Some of the Lords were weeping! Was it the whisky had done it? Or the
plaintive song? It was disconcerting to see these warriors, still
clutching their daggers, moved to tears over a song.
In the meantime, the French were looking embarrassed. The Duc
d'Au-male had a smirk on his face, and she was strangely disappointed
in him.
"Thank you, Mistress Jean," said Lord James. He turned to the
company.
"Although the Kirk frowns on frivolous music, on dancing and masquing,
good honest songs from our people are to be treasured."
"Aye! Aye!" they all cried resoundingly.
Mary looked around at this company of fierce men fierce in their joy
and their eating and their drinking. She was sober herself, but
despite the lack of whisky in her veins, she felt something within her
very self that answered them.
SIX
The day was fair and green when Mary rode out, with a party of some
fifty persons, to visit the scenes of her childhood in Scotland. They
left Edinburgh, riding west along the Firth of Forth as it narrowed.
The weather was the September tease of sparkling clear skies chased by
quickly moving grey clouds; before they had reached Linlithgow, only
eighteen miles from Edinburgh, they had been rained on three times, and
dried out in between each shower.
The sun was out as they passed through the old market town near the
palace, and then, suddenly, they came upon the arched outer gateway
with medallions depicting the four orders of knighthood. They rode
farther up a slight incline, and then the entire palace revealed itself
to them, golden and tall and elegant against the jewel-blue sky.
"Oh!" Mary said, halting her horse. It was beautiful as beautiful as
anything in France.
The palace was five storeys high, and built around an open courtyard.
They dismounted and entered, finding themselves in a large open space
surrounded by graceful crenellated walls and six-storey towers at each
corner. At the very centre of the courtyard stood an ornate, massive
fountain of many levels.
"Our royal father brought French workmen to construct it," said Lord
James, standing beside her, pointing to the fountain.
"I was born here," she said. "Where is the room?"
"Why, in the Queen's apartments, of course," he said. "They overlook
the loch. Come."
He led her up the great staircase in one of the towers, then through
the empty and quiet apartments until finally they stood in the very
room, a corner one.
She looked about, in the small room with the high windows. There was
an oratory, and its windows looked out onto the bright blue loch.
"So .. . this is the place where I was born," she finally said.
"Indeed. And baptized at St. Michael's Church, just inside the
grounds," he said.
She wished to see the church, to look at the font where she had been
baptized, but not in front of this heretic. She would return later.
"This is a luxurious palace, "he said. "Tiles imported from Flanders
... a great hall that Parliament met in, oak-panelled rooms ... it is
the most fashionable palace Scotland has to offer you."
"I can see that." She hoped the French would be satisfied.
The next day they set out for Stirling, thirty-seven miles west of
Edinburgh, still following the Firth of Forth as it narrowed and
finally turned from a bay into a river. They were treading on historic
ground, where Robert the Bruce, her ancestor nine generations back, had
trounced the English at the Battle of Bannockburn and saved Scottish
sovereignty at the very base of Stirling. Here was located the only
bridge crossing the Forth. Lower than Stirling there were only
ferries; higher than Stirling the fords were in the mountainous and
dangerous country. Stirling controlled the bridge and hence the entire
valley and the glens leading into the Highlands. The key to Scotland,
Stirling was called.
From many miles away they could see the great rock that held Stirling
Castle two hundred and fifty feet above the plain. Although Mary did
not recognize it from a distance, as they began the long, steep climb
up its path, and finally reached its courtyard, separate memories began
to coalesce and come back to her.
She walked wonderingly across the upper courtyard square and looked at
the palace, built with stone as grey as the crags it sat on, and
studied all the statues standing in their ornamental niches along the
walls.
She remembered the statues! Yes, she did! And there was one, on the
other side of the palace, that Lady Fleming had told her was her
father. As a child she had stared at it for a long time, trying to
make it move and talk. Now she stood before it, examining the dark
carved stone. It was not a lifelike image and it told her nothing
about her father. Its eyes were large and accusing, its face frowning;
it looked condemnatory, like John Knox.
Looking down at the gardens far below, she asked Lusty, "Do you
remember our pony races around them, racing around the King's Knot?"
She did remember that, and remembered sledding down the steep hill on a
cow's skull on winter afternoons.
But as she was guided through the palace, and finally took her rest in
the Queen's bedchamber the King's stood empty, even though it was
grander with her Marys and Madame Rallay, she was distressed that so
little of it felt familiar. Her memories were scattered and sparse.
