Nigel Tranter - Lord and Master

Perplexed, he stared at her. This was not like Mariota the gentle, the mild. What had come over her? Surely the mention of her father's advancement was not sufficient for all this? 'You have it all amiss, my dear,' he told her. 'Far from twisting men around her finger, she it was whom Patrick asked to marry him.

And she would not. I told you…,

'Aye – and so twisted him the tighter! He thinks to run away to France to escape her, no doubt, to Spain – into dangers and trials without number! Poor foolish Patrick…!'

T faith – poor Patrick indeed! Lassie, you do not know what you are saying. Patrick uses women as he uses all else – for his own advantage and amusement, and that only. As once he… he… well, as he always has done. She – the Lady Marie -would not be so used…'

'There you are – ever traducing him! You can think no good of him – your own brother! A shame on you, David Gray! And she – she must cozen him to his face, and speak ill of him behind his back! Aye, and when she cannot have him, she comes here to lay her soft white hands on you…!'

'Lord! Are you out of your mind, girl? I think that she is fond of Patrick, yet sees his faults… as only a bemused and gullible ninny would not! And because she knows that I am fond of him likewise, though no more blind than she is, she is drawn to me a little. That is all. We are friends…!

'Friends?''

'Aye, friends. Is that so strange? But fear nothing – you will see no more of her! She will not come back, after the tantrums you have shown her, I swear! I do not know what has come over you, and that's a fact!'

'There is a lot that you do not know, I think…' she began, with the first glistening of tears in her eyes. And seeing that gleam, David Gray, as became a man of some discretion, turned and stamped out of the room, and down the winding stone stairway; better causes than his had been lost in the flood of a woman's tears.

David was wrong about Marie Stewart not coming back to Castle Huntly. It was almost five weeks later before she did, but then she came in some urgency, in late August, She arrived, again with a single escort, just as Lord Gray was setting out for Dundee, at noontide on the twenty-fourth of the month. My lord greeted her, in the courtyard, with the somewhat ponderous gallantry and comprehensive leering inspection that was standard with him for attractive ladies. He was a little bit put out that it seemed to be David whom she had come to see, not himself. He delayed his departure, however, while that young man was fetched down from his tower school-room, to entertain ' the caller.

'Here'is the- Lady Marie of Orkney speiring for you, Davy' he announced. 'A right bonny visitor, too, for a damned bookish dominie! A wicked waste, I call it'

David bowed, unspeaking, and Marie appeared to be in no mood for badinage.

'In this pass, a dominie at his books may have the best of it!' she said coolly.

'Pass? What pass is this?

'You have not heard, then? It is the King. He has been taken.'

Taken..?' What do you mean-taken?'

Taken. Captured. Held, my lord,' she answered, though it was at David that she looked. 'Laid violent hands on, and abducted. Whilst hunting, from Falkland. Taken to Ruthven Castle.'

'Fiend sieze me – captured! The King! And taken to Ruthven, you say…?'

'Aye. By your good brother, sir – my lord of Gowrie, the Treasurer. And others.' 'Christ God!'

'When was this?' David demanded. 'Is the King harmed?'

'I think not, Though he will be frightened. He must be, for, for…' She paused. 'But two days ago, it was. Word reached the Constable at Erroll last night I came as soon as I might'

'Gowrie did this,' my lord burst out 'Is the man mad? Here is high treason!'

'No doubt. But successful treason, may be. And carefully planned, it seems. There are many more to it than Gowrie. All of the Protestant faction. The Earl of Atholl, Arran's own good-brother; the Earls of Angus and Mar and Glencairn. And March, too. My lords Home and Lindsay and Boyd, and the Master of Glamis…'

That black rogue!'

'What of Lennox? And Arran? Where are they?' David asked.

'It was carefully planned, as I say. My lord Duke had gone to his palace of Dalkeith but the day before, to meet the new French ambassador, when he comes to Leith. And Arran was conducting justice-eyres in his new sheriffdom of Linlithgow. He – Arran – has been arrested and held, by Gowrie's command. My lather likewise! And…the Bishop of St Boswellsl'

'Waesucks – here's a pickle!' Gray declared agitatedly, tugging at his greying beard. All this, indeed, touched him much too closely for personal comfort; not only was Gowrie his

brother-in-law, but most of the other bras mentioned in the plot were close associates of his own in the Kirk party.

'I am sorry about your father,' David said 'You have no word of him? His welfare…

'No. But I do not fear for him greatly. Most of his life has been spent in custody of a sort, and he has survived well enough.' She smiled faintly. 'He said that this present prosperity was too good to last! He survived Morton's spleen -I do not think that Gowrie's will be so harsh.'

'M'mmm. So Greysteil has become Greysteil again! I wonder…? David looked at her thoughtfully. 'You said that the King must be frightened He must be indeed, for he is easily affrighted. But you meant more than that, I think…?'

'Yes. For the Ruthven lords have extorted a royal warrant from him, ordering the Duke of Lennox to leave the country within two days, on pain of death!'

'Lord! He signed that? He was more than frightened, then. Such means terror, no less! His dear Esme! The apple of his eye! Och, the poor laddie!'

'God be thanked, at the least, that Patrick was safe away in yon Spain,' Lord Gray asserted 'Or it would have been himself, as well'

David slowly looked up – to find Marie's eyes on his. Their glances locked Neither spoke.

'You are sure of the truth of all this?' the older man went on. 'It is no mere talk? Hearsay…?'

'No. The Lord Home himself was sent from Ruthven Castle last night, to Erroll. To order the Constable to keep his house. Under threat. Being a Catholic. He it was who told us. He said much – gave many reasons for the deed He said that they had proof that the Duke meant to turn Scotland to Catholic again. That he planned to have James sent abroad to be married to a Catholic princess, and meantime he would rule Scotland alone. Lord Home had it that James would never return to Scotland -that he would be assassinated Then a secret paper would come forth, with the King's signature, naming Lennox as heir to the throne. Then we should have King Esme"!'

'Soul of God!' Gray swore.

'Oh, there was much else. That Lennox had applied for foreign soldiers, Papal or Spanish, to land in Scotland The Duke of Guise was to land in Sussex, and Elizabeth was to see her nightmare come true, and have to fight north and south. Home said that Bowes, the English ambassador, had told them that Lamox planned to have all the Protestant lords arrested on a charge of treason…'

'That does not ring true, at any rate!' David said. 'He could not have dared that. Wild charges.'

'May be. But they are the excuse, whether they believe them or no.'

Lord Gray took a turn or two up and down the flagstones of his courtyard, spurs jingling. This needs a deal of considering,' he muttered. 'You say that Angus and Atholl and Mar are in the. conspiracy? Powerful men. And what of the Catholic lords – other than Erroll? Huntly, Herries arid the others?'

'No doubt they are being attended to, likewise.'

'Aye.!… I must see Crawford. And Oliphant. I…'

'The Master of Oliphant was another of those whom Lord Home mentioned as in the endeavour.'

'Say you so! God's death – Oliphant too! I faith -I must be hence. I must talk with, with… You must excuse me, ma'am. Davy, see that the Lady Marie receives all attention. That my house does not lack in anything for her comfort. I must be away. I was in fact on my way when you came…'