Strands of My Winding Cloth Read online

  Strands of My Winding Cloth

  By G. Lawrence

  Book Four of the Elizabeth of England Chronicles

  Copyright © Gemma Lawrence 2017

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this manuscript may be reproduced without Gemma Lawrence's express consent

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Chapter Eighty

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Epilogue

  Author’s Thanks

  About The Author

  This book is dedicated with thanks to Terry Tyler

  And to Susan Cooper-Bridgewater

  Two fine, bold, and talented women,

  without whose support, I would not be an author today

  “Think you that I could love my winding sheet, when, as examples show, Princes cannot even love their children that are to succeed them?”

  Elizabeth I to Scottish Ambassador,

  William Maitland, Laird of Lethington, 1561

  “When great trees fall

  rocks on distant hills shudder,

  lions hunker down

  in tall grasses,

  and even elephants

  lumber after safety.

  When great trees fall

  in forests,

  small things recoil into silence,

  their senses

  eroded beyond fear.

  When great souls die

  the air around us becomes

  light, rare, sterile,

  we breathe, briefly,

  our eyes, briefly,

  see with

  a hurtful clarity.

  Our memory, suddenly sharpened,

  examines,

  gnaws on kind words

  unsaid,

  promised walks

  never taken.

  Great souls die and

  our reality, bound to

  them, takes leave of us.

  Our souls,

  dependent upon their

  nurture,

  now shrink, wizened.

  Our minds, formed

  and informed by their

  radiance,

  fall away.

  We are not so much maddened

  as reduced to the unutterable ignorance

  of dark, cold

  caves.

  And when great souls die,

  after a period peace blooms,

  slowly and always

  irregularly. Spaces fill

  with a kind of

  soothing electric vibration.

  Our senses, restored, never

  to be the same, whisper to us.

  They existed. They existed.

  We can be. Be and be

  better. For they existed.”

  Maya Angelou

  When Great Trees Fall

  Prologue

  Richmond Palace

  February 1603

  Death has ceased to dance.

  He lifts the hand of His partner, Amy Dudley, to kiss. Her ghostly skirts billow as she curtseys to Death. She draws back into the darkness and I hear her soft chuckle on the wind that creeps under the tapestry and into my old bones. She joins the other ghosts left there waiting… waiting for me.

  In the dim shadows, eyes shine. They are watching me.

  Death turns to gaze at me through the cowl of His hood. It is strange to look into such deep darkness and yet feel no fear. I do not fear Him, not now, not as I once did. There was a time when all about me seemed to talk only of my demise and what it would bring to England. But at that time, as all talked of my death, it was others who fell to His power. I feared Death then, for His power, for His talent for thievery. But I found ways to thwart Him. I found ways to escape Him, to stand tall, to face Him… Now, I welcome His presence for Death is my old friend.

  But then… Ah, then it was so different. There comes a time in life when the people we love rush to leave us… A time when it seems life has become more about loss than about gain. I had lost people in my youth, but they had fallen to the changing whims of politics and power… events I believed I could change, and control when I became Queen. But there are some circumstances which do not alter, even under the hand of such mortal power as mine… Disease, plague, illness… These events I cannot change. These events I cannot control.

  But He can.

  Death glances back into the gloom. I know who waits there, watching over me. There are many shades waiting to come forth. They are waiting for me to join them. Shadows of ones I loved; ghosts of those who loved me. My words, my tale will bring them forth. This is what happens when one tells a story; the past and its people are brought to life again… Just as they are, too, brought once more to die.

  We weavers of tales, we tellers of stories, we have the power to make the dead live again. Through our stories we see their faces once more dappled with the light of the sun. We can recall their lives, and the events they shaped. We can smell the scent of their skin, and feel the warmth of their
eyes. We can call them to us, but we cannot change how their stories end. That is Death’s power. Death is the true story-teller, for He alone decides when our stories end.

  My words have the power to draw those I have loved and lost from the darkness behind Death. And there is one, one amongst all the others, one I am not sure I can bear to see, even now. Even though the time draws close when I will join the ghosts of my past in eternal rest, I do not know if I can look on those eyes again and know myself separated from this one person still, if only for a short while.

  Oh shade! Oh beloved ghost… I see you. I wish you had not left me. Oh shade… wait for me.

  My tale is not yet done.

