The Captive Queen of Scots - Plaidy Jean - Страница 16

I have indeed been a fool, thought George. Even Willie would have done better.

DECEMBER HAD COME and as Mary sat with Seton over their tapestry she said: “I shall have to wait for the spring before I can hope to escape from this place. How long that seems.”

“The next three months will pass quickly,” Seton comforted her.

“It is the monotony of the days which is so hard to bear; to look out from my window every hour of the day and see the same stretch of lake. Oh, I am happy that you are with me. I am fond of George, and Lady Douglas seems to be a good friend as far as her fondness for our Regent will allow her. But there are times when I feel very melancholy.”

She did not mention Bothwell, but she was thinking of him. During the last weeks she had had a premonition that she would never see him again. Through George news was brought to her from the mainland; no one had been able to stop that, and she knew that Moray had sent Kirkcaldy of Grange to capture her husband.

Bothwell, learning of the plan to capture him, had left Huntley and taken temporary refuge at Spynie with his great-uncle and old tutor and guardian, Patrick Hepburn the Bishop of Moray. He had attempted a feat which was typical of him when he had tried to enlist the help of pirates in order to raise a naval force with himself as its commander. Indeed, it seemed that he had not hesitated to turn pirate himself. He would have brought many an uneasy moment to Moray and his friends, for Bothwell was the man they feared more than any in Scotland. How often had Mary wept for the strength he could have given her as well as that erotic satisfaction which, having tasted, she often craved for. But there was no substitute for Bothwell; there never would be. She was aware of this and that was why the fear that she would never see him again was as acute as a physical pain.

But even Bothwell had not been sufficiently prepared to make a stand against Moray’s might, and he had gone to the Orkneys and Shetlands where he had narrowly escaped capture; but Kirkcaldy in hot pursuit had been wrecked on the rocks, while Bothwell escaped across the North Sea to be captured off the Norwegian coast by a Danish commander and taken to Bergen. There he was allowed to take up residence, but a certain Anna Thorssen was, to Bothwell’s misfortune, residing in Bergen, and when she heard that he was in that town, determined to settle an old score. The buccaneering Bothwell had gone through a form of marriage with her some years before, taken possession of her considerable fortune and then deserted her. His sins were catching up with him. She brought a suit against him and, only by promising her an annuity when he returned to Scotland, did he manage to elude the law. He had been expelled from Bergen and was now in Copenhagen.

While he was free there was hope, and yet with the passing of each day the bold Borderer seemed to become more like a figure in a dream than in reality. There were times when she could not bear to think of him, when looking back on her life she knew that it would have been different if she had never surrendered to Bothwell, if she had never allowed him to make herself the slave of her senses.

That had brought her to Lochleven . . . here in the castle surrounded by the lake, where only the companionship of her women, the unswerving devotion of a chivalrous young man could in some measure compensate her for all she had lost.

“Before this,” she told Seton, “I never had the time to look back on my life, and consequently never learned the art of contemplation. Life passed too quickly; it was like playing a part in one pageant after another. It is different now.”

“Very different, Your Majesty.”

“I begin to see events in the right perspective. I see people for what they are. Do you know, Seton, before this I believed Moray was my friend. What a stupid woman I must have been! Moray could free me tomorrow if he wished. Of course he does not wish to do so because once I am free he loses his power. All his life brother Jamie has longed for the power which his illegitimacy denied him; always he has been saying to himself: ‘Where Mary is, there might I have been had I been born in wedlock.’”

“He is a very ambitious man.”

Mary laughed. “For the first time I see my brother Jamie clearly, and I know that almost everything he has ever done has been a step toward the Regency. It is the most he can attain. How he would love to be James VI; but my little son bears that title. Still, Regent Moray has all the power that would have been his even if he had been James VI. My half-brother was always shrewd, Seton. What does a name matter? That is what he will be asking himself now.”

“Shall I bring out the tapestry, Your Majesty?”

“Ah, yes, Seton. Working those beautiful scenes soothes me, as you know. I can almost feel I am there . . . with our ladies and gentlemen. But perhaps it is not wise to be so soothed. Perhaps I should be making plans.”

“Plans are being made, Your Majesty. When the spring comes . . . ”

“Meanwhile there is the whole of the winter before us, Seton. How shall we endure it in this gloomy prison?”

“We shall endure it, Your Majesty.”

Yes, thought Mary with a grim smile, because we have our tapestry and our music, because we have our hopes, because of the devotion of young George Douglas.

THE WINDS OF LATE DECEMBER swept across the island when Moray came again to visit his half-sister.

This time he came with the Earl of Morton and Sir James Balfour—two men whose actions had certainly not endeared them to Mary, and when they entered her room she found it difficult to restrain her anger.

The wind howling about the castle made it at times almost impossible to hear each other speak. She looked straight at Sir James Balfour and immediately remembered that it was he who had provided that house in Kirk o’ Field which had been destined to be the scene of Darnley’s murder. He had been the lawyer who had arranged Bothwell’s divorce from his wife in order that he might marry Mary; and in exchange for these services had been made governor of Edinburgh Castle. But there was not a more vile traitor in Scotland; Balfour’s lawyer’s mind was alert for disaster and he was determined not to be on the losing side. So, as soon as he knew that the defeat of Mary and Bothwell was imminent he had surrendered the castle to their enemies, asking, as his reward, for the priory of Pittenweem, an annuity for his son and, should there be a trial of those involved in Darnley’s murder, a free pardon for himself.

And this was one traitor whom Moray brought with him to Lochleven.

As for Morton, in his treacherous hands was a certain casket of which Mary had heard rumors. It was said to contain letters and poems written by her to Bothwell, and to be one of the most important pieces of evidence in the Darnley case.

And James himself—her half-brother, Jamie, as she used to call him in the days of her childhood—what of him? There he stood, his cold fish-like eyes upon her. He may be Regent, she thought, but I am the Queen.

“How the wind howls,” she said coolly. “Such a noise must of necessity be for some arch-traitor.”

Her scornful gaze rested on Balfour who had the grace not to meet her eyes.

Moray went forward and would have taken her hands, but she drew away from him.

“Pray do not tell me of your concern for my well-being,” she cried. “I know your concern to be non-existent. My health has improved since we last met and I am sure that is a matter of deep regret to you.”

“Your Majesty!” began Moray who had stepped ahead of Morton and Balfour, but she cut him short.

“I will not listen to your soft words. I think of your actions. If you are my friend, my lord Moray, how can I remain your prisoner? Do you know how long I have been in this place? Six months! You have achieved your purpose. You have forced me to abdicate. You have set a baby on the throne. And you are Regent.”