The Queen's Caprice

by Marjorie Bowen

  “The century is not worthy of us,” he smiled gravely. He crossed to the window and looked out into the dusk. A low, thin moon that seemed decayed hung over the bare trees and gave a reluctant light. He thought of the Queen — she was never long out of his mind. He understood this complex creature who was a mystery to some and whom others did not trouble to study. He knew all her faults and did not blame them. If he had been in her half-brother’s place he could have managed her better. Moray was a zealot, or pretended to be, and seldom laughed — his humour was bleak and acid. But he, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, would have known how to deal with that brittle, brilliant woman with her warm blood and shallow mind — if he had been a prince.

  Moray had another weakness that surprised Maitland — his dreadful fear of sorcery. Sometimes he thought that the Queen, whom Maitland could read so well as a woman of the earth, was an enchantress or one who dealt in spells. Maitland smiled at this, but secretly, for he was perhaps the only man in Scotland to despise such superstitions.

  “Why do you stare out at the moon?” asked Moray harshly. Maitland knew that he thought of Hecate and her terrors of the dark, and so asked:

  “Do you take me for a wizard?”

  “There are such, close about us,” complained Moray, “more than I care to name. The thought of them is like the fear of the plague to me.”

  “I am not infected.” Maitland left the window. “You know that she met Lennox’s son at Wemyss?”

  “What has she said about him?”

  “Nothing. Where she is touched deep, she is dumb.”

  “I shall make her speak.”

  *

  Moray walked through the narrow passages and long low rooms, the cramped ante-chambers and twisting staircases of the Abbey of Holy Cross, named sometimes Holy Rood, which was a palace, a ruined church, and a royal burial ground set in pleasure gardens and a park full of hunting coverts. All the windows that he passed were shrouded by curtains of stiff leather. Lamps and candles were plentiful so that, save for the biting air, it might have been summer.

  When he reached the Queen’s apartments he found that she was in bed, not for any sickness, but merely resting.

  She was sunk in a huge bed filled with silk mattresses and down pillows. The elaborate bed furniture was a shot silk of red and yellow, with the rugged lion and border of lilies enclosed in a diamond shape. The Queen wore a little ermine cape and the coverlets were turned down to her waist.

  When she saw her half-brother she sat up and gave him her hand. The atmosphere was drowsy, the candlelight left the room in shadow; on a cushion in front of the deep-set fire sat Mary Seaton, stringing perfumed beads into a bracelet. Her face was pure, with a remote expression, like that of a nun. Moray took the chair of watered silk by the bed; he knew that his harsh attire, his heavy frame, his weary face were out of place in this enervating chamber.

  The Queen looked at him in a modest silence. Her glance seemed to entreat, almost to fawn. Under the ermine mantle that fell open because of its weight, her bosom and shoulders, white as a privet bud, showed beneath a gauze shift. Her hair, the hue of a crimson lily when it fades from splendour in autumn, was dark and crimped behind a golden caul.

  With a flattering humility she touched her half-brother’s strong hand where it rested on the arm of the chair and asked him if he were angry with her.

  They always spoke in French for she knew little Scots or English; her voice was sweetly tuned and Moray could never hear it unmoved.

  “We have too much idle talk,” he said stiffly.

  “I always do as you bid me,” she smiled.

  He nodded grimly. He did all the intricate, thankless business of her half-barbarous kingdom, spent himself in schemes and toils on her behalf. She would come to the Council chamber with her length of shimmering embroidery, so docile, so clever, with her wise little remarks, her shrewd comments, with so much majesty in her glance and gesture. But afterwards she would hasten to her sport and her pleasure, forget it all, fall into idleness or feverish activity as suited her mood, and leave all to him.

  “For the matter of your marriage—”

  “Marriage! How I weary at the word!”

  “I know. It is true that there seems no one—”

  “Do not talk to me of policies, sweet James! I have been biddable, I have no faults concealed.”

