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

by Sarah Gristwood

  PART VII

  May 1568

  Thirty-six

  Nine months later, riding through the Scottish Borders, Seton felt the man’s hands clasp her waist as he lifted her down from the pony. For a moment she staggered, as her stiff legs came reluctantly back to life, and he steadied her, not unkindly.

  ‘Ye’ll not be going far, mistress?’ The tone was hesitant, half a warning, half a plea, and she answered both, as unsure as he.

  ‘I won’t go far. Just…’ She gestured – nature calls – towards a clump of hawthorn, only a dozen or so yards away. He stepped back with a clumsy bow of his head, a man more at ease in the role of a servant than a gaoler. A man from her own land.

  Once they crossed over the border into England – if they hadn’t done so already; who could tell in this wild country? – there’d be someone else to order her journey. In England she would be an alien and an enemy, imprisoned like her mistress, and what difference if she’d come voluntarily?

  Of course these men served the lords, the usurpers. The ones who had come to Lochleven; and forced the queen to sign a document of abdication, with the blood of her miscarriage still streaming from her body. They served Lord Moray, home now and ruling the roost so contentedly. They’d take more care to ensure that Seton did not turn back as to ensure her safety. But in theory at least she was free.

  Truth to tell the guards’ presence troubled her no more than the sound of the wind. I have, Seton thought, other constraints on me.

  Stiffly, she picked her way over the shaggy turf, sodden with days of rain, and stepped around the brake of bushes. A hawk screamed overhead. A strand of bramble, the berries still unripe and green, clawed at the soft fabric of her skirt, and she ripped it away. And stood stock still, gazing back over the hills – to the north, the way they had come.

  Past this broken land of rocks and bogs the hill softened down towards the fertile banks of the Firth of Forth, with their familiar palaces. Holyrood, Seton… Who knew when she would see them again?

  Fear clenched her gut, wrenching as a wormwood purge. But for herself – no, no doubts.

  Not doubts, precisely.

  This was the second time Seton had left her homeland; and the first time, she had been too young for the kind of qualms that were now cramping her belly. But now she had committed herself again to Queen Mary’s service – finally, irrevocably.

  *

  When the lords had come to Lochleven with the papers for the queen to sign – the papers that signed her crown away – there was someone else came with them, privately. It was just a low call from the shadow of a wall – ‘Mary.’

  But it had sent Seton walking, as if for the air, down to a small promontory out of view of castle windows. There they spoke, not looking at each other, but gazing out towards the hills – the Stirling, the Highlands, way.

  It was a short conversation – had to be. But underneath it, the past was woven, complex as the threads in a tapestry. Guilt and purpose, reproach and plea. Trust, still, though, ultimately.

  With just three words – ‘For the queen,’ – Maitland had slid a token into Seton’s hand, to pass on to her Majesty.

  It had the shape of a carven jewel, a royal lion bound with ropes but gnawed free by a mouse. She hadn’t dared examine it then; had kept her eyes fixed on the choppy waters of the loch – but there could be only one meaning to a gift given that way.

  Help, to be offered secretly.

  Do you know, Seton thought, I felt sorry for him, really? He looked like the one tossed by waves of doubt, while she stood on the shore, looking down at the water. She asked him, and he told her. They had used the letters, yes. But he told her not to feel too badly.

  The letters could even have saved the queen’s life, he said. The lords had what they needed to depose her. Now they could be persuaded not to proceed to any lethal extremity. That’s what he worked for, Maitland said, in a hurried undertone, and if the queen would only go slowly, would wait until the time was ripe…

  Seton believed he meant it – seemed to see Fleming’s shadow standing smiling behind him: see, did you think I’d abandon her Majesty?

  Oh, those torn loyalties. Over now, for Seton anyway.

  If Seton had done the queen a dreadful wrong, then at least she knew the coin with which to pay. She wore, clear as a livery badge, the mark of all her service ahead, her service to the Queen’s Majesty. Maitland saw it, and he said the strangest thing.

