"Oh, Monsieur Astrologue, what are you doing?" she asked, approaching
him.
"I am shining up my magic mirror," he said simply.
"Can you tell my fortune?" she asked.
"Yes. I could." He turned the mirror toward her. Her straight, slim
form became even more elongated in it. "But I won't. I am sure your
future is an enviable one."
"Then whose fortunes do you tell?"
"Those who have reason to be worried about them."
"Do you always tell the truth? What if you see bad things?"
"Then I must tell them. But gently." He put away the mirror. "It can
be difficult." He sighed.
There was the huge white Chambord, sitting in the midst of a great
hunting forest, with its enormous kennels with royal packs of hounds,
and more than three hundred falcons in the mews for hawking. The
massive chateau it had four hundred forty rooms boasted a gigantic
central staircase with double intertwining ramps, made so that the
people going up could never see the people going down. Mary and
Francois and the other children delighted in playing on it, taking off
their shoes and trying to make the ones on the lower ramps guess where
they were.
The roof bristled with a forest of chimneys, spires, and capitals,
where the children could play and hide often startling adults who were
playing quite another sort of hiding game. The children thought it was
screamingly funny to catch a courtier with his hose down and his
breeches unbuttoned, wheezing and panting. Once they even saw a bare
bottom and recognized it as that of the fat count from Angers, because
of the red ribbons on his shoes. As a result of their pestering, court
lovers were forced to retreat to their rooms for assignations and
abandon the roof.
More sedate activities at Chambord also took place on the roof, when
the King, Queen, and Diane, surrounded by all the court, would watch
the start and return of hunts, military reviews, and tournaments. The
flaring torches, the fireworks, and the brassy blare of trumpets in the
rich air made a tapestry of sound and colour in the little girl's
mind.
Then there were Diane's chateaux: Anet, which was a white classical
palace dedicated to her widowhood and presided over by Diana the
goddess, and Chenonceau, a faerie palace spanning the Cher River,
rising gracefully on arches over the lazy, shallow river. Here there
was nothing masculine, nothing military or commanding. Instead,
everything whispered of delicate, chosen pleasures, of appetites
stimulated only to be satisfied, as the water flowed slowly beneath.
Always there were the pale blue skies, stretching huge and open under
the deeper blue Loire River, bounded by its golden sandbanks and bathed
in a serene clear light.
Little by little the strangeness had worn off for Mary, and France and
French ways had come to seem entirely natural. Each year there was a
new addition to the royal nursery, so that Francois ruled over his
little group quite naturally. She envied him that. Her own older
siblings had proved a nuisance in France. They refused to adapt
themselves and insisted on disrupting the language lessons, riding only
the Scottish way, and carrying child-sized daggers about at court. Mary
was relieved when they returned to Scotland after the first year. The
Marys, however, had been eager to please and had not even protested
when the King had sent them off to a convent at Poissy for a few months
to immerse themselves in the language.
As for James, the oldest of all, he had hurried back to Scotland at the
earliest opportunity, claiming he needed to look after his mother,
widowed at Pinkie Clough. (There was also the rich monastery of St.
Andrews, which the late King had left to him, to be attended to.)
That left Mary alone at court for a time, where the King, the Queen,
and all the courtiers could pet and pamper her, and where more
important she could be enveloped by them and taught their ways with no
interference.
From the very beginning, all of France had fallen in love with "the
gentle dove rescued from the pursuit of ravenous vultures" as one
poetic courtier described notre petite Reinette d'Ecosse.
The court, all the more romantic for its surface coating of weary
cynicism, fastened with fervour onto little Marie Stuart, as they
delighted to call her, that fugitive princess from a barbarous, misty
land, destined someday to be their queen. It had been so long since
they had had a hero or heroine to extol: Francois I had been too jaded
and jaunty, Henri II was too mournful and plodding. Catherine de
Medicis, "the Italian Woman," was to be feared, not feted. (Had her
servant really poisoned the late Dauphin, clearing the way for shy
Henri to become King? The servant had confessed, but only Catherine
knew the truth of it.) Diane de Poitiers was beautiful in an
otherworldly sort of way, remote, ethereal, like the goddess Diana she
emulated. She struck awe in the beholder's eye, but not devotion.
Besides, she had an earthly side: she was a bit too acquisitive of land
and manors to be considered a goddess all the way through.
But Marie Stuart, with her pretty face, pleasing manners, and troubled
heritage, appealed strongly to the imagination of the people.
No aspect of her education was neglected. She studied the classics,
learning to read and write Latin. She spoke Italian and Spanish. She
was taught music, and played the lute, harpsichord, and cithern, as
well as having a sweet singing voice. She studied history with de
Pasquier, and wrote poetry from an early age. She danced gracefully
and especially loved to perform in masques and ballets. She laboured
over her needlework and enjoyed designing her own patterns for
embroidery.
