"My belly is the worst," he said, flinging off the covers with his
good, strong right hand. His entire abdomen was so bandaged it looked
like a padded jack, the quilted leather coat Borderers wore. "The
wound runs lengthwise almost six inches. He got me when I was rounded
over a log, asking to be carved like a pheasant. Ah, well. At least
he's dead. Thus perish all the Queen's enemies," he said lightly. "He
didn't wake up in the cart, did he?"
Maitland smiled at him. "No. And you will soon be well and fighting
more enemies."
"Alas that the Queen has so many," Bothwell said carefully. "And the
justice courts at Jedburgh? The session is completed?"
"Indeed," said Lord James. "We certainly would not have left
betimes."
"Certainly. And .. . ?"
"Sentences were passed," said Maitland. "There were no executions."
"What of Kerr?" BothwelPs voice rose in disbelief.
"The Queen only fined him," said Lord James. "It seems she was touched
by his tale of the Abbot's personal shortcomings. "Twas not the way
our royal father, James V, handled these criminals. I fear this
womanish approach renders your wounds acquired in useless service. If
Jock o' the Park yet lived, doubtless he'd have a sad tale to win a
stay of execution, as well. Perhaps his son had the melancholy, or his
hog choked on an acorn. How grievous!"
Bothwell was glaring at Mary. She shot a look at Lord James,
commanding him to silence.
"If there are reports of your raids and of the other activities in the
Borders, we shall take them back to Jedburgh and study them," she said
as loftily as she could manage. "I have brought records of our
proceedings for you to read. We will remain in Jedburgh during the
month of October. When you are able to travel, we request that you
come by litter to us there."
"By litter!" he cried. "Only pregnant women and invalids travel by
litter!"
"I shall send one for you within ten days," she insisted. "And you
will use it by my command."
It was already midafternoon, and past time to be on their way. Mary
had been loath to leave, but clutching the reports, she realized it was
time. Darkness would overtake them on their way back.
The sun had come out, temporarily brightening the scenery, turning
ochre into marigold yellow on the hills, dull deep purple into vibrant
violet,
sedge into bright brown. But that was short-lived, and before they had
journeyed over three hills the sun vanished, all the colours dimmed,
and mists began to creep up from the bogs, reaching long fingers toward
the high places.
Mary was tired nay, exhausted. Suddenly the prospect of the
thirty-mile journey in the saddle seemed as daunting and impossible as
going all the way to Jerusalem. Darkness was coming fast in the
October afternoon, and their guide would have difficulty recognizing
landmarks. Yet they dared not go faster, for the terrain was too
uneven and dangerous.
Darkness caught them still fifteen miles from Jedburgh, in the midst of
a vast waste that skirted peat bogs and was littered with boulders and
scrub.
"The Devil's tract," muttered Lord James.
"Watch your footing!" cried the guide. "Keep in single file. I will
dismount and lead." He held out a torch before him, testing each
step.
The wind rose and penetrated their cloaks. It began to rain, a
drumming, icy rain.
They would be out all night, Mary thought. Perhaps they should halt,
erect some sort of shelter. Perhaps that would be safer. Perhaps
Suddenly she lurched to the left as her horse foundered and his entire
right side sank in a mire. The horse emitted a distressed cry, and the
others stopped.
"What's that?" cried Maitland.
The horse, attempting to extricate himself, churned in the marsh. Mary
was thrown off and landed in a cold, oozing slush laced with brambles.
Her feet sank instantly, and she could feel no bottom. She
instinctively flung her arms over the saddle and hung on. The horse
was almost swimming in the mire.
"The Queen!" yelled the guide. "Stop! Help!"
He rushed over to her, thrusting his torch toward the commotion. The
horse was neighing and frantically kicking the thick, slimy water.
"Climb on the saddle and over his back!" said Lord James. "The left
side is safe! Come!"
Mary hauled herself up, the weight of her soaked skirts pulling her
backwards. With one hand she clung to the saddle, and extended the
other to her brother. He pulled her with such force she thought her
arm would be wrenched off. She landed on top of him in a heap.
"There, there." The guide was calming Mary's horse and fishing for the
reins. "Quiet, quiet." Gradually the animal stopped struggling.
"Now." He carefully guided him toward the dry path, until the
searching hooves found it. Then, with a loud sucking noise, spewing
rotting vegetation and stinking water, the horse came out of the bog.
Mary, shaking with the cold, insisted on remounting him rather than
switching horses with one of the men. And for another four hours she
stumbled along, so exhausted and debilitated she could later remember
nothing but the cold, the silence, the pelting rain, and the single
flaring torch, leading on.
It was past midnight when they finally arrived back at the house at
Jedburgh, but Mary did not know. Her teeth were chattering and she had
to be carried into the house. When Madame Rallay removed her wet
clothes she found her flesh to be colder then the cloth.
