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

in

turn. Then her eyes returned to a contemplation of the flaming

logs, and she spoke very softly.

 

“Do nothing by which a spot might be laid on my honour or

conscience,” she said, with an odd deliberateness that seemed to

insist upon the strictly literal meaning of her words. “Rather I

pray you let the matter rest until God remedy it.”

 

Lethington looked at the other two, the other two looked at him.

He rubbed his hands softly.

 

“Trust to us, madame,” he answered. “We will so guide the matter

that Your Grace shall see nothing but what is good and approved

by Parliament.”

 

She committed herself to no reply, and so they were content to

take their answer from her silence. They went in quest of Huntly

and Sir James Balfour, and the five of them entered into a bond

for the destruction of him whom they named “the young fool and

proud tiranne,” to be engaged in when Mary should have pardoned

Morton and his fellow-conspirators.

 

It was not until Christmas Eve that she signed this pardon of some

seventy fugitives, proscribed for their participation in the Rizzio

murder, towards whom she had hitherto shown herself so implacable.

 

The world saw in this no more than a deed of clemency and charity

befitting the solemn festival of good-will. But the five who had

entered into that bond at Craigmillar Castle beheld in it more

accurately the fulfilment of her part of the suggested bargain,

the price she paid in advance to be rid of Darnley, the sign of

her full agreement that the knot which might not be unravelled

should be cut.

 

On that same day Her Grace went with Bothwell to Lord Drummond’s,

where they abode for the best part of a week, and thence they

went on together to Tullibardine, the rash and open intimacy

between them giving nourishment to scandal.

 

At the same time Darnley quitted Stirling, where he had lately been

living in miserable conditions, ignored by the nobles, and even

stinted in his necessary expenses, deprived of his ordinary servants,

and his silver replaced by pewter. The miserable youth reached

Glasgow deadly sick. He had been taken ill on the way, and the

inevitable rumour was spread that he had been poisoned. Later, when

it became known that his once lovely countenance was now blotched

and disfigured, it was realized that his illness was no more than

the inevitable result of the debauched life he led.

 

Conceiving himself on the point of death, Darnley wrote piteously

to the Queen; but she ignored his letters until she learnt that his

condition was improving, when at last (on January 29th) she went to

visit him at Glasgow. It may well be that she nourished some hope

that nature would resolve the matter for her, and remove the need

for such desperate measures as had been concerted. But seeing him

likely to recover, two things became necessary, to bring him to the

place that was suitable for the fulfilment of her designs, and to

simulate reconciliation with him, and even renewed and tender

affection, so that none might hereafter charge her with complicity

in what should follow.

 

I hope that in this I do her memory no injustice. It is thus that

I read the sequel, nor can I read it in any other way.

 

She found him abed, with a piece of taffeta over his face to hide

its disfigurement, and she was so moved - as it seemed - by his

condition, that she fell on her knees beside him, and wept in the

presence of her attendants and his own; confessing penitence if

anything she had done in the past could have contributed to their

estrangement. Thus reconciliation followed, and she used him

tenderly, grew solicitous concerning him, and vowed that as soon

as he could be moved, he must be taken to surroundings more

salubrious and more befitting the dignity of his station.

 

Gladly then he agreed to return with her to Holyrood.

 

“Not to Holyrood,” she said. “At least, not until your health is

mended, lest you should carry thither infection dangerous to your

little son.”

 

“Whither then?” he asked her, and when she mentioned Craigmillar,

he started up in bed, so that the taffeta slipped from his face,

and it was with difficulty that she dissembled the loathing with

which the sight of its pustules inspired her.

 

“Craigmillar!” he cried. “Then what I was told is true.”

 

“What were you told?” quoth she, staring at him, brows knit, her

face blank.

 

A rumour had filtered through to him of the Craigmillar bond. He

had been told that a letter drawn up there had been presented to

her for her signature, which she had refused. Thus much he told

her, adding that he could not believe that she would do him any

hurt; and yet why did she desire to bear him to Craigmillar?

 

“You have been told lies,” she answered him. “I saw no such letter;

I subscribed none, nor was ever asked to subscribe any,” which

indeed was literally true. “To this I swear. As for your going to

Craigmillar, you shall go whithersoever you please, yourself.”

 

He sank back on his pillows, and his trembling subsided.

 

“I believe thee, Mary. I believe thou’ld never do me any harm,” he

repeated, “and if any other would,” he added on a bombastic note,

“they shall buy it dear, unless they take me sleeping. But I’ll

never to Craigmillar.”

 

“I have said you shall go where you please,” she assured him again.

 

He considered.

 

“There is the house at Kirk o’ Field. It has a fine garden, and is

in a position that is deemed the healthiest about Edinburgh. I need

good air; good air and baths have been prescribed me to cleanse me

of this plague. Kirk o’ Field will serve, if it be your pleasure.”

