Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (5 page)

They gathered at the other end of the small room, where a meagre fire
burned in the stone fireplace. Wishart pulled out his worn Bible and
let the pages fall open in obedience to a small gesture of his hands.
He read from the eighth chapter of Romans, and then led them in
prayer.

Immediately after saying the amens, Douglas informed him that he would
be returning to Longniddry that evening.

Wishart smiled; he had known this would happen, and that it was for the
good of all. He turned to Knox and said, "Then you must accompany your
master."

Knox protested. "Nay, I must be here to protect you! I will slash as
Peter did in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I will glory in cutting off
the chief priest's servant's ear!"

"Return the sword to me, John," said Wishart.

Reluctantly, but with complete obedience, Knox handed it over.

"Now you must return to your hairns, and God bless you. One is enough
for a sacrifice."

Later that night, as the true night came on and most people slept,
Wishart sat up, waiting. Cockburn sat with him; it would have been
derelict of him to go to bed and leave his guest alone.

Cockbum was solicitous in adding more logs to the fire and in bringing
the preacher heated ale. But Wishart kept staring at the fire, as if
in a trance. Finally he spoke.

"Poor Scotland," he finally said. "It will be a difficult birth,
bringing the Reformed Faith out in the open. But only the Faith can
save her."

"They have had faith of some sort for a thousand years."

"But obviously it cannot sustain them. Look at Scotland! She is about
to lose her independence! The English batter her from the outside, and
the French run her from the inside. The Queen Mother and her ally the
Cardinal have set up Frenchmen everywhere in positions of authority.
And the little Queen is only four years old, just a puppet."

Cockbum drew his blanket round his shoulders. "I fail to see how the
Reformed Faith will change any of that."

"Oh, it gives people hope hope that they have been chosen by God. And
once someone feels that, he's no one's slave not the English, nor the
French, nor the Queen's. Then the Scotsmen will rise up and drive
their own destiny."

There was a loud knock on the door. Cockbum jumped, but Wishart did
not. Cockbum shuffled over to answer it, and found himself staring
into the face of the "Fair Earl" of Bothwell himself.

"Ah, there's Wishart!" said the Earl, nodding toward him. "Well met,
sir!"

Outside, behind the Earl, Cockburn could hear and see a large company
of men. There was also a youth, somewhere in age between childhood and
manhood.

"You must surrender to me," said the Earl. "Come along." When Wishart
rose but did not come toward him, the Earl said, "There is no escape.
The house is surrounded, and Cardinal Beaton himself is only a mile
away at Elphinstone Tower with a company of soldiers. But I promise I
will keep you safely myself and never surrender you to the Cardinal."
He looked to one side, where the youth had pushed in to stare into the
room. "My son, James. He's just eleven and wanted a glimpse of the
renowned Wishart. Well, sir. Are you prepared to come peacefully?"

Wishart looked at him long and sorrowfully. Then he turned his eyes on
the boy, who was staring at him with rapt attention. "I am honoured
that you came to see me," he said. Then he looked back at the Earl.
"Have I your word of honour that you will not deliver me to the
Cardinal?"

"Word of honour," said the Earl.

The Earl took Wishart back to Hailes Castle, and the next day he turned
him over to Cardinal Beaton.

The gentle preacher was duly tried and condemned to death. He was
strangled and then burnt before the Cardinal, who looked on from a
cushioned seat on the ramparts of St. Andrews Castle.

The strangler asked for the traditional forgiveness from his victim;
Wishart leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Knox, hidden in
the crowd, watched as the Cardinal sat, unmoved, a small smile playing
on his lips.

At a signal from the elegant Cardinal, the officers of the execution
lit the faggots under the slumped body of Wishart, bound upright by
ropes to his post. As the flames caught and crackled, the executioners
scrambled to jump free of the platform. Knox could see the rising
column of flames engulf the body of Wishart; the image seemed to waver
and shimmer in the fumes and heat. The skin blackened and peeled; the
eyes burst open and dribbled fluid. The hair and beard caught in an
aureole of fire, like a halo, so it seemed to his disciple. Then a
pungent and inherently repulsive acrid smell wafted on the breeze. It
was the stench of scorched and roasting raw human flesh.

Knox saw the Cardinal bring a lace handkerchief up to his nose. But
he, Knox, breathed in the ashes of his friend, taking deep lungfuls of
the smoky air, as if he honoured and incorporated his spirit in so
doing. He had now received the call from God.

FIVE

The Cardinal rolled over and stretched on his silken sheets. It was a
glorious May morning, and in the dancing reflections of the ocean
playing on his bedroom ceiling, he could read the mood of the sea. It
was mischievous and inviting. Rather like his mistress, Marion Ogilvy,
sleeping beside him, her thick dark hair like clouds of oblivion.
Oblivion: that was what he had found with her last night. But this
morning, ah, he was restored to the world of men and had no need of
oblivion.

