Fire & Faith

by Steven Veerapen

  The Martin house is entirely fictional, but I’ve located its site on a map of old Stirling. In describing its layout, I based it loosely on Sauchie Tower, in Clackmannanshire, Scotland. This building can still be visited. I should admit that it would have been far too grand here for a family of even wealthy merchants like the Martins but hope you will permit the licence taken.

  In closing, I would like to thank all readers for following the story of Simon Danforth. Throughout I have endeavoured to keep his attitudes, often exasperating, as appropriate to the period (without being too alienating) as I could. If I’ve got anything wrong, or if you have any questions or comments, please hit me up on Twitter @ScrutinEye. Otherwise, I’m currently working on the third adventure, which will see the straight-laced Danforth enter royal service under the remarkable Mary of Guise. For those who want a flavour of the horrors in store for him, I would encourage you to look up the gruesome fate, and the ghostly afterlife, of James Hamilton of Finnart…

  The Cradle Queen

  Steven Veerapen

  © Steven Veerapen 2018

  Steven Veerapen has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2018 by Sharpe Books.

  For my grandmother, Rose

  1930 – 2018

  Sharpe Books

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  She was walking in the gardens of Joinville, picking her way carefully between the clipped emerald bushes. Sunlight dappled the lighter green of the lawns and cast shadows on the gravel path stretching ahead. Somewhere someone was laughing. Somewhere music was playing. Just out of sight, water splashed happily from a fountain. And then someone was grunting, moaning with alarming intensity. Where? Why? It did not make sense. Nothing was making sense. The greenery began to blur into darkness. No, she thought: please, no, I want to stay here.

  Marie of Guise was wrenched from her dream and thrust into darkness. It took a few seconds for reality to etch out her true surroundings, but she was a pragmatic woman. She let it come. She was not in France. She had not been there, not breathed in its mellow perfumes, in years. She was in Scotland, in Stirling Castle, in a tiny, draughty bedchamber above the royal apartments. Next to her, lit only by a handful of candles on the far side of the room, the bedclothes writhed grotesquely, and her husband moaned. He was having the nightmare again.

  James V was a poor sort of husband. He could be charming, certainly, when he wanted to be. He could be gregarious, too, putting his arm around his friends and leading dances. Yet he could more often be pensive, moody, sullen, and suspicious. When what she had begun, from the early days of their marriage, to think of as his black-humoured days descended, there was little point in talking to him. The nightmare usually heralded the black mist’s descent.

  Gently nudging him with a silk-covered arm, she whispered, ‘James. My lord. James. Rouse yourself.’ She spoke Scots. His French was so poor that he had been nicknamed James the Silent when he visited Paris, because his embarrassment had kept his mouth shut most of the time. Back then she had not considered that she might be thrust into his bed. Then he had come seeking Madeleine de Valois, his short-lived first wife, diseased though she already was. After one last convulsion, he threw back the covers.

  In the dimness, it was hard to tell if he was awake. She could hear and feel her heart pulsing. ‘James?’

  ‘You woke me,’ he grumbled, his voice querulous. A bad sign. His handsome face was indistinct. A Tudor face, they said. To think she had been sought as a bride by his fat, mad uncle. With the thought, the chilly room seemed suddenly welcome. The bride who had been chosen for Henry instead had been hastily rejected before he could even rouse his member to sire a spare.

  ‘You were crying out, as though in pain.’ She swallowed. ‘You dreamt badly?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, his back stiffening. ‘The dream again, Marie. The ghost of Finnart, crying out for my blood.’

  No sympathy stirred. Only irritation. It was not the first time he had torn away her own dreams. ‘Finnart is dead,’ she said without expression. She gave him this assurance every time the nightmare came upon him. James had had his old friend, Hamilton of Finnart, executed in Edinburgh months before. She had never understood the charges, nor been sure if she believed them. But she had kept her mouth shut, letting events happen. It would not to do question him. At present it was her job to give him an heir, and that she had done. More, of course, must follow. Yet when James was undergoing his darker moods Marie half-wondered if he was succumbing to some taint that ran in all those who had Tudor blood. It was a kind of bloodthirst and sang-froid, an ugly lack of humanity.

  ‘I need no ghost from the grave to tell me that, woman,’ he snapped, throwing himself back against the cushions with a whump. Child, she thought. ‘Yet there he was, his sword drawn. He … you know how he does in that dream. He struck off my arms. He rose to strike at my neck, and I could not move. I was refrigerate with horror.’

  ‘It is just a dream, my lord. God give you good sleep.’ She let her eyes wander to the glow bouncing crazily off the burnished metal of the prie-dieu opposite.

  ‘Just a dream, only a dream,’ he mimicked. ‘It is an omen, as you know. Our house will be struck at. It will be struck down. God is showing it all to me. And you say it is only a dream. Pah!’

  Marie settled herself back in the bed. She knew that she should comfort her husband, rouse the servants and call for hot, sweet wine. But what was the point? He would only wring his hands and moan. She had little time for self-pity. It stopped things getting done.

