The Captive Queen of Scots - Plaidy Jean (читать книги онлайн бесплатно без сокращение бесплатно txt) 📗

Mary lay back obediently; but when Jane returned she found her mistress had become listless.

“Your Majesty, when you have washed and eaten you might be allowed to explore the castle. I do not see how they can prevent your doing that. This state of affairs will not last. Your faithful subjects will soon come to rescue you from your enemies.”

Mary said quietly: “My faithful subjects? Those who deserted from my army? Those who called out that I should be burned as a murderess . . . as an adulteress?”

“Come, allow me to wash your face. Then I will comb your hair and bring a mirror that you may see the result. It is all that is needed to make you the most beautiful woman in Scotland.”

But Mary could not rouse herself from her melancholy.

Marie Courcelles came in and when she saw that the Queen was awake she expressed her pleasure.

“Your Majesty will soon be well again. You will make a Little France in this dreary old Lochleven.”

But Mary turned her face away and began to weep silently.

“It will pass,” whispered Jane to Marie. “She has yet to recover from the shock.”

“If only my lord Bothwell were here all would be well. He would make her gay again.”

Mary turned and looked at them. Her voice seemed devoid of all hope as she said: “Bothwell has fled. I have a feeling that I shall never again see his face. And what is happening to my son? How will my little Jamie fare without me to care for him?”

“All will be well, Your Majesty. Do you think Lord Bothwell would leave you to your enemies! I have heard it said that he has gone North to take refuge with Huntley. They will come to release you.”

She shook her head. How she wished she could have believed that! And why could she not? Why was she so certain that she could never see Bothwell again?

And if I do not, she asked herself, what reason have I for living? He was my life. At times I hated him; he was harsh to me—always cruel, determined to dominate me, to go on as he had begun when in Buchanan’s House he stole in on me unawares and took his will of me. I tried to resist him then and yet I knew—as he did it—from that moment I was in his power.

It is not because I have lost Scotland that I mourn. It is because I have lost the two I love more than any in the world—my lover Bothwell, and James my baby son.

She lay down and listened to the sound of her women whispering anxiously together; she heard the tramp of the sentinel outside her window. That was like the tramp of doom. They were determined that she should never escape from Lochleven. And in that moment, so deep was her despair, she believed she never would.

She was sunk in melancholy and would do nothing to rouse herself.

Now the night and days began to merge one into another and she lost count of them. Her French apothecary came to her bedside with potions for her to drink, but she would not touch them.

“Madame,” he declared, “you will die if you will not try to save yourself from death.”

“Let me die,” she answered. “I should be happier dead than a prisoner in Lochleven Castle.”

She lay in a haze of memories; she was happiest when she could not remember where she was, and that was often the case. She thought she was in France, the petted idol of the Court there, beloved of Henri Deux and his mistress the dazzling Diane de Poitiers; the adored wife of young Francois Deux; the hope of all her Guise relations. Through that dream the figure of Catherine de’ Medici moved like a menacing ghost, sending her back to Scotland when those who loved her were dead, sending her to unhappy marriage with Darnley, to the nightmare of his death—but to Bothwell. She must always remember that when she came back to Scotland she came to Bothwell. And then to Carberry Hill and Lochleven.

Lady Douglas came to her bed and tried to coax her to eat. But she had no desire to speak with Lady Douglas. Sir William came in the company of Lindsay and Ruthven; she turned her head away and would not even look at them.

Once a young man, whose looks proclaimed him to be a Douglas, came to her bedside and stood looking down at her.

He whispered: “Your Majesty, if there is some commission with which you would entrust me, gladly would I perform it.”

But she could not answer him because the expression on his face brought a lump to her throat; so she had closed her eyes, and when she opened them he had gone.

On another occasion a boy had stood at the end of her bed watching her . . . a strange boy, with a pert, freckled face. He had said with a broad accent: “Hello, Queen.” And she believed he must have been part of a dream, for suddenly he winked at her and was gone.

So the days passed in a melancholy haze.

Jane remonstrated with her. “Your Majesty, it is fourteen days since we came to Lochleven and you have scarcely eaten or drunk in all that time. You must rouse yourself. What if my lord Bothwell were to come for you? How could you escape with him, weak as you are?”

“I could not stand, could I, Jane,” she said. “There is no strength left in my limbs.”

“Your Majesty,” implored Jane, “before it is too late save yourself . . . for Scotland and your son who needs you.”

Those words kept repeating themselves in Mary’s mind. Save yourself . . . Save yourself for Scotland and your son who needs you.

The next day she ate a little; and the following day a little more.

Word went through the castle: “The Queen is beginning to take an interest in her surroundings. After all, she has decided to live.”

George Douglas lay on the grass, his eyes never straying long from those windows which were hers. He had thought of her continually ever since he had heard that they were bringing her to his home. He had pictured her as he had so often heard her described—beautiful beyond imagining; gowned in rich cloth of gold, velvet and silver, a crown on her head. He had remembered all he had heard about her romantic life; her early flight to France where she had become Queen; her three marriages, all ending in tragedy. He had heard the scandals which had been whispered about her when Darnley had been murdered. They called her adulteress, murderess, but he did not believe them. He had always believed her to be a deeply wronged woman, and since she was also beautiful she had become the center of his dreams of chivalry.

He was misunderstood in this rough country where men such as Bothwell were looked up to, where cold passionless men like his half-brother Moray were those whom others were ready to call their leaders.

When he had seen the Queen disheveled after her ordeal, almost demented, her gown tattered, her lovely features spattered with mud, his feeling had been more intense than he had imagined they ever could be. He loved the sick and lonely woman more than he ever could the Queen in her crown and royal robes. He was excited almost beyond endurance, because she was here in his brother’s castle, within his reach, and because she was a friendless prisoner and it might be in his power to help her.

During the last weeks he had sought excuses to go into her apartment. She had been unaware of him, lying listless in her bed, her eyes closed; and he had been afraid that, since she clearly no longer wished to live, she would die.

Once she had opened her eye and seen him and he had looked at her with such yearning that he believed he aroused some response in her. He had been begging her not to die, for if she died he wished to die also. He was young and of little account in the castle where his mother and brother ruled, and where Moray was considered to be the most important person in Scotland, but he was fierce in his desire to help her; he wanted to give his life for her. Willingly would he do so and count himself blessed. That was what he had tried to tell her.

Did she understand? Was it coincidence that a few days later he had heard that the Queen was taking a little nourishment?