Past Master mog-3

by Nigel Tranter

  'Fiend seize you! You dare… you dare accuse me! To doubt my wits! Nincompoop – you!' His father was all but choking, heavy features darkening alarmingly.

  'Patrick! Granlord!' Mary cried, starting forward to stand between them. 'Stop! Oh, stop! This is… this is shameful! For sweet mercy's sake, do not so misuse each other. Patrick -can you not see what you do…?'

  'Bless your heart, Mary – of course I see. Fortunate indeed that I do! I see that our, h'm, noble relative cannot be held to be fully responsible for his words and actions. For the present. No doubt it will pass – a temporary aberration. Unfortunate – but not uncommon as we grow older. Better, at all events, than rebellion and treason against His Grace!'

  'Treason?' his father croaked. 'Fool -I leave treasons to you! I have done naught against His Grace, as well you know…'

  'Oh come, come, my lord! Or… is your memory going likewise? All too much evidence has been laid before the Council. Have you forgotten how close you have become with certain ministers of the Kirk?'

  'A pox! Is it treason now to worship God? In this Reformed realm?'

  'Ha – a point indeed! Some I could name, of the Old Religion, have been asking that for some time! But the charges of rebellion do not rest on your worship, my lord. Nor on colloguing and engaging with such as our good and worthy parish pastors here in the Carse. It is black crows of a different feather who endanger the realm. In Dundee and St. Andrews. Notably the Melvilles, Andrew and James. And… others.'

  'Melville? Andrew Melville is of the Council himself! Moderator o' the General Assembly. Rector o' the University. God be good – is it rebellion to deal wi' such?'

  'Not, h'm, necessarily! Not yet. Though, who knows how soon it might become so? Our fiery prophet of the New Order becomes increasingly indiscreet. Increasingly hostile to His Grace…'

  'To yourself, you mean – you and your Papist friends! Everywhere you are bringing them creeping back. The Kirk, the true religion, is threatened. It must be stopped, before… before…' The older man's choleric words died away.

  'Yes, my lord? 'Patrick's voice was silky. 'Pray proceed.'

  His father swallowed, glaring, but said no more.

  'Yes. Perhaps you are wise to leave it there, my lord. Masters Andrew and James are gathering round them an obnoxious covey of corbies indeed. Who not only seek but caw loudly about the downfall of the King's realm and the setting up in its stead of a Kirk-state, where ministers shall rule, not King and Council. To this ill company you, unfortunately, are no stranger, my lord.'

  'Have I no' always been o' the Kirk party? Never a secret Papist like yourself!'

  . 'You flatter me! I fear that my hold on religion is less certain than yours. I have ever been a sad doubter, where dogma is concerned. A sorry case! But… here we are not concerned with faith and creed. We are concerned, my lord, with rebellion, treason and matters of state. For your friends have overstepped the bounds of religion and dogma. In especial one – Master David Black, of St. Andrews!' That name was shot out.

  Lord Gray opened his mouth, and then closed it almost with a click.

  'I see that you are sufficiently lucid in your mind to take my point!' Patrick went on. 'Master Black, aided and abetted by others in higher places, who should know better, has gone too far. Even for our forgiving liege lord and a patient Presbyterian Council. He has publicly declared all kings and princes to be bairns of the Devil, with Satan the head of both Court and Council, and called for the overthrow of the throne and the setting up of the supreme rule of the Kirk. Can you deny it?'

  'What is it to me what Black preaches from his pulpit?'

  'Much, I fear. When such as the Lord Gray, Andrew Melville and others, see a deal of a hitherto inconspicuous preacher who mouths such sentiments, it behoves the Council to take heed. More than that, had this loud-tongued clerk contended himself with public outcry against his own prince, he might have been dismissed with a warning. But he has seen fit to declaim against Queen Elizabeth of England likewise, naming her an atheist. This has been reported to her by her ambassador Nicolson. She takes it ill, and has even sent up her old envoy, Sir Robert Bowes again, to take order with His Grace. Elizabeth demands redress, restitution, threatening much. Do you understand, my lord?'

  There was silence in the great room save for the noise of the fire and the heavy breathing of the older man. All eyes were fixed on him.

