Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles (99 page)

Her legs encircled him, drew him in. They were long and slender and
met, locked, over the small of his back. He felt himself enter her,
slide down through her dark, open, and waiting passage of self. But
there was still something held back; she was almost a virgin in her
hesitant movements, her unsureness. It was more delicious than
anything he had ever tasted or experienced, this virgin ripeness.
Suddenly he was afraid he would explode, would disintegrate and give
her no pleasure at all in the suddenness of it.

"Oh, my dearest love," she was whispering, moving against him. As her
body moved, her head moved with it, making her voice fade in and out,
next to his ear, then farther away.

This was wrong, wrong, wrong.. .. Part of him recoiled in sudden fear.
This was not safe in any way... it was worse than an ambush on the
moors, it screamed out its folly and danger.. .. Then a wave of the
purest pleasure he had ever experienced kindled in him and spread
upward, engulfing his whole being. He was on fire.

She was crying out, clutching his back, tearing his doublet. He could
hear the pearls popping off, could hear them striking even the stones
beyond his spread cloak. Her back was arching and her legs had started
jerking. She was about to scream. Quickly he covered her mouth with
his own to stifle it. Her body had gone wild, convulsing
spasmodically. Then suddenly his own began to explode, and he felt the
stores of his long-hoarded passion breaking forth, flooding her,
swamping himself.

She was shaking and shuddering, clawing at his velvet-padded shoulder.
She tore her mouth away, gasping.

And then, suddenly, all that passed away and they were merely lying on
the floor in a cold little chapel. Mary reached out her arm and
touched the base of the altar. She steadied herself and her breathing
slowed. Embarrassed, she coughed.

She struggled to sit up, to regain some control. Her hand flailed out,
searching for her discarded clothing. Her other hand, shaking, pushed
back her sweat-soaked hair from her cheeks. Her breathing was still
ragged.

Bothwell's thoughts were racing: What have I done? What will happen?
He had trouble bringing his mind into focus when his body had not
returned to normal; his heart was still pounding. He took Mary's hand,
doubled it in his own against his chest. "Please have no regrets," he
finally said. "I promise never to speak of it, nor remind you of it in
any way. But you must know that I will treasure this forever as a
memory, not as a presumption of any power or favours."

She did not answer, but bowed her head and continued to try to dress
herself. Quite suddenly he was touched with love for her.

He dressed himself. He did not wish this time to end. She stood up
and, picking up his cloak, handed it silently to him. He took it and
slung it over one shoulder.

"We are married to others," he whispered, finally.

"I know that well," she answered, her voice quiet in the dark. "I love
you, Lord Bothwell. I have long dreamed of you, and in such a manner.
I think I was seeing it before it happened, that in some way my mind
snatched pictures from the future. So I have lived with this a long
time."

"What is it you have lived with?"

"With what has happened."

"But what has happened? What can it mean for us, married as we are,
and you a reigning Queen?"

"That I do not know. Only that I love you." Without waiting for his
reply, she removed the barricading chair and pulled the door open. The
blast of the wind, wet with snow, slapped him.

The door closed. She was gone. He did not even hear her footfalls on
the stones outside, so soft were her shoes.

He smoothed out his cloak and draped it around his shoulders. He ran
his hands over his hair and put his hat on. Then he, too, opened the
door and made his way across the upper courtyard and to the lighted
quarters of the guest apartments. Pray God there was no one dicing or
singing in the outer chambers, no one who would beckon to him.

But it was very late. How long had they been in the chapel? Surely it
had not been long, although it had seemed so at the time, the timeless
time. Everyone seemed to have gone to bed.

He entered his own apartments. The servants had also retired. In his
own bedroom, Lady Bothwell was sitting up, writing by candlelight. She
was still dressed, and nodded to him with a bland smile.

"It was pleasant, was it not?" she asked sweetly.

"Aye." Hurriedly he undressed himself behind a screen and, in sleeping
attire, made for the bed. He settled himself, and when his wife came
to bed, he pretended to be fast asleep.

The next morning he awakened early, if he could claim to have slept at
all. It had been a strange night of Mary's continual presence in his
mind and heart and even, it seemed, in his body: his wounds had been
stretched by the exertions and now they ached. The contortions on the
floor had left him with scraped knees and a crick in his neck lest he
should fool himself into believing that nothing had happened.

It had happened. And suddenly he was gripped with fear about what
would or could or might happen next.

Beside him his wife stirred, sighed, and then rolled over. Her
sleeping form offered him a sort of comfort the only physical comfort
she had ever offered. But that was only because she did not know. If
she ever did .. . this was not the same as Bessie Crawford. No, this
was .. . what? Treason? Not exactly, since it was the Queen's desire
as well. And the King was not a real King, so cuckolding him was not
treason, either, as the English Parliament had made it a treason to
cuckold Henry VIII.

