Mary woke to find herself in a strange bed, with monogrammed sheets
and a broad, crimson canopy. She lay still and tried to realize all
that had happened. It was impossible. Her recollections of the night
before were so confused. . .and her present surroundings in such flat
contradiction to the naked exposure she felt. . .that the aura of
unreality remained.
She let out a bewildered breath, and pressing her fingers to her
temples, tried to reshape in some logical pattern the events of her
journey, and later installment in this room. Images came to her in
sharp detail, but would not arrange themselves to any firm order or
conclusion.
She saw again the pale interior of the carriage. Then through the
window, the grim Castle looming upon the promontory: above the mists,
beneath the moon
. She saw the drawbridge raised again behind them, and the spiked
portcullis lowered in the arch beyond. And then the great, hulking
form of a man, seated as if in Judgment upon a raised throne of oak at
the head of a long reception hall, hung with bright banners and fading
tapestry. She walked towards him, came closer, then stopped.
At this point, had she known it, she did in fact lose consciousness,
collapsing to the apparent (and unexpected) distress of her father. He
had been the first to come to her aid, and loudly summon a physician.
Afterward she had been taken to the rooms she now shared with her
aunt, who was stationed in the adjoining chamber.
A door opened in the wall to her right, calling her back to the
present. The widow Scott entered quickly, seeming no more assured or
at peace than herself. With a troubled look she approached the bed,
and took her niece by the hand.
"I fear we have made a serious mistake," she said.
The words were so obvious, and such a gross understatement of their
position, that the one reaction the girl felt capable of was
annoyance. The widow read this in her face, shook her head.
"That's not what I mean. Whether we did right or wrong in coming here,
and whether it will help Michael---" She looked about her, as if
fearing the very walls, then went on in a lowered voice.
"Whether or not we can do anything to call off the search. . .I have
found a dangerous weakness in our story, and the one physical detail I
overlooked. I cannot hope Lord Purceville did not notice." She lifted
Mary's hand before her, and slowly she understood.
The ring
.
Such a bitter irony: the very symbol of life and enduring love, of the
common purpose that bound them together. . .might work to the undoing
of them all.
For at that same moment the Lord Purceville sat alone in his study,
pondering many things, not least among them that slender band of
silver, set with a single diamond.
The contradiction to the facade of innocence which the widow had tried
to plant in his mind was obvious. Why did the girl wear a wedding
ring, while the woman did not? Who, and where, was the man who had
given it to her? And what string had Stephen pulled, perhaps
inadvertently, to bring them here? For though in his hard way he loved
his son, he was not blind to his shortcomings. It was unlikely that
Stephen had, of his own devices, unearthed and exploited some weakness
which he himself had missed.
But most puzzling of all was a question far more simple. Why, after
facing death to protect her, had the woman suddenly put her niece, his
daughter, into the palm of his hand?
Back in their chambers, the two women saw they had no choice but to
see it through. To switch the ring back to the widow's hand might
prove disastrous, while to change any element of their story (much of
which was still unclear to Mary), would prove equally perilous.
It was decided that they should speak of the ring as an heirloom,
which had been passed on to the sole inheritor of Scott blood and
tradition. This might also lend credence to the guardian's fierce
determination to protect her. And in this same hurried conference,
Anne Scott went over again all that should, and should not be said at
Mary's inevitable, and surely imminent meeting with her father.
Still, if she had been summoned to him in that moment, and had he not
been distracted, he might easily have picked her story apart, and held
them all at his questionable mercy.
But he was distracted, and distraught. A courier had arrived the night
before, only hours ahead of his daughter's carriage, bearing news that
he was loathe to hear. Earl Emerson Arthur, his sworn enemy of so many
years, had been appointed Secretary of State for Scotland. And full of
his new-found authority, the vindictive old man had decided to abandon
his long siege---waiting for some damning evidence to arise against
his rival---and decided to attack instead, on Purceville's own ground,
while the tide of disfavor was still strong against him. A review was
to be called, if not a formal Inquest, and evidence gathered to
dismiss him. And while losing his seat as Governor was not a literal
matter of life and death, to the aged and slowly despairing Lord
Purceville, the two amounted to one and the same thing.
