The Hidden Evil E-Book

Barbara Cartland

• Herausgeber: Barbara Cartland Ebooks Ltd
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Eternal Collection
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 324

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

At her father's request and on the instructions of the Royal Council of Scotland, flame-haired young Scottish beauty, Sheena McCraggan, sails in Junre1554 to France to become a companion to the fourteen-year-old Mary Stuart – Mary Queen of Scots – at the Court of the French King Henri II. Once there she is to report on the young Queen's intentions and those of the French Court regarding the future of Scotland and specifically whether it will support Mary's rightful accession to the Throne of England. When she arrives, Sheena finds that her mission is far more difficult and dangerous than anyone at her home had ever imagined. She is overwhelmed by the intrigues of the Courtiers and everybody seems to be hating everyone else in a very unhappy Palace. Not only is the French Court a seething nest of depravity and corruption, the deceitful aristocrats close to King Henri exploit innocent young Sheena in an evil Black Magic plot to ensnare him. Amid the darkness, as she finds herself prone on the Satanic sacrificial Altar, the one light of hope is the Duc de Salvoire to whom Sheena has lost her heart. But will God answer her prayers and send him to her rescue in time to save her soul?

Leseprobe

CHAPTER ONE ~ 1554

“Pour le nom de Dieu, shut the door!” a man exclaimed angrily from the fireplace, as the wind swept boisterously into the room, whistling down the backs of the four gallants sitting with their legs stretched out before the pot room fire.

“I must apologise, messieurs, if I intrude,” a voice replied sarcastically.

The four young men sprang hastily to their feet. Framed in the door of the low-ceilinged inn was a resplendent figure in a velvet doublet flashing with jewels, a plumed hat set jauntily on the side of a dark head and high boots that oddly enough seemed not to have encountered any of the mud that made the inn yard almost a quagmire.

“Your – Your Grace!” one of the young men stammered. “We did not expect to see you here.”

“I did not expect to be here myself,” the Duc de Salvoire answered him, closing the door behind him and crossing towards them as he drew off his embroidered gloves.

“You too are meeting the ship coming from Scotland?” one of the young men hazarded respectfully.

The Duc shook his head.

“Nothing so adventurous,” he said. “I have been staying at Anet and I am on my way to join the King in Paris. However, Her Grace the Duchesse de Valentinois requested me to carry a message for her to the Convent of The Poor Sister who do live in this God-forsaken place, only the Lord they worship so devoutly can know why!”

Unconsciously, from force of habit, the Duc took the best chair and seated himself in the most comfortable place by the fireside. A vague gesture of his hand, wearing a huge emerald ring, indicated that the others might be seated and they settled themselves, but without the comfortable relaxed abandon with which they had been enjoying the warmth of the fire when His Grace arrived.

Now, a little tense and on edge, they sat down politely in their chairs, their faces turned towards him as they waited for him to speak.

They were four of the most staid and sensible young men of the Court, the Duc noted and guessed it was the Duchesse who had had the good sense to choose such a band for the mission that they had been entrusted with.

‘She never fails,’ he thought with a little smile and wondered what other King’s mistress had the wisdom and the good sense or Statesmanship of Diane de Poitiers, who for ten years had virtually been the Queen of France.

As if the trend of his thoughts somehow communicated itself to the young men sitting round him, one of them asked,

“Were you sorry to leave Anet, monsieur?”

The Duc smiled and the twist of his lips seemed for a moment to remove the tiredness and the boredom from his eyes.

“One is always happy at Anet,” he said. “The Duchesse and the King have built together a house of love which is without its equal in the whole world.”

Just for a moment his listeners looked surprised. They were not used to hearing such warmth in the Duc’s voice. He was known to be bitter and cynical.

Crossed in love so the story went, when he was only a boy of seventeen, he had vowed never to let his heart run away with him again. In fact he was known on one occasion to say, “I have no heart, only a brain, which is far more reliable.”

