Spy for the Queen of Scots

by Theresa Breslin

  ‘What is the alternative?’ she asked.

  ‘We head for Dumbarton Castle and make that our base. Under Lord Fleming the garrison there has remained loyal to you throughout your imprisonment.’

  ‘And if my half-brother’s army intercepts us on the way?’

  Our infantry commander, the Earl of Argyll, hesitated, and then said, ‘I suppose we might face them in battle.’

  ‘So be it,’ said Mary. ‘If battle comes, then let us try it!’

  She was less confident that night as I lay beside her in her bed, unsleeping.

  ‘I fear for the life of my son,’ she whispered in the darkness.

  ‘It’s not in their interests to kill him,’ I reassured her. ‘They will hold him safe as ransom.’

  ‘I also fear for our lives.’

  I turned to face her. ‘In truth, I too am very frightened,’ I told her. ‘But I would rather be free and face my enemy, no matter what the outcome.’

  The sun was rising before Mary fell asleep. Outside, in the forecourt of the palace, I heard the sound of horses and men. I went to the window and slipped between the curtain and the glass. Below me, officers were organizing groups of archers and pikemen and giving instruction. Duncan Alexander was going up and down among them, consulting, and issuing notes of information. As I watched, he stopped for a moment and glanced up at my window.

  My heart gave such a leap that I put my hand to my breast.

  He raised his own and lifted his blue bonnet in a salute.

  I placed my palm against the windowpane.

  ‘May God protect you this day, Duncan Alexander,’ I whispered. ‘May God protect all of us.’

  We marched towards Dumbarton.

  It seemed an appropriate place to make our stand, for it was from that fortress on its rock that French ships had plucked Mary to safety when she was a child. There were men there who could sally forth to help us if we managed to draw Lord James Stuart so far west before his reinforcements arrived.

  But our enemy had veteran commanders on his side who knew how to fight and, more importantly in this case, where to stage a confrontation.

  It was the thirteenth of May when they met with us outside Glasgow, just beyond the village of Langside, where they’d secured a position from which to block our route. I found a vantage place with Mary while our commanders deployed the troops. As our advance parties with Lord Hamilton thrust forward through the narrow streets they came under withering fire from Lord James Stuart’s hagbutters, who lay concealed behind hedgerows, walls and bushes.

  I saw the puffs of powder smoke and heard the report of the guns, and the shouts and screams of the wounded and dying. The musket shots raked through our men. Trapped in the wynds and alleys between the houses, they were easy prey, and we could see them running and hunkering down to avoid being killed. I covered my face with my hands. Many of them were boys, some as young as thirteen or fourteen.

  The pounding of horses’ hooves caused me to raise my head. With flags flying and swords unsheathed Lord Herries’ cavalry charged to their aid, trampling down the shrubbery and the hagbutters with it. A rousing cheer sounded out as they surged through. Now it was up to Argyll to move the main force into the breach. With Highland battle cries and swinging claymores, his front lines began to run down into the village in ragged formation.

  ‘Stay by the queen,’ Duncan said to me. ‘At all times, do not leave her side.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ I asked him.

  ‘To check on our illustrious infantry commander,’ he retorted.

  I saw him gallop up to the Earl of Argyll. As Jean’s husband, Argyll was also kin to Lord James. But while Jean was true to Mary, in the past this man had switched sides depending on his own advantage. As I watched, the earl espied Duncan approaching him. Immediately he ceased talking to the officers with him and gazed out towards the enemy. Swivelling in his saddle, he glanced at the queen, standing beside me on the hill. Then he put both hands on his chest and fell forward on his horse.

  ‘Jesu!’ Mary cried out. ‘What’s amiss?’

  The earl’s lieutenants clustered around to help him from his horse. Duncan appeared to be urging them to lead their men in the assault. He waved his hands and arms in the air, motioning towards the opposing side. I looked in that direction.

  A full phalanx of Lord James Stuart’s pikemen was advancing towards us. We heard a trumpet sound, and immediately they thrust out their fourteen-foot-long weapons in serried ranks to form a schiltron. Bristling spear tips glinted as they closed together, impregnable in their tightly locked formation. Upon seeing this, many of Argyll’s men flung down their weapons and fled from the field.

