Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (46 page)

"You may bring in the men," Mary told the guards, and within a moment
or two, from separate doors, Bothwell and Arran entered, stopped, and
glared at one another.

"Come closer, and let us hear what you have to say," said Mary in a
loud voice.

Arran, distrust showing in his eyes, edged near to the chair of
state.

He would have been handsome, but his face had that bloated, drained
look of someone who has been ill. His colouring was bad; he was
flushed where he should have been pale, and blanched where he should
have been flushed.

Bothwell walked forward as though he were so disgusted he could barely
stand to be in the same room as everyone else including the Queen. She
noticed that he wore his riding clothes; he had not seen fit to put on
the proud attire that she had seen him in at the wedding.

"James Hamilton, Earl of Arran, explain yourself to us and to the
council here present," Mary said.

Arran pointed a shaking finger at Bothwell. "He's a traitor! He tried
to lead me into treason! He wanted me to waylay you, to kill Lord
James and Maitland, to take you captive "

"He's stark raving mad," said Bothwell calmly. "This is all his sick
fancy. You know he takes it of his mother; she has been mad for years.
"

Mary saw Morton start as if he had been bitten. He ran a pudgy hand
through his wiry red hair. Then she remembered: Morton's wife was the
sister of Arran's mother, and they said she was insane, too, that
Morton kept her locked up while he pursued other women.. ..

"Mad? Mad?" cried Arran. "No, I'm not mad! He whispered it in my
ear, he thought no one would ever know!"

"I tell you he's mad," said Bothwell. He did not seem afraid for his
life,

his station, or his reputation. He merely stood calmly, as if he were
a long-suffering victim.

"Alas, I must verify that," said Kirkcaldy. The young soldier stood
up, obviously hating what he had to do. "He had escaped from
confinement at his father's home and came to me, half naked, in the
middle of the night. Then the spell came upon him, and he cried out
about witches and devils attacking him. Then he " Kirkcaldy stopped,
ashamed. "He imagined himself to be the Queen's husband and in bed
with her."

There were sharp intakes of breath all around, except for Bothwell, who
let out a hoot of laughter.

"Isn't she? Isn't she?" Arran cried plaintively, and ran toward Mary.
A guard jumped into action and grabbed him.

"Take him to Edinburgh Castle," Lord James said decisively, before Mary
could say anything.

"Yes," she said. "I order that he be taken there."

When the guards had led Arran away, Bothwell said, "I am free to go?"
Every muscle in his body showed that he was already moving in his
mind.

"No," said Lord James. "There are yet questions we need to ask you.
Arran may be mad, but who is to say that something you said was not the
basis of it? Even a madman needs seeds planted in his mind. Now, what
was it you advocated?"

Bothwell was astonished. "Nothing! I advocated nothing!"

"Why were you in touch with Randolph?" Maitland suddenly asked.

Mary watched Maitland as he stared intently at Bothwell. His genial
demeanour had been replaced by something from the Inquisition.

"Perhaps you have been in league with the English," Erskine
suggested.

Bothwell looked incredulous. "You must know that I am proud of the
fact that I have never been in league with any foreign power."

"Proud? But "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit
before a fall," " Lord James intoned. "Perhaps your very pride has
drawn you into sin!"

"I am sure that, being a man, I am a sinner, but in a general, rather
than a particular, sense," said Bothwell. His manner had changed a
little, Mary noticed. He now seemed more truculent and ready for
combat. "Try me, then, in a court of law. If no fault be found in me,
acquit me and let me go." _

"But we cannot acquit you," said Maitland.

"What do you mean?" Mary demanded. "Of course he is entitled to a
trial!"

"But not an acquittal," Maitland said smoothly. "Do you not
understand? An acquittal of Bothwell would then convict Arran of false
accusation, making him a traitor deserving of death. Arran is the next
blood to the throne; it would not be seemly. It would make of us a
laughingstock among nations."

"Let me go!" roared Bothwell. If he had had a sword, Mary knew he
would have drawn it. Guards immediately grabbed his arms and pinned
them behind his back.

"Then we shall not try him," said Mary slowly. "For now I remember the
maxim of Livy: Hominem improbum non accus ari tutius est, quam absolvi.
That is, not to try someone suspected of something is better policy
than to acquit him."

"There is a letter just arrived from Queen Elizabeth pleading for him,"
said Lord James. "How did she know of all this, if he had not been in
league with Randolph?"

Had Bothwell been all the deceitful things he had so stoutly claimed
not to be? Mary felt a great, flooding disappointment.

"I have been good to you," she finally said to Bothwell. "And is this
how you repay me?"

"Is what how I repay you? Lord James is twisting the facts, poisoning
your mind to discredit me!"

