A Column of Fire (47 page)

James and Ned stood up. James answered: ‘A relative of my sister, Queen Mary?’

‘Of course.’ Pierre turned to Ned. ‘And you, sir?’

‘Ned Willard, secretary to James Stuart.’

‘And what are two Scottish Protestants doing here?’

Ned was pleased that Pierre had accepted his cover story. Mary might be easier to persuade if she believed the message came from a Scottish relative rather than an English rival.

James did not react to Pierre’s rude manner. ‘I’ve come to talk to my sister,’ he said calmly.

‘For what purpose?’

James smiled. ‘Just tell her James Stuart is here.’

Pierre put his nose in the air. ‘I will ask whether Queen Mary is willing to give you audience.’ It was clear to Ned that Pierre would do what he could to prevent the meeting.

James sat down and turned away. He had royal blood, after all, and he had already expended more courtesy than was strictly necessary on a young aide.

Pierre looked cross but left without saying more.

Ned settled down to wait. The castle was busy, and servants fetching and carrying for the royal visitor criss-crossed the hall constantly. An hour went by, then two.

A young woman of about Ned’s age came into the hall. It was obvious from her pink silk dress and the pearl headdress that decorated her dark hair that she was no servant. There was a look of shrewd alertness in the blue-eyed gaze she turned on Ned. But when she saw James she smiled. ‘What a surprise!’ she said. ‘Lord James! Do you remember me? Alison McKay – we met at Mary’s wedding.’

James stood up and bowed, and Ned did the same. ‘Of course I remember you,’ James said.

‘We didn’t know you were here!’

‘I gave my name to a man called Pierre something.’

‘Oh! He has been sent to keep people like you away from Mary. But she’ll see you, of course. Let me tell her you’re here, then I’ll send someone to fetch you . . . both.’ She gave Ned an enquiring look.

James explained: ‘My secretary, Ned Willard.’

Ned bowed again. Alison gave him the briefest nod of acknowledgement then left.

James said: ‘That Pierre character didn’t even tell Mary we had arrived!’

‘I was warned about him.’

A few minutes later, a servant led them from the hall to a small, comfortable parlour. Ned felt nervous. This was the meeting for which he had travelled so far. Both his queen, Elizabeth, and his master and mentor, Cecil, had placed their faith in him. He only wished he had as much faith in himself.

Soon afterwards Mary Stuart came in.

Ned had seen her once before, but he was startled all over again by how tall she was, and how strikingly beautiful. She had dramatically pale skin and red hair. She was only eighteen, yet she had tremendous poise, and moved like a ship on a calm sea, her head held high on a long, graceful neck. Her official mourning period was over, but she was still wearing white, the symbol of grief.

Alison McKay and Pierre Aumande de Guise walked in behind her.

James bowed deeply, but Mary immediately went to him and kissed him. ‘You are clever, James,’ she said. ‘How did you know I was at St Dizier?’

‘It’s taken me a while to catch up with you,’ he said with a smile.

Mary took a seat and told them all to sit also. She said: ‘I have been told that I should return to Scotland like a newly risen sun, to scatter the clouds of religious tumult from the land.’

James said: ‘You’ve been talking to John Leslie, I suppose.’ This was what Ned had feared. Leslie had got to her first, and what he had said had clearly enthralled her.

‘You know everything!’ Mary said. Evidently, she admired her half-brother. ‘He says that if I sail to Aberdeen, he will have an army of twenty thousand men waiting to march with me to Edinburgh and overthrow the Protestant parliament in a blaze of Christian glory.’

James said: ‘You don’t believe it, do you?’

Ned very much feared that she did believe it. He was rapidly getting the impression that Mary was impressionable. Her physical poise and grace were queenly, but so far there was no sign that she had the sceptical wisdom so essential to much-flattered monarchs.

Mary gaily ignored James’s question. ‘If I do return to Scotland,’ she said, ‘I’m going to make you an archbishop.’

Everyone in the room was surprised. As queen of Scotland she would not appoint bishops – unlike the monarch of France, who had that power. But James mentioned a different snag. ‘I’m not a Catholic,’ he said.

‘But you must become one,’ Mary said brightly.

James resisted her breezy manner. Sombrely he said: ‘I came here to ask you to become a Protestant.’

Ned frowned. This was
not
the mission.

