The Galliard (47 page)

‘Will Your Majesty be pleased to sign?’

She stared up at him with wild uncomprehending eyes. He thrust the pen into her hand, but she dropped it and clasped her hands to her side with a scream so full of animal anguish that even Ruthven fell back abashed. Margaret Carwood came rushing to her, and others of her women. Her screams went on, hideous, unabated.

‘The doctor!’ cried Carwood, ‘and the midwife, on the instant!’ She flapped a cloth in Ruthven’s face. ‘Out of the room, all you men!’

‘She can sign first, she’s not unconscious,’ he said. ‘I’ll guide her hand.’

‘Get away!’ yelled Darnley, beside himself.

And James, so frequently a father these last few years, led Ruthven away. ‘We must wait till this is over,’ he said low to him. ‘After all, it may not be necessary.’

Ruthven gave a grin of understanding.

Darnley was rushing about, quite distracted. He had sent his own man, Anthony Standen, for the doctor. Now he hovered in the anteroom, when Carwood came and plucked his arm and whispered to him, ‘The Queen wishes to speak to you.’

Was it her last message to him? Those frightful screams! He wished he had never heard them. He wished he had been a better husband. He was surprised at the brisk note in Carwood’s whisper. Women had no heart really. He trembled as she led him up to that contorted blue figure on the bed. He bent his head to it; Mary raised hers and said very low, ‘Remind them, they’ve promised to withdraw the guards tonight.’

What did it mean? How could she ride tonight, straight after a miscarriage, after that agony? Those eyes that he had just seen all clouded and screwed up with pain, they were looking up at him, now quite clear and calm. One of them slowly shut in a wink.

Would
they dismiss the guard? Hours seemed to go by, and still they were outside. But now the beleaguered party were reinforced by the doctor and midwife. They complained that their patient was in a very grave condition, that she was semi-delirious, and kept screaming that there were armed men in the Palace only waiting to burst in and hack her to pieces. It certainly didn’t seem necessary to keep guard on anyone as ill as that, but Ruthven and Morton were still reluctant to give way. Darnley had the bright notion of saying he would keep guard over her himself, he and his men who were in the Palace. That seemed safe enough, since he was more deeply committed against her than any of them. So they left him in charge, withdrew their men, and went off to hold a convivial supper-party at Morton’s house to celebrate the occasion.

Mary at once dispatched Margaret Carwood with a message to Arthur Erskine. She kept Darnley by her side, for after playing up so well to the lords he was suffering a collapse of nerves.

‘Nothing’s safe yet,’ he kept saying. ‘Any of the household may notice something is in the wind and carry the word to Morton’s house.’

That was true, of course. They would have to wait till everyone was asleep in bed. Never did the household seem to go to bed so late as on that night.

‘There are too many in this,’ he repeated again and again, ‘it’s bound to leak out. That old doctor and the midwife, you ought to have kept them here – I told you you ought to. It’s bound to get out now. And so many of us escaping, someone’s sure to notice when we go. Erskine and Traquair and me and you and Anthony and Carwood. Why should Carwood come?’

‘I
must
have one woman with me, Harry, in case—’

‘Oh yes, that everlasting child. But why Traquair?’

‘Margaret must ride pillion behind him, as I’m doing with Erskine.’

‘You could ride with me.’

And he ruled out one after the other of their party till it seemed that they themselves had better stay behind.

She had to buoy up his spirits by treating the whole thing as a joke. She mimicked James walking up and down the room with his solemn voice, his portentous clearing of the throat, his gentlemanly decorum – Davie himself couldn’t have done it better, he declared in spontaneous admiration. He cursed himself the next moment for his thoughtlessness, but she paid no heed to it, only gave him a narrow glance. She was wrought up to a pitch very near hysteria, and just prevented it by making herself ‘hard as steel, cold as ice in danger’.

It was close on midnight before it was judged safe enough to make the attempt. She was very quiet now, but her eyes were blazing with excitement like a cat’s in the dark. He thought she looked like a lovely young witch muffled in her dark cloak. Had she laid a spell on him that he was doing this mad thing? He would give anything now to get out of it. And if only he could get a drink! ‘Mary, don’t let’s do it. It’s such a frightful risk.’

