Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

Mary Gray came to her father one golden morning that autumn, when he was superintending the placing and building of the numerous round oat-stacks of the belated corn harvest, in a sheltered stackyard nestling beneath the tall upthrusting crag out of which rose the red-stone walls of Castle Huntly, high above the flat carselands. It was the sort of work that David Gray enjoyed – much better indeed than schoolmastering; with all the local lairds, whose children he taught along with my lord's more recent brood, equally busy rescuing their corn and glad of even youthful help, lessons had been postponed with mutual relief. Her father now stood atop a round half-built stack, in shirt-sleeves, doublet discarded, hair untidy, face, chest and bare arms coated with oat-dust, catching the heavy sheaves that were tossed up to him from the laden two-horse wains, and building them into position on the steadily growing stack. He laughed and joked with the workers, and even sang snatches of song, as he laboured.

Mary looked up at him affectionately. This was as she loved best to see her father, working carefree and effective in the good honest toil of the fields and woods. Clearly he ought to have been a farmer; all his learning and experience of affairs seemed to bring him little or no satisfaction. He was more truly grandson to old Rob Affleck, miller of Inchture, than son to my lord of Gray. And yet… she knew also that he would have made a better lord for Castle Huntly than did Granlord, or even, it might be, than Uncle Patrick would make one day. She loved him, up there, all strong, confident, cheerful manhood. She felt loth indeed to interrupt and bring him down. But the matter might be urgent.

'Father,' she called. 'A lad from Kingoodie – Tarn Rait, it is – came seeking you. With a message. There is somebody there asking for you.'

'Eh…?' David paused in his rhythmic toil, and wiped back an unruly lock of hair from his brow with the back of a dusty hand. 'At Kingoodie? Sakes, lassie – if anybody wants me from Kingoodie, they can come here for me!'

'Yes. But…' She moved closer to the stack, as near to her father as she could get. '… this is a woman, Tam says. A lady.'

'A lady?' The man stared down at her. 'At Kingoodie? A few salmon-fishers' cots and a fowler's hut!'

'Yes. She is at Tarn's father's cottage. And asking for Master David Gray. To go to her there, forthwith. I said that I would tell you.' Roguishly she laughed. 'I asked him if she was handsome – and by his face I deem that she is! And something more than that, maybe.'

'M'mmm.' He frowned.

'Tam said that she had told him not to tell anyone but your own self. But… well, Tam Rait could not keep a secret from me!' The girl's eyes danced. 'I did not tell Mother.'

Her father coughed. 'Well… ' he said. He jumped down from the stack, already rolling down his shirt-sleeves, and called for one of the men to take his place. He picked up his old torn doublet. 'I… I am but scurvily clad for visiting ladies,' he said doubtfully. 'Even at Kingoodie. But if I go home first… '

'Mother will undoubtedly be much interested,' she finished for him. 'I think that we should just go from here, do not you? It will save time, too.'

'We?' her father asked, brows raised. 'I can find my way to Kingoodie, Mary, without your aid!'

'Oh, yes,' she agreed. 'But I promised Tarn Rait that I would bring you myself. And at once.'

'Promised…? Houts, girl – be off with you! I'll manage my business, whatever it is, without you. Or Tarn Rait!'

'Would you rather that I went home to Mother?' she asked, innocently.

He looked at her, sidelong. 'You are a – a shameless minx! Yes, go home, girl. What should there be here to alarm your mother?'

'I do not know, Father. Only… Tarn says that the lady who was asking for you so secretly is big with child!'

David Gray swallowed. He looked away, and ran a hand over his mouth and jaw – thereby smearing the sweaty dust thereon into still more evident designs and whorls. He moistened his lips.

Silently the girl took the scarlet kerchief from around her neck, and reaching up on tip-toes, wiped his features with it gently, before handing the silken stuff to him to continue the process. As she stood there close to him, throat and shoulders largely bare above the open-necked and brief white linen bodice, the man could not but be much aware of the warm honey-hued loveliness of her, and the deep cleft of her richly-swelling firm young bosom. Mary was indeed, beyond all question, physically as well as mentally, no longer anybody's child – and the sooner that he came to terms with the fact, almost certainly, the better for him.

Unspeaking they turned and walked side by side towards the stackyard gate where David's horse was tethered.

'I shall ride pillion at your back, very well,' Mary mentioned, as he made to mount the broad-backed shaggy garron.

Without a word he leaned down, and arm encircling her slender waist, hoisted her up behind him.

To the admiring grins of the workers – for the beast's broadness meant that the girl's shapely legs, long for her height, were much in view – they rode off.

They had to go a bare three miles across the reedy levels of the flood-plain of the Tay, marshy cattle-dotted pasture, seamed with ditches lined with willow and alder and the spears of the yellow flag. Taking a track which followed the coils and twists of the Huntly Bum, they headed almost due westwards until they reached its outfall at the low weed-girt shore. Turning along this by a muddy road of sorts, presently they came to a few lonely cot-houses and turf-coated cabins, where there was a rough stone jetty, boats were drawn up on the shingle, and nets were hanging up to dry on tall reeling posts. Kingoodie, where my lord obtained most of his salmon.

Their approach had not gone unobserved, and a youth emerged from one of the houses and waved to them. As they rode up, behind him in the low doorway, a lady stooped and came out.

She made a strange picture, materialising out of that humble stone-and-turf windowless cottage that was little better than a hovel, a beautiful youngish woman, stylish, assured, dressed in travelling clothes of the finest quality and the height of fashion, carrying her very evident child with a proud calm. Grey-eyed, wide-browed, with finely-chiselled features and sheer heavy golden hair that was almost flaxen, she had a poise, an unconscious aristocracy of bearing most obviously unassumed.

'God be praised – Marie!' David Gray cried, and leapt from his horse in a single agile bound, leaving his daughter to slide down as she could – a strangely impetuous performance for that sober, level-headed man, rash indeed in front of witnesses.

'Davy! Davy! Davy!' the woman called out, part-laughing, part-sobbing, and came running, light-footed enough considering her condition.

Wide-eyed, Mary Gray stood by the garron, watching.

David halted before he reached the newcomer, seeming to recollect discretion. Not so the lady. She ran straight up to him, to fling herself against him, arms around him, to bury her golden head on his dusty chest. Something she said there, but what was not clear. He raised a hand, a distinctively trembling hand, to stroke her fair down-bent head. So they stood.

At length she looked up. 'Oh, Davy,' she said, blinking away tears from grey eyes almost as level and direct as his own. 'How good! How fine! To see you again… to feel you… good, strong, solid, unchangeable Davy Gray! Let me look at you! Yes – the same, just the same. You have not changed one whit…'

Tt is but a year, Marie,' he said, deep-voiced. 'Fifteen months…'

'Ah – you count them also! Fifteen long months.'

'Aye. Long, as you say. I… I… ' He shook his head, as though consciously denying himself that train of thought and emotion. 'Is all well? How came you here? Patrick…? And you – you are well, my lady?'