Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Plaidy Jean. Страница 56

“It is time,” he said to the Queen, “for Your Majesty to journey North. We must settle this affair with Huntley and his Gordons. You cannot allow young Gordon to flout your authority. We shall have every knave and vagabond breaking prison, believing it is a noble thing to do.”

“Jamie,” she said “cannot we ask him to come back and face a trial?”

“Ask him to come back! He never would. He would flout you again as the Gordons have always flouted you.”

“I have not noticed that they have done this. There is one who has—in the Kirk and the streets of Edinburgh.”

“You may be sure,” said James quickly, “that that fellow Randolph has given his account of this to his Queen. What, think you, will she say when she hears of it, if you do nothing in the matter? She will say Arran and Both-well languish in prison, and those are Protestant nobles; Sir John Gordon goes free—but then he is a Catholic! You cannot afford to show the Queen of England that you so favor the Catholics. It is small wonder that she continually postpones your meeting.”

“Then set Arran and Bothwell free so that she cannot make this charge.”

“My dearest sister, you dare not. These two men are dangerous. You know, do you not, that I would protect you with my life?”

“Yes, Jamie.”

“Then Your Majesty must allow me to do so… in my own way.”

“Please, Jamie, show me what I ought to do.”

So James showed her. He insisted that they set out for the North.

The people came to cheer, but instead of poets, musicians and courtiers in her train, there rode men-at-arms.

On James’s instructions she demanded that the Earl of Huntley should deliver up his houses, Findlater and Auchendown, as a penalty for his sons breach of the law.

Old Huntley, furious to have been disturbed in his domain, and knowing that James Stuarts desire was to wrest not only the title but the lands which went with it from the Earldom of Moray, gathered a strong force of Highlanders together and prepared to repulse the Queens men. It was civil war in the Highlands, and the result was the capture of John Gordon—the cause of the trouble—and old Huntley himself; but as the latter was taken he was seized with an apoplectic fit, so great was his chagrin, and he died on the spot.

So ended the Queens first journey to the North. She was depressed, although she had enjoyed riding through the magnificent country at the head of her troops; yet when she contemplated the huge body of the Cock o’ the North, she was hard put to it to hide her tears from her brother James, who had now publicly assumed the grand title of Earl of Moray.

RIDING SOUTH a pleasant surprise awaited Mary.

A young Frenchman joined the party, one whom she had known and liked both in France and on her first coming to Scotland. He had been forced, most regretfully, to return to France with the rest of those who had accompanied her, but now he was back again bringing letters and messages from her friends—and a devotion which had been enhanced by absence.

This was Pierre de Chastelard, the young poet who had been in the train of Henri de Montmorency, the Sieur d’Amville.

Pierre was young and handsome, related to the Chevalier de Bayard whose good looks he had inherited. He came fresh from romantic Dauphine, and he cherished romantic dreams concerning the Queen of Scots.

He was a little arrogant; so he had been unable to resist talking of his joy at the prospect of seeing Mary again. He thought of her as his lady; and even as his lady-love.

He could not have said when he had begun to feel so sure of Mary’s response. Perhaps his attitude had begun to change when Catherine, the Queen-Mother of France, had selected him for this mission. Perhaps it was something which she had said to him, something such as: “I know of your admiration for the Queen of Scots. I remember noting it. And I have heard of the sport you have in those gloomy castles across the sea. Ah, my daughter the Queen of Scots is a most comely woman and she will be glad to see an old friend, I doubt not. I remember how devoted she was to my dear son…. And think! It is three years since she had a husband. Poor child! Well, Monsieur de Chastelard, you will comfort her.”

“I, Madame?”

“Yes, you. You are a handsome man, are you not?” The laugh which accompanied the words held a hundred suggestions and was more expressive than words. It could be cruel and mocking but it could arouse such hopes. That coarse face had suddenly been near his own, expression suddenly lighting the eyes which were usually without any. “Well, Monsieur de Chastelard, remember the honor of France.”

He had thought he understood. She was aware of everything that went on in the chateaux, it was said. In France they were beginning to understand her. She had a new name now—Madame le Serpent. She was telling him something. Was it: “You love the Queen of Scots. Do not be too backward. Hesitancy never leads to victory”? She knew something. She was telling him that Mary was not inaccessible.

So he had set off Rill of hope, and now he found himself before the Queen, who was a little older but seemed more healthy and was many times more beautiful than he remembered her.

How warmly she received him!

“Monsieur de Chastelard, I knew you at once. This is a great pleasure indeed. What news… what news of my uncles and my dear aunt the Duchesse de Guise? What news of the King and… my mother-in-law? What news of Monsieur d’Amville?”

She seized hungrily on the letters which he had brought. She read them at once. Monsieur de Chastelard must stay beside her. He must tell her all… all that was happening to her dear friends and relations in her beloved France.

Her eyes filled with tears. She was homesick afresh.

“Yet,” she said, “I am so happy that you are here.”

There were many to note her pleasure in the young man and the passionate glances he gave her.

As for Pierre, as soon as he was alone, he put his feelings into verse.

“O Deesse immortelle,” he wrote,

Ecoute donc ma voix

Toi qui tiens en tutelle…”

IT WAS PLEASANT to see Signor David again. His large eyes shone with delight. He did not say how desolate the place had been without her; poor David le Chante, as she sometimes called him, was far too modest for that. And with the gallant Chastelard in her train—and what enchanting poems he wrote to her and what a pleasure it was to answer them in verse!—and David showing such decorous devotion, she could almost believe that she was back in France.

She liked to discuss her troubles with David; in some inexplicable way he could so sympathetically suggest the solution she was seeking.

She gave him some of her French correspondence to deal with; she was not sure that she liked Raulet, her French secretary. David was delighted to carry out little tasks, and if she gave him a small present, a jewel or some velvet for new clothes, he would seem almost sorry, preferring, as he said, to do it for love of the Queen and not for payment.

So David had become one of those whom it was a pleasure to find waiting for her.

When she returned from that northern journey, David was sad and reticent, she noticed. She waited until they were alone together, for she had some small matter of correspondence with which she wished him to deal, when she said: “Are you ill, David?”

“Thank you, Madam. My health is excellent.”

“Then you are in some trouble… some little thing has gone wrong for you?”

“Not for me, Madam.”

“For someone you love?”

He turned those brilliant eyes upon her. David’s eyes she thought, were his one beauty.

“Madam,” he said, “I would speak if I dared.”

“If you dared! You cannot mean that you are afraid of me? Do you think me such a termagant then?”