Lord and Master mog-1

by Nigel Tranter

  'Bah!' the Gordon snorted. 'Without them, many men would be the happier. Many men now dead would be alive. Mother o' God – show me a bookish man and I will show you a rogue… with due respect to Your Grace! Yon Maitland, for instance. William Stewart The bladder o' lard, Davidson, whom you miscall a Bishop! George Buchanan, that fount o' bile – aye, and most of the rest of his Bible-beating kin!'

  'My lord, you speak amiss! Och. man – yon's no way to talk. You should think shame o' yoursel' to speak o' godly men so. I'll no' have it. I'll no' listen to such ill speech. What… what do you want with me, Lord Huntly?'

  'For myself – nothing, Sire. Save maybe that you get rid of the pack of yapping lap-dogs of the Kirk that yelp around you, these days! No ho – for George Gordon – nothing. It is Davy Gray, here, who seeks your ear. Eh, Davy

  David stepped out from behind his protective screen of Gordon lairds. 'Yes, Your Grace,' he said.

  'Master… Davy!' the King gasped. 'Man – is it you? Waesucks – your face! Man Davy, how,.. what… what has become o' you?'

  ' 'Tis nothing, Sire. The methods of your new Chancellor Maitland, that is all! In search of… information, on Your Majesty's behalf! Heed it not I seek Your Grace's ear on a much more important matter. In clemency…'

  'Na, na – I canna do it, Master Davy!' James interrupted him, pulling at his ear in agitation. It's no possible, man. I canna do anything for Patrick – for the Master o' Gray. Dinna ask me to…'

  'But I do so ask, Your Grace. I ask you, of your royal clemency, to pardon him. Or, at the least, to commute the sentence of death.' 'No. I canna do it, I tell you.'

  'You can, Sire – if you will. For you are the King. You can sign a pardon if you will – and none can gainsay it.'

  'They'd.,. they'd no' allow it They'd no let me. And they'd no' let him go, man.' James babbled, slobbering copiously in his distress. They watch me, all the time. I canna do it'

  Huntly growled. 'You are afraid of a coven of upstart clerks and lawyers, Sire – you, the King of Scots?' His scorn was undisguised.

  "They need not know – not until it is too late to stop it,' David declared hurriedly. 'Keep the matter secret, Highness. Your signed pardon, in the hands of my Lord Erroll, the Constable, and presented to the Governor of Edinburgh Castle…! He could do no other than release Patrick. Then my lord of Huntly's men would escort him to a ship at Leith, within the hour. None could challenge them'

  'Challenge Gordon?' Huntly hooted. The Saints defend them, if they did!'

  The King plucked at his lower lip. 'But… treason is no' a thing I can pardon, man. Conspiring the death o' my royal mother…'

  Set-faced David eyed him. The Queen was sentenced to death, Sire, before Patrick ever went to London.'

  'Aye. But you'll no' deny that it was an ill thing to do, Davy -to aid Elizabeth to the death…'

  'I do not deny it, Sire. It was a shameful and wicked deed. I only cast myself and Patrick's life upon your royal mercy.'

  'Ummm. Ooh, aye – do you so, man?' Always, any implication that James was all-powerful and in a position to grant or withhold life or death, was apt to be well received. And clearly the frank admission of guilt left him at something of a loss. 'Well, well, now…'

  David sought to pursue his advantage. 'I do not ask for more than his life, Highness. He deserves to suffer much, I do not deny – though it may be true that he believed that he did what' he did for the benefit of this realm. Punish him, yes-forfeit him, take away his offices and estates, banish him the realm. But spare his life, Sire, I beseech you.'

  James moved round the Uttered table at his shambling walk, touching papers, frowning, darting, glances here and there. 'I… I… no, I canna do it, Master Davy,' he declared. 'Can

  I, my lord? As ambassador o' this my realm, Patrick betrayed his trust. To pardon that would never do – never do, man. My ambassador speaks for me – he is my royal voice, see you. If thy tongue offends thee, cut it out, the Good Book says…'

  'It also says forgive, until seventy times seven, Your Grace. Moreover, has not your own mother, Mary the Queen, ordained forgiveness on all concerned with her death, even with her dying breath? You would not have her noble wish made of no avail, Sire? You wrote kindly enough to Queen Elizabeth, who ordered the execution; can you not at least spare the life of him who but advisedit?'

