“Go to my brother like a beggar? And walk behind Katherine like a pauper?”
He does not understand the importance of precedence. “It’s all going wrong here,” he says, as simple as a boy. “The country is splitting into clan against clan, as it used to be. You have not kept the lords in unity as your husband did. What can you do but go back to your brother? Even if you are nothing more than a dowager queen, a woman who once was queen? As long as you are safe. As long as the boys are safe. What does it matter if you walk behind the Queen of England, as long as you are safe?”
“I am damned if she eats humble pie!” His grandfather rounds on him, and makes my heart leap with pride. “Why should she? When she has everything to play for here? And where would you go? Are you sick of the fight? When you tell her to run away, where would you go? Back to Janet Stewart?”
I never thought I would hear her name again. I look from my angry councillor to my white-faced husband. “What? What is this? Who speaks of Janet Stewart?”
Archibald shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he says. “I was thinking only of your safety. There is no need for this.” He scowls at his grandfather. “Does this help us?” he demands quietly. “All quarreling among ourselves? Are you helping me?”
“We’ll go back to Stirling,” I say suddenly. I cannot bear this. “And you will come with me, Archibald. We’ll set the castle for a siege again. We’ll protect my sons and I’ll have my baby there.” I glare at him. “Our baby,” I remind him. “Yours and mine, our first child together. There will be no talk of going to England. There will be no thought of our parting. We are married in the sight of God, once privately and once before the congregation, and we will never be parted.”
He kneels at my feet and takes my hand and crushes it to his lips. “My queen,” he says.
I bend over his bowed head and kiss the nape of his neck. His soft curly hair is warm beneath my lips; he smells clean, like a boy. He is mine and I will never leave him. “And there will be no talk of Janet Stewart of Traquair,” I whisper. “Never another word.”
There is a thunderous knocking on the door, we start apart and all look at one another. The door is swung open by my guards, and there are Albany’s men, his captain of the guard wearing his sword in the French fashion, and in his hand he has warrants of arrest, the ribbons trailing from the seals.
“What are you doing here?” I demand. I am proud that my voice does not tremble. I sound outraged because I am outraged.
“I have a warrant of arrest for John Lord Drummond, for striking the Lyon Herald, and for Gavin Douglas, wrongly named bishop, for fraudulently taking the see of Dunkeld.”
“You can’t,” I say. “I forbid it. I, the queen, forbid it.”
“The regent commanded it,” the captain explains as the guard comes into the room and leads them away, closing the door quietly behind them, leaving Archibald and me quite alone, with no one to support us. Ard raises his hand as if to protest and the captain gives him a steady look. “This is the law,” he says. “These men have broken the law. They are to be tried and sentenced. This is by order of the duke regent.”
Next day, I demand to see the Duke of Albany in person. I call for my horse and, sitting pillion for comfort, I ride up the Via Regis from Holyroodhouse Palace to the castle at the very top of the hill. Everyone cheers me as I go by, for I am still beloved in my capital city and the people remember when I rode in, seated behind my husband the king.
I smile and I wave, and I hope that the so-called duke regent is hearing the cheers as I come to the crest of the hill and over the drawbridge and into the castle. He will learn that he cannot act against me and mine.
I am admitted at once and I go from the great chamber through into the privy chamber, and there is Albany himself, as smart and perfumed as always. He bows very low to me, as he should, and I am gracious to him and we agree that we shall both sit. They bring us chairs, and mine is a little higher, and I sit and do not sigh with exhaustion though my back aches, nor do I lean back and clasp my round belly. I sit with my hands held in my lap, as upright as Katherine of Arrogant, and I say:
“All the charges against Gavin Douglas are false and he must be released at once.”
“The charges?” Albany repeats, as if it has slipped his mind that he has arrested my husband’s uncle.
“I understand that he is charged with colluding and conspiring with England against the interests of Scotland,” I say boldly. “And I am here to tell you that he did not do so, and would not do so. You have my word.”
He flushes and I think, triumphantly, that I have out-bluffed him, and that he will have to release Gavin, and how pleased Archibald will be. Ard was in a panic after his uncle’s arrest, doubting my judgment, anxious to hurry us back to Stirling, fearful that we have made terrible mistakes, in terror for his grandfather. Now he will see that I am indeed the great queen he fell in love with, and I can still command.
But Albany’s blush is not for himself: it is embarrassment for me. He shakes his head, looking away, and then he rises to his feet and goes to a table in the corner of the room and picks up some papers. “There are letters,” he says reluctantly. “Letters from Gavin Douglas to your brother the king through Lord Dacre, who is such an enemy to our peace. They show that your husband’s uncle asked the English to support his bid for the sees of Saint Andrews and Dunkeld, and that they did so. They show that he paid for the Church appointment. He is corrupt, and your brother favored him at your request.”
“I . . .” Now I am lost for words and I can feel the rising heat in my face as he confronts me with Gavin Douglas’s crimes. “But this is not against the interests of Scotland . . .” I am floundering.
“It is plotting with a foreign power,” he says simply. “It is treason. I also have letters that passed between your brother, King of England, and you,” he continues very quietly. “You invited him to make false proposals of peace to the Scots parliament, while you secretly asked him to invade. You asked him—Scotland’s enemy—to invade your own country. You sent letters in secret, you used a code. The letters show that you are betraying your country to the English.”
I cannot meet his reproachful eyes. “I asked my own brother for help. There is nothing wrong with that.”
“You advised him how to trick your own lords.”
“My people are rebelling against me. I cannot trust the lords . . .”
“I am sorry, Your Grace, but I know that you are plotting against Scotland. I know that you plan to run away to England, that Lord Dacre is ready to take you to your brother.”
I am so mortified that I feel tears coming into my eyes and I let them rise and fall. I put my hand to my hot forehead while with the other I clasp my belly. “I am alone!” I whisper. “A royal widow! I have to protect the king’s sons, I have to have the help of my family. I have to be able to write to my brother. I have to be able to write to my sisters, my dear sisters.” I glance up from under my wet eyelashes to see if he is moved.
He goes to take my hand, but he checks himself.
“Pardon Gavin Douglas,” I beg him. “And Lord Drummond. All they have done has been in my defense. You don’t know what the lords are like! They will turn on you too.”
He is beautifully mannered: he begs me not to cry and from inside his silk jacket he produces his own handkerchief, also silk, embroidered by his wife, a French heiress, with her crest and initials. Who carries a handkerchief in Scotland? They wouldn’t even know what one was.
I hold it to my eyes. It has the lightest of perfumes. I peep at him over it. “My lord?” I ask. I think I have won him over.