Elizabeth (22 page)

“I do my best,” Cecil answered pleasantly. “I serve an exacting mistress, my Lord, who spares neither herself nor her servants. The Queen of England expects efficiency; I try to see that she receives it from me at least.”

“She is very fortunate,” Moray said sourly. The story of his reception and the rebukes she had administered had travelled through Europe, thanks to the French Ambassador; Moray could never forgive her for that deliberate humiliation, but he hated her more for the acidity she showed him when they were alone. He abhorred her; he particularly abhorred his position as an exile in her country, and he also disliked the country and the people. He hated the weather, the laxity in speech and morals which was evident everywhere among all classes of society; there was a hotch-potch of religious observance, differing in every parish, an over-powerful middle class and an aristocracy devoted to the flesh-pots and so effeminized by their Queen's pernicious vanity and influence that he swore he could hardly tell the men from the women. He longed, with almost physical pain, for the clean, bleak air of Scotland. But he had not yet found a compromise with his half-sister Mary.

“I wish to God the Queen of Scots showed the good sense of Queen Elizabeth,” he said. “But then she would never have married that cur and found herself in her present position; at the cur's mercy, without my support and the support of my friends whom she drove out of the country!”

“We hear that she is pregnant,” Cecil remarked. That news had prompted him to invite this unprepossessing Scot to Nonsuch for a private talk and a reassessment of the situation.

Moray nodded.

“She is, and God knows what the offspring of such a match will be; that is if the rumours are untrue and the child
is
Darnley's.”

The pale eyes narrowed for a second.

“What rumours, my Lord?”

“If you haven't heard them,” Moray said bitterly, “I may as well repeat them in their less lewd form. My half-sister is very fond of music; it's a habit which always distressed me, but it was the result of her education in France. She kept her private musician and two years ago she engaged an Italian as one of her singers. His name was Rizzio; you never saw an uglier creature, crooked as a stick and sly as a rat. I needn't tell you that my Lord Darnley singled him out for special attention. The Queen had lost all her powers of judgment or even decorum in those early days; whoever my Lord Darnley favoured was immediately admitted into her circle.”

“Am I correct,” Cecil interrupted, “if I say that Queen Mary has a secretary called Rizzio?”

“The same man,” Moray said grimly. “He has insinuated himself so far with her that she has placed him in that office, and shows him such tokens of friendship that my Lord her husband now hates him as heartily as he once liked him.”

“And the Queen, your sister, now dislikes her husband as much as she once loved him, I hear,” Cecil said.

“Providence has punished her,” Moray said with satisfaction. “She sees him at last as all the things I warned her; a drunken lecher without respect for God or man. I hear he has treated her shamefully in spite of the child.”

His tone implied that whatever Mary was suffering, it was no more than she deserved for rejecting his advice.

“Then she should be ready to recall you, my Lord,” Cecil suggested.

“Ha!” Moray gave a short, angry laugh. “You misjudge my sister if you imagine that policy plays any part in her government! She is as vindictive against me and the other Protestant Lords as ever—adamant against our returning to Scotland. She listens to nobody and nothing now but the dictates of her own intemperate nature and the advice of that Italian snake. Maitland of Lethington was no friend of mine but even he has no influence over her any more. So now the time has come for other methods. And that's why I have come to you, Sir William, because I believe that you are friendly to us, and that you should know what is going to be done.”

“I'm flattered.” Cecil betrayed no excitement; he folded his hands calmly. “What
is
going to be done?” he asked.

“We've been in contact with Darnley,” Moray said abruptly, “or rather he has been in contact with us. Like all curs he wants someone else to bite his enemy for him. He has let it be known that he is prepared to abandon the Queen and join with us. His price is the removal of David Rizzio and his own proclamation as King of Scotland. Our friends in Edinburgh—and by God they've grown in the past year—are prepared to carry out the business and restrain the Queen until I return to Scotland. I need hardly assure you that neither she nor Darnley will be allowed absolute authority; my sister may be permitted limited powers as Queen—he will be lucky if he remains as he is.”

“My congratulations,” Cecil said. “When you speak of the removal of Rizzio, I presume that you intend to dispose of the Catholic faction in Scotland at the same time and establish the power of the Protestant nobility once and for all.”

