The Queen's Mary: In the Shadows of Power...

by Sarah Gristwood

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t love her! Perhaps he can’t love her, Seton, what do you say?’

  Seton’s mind scrambled wildly – who, he? Elizabeth’s favourite, Robert Dudley? But the queen was still muttering – her head turned now, looking at something no one else could see.

  ‘Of course she was brought up with Death. He must have crouched there in the corner of her nursery, like a wooden hobby. Think of her mother, Anne Boleyn. Her kinswoman, the little Howard whore, gone the same way.

  ‘But her – maybe Death can’t bring himself to love her?’ For a moment Queen Mary seemed to straighten in the bed – almost to smile. She looked directly at Seton again, as if she knew what she were saying.

  ‘And surely – don’t you think so, Seton? – surely he lusts after me.

  ‘Who knows?’ – the queen gestured at the bedclothes, at her prone body – ‘perhaps he likes me best this way.’

  *

  But soon came news from England Elizabeth’s fever had broken. One doctor had been forced to try one last treatment – forced at sword point, so they said. He told them to wrap her in red flannel and lay her by the fire, and dosed her with his own herbal remedy. Queen Mary pressed Randolph with fears Elizabeth’s face might be pox-scarred and set Beaton hunting out an old receipt, for a lotion of saffron boiled in cream.

  Her concern was genuine, Seton really thought. She really was glad Elizabeth would recover. Though she felt the crown of England belonged on her own head, just now, after the shocks of the north, with the lassitude of the influenza still softening her bones, perhaps she did feel things were happening too quickly.

  But that doesn’t mean she’d take calmly the news Moray and Maitland had to give her when she was better, and they only gave it reluctantly.

  In all those fevered discussions around Elizabeth’s sickbed, as Cecil and the rest had debated into whose hands they should next place the crown and the country, only one voice had been raised for Queen Mary.

  In the north, she’d proven she could control a country. Proven that Scottish or English, Protestants had nothing to fear from her, that she would not be too much swayed by religious sympathies. Huntly was the Catholic and yet she had sided against him, with the Protestant Moray. She’d turned her back on the faith in which she grew up – and for what?

  For no reward at all, seemingly.

  Ten

  By the end of the next day, to everyone’s surprise, the queen was up and about again. She’d woken late and was still in bed, leaning listlessly forward for Seton to brush her hair, when Beaton came bursting in through the door with scant ceremony. They’d never seen her so animated.

  ‘News, madam! You’ll never guess who’s back at court!’

  The queen gazed at her wearily. ‘I don’t think I have the energy for guessing games, Beaton. Why don’t you just tell me?’

  ‘It’s Chastelard! The poet – surely your Majesty remembers? He landed at Leith yesterday. He’s got letters from France, from your Majesty’s family.’

  The queen sat up straighter as, deftly, Fleming slipped another pillow in behind her. Absently, she reached for the cup of warm hippocras brought up from the kitchens quite half an hour before. The spices were forming a skin on the cooling surface, but the queen began to sip it anyway.

  ‘Letters… Chastelard, you say?’

  They hadn’t seen Chastelard’s pretty face since their first weeks in Scotland. He’d taken himself and his verses back to France in the train of the queen’s uncles, and for her part, Seton thought, she wouldn’t have cared if he’d stayed there indefinitely. A gold piece’s worth of trouble for two groats of poetry; and the kind of man who thinks a court exists for him to stir dissent among the ladies. But clearly none of those other ladies felt the same way.

  ‘May I admit him, madam?’ pressed Beaton eagerly.

  ‘Yes – no! Wait. Here – Livy – hold the mirror for me.’

  The queen signalled Seton to go on brushing her hair, peering critically at her reflection. She was a little drawn from her illness, but she looked her most appealing with hair hanging loose, informally.

  She told Fleming to bring her a wrap and to Seton’s annoyance Fleming brought the sables, so that the queen’s face stood out pale as a star against the silky blackness. One could only hope it was the thought of family messages, and not the messenger, that had roused her so suddenly.

