Lord and Master mog-1

by Nigel Tranter

  'Then he does not forget Ruthven either! He loves not these bullying Protestant lords, you may be sure, for what they did to him there. By the same token, he will not forget who delivered him out of their hands, yon time. He owed you his freedom then, and much service since. He will pay heed to you, Davy. If you plead for a pardon, he will not withhold it They cannot stop him – the Protestant lords – from signing a royal pardon. And once in Huntly's hands, and given by him to Erroll the Constable, that will put all well, Secretly mind – for I do not doubt that they would have me despatched privily here in this cell, if they feared that their execution was going awry.

  Poisoned food, or a slit throat.. '

  'Exactly as you proposed to Elizabeth for our Queen Mary! Pretty justice would it not be?'

  Tut, man – must you still harp yon tune? What's done is done. Here is no time for such talk, for recriminations and arguments on policy and statecraft…'

  'As you say, Patrick,' David interrupted levelly, but strongly. 'Such time is past As I have been trying to tell you. I did not come here to argue or to recriminate. Not any more. Only to take any last messages…'

  'So be it. I am glad to hear it, Davy. Now – you have it about Huntly, and the Commendatorship of Dunfermline? That should be enough, and more…'

  'No. It is no use, Patrick. You might as well save your breath. I will not see Huntly. Nor yet the King.'

  'Eh…?' The other stared at his brother. 'What in God's name do you mean?'

  I mean that we have come to the parting of the ways, at last, Patrick.' Slowly, heavily, David brought out the words, one by one his tone so flat as to be almost expressionless, his features as though carved. 'Too long I travelled your shameful road with you – God forgive me! It is finished now.'

  'You mean…?Good Christ-you mean that you will not do this thing for me?'

  This – or any other, that might save you from the judgment that you have so richly so terribly, earned.'

  'Merciful Heaven – it cannot be! You jest.. Davy – aye, you but jest?'

  'Think you that I could jest at such a time? Was I a jester ever? You were the jester, Patrick – not me!'

  'Then.. God Almighty – it is beyond all belief!' Patrick strode forward, and grabbed his brother's shoulders, all but shaking them, staring into the grey steady eyes. You to do this! You, Davy Gray, to desert me, to turn traitor at the end! After all-you to betray me! My own brother. I'll not-I tell you. I'll not believe it!'

  Unwinking, unflinching, David's level regard held the other's blazing eyes. 'Betray…!' he repeated quietly. 'I wonder that you dare form that word, brother!'

  'Brother! And you dare call me brother? You that could save me, but prefer to throw me to my enemies! You, who would have me die, rather than lift a hand to save me! Brother, forsooth!'

  'Perhaps you are right in this, Patrick. Perhaps never were we true brothers – only suffered under the accident of the same heedless sire! For 'fore God, I would not wish to be brother to the man who sent Mary Stuart to the scaffold!'

  'As you would send me now!'

  'As I..David swallowed. 'As I would send you now!'

  The other whispered. 'You… you want me to die, then?

  Stiff-lipped, slowly, David nodded. 'I… want you… to die.'

  'Christ God – this then is.. murder! The crime of Cain.' Glittering-eyed Patrick gestured towards his brother's head. 'Watch you your brow, for the mark coming! Cain's mark…!'

  The other gazed straight ahead of him. 'So be it, if it be God's will.'

  'God's will…!' Patrick flung away from him, to go pacing about the cell again. 'You prate of God's will. Lord – this is not possible!'

  'I warned you, Patrick. Have you forgotten? I told you, yon day after Wotton left, that if ever you acted to betray Mary the Queen, as you had betrayed so many others I would stand by no longer. I would act I would forget that we were brothers. And you would never betray another. Do you not remember?'

  'That woman! She was a witch, a devil! She turned your head, man. About her, you are crazed. What was she, man, to set above your own brother? A woman whom you saw for a few moments, once – near old enough to be your mother!'

  'She was my Queen, and yours – and a helpless, sorrowing, gallant woman whom we had vowed to free and serve and cherish…'

  'Tush – what is that but callow sentiment! And for such youth's dreams such pap – you would have me die under the axe?

