Darnley was dead. She was delivered from him. Her great folly of tying herself to him was exploded along with the house. But the unnaturalness of the death meant that it was more than just a simple fact, an unalloyed deliverance.

  Why could he not have just died of his disease? she thought wildly. Why this? It is his legacy to leave mystery and guilt. He sought to kill me; now he will be exonerated, and trouble me even from beyond the grave.

  Ahead of her down the staircase trod Bothwell and Maitland. Where were they going? Where was Darnley to be brought?

  They ushered her into a windowless chamber on the ground floor. Ordinarily it was used to store benches, trestles, and stools; as they entered, servants were carrying these out. At the far end of the room a makeshift bier had been set up, using two of the trestles and wide planks. A pair of workmen were hastily hanging black drapes on the wall behind.

  “A seat for Her Majesty,” Bothwell barked. His voice was rough and terse.

  Gratefully, Mary sank down on the cushioned chair they brought. She felt faint and tremulous.

  The doors at the end of the chamber flew open, and standing motionless, six men-at-arms held a litter aloft. It looked, for one bizarre moment, like one of the elaborate dishes served as part of the entertainment at formal banquets. Just so the costumed servitors had stood, proudly bearing sugar castles or gilded swans or forests made of pastries to guests.

  Even the reclining figure on the litter looked made of sugar icing, so white was it. The golden hair looked like gilt, the rest all white: the nightgown and the features, drained of blood.

  “Proceed,” said Maitland, and the men stepped forward smartly, looking to neither the left nor the right. Darnley’s sharp profile passed before Mary’s eyes.

  It was true. He was dead.

  Yet, instead of feeling elation, or relief, she was flooded with horror. The sight of him dead was grotesque and terrifying. The young should not lie so still, nor be bloodless.

  Slowly she stood, and pushing away the helping arms of the courtiers, she made her way to the bier where the litter had been set down. Tall candles flanked his head and feet.

  The sight of the waxen face pulled her to it with a mighty power, almost commanding her to its side.

  How motionless he lay! The utter, deep stillness of death, beyond even that of granite or jewels, seemed to pervade her living breast. She halted her breathing as if to breathe in his company were an aberration.

  His eyes were closed, and they had spoken true: there was no mark on him. But he did not look alive; those who said “the dead but sleep” had never gazed on a newly dead person.

  Stretched out in death, he was suddenly once again the shining, naïve boy she had met in the garden at Wemyss. The boy who had not completely died, but had peeped out occasionally from the drunken, weak bully. Some part of that earlier knight had survived. Until now. Now they were extinguished together, the innocence and the guilt. The lover who had tried to kill her.

  Do not forget that, she thought. He planned to look upon you laid out on this bier. Only no—you would have been burnt beyond recognition.

  Now in the pale flickering light the darker splotches of his disease showed up against the blanched skin.

  Now they would never heal, she thought. It would have distressed him.

  The lords were staring at her, their eyes riveted on her, trying to read her face. Suddenly she felt more open to inspection than Darnley.

  In that moment the full force of what was happening burst in on her. I am on display here, not Darnley!

  Even in death you seek to harm me! She thought. Her revulsion as she gazed at Darnley’s face passed over her features and was duly noted by those present.

  A letter was drafted in Mary’s name by the lords to send to France later that day. Dully, not reading it carefully, Mary signed it.

  … if God in His mercy had not preserved us, as we trust, to the end that we may take a rigorous vengeance of that mysterious deed, which ere it should remain unpunished we had rather lose life and all. The matter is so horrible and strange, as we believe the like was never heard of in any country.…

  Elizabeth. Elizabeth must be told.

  At the thought of the English Queen, Mary shrank. Elizabeth, with her spies and ambassadors and inquisitive mind, would probe into it and attempt to twist it to her own advantage in some way. Yet if Elizabeth were not informed promptly, she would manage to use that as well to her advantage.

  I have not the strength to compose a letter, thought Mary. I will dispatch Melville and trust him to satisfy her questions.

  * * *

  Night. Night at last—although it had felt like night all day—and she could sink into sleep, or attempt to. She asked Madame Rallay to light all the candles. Suddenly she was afraid that Darnley’s pale, angry ghost would come up the stairs and slip into her room as he had the night of Riccio’s murder. Yet at the same time she wanted to be alone, to face him. She ordered the puzzled Madame to sleep out in the antechamber.

  She lay still and cold in the room. The palace was quiet, but it was not a tranquil quiet, rather the pause before a plunge into more horrors.

