Black Douglas (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  Hamilton pursed thin lips. “That puts it over-simply. But how can you know it all, who have been no nearer to Court than Ettrick Forest! My grandsire is the King’s Guardian, yes. But it is the Privy Council which rules, in the young King’s name.”

  “And Sir William Crichton rules the Privy Council, as Chancellor! Even in Ettrick Forest, sir, we know that much!”

  “Crichton is strong, yes. But Crichton can be brought low. And must be.”

  Surprised, Will stared at the man. “You say that? Livingstone and Crichton are a pair. Friends. They work together. In all things. Together they betrayed and slew my cousins. And you . . . you wed their mother!”

  The other narrowed pale eyes, then shrugged. “I wed their mother, yes. So have all the more reason to see justice done. That slaying was Crichton’s work, planned by him alone . . .”

  “Livingstone consented sufficiently to attend the banquet to which they were invited. With the young King. Was there when the bull’s head was placed on the table before them. Watched my cousins seized, there at table. Took part in the mockery of a trial. Voted against them. Watched them taken out to the courtyard and beheaded, there and then. Two boys younger than myself — and one of them Earl of Douglas!”

  “Yes, yes. It was an ill business. My grandsire saw it done. As did many another. But what could he do? The young Douglases were there at Crichton’s invitation. It was in his Castle of Edinburgh, mind — not Livingstone’s Stirling. Crichton’s men were everywhere. My grandsire had the King’s Grace to think of. He dared not oppose Crichton then and there — or the King would have been seized, taken from him, and this realm plunged into still sorer straits. That was not the time when he could counter Crichton. But . . . the time is perhaps come now!”

  Will waited.

  “Throughout the land there is a stirring against Crichton and his black deeds. As never before. Men will rise, now. But they require a leader.”

  The other almost smiled again. “I think that I have heard this before! This leader, sir? Is it to be yourself? Your grandsire will never lead against his friend?”

  “He is not his friend. Livingstone has never loved Crichton. They have on occasion worked together, but uneasily. He would bring Crichton low but he is getting to be an old man, now. He will support me, rather than lead himself. And that means the King. The Crown’s favour and authority.”

  “Then you are like to win, are you not? Especially if you seek the Bishop of Glasgow’s aid. For he would have Crichton down likewise. Then you would have Holy Church behind you, also.”

  “That snake! Cameron would but be Chancellor again — from which the saints preserve us! Moreover, he hates my grandsire. He will never work with Livingstone — or Livingstone with him. Besides it is warriors we need to bring down Crichton — fighting men, not clerks! And, Will — Douglas can raise fighting men, by the thousand!”

  “Aye. I wondered when we would come to that, Sir James!”

  “See, lad — you likely do not rightly know your own power. If you but give the order, you can field more lances and swords than any other man in Scotland. It may be that John of the Isles can field more men, more bare-shanked savages — but in horsed and sworded men-at-arms no two other lords in the land can look at Douglas. Once let it be known that Douglas is entering the lists again, that Douglas is behind myself and Livingstone — then Crichton’s days are numbered. His friends and toadies will desert him. He is no great noble, no chief with large numbers of his own people at his back. He is just a cunning upstart laird that the late King raised too high. He depends on the levies of his friends, for men. Denied the royal authority, and his friends leaving him, Chancellor though he is, he cannot fight, he cannot stand. Raise the standard of Douglas, my good lord — and see it happen. Hamilton was a little breathless with enthusiasm, and his long speech.

  “And see whom in Crichton’s place, sir? As Chancellor?”

  “Why, myself, lad. Who else? My grandsire is too old. His sons have scarce the wits. I shall be Chancellor. And you — why, you could have what office you desire. You are young — but I could guide you. Hamilton and Douglas! Aye, Hamilton and Douglas together could do great things, Will. Hamilton and Douglas could rule Scotland — and rule it surely. I was your father’s friend — I would be yours. And our friendship will serve the realm.”

  The younger man spoke slowly. “My father’s friendship did not turn over to you, or to any man, the power of Douglas!”

