The Galliard (46 page)

At last that had got him. His mouth fell open. He gasped out, ‘They couldn’t be such traitors!’

She could hardly restrain herself from breaking into cruel laughter.

‘Oh yes, they are traitors,’ she said lightly, ‘and they will betray you – just as they (she had nearly said “you”) have betrayed me.’

‘But – but what can I do then? What
shall
I do?’

‘You can’t do anything, Harry. You’ve joined with them against me. So now you’ll just have to wait till they join against you.’

This new, cool little voice, so quietly and dispassionately saying these deadly things, did it really belong to herself?

‘But, Mary – Mary, I’m not against you. I’m not really. I thought you were against me. You were so cold.’

She began to cry in a soft weak feminine way. He had seen her cry with rage, but never like this. He did not notice that, though she was sobbing, she shed no tears.

‘Oh, Harry, I wasn’t, but I thought you didn’t love me any more. You took other women.’

‘I’d never have looked at another woman if you’d really cared about me.’

‘I did care, but I was ill after that campaign, and then I was pregnant and the doctor said—’

‘Damn the meddling old fool! You ought to have listened to me.’

‘Yes,’ she said meekly. ‘And I will now, always. Oh, what a fool I am! There will be no “always” now; we are both their prisoners, and God knows what they’ll do with us.’

‘They shan’t touch us, I’ll swear it. Oh, Mary, don’t cry so. I’ll get us out of it somehow. I’ll manage it all.’

He tried to put a brave face on it, but he was shaking as though he had the ague. Suddenly he flung himself down beside her and put his head in her lap.

‘Oh, my God!’ he wailed. ‘What have I done? Is it all a trap? Will they shut us both up and kill us secretly? Mary, is there no way out? You’re so clever and strong, don’t give way now, don’t cry. For God’s sake, do be some help.’

She looked down with dry eyes on that ruffled chicken-yellow head. She raised her hand, then deliberately laid it on his hair, then forced herself to stroke it again and again. After all, it was no more than to stroke a wig. She had once thought, when he was drunk, that it was like a wig. She swallowed, moistened her lips, practised silently inside her head the tone that she must use.

‘I’ll try, Harry. But it’s not easy. We’d best leave it now and get some sleep.’

‘I’ll not sleep a wink all night.’

‘You must. You’ve got to go to the Council tomorrow morning. Come and see me after it, will you, and I’ll see if I can think of anything by then.’

‘Can’t I stay here tonight?’

‘
No!
’ It was surprised out of her, but she hastened to cover it. ‘Of course not – it would be madness. They think they’ve got you away from me to act against me. Whatever happens, you mustn’t let them guess you’ve made it up with me – if you have,’ she added wistfully.

‘I have, indeed I have, Mary. Oh, Mary, you will think of something, won’t you?’

‘And you’ll notice all they say at the Council tomorrow so as to tell me afterwards, won’t you?’ She was speaking more cheerfully,
she seemed to be forcing herself to take courage. We mustn’t lose heart. I shan’t if I know you are with me again, as we were last summer. Oh, Harry wasn’t it grand – the forced marches, that ride past Loch Leven under James’ very nose when the water was still all grey in the dawn – and then the Carron in spate, having to swim it on our horses. What a fine honeymoon we’ve had! And we’ll have it again.’

Well, he wasn’t sure about that. There was no fun in getting up early – still less in getting wet through and all but drowned.

There was always something going wrong in Scotland, floods, sermons, murders. Why had he ever left home? He wished he was dead, he wished he was at home with a cold, and his mother putting him to bed. Mary had nursed him well through the measles, but she wasn’t the same. Old Countess Meg, even when she scolded, she made one feel so safe. He began to cry.

She put her arms round his head and hoped he would not raise his face. But at last he did, and it was all red and blubbered with tears. She bent her head quickly and kissed his hair.

Chapter Ten

All that night she wondered if she had not said enough to bind him to her – or alternatively had said too much, and that he would betray it to her enemies. He seemed incapable of keeping a secret, even when it was against himself to betray it. The astonishing thing was that he had kept this one so long before-hand. She must have been very blind. True, he had been avoiding her lately, and she had been too glad to wonder why.