  ‘Help him!’ I shouted, as Duncan and his horse were swept along in the mêlée. ‘To Alexander! To Duncan Alexander!’

  Mary had rushed to her own horse and was already mounted. I hastened to follow her, as did some of her braver lords – David of Cairncross being one. We galloped towards our men below. Just as we arrived there, so did Duncan, dishevelled, but still on his horse.

  ‘For the queen and for Scotland!’ he yelled. ‘To me! To me!’ He drew his sword and held it aloft. ‘We fight for Mary, Queen of Scots!’

  But these so-called soldiers were arguing amongst themselves. Some were related to the men of Argyll who had run away, and they too wanted to give up. Others berated and mocked them for their cowardice and stupidity in thinking to flee when it was clear that we had superior numbers.

  Mary rode among them, exhorting them to fight. When they did not rally, she galloped to the front and prepared to lead a charge herself.

  Duncan was beside her and tried to grab at her reins, but she pulled her horse away, screaming, ‘I will win, or I will die! Never, never, will I suffer the indignity and torture of prison again!’

  I had managed to reach her side. ‘Another day!’ I shouted to her. ‘Your victory will be another day!’

  She struggled to escape us, but between us, using our own mounts, we turned hers back.

  ‘Look!’ said Duncan. ‘Your army is disarray. If you go forward, you may be captured, not killed!’

  Lord Herries came up to us. ‘Let’s to Dumfries and Terregles House,’ he said. ‘I can shelter you there.’

  At last Mary conceded. And so we left, with the queen crying out, again and again, the same three words:

  ‘I am lost! I am lost!’

  Chapter 45

  WE WHIPPED OUR horses and rode as though a thousand demons pursued us.

  At the first river crossing Duncan leaped from his horse, burst into the nearest cottage, snatched an axe from the woodpile and ran back to chop at the supports of the bridge. He was yelling like a madman: ‘Find hatchets! Saws! Anything you can lay your hands on to bring this bridge down. Already James Stuart will have a price on the queen’s head and be sending out scouting parties.’

  Some of the cavalrymen who’d fled with us dismounted, ran to surrounding barns and farmhouses and grabbed what they could to hack at the ropes and trestles.

  ‘Take Lady Ginette and the queen and ride on!’ Duncan shouted to Lord Herries and David of Cairncross.

  ‘No!’ I cried.

  Sir David wrested the axe from Duncan’s hand and pushed him towards his horse. ‘You go with Lord Herries and the rest to escort the queen to safety,’ he said. ‘I and my men will finish this work and catch up with you on the road.’

  Thereafter we travelled southwards like fugitives through mountains and thick forests to Terregles.

  By day we hid. There were those who, at great risk to themselves, helped us – loyal men and women in the fortified houses and villages we passed. People who waited in the shadows under trees with fresh horses and baskets of provisions. During the daylight hours Mary slept a sleep of exhaustion. The men took turns on watch or to go and seek news and food. On the second evening after the battle at Langside I awoke to find our camp empty apart from Duncan Alexander. Beside me, Mary still slumbered. I stole away so as not t
o disturb her and went to where Duncan sat propped against a tree.

  ‘Eat,’ he said, offering me a piece of cheese.

  I took it from him, saying, ‘Why did the Earl of Argyll not give the order to attack?’

  ‘I doubt he ever had any intention of giving the order,’ Duncan said cynically. ‘I suspect he has been playing a double game all the while.’

  ‘You knew Mary’s cause was lost before we joined battle?’

  ‘Jenny, from first I met the Queen of Scots I knew her cause was hopeless.’

  I gazed at him in surprise.

  ‘Fate was unkind to her,’ he explained. ‘Born a woman when a male heir was wanted, with a destiny to rule a country riven by the greed of certain selfish lords, where clan loyalties override obedience to the crown. Despite her intelligence and considerable charm, the queen’s own naivety and her early training in France didn’t prepare her for the situations she was eventually forced to confront.’

