The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots (3 page)

He dressed in cloth of gold, he wore immense rubies in his caps and even his shoes had jeweled buckles. Everywhere he went he surrounded himself with an escort of handsome, sturdy young men and when he dined in public he made certain that there were beautiful women adorning his table.

He tried to look like a king.

But no amount of finery or outward show could make Francis kingly, and day by day his misery and fear deepened. He was only happy when away from the court, and his refuge was the hunt.

When autumn came we went to stay at the beautiful new palace of Fontainebleau, where the hunting in the surrounding forest was at its best. Francis rode off happily into the woods early each morning and each evening his foresters brought back many handsome stags and does, all dead by his royal hand (or so they assured everyone), and laid them out on the grass under the light of the torches.

There was a chill in the air, and intermittent rain, and by the fourth day of our stay at the palace I noticed that Francis, who was forever sneezing and having to wipe his nose no matter where we were or what season it was, was sniffing more than ever and blowing his nose noisily and complaining that his ear hurt. When I suggested
that he stay indoors rather than ride out in the rain, he snapped at me irritably—and then began coughing as if he could not stop.

On the following morning, despite the dark clouds and sharp wind, he went out to hunt as usual, and all his retinue with him, only to come back a few hours later, soggy in his velvets (Francis loved his finery!) and holding his hand to his ear. Dr. Bourgoing gave him a purgative and sent one of the grooms to the kitchens for a roasted onion to place in his ear to draw out the poisons.

My mother-in-law’s astrologer Michel de Notredame also arrived, sent by the queen to examine Francis. He was a dark-haired, heavily jowled man of medium height, well advanced in age (though everyone looked very old to me then, young as I was), with a serious expression and a look of great intelligence, such as I had seen on few faces in my brief life.

He bent over Francis, who had been ordered to bed by Dr. Bourgoing, and listened to his chest and looked into his ear.

“The king has a worm in his ear,” he told the doctor. “It has bored its way in, deep into his head. It cannot be dislodged. The onion will not cure him. However, the king will recover—this time.”

I was very relieved to hear the astrologer’s words, so relieved that I ignored the subtle warning in what he said, the implication that there might be another illness from which he would not recover.

“Monsieur de Notredame,” I said as he was preparing to leave, “would you please read my palm?”

He looked at me searchingly. “Are you certain you want me to?”

I hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“Very well then. I should like you to stretch out your hands, palms downward.”

I did as he asked.

“Very pretty. The long fingers very elegant. But the nails—”

My nails were bitten down to the quick. My tirewomen soaked them in rosewater each night and rubbed scented oil into the raw edges, but they looked ragged and injured nonetheless. When I
attended banquets or masques, I wore gloves—tight, soft dogskin gloves—to hide my nails.

“Please turn them over.”

I had had my palms read before, it was a common enough pastime at court, but when Monsieur de Notredame inspected first my left palm, then my right it was with a degree of scrutiny and thoughtfulness I had never encountered. He took his time, tracing the significant lines with one finger, frowning occasionally and slowly shaking his head.

“What day were you born, and at what hour?”

I told him. He remained quiet for a time, then motioned me to sit on a bench near the fireplace.

“More logs!” he called out to the groom who stood nearby. At once the boy ran out of the room and before long came running back in with an armload of wood, which he proceeded to add to the fire.

“Little queen, I would like you to remove one of your bracelets.”

I unfastened the clasp of a gold bracelet with rubies set into its intricately carved tracery and slid it off my hand. He took it and held it, keeping his eyes closed. Then he opened them and spoke a single word: “Baleful.”

He began pacing up and down in front of the bench where I sat, speaking rapidly, looking not at me but at some object in the distance, as if I wasn’t even there. He was near the fire, rivulets of sweat ran down his face as he walked back and forth across the uneven gray stones of the hearth.

“I see that you play the spinet, though not very well, and that you have many little dogs, and one of them, a spotted bitch, has one short leg and cannot run very fast. I see that you work at your lessons but they do not come easily to you. You are kind to your husband and wish him well, but you do not love him and you never will. I see your favorite roan, and your mother—she is ill, is she not?—and—that is all I see.”

He stopped pacing and the intensity drained from his face. He relaxed, shrugged, and sat down and handed me back my bracelet.

“Tell me, Monsieur de Notredame, what did you mean by ‘baleful’?” The word lingered in my mind, troubling me.

“I would rather not say more. You are too young.”

“Please.”

He took his time before he spoke, and chose his words with care.

“When you were born,” he began, “you were meant to die. You nearly did die. You were born at a savage time. Someone else—your father—died instead. You were given up for dead as well. It was your fate to die, yet you perversely survived.”

