SCENE SIX — SWEET BABY JAMES, AUNTIE ELIZABETH AND A SORER SICKBED FOR DARNLEY THIS TIME
(LA CORBIE wheels on baby, first loop of her circle … she sings a sinister wee song which is also a familiar Scottish west-coast lullaby)
LA CORBIE: Wee chookie burdie
Tol-a-lol-a-lol
Laid an egg on the windae sole
The windae sole it began to crack
And wee chookie burdie roared and grat.
(LA CORBIE wheels him. ELIZABETH revealed soliloquising à la Act One. She has a letter and a Polaroid snapshot of a baby as if from proud new parents, and a hand mirror)
ELIZABETH: And so she has a son and heir. They do say he is perfect. (Looks at photo) Well, ‘James of Scotland’, are you going to end up my heir for want of a better or a nearer? Surely not …
(LA CORBIE wheels pram into focus)
LA CORBIE: Wee Jamie eh? Born tae be King James the Saxt o’ Scotland. Some day. If ye live sae lang … An awfy big name for sicc a wee rid-faced scrawny shilpit wee scrap o’ humanity, eh? Dinna greet. Aye wha’s the lucky laddie tae have made it this faur, eh? Eh?
ELIZABETH: A son and heir … and I am of but barren stock. ‘The Virgin Queen’. Too old to whelp now at any rate.
LA CORBIE: Wheest, wheest, does your mammy love yir daddy, eh? Eh? Does she no? Ach well, son, you’ll no’ be the first bairn i’ the world conceivit in love and born intae hate.
(Lights reveal DARNLEY in his surgical mask lying on sickbed, MARY with a bowl of something, spoonfeeding him)
DARNLEY: Love me, Mary.
MARY: Sup this up, Henry …
DARNLEY: But you will love me again, Mary …? When I’m better?
MARY: Aye, Henry … when you’re better.
DARNLEY: Doctor said he didn’t think it’d mark my face. You don’t think I’ll be marked for ever? Surely smallpox doesn’t always —
MARY: Likely no, Henry.
DARNLEY: It’s disgusting to you, isn’t it? What if I’m all pocked … Mary, could you ever let me back into your bed again, with my face all —
MARY: It’ll leave nae mark, Henry.
DARNLEY: Want to come back to your bed, be a proper husband again, Mary.
MARY: Eat. You’re weak.
DARNLEY: Don’t say that word. It’s been a taunt at me ever since I was a boy.
MARY: You’re still but a boy, Henry.
DARNLEY: And God help me but it’s true! I’m weak. Wicked men used me, you were right, they would have killed me too. They used my weakness, my — is loving you a weakness? They made me jealous, I was a mad person, not myself, it wasn’t — Jealousy! It was a poison, it filled me up, they manipulated me, it wasn’t my fault.
MARY: Wheesht. Eat.
MARY: Aye but it wisna a’ your fault, Henry. You’re … only young yet. I tellt you.
DARNLEY: It’s a long time ago now, Mary. I’ve changed. Honestly I’m not the same person! And our fine son is growing, eh?
MARY: Fat and bonny.
DARNLEY: I tell you, this last year … ever since that night — (MARY shrugs)
MARY: We hae ither secretaries.
(ELIZABETH crumples letter and photo)
ELIZABETH: I do think it’s hard to think of her so happy and me not! Dark deeds, bloody murders, plots against her life and throne, and she wins out again and again. All those involved just scatter when Darnley deserts them, most of the original rebels are pardoned and back in favour in Edinburgh, such is the wheel of fortune, and she is — if my spies tell me true — quite reconciled to the child-husband. All her people love her, she has a husband and a fine healthy son.
(Pause)
Such is the wheel of fortune! … ‘Oh, madam, you never wanted to marry!’ How the hell do any of them know what I wanted! Shut up! Shut up!
(Pause)
I don’t know what I wanted (Looks at her coiffure in the mirror)
Lord! Grey hairs. Pluck them out.
LA CORBIE: Aye, King James the Saxt. Some day. And mair, mair than that, shall be. Some day. Wheesht. But watch ma lambie, watch! Listen, once upon a time, aye, aye, oot on the open moor, caw, caw, an’ there was a moose thocht it was lord o’ a’ the heather, and there was a foumart’s den an’ it lay toom and empty. Sae the wee moose moved in and thocht it wis in heaven. Till the foumart cam’ back an’ ett it fur its supper.
(LA CORBIE wheels off out of focus)
DARNLEY: We’ll be happy again, you’ll see.
MARY: Aye, Henry.
DARNLEY: And I can come to your bed again?
MARY: Once … you’re better o’ the smallpox, aye.
DARNLEY: I wish I could come back to the palace.
MARY: Soon.
DARNLEY: But you will stay here?
MARY: Aye, Downstairs. Richt ablow ye. I’m your wife.
DARNLEY: Will you come and sit with me tonight? We could have music.
MARY: No the nicht, Henry. I hae tae gang tae a weddin’ — ma best page is tae be merrit at the palace and I canny no’ go to the feast o’ ma favourite, it widnae be lucky.
DARNLEY: Don’t go.
(MARY is arching and trying to fasten beads)
MARY: I must. (Pause) Fasten ma necklace, Henry.
(She bares the nape of her neck, hair forward, all vulnerable as in beheading pose, almost. An echo, a premonition of it. He fastens clasp and kisses her neck, burying his face in her hair)
DARNLEY: You smell beautiful. Amber, isn’t it? I wish it could drown out all the camphor of this sickroom, I wish, I wish —
(He probably’d like it to drown out guilt, everything. MARY bursts suddenly)
MARY: Henry, come with me to the wedding! Get up, Henry
Darnley! Come and dance wi’ me!
