Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

'Not so. He is loud in Moray's defence. Too loud. Making excuse for him in this. But also in the matter of the Queen. It is for this last that I am frightened, Vicky. This of the Queen.'

'You fear for the Queen, Mary? Surely not that? Not even Patrick could…'

'The Queen, yes. Although not so much as for Moray. I fear for them both. Together. Patrick is very attentive to the Queen. But she has Dunfermline, that hateful place that he had set his heart on. He will never have it now – and I think that he will never forgive her. And, sorrow – that was my doing also. It was I who urged the King to dower her with Dunfermline Abbey. To prevent Patrick from ruining himself to get it. I was clever again, you see – so very clever. So I bear responsibility for both, for Moray and the Queen, Vicky

'I think that you blame yourself overmuch, Mary.' He frowned. 'But… I do not understand. How comes the Queen into this matter? Of Moray and Bothwell? What do you fear for her, in it?'

'It is not that. It is that the Queen is seeing overmuch of Moray. From the first she has liked him well, as you know. But it becomes too much. In especial since coming to Falkland. And Patrick is effecting it so, I am sure. Falkland is not far from both Dunfermline and Donibristle, Moray's house in Fife. The Queen is ever going to Dunfermline, to see to her house building there, while the King is hunting or at his books and papers. Moray is in disgrace, and banned the Court meantime – but he is much at Dunfermline, and the Queen at Donibristle.'

'You think that they are lovers?'

'No. Not that. Not yet. But Moray is… Moray. And very handsome. And the Queen is lonely, and very young. And Patrick, I think, would have the King come to believe it. To Moray's ruin.' She sighed. 'I have spoken to him, of course. He but laughs at me, denying it. But as one of the Queen's women I see much. I see how he ever entices the Queen to Dunfermline, with new notions for her house, new plans for the pleasance she is making, for the water-garden, for new plenishings that workmen he has found for her are making. When she would have the King go with her, I have seen how Patrick works on him to do otherwise – a deputation to receive, a visit to Cupar or St. Andrews or Newburgh, new papers to study, or some notable stag spied on Lomond Hill. He is always with the King, closer than he has ever been. With Moray and Bothwell and Huntly banished the Court, the Chancellor still in Edinburgh, and many of the lords at their justice-eyres – aye, and you away here, Vicky – thus there are few close to the King to cross Patrick's influence. Only Mar, who is stupid. And Atholl, who is drunken.' She paused, almost for breath. 'I fear greatly for Moray and the Queen,' she ended flady. 'And I must blame myself.'

'You blame yourself for too much, Mary. This is Patrick's doing, not yours.'

'But I – I thought to outplay Patrick at his own game. That there is no denying.'

He carried an armful of sweet-smelling hay to the manger. 'Patrick is nearer to the Devil than ever was Bothwell!' he said.

Her lovely face crumpled as with a spasm of pain. 'Do not say that, Vicky!' she pleaded. 'Never say it.'

'It is the truth,' he declared bluntly. 'The man is evil.'

'No! Not evil. Not truly evil. My father – Davy Gray -said that he had a devil. I did not believe him. Yet he loved him – loves him still. Perhaps he is right – perhaps he has a devil. Perhaps he is two men – one ill and one good. There is much good in him, Vicky – as you know, who are his friend.'

'Was his friend,' Lennox corrected briefly.

*Was and are, Vicky. You must be. True friendship remains true. Even in such case.'

'May a man remain friends with evil, and still not sin?'

'I think he may, yes. Is it sin for me to love Patrick still, as I do. Not the evil in him, but Patrick himself.'

'He is your father…'

'I do not love him because he sired me. Davy I love as my father. I love Patrick… because he is Patrick.'

'Aye.' Ludovick sighed. 'So do we all, God help us! Come – into the house with us.'

'Then – you will come back with me, Vicky? To Falkland? To help me? To try to save Moray. And the Queen. And Patrick from himself. I know that you hate the Court, Vicky -but come.'

'Lord!' Almost he smiled. 'All that! So many to save! I will come, Mary – but cannot think to achieve so much. I am no worker of miracles, as you know well. Or you would be my wife here in Methven. But come I will – since you ask it. As you knew I would – or you would not have come, I think.'

'As I knew you would,' she agreed, gravely. 'Thank you, Vicky.'

Later, with a well-doing fire of birch-logs blazing and spurting on the heaped ash of the open hearth, filling the handsome room with the aromatic fragrance and flickering on the shadowy panelled walls, Mary sat, legs tucked beneath her skirt, on a deerskin rug on the floor, and gazed deep into the red heart of the fire, silent. It was indeed very silent in that chamber, in all the great house, in the night that pressed in on them from the vast and empty foothill country. The only sounds were the noises of the fire, the faint sigh of evening wind in the chimney, the occasional call of a night-bird, and the soft regular tread and creak of floorboards as Ludovick paced slowly to and fro behind her. They had not spoken for perhaps ten minutes, since she had cleared away the meal that she had made for them, and he had lit the fire against the night's chill.

The young man's voice, when it came, was quiet also, less jerky and self-conscious than was his usual. 'This… this is what I have always dreamed of, Mary. You, sitting before my fire, in my house. Alone. And the night falling.'

She neither stirred nor made answer to that. His steady but unhurried pacing continued at her back, without pause.

'You are so very small,' he mentioned again, presently, out of the shadows. 'So slight a creature to be so important. So small, there before the fire – so slightly made, yet so perfect, so beautiful. And so strong. So strong.' That last was on a sigh.

'I am not strong, Vicky,' she answered him, after a long moment, calmly, as out of due consideration. 'No, I am not strong.'

'Yes, you are,' he insisted. 'You are the strongest person that I know. Stronger than all the blustering lords or the frowning churchmen. Stronger than all who think that they are strong – the doctors and professors and judges. Aye, stronger even than Patrick Gray, I swear.' He had halted directly behind her.

She shook her head, the firelight glinting on her hair, but said nothing. Nor did she look round or up.

'Why should the woman that I want, and need, be so strong?' he demanded, his voice rising a little. 'When I am not strong? Why should it have been you… and me? In all this realm?'

'I do not know, Vicky,' she told him. 'But this I do know… that I do not feel strong this night.'

'You mean…?' Looking down on her, he opened his mouth to say more, and then forbore, frowning. When she did not amplify that statement, made so factually, he resumed his pacing.

An owl had the silence to itself for a space.

'All men want you,' he said, at length. 'I watch them. See how they look at you. Even some of the ministers of the Kirk. Even James, who is fonder of men than of women. All would have you, if they could. Yet you look to care for none of them. You smile kindly on all. On many that deserve no smile – ill, lecherous men. But yourself, you need none of them?' That last was a question.

'You think that?'

'I know not what to think. I wonder – always I wonder. You keep your inmost heart… so close.'

'You make me sound hard, unfeeling, Vicky. Am I that?

'No. Not that. But sufficient unto yourself, perhaps. Not drawn to men. Yet drawing men to yourself.'