The Fugitive Queen (21 page)

“I'm leaving! I'm going to friends. I'll see you before long!” Whitely shouted. Then he spurred his unfortunate mount, plunged into a canter, and clattered off through the gatehouse, the mule trailing resentfully after.

“I see no reason why this should make any difference,” Tobias said to me. “I regret it, but perhaps after all it would be easier for me not to have my own cousin as my steward. May I ride with Mistress Pen on the way to Bolton, and talk with her?”

“Provided you don't talk of love,” I said.

 • • • 

We reached Bolton Castle three hours later. I left Ryder and Dodd at Tyesdale to guard Sybil and Meg, who were also remaining there, but the rest came with me, Fran on Brockley's pillion.
As we dismounted in the courtyard, Sir Francis came hurrying out, looking harassed.

“Dear God, I'm thankful to see you, Mistress Seton. I can do nothing with the Lady Mary. Mistress Stannard and Mistress Mason, you're welcome, too. She likes you both; you may be able to help. Go in, go straight to her. Tobias, go to my office—my correspondence is falling behind and I have a report to dictate, to be sent to Queen Elizabeth . . .”

“But what's wrong? Is my lady ill?” Seton was alarmed.

“Yes, but it's more than that!” I could never have imagined that Sir Francis Knollys, that grave and dignified gentleman, could sound so distracted. “Someone has told her something she is not supposed to know,” he said. “She came back from the hawking party and found a message in her workbox. One of the local girls who waits on her saw her find it and read it, and reported it to me. She's paid extra for looking out for such things. It was reading the message that made Lady Mary fall into such a frenzy. Go to her, go to her! She is frantic and she is suffering from that pain in her side again and my physician can find no cause . . .”

Mary Seton picked up her riding skirt and ran, with Pen and myself on her heels. We dashed through the main door, up two flights of stairs, and arrived headlong at Mary Stuart's suite. The guards on duty outside recognized us and let us pass. Mary was lying on her bed. A small dog was whimpering on the coverlet and one of the local girls Knollys had mentioned, possibly the very one who had spied on her, was vainly imploring Mary to drink this tisane, madam, please; it has valerian to soothe your nerves and eastern poppy for the pain . . .

Mary, her face flushed and blotchy with crying, was pushing her away and exclaiming fretfully that she could not bear the smell or the taste and that no tisanes on earth could heal her troubles and why would no one leave her alone to weep in peace? The girl looked thankful to see us.

“Thank you, my dear. We'll take over now,” said Mary Seton, gently taking the cup. Mary heaved herself up on her pillow and said: “Oh, my dear Seton! Are you better? You find me in despair and so very glad to have you back. And Mistress Stannard, and
Penelope! I am sorry for such a poor welcome. Oh dear. Oh dear.”

She rolled over, turned her back on us, buried her face in the pillow, and dissolved into helpless weeping while the small dog sat up on its hindquarters and started to howl.

We spent the next hour working on Mary, as grooms sometimes work on an exhausted and upset horse. Seton sent the maid for perfumed water and a sponge, coaxed Mary into turning over to have her forehead laved, and despatched Pen to commandeer mulled wine and egg custard. Pen sensibly came back not only with sustenance for Mary, but also with a bowl of meat for the dog, which quietened its whimpering. Seton coaxed wine and custard into the ex–Queen of Scotland, told the girl to take away the used dishes, and then she and I together gave Mary a massage. Pen found a lute on a window seat and played some soft music.

By the time we had finished, we were worn-out but Mary was much restored. Seton drew the thin coverlet over her, and said: “And now, tell us what the trouble is. My dearest lady, please tell us. Troubles grow smaller when they are shared.”

“There's no mystery!” Mary sighed. “Why should I make a mystery of such things? I have known for more than a month that my half brother Moray meant to send Queen Elizabeth anything he could find that would injure my good name. I heard—in June—that he had found some letters of mine and meant to send them to her, but I write so many letters and I never wrote one with any harm in it that I could remember! I was not anxious, not then . . .”

“And now?” I said.

