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

fat brown birds. Over her bent a handsome lady in the late thirties, and a man, whom Ninian correctly took to be the French ambassador, stood surveying the scene with a benevolent smile.

      “Your Grace!” said Lord Livingstone, advancing.

      But his small sovereign, murmuring words of endearment to her pet, seemed not to hear, and the lady was obliged to touch her on the shoulder.

      “Marie, here is my Lord Livingstone, who would speak with you.”

      And at that the little hand was quickly pulled from between the wicker bars, and the child turned round, dignity coming upon her as she did so.

      “My Lord?”

      A short distance behind his kinsman Ninian Graham found himself looking down with emotion at her whom he had so desired to see. Long minorities had been the rule, rather than the exception, in the troubled history of Scotland since the days of Bruce; time after time the sceptre had fallen into a childish hand. But never before into the hand of a girl-child six days’ old. On that innocent head, where now the red-gold hair showed bright through the elaborate gilded caul, the crown of Scotland had been solemnly placed when but nine months and a day had passed over it. As he thought of that, Ninian felt oddly moved.

      Lord Livingstone addressed this little girl fresh from play, whose head came no higher than his dagger point, as he would have addressed any enthroned sovereign giving audience.

      “I crave leave to present a kinsman of mine, your Grace—Master Ninian Graham, who returns to his post in His Most Christian Majesty’s Archer Guard, and who hath a great desire to kiss your Grace’s hand.”

      He stepped back, and motioned Ninian forward.

      “Master Graham, you are very welcome,” said the child, in a clear, composed voice. With equal composure she put out to be kissed the hand which a moment ago had been caressing the quail. And her very humble servant put those small fingers reverently to his lips.

      When he rose from his knees the Queen looked up at him, and he could see better her rather narrow and deep-set eyes, reddish-brown like her hair, the straight little nose, short upper lip, small mouth and prettily-rounded chin. The lower part of her face was unusually oval for a child’s.

      “How long have you been in the Gendarmes Ecossais, monsieur?” she asked, speaking French.

      “Fourteen years, your Majesty.”

      “They are all Scots gentlemen in the Archer Guard, are they not?”

      “Everyone, your Majesty.”

      “I should like to see them when I come to France.”

      “Your Majesty may be assured that it will be their most fervent wish to see their Queen.”

      “The Guard goes everywhere with the King of France?”

      “Yes, Madame, it has that privilege. A certain number of us are always on duty about his person.”

      “Then, Master Graham, you have seen Monseigneur le Dauphin, whom I am to marry. Is he as M. de Brézé has described him to me?”

      Ninian glanced for a moment at the French ambassador, regarding this colloquy with an intensification of his benevolent smile. How exactly had this gentleman depicted that sickly but high-spirited little boy destined, if he lived, to be Francis II of France? His brush was certain to have been dipped in the rosiest colours.

      “I am sure,” answered Ninian diplomatically, “that whatever M. de Brézé has told your Grace of his Royal Highness is no more than the truth. The prince is full of promise, and of the most gallant disposition.”

      “But he is six weeks younger than I am,” announced Mary, with a slight accent of superiority. And then, taking a further backward step over the frontiers of childhood, which for a few moments she seemed entirely to have left behind, she added, “Although it is true that he will be a King some day, I am a Queen already!”

      And with that, giving a little inclination of her childish head to signify that the audience was at an end, she turned back to the cage behind her and said decisively: “Now, Mary Beaton, we will let them out.”

      Lady Fleming instantly protested. “No, no, Marie, not here!” She appeared, perhaps of set purpose, to be speaking to Mary Beaton, not to her royal charge, but the prohibition was unmistakable. The little Queen, however, disregarding it, beckoned to a tall girl in a blue gown standing at a little distance.

      “Mistress Magdalen, pray set the cage on the ground for me.”

      The girl came forward, but made no motion to obey. “Indeed, your Grace,” she protested gently but firmly, “it is not wise to loose the birds here. The Lord Robert’s hound——”

      “He has it on a leash,” replied the Queen impatiently. “Lady Fleming, I desire——”

      But just at this juncture Lord Livingstone caught at Ninian’s arm. “Come, kinsman, and I will show you my own wean.” And he bore him away from this little unresolved clash of wills towards the three children with the ball. “There, that is she—but I will not call her from her play.”

      It was indeed a pretty sight at which the two men stood gazing, yet Ninian rather wished that his eyes were set in the back of his head instead of in the front. With some idea of being allowed to return to the two children with the quails, he looked about after a moment or two, and began to ask questions of Lord Livingstone.

      “The Queen’s eldest brother, the Lord James, does not accompany her, I think?” he observed.

      “No,” replied his kinsman, “only the two younger, the Abbot of Holyrood and the Prior of Coldingham. You can see them yonder; the Prior is he with the dog.”

      No two persons could have looked less like the bearers of such reverend titles than the two youths talking together a little way off, but Ninian was aware that the little Queen’s four illegitimate brothers were not in holy orders, and that they held their respective abbeys and priories in commendation, as had happened before in the case of royal bastards. One of the boys had in leash the large wolfhound to which the maid of honour, Mistress Magdalen Lindsay, had referred. The leash indeed seemed necessary, for the animal’s eyes were fixed intently on the birds, in their wicker prison upon the chest at no great distance.

      The game of ball now took on a much faster and more general character, for as the little girls tired the younger among the spectators joined in. The ball sped, amid laughter, from hand to hand, and all at once the little sovereign herself, abandoning the quails, hastened towards the group, followed by Lady Fleming and Magdalen Lindsay, and clapped her hands at a good catch, as any child of five might do.

      And she was still the child, and a wilful child to boot, when, just as suddenly, after a glance at Lady Fleming, whose head was turned the other way, she slipped back to the chest and the caged birds, by which little Mary Beaton was still standing.

      Out of the corner of his eye Ninian Graham watched this manœuvre with amusement, but no one else appeared to be aware of it, not even M. de Brézé, who had left his former place and was talking to Lord Erskine. Ninian saw one child whisper to the other, and then deliberately open the door of the cage. And as neither of its inmates displayed any enthusiasm for liberty, the Queen put in both hands, captured a quail and brought it forth.

      Next instant the whole cabin was a tumult of noise and movement. Baying furiously, the great wolfhound in the corner had wrenched itself free from its young master’s hold, and, sending the Lord John reeling, launched itself towards the bird. Crying its name, the youthful Prior hurled himself after it, too late; while the bewildered and then horrified ball-players merely got in each other’s way. Only the man on the outskirts of their circle who happened already to have his eyes on what was taking place by the cage was able to get there in time—and ever afterwards wondered how he had done so. He flung himself between the wolfhound and its double quarry—for the little Queen, with a cry of alarm, had caught the frightened bird up in her arms, and