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

Chapter Three

THE Lord Gray came home to Castle Huntly in a gale of wind and the worst of tempers. For three weeks, three solid weeks, he had been away kicking his heels down in the Borderland, along with many another Scots lord, whilst his wretched men ate and drank themselves silly in armed but pointless idleness, by royal command but at his expense – men who should have been hard at work rescuing the hay crop from the sodden far-flung grasslands of the Carse of Gowrie, hay for the vast herds of cattle that were the very basis of ray lords prosperity. It was mid-July. The wettest and wildest spring and early summer in living memory. There would be the devil to pay for it next winter, in lack of forage and starving beasts, with the hay lying flattened and uncut, or rotten and mildewed -and the corn harvest like to be as bad. Seventy-five men of his, seventy-five able-bodied men, wasting their time and his substance amongst those damnable mist-shrouded bog-bound Border hills, on the commands of a crazy young half-wit King, who feared Catholic risings, Spanish invasions, and God alone knew what else!

Lord Gray had come home with fully half his force, king or no king. And those that he had left behind in Teviotdale were the most useless of his band, moreover – as was the case with many of the other feudal contingents, the majority of the lords being in a like state of impatience and fulmination, almost revolt. James, the young fool, had forbidden any worthwhile activity, even cattle-raiding, any forays across the Border -although that is what they understood that they had been there for – and nibbled his finger-nails instead, afraid of the English Lord Dacre's Northumbrian levies hurriedly raised to face them, afraid of the Governor of Berwick's garrison, afraid of the Catholics in the west under the Lords Maxwell and Herries who were supposed to be threatening the English West March, afraid of what the madcap Earl of Bothwell might do in these circumstances – afraid indeed of his own shadow. Waiting for his envoy back from Spain, it was said, delayed by storms; waiting for the supposed Spanish invasion of England; waiting for the gold that Queen Elizabeth had hastily promised him for keeping her northern march secure and denying his ports to Spanish ships; waiting, Christ God, for anybody and everybody to make up his royal mind for him!

In such case was the Kingdom of Scotland this deplorable summer of 1588, with its monarch a drooling ninny, the lords made fools of, and the so-called Spanish Armada a myth and a Popish fable. At least, such was my lord of Gray's profound conviction.

It required all of Mary Gray's soothing charms to make him even bearable company for the rest of his household and dependants at Castie Huntly in the next few days.

Those days brought tidings and rumours to the Carse of Gowrie that gave even Lord Gray second thoughts however – whether he admitted them or not. First came the word that the Earls of Huntly, Erroll and Montrose had risen in the north, with, it was said, as many as five thousand men -though that might well be an exaggeration – and had taken over the direction of the towns of Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Banff and Elgin, expelling the provosts and ministers of the Kirk and installing Catholic nominees of their own. Then, only two days later, they heard that O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, revolting against Elizabeth in Ireland, had landed in person in the Western Isles, and was there urging the Highland chiefs to raise a clan army to make cause with him – Catholic, of course – that was to link up with Huntly in the east. That this Irish move should have coincided so closely with Huntly's seemed unlikely to be mere chance – and the linking of the name of Logan of Restalrig with the business, no Highlander, no Catholic, but cousin and erstwhile bravo of the exiled Master of Gray, set at least some minds furiously to think. King James's reluctance to venture over the Border into England with his distinctly unruly force, was to be considered now in a new light. There were even whispers that the Crown had all along been privy to the entire business; it was noteworthy that it was the Kirk that whispered thus – and in far from dulcet tones. On the other hand, it could not but be recognised by all that, had not the Protestant lords been providentially assembled at this time, there would have been little or nothing to prevent the combined Catholic forces from turning southwards and taking over the kingdom. King Jamie might be owed some small thanks for this, accidental though it could have been. Even Lord Gray had to acknowledge that.

The next news made Lord Gray wish even – without saying so – that he had been perhaps a little less hasty. It was that the King, as counter to the northern situation presumably, and as something to occupy the remnant of his Protestant forces, had personally marched them westwards along his own Border, to attack, capture and destroy the great castle of Lochmaben in Annandale, ancestral home of his heroic predecessor Robert Bruce and now held by the Catholic Lord Maxwell as hereditary keeper. As a politic gesture he had hanged its captain and six other Maxwells. Whatever the reasons for this flourish, James's first military exploit – and it was variously reported that it was to please Elizabeth, who, with no Armada appearing, it would be wise to keep well-disposed; that it was to keep the Kirk quiet; that it was to warn Huntly and the Northern Catholics not to move too far south – whatever the reasons, the Lord Gray could have wished to have been present, for Annandale was a rich land, and the sacking thereof could hardly have failed to be profitable for those engaged.

It was all difficult and confusing in the extreme. A man could scarcely tell which way to turn, to best advantage.

