Dagger in the Crown (Tam Eildor mystery no.1)

by Alanna Knight

  After, of course, publicly comforting him for this shocking bereavement, this wicked murder of his wife, of the anointed Queen of Scots.

  At the same hour, a little distant from the King's lodging, there was an emergency meeting of a second group of conspirators, this time led by Bothwell. The plot to kill the Queen had reached his ears. A frightened servant of Darnley's, persuaded by threat of torture, had sobbed out the King's plan.

  At that, Morton and Douglas nodded heads in agreement, their consciences appeased. There was now only one way out. Darnley must die. The fuse must be lit by one of them.

  'I will do it,’ said Bothwell. 'I have a score to settle.'

  The scene in the cellar, the frightened servant and his subsequent dispatch - for none could remain alive to reveal the identities of the men concerned - had been witnessed.

  Ned Wells, who had access to the King's bedroom by royal command at all times, ran unchallenged up the turnpike stair.

  Darnley's arm was seized, he was shaken into wakefulness from an uneasy sleep. He hated having to rise before dawn and was having a bad nightmare. And now Ned was telling him it was no dream.

  'My Lord, you are in mortal danger. You must escape - this instant. The house is to be blown up. Bothwell is at this moment gone to attend to it.' And, cutting short Darnley's queries and protests, 'There is no time, sire. Your plans were made known. Your trusted servant talked - and was slain. You must go. Now.'

  Taylor appeared at the door, candle in hand, awakened by their voices. 'The house is to be blown up,' said Ned. 'Make him understand.'

  Darnley shook his head, like a man not properly awake, then demanded, 'Where are my clothes?'

  'Tell him to hurry, Taylor.' And to Darnley, 'There is no time to call servants to dress you, sire. Go as you are. Do not delay an instant, or we will all be blown to kingdom come with the house.'

  And so it was that Darnley took fright and in his nightshirt clambered down through a window into the garden, accompanied by Ned, who assisted the King, with Taylor, his faithful servant. The latter thoughtfully carried a chair and a rope in readiness to descend the city wall. And with further consideration for his royal master's modesty and dignity, he threw a furred robe over his shoulder to conceal his nakedness.

  Ned watched them as they ran, two stark white figures in nightshirts, until they were out of sight, stumbling barefoot across the snowy grass towards the safety of the city beyond the garden walls.

  Bothwell's work was similarly at an end with the lighting of the fuse as the air was split apart and the King's lodging crumbled like a house made of cards, rising in the air to collapse into nothingness, a pile of rubble flattened to the ground.

  The explosion, like that of thirty or forty cannons fired in a volley, as it was later reported, shook the houses of Edinburgh to their very foundations.

  Many believed this was the end of the world and arose from their beds in terror, those whose consciences irked them frantically praying.

  The Queen who had returned from the wedding revelries was awakened by the noise that rattled all the windows in Holyrood. 'What is that?' she demanded. 'What has happened?'

  Tam Eildor, who had fallen asleep on a chair at the upstairs window across the quadrangle, was hurled bodily across the room as the windows shattered. He staggered to his feet, dazed and bruised.

  What time was it? Still dark.

  He had not intended to sleep. His head felt like lead - as if he had been drugged.

  Drugged. Aye, that was it. The wine he had sipped.

  He staggered down the turnpike stair. Part of the timbered roof had collapsed, but mercifully the front door was open, blown off its hinges by the blast.

  He scrambled across the stones and planks of wood and into air thick with the acrid fumes of gunpowder. But the scene he remembered had changed out of all recognition, for where the Provost's House had once stood there was not one stone still standing upon another. All had dissolved into a smoking pile of rubble.

  As he made his way carefully and unsteadily across the debris littering the quadrangle, he heard muffled voices calling out, calling for help.

  Dear God, could any have survived?

  Several of the town watch who patrolled the city gates of Edinburgh each night, and had been in the vicinity of the Netherbow Port, were already there, searching through the ruins.