  “Ah, madame!” He looked at her sideways, resenting, admitting her costly rarity as she lay there dewy fresh and warm as a pearl in a summer sea. She was twenty-two years old, gentle and fiery, soft and reckless, full of wiles and little lies. Her features were straight, with a high forehead, a pouting upper lip, a rounded chin and a complexion of flawless purity. Her brows were faint arcs of gold dust, her eyes were marigold brown, but, in the iris, flecked with dusky purple, like a pansy where the petals spring from the heart.

  She had been over four years a widow. Moray recalled with disgust and compassion the swarthy boy rotten with disease who had been her husband. She was twice a Queen; on the azure velvet of her headboard the curved silver of the French lilies and the devices of the Valois showed between the harsh colours of Scotland.

  “What did you think of Henry Stewart?” asked Moray directly.

  “He is a tall, proper youth.”

  “I mean his temper and his ambitions.”

  “What do I know? We played at billiards and he won a crystal from me.”

  “If he were a man,” said Moray, “rather than a silly boy, he might well be your choice.”

  “Because that would silence the Lennox claims?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then none shall blame me if I make this match?” Her firm lips, softly painted, parted in a smile.

  “No!” cried Moray sternly. “I do not trust him nor his father, nor any of that faction. I would as soon that you took the English blockhead.”

  “Elizabeth Tudor’s lover?”

  “We do not know.”

  “We can guess. Dudley does not like me. I do not tempt him; he will not cross the border to look at me. Oh, Jesu! How long am I to be marketed? If Henry Stewart should woo me, may I not yield?”

  She moved towards Moray, turning in the bed, and touching his hand again. She was like a gilded flower. He felt dizzy from the heated air, from the perfumes of her body that he could see beneath the ermine, from the melting glances of her humble eyes. She drew a lazy breath.

  “May no man have me?” she sighed, “Why should I be so set aside?”

  “Madame, one sells common things easily, one barters long over a pearl, a star, a peerless gem.”

  “Too long, sweet James, and your pearl dissolves in tears, your star is hid in mist, your gem is flawed.”

  She looked at him so shrewdly that he remembered two dead men and wondered what truth had been twice stifled in blood. The handsome young Frenchman, how familiar she had been with him, leaning on his breast in the dance, plucking at the lute he held on his knees, toying with his curls, like an idle flirt, yet when she had found the wretch hidden in her privy chamber she had called on him, Moray, and in a womanly passion, bid him strike the intruder to the heart.

  “Tell me of Henry Stewart,” he said, to change his thoughts. “I must know. Is he a young, gay person, loud, expensive, giddy?”

  “He can play tennis excellently, he is quick. He puts all his revenue on his back, he sings in a voice you’d not expect, so soft and strong, he likes hot wines and spiced foods. He talks English and puzzles over Scots, he knows no French and his fingers are clever with the lute.”

  “He is no husband for a Queen.”

  “Find me, then, another.”

  “Madame, you do not mean that you will accept this boy?”

  “Did I say I would? Or only that he had a fair face? Or did I say that? It is true, he is fair, like Adonis in a painting.”

  “I shall see him, and judge him.”

  “And must I abide by your judgment?”

  She sat upright in the bed, the pillows
to her waist, behind her shoulders the celestial blue and moonlit silver of France; the man watching her felt as if nets were being spread for him by a deft young sorceress. He fixed his mind on the God of John Calvin and John Knox; he thought of the loathsome obscurity of death, of the brevity of earthly brightness, of the rough country that he longed to possess and thus he stilled his attraction to this gay, alluring woman of his own passionate blood, with the idle heart and empty arms.