Then, on the very last day of the month of July, something more substantial than tidings and rumours reached Castle Huntly. All that boisterous day ships, great ships such as had never before been seen in Scottish waters, were to be observed all along the east coast, heading northwards in ones and twos and straggling groups, before an unseasonable south-easterly gale, weather-worn, battered, sails rent and shredded, top-hamper askew. One great galleon indeed, limped in through the gap in the long roaring sand-bar of Tay, and let down her anchor off Lord Gray's castle of Broughty which guarded the estuary, the rich colours and banners of Castile torn but still flying proudly from her soaring aftercastle and broken foremast. She sought provisions, water, care for her wounded, and time to effect repairs. My lord was sent for in haste the dozen miles from Castle Huntly. He found a Spanish marquis, a round dozen dons, and no fewer than two hundred soldiers of the Duke of Parma's Netherlands army aboard, as well as the crew, all armed to the teeth, though with many wounded and much damage apparent, not all of it caused by the storm. The Santa Barba del Castro had, it seemed, put into the Tay in error, mistaking the estuary and assuming that Dundee town was Aberdeen.

My lord was in something of a pickle. Nominally at least he was a staunch Protestant and a strong supporter of Christ's Reformed Kirk. These were notorious Papists, and therefore anathema. On the other hand, he was not sure whether they were in fact allies of his King or enemies, at this precise moment – depending on whether Philip was treating with James or not. James admittedly was anxious to accept a large sum in gold from Elizabeth for denying port facilities to the Spaniards – but then it was well-known that the gold had not yet been paid, and the Tudor woman's promises were markedly unreliable. Moreover, this galleon mounted three tiers of cannon on either side – fifty-two guns, fully five times the number available on Broughty Castle's battlements – and disposed of more armed manpower than Gray could raise in a month. He compromised, therefore, very sensibly, supplying provisions and water, and timber for rough-and-ready repairs, but permitting no landing of wounded and only two days anchorage – thereby enriching his coffers by a sizeable quantity of gold ducats and some quite excellent silver plate.

So Scotland became aware that the long-delayed and much-dreaded Armada of Spain was in fact over, a thing of the past, a cloud dispersed – and unlike neighbouring England which went crazy with joy, did not know whether to be relieved or disappointed. As details gradually became known, and the size of the disaster to Spanish arms was assessed, so grew the realisation that England, the Auld Enemy, released at last from the bogey and spectre that had haunted her for years, was likely to prove a still more arrogant and dangerous neighbour than heretofore, and Elizabeth more interfering than ever. King Jamie saw his promised gold melt away for sure, and the English dukedom with which Elizabeth had also tempted him at the same time evaporate into thin air. Even the public and long sought-for announcement that he was evident, lawful and only heir to the said ageing Queen, now that Mary his mother was dead, was clearly postponed once again. The deceived and ill-used young man left his Borders and returned to Holyroodhouse and his capital in a state of deep depression.

At Castle Huntly, at least, there was no such depression. My lord had done better out of the Armada than most. David Gray heaved a profound sigh of relief, for not only was the threat of Spanish interference removed, but civil war likewise, for Huntly and his friends in the north promptly saw the light of reason and dispersed their rising as though it had never been. The Irish-Highland venture still went on, but that was far away. His brother Patrick's conspiracy, if such it had been, was surely brought to naught, exploded, blown away on the south-easterly gale – for which the good God be praised! And Mary Gray each night at her maidenly bedside thanked the same much-invoked God that the Holy Office and Inquisition would not be established on the Castle-hill of Edinburgh – but besought Him fervently at the same time that He would bring her Uncle Patrick home to Scotland just as quickly as it was celestially possible. Ludovick, Duke of Lennox was adjured likewise to entreat the Thrones of both Heaven and Scotland in the same cause. Patrick Gray it was who had brought the ten-year-old Ludovick from France to James's Court on his spectacular father's death.

Alas for the prayers and devotion of youth and innocence -the Master of Gray's stock had seldom been lower, his acceptability in circles of government more improbable. The Armada might almost have been entirely his own invention, and the unusual gales which had first delayed the fleet for six weeks, then harassed it in the narrows of the Channel, putting it at the mercy of the lighter and better-handled English ships, before finally breaking it up in major disaster and sending its dispersed vessels scudding north-about right round Scotland and Ireland as the only way of getting back to Spain – these gales might have been of the Master's personal devising. James, mourning his lost gold and duchy, even his unpaid pension from Elizabeth not received for months, was in no state to lend his ear to even Vicky's pleas. Instead he listened rather to the creaky voice of his wily lawyer-like Chancellor Maitland, who had lain notably low during all these alarms and excursions and now emerged again, like a tortoise from its shell, for the proper running and weal of the realm. And the King had spoken truly when he had declared that the Chancellor and the Master of Gray did not love each other. Sir John Maitland, as all at Court knew, never ceased to bewail that the beheading of the said malefactor had not gone off as planned – as he had so efficiently planned. And that was the bastard Davy Gray's fault.