 

She gave a ready consent, dispatched messengers ahead to prepare

the house, and to take from Holyrood certain furnishings that should

improve the interior, and render it as fitting as possible a

dwelling for a king.

 

Some days later they set out, his misgivings quieted by the

tenderness which she now showed him - particularly when witnesses

were at hand.

 

It was a tenderness that grew steadily during those twelve days in

which he lay in convalescence in the house at Kirk o’ Field; she

was playful and coquettish with him as a maid with her lover, so

that nothing was talked of but the completeness of this

reconciliation, and the hope that it would lead to a peace within

the realm that would be a benefit to all. Yet many there were who

marvelled at it, wondering whether the waywardness and caprice of

woman could account for so sudden a change from hatred to affection.

 

Darnley was lodged on the upper floor, in a room comfortably

furnished from the palace. It was hung with six pieces of tapestry,

and the floor was partly covered by an Eastern carpet. It contained,

besides the handsome bed - which once had belonged to the Queen’s

mother - a couple of high chairs in purple velvet, a little table

with a green velvet cover, and some cushions in red. By the side

of the bed stood the specially prepared bath that was part of the

cure which Darnley was undergoing. It had for its incongruous lid

a door that had been lifted from its hinges.

 

Immediately underneath was a room that had been prepared for the

Queen, with a little bed of yellow and green damask, and a furred

coverlet. The windows looked out upon the close, and the door

opened upon the passage leading to the garden.

 

Here the Queen slept on several of those nights of early February,

for indeed she was more often at Kirk o’ Field than at Holyrood,

and when she was not bearing Darnley company in his chamber, and

beguiling the tedium of his illness, she was to be seen walking in

the garden with Lady Reres, and from his bed he could hear her

sometimes singing as she sauntered there.

 

Never since the ephemeral season of their courtship had she been

on such fond terms with him, and all his fears of hostile designs

entertained against him by her immediate followers were stilled at

last. Yet not for long. Into his fool’s paradise came Lord Robert

of Holyrood, with a warning that flung him into a sweat of panic.

 

The conspirators had hired a few trusted assistants to help them

carry out their plans, and a rumour had got abroad - in the

unaccountable way of rumours - that there was danger to the King.

It was of this rumour that Lord Robert brought him word, telling

him bluntly that unless he escaped quickly from this place, he would

leave his life there. Yet when Darnley had repeated this to the

Queen, and the Queen indignantly had sent for Lord Robert and

demanded to know his meaning, his lordship denied that he had

uttered any such warning, protested that his words must have been

misunderstood - that they referred solely to the King’s condition,

which demanded, he thought, different treatment and healthier air.

 

Knowing not what to believe, Darnley’s uneasiness abode with him.

Yet, trusting Mary, and feeling secure so long as she was by his

side, he became more and more insistent upon her presence, more

and more fretful in her absence. It was to quiet him that she

consented to sleep as often as might be at Kirk o’ Field. She

slept there on the Wednesday of that week, and again on Friday,

and she was to have done so yet again on that fateful Sunday,

February 9th, but that her servant Sebastien - one who had

accompanied her from France, and for whom she had a deep affection

- was that day married, and Her Majesty had promised to be present

at the masque that night at Holyrood, in honour of his nuptials.

 

Nevertheless, she did not utterly neglect her husband on that

account. She rode to Kirk o’ Field early in the evening,

accompanied by Bothwell, Huntly, Argyll, and some others; and

leaving the lords at cards below to while away the time, she

repaired to Darnley, and sat beside his bed, soothing a spirit

oddly perturbed, as if with some premonition of what was brewing.

 

“Ye’ll not leave me the night,” he begged her once.

 

“Alas,” she said, “I must! Sebastien is being wed, and I have

promised to be present.”

 

He sighed and shifted uneasily.

 

“Soon I shall be well, and then these foolish humours will cease to

haunt me. But just now I cannot bear you from my sight. When you

are with me I am at peace. I know that all is well. But when you

go I am filled with fears, lying helpless here.”

 

“What should you fear?” she asked him.

 

“The hate that I know is alive against me.”

 

“You are casting shadows to affright yourself,” said she.

 

“What’s that?” he cried, half raising himself in sudden alarm.

“Listen!”

 

>From the room below came faintly a sound of footsteps, accompanied

by a noise as of something being trundled.

 

“It will be my servants in my room - putting it to rights.”

 

“To what purpose since you do not sleep there tonight?” he asked.

He raised his voice and called his page.

 

“Why, what will you do?” she asked him, steadying her own alarm.

 

He answered her by bidding the youth who had entered go see what

was doing in the room below. The lad departed, and had he done his

errand faithfully, he