Three Sisters Three Queens Read online

  “You went to her from me,” I whisper. Even now, it pains me to think that he would prefer another woman.

  “Oh, Margaret, have you never wished you could run away from all this and go to England? Return to your girlhood?”

  “Oh yes. Yes, of course.” I don’t tell him that I begged to go back and that they rejected me.

  “That’s what it was for me. I had a dream that I might live with the girl that I once promised to marry, in a little castle like we might have had. I thought that I should retreat from the council of lords, go far from you and the court. I felt that you didn’t need me, that you would do better without me, that you might work with James Hamilton, the Earl of Arran; you might write to the Duke of Albany. I thought you would be free to speak with these great men as the great woman that you are without me holding you back, and embarrassing you. I know I am an obstacle to your regaining your son. I thought you would be better off without me. The council hates and fears me—I wanted them to be able to see you without me. I thought that the last thing, the finest and most loving thing, I could do for you would be to free you from me. I thought I should give you the excuse to deny our marriage, if you wanted to be rid of me. I thought that the best and kindest thing I could do for you would be to let you go.”

  “I can’t be free of you,” I say flatly. “They won’t allow it. Katherine won’t allow it.”

  “Neither can I,” he says. “Not in the eyes of God, nor in my love for you. So here I am, at your feet. I am yours till death. We have been parted—not for the first time—and I have come back to you. Take me back. Take me back, beloved, or I am a dead man.”

  “I have to take you back,” I say. “My sisters insist. Harry insists.”

  He bows his head and he gives a little choked sob. “Thank God.”

  “You can get up,” I say uncertainly. I don’t know whether to believe him or not.

  He does not get to his feet and stand before me as a supplicant. He rises up to his full height and he keeps hold of my hands and draws me up as well so that I am close to him, and the whole length of his body is against mine, and his arm is around my waist and his hand is under my chin and he is lifting my face to his and he kisses me. At once I feel desire rush through me like a new wave on an incoming tide, a mixture of relief and triumph and jealousy. I had forgotten the joy of it, the taste of him, the scent of him, and now I know it again. And I think that I have taken him from Janet Stewart; I have taken him from her for the second time. I am first with him, as I should be.

  “You cannot be free of me,” he says, his mouth on mine. “You will never be free of me. We will never be free of each other.”

  HOLYROODHOUSE PALACE, EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND, AUTUMN 1519

  We make a triumphant entry into Edinburgh. Archibald’s men escort me with bagpipes and drums and all the people come out of their houses and from their stables and shops and trades to watch the dowager queen and her handsome husband ride back into Holyrood. They call out that I am welcome in my capital once again, and that I must show them my boy, the little king. Some shout that Archibald is a traitor, that I have a traitor at my side. I turn my head away. There are many ways of being a loyal Scot, and Archibald’s way has not been the way of the Hamiltons. Some of them lift up their purses and wave them above their heads. I flush, and glance at Archibald; his expression is furious. They mean that he takes an English pension, that he has been bought by Thomas Dacre, with Thomas Wolsey’s money, to be a servant of my brother the king. They mean that he is cheaply bought and cheaply sold: an English slave and not a free Scot.

  “I will have every one of them arrested,” Archibald says through his teeth.

  “Don’t,” I say urgently. “Let people remember this as the day we came home and there was no trouble.”

  “I will not be insulted.”

  “It means nothing, nothing.”

  The palace is warm and welcoming; there is a household fit for a dowager queen once more, horses in the stables and cooks in the kitchen. Archibald is paying for everything: he says I am to buy what I want. He dances me around the rooms and makes me laugh, saying I must send for the sempstresses and get new gowns for myself and for our daughter little Lady Margaret who crows and claps her hands to see her dada again, following in his footsteps like his puppy. He says we will dine in state and everyone will come to visit us. We must appear great, we are great.

  “But the cost . . .” I object.

  “Leave business to me,” he says. He is lordly. “I have your brother’s trust and he has sent me money to support your claims. I have your rents, and I have my own fortune. It is all for you. You are the queen of everything you see. Especially, you are my queen, and I am still your most humble servant.” He laughs. “You will see, when they bring your roast meat I shall carve it for you tonight.”

  I cannot help but laugh with him. “That was a long time ago.”

  “It was the happiest time of my life,” he tells me. “I fell in love with you so instantly, so deeply, and then I began to see that you might love me too. It’s not a long time ago, it is just yesterday.”

  I want to believe it. Of course I do. It is like a dream that he should come back to me. I think that if Katherine was right and it is God’s will that a husband and wife should never be parted then his return is an act of God. Archibald and I are together again, our marriage is blessed, Scotland will come under my rule, and find peace. I don’t want to wonder where his wealth comes from, I don’t consider Dacre forgiving me my debts. I don’t think where Janet Stewart is sleeping tonight.

  I visit my son. He is shy with me; we have not lived together since Craigmillar Castle. “They won’t let me be with you,” I tell him. “I try and try to come to you. They will not allow me.”

  I cannot believe he is only seven; he is so careful as he chooses his words to reply. “I tell them that I would like to see you, but I cannot yet command,” he says. “But the Earl of Arran is courteous to me, and kind. He says that the Duke of Albany will return soon and then we shall have peace. He says that then you will be able to live with me as my lady mother and we will be happy.”

  “No, no, Scotland must be free of the French,” I say to him earnestly. “You are the son of an Englishwoman, you are the heir to the English throne. We don’t want a French advisor. Never forget that.”

  David Lyndsay, my son’s constant companion and friend, steps forward and bows to me. “His Grace is proud of his inheritance,” he says carefully. “But he knows that his French guardians are his friends and kinsmen too.”

  “Oh, Davy!” I protest. “When James Hamilton takes a French pension and calls my husband a troublemaker! He can be no friend of ours!”

  “His Grace has to be a friend to everyone,” Davy reminds me steadily. “He cannot be seen to favor one side over another.”

  The little boy is looking from one to the other of us, as if he is trying to decide who to believe, who he can trust. He is a boy who has had no boyhood, a child without a childhood. “I wish to God your father had raised you,” I say bitterly.

  He looks back, his big dark eyes luminous with tears. “I do too,” he says.

  Archibald leaves me at Holyrood and says that he has work to do on his estates.

  “Oh, shall I come with you?” I ask. “I’ll ride with you. Where will we go?”

  A tiny hesitation, a flick of his glance sideways, gives me a second’s pause. “Are you going hunting?” I ask. “Archibald, where are you going?”

  He comes close so that the people around us cannot hear him. “I am meeting Thomas Dacre,” he says in my ear. “I am about your business, my love. I will ride in the night to our meeting, get news of your brother and his plans, and come home quickly.”

  “Tell Lord Dacre that we have to come to terms with the French regent,” I say. “We cannot oppose James Hamilton as acting regent, and the Duke of Albany will come back sooner or later. We have to work with them both, we have to make me regent and get custody of James.”