Rizzio: A Novella

Darnley has stopped pretending someone else let Ruthven in. He is annoyed now, because Mary won’t stop being angry about it and it wasn’t even his idea. They’ve moved into Mary’s bed chamber and they’re sitting at her escritoire under the big window. Ruthven is apart from the group, slumped on a chair outside the supper-room door. He asks for more wine and Darnley tops him up. Mary is watching the guards at her door, two men who are both unknown to her, blinking awkwardly and trying to hide their faces. There are others in the room but these two are afraid.

She gets up and goes towards them, sees them turn away, and sits on her bed to pretend she was not going towards them, was not trying to see their faces.

This is when they see the Keepers’ lights.

They see the glow of a hundred torches coming down the hill towards the Palace. At first, they can’t see the men, just the flickering on the buildings around them, eating into the dark night sky. It intensifies – it’s definitely coming down the hill. The noise of the men’s feet bursts out of the narrow street and into the quadrangle in front of the Tower. The torches are so bright that in Mary’s room it’s suddenly midday at the height of summer.

Hope. In Mary’s bed chamber everyone stills and listens. Ruthven drops his cup.

Mary hopes that the Keepers will somehow realise what is going on and break in, that the good people of Edinburgh, her loyal subjects, will free her.

She stands by the foot of her bed and listens to the exchange between Preston and Scott. She maps the room: Ruthven sitting, Darnley over by the door to the audience chamber, Lady Huntley near the supper room. Three guards are blocking the exits: one on the private stairwell, two by the audience chamber. They watch her reaction to the furore outside.

Mary’s face turns to the window; her lips part as if she is going to take a breath and call for help. The nearest guard raises the tip of his sword to her chest as he leans forward and hisses, ‘Lady, call out or make a single sound, and we will cut you into pieces and throw you from the castle walls.’

Mary regards him. She’s remembering his face and he sees that. He drops his sword. His impertinence lacks conviction. This is the first time she has seen a faltering, and she knows that this may be her moment.

From outside they hear the provost shouting up to the window, ‘Is the Queen in there?’

It’s the right question.

Ruthven looks at the guards. The guards look at the window. Mary has the support of her people; they love her, and if Preston and the Keepers get in here the guards will all be killed. Ruthven will be killed. His estate will be taken, his titles confiscated.

Darnley comes alive, steps over to the bright window and throws it open. He hangs out like a washerwoman and shouts down at Preston, ‘Hello!’

‘Oh!’ Preston is delighted to see the King. ‘Hello!’ he replies. ‘I’m Provost Simon Preston. I’m the Keeper of the Watch.’

‘Good for you,’ says Darnley, smiling and looking over the arc of lance-bearing men pointing their weapons at the Palace Guard. ‘What’s going on here?’

‘We thought we heard trouble,’ says Preston.

‘Oh, you did! We found a Papal spy. Two of them. They tried to get away, but we’ve caught them and dealt with it all. Had to put extra guards on, just in case there were outside agents. A trusted servant, as well – imagine! Creeping around, sending word back to Rome. Had letters on their person that proved they were passing information and plotting…’

Darnley is giving too much detail, a sure sign of a false story, and all to a subordinate. This makes Preston wonder if he’s being fobbed off, but what can he do? Darnley is married to the Queen. He can’t very well question him.

‘Oh,’ says Preston, smiling up but still not convinced. ‘Fancy that.’

‘Yes,’ says Darnley. ‘So… you can all disperse and go home now.’

This doesn’t feel right to Preston. He doesn’t want to leave but he’s being told to by the King Consort from the window of the Queen’s apartments. What else can they do?

He turns to the men and orders them to go back to their homes, thanking them for their service. The men turn and clatter away, making their way back to town.

Darnley remains at the window, smiling stiffly and watching them leave, which Preston again finds out of character. Darnley is known for being a snobby, surly little shit.

Preston lingers. He wants to make certain that everything is done in good and proper order. If they did find a spy in the Palace tonight, he wants the Keeper to be spoken of well at the trial. He lets the men get well ahead of him and checks that the quadrangle is clear. And then he hears the window being shut behind him, and as it closes, he hears a woman’s voice calling one word.

‘No!’

The intonation rises. Was it a cry? Is it a cry? Was it the Queen? He turns to look up at the bright window. He looks at the guards but they don’t seem to have heard anything. It wasn’t very loud. He glances up again, expecting a shift in the light or a movement. But there’s nothing.

Provost Simon Preston goes home and lies in his bed. He blinks into the dark, replaying that single plaintive syllable. He might have been mistaken. Could he have heard something else and imagined it was a voice? He hears it over and over until he can’t make sense of it any more or think about anything else.