“For weeks, that was all I knew,” said Mary, with a trace of petulance. “Then, a day or two ago, a messenger from Cecil to my half brother stayed here, on his way north; not that anyone told me of it then! I am kept mewed up in these rooms, a captive bird, and know hardly anything of who comes to the castle or leaves it or where they are going! Sir Francis would have me kept from all knowledge as though I were blindfolded, with plugs of wax in my ears! But oh,
this
knowledge! Sweet Virgin . . .when I
came back from hawking and wanted to take up my embroidery, I opened my workbox and I found . . .I found . . .!”

She began to cry again. “The workbox is in the other room,” she said. “On the window seat. Mistress Stannard . . .”

I fetched it. Mary took it distastefully, as though it might dirty her slender white fingers, opened it, and between finger and thumb, withdrew a folded sheet of paper. She looked at it with tearful loathing and then held it out, uncertainly, halfway between Seton and me. “It is so easy to doctor innocent letters or misinterpret them.” She sobbed as she spoke. “There was no harm meant, no harm, but . . .”

My dear madam,
said the letter,
a courier from Sir William Cecil to your brother Moray in Scotland rested here last night and I searched his baggage, and found the message he was carrying. I hadn't time to copy it all out, but it said that Cecil was pleased with the letters which Moray had sent to him and in particular with some of the phrases in the longest letter, this being one which, as Cecil understands it, was sent by yourself, madam, to James Hepburn of Bothwell just before your husband's unhappy death.

Madam, I myself am sure that the letter was forged or written by someone else, or that the phrases have some harmless meaning. I am certain of you. But these are among the phrases.

 . . . We are coupled with two false races; let the devil sunder us, and God knit us together forever for the most faithful couple that ever was united . . .

and

 . . . I remit myself altogether to your will. Send me word what I shall do and whatever shall be the outcome, I will obey you.

and

 . . . seeking to obey you, my dear love, I spare neither honor, conscience, hazard, nor greatness.

Also, there is in the letter (so Cecil says) a warning that once read, it should be burned, for it is over-dangerous.

Madam, take care, for if these phrases are read out at any inquiry, I fear they could do damage. You should be on your guard. T

“Who's T?” I asked. “That's not the initial of either of the Douglases.” No one answered. A disagreeable thought popped
into my head. “It isn't Tobias Littleton is it, by any chance?” I inquired.

“Tobias!” Pen gasped. “Oh no! It couldn't be!”

Seton, who was once more sponging Mary's forehead, paused involuntarily and I thought:
Oh yes, it could be. I knew straightaway that he was under her spell. It could be.

“It is, isn't it?” I said.

“And why not?” Mary sat up sharply, knocking Seton's hand away just as Seton was about to resume her ministrations. Her tears had subsided. “Is it a sin to help a beleaguered woman, falsely accused and denied knowledge of what is being said and plotted behind her back? Tobias is a good friend to me! Yes, it's Master Littleton! Why
not
? Yes, I
do
know he is Catholic, though he has not told Sir Francis so. Tobias has been kind to me. He believes in me, God bless him. He wishes to help me. He must have put this in my workbox just before we all went off to the hawking. But you see how I am hounded? My words are to be twisted to use against me; my innocent letters turned into proof that I am a monster. I . . .”

“What did you intend the phrases to mean?” I asked. I spoke very mildly, but Mary's golden-brown eyes flashed such fury at me that I took an involuntary step back.

“Have they turned you against me already, my sweet Ursula? Yes, they were love letters. I admit it; Bothwell stole my heart in my husband's lifetime. He was all that Henry Darnley was not: capable, loyal to me—or so I thought then—a man I could lean on. I wrote to him, I confess it, as women in love will write. He was then wed to Jean Gordon, and I to Henry Darnley, but he was planning to have his marriage set aside and I hoped that mine too would soon end . . .”

“You were hoping for an annulment, I take it?” I said. There was a chilly feeling in the pit of my stomach. But she had presented me with the opportunity and I must take it. “I suppose it would be easy enough,” I said in brisk tones. “You and Darnley were cousins and I believe you had no papal dispensation to marry.”

It was an old trick, which I learned from Gerald long ago. He
used it to help him discover things to the discredit of the clerks and treasury keepers he wanted to blackmail into lending their keys. “If you want someone to tell you something and they won't answer a direct question, then pretend you know the answer and put it to them as a statement. Seven times out of ten, they'll correct you, and then you'll have the truth.”

