“I am pledged to marry Jean Gordon, daughter of the great Gordon you killed.”
At first I reacted only to the accusation that I had unjustly taken the field against a declared enemy, and not to the revelation of Jamie’s betrothal.
“He was a rebel. He meant to dethrone me. I had to stop him. It is what my mother would have done,” I added.
“And with less success,” he conceded, wincing as he spoke.
“I needed you to ride with me, to help me.”
“I could not.”
We were speaking plainly. What Jamie was saying was no more or less than the truth. Clan loyalties ran very deep, and could not be betrayed without great cost. He had chosen to align himself with the Gordons. Therefore he could not fight against them.
“Please,” he said.
“Sit,” I told him. Gratefully he sank down heavily onto a bench, his hands still tied awkwardly behind him.
“It’s my sister. She insisted. If I didn’t pledge myself to Jean, she said, then Jean would marry a McCloud. She threatened to use her powers on me. I didn’t dare go against her. And she is my sister, after all. What she’s saying is for my own good, much as I hate hearing it, being forced to do it.”
He ended in a spasm of coughing.
My anger had lessened. I went over to my wash basin, took a cloth and dipped it in the water. Then I went to him and gently wiped his bloody forehead. He winced at my touch, but I continued, pausing to untie his hands. When I had cleaned his face I undid the crude bandage and tried to clean the wound as well. He will have a scar, I thought. Not a battle scar, honorably won, but a scar from a brawl. A brawl he provoked.
He fights when he is frustrated, when things go against him, I thought. When things happen that hurt him. What was hurting him now?
“I am not going to have you tortured, or kept in the castle dungeon. You must ask my formal pardon, on your knees, in the presence of the court, however.”
“And Cristy too? He means you no harm. He is merely loyal to me.”
“Yes, Cristy too. But the others must be punished.”
He nodded.
As I bent low over his forehead, he surprised me by reaching up to my face with one hand, and rubbing one knuckle against my cheek. He drew it along, slowly.
“So soft, so soft,” he murmured.
I knew in that moment that there had been much more between us all along than friendship. I knew what was hurting him. He was fond of me. Very fond. He did not want to marry another woman.
I caught his hand in mine.
“Orange Blossom,” he said, “you know as well as I how it is with us. We highborn folk cannot follow our inclinations. We must do as our honor requires. As our families dictate.”
“Must we, always?” In that moment I wanted more than anything to kiss his rough hand, to kiss his poor injured face.
We looked into each other’s eyes.
“Ah! If only . . .” he began. Then the oaken doors opened and my stepbrother James was ushered in.
I quickly let go of Jamie’s hand, but not so quickly that James was unaware of the intimate exchange between us.
“James,” I said, clearing my throat, “the Earl of Bothwell has asked for my pardon, for what he and the others did tonight, and I have agreed to grant his request, provided he humbles himself publicly. He has also explained to me that he is pledged to marry Jean Gordon. That is why he did not join with us in fighting the Gordon clan rebels.”
James sneered. “You acted like a Gordon tonight,” he said to Jamie. “You disgraced yourself. You dishonored this court.”
“I very nearly got myself killed too,” Jamie retorted. “See for yourself.”
My brother glanced at Jamie’s wound. I noticed that he himself was unscathed. Either he had not taken part in the fighting or he had acquitted himself expertly. I did not know which.
“Your Highness,” my brother said, pointedly turning away from Jamie, “I came to tell you that there has been—an unpleasant incident. A madwoman in a red gown has been seized at the palace gates. She is raving in an unknown tongue. What shall I do with her?”
I looked at Jamie.
“The Scottish wife,” I said.
“No, God help me,” was Jamie’s plangent cry. “Not now!”
“James, will you please take the earl to Dr. Bourgoing. Then go to the kitchens and find me a girl who speaks Norwegian. Then bring the girl and the madwoman to me—along with Adrien.”
My brother looked at me, incredulous.
“You are going to interview this madwoman?”
I smiled as Jamie hurried toward the door. “We are old friends,” I said. “We met in France. And we have urgent business to conduct. We shall conduct it tomorrow. Now go!”
SIXTEEN
When the following morning the tall, thin, wild-eyed Norwegian woman was brought into my presence chamber, her dirty red dress frayed and torn, the yellow petticoat underneath it ragged, her stockings full of holes and her shoes so worn she could hardly keep them on her large feet, I could tell at a glance that what she needed most was food, a bath and a change of clothing.
I told my tirewoman Margaret Carwood to provide these, and she took the Scottish wife away.
When I saw her next I was amazed at the transformation. Instead of an embattled amazon the woman who now appeared before me was almost stately, much more self-possessed and well groomed. Margaret had helped her bathe, and had dressed her in one of my gowns, a blue one with delicate lace at the neck and sleeves. In it she seemed far less a wild creature possessed by rage and more a lady who had met with an undeserved blow of fate. But she still had a look of desperation in her pale blue eyes, and as I began speaking with her—my words and hers translated by the kitchen maid from Trondheim—I discovered that her situation was a very precarious one.
