The Ballad of the Five Marys Read online

  ‘When will you come again?’

  ‘I will be here tomorrow, after you have had the sulphurs.’

  ‘You must keep your promise.’

  So back I go each day, with inconsequential talk, winning back his ever wavering trust, showing him affection and concern. I even touched his hands, and saw the pustules drained and scabbing.

  It is the only way to go on. I shall keep him where he can be watched and harm prevented. First I will take him to convalesce at Craigmillar, where we shall see. It can be his home, or a spacious prison if he chooses.

  Perhaps if he is pampered and indulged he will settle down to be a dependent child again. Sitting by his side I could be a tender caring mother. Perhaps he has suffered the fantasies of a fevered mind and is now returning to a calmer frame. Was he deluded by this strange disease? Can he find peace in my bed?

  The remains of handsome youth. What will come, will come; if that must be the price. I hardly know or care any longer for my flesh. I am a stranger in this body. It seems to be only what other men desire. Or wish to destroy. Is that what it costs to be a Queen? Only my heart is my own. The casket is foreign to the jewel it houses.

  After four days he agrees to come with me. He is much better, the doctors say, and after more baths the cure will be complete. I order a horse litter so he can travel with my escort slowly back to Edinburgh.

  On the way he announces he will not go to Craigmillar, which rouses his fears. He has taken a house at Kirk o’ Field, belonging to the Balfours. I know the place. It is a quiet lodging by the old church, looking south from the town onto gardens and orchards. The priests chose well, for it has a pleasant open air, a short ride from Holyrood along the edge of the royal park. It will do as well as any other.

  I send ahead and have the house quickly furnished out of the palace. He can live quietly there and I can visit until he is fit to come to Holyrood. All being well, the worst may be over for us both.

  The pustules have cleared. A last round of bathing and he will come back to Holyrood to climb the private stair. The mask is gone. His face is healing.

  This is a day of bustle and distraction. We attend the last Mass before Ash Wednesday and, changing quickly, go straight on to Bastian and Christine’s wedding. What fun there is when my servants marry within the household and remain part of the family. I wonder if Bastian will wear one of his satyr costumes with the tail, but all his conduct is decent and merry. Christine looks her best in the dress I had made. Her husband may be the best stage designer in two kingdoms, but I am still Queen when it comes to judging a bridal gown.

  The party will go on all day and I promise to join the dancing later. ‘If Your Majesty do not dance the marriage is nothing,’ chides the groom with shoulders raised and hands outspread with Gallic indignation. But I must go on to a banquet receiving a new ambassador. Bothwell, Argyll, and Huntly are there along with the chief courtiers and, after dinner, I take them with me up to Kirk o’ Field. Better with company to smooth over any ill-temper. Lady Moray is about to go into labour, so my brother has left already for Fife.

  Wine has been sent ahead with a musician to celebrate Darnley’s return to health and humour. The lords roll dice at the table while I remain beside the invalid.

  ‘I have written today to my father.’

  ‘He will be very glad of your news.’

  ‘He will be curious as to how I have recovered so quickly.’

  ‘It is because of rest and good treatment. You have been a good patient,’ I soothed with half a mind on the clicking dice.

  ‘But I am better through the kindness of those who for a time concealed their goodwill. That is what I said to father. I mean you, my love, the Queen, who has treated me like a natural and loving wife. What do you think of that, Mary Stewart?’

  ‘I am glad of your good opinion.’

  ‘Not everyone loves you, Mary, as I do. There are those who would plot against you even now.’

  ‘I fear that is true. And against our son, Prince James.’

  ‘I know nothing of that. But there are devils who whispered something else in my ear. Shall I tell you what they said?

  ‘If you want to, Henry.’ He had my full attention.

  ‘They said that I should kill you and take the throne.’

  ‘Were they wise?’

  ‘They are evil, as devils are.’

  ‘Then you had best ignore them.’

  ‘When you are loving to me, I do not hear those voices. Stay with me tonight.’

  ‘I cannot stay tonight.’

  ‘Why not, you slept downstairs last night.’

