'George!' Lennox cried, panting a little. 'What… what folly is this? Have you taken leave of your wits?'
'Precious soul of Christ!' The big man whirled round. 'Vicky Lennox! How a God's name came you here?'
'Following you. From Barnbougle. In haste. Praying that I would be in time.'
'Eh…? Aye, you are in time, a plague on it! The fox is still holed up in his cairn! But we'll have him out soon, never fear. A curse on him!'
'No!' the younger man cried.*Not that, George. You must stop it…'
'Stop it? Are you crazy, Vicky? Who says so?' 'I do. Listen to me, George. You cannot do this. This evil thing… '
'Sink me – what brought you yapping at my heels, boy?' Huntly demanded frowning blackly. 'Has our Jamie changed his mind, then? So soon?'
'Yes! Yes – that is it.' Ludovick clutched at any straw. 'I have come from him. From the hunt. No harm is to come to Moray. No harm, d'you hear?'
'I hear pap-sucking and belly-wind!' the other snorted. 'Think you that I am a bairn like yourself? If James Stewart cannot remain of one mind for two minutes on end, Gordon can! Gordon will do what Gordon came to do!'
'No, George – you shall not! You are not in your North now. The King's rule runs here – not Gordon's!'
'Faugh!' Huntly hooted his opinion of the King's rule. 'Besides, I have your King's decree to take Moray. Here in my pouch. Signed with his own hand.'
To take. Not to harm. Not to burn, to shoot…'
'Think you not so?' The other grinned.
'No, I tell you! The King at least has come to his senses in this. You are not to do it.'
'If the fool resists the King's orders, he must take the consequences.'
'Not this. Not burning, slaying. Not murder. Moray is of the blood-royal. You cannot do it.'
'No? You watch me then, boy. Watch Gordon!'
'I say no! In the King's name. I am Chamberlain and High Admiral of this realm. I command that you call off your men. Douse those fires.' Ludovick's voice cracked a little as it rose.
'And I am Gordon – and no man commands in my presence! Nor do puppies bark! Out o' my way, loon – this is man's work, not laddie's!'
'I warn you, George – if harm befalls Moray…' 'Hold your fool tongue, boy!' the other snarled, and turned away.
Donibristle House seemed now to be a roaring inferno. How any survived, even in the topmost storey, was a mystery, for clouds of smoke were belching out of all the broken upper windows. Yet shots continued to be fired from some of the same windows.
An outbreak of shouting from round at the west side of the house, where the smoke was thickest, attracted attention. Soon one of his Highland swordsmen came running, to inform Huntly that two of the defenders had bolted from the tower by leaping out of a third-floor window on the roof of a range of outbuildings and so to the ground, under cover of the smoke blown to that side on the east wind. Both had been caught, however, and were now suitably dead. Apparently they were mere craven Lowland hirelings.
Huntly reacted swiftly. If two had done this, others might also. Moray himself, perhaps. They would scarce win out any other way, now. The place would repay watching. The Earl led his group of lairds thither. Lennox, ignored, followed on.
In the lee of the building, the heat and smoke was highly unpleasant. Soon they were all coughing, with eyes smarting and running, complaining that they could see little or nothing.
In the event it was their ears which warned them. The shooting from the tower seemed to have stopped. That could mean either that the remaining defenders had been overcome by the fumes, or that they might be seeking to make their escape.
'Watch you, now!' Huntly shouted to his minions. 'We'll have the tod out now, I vow!' He drew his broadsword with a grim flourish.
'George – put back that sword!' Lennox exclaimed tensely. 'For Henrietta's sake, if naught else.'
'Glenderry!' Huntly commanded. 'Keep you an eye on my lord Duke. I hold you responsible for him. I will have no interferences – you understand? Use what force you must, should he be foolish. See you to it.'
'I' faith, if your bullies lay hands on me, George, they shall suffer! And you also. I swear it!' Ludovick cried. 'I swear likewise, that if you harm Moray, in capturing him, you will pay a dear price…'
'Quiet, fool! Enough of your babe's puling. See to it, Glenderry…'
A volley of shouts interrupted him. Fingers, weapons, were pointing. Dimly to be distinguished in the swirling smoke, men had appeared on the outhouse roof. This was itself now ablaze. Even as they stared, part of it fell in with a crash and a shower of sparks – and one of the men with it. His screams shrilled high – and then ceased abruptly. There were still three left, four, crouching desperate figures, crawling on the steep flame-spouting roof.
