Lord and Master mog-1

by Nigel Tranter

  For a while Patrick and Marie walked wordless between the shadowy clipped yew hedges and the pale-gleaming statuary, the man's hand at the young woman's elbow. At length, it was Marie who spoke.

  'You are silent tonight, Patrick. It is a strange experience for you to be the outcast, rejected. Poor Patrick!'

  'I am not rejected yet, my dear – save by you this many-a-day! Even so, and if I was, I would be blithe and happy if I could reverse your rejection with the Queen's.'

  'I do not think that is the truth. But assuredly, Patrick, I do not reject you.'

  'No? Here is joyful news, then.' He held her a little closer.

  Do not tell me that this cool, sober heart of yonrs is warming to me, at last?

  'My heart has never been cool to you. You are a difficult man to be cool to.'

  'Do not say that you have been deceiving me, all this time?

  'There are more sorts of heat than one, to be aroused in a woman's heart'

  'Aye. I pray that it may be the right sort that I have aroused at last, then. Let me feel, and see.' Sliding his arm around her, he brought his hand to rest on her firm left breast

  They were walking very slowly now. She neither paused nor shook him oft

  'It beats,' he murmured. 'It beats, undeniably. But what does it say?

  Beat, beat, cool heart, and speak me clear,

  Your beauty warms my hand so near,

  But truer glow than that I crave,

  The flame of love my heart to save!

  'Save your poetry and, and posing for Queen Elizabeth!' Marie told him, but with a hunt tremor in that level voice. 'Myself, I prefer plain honest words that mean what they say.'

  'You do not believe that I love you, Marie? Despite all the times I tell you?

  'I do not know – I do not know at all, Patrick.'

  Then let me prove it, my sweet' Gently but firmly, he turned her round, to face him, and bent his head to hers.

  She did not turn away as their lips met Lingeringly, expertly, he kissed her, and, as her mouth stirred a little under his, strongly, ever more fiercely he bore down upon her. But she parted her lips no further, though he felt her bosom heaving against his own chest At length he loosed her and drew back a little, to peer into her eyes in the gloom

  That… proves… nothing,' she said, as even-voiced as she might 'You do as much, and more, for any woman who takes your fancy – or who can serve some purpose of your own.'

  Patrick sighed. 'You are hard, Marie – like flint I had hoped…'He stopped.

  ' I am not like flint, Patrick – I would that I were, I think.'

  'So calm, so sober, so sure of yourself.'

  'Not inside of me.'

  'No? How may I reach that inside, then? My avowals of love do not reach there. Nor my offers of marriage. Nor my poetry, nor yet my kisses. What may I do other than I have done?' Abruptly he laughed in the darkness. 'You said that I would do as much and more, for other women. Come you into this arbour here, my dear, and we shall see how much more I shall do for you – and you alone! And, it may be, I shall gain that inside of you at last!'

  She shook her head, but not angrily. That is not the way either, Patrick. Not… yet'

  'Not yet! Then in God's good name – when, girl? And how?

  I have been wooing you for years. How can I make you love me,

  woman? Or must I ask Davy that?' In anyone else but Patrick Gray his voice would have seemed to grate, there.

  'No, Patrick, that is not your task. Not to make me love you.'

  'You mean…?'

  'I mean that I love you already,' she stated simply.

  For once the man was silenced. He gazed at her, gripped her arms, and said nothing.

  'Are you so surprised, then?'

  'You… this is… for how long, Marie?' he got out

  'For all the same long years that you have said you wooed me.'

  'For years? Can that be true? Me – not Davy? Never Davy?'

  'I love Davy, yes – but quite otherwise.'

  'You love him? Then… then how do you love met Otherwise from him?'

  'I have never dreamed that I might marry Davy,' she said quietly.

  'So-o-o! Then, why? Christ God, Marie, why have you held me thus away? Why injure me, and yourself as well, all this time? If you did not doubt your love…!'

  'It was not my love that I doubted, Patrick – but yours.'

  'Mine! But I have told you, assured you…'

  Telling is not enough, for me. Nor kissing. Nor that other you propose. Before I many a man, he must put our love before all else. Before his ambition, his freedom, his convenience. He must act as though to be my husband was the greatest project of his life. Perhaps I am foolish and ask too much – but that is the fashion of me. He must earn the right to marry me, Patrick.'

