This time my husband thinks far enough ahead to send one of the servants to warn the priory that we are coming, and as we plod towards them the gates are flung open and I can see the nuns coming down the lane to greet me.
The prioress herself stands by my horse when Archibald lifts me down from the saddle, and she exclaims at my agony, at my huge belly, and summons three nuns forward to help me walk. My legs won’t support me, there is something terribly wrong with my hip. They send for a chair and the lay sisters carry me into the abbey.
The guesthouse is large and comfortable and there is a big bed with good linen and curtains. My ladies strip off my filthy clothes and I get into bed in my dirty linen. “Leave me,” I say. “I have to sleep.”
They don’t wake me until it is afternoon and then they bring me a bowl of gruel and tell me that dinner will be served whenever I wish it. I can come to the guest hall and dine with the prioress or I can have it in my rooms, just as I prefer. “Where is Archibald?” I ask. “Where is he dining?”
Ard is housed in the pilgrim-house, at a distance from the abbey buildings with his brother and the menservants, but he can visit me in the guesthouse if I wish.
“He must come at once,” I say. “And I will take my dinner in the hall. Make sure that I have a suitable chair.”
“There’s no cloth of estate,” my lady-in-waiting reminds me. “And Alice has brushed your gown but it’s not really clean. The prioress has loaned you some linen.”
This silences me. I am not myself unless I am seated beneath a cloth of estate, in beautiful clothes, dining like a queen. All my life I have been on the top table, beside the throne. What will I become, if I am as poor as Katherine was?
“I’ll eat here,” I say sulkily. “And you will have to get me new clothes.”
I don’t discuss with her how, in the middle of the borders, she is to get me new clothes, and she is too wise in the ways of royals to ask me how I think this will happen. She goes to order my dinner and to fetch Archibald and I think, just for a moment, how I made this journey twelve years ago, and came into Berwick and there was a loyal speech, thanking God that I, the senior Tudor princess, had honored the little town with my presence.
Archibald comes in looking boyish and fresh. Breakfast and a wash have restored him to health and energy. He is not bowed down by pregnancy and crippled with pain. A young man can endure much and rise up full of life and joy; but a young woman—and I am still a young woman—has to struggle.
“My poor love,” he says as he kneels to me.
He has borrowed some clean linen and his hair, damp from a bath, is curly and glossy as a ram’s fleece. He gleams with vitality.
“There is nowhere for me to dine,” I say miserably. “And I have no clothes.”
“Couldn’t you borrow a gown from the prioress?” he asks. “She’s a very cultured and thoughtful lady. She has beautiful linen, I am sure.”
“I cannot dress as a nun,” I say shortly. “I cannot wear another woman’s linen, however much she has impressed you. I have to dress as a queen.”
“Yes,” he says vaguely. “Perhaps we can write to Albany and demand that he send your clothes. Perhaps your wagons are already at Tantallon and they can send them on?”
“We can write to Albany? He can know where we are?”
“You’re safe now, in England. You can start to negotiate, I suppose. Indeed, we will have to tell him what we expect.”
“I can?” I have a sudden gleam of hope. I had felt that we were running like criminals from an army of forty thousand Scots who were determined to capture Archibald and try him for treason, determined to imprison me so that I would die in captivity. But now we are safe, now I am home in England, everything is changed.
“I have saved you,” Archibald says. “I did. It’s quite incredible. It’s like a romance, it’s like a fairy tale. That journey! Good God, the ride that went on and on! And now we are here, and we have won.”
“Get me some paper and a pen from the lady abbess. I will write at once,” I declare.
I inform the duke, in the frostiest letter, that I am safe in England. I don’t say where, for I am still frightened at the thought of his army. I say that I will return on a number of conditions. I don’t stint myself: I want my lands back and my dower rents, the full restitution of my fortune, my jewels and especially my clothes. I want a pardon for Archibald and for everyone who has defended me, regardless of whether or not they are facing criminal charges. I want free access to my sons and the right to appoint their governors, tutors and household. I want, in fact, everything that I had that Albany took from me, but I don’t object to him keeping the title of governor as long as he works alongside me (I mean beneath me) for the good of Scotland, as clearly the parliament intended that he should.
I rest. I eat well. I sleep at night without troubling dreams. The pain goes from my hip and I feel the baby squirm and turn so I know he is well and strong too. I talk at length with the prioress, Isabella Hoppringle, who is a thoughtful and astute lady of letters. She advises me to wait to hear from Lord Dacre what I should do next, and that I should put no trust in Albany. She tells me that Lord Dacre will save me. Airily I tell her that I am in control of my own life, winning the war of words with the duke. I show her the letters that pass and repass between us, when he offers me one thing and I demand another. I think that I am playing this hand well. The queen counts high in this game, and I am dealing the best cards to myself.
I am winning. By getting to safety I have restored my power, I am a force to be reckoned with. The Duke of Albany appoints the French ambassador to negotiate between us and he will come to me at Coldstream, carrying all the compliments and courtesies of the duke and of parliament. He will bring me proposals that have been forced through parliament by the duke, anxious that I shall return to my place. The last thing Albany wants is to drag France into war with England over Scotland. Indeed, he is specifically commanded by his king not to allow matters to worsen. He was to bring peace and order to Scotland and now everybody blames him for bringing anarchy and the risk of war. To turn a queen from her own castle is to threaten every monarch in Christendom. Nobody will support him. So I am to have my children at my side, I am to stay wherever I like, I am to have my fortune restored to me, my husband will be pardoned. The ambassador will arrive at midday, and his name on the agreement will make it binding on both sides. I am not winning; I have won.
I walk in the garden with Isabella, and I say to her what a joy it will be to go back to Edinburgh and to see my boys again, and how I never thought that I would long to take my place as Queen Regent of Scots, but that now I do. I tell her that my sister, foolishly, without producing an heir for the throne of France, left her new home, married a commoner and returned to England, and now it will be as if she never went away. The French will forget her in a sennight. She will have to return her jewels. Of course, she may have the pleasures of the English court and the prestige of being the king’s sister—these are trivial pleasures for a foolish girl—but a woman called by God to do her duty by her husband’s country should stay there, serving the country and serving God, as I do. I declare that to be the mother of a king is the greatest calling that a woman could have. I have become as great as my lady grandmother, who bore a king and saw him to the throne. She had God’s hand over her every action and so do I. I am closer to God than a prioress. I have a vocation and a duty. I am that great woman. I will serve Scotland and God.
It’s very pleasant to stroll around the herb garden with the prioress, our skirts swishing against the end-of-summer lavender, releasing the sharp smell on the heady air. As we walk she picks a sprig of mint and sniffs it, I brush my hands over a bush of rosemary. There is rue growing, and the daisy flowers of chamomile, the bright little faces of johnny jump-up and the scented leaves of lemon balm. “I wonder that you trust him,” she says casually.