Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  It is a relief when the land starts to rise up and we can see a little brightness ahead as the forest grows thinner and there are shrubs and plants at the side of the track, growing towards the light, and then we are going through glades of silver birches and slowly, almost leaf by leaf, we leave the shadows. Now we can see the sky, and we are climbing higher and higher and come out on the flank of a hill that still stretches high above us. The horses blow out and we lean forward as they lower their heads and start to climb up and up, following the faintest of tracks that skirts the cliffs, which fall away on the far side, and takes us over the rounded top. But all we can see are more hills, stretching on and onward before us, as if they were towering waves in an unending sea, before we have to wind down again to the valley floor, now going north, always looking behind us for any sign of the glint of sun on metal, or the distant rumble of Howard’s army.

  We ride all day, stopping before noon for something to eat, and then riding on all of the afternoon. As the sun begins to sink towards the tops of the hills and the shadows lengthen over the track, almost obscuring it so that we begin to fear we will lose the way, James cries in a little whiney voice that he is tired, and Davy reaches into his pocket for a piece of bread and gives him a flask filled with milk. James eats, held steady on the saddle, and then leans back against his guardian and sleeps as we keep the steady pace.

  Still we go north, now with the setting sun on our left, and I say softly to Davy, “Is it much farther? It will be dark within a few hours.”

  “We’ll be in before dark, God willing,” he says. “And if they are following us, they won’t dare to come on in the dark. They’ll camp for the night. They’ll be afraid of ambush and they don’t know the country at all. They can’t find their way in the dark.”

  I nod. I am aching in every bone in my body and fearful for the new baby that I am carrying.

  “You’ll have a grand dinner and a good night in a soft bed,” Davy says quietly to me. “Behind strong walls.”

  I nod; but I think, what if he is wrong and darkness falls and we are still traveling? Will we have to camp out and sleep on the cold hillside? Or what if we have missed the road and gone past the town? What if we are riding onward and onward north, and Stirling is now behind us and we won’t know till tomorrow morning? Then I think: I had better not think like this or I will break down and not be able to ride at all. I have to think, for now and for always, of only one thing at a time, the next thing that I have to do. I have to see these small tasks laid out like matched pearls strung on a necklace with a knot between each one—and not worry that they are the symbols of mourning, as I knew when I dreamed that my husband, my charming, playful husband, tied a string of diamonds around my neck and I watched them melt and drip into widow’s pearls.

  Finally, we see a few lights, high up on a hill above us.

  “That’s Stirling now, Your Grace,” the standard bearer reins back to tell me, and the horses prick their ears and go forward more briskly, as if they know there are stables with hay and water waiting for them.

  I think—pray God there is no trap. Pray God that Thomas Howard has not done a forced march around us and we are not coming in towards him, expecting refuge but finding a battle. There is no way to tell what is hiding in the shadowy hedges at the side of the road as we wind our way towards the little town. The curfew has been sounded and the town gates are bolted shut. My trumpeters sound the royal salute, then we have to wait while the royal burghers rush to the gate and the town guard fling themselves at the bolts and then the great gates creak open, and we can ride inside.

  The burghers come towards me, uncovering their heads, some of them shrugging on their jackets and wiping their mouths, called from their dinner. “Your Grace,” they say and they kneel before me as if I am a triumphant Queen of Scots with a victorious husband at war.

  Wearily, I make a gesture that tells them everything: the defeat, the death of James, the end of everything. “This is your king,” I say, showing them the little boy, fast asleep in his guardian’s arms on the big horse. “King James V.”

  They understand at once that his father is dead. Heavily, they drop to their knees on the cold cobbles. They bow their heads; I see one man put his hands over his eyes to hide that he is weeping, and another buries his face in his bonnet.

  We are the first people of authority in Stirling since the battle. Nobody has heard anything but rumors, no soldiers have yet made it back to their homes. The deserters who left before the outcome are certain to have kept their cowardice quiet, and few have got so far north. So now the people come into the streets, their doors banging behind, or they throw open their overhanging windows, hoping that this is a victory progress and that I have come to tell them the king is halfway to London, his army richer every day. Then they see my downturned face and note that I don’t wave or smile, and they stop cheering and fall silent. Someone calls out with sudden sharp urgency:

  “The king?”

  Everyone looks at me; but I can’t say anything. I can’t pull up my horse and make a grand speech in which I declare that defeat does not mean despair, death is not the end of everything, Scotland has a great future. It would not be true. We are despairing, it is the end of everything, and I cannot see how to make a future.

  I raise my voice. “The king is dead. God save the king.”

  Slowly, understanding spreads through the silenced crowd. Men pull off their hats, women put their hands to their eyes. “God save the king,” they whisper back to me, as if they cannot bear to say the words. “God save the king.”

  They have lost one of the greatest warrior-kings that Scotland has ever had. They have lost a musician, a physician, an engineer, an educator, a gunner, a poet, a shipwright, a deeply convinced Christian anxious about his own soul and theirs. They have lost a great prince, a man among men. His coat and banners have been sent to France, his body is rumbling south, a trophy wrapped in lead in a wagon. In his place, all I can offer them is a baby-king, a helpless baby-king, with Scotland’s greatest enemy on our doorstep. They kiss their hands blow the kisses to me as if to say: God bless you. God help you. And I look back at them grimly and think: I can’t do this.

  STIRLING CASTLE, SCOTLAND, SEPTEMBER 1513

  I move into my beautiful rooms in Stirling Castle and I send to the families of the great lords to come to crown James. Very many of them fail to reply; more than half of them are dead. In all of the kingdom there are only fifteen lords left alive. We have lost half a generation of men. But they send the sons who were too young to fight, and the old fathers who are mourning their heirs. They come from all the corners of the kingdom to swear loyalty to the new king.

  He is not yet two years old, only a baby, but destiny has laid a heavy hand on my son James. He sits in the lap of his governess and she opens his shift of linen under the cloth-of-gold gown, and the bishops anoint his little chest with holy oil. He makes a little noise of surprise and looks towards me: “Mama?” I nod that he is to stay still and not cry. They put his tiny hand on the barrel of the scepter and the little fingers close on it, as if he will hold on to power, and they elevate the crown over his head. His eyes look up wonderingly as the trumpets blast, his lip trembles at the noise and he turns his head away.

  “God save the king!” the bishops cry out; but there is no triumphant shout from the congregation of lords in reply.

  They should shout in answer, something has gone terribly wrong. I am aghast at the silence behind me—what can it mean? Do they not accept him? Are they refusing to swear allegiance? Have they secretly decided to surrender to the English and stand dumb at the oath for James? Fearfully, I turn to look behind me at the crowded chapel where the lords are ranged in their clans and families in complete silence. Their faces are pale as they raise them to where the bishops have shouted their oath of loyalty. Then, one by one, each man’s lips form the reply, “God save the king!” but they have lost their voices. It is not a loyal shout but a whisper of grief; the lor