  ‘I think I envy you, Mary.’

  *

  Of course the queen had not waited, had not gone slowly. Did Maitland really think she would? Last month’s escape from Lochleven: I was needed then, Seton thought. Oh, any white hand and lady’s voice, any tall woman’s body would have done; a decoy to fool the guards the queen was still there, while she slipped quietly away. But on Lochleven, that could only mean me.

  They’d exchanged a long look before Queen Mary was smuggled out of the side door, all got up in her men’s clothing. A long look, despite the urgency.

  It wasn’t thanks on her part, precisely: the queen would rightly expect any of them to risk anything to restore her rightful sovereignty. It wasn’t even just memory of all the other, lighter, times they’d both donned men’s clothing, though that was in there too.

  It was… acknowledgement, maybe. That somehow now she saw? When before she’d always been too busy, as a queen must be. Seton had wondered sometimes, just how much Queen Mary did see, really? Less than we thought – or more, maybe?

  In those few tiny rooms at Lochleven – nothing romantic in them, when you saw them up close – they’d been living together for a year or nearly. They’d come to know each other in a new way.

  *

  I don’t fear what lies ahead, Seton thought now, from the privacy of her hawthorn bush, or not exactly. There were advantages to being just one of the queen’s ladies.

  Even at Lochleven, when word came from outside the queen had escaped, and they’d flung themselves at Seton and ripped her disguising veil away, she’d suffered nothing worse than a few screamed oaths. There was simply no point taking vengeance on her. And besides—

  And besides, who knew? Who knew where the power might shift again, suddenly. Be sure they’d waited to hear the outcome of the battle before sending her away. If the queen’s forces had won, Seton would have been their most honoured guest, placated like an idol as their best route to mercy from her Majesty.

  For the queen had got away from Lochleven. Crept through the outbuildings where the dogs stayed silent, and even the hooded hawks in their mews didn’t give her away. She was rowed over the loch and galloped – the pleasure it must have been, to feel a horse under her again! – to where George was waiting, with an army.

  But when the royal forces met the lords’ forces, the lords’ forces won, tout court. That was why the queen – and now Seton some weeks behind her – had to make their way through this border country.

  With the queen fled, Seton had been bundled away. Packed off to Seton Palace like a naughty child… She had something of a heroine’s welcome there, though you can’t say any of them were in a mood to celebrate. George had been taken captive after the battle – still a prisoner, though treated honourably. In some way Seton felt as though she had been serving him, as well as Queen Mary. She had to believe, she ought to believe, that someday soon they’d all be together again, riding triumphantly back, at the head of an English army.

  At least they’d be handled decently in England – compared to what they’d seen in Scotland, anyway. Whatever happened, Elizabeth would never tolerate insult to an anointed monarch, not in her country. It’s true George, like the other loyal lords, had begged Queen Mary not to fly south over the border. But this time George was wrong. He had to be.

  *

  Seton heard a hail from another of the guard. He waved an imperious arm, still seated on his pony, and Seton had to suppress a faint spasm of anger.

  You’d think those months on Lochleven woul
d have taught me, she thought. When they treated a queen like a tavern hussy, they weren’t likely to waste court manners on her ladies. But eagerness quickened her steps as she saw what the guard was making for – a faint plume of smoke, rising beyond a grey forbidding crag.

  ‘A farmhouse, mistress,’ said the more civil of the men. ‘You’ll be able to get some ale before we ride on. A bit by the fire, to chase the damp away.’

  He didn’t add that the fire, and the ale, would be as welcome to himself and his fellows. Something to take their minds off the wet, and the dangers of riding through this outlaw country.

  *

  It seemed a decent enough place, if poor, the woman no more frowzy than she was bound to be. There was even a crude partition wall at the end of the main room. The housewife moved as if to block the way, but Seton stepped firmly into the inner chamber – who knew when she’d next taste even this much privacy?

