Rizzio: A Novella

On Sunday, at lunchtime, Mary starts to miscarry. She doubles over in pain and cries out, and no one is surprised. Pregnancy is ill understood but what everyone does know is that pregnant women die all the time. Babies not carried to full term die, and any complication or shock or mild infection can kill both mother and child. Birth defects are caused by ‘maternal impression’: a pregnant woman experiencing a shock can change the shape of the child she is carrying. A loud noise heard during gestation can cause deafness in a child. A rearing horse can cause cleft lip. The murder of a servant, an attack by eighty men and a bloodthirsty coup? That will surely bring the death of one or both.

The conspirators don’t trust Mary’s own midwife. They’re worried she will convey messages from the Queen to her loyalists. They send her one of their own.

This midwife visits the Queen and reports back: Mary is definitely not faking. If they want mother and child to survive, they have to release her right now.

They discuss it in the King’s chamber. They won’t release her. They won’t change her conditions. They won’t let her see her apothecary. They don’t care if she sees the pregnancy to term or dies. And now they are all calculating the consequences of her dying.

In 1566, a miscarriage at six months usually means the death of the mother. Everyone is thinking about the future.

No queen, no heir, no opposition.

Mary fakes a miscarriage, on and off, for six hours and Lady Huntly stays by her side the whole time.

‘Scream,’ she whispers into Mary’s ear and she does.

The conspirators let her stay near the Queen because she’s old and pointless and she probably hates Mary more than anyone. No threat there.

‘Hold your back with two hands and writhe,’ instructs Lady Huntly and Mary does it and Lady Huntly cries out herself: ‘Oh, my poor dear! Oh, the pity of it!’

Lady Huntly weeps all day long. When anyone asks how Mary is doing, she holds her kerchief to her mouth and shakes her head and says, ‘My poor lady!’

They think it means that Mary and the baby will die. Women have experience of these things. Lady Huntly has carried twelve children herself. She’ll know when it’s time to cry and they’re glad that she thinks this is one of those times.

Lady Huntly stays with Mary, rubbing her back, dabbing her brow and making her sip Madeira. She whispers encouragement and weeps for the younger woman’s troubles. And while she weeps and wipes and murmurs comforting things to Mary, she also whispers this: George and James got away. They’ve mustered a small army out in Dunbar. They’ll fight for you if you can get there.

‘But why are you helping me,’ asks Mary, ‘after all that happened?’

Lady Huntly nods heavily, remembering her beloved son’s execution, a loss that felt like being kicked in the heart by a horse. She feels an echo of that bruise every day. Then she looks up and squeezes Mary’s hand, and she whispers in her ear, ‘In those days I often wished for a sister to hold my hand.’

The women look at each other, and, for just a little while, neither of them need pretend they are crying. The moment passes and Lady Huntly mutters, ‘Now cry out and suddenly arch your back.’

Mary does as she is told.

The only person who isn’t convinced by all this is little Lord Lindsay.

He is immediately suspicious when someone tells him she is passing the child and most likely to die. It just seems too much like good luck to him because he’s sober.

All day long he hangs around Mary’s apartments like a bad smell, coming and going without asking permission. He’s impertinent, he checks the laundry, frisks the maids, and makes people stop what they’re doing to let him search them.

Lady Huntly plots all day. ‘You’ll need to run,’ she whispers and then she calls loud, ‘Poor darling!’

It’s four o’clock in the afternoon and Lady Huntly declares that she needs to know whether the lady can eat something. Food arrives and Lord Lindsay is still hanging around, watching them closely, lifting bread and pawing through the dinner to make sure Mary isn’t receiving secret messages smuggled in on the dinner plates.

The women try to eat around his touch as he stands by the table, rubbing himself on the corner. He’s a disgusting little man.

They’ve had enough to eat and they want to get away from him so Mary cries out and Lady Huntly makes her retreat to the commode. This is the second turret room across from the supper room. The baby will be coming soon, she says. We had better prepare.

Once in the commode room Lady Huntly says she can bring a rope in a basket of linen and Mary can climb out of the window. It’s only thirty feet to the ground.

Mary says no, she’s too pregnant, it’s too steep a drop and the guards are watching from the floor above. They’ll spot her immediately. What they need is for the guard to be called off. And they need to get rid of Lindsay.

‘Cry out,’ says Lady Huntly and Mary does as she is told. ‘Oh, poor, poor child! Lord, have mercy!’

‘We need the lords to think they’ve won,’ Mary says. ‘Then they’ll let their guard down. Then we can get away.’

Lindsay thinks Mary and Lady Huntly are in the commode room too long. He bursts in through the door to find Mary taking a pee on her chamber pot. He’s proved wrong but, determined not to show any deference, he just stands there, listening to her urinate, until she is finished. Lady Huntly lifts the chamber pot and takes it out of the room.

Lindsay is annoyed to be made to look so petty and stops the old woman. He makes her put the pot down and submit to a physical search in case she has a secret message from Mary hidden on her person. He finds nothing, waves an imperious hand, and tells her to take the piss pot away.

Lady Huntly walks, warm pee sloshing in the pot that she has covered with a cloth. She has a letter tucked deep into her bodice. It’s from Mary to George and Bothwell.

Mary says she’s coming to meet them. On Monday at midnight. She’ll be on the road to Dunbar.

Bring an army.