“How can it be perverse to survive?” I asked. “I know my mother was very glad I did not die, as her other children had.”

“There is an order to things,” the astrologer said, his tone suddenly severe. “You upset that order. You were not meant to live, to have children.”

At the mention of children my nerves were set on edge. I was constantly being reminded of my duty to produce an heir to my husband’s throne—and of what my mother-in-law referred to as my barrenness.

“What do you mean, I was not meant to have children? Why else would I have survived? I carry my father’s royal blood in my veins, strong blood, rich blood. I am as sturdy as the next girl. I can run, I can ride—even though my mother-in-law does not like me to. I can hunt as well as any boy, draw a bow, shoot a gun. I have brought down a stag. Clearly I am meant to have my husband’s child. I have been
spared
so that I might have that child. Spared, do you understand?”

“I understand,” Monsieur de Notredame replied calmly, “far more, and far better, than you, little queen. And all that I have said is true. Do not blame me, blame the fates, the blind destiny that governs our lives. I am only the messenger.”

He looked at me, and his expression was very grave.

“I tell you this for certain. Something has gone wrong. You endure, but so does the force that assaulted you and brought you low as soon
as you were born. The struggle you knew as a weak infant will go on throughout your earthly life.”

I was both angry and puzzled by the astrologer’s enigmatic words. Until that time I had not had to struggle, everything had always been done for me, my path had been made clear, my every need filled. Was there not fine food on my table at every meal, and a dozen servants to bring it to me? Were there not entire rooms filled with my costly gowns in rich brocades and satins and even cloth of silver, my petticoats, my fans, my hats, my gloves, my jewels? I had only to ask, and whatever I called for was brought to me. I had always been treated like the queen I am.

I got up from the bench and went to the window, looking out to the immaculate, luxuriant gardens.

“If what you say is true,” I managed to say, doing my best to keep my tone even, “then why is it that I have been brought up in luxury, with my every request filled, and married to the highest-born man in the land?”

He shook his head. “That was illusion, and will soon end.”

I bristled, and turned back toward Monsieur de Notredame. “I don’t believe you,” I said.

But he only shrugged. “It is written in the stars.”

The clashing of swords rang out across the courtyard, and I heard shouts of alarm from the Scottish Archers who formed our royal Garde de Corps. We ran to the windows to see who was fighting. Francis and I were staying at a château near Soissons, on our way northward; the last thing we expected to hear in this out-of-the-way place was the clangor of metal on metal and the grunts of men in combat.

But there they were, two stalwart, strong-looking young men, both swinging heavy broadswords, shouting insults and challenges at one another between blows and panting from their exertions. Neither appeared to be injured, though it was impossible to be sure from the window where I stood and so I made my way from my upstairs room down to the story below and out into the mud and muck of the courtyard.

By the time I reached it, however, the two combatants had begun to laugh, though the insults continued. Finally both men threw down their swords and began playfully buffeting one another, more like boys than men.

“Good sirs,” I said, going up to them, “dueling is not allowed within the precincts of the court. What do you wish here?”

The taller of the two, his vest of burgundy velvet askew, his linen sleeves pitted with mud and his soft leather boots black with grime, turned his ruddy bearded face toward me and smiled. He wore a jeweled earring in his left ear and diamonds sparkled from his beribboned codpiece.

“James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, Your Highness.” He bowed, so elaborately that I wondered whether he might be teasing me.

His companion followed suit. “Cristy Ricarton, Lord of Faskally.”

I addressed the earl. “You are my mother’s man. The one she calls ‘dear Jamie’ in her letters.”

“Does she now? And did she tell you I was coming to see you?”

“No. But our court has been traveling for many days. Her letter may be following us. Tell me, have you finished your contest of strength?”

The earl looked at his companion, then down at their two discarded swords. “Are we finished, Cristy?”

“For the present.” Both men chortled. “Especially since we have been cautioned.”

“Then come inside and refresh yourselves.”

I felt the earl’s dark eyes on me, and could not help but be pleased. I liked the humor in his eyes, his curling beard, the strength of his body, so different from Francis’s slender white tapering form. I did not mind at all that he showed me so little ceremony. After all, we were not in a palace, but a country château. And I have never been one to demand deference from my inferiors—unless I feel it is being deliberately withheld.

Francis did not join us for supper, he was still recuperating from his illness. I dined with the two newcomers—Francis not being well enough to join us—and two of Francis’s councilors, the garrulous, pop-eyed Comte de Dampierre, who I had always found irksome, and the milder, more thoughtful man of law Augustine de Roncelet. My equerry Arthur Erskine stood behind my chair, Adrien and a dozen of the Scottish Archers formed an honor guard at both ends of the long room.

