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

by Sarah Gristwood

  *

  One danger Bothwell had warned them of; and right to do so, probably. Two days after Ainslie’s Tavern the queen rode with her ladies to Stirling, terrified the lords would wrest her son out of her control, planning to take possession of the baby.

  The Earl of Mar tried not to say right out that he wouldn’t give him up – not without the council’s say-so. Instead he spoke of tradition, and authority, and how the Earls of Mar had always had guardianship of the heir to the throne, down through the centuries.

  ‘But he’s a good man, isn’t he?’ the queen asked her ladies, tearfully, begging for reassurance. ‘He’ll take good care of James?’

  Thank God they could answer yes, honestly. And that’s another thing it means to be a queen, Seton thought – to have a man you hardly know keep your child away from you. And instead of shrieking at the outrage, you accept your baby is state property.

  Balked of her intentions, Queen Mary instead settled down to a day or two’s play with her child. Perhaps her life, these last few months, had taught her to take pleasures where she may.

  But Seton, coming out of the nursery, wondering at how tiring waving a rattle could be, found a figure hunched against the wall, shoulders shaking and one hand clutching a toy. With a sense of the world jolted awry, Seton realised it was Livy. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever seen Livy cry.

  Seton thought she should have guessed as, uneasily, she patted Livy’s shoulder. Livy, simple as that, was missing her own baby – ‘of course he’s a bit younger than the prince but I swear he’s as large, or very nearly, and you should see the way the hair curls, just there, over his eye, and of course I knew I had to come back if I was wanted and his nurse is a good woman, I chose her so carefully, but oh…’

  And all the time, Seton thought, we’ve been talking about nothing but the queen, and her affairs, and her baby. Well, this is one thing I can say to the Queen’s Majesty.

  *

  The next morning, with a hard squeeze of Seton’s hand, and the look on her face of one following the Grail, Livy was mounted behind a groom, and riding back home.

  The royal party, too, had to pack up and leave – for Linlithgow, the queen’s own birthplace. Perhaps, thought Seton with a fresh surge of sympathy, it makes her feel she’s staying closer to her baby?

  But after a single night at Linlithgow, the queen had her ladies up early. It was nine years to the day since her wedding to the dauphin but she gave no sign she remembered the anniversary. Her face was unreadable as she mounted her horse, and they set out towards Edinburgh through the changeable spring day.

  PART VI

  April – June 1567

  Thirty

  How were we to know, Seton asked the queen silently, in her head. How were we to know how you wanted this to play?

  Even now, four days since we left Linlithgow, with not a single cry for help from the apartments where they’re holding you, even now I’d vouch for it you were taken by surprise when we reached the bridge over the Almond River.

  It began to rain, so that the first flowering of the soapy hawthorn blossoms made the whole world smell like washing day, and you seemed absent, content to let the men decide whether to press on, or find shelter while the April shower blustered itself away. ‘You didn’t seem like a woman who had the appointment of her life to keep,’ – Had she spoken aloud? No – her voice had been only in her head as she spoke to the queen, and for the queen’s detractors, urgently.

  I’d swear you didn’t know when we reached the bridge itself, and the stones clear through the shallow water, and your horse shied daintily back and you had to urge it on, almost like the horsewoman you used to be.

  I’d swear you didn’t know what was really going on when Bothwell came out of the bushes, out of nowhere it seemed, and seized the beast by the bridle. You didn’t greet him like a friend or like a lover; you called out to the servants to ride to Edinburgh and fetch a rescue party.

  When the servants were stopped, when our men tried to put up a fight, you called out again to stop them. But that was only to prevent a bloodbath, surely; our little band against Bothwell’s hundreds. He said there was a rebellion in Edinburgh and he had to take you to safety.

  Though why did his men have their swords drawn? Where was the enemy?

  When they led you off in a press of Bothwell’s men, we followed meekly, not knowing what else to do – though Bothwell’s men would have stopped us, had we tried to get away. No chance, not the faintest, of a word with you, naturally.