  Chapter One

  The Old Provost’s Lodge

  The Garden of Kirk O’Field

  Edinburgh

  Scotland

  9th February 1567

  The explosion came at two o’ clock in the morning.

  The settled night was spread dark and deep over the lands of Scotland. The air was bitterly cold and snow tumbled from the skies. As the stars stood high and proud in the velvet black of the skies, slumberous people twitched in dreams they would not recall when the dawn emerged. In the muted shadows of the trees and in town alleyways, creatures of the night roamed, gathering food, seeing off rivals… claiming this murky world as their own. It had been a normal day. The sun had risen. Snow had fallen. People had gone about their business; gathering wood, tending livestock, cooking, trading and buying at market. There was nothing to suggest strange events were lurking as the light drained from the skies. It was the feast of Quinquagesima; the Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent; a time of fasting and prayer. That Sunday, my cousin Mary, Queen of Scots, had attended a wedding. Bastian Pages, one of her valets, and Christina Hogg, one of her favourite gentlewomen had been married that morning in the chapel of Holyrood Palace. My cousin had presented the bridal gown to her lady and witnessed the celebration of what she believed would be a happy marriage.

  Happier than her own had turned out, she hoped…

  By mid-afternoon, my cousin had left the wedding to attend a feast given in honour of the Duke of Savoy’s ambassador who was leaving for his homeland. Leaving this engagement at seven, Mary returned to the small house in the garden of Kirk O’Field, where her husband was celebrating his return to health. Many, knowing well Lord Darnley’s voracious appetites, suspected he had been struck down with syphilis. He had healed under the tender care of his wife and they were newly reconciled after months of tension, and treason. That night it seemed their troubles were behind them.

  By eight o’ clock, Mary was at her husband’s side. As they sat and ate together, Darnley became amorous. Kissing and touching his wife, he asked her to spend the night with him. Mary smiled, and gently reminded him that she had promised to return to the marriage celebrations of her beloved servants. They had all the time in the world to be together, she said, now that they were reconciled. Petulant at being refused, Darnley sulked, consuming vast quantities of wine. When she left the house at eleven of the clock, Mary took a ring from her finger and slid it upon his, promising to lie with him the following night. As Mary left the hall and walked into the outside courtyard, she saw that one of her servants, Nicholas Hubert, had a mightily dirty face. By the flickering orange light of the torches held by the riders, Mary peered at Hubert, who was often called ‘French Paris’ saying, “Jesu, Paris, how begrimed you are!” and was baffled when the man flushed deep crimson. Putting this slight incident from her mind, Mary rode to Holyrood where the bedding ceremony was about to take place. Taking the lead role in Christina’s chambers, Mary took part in the raucous ritual. A little after midnight, tired, but in good spirits, the Queen of Scots retired to her own room.

  Darnley stayed up, drinking, as was his habit. Slurring commands to his men to have his horse ready so he could join his wife at Holyrood the next day, he staggered to his bed. His servants, Thomas Nelson and Edward Simmons, slept in the gallery adjoining his chamber. They had a page with them also, named Andrew McCaig and perhaps another half dozen servants were in rooms below. The house fell to silence, as the hours rolled on and all within it slept.

  The chapel clock struck one… then two…

  A brilliant flash lit the skies. For a moment, the cobalt blue of night flushed as bright as noon, and just as sudden, the light vanished. Immediately after the light came the noise. A mighty crack ripped the skies and shook the ground. In the town, men and women sat bolt upright from their warm beds. There were shouts of alarm and then strained whispers, calling for silence. Thinking it was cannon fire, and believing the English were invading, many grabbed at dagger, sword, scythe or musket, and raced out into the chilled air, still buttoning jerkins and tying on belts. Candles were lit with shaking hands. Wide eyes flashed white in the flickering gloom as dogs barked, racing about in panic. Crowds formed, full of shouting, worried, people. They pointed to the house of Kirk O’Field on the hill. Billowing plumes of smoke rose in the darkness and drifted white against the starlit skies. The scent of gunpowder was heavy on the wind and the sound of creaking masonry and breaking wood groaned like men close to death. The townspeople ran to the house. Men shouted to their wives to stay and guard the children. As they reached the shattered building, clouds of dust danced in the air, mingling with snowflakes. Cinders floated like butterflies. Splinters of wood, chunks of masonry, and large pieces of timber lay strewn around the gardens… Black burnt wood shining bright against the deep white snow.