  'I do not,' he got out thickly. 'Burn you – what has this to do with me?'

  'Master Black has been summoned before the Council. He has refused to appear, and left St. Andrews. He is to be taken into custody, to answer for his preachings. Our information is that he has crossed Tay to Dundee, in this my sheriffdom. And I have further information, with sworn witnesses to testify, that you my lord spent three hours closeted with him in Dundee town but two days ago!' He paused, and then snapped out. 'Where is David Black?'

  The old lord stared back at him, fists clenched, wordless.

  'Come – tell me. You must know. We have combed Dundee for him. He is not there. Where is Master Black hiding, sir?'

  'Curse you – think you I would tell you? You! If I knew.'

  'I think you would, yes. If you have any wits left at all! For I'd remind you that I am Sheriff of Forfar, under express command of the King to find this preacher. To refuse to aid the King and Council in such a matter is flagrant and deliberate treason, sir! As well you know. Whatever you have done or have not done hitherto, if you refuse to tell me now, before these witnesses, then I declare you are guilty of treason.'

  'May… you… burn… in… hell… eternally!' Word by individual word the father spoke the shocking thing to the son, dropping them like evil stones into the pool of silence.

  There was a choking sob from the girl.

  At her side Ludovick Stewart raised his voice, to break the appalled hush. 'So it is Andrew Melville's turn to be pulled down, Patrick? The same sorry business. Build up, use, and pull down! You no longer need the Kirk?'

  'The Kirk, or part of it, is seeking to pull down the King, Vicky.'

  'Is it? I have not heard of it. Only that the ministers protest that the Catholics are coming back.'

  'Aye – there you have it!' Lord Gray burst out. 'This is naught but another Papist plot, you may be sure. Enroll and Angus are back in the north, from France. None molests them. Huntly's Countess is back at Court, sharing the Queen's naked bed – aye, and gaining more o' the Queen's kisses than does her husband, they tell me! The shameful hizzies! Is there wonder that the Kirk cries out on such lewd abominations!'

  'Tcha – spare us such talk, my lord!' Patrick said, frowning. 'In front of our Mary. Aye – and the Duke. The Countess of Huntly is Vicky's sister, after all! Had you forgot? And 'tis all a, h'm, mere matter of hearsay.'

  Ludovick looked straight ahead of him, tight-lipped.

  'Hearsay, is it? There's folk to swear to it. Aye, and is it to be wondered at, wi' the King himself no better?' Angrily scornful, Gray glanced over at George Home and his companion. 'These gentry will tell us, maybe, if Jamie Stewart's unnatural lusts are but hearsay! Eh, my pretty boys?'

  'Enough, sir! In my house, I insist on it!'

  'Na, na! I'm no' finished wi' my hearsay yet, man! I've heard tell that but three nights ago Huntly himself landed secretiy in Scotland again. From the Continent. At Eyemouth, they say. In the Merse. Huntly's back!'

  'Eyemouth!' That was Ludovick, turning to stare from Mary to Patrick. 'Eyemouth is but a mile or two from Fast Castle. Logan's house. Lord…!'

  'Tush! Vapours and rumours!' The Master dismissed the matter with a wave of his hand. Neverthless those who knew him best detected a hint of discomfort in his normal complete assurance. 'Some of our spiritual guides and shepherds see Catholics behind every stone! Smell a Popish plot in every Court breeze…'

  'Do you deny that Erroll and Angus are back, whether Huntly is or no?' his father interrupted. 'And lesser Papists with them?'

  'I do not. They have given assuranc
es of their repentance. Seen the error of their ways. Expressed themselves contrite and willing to receive all instruction in the Reformed faith. To support Presbyterian chaplains in their houses. His Grace has been gracious. Wisely, I think. He has shown mercy. For these are our fellow subjects. Are they not, my lord Duke? You were concerned for this, I mind. And they have already suffered much for their adherence to the unpopular faith. They are, of course, now confined to their northern estates, warded in their own castles. And with my lord of Argyll strong in Aberdeen, as Lieutenant of the North, they can do no harm. For princes to show mercy and forbearance, with strength, is commendable, is it not…?'

