Next Bothwell had sighted a trading ship and taken out a lease on her.
The last ship he had acquired was a fine two-masted vessel armed with
guns, the Pelican, which he had leased from a Hanseatic merchant at a
trading station at the far south of Shetland. He had seen her lading
fish as he passed by from the Orkneys, and she had caught his eye.
He had had to make a hurried retreat from the Orkneys. Things had not
gone according to plan there. Although he was Duke of Orkney and the
descendant of the first Earl of Orkney, one of the Balfour brothers was
sheriff of the islands and held the royal castles of Kirkwall and
Noltland. When Gilbert Balfour fired on him and refused to admit him
to the castle, he suddenly knew why Balfour in Edinburgh had sent that
urgent message the night of June fourteenth, urging him to leave
Dunbar. The Balfours had secretly gone over to the Lords long before
Carberry Hill, then. At the same moment, as he gave orders for the
ships to sail on, to the Shetlands, he realized what this meant for
Geordie Dalgleish, whom he had confidently sent to the castle to
retrieve his papers and goods. He had sent him straight into the
viper's nest.
The ships ploughed on through the churning, choppy seas. This far
north it was always cold, and often there were mists on the waters. The
northernmost Orkneys were fifty miles north of the tip of Scotland and
the Shetlands began sixty miles north of that.
Bothwell was disappointed and alarmed to be driven off the Orkneys.
Aside from the fact that he had always had a fondness for the islands,
for the varied landscape and the people who spoke a strange tongue
called Norn, and who took as their past kings Vikings like Earl
Thorfinn the Mighty, he felt as if he were being swept out to sea and
away from Scotland.
He had had little luck in his attempts to raise troops to free the
Queen. At first he had moved about freely enough, and several lords,
like the Hamiltons at Linlithgow and Fleming at Dumbarton, and the
ever-changing Argyll and Boyd, had pledged themselves to the royal
cause. But when he went north to Strathbogie to consult with Huntly,
his former brother-in-law had shown his true colours. He had turned
against Both-well when Jean Gordon had returned home and spoken ill of
him. Huntly was no longer an amiable ally, but the outraged brother of
a betrayed sister.
Even in his uncle the Bishop's palace at Spynie in the far north, his
enemies had managed to turn things against him. The Bishop's bastard
sons formed a plot to assassinate him, and although he had killed them
instead, obviously he could not remain. It was there he had first
formed the idea of concentrating his power upon the sea, since it
seemed there was no safe footing for him on the mainland, in spite of
the upwards of fifty names he had secured for the Queen's cause,
including those of Seton, Livingston, Kerr, Ormiston, and Langdon.
With the return of Knox, the abdication of the Queen, the Queen's
strict imprisonment, and finally his own outlawry, the scales had begun
to tip and more and more people deserted the royal cause and made their
own peace with the Lords. His servants John Blackadder and John
Hepburn of Bolton, whom he had sent south to Dunbar with letters to his
friends, were both captured, tortured, and executed. The Lords, in
outlawing him, forbade anybody of every estate and degree to "supply
the Earl in their houses, or to support him with men, armour, horse,
ships, boats or other furnishing by sea or land" on pain of being
judged "plain partakers with him in the horrible murder."
Still he had his eight ships and a company of good fighting men, and
the Shetlands lay ahead as a base. If that did not work, there was
always Sweden or Denmark or France. He could make for them over the
open sea.
The Shetlands had welcomed him, and their overlord, Oliver Sinclair,
had honoured him as a kinsman, as Bothwell's mother was Lady Agnes
Sinclair. It seemed that the sad news about him had not penetrated
this far north, and in any case the people liked to think themselves
not obliged to follow decrees from Edinburgh. Both the Shetlands and
the Orkneys had been Norwegian until 1468, when they were given to
Scotland as part of a dowry for the wife of James III, and they had
never felt very Scottish. Here, too, they spoke Norn, and on both sets
of islands the old long houses of the Vikings remained. The people
here were taller than those on the mainland, and more of them had blue
eyes. They were intensely involved with the sea.
Bothwell had been able to anchor his ships and allow his men to roam
the island, stocking up on food and water and fitting the vessels for
either a fight or a long voyage. His own trusted messengers were able
to slip through to the south and bring him both some coveted and
hurtful documents: the proclamation naming him Duke of Orkney and Lord
of the Shetlands, the commission issued by the Lords to hunt him down,
the proclamation branding him an outlaw and a letter from Mary.
He had descended into his cabin and shut the door before opening the
letter. His fingers were trembling; he could hardly believe she had
managed to write a letter and smuggle it out, and that it had found its
way into his hands all the way here. It seemed almost like an
apparition, one of those false sights conjured up by dark spirits to
fool people and lead them to doom. Her handwriting, something so
commonplace before, and now so precious ... He broke the seal.
My dearest heart, my soul, it is now almost two months since I have
beheld your face, a thing I never thought I could have sustained. My
misery is beyond .. .
