"Her breathing has changed," said a voice. The person was standing
right over her. The next thing Mary knew, her head was being propped
up with an extra pillow, and other excited voices surrounded her.
"The colour! Her colour has come back!"
They were bending her neck forward to put another pillow under it, and
it hurt. Her whole neck was tender and aching. She groaned.
Immediately there were hands dabbing her face with wet cloths, and
someone started rubbing her wrists. It was so unpleasant she could not
help opening her eyes. The light stung them.
"She is awake!" cried Mary Seton. "Oh, Your Majesty! No, don't shut
your eyes, I beg you! No, no!"
It took all Mary's strength just to keep them open. She attempted to
smile at Seton, but her mouth would not obey.
Next Claud Nau was bending down to her. "Oh, thank God and all the
saints!" he cried. He was motioning frantically and saying, "Soup!
Soup!"
In a few moments they had pulled her to a sitting position in bed and
Seton was spooning soup into her mouth. It tasted foul, and almost
made her gag. She had to force herself to swallow it.
Exhausted by the effort, she lay back down and closed her eyes again
and slept, but this time it was a different sleep, and when she awoke a
few hours later, she struggled to sit up by herself.
Again she was given soup, and this time she swallowed it without
difficulty, and drank some watered wine. A night's sleep followed, and
by the next morning she knew that the way back into her dream retreat
had somehow been barred to her. She awoke normally and called for
Seton in a voice that was croaky with disuse. Seton was instantly by
her side.
"I feel so weak," Mary said, holding up one hand. She could see how
thin her arm looked, and it ached with the effort of holding itself up.
Even speaking seemed to demand some superhuman strength.
"You have lain without food, almost without moving, for two weeks,"
said Seton.
"Two weeks? I am still at Lochleven?"
"Yes, my lady, where did you think you were?"
"I knew not." She began to weep. "But I thought it was a friendly
place."
"You have friends here," Seton assured her.
"But I am still a prisoner, am I not?" Her voice was a whisper.
"Yes. You are."
It all came rushing back like a black tide. "The Lords .. . Bothwell.
What of Bothwell?"
The attendants looked at each other. Finally Seton said, "There is no
word of Bothwell, my lady."
"No word ... no letter .. . ?"
"None that has reached here. We are closely guarded."
"Ah." Mary's voice was a soft sigh. "It is no use, then."
In a few days Mary left her bed, dressed herself, ate normal meals. But
she performed all these actions like someone in a trance. Her face was
masklike and her eyes were not animated. She sat for hours without
speaking, and did not attempt to write letters or win concessions from
her gaolers. She prayed in front of the crucifix, silently, and once
asked, in a listless voice, how it had come to be there. Seton told
her that Maitland had obtained it for her; she did not describe the
destruction of the chapel that went with it, and Mary evidenced no
curiosity about it.
Once Nau pulled up a chair and, taking her hands in his, told her as
gently as possible about the rumours that Lord James had been called
home, and that her enemies had some sort of evidence against her that
might compel her to abdicate.
"Abdicate?" she murmured. "Give up my throne? So Bothwell was right.
That has been their intention all along."
"Your Majesty, can you recall anything that was in Bothwell's
possession that might serve that purpose to the Lords?" he prompted.
"Yes," she said with a twisted smile. "I wrote him love letters, which
I asked him to destroy. But he kept them. I assume they will use
those in some manner, taking out certain phrases and putting their own
interpretation on them. But I care not," she said. "I care not."
"Will you in no wise consider leaving Bothwell and consenting to a
divorce? They still claim they will restore you to the throne if you
do. Bothwell's case is hopeless now; he is discredited and soon will
be declared an outlaw. But you can still save yourself, and your
throne."
"Never!" she said, with more vehemence than anything she had uttered
since coming out of her slumber days earlier. "Never! I carry his
child, and I will never allow that child to be branded bastard,
dishonouring all three of us."
"Bothwell's star is fallen," Nau insisted.
"All the more reason that I, as his wife, should remain loyal. And so
I shall, until death."
She felt dead already, enveloped in this mantle of lassitude and
profound sadness. It was a mantle she could not remove, and no amount
of sleep or wholesome food seemed to dislodge it. Waking or sleeping
it weighed on her, sometimes with pain and other times with the more
frightening absence of all feeling.
