The Courtesan mog-2 Read online

  'I think… that I lost my head… just a little,' he said, jerkily. 'Unedifying in the extreme, no doubt. Davy… well, Davy knows me. Too well. But you, Mary lass, should have been spared that. It shall not occur again.'

  'Granlord was very cruel,' she said. 'But he was hurt, too. He torments himself in believing so ill of you. In thinking you capable of so much evil.'

  Over her head, Patrick's dark eyes met David's grey ones. 'And you, child, see me rather as an angel of light?'

  'Oh, no,' she told him, simply. 'Not so. I know that you can do ill things. Uncle Patrick. Very ill. As in the matter of the Princess of Navarre. And the plot for the Catholics to gain the King and all Scotland, before the Armada invasion of England. But I am sure that you are not as my lord thinks. That you do much good, as well as ill. We all do ill things as well as good, do we not?' Seriously, she put it to him. 'I think that the good that you do, Uncle Patrick, will be better than most. Just as the ill is… is very ill.' For Mary Gray, that last was hesitant.

  'Thank you, my dear,' the other said, shaking his head, and clearly moved. 'I do not know that many would agree with you!' And again he met his brother's level gaze. 'But thank you.' He raised her small hand, and brushed it with his lips. 'I believe that you are… very good for me. God keep you so. But… a moment ago, girl, you spoke of a plot? A plot, you said. Before the Armada of Spain. To gain the King and Scotland for the Catholics. This is… interesting.' His glance swivelled round to his brother. 'What did you mean by that, Mary?'

  "Just that I saw your letter. The strange letter that you wrote to Father.'

  'Indeed. It was not meant for such eyes as yours.'

  'No. But I perceived that the writing was yours, Uncle Patrick. So I must needs read it.'

  His brows rose. 'I see.'

  'Yes. It was a very clever letter.'

  'But… you saw it as a plot? A Catholic plot.' Still it was at David that he looked. That man nodded.

  'But it showed excellently well the way to save the realm,' the girl went on. 'Had the King of Spain triumphed in England. So… we told King Jamie, as you said. But that… that the Spanish Inquisition should not come to Scotland…' Mary bit her lip. 'Lest the Office be set up on Castle-hill – that was how you wrote it, was it not? That there should be no chance of that ill thing, we told the King that it was the Protestant lords who should be assembled. First. Otherwise the same as in your letter, Uncle Patrick.'

  The Master actually stopped breathing for many seconds together.

  'Was that wrong?' she pressed him. 'It was not what you intended. We did you hurt in that, perhaps? But… we could not countenance a Catholic plot. Could we?'

  'God… help me! What…?' Patrick swallowed. 'What is this?'

  David answered him, harshly, throatily. 'This is your daughter, Patrick. Your own flesh and blood. Risen up in judgment. Something that has stolen upon us all unawares. You could dispose of her mother as you would, you and my lord – but this is beyond you. Beyond us all.'

  The other stared.

  'Do not think ill of me,' Mary said – and it was to them both that she spoke. 'What I did was for the best. In all else it was as you advised, Uncle Patrick. And the King believed that all came from you. That you advised the mustering of the Protestant lords. So, you see, your credit stands the higher with him. He esteemed you Papist before – but this would cause him to doubt it. In that you are advantaged, are you not? It may be that he was the kinder to you at Holyroodhouse yon night, because of it. And why he attended Andrew's christening and stood godfather.' She nodded, as though to herself, satisfied. 'You see it, Uncle Patrick?'

  It was Davy Gray who expostulated. 'Child – this is no way to talk! Subterfuge and guile and, and chicanery! Leave you that to others, 'fore God!'

  'It is but the truth, is it not, Father? So it has come to pass…'

  Patrick interrupted her, laughing, in a sudden return to something of his old gay assured self. 'Ha – do not chide her, Davy,' he said. 'Here is a pearl beyond all price, indeed! The wisdom of dove and serpent combined! And all in the comeliest small head and person that we are likely to find in the length and breadth of this kingdom! Do not rail at what the good Lord has wrought!'

  'You – you to talk thus?'

