Читать книгу Queen's Caprice - Bowen Marjorie - Страница 3

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"Love's limits are ample and great; and a spacious walk it hath, beset with Thorns." —Democritus Junior.

THE TALL MAN stood alone under the tattered, wintry tree. A mist wrapped the high-seated city between the palace in the east and the castle in the west. When he moistened his lips he could taste the salted vapours which came from the sea. On his frieze coat were drops of moisture, the linen round his neck was limp. His thoughts tormented him, like malignant fingers plucking at his heart. He had come to this desolate place to be away from the thriftless chatter of the Abbey.

But his perplexities crowded about him in the barren solitude. He stood so still that a hare limped through the circle of dim light which bounded him, and the creature's bulging eyes fixed him for a second. He was startled, and forgetting how long it was since he had been a priest, raised his hand to make the Holy Sign. As his fingers dropped to his side the hare limped away. There seemed a sigh in the thick vapours that began to be shot with darkness. Behind the castle, the unseen sun was declining, leaving him in gloom.

The thoughtful man moved slowly from under the tree. He was afraid of devilry, and his strong mind chafed at his fears. He longed to be free of all superstitions, yet he moved always warily, in terror of spells and the diabolical enchantments of the unknown world that pressed so close about the senses. As he went sullenly towards the Abbey, squares of coloured light showed the windows. He was irritated with himself because his problems were unsolved even by his intense meditation. He had endeavoured to understand himself, his ambition, his faith, his desires, his hopes, but he had failed, because unacknowledged lusts and treacheries stirred and, like devils, put themselves between him and his earnest thoughts.

One fact, splendid and hideous, stained the fabric of his fortunes. He was a King's bastard, and one of noble birth, even by the unwed mother's side. This irony was underlined because he knew himself possessed of royal qualities, and very capable of government.

As he entered the gardens, the outline of the Abbey appeared vaguely dark against the blurred light. The well-kept gardens with wattled beds, trellis work, summer-houses and gravel paths were neat and barren as a set-geometric design; the bare trees made a brittle tracery against the vanishing fleeces of the mist, that curdled as the upper wind from Leith drew them away.

The man paused; he was vexed by his own indecision. He wanted all that a violently changed world had to offer, but, so rapid was progress, so eager was his desire to be in the forefront of all that was new, that he scarcely knew what this was. He took off his hat impatiently and, twisted it in his hand, allowing the transient light to fall over his strong face, with the eyes slightly swollen from overwork, the pale, healthy complexion, the sullen lines round heavy jowl and mouth.

"To save her or to destroy her?"

He was startled by this thought, so powerful that it almost forced itself into words. But he faced it grimly with the courage that he always turned to an enemy.

"Destroy her?" He believed that he could do it; he had never found his own equal in craft, daring, coolness, mastery of men. "Destroy her while she is unwed, a flower without root or fruit—"

A sudden tenderness overwhelmed him at the touch of his own wistful simile. A tall, pale flower with fair petals spread—she was like that; he had always had an instinct to guard her, warring with an instinct to put her out of his way. Sometimes he was ashamed of this affection, which seemed too warm for a brother towards a sister. There had been moments when he had dwelt on old stories of times when kings had married their sisters. Then he had become alarmed and believed himself bewitched, outcast from salvation.

Was not this voluptuous, secret tenderness a reason for destroying her? For his soul's sake it would be better that this sweet, precious creature should be plucked, cast down, and left to wither.

Yet, to serve her was not so ill a task. She had allowed him a free hand, she had never tried to check his passionate avarice, his grim ambition, she had given him honours lavishly. And sometimes she had looked at him as if she too felt a warm, hidden tenderness for him that was different from sisterly trust or respect. With his problems unsolved and lying wearily on his mind, the man entered the dark building, where taper lights were fluttering in many heated, noisy chambers.

In the room where he did his business, the King's bastard son stood before the fire, deep in thought, but his inability to concentrate caused him to raise his hand and let it fall with vexation. As the door opened he turned, ready with a sharp rebuke for the intruder, but did not speak when he saw William Maitland enter. This was the only man in Scotland whom he considered his intellectual peer, but Moray was confident that he could best even Maitland if he wished.

Maitland smiled and came to the fire; he was very elegant and had the air of belonging exactly to his own time; all he did and said seemed fresh, tolerant, easy, free of the shackles of tradition, convention, or prejudice. His clothes were always in some whim of fashion that set them apart from the routine attire of other men, but never ostentatious nor fantastic. There was about him a fine essence of breeding, courtesy, accomplishment and exquisite mockery which the other man envied. Yet there was also a fickleness, a lightness and an inconstancy that the other man, anchored to stable ambitions and rigid principles, despised.

"A cold, wet night," said Maitland softly. "It is good to see even a small fire. Where have you been, Lord Moray? Wandering away from my corrupt counsel?"

"I have been taking my own. You know there is nothing but that, to see clearly for oneself and to act thereon."

"Do you see clearly?"

"No."

"I do. I could tell you your thoughts."

"I have never tried to conceal them from you," replied Moray dryly; yet he flattered himself that his closest secrets were hidden deep, even from this acute observer. A little smile of satisfaction touched his pale sensual mouth. "Come, what is it that you see so clearly?"

"That while we can serve the lady, we can never serve the lady's husband."

"You bring us, then, to a dead end. For the lady must be wed." Moray liked this plain, dangerous speaking; his slanting brown eyes turned eagerly to the smooth, inscrutable face of his companion who was leaning against the mantelpiece and gazing with a gentle expression into the flames.

"Must be wed," repeated Moray. "Come, we have no concealments, you and I, Maitland. Could we, by any subtlety, device or intricacy of argument, keep her without a husband? Come, you excel in such difficulties."

"Keep her without a husband, yes," smiled Maitland. "Keep her chaste, no. And will the godly, sir, endure a wanton, wilful Queen?"

"I would keep within the terms of honour." Moray could not resist the useless rebuke.

"Sometimes you speak like a boy. Was her father cold-blooded?" Maitland smiled. "If he had been you would never have seen the light. She is a warm, sweet creature. She is also set in authority. Can your policies keep her from lovers?"

Moray did not answer, he was angered at this turn of the clear, mocking talk.

"You are not nimble enough, I think, to defeat her always. I believe twice already it has been rumoured—John Gordon and Pierre de Chastelard, eh?"

"It was, through my care, hushed up, glossed over."

"The third time it may not be so easy."

"This is grievous, jarring talk. Upon my soul, I know not what to do. If we could find some careful fool whom I could manage—"

"You have had some proposed—Arran, who is an imbecile; Don Carlos, who is a lunatic; the Englishman, Dudley, whom I take to be a blockhead; this Lennox boy, a silly child."

"Maitland, all this gets us nowhere. Advise me, I take you to be the only man of free mind in Scotland. Help me if you can." Moray spoke with great energy, then, seeing the other's amused glance, he added sharply: "You know that no one can reward you better."

"The Queen might," smiled Maitland. "I love her myself, as much as any man might. Why should I not put her high and keep her there, as Cecil put and keeps Elizabeth?"

"Because I am in the way!" Moray's answering smile was sour. "And my sister is not that manner of woman."

"Sister!" repeated Maitland lightly. "There's the canker. You ought to marry her yourself—the two of you together, now—"

Moray felt a prick of loathing towards this man who understood him better than anyone else, but whom he had thought did not understand this one thing. He said, very slowly:

"With such a woman I could have ruled Scotland very well. I cannot rule with her and a husband—"

A light, malicious amusement ran, like light, over Maitland's elegant face.

"Choose her a husband who can rule without you, then. Cease to tame her, let her have her liberty—with another prince."

The King's son replied with a piercing sincerity: "There is no such man. No one could do it like I can. You know that I should be King."

Maitland conceded that bitter claim.

"Yes. But she is there. Now it is all very well. She endures your advice very prettily, she leans to you in everything, but when she takes a husband it will be quite different. You will be jealous. Not only for your lost power."

"Not only?" repeated Moray, irked by these words.

In a soft tone and looking sideways, Maitland said: "You were glad to see her two lovers—her would-be lovers then!—on the scaffold. So was I. But what we try to do is impossible. Some lascivious fool will come along and snatch her from both of us—my delicious Queen, your exquisite sister."

Moray's face flushed, to his own vexation, yet Malt-land's talk excited him and he would not stop it; he glanced at the window as if he feared spies.

"But," added Maitland, "no one, whatever his merit or his vice will keep her long. He who drinks in jewels one day, the next will use his hand."

"Ah!" cried Moray quickly. "There is your solution—I thought of that."

Maitland nodded.

"Let her marry—since you cannot prevent it. A Queen's husband is not to be envied. It will not be I nor you who will be troubled with his removal—his advancement will consume him."

Moray wiped his forehead; the fire was really very hot, the small room stuffy; he thought of the hare with staring eyes, he thought of a cursing witch burning in flames. He longed for relief from the tension; he turned his urgent face to Maitland, who remained cool and unaltered.

"If there should be a child, you could rule through that and outbrave them all. Steward and lord in one." Moray made an instinctive movement of repugnance.

"If I took one husband from her she would find another, by reason of her graces and her faults." Moray seemed to sink within himself, to utter these words without his own volition.

"If she is not very careful she will not be able to save herself from scandal," whispered Maitland, almost on a sigh.

"Would you not be sorry?" he demanded harshly. "Yes, but I should not be able to help her."

The King's bastard clutched the arms of his chair, his chin sank on his breast.

"Do you think that anyone can help her?"

"No."

"Not if she married—someone who, beyond sensuality, loved her?"

"No one," whispered Maitland, "will ever love her like that. Besides, you would always be there."

"Yes," admitted Moray, as if answering an accusation.

"You cannot give way. You ought to be King." Maitland shrugged, spread his hands in an Italianate gesture. "No one will be able to forget that. Why do you concern yourself so about her husband? Whoever he is, you'll be able to manage him. You've the people, the Church, you've skill, argument, God behind you. She is an alien, an idolatress. Everyone suspects her, no one likes her very much. She is not really clever, one might say that she knows nothing. Nothing but tricks."

Moray looked up; there was appeal in the long eyes between the swollen lids.

"I want to save her. I feel, sorry. You understand? I would like to see her safe. Just because she is so helpless—with her tricks."

"You cannot do it!" Maitland's smile was unexpectedly bitter; in the leaping light his face looked worn, puffy and yellow. "Everything is stupid, empty and filthy. We know that. What spoils or trophies can we handle that are not smirched with rottenness?"

"There is God," groaned Moray obstinately.

"Yes, that is curious." Maitland's thin brows went up. "God. But you want power, money. You want to rule this rock with its half-million people, most of whom are low enough, and the girl is in your way. What has God to do with your uncertainties?"

"I believe—" began Moray, as if he recited a creed.

"Oh, yes, in John Calvin. So does she in her idols and her priests and the Bishop of Rome. What does it matter?"

"I am doing it for the benefit of Scotland." Moray's tone was firmer. "I know what the people want—they may be bloody and bestial, false and lustful, but there has been a light set among them—the Holy Gospel, I think of that."

He stood up, and even in his plain dress, with the crumpled collar that might have been that of a humble official, he seemed to have the aspect of a prince. There was a definite quality emanating from his ancient blood that Maitland much admired, an air of tormented greatness that Moray usually kept repressed.

"You are right—a sharp, cold rock with poor savages," he said thickly. He saw a visionary landscape, an island, broken into rugged shapes over which the elements warred, distant hostile mountains, lakes of blackish water, the master city between the impregnable castle and the palace, with open fields about and armed towers surrounding it; in the north other cities, gloomy, melancholy, full of men eager with a restless purpose. Over this a foreign girl ruled; with indifferent grace she played with brilliant toys. He flushed when he considered her and his mind swayed to thoughts of witchcraft again, and to the wizened face of the hare peering, with lifted upper lip, through the drizzle of the mist. His vision toppled, he stared into the clear flames on the hearth. What a large fire they had built up! He winced away, thinking of the burning of sorcerers, but he stared, greedily, like a glutton, at his future fortunes. He wanted Scotland, all of it; there was no one who had a right to dispute it with him, none. There was only Maitland, clever, courteous, slippery, useful, who did not quite believe in God, who did not care much for reward, but who would work very willingly for love of the game, if it were difficult enough. The others were brutes, bloody, filthy, or blockheads, dolts, unable to control themselves, shameless, violent men. But he could master all of them. God might help him to do so. He, bred a Papist priest, had turned from the abominable darkness of that Roman error and received the truth. Had ambition helped there? The absolute need to be on the winning side urged him? He would not think so. Nor would he remember that he was gorged with Church lands; he turned cunningly from any possible censure on himself. He glanced up sharply to see Maitland gazing Maitland gazing at him, with curiosity and a gentle compassion. This gaze inflamed Moray, but his anger flared away; he smiled uneasily.