  She stopped dead at the sight of a figure propped up in the tester bed – an old woman who seemed hardly to notice a stranger, as she crumpled the rough sheet restlessly in her hands and mumbled toothlessly. With a spasm of distaste Seton saw the mammet she cradled in her arms, a misshapen doll like a deformed baby.

  The smell from the fire they’d kindled in a corner was at once sharp and drowsy. Seton’s nostrils pricked with memory. As if drawn, she moved closer to the bed. The doll was not the only toy this ancient child had assembled around her. A few whittled sticks, what looked like reptile skin. A bit of a modelled wax limb, like the remains of a holy candle.

  ‘You’ll not mind mother, my lady? She’s not quite right…’ The housewife was tense as an animal poised for flight. Seton had been with Queen Mary when the new laws against witchcraft were drafted. She met her hostess’ eye and nodded briefly. A promise of silence, given tacitly. But nothing in the room was new to Seton – nor, she thought, is it real to me.

  She was back in Bridie’s cottage – back with Beaton years ago; back there again, with Bridie’s hands soothing on her temples, as last summer’s light bled slowly away. Seton heard old Bridie’s voice in her head. There’s many ways to work the craft of ill will. But sometimes just the naming, and the hating, will do.

  Hating is powerful. Loving, too. Seton should know; it was years that she’d lived with them both churning inside her. The old guilty litany, the one she’d been repeating for months, came flooding back suddenly.

  Back in that shattered room in Holyrood, had she just been a fool? Or had something called out to a darkness she was brewing inside herself? Something she shared with Beaton. Some – say that word again – jealousy.

  Oh yes, she admitted now, it wasn’t just Beaton, it was me, too, and no confessor could ever absolve her from the thing she’d done.

  One gesture of the arm – like throwing a stone into a pond – and the ripples were going to go on spreading through eternity.

  No absolution, then. Just expiation. And the thing about expiation is, it works slowly. For as long the queen suffered through Seton’s act, so she had to go on paying. Service had always been her currency; all she had to do now was to give it gladly…

  *

  ‘My lady – my lady!’ Seton didn’t know how long she’d been standing like a stock, but the housewife was actually plucking at her sleeve, eyeing its worn velvet enviously. ‘Not what you’re used to, but it’s the best we can do.’

  She handed over a bowl of barley stew; thin, but with chunks of meat floating among the roots. The men must have paid her generously.

  As Seton nodded her thanks, she heard one of them ask, how far yet to the Border? If they pushed on, they’d be across before nightfall, she said. Oddly, Seton heard it with relief. If she were to do this, she’d do it quickly.

  Sometimes the hating – or the loving – is enough. The churning in Seton’s gut was quieting now, and it wasn’t only the food that had eased her.

  She was riding into the unknown, with all her hopes behind her. But here at the end of her six years in Scotland – that strange, eventful journey – a kind of peace was stealing over her. She almost laughed aloud with the sheer glorious folly of it. The peace that passeth all understanding – the familiar phrase just skittered by.

  Who would have thought it? That captivity could be liberty? She braced for action, setting her shoulders back, as a spear fighter does when he comes in for the throw. But in her mind she was light, almost carefree. A child again, maybe.

  She put her bowl down and pushed her way out through the door, where the men were still gulping down their stew.

  ‘What are we waiting for? Come along, be quick.’ Seton’s tone of command had its effect, and one moved to lift her onto the tired horse.

  With her will held before her like a torch, a lance, and with the wine of life flowing through her again, she was the one leading the way. Head held high as they rode towards England, and Queen Mary, down through the darkening country.

  Epilogue

  Winter 1613, Rheims, the Convent of St Pierre-les-Dames

  Fleming’s boy has come to see me, a male stranger in this world of women. Thirty years since I left Queen Mary’s service; near fifty since any of the other Marys were more than a memory to me.

  Silly, we get as we grow old, very silly – at first I didn’t understand the name, when they said Sir James Maitland wanted to speak with me. I’ll never forget the Maitland I knew, but he died many years ago, and by his own hand, they say. In the end, he had been loyal to Queen Mary.