  'Hypocrite! Dissembler!' Lord Gray shouted. 'You prate of mercy and forbearance, knowing what you know! What you yourself devised! When it is all a covetous, grasping plot for money! Aye, Patrick – I know what you are at. You and the King. The treasury is empty. Elizabeth isna sending gold, any more. You are spending silver like water. And so you are desperate for money. You sought money from the Kirk – and when it wouldna give God's ordained tithe into your clutching hands, you turned to the Catholics. They are buying their way back. Huntly, Erroll, Angus and the rest. Pouring gold into your coffers that they may once again harry the land and flaunt their idolatrous worship…'

  'Have done, sir!' Patrick actually rose from his seat. 'Who now can doubt that you are crazed? Deranged? Only a madman would conceive such charges. If your Kirk friends have told you this, taking advantage of your senility..

  'God's Passion, you… you… I' His father gulped for breath, for air, as well as for words.

  'On my soul – that I should have sprung from such a doited fool!'

  'Patrick!' Mary's voice rose almost shrilly. 'No! Stop! For the love of God – stop! You will kill him. He is your father. You are blood of his blood!'

  'Aye – it is enough, Patrick.' That was David Gray, speaking for the first time in this encounter, levelly, but strongly, authoritatively. 'Have you not enough on your conscience? Be done with this evil play-acting – for that is all it is…'

  'Sakes, Davy – do you name high treason and the commands of the Privy Council play-acting? You should know better. This peculiar sire of ours has been dabbling in pitch. As well indeed that he is proving himself to be clouded in mind. That I may attribute his folly, to the King and Council, as mere dotage…'

  David moved forward slowly, deliberately. 'I said enough, Patrick!' he repeated. There was something infinitely menacing about the stocky plain man's advance upon his elegant half-brother, as about his few quiet words. 'Do you require that I should teach you your lesson again? After all these years. Before these?'

  At the sheer fist-clenched and jaw-outthrust threat of the other's approach, the Master backed a pace, his fine eyes widening. He forced a laugh. 'Ha – use your head, Davy! As I do. Can you not see it, man?' His words came much more quickly than usual, almost breathlessly. 'Aye – and my lord's head, likewise! We must use the fact that he has lost his head, to save it! That his wits are gone…'

  The clatter of Lord Gray's sword falling to the floor as its owner brought up both hands in strange jerking fashion to his thick throat, drew all eyes. The older man was staggering, mouth agape, eyes protruding, heavy features the colour of mahogany. Thick lips tried to form words but failed. Great choking gasps shook him. Then his leg-booted knees buckled beneath him, and the heavy gross figure fell with a crash like a stricken tree.

  In the confusion that followed it was Mary who took swift command, running to kneel beside her prostrate grandfather, loosening his doublet and neck-cloth, wiping his foaming mouth, demanding space and air. The old lord was unconscious quite, twitching and stertorously breathing.

  His three sons, after a little, picked him up as the girl cried that he must be got to bed and a leech summoned to bleed him. Staggering under the awkward weight of him, with Ludovick's help, they were making for the door and the main turnpike stairway to the sleeping accommodation of the upper chambers, when Patrick directed them otherwise, pointing to a smaller door at the side of the great hall fireplace, declaring that this was better, easier. Here, behind the arras, a narrow straight stair led within the thickness of the walling, down not up. It was the usual laird's private access to his wine-cellar, which could thus be kept locked away from thirsty servitors. Down this constricted dark flight of stone steps, stumbling and with difficulty they bore their groaning, snoring burden, Mary and George Home bearing candles before and behind.

  In the cellar at the foot, Patrick directed them out through a door into a dark vaulted passage, and gestured towards another stairway at its end. This again led down. Mary alone had breath to protest – but she was once more told briefly that this was best, that all was in order. Broughty Castle's foundations no doubt followed the uneven surface of the thrusting rock on which it was built; nevertheless, here they must be nearly underground.

  Down this second flight they lurched, to another damp-smelling corridor where the candles revealed a row of four heavy doors ranged side by side. Nothing more typical of a castle's dungeons could have been imagined. Patrick, turning a great key in the lock, opened the second of these, and signed the others in.