  She nodded a permission to Beaton, who sprang to open the door, and Chastelard was inside the chamber, bowing to the queen with a grace – you had to admit it – they had hardly seen since France.

  ‘My queen – you have been ill! Your Scottish skies turned even darker when they told me!’

  Seton held back a snort, but she rolled her eyes slightly, and Beaton glared at her. He managed to make it sound like his own personal tragedy. And though there was nothing so unusual about her Majesty’s giving an audience in bed, he managed to make that seem like a delicious intimacy.

  He’d always made a parade of his admiration for the queen, of course. No man at the French court would have failed to do so. But somehow it seemed different here, amidst the damping mists of Scotland. Every player on the board has to know the rules, before the game of courtly love can be played in safety…

  Seton grimaced inwardly – what was all this foreboding, had the spirit of John Knox entered into her? She pasted a demure smile on her face as Chastelard glanced around them all, his dark eyes lingering briefly on each one in turn.

  But his attention was for the queen. He was kissing her hand, and keeping his own clasp upon it, as if unconsciously. Gazing at her face, and murmuring his innocuous pieces of French news as if each one were a love story.

  But as Queen Mary asked after her aunt, and snatched up a note from her uncle the cardinal, Seton was relieved to see her attention was on the tale more than the teller.

  Leafing through the less important notes – petitions, by the look of them – she passed a handful of them over to Beaton with a nod. She needn’t be at the trouble of replying herself – Beaton could imitate her handwriting quite convincingly.

  *

  As Beaton turned away, Seton saw her for a moment clearly. Beaton stepped back into the shadow – they’d had to light the candles this cheerless wintry morning – but Seton could see the flush Chastelard’s glance had conjured up in her, slowly ebbing away.

  Her eyes were downcast, but as Seton gazed at her uneasily she raised them suddenly, and you could see that they were bright with moisture. And the look on her face was the look Seton saw on her nephew Willie’s face, when someone had taken away his toy.

  Beaton blushed after Chastelard, that winter. Clumsily, unwontedly, she tried to flirt with other young men of the court. But Seton, watching, was reminded of a bird protecting a nest, pretending to drag a broken wing along the ground to lure a lurking predator away.

  Chastelard, far more openly, swooned ostentatiously at Queen Mary. And the queen… she took his flattery and flirtation with a delight that reminded any observer she was (they all were) barely twenty.

  He’d brought presents from France for all of them – a scarf for Livy, gloves for Fleming. Books for the other two Marys; well, everyone knew that Beaton was bookish, and Seton, wrinkling her nose, had to admit they probably thought of her, too, that way.

  There were all the little attentions he doled out – bows, glances, posies – ‘Like sweets to children,’ Seton said sourly to Fleming, ‘and I only wish I could be sure none of us are taking it too seriously.’

  But of course his real arrows were reserved for her Majesty. It was the great game as they’d all known it played in France; and what difference if the strolling, laughing, walks were taken across a blowy Scottish hill, not down a lime tree allee?

  It was the game the queen had played out before, while even her Guise uncles looked on indulgently. What difference if Chastelard sighed out his love poems in Honfleur or in Holyrood? He was just a poet, a mere count’s second son, who could have no hopes
of more than a few favours from her Majesty so—

  ‘What harm in it?’ Seton demanded of George, sharply. She heard him sigh, as he turned away.

  ‘No harm – maybe.’ But angrily he jerked his chin towards where Queen Mary sat at the embroidery frame. Her chair was carefully placed so that she could work a peacock’s feathers easily. The other side of the great stretched canvas, Beaton was employed in rapidly filling in an expanse of sky, while one of the professional embroiderers, a man brought with them from France, hovered respectfully.

  At her Majesty’s feet knelt Chastelard, impeding her progress considerably – and all under the guise of help, as he pretended to sort the silks, holding each strand of blue up to her eyes, and grading it by how well it matched ‘the perfect tint’.

  George gave a mutter under his breath and his sister turned on him in exasperation. Not that censorious, was he, surely? But he gestured, abruptly, with his chin again, and this time Seton saw properly where he was pointing.