  When we reached Dunbar Castle at last, Bothwell handed you down from the saddle as carefully as if you’d been made of Venice glass – any host to any royal guest. And you accepted the attention. But maybe your muscles wouldn’t let you do anything else; it was midnight by then and we’d ridden almost fifty miles that day.

  I hope – I think – I tried to follow you, but they led you towards one corner of the castle court and led the rest of us off another way. The truth is I doubt I fought too hard. They took me and the other women to a decent room, high in one of the towers, and I was sure of a place in the one high bed, as the first of the queen’s ladies there. By then I could have slept on the floor, without even a straw pallet where the mice had once made their nests and fleas had long since starved away.

  But it was different the next morning. Better and worse; sleep gives you strength, but there are too many questions in the day.

  *

  When the manservant came with bread and ale be sure that I advanced on him – with all the dignity my stained dress would leave me – and demanded to be taken to her Majesty. He just grinned and shook his head, and looked past me.

  He took one girl by the arm, and led her away – that half-witted creature Morag who used to hang around Beaton, and help with her stitchery. We haven’t seen her since, but later that day a polite servant came to say her Majesty was being well attended by Lord Bothwell’s own people – and by Morag, so that she should have a familiar face nearby. And that our baggage would be brought to us shortly.

  What, we were here for the long stay?

  Our room had a window that looked down on the courtyard, and I was pinned to it all that first long day. Straining eyes and ears to reach through its thin hide covering until, careless of the drafts, I ripped the hide away.

  If you were a free woman, why did you not send for us? If captive, what were they doing to you, that you didn’t call? I tried even with my mind to reach to you, but the silence seemed to laugh at me.

  *

  It was the day before that – they’d been two days in Dunbar – that the girl at the window called out to come, quickly. The women were taking turns to stand at the window and observe, precise as soldiers on sentry duty.

  But the others had all to give way to Seton as they crowded to the opening. It was she who had the best sight of a saddled fine horse, she who saw Lord Bothwell, suitably escorted, mount up and ride away.

  She snapped at the rest to be ready. To don their cloaks, strap on whatever they could carry about their persons, and be ready to escape fast away. The door wasn’t locked, though there was a sentry on the stairway, and if they all rushed him as soon as they heard her Majesty’s call, then it should be easy.

  But no call came, the rest of that day. When the first of the girls took off her cloak, and put down her bag, she glanced at Seton warily. Half defiant: would she be ordered back in line by one of the queen’s own Marys?

  Curtly Seton nodded, and the other women followed the rebel’s lead. If Seton herself remained at the window it was because her heart was full, and her brain working furiously.

  *

  The queen had been surprised at the Almond bridge. She hadn’t been expecting Bothwell’s action – or she hadn’t been told quite what to expect, on which day?

  The way she hadn’t expected the explosion at Kirk o’Field, and the murder of Lord Darnley.

  If she had been Bothwell’s prisoner, why didn’t she now flee? If his queen gav
e the order to let her pass, there was surely no mere serving man who’d dare refuse, not with their lord away.

  The words bubbled up in Seton’s mind, irrepressible as the noxious gas from a cauldron – because she’s not a prisoner – not now, anyway. Because even, at the worst, some of this was a play. ‘To have it done this way gives an element of – shall we say – deniability.’ She could hear the words as if they came from Maitland’s mouth, twisted in the sceptical smile she knew so intimately.

  Let them not think – Seton begged Maitland in her head – let them not think of the last time, two months ago, the queen used the conjurer’s trick, that deniability.

  In fact the Spanish ambassador was writing home: ‘It is believed that the whole thing has been arranged, so that if anything comes of the marriage the queen may make out that she was forced into it,’ – though Seton couldn’t know that, naturally.

  *

  But what was sauce for the goose was sauce for – well, the gosling, Seton thought with a freshening sense of possibility. If she expected that the queen should test her bonds, to try whether she were really captive – well, she herself should make the same attempt, surely. Seton cursed herself for not having pushed her boundaries earlier, for accepting the rules laid down around her, passive as only a woman can be.

