Past Master mog-3

by Nigel Tranter

  'Do not be a fool, Gowrie!' Ludovick burst out. 'We are not here on the Master's account, but on yours. We fear – we more than fear, we are certain – that some move will be made against you. What we know not – but I have observed all the signs…'

  'You would have me jump at signs and shadows, my lord Duke? I note your warning, and shall be on my guard. But I cannot esteem such shadowy fears to have any justification. I do naught that any other member of the Council has not a right to do – to oppose the expenditure of moneys on a policy which was before the Estates. It is no more than my duty, if I conceive the policy wrong. As I do. Are all who voted against it in the Estates likewise in danger of the puissant Master's ire?'

  ' Fore God, man – can you not see this as it is? Not as you would wish it to be? It is not some mere taking of sides in a debate on the state's policy. It is a direct attack on the King's most cherished project, his lifelong ambition. And today the Master of Gray is behind all the King's projects, and moreover believes this succession to be the greatest good that Scotland can achieve. At the Estates, it was your voice raised that turned the tide against the King's tax. And in the Council you could not but see how hot was the King against you for it. Since then you have stated that you will give nothing towards the levy which is being demanded of all great land-holders. No others have seen fit to say as much..Others may hedge and delay and seek to win out of it. But you, of all men, ought not to have cried your refusal to the heavens.' 'Why me, of all men, I pray?'

  'Because, my lord, the Crown owes you for eighty thousand pounds! That is why. And no debtor on this round earth could love the man to whom he owed such a sum!'

  There was silence for a few moments. For the first time, Gowrie seemed in any way affected or concerned. The Master and a servitor came in with food and drink, and no more could be said until the latter at least was gone. The Earl dismissed his brother also.

  'I have not demanded any immediate repayment of these moneys,' he told them, presently. 'Knowing, indeed, that I would not get them. Am I now expected to throw good money after bad?'

  Ludovick shrugged. 'I care not if you never give James another silver piece. But to oppose him openly, and to lead others to do the same, is folly.'

  'Such is to break no law. What can they do against me?'

  'My lord – you do not know my father, or you would not ask that!' Mary Gray declared. 'If you stand in the way of anything to which he has set his hand, he will find a way of pulling you down. Many have discovered that, to their cost…'

  'My father did!' Ludovick interrupted harshly. 'His close friend. I now know that he brought him low, to his ruin and death. His own father, the Lord Gray, he has recently dragged down likewise, without shame or compassion, for his own ends. And your father, my lord – what of him? The first Gowrie – Greysteil. He was beheaded on a charge of treason, was he not? After making a secret confession, under promise of pardon, and so brought to his doom. Whose hand was behind that, think you?'

  'That was on account of the Ruthven Raid. Patrick Gray, they told me, worked for his pardon. That was Arran's work, was it not?' The Earl stared.

  'Arran scarce moved a hand, in statecraft, without Patrick behind him. He was Chancellor only in name. The business bears all the marks of the Master's hand.'

  'I'll not believe that. His own mother's brother!'

  'Who gained the administering of your great Ruthven estates while you were under age, my lord? Who had your sister Sophia married to me – bairns, both of us? And why?'

  The other plucked his chin, looking from one to the other of his visitors.

  Mary was wringing her hands. 'My lord,' she said, 'this of your father, I do not know. I was too young. It may not be so. But… there have been others, I fear, in plenty. Patrick… Patrick is a strange man. He has great qualities – but he can be the Devil incarnate! He is, many will say, the most able and clever servant that any King of Scots has known. The realm has never been better ruled, most will admit. But he has no least scruple, where his path is crossed. I urge you. I pray you – do not fail to heed us. Do not dismiss your warning..

  'In God's name – what would you have me to do?'

  It was the Duke who answered. 'Go back to Padua,' he told him tersely. 'Before it is too late.'

  'Shrive me! Padua! Do you jest? Leave Scotland…?'

  'Aye, my lord. Just that. Leave Scotland – while there is yet time.'

  'This is nonsense! Unthinkable! I shall return to Padua in due course. Next year, it may be. For my affairs there are still to settle. I am still Rector of that University. But not now. I am but three months home! Think you I will go running, like some whipped cur? From the Master of Gray. I – Gowrie!'