  The Lennox boy was as honourable, as convenient a match as any he could contrive for her, if the groom could be taught his place; yet the thought of her, bloomy and fragrant, in that same bed, in the hot youth’s embrace made him quiver with nausea. He forced himself to say;

  “If he was not an idle youth, if he could learn to be wise and quiet—”

  The Queen laughed; with a languid movement of her arms she slipped out of the ermine, showing her smooth, curved shoulders, her full, firm bosom. In the hollow of her breasts was a ring of blood-coloured stones slung on a chain as fine as human hair. Moray wondered sullenly who had put it there. He had suspected her and John Gordon, but she had ridden northwards, beside him, Moray, to put down the Huntly and his brood. He had made her stand at the window in Inverness and see John Gordon die. He had not been able to guess her feelings, though he had watched her very carefully. She had stood erect with her smile of fatal sweetness, a little curious frown between her faint brows. When the strong fine man had knelt before the block she had peered forward. The executioner had bungled, there had been a sickening scene of butchery. She had said nothing, but she had fallen down at Moray’s feet, so suddenly that he had hardly time to catch at her brocade skirts. He recalled the sense of satisfaction, of release, with which he had held her in his arms, how her little white teeth had glistened between the dry lips, and how the faint veins, like the fine traceries of a flower, had shown in her throat.

  Afterwards she had been silent about the Gordons; even when the body of the old Cock of the North had been set up in his coffin to be judged, she had made no protest. Did she blame her brother for his cruelty, did she know what had inspired it?

  Then, with Pierre de Chastelard he had been quite sure of her wantonness and had fretted in dumb torment, but she herself had bidden him take the insolent youth and kill him instantly. Then he was ashamed of the delight he had felt at this proof of her outraged innocence. Now he sighed, much doubting her integrity.

  “Harry Stewart is coming to Edinburgh,” smiled the Queen with exquisite malice, “and you shall judge him.”

  Moray rose and took his leave with embarrassment. There was nothing more to be said and he wished he had not come.

  As he turned to her, she leapt to her knees in the soft bed and threw her arms round his neck, kissing him slowly on his cold cheeks.

  “Kind brother,” she whispered in the voice of a lover, “sweet James! Who else have I? You shall guide me, you and you only.”

  Moray did not return her kisses, her caresses. He told himself that she was not only sullied, but depraved. Yet, when he had thrust her from him and she lay, rebuffed and drooping on the pillows, he believed in her guileless, simple honesty.

  *

  The Queen listened to the door closing on her half-brother. She laughed.

  “Is he not a proper gentleman? If he had been my cousin instead of my brother, I would have solved everything by marrying him.”

  Mary Seaton spilled her beads into her lap and yawned.

  “Madame, I think him black, dull, and tedious.”

  “Valiant, though, Mary. A bold, strong fellow. I like these men who must rule. Sometimes he hates me because he is misbegotten. He wants to be King, and yet he loves me, too.”

  “I think so, madame. I hope so, seeing what power he has.”

  “I like to play with him. A priest become a Puritan, is not that curious? A lost heretic, my poor James, damned for other secret sins as well, do you not think so?”

  “How can I tell, madame?”

  “I swear there is no ice in his veins. The King, his father, was no dullard. James is so strict and godly, so precise and sober, do you not think he gluts himself in secret?”

  “Ah, well! I’ve heard no tales.”

  “He would be careful. A threadbare prudence, like his coat.” She flung back the coverlet and sat on the edge of the mattress, her feet on the bedstep. “How he will hate Harry Stewart;” She took off her caul and the harsh, stiff, crimped hair hung loose to her waist. “Is there dancing tonight?”

  “If you wish, madame?”

  “No. But let them play some music in the next chamber, so that we can hear it. I ought to think, but I never can, when I try I dream of love and fall asleep. Did you see how I probed his mind and did not let him know my own?”

  “He’ll know it soon enough, madame, too soon for comfort — when Lord Darnley comes to Holyrood.”

  “To-morrow, Mary, to-morrow. Tell me what you thought of him.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, again, I want to talk about him!” The Queen rose and stood on the silk rug before the fire; the glow of the flames shone through the gauze shift, outlining her white body. “There was never another like him, never.”

  She put her restless hands on Mary Seaton’s smooth, bright hair.

  “I am as tall as my father they say, but he can lift me, easily.”

  “Did he try?”

  “Into the saddle, yes. Come, you are so slow, if you were me, would you not take him?”

