B009AY3XF6 EBOK

by D. L. Bogdan

  Her name jarred me. I was ashamed I hadn’t asked of her. There was too much else on my mind, as there had always been where Margaret was concerned.

  “Ah,” I answered, matching his light tone. “That is good . . . that is good.”

  I did not cry till after he quit my rooms.

  “I will go to war with Henry if I have to!” Jamie told me, his cheeks ruddy with rage as we discussed the matter of my brother’s insistent support of Angus in his apartments. Despite my trying to steer the conversation toward the lighter fare of marriage, Jamie would not be dissuaded. Talk of Angus inflamed him. “Do not think I am above going to war against my uncle if he keeps undermining the peace of Scotland!”

  I shook my head with a heavy sigh. “Nothing will surprise me. Brothers war against brother, son against father . . . nephew against uncle is nothing new,” I said, my tone weary. “But please, Jamie, think of Scotland and the peace I have worked for these past thirty years. Please think of that, of how hard won it has been.”

  “Of course I want to maintain the peace, Mother,” Jamie told me. “But I will not tolerate betrayal. By anyone.”

  “I have offered myself as mediator,” I said. “I want to honor the treaty of Berwick; perhaps we can renew it. England is too mighty an enemy to have at one’s border, Jamie. We canna afford it.”

  “I know, Mother, I know, by God,” Jamie answered, his voice thin with impatience. “Meantime, what of the English court? You know more than I, I am sure.” This was not true; Jamie was indulging me, but for the sake of indulging his need for distraction I told him. Anything to be relieved of the topic of Angus.

  “Henry wrested his wish for a divorce at least from the English people,” I informed him. “Though His Holiness was none too eager to grant him a thing, and excommunicated him.”

  “His soul is in peril, then,” Jamie observed, wide-eyed. For as much of a profligate my son was proving to be, it amused me how prudish he could be when the occasion called for it. He was not as different from his uncle Henry as he thought.

  I laughed. “Well, he separated from Rome and made himself head of the new Church of England, with one of his own as Archbishop of Canterbury. So I imagine he sees his soul as quite reconciled with the Lord, Jamie.” I could not help but admire my brother’s tenacity and great strength of will. He managed to carve out a way where no way seemed possible and was ruled by no one but himself. Had I only been as strong . . .

  “So he married his Anne, then,” Jamie said.

  “Yes,” I said. “And she is even expecting a prince already,” I noted.

  “Well, I suppose all is as he wants it now and he can address English matters of policy with more focus.”

  “Indeed,” I agreed. “Perhaps one of those matters should be your own marriage, Jamie. To the Princess Mary?” I could not keep the hopefulness from my voice.

  “Mother, you canna be serious,” Jamie said with a laugh. “With the king remarried, the princess is now illegitimate. I have advised the Duke of Albany and Lord William Howard of the same. The marriage is not to be considered.”

  “How can that be? My daughter Margaret is recognized even though Angus and I are divorced,” I pointed out.

  “King Henry wants no one standing in the way of future male heirs, Mother,” Jamie told me. “You must know that.”

  I suppose I did. “Well, then,” I said, not without a bit of sadness in seeing my long-held dream of the cousins wed dying. “What did Albany say?” I asked then, my heart still thrilling after all these years at the thought of him.

  “He has proposed his niece by marriage, Catherine de’ Medici,” Jamie informed me.

  “Oh, an Italian,” I said with a dismissive wave of my hand.

  “A very wealthy Italian,” Jamie told me.

  “She’d never survive Scotland,” I told him.

  “Albany was told the same thing,” Jamie returned with a laugh. “But what think you, Mother, of Margaret Erskine?”

  “What, a Scotswoman?” I was scandalized at the thought. “What on earth could she offer you?”

  “She is a noblewoman, Mother, and the mother of my son,” Jamie told me. “I think she could offer me a great deal. I am very fond of her.”

  “Perish the thought,” I said. “What has love ever gotten us? You are better off with a foreign princess who can give you an alliance and a good dowry.”

