The other queen

1571, FEBRUARY, SHEFFIELD CASTLE: MARY

I am hopeful, I am so hopeful. Weeks now, I think, and we will both be free.

Marie

I dress with particular care in black and white, sober colors, but I wear three diamond rings (one is my betrothal ring from Norfolk) and a band of rich bracelets just to demonstrate that though my crown has been taken from me and my rope of black pearls stolen by Elizabeth, I am still a queen. I can still look the part.

Lord Morton is visiting me from Scotland and I want him to go back with the news that I am ready and fit to take my throne. He is due at midday but it is not till the midafternoon and it is growing dark and cold that he comes riding into the courtyard.

Babington, my faithful page boy, comes dashing into my rooms, his nose red from the cold and his little hands frozen, to tell me that the nobleman from Scotland has finally arrived and his horses are being stabled.

I seat myself in my chair, under my cloth of estate, and wait. Sure enough, there is a knock at the door and Shrewsbury is announced with Morton. I do not rise. I let him be presented to me, and when he bows low, I incline my head. He can learn to treat me as a queen again; I don’t forget that before he was as bad as any of them. He can start as I intend we shall go on. He greets me now as a prisoner; he will next see me on my throne in Edinburgh. He can learn deference.

Bess comes in behind the two men and I smile at her as she curtsies. She dips the smallest of bows; there is little love left between us these days. I still sit with her on most afternoons, and I still give her hopes of her prospects when I am returned to the throne, but she is weary of attending on me and beggared by the expense of my court and the guards. I know it, and there is nothing I can or would do to help her. Let her apply to Elizabeth for money for my imprisonment. I am hardly going to pay my own jailers for incarcerating me.

The worry has put lines on her face and a grimness about her that was not there when I first walked into her house more than two years ago. She was newly married then, and her happiness glowed in her face. Her pride in her husband and her position was fresh for her. Now she has lost her fortune in entertaining me, she may lose her house, and she knows she has lost her husband already.

“Good day to you, my lady countess,” I say sweetly and watch her murmur a reply. Then the Shrewsburys take themselves off to the corner of the room, I nod to my lute player to play a tune, and to Mary Seton to see that wine and little cakes are served, and Morton sits on a stool beside me and mutters his news in my ear.

“We are ready for your return, Your Grace,” he says. “We are even preparing your old rooms at Holyrood.”

I bite my lip. For a moment I see again, in my mind, the dark red stain of Rizzio’s blood on the floor of my dining room. For a moment I think what a return to Scotland will mean to me. It will be no summer of French roses. The Scots were ill-suited to me before, and matters will not have improved. I shall have to live with a barbaric people and dine with a bloodstain on my floor. I shall have to rule them with my will and all my political skills. When Bothwell comes we can dominate them together, but until he arrives I will be in constant danger again of kidnap and rebellion.

“And the prince is being prepared for his journey,” he says. “He is looking forward to going to England; we have explained to him that this will be his home for the future, and he will be King of England one day.”

“He is well?”

“I have reports for you from his nurse and from his governor,” he says. “Also from his tutor. He is well and forward. He is growing strongly and learning his lessons.”

“He speaks clearly now?” Early reports had been of him drooling and failing to close his mouth in eating and in speech. A prince who is to command two kingdoms, perhaps three, has to be beautiful. It is harsh, but this is the way of the world.

“Much improved, as you will see.”

I take the package of reports and hand them to Mary Seton for reading later.

“But I have a request,” he says quietly.

I wait.

“We hear from the English ambassador that you are in correspondence with the King of Spain.”

I raise my eyebrows and say nothing. It is surely not Morton’s business who writes to me. Besides, I am not directly in touch with the King of Spain. He is meeting my emissary Ridolfi, who is traveling to the Duke of Alva in the Netherlands, to the Pope himself, and then to Philip of Spain. The joke is that Elizabeth gave him a pass of safe conduct out of the kingdom, having no idea that he was my emissary, touring her enemies to raise a campaign against her.

“And also with the King of France.”

“And?” I ask frostily. “Et puis?”

“I have to ask you, while matters are so sensitive, that you don’t write to them,” he says awkwardly. His Scots accent, always rather thick to my ears, grows more impenetrable as he is embarrassed. “We are making an agreement with Baron Burghley on behalf of the English court—”

“Baron Burghley?”

“Lord William Cecil.”

I nod; the ennoblement of my enemy can only make things worse for me and the old aristocracy—my friends.

“We are making an agreement, but when Lord Cecil finds secret letters to and from enemies of the state and you, he does not trust you. He cannot trust you.”

“The French are my kin,” I point out. “He can hardly blame me for writing to my family when I am far from home and utterly alone.”

Morton smiles. He does not look overly concerned at my loneliness.

“And Philip of Spain? England’s greatest enemy? Even now he is building ships for an invasion. He calls it an armada, to destroy England.”

“I do not write to him,” I lie readily. “And I write nothing to my family which Cecil cannot read.”

“Actually, Your Grace, you probably writenothing at all that he does not read,” he emphasizes. “He probably sees every letter that comes and goes, however clever you think you have been with your secret couriers and number codes and invisible ink.”

I turn my head away from him to indicate my irritation. “I have no state secrets,” I say flatly. “I must be allowed to write to my friends and family.”

“And Ridolfi?” he asks suddenly.

I hold my face quite still. I do not show the smallest flicker of recognition. He could stare at me as if I were a portrait and he still would not see my secret. “I know nothing of any…Ridolfi,” I say as if the name is strange to me. “I know nothing of any letters.”

“I beg of you,” Morton says awkwardly, all flushed with sincerity and embarrassment at being forced to call a lady and a queen a downright liar. “I will not quibble with you over who you know or who you write to. I am not a spy. I am not here to entrap you. Your Grace, I am your true friend and I am here to make the arrangements to return you to Scotland and to your throne. And so I beg of you not to set any plots in motion, not to write to any conspirators, not to trust anyone but myself and Lord Shrewsbury here, and the Queen of England herself. We are all determined to see you returned to your throne. You have to be patient; but if you will be patient and honorable as the great queen that you are, then we will see you restored this year, perhaps this Easter.”

“This Easter?”

“Yes.”

“You give me your word?”

“Yes,” he says, and I believe him. “But will you give me yours?”

“My word?” I repeat icily.

“Your word, as a queen, that you will not plot with the enemies of England.”

I pause. He looks hopeful, as if my safe return to Scotland and all his plans are hanging on this moment. “Very well. I promise,” I say solemnly.

“Your word as a queen?”

“I give you my word as a queen,” I say firmly.

“You will not receive or send secret letters? You will not engage in any conspiracy against the peace of England?”

“I give you my word that I will not.”

Morton sighs and glances over at Shrewsbury as if he is much relieved. Shrewsbury comes closer and smiles at me. “I told you she would promise,” he says. “The queen is determined to return to her throne. She will deal with you and with all your loyal countrymen with spotless honor.”