Warmth in the form of hot wrapped bricks placed in the bed, a fire in
the chamber, furs heaped on the bed failed to revive her. She never
opened her eyes but became delirious and then, by the following
evening, unable to speak or, seemingly, to hear. First her legs, then
her arms, became paralyzed.
"She is dying!" cried Bourgoing, in a panic.
"Of a fall in a bog?" asked Lord James, incredulous.
"A healthy twenty-three-year-old person does not collapse and die for
no reason!" insisted Maitland.
"Her father the King did, after Solway Moss, and he was barely thirty,"
said the physician. "Royal blood is different. After a mental shock,
the body can collapse."
"Bah! What mental shock?" said Lord James. "And I do not do such."
"Only half your blood is royal," the physician said pointedly.
"She is sinking!" Madame Rallay's voice rose in alarm. "Pray send for
her confessor!"
Par away, Mary heard the soft voice of Father Mamerot, begging her to
relieve her conscience of its sins and so enter Paradise. But she
could not speak.
And how can I confess a sin that has not yet happened, but is more real
than any of the rest?
"Speak!" he was begging her. But she could not.
"Her feet grow cold!" cried Bourgoing, and Mary was touched at the
anguish in his voice.
He cares for me, she thought in gratitude.
But none of that seemed to matter, and she felt herself being lifted
away, growing farther from them. Her only feeling was of deep sadness
to leave Bothwell, and then that too faded, as something paltry and un
sustaining What she was being drawn to was so powerful it drowned out
everything else.
She could suddenly see herself lying on the bed, could see Bourgoing
frantically uncovering her and binding her limbs until they were all
wrapped in white a half-ghost. An assistant physician was applying hot
oil, and she saw the gleam of the glass. It seemed amusing. Now
Bourgoing was beating on her feet, slapping them rapidly, but she could
not feel it. She was not there in that absurdly wrapped weak body.
She saw Madame Rallay, face twisted with grief, opening the windows to
let her spirit pass. And she was drawn there, inexorably it seemed.
Maitland was wringing his hands in genuine consternation. And Lord
James? His head was bent over the table in the back of the room, and
he was writing something. It was difficult to see. She came closer,
hovering just over him. A little chest was open.
He was inventorying her jewels!
She was dead, and this was his reaction!
A jolt of anger flew through her, and suddenly there was feeling in her
lips. Bourgoing was forcing some wine down her throat, and it stung
her cracked lips. It choked her. She was violently ill,
instantaneously, and vomited onto the covers and floor.
The vomit dripped off her lips and she could taste it, and was sick
again. She coughed and choked and was wracked with pain, imprisoned
once again in her body.
"She lives!" cried Bourgoing, and dimly Mary heard Lord James
scrambling from the jewel table over to her.
"Yes," he said coolly. "I do believe the Queen will live. The Lord be
praised!"
THIRTY-SEVEN
For days Mary lay in the bed in that upper room of the Kerr's fortified
house, trying hard to recover. She obediently drank the thinned gruel
Bourgoing spooned between her lips, and gradually it was replaced by
thicker gruel and then by eggs and bread pudding, and finally by stewed
young chicken meat. She went from lying in bed to being able to sit at
a small table and eat her food. But then she would have to lie back
down.
And as she lay there, horrible thoughts would grip her. She would
recover, but for what? Damley? He had not even wanted to preside at
the justice courts, for all he coveted the title of King. And now he
was unreachable, off hawking somewhere in the west of Scotland. Had
they even told him of her illness? Had he cared?
Thinking of him and her great folly in having bound herself to him, she
would have paroxysms of anger and grief.
Yet there is the child, she would remind herself. It was my duty to
provide an heir, the best one possible for our throne and later,
perhaps, for the English one, and I did that.
If there were only the bad marriage, the marriage that is now no
marriage, I could endure that. That is a Queen's duty. But there is
more ... the torture of Bothwell.
I became ill when I realized that the thing I most desired carried the
promise of my own destruction, that if I could drink that potion, which
I feel I must drink in order to live, than I betray everything I once
was.
Oh, wretched, wretched Queen! she cried silently.
The leaves were swirling down, lazy spinning yellow wheels, the day
Both well was brought to Jedburgh. She was sitting up at her little
table, eating bread pudding with raisins, when she saw the single line
of riders approaching, a great litter slung between two horses.
Bothwell lay in it, his left arm still bound, his middle still thick
with bandages. But his face ah, his face! was merry, and had colour.
He was smiling, and she thought she heard him laugh.
They settled him on the floor directly below hers. She could hear the
scraping and thudding as furniture was brought in and rearranged. If
she strained, she believed she heard his voice. But the nature of a
fortified house was to have thick stone walls and heavy floors, and
true sound was muffled.