Almost it seemed, indeed, as though God Himself was against the unfortunate exile in foreign parts. Only a short time after the Armada fiasco, the powerful de Guise brothers, Henry the Duke and Cardinal Louis, Archbishop of Rheims, full cousins of the late Mary of Scotland, were assassinated by order of Henry Third of France. These had been Patrick Gray's potent protectors and supporters for years, the source of much of his influence, employment and funds on the Continent. Without their far-reaching Jesuit backing, Europe was going to be a very different place for their gallant and handsome protege.

If the Reformers' stern God was going to take a denominational hand, of course, then the Master of Gray was not the one to fly in the face of destiny. Not even his worst enemy had ever suggested, however he might miscall him, that he was apt to do such a thing… once destiny made its intentions reasonably clear. Destiny might always be gently aided and piloted, however, along its chosen course, contrary though that might be, by a philosophical and agile-minded man. Such a man as Patrick Gray.

Mary Gray came to her father one golden morning that autumn, when he was superintending the placing and building of the numerous round oat-stacks of the belated corn harvest, in a sheltered stackyard nestling beneath the tall upthrusting crag out of which rose the red-stone walls of Castle Huntly, high above the flat carselands. It was the sort of work that David Gray enjoyed – much better indeed than schoolmastering; with all the local lairds, whose children he taught along with my lord's more recent brood, equally busy rescuing their corn and glad of even youthful help, lessons had been postponed with mutual relief. Her father now stood atop a round half-built stack, in shirt-sleeves, doublet discarded, hair untidy, face, chest and bare arms coated with oat-dust, catching the heavy sheaves that were tossed up to him from the laden two-horse wains, and building them into position on the steadily growing stack. He laughed and joked with the workers, and even sang snatches of song, as he laboured.

Mary looked up at him affectionately. This was as she loved best to see her father, working carefree and effective in the good honest toil of the fields and woods. Clearly he ought to have been a farmer; all his learning and experience of affairs seemed to bring him little or no satisfaction. He was more truly grandson to old Rob Affleck, miller of Inchture, than son to my lord of Gray. And yet… she knew also that he would have made a better lord for Castle Huntly than did Granlord, or even, it might be, than Uncle Patrick would make one day. She loved him, up there, all strong, confident, cheerful manhood. She felt loth indeed to interrupt and bring him down. But the matter might be urgent.

'Father,' she called. 'A lad from Kingoodie – Tarn Rait, it is – came seeking you. With a message. There is somebody there asking for you.'

'Eh…?' David paused in his rhythmic toil, and wiped back an unruly lock of hair from his brow with the back of a dusty hand. 'At Kingoodie? Sakes, lassie – if anybody wants me from Kingoodie, they can come here for me!'

'Yes. But…' She moved closer to the stack, as near to her father as she could get. '… this is a woman, Tam says. A lady.'

'A lady?' The man stared down at her. 'At Kingoodie? A few salmon-fishers' cots and a fowler's hut!'

'Yes. She is at Tarn's father's cottage. And asking for Master David Gray. To go to her there, forthwith. I said that I would tell you.' Roguishly she laughed. 'I asked him if she was handsome – and by his face I deem that she is! And something more than that, maybe.'

'M'mmm.' He frowned.

'Tam said that she had told him not to tell anyone but your own self. But… well, Tam Rait could not keep a secret from me!' The girl's eyes danced. 'I did not tell Mother.'

Her father coughed. 'Well… ' he said. He jumped down from the stack, already rolling down his shirt-sleeves, and called for one of the men to take his place. He picked up his old torn doublet. 'I… I am but scurvily clad for visiting ladies,' he said doubtfully. 'Even at Kingoodie. But if I go home first… '

'Mother will undoubtedly be much interested,' she finished for him. 'I think that we should just go from here, do not you? It will save time, too.'

'We?' her father asked, brows raised. 'I can find my way to Kingoodie, Mary, without your aid!'

'Oh, yes,' she agreed. 'But I promised Tarn Rait that I would bring you myself. And at once.'

'Promised…? Houts, girl – be off with you! I'll manage my business, whatever it is, without you. Or Tarn Rait!'

'Would you rather that I went home to Mother?' she asked, innocently.

He looked at her, sidelong. 'You are a – a shameless minx! Yes, go home, girl. What should there be here to alarm your mother?'

'I do not know, Father. Only… Tarn says that the lady who was asking for you so secretly is big with child!'

David Gray swallowed. He looked away, and ran a hand over his mouth and jaw – thereby smearing the sweaty dust thereon into still more evident designs and whorls. He moistened his lips.

Silently the girl took the scarlet kerchief from around her neck, and reaching up on tip-toes, wiped his features with it gently, before handing the silken stuff to him to continue the process. As she stood there close to him, throat and shoulders largely bare above the open-necked and brief white linen bodice, the man could not but be much aware of the warm honey-hued loveliness of her, and the deep cleft of her richly-swelling firm young bosom. Mary was indeed, beyond all question, physically as well as mentally, no longer anybody's child – and the sooner that he came to terms with the fact, almost certainly, the better for him.

Unspeaking they turned and walked side by side towards the stackyard gate where David's horse was tethered.

