The Courtesan mog-2 Read online

  'Off with you! Away with you!' he commanded. 'Gawping idle gowks! There are trees to be cleared. Dykes to mend. Cattle to herd. And see you look to those beasts, your horses. That they are rubbed down and baited. No watering till they are cooled, d'you hear? The brutes are lathered wickedly. Ridden over hard, and for no need. Horseflesh is scant and dear…'

  'Hark at him!' my lord hooted. 'The right duteous steward… now!'

  'He looks to your affairs very well, Granlord,' Mary Gray said, gravely, shaking the older man's arm. 'Well do you know it, too. Better than ever did old Rob Powrie.'

  'As well he might! Did I no' pour out my siller to put him through yon college at St. Andrew's? Him, and that… that graceless, prinking jackanapes, that simpering Popish coxcomb who…'

  'Hush, my lord!' The girl's voice went cool, aloof, and she sought to withdraw herself from her grandfather's embrace. 'That is an ill way to speak of one who…'

  'Who has brought shame on my head and hurt on my house, girl!'

  'Who is your son and your heir. And could a coxcomb and a jackanapes have raised himself above all others to be the King's right hand in Scotland?'

  'Eh…?' Lord Gray looked at her askance. 'What way is this to talk to me, child? I… I…'

  'Your Uncle Patrick was never highly regarded in this his own home, Mary,' another voice said, tightly, from behind them. 'Save… save perhaps by me! You know that.'

  Unnoticed by the others, a woman had come across the courtyard to them from the main keep, a very lovely woman, and still young. Tall, auburn-haired, high-coloured, a satisfying, well-made, deep-bosomed creature, she had fine hazel eyes that were wide and eloquent and anxious. Those eyes, ever wary, questioning, prepared to be startled, like the eyes of a deer, told their own story, despite the determined resolution of an appealingly dimpled soft round chin. Even yet they could turn David Gray's heart over within him, in an access of protective affection, however hard he might seek to disguise the fact. Compared with the inherent calm and composure of her daughter, Mariota Gray was essentially the child, the uncertain one. Lovely as they both were, indeed, mother and daughter resembled each other in little or nothing.

  'Woman – hold your tongue!' my lord barked. 'How should you ken aught o' the matter? Who are you to judge – save, belike, between your legs!' He snorted coarsely. 'And there, nae doubt, Patrick's regard is high, high!'

  Flushing hody, and biting a quivering lip, Mariota turned to her husband, instinctively, those gentie eyes quickly filmed with tears. David Gray spoke harshly, set-faced.

  'My lord – I'd urge you to mind that you speak to my wife!'

  'D'you think I forget it, man? Waesucks, yon's no' a thing any o' us could forget, I swear!'

  'Then I'd have her spoken to with the respect that is her due. And mine. Or…'

  'Aye, then… or? Or what?'

  'Or you can seek a new steward, my lord.'

  'Ho, ho! So that's it, by God? Hoity-toity, eh? I can, can I?'

  'You can, yes. Nor find one so cheap, who will save your precious siller as I do. Nor write your letters to certain proscribed and banished lords!'

  His father's swiftly indrawn breath all but choked him.

  Both women turned to him, as quickly – Mary keen-eyed in speculation, her mother unhappy, alarmed.

  'No, no, Davy!' Mariota cried. 'Not that. Pay no heed to it…'

  'I heard him. Not for the first time. And paid heed. As I urge my lord to do now!'

  Mary spoke. 'Granlord – you are tired. From your journey.

  And hungry. I can hear your belly rumbling, I vow! Come you. Mother and I will have your table served before you have your harness off. Come.'

  Lord Gray looked from her, past her mother, to his son, and meeting David's eye directly, swallowed audibly.

  'Och, be no' so thin-skinned, Davy!' he said huskily. 'You're devilish touchy, man, for a… a… Houts, Davy – let it be, let it be.' The older man flung his arm around the girl's slender shoulders. 'Aye, lassie – you have the rights o' it. As usual. Come, then – and aid me off with this gear. Aye, and feed me some victuals. Thank the good Lord there's one with some wits in her head…!' And muttering, the Lord Gray stalked off limping towards the guarded doorway of the great keep, Mary seeking to match her pace at his side.

