The gilded table-clock began to strike the hour of eleven, each chime a
separate bell.
"Do you like it?" asked Mary.
"Very much." The Duc examined its painted face, black numerals on
ivory. It had little gold feet, and a moon dial showing a dreamy-faced
disk.
"I gave it to myself," she confessed. "I do not know why I am so taken
with clocks and watches."
"Yes, I remember the striking watch with a death's head you gave your
what do you call her? your Marie?"
"Oh. That." Mary looked embarrassed. "It caught my fancy, with its
bell ringing inside the tiny silver skull, and its engravings of time
and symbols of eternity. And Mary Seton is tends to be so absorbed in
religious devotions. It is small enough to be carried into chapel. It
seemed the sort of thing a monk would have coveted."
"Monks aren't supposed to covet." He smiled, and the great battle scar
on his cheek the one people called le Balafre buckled along its seam.
"But others covet the things of the monks," said Mary. "Like old Harry
of England he just turned the monks out and took their things."
"If I may say so, Your Grace, at least he was forthright about it
unlike your father, who made his nobles and bastards 'lay abbots' of
the rich monasteries, so they could take whatever they wanted. Even
your brother, James Stewart, is helping himself to the spoils of what
is his monastery? St. Andrews. And he is so staid and
sanctimonious!" The Duc had little use for the hypocritical prude. He
had met him twice and disliked him both times.
"In fact," he continued, "your father made all his bastards 'priors,"
didn't he? Providing for them at church expense. John Stewart is
Prior of Coldingham and Robert Stewart, Prior of Holyrood, and another
James, Prior of Melrose and Kelso, and another Robert, Prior of
Whithom, and Adam Stewart, Prior of Charterhouse at Perth. A veritable
family of holy men!"
Mary felt anger rise in her at hearing her father attacked. "Are
things so much more noble in France? How is it that three of your
brothers are princes of the church? Two cardinals, and one Grand Prior
of the fighting order of St. John of Jerusalem? Why, good uncle
Charles was made cardinal when he was but twenty-three! And by the
King. Was it because of his upstanding, devout life?"
Le Balafre was caught by surprise. She has a temper, he thought.
That's not good. She would be perfect if only she were more docile.
Lately she has been too questioning.
"I will let him answer for himself," said the Duc smoothly, as he saw
the valet de chambre opening the doors for the belated guest. He had
been due at half past ten.
"Pardon, pardon!" the Cardinal exclaimed. "I am so sorry to be
late!"
A smile lit his delicate features as he came toward Mary and the Duc.
He had eyes the pale blue of the March skies arching over the Loire,
and his ivory colouring would have made him parchment-pretty, but his
chin was weak and made even weaker by a bifurcated whispy beard hanging
from it. Its straggly hairs got caught in his impeccably ironed and
starched collar-ruff. Why did he wear such a face-spoiler? Mary
wondered, not for the first time. She always hoped that he would come
in without it the next time, and was always disappointed.
"But I have brought much news, both good and bad!" He patted his
velvet dispatch bag.
"Shall we eat first?" said the Duc. "News of any sort digests better
on a full stomach." He was starving. During the recent campaign at
Calais, he had permitted himself only the rations of his soldiers,
which were scant, it being winter. Yet that had won the battle for
them, attacking unexpectedly in January.. .. Now he needed to feed
well before returning to the field and its deprivations.
"Indeed," said Mary, leading them to the private dining table set at
one end of her chamber. With complete naturalness she took her place
of honour under her cloth of estate; she was, after all, a reigning
sovereign. Eating elsewhere, out from under the royal canopy, would
have felt as naked as dining with no clothes.
She nodded to her servitors, and they began to bring in the dishes some
thirty of them. Although most were the usual fare stuffed eel and
bream, chicken in vinegar sauce, goose and duck she had tried to
provide a delicacy or two, difficult in this drear time of year when
nothing fresh was available. Spring seemed a long time away.
The servitors were presenting caramelized apple turnovers, and the
Cardinal seemed genuinely impressed. Mary was pleased, as the Cardinal
was known for his finicky palate and constant searching for novelties
at table. He popped a good bit of it in his mouth with the
gold-handled fork, and his beard bobbed up and down.
"Exquisite, my dear. Truly." He smiled and took a sip of the sweet,
heady wine from Anjou in the Venetian crystal goblet. Sensual pleasure
shone in his eyes.
As the last of the sweets was being cleared away, Mary could wait no
longer. "What is your news?" she begged. "Please, withhold it no
longer!"
"It is this." He smiled and brushed a crumb from his velvet sleeve.
"The war goes so well for us that it seems God Himself is on our side.
Philip and his English toadies are turning tail." He paused. "But
that is news for my brother. For you, ma mignon ne I have this: I have
just heard from Scotland. The terms of the marriage are approved, and
nine commissioners including your brother James and some of the highest
nobles in the land set sail next week to come here, draw up the legal
documents, and .. . attend your wedding to the Dauphin Francois!"
