Patrick Gray, after only a brief period of quiet, was soon laughing and gay once more – for he was never the man to sulk or brood. Indeed, as they rode southwards, presently he was singing like a lark, seemingly without a care in the world, to the amusement of Moray, the delight of his wife, and the embarrassment of much of their train – and encouraging Mary to join in, so that apparently he was going to bear no resentment over her intervention. Her clear young voice rose to partner his rich tenor, to while away the long miles. It was noticeable that after fording the swollen River Aln, Moray rode behind, beside Mary, and the Countess in front with the Master of Gray.
That evening, at Morpeth, Moray was markedly more attentive to Mary than he was to his wife.
It was the following night, as the girl was preparing for bed in the country inn just over the Yorkshire border, that he came to her garret room, opening the door without any warning knock. Hastily drawing one of the bed-covers around herself, Mary turned to face him. She did not cry out or otherwise lose her head; indeed she did not even shrink back, but after only a momentary hesitation actually moved towards the man.
'My lord,' she said. 'I think that you have made a mistake.'
Moray's ruddily handsome features were flushed still further by wine. 'Not so, my dear,' he denied thickly. 'Far from it, I vow – as my eyes do assure me!' He grinned at her.
'Nevertheless, sir – you do much mistake. Your wife's room is below.'
'I know it, moppet!' Moray advanced into the room, having to stoop to get through the low doorway, his great frame seeming to fill the little coom-ceiled chamber. He shut the door behind him, with no attempt to do so quietly, furtively. 'Let her be. If mistake I made, it was in delaying so long down there at cards with your… your uncle!'
Mary sought to keep her voice even, although the heaving of the coverlet wrapped tightly around her told its own story. 'At cards – and wine, my lord!' she said. 'The wine, I fear, has confused your wits.' She looked very small, standing stiff and upright there before him. 'Else you would not be here.'
'Tush, girl – have done!' he exclaimed, and a hand reached out to her, to grasp the cover and wrench it aside, baring one white shoulder. 'You are good with words, I grant you. Let us see how good you are otherwise, my dear!'
Still she stood, unmoving, her head held high, her dark eyes meeting his steadily. 'It is pleasure that you seek, sir?' she asked, huskily.
'Why yes, Mary – pleasure it is! What else? And pleasure I shall have, I warrant – for you are passing pleasurable!' He laughed. 'Perhaps, i' faith, you shall win a little pleasure out of it also, lass – for I am none so ill at the business, so others have informed me!' He drew her irresistibly to him, and dragged down the coverlet further, stooping low to bury his face against the swell of her bosom.
She did not struggle, however stiffly she held herself. Her words continued, stiff also, level but emphatic. 'I cannot stop you taking me, my lord – since you are stronger than I am. But I can promise you that you shall have no pleasure in me.'
'Ha – think you so!' Raising his fair head, Moray chuckled in her face. 'Woman – do you not know that a little reluctance, a mite of resistance, but increases the pleasure? Certes, it is so, I promise you. For you also, perhaps. Come now, lass -enough of this foolery. I do not wish to hurt you…'
'Your hurt it is I fear, my lord. Your grievous hurt.'
'Eh…? A pox – what is this? Here's no way to bed! Am I so ill-looking? And you, I swear, have fire in plenty in this body
'I would need to have, to warm you… when you are bedding with your death, my lord! A cold loving!' Low-voiced she said it.
'Fiend take me – death? What i' God's name mean you, wench?' The man stared at her, actually shook her. 'What fool's talk is this? Are you crazed, girl?'
'I think you do not know the Master of Gray very well – or you would not ask,' she said. 'Nor would you be in this chamber.'
'Gray? I know him well enough to have lost three hundred crowns to him at cards this night, damn him! I will have some return, 'fore God!'
'You will have your death, my lord – nothing surer,' she told him gravely. 'And I would not wish that. You are too proper a man to die so young, for such a cause. And your wife and bairns deserve better, I think.'
