SHALIMAR SYNOPSIS:
 Shalimar begins as a first-person Prologue with Mary Queen of Scots who ponders her fate while limping to her beheading in the great Hall at Fotheringhay Castle February eighth, 1587 surrounded by intoxicated aristocrats gathered there to see Mary’s severed head, which is dropped into a common pail behind the executioner’s block.
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS limps painfully past the lords attending her execution. She tries not to listen to their derogatory, insinuating references to her adultery with Lord Bothwell, but is unable to shut out their voices. She is aware she needs to evacuate and tries to hold in the urine and feces pushing against her lower parts. Her execution is by no means a punishment for her adultery with Lord Bothwell, Indeed, her unforgiveable sins are for her secret notes to Sir Francis Walsingham suggesting they conspire to assassinate Queen Elizabeth the First so that she, Mary, may succeed to the throne of England and rule as the Catholic queen worshippers of the Catholic faith yearned to have as their reigning monarch.
However, unbeknownst to Mary, Walsingham slyly tricked her into believing him to be her supporter instead of her enemy, turning over all the incriminating notes she had exchanged with Walsingham to Queen Elizabeth for her to decide Mary’s eventual punishment which was unjustified according to Mary and her supporters, at first by pleas, then conspiracy. Reasons for the English queen to imprison Mary or to have her executed were thus debatable. Despite the fact that Mary was the sovereign queen of another country, this was circumvented by Elizabeth’s courtiers, who argued that Mary was, in fact, a threat to the life of their queen.
Certainly, the English throne had no jurisdiction over the Queen of Scotland, whom Elizabeth had imprisoned for nineteen years before demanding her execution. Mary, however, had endured her captivity with many failed attempts to escape and was now walking slowly through Fotheringhay Castle, past the grinning, recriminating lords deriding her for her adultery with Bothwell, rather than for her plan to assassinate their Queen. Mary, after all her attempts through the years to escape her imprisonment, had become a pawn of the ambitious Sir Francis Walsingham whose only prize for tricking Mary was to gain favor from the English Queen for his cunning exposure of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Weary, and almost glad that the end of her troubles are nearly over, her body riddled with rheumatism from nineteen years of incarceration in damp and drafty English castles, the rheumatism having begun in her early thirties, Mary, just steps away from the execution block she would lay her head upon, trembles at the thought of the ax slicing through her neck until her head is severed from her body. Although almost in shock that she would be facing God before the noon hour of that very day, February Eighth, 1587, her wits are still sharp enough to perceive what goes on about her. She is aware of the drunken lords gulping spirits from their silver flasks, stamping their boots on the freezing-cold stone floor, eager to see blood spill down the executioner’s arm as he holds up Mary’s head for all to witness. She is also aware of her enemy, Sir Francis Walsingham, standing in the crowd in the great hall, an evil smile curling his thin, spiteful lips as he thinks of all the notes he passed to Queen Elizabeth incriminating the high-spirited Mary, who had, through the years, optimistically believed that no matter what, even after nineteen years of imprisonment, she would be returned to the throne of Scotland again and live in harmony with her people and her son, whom she has not seen since he was ten months old, and is now a young man of twenty.
Fotheringhay Castle is now throbbing with excitement with thoughts of an ax shashing swiftly through Mary’s neck with the precision of a French sword,(Mary’s personal request which was denied by the English queen). She is at the steps of the platform now, staring up at the executioner who is standing with the ax cradled in his arms as if he were headed for the woods to chop trees.
Mary removes her black cloak, revealing a brick-red petticoat which bares her arms, neck and shoulders, initiating lascivious sounds from the throats of the intoxicated men watching …waiting, waiting for the head to be dropped into the pail placed just inches from the black, velvet-covered block. She hands the cloak to Mary Seton, her devoted lady-in-waiting. A woman steps forward with a little Skye Terrier and places it under Mary’s petticoat . The executioner, Simon Bulle, slides the woman a look of disapproval , but lets the dog remain. The Terrier, contentedly knowing from Mary’s smell that he is close to his mistress, stays under the petticoat. Mary knows by now that she disgraced herself during that long walk to the platform in the great hall, and is embarrassed by the foul odor emanating from under her petticoat, which is no surprise to the executioner, whose long career as a beheader of the aristocracy, knew there would be a watershed of waste gushing from Mary just before the ax made its lightening descent .
