Queen's Own Fool (29 page)

Lazing on a stool in the corner near the hearth, a red-faced soldier sampled any food that was carried close to him. He looked at ease, but I noticed he never stopped eyeing the hurrying servants. He was in command of the kitchen now, not cook.

Cook had finished preparing a tray of cold mutton, kippered salmon, cheese, bread, and wine on the silver tray used for the queen's meals. “Hamish!” he called. “Perhaps she will eat this. Puir lady hasna supped all day.”

A gangly boy, not more than thirteen, answered the summons, loping across the kitchen to stand before cook. He rubbed the side of his pointy nose with one bony finger.

“Ye take that up to the queen and mind ye come directly back,” cook ordered gruffly, casting a quick glance over at the soldier. “Dinna wander any place yer not supposed. And dinna speak to a soul or I will gie ye sech a clout, yer head will spin round three times widdershins on yer scrawny neck.”

I backed away from the doorway and found a spot further along the passage where I could intercept Hamish. Soon I heard his footsteps on the stone floor.

“Where are you off to then, Hamish?” I asked, stepping directly into his path.

He jerked to a halt, almost dropping the tray. Though he knew me as one of the queen's intimates, he had been warned not to speak to a soul, so he bobbed around, trying to find a way past.

“Well, Hamish?” I asked.

His need to obey cook warred with his wish to please me.

“To the queen,” he said at last. “I mun hurry.”

I let my mouth drop in surprise. “Hurry? I would have thought you would be dragging your feet, Hamish.”

He stared at me, a puzzled frown creasing his thin, freckled features. Hamish was not particularly bright. “Be this some of yer jesting, Fool Nicola?”

“Peril is never a jest, Hamish,” I said. “You are either a greater fool than I or a braver man than any I have ever encountered.”

“Why say ye so?”

I stared back. “Are you unaware of the danger? Surely you know what happened to Sir John Gordon and the poet Châtelard?”

“Beheaded?”

I nodded ponderously. “They would be alive today if they had not fallen under the queen's spell. Coming into her presence led directly to their execution. First the bewitching, then the beheading.”

Hamish looked like he wanted to scratch his sandy thatch of hair but was afraid of dropping the tray.

“And now David Riccio has fallen victim to the same fate,” I said. “The king is jealous of any man who comes near his wife.”

“Any man?”

“Even that old priest Adam Black. Simply because the queen met him in the confessional, he was put to the knife.”

I could see that Hamish was paling. “I be only a humble ...”

“Low rank offers no protection,” I said with a grim shake of my head. “In fact, it makes the imagined insult all the greater.”

His hands shook so hard, the cutlery rattled on the tray.

“Look, Hamish, I am in no danger, being a woman. I will take the tray for you. Master Cook need never know.”

“Would ye do that, Fool Nicola? Would ye really?” He was so ponderously grateful, I almost felt guilty for tricking him.

I took the tray from his unresisting hands and made off with it as though it were the greatest prize in Christendom. When I reached the royal apartments, I held it under the noses of the guards, saying haughtily, “The queen's repast. To be delivered posthaste.”

They laughed at my fine words, looked under each bit of food for the Good Lord knows what, then let me by.

Inside the antechamber there was a surprise awaiting me. Lord James was there talking with the queen. His heavy, bony face looked gloomier than ever, and she was making a great show of gratitude and friendship towards him.

I set down the tray and kept my distance, head bowed.

“Whatever wrongs you think have been done you,” Lord James said gravely, “these men were acting for the good of their country. You must be prepared to practice forgiveness.”

Forgiveness!
Davie's body with its hundred wounds seemed to rise up before me.

“Forgiveness? Ever since I came to Scotland,” the queen snapped, “I have been given opportunities to practice that particular virtue!”

I looked up at her words, and she nodded at me, as if my presence was all that kept her calm. Suddenly I understood the problem, even without Davie to explain it to me. A confrontation with Lord James now would do the queen no good. She needed to keep him on her side if she were to go free.

