“He had a dream,” he said, “and when he asked his astrologers to interpret it, they replied that the royal lion of Scotland, in course of time, would be torn by its whelps. That was why he lived in fear of me.”
“A father — and a king — in fear of his son!” scorned Margaret. Then she touched his cheek with her finger. “And such a son.”
He caught the hand and kissed it. He was overcome by a gust of passion but, acutely conscious of his inexperience, he hesitated. There was a bitter sweetness in fifteen-year-old love that would never be equaled at another time of his life, he knew. She drew away from him. “They will find a bride for you from some foreign country,” she said sadly. “They will need to make some useful alliance.”
“They have found brides for me before.” He snapped his fingers. “That for their foreign marriages! When I was very young it was decided I should marry the Lady Cecilia, second daughter of King Edward IV of England, but when Edward died his daughter was no longer considered a worthy consort. There was a new king on the throne — Richard III. I know because my mother insisted that I learn what was happening in other countries and particularly in England.”
“It is a necessary part of the education of one who is to be King,” Margaret reminded him.
“And Richard had a niece, the Lady Anne Suffolk, and he was eager for her to marry me. But it was not long before the Tudor Henry VII had ousted Richard from the throne and then Lady Anne, like Lady Cecilia, was no longer a worthy match for me. Foreign marriages! They often come to naught.” He boasted: “When I am King I shall choose my own bride and I know who she will be.”
Margaret sighed and leaned against him. Why not? She was after all a Drummond and an ancestor of hers, Annabella Drummond, had married Robert III of Scotland.
“Oh, James, would you indeed?”
“You may trust me,” he assured her. “I would I were King now… But no… I don’t.”
His brows were drawn together. He wanted to see his father, to tell him what nonsense it was to think that he, his eldest son, James, who wished to live in peace with everyone, would ever dream of harming him. James was imagining a pleasant scene when he would be brought face-to-face with his father and would heal the rift between him and his nobles; then he would take Margaret by the hand and say: “Father, this is the lady I have chosen to be my bride.” There would be great rejoicing throughout Scotland, for the discord would be healed by this marriage; Stirling would be the scene of joyous festivities and he would ride through the streets to Edinburgh, and there would be tournaments in the fields about the Castle and Holyrood House.
It was such a pleasant dream that it was a pity to wake from it. But he did not wish to be King since that must mean his father would be dead. He hated the thought of death; it would always remind him of the death of his mother.
Margaret understood; she pressed her lips tightly together because she knew it would hurt him if she said what was in her mind; she must not repeat what she had heard her father and his friends say, which was that it would be a good day for Scotland if James III were dethroned and his son set up in his place.
Everyone at Stobhall talked of it. She had discussed it with her sisters, particularly the younger ones — Anabella, Eupheme and Sibylla. It was for this reason that her father had brought the young heir to the throne to Stobhall, that he might be here in the hands of his father’s enemies when the need arose.
“I hate death,” whispered James. “And my father would have to die before I could be King.”
It was only about a year ago that his mother had died, and he was still aware of the void that had made in his life. It had changed the tenor of his days and he could still wake in the night and shed tears for the loss of his kind and tolerant mother.
And when she was no longer there his father’s enemies had decided to make him their figurehead. He should have protested, he knew; but Lord Drummond had brought him to Stobhall and here he had found Margaret.
She was impatient of the course the talk was taking, for she did not wish to make him melancholy.
“Let us take off our shoes,” she said, “and dabble our feet in the water.”
She cried out in mock dismay as the cold water splashed about her ankles; she held her skirts above her knees, as James splashed into the river after her and she pretended to run from him.
He caught her, as she intended he should.
“Why, James IV,” she cried, “how bold you are!”
“Is that your opinion then, Queen Margaret?”
They embraced there, while the water played about their ankles, and were astonished by their sensations. They were fifteen and people of their age who lived in the early sixteenth century in Scotland were invariably sexually awakened. They had both led more sheltered lives than most young people, and they felt in that moment impatient with their innocence. They seemed bound more closely together because they must lead each other, because they must explore together.
He drew her from the water and they lay on the bank together.
“This is the happiest day of my life,” said the future James IV of Scotland.
But even as they lay there on the bank they heard the sound of urgent voices calling the Prince.
“Heed them not,” whispered James. “They will go away.”
But the voices came nearer and Margaret struggled free of his arms and leaping to her feet smoothed her hair, straightened her rumpled gown.
He rose and stood beside her, and thus the messenger from Stobhall found them.
“I implore Your Highness to return to the house without delay,” James was told, and he caught the excitement in the voice of the man who addressed him.
Important events were close; he could not guess how important; but as he walked back with Margaret he sensed that the idyll on the bank of the Tay had been more than temporarily interrupted — perhaps it would be lost forever.
He felt the remorse even now, looking back over the years. What should I have done? he asked himself, as he had so often. Should I have refused?
But Margaret’s father was among those who pointed out his duty, and Margaret herself stood by with shining eyes watching him, telling him by her glances that he was no longer a boy.
They were persuading him where his duty lay and among them were some of the most powerful lords of Scotland: Angus, Argyle, the Humes and the Hepburns. And he gave way. Many a time he had said to himself: “I was but a boy of fifteen.” Yet he could never forget that he had allowed himself to ride out with them, while the red and gold banner of his ancestors had been held over his head.
There was one point on which he never ceased to thank God that he had insisted. “None is to harm my father,” he had declared. “If the battle goes in our favor he is to be brought to me.”
They had soothed him with gentle words, telling him that he was their leader and his word was law.
And thus he had ridden to Sauchieburn which was but a few miles from Bannockburn, the very spot where, nearly two hundred years before, the Bruce himself had defeated Edward II of England and restored independence to Scotland.
The horror of the battle of Sauchieburn stayed with him. Somewhere among the opposing army had been his father, the man who had shut himself away from his son because he believed that he would one day do him harm. Had this old prophecy been fulfilled? James wanted to cry out: But if you had been a natural father to me, if you had let love, not fear, govern the relationship between us, we would not be here this day at Sauchieburn fighting against each other.
He heard that his father had sent to Edinburgh Castle and ordered that the sword which Robert the Bruce had carried at Bannockburn should be brought to him, that he had said: “As it served the Bruce then, so shall it serve me now.”