Chapter 47
SUMMER IS OVER. THE ELMS in the Holyrood gardens have shed their leaves and the air carries a biting wind.
No matter how long Elspet spends in this city, walking on cobbles and stones, surrounded by buildings, it always seems strange to her.
It’s hard to understand a place where you can’t see the earth, smell the air unsullied by human contamination.
But this garden has become a refuge, a sanctuary – this is where she is starting to understand the spae of Edinburgh.
The four women walk, huddled together against the cold in their thickest cloaks. Elspet tells Queen Anna, Beatrix and Margaret all about her outing with Kitty, and the content of her conversation with Bothwell in the cramped upper chamber of The Sheep Heid.
The Queen looks at her in disbelief. ‘Bothwell was the man who defiled poor Kitty Muirhead?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘I knew we could not leap to conclusions about the Earl of Sutherland,’ Margaret says pointedly.
Beatrix, cowed, remains silent.
‘And he knows who you are, Mistress Balfour,’ Margaret goes on. ‘I impressed upon that weasel Colville the importance of keeping your true identity a secret – and he told Bothwell everything that same day.’
‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ Elspet says. ‘Henry Colville is the worst of men.’
‘He has some stiff competition in that,’ Margaret says drily.
‘But they have not given you away to the King,’ Queen Anna says. ‘Why?’
‘Bothwell thought he’d be able to manipulate me if he needed to,’ Elspet says. ‘I have no doubt he kept my secret purely for his own interests. And as for Colville and Patie, well, perhaps the promise of Lady Margaret’s purse is too great a prize to risk.’
They reach the stone bench and sit down together, overlooking the crags of Arthur’s Seat.
‘So we believe your identity will remain a secret?’ the Queen asks.
‘For now,’ Elspet says. She looks at the Queen’s swollen stomach, visible even beneath her thick clothing.
She is getting big. There are only weeks to go until this bairn is born.
They must make their final preparations before they travel to Stirling.
‘What more do we need to do before the birth?’ She changes the subject away from the disconcerting encounter with Bothwell.
‘Well, Alexander Barclay is dealt with,’ Beatrix says, ‘and we know Primrose is the easiest of all. The man can’t get through an hour without several glasses of wine.’
Elspet nods. ‘And a woman’s labouring usually lasts many hours, especially the first time.’ She glances at the Queen’s anxious face. ‘I’m sorry, Your Majesty.’
The Queen smiles. ‘If I can bring a healthy baby into the world, I don’t care what I must suffer.’
‘Is there something, some herb or plant, that would enhance the effects of the wine he will inevitably drink?’ Beatrix asks. She plucks a wilting brown leaf from the mallow bush at her side and rolls it between her fingers. ‘If he’s asleep or unconscious, he will know nothing of the changeover.’
‘We can add some dwale nightshade,’ Elspet says, thinking out loud. ‘It will be masked by the taste of the wine and nobody will suspect a thing, including Primrose himself. It will appear as if he’s too far in the drink and fallen asleep.’
‘You see,’ Beatrix says, smiling, ‘we’re almost there.’
‘We are not almost there,’ Margaret retorts.
‘Martin Schoner is the main obstacle in this plan – he always has been. Yes, he’s more amenable than he used to be.
And the title of Master Medicinar has him plumping his feathers.
But we’re no closer to understanding how we can switch these children under his nose. ’
‘We’re closer than we were,’ the Queen says gently. ‘Schoner is a challenge, you’re right, but we’ll find a way.’
Elspet looks up into the bare, spiky branches of the winter elm and hopes desperately that she’s right. Time is running out. Queen Anna gives a wide yawn.
‘How are you feeling, Your Majesty?’ Elspet asks. There is a violet tinge under the Queen’s eyes.
‘My headaches have gone,’ the Queen says, ‘but I am so very tired. No sooner have I risen in the morning than I want to sleep again.’
Elspet smiles. ‘This is normal. It is nothing to worry about. If anything, it is a good sign that the bairn is growing, taking all your energy. You should go and rest.’
Beatrix offers the Queen her arm. ‘I will take you to your chamber.’
Elspet and Margaret are left together in the garden. They walk to the furthest private garden in companionable silence then sit under the pergola, bare of roses now but still covered with a tangle of branches that conceals them from prying eyes. Margaret looks around to check they’re alone.
‘Are you greatly missing your children and your homeland, Mistress Balfour? I imagine you are.’
Elspet takes a deep breath. How can she sum up how she feels, so far from Orkneyjar?
‘At Dunrobin, and when we first arrived here at court, I was full of worry, so fearful for my safety, I barely had a chance to think of what I’ve left behind.
But now . . . now I’m more relaxed, it’s almost worse.
I think of what I’m missing – hairst is a bonnie time of year in the islands, as summer fades but the chill of winter has not yet fully descended.
And . . .’ She finds herself unexpectedly fighting back tears, and wonders if she should stop.
But somehow, speaking out loud lessens the pain.
‘Go on,’ Margaret prompts.
‘My children will be so changed.’ Elspet’s voice catches. ‘I wish so much to see them, even just to hear news of them. I fear they will forget me.’
