The Flower Reader (25 page)

He smiled. “I am sure one does,” he said. “Very well, so we can add the Huguenots to our list of possible murderers. That would mean either Coligny or Condé, and neither one of them would draw the line at assassination if it furthered his cause.”

“Have you anything new to add?” I asked. I had collected enough thyme for the moment, and I rose to my feet. The herb’s leafy, astringent scent surrounded me. Seilie had kept the stick this time, and was
running around the garden holding it, his tail straight up with triumph. “I must get back to the queen.”

“I have nothing new,” he said. “But I shall look into this business of Chastelard. If he is under pressure enough to approach you as he did, you can be sure he will try again.”

O
N THE THIRD MORNING THE
queen grew bored with herself, for she sat up, called for bread sopped in wine and a bath and clean clothes, and took up her life again. We arrived back in Edinburgh in time for the Octave of Saint Martin on the twenty-first day of November, and had only just settled in when the queen took to her bed again, this time suffering from a real sickness—fever, coughing, fatigue, and wretched aches and pains. Several people in the queen’s close circle had the same symptoms. It instantly became the fashion to be sick with what people wryly called the New Acquaintance.

I did not have time for fashion. The queen was a difficult patient and kept all of us running back and forth, up and down her tower stairs for soups, syllabubs, embroidery silks, clean night-gowns, and basins of scented water. Mary Fleming soon fell sick as well, then Mary Beaton, then even stout Mary Livingston. Mary Seton spent most of her time in the royal chapel praying to Saint Geneviève and Saint Pétronille, two French saints who were unfailing proof against fevers; this may have made her feel better but did little to make things easier for the rest of us. Dr. Lusgerie, the queen’s French physician, recommended bleeding and purging of the bowels to remove the excess humors that were causing the fever and ague; the queen agreed to the bleeding but refused the purging for modesty’s sake.

It was cold, gray, and damp. Flurries of snow left a lacework of white in the gardens. The windows froze shut, so it was impossible to get any fresh air. I was lonely—I missed Màiri and Tante-Mar. Jennet More and Wat Cairnie watched over me faithfully, first the one, then the other. My one other companion was Seilie; he was still a puppy and only beginning to learn proper indoor manners, but
fortunately his enormous brown eyes, velvet-soft russet ears, and freckled paws melted every heart. Even the queen welcomed him on her embroidered counterpane.

As the days passed I myself began to feel stiff and sore and alternately hot and cold, but who would not feel hot and cold, going in and out of the queen’s ovenlike bedchamber with its three fires, and the icy corridors of Holyrood Palace with no heat at all? One morning—I think it was a morning, although it may have been an afternoon—I found myself so overcome by vertigo and headache that I had to sit down, and sit down I did, on the floor halfway along the corridor between the kitchen and the queen’s tower, with a bowl of manchet bread and sweetened milk in my hands. It did not seem strange to me. Seilie was happy at first and gobbled up all the bread and milk; then he began to whimper. The sound took me back to Saint Mary’s of Stoneywood. I wondered what Lady Huntly’s three witch-women were doing at Holyrood, and I was particularly determined they would not drown my precious Seilie in their holy well.

“Go away,” I said. “You cannot have him. He is mine now.”

“You stole him from us.” It was the woman Beathag, her voice like the crackling of dead leaves underfoot. “If the sacrifice had been made, the Cock of the North would be king in all but name, and Sir John would be wedded and bedded with the queen instead of moldering headless in his grave.”

“One puppy?” I said. “To make such a difference?”

“One life. ’Tis the life that makes the spell, and it matters not if it’s a wee hoond dog or a man full-grown and in his prime. You stole the life and you changed it all.”

I could feel Seilie struggling in my arms. I could feel the presence of another person.

“Go away!” I screamed. “Seilie, no!”

He wriggled free. I heard his claws click on the flagstones, then silence, as if someone had picked him up. I began to cry. I felt so hot that my tears felt cold on my cheeks.

“Shush. It is all right,
ma mie
. Your little hound is perfectly safe.
But I think you should be in bed, and that the physician should see you.”

I knew that voice. I knew who called me his
mie
. I felt so dreadful that it was actually a comfort to be someone’s
mie
.

