Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (26 page)

Cautiously she broached the idea to Father Mamerot, her spiritual
guide.

"Do you think this is required of me?" she asked late one afternoon
when the night shadows were coming on.

The priest small but wiry within his robes waited a long time before
answering. "One can say with certainty that the opportunity is there,"
he finally answered. "Your country has recently left the fold of the
Church, but you have been preserved as their monarch, and kept to the
original faith. It is true that people tend to see within a monarch
the embodiment of a faith. A king who lies, debauches himself, steals,
and acts the coward will drive people from whatever faith he claims to
practise. I am not sure, however, that the opposite holds true. You
will simply have to try, trusting in God's providence. You cannot set
out with that as a goal. It is really up to God to move men's
hearts."

"Ah, you always warn me to go slowly," said Mary.

"It is the duty of a confessor to help his child overcome her spiritual
weaknesses, and yours has always been acting too quickly or expecting
too much."

As the long days dragged on, Mary found herself relying on Madame
Rallay's gentle wisdom of the worldly sort as well. She asked her how
she would feel about going to Scotland. "I would wish to take the good
people of my household, like Bourgoing and Balthazzar. I cannot
imagine life without them. But most of all, I could not imagine life
without you," Mary said.

Madame Rallay smiled. "Nor could I imagine life without you. I will
go with you wherever you choose to go. Is it truly your wish to return
to your original home?"

"I I am not sure," Mary answered. "Some days it is, and other days I
do not know. But if I knew you would come ..."

"I will come."

A return to her original home: the idea drew her like a forlorn melody,
coming from deep within a wood.

Then, suddenly, she would be overcome with grief for Francois, and
wondered if her longing for her faraway throne was just a disguised
wish for escape from her pain.

Every day seemed eternal and unconnected with anything before or after,
as it was played out in a chamber that knew neither day nor night, but
only artificially measured hours. The waking hours began with mass,
celebrated at one end of the chamber. Then came the condolence visits
in reality, the political conferences then more prayers, then a dinner,
served silently. No one could enter the chamber without the prior
approval of Queen Catherine and a thorough searching by the guards. The
"frivolous" applicants were turned away; only accredited ambassadors
and the Guise uncles were permitted access to Mary in those first two
weeks.

She braced herself for these visits, wrapping herself in white fur
mantles for warmth in the chilly chamber. The dreary December weather
and short days outside seemed to steep the chamber itself in cold, dead
solitude.

On the twelfth day, a large man stood on the threshold of her chamber,
a leather envelope in his gloved hand. His dark mantle had snow in its
folds.

"Greetings, my Queen," he said in perfect French. But she had never
seen him at court before. How had he persuaded the guards to admit
him?

She motioned him to come in. He did so, and knelt before her, removing
the hood of his mantle. His crisp, short reddish hair was rumpled, and
his smoky green eyes looked directly at her.

"I bring dispatches from the late Queen your mother, and also I offer
condolences on the loss of your late lord and husband the King." He
held out the leather envelope, and she moved forward and took it.

"From my mother, you say? Wherefore not earlier?"

He shrugged. "These are not official, Your Majesty. These were what
was found when servitors were clearing out her papers. Personal. These
are the things she kept. They were ready to destroy them. But I
thought you might want them."

Mary thumbed through the thick packet. "Why here's a letter I wrote
her!" she said.

"When you were eleven," he said.

So he had read them? Natural curiosity, of course. And they had been
ready to discard public property. He had gone to the trouble of
rescuing them.

He was shifting on his knees, and then, without leave, he stood up.

"You could have sent them," she said. "You hardly needed to come all
this way in person."

"There are few one can trust. And besides, my Queen, I wished to see
your person for myself. Few in Scotland have had that privilege."

"Who are you, then?"

"James Hepburn, my Queen."

She did not like the way he kept repeating "my Queen" like a chorus,
when he should have been saying "Your Majesty" in true respect.

"James Hepburn of what! Of whom?"

"James Hepburn, son of Patrick the Fair Earl. Surely you have heard of
him?" He removed his mantle again without leave and draped it on a
stool.

He was not as tall as Mary, but he was beautifully made and his build
was powerful.

"Indeed I have not," she said.

He laughed. "My father, the Fair Earl for so he was called for his
complexion, not his character divorced my mother so as to marry your
mother. She made him a promise, but in the end did not honour it,
thereby dishonouring him. Tis a queen's privilege, evidently."

"So you are Scots?" This strange claim he was making could it be
true?

"That, or nothing," he said in that language.

"I refuse to believe that of my mother," she said, still in French.

"Believe what you like, 'tis of no matter now. My father is gone and
so is she; they used one another out of ambition, and 'tis done. I
think" he grinned "she won. Of course, she had more cards to play
with."

