"The Courtesan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tranter Nigel)

Chapter Thirteen

IT did not take Scotland long to discover that her new-married monarch had something on his mind more pressing than the cosy joys of matrimony. He had been in a strangely distraught

state before ever he set sail for Denmark; he returned, with his bride, even more preoccupied – though no longer distraught. Whether it was marriage that had done it, the months of absence from his own land, or discussions with curious foreign authorities, is not to be known – but he came back a man with a mission. He was going to get to grips with Satan, without delay.

Always James had been interested in and much aware of the supernatural. His lonely parentless childhood had been beset by devils, ogres and apparitions, all malevolent – many of them in the guise of steel-clad, hard-faced grasping lords. George Buchanan, his stern tutor and taskmaster, had been a student of demonology. The ministers of the Kirk who had borne heavily upon him all his days, were much concerned with the dark powers of evil. Now was the reckoning.

Despite all the other matters which clamoured for his attention, the King was much closeted in small dusty rooms, first in Leith and then in his own quarters at Holyroodhouse, with books, parchments, folios, on abstruse and difficult subjects such as necromancy, sorcery, Black Magic, wizardry, astrology and the like. No longer did he ink his fingers with much writing of poetry; now he was inditing more serious stuff. It was difficult for his officers and ministers to get in at him in these locked sanctums – and there was so much to be done; the innumerable matters of state that had had to be held over, awaiting the monarch's return; deputations to be received from all over the land; the due entertainment of the great company of distinguished foreigners, Danes in especial, who had come over with Anne; most important of all, the Queen's Coronation. James expended only grudging attention on all these.

The very night before the Coronation, indeed, with many of the details still to be arranged, Patrick Gray, responsible as Master of the Wardrobe for much of the ceremonial, prevailed on the Duke of Lennox to gain him the King's presence, somehow. Ludovick was in fact almost the only person for whom James would open his locked doors.

After much knocking and a certain amount of shouted reassurance, the King was persuaded to draw the bolts of his study in the south-west drum-tower of the palace, and peer round.

'What's to do now, Vicky?' he demanded querulously. 'Can you no' see I'm busy? And who's yon you've got there wi' you, man?'

'It is the Master of Gray, Sire. He has urgent matters for your attention. Regarding tomorrow's crowning.'

'Och, him! Patrick's aye at something…'

'Aye, Sire – but since he found the money to pay for this Coronation, he should be heard, should he not?'

'Humph! I'ph'mmm. Well… ' Grumbling, James let them in, and quickly shot the bolts again. 'He got a third part o' the gold himsel', did he no'? A thousand pounds! Bonnie payment for a' he did…'

'Was that not in lieu of his claim for Dunfermline Abbey?' the younger man asked bluntly.

Tut, man…'

'Your Grace's generosity was notable,' Patrick intervened smoothly. 'I have no complaints. The difficulties now are otherwise. The most serious is the problem of the Queen's anointing. The Kirk is proving… obdurate.'

'There's nae problem in it, Patrick,' James answered testily. 'I have given my royal commands. The Kirk has but to carry them out in a seemly fashion. Waesucks – must I do their work for them? I hae other work o' my ain, 'fore God! That only I, the Lord's Anointed, can accomplish.' He pointed a stained finger at the tables littered with parchments and books. 'Have I no' plenty on my hands, man?'

Lennox looked askance at the disarray of papers. 'Inky work, Sire, it would seem! Is such not for clerks…?'

'Clerks!' James all but squeaked in indignation. 'Could clerks wrestle wi' the Devil? Could clerks bind Satan in his ain coils?'

'Lord, James – are you drowning Satan in ink? Choking him with dust…?'

'Dinna scoff, Vicky Stuart – dinna scoff! I'll no' be scoffed at, d'you hear? Belike he'll turn his assault on you, man, as well as me. I am binding Satan wi' words, see you – potent and mighty words. In the beginning was die word, mind. I, James, by the Grace o' God, am writing a book!'

His visitors stared from the King to each other and back again.

Apparently encouraged by the impression he had made, James nodded vigorously. 'A book. A great and notable work. On the wicked wiles o' Satan and his black kingdom. A book to undermine his ill powers and reveal his evil ways.'

'You…?' Lennox swallowed. 'How may you do that, James? What even the Pope of Rome cannot do.'

'H'rr'mm,' Patrick coughed warningly.

'The Pope!' That was a snort. 'The Pope's ower near allied to the Devil himself to do any such thing! Forby, he hasna my advantages, as the Lord's Anointed. I am Satan's especial foe, see you – and his ways are revealed to me.'

'But

'You learned this in Denmark, Sire?' Patrick asked.