  David Gray muttered also – more to himself than to his bonny agitated wife. 'Patrick! Patrick Gray!' he whispered. 'Still you can do it. Set us all by the ears. Every one of us. Wherever you are. Still you pull the strings, be it from France or Spain – and we dance! Damn you – are we never to be quit of you?'

  But that last was breathed on a sigh.

  It was evening before Mary Gray saw her father alone again, with my lord safely carried to his bed in a drunken stupor, and the girl on her way to her own little garret chamber high within the keep's dizzy battlements. On the corkscrew stone staircase they met.

  'I know how we must gain the King's ear, Father,' she said, without preamble. 'With Uncle Patrick's tidings. I had thought that my lord would be able to speak with the King. He is great with the Kirk and the Protestant lords. But he is so bitter against Uncle Patrick… ' She took David's arm. 'You have not told him, I think? Of the letter?'

  'I have not. Nor shall. But what of it, girl? It is no concern of yours.'

  She ignored that. 'Moreover if Granlord has been writing letters to banished lords – that is what you said, is it not? To banished and proscribed lords? Or, since he writes but ill, you wrote them for him? That could be treasonable, could it not? So my lord may not stand over well with the King, after all.

  Any more than do you. Father. So…'

  'Lord!' the man gasped. 'What has come into you, child? All this of statecraft and affairs of the realm! Grown men's work, lords' work – not lassies'. Put it from you, Mary. Forget that you ever saw yon letter. Off to your bed, now…'

  'Somebody must do something, Father,' she insisted. 'And I know what to do.'

  Uncertainly he stared at her, by the smoky light of the dip that he carried, flickering in the draughty stairway and casting crazy shadows on the bare red stone walls.

  'We must tell Vicky,' she said. 'And he will tell the King. Vicky Stuart, the Duke of Lennox.'

  David Gray blinked rapidly, and moistened his lips. He did not speak.

  'Is it not the best way, and the surest?' she went on. 'Vicky liked me well. And King Jamie likes Vicky. He is closer to the King than is anyone else, he says – even the Chancellor. And he sides with the Protestants – though he knows not the difference in one belief from another, I vow! And he was brought up a Catholic, was he not?' She smiled.

  The man pinched his chin. 'All this may be true, girl. But… the Duke is ever at the King's side. To reach him will be as difficult, belike, as to come to the King himself. And he is young, little more than a laddie – young even for his years…'

  'Is that not all the better, Father? He will do as I say.'

  'As you say! You flatter yourself, child, do you not? Lennox likes you well enough, in a way, I dare say. You are bonny, and you played together as bairns, yes. Although, then I mind, you thought him dull…'

  'He still is dull,' she agreed, frankly. 'But he is kind and honest.' Mary Gray's dark eyes gleamed amusedly. 'And he says that he would die for me!'

  Her father gulped. 'Die! For you? Lennox? What… what nonsense is this, mercy on us?'

  'It is not nonsense, Father. At least, he swore it on his heart and the cross of his sword!'

  David Gray sought for words. 'I… I… you… Dear God – he must be clean daft! Duller even than we knew! But this would be but child's talk – when he was a laddie indeed?

  Bairns playing together.'

  'Not so. It was not long since. And does he not write it anew, in each letter?'

  'Letter…? Lennox? The Duke writes letters…?'

  'Indeed, yes. He is a better writer than a talker is Vicky! He writes very well.' She laughed. 'As do I, of course, likewise.'

  The man shoo
k his head, completely at a loss. 'You? How can this be? Letters! You… you are cozening me, child. How can you write to the Duke? 'Tis more bairns' make-believe…'

  Almost pityingly she regarded him. 'It is the truth.'

  'But… how could you send letters? Have you a messenger, a courier? You?'

  'No. But Vicky has. Indeed, he uses the King's couriers, and so do I.'

  'On my soul, Mary… you… ' Her father had difficulty with his respiration. 'You use the King's couriers? For your exchange of letters? You – Mary Gray – and young Ludovick of Lennox! Lord – this is beyond all belief!'

  'Why should it be? It is very simple, Father. The King, or the Council, are ever sending couriers to the Master of Glamis, that is Lord Treasurer, at Aldbar. Or to the Sheriff of Forfar. Or to my Lord Ogilvie at Airlie. These must needs pass here. Vicky, who is on the Council likewise, gives the man a letter for me, also. He leaves it at the mill at Inchture. Cousin Tom there brings it to me. I leave mine at the mill for the courier to take up, on his way back. Could aught be more simple?'