‘Erskine will be very careful, Harry. He’s bringing a safe horse, it shan’t jolt the child.’

‘Damn the child!’ His hoarse whisper was nearly a scream. ‘Think of
me
! I’ve sworn to guard you!’

‘Too late now to think of that. Think of them instead tomorrow morning, all their long faces, coming here and finding we have given them the slip.’

But her laughter could not cheer him now. He could have killed her in his rage of fear as he and she and Margaret and Anthony went creaking and cracking down the wooden back stair into the butler’s quarters. Did ever boards and doors make such a noise? Someone was sure to hear them, someone was sure to be about. Mary had said if they were it wouldn’t matter, for they were her own French servants and would never betray her. But how did she know? Anyone would betray anyone if it were made worth their
while. He stopped dead for a moment, thinking he heard a heavy tread. It was only the thumping of his heart.

Now they were in the sculleries; ‘Pouf, what a smell!’ whispered Mary.

‘It’s the washing up,’ Margaret whispered back.

How could they add to the danger by whispering such stuff?

Then he whispered himself, for he saw a keg of whisky. It was just what he needed. ‘I must have a drink,’ he told Mary. They tried to prevent him, but it was impossible. He snatched a cup and helped himself. He tried to take another, but Anthony seized his arm and made him put it down.

‘Oh, very well,’ he said aloud in an off-hand way. ‘Anyway, I feel better for that.’

It was striking midnight when they reached the ruinous gap in the outer wall and squeezed through into the keen night air, the frosty stars overhead, the dark shape of the hills rising sharp against them. They were in the burial-ground of the old Abbey and had to pick their way through the mounds. A new one had just been dug. Mary stood still, looking down on it.

‘Come on,’ muttered Darnley, then suddenly realized for whom that grave had been dug. ‘Poor Davie,’ he whimpered. ‘I wish it hadn’t happened.’

A strange new fear came to him by the grave of that mangled body; and beside him, dreadfully still, that cloaked figure with the hidden face. It was as though someone quite unknown were standing there. He put out a hand and touched her timidly.

‘
Mary!
’ he whispered.

She turned and walked swiftly away.

There was nothing for him now but to follow her.

They were outside the walls, and there were the horses, and Erskine, the Captain of the Guard, and Traquair, the Master of Horse. The two women rode pillion behind them. As they mounted, Erskine told them he had got into touch with the Earl of Bothwell, who had decided that his fortress of Dunbar would be their safest refuge. It meant a ride of thirty miles in the dark – ‘No matter, we’ll manage it,’ said Darnley, his teeth chattering.

He rode off ahead with his servant Anthony. As soon as they were out of the town he set his horse at a brisk canter, and the two men behind, with the double burden on their horses, had great difficulty in keeping up with him. Mary was intensely anxious to go gently; she found it a great strain holding on to Erskine; with her arms thus occupied, she could not keep her cloak wrapped round her, and grew so cold that she was afraid her numbed grip would not keep hold.

They had ridden for about an hour and a half when Darnley came thudding back to them. ‘There are soldiers about here,’ he gasped out. ‘We’d best stick all together and go slap through them hell for leather. Quick, or we’ll all be murdered.’

And he lashed out with his whip on the hindquarters of Mary’s horse so that it plunged sideways.

‘You’ll kill the child!’ she cried.

‘What of it? We can make another. Come
on
!’

‘Ride on yourself,’ she answered.

Without a word, he spurred his horse to the gallop and disappeared into the darkness.

The soldiers he had observed were now coming up to them, dark shapes of horsemen, several of them.

‘Is that Erskine?’ said Bothwell’s voice.

Chapter Eleven

He had lifted her on to his own horse and was carrying her in the crook of his left arm on his saddle-bow, with his great cloak wrapped right round her, binding her securely to him. The release of that strain on her waist muscles, when she had been sitting sideways on the pillion and twisting round to clasp Erskine’s broad waist, gave her intense relief; and now the warmth of his body was coming through to her so that her blood, which had seemed quite congealed, began to thaw and creep back through her veins. He slipped his reins for a moment into the hand that was holding her, and put his right hand inside the cloak to feel her hands; they were still like bits of ice.