  'And have I not earned that right, in all these years? I have known other women, yes – but they meant nothing. Would you have me a celibate, a recluse?'

  'No – since it is Patrick Gray that I love, to my cost!' She even smiled faintly there. ''These others – they may mean nothing.

  I am prepared to believe that But it is not of them that I speak. The truth is that you have no right to marry anyone, Patrick. You yet have a wife, already. In that fact lies the answer to your questions and my doubts. You still have a wife. In all these years you have taken no step to end your marriage…'

  'But that was no marriage – never was, from the first I am as much wed to any women that I have ever held in my arms, as to Elizabeth Lyon.'

  'Yet she is still your wife. And her property is still in your grasp! And should her young and weakly brother die, she is the greatest heiress in Scotland! So she is still your wife – and I doubt, Patrick. I doubt'

  He stroked his small pointed beard. 'So – that is it! Elizabeth Lyon. For that you have repulsed me, always.'

  'For that – and what it signifies of your mind, my dear.'

  'Lord, if that is all, then I shall seek an annulment of that piece of folly – my noble father's folly more than my own indeed – forthwith, Marie. I do not require Elizabeth Lyon's wealth, now.'

  Again that faint smile. 'Not now? Oh, Patrick – for so clever a man, you are a child yet'

  'If I do this, if I end this marriage that is no marriage, will you wed me, Marie? Have I your promise?'

  'No, my dear, you have not But come to me a free man, and I shall give you an answer, an honest answer. I hope that it may content both of us.'

  He frowned, took a pace away from her, and turning, came back to hold her arm. 'And meantime, my love…?' His voice had become a caress.

  'Meantime you may take me to my chamber, Patrick. To the door of it, only. But I hope that one day that door will stand wide open for you. It lies in your hands to make it so.'

  'Dear God I' Patrick Gray said 'Come you, then.'

  The next night and two days following, the great cavalcade stayed at the Lord Howard of Effingham's magnificent new house of Long Barnton. He had accumulated a vast amount of treasure through the naval activities of the privateers and sea-rovers under his command, against the Spanish plate fleets from the Indies, and no doubt his Queen felt that some attention might not come amiss. Certainly he showed no grudging spirit in her entertainment, far outdoing Burleigh's efforts. The first night there was a notable fireworks display, the next day a pageant in which most of the adjoining town, seemed to take part, that night a mock naval battle on the large artificial lake, with Spanish galleons going up in flames; and the second day a tournament of jousting in which most of the gentlemen took part and in which the Master of Gray particularly distinguished himself. The Queen presented the prizes, and so Patrick must go up to her, with the others, to receive his awards; but it was noticeable that she said but little to him on these occasions and was distinctly cool about it

  David grew more and more depressed, even if his brother did not. Sidney, watching it all shrewdly, wondered.

  By the end of the week, at Kirby, Sir C
hristopher Hatton's seat in Northamptonshire, with still no sign of favour from the Queen, David, with Marie, came to his brother just before retiring to bed.

  'It will not serve, Patrick,' he declared. 'We shall never have our Queen Mary released thus. Elizabeth will have none of you, or of our mission. Do not say again to give her time. She shows her disfavour of you over-plainly. She will be sending us back to Scotland, with naught accomplished'

  'You are too impatient, Davy. Besides, much is accomplished already, I am sure.'

  'But not the great thing – not the release of our princess. If we are to free the poor lady, we must use other methods.'

  'You think so? What do you suggest?'

  'I suggest that we stop profitless asking, and take.'

  Patrick turned to stare at his brother. 'Lord, Davy – what is this? What do you mean?'

  'I mean that our Queen deserves better of us than that we should only beg proud Elizabeth for her, patiently wait her pleasure, and humbly accept her decision.'

  'Instead of which, brother, you would do – what?'

  'Lift Mary out of her prison… by either guile or force. Or both.'

  'But how, man – how? There have been a hundred plots to that end since she was imprisoned sixteen years ago. Think you that you can succeed where all others failed miserably?