Insofar as we could, we dined in state, on the best gold plate our traveling chests could provide. I had my tirewoman Margaret Carwood fasten me into a silken gown with ropes of gold embroidery and wide sleeves trimmed in silver lace, and my long red-gold hair was looped and braided almost as elaborately as if we had been at Chambord or Fontainebleau.

No sooner had the first course been set before us than I asked the earl about my mother’s health.

“I trust I may be frank with Your Highness,” he said, after taking a swallow of wine from his glass.

“Of course you may. Indeed you must.”

“She cannot last. The dropsy. Arran and his bastards have laid a spell on her, and it is killing her.” The Duke of Arran, my nearest male relative, was of the Scots blood royal as I was, and it was no secret that he coveted my throne. He had made himself my mother’s sworn enemy. “My sister and I have kept her alive until now,” the earl was saying. “We know a bit of sorcery.”

The Lord of Faskally choked on his food, and coughed noisily. “A bit!” he managed to say when he had recovered. “Jamie and Jane could enchant half of Scotland!”

“Cristy! Don’t forget where you are, and at whose table you dine.”

“I ask your pardon, Your Highness,” the lord said, then resumed eating greedily.

“The swelling—the pain she endures—I’m only glad Your Highness cannot see it. It would rend your heart.” The earl shook his head sadly as he spoke.

“I wanted to send Dr. Bourgoing to her,” I said. “He says he has cured the dropsy with a decoction of black nightshade and he knows of others who have used lady’s glove to arrest its worsening. I wrote to her about sending him to Scotland, but she said no.”

“The English would never let him through to her. Their ships block Leith harbor.”

“I could send him down into Edinburgh from the north. He could go by ship to the Isles, then down through—”

“Through Campbell country! Hah! They’d hack him to pieces as soon as spit on him. Savages, all of them, savages.”

The Lord of Faskally nodded vigorously at this, and echoed “savages,” and went on eating.

“I will miss your mother when she goes,” the earl went on. “A lion of a woman! She’s got the heart of a man of war. The English besieging us on one side, the mad Scots rebels on the other, with the villain Arran at their head, and she herself sick as a dog—and still she never gives up.” He shook his head in wonderment. “She sent me here to ask for troops and money. Only we both know it won’t do any good. She can’t last. And when she dies, Scotland will be a land of chaos.”

“But my husband did send reinforcements months ago. I know he did.”

The earl nodded. “I told you, the English ships block Leith harbor. Those men he sent were waylaid and attacked. They never set foot on Scottish soil.”

For a time there was silence while a fresh course was served. Then, as we ate, my husband’s councilors questioned our guests about the English, how many ships they had in the harbor, how many men came ashore when they attacked, what sort of armaments they had.

I listened, doing my best to eat a little, though my appetite had left me. Talking of my poor mother and her severe illness made me sad and tense. I drank a little wine in an effort to calm myself.

The councilors droned on, the Lord of Faskally continued to eat and drink heartily, but the earl, while he answered all the questions put to him ably and knowledgeably—or so it appeared—often met my eyes, with a searching look that puzzled me.

Then the conversation turned in an uncomfortable direction.

“You know, of course, that our king is unwell,” the Comte de Dampierre said, addressing the earl, “and many believe he will die without an heir of his body.”

“To speak in my presence of my husband’s infirmity, and of our childlessness, in such a callous way is discourteous,” I interrupted. But the count went on, as though I had not said a word.

“His brother Charles will succeed, which will mean that our queen dowager will be regent, which will no doubt inflame the Protestants—”

“I must ask you to guard your tongue, sir,” I said, aggravated at the count, “or leave the table.”

The count glanced at me dismissively, then went on.

“Adrien!” I called out, addressing the captain of the Scottish Archers. Almost before I had finished speaking his name he stood beside me. “This gentleman has had too much wine. Will you please escort him to his room?”

“I obey only the king’s orders,” the count snapped.

“And I the queen’s,” was the captain’s retort, and he took a menacing step toward the count.

Monsieur de Roncelet got to his feet. “If you will excuse me, Your Highness, I believe these matters can be left for discussion another day. Come along, Dampierre.”

For a moment I thought the count would challenge my authority again, but instead he threw down his linen napkin and turned to leave the room.

In an instant the Earl of Bothwell was on his feet, kicking his chair noisily aside.

“Monsieur le comte! You will ask the queen’s permission to withdraw, or you will answer to me!”

Slowly the count turned, bowed in my direction, and murmured, “With your permission, Your Highness.”

“You may go.”

The earl sat down again. “Now perhaps we may finish our meal in peace. And then, Your Highness, if I may, I would like to see the king.”