The Flower Reader (23 page)

“You cannot seriously believe you can attack Aberdeen, even with a thousand men.”

“The queen’s forces will abandon her. Beathag has seen that. Janet and Meggie One-Eye have seen it as well. Now go. Do not think it is impossible for you yourself to be a sacrifice, here at the holy well.”

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Even the horses were still, and the birds in the trees around us.

“I’d like to see ye try it.” That was Wat Cairnie, edging his rough
brown cob between us so that Lady Huntly was forced to step back. “I’ll cut ye in collops first, my lady, and your spaewives as well, and the queen’s men will back me. Mount up, Rinette, and we’ll be off.”

The queen’s men-at-arms had lifted their halberds again, and Lady Huntly’s men fell back, guarding their own mistress. I chirruped to Lilidh and she came up behind me, thrusting her velvet nose under my hand. I turned to mount and saw a flicker of red-and-white in the brush.

“Stand, Lilidh,” I said. I chirruped again. The filthy, emaciated hound puppy with its freckled white paws and russet ears crawled out of the brush and over the grass, its belly close to the ground. I crouched down and held out my hands.

“Come, little one,” I said.

It sniffed my fingers and looked up at me with liquid dark eyes. I wrapped it in the queen’s blue mantle, mud and all. It pressed close to me, trembling, its heart beating fast. One of the queen’s men offered me his interlaced hands, and I stepped up into Lilidh’s saddle one-handed.

“It is meant for a sacrifice!” It was the witch-woman Beathag, in her high keening voice. “It will be bad luck to you, girl. Leave it here, or you will rue it.”

“You are wrong,” I said. “Here I see a plum tree for faithfulness, and gillyflowers for devotion, and a blue violet out of season for loyalty beyond measure. That is what this little dog will bring me.”

“You are a fool, Marina Leslie,” said Elizabeth Keith, Countess of Huntly. “A tenderhearted fool. Take the puppy, and see what tomorrow brings.”

“I will take it,” I said. Lilidh needed no reins; I could guide her with my knees. “I will tell the queen what you have said. And do not trust what your familiars have told you about tomorrow.”

T
HE PUPPY WAS A MALE
. When he was washed, he turned out to be red and white, with long silky ears of a russet color, a black marking
on his back, and the freckled paws that had melted my heart. Other than being half-starved, he seemed healthy enough, and probably of a good bloodline of hunting hounds; how he had come into the hands of Lady Huntly’s witch I would never know. I tied a blue ribbon around his neck to mark him as my own until I could have a proper leather collar made. Wat Cairnie, who for all his size and rough appearance was softhearted as an old woman with animals of any sort, named him Seilie, which he said meant “lucky” in his grannie’s Fifeshire dialect, with connotations of “innocent” and “blessed”—perfect for an innocent creature saved from drowning in a holy well. Lucky the puppy was in both senses—he himself was fortunate we had come along when we did, and despite the witch’s threat I felt he would bring good fortune to me one day as well.

I left Seilie with Wat in the stable, clean, dry, stuffed with meat and bread, and sound asleep on a warm blanket. I tidied myself as best I could, with Jennet helping me and scolding me for my recklessness, then went to wait upon the queen.

Mary Livingston had arrived before me, and was still recounting the tale of Lady Huntly’s three familiars, the holy well, and my rescue of Seilie. The women were breathless with excitement. When I made my curtsy before the queen, she called me closer at once and commanded me to tell the whole tale again, from the beginning.

“It would be better, I think, sister,” said the Earl of Moray from a carved chair on the other side of the room, “if Mistress Rinette told us exactly what Lady Huntly had to say about this business of battles and armies and our own men turning their coats.”

“Oh, very well,” the queen said. “Beaton, more wine, please. We shall put aside witches and puppies and converse seriously about war.”

“None of it seemed to have any basis in fact, madame,” I said. “Lady Huntly clearly puts great store in her familiars, and it was only in their visions that the Earl of Huntly won a battle for Aberdeen, with the royal troops deserting to join him.”

