Queen's Own Fool (24 page)

I must have gasped out loud at his remark, for all three suddenly turned towards me.

“You are the fool, David Riccio,” I said. “Not I.”

“He is worse than a fool.” Lord James turned to Davie. “Ye are a mischievous goblin! I should box your ears for yer insolence.”

“If it is insolent to speak the truth, sir,” Davie said, “then I am the King of Insolence and my kingdom knows no bounds.”

“I will set bounds to it!” Lord James said, lifting a brawny hand and swatting Davie across the face.

Reeling back, the papers scattering everywhere, Davie pressed against the wall, arms over his head to protect against further blows.

Lord James drew his sword, a sound that sliced the air.

Though I thought Davie a fool—or worse—I could not see him killed. Stepping in front of Lord James, I raised my hands.

“It does you no honor, sir, to strike down an unarmed man.” I was so frightened, I could feel my heart all but leap from my breast.

“His vile tongue is weapon enough, little tart!” cried Lord James, trying to push me aside. “He has used it overmuch already.”

“Have a care!” Maitland called out. “You will not knock sense into the queen by beheading her secretary and her fool.”

Lord James's face was flushed, but slowly he saw the sense of Maitland's argument and sheathed his sword. Then he turned, saying over his shoulder, “I will not stay a moment longer. Let the queen take that pretty doll to her bed. I will have none of it!”

Then he stormed off with Maitland following close behind.

When their footsteps had faded, Davie looked up, his face pale. Smiling nervously, he straightened his tunic.

I collected his scattered papers and handed them to him, but my hands were trembling and the papers clattered together.

“Oh, Davie,” I whispered, “I would be your dearest friend, but I think you are your own chiefest enemy.”

There was no apology, no thanks. All he said, in a voice thick with venom, was, “I will see Lord James driven clean out of Scotland, Nicola. You mark my words.”

27

WEDDING MEATS

T
here was to be no reconsidering. Lovesick and adamant, the queen married Darnley in the chapel royal at Holyrood just after dawn on the last Sunday in July, having first named him “King of this our Kingdom.” She was twenty-three years old and he scarce twenty.

I could barely say his name without a clench in my gut. But for the queen's sake, I hid my feelings and went to the wedding in a new dress of green silk with a high lace collar and velvet shoes.

Queen Mary was escorted to the chapel royal by Darnley's father, the Earl of Lennox, a heavyset man who looked nothing like his slim, elegant son.

To signify that she was a widow, the queen wore a black robe with a wide hood, the very robe she had worn at her husband's funeral. But it was clear that Darnley had spared no expense in his own garb. He was dressed sumptuously, with a doublet of gold and hung about with jewels.

With the summer sun just lighting the chapel's windows, he placed three rings on the queen's finger. The middle one bore a diamond as large as a quail's egg. I wondered that Darnley's mouth was able to speak the word “faithful” in the wedding vows without a sneer.

When the ceremony was done, the newlyweds proceeded to their individual chambers.

In the queen's room, the Four Maries unpinned the queen's black mourning robe.

“Careful,” the queen cautioned when Pretty Mary—in an excess of excitement—was too quick. “I am not some virgin so eager for the marriage bed I would tear off my clothing! Remember, while I am Queen of Scotland, I am also the dowager Queen of France. By taking off my mourning clothes, I come afresh to this new marriage.” But then she giggled, which put a lie to all her protests.

“Let me help,” I said, but I was warned off with a look from Pious Mary. I had no place in this ceremony. So I stood back and simply watched.

When they had peeled the robe off, what was revealed beneath was the glistening wedding gown the queen had promised us, with its intricate embroidery of golden flowers and insects on bodice, sleeves, and skirts. She looked every inch the Queen of Faerie I had believed her to be in the garden at Rheims.

I applauded, my hands ringing out in praise. For her. But not for him.

A royal wedding is not like a commoner's. The celebrations continued for days. I was well tired of the drinking and dancing and masques long before they were over. I was overfull of both wet and dry confections. If I had to eat another caramelled or candied fruit or another bite of Nuns' Beads, or any other sweet, I might die of a surfeit of sugar. My voice was rough with all the singing and storytelling and the lack of sleep.

Each night, the queen and king—his title hateful in my mouth—threw handfuls of coins from the balcony to the crowds of wellwishers who had poured down from the city. The queen had her arm around the king's waist. But his hands were busy only with the coins.

A number of the Scots lords got wildly drunk at the feasts, and there were more than a few fistfights among the queen's devoted Highlanders. From the second day forward many of the dancing men sported blackened eyes.

On that second day, the royal heralds proclaimed that Lord Darnley—now King Henry of Scotland—would henceforth sign all documents along with the queen. This declaration was met at first with utter silence by the assembled Scots lords.

Only the Earl of Lennox, the English father of the king, was heard to cry out, “God save His Grace!”

 

I was not the only one to notice that Lord James was missing from the celebrations. As good as his word, he had refused to return to Edinburgh for the wedding. Instead he had fortified himself in the midst of his vast estates, declaring that the queen planned to bring back the hated Catholicism to Scotland. And further, he called for the Protestant lords to join him in denouncing the queen.

“That long-legged pup and his father plan to assassinate me,” Lord James was reported to have said of the king and Lennox. Davie told me this in a delighted whisper out in the garden. I had forgiven him his bad behavior of before. One does that for a friend. Forgiven—but not forgotten. And he had forgiven me what he called my silly innocence.

“Lennox,” he added, rubbing his hands together, “has just warned the queen that Lord James intends to kidnap the king and ship him back to England.”

“Is it true?” I asked. “Oh, if only it were true.”

Davie threw his head back and laughed uproariously.

“I am serious, Davie,” I said.

