B009AY3XF6 EBOK

by D. L. Bogdan

  “A lovely sentiment,” Albany observed. “There are seventh days all around, those moments of calm and tranquility we must seize because there are very few times when life is not too much.”

  I leaned back against his chest. The world seemed to pause. The trees indeed were silent giants standing guard over their woodland subjects. The hawk soaring above glided across the sky with no effort at all. Then all at once I could not take any of those things in anymore. All I could appreciate was the beating of his heart, his hands on my shoulders, his warm breath against my neck.

  Oh, Albany, Albany, had things only been different . . .

  My brother meant for war. Gavin Douglas wasted no time in fueling his anger, telling Henry that among Albany’s infamous offenses, he manipulated me into my desire to divorce Angus, stole from the treasury, sold off religious offices, and dressed Little Jamie shabbily, to boot! It would have been laughable had Scotland not been in such danger.

  As winter progressed, Clarencieux King of Arms spent his time between the courts of my brother and me, relaying our mutual displeasure to each other. Henry also accused Albany of coercing me to respond to his letters in the sure, strong tone I had adopted in my correspondence with him. I assured him, through the poor messenger, that this was not the case, but I knew Henry would believe whatever suited his purposes at the time, and the affair became tedious and exhausting.

  Even the Estates of Scotland had assured Clarencieux in a formal declaration that Albany was the lawful governor and tutor to Little Jamie. It was good to have them on my side once again. My side was the king’s side and it was he who was most important, he who must not lose himself in these delicate dances of power.

  The steps of the dance grew more complex by the hour.

  “Ellen, I am confused,” I confessed to my most faithful maid, who kept me company in my apartments. I was too anxious to sew, but Ellen, with her calm elegance, worked on a tapestry that would feature a scene of birds—doves, hawks, and eagles, all flying together, as if to achieve one aim. It captured all of my hopes for England and Scotland, to fly their banners together in peace.

  “Why are you confused, Your Grace?” Ellen asked, her musical voice calming as a ballad.

  “I am torn between my brother and Albany,” I told her. “For the sake of the king, England and Scotland must be at peace, and it is to that aim I am loyal, more so than to any one man. They may interpret things differently,” I added with a sigh. “But my goal is peace, however I can attain it, for a stable realm for my son.”

  “It is a worthy goal,” Ellen assured me.

  “But how to achieve it without seeming to betray everyone I lo—I am bound to?” I shook my head. “I rode to Carlisle with Albany; I appealed to Lord Dacre myself. Our army was too afraid of another Flodden to attack and Dacre called for a truce. I believe he thought our forces larger than they were. I urged my brother Henry to offer a five-year peace and he did—can you imagine, five years of peace? In that five years so much good could be accomplished! It could have led to another five years, and another after that!” I smiled at the thought, now lost to me as all my other dreams had been. “But the lairds of Scotland renewed the Auld Alliance with France and will have no peace with England. And I am the sister of Henry, so I am the enemy. The Borders are ravaged and I am to blame. I report to Henry and to Albany; I betray both in the hopes that peace might be gained for all. There are times when I am unfair to both; I make Albany sound worse than he is to Henry, and the same of Henry to Albany. I feel if I please everyone, if I tell them what they want to hear, then both will strive for peace more ardently.”

  “Who, then, are you loyal to?” Ellen asked. The question startled me.

  “The king, to Little Jamie,” I answered, as if it were obvious. “And I will do whatever it takes to secure his realm. Let them call me fickle and changeable. They do not know what it’s like to be mother of a king. They do not know what it is like to be me.”

  “Are you not afraid that if you continue to play both sides all will turn against you in the end?” Ellen asked. She was by far the only person who could afford such audacity; she knew I would forgive her anything. She, more than any adviser or counselor, gave my conscience a voice and, with her quiet prompting, forced me to examine my innermost heart.

  “Yes,” I told her in truth. “I am afraid of that.”

  “But if all you say is true, and I do not doubt your word, Your Grace, then you are sure of your course and are not in truth confused at all,” Ellen pointed out.

  I laughed at her reasoning. It was true. “I suppose I’m not,” I agreed. I offered another long-suffering sigh. “Perhaps then it is approval I seek.” My tone was wistful.

  “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 realized 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 gray 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 endeavored 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, reveling 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 sapp
ed, 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 councilor 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 anymore. 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 favor 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 to 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 memorization and insightful perspective on the realm.

  There, with his little court, we indulged in one of my favorite 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 harmonizing 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 good-bye.

  I greeted him wearing a soft mauve velvet gown with a cream satin kirtle. I would never tire of velvet; it was my favorite material and suited my complexion, softening it, and I co
uld 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 humor.

  “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 realized. 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 humor. “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.”