'I shall ride pillion at your back, very well,' Mary mentioned, as he made to mount the broad-backed shaggy garron.

Without a word he leaned down, and arm encircling her slender waist, hoisted her up behind him.

To the admiring grins of the workers – for the beast's broadness meant that the girl's shapely legs, long for her height, were much in view – they rode off.

They had to go a bare three miles across the reedy levels of the flood-plain of the Tay, marshy cattle-dotted pasture, seamed with ditches lined with willow and alder and the spears of the yellow flag. Taking a track which followed the coils and twists of the Huntly Bum, they headed almost due westwards until they reached its outfall at the low weed-girt shore. Turning along this by a muddy road of sorts, presently they came to a few lonely cot-houses and turf-coated cabins, where there was a rough stone jetty, boats were drawn up on the shingle, and nets were hanging up to dry on tall reeling posts. Kingoodie, where my lord obtained most of his salmon.

Their approach had not gone unobserved, and a youth emerged from one of the houses and waved to them. As they rode up, behind him in the low doorway, a lady stooped and came out.

She made a strange picture, materialising out of that humble stone-and-turf windowless cottage that was little better than a hovel, a beautiful youngish woman, stylish, assured, dressed in travelling clothes of the finest quality and the height of fashion, carrying her very evident child with a proud calm. Grey-eyed, wide-browed, with finely-chiselled features and sheer heavy golden hair that was almost flaxen, she had a poise, an unconscious aristocracy of bearing most obviously unassumed.

'God be praised – Marie!' David Gray cried, and leapt from his horse in a single agile bound, leaving his daughter to slide down as she could – a strangely impetuous performance for that sober, level-headed man, rash indeed in front of witnesses.

'Davy! Davy! Davy!' the woman called out, part-laughing, part-sobbing, and came running, light-footed enough considering her condition.

Wide-eyed, Mary Gray stood by the garron, watching.

David halted before he reached the newcomer, seeming to recollect discretion. Not so the lady. She ran straight up to him, to fling herself against him, arms around him, to bury her golden head on his dusty chest. Something she said there, but what was not clear. He raised a hand, a distinctively trembling hand, to stroke her fair down-bent head. So they stood.

At length she looked up. 'Oh, Davy,' she said, blinking away tears from grey eyes almost as level and direct as his own. 'How good! How fine! To see you again… to feel you… good, strong, solid, unchangeable Davy Gray! Let me look at you! Yes – the same, just the same. You have not changed one whit…'

Tt is but a year, Marie,' he said, deep-voiced. 'Fifteen months…'

'Ah – you count them also! Fifteen long months.'

'Aye. Long, as you say. I… I… ' He shook his head, as though consciously denying himself that train of thought and emotion. 'Is all well? How came you here? Patrick…? And you – you are well, my lady?'

'Well enough, yes. Can you not see it, Davy? Larger than ever I have been! Well – and in the state all good wives long to be, so they do say! Do you not congratulate me?'

'Aye,' he nodded. 'I am happy to see it – happy indeed.' Gravely, unsmiling he said it. 'I was sorry… about the other.' The Mistress of Gray had miscarried in a storm-tossed ship on her way, with her banished husband, to exile.

She searched his face. 'No doubt,' she said. 'But… there is young Mary. Good lack – she is… she is liker… more than ever she is like…'

'Aye,' the man agreed briefly. 'How, and where, is Patrick?'

'Mary, my dear,' the woman called out, and leaving David's side moved over towards the girl. 'On my soul, you are lovely! A child no longer. A woman – and a beauty! Let me kiss you, poppet.'

Mary curtsied prettily before the other reached her, and then embraced her unreservedly, returning her kisses frankly. 'How nice you are, Lady Marie,' she declared. 'What a splendid surprise! And the baby – how wonderful! She gurgled delightedly. 'Will it be my cousin – or my brother or sister?'

'Mary…!' David Gray protested, shocked.

The Lady Marie Stewart, Mistress of Gray, laughed musically, mock-ruefully. 'Lord – I do not know, Mary! I do not. But, I vow, if it is like you at all, then I shall be happy.'

'Thank you. And how is my Uncle Patrick?'

'He is well, And sends you his love and devotion. As well he might! I left him at Dieppe, where he put me on a ship…'

'He put you on a ship?' David demanded, coming up, and dropping his voice needfully, glancing around them for listeners. 'Patrick sent you here? Alone? From France?

'Yes. I suppose that he sent me. Though I wished to come. I was pining for home. And determined that my son should be born in Scotland. It is a boy, you know – I am sure of it. Do not ask me how I know. But… he will be called Andrew, and he will be heir to Gray. It is only fitting that he should be born here. Wise, too – that there be no doubts, with my lord…!'

'Even lacking his father?'

'Even so. Although… who knows, his father may not be so far away by then, God willing. And Patrick scheming!' 'M'mmm,' David said, frowning.

'But how did you come here, Lady Marie?' Mary asked. 'To Kingoodie?'

