Fortunately they did not appear to have heard him. I am too young for my opinions to be of any importance to them, thought George resentfully.

His mother was speaking to his brother William. “I hope you have increased the guard about the castle.”

“Naturally,” replied Sir William.

“Is it wise to keep her on the ground floor? Escape would be easier from there.”

“She will be well guarded there for the time being. Perhaps later I shall make other plans.”

Sir William was suddenly alert. He had thought he had seen movement on the mainland. But it was not that band of riders who were escorting the captured Queen.

Margaret said: “She will not be here for some time. They would not set out from Holyrood until nightfall. It would be too dangerous. The mob would tear her into pieces.”

William did not answer, but George could not restrain himself. “Might that not be what they wish?”

“No, no, Geordie,” said his mother soothingly. “You are too vehement. The last thing Jamie wishes is for any harm to befall his half-sister. Don’t forget that she is his own flesh and blood.”

“Bearing a similar relationship as that between him and myself,” murmured George with a hint of cynicism in his voice which was lost on his mother. If she could only know, thought George, how I hate these casual relationships which can bring about such havoc in families.

“Perhaps,” William put in, “we should go to sup. It is foolish to wait, when she may not be here until morning.”

“Then let us go,” said Margaret.

In the dining hall the company had eagerly been awaiting the appearance of the castellan and his mother and, as they came in, the tension relaxed. The daughters of the family, who were seated near the dais, whispered together that this could only mean that the Queen was not expected that night.

As Sir William took his place on the dais with his mother, there came to stand behind his chair a boy of about fourteen who was wearing a jerkin which had once belonged to George. He was a bold-eyed boy, with hair of a carroty tinge, and a freckled face; and the position he held in the household was unique, because he was not quite a servant nor yet a member of the family. George could not remember exactly when this boy had come to the castle; he had heard it said that as a baby the boy was left at the castle gates, and that one of the servants had found him there, but George had never received confirmation of this, as his elders were evasive on the matter. He was cheeky, that boy, sensing his specially privileged position; one of his duties was to wait on Sir William at table. No one asked questions as to who he was and why he should be different from the rest of the servants. Perhaps it was because there was a look of a Douglas about him; he was in fact always known as Willie Douglas.

George had had an affection for the boy which dated from the day when he was about ten and Willie six. That was before George had discovered how much he hated the casual relationships of grown-up people which led to unorthodox results. He suspected now that Willie was the result of one of his brother William’s indiscretions; but that could not change his affection for the boy once it had been firmly founded.

As he seated himself at table Willie whispered to him: “Great days in store for Lochleven, eh, Geordie?” And he gave George a wink that made his pert, freckled face slightly more comical than it had been before, so that George could not help smiling.

The meal progressed; and when the night had fallen there came with it a return of that brooding tension.


* * *

DISMOUNTING, Mary could scarcely stand. The noise of those raucous voices was still echoing in her ears. Lord Lindsay, who was at her side, said in a tone which had an edge of roughness in it and was devoid of the respect due to a Queen: “The boat is waiting.”

“Boat! Then where are you taking me?”

“You will know in time.”

How dared they! She turned to Lindsay, and goaded out of her exhaustion, cried: “I’ll have your head for this, my lord.”

Lindsay did not reply.

Lord Ruthven who had come to stand beside her said gently: “It is only a short distance across the lake, Your Majesty.”

Mary turned to him eagerly for she fancied she heard a note of compassion in his voice. So desperately alone did she feel that any sign of friendship lifted her spirits.

Ruthven did not meet her eye; he was ashamed of his mission. She thought: He is so young. He is not yet grown cruel like so many of my Scottish lords.

“Thank you, my lord,” she said.

Young Ruthven looked uncomfortable, fearing, Mary suspected, that Lindsay would have heard his remark and accuse him of softness toward their victim.

It was young Ruthven who helped her into the boat, where she sat listening to the rhythmic suck of the water as the oars displaced it.

“My lord Ruthven,” she whispered at length, “where are they taking me?”

