The Queen's man

Chapter Two

François Leloup, doctor of medicine, and known this day as Seguin, walked beside the young Scot across the inner bailey or courtyard of Sheffield Castle. His journey from Normandy had been long and tiresome, riding a flea-bitten horse down pitted byways and peasant paths, all the time trying to avoid scrutiny. He felt dirty and unrested, despite a night’s sleep at the local inn and a handsome dinner here within these ancient walls.

This castle was an abomination. The stench of an overflowing midden hung heavy and cloying in the air. With his one hand, he held a small silver pomander of musk and ambergris to his nose, but it did little to keep the smell from his wide nostrils. These English! How could they live like this?

Ahead of him, at the bottom of the steep flight of stone steps that must lead to the entrance of the castle keep where Mary was held, he saw half a dozen guards closing ranks. The guards were armed with ceremonial halberds, but the real weapons were at their belts: fighting short swords and loaded pistols. This was not merely for show. The Frenchman stopped and threw an inquiring glance at his young companion.

‘They have to do this, monsieur.’

‘Of course, Mr Ord.’

The Scotsman turned to the guard. ‘This is the physician, Dr Seguin.’ He held out a paper. ‘There, you will see the earl’s mark. Monsieur Seguin is to be granted admittance to Her Majesty’s presence.’

The guard thrust his pistol into his broad, hide belt then examined the paper carefully and slowly, occasionally looking at the Frenchman with an impassive face. He clearly knew the elegant Mr Buchan Ord, resplendent in his expensive black doublet studded with beads of jet and coral, but not his companion.

What the guard saw was a one-armed man in his late forties, perhaps even fifty, with dark, greying hair, a large nose and a sharp beard. He had a tanned skin and his slanting eyes seemed amused and clever. His attire was dark and sober.

‘So this is the Frenchie is it, Mr Ord? Her Scottish Majesty not satisfied with her own physicians?’

‘Be pleased to show some respect, Sergeant. Our visitor is a renowned doctor of medicine, held in high esteem throughout France. I believe the earl’s steward has told you all you need to know. And you must recognise his lordship’s mark and seal.’

‘Yes, it’s Shrewsbury’s mark all right. I’ve seen it often enough.’ The guard grinned and handed back the pass. ‘That seems to be in order.’

‘Then be so good as to let us enter, Sergeant.’

‘Forgive me, Mr Ord, but first, as you must know, we are required to search you both. Don’t want no dags or knives going near the Queen of Scots, do we? Don’t want no nasty accidents.’

The Scotsman sighed and held out his arms, Christlike, to be patted down.

Still holding the silver ball of exotic perfumes in his hand, the Frenchman lifted his one arm with as little enthusiasm as he could muster. ‘C’est vraiment nécessaire?’

Ord looked at the newcomer apologetically. A body search was, indeed, a tiresome condition of their entry. ‘And we shall have to endure it all over again from her own men before entering the privy chamber. I am sorry.’

‘It is nothing.’ Leloup sighed and allowed a pair of guards to grope him intimately, all down his ribs and between his legs, their well-practised, insolent hands lingering at his balls. He found their attention quite pleasurable and wondered whether they understood the effect they were having. From their blank faces he guessed probably not; but this was a thing the English never did understand. At last the guards nodded to their sergeant, who stood back to allow Leloup to step forward and ascend the steps into the great hall of the keep.

The Frenchman laughed and leant towards Ord’s ear. ‘I am surprised they try so hard to keep her alive.’

‘It is not such a mystery. They do not acknowledge her yet, but she is Queen of England. One day she will take the crown from the usurper, God willing, and these men will be her subjects. There will be many days of reckoning for those who scorned and mocked her and deprived her of liberty.’

‘Vengeance. .’

‘. . is golden. Like the sun after rain.’ Ord looked sombre. There was a moment of silence, then he touched the French visitor on the shoulder. ‘Before we go to her, Monsieur Seguin, I must warn you that she is in exceeding poor health. The black choler assails her.’

‘Which is why she has summoned me, is it not?’

‘Indeed, but I fear she will not wish to be seen, even by you.’

He had heard as much.

‘Her hair is thin and patchy, her body is. . a little stout. Her gut ails her with much farting and defluxions, and she goes days without sleep. I think that no woman, certainly no queen, would wish to be seen in her present humour. If you have a wife of your own, you must understand this. And, please, I beg you, speak softly in her presence.’

‘I am a médecin of long standing, Mr Ord.’ The Frenchman laughed again. ‘I have faced many delicate situations over the years. You may place your faith in me.’

‘Good. Once again, I crave your forgiveness if I seem a little too protective. But those of us who love Mary spend our whole lives safeguarding her from the slights and barbs of this infernal regimen — this imprisonment — to which she has been subjected these fourteen years.’