Almost as if he regretted having spoken so warmly and in such a manner, the Duc’s next question was spoken in the hard bored tones that habitually characterised him.

“You speak about meeting a ship from Scotland?” he enquired. “Or was that merely an excuse to hide some nefarious smuggling across the English Channel? I am told that the Ports of Brittany are filled with English gold.”

One of the young men laughed.

“There is nothing you do not know, is there, Your Grace? It is true that smuggling is on the increase, but it is all in the French favour and so who are we then to discourage a good customer, however unsavoury he may seem when he is not putting his hand in his pocket?”

“You have notyet answered His Grace’s question, Gustave,” another gallant interposed. “We are here, your Grace, to meet the new Gouvernante to the young Queen of Scots.”

The Duc raised his eyebrows.

“Indeed! I was not aware that we had to send to Scotland for one. Can it be that there is no one of education and intelligence in France?”

“I agree,” Comte Gustave de Cloude said quickly. “It is almost an insult that we should have to send abroad to what by all accounts must be a barren and barbarous land for someone to instruct the future bride of the Dauphin. But it’s said that the little Queen herself took such a distaste for Madame de Paroy that she insisted on her dismissal.”

“Insisted?” the Duc asked softly. “A child of thirteen or is it fourteen years.”

“That is what they say, your Grace,” the Comte replied.

The Duc smiled.

“A will of iron at that age. Oh, well, perhaps France can use it. She should be a good mate for the young Dauphin.”

There was a moment’s silence. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing, that the weak fragile boy with his strange blood disease would need a strong resolute wife if he was to rule the greatest, richest and most civilised country in the world.

Then with a change of mood the Duc broke the silence almost harshly.

“For all that I consider it an insult,” he said. “Must we have some pock-marked, long-nosed, carrot-headed Scotswoman spoiling the look of our Palaces? A plague on her! Let us hope that the ship from Scotland has foundered and we shall be saved from the Gouvernante from the North.”

As he finished speaking, his voice echoing around the small black-beamed room, there was a gust of air which seemed almost to lift the chairs from under the listeners and a young voice, cold, icy and yet clear as a mountain stream, said,

“I regret to inform you, monsieur, that your wish has not been granted. The ship has not foundered but has docked safely.”

There was a moment of stupefaction and five faces turned towards the speaker. Then the wind seemed literally to blow her into the room and some unseen hand from outside pulled the creaking door to and left her amongst them.

Hastily, with a sudden exclamation, the Comte Gustave de Cloude sprang to his feet.

“The ship has docked? We were not told,” he exclaimed. “We should have been on the quay! What has happened to the visitors from Scotland?”

“Most of them have retired to their rooms,” the girl answered.

She was indeed but a girl.

About seventeen or eighteen, the Duc decided, rising slowly and with some dignity when the other men present were already on their feet.

He looked at her and then met a pair of vivid blue eyes staring into his with undisguised hostility. She was very small, no big-boned Scotswoman here, but the little curls, which had been whipped up by the wind round her white forehead, were undoubtedly red-gold in colour.

Never, the Duc thought in astonishment, had he ever seen skin that had such a crystalline purity about it so that it appeared almost transparent.

“The party has – has retired!” the young Comte was stammering. “This is ‒ disastrous, mam’selle. My friends and I were to have met them and welcomed them to France on behalf of the King.”

The girl turned her eyes from the Duc towards the Comte.

“There was no one on the quay,” she said, “so we walked to the inn.”

“And. Mistress Sheena McCraggan,” the Comte questioned, “is she upstairs? Could you not persuade her to see me for one moment that I might proffer my apologies and deliver to her personally the messages that I carry on behalf of His Majesty?”

“You may deliver them if I can just come nearer the fire,” the girl replied. “My feet are soaked through. I had no idea that France could be so muddy.”