“We will talk about the return of your lands at another time,” she said to Lord James. “When I have the
freedom
to do it!” She stressed the word
freedom
so he could not miss her meaning.

“Madam,” I said, offering the tray.

She clutched her belly and groaned. “You must leave me, Jamie. I suffer labor pains and would have only my maids attend me.”

Lord James got a peculiar expression on his face, almost one of fear. He made a perfunctory bow and departed.

“Men!” the queen said when he was gone. “Heroes in the bedroom till it comes to the birthing of babes! My midwife tells me she always puts the husband out else he faints at the first blood.” She seemed entirely well now. Her pains had been all pretense.

I put the tray on a little table by a chair, and turned. “How does Lord James come to be here, Madam? I thought him in exile in the south.”

She sat down heavily on the chair but did not even look at the food. “He has just returned. He knew I would have need of him now.”

“But if he is here, he must have known what was going to happen,” I said. “Perhaps he was even part of the conspiracy.”

“You are much less the fool than the court thinks you, Nicola,” the queen said. “Is his timing not exquisite? If Parliament had met today—as I had originally intended—all his lands would have been confiscated. But nothing can be proved against him without Davie. And so I now need Lord James as an ally.” She sighed and put the back of her hand to her forehead. “How I dislike deceit, Nicola, and how much of it there is in kingship. But I must rise to the challenge.”

Going into her bedroom, I poured rose water into a flowered bowl. Then, dipping several of linen cloths in the water, I wrung them out, and brought them to her.

She patted one cloth on her forehead and another on the back of her neck. “I cannot fight them all, Nicola. For my child's sake, I must befriend those I can and take my revenge on the rest.”

“And what has become of Davie?” I asked tentatively.

“Buried in a makeshift grave like a pauper,” the queen whispered bitterly. “But that will be corrected! As can much else.” She smiled suddenly, like the sun after a Scottish shower. “Nicola, I do not know what you said to the king last night, but he came early this morning, declaring his love, begging my forgiveness.”

“There is much to be forgiven,” I whispered back sourly. But inwardly I smiled, and thought:
The fish has been truly caught.

“The king is like a selfish child,” said the queen, still in that same quiet voice. “But he is only as dangerous as the company he keeps. Now, Nicola, listen carefully to what we have planned.”

I moved by her side.

“Tonight we will make our way down the back stair to which my husband has the only key. From there we will go to the quarters of my French servants, who stand ready to help.”

“May all the angels guard you on your way, Majesty.”

“I have a further favor to ask of you, my Jardinière,” the queen said, taking my hands and speaking in a hurried whisper. “You must contact Dougal at the stables. See that there are horses waiting for us beyond the abbey graveyard just after the midpart of the night. The postern gate is always kept fastened, but in such disrepair, we will be able to squeeze through. Even me!”

“I will, Majesty. But what then?”

“Lady Huntly...” she glanced around again. “Lady Huntly has already smuggled out a letter for me instructing those nobles still loyal to gather their troops at Castle Dunbar.” Her eyes were bright and she seemed to have an inner glow as she spoke.

“Do you know how many will be loyal, Madam?”

“With God's help we will find out tonight.” She leaned back in the chair smiling. “Now I believe I will eat. Plotting is such hungry work.”

I marveled that six months pregnant, surrounded by vicious men who had threatened her life, she showed no sign of fear nor would she entertain any suggestion of defeat. Gone was the grave woman of the night before. Here was the true Mary of Scotland.

 

That evening, past the quarter of twelve, I waited on the far side of the graveyard with Dougal and the queen's escort—Sir Anthony William Standen, Arthur Erskine, and Lord Traquair. The horses' hooves had been muffled with cloth, and the men held their hands on the steeds' noses to keep them from making any extra noise.

