Queen's Own Fool (18 page)

We went in then, though Lord James and his two men remained as guards outside the door. But I could not keep my mind on prayer, for the chapel thrummed with tension. The bald-headed priest was shaking so much with remembered terror, he could scarcely manage to elevate the Host.

I glanced at the queen out of the corner of my eye. As she prayed, her clear, pale face had the calm of an early martyr waiting for the lions.

 

The very next morning the queen issued a proclamation confirming Protestantism as Scotland's official religion. She knew such a measure was necessary, as she said to us that night at supper in her chamber. “For my kingdom's stability and also because I hope it will confirm my people's affection for me.”

“Most already love you, Your Majesty,” said Pretty Mary. “How can they not?”

Behind us a young Scottish musician played upon a lute. He had a sweet touch on the strings though his voice was a bit harsh.

Jolly Mary added, “They love the music and poetry, the dancing and gaiety you have brought. To lighten their dour lives.”

“God is watching over you,” said Pious Mary. “And when He is ready, He will help you bring the old religion back to the land.”

The queen smiled. “Play us another air,” she said to the Scottish boy.

He began again, his fingers flying over the strings.

They were all so happily unknowing that I had not the heart to tell them otherwise. I did not say what I had overheard in the kitchen that very morning when I had gone down to fetch up the tea.

What cook said was that it was the preacher John Knox who had whipped up his followers to stop us from going to mass. That Knox—that “old black crow” as the cook called him—said we were leading the Scots to make a counterfeit France here!

What good would it do to tell the queen and the Maries?
I asked myself as I watched them.

So I failed in my one duty to the queen.

 

In the end, I did not have to warn the queen about Knox's follies. They became all too evident to everyone at court.

First, from his high pulpit, practically within the shadow of the castle, he began preaching ferociously against our Catholic faith. Then he took up against what he called the queen's “frivolity,” as though it were a sin to believe other than he did, and a double sin to do so cheerfully.

Knox called the queen “Honeypot” and “Sorceress,” and he did not mean them as compliments.

Soon Knox's name was on everyone's lips. The four Maries talked of nothing else at the table, at their embroideries, at cards.

And the queen? She was baffled by the man. She said so as she played chess.

“I have sent him warnings and appeals. He ignores them all. Who is this man who dares to speak against me in this fashion?” As she spoke, she moved her pieces willy-nilly, as if unable to concentrate on the game. “What have I done that he seeks to separate my people from me?”

“In France he would have been beheaded for such treason,” Pious Mary pronounced blithely, her busy fingers at work on yet another embroidery. She did not notice that her words made the queen shiver.

“Pitch him into the sea,” Regal Mary said. “Let the fish eat his black heart.” She moved her bishop carefully. It was not often she beat the queen.

“Madam, if you tempt him back to the one true faith, then all the rest will follow,” the poet Chatelard suggested, “as dogs follow their master. ”

“Oh, yes, Majesty,” cried Pretty Mary. “Send him to a monastery. That will cool his blood!”

On and on they jested, making light of the dark. The only one who did not jest was the one who had the right to make jokes.

The queen's fool.

Me.

20

THE BLACK CROW

D
ay after day I added nothing to the jests, for I felt I had already failed my queen by having said nothing at first. And day after day Knox, that old black crow, added fuel to the fire. But still the queen did not speak out publicly.

“I have promised my people—all my people—freedom to believe as their consciences dictate,” she said, her chin high.

Who could not have loved such a monarch!

And then John Knox finally went too far, demanding that Queen Mary become a Protestant herself or be driven from the throne. I did not bring the news to her. Lord James himself, puffed out with the story, told her as she sat surrounded by her Maries.

I was on a cushion by her chair, one of the dogs in my lap.

“That,” Regal Mary said plainly, “is treason, Your Majesty. Simply treason. It cannot be ignored.”

Lord James agreed. “Even I, a Protestant, know he has gone too far. You must speak to him, Madam. You must tell him as his sovereign that such talk will not be tolerated.”

The little terrier bit down on my finger with its sharp teeth. A love bite. But still I cried out.

“And you, my fool,” the queen said, “who have been silent all these days on the matter of this Knox? What say you?”

I replied in Italian: “Our village priest had a crow once that spoke. Until it said what it shouldn't during mass. Then he wrung its neck.”

“What did she say?” asked Lord James, who did not understand the language.

“That I need to speak to the black crow in person, Jamie. Make it so,” the queen said.

 

So Knox was summoned to the palace for an interview with the queen.

How I longed to be at her feet while she filleted him. I said so in French as we sat by the fire.

“No, Nicola,” she said. “He would take your presence as an insult and therefore would not listen to a word I say. This is a man who prizes himself highly. I will hang him on his own monstrous vanity.” She spoke in Scots and I answered her in the same tongue, for my use of it was improving daily.

“How I want to see that, Your Majesty.” I turned from the hearth. “Please.”

“You cannot, Nicola,” she told me. Her mouth got that stern expression that was a warning to me that she was about to say something extremely important and that I must listen with care. “The man already froths at the mouth where women are concerned. He even tried to raise rebellion against my mother. ”

“But Majesty, I will be as quiet as a sleeping babe....”

She shook her head and held out her hands to the fire. “No,
my fool.
” She said the two words in French, which softened her refusal.

