‘SISTER ELIZABETH, BETH.’
‘Leave me be.’
‘I have a warm posset for you, Sister.’
‘God strike me down, your reverence, I just closed my eyes for a moment.’
‘It’s me, Francesca, your novice once, Sister.’
‘Could you not have said before, lassie, and spared me the fright. What is it you want? ’
‘Look, I have warm milk with spices and a lace of brandy.’
‘God bless you, child, for I’m far spent. Are we writing today?’
‘We haven’t written for weeks, Sister, you’ve been so poorly.’
‘Have I? Well, God knows, I’ve cause. But we must write. There are things I have to tell before, well before. I can’t bear them on my own any longer. It’s too hard. Have you got your quill? Sit down beside me and keep an old woman company. Don’t leave me till we have it all scribed.’
‘Is it about the Queen?’
‘Aye, and other things? Where will I start?’
‘With Earl Bothwell, after Darnley’s murder.’
‘There’s no play without the Devil, right enough. He was home again, married to Jean Huntly and riding high. I provided for the wedding feast at Crichton. Hundreds of deer were slaughtered; mountains of salmon broiled. Then Darnley was blown up and throttled at the Kirk o’ Field. Nothing like making certain, to be sure.’
‘Was Bothwell guilty?’
‘In it up to his neck, but never alone. They all wanted rid of that pocky lad, including Mary, though she never spoke her mind outright. So our Jamie decided he would speak it for her. It was like cauld kail re-het, for this was Earl Patrick’s aim, to marry the widow. Only Jamie was more willing to force his suit. Pat would upend a serving lass though not a Queen; our bold boy had no like scruples. The Edinburgh crowd was already naming him assassin, so he had to get her in his hands before anything was proved against him. He kidnapped her on the road from Stirling and brought her here to Dunbar.’
‘We’re in Haddington, at the Convent House.’
‘I know that, booby, but then I was at Dunbar. They made it a fearful rocky place, safe by sea and land. It was Signor Ubaldino’s work, that dear man.’
‘Why were you at Dunbar?’
‘He had me brought there to manage the household after his sister left. And to prepare for entertainment. Which shows he knew who was coming.’
‘The Queen.’
‘Aye, Queen Mary herself, the bonnie lass – woman I suppose. And long like her mother with the supple limbs and thick auburn hair when she let it down. She had beauty, that’s the plain truth, even in that plight. Widowed, kidnapped, and denied her own counsellors and servants. That was what he needed to exercise his wiles. To have her in his power alone. He planned it all like some thieving raid.’
‘Did he, you know, Sister?’
‘I’m failing, Francesca, my glass is running out. So I want you to put this down in words. Not my kind of words, like gossip, but church words, book words. It’s on my conscience and I can’t rest easy till I spit it out. Who knows the next bout might be my last. It’s burning in my chest, but I think a sup of wine might ease me after the posset. Good girl. Are you ready? I need to remember, and settle my accounts.
‘He chased off Melville and then Maitland. They shot out of Dunbar like ponies on the bolt. I showed the Queen up to her chamber. It was next to Bothwell’s. She had no female attendant apart from me. I was her Mary, so I made all comfortable and ordered supper to be served for her and his lordship in private.
‘They sat late, Francesca, I swear, arguing and discussing. Those were no love birds. Then he goes into his chamber. But he went to her in the night – sheets tell their own tale – and she took him into her bed. Why give way to him? She a queen and he but a needy earl who had snatched her in the country like a reiver. Aye but he had something that swerved women into his arms. There was the Danish woman who lived at Morham believing he would marry her. There was that wee whore he wynched in Haddington, when Lady Jean proved cold. And there was some French hussy of high degree who possessed his body and wanted more. Her letters and poems were lying in his bedchamber at Dunbar. I only know a few French words but they were all in those letters. I’m not saying Mary Stewart loved him but she felt desire, in Dunbar at least. I should know.
‘Not that she got much by it, all the same. He was off after two nights in the love nest to Edinburgh. It was not her body he wanted but her hand in marriage. He had the first and was impatient to grab the second. Where the bold Pat had failed he would triumph, the Hepburns would never look back. It was too valuable a prize to let slip love dallying.
