The Lady of Secrets (22 page)

The gentlemen fell back to allow them passage, some acknowledging Sir Patrick with brief nods and murmured greetings. Meg steeled herself not to blush as she was inspected by a myriad of masculine gazes, some curious, some scornful, and some inscrutable. She felt a little like a mouse being eyed by dozens of hungry hawks.

All of Seraphine’s warnings of the dangers to be found at court, all the intrigue, the plotting, rushed back to Meg. Suddenly her friend’s gift of the fan imbedded with its tiny mirror no longer seemed so ridiculous. She fingered the ivory handle as they entered the long gallery, expecting to have to run another gauntlet of royal attendants. She was surprised to find the vast chamber empty save for the king and one of his hunting dogs.

At least Meg assumed this was the king. He was dressed modestly compared to the opulence of the men she had encountered
in the outer hall. He wore a silver-gray doublet, a cloak of black tabinet slung over one shoulder, his only adornment a diamond brooch affixed to his hat.

He wrestled with the black hound in a spirit of seemingly carefree playfulness. But the sunlight pouring through the tall windows illuminated James Stuart’s haggard expression. The dog leaped up, bracing its paws on the king’s chest, licking at the ends of his beard. Rather than rebuking the animal, James appeared to welcome its boisterous affection.

Meg had heard so many tales of this king, James Stuart, the witch burner, the author of the infamous
Daemonology.
His reputation was so black among the wise women on Faire Isle, Meg would not have been surprised to find a misshapen monster, his cruelty etched upon his face. She would never have expected a man who looked so ordinary, almost vulnerable as he took comfort in his dog.

It was the hound who alerted James to their arrival, the dog getting between them and issuing warning barks.

“Eh, quiet, Jowler. Sit!” the king said. The melancholy cast of his face brightened as his gaze fell upon Sir Patrick. “There you are, my good lad. I was begun to think you had forgotten all about your poor king.”

“Never, Your Grace.” Sir Patrick left Meg to sink to one knee before the king, but James would have none of it, lifting the younger man to embrace him.

The king’s dog ambled over to inspect Meg. She tensed, remembering Blackwood’s advice to be wary of the king’s little beagle, but this was a large hound and the dog appeared friendly enough. Meg extended her hand to be sniffed.

“Good dog, Jowler,” she said, venturing to stroke one of his ears.

The king had finally released Sir Patrick from his hearty
embrace, but he kept one arm slung about his shoulders. Sir Patrick looked slightly discomfited by James’s display of affection. He had described himself to Meg as only an insignificant clerk at court, but it was clear the king had a high regard for him.

His voice thick with the accent of his native Scotland, James spoke so rapidly Meg had difficulty understanding him. But as her ear grew more accustomed, she realized that the king had launched into a complaint about his eldest son, Prince Henry.

“What ails the lad he must defy me in this manner? This morrow he engaged in swordplay beneath my very windows. He knows right well I have forbidden any such dueling within the palace grounds.”

“I am sure the prince meant no disrespect, sire,” Sir Patrick said. “It is but the high spirits of youth. Prince Henry is a most athletic boy with much energy to expend.”

“Then let him expend it in some proper activity such as coursing game or snaring birds. But the lad has no liking for such good sport. I’ll be damned afore I ever make a hunter of the boy.”

The king heaved a deep sigh. “And I don’t know how much longer I’ll have to make a proper king of him either. If anything were to happen to me—”

“Nothing will, sire.”

“You think not, laddie? I feel as if this great evil that has been stalking me draws nearer. While you were gone, I have had such fearsome dreams of that witch and her curse … of burning.”

“I have brought someone to you who I hope will help with that.” Sir Patrick eased from beneath the weight of the
king’s arm. “The wise woman that I told you of, the Lady of Faire Isle.”

James Stuart’s gaze at last turned in Meg’s direction. She had bent down to scratch the hound’s muzzle, the dog bathing her hand with his tongue.

“Jowler!” The king patted his thigh with an imperious gesture. “Come!”

The dog scrambled back to his master’s side. Meg slowly straightened, uncertain what she should do, loath to be summoned like an obedient hound herself.