  Still, James had planted a seed: a hard, hideous, annoyingly fruitful little seed. Omens, prophecies, forecasts of doom. They were trafficked freely in France. There might be something in them. Well, it was not something good Catholic women ought to meddle with. Time would reveal whether James’ dream was a warning from beyond, or the guilt-ridden imaginings of an ill-humoured king. Turning her back on him, she pulled the bedclothes up around her neck and prepared for sleep. A moment later she closed her eyes tightly and bit on the inside of her cheeks. A strong hand had grasped her waist and was beginning to roll her back over.

  ***

  With a year, Marie had seen both of her small sons interred with royal honours, dead within a day of each other. All that she had done in Scotland, her reason for being there – to furnish the royal bedchamber with heirs – had been undone at a stroke. She had not wept. God had laden her with misery, but, she reasoned, that could only prove that He had chosen her for one of His anointed. She firmly believed – she could only believe – that salvation was sweeter to those who endured pain. Her husband, of course, had sunk into horror and self-pity, seeing conspiracy everywhere, poisoners in every kitchen. Almost smugly he had pointed out to her the truth of his dreams. Both arms, the little Dukes of Rothesay and Albany, had been struck off. Her own dreams turned to peaceful French convent cells.

  The following year the head too had been severed. As Marie recovered from the birth of a daughter, Mary,
King James himself had done the supremely selfish act of dying. She was alone in a strange country, a relict, powerless, with only her daughter to anchor her. At least, though, she might sleep alone.

  There, she reflected as she lay in bed again, thankfully alone, in the pleasure palace of Linlithgow: the prophecy, if prophecy it was, had been fulfilled. The nightmare was over.

  Or so she thought.

  1

  Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Simon Danforth counted his steps along the flagstones of Dalkeith Castle, as he had counted them through the courtyard. It steadied his nerves, like playing a game. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Ahead of him, the square back of the liveried guard slowed its forward motion and stopped. As the man turned, the crest of the Douglases he wore as a badge caught the torchlight. ‘In here,’ he grunted, turning to the left and fishing at his belt. Thirty-six, thirty-seven, Danforth counted hastily, shrinking his steps. Ending on one of his lucky numbers would be a good sign. As the dull snick of a key turning announced his and his colleague Arnaud Martin’s arrival at the cell, nervousness again swept over him. They stepped past the guard, ignoring his sneer, and Danforth laid eyes on Cardinal David Beaton, sitting under a canopy of crimson dulled to claret, for the first time in months.

  Prison, Danforth thought, his lip curling, clearly meant something different to the rich and powerful than it did to the poor. Beaton’s captors could never be quite sure if or when he’d regain power and they would have to bow before him again. Hence his not-quite-honourable confinement at the Douglas castle of Dalkeith was a study in luxury. On every wall tapestries glimmered with gold thread, and books sat on each table, gilded edging catching the firelight.

  Danforth and Martin had been surprised at the number of familiar faces they had passed in the courtyard. Already the cardinal’s master of horse was in the stable block alongside the muleteer; his barber, singing boy, and tailor were also playing cards in the courtyard. Even their immediate superior, Mr Lauder, Beaton’s chief secretary, was there, piles of paper under each arm. Each had given Martin and Danforth wearied, smiling shrugs and nods as they were shuttled by the frowning Douglas retainer into the cardinal’s quarters. It was imprisonment, to be sure, but imprisonment with all the perks of a great household. There was an almost carnival atmosphere to it.

  Beaton looked up at they entered, raising a grey eyebrow as the door was unlocked. At sight of Danforth and Martin, his face broke into a smile that did not quite touch his eyes.

  Danforth felt his stomach flutter. Both he and Martin had departed from their master on bad terms. In the months following their refusal to help him forge the late King James’ will, they had been studiously ignored, their wages delivered, but no demands made on their services. Beaton was unpredictable, one minute the avuncular friend, the next an angry and venom-tongued enemy. The trick, Danforth had learned during his years of service, was to espouse loyalty, and to never, if it could be at all avoided, refuse him anything. Sadly, sometimes it could not be avoided.

  ‘Mr Danforth. Mr Martin,’ said Beaton, not rising from his little wooden curule. He was swathed in violet rather than his usual scarlet robes, looking like a jaded Caesar. His face, usually narrow, seemed to have filled out in captivity. He let the silence draw out. It was, felt Danforth, as though he was enjoying their discomfort. Perhaps this was their penance. It was unattractive. In the past, Danforth had never questioned his master’s authority, but his treatment of them over the affair of the king’s will had done something to him – and, he thought, to Martin too. It was like a small card had been pulled from a house built of them: not a weight-bearing one, not enough to bring it down, but one that made it wobble. He wondered if Beaton could read that on his face, and looked at the carpet, feeling exposed.

  On the thought came a wave of guilt. If he could think so critically of the man who had become almost a father to him, then what kind of a son did that make him? But the idea that the man he had transformed into a hero might be otherwise, might even be sometimes wrong, was all the more troubling because it could not be banished.

  ‘My friends,’ said Beaton at last, the smile unfeigned, ‘it is good to see you. And after such a time, and such disasters. But let’s not dwell on the past, eh? You’ve been well?’

