Free Mary Queen of Scotland & the Isles by Margaret George

up!" She attempted to joke. "Now, ma cherie, dry your eyes." She handed Mary a lace handkerchief. "That's my fine girl."
     
    She looked into her daughter's eyes, trying to memorize them, to hold that look in some part of her mind where she could see it forever. "You go to those who love you," she said. "The little Dauphin he is younger than you, and not so strong. He longs for a playmate. You will seem the answer to his prayers. And you will learn, my angel, that fulfilling someone else's prayers is the same as having your own fulfilled." She hugged her. "God keep you the Blessed Virgin hold you."
     
    Mary hugged her back, pressing up against her and shutting her eyes.
     
    The onlookers cheered, and began to tease.
     
    "La Reinette must come aboard her humble galley," said the nobleman who represented Henri II. "France is eager to embrace you!"
     
    Knox, peeping out of the porthole, could just see the small figure of Mary in her blue velvet gown and its matching hat with a curling feather. The fat cow of a Queen Mother was there also, he thought. And all the grinning Frenchmen, like apes in satin. And the red-haired brood of children half of them Stewart bastards going along as well.
     
    Pfah! I hope they will all be seasick and soil their fancy selves all the way to France! he thought, just as the overseer flicked him with the lash to make him take his place at his station.
     
    John Knox got his wish. All the members of the little Queen's entourage were deathly ill with seasickness, for the winds were tempestuous and the waters stormy almost all the way to France. Indeed, Lady Fleming was so ill she begged the captain to put in at Cornwall and let her go ashore; at which the Frenchman, Monsieur de Villegaignon, made the ungallant response that she could go to France by sea or drown on the way.
     
    Only one member of the party was not sick: Mary herself. She seemed to delight in the excitement of the gales, and in the crisis of the broken rudder off the coast of Cornwall. Eagerly she clung to the ship's railing without Lady Fleming there to supervise her and watched the sailors straining to fit a replacement. Her brother James Stewart, determined as usual to know everything that was going on, struggled up on deck to watch for a few minutes. But the heaving decks soon made him nauseated again and he staggered back to his cabin.
     
    For several days the captain was unable to land along the western coast of France, in Brittany. When finally he could put in, it was near the little town of Roscoff, at a rocky spot in the heart of smugglers' and pirates' territory.
     
    Mary was eager to go ashore and the rowboats were readied; she was in the first group to land. Fishermen and townsfolk, drawn by the sight of the huge, battered galleys, had gathered on the shore and now stood by to welcome them. Mary was helped out of the boat to take her first step on French soil by a muscular Breton whose hands smelled offish. It was August thirteenth, 1548.
     
    At first she thought it looked no different from Dumbarton. It was the same landscape of deep blue, vexed sea, and harsh rocks along the coast.
     
    But as the royal party went inland conducted ceremoniously by the Lord of Rohan and the nobility of the district, who had hurried to meet them the land suddenly began to look foreign, and Mary knew she had come to a new and strange place.
     
    As they passed through Normandy, the country became flat, green, and well-watered, with many thatch-roofed farmhouses. There were apple orchards and cows everywhere, and at dinners hosted by the local lords en route, they were proudly served delicious, rich dishes made with apples, butter, and cream: pancakes with Calvados; apple flans and caramels. Even the omelets seemed magical, and not to have come from the humble egg at all, they were so fluffy and light.
     
    At length they reached the Seine, where a decorated barge awaited them, sent by the King. They were to take it upriver to the