Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (58 page)

"Here comes the jawbone of an ass," said Damley, laughing wildly.
"Keeping to the Biblical theme."

The black bear came slouching up to them, growling. He lifted up a
furry paw accurate in its details even to the claws neatly sewn on each
footpad and raked at the air.

Mary backed away; what was he doing?

The bear took a swipe at Damley, and a guttural, "Go back to your dam,
you jackal," issued from the muzzle. Darnley looked alarmed; the beast
was uncomfortably real.

"Why, how now, is it not Lord Ruthven?" he said, his voice unusually
high.

"It matters not who I am; it only matters that you return from whence
you came, and right speedily." The bear made another swat at him, and
this time the claws caught on his costume.

Mary said, "I command you to cease this provocation, whoever you are!"
But she knew it was Lord Ruthven: his topaz-coloured eyes were showing
through the costume's eye holes. Those eyes .. . she remembered
hearing that he was a warlock with supernatural powers, and thinking,
Yes, he had those eyes, yellow like the Devil's.. ..

Abruptly the bear turned and shuffled off.

John Knox shook his head as he let himself picture the masked wedding
ball at Holyrood, with all its Whore-of-Babylon associations:
Shrovetide, the annual Catholic excuse for overindulgence; men and
women dressed in immodest costumes; lascivious dancing. Regardless of
James Stewart's assurances, the Catholics were regaining a foothold in
the kingdom. Not only had the Protestant lords grown lax in their
vigilance against the Papacy as shown by a certain disinclination of
late to attend Knox's sermons at St. Giles but the Lennox Stuarts had
crept back into the land and even into the graces of the Queen. A
foreigner, a slick, deformed Italian Papist spy, Riccio, now had
insinuated himself into service as the Queen's secretary for French
affairs, and trotted after her everywhere, like a lapdog, panting and
wagging his devilish tail.

Knox felt tired. I am fifty-one years old now, and no end of this
battle in sight, he thought. For a while it was going so well, and You
were at my right hand, O Lord. But now my arms grow weary, and they
droop, and the battle begins to turn. Pray You, send someone to hold
them up when I falter. Send me an Aaron and a Hun.

He shuffled over to his work desk. He did not feel like writing, he
felt like lying down. But he flung off this lassitude and pulled his
thick journal toward him.

March 5, 1565: It is well known that shame-hasted marriage betwixt John
Sempill, called the Dancer, and Mary Livingston, surnamed the Lusty ..
.

He sighed.

What bruit the Marys and the rest of the dancers of the Court had, the
ballads of this time do witness, which we for modesty's sake omit.

Why were people always so attracted to cavortings? Why so many ballads
of lust and violence, and so few of God's love?

In the meantime, there is nothing in the court but banqueting, balling,
and dancing, and other such pleasures as are meet to provoke the
disordered appetite; and all for the entertainment of the Queen's
cousin from England, the Lord Darnley, to whom she shows all the
expressions imaginable of love and kindness.

Darnley. Knox slumped back in his chair and remembered the blank-faced
lad who had come to St. Giles only once, in tow with the Lord James.
He had sat in the area reserved for royalty and nobility, had come
dressed in choice robes and furs, and had left before the sermon on
tithing was over.

Wherefore had he come? He was a Catholic at least his mother was a
notable one. Out of genuine desire for the Gospel? At first Knox had
thought, had hoped, so. The Holy Spirit called forth from strange
quarters. But looking at Darnley 's altogether innocent and empty
face, his dusky eyes that held no depths or intellectual searching, he
had realized it was either a completely spontaneous and meaningless
accompaniment of the Lord James, or else it was a calculated political
gesture, meant to disarm his Prostestant critics. The Lord Darnley was
not a seeker after the truth.

But then, who was? And among them, who would stay the course?

Knox pushed his bound journal out of the way and laid his head on his
arms. He was so tired.

James Melville strode into the audience chamber of the Queen with a
certain amount of confidence. In the very beginning she had asked him,
after all, to act this part, to be her private monitor. He had, at
first, been puzzled and reluctant to accept this strange position,
which, as she made clear, consisted of pointing out to her her errors
made from ignorance of local custom and manners. He had assured her
that her natural judgement and her experience in the French court would
suffice, but she had demurred. "I have committed many errors, upon no
evil meaning, for lack of the admonition of loving friends," she had
said. "As I know, courtiers flatter princes, and will never tell them
the truth, because they are afraid to lose their favour. But you you
will not be so. And you will never lose my favour. Unless you go and
kiss Master Knox during one of his sermons! So pray restrain
yourself!"

Now Melville must exercise this heavy duty. For the Queen, of late

"James Melville, pray enter."

A guard gestured him into the audience chamber. He stood and waited.

"Dear Melville!" Mary came forward, emerging from her private chamber,
her arms extended.

"Your Majesty."

