Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (154 page)

The castle was deserted and locked fast.

Frantically she beat on the door. There must be someone there! There
had to be!

This was BothweU's castle, Bothwell, her protector.. ..

"Do not leave me at the mercy of my enemies!" she begged him.

Lord Herries looked at her in wonder. Then he understood. "Come, Your
Majesty," he said, lifting her fallen hood up over her head. Her hair
was drenched, and rivulets of water were running down her face.

"You must be here!" Mary laid her face against the door and whispered
the words. But the dead castle kept its dark and silence.

Like a child, she began sobbing against the wet wood.

He is gone, and it is all over. Nothing but death and nothingness is
inside, and outside, and all around me, forever and ever hereafter.

"Perhaps we can pitch a camp here, in the courtyard, if it would please
you," he said.

She looked horrified. "No! Let us leave this place!" She rushed back
down the steps and out across the courtyard, not caring that her skirts
were trailing in the mud. She hurled herself back into the saddle.
"Come, we ride!" she said.

George tried to catch her distracted, red eyes, but she looked past him
and, like a demented person, urged her horse on in the darkness.

At the foot of the Ken Loch, after riding sixty miles from the scene of
the battle, Mary at last slid off her horse and allowed the men to make
a camp.

They rested a scant three hours before the sun was up, trying to shine
through the continuing mist. They had no food with them, and the only
drink they could take was the loch water, which was icy cold.

"We will follow the River Dee," said Herries, indicating the stream
that flowed out of the Ken Loch, a meandering pathway of reeds and
lilies.

They set out, not rested, but at least able to go forward. The banks
of the Dee were placid and spongy as the heights and crags of the wild
country receded behind them and they reached the valley of the Taff.

At Tongland a small wooden bridge, built in the time of the Bruce,
spanned the narrowest point of the river. They trotted across it, then
Herries commanded them to stop.

"Destroy it!" he ordered the men. "That will delay any followers for
without doubt, we have them."

"Can we not spare this ancient relic?" asked Mary wearily. Was
everything to be broken up, wrecked?

"No," said Herries.

George, Willie, and Livingston dismounted, and began hacking at it with
their swords.

Dizzy, Mary wandered away. She could hear the thudding and splintering
of wood, but it seemed like a dream. I must get something to eat, she
thought, ashamed that she needed it before the others did.

Ahead of her in the fields was a small farmer's cottage, put together
with dry stones and lit only by the tiniest of windows. Smoke was
rising from the hole in the thatched roof. She walked slowly and a bit
unsteadily toward the door and, leaning on the doorframe, asked in a
faint voice, "Is there anyone within?" She could smell the fire.

An old woman, not unlike the one Bothwell had gone to see on the moors
that long-ago day, shuffled to the doorway. She stared at Mary.

"Please have you any food?" she asked.

"No," said the woman. Her voice was so cracked it sounded as if her
throat was injured. "No, that I do not." She rubbed her own stomach,
not unkindly.

"Nothing?" How could it be that some of her subjects had no food? She
remembered the thin broth of those other people.

"Come in," said the woman. "You look dreadful." She motioned for Mary
to follow her, and brought a stool to her. Mary sat down and looked
around at the plain little room. The women opened a cupboard and began
to mix something up, then dumped it into a kettle and stirred it over
the smouldering fire for what seemed an eternity. Then at last she
turned to Mary and handed her a bowl and spoon, and emptied the kettle
into the bowl.

"Here," she said, bringing over a pitcher of milk.

Oatmeal. It was oatmeal. Mary poured some milk into it and took a
bite. The milk was sour.

"It is all I have," said the woman.

Mary looked, and indeed there was nothing else in the cupboard but the
little sack of oatmeal. She nodded gratefully and ate the entire
bowl.

"Do you wish more?" asked the woman gently, even though it would
completely deplete her supply.

Mary was stunned at her generosity. To this woman, she was only a
stranger, and a sickly-looking one at that. "You have been good to
share this much," she said. "I am grateful."

Just then Henries came up and burst into the cottage. "Your Majesty!"
he said. "Why did you not tell us " He stopped as the woman looked at
him in horror.

"Yes," said Mary to her, "I am the Queen."

The woman muttered and almost crossed herself in shock.

"I am in the protection of these my good servants," said Mary. "But I
can never have better servants than the ordinary people who live in my
land, like you. You have done me a great service today, far greater
than you can imagine. What would you like as a reward? Name it, it is
yours."

"Nay I seek no reward," she said.

"And that is precisely why you shall have it," she answered. "Please,
tell me. And quickly. I cannot linger here."

"Why, I I wish I owned this cottage, and its land!" she said. "Our
family have been tenants for generations."

