The Courtesan mog-2

by Nigel Tranter

  Chapter Five

  A bare three weeks after Patrick Gray's dramatic return to Scotland, the country was in a turmoil. The Catholics had risen again. All of Scotland, north of Aberdeen, was said to be in revolt, and the Earls of Huntly and Erroll declaring that they would march south forthwith and would be in the capital to rescue their King in a week or so. The departure of the Earl Marischal for Denmark was said to be the immediate cause of this; he was the Protestant's strong man in the north, and co-lieutenant with Huntly for the King's rule in those vast and unmanageable territories. There appeared to be more than just this in it, however, for the madcap Earl of Bothwell, with the assistance of the turbulent and widespread Border clan of the Homes, had assembled what amounted to an army near Kelso, and threatened to march on Edinburgh from the south should the royal forces move north against Huntly. This was curious, for Bothwell and the Homes were no Catholics. What was their objective in this affair was not clear – though it was assumed that the downfall of Maitland the Chancellor and his friends from their positions of power around the King, must be the aim. There were those in Court and government circles, nevertheless, who did not fail to point out that, equally curiously, the Master of Gray, only two or three days after his son's christening, had disappeared off in the direction of the Borders, ostensibly to visit his disreputable cousin Logan of Restalrig and his aunt, the former Lady Logan, now married to the Lord Home – and had been away for a full week.

  However, base suspicions on this score were lulled, if not altogether scotched, when, on word of Bothwell's threat reaching Edinburgh, Patrick, newly returned to town, sought audience of the King – and, strangely enough, of the Chancellor. He urged that a strong and vigorous gesture be made forthwith against the unruly Borderers, whereupon, he vowed, Bothwell would not actually fight. Moreover, he was able, loyally and almost miraculously, to warn King and Chancellor of a nefarious conspiracy to seize their persons, by certain ill-willed folk about the capital – who, when arrested and suitably put to the question, admitted that such had been their aim, and were thereafter satisfactorily hanged. Since James had an almost morbid dread of such plots, and Maitland was a deal more at home with clerkly administration than military action, the Master's advice was taken, if doubtfully, and a force of the levies of Protestant lords in the Lothians hurriedly assembled. And lo, as prophesied, Bothwell's force, which had meantime reached as near as Haddington, seventeen miles from Edin-burg, promptly melted away, shrinking, it was reliably reported, to a mere thirty horse.

  Flushed with this demonstration of the value of firm action, the King smiled upon the useful Master of Gray, and called upon all leal lords, the Kirk, and his faithful burghs, to provide him with a sufficiency of armed men to march north to deal with the much more serious threat of the Catholic rising, at the same time issuing a proclamation ordering all men to forsake the service of the Earls of Huntly, Erroll and Bothwell, on pain of treason.

  This Catholic threat had indeed cast its shadow elsewhere than on the Court and Capital. Dundee was the nearest large Protestant city south of Aberdeen and of Huntly's domains. When reports of Catholic columns reaching as far south as Bervie and Montrose, and of raiding Gordon bands pouring down the Angus glens, began to reach Dundee, the Provost and magistrates and ministers of the kirk of that God-fearing city perceived the need for drastic action. Walls were hastily repaired, gates strengthened, citizens called up. Dudhope Castle, the town's fortress, was stocked and garrisoned, and a deputation sent hot-foot to call upon the Lord Gray to urge that Broughty Castle, the key to the city from the east and seaward, be likewise garrisoned and put in a state of defensive readiness forthwith.

  My lord, in some agitation and with no little reluctance -for his castle of Broughty, for one reason and another, was not in a good state of repair – and the expense of doing what was necessary would undoubtedly fall wholly upon his own pocket – agreed to see what could be done. In no sunny frame of mind, and at the almost feverish pleadings of the Provost and Sir John Scrymgeour, the Hereditary Constable of Dundee, he set off for Broughty, hailing David Gray his steward along with him.

