Nigel Tranter: The Courtesan

'But Master Gray,' Lennox exclaimed. 'Here is a notable opportunity…' 'For whom, sir?'

'For her. For Mary, Mon Dieu…' Mary Gray silenced the Duke with a touch of her finger on his wrist. She looked at the King, however. 'Your Grace is indeed kind. But my father is right, I am sure…'

'Of course I am right, girl! God grant me patience! Your Grace – have I your permission to withdraw? We have done what we came to do – acquainted you with my brother's tidings and advice. The matter is no further concern of ours.'

'Aye, Master Davy – you may go. I… we are grateful. Grateful, aye. For your tidings. We shall consider it well. Closely. And take due action.'

'The Chancellor… ' Mary whispered to her father, but loud enough for the other to hear.

'Eh…? Ah, yes – the Chancellor.' David frowned. 'Sire -my brother also has it that it would be best, safest, if Your Highness dealt with this matter yourself, without informing Sir John Maitland, the Lord Chancellor. Especially the letter to King Philip. I take it that he believes that the Chancellor would not approve.'

'Aye. Belike he wouldna, Sir John! The more so if he kenned that Patrick Gray was at the back o' it! They never loved each other yon two, eh? We'll see, man – we'll see. I canna promise you anything, mind. It's a matter o' state…'

'Exactly, Sire. For myself, I care not which way it goes. It is no more concern of mine. Nor of Mary's. Our part is done.'

'Just so, just so. Aye. Off wi' you, then. Time, it is. Johnnie Mar is glowering there black as a Hieland stot! Hech, Vicky -you'll hae to think o' some matter to tell him we've been discussing on. Some matter to do wi' Lord Gray, belike. Aye, maybe anent his Sheriffdom o' Forfar. That will serve… ' The King held out his not over-clean hand. 'Our thanks to you, then, Master Davy. And to you too, lassie. We are indebted to you, and… and shall weigh it generously against your former misdeeds. Aye. You may leave our presence.'

Stiffly indeed David leant over to offer but a token kiss of the royal fingers. Mary was more suitably dutiful, even warm. As she straightened up in her saddle, she said quietly. 'I greatly thank Your Grace for asking me to your Court. It is true that I am too young, as my father says. But… would you not be better served to have back my Uncle Patrick to your Court? Much better. He is a clever man…'

'A plague on him – too clever by half! Tush, lassie -enough o' that! Yon one will serve me better in France or Rome or Spain itsel', than here in my Scotland. Be off wi' you.'

'Come, Mary.'

'I shall accompany you some way on your road, Mary?' Lennox suggested.

'Not so, my Lord Duke,' David jerked. 'Your place is with the King – not with my lord of Gray's steward and his brat! Besides, I am very well able to look after my daughter, I assure you – very well able!' Reaching out, he took the reins of Mary's garron, and pulled his own beast's head round hard. 'Your servant, Sir… and my lord Duke!'

'Farewell, Vicky!' Mary called, as they trotted off.

Her father clapped his blue bonnet back on his wet head.

Past all the staring supercilious courtiers they rode, northwards, the man gazing straight ahead of him, the girl eyeing the chattering fashionable throng with frankest interest, unabashed.

It was not until they were well past and on their way, alone, towards Lindores village and the Tay, that David spoke. 'I do not know what to make of you, Mary – on my soul, I do not!' he said.

'Must you make aught more of me than you have made already, Father?' she asked fondly. 'Some would say, I think, that you have wrought not ill with me hitherto – you, and Mother… and Uncle Patrick!'

David Gray uttered something between a groan and a snort. 'God help me… I'

THE Lord Gray came home to Castle Huntly in a gale of wind and the worst of tempers. For three weeks, three solid weeks, he had been away kicking his heels down in the Borderland, along with many another Scots lord, whilst his wretched men ate and drank themselves silly in armed but pointless idleness, by royal command but at his expense – men who should have been hard at work rescuing the hay crop from the sodden far-flung grasslands of the Carse of Gowrie, hay for the vast herds of cattle that were the very basis of ray lords prosperity. It was mid-July. The wettest and wildest spring and early summer in living memory. There would be the devil to pay for it next winter, in lack of forage and starving beasts, with the hay lying flattened and uncut, or rotten and mildewed -and the corn harvest like to be as bad. Seventy-five men of his, seventy-five able-bodied men, wasting their time and his substance amongst those damnable mist-shrouded bog-bound Border hills, on the commands of a crazy young half-wit King, who feared Catholic risings, Spanish invasions, and God alone knew what else!

Lord Gray had come home with fully half his force, king or no king. And those that he had left behind in Teviotdale were the most useless of his band, moreover – as was the case with many of the other feudal contingents, the majority of the lords being in a like state of impatience and fulmination, almost revolt. James, the young fool, had forbidden any worthwhile activity, even cattle-raiding, any forays across the Border -although that is what they understood that they had been there for – and nibbled his finger-nails instead, afraid of the English Lord Dacre's Northumbrian levies hurriedly raised to face them, afraid of the Governor of Berwick's garrison, afraid of the Catholics in the west under the Lords Maxwell and Herries who were supposed to be threatening the English West March, afraid of what the madcap Earl of Bothwell might do in these circumstances – afraid indeed of his own shadow. Waiting for his envoy back from Spain, it was said, delayed by storms; waiting for the supposed Spanish invasion of England; waiting for the gold that Queen Elizabeth had hastily promised him for keeping her northern march secure and denying his ports to Spanish ships; waiting, Christ God, for anybody and everybody to make up his royal mind for him!

In such case was the Kingdom of Scotland this deplorable summer of 1588, with its monarch a drooling ninny, the lords made fools of, and the so-called Spanish Armada a myth and a Popish fable. At least, such was my lord of Gray's profound conviction.

It required all of Mary Gray's soothing charms to make him even bearable company for the rest of his household and dependants at Castie Huntly in the next few days.

Those days brought tidings and rumours to the Carse of Gowrie that gave even Lord Gray second thoughts however – whether he admitted them or not. First came the word that the Earls of Huntly, Erroll and Montrose had risen in the north, with, it was said, as many as five thousand men -though that might well be an exaggeration – and had taken over the direction of the towns of Aberdeen, Stonehaven, Banff and Elgin, expelling the provosts and ministers of the Kirk and installing Catholic nominees of their own. Then, only two days later, they heard that O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, revolting against Elizabeth in Ireland, had landed in person in the Western Isles, and was there urging the Highland chiefs to raise a clan army to make cause with him – Catholic, of course – that was to link up with Huntly in the east. That this Irish move should have coincided so closely with Huntly's seemed unlikely to be mere chance – and the linking of the name of Logan of Restalrig with the business, no Highlander, no Catholic, but cousin and erstwhile bravo of the exiled Master of Gray, set at least some minds furiously to think. King James's reluctance to venture over the Border into England with his distinctly unruly force, was to be considered now in a new light. There were even whispers that the Crown had all along been privy to the entire business; it was noteworthy that it was the Kirk that whispered thus – and in far from dulcet tones. On the other hand, it could not but be recognised by all that, had not the Protestant lords been providentially assembled at this time, there would have been little or nothing to prevent the combined Catholic forces from turning southwards and taking over the kingdom. King Jamie might be owed some small thanks for this, accidental though it could have been. Even Lord Gray had to acknowledge that.