The Beauty of the Mist

by May McGoldrick

  But Janet had thwarted her stepmother’s plans. At the side of her beloved, Janet Maule had eluded Caroline and fled to freedom.

  Freedom. Maria put the letter away and allowed one of her attendants to open the cabin door. Moving quickly through the ship, the young queen stepped out onto the ship’s deck. As another attendant placed a cloak around her shoulder, Maria thought how unpleasant it was to be surrounded with servants and attendants every moment of one’s life. For as long as she’d lived, this had been her experience, but she had never even noticed it. At least, not until she’d tasted the sweet nectar of freedom for a few precious days.

  She simply couldn’t breathe with so many surrounding her. Pampering her. Doing their utmost to please her. But these young noblewomen were strangers to her, and Maria knew Charles had seen to it that this would be the case. Less chance for anything more happening that might jeopardize his plans. All strangers to her–with the exception of her aunt.

  Isabel presence on the ship provided Maria with the only agreeable antidote to the lethal doses of cheerfulness that these other women provided. Of course, listening to her, one wouldn’t normally think Isabel’s conversation as agreeable. Cranky and difficult to the bitter end, the elder woman had finally agreed to accompany Maria to her destination. But no further. Whatever miserable port they put into, that port was the one she’d be departing from, immediately. That was how she’d put it to Maria and to Charles. Indeed, her approach to her niece and nephew could hardly be described as subtle. Isabel made no attempt to hide her dissatisfaction with the new arrangements and with Maria’s decision to cooperate with such “bone headed, old-fashioned diplomacy.”

  So the young woman had listened to everything Isabel had said and then had warmly, and mildly, thanked her for accompanying her throughout this ordeal. Though Isabel’s contribution thus far would hardly be categorized as ‘moral support,’ Maria knew that if the time came that she needed her, Isabel would prove invaluable by her side.

  For somewhere, buried deep in the recesses of her mind, the young queen was not yet willing to give up. She hadn’t wed the Scottish King yet, so perhaps there might still be a chance.

  Maria breathed in the fresh sea air and moved casually across the crowded deck toward the railing. It was a colorful group on deck, and Maria sensed a bit of competition between the passengers for her notice. As she passed, groups of boisterous and restless nobles–both Scottish and Spanish–approached Maria, but she simply nodded to them and moved on, scarcely paying any attention to them at all. As she walked, her eyes searched for only one man. But the search proven fruitless.

  He should be here, she thought. He was commanding this ship and the three others that she could see flanking the Great Michael, sailing them to Scotland without his best navigator, and John should be right on deck. But he was nowhere to be seen. Hiding the feelings of hopelessness and despondency that were washing over her, Maria gazed back at the high stern deck where she knew he preferred to keep watch over the activities of the sailors on deck and aloft. But he wasn’t there, either. Then, letting her eyes drift toward the doorway leading to his cabin, she considered going below, storming in and demanding that he speak with her. She considered it, but for only a moment. Maria knew she couldn’t go to his cabin. Any misstep now could prove fatal for him..

  Well, she could wait, she decided, resigning herself to just stay there for as long as it took to get even a glimpse of him. Maria leaned against a railing, pretending to enjoy the sun and the salty breezes, and watched as her dutiful attendants did the same. Why can’t he? she thought, growing angry. Why couldn’t he come to terms with their loss and leave his cabin? Why couldn’t he seek her out?

  Letting out a long breath, Maria caught a glimpse of someone else’s eyes upon her. Not a tall and handsome Highlander, but a young sandy-haired lad was seeking her out–but shyly. She could see David’s young brother, Adrian, standing not too far away beside one of the ship’s officers, feeding line to sailors who were repairing a section of rigging. The boy, obviously feigning indifference to the groups of nobles milling about on the deck, still peeked now and then in Maria’s direction. The next time she caught his eyes upon her, she motioned to him to come closer. But the lad quickly turned his back, pretending that he never saw her gesturing to him.