"Good Lord Henries, you are overlord here. May she have it?"

"Of course!" he said. "With all my heart I grant it."

When Mary rejoined her party by the site of the wrecked bridge, she
suddenly was seized with a strange desire. "Give me your dagger," she
ordered George. With a puzzled look he handed it to her.

She unbound her hair and spread it out over her shoulders. It came
almost to her waist. "I pray you, cut it off," she said. She handed
the dagger back to him. "I cannot do it myself."

"No, Your Majesty! You must not!" said Willie.

"I wish it done," she said. "Do as I say."

"But why?" George's voice trembled with pain.

"We are pursued. I now know that I can possibly hide myself among the
people, but only if I do not look like the Queen. I can do nothing
about my height, but this hair "

"Your hair is beautiful! You must not destroy it!" insisted George.

"Why is this hair any better than this bridge? The bridge cannot grow
again, and the hair can. I command you cut it!"

Sadly George obeyed, hacking off the thick waving mantle that was one
of her greatest attributes of beauty. She took the shorn hair and
placed it underneath the broken boards and wood of the bridge, covering
it carefully. With an oddly resigned look, she climbed back into the
saddle.

See all our offerings, she thought. See our most precious things
sacrificed.

"We will ride for Terregles, my home," said Herries. "But we must, I
fear, take a roundabout way, to avoid the Morton strongholds of Castle
Douglas and Threave Castle."

"That is of no matter," said Mary, and she meant it. Without looking
back, she turned eastward.

They slept in the fields that night, and then resumed their travel by
daylight. However, they were arousing too much curiosity among the
farmers and villagers in this more settled area. They decided to rest
by day and travel only by night.

Terregles House, near Dumfries, proved hospitable, and at last they
were within doors in the Herries stronghold and able to eat. Herries
ascertained that the countryside was indeed filled with pursuers, and
also received the intelligence that the Archbishop of St. Andrews and
other survivors of the royal forces had made their way to Dundrennan
Abbey, farther south, on the Solway Firth.

"It will be safe to go there," he said. "My son is Commendator of the
Abbey. Let us rest here, and then join the others."

"Yes," said Mary. "And whatever their news, I must bear it."

They approached Dundrennan on the misty morning of May fifteenth a year
to the day from Mary's marriage to Bothwell. The ancient Cistercian
monastery, unlike its brother abbeys in the eastern Borders, was
intact. No marauding English armies had come this way, and the arched
cloisters and beautiful sanctuary slumbered undisturbed in the lush
green valley.

Mary felt safe here in the embrace of the past. But unlike her aunt
Renee's convent, where she had sought solace in another troubled time,
this was but a religious relic. There were no monks here now: the
monastery had been secularized, and was in the possession of Lord
Herries. Upon bestowing it upon him, the Lords had ordered Herries to
demolish the cloisters and church, but he had refused, for reasons of
his own. Whatever they were, Mary was grateful for them.

They were welcomed by Lord Herries's son Edward, and soon were sitting
at a substantial dinner. The fugitives ate quickly, leaving not a
single morsel untouched. Simple lamb stew and bread pudding seemed
miraculous to them.

Afterwards, the others who had gathered sought them out. Lord Claud
Hamilton related the bitter news: there were more than one hundred
dead, mainly Hamiltons, who had taken the worst of the assault in the
ambush in the streets of Langside. More than three hundred of the
Queen's men had been taken prisoner, including Lord Seton, who was
dangerously wounded as well.

George Seton! Mary could hardly believe that the brave Seton had been
taken. "Oh, my fortunes have run with blood," she finally said.

The Laird of Lochinvar had come, and it was from him that she was
forced, once again, to borrow clothes. Lord Boyd, who had escaped the
carnage, had found his way to Dundrennan, as had Lord Fleming, leaving
Dumbarton Castle securely in the hands of his next in command. She
fell, weeping quietly, into Fleming's arms. It was a sorrowful
gathering of exiles and broken spirits.

"This afternoon we will hold a council," said Mary. "In the old
chapter house. Everyone must attend, not just the lords."

The light was slanting in through the windows, with their delicately
wrought stone mouldings, oramented with fleurs-de-lys and leaves,
illuminating a chamber of exceptional beauty. It was here, in the
chapter house, that the monks had been required to assemble every day
for a reading of a portion of their rules, and the Abbot's seat was
just under the central window, with carved wall-seats for the rest of
the monks. Sitting in those wall-seats were now about twenty-five of
Mary's people. Mary sat in the Abbot's seat.

So we are gathered here, she thought, the last vestiges of my power and
position driven right to the very shores of Scotland, and dressed in
rags.

Yet she had never been prouder of any people, nor felt as beloved as
she did in this little company, this last faithful band of followers.