From as near-by as they dared approach, watchers mocked them and skirled, swords ready.
In a window higher in the tower, a man appeared framed, a fearsome spectacle, ablaze from head to foot. Arms flailing wildly, he leapt out and down, for the roof a dozen feet below. Blinded, no doubt, by smoke and pain, he misjudged, struck only the edge of the guttering, and plunged another twenty feet to the ground, there to lie still. The impact extinguished some of his fire, but not all.
Huntly hooted. 'This is better than Patrick Gray's fireworks!' he chuckled. 'The pity he is not here to see it.'
'Christ God – save these men!' Lennox shouted. He would have rushed forward, but strong arms held him on either side.
The men on the roof were jumping now – a long jump. Broadswords, dirks, flickered redly in the lurid light, to receive them should they survive. Taunts, challenges, rang out.
Then a kilted warrior came running round the south front of the house, calling for Huntly. Two men had won out of a window on the east side, he reported breathlessly. By a rope of sorts. Proper men, richly dressed. Buckie thought that one could be Moray himself.
Huntly delayed not a moment. For his bulk he was extraordinarily nimble on his feet. Bellowing for men to follow him, he rushed off round the house, cursing furiously.
His minions streamed after him. Ludovick, sensing that the men who were holding him were straining to do likewise, dragged forward also. They all went, running.
A single swordsman awaited them at the other end of the house. He pointed southwards, seawards.
Strung out, stumbling in the darkness, tripping over stones and obstructions, they raced on, armour clanking. The house stood a mere couple of hundred yards back from the shore. The beach was narrow, stony.
Panting hugely, Huntly came to the edge of the sea-grass, where a group of men stood, dark against the faint luminosity of the sea.
'Fiend seize me – where are they?' he demanded, spluttering. 'Buckie – why in God's name are you standing there?'
Gordon of Buckie, a dark hatchet-faced man, broadsword in one hand, dirk in the other, grinned. 'Never fear, my lord,' he answered, and pointed. 'See you there. I but waited for you.'
All stared whence he gestured. Over there, a little way to the east, amongst the rocks and reefs of the shore, something glowed dully red.
'By the Rood!' Huntly gasped. 'You mean… you mean…?'
'Aye – yonder he is. My bonnie lord o' Moray. Singed a mite – but all fowl are better so to pluck and truss, are they not? He conceives himself to be hidden…'
'You are certain that he it is, man?'
'To be sure, yes. He was well illuminated as he ran, my lord!' Buckie chuckled. 'His hair burned but indifferently -but the plume of his helm flared like a torch. As good as a beacon. Yon is the stump of it you see, I wager. Wiser he would have been to throw it into the sea.'
'He is not alone, your man said?'
'No. Another is with him, there. Him they call Dunbar, the Sheriff of Moray, I think. Sore hurt, I believe. Else Moray might have fared better, for he is an agile carle. He was aiding him…'
'Aye. Come, then. Let us finish the matter.'
'George Gordon!' Lennox cried, from
the rear. 'Moray is to suffer no hurt. No further hurt. I charge you, in the King's name. Before all these. Heed well…'
'Mother o' God! Does that cockerel still crow?' Huntly threw back over his plaided and corseleted shoulder. 'Quiet, loon!'
Down they streamed towards the tell-tale glow of smouldering stump of proud horse-hair helmet-plume. Too late its owner realised that his position was discovered. Springing up, and by his height and splendid stature revealing himself to be Moray indeed, the fugitive looked as though he might seek to bolt still further along that rock-bound shore. Then glancing down, presumably at his wounded companion amongst the weed-hung boulders, he straightened wide shoulders, shrugged, and raised his voice.
'I am the Earl of Moray,' he called. 'I yield me.' And he threw his sword from him, towards them. It fell amongst the stones with a ringing clatter.
The chorus of shouts that greeted his gesture might have come from a pack of wolves, Huntly's own fierce vituperation high amongst them.
