She finished the bracelet, put it down on the letter, and thought of Jane Gordon as she had stood before her in Edinburgh Castle. “That was the night when I thought I was going to die in a few hours. How sly she was, Huntly’s daughter, how cunning and full of lies — she said he loved her.”
The Queen began to laugh softly, remembering her need for secrecy. How could Jane Gordon know what love was any more than Henry Stewart knew?
She finished her letter and sealed it. Strange, whatever one did, however one manoeuvred, it came in the end to blood. One could not escape — that was the way of it. No doubt it was foolish to try to escape. When she had been very young she had been shocked and frightened by violence, and now she had learnt that the world was like that. She had fainted when she had seen John Gordon mangled on the block, but she had not lost her senses when she knew that Pierre de Chastelard had been executed. She had shrugged and gone on with her play. What else was possible?
When she had ridden outside she had had to see corpses hanging on the gallows, decaying heads stuck on spikes over gateways; she had had to know that people every day were being tortured and killed in Edinburgh. Sometimes even while she feasted she had been aware that executions took place by torchlight in the market place.
Well, she had had to accept that. When she had been Queen of France, her relations, the Guise, had beheaded the Huguenots in the courtyard of Amboise for an after-dinner diversion for the ladies. One could not escape blood, violence, treachery.
Why regret this man more than another? He was a murderer and blood cried for blood. She thought of the Italian’s face as he crouched in the corner of her closet. She recalled his shrieks as he had been dragged away. Who had had any pity then?
She folded up her bracelet. How tired she was, scarcely recovered from that illness at Jedburgh and burdened by the secret child. There was a constant pain in her side and often when alone she collapsed from fatigue, though in public she kept erect and gay.
Would this be the end of it? Would this man into whose hands she had given all she had turn out to be the King and master for whom she was looking?
She thought of Moray. What part did he play, with Maitland? He was always there, serene, cool, advising her. Did he know what was being planned? She went over carefully in her mind the last time she had seen him. She had cried out in an excess of emotion against her husband, saying she must have a divorce, she must somehow be rid of him, yet she would have no speck upon her honour nor any slur upon her child.
Moray had said nothing, but Maitland had replied — she felt he was her half-brother’s mouthpiece:
“Your Majesty is a Papist and scrupulous, and my Lord Moray is a Protestant and scrupulous, yet if Your Grace and his lordship will leave all to your faithful friends, you may trust that the young man will be gotten rid of without reproach to Your Majesty or to your son.”
She had inquired no further. Only when her master had given her instructions to fetch her husband from Glasgow she had obeyed without question.
Her need was very great. He must not leave her, he must not guess the truth, she must marry her lover. She would not be ashamed openly, she would not bear a bastard before all Europe. She wanted the child. She thought that only in the child could she finally express and relieve the passion that was consuming her, but it must be born in wedlock.
She silenced her thoughts, it was better not to think; there was so much to be done. When it was over she would go away to some solitary place and have her child in secret, with only Mary Seaton and Lady Reres. She would stay in retirement so long that no one would know when it was born and she would not be shamed.
Did anyone suspect? Did even Lady Reres or Mary Seaton guess?
From utter weariness, the long ride, and the long watching, she fell asleep at last, the bright, disordered chestnut hair falling across the letter and the bracelet, while the candle guttered and went out.
*
When she woke she was in darkness. She rose and pulled the curtains apart and saw it was dawn. At once her alert mind recalled every circumstance of her situation.
She quietly left her room and went down the corridor to where the Italian lodged, and knocked on his door.
He was waiting for some such signal and he was there instantly, ready dressed.
“Give these to Paris,” whispered the Queen. “You know for whom.”
Then she hurried back to her room and fell on to her bed while Giuseppe tiptoed to the closet where Paris was and roused him where he slept.
There was no need for the Italian to tell him what he was to do with the letter and the packet. These two knew all the secrets of their master and mistress. A smile and a nod was sufficient. The dainty Frenchman, cursing the bleak northern weather, set out from Glasgow with the Queen’s letter and present to Earl Bothwell safely hidden in his coat.
*
Thomas Crawford urged Lord Lennox to persuade his son to remain in Glasgow where he was safe. The old man was afflicted by a bleeding from the nose and could scarcely move, but he sent a message to the King, imploring him not to leave or put himself in the hands of a woman who had so often deceived him or the power of men whom he had so grievously offended. Lennox implored Crawford to remind the King’s Grace that one who was now in favour at Holyrood was a sorcerer. What did his own bleeding at the nose portend? Misfortune, as everyone knew!
Henry Stewart listened gravely to these warnings and made the sign of the Cross. But nothing could change his resolve, he had decided to trust his wife.
The King allowed himself to be placed in the litter that the Queen had brought, and without escort or any more of his own people than a few servants, accompanied her from Glasgow to Edinburgh.
She told him that she had found Craigmillar inconvenient, but that she had taken a lodging for him near Holyrood, where he could not go for fear of infection to the Prince.
