Authors: Margaret Irwin
‘Alas, and I never deceived anybody.’
And she wrote: ‘Burn this letter, for it is too dangerous.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Three Earls sat at the dice on red velvet cushions fringed with gold. They were in carnival dress: the Earl of Argyll in purple with a turquoise satin lining to his cloak; Gordon, Earl of Huntly, in crimson with primrose-coloured taffeta; the Earl of Bothwell in black velvet passemented with silver. They rattled the dice on to a low stool-table covered with a green velvet cloth, and called the numbers from time to time. They were sitting just within the King’s bedroom. He lay in his blue satin coat and black mask in the great bed with hangings and palliasse of violet velvet and silk, edged with gold and silver. Beside him sat the Queen in a high chair, her feet resting on the little Turkey carpet beside the bed; she wore a gala dress of white and gold; her furred mantle had slipped to the floor and lay there like a couched beast.
A small antechamber opened beyond the bed, furnished only with hangings of the Coney-Catcher tapestry and, enthroned in royal state, formerly consecrated to the use of a Cardinal, the King’s majestic commode, upholstered in velvet, under a tasselled canopy of red and yellow shot taffeta, and fitted with twin pans.
The same famous tapestry hung in the reception-room beyond the bedroom; through the open doors the long narrow room could be seen, full of moving colours as the ladies and gentlemen in attendance on the Queen and on the great nobles in the bedchamber walked to and fro under the flickering torches. Behind them rose the royal dais and canopy and double Chair of State of black velvet fringed with Venice gold. The hum of voices rose
and fell, the crackles of laughter. It was Carnival Sunday, the 9th of February, and a gala day for other reasons; there had been the farewell banquet to Signor di Moretta, the Envoy from Savoy, and the double wedding of French ‘Bastien’, a great favourite with Mary for all his ill tail-wagging fame, to one of her women, Christine Hogg, also of her faithful maid-in-waiting, Margaret Carwood, to John Stewart of Tullymet.
‘So I said to her when I kissed her in the church, “You are my Cousin Meg now,” and she curtsied and said, “All Stewarts arena’ sib to the King” – it seems it’s a proverb.’
‘And a very sound one,’ Darnley growled from the bed. He never could get over Mary’s familiarity with her lesser servants. He did not want to hear about the weddings, nor the banquet to the Savoyard, since Mary had prevented his seeing him as he had wished, although he had a perfectly good reason for it. ‘Can’t a fellow see a man about a horse?’ he muttered.
Mary had not believed that the reason for Darnley’s eagerness for the interview. Signor di Moretta was in close touch with the Papal Nuncio and might well be a secret emissary of Spain, a near ally of Savoy. But she too could not give her true reasons, so she said, ‘Rizzio was Moretta’s servant before he was ours, and Moretta thought the world of him. It wouldn’t have been very comfortable for him to meet you.’
‘Why bring that up? After all this time!’
‘It’s not yet a year since his death. Eleven months to the very day.’
So she still remembered even the exact date! ‘I thought you’d promised to forgive and forget.’
She was silent, and he pushed his comfit box towards her, saying coaxingly, ‘A sweet to my sweeting.’
‘He’s sweating to be sweet!’ murmured Bothwell as he rattled the dice. The more prudent Gordon hastily inquired about the raid Bothwell had led a couple of weeks ago. He had taken a dozen prisoners, among them ‘an Elliot of the best’, but as he was bringing them home, Martin Elliot of Braidley counter-attacked in great force. Bothwell had routed him, but at the cost of several
of his men’s lives, among them a brother of Black Ormiston, and Bothwell in attempting to save him had only by a chance escaped death himself.
‘You’ll never be content till you’re brought home feet foremost,’ grunted Gordon.
‘I’ve done that this autumn and none the worse for it,’ said his brother-in-law indifferently, and discussed Martin Elliot’s surprise tactics with the admiration he was apt to give to an enemy.
The air of the moors was blowing into that corner of the stifling room, so it seemed to Mary, catching fragments of their talk while Darnley continued to make tentative overtures of affection. He seemed extraordinarily nervous tonight; she could not think what was the matter with him. He showed her a letter he had just written to his father in which he told him of his ‘good health which is the sooner come through the good treatment of such as have this good while concealed their good will; I mean of my love the Queen which I assure you has all this while and still does use herself like a natural and loving wife’.