  'Me? Should you not say we, Patrick?

  'You or we, it makes no difference. Mary is straitly guarded, held fast'

  'So was her son, at Ruthven Castle. Yet you planned his escape, from France – and I achieved it, with but a handful of Logan's Borderers.'

  'That was quite otherwise, Davy. That was in our own country, where all might be arranged Mary is held fast deep in the centre of this England.'

  'We outwitted Catherine's soldiers deep in the centre of France.'

  'He is right, Patrick,' Marie put in. 'We must do something.'

  'I came to England only to aid our Queen. To see her if I might' David spoke doggedly. 'I'll no' go home without attempting something.'

  Patrick looked from one to the other moughtfully. 'You have talked of it together, I see, the two of you. Have you any plan?

  'Of a sort, aye. Our Queen, since August, is held at Wingfield Manor, in Derbyshire. On our return journey to Scotland, we can travel that way. Mary goes riding and hawking and hunting under guard of Sir Ralph Sadler and Sir Henry Nevil and their men. I cannot believe that they attend her, on such occasions, with so many men-at-arms as have we as escort'

  'But, man, Derby is not on our true road to Scotland. Think you, that if we went that way, towards this Wingfield and not by the direct road, Walsingham and Elizabeth would not know of it within a few hours? little indeed escapes Walsingham's spies. I have no least doubt that we are watched all the time. A large force would be sent after us, forthwith, and Mary confined to her rooms that same night'

  'There are gentlemen of Derby in this Court – Lord Fenby, Sir William Soames, and others. It should not be beyond your ability, Patrick, to make friends with one of them – to make excuse to ride north with him, to see his house, or his hawks or his cattle. Or his wife, indeed! Even your fine Sir Philip Sidney has a property near to Chesterfield, I have discovered. He is Walsingham's gudeson – none would suspect if he came with us. Thereafter, we can see that he does not inconvenience our project'

  'I would not wish to use a friend so, Davy.'

  Brother eyed brother levelly. 'It is a deal better than you used your friend Esme' Stuart!' David declared bluntly. 'Is not your, first loyalty to your Queen, rather than to your new English friends, man?'

  Patrick seemed about to answer, frowning, but Marie intervened calmly.

  'Better if it was not Sir Philip, perhaps. He has been very kind. But whoever we go with, need not be so hardly used, surely? Only allowed to know nothing of our plans.'

  "Plans!' Patrick took hemp. 'What plans can you have?

  'Few, as yet,' David answered. 'Until we see this Wingfield, and how it lies. But it will be a strange thing if our wits cannot devise a way to see our Queen once we are near her. You, Patrick, have solved greater problems than this, I swear.1

  'H'mrrm. And after?

  'Send the women and the baggage on before us, with a small escort. We are well mounted – as well as any that Walsingham can find to send after us, quickly. With our escort of nearly five score, we can ride for Scotland with Mary – and who shall stop us?

  'I think that you are too sanguine, Davy. It would not be so simple and easy as that'

  'Who would expect it to be simple or easy? But it is our plain duty.'

  'I cannot see that it is mine – as King James's and Scotland's ambassador.' 'To save Scotland's monarch and James's mother? 'But not this way, Davy.'

  'We have tried your way. You did as much as any man could. But Elizabeth will have none of it We have waited her pleasure for long enough. We have tried talk. Now we must use deeds, Patrick.'

  'What Davy says is true, Patrick,' the girl asserted again. 'We have an opportunity, a great opportunity, with our strong armed escort. Never have plotters for my aunt's release had this -armed men who need not go secretly. I believe that it would be wrong not to take this opportunity.'

  Patrick looked away, sighed, and shrugged. 'When do you propose that we attempt this… adventure?

  'Before long,' David declared. 'It is time that we went home. It lacks dignity thus to wait on Elizabeth's whim. Besides, the sooner we attempt it, the less the opportunity for Walsingham.'

  'Aye. Very well, we shall see.'

  'Restalrig had best not be told, as yet, He talks…'

  In Sidney's room in the main house, the following evening, Patrick smiled. 'I think that you will find that she will see me, Philip. Tell her that I believe that it is necessary, and urgent. She will not say no.'