  This was the distinctly involved and dramatic situation prevailing when, the very next morning, on a sunny and sparkling July day, the Master of Gray, with his wife and baby son, attended by only two servitors belonging to Marie's father, returned, unexpected and unannounced to his birthplace, onetime home, and presumably future seat of Castle Huntly, after an absence of years – for he had been estranged from his father for long before his trial and banishment. In the absence of my lord and Davy, Mary Gray greeted them, and joyfully, all laughter and delight. She explained that her grandfather and father had been at Broughty Castle since the day before, and it was not known when they would be back. Patrick announced that, much as he would have preferred to stay at Castle Huntly with herself and her mother, it was his father that he had come to see, and as the matter had some urgency, he would ride on to Broughty forthwith. Mary, despite the attractions of cosseting and cherishing the baby Andrew, declared that she also would ride to Broughty with him – her Uncle Patrick nowise objecting. The Lady Marie was glad enough, apparently, to remain with Mariota, having ridden from Megginch that morning.

  Pensively the two women watched the man and girl ride off eastwards, thinking their own thoughts.

  The larks carolled, the sun shone, the countryside basked, and Patrick Gray seemed to have not a care in the world this fine morning. He was barely out of earshot of the castle gatehouse before he began to sing. He had an excellent lightsome tenor voice, and plunged straight into some gay and melodious French air which seemed to bubble over with droll merriment. It took only a few moments for Mary to catch the lilt and rhythm of it, and to add her own joyful trilling accompaniment, wordless but effective. Thereafter they sang side by side in laughing accord, clear, uninhibited, neither in the least self-conscious, caring naught for the astonished stares of the villagers of Longforgan or the embarrassed frowns of the two Orkney servants who rode well to the rear as though to disassociate themselves from the unseemly performance in front.

  After the village there was a long straight stretch of road before it reached the coast at Invergowrie, and with a flourish Patrick smacked his horse into a canter. Not to be outdone, Mary prompdy urged her own mount to a round gallop, passing the man with a skirled challenge, hair flying dark behind, her already short enough skirt blown back above long, graceful legs. Shouting, the Master spurred after her, gradually overtaking, until neck and neck they thundered together, raising a cloud of brown dust all along a couple of miles of rutted highway, whilst cattle scattered in nearby fields, folk peered from cot-house doors and the grooms behind cursed and made pretence of keeping up.

  Just short of Invergowrie they pulled in their frothing beasts to a trot once more, the girl panting breathless laughter and pulling down her skirt. Patrick reached out, to run a hand down her flushed cheek and over her shoulder and the heaving curve of her young bosom.

  'We are sib… you and I… are we not?' he said.

  'Indeed, yes,' she agreed, frankly. 'Would it not be strange if we were not… since you sired me?'

  'M'mmm.' Sidelong he looked at her, silenced.

  She turned in her saddle. 'You did not think that I did not know, Uncle Patrick?' she wondered.

  'I… I was uncertain. Your father… h'mmm… my brother, Davy Gray – he has never said…'

  'Not to me. But I knew, years ago. Many made sure that I knew.'

  'Aye, many would! But… ' He smiled again. 'God bless you – it was the best thing that ever I did, I vow!'

  'A better would have been to wed my mother, would it not?'

  It took him a moment or two to answer that. 'Perhaps you are right, my dear,' he admitted, quietly for him. 'I… I do not always choose the better course, I fear.'

  'No,' she agreed simply. 'That I know also.'

  Again the swift sidelong glance. 'You are like me, child, God knows. But… in some ways, curse me,
you're devilish like Davy also! Like your, your Uncle Davy.'

  She nodded seriously. 'I hope so, yes. For he is the finest man in this realm, I do believe. But… he is Father, not Uncle Davy. He, he fathered me, whilst you but sired me, Uncle Patrick. There is a difference, is there not?'

  The Master of Gray looked away, his handsome features suddenly still, mask-like. 'Aye,' he said.

  They rode in silence, then, through Invergowrie, and kept down by the shore-track thereafter to avoid the climbing narrow streets and wynds of hilly Dundee.

  As they went, they could see men busily engaged in building up the broken town walls, and at the boat-harbour others urgently unloading vessels.

  'It is an ill thing when people must fear their own folk, their own countrymen, because of the way that they worship the same God, is it not?' Mary observed. 'I do not understand why it should be.'

  Tt is one of the major follies of men,' her companion acceded. 'A weakness, apparently, in all creeds.'

