Royal Road to Fotheringhay - Plaidy Jean (хороший книги онлайн бесплатно .txt) 📗

“So Bothwell is killed,” said Mary blankly. She looked at Seton, pleading for help. I am lost. I care for nothing. I wish it were I who had died.

Seton said: “It is a great shock. Her Majesty has not been well of late. I think we should rest here for a while before continuing our journey.”

Seton escorted her to the chamber which had been prepared for her and lay down beside her on the bed, putting her arms about her; they did not weep; they lay close together while Seton stroked the Queens hair. At length the Queen said: “There is nothing to live for, Seton. I wish that I were dead.”

SHE DID NOT KNOW how she sat through the assize. She supposed she conducted herself with outward calm, for none seemed to realize the tumult within her. The strain was so great that at times she seemed near to fainting. The old gnawing pain was back in her side.

She was lenient as she always was with offenders. She wanted to help all those who suffered. And all the time she was thinking: I wish I were dead instead of him. How I wish it was I who died.

When the assize was over there came a messenger from Bothwell’s Castle of Hermitage. He was not dead, said the messenger, though so seriously wounded that death seemed inevitable. Then she was filled with hope. She would go to him at once. She would make him live. She tried to hide her joy; she said calmly: “He has received his hurt in my service, and I myself must see that all that can be done for his comfort shall be done.”

So she set out from Jedburgh to the Castle of Hermitage, and there she saw him. He was wounded in the thigh, the head and one of his hands; and so severe were these wounds that they would have killed an ordinary man. But he bore them with ease. He lay looking at her, and the old insolent look was in his eyes. They seemed to grin at her below the bandage.

“Thank God you are alive!” cried Mary.

Even as she spoke she fell fainting to the floor. The strain of the last few days had been too much for her. She had sat through the assizes believing her lover dead; she had not been allowed to show her grief because their union was not a regular one, and the need for secrecy had made her burden the harder to bear. And now that she saw him lying very badly wounded, yet still with more vitality than that of ordinary men, now that she knew she might not lose him, the tension snapped. In the days that followed she was as near death as he was.

SHE LAY AT Jedburgh in the house of Lady Fernyhirst whither she had been carried in a litter, and a terrible melancholy filled her.

I love him, she mused, but what am I to him? One of the thousands who have amused him for a while. I, who am a queen, am but a light woman to him.

She had a husband; he had a wife. What hope was there that they could ever marry? Marriage with him was what Mary desired beyond all things. Only that could comfort her and give her peace. She longed to end her adulterous association, but she could only end it by making it legal.

During those days at Jedburgh she believed she was dying. So did Moray. He began helping himself to some of the precious silver in Holyrood. For more than a week she lay close to death. Bothwell was brought to the same house, but although he had been severely wounded, owing to his amazing vitality, there was no doubt after the first days that he would live.

Mary lay in the room above his, thinking of him constantly while John Hume, her player on the lute, and James Heron, her player on the pipe tried to beguile her with sweet music. But the music no longer charmed; she could only think of Darnley and Jean Gordon who stood between her and her lover. She planned the new dress she would have when she rose from her bed; it should contain twenty ells of red silk, four ells of taffaty and three ells of finest black velvet; there should be twenty ells of royal Scotch plaid. But what was the use? Such delights could no longer hold her attention.

Darnley came to see her. He was sulky. He had been sending letters abroad. He had reminded Philip that Mary’s friends were Moray, Bothwell and Maitland, who were all Protestants. It was Moray who was doing much harm to the Catholic cause in Scotland. Philip would readily understand how different matters would be if Darnley were King and Mary had no power to harm the Church.

He did not care so much that she turned away from him. She would rarely speak to him. She had not wished him to come, she implied. Soon he rode away. There were other women in the world besides Mary; and his head was teeming with plans for his own greatness.

When Mary rose from her bed she went to visit Bothwell. He was unable to move, for the wound in his thigh had not yet healed.

“Ah,” he said, when he saw her, “so we both came to grief, eh?”

“I thought you were dead,” she answered quietly. “They told me so.”

“It would take more than John Elliot to finish me. I’ll be up and about as soon as my flesh heals.”

“And what of your head?” she asked. She lifted the bandage and looked at the head wound. She shivered. “My dearest… I cannot bear to think what might so easily have happened.”

He took her hand and kissed it. “I am out of action,” he said. “’Tis a pity.”

“You will soon be well. I shall nurse you myself.”

“Mayhap I should go to Jean for the nursing.”

Mary’s face flamed. “That shall not be. I shall nurse you.”

He grinned.

“Did you go to Crichton?” she demanded. “Did you see her?”

“I did.”

“And did you …?”

That made him laugh. “I declare I shall break open my wounds afresh if you say such things.”

“Did you? Did you?” she cried.

“My dear Queen, what do you think? I am her husband, am I not? It is long since I saw her.”

Mary’s eyes filled with tears of rage and jealousy.

“Sometimes I wonder how I can go on loving you.”

“You should not wonder. It is very clear why you do. Now you must not be jealous. She is my wife; you are my mistress. I am content that it should be so.”

“But I am not!”

“Alas, how can you change it? By breaking away from me, of course. You could do that.”

“You do not care.”

“You will see. As soon as I am on my feet we will meet again in the Exchequer House as we did on that first encounter.”

“You should not have gone to Crichton,” she insisted.

He only shrugged his shoulders.

“You have a greater regard for her than for me!” she went on. “Yet I hear that she has no great love for you. She wanted Alexander Ogilvie. She preferred him to you and yet… you go to see her!”

“I like her,” he said quietly. “I’m fond of her. There’s no one quite like Jeannie.”

“And there are many like the Queen!”

“No. There is only one Queen and only one Jeannie. I am fond of them both.”

“But I… can give you so much more than she can.”

“What?”

“My love… myself… my honor… my …” She put her arms about his neck. “Please … do not be so cynical. You must love me. How can you go to her… when you know my feelings?”

“She might ask, How can I go to you… and with more reason. What can she give more than you can, you ask. She could give me children.”

“Could I not?”

“Not legitimate ones. So you see, she can give more than you can. You are two women. You have two eyes, a nose, a mouth, two arms, two breasts …”

“Be silent!” cried Mary, tense with emotion. Then she added: “There is one thing I could give you which she never can. A crown.”

A flame leaped into his eyes, the only sign that she had touched his smoldering ambition. She knew—and he knew—that nothing would ever be quite the same between them again.

MARY SAT ALONE in her chamber. She, with her nobles about her, had left Jedburgh and was traveling by stages to Edinburgh. Bothwell, now well enough to travel, was with them. The wound in his thigh was healed, and that was all that he had been waiting for. His head was still bandaged, but he cared little for that if he could be on his feet again.