Nigel Tranter - Lord and Master

Only hard riding remained for them now – and they were almost certainly better mounted than would be any pursuers, on these Barbary blacks. The wounded Raoul was their weakness, but the sturdy Breton snarled that he was well enough, and would ride to hell if need be. Crouching low in their saddles, they settled down ot it

Whether or no they were in fact pursued, they never knew. They had covered many kilometres of that road, and passed through a couple of either sleeping or deserted villages, before they deemed it safe to pull up, to attend to Raoul's wounded shoulder. About them, when they did halt, the night was wetly silent. Dismounting, David put his ear to the ground. No hint or throb of beating hooves came to him.

'Dieu de Dieu – we are safe, I think!' d'Aubigny panted. 'The King's men – or, rather, the Queen's – will not dare follow us far into this Namur, surely? Peste, but we were not so clever, Patrick!'

'I faith, we were not!' Patrick agreed. 'Who would have thought that they would have followed down this side of the river? They must have known of our ruse, all along, but not dared to touch us near Sedan itself.'

'Or else got word of us in Sedan, and sent parties to watch the far sides of all the fords of the Meuse. It would be them we heard while waiting for you. Pardieu, Catherine is well-served, Patrick!'

'Aye – and so are we, I think! Davy – my thanks!'

David, examining the man Raoul's wound, shrugged. 'That is unnecessary, your honour' he said briefly. 'A mere exercise in farmyard tactics. I was, as it were, born to such!', Patrick bit his lip.

David turned to d'Aubigny. 'My lord, I think that this hero of yours will survive. The bleeding is almost stopped. A clean thrust, 'I'd say – painful, but with no serious damage done.'

The Breton muttered something beneath his breath.

'Good. As well, praise the saints! Raoul, mon ami, it was a gallant attempt… though lacking; in finesse, perhaps. Though who am I to judge, who did naught but lose my sword! Here is the paladin! Patrick, your Davy is a man of parts, I swear. That was notably done. He has a quick wit and a stout heart, damned Calvinist or none!'

'He is my brother' the Master of Gray said slowly, deliberately. 'My elder brother.'

'But, of course!' 'No – not just my foster-brother, Esme. My father's eldest son – only, conceived the wrong side of the blanket!.

'As though I did not guess as much, man! All Rheims, taking a look at the pair of you, said the same.'

Patrick's breath seemed to take the wrong route to his lungs, somehow, and all but choked him.

'He has my gratitude, at all events' d'Aubigny went oh, 'Here is my hand, Master Davy Gray. I shall not forget'

'I thank you, sir. Do you not think that we should be riding on, nevertheless… if your lordships will forgive my presumption?'

'Davy, let it be, man!' Patrick all hut pleaded. I am sorry.'

'He is right, Patrick. If Raoul is fit enough, we should no longer linger here. We cannot be sure that they will not follow us. This town, Montlierre, can be no more than a league or two ahead, where we are to place ourselves in the hands of one of Philip's captains. Until then, we cannot be assured of our safety.'

Getting started, thereafter, was difficult, with Patrick holding back so that his brother might ride alongside, and David doing likewise so that he should lie suitably behind – d'Aubigny looking on, eyebrows raised.

That, indeed, was to be the pattern of their subsequent journeying through the Low Countries to the sea at Amsterdam., The Guise letter of credentials, and the noble travellers' Catholic eminence and charm, might be sufficient to gain them safe conduct from Philip of Spain's occupying forces, but more than anything of the sort was necessary to soften entirely a stiff Gray neck.

Possibly the miller's daughter of Inchture had had almost as good a conceit of herself as had my lord of Gray. The Scots are like that, of course.

THE brothers' long road homewards together finally parted at the port of Leith, in the estuary of the Forth and in sight of the great rock-girt castle of Edinburgh. Patrick, to the end, urged that David should stay with him, pleading the need, both of himself and d'Aubigny, for a secretary and esquire in their ambitious project. But David was adamant His road was not Patrick's; he had to render the account of his stewardship to my lord, who had sent him; moreover, he had a wife and a bairn awaiting him at Castle Huntly, from whom he had been parted overlong already. He had no desire for a life of courts and cities and intrigue, anyway – his schoolroom and country affairs were amply to his taste. It was Castle Huntly for him, forthwith.

Patrick could have gone to Castle Huntly also, withd' Aubigny, and from there prosecuted the very necessary spying out of the land and enquiries before they descended upon the Court of King James at Stirling – for of course their appearance must be very carefully arranged and timed, with prior secrecy vital, lest Morton and his friends should take steps to nip all in the bud; but Patrick preferred to avoid his father's house meantime, and claimed with some reason that Castle Huntly was too remotely placed for gaining the essential gossip and information about the Court and the Douglases, and for making contact with the right people, to enable them to make their move at the best moment He fancied rather his cousin Logan's house of Restalrig, between Leith and Edinburgh, for a start at least, where they could roost incognito meantime. Surely, never did two more incongruously and conspicuously eye-catching incognito-seekers land on a Scottish shore, Barbary blacks and all.

So David bade God-speed to his brother, with urgent but not very hopeful requests that Patrick watch his step for sweet mercy's sake, and offer as few cavalier challenges to fate as in him lay, and thereafter transferred himself to a coasting vessel which would sail for Dysart and Dundee at the next tide. He frowned a little as he went, for in his baggage he now carried an expensively handsome jewelled clasp for Mariota and a brilliantly dressed Flanders puppet for little Mary, just handed to him by Patrick, which most greatly outshine the length of cambric and the roll of ribbon that were to be his own humble gifts.

David rode on a very third-rate horse next day, after the Guise blacks, through fields of ripening corn in the fertile Carse, into a sinking golden early August sun, and his heart was full. Here was his own colourful matchless land, so much more beautiful and diversified than any that he had seen on his wanderings, with the blue estuary of the Tay, the green straths and yellow fields, the hills everywhere as background, rolling or rocky, cloaked in woods or decked in bracken and heather, and beyond all, the blue ramparts of the great mountains. He had scarcely realised how much he loved it all Even the tall frowning castle on its jutting rock had its loveliness for him, the raw red stonework mellowed by the sunset; or perhaps it was only what lay within its massive walls that made it beautiful for him.

He clattered into the courtyard, under the stern gatehouse, flung himself off his mount, and went racing up the stairway of the little schoolroom tower, to hurl open the door of Mariota's room – and find it empty, deserted. Not even their bed was there. As though an icy hand had clutched him, he ran back, down into the yard. A single man-at-arms sat in a sunny corner, cleaning harness. Of him he demanded where was his wife, his daughter?

'Och, they bide up in the main keep noo, Davy' he was told. 'They're fine, man – fine. My lord's had them up there beside him a couple o' months syne, for the company, ye ken. Sakes -no' so fast, Davy. They're no' there, the noo. They're doon below -doon in the fruit garden, pulling berries…'