Past Master mog-3

by Nigel Tranter

  'None other, Highness. Patrick Gray returned to your royal side, in love and duty. From far and foreign parts. Seeking your gracious clemency – and rejoicing to see you well. To see that I am in time. Aye – and bringing Your Grace an even more valuable token of my love and devotion than on… that last occasion!' The Master sank down on one knee beside the royal chair.

  James continued to stare, slack lips working, long tongue licking. The suppliant looked quite the most splendid and immaculate figure seen in Scotland for long, dressed in white satin doublet and extraordinarily short trunks, slashed in gold, his spun silk hose sculpturing a lengthy leg as graceful as it was masculinely strong. The high upstanding collar of his padded doublet was edged with a chaste row of black pearls, and the Knight's Cross of the Order of St. Lazarus hung at his chest. High-heeled white shoes with jewelled buckles completed a dazzling appearance.

  'This is an outrage!' Mar declared forcefully.

  The monarch turned to look helplessly at Lennox and Orkney. 'But… but you canna do this, Patrick!' he quavered. 'It's no' proper. You're banished the realm, man! I've no' recalled you. The Council banished you. You behaved treasonably against me, Patrick – treasonably!'

  'Only in the opinion of some men, Sire – never in my heart That is not possible. Only in the prejudice and mistaken views of such as my lord of Bothwell and his friends.'

  The King plucked at his lip. The name of Bothwell always perturbed him. 'Aye – but others too, Patrick. Maitland – my Lord Thirlestane, the Chancellor. He told me you were writing ill letters to Elizabeth o' England. Aye, and taking her gold. Plotting against me…'

  'Never, Sire. The plotting and treasons are otherwise – as I have come to reveal to you. I left your realm because my enemies – and yours, Sire – had become too strong for me. I have returned to thwart them. And to save you,' Patrick had risen to his feet.

  'Na, na – it's no' just that simple, Master o' Gray,' James declared, recovering himself somewhat. 'You canna just flout the decisions o' King and Council this way, I'd have you ken. Eh, my lords?' He looked round at the two earls and Lennox, all members of that Privy Council. 'Banished is banished, is it no'? Banishment canna just be terminate when the… the felon

  would have it so!'

  'That is so,' Mar said heavily. He had never greatly loved the Master of Gray.

  'Precisely, Sire. I am the last to dispute it. You only can terminate my banishment. You, the King. So I have come to you. If you will not do so, I abide the consequences. Either to return to outer darkness whence I came, from the sun of your presence. Or, if my presumption in coming here is too great, to pay the penalty for offending, with my life. But, to save your life, I had to come, Highness.'

  'Eh? What's that? Save… save my life? What a pox…?'

  Tfou are in deadly danger, Sire. From wicked and powerful men. I have uncovered a devilish conspiracy against you. But…' Patrick Gray glanced about him. 'As well that so few are here to hear me. Leal men. I'd be happier in even a more private place…'

  'A cell in the Tolbooth, sir! Or better still, in the Castle!' Mar intervened grimly. 'Suitable enough for a forsworn traitor! As Captain of the King's Guard, / am responsible for His Grace's safety. And I'll see to it, never fear.'

  'While you live, no doubt, my lord!' Gray returned briefly. 'Recollect that my lord of Moray was also Captain of the King's Guard!' That name upset both Mar and the King, as it was intended to do, for the Bonnie Earl of Moray's death had been horrible, and James could not wholly deny complicity. The Master pursued his advantage.

  'It will require more than your Guard, my lord. The dagger even now points at the King's heart. Cold steel seeks his life's-blood – and swiftly. You do him no service to counsel that…'

  He got no further. As he was well aware, the very words that he had used were enough to arouse the King to desperation. James was on his feet now, even though unsteadily. All his life he had had the utmost horror of cold steel, a terror at the sight or thought of spilled blood – believed to have been born in him when David Rizzio, his mother's Secretary, was savagely butchered in the Queen's presence a month or so before her son's birth. Now he was gabbling incoherently.

  Patrick waited, as Mar cursed, Ludovick sought to soothe and reassure the King, and Orkney considered his son-in-law from shrewd if blood-shot eyes.

  'Out with it, Patrick,' the latter said, above the hubbub. 'What is this? What scoundrel thus dares to threaten the King's Grace? You'll no' make such charges without good cause, I'm thinking?'

  'Indeed no, my Lord. Have I Your Grace's permission to proceed?'

