Black Douglas (Coronet Books)

by Nigel Tranter

  Will nodded, and went on. “I Douglas, hereby declare that, by the King’s royal command, a parliament of his realm will be held, at Stirling, on the first day of July next, at which all lords, spiritual and temporal, all officers of the Crown, all representatives of the shires and of royal burghs, and all others meet to attend, shall compear. At which parliament new Lords of the Articles will be appointed, for the governance of this kingdom, and a new Chancellor will be sworn in, in the room of Sir Willam Crichton who is hereby declared forfeit and without the King’s peace. This I, Douglas, Lieutenant-General of Scotland, declare to you, in the name of James, King of Scots, and in the presence of Sir William Hay, High Constable of Scotland. God save the King’s Grace!”

  Hoarse and self-conscious, Will glared around him, in the fading light. He felt a fool mouthing this sort of clerk’s talk. But nobody that he could see looked in the least amused or mocking, least of all the Provost. In fact, most of his hearers seemed to be distinctly grim-faced, if not agitated, over the implications of what he had announced, whatever they may have thought of his manner of announcing. For a youth still in his teens, even though Douglas, to declare the formidable Chancellor forfeit, and therefore the chancellorship vacant, was to challenge fate indeed.

  Will thrust a paper at the Provost. “Master Provost — you will see that this summons to the parliament is published. Before all. I charge you. See to it.”

  The little man looked anxious, doubtful and ingratiating, all at the same time.

  Will nodded to the others, signed to the trumpeter, and clanked down the cross steps and back to his charger. “It is enough, he said, to Fleming. “Let us be away from this city.”

  So the long, slow and winding return journey was made, in the evening’s dusk — and in the narrower streets it was already night. The crowds had disappeared, and though many still watched from lighted windows, the general effect was eerie and strange, and the sense of latent hostility by no means lessened.

  They found the gates closed for the night, but the Town Guard was swift to open for them, thankful to see the last of them. The lengthy column rode out into the darkling countryside, not without sighs of relief of their own. Three miles they went further, westwards, to the parks of Forrester’s castle of Corstorphine, to camp for the night.

  It would be back to Stirling in the morning, with not a man lost — but with how much gained remained to be seen.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN very different company and on a very different mission, Will Douglas rode through the high summer day, southwards. Gone was all the clanking armour and warlike trappings. Gone the host of men-at-arms, the heavy chargers, the Lion Rampant standard. It was only a very tiny party indeed, of half a dozen men, four of them servitors. But at least its principals were well-dressed, better than ever before in their lives. Will was resplendent in black velvet doublet and trunks, slashed with silver, his long thigh-boots of softest doeskin, a flat velvet bonnet with jewel-clasped curling ostrich-feather on his dark head. His brother Jamie was only little less fine, as befitted new status of Master of Douglas. It was an occasion for special dressing.

  This was the second day of their riding, from Ettrick, and the North Galloway countryside looked very fair under the August sun. They had not far to go, now.

  Jamie, despite his increase in dignity, sang in tune with the glad morning, and in time with the clip-clop of their horses’ trotting; he was a great singer, when he was happy. Will did not join in. His was a less tuneful voice, admittedly, and today he did not feel like singing, anyway.

  In fact, considering everything, his feelings were unsuitable. Undoubtedly he should have been of a very different frame of mind. Many would say that he should have been the most cheerful young man in Scotland. He had achieved great things — even though by no means all that he had planned. In name, at least, he occupied the second place in all the kingdom. He had crossed swords with the two astutest characters in the land, and for the moment at least appeared the victor. His name was on everyone’s lips, and in the main with some degree of respect to add to the traditional dread. Even though he had miscalculated, and the parliament called for July had had to be postponed until November, on account of the difficulty of persuading the great of the land to attend, still Crichton’s Privy Council had not officially met in the interim, and the former Chancellor had lain notably low. All of which should have been inspiring to any young man. Moreover, he was on his way to his courtship.

  Will Douglas was perhaps insufficiently grateful.

