Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (8 page)

We are safe here on this island, thought Marie de Guise. The English
will never find us in this place. But now I know Scotland cannot stand
alone any longer. The Battle of Pinkie Clough has proved it. This was
the end for Scotland as a true independent fighting force. The English
will devour her. We must offer ourselves to France, throw ourselves on
her mercy.

The thought of such abject crawling was a bitter one. But if she
wished to hold Scotland for her daughter .. .

She looked over at Mary, seated with the other Marys. The little girl
was watching the monks intently, and hardly eating anything. Her eyes
followed every movement the monks made as they broke their bread and
bowed their heads over their soup.

To her this is all an adventure, thought her mother. The gallop in the
night, coming to an island, hiding here with monks .. . but it is no
game for me. It is deadly serious; what I decide today will determine
whether my daughter has a future as Queen of Scotland, and whether
Scotland itself has a future.

But I have decided: We will sell ourselves to France. Pity the
Cardinal is not here to catch me saying "we" and "ourselves" am I
become Scots at last? He would find that amusing. But if I must
choose between England and France as our master, I will choose France;
it is my native land; it is Catholic; it is congenial in all the ways
that matter. My daughter is half French herself.. .. All will be
well.

She picked up her wooden cup and drank deeply from it. The wine
therein was French. All good things came from France, so it seemed.

France .. . Her face grew dreamy in remembering: the sweet autumn days
in the family estate at Joinville; the mellow colour of the leaves
still on the trees, with the low-hanging sun slanting through them; the
spicy crackle when she stepped on the leaves which had already fallen;
the fresh cider from the apple orchards; the mists in the early
morning, rising in the woods during the wild boar hunts.. ..

The decision felt right, right all the way through. Odd how when a
decision was absolutely right it presented itself so easily, and
slipped through all the sluice-gates of the mind without impediment,
whereas when it was not right, it was such a struggle to force it
through, and then there were the nagging points where it caught, clung,
and irritated, she thought.

The Queen Mother was suddenly debilitatingly tired. It is over, she
thought. It is over, it is done. I have decided.

There remained only notifying France. But that would be simple.

I am ready for rest, she thought. I have earned it.

Mother and daughter were sharing the Prior's room in the upper floor of
the west range of the cloister. Brother Thomas had brought out the
finest bedding for his royal guests and laid down carpets during the
afternoon; the Augustine Canons, less austere than some orders, had
such items on hand for honourable visitors.

In the deepest part of the night, Mary came suddenly to a full waking
that was preternatural. She lay stiff and still, holding her breath,
and it seemed her mother was holding her breath, too, and that the
whole room was a stone creature that had sense and feeling and was
awake, but silent. Outside she could hear the trees on the island,
their leaves rustling and sighing in the wind, not in a lonely way, but
in a deeply comforting companionship.

Then she heard a stirring from somewhere, a soft swish: the sound of
padded footsteps and the brushing of robes. It was the monks, going to
their prayers.

Outside it was completely dark. She crept out of bed and went to the
window. There was no moon, but the stars were bright. Against the
dark, shiny surface of the lake she could see the moving leaves of the
giant trees; and from within the church there glowed a faint light.

The monks were gathering for their prayers in the secret time of the
night. She longed with all her heart to join them, and suddenly she
knew this was why she had been called awake. Groping for her shoes,
she pulled them on, and felt for her wool mantle. Taking care not to
stumble, and feeling her way painfully slowly toward the door, she
managed to edge past her mother's bed without awakening her. She
lifted the wooden latch of the door very carefully, and pulled the door
open. It did not creak; the monks kept everything in the most perfect
working order, as part of their service to God.

It was cold on the stairway leading down to the ground, and Mary pulled
her cloak tightly against her chest. She descended the steps and then
ran across the wet grass to the side entrance of the church. Again,
there was a perfect latch on the door and she was able to let herself
into the church soundlessly. She crept into the recess of a side altar
and hid there in the shadows. The monks were already gathered; they
must not see her!

They were seated all along the stone benches on each side of the
glittering high altar, flanked by two tall candles. Their cowled heads
were bowed, and the mumble of rosaries being recited surrounded them
like the buzz of bees around a hive.

Ave Maria

Gratia plena

Dominus tecum:

Benedicta tu in mulieribus.. ..

She did not dare to move, hunched there in her stone recess that was
cold and covered in a light film of condensation. Time seemed
suspended, not to be passing at all. But then, gradually, she saw the
five tall windows behind the high altar in the east begin to separate
themselves from the night. At first they were barely noticeable, a
smudge of opalescence in the dark; but slowly each hue in them began to
glow and become more distinct, until at last there were garnet red and
marigold yellow and sapphire blue and twilight violet and sea green,
slender long panels of jewels forming exquisite pictures in the dawn.

The monks stirred, and there was a metallic clanking as the incense was
lit in its censer. The rich, perfumed smoke rose in soft clouds around
the altar and then the chanting began: the Office of Matins.

Te de-urn laude-mus.. ..

The deep, measured cadences rolled upward with the incense. The sun
sent a first tiny ray through a purple spear of glass in the window.
The Virgin Mary, in her niche near the high altar, seemed to glow as
the first light caressed her alabaster face.

Mary nearly swooned with the beauty of it all, with the cold, with her
excitement, with the forbidden ness of her own presence. She had been
to mass at the Chapel Royal in Stirling Castle, but it was a
lacklustre, daytime thing: this was magic, a door to another world, a
world that overwhelmed her and drew her so powerfully that she felt she
could vanish straightway into it.

The incandescent colours, the mystic smell, the deep, beckoning,
otherworldly voices, and the glowing face of the Virgin swirled in her
aroused soul. Clutching at the wall, she felt herself in the grip of
an ecstasy, and, closing her eyes, she let herself be carried away.

So this is God, she thought, as she slid forward soundlessly, and gave
herself up to Him.

The monks later discovered her sprawled out on the floor of the nave,
near a side altar. She was so deeply asleep they feared she was
unconscious; but as she was picked up, she opened her eyes and smiled,
a beatific smile.

"Is it time for the next singing?" she asked, and the monks laughed,
relieved.

"The Queen of Scots should perhaps become a nun, Your Highness," they
said, in returning her to her mother. "Like the blessed Queen, Saint
Margaret. She seems to have a vocation for it."

"She has a different destiny," replied Marie. The night's sleep had
confirmed her resolution of the night before. "She must marry, and
live in this world."

"It is dangerous to ignore a call from God," said Brother Thomas, in a
seemingly playful manner. "God is a possessive lover, and He does not
suffer rejection lightly. In fact, if He has marked you for His own,
He does not suffer rejection at all."

"Perhaps at the end of her life, when her earthly duty is over," said
Marie. She found this conversation annoying and pointless.

"God does not want our leavings, but our first fruits," persisted
Brother Thomas. "However," he said with an irritating smugness, "he
has been known to turn our leavings into a sacrifice of the highest
order."

SEVEN

Inside the bowels of the French galley, it was stiflingly hot and
reeked of unwashed human skin. The rowers had been at their oars for
hours, and now that it was growing dark they knew their torture would
soon be over for a little while. Only ten or twelve of them had been
lashed today, for everyone had worked hard, and their master was
kindhearted for an overseer.

"They've sighted the shoreline near Dumbarton," announced the master.
"Tomorrow we put in. Rest for a few days then back to France."

"Here we take on board the Queen?" muttered a tall, sinewy rower. His
shoulders bore the fading marks of a not-so-recent lashing.