“Then may I conceal myself behind a tapestry in the council chamber?” I asked. “He will never know I am listening.”

“Not even hidden will I have you there, my sweet fool.”

“I could be as silent as the grave.” I made the sign of the cross over my heart.

“I would rather you be lively,” she answered. “Now run along.”

Treated as a child, I vowed I would act like one. But what could I do? I was loath to go against my queen's wishes.

And then I had it: I would hide but not
inside
the interview room—for she would see me there—but behind a hanging
outside
the chamber.

I was too old at twelve to believe Knox would have flames leaping from his eyes or brimstone gusting from his jaws. I had learned that lesson at Amboise. Still I wondered what kind of man he could be who was both an old crow—and a firebrand.

So when he was due for the interview, I carefully concealed myself behind a hanging, and arranged the heavy tapestry to conceal the bump that was me. The wool in the tapestry made my silk dress cling unbecomingly to my legs, which was annoying. But I made myself stand still and waited for John Knox to arrive.

I knew when he entered the hallway. The great doors let out an agonizing squeak as the guards opened them. Then a second squeal as the doors were shut after him. I heard his heavy footsteps going directly across the stone floor.

The footsteps were all but past my hiding place when I peeked out. He was so intent on the door to the throne room, he never noticed me.

What a disappointment! At the very least I had expected a man as dashing as La Renaudie, with a winning smile and a piratical manner. But Knox looked more like a wandering prophet. His hair was grey and worn long, with a beard tumbling down his chest to his waist. He wore a homely black bonnet and a long black robe, as if he were in permanent mourning for the world.

When he entered the audience chamber, I had a moment's glimpse of the queen sitting under a gold canopy, the great multicolored window at her back. Her mother's diamond and ruby cross hung from a chain around her neck.

She was a swan to his crow. But she also looked, somehow, vulnerable.

And mortal.

Then the door closed behind him with a crash and I could see no more.

So I sneaked from my hiding place to listen like a child at the keyhole. Alas, I could make out little they said.

Knox's voice, more powerful than even the cardinal‘s, rose and fell like a raging gale. I could distinguish one or two of the actual words—“idolatry” and “Nebuchadnezzar” were said with much rolling of
r
's—but I got no real sense of what he was saying.

I pressed my ear even harder against the keyhole.

There were long silences which I took to be when the queen was answering Knox. I could just imagine her gentle, reasoned arguments, possibly leavened by the occasional bit of poetry.

Quiet versus thunder, light against dark, their conversation went on for some time. I strained to make sense of what little I could hear, when suddenly footsteps approached the door from within the chamber.

I leaped away from the keyhole and almost fell over backwards. There was just barely time for me to run back to the tapestry. I made little effort to conceal the sound of my shoes on the stone floor.

Wriggling back behind the heavy arras, I held my breath, willing the heavy hanging to stop moving.

Just then I heard Queen Mary emerge from the throne room, the light tap-tap-tap of her shoes accompanied by the heavy marching steps of a number of heavy-footed men. They swept down the passage towards the banqueting hall. As she passed, I peeped out and saw on her face traces of freshly dried tears.

I did not doubt that the queen had met the stern preacher with a spirit as resolute as his own. He had not cowed her. But he had made her cry. I wriggled out of my hiding place and started after her. She needed me—me—and not that gaggle of men following close behind her.

At that very moment, John Knox emerged from the chamber, and I turned to stare at him. His robes flapped behind him like the wings of a giant crow. His face was locked in a scowl so dark that it could almost have extinguished the torches blazing on the walls.

“And what are ye gawping at, lass?”

I stepped back involuntarily, as if thrown off balance by a driving wind. Blurting out the first silly thought in my head, I said, “I was wondering, sir ... how many times you have to run a comb through that beard when you first get up.”

“Often enough to make a decent appearance and little enough to avoid the sin of vanity, too.” He answered me seriously, as if he could not possibly conceive of a jest.

I opened and closed my mouth several times, chewing on his answer.

“I see from yer gaudy attire, mistress, that ye apply no such restraint to yer own conduct.” He had turned my feeble joke into some sort of lesson.

“I ... I dress to please the queen,” I said, recovering some measure of poise. I pulled feebly at the silk which tried to wrap around my legs. “I am her fool.”

“A fool ye are indeed, to please the queen and not to please God.” He leaned towards me, glaring with two coals for eyes.

I smiled and said lightly, “Do you mean that only what's plain pleases God? Did He not make the lily and the rose, the rainbow and the ...” I struggled for another word.

“The de'il can show a fair face as an inducement to sin.”

“Well, then I am sure that you are no devil, sir,” I retorted tartly, folding my arms in front of me. “For your face is hardly fair.”

He frowned, not prepared to acknowledge such a barb from a mere girl—fool or otherwise. “This place is already full enough of de'ils, lass. They bring with them their wicked music and wanton dancing.”

“Does God not like dancing, either?” I asked, holding up my skirts and taking a few steps forward. “I thought it said in the Bible that David danced before the ark, and surely he was loved by God.”

“In its proper place, where it is done to honor the Lord, I can approve of dancing. But not the frivolous cavorting that aims merely to intoxicate the senses.”

“I should have thought ...” I said quietly, matching his serious tone, “that there are so many more serious sins that merit God's anger, He can have none to waste on so light a thing as dancing.” I smiled.