'I cannot believe that my lord of Moray would be a party to this escape, Sire,' Sir James Melville declared. 'He is not a man for such ploys. He does not concern himself with affairs of the state. His interests are, h'm, otherwhere! He is no dabbler in plots and treasons. He spoke for my lord of Both-well yon time, yes – but he was never Bothwell's friend.'
'Aye,' his brother Sir Robert agreed, and yawned.
'They are full cousins,' Chancellor Maitland observed briefly.
'Aye, but so are they both cousins o' my ain!' James took him up. 'God's curse – I've ower many cousins!' He flapped the paper with Moray's signature. 'This bears his name. None could ha' gained Bothwell's escape but through this officer o' my Guard he sent yesterday – the traitorous carle!'
'Who was the officer, Sire?' his uncle Orkney asked shortly. 'Have him in. We'll soon ha' the truth out o' him.'
'But nobody kens who it was, man!' James wailed. 'It wasna one of my usual officers. But dressed in my royal colours, mind. An imposter, just, I swear. Wi' this letter frae Moray. And Moray is Captain o' my Royal Guard!'
'An appointment, Sire, of which I never approved,' the Chancellor reminded, sourly. 'I ever say that such beautiful men are seldom honest!' And he shot a baleful glance at the Master of Gray sitting far down the table.
'At least he was a more honest beauty than the last Captain of the Guard – my lord of Huntly!' the Earl of Mar snorted.
James flushed. 'Is there no man I can trust?' he asked, broken-voiced.
Patrick spoke. 'Your Grace – might I see the pass-letter?' When the paper was passed down to him, he scrutinised it closely. 'It is certainly like my lord of Moray's hand o' write. Such is familiar to me – after our embassage to London. But… it could be a forgery, Sire.'
'Eh…? How should it be a forgery, man?'
'There are not a few expert forgers in this town, I think -even in this Court! At my own trial, of unhappy memory, forgeries were produced to damn me – most admirable likenesses of my own writings. Were they not, my Lord Chancellor?'
'Sire – this is intolerable! The Master of Gray was condemned by his own writings, and the sure testimonies of others. Including Queen Elizabeth. Not by forgeries. Just as, I swear, this is no forgery. Why should it be a forgery?'
'Have him in, then. Ask him.' Orkney said impatiendy. 'Where is Moray?'
'He's no' here,' James declared. 'He's awa' to Fife.'
'He is escorting the Queen to Dunfermline, my lord,' Patrick informed his father-in-law easily. 'To inspect the progress of her new house at the Abbey there. The house I myself started to build, one time!' He smiled. 'They left yesterday. Her Grace was very concerned to see the house. And my lord of Moray is entirely attentive to Her Grace's wishes, is he not? His Highness being… otherwise occupied.'
The King peered at the Master in new alarm. 'You're… you're no' saying…? You dinna mean, Patrick, that she… that my Annie…? That Moray…?'
'No, so, Sire – of course not! Never think such a thing. The Queen is entirely safe with my lord of Moray, I vow. His love for her is most fervent, as we all know.'
James swallowed, and achieved only a croak.
Orkney hooted rudely.
'Moreover, have they not his Countess with them, Sire. Have no fears.'
'Yon addlepate…!' the King muttered.
'Sire – is not this profidess talk?' Mar interjected. 'Moray can wait. He will deny this signature, anyway. Is it not more needful to be considering Bothwell? What he will do. He will be an angry man – and he is crazed enough when he is not! I wager he will now be a man beside himself. And only Huntly can field more men-at-arms.'
'Aye – I ken, I ken!' James quavered. 'Is that no' why I called this Council? He'll be rampaging the Borders, now. Raising the Marches against me!'
'Or nearer – at Hailes Castle, raising Lothian and the Merse.'
'Or nearer still, at Crichton, ready to descend on this Edinburgh!'
'My lords – Your Grace!' Patrick protested. 'Bothwell only made his escape last night. He can raise many men, yes -but they are scattered. It will take him time. He is hot-headed – but despite some of the testimony we have listened to, he is but human! He cannot descend upon His Grace, whether from the Borders or Hailes or Crichton, today or tomorrow – if such is his intention. Men take time to assemble – as most of us know from experience. We have time, therefore – a week, at least.'
