'Sink me!' Patrick said, narrowing his eyes. 'I think that I recognise those colours. All too many quarter the royal arms of Scotland with a bend-sinister – but only one adds to them the white chevron on red of Hepburn!'
'Bothwell!' the Duke gasped. 'That man – here!'
The horsemen came prancing right to the enclosure, only pulling up when their foam-flecked mounts were directly against the rope barrier itself – their leader indeed jerking back his great roan so vigorously to its haunches that it reared pawing forefeet right above the heads of some of the alarmed young women, who pressed back screaming. Its rider laughed mockingly.
'I have been seeking you, my lord Duke,' he cried. 'I find you choose better company than I gave you credit for!' And he ran a scurrilous eye over the shrinking ranks of the ladies.
Lennox glowered at him, uncertainly. 'I… I bid you welcome, my lord of Bothwell,' he got out, reluctantly. 'I did not expect you.' Ludovick was little of the diplomat. He looked askance at the large contingent of Hepburn and Home lairds jostling behind the other, all clad for battle it seemed rather than for a royal reception, not to mention the fifty or so shaggy wild-looking moss-troopers who escorted them.
'My lord of Bothwell's known love and esteem for the King's Grace has brought him here hot-foot, Vicky,' Patrick said, easily, at his side. 'It could not be otherwise.'
'Ha, Master of Gray – whose friend are you today?' Bothwell asked coolly. 'On my soul, it will repay a man to know such a thing, any day of the year!'
'Why, my lord – your friend, of course. And the King's And, naturally, my lord Duke's. Indeed, I cannot for the life of me think of any that I would have as unfriend this May day… save only, of course, the King's enemies, who must always be mine!'
'Ha?' That was part-question, part-snort, as Bothwell searched Patrick's face. He threw himself down from his horse, tossing the reins to his banner-bearer. He was a tall, powerful young man, not yet thirty, with a high complexion, sandy hair and eyebrows, and vividly blue unquiet eyes – with little or nothing of the Stewart about him, although his father had been one more of James Fifth's bastard brood who had married the sister of the previous and notorious Bothwell, Mary the Queen's third husband. Two half-sisters of his were amongst the Maids of Honour, but he spared them no glance. He was dressed in his habitual steel and leather. 'I saw James's ships from St. Abb's Head, this morning, and came apace. In lieu of other business!' He jerked a laugh. 'I seem to have outpaced the ships!'
'Aye. These winds have been much against them. But they are close now. Your leal fervour, my lord, must be notably hot to bring you thus far so fast!'
The Earl hooted rudely. 'Say that I cannot delay to set eyes on the wench who has cheated me out of Dunfermline Abbey!' he said, making no attempt to lower his strong, throaty voice.
The Master of Gray could not wholly repress his start. Closely he eyed the other, however suddenly expressionless his handsome features. 'Indeed, my lord? You… you know, then?'
'Aye. A letter was writ to me. Unsigned. It was not from you? The courier came from Dundee. I esteemed it from Broughty.'
'Is that so? M'mmm. Many people have been dwelling thereabouts, of late,' the Master said slowly. His glance slid from Lennox to flicker over the company at large.
'The men in the watchtower declare the King's ships just off the harbour-mouth,' a new voice announced. The high buildings that ringed the wharfside made it impossible to see seawards from the inner harbour.
'Lord – my good cousin Moray!' Bothwell exclaimed turning. 'Here's more joy!'
The Earl of Moray eyed him coldly. They were indeed cousins, like so many others present, but there was no love lost between them.
'Have your cannons to fire, then, Master Provost,' Patrick ordered the little stout man. 'Wait no longer.'
'But, sir – my lord,' Edinburgh's representative wailed. 'What o' the palace? What o' Holyroodhouse?' He was wringing plump hands. 'His Grace cannot go there.'
'Then he must needs go somewhere else, man. Lodge him here in Leith, meantime. In the Citadel, in the Kingswork. That will suit. It is his own house. Where the Duke was going to lodge some of his new Danish friends. Have men array it suitably for the King and Queen. Bring more tapestries, linen, napery. See you to it…'
The Lord Provost hurried away, unhappily, while Moray, who was acting Captain of the King's Guard, perforce changed his arrangements for escorting the royal procession up to Edinburgh.
