Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

Marie kissed her warmly. They made a strange contrast, these two, both so very fair to look upon, but so very different in almost every respect. David considered them thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. Into the chatter of exclamation and half-expressed question and answer, he presently interrupted, gently but firmly.

'Up with you,' he declared. 'Here is no place for talk. Let the Lady Marie in, at least, my dear. She will be weary, hungry. She needs seating, comfort, refreshment. Up the stairs with you. Our rooms are on high, but they are at your service…'

'Indeed!' a hoarse voice challenged heavily. The Lord Gray had appeared on a half-landing just above, a stocky massive figure, a furred robe thrown hastily over and only part-covering his dishabille. At his broad back, a hand tentatively within one of his arms, was his grand-daughter. 'In my house, I say what rooms are at whose service! Bring the lady into my chamber, Davy!'

Marie sank in a curtsy. 'Greetings, my lord,' she said. 'I hope that I find you well? I am but passing on my way… elsewhere… '

'Aye,' he answered shordy. 'No doubt.'

'I think not,' David put in quietly, evenly. 'Patrick's wife does not pass Castle Huntly!'

'Eh…? Fiend seize me – who are you to speak?'

'One who esteems the name and honour of Gray, sir. And, since we are privy here, and all of a family as it were – your eldest son!'

'Damn you, you…!' My lord all but choked, unable to find breath or words.

Mary found them.*We knew that you would wish to honour the King's own cousin, Granlord.'

'Ah… ummm.'

'And very beautiful, is she not?'

'Wheesht, child – hold your tongue!' her grandfather got out, but in a different tone of voice. 'A pox – but I'll be master in my own house, see you!' He jabbed a thick accusatory finger, but at David. 'Mind it, man – mind it, I say!' He turned on Marie. 'How came you here? And where is yon graceless popinjay that has bairned you? If he it was!'

'Yes, my lord – he it was,' Marie answered without heat, even smiling a little. 'I carry your heir. I would have thought that you would have rejoiced to see it. I am new come, by ship from Dieppe, secretly – where I left Patrick.'

'Thank the good God he's no' here, at least! Why are you come, woman?'

'I have good reasons, sir. One, that you would wish the heir to Gray to be born where you could see it, I believed. Not in some foreign land. Was I wrong?'

The older man grunted. 'A mercy that you came secretly, at the least,' he said, after a moment. 'None know that you are here, then?'

'None who know who I am.'

'My lord – the Lady Marie is tired. Unfit to be standing thus. In her condition. She must have food and wine…'

'I am very well, Davy. I seek nothing…'

'I said to bring her into my room, did I no'?' Gray barked. And turning about abruptly, he went stamping back up the stairs.

As David took Marie's arm, to aid her upstairs, she held back, shaking her head. 'No, Davy,' she declared. 'I had liefer go now. Away. It is as I thought. This house is no place for me. He is set against Patrick, and therefore me… '

The man did not relax his grip, and propelled her forward willy-nilly. 'You will stay in this house,' he said grimly. 'It is your right. He will do as I say, in the end. For he needs me, does my lord of Gray! I know too much. Come, Marie…'

'And do not take my lord too sorely,' Mariota advised, biting her lip. 'He has a rough tongue, and proud. But he is not so ill as he sounds. And… I think that he loves Patrick at heart, more than he will say.'

'Forby, he loves beautiful ladies!' Mary added, with a little laugh. 'So smile at him, Lady Marie – smile much and warmly. And he will not withstand you long!'

'Tut, girl…!' her father reproved.

They went upstairs together, three of them turning in at my lord's private chamber just above the great hall of the castle, and Mariota proceeding higher to collect viands and refreshment for the guest.

The master of the house stood at the window of a comparatively small apartment, the stone floor of which constituted the top of the great hall's vaulted ceiling. It was snug, overwarm indeed, for my lord liked a fire here summer and winter in the fireplace with the elaborate heraldic overmantel showing the Gray arms of rampant red lion on silver, carved in stone. Skins of sheep and deer covered the floor, and the stone walls were hung with arras, again embroidered heraldically. Gray gestured towards one of the two chairs of that room without leaving the window, for Marie to sit down.

'Patrick?' he jerked, not looking at her. 'Is he well enough?' And lest that might seem too mawkishly solicitous, 'And what follies and mischiefs and schemes is he up to in France or Rome or whatever ill-favoured land he's plaguing with his presence now?'

'He is well, yes,' Marie answered. 'And as for his schemes… well, Patrick is Patrick, is he not?'

'Aye!' That came out on an exhalation of breath that was something between a groan and a sigh. He turned round to stare at the young woman now. 'Why did he send you here?' he demanded directly. 'I ken Patrick, God pity me! You didna come without he sent you. And he didna send you just to drop your bairn in front o' me, where I could see it! Na, na. He doesna care that for me, or mine!' The older man snapped his fingers. 'Unless for my gear and lands.'

'I think that you wrong him, my lord,' Marie told him quietly. 'But at least credit him with the desire that there should be no doubts about the birth of the heir of Gray.' She smiled a little. 'And that not on account of your lands and gear! Believe me, sir, great as these may be, Patrick looks for greater.'

'Eh…?'

'He is determined to win back the Abbey of Dunfermline and its revenues, from the Earl of Huntly.'

'Christ God – the more fool he, then! The prinking prideful ninny! He'll never do that'

'He will try, my lord, without a doubt.'

David, frowning, spoke. 'I mislike this,' he said. 'I mislike it, for many reasons. It is folly, dangerous, flying too high. But it is less than honourable, too. And it brings me into it. For he used me to offer Dunfermline to Huntly. I made the bargain for him – Dunfermline for his life. Dunfermline for Huntly to get me into the King's presence, so that I could bargain with James also! Now, to go back on it…'

'Faugh!' his father interrupted him scornfully. 'Save your breath, man! Patrick's no' concerned with honour, or keeping bargains, or aught else but his own benefit.' He swung back on Marie. 'But here's idle chatter. He'll no' get back Dunfermline – that's sure. And dinna tell me, woman, that he sent you here on such fool's errand? You!'

'No,' she agreed patiendy. 'That is not part of my errand. That he must look to himself – if he can win back to Scotland. It is to intercede with the King to permit his return – that is my duty.'

'Ha! Now we have it. And near as much a fool's errand as the other! You'll no' manage that, I'll vow! He's banished for life, is he no'?'

'What decree the King has made, the King can unmake, she asserted. 'And I am not banished. If I can come to my father in Edinburgh, he will bring me into the King's presence.'

'To what end, woman – to what end? The King's cousin you may be-in bastardy – but that winna serve to gain Patrick's remission. You pleading for him on your bended knees, weeping woman's tears? Think you that will move our Jamie? Or the Chancellor? And the Council? Condemned by the Council o' the Realm for highest treason and the death o' the King's bonny mother, think you that tears and pleas will bring him back? None want him here. You'll need a better key than a woman's snuffles to open the door o' Scotland again to Patrick Gray!'

'That key,' she told him calmly, 'perhaps I have.'