The Rafael Sabatini Megapack. Rafael Sabatini
on your lives!” she bade them.
But they were lost to all sense of reverence, even to all sense of decency, in their blind rage against this foreign upstart who had trampled their Scottish vanity in the dust. George Douglas, without regard for her condition either as queen or woman—and a woman almost upon the threshold of motherhood—clapped a pistol to her breast and roughly bade her stand aside.
Undaunted, she looked at him with eyes that froze his trigger-finger, whilst behind her Rizzio grovelled in his terror, clutching her petticoat. Thus, until suddenly she was seized about the waist and half dragged, half-lifted aside by Darnley, who at the same time spurned Rizzio forward with his foot.
The murderers swooped down upon their prey. Kerr of Faudonside flung a noose about his body, and drew it tight with a jerk that pulled the secretary from his knees. Then he and Morton took the rope between them, and so dragged their victim across the room towards the door. He struggled blindly as he went, vainly clutching first at an overset chair, then at a leg of the table, and screeching piteously the while to the Queen to save him. And Mary, trembling with passion, herself struggling in the arms of Darnley, flung an angry warning after them.
“If Davie’s blood be spilt, it shall be dear blood to some of you! Remember that, sirs!”
But they were beyond control by now, hounds unleashed upon the quarry of their hate. Out of her presence Morton and Douglas dragged him, the rest of the baying pack going after them. They dragged him, screeching still, across the ante-chamber to the head of the great stairs, and there they fell on him all together, and so wildly that they wounded one another in their fury to rend him into pieces. The tattered body, gushing blood from six-and-fifty wounds, was hurled from top to bottom of the stairs, with a gold-hilted dagger—Darnley’s, in token of his participation in the deed—still sticking in his breast.
Ruthven stood forward from the group, his reeking poniard clutched in his right hand, a grin distorting his ghastly, vulturine face. Then he stalked back alone into the royal presence, dragging his feet a little, like a man who is weary.
He found the room much as he had left it, save that the Queen had sunk back to her seat on the settle, and Darnley was now standing over her, whilst her people were still hemmed about by his own men. Without a “by your leave,” he flung himself into a chair and called hoarsely for a cup of wine.
Mary’s white face frowned at him across the room.
“You shall yet drink the wine that I shall pour you for this night’s work, my lord, and for this insolence! Who gave you leave to sit before me?”
He waved a hand as if to dismiss the matter. It may have seemed to him frivolous to dwell upon such a trifle amid so much.
“It’s no’ frae lack o’ respect, Your Grace,” he growled, “but frae lack o’ strength. I am ill, and I should ha’ been abed but for what was here to do.”
“Ah!” She looked at him with cold repugnance. “What have you done with Davie?”
He shrugged, yet his eyes quailed before her own.
“He’ll be out yonder,” he answered, grimly evasive; and he took the wine one of his followers proffered him.
“Go see,” she bade the Countess.
And the Countess, setting the candle-branch upon the buffet, went out, none attempting to hinder her.
Then, with narrowed eyes, the Queen watched Ruthven while he drank.
“It will be for the sake of Murray and his friends that you do this,” she said slowly. “Tell me, my lord, what great kindness is there between Murray and you that, to save him from forfeiture, you run the risk of being forfeited with him?”
“What I have done,” he said, “I have done for others, and under a bond that shall hold me scatheless.”
“Under a bond?” said she, and now she looked up at Darnley, standing ever at her side. “And was the bond yours, my lord?”
“Mme?” He started back. “I know naught of it.”
But as he moved she saw something else. She leaned forward, pointing to the empty sheath at his girdle.
“Where is your dagger, my lord?” she asked him sharply.
“My dagger? Ha! How should I know?”
“But I shall know!” she threatened, as if she were not virtually a prisoner in the hands of these violent men who had invaded her palace and dragged Rizzio from her side. “I shall not rest until I know!”
The Countess came in, white to the lips, bearing in her eyes something of the horror she had beheld.
“What is it?” Mary asked her, her voice suddenly hushed and faltering.
“Madame-he is dead! Murdered!” she announced.
The Queen looked at her, her face of marble. Then her voice came hushed and tense:
“Are—you sure?”
“Myself I saw his body, madame.”
There was a long pause. A low moan escaped the Queen, and her lovely eyes were filled with tears; slowly these coursed down her cheeks. Something compelling in her grief hushed every voice, and the craven husband at her side shivered as her glance fell upon him once more.
“And is it so?” she said at length, considering him. She dried her eyes. “Then farewell tears; I must study revenge.” She rose as if with labour, and standing, clung a moment to the table’s edge. A moment she looked at Ruthven, who sat glooming there, dagger in one hand and empty wine-cup in the other; then her glance passed on, and came to rest balefully on Darnley’s face. “You have had your will, my lord,” she said, “but consider well what I now say. Consider and remember. I shall never rest until I give you as sore a heart as I have presently.”
That said she staggered forward. The Countess hastened to her, and leaning upon her arm, Mary passed through the little door of the closet into her chamber.
That night the common bell was rung, and Edinburgh roused in alarm. Bothwell, Huntly, Atholl, and others who were at Holyrood when Rizzio was murdered, finding it impossible to go to the Queen’s assistance, and fearing to share the secretary’s fate—for the palace was a-swarm with the murderers’ men-at-arms—had escaped by one of the windows. The alarm they spread in Edinburgh brought the provost and townsmen in arms to the palace by torchlight, demanding to see the Queen, and refusing to depart until Darnley had shown himself and assured them that all was well with the Queen and with himself. And what time Darnley gave them this reassurance from a window of her room, Mary herself stood pale and taut amid the brutal horde that on this alarm had violated the privacy of her chamber, while the ruffianly Red Douglas flashed his dagger before her eyes, swearing that if she made a sound they would cut her into collops.
When at last they withdrew and left her to herself, they left her no illusions as to her true condition. She was a prisoner in her own palace. The ante-rooms and courts were thronged with the soldiers of Morton and Ruthven, the palace itself was hemmed about, and none might come or go save at the good pleasure of the murderers.
At last Darnley grasped the authority he had coveted. He dictated forthwith a proclamation which was read next morning at Edinburgh Market Cross—commanding that the nobles who had assembled in Edinburgh to compose the Parliament that was to pass the Bill of Attainder should quit the city within three hours, under pain of treason and forfeiture.
And meanwhile, with poor Rizzio’s last cry of “justice!” still ringing in her ears, Mary sat alone in her chamber, studying revenge as she had promised. So that life be spared her, justice, she vowed, should be done—punishment not only for that barbarous deed, but for the very manner of the doing of it, for all the insult to which she had been subjected, for the monstrous violence done her feelings and her very person, for the present detention and peril of which she was full conscious.
Her anger was the more intense