But I am now a liar, too, she thought. He has contaminated me and
begun to make me like himself. One flesh ... he called me his own
flesh.
I do here a work that I hate much. You would laugh to see me lie so
well, or at least to dissemble so well, mixing truth with untruths.
He said that there be some persons who commit secret faults and fear
not to have them spoken of loudly, and that there is talk of both great
and small. And even touching the Lady Reres, he said, "God grant that
she serve to your honour," and that none should have occasion to think
that my own power was not in myself.
Were these words meaningful, or just Darnley-babble? No one knew about
her meetings with Bothwell did they? Darnley was testing her. But if
he thought this could drive her to confess, he did not know her.
I have told him that he must be purged and that it could not be done
here. I told him that I myself would convey him to Craigmillar, so the
physicians and I might cure him without being far from my son.
My son. I must be careful not to call him "our son" or "the Prince"
lest the letter fall into enemy hands.
Excuse it if I write badly; I am ill at ease, and yet happy to write to
you when others are asleep, seeing that I cannot do what I most
desire,
that is to lie between your arms, my dear life, whom I beseech God to
preserve from all ill.
A love letter this was turning into a love letter. How many love
letters had Bothwell received? She knew he kept the most florid ones
in a strongbox covered with studs and locked up. She would give him a
silver one to hold hers, and make him destroy the others.
The others. She hated thinking of them, and knew there were many more
she would never even know about. Janet Beaton, the witch-woman of
Branxton, still supernaturally beautiful past the age of fifty; Anna
Thrond-sen, the Norwegian admiral's daughter, who had followed him back
to Scotland and skulked about for years in the country. Had she gone
back to Norway now? There was an illegitimate son, William Hepburn,
who was BothwelPs heir. But who was his mother?
And Lady Bothwell, Jean Gordon? She had not loved Bothwell when they
married, but now? He had slept with her, had undoubtedly kissed her
breasts, and she, too, had rested her cheek against his hair.
O saints! Jealousy transforms all my cherished private memories into a
Hell if they be not truly private.
He will have to divorce her. And when the Lords and Parliament free me
for they will find a legal way then we can marry.
We are bound to two unworthy mates. The devil sunder us and God knit
us together for ever the most faithful couple that ever he did knit
together.
She looked at the words, horrified, and crossed out "devil" and wrote
"the good year." How had she called on the devil?
She pushed the paper away. Why was she writing these things? She felt
possessed.
There is evil here, I can almost feel it, she thought.
She wiped her sweating, but cold, palms on her gown.
Almost by itself her hand took up the pen and continued writing.
I am weary, yet I cannot forbear scribbling as long as there is any
paper. Cursed be this pox-marked person who vexes me! He is not much
disfigured, but he is in a bad state. I have been almost slain with
his breath, even though I sat no nearer him than the foot of his bed.
To be short, I have learned that he is very suspicious, but nonetheless
trusts me, and will go anywhere upon my word.
Alas! I never deceived anybody, but you are the cause thereof. You
make me dissemble so much that I am afraid with horror, and you make me
almost play the part of a traitor.
But Bothwell had never wanted her to go through with this. He had
rather she rid herself of the child. To him it was the simple,
straightforward solution to a physical problem.
Bothwell. He was primarily a soldier and he himself was sinking in the
bog of intrigue, as her white horse had sunk in the mire returning to
Jedburgh. He was as much out of his element as she was. They were
both in great danger.
Now if to please you, my dear life, I spare neither honour, conscience,
nor hazard, nor greatness.. ..
Then she was making a god of Bothwell, even as Darnley had made one of
her. Yes, she was infected with his sin; she had caught the
soul-sickness.
I should never be weary in writing to you, yet I will end, after
kissing your hands. Burn this letter, for it is dangerous, neither is
there anything well said in it, for I think of nothing but upon grief..
..
The sky was growing light; the yellow candlelight made the paper look
smudged and dirty. She folded it up, and got it ready to give to
French Paris, Bothwell's trusted messenger. She had never felt more
alone.
FORTY-NINE
The little party made its way slowly across the cold, barren landscape.
Lord Livingston, who had been patiently waiting in Glasgow for the last
ten days, led the way. Mary and her attendants rode directly behind,
and Darnley, stretched out in Mary's own litter, which was slung
between two horses, was conveyed as gently as possible over the rough
road. The litter was covered, so no wind could tear at his healing
face. But he kept his taffeta mask on as a double protection from
curious eyes and unkind weather.
He had improved greatly, although it would be months until the
eruptions faded completely so he was told. He was still weak, and
unsure how he would endure the journey. But travelling this way,
swaying gently as they descended or climbed the hills, was lulling, and
he felt like a baby as he drifted in and out of sleep.
