Queen's Own Fool

by Jane Yolen

  “Your Majesty,” Mary interrupted, “is this young Douglas truly to be trusted?” There was sudden steel in her voice.

  The queen gave her full attention to the question, turning from me and looking straight at Mary.

  “Trusted?” The queen nodded slowly. “I believe he is mine to the core, for all that Douglas is his name.” She leaned forward and whispered hoarsely. “Morton’s men wanted to drag me off from here to an even more desolate spot where surely I would have met my end. It was young George who barred the way. He met them at the shore with a dozen bowmen and told them that I was under his custody and they had no authority to remove me.”

  “Good for George!” I said, clapping.

  “He has also smuggled letters for me out to France,” the queen said. “And a letter to my chamberlain at Holyrood, who is sending me—through George’s good graces—several dresses, a pair of furred boots, a holland cloak, several perukes, and a box of preserves. They will see me through the hard winter ... if indeed I must remain here all that time.”

  “Then he is truly a friend, Madam,” I said. “Though can a Douglas be trusted?”

  She smiled. “I believe it is his kindness that has given me the strength to recover my health.” She patted my hands. “And now to have you two here ...”

  “All your friends are praying for your safe release,” I said. “And Mary Maitland—she that was Fleming—asked me to give you this.” I passed her the ring, and told the story, adding: “Remember—even the humblest of your servants might yet be of use.”

  “Oh, I know that very well already,” the queen said. “It was a lesson I learned in Amboise. And again after dear Davie’s death.”

  “Your Majesty,” Mary began uneasily, “have the Scots lords not offered to free you if you will divorce Bothwell?”

  The queen shivered, and though the room was quite chilly, I do not think she shivered with the cold. “The Scots lords! Dogs, rather! I trusted them at Carberry Hill and they threw me into prison,” she said bitterly. “They took my crown and they took away my son.” Her eyes filled up. “Poor little thing. I have not held him for these many months. He will not remember me at all.”

  “Madam,” I said, “he will never forget you.” But even as I spoke, I wondered if she was right. Jamie was but a baby, and hadn’t I forgotten my own mother’s face? And I was not a toddler when I lost her but already partly grown.

  The queen waved away my words, saying angrily, “This awful marriage is the only thing left I can withhold from the Scots lords. If it causes them any pain at all, then I will cling to it with my dying breath.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell over the room and I began to shiver with the cold.

  “Oh, Nicola, I have not been thinking....” the queen said. “Let us go closer to the fire so you may get warm. I have become so used to the cold, I almost welcome it. To be as cold outside as I have become within gives me some kind of balance. I sit here in the window, away from the fire, and stare for hours out at the far shore, thinking on freedom. But look—there is nothing to see beyond my window anymore.”

  And indeed, the freezing downpour now totally obscured the shore. The grey loch and the grey rain were all one.

  We went over to the hearth and I crouched right by it. If I had been any closer, I would have been in it, cooking like a piece of meat. Slowly the warmth began to seep into my bones.

  The queen and Mary did not come so close, but rather sat together on a small pillowed bench and stared silently into the fire.

  Suddenly the door opened and an angular woman bustled in. She took off a sodden cloak and came over to the hearth, chirping, “Oh, my lady, I see your maids have arrived!”

  She perched herself on the edge of a high-backed chair and said, “You must be Lord Seton’s daughter, and you must be her French maid.” As she spoke, her head bobbed up and down. “We are going to be the closest of companions.”

  Queen Mary did her best to smooth away her annoyance at this interruption. “This is Lady Douglas,” she said, “who is wife to my keeper, Lord William, elder brother to young George. She is my constant companion.” The way she said it was no compliment.

  “And very happy to be so,” Lady Douglas said, clearly deaf to the queen’s nuance. She bobbed her head so much, I was afraid she might peck us with her sharp little nose. “We have so few visitors, it will be a pleasure to spend time with someone of good breeding, ” she said to Mary.