  ‘Yes, your Grace,’ they chimed. Danforth looked at Martin, who gave him a nod of encouragement. He cleared his throat before speaking. ‘We are both sorry to see you in this state, sir.’ They had prearranged the speech. ‘And sorry also if ever we have failed you,’

  ‘I said, Mr Danforth, that we shall not dwell on the past. As you can see,’ he said, waving an arm around, ‘I am quite well kept. A house guest on progress, not a prisoner, they tell me. A house guest without the right to leave – that’s the only bugger. You see, that fat wretch King Henry and I now have something in common. We neither of us can pass easily through doorways.’

  ‘Yes, your Grace.’ Hobbled, Danforth had nothing else to say. The grovelling apologies could remain unspoken.

  ‘We had your summons,’ said Martin. ‘It was brought to us in Stirling by your man Fraser.’

  ‘Fraser!’ said Beaton. ‘Oh, naughty Mr Fraser. He was brought to me just the other day. Come straight from Stirling, he said, and eager for me to learn of your … ah … misbehaviour there.’

  Martin reddened and turned to Danforth. They had seen Fraser only a few days before. Martin had pushed the oily, jealous man face-first into a mud pit. Neither had had any time for him: a glorified skivvy with ideas above his station. ‘I … your Grace, he … my temper, he – well, you know what he did?’

  ‘Oh, he told me that you would be full of false and slanderous accusations, and I was not to credit them.’ A smirk snuck up Beaton’s cheek.

  ‘But he did it, your Grace, he grew jealous of Danforth here and spoiled his garden, frightened his servant, a poor old woman.’ Martin was rocking on his heels, gesturing wildly. ‘Out of spite and malice he acted.’

  ‘And do you say the same, Mr Danforth?’

  ‘I do,’ said Danforth, his chin rising. ‘Mr Martin speaks the truth.’

  ‘I have no doubt,’ said Beaton, thumping a fist on the arm of the chair. ‘I made up my mind that Fraser was a liar, a fool and worse some time ago. But needs must when one’s honest servants are absent. Och, well, there I go speaking of the past when I forbade it. His protestations of innocence – “don’t listen, your Grace”, “they will lie, your Grace” – they convinced me that he was as guilty as sin itself. I’ll deal with Shug Fraser when I’m out of this place, don’t you worry.’

  His voice dropped, his eyes flitting to the door. The guard who had brought them had left them alone, closing the door securely; but he was undoubtedly lurking just outside, ears cocked. ‘To business. I have had enough of captivity. Enough of being kept from affairs so young Arran can grind his mill. My friends are working towards my freedom. Already I am gathering cash enough to convince the Douglases to make him set me at liberty. Yet in my absence they have, I think, been advancing the English cause. What do you know of it?’

  ‘Very little,’ said Danforth, keeping his own voice as quiet as possible. ‘We have been in Stirling, your Grace, quite immured.’

  ‘My mother’s house was burned down,’ volunteered Martin. ‘We caught the brute who did it.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said the cardinal, concern creasing his forehead as he leant forward. ‘Your family, they’re all well?’ Danforth noted the wrinkle of his brow. It seemed to him genuine. It must be, he decided. Whatever his faults, their master took care of his servants. If that made him sometimes more like one of the protectionist border chieftains than a man of God, then such was the necessity of life.

  ‘Oh, yes, sir,’ said Martin. ‘Maman’s a tough old bird.’

  ‘Thank God for that,’ said Beaton, crossing himself. ‘Then I’ve no need to track down the culprits and see them … well … And so in the midst of spoiled gardens and burning houses, you’ve neither of you been touched by the aff
airs of the great?’

  ‘Rumours only have reached us that King Henry is making great demands on the lord protector, Arran,’ said Danforth. Danforth pictured the protector, the governor, as he called himself: a dough-faced lad in his twenties, full of self-importance, always decked out in silver and, as everyone knew, a master at playing the idiot if it might help line his pockets.

  ‘Ah yes, the governor. My faithful wee cousin. My faithful cousin who keeps me locked away lest I interfere with his attempts to subject the realm to a madman’s greed. Moving me to Blackness next, I hear, with Seton to keep me safe. A hard prison with a friendly keeper, eh? Well, young Arran does like to hedge. Yet in putting me away like this, the whelp hopes to strike the sword from the hand of the holy Roman church. Think on why, gentlemen.’ The words ‘heresy’ and ‘England’ snaked through Danforth’s mind, the letters entwined. His cheek jerked. ‘Aye, only the new queen’s life stands between us and a godless realm ruled by Arran and the Douglases. Henry’s imps, all.’ Irritation flickered over Beaton’s face. ‘Do you have something to say, Mr Danforth, or are you having a stroke?’

  ‘Your Grace, I did hear that the governor’s party, his friendship with the Douglas brothers, are all a-quiver. King Henry has demanded that Scotland’s castles be given over to him. All our defences. And that Scotland is to make no policy abroad without his express command and approval. As though he were this country’s true master. He’s demanding that this realm finally acknowledge itself as no more than a jewel in his crown.’