  'My dear Patrick, perhaps, you are right. But no other man that I know would demand an audience thus. Do you have an understanding with her? In spite of how she is treating you this week? I think that perhaps you have, my friend.'

  'I would not presume to name ft that'

  'No? Very well. I will do what I can, Patrick.'

  To the surprise of the attendant courtiers, in half-an-hour Patrick was shown into the Queen's private apartments – indeed into her bedroom. Elizabeth sat up in bed, in a state of highly elaborate undress, her head bound in a jewelled turban.

  'Leave us, Philip,' she commanded, very much the queen despite her decolletage. 'The Master of Gray is showing more marked attention to his Lady Grey-eyes, so I think my maidenly virtue may be safe from him for a space!'

  Patrick grimaced, as Sir Philip retired. Walsingham did not miss much, clearly.

  'Well, sir?' the Queen said, suddenly business-like. 'What is it? What is this important matter which you must tell me?' She made no comment on her arm's-length attitude of the past days.

  'It concerns our princess, Your Grace,' he told her.

  'What of her?'

  'May I be so bold as to ask, has Your Grace decided whether or no I may see her, and whether you will release her should she agree to renounce the Crown and retire to France?'

  'Impertinent, sir! What the Queen of England has decided, and when, is not a matter for your enquiry.'

  'Yet, dearest Madam, without knowing your mind on this matter, I cannot know what action to take in a new situation. A situation that affects Your Grace's interests as nearly as it does mine.'

  'A new situation, Master Patrick? With regard to Mary Stuart? What is this? How can this be? Is it a new plot? My good Moor has reported none such.'

  'I fear that even your well-informed Sir Francis cannot be apprised of this, Lady.'

  'Cannot? Cannot is a large word, sirrah. What is this situation?'

  Patrick offered a convincing display of hesitation. 'May I say, Majesty, that it makes the need for a decision on the matter of our princess urgently necessary. Else events may move beyond even Your Grace's grasp.'

  'My God, sir, will you play cat-and-mous
e with me? Out with it, man – or I shall find means to make you talk plain!'

  Gustily the young man sighed, and spoke with every appearance of reluctance. 'There is a project to rescue our princess from your… hospitality, Madam. One that, for once, may well

  succeed. One that for once, also, is simplicity itself

  'I do not believe in this marvel of a plot, sir.'

  'If you know my brother Davy as well as I do, Highness, you would be the more ready to believe.'

  'Your brother…? The honest, unsmiling Master David? He plots against me?'

  ' 'Not against you, Your Grace, but for our Mary Stuart He is her man, heart and soul There are many in Scotland still, like Davy Gray.'

  'Indeed. But not you, Master of Gray?'

  Patrick shrugged. 'While I am devoted to the well-being of the unfortunate but headstrong lady, as has been my father, to his cost, I can take the wider view'

  'I see.' Through narrowed eyes the Queen inspected him. 'And this plot of your brothers, sir?'

  'It is not so much a plot, as a simple plan of action. On our way home to Scotland, we make shift to go to Derby, to visit the seat of some lord. Near enough to Wingfield Manor to make a descent upon it, by surprise. With our escort of five score armed men. Mary goes hunting, hawking, riding – guarded indeed, but by sufficient to withstand our many Scots mosstroopers? I doubt it Your people would pursue us, naturally, but we are well-mounted, vigorous… and the North of England is traditionally of Catholic sympathies.'

  'Christ's wounds – they would attempt treachery! Such base ingratitude for my fond hospitality! Your graceless Scots would so outrage my trust? I shall know how to deal with such, 'fore God!'

  'That is what I believed, Highness, and why I told you. That, and my love for you.' He essayed to touch her jewelled wrist, lightly.

  Elizabeth snatched her hand away. 'You tell me, you betray your brother to me – if so be it this is true – only for some very good purpose, Sir. Good, for you! But do not think that you may bargain and chaffer with Elizabeth Tudor.'

  'That would be unpardonable – and foolish, Your Grace. Also unnecessary. The sure and wise course is so evident'

  'The sure and wise course, with treason, is to the Tower and the block, sir! That is where your precious Davy and the rest should go, forthwith.'