“But – but, mam’selle, you cannot be – ”

“I am Mistress Sheena McCraggan,” the girl said with a little touch of dignity that was almost incongruous because she was so small.

There was an audible gasp and then a silence which was only broken by the Duc saying suavely,

“Mistress McCraggan, may I welcome you to France? If we seem somewhat at a loss, it is merely because we expected someone older.”

“I heard what you had expected, monsieur,” Sheena said severely, turning her face away from his so that he could only see the tip of her tiny straight nose and the clear line of her little chin.

The young gallants could scarcely prevent a smile showing on their lips. They were so used to the Duc’s harsh tongue that it was an odd experience to see him rebuffed, especially by a girl who seemed scarcely out of the schoolroom.

They made way for Sheena to come to the fire. She held out her hands towards the blaze and then with a gesture completely simple and without a trace of coquetry in it she undid the ribbons of her wet bonnet and pulled it from her head.

Just for a moment it seemed as if the sun had come out in the dingy room. Contrary to any woman’s hair they had ever seen before, Sheena’s head was covered with tiny, dancing curls, golden red, which sparkled in the firelight and seemed to make a halo that framed her little pointed face and oval forehead.

“Mam’selle, allow me – ”

The young men sprang eagerly to bring forward a chair, to put a cushion into the back of it and to take her cloak, gloves and bonnet from her.

“A glass of wine, mam’selle? You will need it after your journey.”

“Thank you, but I would rather have chocolate if that is possible.”

“It shall be procured immediately.”

One of the gallants hurried away, another knelt down and drew her small buckled shoes from her feet.

“Your shoes are soaking,” he said. “I will find a chambermaid and get them dried unless it is possible to unpack a part of your luggage and find another pair.”

“There will be time for them to be dried,” Sheena answered. “Father Hamish, who has accompanied me, will not be able to travel for a few hours yet. He was terribly seasick and so was his manservant and my lady’s maid. We must give them a little chance to rest. They have had no sleep for days.”

“But you, mam’selle, you did not mind such a tempestuous sea?”

“I enjoyed it,” Sheena answered. “My home is on the sea and I am very used to being out in all weathers, sailing or fishing with my father. But I was not expecting it to be so cold.”

She held her feet out towards the blazing fire. They were very small, beautifully shaped feet but clad in thick knitted stockings. And now, almost for the first time, they realised how plainly and almost poorly dressed she was.

She wore a gown of homespun wool with no jewellery and undecorated by silk or satin or any of the frills and furbelows that were commonplace amongst the great ladies of France that men noticed them only where they did not exist.

“Tell us about your voyage, mam’selle,” someone hazarded as if he was interrupting an awkward silence.

“There is really nothing for me to tell,” Sheena replied, “except that the sea was very rough from the moment when we left Inverness. Nevertheless the ship brought us here safely. It is a fine ship, built in Scotland as only the Scots can build ships.”

Now there was a defiant note in her voice. She looked across the hearth to where the Duc was sitting watching her, a faint smile on his lips which seemed to her almost a sneer.

She thought to herself that she had never seen a young man’s face that should have been handsome so ruined by lines of cynicism and boredom. He was just the type of man she most disliked, she thought. The type she dreaded to meet at Courts and in the company of Kings. The type that had made her exclaim to her father,

“I will not go! What use would I be in a Palace surrounded by clever people who have nothing to do but to seek their own amusement?”

“You should be grateful for the opportunity,” her father had replied.

“The opportunity for what?” she asked. “Oh, I am willing enough to serve our Queen, you know that. But is it likely that she will listen to me when there are so many other people to attract her attention?”

“Her Majesty is living in a sink of iniquity, in a place where the Devil reigns and revels in unbridled dalliance,” her father had replied. “I knew it when it was decided to send her to France, but what else could we do with Scotland being ravished by the English and the crops burned and soldiers searching everywhere for the babe?”