'I jaloused it before I ever went, man. You'll mind a' the storms that prevented my Annie frae coming to me? Yon was Satan's work. He wouldna hae me married and my royal line strengthened against him. A' the way yonder my ships were sore assailed. I was near the gates o' Hell. But I won ower. In yon Denmark, the winds dropped and the storms died. He couldna reach me there. A' winter there was scarce a breeze. But when I set sail again, the hounds o' Hell were quick after me, God kens! That very day the storms rose. Day and night the seas clawed at me. The deep opened its maw to engulf me. We were sucked in and spewed out again. Like yon Jonah. But I wrestled. I wrestled wi' Satan in person – aye, and wi' God too, in prayer. Notable prayer. And so we won back to this my realm. As an ill grudge, he set his flames to this house o' mine, but… but…' Panting with his vehemence, the King paused for very breath.

Embarrassed, Ludovick looked at the floor. Patrick stroked his chin.

'And if you are convinced, Sire, that these unseasonable storms are the Devil's work, raised expressly against your person,' he said, 'how do you seek to bind him by writing a book?'

'Och, Patrick – where are your wits? Ydu, of a' men, should see it. The Devil thrives in darkness, ignorance. He canna abide the light. The word is light. Do the Scriptures no' say so? The Good Book is the light that lightens the world. My book shall lighten Satan's ain world, Hell itsel'. To his undoing.'

'H'mmra. A lofty ambition, Your Grace. A Homeric task, indeed.'

'Do I not ken it, man? That is why I labour at it, day and night, thus – why I shouldna be disturbed wi' lesser things. I must myself read a' that's written. And I must test what I read. Try it. Aye, there will need to be a deal o' testing. I shall require your aid, belike…'

'Testing, Sire? What mean you by testing?'

'Ha – wait, Patrick man! Wait! You shall see. In good time. Aye, a' my realm shall see Satan tested. But no' yet. I'm no' ready yet. There's that much to do.'

'But… can you reach the Devil, to test him?'

'Satan works through men, Patrick. And women. As well as in winds and storms. Them I can reach.' James rubbed his inky hands, and actually chuckled. 'Ooh, aye – I can reach them.'

The Master of Gray searched his monarch's face intently, and said nothing.

'There is much to do at the Coronation also, Sire,' Lennox reminded. 'And on the morrow. This matter of the anointing. As Chamberlain, I must know…'

'Tcha! I told you – I have given my commands.'

'Unfortunately, Your Grace, the Kirk has other views,' Patrick pointed out.

'It canna. It canna. I am the head o' Christ's Kirk.'

'Yet the Kirk says that anointing with oil is a Popish practice. An idolatrous vanity. Master Robert Bruce says that he will not be a party to it.'

James gulped and giggled. 'He'll no'…? He'll no'…? Vanity? Idolatrous – the royal anointing! Guidsakes – is it no' what makes the monarch different frae other men? I am the Lord's viceregent – His Anointed. No subject will deny the anointing oil to my Queen!'

'Master Bruce says that he will, Sire.'

'Then Master Bruce is acting for Satan, no' Christ. Aye, that's it. Satan again, it is! He'd deny my Annie her royal due, and so hae my seed less than kingly. For his ain ends. Och, I ken him. He's but using Bruce. Tell you Master Bruce that he will anoint my Queen wi' oil, or I'll hae one o' the bishops to do it! That will scunner him! Or I could do it mysel'. Who is mair fitted to transmit the blessed unction than I who am already anointed? Tell me that.' James was trembling with emotion.

'Very well, Sire. It shall be as you say. Then there is the matter of where the bishops shall stand. And in what precedence. The Kirk would not have them in the ceremony, at all. It would put them after the last of the presbyters… '

'Soul o' God!' the King cried. 'Away wi' you! Hae them where you will. I'll no' be embroiled, d'you hear? Let them fight it out for themsel's. I hae God's work to see to – no' man's pride and folly. Away, now. Out wi' you both. I'll hae no more o' it. This audience is closed. Aye, closed.'

Patrick and Ludovick bowed themselves to the door, being all but pushed through it in the process. The latter eyed his companion ruefully.

'Heaven save us – do you think he's parted from his wits entirely?' he demanded.

Patrick took a little while to answer, as they went down the winding stairs. He was looking very thoughtful. 'I do not know, Vicky,' he said. 'It may be so – but the situation is not as it was, mind. He is married. Has been for six months. The Queen may well be with child even now – child herself as she is. She may soon produce an undoubted heir to the throne. So what we had in mind before will no longer serve… '

'What you had in mind,' the Duke pointed out.

The Master ignored him. 'It is… interesting. It behoves us to think carefully. Most carefully.'

'To what end?'

'Why – to the weal and benefit of the realm, Vicky. And us all. What else?' The other smiled his sweetest. 'You heard him. Testing, he said – trying. He would need our aid, he said. Know you any of the Devil's spawn to test and try, Vicky?'

