“She’s right, P.C.,” Brady said. “The Great is so old he’s nearly bedrock. Imagine, not freezing your parts off sitting on the privy seat in the winter.”
George swallowed a laugh, whispered to his bride, “I see my way clear now, a shower room, with hot water, of course, and water closets soon to be installed at Rose Hill Manor.” This was met with cheers, the loudest from Lise Marie.
Grayson heard Young Agnes say, “Mr. Haddock, ye and Meg and Mary Beth will dine wi’ me and Young Angus. We have our own dining room off the kitchen.” She added to Grayson, “Sir, I’ve arranged for three women to come in during the days to clean and assist me with serving your meals.”
Grayson wished his aunt and uncle were in residence, but alas they were in the south of England, visiting her brother, the Earl of Northcliffe, Grayson’s uncle. He wondered if Vere Castle’s resident ghost Pearlin’ Jane had accompanied them or if she’d remained at Vere Castle on Loch Leven. Grayson missed Jane, remembered fondly the adventure they’d shared the previous August. A shower bath. It sounded like a very fine idea to him. No need to ask Miranda what she thought—she’d cheered as loudly as Lise Marie and the children.
That evening, after Young Agnes had fed the adults an excellent dinner of baked fish, roasted pork, green beans in a tart sauce, sweet corn stewed with onions, followed later by an excellent tea served with seedcakes in the drawing room, the adults went to the nursery to kiss the children goodnight.
That night, Grayson dreamed yet again, not of Mary being wedded in Paris, but of David Rizzio, her secretary and confidant who’d been so brutally murdered in 1566. Grayson was standing just behind a pregnant Mary in her supper room, watching her and two women and Rizzio, all laughing, eating roast pheasant and dipping bread into elegant small pots of honey. Suddenly, an old man in creaking armor walked ponderously into the room, grunting as if he were in pain, carrying a sword in one hand, a knife in the other. Behind him were a score of other men, all armed with knives, and they rushed Rizzio. Rizzio tried to grab Mary’s skirts, but the men pulled him away, screaming, and Grayson knew they were going to kill him. Grayson himself tried to grab Rizzio, but there was nothing but air in his hands. He heard shouts and yells and Rizzio’s begging and agonized screams. And then there was utter silence. Rizzio was dead. A young man walked through the supper room, but he stopped at the door. Grayson recognized Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, Mary’s cousin and husband, from portraits he’d seen in one of the histories he’d read. It was obvious Darnley didn’t want to be a part of the actual killing, even though Grayson had read he’d instigated the murder. The older man came back, and Grayson heard a loud argument. The older man grabbed Darnley’s knife, and Grayson knew he was going to stab it into Rizzio, to prove Darnley’s culpability. Grayson heard arguing voices, rumbling and distant. Mary was yelling, her eyes full of horror and rage, her hands on her pregnant belly. Men stood around the room, watching her, their knives out, not letting her or her two ladies leave. Grayson knew Darnley would try to claim he didn’t know Rizzio would be murdered. He also knew Mary had finally seen his name on the agreement to kill Rizzio.
Grayson jerked awake, sweating, his heart pounding. He lay still, breathing deeply. Rizzio’s agonized cries, Mary’s screams, her curses, her demands that had made no difference, all slowly faded from his mind, but the copper smell of Rizzio’s blood, thick and pungent, still hovered around him. At last the dream became nothing more than a faint echo in his mind. Grayson laced his hands behind his head and looked at all the shadows flitting through the darkness, fading into the moonlight coming through the bedchamber windows. Three hundred years ago, yet he’d seen those men’s faces so clearly, seen the vicious brutality, all of them eager to kill. So many of them to kill only one man? How long had the death scene lasted? One minute, three minutes? Grayson had read Lord Darnley had been jealous of Rizzio, believed Mary let him sway her decisions, had even taken him as her lover, but no one believed that was the truth. Most believed Rizzio was merely a pawn to be sacrificed, for one of Darnley’s many mad schemes made with certain other factions that lasted only as long as a man’s single breath. So many treaties, part of one faction today, a different one the next, and all swirling around Mary. How had she survived in this sea of unending fighting and treachery?
Grayson pictured Henry, Lord Darnley, as he’d appeared in his dream. Only nineteen, and there was no disputing he was handsome and said to be charming; yet he was deceitful and power-mad, arrogant and debauched, already in the second stages of syphilis, at times his face and body covered with hideous pustules. One thing Grayson knew for certain: when he’d looked at Darnley’s face, knowing he’d stayed hidden, listening to Rizzio being stabbed to death, Grayson had seen black corruption at his core.
Grayson also knew Mary had married Darnley to strengthen her claim to the English throne since they both carried Tudor blood, and indeed, a child of their blood would have the only claim on the English throne after Elizabeth’s death. He wondered the night of Rizzio’s murder if Mary believed this accursed marriage was worth it, despite the babe growing in her womb.