  'Yes. A weakness that, they say, you use for your own purposes, Uncle Patrick. Is it so, indeed?'

  He puckered his brows, wary-eyed – for Patrick Gray seldom actually frowned. 'I must use what tools come to my hand, my dear.'

  'For your own purposes, always?'

  'For purposes that I esteem as good, child.'

  'Good for whom, Uncle Patrick?'

  'Lord, Mary – what is this that you have become? You talk like a minister of the Kirk, I swear! How old are you? You cannot be more than just sixteen – for I am but thirty-one myself! Here is no talk, no thoughts, for a girl. You should be thinking of other things at your age, lass. Happier things. To do with clothing and pretty follies. With lads and wooing. With courting and marriage, maybe…'

  Direcdy she turned to face him, clear eyed. 'Like King Jamie, perhaps?'

  Patrick touched mouth and chin. 'The King's wooing is of rather more serious import, my dear. So much may depend upon it. An heir to the throne, the peace and prosperity of the realm, the weal – perhaps even the lives – of many.'

  Gravely, almost judicially, she inclined her head. 'That is what I thought, yes. That is why, Uncle Patrick, I sent word to the King about the Princess of Navarre.'

  'You… what?'

  'I sent word to the King. Through Vicky. Through the Duke of Lennox. Vicky does what I say, you see. I sent him word that the lady was ill-favoured and old and would bed with any. As the Lady Marie told Father.'

  'Precious soul of God – you! It was you? You who turned James against the match? After all my labour, my scheming…!'

  'Yes.'

  'But this is beyond all belief! That you, you my own daughter, should think to do such a thing! And why? Why, in God's name?'

  'Because it was not good. Surely you see it? The Lady Marie is true and honest She would not lie – not to Davy

  Gray. If the Princess is bad, and old, and ugly, then she should not be Queen in Scotland. King Jamie is but ill-favoured himself. With an old and ugly queen, would not the Crown be made to seem the more foolish? Weak, when it needs rather to be strong? If she is old, it might be that there would be no child, no heir to the throne. And that is important, is it not? Did you not just say so? Moreover, if she is but a whore, it could be that if a child there was, none would know who sired it. I think that would have been but an ill turn to Scotland, Uncle Patrick. So I sent word to Vicky. And that the little picture was ten years old, and a flattery.'

  The Master of Gray let his breath go in a long sigh. He did not speak.

  'I am sorry that you are angry,' she went on, reaching over to touch his arm. 'Do not be angry. Was what I did wrong?'

  Slowly he turned to consider her, all of her, vital, lovely, pleading, yet somehow also compassionate, forbearing, so unassumingly sure of herself. Swallowing, he shook his head.

  'I am not angry,' he said. 'And, Heaven forgive me, you were not wrong!'

  Mary smiled then, warmly, nodding her head three or four times as though in confirmation of what she already knew.

  They were not much more than half-way to Broughty Castle, but already they could see it rearing proud and seeming defiant on its little peninsula that thrust out into the estuary four or five miles ahead. Something of a fortress this, rather than an ordinary castle, the Grays had used it for generations, in conjunction with another at Ferry-Port-on-Craig on the Fife shore opposite, to command the entrance of the Tay, thus narrowed by headlands. Theoretically it was for the defence of Dundee and other Tay ports, but in fact had been used to levy tolls and tribute from all shipping using the harbours – a notable source of the Gray wealth. My lord's father, the fourth lord, had shamefully surrendered it to the English under Somerset nearly forty years before, during a disagreement with the Queen Regent, Mary of Guise; and my lord himself, two years later, had gained his limp and almost lost his life seeking to retake it. The damage done then, by cannon-fire, had never been fully repaired – hence the present crisis.

  As man and girl rode on along the scalloped coast, presently Mary began to sing again, a sweetly haunting melody of an older Scotland still. Patrick did not join in now, but he eyed her, time and time again, as she sang, wonderingly, thoughtfully, calculatingly – and when her sparkling eye caught his own, he mustered a smile.

  It was seldom indeed that the Master of Gray did not set the pace in any company that he graced.