'I shipped on a Scots trading vessel. Bringing wines and flax. To Pittenweem, in Fife. Faugh – the smell of her! Hides she had carried before, from Scotland to France. Do I not stink of them yet? From Pittenweem I bargained with a fishing skipper to bring me round Fife Ness and put me ashore secretly in the Tay, as near to Castle Huntly as might be. I arrived last night, here. And these good folk have treated me full kindly.'

'Kindly! Dod Rait should have brought you straight to the castle. It is but three miles. Instead of keeping you, wife to the heir of Gray, in this cabin…'

'Not so, Davy. They know not who I am, for one thing. I could not come to Castle Huntly. My lord would scarce welcome me, I think! Would he? I am the wife of a condemned and exiled felon, banished the realm. I must go warily indeed. It was you that I had to see – you whom I knew would guide and help me.'

'Aye – that I will, to be sure. But… was it wise to come, my lady?'

'Wise! Wise! Is Davy Gray doubting already? Is that my welcome? Would you that I had stayed away?'

'No. But there are hazards – grave hazards. Patrick's credit is low, my lady. The Armada business…'

'There are hazards in living, Davy – in breathing! And it is to improve Patrick's credit that I am here, see you. But… am I to be my lady to you again? Would you keep me at a distance? Was it not Marie that you named me, Davy when first you beheld me? I thought I heard it. Am I not your good-sister. And before I was that – your friend?'

'Aye. You are kind.' David Gray could look very grim at times. 'But you are the Lady Marie Stewart, daughter to the Earl of Orkney, and own cousin to the King.' That was true. Her father, the Lord Robert Stewart, former Bishop and now Earl of Orkney, was one of King James Fifth's many bastards, brother on the wrong side of the blanket to the late Mary Queen of Scots. 'You are a great lady. And I am… '

'Stop! We all know what you are, Davy Gray! The proudest, stiffest-necked man in this kingdom!' She shook her coifed golden head, but smiled at him warmly nevertheless. 'The man who bought my husband's life, when no one else could, at great cost to himself. I have never had opportunity truly to thank you for that, Davy.' She laid a hand on his arm. 'I do now. I do, indeed. And, alas, need your help once more.'

'It is yours, always.'

'Yes, Davy dear. I know it. Like, like a warm glow at my heart that thought has been, many a weary day.' She mustered a laugh. 'Patrick says, indeed, that you are the only man who could make him jealous of his wife…!'

David's face was wiped clean of expression. 'That is no way to talk, your ladyship,' he said evenly. 'Nor this any place to talk, at all. Come – can you mount my beast? In these fine clothes? And in your, your present state? Mary can ride behind you, holding you. And I will walk, leading the beast. It will be quite safe, I think. I will send for your baggage later.'

'Lord – of course I can ride, Davy! I am not that far gone. But five months. Do I look so monstrous? But… where will you take me?'

'To Castle Huntly. Where else?'

'But I cannot go there. Surely you see it? Anywhere but there. My lord always was out of love with Patrick. Now, he will have none of him, or his, I swear. And I will not come begging his charity. Or any man's. Save… save perhaps yours, Davy Gray!' She shook her head again. 'Besides, it would not do. Lord Gray is a notable pillar of the Kirk. Though no Catholic myself, I will be held to be one for Patrick's sake. To harbour me at Castle Huntly could do my lord much harm – you all, perhaps. I thought to go to my half-sister's house – Eupham, that is married to Mark Ogilvie, of Glen Prosen. If you could help me to win that far…'

'We go to the castle,' David interrupted her bluntly.

'But, Davy – what of my lord…?'

'Allow me to deal with my lord! That Patrick's wife, bearing Patrick's child, should seek shelter in her need anywhere but at Castle Huntly is unthinkable. Leave my lord to… to his steward!'

'And your Mariota?'

David was a little less definite. 'Mariota will, will rejoice to see you,' he said.

'I hope so, yes. But… ' She shrugged and sighed. 'She is well? How does she, the fair Mariota?'

'She is well – and in the same state as you are!'

'Oh!'

'Yes. Now – we will take leave of the Raits here. How much of belongings have you…?'

So presendy the trio were pacing across the flats of the carse, the Lady Marie mounted with Mary Gray behind her and the man leading the garron. Ahead, the great towering mass of Castle Huntly reared its turrets and battlements above the plain like a heavy frown in stone, even in the golden sunlight. To its presumed future mistress it seemed less than beckoning.

'My lord has been away at Foulis Castle these two days,' David informed her. 'But he will be back tonight.' 'Then I had rather be gone by then,' she said.

The presence of a number of stamping, shouting men-at-arms in the castle courtyard, when they arrived, indicated that Lord Gray had in fact returned home earlier than anticipated. As David aided the Lady Marie to dismount, young Mary slipped down and ran on ahead, and in at the main door of the keep.

Mariota came hurrying down the winding stone stairway to welcome them, in consequence, greeting the newcomer with a sort of uneasy kindness, all flustered surprise, bemoaning her own unsuitable attire, that she had had no warning, my lord's untimely arrival, exclaiming how bonny was my lady, how tired she must be coming all that way from France, how sad to be parted from dear Patrick, and was he well, happy? All in a breathless flood.