  'Och, that is altogether different, Davy. Dinna harry me, man – I'm no' to be harried. You shouldna do it…'

  'Sire, he is my brother. I will do much, say much, even that I should not say or do, to save my brother! ' I failed Queen Mary also, in England. I could have attempted her rescue. I spoke of it, once, but allowed myself to be dissuaded. I was weak. I believe, had I been strong, that I could have saved her. At Wingfield. I shall never forgive myself…'

  'Mercy, man – what havers is this? How could you have saved her…?'

  The way that I saved you, Sire, at Ruthven. By force and guile and fast horses. By deeds and not words… '

  'Waesucks, Davy – are you crazed? Yon would never have done – never. Dinna speak o' it. In Elizabeth's England! Yon would have meant war!'

  'I wonder. Now I look back on it, I think not. Sire. But;.. it is done now, past. I failed the Queen. My eyes are open to it, at last'

  'Never say it,' the King told him. 'Violence and swordery -yon's no' the way to conduct the affairs o' the realm, man.'

  'It gained you your freedom, Sire, once.' David took a step forward. 'I pray you now, not to forget it If it meant anything that I saved Your Grace then, spare Patrick now! I have asked for nothing – would have accepted nothing. But now, Sire, I do so ask. For Patrick's life.' He paused. 'It was a long time ago, but surely you owe me something for that? And for other services, since.'

  Even Huntly frowned. 'Davy – here's no way to speak to your King!' he protested.

  'I know it, my lord. I said, did I not, that I would do and say things for my brother – things that I should not do?'

  James was biting his finger-nails. 'Aye, Davy, I was beholden to you for yon business. And for others, aye. I should have rewarded you. I've thought o' it, man – more than once. Oh, aye – it was featly done. A… a knighthood, man Davy? Eh? Aye, I could knight you. There's many a bastard been knighted. I could do it here and now – with my lord's braw broadsword, there. Sir David Gray, Knight…' James was almost eager, for the first time.

  'No, Sire -I am not of the stuff of knights. Save that for Sir John Maitland and Sir William Stewart and their like! I have tasted their knightly prowess, and want none of it. I am just plain Davy Gray, schoolmaster…'

  'A grant o' lands, then? Estates? An office under the Crown…

  'Thank you, no,Sire. Nothing – save my brother's life.'

  'A curse on you, Davy Gray!' the harassed monarch exclaimed. 'Hard, stubborn as a Hieland stot! I told you – it's no' possible. The folk, the people, would decry me, if I did. They would have my mother avenged.'

  'Forfeiture and banishment would be vengeance enough for them.'

  'Who rules in Scotland, then – people or King?' Huntly scoffed. 'Besides, Sire, the people will have other matters to think on! Very shortly.' That was grimly said. 'Good Catholics, in especial. And what did the other sort care for Mary?'

  James's jaw dropped. 'You're, you're no' meaning, my lord…? You wouldna, wouldna…'

  '… Say that I would advise Your Grace not to fash your head about what the folk will say. They will be a deal too busy shouting for Christ's true religion!'

  David frowned. He drew out a paper from his doublet within the plaid, and smoothing it out, laid it on the table before the King. 'Here is a pardon, all written out ready, Highness,' he said. 'It declares the Master of Gray forfeit, dismissed all offices, and banished from Your Grace's realm. But his life spared. These provisions may be amended with a scrape of your pen…'

  'Master Gray, you exceed yoursel' – you greatly exceed yoursel'!' James declared, drawing himself up with a pathetic dignity.

  'N
o doubt, Sire,' David nodded, and fixed the huge, limpid, royal eyes with his own direct grey ones, however red-rimmed and bloodshot. 'But you will mind that I was in yon small room, not so far from this, when you gave my brother his instructions, his secret instructions, as to what he was to say in private audience with Elizabeth! You mind? About the terms on which you would overlook certain matters relating to your royal mother?'

  'Hey, hey – what's this, Davy?' Huntly demanded. 'What's this, in the name of God?'

  James sat down abruptly on his chair.

  'Just a small matter, my lord, that His Highness may have forgotten. That may lead him to think more kindly of my brother on the matter of his amends…'

  The King croaked something unintelligible.

