Queen's Own Fool (33 page)

I ran wildly, without thought, fear nipping like a wolf at my heels. When I reached the edge of the square, I was suddenly confronted by three more men. I drew in a ragged breath and looked around for some avenue of escape.

“Take her!” Bothwell called after them.

I swerved away and dashed back towards the king's house as fast as my legs could carry me.

Bothwell cursed and I heard several pairs of feet pounding behind me. Not daring to look back, I ran for the door, flung it open, hurled myself inside, and slammed the door behind. In the fading firelight from the hearth, I saw a small chair. Grabbing it, I jammed it under the door's handle.

Then hands on knees and breathing in great gasps, I tried to think.
Why are they chasing me? What had they said?

I had jumped out of the skillet, into the fireplace.

“Your Majesty!” I cried out. “Your Majesty!”

A servant's sleepy groan answered me, so I ran up the stairs to Darnley's room and burst in noisily. He leaped out of bed, almost tumbling into the open bath. His servant Taylor, who slept at his bedfoot, was awakened as well.

“What?” Darnley cried. “What is going on?”

“Murderers, Your Majesty,” I gasped. “Assassins. At least half a dozen of them outside. They have set fuses.”

“Fuses?” He repeated. “Do you mean gunpowder?”

“Gunpowder, yes!”
Why is the man so slow?
“The fuses are already lit.”
I could kill him myself.
“We must leave this place at once, but not by the front door.”

“But why?”

“There are men outside the door and armed.”

“Armed?” he echoed again. “Then how am I to escape?”

Taylor's eyes searched the room that was made shadowy by the flickering of the dying fire.

“Over there, sir,” he said. With remarkable presence of mind he snatched up a piece of rope, tied it to a window rail, then dropped it over the side.

His nightgown flapping about his legs, Darnley climbed over the rail and began to slide down the rope. Grabbing a cloak for his master and a dagger to defend him with, Taylor started after him.

I had no option but to follow and hope we could all get clear before the place exploded.

When I was but halfway down the rope, I twisted around and saw Darnley running across the garden with Taylor at his heels. Before they got to the far gate, a half-dozen men jumped from hiding on all sides and grabbed them.

“Mercy!” the king cried.

But they were without any mercy, and one of the men whipped a cord round the king's throat. Taylor lashed out with his dagger but was quickly wrestled to the ground, and strangled as brutally as his master.

Dangling from the rope, the cold wind buffeting me from side to side, I was too frozen with horror to move. Had my wishing killed the king? But I had not wished Taylor dead, and there he lay in the garden by his master's side.

And what of the other servants in the house? Surely I had to go back and warn them as well.

My cold hands gripped the rope and I tried to shift upward.

Suddenly the knot came loose under my weight, and I was dropped the last few feet to the ground. I landed in a heap on the brittle grass and for a moment lay there, stunned.

Then, not waiting for an answer, I scrambled, frightened, to my feet. I was terrified. Had my fall been heard? If so, I had to get away at once. Only ...

I feared the rope around my neck more than any blast of gunpowder. It seemed more real. So I raced away from the garden, that place of quick death, and around the side of the house, where I ran headlong into a man who was every bit as solid as a wall.

“You are serving your mistress ill this night,” Bothwell said, drawing his long knife. “She demanded this favor of me, with her heart if not her lips, and I cannot let you betray us.”

I stared at the knife and suddenly remembered Davie's poor body and all its bloody wounds. I tried to move but could not. All I could do was scream.

But my cry was drowned out by a massive detonation as the house exploded with a noise like the end of the earth. The force of the blast knocked us both off our feet. Clouds of dust and shards of splintered stone flew everywhere. Desperately I rolled away, then stood and ran blindly through the smoke and the dust and the shattered brickwork, coughing and vomiting as I ran.

37

REFUGE

B
othwell bellowed a command and, when I risked a backward glance, I saw three men chasing after me. I knew they meant to silence me, and I pelted down the street, crying loudly.

“Help! Help me!” I called, my voice echoing in the stone canyons of the streets as I ran. A few of the houses came blearily awake with lighted candles.

I did not dare stop running. To ask for refuge would give my pursuers all the time they needed. So I ran on, into the maze of twisting streets that snaked over the steep hills.

At last a pain stabbed though my side and I collapsed against a wall, sucking in a burning breath. A part of my mind was yelling at me to keep moving, but my body refused to listen. I was dizzy with running, my ears still ringing from the blast.

“Which way did she go?” I heard a voice call behind me.

“There, over there!” answered another.

I lurched back into motion again, feeling as if my insides were about to burst.

As I rushed along the deserted roads, the footfalls of my pursuers got closer. Or was it the pounding of my blood in my ears? I dared not stop to figure it out.

Then I saw a dark shadow coming towards me, a single candle like a star in its hand.

I tried to call for help, but only a rasping breath came from my lips as I pitched forward at the shadow's feet, my knees scraping on the cobbles.

A large hand took me by the arm and helped me up. The candlelight passed over my eyes, blinding me.

“I know that face, do I not?” said a dour but familiar voice. “I have seen ye many times passing in the queen's retinue, singing verses not fit for a lass's ears never mind her lips.”

I looked up into the frowning features of John Knox.

“I remember now,” he said. “Yer the queen's own fool.”

He released my arm as Bothwell's men came charging up to us. They skidded to a sudden halt before him.

“What manner of men are ye that pursue a wee girl through the streets at this hour?” Knox's voice rang out as though he were addressing a church full of people and not three armed men.

The men looked at one other in confusion. Obviously they recognized him and were doubtful about how to proceed.