  The other's head wagged helplessly. 'I' faith, it is beyond me! Beyond all. Tom Affleck in it, too – and therefore his father. Whom I shall speak with, 'fore God!' David Gray's own mother had been Nance Affleck, the winsome daughter of the miller of Inchture. 'And does it… does it stop at writing letters, girl?' he got out.

  'Oh. no. We meet. But only now and again. Not so oft as Vicky would have it, I assure you.'

  'You… meet!' Easy simple words to make such a croaking over. 'He was here – Lennox was here – three months past, yes. On his way to my Lord Innermeath at Redcastie… '

  'He was here last week,' the girl amended demurely. 'We have an arrangement. The King is often at Falkland, hunting. Vicky can ride to Newburgh in little more than an hour, he says, from Falkland, cross the ferry to Enroll, and be here in another hour. He rides fast horses – the King's own. It takes him but little longer from his own castle of Methven, the other side of Saint John's town of Perth…'

  'Damnation – will you be quiet, girl! I care not how long it takes him, how he comes hither to you! Do you know what this makes you, child? You – our daughter? Meeting secretly with the second man in the realm, the King's cousin? You, a common clerk's daughter – at least, in the eyes of men. A bastard's daughter. It makes you a… a… ' He stopped, regaining partial control of himself somehow – and it was seldom indeed that David Gray required to do that. 'You have not…? He has not…? Och, Mary lass – he hasna…?'

  Calmly, almost sadly, she met his urgent demanding gaze. 'He has not had me, no – if that is what you mean.'

  'Thank God for that! But, the danger of it, the folly… '

  'There is no danger, Father. He is gentle, simple almost. When we meet, I am master – not Vicky. Always it was so.'

  His mouth opened, and then closed, as he considered her. She had David Gray silenced.

  'So, you see – it will not be difficult. Whether the King is at Falkland or Stirling or even Edinburgh, I shall have a letter to Vicky in but a few days. We shall meet, and he shall bring me before the King. He will do as I ask, never fear. And so Uncle Patrick's warning shall not be lost. Nor the Protestant cause either. It is the best way, the only way – is it not?'

  'God save us all…!' her father prayed.

  'Yes. But we must do our own part also – so good Master Graham says, at the kirk. We cannot just leave Uncle Patrick's letter to God, can we?'

  'Would that I knew, girl.'

  'But we do know. You said yourself, did you not, that in Spain Uncle Patrick must have seen sufficient to be sure that Queen Elizabeth's days are numbered? Seen with his own eyes. Therefore Scotland is endangered also. And must act if this realm likewise is not to fall to the Spaniards. So that we must act. And quickly.'

  'I vowed…' he began, but wearily.

  'Yes, Father – I know. But I did not. Is it not most fortunate?'

  Chapter Two

  THE four riders sat their fidgeting, steaming mounts within the cover of a thicket of scrub birch and holly, and waited. The cover was to shield them from view, not from the rain, for the shiny holly leaves sent down a cascade of heavy drops upon them with each gust of the chill wind. It was no better a day for hanging about in wet woodland than it was for hunting -but King Jamie cared nothing for the weather so long as there were deer to chase. In season and out of season – as now – day after day, storm or heat or snow, he must hunt the heavy woodland stags, in what had become little less than a mania with him – to the sorrow and discomfort of most of his Court, who would have preferred more seasonable and less active entertainment.

  The riders looked out, across a broad grassy ride, to the reed-fringed border of Lindores Loch. Their stance was a strategic one, and had been as carefully chosen, at short notice, as the difficult circumstances would allow. All day they had been moving across trying and broken country, hill and bog and forest, seeking to keep in touch with the royal hunt, without being seen or scented thereby – no easy task, for James, with some reason, had a great fear of being ambushed or attacked on such occasions, by some coalition of his ambitious and arrogant nobles, and always sought to maintain a screen of armed guards in attendance. The watchers were now, wet and weary, on the skirts of rocky Dunbog Hill, in north Fife, fully seven miles from the King's palace of Falkland. The hunt had killed for the third time near Inchrye, and as the light was already beginning to fail, James would be satisfied. He did not like to be out in the dark, being much aware of the forces of darkness, human and otherwise. Almost certainly the royal party would return to Falkland this way. The steep hillside and Lindores Loch would confine the cavalcade to this woodland track before them. So declared the groom, sent by the Duke of Lennox. The man had been ferrying back and forth between his master and the little party of three all day, to keep them informed and to have them in readiness and available when and wherever the energetic monarch should make his final kill. It had been a testing time for all – and not least, undoubtedly, for Ludovick, Duke of Lennox.