  ‘I have to go to Bastian and Christine’s wedding party. The horses are waiting in the yard.’

  ‘Send them away. You make too much of base servants. Stay tonight if you value my life.’

  ‘I promised, Henry, and anyway tomorrow you will be at Holyrood.’

  ‘Alright if you must. Maybe it’s better that way. I will come up our stair when it is dark. Promise that you will be waiting for me. Promise, Mary, I can be your King again.’

  ‘Till, tomorrow, then. See, take this ring as a pledge of our friendship. Good night, and sleep well.’

  I held out the ring, unable to touch his finger, and he snatched it from my hand.

  ‘Tell them to leave the wine.’

  ‘To horse, gentleman, hurry, we must see the new bride to her bed.’

  So we go out into the court with grooms milling round and torches lighting our party into the saddles. French Paris is there with a face like a guiser. Hooves clatter out into the night, and down to Holyrood we go to drain the marriage bowl to the lees. And so to bed.

  At two o’clock noise like a battery of guns wakes me from deep slumber. I send messengers to find out what has happened. The guards are up and arming. Erskine is by my side. Where is Bothwell?

  They return quickly to tell me that the house at Kirk o’ Field is reduced to rubble. Darnley, laid out in his nightshirt, is in a field beyond the wall. His manservant stretched beside him. Dead.

  They have tried to kill me. And Henry has been murdered.

  Everything undone. Ruined. All ruins.

  Breaking the Kingdom

  Scotland, 1567–1573

  Maitland of Lethington

  HOW FOOLISH I have been, to miss so much. I waited, and desired. But now my joy is full, here with my own Fleming.

  It is beyond the craft of words. We are finally together at Lethington, walking, talking, waking, sleeping, and waking again to love. Now this is my precious Fleming’s home. And she is mine, to have and hold forever.

  The ways of God are strange beyond our knowing, and deeper than my philosophy.

  I see this place afresh as if newly come home. How well the beds and borders look, even in winter. The gardens have mended well since the siege. The orchards are recovering too. And she glides through it all wrapped in the sable hood from Muscovy. I see it through her eyes. Her lips and cheeks shine in the chill, breath white in the air.

  A winter angel has roused me from my long winter, consumed by affairs of state, my heart wasted and wearied by calculation. Now I am waking and new life lies ahead. I never knew nor believed in this before. I look back at the man I used to be as if he were some half-formed stranger.

  Fleming moves my father to take up his pen and dally with the muses once again. Sir Richard is happy to see me married, and imagining his grandsons running in the garden.

  At Lethington, we are on a different planet from the Court, another universe if such a thing exists. Philosophers say there may be infinite worlds beyond our knowing. Yet messages go to and fro. The Marys cannot be separated, and it is the Queen who at last allowed our marriage. She could not resist Fleming any longer. But I must not be the same Maitland as before. I shall live differently, united with my love and faithful to her truth. She holds my conscience in her steady gaze. She has made me single-minded.

  Darnley dead, lying naked in an orchard. Kirk o’ Field House explod
ed. I can’t grasp it. Some foolish bungling, or Bothwell’s work? He has aimed at his own mark.

  Balfour assured me it was all in train. I should not concern myself. A plot to kill the Queen would be uncovered, Darnley imprisoned and divorced, without taint on the Queen or Prince James.

  But not murdered. This brings ruin. Scotland’s disgrace and ruin in its wake. Word will go around Europe like a death knell. No one will credit an accident. The Queen turned assassin, will be the cry on Protestant lips and many Catholic ones beside. Every alliance will be put under question, the English above all, just when it mattered most.

  Fleming, Fleming, your Mary is in danger, mortal danger. She will be blamed. Who has contrived this disaster?

  I must consider. Keep myself away or return immediately? Surely Mary will recall me. Dispatches must be sent to all Europe, with news of immediate arrests and trials of those responsible. Ambassadors instructed. Only decisive action will save her. I should go to Edinburgh without delay.