  'Amends? What mean you, man? About Mary the Queen, you said?'

  'Small matters, yes – but which perhaps were not irrelevant to Patrick's behaviour. If I had thought to mention it at his trial, perhaps His Grace might have judged… differently. I blame myself.'

  'No!' James got out, in strangled voice, 'No.'

  'What of the Queen, man? Stop speaking in riddles,' Huntly commanded. 'Are you seeking to say…?'

  'Only that, if His Grace will not sign the pardon, at least he may grant a stay of execution. So that this matter may be brought before the Council, You, my lord, might consent to bring it?'

  'Not, by the Powers, until I know what it is, fool!' the Gordon cried.

  James reached out his hand for his quill, dipped it tremblingly in the ink, and scrawled JAMES R. at the foot of David's paper. 'My God…!'

  'My sincere thanks, Your Majesty!'

  Huntly looked hard at David. 'This matter was none so small, I think!' he said. 'Do not tell me that the King…?'

  'It is not for me to tell you anything, my lord – unless the King so will it'

  'I do not!' James cried, his voice cracking. 'Nothing, do you hear? It was a, a private matter. Between Queen Elizabeth and mysel', A matter relating to my privy purse. Expenses, just…'

  'M'mmm,' the Gordon said

  'No' word o' this will be spoken – by any!' the King declared breathlessly, staring from Huntly to his five perplexed-looking lairds, and back to David 'This is my royal command. D'you hear – my royal command? No' a word. And as for this…' James pointed a quivering finger at the signed pardon. 'It is for life. For life, d'you hear? Banishment for life. Put that in, man – put it in. And no' to England. I'll no' have him in England, making trouble. I never wish to see his face again. Nor yours either, Davy Gray! You are an ill graceless breed, and I'll be quit o' you both! Begone, now – and mind, never let me set eyes on you again.'

  David bowed stiffly, and picked up the paper. 'Your command shall be obeyed, Sire – most exphcitly,' he said.

  'Aye. See to it, then. And you, my lord – you have my permission to retire.'

  'No doubt, Sire' Huntly nodded. 'No doubt. And I shall not linger, for I do not like the smell o' this, by the Mass!'

  'Go, then…'

  So the tartan-clad party backed perfunctorily out of the royal presence, clapped on bonnets, and went striding through Holyroodhouse again, David Gray anonymous once more in the midst Huntly exchanged no word with any of them..

  Indeed he did not speak until, at the head of his mounted retinue, he drew rein outside his great mansion in the Canon-gate. He turned to David, at his back.

  'It is done, then,' he said.

  'Aye.' David drew out the pardon from within the folds of his enveloping plaid. 'Relays of your fastest gillies to get this to the Constable, my lord – riding day and night. We have less than forty-eight hours. When my lord of Erroll rides up to Edinburgh Castle, the deeds and charters of Dunfermline Abbey will be ready awaiting you.'

  The Earl took the paper, but his eyes never left the younger man's battered face. 'Davy Gray,' he said slowly. 'You are a hard man to cross, I perceive. I'd liefer have you as friend than enemy, by the Rood! I vow you should turn Catholic!'

  The other shook his head. 'You are wrong,' he returned. 'I am not a hard man, at all. Would to God that I was! It is just that… my, my daughter believes that I can do anything that I set my hand to. I had to prove it. Heaven forgive me, I had to prove it! A good day to you, my lord.'

  Leaving Huntly to enter at his front door, David, with the rest – of the clattering horsemen, rode down the side vennel to the stable entrance in the South-Back Canongate. There, dismounting, discarding plaid and bonnet and clad as just plain David Gray again, he slipped away by back-courts and wynds, to approach his own house in the Lawnmarket up the hill.

  No song of triumph lightened his heart

  Epilogue

  HUDDLED in shawls and plaids, the Grays sat their horses, all four of them, in the shadow of the dripping trees, waiting. The morning mists still rose from the Nor' Loch below them, and wreathed the battlements of the great fortress high above them, with the blue plumes of Edinburgh's breakfast fires beginning to add their daily veiling. They waited each in different fashion – young Patrick excitedly restless, vociferous, forever twisting and wriggling in his saddle; Mary in still quiet eagerness; Mariota flushed, strained, not far from tears; David set-faced, silent. All gazed in the same direction, up over the steep slope of grass and rocks to the high ridge-like causeway, outlined against the morning sky, which climbed up from the outer gate at the head of the Lawnmarket, right to the main frowning gatehouse of the castle, the lofty slender catwalk which formed the quarter-mile-long approach to the fortress, open to the eyes of all men and all the winds that blew. Sometimes, admittedly, David's glance turned elsewhere, making a swift survey of the broken slopes below and around them, and the window-pierced ramparts of the nearest tall houses – so many windows, so many eyes to watch them.