"I pray you, remove to Edinburgh Castle. Your temper is growing as
distracted as Arran's," Mary said. She would question him later, in
private, away from this tribunal.

"You are faithless, like all monarchs!" cried Bothwell. "To think I
was so deceived in you!"

"Obey the Queen!" Lord James had risen and he roared out the order.
The guards hustled Bothwell from the room.

"I well see there is no justice here!" said Huntly, gathering up his
papers and following in Bothwell's wake.

TWELVE

Maitland pulled his cap down more tightly over his ears, and wrapped
the end of his mantle over his head. The March wind, coming off the
sea here at St. Andrews, was piercing. And to think they would have
to stay out here for hours! And all for an ostensible religious
ceremony. Not for the first time, Maitland wondered why the Lord
required His followers to be uncomfortable, to torture themselves in
His name. Assuming He did require it, that is ... "Knox will be here
soon," said Lord James. The chill made his face look pinched.

"Good," muttered Maitland, all the while thinking, Bad. Knox would
complicate things. But then, he was needed to give colour to their
reason for being there: to honour the anniversary of the martyrdom of
George Wishart.

"Isn't that similar to celebrating the saints' days?" Maitland had
asked innocently, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

Morton had shrugged. He did not care to complicate his mind with any
such technicalities. "Just be there," he had said.

And so Maitland was there, along with Erskine, Lindsay, Ruthven, and
Kirkcaldy of Grange, pacing before the walls of the castle, helping to
pile on the wood for the bonfire they would light none too soon and
watching to see if Archbishop Hamilton was inside the castle. Hamilton,
a bastard member of the clan, had remained a Catholic, although he was
said to be "everything by turns and nothing long." He had taken over
Cardinal Bea-ton's old post, and might even now be watching them.

Kirkcaldy pointed up to the walls of the castle. The whistling wind
all but drowned out his words, as the castle was situated almost
overhanging the sea. "To think we held out there for a year!" Pride
was plain in him.

"Was not the captivity a brutal punishment?" Maitland asked. Kirkcaldy
had been one of those taken away by the French, although his high birth
meant that he was merely imprisoned, rather than becoming a galley
slave like Knox.

"Captivity is bitter," said Kirkcaldy. "Yes, it is."

Erskine walked over to them, bundled up so that he resembled an upright
bear. "Knox is here," he said.

Maitland saw the Reformer, still on horseback, gesturing to Lord James.
But Knox dismounted and came over to them, his cloak, heavy as it was,
lifted behind him by the ocean wind. He was rubbing his gloveless
hands together, his Bible tucked under one arm.

"Praise be to the Lord it is not raining, or snowing!" he cried.

Maitland was touched by the way he found something to praise even in
the weather. And he was right, it was not raining or snowing, even if
it was blowing up a gale.

"It was here, at this very spot, where the blessed George Wishart took
his stand against the forces of evil!" said Knox. "It was here that
our faith received its blessing."

"Tell us about it," said Lord James, like a child. "We did not see
it."

"Ah! That was a day!"

Knox became so excited that his cloak encumbered his movements, and so
he threw it off jubilantly.

Maitland thought he saw movement in one of the castle windows. Was the
Archbishop even now calling for harquebusiers to attack them? Knox had
his back to the castle, defiantly.

"And let us never forget the difference between the English martyrs and
the Scottish. The English go to the stake whispering prayers. But
when our own Patrick Hamilton, who was martyred almost twenty years
before Wishart, was suffering for hours in the flames, and the Prior
approached him and asked him if he repented, he turned and, through the
very smoke and flames, called the Prior an emissary of Satan, and
warned that he, Hamilton, would indict him before God. And when in
England Bishop Gardiner burned the faithful, he was safe in his bed.
But Cardinal Beaton we Scots didn't let him rest so!"

Now would come the injunction to attack Mary in the same way, Maitland
thought wearily, and braced himself for it. But to his surprise,
Knox's voice faltered with tears, and he simply said, "Let us remember
our brother Wishart."

He gave the signal for the fire to be lighted. Morton stepped forward
with a torch and touched it to the waiting logs. They were cold and
wet, and so at first nothing came forth but clouds of smoke. Maitland
choked on it, as the wind blew it straight in his face, and shuddered
to think what it would be to be tied up there, blanketed with smoke..
..

He lifted his eyes out to the sea, dark and dull now, reflecting the
season. Few ships were out this time of year, but soon the commerce
would pick up again, messages would be flying back and forth, and his
official duties would increase.

The fire had caught now, and it crackled and struggled to break free
from its wood prison. It glowed through the sticks as if they were
bars of a cell. Then at once the fire burst out and roared upward,
shooting off showers of sparks in its escape.

"Everyone pray, according to his own conscience," said Knox, barely
audible above the blast of the fire and the shout of the waves. "See
how He accepts our offerings?"