Down upon the unarmed man the yelling crew rushed. Moray stood waiting. Above the shadows of the rocks his upper half was clearly illuminated in the glare of the burning house. He wore no armour, other than the helmet. His fine clothing was blackened and soiled. His long fair hair, that normally fell to his shoulders, was burned away unevenly almost to the edges of the helmet.
Too late he perceived that his surrender meant nothing to his attackers; that there was no mercy for him here. He turned, and started to run towards a black crevice amongst great rocks – no cave, but perhaps some shelter and shield from flanking blows; but Gordon of Buckie, fleet of foot, headed him off. Leaping boulders like any deer, his broadsword lifted, and he brought it slashing down upon the Earl's shoulder and back.
With a choking cry, Moray whirled round, his fine frame bent, twisted to one side, to lean against a rock, gasping. He thrust out both hands, empty – although one drooped limply.
Buckie drew back his sword, laughed aloud, and lunged forward again with his full force, to run the other right through the belly.
Coughing, vomiting, groaning, Moray sank to the stones, the steel still transfixing him.
Yelling, the others came surging round the prostrate Earl. But as they stared down at the convulsive figure, their cries died away. Even Huntly was silent.
Not so Gordon of Buckie. 'There is your tod, Huntly!' he cried out. 'Your fox out of its caim. Is it Huntly's fox – or only Buckie's? Where's your steel, my lord? Your steel?'
His chief drew a deep breath, clenched his teeth, and raising his sword, hacked it down, right across the dying man's upturned face.
The moaning shudder which followed that ghastly blow was not only Moray's.
Ludovick's shocked cry of horror died away as a thick uncouth sound came from the riven mouth itself, that spouted blood blackly over the stones. Out of the jumble, words came with infinite difficulty, slowly, one by one.
'… Huntly… you Hieland… stot! You ha'… spoiled… a better… face… than… your own! May… God… '
A great spate of blood came gushing, and the voice choked and gurgled, not to silence, but to incoherence.
As of one accord the company fell upon the twitching, writhing body, flailing, slashing, stabbing, with dirk and broadsword and whinger.
Lennox was violently sick on the shingle of the beach.
Chapter Twenty-two
SCOTLAND seethed like a cauldron on the boil. The bonnie Earl of Moray was dead, slain foully by Huntly, by the King, by the Master of Gray, by the Catholics. Moray was of the kirk's persuasion, if less than zealously. From every pulpit in the land thundered furious denunciation, protest, demands for retribution, fierce attacks on the King. Moray, the idol of the faithful, must be avenged. The Papists must be crushed. Huntly must die. Parliament must assemble and express the people's horror and detestation.
Moray, of course, had been a notable performer with the football, the boxing-glove, the tennis-racquet and the golf-club. Even Mary the Queen's death at the hands of Elizabeth, five years before, had not aroused such a clamour.
James dared not appear in the streets of Edinburgh for fear of being hooted and jeered at, even having refuse pelted at him. Moray's hacked and battered corpse was brought to the family burial ground at Leith for public display in the kirkyard there, by his mother, displaying her own singed grey hair and refusing burial for her son until she was granted vengeance. A Campbell, daughter of MacCailean Mhor himself, Earl of Argyll, she was not one to be content with half measures.
On Patrick Gray's advice James persuaded Huntly to ward himself in the West Lothian fortress of Blackness Castle, meantime. It was not truly a warding, of course, for Huntly swaggered there in style with all his men, indeed kept up almost princely state within its extensive walls and went out hunting in the adjoining woodlands, inviting James as his guest. But it did enable the King to declare that he was taking steps, and that justice would be done. He also announced that he had evidence linking Moray with Bothwell's treasonable attempts, and that was why Huntly had been sent to arrest him. This scarcely satisfied many, needless to say, but it made a gesture towards public opinion. More effective, again on Patrick's advice, was James's announcement that he had sent Lennox hot-foot after Huntly as soon as he had heard rumours that the Gordons might carry out the arrest over-vigorously. Unfortunately, the Duke had arrived too late. Moray had resisted lawful arrest, fired on Huntly from his tower, and largely ordained his own fate.
