Nigel Tranter: Lord and Master

Slanting down through the trees they came presently, to a grassy hollow hidden amongst the birches and the tall bracken, out of sight of castle and road and spreading fields below – a haunt of theirs less popular than their cave and ledge perhaps, but useful in its own way. There, roughly, David unhanded his brother, and faced him.

'Time we made a reckoning, I think,' he said levelly.

'No, Davy – no!' Patrick's fine eyes were wide. This is folly. No way to behave. To settle differences. We are men, now – not bairns. See you -I can explain it all. If you will but heed me, Davy. If you will but listen…'

'I listened,' the other interrupted him, harshly. 'You had your say back yonder; Now, I will have mine! You are a liar, Patrick Gray – a liar, and a cozener, and a cheat! Are you a coward too?'

His brother had lost a little of his colour. He drew a deep breath. 'No,' he said, and seemed to find difficulty in getting the word out.

'Good, I was feared you might be – along with the rest. And you can run faster than me, yet!'

Patrick's head lifted just a degree or two, and his chin with it -and for a moment they looked very much alike. 'No,' he repeated quietly. 'I do not think I am a coward. But, Davy – my fine clothes?'

'The fiend take your fine clothes! This is for your lies!' And David Gray exploded into action, and hurled himself upon the other, head sunk into wide shoulders, fists flailing.

Patrick side-stepped agilely, leapt back light-footed, and lashed out in defence. Of the first fierce rain of blows only two grazed his cheek and shoulder. But David was possessed of a swift and rubbery fury of energy that there was no escaping, though the other was taller, with the longer reach, and hit out in return desperately, as hard as he knew. The driving, elementary, relentless savagery of the elder was just not to be withstood. Short of turning and running, there was no escape. Patrick knew it, from of old – and perhaps the knowledge further invalidated his defence. In less time than it takes to tell, his lip was split and his nose bleeding.

Panting, David leapt back, tossing the hair from his face. That for your lies!' he gasped. "This, for your cozening!' And plunging into the attack again, he drove hard for the other's body in crouching battering-ram style. Despite himself, Patrick yelped with sudden pain, hunched himself up in an effort to protect his softer parts, and was driven staggering back with a great pile-driver, to sink on one knee, groaning.

That for… the cozening! On your feet, man! This for… your cheating!' David swung a sideways upper-cut at Patrick's chin, which all but lifted the other off his unsteady feet, and sent him tottering back to crash all his length on the greensward, and there lie moaning.

Swaying over him, grey eyes blazing with a cold fire of their own, David suddenly stooped, and wrenched up a turf of long grass and roots and earth. On to his brother's beautiful face he rubbed and ground and slapped this, back and forth, into mouth and nose and eyes, before casting it from him. 'And that… for Mariota Davidson!' he exclaimed.

Straightening up, then, he looked down upon the writhing disfigured victim, and the cold fire ebbed from him. Panting he stood there, for long moments, straddling the other, and then slowly he shook his head.

'Och, Patrick, Patrick!' he said, and turning away abruptly, went striding off through the further trees without a backward glance.

The Master of Gray lay where he had Men, sobbing for breath.

MY lord of Gray was as good as his word, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, either. He rode to St. Andrews the next morning, and was home again the same night – and in excellent mood. He made no comment at all on Patrick's battered features and gingerly held frame, nor questioned the young men further on what apparently was now little business of theirs. A busy man of affairs, of course, he was not in the habit of wasting much time on any of his offspring. His orders, however, were explicit and peremptory. He and Patrick would ride on the morrow for Glamis Castle, to fix the date of the wedding, before the Chancellor went off to Stirling for his monthly meeting with the Regent. The other marriage date was already satisfactorily fixed, it seemed – even the disillusioned Principal Davidson agreeing, presumably, as to the need for some haste in this matter. It only remained for David Gray to go and pay his respects to his future father-in-law. The nuptials would be celebrated, if that was the apt word, as discreetly and quickly as possible before the month was out and before the lassie became, mountainous.

The brothers were to go their different ways, then, for almost the first time in their lives.

So the day following, early, the two parties rode away from Castle Huntly, in almost opposite directions and contrastingly composed. My lord's jingling company of gentlemen, chaplain, and score of men-at-arms were finely, mounted, their weapons gleaming, plumes tossing, the red lion standard of Gray fluttering bravely in front of father and son; both were soberly clad in dark broadcloth but with rich black half-armour, inlaid with gold, above. They headed north by west for the Newtongray pass of the Sidlaw hills and Strathmore of the Lyons. David, sitting his shaggy long-tailed Highland pony, and dressed still as he had come from St. Andrews two days before, trotted off alone eastwards for Dundee town and the ferry boat at Broughty.

As they branched off on their different roads, David looked back. He saw only the one head in that gallant cavalcade turned towards him, as Patricks steel-gauntleted arm was raised in valedictory salute. David lifted ms own hand, and slowly waved it back and forth, before sighing and turning away. They were brothers, yet

Fivemiles on, avoiding the climbing narrow streets of Dundee by keeping to the water-front and the boat-shore, David rode further to Broughty, another three miles eastwards, where the Firth narrowed to a bare mile across and a ferry plied. Here rose the soaring broken mass of another Gray castle, still proudly dominating land and sea despite being partly demolished after its bloody vicissitudes during the religious wars of a few years earlier. David sat waiting for the ferryboat beneath the frowning river walls, and cared nothing for the fact that his own great-grandfather had first built them, his grandfather had betrayed them to the English, and his father had gained his limp and almost lost his life in seeking to retake them.

The ferry eventually put him across the swift-running tide, at Ferry-Port-on-Craig, where still another castle glowered darkly on all but friends of Gray, and which, acting in conjunction with that of Broughty over the water, could in theory defend the estuary and Dundee from invasion by sea, and in practise levy toll on all shipping using the narrows – thereby greatly contributing to my lord's income.

A ride of no more than ten miles across the flat sandy links of North Fife brought David thereafter, by just afternoon, to the grey city of St Andrews, ecclesiastical metropolis of Scotland, with all its towers and spires and pinnacles a dream by the white-flecked glittering sea. The young man viewed it with mixed feelings as he rode in by the Guard Bridge and the narrow massive gateway of the West Port The blood of martyrs innumerable did not shout to him from the cobbles, nor did the sight of so many fair and handsome buildings in various stages of defacement and demolishment, eloquent witness to Reforming zeal, distress him overmuch; but here he had passed the two most free and happy years of his life, here he had studied and learned and laughed and sported, here he had met Mariota Davidson – and from here he had been expelled with ignominy, because he was the Master of Gray's shadow and dependent, but two days before.