Rizzio: A Novella

Every face in the room turns to look at Ruthven. There are gasps and giggles. A page whispers.

What is he wearing?

He’s wearing a bed shirt tucked messily into a bizarre suit of mismatched armour, missing one shin guard, with a snapped leather buckle at the side of the breast plate so it flaps about. He has a steel cap on his head. The steel cap is a deliberate, pragmatic piece of kit designed to stop someone stabbing him in the top of the head. In a courtly world where the placement of a kerchief has a special symbolic meaning, Ruthven’s outfit resembles confusion screamed in high C by a panicked goat.

They all think Ruthven has lost his mind.

For one sweet moment the supper room is all concern. Maybe he’s delirious and hallucinating and has been staggering around and ended up here somehow? He doesn’t even live in the Palace; he lives in a house nearby. They all know he’s gravely ill and think he’s in his death throes and they feel bad for him.

But Ruthven does know where he is and what he’s doing. His belly aches and he’s exhausted but he’s taken analgesic draughts and mustered his strength. He knows this may be the last thing he will ever do and he doesn’t care if they laugh. He has one foot out of this world already.

His eyes find Queen Mary sitting at the centre of the gathering. Lord Darnley, his arm around the Queen’s waist in a proprietorial manner, grins up at Ruthven like a swivel-eyed loon. And there, David Rizzio sits at the far end of the table, at the head, as though he were the man of the house, as though he were married to her, and – this is almost worse – he is wearing a hat in the presence of the Queen. A bare head is the minimum of deference a servant can show his monarch, but this is a fancy black velvet cap.

Ruthven cannot credit that he could ever witness such insolence. It is so much worse than he supposed. He remembers that he has a steel helmet on but gives himself a pass. That’s different. He needs it to stop his head getting stabbed.

‘Oh, my good Lord Ruthven!’ coos Mary. ‘What is this you are wearing?’

Ruthven is still staring at Rizzio as they all register the stamps and cries of armed men piling into the chamber.

The warmth and curiosity in the room evaporates, replaced by alarm. Mary tries to stand but Darnley holds her down.

Ruthven raises a hand and loudly orders the Queen to hand over David Rizzio.

In that instant, everyone in the supper room realises that Ruthven knows exactly what he’s doing: they’re going to kill Rizzio. Rizzio realises this too. He is trapped and they want to murder him. Shock lifts him to his feet, and he knocks over his chair as he backs away from the door, pressing himself into the window recess.

Mary struggles to free herself from Darnley’s grip, manages to stand, but Darnley gets up too, still holding her waist, which seems strange. Her fingers wriggle into his as she says, ‘Lord Ruthven! David is my guest. I invited him here. By what authority do you dare order me?’

‘The man is insulting you by even being in here,’ brays Ruthven. His voice is too loud. He’s pumping adrenaline, he’s rattling with medicaments and imagines himself addressing the army next door instead of this cosy little supper party in this cosy little room.

‘Insulting me? I invited him.’ Her thumbs dig into Darnley’s palm and she tries to push his hand off her swollen belly, but before Ruthven can even reply, Darnley turns and looks her in the eye and she knows.

Darnley’s in on this – whatever this is. He’s holding her pregnant body tight and he’s squeezing hard, and he wants to harm her.

‘It is intolerable to witness my sovereign be treated with contempt by a lowly foreigner. More than I can bear! I demand he surrender himself to me this instant!’ Ruthven’s voice thunders around the room, cracking off the plaster ceiling, the wooden walls and hangings.

Mary looks at Darnley, her lips parted in dismay. She’s not seeing Lord Darnley, the King Consort; she’s seeing her lover, Henry, the man she once spent four days in bed with, exploring, laughing with, eating from. She’s seeing a man who smells of mustard seed in the evening when he’s weary. She’s seeing a man she once dreamed she was swallowing whole, head first, so strong was her yearning to possess him.

To that Henry she whispers, ‘Did you bring this man here?’

And Darnley, caught red-handed, declares to the Queen and the company: ‘I have no idea how he got in. I don’t know what is going on or who else is involved.’