She was weepy when he left, and lay abed. I cosseted her with cordials and sweetmeats. She lapped up the attention like a child denied affection. She was a lovely woman, and used to command, but conscience troubled her peace. Put that down clearly, lass, I know the signs all too well. He was married and she barely a widow. Most of all she craved rest, and release from fear. She had enough and more than enough trouble for one lifetime. James Hepburn seemed safe harbour from a storm of dangers.
‘It’s a strange thing, Francesca. Women can command better than any man. And see how things need to be arranged. As I should know as well as anyone. But times we surrender without reason. She was in that state, wanting to lose her will, for a while at least. God knows she paid a sore price.
‘For twelve days she rested in my care. But then the Earl returned with a great following. He shut himself up in her chamber. But not to woo, not our Jamie; I had my ear to the door. It was all about divorces with legal papers from the Court and from the Church. He said his union to Lady Jean Gordon was banned by the Pope so he had to divorce, which was odd reasoning for a Protestant. But I would swear, Francesca, that they had a dispensation for the marriage. Aye and what about Bothwell himself? Some rumoured he was Marie de Guise’s bairn which made Mary half sib. They never asked the Holy Father about that. But folk would smear anything with foul, sticky tongues. Pat got nowhere near the Guise’s bed.
‘They set out for Edinburgh in state, to enter the capital together. He was already King in his mind’s eye and bore himself like the master. He had waited a long time for this moment and nothing would sour it. She looked neither left nor right, like someone whose course had been set by fate.’
‘Was that the last you saw of them?’
‘Of the Queen, God help her. He came running back later, but I’d gone. Couldn’t look at him. Shall never see his devil face again.’
‘Are you alright, Sister? Shall I write anything more?’
‘I’ve never spoken about it. There was no one I could tell before.’
‘Don’t. We’ll have some supper. Drink this now, you’re white.’
‘I need no drink, may it never pass my lips again. Listen to me, lassie. When he had gone off with his new conquest to play the King, they released a woman from the cellars. She had been down there since I arrived to make all ready for the royal arrival. You could see why. She was beautiful beyond describing, with golden hair and a full mature figure. Not young but still in her prime. Yet she had a lost look about her, the empty eye. This was his bed skivvy when nothing else would serve. They said she had been kept at Hermiston, and brought here when Dunbar became his stronghold. They named her Christine Sinclair. Write that clearly.
‘She was no Sinclair. I knew her, as God’s my witness, the minute I set eyes on her bonny face, for my own child taken so many years before to Hermiston. She was wandering about now like some lost calf bleating for its cow. Where was Earl Jamie? She had few words but repeated them over and again. They told her he had gone to Edinburgh to marry the Queen. I can hear that cry still tearing at my breast. Like she herself had been torn from it so long before.
‘They tried restraining her. I watched like one turned to stone. Then she ran out the postern. I had to sit down and force breath back into my body.’
‘Did you make yourself known to her, Sister?’
‘They brought her body back the next day. She had walked into the sea and lain down beneath the cold salt waves.’
‘God be merciful to you and yours.’
‘I had her in my arms again. I helped to lay her out. We stripped off the sodden clothes from that smooth white body. Then we saw.’
‘What was it, Sister?’
‘Tender flesh, my own flesh, cut and scored. Her skin was scarred across the back and shoulders and on the breast, even on the breast. Red angry weals, raised to the touch. Aye, you may stare. His idea of sport, to inflict pain because she was slave to his will, his filthy passions, laid bare for all to see.
‘So she was buried fast, with only my prayers to carry her soul over. But our Lady Mother has pity enough for all her daughters. Her heart can heal, though we cannot forget, nor yet forgive. Come to my old weary arms, lassie. Beth Hepburn has room here for a world of sorrows. Mother Mary be my witness, I never delighted in another’s pain.
‘I crawled back here to our house, the old done woman you’ve known so long. And she’s gone to her rest, poor lamb, where I’ll join her shortly. He’s dying in some foreign land, tethered to a post. Bound like a dumb beast. I take no pleasure in it, mind, yet I have no pity either. I save that for my lost bairn, and for Mary Stewart. Our troubles have no end. God has questions to answer too, when all’s said and done.
‘Ach, stop greeting. You’ve a kind heart. Pass me over that box of scents. Dab this behind your ears, and we’ll freshen up. I don’t need to be smelly. See that little phial – it’s a fragrant balm. Splash some on my bosom. I’m old meat but I’m not rotten yet.’