At the same time, she loved the outdoors, and was skilled at riding,
archery, hawking, the hunt. She liked nothing better than to sneak off
and practise with her scaled-down bows and arrows with the youngest
members of the Scottish Archers, who served as an honour guard to the
King.
One day in particular, in early spring when she was just past seven,
she had scrambled out past the ever-alert Lady Fleming and managed to
get outside at Fontainebleau, where she knew the archers liked to
practise in the woods. She had a particular favourite, Rob MacDonald,
who was only eighteen and a little homesick himself, and always glad to
see her. She had made friends with him, and yet she hoped the day
would someday come when she would be able to shoot better than he, at
least once in a while.
Sure enough, he was on the outskirts of the woods, practising with his
fellows.
"Your Majesty!" he said when he saw her. "So you got away again!"
"Yes!" she said breathlessly. She did not know why she was compelled
to do it, or why the other children never seemed to want to. She loved
the Marys, and Francois, but there was a side to her they could not
understand, and she felt she had to keep it secret. "And I have
brought my bow." She proffered the beautifully tempered and seasoned
instrument, with its quiver of arrows all inlaid with her royal
crest.
"Good," he said. He nodded toward his companions. "We were just
practising at this target. Would you like to start there?"
She nodded. She liked hearing him speak Scots. She did not want to
forget it, but she had little opportunity to hear it and speak it for
any length of time. She drew out an arrow and fitted it to her
bowstring, pulled back as hard as she could, and let fly. The arrow
hit at the very edge of the target.
"Achh!" said Rob, almost as disappointed as she was.
"I'll try again!" She pulled out a second arrow, and it did a little
better, hitting closer to the centre.
For an hour they alternated shooting, Rob instructing her on the fine
points of the sport.
"If you wish to be a good shot, this is the way." He was very
patient.
Tired at the end, she said, "But for you it is not a sport. For you it
is a livelihood. Why is it that Scotsmen fight for the French King?
And how did you come here?"
He put down his big bow; his was almost six feet in height, and could
shoot an arrow a hundred yards or more. "The French and the Scots have
been friends a long time," he said. "They had the same enemy, England,
and those who have the same enemy can be fast friends indeed. They
call it the "Auld Alliance," and it is old; it goes back two hundred
years at least. As to why there's a Scots Archer Guard why, everyone
knows Scotsmen are the best soldiers in the world!"
"But you aren't answering my question! Not all of it, anyway. Why are
you here?"
"I had a desire to see something besides my own shores, if only to be
content to return to them someday. If I wish to live in my native land
and love her, it should not be out of ignorance. There are many other
Scots here; hordes of them come over to study in Paris. Have you met
any of them?"
She laughed. "No! How would I? I cannot roam the streets of Paris as
I can the forest of Fontainebleau."
His captain was sounding a horn. "You'd best be going," Rob said. "I
am called to regular duties." He looked at her and smiled. "I will
never betray your secret, Most Imperial Royal Huntress. Here." He
handed her back a fistful of her arrows. "It's best you not leave
these in the woods."
By the time she carefully made her way back into the children's
quarters of the palace, the younger ones were just waking up from their
naps. Dinner would be served soon, and Mary had worked up a fierce
appetite.
Usually the children ate by themselves, watched over by all their
nurses and governesses. Today, however, the Queen gave orders that
they were to eat with her, in her own quarters. Dutifully they trooped
to her privy chamber, where a table was set with crystal goblets and
golden plates for the children who were able to comport themselves with
such finery: Mary herself, Lusty, Flamina, Beaton, and Seton, Francois
and Elisabeth. Mary felt vaguely sorry for Francois, surrounded as he
was entirely by girls; Rob was better off in the forest.
"Pray, dine with me," the Queen was saying, her oddly expressionless
eyes counting them off one by one as they filed into the room. The
Queen was pregnant again; soon there would be another child in the
nursery.
She fussed over Francois and insisted on draping his napkin herself.
Then she settled down, with a great sigh of her skirts, and began
watching them eat. Mary felt her appetite draining away under the
scrutiny.
"My dear children," Catherine de Medicis was saying, "we will soon be
moving to Chambord for the summer. Now you know that means you will
have to leave the pet bear here, where his keeper is. Nonetheless, you
may select a hound for yourselves from the kennels at Chambord."
Francois slammed his fist down on the table. "Want the bear!" he
muttered. He was especially fond of the bear, a recent gift, and had
named him Old Julius.
Catherine de Medicis's eye fell on him like a black cloud. He fell
silent.
"And we must prepare ourselves to entertain a most marvelous embassy
from abroad. The Queen Mother of Scotland is coming. " She slid her
eye over to Mary. "Yes, my dear, your mother is coming to France!"