The Flower Reader (55 page)

“If you go, you will come back? You are certain you will come back?”

He laughed. “Of course I am certain,” he said. “Proserpine.”

I could not help but smile a little. “Hades,” I said. “What other letters are there? Who sent the messenger?”

He was silent for a moment, holding me, his chin resting on top of my head. At last he said, “The new French ambassador, Monsieur du Croc.”

“Why would he send you messages, Nico? Oh, no, please do not tell me there is also a letter from Duchess Antoinette.”

“I will not lie to you.”

I turned away from him and looked out over the sea. I breathed the scents of the sea and the garden. Nico’s scent, bitter orange and myrrh. I closed my eyes and prayed to God and Saint Ninian and the Green Lady of Granmuir.

“What does she want?”

“She is afraid for the young queen, which is not surprising.”

I said nothing. What could I say?

“Do you remember what I told you at Inveraray? That there were whispers of three
Escadron Volant
assassins in Scotland?”

I hated those words.
Escadron Volant
. I swallowed hard and nodded.

“Duchess Antoinette has heard rumors that there is indeed a third assassin, and that he—or she—is in Edinburgh. That Queen Mary herself may be the quarry, or perhaps the new king she has made.”

“Do you think it is true?”

Just as I spoke, a breeze off the sea caught the packet of letters and sent them swirling. They fluttered like guillemots, catching the sunlight, then swept over the edge of the cliff and out over the gray-green water.

“Whether it is true or not, she wants me to return to the court at Edinburgh, to watch over the queen,” Nico said. “But her letter is gone now,
ma mie
. I cannot write an answer to it.”

I turned to him and we looked at each other. There were so many things we could have said, but we did not have to say any of them.

At last I held out my hand with the silver ryal on my palm. “I do not want this here,” I said. “The peony and the yellow cockscomb cannot grow together—they will be the death of each other.”

“While the windflower and the nightshade,” Nico said, “strange as it might sound, grow together and thrive.”

So they did, in Granmuir’s own garden by the sea, masses of pink and white windflowers with golden threads at their hearts climbing on the stone wall; appearing to embrace them grew the trailing nightshade vine with its purple-and-gold flowers. Everything was flourishing. The wild roses and maiden pinks were thriving as well, and a new patch of borage, with its blue flowers hinting at a boy child, which had come up out of nowhere since we had been home.

I do not know whether I can feel everything you want me to feel.
My own voice, that afternoon in the Mermaid Tower, when we had first come together.
What I felt when I was young.

And yet I felt it. I felt it now, filling me up, flourishing like the garden.

“I love you, Nico,” I said. I had said it before but this was different. It sounded simple but oh, it was not. “I thought I would never be able to love you with all my heart, after…after everything. But I do. Somehow I do.”

He did not smile. He said just as simply, “And I love you,
ma mie
.”

“Go in and make the arrangements. Remember that all our visits are to be short ones, and the sooner you leave, the sooner you will return. Take Lilidh; she is the fastest.”

He kissed me and went out of the garden. I remained among the flowers with Seilie just long enough to throw the silver coin after the letters. It arched, glittering, and fell like a stone into the sea.

“R
inette Leslie, the Leslies of Granmuir, and Granmuir itself are all fictional creations. Rinette’s mother, Blanche of Orléans, is fictional as well. Granmuir borrows its general location and situation, on a great rock beside the sea, from Dunnottar Castle in Aberdeenshire. The ancient chapel supposedly built by Saint Ninian and the pagan spirit of the Green Lady are also associated with Dunnottar.

Nicolas de Clerac is another fictional character. Duke Francois de Guise is not known to have had any illegitimate children, which is why I shrouded Nico’s birth with such secrecy. Given the time and place, however, it was not in any way considered a dishonor for a nobleman, courtier, and soldier like Duke Francois to have an illegitimate child or two.

Alexander Gordon of Glenlithie and Rannoch Hamilton of Kinmeall are also fictional characters. I felt quite comfortable in making Rannoch Hamilton an illegitimate brother of Grizel Hamilton, the wife of Andrew Leslie, the Fifth Earl of Rothes, because Grizel Hamilton’s father, James Hamilton of Finnart, is known to have had a
staggering ten illegitimate children, by at least three different mistresses. In a case like that, what’s one more?

Mary Stuart is one of the most enduringly fascinating personages of history. She’s been painted as a heroine and a villain, a misunderstood queen and a murderer. I have tried to portray her as the eighteen-year-old girl she was when she returned to Scotland, charming, mercurial, and impulsive. Everything she does in the story is either taken from contemporary records or extrapolated from known actions and attitudes. The years of her early personal reign—from 1561 to 1566—are often glossed over in fiction in order to get to the more dramatic years of Riccio’s and Darnley’s murders, the Bothwell marriage, Queen Mary’s forced abdication, imprisonment on Lochleven, and escape to England. Drama, yes—but by then the queen was at the mercy of the drama. I wanted to spend time with Mary in the years when she actually ruled, and had not yet made the choices that ultimately destroyed her.