He asked if this was the new house of the Hamiltons recently built outside the city walls, and she said “No; was she likely to lodge him with his enemies?” Besides, the Archbishop of St. Andrews dwelt there himself.
She had, however, she said, a nice house for him that was not far away. It was part of the monastic buildings in the Church of St. Mary, which the Reformers had lately destroyed; it was in good repair and on healthy ground.
When the cavalcade, which travelled slowly because of the sick man, halted, it was at this house. The Church of St. Mary in the field nearby, was ruined and roofless; the cloisters had long since been disused. The spot was lonely and the city walls nearby were broken down. Beyond were some gardens and orchards and a desolate road with some alms-houses on one side known as “Thieves Row.”
But the house in which the King was lodged was in good repair, though it was a long time since it had been lived in and the spot though desolate, was convenient for Holyrood, away from the stench and noise of the city. It had also been very handsomely furnished.
When the King was carried to the lower apartment and saw the French tapestries on the walls, the Chair of Estate in watered yellow and red silk, and the fine carpets on the floor, he asked who had been to this trouble for him, and the Queen replied that she had given her instructions and that it was Lord Bothwell who had carried them out.
He was escorted upstairs, helped under either arm by his English servants, and found his bedchamber arranged with equal costliness. He noticed that the bed that had been set up was the one which he had first seen in Stirling Castle, in which, secretly, he had first slept with the Queen.
As he was placed between the scented sheets and the silken coverlets, the Queen said:
“This belonged to my mother. I have no handsomer bed-furniture, and, sir, I made it my gift to you.”
He lay back, exhausted by the journey, and took the taffeta covering off his face for he could not longer endure it, his weakness having been increased by the journey through the cold and rain.
“Will you sleep here?” he asked. “Remember your promise, Mary — we
were to be as husband and wife!”
“When you are cleansed,” she said smiling, looking steadily at his blotched face. “The bath has been set up in the next room, and my physician has prepared the cures and will direct it all.”
She then said with an air of great exhaustion that the pain in her side troubled her, and left him, going, as he thought, to the room below, which he had heard had been prepared for her. But presently the English boy, Taylor, came to him and told him that the Queen had left the house and gone with all her train by torchlight to Holyrood; she had left a message saying she would return in the morning.
“Well,” said the King, “I have put all into her hands. She has been at some pains to make this an agreeable lodging, and I have nothing to lament. What manner of house are we in? I do not remember having ever been here when I was in Edinburgh before.”
“Sir, it is the old Provost’s House and has not been lived in for many a day. Mr. Standen thinks it is damp, and no place for a sick man. None of your servants, sir, is pleased.”
“Well, no doubt they are uneasy, but we are safe enough relying on her word. Who lodges near, have you found out?”
“Sir, as I say, the whole place is ruinous. The cloisters are empty, the houses to right and left uninhabited and without furniture. We are near the city wall, some two miles from the Abbey. I think Your Grace should have a guard … ” The youth paused, fearing lest he had said too much, and when his voice ceased there was utter silence in the room.
The King thought: This is a strange, desolate place to bring me. But some nobility, deeper than all the habits and circumstances of his life, silenced his misgivings. He had been in fear of his life, but once he had said that he would trust her he refused to entertain any doubt. She was his wife before God and she had passed to him her word as woman and princess. He clung desperately to that simple consolation.
He was also reassured by her magnificent gift. Had she not meant, when she had these violet-brown and crimson draperies set up, to remind him of the night in Stirling, when they had pledged themselves to each other for ever?
He looked about him at the room — at the vessels of agate and onyx, the bowls of alabaster and crystal, the lights in silver and gilt sticks, the chests of garments which John Taylor was opening, in which were gifts of furs and rolls of cloth of gold and damask armour, and jewelled swords and knives. Surely she meant their reconciliation to be complete.
“Boy, did the Queen’s Grace say Lord Bothwell furnished this house for me?”
“Yes, sir, so she said.”
“Why do you look so frightened, Taylor, when you speak that name?” And the King smiled, remembering Bothwell’s reputation as a sorcerer, smiled to hide a sudden pang he had felt himself.
He believed Bothwell his friend, much as he had at first feared and mistrusted the Queen’s last favourite. He had shown himself on his side in the quarrel with Moray. At one time Bothwell alone of all the court had supported the King.
“A sorcerer,” said the English boy, crossing himself, and he added with a peculiar vehemence: “No one can be easy, sir, until Earl Bothwell has left Scotland.”
“He does not disturb me,” said the King, “you are a little fool. Say your prayers and you can despise a wizard’s tricks. What is the nearest house?” he added.
“The Hamiltons’ house, sir — the Duke’s place. There is noise and lights there to-night; they say the Archbishop has taken up his residence.”
“Well, I suppose I must be reconciled with them too. Bring me up some wine, then I’ll sleep. I think it true that the air is good here, I feel revived already.”
The English boy left to execute his master’s orders and found the two Antony Standens grumbling about the lonely place where their master and themselves had been lodged.
“The King seems bewitched that he is so satisfied.”
“Earl Bothwell prepared this state lodging.”
