The Forgotten Queen by D. L. Bogdan Page A

lamentation was replaced with a smile as the implication of the physician’s news settled upon me. I was with child. I was carrying a prince for Scotland!
    “When will he come?” I asked the physician.
    “In the winter, perhaps the early spring,” he informed me.
    I reached down, cupping my flat belly, willing it to curve. How I longed to feel the life stir within me!
    A prince! At last I was carrying our prince!

    I commanded those who knew of my condition to hold their peace. I would choose the proper time and place to inform the king.
    The moment came in August, when I was three months gone with child. I lay in Jamie’s arms in our barge, looking up at the night sky, where a peculiar light was seen streaming against its cobalt backdrop, a cloth of gold thread throbbing and pulsating in a heavenly tapestry.
    “It is a comet,” Jamie explained. “They are very rare. To see them once in two lifetimes is a miracle. Surely it is a sign from God that something wonderful is about to happen.”
    The court, floating among us in their barges, pointed and commented on the beautiful long-tailed star.
    I nuzzled against his shoulder. “Perhaps it is foretelling the birth of your prince,” I said.
    I heard his heart quicken beneath his doublet. He looked down at me. “Maggie?”
    I nodded. “Late winter, early spring.” My lips hurt from smiling.
    Jamie proceeded to cover my face in kisses, drawing me across his lap and holding me tight. “Oh, my precious girl, my precious, precious girl . . .”
    For ten days the comet lit the sky, convincing us that the baby growing within me would be a prince to rival all others.
     
    The prince sapped me of all of my strength, and though I relished the feeling of him swimming and stretching in my womb, I grew too tired to attend court functions. I lay in my apartments, one hand over my rounded belly, taking in with delight every kick as the entertainment was brought to me. I was surrounded by amusement. English John kept me laughing with his bawdy jokes that he daren’t utter before the king, and William Dunbar recited verse. He was as artful as English John. His words settled upon my ears, threaded together with the lyricism of a song and the poignancy of a lover’s kiss.
    Scotch Dog was there, too, ever solicitous. With his encouragement, I planned the baby’s wardrobe and sewed garments with my ladies day and night. They praised my stitches and we fantasized about all the lovely gowns I would have after the baby was born and I reclaimed my figure once more.
    Jamie had become caught up in plans as well. He ordered that every man in Edinburgh have a new suit of clothes for the birth of the prince and commanded them to come to the abbey upon the announcement of his birth.
    Devout as ever, Jamie threw himself into his prayers, counting his rosary beads even in his sleep. He remained as hopeful as he was antagonized and I could not understand it. He paced the floor late into the night. I begged him to join me in bed, but he refused with a disarming smile. I watched his silhouette in the silvery moonlight filtering through the window and recalled a lion in my father’s menagerie, its restless pacing, its wild, frightened eyes. I tried not to compare it to Jamie.
    In January I entered confinement, observing the laws set down by my grandmother for ladies of royalty in my condition. I took to my bed. My chambers were darkened and closed off from receiving any outside air, lest it carry harmful contagion, and for the next month no men are allowed within this sacred gynaeceum. I was surrounded by women, never my favorite estate, and longed for Scotch Dog and Robert Barton, whom I had fondly come to know as Robin. I missed Jamie and fretted over his whereabouts, allowing tears to slide icy trails down my cheeks as I imagined him passing the month in the arms of Janet Kennedy or romping with his children.
    I cradled my belly. The prince was lively, his favorite time to kick being at night,