Child Royal (Historical Novel). D. K. Broster

died down, but what remained was still south-westerly, and the master of Ninian’s galley, the Sainte Catherine, averred that he liked the look of the sunset not at all. But, inexperienced and excited, the Scottish lords and ladies of the Queen’s train were fain to think it augured well for their voyage towards that Paradise of their dreams, the Court of France.

      In a small, richly-decked cabin in the stern of the Queen’s galley, the Saint Michel l’Archange, the hanging lamp burnt already, swinging almost imperceptibly over a narrow bed behind which was stretched on the bulkhead a tapestry with the arms of Scotland. On either side of this bed were two slightly wider ones, for there was not room on board to give the Queen of Scots a cabin to herself, and she must share it with her four little namesakes and playmates of Livingstone, Beaton, Seton and Fleming. Laid two and two, tired out with the day’s happenings, for they were none of them much above six years old, these playmates were now drowsy, save little Mary Seton, who was already feeling sick, and was tearfully proclaiming the fact to the annoyance of her sleepy bedfellow, Mary Livingstone, snuggling away from her companion beneath the bed-clothes.

      All at once there was a stir in the central bed, and the Queen of Scots sat up. The embroidered nightcap which fitted her little head so tightly could not altogether imprison her young red-gold hair; her eyes were bright with disdain.

      “Foolish little Seton!” she said contemptuously in the French which was her mother’s tongue. “This is but the river, and we are at anchor! What will you do when we are upon the ocean?”

      “Lie down, your Grace, I beseech you!” adjured the maid of honour, Magdalen Lindsay, who, being at the moment the only attendant on the royal sleeping cabin, had come over to comfort Mary Seton. And stooping over the whimpering child she said kindly, “It is but fancy that takes you, my dear. Shut your eyes, and think that you are in Stirling or Dumbarton again.”

      “I wish I were!” gulped the sufferer. “I do not want to go to France in this ship!”

      “Not want to go to France!” exclaimed the Queen, her childish voice shrill with scorn and amazement. “Mary Beaton, do you hear that?”

      A sleepy sigh was the only response from the other double bed.

      “If indeed you do not want to go to France, little coward,” continued the royal child, “I will leave you behind. You shall be put into a boat to-morrow morning, and I will tell M. de Villegaignon to have you taken back to Dumbarton, all by yourself, and we will sail without you!”

      At this prospect the already tried Mary Seton burst into howls. A determined presence with a white coif and wide skirts was immediately in the cabin—Janet Sinclair, the Queen’s nurse, who was accompanying her to France, though it was assumed that she would not remain there.

      “What’s this? Greetin’ a’ready? What gars the wean, Mistress Lindsay? And you, your Grace, lie ye doun!”

      Her Grace assumed a mutinous expression, but after a moment she obeyed. So did Mary Seton obey a rather fierce injunction to cease her lamentations; and when, some quarter of an hour later, Janet having departed again, Lady Fleming herself entered the cabin, every one of the little girls was asleep. She stood a moment by the Queen’s couch, then bent over her own little daughter, curled up unstirring beside Mary Beaton, and smiled.

      Mother of six children, widowed of the husband who had fallen at the battle of Pinkie only the year before, Lady Fleming at eight and thirty, in the plentitude of a rich, full-blossoming beauty, was still very attractive to men. And she had a way with her own sex too; at least she had in the past shown her young kinswoman Magdalen Lindsay a marked kindness, for no ascertainable reason. And now she had procured for her the envied post of maid of honour—dignified by that title, though it was rather that of bedchamber woman—procured it too with some difficulty, seeing that the daughters of many noble Scottish houses coveted it, and that Magdalen Lindsay’s widowed father would only consent to her absence for a year.

      “’Tis to be hoped,” said this benefactress in lowered tones to her protégée, “that Mary Seton will not be queasy again, and awaken the rest of the children.”

      “If she is,” answered the girl, “I will take her to my own bed in the little cabin yonder.”

      (5)

      The wonderful good fortune which had attended Villegaignon’s galleys in the voyage right round the north of Scotland—a voyage the like of which vessels so little suited to such seas had never made before—now deserted them entirely. Almost immediately the weather deteriorated, and though it was high summer the sky put on the gloom of November, and the sea its turbulence. And when, after delays in the river caused by the adverse wind, the convoy was at length launched forth into the Firth of Clyde, between the long finger of Kintyre and the Ayrshire coast, a real tempest snarled about the slender vessels. Having so precious a cargo M. de Villegaignon thereupon put back for safety into the harbour of Lamlash in Arran, behind the shelter of Holy Island.

      Despite his kinship with Lord Livingstone, Ninian Graham was not of sufficient importance to be among those who made the voyage in the royal galley, nor, for all his desire to see his little Queen, had he expected such a privilege. But it was here at Lamlash that the ill wind not only brought him the fulfilment of his wish to set eyes upon her, but blew open the gate to all that followed.

      It was three o’clock in the afternoon of the day succeeding that on which the squadron had sought refuge at Lamlash. The sea had marvellously abated, but the sky was still angry enough to make it prudent to defer departure till the morrow. Leaning against the bulwark on the poop of the Sainte Catherine, Ninian was staring idly at the long, slim shapes of the anchored galleys, built for speed rather than for encountering heavy seas, and relying more upon their banks of oars than upon their triangular sails. A small boat, he saw, had put off from the Saint Michel l’Archange, and was pulling towards the Sainte Catherine. He noticed it, but no more, his thoughts busy with memories of his mother and of Garthrose.

      Some minutes later the captain of the galley approached him. “Monsieur l’archer, a messenger is come for you from the Queen’s galley.”

      Ninian turned, and saw the cinquefoil badge once more. Its wearer removed his cap.

      “If it please you, Master Graham, my lord requests your presence that he may present you to her Majesty the Queen.”

      When Ninian boarded the Saint Michel he found his distinguished relative awaiting him.

      “Welcome, kinsman,” said he, clutching his fur-bordered mantle closer about him. “I bethought me to take advantage of this delay to present you, as I promised, to the Queen’s Grace, lest it should not be possible upon arrival in France. But when I saw you tossing about in that cockle boat, I doubted if the summons pleased you.”

      “Indeed it did, my lord,” Ninian assured him gratefully. “For I too have doubted whether upon landing I should have that privilege, seeing that I must hasten back with all speed to the Archer Guard.”

      “God knows whether we shall ever land in France at all, as things have fallen out,” responded the Lord Keeper rather dismally, as they engaged in an alleyway. “Even should we have fair winds henceforward, this delay will have given the English the chance to waylay us. You will find great quantity of people round her Majesty, I fear.”

      He was right. The long, narrow poop cabin was full of the Queen’s train, and Ninian could see nothing at first but a throng of gentlemen and ladies, though almost immediately he heard above their voices the sound of childish laughter. Next moment the nearest group, recognising the Lord Keeper, parted to allow him passage, and the Archer, following him, saw in a space cleared in the centre of the cabin, three little girls in their long stiff kirtles playing at ball, watched and applauded by the bystanders. Yet as Lord Livingstone paid no heed to them, Ninian knew that none of them was the Queen.

      But farther away were two others, engrossed with a large bell-shaped wicker cage, containing a couple of quails, which stood on a small chest by one of the cabin windows. The child whose face Ninian could see was a dark-eyed,