Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (179 page)

I will sleep on it, she thought. And I will decide as I ride out
tomorrow.

The next morning, as the party passed out across the bridge with its
sad gods and goddesses bidding farewell, and as Cupid released the
clock hands to start them moving again, Elizabeth looked out at the
high towers of Kenilworth, and felt as if she were leaving Camelot.

Sylvanus, god of the woods, emerged from the rows of trees, and began
reciting verse to express his unhappiness at losing them, promising to
double the number of deer and make a continual spring in the gardens if
only she would never leave. From an arbour of holly at the end of the
avenue, a character proclaiming himself Deep Desire, a messenger from
the Council Chamber of Heaven, begged them to stay.

Underneath his costume Elizabeth could see that he was a husky local
man, probably a farmer or a smith. She remembered Harry Goldingham,
and his red-faced embarrassment at playing Arion and forgetting his
lines. Perhaps it was best not to gaze too closely on legends.

"I will not be going farther north," she suddenly said to Hatton.

She would not go to Buxton, no; Mary was better left un gazed upon.

THIRTEEN

Sten hated helping his grandfather make his rounds of chores in the
courtyard of Dragsholm. They were all unpleasant: shovelling manure,
feeding the mastiffs and mules, checking underneath the gallows for
weasels and snakes. But his family had always been in charge of
maintaining the courtyard, and someday he, too, would take over this
task.

The smell of the nearby sea was especially strong this morning, with a
brisk wind coming off the water. It was April, and the skies were
piercingly blue. The land was awakening from its winter sleep, and the
already plowed furrows gave off the characteristic odour of
fresh-turned earth that promised so much. As he tramped around the
courtyard, Sten was glad, at least, that he worked outdoors. How
dreadful it would be never to go outside, to have to do all your work
in a room, at a desk, like a schoolmaster or an engraver or a
moneylender. Or not to do anything, but just be there .. .

"Grandfather, is this the morning we feed the prisoners?" he suddenly
asked. That was the worst task of all. He hated shoving the wooden
plates in under the doors and hearing the scuffling as someone reached
for it.

"Yes, shortly we will do it. Tell the cook to ready the portions, cut
the bread in chunks."

The prisoners got bread, ale, and the leftovers from the garrison
mess.

An hour later Sten trudged along behind his grandfather, holding a
stack of filled plates. Before each door thick and heavily locked and
bolted there was a tiny slot just wide enough to allow a plate to pass
through. "Food!" his grandfather would yell, and the old plate would
be passed out and the new one shoved through. Sometimes they would
hear muttering, and see the bony fingers on the rim of the plate, but
they never saw any faces. There was a very small peephole in each
door, so that they could check the whereabouts of the prisoner and
never be taken by surprise should it become necessary to open the door,
but they did not look in otherwise. There was one prisoner, though,
whom they had to behold. This one lived in the dungeon, and his plate
had to be lowered by rope and then pushed with a pole over to where he
could reach it. It was utterly dark down there, and the keepers also
had to lower a lantern in order to see. The man, chained to a thick
post, had gradually turned into an animal in the five years he had been
there. Sten thought he remembered a time when the man was dressed in
regular clothes and spoke normal words; but then, Sten had been only
four or five years old himself then, and perhaps he was mistaken.
Perhaps they were not real memories at all, but only portions of a
story he had been told.

But now the man was stark raving mad, his grandfather said, and had
long been so. He was all overgrown with hair, like an ape, and
slobbered and growled and ground his teeth. Sometimes he howled,
throwing back his head, but usually he was silent, restlessly walking
to and fro in an endless half-circle around his post, the extent of the
length of his chain. The base of it was steeped in his own filth, but
he had worn a track in it with his feet. Back and forth, back and
forth .. . Whenever the lid was lifted in the ceiling of his cell, and
light came in, he would flinch and cover his eyes from the brightness.
His eyes seemed to have become filmed and all but useless, but still he
would stop and look upward at the light. He was naked; his original
clothes had long since rotted and dropped off, and he had not seemed to
understand how to put on the replacements that Sten's grandfather had
brought. The clothes had lain in a heap near the man and eventually
the rats made nests in them, before shredding them and carrying them
off. His nakedness was not so obvious beneath all the hair and filth,
but Sten always stared at his private parts, which were visible and
still looked like a human's.

Now, this morning, Sten's grandfather tugged at the stone covering of
the opening and got it up, while Sten lit the lantern and prepared to
lower it. He let it down slowly, expecting a howl to come in response,
as it usually did. But there was silence. Then he attached the rope
to the plate and lowered it. He stuck his head through the opening to
aim the pole at the plate, and saw the man slumped by the side of the
post, unmoving. He rattled the pole against the plate to try to get
his attention.

"Come on," said his grandfather, ready to close the door and go.

"No!" said Sten. "He does not move."