  ‘Here – help me.’ Shedding her own cloak and bag at last, she gestured the other girls to bring comb and mirror, and the best dress she had, and to help her make ready. The luck of it: she’d put the queen’s cosmetics box into her own bag as they left Linlithgow. It seemed years ago. The rose petal salve and the stick of charcoal, and the fur her Majesty had given her for her last birthday. Never mind if it wasn’t really cold enough: the guards were going to know they were dealing with a woman from a bigger, bolder, world.

  In a few moments she looked again something like one of the Queen’s Marys. Forcing a proud tilt to her chin, and the faintest shadow of a smile to her lips, she gestured one of the women to hold open the door, and sailed through it, confidently.

  The men on the stairs turned to her, braced to block her way. But the half-grins on their faces bore no real hostility.

  ‘I do not try to go to the queen,’ she assured them, hoping it came out as a great lady condescending, and not as a frightened girl’s plea. The gesture she made to reinforce that ‘not’ came out more vehemently than she had intended, so she went on more quietly.

  ‘I only want – require – to have some word with the rest of our party.’ Maitland, Melville, Huntly – the women had seen no trace of them since they’d first been shut away.

  In uncouth language barely understood, one of the men told her Melville was gone, and Huntly too.

  ‘And Maitland? I should like to see Maitland of Lethington. You can stay with us all the time if necessary. I wish only to be assured of his health.’ It came out a little gaspingly. Thoughtfully, she jingled the coins in her pocket, hoping this last argument would win the day.

  The man seemed convinced. (Or perhaps even serving men were politicians enough to hedge their bets, in these dark days.) After a brief muttered conference with his fellow, leaving the other to guard the stairs, he jerked his head.

  ‘Follow me.’

  *

  He looked… Terrible didn’t even begin to describe it. Lying on a pallet, on the floor, dishevelled and filthy. Bloodstained, too: he’d been one of those who tried to raise their swords at the bridge, and the cut across his brow might have happened then. The black eye too, for though there hadn’t been battle, precisely, there had been hard jostle work and Bothwell’s men hadn’t been gentle.

  Seeing him like that did something to Seton. There was something naked in his face as he looked up at the opening of the door, and the rustle of fine skirts that acted as herald for any court lady. ‘Ma—’

  It was only later Seton realised he might have meant ‘Mallie’. He must have been dreaming of her, these last days; not only as his adored wife, but as a rescuer from the outside.

  Instead he had a friend, to be sure, but another captive, helpless as he. Well, not quite as helpless, maybe. Seton still had money in her pocket, and the grand clothes that shouted authority. Apart from the pallet and the pisspot, his cell was empty. Fiercely, she rounded on the guard.

  ‘Water and soft cloths – quickly!’ After only a moment’s hesitation, the man ducked his head, and scurried away.

  Maitland tried to get up from his pallet but relapsed awkwardly, and in the faint ghost of a rueful smile there was something of the Maitland she used to see.

  ‘I’m very glad to see you, Mary.’ Banal words, but spoken with the sincerity that seemed even to embarrass him slightly.

  ‘What have they done to you?’ It was torn out of Seton as she knelt down beside him, heedless of her finery. But like a child, he reached out to stroke the fur with a hesitant fingertip, wonderingly. There was dried blood, a great patch of it, on his doublet. ‘This didn’t all happen at the bridge?’

  ‘Not all of it, no. Lord Bothwell and I have had an interview since and – aagh!’ A grunt was forced from him as she tugged at the doublet. Horrified, she stopped, but he touched her hand, reassuringly.

  ‘Don’t worry, I shan’t die of this. Oh, he might have killed me, true enough, but her Majesty threw herself in between us until he put the knife away.’

  ‘Queen Mary?’ It came out as a squeak, and Seton cursed herself for the absurdity.

  ‘Yes – ironic, isn’t it? When she can’t even save herself.’

  ‘You don’t think she knew? At the river?’