Margaret looks at her. ‘I never felt as you do about my children. They always seemed such an encumbrance. I almost envy the love you feel.’
Elspet shrugs. ‘Motherhood is different for every woman, this is what I’ve come to realise.’
Margaret smiles weakly. ‘The Queen doesn’t understand it, of course. In her homeland even noble women feed their own children from their breast.’
‘Well, we don’t have to understand someone to respect them.’
Margaret nods. ‘You are a wise woman, Mistress Balfour.’
Elspet laughs. ‘It’s been said.’
A pale mist gathers around them, shimmering in the thin sunlight. Even in this, the busiest city in Scotland, there is a spae and a beauty. But Elspet longs for the wide skies and bracing wind of her home. It’s a relief to speak about it but it also makes her yearning more acute.
As if reading her thoughts, Margaret speaks. ‘I still think often of my short visit to your homeland.’
Elspet remembers their conversation among the cherry trees at Dunrobin.
‘I almost feel,’ Margaret begins tentatively. ‘It’s foolish, I know, as the Earl of Orkney is the vilest man on God’s earth. But it would be something to be the countess, to return to the islands as my permanent home.’
Alarm rises in Elspet at this – ranyie pangs come thick and fast. She reaches out a hand to touch Margaret’s, who stiffens. ‘You mustn’t think like that,’ she says firmly. ‘Don’t even consider accepting his proposal in reality.’
‘What did he do to you?’ Margaret asks quietly.
Elspet takes a deep breath. These are memories she has buried and not revisited for a long time.
‘Many years ago Patie was thrown from his horse,’ she says slowly, ‘and his leg badly broken. I was summoned to care for him for several weeks and, in his own strange way, he . . .’ She clears her throat and stares into the middle distance.
She can’t meet Margaret’s eye. ‘He grew to care for me. I was forced to be his mistress for some time – against my wishes.’
‘Oh, Mistress Balfour.’ There is deep sadness in Margaret’s voice, and none of the judgement Elspet had received at the time from many of the islanders who knew she was spending her nights at the palace.
‘It was horrible,’ Elspet says. ‘I won’t pretend otherwise. But it was a long time ago and I believed myself free of him.’
‘Until we brought him back to your door. I am so very sorry.’
Elspet shrugs. ‘He never forgave me for not returning his affection, debased though it was. His pride couldn’t stand it. He would’ve found a way to get his revenge. If it hadn’t been prompted by your visit, there would have been another reason.’
She reaches out to touch the twisted rose branches that cover the pergola, careful to avoid the thorns as she lets her gaze get lost in its swirls.
After a while Margaret speaks. ‘This is even more reason not to leave you at his mercy then. The Queen is planning to live separately from the King after the birth of this child – perhaps the Earl and I could do the same, even if we were married.’
Elspet takes a deep breath. ‘It would be a great joy to me if you were to make Orkneyjar your home, I hope you know this. But I would not be a friend to you if I didn’t tell you the horror of which that man is capable.’
‘Perhaps that is another reason,’ Margaret says. ‘If I’m at his side, I could temper his greed and violence.’
‘You could not,’ Elspet says. ‘I’m sorry to say it, but as soon as he got his hands on your fortune, any influence you had would be altogether lost.’
Margaret nods slowly before clearing her throat.‘There is something else I’ve wanted to ask you for a long time.’
Elspet turns to the upright figure beside her.
Margaret stares out over Arthur’s Seat. ‘When the Queen asked you to perform a binding spell on her and the child . . .’ Margaret says quietly.
Despite their proximity on the bench, Elspet must lean in to hear her.
‘There was something you didn’t say. I was glad you refused, of course, but I wondered what you were keeping from us? ’
Elspet feels a stab of surprise. ‘Perhaps you are a wise woman too, Lady Margaret.’
‘I was used to keeping secrets myself, don’t forget,’ Margaret says wryly. ‘Perhaps that makes you better able to see the habit in others.’
‘When I was much younger,’ Elspet says slowly, ‘barely more than a child, I did perform a binding spell. My friend Katherine fell in love with the Laird of Stenness. We stole his overcloak and performed the ritual in the stackyard of her father’s farm.’
‘And what happened?’ Margaret turns to her.
‘My grandmother was furious,’ Elspet says, feeling her eyes fill with tears. ‘She was so disappointed in me – using my knowledge to manipulate folk, practising the dark side of the craft. It was the angriest I ever saw her.’
‘You loved your grandmother very much,’ Margaret says.
‘I still do,’ Elspet says. ‘Her death doesn’t change that. I promised her I would never perform that kind of spell again. And I can’t – not even for the Queen of Scotland.’
Margaret nods. They are silent for a long time before she speaks again. ‘What happened? To your friend Katherine, and the laird?’
‘They’ve been happily married for twenty years,’ Elspet says.
Beside her, Margaret lets out a strange exclamation. Elspet turns, concerned, and is astonished to realise Lady Margaret Livingston is laughing, her shoulders shaking.
Elspet can’t help but join in, her chuckles turning to belly laughter as she watches this upright, spiky woman give herself over to mirth. They sit side by side in their fine gowns and velvet-lined cloaks in the garden of Holyrood palace, laughing until their stomachs ache with the relief of it.