'Aye, maybe,' James conceded. 'But time for what, man Patrick? I canna trust my Royal Guard, after this. Can I assemble men as quick as can Bothwell? And whose men…?'
'Have I not ever urged, Sire, that you should seek to enroll many more men? Not merely to increase the Royal Guard, but to have a force always ready. Your own men, for the sure defence of your realm. Other monarchs have such, and do not depend only on the levies of their lords…'
'But the siller, man – the siller! Where's it to come frae? To pay them. Elizabeth's that mean…'
There is siller, Sire in your own Scotland – not a little. And there are means of winning it. But now is not the time for that…'
'I rejoice to hear the Master of Gray admit that, at least!' Maitland remarked.
Patrick ignored him. 'Increase your Guard, yes. Appoint a new Captain. Have the Provost call out the City Bands.' 'I misdoubt if I can trust them!'
'They hate Bothwell, Sire. He has ridden roughshod down their High Street too often…'
The Lord Chancellor intervened again. 'Highness – all this will be done, without the Master of Gray's advising. You may entrust your safety to my hands.'
'Ooh, aye,' James acknowledged doubtfully.
'Heigho – then all is settled securely!' Patrick laughed, pushing back his chair. 'All will now be well. We have the Lord Chancellor's word for it! Surely we need no longer delay our breakfasts, gentlemen?'
Uncertainly they all looked at each other.
'Na, na,' die King objected. 'What's been decided? I dinna ken what's been decided?
Orkney guffawed. 'Why – that we adjourn. Maitland, here – a pox! I forgot. My Lord Maitland o' Thirlestane. My lord will attend to all. He kens our mind. To breakfast, then -before our bellies deafen us!'
The Privy Council broke up forthwith, however uncertain the monarch or frosty the Chancellor. As the members streamed out, Patrick stooped to the crouching King's ear.
'Sire,' he said quietly, 'the stags are fat and free of velvet in Falkland woods. You have been neglecdng them! Overmuch study, overmuch witchcraft, overmuch work, is serving you but ill. Move the Court to Falkland, Your Grace, and chase the deer again, instead of warlocks. You are further from Bothwell there. The Queen then can watch her house abuilding at Dunfermline, without bedding away from your side. And my lord of Moray, at Donibristle, is under your eye. To Falkland, Sire! Leave this Edinburgh to my Lord Chancellor.'
James Stewart looked up, and almost eagerly he nodded his heavy head.
Chapter Eighteen
MARY GRAY pulled up her sweating, foaming mount, and peered from under hand-shaded eyes into the already declining October sun. This ought to be the valley, surely? She had forded the River Earn fully five miles back, at Aberdalgie, and the land was obviously falling away, in front, to the next strath, that of the Almond she had been told, with the Highland hills rising beyond. Methven was this south side of the Almond, all agreed. Where then was the castle? This green land of wide grassy slopes and identical rounded knolls was confusing.
Stroking the mare's soaking quivering neck, she urged the tired beast on. She herself was tired, but this was no time to acknowledge it. For almost five hours she had been in the saddle – for foolishly, she had got lost amongst the Glenfarg foothills.
Rounding one more of the grassy knolls a mile or so further, she heaved a sigh of relief. Ahead, the hillocks seemed to draw back to leave a broad open basin of fair meadowland, cattie-dotted, and gently rising pasture, wide to the south but hemmed in and guarded on the north by the frowning ramparts of the blue heather hills
. And on a tree-scattered terrace between meadows and upland, bathed in the golden rays of the slanting autumn sunlight, stood a large and gracious house, its red stonework glowing like old rose.
At first sight of it, Mary found a lump risen in her throat. Often she had visualised Methven Castle, Vicky's home, the place that he had besought her so often to come and rule as mistress. In her mind's eye she had seen it as little different from all those other castles which she knew so well, Castie Huntly where she had been born, Broughty, Foulis, Craigmillar, tall frowning battlemented towers of rude stone, small-windowed, picked out with gunloops and arrow-slits, stern, proud, aggressive. But this was quite other, a smiling place of pleasing symmetry, of slender turrets and many large windows reflecting the sun. A sort of royal dower-house for generations, and never a grasping lord's stronghold, James had given Methven to Ludovick in a fit of eager generosity on his first coming to Scotland from France, as an eight-year-old boy. Like a magnet it beckoned to the lone rider now.