  David Gray glanced at his daughter. Tired she must be, inevitably, but she at least showed no signs of it. Upright, alert within her enveloping cloak, she sat her stocky mud-spattered garron, even humming a little song to herself, eyes gleaming like the raindrops that glistened on the dark curls escaping from her coif, eager and watchful still despite all the similar waits and false alarms of the day. Almost, she might be enjoying herself. Which was more than her father was doing – or either of the Duke's men, by the look of them.

  The situation did not fail to bring to David's mind that other occasion, six years earlier and distinctly similar to this, when he had waited, hidden likewise, for another of James's hunts, near Ruthven in Perthshire, waiting to effect a rescue of his youthful monarch from his cynical captors of the Raid of Ruthven. The Master of Gray had been behind that venture also – had indeed planned it all from far-away France. He himself had been merely the fool, the poor puppet, who carried it out, with thanks from none! Nor did he anticipate either gratitude or satisfaction from this day's work – save perhaps in the mind of this strange girl whom he called his daughter and whom he now wondered whether he knew at all. David Gray waited by Lindores Loch, not only against his inclinations but really against his better judgment.

  'Vicky said that the men-at-arms will come first, as they ride back to Falkland,' Mary declared. 'We are to let them past, before coming out – else they might attack us and the King be alarmed. I hope that he and Vicky are not too close behind the soldiers. It may be difficult, a little… '

  Her father nodded grimly. He had never seen this entire project as anything else but difficult. At their early morning secret rendezvous with the young Duke, he had impressed upon them the need for quite elaborate care and planning. James was as nervous as an unbroken colt, and sensed treason and violence in every unusual circumstance – as indeed he had reason to do. So many attempts had been made on his person, in his twenty-one years, as on his executed mo
ther and assassinated father before him, that such wariness was only to be expected, and precautions highly necessary. The wonder was that he should persist with this incessant hunting, which provided opportunities for the very attacks that he dreaded.

  'Let us hope that the Duke keeps his wits – and uses them,' David said. 'As well that he is less excitable than his royal cousin!' He turned to the other of the two attendants, Lennox's tranter or under-falconer. 'Your master is to have his hands bare, is he not, if all is well? As signal for you to ride out. If he is gloved, you are to remain in hiding?'

  The grizzled servitor nodded. 'Aye. We dinna move if he is wearing his gloves.' These two men were known to the King, and dressed in the Duke's livery, bearing his colours of red and white. It was hoped that they would not alarm the apprehensive monarch as they issued suddenly from cover.

  'I hope that we shall be able to see him clearly – and he us,' Mary said. 'That there is not a throng round the King, so that we cannot see…'

  'Och, never fear, lassie,' the tranter assured. 'My lord Duke kens fine what's needed. He decided it, did he no'?'

  'It is not what the Duke does, nor yet the King, that so much concerns me,' David Gray observed. 'It is the men-at-arms, in front. And people about the King. If the guards hear you, and turn back. Or if the others rush out from behind, fearing an ambush…? I do not want the lass here embroiled in any clash or tulzie…'

  'Na, na, master – dinna fret, man. They all ken the Duke's colours. Ken us, too. Dand, here, has been riding back and fore to the Duke all day, has he no'? They'll no' be feart at him and me and a lassie, just. Eh, Dand?'

  The short dark groom appeared to be otherwise preoccupied. 'Och, quiet you!' he jerked. 'I heard them, I think… ' He was gazing away to the right, through the tracery of the dripping branches.

  They all strained their ears.

  Sure enough, the faint beat of hooves, and even the slight jingle of arms and accoutrements could just be distinguished above the sigh of the trees in the wind. Waiting was over, at last.