No more of that, she told herself. No more of that.
She wrapped up the miniatures and returned them to their little tomb.
Slowly she stood up and made her way over to the crucifix hanging over
the priedieu, flanked by two candle sconces. Laboriously she lowered
herself down onto the kneeler and fastened her eyes on the old beloved
object.
She remembered when she had first seen it, in that room at St.-Pierre,
when she had knelt and agonized over whether to return to Scotland.
My heart was aching then, she thought. I thought all the pain in the
world was contained in my loss of Francois. Little did I know that was
just the beginning. And then my aunt Renee, she came in and spoke to
me. And all seemed to be clear, and destined.
Mary looked over at Seton, sitting quietly and reading.
Yes, it is right that she go there. It is right that there is still
some haven and protection I can offer my servants. Thank You, God, for
sparing Aunt Renee! She is sixty-two years old now please keep her in
health and service to You for many more years.
She looked around the chamber, the chamber that had been home of sorts
for almost fifteen years longer than any other home. It had a
consoling familiarity.
Why, I have been in Shrewsbury's keeping longer than the entire time I
lived in France! she realized.
And now that is to end, as well. I am prepared for whatever is to be.
But I fear that, in my life, all changes are for the worse.
EIGHTEEN
I hate Tutbury!" said Claud Nau, her secretary, rubbing his hands I
vigorously to try to warm them.
"Of all my prisons, this is the worst," agreed Mary.
If they had wanted to make me as miserable as possible and hasten my
death or complete crippling, they could not have chosen better, she
thought. But I refuse to assume that is why they did it; I refuse to
attribute such demonic insight to them. To them or is it her?
"I cannot work in this cold," he said, putting down his pen.
The February winds were howling over the castle, elevated a hundred
feet above the plain and exposed on all sides. This time Mary was
housed in a flimsy wood and plaster building called "the lodge"; it had
once served as a hunting lodge for nobles who came to Needwood Forest
for recreation. But now there were actual gaps in the walls and holes
in the windowpanes. Besides, it backed on the earthworks of the
ramparts, so that no sun or air could enter on the long side, making
everything so damp that no furniture placed there could avoid being
covered with mould.
The castle yard was muddy, and the only semblance of a garden was a
little fenced area near the stables, which resembled a pigsty; the
stench of the privies that emptied just over the walls permeated the
air; and fevers and pestilence rose with the vapours from the swampy,
ill-drained marshes at the foot of the hill.
"Then leave off for today," said Mary. "I believe we are up to my
escape from Langside. I need to recall the flight to Dundrennan in
more detail, although I hate remembering it."
Together they left the tiny withdrawing chamber and went into the
presence chamber, where Mary's throne consisted of a high-backed chair
with splintered rungs underneath. There was never anyone to whom she
could give audience, but the chair was there nonetheless. Perhaps
there would be messengers from Elizabeth, from James, from the French
ambassador. Perhaps they would come; someday they would come.
Just then the door was flung open and Sir Amyas Paulet strode in, the
buckles clinking on his polished shoes. He stopped and glared at Mary,
obviously displeased to see her there.
"Good day, Madam," he said shortly. He nodded to Nau. Then he stepped
smartly over to the throne, and began yanking at her cloth of estate,
the old green one with her cherished motto, In My End Is My Beginning.
It fell down with a great whoosh! of noise, enveloping the throne like
a tent.
"Stop! What are you doing?" Mary shrieked. She rushed over to him
faster than she had been able to move since her arrival.
He cocked one eyebrow and gave her an icy glare. "Well, Madam, I see
you can move right speedily when you like!" He began tugging at the
cloth, wadding it up against his chest.
"Don't touch that!" she said. "Put it down! I command you!"
He stopped and gave a cutting laugh. "Command me? But you are not my
sovereign. I owe you no allegience."
"True, you are not my subject, but the subjects of other sovereigns are
adjured to treat all rulers with courtesy."
"And what rule book did that come from?" he sneered. "One of those
outdated French chivalry books to which you are so devoted?"
"From the book of common human decency," she said. "By what right do
you remove this symbol of my royalty?"
"It was never permitted to begin with, therefore I am correct to remove
it," said Paulet. "There were no orders about it, and everything that
is not expressly allowed is forbidden."
"No," said Nau suddenly. "You have it backwards. Everything that is
not forbidden should be allowed."
"Be quiet, servant!" barked Paulet. "You yap like one of those
annoying dogs of your mistress! Now, Madam, procure for me an order
from Queen Elizabeth, and I'll restore this trumpery soon enough." He
tucked it under his arm.
"How can I procure anything from Queen Elizabeth when I cannot write
letters? You and your friend Walsingham have closed my channels to the
outside world. I can neither send nor receive letters!" she cried.