Nevertheless, as Mary rode into the fine paved courtyard on the north side of the castle, enclosed by wings of domestic buildings, she gained no sense of welcome, no feeling of reception of any sort. The house itself was nowise unfriendly, quietly detached, serene, rather; but of human reaction there was none. No grooms came churrying to her horse's head, no men-at-arms lounged about the yard, no faces looked out from the ranks of the windows. The great front door stood wide open, certainly, and white pigeons strutted and fluttered and cooed about the courtyard, but otherwise the place might have been deserted. Autumn leaves had drifted in heaps in many corners, and no single plume of smoke rose above any of the numerous chimneys.
Mary's heart sank, as she dismounted stiffly
Leaving her mare to stand in steaming weariness, she moved over to the open doorway. After a moment or two of hesitation, she raised her voice in a long clear halloo. Other than the echoes, and the sudden alarm of the pigeons, there was no response.
She stepped in over the threshold, into a wide vestibule. It was lighter, brighter, in here than in any of the houses that she knew, with their thick walls and small windows. At either end of it a broad turnpike stairway arose – two stairs, an unimagined luxury. Yet even in here dead leaves had blown. The great house was entirely silent; only the soft murmuration of the pigeons broke the quiet.
Somehow Mary could not bring herself to shout out again, inside that hushed place. Biting her lip, she was moving over to one of the stairways when she perceived a cloak thrown carelessly over a chair in a corner, most of it trailing on the floor. Her heart lifted at the sight. She recognised it as one of Vicky's cloaks, and certainly it was thrown down in his typical fashion. The familiarity of it, so simple a thing as it was, warmed her strangely. Kilting up her riding-habit, she ran light-footed up the winding stair.
From the wide first floor landing long corridors stretched right and left, lit in patches by the yellow beams of westering sunlight slanting in from sundry open doors. The first such that she peered in at showed a fine panelled room, with a splendid painted coved ceiling in timber, depicting heraldry and strange beasts. The grey ashes of a dead fire littered the handsome carved stone fireplace, and the rugs of skin on the floor were scattered haphazard. At one end of a great table were the remains of an unambitious meal.
The next room was even larger, but was only partly furnished and gave no impression of habitation. The next door again was locked.
Frowning, Mary was for moving over to the other corridor, when she stopped. Faintly she heard a dog barking – or rather, the high baying of a hound.
Hurrying through the first room to its south-facing window, she peered out. Away to the south-west, across the water-meadows, a single horseman rode, flanked by two loping long-legged wolf-hounds. He rode at the gallop, high in his stirrups, hatless, towards the house, scattering the grazing cattle left and right. Mary knew that stance, that figure. Thoughtfully she considered it, before she went tripping downstairs.
Ludovick of Lennox came clattering into the courtyard, still at a canter. His glance lighted on the drooping mare, still standing there, and swung at once to the front doorway. At sight of the young woman waiting therein, his eyes widened, and he reined up his mount so abruptly that its shod hooves scraped long scratches on the paving-stones, showering sparks. Before the beast, haunches down, could come to a halt, he had thrown himself from the saddle and came running.
'Mary! Mary!' he cried, amidst the agitated flapping of pigeons and the excited yelping of his hounds.
The girl herself started forward, hands outstretched – and then halted. But no such discretion could halt the young man. Upon her he rushed, arms wide, to enfold her, to hug her to him, to lift her completely off her feet. His lips found hers, and clung thereto, as together they staggered back against the door jamb.
Mary did not struggle or protest in his arms. But when, panting for breath, he lifted his head for a moment to gaze into her dark eyes, before seeking her mouth again, she raised a hand between their lips, so that it was her fingers that he must needs kiss. She did not trust herself to words.
'Mary, my dear! My dear!' he exclaimed. 'How come you here? From where? Are you alone? How good it is to see you. Oh, my dear – how good!'
'And you, Vicky – and you!' she whispered.