  Not at the queen herself, but at the dark blur of Scotsmen who stood behind her. All too prominent among them, the black-clad forms of Lord Moray and Morton glowered indignantly.

  ‘He’s a link to her uncles, Chastelard,’ Seton said excusingly.

  ‘Yes, there’s that to be said for him, anyway.’ It was why George tried to view more kindly a man he’d normally see as a painted popinjay. Anything to maintain her Majesty’s links to the Continent, and to the world of the true faith. Anything to distract her from the Protestant lords, and England, and Moray.

  At least, that was the theory.

  But against her will, Seton herself suddenly saw this scene as it would appear to many in this country. To John Knox, say. It was as if, through the brocade of his padded doublet and the brocade of her gown, some of George’s Scottishness was seeping into her body.

  *

  But the winter months had never been such fun, as if the sparkle of frost had touched up every activity. It was as if Chastelard were making accomplished love to everybody. As they drew nearer to Christmas, thought Seton happily, it seemed even George couldn’t keep disapproving indefinitely.

  Was it cold enough for the Nor’ Loch to freeze? It was Chastelard who urged the court into ice skates, and chased indefatigably from the butchery to the workshops until he’d persuaded a pair of puzzled gardeners to sharpen enough blades of ox bone that they could all strap a pair to their boots and wobble, giggling, away. Maitland – no skater – muttered disagreeably that it was like trying to chase after a hound puppy.

  Was it too wet to go out? It was Chastelard who turned their imprisonment into a party. Who made himself a kind of Lord of the Misrule, and set them all round the fire to telling ghost stories.

  At night, as her ladies undressed her, the queen would laugh indulgently at his antics, and while Beaton glowed with reflected pleasure, none of the rest dared to say: yes, but what’s he doing it for, really? It wasn’t as if he were hoping to beg a Scottish estate – said George to Seton, sourly.

  ‘Favour? A stipend as court poet?’

  George looked at his sister impatiently, the way he might look at his wife, and she felt her laughter die away. Sometimes Seton tired of feeling like the stupid child in the class, the one who couldn’t translate the symbols on the page into the meaning everyone else could see.

  She tried again. ‘Favour for France… some kind of treaty?’

  ‘Even that wouldn’t be too bad. I wish I could be sure there’s no other ambition.’

  Seton gazed at him, blankly. What other ambition could there be? It was true, everyone knew, that Elizabeth Tudor was making much of an Englishman with worse birth than Chastelard, one ‘Lord’ (by courtesy) Robert Dudley. Some men even said she would marry him… but Queen Mary would never so forget her dignity.

  This was not serious. This was just… play.

  Eleven

  ‘Livy, you’re Dance. Seton, you’re Poetry. Beaton will have to be the Queen of Love.’

  ‘But…’ Seton bit her tongue and shot Beaton an apologetic glance, but all the same – surely, if her Majesty herself were not to take part in the masque then Fleming, closest to her in birth as in looks, was the obvious choice for the queen’s role.

  ‘No, I need Fleming for Music,’ her Majesty answered absently, and it was true. Compared to Fleming, none of the rest of them even knew how to play. Excepting the queen herself, naturally.

  Beaton had made no kind of response. It seemed as if she were waiting, to hear what the rest of the masque would be. For Seton herself, she sometimes felt as if the twelve nights of Christmas were a few too many. It was with gloom she heard that this time, they were all to be nymphs attendant on the Queen of Love.

  ‘Classical drapes all round, I bet you,’ Livy hissed, echoing her thoughts.

  Seton nodded. ‘Chilly.’ But the queen was all enthusiasm. ‘Queen Beaton’, attended, would make her way across the hall into a carpentered Fortress of Perfect Virtue. The gallants of the court would lay siege to her chastity, armed with darts of verse paper and flower petals… dried, given that it was December, naturally.

  Seton choked. She had a sudden vision of Lord Moray striding across the hall with a handful of rose leaves in a mail fist, to demolish the little fortress with all efficiency.

  ‘Chastelard will lead the assault,’ the queen concluded, and Beaton gave a little sigh. The whole entertainment must have been his idea. At the French court, they did this kind of thing so nicely. Seton glanced at her Majesty with new respect: if that was indeed the game, then it was, at least, sensible of her to refuse to play.