I have nothing, she thought. I have been Queen for four and twenty
years, but if I died in my sleep this very night, there would be
nothing to write of me in the chronicles. I was Queen of France for a
year and a half, but when Francois died, all that passed away, and
today France remembers me not. I have reigned directly here in
Scotland for six years now, and although there has been no foreign war,
the nobles never made peace amongst themselves. My whole reign has
been a series of plots, followed by my pardons. My marriages have all
failed in one way or another. I have not succeeded in being recognized
by Elizabeth as her successor. The Catholics abroad have turned
against me because I was not severe enough with the heretics in
Scotland, the heretics in Scotland hate me because I am a Catholic at
all.
I have failed.
Once in this melancholy recitation, she poured out her heart to the
crucifix, but it seemed as unresponsive and stony as the Lords. She
remembered how it had graced the wall of the Abbey of St.-Pierre, and
how she had prayed before it when she had taken retreat with her aunt
and had decided that her destiny lay in Scotland.
The abbey. It had been so sweet, so tempting, and she had wanted to
stay there forever. But no she had believed that she was being called
to Scotland, that God wanted her to do her duty there.
God. I have failed God, too, she thought miserably. I flattered
myself that I had a spiritual life. Instead I have lived in a manner
to give the people reason to call me whore and even to suspect me of
murder.
The crucifix offered her no mercy as it hung on the wall, its Jesus
staring at her with cold eyes.
She was allowed to walk about the scant grounds on the island, always
with a guard. The castle itself occupied most of the land above water,
except for a little enclosed garden. She would stand at the very edge
of the low garden wall and look out at the water, across to the little
town of Kinross. They said William Wallace had swum the distance, clad
in leather, with his sword bound upon his neck. But she was not a
swimmer, and had no hopes of ever escaping that way. Idly she wondered
if the loch froze in winter, but assumed it did not, else the island
would never have served so effectively as a prison. Even the idea of
walking across seemed beyond her at that point. Everything seemed
beyond her, and she took no pleasure in the dancing butterflies in the
water reeds, nor in the shiny iridescent green of the tops of the
mallards' heads, nor of the bobbing baby ducks following their
mothers.
"The water lilies will soon open their flowers," said Lord Ruthven, who
was her keeper that day.
"I care not," she said, and it was true. Let them open, spread
themselves open to the sun, emit the perfume of Cleopatra it mattered
not. They might as well be slimy, festering weeds.
"I was told you like flowers," he said.
"Who told you that?" she answered. "Your sainted father?"
"Mary Seton told me." He smiled at her.
He was trying to be charming. He must want something. How unfortunate
for him that it was useless. Even nature could no longer charm her.
"Mary Seton would never talk to you of my likes and dislikes." She
sighed. Even this much conversation was wearisome.
"That is where you are wrong. She is anxious to talk about you. We
wish you to recover."
Mary reached in her little cloth purse and drew out some bread crumbs
and tossed them to the ducks. They came swimming over slowly to
investigate, making low sounds that were more gurgles than quacks. Then
they began snapping at the food, rustling their feathers and flicking
their tails.
"I see." My heart will never recover, she thought. It will remain
numb, without desire and without pleasure and without will.
"When you are yourself, you are a Queen indeed," he said.
She looked at him. What an odd thing for him to say. He kept his eyes
downcast, as if he did not want her to look into them. He had long
lashes that caught the sunlight, and his eyebrows were the exact same
colour. His hair was a darker, richer shade. His looks were actually
rather winsome.
"A Queen to be deposed," she said. "I have been told you the Lords
wish me to abdicate."
"Some of them do," he said. "But if you were free "
She laughed gently. "Ah! If I were free!"
What would I do if I were free? she thought. I fear I would not have
the strength to do anything. I have played my strength out. There is
nothing left for me but a convent or to be an invalid. It is all I am
fit for now. The world seems to me as unappetizing as a platter of
pig's offal.
"I could make you free," he was whispering, standing altogether too
close.
"What?"
"I have it in my power to set you free. All you have to do is yield
yourself to me." He lifted his eyes and looked directly into hers.
He was not jesting. Mother of God, he meant it! Before she could stop
herself, she burst out laughing.
"Hush!" he cried, alarmed. He shot a look toward the castle walls in
fear that someone had heard. She was still laughing. "Is it that
amusing? You can come to my bed; there are no guards in my quarters. I
want you."
They must truly believe her to be a whore. That this man would expect
her to give herself to him, when she was married, pregnant ... At that
moment she realized she had fallen even lower than she had imagined,
even in her most despairing moments.
"I am married," she finally said.
"What of it?" he answered. "You were married when you took Bothwell
to your bed."
She drew back her hand and slapped him across his smooth cheek. "You
are steeped in filth!"
"We have the proof about you and Bothwell. How you took up with him
while you were married, how you got him to rid you of your husband!"