  Well, she certainly should be able to handle an eight-year-old, she thought. Speaking quietly to one of her attendants, Maria asked her to go and invite the boy to join her where she stood by the railing.

  Maria watched the burly sailors pause attentively as the young woman approached them. Adrian and her attendant exchanged brief comments, drawing smiles from the onlookers. Upon seeing her messenger come back alone, Maria realized that perhaps this wouldn’t be as easy as she thought. The message the boy had sent was that he was working and not allowed to rest in the middle of his shift.

  This time Maria didn’t hesitate an instant and went after him herself.

  She fought back her smile on seeing the expression of terror in his face as he realized that she was coming after him, herself. The sailors formed a circle as she entered their midst.

  The boy had courage, she thought, noting that he was clearly fighting the inclination to turn and run away.

  “Adrian,” she said, stopping only a step away. She realized that a few more sailors working in the area had stopped their work and were watching the exchange with some interest. “I was hoping we could talk just for a short while?”

  He shook his head in denial, focusing on the rope in his hands.

  She stepped closer and ruffled his hair with one hand, which made the boy pale and the sailors around him laugh.

  “I thought we were friends. I’ve missed your company,” she said quietly, leaning down and speaking into his ear. “I’ll give you a choice. I hug you, a tough young man, in front of your fellow sailors, or you come and keep me company for just a short while.” She straightened up and looked at him. “Which is it, Adrian?”

  Maria knew from the look in his eyes, that he would have preferred death to hugging. After only the shortest of pauses, the boy dropped his chin to his chest and led his captor out of the circle of the grinning sailors.

  Maria followed him to the railing, where she gestured for her attendants to give them some space to communicate privately. Adrian turned and sat against the gunwales of the ship, only to spring up again immediately as if he were on fire.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked worriedly, glancing at the railing.

  The lad looked at her awkwardly. “I am not allowed to sit before you, am I, Your Majesty?”

  “Of course you are,” she answered. “I invited you to join me, didn’t I?”

  He just shrugged his shoulders in response. Maria pointed to a pair of casks that not far from where they stood, and the two sat down, though Adrian still had the look of one being led to the gallows.

  “You’re angry with me,” she said decidedly. “Why is that?”

  “Who says I’m angry?” the young lad’s eyes flashed with alarm only for a moment before he quickly averted them. Maria bit her lips to keep from smiling as he took in everything around them, but never turned his gaze back to her.

  “I am not blind, Adrian. Have I done anything to you? Anything that has upset you?”

  Again, he simply shrugged his shoulders.

  “Answer me, Adrian. Or I swear I’ll hug you right here.”

  He turned abruptly in her direction, wide-eyed.

  “And kiss you, too, if that’s what will get your attention.”

  “Queens are used to having their own way, aren’t they?” he grumbled.

  “Of course, but obviously not so much as you are accustomed to having your own way.” Maria looked down at the lad for few more moments before continuing on. He was wearing the same leather doublet and wool shirt that he’d been wearing on the way to Antwerp. His kilt was long, hanging over his roughly-sown shoes of sailcloth. “Are you warm enough, Adrian?”

  The boy l
ooked up, startled by her question. “Aye, of course I’m warm. It’s a fine day.”

  “It is, isn’t it,” she said, her gaze sweeping over the sparkling expanse of sea. “Aye, the wind is from the southeast, and we’ll be home in...no time.” His voice faltered as he finished.

  “Tell me what has upset you so.” Other than your brother David leaving the ship, she thought silently.

  Adrian scuffed the painted wood of the deck, and squirmed uncomfortably.

  “Is there something I can do to make you...”

  “You’ve made the commander sad!” the boy blurted out suddenly, his eyes flashing. “And angry, too!”

  The boy’s straightforward accusation stunned her momentarily.

  “I am angry because he is,” Adrian continued with the bluntness of his age. “When Sir John heard that you were headed up here, he went below to his cabin. He didn’t want to see you or talk to you. Well, what Sir John says, goes for me, as well. I answer only to him...er, Your Majesty.”