  'It is not only from him – from the one man. It may be from the whole power of this realm. Which he may use against you. Do you not understand? It is for your own safety and weal…'

  'Is it, my lord Duke? Of a truth? Is it not perhaps for Patrick Gray's weal, rather, that you come? Perhaps a device to get me out of his way, at no cost? Are you sent to scare me off…!'

  Ludovick jumped to his feet. 'Have a care, sir, what you say!' he exclaimed. 'Lennox is no lackey of the Master of Gray, or any man, I'd have you know! You will not speak to me so…'

  'Nor will you frighten me with bogles!' Gowrie also rose. 'I will not be threatened…'

  'Vicky! My lords!' Mary cried, 'Not this – I beseech you! Be patient – there is so much at stake. Hot words will serve nothing…'

  'No words will serve with my lord of Gowrie, I think!' the Duke asserted. 'I, for one, will waste no more on him.' 'For that, at least, I am grateful, sir!' 'Come, Mary…'

  'Is our journeying to be quite fruitless, then?' the young woman asked, helplessly. 'Will you not be warned, my lord? Perceive your danger…?'

  'I perceive, of a truth, that Patrick Gray would have me out of his path! That, at least, is clear,' Gowrie said, moving after Ludovick towards the door.

  'You will take heed, then? Take precautions…?'

  The Earl did not answer. They went down the stairs singly, the Duke hastening in front, Gowrie next, and Mary lagging in the rear. At the outer door, where the grooms waited with the horse in the stone-flagged courtyard, the girl turned again to the stiff younger man.

  'You will do something?' she urged. 'Be guarded well? Ready to fly if need be…?'

  'I shall pleasure myself by keeping away from Court, at any rate,' he told her, distantly. 'I have lands in Atholl which I have not seen for long. There I may visit. But I fly for no man…'

  With that they had to be content, and took their departure with only bare civilities.

  As they clattered over the cobblestones of Perth, Ludovick alternately raged against the stiff-necked folly and blind self-sufficiency of the man they had set out to succour, and apologised for having brought the young woman on this thankless errand. Loudly employed thus, he did not at first hear when Mary presently called urgently to him – and by the time that she had succeeded in attracting his attention and directing his gaze where she indicated, it was too late.

  'Amongst that throng of drovers and Highlandmen,' she called. 'Around the alehouse. It was Logan! Logan of Restalrig.

  I swear it was he! Looking at us. He turned and hurried off. When he saw I perceived him. Down that vennel. It was Logan, Vicky!'

  'Restalrig! Here, in Perth? That bird of ill omen! You are sure?'

  'I would not mistake that face. It has cost us too dear, in the past.'

  'Patrick has had his outlawry annulled. He hangs about the skirts of the Court. I have never seen them together, but…'

  'Should we go back? Tell the Earl? Warn him?'

  Ludovick snorted. 'Warn that one! Tell him what? Think you he would thank us for the information that one of Patrick's bravoes is in his town? Besides, it may have nothing to do with Gowrie.'

  Preoccupied and with no hint of gaiety left to them, they crossed the bridge over Tay and turned their beasts eastwards for the Carse.
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br />   Chapter Twenty

  The Duke of Lennox drew rein, and the steam from his panting, sweating mount rose to join the mists which, on this still August morning, had not yet had time to disperse, caught in all the shaws and glades of the great marshy forest of Stratheden. He cocked his ear – but could hear only his horse's snorting breathing and the hollow thud of hooves on sodden ground as his falconer came cantering up behind him.

  'I thought that I heard the horn,' he called back. 'Did you hear aught, Pate?'

  'No, lord. No' a cheep.'

  'It is early to have killed. But we are on the wrong track, that is clear. The brute must have circled round to the north. Do many follow us…?'

  Thin and high, from some distance off, a hunting-horn sounded.

  'North, as I jaloused. By west, some way. It has made for higher ground, then – swung away from the river. A pox on it – the King was right!'

  'Aye, His Grace is right canny when it comes to the stags, lord. He seems to ken the way a hunted beast will think, will turn.'

  They could hear other riders who had followed the Duke's mistaken lead approaching now. Ludovick pulled his spume-flecked black's head round to the right, and spurred on, to pick his way amongst the alder, birch scrub and hollies, northwards.

