So, trembling, Darnley agreed to deceive the lords, who were feasting and congratulating themselves in Douglas House; he would escape with Mary from Holyrood and ride away.

“NOW,” said the Queen.

She was wrapped in a heavy cloak. She stood up firmly. The child was quiet now; it was almost as though it shared the suspense.

“Down the back staircase,” said Mary. “Through the pantries and the kitchens where the French are. The French will not betray us… even if they see us. We can rely on their friendship.”

With wildly beating hearts they crept down the narrow staircase, through the kitchens and underground passages to one of the pantries, the door of which opened onto the burial ground.

Darnley gasped. “Not that way!” he cried.

“Where else?” demanded Mary contemptuously. “Will you come or will you stay behind to share David’s fate?”

Darnley still hesitated, his face deathly pale in the moonlight. He was terrified of going on, yet he had no alternative but to follow her, and as he stumbled forward he all but fell into a newly made grave.

He shrieked, and Mary turned to bid him be silent.

“Jesus!” she cried, looking down into the grave. “It is David who lies there.”

Darnley’s limbs trembled so that he could not proceed. “It’s an omen!” he whispered.

In that moment Mary seemed to see anew the terrified eyes of David as he had been dragged across the floor. Angrily she turned on her husband: “Mayhap, it is,” she said. “Mayhap David watches us now… and remembers.”

“No… no,” groaned Darnley. “’Twas no fault of mine.”

“This is not the time,” said Mary, turning and hurrying forward.

He followed her across the grisly burial ground, picking his way between the tombs and shuddering as he caught glimpses of half-buried coffins.

On the far edge of the burial ground Erskine was waiting with horses. Silently they mounted, Mary riding pillion with Erskine.

“Make haste!” cried Darnley, now longing above all things to put as great a distance as possible between himself and the grim graveyard. He imagined David’s ghost had been startled from his grave and caused him to stumble there. Terror overwhelmed him—terror of the dead and of the living.

They rode on through the quiet night, but Erskine’s horse with its royal burden could not make the speed which Darnley wanted.

“Hasten, I say!” he cried impatiently. “’Tis dangerous to delay.”

“My lord, I dare not,” said Erskine.

“There is the child to consider,” cried Mary. “We go as fast as is safe for it.”

“They’ll murder us if they catch us, you fools!” cried Darnley.

“I would rather be murdered than kill our child.”

“In God’s name that’s folly. What is one child? If it should die this night, there’ll be others to replace it. Come on, man. Come on, I say. Or I’ll have you clapped in jail as soon as we are out of this.”

Mary said: “Heed him not. I would have you think of the child.”

“Yes, Madam,” said Erskine.

Darnley shouted: “Then tarry and be murdered. I’ll not.”

And with that he whipped up his horse and went ahead with all speed, so that soon he was lost to sight.

Mary felt the tears smarting in her eyes, but they were tears of shame for the man she had married. She was not afraid anymore. In moments such as this one, when she was threatened with imminent danger, she felt a noble courage rise within her. It was at such times that she felt herself to be a queen in very truth. She had duped Darnley; she had lured him to desert her enemies. She had foiled the plots of Moray and the scheming Morton. Once again, she believed, she had saved her crown.

Oh, but the humiliation of owning that foolish boy for a husband! For that she could die of shame. He was not only a fool; he was a coward.

How she wished that he could have been a strong man, a brave man on whom she could rely. Then she would not have cared what misfortunes befell them; they would have faced them and conquered them together.

After many hours in the saddle, just as the dawn was breaking, Erskine called to her that they could not be far from the safety of Dunbar Castle.

A short while after, he told her that he saw riders. Mary raised her weary eyelids. One man had ridden ahead of the rest. He brought his horse alongside that which carried the Queen. She looked with relief and admiration at this man who reminded her, by the very contrast, of the husband whom she despised.

She greeted him: “I was never more glad to see you, Lord Bothwell.”

FOUR

THE JUNE NIGHT WAS HOT AND THE QUEEN LAY TOSSING on her bed. She had suffered much during the last months, but now her greatest ordeal was upon her.

Her women were waiting now, and she knew that they did not expect her to leave her bed alive.

She was weary. Since the death of David she had become increasingly aware of the villainies of those about her; she could put no great trust in anyone. Even now, in the agony of a woman in childbirth who has suffered a painful pregnancy, she could not dismiss from her mind the thought of those hard, relentless men. Ruthven was dead; he had died in exile; but his son would be a troublemaker like his father. Morton, Lindsay, George Douglas, Boyd, Argyle were all traitors. Moray, her own brother, she knew, had been privy to the plot, and the plot had been not only to murder David Rizzio, but to destroy her. Maitland of Lethington—her finest statesman, a man whose services she needed, a man who had always shown a gentle courtesy which she had not often received from others—was of doubtful loyalty. He had fled to the Highlands with Atholl—surely a proof that he was not without guilt.

These men were dangerous, but there was one, the thought of whom depressed her so much that she felt she would welcome death. Why had she married Darnley whom she was beginning to hate more than she had believed it was possible to hate anyone?

He was loyal to nobody. He betrayed all those with whom he had worked against David. Now he was in a state of torment lest she pardon those lords who were in exile and they return to take their revenge on one who had turned informer. He sulked and raged in turn; he whimpered and blustered; he cringed and demanded his rights. She could not bear him near her.

It was an unhealthy state of affairs. It was true that with the followers mustered by Huntley and Bothwell she had returned triumphant to Edinburgh, and the lords responsible for Rizzio’s murder—with the exception of Moray who, she must feign to believe, was innocent of complicity—had all hastened to hide themselves. Some minor conspirators had been hanged, drawn and quartered—a proceeding which she deplored for its injustice, but which she was powerless to prevent. Bothwell was in command and, although he was the bravest man in Scotland, as a statesman he could not measure up to Maitland or Moray.

So she made her will and thought of death without any great regret.

She had failed; she saw that now. If only she could go back one year; if only she could go back to the July day when she had walked into the chapel at Holyroodhouse and joined her future fortunes with those of Darnley! How differently she would act and how different her life might consequently be!

She would have come to understand that she could have rallied her people to her and deprived her brother of his power. She had to be strong, but there was this terrible burden to hinder her; she had married the most despicable man in Scotland and he had all but ruined her.

But now the pains were on her and it was as though a curtain was drawn, shutting out those grim faces which tormented her; but the curtain was made of pain.