For no man is so strong that he can hold off forever the grim
whisperings of age. His power and station were all that remained to
him, a last shield of illusion, which so narrowly blocked out the
sureness and finality of Death. Without it, he would have to look its
grim harvest square in the face. And for all his mockery and outward
courage (unfeigned), this was something he was consummately unwilling
to do.
Now he was cornered. And the cornered beast is most to be feared.
Twenty-Two
Several hours later a man-servant came to the women's quarters to
announce:
"The Lord Purceville," (his exact words), "requests a private
interview with his daughter."
Whatever their desired affect, upon hearing these words something
shook in Mary's heart, as she felt again the sudden pang of the
orphan. Because she realized in that moment that this simple phrase,
`his daughter', had never once been applied to her. For an instant the
tears started in her eyes; and for all her fear of him, her one desire
was to run and fall weeping in his arms.
But then she remembered all that her mother had told her. She
remembered, too, the life of empty hatred to which he had driven her,
at the cost of all that was gentle and giving inside her. And the way
he had burned her very corpse.
The tears stopped. A look of such implacable will came into her eyes
that the widow Scott, who had been plaiting her hair in preparation,
took a step back in dismay. All the brooding anger that she had once
seen in Stephen, the forerunner of violence, now showed itself in the
girl, with a keener edge, and yet whiter fire.
"Mary, listen to me," she whispered closely. "You must not do or say
anything to upset him. Our lives, all of them, are in his hands."
But her words were without effect. Mary stood like a fierce, enchanted
statue, waiting only for the sculptor to finish, to come to life and
fulfill its vengeful purpose. And when the last lock of hair was in
place and bound she stalked silently from the room, following the
startled servant.
After two long hallways she hardly noticed, she passed by several
doors in a third, then was ushered in to the great man's den. Her eyes
took in nothing but his seated form, which stamped itself forever in
her mind as the living embodiment of evil, and sole object of
revenge.....
If Henry Purceville had harbored any notions of winning the girl over,
or of displaying even the most distant paternal affection, he soon
forgot them. Her iron gaze quickly despatched the small stirrings of
tenderness (and guilt) which he had felt the night before.
But strange to say, the fearless disdain she showed him was not
without reward. In truth it was the one emotion he still respected. It
at once cut through his predisposition toward women as weak and
spineless manipulators, and gave her a separate identity. She was his
daughter, and she was not afraid.
There could be, for the moment, no thought of killing her.
"Well, girl," he said, settling back in his chair as the servant
closed the polished doors behind them. "If you have hard words to say
to me, say them."
"I hate you," she hissed.
"And why is that?" His face remained immobile, whatever the underlying
emotions.
"You raped my mother."
"Yes, though she did not ask me to stop. And if I hadn't, you would
not exist." The thought staggered her, but she pressed on.
"You burned her body! You denied her Christian burial."
"Your mother was not a Christian. By the look of her hut, I'd say she
fancied herself a Daughter of the Trees. Such as she are not buried,
as you must know."
"If not for your countrymen, and their accursed King, my cousins....."
She struggled. "They would not have been killed in the war."
"And if not for your
countrymen, and their drunkard Prince, there would have been no war.
"No," he continued, raising his hand to stop her. "Don't tell me that
you were oppressed, and had no choice but to rise in revolt. The
strong have always dominated the weak: it is Nature's unchanging law.
Had you been strong enough to defeat us, you would have won your
freedom, and left the women of England to mourn the dead."
Mary looked hard at him, disconcerted. She had been ready to pour out
the crucible of her wrath upon him, and at the slightest mockery, to
rush forward and scratch out his eyes. But he only remained before
her, unmoved and unmovable, with no apparent effort refuting her every
grievance. Worst of all, his words held the power of a twisted truth.
