Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (62 page)

"Unfortunately he is more than just a person who can do right or wrong.
He is a symbol of many things," said Throckmorton.

"I do not love the symbol, but the man!" Mary cried.

"Yes. But you yourself are a symbol, as is my Queen. Be reasonable.
It is one of the facts of life with which all monarchs must contend, a
parameter like the net in tennis or the conventions of rhyme in
poetry."

"I know myself to be royal; I never forget my royal blood."

"Then show yourself to be royal in your thinking as well as your blood.
Think, think what marriage means, for a queen! You choose not only a
husband for yourself but a king for your people. It cannot be undone,
being once done."

"I know that; I keep faith with my promises. You may tell your Queen
that she has long beguiled me with fair speeches, and then deceived me
in the end as to her intentions with me. Therefore I cannot trust her
now. On what grounds does she object? She herself suggested I marry
someone of her realm. My Lord Darnley is the only one of suitable rank
who is unmarried. The offer of the Earl of Leicester .. . why, I would
not remind her of it, it was such an embarrassment for all
concerned."

"I believe she was in earnest, Your Majesty."

"All the more embarrassing. I will graciously forget it."

She turned from him and walked quickly to the royal apartments. Once
within, she marched down the gallery with its busts and statues and
then through her own apartments the guard hall with helmeted guards
standing at attention, the presence chamber with its throne and cloth
of estate, and then finally the bedchamber. Two of the Marys, dozing
on their pallets, scarcely blinked as she passed through. Carefully
she pushed down on the door handle connecting her bedroom with
Darnley's, and swung the door open.

He was lying on the great bed, partially undressed, resting and covered
with a fur. She approached the bed as quietly as possible and stood
looking at him a moment. In the corner, Riccio stirred. He, too, had
lain down after the early morning and the heavy meal. Mary tiptoed
over to Riccio and touched his shoulder. He sat bolt upright.

"Good Riccio," she whispered, "you have a Catholic chapel in your
quarters, have you not?"

He knitted his brow. "Indeed. I fitted it up myself. It is small
just an altar, and the candles, and of course the Sacrament, reserved
"

"Is anyone there? In your quarters?"

"No. I am alone there." He shook his head as if to clear it.

"And your confessor? Is he nearby?"

"Unless he has gone into the town of Stirling, as he sometimes does
when he has no duties."

"Go to your quarters. Make the chapel ready. Find your confessor and
if not, I will bring mine. Lord Darnley and I will come there in less
than an hour to plight our secret troth, binding before the eyes of
God. Then nothing can separate us, and I will not be swayed or tempted
by their arguments. Go!"

She turned to Damley, still sleeping in the bed. His light-lashed eyes
were closed, and he clutched his pillow lovingly.

Soon he can clutch me in the night instead of a pillow, she thought.
And nobody can fault us or cry foul on us.

"Henry," she said, stroking his forehead.

He opened his eyes, and as always, his immense grey-blue eyes took away
her breath.

"Dear Henry, rise up. For I have an adventure for you, a game. We
will outwit them, outwit them all."

"Outwit whom?" He wrestled with the covers and fought himself free of
them.

"All of them!" Her voice was fierce. "The Lords of the Congregation,
and Knox, and Elizabeth, and "

"Well, that is everyone, is it not?" He groaned. "Is anyone in favour
of our marriage? Besides you and me?"

"The Earl of Morton "

"Because my mother relinquished certain lands to him. And?"

"Riccio."

"A servant."

"I expect the King of France "

"A child."

"And Philip of Spain "

"Who hardly matters here."

"And the Pope "

"Even less."

"Others will come in time to love you. As I do!"

"It seems I threaten or insult everyone's pride. How odd, as I have
all the correct blood, the proper breeding and manners .. . there can
be no objective reason. Therefore they must dislike my person." He
set his lips and looked angry. "Something about me, something about my
speech, my bearing "

"They are fools! Come, my dear lord rise up and come away with me,
where we'll confound them all!"

They stood before the Italian priest, Riccio's own from his father's
estates near Turin. He had the rounded olive face and the shiny dark
eyes Mary imagined everyone in Italy to have. She had her own
fantasies of that land: it was a place where everyone was interested in
art, everyone was Catholic, there were many flowers, and nights were
warm and invited people to come outdoors. Somehow it was fitting that,
in her own grasp for pleasure, she should employ an Italian to
implement it.

Riccio's little altar, graced with some artwork from Tuscany, and
twined silver candlesticks, had a lace-trimmed linen upon it. Riccio
stood solemnly to one side as Mary and Darnley clasped hands and went
through the betrothal and contract ceremony as prescribed by Holy
Mother Church. The ceremony was binding, and recognized them as having
made a vow before God to wed a vow from which only formal legal
procedures could release them.

