Nigel Tranter - Lord and Master

'Yes,m'lady.'

The other smiled then, so faint a smile, yet sweet 'Call me Marie, surely,' she said. 'Then perhaps we may be able to win Davy round to doing the same! I have been trying, these many months.'

Mariota did not answer that. She was seeking to draw together the gaping front of her shift to hide the deep cleft of her breasts from the admiring scrutiny of the mounted man-at-arms.

'You find us at something of a disadvantage,' David jerked. 'This hay…'

'Not so,' Marie corrected him, quickly for her. 'I find you making better use of your time than I have made for many a day. Would that these useless hands of mine could wield a fork as do your Mariota's! I envy her – and in more than that!' She spoke to the mounted man. 'Go back to the castle, Willie, and await me there. Take the horse, too.' Then, turning to the interested Mary, she took a couple of paces forward and sank down on one knee in the cut grass before the child. 'So this is… this your firstborn. The charmer that all the Court has heard of – even the King! I can see why, too.'

Woman and child eyed each other steadily, directly. Mary showed no hint of her elders' unease and uncertainty. She never did, of course. Great-eyed, but sparkling, assured, she considered the visitor. 'You have bonny hair,' she said, and reached out a grubby hand to touch the heavy golden tresses that escaped from the coif.

'Mary!' her mother exclaimed, shocked.

But the Lady Marie remained kneeling, and nodded agreement. 'It is the best of me,' she said, seriously. 'We cannot all have… what you have got, Mary. See,' she drew a necklace of tiny pink shells from a pocket 'I have brought you these. Once they were the only gauds I had. And a comfit for your little brother.'

"Thank you,' the child said, and bending down she plucked one of the little hearts-ease flowers which grew everywhere low in the grass, and presented it to the other with the most natural dignity. 'For you.' A royal gesture of bestowal could not have been more gracious.

Marie leaned forward to kiss a sticky cheek, and stood up. 'You are better blessed than I knew, Davy,' she declared, looking from daughter to mother. 'I do not wonder that the Court could not hold you.'

'It has not held you either, it seems, Lady Marie!'

'Me -I have only escaped for a little while. Seeking a breath of fresh air. Patrick was right – it is plaguey dull, and a good place to be furth of Lennox and Arran and Gowrie all bickering round the King… and Arran's wife lying with all three, they say!'

'So – do you wish that you had gone to France, after all?' She raised her grey eyes to look at him levelly, calmly. 'Do you?' she said.

David frowned. 'By God, I do not!' he asserted, with more vehemence than seemed necessary.

Gravely she nodded. 'Perhaps you speak for me, also. Who knows? We think alike on many things, I would say, Davy.'

Mariota looked from one to the other, and bit her red lip.

The visitor examined her little wild pansy. 'Have you any tidings… from Patrick?'

'A letter, a week ago. From Seville, in Spain. What he does there, he did not say – save that the climate and the women were hotter even than in France, and the statecraft colder!'

'Spain…!' she said. 'What deep game is he playing, Davy? Is it the old religion? Statecraft cold, he said? That could mean – what?'

'I do not know – save only that he is Patrick. And since he is, his going there, will not be out of any whim… or mean what may appear on the face of it'

'No. No -I fear that is true…'

'Why must you always be so hard against Patrick?' Mariota exclaimed abruptly. 'Why must he ever be judged so sorely?

Davy is ever at it. My lord, too. And now, you! You are unkind – all of you! I… I…' She stopped, undoubtedly flushing this time.

The other young woman considered her thoughtfully. 'Perhaps you are right,' she said. 'It is too easy to judge, may be.'

David opened his mouth to speak, and then thought better of it.

'He… Patrick is well, at least? Marie asked, after a moment 'He did not say… anything else? 'He did not say that he missed my company.' 'Nor mine? 'Nor yours, no.'

'I see. Why should he?' Without change of expression, Marie turned to the other young woman. 'A new light is beginning to burn brightly at Court,' she mentioned. 'A supporting luminary of my lord Duke's… that burns with the sweet odour of sanctified oil! A notable and godly influence, I am sure.'

Mariota, hurriedly stooping to tend the baby, looked both surprised and mystified.

'The new Lord Bishop of St Boswells. Better known as the learned Principal of St Andrews, Master Davidson. A cause for congratulation?

'Bishop…? Mariota faltered.

'Did you not know? Ah, yes, Lennox has had the old lapsed bishopric of St Boswells, in the Borders, revived for him… with its revenues of Kelso, Dryburgh and the rest He has become the Duke's spiritual adviser, in place of the mournful Master Lindsay. A worthy bridge between Kirk and State, don't you think?

David barked a single mirthless laugh. 'So – he has achieved more through the new religion than the old, after all! Morton made him Principal… and Lennox a bishop! A man of parts, 'fore God!'

'Indeed, yes. A man not only with the cure of souls innumerable and a sure seat in Heaven, but with a seat in the Estates of Parliament likewise, the income of three abbeys, and through Lennox the ear of the King! And you are his only child, are you not, Mariota? We soon will all be curtseying to you, my dear!'

Mariota's comely features were working strangely, her bosom heaving. 'No!' she cried. 'I am no child of his! He told me so, the last time that we spoke together. He said that I was none of his hereafter, that he hoped that God would spare him the sight of me! And I… I wish never to hear his name again! I am Mariota Gray-that, and that only!' She gulped, and bobbed the sketchiest of bows. 'With your permission, m'lady…!' Bending, she snatched up the baby, grabbed Mary's hand, and turning, went hurrying at half-a-run across the hay towards the distant castle, without a backward glance.

Marie started as though to hasten after her, but David restrained her with a hand on her shoulder.

'Let her be,' he counselled. 'Let her be. Better so.'

'Go you after her, then, Davy. Tell her that I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt her – it is the last thing I would have done! You must tell her so. I did not know that she was thus with her father…'

'I should have told you, perhaps. He… he did not think highly of me as good-son! He injured Mariota cruelly.'

'And now – and now my talk has upset her. I am a fool! I should not have come, Davy. I thought twice before coming, but… I pined for the sight of your honest nice…'

'And word of Patrick,' he added heavily.

'Yes – that also,' she admitted, quiet-voiced. 'What is it that Patrick does to us all, Davy.'

'I do not know,' he said, and sighed.

In their own room later, with Marie returned to Erroll, Mariota, tense and fretful, turned on David as soon as he came in.

"That woman,' she cried. 'Why did she come here? What does she want of us? What does she want of you?'

'I think that she but wanted word of Patrick…'

'Aye, that was easily seen! But she wanted more than that, I think. I saw her – the fine lady with her sly looks and hints! I saw the pair of you, and your quick glances…'

David jerked a laugh. 'Sly, of all things, I would not call the Lady Marie! She is honest and straight, Mariota – the only one such that I ever found at the Court…'

"We think alike on many things, Davy!"' the young woman mimicked unkindly. 'Oh, aye – a fine honest loose Court hizzy, with her mocking slow ways and yellow hair! She knows how to twist men round her little finger, yon one – great foolish men, who believe that they turn the world over in their hands!'