“What did the flowers say?”

“There was a plum tree, past its flowering, and a blue violet out
of season—” I broke off. All the flowers I had seen had been related to Seilie. I could not remember one flower, one leaf, one stem, that might tell me whether Lady Huntly and her witch-woman familiars were right or wrong.

Or were the flowers amusing themselves with double meanings at my expense?

“What does it mean?” the queen persisted.

“The plum tree stands for fidelity,” I said. “And the blue violet for loyalty. I believe your troops will be loyal, madame. As for the rest, the prediction that the Earl of Huntly will lie tomorrow night here in Aberdeen—I cannot tell you.”

“There is more than one way to interpret that.” It was Nicolas de Clerac, stepping into the supper room with a lute in his hand. “And as for fidelity and loyalty…” He looked at me. I could see that he had been afraid for me, and was relieved that I was safe.

“Fidelity and loyalty,” he said again, “are very good things, wherever one might find them.”

T
he queen had put on her favorite boy’s clothes, her purple velvet doublet and long silken hose and feathered hat, and was ready to go to war.

“Madame,” said Nico de Clerac. His face was carefully expressionless. “It is cold. Raining. Your velvet will be spoiled and the color of your silk will run.”

“Fetch me a proper leather jacket, then,” she said. “And a broadsword and a buckler.” She made imaginary sword passes in the air, turning and pointing her toes as if she were dancing a courante. “And boots.”

“You could not even lift a broadsword,” Mary Fleming said. She always begged off when the queen went masquerading in boy’s clothes, but then, her lush feminine figure did not show to its best advantage in doublets and hose. “Sieur Nico, please do not encourage her. It is bad enough that the men must go out in the rain and kill one another over who gets to call whom by what title.”

“You have a refreshingly simple view of war, Mademoiselle
Flaminia,” Nico said. “I assure you, I am not encouraging the queen to risk her lovely neck on the battlefield. Her loyal troops…”

He paused and smiled at me. I was also dressed in boy’s clothes, and although I did not have the queen’s graceful height I thought I carried off the jacket and breeches reasonably well. I had no desire to be anywhere near a battle, but the queen could not possibly go out among the soldiers without some other ladies. Seilie lay at my feet with his muzzle resting on his freckled paws.

“Her loyal troops,” Nico said again, “as foreseen by Mistress Rinette, will manage the fighting for her, and bring her back the Earl of Huntly and his sons in chains.”

“But I want to see the battle.” The queen put her hand on Nico’s arm and pulled until he turned to face her. “I have never seen a battle, and I am queen of Scots—it is my
devoir
to ride onto the battlefield at the head of my army.”

“God forbid.” Mary Fleming crossed herself.

“I am ready to ride with you, madame,” I said.

“I am as well.” Mary Livingston’s clothes were more practical than the queen’s, being checkered wool in the Livingston colors of red and green. She made a stout-looking boy. “Monsieur de Chastelard will be waiting for us in the High Street.”

“Not Chastelard,” Nico said.

“But of course Chastelard,” the queen said. Her eyes sparkled. “He has only just returned from France, and made his way instantly to Aberdeen. He wishes to see me ride with my soldiers, so he can compose true songs about it.”

“Madame.” I could tell Nico’s patience was wearing thin. “You may observe. From a distance. That is the Earl of Moray’s order, and the order of all your council.”

“I could outride you.”

“You could attempt to do so. Please do not compel me to commit the very great lèse-majesté of binding you and conveying you back to Aberdeen on a leading rein.”

The queen looked at him through her eyelashes. “You would do it, too, would you not, Sieur Nico?”

“I would.”

“Let us go, then.”

She went out, striding like a man. She was certainly correct about one thing: a doublet and hose were much more comfortable than the endless stays and bodices, partlets and sleeves, underskirts and overskirts we women were compelled to wear. She knew her long legs were slim and straight and perfect, and that every man in the army would be looking at them.
Chastelard would compose songs to her beauty and courage, and that was enough for her.

