He shrugged. “Well, she was a princess, spoiled, privileged, feted all her life, given whatever she desired. She married the Dauphin of France, was the queen of France for a short time until young Francis died. When she came to Scotland as its queen, it was an alien land, and the aliens regarded her as an alien as well. She knew nothing of the religious factions, the power factions—she knew nothing at all. She made dreadful mistakes. All believe if Mary had remained queen there would have been civil war. You know all of this, Grayson, and yet you ask me if I think she was a good woman? Of course I do not know what was in her heart, but who can know another’s heart? And it is actions that matter, don’t you agree?”
“So you do not believe Mary was a good woman.”
“How can I?”
“When you’ve felt taken over by another, do you believe it’s Mary?”
“It must be—or then again, mayhap I am losing my mind.”
“Can you think of any reason Mary would want to kill you?”
Cibalto slowly shook his head. “I’ve thought and thought. I have done nothing to her, at least nothing I’m aware of. Yet there was the scrap of paper from her diary there on the stairs for me. Meant only for me. Why does she see me as her enemy?”
Grayson said, “Do you know your lineage?”
Cibalto stared at Grayson a moment, slowly shook his head. “Not really. My grandfather was a scholar of medieval history, his father before him a vicar in Shropshire, lived to the ancient age of ninety-three. Before that, I did hear my grandfather say once that in the distant past Scottish blood was introduced into our English line.”
“Say Mary is attacking you. Why do you think she has waited three years?”
Cibalto shrugged. “I do not know, Grayson. Perhaps she knows something about me I don’t know.” He shrugged again. “I simply don’t understand any of it.”
“Do you believe Mary and Bothwell murdered Darnley, despite how convincingly John Culver wrote it wasn’t true?”
“Not that my opinion is important to anyone, but yes, I do believe Bothwell killed Darnley. Was Mary his confederate? Very likely. Did he deserve it? Without a doubt. I also believe Mary and Bothwell were lovers by then, they had to be for her to be pregnant. I imagine Bothwell saw Darnley and his servant escape the provost’s house where Bothwell had set the explosives. He went after them and killed them both.”
“You don’t believe then that the Earl of Lennox ordered his son’s murder or knew who did and said nothing?”
Cibalto laughed. “Did he know what was coming? I believe he did know, or at least guessed. He did nothing to stop it. Some father, huh?”
A shudder went through the library. Two books fell to the floor.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Grayson and Cibalto stared at each other. A small smile played over Cibalto’s mouth. “Do you know, I am not even alarmed. Too many inexplicable and terrifying things have happened. My library shaking? It doesn’t even speed my heart.”
There was more movement, but no more sound. Grayson said, “I have wondered why the elaborate overly dramatic threat she wrote in her note you chanced to find under the stair in the palace. I have wondered how you were able to read the threat when you could not read Mary’s diary and yet both were written in the same hand. I have wondered if Mary wanted you dead why she simply didn’t throw you from her tower, or shove you down the main stairs, strike you in the head with the books she was hurling about, or this time, hit you over the head with a sofa leg.”
Cibalto sighed. “Perhaps it has to do with one of us finding the descendants of her babes. Then she’ll spare me.”
Grayson looked away from Cibalto into the crackling fire, at the embers sparking, leaping upward. He felt warmth lightly brush over his face and knew it wasn’t from the fire. He said slowly, “Mary took Pip at the castle because she wanted to mother him, touch him, feel his warmth, bask in his innocence. She was never a threat to him.”
Cibalto shrugged. “As I said, mayhap there were two sides to her—understandable, I suppose, since it appears she loved the twins she birthed and sent to Bothwell in Denmark to keep them from being used to threaten the English throne and very likely be executed. But who would care, in any case? I do not know. But all this leads nowhere, Grayson. What is your point?”
“The point is, why did you really want me to come to Edinburgh?”
Cibalto leaned toward Grayson, his voice impassioned. “There is no reason for you to wonder about my motives. They are pure. I hadn’t told you this before because, quite frankly, I felt you would believe me mad. But now?” Cibalto shrugged. “There’s naught now but madness. The very first time I appeared to lose myself, to faint, if you will, I will admit I sensed a long-ago evil festering in the very walls of the palace, and what was worse, I simply knew they were getting stronger and stronger and they wanted to burst forth and seep into the very air itself. And I wondered what would happen if the evil was really there and if it did burst through.” He looked at Grayson helplessly. “As I said, that was the first time I seemed to lose myself for a time. And I wondered if I was evil because I sensed it?”
Suddenly, a book leapt into the air and landed beside Grayson on the sofa.
Cibalto froze. He reached for it, then slowly drew his hand back as if he expected the book to attack him. He stared at it, mesmerized. He licked his lips. “That is Mary’s diary.”
Grayson said, “One thing I am completely sure of, Cibalto, you are not evil. Now, last night I dreamed I saw a thick stream of vivid red slash over the moon. Then a deep black mass blended itself into the red and the moon disappeared, as in an eclipse. Suddenly, there was a flash of pure white. The white became solid. It swelled and thickened, became larger and larger until it engulfed the red and the black. Both disappeared and the moon shone bright once again, but I knew both still lurked nearby, waiting, and I knew the red and the black were evil. I also realized both were one.”
Grayson continued, his voice calm and deep. “Last night Pip told me he dreamed of the red-haired lady and she sang to him again. He couldn’t understand the words, but her voice was pretty and she smelled so sweet, like Miranda’s lemonade.
“The skein of knots unraveled, and it became clear to me, Cibalto. Mary sensed evil near you. She recognized the evil, knew the evil wanted to destroy you. The times you’ve felt taken over, Cibalto, that is the evil trying to consume you, to control you, perhaps to make you kill yourself, but so far you’ve been too strong. Mary doesn’t want to kill you. She wants to kill the evil that’s trying to take you over.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