He paused and Sheena realised from the pain in his voice and the expression in his eyes that he was thinking of all the cruelties and horrors suffered by the farmers and peasants who had taken no part in the war against England, but who were killed, their women violated and their lands destroyed.

“We were forced to send her,” he went on, his voice now harsher and almost raw at the memory. “And we believed that those we chose to be near her would behave with decency.”

He stopped abruptly and walked away from Sheena to stand with his back to her looking out of the narrow latticed windows of The Castle.

“’Tis not right,” he muttered, “that I should talk of such things with you.”

Sheena knew all too well what he referred to.

There was not a family in the length of Scotland who, loyal to the young Queen, had not been appalled and horrified when the news came through that Lady Fleming, Governess to Her Majesty, had attracted the notice of Henri II.

“She is to bear his child.”

Sheena could still hear the whisper that was passed from mouth to mouth and ear to ear.

“Mother of the King’s bastard and she was the one we sent to France to watch over and instruct our own little Queen.”

News travelled slowly and almost before the first shock of learning what was happening had reached the North, they heard that Lady Fleming had returned to Scotland and given birth to a bouncing boy.

“What of the Queen? Who is with her? From whom is she receiving instruction?”

The information that Lady Fleming’s place had now been taken by Madame de Paroy, a Frenchwoman, was followed some months later by the news that the young Queen had taken a dislike to her new instructress.

“She has a violent temper,” the Queen’s subjects were told. “It is born in her.”

This, however, was no consolation and the wiser among the Queen’s advisers in Scotland concentrated on the more important decision as to who should replace Lady Fleming.

Strangely enough it was one of the older men who had the idea of sending to France not a strict Governess but someone who could be a companion to the young Queen.

“I don’t think it is instruction that Her Majesty needs,” he said gruffly. “There are plenty who will give her that. I believe it is someone in whom she can confide, someone with good sound common sense who will show her that the vices of the French Court are not such as can be tolerated by decent people. What is the point in sending an old person? The young never listen to the old.”

It was an idea that had not occurred to anybody before, but each one of those seated in Council realised that it was a solution to their difficulties. Lady Fleming had placed them in the unfortunate position of having to apologise for their own morals.

Easy enough to censure the French, easy enough to point a finger of scorn at a King who ruled France with his mistress and mostly ignored his wife save for the fact that she produced a child regularly every nine months.

It was difficult, however, to be so censorious now that the chosen protector of the young Queen, a lady of importance, of a very good family and a Scot, had let them all down by her adulterous and despicable behaviour.

They all realised the problems involved of trying to replace Lady Fleming. Should they send a woman so ugly and unattractive that the King would not look at her, there was every chance that the young Queen, already by all accounts spoilt and impetuous, would find her unattractive too and demand her dismissal as she was demanding that of the Frenchwoman.

But to send somebody young would offend no one, someone young enough to talk and laugh with a fourteen-year-old and someone who was also young enough, praise Heaven, that the King, licentious monster that he might be, would treat her only as a child.

“You have a daughter, Sir Euan,” the, elders had said to Sheena’s father and, although he fought against the idea of dispatching his only daughter across the seas to a land in which he believed Satan reigned unchecked, he found it hard, indeed it was impossible, to resist the arguments the elders used to persuade him.

It was far more difficult, he found, to persuade Sheena.

“You don’t understand, Papa,” she said. “I shall be the very laughing stock of the Court. I have no clothes, no polished manners and no sophisticated wit. If Mama was still alive, it would be different. She would know what I was to expect and would be able to warn me.”

“If your mother was alive,” she heard her father say almost beneath his breath and saw the sudden clenching of his hands until the knuckles were white.

Her mother had been dead for ten years and yet the hurt was still there, the emptiness and the loneliness without her, while the fragrance of her scent and her personality still lingered in the grey solitude of The Castle.

“I cannot go, Papa! I cannot.”

“You must.”

He shouted the words at her and she knew it was because he was upset at the thought of losing her.