‘Put your little frog’s paws in mine for a moment,’ he said, enclosing them both in his grasp, and then begged Her Majesty’s pardon, with a smile that she could hear in his voice.

‘It’s too dark for majesty,’ she said drowsily.

‘Too cold, you mean.’

‘All cats are grey – I mean all queens are cold in the dark.’

She was surprised to hear his chuckle, for she hardly knew what she was murmuring; ease, warmth, the sudden, even violent cessation of fear and struggle, and above all of the strain of trying to get and then keep a hold on Darnley, were plunging her into a deep wave of peacefulness that engulfed her like sleep – and for three nights and days now she had had practically no sleep. She was riding for her life, with only this small company of men to protect her from the hosts of her enemies who might even now be
in pursuit, yet she had never in her life felt as safe as now, in these fierce arms.

She fell asleep, though not too deeply to lose consciousness of those arms round her, and the gentle jogging of his horse, which seemed to know by instinct what was required of it and picked its way along that rough track over the moors in the dark without any jolt or jar. For a little time she lost the memory of what lay behind this moment, or expectation of what lay ahead. All her life lay here in this movement together through the bright dark.

It might have been years later that she heard the clip-clopping of a loose shoe on the horse’s hoof. Bothwell would not exchange horses with any other of the men. The Night Hawk, he said, was the best horse he’d ever had, barring old Corbie, for night work; they were close by Broomhousebanks and nearing their journey’s end at Dunbar, and had well lessened the danger of pursuit in this direction; they could afford to lose ten minutes or so at a little forge he knew close by. It showed a cool nerve but sound reasoning, for he had all along refused to hurry, because of the Queen’s condition, and this shoe was necessary.

A cluster of little houses showed their shapes solidly before them; the night was fading, the stars paler, the rough ground glimmering with frost. She saw this, and the high chimney of a smithy just before her; she smelt cow-byres, heard the horses’ hoofs clattering on cobbles instead of thudding and squelching on the moor. The Night Hawk stood still beneath her, champed his bit and shook his jingling harness; a man dismounted beside them and hammered loudly on the door, but no one came. Bothwell snatched the lance from him and thrust it through the casement window; that brought a scurry of footsteps and frightened voices within the house, the scraping of bolts drawn back, then a dim gaping face, anxious questions and peremptory answers. She was lifted down and carried into the blacksmith’s forge, for it was warmer there than in his cottage. Bothwell left her while he went to set out a picket. She sat on the shaft of a barrow and watched the blacksmith blow up the fire. The darkness leaped away from the place; some of it ran in long shadows up the walls and ceiling and lurked there
till chased away altogether by the flames. The smith was a young man in a leather apron and a shirt that left his arms and neck bare. He had the face of a Roman emperor on a coin she had seen in France. An old man, his father as she saw, came up to her with a horn mug of ale in his hand. His benignant bearded face was that of an apostle, not an emperor.

‘The lord told me to bring ye a hot drink,’ he said. ‘This is the best I can do, but wait now till I stir it for ye.’ He thrust an iron bar into the furnace to get red-hot, and stood looking down at her with interest, but it was plain he had no idea who she was. ‘That’s a braw horse of the lord’s,’ he said, ‘but his foot is going a bit tender from carrying the both of ye, and with a loose shoe at this latter end.’

‘He’s not hurt it, has he?’

‘Ah no, a good night’s rest and feed is all he’ll be needing. There was a French knight in these parts when I was a laddie, used to bathe his horse’s hoofs in wine when they went foot weary.’

‘A French knight! Who was he?’

‘We called him Beauty round here. He’d some such sounding name and he was a beauty to look at too, always wore white armour and a white scarf round his sleeve in honour of his leddy the Queen of France.’

‘Was this in my – my lord the late King’s time?’ She had nearly said ‘my father’s’!

‘Aye, but the King was a wee bairn then and the great Duke Albany was Governor, and he left his friend Beauty or Bawty here in charge as Warden of the Marches while he was away a while in France. A sair while it was for Beauty, and well that your horse should be shod before going by the Stony Moor – Battie’s Bog they call it now after him, ever since his day.’

‘Did his horse sink in it?’