It gave her a pang to see the trusting, boyishly punning words. He could not help it that he was so shallow, and she hated herself for being so deep.
‘Oh Harry!’ she sighed, ‘that is kind of you,’ but rather oddly he too seemed embarrassed. She could not see his expression under the black taffeta mask, and he went on speaking hurriedly, telling her that Crawford was taking the letter within the hour, starting this very night for Glasgow.
At mention of Crawford her friendly impulse chilled. Crawford had made difficulties when she had brought Darnley away from Glasgow as soon as he was well enough to be moved; he had objected to Craigmillar, which Mary had chosen for the rest of his quarantine because of its good air, and Darnley had followed instead Sir James Balfour’s suggestion that they should take an empty house purchased only lately by Balfour’s brother, a Canon of Holyrood.
This was the old Provost’s house at Kirk o’ Field, about half a mile from Holyrood. The church of St Mary in the Fields had
fallen into ruin, but the houses round were stately. Hamilton House, belonging to the Duke of Châtelherault, stood within a stone’s throw of the Provost’s house, and Douglas House on the other side; the nearest was the new Provost’s house, also owned by the convenient Canon, and joined by a gallery and cellars to the old Provost’s house The air was high and out of range of the noise and smells of the city; behind the house were gardens and an orchard, just within the city wall that had been built after Flodden to defend the capital; in, this wall was a postern gate through which one could pass direct into the open country.
Mary had furnished the house sumptuously from the Holyrood plenishings, and had a small bed in green and gold put up for her own use in the little room below Darnley’s bedroom, where she had slept most of this last week because Darnley had been so absurdly eager that they should be under one roof again. The house was very suitable for the period of quarantine, and her only objection to it was its owner, for Sir James Balfour enjoyed the reputation of the worst man in Scotland. Years ago he had been implicated in the murder of Cardinal Beton, and rowed in the same galley with John Knox on that account, but in spite of this recommendation the preacher had no good to say of him. He had become a Catholic when Darnley’s brief ascendancy looked like putting the Catholics in power, and Mary could only wonder uneasily as to how far he was in Darnley’s counsels and in touch with the secret agents of the Catholic League.
But the house was convenient; so near Holyrood that she and her Court could ride down in gala dress after the banquet given to Moretta for a couple of hours’ visit to Darnley, and now back again to the Palace at eleven o’clock for the wedding dance she was giving for the two newly married couples.
Bothwell’s page, Paris, was now in her service, for it amused her to hear him talk in French of Paris and his experiences as a gutter-student at the Sorbonne. He brought her a message at this moment from Lethington to say that the ball was ready to start. She sprang up gladly and bade Darnley goodnight, but to her astonishment he was utterly disconcerted at her leaving him. Why should she go out
in the middle of a bitter February night just to please the servants? She flashed out that Carwood had been a deal more than that when she had helped them escape from Holyrood.
There again! She didn’t seem able to get away from the thought of Rizzio’s murder. And she had promised to spend the night here, his last night of quarantine: James and Lethington and Bothwell had all been going to stay and escort them back to Holyrood in state early tomorrow morning, and now it had all fallen through, so he cried in angry complaint. Lethington had found that he had to stay in Edinburgh, for no very clear reason; and James had hurried out of the city that morning, not even waiting to attend Moretta’s farewell banquet, to the Envoy’s great offence. And now Mary would not stay either; she would go to the ball with Bothwell and the other lords in attendance on her, she would dance with them and never think of him lying here sick, all alone except for a few servants.
What was all the fuss about? They would all be back here early tomorrow morning, she reminded him, and take him back to Holyrood with them.
He caught at her hand and she tried to take it away. Bothwell had risen from the dicing-table and was coming towards them; she felt the blood rushing to her face in furious disgust that he should see Darnley holding her hand. ‘Let go,’ she commanded, and pulled, but he held her so fast that he tugged off one of her rings.
