"This is not the same!"
"Perhaps not. But I could serve Scotland better abroad. I would be
glad to undertake a mission to France, to speak directly with them
there. I will not be gone long."
He was wheedling like a pedlar. Next he would offer to bring her some
sewing silks and patterns from Paris.
"I know you love the gold threads which are not available here, and the
covered buttons "
She burst out laughing.
"I beg your pardon!" he said, stiffly.
He wanted badly to be gone. He knew something. Perhaps it would be
better if he were gone. She and Bothwell could be freer to act. The
thought of James watching them, analyzing every glance between them,
was frightening.
"Very well," she said. "You may go. But I wish you to stop and confer
with Queen Elizabeth on the way. And," she said with a smile, "I would
love it if you could procure some garnet buttons for me!" They were
notoriously expensive and hard to find.
Mary was desperate to see Bothwell. But he had deliberately stayed
away from her; all eyes were on her as she went through the motions of
mourning. Until March twenty-second, the fortieth day after Darnley's
death, she was required to keep to the mourning chamber as much as
possible.
But, with the tumult outside in the streets, with the flood of
diplomatic correspondence, with the need to attend to the urgent
requests of the Earl of Lennox, she was at least able to meet with her
councillors, of which, of course, Bothwell was one of the leaders.
When, on an evening in early March, he at last stood before her without
either Maitland, Argyll, or his brother-in-law Huntly, she felt it had
been a long time, almost another lifetime, since he had come to her
bedroom at Holyrood. His reddish hair stood out startlingly against
the black of the draped walls, a jolt of life in a chamber of death. He
stood awkwardly, looking at her.
Wordlessly she put her arms around him and kissed him. Now just to
touch him seemed shocking. They had forbidden themselves even to look
in each other's eyes while others were present; and others had been
continuously present.
"Bothwell, Bothwell ..." she was murmuring. She felt his body next to
hers, and it was the first time she had felt any strength sustaining
her during this whole ordeal. She had been standing completely
alone.
Gently he pulled her arms off his neck. "We cannot. Not tonight."
But she must have him, or she would die! She wanted to be held by him,
to touch his body, his naked flesh, to lie with him and take him into
herself until she ceased to feel anything but raw pleasure. She
clasped him to her and kissed him. He must change his mind. She would
make him.
"No." He failed to respond, and she had no choice but to release him.
"Have you not seen the placards, heard the accusations? They know."
"They do not."
"Yes, they do. Our only hope is to behave so openly and properly that
the idea will wither of its own accord. And my wife has been ill "
"Your wife? What has her illness to do with the matter?" Suddenly she
had an ugly suspicion. "She is not pregnant?"
"No. But, Mary, my love, at this moment we need all the support and
sympathy we can muster. You must be the grieving widow and I the
solicitous husband. We cannot afford to alienate the Earl of Huntly,
your Chancellor and my wife's brother."
"Nor I the Earl of Lennox, my husband's father," she said dully. She
sat down on the padded bench. "He demands an inquiry, and a trial."
"And so he should." Bothwell carefully pulled up a chair and sat on
it, keeping a good ten feet between them. Someone might "accidentally"
intrude at any moment.
"I wrote him and asked how I could bring anyone to trial, so many were
named in the placards. There was Janet Beaton, your old lover ..."
He laughed, a soft, sweet laugh.
" Black John Spens, whoever he is."
"A henchman of Balfour's."
"Balfour himself, several French members of my household. But do you
know who he said he wanted tried?"
Bothwell shook his head, lowering it and placing his hands on either
side of it.
"You. He wanted you tried."
Bothwell looked up at her from between his hands. "And?"
"I agreed. What else could I do? I tried to tie it to a Parliament,
but he would have justice right away, the soonest legally possible. On
April twelfth you are to be accused of the crime and tried before a
jury."
He burst out laughing. "And who are to be my jurors?"
"Your peers. The earls of Argyll, Huntly, Arran, and Cassillis. Lords
Lindsay and Sempill. Bellenden, Balnaves, Makgill, and Pitcairn of
Dun-fermline."
"Both of our brothers-in-law to sit in judgement?" He was incredulous.
"And how does this help to clear our names? I can tell you this, if
they dare to pronounce me guilty, I will do the same for them!"
"What do you mean?"
"I only meant .. . there is much yet we do not know. Who strangled the
King? It was not I. But you know and I know it took more than one man,
acting under orders of a sick one, to bring enough powder into the
crypt of the old Provost's house to demolish it. And we also know that
someone has gone to great lengths to leave false evidence connecting me
to the deed. They carefully left a barrel outside the door, to look as
if it was carried there and then abandoned when it would not fit
through the doorway. But the truth is the barrel was so large as
indeed it had to be not to fit through a normal doorway that had it
been full of powder it never could have been transported, even by the
strongest mule. No, it was conveyed empty, by whoever it was that
paraded about proclaiming my name all that evening. Someone carefully
planned to incriminate me. And it was not Darnley. It was someone
else, someone or even several someones whose aim is to destroy all
three of us. Darnley was to die in the explosion; you and I were to be
blamed for it. I would be removed from power and you would be what?
driven from your throne? It would be unthinkable, until they had the
baby Prince to crown in your stead."