Mary Gray, with Jean Stewart and Katherine Lindsay, stood or knelt around the thin white naked figure of Queen Anne, sponging and wiping and dabbing. Still in their fine gowns that they had worn for the Coronation ceremony, Mary's borrowed from the royal wardrobe, they busied themselves amongst the steam from the cauldrons of hot water, exclaiming, twittering consolations to their mistress.

Anne stood stiffly, on a pile of cloths and towelling, in the circular tower-room off the royal bedchamber which she was calling her boudoir – the room indeed directly below the King's study in the drum-tower. Pale, her lips tight, she was breathing hard – but even so her tiny budding bosom scarcely stirred. From most aspects, naked, she might have been a boy, so unformed in womanliness was her slender body. But her expression was neither childish nor lacking in definition. Her cold anger was remarkable in its still intensity. She answered nothing to her ladies' commiserations.

Mary reached for a new cloth, and hotter water. The oil was very hard to lift. It seemed to impregnate the very skin, as it had done the clothing. It seemed, also, to be of a singularly sticky and viscous consistency, and of a penetrating and unlovely smell.

It would be hard to say who had won the battle of the anointing oil. Master Robert Bruce, of Edinburgh's High Kirk of St. Giles, faced with the King's furious commands and threats, and with bishops only too anxious to do the work for him, had at length consented, at the climax of the Coronation ceremony in the Abbey, to anoint with oil. But when the Countess of Mar, James's sour old foster-mother, had somewhat opened the neck of the Queen's gown for the application, Bruce had roughly jerked the opening wide, to bare her pathetic padded bosom, and therein emptied the entire ampulla of oil. Thus, soaked and humiliated, Anne had had to wait through a further two hours of ceremonial, including another sermon, with the oil running down her body to her very feet, and ruining the splendid jewel-sewn dress and all below it.

A loud and impatient knocking sounded at the locked door on the other side of the bedchamber. Alarmed, the three young women looked from their naked mistress to each other. Anne gave no sign, made no move. Lady Jean giggled.

'The door, Your Grace…?' she began. She was interrupted by renewed banging.

'Open!' the King's well-known thick voice cried. 'Annie -it is I. James. Your Jamie. Open, I say.'

The Queen shrugged thin shoulders. 'Let him in,' she said, in her stilted foreign accent.

Uncertainly the Lady Katherine went to open the further door, flushing, whilst Mary reached for a robe to put round her mistress.

Impatiently Anne shook it off. 'Finish your work,' she directed shortly.

Jamie came pushing in, a paper in his hand. At sight of his unclothed wife amidst the steam, he halted, peered sidelong, and leered. 'Hech, hech,' he chuckled. 'Are you no' right bonnie that way! Aye, bonnie. I… I dinna like fat women.' He glanced over at his voluptuous cousin Jean, who sniggered.

'I care not how you like,' Anne said sharply. 'I am insulted. I am made a fool before all. In my country that man would die! He must be punished.'

'Houts, lass – wheesht you! Here's no way to take it. You mustna speak that way about ministers o' the Kirk. It was a mishap, just…'

'It was no mishap. The man Bruce looked at me, as he did it. He must be punished. And before all.'

'Na, na, Annie – it canna be. You hae it wrong. It was a victory, see you. The Kirk anointed you wi' oil, when it didna want to. What's a wee drappie ower much oil? Better than nane, lassie – better than nane. A victory for the Lord ower Satan. Christ's Kirk brought in…'

'I like not your Kirk, James.'

'Wheesht, girl – dinna say it! The Kirk's strong, powerful…'

'More powerful than the King?' 'Na, na. But it doesna do to flyte it.'

'As it has flyted me! I think my lord of Moray to be right. He says that it is the Kirk that rules in Scotland, not the King!'

'Waesucks – Moray shouldna hae said that! It's no' right. The King o' Scots is head o' the Kirk. But it's a gowk that smites his ain left hand. The Chancellor and Council is my right hand, see you – but the Kirk is my left. My lord o' Moray should watch his words. Aye, and his ways! I'd thank you to see less o' him, Annie.'

The Queen's sniff, though eloquent, more aptly matched her childish appearance. She looked down. 'Are you finished? Is it all gone?'

'I think it,' Mary told her. 'I see no more.'

'Save on Your Grace's feet,' Jean pointed out. 'There is some even down between your toes!' That was a further cause for giggles.

'That can wait. My clothes.'

'Look, lassie – forget the oil for the nonce. See – I hae a letter here that tells me that a coven o' witches meets at North Berwick. A score o' miles, just down the coast. A right convenient place, eh? For raising storms against me. We passed it in the ship – you'll mind where yon great muckle rock rises frae the sea. The Bass. Ooh, aye – this could be maist significant.'

