Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (153 page)

Mary, accompanied by Willie Douglas and Mary Seton whom the distraught
Laird had allowed to follow her mistress took up a position on a nearby
hill that gave her a view of the surrounding countryside. She saw her
army, with Lord Claud Hamilton and his clansmen forming the vanguard,
marching toward the little town of Langside; Argyll, with the bulk of
the troops, followed a distance behind.

Suddenly there was colour and movement; Lord James was approaching! She
could not follow all the motions, but later it was revealed that James
had mounted two men to a horse and transferred his entire army quickly
to an ideal position just outside Langside rather than face her army on
the flat plain. In a daring maneuver, Kirkcaldy stationed
harquebusiers in the orchards and alleys around the main street of
Langside, while Morton and James kept control of the main body of
troops, stationed on Langside Hill.

The vanguard of Hamiltons now filed into Langside, their progress
slowed by the problem of processing through the narrow main
thoroughfare. Shots rang out; they were fired upon by hidden gunmen on
all sides, and they fell in confusion, bodies heaping up on each other
as they tried to escape. The harquebusiers picked them off as if they
were target-shooting, and the men panicked.

Behind them the Highland troops of Argyll stopped in bewilderment,
unable to enter the bottleneck of the town. They heard the gunfire and
the screams, and turned to their commander for direction. Just then
piercing yells rang out; Lord Herries was leading a charge up the hill
after Lord James.

Then a wailing and lamenting rose and swelled. The Highlanders were
turning, breaking ranks, running the other way!

Mary looked across at Langside Hill, where, to her horror, she saw a
cradle resting under a spreading hedge, with the now-familiar banner of
the kneeling Prince fluttering above it. The Lords had brought the
baby James to this battlefield!

Anger and hatred filled her. How could they have risked his life so?

Perhaps they did not care if he perished; perhaps that was even their
purpose. "We lost him in battle," they could sadly say, when placing
the crown on the head of the bastard Lord James.

With a cry of vengeance, she spurred her own horse and galloped down
the hill, waving her pistols.

"Fight them, fight the evil usurpers!" she cried, entering the melee.
She was almost run down by fleeing Highlanders.

"Where is your chief?" she yelled, seeing Argyll's horse without a
rider. But no one answered, they only rushed away. Then she saw a
bundle lying at the horse's feet; the loyal horse was standing over him
and preventing him from being trampled.

His attendant was kneeling down beside him, rubbing his master's face.
"A fit of apoplexy," he said, his face stained with tears. "He was
struck just as we began the attack."

Apoplexy! How could he have been struck now? Could not God have
waited another hour, another two hours?

"Do You hate me?" she screamed at the heavens. Around her the dust
was rising as the men fled. She turned to them and yelled, "Stand!
Stand and fight! The day will be yours!"

A shower of arrows rained down on them, and the next in command echoed
her cry. "Fight! Regroup!"

"Shut up, you've no authority!" cried one of the other men, one of his
cousins.

The two men sat on their horses arguing while arrows fell on all sides
of them.

"Coward and poltroon!" screamed one. "Leave him and follow me!"

"He's no training, just a student, a soft book-lover "

"Shut up!"

A scramble, and Mary saw Lord Herries leading a second charge up
Langside Hill. But with no strength or reinforcements behind him, he
could not sustain it. Lord James drove him back.

Mary reined in her horse, and keeping her pistols at the ready, she
fled through the side streets of Langside, almost hoping she would find
a har-quebusier hiding in the trees. By God, I'll shoot him! she
thought. The main street was filled with bodies.

As she galloped back to her hill, she was met by Lord Livingston,
George and Willie, and Lord Herries's son. "Come," they said. She
realized they were escorting her off the field of battle. "It is not
meet "

"Not meet that I see firsthand what has happened? They will not
fight!" she shrieked. "Argyll has fallen, and his Highlanders flee
"

As she reached the summit of the hill, she saw Morton's pike men
advancing on the few remaining Hamiltons emerging at the other end of
the main street. Hand-to-hand combat ensued, and screams of terror,
sounding all but inhuman, filled the air.

Lord Herries galloped up, his horse sweat-streaked. "The day is lost,"
he said. "We must flee!"

"Lost?"

"Aye. Quickly, lest you be taken again!" He jerked her bridle.

Taken again. Then it was all in vain. It was all over and in less
than an hour. A lifetime in an hour.

"Where can I, in honour, go?"

"Let us make for Dumbarton. There we can gather strength, send to
France for help!" He motioned to her, and she followed him down the
hill. Below were the flashing staves and daggers of Morton's men,
finishing off their victims. "Do not look!"

But she did. She watched as the helpless men writhed and twitched and
then died, crying out.

They were past the battlefield in only a few moments, and then they
headed toward the water, and Dumbarton. They would have to gallop
across the fields now being prepared for planting. But the army was
not in pursuit. Far behind them were coming George and Willie.

