Queen's Own Fool (34 page)

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Authors: Jane Yolen

BOOK: Queen's Own Fool
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I could feel my cheeks flush.
Take care, Nicola,
I warned myself. Speak
plain, but with the wisdom of the fool.
“I bumped into them in the street,” I said. “They asked me for things I am ashamed to describe. So I fled and they chased after, accusing me of theft.” I looked directly into Knox's eyes as I spoke, hoping to make him believe me.
Knox made a tsk sound with his tongue and clasped his hands over the beard that was like a cover on his chest. “Yer story sounds closer to the truth than theirs, but by how much I canna say.” He closed his eyes for a minute, deep in thought. When he opened them again he glared at me. “So ye know nothing of this murder of the king?”
“Nor any murder at all,” I maintained. “Not the king's or David Riccio's or anyone else's.” I was so nervous in the old crow's presence, that for all my warnings to myself, my tongue began to run away with me.
“Aye, yon scoundrel Riccio. He richly deserved his fate.”
I could hardly contain my outrage. “How can you say that, sir. He was the queen's secretary and a faithful servant.” And my dearest friend, I added, but only to myself.
Knox appeared surprised by my outburst. “He was a spy and a plotter.”
“A spy? Davie?”
“Are ye truly such an innocent, lass? Will ye fight God's own truth? Yer Davie was an agent sent by the pope to destroy the reformed religion and set idolatry up in its place once more.” Righteous fury flamed from his eyes and I had to look away.
Fato,
I thought. A wild fate had deposited me in the home of the queen's greatest enemy. I could only save her now by remaining mute, like the girl who sewed nettles into shirts in the fairy tale. I set my lips together, prepared to say nothing more.
Just then there was a knock at the front door. One of the boys answered it and came to the study.
“Father,” he said, “Master Donald is here along with Master Gordon. They must talk to ye on a matter of some urgency.”
Knox rose. “Tell them I will be with them presently.” Then he turned to me. “I think we will have much more to say of this later.” He shut the door on me but neglected to lock it.
I waited until his footsteps had receded, then made my way quietly to the back of the house and down a dark corridor and past the sunlit kitchen where Margaret was busy kneading bread and talking in baby talk to her little girl.
I knew there had to be another way out of the house. Knox's house was no place for a Catholic on a day when there was conspiracy and murder in the air. I might make an easy scapegoat, and then there would be no one to bear witness to my innocence except the queen.
Finally I found the door, a black oak barrier with a single latch. I lifted the latch and escaped into a small walled garden. But I knew how to climb walls, and a scraped knee notwithstanding, I was soon over it and into a twisting lane, and free.
38
SAFETY
I
nstead of going directly to the palace, I found myself drawn back to Kirk o'Field. I kept to the side streets and wynds, till I came to the square. From one of the lanes, I stared at the place where the king's house had stood and shivered, though the morning sun was warm.
There was nothing left of the king's house but a heap of rubble and a scattering of bricks. What furniture or hangings might have survived were gone already, picked clean by human scavengers. But the bitter stink of gunpowder still clung to the air.
If I had been but a minute longer dangling on the rope, I would have been rubble as well. A minute sooner in the garden, and I would have been strangled alongside the king.
Such a crowd was gathered—hawkers selling pies and pastries, peddlers offering their wares. It was like a holy day fair. A line of soldiers held the townspeople back from the garden while some officials strode about as if they knew what they were doing.
On the edge of the crowd I spotted a familiar head of curly hair and I edged over to him, taking care not to be seen by the guards.
When he saw me, Joseph's face lit up with incredible relief. Taking me by the arm, he led me quickly away, back to that same small alley. His arms went around me.
“Nicola, little fool, we all feared the worst,” he said, his voice trembling. “The queen sent me to look for you. My heart ...” He hesitated, looked deeply into my eyes. “My heart was in pieces, like the house.” His arms were trembling, too.
