Bothwell, exasperated by anxiety, made short answer: ‘It is plain enough to see what and who they are. They are men—desperate men. They are men for whom loss means infamous death. For, mark you well, madam, if Morton lose this day he loses his head.’
‘Ay,’ she gloomed, ‘and many more shall lose theirs. I will have Lindsay’s and Archie’s—and you shall have Lethington’s.’
‘I would have had that long ago, if you had listened to me. And now you see whether I was right or wrong. But when women take to ruling men——’
She touched his arm. ‘Dear friend, for whom I have suffered many things, do not reproach me at this hour.’ The tears were in her eyes—she was always quick at self-pity.
But he had turned his head. ‘Ha! they need me, I see. Forgive me, madam, I must have a word with Ormiston.’ He saluted and rode down to meet his allies. Monsieur Du Croc, the French Ambassador, approached her, hat in hand. He was full of sympathy; but, with his own theories of how to end this business, could not give advice.
Sir James Melvill, watching the men come up, shook his head at the look of them. ‘No heart in their chance—no heart at all,’ he was heard to say.
The Queen’s forces deployed across the eastern face of Carbery Hill in a long line which, it was clear, was not of equal strength with the lords’. It became less so as the day wore; for had you looked to its right you would have seen a continual trickle of stooping, running men crossing over to the enemy. These were deserters at the eleventh hour; Bothwell rode one of them down, chased him, and when he fell drove his horse over him and over in a blind fury of rage, trampling him out of semblance to his kind. It stayed the leak for a while; but it began again, and he had neither heart nor time to deal with it. Where were the Hamiltons who should have been with her? Where, alas, were the Gordons? In place of them the Borderers and Foresters looked shaggy thieves—gypsies, hill-robbers, savage men, red-haired, glum-faced, many without shoes and some without breeches. The tressured Lion of Scotland was in Arthur Erskine’s hold: at near ten o’clock Bothwell bade him display it. It unfurled itself lazily its full length; but there was no breath of air. It clung about the staff like so much water-weed; and they never saw the Lion. No matter; it would be a sign to that watchful host in the plain: now let us see what flag they dare to fly. They waited tensely for it, a group of them together—the Queen with her wild tawny hair fallen loose, her bare thin neck, her short red petticoat and blue scarf; Bothwell biting his tongue; Ormiston, Des-Essars, sage Monsieur Du Croc.
They saw two men come out of the line bearing two spears close together. At a word they separated, backing from each other: a great white sheet was displayed, having some picture upon it—green, a blot like blood, a wavy legend above. One could make out a tree; but what was the red stain? They talked—the Queen very fast and excitedly. She must know what this was—she would go down and find out—it was some insult, she expected. Was that red a fire? Who would go? Des-Essars offered, but she refused him. She chose Lord Livingstone for the service, and he went, gallantly enough—and returned, a scared old optimist indeed. However, she would have it, so she learned that they had the King lying dead under a tree, and the Prince his son praying at his feet—with the legend, ‘Judge and avenge my cause, O Lord!’ The red was not a fire, but the Prince’s robe. The Queen cried out: ‘Infamy! Infamy! They carry their own condemnation—do you not see it?’ If anybody did, he did not say so.
Monsieur Du Croc had his way at last, and was allowed to carry messages between the hosts. The burden of all that he brought back was that the lords would obey the Queen if she would give up the murderers, whom they named. The offer was ludicrous, coming from Morton—but when she ordered Du Croc back to expose it, he fairly told her to read below the words. They had come for Lord Bothwell. ‘I will die sooner than let him be touched,’ said she. ‘Let some one—Hob Ormiston, go you—fetch Grange to speak with me.’ Hob went off, with a white scarf in his held-up hand; and the Queen rode half-way down the hill for the parley. The great banner dazzled her: it was noticed that she bent her head down, as one rides against the sun.
Grange came leisurely up towards her—a rusty man of war, shrewd, terse, and weathered. He could only report what his masters bade him: they called for the surrender of the murderers. She flamed and faced him with her royal anger. ‘And I, your sovereign lady, bid you, Grange, go over there and bring the murderers to me. Look, there goes one on his white horse! And there shirk two after him, hiding behind him—the one with a grey head, and the other with a grey face. Fetch you me those.’