The Flower Reader (45 page)

She widened her eyes at me. “The queen is mad in love with him. He is the only man, she says, other than Sieur Nico, who is tall enough and strong enough to properly lift her and swing her in the dance.”

“He is certainly tall.”

Mary glanced over my shoulder to be certain no one was listening. “I do not think Sieur Nico cares for him. But tell me, is it true? Are you and Sieur Nico to marry, once you are divorced from Rannoch Hamilton?”

I hesitated. It still sounded wrong to me, bred up a Catholic as I had been—not only to be divorced, but to be divorced and then at once to marry another man. But my marriage to Rannoch Hamilton had been a Protestant ceremony, supported by civil law and dissoluble by civil law. It was a new world and I had no choice but to live in it.

“I would rather talk about your wedding,” I said, perfectly honestly. “Or the queen’s. Surely she is not serious, hinting at a wedding for herself and Lord Darnley? What does Moray have to say about that, or Maitland? What about the queen of England—Lord Darnley is an English subject, is he not?”

Mary Livingston laughed, although there was an edge to it. “None of us like him, other than Riccio, who is his bosom friend. But the queen will hear nothing against him from anyone. Be sure you say he is the handsomest and finest fellow you have ever seen. And—”

“Marianette,” the queen said. Her sweet voice could be sharp and imperious when she chose to make it so. “That is quite enough whispering with Livingston for now. Come here, and let us arrange for you to read your flowers, and tell me my own future.”

I gave Mary Livingston one last hug and made my way obediently to the queen’s table. “I am at your command, madame,” I said. “Although it is still early in the year. In a few weeks, perhaps, when the spring flowers begin to bloom, I can—”

“We do not wish to wait until spring,” she said, her fine brows drawing together. “Surely there are herbs, at least, growing in the kitchen gardens where it is sheltered. In France we had such forcing-houses, filled with roses and lilies even in the coldest months of winter.”

“Perhaps, my dear love, it is a sign.” Darnley turned his head and looked at me lazily. His clothing was very rich but there was a wine stain on his doublet, and the lace at one wrist was torn. “Mistress Marianette cannot practice her art without flowers, and there are no flowers.
Ergo
, as Aristotle would say, you are not meant to look into the future through her floromancy.”

“In this case,
mon cher
,” the queen said, “Aristotle would be wrong. Marianette’s art is quite unusual—she predicted the truth of the Earl of Huntly’s rebellion from only a few leaves and blossoms. There is one particular flower…”

Here the queen paused and looked at me.

I saw her in the old walled garden at Granmuir, clear as clear could be.

She thrust the flower toward me—a single long stem, spotted purplish-black, with slender, deeply notched leaves and a tassel of yellow flowers at the top…

“…one particular flower,” she repeated, “that I absolutely require Marianette to look at again, to be certain she has read it correctly.”

“Well, if it is anything to do with marriage,” Darnley said with offhand viciousness, “I would not believe a word she says. Mistress Marianette is not interested in making marriages, after all, but in unmaking them.”

There was a moment of shocked silence. I could not help looking at Nico, but his practiced courtier’s expression revealed nothing.
David Riccio laughed, too loudly. The two ambassadors, French and English, had pricked up their ears—any discussion of marriage always interested ambassadors.

Once I would have struck back at Darnley—
Perhaps I should apply to the tavern keepers of the High Street, my lord, for instruction on the finer points of marriage?
—but I had learned the hard lessons of court life and swallowed my hot words. Instead I said temperately, “The marriage of a queen is far above ordinary marriages, so much so that it is an entirely different matter. Would you not agree, my lord?”

The queen, of course, was pleased by that. Darnley looked from her to me and back again, and his cherub’s mouth curled down at the corners. “This business with flowers is witchcraft,” he said. “I suspect your precious Marianette knows things she has not told you.”

The queen laughed and patted his cheek as if he were a sullen child. “I am sure she does,” she said. “I am all agog to hear them,
mon cher
, and you should be as well.”

