Only King James himself started forward a little, as though to go to meet the noisy newcomers, recollected himself, and stood still, grinning and mumbling.
Mary Gray, much interested, whispered in Marie's ear. 'Who is that? That very strange man with Vicky? I have never seen the like…'
'That is my lord of Huntly,' Marie told her. 'A sort of cousin of yours, my dear.'
'Oh! The turkey-cock!' the girl said, smiling delightedly. 'I see why Father called him that.'
George Gordon, sixteenth Chief of his name, Gudeman o' the Bog, Cock o' the North, Lord of Strathbogie, Enzie and Gight, of Badenoch and Aboyne, Lieutenant of the North, fifth Earl of Huntly and principal Catholic of the realm, came stalking down towards his King with every appearance of one monarch joining another, his great purple-red face beaming. Never did Huntly travel without at least this small court of duine-wassails and pipers, never did he make an entry other than this – even when, as now, he was theoretically being brought in ward, for high treason, from nominal imprisonment in Edinburgh Castle. Only when he was within a pace or two of James did he doff his bonnet – headgear never removed for any lesser man, nor even in church, it was said – and produced what was apparently intended as a bow.
'King Jamie! King Jamie!' the Gordon boomed, not awaiting the Chamberlain's official announcement. 'God bless you, laddie! The saints preserve you! It does my auld heart good to see you.' Huntly was no more than thirty-three, but looked and acted as though twice that. He kissed the royal fingers, and then closed to envelope James in a great bear's-hug, kissing his face also. 'Man – what ha' you got on you?' he demanded, in mock alarm. 'Mother o' God – you're puffed and padded and stuffed so's I can scarce feel the laddie inside! Dia – it is Jamie Stewart, is it no'?' He bellowed great laughter, while all around fellow earls and lesser nobles, good Protestants all, frowned and muttered.
The King tried to speak, but could by no means outdo the bagpipes which were still performing vigorously at closest range. Huntly would certainly not have his personal anthem, The Cock o' the North, choked off before its due and resounding finish, so perforce all had to await, with varying expressions, until the instruments expired in choking wails.
James, strangely enough, was mildness itself, when he could make himself heard. 'Man, George,' he protested, ' 'Tis the latest. The peak o' fashion. Frae France. You wouldna have me no' in the mode?' He was stroking Huntly's arm. 'Waesucks, you've been long in coming, Geordie. I hoped I'd see you ere this. Vicky -1 told you to fetch him wi' all expedition, man
expedition.'
'We were delayed, Sire. By Sir John. By my Lord Chancellor Maitland,' Lennox began. 'He was not for releasing my lord, here. He said that it was ill advised.'
Huntly interrupted him. 'Precious soul of God! That snivelling clerk! That jumped-up notary! To seek to hold me -me, Huntly! Against your royal warrant. By the Mass, I'd ha' choked him with his own quills if I could ha' won near him for his guard. Your guard, Jamie – your Royal Guard! That pen-scratching attorney, that… that…' The Earl positively swelled with indignation, like to burst.
The King patted and soothed him as he might have gentled a favourite horse. 'Och, never heed him, Geordie – never heed him. He's a sour man, yon. Thrawn. But able, mind. Aye, and honest. Maitland has his points. Ooh, aye. He shouldna ha' spoke you ill, mind. And he shouldna ha' questioned my royal command. I'll speak a word wi' him as to that. But… never mind Maitland. It's good to see you, man. The pity that you missed the guizardry. The Master o' Gray's ploy. Och, it was right featly done…'
'No doubt, Jamie – no doubt.' Interrupting his monarch was nothing to George Gordon. 'But I will mind Maitland! I do mind Maitiand, by the Rood! And I'll be heard, whatever! As all yon guard heard his insults! God's Body – he had his men lay hands on me! On me! Your men! The Royal Guard. For that… for that I'll hae my recompense! Mother o' God, I swear it…!'
'Och, wheesht, wheesht, man. Take it not so. It's no'… it's no'… ' James was plucking agitatedly at his slack lower hp. 'See you, Geordie – here's it. Here's your recompense, then. I appoint you Captain o' my guard. Aye – that's it. Captain o' the Royal Guard. Is that no' right apt and suitable?'
If the Earl of Huntly took his time to digest this unexpected appointment, his fellow nobles around the King did not. Almost as one man, if with many voices, they protested loudly.