He crossed the room to her side and, when she expected him to be fierce with her, he was suddenly tender.

“The McCraggans have always been loyal to the Royal cause, Sheena,” he started. “We cannot fail Her Majesty now. Many of us have given their lives, and God knows that I am prepared to give my own whenever it may be required of me, but it is not just broadswords and claymores that can settle this. This is more subtle and more difficult to understand. We are dealing with serpents and we have ourselves to acquire the guile of serpents.”

He dropped his voice.

“So you will go to France, Sheena, and not only to do what you can for the young Queen but also to find out how far France is prepared to support Mary Stuart as the rightful Queen of England.”

Sheena was suddenly very still.

“You are asking me to be a spy, Papa?”

“I am asking you to serve your country as every man of our Clan is willing to do, not by spying but by trying to learn the truth.”

“But then, Papa, surely the King of France will support our Queen. He knows that when Queen Mary dies it is Mary Stuart who should succeed to the Throne of England.”

“Does he believe it? And if he does, what is he then prepared to do about it?” Sir Euan enquired. “We are so far away, child. How are we to know what he is thinking? How are we to know what help he will give us? Without France are we strong enough to beat England?”

Sheena felt herself shudder. It seemed to her then as if her father was voicing the fear and anxiety that beset the whole of Scotland. They surely knew that their cause was right, that Mary Stuart was the true Queen of Scotland and heir presumptive to the throne of England. But had they the arms, the money and, above all, the men to set her in her rightful place?

The thought of what she must do had lain very heavy on Sheena’s heart all through the journey. And now, as she looked round the room at the rich garments and flashing jewels of the Frenchmen hovering around her near the fire, she felt a sudden scorn.

Could they be anything but sops and effeminate, these men all dressed in silks and satins and velvets, wearing jewels and a greater profusion of feathers and laces and ribbons than any Scotswoman would have worn on her most elaborate evening gown.

A comely chambermaid in a mob cap came through the door carrying a steaming cup of chocolate, which she set down by Sheena, talking all the while in a dialect which was hard to understand.

“The Priest, God bless his soul, is better. With a little cognac in his stomach the sickness has subsided. But your maid is still in tears, madame, and says not if the King himself asked her could she put a foot onto the ground, for it is still swirling under her as if the waves had come with her from the sea itself.”

“Will you please give her something to eat and say that I shall hope to leave for Paris within the hour,” Sheena said.

It was the voice of authority. The chambermaid looked mildly surprised.

“I will tell her, madame, but I doubt we’ll get her on her feet, poor soul. She’s vomited until there’s nothing left to vomit and still her stomach is queasy.”

“I shall be grateful if you will convey my message,” Sheena said and then, turning to the gentlemen, she added, “I hope, messieurs, you will permit me to travel as soon as possible. I have a deep anxiety to reach Her Majesty and start my duties.”

“You are in a great hurry,” the Duc remarked. “Would you not be wiser to rest here tonight? The place is poor but clean.”

“In Scotland, monsieur,” Sheena said, straightening her back and looking at him full in the face for the first time since their exchange of hostilities, “we put duty first and comfort a very long way behind.”

His lips twisted at the corners and she had the impression that she had made no more impact upon his sensibilities than if she had been a fly brushing itself against his velvet coat.

“Very commendable, mam’selle,” he said. “Commendable indeed. We must all admire your persistence and, of course, your devotion to duty.”

The sarcasm in his voice was so obvious that Sheena could not help but retort. Her fiery Scottish temper, never very well controlled, flashed for a moment like lightning across her eyes.

Then she said in a tone as icy as that which she had used when she first came into the room,

“I think, monsieur, that I shall fare best without your praise, for words from a twisted tongue are often dangerous to those who have serious and important work to do.”