She smiled and took her seat in her chair of estate, with its royal
canopy. Yet she settled on it like a woman merely entertaining a
friend.

"Good Melville, thank you for coming to me." She continued to smile,
and he saw that the smile was different, coming from something happy
deep within, something self-sustaining.

"My most beloved Queen, you asked me to come to you when I perceived
anything that might hinder your standing with your people. Of late of
late "

"You are so agitated, dear James." She stepped down from the chair of
estate and seated herself next to him. She had put on a heavy perfume
and it was cloying. "Now, what is it?"

He wanted to wave his hand to waft away the perfume. It smelt like
dying violets.

"Your servant, Riccio," he said.

"What of him?"

"He has become, of late so people perceive more prominent than ever.
They see and hear of him everywhere. For your own sake, and his, I
must advise you to keep him more in the background."

"I do not know what you mean." She stiffened beside him.

"The common people perceive he is a spy, a Papist spy. They are using
that deadly word to describe him, a word that bodes ill to a Stewart:
favourite." He managed to make the word sound like a curse. He took a
breath and went on. "The royal Stewarts are a great dynasty. Their
courage and beauty and devotion to their people is unparalleled. Yet
they have a fatal flaw: they choose lowborn favourites. James III,
with his favourite, Robert Cochrane, the architect of the Great Hall at
Stirling, incurred the hatred of his nobles. And, begging your royal
pardon, your own father's devotion to his favourite, Oliver Sinclair,
was in large part responsible for the failure at Solway Moss. The
nobles would not follow him."

She said quietly, "And they think David Riccio is my Oliver
Sinclair?"

"I fear it, Madam."

"But he merely attends to my foreign correspondence."

"That is not how it is perceived."

"I am closeted with him only to give him instructions!"

"Again, that is not how it is perceived."

"Ohhh!" She stood up and clenched her fists. "Is every hour I spend
to be scrutinized? What matter what hours I confer with him?" She
began pacing the room.

"It is not just the common people. As you spend more time closeted
with him, conferring with him, those who have served as your principal
advisers are increasingly shoved aside. They view this with alarm.
Madam, this is no secret. You have long known that your own
councillors harbour ill will toward him."

"Oh. You mean, of course, the Lord James and Maitland."

"There are others as well," he said quietly.

"Oh! I am so tired of being misunderstood!" She stood still for a
moment, as though she would calm an inner sea. Then she spoke. "It
grieves me that people have misperceptions. Truly, Riccio is only "

"You need not convince me, Your Majesty. It is they whom you must
convince, the great nameless they who populate the land and plague all
rulers who do not suit them. And in England, your sister Queen is
sending ever more strident messages about your lack of interest in her
'dear Robin." "

"But not to me. Never directly to me."

"Reportedly she has at last declared her intentions about 'dear Robin'
and the succession." He was pleased to see the curiosity on her face,
but it was an oddly impersonal curiosity, as if the outcome did not
concern her. Suddenly he noticed her unusual amount of jewellery, and
the fact that her gown was scarlet. She was out of mourning. "Spies
reveal news at least a week earlier than the official couriers, but it
is not always accurate. Nonetheless, as a first reading it is
instructive."

"Well?"

"She has said that although it would please her greatly if you would
take her beloved and most highly esteemed Earl of Leicester as a
consort, she feels herself unable to declare a successor until she
herself is either married or has decided never to marry."

"Ohhh!" Mary exhaled a long low sigh. "So in the end she declares
nothing. Thank God I did not marry him!" She walked over to the
window that overlooked the forecourt, as if something of great interest
was below. "So I am free to do as I like! I need not consider her at
all. Nay, I shall not! Nay, I would not! What a fool I have been
even to entertain the idea!"

"No, no, it was politically expedient to consult her. But as I told
you when I returned from her court, I perceived neither plain dealing
nor upright meaning in her, but only great dissimulation, envious
rivalry, and fear."

"Hmmmm." She smiled as though all that were welcome news. "Envious
rivalry, you say? Well, I care not."

Indeed she did seem careless of what she had so eagerly sought earlier
and for so long: recognition by Elizabeth, approval by Elizabeth.

"One plays a better game that way," Melville conceded. "It can be a
winning tactic."

"Hmmm." She continued looking out the window, and he realized she was
awaiting something or someone.

"Marriage seems to be in the air, though it is scarcely spring yet."
Lumps and mounds of snow lay everywhere, piled against gateways and
plugging up the drainage channel in the High Street. "Trie first of
the Marys has wed, and John Knox enjoys his honeymoon just up the
street," said Melville.

"John Knox!" She laughed. "And with my distant kinswoman, too!" She
laughed even harder, so tears began to stream down her face. "His
little Stewart is only seventeen! Someone my age is too old for the
fifty-year-old widower, I see! His first wife must have died of a
surfeit of Scripture-pudding, and now his new one must perform the
duties of Abishag and lie on his feet to warm them and the angels only
know what else!"