Whenever she began to doze she dreamed that he had run straight to James and told him all she had said. In terror she woke herself up again and again. She had not dared confide her plan to him, but she would have to do so some time – as late as possible, so as to give him the less time to betray it. Even the fear of his colleagues that she had planted in him might give him away; they would notice a difference in him, they would get everything out of him, they would not let him come back to her after the Council; she was doomed, and there was no escape.

Her waiting-maid, Margaret Carwood, was with her, but Mary let her sleep; it was consoling that anyone could sleep there in that room. At last, when it was daylight, she herself slept for a little, and woke to hear the blackbird singing in the pear tree as she had heard him sing, with them, an hour before Davie was killed. That somehow gave her courage. These murderers could not kill everything that sang, not the birds, nor the returning spring.

She was astonished to find how hungry she was at breakfast, till she remembered that that hurried, agitated meal Lady Hundy had 
brought her, taken in front of Lord Lindsay, had been all that she had eaten yesterday. She made Carwood dress her very carefully. Then there was nothing for it but to wait till Darnley came to her after the Council – if he came. But she had some inquiries to make, some messages to send by Carwood, who was allowed to pass in and out through the guards on the pretext of getting medicines for her.

The mid-day bell sounded up in the town for ‘noon-shanks’, the pause in the morning’s work when all workmen had their noonday draught of ale. The Council must be over. Had Darnley given away everything at it? Would they not let him come back to her? Would he never come? But he came.

He had got over his fright. He was a little subdued, but no longer cowed or lachrymose. He frowned and winked at Margaret Carwood when Mary asked him what had been said at the Council. Mary told Carwood to go into the anteroom.

‘But she is part of our plan,’ she said, ‘she will have to help us.’

‘What, you
have
a plan, then? You told me you’d none.’

‘I told you I’d think of one. But it may depend on what happened at the Council. What did they say?’

‘Oh, the usual things, upholding the Protestant religion and so forth.’ He was sheepish again, and she had some little difficulty in getting out of him that it had been agreed to remove her to Stirling Castle ‘for greater safety’.

‘Yes, the safety of a prison cell where I shall conveniently die.’

‘Mary!’ His pained voice carried no conviction.

She saw that he had slipped right back from the position where she had got him last night, and the reason for this was soon forthcoming; the Council had summoned their fresh Parliament to bestow on Darnley the Crown Matrimonial and the government of the country. This had so flattering a sound that he could not believe they didn’t really mean it. She had to begin all over again.

He was soon telling her that he had only swung back again because she could offer no alternative. ‘Now tell your plan and I’ll see if it’s feasible.’

He was becoming quite lordly again. After all, the Council had
formally offered him the Crown Matrimonial that morning!

It was a desperate matter to tell her plan to anyone so slippery. ‘How
can
I trust you? You, do not care what happens to me as long as you think there is a chance of getting what you want out of them. You will leave me to be starved to death most likely in a cell in Stirling far away from all help.’

That shocked him. He had not thought, nor wished to think, what was likely to happen to her at Stirling.

She had soon worked it all over again.

And then she had to let him know her plan.

If he could get the jailers to remove the guards round her room, then he and she and Margaret Carwood would steal tonight down a back stair into the pantries and butler’s offices and squeeze out through a broken gap in the wall that Margaret had discovered near the door, which would of course be locked. That would get them into the Abbey graveyard, and there Arthur Erskine would be waiting with horses. They would ride clear of Edinburgh, meet Gordon and Bothwell, who alone had remained loyal, and make for the safety of one of Bothwell’s Border fortresses, where he would raise an army for them in a few days most probably, as he had done before.

‘And then,’ she cried, ‘we shall be able to do what we like instead of always being bullied by these foul old men.’

The scheme certainly had its points. He’d always wanted to pull James’ long nose. And now Davie was out of the way he would be able to get all he wanted out of Mary.

‘But how can I get them to shift the guards? They’ll never do it.’

‘Tell them how ill I am. It’s true enough. Tell them if only they will stop pestering me I’ll forgive them everything. Bring them here to be pardoned, formally. James likes things to look well.’