Since there was nothing to be gained by bringing the King into lower public estimation than he enjoyed already, Ludovick kept quiet. He did not leave James, or Patrick Gray either, in any private doubt however as to his opinions and feelings. The rift between them widened.
Lennox had gone back to Dunfermline that dire night, eventually. On hearing his news, Queen Anne had taken to her bed, and had there remained for almost an entire week. She ate little or nothing, permitted only her closest women near her, and received no single visitor – save, strangely enough, at the end of the week, Patrick Gray. He came to comfort her, and to urge a prompt return to her husband's side, pointing out that this separation did not look well in view of the popular slanders anent herself and the late lamented Moray. All who had the privilege to know Her Grace realised how baseless was such talk, how true and leal was her devotion to her royal and loving spouse; nevertheless, undoubtedly monarch and consort being parted at this difficult time was arousing comment and speculation. Also it would much please her devoted admirers, Patrick Gray in especial, if Her Highness would restore to them the sun of her presence at Holyroodhouse. Anne agreed to consider the matter.
It was as Patrick left the royal bedchamber that Mary Gray awaited him.
'Can you spare me a moment, Patrick?' she asked, even-voiced.
'Why, my dear – need you ask? Always I can do that, and more. It is my pleasure.'
Without answering, she showed him into an anteroom, and closed the door behind them.
Ruefully he eyed her. 'Do I sense, moppet, that in some way I have transgressed? Displeased you? Of what am I to be convicted, now?'
She turned to face him. 'Any displeasure of mine matters nothing,' she said. 'If your conscience does not convict you, how shall I?'
'Conscience?' he repeated. 'Ah, me – a chancy and unreliable witness! What is conscience, my heart? An irrational sense of guilt, largely affected by what one ate for supper the night before? Regret for aspects of failure? One is seldom conscience-stricken, I find, over successes! Fear of consequences? I am suspicious of too active a conscience, Mary.'
'Words, Patrick,' she gave back, levelly. 'Easy and fine words. Always you have them in plenty. But words will not serve to bring back my lord of Moray to life. Words will not undo what has been done.'
'Why no, lass. But should not you address your homily to Huntly? He it was, I understand, who unfortunately made an end of the so popular Moray. Not your erring sire.'
'Was it? she asked flatly.
He raised slende
r brows at her. 'That was my impression.' 'But not mine, I fear. Would that it was. Nor Vicky's. Huntly's was only the hand that struck the blow, I think.
Your's was the mind that planned it so, was it not?'
His beautiful features, that so nearly mirrored her own, went completely expressionless. 7 think that you go too fast, my dear,' he said softly. 'Too fast and far.'
She shook her head. 'I have watched you working for months to pull Moray down. As you have pulled down so many. You conceived him as in your way. Now he is dead. Whether you ordained his killing or no, I dunk that you knew that Huntly intended his death. And did naught to stay him. I see blood on your hands, therefore.'
'You see phantoms! Vain imaginings, girl,' he returned, more sharply now. 'You, in your wisdom, think this and think that! How can you tell what I know or plan or intend? How could I know that Huntly intended the death of Moray -if he did?'
'Vicky saw his parting from you. At the hunt. He heard the King's instructions. You were at the King's side. Vicky said…'
'Aye – Vicky! Always it is Vicky! That young man that I cherished is, I fear, become a viper in my bosom! It seems that I shall have to deal with Vicky.'
'No!' she cried, alarm widening her eyes. 'Not that! Never Vicky
'Then tell him to keep his fingers out of my affairs, Mary.' Patrick recovered his smile. 'With all suitable parental diffidence, my dear, I would suggest that you might even do the same! For your own sweet sake, if not mine!'
'You… you are warning me, Patrick?' she put to him. 'Warning me off?'
'Why, not so, my heart. I would do nothing so unseemly. I but plead with you not to meddle in affairs beyond you, lest you burn your pretty little fingers. Which I would not like to see. You cannot label that a warning, I vow!'
'No? Then let me offer you a similar plea, Patrick,' she said, calm again. 'Do not seek to bring any more men low. Cast down no others. You used Huntly to bring down Moray. Now, brute-beast as Huntly is, I fear for him. As I fear for Bothwell still. Sometimes, I even fear for the King himself!'
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