“I saw what happened,” I told him. “Last night. I saw it all.”
He moved us further into the shadows made by the overhanging wood balconies. “Speak softly, darling Nicola. I doubt we have come to the end of this business.”
“Lord Bothwell was here,” I whispered. “He lit the fuses himself! I warned the king to flee, but they caught him in the garden. And his man, Taylor.”
“You saw that?”
I nodded.
“Where have you been since? All night we worried.”
“Would you believe in the house of John Knox? He saved me from Bothwell's assassins.”
Someone ran past the alley, towards the crowd, and we shrank back even further into the shadows.
Joseph shook his head. “Fortune chooses strange helpmates.”
“I do not think we can look to the old crow for any further help, Joseph. He would have me curse the queen and leave her.”
“Poor lady,” whispered Joseph sadly. “In the middle of the night, when the news came about the explosion, the four Maries were convinced that the queen, too, was to have been blown up. They routed me from my bed and told me, and as it seemed likely, we warned the queen. She has taken the child and fled to the safety of Edinburgh Castle.”
I shook my head and pulled away from him. “I do not know what to think, Joseph. She sent me to Darnley with a token to keep him safe. But safe from what? Safe from whom? Did she suspect? Did she know? Oh, Joseph, my poor head is roiling with bad thoughts.” I put both hands to my temples.
Joseph looked at me oddly. “It was only by the grace of God the queen did not sleep at Kirk o'Field last night. The grace of God and a servant's wedding. You know that.”
I bit my lip so hard, I drew blood. “Joseph—I am certain it was Darnley alone they intended to kill, though they blew up the whole house ...” I sighed deeply. “A cannon to kill a flea.”
“No evidence,” said Joseph. “And no witnesses.”
“None but me.”
We stood apart from one another, our backs against the same crumbling stone wall, both thinking furiously.
“Servants in another part of the house were killed in the explosion, Nicola,” Joseph said at last. “The cook and several potboys.”
I crossed myself at the thought of those innocents. “I must go to the queen, Joseph. I must tell her what happened. I must find out what she knows.”
“No,” Joseph said, turning towards me. He put his hand on my arm. “I forbid it.”
“How can you forbid ...” I stopped when I saw the concern in his eyes.
“Bothwell's men are everywhere. He says it is to protect the queen, but now I think he is waiting to seize you if you return, for you are a witness.”
I was near to tears. “But surely no harm will come to me once I am under the queen's protection.”
“So my brother thought, Nicola.”
I started to tremble violently and Joseph put his arms around me. We stood together, breast to breast, without speaking. Without feeling the need to speak.
Suddenly there were shouts from the crowd.
“Look!” cried one man, then another. “Look what they have!”
A woman screamed, a high horrible keening that went on and on.
Joseph stepped out of the alley to find out what had caused the excitement. It seemed forever before he returned.
“Two more bodies, Nicola. Dug out of the ruin. They have been laid out on boards and are being carried into a nearby house. You do not want to see. They look like ... like meat too long on a spit.”
I shuddered again, then wiped the tears from my face.
“We must get you away from here immediately. It is not safe,” Joseph said.
Just then two men walked by the alley and one said in a clear voice as they passed, “Who would do such a thing to that braw laddie, the bonnie king?”
“Who do ye think?” his companion answered. “Her that took him to her bed has seen him to his grave. They found her cloak.”
Nearby a minstrel tuned his instrument and hazarded the first few lines of a ballad he called “The Tragedy o' the Bonnie King.”
I stiffened with astonishment. “Fickle hearts and feckless souls,” I whispered to Joseph when they were well past. “One would hardly believe how much Darnley was loathed while alive.”
“Death can turn things topsy-turvy,” Joseph replied.
“Joseph, if I cannot go to the queen, you must. Tell her what I saw.
“Speak out against Bothwell? When he is the queen's closest advisor and I but a secretary and a foreigner to boot.” He shook his head. “No, Nicola, no! It would be suicide. And for nothing.”