Leloup studied Ord. From his accent, he seemed Scottish, like his royal mistress, yet he was a very young man. Why would such a person devote his life to caring for this woman in her incarceration? He could have been no more than a child in 1568 when she came to England seeking refuge, and found only imprisonment. Had Ord been inspired by tales of her great beauty and saintliness from his Catholic parents? Inwardly, he shrugged; it was hardly worth speculating.

The presence chamber was lit by dozens of beeswax candles, and yet it somehow contrived to be funereal. A dozen people, both men and women, stood or sat in groups of two or three, stiff like mannequins that might crumble to dust if touched. They played cards or talked in low voices, their movements exaggeratedly slow. The scene was horribly cold, thought Leloup, like a badly wrought tableau. The retainers looked up at the two men as they entered, saluting Buchan Ord in slow acknowledgement.

At one end of the hall, against a high wall, a tall-backed chair rested on a dais. It was burnished with gold leaf so that it looked like a throne of solid gold. Above it hung Mary’s cloth of state, in dazzling threads of scarlet and silver, with the words ‘En ma fin est mon commencement’. In my end is my beginning. Leloup glanced at it and smiled. So she had taken the motto of her mother, Mary of Guise. Perhaps it was an omen.

Set into the opposite wall was a small doorway. Two liveried sentries stood to attention on either side of it.

‘Those are Mary’s own guards, monsieur,’ Ord said. ‘They are unarmed but as strong as wild cats and would fight like tigers to preserve Her Royal Majesty from harm.’

‘Well, then I will not resist.’

The privy chamber where Mary, Queen of Scots, lived and slept was lit by the glowing embers of a fire in the hearth. Leloup followed Ord’s lead in going down on both knees by the large curtained bed, waiting for a word from the world enclosed within. He heard a snuffling noise, then the touch of something wet on his hand. A dog. No, three or four little dogs. They seemed to be everywhere, panting and sniffing and licking.

Gradually, as they waited in silence, Leloup’s eyes grew accustomed to the desperate gloom and his hearing picked up the soft sounds of her breathing. Was she asleep?

‘Mr Ord?’

The voice, when it came, was suprisingly firm and clear.

‘Your Majesty.’

‘Have you brought le docteur Leloup?’

‘I have, ma’am. He is here with me. He is going by the name Seguin.’

An arm snaked from the curtain and a hand was held out, palm down and loose at the wrist. Buchan Ord took the hand in his and kissed it. He did not take it as a signal to rise from his genuflection.

‘We bid you welcome to our humble prison, monsieur,’ she said in French, instinctively moving her hand towards her visitor. ‘Which name should I call you?’

‘My real name while we are alone, Your Majesty,’ he said. ‘And may I say that it is to my eternal honour to be admitted to your presence.’ He kissed the plump hand, which hovered a few moments before retreating behind the curtain.

‘What news of our cousin Henri of Guise?’

‘Monseigneur le Duc sends you his felicitations, ma’am.’

‘I pray he has sent me more than that. Have you brought mithridate for my ailments? And horn of unicorn? Surely he has received my letter begging him for these precious elixirs.’ An edge of frustration in the voice; so many of her letters to the great men and women of Europe had gone unanswered. Even her former mother-in-law, Catherine de Medici, ignored her missives and her pleas for succour.

‘The duke has sent you something yet more valuable to him, his ring.’

‘His ring?’

‘As a token of his great love and as a pledge that he will do all in his power — ’ Leloup’s voice lowered to a whisper — ‘to free you from your present predicament and raise you up to your rightful place. He believes this will do more for your health than any potion, powder or tincture.’

The hand emerged yet again from the curtains. He already had the ring out. One of the little dogs leapt up to lick its mistress’s hand. With the ring clenched in his fist, Leloup pushed the animal aside, a little too forcefully, so that it yelped. Now he uncurled his fingers and placed the ring in the Queen of Scotland’s upturned palm. For a brief moment he looked at it in the glow of the fire. He had carried it for three weeks, secreted in a small pouch within his clothing, wrapped against his body, and all the time he was ready to kill any highway robber who might try to steal it. It was a broad gold band decorated with the cross of Anjou or Lorraine, part of the Guise crest. Mary’s fingers closed around the ring and took it back into her tent of silk.

‘Is it really his, Monsieur Leloup?’

‘The duke placed it in my own hand. He wishes you to accept it as a token of his great goodwill — and as assurance that we will secure your freedom.’

‘There is a candle by the bed, Mr Ord. Light it and give it to me.’

The Scotsman took the candle, housed in an ornate silver candlestick, to the hearth and lit it with a taper. Its long flame relieved the gloom and cast light along the delicate cream canopy and curtains that surrounded the enormous bed. ‘Your Majesty.’ He handed it into her and there was a gasp of pleasure from her as the bright gold shone.