DARNLEY: Mary, you know I’m sick, I can’t go out of doors.
MARY: Of course you canna. Guid nicht, Henry.
DARNLEY: Kiss me?
(She does. Goes calmly from him. Straight to where BOTHWELL is waiting for her. She goes into his arms. They dance)
BESSIE: (when she sees) Oh, naw Bothwell. Bothwell! I’m your Bess! (She starts to scream. But gets whirled away in a mad dance, a hideous anachronistic waltz, they la-la out and spin, staccato, like mannikins, each with imaginary partner)
MARY: To hell in a white petticoat wi’ you, Bothwell. Aye I will go. I maun go.
BOTHWELL: Ah only hud tae bide ma time …
MARY: An’ thegither we shall hae justice!
(MARY and BOTHWELL kiss and sink down to the floor in love-making, rolling over and over. Drums are building up to a crescendo. DARNLEYwhere she left him on his sickbed stirs, murmurs her name)
Justice!
(And this time the very word makes an enormous explosion happen as DARNLEY at Kirk ο’ Field goes up. As smoke clears everyone else but MARY and BOTHWELL, who are still writhing in love-making on the floor, begins the accusatory chant)
ALL: Burn the hoor! Burn the hoor! Burn the hoor!
(And BOTHWELL to his feet and runs one way. MARY another. The stage is empty but for clearing smoke. LA CORBIE alone, singing her not particularly full of pity ‘Lament for Lord Darnley’)
We Twa Corbies.
LA CORBIE: Twa weet black corbies in the snaw
Wi’ naethin’ in oor wames ata’
Tae the other yin Ah did say
‘Whaur sail we gang and dine the day
In ahint yon auld fail dyke
I ken there lies a new slain knight
And naebody kens
Naw, naebody kens
That he lies there
But his hawk and his hound and his lady fair.
His hound is to the hunting gane,
His hawk to fetch the wildfowl hame,
His lady has ta’en another mate,
And we may freely mak’ our dinner sweet.
Ye’ll sit on his white hause-bane
And I will pike oot his braw blue een
And wi’ wan lock of his gowden hair
We shall theek oor nest when it grows bare.
Aye, his lady’s ta’en another mate
So he shall be oor dinner sweet
And ower his white banes when they are bare
The wind shall blaw for ower mair.’
(The wind starts up, blowing out the back curtain and what snow and rose petals are still strewn on the stage.
Then with some homely clanks of his metal pail, suddenly, on his hands and knees, KNOX, with his sleeves rolled up, is scrubbing, scrubbing, the souch of his scrubbing brush on bleached board as if to rub out an indelible stain. ELIZABETH comes to another part of the stage. KNOX scrubs on in slow motion as she speaks, and LA CORBIE, with the pram again, is pushing it back and forward ‘shoogling’ it as she sits watching the end of it all)
ELIZABETH: Why me? Why? Why help her? Why does she come here, throwing herself on my mercy? Merciful God, I cannot afford to be merciful.
ADVISER 1: Kill her now.
ADVISER 2: It were a kindness.
ELIZABETH: I cannot welcome her here at court. I cannot help restore her to her throne in Scotland. I cannot be seen to condone rebellion against a rightful prince.
ADVISER 2: Exactly.
ADVISER 1: And you cannot keep her in prison indefinitely.
ELIZABETH: She is my honoured guest.
ADVISER 1: Yes and some day she’ll escape.
ADVISER 2: The focus of every Catholic hope, of every anti-Elizabeth faction in England.
ELIZABETH: Is she a witch?
ADVISER 1 and ADVISER 2: Ask the Scotch.
ELIZABETH: They split her from her Bothwell, drive him from their shores, they seize her infant son, strip her of her crown, lock her in a castle in the middle of an island and throw away the key. And still she can charm some man into helping her escape. God help me, why does she come to England when she could have sailed to bloody France!
(And MARY, all alone, is lit up on the other side of the stage. She holds out her empty arms around an imaginary BOTHWELL and spins in a bitter parody of that dance together ta-ra-ing the same made waltz tune, then stops still)
MARY: I said: ‘To hell in a white petticoat wi’ you Bothwell, oh aye I will go, I maun go.’ Wis it love? No, no’ whit you thocht, Jamie Hepburn, oh aye, ye were richt I did … aye did … lust for ye. Wis that whit it wis? At the time I wis ower innocent to ken whit wis steering me. But I ken noo, Bothwell, I ken noo. Dinna think it wis lichtsomely or in love that I lay me doon wi’ ye, in the daurk. Naw, it wis in despair. Oh and wi’ a kinna black joy I reachit oot for you to cover me and smother me and for yin moment, snuff oot the hale birlin’ world in stillness. And ilka dawn I woke up wi’ ye, I saw disaster a’ mapped oot for me, clear as my Davy’s magic cairds. The ruined tower, the hangin’ man, the Empress on her Throne, Judgement … and a’ thing smashed and skailt for ever tummelin’ a’ aroon.
(She sinks down on her knees caught in her tight spot and at the other side of the stage, balancing her, is ELIZABETH in — quite literally — her tight spot. All alone too … but for those men and their paper and their pen)
ELIZABETH: My subjects love me! I am the Virgin Queen! I love my good cousin Queen Mary and will keep her my honoured guest in all luxury in the lavish hospitality of my proudest castle. For her own safety.
And my so-called ‘wise advisers’ would have to trick me before I would consent to sign a warrant for her death. Would have to trick me. Trick me. Trick me!
(Her manic repetitions begin to sound like instructions to invisible advisers. KNOX’S scrubbing speeds up again. Is it bloodstains on an executioner’s block that are proving indelible?)