Marie kissed her warmly. They made a strange contrast, these two, both so very fair to look upon, but so very different in almost every respect. David considered them thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. Into the chatter of exclamation and half-expressed question and answer, he presently interrupted, gently but firmly.

'Up with you,' he declared. 'Here is no place for talk. Let the Lady Marie in, at least, my dear. She will be weary, hungry. She needs seating, comfort, refreshment. Up the stairs with you. Our rooms are on high, but they are at your service…'

'Indeed!' a hoarse voice challenged heavily. The Lord Gray had appeared on a half-landing just above, a stocky massive figure, a furred robe thrown hastily over and only part-covering his dishabille. At his broad back, a hand tentatively within one of his arms, was his grand-daughter. 'In my house, I say what rooms are at whose service! Bring the lady into my chamber, Davy!'

Marie sank in a curtsy. 'Greetings, my lord,' she said. 'I hope that I find you well? I am but passing on my way… elsewhere… '

'Aye,' he answered shordy. 'No doubt.'

'I think not,' David put in quietly, evenly. 'Patrick's wife does not pass Castle Huntly!'

'Eh…? Fiend seize me – who are you to speak?'

'One who esteems the name and honour of Gray, sir. And, since we are privy here, and all of a family as it were – your eldest son!'

'Damn you, you…!' My lord all but choked, unable to find breath or words.

Mary found them.*We knew that you would wish to honour the King's own cousin, Granlord.'

'Ah… ummm.'

'And very beautiful, is she not?'

'Wheesht, child – hold your tongue!' her grandfather got out, but in a different tone of voice. 'A pox – but I'll be master in my own house, see you!' He jabbed a thick accusatory finger, but at David. 'Mind it, man – mind it, I say!' He turned on Marie. 'How came you here? And where is yon graceless popinjay that has bairned you? If he it was!'

'Yes, my lord – he it was,' Marie answered without heat, even smiling a little. 'I carry your heir. I would have thought that you would have rejoiced to see it. I am new come, by ship from Dieppe, secretly – where I left Patrick.'

'Thank the good God he's no' here, at least! Why are you come, woman?'

'I have good reasons, sir. One, that you would wish the heir to Gray to be born where you could see it, I believed. Not in some foreign land. Was I wrong?'

The older man grunted. 'A mercy that you came secretly, at the least,' he said, after a moment. 'None know that you are here, then?'

'None who know who I am.'

'My lord – the Lady Marie is tired. Unfit to be standing thus. In her condition. She must have food and wine…'

'I am very well, Davy. I seek nothing…'

'I said to bring her into my room, did I no'?' Gray barked. And turning about abruptly, he went stamping back up the stairs.

As David took Marie's arm, to aid her upstairs, she held back, shaking her head. 'No, Davy,' she declared. 'I had liefer go now. Away. It is as I thought. This house is no place for me. He is set against Patrick, and therefore me… '

The man did not relax his grip, and propelled her forward willy-nilly. 'You will stay in this house,' he said grimly. 'It is your right. He will do as I say, in the end. For he needs me, does my lord of Gray! I know too much. Come, Marie…'

'And do not take my lord too sorely,' Mariota advised, biting her lip. 'He has a rough tongue, and proud. But he is not so ill as he sounds. And… I think that he loves Patrick at heart, more than he will say.'

'Forby, he loves beautiful ladies!' Mary added, with a little laugh. 'So smile at him, Lady Marie – smile much and warmly. And he will not withstand you long!'

'Tut, girl…!' her father reproved.

They went upstairs together, three of them turning in at my lord's private chamber just above the great hall of the castle, and Mariota proceeding higher to collect viands and refreshment for the guest.

The master of the house stood at the window of a comparatively small apartment, the stone floor of which constituted the top of the great hall's vaulted ceiling. It was snug, overwarm indeed, for my lord liked a fire here summer and winter in the fireplace with the elaborate heraldic overmantel showing the Gray arms of rampant red lion on silver, carved in stone. Skins of sheep and deer covered the floor, and the stone walls were hung with arras, again embroidered heraldically. Gray gestured towards one of the two chairs of that room without leaving the window, for Marie to sit down.

'Patrick?' he jerked, not looking at her. 'Is he well enough?' And lest that might seem too mawkishly solicitous, 'And what follies and mischiefs and schemes is he up to in France or Rome or whatever ill-favoured land he's plaguing with his presence now?'

'He is well, yes,' Marie answered. 'And as for his schemes… well, Patrick is Patrick, is he not?'

'Aye!' That came out on an exhalation of breath that was something between a groan and a sigh. He turned round to stare at the young woman now. 'Why did he send you here?' he demanded directly. 'I ken Patrick, God pity me! You didna come without he sent you. And he didna send you just to drop your bairn in front o' me, where I could see it! Na, na. He doesna care that for me, or mine!' The older man snapped his fingers. 'Unless for my gear and lands.'