  'To be sure. Why not? Since it seems that I may claim some of the credit! And I need all the credit that I may summon up, do I not, Davy? I think… yes, I think that Mary and I might run very well in harness. I must think more on this. For, i' faith, I'd liefer have our young Mary as my friend than my enemy!'

  'That you will have always, Uncle Patrick,' the girl declared gravely. 'But it would be easier if you were a Protestant again, rather than a Catholic, I think.'

  'In the name of Heaven…!' David Gray exclaimed.

  'Exactly, Davy – exactly! But, come,' the Master said, in a different tone of voice. 'It is time that we were hence. I do not know whether my esteemed and noble father will be returning forthwith to Castle Huntly – but I would not wish Marie to be the object of his further attentions in his present state of mind.'

  'God forbid!' his brother agreed. 'You left her at the castle?'

  'Yes. I must get her away from there, and under some more hospitable roof.' Patrick looked about him, grimacing. 'Since I may scarce bring her here. Yet.'

  David nodded. 'I am sorry,' he said. 'Sorry for all of it. But sorriest for Marie, who deserves better things.'

  'Aye. Deserves a better husband belike?' Patrick shot a quick look at the other. 'A husband such as the upright Davy Gray, mayhap?'

  'That is ill said, brother,' David observed, even-voiced. 'Marie deserves better than any man I know. Remember it, I charge you! Come, then – we waste time here.'

  There was no sign of my lord or Gilbert Gray or the Provost of Dundee outside. Already the workmen had abandoned their various tasks and were leaving the place.

  As the trio mounted and rode off over the drawbridge and the half-dug moat towards the village and harbour, Patrick turned in his saddle and looked back.

  'A task,' he said softly, as to himself. 'A notable task. And expensive. But worth it, I think. Aye, worth it.'

  'You mean to do it, then? Still? To go ahead with it, Patrick? Restore this great ruin?' David asked. 'That would be folly, surely?'

  'Folly?' His brother smiled. 'Living is folly, and dying the only true wisdom, Davy, is it not? But there is folly – and folly! This folly might well make a fool of still greater folly. We shall see. But… I shall be obliged for those papers and tides that my lord mentioned, Davy – before he changes his mind!'

  Chapter Six

  DAVID GRAY paced the floor of his own little circular chamber in the north-west flanking tower of Castle Huntly, set-faced. Once again he held in his hand a letter – and once again it was in his brother Patrick's dashing handwriting. When he had recognised the writing, even when the missive was still in the courier's hand, his heart had sunk; for Patrick's letters seldom left their recipients as they found them, unmoved or uninvolved. This one was no exception.

  It was addressed from the Laird of Tillycairn's Lodging, The Canongate, Old Aberdeen, and dated 27th July, 1589 – three weeks after the clash at Broughty Castle. This was no coded nor cryptic letter like the last, but it made its demands, nevertheless. It read:

  'My excellent Davy,

  But a few days after we left you, His Grace summoned me here to Aberdeen. I was intrigued to know for why. I have been reappointed to my old and useful position of Master of the Wardrobe – though not yet to the Council, as is my greater requirement. But that will come, no doubt.

  The reason for my summons north would appear to be, not so much that His Grace and the Chancellor cannot bear to be without my presence, as that they seem to hold unwarranted and base suspicions as to my activities and whereabouts when I am not under their eyes! I wonder how they came to gain the whisper that I had hastened south to the house of my lord of Bothwell whenever I left them at Perth that day? A strange calumny, was it not?
But with its own usages. Since now I am secure at Court – in fact, in the Wardrobe! Take note, Davy – jama nihil est celerius!

  All here is triumph and rejoicing. Even the poor, damned Catholic rebels rejoice, so felicitous is the occasion and so clement the royal victor. As previously arranged. The Battie of the Brig o' Dee will, I doubt not, go down in our realm's history as unique – in that scarce a blow was struck, our martial monarch's very presence striking terror into the hearts of all Catholics, heretics, and enemies of Christ's true Reformed faith! Huntly, Enroll, Montrose and the others have yielded themselves up to gracious Majesty – who, I rejoice to say, agrees that mercy should temper justice quite signally. So all is contrition, love and merriment indeed -save for the good Chancellor, who would have preferred a few heads to fall – with our eloquent prince preaching the Reformed evangel with potent zeal. I, of course, am one of his most promising converts. As young Mary so shrewdly advises.

