“I can’t imagine what it must be like to be beheaded. A ghastly thing, surely.”

Well, perhaps first a quick overview of the first five chapters. The main (?) character, Janet de Ros, becomes interested in Queen Mary's execution and the truth behind the charges. With the permission, but not actual person of her husband (Henry, a wealthy merchant), she travels to Fotheringhay Castle, the place of Mary's imprisonment and death. Once there, she meets Margaret Galloway, Mary's servant-maid, still weeping after her mistress's death. Once they begin talking, Margaret tells Janet everything she knew about the queen, and the narrative shifts between year 1561/62 and 1587, the “present”, all told in 3rd person.

1561 is the year the recently widowed queen returns to Scotland, and is faced with many problems at her castle in Falkland: many candidates for a new husband are put forward, she fears kidnapping or murder, and, of course, is criticized for being Catholic (yet her brother and advisor is Protestant). Pierre Châtelard, a “silly Frenchman who imagined himself loved by Mary”*, is sentenced to beheading for making advances on the queen; however, people also say that “he wasn’t mad at all. That his objective was to discredit the queen and destabilize her reign. He was a Huguenot and would have considered his death to have been a worthy cause to topple a Catholic queen.”** At about the same time, the Earl of Huntly attempted to put his son, Sir Gordon John, on the throne by forced marriage. However, Sir Gordon John is also executed - for treason - after escaping from Sterling, where he was being held for assaulting James Ogilvie of Cardell, and gathers an army to follow the queen in what looks like an attempt to abduct her.

That is how far the plot has progressed as of now, and it was hard to figure out even as much. To fully understand what is going on, it is necessary to do background research. The author does not properly introduce every figure or explain their role: it is as though she expects the reader to be familiar with everyone connected to Queen Mary. Not only that, she switches between the character’s first names, last names, maiden names, titles, and roles constantly, and I, already having a problem remembering names (so it’s possible for me to even confuse Mary and Margaret - yes, I have done that), find it very difficult to follow. After finishing the first five chapters, I had absolutely no idea what I read. Only after going back to each chapter and looking people and events up did I finally understand what was going on. I don’t think a historical fiction novel should require so much extraneous knowledge – the reader should meet and get to understand the figures and time period directly from the book. Otherwise, what is the purpose?

In any case, what adds to the confusion is the way the story is actually told – rather dryly, summarizing events and giving no insight as to the characters’ thoughts and feelings, neither Mary’s nor Margaret’s. It appears as though the sole purpose of this is to brief the reader before the main part of the novel – with Janet as the main character – can begin. On the back cover, it did say that Janet travels from Fotheringhay Castle to Edinburgh to “pursue an investigation that could endanger her life”, and none of that has begun yet. Margaret’s story is altogether strange – not only is it written in third person, not first, it includes bits that seem very unlikely for her to say: for example, how much she adored the handsome Lord James (her husband is present as she is telling the story).

The style overall is a little disappointing as of now. I do appreciate using words like nae (“’Mary was nae so very Scottish, was she?’”***), naught, or aye in conversations, but everything else has no flow (nearly every sentence begins with the subject followed by a verb, save for a few sentence fragments and sentences beginning with a time clause or such). Perhaps if it was all dialogue? Then again, it is understood that everything said is a strong paraphrase of 16th-century English and Scottish. So why use such words anyway? I guess it’s like in English-language movie productions, where the actors playing, say, French people, speak English, but take care to throw in an occasional “bonjour” or “madame”, and, of course, speak with a fake British accent. The “beautiful voice” is somehow not showing itself, nor are there any developing themes or subtleties in the novel. The best, most detailed descriptions show a clear fascination with bloody, drawn-out executions (“blood poured from him, and had splattered the swordsman and scaffold to a distance of several feet”****... and this is very, very, very mild compared to other images). Well, maybe something will change when Margaret is done her story. Or maybe not.

Pictures: Fotheringhay church from www.r-l-p.co.uk/images%5C+fother.gif

and Fotheringhay Castle http://www.richardiii.net/fotheringhay.htm

*A Question of Guilt, 2008 Berkley Books edition, page 38
**therein, page 46
***therein, page 1
****therein, page 67