Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (131 page)

Their faces, upturned, were hostile. "Adulteress!" they screamed, and
this time the voices were those of women.

Women! Not coarse soldiers, paid to echo their commanders' ideas, but
ordinary women in the town. They hated her!

"Adulteress!" they screamed. "Burn the whore!"

The cavalcade made its way through the city gate and turned up the High
Street. Now the crowds were thick, and every window was full of
spectators. A yell of derision rang out from the roof of one house,
followed by a sickening splat as a chamber pot was emptied. It barely
missed Mary, landing on the cobblestones right in front of her. Some
of the excrement flew up and spattered her horse and her bare legs.

"Whore!" The crowd, excited now, rushed forward and leering mouths
screamed curses. Spit flew through the air, and she could feel its
spray on her legs, hands, cheeks. Her horse was startled and jumped
and almost threw her off. She did not want to land among them; they
would tear her limb from limb.

They would kill their own Queen with their bare hands.

She was so shaken she did not notice that they were stopping halfway up
the street.

"Off!" said Morton. "You will be safer here!" He yanked her arm and
quickly she was pulled into a fortified house that was next to the
Tolbooth. She recognized it as the Black Turnpike, where criminals
awaiting trial were often put when the Tolbooth was full.

The Lords poured into the house and then slammed the door, shutting out
the jeering, violent mob. Even Morton looked relieved to be away from
them, although he did not usually show emotion. He took off his
wide-brimmed hat, the one he was never without, and fanned himself. His
face was flushed and, along with his red hair, made him look like
something combustible.

"Well," he said. "We will dine here, courtesy of the Provost, whose
house this is." He did not ask her to join them, nor would she have.

"I will return to Holyrood when the mob disperses," she said. Holyrood
it was only ten days since she and Bothwell had left it. "In the
meantime, fetch me Mary Seton to attend me."

Ruthven laughed. "You will not return to Holyrood. You will remain in
our company. And as for your Mary Seton, she has been left behind at
Carberry Hill to fend for herself."

"What, am I a prisoner? I shall return to Holyrood, and who shall
gainsay me?" She looked from one face to another.

"It is not safe," Morton finally said. "Listen to them outside!"

"Yes, I hear them. I hear what you have whipped them up to!"

"Nay, Madam, that I have not. They speak of their own accord; were it
not for us, they would break in here and take you."

"Ohh!" She turned and mounted the stairs to get away from them, so
smugly gathered in the entrance room.

Upstairs there was a bedroom already made ready for her. So they had
planned this all along. She sank down on the bed and lay full length,
staring up at the ceiling. Her heart was beating like a drum; she
could feel it. Her legs dangled out from under the short dress.

Burn her, kill. her, drown her. The words floated up from the street
below, filled with a milling mob.

She could not think. She could hardly even feel. For so long her body
had had to move, jump, fight, ride, almost with no direction from her
brain or heart. There had been no time to bring the two together as
she and Bothwell had dodged and run to keep ahead of events.

Bothwell. He was gone, safe at Dunbar by now. Her heart went out to
him, hoping he was asleep in a secure bed. He would find a way to
rally the royal supporters and oust these rebels. All was not lost.
There were still the Hamiltons, Huntly and his Gordons, the
Borderers.

But the people. Those looks. Their hatred .. .

Her head was swirling. She was ravenously hungry, but nauseated at the
same time. The bed seemed to revolve around the room.

Shaking, she rose and went to the window. On the street down below
stretched the offensive Damley banner. As soon as they glimpsed her,
the people, excited, began yelling. Just then she saw Maitland
hurrying toward the house.

"Good Maitland!" she called, and stretched her arms out the window.

The mob, inflamed, began to chant. Maitland pulled his hat down over
his eyes and pretended he had not heard or seen her. He disappeared
from sight.

She reeled back toward the bed and flung herself on it. Again the room
spun. Just then the door flew open with no polite knock and she looked
up to see two enormous guards station themselves in the room and stand
there with crossed arms. They did not greet her or ask permission.

I am a prisoner, she thought. Bothwell was right.

She ached to be with him. With the soldiers there, she would not even
be permitted the comfort of tears. She rolled over on her stomach and
felt the hidden paper crinkle slightly under her weight. It was all
she had of Bothwell, for now. That and the child she suspected she was
carrying,

which she had not told him about, else he would have insisted on
staying with her.

There was only nightmarish rest that night, with the red glow from the
hundreds of torches outside lighting up the walls of the room, with
soldiers breathing heavily and shuffling nearby, with her own aching
stomach. Earlier she had heard the Lords all feasting in the
downstairs room, then they had dispersed. But escape was impossible.
Every time she turned over, the soldiers jumped to attention.

