Nigel Tranter: The Courtesan

Calmly, almost sadly, she met his urgent demanding gaze. 'He has not had me, no – if that is what you mean.'

'Thank God for that! But, the danger of it, the folly… '

'There is no danger, Father. He is gentle, simple almost. When we meet, I am master – not Vicky. Always it was so.'

His mouth opened, and then closed, as he considered her. She had David Gray silenced.

'So, you see – it will not be difficult. Whether the King is at Falkland or Stirling or even Edinburgh, I shall have a letter to Vicky in but a few days. We shall meet, and he shall bring me before the King. He will do as I ask, never fear. And so Uncle Patrick's warning shall not be lost. Nor the Protestant cause either. It is the best way, the only way – is it not?'

'God save us all…!' her father prayed.

'Yes. But we must do our own part also – so good Master Graham says, at the kirk. We cannot just leave Uncle Patrick's letter to God, can we?'

'Would that I knew, girl.'

'But we do know. You said yourself, did you not, that in Spain Uncle Patrick must have seen sufficient to be sure that Queen Elizabeth's days are numbered? Seen with his own eyes. Therefore Scotland is endangered also. And must act if this realm likewise is not to fall to the Spaniards. So that we must act. And quickly.'

'I vowed…' he began, but wearily.

'Yes, Father – I know. But I did not. Is it not most fortunate?'

THE four riders sat their fidgeting, steaming mounts within the cover of a thicket of scrub birch and holly, and waited. The cover was to shield them from view, not from the rain, for the shiny holly leaves sent down a cascade of heavy drops upon them with each gust of the chill wind. It was no better a day for hanging about in wet woodland than it was for hunting -but King Jamie cared nothing for the weather so long as there were deer to chase. In season and out of season – as now – day after day, storm or heat or snow, he must hunt the heavy woodland stags, in what had become little less than a mania with him – to the sorrow and discomfort of most of his Court, who would have preferred more seasonable and less active entertainment.

The riders looked out, across a broad grassy ride, to the reed-fringed border of Lindores Loch. Their stance was a strategic one, and had been as carefully chosen, at short notice, as the difficult circumstances would allow. All day they had been moving across trying and broken country, hill and bog and forest, seeking to keep in touch with the royal hunt, without being seen or scented thereby – no easy task, for James, with some reason, had a great fear of being ambushed or attacked on such occasions, by some coalition of his ambitious and arrogant nobles, and always sought to maintain a screen of armed guards in attendance. The watchers were now, wet and weary, on the skirts of rocky Dunbog Hill, in north Fife, fully seven miles from the King's palace of Falkland. The hunt had killed for the third time near Inchrye, and as the light was already beginning to fail, James would be satisfied. He did not like to be out in the dark, being much aware of the forces of darkness, human and otherwise. Almost certainly the royal party would return to Falkland this way. The steep hillside and Lindores Loch would confine the cavalcade to this woodland track before them. So declared the groom, sent by the Duke of Lennox. The man had been ferrying back and forth between his master and the little party of three all day, to keep them informed and to have them in readiness and available when and wherever the energetic monarch should make his final kill. It had been a testing time for all – and not least, undoubtedly, for Ludovick, Duke of Lennox.

David Gray glanced at his daughter. Tired she must be, inevitably, but she at least showed no signs of it. Upright, alert within her enveloping cloak, she sat her stocky mud-spattered garron, even humming a little song to herself, eyes gleaming like the raindrops that glistened on the dark curls escaping from her coif, eager and watchful still despite all the similar waits and false alarms of the day. Almost, she might be enjoying herself. Which was more than her father was doing – or either of the Duke's men, by the look of them.

The situation did not fail to bring to David's mind that other occasion, six years earlier and distinctly similar to this, when he had waited, hidden likewise, for another of James's hunts, near Ruthven in Perthshire, waiting to effect a rescue of his youthful monarch from his cynical captors of the Raid of Ruthven. The Master of Gray had been behind that venture also – had indeed planned it all from far-away France. He himself had been merely the fool, the poor puppet, who carried it out, with thanks from none! Nor did he anticipate either gratitude or satisfaction from this day's work – save perhaps in the mind of this strange girl whom he called his daughter and whom he now wondered whether he knew at all. David Gray waited by Lindores Loch, not only against his inclinations but really against his better judgment.

'Vicky said that the men-at-arms will come first, as they ride back to Falkland,' Mary declared. 'We are to let them past, before coming out – else they might attack us and the King be alarmed. I hope that he and Vicky are not too close behind the soldiers. It may be difficult, a little… '

Her father nodded grimly. He had never seen this entire project as anything else but difficult. At their early morning secret rendezvous with the young Duke, he had impressed upon them the need for quite elaborate care and planning. James was as nervous as an unbroken colt, and sensed treason and violence in every unusual circumstance – as indeed he had reason to do. So many attempts had been made on his person, in his twenty-one years, as on his executed mother and assassinated father before him, that such wariness was only to be expected, and precautions highly necessary. The wonder was that he should persist with this incessant hunting, which provided opportunities for the very attacks that he dreaded.

'Let us hope that the Duke keeps his wits – and uses them,' David said. 'As well that he is less excitable than his royal cousin!' He turned to the other of the two attendants, Lennox's tranter or under-falconer. 'Your master is to have his hands bare, is he not, if all is well? As signal for you to ride out. If he is gloved, you are to remain in hiding?'

The grizzled servitor nodded. 'Aye. We dinna move if he is wearing his gloves.' These two men were known to the King, and dressed in the Duke's livery, bearing his colours of red and white. It was hoped that they would not alarm the apprehensive monarch as they issued suddenly from cover.

'I hope that we shall be able to see him clearly – and he us,' Mary said. 'That there is not a throng round the King, so that we cannot see…'

'Och, never fear, lassie,' the tranter assured. 'My lord Duke kens fine what's needed. He decided it, did he no'?'

'It is not what the Duke does, nor yet the King, that so much concerns me,' David Gray observed. 'It is the men-at-arms, in front. And people about the King. If the guards hear you, and turn back. Or if the others rush out from behind, fearing an ambush…? I do not want the lass here embroiled in any clash or tulzie…'

'Na, na, master – dinna fret, man. They all ken the Duke's colours. Ken us, too. Dand, here, has been riding back and fore to the Duke all day, has he no'? They'll no' be feart at him and me and a lassie, just. Eh, Dand?'

The short dark groom appeared to be otherwise preoccupied. 'Och, quiet you!' he jerked. 'I heard them, I think… ' He was gazing away to the right, through the tracery of the dripping branches.

They all strained their ears.

Sure enough, the faint beat of hooves, and even the slight jingle of arms and accoutrements could just be distinguished above the sigh of the trees in the wind. Waiting was over, at last.