Past Master mog-3

by Nigel Tranter

  It became evident that the object was to defeat the Amazons by separating them from their bosoms. That this was not entirely achieved by the royal lance-point was neither here nor there. To the plaudits of the company the trio were reduced to huddled shame and abasement – whereupon the enthusiastic monarch set about removing their long tresses also, a still more ambitious and hazardous procedure which soon had the demoralised Furies dismounted and running from the Hall, casting all trace of their femininity from them in shameless panic

  Thereafter, left victor, the King threw up his visor, and pantingly launched into a lengthy harangue and explanation. Because of his excitement and his breathlessness, and the hollow boomings of his helmet, his words were even less clear than usual, his Doric broader. But it seemed that what had been witnessed was an allegory of much significance and moral worth. The Amazons, it appeared, as well as representing undisciplined and assertive womanhood in general, also were to be identified as the evil harpies Witchcraft, Heresy and Treason, from whose grasp he, James, with God's help, was in process of freeing his realm. As the Viceroy of Christ, with the armour of faith and the lance of righteousness, he would smite these daughters of Satan hip and thigh,

  James was warming to his theme when a servitor pushed his way to where Ludovick was standing, with Mary.

  'I come from the Queen's Grace,' he said, low-voiced. 'She orders that you attend her forthwith, my lord Duke. By her royal command.'

  'Command…?' The young man bit his lip. 'James will not like this. Why should she want me? But – I cannot refuse her command.'

  'No. You must go. The poor Queen -1 am sorry for her. But she has her own dangers, Vicky. Be careful with her…'

  Patrick returned soon after Ludovick had left the Hall.

  'You are elevated and informed, I hope, Mary?' he murmured.

  'I am a little weary,' she answered.

  He looked at her quickly. 'I don't think that I have ever heard you admit as much, before. Do not say that our puissant monarch is too much for Mary Gray! But it is near done now, lass. And the final act will revive you, I swear!'

  'There is more to come?'

  'A last tit-bit. That only His Grace would have thought of. Meanwhile, let us see if we may anywise shorten this homily.'

  Patrick waited until the King's next needful pause for breath. Then he nodded to his man at the door. Just as James was about to recommence, music struck up from outside, fiddles, lutes and cymbals. A protesting royal gauntlet of steel was raised, but it was too late. In filed a column of sweet singers, the former Neptune's acolytes, now decently clad in black, reinforced by a number of older vocalists and instrumentalists. They were chanting the hundred and twenty-eighth Psalm, in fourteen-part harmony.

  The King, whom life had made a realist of sorts, accepted the situation, and switched from declamation to lusty psalmody:

  For thou shalt eat of the labours of thine hands O well is thee, and happy shalt thou be… he boomed from within his helmet, waving to all his astonished guests to raise bodies and voices in vigorous worship. 'James, by the grace of God, King. Protector of Christ's Kirk here on earth!' the Master of Gray observed. 'Look at Master Melville, my dear! And Lindsay. And Galloway. They are srniling, all. For the first time this night. The day is saved. The True Faith triumphs. King and Kirk are one, after all!'

  ' You, then, did have a hand in this, also?' Mary charged him. 'I? I do not even know the words of the psalm,' he said.

  The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion: and thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life… the King shouted, strongly if tunelessly:

  Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel…

  Chapter Eight

  Falkland was the smallest of the royal palaces, and the little grey-stone, red-roofed Fife town which huddled round it, beneath the green Lomond Hills, as ever when the King was here, was bursting at the seams, every house, cottage, room even, taken up and overflowing with the host of nobles, envoys, courtiers, ministers, their families, retainers and servants. On this warm evening of early September, everyone seemed to have surged out of the crowded houses into the narrow streets and wynds, the gardens and pleasances and encroaching woodlands, for air and space. Ludovick Stewart, hot and tired after his long ride, pushing his way through the throng with only a groom in attendance, frowned at the milling crowds distastefully, wrinkled his nose at the stink, and cursed again the fate of birth which enforced on him a life for which he had no desire, amongst people with whom he had little sympathy, when all that he wanted was to live quietly, simply, at Methven with Mary. It was all wrong, and the sort of grudging affection he had always had for his cousin the King was suffering under the strain. He had hoped and expected that now that there was a prince, and he was no longer heir to the throne, the situation might have improved. But things were in fact worse, with James demanding ever more of his time and company – whilst yet finding fault with him constantly.