  James was still standing, and the others therefore had to be on their feet likewise. He had grabbed up his precious papers from the table, clutching them to him. Only after considerable coaxing by his uncle and Lennox, did he allow himself to be guided back into his chair. It was Orkney who signed to Patrick to continue.

  The Master, amidst many interruptions and displays of royal horror, consternation and positive gibbering panic, recounted the gist of what he had told Ludovick at Fast Castle, with one or two elaborations relating to the scale of Spanish aid expected by the Catholics, the circumstances of the courier, George Ker's revelations to Patrick, and the names of other Catholic lords believed to be in the conspiracy – Seton, Sanquhar, Maxwell and Fleming. But he also made certain omissions, saying nothing about the proposed rape and remarriage of the Queen, and making only an oblique and disguised reference to the King's indiscreet letter to Philip of Spain, thus only hinting at the Kirk's blackmailing tactics on James – although, that the latter picked these up shrewdly enough despite his agitation and alarm, was evident by his quick, furtive and appealing glances at the speaker.

  When Gray was finished his account of the plot, the monarch was reduced to tearful and hand-wringing impotence, a pitiful sight. Orkney was silent and very thoughtful. Not so the Earl of Mar.

  'I do not believe it!' he cried. 'Bothwell is a crack-brained hothead – but he would never stoop to the death of the King! I would believe much of Huntly – but not this! He is your good-brother, my lord Duke. What think you of this tale?'

  Ludovick shrugged in French fashion. 'I know not. But after Huntly's slaughter of Moray, I believe that little is beyond him. You will recollect that I did not choose him as my sister's husband!'

  That had been James's doing, it was thought on the advice of the Master of Gray. The King chewed his trembling lower hp, blinking great liquid eyes.

  'All this depends on the word of George Ker, does it not? That perjured rogue!' Mar went on. 'Should we believe such a renegade?'

  'Not at all, my lord,' Patrick said. 'I made a most searching inquiry, when I heard of it. All of which confirmed the conspiracy. For instance, I have sure word that the Pope has promised Huntly a large sum in gold, to assist the project.'

  Mar spluttered. A fervid Protestant, he was ever ready to pounce on the villainy of the Pope of Rome. 'That I'll credit!' he said. 'But not this of murdering His Grace.'

  'Whether or no they would go such lengths, the rest sounds like enough,' Orkney observed. 'This of seizing the child. Both-well was but recently shouting it abroad that His Grace was of unsound mind. Declaring the same again, and holding the child, he could take rule in its name. And with the Pope's backing, the other Catholic powers, as well as Spain, would accept him. That would be an ill business, whatever else.' The old Earl was half-drunk and slurred his words slightly, but then that was his normal state, and presumably left his wits but little affected.

  'God forbid!' James mumbled. 'We must take steps. Aye, steps. Forthwith.'

  'Undoubtedly, Sire,' Patrick nodded.'Stringent and vigorous steps!'

  'Aye. But what, Patrick man – what?'

  'That is a matter for the Council,' Mar asserted.

  'Assuredly. The Council,' the Master agreed, 'Which is yourself. And the Duke, here. And my lord of Orkney. And, of course, amongst others, the Lords Bothwell, Huntly, Angus, Erroll, Seton, Fleming, Maxwell
and so on! A notable company. May I wish the Council's deliberations most well?'

  'No! No!' James cried. 'Folly! It's no' for the Council. There's no trusting the Council. Waesucks – who can I trust?' That was a wail.

  'You can trust the Kirk,' Mar asserted. 'The Kirk will aid you.'

  'Will it?' Patrick wondered.

  At his tone, they all looked at him.

  'Of course it will,' Mar said. 'The Kirk is as the King's right hand.'

  'Then I think perhaps His Grace may be left-handed! Perhaps he writes his letters with his left!' 'Eh…?'

  James stared at the Master in new and different alarm. 'Patrick, man…!' he faltered.

  The other made a reassuring gesture. 'I refer to letters of which the Kirk should not know. Letters of state, which are no business of the godly divines!'

  'You talk in riddles, sir,' Mar objected. 'To what end?'

  'Patrick means letters… letters to the like o' my good sister o' England, Elizabeth,' the King intervened hurriedly. 'Eh, Patrick?' He could be as quick as any, on occasion. 'The like o' that, you mean?' There was pleading, there.

