Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

Patrick answered his father's unspoken question. 'I have arranged with Sir Robert Melville an exchange of Balmerino for the Durifermline pendicle of Monimail near to his own lands of Melville. When I win back Dunfermline, Balmerino will be mine. Or rather, yours, my lord – for one thousand silver crowns. A bargain, you will admit!'

His father uttered a groan of sheerest agony.

'You perceive, my lord, how necessary it is that I come to you, rather than to any other? Balmerino is worth a score of times more to Gray than to anyone else in the kingdom. Am I not a dutiful son, after all?'

'No!' the older man croaked. 'No! No!' he banged fist on the table time and again.

'But yes, sir. You would not throw away Balmerino for a mere thousand pieces of siller?'

His father was grimacing strangely. Undoubtedly it was the hardest decision of that nobleman's life, striking to the very roots of him. But he made it. 'Damn you… no! Never!'

Patrick was still-faced, curiously blank-looking for a moment. But only for a moment or two. 'I am sorry,' he said, then, shrugging.

"I… I vow you are, foul fall you!'

'But, yes. I would be as foolish not to be so, as are you in throwing this aside, my lord. Blinded by… by whatever so blinds you. I can get the money elsewhere, to be sure – but not so profitably for Gray.'

'Then get it, man – get it! For you'll no' win a plack frae me. All your days you've wasted and devoured my substance.

You'll do it nae mair. You can beg for crusts in the vennels o' Edinburgh, for a' I care, d'you hear? You and your woman and your brat can starve…'

'Oh, Granlord – no!' Mary cried.

'Here are but doubtful fatherly sentiments, my lord! You scarce ever doted on me, I think – but it seems… excessive. What new ill have I done to you since last we met, I pray?'

The other rose slowly to his feet, with something of dignity now. 'You butchered your Queen,' he said. 'You were the death o' the bonny Mary, that I loved well.'

There was complete silence in that dim and musty chamber, for seconds on end.

It was young Mary who broke it. 'It is not so, Granlord,' she said urgendy. 'Not so. He went to save her, and could not. That is not the same. Queen Elizabeth it was who killed our Queen. Not Uncle Patrick. He was not able to save her. But then, neither was Father. Neither was Sir Robert Melville, who went too. None could.' Her young voice seemed to echo desperately round the gaunt vaulted cavern of masonry, pleading.

None of the men either looked at her nor answered the question behind her words.

'Why must you be so hard on each other?' she asked. 'So cruelly hard?'

'Mary – it would be better, I think, that you should leave us, child.'

'No. No, Father. Do you not see…?'

My lord spoke through her pleas. 'Go!' he commanded -but not to the girl. 'Go, Judas – and never let me see your false face again! I want nane o' you – nane, d'you hear? Judas!'

The muscles of the Master's features seemed to work and tense. For once, there was little of beauty or attractiveness to be seen thereon, as glittering-eyed, ashen-lipped, he faced his father. 'For that word… you will be sorry!' he got out 'Sorry!'

'Go…!'

'Oh, yes – I shall go. But first, I will have my rights from you. What you will not give in love and affection, even in decency, you will yield as of right. For I am Master of Gray – heir to this lordship. I have never asked for it before – but I demand it now. I want my portion.'

My lord belched rudely. 'That for your portion, man!'

This crude coarseness seemed to have the effect of steadying the younger man, of enabling him to revert to something of his usual assured air of mastery of any situation. 'I think not,' he said, actually smiling again. 'The heir to Gray has certain rights, beyond the mere style. I have not sought them of you…'

'Any such you ha' forfeited long since. You ha' squandered my siller…'

'I refer, sir, not to your precious siller, but to more enduring claims. My patrimony. Properties. You have, I understand, settled Mylnefield on Gibbie. Brother James, I am told, has Buttergask and Davidstoun. William is in Bandirran. I am not wholly uninformed, my lord. Myself, I require the heir's portion.'

His father was breathing deeply, purpling again. 'Curse you – you'll get nothing! Nothing, I say. Knave and blackguard that you are! I… I…' Of a sudden, my lord's heavy features seemed to lighten a little. 'Or… aye, I have it! That's it. Your portion, my bonny Master o' Gray! You have it, man – you're standing in it! This is your portion – all you'll get, while I am above the sod! Broughty Castle!' Hooted harsh laughter set the older man coughing. ' 'Tis yours, Patrick – all o' it, yours, by God!' he spluttered. 'See to it, Davy. The papers and titles – to Patrick, Master o' Gray, in life rent, Broughty Castle. The building only, mind. No' a stick or stone else. No' an inch o' land. No' a penny-piece o' the tolls. A rickle o' stones you named it, Patrick? Aye – then take it, and I pray to God it falls on your scoundrelly head and makes your sepulchre!'

Pushing Mary aside roughly, the Lord Gray stalked heavily past his sons without a further word or glance, and out of the arched doorway to the winding stairs.

Tears were trickling down the girl's face from brimming dark eyes, though she made neither sob nor sound.

'I shall build up these crumbling wall, I tell you – raise new towers and battlements. I shall root out these mouldering

boards and rotting beams. I shall open up these wretched holes of windows, and let in air and light. I shall hang these bare walls with Flemish tapestries and cover the floors with carpets from the East, and furnish these barren chambers with the finest plenishings of France and Spain and the Netherlands, such as not another house in this realm can show!' The Master of Gray was striding back and forward across the uneven bat-fouled flagstones of Broughty Castle's hall, set-faced, eyes flashing. 'I shall make of this stinking ruin a palace, I swear! A mansion which every lord in the land shall envy. Where the King will come to sup and wish his own. I shall make it so that Castle Huntly seems a hovel, a dog's kennel, by comparison, and its proud lord shall come here seeking admission on his bended knees! I swear it, I say – and swear it by Almighty God!'

'Uncle Patrick – don't!' Mary Gray said. 'Please don't. Please.'

David and the girl were watching the extraordinary, almost awesome spectacle of the most handsome man in all of Europe, the brightest ornament of the Scottish scene, the most talented gallant in two realms, in the grip of blind unreasoning bitter hurt and passion, tormented, distraught. Helplessly they watched him, listened to him, anguish and sorrow in their own eyes – for they loved him, both. Mary had never seen the like, although she had witnessed some shocking, savage scenes in that strange and contentious family. David had his arm around the girl's shoulders, holding her; he indeed had seen the like before – and it turned his heart sick within him.

Patrick Gray changed his tune. He stopped his pacing, and began to curse. Tensely, almost softly, but fluently, comprehensively, he commenced to swear in breath-taking ingenious ferocity.

David Gray acted. Leaving Mary, he strode up to his brother, grasped him by both elegant padded shoulders, and with abrupt violence shook him as a terrier shakes a rat. 'Quiet!' he commanded. 'Quiet, I say. Patrick – be silent! Mary – by God, mind Mary!'

The evil flow was choked back, partly through sheer physical convulsion, partly by a real effort of will. Gasping and panting a little, the Master stepped back, and the scorching fury in his gaze at his half-brother faded. Slightly dazed-seeming, he moistened his lips and shook his head.