'No?' He took his brother's arm. 'This way, Patrick.'
The other suddenly perceived whither he was being led, guided. He halted, and made as though to turn back. David's pressure on his arm was strong, however. They were on the start of the little track that led down into the birchwood, where once and more than once criticism had taken a physical form.
'I am not dressed for woodland walking,' he said, a little strangely.
'Are you ever? Come you, Patrick.'
'No. This is folly. I have not the time…'
'Come, you. We have all the time that there is. I only wish to speak with you, brother,' David said softly. 'Did you think…?'
Patrick mustered a laugh and a one-shouldered shrug. 'We are grown men,' he said. 'Bairns no longer. I am Master of Gray, of His Majesty's Privy Council, Master of the Wardrobe, Gentleman of the Bedchamber, Commendator of St Vigeans -did you know that? – Knight of the White Cross of Castile'
'Aye. And I am just Davy the Bastard, still! So your lord Councillorship need have no fears. Come, you.'
In silence, nevertheless, and wary-eyed, Patrick paced down the path, through the brushing brackens, beside his brother. 'Well, man?' he said at length, as though it was forced from him. 'Out with it What is this talk you would have?'
'Wait,' David advised, mildly. 'We are nearly there.'
'But…'
They came down to the little green amphitheatre amongst the.. trees, that Patrick at least had not visited since that day when he had kid the blame for Mariota's pregnancy upon his brother -and had paid some sort of price therefor in battered features and bleeding nose. There David halted.
'Why did you betray Esme" Stuart to his death?' he asked levelly.
Patrick raised finely arching brows in astonishment. 'Betray…? I? Why Davy – what are you thinking of? What foolishness is this…?
'Why did you betray Esme Stuart to his death?5 the other repeated inexorably. 'You plotted his downfall, encompassed his ruin and banishment, and assured his doom, as surely as though you had stabbed him with your own dagger. Whether you arranged his final death also, is small matter. Why did you do it, Patrick?'
'Christ God, man – are you crazed? Am I responsible for what Gowrie and Lyon and Angus and the others did?'
'I think that you are, yes – since it was you ensured that they did it!'
'You talk of you know not what. Lennox died in France, while I was in Spain.'
'What does that prove? The power of silver – Jesuit silver, perhaps? And a far-seeing eye. How was it that you put it, one time? "Most men are blinded by passion and prejudice. Those who can preserve a nice judgment and a clear head may achieve much." I have never forgotten your creed, Patrick!' "This is not to be borne!' the other cried, Ins handsome features flushing. 'So much will I accept from you – but only so much!' And he swung about on his high-heeled shoe.
David's hand shot out to grip his brother's shoulder, and whirl him round to face him again. 'Not so fist, Patrick' he remarked evenly. This is the place where always truth was spoken, in the end. Let us have the truth, now. That is why I brought you here. Or must I beat it out of you, as I used to do, with my bare hands? We are bairns no longer; as you say. Tell me then, why you betrayed your friend. It is important to me, who have been your friend also. For he was your friend. You brought him to this land. You helped to make him ruler of all Scotland. If he offended, and went too far, you could have corrected him surely, brought him down a little? But to ruin him entirely, and from a distance.'
'That is only your vain imagining, I tell you.'
'Can you deny that you knew that it all would fall out so, before ever you went to France? That is why you went – to let others do your ill work, while you went safe, and retained the confidence of the King? You gave yourself away, to the Lady Marie and myself, yon day by the Eden. You admitted then…'
'I admit nothing I You forget yourself, man. I thought that you loved me, Davy?'
'Aye – but does that mean that I must love the evil treacherous ways of you? That I may not try to save you from your own hist of betrayal? And others, too…?'
'Aye – and others tool There we have itl Marie Stewart! It is Marie Stewart you would be the saviour of! You talk of lust and betrayal! It is her that you lust for…'
Like a whip cracking David's hand shot out and slapped hard across his brother's sun-bronzed features. 'Say that again, and I will make your beautiful face… so that you dare not show it… to Marie… or your maggot-blown Court!' he jerked.
Patrick shivered strangely, fine eyes glittering. 'You whore's-get!' he breathed. 'For that, any other man would die! For you – this!' He spat contemptuously, full in the other's face.