"You have an answer for everything. That doesn't make you right. In
the eyes of God---"
"God
?" he sneered, as if the very thought were offensive. "You have
reached young womanhood and still not seen through that, the cruelest
and emptiest of farces? Look at me, girl."
She did, then wished she hadn't. Those cold and knowing eyes seemed to
look straight through her. Hatred deserted her, leaving only fear. And
in that moment she was sure it was not her father, but the Devil
himself who stood before her. His wicked tongue was a foil far too
clever for her innocence, and she knew it. She felt her innermost
temples exposed, and had little doubt that he could ridicule and undo
the most sacred feelings she possessed.
"Aren't you going to ask me why
I I don't believe? Are you afraid? I am going to tell you; and if only
once in your fairy-tale existence you listen to the voice of reason,
then let it be now." He spoke evenly at first, but it was clear that
she had stirred the cauldron of his emotions.
"I disbelieve for the simplest, and most undeniable reason of all.
Experience
. For forty years I have taken what I wanted, disobeying each
Commandment, each precept, a thousand times over. And not only do I go
unpunished. . .but I have thriven, and raised myself to great power.
"I will tell you something I have never told anyone; you may take that
any way you like. Listen! From earliest manhood I have fought against
the principles, nay, the very heart of Christianity. In truth, a part
of me longed for punishment and reversal: to be put in my place, as a
sign there was some meaning, some Order in the world. But there is
none, unless it be survival of the fittest. Hardly the kind of world
that a God would make, unless his sole purpose was to punish its weak,
pathetic creatures."
He paused, trying unsuccessfully to calm himself. "The only `earth'
that the meek shall inherit. . .are the indifferent shovelfuls the
diggers throw back into their graves!
"What have you to say of that
, little whore of my flesh? Answer me!"
She knew not where she found the words, nor the courage to speak them.
She only knew that they were right.
"The final reckoning has not yet come," she said quietly. "Your
imagined victory will slip through your fingers like sand."
He bolted from his chair and came at her, before either realized what
had happened. Pinning her against the door, he mastered his wrath only
long enough to cry out in a dreadful voice:
"Be gone! Out of my sight!"
Mary fled from the room in tears. He slammed the door after her, then
struck it so violently that the oak shivered and his hand nearly
broke. For she had committed the one act that no evil man can
tolerate.
She had spoken the truth.
That evening Lieutenant Ballard appeared, to escort the ladies to,
"More suitable quarters." He led them, along with two armed guards, to
the high tower at the furthest extremity of the Castle.
After a long and torturous spiralling of stairs (for their escort
would not let them rest), they came at last to the uppermost story.
There Ballard took a long iron key, and forcing the eye of the lock,
pulled back the thick wooden door, pierced by a single, barred window.
They were ushered in, and all doubt of their position left them. It
was a prison cell. Piled hay on the floor comprised the beds, two
water buckets, one filled, the other empty, their only toilet. Two
woolen blankets had been rudely thrown down, as if their captors
resented even this small show of humanity. But for these, and for the
water, the place might have gone unchanged for a hundred years.
Ballard approached the girl, and took her roughly by the wrist. Too
numb to react, she could only watch as he pulled the ring from her
finger, and flung it out of the high, paneless window. No explanation
was given for this action, or for the sudden change in their status.
And when they tried to ask, the Lieutenant only smiled, and said in a
harsh voice:
"Little Mary, Queen of Scots, locked in the Tower, waiting for death."
And he let go a laugh, so void of compassion that it made the blood
run cold. He strode back out onto the landing, then turned again to
face them through the closing door.
"Master `enry has a visitor, and needs no more trouble of you. If you
want to live a little longer, do nothing to call attention to
yourselves. Quiet as mice, my pretties, or bad men will be sent to
keep an eye, and more `an likely both hands, on you
."
He pulled the door to, and left them in darkness.