'Your Grace – this is impossible! Insufferable!'
'Sire – you cannot do it! Huntly is tried and condemned for treason!'
'Damnation – this is beyond all! The man's a rebel…!'
'He is a Papist, Highness. You cannot put a Papist over your Royal Guard. It's no' to be considered.' That was the Earl of Mar, stepping close. The King's boyhood companion, son of the royal guardian, who had shared to less effect the alarming George Buchanan as tutor, he frequently dared to take even greater liberties with his sovereign than did his peers.
'Aye – but he's no' a Papist. No' any more, Johnnie,' James declared earnestly. 'I have converted him, mysel'. Aye. I have been at pains to bring him to see the blessed light o' the Reformed evangel. Have I no', my lord o' Huntly?'
'Ah… just so, Sire. Exactly, as you might say. Amen. H'rr'mmm,' the Gordon concurred, eyes upturned Heavenwards, and stroking a wispy beard.
'God save us all!' somebody requested fervently.
'A pox – here's madness!' a less pious lord declared.
'Huntly converted? Not while Hell's fire burn!' a realist maintained.
'Do not be misled, Your Grace,' Mar urged. 'My lord of Huntly, I think, but cozens you. He would but humour you…'
'Not so, Johnnie – not so. My lord wouldna deal so wi' me. We have reasoned well together. Aye, long and well. At Edinburgh Castle. He couldna confute my postulations and argument. Eh, Geordie? I am assured that he will now be as a strong tower o' defence to our godly Protestant religion. Aye.' The King cleared his throat loudly, placed one hand on Huntly's shoulder and the other raised high. He raised his voice likewise. 'Hear ye, my lords. I have fetched my lord o' Huntly here this day to declare to you his devoted adherence to the Reformed faith and to announce to you that I… that we are pleased to bestow on him the hand in marriage o' the Lady Henrietta Stuart, our royal ward, daughter to our former well-loved cousin Esme, Duke o' Lennox, and sister to Duke Ludovick here present. Aye. In marriage.' James came to an abrupt end, coughed, and looked around him.
Into the silence that succeeded this announcement, pregnant and all too certainly disapproving, only one voice was raised, after a few seconds, a voice pleasantly melodious.
'How pleasant to be my lord of Huntly! How greatly to be congratulated.' The Master of Gray had returned, clothed, though with his hair still lacquered in silver. He spoke from just behind Marie and Mary – and probably only die former knew what anger and resentment was masked by those light and silky tones.
Or perhaps, not only Marie. Huntly himself turned around quickly. 'Ha – does that bird still sing?' he jerked. 'I'd ken that tongue anywhere.' He did not sound as though the knowledge gave him any satisfaction.
'The sweeter meeting for so long a parting, Cousin,' Patrick rejoined. It was the first meeting of these two since the Master's disgrace and banishment.
'Come, Patrick man,' James urged. 'Greet well my new Captain o' the Guard…' He was caressing the Gordon's hand.
'The King seems very loving towards my Lord Huntly,' Mary said.
'Loving is… accurate!' Marie returned dryly. 'Uncle Patrick, I think, was ill-pleased.'
'Ah – you perceived it also! He will be the less gratified.'
The Master of Gray's re-arrival on the scene had drawn the Duke of Lennox's glance in their direction. Rather abruptly excusing himself from the King's immediate presence, he came hurrying.
'Mary!' he exclaimed. 'Mary Gray! You, here! I' faith, is it yourself?'
'Your eyes do not deceive you, my lord Duke,' she agreed, curtsying.
'But – here's joy! Here's wonder! When…?
How…? I knew naught of this. Are you but new come? To Court? Your father…? He allowed it? 'Fore God, you look beautiful, Mary! You look… you look…'
'Hush, Vicky!' She indicated the Lady Marie. 'Here's no way to behave, surely?'
'Ah. Your pardon, Mistress of Gray. I… your servant.'
'I doubt it, my lord Duke – when you cannot even serve me with a glance! Not that I blame you. You approve of Mary coming to Court? You approve of her looks? You approve of how we have dressed her? Indeed, like us, you approve altogether?'
'Yes,' he agreed, simply but vehemently. He sought to hold Mary's arm, as they stood side by side.
Gently but firmly she removed his hand. She smiled at him, however.