CHAPTER FOUR
Wednesday
After an excellent breakfast of kippers, toast, and porridge with honey, Grayson was ready to take care of what Miranda called his “spirit commission with Queen Mary.” She squeezed his hand before he left, her expression troubled. “Take care, Grayson, take really good care. Please, don’t do anything heroic.” She searched his face. “I woke up during the night and saw the lamplight beneath your door.”
He said quietly, “I dreamed I was with Mary when her husband, Darnley, and his scores of men murdered David Rizzio, her secretary. Did you know he was a musician in her court before she elevated him to his position?”
He stopped when he saw her face pale. He lightly cupped her chin in his palm. “I’ll be careful, I promise. Please don’t worry.”
“But you said there was a curse. Mr. Terduck believed Mary’s spirit would kill him.”
“That’s what Mr. Terduck wrote, but who knows? I’ll see what it’s all about. I understand all of you are taking the children to Edinburgh Castle today.”
He was distracting her, but Miranda let it go. She squeezed his hand, leaned up, and kissed his cheek. “Yes, it will be an adventure for all of us. I’ll see you this evening.”
Grayson knew both Lise Marie and George wanted to know the purpose of his trip to Edinburgh. He’d lied clean, told them he’d promised to visit an old friend of his father’s, currently ailing. He wasn’t about to involve them in possible danger. He had one foot out the front door when the children cornered him. P.C. took his hand. He wasn’t surprised they knew just about everything since P.C. was a prized eavesdropper.
“Mr. Straithmore, if I can help you dispatch unruly spirits at this Holyroodhouse place, you have but to ask.”
Brady said in a whisper, “I could steal a sword from a soldier at the castle today and give it to you, sir.”
Pip hugged him, whispered, “Do not anger any ghosts, Papa. They might spit in your face. P.C. says ghost spit is nasty.”
Grayson rode Astor from Abbotsford Crescent and New Town under blue skies, amazing clouds shifting and flowing, making fantastical shapes. New Town, once a muddy swamp, was now more than fifty years old and still expanding. He wondered if the name would ever change in the misty future.
It was a warm, clear day, something to cherish in Scotland, particularly in March. He rode east down the Royal Mile toward the Palace of Holyroodhouse. The road was wide, filled with loaded drays, carts, horses and carriages, clerks, workers, hawkers, and shoppers, every level of society swarming through the city, the noise tremendous. Thankfully, the earth wasn’t very muddy, the last rain being what was called a Scottish drizzle. Even though Astor wasn’t used to this sort of bustle, his usual jaunt to their quiet village of Cowpen Dale, he only gave the occasional snort and whipped his tail.
Grayson looked back toward the west to Edinburgh Castle at the western end of the Royal Mile, a massive stone fortification built in the eleventh century, grim and forbidding, dominating the city atop Castle Rock, protection against any attackers. In Mary’s time, the attacks had come both from without and within.
He remembered as a boy, his uncle Colin had arranged for him and three of his friends to spend a single night at the castle. The sergeant assigned to them had herded them into a small windowless chamber and told them the only sleeping quarters not cold and damp were the royal chambers, filled with beautiful furniture, their walls covered with tapestries and fine wood panels, but since they weren’t royal, this was their room.
. He’d given the boys three bottles of warmed ale and a dozen blankets. The boys wrapped themselves in the blankets, and Grayson told ghost stories. Soon all the listeners were drunk and roaring with laughter, even when he made his scary stories as gruesome as he could. It was one of his best memories.
Now, as a man, on this perfect sunny day, he still couldn’t imagine being billeted at the castle. After their visit, though, he imagined the children would be wild to live there.
As Astor neared Holyroodhouse, traffic lightened considerably, and the earsplitting noise of the Royal Mile grew fainter. People still went about their business, but there were few loud voices. Because of the ancient abbey ruins next to the palace that still called for respect and whispers? Or was it the royal residence itself?
The palace didn’t dominate like Edinburgh Castle, but unlike the huge stone fortification, the palace was sheer romance, with its four fanciful towers that stretched high into the Scottish sky, and behind, the Salisbury Crags, with their steep, barren cliffs. The palace’s history wasn’t as bloody as most castles in either Scotland or England, only the single brazen murder within its walls—well, the only murder recorded. Of course it wasn’t all that old, built by James IV in the early sixteenth century for his new bride, Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII, whose blood ran in both Mary’s and Darnley’s veins. He looked at the northwest tower, which had housed Queen Mary’s apartments. He hoped when he visited her apartments with Mr. Terduck, he’d feel her presence, although her ghost, according to his readings, had never been recorded. Then how to discover if a curse was from Mary herself, as Mr. Terduck believed? Grayson felt his blood stir.
Grayson found Cibalto Terduck’s charming stone house set well apart from the palace on Draper Street, a two-story structure that looked as old as the palace. A neat stone walkway through mainly Scots pines led from the road through what would be a beautiful garden in summer to the black-painted door. Grayson eyed the structure, doubted it had indoor plumbing or a shower bath, and wondered what P.C. would have to say about that. Cibalto Terduck himself opened the front door only a moment after Grayson struck the ancient, tarnished lion-head knocker.