Bothwell cast his hot eye over the assembled women judiciously, an undoubted expert. It did not take him long to single out Mary Gray, and to inflict upon her a fleeringly comprehensive inspection and summing up, despite the frowns of the Duke of Lennox who moved closer. Mary met his gaze calmly, almost interestedly, making her own assessment. There was a tittering and stirring amongst the throng of young women. Though not handsome like Moray, Bothwell had his own magnetism, sheer blatant and aggressive masculinity, his reputation contributing not a little.
Patrick, his own eyes busy, spoke pleasantly, conversationally. 'My lord, it is devilish crowded along this street and pierhead, is it not? Might I suggest to you to move your, h'm, host some other where?'
'You might not!' the other returned, casually, without so much as raising his glance from Mary Gray.
Patrick's voice did not change its tone. 'Nevertheless, my lord, you would probably find it convenient to do so presently. The pilot will bring his Grace's vessel exactly opposite here, and there is to be some ceremonial and spectacle. Room will be required for it. The provosts and bailies of the city, and the good gentry of the Kirk will be coming…'
'Foul fall you – d'you expect me, Bothwell, to stand aside for such rabble?'
'Not so – not you, my lord, naturally. I hope that you will remain here to greet their Graces, with the Duke and myself. It is only your, er, line of battle. I fear that there will be no room for…'
'There is room for me and mine wherever I choose to stand in this realm, fellow!' the Earl shouted. 'Remember it. I'll not be pushed aside by any simpering, jumped-up wardrobe-master, d'you hear? By God's eyes, I will not!'
Patrick's beautiful face went as still and set as marble, and a sort of glaze came over those lustrous eyes. He did not speak.
A shudder went through Mary Gray as she looked at him, and she bit her lip. Unknown to herself her fingers dug deeply into Ludovick's arm.
Perhaps that young man was urged on thereby. 'Then be so by me, my lord,' he said, into the immediate hush, bluntly. 'I bid you move your bullyrooks.'
'Christ God!' Bothwell ejaculated, fist dropping to his sword-hilt. 'French puppy! Spawn of a boot-licking jackanapes…!'
The rest was drowned in the crash of cannonry, as from the Citadel a few hundred yards away along the waterfront theroyal salute thundered out. Bothwell was left mouthing incomprehensibly.
None could have continued the dispute if they would, by any other means than actual blows. Most of the cannon from Edinburgh Castle had been brought down for the occasion, and the concussion in the confined space of Leith's tightly-packed tall tenements, was deafening and continuous. Everywhere men as well as women put their fingers in their ears, grimacing.
The gunfire achieved what Patrick and Ludovick had failed to do. The horses of Bothwell's cavalcade reared and plunged and sidled at the din, some backing almost over the edge of the pier and into the river. As the bombilation maintained with no sign of diminishment, the horsemen, for their own safety's sake, with one accord began to urge and guide their excited mounts away back up the crowded street, to put more distance between themselves and the source of the clangour. Angrily, the Earl looked after them.
Against this ear-shattering racket the final preparations to receive the happy monarch went forward somewhat incoherently. A number of black-robed divines came to take up a prominent position near the colourful band of young women, whom they did not fail to examine with every sign of disapprobation. The bailies and guild representatives of Edinburgh moved self-cons
ciously into their appointed places, the nobility and gentry only grudgingly giving them passage. A small boy dressed, it was calculated, as an angel, was pushed by his red-faced mother into the very forefront of the assembly and there abandoned to the embarrassed care of one of the city halberdiers; his open-mouthed crying fortunately could not be heard for the gunfire, and the more copiously he wept the tighter his dignified guardian gripped him – while appearing not so much as to be aware of his humiliating presence. A garlanded doorway in a timber frame was brought by some workmen, who set it upon the cobbles of the pier – when no sooner were they gone than it blew down in the gusty wind. Everybody eyed it askance, but it seemed to be nobody's business to set it up again – certainly not that of the ministers of Christ's Kirk, nor yet that of the city fathers. Bonfires were lit at strategic points in the vicinity; unfortunately the nearest one, at the harbour head to the west, appeared to be made of notably damp combustibles and produced little of flame, sent down vast clouds of thick smoke on the prevailing wind, to set the entire company coughing and mopping their eyes. As the fumes grew worse rather than abating, Patrick gave orders for the source thereof to be kicked bodily into the harbour.