.Even as she spoke, Sheena was half-frightened at the challenge of her voice as well as of her words. In that moment her eyes met the Duc’s and they stared at each other,

The shabbily dressed girl with dishevelled curls and wet feet held out to the flames, and the aristocrat with his magnificent attire, flashing jewels and tired cynical eyes.

It was war between them and they both knew it. War, inescapable, deadly and pitiless. A war in which one or the other must ultimately be the victor.

As if the other people present realised that something momentous was taking place, no one spoke. Then very slowly the Duc rose to his feet. For a moment he stood towering above Sheena, his head almost seeming to touch the ceiling.

Then he swept her a magnificent and exaggerated Court bow.

“Your servant, mam’selle,” he said. “We shall meet in Paris.”

Still in silence he turned and walked from the room and the door closed behind him.

Sheena did not move, She knew that something strong, tempestuous and frightening had gone, leaving the room curiously empty.

She suddenly felt very tired and very alone.

CHAPTER TWO

They were nearing Paris.

Sheena bent forward in the coach to stare about her with wide eyes at the fine Châteaux which they passed from time to time and the cultivated fields which lay on either side of the road as far as the eye could see.

Every mile that she travelled to her destination made her realise her own inadequacy and the poverty of her appearance. She had not expected anything so luxurious or so comfortable as the coach sent by the King to convey her from the little fishing Port to Paris.

“We shall travel at great speed,” one of the gentlemen in her escort had said to her and, after the rough roads in Scotland and the uncomfortable hard coaches that had been her lot until now, Sheena could hardly believe it possible that horses could move so quickly or that she could lie back in such comfort against the coach’s padded cushions.

Her knees were covered with a rug of velvet lined with fur and she thought wryly that it was incongruous that anything so delicate should be required to cover the coarseness of her gown.

She had felt so elegant when she had left her home in Scotland for she had sat up half the night struggling with the old seamstress of the village to achieve what she then imagined was an exceedingly fashionable wardrobe and worthy of the girl who had the privilege of waiting upon the Queen of Scotland.

Now she felt that she looked nothing but a laughing stock.

But she could only compare her own possessions with those of the young gallants who accompanied her. As they rode on either side of the coach, the silver accoutrements on their horses’ harness glittered in the sunshine, their cloaks of velvet and satin billowed out behind them in the wind and the ostrich feathers on their caps waved with every single movement that they made.

‘I must look like a servant girl,’ Sheena whispered to herself.

Then defiantly her little chin went up.

Her blood was as good as theirs if not better and the blood of Scotland was being shed at this very moment in the defence of her Queen.

Yet at seventeen it is hard to be resolute in the face not of adversity but of plenty. Sheena did not miss the way that at every inn at which they stopped the ostlers ran forward to change the horses, the innkeeper bowed low to the ground and the maidservants curtseyed.

She was travelling in a Royal coach, she was under the protection of the King of France, and therefore she was treated with a respect which was akin to reverence. It was something she had never known before in her whole short life in the barren Castle in Perthshire.

The Priest, who had been her companion on the sea voyage, had gone no further. He was journeying to Calais to join the English Garrison there and to bring back the homesick bored troops news of their homeland.

Sheena and Maggie were all alone and Maggie with her high cheekbones, sharp, angular features and bright inquisitive eyes, was somehow something strong and familiar to which she could cling almost desperately in her apprehension of what lay ahead.

“Dinna fuss yoursel, ma wee bairn,” Maggie said, sensing what Sheena was thinking, “You’re as good as they are, nay even better. All they’ve got that you haven’t is money and what has money brought them but laziness and corruption?”

“You cannot say that, Maggie,” Sheena responded, laughing, although she felt more like bursting into tears. “We have not seen the Court. We must not judge until we have been there. The King has been very kind to us. Look at this wonderful coach and our escort. He could do no more if we were the Queen herself and not just a troublesome addition to her household.”

Maggie snorted.

“Fine feathers! Men dressed up like women in silks and satins and diamonds. I’d rather have a mon who can wear a plaid and knows just how to wield a claymore. Pah! ’Tis doubtful I am if any of this crowd will fight for Her Majesty.”