  But by the time they led me to the nuns’ parlour, I half expected to see him, risen from the grave to greet me. The young shape of the man by the window gave that the lie, but it was the profile he turned, and the glint of the red Stuart hair, that made me realise at last that this was Fleming’s – Maitland’s – boy.

  *

  He’d brought me a present of comfits – that’s what I remember first, shameful though it may be. I was greedy for the sweets. They’ve been good to me at the convent, thirty years now since I retired here for my health, and though God provides the necessaries, luxuries cost money and it’s a long time since I’ve had anyone to bring that to me.

  I crammed the sweet things into my mouth, but the hard sugar pellets were too much for me. My teeth are not what they used to be.

  Tears of disappointment started to my eyes – ridiculous, but my feelings seem closer to the surface these days. He pretended not to see. We talked of his life – in France, ‘Also for my health,’ he said, with a dry little smile, and of course it’s true. Fleming managed to raise her son in the old faith. So, no, he wouldn’t now find Scotland healthy. We talked of Scotland, as exiles do, mouthing the familiar names of lochs and hills. We did not talk of what went wrong, or of those who were gone, and we did that very carefully.

  He was passing through Rheims for one night only, but he sent a messenger the next day. The boy carried a platter from the best confectioner in the city – all the soft things: syllabub sweetened with Rhenish wine, chestnut paste beaten with cream, and soft squares of milk jelly flavoured with rose – and in beside them a purse of money. It was tactfully done – thoughtful, too. Fleming’s boy, Maitland’s boy, would be careful and kindly.

  Had Fleming talked to him of me, of my taste for sweets, and how we used to be? Not Maitland: he died when this boy was still a young child. A prisoner, for the sake of Queen Mary.

  *

  Seeing Fleming’s boy made the dream come back last night. I used to have it every night, since first we heard from Fotheringhay. In my dream I see the queen clearly.

  Her steps never falter by as much as a heartbeat as she passes into the hall. Her attendants pace behind her, two women and four men, stately as if they go to a marriage ceremony. As many as a hundred are gathered there, but they don’t even exist for her, any more than the audience exists to the characters in a play.

  She paces the length of the great hall, and mounts the steps of the wooden stage that stands at the end of it. She seats herself on the low bla
ck stool, but gives not a glance at the other two objects waiting there. The coarse inky sheets that shroud the whole edifice billow in a gust of air, and with the black of her satin gown, it seems as if clouds of darkness are rolling over her, under cover of which she might slip away.

  As first one officer, then another, read their long accusations, it seems indeed as though she is gone. Only when some final insult moves her does she begin to pray in Latin, loudly. She kisses the crucifix as a bride does her groom, and sketches a cross to the executioner who kneels for forgiveness before her. As her attendants strip away the dark gown, the fluttering long veil of fine white lawn, it is as if night has been chased away.

  She stands up now in a petticoat of russet velvet, a bodice of dark red satin. In the colour of blood – the colour of birth, of violent death, of martyrdom in the Holy Catholic Church – she faces the day of her epiphany.

  As she kneels on the cushion and stretches her head onto the block, and kind Jane Kennedy ties the Corpus Christi cloth over her eyes, the sound of the lamentation of the one true faith rises up ever more loudly.

  The first blow fails to strike true, and the red blood springs from the side of her head.

  A gasp like the sigh of wind across a loch comes from the spectators and passes over the hall. Someone screams faintly. Is it she?

  It takes three blows in all to sever the neck completely. The executioner holds the head aloft at last. ‘God save the queen!’ he cries, in what should have been triumph, but the words tail off into silence. He holds only a skullcap and an auburn wig. With a faint, audible thud the head itself falls and rolls away.

  As it lies grinning on the flagged floor, for the first time I see the woman’s face direct, and know that this is me.

  *

  Fifteen years and more I spent with the queen in her English captivity. Over the years, we kept ourselves almost comfortably. The thing about her was always her hope. And after all, I’d been trained since I was five in the service of Queen Mary.