'It is ever thus with King Jamie,' he shouted in his wife's ear. 'Heaven seldom smiles upon its ally, Christ's Viceregent!'
In the midst of all this, the mast-tops of a tall ship appeared above the lofty buildings seawards, from which the Royal Standard of Scotland streamed in the wind. Unfortunately, however, wait as the company would, the said masts seemed to draw no nearer. Eventually the agitated harbourmaster came hurrying to inform the Duke of Lennox that the King's ship had got as far as the outer harbour but by no means could make further progress against a direct head-wind, with no room to tack, into the inner harbour. Indeed she was dropping an anchor to keep her from being driven against the breakwater to seaward. What should he do? Should he launch small boats and bring off the royal party?
Ludovick looked unhappy. 'That will never do,' he declared. 'With the tide low, like this, it would mean His Grace climbing up a rope ladder to the pier! Twenty feet of it! And the Queen, too! No, no. Lord, that would never do!'
At his ear Patrick actually laughed. 'Is this not a problem for the Lord High Admiral?' he suggested, against the din. And he gestured at Bothwell, who still stood a little way apart.
That indeed was one of Bothwell's many offices – though one titular rather than military, even if productive of considerable revenues. When the situation was explained to him, he glared balefully at all concerned, but proffered no proposals.
'Might I suggest, my lord,' the Master shouted at length, 'that this is where all your horsemen could prove their worth? Ropes from the ship, and towed by teams of horses, would surely bring your liege lord safely into his own land!'
Plucking his small sandy beard, the Earl eyed him doubtfully, wordless.
'I see no other way. Do you, my lord Admiral?'
Cursing, Bothwell stamped off to collect his men.
So, after a prolonged and embarrassing delay, the royal flagship, sails down, was warped into the inner harbour of Leith and alongside the pier, at the tails of some two score horses, a proceeding that set at least the vulgar populace of the port hooting with hilarity. As the vessel drew jerkily near, James could be seen standing on the high poop deck, in gorgeous array of gold and purple, alternatively wringing his hands, shaking a clenched fist apparently at heaven, and clutching his very high hat to keep it from being blown off. About him stood a number of gentlemen, but no ladies. The cannonade redoubled its fury.
When at length the ship lay safely alongside the pier, and gangways were run out, the Duke, Sir Robert Melville acting Chancellor, and the Earl of Moray, were to go aboard to escort the royal couple ashore. But now all Bothwell's Borderers were milling about with their horses, disengaging them from their ropes, laughing uproariously, pushing aside ministers, bailies and all. The high officers of state seeking to thread their way through this melee, were inevitably delayed. The monarch himself, however, did not appear to find this awkward, and in fact came hurrying ashore himself the moment the gangway from his poop was down, apparently anxious only to get off the vessel. A few shambling paces on to the pier indeed, and he sank down clumsily on hands and knees, before thousands of astounded eyes, apparently to kiss the cobblestones.
Lennox hastened forward to raise him up, Patrick only a few paces behind. James fell on the Duke's neck, babbling incoherences that were quite lost in the banging of guns. He drew back a littie, to point upwards and vaguely westwards, and to shake his fist again, and then once more to fall upon his cousin, stroking his face.
'Och, Vicky, Vicky!' he yelled. 'Out o' the jaws o' death! Och, it's good to see you. He near had me – aye, he near had me, I tell you! But I beat him! I beat him, Vicky!'
'Eh…? Yes, Sire,' Lennox said, seeking to disentangle himself, much embarrassed. 'Who…? Beat who, Sire?'
'Satan, man – Satan. Auld Hornie, himsel'. He's been clutching at me, all the way.'
'Satan…?'
'Your Grace,' Patrick shouted into the King's other large ear. 'The Queen?'
James started, and whirled round. 'Eh…? What's that? Dinna do that, I tell you! Och, it's you, Patrick man?'
'Yes. The Queen, Your Grace. Er… welcome. But – we wait to welcome the new Queen. Your own royal commands…'
'Ooh, aye – Anne!' James, in his highly excited state, had obviously completely forgotten his wife. Abruptly he turned, and pushing unceremoniously past certain of his train who were in process of following him ashore, hurried back on board.