The king solved that problem for her. Commanding the dog to stay, James approached her. He had an awkward gait. Although he was not a large man, his legs appeared almost too spindly to support his body.

He came directly up to Meg and then retreated one step, the action of a man wary of strangers. It showed in the king’s eyes, narrowed and suspicious.

As Meg made her curtsy, Sir Patrick stepped forward to murmur, “Mistress Margaret Wolfe, Your Grace.”

The king inspected her thoroughly before bidding her rise. “So mistress, you claim to be a
wise
woman.” James shrugged and quoted in Latin,
“Un idea perplexi na.”

“The idea of a wise woman would be strange to many men,” Sir Patrick said. “But I assure you Mistress Wolfe is possessed of surpassing intelligence, although of course her wit is not as profound as that of Your Grace.”

“Humph.” The king’s expression conveyed a mingling of doubt and contempt that irritated Meg. She had traveled too far and risked too much to be met with such ridicule.

She fired back without thinking,
“Quid quid latine dictum sit altum videtur.”

Sir Patrick looked appalled, shooting her a reproving glance. The king arched his brows in surprise and then frowned.

“Very true, mistress. Anything spoken in Latin can make one sound wiser than one is.”

“It can also make one sound impertinent,” Meg said, recalling Seraphine’s cautions about challenging the king’s vanity. “Forgive me, Your Grace. In my foolish effort to impress you, I misspoke. My command of Latin is nowhere near as great as yours, most … most gracious learned prince.”

The flattery stuck in her throat, ringing false to Meg’s ears. But the king’s mouth curved with the hint of a smile.

“Your apology is accepted, mistress. You need not try so hard to impress. Your Latin is passable, but I would not expect a woman to tax her brain with such learning. The queen never does. Our Annie confines herself to her music, her stitchery, and arranging masques and other pretty divertissements for our court’s entertainment.”

“I possess no such skills, Your Grace.”

“No, your skills lie elsewhere, do they not? You are reputed to be a great sorceress, familiar with all practices of curses and dark magic.”

Meg caught the hint of accusation in his voice. She unfurled her fan and fluttered it before her face to conceal her alarm. “I make no such claims. Any gifts I possess are devoted to healing, the study of herbs and their curative powers. I have naught to do with the dark arts, and in all honesty, I have never believed in curses.”

“You would if one had been placed on you,” James retorted. “The venom that witch hurled at me has long preyed upon my mind and it has grown worse of late. I do not dare
look out at my own garden for dread of that evil creature rising up before me.”

James darted a nervous glance toward one of the long windows. Either because he could not resist the compulsion or he felt the need to test his courage, he strode over to peer out. Meg and Sir Patrick quietly followed.

The garden below would have been a lovely place in the full flowering of summer. It looked rather bleak this late in the autumn, all growth withered beneath the breath of an early frost, the pathways littered with dried leaves.

“The ghost of that witch struck again early this morning,” James said.

“What? You mean here at Whitehall, within the very walls?” Sir Patrick exclaimed.

“No, outside. She nailed a dead cat to the posterior gate and left a message splashed in blood.
Davy’s son. Burn in hell.
”

“Who is Davy’s son?” Meg asked.

An awkward silence followed her question. Sir Patrick cast an uneasy look at the king, whose lips had compressed in a thin angry line.

At last James replied, “The name refers to me, a slur upon my birth. There have always been scurrilous rumors that I was the bastard son of David Rizzio, the court musician.”

“No loyal subject would believe such a thing,” Sir Patrick said.

“And what about the disloyal ones?” The king’s voice quivered with anger. “It is an infamous slander against me and my mother. To even suggest that she could have behaved so wickedly— My mother was a deeply religious woman, a saint and a martyr. All of Scotland mourned her murder.”

That same Scotland had once reviled the Catholic queen, the ministers of the kirk calling her a Jezebel and a Papist whore, her rebellious subjects forcing her into exile. Meg suspected that much of this mourning had to do with outrage in Scotland against the English who had dared to execute Mary of Scots.

James’s eyes actually filled with tears. Meg sought to make some polite soothing reply, but what little she knew of Mary Stuart did not accord with sainthood.