  Jamie sighed at this. “Sometimes I think you have been through too much, Mother,” he observed, his tone thick with sadness. “It is making you cold.”

  I pursed my lips at this, too afraid to speak past the painful lump growing in my throat. “Well. Be that as it may. If you won’t take my good advice about marriage, then perhaps we can at least set to organizing a personal meeting between you and Henry.” I blinked away the onset of tears, allowing myself to be captivated by the new dream. “Oh, but I would love that! It would be a great spectacle, like Henry’s Field of Cloth and Gold with King Francois long ago. Wouldn’t it be wonderful? An historic meeting between two great monarchs.”

  “Now, now, Mother, dinna get ahead of yourself,” Jamie cautioned, but he was smiling. “It would be a great thing, were we able to achieve it. But first, we must achieve some sort of lasting peace, else a personal meeting could go drastically awry.”

  I would not lose hope for it, though. Ah, but wouldn’t Father be proud! If I could achieve such a meeting between the two men I loved most in the world, it would be my greatest glory. . . . Peace, lasting peace, between our realms, orchestrated by me. My dreams would have all come true, marriage or no marriage between Jamie and my brother’s daughter. My purpose would still have been fulfilled.

  I could die happy then.

  As I prayed for peace between my son and my brother, a messenger delivered more heartbreak from England. My sister, Mary, was dead. I prayed for her soul when I learned of it, saddened as I recalled her wistful beauty, wondering if she had found happiness with her Brandon after all, wondering many things. I recalled the years when I was jealous of her beauty and her fortune; she had gone after the man she loved and won him, with little consequence from my brother. Had it been worth it then? I knew little of Brandon. I knew little of her.

  Now I was Henry’s only sister left; for a Tudor nursery once so full, it was now down to the two of us. It made the necessity of peace between our realms all the more urgent for me. I could not bear the thought of being at odds with my only sibling.

  Anne was delivered of a baby girl in September of that year, and though my heart ached for my brother’s disappointment, I rejoiced just the same. They called her Elizabeth after our mother and I was told she had the Tudor red hair, perhaps a Heavenly tribute to her aunt Mary in Heaven. Elizabeth was said to be a lusty bairn and I was assured her birth meant more babes would soon fill England’s nursery again.

  I wondered if my Margaret saw the baby and what she thought of her.

  I did not hear from my daughter enough to know one way or another.

  In 1534 the treaty of Berwick was renewed between Jamie and my brother. It would not be long before, I hoped, a meeting could be arranged between uncle and nephew. As the treaty stood, both Henry and Jamie swore to peace as long as they lived. May their reigns be long!

  “I canna help but feel complete,” I told Ellen. We had just arrived at Stirling from Edinburgh and I was glad as always to be at my favorite residence. “Everything I have worked for has come to fruition; I have at last realized my purpose.”

  “Well, good,” Ellen said, her voice laden with weariness as she sat, a bit heavily, in her plush velvet chair, pulled before the merry fire I insisted remained stoked in my rooms regardless of the season. It reminded me of the many days I spent before fires, with Albany, with Jamie, with my brother Arthur . . . fire cheered me; it restored me. As I was born under the sign of fire, this did not surprise me. I was one with it.

  “Now perhaps this means Your Grace can take a bit of much-needed, well-deserved rest,” she said.
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br />   “Rest?” I waved a hand. “Really, Ellen, you speak to me as if I am an old woman! Rest!” I mocked with a laugh. “Not while Jamie is unmarried and has that ridiculous notion of wedding Lady Erskine. No, I must find him a proper bride. And I still must arrange the meeting between him and my brother.”

  Ellen regarded me a long moment, then shook her head. Or perhaps I imagined she did. Her smile was as indulgent as always.

  She offered a long sigh. “Perhaps you will allow me, then, to take some rest, Your Grace.”

  “But of course!” I told her. “Do you need to nap? You may go to your apartments and rest as long as you like, only come back later so we might sew together and take in a bit of music.”

  “No,” Ellen said, her voice unusually firm. I started at the sound. “Your Grace, I mean, I would like to retire from court life. I would like to go home.”