"Oh! When?"
"In some three months' time. April. You will wed at the height of
spring. Can you bear to wait till then?"
"I have waited for ten years. And I will need at least that long to
have my dress made it will be white, I love white like a blooming pear
tree "
"White is the colour of solemnity, of mourning," said the
ever-fashionable Cardinal quickly. "It would be bad luck."
"I don't believe in such things. White is my colour, my chosen
colour," she said stubbornly. "I look the best in white; Brantome says
so. He said, "La blancheur de son visage contendoit avec la blancheur
de son voile, a qui I'emporteroit' 'the whiteness of her face rivaled
the whiteness of her veil." "
"You said there was other news," said the Duc, impatient with all this
dress talk.
The Cardinal clearly preferred to stay in the land of veils and satins.
He sighed. "Yes. At almost the same time as the nine commissioners
agreed to the marriage, several of them signed a covenant."
"What sort of a covenant?" The Duc's voice was sharp. "Covenant"
sounded like a Geneva, Protestant word.
"Calling themselves 'the First Band of the Congregation," they have
pledged to to work for the cause of the Reformed religion in
Scotland."
"Protestants!" gasped Mary, in the same shock as if she had heard a
bat flying overhead.
"Protestants!" growled the Duc. "I knew it! I knew that filthy
preacher, Knox, would make more converts there!"
"Oh, and that he has. Made converts everywhere." The Cardinal reached
in his pouch and drew out a tract. "This is his latest utterance."
The Duc took it. "The bleating fool must be silenced."
Mary reached out and took it from him in turn. "The First Blast of the
Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. What is he saying?"
she asked. " To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion,
or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to nature,
contumely to God...." She read silently on, then burst out, " "For
their sight in civil regiment is but blindness, their counsel
foolishness, and judgement frenzy. Nature, I say, doth paint them
forth to be weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish, and experience
hath declared them to be un constant variable, cruel, and lacking the
spirit of counsel and regiment.. .." "
"It goes on for many pages, Your Grace," said the Cardinal. "Lots of
Old Testament references, typically Protestant, quite tedious. He
writes it against the 'three Marys' you, your mother, but most against
Mary Tudor, because of her true Catholicism. Listen to this, it is
quite amusing." The Cardinal thumbed through the manuscript.
"Cursed Jezebel of England, with the pestilent and detestable
generation of papists .. . man and woman, learned and unlearned .. .
have tasted of their tyranny. So that now not only the blood of Father
Latimer, of the mild man of God, the Bishop of Canterbury, of learned
and discreet Ridley, of innocent Lady Jane Dudley .. . doth call for
vengeance in the ears of the Lord God of hosts; but also the sobs and
tears of the oppressed, the groanings of the angels, the watchmen of
the Lord, yea, and every earthly creature abused by their tyranny, do
continually cry and call for the hasty execution of the same."
The Cardinal laughed with a laugh as thin as his beard.
"His curses are terrible," Mary said. Was he wishing such evil on her
mother? And on her, simply because she was Catholic?
"But not original. They are lifted intact from the Old Testament. The
prophets Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nahum really knew how to curse in the name
of Yahweh. This fellow is a pale shadow of them."
"But a shadow that darkens Scotland. This Knox continually refers to
himself as a prophet," said the Duc. "Someone ought to do to him what
Herod did to John the Baptist. Where is he now?"
"In hiding, somewhere in Geneva. He was actually in France for two
months last year, from October to December. I am ashamed to tell you
that he wrote The First Blast on our soil."
"I notice he did not stay here for its publication," said the Duc.
"That was wise of him."
"Oh, he's clever. He hides his cowardice under the instruction that
Christ gave to his disciples: "But when they persecute you in this
city, flee ye into another." He leaves others to do his fighting for
him, and fulfill his curses."
"Words to frighten children in the nursery," scoffed the Duc.
"Somewhere in the Old Testament someone is cursed with 'emerods," "
said the Cardinal. "Now that's something to fear!" He laughed
depreciatively. "Perhaps I should wish them on master Knox? I must
practise my cursing. All I know is the formula for excommunication."
Again, the tinkling laughter.
Mary took back the document and continued reading it, slowly. It took
her a long time. But at length she reached the ending:
I fear not to say that the day of vengeance, which shall apprehend that
horrible monster Jezebel of England and such as maintain her monstrous
cruelty, is already appointed .. . when God shall declare Himself to be
her enemy, when He shall pour forth contempt upon her according to her
cruelty, and shall kindle the hearts of such as sometimes did favour
her with deadly hatred against her, that they may execute His
judgements.
For assuredly her empire and reign is a wall without foundation; I mean
the same of the authority of all women.