After a brief interval indeed with the King and Huntly, Patrick rejoined them. 'Ah, Vicky,' he said, nodding. 'My congratulations to the so happy bridegroom will scarcely extend to the bride, your unfortunate sister! And you I can scarcely congratulate on your errand to Edinburgh. If I had known… ' He shrugged, and took his wife and Mary by their arms. 'Come, my dears – the air further off is the sweeter, I vow!'
The Duke stolidly stuck to Mary's side. He seemed the merest boy in the presence of the other.
'This upraising of Huntly cannot but set back your plans, Patrick?' Marie said. 'As to Dunfermline. I am sorry.'
'It will make my course more difficult,' he admitted. 'James has kept it all devilish secret. He had need to, of course. If the Council had known, it would never have been permitted.
Had Maitland known in advance, Huntly would have been found dead in his quarters in Edinburgh Castle, I have no doubt! But… Captain of the Guard! It is a shrewd move. Now Huntly can surround himself with armed men, here in the Lowlands, as he does in the North. Until he is unseated from that position, Maitland cannot reach him.'
'Until…? Who can unseat him, Patrick?'
'The Council can. And no doubt will, in due course. No Papist may hold any office of authority under the Crown save by the Council's permission.'
'But he has professed the Protestant faith. Did you not hear? The King says that he has converted him!'
'That, my dear, can be satisfactorily controverted, I think.' Patrick produced his sweetest smile. 'Matters of religion should not be turned into a jest, should they? Have you not said as much frequently, my love?'
His wife looked at him thoughtfully. Then she inclined her fair head in the direction of Lennox. 'Ought you not to be more discreet, Patrick?' she suggested calmly.
'Vicky? Lord, Vicky's all right. He is no more overjoyed at his sister being given to Huntly than am I, I warrant?'
'I was not asked,' the Duke agreed, frowning. 'James told me only to bring Huntly here.'
'And was the Lady Henrietta asked?' Mary put in.
'I cannot think it likely,' Patrick said.
'I doubt if she has so much as met him,' Lennox added.
'That is wrong, surely,' the girl declared, very decidedly. 'She should refuse such a marriage.'
'Ha!' Patrick smiled. 'There speaks a rebel. It is not hers to refuse, my dear.'
'I would refuse to marry any man save of my own choice,' Mary said quietly.
'So you are served due warning, Patrick!' Marie observed, laughing.
'Indeed? But then, Mary lass, you are neither a duke's sister nor a king's ward.'
'For which I am well pleased.'
'I would make you a… a…' Lennox began, and then fell silent, biting his lip. The Master of Gray looked at him keenly. 'What would you make of her, Vicky?' he wondered.
'Vicky would forget that he is Duke of Lennox and near heir to the throne,' Mary answered for him. 'And that I am a land-steward's daughter.' That was firmly said. And in a different tone. 'Uncle Patrick – is the King my Lord Huntly's catamite?'
Even the Master of Gray gulped at such frankness. 'Lord, child!' he gasped. 'Here's no question to ask. In especial not at this Court! Sink me, I did not know… I would not have believed that you possessed such a word! Knew of such things…'
'The Carse of Gowrie is not the Garden of Eden, Uncle Patrick – nor is Dundee the end of the world. As I think you know well.'
'M'mmm.' Patrick glanced sidelong at his wife, who pulled a comic face. They had stopped by the lochside.
'I have heard it said that the King is so inclined,' Mary went on. 'If it is true with my Lord Huntly, then I think it is your plain duty, Vicky, to preserve your sister from him. And you, Uncle Patrick, to aid him.'
'Me…?'
'Yes. Surely such is the duty of all decent men?'
'You see, Patrick,' Marie said. 'As a decent man, your path is now clear. Has anyone ever before flattered you so?'
'A pox!' the Master groaned. 'What sort of a reformer have I brought to this Reformed Court?'
'I will speak with James,' Ludovick said. 'But he is not like to heed me. And… Hetty has to marry someone. There are worse than Huntly, I think.'
Almost pityingly she looked from one to the other. 'Poor Henrietta!' she commented.
A herald came hurrying through the throng, seeking Lennox. 'His Grace requests your presence, my lord Duke, forthwith,' he announced.
As the young man moved off, reluctantly, Mr. Bowes, who had been hanging about nearby, came close, obviously desirous of speaking to Patrick without the Duke's presence. For once his smooth brow was distinctly furrowed.
'This of Huntly, Master of Gray, is the very devil!' he declared. 'I can scarce credit it. My princess will take this but ill, sir. Huntly is… anathema.'