  Hamilton’s jaw tightened perceptibly, and for moments he seemed to hold himself in. Then he smiled, laughed, and nudging Will in man-to-man fashion, actually turned to pat the young man’s flat, taut belly.

  “There’s why, lad!” he cried. ‘Why your friendship and support should do greater things than ever your father’s did. Why he let the power of Douglas languish. Did they tell you? In digging for his heart, they took four stones of tallow out of James the Gross! Four stones! You are something different, are you not?” Sir James raized quizzical eyebrows. “I wonder what they did with it?”

  Will swallowed, moistening his lips. He stared, for the moment wordless.

  “Something of a lesson, is it not? . . .’ the other was going on, when the younger man interrupted him.

  “Sir — you will excuse me. I shall not forget . . . what you have said.” He turned abruptly on his heel, and ran off up the stairs.

  Hamilton called after him, but he did not pause nor answer.

  The Countess Beatrix sat before the fire in the upper chamber that had been the English governor’s room, with Will’s Aunt Elizabeth, the Countess of Orkney, and other of her ladies. Will, bursting in, halted at sight of them all, and jerked a bow or two slightly agitated. None of his sisters was included in this company, he noted.

  His mother rose, and actually made a graceful half-curtsy. “My lord,” she said gravely. Perforce the others had to rise and do likewise.

  Confused, Will cleared his throat. He did not realise how blackly he frowned. “You sent for me?” he said.

  “I asked the favour of your presence, my lord,” his mother corrected, gently.

  If her son eyed the Countess with something like suspicion, it is hardly to be wondered at. In all the years of his childhood and youth, Beatrix Douglas had paid but little attention to him, or to any of her children. She lived in a different world, the world of the Court and palace and power; no doubt rightly, she conceived these as no suitable worlds for the bringing up of children. So her offspring had been banished, first to the Clydesdale estates of her husband, and later, on his succeeding to the earldom of Douglas, to Newark of Ettrick, where they had grown up uncontaminated by Court life indeed, but also unguided by any more decided hand than that of the Anxious Abbot George. For the Countess had not seen fit to share their banishment. It was hardly devotion and concern for her obese and lethargic husband, probably, which dictated her choice. Her father had been James the First’s principal friend and tutor, the 2nd Earl of Orkney, and she had grown up with the King’s sisters as an intimate. She was all St. Clair, was the Lady Beatrix, in sheer overweening pride of line the most vaunting in all Scotland. Small wonder, then, that Will Douglas found this sudden respectful deference unmanning.

  Perceiving his confusion, the Countess gestured towards a door which led to a small tower chamber. “There are certain matters to discuss and decide,” she said. “Shall we speak privily, in there?”

  Nodding, he strode for the door, and held it open for his mother.

  The circular apartment was small and bare, devoid of furnishings. But there were stone benches flanking the deep window recess, and on one of these the Countess went to sit. Will remained on his feet.

  His mother’s still, calm beauty by no means put the young man at his ease. She eyed him levelly but closely, almost as though seeing him properly for the first time, sizing him up. Not being able to return the scrutiny, in the circumstances, with any comfort, he gazed out of the half-glazed, half-shuttered window. He could not remember when
last they had been alone together. He cleared his throat but did not speak.

  The woman did not seem to find the silence uncomfortable, at least. When at length she spoke, it was reflectively. “You are a man now, Will. A tall, goodly man. And by the dark looks of you, all Douglas.”

  ‘Would you expect otherwise? Desire otherwise?” he blurted. “I am near nineteen. And Douglas by name!”

  “No. It is not strange. I but . . . had not realised what you had become, Will. I am glad of it.” She gave the faintest smile,

  “You are very like your father.”

  He started, to turn and look at her. “What . . . do you mean?”

  “You wonder? Long ago, when I married James Douglas of Balveny, he was a young man, not unlike you. Dark, slim, full of life.” She did not sigh, or speak with any emotion, much less sentiment; just simply, factually, her voice as fine as the rest of her. “Do you doubt it? He was not James the Gross in those days, Twenty years ago, he was all a man. And I was a bride of fifteen.”

  Will blinked. “I did not know. Always to me he has been old. Fat. Half-asleep. Not that I saw him much. Or ever knew him.”

