The Queen's Lady. Shannon Drake

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СКАЧАТЬ she was warm and comfortable. And exhausted. Yet when she lay in her bed at last, cozy and comfortable, she lay awake.

      Thinking about Laird Rowan.

      Her disturbing thoughts were broken when a clatter arose from the courtyard.

      She leapt out of bed as if she had been singed by the fire. Panic, dreadful fear for the queen, seized her, and heedless of shoes or robe, she burst out into the hallway, the din from below continuing. She heard an incoherent screeching sound, followed by voices.

      Along with many others who had been roused by the noise, she raced down the hall toward Mary’s rooms, where the door to the hall stood ajar. As Gwenyth and the ladies and guards rushed in, they found the queen awake and standing at one of the windows, looking down.

      “It’s quite all right,” the queen assured them, lifting a hand and smiling at those who all but tumbled one over another in their headlong rush into her bedroom. “My subjects are greeting me. I am being serenaded,” she called cheerfully. She appeared wan and very tired, and yet she kept her smile in place. “Listen.”

      “Mon Dieu!” cried Pierre de Brantome, one of Mary’s French escorts. “That is not a serenade. That is a like the sound of a thousand cats being stepped on.”

      “Bagpipes,” Gwenyth heard herself say irritably. “If you listen, the sound is quite beautiful.”

      “I have heard them before,” Brantome said with a huff, and stared at her, his eyes narrowing, as if he had just remembered that she’d been raised in what he clearly considered a benighted backwater.

      “They have a lovely quality,” she assured him. “Which Mary, Queen of Scots, quite obviously appreciates.” She had never been quite sure what Pierre de Brantome’s role was in the household, though he considered himself a diplomat and courtier. Gwenyth wasn’t fond of him; he was too mocking of everything for her taste. But he did love Mary Stewart, and so, Gwenyth decided, he must be tolerated.

      “Oh, yes, I love the cry of the pipes,” Mary said. “My dear Pierre, you must acquire a taste for this form of music.”

      “It’s certainly loud,” Brantome commented drily.

      That much was true. It seemed as if a hundred of her people, at the very least, were outside, that the cry of the pipes was mixing with the efforts of an off-key chorus.

      Mary looked strained, clearly weary, but she was ever the queen. “How lovely,” she said simply.

      And so they all listened until the impromptu concert ended, the French ministers muttering beneath their breath all the while, and then there was chatter and laughter as the household slowly returned to bed.

      Gwenyth was the last to bid Mary good-night, and this time she headed unerringly down the hall to her own chamber.

      Back in her own bed once again, she slept, but in her dreams she pictured Laird Rowan’s poor mad wife singing along to the plaintive call of a pipe, her laird, no longer her lover but her keeper, towering somewhere in the distance.

      “Don’t fall in love with him,” Mary had warned.

      How absurd.

      If anything, she would have to fall out of loathing, if she could bring herself to do so.

      CHAPTER THREE

      IN THE FIRST DAYS THAT followed their arrival, Gwenyth began to feel with relief that the forebodings that had plagued her had been absurd. The Scots clearly loved their queen.

      The Frenchmen among their party—and even those Scots who had lived so long in France that they seemed to think of themselves as French—began to cease their complaints. Holyrood was not just a beautiful palace but peopled with a household eager to serve the young queen, who was unceasingly kind to those around her. The forest surrounding the palace was thick and wild, and soon became a popular spot for the court to go riding, and there was always an impressive view of Edinburgh Castle, high upon its rocky tor.

      The view of the stalwart stone fortress even had its effect on those who had been less than happy to leave France behind. Gwenyth had taken the Marys on an afternoon shopping expedition along the Mile, and they had commented on the very unique charm of the Scottish capital. Everything seemed to be going well.

      Then came the first Sunday.

      “This would not happen in France,” one of the French retainers declared.

      Though she was herself a Protestant, Gwenyth had vowed that she would attend Mass at the queen’s side while they resided in Scotland, in support of her choice, and then observe her own rites, as well. The queen was now ready for church, having been assured by her half brother that she would be free to celebrate Mass just as she had in France.

      Mary’s French mother had been a devout Catholic, and when Mary had left as a child, the outcry against Catholicism had not yet begun.

      Gwenyth had come to know enough about James Stewart, himself a son of the reformed Scottish church, to believe he intended to honor his vow to Mary. He was a dour and stalwart Scotsman by nature, but she had no cause to doubt his word. Perhaps he felt somewhere in his heart that he should wear the crown, but though he bowed to the Church of Scotland, he was like Mary in many ways. Like her, he abhorred the concept of violence over religious differences, and he proved it now.

      A rumbling, threatening crowd had formed outside the small private chapel directly in front of the palace. The priest who was to say the Mass was shaking, afraid to walk forward to the altar. The servants carrying the candles were in terror, and their fear grew when some among the crowd laid hands upon them.

      Shouts rose from the courtyard.

      “Kill the priest!”

      “Shall we suffer the worship of idols again?”

      “Dear God,” the priest prayed, eyes rolling.

      Then James Stewart, with the imposingly tall and broad-shouldered Rowan Graham at his side, stared at those gathered in the courtyard and roared, “I have given my word.”

      “You will honor the promises given to your queen,” Rowan announced.

      “Ye’re not of them. Ye’re not Papists!” came a cry.

      “Queen Mary had decreed that no one shall be persecuted for choices that lie between God and a man or woman,” Rowan replied harshly. “Would you see the wretched fires burn here as they did in England during the days when heresy was at the whim of the monarch?”

      There was more muttering, but the crowd subsided, and, with James, Rowan and a troop of their trusted men as escort, the royal party entered into the chapel.

      The priest shook throughout the Mass and spoke so quickly that the service was over in what seemed to Gwenyth like mere moments.

      Mary was clearly shaken, but she managed to wave to the people and return to her apartments, and then James dispersed the crowd that had gathered in the courtyard.

      Gwenyth had expected Mary to be deeply disturbed by what had occurred, but the queen was surprisingly resilient. “They’ll understand soon enough,” she told her ladies, as they all sat with СКАЧАТЬ