What comes next is Mary’s Crucifix, which she hands over swiftly to Mary Seton. Mary next hands her Prayer Book to Elisabeth Curle, also a lady-in-waiting, Mary’s fingers stay lovingly on the holy book’s soft cover. Mary Seton, tears streaming down her bereft face, then ties a strip of gold cloth across Mary’s eyes and turns her shoulders toward the Executioner’s block. Mary takes two steps forward, then kneels slowly and painfully before the block of wood, her pain-wracked face sets into a hard line as the memory of her arch enemy, Elizabeth Tudor, comes to mind, and she realizes this could either be the proudest moment of her life or the most condemned. She knows It is how she dies that is the most important. “Let it be said that Mary, Queen of Scots glided into Our Lord’s Arms bravely, without protest or tears or screams amid the wringing of hands.” Let me die without fear or performance she pleaded silently. She places her chin against the executioners block and dips her head slightly. There, she thought calmly. It is not so difficult to die bravely and without exhibition. Following this thought, she was shocked to realize that she felt peace in her heart upon drifting into the mysteries of death.
A sudden flurry of people suddenly dashing about on the platform combined with panic-stricken,whispered voices causes Mary to raise her head in alarm. Had it happened? Had she died already? But I haven’t felt a thing! She raises her head sharply, trying to hear the voices floating softly to her ears. Had her lover, Lord Bothwell arrived with his army of men to rescue her from execution? Had he stormed Fotheringhay Castle to save her? Mary felt something soft being thrown over her head, and where before she had sensed a faint blur of gold from the strip across her eyes, she now saw nothing but black. A loud voice proclaims: “So perish all the queen’s enemies! Long live the Queen!”
The intelligent realization that someone had been executed in her place hit Mary like a clash of cymbals. Someone had just been executed, but it was not herself. My Lord Bothwell has stormed the castle and saved me! she thought joyously. But who lost their head in my place? Her last thought before sinking deeply into shock was of an angel chorus chanting te Deum.
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The first chapter of Shalimar begins with Mary’s third-person time-travel rescuers Sinclair Singleton and Travis Emerson discussing Mary’s eventual rescue. Both are in their early forties, having worked on their time machine for decades for the purpose of rescuing Mary, Queen of Scots, and both are secretly in love with each other, but too reluctant to admit it for fear of rejection The day of Mary’s rescue is one week away, they discuss the logistics they’ve been planning for so long, then join Sinclair’s father downstairs in the dining room for lunch. Shalimar is a mansion over eight hundred year’s old. It is steeped in history and is Sinclair and her father’s birthplace as well other ancestors who, by extraordinary luck, lived and died under the same roof. Sinclair is a beautiful woman who was frightened as a six year-old child by a would-be rapist in a tool shed whose evil intent was halted iust in time by a Shalimar gardener.
Sinclair herself has never forgotten that terrifying incident and, as a consequence, is interested only in the man she grew up with: the handsome Travis Emerson, who is likewise romantically inclined toward Sinclair, but her aloofness keeps him at a respectful distance. Travis was taken to live at Shalimar at the age of nine by Sinclair’s father, Colonel Barry Singleton when Travis’ parents were killed climbing Mount Everest.
Colonel Singleton, having been researched by a cadre of people as the most upright and singularly honest Squire of English country mansions who had fallen on hard times due to England’s high taxes and other hikes in every area of life as people know it. A prosperous Group of diverse religions – Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Islam, Muslim, etc., calling themselves the ‘Majestic Twenty” had been looking for an inconspicuous country manor standing off-road on a pictureasque country lane where they could build a vast laboratory and library from which to research cures for deadly diseases and settle the worries of warring Planet Earth. The Group, humbly and quietly, aided by their vast wealth, makes life bearable for the world population without it even knowing that such a society exists. It is a secret society of decent, kind, honest people who would be scorned by certain classes were it known such a society exists, as this sort of class mentioned here are the kind who hate (are jealous of, actually) royalty, aristocracy, cheat on their taxes, practice health-care fraud and collect sums from the government by lying about the miserable, economically impoverished state of their lives when, in fact, their lives are quite comfortable. The Majestic Twenty group hunt out Nobel Prize Scientists from all corners of the globe to research troubled areas of Planet Earth and diligently fix what is wrong.
