In the Bishop’s Palace the young James would lie awake and listen to the nightly perambulations of his great-uncle’s friends. There were whisperings and laughter, little screams of pleasure. James thought he understood. Life at Crichton, his fathers home, had not been without these phenomena, but never had he known them conducted on the scale they were in the Bishop’s Palace of Spynie.
The Bishop was very fond of several comely serving women. He would chuck them under the chin or pinch various parts of their bodies as he passed them. Sometimes young James would be with him, but he did not abstain from his intimate greeting for the sake of the boy. Why should he? The boy was a Hepburn.
“A real Hepburn!” he would say; and if there was a woman at hand he would push the boy toward her and she, taking her cue, would caress him and say that he was indeed a lovely boy.
In the banqueting hall James would sometimes sit with the Bishop and his cronies, listening to their conversation which invariably concerned their amatory adventures.
The Bishops numerous children often came to visit him, and he was very fond of them all. There were so many Janets and so many Patricks that James could not remember them all. It was the Bishop’s delight to have them legitimized, several at a time.
James willingly took to the life at the Palace of Spynie. It was the life for him. He very soon began to swagger with the Bishop and his friends. He learned how to carry his liquor and boast of his adventures. The Bishop was delighted in his great-nephew. “A true Hepburn!” was his frequent comment.
In France, whither he had gone to complete his education, he found nothing that he had learned at Spynie a disadvantage. He never did and never would like what he thought of as the effeminate manners of the French. He would not abandon his Scottish accent; he would not ape anybody. He was himself and was determined to continue to be. Moreover he found that his methods were as effective as any. There was not a gallant in the Court of France who could boast of so many easy conquests as could James Hepburn, for all that he did not write pretty poems, nor dance and scent himself, nor wear jewels in his ears. His attractiveness lay in his dynamic personality, in that obvious virility. Not for him the graces; he would not attempt to woo. It was his way to take at a moment’s fancy, for that was the way to enjoy. Too long deliberation was fatal to pleasure; his passions came quickly and as quickly passed.
His most satisfying love affair had been with Janet Beaton, aunt to that Mary Beaton who was one of the Queen’s Marys. She had had three husbands and was nineteen years older than James, but a wonderful woman, tempering wisdom with passion, friendship with love. It was a very satisfying relationship to both of them. They had become “handfast,” which meant that they were betrothed and that the betrothal was binding. Handfasting involved no actual ceremony. The couple merely lived together and, if after a certain period, they wished to go through the ceremony of marriage, they were free to do so.
The difference in their ages was too great, James realized; Janet realized it also. Janet was the only reasonable woman he had encountered in his amatory life, for he tired so quickly, the women so slowly. Janet had said that though they ceased to be lovers, there was no reason why they should not remain friends. With Janet he had been as nearly in love as he could be.
It was a pity that Anna Throndsen was not so reasonable.
He had set out on an embassy for the Queen-Mother of Scotland. First he was to go to Denmark where he was to use his persuasive powers on King Frederick that he might lend his fleet to Scotland against the English; secondly he must visit the Court of France, taking letters to the Queen from her mother.
He had set off for Denmark with high hopes, and his sojourn there might have been very successful, for he had won Frederick’s promise of help; but with the death of the Queen, the political situation had changed. England was ready to discuss peace with France and Scotland, so that Frederick’s offer was no longer needed.
Meanwhile James’s personal affairs were giving him some anxiety.
Anna was not only attractive, she was clever; she had been outstanding among the women he had met in Denmark, not only because she was dark among so many who were fair-haired, but because she was a shrewd businesswoman. The eldest of seven daughters and having one younger brother, she was bold and ruled her parents. James was immediately attracted and they very quickly shared the same bed. Anna had ideas about marriage; she understood that James was a lover without much love, but with lust which came quickly and was quickly satisfied. But his virility was overpowering, and even Anna had succumbed and had felt the need to satisfy passion and make arrangements afterward.
She believed that she could use him in the future. James was less calculating. He had the Borderer’s instinct: a successful Lieutenant of the Border, it had been his custom to take his choice of the women prisoners, and the affair would be over and done with quickly; he gave it not another thought. He wished it could always be thus, but there were occasions, in a more regulated society than that of a town in the process of ravishment, when certain tiresome preliminaries were necessary.
Anna was attractive enough to occupy his attention for more than one night—or even two. She saw the ambitious man in her lover; she saw the Scots noble from impoverished estates, so she allowed the rumor to be put about that she was an heiress to no small fortune. James swallowed the bait and suggested marriage.
He had never met such a clever woman. In no time she was pregnant. They must be married. She was the daughter of an honorable Danish family.
He had discovered Anna’s fortune to be mythical; he had also discovered that his desire for her was on the wane; but he could not elude her altogether. When he was ready to leave Denmark (and at that time he had not heard of the death of the Queen-Mother of Scotland and was therefore a petitioner in a hospitable land) he must take her with him, her family said; and in view of the delicate political situation he could see no alternative.
So he and Anna left Copenhagen, but when they reached Flanders he reasoned with her.
“Should I arrive at the French Court with a mistress big with child?” he demanded. “We shall have those dandified ninnies laughing behind our backs.”
“You could arrive with the Countess of Bothwell whose condition is a delight to you,” said Anna quickly.
“A speedy marriage… and in a foreign land? Impossible!”
“With a man such as you are nothing is impossible.”
There was some truth in that, he thought, and, by God, I’ll not take you farther. Hard as it is to rid myself of your company, you are right when you say that with me nothing is impossible.
He was cunning; he had merely been caught by the unexpectedness of her tactics, for previously he had never been forced to plead with a woman; he had said: “Come hither!” and they came; he coolly walked off afterward, leaving them weeping and hoping for his return. He should have known Anna was no ordinary woman.
“The French,” he said contemptuously, “are sticklers for their etiquette. The Queen has been brought up as one of them. I have my future to consider.”
“I shall see to it,” said Anna demurely, “that it is our future.”
But Anna, as her pregnancy advanced, grew less truculent. She wished only to lie and rest half the day. The prospect of an uncomfortable journey across Flanders alarmed her, and she knew that he would not marry her until they reached Scotland and that it would be necessary to have their child legitimized after its birth. But she would know how to find him; he was too prominent a man to be able to lose himself.