Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles by Margaret George

meadow. The white banner with its slogan was pulled out from under a mound of dead clergymen. The mud-stained trophy was sent south to be presented to King Edward VI in token of his victory.
     
    Now even the thick walls of Stirling Castle could not protect its inmates from the horror outside. Amongst the dead, lying somewhere in the slippery mounds of rotting bodies, was Malcolm, Lord Fleming Mary Fleming's father, Lady Janet Fleming's husband.
     
    A swift messenger brought the news to Stirling, and the high-spirited Lady Fleming slumped and leaned against the wall in the courtyard. Over her, statues of the planetary gods in their niches Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn looked on benevolently. French sculptors had put them up, as though order and beauty could have taken root here, thought Marie de Guise, watching her attendant and friend fighting off tears and shock. They put them up on the order of my husband, also dead before his time, dead in a mysterious way.
     
    "Courage," was all Marie could murmur. "Courage."
     
    Lady Fleming stood up, bracing herself against the wall. "I must tell my daughter, I must tell my daughter," she kept repeating, and stumbled toward the children's quarters.
     
    Mary Fleming wept bitterly that night in the bedchamber she shared with her namesakes. They attempted to comfort her, but only by reciting their own losses, losses all too Scottish in nature.
     
    "My father died after Solway Moss," said Mary. "And my grandfather was killed at Flodden Field."
     
    "Both my grandfathers were killed at Flodden," sobbed Fleming. "All my family has now been killed in battle against the English."
     
    "My grandfather died at Flodden as well," said Mary Seton, in her quiet, sad way.
     
    "And mine, too," said Mary Livingston, whose cheerful soul hated the thought of killing and blood.
     
    "We are all sisters in sorrow," said Mary, who until that moment had never considered the matter. She knew of her grandfather's and father's deaths, but not of the subsequent desecration of their tombs and bodies. Thus far her life had been confusing but happy, and her nature was to seek sunshine rather than shadows; to flee the shadows that seemed to pursue her so restlessly. But her friends' sorrows ah, that was something else. Then there could be no running away from it.
     
    In the darkest part of the night a few days later, Mary was awakened when a candle was quietly lit in her room. Jean Sinclair, her personal attendant, was moving about, fully dressed. Mary could see her gathering clothes up in her arms, lifting the candle to look in shadowy corners. For what was she searching?
     
    Jean came over to her, sat on the bed, and shook her gently. "You must dress, Your Highness, and warmly. You are going on a secret journey."
     
    Mary sat up. Truly, this was a dream. She knew not to ask where, when she had been told that it was secret.
     
    "Are we going alone?" she whispered, starting to climb out of bed. Mistress Sinclair already had her clothes warming on a stand before the fireplace.
     
    "No. Your mother is coming, and the four Marys, and master Scott, the schoolmaster, and your guardians, Lords Erskine and Livingston. But that is all."
     
    "Are we running away?" Mary began to pull on her heavy wool clothes, the ones she used when she rode or played on the ice.
     
    "Yes. We are! No one shall ever be able to find us!"
     
    "Will we stay there forever, and never come back?"
     
    "Perhaps."
     
    "And we will never see this castle again?"
     
    "Perhaps."
     
    Mary dashed about, getting ready, her heart racing.
     
    Outside in the courtyard the travelling party met by torchlight. They wore hooded cloaks and sturdy boots and carried only the smallest travelling pouches. The adults talked together in low voices that did not carry over to the children, who were huddling together. Flamina and Lusty were excited about the midnight ride, Seton resigned to her fate, and Beaton placid and calm. But Mary felt her spirits take wing