“Hush, Maggie! Hush!” Sheena urged her.

“They’ll no understand us,” Maggie said scornfully.

“Look at that house,” Sheena breathed in admiration as they swept past a great Château standing back from the road with a garden of ornamental lakes and fountains playing.

There were swans, black and white, swimming on the silver water and it all seemed to Sheena as if the whole scene was out of some Fairytale.

She thought a little wistfully of her own home, the ramparts crumbling from old age, the doors and staircases sadly in need of repair and the rooms furnished shabbily and without any comfort.

Everything here in France appeared to have been newly painted. Even the villages they passed through seemed clean and the people thriving and prosperous. She had heard many tales from the Elders in Scotland of the extravagance of the French Monarchs, how Francis I, the father of the present King, had taxed his people unmercifully to pay for his war with Spain and for the band of innumerable mistresses who travelled with him wherever he went.

She could hear her uncle, the Earl of Lybster, denouncing him with a violence that made his voice echo round the room.

“A dissolute and corrupt man,” he had boomed, “who died from a disease that came from his excesses. A King who was a disgrace to the Monarchy wherever he might reign.”

Sheena had only been a child at the time and her uncle had not realised that, sitting in the window, half-hidden by a. tattered velvet curtain, she was listening to him.

“You must concede, sir, that he was at least a patron of the arts,” someone remarked.

“Arts!” Lord Lybster shouted. “What does art lead to but licentiousness? To men such as rule over France it means statues and pictures of naked women, it means debauchery where there should be discipline and lassitude where there should be strength of purpose.”

Sheena had wondered why they all should feel so violently about a King who had lived so many miles away and was long since dead. And then they had gone on to speak of Henri II, son of Francis I, who now ruled France and to whose protection they had entrusted the Queen of Scotland.

It was amazing, she thought, the stories and gossip which managed to drift back across the sea. Mary Stuart had enchanted the French King. She had sung to him and had recited a poem that had almost moved him to tears.

A tale that was most often repeated was that when Mary had first curtseyed to Henri II at Saint Germaine when she was not yet six years old, he had exclaimed,

“The most perfect child I have ever seen!”

It was compliments of that sort that fed the loyalty of the rough Scotsmen and kept them eternally on the defensive against the ever-encroaching onslaughts of the English.

“Tell Her Majesty that we are fighting for her by day and by night,” Sheena’s father, Sir Euan McGraggan, had said as he kissed his daughter farewell. “Make her understand how loyal the Clansmen are, and how much she means to us that we live for her return.”

Sheena had been moved at the simplicity of his words. She had known only too well that they were nothing but the truth and that the men waving goodbye as her ship moved away from the windswept quay sent with her a part of their hearts.

She had been utterly convinced at that moment that it was right that she should go. Mary Stuart must not be allowed to forget those who strove for her against almost overwhelming odds.

She thought it would be easy to tell the Queen stories of the heroism and courage and unquenchable bravery which drove the Scots into battle against far superior forces and which made them accept, with an almost unbelievable fortitude, the burning and laying waste of their lands and crops.

Now, nearing Paris, she began to be afraid. What had this sunlit and rich land in common with the great barren moors, the burns, swamps and dales where a man could march for days, if not weeks, and not meet another soul that he could pass the time of day with?

“Maggie, I am frightened,” Sheena said impulsively.

“Shame on you! You’re nothin’ of the sort,” Maggie retorted tartly.

She did not meet Sheena’s eyes and they both knew the feeling of uncertainty and fear of what lay ahead.

“They are kind gentlemen,” Maggie said almost gently, “despite all their fancy garments. They’ll show us the way right to the King’s door if nothin’ else.”

“If only we had some money that we could buy different clothes with,” Sheena breathed almost beneath her breath.

