The Queen's Lady (32 page)

Hours later, he at last returned his son to the young woman charged to nurse him and, with Gavin at his side, rode to request an audience with Queen Elizabeth.

He was startled when he was immediately granted an audience in her privy chamber.

“I will tell you, first, that your bold escape is being quite romanticized across the countryside,” she said in amusement.

He shrugged. “My escape was not so bold. I was helped, and from an unexpected quarter.”

“So I imagine. I think that we sovereigns, with the strength of our blood, are loath to bring harm to others.” She turned away from him, thoughtful. “I know that my sister, Mary Tudor, cried for hours when her highest advisors and council demanded that she execute Lady Jane Grey. There is no pain such as that we face too often, fighting those closest to us…who threaten to become us.”

“You still have yet to meet Mary of Scotland,” he reminded her.

“Her situation is dire, I am told.”

He exhaled. “I believe that she rues her marriage, Your Grace.”

“You know nothing of what has transpired, do you?” she asked gently.

His heart fell. “My Lady Gwenyth?”

“I should have kept her here.”

His heart seemed to reverse itself and leapt into his throat.

“She is well, so comes the news, but word is very confused.”

“I beg of you, tell me all of it.”

“Indeed, I must,” Elizabeth said gravely.

 

G
WENYTH MOVED ABOUT
the palace the next morning, silently and as unobtrusively as possible, though the rebels had taken such strong control that they didn't mind the ladies moving about, ostensibly serving the needs of their queen.

She learned that Father Black, a Catholic priest, had fallen prey to the murderers, as well, but that the Lairds Huntly and Bothwell, also intended victims, had managed to escape. Then she ducked into a doorway, listening as two of Ruthven's followers stood guard, and laughed and joked about their easy success.

“I hear the queen will be taken to Stirling, there to be held 'til the babe is born. No doubt she will be happy enough,” said one.

“Oh, aye, with her music and embroidery…and she can tend her child and hunt in the fields while the good king rules the country.” He laughed as he spoke.

“Darnley? Already he shows signs of remorse and wavering—and fear,” said the first man.

“He'll not rule the country. Those lairds with something between their ears will do so in his name.”

“The queen could well die from this ill treatment,” the first man said.

“If so, Darnley has royal blood enough. He'll be a decent figurehead. And God knows, he loves fornication enough to quickly produce an heir elsewhere.”

Armed with her knowledge, Gwenyth returned to the queen's side where, joined by several of the others, including Lady Huntly, who was now in the queen's service, she explained what she knew of the plot.

“I have to escape,” the queen said. “I must. And then those who honor me must call up the countryside, and we will ride back into Edinburgh in triumph.”

“Escape first,” Lady Huntly whispered.

Gwenyth was silent, worried. The attack on the queen had been part of a well-planned and very dangerous conspiracy. She did not think they would be easily defeated.

“Gwenyth?” Queen Mary said.

Gwenyth blinked, having become lost in her thoughts.

“You must pay heed,” Lady Huntly warned her.

Gwenyth did. She argued firmly against any notion of the queen attempting escape via a bedsheet ladder, pointing out that not only did her condition make it impossible, she would be seen from the rooms above or in an adjacent tower, or noticed by a guard below. “Someone must be convinced to help us, someone from within the fold of conspirators,” she said.

The queen, with remarkable bravado, spoke up. “I know exactly who,” she said bitterly.

In the morning, Darnley returned to his wife's room. The ladies instantly departed to the chamber beyond, but one of the Marys stayed with her ear to the hallway door to listen for sounds of approaching danger, while the others eavesdropped, ears to the wall.

Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, was nearly in tears. He spoke in choked words about his distress. “Mary, there was not to have been murder,” he said.

Gwenyth couldn't see the queen, yet she knew to what proportion Mary's hatred for her husband had grown; none of this could have happened without his participation. But the queen's words were gentle as she said that she forgave him. Then she talked about the possibility that he might find himself a prisoner, as well, and apparently she convinced him that they were both being used terribly and in an ungodly manner by certain overly ambitious lords who were eager to achieve power.

Later in the day, when Darnley led in the lairds who had so hideously attacked her, she spoke as compellingly as she had with her husband, assuring them all that they would be pardoned.

At that point, word came that James Stewart had arrived at Holyrood.

“My brother is here?” the queen demanded, evidently pleased.

Gwenyth was not so sanguine. James had, after all, attempted to rise against her. But it seemed that Mary was remembering only that James had been there to help her when she had first come to Scotland, so young and with so little knowledge of affairs in her country.

But when she saw James and threw herself into his arms, declaring that none of the horrors could have occurred had he been with her, he had stern words for her. Though Gwenyth could not hear, she watched Mary's face, and saw her fury and her indignation rise.

Then, removing the focus from affairs of state, she screamed out in sudden pain that she had gone into labor and begged that a midwife be sent for, which was quickly done.

Mary requested that the room be cleared of everyone but her ladies, and as soon as the others were gone, she stopped her playacting and carefully outlined their options.

That night, the escape was put into action.

At midnight Darnley came, and together, he and the queen slipped down the privy staircase by which the murderers had gained entrance to her supper party. Her French servants had been warned earlier of the escape, and they escorted her secretly through the hallways.

Gwenyth was on guard at the castle door when the queen and Darnley quit Holyrood, and she quickly led them past the cemetery beside the Abbey. There was a painful moment when the queen stopped beside a freshly dug grave—Riccio's, Gwenyth was certain—and Darnley paled, then began an apology to the queen.