  At the village of Carlingwark, by its loch, they turned away westwards across low grassy pasture ridges dotted with whins, where much cattle grazed. In little more than a mile they saw the topmost tower-head of Threave Castle, flag fluttering, appearing above the green brae ahead — a peculiar sight in that this Threave was alleged to be the greatest stronghold in all Galloway, built by their grandfather, Archibald the Grim; and yet its surroundings, though rich and verdantly lovely, were gentle rather than strong and defendable. It was not until they breasted the last of the little ridges that they perceived that the Earl Archibald had not been untrue to his name. Threave was vastly larger than their first impressions had suggested, and further away. An enormously massive single square keep, it rose abruptly, seven storeys, from a low green island formed by the temporary splitting of the wide River Dee. Indeed it almost appeared to rise from a loch, for the river here flowed but sluggishly, and greatly overflowed the low marshy land. The usual double curtain-walls surrounded the keep, with round flanking towers at all angles, to enclose an outer bailey and an inner courtyard. A narrow and twisting stone causeway reached out from the shore, only just above the surface of the water now, so that at most seasons of the year it would be, in fact, slightly underwater and forming a hazard indeed for all approachers save those who knew exactly its turns and bends. This was itself cut, part-way, by a wide gap over which was thrown a drawbridge. When the bridge was up, Threave would be well-nigh impregnable. Above it all, the banner of the Lordship of Galloway flew proudly.

  The horsemen were challenged twice before reaching the causeway, but the Red Heart on the servitors’ livery ensured that this was more or less a formality. They rode on heedfully over the slimy stones. The drawbridge remained lowered for them. At the gatehouse of the outer walling, under the high frown of the keep, guards halted them.

  “What lords come so lightly to Threave?” somebody demanded, deep-voiced.

  “The lord of Douglas. To pay respects to the Lady of Galloway.”

  “Douglas? . . . Lord? . . . Douglas himself!”

  “Himself.”

  There was a great shouting of orders and clashing of arms and bolts. The heavy iron gates swung open.

  Demanding to be taken into the presence of Threave’s chatelaine, they were informed by the doorward that the Lady Margaret was in the water-garden beyond the outer bailey. They would summon her . . .

  Will forbade it. Surely it was for them to seek their cousin. Lead them to her.

  Dismounted, the brothers were crossing the courtyard diagonally towards a small postern door which stood open in the northern curtain-wall, when they were hailed from a first floor window of the mighty keep. Evidently one of the guards had hurried directly within, with his news.

  “My lord — the Duchess welcomes you. She bids you attend on her in her bower.”

  Will paused uncertainly, frowning. He knew that the Lady Margaret’s mother often stayed with her here, but he had not thought of her as present and had not schooled himself to a meeting — for she was said to be a tiresome woman. Since she was not chatelaine of Threave, it was right and proper that he should first pay his respects to her fifteen-year-old daughter, the Lady of Galloway. On the other hand, brusquely to ignore this summons was hardly to be considered — and the co-operation of the mother was advisable if the daughter was to be secured.

  “Go you to the Lady Margaret, Jamie,” Will decided. “With my duty. I will come so soon as I may.” />
  He climbed the timber forestair to the first floor of the keep, where an aged manservant took charge of him and led him across the Great Hall to a narrow private turnpike stairway in the thickness of the eight-foot walling. On the floor above, he was ushered into a pleasant tapestry-hung chamber.

  The Duchess sat in a window-seat, and pretended to be much startled by his arrival. “A mercy!” she cried. “How you affrighted me! I was deep in thought. Mercy me!” She fanned herself with her ring-encrusted hand, as though Will was responsible for a sudden rise in temperature.

  He bowed stiffly. “I was told that you bid me to come to you, my lady,” he said.

  “Yes. Yes, to be sure. But you came so swiftly. You must have run, I vow! Run to an old woman’s call!” She simpered. “Come, my lord — here, where I can see you. My eyes are not so bright as once they were!” She fluttered her eyelids nimbly enough at him, nevertheless.