"It is all ridiculous and trivial," said Maitland pleasantly, "but as there is little else to do, we may as well continue—the unrest is past cure, but we may allay the itch."

"We have decided on nothing."

"It is useless for us to decide. You cannot always control her. Nor for much longer. Does she even like you?" mused Maitland softly. "I wonder."

"She has no power," said Moray, as if excusing himself. "She never could have."

"Except to make mischief," added the other, "except to destroy herself." His smooth face twitched in slight nervousness. Sometimes he was afraid of the future he was making for himself. He was a man of peace, who loved comfort and ease, yet everything he meddled in turned to war and violence, blood and storm. But he could not withdraw from all the tumult and live in the country, writing verses as his father did so contentedly. He must interfere with the greatest affairs he knew of, he must fawn on the King's bastard because there was not his peer in Scotland. He must want to serve the Queen merely because everyone wanted to be near her, to stare at her, to scheme and intrigue, to make use of her youth and silliness and amorous temper, he must a little love the Queen, content to be her drudge, because she was so high and not for him.

"The century is not worthy of us," he smiled gravely.

He crossed to the window and looked out into the dusk. A low, thin moon that seemed decayed hung over the bare trees and gave a reluctant light. He thought of the Queen—she was never long out of his mind. He understood this complex creature who was a mystery to some and whom others did not trouble to study. He knew all her faults and did not blame them. If he had been in her half-brother's place he could have managed her better. Moray was a zealot, or pretended to be, and seldom laughed—his humour was bleak and acid. But he, Sir William Maitland of Lethington, would have known how to deal with that brittle, brilliant woman with her warm blood and shallow mind—if he had been a prince.

Moray had another weakness that surprised Maitland—his dreadful fear of sorcery. Sometimes he thought that the Queen, whom Maitland could read so well as a woman of the earth, was an enchantress or one who dealt in spells. Maitland smiled at this, but secretly, for he was perhaps the only man in Scotland to despise such superstitions.

"Why do you stare out at the moon?" asked Moray harshly. Maitland knew that he thought of Hecate and her terrors of the dark, and so asked:

"Do you take me for a wizard?"

"There are such, close about us," complained Moray, "more than I care to name. The thought of them is like the fear of the plague to me."

"I am not infected." Maitland left the window. "You know that she met Lennox's son at Wemyss?"

"What has she said about him?"

"Nothing. Where she is touched deep, she is dumb."

"I shall make her speak."

Moray walked through the narrow passages and long low rooms, the cramped ante-chambers and twisting staircases of the Abbey of Holy Cross, named sometimes Holy Rood, which was a palace, a ruined church, and a royal burial ground set in pleasure gardens and a park full of hunting coverts. All the windows that he passed were shrouded by curtains of stiff leather. Lamps and candles were plentiful so that, save for the biting air, it might have been summer.

When he reached the Queen's apartments he found that she was in bed, not for any sickness, but merely resting.

She was sunk in a huge bed filled with silk mattresses and down pillows. The elaborate bed furniture was a shot of red and yellow, with the rugged lion and border of little enclosed in a diamond shape. The Queen wore a little ermine cape and the coverlets were turned down to her waist.

When she saw her half-brother she sat up and gave him her hand. The atmosphere was drowsy, the candlelight left the room in shadow; on a cushion in front of the deep-set fire sat Mary Seaton, stringing perfumed beads into a bracelet. Her face was pure, with a remote expression, like that of a nun. Moray took the chair of watered silk by the bed; he knew that his harsh attire, his heavy frame, his weary face were out of place in this enervating chamber.

The Queen looked at him in a modest silence. Her glance seemed to entreat, almost to fawn. Under the ermine mantle that fell open because of its weight, her bosom and shoulders, white as a privet bud, showed beneath a gauze shift. Her hair, the hue of a crimson lily when it fades from splendour in autumn, was dark and crimped behind a golden caul.

With a flattering humility she touched her half-brother's strong hand where it rested on the arm of the chair and asked him if he were angry with her.

They always spoke in French for she knew little Scots or English; her voice was sweetly tuned and Moray could never hear it unmoved.

"We have too much idle talk," he said stiffly.

"I always do as you bid me," she smiled.

He nodded grimly. He did all the intricate, thankless business of her half-barbarous kingdom, spent himself in schemes and toils on her behalf. She would come to the Council chamber with her length of shimmering embroidery, so docile, so clever, with her wise little remarks, her shrewd comments, with so much majesty in her glance and gesture. But afterwards she would hasten to her sport and her pleasure, forget it all, fall into idleness or feverish activity as suited her mood, and leave all to him.

"For the matter of your marriage—"

"Marriage! How I weary at the word!"

"I know. It is true that there seems no one—"

"Do not talk to me of policies, sweet James! I have been biddable, I have no faults concealed."

"Ah, madame!" He looked at her sideways, resenting, admitting her costly rarity as she lay there dewy fresh and warm as a pearl in a summer sea. She was twenty-two years old, gentle and fiery, soft and reckless, full of wiles and little lies. Her features were straight, with a high forehead, a pouting upper lip, a rounded chin and a complexion of flawless purity. Her brows were faint arcs of gold dust, her eyes were marigold brown, but, in the iris, flecked with dusky purple, like a pansy where the petals spring from the heart.

She had been over four years a widow. Moray recalled with disgust and compassion the swarthy boy rotten with disease who had been her husband. She was twice a Queen; on the azure velvet of her headboard the curved silver of the French lilies and the devices of the Valois showed between the harsh colours of Scotland.

"What did you think of Henry Stewart?" asked Moray directly.

"He is a tall, proper youth."

"I mean his temper and his ambitions."

"What do I know? We played at billiards and he won a crystal from me."

"If he were a man," said Moray, "rather than a silly boy, he might well be your choice."

"Because that would silence the Lennox claims?"

"Yes."

"Then none shall blame me if I make this match?"

Her firm lips, softly painted, parted in a smile.

"No!" cried Moray sternly. "I do not trust him nor his father, nor any of that faction. I would as soon that you took the English blockhead."

"Elizabeth Tudor's lover?"

"We do not know."

"We can guess. Dudley does not like me. I do not tempt him; he will not cross the border to look at me. Oh, Jesu! How long am I to be marketed? If Henry Stewart should woo me, may I not yield?"

She moved towards Moray, turning in the bed, and touching his hand again. She was like a gilded flower. He felt dizzy from the heated air, from the perfumes of her body that he could see beneath the ermine, from the melting glances of her humble eyes. She drew a lazy breath.

"May no man have me?" she sighed, "Why should I be so set aside?"

"Madame, one sells common things easily, one barters long over a pearl, a star, a peerless gem."

"Too long, sweet James, and your pearl dissolves in tears, your star is hid in mist, your gem is flawed."

She looked at him so shrewdly that he remembered two dead men and wondered what truth had been twice stifled in blood. The handsome young Frenchman, how familiar she had been with him, leaning on his breast in the dance, plucking at the lute he held on his knees, toying with his curls, like an idle flirt, yet when she had found the wretch hidden in her privy chamber she had called on him, Moray, and in a womanly passion, bid him strike the intruder to the heart.

"Tell me of Henry Stewart," he said, to change his thoughts. "I must know. Is he a young, gay person, loud, expensive, giddy?"

"He can play tennis excellently, he is quick. He puts all his revenue on his back, he sings in a voice you'd not expect, so soft and strong, he likes hot wines and spiced foods. He talks English and puzzles over Scots, he knows no French and his fingers are clever with the lute."

"He is no husband for a Queen."

"Find me, then, another."

"Madame, you do not mean that you will accept this boy?"

"Did I say I would? Or only that he had a fair face? Or did I say that? It is true, he is fair, like Adonis in a painting."

"I shall see him, and judge him."

"And must I abide by your judgment?"

She sat upright in the bed, the pillows to her waist, behind her shoulders the celestial blue and moonlit silver of France; the man watching her felt as if nets were being spread for him by a deft young sorceress. He fixed his mind on the God of John Calvin and John Knox; he thought of the loathsome obscurity of death, of the brevity of earthly brightness, of the rough country that he longed to possess and thus he stilled his attraction to this gay, alluring woman of his own passionate blood, with the idle heart and empty arms.

The Lennox boy was as honourable, as convenient a match as any he could contrive for her, if the groom could be taught his place; yet the thought of her, bloomy and fragrant, in that same bed, in the hot youth's embrace made him quiver with nausea. He forced himself to say:

"If he was not an idle youth, if he could learn to be wise and quiet—"

The Queen laughed; with a languid movement of her arms she slipped out of the ermine, showing her smooth, curved shoulders, her full, firm bosom. In the hollow of her breasts was a ring of blood-coloured stones slung on a chain as fine as human hair. Moray wondered sullenly who had put it there. He had suspected her and John Gordon, but she had ridden northwards, beside him, Moray, to put down the Huntly and his brood. He had made her stand at the window in Inverness and see John Gordon die. He had not been able to guess her feelings, though he had watched her very carefully. She had stood erect with her smile of fatal sweetness, a little curious frown between her faint brows. When the strong fine man had knelt before the block she had peered forward. The executioner had bungled, there had been a sickening scene of butchery. She had said nothing, but she had fallen down at Moray's feet, so suddenly that he had hardly time to catch at her brocade skirts. He recalled the sense of satisfaction, of release, with which he had held her in his arms, how her little white teeth had glistened between the dry lips and how the faint veins, like the fine traceries of a flower, had shown in her throat.

Afterwards she had been silent about the Gordons; even when the body of the old Cock o' the North had been set up in his coffin to be judged, she had made no protest. Did she blame her brother for his cruelty, did she know what had inspired it?

Then, with Pierre de Chastelard he had been quite sure of her wantonness and had fretted in dumb torment, but she herself had bidden him take the insolent youth and kill him instantly. Then he was ashamed of the delight he had felt at this proof of her outraged innocence. Now he sighed, much doubting her integrity.

"Harry Stewart is coming to Edinburgh," smiled the Queen with exquisite malice, "and you shall judge him."

Moray rose and took his leave with embarrassment. There was nothing more to be said and he wished he had not come.

As he turned to her, she leapt to her knees in the soft bed and threw her arms round his neck, kissing him slowly on his cold cheeks.

"Kind brother," she whispered in the voice of a lover, "sweet James! Who else have I? You shall guide me, you and you only."

Moray did not return her kisses, her caresses. He told himself that she was not only sullied, but depraved. Yet, when he had thrust her from him and she lay, rebuffed and drooping on the pillows, he believed in her guileless, simple honesty.

The Queen listened to the door closing on her half-brother. She laughed.

"Is he not a proper gentleman? If he had been my cousin instead of my brother, I would have solved everything by marrying him."

Mary Seaton spilled her beads into her lap and yawned.

"Madame, I think him black, dull, and tedious."

"Valiant, though, Mary. A bold, strong fellow. I like these men who must rule. Sometimes he hates me because he is misbegotten. He wants to be King, and yet he loves me, too."

"I think so, madame. I hope so, seeing what power he has."

"I like to play with him. A priest become a Puritan, is not that curious? A lost heretic, my poor James, damned for other secret sins as well, do you not think so?"

"How can I tell, madame?"

"I swear there is no ice in his veins. The King, his father, was no dullard. James is so strict and godly, so precise and sober, do you not think he gluts himself in secret?"

"Ah, well! I've heard no tales."

"He would be careful. A threadbare prudence, like his coat." She flung back the coverlet and sat on the edge of the mattress, her feet on the bedstep. "How he will hate Harry Stewart." She took off her caul and the harsh, stiff, crimped hair hung loose to her waist. "Is there dancing to-night?"

"If you wish, madame?"

"No. But let them play some music in the next chamber, so that we can hear it. I ought to think, but I never can, when I try I dream of love and fall asleep. Did you see how I probed his mind and did not let him know my own?"

"He'll know it soon enough, madame, too soon for comfort—when Lord Darnley comes to Holyrood."

"To-morrow, Mary, to-morrow. Tell me what you thought of him."

"Again?"

"Yes, again, I want to talk about him!" The Queen rose and stood on the silk rug before the fire; the glow of the flames shone through the gauze shift, outlining her white body. "There was never another like him, never."

She put her restless hands on Mary Seaton's smooth, bright hair.

"I am as tall as my father they say, but he can lift me, easily."

"Did he try?"

