Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (66 page)

Did she need permission from her own people to wed? And if so, how to
get it? What about Knox? He had been preaching against it, booming
out in his sermons about the dangers of letting two Papists wed. But
if his mind could be changed?

She looked back down the street at St. Giles, its prickly crown spire,
partly blocked by the square Tolbooth, curving over the roofs. Every
Sunday in there, hundreds of people hear his sermons, she thought. If
only I could harness them! They would have more influence than a
thousand proclamations. Knox cannot be entirely stubborn and blind;
surely he is open to common sense and political considerations. An
heir for Scotland without an heir, we are lost. And I'd permit him to
be instructed in the Protestant faith as well as my own, so he could be
wise and understand all his subjects.. .. Yes, I can offer that
promise to Knox.

Knox it must be, then. I must endure Knox once more, and speak with
him.

John Knox looked out the window. What was all that commotion? There
were people milling about, and someone had drawn back his hand to throw
a stone aiming at his Knox's window. Hooligans! There had been so
many of them of late, roaming the streets of Edinburgh, yelling,
carousing, causing destruction. It was the influence of the Queen, and
all those filthy Papists she had brought with her or, more correctly,
revived. For the latent Papists had been brought out again, as a rain
will renew dried and scorched grass.

And if she succeeded in marrying that English Papist, Darnley, it would
only worsen.

That is why it is my duty to speak out against it at all times, he
thought. It may yet be preventable.

The man's hand was down; the stone had not been thrown. His companion
had restrained him, and now they were passing on. Knox sighed. That
saved him the trouble of having to replace whatever little panes would
have been shattered. Any time spent on such things, necessary and
trivial as they were, took time away from the true things in his
life.

"John, are you coming to bed?" The sweet voice called from the back
bedroom, drifting down, and he heard it above the raucous noises of the
night outside, as a greyhound can discern his master's voice above a
thousand others.

Margaret, his new wife. He gripped the iron window latches as if that
would steel him, quiet his heart that had leapt up at the sound of her
voice.

He had loved Marjory well, the mother of his sons, and had wept for
weeks after her death. God had removed his helpmate, and there were
moments when he begrudged God her presence and even begrudged Marjory
her place sitting beside Jesus in supreme bliss. All the rebellious
earthly thoughts came to possess him: I needed her more than You did.
Why did You take her? You have so many; I only one.

And, blasphemous final feeling: God is like that rich ruler Nathan
described to David: he required the poor man with only one ewe to
surrender it for his feast, when he had large flocks of his own. At
length he had, after much praying and weeping, been able to surrender
her into God's keeping and say and mean it the Lord has given, and the
Lord has taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord.

As he had finally rested in the Lord's will, Margaret had come into his
life.

Margaret Stewart, the daughter of Lord Ochiltree, one of the foremost
Protestant lords. She had royal blood, being descended from James II,
and in the ordinary scheme of things would have been far above his
station he, the son of a Haddington merchant. But as "there is neither
bond, nor free, there is neither male nor female, for ye are all one in
Christ Jesus," so the humble man and the daughter of nobility could
mingle in marriage with the blessing of the new Kirk.

And Margaret had wanted him, had been more eager for the match than
he.

I felt a desire for bachelorhood once more, but the Lord had other
plans, he thought.

"John!" Her voice was more insistent.

"I come," he said. He turned from the window in the darkened room and
made his way through the rooms and up the narrow staircase.

His feet were reluctant why? Was it that he lacked energy for what he
knew would be required of him? Or was it that he hated to see that
other side of him arise, that no amount of energy could tamp down?

He walked down the narrow connecting hallway until he reached the
bedroom with its great double bed. Margaret lay in it, the covers up
around her chin.

"At last," she said.

Knox removed his everyday doublet, a dark brown leather one, and sat on
a stool to take off his shoes and hose. He kept trying to think how
tired he was, but already his lower body was tingling. Deliberately he
pulled off each shoe with great effort, stressing to himself his
weariness. The shoes dropped heavily on the bare wooden floor.

He went to his chest and pulled out his coarse linen nightshirt,
unironed and rough. He slid it down over his shoulders, almost
enjoying its unpleasant rasp on his skin.

He could delay no longer. Slowly he walked to the bed and pulled back
the covers in a decisive military manner. It was more convincing to
him than to her.

He lay rigidly in bed on his back, half dreading and half aching for
them to come together as man and wife. He clutched the covers; his
long brown beard lay neatly on the blanket outside, like a horse's tail
that had been combed straight.

"John ..." his wife whispered, moving closer to him. She slid over
and was now right next to him.