  “Home?” I screwed up my face in confusion. “What do you mean, home? Your home is with me.”

  Ellen bowed her head. “I would like to go to the Lindsays. It was Marjorie Lindsay who took me in as a child, and I have . . . family there. I would like to retire with them.”

  “But, Ellen, that is just foolish,” I said, incredulous that she should suggest such a preposterous thing when we had so much to do. “Whom will I consult on gowns? You know I hate my other ladies; I have no use for any of them, they are all flighty, false-hearted fools. I need you. And the Lindsays, you dinna really know them, not like you know me. You wouldn’t be happy there.”

  “Perhaps Your Grace would allow me to be the judge of that,” Ellen told me. “Your Grace, you dinna really need me. What am I? Your Moorish lass. I am nothing to the great minds who advise you. And wouldn’t you like to repair things with your lord husband?”

  “Ellen!” I snapped. “Dinna throw Harry at me at a time like this, just to distract me from you weaseling your way out of my service, and after all I have done for you! Really!” I huffed, folding my arms across my chest. “I’ll hear no more talk of it; it is sheer foolishness. I will permit you to take rest whenever you like, though,” I added in softer tones. “I know we are none of us as young as we once were, though I’m hard pressed to let it stop me,” I said with an air of superiority. “You can go rest now, if you like, and we shall go on as if this unpleasant topic has never been discussed.”

  Ellen rose. I averted my eyes from the tears glistening in her ebony eyes.

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” she said in low tones.

  I waved her off, still miffed at the audacity of her suggestion.

  Too many had already left me. I was not about to lose the best friend I ever had.

  “News of England, Your Grace,” Lord William Howard informed me. I smiled in greeting as always when meeting with the handsome young ambassador. We were in my apartments today. I was thinking of returning to Edinburgh of late to attend to the matter of Jamie’s meeting with my brother; for two years now he had teased me with the prospect and I was tired of him putting it off. My brother was willing to meet him at York, but stubborn Jamie would not venture farther than Newcastle. It was obvious now that Jamie did not intend to meet with my brother, on the advice of his council, a party that was standing more and more at odds with me by the day.

  “Good, perhaps my brother has agreed to pay me back the money I spent on a suitable wardrobe for the meeting that never happened,” I said, irritated that Henry was silent on the matter of my funds. I was to appear the mother of one king and the sister of another; I would not be seen in rags!

  “I am afraid His Majesty has been occupied with rather serious matters,” Lord William said. “Queen Anne Boleyn has been executed for adultery and high treason.”

  I glowered at the thought of a woman executed. The image never sat well with me. “Our poor brother,” was all I could think of to say. “Is he well?”

  “He took a hard fall in January at a joust,” Lord William told me. “It has caused him much grief. And Princess Dowager Catherine passed in January, you know,” he added then, as if this perhaps figured into Henry’s current state.

  I could not help but feel for the woman I had regarded almost the whole of our lives as my sister-in-law. As I had never met the Boleyn creature, I was not as inclined to regard her as family. And though my bond with Catherine was precarious at best, she was still yet another fixture of my youth to perish, proving herself as mortal as the rest. I wondered what this bespoke of my own life’s impermanence.

  “We had heard,” I said, my tone heavy with mourning. “First Our dear sister Mary, now Catherine. I feel as though I am the last of something.” I blinked several times. “There is something more, isn’t there?”

  Lord William nodded. “I am afraid it regards your daughter, the Lady Douglas.”

  My heart lurched at the name. “What of Margaret, Lord William?”

  “She is being held in the Tower of London,” he said. “She . . . she fell in love with the wrong man, it seems. She was betrothed without the permission of the king. He—the young man—is imprisoned as well.” He closed his eyes at this, swallowing hard. “He is sentenced to death,” he added, his tremulous voice soft with the horror of it.

  “Who is this man?” I asked, anger hot as wine coursing through my veins at the impulsive act of my daughter, who should have conducted herself as a good English maid in my brother’s court and instead went on to shame us both.

  “My brother Thomas,” Lord William revealed, lowering his eyes.