The hours passed slowly, and she felt dizzier and dizzier. Ghosts
floated into the room: Riccio's form passed by her, and Damley's,
trailing faint laughter. A man who looked like the portraits of her
father, and the laughing Duc de Guise. Francois came, too, dragging a
dead pony or maybe it was only the skin of one.

Who would have suspected I know so many dead people? she wondered. So
many dead people .. . and traitors, and other ugly things .. . She wept
silently, overcome by all the heaviness surrounding her, the weight of
it, dragging her down into cold, oily depths where she could not
breathe.

Was it morning? Was that what the sunlight meant? Where were the
soldiers? She pulled herself out of bed and dragged herself over to
the window. The sunlight, glancing off the slate tiles of the roof
right under her window, hurt her eyes.

The crowd was still there. At the sight of her, a tumult rose. She
flung her arms out the window and called to them.

"Help me! Help me! Oh, good people, deliver me!" The agony of seeing
them was unbearable. She tore at her bodice and ripped it open. Her
hair, tangled and unbound, hung down out the window.

"Ooooohhh," the spectators gasped. She looked like an apparition, a
madwoman.

"Either slay me yourselves, or deliver me from the cruelty of the false
traitors who have me in captivity!" she cried.

The mob murmured, and some began to cry, "Save her! Save her!" Then
another part of the mob unfurled the Darnley banner again, flaunting it
before her. Another part cried, "Away with that!" and rushed the
banner, trying to tear it off its poles.

"Help me! Help me!" she shrieked, in a ghostly voice.

The Edinburgh alarm was sounded, calling all citizens to arms.

Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her back in. It was
Morton.

"So the second the soldiers go down to eat, you raise the alarm!" he
said, staring at her.

For a moment she did not understand. Then, suddenly, she saw that her
entire bodice was open, revealing her breasts completely to his
searching eyes. How had this happened? How had the bodice been torn
open?

"And you wonder that the people call you whore!" The disgust was
dripping from his voice. "When you show yourself naked to their eyes.
Expect no deference due a Queen, then!" He was gloating.

Then his eye spotted a piece of paper lying on the floor. "What's
this?" he said eagerly.

The paper! The paper had fallen out of her bodice! When she had torn
the bodice in her frenzy, she had forgotten the paper. But then, she
had forgotten everything. She leapt to retrieve it, throwing herself
on the floor and covering it before Morton could get it.

"Give it to me," he ordered.

She found herself staring at the tip of his boot. He moved it back as
if to kick her full in the face. But she did not budge.

"Give it to me!" he said, bending down and lifting her up. She
crumpled the paper and clutched it in the innermost part of her fist.
He grabbed the first and tried to pry the fingers open.

"It is my paper, my royal property, and I forbid you to take it or even
look at it," she said.

He laughed. "How royal. How full of presence. But that is all over
now. Give it to me."

That is all over now. What did he mean?

"No."

He took her fist in both his hands and put enormous pressure on it, as
if he were crushing a walnut shell. She could feel the bones in her
hand start to give way. He meant to cripple her! It was her right
hand, the one she wrote with

"There!" He pried her fingers open and extracted the paper, torn now
and almost illegible.

Mockingly he unfolded it and read it. "This is not worth losing the
use of your hand over," he said lightly. "There's nothing here of any
import."

"Save that you and others signed a bond to murder my husband!"

"Did we? Who says so? Bothwell? How like him, to forge a bond. He
is full of false bonds, like the one he forced everyone to sign at
Ainslie's Tavern with a little persuasion from wine and two hundred
soldiers!" Slowly, deliberately, he tore up the paper and let the
little pieces flutter to the floor. "I think it is time you had some
nourishment. Lack of food has turned your wits. I will send up a
tray. And then the secretary Maitland wishes to speak with you."

After he was gone, Mary fell to her knees and gathered up the scraps of
paper. Perhaps later she could put them together. Most important, she
could read it, so she herself would know the truth.

Ashamed, she sought to cover her exposed breasts. Why had she ripped
her clothes? She did not even remember doing so. Was she losing her
wits?

In a few moments a tray appeared, along with a soldier. She had draped
a sheet over herself, and ate slowly of the fruit and bread on the
plate. She had no appetite, but if she had truly become so disoriented
she had ripped her clothes, then she needed nourishment. Afterwards
she lay down and attempted to rest.

She looked up to see Maitland standing at the foot of her bed. The
soldiers were gone. So was the tray. She felt groggy. Somehow she
must have slept. She struggled to sit up.

"Good Secretary," she said, "I see that today you recognize me."

He chose to ignore the gibe. "I am sorry to intrude on your sleep. But
the Lords have required me to ask of you whether you will leave
Bothwell. If you do, they are prepared to reinstate you to
authority."