Past Master mog-3

by Nigel Tranter

  'We are well aware, my lord Duke, that Huntly is your sister's husband!'

  'To my sorrow and hers! That was a marriage arranged otherwhere!' He shot a glance from the King to the Master of Gray. 'On Huntly I would make war, yes – but not on the homes of his people!'

  James frowned. 'Aye, but it's no' you that's making the war, Vicky Stewart! It's me. I, the King, make the war.' He wagged a finger. 'Me it is they rebel against, mind – no' you! They slew my herald, Red Lion. That's tantamount, aye tantamount, to an attack on my own royal person. It's no' to be borne.'

  'Then we march, Sire? Northwards?' the Earl Marischal demanded.

  'Och, well. I'ph'mm. Aye, it seems so, my lord, does it no'?' 'God be praised!' Melville exclaimed.

  Patrick Gray caught Lennox's eye, and almost imperceptibly shook his head.

  Perhaps two-thirds of the way up the long, long ascent of Bennachie, Ludovick of Lennox drew rein, to rest his weary sweating horse, and behind him his straggling column of something like one hundred men-at-arms thankfully did likewise. All Aberdeenshire seemed to slope up, from every side, to this thrusting central isolated cone of Bennachie, and if the Duke's magnificent Barbary black was weary and flagging, the lesser mounts of his followers were all but foundered. And not only the horses; the riders also were drooping with fatigue. Few would elect to go campaigning with the Duke of Lennox again, were they given the choice.

  This land of Aberdeenshire was vast- so much more widespread, richer, populous and diverse in aspect than Ludovick had realised. They had been in the saddle since daybreak, and now it was mid-afternoon, and most of the intervening hours they seemed to have spent climbing, climbing towards this green rock-crowned pinnacle of Bennachie. There had been distractions, of course, diversions, turnings-off from the line of general advance; but these- in the main, Ludovick would have preferred to forget – if he could.

  This was the second day of the advance into the great Gordon territories, and they were not yet within twenty-five miles of Huntly's inner fastnesses of the upper Don basin, of Strath-bogie, Formartine and the Deveron. But yesterday, whilst still south of the River Dee, Ludovick had had his bellyful of the royal progress, and had urgently sought permission to lead instead one of the scouting forces which probed ahead of the main army, seeking contact with die enemy – since he could by no means bring himself to recognise as the enemy the occupants, men. women and children, young and old, of the innumerable houses, towers and castles, small and great, which were the object of the kingly wrath and the Council's policy, rebels as they might be named. Sickened, after witnessing the fate of a dozen such lairdships, belonging to Hays and Douglases and other lesser allies of Gordon, on the mere outer fringes of Huntly's domains, and finding his protests of no avail, he had chosen this scouting role of the advance-guard, hoping for clean fighting, honest warfare, in place of sack, rapine, arson and pillage, in the name of Kirk and Crown. Allotted a company mainly of Ogilvy and Lindsay retainers from Angus, with a leavening of more local Leslies and Leiths, his task, along with other similar columns, was to ensure that there was no unknown enemy threat ahead of the more slowly advancing and widely dispersed main punitive force of the King. The high pass between the two peaks of Bennachie, and its secure holding for the King, had been his day's objective.

  Their route here had been devious indeed, despite the way that all the land rose to this proud landmark – for in this vast rolling countryside it was not sufficient just to press ahead; always they had to scour the intervening territory to left and right, to ascertain that there were no concentrations of men hidden in the far-flung ridge-and-valley system, with its spreading woodlands, and to link up regularly with other columns similarly employed. Groups of armed men they had encountered now and again, and some had even shown tentative fight – but these were small parties and obviously merely the retainers of local lairds, concerned to defend their homes. Although it was no part of his given orders to do any such thing, the Duke had further used up considerable time and effort in seeking out the towers and mansions in his area of advance, which might be linked with the Gordon interests, to warn their occupants of the fate which bore down upon them so that they might at least have time to save their persons, families, servants and valuables by fleeing to some hiding-place. These warnings had not always been well received nor acted upon; nor had Ludovick's men-at-arms considered the giving of them a suitable and profitable employment.

