Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (23 page)

Yes. She must visit Scotland. After she and Francois had become
accustomed to their demanding positions here in France.

The sun had set, leaving behind red-purple streaks and a little escort
of clouds clustered at the horizon, before the party assembled. King
Francois, grown surprisingly taller in the past year, stood awkwardly
on the highest step of the terrace, receiving his guests. His new
scarlet breeches were gathered fashionably at the thighs, and his
long-sleeved doublet was pierced with a hundred little slashes that let
the moss-coloured satin lining peep out. Hose of the selfsame colour
encased his long, spindly legs; he had disdained to pad his calves as
his tailor suggested. His equally long and slender feet wore slashed
shoes. The whole effect was like two green beans with shoes. But
Francois was unaware of the effect, and stood proudly with his flat
velvet cap and ornamental sword, welcoming his friends and little
brothers, Charles and Henri. At nine and eight, they were the youngest
present, and ran off to hide in the bushes and jump out at people.

"Welcome, my dear friends," Francois said as loudly as possible,
lifting up his arms. "My Queen and I delight in having you as our
guests. Pray, help us enjoy the full moon when she rises." He turned
to Pierre de Ronsard, at thirty-five the oldest guest. "And you can
recite your "Hymn to the Moon' if you will be so kind."

Ronsard bowed and kissed the King's hand. "When she rises, I will
salute her." He turned to Mary. "But this glorious sun, this moon,
shines on us already!"

Not now! she wanted to say. His extravagant praise could be
embarrassing all the more so since he clearly would have to praise her
even if she looked like one of the donkeys that provided milk for the
ladies' baths.

Mary looked at the company she had gathered about her. Rushing across
the marbled terrace was Mary Livingston, Lusty. She had grown big as
well as tall, and would need a strapping husband, Mary thought. Not
only strapping but lively and filled with energy. Who would there be
for Lusty?

Not the poet Chastelard, Henri d'Amville's secretary, who was
languishing beside one of the potted fruit trees. His large, dark
eyes, which looked always as if they were about to weep, were casting
about for something to fasten on. He watched with some interest as
Mary Seton came out, but his interest faded as she passed by. He could
sense immediately that she was not the sort to swoon for love; she was
the practical, down-to-earth type. His eye went elsewhere.

There was the handsome young Marquis d'Elboeuf, Mary's Guise cousin, an
obviously predatory sort. He had made for Flamina, as he always did.
She would reject him, as she always did. He would laugh and try his
luck elsewhere. Funny little Rene. Along with him was Henri
d'Amville, the younger son of the Constable of France, Montmorency;
Mary saw that he was wearing the rose silk handkerchief of hers that he
had found once and claimed to treasure above all things. He had pinned
it to his doublet, and when he saw her watching, he deliberately kissed
his fingers and touched them to the handkerchief.

The servitors passed silver goblets of white wine around to the
company, and they all stood on the terrace facing east, waiting for the
moon to rise in the clear sky. No one talked; they just waited
quietly. A line of trees at the far end of the garden obscured the
horizon, but they could make out a pale gleam as the moon emerged and
began her nighttime journey across the sky.

"Ah!" said a quiet voice beside her, and Mary recognized it as
Ronsard's.

As the moon cleared herself from the treetops, he began reciting his
poem, composed for the occasion.

"The silver web that you throw, O Goddess, lies shining over all the
land, veiling all things ugly, harsh, rough, loud O mistress of beauty,
caress me, coat me with your white magic...."

Together the party walked solemnly out along the garden paths to do
homage to the white beauty blooming all around them.

Their voices were soft, low, and intimate, and the gentle breeze,
scented with the night-blooming flowers, enveloped them in a delicate
mantle of perfume.

Mary felt, at that moment, bathed in happiness and love, and surrounded
by all the security that earth could offer.

"Vive?" si men croyez, n'attendez e demain; Cueillez des aujourd'hui
les roses de la. vie," Ronsard was murmuring behind her. "Nay, hear
me, love! Wait not tomorrow! Live, and pluck life's roses oh! today,
today."

SEVENTEEN

Mary lay in bed, trying very hard not to move. If she lay perfectly
still, the pain was not so severe. The doctors did not know what had
caused this sudden sharp gnawing in her stomach; they prescribed rest
and blancmanges to alleviate it. So she had taken to her bed this
glorious June day, in her inmost bedroom in the royal apartments at
Chambord, refusing to let the curtains be drawn or the windows
shuttered. The sunlight danced in, and the summer air, as light as
down and as pure as white lace, filled the room.