'It has been so long. An eternity!'
'Silly – a bare month. No more.'
'An eternity,' he insisted. 'Each hour a day, a month… '
Gendy she disengaged herself from his closest grip. 'Here… here is no talk for a wedded husband, Vicky!'
He snorted a mirthless laugh. 'Whatever else I am, that I am not!' he declared.
'Hush, Vicky…!'
'It is the truth. But… how are you here, Mary? And alone? But one horse…?' He still held her arms.
'Yes. Alone. I have ridden from Falkland. To see you.'
'Falkland! That is thirty miles. Forty…'
'More – as I rode it! Foolishly, I lost myself. In the hills beyond Glenfarg.'
'You should not have done it, Mary! A woman, alone…'
'Tush – I am not one of your fine Court ladies. I can look after myself. I had to come, Vicky. Matters go but ill.'
'When did they do other?' he asked, a bitter note in his voice, new to that uncomplicated young man. 'And why from Falkland?'
'The Court has moved there. Did you not know? After Bothwell's escape.'
'I heard that Bothwell had escaped from ward, yes. All the land knows that. But… come inside, Mary. You must be weary, hungry. What do I dream of, keeping you standing here! I will tie the horses for the nonce – and bait them later.'
'You will bait them…?'
'Why, yes. I am alone here.'
She stared at him. 'Alone…?' she echoed.
'I prefer it that way. I sent the servants back to the village. It is but a mile off. And Peter Hay has ridden to Edinburgh for me, two days agone. He carried a letter. For you… '
'But…' She searched his face. 'The Duchess?'
'Sophia? She is not here.'
'But, Vicky – why? Where is she?'
'I sent her home. To Ruthven Castle. It is not far. Near to St. John's Town of Perth. It is better that way.'
Mary bit her lip. 'Oh, Vicky – I did not believe that you could be so cruel.'
'Is it cruelty, Mary? I think not. Sophia Ruthven has no more joy in this marriage than have I. And she is sick, very sick. She coughs. She is never done coughing. She coughs blood. She is better with her mother at Ruthven.'
The young woman was silent for a little. 'I did not know,' she whispered, at length. 'Did not know of her sickness. Poor lassie.'
'Nor did I. But Patrick knew. And the King knew, I swear. And yet…!' Scowling, he left the rest unsaid.
Unhappily Mary eyed him. 'I am sorry,' she said. 'So very sorry. But… does she not merit the more kindness? Need you have sent her away… so soon?'
'I deemed it kinder that she should go. She wished to go. She wante
d nothing that I could give her. We did not once sleep together.'
'How much did you… offer her, Vicky?'
'God – would you have had me force her? You?'
She shook her head. 'Never that. Only a little of kindness, of patience, Vicky. You are man and wife. You took vows, in the sight of God…'
'Is that how you name what was done to us in yon Abbey of Holyrood?'
She drew a long breath. 'No. Perhaps not. Vicky – do not let us talk to each other thus. It is… not for us. Forgive me.'
'And me. This is folly. You are tired, Mary – and I keep you standing here. Come you inside.'
'We shall see to the horses together, first. I am none so tired. Not now.'
'What brought you here then, Mary?' he asked as they entered the great stables, empty save for two other horses. 'You said that matters went ill?
'Yes. I need your help, Vicky. That is why I came. I am not so clever as I thought myself, I fear. I… I am frightened.'
So little in character was this for Mary Gray that Lennox paused in his unsaddling, to stare at her. 'You?' he said. 'You are frightened?'
'Yes. For what I have done. For what may happen because of what I have done. Because of my presumption. This time. I fear that I have been too clever, and a great evil may follow.'
'Patrick again?' he asked.
She nodded. 'I led him to effect Bothwell's escape. Yes, it was my doing. Thinking at least to aid one man, to undo one wrong. Perhaps even to help bring these evil witch-trials to an end. Hoping that with Bothwell free, the King might relent, might even be afraid to go on, to fear what Bothwell might do if he continued.' She looked away. 'Patrick said, did I think to teach him his business? God forgive me, I think that perhaps I did! If it is so, then I have my reward. For Patrick but used my conceit to bring down another. My lord of Moray.'
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