Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (124 page)

"Nor can we deny ourselves," he said. "For if we do not rejoice, who
will rejoice with us? And wherefore was it done at all, then?"

He understood.

"Ah, Bothwell," she said. "I do not know if I can follow you through
the fire in the way which will make you proud."

"I have watched you go through other fires," he finally said. "What do
you think made me love you?"

Was that why he had loved her? It was confusing. Why would a man love
a woman because she acted like a man at times? "They look so calm,"
she said, indicating the crowds. "There is no indication that they are
hostile or will turn on us."

"They came out for the show, the food, the fine weather, an excuse to
leave their work. If anything is free, a crowd will always gather. So
it has always been and will always be. It means nothing. No, this
show was for us, for you and me. So we can have something to remember
always."

She shuddered. "When will it come, this blow? We have sold everything
we can to pay soldiers. We have comported ourselves so circumspectly
that even eighty-year-olds would find us dull company. Yet the Lords
have not returned from wherever they are hiding!"

"The strong strike openly, the weak have to lie in wait. It is hard
now to tell just how strong they are. We have Edinburgh Castle under
our command, and Dunbar, and I can raise my Borderers. Then there are
the countless numbers who will be loyal to you personally and follow
your royal Stuart banner."

"I wonder if they are countless, or all too easily counted?" she said.
Once the countryside had been filled with her supporters. But now ..
.

The ships were coming into a formation, sailing abreast to show their
seamanship. Bothwell was a worthy High Admiral; he had trained his
fleet well in the years he had had it under his command.

"Is there any sight more lovely than a ship with its sails filled?" he
said, in the tone he used only when touched by beauty. " "There be
three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know
not: the way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent on the rock;
the way of a ship in the midst of the sea." "

"And what is the fourth? You said four."

"The poet said four. The fourth is 'the way of a man with a maid." "
He looked at her with that steady gaze that she loved so much, that
sustained her like bread. "It is Scripture, believe it or not."

"You Reformers all know Scripture," she said, enviously.

"Knox is back." Bothwell let the words sit there.

She waited.

"He is preaching today."

So it was to come, then. Soon. If not today, tomorrow. Or the day
after.

He reached out and took her hand and, raising it slowly to his mouth,
kissed it. Then he held it tightly and kept it entwined in his, by his
side.

Holyrood was oddly quiet and seemed almost deserted, although there
were the usual retainers, servants, and guards about. But the throngs
of courtiers, envoys, secretaries, and all their relatives were
missing.

"Do you remember those tales about empty, enchanted palaces?" she
asked. "There was always some treasure or sleeping princess there. I
used to wonder what it would be like to stumble into one whether there
would be cobwebs or whether it should be miraculously clean "

"You dream too much. This princess cannot sleep, at least not now, or
she will wake to find herself with no palace at all." He was striding
down the echoing halls into the royal apartments. At the door the
guards gave him a slight nod, but otherwise seemed somnolent.

The light was fading, but no candles or torches had been lit. Cursing
under his breath, Bothwell lit one and brought it over to the window
ledge. He looked up and down the Canongate, which was also oddly
empty.

"I feel uneasy," he said. "I think it is time we summoned the Lords
and commanded them to leave Stirling and appear before us. And we
should begin to gather an army."

"Already?"

"It is late. We should have done it two weeks ago. I hope it is not
too late."

Mary shivered. But as much as she hated war, she had no doubt as to
the outcome. Bothwell had never lost a battle, and his generalship was
the foremost in the land. Lord James, a respectable soldier himself,
was not in Scotland and could not be used by either side. Who else did
the Lords have? Morton and Home and Lindsay none of them particularly
noteworthy or battle-tested. Kirkcaldy of Grange, who was a good
fighter but surely no match for Bothwell.

Beside her, Bothwell made a sad, low sound. "This is the first time a
new soldier will be fighting in the field. It will make military
history. In later ages students will say, "Ah, in Scotland a new
player came to fight," just as we now study siege-machines and the
catapult and the harquebus. It is the people it is Knox's hordes, who
now have a voice and a presence the equal of Kirkcaldy of Grange or
even Elizabeth of England. The peopk," he said, and his voice was
tired and bitter. "With all their pitchforks and fervour and bad
breath, as mutable as the clouds on a summer's day, but stronger than a
granite boulder rolling down a hill and just as mindless. They will
flatten and crush anything in their path."

"Then we can jump out of their way. They will be easy enough to see
and dodge."

He laughed. "Now that's the royal spirit I love." He put his arms
round her. "Write the summons calling our men to arms. Let us amass
our own boulder."

A proclamation summoned earls, barons, knights, freeholders, landed
men, and substantial yeomen to report with arms and fifteen days'
provisions to the Queen and her dearest husband on June fifteenth at
Melrose, in the Borders. The reason given was disorder in Liddesdale,
that most untamed and dangerous tract.