'I think that you wrong him, my lord,' Marie told him quietly. 'But at least credit him with the desire that there should be no doubts about the birth of the heir of Gray.' She smiled a little. 'And that not on account of your lands and gear! Believe me, sir, great as these may be, Patrick looks for greater.'

'Eh…?'

'He is determined to win back the Abbey of Dunfermline and its revenues, from the Earl of Huntly.'

'Christ God – the more fool he, then! The prinking prideful ninny! He'll never do that'

'He will try, my lord, without a doubt.'

David, frowning, spoke. 'I mislike this,' he said. 'I mislike it, for many reasons. It is folly, dangerous, flying too high. But it is less than honourable, too. And it brings me into it. For he used me to offer Dunfermline to Huntly. I made the bargain for him – Dunfermline for his life. Dunfermline for Huntly to get me into the King's presence, so that I could bargain with James also! Now, to go back on it…'

'Faugh!' his father interrupted him scornfully. 'Save your breath, man! Patrick's no' concerned with honour, or keeping bargains, or aught else but his own benefit.' He swung back on Marie. 'But here's idle chatter. He'll no' get back Dunfermline – that's sure. And dinna tell me, woman, that he sent you here on such fool's errand? You!'

'No,' she agreed patiendy. 'That is not part of my errand. That he must look to himself – if he can win back to Scotland. It is to intercede with the King to permit his return – that is my duty.'

'Ha! Now we have it. And near as much a fool's errand as the other! You'll no' manage that, I'll vow! He's banished for life, is he no'?'

'What decree the King has made, the King can unmake, she asserted. 'And I am not banished. If I can come to my father in Edinburgh, he will bring me into the King's presence.'

'To what end, woman – to what end? The King's cousin you may be-in bastardy – but that winna serve to gain Patrick's remission. You pleading for him on your bended knees, weeping woman's tears? Think you that will move our Jamie? Or the Chancellor? And the Council? Condemned by the Council o' the Realm for highest treason and the death o' the King's bonny mother, think you that tears and pleas will bring him back? None want him here. You'll need a better key than a woman's snuffles to open the door o' Scotland again to Patrick Gray!'

'That key,' she told him calmly, 'perhaps I have.'

All gazed at her – and Mariota's entrance at this moment with food and wine was greeted with considerable impatience by my lord. It was pushed aside peremptorily.

'What mean you?' Marie was challenged. 'How can you have anything such? What is this?'

'The King's marriage,' she answered.

There was silence in that overheated chamber.

'Patrick has been busy,' she went on, but levelly, factually, almost wearily. 'He has not wasted his time abroad. He has been working for a match between James and the Princess Catherine, sister to King Henry of Navarre.'

'Patrick…? The King's matching?' my lord gobbled. 'Devil slay me – what insolence! What effrontery!'

'Navarre…!' David exclaimed. 'But… what of the Danish match?'

'Patrick believes this better, of more worth. Henry of Navarre is the Protestant champion – whilst the Danish royal house is known to be unsure in its religion, inclining back towards the old faith…'

'God's Body – is Patrick concerned now for the Protestants! What next, woman?'

Marie ignored that. 'Moreover, Navarre will be heir to France. And Patrick believes the King of France to be sickening.'

She had them silenced now.

'And the King of Scots married to a sister of great France is a different matter to him married to the daughter of little Denmark'

That was not to be denied. David, somewhat abstractedly, began to offer refreshment to their guest, while his father hummed and hawed.

'This… this is scarce believable,' the latter got out. 'That Patrick should dare fly this high – a condemned man!'

'Flying a high hawk never troubled Patrick,' David said. 'No doubt we were foolish to believe that he would change just because he was banished. But… how much substance has this project, Marie? What says King Henry of Navarre? Does he even know aught of it?'

She nodded. 'Patrick has been closeted with him more than once. He is agreeable, it seems. The matter has reached the stage of considering the worth of the dowry…'

'Precious soul o' God – and King Jamie kens naught o' it, woman?'

'That is why I am sent, my lord. To apprise him of it. Of its… advantages.'

David noticed the tiny hesitation on Marie's part before she used that term.

'Aye. But what makes Patrick believe that this ploy will win him back into the King's favour?' his father asked. 'A big jump that, is it no'? Agile jumper as he may be!'

'Perhaps, sir. But Patrick does not seek to take it all in one jump, I think. He has kept all in his own hands, thus far – so that, if James is interested, it will be necessary for Patrick himself to come here to Court to discuss it. And once back in the King's presence, Patrick does not fear but that he will stay there. He swayed James before, readily enough; he does not fear that he cannot do so again.'

My lord could only wag his bull-like head. 'The devil!' he muttered. 'Cunning as the Devil himself! I' faith – he almost makes me misdoubt my own wife's chastity!'

'Marie,' David said carefully. 'We have heard the advantages of this project. But I think that there are disadvantages, are there not?'

She looked at him for a moment steadily, before she answered, level-voiced. 'Catherine of Bourbon is ugly, crooked and no longer young,' she said. 'Moreover, few I think, would name her chaste.'