“Nico,” I said. “I think I am going to die.”

“You are not going to die.” I heard Seilie’s claws clicking on the stones again, and was glad the witch-woman had let him go.

“Lady Huntly’s familiars are here,” I said. “They want to sacrifice Seilie.”

“They are gone.” Hands, light but strong, hooked themselves under my arms and pulled me to my feet. I staggered and arms lifted me, cradling me, shoulders and knees. I sighed and curled myself against an embroidered doublet and a shirt that smelled of bitter orange and myrrh.

“I am going to die,” I said again. “I thought I was going to die before and you were there, too. You lifted me up just like this.”

“So I did.”

“Why are you here? How do you always know where I am?”

He began to walk. Seilie clicked along beside us.

“Rinette,
ma mie
, I always know where you are. Do you think I have not watched you since that first terrible night? I have seen you cry with the most heartrending anguish over your husband’s dead body, and I have seen you face down the queen to demand justice for him. I have seen you with your daughter and the love devouring you like a flame. I have seen you dance and I have seen you ride and I have seen you with your flowers in your garden by the sea. My beautiful girl. My beautiful, beautiful girl.”

He bent his head and I felt his lips touch the corner of my mouth, so gently, so softly I might have imagined it.

“You are burning up with fever,” he said. “I am bound by a holy vow and I have no right to say it, but you will not remember.
Je t’aime, ma mie
.”

“I will remember.” His words were running together and I could not make sense of them, but it made me indignant that he thought I
would not remember. “I remember when you carried me before, in the High Street.”

“Shhh. I will find the physician, and take care of your little hound for you. Better that you forget that night in the High Street forever.”

I
WAS BACK IN THE
High Street of Edinburgh and Alexander was walking beside me. The August night was warm and humid…

“M
AKE WAY!
” A
LEXANDER CRIED
. “This
lady is ill. Make way—”

He broke off with a strange sound, half shriek, half exhalation. His arm fell away from my waist and he lurched to one side. I staggered and opened my eyes and saw a flood of glistening black in the torchlight, bursting from his throat…

“I
MUST BLEED HER
. S
HE
is full of choleric humors.”

“No. She is too weak.”

Jennet. Faithful Jennet. I could also hear the high yaps of a puppy. Long russet-red ears and freckled paws. My Seilie. The witch-women hadn’t taken him.

“A purge, then.”

“You fool of a physicker, she’s been vomiting for three days. She needs water, only water, a few drops at a time so she can retain it. Meat broth if we can coax her.”

Were they talking about me? Vomiting for three days? Was that why my back ached and my belly hurt?

I
STAGGERED AND OPENED MY
eyes and saw a flood of glistening black in the torchlight, bursting from his throat. Slow, slow, everything was unnaturally slow. I could see the hand with the dagger, and I could see the dagger’s guard,
gold worked in a design of outspread wings. The pommel was in the shape of a falcon’s head with faceted rubies for eyes. As I watched, one ruby broke free and traced a shining, tumbling arc into the deep terrible wound the blade was slicing…

“Y
OU MUST ASK HER WHERE
she has hidden the casket.” A woman’s voice. Not one of the witch-women, someone else.

I felt so sick, so sick.

“She is too weak to be questioned, Lady Margaret.”

“She is dying, Monsieur de Clerac. The physician has given her up. There is not another living soul who knows where she has hidden the casket, and unless someone gets the truth from her soon it will be lost forever. Question her. My son will reward you richly.”

“No. If she is to die, at least she can die in peace.”

T
HE TORCH ROLLED AND STRUCK
flashes of light off the guard and pommel of a sword, slicing through the air in a circle and creating a magic space of safety around me. Gilding, scrollwork, silver inlay. A hand in a black leather glove. Hair like fire. Angel or demon?

Somewhere a bell rang. It was all so slow this time that I could actually listen to it. It was the third watch. Midnight.

The pain in my belly was tearing me apart…

I
OPENED MY EYES
. Blessed Saint Ninian, but I was thirsty. I did not have the strength to turn my head or lift my hand. But the fever was gone, the terrible ague was gone, my head was clear, and I was alive.