I did it instinctively, pitying her, moved by her, detesting myself, but knowing that I must. And Gerald was right. It worked.

“Not an annulment,” Mary said. “How could I do that? It would have made our son a bastard! No, it had to be some other way. A rebellion by my nobles, perhaps—Darnley might fall in a battle. Or a charge of treason. When my poor secretary David Riccio was killed almost in front of me while my son was still in my womb, the shock could have killed us both. I suppose that would count as treason. But who can say which way a trial will go? I didn't know what to do. I didn't arrange my own husband's death! That is what Cecil wants to prove but it's a lie—a stupid, wicked lie! How could I? The man I had slept with, cared for in illness? Besides, a woman can be burned for that.” She shuddered, and I saw real terror in her eyes. “The mob in Edinburgh thought I
had
arranged it; they came raging round the place where I was, screaming,
Burn the whore!
I was so frightened . . .”

“You must have been,” I said sympathetically.
Please,
I said within myself,
please return me the right answers. I don't want to do this. Don't disappoint me. Say what I want to hear.

I had to go on with it. It was required of me. “It must have been horrifying—when the mob accused you, and earlier, when you were still wondering how to end your marriage. How
did
you decide to do it?”

The odious answer was already in my mind. I could only hope that Mary wouldn't confirm it. I prayed she would contradict it, but if it were true, I didn't want her to admit it. In her place, I wouldn't have done.

But she looked at me in surprise, as though taking it for granted that I already understood, and said, “Why, I put it in my nobles' hands, in Bothwell's hands, and bade them see to it. They
were men; they would know what was best to do. That was all. I was only saying to James that I hoped our marriages would end soon so that we could wed each other—and that meanwhile I would take whatever advice he gave me—that I already saw myself as his wife and felt bound to be obedient to him as I would have to be once we were married. That was all! But who will believe me, whatever I say? I am a queen anointed; I will not testify or be questioned—what wise advice that was!—but what difference will it make? Others will speak evil of me and who will prevent them?”

She began to wail anew, and when Seton tried to put her arms around her to comfort her, cried out that the pain in her side had begun again. Seton glanced over her shoulder at me and with a movement of her head, signaled that Pen and I should go.

“Not a word,” I said as we went through the outer chamber. “Not until we're private.”

Brockley was hovering outside, waiting to tell me that we had been given a different suite of rooms from last time, and that he would show me the way. Dale was there, he said. We followed him to the rooms, and once inside, I closed the door, telling the Brockleys to stay.

“You have always been privy to my secrets,” I said. “We have discovered that Tobias Littleton has been spying for Mary Stuart and reading other people's letters for her benefit. It's come as a shock.” I looked at the silent Pen and saw from her white face how much of a shock it actually was. “Sit down, Pen,” I said.

“I can't, I
won't,
believe he meant any harm!” said Pen.

“I think you must,” I said soberly, and sadly. I had more on my mind than Tobias. The coldness in my guts was worse now, like an icy hand, squeezing them. Mary's spell was broken. I had looked at her blotchy face and angry eyes and seen not pathos but a tigress. I knew what had happened, as clearly as though I had been inside Mary's mind. I had Cecil's answer for him now.

She had told her nobles in general, and Bothwell in particular, that she wished to be rid of her marriage, by some means that would not make her son illegitimate. And then she had taken up her embroidery needle and gone on with her delicate stitching,
leaving it to the important, clever, ruthless men of her court, the men who would know what to do just because they were men, to rescue her from Darnley, by whatever means seemed best to them.

They were the men who had murdered her secretary David Riccio. They were violent by nature. They turned to murder without hesitation. They would turn to it first, before the legal processes of treason or even the device of a carelessly swung sword in a battle-line. She could not have been surprised when they employed it to deal with Darnley. But she would never admit to herself that she had known in advance what they would do. She would hide behind the fact that she had given them no specific orders. They should have the blood, the gunpowder on their hands; she, sweet, feminine Mary, would keep her innocence, her right to wide-eyed horror. And, of her own choice, she had married Bothwell, knowing what he had done.