T
HE QUEEN DID NOT ALLOW
me to leave her presence until long after supper. Màiri and Kitte were both asleep when I returned to our chambers up under the south roof of the palace; Jennet and Tante-Mar were fussing over a bolt of rose-colored satin, a box of pearls, and a headdress made of silver embroidery, which had clearly been sent over by Mary Livingston’s seamstresses. I was tired and lonely, and the last thing I wanted to do was stand in front of the fire for them to measure me and drape the cloth around me to see what effects they could achieve.

I missed Nico. I missed him more than I could ever have imagined.

There was a scratch at the door. I jumped. Tante-Mar was just threading a pin into a pleat and it dug viciously into my shoulder.

It was not Nico, though. It was Gill.

“I has a message for you, mistress,” he said. “From the master.”

For a horrifying moment I thought he meant Rannoch Hamilton. He
must have seen the blood drain from my face, because he stepped forward quickly and went down on one knee before me.

“From Master Nico,” he said. “Not t’other one.”

“Saint Ninian be thanked,” said Tante-Mar, crossing herself. “Rinette, hold out your arm; you are bleeding and it will stain that beautiful satin.”

I held out my arm. “Where is the message?” I said. “Where did you see him, Gill? Why did he not come himself?”

“It was in the stables, mistress, when I went down to make sure Lilidh and Diamant were fed proper. He said he couldn’t bear to see ye and leave ye, so better he didn’t see ye at all. He said it like some kind of poetry, though.”

I had to smile. I could imagine Nico quoting love poetry to poor uncomprehending Gill. “Where is the message?” I said.

“He made me mind it, and say it over and over till I had it perfit. Said he didn’t dare write it down, for fear someone would take it from me.”

That frightened me. What could possibly be so dangerous?

Tante-Mar pulled the sleeve off. On the bare skin of my arm I could feel the heat of the fire and the cold of the chamber.

“Tell me,” I said.

Gill took a breath and rattled off, as if it were all one long sentence: “‘There is talk that Rannoch Hamilton and the Frenchman Laurentin have some plot against you watch the children go nowhere alone juh temm mah mee.’”

I doubled over laughing at his pronunciation of the French. Laughter, fear, laughter. I think I became a little wild. I laughed and laughed, until the tears came.

“There, it’s all right,” Jennet said, wiping my bleeding shoulder with a handkerchief. “Wat and I, we’ll take care of you and the babes. You just tell the queen whatever she wants to hear about that yellow-haired tattie-bogle she’s taken such a fancy to, and she’ll get you free from that black devil Hamilton, and we’ll all be home safe at Granmuir by Whitsun.”

“I thought I would be able to see him for a little while, at least.” I gulped back my tears and tried to catch my breath. “I do not know how I will bear never seeing him alone, for weeks and weeks.”

“The time will pass quickly,
ma douce
.” Tante-Mar was folding up the satin. “It is correct for you to remain separate from him until you are— Until your situation is settled.”

Poor Tante-Mar. She could not even say the word
divorce
.

“Now, you must try to sleep,” she went on. “Gill, go in the other room, please, where the children are sleeping, and help Wat and Davy watch over them through the night. Jennet and I will stay here with your mistress.”

“I never trusted that French fellow Laurentin,” Jennet said. “He and that poet, that Chastelard, they had some kind of scheming between them, too. Just let him try his tricks with me.”

“We have two good sturdy stools,” I said to her. “We can come at him from either side.”

We both laughed until our stomachs hurt. Then we made wine caudles around the fire and talked about going home to Granmuir.

That night, I slept.

S
hrove Tuesday was the day of Mary Livingston’s wedding. Tante-Mar and Jennet dressed me in my lady-blush satin bodice and sleeves and skirt, with a long dark green overgown from an old court dress of my mother’s. I thought of the gowns and mantles I had worn at the queen regent’s court as a girl, and later when I had come back to Queen Mary’s court with Alexander, and after Alexander’s death. Who knew where they had all gone? Some of them had been left behind when Rannoch Hamilton dragged me off to Kinmeall; the rest remained at Kinmeall itself, probably worn to shreds by the kitchenmaids.