I waited awhile, collecting my strength. Then I turned my head a little. Sitting in a heavy carved chair beside the bed was Jennet More.

“Rinette!” she cried. “Oh, Holy Mary be thanked!”

She jumped up and poured wine into a cup. Gently she lifted my
shoulders and held the cup to my lips. The wine was watered, tepid and stale, but nothing, nothing had ever tasted so ambrosially delicious before.

“We despaired for you,” she said. “You’ve been out of your mind with the ague for days.”

“I heard—” I began. I swallowed more of the wine and tried again. “I heard you—arguing with the doctor.”

“He’s a fool, and ’tis a good thing I was here to argue with him.”

“Who else— Here with me?” I remembered other voices but could not sort them out. I remembered being told I would not remember something, and being quite indignant about it. But whatever I had vowed to remember was gone.

“Well, the doctor, of course. Wat came up every day. We would’ve sent to Granmuir for Madame Loury and little Màiri, but the weather’s been so bad it would not have been safe for them to try the journey. You had some grand visitors—Lady Margaret Erskine for one, and the Earl of Moray with her. Moray is out of favor with the queen now over the whole business of forcing her to execute Sir John Gordon in Aberdeen. That Chastelard fellow, the poet, when the queen would let him out of her sight—very grand he’s become. Oh, and even Monsieur Nico de Clerac, who brought Seilie with him. He said he thought the wee doggie would do you more good than all the doctor’s medicines, and he was right.”

I tried to put the names together with the voices. It was all so jumbled.

“I had such dreams,” I said.

“That’s the fever. Do you think you can eat? A little meat broth or some plain custard?”

“Dreams,” I said again. “I dreamed of the night—the night Alexander was killed. Something reminded me. I saw it all again. It was as if it was happening again. I remember things now, things I’d forgotten before.”

“Oh, Rinette. I’m so sorry.”

“Do not be sorry.” I could see the assassin’s dagger clearly, the
guard etched with the design of outspread wings, the falcon’s head on the pommel with its missing ruby eye. And I remembered the bells I’d heard—the bells of the third watch. A time. If anyone could account for himself in some other place at midnight on the night the queen came home, I would know he was not the murderer.

“I will eat,” I said. “Where is Seilie now?”

She laughed. “He’s with the queen,” she said. “You know how she loves him. She has to keep him on a leash, though, because he wants nothing but to find you and be with you.”

“I want him.”

“I’ll get him, and fetch you some decent wine and a custard to eat. Rest now.”

She gave me another swallow of the wine in the cup, then ran out; I could hear her calling to someone in the corridor. I closed my eyes and thought about my fine visitors. Lady Margaret Erskine would have wanted to know where the casket was hidden; she had asked me the same question when I had lain, sick and weak, after Màiri’s birth. The Earl of Moray would have come with his mother. Perhaps he had thought the gift of Mary of Guise’s silver casket would be a fine way to regain the queen’s favor. Chastelard—yes, he wanted the casket, too.

So the Earl of Moray was out of favor for forcing the issue of Sir John Gordon’s execution. Good. I would use his misfortune against him. In the queen’s own presence I would ask him to show me his dagger and account for his whereabouts at the moment when Alexander was murdered. He would hardly be able to refuse me without appearing guilty and floundering even deeper into the morass of royal displeasure.

T
O MY HORROR
I
WAS
as gaunt as poor Seilie had been when I snatched him from the witches’ sacrifice. My bones stuck out; my skin was colorless; my hair was dry and thin—much of it had fallen out, Jennet told me, in the course of my fever. I struggled to eat as much as I could—the
richest stewed broth with capons, bread-and-ginger sauce with rabbit, sweet Lombard-style rice with chicken and eggs. I was dispensed from Advent fasting and I took the fullest possible advantage of this freedom. Seilie, bless him, never left my feet, which of course may have had something to do with the fact that I was always eating.

After a week or so I felt well enough to rejoin the company of the queen’s ladies. Jennet helped me fasten up my bodice; I was still so much thinner that she had to sew me into it. I braided my hair loosely and covered it with a red velvet coif sewn with garnets and crystals, which I borrowed from Mary Beaton. I did not ordinarily wear red but I hoped the rosy color would reflect a healthy flush on my face.