Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

All gazed at her – and Mariota's entrance at this moment with food and wine was greeted with considerable impatience by my lord. It was pushed aside peremptorily.

'What mean you?' Marie was challenged. 'How can you have anything such? What is this?'

'The King's marriage,' she answered.

There was silence in that overheated chamber.

'Patrick has been busy,' she went on, but levelly, factually, almost wearily. 'He has not wasted his time abroad. He has been working for a match between James and the Princess Catherine, sister to King Henry of Navarre.'

'Patrick…? The King's matching?' my lord gobbled. 'Devil slay me – what insolence! What effrontery!'

'Navarre…!' David exclaimed. 'But… what of the Danish match?'

'Patrick believes this better, of more worth. Henry of Navarre is the Protestant champion – whilst the Danish royal house is known to be unsure in its religion, inclining back towards the old faith…'

'God's Body – is Patrick concerned now for the Protestants! What next, woman?'

Marie ignored that. 'Moreover, Navarre will be heir to France. And Patrick believes the King of France to be sickening.'

She had them silenced now.

'And the King of Scots married to a sister of great France is a different matter to him married to the daughter of little Denmark'

That was not to be denied. David, somewhat abstractedly, began to offer refreshment to their guest, while his father hummed and hawed.

'This… this is scarce believable,' the latter got out. 'That Patrick should dare fly this high – a condemned man!'

'Flying a high hawk never troubled Patrick,' David said. 'No doubt we were foolish to believe that he would change just because he was banished. But… how much substance has this project, Marie? What says King Henry of Navarre? Does he even know aught of it?'

She nodded. 'Patrick has been closeted with him more than once. He is agreeable, it seems. The matter has reached the stage of considering the worth of the dowry…'

'Precious soul o' God – and King Jamie kens naught o' it, woman?'

'That is why I am sent, my lord. To apprise him of it. Of its… advantages.'

David noticed the tiny hesitation on Marie's part before she used that term.

'Aye. But what makes Patrick believe that this ploy will win him back into the King's favour?' his father asked. 'A big jump that, is it no'? Agile jumper as he may be!'

'Perhaps, sir. But Patrick does not seek to take it all in one jump, I think. He has kept all in his own hands, thus far – so that, if James is interested, it will be necessary for Patrick himself to come here to Court to discuss it. And once back in the King's presence, Patrick does not fear but that he will stay there. He swayed James before, readily enough; he does not fear that he cannot do so again.'

My lord could only wag his bull-like head. 'The devil!' he muttered. 'Cunning as the Devil himself! I' faith – he almost makes me misdoubt my own wife's chastity!'

'Marie,' David said carefully. 'We have heard the advantages of this project. But I think that there are disadvantages, are there not?'

She looked at him for a moment steadily, before she answered, level-voiced. 'Catherine of Bourbon is ugly, crooked and no longer young,' she said. 'Moreover, few I think, would name her chaste.'

'Oh, no!' That was a young voice, in involuntary urgent protest, as Mary Gray broke the hush. 'Not that!'

The Mistress of Gray looked down at the goblet of wine in her hand, and said nothing.

David considered her thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

My lord produced something between snort and chuckle. 'Hours!' he said. 'No insuperable barrier to a royal match, yon! Forby, she'd no' be getting aught so different herself -save maybe in years! Jamie's no' that much o' a catch!'

'He is the King of Scots, Granlord,' the girl demurred in quiet reproach.

'Aye, God help him!'

'You will not acquaint His Grace of this? Of the Princess's… quality?' David asked, in a moment or two.

The Lady Marie's answer was to put her hand into a brocaded satchel-purse that hung from the girdle of her travelling-gown. From it she produced a miniature portrait, painted on ivory, within a delicately gemmed frame. She handed it to

David. It showed a young woman, oval-faced and pale, richly dressed and bejewelled, almost dwarfed within a high upstanding ruffed and pearled collar.

'She looks none so ill,' he said, passing it to his father.

Faindy Marie smiled. 'A Court painter may flatter,' she observed. 'And that was painted ten years ago, at the least.'

My lord was admiring the diamonds round the frame. 'Potent persuasion this!' he mentioned. 'And the dowry? What of that?'

She shook her head. 'Of that I have no knowledge. It would be necessary for Patrick himself to come to Scotland to discuss it.'

'Oh, aye. rph'mmm. No doubt. So he baits his trap, the miscreant!' Lord Gray took a heavy limping pace or two about his chamber. 'Cunning, artful, I grant you. If this match should take place…! France! It would be a great matter for the realm. For Scotland. For us all. Aye – and for Patrick Gray!' He turned on Marie. 'How comes it that he is so close with Henry of Navarre?'

'Patrick has a nose for… for keys! Keys that will open doors. And a powerful colleague in Elizabeth Tudor. The Protestant lioness and the Protestant lion!'

'Elizabeth!' David exclaimed. 'The Queen? You mean… you mean that he deals with Elizabeth still? After all that has happened? Elizabeth, who betrayed him?'

'He writes to her, or to Burleigh, or to Walsingham, each week.'

'But… but this is scarce to be believed! He hates Elizabeth. She played with him, led him on, and then worked his downfall. With Maitland and James. Elizabeth, that monument of perfidy – his chiefest enemy!'

The young woman shook her head. 'That is not how Patrick views it, Davy. For him, it is all the game of statecraft. He does not cherish friends or enemies. He does not measure injuries done to him… nor that he does to others. He uses the cards that come to his hands – uses, you understand?' She sighed a long quivering sigh. 'Would it were not so! God – would he were as other men! But he is not. He is… Patrick Gray. And I am his wife. I married him knowing him. Elizabeth betrayed him, yes – but had he not betrayed her beforehand? They are of one kidney. But she is Queen of England, and therefore an important card in his game indeed, to be played if he can..

'But the Armada of Spain! That was to destroy her? That he built his hopes on…?'

'Did he, do you think? Another card in the same game, Davy.'

'A card that went sore agley, 'fore God!' my lord snorted. 'I'm hoping this new card o' his, this Navarre match, isna like to go the same way, eh?'

Marie looked at him coolly, directly. 'You hope…? You approve of the venture then, my lord? Of the attempt that I am here for?'

'Me? I didna say that, did I, woman? Me approve? Na, na -I said no such thing,' the older man blustered. 'An unlikely day it'll be when I approve o' any plot o' Patrick's! But… if Elizabeth o' England is behind this match, it's no' to be taken lightly. And Navarre is heir to France, right enough. The French king is young. But if he is ailing…' He coughed. 'And I am a good Protestant, forby!'

Marie smiled slighdy.

'Aye, then.' My lord seemed to make up his mind. 'I'll see that you get to my lord of Orkney your father's house in Edinburgh. I'll no' take you, mind – for thanks to Patrick my credit's no' high at Court. But I'll see that you win there. Davy here will take you, belike. Till then, you can bide here.'

She inclined her golden head. 'Thank you, my lord. This is generous indeed. More generous by far than I looked for. Or Patrick either!' She met his shrewd little pig's eye. 'But I shall not burden you with my awkward presence for long, I assure you – for die sooner that I can reach the Court, the better. For this… this estimable royal project.'