“Uncle,” she said, “my dearest uncle …” She ran to him. His face relaxed. She was held in those arms; her body was crushed against the scarlet padded robes. His lips were on her forehead, on her cheek, on her mouth.
“So you love me then, beloved? You love me yet?”
“Dearest uncle, I shall never forget what you have done for me.”
He took her face in his hands. “Plans,” he said, “the best plans go wrong sometimes, Mary. What has happened in Scotland is a bitter blow, I grant you. But have no fear. Your uncle François is the most powerful man in France. He loves you. I love you. Together we will face the world for your sake.”
“I know.”
“It is what happened at Amboise, is it not, which has turned you from me? That shocked you, my dearest. But it was necessary. You ask yourself, How could we order such things to be done? How could we look on with apparent satisfaction? For this reason, Mary: Because these scoundrels were attempting to harm our beloved niece. We may be hard men; but we love the deeper for that.”
Now she was weeping. He was dominating her once more. Now he was, as he had said, her spiritual lover. Nothing could come between them—certainly not a diseased boy, even if he called himself the King.
All was well, thought the Cardinal. Let her comfort the crying boy now if she could.
Mary was his, and the King was hers; and that meant, of course, that the Duke and Cardinal, since they need fear no opposition from the King and Queen, could continue to rule France.
IN THE antechamber at Saint Germain a young Scots nobleman was waiting to see the Queen of France. He came with letters from the Queen-Regent of Scotland, and he had proved himself to be one of the few men about that Queen whom she believed she could trust.
He was twenty-five years of age. Tall and broad-shouldered, he gave an impression of enormous strength and vitality; his expression was one of cool unconcern; he was arrogant in the extreme, and many of the elegant Frenchmen who had looked askance at this man who had the appearance of a Norse warrior, had turned quickly away lest that indolent stare, which their faint mockery had aroused, might change to something still less pleasing. No man, looking into that granitelike face, sensing the power in those great arms and shoulders, would care to take the consequences of his anger single-handed.
He stood, legs apart, a man who would be noticed in any assembly, dominant, the over-powering vitality showing itself in the coarse springy hair, the bold flashing eyes, the entirely sensual mouth which suggested that he was a man of many adventures, sexual and warlike; and this impression was by no means a false one. He was as hardy as the granite hills of his native land; he was as wild as the Border from which he came. He was James Hepburn, who had been for the last four years—since the death of his father—the Earl of Bothwell.
As he waited he was wondering what good could come to him through this meeting with the Queen. He had heard a few days ago that her mother had died. She had long suffered from a dropsical complaint and her death was not unexpected. Now the girl who had not reached her eighteenth birthday was his Queen; he would offer her his faithful service, but in return he would expect rewards.
He had heard tales of her fascination but he was sceptical. He did not believe that one woman could be as perfect as she was represented to be. His lips curled a little. The beauty of queens was apt to be overrated. No Hepburn would join the ranks of their idolators. Queens were women and it was folly to forget that all-important fact. No Hepburn should. There was a story in the family that his ancestor, Adam Hepburn, had found the royal widow, Mary of Guelders, most accessible, and that Queen had become, so it had been recorded, “lecherous of her body” with the Hepburn. His own father, Patrick Hepburn—who had been called the Fair Earl and had had a way with women—had hoped to marry the Queen, Marie de Guise, and had even divorced his wife, James’s mother, to make the way clear. It was true that the royal widow had used his desires in that direction to suit her own purposes, but she had been the loser when, in his pique and anger against her, he had become friendly with the English.
To James Hepburn queens were women, and he had yet to meet the woman who had been able to show an indifference to him.
He would ask for some high office, for he was an ambitious man. He would never be like his father, whatever the provocation, for he hated the English and wished to serve Scotland and the Queen faithfully; but he wished to be rewarded for doing so.
He whistled the tune of a border song as he waited. He was glad to be in France. He had spent some of his youth here, for a certain amount of education at the Court of France was considered by the Scots nobility as a desirable part of a young man’s upbringing. Scotland was closely united with France and the French had the reputation of being the most cultured Court in the world. To France came young Scotsmen, and so to France some years ago had come James Hepburn.
He was particularly glad to be here at this time; not only because it was an important time politically, but in order to escape the tearful and too passionate devotion of Anna Throndsen. Anna was expecting their child; he had promised marriage, but he grew tired of women very quickly.
His upbringing had aggravated those characteristics which made him the man he was. He did not remember very much of his life before he was nine years old. That must have been because it was so easy and pleasant; his mother had had charge of him and his sister Janet, and the two of them had been tenderly cared for. They were perhaps wild by nature; they needed restraint, for the family traits were strongly marked in both of them. Their ancestors were lusty men, strong, wild and sensual.
It was unfortunate that, when James was nine years old, his father had secured a divorce from his mother. Ostensibly the grounds were consanguinity; actually they were brought because the Fair Earl wished to pay court to Mary of Guise.
The Countess of Bothwell was forced to leave her home and with it her two children. Gone was the restraining hand and the two—redheaded Janet and tawny James—ran wild.
As a boy of nine James saw terrible things. Henry the Eighth had declared war on Scotland and with typical ferocity had instructed his soldiers to put all to the fire and sword.
“Burn and subvert!” cried the tyrant. “Put all men and women to fire and sword without exception where any resistance should be shown to you. Spoil and set upside down, as the upper stone may be the nether, and not one stick stand by another, sparing no creature.”
The life of adventure had begun. James in his flight from one town to another, saw the soldiers of the English King carry out his orders. As a result the boy was filled with a passionate hatred toward the English, a hatred which burned within him and made him long to act as he saw their soldiers acting. Rape, torture and death were commonplace sights to him. They did not disgust; they were part of the adventurous way of life; he merely longed to turn the tables, and he swore he would one day.
He became a man at an early age. He was cynically aware of his father’s alliance with the enemy; he knew of his father’s fondness for women.
He spent a great part of his youth in the establishment of his great-uncle Patrick, Bishop of Aberdeen. The Bishop was a merry man, eager to educate his great-nephew in such a way as to bring credit to the name of Hepburn. He was a great drinker; food and drink, he declared, were the greatest pleasures in life, apart from one other. He would slap the boy on the back when he told him this. The one other? Did he not know? The Bishop put his hands on his knees and rocked with laughter. He would wager the boy— being a Hepburn—would soon know what he meant; if he did not, then, by all the saints, he could not be his fathers son.