“So is the queen,” Davie said, grinning at me. “She is putting Lord James to the horn!”

“You mean—she will outlaw him?” My hands went to my mouth.

“Aye.” Davie's expression was one of impish delight. “And she's taken away all his lands!”

I was shocked that the queen would condemn one who had stood so closely to her in times past, and I remembered how Lord James had faced down the mob at the chapel door for her. But I was even more shocked at what I read so clearly in Davie's face—that he had encouraged the queen so that he might have his own revenge.

Revenge, Papa had always said, is a tainted meal. Strange meats, I thought, for
a
wedding feast.

Davie had even more revenge than that. Goaded by Lord James's stubborn opposition, the queen and her new king had no choice but to lead an army against him.

I watched them ride out from the gates of Edinburgh at the head of their troops. The king was dressed in a glossy suit of gilt armor. I thought he seemed like a knight from a fanciful romance.

But the queen—she looked every inch the soldier—wore a plain soldier's armor and had sword and pistol at her side. There was an expression of such determination on her face, I did not believe that anyone could stand against her.

Indeed this proved the case. Word came back to us through a messenger to Davie that Lord James had found little support for any uprising and had been forced to flee into exile in England with the few Scots nobles who remained on his side.

As he told me all this, Davie did a sprightly jig, right there in the corridor.

“Hush, Davie,” I cautioned, but he did not stop his dance.

Queen Mary returned to Edinburgh in triumph. Even John Knox was forced to acknowledge her courage.

For a brief, glorious moment, it looked as if all was well.

I said so to Davie as we viewed from a balcony the return of the troops. “Maybe it will be ‘happy ever after' after all.”

“History compressed into one of your fairy stories?” Davie asked.

“Well, why not?”

“Because history, my dear Nicola, is never so tidy,” he replied. “And because history does not stop for an ending, happy or otherwise.”

28

SPILLING GOOD WINE

H
ow often is the passing of one storm only a prelude to another. With Lord James gone, who had served her so well, the queen needed to appoint a new lieutenant general to command the royal armies.

Did she name someone safe and reliable? Someone with only her safety at heart?

No.

She awarded the post to the Earl of Bothwell.

Bothwell!

Where the new king was handsome, weak, willful, Bothwell was the opposite. Short and stocky, with the heavy good looks of a scrap-per, he said things bluntly, but left out much in the saying. A fox and a wolf together. I believe the queen saw in him a man who could command her armies with energy and cunning.

Oh, but what a price she was to pay for his services.

The king had hoped his own father would be appointed to the position. When Bothwell, a Scot, was named, it became the first of many grievances he nursed against the queen. He still smiled and danced and paid her pretty compliments, of course, but as yet she did not suspect the poison that was growing in his heart.

Should I have told her? How often since I have asked myself that. The truth was, I thought she had turned to Bothwell because she knew the king's venomous soul.

But I was now rarely at her side, and there was no good time to say what I thought. She was too busy—with her husband, with Bothwell, with the business of governing.

Who will speak truth to the queen now?
I wondered.

 

No one took more satisfaction in Lord James's exile than Davie. He and Darnley toasted one another over the great laird's downfall, gloating excessively in the king's chambers.

But alone with me, out in the garden—Davie called it the only safe place for conversation—he spoke differently of his master.

“What a lackwit,” he said. “What a wastrel.”

“How can you serve a master you despise?” I asked, bending over to work the soil.

“And do you so admire yours?” he said, smiling.

I stood, hands on hips. “You know I do. She is the kindest, the sweetest, the ...”

“Kind and sweet she may be,” Davie said with that same teasing smile. “She knows poetry and music and is good to her dog. But that is not what makes a great monarch, Nicola. The queen is led too often by her heart. To reign well, one must lead with the head.”

“And you know how to reign?” I threw down my digger. “You who bend knee to a king you consider a wastrel? You are spilling good wine on bad soil, Davie.”

He laughed. “This garden has gone to your head, little fool.”

I walked away and did not look back.

 

For weeks after that conversation we did not speak, ignoring one another in the corridors every time we passed.

But as Davie himself would have been the first to admit, calling a log in the water a fish does not give it gills. Darnley never rose to the task of being a true king. Rather he pulled the office down around him. And seeing the wreckage Darnley made of everything he touched, Davie finally fell out with him, just as everyone else had.

Everyone, that is, but the queen.

 

As winter drew on, Queen Mary was subject to another bout of ill health, a flux contracted on one of her rides. She asked for me specifically to nurse her.

How could I refuse? I even slept on a small cot by her bed in case she should cry out in the night.

The king was never by her side during her illness. Sometimes he was gaming and drinking with his low friends, Toby and Giles, finding every alehouse in Edinburgh. Or he went off on hawking and hunting trips with the few Scots lords who could still abide his company.

Often in her fever the queen would call out for him. And I—to my shame—always lied to keep her quiet.

“He has been to see you while you slept, Madam. He sat for an hour by your side,” I told her not once but many times.

“That he should care so,” she would whisper, and slip back into her fevered sleep.

He had not been there, of course. He never came. But I could not tell her so.

 

When the queen had recovered enough, we went to her palace at Linlithgow, with its beautiful view of the nearby loch. Even illness could not alter her long French habit of changing houses on a whim.

“I always feel better there, near the water,” she told me before we left. “With you and the Maries to entertain me, I will be entirely well soon.”

She was carried to Linlithgow by litter, rather than riding there, and this led to a fresh flurry of rumors about her health.

“She is just tired,” I would say when asked. “She is recovering.”

And she was tired from the days of fever. But it was more than that. She sighed often when she thought I did not notice, her face as pinched and white as when King Francis had died. She was tired and Darnley did not come to visit. Nor did he send letters.