"You sound like a gambler."

"I am." He made no blushing apology.

"So am I," she said, startling herself by the admission.

"All queens all good ones must be. Certainly your cousin Elizabeth is
one of the first order. The bets are still out on her. She has not
married yet, in spite of all her offers. Tis a privilege of queens, as
I said, to dangle suitors."

In spite of herself, she laughed. "But who are you?" she asked, in
halting Scots. It had been so long since she had used it. It came out
"hoo arr yoo?"

"Ah, that's good. Your enemies say you cannot speak the language.
You'll show them."

"Come, sir, answer my question."

"I am Earl of Bothwell. I have other titles as well, which I inherited
from the Fair Earl: Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Keeper of Hermitage
and Edinburgh Castles, Sheriff of East Lothian, Lieutenant of the
Southern Borders. If you're so kind as to confirm them, that is."

"That remains to be seen." She adjusted the filmy white veil beneath
her chin, which was part of the deuil costume.

"Are you coming back to Scotland, or no?" he demanded. "The talk is
that you aren't. That you'll be put out to pasture in France like one
of those fine cows in Normandy, there to lie down and graze in soft
green meadows. Twould please your brother James if you stayed. As son
of the King and Lord of the Congregation, with Knox's blessing he'd
rule Scotland, as he believes he was meant to do. Destiny calls him,
he thinks. Ha! Destiny is calling loud all over these days, starting
with Master Knox."

"Oui. je reviendrai d I'Ecosse."

"Then you must needs not speak French. They hate the sound of it."

No mention of pleasure that she had elected to return, and he was the
only living soul to whom she had thus far announced it. She was
disappointed. "Where did you learn French, then?" she asked.

He looked amused at her question. "All educated people speak French,"
he said. "You'll find many of your subjects speak French, write
French, and have spent time in France. But that does not stop them
from hating the sound of it, as I said."

"Then they must needs hate me."

"Why, are you a Frenchwoman?" he said, looking directly at her. He
asked it in a school masterly fashion, as if he were teacher, and she
his student. It was the way her uncles spoke to her, and in them she
tolerated it. But she had grown tired of it, and never realized how
deeply until now.

"For all purposes, yes," she answered.

"You're wrong." His voice turned rough and hectoring. "They've taught
you that, but they lied, for their own purposes. Listen to the
speaker, and always ask yourself, "What has he to gain by convincing me
of the thing he champions?" It suited the Guises to convince you of
your Frenchness. But you're only half French; the rest is Scots, and
royal Scots at that the Stewarts, who have guided Scotland for almost
two hundred years. Look at your reddish hair, your sportsmanship, your
love of the wild country ... and you'll see Scots written bold upon
you."

"How do you know of my love of wild country, or of aught else? I also
love courtly pageants and refinements of manners. Now what have you to
gain from convincing me, Lord Bothwell?"

"I gain a queen in her rightful country. Truth to tell, I think
Scotland deserves its own monarch on its own throne. With all due
respect, your mother was not our own queen; and a bastard son does not
a king make. In the past six generations we've had precious few
full-grown monarchs. Minorities and regencies .. . poor
substitutes."

"And your titles confirmed, of course."

"Aye. As Lord Admiral, I shall naturally provide the fleet to see you
safely home."

"What is wrong with your left eye?" she suddenly asked, hoping to put
him on the defensive. There was a large scar right above it.

"It was injured in a skirmish with Cockbum o' Ormiston." He paused,
then decided not to tease her into asking who this man was. "A Scots
traitor, who was coming north with four thousand pounds in bribe money
from the English. You'll find English gold all over Scotland, trying
to buy the nobles. Of course, it is not English gold, but carefully
converted into French money to disguise its origins. Anyway, I
trounced Ormiston."

"Is everyone for sale?" she cried.

"No, but they all accept money. The English cannot tell who is for
sale and who is not, so they are forced to pay everyone." He laughed.
"I can tell you this, my lady, my Queen: I am loyal to the crown and do
not take the English bribes. I am the only one who does not. My life
upon it."

"Why are you then so loyal?" She had forgotten, and was back speaking
French again.

"It is a family tradition which my father betrayed and which I have
restored. I must tell you now, directly, that I am Protestant. George
Wishart preached in my area, although my father arrested him and turned
him over to Cardinal Beaton to be burnt. But his words and doctrine
convinced me. Yes, I am Protestant, but I am your vassal, and my
loyalty is firm unto the crown. A man may believe many things and keep
loyalty to them all, just as a person may be many things and still be
consistent. What is the English Queen's motto: Semper eadem, 'be
always one'? Yet she is a mosaic, a thousand parts."