  'For more than that I would see an end to your destruction. For that is what you are, Patrick – a destroyer. All your life you have worked for destruction, setting up only that you may drag down, enticing and fascinating that you might betray. You betrayed Mariota, seducing her, and then abandoning her with child. You betrayed me, to your father, asserting that the child was mine. So that you could have Elizabeth Lyon and her riches. You betrayed her, on her very wedding-night. Then, rising higher, you betrayed your faith, the Protestant faith in which you were baptised and bred, going over to the Romans – not for conviction, but for gain only, and that you might betray them in turn. You betrayed Esme Stuart, your friend, to the death, after raising him high. Then Gowrie, your own uncle, also to the death. Arran you betrayed and brought low over yon business of the Redeswire, and Ferniehirst you threw to the dogs. Your King you betrayed to Elizabeth – and no doubt Elizabeth to de Guise and Philip of Spain. Mary Stuart was only your final and crowning infamy, dear God!'

  Patrick had stopped his pacing to stare at him, mouth forming words but no sounds. He seemed to shrink in on himself, as he stood there, and for perhaps the first time m his life there was no beauty, no attractiveness, visible in those delicately moulded features. 'Are… are you finished?' he got out, at last, from ashen lips.

  Aye. David sighed wearily. 'Finished, yes.'

  'Finished your smug, hypocritical, self-righteous litany!' That was a gabble,

  'Aye. And making sure that you are finished your tally of betrayal, – at last, also. Would to God that I had had the courage, and found the way, to do it sooner.'

  Patrick was silent. He turned and went over to the bench that was his couch, and sat down heavily.

  'So this is the end?' he said 'I had never envisaged it…thus.'

  David said nothing.

  'I can see now why they sent you in to me – you, and only you!

  'They did not send me. I tell you, I came of my own accord'

  The other did not seem to hear him. 'I trusted you, Davy. I never thought that you would go over to my enemies even though you found fault with me. Ever you have done that. Is there nothing I can do, man – nothing that I can say to soften your heart? If you have a heart? No amends I can make?'

  'None. Even if I believed you capable of amend.'

  'Marie…? And the bairn to come? For her sake…?'

  'I shall look after Marie as best I am able. You can rest assured of that. As for the bairn, it will be heir to Gray. My lord will see that it suffers nothing.'

  'Aye. So. It is all decided. So simply. So nicely. And I thought that you loved me…!'

  'Simply!' David's stern armour seemed to crack. 'Lord, man – think you that aught has been decided simply, nicely? That I have not worn out my knees with praying, deeved the good God's ears to guide me, to help me to my duty? Think you that all these years I have not fought and struggled with this evil thing, cursing myself and my weakness – aye, and my love for you – as much as your fatal…'

  'Aye – so you prayed your iron Calvinist God – and He sent you here to comfort my last hours thus! My thanks, brother -my thanks! pray now – pray that you will spare me more of your pious hypocrisy.'

  The other seemed to bite his lips into stiffness again. 'I came… I did not wish to come. I came, as I told you, but to see if there were any last messages, final charges…'

  'Ah, yes – fond farewells! You touch me deeply, Davy – i' faith you do! But I think that I can do without your loving services in this! Marie knows me well enough, without graveyard messages. Ma
riota also. My beloved father never knew me – no words win change him now. Only… only young Mary, sweet small Mary, will, will… oh for God's sake, get out! Go, man-go! If you have any heart left in you, leave me alone!'

  'I… I am sorry.'

  For moments brother looked at brother, starkly, nakedly, unspeaking, their tormented, searching, anguished eyes saying the goodbyes which their lips would not form. Then slowly, Patrick raised his hand and pointed, urgently, pleadingly, to the door.

  Blindly, David turned on his heel and strode thereto. He had to rattle on the iron latch for it to be unlocked from outside, waiting wordless.

  The door opened, and he stumbled out without a backward glance.