  The which, Davy, brings me to my prayer and request. I would crave you to permit Mary to come to Court. I well know your own mislike of such, but I think, if you are honest – and always you are notably that, are you not? -that you will admit that she is as though born for the Court. Fear not for her safety. I shall watch over her well, I promise you, as though – why, as though she were my own daughter! She will, of course, lodge with us, and Marie shall cherish and protect her. You need have no fears on that score. Although, think you not, Mary may be well able to protect herself?

  Do not dismiss this plea in selfish haste, Davy. There is much to commend it. Mary will be good for me, I think. There will be a Queen again in Scotland ere long, and Maids of Honour and Ladies in Waiting are already being selected. This comes within the province of my Lord Chamberlain – and I understand that Vicky is not without his own plans in the matter. So, dear brother and self-appointed keeper of my conscience, should you think to refuse to let Mary come, as I pray, consider well how a royal summons could command her to attend at Court. My way, I ween, is the more suitable. I swear that if she likes it not, or if it is anyways in her interest to leave, she shall return to your good care forthwith.

  Consider for her, Davy – not for yourself. The Court returns south for Edinburgh tomorrow. A sennight at Holyroodhouse for a Council and the trial of the miscreants. Then Falkland and Majesty's beloved stags. Let it be Falkland for our Mary, brother.

  I send my devotion to you all.

  Patrick

  In a rounder and less spectacular hand was added, at the foot:

  'Bear with us please, Davy dear. And guide Mariota to allow Mary to come. Even though it cost you both dear. Award the child her destiny. She might take it in her own hands, else.

  Marie'

  So David Gray paced his floor. He had got over the worst of it now, the pent-up fury, the hot resentment, the wrathful denial. David was just as much a Gray as either his father or his half-brother. The hurt, the pain, was with him still; but his head was cooler now, his reason functioning. Yet his expression grew the bleaker as he paced.

  Could he hold her back? Should he? That was the question. Which way lay his duty to her? She was a child no more – but surely she yet required protection? More than ever, perhaps. And, God help her – what sort of protection would Patrick afford her? Marie, yes – but Patrick! And yet – did she have a deal of protection here at Castle Huntly? Watch for her as he would? She came and went as she wished. She could twist every man and woman in all the Carse around her little finger. Including her grandfather. My lord would not relish this. Indeed, he would forbid it if he could. But… was that not to the point? The old man had always doted on her – but now did so unpleasingly. Lasciviously. As a woman, no longer as a child. And where women were concerned, he was without scruple. He was not good for Mary…

  And if young Lennox worked up on the King to summon her? As Patrick might well put him up to if he did not think of it himself? There could be no holding her then against the royal command. Better surely that she should go freely, and in Marie's care, at least.

  But Patrick! As sponsor for the girl into that wicked, deceitful and corrupt world? Patrick, the falsest schemer and liar and betrayer of them all! And her father, save in name…

  David came to stare out of his window. The leaves were already beginning to turn on the elms and birches, though not on the beeches and oaks, barely August as it was. So short a summer. Not that he saw any of them. He saw only a lovely, elfin face, great-eyed, wistful, grave, and true. And another, attractive also, smiling, handsome, and false. So like the other; so like.

  It was the likeness that tipped the scales. Not merely the likeness of feature, of lineament. It was the inborn assurance, the air of breeding, the indubitable yet unpretentious quality of prescriptive right, that each wore like a casual easy garment. Something that was no more to be ignored than denied. Both had been destined by something more than mere birth for the great world of rule and power and influence. Who was Davy Gray the Bastard to say it nay?'

  Sighing heavily, the man crushed that letter in his strong hand, and went downstairs to seek Mariota.