  ‘I don’t think she knew, or not exactly. But there are different sorts of knowing, Mary.’ Even alone, they were speaking language so cryptic, Seton thought, it might have been the code of a spy.

  ‘But they let Melville and Huntly go. Why did Bothwell go for you that way? I mean, I don’t suppose he’s ever liked you much, but—’

  He tried to laugh, though it came out raspingly. ‘Thank you for that, Mary. No, you’re right, of course. There’s plenty of others who’d go further to block his way to the queen.

  ‘No – this was fear talking. Fury is just what follows after.’

  ‘Fear?’ But Seton thought she could guess what he meant.

  ‘Yes, fear. Of what I might say.’

  ‘About—’ He nodded. Yes. About the murder of Lord Darnley. Painfully, he began to sketch out for her what had happened that night; wheels within wheels, a conspiracy within a conspiracy.

  Had it been Bothwell or his men who actually did the deed? No – though the men who did had hoped to frame him, maybe. But he had been part of a wider plot. Guilty in that much at least, though perhaps you might have said the same for half of the nobility…

  *

  They were interrupted, and perhaps just as well. The guard stood there with a bucket in his hands and some rags, too – fairly clean, Seton was pleased to see. Bashfully, for all the world like a courting boy producing a posy, he drew a small sealed pot from his pocket.

  ‘It’s a healing salve – a good one, so her in the kitchen says.’ Thoughtfully he jiggled it in his hands, just as Seton had earlier jiggled the money. Hastening to reward him, she waved him outside the door, imperiously. Dunking and wringing out the cloths to soak the bloody doublet away, she worked out what she needed to say.

  ‘If Bothwell was afraid you’d tell the queen, that means… she didn’t know! She didn’t know about Lord Darnley.’

  ‘She didn’t know, no – she hadn’t been warned. But remember what we just said – there’s more than one kind of knowing, Mary.’

  She hardly heard him. A glorious relief was stealing through her veins. She hadn’t known doubt had bitten her so deeply. Eyes on the careful work she was doing, easing the wet pads up under his jerkin, she didn’t see that he was looking at her with something like compassion.

  ‘There. Is that better?’ Stupid question, really, but he knew what she was trying to say. Seton’s lips were tightened with concentration
as she dabbed the healing ointment onto his bruises.

  His own hand stopped hers. Arrested, she looked up.

  ‘Mary.’

  She stammered under his gaze. ‘I’m doing it for Mallie. Because she can’t be here herself.’

  ‘I know you are.’ For a single second his cheek brushed hers – then the door was pushed open, roughly.

  ‘Can’t give you any longer, mistress. My sergeant will be doing the rounds in a minute, and I don’t know what he’d say.’

  In a flash Seton was back to business, hardly sure she hadn’t imagined what had just gone before.

  ‘All right. But at least bring the Laird of Lethington his baggage. That way he’ll be able to reward you properly.’ For a second she turned back to Maitland, unsure what to say.

  It tugged at her heartstrings – he didn’t want her to go. She could see that clearly. But he was alert enough now, enough himself, to know the absurdity.

  ‘I’ll be all right, Mary. And so will you. Remember there’s the whole future ahead, when you come to see her Majesty.’ Half under his breath, so the guard couldn’t hear, he added, ‘Don’t judge her too harshly.’

  Dumbly Seton looked at him. Strange words, from Scotland’s Machiavelli to one of the queen’s own Marys.

  His battered mouth twisted. ‘Yes, I know,’ he said. ‘But remember, she has me now.’

  He saw Seton didn’t understand. ‘A blood debt – save someone’s life, and you own them forever. She has me now does Queen Mary.’

  As the guard ushered Seton out of the cell, he raised one hand in farewell, with difficulty.

  And something in Seton’s heart was singing, like a bird pressing its breast against the bars of a cage, and sending its song out to where it longs to be. She was glad, she would always be glad, that he was married to her friend, to Mallie. But for a moment, when he was not Maitland, she had not been Seton. And in that moment she had been free.