Queen Without a Crown

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  Mary Stuart, the Queen of the Scots, though, never achieved it. She used her sex too much and her mind not enough, and perhaps that was why she ended her days without a crown and, eventually, without even a head on which to put one.

  Much of this – even, I think, some faint premonition of Mary’s ultimate fate – flickered through my head as we sat there. ‘Even if . . . I found myself once more without a husband, I would have no wish to marry again,’ I said. ‘Three times should be enough for anyone! I don’t want to imitate my father.’

  That made him laugh. ‘I want to go home,’ he said. ‘Now. Immediately! Perhaps Brockley could go to Hawkswood and ask for my coach to be sent. Then we can start out at once.’

  ‘So – Jane and Mark are married. I wish I could have been there,’ I said, folding up the letter from Mark, which Brockley had brought to me. ‘Pen and Clem didn’t take too long to arrange it.’

  ‘I fancy they’re relieved to hear that Mark’s family have been cleared, madam,’ Brockley said. ‘That wench Jane has an air of being good and biddable, but in my opinion she has a backbone of good strong steel. I remember how she said that if she couldn’t marry Mark, she wouldn’t marry anyone. Perhaps they were afraid she meant it and would stay at Tyesdale for ever, the spinster relative.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Hugh said, from where he was engaged in tying up a rose stem which had been threatening to topple over on to the sundial which was the centrepiece of the rose garden at Hawkswood. ‘And all the neighbours would be clacking their tongues and saying that they’d probably spent Jane’s dowry and were keeping her at home as an unpaid servant.’

  It was early May, a soft day, cloudy but warm, and we were spending the afternoon in the garden at Hugh’s much loved Hawkswood, now safely his for as long as he lived. I was able to watch him as he moved among his roses, examining this one and that, tut-tutting over greenfly, exclaiming in pleasure over a new plant which had taken well and was already developing its first buds, grumbling about the speed at which weeds grew at this time of year and, as now, tying up stems in need of support. The peace in his face as he worked was a reward more precious to me than rubies. It had been worth all the long frustrating struggle to find the truth of Hoxton’s death.

  Above us, from an open window, came the sound of Meg practising the spinet and Sybil’s voice encouraging her, and from where I stood I could see through the window below it into a parlour and glimpse the portrait of Meg which Jocelyn Arbuckle had painted. And the letter in my hand held good news. I could recall few afternoons as happy as this one.

  Brockley, remarking that he must make sure the courier had been given refreshments and that his horse was being cared for, took himself off.

  ‘I hope,’ I said, ‘that Mark and Jane will be as content together as we are.’

  Hugh finished securing the rose plant, used his small belt-knife to cut the twine he was using and stepped back. ‘I love to hear you say you’re content. Have I ever told you how moved, how touched, I was, those times when you said to me that even though Matthew de la Roche is still alive, you wanted to stay with me and the way of life we’ve built together?’

  ‘Were you? But I only said what I felt.’

  ‘You have paid me a great compliment, my Little Bear. Do you really not miss court life?’

  ‘No. I never want to return to court. I never want to set foot in a palace again. That’s why I don’t want Meg to go to court, either. It’s not the happiest of lives, being a courtier, male or female.’

  ‘It may not always be up to you. It’s possible, you know, that the queen and Cecil may have uses for you – uses that may send you into danger.’

  I shook my head. ‘The answer, from now on, will be no.’

  ‘Yet you enjoyed some of the work you did for them in the past. You often say you didn’t, but I know you very well.’

  ‘I did it for money at first,’ I said. ‘I came to enjoy a good deal of it after that – not all, but quite a lot. I was younger then and more adventurous. But as time went on . . .’

  I fell silent, because it was hard to find words for the distaste which had gradually come upon me, beginning the first time I grasped the fact that to be an agent for a queen as beset as Elizabeth could mean causing deaths.

  It had occurred to me before that there was a resemblance between poor Judith Easton, the woman who bewitched men without meaning to, but hadn’t the strength of mind to control her victims, and Mary Stuart, who bewitched men intentionally, but also lacked the strength to use with wisdom the power she had been given. It was a dangerous state of affairs.

  Lately, observing the antics of Mary of Scotland, the queen who no longer had a crown but greatly desired one, and who would settle, it seemed, as easily for Elizabeth’s as for the crown of Scotland, I had begun to fear that one day I might have to carry out an investigation with Mary’s demise at the end of it. She was a menace, and I ought not to mind, but I had seen the terror of those who are about to die. I had seen Gladys like that. I did mind.

  I said: ‘The work I do – did – for Elizabeth and Cecil always seems to end in someone’s death.’

  ‘If someone doesn’t do it for them, the deaths could be theirs. Cecil is your friend. And Elizabeth is both your queen and your sister.’

  ‘I know. But I have done enough. Others can take the work on now.’

  ‘That Papal Bull hasn’t been issued yet,’ said Hugh thoughtfully. ‘Do you think it will be?’

  ‘Yes. I had a letter from Cecil yesterday. He has eyes and ears in Rome, as he seems to have everywhere. It will be issued at any moment. It will certainly cause trouble,’ I said grimly.

  I stood looking at Mark’s letter but no longer seeing it. The air was warm, the garden lush, but the thought of what might happen when Pope Pius the Fifth issued the decree – which would present hundreds of respectable people with the choice between treason and damnation – sent a chill through my veins.

  ‘I am not going to become entangled with the business, this time, though,’ I said. ‘Nor ever again. I have served my turn, Hugh. I’ll go hunting no more. My days as a huntress are over.’

  ‘You are sure?’

  ‘I am sure.’ Then I said: ‘I am happy to settle for a quiet life. Let us finish our walk round the garden. And then, shall we sit on the terrace and have a game of chess?’