  There did not sound to be many behind him. Most must have followed the King when, about two miles back, the stag and baying hounds had taken the south flank of a wooded hillock, and James had pulled off to the north. He shone at this, did their peculiar monarch; in the forest, with deer to chase, he was a different man, with a sheer instinct for the business that was more than any mere experience and field-craft. His heart was in it – to the woe of most of his Court.

  It would not be much after nine now – and they had been in the saddle for almost three hours. Small wonder that the numbers riding were small, despite royal disapproval – and most of these resentful. A man had to be an enthusiast indeed to be up day after day at five of the clock, wet or fine – and no women, however ambitious or spirited, would face it. Ludovick himself, in his present restive and fretful state of mind, made no complaint. He too was fond of the hunt, the vigorous action of which gave scant opportunity for gnawing thoughts, broodings and repinings, the long days in the saddle which left a man too tired to care overmuch for his lonely nights, to pine for the presence which meant all to him.

  Riding north now, in answer to the horn's summons, to what must be an early kill, with the headlong pace of the chase slackened, Ludovick could not keep the sore and aching thoughts at bay – more especially as it was not so very far from here that once, on just such a morning and occasion as this, he had contrived a meeting between Mary Gray and the King, which had led to the return from his first exile of the Master of Gray, and so to a co-operation between them, the Duke and the land-steward's reputed daughter, that culminated in their loving taking one of the other. The contemplation was bitter-sweet indeed.

  The intermittent winding of the horn guided him in time to the more hilly ground that lifted towards the foothills of the Ochils between Strathmiglo and Balvaird, where the trees grew smaller and stunted and gave place to whins and thorn. Here, on an open grassy terrace, about six miles from Falkland and the palace, the stag had been cornered, almost prematurely, in a re-entrant of outcropping rock, and brought down, a big beast with a magnificent head but too much weight to its fore-quarters. A score or so of horses were being held by grooms and falconers, deer-hounds were pacing about with lithe grace, and men were grouped here and there.

  But although Ludovick rode straight to the spot beside the rocks where the chief huntsman was kneeling, busy at the bleeding and gralloching of the quarry, James was not there; which was strange, for desperately as he hated and feared the sight and presence of blood and naked steel, the King never appeared to find any displeasure in this messy business of the gralloch – and indeed was apt to offer pawky advice to the operator, with proprietorial interest in the slain, and sometimes even to lend a hand himself. On this occasion, however, the royal victor was not crowing about his prowess, as usual, but standing some distance away, talking to a single individual. Another little group, including the Earl of Mar, George Home, and John Ramsay, the present favourite page, stood nearby, presumably beyond hearing, watching. And the remainder of the hunt stood further off, all eyeing the King, not the ceremony of the gralloch.

  Ludovick was not so enamoured of his cousin's company and presence as to hasten to his side. But a movement of the King's ungainly form suddenly revealed to die Duke the slender figure of die man he spoke with. It was Alexander Ruthven, Master of Gowrie – whom Ludovick had not set eyes upon since that day at Perth a full month before. Frowning, he moved over.

  Johnny Mar told him that the Master, with a cousin, Andrew Ruthven, had come up behind them as the stag turned at bay. They had certainly not started out on the hunt with the rest. He had requested to speak with the King apart. Some request for office or position, no doubt – one more pretty boy, the Earl suggested, with a scornful glance at Home and young Ramsay.

  'He came seeking the King, then?' Ludovick asked. 'It was not the King that sent for him?'

  'Would he be like to send for the fellow in the heat of a hunt?'

  Presently James, who seemed much interested in his conversation, perceived the Duke's presence and beckoned him forward.

  'Hech, hech, Vicky – you missed it! Aye, missed it! You were smart enough, back yonder. You should ha' held to me, man.' The sovereign chuckled his triumph. 'But, see – here's Sauny Ruthven, Gowrie's brother. He's come tell me that my lord his brother has something for me, at Perth. Aye – maist interesting.' And he shot a quick glance at the handsome young Ruthven.

  'Indeed, Sire,' Ludovick said flatly.

  'Aye. It's… it's right kindly intentioned. He would have me ride there, forthwith. To Perth.'

  'You, Sire? Ride to Perth? Now? At Gowrie's behest?'