The silver casket really existed—exists still, if the sixteenth-century silver casket at Lennoxlove House in East Lothian is truly Queen Mary’s. Historically it entered the queen’s story after she was imprisoned by the Lords of the Congregation, turned over to the Lords by one George Dalgleish, a henchman of Bothwell’s. No one knows for certain what documents were in it at the time or how it came to be in Bothwell’s possession, but it certainly played a stellar part in Queen Mary’s trial—carefully called a “conference”—at Westminster in England. By then it contained the infamous Casket Letters, the supposed proof that Mary was complicit in the murder of Darnley. Whether the letters were forgeries or not, their contents were damning enough to keep poor Mary in English imprisonment for the rest of her life—so perhaps there was indeed a curse on the beautiful little casket.

Edinburgh Castle is built on a crag of volcanic rock. There are persistent legends of secret tunnels and passageways under the castle, and although to the best of my knowledge no lava caves or lava tubes have ever been specifically discovered and explored in the heart of
Castle Rock, it’s perfectly possible they could exist in the volcanic basalt. The area now known as Crown Square within the castle was laid out over man-made vaults in the 1430s under James I and James II, and my maze of lava-tube passageways and the bubblelike lava cave under Saint Margaret’s are a fictional extension of these existing vaults.

Lady Margaret Erskine, the mother of James Stewart, Earl of Moray, is generally considered to have been James V’s favorite mistress. At the time of her liaison with the king she was married to Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven; there were rumors the king had petitioned the pope to arrange a divorce for her, and even rumors that her marriage to the king had actually taken place. This all came to nothing, and instead James V married first Madeleine of Valois, and after her untimely death Mary of Guise. Sir Robert Douglas was killed at Pinkie Cleugh in 1547, and Lady Margaret did not remarry. She was obviously a beautiful woman in her day—she was a king’s mistress, and the character of “Fair Ladie Sensualitie” in Sir David Lyndsay’s
Ane Pleasant Satyre of the Three Estaitis
was said to have been modeled upon her.

How did she feel, having come so close to being queen herself, and ending as only the lady of Lochleven? I have given her ambition, both for her half-royal son and for herself, and I believe it would not only be a natural reaction, but also fits with what little is known of her. Although she lived primarily at Lochleven, with Moray’s prominence at court she would certainly have been welcome there whenever she wished, once her rival Mary of Guise was dead.

The
Escadron Volant
, the Flying Squadron of Queen Catherine de Médicis, really existed; it would have been in its early days at the time of this story. The secret subgroup of
Escadron Volant
assassins is a fictional creation, although in the time and place it seems perfectly possible. Blaise Laurentin is a fictional character.

Nostradamus, of course, is historical. He did write private prophecies and quatrains to individuals who had the position and wealth
to pay for them. The
quatre maris
prophecies written for Mary of Guise about her daughter Mary Stuart are, however, fictional.

I consulted many books, papers, articles, and documents in the course of writing
The Flower Reader
; I was also kindly aided by wonderful historians, authors, and librarians. Whatever sins of commission or omission have crept into the story are entirely upon my own head.

As before, I owe the most heartfelt thanks to my husband, Jim, the Broadcasting Legend™, who has been unfailingly supportive through the many ups and downs of writing this story I love so much.

Thanks are also due to my many writer friends, who laughed and cried with me and who understand in a unique way what it’s like to tell a story.

In particular, I would like to thank Leslie Thomson of Edinburgh, who read the manuscript and looked at the maps and made wonderful, meticulous comments on the places, times, language, and personages of Scotland’s rich history.

Special thanks also to Lisa Brackmann, for her insights on pacing and continuity.

My agent, Diana Fox of Fox Literary, guided me well at every step in the process. Betty Anne Crawford and the team at Books Crossing Borders have taken me on a whirlwind trip around the world—my head is still spinning. Thank you all so much.

I also owe great thanks to everyone at NAL—my thoughtful and discerning editor, Ellen Edwards, and the whole team of copy
editors, designers, publicists, and dozens of others who have worked to make this book a success.

And most of all, thanks to the readers of
The Second Duchess
, and to the bookstores and sites that introduced Barbara and Alfonso to the world—particularly the Book Carriage in Roanoke, Texas, and Murder by the Book in Houston—well, there are really no words that can fully express my gratitude. Without you all there would have been no
Flower Reader
.

Q. What originally inspired you to write
The Flower Reader
?

A. I’ve always been fascinated by Mary, queen of Scots, and have read everything I could find about her, both fiction and nonfiction, since I was a little girl.
The Flower Reader
grew from a sort of subfascination with the Casket Letters and the silver casket in which they were found. Where did the casket come from? How did it end up holding the letters—whether real or forged or both—that ruined Mary’s reputation in the world, both in her own time and down through the centuries? Is the beautiful silver casket in the collection at Lennoxlove House the real silver casket? So I started with the casket, and the rest of the story grew from there.