Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles Read Free Page A

enemies."
     
    After the lords had departed, Marie de Guise sat by the cradle and rocked it gently. The baby was sleeping. The firelight painted the side of her face rosy, and the infant curled and uncurled her fat, dimpled little fingers.
     
    My first daughter, thought Marie, and she does look different. Is it my imagination? No, I think she's truly feminine. The Scots would say a lass is always different from a lad, even from the beginning. This daughter has skin like almond-milk. And her hair she gently pushed back the baby's cap of what colour will it be, to go with that skin? It is too early to tell; the fuzz is the same colour as that of all babes.
     
    Mary. I have named her after myself, and also after the Virgin; after all, she was born on the Virgin's day, the Immaculate Conception, and perhaps the Virgin will protect her, guard over her as a special charge.
     
    Mary Queen of Scots. My daughter is a queen already; six days old, and then she became a queen.
     
    At that thought, a brief flutter of guilt rose in her.
     
    The King my lord and husband died, and that is how my daughter came to be Queen before her time. I should feel tearing grief. I should be mourning the King, lamenting my fate, instead of gazing in wonder at my daughter, a baby queen.
     
    The child will be fair, she thought, studying her features. Her complexion and features all promise it. Already I can see that she has her father's eyes, those Stewart eyes that are slanted and heavy-lidded. It was his eyes that promised so much, that were so reassuring and yet so private, hiding their own depths.
     
    "My dear Queen." Behind her she heard a familiar voice: Cardinal Beaton's. He had not left with the others; but then, he felt at home here, and never more so than now, with the King gone forever. "Gazing upon your handiwork? Be careful, lest you fall in love with your own creation."
     
    She straightened and turned to him. "It is difficult not to be in awe of her. She is lovely; and she is a queen. My family in France will be beside themselves. The Guises finally have a monarch to their credit!"
     
    "Her last name is not Guise, but Stewart," the bulky churchman reminded her. "It is not her French blood that puts her on this throne, but her Scottish." He allowed himself to bend down and stroke the baby's cheek. "Well, what are you to do?"
     
    "Hold the throne for her as best I can," answered Marie.
     
    "Then you will have to remain in Scotland." He straightened up, and made his way over to a plate of sweetmeats and nuts in a silver bowl. He picked one up and popped it into his mouth.
     
    "I know that!" She was indignant.
     
    "No plans to run back to France?" He was laughing, teasing her. "Made from Seville oranges," he commented about the sweetmeat he was still sucking. "Lately I tasted a coated rind from India. Much sweeter."
     
    "No. If this child had not come, if I were a childless widow, then of course I certainly would not linger here! But now I have a task, and one I cannot shirk." She shivered. "If I do not die of cold here, or take consumption."
     
    It was snowing outside again. She walked across the chamber to the arched stone fireplace, where a huge fire was blazing, by her orders. The baby's chamber must be kept warm, in spite of the wildly bitter weather raging all over Scotland. The Cardinal, who lived luxuriously himself, doubtless approved.
     
    "Oh, David," she said, her smile suddenly fading. "What will become of Scotland? The battle "
     
    "If the English have their way, it will become part of England. They will seek to grab it one way or another, most likely through marriage. As the victors of Solway Moss, with their thousand high-ranking prisoners in hand, they will dictate the terms. They will probably force Mary to marry their Prince Edward."
     
    "Never! I will not permit that!" cried Marie.
     
    "She must needs marry someone," the Cardinal reminded her. "That is what the King meant when he said, "It will pass with a