At the same time, the Queen summoned the Lords of the Congregation to
Edinburgh. None appeared, but from the safety of Stirling they issued
an announcement that the men were being summoned to Melrose to
overthrow the laws of the land and even to kidnap the baby Prince.

Mary was forced to issue a denial, saying, "As for her dearest son, of
whom shall Her Majesty be careful if she neglect him that is so dear to
her, on whose good success her special joy consists and without whom
Her Majesty could not think herself in good estate but comfortless all
her life?"

Then silence fell over Scotland silence, except for John Knox's
preaching about the Jezebel and her Ahab.

A week passed, a week of quiet that was not a true quiet but a waiting
for action. Mary and Bothwell lived in the royal apartments at
Holyrood like ghosts, or the last man and woman on earth.

"This should feel like Eden, like Adam and Eve," he commented one night
as they finished their solitary meal. "But there is a great difference
in being the first and in being the last. One is filled with hope, the
other with dread or remorse." He wiped his full lips with the linen
napkin. The fare had been pleasing: a creamy soup with oysters, a
delicate fish from Linlithgow loch, which had been stocked by Marie de
Guise and could be found nowhere else in Scotland, the most tender
leaves of dandelion and cress in a salad, and finally a custard with
raisins and walnuts. A light Rhenish wine had tasted good with the
meal, and Bothwell poured himself another goblet of it, although he
swirled it around and looked at it in a melancholy fashion before
taking a drink. Finally he rose and put his napkin down.

"Gather your clothing and what jewels you have left. We must leave
Edinburgh," he suddenly said. "They mean to surprise us here. Oh,
they will answer the summons to come, but not in the manner you called
them. They are on the march now; I can feel it."

"Then let us retreat to Edinburgh Castle. Balfour is holding it secure
for us."

"No. Let us go to the Borders, gather our army, and then return. There
is no sense in being bottled up in Edinburgh Castle with no army; they
would simply have us trapped. We will go first to Borthwick Castle,
and then on to the Hermitage."

On June sixth, the Queen and Bothwell left Edinburgh, but in an
orderly, almost leisurely manner. Twelve trunks of Mary's goods were
transported,

including a silver basin and kettle, and before vacating Holyrood they
summoned Maitland and told him to follow. He demurred; he said he
would join them later.

"He'll join us in Hell," said Bothwell, as they rode away. "That's
another one gone." He drew himself up straighter.

Borthwick was only twelve miles south of Edinburgh, a huge, golden
stone fortress with twin towers, rearing up out of a grassy mound.
Crichton Castle, where Jean now lived, was visible from the tops of the
towers. Bothwell took Mary up the narrow winding stairs, where they
had to duck their heads to ascend, up to the flat, fortified roof, and
they stood on it together in the warm June twilight. All around them
the shadows lay long and undulating on the land. To the north and west
the fields were green, and the setting sun made the furrows of the
fields look like teeth in a comb. To the east and south the moors
stretched out, dun and grey and moss green: the Eala Moor and the
Moorfoot hills, wrinkled and weathered.

"It's worth fighting for," said Bothwell. "Do whatever you must to
keep it. If you are forced to, you must choose it over me."

"It will not come to that." The setting sun outlined his face, his
beloved profile. Behind him glowed the fields and land. There could
be no choosing.

"It well could." He turned and took her hands in his. "I will fight
to the best of my ability, but there are always surprises. The gods
like to surprise us." Seeing the look on her face, he said, "Since I
studied Roman military books, when I think of campaigns, I become a
pagan. I think of Jupiter, Apollo, Mars and all the tricks they like
to play on mortals, never more so than on the battlefield."

"And who are you, then, in your imagination? Marc Antony, Caesar,
Octavian?" She could see him amongst them, holding his own in bravery
and strategy and strength.

"None of them. The mortals in the play change; only the gods are
always the same characters. I am no one but myself."

Maitland gave the safety signal and the Lords of the Congregation
streamed into Edinburgh: Morton, Home, Atholl, Glencairn, Lindsay, the
young son of Ruthven. Lord Erskine left the baby Prince behind at
Stirling and joined them. Even the notorious Kerr of Cessford, who had
been kindly treated by Mary at the justice court, joined the insurgent
Lords.

Maitland approached Balfour at Edinburgh Castle with an offer: join
them and be forgiven any part in the murder of Damley, which was too
widely rumoured to be hidden much longer. He agreed. Together he and
Maitland hammered out an agreement, setting forth the Lords' side of
the story, and stating:

Sir James Balfour of Pittindrech, knight, clerk of our Sovereign's
register, and keeper of the Castle of Edinburgh, tendering the Queen's
Majesty's most dangerous state, and the peril that may come to the
commonweal, has, upon the like zeal with us, faithfully promised, and
by the ten our hereof promises, to aid and assist us, or any part of us
that shall enterprise and put order to the premises of the Castle of
Edinburgh, for furthering of our enterprises devised and to be devised.
Providing always that he may be so required as his honour be safe at
our first coming into the town of Edinburgh.