T
HE
E
ARL OF
H
UNTLY AND
his Gordons had taken the high ground on a hill called the Hill of Fare, overlooking Corrichie Burn. I kept Lilidh well back, but the queen rode boldly to the front and stood in her stirrups, straining to pick out the figure of Sir John Gordon, so handsome, so gallant, such a lusty dancer. The royal forces, commanded by the Earl of Moray, were ranged on the other side of the burn, on a rising ground.

“When will it start?” the queen cried. “Sieur Nico, can I not go closer?”

“You will stay where you are, madame,” Nico said. His voice was sharper than I had ever heard it, at least in addressing the queen. “Do you understand men will soon fight and die on that hill? They will die in truth, with all their sins unshriven, and not come back when the battle is over to bow and accept your compliments for their fine performances.”

“How disagreeable you are, Sieur Nico,” the queen said.

She turned to Pierre de Chastelard, who was at her other side, mounted on a fine sorrel gelding that had been her own gift to him. He was not looking at her, but deeply engaged in conversation with the wiry pale-eyed Frenchman Blaise Laurentin. They had their heads together like lovers, and I could not help but wonder how Chastelard would write odes to the queen’s gallantry if he was devoting his attentions to another.

“What say you, Monsieur de Chastelard?” the queen said sharply. “I would like to see Sir John Gordon call out my brother to a single combat—you could write a great ode about the two of them, in the style of Ronsard.”

Just then there was a shriek of pipes and a sudden shouting, and one group of horsemen broke off from the Earl of Moray’s forces, charging over the burn and up the hill toward the Gordons. The queen cried out, “For Scotland! For Scotland! For your queen!” Her horse threw up its head and stepped from side to side; Nico reached out and caught its rein.

Moray’s men engaged the Gordons only briefly, then retreated, galloping back down the hill. The queen cried, “No! No! Do not run away! Cowards!” But it soon became clear that this was a deliberate tactic. The Gordons unwisely gave chase, and in doing so not only lost the advantage of the high ground, but flung themselves straight onto the lances of the Earl of Moray’s vanguard.

From that point it became a melee of swords and spears and arquebus fire; it was impossible to pick out individuals or tell whether the screams were men or horses. There was no way to tell who was winning or losing. Nico was white-faced and grim, clearly wishing he could be swinging his own sword with the men; Pierre de Chastelard, on the other hand, was flushed with…what, excitement? Surely he was only delighting in the couplets he was composing in his head, to the gallantry of a queen who rode out to battle.

I could watch it for only a few minutes. It was terrifying—there was so much blood. The horses, the horses; for some reason that broke my heart even more than the deaths of the men. The men at least knew what they were doing and had chosen to do it—they were Highlanders and Lowlanders, Catholics and Protestants, Gordons and royalists. The horses were innocents, high-hearted and willing for their riders, galloping unknowing into butchery.

I put my head down against Lilidh’s neck. “Not you,” I whispered. “Never you. Do not look, my Lilidh.”

I pulled on one rein to turn her, and we rode off a little way. I realized I was crying.

Behind me I heard the queen shriek, “Moray! Forward, Moray!”

I scrubbed my hand across my eyes. My tears did no good. Slowly I guided Lilidh back to the queen’s party. She was looking away from the battle—I could read the telltale expression on her face. She was losing interest.

After a moment she said, “What will happen next, Sieur Nico?”

“Next?” Nico smiled at her, showing his teeth. A scowl would have been less frightening. “There is no ‘next,’ madame. These men will continue to kill and maim one another until the day is over, and one side or the other has prevailed.”

“Over? But it is only midday. I am hungry and thirsty.”

“So are they.”

“It does not matter who wins, does it?” The queen’s voice was turning shrill with the effort of making herself heard. “I will still be queen, no matter which side wins.”

No one said anything to that. We all just looked at her. I wanted to slap her, slap her hard.