Mary’s answer was firm. ‘I’m Catholic and my family is Catholic. I cannot change.’

Ned saw Pierre nodding. No doubt the idea of a Guise becoming Protestant would fill him with horror.

James said: ‘If you won’t become Protestant, will you at least become tolerant? The Protestants would give you their loyalty if you left them alone to worship as they wish.’

Ned did not like this line of argument. Their mission was to persuade Mary to stay in France.

Pierre, too, looked uneasy, but surely for a different reason: the notion of tolerance was abhorrent to ultra-Catholics.

Mary said to James: ‘And would the Protestants treat Catholics with the same tolerance?’

Ned spoke for the first time. ‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘It is now a crime to celebrate the Mass in Scotland.’

Pierre contradicted him. ‘You’re wrong, Monsieur Willard,’ he said. ‘The Mass is not a crime.’

‘The Scottish Parliament has passed an act!’

‘The self-constituted parliament may have passed a
bill
,’ Pierre argued, ‘but only the monarch can turn a bill into law, and her majesty Queen Mary has not given her royal assent.’

‘Technically, you’re right,’ Ned conceded. ‘I just don’t want her majesty to be misled about the extent to which tolerance prevails in Scotland.’

‘And for whom do you speak when you say that, Monsieur Willard?’

Pierre seemed to have guessed that Ned was more than a secretary. Ned did not answer his question. He spoke directly to Mary. ‘Your majesty, here in France you are a duchess, you have lands, money and the support of wealthy and powerful relatives. In Scotland all that awaits you is conflict.’

Mary said: ‘In France I am the widow of the king. In Scotland I am queen.’

Ned saw that he was failing to persuade her.

Pierre said: ‘What would Queen Elizabeth think, Monsieur Willard, if her majesty Queen Mary were to return to Scotland?’

It was a trick question. If Ned answered it knowledgeably, he would reveal himself as Elizabeth’s envoy. He pretended ignorance. ‘We Scots know only what we hear. Bear in mind that in Reims you are nearer to London than we are in Edinburgh.’

Pierre was not to be diverted by mileages. ‘So what do you Scots hear?’

Ned replied carefully. ‘No monarch likes to be told that someone else claims the throne, and apparently Queen Elizabeth was distressed when King Francis and Queen Mary called themselves the monarchs of England and Ireland as well as France and Scotland. Nevertheless, we understand that Elizabeth believes firmly in Mary’s right to rule Scotland, and would not stand in her way.’

That was not really true. Elizabeth was torn. Her ideological belief in the primacy of royal inheritance was in conflict with her fear of Mary as a rival to her own throne. That was why she wanted Mary to remain quietly in France.

Pierre probably knew that, but he pretended to take Ned seriously. ‘That’s good to know,’ he said, ‘because the Scots love their queen.’ He turned to Mary. ‘They will welcome her with cheers and bonfires.’

Mary smiled. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I believe they will.’

Ned thought: You poor fool.

James began to speak, no doubt intending to say tactfully what Ned had thought bluntly, but Mary interrupted him. ‘It’s midday,’ she said. ‘Let’s have dinner. We can continue our discussion.’ She stood up, and they all did the same.

Ned knew he had lost, but he made one last try. ‘Your majesty,’ he said, ‘I believe it would be most unwise of you to return to Scotland.’

‘Do you?’ Mary said regally. ‘All the same, I think I shall go.’

*

P
IERRE REMAINED
in Champagne for most of the following year. He hated it. He was powerless in the countryside. The Guises had lost all influence at court, and Queen Caterina was keeping the peace – just – between Catholics and Protestants; and he could do nothing about that while he was a hundred miles away from Paris. Besides, he did not like being so near the place of his birth, where people knew all about his humble origins.

In late February of 1562, when duke Scarface set off from his country seat of Joinville and headed for the capital, Pierre eagerly joined him. This was Pierre’s chance to get back into the game.

The journey began on narrow dirt roads winding between newly ploughed fields and leafless winter vineyards. It was a cold, sunny day. Scarface was escorted by two hundred armed men led by Gaston Le Pin. Some of the men-at-arms carried the newly fashionable long swords called rapiers. They had no uniform as such, but many wore the duke’s bright colours of red and yellow. They looked like the host of an invading army.