How boring it was to lie still! she thought, when all the world was
revelling in outdoor pleasures. Francois was out riding, and Catherine
de M dicis was galloping along with him, exhibiting her famous shapely
calves by exposing them over her saddle horn

Mary smiled. Her mother-in-law was a strange woman, with her vanity
about her legs her best feature, and visible only when she rode her
fierce, smothering maternal possessiveness and her sinister reputation
for poisoning. Since both she and Mary were united in their goal and
devotion to Francois, there were no clashes between them. All was
harmony, and Francois, after the first shock, had put on the mantle of
kingship and worn it as well as he was able.

Mary closed her eyes. The pain seemed to be abating somewhat. Now, if
she could just sleep, when she awoke it would most likely be gone. She
began reciting a poem by Ronsard backward, his "Epitaph to His Soul":

"dors je: repos man trouble ne Fortune ta suis: dit j'ai passant
Commune la par envies tant..."

And soon she was unable to put one word before another.

When she awoke, a violet light filled the room, and there were whispers
nearby.

"We cannot "

"We dare not not yet "

"We can wait no longer!"

"But the attack ... her illness ..."

"I tell you, we can wait no longer, it is negligence, possible treason,
not to inform the Queen ..."

The buzzing was like the drowsy sound of bees on this summer evening of
delicate twilight.

"I will not be blamed!" It was the Cardinal's voice.

Mary saw his face backlit in the hazy light.

"Uncle Cardinal," she said, struggling to sit up. The pain had
subsided, but she still felt a slight ache in her stomach. Then she
saw there were several others grouped round him like a cluster of
grapes, and every face was sour.

"Why, what is this?" she said.

"News, Your Majesty, from Scotland," said the Cardinal.

"Most sorrowful news," said a familiar voice, and Mary saw her other
uncle, the Duc de Guise. Then she suddenly knew.

"No!" she said.

"It is true," said the Cardinal.

"Our sister and your most beloved mother is has died," said the Duc.

"No." Mary kept repeating it, rattling the word like a charm. "No.
No."

"She died of her dropsy," said the Cardinal. "But she made a most
godly end. She called together the warring factions and bade them all
be at peace and forgive one another. And to you, she wrote " He handed
her a letter.

Wordlessly she took it, and asked for a light that she might read it.

The words, the handwriting ... the same as her many other letters, but
so chillingly, significantly different.. ..

She let the letter drop. Then she picked it up again. The date on it
was June i, 1560. That was twenty-eight days ago.

"When did this news arrive?" she asked. "How long have you known?"

"Ten days, Your Majesty."

"And you kept it from me?" All those days of walking with me in the
garden, smiling, while you knew? she thought. Of eating at my table,
discussing poetry, and the increase in the Huguenots, and you knew, and
I knew not?

"I sought to spare you," he said.

"Spare me knowledge? Or spare me pain?" she asked. "For if pain can
only be spared by ignorance, it avails nothing."

"Thought to make thought to keep her alive, perhaps," said the Duc
suddenly. "For a person still lives if his death is unknown."

"Uncle, you know better than that," she said wearily. "As a commander,
you know a soldier is no less dead because his wife is unaware of his
death."

"My dear," said the Cardinal, "believe me "

But her face suddenly crumpled into a paroxysm of weeping, and she
collapsed forward on the bed, burying herself in the bedclothes. The
men with the Guises glided out of the room, leaving the two brothers
alone with their niece. Then they, too, tactfully withdrew, leaving
her to the transports of her private grief.

She wept for hours, with the guilt added to her grief that it was the
burden of holding Scotland for her that had driven her mother to her
death at only forty-four. While I played and passed my days going from
chateau to chateau, Mary thought, being praised by poets and floating
lazily in flat-bottomed boats along the Loire, my mother was struggling
in Scotland, even suspecting I would never return there.

But I wanted to see her! And I meant to, I meant to, as soon as

The remembrance of their last parting, which now turned out to have
been the final one, was so painful she screamed aloud.

Outside her door, the Cardinal turned to the Duc. "I told you it would
be cruelly received."

Mary remained in bed, grieving, for ten days unable to eat, talk, or
sleep. She swung between abject misery, laced with black hopelessness,
and numb nothingness. Her four Marys hovered just in the next room,
but she did not seem to recognize them.

Then on the eleventh day she seemed to rally, to gather strength and
return to the world of others, as a drunkard will gradually find his
altered sense of time correcting itself.

She felt dirty and in need of a refreshing bath, and hungry as well.
She asked Mary Livingston, whom she greeted almost penitentially, to
order her a bath of asses' milk and to request a bread porridge for
her, laced with cinnamon and sugar. By late that afternoon she felt
herself again, although still stunned and shaky.

The Cardinal came to her and clapped his hands in approval and joy.
"Thanks be to God! You are with us once more!"

"Part of me is, but part of me has died along with my mother," she said
quietly. "Now tell me the rest. For with my mother's death much has
changed, outside my heart as well as inside it."

The Cardinal looked hesitant. He reached up and rubbed the spot where
his beard had recently been he had shaved it off in a mood of abandon
to gain time to think.