  I glanced over at the queen, who had a tight smile fixed on her face.

  “Madam,” I said, curtsying to the queen, “you said you had an errand for me?”

  “Ah, yes, that errand,” the queen said. “Fetch us something to eat and drink, please Nicola. You will have to find it on the ground floor, in the kitchens. That is, dear Lady Douglas, if it is all right with you?”

  “Oh yes, oh yes,” Lady Douglas said, her head bobbing again.

  I left at once, glad to be away from chirrupy Lady Douglas, who—for all her fine speeches about being the queen’s companion—I knew was no more than a gossipy jailer.

  And while I was at my errand, I could begin to learn about the keep, the doors, and gates—and what I could of the soldiers. All those things we needed to know if we were to help the queen escape.

  She cannot quit this dismal place soon enough, I whispered out to the grey and uncompromising rain.

  44

  WINTER PRISON

  Soon enough became one day and the next and the next, for the more I learned of the place, the more I despaired of escaping from it.

  “We are not birds to fly away from here,” I told Pious Mary. We were at the top of the tower in the queen’s bedchamber, making up the queen’s bed. This was the first nice day that week, and the only time the linens had been thoroughly aired. It would be another few days before the washerwomen came with fresh linen and took these back to the mainland for washing.

  “Nor are we fish to swim,” she added.

  “Are you resigned to staying then?” I asked, fearful she might say yes.

  The queen surely seemed to be, as if finding herself safe, she swallowed the shame of being in prison. She rarely spoke now of escape, or her son, or even of the future. Rather she dwelt on everyday pinpricks—the porridge not hot enough, her linens not clean enough, the constant chatter of Lady Douglas. The queen had even begun embroidering again, a set of chair covers for the chairs in her room, something one does if planning a long stay.

  “I am not resigned,” Mary said, matching the folds of linen to the ones in my hand.

  Over the next months, at least I learned how to tolerate Lady Douglas. The most important thing was to stop one’s ears to her constant chatter. She made much of little, and little of much: new embroidery techniques, gossip about noble families, the many deeds of her brave and wise and witty and wonderful husband.

  “As my dear husband, Lord William, has told me ...” was how she usually started these boring recitations. Or “Have you heard that Ogilvie’s second wife has ...” or “This pink fabric from the Continent can be made into the prettiest ...” Every day, from early morning till after dinner, she was in the queen’s small apartment. Not only did she crave the queen’s company to brighten her own dull existence, she was also terrified lest the royal prisoner escape.

  “If that happened,” she would say, her head once again bobbing like a dipper in a stream, “Lord James will unlikely be forgiving. Oh no! Oh no!” Then a few hand waves to underline what she was saying. “It would prove the end—the very end—of dear William’s advancement.” For that was all the queen’s misery, her shame, her loss of throne and child meant to Lady Douglas.

  Often in self-defense the queen pretended to fall asleep in her chair, but I could not take such a way out. Instead I simply stopped listening, though I kept nodding and smiling while all the while I was thinking on ways to leave.

  Lady Douglas’s husband was her opposite in every way. Where she was sharp-nosed and chittery, Lord William was burl
y and thick-set, like an old ram. His voice was deep and slow, and whenever he was forced to converse with the queen, he had few sentences and fewer verbs. “I will. You won’t,” ran the burden of his song.

  It was astonishing that he and Lord James and young George were related at all.

  Lord William kept very much to himself in his countinghouse, and the few times we saw him, he was usually out riding on the far shore, on a plodding gelding that seemed to have as little personality as its master. I half suspected that Lord William had taken on a royal prisoner in order to free himself of Lady Douglas’s company.

  The winter months dragged by. I had hoped the loch would freeze solid, for then we might have had a chance of escaping over it with the queen.

  Neither bird nor fish then, I told myself.

  But though it was cold—and the tower the coldest spot on the island, which no hearthfire ever seemed able to warm to a comfortable temperature—it never got cold enough to put more than a skim of ice around the edges of the island.