‘Oh, it is his. I know it well. Then I am not forgotten.’

‘Indeed, you are most certainly not forgotten.’

‘Monsieur Leloup, when I was a girl at the French court, the seer Michel de Nostredame came to me with foretellings. Queen Catherine had demanded he draw up my chart. He said I was to be Queen of France and also Queen of the isles. He said that I would live to a very great age and be known as a beloved sovereign to all the peoples of these islands. Is this still to come true as Monsieur de Nostredame foretold?’

‘With God on our side, yes.’

‘I have scarce dared hope it these long years.’

Leloup turned towards Ord. ‘How freely may we talk here?’

‘It is safe, but while Walsingham draws breath it is best to be circumspect. His spies are everywhere. Let us speak without specifics. No names. No details.’

‘Could we be overheard?’

‘No. We have searched every inch of this chamber, tapped at all the walls. One of our own stands outside the window alongside Shrewsbury’s guards. Nothing can be heard, but still I do not trust them. If there is any way in heaven or on earth to do so, then Walsingham will listen.’

‘Very well.’ Leloup kept his voice low, then moved yet closer to the curtain of the bed and began speaking in French again. ‘Your cousin has charged me with the holy office of bringing you away from this place. I concur with him that there can be no better medicine than this.’

‘Then you are indeed a harbinger of good news, monsieur.’

‘Mr Ord has discovered men and women of the true faith who will escort you from here to a place of safety and thence across the narrow sea to await the downfall of this heretical regime, which will not be long in coming.’ He lowered his voice yet further. ‘The invasion fleet is already under construction — at Le Havre, Fécamp and Honfleur.’ And so, he thought, is the band of would-be assassins. Englishmen trusted by the court of Elizabeth who will not hesitate to strike home the blade. But he would not burden Mary with such knowledge. Not while there was any chance of a spy within earshot.

‘Should you be saying all this, Dr Leloup?’

He laughed gently. ‘I think it fair to say that they have always assumed you will try to escape. Hearing it will make no difference — so long as they do not know the method.’

‘Mr Ord, can this be true that I am to have my freedom?’

‘I believe it will happen, ma’am.’

‘But why have you not told me this before?’

‘I did not wish to raise your hopes, only to have them cruelly dashed as they have been so often in the past. Monsieur Leloup’s arrival here changes everything. He brings gold for weapons and the great expense involved in concealing you as we carry you across England, thence over the narrow sea to France. The plan is almost in place.’

‘But how? How will this be effected?’

The light inside the tent seemed to blaze closer to the cream curtain and for a moment Leloup feared it would all go up in a burst of flames.

‘Your Majesty, I beg you to ask no more. Not yet.’

‘This is not good enough, monsieur! I must be sure. The she-cat knows I would escape if I could, so do her sharp-toothed minions, Burghley and Walsingham. They have the eyes and claws of rats, and there is an army of their guards around this castle. If your plan is attempted and fails, they will consign me to some dungeon like a common criminal. I cannot bear to have this fail, for I would become a worm, trapped deep within the earth.’

‘Nothing will go wrong,’ Leloup said. ‘On the Bible and in the name of our Holy Mother of Christ I swear this.’

‘The Holy Mother. .’

From within the curtained bed, there was a gasp, then silence.

‘Your Majesty. .’

They heard a sob, which became a wail, deep and horrible.

Leloup felt Ord’s breath in his ear. A whisper so quiet that Mary could not hear. ‘Mother. It is a word we must not use in her presence. She is a mother, too. Her son is fifteen years of age and never once has she heard his voice nor even had a letter from him. What torture is this for a mother?’

The Frenchman was silent a moment, then moved closer to the bed. ‘Your Majesty, your ordeal will soon be at an end. I entreat you to trust us in this. I will send word to you with every detail when all is secured.’

The sobbing subsided.

‘Madame?’

‘You must come yourself.’

‘That may not be possible. I doubt I will be trusted by the Earl of Shrewsbury again. But there is yet one favour that I must ask of you. Those who would help you in this noble enterprise require some sign from you — some article that will convince them that their work is indeed done in your name. I beg you to do this, for they will be risking their own lives.’

Mary’s hand came once more from between the curtains. She held another ring in her hand. ‘Take this. It was my mother’s and bears the sign of the phoenix rising from the ashes. Her sign and now mine. Show it to our loyal people. And then, when I see it again, I will believe that all is prepared. As you have come from my beloved cousin Henri, so must I put my trust in you, Monsieur Leloup. Do not let me down.’

François Leloup took the ring. ‘I pledge I will not fail you, ma’am.’