The happy result for the Colonel and Sinclair is that a number of decorators were dispatched to Shalimar to enlarge, redecorate and refurnish the mansion until it could accommodate the scientists, the library, the twenty-first century medical apparatus, and everything else required to research and solve troubles on the planet. This makes the Colonel’s life more pleasant, also Sinclair’ s and her mother’s, Lady Claudia Singleton, who, upon the new wealth streaming through Shalimar’s coffers asked to be permitted to leave country life, which she abhorred, and live in her own sophisticated penthouse in London. Thus, all three Singletons were compensated by the Majestic Twenty. Although Sinclair vaguely missed her mother’s presence at Shalimar, and the colonel sorely missed his wife.
Sinclair and Travis’ rescue attempt at Fotheringhay Castle works out miraculously. Their arrival in the castle’s courtyard in a helicoptor with their time machine stored in the cabin, is timed to the second, as with their dramatic entrance in the great hall among the drunken observers. Travis’ rescue of Mary while she’s waiting for the inevitable ax to come down is swift and accurate. Although she weighs almost three hundred pounds, to his mere one hundred and thirty, his ability to carry her blithely past the bewildered observers, followed by the scantily-clad Sinclair holding Mary’s Terrier, Sinclair having more than her share of terrifying scares while escaping is nothing short of miraculous.
Almost bent double at the knees with Mary’s vast weight, Travis struggles to place her in the already-powered helicopter and hoists himself into the cockpit. Sinclair joins him ten minutes later, having been accosted by the local gentry gathered there to witness the gruesome beheading. Travis and Sinclair fly Mary to the elegant mansion in the county of Kent ( Kent being known as the “Garden of England”) and take her to the room they’ve lovingly prepared for her. Mary’s agile mind eventually grasps what her rescuers are telling her about the escape and she marvels at the date to which she has been transported: February Eighth, 2022.
The time travelers find Mary a handful. She’s convinced that she is destined to be rescued from her execution and taken to England almost 400 years later to be the queen of England. She shocks Sinclair and Travis when she says she will visit Buckingham Palace and tell the present Queen Elizabeth who she really is and will succeed to the throne. Both time-travelers have trouble keeping Mary away from London’s Buckingham Palace. Since Mary’s speech sounds too Elizabethan, Sinclair takes her to her mother’s penthouse in London to stay at her mother’s. Meanwhile, Travis finds himself being romantically drawn to Mary, who is an outrageous flirt in her own right, she having been widely known among the men in her circle as a first class seductress.
Sinclair takes Mary to a Harley Street Cosmetic Surgeon to have her face revilalized, her eyes lifted, and her pinched mouth reappear. The surgeon, a wiley man always looking for an advantage, recognizes that Mary has somehow been transported from the 16th to the the 21st century, and he threatens to let the world know that Mary Queen of Scots is alive and well in the 21st century. Sinclair and Travis give in to the doctor’s pressure to prevent the doctor’s ex-wife (with whom he is still madly in love) from boarding a doomed plane at Logan Airport in Boston on September eleventh, 2001. This means Sinclair and Travis , in order to keep the news of Mary’s identity from the public, the pair must time travel back to 2001 to stop a woman they do not know or recognize from boarding a plane doomed to be crashed into New York’s World Trade Center. As before, their symmetry in preventing the doctor’s wife from boarding the doomed plane is carried out to perfection. The doctor’s response to their success, is greeted with an ungrateful shrug as he proclaims he plans to remain with his wife in her present time zone.
