Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Plaidy Jean. Страница 95

There was less contentment now for Mary than ever before, since she could not help knowing that her lover was outgrowing his passion. To him she was but a woman with a crown—and now the crown was his. If she could have fallen out of love with him as she had with Darnley she would have suffered far less. But she could do no such thing; his indifference could not turn her from him.

He neglected her and absented himself for long periods, during which she believed he saw Jean Gordon. She would lie awake at night picturing them together. She believed that sly sandy-haired Jean merely pretended not to be in love with him.

She reproached him on his return but he merely laughed at her, neither admitting nor denying that her surmise was correct.

“You can talk of Jean Gordon when we are in such danger!” he cried. “Do you know that our enemies are massing their forces against us?”

“But you have visited her. I believe you still think of her as your wife!”

“There is that in her which makes me think of her so. You have always seemed as my mistress.”

Did he mean that or was it part of his brutality? She did not know.

She was exhausted from sleepless nights. Darnley’s ghost seemed to mock her. “You have changed husbands. I died that you might do so. But has it proved to be a change for the better?”

She could not bear his indifference, his cold matter-of-fact passion.

Once she withdrew herself from his arms and, half clad as she was, rushed to the door of her apartment calling to Jane Kennedy to bring her a knife.

“A knife, Madam? A knife?

“That I may pierce my heart with it. I cannot endure to live this life. I would rather be dead.”

Then she flung herself onto her bed and gave way to passionate weeping.

ALL OVER the country the lords were gathering. Moray was watching from some distance, waiting to leap forward and seize the Regency when the Queen was defeated. Morton called together Argyle, Atholl and Mar, and told them that Kirkcaldy of Grange was ready to lead an army against Bothwell and the Queen; and that Glencairn, Cassillis, Montrose, Caithness, Ruthven, Lindsay and others were with them. Maitland was still at Holy-rood, but waiting his opportunity to escape and join the rebels. Maitland had made up his mind. Mary was unfit to rule. Her conduct of the past year had shown that clearly. The woman who had gathered an army together at the time she had married Darnley and marched against Moray with the country rallying to her, was not the same woman as this lovesick creature. At that time Mary could have risen to greatness; her future might have been assured; but alas, steadily she had taken the downhill road which could only lead to eventual defeat.

Bothwell was aware of the forces gathering against him. He left Sir James Balfour holding Edinburgh Castle and departed with Mary for Borthwick.

It was not for love of her that he was with her constantly now, but because he feared that the rebels might seek to capture her. She reproached him for this, but he made no effort to console her.

Before they had been many days in that solid fortress which was built on a steep mound, surrounded by a moat, and possessed towers so strongly fortified as to discountenance invaders, Lord Hume arrived and demanded the surrender of Both well. Awaiting the arrival of his Borderers the Earl roared forth his defiance, but as the days passed and his men did not come he began to calculate how long he could withstand a siege. The castle, with its central fortress, its winding passages, its low arches, its windows which were thirty feet from the ground, was a stronghold, but he had no intention of starving to death. He decided he must break out of the castle.

“Take me with you,” begged Mary.

He shook his head. “Impossible. One of us might get through. Two would surely be caught. If I can break through the guards I shall ride with all speed to Dunbar. Then I shall muster my men, and, by God, I’ll have Hume’s head. I’ll have the heads of all rebels.”

“Oh my dearest, make sure that it is not they who take your head.”

“My head and shoulders are as firmly wedded as we are!” he cried.

She clung to him, all tenderness, begging him to take care.

He put her from him and, in spite of the enemy guard surrounding the castle, he managed to break out.

Those who had been set to guard the castle, on discovering that Bothwell had eluded them, were afraid to touch the Queen, and they started off toward Edinburgh believing that Bothwell had returned there. Then, dressed in the clothes of a boy—for she dared not attract attention to herself—Mary was lowered from the window of the banqueting hall on to the grass some thirty feet below, and hurried down the mound where she found a horse, saddled and waiting for her. Then began her ride through that wild country of glens and swamps, moorland and mountain. It was many long hours before she reached Dunbar. Bothwell, hearing of her approach to the castle came out to meet her. He lifted her from her horse and held her at arms’ length.

“You make a bonny boy!” he said. And he slung her across his shoulder and carried her into Dunbar Castle.

For the rest of that night she was ecstatically happy. Everything seemed worth while. They made love and afterward they made plans, and then made love again.

He said at length: “We cannot remain here. We shall have to ride forth to meet them.”

“We shall win, my dearest,” she cried. “We shall win and be happy together. You could not fail. Anything you desired you would win.”

“Thrones are not such easy prey as queens.”

“Queens are not easy prey,” she answered, “except for those whom they love. And to those whom Fortune loves, thrones may come more easily than the love of a queen.”

He kissed her and they were fiercely passionate lovers again. She wondered whether it was because he feared there would be little time left for loving.

SHE DETERMINED to ride with him at the head of the army.

She had come to Dunbar dressed as a boy and there was none of her own garments at Dunbar Castle. No women’s clothes could be found for her except that of a citizen’s wife. She put on a red petticoat; and the sleeves of her bodice were tied with points; a black velvet hat and a scarf were found for her. And so, dressed as a tradesman’s wife—she rode out to meet those who had rebelled against her. Her spirits were high, for beside her rode Bothwell.

The armies met at Musselburgh and the Queen’s encamped on Carberry Hill close to that spot where some twenty years before the famous battle of Pinkie Cleugh had been fought; but now that the two armies were face-to-face they both appeared reluctant to fight.

For a whole day inactivity reigned, each side anxious not to have the sun facing them during battle, and now that they had come to the point, the rebels had no wish to fight against the Queen nor had the Queen to fight against her own subjects.

So the long day passed—each side alert and waiting, watching each other from opposite hills across the little brook which flowed between them.

In the afternoon Du Croc, the French ambassador, rode to the rebels and declared his readiness to act as mediator between the two forces.

“We have not,” said Glencairn to the Frenchman, “come to ask pardon but to give it. If the Queen is willing to withdraw herself from the wretch who holds her captive, we will recognize her as our sovereign. If, on the other hand, Bothwell will come forth between the two armies and make good his boast that he will meet in single combat any who should declare he is the murderer of the King, we will produce a champion to meet him, and if he desires it another and another, ten or twelve.”

“You cannot seriously mean me to lay these proposals before the Queen,” protested du Croc.