Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Plaidy Jean. Страница 82

He had gripped her by the shoulders and bent her backward.

“Shall I?” he said. His eyes were glazed; they looked dazzling in his sunburned weather-beaten face. “Then there shall be something worth suffering for.”

“You come here,” she panted. “You come in… unannounced…. Release me at once. You shall pay dearly for this.”

Bothwell was the Borderer now; the statesman had fled. He had forgotten that he had come to talk about Maitland. He had been in situations of a similar nature before. He had felt this wild excitement, this demand for satisfaction at all costs. But this was different; this was piquant; this was more exciting than those other occasions. Many women had partnered Bothwell in such scenes, but never a queen before this.

He cared for nothing now but the surrender of the woman. If it meant death, it must go on now. It was the first time he had seen her, stripped of her royalty. It was the first time he had discovered what a very desirable woman she was.

He pulled her toward him and roughly caressed her body. Mary was trembling with rage and sobbing with terror. She knew that this encounter had cast its warning over her many a time. It was the meaning of those insolent looks. He would treat her now as he would any peasant over the Border. He cared nothing for the fact that she was the Queen. There was only one thing that was of importance to him; the satisfaction of his vile nature.

She kicked and tried to bite. It was all she could do for she was pinioned. He had turned and, holding her firmly with one arm, locked the door.

She stammered: “This… this… outrage…. It is the most monstrous thing that ever happened to me.”

“It will also be the most enjoyable,” he said.

“You will lose your head for this.”

“No,” he said. “You have never had a lover yet, my Queen. Wait… have patience…. Don’t fight… and then the sooner will you come to pleasure.”

He had torn her robe from her shoulder. She was conscious of her weakness compared with his great strength. He lifted her in his arms then as though he read her thoughts and would stress the fact that she was impotent to resist him.

“It is no use screaming,” he said. “No one will hear. They’ll not break the door down if they do. How could they? Poor Bastian! That feeble Frenchman? Fat Margaret? Have no fear. None shall disturb us.”

“You have gone mad,” she said.

“It is a temporary madness, they say.”

“You forget… I am the Queen.”

“Let us both forget it. Queens should not bring their royalty to the bedchamber.”

“Put me down. I command you. I beg you.”

“I mean to… here on your bed.”

He put her onto it. She tried to scramble up but he had forced her down. She struggled until she was exhausted. The room was spinning round her. She thought afterward that she fainted for a while. She was not sure. She was aware of his heart and hers beating together… heavy, ominous beating.

She had no strength left to hold him off. She lay passive without resistance, without resentment or anger. There was nothing but this extraordinary, overwhelming emotion—this mingling of fury and pleasure, of a terrible shame and an unaccountable joy.

SHE LAY ON her bed long after he had gone.

What has happened to me? she asked herself. Why do I not send for Moray? Why do I not order the immediate arrest of Lord Bothwell? On what charge? The rape of the Queen?

She remembered that she would present a strange sight if Lady Reres came to the room. She got up from her bed. She gazed at her torn clothes which he had thrown onto the floor. How explain them? But they would be part of the evidence she would need to bring him to the scaffold. The rape of the Queen! She could hear the words now. She could hear John Knox thundering them from his pulpit. He would say that she had encouraged Bothwell. “No,” she said aloud as if in answer to his imagined accusation. “It is not true. I always disliked him. Now I hate him. How dared he? The shame of it… the shame of it!”

She could not shut it out of her mind. Every detail was clear in her memory. His face … his eyes… his hands, tearing her clothes.

“He forced me,” she murmured. “He dared… and I the Queen! By now he will be speeding for the Border. He will be terrified of the punishment, which can be nothing less than death.”

She took the torn clothes and hid them in a closet. She could not bear that anyone else should see the shameful evidence. Hastily she wrapped a damask robe about her, and smoothed her wild hair. Now she felt a little calmer. There were still red patches on her face, on her neck and her body. She touched her left cheek gently. Would those marks never go?

She began to pace up and down the apartment. The Queen who was dishonored! The Queen who was defiled! He had planned this thing. He had known that she would be here. Moray had said once that David Chambers was his procurer and was known as “Bothwell’s Bawd.” David Chambers brought women to his house and Bothwell went there to visit them. So Chambers had procured the Queen for Bothwell. He would have lent his house for the purpose. Bothwell had clearly come from Chambers’s house and, because she was ill-guarded, he had found a way to her apartment.

She would never be able to look the man in the face again. Indeed she would not need to. He should be imprisoned at once and hurried to execution. He should not live to gloat over his conquest. But how could she proclaim the crime to the world? She pictured herself telling Moray. “He came to my room. I could not hold him off. He forced me….”

She imagined the smiles, the whispers. “Why did the Queen go to the Exchequer House? Oh, ’tis next door to David Chambers’s and he is Both-well’s Bawd.”

“What shall I do?” she whispered to herself. “What can I do?”

Lady Reres came up to the room. She should reprimand the woman. She had been careless. She and Bastian must have left some door unlatched. But how could she talk to Lady Reres of what had happened? How could she talk of that terrible thing at all?

“Are you disturbed, Madam?” asked Lady Reres.

“Disturbed?” cried the Queen. “No… no. I am feeling tired. I think… that I am a little unwell. I feel coming on one of those attacks which I had so often when I was in France.”

“Should I send for a physician, Your Majesty?”

“No … no. Rest will suffice. Leave me. I will go to bed. Rest is what I need. I do not wish to be disturbed. Oh… but… sleep here tonight. I… I have a fancy not to be left alone this night.”

Lady Reres drew the curtains and the long night began. She did not sleep at all. She lived through it all again. The opening of the door… every detail until that moment when she had found herself alone with her shame and that excitement which made her heart thunder till her body was shaking.

SHE RETURNED to Holyroodhouse next day. She could not bear to stay in the Exchequer House, although she had not finished the work she had gone there to do.

Bothwell had the effrontery to wait upon her with the other noblemen of the Court.

As he knelt before her, her heart thundered. He had raised his insolent eyes to her face, and his smile was conspiratorial, as though they had shared a charming adventure together.

Her eyes kindled; her temper flared and impulsive words rose to her lips.

Arrest that man! she wanted to say, and was almost on the point of doing so. In time she pictured the ensuing scene. Moray would ask: “On what grounds, Madam?” “On the grounds of rape.” “The rape of whom, Madam?” “The rape of the Queen.”

There was nothing she could do unless she would expose herself to greater humiliation, and the cunning rogue, the violator of the innocent, knew it. She was conquered in her own Court as she had been in her bedchamber. She dared say nothing. She was afraid. That was the truth. She could not publicly own to her shame. She dared not face the calumnies of Knox. Consequently it seemed that he who had committed this great sin would go unpunished.