Nigel Tranter: Past Master

The servant, intending to show the hulking, travel-stained visitor into the lesser hall of Methven Castle, was shouldered roughly aside, and throwing the door wide, the newcomer stamped within, tossing his sodden cloak to the other and shaking the raindrops from his half-armoured person like a dog. Robert Logan of Restalrig was not the man to stand on ceremony, even with dukes.

A few strides inside, and he halted on the deer-skin strewed floor, to stare past the young woman who seemed to be that pleasant and comfortable room's sole occupant, peering into the corners already shadowed by the early February dusk of a wet day, as though he would root out, with his keen glance, anyone lurking therein.

Calmly the girl considered him, as she stood, a slight but shapely figure, beside the wide open fireplace where the birch logs sizzled and spluttered beneath the great stone-carved coat-of-arms.

'Well, sir,' she greeted him evenly. 'So it is you. Not a messenger from the King's Grace.'

The newcomer dismissed that with a flick of the wrist. 'A device, no more,' he jerked. 'To gain entry without names. I do not want my name shouted the length and breadth of Strathearn, lassie. H'mm,' he coughed. 'Mary? Mistress? Or my lady? How do I call you, these days?'

'Mary Gray will serve very well, sir,' she answered him coolly. 'But Mistress if you prefer it – since mistress is a true description of my situation. What may I do for you?'

'He's no' here? Where is he, lassie? Lennox. The Duke. Where is he?'

'My lord Duke is from home, sir.'

'Fiend take him, then! I've ridden far and fast to see him. And secretly. Where is he, Mary?'

She did not answer at once, considering him closely, thoughtfully, with her lovely dark eyes. She was very lovely altogether, that young woman, with an elfin fine-wrought beauty of feature, a slender but full-breasted figure, and a natural grace of carriage and inborn serenity of bearing which was as disturbing as it was fascinating to men.

'What is your business with the Duke?' she asked, at length.

Logan grinned. 'I said that I came secretly, did I no'? My business is private, lassie. Even from Lennox's courtesan!'

She nodded, accepting that. 'You are alone? You seldom ride alone. I think, sir? Usually with a band of cut-throat mosstroopers.' That was said no less calmly, factually, than the rest.

The man laughed, nowise offended. The Laird of Restalrig indeed was not a man who offended easily – nor could afford to be in sixteenth-century Scotland.

'No need for my brave lads this journey, Mary. When will Lennox be home? I know that he was here two days back. And that he has not been to Court in Edinburgh since Yule.' That was sharp.

'You are well informed, sir. My lord Duke is but at St. John's town of Perth. He will return tonight. At any hour. He could have been here by this.'

'Ha! Then I shall await him. Here. In comfort. With your permission, of course, Mistress!' He chuckled, unbuckling his steel half-armour. 'You will not deny me some small hospitality, Cousin? To stay a hungry and thirsty man who has ridden ninety miles and more this day. You will pardon my mentioning it – but you show no haste to sustain me!'

'I have never known your appearance herald aught but ill tidings,' she answered. But she moved to pull a bell cord hanging amongst the rich arras, to summon a servant.

He laughed again. Logan was a great laugher, an unfailingly cheerful rogue. He sat down on a settle, unbidden, to pull off his great heavy thigh-length riding-boots.

'You do me injustice, Coz,' he declared. 'Often my news is good indeed – for the right folk! As I swear it is on this occasion, lass.'

'I doubt it,' she said. 'You are apt to be too close linked to…my father!'

He looked up, and his fleering grey-blue eyes met her dark glowing ones. The grin died on his florid fleshy features. 'Ipli'mmm,' he said.

The servant reappeared, and was told to bring victuals, cold meats and wine.

The young woman paced over to the rain-blurred window that looked out over the fair prospect of green Strathearn, water-meadows and wide pasture-lands lifting and lifting through rolling foothills to the great heather bastions of the Highland Line, all grey and indistinct today under the thin curtains of the rain.

'You say that you have ridden ninety miles,' she said, without looking back. 'Edinburgh is little more than fifty, from here. So you have not come from Restalrig. Your castle of Fast would be near to ninety, I think. In the Borderland. Near to Berwick.'

'You are quick,' he acknowledged.

'If you come, in haste, and secretly, from that airt, then I cannot but fear the reason for your mission, sir. Vicky… the Duke, is not apt to be concerned with doings from those parts. Berwick and the Border only spell trouble. He is not one of those who accept secret doles and gold from Queen Elizabeth!'

'He is fortunate, no doubt, in not requiring to do so,' the other said lightly.

'No man, I think, requires to be a traitor to his country,' the girl gave back. 'Even the Master of Gray!' She turned round to face him. 'It is he that you came from, is it not? From my father? It is on his behalf?'

Restalrig drew a large hand over his mouth and chin. 'On whose behalf I come, Cousin, is my affair.'

'If the matter concerns my father and my… concerns the Duke of Lennox, then it concerns me also, sir. Though God knows I want none of it! It is Patrick, is it not? My father?'

'You are hard on him, lassie. Must you hate him so?'

'I do not hate him. Would that I could! My sorrow is that I love him still. But his works I hate, yes.'

'His works are for the good o' this realm, most times, girl. Statecraft. Patrick Gray can save Scotland. As he has done before. And, Deil kens, Scotland needs saving, in this pass!'

Her sigh had something almost of a shudder behind it. 'Has it come to this again?' she cried. 'So soon!' It was not often that Mary Gray allowed the tranquil assurance of her demeanour to be disturbed thus. 'Patrick's works are evil. You know it. If he seems to save the realm on occasion, it is only for his own ends. And at the cost of untold misery, treachery, deceit. I say better far for the realm not to be saved – not by the Master of Gray!'

He padded across the floor to her in his hose. 'What so ails you at him, Mary? Has he ever done you hurt? God – I'd say it ill becomes any woman to speak so of her sire! However he conceived her! He loves you well, I swear.'

'I have told you – I love him also. To my grief, my shame. But I shall never trust him again. I have learned my lesson, learned it sorely but surely. A year ago and more I sent him away. Drove him away. Forced him to leave Scotland.'

'You did? Patrick Gray?'

'I did.' She nodded, with a quiet certainty, an authority almost, that sat but strangely on a young woman of only nineteen years. 'I forced him into exile. Never heed how. When his wickednesses became too great to be borne – even by me, who had condoned so many, God forgive me. When he turned against Vicky. When he would have betrayed the Duke. Who was almost as a son to him. You understand? Understand why I must know what now is toward? I must know.' The other scratched his head.'I canna tell you, lassie…' 'I thought, in my foolishness, that we should have peace from him. From Patrick. From his plots and schemings and treasons. That, banished the realm, he would no more endanger Scotland. Nor Vicky. Nor others. A year ago. Eighteen months. So little a time of peace! And now…! Where is he, sir? Where is my father?'

Logan shrugged. "That isna for me to say.' He turned away -and in doing so his eye took in the significance of a piece of furniture in the shadows to the right of the window. He stepped over to peer down.