Henry VIII, the Queen's great-uncle. The lusty old goat with his lusty
she-goat of a sister that blood ran in the Queen's veins, and what was
not Tudor was Stewart, which was never icy. The Queen's blood was so
hot last night it would have bubbled had it been spilt on those chapel
stones.. ..

The memory of it excited him, much to his shame. Dwelling on
love-making like a country girl was embarrassing. Better to think
about what it meant, and what it could lead to: trouble. Immense
trouble, beside which Jock o' the Park and his two-handed sword was
nothing.

To be the Queen's lover was to risk getting her with child. There were
time-honoured provisions for a King's bastard, but it was significant
that there was none for a Queen's.

To be the Queen's lover was to risk the twisted wrath of her strange,
unpredictable husband.

To be the Queen's lover was to risk making enemies of all the other
men, the councillors, who were not. They would see him as a male Diane
de Poitiers, a threat to them and their power.

To be the Queen's lover would be to discredit her to her religious
enemies, the Knoxian common people, who would be scandalized and
possibly try to have her removed from the throne. They called her
"whore" already, as the Roman "whore of Babylon," but this was
different. There was nothing the Bible-patting congregation of the
faithful hated worse than the sins of the flesh.

He actually shivered, hearing their shrill cries in his mind. He had
seen the glee with which the proper citizens of Edinburgh ducked
scolds, gossips, and adulteresses, pelted them with fruit, and had them
whipped and even branded. And if they knew the Catholic Queen had
rolled naked on the floor of a chapel with one of her married
courtiers

He felt sick. He lurched up from the bed so suddenly he awakened his
wife Jean, as he grabbed for the vase de nuit to vomit into. The sight
and smell of what was already in there completed the task and he heaved
everything up from his stomach.

Jean murmured something solicitous and climbed out of bed to get him a
towel to wipe his face. She dabbed it in water and then tenderly
cleaned off his face.

"You look dreadful," she said, examining his reddened face and
bloodshot eyes. "You must have eaten something tainted."

"Aye." He got up off his knees and made his way shakily over to the
table, where a bottle of wine was kept. Anything to chase that vile
taste from his mouth.

"I pray you, return to sleep," he said. "It is too early to be up." He
sloshed the wine around in his mouth and then swallowed it. He wanted
to sleep, too. Now perhaps he could.

As he crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over himself in the
chill of the early dawn, the small amount of wine in his empty stomach
gave him a strange soothing feeling.

There was one last thing: to be the Queen's lover to be this Queen's
lover was to live in Paradise. She was the woman he had long ago
dreamed of possessing beautiful, passionate, perfectly fitted to him in
the dark. In those few moments she had proved able to match and answer
all his desires, unspoken and untouched until now.

At midmorning, several hours after his second arising, Bothwell had a
visitor: the Lord James.

"May I?" asked James. "I trust I am not disturbing you?"

"No, not at all," Bothwell forced himself to answer in a hearty
fashion. His stomach still felt queasy, but he had satisfied himself
that he looked well enough, and had taken exceptional pains in his
dressing and toilet. "I was only waiting until time to go to the
bullfight in the royal park."

"Yes, there are a mighty lot of festivities!" sneered Lord James, and
in his clenched mouth Bothwell saw all ascetics. "May I?" he
repeated.

Bothwell waved him in, then took him back to an inner chamber where
they would not be disturbed. "It must be urgent business that brings
you here, directly, to me this early. What is it?" Bothwell hated
delays and circumvention.

"A blunt fellow, as everyone agrees," said James. "Regarding the
business with Morton and the other murderers are you going to speak to
the Queen? I think you can persuade her." He looked directly into
Bothwell's eyes with the cruel level gaze of a hawk.

Did he suspect?

"Why me? You are her brother, and have always been her chief
minister."

"Oh, stop the flattery. Since your injury in the heroic antics down in
the Borders, and your heartrending escape from death, your word is law
with the Queen. Anything you ask, she'll grant." He continued looking
at him, with a look halfway between a glare and a stare. "Your sword
wounds have brought you much credit."

"But why would I want the Riccio murderers back? And for that matter,
why would you?"

"Morton was a good man in many ways." Lord James chose his words
carefully and took his time in selecting them. "Damley double-crossed
him. He knows Darnley better than you or I or even the Queen does.
Some say you only come truly to know a man after he betrays you." James
paused. "Since our talk at Craigmillar, I have been at deep pains
pondering how we might keep our word to the Queen to free her from
Darnley. I have come to believe that Morton will know the best way."

Yes. Murder him. So that is the plan, thought Bothwell. That is what
is to be done? We let his most deadly enemy back into Scotland, a
kinsman who has been betrayed by him, and who has already murdered
once.. .. Bothwell felt queasy again. What if they find out my
secret, how will they use that?