Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (4 page)

But they were the farthest away, and were very dark. She had never
dared to go there before. Once, she had got up to the door of the
King's bedchamber and seen, opening off it, the dark entrance to the
closet. But her courage had failed her, and she had turned back.

Today she would go. She half wished she had brought Flamina with her.
But she knew that her father would not appear if anyone else was there.
She had to go alone.

At the same time, she knew it was only a game. He was not really
there; this was just a test of courage she was setting for herself. She
crept forward in the dim room, making for the bedchamber. Her eyes had
become accustomed to the dark, and now she could see much better. She
reached the doorway of the bedchamber and peered in.

There was still a bed there, and it even retained its hangings. She
dared herself to get down on her hands and knees and peek under it. She
did, almost fainting with trepidation. But there was nothing under it
but dust and silence.

Now she had to do it; she had to go into the attached closet. There
was no sound at all except her own breathing. She wanted to turn back;
she did not want to turn back. She held her breath and ran, on light
feet, into the room.

It was horribly dark. It had in it a sense of some presence, and it
was not benevolent. She forced herself to walk around the perimeter of
the room, touching the walls, but by the time she was halfway round,
she was so frightened she felt almost sick. Her knees started to
shake, and she dropped to all fours and crawled toward the door.

But then she found herself in an even darker room. There must have
been two doors in the room; maybe there were three. How could she get
out? Terror overtook her and all logical thought fled. She huddled on
the floor and shook with the feeling of helplessness.

Then she heard a noise. The ghost! The ghost of her father! He was
coming to keep his appointment, and suddenly she did not wish to see
him. Above all, she did not wish to see a ghost!

"Why, Mary," said a quiet voice. "Are you lost?"

She leapt up. Who was speaking? "Yes. I wish to return to the
courtyard," she said, trying to sound dignified. But her knees
persisted in shaking.

"Why have you come here?" The voice ignored her request.

"I wished to explore," she said grandly. No need to tell about the
ghost, or the possibility of the ghost.

"And now you're lost." The voice held a mocking parody of sympathy.
"What a pity." It paused. "Do you know where you are?"

"Not not exactly."

"I could lead you out."

"Who are you?" She knew the voice; she knew she did.

The figure stepped over to her, and took her hand. "Why, I'm James,
your brother," he said.

"Oh! Thank goodness! Let us leave together!"

"I said I could lead you out." His voice had a slight catch to it.
"And that I would be most glad to do, but in exchange I'd like you to
do something for me."

"What?" This was very odd. Why was he so strange?

"I'd like a reward. I'd like the miniature of our father that you have
that you're wearing this very minute."

She had pinned it onto her bodice that morning, as if it would serve to
call him forth. She loved it; it was one of the very tangible
reminders of him that she had. She liked to study his face, the long
oval, the thin nose and shapely lips. Secretly she wondered if she
looked like him, or would grow to look like him. She knew she did not
resemble her mother in anything save height.

"No," she said. "Choose something else."

"There's nothing else I want."

"I cannot give it to you. I treasure it."

"Then I cannot help you. Find your own way out." Quickly he pulled
his hand away and ran for the door.

She heard his footsteps disappearing, and she was left alone in the
dark.

"James!" she called. "James, come back here!"

He laughed from the outer chamber.

"James, I command you!" she screamed. "Come here at once! I am the
Queen!"

His laughter stopped, and in a moment he was standing beside her once
again.

"You can command me to return," he said sulkily. "But you cannot
command me to lead you out if I decide I will stay here with you. I
will pretend I was lost as well. So. Give me the miniature and I will
lead you out. Otherwise we will sit here and be lost together until a
guard finds us." She waited, her lip quivering. At last she said,
"Very well. Take the miniature." She refused to unfasten it herself;
let James stick himself in doing it.

Deftly he unpinned it; he must have eyed it for a long time, since he
knew how to unfasten it in the dark, she thought. "There," he said.
"You forget he is my father too. I wish to have something of his. I
promise I will treasure it and never let any harm come to it."

"Pray lead me out," she said. The loss of the pin was so painful that
she wanted to get back out into the sun as soon as possible, as if
sunlight could restore it in some mysterious way.

She attempted to forget about it; and in days to come she almost
managed to convince herself that she had lost the pin in the dark
chambers, surrendering it to her father as a gift. She was glad when
James went away for several months to be with his mother on Lochleven.
By the time he returned, she had no clear memory of the miniature.

FOUR

The wind was whipping across the empty, snow-dusted fields as the
little party trotted on. They were on their way from Longniddry to the
larger town of Haddington; there George Wishart would preach as the
Spirit called him, in spite of the warning he had received from the
lord of the area, Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell. As they made
their way in the dull January afternoon, they kept alert for any
suspicious movement. It might be the friendly lords who had promised
to meet them here or it might be their enemies.