The Lords had completely betrayed her. They had broken all their
promises made at Carberry Hill, as he had told her they would.
Mary, Mary! he cried to himself. I should have truly kidnapped you
then, and taken you to Dunbar.
He continued reading, devouring every detail of her life under lock and
key at Lochleven. It sounded so dreary, so soul-deadening. There was
no one there to sustain her, except Mary Seton and some others of her
old household, and the island seemed escape-proof not that any place is
truly escape-proof, he reminded himself. And she must have some
sympathetic supporter there somewhere, or else the letter could never
have got out. Who could it be? She did not say, as was wise.
He ached to hold her, just to speak with her, even if through bars.
We do not deserve this! he thought. For me to be hunted like a wolf,
and her to be locked up like the insane Earl of Arran. I am indeed to
be hunted like a wolf; that is what the proclamation of outlawry says.
Very well, then they shall see that this wolf has long fangs. I will
tear their flesh.
He folded the letter, but did not put it in his locked leather pouch
with the other documents, for he knew he would reread it many times
before he would finally allow himself to put it away. His heart felt
heavier than his two-handed sword. He tried to tell himself that they
were still strongly bound, but truly he wondered if he would ever see
her again.
Heaving himself up from the cramped, ill-lighted cabin, he went up on
deck. The Pelican had only two masts and was not a warship, but at
least she carried guns in case of pirate attacks. These were not
expensive brass guns, but the cheaper iron, and included port pieces,
slings, fowlers, and hail shot pieces, in addition to handguns and
harquebuses that he himself had provided for the soldiers to use.
The Pelican rocked gently on the swells of the water where she lay at
anchor. Today, late in August, the waters were still relatively calm.
That could change at any moment, and the rocks and shoals were always
treacherous, even in summer. There were more than a hundred islands in
the Shetland archipelago, and many of them were nothing but sharp, dark
rocks hungry for a ship to gash open. He was thankful he had been able
to procure a number of local sailors who knew their native waters so
well.
The big canvas sails were furled and tied with their intricate pattern
of ropes, awaiting a chance to open and fill with the wind. But for
now, barrels of fresh water were being filled and brought aboard, and
the men were out all over the main island, exercising themselves and
trying to find food. Not that there was an abundance of it on this
rocky, barren island; unlike the Orkneys, there was little land
suitable for farming here, and the people lived mainly by fishing.
If a man had a mind to wander, this empty, stark land would speak to
him. Bothwell found its very harshness stirring, and for the first few
days he had walked out under the sky, which seemed enormous, listening
to the sea, watching the birds that nested in the rocky cliffs rearing
up, ragged and black, from the sea. He liked the solitude, after being
too much among men. Sometimes he would get a glimpse of a band of dark
little wild ponies, but they always kept their distance, as if they,
too, had had all they wished of man and his ways. The wind whistled
about his ears, and Bothwell, who hated hats, understood why the
Shetlanders wore those close-fitted wool caps.
Bothwell glanced up at the sun. It must be nearly noon, and time for
him to keep his appointment to take his midday meal with his cousin
Sinclair in his manor house on shore. He enjoyed the man, enjoyed
talking of their ancestral rascals, enjoyed hearing about the way life
was lived in the islands. Every day his cousin would have a suggestion
about a sight that might interest Bothwell: a peculiar, ancient, round
stone dwelling; St. Ninian's Isle, with the remains of the holy monk's
dwelling; a beach with basking seals.
Today promised to be no different. As he settled himself down at
table, ready enough to taste some wine, Sinclair, who delighted in
offering rare imports, was smiling at him.
"Good cousin," he said, lifting the flagon to pour out some bright
wine, "I have today some strong sweet wine from Cyprus." He tasted it
and nodded. "It has taken a long time to get here, but has not
spoiled. The Venetians in their galleys can bring it quickly."
Bothwell sipped it and looked out across the water to his ships. Four
were anchored here, and four in a harbour on the other side of the
island. The sun had shone in cloudless splendour today, and its
brilliance on the water was breathtaking. Each ship seemed etched
against the intense blue of the sea and sky, a dark, rich blue that
made the skies elsewhere seem weak or diluted.
"Thinking of your captains and men?" asked Sinclair.
"Aye. I was wondering what they were doing this morning. I hope they
have not caused trouble in town. I have kept the sailors on board;
they are generally the worst."
Sinclair laughed. "One can understand why the galley-rowers are kept
chained."
"Aye." He got a warm feeling, thinking of the Balfours having served
in the galleys years ago. The double-dealing traitors. They were
liars and betrayers from far back.
The servants were just bringing out the mackerel and oysters when
Both-well suddenly caught sight of something out of the corner of his
eye, moving on the water. Instantly he put down his knife and went to
the window.
Eight ships, moving fast toward his, lying at anchor. Quickly he
jumped up and shaded his eyes for a clearer view.
"Why, what is it?" asked Sinclair.