“She says that her father is an important man in Norway,” the kitchen maid said. “A commander of ships. He has money. Lots of money. But he will not speak to her any more. Her mother will not see her or speak to her. Her brother spits on her. Her sisters call her a whore.”
“Tell her I know what happened to her. I know her fiancé wagered her dowry in a game of cards and lost. Say that I am prepared to repay her what was lost.”
I opened a small chest and showed the Scottish wife the gold coins inside—the remainder of the money I had received from the sale of my land. (I had not given Jamie all of it.) I pushed the chest toward her.
Much to my surprise, she shook her head violently and pushed it back toward me, speaking quickly and vehemently as she did so.
“She says,” the kitchen maid explained, “that she does not want money. She wants the man. The man who won her. He must marry her.”
I thought quickly. “He is not free,” I said. “He has a wife already.” It was not strictly true, but soon would be, when Jamie married Jean Gordon.
The large, awkward, anguished woman began to cry. A great, gushing flow of tears that told me she loved Jamie. What had he done to call forth such love? Had he been her lover? Was she carrying his child, as she had claimed?
“Ask her,” I said to the kitchen maid when the flow of tears began to subside, “whether she is going to be a mother.”
The question was put—and more tears followed. At length there came an answer.
“She says her child was born dead. No one helped her when he was born. She wrapped him in a rag and buried him in an old churchyard, at night, in secret.” In saying these words the kitchen maid was moved.
I laid my hand on the Scottish wife’s arm, meaning to comfort her, but only making her jump in alarm.
“Tell her I am very sorry.”
Even as I spoke I could see that something had shifted behind the woman’s eyes. She was suddenly wary, a trapped animal. I felt a tremor of fear. Was it possible she might attack me, the way I had seen her attack Jamie in the Inn of the Three Barrels?
“She says he must leave his wife and marry her.”
�
��Tell her that is not possible. That will never happen.”
“She says he owns her. He has won her. Now he owns her, and must be her husband.” I saw anger flash in the foreign woman’s pale blue eyes. Her body was tensed.
I had an inspiration.
“Tell her he won her—but he lost her again. He bet her and her dowry in another game of cards, and another man won. That man is gone.”
I watched while the kitchen maid explained this to the Scottish wife. She was surprised, confused, and then despondent. She lowered her head and shook it slowly, saying a few words—soft words.
“She says her own luck is always bad.”
After a pause I said, “Perhaps her luck is changing. Tell her that she is welcome to stay at my court until a husband can be found for her. Until then she is my guest. But she must promise not to bother the Earl of Bothwell in future.”
Apparently I was wrong in thinking that the Scottish wife was in love with Jamie, for when the kitchen maid translated my words, a huge smile lit up the plain face of the unfortunate woman, and for a moment she looked almost pretty. What she wanted, clearly, was a husband. Just a husband, any husband. Suddenly all became clear to me. If she married, she would redeem herself. Her family would accept her once again. That was what she cared about.
“She will promise. Will the husband come soon?”
“As soon as it can be arranged.”
Hearing this the Scottish wife dropped to her knees, seized my hand and kissed it. Once again there were tears on her thin cheeks.
“Takk, takk, takk,” I heard her saying, and I knew, though I had never learned any Norwegian, that she was expressing her heartfelt thanks.
SEVENTEEN
The first time I saw Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, was in the cold, snowy February of the year 1565. He was in a firelit room, sitting on a bench covered in deep blue velvet, his long legs folded under him, his thick curling blond hair gleaming, playing the lute.
Sitting beside him was my Italian singer David Riccio, who watched Henry’s slender white fingers as he plucked and strummed, occasionally humming along in harmony.
Neither man looked up as I quietly entered the room, so intent were they on the music they were making together. Outside the windows snow had begun to fall, a veil of white descending over bush and tree and rooftop, and the soft, plangent notes of the music fell like a veil over my senses, lulling and enchanting me by the sound, the mood, and above all, by the lute player.
When the song ended Henry looked over at me, a languorous look in his hazel eyes, a lock of his gleaming hair falling across his forehead, and I could not help but catch my breath at the beauty of him.
Henry is my cousin, I reminded myself. His mother and my late royal father were first cousins. His father is the Scottish Earl of Lennox and his mother is the granddaughter of King Henry VII of England. He has royal blood. He can trace his descent from Queen Margaret of Scotland. He is perfect.
No wonder I feel an affinity with him, I thought as I let my eyes linger on him. It is an affinity of blood. Yes, he is as slender and handsome as the statues of Adonis in the gardens of Chambord, yes, he has inviting red lips. But he is also my kin, naturally I am drawn to him.
I thought these things—and then I ceased to think. I only felt as though I wanted to go on looking at him, and listening to him play his lute, forever.
It was a very cold winter, as I have said, when Henry came to my court, sent there by our cousin Queen Elizabeth. He was not used to the dank chill of Scotland. He suffered from the cold and, being very young (he was a mere nineteen, I was three years older), he caught an ague. He shivered and sweated, coughed and sneezed, but he would not stay in bed. Instead he went out night after night, with David Riccio and my drunken half-brother Robert and other young roisterers of the court, and I was told he often did not come back until nearly sunrise.