  'Aye. You see, it's this way, Vicky. Gowrie has yon ill loon the Master o' Oliphant, some place in Perth. Him that's at the horn. You ken I've been to take order wi' him for long, and couldna lay hands on him. Now he's done this new vile and proud oppression in Angus, and he'll have to pay for it. Guid-sakes, yes. He's lying in Perth…'

  'Even so, Sire, I see no reason why you, the King, should go in person to apprehend him. To call off this hunt and ride a dozen miles just to act sheriff! Send a party. Send Gowrie authority to arrest Oliphant himself – although he needs it not, for he is provost of the burgh.'

  'Na, na, Vicky -1 maun' go myself. He's an unco proud and agile rogue, this. He's old enough to be Gowrie's father, and would befool him, to be sure. It'll need the King himself to put the King's justice on yon one.

  Mystified, the Duke shrugged. 'As you will, Sire – but I cannot see the need of it.' He looked doubtfully at young Ruthven. 'Has my lord of Gowrie not sufficient stout fellows in Perth town to apprehend old Lord Oliphant's son?'

  The young man coughed. 'I fear not, my lord Duke. It's a kittle matter…'

  'Aye, just that,' the King said brusquely, finally. 'Kittle, aye. We'll ride. But no' a' this throng. Vicky – do you and Johnny Mar select a number decently to company me. And pack the lave back to Falkland. Bring you my Lords Lindores and Inchaffray. And Sir Thomas Erskine and Jamie Erskine. Ummm. And Geordie Home and Johnny Ramsay, there. Aye, and the physician-man, Herries. Och, aye-wi' yoursel's: that's aplenty. Sec you to it. Come you, Master Sauny…'

  So presently a reduced and somewhat bewildered company of sportsmen thus nominated, with the Duke at their head, were pounding after their liege lord on the twelve-mile ride to Perth, while the others were left, ruefully or gratefully as it might be, to escort the single trophy of an abortive day's hunting back to wondering Falkland town.

  James had waited for none, and superbly mounted on the splendid white Barb which had been Huntly's gift, was already well in advance, young Ruthven being hard put to it to keep up with him.

  They went, by the little valley
of the Binn Burn, down into the steep winding defile of Glen Farg, forded the river thereof down near the mouth of the glen, and thereafter went thundering at a fine pace across the level haughlands of the great River Earn, mile upon mile, scattering cattle and raising squattering wildfowl from the scores of pools and ditches. It was not until Bridge of Earn itself was reached that Ludovick caught up with the King, who was now somewhat held back by the Master's dred horse. It was always a mystery how James, who looked so ill on a horse, like a sack of meal in the saddle, in fact rode so well and tirelessly. His great-grandfather, James the Fourth of sad memory, had been the same.

  He seemed to be in excellent spirits, despite this extraordinary interruption of his beloved hunting. 'No' far now, Vicky,' he called out. 'But three miles beyont this brig, ower the side o' yon Moncrieffe Hill. We'll soon ken the rights o' the business, now!'

  'There are doubts, Sire? Of the rights of it? Anent the Master of Oliphant?'

  James rolled his great eyes, from Ludovick back towards Ruthven, who was beginning to fall behind. He pulled his white over closer to the Duke's side.

  'It's no' Oliphant, Vicky – no' Oliphant, at all! Yon was but a device, see you. Necessary, you understand, to keep the matter close. And it is a right close matter.' The King had dropped his voice, so that the other had great difficulty in hearing him. Yet he sounded notably pleased with himself, almost gleeful. 'Right close. Weighty. Aye, o' great consequence.'

  Ludovick looked at him keenly, wordless.

  'I can tell you, Vicky – but no' a word to the others, mind. It's no' a matter to be shouted abroad, this! Guid kens it's no'! There's gold in this, Vicky – yellow gold! Gowrie and his brother ha' gotten their hands on a mannie wi' a pot o' gold!'

  'What!'

  'Gold, I tell you! A byordinar strange discover. Last night, it was. Sauny Ruthven, here, came on this mannie. Out in the fields some place, beyond Perth, he says. A right mysterious carle, muffled to the nose in a cloak. Ruthven had never seen the like. When he challenged him, the crittur was fair dismayed, and began to ran. But Sauny's young and quick. Forby, the stranger was sair weighted down. Sauny got a hold o' him, and off wi' his cloak. And, man, under it he had this pot o' gold. A great wide pot, full o' gold pieces! Have you ever heard the like?'