  “Oh, madame, I wonder!” The girl lifted earnest eyes. “Being a Queen, one would not want to please oneself only—”

  “Why not? One will never please any other.” Her exquisite face dimpled. “James would like an image of ice to sit at the board and sign his papers. Perhaps I have been too fashioned to his liking, too pliant, eh?”

  “I only thought—” Mary Seaton rose, “if Lord Darnley was not worth—”

  The Queen stopped her.

  “Oh, his worth! Would you not like the man to embrace you? Would you not like to see him agonized with love?”

  *

  The two French girls held the gilt-lipped vases of milk and slowly poured them into the alabaster bath. The white fluid flowed round the breasts of the Queen as she sang to herself quietly. From her rounded mouth the melody rose like a trickle of silver.

  She sang a poem by Pierre Ronsard, who admired her so much, who had praised her so extravagantly. It was about a lovely girl who had died young; on her grave were tossed a basket of roses and a vase of milk.

  The Queen wished she had rose-petals to strew in her bath. In France one could get them, early and late in the year, grown under glass, but here it was so cold, the summer so short, the flowers so few. Even the milk was difficult to obtain; milch cows had to be kept specially and the Puritans were insolent even about a trifle like that.

  The French girls poured in more milk; it rose to the Queen’s chin; she stirred her limbs in the full bath. The room was very warm. Mary Seaton threw perfumes on the fire so that the air was thick and close. The Queen felt drowsy and rather sad. Already her life seemed to have been unfortunate. When she was a little child she had dwelt in a castle on a lake to be away from rebels and enemies. She thought that she could remember it, grey, cold, with low clouds flying round the standard on the tower.

  When she thought of France she sighed. She had had to work so hard at her lessons and behave so straightly under the eye of her stern grandmother, who always dressed in green serge and kept her coffin where she had to pass it on her way to chapel. But there had been something grand and splendid about her French life, and when she became older she had enjoyed much more freedom. She had liked her uncles, the soldier and the priest, they had understood her and taught her so much. She recalled how the Cardinal would lift up her hair and kiss the nape of her neck and sigh a little. It had been gorgeous to be Queen of France, a bright and vital position. When Mary Tudor died she had been Queen of England too; she had had much satisfaction in quarte
ring the Leopards. How could Elizabeth, who was a bastard and a heretic, be Queen? But the English people had chosen her and it had been necessary to give way.

  Not perhaps to give way for ever. Her uncles had told her to flatter Elizabeth and win her rights by guile, even to sanction the persecution of the Romanists for a while.

  She stirred in the warm milk. The French girls, who wore white aprons and had their sleeves rolled to the elbows, were preparing another bath of clear water.

  The Queen smiled, thinking how clever and docile she had been. She had allowed her half-brother and his friend, Maitland, to do everything, though she believed they had both been traitors once and might be again. On every disputed point she had given way. Mass was heard nowhere in Scotland save in her own Chapel of Holyrood, where even the Church had been desecrated and ruined. But some day, surely the Pope, or the King of Spain, or her little brother-in-law of France would help her to crush the heretics, not only in Scotland but in England, where she was also rightful Sovereign.

  She closed her eyes, the milk lapping at her ears. If she were married to a strong, valiant prince, one who would defy Moray, she might do this. She loved the thought of a master, one who would take her, body, soul, affairs, and rule. Was Henry Stewart such a one? He was the handsomest creature she had ever seen. She smiled secretly, thinking of his blushes, his shy air touched with sullenness. What did he know of love? He was so young, his haughty mother had kept him so close — perhaps he knew nothing. How Moray would hate him! He detested the idea of her having a lover.

  She thought of her young husband with pity and abhorrence. That had been a travesty of marriage, a mockery of passion. How he had slavered and moaned tor her kindness! Sometimes he burnt with fever, sometimes he was cold, soaked with sweat, always there were foul exhalations from his body, and he coughed and strangled, and sores came out on his joints.

  He was the King and she had had to lie down beside him and hold him while he tried to sleep. Sometimes in the dark he would whisper, begging her to pray that he might die.