Nigel Tranter - Lord and Master

'Have you a heart, Patrick – or but a busy, black, scheming mind? And a honeyed tongue?'

'Feel you whether or no I have a heart, Lady. Feel whether it throbs,' he advised, and reaching out, took her hand and placed it against his chest

'Lord – you are so padded, man, I feel naught but staffing…!'

Smiling, he opened his white velvet doublet, and guided her hand therein.

'I think… yes, I think that you have a heart, Patrick,' Elizabeth murmured. 'I feel something. But… it beats but slowly, sluggishly, it seems. What dull cold message does it spell out, I wonder? Come nearer, lad, that I may listen.' She patted the bed at her side.

'If mine is cold and slow, yours must be hot and fast indeed fairest one,' he asserted softly, sitting down. He took the locket and chain from her other hand, and proceeded to settle it, as before, between her breasts.

'Rogue liar!' she said, but leaned the closer. 'Mary Stuart, they say, is growing fat You must tell me, Patrick, when you return, the truth of it Will you, boy – the truth?'

'Assuredly, dear lady – always the truth. As now…'

WINGFIELD Manor belonged to the Earl of Shrewsbury, who had long been burdened with the expense of acting gaoler to Queen Mary in his various strongholds – for in her usual fashion, Elizabeth expected her faithful subjects themselves to pay for the privilege of entertaining her guests, voluntary or otherwise. In this instance, however, Walsingham had found a deputy for Shrewsbury – no doubt because he feared that the Earl might be growing soft where Mary was concerned – in the person of Sir Ralph Sadler, a stocky, square, impassive man in. his early sixties, a soldier, stiff, unsmiling and a little deaf. The Manor of Wingfield was a large and compact house, standing in a strong position on a steep promontory, in foothill country about ten miles north of Derby, its only accessible side guarded by a moat

As Sir Edward Wotton, Walsingham's deputy, introduced the four visitors to Sadler, under the fortified gatehouse, the drawbridge lined by his men-at-arms, he greeted them without betraying emotion of any sort, nodded to Marie rather than bowed, and turned away forthwith to lead them within. The choice of the unhappy Queen's gaolers-in-chief was always something of a mystery. Presumably Walsingham selected them for qualities which were no doubt of vital importance. Whatever their differing types, it was essential that they should be staunch Protestants, past the age of probable susceptibility to women's wiles, stern of heart

(A single-minded gentleman, undoubtedly,' Patrick murmured.

'Necessarily so.' Wotton smiled. 'I would not play host to your princess for a dukedom! I would end in the Tower, I have no doubt – and very quickly.'

'I wonder!'

The house formed two squares, one within another, around a central grassy court where fantail pigeons strutted, ducks from the moat quacked, and women washed clothing at a trough beside a well. Wotton informed them that one of the internal wings was allotted to Mary and her small entourage, and another to her guards and Queen Elizabeth's representatives.

David's eyes were busy on strategic details as he followed Patrick, Orkney and the Lady Marie.

At the entrance to Mary's apartments, a thin saturnine stooping man, like a moulting crow, met them, and was introduced as Mr. Secretary Beal, a Clerk to the Privy Council and Elizabeth's 'envoy' to her royal cousin – in feet, her principal and very efficient spy. Behind stood Monsieur Nau, Mary's own secretary – he who had once been refused audience of James at Falkland – and also Sir Andrew Melville of Garvock, her most faithful attendant, styled Master of her Household, who had elected to stay with his mistress throughout the long years of her captivity, brother to the better known Sir James of Halhill and Sir Robert the soldier.

Beal spoke coldly, nasally. 'I understand, Sir Edward, that these gentlemen are to be permitted a short exchange with the former princess, Mary Stuart?'

"That is so, Mr. Secretary – in your presence and mine, naturally.'

'If Her Grace permits an audience,' Melville put in, valiant yet

Beal sniffed, Wotton smiled, Sadler stared straight ahead of him, but Patrick bowed. 'Indeed yes, sir,' he declared. 'It is our humble desire and request that such audience maybe granted to us, her loyal subjects.'

Orkney chuckled 'Mary will see me, never fear. I am her brother – God help her!'

Melville, and Nau also, bowed and withdrew.

'The lady maintains this… comedy,' Wotton observed, shrugging. 'She never wearies of it Extraordinary.'

'Is comedy the word, sir?' That was Marie, eyeing him levelly. 'She is anointed Queen of Scots, and Queen-Dowager of France. Where is the comedy?'

'Your pardon, lady.'

They waited, in silence.

Presently Melville returned 'Her Highness is graciously pleased to receive you,' he announced.

He led the way indoors, into and through a chamber where two ladies mended garments. At an inner door he glanced back at Wotton and Beal, who had come along behind the Scots party. 'Her Grace prefers to receive her Scottish subjects in private audience, sirs,' he asserted evenly.

'No doubt,' Wotton answered. 'But the Queen's command is definite, sir.' Never did Elizabeth or any of her servants accord Mary her title of queen. 'Your lady may not see these, or any visitors, save in the presence of myself and Mr. Beal.'

Tight-lipped, Sir Andrew turned and resumed his walking.

They passed through a kitchen, and then up a narrow twisting staircase. Undoubtedly these had been the servants' quarters of Wingfield Manor. In the little corridor above, Monsieur Nau stood on guard outside a closed door. As the party came up, he turned solemnly to rap on its panels with his little staff, slow dignified knocks. In marked contrast to this somewhat laboured and pathetic 'striving after royal style and ceremony, the door was flung open swiftly, and a woman stood framed therein, smiling. A rivulet of laughter, spontaneous, unaffected, silvery, seemed to cascade around the company.

'Alors mes amis – visitors! True visitors, from Scotland!' a clear musical voice rang out 'Happy this day! Ah, I am glad,

In front of her all were dumb – even Patrick, even indeed the insensitive and hearty Orkney, her unlikely brother. David, looking, found himself to be incapable of any coherent thought, only of powerful and conflicting emotions. He was aware of a quite shattered admiration, an eager and overwhelming sense of devotion, and a great pity.

He perceived, after some fashion, that though Mary Stuart was indeed lovely, beautiful, that was not the heart of the matter. Nor was her attractiveness, her fascination. These affected him, undoubtedly – or he would have been no man. But it was something other than all this, something of such extraordinary quality and radiant personality that held him transfixed, transported, so that he could neither have moved nor spoken had he been called upon to do so. It was was not he was blinded by emotion. He perceived well enough that she was not the ravishing girl who, sixteen long years before, had crossed the Border and thrown herself upon her cousin Elizabeth's mercy-saw even, with a pang at his heart, that the knuckles of the slim white hand that she held out to her brother were swollen with rheumatism. It was that he perceived that she had no need of the chiselled perfection of her small and delicate features; of the alabaster transparency of her skin; of the flaming glory of her red-gold hair, as yet barely touched with silver; of the amber-and-green translucence of her eyes; of all the vital grace of a slender and almost boyish yet supremely feminine figure that the years were only just beginning to thicken. Without all these she would still have been, for David Gray, the same glowing magnetic being that was Mary Stuart and Mary Stuart only.