The Historical Nights' Entertainment by Rafael Sabatini (most important books to read .txt) 📖

the Countess of Argyll had snatched up

the candle-branch, and stood now holding it aloft to light that

extraordinary scene. Rizzio, to whom the sight of Morton had been

as the removal of his last illusion, flung himself upon his knees

before the Queen. Frail and feeble of body, and never a man of his

hands, he was hopelessly unequal to the occasion.

 

“Justice, madame!” he cried. “Faites justice! Sauvez ma vie!”

 

Fearlessly, she stepped between him and the advancing horde of

murderers, making of her body a buckler for his protection. White

of face, with heaving bosom and eyes like two glowing sapphires, she

confronted them.

 

“Back, on your lives!” she bade them.

 

But they were lost to all sense of reverence, even to all sense of

decency, in their blind rage against this foreign upstart who had

trampled their Scottish vanity in the dust. George Douglas, without

regard for her condition either as queen or woman - and a woman

almost upon the threshold of motherhood - clapped a pistol to her

breast and roughly bade her stand aside.

 

Undaunted, she looked at him with eyes that froze his trigger-finger,

whilst behind her Rizzio grovelled in his terror, clutching her

petticoat. Thus, until suddenly she was seized about the waist and

half dragged, half-lifted aside by Darnley, who at the same time

spurned Rizzio forward with his foot.

 

The murderers swooped down upon their prey. Kerr of Faudonside

flung a noose about his body, and drew it tight with a jerk that

pulled the secretary from his knees. Then he and Morton took the

rope between them, and so dragged their victim across the room

towards the door. He struggled blindly as he went, vainly

clutching first at an overset chair, then at a leg of the table,

and screeching piteously the while to the Queen to save him. And

Mary, trembling with passion, herself struggling in the arms of

Darnley, flung an angry warning after them.

 

“If Davie’s blood be spilt, it shall be dear blood to some of you!

Remember that, sirs!”

 

But they were beyond control by now, hounds unleashed upon the

quarry of their hate. Out of her presence Morton and Douglas

dragged him, the rest of the baying pack going after them. They

dragged him, screeching still, across the antechamber to the head

of the great stairs, and there they fell on him all together, and

so wildly that they wounded one another in their fury to rend him

into pieces. The tattered body, gushing blood from six-and-fifty

wounds, was hurled from top to bottom of the stairs, with a

gold-hilted dagger - Darnley’s, in token of his participation in

the deed - still sticking in his breast.

 

Ruthven stood forward from the group, his reeking poniard clutched

in his right hand, a grin distorting his ghastly, vulturine face.

Then he stalked back alone into the royal presence, dragging his

feet a little, like a man who is weary.

 

He found the room much as he had left it, save that the Queen had

sunk back to her seat on the settle, and Darnley was now standing

over her, whilst her people were still hemmed about by his own men.

Without a “by your leave,” he flung himself into a chair and called

hoarsely for a cup of wine.

 

Mary’s white face frowned at him across the room.

 

“You shall yet drink the wine that I shall pour you for this night’s

work, my lord, and for this insolence! Who gave you leave to sit

before me?”

 

He waved a hand as if to dismiss the matter. It may have seemed to

him frivolous to dwell upon such a trifle amid so much.

 

“It’s no’ frae lack o’ respect, Your Grace,” he growled, “but frae

lack o’ strength. I am ill, and I should ha’ been abed but for what

was here to do.”

 

“Ah!” She looked at him with cold repugnance. “What have you done

with Davie?”

 

He shrugged, yet his eyes quailed before her own.

 

“He’ll be out yonder,” he answered, grimly evasive; and he took the

wine one of his followers proffered him.

 

“Go see,” she bade the Countess.

 

And the Countess, setting the candle-branch upon the buffet, went

out, none attempting to hinder her.

 

Then, with narrowed eyes, the Queen watched Ruthven while he drank.

 

“It will be for the sake of Murray and his friends that you do this,”

she said slowly. “Tell me, my lord, what great kindness is there

between Murray and you that, to save him from forfeiture, you run

the risk of being forfeited with him?”

 

“What I have done,” he said, “I have done for others, and under a

bond that shall hold me scatheless.”

 

“Under a bond?” said she, and now she looked up at Darnley, standing

ever at her side. “And was the bond yours, my lord?”

 

“Mme?” He started back. “I know naught of it.”

 

But as he moved she saw something else. She leaned forward, pointing

to the empty sheath at his girdle.

 

“Where is your dagger, my lord?” she asked him sharply.

 

“My dagger? Ha! How should I know?”

 

“But I shall know!” she threatened, as if she were not virtually a

prisoner in the hands of these violent men who had invaded her

palace and dragged Rizzio from her side. “I shall not rest until

I know!”

 

The Countess came in, white to the lips, bearing in her eyes

something of the horror she had beheld.

 

“What is it?” Mary asked her, her voice suddenly hushed and

faltering.

 

“Madame-he is dead! Murdered!” she announced.