  We got through the winter as best we could by playing cards, chess, writing poetry. I finally developed a reasonable hand at embroidery simply because by concentrating on it I could block out Lady Douglas’s chatter. My leaves looked like greenery now, and not some jagged creatures clinging hopelessly to lumpy boughs. Mary smiled her approval at a pillow cover I worked, and the queen actually used it on her bed.

  Because I dared not write to Joseph for fear of revealing his hiding place, I sent letter after letter to my old friend Pierre Brufort somewhere in France, letters which George smuggled out for me. I had no hope for a return letter, and got none.

  With the coming of spring the atmosphere lightened, the days grew long again, and a soft yellow haze crowned the trees on the mainland shore. Our spirits lightened as well.

  We were allowed to take the queen boating on the loch, though always in the company of armed guards. Still, it was there the queen seemed happiest, crying out in delight when a trout leaped high after a darting fly or an osprey seized a fish from the black waters.

  I had hoped that with winter’s end there would come good news—an uprising of loyal nobles, or an intervention by Queen Elizabeth, or even some prospect of escape.

  Instead it brought the worst news possible.

  I was walking by the lochside while the queen napped and I was reveling in the small gales that were blowing. I had put my arms out and let the winds flap my cloak.

  Oh, I thought, if only these were wings....

  It was then I saw a boat come ashore and realized it was George Douglas just returned from a trip to Edinburgh. He signalled me over.

  I checked to see that no guards were by, then went quickly to him.

  “Have you new gossip?” I asked, keeping my tone light in case we should be heard. “For the queen?”

  “We must be more wary than ever of your mistress’s safety,” he told me in a low, worried voice.

  I felt sick to my stomach. “What has happened?”

  George rubbed his jaw anxiously. “Knox has been preaching against her from his pulpit again, saying that never was there a greater abomination in the nature of women than in her.”

  I recoiled. “That wicked old man,” I said, forgetting that he had saved my life when he could have let me die.

  “There is more.” George’s whisper took on an ominous tone.

  “More? Has he any bile left to spew up?”

  “Not Knox, no. But his sermons only underline what the lords have already done. The lords... ah! I have not the heart to break the news to her, Nicola.”

  “Tell me then and I shall tell it to her myself. Better she hear bad news from me than from you.”

  “It is not just bad news, Nicola. It is terrible news.” His voice cracked.

  “For Jesus’s sake, tell me!” My hand balled into a fist.

  He hesitated still and I thought that I would cheerfully throttle him if he did not get on with it.

  “Bad news can be borne if we only know it,” I said.

  He blurted out, “The queen has been accused before Parliament of Darnley’s murder. She may soon be tried for it.”

  I trembled with anger. “They cannot. I will not let them.”

  He seemed deeply shocked at my vehemence. “Nicola—they can and will. And if she is found guilty, there is only one possible penalty. ”

  I strained towards him.

  He took a deep breath and spoke it. “Death.”

  45

  A MINUTE FROM FREEDOM

  I told the queen while she was busy with a new piece of embroidery. If I had been worried about how she would take the news, I needn’t have troubled myself. She did not even raise her eyes from the stitches.

  There was a long silence after I finished. The only sound was the wind buffeting the castle walls.

  At last she raised her eyes from the cloth and said, “As to Knox, he is nothing. I do not think less of the man. I could not think less of him. But the others—Huntly, Argyll ...” Her eyes were that wonderful green-gold, like jewels. “It was already clear to me that their infamy knew no bounds. They have only steeled my contempt for them.”

  She seemed so calm. So resolute. So accepting.

  “Madam, are you not afraid?” I cried.

  “They might come for you any day,” added Mary, nervously twisting the chain of her crucifix.

