Nigel Tranter - The Courtesan

Huntly hooted. 'This is better than Patrick Gray's fireworks!' he chuckled. 'The pity he is not here to see it.'

'Christ God – save these men!' Lennox shouted. He would have rushed forward, but strong arms held him on either side.

The men on the roof were jumping now – a long jump. Broadswords, dirks, flickered redly in the lurid light, to receive them should they survive. Taunts, challenges, rang out.

Then a kilted warrior came running round the south front of the house, calling for Huntly. Two men had won out of a window on the east side, he reported breathlessly. By a rope of sorts. Proper men, richly dressed. Buckie thought that one could be Moray himself.

Huntly delayed not a moment. For his bulk he was extraordinarily nimble on his feet. Bellowing for men to follow him, he rushed off round the house, cursing furiously.

His minions streamed after him. Ludovick, sensing that the men who were holding him were straining to do likewise, dragged forward also. They all went, running.

A single swordsman awaited them at the other end of the house. He pointed southwards, seawards.

Strung out, stumbling in the darkness, tripping over stones and obstructions, they raced on, armour clanking. The house stood a mere couple of hundred yards back from the shore. The beach was narrow, stony.

Panting hugely, Huntly came to the edge of the sea-grass, where a group of men stood, dark against the faint luminosity of the sea.

'Fiend seize me – where are they?' he demanded, spluttering. 'Buckie – why in God's name are you standing there?'

Gordon of Buckie, a dark hatchet-faced man, broadsword in one hand, dirk in the other, grinned. 'Never fear, my lord,' he answered, and pointed. 'See you there. I but waited for you.'

All stared whence he gestured. Over there, a little way to the east, amongst the rocks and reefs of the shore, something glowed dully red.

'By the Rood!' Huntly gasped. 'You mean… you mean…?'

'Aye – yonder he is. My bonnie lord o' Moray. Singed a mite – but all fowl are better so to pluck and truss, are they not? He conceives himself to be hidden…'

'You are certain that he it is, man?'

'To be sure, yes. He was well illuminated as he ran, my lord!' Buckie chuckled. 'His hair burned but indifferently -but the plume of his helm flared like a torch. As good as a beacon. Yon is the stump of it you see, I wager. Wiser he would have been to throw it into the sea.'

'He is not alone, your man said?'

'No. Another is with him, there. Him they call Dunbar, the Sheriff of Moray, I think. Sore hurt, I believe. Else Moray might have fared better, for he is an agile carle. He was aiding him…'

'Aye. Come, then. Let us finish the matter.'

'George Gordon!' Lennox cried, from the rear. 'Moray is to suffer no hurt. No further hurt. I charge you, in the King's name. Before all these. Heed well…'

'Mother o' God! Does that cockerel still crow?' Huntly threw back over his plaided and corseleted shoulder. 'Quiet, loon!'

Down they streamed towards the tell-tale glow of smouldering stump of proud horse-hair helmet-plume. Too late its owner realised that his position was discovered. Springing up, and by his height and splendid stature revealing himself to be Moray indeed, the fugitive looked as though he might seek to bolt still further along that rock-bound shore. Then glancing down, presumably at his wounded companion amongst the weed-hung boulders, he straightened wide shoulders, shrugged, and raised his voice.

'I am the Earl of Moray,' he called. 'I yield me.' And he threw his sword from him, towards them. It fell amongst the stones with a ringing clatter.

The chorus of shouts that greeted his gesture might have come from a pack of wolves, Huntly's own fierce vituperation high amongst them.

Down upon the unarmed man the yelling crew rushed. Moray stood waiting. Above the shadows of the rocks his upper half was clearly illuminated in the glare of the burning house. He wore no armour, other than the helmet. His fine clothing was blackened and soiled. His long fair hair, that normally fell to his shoulders, was burned away unevenly almost to the edges of the helmet.

Too late he perceived that his surrender meant nothing to his attackers; that there was no mercy for him here. He turned, and started to run towards a black crevice amongst great rocks – no cave, but perhaps some shelter and shield from flanking blows; but Gordon of Buckie, fleet of foot, headed him off. Leaping boulders like any deer, his broadsword lifted, and he brought it slashing down upon the Earl's shoulder and back.

With a choking cry, Moray whirled round, his fine frame bent, twisted to one side, to lean against a rock, gasping. He thrust out both hands, empty – although one drooped limply.

Buckie drew back his sword, laughed aloud, and lunged forward again with his full force, to run the other right through the belly.

Coughing, vomiting, groaning, Moray sank to the stones, the steel still transfixing him.

Yelling, the others came surging round the prostrate Earl. But as they stared down at the convulsive figure, their cries died away. Even Huntly was silent.

Not so Gordon of Buckie. 'There is your tod, Huntly!' he cried out. 'Your fox out of its caim. Is it Huntly's fox – or only Buckie's? Where's your steel, my lord? Your steel?'

His chief drew a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and raising his sword, hacked it down, right across the dying man's upturned face.

The moaning shudder which followed that ghastly blow was not only Moray's.

Ludovick's shocked cry of horror died away as a thick uncouth sound came from the riven mouth itself, that spouted blood blackly over the stones. Out of the jumble, words came with infinite difficulty, slowly, one by one.

'… Huntly… you Hieland… stot! You ha'… spoiled… a better… face… than… your own! May… God… '

A great spate of blood came gushing, and the voice choked and gurgled, not to silence, but to incoherence.

As of one accord the company fell upon the twitching, writhing body, flailing, slashing, stabbing, with dirk and broadsword and whinger.

Lennox was violently sick on the shingle of the beach.

SCOTLAND seethed like a cauldron on the boil. The bonnie Earl of Moray was dead, slain foully by Huntly, by the King, by the Master of Gray, by the Catholics. Moray was of the kirk's persuasion, if less than zealously. From every pulpit in the land thundered furious denunciation, protest, demands for retribution, fierce attacks on the King. Moray, the idol of the faithful, must be avenged. The Papists must be crushed. Huntly must die. Parliament must assemble and express the people's horror and detestation.

Moray, of course, had been a notable performer with the football, the boxing-glove, the tennis-racquet and the golf-club. Even Mary the Queen's death at the hands of Elizabeth, five years before, had not aroused such a clamour.

James dared not appear in the streets of Edinburgh for fear of being hooted and jeered at, even having refuse pelted at him. Moray's hacked and battered corpse was brought to the family burial ground at Leith for public display in the kirkyard there, by his mother, displaying her own singed grey hair and refusing burial for her son until she was granted vengeance. A Campbell, daughter of MacCailean Mhor himself, Earl of Argyll, she was not one to be content with half measures.

On Patrick Gray's advice James persuaded Huntly to ward himself in the West Lothian fortress of Blackness Castle, meantime. It was not truly a warding, of course, for Huntly swaggered there in style with all his men, indeed kept up almost princely state within its extensive walls and went out hunting in the adjoining woodlands, inviting James as his guest. But it did enable the King to declare that he was taking steps, and that justice would be done. He also announced that he had evidence linking Moray with Bothwell's treasonable attempts, and that was why Huntly had been sent to arrest him. This scarcely satisfied many, needless to say, but it made a gesture towards public opinion. More effective, again on Patrick's advice, was James's announcement that he had sent Lennox hot-foot after Huntly as soon as he had heard rumours that the Gordons might carry out the arrest over-vigorously. Unfortunately, the Duke had arrived too late. Moray had resisted lawful arrest, fired on Huntly from his tower, and largely ordained his own fate.