Out in front of the party was a slim, straight-backed figure whose eyes
swept the road and whose hands clutched a two-handed sword. He was a
young man about thirty years old, who acted as tutor to the two young
sons of Sir Hugh Douglas of Longniddry and who also served as a public
notary in the district. His name was John Knox and he no longer knelt
in front of crucifixes or begged God to reveal why He had abandoned
Scotland. The answer had come, by way of George Wishart: it was
Scotland who had abandoned God, led astray by the "puddle of papistry."
Knox had in turn abandoned his priestly calling and embraced the
Reformed Faith. It was a dangerous decision.

Outside the walls of the self-contained castle on Stirling Rock where
the

Queen resided, and beyond the equally self-contained castle at St.
Andrews where Cardinal Beaton presided, reformers slipped from house to
house, carrying their smuggled Bibles and their outlawed messages. Safe
from the vigilant eyes and ears of the Queen and Cardinal, they made
their converts in a population that, if it did not actually "hunger and
thirst after righteousness," at least was eager to try to find new
pathways to God. The feeling was abroad in the air, in all
Christendom, like an undercurrent, a siren song: Come drink at the
waters of this well. People came to drink for all the reasons people
come to forbidden waters some out of genuine thirst, others out of
curiosity, still others out of daring and rebellion. Henry VIII's
Trojan horse was not the bribed and bullied nobles he had sent north,
but the reformers who followed in their wake on missions of their
own.

George Wishart, steeped in the new brew of Protestant theology from
Europe, taught and preached loudly enough that the Cardinal's ears
pricked up, and like a hunting dog spotting an otter, he tried to track
him down. Wishart continued his bold preaching to large congregations,
eluding the Cardinal for a time. Now he was headed for an area very
near Edinburgh, in spite of warnings from the faithful that the Queen
and her henchman, the Earl of Bothwell, were prepared to capture him.

At the very least, his partisans begged him, do not appear so
publicly.

"What, shall I lurk like a gentleman ashamed of his business?" the
missionary had answered. "I will dare to preach if others will dare to
hear!"

Now, across the fields of Lothian, they were making their way in
expectation of meeting their supporters from the western part of
Scotland. For this they had left the safety of life, where the largest
numbers of converts were.

John Knox drew up the coarse wool collar of his mantle and peered out
across the landscape. By God, let any enemies appear and he'd mow them
down! He clenched the sword.

Men of the cloth were not supposed to carry weapons, that he knew. But
am I still a man of the cloth? he asked himself. No, by the blood of
Christ! That mockery of a ceremony I went through in my ignorance,
creating me a priest, was nothing, was worse than nothing! No, unless
I hear a clear call, direct from God, I'm not a man of the cloth.

Wishart preached twice in Haddington, in the church that was the
largest in the area. Only a very few showed up to hear him after the
thousands who had thronged to attend all his sermons elsewhere.

"It's the Earl of Bothwell," said Wishart afterwards, as they took a
small evening meal at the home of John Cockburn of Ormiston. "He's the
lord of this area; he must have warned people to stay away." He chewed
his brown bread carefully. He had blessed it and thanked the Lord for
it, and now it tasted different. "What is he like, this Bothwell?" He
looked up and down the table to the men gathered there: Douglas of
Longniddry, Cockburn of Ormiston, the laird of Brunstane, Sandilands of
Calder. Wishart was not well acquainted with Scottish magnates in the
Lothian region.

"A blackguard," said Cockburn. "A man who betrays everyone. His word
means nothing. And ambitious. He'd sell his soul or his mother to
advance himself."

"He's already sold his wife!" said Brunstane. "He just divorced her,
a fine lady, born a Sinclair, because he had hopes of ingratiating
himself to the Queen Mother."

"He hoped to get into her bed," said Cockbum bluntly. "Legally, that
is."

"You mean he presumed to try to marry the French Queen?" Wishart was
shocked.

"Yes. And he has not abandoned his suit."

John Knox wondered if he should speak up. He ate a few more mouthfuls
of his mutton stew before saying, "My family has known the Hepburns for
generations. We've fought under their banner in many wars. They are a
brave lot, and usually loyal. This "Fair Earl' is an anomaly; but we
should not stain the rest of the family by association. One of his
castles is only a few miles downriver, Hailes Castle on the Tyne. He
is probably there right now."

"Is he ... devout?" asked Wishart.

Knox laughed in spite of himself. "The only altar he worships at is
his mirror."

Darkness had fallen outside, and the wind picked up. The men grew
uneasy, although they tried to hide it. Ordinarily, had each been with
other company, they would have pasted over their anxiety with extra
glasses of wine. But now they just blinked at each other and waited.
Finally Wishart rose and said, "Let us read Scripture and pray."