  'The King?' Tam said.

  They looked up at him, shook their heads grimly. None could have survived the rubbish heap that had once been the old Provost's House.

  Suddenly a shout nearby, from one of the searchers.

  'Over here!' Stones were pulled aside and a mutilated body revealed, a blackened face unrecognizable. A hand appeared, another victim, a servant's body eased out of the fallen debris.

  Torches were held, but the rescuers stared into dead faces.

  A sigh went round the group. Neither belonged to the King.

  Another shout from the garden to the south side of the town wall. Tam joined the others as they raced across the icy lawn.

  'The King is found!' someone called.

  An orchard with a few bare trees.

  Tam stared down at the naked figure of a young man in a crumpled nightshirt. His eyes were closed.

  A few feet away. Another body of an older man.

  The King and his valet.

  They were dead. But Tam pushed the town watch aside.

  'Let me pass. I am a physician to the Queen,’ he added.

  They held torches above his head as he knelt and examined the two bodies. There was no mark on either of them. No bloody wound, no singed hair or cloth.

  To the anxious questions, he confirmed that they were dead. But he did not add what troubled him most. These two men had been running away from something. They had not died in the explosion that had destroyed the old Provost's House. His guess was that they had been strangled or smothered.

  Behind him, the town guard had produced the board on which they carried dead men from the scaffold for burial. And the King was placed - reverently - on the same last resting place of the bodies of common criminals by which he was to be transported to Holyrood.

  After they had gone, Tam remained at the scene. Someone had left him the torch he requested and carefully he searched the now crushed grass for evidence of the King's murder.

  All he found was a chair, a rope, a furred robe, a dagger and one slipper. He sat back on his heels, considering.

  Such items and two naked men indicated swift flight, possibly a descent from a high window. Only a terrified man would have rushed out into the snow of a February night attired in just a nightshirt. Someone had warned Darnley in the nick of time.

  But his would-be rescuer had not bargained for others who waited and how his escape from one kind of death had delivered him into yet another. Which seemed remarkably like execution. And the executioner?

  Bothwell? Was it Bothwell?

  Tam stood up. Perhaps. But he felt certain that Bothwell would have used a sword.

  Still horrified by the tragedy he had suspected but had been unable to prevent, he walked back through the garden and began to pick his way towards what had been, until an hour ago, the courtyard he had watched from a window across the quadrangle.

  All seemed silent. But there might be other victims.

  He listened. And into the silence, a small sound. He followed it.

  'Help me. Help me, for pity's sake.'

  He knelt down, moved the choking dust and rubble from a figure wrapped in a black cloak.

  A white face, blood-streaked, looked up into his own.

  His heart hammered against his ribs.

  'Help me.'

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Beaton House. Monday 10 February 1567. Before dawn

  As Tam rode up the High Street with his unconscious burden, the whole of Edinburgh was in uproar, people rushing to and fro, shouting questions for which there were as yet no answers.

  Janet was in her night-robe, alarme
d. She had been awakened by the blast. She was not alone. A young man stood by the window.

  'My son-in-law, Hamish,’ she told Tam. 'What has happened?'

  'The King is dead,’ said Tam.

  But their immediate concern was for the injured page Tam carried into an upstairs bedchamber. They were followed by Hamish, who had paused to summon a maid to bring hot water and linen.

  'We are fortunate indeed. Hamish is a physician, on his way home from a learned gathering in York,’ said Janet.

  Leading the way downstairs, she demanded to know what had happened to Darnley.

  'Strangled!' she exclaimed, upon hearing Tam's news. 'Murdered in the garden?'

  'He did not die in the explosion, that is for sure,' said Tam.

  Drinking the goblet of wine she poured for him, he took her quickly through his rough awakening in Dorothy's lodging by being hurled from his chair by the force of the explosion, to his part in the discovery of the bodies of Darnley and Taylor.