"Into the saddle, yes. Come, you are so slow, if you were me, would you not take him?"

"Oh, madame, I wonder!" The girl lifted earnest eyes.

"Being a Queen, one would not want to please oneself only—"

"Why not? One will never please any other." Her exquisite face dimpled. "James would like an image of ice to sit at the board and sign his papers. Perhaps I have been too fashioned to his liking, too pliant, eh?"

"I only thought—" Mary Seaton rose, "if Lord Darnley was not worth—"

The Queen stopped her.

"Oh, his worth! Would you not like the man to embrace you? Would you not like to see him agonized with love?"

The two French girls held the gilt-lipped vases of milk and slowly poured them into the alabaster bath. The white fluid flowed round the breasts of the Queen as she sang to herself quietly. From her rounded mouth the melody rose like a trickle of silver.

She sang a poem by Pierre Ronsard, who admired her so much, who had praised her so extravagantly. It was about a lovely girl who had died young; on her grave were tossed a basket of roses and a vase of milk.

The Queen wished she had rose-petals to strew in her bath. In France one could get them, early and late in the year, grown under glass, but here it was so cold, the summer so short, the flowers so few. Even the milk was difficult to obtain; milch cows had to be kept specially and the Puritans were insolent even about a trifle like that.

The French girls poured in more milk; it rose to the Queen's chin; she stirred her limbs in the full bath. The room was very warm. Mary Seaton threw perfumes on the fire so that the air was thick and close. The Queen felt drowsy and rather sad. Already her life seemed to have been unfortunate. When she was a little child she had dwelt in a castle on a lake to be away from rebels and enemies. She thought that she could remember it, grey, cold, with low clouds flying round the standard on the tower.

When she thought of France she sighed. She had had to work so hard at her lessons and behave so straightly under the eye of her stern grandmother, who always dressed in green serge and kept her coffin where she had to pass it on her way to chapel. But there had been something grand and splendid about her French life, and when she became older she had enjoyed much more freedom. She had liked her uncles, the soldier and the priest, they had understood her and taught her so much. She recalled how the Cardinal would lift up her hair and kiss the nape of her neck and sigh a little. It had been gorgeous to be Queen of France, a bright and vital position. When Mary Tudor died she had been Queen of England too; she had had much satisfaction in quartering the Leopards. How could Elizabeth, who was a bastard and a heretic, be Queen? But the English people had chosen her and it had been necessary to give way.

Not perhaps to give way for ever. Her uncles had told her to flatter Elizabeth and win her rights by guile, even to sanction the persecution of the Romanists for a while.

She stirred in the warm milk. The French girls, who wore white aprons and had their sleeves rolled to the elbows, were preparing another bath of clear water.

The Queen smiled, thinking how clever and docile she had been. She had allowed her half-brother and his friend, Maitland, to do everything, though she believed they had both been traitors once and might be again. On every disputed point she had given way. Mass was heard nowhere in Scotland save in her own Chapel of Holy-rood, where even the Church had been desecrated and ruined. But some day, surely the Pope, or the King of Spain, or her little brother-in-law of France would help her to crush the heretics, not only in Scotland but in England, where she was also rightful Sovereign.

She closed her eyes, the milk lapping at her ears. If she were married to a strong, valiant prince, one who would defy Moray, she might do this. She loved the thought of a master, one who would take her, body, soul, affairs, and rule. Was Henry Stewart such a one? He was the handsomest creature she had ever seen. She smiled secretly, thinking of his blushes, his shy air touched with sullenness. What did he know of love? He was so young, his haughty mother had kept him so close—perhaps he knew nothing. How Moray would hate him! He detested the idea of her having a lover.

She thought of her young husband with pity and abhorrence. That had been a travesty of marriage, a mockery of passion. How he had slavered and moaned tor her kindness! Sometimes he burnt with fever, sometimes he was cold, soaked with sweat, always there were foul exhalations from his body, and he coughed and strangled, and sores came out on his joints.

He was the King and she had had to lie down beside him and hold him while he tried to sleep. Sometimes in the dark he would whisper, begging her to pray that he might die.

For the last months of his life he had been quite imbecile, staring, with his finger in his mouth, and shaking his head for the pain of his diseased ear.

The Queen's thoughts turned again to Henry Stewart. How different marriage would be with him! She felt brushed by light when she thought of him. With a carefree movement she rose and stepped out of the bath, the drops of milk like pearls on her nude body.

The French girls were chattering with Mary Seaton, giggling over love, clothes, and satanism. Mary Seaton was pious, but sometimes she liked to hear of these things. How could one live in the Court and not know of these smooth seducements and tempting sorceries? These amorous tales that made all the prudes secretly malcontent?

The Queen entered the bath of pure, greenish water that became delicately clouded by the drops of milk from her body.

"He was seen setting spells in the tennis court," laughed Renée.

"Who?" asked the Queen. "And in the tennis court! So public a place?"

"It was at dusk, madame, and lonely, being the winter, you understand. Another saw his familiar—a great ape, as I live—"

"Who is this?" asked the Queen. She moved languidly in the bath, watching her white limbs, slightly distorted under the water; nearly everyone was accused of sorcery. Some said that John Knox was a wizard. Lord Ruthven knew about black arts; he had given her a protective amulet, half ashamed of his own beliefs.

The French girls would not reply; they laughed together, fingering the jars of cream, the pots of unguents, the combs and tweezers needed for the adornment of their mistress.

"You're fooling me," said the Queen pleasantly.

"Madame," said Mary Seaton, "they speak of Earl Bothwell."

The Queen was silenced, but her narrowed eyes eyes shone with interest. The man had an infamous reputation, he was disgraced, outlawed for plots and brawls. He had broken prison and gone to France. People still talked of him with dread and fear.

Encouraged by the silence of their mistress the girls continued their gossip.

"He has three wives and one is a witch. He can raise the wind."

"What makes you talk about him?" asked the Queen keenly.

"Idleness," said Mary Seaton. "They must chatter about ghosts and devils and demon lovers, so the talk turned on to Lord Bothwell."

"Is he a demon?" demanded the Queen.

"Oh, madame! But you know what is said of him!"

"Do I? Not all, I suppose. He was my mother's faithful servant, I cannot hate him."

She lay in her bath musing on this man whose image had been suddenly evoked. Moray loathed him, Moray had enclosed him in the Castle because of some lunatic talk on the part of Arran, who was imbecile. But she, the Queen, had contrived his escape. If Moray had known that, he would have said some terrible things. Being a woman and so hemmed in, she had to use guile and sometimes it was successful.

How the girls loved to talk about Bothwell and his vices, his black arts, his courage, his strength, his treacheries in love! How the men detested him, except his own kin, and men like Huntly, who were ruined and desperate!

The Queen splashed in the bath.

Bothwell was the superior of all of them. Until Henry Stewart came to Scotland there was not his peer in the country. He had been bred a Frenchman and was so elegant and accomplished, so gay and courteous, he made his fellow Scots appear like boors, filthy boors some of them, the Red Douglas, Morton, for instance—she could never think of him without nausea.

She listened, as she moved idly under the water, to the girls gossiping over Bothwell's mistresses, all the creatures whom he had ruined, trampling simplicity, trust and gaiety into the dirt, like a swine, for all his beauty. The Queen laughed in her throat. She knew that all these deserted women had offered themselves to the man with the infamous reputation, pleading to be taken.

She rose out of the bath and stood while the girls dried her with fine linen. She compared in her mind these three men, Moray, Bothwell, Darnley. There was something to admire in all of them. She glanced at the blood-red ring that hung between her breasts. She remembered how her half-brother had looked at it when he sat by her bed, and she laughed with a joyous sense of power.

The festival to welcome Lord Lennox and his son to Holyrood had been devised by the Queen herself. She was very adroit in elegant entertainments which she had learnt at the Louvre in Paris, at Chenonceaux, the château on the water, and Saint Germain-en-Laye. She liked something surprising, odd, fantastic. The Feast of the Bean that she had held the other day, that had been delightful. Mary Livingstone had found the Bean in her slice of the cake, and she had been chosen Queen of the Feast.

Her mistress had lent her a superb white and blue gown covered with silver pailettes that she had worn as Queen of France, and many of the Valois jewels that she had brought from Paris. That was a pretty, dainty fancy. It had been delicious to stand aside and see this mock queen receive homage. To-night there was to be some new-fangled fancies, a masque of Russians, a masque of monsters, and, perhaps, Mary Fleming as queen. She was going to marry William Maitland, who was much too old for her, and who was really a little in love with the true Queen. She liked him, he was so fine, so adroit, so unscrupulous, so open-minded; he despised rough, coarse Calvinists like Lindsay or Ruthven, he even a little despised Moray.

The Queen was dressed. She wore a black velvet jacket with a pinched waist that was unbuttoned on a shirt of cut needlework, breeches with silver tags and laces, and black hose. Her crimped hair was tied with a gold ribbon in long tresses above one ear, and on the other side of the head the hair was gathered under a flat cap on which was a tiny circlet of pearls, a jest of a royal crown.

Her face was exquisitely painted, crimson on the pouting lips, gold dust on the shaven brows. This disguise of an insolent boy, a pert manikin, a court monkey, made her appear seductively, dangerously feminine.

It was Mary Livingstone, a little uneasy, who was dressed like a queen and forced to hold a mock court in the centre of the long gallery at Holyrood. This left the Queen quite free to follow her whim. She stood apart with Mary Seaton and the French girls. A great many people were there, even those who most disliked festivals, even those grim Lords of the Congregation whom she took to be no better than rebels. Clumsy and rough, they stood aside in groups, condemning, wondering, hostile, and rude. They were not bred for palaces nor even for cities. They were at home in their own castles, stern moated holds, or riding the heather with a bag of porridge and a plate slung on their saddles for their day's rations. Some of them could bring a thousand men into the field if there was a foray or a raid or a rebellion. The Queen was first amused at them, then annoyed at the poor show they made.

Henry Stewart came from England where he had been at the Court of Elizabeth; no doubt Windsor, Richmond, and Greenwich were far more splendid than Holyrood The Queen did not want her estate despised by Henry. Stewart; she wished she could have received him in the Louvre or at Fontainebleau. She was vexed that she was no longer Queen of France; she had fitted so exactly into that setting, like a cut and polished jewel into the circle of a ring. She was glad that Earl Bothwell had seen her in Paris in her sophisticated magnificence.

Moray saw her and frowned at her disguise; it was just these tricks that made the preachers thunder against her wantonness. He whispered to Maitland, who shrugged, amused. He thought that the Queen's coquetry was delicious.

"It is a charming symbol of royalty," he said, "as pretty as a carkanet or a sceptre, a chain or a globe."

Moray did not reply; the lightness of Maitland often jarred on him; the man always edged away from definite action, definite speeches.

The angered Lords, who felt humiliated by their own uncouthness, gathered round Moray, though he did not encourage them. They admired him for his intelligence, his clean living, his disdain of violence, his godliness. He kept himself aloof from them though he was aware of all they did. He smiled at Lindsay and Argyll who were his sisters' husbands, he spoke to Ruthven and Cassilis, he was friendly with Erskine and Atholl, men far more moderate and intelligent than the others, but he disclosed his mind to none.

Lennox and his son were late. This caused great dissatisfaction that swelled into angry talk under cover of the masque of the Muscovites.

This dance of men in skins, with white masks, shaking bells, and moving in and out of one another in mazy patterns seemed absurd and childish to the Scots Lords. Nor could they understand the French jests uttered by the dancers, at which the Queen's household laughed so shrilly.

They discussed the recall of Lennox in whose honour this feast was given; comments, opinion, maledictions leaped in and out of dark conjecture and surmise.

Lennox was of royal descent, so was his wife, Margaret. He had played the traitor and fought with the English on the Borders, because his rival, the head of the Hamiltons, had been chosen Regent for the young Queen. For twenty years he had been banished, his estates confiscated, his sons had been bred as Englishmen—now he was suddenly recalled and restored to his honours. Why? Because he was a Roman Catholic? Because of some subtle policy on the part of tricky Elizabeth and her Cecil?

The Hamiltons were furious; not one of them was there. The chief of them, the Duke of Châtelherault, who had been the Regent, pretended to be sick. His son, Arran, had aspired to marry one of the Queens. He was now a lunatic and shut up.

What did Lennox hope to do? The Lords thought of him with fury; he would not find a friend, no, not one, except the Lennox Stewarts on his own lands at Glasgow.

There had been some talk of the elder Lennox boy marrying the Queen. Did anyone think that the Lords would endure that? Those who had seen him at Wemyss Castle said he looked like a girl; he was quite beardless and smooth and everything he said was silly and insolent. Could the Queen fancy such a one?