Astonished, perplexed, Moray drew back a little, the better to consider her. 'Burn me – never have I heard the like!' he muttered.
'I believe it, sir. But never, I think, have you sought to injure the Master of Gray. My father.'
'Ha!' It was the first time that Mary had publicly claimed the Master as her sire – even though few at Court had any doubts of the fact. The Earl rubbed his chin.
'He is fond of me – otherwise I should not be coming to London with you,' Mary went on, drawing the coverlet over her shoulder again. 'He has other plans for me, I think, than to be your plaything, my lord. And consider well what happened to others who have crossed the Master of Gray! My lord of Morton, the Regent, did so – and died. Ludovick of Lennox's father likewise – and is dead. My lord of Arran, the Chancellor – he fell, and is no more. Even my lord of Gowrie, they do say, his uncle…'
'God's curse!' Moray all but whispered, staring at her. 'What are you? Devils both?'
She answered him nothing, but looked him in the eye, unwinking.
He drew himself up to his full and impressive height, mustering a short laugh. 'Do not think that you frighten me, young woman!' he said.
'I think it not. You are a man, and bold. It is I that am frightened,' she answered simply. 'For you. I cannot think that I shall pleasure you, sir.'
The young Earl drew a long breath, opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again almost with a click. He turned on his heel, strode to the door, threw it wide, and went stamping out.
Mary Gray sank down on her bed, trembling. Dark-eyed she looked through the open doorway. 'Forgive me, Uncle Patrick,' she whispered. 'God forgive me!'
For long she sat thus, motionless, before she rose and closed that door.
The next morning Moray was silent and withdrawn, and rode with his wife. Patrick, in the best of spirits, sought to draw him, and was rebuffed. He turned his attention to the Countess, and soon had that featherhead whinnying high laughter, to her husband's marked offence. Mary, save for being perhaps a little paler than usual, slightly darker about the eyes, was her quietly composed self. But when presently, as they skirted the low rolling Cleveland Hills, so much tamer than their Scottish uplands, Patrick began to sing once more, it was not long before she joined her voice to his. Moray eyed them both askance.
So they pressed steadily southwards. By the time that they reached the flat lands of Lincolnshire, two days later, the Earl was himself again, prepared to chat and even laugh with Mary – as he should have been, for she was at pains to be most kind to him. Now it was Patrick Gray's turn occasionally to eye them both, thoughtfully.
They came to London eleven days after leaving Edinburgh – and smelt the stench of it for miles before they reached its close-packed streets and teeming alleys, Patrick explaining that there being little in the way of hill and sea breezes in this flat inland plain, the cities here must needs stink worse than their windy Scots counterparts. Wait until they reached the oldest and most densely populated area near the river, he warned them.
Mary, for one, although much excited and impressed by the vastness of the sprawling city, the noise and bustle of the narrow thoroughfares and dark field lanes, where every prospect revealed but deeper labyrinths of crazily crowding, soaring, overhanging and toppling tenements, taverns, warehouses, booths and the like, all built of wood unlike Edinburgh's grey stone masonry – Mary was soon all but nauseated by the smell of it, dizzy with the clangour and ceaseless stir of milling humanity, and suffering from a claustrophobia engendered by the endless tall inward-leaning buildings that all but met over their heads to shut out the sky and seeming about to fall in upon them. She did not wonder in the least, and was duly thankful, when Patrick's shou
ted enquiries elicited the information that Elizabeth – good Queen Bess, as they called her – was not presently occupying her palace of Whitehall, in the midst of all this, but was down the Thames at Greenwich some five more miles to the east, where presumably the air would be at least breathable.
As the now much extended Scots company of about fifty threaded and worked its slow way through the congestion and turned eastwards parallel with the river, Moray demanded of a substantial burgher standing in the doorway of a handsome house with an elaborate hanging sign, what all the church bells were ringing for, in the middle of a week-day afternoon. The man eyed him with astonishment mixed with both scorn and suspicion, and pointed out that no true and loyal citizen need ask such a question. Nettled at his tone, the Earl replied sharply that they were travellers from Scotland, and in the habit of receiving civil answers to civil questions.