  Who did this? Not Bothwell alone. It has the Douglas sign – bloody revenge regardless of royal status. They have not forgiven Darnley’s betrayal. But who would unleash them? Morton no doubt, but not alone.

  Moray. Would James Stewart be so foul? Not unless he wants to crown an infant King and rule in his place. He cannot supplant a legitimate Queen, but a murderess... We are fishing in black depths. One man is usually found in murky places. Somewhere this bears Cecil’s hand.

  In Edinburgh Bothwell wastes no time. Mary has made him her principal defender and Edinburgh swarms with Borders troopers. What other sword arm could she turn to? But at night placards creep out naming him as murderer.

  The Queen promises a reward for information or capture of her husband’s assassins, and goes into mourning. The Council deliberates but few wish to enquire too closely into the bloody waters in which so many have paddled. Darnley is buried privately at night in the Abbey tombs, like Rizzio. Ignominious in death, as he was notorious in life.

  She seems strangely unaffected as if these dire events had taken place in some foreign land and to another monarch. She knew nothing of it, and believes she was the target.

  Moray appears to withdraw from affairs. I fear his cold calculation. And Morton cannot expose Bothwell without betraying his own part. So for now the rash Earl must run his course. No good can come of it. Balfour is named on the placards as co-conspirator, yet rewarded with Governorship of the Castle for revealing the plot. Which plot? Even the street hawkers can see the gutters running foul.

  Lennox demands justice for his butchered son, and Cecil divides us from London, urging a trial. How pleased he must be to have destroyed the hard won harmony of sister queens, at the very moment of its consummation. His hatred for the neighbour nation is undiminished, but this time his work has been done by others, leaving him without blot or stain.

  Mary is alone as never before. Elizabeth reproaches her while even her own family suspect the worst. The Pope blames all on her failure to restore the Catholic faith as he directed and as Darnley feigned to desire.

  I beg Her Majesty to put an end to the rumours of complicity. Bothwell is summoned to answer the accusers, but Lennox declines to attend an assize surrounded by armed men. Morton avoids the jury on the grounds that Darnley was his relation. Moray refuses to serve. The Earl is acquitted, and the whispers become murmuring streams.

  Moray requests permission to leave Scotland for Europe. He takes a fond farewell of his sister, and Mary cries on his shoulder, saying he is all the family she has. The man is inscrutable. He anticipates worse to come and will consult with Cecil in England. Does he design destruction while washing his own hands of blood?

  I am powerless to influence events. Fleming returns to be with the Queen. My dear love is indisposed today. There may be promise of joyful news to come. In the midst of all this gloom I am surprised by my own good fortune.

  Bothwell is proposing himself as the Queen’s next husband. He openly courts support. He is preposterous, but in deadly earnest. He commands the government and swaggers around Holyrood as if none dare deny him. Can she not see where this is tending and put an end to it now? God knows what persuasions he is exerting. I cannot speak of it lest I provoke her to vindicate his monstrous claims. Fleming is our only hope.

  Placards have begun to name Mary as whore and murderess. She is the mermaid and he the lustful hare. The preachers hint darkly and godly insinuations abound. Propaganda turns on her as the Catholic Jezebel, Bloody Mary reborn. Thank God Knox is still away in England, for he will proclaim the rotten fruit of Queenship. How the zealots have waited their chance to attack her, and now she is giving it to them in willful blindness. Or is it despair?

  Fleming says Her Majesty is distressed within herself, despite her public composure. She seems to hope little for her future, and acts only to ensure her son’s safety. The old pains in her side are renewed. Fleming and Seton sit all night with her for the Easter vigil, sharing tears and lamentations through the watches. Is the Queen’s conscience troubled? Does she know that Bothwell is divorcing his wife?

  Bothwell

  I SHOULD HAVE smelt the rats right away. God knows, I’ve lived with plenty ever since. Filthy vermin. Laid out so neatly in the orchard for all to see. I was glad to see him dead and my way clear so I didn’t stop to puzzle, thinking he had tried to flee, and Kerr had finished the business. He was suited for such work. I never stopped to think.