His grandfather grunted and took the pole. He maneuvered it so it
could touch the man, but got no response. The man felt hard, like the
post.

"I will have to go down. Get another guard," he told Sten.

When the guard arrived with a ladder, they carefully descended, armed
with swords, staves, and guns. Gingerly they circled the man, then
poked him again. He did not move. The two men stood for a moment.
Sten could see neither of them wanted to come close, in case the man
suddenly sprang up. Finally his grandfather sighed, and took the few
steps over to him. He reached out his arm slowly, and at last touched
the man's overgrown cheek.

"Dead," he said, snatching his hand away, as the man toppled over.
"Dead, quite dead!"

"Why?" asked the other guard.

Sten's grandfather looked around the room and back at the post with its
chain. "Of confinement," he finally said. "He lasted longer than
anyone else has in here. But even the Earl of Bothwell could not
survive forever."

Dead, the Earl of Bothwell was suddenly elevated to revered status
befitting his rank. His ulcerated, hairy leg was unchained from its
iron, and his stiff body was hoisted aloft, where he was bathed,
shaved, his hair cut, and he was attired in the clothes of a gentleman,
hastily purchased.

He was placed in a wide oak coffin, lying on a white satin pillow,
wrapped in a fine linen cloth lined with green silk. His hands were
neatly folded, and Sten's grandfather partook of the honoured custom of
helping himself to the dead prisoner's jewellery. There was nothing,
though, but a ring enamelled with bones and tears. The grandfather
removed it anyway, forcing it over Bothwell's knuckles. He held it up
and examined it.

"I was told this was the betrothal ring that the Queen of Scots gave
him," he said. "If so, the promise came true."

"Don't keep it, Grandfather!" cried Sten. "Who would ever want to
wear it?"

"Leaving it on him would give him an unquiet grave, I think, and it's
time now that he be quiet and in peace." The grandfather put the ring
on his own finger, and Sten shuddered.

"There now," said his grandfather, pulling up the shroud almost
tenderly around Bothwell's shoulders.

The Earl looked, not at peace, but angry. His mouth was set in a grim
straight line, and there was a faint diagonal scar on his forehead, the
relic of some fight. Sten half expected him to rise up with a wail and
a knife.

His grandfather finished fastening the shroud and then closed the
coffin lid, nailing it down. The guards carried it across the
courtyard and out of the castle precincts the only time Bothwell had
passed the gates. He was laid to rest in the nearest church, the
Eaarevejle chapel on the promontory where the seawater sprayed the
whitewashed walls, and the tower served as a lighthouse. The prayers
were intoned by a Reformed minister, as the coffin was slid into its
vault. No inscription was left to mark the spot.

The next day, Lauridson filed his report in his official calendar, and
sent notices to the Scottish and English governments. The Earl of
BothweU, sometime husband of the Queen of Scots, is dead this April 14,
1578. May God have mercy on his soul.

FOURTEEN

Mary was humming as she finished her midday meal and gathered up her
sewing. It was May, mid-May, and it was one of the warmest, lush est
seasons they had ever had. Every growing thing had burst forth at
once, as if it had been stored up not only for months but for years:
the baby leaves shot out of the branches like cannonshot, daffodils and
irises erupted from the soil and exploded in flowers, and overnight the
matted last-year's grass was overgrown with a velvety carpet of new
grass so sweet the rabbits hopped about in it deliriously, stuffing
themselves on the tender green shoots. Mary was unable to resist the
overwhelming spirit of urgency in the season. She must sit outside
today, and do homage to the gift of new life that God had bestowed.

Chatsworth always offered pleasant places to sit outside; Mary had
taken her seat in the moated pleasure-house so often it had been
renamed "Queen Mary's Bower" in token of her fondness for it. Today
would be a perfect day to sit on her folding stool embroidered, of
course and give herself over to the ethereal mildness of the air.

She made sure to take along her wide-brimmed hat. How good it was to
pick it up again! During the long, pale winter, when she saw it
hanging on its peg, it always seemed a forlorn survivor from another
world, the only proof amid the ice and dark that there had ever been a
summer.

Hope is a straw hat hanging beside a window covered with frost, she
thought.

She had meant to go straight to her bower, but there were so many
blooming shrubs and bushes on the grounds that she found herself drawn
to them. The gooseberries were covered with little blossoms, the
grapevines were flowering, and the honeysuckle was starred with its own
creamy flow-erlets that emitted a characteristic scent that, strong as
it was, was impossible to recapture in a perfume.

Mary closed her eyes and made her way over to the honeysuckle bush by
smell alone. It was so heady it seemed to suffuse her entire body when
she breathed it in, as if it had the power to intoxicate by airborne
magic.

It enveloped her, and she opened her eyes. She was right beside it.
She reached out and pulled off one of the slender, trumpet-shaped
blossoms and sucked on its broken stem. Sweetness of taste from the
nectar mingled with the sweet scent and became one.