David was stepping forward fists clenched, jawline tense, when a new voice broke in, and turned both their heads.
'Davy! Davy – stop it! Stop it – do you hear?' Mariota came running down to them through the turning bracken, in flushed disarray. 'Oh, how can you! How. can you!'
The men stood staring, panting, wordless.
'Do not dare to strike him again!' the young woman cried. 'I saw you. You struck him Oh, that it should come to this, between you!' She halted before them, tears in her eyes. 'Fighting! Fighting like wild brute beasts!'
David said nothing, but Patrick managed to fetch a smile of sorts. 'Not fighting, my dear,' he protested, fingering his burning face. 'Surely not fighting. Just an argument…'
'Fighting,' Mariota insisted. 'And think you I do not know what you were fighting over? It is that woman! The two of you were fighting over that Stewart woman! I know…' Her voice broke.
David started towards her, but she plunged away from him. 'Do not touch me!' she cried. 'Do you think that I will come second to her!?'
'But, Mariota lass – it is not sol'
'Can you deny that it was of her that you talked? When you came to blows. I heard her name…'
'Her name, yes. We spoke of her. But…'
'My dear, do not distress yourself It was nothing,' Patrick declared, his assured and smiling self again. 'We but spoke of Marie in relation to the Court. Did you not hear that, also? The Court and its h'm, factions and loyalties. Eh, Davy?'
His brother did not answer.
Patrick took the young woman's arm. 'Surely you know that men may become incensed over statecraft and the like, Mariota my dove? It signifies nothing.'
She twisted away from his clasp. 'Leave me!' she exclaimed 'Leave me alone. Both of you. She turned, and began to hurry back up the slope, whence she had come. 'You are both nothing but a hurt to me-a hurt and a shame! Both of you!'
Patrick would have hastened after her, but David pulled him back, urgently. 'Let her be,' he said 'You heard her? She wants neither of us this moment. Not even you!'
The other looked at him, searchingly. cSo-o-o!' he said That is it! Poor Davy!'
Abruptly, his brother swung about and went striding off through the trees, away from the direction of the castle. Patrick looked after him.
'Davy,' he called 'At the least you saved the King for me… after the other matter. Why, if you so mistrusted me?'
David threw no answer back.
'My thanks for that, at any rate,' the Master of Gray said 'I am sorry, Davy – sorry for both of us!' He sighed, and then went slow-footed up the hill.
Chapter Eighteen
How strange, frequently, are the things that drive men to a change of course, to active intervention in this cause or that small unimportant things, it may be, where greater issues have failed to do so. Thus it was with David Gray. When the Court of the King of Scots moved to Stirling for the winter of 1583 – where Arran had obtained the Keepership of the Castle, in room of the forfeited Johnny Mar, and even had himself appointed Provost of the town, so that he had all things under his hand – Patrick wrote to his brother, apparently anxious to forgive and forget all, requesting that he come thither to be with him again, as secretary, where he would be most useful He promised that he would find life at
Court more amusing than heretofore. David refused.
Thereafter, the Lady Marie wrote, also from Stirling. She had been weak, she admitted, and had returned to Court Should she have been strong, rather, and remained to be snowed-up for the winter in Glen Prosen? Was hiding oneself away strength? Anyway, here she was, back with her father and brothers. She was no politician, but even to her it was evident that the course which the new regime was taking boded ill for Scotland, a course in which her father was becoming deep implicated – Arran's course. Arran was acting Chancellor of the Realm now, claiming that Argyll was too sick and old for his duties. He was behaving disgustingly with James, corrupting him blatantly, unashamedly, before all – and accepting bribes, through his wife, from any and every man who had a favour to gain from the Crown. He was attacking the Kirk, selling more bishoprics, and giving the bishops power over the presbyteries, bolstering their authority by getting the Estates to declare James, and therefore himself, supreme in matters spiritual as well as temporal. Refusal to submit to the bishops, appointed in the King's name, was branded as treason. So Arran sought to hold more power in his hands than any man had ever done in Scotland. Free speech was being put down everywhere, the Catholics were being advanced, and there was talk of leagues with France and Spain and the Pope. And all the while, Patrick, whom she was convinced could have greatly affected events for the better, sat back and smiled and played the gallant – and did nothing. It was maddening, she wrote. The man who could, if he would, save the King and the country, scarcely lifted a hand, save to bedeck himself toss dice, organise a masque, or pen a poem. Would Davy, whom she was assured had more influence with his brother than anyone else alive} not come to be with him again? There had been a quarrel, she believed – and could guess the cause. But Patrick loved him, she was certain, and wanted him at his side. Needed him, she declared. What good might he not achieve there, Patrick being as he was? Would he not come?