“Shh,” Gwenyth warned. “You must away now, no time for regrets, Your Grace.”

Outside the abbey, others, forewarned, were waiting. Mary mounted behind Erskine, and there was a horse for Darnley, as well as one for Gwenyth.

The ride through the night began, their plan being to reach Dunbar Castle. Gwenyth understood ever more deeply why the queen had come to so loathe her husband. He was in terror, now that he had turned back to her, that they would be caught by the rebels he had just betrayed, and he brutally urged the horses on.

“Have pity, my husband, for my condition,” the queen pleaded.

“If that babe dies, we can have others,” he replied carelessly. “Come on!”

They rode hard for five long hours and finally reached Dunbar. There, at last, the queen was able to rest.

Gwenyth, too, fell into bed, exhausted, but she couldn't sleep. She dozed and awoke repeatedly through the night. But even in her dreams, she could hear Lord Darnley, Henry Stewart, self-imagined King of Scotland.
If that babe dies, we can have others.

Nay, if that babe died…

He would never be a royal father. Not even for country or duty would Mary ever allow the man near her again.

She came fully awake, and she wept. She longed for her own child, and for the comforting arms of his father, a man who did not falter or waver, who would never rise in rebellion, then cry and beg for reprieve.

She lay there, shaking, aching, knowing a greater loneliness than she had ever imagined possible.

Mary had escaped. Already Laird Gordon, the pardoned eldest son of the Lord Gordon who had done battle against the queen, and James Hepburn, Laird Bothwell, were already out rousing the countryside, without even having paused to sleep.

They were triumphant, and she should be grateful. They might have all died in the frenzy of the attack or been captured and killed in the escape. And she
was
grateful, she told herself. It was just that she was also…

Lonely.

 

B
OTHWELL AND
H
UNTLY FULFILLED
their duty to their queen with admirable speed.

They gathered a force of eight thousand men within a matter of days, although the queen's own proclamation, asking that the inhabitants of the area surrounding Dunbar Castle meet her at Haddington with eight days' provisions, certainly helped swell the numbers.

At the end of March, Mary, heavy with child, rode at the head of the troops, Darnley at her side, a very unhappy man. They heard, even as they rode, that the rebel leaders had deserted Edinburgh, aware that they had been betrayed by Darnley and in fear for their own lives.

As she had promised, Mary entered Edinburgh victoriously.

Gwenyth was relieved that Mary was not forced into battle, and that, even though the rebels deserved to be executed for murder, most of them had fled.

She was equally pleased—though rumor persisted that his name had been signed to a pact among the conspirators—that the events had somehow brought about Mary's determination to forgive her brother James.

And if James was forgiven, Gwenyth thought, then clearly the queen would have to pardon Rowan, as well.

She had not received so much as a letter from him in so long now that there were times when she was afraid she would not know him. Then she would be flooded with anguish, certain that she could never forget him, so deeply did she love him.

Their first days after returning to Edinburgh were filled with both emotion and activity.

One of Mary's first passions was to see that David Riccio was dug up from his impromptu grave and given a proper Catholic funeral. The next was the matter of dealing with her nobles, rewarding those who had so staunchly stood for her, punishing those who had betrayed her. Several of the underlings of the conspirators were arrested and condemned to death.

In addition, Mary was deeply worried about the birth of her child.

“It breaks my heart that my babe will enter a world in turmoil,” she said, pacing her room.

“That is why you are kind to Laird Darnley?” Mary Fleming whispered. “So your babe will know at least
some
harmony in life?”

“There will be no question of anything awry between us until after the child is born. There will be no question, ever, that my child is legitimate, the heir to the throne,” Mary said, though her absolute loathing for her husband was clearly apparent in her face.

But Gwenyth knew her well. Mary would play the part of the good wife until the child was born. Gwenyth understood, the queen's absolute love for her unborn child and the protective instinct she was feeling. And she meant to speak to the queen as soon as possible regarding Rowan and her own sweet babe, Daniel.

Her chance came a few days later. Mary, having at last reconciled with James Stewart, Argyle, Huntly and many others, felt she had regained control of her world. And when she sat at last, satisfied, daring to take some time alone to work on the tiny garments she was sewing for her child, Gwenyth at last managed to speak to her.

“What of Laird Rowan?”

To her amazement, the queen stared at her with bitter eyes. “What of him?”

“Well, you have taken Laird James back into your confidence…”

Mary rose. “Speak not to me about that man. My trials and tribulations began in earnest the minute he was freed. I was a fool!”

Gwenyth gasped and rose, both stunned and dismayed. “Mary! How can you speak against him so? He escaped to England. He—”

“How do I know that? I was merciful and urged his escape, and then murder was done in my very chamber.” Mary's eyes narrowed. “Don't be a fool. I have learned a great deal about men, and I warned you once not to fall in love with him.”

They were alone. And Gwenyth was so furious and heartsick that she dared speak her mind clearly. “You warned me…and then you fell head over heels in love with a man such as Darnley!”

“I am the queen. I had to have a proper husband.”

“But he was
not
proper. Elizabeth—”

“Elizabeth is conniving, double-faced, and—evil! She sent him here. She planned for him to ingratiate himself, for me to marry him, so she could then force an outcry to deny me my right to the English crown!”