Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (49 page)

She could not help smiling at him. The old reprobate was indeed
charming.

What was it like for Bothwell to have spent part of his childhood with
such a man? Was that why Bothwell was reputed to have so many women?
Had he learned it from his great-uncle, the way other boys learned a
trade like carpentry? There had been Arran's mistress, numerous
lowborn women from kitchens and households of Edinburgh, and a
Norwegian mistress from whom he had borrowed money and then abandoned
on the Continent so she had been told by Lord James. But then, Lord
James did not like him. But Mary Beaton herself had said that Bothwell
and her aunt Janet had been lovers when Bothwell was little more than a
boy, and Janet twenty years older.

What did the uncle do take women and pass them on to his protege'? Or
did Bothwell simply stand and watch, and learn .. . ?

The Bishop was making noises of discomfort. She had forgotten him,
still kneeling on his elderly knees!

"Oh, please rise!" she said.

With a grunt, he stood up. His backbone crackled. He attempted to
smile. "Come, consider this your home.. .."

He presented them a banquet worthy of Tiberius in all respects. It was
toward the drowsy end of the evening that the Bishop sought her out. No
one was listening; for once, Maitland and Lord James seemed to be less
than alert.

"You know young Arran is insane," said the Bishop. "His testimony
should not be used to keep my nephew in prison any longer. He has been
loyal to you. That one of Your Majesty's most devoted knights should
be so dishonoured! Why should Huntly then be obedient, if this is to
be his reward?"

Mary could not help wondering herself. The episode had disturbed her
greatly, and she had not yet had the opportunity to question Bothwell.
"Bothwell," she finally said, "should do what he is able to do."

"He already has," said his uncle. "Grown tired of waiting for royal
justice, he has acted as a true Hepburn. Bothwell has escaped from
Edinburgh Castle." The Bishop said this as proudly as a father whose
son has won honours at the university.

Escape? From Edinburgh Castle? "That is impossible!" she said.

"Not so, not so." Again the pride in his voice. "He broke one of the
stanchions in his window, squeezed himself out, and climbed down the
very face of the castle rock."

"Where is he now?"

"He's at the Hermitage in the Borders. An old friend, Janet Beaton,
has brought him provisions."

Janet Beaton! The witch-mistress!

"And this may interest Your Majesty Lord Gordon, Huntly's oldest son,
has sought him out to beg his help for his father's rebellion. He
assumes Bothwell will have reason enough to turn against you now."

Oh, God! Mary felt her heart rising up into her throat. "And?"

The Bishop paused, his merry eyes searching hers. He knew how to
tease, too the tormentor! "Bothwell said no. He plans to leave
Scotland entirely. He has no use for what he sees here."

"And go where?"

The Bishop shrugged. "I know not. Wherever the first ship is sailing,
I assume."

"The Lord High Admiral of Scotland, stealing away on a foreign ship?"

"You must needs find another for the post, for it is now vacant."

Leaving Spynie, Mary's party made its way back toward Aberdeen. As
they passed beyond Findlater Castle on the sea, Sir John Gordon at last
came out in the open and attacked some of Mary's men after the main
body of the party had moved on. Thus, when they reached Aberdeen, Lord
James said, "We need reinforcements. Let us send to Edinburgh for a
hundred or so harquebusiers, and additional commanders like Kirkcaldy
and Lord Lind-say with a thousand men apiece."

So it had come to this! Mary reluctantly wrote out the orders, and
summoned Huntly to come and meet with her. He sent messengers back
that he dared not come without his soldiers; she replied that he dared
not come with them. He therefore declined to come at all.

"He hides in his house at Strathbogie by day, and sleeps elsewhere at
night," Mary's scouts told her. "In that way he thinks he can avoid
capture."

"Then we must surprise him by day. A small force, under the command of
Kirkcaldy, should be able to sneak up on him."

Kirkcaldy set out at dawn with a dozen men in order to reach
Strathbogie by noon, but the sentries saw him and gave alarm. Huntly
rushed out the back, barefoot and without his sword, jumped over a wall
and seized a horse, and rode away, still free.

"So he goes to join his son," said Lord James. "He proclaims himself
at last."

"We do not know that he has gone to join Sir John," Mary argued.

"His flight is evidence of his guilt," James insisted. "The time for
holding back is past."

At the market cross, Huntly and his son were proclaimed traitors by
three blasts of the hunting horn. "They are to be hunted down like
wolves, thieves, and foreigners, for any citizen to capture or expel!"
cried the herald.

Huntly took to the wild mountains of Badenoch, hiding from the royal
forces. No one could have followed him there, where ancient, drooping
trees and slippery, moss-covered stones provided a secret sanctuary.
But his wife who consulted with "tame" witches persuaded him that he
should leave his mountain fastness and meet the Queen's troops in open
battle. The witches had assured her, she told him, that by nightfall
he would be in Tolbooth at Aberdeen without any wound in his body. He
boldly marched toward Aberdeen, proclaiming that he would capture Mary
and marry her to whomsoever he chose.