A cluster of women were now to be seen standing amidships, with the spare and sombre, well-known figure of Chancellor Maitland in attendance. James grabbed quite the smallest person in the group by a hand, and came back with her, almost at a trot.
Even Patrick was taken aback at the extraordinary appearance of youthfulness of the new consort. Although now fifteen, and only a little more than a year younger than Mary Gray, she looked still a child. Padded and flounced as she was, in the height of fashion, her elaborate toilet only served to emphasise the slim immaturity of the body it covered. Her reddish-brown hair, dressed to stand high above her head, was much blown about by the wind. Nevertheless, as they came off the gangway, she contrived to look considerably more dignified than did her lord.
As the royal couple set foot on the pier, Ludovick, who had rehearsed all this thoroughly, bowed deeply, all the other men following suit, while the women sank low. Musicians were to strike up now – but whether they did or no was impossible to tell, in the continuing contributions of the cannoneers. Moray, as Captain of the Guard, gestured angrily but eloquently at one of his underlings to go and silence these enthusiasts.
James who, despite his written orders on the subject, patently had done no rehearsing himself, was for hurrying on still further, when most evidently his bride restrained him. They stood together on the pier, he fidgeting, she small head held high, while, following the example of the Lord Chamberlain, the great company raised itself slowly erect once more.
Precedence now fell to be strictly observed. As Bothwell came strolling up, Ludovick slipped forward to be presented first the new Queen, by James himself so that he in turn could present others. Bothwell, close behind, ignored his jerky presentation and introduced himself arrogantly, coolly subjecting Anne to something not very different from his normal assessing scrutiny of the other sex, evidently without much satisfaction, James looking on with a strange mixture of pride and apprehension, clutching his hat. There was no occasion for converse.
Moray followed on, and then the great officers of state in turn, followed by many of the King's surviving illegitimate uncles led by Orkney, Marie's father. Then the senior nobility. The Countess of Huntly was the first woman to be presented. In this process, the Master of Gray came low on the list.
Mary Gray, from her position in the enclosure, watched the young Queen. A child, physically, she might be, but th
ere was little else childish about her. She was self-assured, sharp-eyed, with a determined small chin and tight mouth. With no pretensions to beauty, she had a certain prettiness, and she bore herself well.
The Lord Provost was presented, the leaders of the Kirk, a clutch of bishops including Mary's grandfather of St Boswells, and then a long queue of lesser nobility and lairds. In the midst of it all, the cannonade stopped suddenly – to be succeeded by an uncomfortable and bemused silence.
Out of the shuffling, murmurings and whisperings, it was Patrick Gray's musical voice that was upraised. 'God save the Queen!' he called.
Raggedly at first, but steadying and strengthening, the chant was taken up. 'God Save the Queen! God save the Queen!' it rang out, the echoes being thrown back and forth amongst the tall tenements.
James nodded, smirked and rubbed his hands – and then began to pluck his lip and frown, as it continued. Perhaps he felt that an admixture of appeals to the Deity on behalf of the King also would have been seemly. He held up his hand.
Slowly the chanting died away.
'Aye,' he said, wagging his head. 'Just so. I'ph'mmm. Aye – we're glad to be hame. It has been a sair trauchle. The winds! The storms! The waves! Och, Satan opened his ill maw wide, wide to engulf us quite. Aye, he did his worst. But we are delivered out o' his clutches. Like blessed Peter, Galilee didna close ower us…'
Unfortunately, even at the best of times, James was no clear and resounding speaker. He was apt to mumble and splutter. In the open air, against three parts of a gale, and much moved about the dangers he had escaped, his eloquence was lost on all but those in his close proximity. Quickly, as a result, murmuring and chatter grew amongst the great company, until not even those nearest could hear a word. James appeared not to notice, until the young woman at his side perked his sleeve sharply, frowning, and his mouthings died away.
Patrick managed to catch the eye of one of the resplendently-clad herald trumpeters attached to the Lord Lyon King of Arms, and gestured to him. That man nudged his companion, and together they blew a shrilling fanfare.
The Courtesan mog-2 Page 29