'If that's where you are from, cock, then belike you should heed well those bells,' the other returned, spitting at their horses' hooves. 'You'll be heathen of some sort, if not traitorous and bloody Papists, for sure. Those bells, I tell you, ring for the joyful examining and burning of thrice-damned recusants, priests and Jesuits! Aye – and for four days they have rung without cease, by the Queen's command. And Bess, God preserve her, will keep them ringing for four more, I warrant!'
'You mean… men are being burned? Now? Catholics? For their faith? Their religion?'
'To be sure they are, simpleton – praise God! Two score but three burned yesterday – and they do say that one lived two hours from his disembowelling. Sweet Jesu, I wish I could ha' seen it!'
'Faugh, man…!'
As Mary blenched, Patrick leaned over to jerk her horse's rein and urge the beast forward – but not before she heard their informant declare that if they cared to ride round by the Bridewell they would see a row of Jesuits and Papists hanging by their hands all day in preparation for tomorrow's burnings – which should be most apt warning to all traitors, Scotchies and other enemies of the good Bess.
'Lord!' Moray exclaimed, as they rode on. 'Is this how they treat Catholics here. F faith, the Kirk has much to learn, it seems!'
With a quick shake of the head Patrick glanced towards Mary. 'They are still afraid of Spain, with Guise and Philip in league, and Spanish soldiers as near as Brittany. There may be profit for Scotland in that same, let us not forget.' He changed the subject, abruptly for that man. 'There is the river, Mary. Down yonder lane. You just may see it. The first time that I came to see Elizabeth Tudor, we met her there. On the water. It was a notable ploy. Perhaps Davy… perhaps your father has told you of it?'
Despite the Master's spirited and graphic account of that adventure five years before, the girl hardly heard a word of it. Her ears rang much too full of the jangling of those church bells. It was as though she listened tensely to hear indeed what other sounds those bells hid and covered up. London seemed to be full of clamorous churches that afternoon. Even she sniffed at the tainted air, as though to test what dire elements it carried. Almost she wished that she had never contrived to accompany this embassage.
A mile from Greenwich Park, they were surprised to be met by a brilliant escort of gentlemen sent out to greet the Scots envoys in the name of the Queen. It appeared that Mr. Secretary Walsingham, that grim shadow on England's fair countenance, although reputed to be an ailing man, kept himself and his royal mistress as well informed as ever – so much so that the tall and slender, darkly-handsome man with the haughty manner but flashing smile, who led the party, knew even that he was going to meet the Earl of Moray as well as the Master of Gray. Since of deliberate policy no courier had been sent on ahead to herald their approach, this knowledge was the more remarkable.
'I rejoice to see you again, Patrick,' the spokesman declared, sketching a bow. 'Rejoice too that you are, I perceive, like to dazzle us, as ever! This will be my lord of Moray, of whom we have heard? Your servant, my lord. Her Grace sends you both greetings, and would welcome you to her Court.'
It was noticeable that the speaker's distinctly arrogant glance, whatever his words, slipped quickly away from both Patrick and Moray, quite passed over the Countess and lingered unabashedly on Mary Gray, in keen and speculative scrutiny.
'Her Grace is most kind, Walter. We are sensible of so great an honour – as of your own presence. This, my lord, is Sir Walter Raleigh, whose fame has reached even poor Scotland. And Sir Francis Bacon, if I mistake not? And h'm, others, of no doubt like distinction… if that were possible! So much brilliance, I swear, quite overwhelms us humdrum northerners. Gentlemen – the Countess of Moray.'
'Enchanted, your ladyship.'
'Your devoted and humble servitor, madam. And, er, the other, Patrick?'