‘There,’ she said, trying to laugh off her anger and his absurd importunity, ‘I’ll leave it with you as a pledge that we’ll be back here at dawn tomorrow, and then we’ll all ride back to Holyrood on those new great horses you’ve been longing to try.’
But the mention of the horses seemed to agitate him worse than ever. ‘I dare say I shan’t be well enough to ride after all,’ he said. ‘I know I shan’t be if you fret me like this.’
She gave a despairing sigh. What should she do? Had she better stay after all? But Bothwell picked up her cloak and put it round her shoulders. ‘They are all waiting,’ he said.
‘Yes, you’ll heed him!’ – Darnley’s voice was strident – ‘you never heed me.’
She could stand no more. Followed by Bothwell and the other two lords, she passed into the reception-room and all the bright company streamed out after her down the spiral staircase. They went out into the cold dark where the waiting servants had been standing by the burning braziers to keep warm, stamping their feet on the freezing slush, and now ran here and there to fetch the horses for their lords and ladies. Voices called and answered, the horses neighed and tramped, clanking their harness. The Queen stood just within the doorway, lifting her face to the wind after that breathless crowded air, watching the torches throw their tossing yellow glare on the black-shadowed confusion. Paris brought up Black Agnes to the door. Bothwell lifted Mary up into the saddle before she could move forward into the muddy snow.
He rode beside her slowly on into the dark. She looked back at the old Provost’s house; there were lines of light at the edges of the curtains in Darnley’s room and in the gallery where some of his servants slept. The new Provost’s house, connected with the old by this gallery, was all dark, as were the other houses near. Only one light showed in a window at a little distance; she asked which it was, and was told Hamilton House.
They came out of the darkness and the trodden snow into the wedding ball at Holyrood, some of the company in fancy dress and most of them in masks. The two brides, Christine and Margaret, ran forward to greet their mistress; curtsying to her in the bridal dresses that she had given them, they exclaimed how happy they were that she had come.
‘And I too,’ she cried, catching a hand of each. Her furred cloak fell from her shoulders and all the brightness of her white and gold shone out: her eyes were lit with relief and happiness, she looked like the flare of some unearthly candle. ‘I must dance for joy,’ she laughed, and a tall masked figure in black velvet and silver led her out to the Dance Royal of the Galliard. Bold reddish-brown eyes looked down at her through the slits in the black silk. What was in the heart of this man beside her, with whom she could speak – and write – yes, and think – as she had never done with any other human being, yet who had never made love to her since that night
just over a year ago, when she had stopped him with the despairing cry that she was with child by Darnley?
She danced with the two bridegrooms, she danced with the chief guests, she lost herself in this world of music and flowing movement and shifting lights and colours. ‘I wish I were a burn on the hillside,’ she said, ‘to dance for ever.’
‘For ever’ lasted an hour. A little after midnight Paris came and whispered to her that the lords Bothwell and Traquair desired a private word with her. She said goodnight and kissed the brides, and left for her own apartments.
There awaiting her were the two lords in charge of her bodyguard, for Bothwell commanded the horse and Traquair the foot. They were still in their gala dress and carried their masks. Their news was rather absurdly vague; a servant of Darnley’s called Sandy Durham had just lately been discharged from his service (because, it was said, he had set his own bed on fire!), and it was now known that he had had a long talk with the Lord James very early that morning. Bothwell believed that this gave the clue to James’ sudden departure from Edinburgh just after that interview, rather than its ostensible reason, his wife’s pregnancy.
‘James’ absences are apt to be pregnant,’ he remarked.
There were other danger signs. Lennox had moved from Glasgow to Linlithgow, less than twenty miles away; Kerr of Fawdonside, who had threatened and nearly injured the Queen with his pistol, and whom she refused to pardon with the rest of Rizzio’s murderers, was lurking in the countryside and had boasted that there would soon be a change at Court and himself back in favour. And Bothwell did not like the extraordinary insistence of Darnley’s on the Queen staying that night at Kirk o’ Field. He urged her not to go back there early tomorrow morning to escort him here to Holyrood. Traquair added his entreaties. They were appointing extra guards round Holyrood; let her stay here under their eye for the present till they could discover if indeed anything definite threatened her. He went off to see to the guards, leaving Bothwell still arguing with her, or rather commanding.