Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  “What’s to do, Your Grace?” John Drummond says gently. “I take it that there is bad news from England?”

  “They dare—” I break off. “They shame themselves . . .” I choke. “And I . . .”

  I whirl around and I see the tiniest of hand gestures from the older man to the younger, as a shepherd will make to a working dog, a mere movement of a fingertip to tell the dog to curve around the flock and move it smoothly towards the pen. Ard steps forward, his handsome face filled with sympathy.

  “What have they done to you?” he asks intensely. “Who has distressed you like this?”

  “My brother!” For a moment rage fights with self-pity and then I pitch towards him and find myself held in his arms, his strong arms around me, and I am crying into the beautiful velvet of his jacket as he sways with me, holding me as if I were a hurt child, stroking my hair, and whispering soothing words.

  “Ard, Ard, they have shamed me and thrown me down, and they always, always do. They have made me look a fool and feel a fool and set themselves up above me, and they always do this. And I hoped that I would be safe and that I would be a queen for Scotland and that I would have help . . .”

  “My dear, my love, my queen,” he says, and it is like a song as sweet as any from the Isles. He rocks me in his arms, swaying from side to side like a balladeer. “My love, my sweet, my beloved.”

  “Am I?” I say. “Oh, that they should do this, in concert, against me!”

  Behind me, I hear the door gently close as John Drummond takes himself silently out of the room. I hardly hear the key turn as he locks us in, safe from interruption. Ard rocks me in his arms, kisses my wet eyelashes, my closed eyelids, my trembling mouth, kisses my neck, my breasts, and then gently leans me back on the window seat. His warm mouth is on mine and I taste the sweetness of his tongue, and shiver at his touch, and then, almost amazed at myself, feel myself lean back and pull up my beautiful gown, and whisper “Archibald,” as he takes me, and owns me, and I hear my own sobs of temper turn into repeated gasps and then a cry of joy, and I don’t care any more about my selfish brother, or my vain sister, or Louis of France, or anyone at all.

  KINNOULL PARISH CHURCH, PERTH, SCOTLAND, AUGUST 1514

  We have to marry, at once. Of course we do. We have to marry at once, because urgent desire has taken hold of me and for the first time in my life I could sing and dance and laugh for the power of it. This is my summer: I have never before had a summer when I felt myself to be a woman, when I felt the blood in my veins and the warmth of my skin. I am in love with myself, my smooth young body, the fullness of my breasts, the warm wetness of my secret parts. This is my moment: I have never been beloved by a man who wants me for myself, and not as the emblem of a treaty between two countries. This is the man I have chosen: this fascinating, engaging, charming, delightful man who gives me such pleasure that I cannot bear to be parted from him, night or day.

  As soon as I wake in the morning, tingling with lust, I want to see him at once. The court has learned that now we go to chapel very early and that he must be standing beside the royal chair so that I can see him, even if we cannot speak. As the priest celebrates the Mass before us I close my eyes as if in prayer but actually I am already dreaming of how he will kiss me and how he will touch me the moment that we are alone. I feel as if I am running a fever, I am so hot with desire. At breakfast, he must stand beside me to carve the ham and cold beef and now I eat slice after slice for the pleasure of having him lean towards me and slide the meat onto my plate. Sometimes his arm just brushes my shoulder and I look up at him and see his eyes on my mouth as if he too is longing for a kiss. When we ride out his horse must pace beside mine, and I want to talk only to him. Anyone else who approaches us is an interruption, and I can’t wait for them to leave. We ride our horses shoulder to shoulder, so close that our knees gently brush one against the other, and he can reach over and pat my gloved hand on the reins. I dance only with him; I cannot bear to see him partner anyone else. When the pattern of the dance turns him towards another woman and he takes her hand I feel an instant dislike for her and wonder that she can bear to attend my court and push herself forward. I have no interest in the affairs of state, I don’t even look for letters from Lord Dacre, lecturing me about what would be best for England. I have no interest in Katherine and her pregnancy, Mary and her betrothal. Especially, I don’t want to hear about Mary and her double-dealing betrothal to Louis of France. They are far away and they don’t care about me—why should I trouble myself about them? I forget my council, my country, I am even neglectful of my little boys in this burning constant urgent need to be with him—just to be with him.

  This is love, and I am fascinated by it. I never knew that it felt like this, I never expected to feel this at all. I reread my romances to see if this is what the troubadours are talking about, and I command the musicians to sing songs of love and longing. I wonder if this is what Harry felt for Katherine— Can he possibly have felt like this? Was it this uncritical desire that made him overlook everything about her that grates on me? I wonder if my silly little sister Mary is in this urgent fever for Charles Brandon? Can Mary, young as she is, fool as she is, long for Charles Brandon as I long for Ard? If she does, then I really pity her—not because I have the better man (though I do), but because she is faced with renunciation and loneliness whereas I, in blessed freedom, can marry the man that I love. I could not let him go. If she feels as I do, she will not be able to let Charles Brandon go, and to marry the King of France will break her heart. Thank God, I do not have to walk that terrible path.

  Instead, Archibald’s cousin the Dean of Dunblane meets us at dawn and opens the door to his chapel. I walk down the little aisle in my green gown, with my hair spread loose over my shoulders as if I were a virgin bride. Why should I not? This is just as Katherine did at her second wedding. A choirboy sings a psalm, his voice achingly sweet as the sun comes through the arched windows and falls on our feet as if to say that the path before us will be warm and golden. I laugh when I find that Ard has no ring, and I take one of my own off my right hand and he gives it back to me, putting it on my wedding finger. I don’t even think of Charles of Castile and the ruby. The dean celebrates Mass, and we share the bread, the wine, the holiness of the moment, and then we quietly leave the chapel, and I feel filled with thankfulness that he is free and I am free, that we are young and beautiful, that we are healthy and God has blessed us with desire for each other, and that is now a holy desire. I think we will be happy, deeply happy forever, and I will never envy anyone again, for I have married a young man who could have courted any woman in the world and won her favor, but he fell in love with me. He chose me for myself, he loves me for myself, not for my name or my title or my inheritance. I think he is the first person in the world to love me for myself since I lost my brother Arthur.

  “God bless you,” says Archibald’s uncle Gavin Douglas, the Dean of Saint Giles, Edinburgh, and one of the greatest makars of my first husband’s court. “I would write a poem but I don’t think I could capture the joy in your face. I only wish you could have been married in a great ceremony and blessed by a bishop.”

  I give him my hand and he bows over it and kisses it reverently.

  “You bless me, Uncle,” I say impulsively, bowing my head, and he makes the sign of the cross over me. “There!” I say triumphantly. “And so I have been blessed by a bishop, because I will make you Archbishop of Saint Andrews.”

  He bows again, hiding his delight. “I am honored, Your Grace. I will serve you, your new husband, and God.”

  Archibald and I ride back to the castle and go at once to my rooms, bold as a pair of young lovers who now have nothing to hide. I am still in my first year of mourning, Ard has broken his betrothal to Janet Stewart. But it means nothing. Nothing can stand in our way. We are married, I have his ring on my finger and I may well have his child in my belly. We walk hand in hand past my astonished ladies and we close my bedroom door in their aghast fa