  Mary at least was surprised. A lamp already burned in here. The place was no more than a small vaulted cell, otherwise lit only by a tiny barred slit window high in the arch of the vault at the far end. But despite this, there was comfort here, a small fireplace whereon logs smouldered, a bed and other furnishings, rugs on the stone floor, even two or three books on a desk.

  They laid the unconscious man on the bed, and Mary and David busied themselves in getting off his harness and outer clothing.

  When they had done all that they could for the sufferer, and must await the physician whom Ludovick had gone to fetch from Dundee, the girl found that only Patrick and David remained in the chamber. She looked from one to the other.

  'You planned this, Patrick, did you not?' she said quietly. 'All arranged for. Nothing overlooked.' And she gestured around her.

  Her father shook a faintly smiling head. 'Now, now, Mary -even you will not credit me, I think, with arranging my lord's bodily condition, his health and sickness!'

  'I would not swear to that!' she told him. 'You knew well that he had over-much blood. When last you spoke with him, years ago in this same house, you made him ill with your baiting. You have not forgot that, I swear! Tonight, with your wicked talk of dotage and senility, you as good as drove him to this. Why?'

  'A marvel! You answer that, my dear, since you are so clever!'

  'I think that I can, Patrick. You swore to humble Granlord over this Broughty – swore it before Davy and me, that day. You have done much to bring it about – but you could not get my lord to come here, to force him to acknowledge your triumph. Now, with this charge of rebellion, you have got him here at last. But that does not content you. You must make him eat the very dust at your feet – your own father! You itched to see him locked up here, in the very deepest dungeons of the castle he flung at you! Did you not? You prepared this cellar for him – but you could not be sure that you could win him here without using force. And he has more than seventy armed men fretting in your courtyard. So you devised to get him here otherwise – and succeeded! By working upon his anger and rageful choler. Deliberately. Time and again I pleaded with you to stop…'

  'Nonsense, girl!'

  'Is it nonsense? You cannot deny that, knowing how it must infuriate so proud a man, you continued to taunt him with being witless, wandering in his mind…?'

  'For his own sake. Can you not see? That he might escape the full consequences of this charge of rebellion and treason.'

  'Which you arranged likewise, did you not?' She waved her hand. 'And this chamber, this cell! Down in the rock itself. It is a pit, a prison. You made this ready for him – not one of the rooms which you would give to a guest, where there is light and air. For the Lord of Gray, whose castle this was…'

  'Are you as blind as he is, child? Do you not
see that, as Sheriff of Forfar I must obey the King's edict? In name at least. To ward him and charge him. I must seem to do my duty. Imprison him. Then go plead his failure of wits before King and Council. If I install him in any honourable room in this house, who will take my warding seriously? Will he? My lord? Will he abide quietly in any proper chamber? I tell you, it had to be down here. But I have made it comfortable for him. More so than most of the rooms of his own house. Than ever was my room at Castle Huntly. I have sought to think of all things…'

  'Aye, Patrick – you have thought of all things!' David repeated heavily. 'God forgive you, if He can!'

  'You too! God grant me patience, you mean!' The Master swung about, and thrust out of that cell.

  Later, with the blood-letter at his unchancy trade, and the Lord Gray still unconscious, Ludovick Stewart came to the girl in the vaulted passage outside the sick-room.

  'Mary,' he said, 'the hour is late. Come away now. You are weary, pale as a ghost. There is no more that you can do here. Come away. With me.'

  She shook her head. 'I must stay here.'

  'Why? What good can you do? You will not budge Patrick in his course. You should know that, by now!'

  'Granlord needs me, Vicky…'

  'I need you likewise. More than he does.'

  'That I cannot believe, Vicky. Want. Desire, perhaps. But not need. Any more. Granlord needs me. I must stay with him here, meantime.'

  'I cannot stay in this house, Mary. Patrick does not want me, and makes it plain. Nor do I wish to bide under his roof. Besides, I must get back to Court, to Falkland…'

  'Yes. And to your wife.'

  He frowned. 'I did not say that. But James will look for me.' At the stiffness in his tone and bearing, Mary bit her hp. Her hand reached out to his arm. 'You are hurt, Vicky. I am sorry. Oh, I would not wish to hurt you, my dear. But… I cannot help myself. It must be this way. At least, meantime. Try to understand.'