Scarface spent the last night of February at the village of Dommartin. He was joined there by a younger brother, Cardinal Louis, nicknamed Cardinal Bottles for his love of wine. The armed force was enlarged by Louis’s body of gunmen with arquebuses. These were long-barrelled firearms, sometimes called hook-butts because they were J-shaped. They were light enough to be fired from the shoulder, unlike muskets, which had to be supported by a forked rest stuck in the ground.

The next day, 1 March, was a Sunday, and they started early. They were due to pick up a squadron of heavy cavalry at the town of Wassy. By the time Scarface arrived in Paris, he would have enough soldiers to discourage his enemies from making a move against him.

Wassy was a small town on the Blaise river, with forges in the suburbs and watermills along the river bank. As the Guise army approached the south gate, they heard bells. The sound of church bells rung at the wrong time was often a sign of trouble, and Scarface asked a passer-by what was going on. ‘It’ll be the Protestants, summoning their folk to the service,’ the man said.

The duke flushed with anger, his facial scars darkening. ‘Protestant bells?’ he said. ‘How did they get bells?’

The passer-by looked scared. ‘I don’t know, lord.’

This was the kind of Protestant provocation that started riots. Pierre began to feel hopeful. It could lead to an inflammatory incident.

Scarface said: ‘Even if the edict of tolerance becomes law – which may never happen – they are supposed to perform their blasphemous rites discreetly! What’s discreet about this?’

The man said nothing, but Scarface was no longer addressing him, just expressing outrage. Pierre knew why he was so mad. The town of Wassy was the property of Mary Stuart and, now that she had gone back to Scotland, Scarface, as her senior uncle, was in charge of her estates. This was therefore his territory.

Pierre rubbed it in. ‘The Protestants, like everyone in town, must know that your grace is due here this morning,’ he said. ‘This looks very much like a deliberate personal insult.’

Gaston Le Pin was listening. He was a soldier who believed in avoiding violence if possible – which may have been why he was still alive at thirty-three. Now he said: ‘We could bypass the town, duke. We don’t want to risk losing men before we even get to Paris. We need a good show of strength there.’

Pierre did not like that line of argument. ‘You can’t overlook this affront, your grace,’ he murmured. ‘It would appear weak.’

‘I don’t intend to appear weak,’ Scarface said hotly, and he kicked his horse on.

Le Pin gave Pierre a black look, but his soldiers followed Scarface eagerly, their spirits lifting at the prospect of action. Pierre decided to encourage them tactfully. He dropped back and spoke to a group. ‘I smell loot,’ he said, and they laughed. He was reminding them that when there was violence, there was usually pillage too.

As they entered the town, the bells stopped. ‘Send for the parish priest,’ the duke ordered.

The host moved slowly along the street to the town centre. Within a walled precinct stood a royal law court, a castle and a church. In the market square to the west of the church they found, waiting for them, the squadron of heavy cavalry they had come here to pick up: fifty men, each with two warhorses and a pack animal loaded with armour. The big horses whinnied and shifted as they smelled the newcomers.

Gaston Le Pin ordered the duke’s men-at-arms to dismount in the partly roofed market, and parked Cardinal Louis’s gunmen in the cemetery on the south side of the church. Some of the men went into the Swan tavern, on the square, to breakfast on ham and beer.

The parish priest came hurrying with crumbs of bread on his surplice. The provost of the castle was close behind him. Scarface said: ‘Now, tell me, are Protestants holding a blasphemous service here in Wassy this morning?’

‘Yes,’ said the priest.

‘I can’t stop them,’ said the provost. ‘They won’t listen.’

Scarface said: ‘The edict of tolerance – which has not been ratified – would permit such services only outside the town.’

The provost said: ‘Strictly speaking, they aren’t in the town.’

‘Where are they, then?’

‘Within the precincts of the castle, which is not considered part of the town, legally speaking. At least, that’s what they argue.’

Pierre commented: ‘A contentious legal quibble.’

Impatiently, Scarface said: ‘But where are they, exactly?’

The provost pointed across the graveyard to a large, dilapidated barn with holes in its roof, standing up against the castle wall. ‘There. That barn is within the grounds of the castle.’

‘Which means it’s my barn!’ said Scarface angrily. ‘This is intolerable.’

Pierre saw a way to escalate the situation. ‘The edict of tolerance gives royal officials the right to oversee Protestant assemblies, duke. You would be within your rights to inspect the service going on over there.’