  David Gray had taken only a few almost drunken steps along the stone-flagged corridor, when his arms were gripped strongly, ungently, from either side. He looked up, blinking the tears from his eyes, seeking to see clearly. Two men in breastplates and morions, men-at-arms presumably, held him. Two more levelled halberds at his chest. Beyond them another man stood, of a different sort, seemingly richly dressed. Shaking his head to clear the weak tears away, David perceived that it was Sir William Stewart.

  'Master Gray, you will come with me,' he was told curtly.

  They led him out across the cobbled square, up a flight of steps cut in the naked castle-rock, and into another wing of the fortress – the Governor's quarters. In a richly furnished apartment therein, he found himself thrust before the presence of Sir John Maitland.

  The Secretary of State and acting Chancellor eyed him with his usual dyspeptic and disapproving stare. 'You have taken some time to visit your brother, Master Gray,' he said, without explanation or preamble, in his dry lawyer's voice. It is eight days since he was imprisoned. I adjudge this to mean either that you have singularly little of brotherly affection for the said base and wretched traitor, or else that you oppugn and condemn his wicked treasons – as indeed must all His Grace's loyal servants. In either case, it seems likely that you will not fail in your duty to your King, now.'

  David looked from the speaker to Stewart, to another who seemed to be an officer of the royal guard, and sought to jerk his arms free of the men-at-arms who still gripped him. 'I do not understand you, sir,' he said, frowning. 'Nor why I have been roughly handled and brought here thus. I have committed no offence. What means this, sir…?'

  Maitland ignored the other's protest entirely. 'Your duty to King James is plain. You will do well to remember it. By what means does the Master of Gray plan to circumvent the King's justice?'

  Astonished, David gazed at the man. You mean?'

  'Tut, man – do not play the fool! You are not dealing with fools I assure you. Your precious brother is a nimble-witted rogue. He will not fail to take such steps as he may to save himself and overturn the true course of justice. And undoubtedly he has friends amongst the disaffected and the disloyal He cannot achieve much in a prison cell without a go-between. You are the only one who has been permitted to visit him.'

  I see!' David's grey eyes smouldered, now. 'So that is why you permitted me to see him, without hindrance! You must have a poor opinion of me I think, sir! You name him traitor -and adjudge me to be a traitor likewise, in that I would betray my own brotherl'

  'We give you the opportunity to prove that you are no traitor, rather, Master Gray, Maitland said, but sourly. 'Less merciful and patient Ministers of the Crown might consider that since you were your brother's close confidant and secretary, you must be equally implicated with himself in his treasonable activities. You might well be in the next cell to the Master of Gray at this present; sir! You would do well to remember it,'

  'If I am not. sir, it is not because of your love for me, I swear!' David returned. 'Rather, because you have no evidence which would condemn me – for I am as loyal to King James as I was to his gracious mother the Queen. As I have proved,'

  'I rejoice to hear it In that case, you will tell us what steps your wretched brother intends in this pass – since it is inconceivable that he will not strive to save his neck, contrary to the King's decree.'

  David looked steadily at his questioner, and said nothing.

  Maitland frowned. 'Master Gray, I would remind you that we have the means to loose halting tongues in this castle I'

  'No doubt, sir. But they would avail you nothing. For though I would not reveal my brother's plans to you if I could, the truth is, there are none. I bear no messages from him, am committed to no projects.'

  'Think you that we shall believe that, fool!'

  'Whether you believe it or no,it is the truth…'

  That ended in a wheezing gasp, as David reeled back and would have Men had not the two men-at-arms held him upright, The officer had struck him hard full across the mouth with a gloved fist, at Stewart's nod.

  Maitland went on primly, as though nothing whatsoever had occurred. 'We require the truth, Master Gray, and shall have it. Your brother is not one to accept his fate without lifting a hand, we have known that from the first, and have taken due precautions. He has already tried to bribe his guards. Your visit offered him his greatest opportunity. What would he have you to do?'

  David licked the blood from his lips. 'I would not tell you – even if I knew.'

  His head snapped back with a sickening jolt as the captain jabbed two vicious blows at him, to nose and eye, in swift succession.

  'Yes, Master Gray? We are waiting.'

