The variations in temperature, the lack of exercise, and the
confinement indoors made Mary weak and listless. Although it was Lent,
she was given special permission to eat meat to help her regain her
strength.
The second Saturday in March when flowers would already be blooming at
Chenonceau great mounds of ice lay in the courtyard at Holyrood, their
surfaces granular from the repeated thawings and re freezings Little
ice nuggets sparkled like diamonds in the grey crust.
Mary stood at the window looking out. This inactivity is driving me
mad, she thought. I cannot ride or hawk because of the child. At
least Riccio and Darnley have been able to play tennis.
"Did you play in your shirt yesterday, David?" she asked Riccio, who
today was wearing heavy velvet.
"Indeed. It was warm enough," he replied. "And Lord Darnley took off
his shirt."
Was she mistaken, or did he shudder slightly?
"But he soon began to shiver," he said. His face was turned away, and
she could not see his expression.
"Tonight it is back to winter pastimes," she sighed. "We will have a
small supper here in my apartments. But there will be meat for all my
guests; that should be a treat. Anthony Standen to sing with you.
Perhaps even a fortuneteller, for fun."
"Damiot the fortune-teller came to me yesterday," he said suddenly. "He
told me to 'beware the Bastard." But the Bastard is in England."
"Do you mean Elizabeth?" she asked with a laugh.
"No. Lord James."
"England is full of bastards. See how we thought of different ones?
But Scotland is also full of bastards. Two of them shall dine with us
tonight: my sister Jean and brother Robert. Need you beware of
them?"
"I suppose one cannot be too careful."
"I shall make them lay their weapons down, then, before entering the
chamber!" She laughed.
The little birds Darnley had given her twittered in their cage.
Twilight fell, and in Mary's chambers the three remaining Marys lighted
the candles and helped Riccio and Bourgoing the physician and John
Bea-ton, a relative of Mary Beaton's who served in the household, to
lay the little table in the tiny supper room. It was warmer than the
main bedroom and the curtains could effectively shut out more drafts.
As Mary Fleming sang and Riccio played on his lute, it seemed to Mary
that there was an inordinate amount of noise out in the courtyard low
rumbling sounds and muffled voices. But when she looked out the
window, her eyes could discern nothing, as twilight is the most
difficult light to see in. Some moving shapes were down below, but not
in any great numbers.
Her sister and brother, Jean and Robert, came in, their arms full of
oranges and figs.
"A special treat!" they said. "All the way from the south of France.
A merchant on Murray's Close had just received them!" They put the
basket down and selected some for the platters. "Very un-Lenten!"
"There's meat," said Bourgoing, with a wink. "As her physician, I
prescribed it."
"What of the rest of us?" Jean teased. "Do we all have bodily
infirmities calling for meat?"
"I would vouch for it, Madam," he said solemnly.
"Ah, let us sit here comes Arthur Erskine, my captain of the guard!"
said Mary. "That is our full company for tonight. And Standen, a page
of my husband's."
"Eight people in this rabbit-sized room," said Jean, shaking her head.
"You have need of a large private dining room, dear Queen."
"We can squeeze in here," Mary insisted.
They wiggled and pushed their way in, and were eventually all seated,
although as they ate they continually bumped elbows and jostled. Still,
the wine lightened their spirits and made it all seem a joyful game,
like an indoor picnic.
"To the end of Lent," said Arthur, raising his cup. "May it come
soon."
They laughed and drank.
"Is it my fancy, or does this Lent already seem to have gone on long
past forty days?" asked John Beaton. "Never have I felt one drag as
this one. And March is such a loooong month."
"I hate March," said Lord Robert. "It is my most un favourite "
There was a rustle at the door, and Mary looked over to see Damley
standing there. He said nothing, he just stared.
"My Lord," she said, trying to keep the surprise out of her voice,
"have you supped already? Pray join us." Darnley never came to her
chamber anymore, and never dined with her. The private spiral
staircase linking their rooms went unused.
"I have eaten," he said. "But I will join you." He slid in and put
his arm around her waist, bending down to kiss her.
"Riccio, slide over and make space for my Lord," said Mary.
But she saw the shock on Riccio's face and turned to see what he saw:
standing in the doorway was Lord Ruthven, his face the colour of old
bedsheets and his eyes as red as Hell.
A ghost! She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a
scream. Ruthven had been reported on his deathbed several days before,
wasting away from an unknown disease; now, in death, he had come here.
The flickering fire played over his bloodless features and rimmed his
bony eye sockets. It rippled and reflected on metal glimmering beneath
his white nightshirt. Armour. Did a ghost wear armour? As he moved
slightly, it clanked.
"How now, my good Lord Ruthven, how come you here? Are you quite
recovered?" she said, trying to keep her voice from trembling. He was
reputed a warlock perhaps this whole apparition was straight from
Hell.
"I have, indeed, been very ill, but I find myself well enough to come
here for your good." His eyes stared, their amber-coloured irises
almost blending into the jaundiced whites.