Unexpectedly, two men rose up in the field, brandishing scythes and
hoes.

"You'll not pass this way, whore!" they yelled, and started running
toward Mary's horse, trying to swipe it with their blades. Her horse
reared and flinched.

Their eyes were full of hatred, and they aimed and swooped like boys
trying to make a goal in a schoolyard game. "Get her!" sneered one.

The Earl of Lennox's lands! Of course!

She wheeled her horse around and fled in the opposite direction.
Dumbarton was cut off; they had no hopes of reaching it. They could
not go through Glasgow, which was solidly for Lord James, nor get
across the wide Firth of Clyde, nor pass over the waters where they
were narrower, for they lay in Lennox's territory. Her enemies made a
living fence around her only fortress.

She and Lord Henries, in doubling back, came abreast of Willie and
George. "We cannot pass to Dumbarton," Mary said, panting.

"We must try to go south," said Herries. "It will be through the wild
districts of the Galloway mountains and moors. But I know the passes,
and our pursuers will not. You must be a native to know them, and
thanks be to God, all our people in these parts are still loyal. Come.
Can you undertake this journey?" He looked not only at Mary but at
George, Willie, Lord Livingston, and his own son, who had now caught up
with them.

"With God's help!" said Mary, and all the others nodded.

"Then let us go!" Herries touched spurs to his horse and led them
away, across the fields and south.

He had spoken true: once the softness of the valley of the River Doon
in full flower now, white starry violets dotting the banks of the
water, wild plum trees in full scented bloom with its shepherds and
flocks of sheep and newborn lambs fell away, they found themselves in
untamed tracts of mountains, with rushing, foamy streams and rocky
waterfalls. The landscape changed from the lush green of the watered
flat valley to the brown-and-moss-and-heathery crags of the high
country. The sky was enormous, and brooded over them with moody racing
clouds that threw shadows in the dips and rises. By midafternoon the
clouds had coalesced and turned black on their undersides, and a fine
mist descended, settling around them, dampening them without actually
raining. It made the footing all the more dangerous.

Even the flatter areas were fraught with danger, as bogs were concealed
under the heather and sedge and looked safe. They followed the passes
and paths of the Glenkens, the glen that surrounded the cold River Ken,
which was rushing to empty itself into a ten-mile loch.

Mary saw all this, but did not see it. She had done these things
before, and done them separately; there had been so many mad rides to
safety in her lifetime, usually at night or with pursuers just behind.
She had travelled over dangerous moors and passes on the rides in the
Borders, and had even fallen into a bog. But all that had been
different. Always there had been Bothwell, present in some fashion.
And never had there been this sense of finality, of a last, desperate
headlong dash. Always before she had had a destination: Inchmahome,
Dunbar, the Hermitage, Kinross. Now she had no idea where to go, and
anyplace she went was not a destination, but a refuge and she a
supplicant.

They rode along the west bank of the River Ken, riding slower now due
to fatigue. Lord Herries said they were nearing the mouth of the big
loch. The mist was turning to outright rain, and they plodded on.
Suddenly Herries reined his horse to a stop and pointed across a
smaller loch.

She stopped and tried to see, through the gloom and rain, what he was
indicating. She could just barely make out the outline of a castle on
the banks of the loch.

"Earlstoun Castle," said Herries. "It belonged to Lord Bothwell."

Belonged! Belonged! Not belongs .. .

"Perhaps we could ask for refuge there. I know not who keeps it now
perhaps it is still in the hands of his loyal servants."

Tears filled her eyes, but she angrily bade them begone. Bothwell had
never mentioned this castle; it had not figured large in his
affections. And perhaps, perhaps, it was his way of providing for her
now, as he always had, in some magical way.

"Yes," she said. "Let us approach."

They skirted the shore of the loch and made their way to the old
castle. There were no lights visible inside.

"This was a Sinclair castle," said Herries. "The mother of the Lord
Bothwell."

But who inhabited it now? BothwelFs mother lived in Morham. As they
came closer, they saw the courtyard was mired in mud and there were no
people about.

They halted in the muddy courtyard and huddled together in the pelting
rain. At length Lord Herries dismounted and, sloshing through the
muck, made his way to the entrance steps. He shook the mud off his
feet and climbed slowly up the steps. Before he had reached the door,
Mary had dismounted and followed him, holding up her skirts. He
awaited her at the door a massive, pitted wooden one of old-fashioned
workmanship. It must have dated from the time of Robert the Bruce.

She drew back her hand and knocked on the door. It made very little
noise; the wet wood muffled the noise. She beat on it again, harder.
They could hear it echoing inside. But there was no answering barking
of dogs or cries of servants. It was only then that she realized how
deeply silent the castle was: no sound of horses, no crowing of
roosters, no lowing of cows. And no human voices.