  'Curse you…!' David, dizzy, reeling, yet struggled desperately with his captors, striving to free his arms. But the men-at-arms held them fast, indeed twisted them behind his back until the agony was excruciating. Even so, as the officer lunged forward again, David lashed out with his foot, to catch the man strongly below the knee-cap.

  A hail of furious blows fell upon him, and the weight of his own body sagging against those twisted arms had him half swooning away.

  Dimly, as though through a thick red mist, he heard Maitland's dry voice droning on.'… obstinacy is the attribute of a fool, Master Gray. I had not esteemed you that, ere this. Come, man – enough of this folly. What are your brother's wishes? To whom does he send you?'

  Slowly David's swollen and bleeding lips moved, sought to form words, 'Do… your… worst,' he got out, at length, only just intelligibly. 'You… cannot… make me… speak. You cannot…'

  He choked to silence then, as the edge of a hard hand slashed at the front of his neck, his adam's apple. The torment was exquisite. His throat filled with bile. Blind with pain and nausea, David was convulsively sick.

  It was a little while before he realised that it was a new voice that was speaking through it all – presumably Sir William Stewart's voice.

  '…that this is all we can do? That there is not the rack and the boot, the wheel and the thumbscrews? Och, we are well provided with such niceties here – my lord of Morton saw to that! You have a long way to go, fool, before we are finished with you!'

  David sought to raise his splitting head. He did not know whether he achieved it or no, even whether the words which he so sorely formed were indeed enunciated. 'I'll… no'… speak,' he muttered. 'You've… got… the wrong… man!'

  The hails of blows which followed that made but little difference.

  For how long David Gray's tribulation lasted, he never knew. Looking back, it seemed an endless purgatory of searing pain. But at the time he was almost more obsessed, undoubtly, by a furious anger, an all-consuming rage of hatred at his persecutors, and an overwhelming ache of anguish, not for himself and his plight, but for his inability to hit back, the wicked injury to his pride in that he could not give as good as he got, The Gray in him undoubtedly was far from latent.

  And presently there crept upon him a warm and grateful awareness that things were not quite as they had been, that blows were no longer really hurting him, that savage pain was ebbing, that nothing mattered so much. It was a good, an excellent feeling. A great and overpowering relief began to enfold him, and he embraced its warm drowsy comfort with all that
remained of his reeling consciousness.

  The final descent into blessed insensibility held no single ' lingering echo of hurt.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  THE ascent to pain and tribulation was gradual, also. Reluctantly, indeed, David came to himself. He kept his eyes shut, in fact, deliberately, out of sheer shrinking unwillingness to accept the grievous burden of it all, for quite some time – until, indeed, he discovered that he could scarcely open them anyway. One eye was in fact completely closed up; out of the other, presently, he decided that he could see, after a fashion.

  What he saw out of it took some time to register, for it had to compete with other and very pressing perceptions and impressions, mainly of multiple and comprehensive hurt, of dizziness, sickness, stiffness, and general physical misery. But at length his eye told him, with some insistence, that the people standing watching him not only were not belabouring him in any way, but were not so inclined, at all. They were, indeed,, small children.

  This knowledge, when it sank into his bemused brain, aroused him. His mind suddenly began to function with a strange clarity, even while his aching body remained inert, anxious only to escape back into blessed oblivion.

  He perceived that he was lying on the ground, out-of-doors. Moreover, he recognised that it was raining. He seemed to be in a narrow, confined place amongst damp stone walls – undoubtedly one of the wynds or closes that opened off the main city streets. And only the children watched him, and a small sniffing dog. He was no longer in the castle, then…

  As David lay there, eyes closed again, seeking to understand this strange circumstance, his nose, though battered and very sore, kept transmitting to him a message of its own. At length he attended to it. Malt liquor – whisky – that is what it was. He stank of it Gingerly he opened his eye again. All the torn front of his doublet was soaking wet-indubitably with whisky.

  Groaning involuntarily, David stirred, sought to raise himself, got to his knees, staggered to his feet, leaning against the wall for support.The children stepped back warily, but hooted their merriment Obviously he was thought to be drunk, very drunk indeed.