'Oh, no!' That was a young voice, in involuntary urgent protest, as Mary Gray broke the hush. 'Not that!'

The Mistress of Gray looked down at the goblet of wine in her hand, and said nothing.

David considered her thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

My lord produced something between snort and chuckle. 'Hours!' he said. 'No insuperable barrier to a royal match, yon! Forby, she'd no' be getting aught so different herself -save maybe in years! Jamie's no' that much o' a catch!'

'He is the King of Scots, Granlord,' the girl demurred in quiet reproach.

'Aye, God help him!'

'You will not acquaint His Grace of this? Of the Princess's… quality?' David asked, in a moment or two.

The Lady Marie's answer was to put her hand into a brocaded satchel-purse that hung from the girdle of her travelling-gown. From it she produced a miniature portrait, painted on ivory, within a delicately gemmed frame. She handed it to

David. It showed a young woman, oval-faced and pale, richly dressed and bejewelled, almost dwarfed within a high upstanding ruffed and pearled collar.

'She looks none so ill,' he said, passing it to his father.

Faindy Marie smiled. 'A Court painter may flatter,' she observed. 'And that was painted ten years ago, at the least.'

My lord was admiring the diamonds round the frame. 'Potent persuasion this!' he mentioned. 'And the dowry? What of that?'

She shook her head. 'Of that I have no knowledge. It would be necessary for Patrick himself to come to Scotland to discuss it.'

'Oh, aye. rph'mmm. No doubt. So he baits his trap, the miscreant!' Lord Gray took a heavy limping pace or two about his chamber. 'Cunning, artful, I grant you. If this match should take place…! France! It would be a great matter for the realm. For Scotland. For us all. Aye – and for Patrick Gray!' He turned on Marie. 'How comes it that he is so close with Henry of Navarre?'

'Patrick has a nose for… for keys! Keys that will open doors. And a powerful colleague in Elizabeth Tudor. The Protestant lioness and the Protestant lion!'

'Elizabeth!' David exclaimed. 'The Queen? You mean… you mean that he deals with Elizabeth still? After all that has happened? Elizabeth, who betrayed him?'

'He writes to her, or to Burleigh, or to Walsingham, each week.'

'But… but this is scarce to be believed! He hates Elizabeth. She played with him, led him on, and then worked his downfall. With Maitland and James. Elizabeth, that monument of perfidy – his chiefest enemy!'

The young woman shook her head. 'That is not how Patrick views it, Davy. For him, it is all the game of statecraft. He does not cherish friends or enemies. He does not measure injuries done to him… nor that he does to others. He uses the cards that come to his hands – uses, you understand?' She sighed a long quivering sigh. 'Would it were not so! God – would he were as other men! But he is not. He is… Patrick Gray. And I am his wife. I married him knowing him. Elizabeth betrayed him, yes – but had he not betrayed her beforehand? They are of one kidney. But she is Queen of England, and therefore an important card in his game indeed, to be played if he can..

'But the Armada of Spain! That was to destroy her? That he built his hopes on…?'

'Did he, do you think? Another card in the same game, Davy.'

'A card that went sore agley, 'fore God!' my lord snorted. 'I'm hoping this new card o' his, this Navarre match, isna like to go the same way, eh?'

Marie looked at him coolly, directly. 'You hope…? You approve of the venture then, my lord? Of the attempt that I am here for?'

'Me? I didna say that, did I, woman? Me approve? Na, na -I said no such thing,' the older man blustered. 'An unlikely day it'll be when I approve o' any plot o' Patrick's! But… if Elizabeth o' England is behind this match, it's no' to be taken lightly. And Navarre is heir to France, right enough. The French king is young. But if he is ailing…' He coughed. 'And I am a good Protestant, forby!'

Marie smiled slighdy.

'Aye, then.' My lord seemed to make up his mind. 'I'll see that you get to my lord of Orkney your father's house in Edinburgh. I'll no' take you, mind – for thanks to Patrick my credit's no' high at Court. But I'll see that you win there. Davy here will take you, belike. Till then, you can bide here.'

She inclined her golden head. 'Thank you, my lord. This is generous indeed. More generous by far than I looked for. Or Patrick either!' She met his shrewd little pig's eye. 'But I shall not burden you with my awkward presence for long, I assure you – for die sooner that I can reach the Court, the better. For this… this estimable royal project.'

'Aye. So be it'

She turned to David, and found him eyeing her strangely, intendy, almost sorrowfully, with little of gladness or elation in evidence over this happy change in her immediate fortunes. At his look she bit her lip, and mute appeal shot with some sort of pain clouded her clear grey eyes. She said nothing – nor did he.

It was Mary who spoke. 'May I see the picture, Granlord? she asked, and slipped over to take the miniature portrait from her grandfather. She looked at it closely, and then from it to the Lady Marie.

'No!' she declared briefly, softly, but with a strange finality.

'I am sorry,' Marie Stewart said – and sounded as though she meant it.