  Maria just stared into the boy’s large brown eyes. The fact that John avoided her so openly that a child could see it, hurt her deeply. But the fact that Adrian had been left behind by his only kin, hurt her, as well. But what else David could have done, she wondered.

  “Sir John is a fine man to look up to,” Maria whispered. “But whatever differences exist between Sir John and me now...well, I hope to mend.”

  “It’s not that easy, you see. With Mistress Janet and David, it was different. To make it work...well, they had to go away and leave me behind. But now, I’m left with the commander. And he is different than you. So...so...” The boy’s voice trailed off, and he stared glumly at his feet.

  So if we mend our differences, that means you’ll be left behind again, she thought sadly to herself. With no one.

  “Adrian, I just want peace with Sir John.” She placed her hand on the boy’s arm. He didn’t flinch this time. “He’ll keep you beside him. He will care for you. Your brother is a good man, and he left you in the care of another good man.”

  She paused before continuing. “Have you any other kin?”

  “Aye, I have an aunt who feeds me when we dock at Dundee.” He glanced up at her defiantly. “But I’ll be a sailor, not a farm lad.”

  “Of course,” she replied gently.

  “What you said before about David and Sir John.” The young boy looked down at his callused hands. “I know they are good men. David talked to me before he left. He told me that the commander had already offered to look after me, and David had accepted his offer. He also said that someday soon he and Mistress Janet would come for me. And as far as the commander, I know that he cares for me, too. I know that. Yesterday, when everyone figured out why Mistress Janet and David were nowhere to be found, I thought Sir Thomas was going to beat me, instead. But the commander put both Sir Thomas and his wife off the Great Michael, and stowed them aboard the Eagle...to protect my neck.”

  “No one has any right to punish an innocent for something others have done.”

  Adrian looked up into Maria’s face. “Do you think what they’ve done was wrong?”

  She shook her head. “Nay, lad. They’ve followed a path that leads to happiness. I think what they’ve done is very right.”

  Adrian nodded with satisfaction. “That’s what Sir John said. He says they’ve done right, as well. Though I don’t think Sir Thomas was even a wee bit happy to hear it.”

  Maria felt a knot rising in her throat. If things had gone differently–if John had known her true identity–would he have placed their love over what his duty required of him? Above his loyalty to his King? Would he have accepted her and loved her and been happy to turn away from everything?

  She would have. She knew that. But she’d never told him. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps she’d never allowed herself the chance to tell him.

  “That decides it, Lady Mar...I mean, Your Majesty,” Adrian piped in. “Now it’s two of you saying the same thing. Aye, I’m going to be proud of my brother and Mistress Janet.” The young boy nodded vigorously. “After we come to port, Sir John said we may be going on to Benmore Castle. I wasn’t sure what I would say about David when we arrived there. But now I know. I’ll speak the truth of them.”

  Maria gathered the young boy’s hand in hers and held it tight. He let her.

  Was this truly the end? she thought. Had she crushed any chance of happiness for the two of them? The questions jabbed at her conscience. Had she done wrong from the first in not telling him the truth when they’d met? Nay, deep in her soul she knew that if she had, she and John could never have loved. His honor would not have allowed it. She splashed away a tear.

  “Are you sad, Your Majesty?”

  “Aye, Adrian. I am a bit.”

  “About Sir John?”

  “Don’t you be troubling yourself over it, lad. It will all work out for the best.”

  “May I go now, Your Majesty?”

  Maria looked back at the young boy sitting beside her with his hand still in hers. She nodded to him as she let his hand go. “Thank you, Adrian, for talking to me.”

  “Thank you,” he answered. “I’ll tell Sir John that he doesn’t have to avoid you. That you don’t want him to be angry. I’ll tell him that you are not going to run away with him, so he doesn’t need to be afraid of leaving me behind.”

  “But Adrian...” Maria’s mouth hung open as the lad sprang off his seat without another word and disappeared into the crowd.