  Will moved one pace forward, looking at her askance. Her appearance, manner and talk did little to improve on the mind-picture he had formed of her — although, despite all this talk of age, she was very much younger than he had thought to find her. He had imagined her as fat and old, regal in bearing as became Scotland’s only Duchess, something of a dragon. In fact, she was only in her late thirties, like his own mother — but like her in nothing else. She was fussily nervous in manner, and desperately thin, a large-eyed, faded, gaunt woman, without dignity or calm. She made Will see his mother as a woman to esteem — a recognition that was overdue on his part.

  “So you are Cousin James’s son,” she said. “A deal more handsome, I vow! My daughter is fortunate, I think!”

  Will cleared his throat, but found nothing to say.

  “You look strong,” she went on. “Very strong. Come closer, my lord.”

  “I must go pay my respects to the Lady Margaret,” he jerked.

  It did not fail to cross his mind to wonder what the daughter might be like if this was the mother — even though she was known as the Fair Maid of Galloway. Hamilton did not rise any higher in his estimation for marrying thus, and a woman ten years his senior, however great the riches she brought him. Yet, she was the mother of those two cousins he had sworn to avenge.

  Euphemia Graham, sister of the deposed Malise, Earl of Strathearn, and great-granddaughter of King Robert the Second, still styled herself Duchess of Touraine, the French title of her late husband, there being two other Countesses-Dowager of Douglas — for her son had wed a fifteen-year-old bride, Janet Lindsay, daughter of Crawford, just months before his murder.

  “Margaret will wait. You would desert me so soon? The old woman for the young! Out on you, cruel my lord!”

  “This is her house . . .”

  “Aye — and you would have it yours again, and quickly, I have no doubt! And all Galloway with it. Your mother made that very clear.”

  “My mother does not speak for me,” he answered shortly.

  “Nevertheless you have come!” She smiled again, archly. “And coming, I am well content. I think we shall be friends, my lord.” She held out her thin hand to him.

  Will bit his lip. Completely to ignore it would be discourteous in the extreme. He stepped forward quickly, and taking that hand, raised it to his lips perfunctorily, seeming to accept it as a gesture of dismissal. “I go see the Lady Margaret,” he said, and turning about hurried to the door, and out.

  Thankfully he ran downstairs, across the Hall, and outside.

  Through the postern door in the courtyard he found himself between the outer and inner curtain-walls. But beyond was a small arched pend through the basement of one of the round flanking towers, and this led out into the northern tip of the low island not occupied by the castle buildings. Here were a few acres of grass and reeds and willow-scrub, cut up by little channels of the river. It had been turned into a pleasance, a water-garden, with tiny canals and pools created here and there, and banks of flowers and shrubs planted. It was a woman’s place, which would have endangered Archibald the Grim’s blood-vessels, but it was very attractive of a summer’s day.

  There were paths laid, winding amongst the creeks and bushes. Will took the largest of these. And rounding a willow-clump he came face to face with a young woman coming walking in the other direction.

  She was a laughing-eyed comely creature, generously made, with a lot of red-gold hair, not over-tidy, her skin honey-coloured, her eyes sparkling blue. Her mouth was too wide and her nose too short for real beauty, and there was a vigour about her unusual in ladies of quality, but her shapely, lissome grace was undeniable, her full firm breasts magnificent, and her smile frank and friendly. She was dressed simply but effectively in a short homespun gown of dark green, its bodice only rudimentary, over a white lawn blouse wide at the neck almost to uncover the shoulders, with round her throat, and hiding but little, a silken scarlet kerchief. Will knew with sudden entire certainty that he had never seen a female that pleased him better.

  He entirely forgot to bow or make any suitable saluation — voluntarily, that is. “Are you . . . are you Margaret Douglas?” he demanded.

  “I am,” she agreed, with a tinkle of laughter. “Though I am usually called Meg.”

  “Meg,” he repeated. “Aye — I like Meg. Better. Sweeter. I am Will Douglas.”

  “So I understood, my lord. Threave is the happier, I swear! All here are your servants I came seeking you.”

  “Kind,” he said. “I was with the Duchess. She . . . I . . . h’m.”

  He caught her eye — which was not difficult — and she grinned. “Yes, my lord. To be sure.”

