A MAN, naked to the waist, erupts through the table. He’s wearing the bull’s head and carrying an axe. Half the guests draw swords, the others are running, screaming. YOUNG DOUGLAS shouts to his brother.

YOUNG DOUGLAS. Run, Davey! Run!

DAVEY tries to run but is grabbed by LIVINGSTON and others. YOUNG DOUGLAS is seized by the BULL-HEADED MAN and dragged off. JAMES watching, distraught, helpless.

JAMES. No! Stop it, leave them! They’re my friends! Leave them!

The table is knocked over, everything smashed and broken.

YOUNG DOUGLAS. Jamie! Help me!

JAMES. Stop it!

The two DOUGLAS boys are dragged onto a kist. The BULL-HEADED MAN stands over them with a knife. There’s screaming. DAVEY is killed.

YOUNG DOUGLAS. Jesus no! Davey! Davey!

YOUNG DOUGLAS screams and screams again. YOUNG DOUGLAS is killed. Silence.

The BULL-HEADED MAN turns and looks at JAMES for a moment, then walks on, ignoring him.

LIVINGSTON. In the King’s name! In the King’s name! In the King’s name!

JAMES runs. He climbs into the kist and pulls the lid down.
ISABELLA’s whisper echoes round the hall.

ISABELLA. Your blood is poison, your name is death. That’s the nightmare that’ll eat you from the inside out. It lives inside you.

MEG comes into the broken and bloody hall. She’s shaking, terrified. She calls out in a broken whisper.

MEG. Where are you? Where’s my boy? Where’s my wee cub? Oh God… Oh God help me… Jamie? Come out, pet. Come out, it’s just Meg come to find you.

She’s looking under tumbled chairs and tables, crying quietly, desperate.

It’s just Meg… it’s just your Meg… there’s nothing to hurt you now… come out, darling… oh please come out…

Nothing, no movement. MEG is searching frantically then, shouting, accusing the shadows.

JAMIE!!! Where is he? Where is he? What have you done to him!? He was a bairn! Just a bairn and you ruined him, you bastards! You ruined him! May you rot in hell! All of you should bleed and char in hell for what you’ve done to that wee boy! You’ve thrown him into your stews of death! You’ve drowned that bairn in blood! (Breaks down, talking to God.) Sweet Jesus. Sweet Mary mother please, please, let me keep him safe. Jamie!

She exits, calling him.

Jamie!

In Bedchamber, Stirling Castle.

The closed chest sits in the centre of the room. Offstage, MEG is calling for JAMES. WILLIAM enters. He crosses to the chest and opens it, looking inside.

WILLIAM. I knew you’d be here. I won’t tell them. They won’t find you. I won’t let them come in.

Slowly JAMES climbs out of the box.

Did they kill them both?

JAMES. Yes.

WILLIAM. It’ll be fine. Just stay here with me a while. No one’s after you. They never kill the wee bairns. Well, they might kill you because you’re King but you’ll be fine here with me. They won’t find you. There’s no one here but me. Look.

JAMES. There was all blood… on the floor.