  About to tell her of his rescue of Hamish's patient, how he had seized a saddled horse which had bolted from the King's stable and told sentries at the Netherbow Port that he was physician to the Queen, with an injured victim needing immediate attention, he got no further than the first sentence when a servant curtsied at the door. 'Dr Fenwick wishes to see your ladyship.'

  'I'm coming too,' said Tam.

  The page lay against the pillows, face half-concealed by a bloodied bandage.

  'Well?' demanded Janet.

  Hamish shook his head gravely. Apart from that deep cut across the forehead, there may be permanent damage to the legs, as well as possible internal injuries. I have done all I can. The rest is up to you, good mother.'

  'Poor lad, so young,' said Janet.

  'Your poor lad will need careful nursing.' And Hamish smiled at her wryly. 'Especially since he happens to be a lass.'

  ‘A lass! But who?' Janet went closer to the bed, stared at the bandaged head and turned swiftly to Tam, who had remained silent throughout.

  'You knew who it was,' she said accusingly and he nodded.

  'Dorothy Sinclair.'

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Monday 17 February 1567

  Tam had rarely left the house during daylight hours. On Monday Janet handed him the package he had left at Beaton House before the fatal night at Kirk O'Field.

  'I read what you had written, Tam. A wise move. It was as well one other person knew the truth,' she said as they both listened to the unabated uproar up and down the street.

  While the search for the King's murderers continued with arrests and merciless questioning of any survivors and witnesses, Tam had prudently remained indoors and spent many hours sitting by Dorothy's bedside.

  Occasionally her eyes opened, but she did not know him, sometimes calling out in pain. He felt helpless, unable to do more than force sips of water between her dry lips.

  'Will she ever recover?' was his anxious question.

  'Many women would have died, but she is strong and making good progress,' said Janet.

  'Is there nothing more you can do for her?'

  Janet smiled. 'Nothing my magical powers can perform, if that is what you mean. Hamish and I have done all we can for her bodily ills. We must leave that to time's healing hand, if God so wills. But there are other sicknesses I cannot cure.'

  Then, later that morning, she reported, 'Take heart. Tam. She has spoken to me.'

  'What did she say?'

  'Only that she wishes to return to Lady Morham, who will be anxious about her.'

  Janet put her hand on Tam's shoulder. 'It is time we were leaving too. I cannot protect you from the wolves much longer.'

  'Wolves?'

  'Aye, Tam, wolves. Ye've heard all the noise outside, seen the placards. The people are righteously angry. Their dissolute young King, not yet one-and-twenty and deified by death, has been slain. They are looking for a scapegoat at every turn.' She sighed. 'They have even been at this door many times, asking if I knew the identity of one who calls himself the Queen's physician. I cannot hide ye much longer.'

  'But I have done nothing!'

  She smiled grimly. 'I am aware of that, but once they have you, they are not averse to putting innocent men to the torture in their anxiety to discover a culprit. Believe me, once the rack and the thumbscrews have done their work, you will be ready to confess to anything. Anything at all.'

  The noises outside grew louder and she went over to the window.

  'More placards, more images of our beloved King, foully murdered. Today the Queen made a proclamation.'

  'How is she taking it?'

  'Shocked, they tell us, poor lady. It was Bothwell's duty as sheriff to awaken her in the middle of the night and tell her the bad tidings. Her reaction was shock. I am told the doctors fear for her, have advised her to leave the city immediately the King is laid to rest.' She shrugged. 'There might be good reason for that.'

  'This proclamation. Surely she is innocent?'

  'A copy was thrust through my door. Here you are, read it for yourself.’

  'We know not yet who is responsible for this vile deed, but it is certain that with the diligence our Council has begun already to use, the same being discovered, we hope to punish the same with such rigour as shall serve for example of this cruelty to all ages to come. Always who ever have taken this wicked enterprise in hand, we assure our self it was addressed always for us as for the King, for we lay the most part of all the last week in that same lodging, and was there accompanied with the most part of the lords that are in this town that same night at midnight, and of very chance tarried not all night, by reason of some masque in the abbey, but we believe it was not chance but God that put it into our head!

