Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (7 page)

Now even the thick walls of Stirling Castle could not protect its
inmates from the horror outside. Amongst the dead, lying somewhere in
the slippery mounds of rotting bodies, was Malcolm, Lord Fleming Mary
Fleming's father, Lady Janet Fleming's husband.

A swift messenger brought the news to Stirling, and the high-spirited
Lady Fleming slumped and leaned against the wall in the courtyard. Over
her, statues of the planetary gods in their niches Mercury, Jupiter,
Saturn looked on benevolently. French sculptors had put them up, as
though order and beauty could have taken root here, thought Marie de
Guise, watching her attendant and friend fighting off tears and shock.
They put them up on the order of my husband, also dead before his time,
dead in a mysterious way.

"Courage," was all Marie could murmur. "Courage."

Lady Fleming stood up, bracing herself against the wall. "I must tell
my daughter, I must tell my daughter," she kept repeating, and stumbled
toward the children's quarters.

Mary Fleming wept bitterly that night in the bedchamber she shared with
her namesakes. They attempted to comfort her, but only by reciting
their own losses, losses all too Scottish in nature.

"My father died after Solway Moss," said Mary. "And my grandfather was
killed at Flodden Field."

"Both my grandfathers were killed at Flodden," sobbed Fleming. "All my
family has now been killed in battle against the English."

"My grandfather died at Flodden as well," said Mary Seton, in her
quiet, sad way.

"And mine, too," said Mary Livingston, whose cheerful soul hated the
thought of killing and blood.

"We are all sisters in sorrow," said Mary, who until that moment had
never considered the matter. She knew of her grandfather's and
father's deaths, but not of the subsequent desecration of their tombs
and bodies. Thus far her life had been confusing but happy, and her
nature was to seek sunshine rather than shadows; to flee the shadows
that seemed to pursue her so restlessly. But her friends' sorrows ah,
that was something else. Then there could be no running away from
it.

In the darkest part of the night a few days later, Mary was awakened
when a candle was quietly lit in her room. Jean Sinclair, her personal
attendant, was moving about, fully dressed. Mary could see her
gathering clothes up in her arms, lifting the candle to look in shadowy
corners. For what was she searching?

Jean came over to her, sat on the bed, and shook her gently. "You must
dress, Your Highness, and warmly. You are going on a secret
journey."

Mary sat up. Truly, this was a dream. She knew not to ask where, when
she had been told that it was secret.

"Are we going alone?" she whispered, starting to climb out of bed.
Mistress Sinclair already had her clothes warming on a stand before the
fireplace.

"No. Your mother is coming, and the four Marys, and master Scott, the
schoolmaster, and your guardians, Lords Erskine and Livingston. But
that is all."

"Are we running away?" Mary began to pull on her heavy wool clothes,
the ones she used when she rode or played on the ice.

"Yes. We are! No one shall ever be able to find us!"

"Will we stay there forever, and never come back?"

"Perhaps."

"And we will never see this castle again?"

"Perhaps."

Mary dashed about, getting ready, her heart racing.

Outside in the courtyard the travelling party met by torchlight. They
wore hooded cloaks and sturdy boots and carried only the smallest
travelling pouches. The adults talked together in low voices that did
not carry over to the children, who were huddling together. Flamina
and Lusty were excited about the midnight ride, Seton resigned to her
fate, and Beaton placid and calm. But Mary felt her spirits take wing
as the adventure began. There was danger in it, and rather than being
afraid, she felt reborn, created in it.

Down the long castle steps the party descended in darkness they dared
not risk flaring torches, not with the English reported only six miles
away that afternoon. At the base of the stairs, horses awaited them,
and the girls were settled behind the adults; no Shetland pony could go
as fast as this party intended to race through the night.

Then they were away, galloping into the darkness, with the head groom
from the castle stable as a guide on this moonless night.

The air was chilly, and the ground was covered in mist, which swirled
and made eddies as they passed through it. Mary clung tightly to the
back of Lord John Erskine; Mary Livingston was riding behind her own
father, Alexander.

In the night Mary could hear sounds of animals in the thickets: herds
of wild cattle and deer and the beating wings of startled waterfowl.
Weasels and stoats scrambled in the underbrush and once her hair
prickled as she heard it a pack of wolves howled in the darkness.

It all seemed a dream, the darkness and the jouncing and the alien
smells and sounds; and so it was not less a dream when they pulled up
by the side of a lake and were met by a boatman. As the sky grew
milky, and mists were rising from the lake with its reeds standing like
yellow sentinels, they were rowed toward a green island with white
buildings, glowing in the pearly radiance of the dawn. Mary stepped
off the boat onto a carpet of spongy green grass and was met by a tall
cowled figure.