A knock on the door startled him. How late was it? By the sun he had
assumed it was yet early. Could he have overslept?

"A moment, please," he said, reaching for his satin gown. Marion
murmured and stirred, opening her eyes. The Cardinal rose from his bed
and went across to the door, where the knocking continued.

"I hear you well enough!" he warned them. Whoever it was was rude and
disrespectful.

He opened the door to find a crowd of workmen facing him workmen with
daggers. Or rather, assassins in workmen's costumes. They surged
forward. He tried to shut the door on them, but they flung it back
open on its hinges and rushed in. Marion screamed as one of the men
grabbed the Cardinal by the neck and another raised his knife.

"Repent of your former wicked life!" the man with the knife hissed.
"We are sent from God to punish you! I hear by swear that neither
hatred of your filthy person, nor desire for your riches, nor fear of
persecution moves me to strike you. I do so only because you have been
an obstinate enemy to Christ Jesus and his True Gospel!"

"I am a priest!" he cried. "I am a priest! You will not slay a
priest!" The knives thudded into him, with nothing between them and
his soft white flesh but the thin layer of satin in the robe.

"Repent of the murder of George Wishart!" were the last words he
heard.

The sun was still only midway to its noon zenith when the people
gathered outside St. Andrews Castle saw the sight: the naked Cardinal,
his severed genitals stuffed into his mouth, was hanging by an arm and
a leg from the very spot where he had watched Wishart's burning two
months earlier.

In the May sunshine, Mary and two of the other Marys Livingston and
Fleming were waiting for their grooms to bring out the ponies. Today
they were to ride the little animals all round the pleasure garden
beneath the walls of Stirling Castle, called the King's Knot. The Knot
had raised geometric terraces, all planted with ornamental shrubs, with
roses and fruit trees, like an artificial mountain. But at its base it
made a fine riding-path, and the royal gardeners, fertilizing and
pruning, did not mind, as they had not begun to work there yet.

Mary had decided that they should have a race. She loved to ride, and
to ride fast; clinging to the miniature horse from Shetland, she felt
as though she were flying. All too seldom did she have the opportunity
to ride as fast as she liked, especially on her favorite pony, Juno.
Sometimes she was allowed to ride Juno out beyond the castle grounds;
that was when her mother and the Cardinal took her hawking with her own
falcon, Ruffles. She always loved these excursions to the woodlands.

Waiting in the warm sun, she announced to Mary Livingston that they
would race. Lusty, with a toss of her hair, said that was fine with
her, but she did not intend to lose. It would have to be a true race,
not a pretend one.

The ponies were brought round the corner of the castle ramparts, and
all three of the girls rushed to mount their own pets. They were
cuddly animals, only about a yard high, their fur thick and coarse,
with broad little faces. They had been captured in the northern isles
and then sent down by ship. Taming them was a long process, lovingly
undertaken by the stable boys But by now they had all but forgotten
they had ever been wild, and were gentle with their young riders.

Mary was first in the saddle and the first to trot away, but Lusty came
close behind her.

"Hurry, hurry," urged Mary in Juno's ear, leaning forward over her
neck. The pony went from a choppy trot to a gentle canter.

Overhead the sky was bright blue and almost cloudless. A sharp, clean
smell of spring permeated the air, brought by winds down from the
Highlands in the distance. It was a smell of melting snow and warming
earth, and the faint perfume of a thousand wildflowers, just springing
up on the carpet of new grass in the glens.

"Move, make way!" cried Lusty, passing Mary on her black pony,
Cinders.

"Faster!" Mary ordered Juno. Juno was faster than Cinders, but not so
easily persuaded to run. She obeyed now; and Mary saw herself gaining
on Lusty.

A horn sounded, its note oddly out of place where no hunters were. A
groom, riding on a big horse, was coming toward them from the castle
grounds. "Stop!" he said, and blew the horn again.

"By the orders of Her Highness, the Queen Mother, you are to return to
the palace," he said, motioning to the girls.

Mary was angry, and Lusty more so. Their race was being ruined. They
looked at each other and thought of disobeying and running off. But
they knew they could not outrun the groom on his large horse, and so
they followed him back to the castle. Flamina had already dismounted
and was waiting for them to walk back up the steep castle steps with
her.

The three girls trudged up the seemingly endless flight of steps to
reach the castle gateway.

The Queen Mother was pacing anxiously, and she could barely keep her
hands from trembling.

Do not show them your fear, she told herself. If they are safe in
here, do not alarm them. Are they coming? Oh, thank God! she sighed
as she saw them enter into the gateway.

"My treasure, my sweet!" She fell on Mary and embraced her
hysterically, weeping on her hair.

Mary, caught fast in her grip, could hardly breathe. Her mother
continued, and her words were puzzling to the little girl. "They stop
at nothing ... worse than beasts .. . against God and the True Church
.. . evil men .. ."