Under the shield of the Muscovites' bells and the scrape of the violins and the giddy laughter of the French at the indecent jokes of the masquers, Patrick, Lord Ruthven, muttered the name of Chastelard—was not he also lady-faced, a weedy nothing, fond of lute strumming and sickly verses? How could one tell where the caprice of a woman would lead her?

So the Lords, with no regard for civility or good company muttered and complained, uneasy, hostile, while the masquers ran about the smooth floor of the gallery shaking their branches of bells, bouncing up and down in their furs.

Moray sought out the Queen where she sat in her fantastic disguise under the musicians' gallery. She looked pensive and he thought this a good moment to give her some honest advice.

"No one is pleased about the return of Lennox," he said.

"No one is pleased with anything that I do."

"Have you done this? Didn't the English Queen send him?"

"Why should she?" the Queen shrugged away. "Is it to her advantage that I should marry the heir to Scotland?"

"She knows the boy. She can, perhaps, guess at you—since you are both in her way. Maybe she would be pleased if you destroyed each other."

The Queen seemed startled; the smooth face under the page's cap frowned.

"How could we—destroy each other?"

Moray sighed. He was a gloomy figure in his rubbed velvet, his sole jewel the Order of the Thistle on his broad breast.

"Scotland," he said, "would not endure this marriage—there is not a man would hail Henry Stewart as King." He seated himself stiffly on the stool beside her. How small, how ridiculous the tall woman, who could be so majestic, looked in the page's dress!

It seemed absurd that she was his Queen—his sister. He began to plead with her, warmly, awkwardly, dropping all titles of respect. His thick eyebrows twitched over his intense dark eyes, his sulky, sensual mouth was dry.

The Queen listened, lolling on her cushion.

"Do not do it, Mary. Lennox is a weak, rascally adventurer; to set him up will offend everyone. The boy is untamed, a downright fool, some say. A Papist, too. You know how badly that will go down. Do not marry him."

"Whom am I to marry, then?" She looked down the spacious gallery where the candles shone above the masquers and the grumbling Lords. Her voice was humble, her attitude meek. Moray stared at the crimped tresses tied under the jaunty cap.

"Wait. I will find you a husband. A man, one capable of ruling Scotland."

"You can do that for me, James—rule Scotland."

"But not for Henry Stewart."

She glanced sharply over her shoulder at him; she seemed pleased to see him moved; she laughed as if his urgent gaze excited her, as if his husky voice roused her curiosity. "Go on," she whispered.

"You mock me. I want to save you. Don't you see? You are in such a perilous place. Only I, helped by Maitland, could keep you there!" He began to plead. "Mary, couldn't you trust me? Believe in me and no one else?" He took her slack hand and began to caress it with his large, smooth fingers. "Remain without a husband, Mary, play a long patient game, wait, till we find the man who suits us—"

She gazed at him tenderly; he held stubbornly to his impossible desire. Then he added:

"Leave it to me. If you will stay unmarried—I—I could forgive—I could excuse some womanish weakness. If you were discreet, I might endure your singers and chamber boys—"

"No, you are too jealous."

Her face, warm, pale, with the freshly painted mouth, was close to his; this proximity forced him to reveal himself.

"Mary! Cannot you remain as you are? The Queen. Without lovers or a husband? Enclosed in royalty? Scotland!" He bowed his head over her hand. "I swear to God," came his muffled voice, "that you should always be safe and happy."

She did not disturb him; many unspoken thoughts went to and fro like shuttles between them as they sat in the alcove. What he said tempted her facile mind. To be the Queen and nothing else! A decked, immaculate image high above the heads of men, regarded with reverence and awe, a symbol of royalty, of purity, of grandeur, every man in love with her, no one daring to approach her, she above the need of love, wedded to her regal state. While Moray, the royal born, who had missed the throne by a Church ceremony, stood for ever guarding her, keeping everyone at bay, exalting her, making her admired, prosperous, great. He saw her hesitation and for a second cherished a stupid hope.

"Could you do it, Mary?"

She played with him, half deluded by her own subterfuge. "Why not? I trust you."

She meant that, though she knew that he had taken money from England arid once intrigued with Elizabeth against her sovereignty. But she was sure that as long as she was near him, smiling at him, deferring to him, he would serve her well, as no other could or would.

"Well, then, let this silly youth go."

She sat so meekly that he ventured further.

"I can only do it if you listen to me, obey me, follow my advice. I cannot protect you if there are scandals."

The Queen drew a lazy breath; his hopes increased. He reminded himself that she had stood beside him to see John Gordon mangled, that she had called him in to slay Chastelard. Perhaps, after all, she did secretly prefer him to any other man. He saw himself master of Scotland, and the Queen, disdaining all pretenders, hated, perhaps, but high-set and proudly enclosed in the people's esteem.

He began to kiss her fingers, which he had kept in his until their two palms were moist.

The noisy masque came to an end. The mummers trooped off, chattering in French.

The violins began to fill the silence with a delicate concord. The Queen's mood changed, like water running out from shade into open places changes in colour. She rose, taking her hand swiftly from Moray's lips.

"What a poor, ragged company," she smiled. "Everywhere the work of country tailors and the manners of boors. We need Earl Bothwell here—I thought of recalling him, if it is only for the grace he gives to a festival."

Moray was deeply angered by this sudden insult as he took it to be. All his hopes sank, leaving bitterness behind. "When Earl Bothwell returns to Scotland, I leave it, madame."

"Oh James, you are too sullen and precise. What has the man done? No worse than any other."

Furious at the introduction of this detested name, Moray replied sternly:

"I hope you do not know what he has done. His name stinks. Don't speak of him. There are some things not to be named for honour's sake."

"How odd that he escaped from the Castle," smiled the Queen, ignoring this rebuke. "He twisted the iron bars apart with his hands and slid down the face of the rock with a rope—"

"A tale to amuse children," sneered Moray. "Some foul bribery got him out."

"But he is very strong. He can dance in full armour. So skilful, too; whenever he rides at the ring he takes the prize."

Moray moved away; he had no more words for her to mock. How could she, when he had opened his heart to her, wound him by the mention of the abominable man whom he, with every justification, loathed? Again, and painfully, he doubted her integrity, and her innocence. How much did she know of James Hepburn, this damned Earl Bothwell, enmeshed in the infernal arts? Moray made a movement as if washing his hands and turned away. Accursed swine of a sorcerer!

Lord Lennox and his son, with a retinue of Stewarts, arrived as the masque of monsters was beginning. They were exactly at the time that the Queen had named and Lennox was troubled to find that the festival was so well advanced. This gave him an air of negligence and he was very anxious to please. He hoped that the Queen would remember the time that she had set. He paused inside the low door, biting his forefinger, with his son beside him.

The entrance was quite filled up by his followers; he was very careful how he went about Edinburgh, where he had no friends, where he had not set foot for twenty years. He was a tall, nobly shaped man, but stooped as if he bore a burden on his back and his face was yellow, puffy, and swollen about the eyes.

The monsters paraded down the gallery; they were acting on orders from the Queen in taking no heed of the newcomers. She had purposely arranged that Lennox should come late when the hall was full so that she might observe the effect of Henry Stewart's entry on the Lords.

She crept along the arras and watched the isolated group, of whom no one took any notice. Inside the door, Lennox, peering between the monsters with their ogre heads, shaggy coats and lashing tails, espied the dais with the lions and the figure there round whom the ladies crowded.

Uncertainly, but with the air of a man who forces himself to hold his own, he made his way towards the mock queen.

This was an anxious moment for him. His return to Scotland had been quite a speculation; already he wished that he had remained in England, even though there had been a Proclamation by four heralds at the Market Cross restoring him to all his honours and estates. All the Lords were so hostile and jealous, so keen to do him a mischief, so resentful of past injuries. The Hamiltons were so much against him, and Arran, by a lucky chance, was shut up as a lunatic, but there were so many of them. He really doubted if he could hold his own. There was Moray, too, who seemed all-powerful with the Queen; he was sure to be envious and bitter. Lennox thought of all the money he had spent; seven hundred pounds he had brought with him from England and it had nearly all been squandered in furnishings, clothes, entertainments, presents. He had had to give the four Maries jewels, watches, fans. How casually the greedy little hussies had accepted these gifts and, no doubt, forgotten them already! Perhaps all this expenditure was wasted. There was just the hope that his son, Harry, might take the fancy of the Queen. Would he? Lennox was doubtful. The boy was young and knew no arts. The English Queen, who had a critical eye for masculine charm, had passed him over as "yonder long lad." Lennox felt hot, sick and baffled as he pulled at the starched cambric at his neck, conscious of the ribald masquers who seemed to mock him with venomous satisfaction as they pranced up and down. Then there were the cold frowns of the Lords, gathered together, conversing, he was sure, in abusive whispers.

His son plucked at his sleeve, breathing in his ear.

"This is not the Queen but Mary Livingstone dressed up as a joke."

"What shall we do?"

"I shall find her."

Everyone was staring at Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, as he, blushing, angry and clumsy, made his way through the crowd looking for the Queen.

Moray, adroitly behind Argyll, surveyed the Lennox boy with a bitter curiosity and what her saw made him feel old, defeated and foolish. Beside the princely grandeur of Lord Darnley the artificial splendours of the festival seemed dusty, withered, and insipid. He was not full grown, but already as tall as the tallest of the gaunt Lords, as tall as Moray himself. He had a deep chest and wide shoulders, he carried himself with an unthinking, rather crude arrogance, like a young bull. He stood firmly, keeping his feet far apart and often sticking his clenched fists into his waist. His face was in truth like that of Adonis, round features with a warm golden bloom and full lips. His eyes were clear hazel with the lustre of perfect health. He would be fleshy; already there was a hint of that. He had the sullen, slightly suspicious air of one stupid and easily baffled; he had the insolent swagger of one forcing his character, but with all these defects, his physical magnificence was not easily discounted.

His attire was too splendid and looked gaudy amid the ill-clad, uncouth Lords. It also destroyed the balance of the superb shape of his body. A padded doublet of white velvet covered with gold tracery, for which the tailor had not yet been paid, made his torso appear enormous; a ruff of bone lace starched and wired shortened the appearance of his neck and kept his head stiffly fixed; his huge, shapeless sleeves, stuffed, gashed and laced, made his smooth hands appear quite small. His legs, tightly clad in yellow silk, seemed too slim to support all this pomp. His thick, honey-coloured hair was brushed up on the top of his elegant head and tucked behind his right ear, from which hung a pearl.

The Lords nudged, sneered, and cursed. The youth seemed to them an abomination, worse than the French whom the Queen had brought home with her, more offensive than Earl Bothwell, with his infamous reputation. Yet the gaze that Lord Darnley turned on them as he avoided their grouped hostility was candid, defiant, almost pathetic, like that of an outwitted child.

Moray did not sneer nor misjudge, did not condemn nor scorn. He saw quite clearly the attraction of the boy and he felt a physical sickness, a prickling on his skin, a rasping in the throat, a trembling in his hands, that were, he knew, the symptoms of a jealousy that could not be controlled. He felt a desire to escape as if he were imprisoned in a drain, a yearning to find an outlet to the light, the air. With no excuse to anyone he left the overheated gallery.

Lord Darnley found his cousin where she had been waiting for him in an alcove.

Timidly, with eyes full of humility, the Queen looked up at her cousin. The young man stood over her with an air of shame; he looked amazed at her fantastic, insolent costume. He complained of his reception, that she mocked him, that all the Lords were hostile, he harped on her kindness at Wemyss, he asked why she played with him. She had to listen very attentively to catch what he said, for she was not at all familiar with English.

That did not matter; his words were of no importance; she reassured him by her timid smile as she examined his fair face with the frowning brows, the clear eyes, the angry curved mouth, the lustrous ringlets of close hair. She said in a low, cajoling voice:

"I, too, have to suffer from the arrogance of these people. Do you think it is easy? You can see for yourself. My brother, too, Moray, he rules everything. Watch how they spy on us now, while we talk. I am only a woman, I was not bred to this country."

She coaxed him for his promises of help, of protection, for his compassion. She seemed to search, gently, skilfully, after something elusive, potent. She begged him to release her from them all, from the pinched-faced Calvinists, from the dark Moray, from the slippery Lethington. The youth, who could not follow all she said, for she helped her English with French, gazed at her earnestly, held by the inescapable radiance of her eyes. He had never even imagined anything like her before. She quite amazed him in her page's dress, with her little cap and long tresses, with her fluent speech and gay, quick gestures, with her short jacket and tight hose. It was as if she wove a net round him. He frowned, wondering what she wanted him to do. Would she marry him? Ought he to ask her? He wanted to get away and think. To consult his father, since his mother, who was so much wiser—and so much more indulgent—was not there.