Fidgeting with the lace collar of my dress, I fretted uncontrollably. A dozen things might yet go wrong this night:

Darnley might change his mind again.

A turncoat servant might speak out for a purse of gold.

Lord James might come upon us on the road.

Lord Ruthven might spy us out with magic.

The queen might miscarry.

As the moon made its passage across the sky, I saw that the men around me were no less agitated than I. It was now half-past the hour and the queen not here yet. Even the horses were beginning to stamp their muffled hooves and snort restlessly.

“Hssst!” It was Dougal. He pointed a shadowy arm.

Ahead, two dark figures detached themselves from the darker bulk of the palace and made their way towards us, darting between the gravestones and pushing through the postern gate.

Beside me I heard the click of a pistol being cocked and the metal sigh of a sword drawn from its scabbard.

“Wait!” I said. “The moon will tell us whether friend or ...”

But the moon was hidden behind a wisp of cloud and the figures were all but on us when the bulkier of the two figures cried out in sight of me.

“My dear friends,” came the queen's hoarse whisper, “your loyalty to a lonely fugitive is more eloquent than any devotion offered a queen upon her throne.”

Darnley said nothing but made straight for a horse. Seizing its bridle, he hissed impatiently. “Come, we must be gone.”

We helped the queen onto Erskine's horse, and she put her arms around his waist, riding pillion behind him.

“You, too, Nicola,” cried the queen. “I will not go without you.”

Till that very moment, I had not suspected I was to accompany her in her flight. Indeed I had not looked beyond this moment.

“To me, girl,” Lord Traquair called, leaning down and pulling me up behind him.

I held as tight as I could to his ample waist, for I was suddenly shaking with the cold, and feared I might fall.

Then, eager to be away, we all galloped down the road past the dark hump that was Arthur's Seat, the moon now full above us.

We rode like the dickens, but it was the king who drove us most fiercely, his voice straining with terror.

“Come on! Come on!” he yelled once we were away from Holyrood. “By God's blood they will murder me if they catch us!”

“The queen is with child, my lord,” I called over Lord Traquair's shoulder to Darnley. I was furious else I would never have spoken so. “No one pursues. Would you have her lose the babe?”

He glared at me and turned in his saddle to shout at the queen. “If this one dies,” he cried, “we can have others.”

 

We rode for five hours, stopping only once to change horses. It was an hour past dawn, the early spring light pearly on the hillsides, when we came in sight of Castle Dunbar.

“Madam, look!” I cried, pointing with one hand, the other still secure around Lord Traquair's waist.

There were hundreds of men camped round the castle—thou—sands even—like a great hive of buzzing insects. A cheer went up when the queen was recognized.

Bothwell rode out to meet us, proudly gesturing at the army he had gathered, the beekeeper showing off to the queen bee.

“Huntly, Atholl, and Fleming are already here,” he said, his voice booming out in the soft spring air.

Bothwell seemed so loud, I actually winced. And then I realized it was the first time any of us had spoken loudly in days. Not since Davie had been killed. Our voices—like our bodies—were now free.

“Brava, Majesty!” I cried out. Raising my hands above my head, I began applauding, which almost led to me falling from Lord Traquair's horse.

The queen laughed. Then she took off her bonnet and shook loose her hair. Though she had just come through twenty miles on horseback, pregnant and frightened, she looked as fresh as if she had just risen from her bed.

Bothwell laughed with her. “Madam, more have sent word that they will arrive before the day is out,” he boomed.

There was no missing the way he ignored the king, and the queen did not correct him for it. I saw Darnley bristle, but secretly I was glad. How irrelevant he had become now that the queen was free and among her own supporters. That he should know it fully gave me the greatest pleasure. I turned in the saddle and stared at Darnley, my lips forming the words:
Who is the fool now?

The queen was so overcome by the sight of her many followers massed before the castle, she had to swallow twice before she could speak. But at last she said, “It is as grand a company as ever I saw.”