'A young relative of mine, no more – attendant upon the Countess,' the Master informed briefly.
'Ah!'
'Relative? Precisely. How fortunate is her ladyship! Come, then…'
Mary Gray rode towards Greenwich Park surrounded by such a glittering galaxy of male elegance and wit as ought to have quite intoxicated her – had she not still heard through the gay chatter and heaped and extravagant compliments, the echo of those jangling bells.
The travellers were installed, not in Greenwich House itself, which like James's Falkland was small as royal palaces went, but in a goodly house in the town, near the park gates. Here Mary did not have to roost in any remote garret room, but was allotted what seemed to her far too magnificent an apartment on the main floor, intercommunicating in fact with the Master's own. The dandified courtier who conducted them to these quarters clearly took her to be Patrick's mistress – a misconception which nobody troubled to correct.
So commenced a strange interlude for the Scottish party, a period of waiting which was both amusing and galling, flattering and the reverse, superficially active and basically futile and frustrating. They were treated with the utmost cordiality and courtesy. Hospitality was showered upon them, invitations without number. Seldom was there not some lord or gallant calling upon them. Gifts of fruit and comfits and even flowers came to them from the palace daily, many with verbal messages of goodwill and greeting from the Queen herself. Life was an incessant round of festivities, receptions, entertainments, routs and balls. But at none was Elizabeth herself present – although at many she was expected to be just about to come, or had just left – and no actual summons to her presence was forthcoming from the palace. Moray grew restive, however content was his wife to bask in the sun of a social whirl such as she had never even contemplated – for Elizabeth's Court was the most brilliant in the world at this period – and Mary frequently questioned the Master on what all this delay portended. But Patrick himself was unruffled, serene, at his most attractive, all good humour and high spirits, making no hint of complaint. He explained to the girl that this was not untypical of Elizabeth Tudor. Although one of the greatest monarchs in Christendom, with a head as shrewd as any of her counsellors, she loved to demonstrate that she was all woman, to keep everyone about her on tenterhooks, to play the contrary miss even on her glittering throne. None must ever know just where they stood with Elizabeth, even her closest and oldest advisers. Patrick smiled, and added that he thought that perhaps she would particularly apply this contrariness to himself.
'To you?' Mary wondered. 'You mean – yourself? Not just to this embassage?' And at his nod, 'Why to you, Uncle Patrick? Can you be so important to the Queen of England?'
'Why yes, I think so, my dear. Overweening modesty was never my greatest failing!' Laughing, he took her hand.
It was late at night, the eighth night of their sojourn at Greenwich, all but morning indeed, after a great ball and masque at the house of the Earl of Essex, where Sir Francis Bacon had presented Mr. Burbage's players in a notable play by a new young man from the Midlands named William Shakespeare, entitled Love's Labour's Lost – vastly entertaining. Mary was sitting up in her great bed, all bright-eyed eager liveliness, with little of sleep about her, and the man sitting on th
e edge of the bed. Often he came in from his own room, day or night, to talk with her, clearly enjoying her company, frankly admiring her loveliness, caring nothing how tongues might wag. Nor was Mary any more concerned, never experiencing the least fear or embarrassment in his presence -however fearful she was over much that he did.
'This Queen is a cruel and evil woman, I think,' Mary said. 'How you can mean much to her – sufficient for her to play such games with you, to hold you off thus, yet to send these flowers and gifts – I know not. I do not understand it, Uncle Patrick.'
'I believe that you are a Utile unfair on the great Gloriana, child. I would not call her evil. And I conceive her to be no crueller than the rest of her delightful sex – yourself included, given the occasion, my dear! She is a queen, the reigning prince of this great realm, and statecraft, as I have told you ere this, demands stern measures as well as kindly, cunning
as well as noble gestures. For Elizabeth, statecraft is her life. She is England, in a fashion that no Scots monarch has ever been Scotland. And… I have bested her more than once! Hence her present display of feminine contrariness.'
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