  “Norfolk?” I asked, grimacing.

  “No, my other brother Thomas, the Younger,” Lord William hastened to correct me, for which I was eternally grateful. I could not imagine my daughter succumbing to the considerably lacking charms of old, hawk-nosed Norfolk.

  “Well, we are much aggrieved for both the Howards and for Our daughter,” I said. “We canna abide Margaret disobeying Our brother after he has hosted her with such kindness, raising her as his own. It is most unseemly and ungrateful and We are ashamed of her; We shall disown her if she canna deport herself with the dignity of her station,” I added, my tone hard with severity. “It is obvious she has had little guidance from her own father.”

  Lord William’s expression was pitiable at this and I dismissed him. Only after he left did I succumb to trembling and pacing before my fire as I wondered after my daughter’s fate. Would she be put to death as well? Surely Henry would not risk it, for putting to death the sister of the King of Scots could bode war, and Henry did not want war, not after renewing the treaty of Berwick. No, he would not put her to death, I assured myself.

  I sat before my fire, rocking back and forth, staring into the flames, praying with all my soul that my daughter be wise, that she be kept safe from my brother’s wrath.

  Oh, Margaret, Margaret, you foolish girl. We know each other not, yet how like your mother you are....

  23

  The Distant Drums

  I returned to Edinburgh to be with Jamie. I would take comfort in the only child I had and hoped I would find in him reassurance.

  “More than ever I believe it imperative that you meet with my brother,” I told him. “Your sister’s life could be in jeopardy,” I urged Jamie. “He must be made to see how vital peace with Scotland is, and how risking the life of your sister could thwart the treaty of Berwick.”

  “Margaret is safe, Mother,” Jamie informed me, his tone thin with impatience. He met me in my apartments. He would not even suffer to see me alone, but allowed Harry in the room with him—Harry, whom I went without seeing for months at a time, and only by chance when we did meet.

  “She is?” My heart was pounding heavily in my chest. I put my hand to my breast as if I could still it. “You are sure?”

  “Yes,” Jamie told me. “I have been assured this is more of a chastisement for her behavior and no real harm will come to her,” he added.

  “Thank God!” I exclaimed, closing my eyes a moment. “What of Lord Howard?” I asked then, pitying the young man who had the misfortun
e of loving my equally unfortunate daughter.

  “Still imprisoned, but the death sentence has not been enforced,” Jamie said. “He is none of our concern. There is other news, Mother.”

  By the wistful light in his eyes I discerned it was nothing good and stiffened in my chair, drawing in a deep breath. “What now?” I asked.

  “The Duke of Albany, Mother,” Jamie told me. “He’s . . . he has passed on.”

  The room seemed to be moving. My heart thudded against my ribs in a violent rhythm. Albany . . . Albany . . .

  “No!” I cried. “Oh, Jamie, no!”

  “I am afraid it’s true,” Harry interjected.

  Jamie bowed. “Perhaps I will leave you to discuss this alone,” he said, pressing my hand with a brief kiss before making an all-too-hasty retreat.

  I began to sob. “Not Albany!” I cried. “Oh, not my Albany . . .”

  “ ‘Your’ Albany,” Harry stated with a sigh. “You really loved him, didn’t you?” His tone was soft.

  I could not help but nod. I did love him. And now he was gone, denied me forever.

  “Always the men you canna have,” Harry noted then, and I flinched. “I suppose there is something about the forbidden that keeps such love forever sweetened. It is never tainted by the hardships of reality.”

  “You would know,” I snapped, my cheeks hot as I thought of his Janet.

  “I suppose it is better for John Stewart to never have known your love,” Harry said then. “Perhaps you remained as tender in his memory as he does in yours.”

  “Jehan . . .” I whispered though tears. “He . . . he called himself Jehan. . . .”

  Harry bowed to this. “I crave your pardon, Your Grace,” he said in smooth tones.

  “Oh, Harry, I want to be alone, won’t you just let me alone?” I hissed, impatient with his mocking banter. “No . . . fetch Ellen for me. Yes. I would like Ellen beside me now.”