The next morning she wished to see the Chapel Royal and the splendid
Great Hall flanking the palace across the courtyard. The Chapel Royal
was distressingly bare the Reformers again! but the Great Hall was
magnificent. It had a high ceiling of hammer beam timberwork and
several fireplaces along its walls, with viewing balconies high above
the floor. It was some hundred feet long.
I could celebrate my marriage here, she thought. I could be married in
the Chapel Royal, and then have a banquet and masques here.... As she
thought of it, the empty hall became filled with flaming torches and
throngs of people; music sounded sweetly above the din of voices, and
she saw herself dancing.. ..
Married! she thought. Married to whom? Not one of my subjects,
surely. And were I to marry a prince from Europe, it would never be
here!
This time last year, Francois and I were hunting the wild boar in the
forest near Orleans.. .. O Francois! she cried silently. She felt
guilt at having, even for a moment, pictured herself at a second
wedding.
They stayed only two days at Stirling, and then, crossing the old stone
bridge across the Forth, they set out through the valley leading in a
northeast slant toward the town of Perth, which was situated at the
very end of the Firth of Tay, where it dwindled into a river, directly
above Edinburgh's Firth of Forth.
The Tay was smaller than the Forth, and Perth itself was a small town,
although it stood near the old site of Scone, where the sacred
Coronation Stone of Scotland had once been. Legend said it had been
brought long ago from Ireland; it was no matter now, as the stone had
been carried off by Edward I of England and was now in Westminster
Abbey. The town of Perth, once the capital of Scotland, had likewise
undergone some fundamental changes. It was here, in St. John's
Church, that John Knox had preached his inflammatory sermon two years
ago that had started the looting and destruction.
John Knox! He would be waiting for her in Edinburgh, doubtless with
his Bible in one hand and his sword in the other. She dreaded the
moment when she would have to take him on, but she would not allow
herself to practise for it.
Her heart was heavy as she rode past the damaged buildings, and in
spite of the gracious reception of the townspeople, she could not help
wondering if she was truly welcome. A chill had come over the day.
And she could hear Lord James and Huntly arguing about something,
although she could not make out their words. James's lips seemed to
shrink as they struggled to hold in his anger, while Huntly's face grew
redder and redder.
That evening, after supper, she insisted on knowing what it was.
"Huntly keeps muttering about allowing the mass to be said again, in
certain shires," said Lord James.
"I said it was not right for it not to be! There are still Catholics
in the land; Parliament could not force us to convert!" yelled
Huntly.
"Please!" said Mary. "In the future, do not give scandal by openly
quarreling in front of the townspeople. Wait until you are safely
within private walls."
"You yourself give scandal!" blurted out James.
She was genuinely shocked. "How so?"
"It is not meet here in Scotland for you to ride sidesaddle in a manner
to show your legs! It is unseemly, and seems lewd!"
Relieved, Mary began to laugh. Was that all it was? But later she
thought of his words, and wondered whether she might cause inadvertent
offence in other of her actions. As late as it was (possibly another
offence?) she sent for James Melville with a special request in mind.
When the courtier arrived in her chamber, she held out her hands to
him. He seemed loath to take them. He merely stood back and bowed
deeply.
"Ah, Melville! We have known each other too long to be ill at ease
with one another," she said. "Is it not so?" James Melville, who was
about Lord James's age, had come with her to France and been trained
there, although he had also served in German courts and taken his turn
at soldiering in Scotland. As a result, he was one of the more
sophisticated men in the Scottish court, and she assumed he would be an
ally for her.
"What is it you wish, Your Majesty?" he asked.
"It is simple," she said. "I am unfamiliar with customs here and may,
with the best of intentions but through simple ignorance, give offence
from time to time. For example, obviously you did not wish to take my
hands. Not that I think you were offended!" she hurried to assure
him. "But other acts, meant innocently, may not be taken so
innocently."
He was looking at her curiously, his attractive face open and pleasant.
In fact, if one had to choose a word to describe him, she thought, one
should say "pleasing."
"I do not understand. I have not been offended."
"I believe I may have given offence today in Perth, but I am not sure.
Lord James made a remark.... Be that as it may, I would like to ask you
to assume the office of my monitor. Good Melville, I ask you to please
take it upon yourself to tell me if I am at any time giving offence by
my speech, dress, or habits. Lord James said the way I rode sidesaddle
was not seemly."
Melville looked embarrassed. "It did seem a bit ... provocative. To
the people here, I mean! You and I know that Catherine de Medicis has
shown her legs that way for years," he said knowingly.
"That is precisely what I mean, Melville. Customs vary, and I wish to
be correct here in all I do. In minor matters of etiquette, that is! I
do not mean in matters of conscience. Now, do you promise always to
inform me?" She sounded playful, but she was serious.