“We do,” Moray said. “My first action will be to insist that my sister's child shall be baptized in the Protestant rite.”

“It would have to be, if it is ever to succeed to the throne of England,” Cecil murmured.

The child was an insuperable barrier to Moray's ambition to seize the throne from Mary; Mary was going to be deposed, he was sure of that in spite of Moray's empty words about a limited power. They were going to kill Rizzio and “restrain” her, and then he felt suddenly quite certain that when Moray had returned and established his own power, Mary would be quietly poisoned before her child was born.

“I must tell the Queen,” he said. “But I shall put less emphasis on the measures which you intend to take against your sister, even though they are temporary, of course. The Queen shall be told of Rizzio's removal and your return, and I know she will give the plan her blessing. Personally, I shall pray for its success. Keep in touch, my Lord, keep in close touch.”

“You shall know the time as soon as I do,” Moray promised. They shook hands, and Cecil came to the door with him. As soon as the Earl had gone down the corridor, he went immediately to the Queen's apartments.

“You don't suppose,” Elizabeth said frowning, “that they would do any injury to the Queen herself?”

Cecil shook his head. “Oh, no, Madam, you needn't fear that. Once her favourite is removed and her brother and the rest are back she will simply have her power curtailed, that's all. And if Moray establishes the Protestant party in supreme power and rears the Queen's child in the true religion, most of our dangers will be over.”

“I don't trust that sour Scot. Bastard by birth and by nature—that's my opinion of him. I believe he'd like to kill Queen Mary, only of course he wouldn't dare. He knows, doesn't he, Cecil, that whatever my enmity towards her, I wouldn't agree to a sovereign being put to death by subjects? You made that clear, didn't you?”

“Without possibility of doubt, Madam,” Cecil said. “Rizzio will be removed, as he described it; there will be a bloodless revolution and reconstruction of power, and the Queen will emerge from it unharmed; and harmless to you, which is the main point.”

The Queen walked away from him and looked out of the window. The park at Nonsuch was wilder, less formalized than the gardens of her other Palaces. It was still only an elaborate hunting lodge. She had once mentioned a stay at Nonsuch as part of the programme mapped out for that meeting between her and Mary which was never intended to take place. She knew how her cousin enjoyed the chase, she could see the words in her own letter, written so many many months ago; the game at Nonsuch was the most plentiful in England.…

“It is now February,” she said suddenly. “When will this thing be done?”

“I should think by next month,” Cecil answered. He stood waiting for his dismissal; after a few moments he coughed to remind her that he was still there.

“Thank God,” Elizabeth said abruptly, “that I have no brother and no husband. You may leave me, Cecil.”

A supper party had been arranged in the Scots Queen's private cabinet for the evening of Saturday, March 9th, 1566, and Mary had been in good spirits all day, as excited by the prospect of a convivial evening as if she were going to a sumptuous party. She had refused to allow Darnley to join her. Was it really possible that only a few months ago she had been incapable of denying him anything, and now he had only to make a request however trivial and she instinctively objected …? Tonight she intended to enjoy herself, the sight of Darnley was anathema to her, the good-looking face she had so often caressed and admired was only a smooth mask, lit by the cunning blue eyes. When they weren't narrowed with ill-temper or heavy with the onset of disgusting bouts of vice, they were bleared with drunkenness. Everything which had first attracted her now repulsed and frightened and irritated her until she could hardly bear to look at him or sense his presence in a room.