I always was courteous to him and made him welcome, and he seemed to take my welcome as no more than his due. He spent time with me, conversing, playing his lute for me, even reading Latin books with me (for which I truly admired him, Latin being difficult for me to read though I had been taught it since childhood). We laughed together over my small dogs, and he helped me teach them tricks. He brought his more genteel companions into my apartments and I assembled my ladies and we all danced—he was a fine and agile dancer—and afterwards we ate dainty cakes and drank wine from a set of small pink fluted glasses he gave me as a present.
I had not enjoyed such refined companionship since I left France, and it was very welcome. Henry behaved like the highborn lord he was, demanding that others accord him the dignity due to his royal breeding and at times becoming quite ferocious when they did not. He slapped his servants until they bled when they disobeyed him and shouted vile names at the members of his household. But I told myself, this is how princes behave, this is how they maintain their authority over their inferiors.
The one person Henry spared was David Riccio, who seemed always to be in his presence or nearby. Like the rest of us, David watched and admired Henry, I could see the admiration in his eyes. He too is worshipping at the shrine of beauty, I thought—and why not? He is a fine musician, he appreciates fine art. And Henry was nothing if not a masterpiece.
If Henry was the most beautiful man at my court, David Riccio was surely among the ugliest. Was it this contrast that led David to stay near Henry?
I was finding, day by day, that I too wanted to be near him, as often as possible. I invented excuses to invite him to my apartments, ordering more new gowns, jewels and headdresses to enhance my own attractions and even trying—in vain—not to bite my nails so that my slender white hands would appear at their best when I prepared myself to encounter him.
Those were giddy days. I was so enraptured that I neglected meeting with my councilors and my brother James chastised me for that. I not only neglected the everyday business of ruling, I neglected to listen to the voices around me telling me of Henry’s sins and shortcomings.
One of the loudest of the voices was that of John Knox, who thundered on in his usual overblown fashion about how Henry was a vice-ridden drunkard who went out every night searching for girls to seduce and during the day, played catamite to David Riccio. (I had to ask my brother James what a catamite was, for it was not a word I knew, and he frowned and told me that such things were not fit for ladies to know.) But I refused to listen to anything the preacher said, and reminded him that he had recently disgraced himself and caused much gossip by marrying my sixteen-year-old relative Margaret Stewart without asking my permission (I would naturally have denied it) when he was fifty years old!
I don’t believe I would have listened if the Lord God himself had come down from heaven and declared Henry to be a great sinner. I did not want to hear anything but praise, though the truth was that the longer he stayed at my court, the less praise I heard of Henry, and the more he was vilified.
The long cold Scottish winter of that year of 1565 at last began to give way to spring, and I was growing restless. Henry was making himself at home in my palace, he visited me most afternoons. As the weather warmed we went riding together. He wrote verses and gave them to me—though, looking back, I have to admit that they were not verses celebrating my beauty, or declaring his love for me, but rather sonnets in praise of love itself, of its delights and raptures.
Yet surely, I told myself, Henry intended to ask me to marry him. Surely I had captured his heart. We were both of royal blood, I reminded myself again and again, and suitably matched in age and even in height (Henry was one of the few handsome men I had ever met who was taller than I was). The only hindrance to our marrying that I could think of was that because we were close relatives the pope would have to give us his special permission before we went through the wedding ceremony. But that could easily be obtained.
When doubts about Henry’s plans for our future arose in my mind I had only to remember what he had told me, in one of our afternoon conversations, which w
as that Queen Elizabeth herself had said that she would favor a match between us. He had told me this quite matter-of-factly, to be sure, and not romantically, yet he had said it. It was undoubtedly true. But why, oh why, was he taking so long to fulfill the queen’s wishes?
As the days warmed and lengthened, I paced fretfully, wishing I could talk to Jamie about all that was on my heart. But Jamie was far from the court, in Gordon country, staying with his future in-laws, and the only other person I could talk to freely, without veiling my deepest thoughts, was my tirewoman Margaret Carwood and hers was one of the voices I was doing my best not to hear. Margaret was a woman of few words, and never forgot the great gulf that separated us, but her curt replies to my remarks about Henry made it very clear that she did not like him, and that she thought I was foolish for being so smitten with him—something I could not possibly have hidden from her.
One afternoon Henry came to my apartments as he so often did, and he brought David Riccio with him. My heart sank. He was not likely to propose to me with David there.
“Are we going to have some music then?” I asked, trying to keep out of my tone the exasperation I felt.
“Your Highness,” Henry began after we had settled ourselves, “beyond the pleasure of your company, and perhaps to offer a serenade or two, I have come to ask a favor. I have heard that your French secretary Monsieur Bonnet has gone back to France. You will be needing someone to replace him. May I suggest Davie here?”
At this David Riccio smiled and inclined his head.
“For a generous wage, of course,” Henry added. “He has a large family to support, you know. Twenty-seven in all.”
I had known that David had a great many relatives, and that some of them hung around the court, running errands, holding horses for visitors, doing odd jobs in the stables and kitchen. But twenty-seven? He was not married; all these relatives had to be sisters and brothers and cousins and their children.
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