Anne did not so much as glance at his letter. 'I care naught for your witches,' she exclaimed. 'Is this dme for such foolishness? I much more mislike your Kirk.'

'Och, hold your tongue anent the Kirk, Annie, I tell you! I need the Kirk to fight Auld Hornie. These witches and warlocks arc belike his earthly instruments. And so his weakness. Satan's soft side, see you. It wouldna do to neglect this.'

But the Queen was not listening. With only her shift on she pushed aside the other clothes being held out for her, and hurried into the main bedchamber adjoining. The Ladies Jean and Katherine, after a glance at the King, followed her. Mary was left to clear up the towels and the steaming pots.

James tut-utted. 'Och, she doesna understand,' he said. 'She's ower young, belike. Mind, she's wiselike too, in some matters. Ooh, aye – she's no fool. But she's no' acquaint yet wi' the powers o' darkness, Mistress Mary. Och, it's no' to be expected.'

'No, Sire. It is not.' Mary looked up. 'Does Your Grace not fear this world of witches and warlocks is an invention? Of idle men? Or mischievous!'

'Guidsakes no, lassie! Witchcraft is a right serious matter. The Devil is never lacking his minions. And he's no' backward in this Scotland o' mine, I warrant! I hae been reading about witchcraft and the like. Plenty – aye, plenty. A' the signs are there. I must root them out.'

Mary bit her lip. 'Witches, I think – true witches – will not be easily found.'

'Hech, but you're wrong Mistress Mary. There's aplenty o' them – and I'll soon hae my hands on them, never fear. There's a worthy bailie o' Tranent laid godly hands on one.' The King glanced at the paper. 'Seton, his name. He's put her to the question, maist properly, and she's given the names o' plenty mair. Waesucks – I'll hae her here and see what my questioners can do! Aye, I'll uncover the Devil's work, I promise you.' She was silent

'I'll get your… I'll get Master Patrick to help me. He has the kind o' wits to pit against Auld Hornie. They hae much in common, eh?' James whinnied a laugh. 'Nae offence, mind, Mistress Mary. Where shall I find the man? He's no' in his quarters.'

'I do not know, Your Grace…'

'This new folly of the King's?' the Lady Marie charged her husband. 'All this of witches and spells. Might not this cause much evil? Much cruel wrong?'

'Tell me anything that a king might do that could not?' Patrick answered.

'But this in especial. Anyone may cry witch. Proving innocence may be less easy.'

'No doubt. But that may have its advantages also, I think.'

'For whom, Patrick?'

'For those who would preserve the King's peace, my dear.'

'Preserve…? You do not believe such nonsense? Such bairn's chatter about spells and incantations brewing unchancy storms?'

'The longer I live, my heart, the less I would declare what I believe and what I do not!'

'You do not speak plain, Patrick – so that I mislike it all the more!'

'You are a hard, hard wife to have, Marie Stewart!'

Mary joined in. 'This of North Berwick, Uncle Patrick? Can there be anything of truth in such a tale?'

'There could be. I have heard strange things of North Berwick ere this. That is what we must find out.'

'We…?' his wife echoed.

'Why, yes. His Grace seeks some help in the matter. You would not have me deny my King?'

Marie sighed, and shook her fair head. 'I know you when you are this way, Patrick. There is nothing of worth to be had from you. But this I do know – if you are for aiding James in this foolishness, it is for your own advantage.'

'Say to our advantage, my soul's treasure. For are we not one? Doubly one, if such a thing were possible, since we were wed by both Catholic and Reformed rites! And, to be sure, for the advantage of many others also. That is the great comfort of statecraft. I find. Whatever is done must of necessity advantage almost as many as it injures!'

'I desire no advantage at the cost of others' suffering and sorrow, Patrick.'

'Think before you speak, my heart. All that you do, all that you are, all the food you eat, the very threads that you work in your frame there – all come of the sorrow, pain and toil of others. So our Maker made us. It is all a matter of degree. All acts of man have more consequences than one. There is black and white to every picture, to every man. I but seek to choose the lesser evil. The compromise between black and white.' He laughed aloud. 'Not for nothing am I named the Master of Gray!'

'I have heard your philosophy before, Patrick – and have seen where it has brought you.'

'It has brought me back to the King's right hand,' he told her lightly. 'Which minds me – whither I must now go… with your permission, ladies.' Bowing deeply, and throwing them a kiss each, he strolled out.

'God help me – why must I so dote on that man!' the Lady Marie exclaimed. 'When he is the most part knave, reprobate, as I know full well.'

'Because he is… Patrick Gray,' Mary answered her, gently, briefly, but sufficiently.