The Queen stopped speaking and began to laugh. All this magnificence standing there dumb, afraid of her! She felt flattered—what would he like? What would make him speak? If she gave him Scotland? What would he do with it?

As she stood there, the young man began to stammer and plead. What could he do? What did she want? Could he dance with her while she wore that whimsical dress?

"You were not so shy at Wemyss," she said softly.

Behind them were discordant voices. Many of the Lords were clattering away, rudely interrupting the dancers, jostling the French. She noticed that Moray had gone. Lennox was moving about uneasily, making loud, ineffectual conversation with acquaintances; he seemed stupefied, even browbeaten. Every time a page offered him wine he drank. Lord Ruthven followed him about, blinking at him with bloodshot, rapacious eyes, sticking thumbs in his belt and asking news of England, demanding the name of the boy's tailor and if those were the latest Parisian fashions.

Lord Darnley observed this from where he stood; he turned to stare, being unable to move his head because of the ruff and high collar. The Queen watched indolently the boy's slow rage as he saw his father being baited. He was like a young mastiff straining at a chain. It would be splendid to let such a devoted, ferocious creature loose on one's enemies.

She detested Ruthven, who always looked at her with direct scorn. He was a lout, a boor, not fit to come into her presence, and there were many like him.

She touched the young man's padded sleeve; how huge and virile he looked! If she married him, Ruthven, Lindsay and all the bilious Calvinists would have to cringe before him. That would be a malicious revenge on them for all their disloyalty, their harsh talk, their sour gossip. Ah, for a master, for them and for herself!

Her fingers crept from his sleeve to his hand; he turned sharply, his jewelled, scented bulk between her and the gallery.

"Yes?" he breathed eagerly.

"Dear," she smiled indolently, "dear."

She thought drowsily of Moray, jealous, resentful, reverencing her, wanting to set her up, to keep her immaculate as his Queen. She thought of the men whom Moray, with her consent, even, as it had seemed, by her command had sent to the scaffold.

She looked up at her cousin and comforted herself with this fresh devotion, this clean youth, this untainted strength. Perhaps he was stupid! Well, she had had enough of clever men, intriguing for themselves. She put her hand on her cousin's firm, slightly-pouting lips and he kissed timidly her palm where Moray had kissed it a little while before. His sulky fairness reminded her of John Gordon whose blood she had watched, quite as if it was a thing of no consequence, ooze and spread over the planks of the scaffold.

Ah, this lover Moray should not take away and destroy! It would be sweet, triumphal and glorious to have power, to be free of Moray, to rule, to love, to have the priests back, to banish the heretics and to defy the English.

Moray walked through the misty streets. He had slipped the Jewel of the Thistle inside his coat and so looked, in the obscurity, like an ordinary citizen. He thought that this was far safer than going about with a crowd of armed, liveried followers to challenge riots and provoke brawls. Besides, he believed that there was no one with sufficient grudge against him to wish to attack him in the dark. He was popular with the godly, who overlooked his deep avarice, his grasping hold on confiscated Church lands, the other estates that he had acquired by dubious means.

As he left the Abbey behind he felt cleansed, relieved, and confident of his half-sister. He did not believe that she would so carelessly forget what he had said to her as to marry Henry Stewart, though she might flirt with him. Moray tried to forget the youth's sulky, golden beauty, his large, unspoiled strength.

The chill of the winter night had purified the filthy smells of the city, which was ill-lit, ill-kept. Moray carried a small lantern which showed him the dirt beneath his feet, the pools filmed with ice, the garbage and rotten refuse.

Though he was fastidious he preferred this dirty street to the splendours of the Abbey. He had a strong feeling for the people—there was nothing in his veins but ancient Scotch blood. He was acutely conscious of the country, of its remoteness, poverty, violence and struggle to exist. He wanted to help Scotland. But it was difficult; everyone with whom he had to deal was greedy, treacherous or tainted by Papistry.

Yet he did not feel despondent. His task seemed to him high and noble, worthy of a man's highest efforts. He no longer was pricked by fear of the Lennox boy, of Earl Bothwell, of the Queen's caprices. All these seemed manageable, something that he could hold in his hand.

He raised his lantern to look at a deserted house that he passed. It had a bad reputation; the shadow of the triple Hecate brooded over it and it was shuttered bleakly against the night. A jolly, plump woman with a ringing laugh had lived there. She had been a witch, an abortionist, a seller of aphrodisiacs, of poisons, a trader in all that has no lawful price, no earthly market. She had lived under Bothwell's patronage, posing as his kinswoman.

Moray shivered as he gazed fascinated at that barred, disused door and thought of what had happened in that house—infernal rites, abominable bargains and inhuman sacrifices. Maimed goats and swine had been found in the sties of the backyards and little foul-smelling graves in the garden.

The woman had been discovered through a wretched affair that had reflected on the Queen. Two of her French servants were secret lovers. By the help of the fat woman with the cosy laugh they had murdered their little child, had been discovered and hanged, pelted with dirt by the Puritans, preached against by John Knox. The witch had fled. When her door was burst open, the house, reeking of drugs and worse, was empty. No doubt Earl Bothwell knew where the woman was hidden.

Moray was glad of his own well-ordered home and the woman sleeping there, Agnes Keith, to whom he had lately been married. She had not troubled him for the love he had not got to give her, but she had roused in him a safe, pitying affection. He was grateful for her dignity, her effacement and her careful conduct of his establishment.

Moray threaded nimbly past the taverns where the yellow light spurted, past the beggars bowed before the menace of the night, until he came to the high walls of his own garden.

As he turned the key in the lock he felt easy, confident, sure even of the woman in the palace—she would never betray him, no, not with a lewd sorcerer, not with a stupid boy, not with any scoundrel at all.

Lennox and his son sat up late in the lodgings for which they had not paid, among the handsome furniture that glossed their poverty. The elder man urged the younger, standing over him, now goading, now pleading, sometimes almost whining, then threatening.

"Get the Queen, get the Queen—any way, by any means! Doesn't she fancy you? Isn't that enough? You are only a blundering simpleton, you ought to be five years older. Compromise her, entangle her, don't you want to be King of Scotland?"

The tall, heavy youth sat sullenly over the fire and let these reproaches batter at his ears. He felt hostile, offended, even shocked. He had never been intimate with his father, who had only lately taken any notice of him. He wished that his mother was there. She had always done everything for him, led him by flattery, advised him with soothing words, made him feel manly and free, even while she had told him exactly what to do, even to the way he wore his cap or fastened his collar, while his father, bullying, pleading, made him feel insignificant, dull, a mere cat's-paw to snatch the family fortunes out of the fire.

Neither did the young man like the way his father spoke of the Queen. Close association with his austere and stately mother had given him an unconscious respect for women. Maternal pride, hoarding his youth, his beauty, his manliness had kept him from lewdness and debauchery; his emotions took long to rouse, his mind worked slowly. He was more interested in sport, in dogs, horses, and games, than in women.

His feelings for the Queen baffled him; he wanted to keep them secret, to brood over them. He had been a little shocked to see her in the page's dress; he did not like to hear his father talk of her without respect, as if she was easy, light, almost shameless. He did not want a wife and he felt a definite shrinking from such a wife as his cousin might be—a creature whom he could neither understand nor manage.

He stared, with his round, childlike eyes into the fire, his hands on his knees, and endured his father's advice, reprimands, and urgings.

Lennox became at length exasperated by this mute resentment. He thought the boy impudent, and longed to strike him or to shake him. This was the result of a woman's upbringing—a lout who knew nothing, who blushed when a coquette spoke to him, who saw a crown dangling in front of him and gaped at it without moving.

"Have you nothing to say?" he asked.

"I do not know if—I like her."

Lennox became confused with rage; he stuck his thumbs into his belt and sighed. The youth continued, frowning with the effort of his speech:

"She seems so much older than I—and to marry a queen, that is always to take second place—"

"Not if she makes you King, you fool."

"Would she?"

He moved uneasily, thinking of how she had put her hand to his mouth and said: "Dear—Dear—"

He tried to think it out. What was the matter? No doubt his father was quite right, this was a brilliant chance, the most wonderful princess in the world. But he did not really want her. He had thought of girls in a vague, tender, brooding fashion—but she, the Queen, was not part of those dreams.

She troubled and vexed him and he did not really want to see her again. That pert, shameless costume dress! He did not think a gentlewoman would dress like that. He did not want a wife who looked like a mummer. As for all these intrigues, these schemes, this winding in and out of one's friends, and enemies, he simply could not think of it without a headache. If only his father would stop talking! He felt drowsy and with difficulty suppressed a yawn. Was not life quite enjoyable even if one did not marry the Queen?

Lennox, watching him, saw he was half-asleep and had a violent impulse to box his ears. But he controlled himself and talked about other things. He realized, even in his rage, that he must gain his son's confidence, flatter him, lead him on gently, even treat him with respect. After all, he played for a big prize.

After the festival at Holyrood that had welcomed Lennox to court, the Queen retired into her own apartments and was seldom seen.

When she did appear she wore her widow's mourning and her manner was remote and melancholy.

Moray triumphed quietly, the Hamiltons began to hold up their heads, and the Lennox faction to become very uneasy. On Henry Stewart, however, this withdrawal acted like an enticement; he became covetous of those favours that she had seemed to promise, but had not, after all, given.

He was remorseful because he had considered her to be fickle, and dangerous. He knelt behind her in the chapel at Holyrood and his thoughts were all chivalrous, pure, even noble. He wanted to serve her, to protect her. He was ashamed that he could not love her, but he was eager to try to do so if she would give him another chance. He disliked and mistrusted the men who surrounded her, so much rougher and more menacing than those he had been bred among in England. Only Moray and Maitland seemed to him like noblemen, like gentlemen. He despised the others and let his contempt show in his fair, candid face. He detested the Puritans too. The English Protestants had scarcely interfered with him, but these extreme Calvinists, the bold, reckless-tongued followers of John Knox who meddled with everything that was pleasant and amusing, these black-visaged Scots, he hated.

He felt sorry for the Queen, forced to live among such detestable people, and, kneeling at his red velvet prie-dieu, he looked at her anxiously, and with compassion.

The Queen felt free in the chapel where no Protestant ever entered, where she was alone with her household and her friends, where she heard no alien Scots tongue, but only the Latin and the French with which she was familiar.

She knelt erect, slim, and stately in her heavy black robe. Her bright hair was gathered under a little cap, her beads of ebony, her crucifix of ivory hung at her waist. She kept her hands lightly joined together. She was conscious of the splendid young man behind her, gazing at her with a reluctant adoration. The place, walled against the light, with carvings and windows of coloured glass, soothed her sensuous nature. The smoke from the pure wax candles mingled with the incense from the thurible.

The priest sang, the choir chanted, at the altar frontal the altar ornaments shimmered like sunshine on a water-break.

The Queen's mood became exalted, she felt an impulse of piety towards this God whose worship was so luxurious, so pleasant. Yes, she believed this was the one ancient and true Faith. How delicious to think of Heaven, as gorgeous as Fontainebleau, awaiting after one was satiated with the delights of the earth. She felt comforted to think of those strong angels and pitying saints watching over her; if she was guilty of some little sin they would see that she was forgiven. As long as she was true to them they would be true to her, save her, absolve and protect her. When she came at last to die they would lift her soul out of her body and carry it to lovely peace and cool magnificence.

The singing ceased gently. The priests moved to and fro. The Queen rose, her black skirts spread out far either side of her tiny waist. As the priests passed, she bent her head humbly. When the priests and the choir had left the chapel she looked, unsmiling, over her shoulder at Henry Stewart, standing stiffly before his prie-dieu.

He thought she was very smooth and meek and appealed for pity. He flushed slowly, feeling himself manly, strong, potent to save her fragile weakness.

Florestan, the Queen's favourite monkey, had escaped. With his quick, dry brown hands he had broken his chain and run out of the Queen's chambers.

He had soon been missed and was seen in various places, perched on a door, swinging on a fold of tapestry, running over the poles of a window curtain.

The Queen became quite agitated; it was terrible to think of the frail little animal, lured by curiosity, wandering away from safety and comfort out into the cold, and perishing in the stinging wind and rain. So many of her pretty little monkeys had died since she came to Scotland, though she took such care with them.

She lifted her long black skirts from her feet and ran here and there, down the corridors of the palace, as the alarm was given that here, there, the truant had been seen.