Briefly, firmly, if kindly enough, David penned his refusal.
At Yuletide.. Patrick, laden with gifts, came again to Castle Huntly, in his sunniest mood. To David he could not have been more kind, more friendly, bringing him a handsome and costly rapier as present He urged that he return to Court with him, where the King himself, he averred, frequentily asked for him, and where undoubtedly, if Davy so desired, some office or position could easily be procured for him. Lord Gray, privately, added his own plea – indeed, it was more like a command – declaring that he would feel a deal happier about Patrick's activities if David was apt to be at his shoulder. David, dourly setting his jaw, declared that he hated the idle artificial life of the Court, with its posturings and intrigues. He preferred to continue as dominie, and assistant to Rob Powrie, the steward.
And then, a mere remark, a casual reference made by a passing visitor to my lord, changed it all. This caller, a minister of the Kirk, on his way from Stirling to his charge at Brechin, mentioned amongst other gloomy forebodings and wrathful indictments, that that Jezebel, Arran's Countess, now went brazenly bedecked in the jewels that belonged to Mary the imprisoned Queen, the King's mother.
Within twenty-four hours thereafter, David's mind was made up and he told Mariota firmly, determinedly, that he must leave her for a while. Mary Queen of Scots reigned yet, in some measure.
It would have been difficult satisfactorily to explain David's intensity of loyalty and regard for the unhappy Queen, to his wife or anyone else. He had never seen her. Most of what he had heard of her had been ill, critical, indeed scurrilous. She had been Elizabeth's prisoner now for fifteen years, all his understanding life, and her legendary beauty could hardly have survived. He was strongly Protestant though not bigoted, where she was insistently Catholic. Yet David, as well as many another in Scotland, still accorded her his unfailing loyalty and deep sympathy. He looked on her infinitely more as his true sovereign than he did her son James. All her hectic life – and ever since, indeed – Mary had that curious faculty of arousing and sustaining devotion in men, a devotion quite unaffected by her own morals, behaviour or follies. She was of the same mould as Helen and Deirdre and Cleopatra. At the word that the Countess of Arran had appropriated her jewels, the sober and level-headed David Gray overturned his oft-reinforced decision, packed his bags, and left wife and home to seek to do he knew not what Perhaps it was but the last straw? Perhaps it had required but this? And was it so surprising? In Scotland, men had died for her by the score, the hundred, and even her enemies had been driven to their most virulent spleen for fear of themselves being lost in complete subjection to her allure. John Knox himself was half-crazed with desire for her. And in England a steady stream of devotees had gone to the block for her, some the highest in the land, ever since the fateful day of her immurement Hence, partly, Elizabeth's cold hatred and fear.
It was a blustery day of March when David rode over the high-arched bridge across the stripling Forth, and into Stirling town. A very different Stirling this from formerly, with every house full with the overflow of the Court, bustle, gaiety and extravagance on all hands, soldiers everywhere – for Arran, as newly-appointed Lieutenant-General of the royal forces, was enlisting manpower determinedly – lordlings, hangers-on, men-at-arms, loose women. It reminded David of the Guises' Rheims.
He made his way up to the great fortress that soared above the town, and had less difficulty in entering therein than he had anticipated. The Master of Gray's name opened all doors.
He found the Court in a state of excitement and stir that surely could not be its normal even under the new regime. Enquiries elicited the startling information that Walsingham was on his way, no further away than Edinburgh, in fact – Sir Francis Walsingham himself, the most feared name in England now that Burleigh was growing old, Elizabeth's cold, ruthless and incorruptible principal Secretary of State. What his visit boded, none knew – but that he had come himself as envoy could only indicate that the matter was of the gravest importance. None could deny that
Patrick, when David ran him to earth, writing letters in a pleasant tapestry-hung room with a blazing log-fire, and facing out to the snow-clad Highland hills, did not seem in the least perturbed. He jumped up from his desk, and came forward, hands outstretched.