“I’ve brought your mother’s gold pomander chain,” Tante-Mar said. She fastened it around my waist and let the pomander swing free. It was made in the shape of a scallop shell, its two hinged halves pierced and jeweled. I could smell the dried lavender and thyme Tante-Mar had filled it with.

“And her turquoises,” Tante-Mar went on. “
Regarde-toi
, they are perfect in your hair, the rose-gold and the blue-green stones. They
bring out some color in your cheeks and eyes. Oh,
ma douce
, forgive me, but you look so much like her sometimes.”

I was happy enough that even my bitterness against my mother had faded. I could hear Nico’s voice:
In time you may wish to visit your mother at Montmartre
. In response, my own voice, stubborn:
I will never go to Montmartre
.

But perhaps I would. With Nico and the children, perhaps I would.

I hugged Tante-Mar. “I am happy you brought them,” I said.

With Jennet’s help she twisted the jewels in my hair and then covered my head with the same gauzy white veil I had worn to my audience with the queen, freshly laundered and starched.

“Now, stay here, all of you,” I said. “I shall be perfectly safe in Mary Livingston’s wedding party, and Nico will be in attendance on the queen; I am sure of it. It is Màiri and Kitte I fear for, with Rannoch Hamilton in Edinburgh.”

“Davy will go with you,” Wat Cairnie said. “No, dinna argie-bargie with me, Rinette. He’s a stout boy. Gill and Jennet and I will guard over the bairns, and I’ll wager Mistress Loury and Seilie will give a good account of themselves as well if anything threatens.”

“Bar the door,” I said. “Please.”

“I will.”

I kissed the girls, and then off I went to the chapel royal in Holyrood Abbey with Davy More as my gentleman usher, his eyes the size of dinner plates.

Mary Livingston on her bridal day was magnificently dressed in silver, cloud-gray, and gold, with a band of pearls gleaming in her hair. Her
devant-de-cotte
, silver tissue embroidered with frisé silver thread, had been a gift from the queen, as had her vasquine of gray satin bordered with rich gold braid. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes sparkling; how happy she was with plain John Sempill, the younger son of a lord and nothing more.

“The queen has given her a great bed of scarlet velvet,” said an
Englishman’s voice in my ear. “All bordered round with embroidered black velvet, with scarlet taffeta curtains. Can you just imagine what she and young Sempill will get up to, naked in the midst of all that scarlet and black?”

It was Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. As usual, he looked like an angel, was dressed like a prince, and spoke like a gutter lout. I wondered why he was not with the queen’s party, which was gathered on the other side of the chapel.

“She is beautiful, my lord,” I said. “And the queen has been very generous. Anything more than that is not my concern, nor yours.”

“You are a fine one to be prating about the sanctity of marriage, Mistress Marianette.”

I said nothing.

“Your husband is an excellent fellow. Well set up, shoulders like an ox. He must have been a stallion in the marriage bed, even if you did not have scarlet taffeta.”

I clenched my teeth together. I would not let him provoke me.

“He tells me…” Darnley leaned closer. His breath smelled of distilled spirits. “He tells me there was once a certain silver casket that was of great interest to the queen. Great interest to three queens, in fact—our own fine Stewart lassie with her sweet lips and golden eyes, my mother’s cousin Elizabeth Tudor in England, and that dumpy little Italian sorceress Catherine de Médicis in France.”

No.

It could not all be starting again.

“If he has told you anything,” I said, goaded beyond endurance, “he has told you that he himself destroyed what was in the casket, out of drunkenness and spite.”

This was not true, of course. The real silver casket and its secrets had vanished into the ancient air of the vault under Saint Margaret’s Chapel. I had hoped and prayed that after all this time it had been forgotten.