A man whose face she knew quite well, but to whom she had never spoken. stopped in front of her and spoke very respectfully, bowing low.

The monkey was in the chapel. If Her Majesty wished, he would get it for her, without a scandal.

The Queen, curious, asked:

"A scandal?"

He explained himself. He spoke French very well, but she knew him to be an Italian, for she had already been to the trouble of discovering something about him, and she listened, leaning against the gilded wall. She liked his manner of speaking, and the mind behind the speech.

Well, about the monkey; if the evil-minded Puritans got to know of it being in the chapel, they would say ugly things. It was better not to give such stupid fools a chance. If Her Grace understood him? These fanatics! They saw the devil everywhere. Even he, alone in the chapel by the light of one candle, had been quite startled when he had looked up suddenly and seen the monkey running about.

He had gone there to fetch some music. Her Grace would not recall him, but he sang bass in the choir and had done so since Christmas.

The Queen said:

"I understand. Come with me and help me to catch Florestan. It will be a good thing if no one sees us. I remember you, yes, you came with the Duke of Savoy's envoy last autumn. You and your brother."

She nodded to him to follow her to the chapel. The young man obeyed, nervous at being alone with the Queen, at whom he had so often looked over his book as he sang, but whom he had never thought to speak with. He was silent, wondering what he could do with this brilliant opportunity. His usual cleverness seemed of no use to him here. The Queen, careless and easy with everyone, hastened ahead to the chapel. She paused in the doorway. She had never seen this sanctified place save when there was a service. Now it seemed quite quenched and cold, with the one candle, burning to a blackened wick, stuck in a holder near the choir stalls.

The light of this was sufficient to reveal Florestan crouched on the altar, gripping his thin legs with taut hands, while his shadow, huge and wavering, was flung on the sacred picture behind, like that of some aerial devil, hovering to corrupt the atmosphere.

The Queen was startled. She drew back and touched the young man behind her and he lost his head, because he, poor wretch, had felt the Queen's gown brush him, her veil touch him. He could have put his arms round her shoulders, but he stood rigid, his large dark eyes shifting and furtive. He was used to the great world, but only as a servant.

The Queen stared at him over the edge of her stiff ruff.

"Catch Florestan for me. This is horrible, to see him on the altar." As he passed her, trying to master his self-consciousness, she asked: "Are you Giuseppe Rizzio?"

"No, madame, my name is David. Giuseppe is my younger brother."

She had known this, but wanted to force him to explain himself. She had often noticed him in the choir; he had extraordinary eyes, so dark and dense that the iris could not be distinguished from the pupil, and arched, lively brows. His face was thin, pale amber in colour, and healthy. He was quite elegant; there was something swift and eager about him, too. A pity that he was so shabby.

She watched him, moving cautiously among the shadows, endeavouring to surprise Florestan. He had lit some more of the candles and the cross lights wavered, reaching tall and tremulous on the gilded fan tracery of the ceiling. They seemed far away from everyone else; it was not likely they would be looked for here.

The young Italian moved cautiously, retreated, advanced, while Florestan watched him with melancholy eyes of imbecile mockery. The youth's slim body in the black clothes, his long dark hair which hung over his shoulders, his soundless tread, made him appear part of the shadows, a phantasmagoria, like a puppet-show against this strange background—man, monkey, in some malicious dance.

As the monkey leaped suddenly on to the pyx the Queen crossed herself with a thrill of superstitious horror—it seemed, for a second, as if the devil were indeed loose in a holy place.

The Italian sprang at the altar and grasped the animal. One of the candles went over with a clatter. Terribly excited, the little grey beast bit and scratched into the man's thin-clad arms, but without a murmur he carried him to the Queen in the doorway.

"I will take him to your apartments, madame—he is too angry for you to touch him. Afterwards I shall return and put out the candles."

He shook Florestan free of his arm, but gently, and grasped him by the collar.

"You are hurt!" She saw the torn sleeve, the quick welling blood, and she smiled with pleasure at his bravery. She admired courage above all virtues. She leaned towards him. "Come, I will see that your arm is dressed."

"I feel nothing," he answered, and it was true. He felt nothing of the wound because of his joy at having attracted the attention of the Queen. He was feasted, glutted by the miraculous moment.

The two Italian boys lay snug in the cramped chamber in the servants' quarters that had been allotted to them when they joined the royal choir. They were shut away from all the grandeur of the palace like mice in wainscoting. Out of their hole they peered and pried, ran in and back, learning, noticing, for they were quick, neat, and patient, familiar with every scandal and rumour.

David, who was the elder by three years, lay along the trestle-bed and proudly showed his bandaged arm.

Mary Seaton had tended him, while the Queen looked on. In his deep, husky voice he related her gracious kindness, the dazzling richness of her apartments, her sweet, sharp beauty, which was far more marvellous when seen close than when viewed across the smoke-hazed chapel. He was quite bemused with his good luck and chattered foolishly as if his fortunes were already made.

Giuseppe listened shrewdly. They had always been so poor and led a hard, adventurous life, kicked from this filthy drudgery to that, learning sly tricks and how to fawn and cringe. A gift of music had raised them from the scraps and the broken pots. They had come to Scotland in M. de Moreta's train and then found employment in the royal chapel because they were Romanists and there were not so many of these from which to choose voices.

The little, dark room was cold. Giuseppe huddled under the patched coverlet of his bed; he hated these northern winters. He was not as sanguine as his brother; no one had taken any notice of him except to scold, cuff, or abuse. Lean, dark, and with huge eyes full of disillusion and prejudice, he listened to the boastings of the elder, who by the light of the coarse candle showed the arm bandaged in the Queen's apartment.

"What did you ask of her?" he demanded.

"Nothing. That was the cleverness. It would have been a great mistake to have taken a reward. Now she will remember me, try to do something for me."

He fell silent, his chin in his hand, his long hair sweeping over his face. The sudden thought that this chance might come to nothing made him feel quite sick. It was such a little service! Why should she remember it? What prospect was there that he would ever again come to the threshold of her gorgeous chamber, ever again stand close to her as he had stood in the door of the chapel? He cast round for a possible patron to advance him, the poor, despised foreigner, someone in whose train he might slink again into the Queen's presence, someone who would give him an opportunity to remind her by an eloquent glance—no, not of his paltry service, but of the humble adoration that he felt for so divine a mistress.

"It is very cold," grumbled Giuseppe. "I am going to sleep."

He huddled down in his clothes in the trestle-bed, pulling the thin coverlet over him. The brothers were little better lodged than they had been when they had first come to Holyrood and M. de Moreta had dismissed them, from economy. They had then slept on an old chest in the porter's lodge.

David shivered too. He began to pray with servile intensity, as was his nightly custom, to a little image of wood set up in the corner which he had brought from Piedmont and which he took to be his patron saint—that his base fortunes might change. Then, like an answer to his petition, a name slipped into his arid mind.

Lennox—whose son might marry the Queen—why not try to take service with him? Was there with him a refuge from his present misery? The Queen! Maybe she was not so far from him after all.

The Queen went to Leith, riding on a white horse. She was plainly dressed and the soft wind blew in her face. She was restless and had insisted on going out, although the weather was drab and chill. The men and woman following her whispered among themselves that she had not spoken to Lennox for two days and that Lord Darnley had not recently been to the palace. They all glanced with added respect at Moray, who rode beside the Queen. There was a strong man who would endure no interference in his schemes. How could the worn-out, discredited Lennox and that sullen young fool of his, hope to displace a man like Moray?

Under his assured, austere manner, Moray felt his triumph keenly. He enjoyed the mild indifference of his half-sister's glance, her soft, affectionate words, her manner of appealing to him in everything, of deferring to his judgment, his wisdom, his experience.

Well, he had subdued her pert rebellion against his authority. She had had the sense to see how flimsy her own ideas were compared to his grand, statesmanlike designs.

A thin mist blotted out the horizon: the breeze stirred the sea into sullen wavelets and there was a dull sense of depression in the air. The sea birds, swooping over the slowly heaving water, were livid in their clear brightness.

The Queen sighed and spoke regretfully of the chill season of the year. How pleasant it was on Leith Sands when they were able to ride at the ring or shoot at the butts! Would the spring never come?

Moray looked at her with satisfaction. She seemed hardy, simple, almost austere in her simple gown and hood, with her pale, serious face. He was proud of her and felt master of her destiny and his own. But when she spoke next it was to say something that entirely shattered his elegant self-assurance.

"I saw Murray of Tullibardine this morning. He came from Earl Bothwell." The Queen spoke ingenuously, stroking the neck of her white horse.

"And I did not know about it?"

"Indeed, how was that? But it hardly matters."

"It was a great insolence for Earl Bothwell to send anyone to see you." Moray could say no more for rage. "He begged to be allowed to return to Edinburgh," said the Queen.

"Where is he?"

"On the Border somewhere—in hiding. Perhaps at Borthwick."

"What did you say to him?"

"Oh, I was angry. I said: 'How could such a villain ask such a favour?' I said: 'Why did he not stay in France where he was Captain of the Scotch Guard?'"

"You should not have answered him at all, you should have sent him to me."

Moray was deeply angered. The Queen turned her shoulder with a shrug as if she cast off indifferently his ill-humour. Out at sea a faint line of light broke through the mist; the Queen pulled at her bridle and turned her horse towards Edinburgh.

In a lowered voice meant for her ears only, Moray reviled Bothwell—a man who had been driven out of Scotland. One who should be, by birth, an upstanding man, but who was instead a filthy rogue, a lying villain, rotten to the very soul.

"You speak so earnestly," said the Queen, "I might think that you were afraid of him."

"I am afraid of seeing Scotland trampled on by that domineering young man."

"How serious you make it!" laughed the Queen; "I like to have him like a bird on a string to let fly or to pull in and cage as I will."

"A cruel and a dangerous game."

Moray thought the case was serious. Despite her ingenuous ways and indifferent, half-weary smile he suspected her of a hundred duplicities; so close to his uneasy affection for her was an unquenchable doubt of her integrity. But he endeavoured to make an effort over his great and, he thought, most justifiable anger, and to speak to her lightly, as an adult to a child, as a wise man to a foolish woman, treating the whole business as a caprice, but he warned her that it was a caprice which must not be carried any further. She must not hold any communication with Bothwell nor with any of his friends, not even with Murray of Tullibardine, who was a respectable and well-meaning man. "There are not many such," added Moray with a sneer, "that one could count among Bothwell's acquaintances."

The Queen did not reply to this warning. She rode carelessly beside her half-brother, and whether or not she listened, he could not be sure. Before them the purple hills round the city rose into a pellucid sky from which the mists were blowing away; a plentiful light was overtaking the last of the day. Moray, perceiving this transfiguration, felt his spirits rise, his strength increase. After all, he could circumvent the Queen and Bothwell and the Lennox Stewarts.

He continued, though in a more good-humoured tone, his rebukes and his warnings:

"Madame, you must consider your position. With the corning of Lord Lennox the Hamiltons are deeply offended. Though they are poor there are many of them. The little favours that you have shown Lord Lennox and his son, though I know they are nothing but courtesies, have set many against you. You promised me to have little to do with Papists."

She twisted his reproaches on to him, saying over her shoulder:

"Lord Bothwell is a heretic like yourself."

"Bothwell is beneath my contempt," answered Moray. "Let him keep away from Edinburgh, let him remember that he is outlawed, let him take care how he makes a league with Huntly, who abetted his father's treason."

"You fear them?" urged the Queen again,

Moray shook his head.

"It is base to fear creatures like that, but I must be careful they do not disturb our tranquillity."

Disregarding everything serious in what he had said, the Queen, slipping her reins in and out of her doeskin gauntlets, said lightly:

"Earl Bothwell may not come to Edinburgh, then? It is a pity—he has excellent manner and graces any company."

"Madame," said Moray directly, "if Lord Bothwell comes into Scotland I go out of it."

Moray meant this; he believed that without him and Lethington the country would go to pieces beyond her management to put together again. He wished he could make her understand that it was he and he alone who kept her in her place, gave her leisure in which to play her silly tricks, her elegant games. Only he, always by her side advising and guiding, represented a strong, stable government upon which men looked with some confidence.

The Queen spoke in a challenging tone.

"I'll not have Bothwell outlawed! Let him be! He served me honourably and I cannot hate him."