“They must take us as they find us,” Maggie retorted. “The men who are fightin’ for Her Majesty are doin’ it often in bare feet and without a piece of cloth to cover their shoulders. Let her remember that. Make her understand the sacrifices that are bein’ made not only by the men themselves but by their wives and bairns as well.”

“I will try,” Sheena said humbly.

She cheered herself up with the thought that Mary Stuart was nearly three years younger than herself, only a child, whereas she had now come to womanhood. It should not be hard to instruct a child in the truth.

Despite such comforting assurances her hands were cold, her fingers trembling a little, as she laid them on the arm of Comte Gustave de Cloude as he helped her alight at The Palace.

She had expected it to be Regal, but she had not expected so many servants, such a bustle of liveried footmen, of Major Domos and sentries besides numerous personages who had apparently little to do but stand around, waiting and staring.

Sheena was allowed only a few moments to tidy herself after the long journey and then, without being allowed time to change her gown, she was ushered straight into the presence of the King.

She was ready to hate and despise him. The stories of his liaison with Diane de Poitiers had lost little in the telling when they crossed the sea, also his neglect of the Queen, the fact that he ordered the initials ‘D’ and ‘H’ to be entwined as a monogram and carved on all his Palaces. These stories had made her father snort with indignation.

Sheena had not known what she expected the King to look like. Whatever the image she had preconceived it was certainly nothing like the heavy mournful features of the dark-haired man who looked at her with melancholy eyes.

“Mistress Sheena McCraggan, Your Majesty!” she heard a voice saying and swept to the ground in a deep curtsey.

'“Mistress McCraggan, we have been looking forward to your arrival,” the King said.

“I thank you, Sire.”

Sheena was surprised to hear her own voice, clear and apparently unafraid. She rose to stand before him, small and straight-backed in her crumpled homespun gown, her head held high so that the evening sun coming in from the window behind the King’s head glittered on the red-gold curls she had tried to straighten into unaccustomed neatness on either side of her cheeks.

“You had a good journey, mam’selle?”

“The sea was very rough, Sire,”

The King nodded, as if he had expected the sea to be rough, and then he commented,

“You speak French extremely well.”

“My grandmother was French, Sire.”

“Yes, yes, I have not forgotten. Jeanne de Bourget, one of the oldest families in France. You have good blood in your veins, Mistress McCraggan.”

“I am proud of my Scottish blood too, Sire.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Henri was quite obviously bored with the conversation. He looked round the audience chamber as if at a loss, wondering what he should say next or what he should do or perhaps seeking guidance.

And then the door opened and his face was very suddenly transformed.

The look of melancholy vanished, the air of uncertainty changed and he moved forward quickly.

Sheena turned her head.

The most beautiful woman she had ever seen in her life was coming into the room. She was not young and yet there was something so youthful in her movements that it was as if spring itself had suddenly emerged to cast away the darkness of winter.

She was dressed in white with touches of black and yet the purity of the colour only served to show the whiteness of her skin.

‘She is like a camellia,’ Sheena thought, surprised at her own sense of poetry.

The lady in black and white sank to the ground before the King.

“Forgive me, Sire, if I am late.”

He bent forward to raise her hand to his lips.

“You already know that every hour you are away from me seems just like Eternity,” he murmured.

Only those nearest to him could hear what he said, but everyone could see the adoration in his eyes, the pleading of his lips and the change that had come over him since the opening of the door.

Still holding the hand he had kissed with his lips he turned towards Sheena.

“Mistress McCraggan has arrived,” he announced. “She has had a rough voyage, but she is young enough to survive it.”

The beautiful woman smiled at Sheena, a smile so warm and so embracing, that Sheena felt some of the tension go from her.

“We are so glad you are here, Mistress McCraggan,” the lady said and then, as Sheena curtseyed, she added, “The little Queen has been looking forward to seeing you. It will be nice for her to have news of Scotland and her people who must miss her sorely.”