Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  I am sitting in my nightgown and robe, my hand on my swollen belly where the new baby is moving, when the doorway in my private chamber opens a crack. A lady-in-waiting gasps and points, her other hand over her mouth. “Your Grace?”

  I get to my feet, my knees trembling. I am half expecting the Duke of Albany himself, entering through a secret door, having taken the castle by stealth, but instead it is Archibald.

  “You’ve come! You’ve come.”

  He tumbles into the room and catches me up and covers my face with kisses. “I promised. Did I not?”

  “You did. My God! Thank heavens you have come! I have been so frightened. How many men do you have?”

  “Not enough,” says his brother, coming through the door behind him. “Only sixty.”

  “Oh, George! You’ve come back. I thought you were gone to England forever.”

  He bows his dark head over my hand. “Just to gather news and get help,” he says. “Just to serve my brother and you.” His smile is quick.

  I flush at the thought of the Douglas loyalty. They are sworn to death for their family, and now I am one of them.

  “There are six hundred traitors out there,” Archibald says. “I couldn’t find men who would fight for us. I have only my own tenants and some of Lord Hume’s. I never thought Albany could muster such force.”

  “My cause is just! I am queen regent.”

  “I know.” George rubs his hand over his young face. “But the common men won’t turn out against the governor, and I couldn’t get any help in England.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Come away,” Archibald urges me. “Come at once and bring the boys, and we’ll get away to England. Lord Dacre says we’ll be safe the moment we cross the border, and we can all go to London.”

  “It’s not safe,” I say instantly.

  “Safer than here,” George says.

  Archibald nods. “You can’t hold the siege here.”

  “My brother will send help if he knows how desperate we are.”

  “I’ve tried,” George says. “I’ve spoke to Dacre and to the other Northern lords. They don’t want war. Your sister, Princess Mary, has brought a peace treaty home from France and your brother won’t break it.”

  “And I am to be grateful to her! Don’t they think of us?”

  “You shouldn’t be grateful for anything,” Archibald corrects me. “You have nothing to thank Henry for. She has come home from France in triumph, married to the man she loves, and is received at court and forgiven. But you—who have done exactly as she has done—are trapped here and I with you, and they have forgotten all about us. You must write to him! You must tell him he cannot betray us.”

  “But not now,” George cuts in. “The time for writing is over. Alexander Hume is at the gate with the horses. Come now, Your Grace, and bring your boys with you.”

  “I don’t dare.” I give a little moan. “What if they catch us? They’ll know that I am running to Harry and they’ll imprison me so I can’t get to England. They’ll take my sons away from me forever, and you”—I give a little sob—“Ard, they will behead you for treason.”

  “Come on,” he says. “I’ll take the risk.”

  “No,” I say, suddenly deciding. “I won’t put you in mortal danger. I can’t bear that. I can’t lose you. You go, hide somewhere. I’ll get out of here. I’ll get nearer to the border as soon as I can. Come for me, when it is safer.”

  “I’ll stay with the queen and guard her here,” George says boldly to his brother. “You raise men, Archibald, and get a message to Dacre. Tell him that she will come to England. Tell him to meet us.”

  “Yes,” I say. “But don’t be captured, Archibald. They won’t dare to do anything to me or my boy James, but they will behead you for sure. Go now. Go, my love.”

  I bundle him out of the door, exchanging one passionate kiss as he leaves. George goes out of the chamber to the guardroom. When the door is shut and bolted behind them, I find that the rapid thudding in my ears slows. I put my back to the door and lean against it. My feet hurt, my husband has gone, my baby is heavy in my womb, and I am all alone, once again.

  I have taken to walking on the castle walls in the evening. Sometimes James comes with me, his Lord Chamberlain, Davy Lyndsay, beside him. I think the exercise is good for me and for the baby that lies so heavily in my belly. I walk the perimeter of the castle from one tower to another, watching the road that winds up through the trees from the little town below, as the sky grows darker. Looking at the rolling hills towards the green south, the road that would take me to freedom is a green track down from our cliff top, through the town, past the fields and then disappearing into the darkness of the forest. Something catches my eye: a plume of dust and a glint of metal.

  God be thanked! I am saved—it is Harry’s army. It is Harry’s triumphant army. He has come himself and marched north, taken Edinburgh and come onward to take Albany from the rear and free me, and the Scots lords will see that if they defy a princess of England then revenge is swift. I could cheer at that little spark of metal among the trees, the English army coming for an English princess with perhaps my brother at the head, like a true chevalier.

  I squint and cup my hands over my eyes to concentrate my gaze on the standards. I think I can see the Tudor rose, my rose. I think I can see the Beaufort portcullis, my lady grandmother’s flag. I think I can see the red cross on the white ground of Saint George.

  “Look!” I say to Davy, a little laugh in my voice. “What can you see? What’s that on the Edinburgh road?”

  Davy Lyndsay gets up on the sentry step and looks where I am pointing. He steps down in silence and his face is white. Behind him George Douglas is standing in the lee of one of the towers. “Look, George!” I call to him, and I point to where the cloud of dust hides the marching men and the horses, the wagons coming behind them. I rub my eyes with both fists, hoping that I am mistaken, hoping that the evening sun is playing tricks, but now I can see perfectly well. These are not the beloved standards of my country coming up the Edinburgh road to the very walls of the castle. It is not an army for our relief. Now I can even hear the rumble of the wheels of the heavy wagons and the lowing of the oxen as they heave the weight. It is my husband James’s artillery, which he designed and cast. It was his great pride. At the front of the train of wagons is Mons, the greatest cannon of all, the greatest cannon in Europe, the one that he said was the end of chivalry and the beginning of a new warfare. James said that no castle could withstand her massive power. The Duke of Albany has brought my husband’s cannon to use against me with seven thousand men in support, and this is the end of my defiance and the end of my hope, and we will have to surrender before he pounds down the walls of my castle and turns Stirling to dust. I turn to George Douglas.

  “I’ll have to surrender,” I say. “Tell Ard.”

  Grimly, he nods. “I’ll go now.”

  EDINBURGH CASTLE, SCOTLAND, AUGUST 1515

  I am a prisoner of my own people. My son the king, the true King of Scotland, and his brother, the next heir, are held in Stirling Castle, honored as guests, but really prisoners of the false duke who holds the keys. I, the queen regent, am held in Edinburgh Castle as if I were a criminal, as if I were a prisoner awaiting trial, awaiting execution.

  God knows what is going to become of us. George Douglas disappeared before the cannons were even brought before the castle. So much for him guarding me so that his brother could get to safety—at the first sight of Mons he was gone. The other servants melted away. I don’t know where Archibald is, I don’t know why Harry does not demand of the French king that Albany return my castle to me. I took my little boy James down the stairs to surrender the castle at the front gate, and, like the little king he is, he did not waver. He is only three years old but he is princely. My little son held the keys to Stirling Castle and gave them to this French puppet, without a moment’s trembling.

  A true man, a true chevalier, would never have par