  The Old Provost’s Lodge, where Lord Darnley had been sleeping, was razed to the ground.

  Rubble lay everywhere. People picked through it, searching for survivors. Men kept their weapons close, wary of attack. Shouts of “Who goes there?” sounded as groups of searchers glimpsed each other in the light of their blazing torches. The scent of terror rose, mingling with the stench of burning wood and gunpowder. Wild rumours rippled through the crowds. The eerie shadows of those searching the grounds loomed wide and tall, and then shrank small. By candlelight, everything looks like a foe. Every movement in the dark made them leap with fright. Every creak and crack of moaning masonry unnerved them. Many feared for their Queen. They knew she had been here this night with her husband and rumours grew that their Queen had been slain by English assassins, or had been carried off to be ransomed.

  And then, a stiff, harsh cry shouted for help. Searchers had come upon two bodies. Lying under a tree in nothing but their nightshirts, two men were discovered. They were dead. The tree was forty feet from the house, in a garden on the far side of Thieves’ Row. The bodies were on the opposite side of the wall about the grounds of Kirk O’Field. Evidently, these men had clambered over the wall, escaping the blast, for close to the bodies was a chair, a rope and a furred cloak. A dagger lay in the grass, but when this was found it only caused more bafflement, for there were no scorch marks on the nightshirts of the corpses, no burns upon their pale skin. There were no bloody stab wounds, no evidence of musket shot. There was not a mark on the bodies to show how they died.

  It was as though they had scaled the wall, sat down next to the tree, and simply died.

  It did not take long to identify one of the bodies as Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley. The second was William Taylor, one of Darnley’s servants. The body of Andrew McCraig was found near his master, under some rubble on a path leading to the wall. Of Darnley’s remaining servants, Nelson and Simmons were found alive. One of the servants sleeping downstairs had been killed in the blast, but the others were found alive, yet none of them could say what had happened, or who was responsible. Many people had managed to survive the explosion, but their master, Lord Darnley, had made it from the house, had escaped the blast, but was dead… by means unknown.

  In Holyrood, Mary had been woken by the explosion. Sending her great supporter, Lord Bothwell, along with her captain of the guard to investigate, she dressed quickly, fearing a plot on her life. When she heard what had happened, she was amazed.
Mary said Darnley and his servants must have been thrown from the building by the explosion, but others objected. If that was so, then where were the marks on their clothes? The dirt? The burns from being hit by the blast? The corpses were unburned, unharmed… Over the days that passed, other theories started to emerge, many of them dangerous to the Queen and her men.

  I received a missive from Mary, written two days after the event. After I read this ill news, I walked to my window and stood there staring, seeing nothing. I felt as though part of my story had taken flight and joined hers. As though a strand of my tale had come loose from the past; billowing in the winds of fate, its frayed ends had touched her life. Its untold ending found a home in her story instead of mine. Echoes of Amy Dudley’s death washed over me. I shivered.

  A sudden and mysterious death… no marks on the body… a couple who all knew were no longer in love, and another husband waiting in the wings… There were too many echoes of Amy’s death, of the situation I had faced only a few years before, for me to ignore. I stared from that window not seeing the present. I saw only the past.

  I did not want to think of the future for I feared what it would bring.

  Chapter Two

  Windsor Castle

  Autumn 1560

  Seven Years Earlier…

  “Your Majesty must eat,” Kat insisted. Her tone was scandalised. I glanced back at her from my window seat. Kat’s good, honest face was twisted with concern. Her eyes were bright with anxiety. She did not like that my appetite had deserted me in these recent, troubled times.

  “I am not hungry, Kat. I have no appetite,” I murmured, as my eyes fell back to the river. The lapping waters were grey and dull, reflecting storm clouds drifting above. England sensed my mood, and had mirrored it in her skies, in her rivers and in the air around us. There had been no rain, yet the air was thick with its heralds. Clouds with blackened edges hung over us. The wind was picking up pace. I could hear it calling to me as it keened about the grey stone walls of the castle, as it flew over the battlements… as it crept through the chamber, making the tapestry which hung along the walls billow as though ghosts waited behind it. The winds had been calling to me for months and I had ignored them. But, finally, I had heard, I had listened. I had obeyed.