“To Lochleven, Your Majesty.”

“Lochleven! To the Douglases! Ah, I see. To Sir William—the half-brother of my half-brother, Moray. He will doubtless make a good jailor. And conducted there by Lindsay—his brother-in-law.”

“Your Majesty . . . ” The young man did not continue; he was turning his face away that she might not see his emotion.

She said softly: “Do not be ashamed, my lord Ruthven, to show pity for a poor woman who is surrounded by her enemies. She will not forget that you alone showed her compassion on this fearful night.”

Ruthven did not answer, perhaps because Lindsay, hearing the murmur of voices, had edged nearer to them.

There was silence now, broken only by the dipping of the oars.

Mary, dazed and exhausted, felt the years slipping away from her; the only way in which she could endure the present was to return to the past. Once before, long long ago, she had been in flight from her enemies; and then, as now, she had sat in a boat and been rowed to an island in a lake.

“Inchmahome!” she whispered; and found comfort in the name. Inchmahome . . . where she had lived for a short period of her childhood when it had been necessary to find a refuge from her enemies; and how pleasantly she had lived in that monastic community. Inchmahome . . . Lochleven. Oh, but there was a difference. Then her enemies had been the English, who had crossed the Border and inflicted defeats on the Scots, culminating in the disaster of Pinkie Cleugh. How much more tragic when there was strife among Scotsmen; when she was a prisoner of her own subjects!

“Inchmahome . . . .” she whispered. “If I could but go once more to Inchmahome!”

The monks she had known would be long since dead. But there would be others, gentle monks, who tended their gardens, who worked together in peace, away from the world of intrigue and ambition.

Ruthven whispered: “We are there, Your Majesty.”

She saw the dark shapes of people, and in the light of torches the gray shape of the castle loomed up before her. A fortress! she thought; my prison.

Sir William had come forward. He was bowing over her hand. So there were some who remembered that she was their Queen.

“I and my household will do our best to make Your Majesty’s stay at Lochleven comfortable,” he told her.

And there was she who had been Margaret Erskine, who was now Margaret Douglas—the beauty who had been her father’s mistress and was her brother James’s mother.

Margaret curtsied.

“Welcome to Lochleven, Your Majesty.”

Mary answered: “I am so tired. Take me to my bed.”

“Your Majesty would like to rest before taking a little food?”

“The thought of food sickens me. I want only to rest.”

“Then come this way.”

So Mary entered the castle of Lochleven, knowing that she entered a prison. But she was too weary to care. There was only one thing she craved now. Rest. Quiet, that she might shut out the memory of those cruel faces which had leered at her, that she could for a while forget the words which had been shouted at her. Oblivion. That was what at this moment she needed more than anything in the world. She was aware of faces as she passed on her way through the quadrangle to the southeast tower. They looked almost ghostly in the lights of the cressets on the castle walls.

There was one which held her attention for a few seconds; it was the face of a young man with a gentle mouth and eyes which betrayed his sympathy as he looked at her. Perhaps she half smiled at him; she was not sure. But the face did have the power—exhausted as she was—to hold her attention for that short moment.

There was one other, she noticed—a young boy with a mischievous expression; his alert eyes were fixed on her and she could not read what thoughts were going on behind them.

These faces became mingled with the hazy impressions of that grim and fearful night.

She had entered the room which had been made ready for her and, without waiting for her servants to prepare her, she threw herself upon the bed and in a few seconds had lost all consciousness of where she was.

The Queen was sleeping the sleep of complete exhaustion.

WHEN SHE awoke it was daylight and for some moments she could not remember where she was. As she looked at the lofty yet gloomy chamber, she was aware of a certain odor; it was not unpleasant and she wondered where she had smelled it before. It was faint yet haunting; and it was when she realized what it was, that memory came flooding back. It was the dank smell of lake water which could take her back in time to that period of her childhood which she had spent at Inchmahome. She remembered then that she was a prisoner in Lochleven.