He had struck her and cursed her and betrayed her with common prostitutes; when she refused his outrageous demands for lands or money or vengeance against someone driven to insult him, he had whined and cajoled and then bullied her until she fled from him and locked herself weeping in her own room. Her pregnancy had weakened her; she was sick and nervous and apt to cry very easily. Without the kindness and the understanding of her secretary, David Rizzio, Mary felt she would have lost her mind. He was always so calm, a curious attribute for a member of the ebullient Italian race; he had a rare facility for finding the humour in a situation, however irksome it appeared, and turning her despair into smiles. Above all, he was gentle and she took refuge in that most precious quality, so different from her husband's brutal hectoring. Rizzio was a friend rather than a servant; he was ugly, but he had the expressive brown eyes of his race, and they gazed at her with the soft adoration of a faithful dog. If he was less intelligent, less manly, coarser in manner than befitted a man in his position, Mary was too emotionally disturbed to be able to judge either Rizzio, or the situation she had created, in its true perspective. She was desperately unhappy and desperately in need of solace from the ruin of her personal life, a ruin for which she blamed herself with hysterical despair. She clung to the Italian with fanatical obstinacy; she paid him extravagant marks of favour, and so far forgot her dignity as to express her feelings for him in her letters to her French relatives. These feelings were devoid of the sexuality of which her enemies accused her. Her experience with Darnley had refrigerated Mary's instincts to the point where they were permanently damaged. The essence of her dependence upon a man of such inferior quality and appearance was the absence of physical attraction.

She had worked hard that March day, receiving petitioners in the Palace Great Hall, huddled in her fur cloaks and rugs in the freezing, vaulted chamber as tall and cold as a cathedral. She had spent a trying hour and a half with Lethington whom she no longer trusted because he was suspected of supporting her treacherous brother's rebellion. The old intimacy was gone; it was a strain to talk to the man she had once counted her friend and to see him watching her with a cynical half-smile and answering her with cool reserve. She had disappointed Lethington, and he had not forgiven her. She was too proud to follow her impulse and burst into tears and admit it and beg him to help her. The Lords Morton and Lindsay were at Holyrood, and their presence made her uneasy. They were not friendly to her, nor to Darnley; she could only suppose their loyalty lay with the brother she had exiled and was refusing to recall because she did not trust him either and knew him to be incapable of forgiving her for their quarrel. But now, at the end of the day, she could look forward to a pleasant supper with Rizzio and her friend the Countess of Argyll. She had ordered some of the French delicacies, which were usually omitted in case her stout Scots took offence at their Queen's foreign habits, and some excellent Spanish wine. She had chosen her cabinet because it was small and comparatively warm, with some of her personal treasures in it. After dinner they might play cards, or Rizzio could sing and play to them if she felt too tired to gamble.

The Countess of Argyll was a tall, angular woman with a tongue as sharp as vinegar; she was older than Mary, but they shared the same sense of humour and there was something appealing about the young Queen, burdened with her despicable husband and beset with troubles, which aroused the Countess's affection and made her one of Mary's loyalest supporters. For the Queen's sake she was prepared to tolerate Rizzio.

He had made a mat of himself for the Queen to tread on, and by God, the Countess said to his detractors, it was a change from all those who were only too eager to trample on her.

It was a gay meal; Mary's appetite rose with her spirits; she and the Countess laughed at Rizzio, who told several amusing anecdotes about his activities that day. He was in the middle of a story when the door was wrenched open. Rizzio's voice stopped; he sat staring into the doorway with his mouth open and a look of terror spreading over his face. Mary hardly realized how they came into the room but it seemed as if it were full of men, armed men, in breast plates, with drawn swords and daggers, and Darnley was among them, his face flushed, swaying slightly as he stood with his legs apart to keep his balance, and his naked dagger in his right hand.

Mary rose, her chair scraping, one hand drawing her tartan scarf over her breast and her defenceless womb, imagining in that blind moment that the weapons of death were for her.

“In the name of God, what are you doing here?” Even her voice sounded unreal, but it was like a signal. Three men rushed at Rizzio and he sprang out of his chair and came to her side, his hands dragging at her skirts; he was screaming in Italian. She saw that one of his attackers was Lord Ruthven, wearing armour over his nightshirt, the pallor of death on his contorted face. His was the first dagger that struck Rizzio, and the wound bled on to her skirt. She saw Darnley come to her and aimed a useless blow at him. He caught and held her wrists, and the others had hustled the Countess to the other side of the room where they held her with a pistol at her breast. Mary heard her own voice crying out, and the room was full of dreadful sounds, the grunts and snarls of men who had become animals in their attack upon their victim, and the victim, pitiful in his own cowardice, shrieking for the helpless woman to protect him. She tried to bite Darnley's hand, and suddenly one of the Lords whom she recognized as Morton jabbed a cocked pistol repeatedly against her side.