  Gray smiled warmly. 'Exactly, Sire – the like o' that! I but point out to my lord of Mar that the Kirk's interests and those of the Crown may not always coincide. As in our Auld Alliance with France, for instance.'

  'To be sure! Quite so. Just that. Precisely.' James babbled his relief. 'Patrick's right Aye. The Kirk is no' to be relied on implteidy. No' in such-like a matter, Johnnie.'

  'To whom will you turn, then, if not to Council nor Kirk?'

  James tugged at his wispy beard. 'God kens! The Estates o' Parliament. Call the Estates. The folk, the lieges, will aye support their King!'

  "How long will that take? Weeks. A month. And the child due any day.'

  'The Chancellor. Maitland. He'll ken what to do..

  'That whey-faced clerk! This will be no work for clerks – if the Master of Gray speaks truth!' Mar was no great lover of his fellowmen.

  'Aye, but he has a good head on him, Johnnie,' James protested. 'Maitland's a canny chiel. Long-headed. He's no fool, Maitland…'

  'Perhaps my lord Chancellor may be just a little too longheaded for the present business,' Patrick intervened, mildly enough. 'For the normal affairs of state, I have no doubt he serves you admirably. But in countering violent men, armed uprising, as my lord of Mar says he may be something lacking. More especially as he is already linked with Huntly…' 'Huntly!'

  'Maitland and Huntly! Never!'

  'You jest, sir! That Calvinist capon and the Catholic rooster!'

  This time his hearers were united in their incredulity. The Master had gone too far. To name the sober, Lowland, Protestant Chancellor in the same breath as the swashbuckling, arrogant Papist Cock o' the North, was almost to mock the intelligence of his companions. Ludovick, strangely enough, felt almost disappointed in his former friend and guardian.

  'No jest – as Moray found out to his cost, my friends.'

  'Moray? What has Moray to do with Maitland?' The King's voice quavered again.

  'Your Grace does not know? Perhaps… perhaps, then, I should not have spoken? Forgive me, Sire. Forget my chance remark.'

  James chewed at the back of his hand, eyes switching from one to another of the nobles, in most evident and unhappy quandary. The shocking and shameful murder of the handsome Earl of Moray, cousin of the King, by Huntly, had been the most unpopular act of the reign – for Moray had been the people's darling and beloved of the Kirk. James's jealousy of the sporting Earl, and his accusations of his tampering with the affections of the young Queen, were known to all, and his implication in the tragedy doubted by few. The sternly upright Chancellor Maitland however, had stood by the King, and with Patrick's help James had weathered that storm – even though Huntly had weathered it even more successfully. Now, it was clear that the unfortunate monarch was torn between his natural desire to have the whole wretched affair buried and forgotten, and to learn whether there were indeed aspects of it all which had escaped him and which in consequence might lighten his own burden of guilt.

  James was of an inquisitive soul, and curiosity prevailed over apprehension. 'What's this? What's this, Patrick? Yon was a bad business. I was right displeased wi' Huntly. He overdid it- aye, he much overdid it, yon time. But what's this o' Maitland? Out with it, man.'

  'As Your Grace wishes. I would have thought that you would have been informed of this. The Chancellor was behind Huntly in Moray's death.'

  'Why?' Mar jerked. 'What had Maitland to gain from that?'

  'Much. Nor is he finished yet, my lord. All men, they say, pursue some quarry in their lives. With some it is pleasure; with some, knowledge.' Patrick made a small bow towards the King. 'With some, women; with others, position and power. Maitland pursues wealth. Already he has amassed much, gained great estates. But he seeks ever more. And these days, not in small handfuls but in great. Who are the wealthiest men in the land? Huntly, Angus, Hamilton and Argyll. The Gordons and the Douglases are too strong for Maitland. As are the Hamiltons. He has set himself to bring down Argyll, and gain the Campbell wealth.'

  'He mislikes Argyll, yes. But what of that? What has it to do with Moray's death?'

  'Moray's mother was old Argyll's daughter, my lord. Moray had the guardianship of young Argyll, the control of his great lands. Since his death, they have passed to the control of two of the young Earl's uncles – Sir Colin Campbell of Skipness and Sir John Campbell of Cawdor.' The Master snapped his fingers. 'I would not give that much for the lives of these two gentlemen!'

  All gazed at him, with varying expressions of disbelief, perplexity and horror.

  'This is but a conjecture, sir – a surmise,' Mar declared. 'Maitland does not have it in him to fly so high!'