"What good can you do me?" she asked, her voice shaking in spite of
herself. "You come not in the fashion of one who means well."
"I am come for that poltroon, Riccio," he said with slow, rasping
words. He raised his arm, slowly and stiffly, then pointed right at
him. "Come forth from the Queen's privy chamber, where you have
tarried overlong!" His voice grew louder.
"Why, what wrong has he done?" Mary saw Ruthven reach for his dagger.
"If he has done anything amiss, let him answer before Parliament!" She
rose to shield him, but suddenly Ruthven nodded to Darnley.
"Take your wife to you! Hold her!" he barked, and Damley, still
standing behind her, grabbed her shoulders and pinned her into her
chair.
"What do you know of this?" she cried.
Riccio jumped up and sought a way out of the chamber. But Ruthven
blocked the way. Frantically, Riccio pressed himself against the
window recess, the farthest possible from Ruthven, but still only ten
feet away. Ruthven lunged forward, but Anthony Standen and Arthur
Erskine held him back.
"Lay not hands on me, for I will not be handled!" Ruthven cried,
brandishing his dagger. He kicked the table and it upended, hitting
Mary's pregnant belly; the platters and food went flying, and the one
candelabrum fell to the floor and broke, while Jean grabbed the other
one and held it aloft, providing eerie lighting for the melee.
More men appeared at the doorway, followers of Ruthven, tumbling from
out of the private staircase they had come from Darnley's quarters,
then yelling and crying for blood. Then, from the outer quarters, up
the main staircase, came the cry, "A Douglas! A Douglas!" and eighty
of the Earl of Morton's men poured in, overpowering the royal guards
and stampeding through the presence chamber and then into the
bedchamber.
One of them swung a rope, yelling, "Hang him! Hang the little spy!"
"Traitors and villains!" screamed Mary, recognizing the telltale
bright orange hair of the Earl of Morton and, at his side, Lord Lindsay
of the Byres.
Riccio crawled across the floor and hid behind Mary's skirts, clutching
and crying, "Justice, justice! Save my life, Madam! Save my life, for
God's dear sake!"
Then the great barrel-shaped form of George Douglas "the Postulate,"
Darnley's bastard uncle, was upon Mary, and, swiftly and savagely, he
swung his fighting arm over her shoulder in a wide arc and stabbed
Riccio. The dagger made a dull thwunk! as it sank in up to its hilt,
and blood splattered out all over the back of Mary's dress.
Riccio sagged, and she felt his hands dragging at her skirt, almost
ripping it from its fastenings at her waist. He made no sound but a
dull, gurgling groan. She turned slightly and saw the dagger sticking
out of his side, and just then Darnley grabbed her again and held her,
whilst one of Ruthven's men put a cocked pistol against her side and
another held one to her breast.
"Fire," she said, "if you respect not the royal infant in my womb." She
spoke as one in a dream. She could feel the cold iron through her
dress, and yet she was oddly unafraid, as also in a dream.
Darnley deflected the pistol, but continued holding her fast as a
prisoner.
Around her Riccio was now crawling and rolling, and men were falling on
him. Mary then suddenly felt a rapier thrust near her breast, but
Anthony parried it aside using a torch as a weapon.
They mean to kill me, too, she thought, but then Darnley pried Riccio's
fingers loose from her gown, and the assassins dragged Riccio out of
the little room. The birdcage was knocked over, and the chaffinches
escaped,
swooping about the room like bats. Mary could see Riccio grab on to
the bedpost in the bedroom, only to have his fingers clubbed with the
stock of a harquebus. Then the mob fell on him and he disappeared like
a hare beneath a pack of hounds howling with bloodlust. There was a
frenzy of movement as the men swung and stabbed, their arms rising and
falling in deadly thuds, and then screams: the men had cut each other
in their ecstasy of killing.
George Douglas grabbed Darnley's dagger and ran after the mob, arm
raised to strike, yelling, "This is the blow of the King!"
There was more thudding and yelling, then cheering, and finally the
voices were echoing from the great staircase, from whence came a mighty
crash.
A few minutes passed before one of Darnley's valets came into the
supper room from the outer chamber.
"Where is Riccio?" she asked. Her voice was hoarse and her throat so
dry she could hardly speak.
"Madam, it is useless to speak of Riccio, for he is dead," he sneered.
Then he laughed a braying laugh.
Mary Beaton came in, trembling. She had been in the bedroom the entire
time, hiding beneath the bed. "I have seen him, I have seen him! He
is mangled, dear lady, cut in collops! And they kept saying it was all
by the King's orders!" She pointed at Darnley.
"Ah, traitor, and son of a traitor!" said Mary softly, looking at
Darnley's arm around her. "Now do I know thee."
"No traitor!" he cried. "For it is you who betrayed me with Riccio,
offering me the greatest outrage a wife can to a husband! You never
have come to my chamber, nor given yourself to me as my wife, since he
has crept so into your favour. You saw me only if he were present, you
locked me out of your chamber "