“Yet,” he went on, “I hear that my friends have prepared some entertainment for me at Holyrood. I could not enjoy it if the Queen were not present to make my joy in this return complete.”
She smiled. The desire to dance with him in the state apartments of Holyrood Palace was too great to be denied.
They led the dance as they had on previous occasions.
“It has seemed long,” he said.
“Doubtless you had much to occupy you in France.”
“So much — and yet it seemed long.”
“I was very sick when you left.”
“I did not know how sick, or I should never have been able to leave Scotland.”
“Nay,” she retorted “one mistress sick, what matters it? There was another to amuse your leisure hours.”
He was silent; then he gave her a remorseful look. “Alas,” was all he said, smiling wryly as he did so.
“My enemies told me,” she continued. “I would rather have heard it from you.”
“One’s flesh is weak,” he admitted.
“It seems a very hard task for a man to be faithful to one woman. I begin to believe it is an almost impossible one to fulfill.”
“That,” he said with a snap of his fingers, “is of no great moment. It is the affections, the tenderness, which are important.”
“I agree. To love would mean never to hurt the loved one by deed or word.”
“I beg you to understand that what happened in a moment of weakness need have no lasting effect on the relationship between us two.”
“Perhaps you are of a lighter mind than I, my lord. You may understand your feelings; you cannot understand mine. You gave no sign of your horror when you saw what illness had done to me… just as you gave no sign that you had another mistress. I congratulate you on your superb control. I should have liked you better had you displayed more human feelings.”
She could feel the anger rising now. She wanted to shout at him, to wound him as he had wounded her. She wanted to scream: Why do I have to love these faithless men? Why cannot I escape from my emotions as easily as they can from theirs?
He was watching her, and she wondered whether he knew how near she was coming to a hysterical outburst. He would know a great deal about a woman’s feelings, she was sure. He, with his devotion to a sick wife! Devotion indeed! No doubt he sat at her bedside and soothed her… when he was not visiting some new mistress. She believed she had the measure of him. He was a man who wanted peace; but he wanted to satisfy his lusts also. He did so in secret, keeping this from his sick wife, playing the faithful husband, as he played the passionate lover to each of his mistresses in turn.
She was praying now for calm and for courage. She must not obey the demands of her senses; she must cling to her pride; she must let Albany know that he could not treat the Queen of Scotland as one of his lights-o’-love and expect her to be willing and eager the moment he beckoned.
“I will make you understand… when we are alone,” he murmured.
She was fighting his allure with all her strength, and against her will she forced herself to say: “I do not know when that will be, my lord, for I have no wish to be alone with you.”
He looked regretful, but calm as ever. Why should he care that she would no longer have him in her bed? He would doubtless quickly seek solace with the Fleming woman.
Albany was only faintly disturbed by the Queen’s discovery of his infidelity. He believed that, if Anne should die and Margaret obtain her divorce, a marriage between them would be considered so desirable that she would succumb and marry him. Moreover he knew that she had been very loath to deny him her bed. He had read the anger in her eyes; he knew she was a passionate woman; that was jealousy he had seen tonight, and if she had not cared deeply for him she would not feel the fierce anger which she obviously did.
If it were necessary he would have no difficulty in regaining her affection.
But at the moment he had other matters which demanded his attention. He had men and arms at his disposal and he was going to wage war on the enemy of Scotland and his master, the King of France.
He spoke to the Parliament in the Tolbooth and he was very eloquent.
“Have you forgotten,” he demanded, “how your King and your fathers were slain on Flodden Field? How many Scottish towns have been destroyed; how many Scottish churches desecrated? How many Scottish homes, perilously near the Border, have been sacked? The time has come to defeat these enemies once and for all. We have the arms. What are we waiting for?”
The Parliament listened. It was true that they hated the English, and now Albany was back in Scotland with news that Sir Richard de la Pole, who called himself the Duke of Suffolk, was preparing an army which would invade England. The cockerel Tudor would be driven from his throne; there would be peace forevermore between the two kingdoms. No more fighting on the Border, no more fear throughout the land that the English were preparing to invade.
Very soon after his arrival in Scotland Albany was on the march, and when he reached the Border he sent a challenge to the Earl of Surrey to come on and fight.
Surrey however declined the invitation. He was ready to fight, he said, but he would do so on English soil. Let the Scots come to him.
But the weather had changed and the Scots were fearful of entering England. They murmured together, asking themselves why they should be living uncomfortably thus in camp when they might be at their own firesides. Albany declared his devotion to Scotland, but wasn’t he really fighting for France, and shouldn’t the French fight their own battles?
Albany was filled with rage against these Scotsmen, particularly as he had reason to know that the English were in no state to withstand an attack. They could have settled the old score; they could have healed the wounds they had suffered at Flodden.
But no, said the Scots. They were not crossing into England.
Well might he snatch off his bonnet and throw it into the camp fire.
Watching the flames curl about the velvet he felt, as ever, his anger burning out.
He was wearying of Scotland; he wanted to be at home in France. Anne needed him. He was tired of the virago Margaret, the cloying Fleming woman. What did they mean to him? Nothing compared with Anne.
He wanted to go back to her bedside, to sit with her, for he knew that the pain was less acute when he was there. He wanted to take her hands — those thin, transparent hands — and say to her: “Anne, they are nothing, those women… they satisfy the desire of an hour… and then there is the remorse. But you would understand. You know… and you have never reproached me.”
Holy Mother of God, how tired I am of this bleak land. How I long for Auvergne and the sickroom of my beloved one.
As soon as Albany had left for the Border, Margaret went to Stirling. She had made up her mind that she would not be separated from her son, and if any tried to do so they would have to use force.
Her indignation against Albany was growing. What had he cared because she had refused his advances? Any woman would serve his purpose, she told herself. And I, the Queen, demeaned myself by showing him how much he meant to me.
The only manner in which she could fight this ache in her body was to abuse him, to tell herself that she would not relent if he came begging on his knees.
“I hate him!” she told herself. “Let him go to his Fleming. What do I care?”
It was ridiculous, and if she had not been so sorry for herself she could have laughed at her foolish deception. Why could she not keep the men she desired, faithful to her? Were there no faithful men in the world? Was it because the men she chose were desirable to so many women? James, Angus, Albany! She admitted that they must be three of the most attractive men in Scotland.
What balm to be with young James who was so eager to see her. At least, she told herself, I have an affectionate son. It was the same with her daughter, Margaret. Her children returned her love, and in that she was fortunate.