“And now we can. Before we could not, not under a foreign power. But now we can, under you with the power of England.”
The way Ard speaks is a seduction; his arm around my waist is as persuasive as his optimism. “Think,” he whispers. “Think of being regent again and bringing your son to the throne. We would be a royal family to match Henry and Katherine. They have a throne, but no boy to inherit. You would be queen regent, I would be your consort, and your boy would be king. We would be a ruling royal family with a young king. Think how that would be.”
I am persuaded. The very thought of ruling like a queen again is enough to tempt me. The thought of being a greater queen than Katherine is irresistible. “How would we do it?”
He gives me a little sly smile. “It’s half done already, beloved. De la Bastie is dead, and you have me at your side.”
Scotland lies before us like a banquet ready for feasting. Thomas Dacre writes to advise that I seize my chance at the regency. He hints that my brother will ensure that the Duke of Albany never comes back to Scotland. Scotland needs a regent—it should be me.
“Accept,” Ard breathes in my ear, reading the letter over my shoulder. “This is your victory.”
I accept. I think: these are my days, at last. This is what it is to be a queen. This is what Katherine felt when Harry named her regent. This is what I was born for, and what I knew I should be. I am a beloved wife, I am a reigning queen, I am the mother of the king. My brother and my husband have won this for me; I shall take it. My son will come into my keeping. Already my happiest days are those that we spend together and nobody could mistake the way his little face lights up when he sees me.
The lords are sick of French rulers. They would rather follow a woman than a French nobleman. They are weary of the constant jockeying for power—they want a queen who was born higher than them all. I can do what my dead husband, the king, asked of me: care for his country and his son like a clever woman, not like a fool. I can be his true widow. I can honor my marriage vows to him and all that he taught me. I can honor his memory. I can even bear to think of him as a hidden survivor of the battle, perhaps walking in the wild country, a terrible scar on his head, content to be as the dead, knowing that I have come back to his country and taken the throne again, knowing that I am doing my best, knowing that when my moment came, I did not fail him.
So I think that my first meeting with my council will be a decisive one: they will welcome my return, I will be gracious with them. I plan to remind them that I bring peace with England, and that they can serve me as dowager queen and an English princess.
I go alone, telling Ard to wait at Holyroodhouse, to come when he is invited. As soon as the lords are seated, I tell them that I will accept the regency and my husband will serve beside me as co-regent. There is instant uproar, as one man after another pounds the table and yells out his objection. I am shocked at the outburst of fury, the same old rivalry, the same rage that Archibald warned me about. Once again, Scotland tears itself apart for no reason but that they cannot work together. But then, over the general noise, a few of them make themselves heard. They make me listen. They make me understand. Slowly, I hear what they are saying. Slowly, like a growing chill, I comprehend.
They ask me—they don’t tell me—they ask me what rents I received in England from my Scottish lands. I start to complain—they should know the answer to this, it was their duty to send the money—nothing! Nothing! Next to nothing! And they say: they were paid. Hear us! The rents were faithfully paid. We sent the money.
There is a silence. They look at me with contempt, at my slowness, at my stupidity. “Paid to whom?” I say with icy majesty; but I know. Although they can see that I know, they tell me. They say that the rents were paid to Archibald, my husband, and it was he that sent nothing on to me. It was he that left me in England forced to borrow from the butcher’s son, forced to have my household bills paid by my rich sister, to wear her cast-off dresses.
They ask me, where do I think that Archibald has been living since his pardon? I say that it is no business of theirs where he has been living, as long as his parole has been unbroken. I had believed till this minute that he was in Tantallon. They shake their heads at my arrogance and tell me, “no,” he has hardly been at his own castle. He has gone from one of my dower houses to another, collecting my rents, drinking out of my cellars, hunting my game, taking food from the storehouses of the peasants, employing my cooks, living like a lord.
“He has every right to live in my houses: he is my husband,” I say staunchly. “Everything that I have is his by law.”
One of the old lords drops his head and bangs his forehead on the table with a terrible thud, as if he would knock himself senseless with frustration.
I look blankly at him; I can say nothing. I feel that I am a fool, worse than a fool: a woman who has chosen blindness and lust instead of reason.
“Exactly,” says one of them. “He is your husband, he lives in your houses, he takes your rents, he does not send them to you.”
The old lord raises his head, a red bruise on his forehead, and looks at me. “And who is the lady of the house?” he asks. “Your house? Who sleeps on your fine linen, who dines at the head of your table, who tells your cooks to bring the finest of dishes for her to eat off your golden plates? Who has been wearing your jewels? Who sends for your musicians? Who rides your horses?”
“I will not listen to scandal,” I warn them. My hands are as cold as ice. All my rings turn loosely on my white fingers. “I care nothing for gossip.”
I think: I will show them. I will be a queen like Katherine of Aragon, I won’t even remark when my husband falls in love with my lady-in-waiting. Katherine’s heart was broken, her trust shaken, but she never said one word of complaint to Harry. She never even frowned at Bessie Blount. I know that a husband’s fidelity does not matter. I will show them queenly pride. I will show them that I care nothing for their petty worries. I am a queen. No one can displace me. Even if someone else eats off my plates, even if someone else wears my jewels, I am still Archibald’s wife, I am still dowager queen, I am still the mother of the king, the mother of Ard’s daughter.
“It is his own wife that he has put in your house,” someone says from so far down the table that I understand that even the lowest of the lords knows everything. He is a man so unimportant that he is standing with the commoners at the back of the room. “It is his own wife, whom he married long before his grandfather made him swear to you. Bonny Janet Stewart of Traquair. She has been living like his lady, as she should, as an honest wife should. And the two of them have made merry on your rents and on your cellars and in your bed. You are not his wife. You never were. You are his ambition, his clan’s bloody ambition. He was married to her, years ago, not betrothed. He was married. He pretended to marry you, and you have given him everything and now you want to give him Scotland.”
“I don’t believe it,” is the first thing I can say. Deny them! Deny everything! I say to myself. “You are lying. Where did they live together? Where was all this marital joy?”
“In Newark Castle,” they say, one after another. They are united in this, it has to be the truth. “Didn’t you notice the swept floor, the fresh rushes, the clean linen?”
“Janet Stewart moved out the day before you moved in and left it clean and tidy for her husband, like the good wife she is.”
“She even took your stockings to mend.”