This roused such disdain in Moray that he was ready to accuse her of almost any wickedness. He scorned to remind her again what Bothwell's character, reputation, and offences were, and rode beside her in a haughty silence. He could not conceive how any woman could forget the crime for which Earl Bothwell had been cast into Edinburgh Castle. This had been nothing less than a scheme to abduct the Queen, murder Moray and those who stood nearest the Queen in relationship or confidence. It was true that this plot was not as simple as it appeared. Bothwell was a subtle man, he had involved the wild Arran in his infernal schemes, thinking to work the Hamilton's ruin by using him as a cat's-paw.

But Arran, frightened, had run squealing to Moray and divulged Bothwell's evil plans.

Moray glanced sideways at his sister as she rode a pace away from him and recalled that day when they had been hunting at Falkland and Arran had come there gibbering with his half-incoherent tales of Bothwell's treacheries. She had not been alarmed. When Bothwell had come, fast on the heels of the informer, to clear himself, she had listened to him, sat patiently while he had stood before her, justifying himself forcibly in a long speech, blaming Arran as an imbecile, blaming everyone who spoke against him; naming them as liars and traitors. If she had not been there Moray would have seen to it that Bothwell had died as Huntly had died—a sudden falling from his horse as he mounted it, a stab in a scuffle or a brawl. Ah, were he the King with full powers, Bothwell should have troubled no one any further! Instead, the Queen had listened and smiled and shrugged, said she did not believe Arran, she only half-believed Bothwell, and what did it matter, some wild tavern talk!

She put aside this hideous entanglement of murder, rape and treachery without investigation, as if it had been a trifling disagreement between gentlemen in her antechamber. Bothwell had been placed in Edinburgh Castle, certainly, but Moray could not forget nor forgive his quick and easy escape. It was too bitterly clear that the Queen had not been offended. She could not, indeed, as she had just declared, hate Bothwell.

Why should she remember. Moray asked himself, those slight services which Bothwell had rendered to her mother? Some generalship in Border skirmishes, a mission to France to ask for help. Others had done as much and been forgotten.

He told himself, as they rode in the park beneath the bare trees, that he must move sharply and cautiously, keep a wary eye on his half-sister. It was foolish of him to be lulled by her air of simplicity; it was dull-witted of him to indulge in those moments of confidence, when he held her above censure and believed that she was simple and innocent.

He looked at her again with hostile eyes; she seemed to be drooping in the saddle though she had not been long on horseback and he had known her to ride easily for hours. There was weariness, too, on her brow, and her lips, from which the paint had faded in the open air, were pale. She was inscrutable. Moray warned himself that he had better not vaunt his fortunes while he had this woman to deal with. Sometimes it really was as if she bewitched him with her affected airs, her seductive smiles and timid appeals for advice and guidance. Perhaps all the time she was deceiving him. At this he felt such a jealousy that the whole world suddenly seemed to him disgusting and filthy. He had noticed before that when he had a thought that smirched his sister's image in his mind the very air became tainted and a slight physical nausea tormented him.

As they rode through the park with the last sudden light behind them she said easily:

"You must do what you will about Earl Bothwell, I am tired of the city. I believe that I shall go to Stirling."

The graceful young Italian cringed before Lennox, who regarded him with some suspicion. Since he had come to Edinburgh and had been restored to his estates he had interviewed many people who wished to be his servants or to join his retinue. But he could afford few of these: his rents and lands had been nominally restored to him, but he had yet to set them in order and gather together his various incomes. Besides, the future looked dubious. His son, whom he named "sullen booby" in his mind, was difficult, and the Queen, most elusive and provoking of women, had withdrawn into a silence which might mean aversion.

The Italian had called twice at the house in the Nether-bow before he had been admitted into the Earl's presence. On this third occasion he had only obtained an audience by chance. But he made the most of the opportunity, and his quick, fluent speech, which had only a flavour of foreign accent, fascinated the Earl, who stared at him, wondering if here was good, cheap, serviceable material.

He was attracted by this fellow who was so different from himself, who was rather like a greyhound, lean and swift, who had such intelligent eyes. His talents were such, it seemed, as would grace a princely household: he could play the lute, the virginals, and several other instruments; he would be able to accompany the young prince, Henry Stewart, when he wished to sing or play. He had a quick eye and a deft hand at arranging a cloak, a doublet, a collar, or a jewel; he could keep accounts accurately, he could speak French, Latin, English, and a little Spanish, he could write a fair Roman hand, endorse a deed, draw up a contract. It was astonishing what small, useful arts the youth had learnt in his short, hard life, but strange, too, that he had never come to be employed honourably before. That, no doubt, was owing to his low birth and obscure up-bringing. He had found it difficult to obtain a chance, yet, after all, he had not done so badly for himself, having contrived somehow to hang on to the train of the Duke of Savoy's Ambassador, and then to work his way into the royal chapel of Holyrood.

The Earl asked him why he wished to leave this decent livelihood within the Queen's palace.

The Italian replied that he was scarcely paid at all, that between the Matins and the Masses and the practices he had little time to call his own, and who, he added, could compare the honour of being a singer in Holy-rood Chapel with that of being in the employ of so great and gracious a prince as the Earl of Lennox?

Lennox hesitated. He did not know if he could afford the man; he was aware how expensive and luxurious these foreign servants were. Besides, he did not altogether trust him, the fellow seemed too clever. He thought that he preferred Englishmen like those wild young Roman Catholics who were already in his son's service, who joined him in all his sports and games, the two Antony Standens. Then the Italian, who had been keenly watching the other's puffy face, saw his chance vanishing and began to exaggerate, even to lie. He whispered that he had some secret influence in the palace, that the Queen favoured him, that she had employed him sometimes to write her letters because he was so good a scholar and wrote so clear a hand, had trusted him, even, with some secrets about money lent from the Pope. Oh yes, he had been more than a servant, a spy. He knew several cyphers, was within the confidence of all the great Papists, he had often sat in the Queen's closet quite late at night inditing some of her secret correspondence, and afterwards he had played the lute to her, for she was much given to melancholy, after she had been tiring herself with political business.

Lennox listened attentively; the affairs sounded plausible. The Italian stressed his point: it was because of his ardour for the Roman Catholic religion that he offered his services to Lennox. He insinuated, though he did not put it into so many words, that he would be a convenient go-between to and from the palace and the Lennox lodgings; he wished very much to attach himself to the service of the young prince. Was it not to his advantage and that of all Roman Catholics from the Holy Father downwards to see Henry Stewart—He paused, and then added boldly: Was not the Queen to wed Henry Stewart?

Lennox liked the sound of that. Dull and slow but nonetheless ambitious, he had always moved in a slightly baffled fashion through the intrigues of courts. He understood that one must plot and scheme, if one were to keep a foothold among so many rogues, villains, and time-servers. He did not know quite how to do this and in Scotland he was treated almost like an alien, therefore this subtle, cringing, clever tool would surely be useful. He had no spies in Holyrood, having neither the influence nor the money to arrange this. Perhaps he had been a fool to spend the seven hundred pounds he had brought from England so openly, giving it in presents to giggling women and gaping pages instead of using it to employ a crafty, lying instrument like this Italian.

He looked at Rizzio critically. The fellow made quite a striking figure in his chestnut-coloured attire with the silver stripes, his long, thick black hair falling either side his thin, masculine face.

"You may wait on my son if you will. Perhaps he can find a use for you in his household."

Unobservant and self-engrossed in his own vanities and troubles, Lennox did not notice the radiance which passed over the young Italian's face. He fell on one knee and kissed the Earl's podgy hands, then, anxious not to tarry now he had obtained his advantage, he departed, after begging permission to return on the following morning.

He turned into the street full of relief and triumph; he had staked a good deal on this chance with Lennox. He had been quite penniless when it had occurred to him to present himself before the Earl, and as no one either liked or trusted him he knew not where to turn to borrow a few pence. Yet it had been impossible to present himself before any prospective master in the shabby black which was the only garment he possessed, which he was always thankful to hide behind the livery that was provided for him when he sang in the chapel. In the bandage that Mary Seaton had put round his arm had been a gold pin with a white topaz head. He had not wanted to part with that, there were so many uses to which he could have put it. He could have kept it, to gaze at and gloat over: he could have returned it to the Queen and so made the excuse for another interview; he could, with some luck, have perhaps worn it in her presence and attracted her attention to it and evoked in her mind memories of the service he had rendered her once.

But he had not thought that any of these chances were as sure as that of employment in the Lennox household. So he had reluctantly, for he valued highly the gift of the Queen, gone to a jeweller and pawned it for sufficient money to buy the chestnut-brown suit with silver lines, a pair of hose and shoes and a black cap with a silver chain.

But he had not been able to afford a cloak, and as he strode down the windy street he shivered, hunching his shoulders together to keep himself warm and rubbing his hands on his cheeks, which were sallow from the cold.

Lord Darnley condescended to accept the services of the young Italian, whom he did not understand in the least, but took to be a very humble, modest fellow, eager to be of any service. Henry Stewart, was, in the estimation of all members of the true Faith, heir-presumptive to the thrones of Scotland and England. Self-absorbed and simple, he suspected no double-dealing on the part of the newcomer, whom he thoroughly despised as a foreigner of low birth, but found extremely useful for his submissiveness, his talents, and his flattery.

Lord Darnley, like his father, knew nothing of the court except what he had been able to observe from the outside.

David Rizzio knew a great deal. From the little room where he and Giuseppe had peered and spied out like mice, he had watched and listened. But he was careful to emphasize his lies as to the confidence the Queen had shown him. Quickly he sized up the character of the man whom he had decided to serve: he was careful to do nothing to provoke the doubts, suspicions, or jealousies of this unsophisticated youth, whose ideas were all narrow, conventional, and honest. David Rizzio was careful never to do anything to shock or disturb the young prince, whose intellect and whose principles he despised.

But he could not compete with the Antony Standens, the Englishmen already installed in his master's favour by the ways of games and sports, chess, billiards, fencing, hunting, riding at the ring, shooting at the butts, for in these things the Italian had not had any education. Nor could he handle a tennis racquet, nor lead a lady through a dance. But he had many other accomplishments which he had brought to a fine pitch of perfection and which were extremely useful to Henry Stewart—his elegant letter writing, his quick translation of foreign languages, his adroit touch with clothes, his knowledge of where and what to buy in Edinburgh, his cleverness in engaging servants and keeping an eye on them, his quickness at casting up accounts and spending money well, making a good display for a little expenditure. Henry Stewart was grateful for all these gifts put at his disposal.

The Italian had, also, a real gift for music, and music was Henry Stewart's one talent. There they met as equals; when they played and sang together the young prince forgot his unconscious contempt of the foreigner, and the Italian forgot his conscious contempt of his master. They respected, and even liked each other on these occasions, some queer affinity rose between them, the bass and tenor voice blended well together, they kept exquisite time on their musical instruments—the lute, the zithers, and the virginals. Quite seriously, forgetting their common disdain, their mutual scorns and differences, the tall blond prince and the lean swarthy servant would sit together in genuine amity playing over some new piece from Italy which relaxed Henry Stewart's mind, so troubled by his father's feverish ambitions and stirred David Rizzio's fancy into a whirling fantasy of all the possibilities of his high promotion.

Lord Moray was satisfied. Bothwell's emissary, Murray of Tullibardine, had withdrawn from Edinburgh with a sharp rebuke. Bothwell had been ordered to leave the Border or to appear in Eidnburgh and answer to the charges against him. Moray smiled, feeling sure that no one, even of Bothwell's insolent boldness, would dare to accept this challenge. But he gathered round him in the capital and the palace armed companies of his own followers.

The Queen was complaisant; she let Murray of Tullibardine go as she had let him come, with no comment. She did nothing to rouse Moray's suspicion; she was courteous to Lennox and his son, but no more. She seemed to listen willingly to Thomas Randolph, Elizabeth's Ambassador, who continued to press the suit of the Earl of Leicester, "that impossible marriage."

The Queen played with the idea, saying that after all if the Earl was a proper man and he had pleased Elizabeth Tudor, he might please her. Also, she would do anything for peace and future union between the two countries, and if Elizabeth should choose her as her heir, she might also find her a husband.

Moray took this as mockery and watched his sister carefully. Why would she go to Stirling? She did not trouble to explain herself. She said he could guess her reasons, and when he asked her if it was the stench and crowd of the city, the tolling of the death-bell for those dead of the pox or the plague, the tumult of the executions by torchlight, she shrugged and was silent.

He questioned his sister, Lady Argyll, who seemed as much in the Queen's confidence as any woman. The anxious lady, though a loyal Protestant, could give him no news to ease his mind. The Queen disclosed herself to none; even in her privacy she was light, careless, smiling, sunk in a gentle melancholy, a soft brooding.

Did she love Darnley? Moray queried anxiously.