  But Morton knew from the start. And Moray was behind him, even then, pulling the strings while keeping out of sight. The Bastard wanted her pulled down as well, and I was his dupe. God damn them to a hell of torments worse than mine and never ending. May the rats eat their living flesh. The Bastard behind that smooth mask, always uneasy till all the reins are in his hands. These hands will pull you down. And Morton ready to betray his own mother if it put more gold in his coffers. I was his convenience for a time.

  And milksop Maitland – he believed Balfour’s fictions, outplayed at his own double game. I should have killed Master Secretary when I had the chance.

  They called Darnley down, as if they had come to warn him. I see it now. And the brainless scabbie boy was wetting himself, so he was lowered from the window in a chair, to escape the danger. His own mother’s Douglas kin took him in their arms, choked the life out of him and dropped him beneath the trees like a rag doll. They left his limp corpse lying there to cry for revenge. Against me, who laid not one blow on him.

  They were cunning, God rot them. If I had them here I’d crush the breath out of them both and break them against that wall till the stones ran with blood and flesh, like piss and shite. Why should I lie alone in this muck?

  But I never dishonoured her bed, as I am a knight and gentleman. Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Duke of Orkney, Keeper of Liddesdale. Warden of the Marches. And Her Majesty’s Consort. She was my prize and I was eager for the taking. But I stood by her, to save her from the black hounds who would tear her down. I saw the fear in her eyes, knowing she could be next. When the rest deserted I was her rock, as I stood by her mother to the last. She gave herself willingly to my strong arm.

  They’re liars. I loved Mary Stewart. I will always be loyal to her. I am her rightful husband, not Norfolk or some papist princeling. I did not force her love. She was not made for vicious little cowards like Darnley, but for a real man. An Earl of Scotland fit to be her King.

  I am James Hepburn still, for all I have suffered. This arm is hers while there’s breath in my body. Just send for me, write, give me a word, a message. Call me back to your side, out of this darkness.

  They treated me as if I were some boorish trooper, a Border reiver tolerated amongst the nobles. Maitland, Moray, Athol and their tribe. A duke of the realm, and in command with sufficient force at my disposal. I knew what I wanted and how to get it, which is the first best rule of war. Since Lennox was afraid to show his face, Morton silenced, and Moray standing apart the field was mine.

  At Parliament I carrie
d the sceptre and all was disposed according to my will. With lands granted to Argyll, Morton and Huntly, none dare oppose me. That night I hosted the nobility of Scotland at Ainslie’s Tavern. Who had more right? Gold flowed like wine and wine like water.

  Then I broached the Queen’s marriage, her desire for protection, and the advantage of marriage to a native Scot. Now that my innocence of Darnley’s death was clear, who better to stand by her side than James Hepburn? That got their attention, even in drink. I had surrounded the Tavern with my guards. To a man they agreed to consider the matter and to sign a bond pledging their support.

  Athol, Maitland and Argyll were absent, but I told the rest my proposal had the Queen’s support, because it would put an end to insecurity. They could see that for themselves. At last I would get a standing army and defend Scotland’s borders against all comers. I already had Dunbar. Once king, everything would be in my grasp. To achieve what none could do before me since the time of Robert Bruce, and make our nation strong, independent of foreign aid or interference.

  All that remained was to propose myself to the Queen. She was taking the air at Seton Castle after recent shocks, so I rode to attend on her in private audience. I pledged hand and sword to her service, if she would accept me as her husband. It was the old game we played in the gardens of France, but my turn had come round. I saw plainly she wanted to rest in my strength, yet was afraid of scandal, her former consort being so recently slain. I condoled with her on such inconvenience, but warned her of more trouble to come if she was not hedged about with force.

  She protested that Lady Jean was my lawful wife and recently near to death. I assured her that Countess Jean was recovered and that we were divorcing by mutual agreement since our marriage bed had proved fruitless. Moreover her ladyship’s conscience was troubled as to whether dispensation had been obtained from the Pope in Rome for our union. Mary professed astonishment that things had come to such a pass, yet I could see this news was not unwelcome.