  She could not think. It was better not to think. She closed her eyes. And then she heard the sounds: footsteps on the stairs. Quiet treading. Upward.

  I am ready, she thought. I will not flinch from you, Darnley, no matter in what form you appear.

  Yet she was shaking as if she lay naked outdoors in the February cold, as he had.

  The door swung open silently on oiled hinges. The candlelight, gentle as it was, could not penetrate the darkness inside the stair landing. A hand grasped the door to keep it from banging against the stone and making a noise.

  Short, powerful fingers. A wide hand.

  Bothwell stepped into the room. His movement, his blocky body screamed safety! to her before she consciously recognized his face.

  Stifling a cry of gladness, she exhaled in a great sob. Swiftly, soundlessly, he was beside her, half leaping onto the bed. He grabbed both her hands and kissed them roughly, his warm breath almost painful against her skin.

  “O God,” he breathed in her ear, pulling her up and against him, kneeling on the quivering mattress.

  Frantically they sought one another’s lips, both intending to talk, to explain, but unable to do anything other than kiss. At the touch of his lips, Mary felt all desire satisfied, all longing quenched. Bothwell was here.

  He was tearing at the frilled neck of her gown, hungrily kissing her neck, biting and sucking on her smooth skin.

  She tilted her head back and let his lips travel down her throat and between her breasts. With one hand she touched the top of his head. His hair was cold; unlike his fevered skin, it took on the temperature of the room.

  He had started to caress her legs, to lift her gown. His breath was coming in short gasps. But she was strangely calm, unaroused. She put out a hand and stayed his.

  “I am no longer with child,” she said, as softly as possible, leaning over to his ear. “Sometime in the night, everything … everything … It is gone.”

  Abruptly he stopped his caresses. “Then … it was all for nothing.”

  His words puzzled her.

  “All … for nothing,” he repeated. He shook his head, and let go of her.

  “No, not for—”

  “You do not understand.” He drew in a long, slow breath.

  “Then you must tell me, explain it all. Why was there an explosion? What happened when you tried to arrest him? Oh, it has been so dreadful not to know, after you went forth on Sunday night!”

  He rolled over, lying fully clothed beside her on the bed. “There was no arrest. As I approached the house with my men, he thought it was you returning. He lit the fuse and escaped. It was his intention that you would enter the house and be blown to pieces. The fuse was lit some ten minutes before your perceived arrival.”

  “But he was killed. Killed as he ran awa
y.” She had to know. “Did you kill him?”

  “No,” he answered. “No, I did not see him or touch him. Until the dawn when, along with the others, I discovered the body.”

  “Who, then?” Thank God and all the saints. Bothwell was not a murderer.

  “I know not. There were many who would gladly have killed him, should opportunity have presented itself.” He ran his hands through his hair. “And now those same people will seek to blame us, to destroy us.” His voice was low and guarded.

  “Who?”

  “I know not. That is the agony of it. Everyone speaks fair and hides his true visage. We are in great danger.” He paused. “Do you not realize that we are now bound forever because of that dead boy on his bier? There was murder done, Mary. It is a mystery, this murder, but it is a mystery that will swirl us away to destruction. We must cling together to survive.”

  He took her hands and put them around himself. “Hang on to me,” he commanded. “Put your arms around me, and whatever happens, do not let go.”

  She could feel his hard body pressing against hers; in his clenched knotted muscles and long, hard bones seemed to lie safety from all danger. The very scars on his body were like badges of power. But as she rested her head on his tensed shoulder, she could feel that beneath the steel-hard muscles lay ordinary flesh and all-too-breakable bones.

  L

  Mary ordered the court into mourning, providing them with the requisite black cloth to be sewn into the costumes. A week after his death, Darnley was entombed with royal honours and a Catholic funeral in Holyrood, next to the vault of James V.

  Watching the casket being borne to the altar and hearing the chanting, Mary felt nothing but relief that his unhappy life was over, then stabs of guilt that she could summon so little pity. But he had died as if by his own hand, attempting to kill others. And innocent people had perished in the explosion.

  The court had been stunned, creeping about quietly until it became clear that the plot had perished with the man, that there was no further danger. Ashamed that this seemed to confirm the rest of the world’s opinion that Scotland was a barbarous country, inhabited by savages where atrocious deeds were everyday occurrences, a murmuring arose—low at first, then rising. Punish the villains. No one seemed to believe that Mary had been in any danger, or that anyone but Darnley had been the target of the crime. In death Darnley acquired the majesty and importance he had lacked in life. Regicide had been committed! The King had been slain!