One who wore a black bonnet stepped forward, making an unconvincing show of dignity. “She is an escaped thief, sir,” he said, pointing at me. “We must take her to the sheriff.”

“Is it true, girl? Are ye a thief as well as a fool?” Knox asked.

I took a gulp of breath and shook my head. “I snatched my life from their knives and their gunpowder, sir.” I thought better of mentioning the king's death till I could find out what it would mean for the queen. Whatever he was, Knox was no friend of hers.

“She lies,” black bonnet said.

“Then what is she accused of stealing?” Knox's voice was loud. It seemed he had only the one way of speaking.

“We know not the details, only that she must be taken,” the man said, stretching an arm to grab me, but Knox drew himself up and interposed his tall crow's body between us.

“This toon is awakened by a loud crack and when I come out to learn what is afoot, I find it the hand of man and not God that has done this terrible thing. Then ye loons come running fully armed in pursuit of a lass!” Knox did not moderate his voice, and all about us, house lights flickered on. “A lass!” He let the words speak volumes. “Beware, for the just God knows what we do and why we do it.” He raised his hand and pointed up towards the heavens.

The men glanced up nervously, as if God's all-seeing eye might even then be scrutinizing their guilt.

“Our orders, sir,” black bonnet began, but his voice died away before Knox's hard countenance.

“I will take her into my ain custody,” Knox said. “If she be guilty of a crime, I will bring her to justice. Ye hae my word on it.”

They gave way before him as though confronted by a force of nature, cowed simply by the power of his voice. If God Himself had spoken, I doubt they would have retreated more quickly.

Once they were gone, Knox returned his attention to me.

“Have ye escaped at last from that den of vice and iniquity?”

“From the king's house, you mean?”

“Nae, girl, from the court of our idolatrous queen,” he boomed. “Is that why those cutthroats are chasing ye? To haul ye back?”

I stared at him, but my breathlessness gave me sufficient excuse not to answer. He took me by the arm again, but not at all roughly, and led me into Trunk Lane near the High Street.

“This be my manse,” he said, taking out a key and unlocking the door of a large house. He motioned me inside.

In the front room before a blazing fire, a girl scarcely older than me was pacing the floor with a baby over her shoulder. The baby's eyes were fluttering but it was still fighting to stay awake.

“How is she?” Knox asked, closing the door after him. His voice was suddenly sweet and low with concern.

The girl put a finger to her lips. “Hssst, John, she is almost dropped off. Dinna ye be waking her. And who is this ye have brought home now? Another waif? Though not poor, by her dress.”

“This lass was being pursued through the streets by ruffians,” Knox explained. “Whether she be guilty of aught, I dinna know. But one thing I do know: There be all manner of mischief afoot tonight.”

“What mean ye, John? And what was that noise?”

“Gunpowder,” I answered without thinking. “An explosion.”

Knox fixed his gaze upon me. “And what do ye know of it?”

“Only what I heard said on the street,” I said quickly.

Knox frowned. He knew as well as I that the only ones on the street this late at night were evildoers and ...

And me! I shivered, having been caught so easily in a lie. I resolved to hold my tongue, for the queen's sake, if not for my own.

Knox's frown deepened. “Lass, ye will stay here with my wife, Margaret, while I discover what haunts the streets.”

His wife? Surely not!
Knox was fifty years or more and his wife more like my own age. I had supposed her the maid or the baby's wet nurse or a daughter come home with her own infant. But I schooled my face. I would not embarrass the man who had saved me.

“Thank you,” I said, my gratitude genuine.

When the door shut behind him, I turned back to Margaret. The baby was now sound asleep on her mother's shoulder, a bubble of milk on her pretty mouth.

“Come,” Margaret said, “I'll find ye a bed for the night.”

As I followed her to the back of the house, through the long dark hallway, I thought that she looked and sounded as if she came from an upper-class family. Strange, then, that she should be wed to the old preacher.

But perhaps no stranger, came the answering thought, than my
own Queen Mary should have married such weak kings.

 

In the morning one of Knox's sons brought me a plain white bowl of water to wash in, then took me back to the kitchen to join the family for breakfast in a crowded, low-ceilinged room made graceful by daylight.

I bowed my head with the rest of them as Knox said a lengthy grace. Then we set to our salted porridge and oatcakes.

No one spoke, not even to mention the explosion.

How can they just sit in silence?
I wondered.
Even pigs at the trough say more.

I was desperate to learn what Knox had discovered. So by way of opening a conversation, I said, “The sun seems to be shining this morning after so foul a night.”

Margaret and the boys lowered their eyes.

“We dinna converse at the table,” Knox informed me. “Our thoughts should be filled with gratitude to God for all His gifts. Besides, idle talk interferes with the digestion.”

I finished my breakfast in silence.

 

When the interminable meal was done, Knox summoned me to the dark-paneled front room, where he gestured for me to sit down opposite him on a straight-backed chair.

“This be what I learned last night,” he said.

At last, I thought, leaning towards him.

“The king's house was blown up, and he and a servant were found dead in the garden with no mark of fire or bullet or knife upon them.” While he spoke, he kept his flinty eyes on my face. “The queen's cloak was discovered nearby.”

I did my best not to reveal what was running through my mind.

“Do you know who was responsible?” I asked.

“Do
ye?”
He raised one bushy grey eyebrow.

My head pounded. Part of me wanted to confess all. But the other part of me held back, thinking. I knew that Knox had been the queen's enemy for years. I was certain that all he wanted from me was information he could use against her. But if I accused Bothwell, I might also bring danger to the queen.

“I know nothing,” I said.

“Liars be the de'ils disciples,” Knox warned me. “Ye have lied to me once already, lass. We both know it. So say it plain—why were those armed men chasing ye last night?”