The Beauty of the Mist (37 page)

So if we mend our differences, that means you’ll be left behind again, she thought sadly to herself. With no one.

“Adrian, I just want peace with Sir John.” She placed her hand on the boy’s arm. He didn’t flinch this time. “He’ll keep you beside him. He will care for you. Your brother is a good man, and he left you in the care of another good man.”

She paused before continuing. “Have you any other kin?”

“Aye, I have an aunt who feeds me when we dock at Dundee.” He glanced up at her defiantly. “But I’ll be a sailor, not a farm lad.”

“Of course,” she replied gently.

“What you said before about David and Sir John.” The young boy looked down at his callused hands. “I know they are good men. David talked to me before he left. He told me that the commander had already offered to look after me, and David had accepted his offer. He also said that someday soon he and Mistress Janet would come for me. And as far as the commander, I know that he cares for me, too. I know that. Yesterday, when everyone figured out why Mistress Janet and David were nowhere to be found, I thought Sir Thomas was going to beat me, instead. But the commander put both Sir Thomas and his wife off the
Great Michael
, and stowed them aboard the
Eagle
...to protect my neck.”

“No one has any right to punish an innocent for something others have done.”

Adrian looked up into Maria’s face. “Do you think what they’ve done was wrong?”

She shook her head. “Nay, lad. They’ve followed a path that leads to happiness. I think what they’ve done is very right.”

Adrian nodded with satisfaction. “That’s what Sir John said. He says they’ve done right, as well. Though I don’t think Sir Thomas was even a wee bit happy to hear it.”

Maria felt a knot rising in her throat. If things had gone differently–if John had known her true identity–would he have placed their love over what his duty required of him? Above his loyalty to his King? Would he have accepted her and loved her and been happy to turn away from everything?

She would have. She knew that. But she’d never told him. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps she’d never allowed herself the chance to tell him.

“That decides it, Lady Mar...I mean, Your Majesty,” Adrian piped in. “Now it’s two of you saying the same thing. Aye, I’m going to be proud of my brother and Mistress Janet.” The young boy nodded vigorously. “After we come to port, Sir John said we may be going on to Benmore Castle. I wasn’t sure what I would say about David when we arrived there. But now I know. I’ll speak the truth of them.”

Maria gathered the young boy’s hand in hers and held it tight. He let her.

Was this truly the end? she thought. Had she crushed any chance of happiness for the two of them? The questions jabbed at her conscience. Had she done wrong from the first in not telling him the truth when they’d met? Nay, deep in her soul she knew that if she had, she and John could never have loved. His honor would not have allowed it. She splashed away a tear.

“Are you sad, Your Majesty?”

“Aye, Adrian. I am a bit.”

“About Sir John?”

“Don’t you be troubling yourself over it, lad. It will all work out for the best.”

“May I go now, Your Majesty?”

Maria looked back at the young boy sitting beside her with his hand still in hers. She nodded to him as she let his hand go. “Thank you, Adrian, for talking to me.”

“Thank you,” he answered. “I’ll tell Sir John that he doesn’t have to avoid you. That you don’t want him to be angry. I’ll tell him that you are not going to run away with him, so he doesn’t need to be afraid of leaving me behind.”

“But Adrian...” Maria’s mouth hung open as the lad sprang off his seat without another word and disappeared into the crowd.

Scotland was a country in chaos.

Looking out from atop the crenellated tower of the Abbey of Holyrood, Maria pulled her cloak tighter about her, while peering through the mist at the rain-darkened walls of Edinburgh Castle, rising on a rocky summit above all else at the far end of the town. The thatch and wattle town before her was new, rebuilt less than fifteen years ago, but she could see the still unrepaired damage to the castle walls where the English cannons had hammered away after the troops had burned the burgh. The English hadn’t succeeded in taking the castle, but Maria sighed deeply, considering the violence of men, and wondered vaguely why the English commanders had spared the Abbey and its unfinished royal residence.

But they had spared it, and had finally been pushed southward across the Borders. Relative calm had returned to the north country, and an infant king was now on the verge of manhood.

As the rain began to fall harder, Maria considered all that had occurred on the last week and all that she now knew of the months prior to their arrival.