  Just across from the palace gates, he was held up by a herd of bullocks being driven down to the slaughter-houses by the waterside, and further congesting the already crowded streets of the little town. The feeding of the Court here was ever a major problem, for Falkland was a hunting palace, set down in an area of forest, marsh and wilderness with no farming country nearby, and the influx of hundreds, even thousands, presented great difficulties of commissariat. Yet it was James's favourite house, and once the stags were in season and the threat of attack apparendy receded, nothing would do but that the move from the confining fortress of Stirling twenty-five miles away must be made. But not for the prince; that precious babe's safety was not to be risked outside the castle walls. Therefore Alary Gray must needs remain at Stirling also, plead as Ludovick would. Hence his almost daily rides of fifty miles, and his monarch's oft-expressed complaint.

  Before ever he reached his modest room in the palace, Peter Hay, Ludovick's page, met him.

  'The Queen again, my lord Duke,' he announced. 'You are to go to her. At once, she says. For hours she has been having me seek you.'

  Lennox groaned. 'What ails her now? What does she want with me, this time?'

  'I do not know. But she is most strong. I was to bring you to her forthwith, she said. She is in her bower…'

  'She can wait until I have washed, at least,' the Duke growled. 'Where is the King? Still hunting?'

  'Yes. Since morning.'

  When, presently, Ludovick presented himself at the Queen's apartments however, Anne had him kept waiting for a full half-hour in an ante-room, making the stiffest of talk to her ladies and ill concealing his impatience – for he was both hungry and tired. At length a bell tinkled to admit him to the presence.

  The Queen stood with her back to him, facing a window of her boudoir looking out on the palace gardens. 'You have been long, Ludovick,' she said, without turning. 'Too long. On my soul, you pay a deal more respect to that by-blow of Gray's than you do to your Queen! I have been left alone all this day. Must you be off to Stirling all and every day, sir?'

  'Had I not gone to Stirling, Ma'am, I would have been required to go hunting with His Grace.' That was gruffly said, it is to be feared.

  'Aye – chasing stupid deer! The folly of it. Always chasing deer!' Anne's voice, still with traces of its guttural Danish accent, was accusing, petulant.

  Lennox did not comment on that. 'You sent for me, Your Grace?'

  'Yes, how is my child? How is the Prince Frederick?' 'Well, Highness. Never better.'

  'Is that all you have to tell me? To say to me? His mother!'

  Ludovick was not a hard-hearted young man and he did sympathise with Anne in her unhappy situation with regard to her baby. He cleared his throat. 'The child seemed happy. Contented.' Perhaps that was not the right thing to say to the deprived mother? But what could he say about an infant, that was merely a bundle of swaddling clothes and a pink screwed-up face? 'He is fatter a little, I think. Mary looks well to him.' That also might not be what she wished t
o hear? 'You need have no fears for the child, Highness.'

  She did not directly answer that. When she spoke, however, her voice was quite changed. It had become soft, girlish, almost playful. 'Ludovick,' she said, 'come and sit here by me. I have tidings for you.' She sat down on a cushioned window-seat.

  Without enthusiasm he had moved forward obediently before she half-turned towards him on the seat, and he perceived how she was dressed. Embarrassed, he faltered.

  The Queen wore a long bed-robe of blue silk, but underneath it she was bare to the waist, below which there was some sort of underskirt. The robe was hanging open, and Anne was making no attempt to hide her body. Always she had had a figure more like a boy's than a woman's; but motherhood had developed her breasts. They were still small, but pointed. It seemed that she was proud of them, for the rest of her remained slender to the point of thinness.

  When she saw the young man hesitate, Anne smiled. 'Come, my lord Duke,' she urged. 'Have you no compassion for me, left alone all the day?'