She reached out and touched his hair, smoothing it carefully, running
her fingers beneath it to his scalp, caressing it. Again he felt his
groin tingle.

She raised herself on her elbows and then turned her face to his and
kissed him. Her lips first pressed themselves on his, then forced them
to part. She had a small, moist tongue which she wriggled into his
mouth, past his tight, chapped lips and guardian teeth. At first, as
always, his reaction was to withdraw his tongue to keep it safe. Then
something not himself, never himself let it loose and it began to
entwine and probe with hers.

She was now half on top of him and her breasts felt like filled wine
skins jostling and squashing this way and that. He almost expected to
hear fluid sloshing in them. It was comical, amusing. Why then did
his pole, his manhood, start to throb and expand?

Could he command it to lie quiescent? He tried, by sternly ordering it
to do so. The he tried to ridicule everything that was causing it
excitement. A woman's breasts: big bags like a cow's udder. A kiss:
two sets of lips pressed together, like a wine press. The tongues: two
slugs crawling slowly over each other, leaving a trail of slime. And
soon, a crevice and a protuberance fitting together with a lot of
heaving and thrusting, like a donkey with too wide a burden caught
between two posts straining and pulling and groaning.

At the picture of the donkey straining, he grew even more excited. He
was now as large and erect as any donkey, and he was on fire to relieve
himself.

He rolled Margaret onto her back, where she lay, an entire body of
obedience and sensual opportunity.

"Take off that shift," he whispered, and she sat up in bed and slowly
removed it. First one arm, then the other.

I should have just pushed it up, he thought. His member was starting
to twitch on its own; it would not be long now. I cannot just let it
happen by itself like a sixteen-year-old apprentice, he thought. The
embarrassment of it, the shame. His member stirred again and a wave of
heat passed down it.

OGod!

The shift was gone at last, and now there was no time for him to remove
his own. He pulled it up and quickly positioned himself between her
legs, nudging them far apart with his knees. Then, aligned properly,
he thrust at her soft inner self. He felt himself go in and sink all
the way, so their bodies were rubbing at the groin. It amazed him: he
had felt as large as an oak tree and as long as a village Maypole.

Delicious, agonizing pleasure was sweeping over him. She was squeezing
in some miraculous way to increase that pleasure, moving as if she were
seeking something of her own. His pole shuddered and spurted, but did
not lose its hardness and shape, and she continued to move against it.
Did she not know it was over?

"Thank you, dear wife," he whispered in her ear, beneath her
sweat-soaked hair.

"Ohhh," she murmured, but she did not stop moving; indeed, she seemed
driven, twisting this way and that, pulling and pushing. Like the
stuck donkey.

Then she gave a loud cry and began jerking spasmodically. He felt her
insides contracting in waves, felt something caressing his member
inside her, stroking like a piece of velvet. The waves came and went
and felt infinitely tender, then they died away.

"Oh, John," she breathed, as if she had just run up a flight of stairs.
Her hands fell away from his neck.

What had happened? Knox felt frightened. He rolled off her and tried
to put his arms around her, talk to her, but she was either asleep or
unconscious.

Pray God she is unharmed, he thought. This must never happen again.
Oh, Margaret I cannot bear to lose you. God will be jealous and snatch
you away, too.

John Knox his member now small and obedient beneath his breeches, so
that it had ceased to exist for him except to perform its excretory
function made ready for his audience with the Queen. Margaret Knox,
discreetly dressed in the dark clothes of a respectable wife and
entirely subdued, helped him with the final adjustments to his
wardrobe.

"Your collar should lie flat," she said, patting it down. "I put
starch in it, and I pray I put enough."

"It is adequate." He pulled away. He was nervous, although he knew he
should not be. He had had many interviews before this; and the Holy
Spirit would tell him what to speak, would direct his words.

The Queen had summoned him to Holyrood. It was not the first time, and
it would not be the last. It meant his ministry was effective, that
his words were hitting home.

No one kicks a dead dog, he repeated to himself with satisfaction.
Close on its heels came, The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on. That
was less satisfactory.

"The hour is come," he said, straightening his collar for the last
time. Outside, a throng of his followers and well-wishers were waiting
for him, and would escort him as far as the palace gates. He descended
the stairs in grave dignity and was greeted first by Margaret's father,
Lord Ochiltree.

"Come, brother, we will walk with you." He gestured toward the large
group. "For if God be with you, who can be against you?"

They set out, moving down the Canongate, keeping company with their
leader. When he reached the Holyrood Palace gates, he turned to them
and bade them farewell.

"Now must needs I face this pagan ruler alone, like Daniel in the
lion's den," he said.