  “I came so soon as I might. You saw my brother? James?”

  “Oh, yes. And a most proper young man. But . . . other than you, I think.”

  Sensing some significance in that, he challenged her. “And I? I am not a proper young man?”

  “Less proper, perhaps! And less young!”

  “M’mmm.” He paused. “And so you left him. To come seek me?”

  “He was well content to be left, I think. They are not far. There is an arbour beyond those bushes. A pretty place.”

  “No doubt.” Will found himself in no hurry to investigate. “So you found my brother too proper? And too young? For your taste, lady!”

  “Myself, I prefer men to boys, my lord! A matter of taste, as you say!”

  “Yes. You, yourself, seem older than I had thought.”

  She sketched a mocking curtsey. “Is that flattery? Or otherwise? But . . . I would not have believed that you could have thought anything of my age, sir. Since I am less than the flower you crush beneath those fine boots!”

  He glanced down, to discover that he was indeed standing on a small patch of pimpernel, bruising the tiny scarlet flowers. Hurriedly he stepped aside. “No,” he said. “Not so. I have thought much of this. It has troubled me. I am much . . . comforted. To find you . . . thus. I had feared it might be different.”

  She raised arching brows at him. “Can it be, my lord, that you mistake? Take me for what I am not? I am Meg Douglas, as I said. Not the Lady Margaret Douglas of Galloway. Only her tiring-woman. Sent to seek you . . .”

  “Save us!” Will swallowed, staring at her. “I thought . . . I believed! . . .”

  “I am sorry indeed to disappoint, my lord Earl!” she murmured modestly — although her smile was less so. “To be only a serving wench!”

  He stood there glaring at her, adjusting his mind and emotions.

  Meg Douglas considered him closely, thoughtfully. “You are angry? Think yourself deceived?” . . .”

  “I am not angry. Only . . . only, as you said . . . disappointed.” That was simply stated.

  “For that I thank you,” she answered, and this time she did not smile. “Come, my lord — I will take you to the Lady Margaret. And, and naught said of this mischance.”

  He walked just half a pace behind her along the further path. “Who are you, woman?” he jerked, at the lovely column of her neck. “You are no common servin
g-wench — that I vow!”

  “Then you vow amiss, sir,” she answered, without turning. “My mother was maid to the Countess-Duchess before this one — the Tyneman’s wife, daughter to King Robert. And my father — he was a by-blow. Of Earl Archibald’s.”

  “Ha! I thought as much. Something of the like. So . . . i’ faith, you are my cousin! For my father, also, was a son of Archibald the Grim. In blood we are cousins.”

  “In blood only, my lord. And if you were to acknowledge all such cousins — why, you might find yourself with over-many! For Archibald, our grandsire, was a potent lord, they say!”

  “That may be so. But I swear not many are like you! . . .”

  “Hush, sir! Here is my mistress. And your brother . . .”

  Round a denser clump of willows they had come to a sizeable pool formed from a widened inlet of the river. At its head a rustic shelter had been contrived out of rough-hewn logs, decorated with seashore shells. On a bench before this Jamie and a girl sat.

  Will paused for a moment, and perceiving it, Meg Douglas did likewise. There was no question now that before him was the Fair Maid of Galloway. The girl who sat there listening to Jamie and idly shredding leaves from a willow-wand to drop into the water, was the very picture of fragile loveliness. Slight, graceful, upright, herself as willowy as the growth around her, she had hair paler than flaxen above a high clear brow and delicately narrow features, perfectly formed. She was dressed in a high-necked, close-fitting gown of palest blue linen, longer than the other girl’s, and cunningly cut lovingly to mould her small-breasted slender long-legged figure. As she sat listening to James Douglas, her expression was sweetly grave.

  “So-o-o!” Will breathed out, on almost a sigh.

  “She is very beautiful, is she not? A meet bride for the Black Douglas!”

  He turned to his companion, and their eyes met. “Aye,” he said, “Beautiful. But . . . a child.”

  “More woman than you think, perhaps,” Meg answered him. “Beware lest you misjudge, my lord.”