  'I… I am sorry,' he said.

  She sighed. 'I am sorry also. I am no less a woman for being a queen, see you.' When still he stood irresolute, she pointed, imperiously now. 'Sit!' she commanded.

  He lowered himself, almost gingerly, on to the very edge of the window-seat. This however brought him very near to the Queen's person. He sat back, therefore, into the corner; but even so, they were very close together.

  Now that she had him there, Anne herself seemed to know discomfort, and turned to stare out of the window. She was less than a practised charmer. She had recently celebrated her twentieth birthday, although in manner and outiook she was old

  for her years. Sharp-featured, with darting pale blue eyes beneath her reddish-brown hair, with a determined small chin and tight mouth, she could lay few claims to beauty. But Ludovick perceived that she had indeed taken some pains with herself this evening, for as well as the sudden flush over her normally pale complexion, there were distinct traces of deeper colour on her cheeks, there was a dusting of dark shadow at her eyes, and her lips were carmined – as indeed, he realised, were the nipples of her breasts. Nothing of this recognition added to the man's ease.

  They seemed to have nothing to say to each other now. Small talk had never been Ludovick Stewart's speciality. To look at her he found upsetting; to stare out of the quite small window brought his head altogether too close to the Queen's; so he gazed stolidly into the room – which, Uttered about with women's things, and with the door open to her bedroom beyond, failed to soothe likewise.

  'Your Mary,' Anne jerked, at length. 'Mary Gray. She is very fair. And sure of herself. For such as she is.'

  'She is… Mary Gray!' Ludovick answered briefly.

  'She is like her father. Perhaps too much like her father.'

  He did not answer.

  'Your wife. Who died. Gowrie's daughter – the Lady Sophia Ruthven. She was a poor creature, was she not?'

  She had roused him now. 'She was not my wife,' he answered hoarsely. 'I scarce knew her. We never lived together. We were forced to wed. But that did not make us man and wife. It was but a device. Of… others.'

  She nodded. 'Many marriages are so.' Anne sighed. 'Queens' in especial.'

  He cleared his throat 'Perhaps, yes. You said that you had tidings for me, Ma'am?'

  'But yes. They will interest you, I think, Ludovick. I have today had word, sure word, that Maitland is ailing. The Chancellor.'

  Lennox looked at her now. 'Ailing? You mean, seriously?'

  'Very ill. A sick man – and like to remain so. To worsen. He has left Edinburgh for his house in Lauderdale. And is never likely to come back again.'

  'So-o-o!' The young man thought rapidly. He could not remain unaffected by the news, any more than could almost anyone else in Scotland – even though it was not necessary to be so undisguisedly gleeful as was the Queen. Maitland was not a popular figure, cold, sour, dry; but he was the most effective administrator Scotland had known for generations, and he had had the day-to-day running of the country in his hands for so long that his removal must needs in some measure concern all.

  'You are sure? He is none so old a man. Fifty? No more…'

  'The word is sure,' she nodded. 'Maitland's day is over'

  'His Grace? What says His Grace to this?'

  'James does not yet know.'

  Lennox raised his eyebrows. Who would inform the Queen before the King? And why? All knew that Anne hated Maitland. She had disliked him from the first, when he had accompanied James to Denmark to fetch her to Scotland. Then there was the business of Musselburgh. The rich regality of Musselburgh, with its revenues from coals, fisheries and salt-pans, had been given long ago by David the First to the Abbey of Dunfermline. Maitland had managed somehow to get these detached and into his own hands soon after the break-up of the old church lands. The Abbey of Dunfermline had been conferred upon Anne by James, as a wedding-present – but Maitland had clung to Musselburgh despite all her attempts to regain it. Lastly, since the Master of Gray had returned, it was whispered on all hands that Maitland had been behind the murder of the Earl of Moray by Huntly – and Anne had been fond of the bonnie Earl.

  'Your Highness is sure that this is truth? If the King has not been told…? It may be but some tale. Mere idle talk.'

  'The Master of Gray's tales, Ludovick, are seldom idle, I think!'