The next request for time-travel is from a member of the colonel’s Group to rescue a cattle car jammed with Jewish prisoners on one of Hitler’s death trains in 1945. The train is heading for a concentration camp. As before, the rescue is miraculous, but full of drama, with Mary accompanying the time-travelers because she says she speaks German, but really doesn’t. Her only reason for wanting to go is because she thinks that traveling back to 1945 will enable her to meet the Duke of Windsor. (He abdicated the English throne in 1939 to marry an American divorcee, Wallis Simpson.) Mary’s intent is to persuade the Duke to let her have the throne that he himself stepped down from for the love of the Simpson woman. Mary’s fervor to succeed to the English throne is to compensate for the Scottish throne she turned her back on for the evil, conniving man who had plotted and schemed to be king of Scotland after persuading Mary to marry him in a Protestant ceremony while she would have preferred it to be Catholic. Bothwell’s fate was to die of gangrene ten years later in a Danish prison after deserting Mary as she Mary faced down her enemies … after which, not knowing where to go … she unwisely crossd the border into England, only to be captured and imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth’s guards.
The time travelers next rescue comes from a Scotland Yard detective’s request to kill Jack the Ripper before he can murder and mutilate seven prostitutes in London’s grimy Whitechapel ditrict. The detective comes into Sinclair and Travis’ world after he questions the pair about the Harley St. doctor’s murder of his wife while in a jealous rage, Sinclair and Travis finally agree to time-travel back to 1880 to trap Jack the Ripper before he traps the five prostitutes he murdered back in London’s sordid East End. ’The outrageous attempt to kill the Ripper before he himself can kill the prostitutes is fraught with drama. Travis is arrested for loitering in Whitechapel and taken to the local police station.; the inspector is also taken to the police station, for wandering about Whitechapel like a “criminal looking for somewhere or someone to rob.” Only Sinclair is free to roam Whitechapel looking for the Ripper before he can proposition the prostitutes and rip their bodies apart. In a frightening encounter with Jack the Ripper, he has dragged Sinclair to an upstairs bedroom in a whorehouse and almost killed her. However, she manages to kill him, and in a comedic twist that results in the freeing of Travis and the Scotland Yard detective from the police station. Their eventual return to Shalimar is fueled with relief that the three did not get themselves killed by the ripper with their amateur tactics at sleuthing.
While attending Britain’s Royal Ascot races, Sinclair learns from Mary that she is pregnant with Travis’ child. Travis insists he was irresistably seduced by Mary, but agrees to marry her as the child would otherwise be illegitimate. Sinclair’s father, Colonel Singleton, informs his daughter that his Group has insisted Travis and Mary be transported to a different century as the Col’ group is worried that their secret society will be exposed if Travis and Mary continue to flaunt Mary’s presence in the 21st century.
To interest Mary in more pleasure-filled activities than her trying to get into Buckingham palace to meet the queen and going to visit what tourists thought was her tomb at Westminster Abbey, the time-travelers purchase a race horse for Mary, since she adores horses and is so good with them. The filly they purchase (Frivolity) is so brilliant and such a fast runner she wins almost every race she runs, with the result her fame is broadcast worldwide (she eventually wins the Triple Crown). The colonel’s group makes millions with the filly, and is delighted with the purchase.
Mary asks Sinclair and Travis if they will take her to the ruins of the castles in which she was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth ll, and to the Fotheringhay mound where she had supposedly spent her last days in the castle. Other buildings were erected with the bricks of that sad building which housed Mary after it had been solemnly dismantled.) At the Palace at Holyrood House in Edinburgh, Scotland, Mary looks back at all the years she spent there as the Scottish queen. Young and beautiful and very desirable, she thinks back to the days when she innocently gave her body to the charms of James Hepburn, Lord Bothwell, wishing she had percieved his true character when her ladies in waiting gave her warnings about the evil seducer.
Following the German train rescue in Germany, the colonel’s group has arranged a celebration for all those involved in the rescue at the Dorchester Hotel in London. At that celebration Sinclair meets the man she is destined to marry. He is Martin Sherman, one of the prisoners on the train bound for one of Hitler’s death camps.
Not much is left to the imagination by the time Shalimar ends. A visit to Sinclair at Shalimar surprises her when she learns her guest is none other than His Royal Highness Prince Charles, The Prince of wales. He surprises Sinclair by expressing his wish for her to do “Just one more time travel.”
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