can see the dark outline of her quietly coming down the castle wall, then suddenly the rope jerks and she gives a little whimper of fear.
“Sshh! Sssh!” I hiss up at her, but she is sixty feet above me, she cannot hear. Mary’s cold hand slips into mine. Ruth isn’t moving, the porter is not letting her down, something has gone terribly wrong, then she falls like a bag of dusters, the rope snaking down from above her as he drops it, and we hear her terrified scream.
The thud when she hits the ground is an awful sound. She has broken her back, for sure. I run to her side at once, and she is moaning in pain, her hand clamped over her mouth, trying, even at this moment, not to betray me.
“Your Grace!” Mary Seton is tugging at my arm. “Run! They are coming.”
I hesitate for a moment; Ruth’s pale face is twisted with agony; now she has her fist thrust in her mouth, trying not to cry out. I look towards the main gate. The sentries, having heard her scream, are turned questingly towards the castle; a man runs forward, shouts to another; someone brings a torch from the sconce at the gateway. They are like hounds spreading out to scent the quarry.
I pull my hood up over my head to hide my face and start to duck backwards into the shadows. Perhaps we can get around the castle and out of a back gate. Perhaps there is a sallyport or somewhere we can hide. Then there is a shout from inside the castle: they have raised the alarm in my chambers. At once the night is ablaze with the bobbing flames of torches and “Hi! Hi! Hi!” they bellow like hunters, like beaters driving the game before them.
I turn to one side and then the other, my heart thudding, ready to run. But now they have seen us silhouetted by their torches against the dark walls of the castle, and there is a great bellow of “View halloa! Here she is! Cut her off! Run round! Here she is! Bring her to bay!”
I can feel my courage drain from me as if I am bleeding to death, and I am icy. The taste of defeat is like cold iron in my mouth, like the bit for an unbroken filly. I could spit the bitter taste. I want to run and I want to throw myself face down on the ground and weep for my freedom. But this is not the way of a queen. I have to find the courage to push back my hood and stand straight and tall as the men come running up and thrust their torches in my face so they can see what they have caught. I have to stand still and proud; I have to be seen to be a queen, even dressed like a serving woman in a black traveling cape. I have to enact being a queen so they do not treat me as a serving woman. There is nothing more important now, at this moment of my humiliation, than preserving the power of majesty. I am a queen. No mortal man may touch me. I have to make the magic of majesty all alone, in the darkness.
“Je suis la reine,” I say, but my voice is too quiet. I can hear it tremble with my distress. I stand taller and lift up my chin; I speak louder. “I am the Queen of Scotland.”
Thank God they don’t grab me nor put so much as one hand on me. I think I would die of shame if a common man were to abuse me again. The thought of Bothwell’s hand on my breast, his mouth on my neck, makes me burn even now.
“I warn you! You may not touch me!”
They form a circle around me with their boweddown torches, as if I am a witch that can be held only by a ring of fire. Someone says that Lord Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury, is coming. He was at his dinner with Sir Francis Knollys and Lord Scrope, and they have told him that the Scots queen was running away like a thief in the night, but she is caught now.
And so that’s how he first sees me, when he comes at a stumbling run, his tired face scowling with worry. He sees me standing alone, in a black cape with my hood pushed back from my face so that