  Only – Seton wished that Fleming had been chosen for the surrogate queen’s role. She at least would have taken her role lightly.

  But as preparations for the party advanced, it was impossible for Seton (even Seton, as Livy said) to stay gloomy.

  Livy frankly cavorted across the floor in their rehearsals, swinging aside from their progress across the hall to dance a few steps with whichever youth was nearest. Fleming strummed her lute with a lovely sweet gravity. Seton held an unrolled scroll in her hands, and hoped if she studied it seriously enough that would get her out of any more role play.

  The real queen’s high spirits were infectious, and as the play-queen Beaton – anyone could see it – was taking on charm every day.

  her Majesty and Chastelard were always beside her as they mapped out the masque, coaching her on her walk, her gestures, while the trained musicians who would put across the words sang of love, professionally.

  At times Seton wondered if she should talk to Beaton, give her some kind of warning, but there seemed no opportunity. And after all, it wasn’t as if she really knew what to say.

  *

  When the night came, they dressed all together in her Majesty’s chamber. Fleming, Livy and Seton scrambled themselves into their white drapes. But when it came to Beaton—

  ‘I’ll be your tire-woman,’ her Majesty announced, pouncing at Beaton delightedly.

  Beaton already stood up in her white petticoats, and two maids were lacing her dress in place. But nothing would do for the queen but to send Livy running for jewels from her own coffers, and then for the cosmetics box which here was used so rarely.

  Rose salve for Beaton’s lips, charcoal drawn around her eyes; Seton was even pressed into service to sweep Beaton’s hair into the queen’s own style. Usually Seton loved the magic of change her skills could wreak, but this time there was no pleasure in the alchemy.

  ‘There!’ Queen Mary said, hugging Beaton and gazing at their reflections in the mirror. ‘You look as much a queen as me!’

  As they all stepped back, as the candlelight set her diamonds afire, for this moment in her life at least, Beaton was a beauty. She knew it, too. As the guards flung open the doors, and they all paced into the hall, it was hard to remember that the ripple of applause was no more than routine flattery.

  Beaton seemed to stand taller than before, to step out more firmly. It was as if
everything in her had been drawn into one perfect pitch. She’ll remember this moment all her life, Seton thought, and then wondered why the thought struck a chill.

  Now Chastelard was gliding towards them, his beard curled and oiled to perfection, his quiver of darts at the ready.

  Of course his eyes were fixed on Beaton, warm with admiration, as the role required them to be. And of course as the nymphs attained the pretty painted fortress, Beaton in her role spared him not a glance, so that for once she was the adored unattainable, he the devotee.

  *

  There – it was over. The darts were shot, the rose comfits thrown. (They’d found petals too light to hurl, unless they were heavily sugared.) Seton picked one from her shawl and crunched it, absently.

  As the dogs on the floor scrabbled for the rest of the sweetmeats, her Majesty stepped down from the dais where she’d been watching the show to announce the victory of Perfect Chastity. From somewhere behind them, an old Protestant peer snorted, a shade too loudly.

  Her Majesty hadn’t heard. She was instructing the musicians to strike up a galliard. Chastelard was at Beaton’s side, sunk to his knee and kissing her hand in a gesture of ritual submission – Sir Perfect Knight giving Beauty credit for her Chastity.

  But as the real queen, Mary, turned around her for a partner, he sprang to his feet.

  Seton moved over to Beaton quickly. ‘Here – let me get that off you.’ Beaton’s crown of white silk flowers and seed pearls was beginning to slip over one eye and she put up a hand to straighten it, dazedly. With the other she grasped Seton’s wrist.

  ‘Seton – did you see?’

  ‘See what?’

  ‘How he looked at me!’

  ‘He was supposed to – it was all in the play.’ Seton turned her wrist in the frantic grasp and squeezed her hand firmly. ‘Beaton, it was just the play.’

  She wasn’t reaching Beaton, Seton could see. Hating herself, but somehow scared into it, Seton turned her friend towards the dance. ‘Look at him now.’