Then he took up his position on a hill above the field of Corrichie,
some fifteen miles west of the city. The Queen's troops faced him
across the field, blooming now in full purple heather.

Lord James, Lord Lindsay, and Kirkcaldy of Grange led the royal troops.
They looked stern and completely unafraid as they sat listening to
Maitland exhorting the soldiers, "Remember your duty to your sovereign
lady, and have no fear of the multitudes before you!"

Mary would not ride with them herself, but she felt her heart pounding.
Oh, to be a man today! Her commanders had fought before, and Kirkcaldy
was already an experienced soldier, but how would Lord James fare?

Across the field, Mary could see the glint of Huntly's gaudy
pink-and-gilt armour. Completely certain of victory, he advertised his
presence insolently. The Cock o' the North, portly rooster that he
was, already strutted like a victor.

The horn sounded, and Mary watched the men gallop away. She had almost
twenty-five hundred men in her service how many did Huntly have?

Maitland looked grim as he watched, and Mary saw the look on Flamina's
face as she watched him. Not until then did Mary realize how deeply
she must care for him. And Lord James, newly married .. . what of his
wife?

Thank God I have no husband or sweetheart out there upon the field,
Mary thought. But then ... I also have no one to welcome back and
rejoice with.

A strange loneliness swept over her as she watched the forces charging.
She felt utterly and completely alone, with a deep, personal
solitariness.

There was a sound of firearms. Kirkcaldy's harquebusiers were firing
into the Earl's men on the hill, killing them in numbers, forcing the
rest of them down from the heights and into a bog at the foot of the
hill.

Mary felt herself scarcely able to breathe. The sound of the guns, and
the wailing shrieks of the dying men, were hideous and sickening.

The noise of the fighting rose, and clouds of dust hung over the
opposing armies. Mary could see that Huntly's men were trapped in the
bog, falling and unable to escape from Lord James and Lindsay, who were
closing in.

James, like an avenging angel, fell on the Gordons, hacking his way
through the ranks to the Earl and two of his sons, seventeen-year-old
Adam as well as Sir John.

Where had James learned to fight like that? Mary was astonished.

"Lord James is a fine commander," she said to Maitland. "And
Kirk-caldy he is a genius of a soldier."

Huntly was forced to surrender, then was trussed up and set upon a
horse to be brought before the Queen. But he suddenly pitched off the
horse and fell to the ground dead of apoplexy.

His heavy corpse was conveyed from the battlefield on a makeshift
litter of fishing baskets, and taken to Aberdeen. That night his body1
indeed lay on the cold stones at the Tolbooth, clad in a cammoise
doublet and grey Highland hose, without a single mark on it.

After being paraded like a criminal through the streets of Aberdeen,
Sir John was to be executed in the marketplace. It was deemed
necessary that Mary attend and witness it.

"Else it will be said you encouraged his affections," said Lord James
sternly.

From the scaffold errected in front of Mary's lodging, Sir John looked
up at Mary, seated in a chair of state at an open window.

"Your presence, fair Queen, solaces me, as I am about to suffer for
love of you!" he cried.

Mary gripped the chair arms and tried to keep her eyes open, but
without seeing, as the handsome youth was forced to open his collar and
lay his head upon the block. Just before doing so, he knelt and raised
his eyes toward hers in a silent plea. The headsman's assistant pushed
his head down roughly and the headsman raised the axe.

He struck, and wounded Sir John, missing the neck. The indignant
spectators groaned aloud, and Mary screamed with the horror of it.
Outside,

the headsman finished his grisly business, and Sir John's head rolled
lopsidedly on the scaffold boards.

Before returning to Edinburgh, Mary pardoned both Lord Gordon, who had
been in the south, and seventeen-year-old Adam Gordon, taken with his
father and brother. There was to be no more killing.

FOURTEEN

The box placed before her was ornamented with a ruff of finest lace,
secured with a Spanish comb. Mary took it up and shook it gently.
Flamina had given it to her, and was having trouble keeping from
laughing.

"Shall I open it now?" asked Mary.

"No! We have others!" Lusty handed her a basket tied with violet
ribbons, and Riccio stepped forward with a paper package shaped like a
crown.

"And this." Seton gave her a box secured with a lock, bound all round
with brass fittings.

"Enough!" said Mary, as one of them slid off her lap and onto the
floor. "This is enough for anyone's birthday."

"But a twentieth birthday is special," said Madame Rallay. "And you
cannot refuse to accept them." She placed a small bundle wrapped in
silk in her mistress's hands.

Already piled on a small table were the gifts from her household staff,
Lord Seton, Bastian Pages, Bourgoing, and Balthazzar.

"Now, Riccio, sing as she opens them," said Beaton. "Sing something
appropriate."