I put my hand on his. “But you would be telling the truth.”
“I would be repeating the tale of the court fool, whose only function is to make others laugh.” Joseph made a face. “What is more, that fool is a girl, a foreigner, and a Catholic.”
“Joseph, you cannot be so ... fainthearted.” For a moment, I despised him for being so cautious with so much at stake.
“I am not being fainthearted, Nicola. I am being sane in an insane realm. There are already murmurs that this assassination is the work of the queen's French and Italian attendants.”
“But that makes no sense at all!” I cried, flinging myself back against the wall.
“If a vengeful mob comes to drag me to the block, I will be sure to tell them so,” he whispered fiercely.
I let my shoulders slump. “Then what can we do?”
“If Bothwell can be separated from the queen and his hold on the court broken, then it may be safe for you to return.”
“And when will that be?” I suddenly thought:
Davie would have made such a thing happen, not just waited for justice to take its own course.
Then I remembered that Davie had died for such meddling.
Joseph's comforting hand rested on my shoulder. “Many already suspect Bothwell. Let the matter come to open court, and then you can step forward.” He turned me round to face him. “In the meantime we must get you to safety.”
I straightened my shoulders. “What would you have me do?”
He thought a moment. “Meet me near the market cross at noon tomorrow. In the meantime stay out of sight.”
“Give the queen this,” I said, slipping the crucifix over my head. “Say I was unable to deliver it, but at least it kept me safe.”
Joseph put it back over my head and kissed me on the brow. “Let it keep you safe still,” he said.
 
I found a deserted spot by the north wall of the city, below the brooding castle crag. Very few folk passed. Those who did gave me but a passing glance.
I waited and I tried not to think, but there was nothing to do but think.
I thought about the queen and her wish that Darnley have her crucifix on that night of all nights.
I thought about Bothwell, who had said the queen wanted Darnley dead though she'd not said so aloud.
I thought about Joseph's arms around me, and the full silence between us.
Then the sun was overhead, so I knew it was noon. I picked my way slowly, carefully, through the small hidden wynds to the market cross.
To my disappointment, it was not Joseph who awaited me there but Pious Mary. She had a cape and hood pulled up over her head and one under her arm for me.
“Put this on quickly and follow me,” she said with quiet intensity. “No talking till we are there. We go straight into the face of danger.”
She led me through back alleyways and—though I was dying to question her—I did not speak. Partly I was quiet out of fear. Partly I was trying to keep up, for she set us a fast pace.
At last, on a small street that ran up to the Royal Mile, in front of a rather substantial stone house, she turned to me. “Here is where you will be safe, Nicola. Master and Mistress Carwood have agreed to take you in,” she said in a low voice.
For the first time since we had begun our mazed travels, I felt a bit of relief.
We went around to the back door, like beggars or tradesmen, and Pious Mary said in a low voice, “You know their eldest daughter.”
“Do you mean Margaret Carwood? The queen's bedchamber woman?” I asked in the same low tone.
Mary rapped on the door. “The same. Their younger daughter died of a fever last year and it is her room that will be yours.”
I put a hand on her arm. “Why are they doing this for me?”
“They are doing it for the queen.”
The door was opened by a round-faced woman who looked little like the elegant Margaret. But she had Margaret's same clipped pattern of speech. “Come in, come in quickly, my dears.”
She led us to an upstairs chamber in which a bed with serge cover and curtains, a bedside table, a large blanket chest, and a wardrobe were all of the furnishings. A picture of Our Lady hung over the bed and I was almost in tears when I saw it. I crossed myself.
Mistress Carwood watched me carefully, her head cocked to one side like a plump little sparrow. “You are just our dear child's size,” she said at last. And taking out a simple dark blue woolen dress from the wardrobe and handing it to me, said: “Pray wear this instead of ...”
She did not have to tell me how awful my own dress looked.

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