  They came to Broughty Craig two hours after leaving Castle Huntly, and found it as busy as an ant-hill, with men re-digging the great moat which cut off the headland from landward, shoring up timber barricades against the broken battlements, filling in gaps in the sheer curtain-walling with its many wide gun-loops. It was a more gloomy frowning place than Castle Huntly, less tall but more massive, consisting of a great square free-standing tower of five storeys, immensely thick-walled and small-windowed, rising from an oddly-shaped enclosure, almost like a ship, which followed faithfully the outline of the rocky headland itself, this latter also provided at its corners with smaller round flanking towers. Around three sides the sea surged, and under the stern ramparts the harbour crouched – the ferry harbour, which was another source of my lord's revenues, since none might come and go across the estuary to St. Andrew's, without paying a suitable tax. Other ferries were effectively discouraged.

  The newcomers found David in the courtyard superintending the hoisting of heavy timber beams up the outer walling to the dizzy parapet-walk at top floor level, doublet discarded and sleeves uprolled like any labouring man. He stared at his spectacularly clad brother, astonished, and then curtly ordered him to wait, and safely out of the way, while the delicate process of hoisting was completed. Then, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair, he came over to them.

  'What brings you here, Patrick?' he demanded. 'My lord is here. Within. Talking with your brother Gilbert, and the Provost…'

  'What of it, Davy? May a man not call upon his father, on occasion? Even such a father as ours? And Gibbie – Lord, I have not seen Gibbie for years. Eight years. Ten. He will be a man now, also, of course.'

  'He is laird of Mylnefield, and a burgess and bailie of Dundee.'

  'All that? Young running-nosed Gibbie! It makes me feel old, I vow! Well, well – let us within.'

  'Patrick – think you it is wise?' David sounded hesitant, uneasy. 'My lord – he is in no sunny mood. With all this expense…'

  'The more reason that she should be gladdened by the sight of his missing son and heir – if not his firstborn, Davy! Besides, I can save our skinflint sire some of this foolish expense – ever the sure road to his heart! Come.'

  Patrick led the way in at the door of the keep, Mary and David following. The girl slipped her hand within her father's arm.

  'Uncle Patrick is not afraid, Father,' she murmured. 'So why should you be? He has faced more terrible folk than Granlord, I think.'

  'It is not your Uncle Patrick for whom I am afraid, girl!' David answered briefly, grimly.

  They heard voices from the great hall on t
he first floor, and mounted the worn steps thereto. The place was less large than might have been expected, owing to the great thickness of the walls, and only dimly lit by its small deep-set windows. Moreover it was but scantily furnished with a vast elm table in the middle of the stone-flagged floor, and a few chairs and benches. My lord had always least liked this castle of the many that he had inherited – partly no doubt on account of the shattered knee-cap, won here, that he had carried with him for forty years – and maintained it was only a keeper-cum-toll-gatherer and a few men, none of whom used this great central keep. It was cool in here however, at least, after the mid-day July heat outside – although the musty smells of bats and rats and damp stone caught the throat. Two men sat, with tankards in their hands but all attention, at the great table, and the third limped back and forth before them, declaiming vehemently.

  At sound of the newcomers, my lord looked around, though he halted neither his pacing nor his harangue at first. Undoubtedly the dim lighting denied him identification -although the younger of the seated men got slowly to his feet, staring at the doorway. Probably it was this that made the nobleman glance again, and he perceived at least Mary Gray there, with Davy and the superbly dressed visitor. His heavy sagging features lightened, and if the growl did not go right out of his voice, it developed something of a chuckle.

  'Ha – my poppet! My ain pigeon! Is that yoursel', lassie? What brings you, like a blink o' sunshine, into this thrice-damned sepulchre o' a place? Eh? And who's that you've got wi' you bairn…?'

  'Can you not see, Granlord? Is not this splendid?'

  'Does blood not speak louder than words, my lord?' Patrick asked pleasandy. 'I rejoice to see you well. And active in, h'm, well-doing.'

  'Christ God!'

  'Scarce that, my lord – just your son Patrick!'

  The older man groped almost blindly for the support of the table. His thick lips moved, but no sound issued therefrom. Mary ran to his side, to take his other hand.