  The queen laid her work aside and stood. She walked over to the hearth and held her hands out to the fire. “Calm? Not I. I am terrified,” she admitted. “But not for myself. They have already done everything to me they can, save kill me.” She turned towards us. “I have been called a whore and murderess. I have had hands laid upon my person. My throne has been stolen from me, my crown and jewels. My son has been taken away. I have miscarried twins. I have lain in a foul prison.” She drew in a breath, and outside the wind once more made an assault on the wall of the keep. For a second it drew her attention to the window, but only a second. “No, I am not afraid of what they will do to me, but what they will do to Scotland.” Her head was high and there was a spirit I had not seen in her eyes for many months.

  This—this was the queen I loved.

  “Majesty,” I said, and knelt before her.

  “I will write again to my cousin Elizabeth and the dowager Queen of France,” said the queen. “George will get the letters out to them. They will not allow me to be used in this manner. Bring me my pen, Mary, and a sheet of paper.”

  I stood. “I will get them, Madam,” I said, and went quickly to her bedchamber. But all the while, I was thinking darkly: If either Elizabeth of England or Catherine de Medici had wanted to go to war to free her, they would have done so already.

  There was a great tension in the air now. Not just between the queen and Lord William. There was even a roughening between Lord William and young George.

  One day as I was fetching the fresh laundry from the keep where the laundresses had delivered it, I passed a chamber where Lord William was locked in a heated argument with his brother.

  Eavesdropping in the queen’s cause, I told myself, is never a sin. Besides, they were so involved in mutual accusations, they did not know I was there. So I stopped by the door and listened.

  “Yer smitten,” Lord William said loudly. “Ye never could hang on to yer wits in the presence of a pretty face.”

  “If I take pity on an innocent woman, am I to be blamed for that?” George cast back. “I do not relish the role of jailer as much as you do, brother, especially when the prisoner is the queen.”

  “Queen no longer, Geordie,” Lord William reminded him sharply. “She signed her abdication.”

  “Aye, under threat of death, which even a man might have done. And ye standing by while it happened. Like a whipped dog eager to lick the master’s boots.”

  I leaned closer to the door.

  There was the sound of rustling papers, then Sir William said, “Ambitious little toad. Ye wish to marry her. To make yerself king.”

&
nbsp; George’s voice was as full of bristles as a hedgehog. “I harbor no such ambition, and well ye know it, brother! But if I serve her faithfully and ye do not, which of us then is the traitor?” His voice rose shrilly on the last word.

  My heart had begun to pound. I thought about leaving, but I did not.

  There was an ominous pause before Lord William said coldly, “Yer dangerously close, lad. Don’t say more, else I will never forgive.”

  “Forgive? What have ye to forgive?” George retorted. He was in full roar now. “There should be truth between us, brother. Blood—if not humors—ties us to one another. But I say ‘traitor’ and mean each syllable. I will not be a party to the regent’s plans. Nothing would suit him better than for the queen to die here.” He paused. “Some small accident, is it? A convenient drowning, perhaps?”

  I held my breath. Where is the queen’s safe haven now? I thought. I must tell Mary. We have to get the queen away.

  “I am the laird,” came Lord William’s cold voice. “Ye’ll do as I demand. Brother or no.”

  “And if I do not?” George’s voice matched him, ice for ice.

  “Then ye’ll be gone.”

  For a moment George was silent, as if gathering his courage. Then he said, “Yer allies, my dear brother, are men without honor, loyal to nothing but their own ambition.”

  “Go! And the while, keep yerself far from the queen. The guards have already been ordered to bar ye from her chambers.”

  “Go I will! Better that than become a prisoner here myself.”

  “Och,” Lord William sighed. “Arguing with a fool is dry work. Where is my wine? Gordon? Gordon? Where are ye, stupid boy?”

  As he stormed out of the room, I jumped nimbly aside, busying myself in the linen cupboard. George emerged a few moments later. His grim countenance brightened when he saw me.

  “Were you listening at the door, Nicola?”

  A flush spread across my cheeks.

  “Good. Then you know I must go. But tell your mistress I will not be far off. Tell her ... tell her she can count upon me when her hour comes.”