  ‘She did as well as she was able,’ I said. ‘But there are matters that arise in life where, if you compromise, then you lose your self-respect.’ I was not just referring to Mary here, but to my own circumstances with regard to my relationship with Duncan: I’d decided that, no matter how much I desired him, I would not give myself to a man about whom I harboured doubts.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, pardoning rebels when harsh punishment might have been more appropriate, and remaining a Catholic when it would have served her better to become Protestant . . . These decisions were not politic, but I can admire her for trying to remain true to herself.’

  ‘If you knew Mary’s cause was doomed, then why have you supported her?’

  ‘The estates I inherited were awarded to my family in exchange for a lifelong oath of fealty to the Scottish crown. Mary’s mother sent me to France and charged me with guarding her daughter until she came to Scotland to claim her throne.’

  ‘You discharged that duty,’ I said, ‘yet have remained by her side all this time.’

  ‘I have,’ he replied. He stared at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

  ‘I know the reason,’ I said.

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Like many others,’ I said with a sigh, ‘you are half in love with the Queen of Scots.’

  ‘It wasn’t for love of her, you ninny,’ Duncan said in exasperation. ‘It was for love of you, Jenny.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You,’ he repeated. ‘Jenny, I am in love with you.’

  Scarcely breathing, I stared at him. Everything around me faded. I saw only his face. Nothing else existed in this moment of time.

  Leaning across, he cupped my face in his hands. ‘From the beginning.’ He rested his forehead on mine. ‘Always and for ever. It was you, Jenny.’

  A flare of happiness ignited within me. ‘Wh-when . . .?’ I stammered.

  ‘When we first met, I thought you liked me. But then you scratched my face, so I was forced to admit I might have been wrong in that assessment.’ He put his hand to his cheek. ‘I think I still bear the mark.’

  ‘I reacted that way because of something I witnessed,’ I said quickly. My senses tumbled over each other as I spoke. He loves me. Duncan actually does love me.

  ‘I realized that later. But at the time my pride was hurt and I thought you—’ He broke off.

  ‘A silly fickle girl, as many in that court were, with no thought in her head but to lead a man on and then play with his affections,’ I finished for him.

  ‘Quite.’ He smiled. ‘But then, as I watched you and your feeble attempts at spying to protect the queen, I saw that you must have integrity to act that way.’

  ‘Feeble attempts!’ I said indignantly.

  ‘Oh, don’t be offended. It is a compliment to say that you are not devious. And anyway’ – he moved closer – ‘we cannot afford the luxury of a quarrel now, however tempting the prospect of making up might be.’

  ‘I was very adept at seeking out information,’ I told him, ‘and alert for any danger to the queen.’

  ‘You were incredibly brave in trying to eat a piece of every pastry that you thought might have been poisoned. Although there might have been a more straightforward way to deal with that threat.’ He laughed. ‘By tipping the contents of the sideboard down the privy chute, perhaps?’

  ‘I thought if I bit into them all, then I’d find out if there was a plot to kill her.’

  ‘And did you not think that you put yourself in danger by tasting them?’

  ‘I intended to spit out any where the flavour was unusual.’

  ‘Or be sick?’ he asked wryly.

  I recalled the vomiting episode and my shame and embarrassment. ‘I’ve heard that causing oneself to retch helps negate the effects of poison,’ I said huffily.

  ‘I wasn’t sure if you were inordinately greedy or just crazy,’ he replied.

  ‘Also,’ I added defensively, ‘I didn’t want the person I suspected to know that I was aware he was a poisoner.’

  Duncan looked at me with interest. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘The Count of Cluny,’ I said, and I told him of the conversation I’d overheard between Catherine de’ Medici and the count and why I’d scratched his face.

  Duncan sat up straighter. ‘The Count of Cluny was here in Scotland. He came via England in the party accompanying Darnley when he first met Mary in Fife.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I thought he might still be around, working secretly, for I’m sure it was his poison that was used in the attempt on Mary’s life at Jedburgh.’

  ‘No, Cluny is in France, and has been for some time,’ Duncan said, ‘but it may be that there is an agent here to whom he gave some of his poisons.’