Suddenly it was not just Bothwell's idle speculation. Suddenly she was
very afraid.
"And these men whoever they may be how will we know? How can we
protect ourselves against them?"
"We will know, eventually. And the only way to protect ourselves is to
yield them nothing, to say nothing, to keep our own secrets."
She rubbed her hands. They were icy cold. "What is the date?" she
finally said, in a faint voice.
"March eighth," he replied.
"Tomorrow it will be a year since Riccio was slain. The nightmare has
been going on for a year."
"Do not even allow yourself to wonder how much longer it must go on.
However long, we must go on longer. We must outlast it."
He took both his hands and smoothed her hair along the sides of her
face, lightly, gently. "We have many enemies, but that we have always
known. Some of them are special to you, some are special to me. And
when we become one, perhaps yet a third party of enemies will come into
being. But it matters not."
"You cannot bury a proposal of marriage in the midst of so many other
words," she said. "Surely it deserves a solemn space of its own."
Bothwell stepped back from her again, and took both her hands in his.
They were cool and slender. "Like fleurs-de-lys," he said, kissing
them one at a time. "My most gracious sovereign lady, will you leave
behind the fleurs-de-lys on your old mantles, your memories of the
Loire, your French confessor? Will you take my life for your own, and
be my wife? I can offer you the songs of the Borders, I can take you
sailing on the seas as far north as the Orkneys and the Shetlands and
Norway, I can let you chase bandits with me, sleep in the field."
"I would leave everything for you but my religion," she said. "Do not
ask that. But, oh! I would go to the ends of the world with you in a
white petticoat, I care not what else I would lose."
"Sssh. Speak not of losing. If we act quickly, there will be no
losing." At last he kissed her, and her mouth opened under his like a
flower. "I was wrong to think there should be delay. Delay will only
make it worse. We must be brave and bold."
"My demon lover," she said, touching the side of his face as if it were
a delicate and rare ivory. "How beautiful you are."
He laughed harshly. No one, not even his mother, had ever called him
beautiful. "My dear Mary," he breathed, "well I know I am not
beautiful, nor even handsome. But I do love you, past madness I think.
For I must be mad to be doing this." He bent his head and kissed each
of her breasts, swelling up and over her gown. He kissed them slowly
and let his lips and tongue linger on them. "Leave the particulars to
me," he murmured. "Trust me, and I will see to it that no one can
condemn you for marrying me. Let the blame fall entirely on me."
They made their way to the bed, and climbed into it. He noticed, idly,
that she had put scented, smooth sheets on it, and that the pillows
were fresh and plumped up. He sank into them. Then he reached out his
arms to her and enfolded her. Her delicate, shell-like ear was by his
mouth. He put his lips to it. "Trust me," he repeated, and the words
sounded distorted in her ear. "We will be husband and wife. There can
be no turning back now."
Sighing, he rolled over and, lying on top of her, let himself feel the
delicious contours of her yielding body. Each time he made love to
her, she was different. What would she be like tonight?
Almost as if she read his thoughts, she rolled over on him and began to
unlace his shirt. She ran her hands over his chest and then laid her
head down on it. Her thick and lusciously scented hair tumbled over
his chest and felt like velvet. "I am your lover, your slave, to
command as you will. Tell me what to do, and I will do it."
Languidly he began giving directions, just to test her. "Kiss my neck
.. . the hollow in my collarbone .. . the scar on my belly ..." Her
lips traced the raised thread of the wound that the sword of Jock o'
the Park had made; her lips, soft and yielding on that tender,
sensitive flesh, excited him beyond any touching he had ever received.
It was all he could do to stifle a groan of pleasure. He preferred
noiseless lovemaking, but he heard sounds, moans and inarticulate
cries, coming from his own throat as she explored his body with her
sweet lips. He was drowning in pleasure. He gave himself up to it and
let her be the master of him for the time.
Later he would revive, would brush her sweat-soaked hair until it was
smooth and her scalp was tingling, would splash cooling rose water on
her breasts and rub it in, and then, lying side by side, hold her in a
tight embrace and show her how to lock their bodies together when
neither was on top, neither was master, both were equal. Calmer now,
able to look at her face and listen to her breathing, he was determined
to give her the highest amount of pleasure she was capable of
receiving. She twisted and moaned and cried, and finally wept, and
that made him happy.