  Tam looked across at Janet. 'These noble lords she mentions. What of Bothwell, Janet?'

  Janet shuddered. 'Aye, Bothwell. Where was he the night the King was slain? That is what everyone asks. And where was her loving half-brother, James? Very conveniently absent - away visiting his wife, who had suffered a miscarriage.'

  'Bothwell, has he not visited you, then?'

  Janet laughed bitterly. 'Need you ask, Tam? I tell myself it would be too dangerous, that it is his good sense to keep away from Beaton House in case I am further implicated.' With a sigh, she added, 'He was seen repeatedly by many witnesses in the vicinity of the King's lodging. If he is a guilty man, then he needs some lessons in dissembling, since he identified himself readily enough according to the sentries' evidence.

  'As Sheriff it was his duty to lead a party of soldiers from Holyrood to where the King's body had been carried into a house nearby. Here it would be inspected by surgeons, but while members of the Privy Council were being summoned, the general public were allowed in to have their vulgar curiosity satisfied.' Janet paused. ‘That was how the news was spread that the King had been strangled, the means left to everyone's imagination. By his own belt, his nightshirt sleeves, a serviette, even a napkin soaked in vinegar, so rumour has it.'

  Tam had told her about the array of objects he had seen lying near the two corpses and she said, 'When you opted for the nightshirt sleeves, you, were probably right, for this is where you came, or rightly did not, come in.'

  She was silent for a while, then, 'The town watch related how the King's body had first been discovered by one calling himself the Queen's physician. Why was he not present? Why had he not declared himself and why did no man know his identity? "Bring him forth here!" was the cry then. And still is,' she added grimly. 'Ye ken the rest. The King lies in state, his body embalmed at Holyrood. In a few hours he will be buried in the vaults of the Chapel Royal. But that ceremony is not for the likes of us.

  'My continued presence here is no longer necessary. Alice will recover, thanks be to God and the gift of herbs He gave me. So we must think of ourselves, Tam. We must make haste to be well clear of Edinburgh before the people give rein to their emotions, stirred on by Knox. And by some women who lived nearby and have gained tempora
ry importance as witnesses to the explosion by allegedly hearing the King's last cries: "For the sake of Jesus Christ, who pitied all the world, have pity on me, kinsmen."'

  'Kinsmen?' said Tam.

  She gave him a significant look. 'Aye, his mother was a Douglas, a political marriage to heal old grievances.'

  'So we are going to Branxholm at last?' said Tam, relieved by Janet's decision to leave.

  'Nay. That is the first place they would look for us.'

  'Surely you are not included?'

  She laughed. 'I was one of the first. There is a placard only yards from this window, nailed to a wall, naming Sir James Balfour and Bothwell and saying that the Queen was privy to the King's murder, influenced by a known witch, the one called Lady Buccleuch.'

  'Where will we go?'

  'I have a small house near Haddington, bequeathed to me by a cousin who was priest at the church there. It will suffice until we learn how matters proceed with the Queen.' She nodded towards the ceiling.' And I'm curious to know why Mistress Dorothy was lurking about Darnley's lodging dressed as a boy that night.' Her hard look invited comment.

  Tam remained silent. He knew most of the answers already, but the puzzle was still incomplete although the mention of 'kinsmen', suggested that Darnley had fallen foul of his hereditary enemies.

  Chapter Thirty

  East Lothian. Thursday 20 February 1567. Morning

  Janet and Tam, with Dorothy in a litter, joined the royal party as it wound its way towards Seton. The Queen was accompanied by her physicians. In accordance with their examination, she was 'in great imminent dangers of her health and life, if she did not in all speed break up that kind of close solitary life and repair to some good wholesome air'.

  Their advice had been emphasized by all who knew how she had endured great anguish since Darnley's murder, as reports reached her from Edinburgh, of angry and menacing crowds with their placards that accused Bothwell and herself of murder.