  Now, turning in the saddle and gazing back eastwards and southwards over the splendid landscape which sank, in the golden October sunlight, in great rolling waves of tilth and pasture, moor and thicket and woodland, between Dee and Don, to the level plain of the distant, unseen sea, Ludovick stared, set-faced. From on high here, the fair land seemed to spout smoke-like eruptions from underground fires. There were the dense black clouds of new-burning brushwood and thatch; the brown reek of hay and straw; the murky billows, shot with red, of mixed conflagration well alight; and the pale blue of old fires, burning low. All these smokes drifted on the south-westerly breeze to mingle and form a pall of solid grey that hung like a curtain for endless miles, as though to hide the shame of the land. Directly behind themselves, the fires did not start for perhaps five or six miles – though even so, it meant that the main force, still unflagging in its enthusiasm, was closer than Ludovick had imagined; but elsewhere the smokes were considerably further forward, almost level, if more scattered – indicating that not all of the advance-parties were, like his own, failing to further the good work in their necessarily more modest way.

  Lennox, by now, well knew the significance of those different-hued burnings. The thick black represented thatch torn from cot-house roofs and laid against the walls of stone towers. These little fortalices of the lairds, with their stone-vaulted basements, gunloops and iron-barred small windows, were almost impossible to reduce without cannon, even for a large force, short of starving out the occupants; but they could be rendered untenable by the knowledgeable. Masses of dense-smoking material, heaped all around the thick walls almost as high as the narrow arrow-slit windows to vaults and stairways, and set alight, would soon produce, with the fierce heat, a strong updraught of air. This, sucked through the unglazed or broken windows into the interior of the house, especially the winding corkscrew stairways, could in a short time turn any proud castle into what was little better than a tall chimney. No occupant could endure this for long; all must issue forth for fresh air, or suffocate. The yellow and brown smoke was corn and hay barns burning. Other fuels produced their own coloration.

  Silently the Duke pointed to where, perhaps eight miles south by east of them, in the area of their own march, a fire larger than the others was spouting dense black-brown clouds at the foot of the lesser Hill of Fare. The dark young man beside him, John Leslie, Younger of Balquhain, appointed as his guide and local adviser, nodded.

  'Midmar Castle,' he said. 'Where we were at noon. Gordon of Ballogie's house. An old man. He said he would not leave, you'll mind. He would have done better to heed your warning, my lord.'

  'He gave us food and drink. His wife was kind. And there were two girls, bonnie lassies…'

  'Aye, his son George's daughters. Janet is… friendly. George is with Huntly. Yon will bring him home, I warrant!'

  Ludovick said nothing. His thoughts went back to the only other occasion, three years ago, when he had viewed a castle in process of being smoked out – that grim February night at Donibrisde on the north shore of Forth. Then Huntly himself had been the incendiary: and the victim, the Earl of Moray, unable to stand it longer, had leapt from a window, hair and beard alight, to run to the sea, and on the beach had been overtaken, run through by Gordon swords, and slashed across his handsome face by Huntly's own, Ludovick helpless to restrain it. Some would therefore call this but justice – save that it was not Huntly himself who now bore the brunt of it, but old men and girls, his innocent people.

  Sighing, the Duke turned away. 'We shall move on up to the pass between
the hill-tops,' he said. 'We shall secure that, and plan its defence. Then send out parties beyond, to ensure that there is no enemy near. To inquire also the whereabouts of my Lord Forbes's force. Is there a house convenient nearby where we may pass the night?'

  There is Balfluig, my lord,' Leslie answered. 'A Forbes house – but it is five miles beyond the pass.'

  Too far. We must be close at hand. Encamped, if need be, in the pass itself. An enemy column stealing through here could play havoc amongst the King's scattered forces.'

  'Aye. But we need not all spend a cold night on the hill, my lord. I have just minded – there is a house nearer, this side of the pass. The House of Tullos. It lies yonder, maybe a mile or so more to the north, unseen in a fold of the hill. A snug place.

  'Seton is laird – and married to a daughter of Gordon of Tillyfour!'

  'Gordon!' Ludovick frowned, biting his lip. He was coming to dread the sound of the name. 'Another of them?' 'Aye – and Papists all.'

  The Duke sighed. 'Then, they fall to be warned. But first the pass.' He looked wearily up the hill.