'Davy! My excellent and exemplary Davy!' he cried. 'How fair a sight is your sober face! I am glad to see you -I am so!'
That sounded genuine enough. David nodded dumbly, always at a loss for words on such occasions.
'What brings you, Davy? Love of me?' He did not await an answer. 'Whatever it is, you are welcome. For yourself – and also for this. Look!' He gestured at the littered table. 'Letters, letters. My pen is never idle.'
'Aye. But even so, there are letters that you would never let me write for you, I think, Patrick!5
'What of it?' his brother shrugged. There are plenty that I would. What brought you here at last, Davy?'
The other did not answer that.They say, out there, that the English Secretary. Walsingham, is coming here. Is it so?'
'Aye, true enough. What of it?'
'Elizabeth must have something strong to say, to send that man!' 'No doubt'
'It does not concern you?'
'Should it, Davy? It is not I who have to answer him.'
David looked at his brother, brows puckered. 'I do not understand you,' he said, shaking his head. 'Even yet – after all these years. To be in so deep, yet to care so little. Ever to move others, and always to remain yourself untouched. What is it that you want, Patrick? What do you seek, from your life?'
'Why, Davy – why so portentous? Should I tear my hair because others do? Because the King bites his nails and pleads not to have to see Walsingham? That is Arran's business, not mine. He acts the Chancellor…'
'Aye – what is your business, then? Once I believed that it was to save our poor Queen. To get her out of Elizabeth's power. That is why I aided you. But what have you done for her? For Mary? La all these years when your hand has been behind so much that goes on in Scotland? Nothing! Nothing, s
ave to write her letters, and spend her money! Aye, and prevent her envoy from having audience with her son! And all the while she rots there, in prison, while you who were to succour her, grow rich, powerful. And now, 'fore God, even this painted woman of Arran's struts and prinks, they say, in the Queen's jewels! It is not to be borne!'
'I' faith, Davy – here is an outcry indeed ' Patrick said softly, staring at the other. It was not often that David gave himself away so quickly, so completely. 'I do believe that is it! That is what has brought you. The Honeypot still draws, attracts – eh? Astonishing! Our staid and sensible Davy…!'
'My lord says that you have brought back a further six thousand gold crowns of the Queen's revenues, from France!' David interrupted him harshly. That means that she still trusts you – or her servants do.'
'So – our hither has heard that, has he? And passed it on. How… inadvisable! I wonder whence he got it?
'Why did they give you it? What do you intend to do with it, Patrick? Apart from lining your own pockets…?'
Have a care, Davy – have a care! I do not like your questions.'
'Nor I. But that is what I came to ask, nevertheless. Someone, it seems requires to ask them. Someone who is not afraid of you…'
'So you are the Queen's champion – self-appointed? Davy Gray is to be accounted to, for the Queen's moneys? De Guise and the Archbishop and Morgan her Treasurer trust me to expend it aright, for Mary's best interests – but not Davy Gray!'
These others do not know you as I know you, Patrick…'
'Do you know me? Have you not just finished saying that you do not! That you do not understand me, do not know what it is I want? Yet you would interfere in what is no concern of yours…'
'She is my Queen, as much as yours, brother. If I can do aught for her, here at your shoulder…'
David stopped as the door burst open without warning. King James himself came shambling into the room, rich clothes untidily awry, big eyes unsteadily rolling and darting. 'Patrick, man – what are we to do? What…?' At sight of David, he halted, his slack lower jaw falling ludicrously. 'Guidsakes – it's you again, Master Davy! Davy Gray. I didna ken you were in Stirling. What brings you, Davy…? Och – but no' the now. No' the now.' James turned back to Patrick. 'What are we to do with the man, Patrick? With this Walsingham? I'll no' see him. Jamie says I must – but I'll no'. I willna see him, I tell you!' The slurring voice rose high. He's a terrible man. They say he's like any blackamoor. Yon woman's sent him to glower at me. I'll no'
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