"Please, sir, do not destroy it! It belonged to my mother!"
"If you are prevented from writing letters, it is because you have
written too many in the past," said Paulet. "Seditious letters,
knavish letters, letters tending to the danger of Elizabeth and the
realm of England. Plotting letters Popish letters!" He spat on the
carpet less stained wooden floor. "You did nothing but sit with your
pen, pouring out rubbish and incendiary garbage to your Catholic allies
in Europe, inviting them to invade England! Nay, now restrict yourself
to your memoirs with your nattering French secretary that's all I'll
permit!"
"But I should be allowed to write to the Queen. The lowest subject in
the land has the right to write to the Queen," insisted Mary.
"Oh, so now you claim a subject's rights? Are you then saying that you
are a subject?"
"No, of course not." How quick he was!
"Then you must bear with your own isolation and punishment."
"Punishment! Of what am I guilty?" she cried.
He shook his head in disgust. "Oh, Madam! You know full well!" He
turned and walked out of the room. She had not given him leave to
depart, but then he did not regard himself as under her control, but
vice versa.
As the door slammed, Mary turned to Nau. "Have you ever beheld such
insolence? Write it down, Nau, write it down, that someday others may
know, and judge for themselves!"
He was shaking with anger. "An ordinary little man, not even a
nobleman! And all pretence of your being a 'guest' departed with
Shrewsbury; this man is clearly a gaoler. He guards you in a castle
that is not his, he takes his orders not even from the Queen but from
her principal secretary, following the rules Walsingham has laid down.
And they are so strict!"
"Yes. Do you remember the day Paulet read them out to us? No mingling
between the two households, my servants not to walk on the walls, the
coachman not to go abroad without Paulet's guard, no laundresses, I am
not to speak to any member of his household except in his presence, no
mail to be sent or received except through the French embassy, and
unless it passes through his hands first. He opens my letters and
dares to hand them to me with the seals broken! The insolence, Nau,
the insolence!"
"It is a new world, this world of the Elect of God," said Nau. "It
makes tyrants out of little men."
Mary was still shaking. "My cloth of estate! My very emblem of
royalty!"
"They cannot take away your royalty, Madam. That is why they fear
seeing the symbols of it."
Mary and her reduced household had been in the grip of Sir Amyas Paulet
for almost two months. Never had she envisoned such bleakness, not
only from the surroundings and from her ill health, but from the smug
spite of the Puritan keeper. She had no doubt that she had been given
into his hands because he was seen to be proof against her persuasions.
All her life she had been blessed with the ability to make people
sympathetic toward her, once they had actually met her. Only Knox had
actively disliked her, finding her annoying and tedious. Now it was as
if Knox's spirit had come to dwell in another's body, for the same
narrow-eyed distaste stared out from Paulet's face whenever he looked
at her.
Old Madame Rallay had died within five weeks of their arrival; she had
been almost eighty, and the cold and damp had proved too much for her.
With sorrow Mary had seen her buried at the little priory church of St.
Mary, just outside the walls of Tutbury. It had once been a
Benedictine priory, founded as a thank offering by the first holder of
Tutbury, back in the days just after William the Conqueror. But Henry
VIII had put an end to the monks, and so the faithful old French
Catholic servant had been laid to rest in an Anglican service, with the
sanctimonious Paulet reciting Scripture. He had insisted on attending,
his dark eyes darting this way and that, ever on the lookout for
messengers or secret letters being passed.
But Mary had not been thinking of the wider world that day, but of the
ever-shrinking personal world she inhabited.
One by one they all leave me, she thought. Soon I will stand
completely alone on the stage.
Watching the plain wooden coffin being lowered, she gave silent thanks
that she had sent Seton away, away from this hell of ice and cold, so
like the ring of Hell in Dante's Inferno.
In March, Paulet paid a visit to her chamber. "Madam," he said
stiffly, "it pains me to hear that once again you have set your mind on
evading my rules. I refer specifically to that Popish habit you have
of giving alms at Holy Week in accordance with your age. I was told
that you have distributed woollen cloth to forty-two poor women and, as
if that were not enough, to eighteen poor boys, in honor of James. As
if James would indulge in such superstitious nonsense! Now, since you
persist in the illusion that all that is not actually forbidden is
allowed, let me add this to the list of forbidden things: No more
alms!"
Mary replied, "Good sir, I am afflicted in both body and spirit, and I
need the prayers of the poor."
"Nonsense!" he yelled. "Enough of this absurd reasoning! You attempt
to win them over to your cause, to make yourself an object of loyalty
and admiration. But you cannot fool me, however much you can fool a
few simple people."
She felt tears stinging at the corners of her eyes, but did not allow
them to show.