The Memoirs of Mary Queen of Scots Read Online Free PDF Page A

I the queen’s,” was the captain’s retort, and he took a menacing step toward the count.
    Monsieur de Roncelet got to his feet. “If you will excuse me, Your Highness, I believe these matters can be left for discussion another day. Come along, Dampierre.”
    For a moment I thought the count would challenge my authority again, but instead he threw down his linen napkin and turned to leave the room.
    In an instant the Earl of Bothwell was on his feet, kicking his chair noisily aside.
    “Monsieur le comte! You will ask the queen’s permission to withdraw, or you will answer to me!”
    Slowly the count turned, bowed in my direction, and murmured, “With your permission, Your Highness.”
    “You may go.”
    The earl sat down again. “Now perhaps we may finish our meal in peace. And then, Your Highness, if I may, I would like to see the king.”



FIVE
    Even before we entered Francis’s bedchamber we could hear him coughing. I went in first, telling the three Gentlemen of the Bedchamber who were in attendance on him that he had a visitor.
    “A visitor?” Francis croaked. “What visitor?”
    Though the hearth fire blazed high and the room was hot, he was swathed in a woolen blanket, his feet wrapped in warm leggings. He shivered—or perhaps he was trembling in fear. Visitors frightened Francis.
    “It is the Earl of Bothwell, my mother’s man. A friend.”
    “A parasite, you mean. Dampierre has cautioned me about this friend, this friend wants money.”
    The earl came in then, and at his first sight of Francis, could not help but whisper, “By all that’s holy!”
    My poor husband was indeed a ghastly sight. His dark, stringy hair stood out around his pale, thin face with its startling gashes of red where the skin disease that tormented him had broken out. With every rasping cough he brought up green sputum, which he wiped away impatiently with one wet hand. His wild eyes were full of fearand bad temper, and the sight of Bothwell, with his twinkling earring and sparkling codpiece, made him cackle.
    “A cockscomb then! As well as a parasite!”
    Bothwell bowed.
    “Your Highness,” he said. “I am James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, come to bring you greetings from the Queen Dowager Marie of Scotland. She wishes you a quick recovery and fortunate prospects for a long and happy reign.”
    A thin smile crossed Francis’s moist lips.
    “Does she indeed? And does she add her apologies for cursing me with a barren daughter for a wife?”
    “He doesn’t mean that,” I said, moving closer to the earl. “He is only echoing his mother. When we are alone he doesn’t speak to me like that.”
    “Sire,” the earl went on, “both our realms, Scotland and France, are under siege from the English enemy. It would be well for us not to insult each other or provoke quarrels, but to combine our strengths to fight off this scourge.”
    “Well said, for a borderer,” Francis sniped. “But as you see, I am under siege from quite another source.” A spasm of coughing interrupted him. I could hardly look at him, he was so wretched, and I so helpless. At length he went on, his voice low, his head bent toward the floor.
    “I refer to my mortality. Now leave me. There is no money for you here.”
    The earl bowed again, and murmuring, “I am sorry to have found Your Highness in such an unwell state,” left the bedchamber. After a moment I followed him.
    “I have a great and sudden thirst,” he said as I came up to him in the dim torchlit corridor. “Seeing death face to face puts me in need of drink.”
    I was glad that he made no pretense, that he said what we all saw—that my acid-tongued husband was not likely to live much longer.
    “It isn’t true, is it?” he asked. “The rumor that he has leprosy? Because if it is, then you probably have it too.”
    “No. But a worm has bored deep into his ear and Michel de Notredame says it cannot be gotten out. It is rotting him from the inside. The cough, the rheums, the