  'Ummm.' So here was Patrick's hand again. He might have guessed it. In which case the matter was serious, whether strictly true or not. And Patrick had come to tell the Queen; for some good reason of his own, no doubt And the Queen had sent for himself. 'His Grace will be much concerned,' he said.

  'His Grace will be better served, lacking Maitland! He is an evil man. Hard and cruel. The realm has too long suffered under his grip, Ludovick.'

  'At least his grip was firm, able. As Chancellor he was strong. Who will succeed him?'

  'Need any succeed him? Meantime. Should not James take more the rule into his own hands? Lest another become too strong. The Kirk – the Kirk would clamour that the new Chancellor should be of that party. Possibly the man Melville himself! Then the Kirk would indeed rule the King, as well as the kingdom. The King must rule. To that he is born. Should not the chancellorship be left in… in abeyance?'

  Thoughtfully Lennox considered her. These words, these deliberations on a new problem of state, were not those of the twenty-year-old Anne herself, that he was sure. They could only be Patrick Gray's, using the Queen. Which meant that he was on the move once more. And it was not very difficult to perceive his direction.

  'I see,' he said.

  'My lord of Mar also would wish to be Chancellor,' the Queen went on. 'That would not be wise. He is not the man for it, and too greatly sways the King even now.'

  That was true, of course – despite the fact that Anne looked on Mar as almost as much her enemy as was Maitland, since James had put the young prince in his keeping.

  She reached out suddenly, to touch the young man's arm. 'Ludovick – it is our opportunity,' she said eagerly. 'To aid His Grace in the proper rule of this realm. James is timorous. He lacks judgment in many things. He is foolishly trusting. He needs our aid, Ludovick. Together, and with one or two others of goodwill, lacking Maitland we could take the rule in Scotland. For its good. And His Grace's good. Do you not see it?'

  He drew back as far as he might into his corner. He could not well shake off the Queen's hand from his sleeve, any more than he could rise and leave her without permission. He was as uncomfortable over her intimacies as he was over her suggestions. Seldom, if ever, had Ludovick Stewart been so embarrassed.

  Anne tightened her grip. 'Do you not see it, Ludovick?' she repeated, her voice a strange mixture of coaxing caress and impatience. 'Maitland has so long managed this realm that none

  other is ready to take his place. Save only Melville and the Kirk. That must not be, or there is an end to the Throne, to us all. But Queen and Duke acting together, behind the King. With
others to aid us. With the Prince Frederick back in my care. Against such the Kirk could not prevail. Nor any other faction.'

  'All this, Your Grace, according to the Master of Gray?' Anne hesitated, searching his blunt features. 'The Master

  would aid us, no doubt…' 'Aye, no doubt. Or we should aid him. Or serve to shield

  him, rather…'

  'But… he is your friend, is he not? Your Mary's father. You assisted him to return, after banishment.'

  Heavily Lennox sighed. 'All true,' he admitted. 'But…' He shrugged. 'Let Patrick be. But myself -1 am not your man for this, Highness. I wish the rule over none. I have no love for statecraft…'

  Quickly she caught him up. 'Then, is not your love for me, your Queen, sufficient, Ludovick? Will you not aid me, for true love's sake? And therefore, of course, James.' She moved closer, so that her knee now pressed against his. 'Always you have been my friend. When others were not. When boorish lords and haughty clerics scorned me, a weak woman, you were kind. Always you were kind.'

  'Majesty, it was but… it was but…' He swallowed. 'I am your friend, yes. Your true servant. But…'

  'You like me well enough? Not only as a princess, but as a woman?'

  He was intensely aware of her nearness – as well he might be. She was leaning forward, her gown hanging open, so that her pointed breasts were within inches of his hand, the perfume and faint woman-smell of her in his nostrils, the warmth of her leg against his own. He was no prude, nor cold, nor afraid of women; but Anne held no appeal for him. Yet, even had she not been the Queen, he could not have told her so, could not so grievously have wounded any woman.

  Tour Highness is very fair. Very comely. And kind also most kind. I am honoured by your regard. But this of rule and power is not for me.'