Nigel Tranter: Lord and Master

'I warned you, Patrick. Have you forgotten? I told you, yon day after Wotton left, that if ever you acted to betray Mary the Queen, as you had betrayed so many others I would stand by no longer. I would act I would forget that we were brothers. And you would never betray another. Do you not remember?'

'That woman! She was a witch, a devil! She turned your head, man. About her, you are crazed. What was she, man, to set above your own brother? A woman whom you saw for a few moments, once – near old enough to be your mother!'

'She was my Queen, and yours – and a helpless, sorrowing, gallant woman whom we had vowed to free and serve and cherish…'

'Tush – what is that but callow sentiment! And for such youth's dreams such pap – you would have me die under the axe?

'For more than that I would see an end to your destruction. For that is what you are, Patrick – a destroyer. All your life you have worked for destruction, setting up only that you may drag down, enticing and fascinating that you might betray. You betrayed Mariota, seducing her, and then abandoning her with child. You betrayed me, to your father, asserting that the child was mine. So that you could have Elizabeth Lyon and her riches. You betrayed her, on her very wedding-night. Then, rising higher, you betrayed your faith, the Protestant faith in which you were baptised and bred, going over to the Romans – not for conviction, but for gain only, and that you might betray them in turn. You betrayed Esme Stuart, your friend, to the death, after raising him high. Then Gowrie, your own uncle, also to the death. Arran you betrayed and brought low over yon business of the Redeswire, and Ferniehirst you threw to the dogs. Your King you betrayed to Elizabeth – and no doubt Elizabeth to de Guise and Philip of Spain. Mary Stuart was only your final and crowning infamy, dear God!'

Patrick had stopped his pacing to stare at him, mouth forming words but no sounds. He seemed to shrink in on himself, as he stood there, and for perhaps the first time m his life there was no beauty, no attractiveness, visible in those delicately moulded features. 'Are… are you finished?' he got out, at last, from ashen lips.

Aye. David sighed wearily. 'Finished, yes.'

'Finished your smug, hypocritical, self-righteous litany!' That was a gabble,

'Aye. And making sure that you are finished your tally of betrayal, – at last, also. Would to God that I had had the courage, and found the way, to do it sooner.'

Patrick was silent. He turned and went over to the bench that was his couch, and sat down heavily.

'So this is the end?' he said 'I had never envisaged it…thus.'

David said nothing.

'I can see now why they sent you in to me – you, and only you!

'They did not send me. I tell you, I came of my own accord'

The other did not seem to hear him. 'I trusted you, Davy. I never thought that you would go over to my enemies even though you found fault with me. Ever you have done that. Is there nothing I can do, man – nothing that I can say to soften your heart? If you have a heart? No amends I can make?'

'None. Even if I believed you capable of amend.'

'Marie…? And the bairn to come? For her sake…?'

'I shall look after Marie as best I am able. You can rest assured of that. As for the bairn, it will be heir to Gray. My lord will see that it suffers nothing.'

'Aye. So. It is all decided. So simply. So nicely. And I thought that you loved me…!'

'Simply!' David's stern armour seemed to crack. 'Lord, man – think you that aught has been decided simply, nicely? That I have not worn out my knees with praying, deeved the good God's ears to guide me, to help me to my duty? Think you that all these years I have not fought and struggled with this evil thing, cursing myself and my weakness – aye, and my love for you – as much as your fatal…'

'Aye – so you prayed your iron Calvinist God – and He sent you here to comfort my last hours thus! My thanks, brother -my thanks! pray now – pray that you will spare me more of your pious hypocrisy.'

The other seemed to bite his lips into stiffness again. 'I came… I did not wish to come. I came, as I told you, but to see if there were any last messages, final charges…'

'Ah, yes – fond farewells! You touch me deeply, Davy – i' faith you do! But I think that I can do without your loving services in this! Marie knows me well enough, without graveyard messages. Mariota also. My beloved father never knew me – no words win change him now. Only… only young Mary, sweet small Mary, will, will… oh for God's sake, get out! Go, man-go! If you have any heart left in you, leave me alone!'

'I… I am sorry.'

For moments brother looked at brother, starkly, nakedly, unspeaking, their tormented, searching, anguished eyes saying the goodbyes which their lips would not form. Then slowly, Patrick raised his hand and pointed, urgently, pleadingly, to the door.

Blindly, David turned on his heel and strode thereto. He had to rattle on the iron latch for it to be unlocked from outside, waiting wordless.

The door opened, and he stumbled out without a backward glance.

David Gray had taken only a few almost drunken steps along the stone-flagged corridor, when his arms were gripped strongly, ungently, from either side. He looked up, blinking the tears from his eyes, seeking to see clearly. Two men in breastplates and morions, men-at-arms presumably, held him. Two more levelled halberds at his chest. Beyond them another man stood, of a different sort, seemingly richly dressed. Shaking his head to clear the weak tears away, David perceived that it was Sir William Stewart.

'Master Gray, you will come with me,' he was told curtly.

They led him out across the cobbled square, up a flight of steps cut in the naked castle-rock, and into another wing of the fortress – the Governor's quarters. In a richly furnished apartment therein, he found himself thrust before the presence of Sir John Maitland.

The Secretary of State and acting Chancellor eyed him with his usual dyspeptic and disapproving stare. 'You have taken some time to visit your brother, Master Gray,' he said, without explanation or preamble, in his dry lawyer's voice. It is eight days since he was imprisoned. I adjudge this to mean either that you have singularly little of brotherly affection for the said base and wretched traitor, or else that you oppugn and condemn his wicked treasons – as indeed must all His Grace's loyal servants. In either case, it seems likely that you will not fail in your duty to your King, now.'

David looked from the speaker to Stewart, to another who seemed to be an officer of the royal guard, and sought to jerk his arms free of the men-at-arms who still gripped him. 'I do not understand you, sir,' he said, frowning. 'Nor why I have been roughly handled and brought here thus. I have committed no offence. What means this, sir…?'

Maitland ignored the other's protest entirely. 'Your duty to King James is plain. You will do well to remember it. By what means does the Master of Gray plan to circumvent the King's justice?'

Astonished, David gazed at the man. You mean?'

'Tut, man – do not play the fool! You are not dealing with fools I assure you. Your precious brother is a nimble-witted rogue. He will not fail to take such steps as he may to save himself and overturn the true course of justice. And undoubtedly he has friends amongst the disaffected and the disloyal He cannot achieve much in a prison cell without a go-between. You are the only one who has been permitted to visit him.'

I see!' David's grey eyes smouldered, now. 'So that is why you permitted me to see him, without hindrance! You must have a poor opinion of me I think, sir! You name him traitor -and adjudge me to be a traitor likewise, in that I would betray my own brotherl'