  “No. Perhaps it was better that way. For your father was a sick man. Sick in many ways. He is, I think better gone.” She stirred a little on her stone seat. “How think you he got ten bairns out of me, in eight years? Before I was twenty-five.”

  Embarrassed the son looked away, wordless.

  His mother went on, unhurriedly. “But I am glad, Will, to see you as you are. I might have wished that there should be something of St. Clair, of Orkney, about you — but it is probably best that you are all Douglas. Since you are Douglas now. Have you considered what this means?”

  He almost snorted. “If I had not, I would have learned something of it, today! Coming to you, I have been learning, fast. From two who would teach me. That is why I was held back. Yon Bishop, and Sir James Hamilton they made it clear what it meant that I was Earl of Douglas. Severally. What it meant, for them!”

  “Aye. They both have their ambitions. They sought your help?”

  “They sought armed men! Douglas support. Towards power. For themselves. Each would be Chancellor, in place of Crichton.”

  The Countess nodded. “This was bound to be. Many others will come to you likewise, Will. That, no doubt, is why my lord of Glasgow came here. Not out of love for me or mine. As for Sir James, this I had foreseen — for he was ever at your father, on the same errand. He has been swifter than I thought, that is all.” She shrugged slightly. “What did you tell them, Will?”

  “I told them that I would remember what they had said. As I will. Remember well! That was all.”

  “Good. That is best, at this stage. But I hope that you did not offend them. Either of them? Both are men it would be foolish to affront. Men who could be of use to you, men who could help you to where you must go.”

  “Go? Where must I go? Where such as these can aid me?”

  “You must go, Will, to where Douglas should ever be. To the lead in this realm of Scotland. To be the King’s right hand. And, if it be that aught should remove the young King — more than that!”

  Will stared at her. “What . . . what are you saying?” he demanded. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that you, by birth and blood, are destined for great things, Will. Your father was less so. He never thought to be the Black Douglas. It came to him by chance, and he failed to rise to the challenge. You, I hope, will not so fail. For you, whatever your looks, have the blood of Orkney in you also. You are Douglas, and have the blood that has upheld the kings of this realm; but you have the blood of the Norse Kings also. You must not fail.”

  It was his mother’s quiet and authoritative but far from emphatic manner, as much as her words, which held the young man. Her statements as to his blood was not news to him, of course; old Abbot George had not failed to inform his charges from whom they were descended. The Douglases had upheld the Crown of Scotland by more than their swords. The late King’s brother, the murdered Duke of Rothesay, had been married to Mary Douglas, Will’s aunt, sister of James the Gross. His father’s brother, Achibald Tyneman, 4th Earl, had married the Princess Margaret, daughter of Robert the Third. His other uncle, the illegitimate Sir William of Nithsdale oddly enough had wed Egidia, a daughter of Robert the Third — which princess’s own daughter, another Egidia, marrying Orkney, was again his own mother’s mother, a strange tangle which he had never quite unravelled. The throne of Scotland, therefore, was more than somewhat involved with the house of Douglas. Moreover, King Haakon of Norway had publicly recognised the St. Clair Earls of Orkney as scions of the Scandinavian blood-royal, through the older Norse princes and Jarls of Orkney. If blood meant anything, his was rich enough. It seemed that blood meant a lot to his mother, at least.

  “What, then? What would you have me do?” he demanded, a little hoarsely. “Everyone, it seems, would have me busy! Douglas should do this, do that! This concern for what I do is something sudden!”

  The Countess nodded. If she sensed any bitterness in her son’s voice, she did not react to it. “Sudden, yes. As many things in life are sudden. And in death. Yesterday, what you did, Will, was much your own concern. Today it is all Scotland’s.”

  “So it would seem. And who do you wish Douglas to draw sword for?”

  “The sword is not my concern,” she said. “There are many, over many, to advise you on that. I only say, be in no haste to draw it — so that when you do it shall be a mighty sword indeed. Make Douglas great again first, I say. Then the sword may make Douglas greater. There is much that you can do, must do Will, before you draw steel.”

  “Must do . . .”