Darnley promised to manage everything. He was full of confidence now. When she asked for a list of the conspirators in the murder plot, he gave it instantly, never realizing that he could not have done this if he had not been one of them. Nor did it seem to embarrass him that the name of his father was on the list.

She asked who had struck the first blow, and was told one of Morton’s men, George Douglas the bastard.

So the prophetic warning had been right after all, and about as much use as prophetic warnings ever were.

Darnley briskly hurried off to give her offer to the ringleaders.

They were naturally suspicious and told him her fair speaking was nothing but policy. Ruthven said bluntly that they had no need of pardon from a prisoner. But James reproved him for that. She had been exact in her gauging of him. He would greatly prefer some sort of legal covering for his actions. A signed pardon for the acts of violence committed in her presence might prove useful; anyway, it was respectable. He would be very glad, too, of her free consent to being removed to Stirling. So he and Lord Ruthven and the Earl of Morton went with Darnley later on in the afternoon to the little anteroom leading into the Queen’s chamber.

It was about half past four. The cloud of budding white pear-blossom, a little whiter than two days ago, was blowing outside the window in the March wind and sunshine. There was a dark stain on the floor of the bright tiny room. The three lords waited while the boy fetched his wife.

After a little time he brought her in. She was deadly white arid there were deep shadows under her eyes. Her hair had been brushed very smooth and shining, straight down on either side of her face. She was wearing a simple gown of deep blue; its close-fitting bodice, in contrast with the full skirt hanging in heavy folds, emphasized her pregnancy. She looked like a very young Madonna in an early Italian picture, her shoulders touchingly slight, her bosom small, her slender neck rising from it like the white stalk of a bluebell.

She stood looking at them, at the gross Morton, the ghastly Ruthven, the grave, dignified James. They knelt, and her eyes followed the course of Morton’s massive knee, which came down full on the bloodstain. James asked for the royal pardon and restoration of estates; he added pointedly that mercy was ‘advantageous and necessary to Kings, for their own safety.’

Morton, edging his knee away from the bloodstain, said that
the loss of one meanly born man did not matter much, at any rate not as much as the ruin of many lords.

Ruthven said nothing.

Mary said she was not bloodthirsty nor greedy for their lands and goods. She would be only too glad to forget the past – and here she gave a little gasp and choked with tears.

They discussed the terms of their safeguard, but she got weary and told them to draw up what document they wished, and she would sign it. She went back into the bedchamber with Darnley and James, while through the open door came the sound of Morton’s and Ruthven’s voices arguing the terms. She began to laugh rather strangely.

‘It is so funny,’ she said, ‘to hear that old yellow fellow haggling away for his future when you can see he has only a few weeks to live!’

Her brother and husband were shocked.

She was very restless. She could not sit still, though she was too weak to walk by herself. She walked up and down the room between them, leaning on both their arms, up and down, up and down for a whole hour, talking, all three, of such silly things, none of them meaning anything, but they must go on talking, she must anyway, to show she trusted them, to make them trust her.

Yes, she would willingly go to Stirling; she would much rather her baby were born there in the high clean air of that huge castle rock – much rather than at Holyrood, so damp, and with all the smells of Edinburgh wafting down to it; it was good of dear James to think of it for her. (She was pleased to see that caused him some discomfort.) She would do anything they wanted, sign anything, if only they would not go on treating her like a criminal. It would be dreadful if her baby were born a prisoner, with the sound of armed men clanking about her door. James said he would see, he would do what he could.

She said pettishly, ‘If that’s all you will promise, I’ll say the same to your pardon.’ She stood still, withdrawing her arm, and looked straight at him. ‘I’ll have nothing to do with it, unless you get the guard removed this very evening.’

He promised.

It was after six o’clock when Morton and Ruthven presented their document, and James scanned it, touched it up and showed it to her. But she could not take it in, the writing shook so, she said. Would James read it to her? He did, and she had to ask him to repeat several sentences. She was obviously distracted and in great pain. Ruthven thought it well to hurry things up. He dipped the pen in the ink and presented it to her.