And then she feels his fingertips press viciously into the wall of her uterus. But the baby has turned and lies flush to the left side, a tiny little bottom pressing against her left forearm. Darnley is poking his fingers into vacant water.

She is confident of her baby, feels a perfect union of intent between them. She sees that her husband doesn’t have the measure of her. He has no idea how far off the mark his venom lands. She holds Darnley’s eye and mimics his wicked smile back at him. Darnley startles at her resolve, so much that he unhands her and steps away.

Mary looks at Ruthven. ‘Lord Ruthven, as your Queen I order you to leave this chamber right now. Take your men, or I will charge you with treason.’

Ruthven looks at the food on the table, at the meat and the milk pudding and the oatcakes. He absentmindedly scratches his neck with his thumbnail.

The room waits while he recalls that he hasn’t eaten today. Did he eat yesterday? He looks at the Queen. She is waiting for his answer.

Ruthven can’t do anything but make it worse. He’s not leaving but he isn’t worried about being charged with treason either: everyone is in on this. He has a contract in his pocket, signed by all his fellow conspirators. If Mary charges him, she will have to charge four fifths of the nobles of Scotland – including her own husband.

Ruthven has two documents on him, actually; the last one was only finalised a week ago. Both are formal contracts, with clauses and sub-clauses, signatories, penalties for noncompliance, and each is signed and dated by every single man involved in this coup. They are all men, they all know Mary personally and have spent time in her company over the course of the months leading up to tonight. But Mary doesn’t yet know the extent of their mendacity.

‘Ruthven, get out now,’ Mary commands again, ‘and I will not charge you with treason. But if you stay…’

Ruthven looks his Queen in the eye. Everyone stands still and watches. Whatever is going on out there, Ruthven can stop this. He can call them off. He can knit the wound by backing out.

He clanks a defiant step into the room.

The room recoils at this outrage. The men stand up and go for him, but Ruthven draws a loaded pistol and cocks it – in the presence of the Queen – and shouts, ‘I will not be handed!’

Everyone can hear the armed men shouting and clattering through the audience chamber now as Ruthven draws a dagger from his left hip, whipping it wildly across his body and lurching towards Rizzio.

Mary instinctively tries to block him, moving in front of Rizzio, but Darnley bares his teeth in a spiteful smile, and she realises how deeply involved he is.

This is when everyone else arrives.

Five armed men rush in from the audience chamber, roaring, ‘A Douglas! A Douglas!’ It is a battle cry from the Wars of Independence – an attempt to dignify attacking a pregnant woman in her bedroom by imagining they’re at Bannockburn instead. They charge across the cramped quarters, shoving past Ruthven, grabbing for Rizzio, tumbling over one another with swords and daggers drawn.

Rizzio, terrified, flattens his back to the wall and draws his own dagger, but his hands are damp and he drops the blade. As he scrabbles for it on the floor, the men reach for him, pushing and shoving so that he staggers head-first across the room, crying ‘Sauvez-moi, madame!’ and darting behind his Queen.

The supper guests scatter out of the way. The table is toppled. Silver platters and goblets clatter to the floor; wine and gravy, chunks of venison and pudding splatter. All the candles are knocked to the ground.

Sudden darkness.

There are unsheathed swords everywhere.

In this dark crowded room full of razor blades the only illumination is the red glow from the fire, up-lighting everyone’s face, amplifying their shadows on the ceiling and walls.

Everyone freezes.

Rizzio squeezes his Queen’s skirts tight, pressing his face into the embroidery. They will surely kill him.

Mary shields him, standing tall, hands spread like the Mary of the Graces, creating a sanctuary space behind her. She has assumed they dare not come past her but abruptly sees that this is wrong. Darnley is with them. They feel protected. No presumption of authority or honour will survive tonight.

Darnley reaches for Mary with two hands as Ruthven shouts at him to look to his lady wife. Let no ill befall her! Keep her well! Darnley’s hands go straight for her belly. He squeezes tight, hoping to hurt the usurper inside.

That’s it, My Lord! Let no ill! Ruthven is calling out these counterfactuals because he is acutely aware of the illegality of what they’re doing. These statements are his defences. I tried to protect the lady, he’ll say, you all heard me.