 

The Queen looked at her, her face of marble. Then her voice came

hushed and tense:

 

“Are - you sure?”

 

“Myself I saw his body, madame.”

 

There was a long pause. A low moan escaped the Queen, and her

lovely eyes were filled with tears; slowly these coursed down her

cheeks. Something compelling in her grief hushed every voice, and

the craven husband at her side shivered as her glance fell upon him

once more.

 

“And is it so?” she said at length, considering him. She dried her

eyes. “Then farewell tears; I must study revenge.” She rose as if

with labour, and standing, clung a moment to the table’s edge. A

moment she looked at Ruthven, who sat glooming there, dagger in one

hand and empty wine-cup in the other; then her glance passed on,

and came to rest balefully on Darnley’s face. “You have had your

will, my lord,” she said, “but consider well what I now say.

Consider and remember. I shall never rest until I give you as sore

a heart as I have presently.”

 

That said she staggered forward. The Countess hastened to her, and

leaning upon her arm, Mary passed through the little door of the

closet into her chamber.

 

That night the common bell was rung, and Edinburgh roused in alarm.

Bothwell, Huntly, Atholl, and others who were at Holyrood when

Rizzio was murdered, finding it impossible to go to the Queen’s

assistance, and fearing to share the secretary’s fate - for the

palace was a-swarm with the murderers’ men-at-arms - had escaped

by one of the windows. The alarm they spread in Edinburgh brought

the provost and townsmen in arms to the palace by torchlight,

demanding to see the Queen, and refusing to depart until Darnley

had shown himself and assured them that all was well with the Queen

and with himself. And what time Darnley gave them this reassurance

from a window of her room, Mary herself stood pale and taut amid

the brutal horde that on this alarm had violated the privacy of her

chamber, while the ruffianly Red Douglas flashed his dagger before

her eyes, swearing that if she made a sound they would cut her into

collops.

 

When at last they withdrew and left her to herself, they left her

no illusions as to her true condition. She was a prisoner in her

own palace. The ante-rooms and courts were thronged with the

soldiers of Morton and Ruthven, the palace itself was hemmed about,

and none might come or go save at the good pleasure of the murderers.

 

At last Darnley grasped the authority he had coveted. He dictated

forthwith a proclamation which was read next morning at Edinburgh

Market Cross - commanding that the nobles who had assembled in

Edinburgh to compose the Parliament that was to pass the Bill of

Attainder should quit the city within three hours, under pain of

treason and forfeiture.

 

And meanwhile, with poor Rizzio’s last cry of “justice!” still

ringing in her ears, Mary sat alone in her chamber, studying revenge

as she had promised. So that life be spared her, justice, she vowed,

should be done - punishment not only for that barbarous deed, but

for the very manner of the doing of it, for all the insult to which

she had been subjected, for the monstrous violence done her feelings

and her very person, for the present detention and peril of which

she was full conscious.

 

Her anger was the more intense because she never permitted it to

diffuse itself over the several offenders. Ruthven, who had

insulted her so grossly; Douglas, who had offered her personal

violence; the Laird of Faudonside, Morton, and all the others who

held her now a helpless prisoner, she hew for no more than the

instruments of Darnley. It was against Darnley that all her rage

was concentrated. She recalled in those bitter hours all that she

had suffered at his vile hands, and swore that at whatever cost to

herself he should yield a full atonement.

 

He sought her in the morning emboldened by the sovereign power he

was usurping confident that now that he showed himself master of

the situation she would not repine over what was done beyond recall,

but would submit to the inevitable, be reconciled with him, and

grant him, perforce - supported as he now was by the rebellious

lords - the crown matrimonial and the full kingly power he coveted.

 

But her reception of him broke that confidence into shards.

 

“You have done me such a Wrong,” she told him in a voice of cold

hatred, that neither the recollection of our early friendship, nor

all the hope you can give me of the future, could ever make me

forget it. Jamais! Jamais je n’oublierai!” she added, and upon

that she dismissed him so imperiously that he went at once.

 

She sought a way to deal with him, groped blindly for it, being as

yet but half informed of what was taking place; and whilst she

groped, the thing she sought was suddenly thrust into her land.

Mary Beaton, one of the few attendants left her, brought her word

later that day that the Earl of Murray, with Rothes and some other

of the exiled lords, was in the palace. The news brought revelation.

It flooded with light the tragic happening of the night before,

showed her how Darnley was building himself a party in the state.

It did more than that. She recalled the erstwhile mutual hatred

and mistrust of Murray and Darnley, and saw how it might serve her

in this emergency.

 

Instantly she summoned Murray to her presence with the message that

she welcomed his return. Yet, despite that message, he hardly

expected - considering what lay between them - the reception that

awaited him at her hands.

 

She rose to receive him, her lovely eyes suffused ,with tears. She

embraced him, kissed him, and then, nestling to him, as if for

comfort, her cheek against his bearded face, she allowed her tears

to flow unchecked.

 

“I