Mary was relieved to be out of the alien and vaguely threatening Lennox
territory. Her time in Glasgow had been both tedious and ghastly, for
it seemed always to be night there, and her hours followed no normal
sequence. She took upon herself the rhythm of Darnley's sickroom,
which remade the world in its own distorted image. Now the great empty
sky, the sunrise and sunset, were welcome demarcations of unyielding
normalcy. She felt she could not breathe deeply enough of the stinging
sharp air, as though her lungs were still full of sickroom odours.
Strange, but her queasiness had disappeared once she had been
confronted with the truly repulsive sight of Darnley's syphilis, and
assaulted by the mortal smell of decay. It was as if she could not
afford to let her body be weak in any way.
She had not heard from Bothwell, but then it was not necessary. She
had done her best to inform him of whatever political statements she
had been able to coax Darnley into making, but none of them seemed
particularly alarming. Whatever mischief Darnley might have planned
for later, he would be less effective now that he was separated from
his father, and his father's men. There was no one in Edinburgh for
him to plot with; none of the lords trusted him, or wanted to have any
dealings with him.
A huge raven, its broad back gleaming iridescent, flew from tree to
barren tree ahead of them and waited for them to pass, cocking its
head. Then it would flap its heavy wings and skim through the air to
the next tree. It never cawed, but just looked at them balefully.
They travelled in easy stages, stopping even between Callendar House
and Edinburgh at Linlithgow. Bothwell was to meet them the next
morning and ceremoniously escort them the rest of the way.
It is nearly over! thought Mary, not with joy but with profound
relief. Knowing that she would soon be back in Bothwell's territory,
she felt safe once more.
But the next morning, as Darnley walked a little unsteadily to his
litter, he motioned to Mary. She left her horse, which she was just
preparing to mount, and came over to him.
"I have' decided against Craigmillar," he said. The words seemed
unhu-man, emanating from a mask.
"But I have installed the baths for you there," she protested. "The
physicians have already moved into their quarters, and set up their
apothecary's tables and weights. You know you cannot go to Holyrood it
is low-lying and damp. Nor can you go to Edinburgh Castle it is cold
and windy. There is no place else suitable." She tried to keep the
irritation from her voice. If she irritated him, he would be all the
more stubborn.
"I wish to go to Kirk O'Field," he announced.
"Where?"
"Kirk O'Field. I am told that the air is good there, and that Lord
Borth-wick, whose life had been despaired of, recently stayed there,
and made a full recovery."
"But the arrangements have already been made."
"Then unmake them," he said grandly, drawing aside the curtain of his
litter. "I wish us to lodge at Kirk O'Field."
" "Us'? But I cannot stay with you until you have completed your
course of treatment!"
"I request merely that you stay in the same house. It need not be the
same room. All I want is for us to be under the same roof! That is
all I ask! Can you not grant me that?"
"But, Darnley "
"It is such a little request! And it is the last I shall pester you
with!"
He sounded so unhappy, desperately pleading.
"Very well," she said.
Outside Edinburgh, on the Linlithgow Road, Bothwell and his men were
waiting for her, sitting their horses as straight and still as if it
were summertime, with no need to shiver or begrudge the time.
A great wash of excitement and relief surged through her. His dear
face, his strength, were near once again. It seemed a long time since
she had parted from him, instead of only a week. As she drew up beside
him and he saluted her, she said, "We go not to Craigmillar, but to
Kirk O'Field."
Bothwell's surprise registered on his face. "To the church?"
"Nay, to the dwelling where Lord Borthwick recuperated. The King
wishes to take his treatments there."
"But "
Mary shook her head. "The King insists."
When they reached Edinburgh, they passed through a gate in the town
wall and then made their way along the High Street for only a short
way. Near St. Giles they turned down Blackfriars Wynd, a side street
that went directly south, dropping down as it crossed the wide Cowgate,
and then rising again as it approached the ecclesiastical buildings on
a hill almost outside the town wall. Indeed, some of them did lie
outside the wall, for they had been built to stand in open fields hence
the name. In olden days there had been three imposing religious
foundations all in a six-hundred-yard row along the hilltop:
Blackfriars monastery, the church of Kirk O'Field, and a Franciscan
monastery. The Reformation and Henry VII Ps marauding armies had not
treated them kindly. Blackfriars, which had once had a stately church
and a sumptuous guest house for noble visitors, was now in ruins; the
Franciscans had not fared better. Kirk O'Field, which had served as a
Collegium Sacerdotum, a training school for priests, had retained its
quadrangle of buildings, but these had passed into secular hands.
Robert Balfour had taken over the Provost's house, and the Duke of
Chatelherault, head of the Hamiltons, had moved into what used to be
the hospital and guest house.