“What have you considered?”
Her voice was strained; fear and excitement blended in her face.
“How the shackles that fetter you might be broken. Be not alarmed. It was the virtuous Murray himself propounded it to Argyll and Lethington—for the good of Scotland and yourself.” A sneer flitted across his tanned face. “Let them speak for themselves.” He raised his voice and called to them across the room.
They came at once, and the four made an odd group as they stood there in the firelit gloom of that November day—the lovely young Queen, so frail and wistful in her high-backed chair; the stalwart, arrogant Bothwell, magnificent in a doublet of peach-coloured velvet that tapered to a golden girdle; Argyll, portly and sober in a rich suit of black; and Maitland of Lethington, lean and crafty of face, in a long furred gown that flapped about his bony shanks.
It was to Lethington that Bothwell addressed himself.
“Her Grace is in a mood to hear how the Gordian knot of her marriage might be unravelled,” said he, grimly ironic.
Lethington raised his eyebrows, licked his thin lips, and rubbed his bony hands one in the other.
“Unravelled?” he echoed with wondering stress. “Unravelled? Ha!” His dark eyes flashed round at them. “Better adopt Alexander's plan, and cut it. 'Twill be more complete, and—and final.”
“No, no!” she cried. “I will not have you shed his blood.”
“He himself was none so tender where another was concerned,” Bothwell reminded her—as if the memory of Rizzio were dear to him.