On coming ashore in a hard rain at the tiny port village on the Firth of Forth, they had been greeted by no welcoming party. Only an armed company of warriors had been there to escort Maria and her attendants, without ceremony, to the Abbey of Holyrood. Without much fanfare, the Scottish nobles accompanying her from Antwerp had slogged onward through the muddy street to the formidable castle that loomed over Edinburgh. From the whispers that she’d heard from them, great changes had occurred in the two month that they were away, and the differences had been astonishing even to them.

From what she could gather, Scotland’s ruling nobility had, for some time, been gradually separating into factions. Apparently, for almost a year the country had been on the verge of civil war, with some nobles loyal to the Stuart king openly hostile to the Douglas camp and to Angus, the Lord Chancellor. Maria knew before coming to Scotland that Angus had been married to Margaret Tudor, the king’s mother, since James IV’s death at Flodden Field. She also knew that he had struggled with her for power during the child king’s minority. But what Maria now learned was that while John Macpherson and the delegation were in Antwerp, the Pope’s decree had reached Scotland, annulling the marriage of Angus and Margaret Tudor. There was even a rumor that Margaret had immediately married another nobleman, Henry, Lord Darnley. At any rate Angus, now lacking any legitimate claim to rule in the name of the royal family, had apparently imprisoned his former wife, placed the king in ‘protective custody,’ and effectively seized all power for himself.

Chaos indeed, Maria thought, turning her eyes to the south and the dark hills partially hidden behind the thick, low-hanging clouds. A cold, damp breeze began to pick up as she stood, considering the facts as she understood them.

Angus’s marriage to the widowed Queen Margaret, and later his control of Scotland, had been largely supported by Margaret’s brother, King Henry of England. But now, with Margaret’s divorce granted by Rome less than a month ago, the Lord Chancellor must be feeling seriously threatened by the possible withdrawal of support by the English king due to the fact that Angus was no longer married to Margaret. Angus must have known that the divorce was coming, Maria reasoned, and he knew he would be needing a new ally–and quickly. The Holy Roman Emperor Charles was just the man he needed backing him, and Maria knew that Charles was not one to balk at an offer like this one.

And that brother of mine knew all this, Maria realized. Charles knew that Scotland was about to be torn apart, but he kept silent about it, anyway. And then he sent her on her merry way. Best of luck to you with your new husband, Charles had told her, his face the very picture of sincerity. From that alone, she should have guessed the chaos that would be awaiting them.

For a week now she had remained at the Abbey with no word from the Lord Chancellor, and of course, none from her future husband either. The Abbot, a dry and leathery looking man who seemed to brighten only when Isabel was present, had supplied the few facts they’d been able to gather, and he had told them–well, he’d told Isabel–that Angus had been forced to take a large force of men to the Borders, to quell the rising tide of outlawry and violence that was destabilizing the region and threatening to bring English troops onto Scottish land once again, to settle matters themselves. From what Maria could surmise, Angus needed to show his southern neighbors that he could control the Borders as well as the rest of Scotland.

Maria had not complained. The longer she had to wait for this dreaded marriage, the less real it seemed. But then this morning, the Abbot had come to the Abbey’s guest quarters and, sitting beside Isabel, had informed them that the Earl of Angus had left his troops at the Borders and was riding back to Edinburgh just to greet the future Queen.

He’s going to rush this marriage, she decided, considering everything. Angus needed to consummate the marriage that would seal the treaty between Scotland and the Holy Roman Empire. Angus and his Douglas clan were the ones responsible for this upcoming marriage of the Scottish king. And from all that had taken place here in Scotland over the past month or two, she could well understand the man’s motives for seeking to finalize his pact with the Emperor.

Maria turned and looked to the northwest, past the great hill and the Castle. The Highlands were there somewhere. And Benmore Castle. Perhaps John was out there, standing in the same rain. Looking southward toward Edinburgh.