  Mary Gray came to the royal burgh of Falkland on the eighth day of August. It proved to be a notably smaller place than she had imagined, a little grey huddle of a town, all red pantiled roofs, tortuous narrow streets and winding steeply-sloping alleys, crouching under the tall green cone of the easternmost of the Lomond Hills, and quite dominated by the turreted and ornate palace. This, although of handsome architecture, was itself of no great size for a royal residence, and the entire place, with the Court in residence, gave the impression of bursting at the seams. With David as escort, the girl had to force her garron through the throng that choked the constricted streets and wynds, a motley crowd of gaily attired lords and ladies, of lairds and clerics, members of the royal bodyguard and men-at-arms, grooms and foresters, hawkers and tranters, hucksters and pedlars, townsfolk, tradesmen and tinkers. People hung out of every window, as though being squeezed out by the press within, laughing and shouting to folk in the street, or across their heads to the occupants of windows opposite. Horses were everywhere, for the main business of Falkland was hunting, and followers might require three and four mounts in any hard-riding day. Hay and oats to feed the many hundreds of beasts crammed all available space, wagon-loads and sled-like slypes coming in constantly from the surrounding farms further jammed the congested lanes, together with flocks of catde, sheep and poultry to provide fare for the suddenly trebled population. The bustle was indescribable, the noise deafening – more especially as the church bells were tolling clamorously, it was said for a witch-burning – and the stench was breath-taking, particularly of dung and perspiration and pigs, this warm August day. Mary was no stranger to the crowded streets of Dundee and Edinburgh, but this concentration in little Falkland was something new to her.

  Pushing patiently through the press, David shepherded his charge, with her bundles of belongings, towards the lower end of the little town, where the palace reared its twin drum towers, its elaborate buttresses and stone-carved walls above gardens, pleasances, tennis-courts and the wide island-dotted loch. Mary, all lip-parted excitement and gleaming eyes, assumed that they were making for the palace itself, when her father turned his mount in at a narrow vennel called College Close, just opposite the great palace gates. Thence, through a dark and ill-smelling pend, they came into a sort of back court of small humble houses, jumbled together, in one of which they found the Mistress of Gray installed, with the baby

  Andrew. It took Mary a little while to realise, even after the first fond greetings, that this was where she was going to dwell meantime, in this low-browed and over-crowded rabbit-warren. Not that she was foolishly proud or over-nice in the matter; it was just not what she had anticipated in this business of coming to Court.

  The Lady Marie, strangely enough, was quite delighted with these lowly quarters. It seemed that King Jamie's passion for hunting was rued by his courtiers not only because of the everlasting cross-countr
y pounding and prancing but on account of chronic lack of accommodation at Falkland, where earls had to roost in garrets and bishops crouch in cellars. The French ambassador was, in fact, lodging next door, and Queen Elizabeth's new resident envoy, Mr Bowes, across the tiny cobbled yard. Only the Duke of Lennox's good offices had got the impoverished Grays in here, this being the house of his own under-falconer, Patey Reid, whose acquaintance Mary had already made one day by Lindores Loch.

  'My sister Jean is here with us also,' Marie told them. 'She is chosen one of the ladies to the new queen. She and Mary will share this tiny doocot of a room in here, under the roof -and no doubt will fill it with laughter and sunshine! For Jean never stops laughing, the chucklehead.' Her expression changed, as she turned directly to David. She laid a hand on his arm. 'So you have brought her, Davy,' she said. 'You have made your sacrifice – as I knew that you would. Never fear for her, Davy dear – we shall watch over your precious one.'

  'That is my prayer,' the man said heavily. 'I require it of you, Marie, by all that you hold true and dear.'

  'Yes. So be it.'

  'You will send me word immediately should anything threaten her? Anything, or anybody. You understand?' 'I do. And I will, Davy.'

  Mary came and clasped him, laying her dark head against his broad chest. 'Why do you fear for me so, Father?' she chided, but gently. 'Think you that I am so weak? Or so simple? Or very foolish? Or that I cannot think for myself?'

  'No,' he jerked. 'None of these. But you are a woman, young and very desirable. Men, many men, will desire you. Will take you if they can. By any means, lass – any means.

  And at this Court means are not awanting, examples evil, and consciences dead. Dead, do you hear? You must be ever on your guard.'

  'That I will, Father – I will.' Mary smiled then, faintly. 'But so, I think, should be some of the men you name, perhaps!'

  Laughing, Marie threw an arm around each of them. 'And that is the truest word spoken this afternoon, I vow!' she cried. 'Lord – I know one who already walks but warily where this wench is concerned! One, Patrick, Master of Gray!'