  The high defensive causeway was some two hundred yards above them. Nearer than this, under the last of the scattered trees, they dared not go. They were taking all too great a risk even to be here, though probably only David considered that aspect of the matter. The pacing guards up on the castle battlements could hardly fail to see them, just as would a myriad eyes that might peer from all those windows at the other end of the causeway. Undoubtedly they would have been better, wiser, to have left Edinburgh before the city gates shut the night before. Waited somewhere on the road to Leith…

  The dense mass of horsemen that could be seen waiting up there outside the portcullis gatehouse was reassuring, of course – even though they had no interest in, represented no security for the little family, bunched, all packed and ready to ride, beneath the trees. They were armed Gordons, save for the few of Erroll's Hays, and the sound of their confident, laughing, north-country voices came clearly down to the anxious group, so that David, beneath his breath, cursed all arrogant boastful Highlanders, who must thus draw attention to themselves and what was toward so early in the morning.

  Would they never come? Had anything gone wrong, in there within the castle, where so much might well go wrong? Was the Governor refusing to release his prisoner, despite the royal pardon? Was he trying to get word out to Maitland or the lords -though how could he achieve that, past the barrier of Gordons? It could not be that they were, in fact, too late? That James had resiled, gone back on his signature – or revealed the whole matter to his Ministers? And Patrick already disposed of, in his cell? Surely, if that had been so, he himself would have been arrested and silenced before this?

  Apparently stolid, steadfast, but inwardly seething, David wondered for how long he could prevent himself from snapping at his small son to be quiet, to be still; how far they might already have progressed on the long road to Stirling and Perth and Castle Huntly, had only Erroll and Huntly not lain so late in their noble beds? The city gates would have been open now for well over an hour…

  For all his seeming inattention, young Patrick's keen eyes first perceived the increased agitation and stir up amongst the horsemen by the gatehouse, and his voice proclaimed the fact shrilly. The eddying of the riders around the end of th
e drawbridge must surely mean that somebody had just crossed it, emerged from the gatehouse archway. The press of Gordons hid any actual view of this.

  There is the Lady Marie,' Mary's quiet but vibrant voice announced 'See – her red cloak.'

  Above the noise and commotion up there, a great laugh sounded clearly – Huntly's laughter.

  They have come out,' Mariota whispered 'Is… is Patrick there?'

  David did not answer her.

  The mass of Gordons was now circling round, manoeuvring, forming up into some sort of a column, all with infuriating leisureliness and lack of urgency. To see them, one would have said that nobody up there had a care in the world – or that it lacked only three short hours until the appointed time of Patrick Gray's execution.

  Then, as the cavalcade began to string out, to ride slowly down the narrow causeway, not even at a trot, a great banner rose at the head of them-the three golden boars' heads on blue, of Gordon – and, to the horrified eyes and ears of David Gray at least, the reason for this deliberate and unhurried progress became evident, as a couple of strutting, puffing pipers came pacing out in front of all, blowing their shrieking, skirling instruments to the ears of all Edinburgh, and thus, to the challenging triumphant strains of The Cock o' the North, led the long procession down towards the city. A less discreet and expeditious rescue operation could scarcely be conceived.

  They could see Patrick now, riding alongside, Marie slighter-seeming than most of his burly, plaided escort, hatless, his dark curls blowing in the breeze. A lump rose in David's throat at the sight He seemed to be laughing and chatting vivaciously, with Huntly, who rode just in front

  Slowly, in time to that most insolent Gordon march, they came on. Young Patrick was now singing his own monotonous version of the song at the pitch of his lungs.

  As they came nearer, Marie could be seen to be pointing down the steep slope towards the little waiting party, drawing Patrick's attention. They saw him gazing, and then a hand rose in salute.