Page 33 of The Changeling

I could not answer, for the Sight once more had me in its grip. Châtelard knelt before a man with a neat, pointed beard, dressed in rich black velvet. The man gave Châtelard a small medallion, a pouch of coins and a long, slender dagger with a needle-sharp point and a hilt shaped like a cross. Châtelard kissed the medallion and hid them all within his doublet.

I wrenched my arm free. ‘I serve the queen, monsieur, and no-one else. Let me pass!’

‘So you are her spy? That meeting on the road was a ruse? What does she know of me?’

‘I dinna ken what you are talking about. Stand back, or I will set my dog on you.’

Carlin growled deep in her throat, all the hair along her spine stiff and bristling. She looked fierce and dangerous, and he backed away a step.

‘Refrain from dripping any more poison in her ear, else you’ll regret it,’ he warned me.

‘Touch me again, and you’re the one who’ll be sorry,’ I flashed back, and jerked my candle so the hot wax splattered towards him. He recoiled with a cry, his arm over his face. I shoved past him, sending him staggering, and bolted down the stairs.

I hoped Châtelard would return to Paris, but he stayed, writing love poems to the queen. His words were a balm to her bruised spirit, for Pastor Knox told everyone that she had laughed and danced at the news of the Protestant massacre.

The preacher was so powerful, her musicians were too afraid to sing the Christmas Mass for her. Only Signor Rizzio dared, and she rewarded him with a bedroom of his own, furnished with tapestries and a silken bedcover. Pastor Knox then said the Italian musician was a spy for the Pope, and had brought money from the Vatican to pay the queen to restore Catholicism.

Defiantly, Mary planned a masque for Twelfth Night in which the men were to wear farthingales and skirts, while she and all her ladies dressed as men in breeches and doublets. Lord James remonstrated with her, and she said angrily, ‘I can do naught right in the eyes of your precious Pastor Knox. I am tired of trying to please him. I may as well please myself!’

That night, the great hall was thronged with courtiers in gorgeous attire, all wearing masks, and acting the part of the opposite sex with great boldness, the men curtseying and fluttering their fans and speaking in shrill falsettos, while the women strode about, hands on the hilts of their daggers, clapping each other on the backs, trading insults and pretend blows. I watched it all from behind the screen of the minstrels’ gallery, my arm about Carlin’s neck. I had never seen such behaviour, and knew Pastor Knox would consider it most unseemly.

‘We’ve been paid a hefty bag of coins to play the gavotte,’ Rizzio said to the other musicians. ‘It’s a dance from France, and ends with the leaders of the dance kissing. Edinburgh will never have seen the like!’

He began to play a lively tune. Mary turned at the sound and laughed, clapping her hands. She beckoned a few of her ladies, and they bowed and strutted forward, very self-conscious in their breeches. A dark-haired man, dressed in a white satin dress, rustled forward and curtsied to the queen. Even though he wore a pink silk mask, I recognised him instantly as Châtelard. They danced together, the six couples with linked arms all in a line, smiling and chatting, their steps quickening as the music gained pace. They skipped and swung, bowed and curtsied, acting out a pantomime of courtship. At the end of the dance, everyone leaned forward and pecked their partners on the cheek. The queen performed the same action, but Châtelard turned his head at the last moment so that his lips met hers. Startled, Mary jerked back, but he held her tight and deepened the kiss, making a show of it.

The music ended, and he released her with a sweeping curtsey, fluttering his fan and pretending to be swooning. Mary pressed her fingers against her mouth, her colour high. She looked towards her guards, then hesitated. If she called them, Châtelard would be arrested, and there would be a great scandal. So she smiled mechanically, and returned to her chair.

Later that night, she paced up and down her room, saying through clenched teeth, ‘How dare he! They will say I encouraged him, that I wanted him to kiss me!’

She was right. The court was abuzz with rumours, and Pastor Knox preached a fiery sermon indeed. Mary could not protest, when she had willingly stepped up to dance the gavotte. Châtelard sought an audience with her every day, on the pretence of a new poem to share or a new song to sing, and Mary refused to admit him or anyone else.

‘I should not have been so kind to him,’ she said. ‘He must’ve thought … but how could he? I could never marry a poet! When I marry again, it must be a king, or a royal duke at the very least. He must be mad to think I’d even consider him as a spouse.’

One evening, in the second week of February, as Mistress Gowland and I prepared the queen’s room for the evening, we found Châtelard hiding under her bed. He wore a sword and a dagger at his belt, and seemed quite drunk. ‘Sorry, ladies,’ he slurred, ‘I was weary and looking for a soft place to rest my head.’

Somehow he made the words sound lewd. Outraged, Mistress Gowland called for the guards. Châtelard tried to cozen them with words, but they escorted him away. Mary was distraught when we told her. ‘Everyone will say that I invited him here! My reputation will be ruined! What will Pastor Knox say when he hears?’

Châtelard was discreetly expelled from court the next day.

‘I cannot stay here,’ Mary said. ‘Let us go to St Andrews. We can say Holyrood needs to be cleaned. Perhaps if I am gone from court, the gossip will die down and he will be forgotten.’

So in the morning, we rode north through the bitter February cold to Rossend Castle, where we broke our journey. The queen had a quiet evening, dining with Lord James before coming early to bed. Her ladies disrobed her and turned down the lamps, then withdrew to their own quarters. I brought the queen her tisane, waited till she had drunk it down, then took her cup and drew her curtains. I knelt to bank her fire, as I did every night. Carlin was stretched out on the hearthrug, asleep, with Mary’s white terrier curled up against her flank. I smiled and petted them gently, unwilling to disturb them. Carlin had run far that day.

The door eased open, and a man slipped into the room. He crept forward and parted the curtains. The queen gave a startled cry, and I scrambled to my feet.

‘Be quiet, you Popish whore,’ the man hissed. ‘Why should I not take my pleasure before I kill you?’

I ran and threw myself upon him, shouting for help. It was Châtelard. He flung me away and I hit the ground hard. As he swung round, a blade in his hand, the guards poured in, followed by Lord James with a bared sword.

‘Kill him!’ Mary cried. ‘Run him through! He tried to ravish me!’

Châtelard let his dagger drop and kicked it under the bed with one foot, then turned and spread his hands sheepishly. ‘I mean no harm,’ he said drunkenly. ‘I just came to apologise. I am mad with love, utterly bewitched. She has cast such a spell on me I have lost all reason.’

‘He lies! He tried to ravish me.’

Lord James had put down his sword, and was looking back and forth from the queen to the poet, as if deciding whom to believe.

‘James, please, you must believe me,’ Mary entreated him.