Angry, uneasy, they made themselves as comfortable as they could in their new lodgings, wondering how a proud woman like the Queen could put up with a sorcerer.
*
On the first morning of the King’s lodging in the Provost House of St. Mary’s monastery, which was known to the people of Edinburgh as Kirk o’ Field, a man who lodged in the Canongate and worked for a silversmith, knocked up the King’s household and begged that he might be brought into His Grace’s presence.
This was refused, for he had no business to state and seemed in confusion. But he was very anxious and the two Antony Standens followed him when he was turned away, and walking with him down the ruined cloisters where the walls were covered with damp and the wet lay in pools in the broken flagstones, asked him what he wanted.
But he, with the English gentlemen on either side of him, seemed suddenly terrified. The sudden emotion which had sent him on his errand had died down. He did not want to speak and tried to get away.
But they forced him to tell his business, which, as far as they could make out from his Scots accent, was that last night he had dreamed he had seen a man lying in an orchard with his neck broken, stark naked, with his eyes staring and when the sleeper had awakened the horror had been so real that, hardly knowing what he did, he had come to the old house where the King was, hardly knowing why, but almost without his own volition.
At this the two Englishmen let him go. They did not ask if, nor did he volunteer this knowledge, he had seen and recognized the face of the dead naked man in the orchard. But it was in their thoughts.
*
The King had been a week in the handsomely furnished house in Kirk o’ Field, and hour by hour his health and confidence returned. The Queen came to visit him daily with almost every noble in Scotland in her train to pay him homage and wish him a good recovery.
None of these showed more service and friendliness than Earl Bothwell, to whom the young King took an increased liking, finding this elegant and accomplished man far more to his taste than the grim, gloomy and rough Lords with whom he had been in league over David’s murder. He decided when he was recovered and King indeed, with possession of the realm and the Queen, to confirm Bothwell in his high post.
Moray came to visit the King also, and his presence further reassured Henry Stewart, for the Queen’s half-brother, whom he had always feared and dreaded, spoke to him frankly of the future of Scotland, of his wife and child, and the peace to which they might all look forward.
But of what was happening in the outer world, the King knew nothing. He had such news of his wife and her friends brought to his sick chamber as his servants and the English gentlemen could collect, and this was very little, for everything seemed quiet enough in Scotland.
The care of the French physician, renewed hope, and expectancy of better things to come, brought a quick recovery to the strong young man. The scars of his disease began to heal on his body, his strength returned.
He began to pester the Queen for an end to what was, after all, a kind of captivity, agreeable though she might try to make it, and to beg that she would take him again to Holyrood, to his former rooms with the stair that led to her apartments. When he said this she gave him a cunning look, and he thought of David and said hastily: Could not they lodge somewhere else in the Abbey and not in the old tower? To which she replied: “I lodge there no longer.”
Two nights she had slept under his room in Kirk o’ Field, and a third night she had intended, she said, to sleep there also; but when she came on the evening of the day that she had promised to stay, she told him that she had forgotten two of her servants were to be married that evening, and she had promised to attend the ball and banquet, not that she had much heart to do so while he lay sick, but that she would not hurt these kind, faithful people. She told him that one was Sebastian Page, whom he might remember at the christening feast, for he had arranged the masque of satyrs’ tails which had offended the English and caused a brawl. She laughed with him over the old story that Englishmen had short, fat tails like stags.
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��Well,” said the King, “I would not deprive you of your merriment nor your kindness, but look to it you come again soon. Indeed, I feel that I could walk now and even ride horseback.”
“Perhaps,” said she, “we might ride to-morrow. The weather is suddenly better; there was some sun to-day.”
“Yet none in this chamber,” he smiled. “Who will be at your banquet?”
She told him all of them — Argyll, Huntly, Bothwell, Lord Robert Stewart, Cassilis; but Moray would not be there, for his wife was ill and he had gone to visit her in her country house.
The King expressing again his impatience and loneliness in this desolate lodging, the Queen asked if she had failed in any service or duty towards him, if he had not found everything to his taste?
He told her that it was so and that he lacked only her company, and then on a casual recollection, asked her if she had been having the bed put up or down in the room beneath his for he had heard noises during that day and had sent the page boy down to see what was happening, but he had found both doors locked — to the garden and to the street.
The Queen replied, “Yes, I am having the bed altered. I do not think I shall have need for it any more, for I do not think we need lie apart any longer. We may meet in the same bed to-morrow at Holyrood, then you will believe that I do mean a reconciliation towards you.”
She stooped towards him as she spoke, her face, usually so pale, was flushed, and beneath the winter cloak that she wore he saw the glitter of the emeralds on her dress. He took her hand and kissed it, the first time that he had touched her for weeks, for despite her friendliness she had never allowed him to come close. Now she did not repel him, but looked down, smiling, at his bent head.
“Do you believe me yet?” she asked, taking her hand from him.
She slipped from her finger the scarlet ring which he had not seen her wear since the night of David’s murder, when she had sent it to him by Lady Argyll. She put it in his palm.
The Queen's Caprice Page 25