  Mary was stirring, and seeing this, he stood up. I spoke hurriedly: ‘There is one person I know he spoke to, for I saw them myself.’

  Duncan paused in the act of helping me to rise. ‘Who?’ he asked tersely.

  ‘Rizzio. One night at Holyrood I followed him and watched them chatting secretly together.’

  ‘You have played dangerous games, Jenny.’ Duncan’s face showed concern. ‘Remember what happened to Rizzio.’

  ‘I well remember,’ I replied, cross at what I took to be his patronizing tone. ‘I was there. Master David Rizzio did not deserve such a brutal end.’

  ‘Indeed, no.’ He held me for a second as he drew me to my feet. ‘Let’s hope the little Italian is playing his lute in Heaven.’

  ‘We must find out who else the Count of Cluny spoke to privately,’ I said.

  And then a chill came over me. The only other person I absolutely knew that the Count had spoken to in private was Duncan Alexander himself. Gavin had told me he had seen them together in the garden at Wemyss Castle. Immediately after that Darnley had been taken unwell, and I’d seen Duncan wiping the dinner plates. He had also been at Jedburgh when there had been an attempt to poison the queen.

  Mary was calling for me, and we prepared for another gruelling ride when darkness came. I busied myself with sorting her clothes and my own, but all the while thoughts churned in my head.

  Duncan.

  Duncan?

  I’d suspected an attempt had been made to poison Darnley and Duncan had removed the evidence from the dinner dishes – Duncan, who had absented himself from Holyrood on the night of Rizzio’s murder when he might have remained to defend us. It was Duncan I’d seen riding off in haste to Kirk o’ Field just before the explosion occurred and then returning unharmed. Duncan in the tower with Catherine de’ Medici. Duncan who had locked up the maidservant at Jedburgh, who then died that night. At Carberry Hill he had urged me to leave Mary and ride away. It was Duncan who had been with the Earl of Argyll before he’d mysteriously collapsed, and who then gave instructions to his officers. Perhaps he’d overcome the earl by some noxious gas kept in a bottle about his person and then encouraged his soldiers to flee. And now, with clever words, he blamed the earl for the disastrous outcome.

  As we saddled up, I leaned my head ag
ainst the pommel for a moment. My bones and muscles ached with riding almost non-stop for two nights and my mind was awash with confusing thoughts. My elation was now being swept aside by suspicion.

  Could it be that Duncan had been sent from Scotland to watch over Mary – but not by her mother? Perhaps he was in the employ of Lord James Stuart, to keep his half-sister under surveillance and undermine her in whatever way he could.

  Chapter 46

  AT TERREGLES A council was held, where Mary decided she would go to England to seek help from Elizabeth.

  Her announcement was met with protests and groans of disbelief.

  Duncan spoke up, ‘Majesty, you would be safer in France.’

  ‘It’s better that I’m nearer Scotland,’ Mary replied, ‘so that I can keep contact with my supporters. They say James Balfour left Edinburgh Castle to join my half-brother’s army, and that the new governor there is holding out for me.’

  ‘Do not go to England then,’ advised Lord Herries. ‘Stay here and we can keep you hidden.’

  ‘I agree,’ said Sir David of Cairncross, who had arrived intact with his men barely an hour previously. ‘In England Elizabeth is surrounded by ruthless advisers. Like her father and his father before him, she does not hesitate to eliminate potential enemies.’

  ‘My loyal friends,’ said Mary, ‘I thank you, but I am a crowned queen. Elizabeth will respect the office even if she holds no love for me. I trust that she’ll not refuse me succour. After my betrayal and capture at Carberry she expressed her outrage that nobles would do such a thing to an anointed queen. She has little sympathy with John Knox, who has been an instigator of many rebellious incidents against me. When I was imprisoned in Loch Leven, she sent Throckmorton, her best ambassador, who smuggled notes to me with words of encouragement and advice.’

  Mary resisted the torrent of counter argument from her advisers. They listed examples of Elizabeth’s duplicity: she’d sheltered the rebel Scots lords, colluded with Lord James Stuart; she was committed to Protestantism, and had consistently refused to name Mary or Mary’s heirs as her own successors.