  'Send a party up there, my lord. To the pass. No need for you to go. It has been a long day. Let us to Tullos. Our lads will soon inform us if there is aught amiss up there.'

  'No,' Ludovick decided. 'That pass is important. Of all this country, there alone could Huntly slip through a force unobserved. I cannot leave it to others to see to. I must go prospect it. You, Leslie, go to this Tullos. My compliments to its laird. Take a score of the men. Say that we come peacably – but that tomorrow he would be wise to seek some sure hiding-place for his people. This night, if he will have us, we'll bide with him – and pay for our entertainment. If not, we shall spend the night in the pass well enough. It is for him to say, in his own house…'

  'But they are rank Papists, my lord!'

  'I was born a rank Papist, sir – as, little doubt, were you! So speak them fair. I want no trouble. Remember our task -not to punish Catholics but to seek out Huntly. See to it, friend. I will come later.'

  So Ludovick rode on up the long hill, with the majority of his men, whilst Leslie and a lesser company trotted northwards over the slantwise sheep-dotted pastures.

  The pass between the Mither Tap and the Millstone Hill of Bennachie was a narrow defile of bracken, heather and rocks, one thousand feet high, breaking the long barrier of hill which so effectively divided the great shire of Aberdeen, the largest single area of fertile land in all Scotland. Because of its situation, with the land dropping away steeply on all hands, a comparatively few determined men could hold it against an army. Ludovick approached it very cautiously, quite prepared to find it held. But it proved to be clear. Also the onward slopes seemed to be devoid of life save for the scattered peacefully-grazing cattle which obviously had not been disturbed for long.

  There was no lack of cover in the place, with great boulders and outcrops littering the sides of it, and Ludovick chose positions for his men, strong positions. He was not concerned with hiding their presence. Better indeed that the enemy should know that the pass was held against them, and so not attempt any passage thereof. Ludovick was by no means looking for trouble. He gave orders therefore that his men should gather fuel – dried heather-stems, roots, bog-oak, anything which would burn – to light fires and if possible keep them burning all night, so that they might be seen from afar. He sent pickets out to spy out the land ahead and appointed watchers and sentinels on the actual flanking hill-tops and ridges. Not until all was to his satisfaction did he leave, to ride back downhill towards the House of Tullos.

  He saw the smoke almost as soon as he came out of the defile, and recognised that it came from the direction Leslie had taken. Set-faced, he spurred his jaded horse.

  He never doubted that the fire was at Tullos. The smoke rose out of a sort of corrie, or fold in the hill – and Leslie had mentioned only the one such house. This was thick black smoke -like thatch again. It could scarcely be that – but whatever it was boded no good. Smoke, to Ludovick Stewart, now represented only sorrow and shame.

  As he neared the cleft in the hillside he could hear the crackle of fire, interspersed with shouting. The quality of that shouting, coarse laughter, taunts and jeers, darkened the Duke's features.

  Riding over the Up of the corrie, Ludovick saw that it was altogether a bigger and better place than he had anticipated. In a wide green apron on the lap of the hill sat a pleasant whitewashed house backed by trees. Flanking its sides and rear was a farm-steading, barns and cot-houses, while an orchard slanted down in front to where a fair-sized burn was dammed to form a duck-pond, the whole looking out south by east over the prospect of a quarter of Aberdeenshire. The house itself was quite substantial, of two storeys and an attic, L-shaped, with a circular stair-tower in the angle and squat round corner-turrets at the gables. It had a stone-slated roof – but the roofs of the outbuildings and cot-houses were reed-thatched. It was this that was burning.

  The shouting came from behind the house. Hastening there, Ludovick came to a cobbled yard between house and farmery. It was thronged with people, mainly his own men-at-arms, their horses feeding on heaps of hay thrown down at the windward side of the burning buildings where the drifting smoke would not worry them. The men were much and noisily engaged. None even noticed the Duke's arrival.

  Ludovick spurred forward to see what went on within the circle of shouting troopers. Apart from these, there were two groups of people in the centre of the courtyard. One contained a middle-aged, heavily-built man, a buxom woman, a boy in his teens and a girl still younger. These, plainly but decently dressed, were all held fast by soldiers, being forced to watch the proceedings. One of the man's eyes was practically closed up by a blow. The other group was larger, obviously servants and farmhands huddled together in cowering fear. The women's clothing was noticeably disarranged and torn. They stared at what went on in the centre.