The late queen of Scots had been very much a woman of flesh and blood, romantic, passionate, and imprudent. She had lived a life steeped in scandal, suspected of conspiring to murder her husband and eloping with the infamous Earl of Bothwell. Driven from the Scottish throne, Mary had taken refuge across the border, only to become a prisoner of the English for the next eighteen years. In her absence, her son James had been crowned as king of Scotland.

Engaged in a plot to assassinate Elizabeth and take over the English throne, Mary had finally been convicted and beheaded. James now spoke so heatedly in his mother’s defense, but it was well known that when she had been on trial for her life, he had made little effort to save her.

The tears in his eyes spoke as much of guilt as grief. Mary Stuart’s schemes had posed a danger to a young king seeking alliance with Elizabeth, hoping to be named as the childless English queen’s successor. His mother’s death had infused James with as much relief as sorrow, a conflict of emotions Meg understood too well. She had felt much the same when Cassandra Lascelles had drowned.

But what if she didn’t? What will I do if I discover she is still alive and behind all of this?

The thought suffused Meg with a sensation akin to panic.
She quashed the fear, forcing herself to concentrate upon what the king was saying.

“… if that witch can draw so near to Whitehall, I am not safe here. Her fearsome curse was not pronounced just against me, but upon the entire house of Stuart. I should go into retreat, find some refuge for my family outside of the city.”

Sir Patrick frowned. “But Your Grace, the opening of parliament—”

“Must perforce be delayed.”

“No, I cannot allow that!”

When the king stared at him in surprise, Sir Patrick flushed and amended, “I mean that Your Grace must not allow some witch to bring a halt to the affairs of government or intimidate you. This curse must be ended and I am sure the Lady of Faire Isle can perform some spell to do so.”

Meg cast Sir Patrick an indignant look. She thought she had made it more than clear to the man that she claimed no such power, nor would she lower herself to perform some nonsense ceremony.

She turned to the king. “Your Grace, there is no such spell because there is no curse. You are a rational man. Surely you must see that those angry words were but the ranting of an old woman dying in agony.”

“An old woman?” The king glared at her. “Do you think I am incapable of telling the difference between a mere woman and a witch?”

Yes.

Meg suppressed her instinctive response and hedged. “I have read Your Majesty’s treatise on witchcraft and realize you are considered an expert on the subject.”

“I do not boast of my own achievements, but aye, I am
acknowledged as such. So much so that on my last visit to Oxford, the learned doctors had a woman brought before me who claimed she could transform into a succubus and drain the life from her neighbor’s cattle. I examined her most thoroughly.”

“And what became of the poor—I mean the woman?”

“I realized the unfortunate soul was but mad and advised that she be kept close confined by her family and treated with the proper medicines to calm her brain.”

Meg stared at him.

“You look surprised, Mistress Wolfe. Did you suppose me one of those irrational fanatics who see witches everywhere, ready to torch every addled old fool, every wench spitefully accused by jealous neighbors?

“No! I made a purge of witches years ago in Scotland, but they were all implicated in a treasonous plot against me. My judgment never erred … except perhaps the once.”

James faltered, his expression deeply troubled. As though sensing his master’s distress, Jowler whined and sidled closer. The king petted him absently.

“There was a young woman condemned to die alongside the witch who cursed me. A mere girl really, but she had been caught in the church performing the satanic ritual along with all the other witches.

“The girl claimed she had been misled, did not know what she was doing. She wept and begged to be spared. I might have pardoned her if not for—”

James swallowed. “There have been far too many plots against me since I was a mere babe. I have always been too lenient with my enemies. This time I could not afford to be, but the memory has long burdened me.”

“Of this girl?” Meg asked.

“No, for all her seeming innocence, she was as guilty as the others. It was the boy who haunted me, the lass’s brother. He knelt before me and pleaded so movingly for his sister’s life. It pained me to inflict such sorrow upon him.

“Robin … Robbie, I believe was his name. His sister cried out to him as she was chained to the stake. He fought like a wild thing to save her. And after, when all was done, he looked up at me, his eyes filled with such raw grief, such anger, such hatred.” James shuddered.