She had done her best to hide the fact that the Abbot’s news distressed her, but she wasn’t really sure how successful she’d been. She already disliked the Earl of Angus. He was clearly an ambitious, power hungry man with no sense of integrity. Curious, she thought, that Caroline Maule is a cousin to the man. Angus’s message to the Abbot had referred to the upcoming wedding ceremony. It would be conducted, the Lord Chancellor promised, as soon as the trouble with the Borders could be contained, and the King safely conducted to Edinburgh.

Maria wondered for a moment how much of what she heard was true. Some reports had it that both Margaret Tudor and her new husband were imprisoned in Stirling Castle. Others held that the queen’s husband, Lord Darnley, was free in the Highlands, gathering support from the clans there. It appeared to be common knowledge that King James was being held against his will at Falkland Palace, in spite of the Lord Chancellor’s denials. Thanks to Isabel and the Abbot, her aunt’s willing informant, Maria was beginning to get a steady flow of news. Maria was so glad Isabel had agreed to stay.

Isabel had taken one look at the confusion surrounding their arrival and had softened considerably to her niece’s plight. She had apparently seen that the young queen had no one to support her. The delegation had quickly dispersed, and the four ships under Sir John’s command had immediately set sail, reportedly northward to Dundee–and the nobles loyal to young King James.

John Macpherson had gone, and nothing had been resolved between them, Maria thought with a pang of sorrow. Or perhaps all had been resolved.

They had been settled into the royal residence at the Abbey, a favorite stopping place for Margaret Tudor, the king’s mother. It was curious to Maria that even though she had never met Queen Margaret in person, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of intimacy with the woman. Margaret, too, had been wed at a young age, and she, too, had an aggressive and ambitious brother who interfered and planned out her life for her. But now, after two marriages, she had taken her future in her own hands and had wed the man she’d chosen at last–only to be imprisoned by her ex-husband.

With a last look northward, Maria went down the spiral stone steps to her Abbey chambers and, hanging her dripping cloak on a peg by the door, sat down by the small fire. After exchanging a few commonplace thoughts with Isabel, who sat sewing, Maria sat back to wait for Angus’s arrival.

Looking into the fire, she wondered if she were nothing more than a puppet. A fancy, expensive, elegantly dressed puppet bought to play a part and divert the people. Perhaps that was the role of all nobility these days, she thought, forcing down the anger that was threatening to push to the surface. Letting out a long breath, she ignored Isabel’s questioning look and picked up the small volume of Scots poetry she’d borrowed from the Abbot’s collection. Opening it to her place, Maria went back to Blind Harry’s exploits of a hero named ‘The Wallace.’

Archibald Douglas, the Earl of Angus is an extremely unlikable and arrogant man, Maria thought, her smile plastered on her face. Even worse than she had imagined. Perhaps he wanted to impress her with his ‘manly’ drive to rule, or perhaps he simply thought that because Maria was a woman, he could say anything. But whatever the reason, he blustered and bragged, strutted about the chamber, and tugged his long black beard–in all, making very little effort to hide his ambitions. Angus’s behavior was appalling, but still she remained where she was seated...and tried to memorize his every word. She would not be so foolhardy as to give him any clue of just how insidious she thought his plans to be. Nay, she had already decided to play the simpleton and agree wholeheartedly to everything he suggested. But only for now.

The Earl of Angus had already imprisoned a king and a queen. She was not about to give the Lord Chancellor any reason to lock her up at Edinburgh Castle before the wedding took place, an act she really didn’t think was beyond the realm of possibility. She had played this game with her brother, and the Emperor was far better at it than this man. But she was not going to underestimate him. She knew how to play this game. And she preferred to play it from the relative freedom of the Abbey of Holyrood.

“In two weeks the Borders will be secured,” Angus announced reassuringly. “Then I’ll be bringing back our young king to Edinburgh for the day of the wedding. There will be no time for any troublemakers to disturb the festivities, and this whole affair will be settled. It will be a day of joy for you, your grace, and for Scotland.”

Once again, she just nodded simply.

“Of course, you do understand that I am relying on you, your grace.” He paused, giving her a knowing look. “I am relying on you to convey to your brother immediate news of...well, of news that...”

Even though it would have given her great satisfaction to let him stew uncomfortably, looking for a courteous way to speak his mind, she knew the wiser course, at this point, was to help the arrogant boor through his difficulty.