Lady Argyll did not know. The Queen had praised him, but she was ready to praise any proper man—and Lord Darnley was handsome enough to make any woman stare.

Moray brushed that aside impatiently. That his difficult policies should be hampered by these feminine caprices!

"Will she marry a man for his fair face and wide shoulders?" he asked bitterly.

Lady Argyll did not know. She replied with a smile:

"Women have wedded for slighter and worse reasons."

If the Queen did not love Darnley, did she love anybody? Moray's anxiety showed in his frown, in the drooping lines of his mouth. He viewed with deep apprehension the journey to Stirling. Lennox and his son were going there, too. Did she want to escape from him, Moray, and his diligent eye, from his stern glance and tongue? Did she wish to continue her love-making in that remote fastness? He would not believe in such hypocrisy.

He consulted Sir William Maitland who, patient and amused, watched everything. He thought the Queen was deceiving her brother and laughing at him; at the same time he did not think she intended marrying the Lennox boy. He kept his own counsel on this matter and reassured Moray.

"Let her go to Stirling. What good will you achieve by tormenting her, restraining her liberty and her pleasures? The country is your business, you've enough to do there."

"Ay, enough," assented Moray grimly. "But with the Queen's Majesty lies all. I must watch how she behaves, which way she turns, whom she likes—" He stopped suddenly. "That young Italian, now! Why is he suddenly in the Lennox service?"

Maitland replied lightly:

"He is a clever rogue who knows how to twist and turn to his own advantage."

Moray frowned.

"He has become intimate with Lord Darnley. They are always together; he is more with him now than those English gentlemen he brought from London. He takes him with him to the palace, to the presence of the Queen. I have had him watched. He spends money, too. I have learnt that when he came here he had not a cloak to his name and slept on a bare chest in the porter's lodge."

"What's in this to do with us?" asked Maitland. "This is a cunning rogue who will make his way, and Lennox and his son are easily gulled, no doubt, by flattery."

"I do not like such men," said Moray, "to be close to the ear of princes. I think it's dangerous to see a villain close to a fool. This is a Papist, a greedy mountebank with no spark of honour. In a few weeks he begins to behave almost as if he were a gentleman."

"He is not in your service nor in mine," replied Maitland, "why should you think him dangerous? Let him cheat those who pamper him."

"But Darnley takes him to the presence of the Queen," fretted Moray. "It is like a bloated spider—"

Maitland's brows went up, and he compressed his lips. Here, he thought, comes the core of a matter which must never be glanced upon. Perhaps I also have my jealousies, but I control them with more dexterity.

He laid his shapely hand on Moray's dark shoulder, and in a tone of comfort he said:

"Let the wretch be. If he becomes insolent, he'll not last very long."

At Stirling the Queen felt indeed comfortable. She felt soothed and protected by the heavy walls of the huge, remote castle. Here she was free of all the miseries, the agitations of Holyrood and the capital, here there were no spies to peer and glance, no foreign envoys to flatter and fence with, no Thomas Randolph to force on her another Queen's discarded lover, no Moray to frown, rebuke, and warn. There were no Calvinist Puritans to insult her, naming her Holy Church "harlot" to her face. She was free of the stinking streets, the clanging bells of the desecrated churches, the brawls and quarrels that echoed in her very palace, the lewd crimes and the bloody punishments.

A faint, almost imperceptible spring tide was breaking even on this northern land. In France the first blossoms would be out and she would be sending her maids to gather violets to lay between the folds of her clothes ...

They set up the magnificent bed she took with her from palace to palace. It had been given her by her mother, Mary of Guise, and was of violet-brown satin lined with crimson, heavily garnished with gold and silver. She cherished it, not only because of its superb splendour but because of her mother, whom she had loved most tenderly. Her heart would tighten when she thought of that heroic woman, the one creature who had loyally and devotedly served her interests, protected her rights, to the very end fought and schemed and struggled for her that she might preserve the Crown, which had come to her when her father died of a broken heart soon after her birth.

"Oh, mother, mother!" said the young Queen, as she sat down on the bedstep and rested her head on the splendid coverlet.

She remembered her mother's visit to France, how gay and joyful they had all been, she and her playmates, Claude, Elizabeth, Marguerite, the little boys, Henri and Francois. How light and easy all had seemed then! It was only a few years ago that everything had changed. She remembered the sunny rivers, the bright, open fields, the gay palaces of France, and she felt exiled from her heart's desire. Yet to live here was to be a queen and that was much. Yes, that was better than a paltry lodging or the chatter of amusing company ...She checked her thoughts. She had not come to Stirling to brood, but to be free. She deluded herself with that word, the hallucination of the restless, the ambitious and the proud. Free! She was lonely in a solitude. She was riven by nostalgia, by yearnings, by she knew not what desires.

"Oh, mother, mother!" She rested her smooth cheeks again on the coverlet. She was tired from the long ride, she wished she had not come. The place was gloomy, hostile, surely.

She called Mary Seaton who was always near, always anxious to serve and to obey.

"Undress me, put me to bed!"

"Madame, it is scarcely dark."

"What is expected of me?" asked the Queen wearily. She began to pull off her ruff, to unknot her bodice; her gloves lay already on the floor at her feet.

"Madame, Lord Darnley wishes to speak with you. He stopped me just now and seemed in a kind of passion, which I think is uncommon in him. He has few words, I know."

"Why should he find words to-night?" asked the

Queen, without pausing in taking off her heavy riding-habit.

"I cannot tell. I suppose he thinks he has waited so long—those weeks in Edinburgh. At first you were so kind to him, afterwards, I suppose, he was disappointed. He gave me a letter."

"A letter!" The Queen snatched lightly at the folded paper that Mary Seaton held out. "How long since I have had a love-letter, Mary, or one that I have read?" The pale girl was silent, shaking her head; she did not seem to like the subject. She turned aside to attend to the fire; though it had been lit some time ago, smoke still lingered in the chamber and the logs did not burn steadily.

The Queen opened and read the letter with curiosity. It satisfied her very particular tastes; it might have been written by a pupil of Ronsard. It contained those gilded and voluptuous compliments to which she had been used at the Court of France. It was exquisitely written on a piece of rubbed parchment tied with yellow and scarlet silk, it wooed her with delicate, amorous reproaches, it revealed passion and tenderness and loyalty.

She folded it up thoughtfully. So, the golden youth could write like that. If he knew French, that language so dear to her, why had he not spoken it before and made his wooing quicker?

Mary Seaton came to her side and stood, frowning anxiously, peering down at the closely written paper. "Has he any merits? I thought him much moved."

"That might be his pride," murmured the Queen, folding up the letter. "I have humbled him with this waiting."

"I think if you could love him, madame—"

"Oh, love him!" said the Queen impatiently. "How we twist and turn that word, Mary! I would not dislike him nor neglect him, and yet, should I think of who I am? How much do you think he cares for me, Mary?"

She unfastened the heavy riding-skirt and let it fall to her feet.

"You remember the young Italian who used to sing in the chapel, madame?"

"David Rizzio? Yes. I have seen him often enough lately."

"Well, he has spoken to me," said Mary Seaton earnestly, "and more than once."

"Take care of him, Mary, he may be in someone's pay."

"No, I do not think so."

"But why," mused the Queen, "did he leave my service, where he had a chance of promotion, to go into that of Lord Lennox?"

"I do not know, madame. It is rumoured that he had a reason, but he will not tell it to me. I think he loves Lord Darnley. He serves him very faithfully."

"These common people are like hounds," smiled the Queen, "they'll lick shoes and take a beating. Well, what of your Rizzio?"

"He seems to me very humble and courteous, madame, and I take him to be a man of some breeding whom misfortune brought to servitude."

"Never mind his breeding," said the Queen, moving in her petticoat to the glow of the fire, "what did the fellow say, how did he interest you, Mary, what does it mean to me?"

She sank into the large chair on the hearth and leant forward into the pleasant circle of warmth, hugging her smooth, white arms with her cold finger-tips.

Mary Seaton related what David Rizzio had told her of his new master. It all went to prove the passion, the infatuation of Lord Darnley for the Queen. Of course, he had not been so stupid and vulgar as to talk openly before the Italian, but by a thousand signs, broken words, glances, sighs, staring at portraits, scribbling of notes, impatient ejaculations and sleepless tossings at night, Rizzio had understood Lord Darnley's case.

Darnley, who hitherto had been quite untouched by any feeling for any woman, was snatched up in such a high devotion to the Queen that he dare not breathe a word of it for fear of appearing ambitious, or coarse. It was only, at last, in despair at her long withdrawal from his company and encouraged by the solitude of Stirling, that he had ventured to write the letter.

The Queen felt a great sense of release and relief. If this was to be the solution after all! If he loved her like that, might he not sweep all her enemies before him and make her his queen, as she had dared to dream when she had first met him? Well, there was now no need for her to hold him at arm's-length; she might encourage him, she might see what would happen if she allowed him a certain licence. There was no need to be cautious and ashamed with this man as she might have had to be cautious and ashamed with others, afraid of spies, of secrets coming to light, of little whispers and rumours creeping out.

She rose and shook her head so that the thick chestnut hair, slipped from the pins to her waist.

"He is a prince," she reminded herself, although she spoke to Mary Seaton. "He has the right—the right!"

The Queen dined privately in Stirling that night. Despite her fatigue she had not gone to bed, after all. She had put aside her mourning, the black, disfiguring clothes in which she had ridden to Stirling, and wore a little dress of green silk, which had been made for her when she was Dauphine of France. It was cut low and square on the bosom and had a high stiffened collar hung with huge pearls shaped like flower-bells that tinkled whenever she moved her head.

She had asked Lord Darnley to come to this little supper; she was attended only by Mary Seaton and Mary Fleming. It was the first favour she had shown him for a long time, and she looked at him kindly as if there was some secret, subtle understanding between them. She had his letter in her breast, over the blood-red ring she always wore. She touched it with light mockery, wondering if he would understand the gesture.

He had little to say, but when he looked at her steadily across the table, she felt a thrill of delicious terror, such as she had not known for a long while.

In his simple clothes, his natural grace was very apparent. He seemed to put aside most of his awkward clumsiness with his court finery.

As she drank to him out of the gold goblet she always carried with her for her own use, she leant towards him, and the huge pearls tinkled on her stiffened ruff. She gave him, across the candles and the crystal and the silver gilt, an unspoken message.

When the board was cleared and the cloth was removed, everyone was for music, being too tired for billiards or chess. A tall crystal jug with a silver lip, filled with white wine, remained on the table, and as this was emptied the French servants filled it again. Mary drank slowly, deliberately, willing herself to be bemused, slightly intoxicated, so that all appeared to her radiant and beautiful, so that she could forget Edinburgh and Holyrood and all that was distasteful in the city, and only believe in this elegance that was around her, the two kind, faithful women and the handsome young man who looked at her with his candid eyes inflamed with passion.

She watched the blue and green jewels, sapphire and emerald, rise and fall on his broad chest. He said in a muffled, husky voice that, after all, he could neither play nor sing, but he begged that David Rizzio might come in to entertain the company.

The Queen, drinking carefully, nodded. She sat in the window-place, where the closet was so small that the fire had warmed every part of it.

Rizzio was summoned. He came at once, neither too servile nor too forward. He did not wear, as he had worn a few weeks ago, the Lennox liveries, but a plain, dark habit that did not clash with nor yet shame his master's magnificence. His smooth dark hair, long and heavy, was curled at the ends on his shoulders. He carried a gleaming lute inlaid with an intricate pattern, presenting himself humbly towards his master, paying him, cunningly, more deference than he showed to the Queen, to whom he bowed, but remotely, as if she was a grandeur beyond his sphere.

The two young girls sat on the cushions before the fire, and played with the rings on their fingers and the jewels at their neck. Each thought of her own affairs.

Mary Fleming mused on the widower. Sir William Maitland, she was so soon to marry and of whom she knew so very little. She admired him as a clever, masterful man, subtle and successful, but she wondered what life would be like with one who knew so much, who had been married before, and must find her, whatever pains she might take, foolish and ignorant.

Mary Seaton thought of her lover in the grave. She had vowed herself to chastity, her intention being to enter a convent, but she had met a man whom she wished to marry and he had gone to Rome to obtain a dispensation from the Pope. On the way back, crossing France, he had caught the plague and died. Mary Seaton was now twice pledged to virginity, once because of the Church, once because of this dead lover. She felt sad but serene, and at peace—the will of God was so manifest.

When her mistress married, and she hoped that would be soon, she would retire into a convent, away from all the horrid sights and cruelties and rage and lusts of the world which agitated her so much.