"Welcome, my child," he said, bending on one knee. "Welcome to
Inchmahome."

His outer robes were black and his cowl so deep she could not clarly
see his face. But the voice, soothing and gentle, seemed as much a
dream as everything else that magic night and dawn. Sighing, she
collapsed in the Prior's arms, carried away by peace.

She slept three-quarters of the day, and when she finally awoke it was
late afternoon. Long, honey-coloured beams of light were coming
through a row of windows in what seemed to be a large but very plain
room. The walls were plastered but not decorated or adorned in any
way; the floor was bare stone. The bed she lay on was not soft, but
firm, and the sheets were coarse. They had an astringent smell, like
clean air and things bleached by the sun. And the faint, lingering
odour of sweet woodruff clung to them.

From somewhere she heard the distant sound of chanting. She got up she
had slept fully dressed and walked slowly over to the open window.
Outside she could see trees, very green grass, water, and, next door, a
small church. The chanting was rising from there. It was faint, and
sounded like the far shore of Heaven. She leaned out over the
windowsill and let the soft air stir her hair, and lay, drowsing, in
the beauty of the sun and the floating voices. Never had she felt such
peace.

It was thus that the Prior found her when he returned to his room after
the service of None. The little girl was draped over the windowsill,
sleeping with a smile on her fair oval face.

The puir wee bairn, he thought. I had never thought to see my own
Queen here in my monastery. She's a faerie-creature that we have all
heard of but no one has ever seen, since they keep her locked up at
Stirling.

The Prior, Brother Thomas, was doing penance for "rejoicing in
iniquity" as forbidden in I Corinthians 13:5: Charity seeketh not her
own, thinketh no evil, rejoice thee not in iniquity. For Brother
Thomas had been, if not actually joyful at the death of Robert Erskine,
the layman who had been handed the prior ship of Inchmahome as a royal
present, at least rejoicing at regaining temporary control of his
monastery. Pinkie Clough had claimed young Robert; his father, the
little Queen's guardian, had arrived with the royal visitors and would
doubtless appoint his second son, John, to take over in Robert's place.
But in the meantime, Brother Thomas ruled again and quite rightly so,
he thought. The ruler of a priory should be a monk, not a royal
appointee who did not even know the names of the Divine Services! Oh,
I must do more penance, he thought wearily, as he entertained these
thoughts and even welcomed them.

He gently touched the little girl's shoulder and she opened her eyes
delicately coloured amber ones with flecks of gold.

"Good afternoon, Your Majesty," he said.

She stretched unselfconsciously. "I fell asleep hearing the most
wonderful music. It was like angels."

"It was the monks who live here," he said. "See them walking about,
across the cloister?" He pointed down at the bright green lawn
surrounded on all sides by an arcade with graceful arches. Indeed,
black-and-white-robed figures were moving in all directions, their
paths crisscrossing. There were only three colours to be seen
anywhere: black, white, and green, making an exquisite pattern of
stillness against movement. Even the stones of the monastery were the
same hues black, white, grey, with touches of green moss.

"They were praying to God," Prior Thomas explained. "We all gather in
that church to do so eight times a day."

"Eight times!" she exclaimed.

"Indeed. The first time is in the middle of the night. That is our
vigil service."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you get up in the middle of the night to pray?"

"Because we feel closer to God then, when all the world is asleep and
we wait for the dawn."

Mary yawned. "You must love God very much more than sleep, anyway!"

"Not always. But there is obedience, which is a very high form of
love. It just does not feel so pretty at the time as the other
kinds."

Like mystical union, and even suffering, he thought, feeling the welts
from "the discipline" under his coarse wool habit. Obedience is a dry,
dull sort of love; not a lover's love. But God seems to prefer it not
the least of His peculiarities.

"You have missed our main meal," he said. "You must be very hungry. I
can have some food sent up straightway. Bread, soup, eggs "

"Can I not eat with the monks?"

"Yes, but that is later, and I fear the last meal is sparse scarcely
more than a bite or two."

"I should like to eat with the monks," she insisted.

At her age such things are a game, a novelty, he thought. Monks, and a
"fasting supper" only after years does it become both natural and a
sacrifice.

"As you wish," he said.

That night, at the long refectory table, Mary took her place, along
with her mother and the other Marys. She watched the robed figures of
the monks as they silently broke their bread and spooned their soup in
slow, rhythmic motions. Beside them, the outsiders' movements seemed
jerky and awkward as they brought the food to their mouths and drank
from their wooden cups.

Mary found herself embarrassed by her fellow guests, and longed to eat
as the monks did instead. She looked over at her mother, who was
chewing a piece of bread with gusto. What was she thinking of? Mary
tried to catch her eye, but the Queen Mother was completely absorbed in
her own thoughts.