  There a peculiar proceeding was being enacted, whither was directed all the shouting. Two people were being forced to kneel on the cobbles gripped by men-at-arms – a comely young woman and facing her a young man in rent and soaking bloodstained shirt, with blood trickling down from his hair. These were notably alike in feature, and looked as though they might be brother and sister. Between them, on a stone mounting-block, stood a carved wood crucifix perhaps eighteen inches high. Nearby was a half-barrel of water.

  The young man and woman were being forced to fill their mouths with the water, and then to spew it out over the crucifix. At least, that was their tormentors' intention. In fact they were spilling and ejecting it anywhere but upon the cross. For their obstinacy they were being kicked, their arms twisted and mugfuls of the water thrown in their faces, to mingle with the girl's tears and the young man's blood.

  Appalled, seething with anger, Ludovick drove his black horse straight into the press of the men. 'Fools! Oafs! Animals!' he exclaimed. 'Stop! Enough! Have done, I say!'

  Leslie came pushing towards him, gesticulating. 'My lord, my lord!' he cried. 'I couldna help it. They'll no' heed me. I've told them…'

  Ludovick ignored him, shouting at the men around the crucifix. He in turn was ignored.

  Leslie reached for the black's bridle, and held on to it. They'll not heed me,' he insisted. 'I can do nothing with them. But it's Seton's own fault. He resisted us. They're all stiff-necked, insolent. One o' his people drew a sword on us…'

  'I told you. You were to speak him fair. There was to be no trouble. You were in command. You are responsible.'

  Leslie looked half-frightened, half-defiant They are not my men. I never saw them before this day. They scoff at me. One in especial – yon red-headed stot Rab Strachan…!' He looked very young and inadequate there amongst all that passion and violence – although he was possibly a year or so older than Lennox.

  'Here – take my horse!' Ludovick threw him the reins, and leapt down. He pushed his way through the throng, elbowing men aside. He came to the central space.

  'I said stop
that!' he snapped. 'Unhand these two – d'you hear! At once.'

  Men turned to stare now, and the shouting died away. But the comparative quiet only emphasised the crackling roar of the burning roofs, with its own inflammatory effect on the tempers of men. Even the heat engendered inner heat. Lennox himself was affected by it. He could hardly control his voice.

  'You… you louts! Sottish numbskulls!' he yelled, when none answered him. 'Do as I say.'

  None moved. None released their grip on the unfortunate pair at the crucifix, or on those forced to watch. Then a big and burly red-haired man deliberately stooped, to scoop up a mugful of water from the barrel and throw it hard in the girl's face.

  Blazing-eyed Ludovick strode up to the fellow, and slapped him across the face, twice, right and left, with the palm and back of his hand. 'Brute-beast!' he jerked. 'Miscreant! Obey, fool!' He swung round, to grasp the shoulder of one of the troopers who held the young woman, and flung him aside. 'I said unhand her, scum!' He stooped, to take the girl's arm.

  It was the warning in the kneeling young man's eyes that saved him. Ludovick twisted round, just in time to avoid a savage, swinging clenched-fisted blow from the red-headed Strachan.

  He side-stepped, rage boiling up within him, his hand dropping to his sword-hilt. Then he mastered himself somewhat, and drew back a little in distaste. The last thing to be desired was for him to become involved in a brawl with his men. 'How dare you!' he cried. 'Stand back, man! All of you – do as you are told. Back to your horses. Back, I say!'

  'No' so fast, your Dukeship – no' so fast!' the man Strachan declared thickly, standing his ground and scowling. 'Why so hot? Eh? What ill are we doing, sink me? We're but justifying thrice-damned Papists!'

  'Aye,' one of the others supported him. 'Where's the harm? They're a' doing it. The others, Shauchlin' Jamie, the King, himsel'! Why no' us? Doon wi' the sh-shtinking rebels, I say!' Like the other, he spoke indistinctly. Obviously they had been drinking; presumably they had found liquor in the house.