  Chapter 24

  Scotland was a country in chaos.

  Looking out from atop the crenellated tower of the Abbey of Holyrood, Maria pulled her cloak tighter about her, while peering through the mist at the rain-darkened walls of Edinburgh Castle, rising on a rocky summit above all else at the far end of the town. The thatch and wattle town before her was new, rebuilt less than fifteen years ago, but she could see the still unrepaired damage to the castle walls where the English cannons had hammered away after the troops had burned the burgh. The English hadn’t succeeded in taking the castle, but Maria sighed deeply, considering the violence of men, and wondered vaguely why the English commanders had spared the Abbey and its unfinished royal residence.

  But they had spared it, and had finally been pushed southward across the Borders. Relative calm had returned to the north country, and an infant king was now on the verge of manhood.

  As the rain began to fall harder, Maria considered all that had occurred on the last week and all that she now knew of the months prior to their arrival.

  On coming ashore in a hard rain at the tiny port village on the Firth of Forth, they had been greeted by no welcoming party. Only an armed company of warriors had been there to escort Maria and her attendants, without ceremony, to the Abbey of Holyrood. Without much fanfare, the Scottish nobles accompanying her from Antwerp had slogged onward through the muddy street to the formidable castle that loomed over Edinburgh. From the whispers that she’d heard from them, great changes had occurred in the two month that they were away, and the differences had been astonishing even to them.

  From what she could gather, Scotland’s ruling nobility had, for some time, been gradually separating into factions. Apparently, for almost a year the country had been on the verge of civil war, with some nobles loyal to the Stuart king openly hostile to the Douglas camp and to Angus, the Lord Chancellor. Maria knew before coming to Scotland that Angus had been married to Margaret Tudor, the king’s mother, since James IV’s death at Flodden Field. She also knew that he had struggled with her for power during the child king’s minority. But what Maria now learned was that while John Macpherson and the delegation were in Antwerp, the Pope’s decree had reached Scotland, annulling the marriage of Angus and Margaret Tudor. There was even a rumor that Margaret had immediately married another nobleman, Henry, Lord Darnley. At any rate Angus, now lacking any legitimate claim to rule in the name of the royal family, had apparently imprisoned his former wife, placed the king in ‘protective custody,’ and e
ffectively seized all power for himself.

  Chaos indeed, Maria thought, turning her eyes to the south and the dark hills partially hidden behind the thick, low-hanging clouds. A cold, damp breeze began to pick up as she stood, considering the facts as she understood them.

  Angus’s marriage to the widowed Queen Margaret, and later his control of Scotland, had been largely supported by Margaret’s brother, King Henry of England. But now, with Margaret’s divorce granted by Rome less than a month ago, the Lord Chancellor must be feeling seriously threatened by the possible withdrawal of support by the English king due to the fact that Angus was no longer married to Margaret. Angus must have known that the divorce was coming, Maria reasoned, and he knew he would be needing a new ally–and quickly. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles was just the man he needed backing him, and Maria knew that Charles was not one to balk at an offer like this one.

  And that brother of mine knew all this, Maria realized. Charles knew that Scotland was about to be torn apart, but he kept silent about it, anyway. And then he sent her on her merry way. Best of luck to you with your new husband, Charles had told her, his face the very picture of sincerity. From that alone, she should have guessed the chaos that would be awaiting them.

  For a week now she had remained at the Abbey with no word from the Lord Chancellor, and of course, none from her future husband either. The Abbot, a dry and leathery looking man who seemed to brighten only when Isabel was present, had supplied the few facts they’d been able to gather, and he had told them–well, he’d told Isabel–that Angus had been forced to take a large force of men to the Borders, to quell the rising tide of outlawry and violence that was destabilizing the region and threatening to bring English troops onto Scottish land once again, to settle matters themselves. From what Maria could surmise, Angus needed to show his southern neighbors that he could control the Borders as well as the rest of Scotland.