"I, Mary, Queen of Scotland, Queen of France, Sovereign Lady of the
Isles, do solemnly promise to take you, Henry, Lord Darnley, as my
husband according to the rites and dictates of the most holy Catholic
Church." She looked at the tall young man standing beside her, and his
face was pale.

"I, Henry, Lord Darnley, do solemnly promise to take you, Mary, Queen
of Scotland, Queen of France, and Sovereign Lady of the Isles, as my
wife according to the rites and dictates of the most holy Catholic
Church. And thereto I plight you my troth." He took off a ring from
his smallest finger, and slid it on Mary's fourth finger.

"Kiss her," said the priest, and Damley did.

"Ah, for a feast!" said Riccio. "If things were as they should be "

"We have just finished a large dinner," said Mary. "Everyone sleeps.
We will steal away in private, and that is better than any ceremonial
feast." She took Darnley's hand. "Let us hope no one sees us crossing
the upper courtyard. And Riccio we release you from any duties
tonight!" She laughed and lifted his cap.

Together she and Darnley rushed across the courtyard. It was growing
dark now, and lights were showing in the windows.

"How now!" cried Robert Stewart, as he saw them.

Usually Mary liked her brother, but tonight the playful, empty-headed
man was unwelcome.

"Well met, brother!" she said quickly. "I trust you had good
Maying!"

"Aye, aye!" He reeled around, so quickly did Mary and Damley pass. He
was clearly tippling.

"Quick, inside!" Mary pulled Damley into the guardroom, then through
the presence room and finally into his bedchamber. She slid the bolt
into the door. Then she slumped against it.

Damley was standing in the middle of the chamber, where she had all but
flung him.

How thin his legs are! she suddenly, oddly, thought. He has been
truly ill.

"Dear husband," she said, savouring the word. "For so I may now truly
call you." She walked over to him, so pale and unsteady.

"Wife." He took her in his arms, but he seemed carved in wood.

"What, are you fearful? You ought rather to rejoice. We have taken
our lives and our loves in our own hands. Nothing can separate us
now." She embraced him.

"We are bound forever?"

"Yes. That is what the ceremony did." Mary led him to the bed. "It
made us one."

She made him lie down, and he stretched out on the great bed. "We have
no servitors tonight," she said. "No one to undress us, no silly
ceremonies of being observed in bed and toasted." She leaned forward
and kissed him. "We are alone. It is only us. We have been given the
most precious gift of all: privacy. No one will intrude on us."

She pulled off his doublet, easing each arm out of it. "I will be your
valet," she whispered.

Darnley soon lay naked, sprawled out across the great royal bed. Mary
could not help staring at him. She had never seen a naked man before,
not a full-grown man. How was it possible their bodies could be,
truly, so different?

She removed her own clothes, slowly. Off came the headdress, then the
entire gown, then the stiffening material that held out her gown at an
alluring angle. At last she was in her petticoat and undergarments of
satin with lace trim.

Darnley took her in his arms. "Is all this truly mine?" he
whispered.

"Aye, my lord, my love ..."

"Your husband, your friend," he murmured, framing her face in his
hands. "Pray I may be worthy."

He kissed her and drew her down into his warmed nest of covers. She
felt the ever-present vigil against danger melt away.

The bed formed a little world for them: the covers a tent, the feather
mattress a safe encampment. Damley took her in his arms, and the last
of her clothing was slowly removed. His fingers were unaccustomed to
the fastenings, but his very difficulty and bafflement inflamed her
desire. When the final shred of covering was gone, she felt she could
exist no longer as a separate being from him.

"Oh, Henry," she murmured, feeling his body all along hers in its full
length. "You make me more than I am."

"That is impossible. You can never be more oh, oh " he cried out.

She felt that nothing could ever bind her to him enough, that she
wanted to merge totally with him, yet remain separate only so that she
could continue to give to him, minister to him.

They came together in the only way possible to assuage that feeling, to
both tame and release it. They were both virgins, and yet the act was
completely natural to them.

"Oh, Henry," she cried, holding his sweat-soaked head against her
breast. "Oh, my husband!"

She was wife at last.

In the middle of the night, before it grew light, she awoke. Darnley
was sleeping beside her, breathing lightly. It was so odd to wake up
and find another person beside her .. . would she grow used to it?

No, never, she thought. It will always remain a miracle to me. And he
... She looked over at him, trying to see him in the dark. He murmured
and moved. She touched his shoulder and whispered that she must return
to her room before the Marys awoke.

She slid slowly out from under the bed covers and felt her feet touch
the cold stone floor. She rearranged the furs and sheets and made her
way toward the connecting door. Carefully she opened the door and
crept into her room. The Marys were still asleep, although she knew
they had noticed she had not returned earlier. Still, she often stayed
up very late, conferring with Riccio or even playing cards until two.
They were accustomed to that.