'I am sorry for that, Mr. Bowes. We can but seek to do what we may in, er, rectification.'
'You must do that indeed. And without delay,' the Englishman said sharply.
'But, of course.'
Mary Gray considered them both, grave-eyed.
Mr. Fowler came, almost running. 'Excellency,' he said to Mr. Bowes, 'the French Ambassador. He is speaking close with the King and the Duke. He has news, I vow – important news. He is most exercised.'
Others apparently had heard the same rumour and were moving in towards the group around the King. Patrick and Mr. Bowes did not linger.
James was looking distinctly upset. Plucking at his lip, he was blinking at the spider-thin but painfully elegant figure of the elderly M. de Menainville, Ambassador of His Most Christian Majesty who, gesticulating vehemently, was pouring out words. Huntly and the other lords, their differences seemingly for the moment forgotten, were gathered close, intent, their expressions various.
Lennox detached himself from the group and came over to Patrick's side, 'It is the King of France,' he announced. 'He is dead. We brought the French courier with us from Edinburgh. With a letter for de Menainville. This was the tidings.'
'Indeed,' the Master of Gray said, inclining his head.
Mr. Bowes was a deal more exclamatory. Tonight, his suavity was being sorely tested. 'Dead? Henri? My God -here's a to-do! He is… he was not old…'
'In God's gracious providence, it is the way of all flesh!' the Master observed piously.
James was raising his hand for silence. 'My lords, my lords,' he mumbled. 'I… we are much afflicted. Sair troubled. Our royal uncle, His Grace o' France, is dead. Aye, dead. Our ain mother's gudebrother. We… we much regret it. Aye, deeply. We must mourn him.' Vaguely he looked around him. 'We… we'll ha' to see to it, aye.'
M. de Menainville said something very rapidly in French,
eyes upturned to the cloudy sky. No one else knew what comment to make – for Henri Third of France had been a weak and treacherous nonentity, wholly under the potent thumb of his late aged tyrant of a mother, Catherine de Medici, and an unlikely subject for grief on King James's part. Yet that the King was distressed was most patent.
The Master of Gray was nowise perplexed or in doubt. 'God save King Henri the Fourth – late of Navarre!' he called out mellifluously. 'Happy France!'
'Ah. U'mmm.' James caught his eye. 'Ooh, aye,' he said.
Hurriedly the French Ambassador demonstrated
diplomatic agreement in a torrent of words and gestures.
There was a vibrant silence in that garden, as all eyes turned on the Master. He had had many triumphs in his day, as well as reverses – but this was quite the most unexpected, unheralded and peculiar, and quite undeniable despite its barrenness of all advantage save to his own prestige. If James had taken his advice not so long ago, a mere few months, he would now be betrothed to the sister of the King of France – who moreover had not produced an heir in seventeen years. The cause of their monarch's distress became apparent to all.
Orkney, blunt as always, put the thoughts of many into words. 'It's no' too late to hale back the Marischal frae Denmark, is it?' he suggested.
'Aye, bring him back.'
'Put off the Danish match.'
James was gnawing his knuckles. 'I canna,' he wailed. 'It's no' possible. It's ower later, ower late. I… we… the Chancellor… we sent my lord o' Dingwall to Denmark six days syne. To marry the lassie. By proxy. For me. It was… in view o' the delay… we deemed it advisable…' The royal voice faded away.
Only a few had been privy to the Lord Dingwall's mission. Patrick himself had learned of it only two days before.
It was Patrick, for all that, who came to the King's rescue. 'It is unfortunate,' he agreed. 'But Your Grace could scarce guess that King Henri Third would thus meet an untimely fate. The Danish precaution was entirely understandable, all must admit.'
Gratefully James looked at him. 'Aye, Patrick – that is so.
We werena to ken. But… you were right, man. Waesucks, you were right!'
'It so happened that way, Highness, on this occasion. Another time… ' The Master shrugged, and smiled kindly. He had made his point – or had it made for him – for all that mattered in Scotland to perceive. And gained doubly in virtue by his forbearance from saying 'I told you so'. Undoubtedly his credit was well restored – and his position on the Council would be the stronger.
All recognised his triumph – even though not all rejoiced in it. Only Mary Gray expressed her foolish feminine doubts a little later when the company began to move into the palace banqueting hall for the dancing.
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