  'You think not?' Patrick turned to the King, smiling. 'Have you ever known my information amiss, Sire? This I am assured of.'

  There was silence in that small chamber. Ludovick marvelled at the man. Since coming into the room he had managed to undermine almost the entire fabric of the realm. How much of

  what he said was fact, only time would tell; but meanwhile he had succeeded in creating suspicion and doubt about practically every powerful man and group in the land. It had been a masterly performance, such as only the Master of Gray could accomplish. And the immediate

  result was not hard to foretell.

  'What is to be done then, Patrick?' Orkney demanded. 'You will have your notions as to that, I warrant!'

  'Aye, Patrick – what am I to do?' James bleated. 'Maitland's my Chancellor! I need him, man. And the Council's no' to be trusted. And the Kirk… the Kirk…!'

  The Master nodded briskly. 'Three steps, Your Grace. The Queen to be guarded surely night and day. In a strong place. What is your strongest castle? Stirling? My lord of Mar is Keeper thereof – also Captain of your Guard. Put the Queen in Stirling Castle under my lord's care, forthwith. So shall mother and child be secure. Eh, my lord? Thereafter you to be keeper of the young prince or princess until this danger be overpast.'

  'That is wise, yes,' Mar nodded.

  Ludovick almost found it in himself to smile. So the difficult Mar, who hated Huntly and despised Maitland, was won over.

  'She's near her time, Patrick,' James mumbled. 'I misdoubt if she can travel to Stirling.'

  'In a litter, Sire. With care, and well happed-up, she will do very well, I swear. There are a few days yet, are there not?'

  'Aye. But… och, well. I'ph'mm.'

  'Secondly,' the Master went on, 'We need men. Many men. And quickly. Not scores or hundreds. Thousands of men. Or the threat of them. Huntly and Bothwell and Angus have the largest followings – but there are others none so far behind. One is waiting, ready to hand – Argyll. He can field three thousand Campbells.'

  'He is young. But a laddie…' the King pointed out.

  'All the better. He will play your game with the less trouble. But he is nineteen – of an age with my lord Duke, here, almost. That's
none so young. At nineteen I was… heigho – never mind! This way, you shall halt Maitland's scheming also. Give young Argyll some high appointment. He will be flattered, and grateful. You will have three thousand Campbell broadswords -that have been itching in their scabbards since Moray's death -for a start. To add to your Royal Guard.'

  'Shrewd,' Mar acceded, judicially.

  'Who is next, with numbers? Apart from the wilder Highland clans of the north-west, who would take time to bring to your side. The Kennedys. The King of Carrick – young Earl of Cassillis. He can bring out two thousand, at least.'

  'Hech – but he's younger still, Patrick! He'll be but sixteen.'

  'His aunt was wife to my lord of Orkney, here. And his mother a sister of your Treasurer, the Master of Glamis.'

  'Aye. Aye. But could we persuade the Kennedys to arms, man? They are an ill lot. And no' that kindly towards their King.'

  'I could persuade them, Sire, I believe. And if you get the Kennedys, then you get Eglinton's Montgomeries and Glencairn's Cunninghams also! They are all linked by bonds and marriage. Another three thousand!'

  Orkney chuckled, but said nothing.

  'That brings me to my third step, Your Grace. Countermand my forfeiture and banishment; Sire, I pray you. Forthwith. That I may serve you in this matter. If you will so honour me, give me back my position of Master of the Wardrobe. It allows me to remain close to your royal person. An advantage. Which, h'm, is both my joy and my leal duty!'

  Mar drew a long breath, and stared up at the groined ceiling.

  James looked at the Master from under down-bent brows licked his lips, and then looked at the others. 'Aye,' he said. 'Ooh, aye. Let it be so, Patrick. Just that.'

  It was as easy as that. Almost an anti-climax. No contrary voice was raised. Patrick Gray had anticipated accurately.

  He had anticipated thoroughly also. From out of his dazzling white satin doublet, he drew a folded piece of paper and a neat little ink-horn and quill. Opening the paper he put all on the table before the King. 'Since it would be unsuitable to disturb the Chancellor at this hour of night, Sire – and since the Secretary is his nephew Cockburn – I thought it might be helpful to have this ending of my outlawry written and signed. By now, no doubt, not a few will know that I am here, in Edinburgh. So, if Your Grace will but add your royal signature to these few words…?'