Quick-thinking Jean swoops down to pick up the single sputtering candle from the table. She holds it high above her head.

In the flickering half-light everyone can see Rizzio cowering in the window recess behind Mary, holding onto the back of her skirt. Darnley is grinning like an idiot child, both arms tight around his wife’s middle. He tries to drag her away, but Mary stands her ground. She’s tugging at his hands, tearful and confused, but he strengthens his hold. Everyone is watching them, wondering what sort of a man would do this to his pregnant wife. Silence. For a moment. Then pandemonium.

Ruthven brays at Darnley to get the Queen out of the way as Yair and five others lunge for Rizzio. She is set upon by unsheathed swords and daggers. They demand she give them Rizzio. But Mary doesn’t move.

Ruthven shouts, ‘No harm will come to him! Let him go, madame!’

Still she holds her ground, frightened but resolute, her arms spread wide, making herself bigger to give Rizzio cover.

And then a man called Kerr, John Knox’s son-in-law, brandishes a cocked pistol, shoves people out of the way, and gets up close. His face is an inch from hers and he presses against her, hot breath on her cheek, as he draws his hand down her body to Rizzio’s clenched fingers, touching Mary’s back, arm, haunches.

With sudden horror she realises that she is no longer Kerr’s Queen. He thinks she is already powerless and there will be no consequences for touching her like this.

He growls at her as he tries to prise Rizzio’s fingers from her skirts, bending them back to break them. Mary may not be Kerr’s Queen but she is still Mary Stuart. She stands, defiant, and Kerr cannot uncouple them until his cocked pistol brushes her belly and makes her startle. Another man unsheathes Darnley’s dagger from his belt and reaches over Mary’s shoulder to jab at the cowering figure of Rizzio.

The cold metal blade of her husband’s dagger, held by another man, brushes her neck. A mess of invading men swarm in front of her. She feels her husband trying to squeeze the child from her and smells Kerr’s fetid breath on her face. Mary knows every single one of these men, knows their histories and family connections. They would all be divested by the coming Parliament and she can have them executed for tonight.

The metal grazing her neck, the pressure on her pregnant belly, the hunks of roasted meat scattered on the floor: these are the sensations she will never forget. She will tell this story many times afterwards and she will repeat these facts, but no one else remembers these details. They don’t believe them or want to hear them. They say she’s making them up to gain sympathy, a charge levelled at victims by powerful men since time immemorial.

Still Mary stands her ground despite Darnley tightening his hold. David is hunkered down behind her, holding tight to her skirts, while she leans back, bending her knees to make herself immovable. Then Patrick Lindsay, a fanatical follower of John Knox, loses patience. He picks up a chair, swings it wildly and misses her belly by a hair. Mary flinches and it’s enough: Darnley lifts her off her feet.

She’s winded, disorientated, and when she looks up she sees that it is done. Kerr has Rizzio by the hair and is dragging him out of the room like a dog that has disgraced itself.

The last Mary sees of David is a hand taking a fistful of the velvet on his back and another grabbing his thigh. As they lift Rizzio he shouts, ‘Sauvez-moi, madame! Sauvez ma vie! Giustizia! Giustizia!’ in a panic-stricken jumble of French and Italian.

Then they’re out of the room with the screaming trophy, his terrified protests receding.

Ruthven slumps against the wall by the door, sweating death, and mumbles to the men that they should take Rizzio down the private staircase to the King’s apartments below and to wait for him there. He’ll decide what happens to Rizzio. He calls to Mary, ‘Be not alarmed. We will not harm him. We are removing him from your rooms. We will not harm you, madam!’

‘Madame!’ shrieks Rizzio. ‘Madame! Sauvez-moi!’ He’s dragged across the bedroom towards the audience chamber. ‘Madame! I am a dead man…’ This is the last thing she hears him say.

‘He has been taken down to your own dear husband’s chamber, madame.’

‘They went the other way,’ says Mary.

Ruthven doesn’t understand. He shakes his head and blinks.

‘They haven’t gone downstairs, Lord Ruthven, they went right. They’ve gone into the audience chamber.’

‘But I told them…’

This is how Ruthven finds out that he is not in charge of this coup either.