  “Must,” she repeated, but equably, almost pensively. “For Douglas to be weak, inactive, laggard, is to this realm’s hurt. While the lion sleeps, jackals snap and snarl. The lion has slept too long, and the jackals have drunk deep of the life’s-blood of Scotland. They must be sent whimpering back to their dens. But first, the lion must stretch himself, brace his muscles, summon his strength . . .”

  “What would you have me do, in this? Talk plain, a God’s sake! What can I do? As I am?”

  “You can do much, Will. You can wed Margaret of Galloway, for a start.”

  “Wed! . . .” Involuntarily he stepped back against the walling as though his mother had struck him.

  “Aye, wed. It is time, and past. You are nearly nineteen. And there is only one bride for Douglas. Your cousin Margaret. Wed her, and you unite again all the great lands riven from your earldom three years ago by Crichton. After the murder. All Galloway. The earldom of Wigtown. The Lordship of Bothwell. Most of Clydesdale that you do not already hold!”

  “But . . . but . . . I have no desire to wed her! Her, or any other. I have not so much as seen her. When I take a wife, I shall choose her differently from this, I swear!”

  “Choose? What choice is there? You are not some bonnet laird, Will, to pick on any wench that takes your eye. Not to wed. You are Douglas. Next to the King, you bear the greatest name in the land. You must wed accordingly. Margaret Douglas of Galloway is the greatest heiress in Scotland. And she holds what should have been yours. Moreover, she is very fair.”

  The young man gazed at his mother without seeing her. He knew of the Fair Maid of Galloway, of course, reputed to be the most beautiful creature in all the realm. Who did not? He knew that she queened it over the large and populous province of Galloway, the south-west corner of Scotland, with a dozen castles in her white hands and ten score of rich baronies. Not that the thought had ever concerned him. She was the young sister of two murdered youths, daughter of Archibald, 2nd Duke of Touraine and 5th Earl of Douglas, and on her brothers’ execution, this vast slice of the Douglas patrimony had been slashed off and vested in the twelve-year-old girl — not out of any sympathy with her situation, but that the mighty earldom itself should be thus drastically weakened. That had been Crichton’s doing also, and Crown and Privy Council had played his gam
e. James the Gross had done nothing.

  “She is little more than a child,” Will objected. “Fourteen.”

  “Almost fifteen,” the Countess agreed gently. “And at fifteen, a girl can be woman enough. I was but fifteen when your father wed me — and I served him passing well.”

  “That may be so. But I do not seek a wife . . .”

  “Will — see it this way. If you do not marry her, another man most assuredly will. And gain Galloway, Douglas land, with her. Would you relish that? Many will have their eyes on this rich prize. Wed this girl and you double the power and wealth of Douglas without a blow. Allow another to wed her, and you raise up a rod for your own back. Raise another to power almost equal with your own.”

  He shook his head. “Is she not to be considered? Herself? This Margaret Douglas? She may have her own choice for husband!”

  “She is a Douglas. She will not refuse the Black Douglas himself. Besides, her mother, the Duchess, is now married to Hamilton. And Hamilton desires your support, it seems.”

  “You would have me begging that one’s aid, to gain a wife I do not want?”

  “Douglas does not beg. Douglas lets it be known — and wise men perceive and act accordingly. Sir James will be glad to assist you, at no cost to himself.”

  “The girl — she is too close related to me for marriage, is she not? In cousinship. Within the Church’s forbidden degree?” Margaret of Galloway was in fact the granddaughter of James the Gross’s brother.

  “Holy Church makes such decrees — and can unmake them. Never fear. Bishop Cameron also seeks your support? Make him earn it, then. He will petition the Pope for you, and due remission will be made.”

  “I will not be beholden to that arrogant prelate . . .”

  “No, no Will — there is no need. You are too direct. Lacking in subtlety. Let it be known that you seek the aid of his rival — of Bishop Kennedy of St. Andrews, the Primate. Then my lord of Glasgow will come beseeching you to let him approach the Holy Father on your behalf. You need promise nothing. You must learn how these things are managed by great lords. Such as Douglas need be beholden to none.”