‘Not every Stewart,’ James remarked, ‘may call himself our kin.’ He made the words composed, aloof, despite his trembling heart.
Rauf Stewart shook his head. ‘Your Majestie, I never made such claim. I am in the service of the earl of Gowrie. It pleases him to send me here to wait upon your Grace.’
‘It pleases him,’ translated James, ‘to have you spy on us.’
Rauf coloured at the charge. ‘For pity, Sire, why should you think so? I am his servant, as he is yours.’
‘You are his spy,’ declared James. He let the words hang heavy in the air, the green boy kneeling in the grass, until a second courtier came to plead the devil’s case.
‘This is sound counsel, for we maun keep close. There are yet too few of us to keep your Grace from harm, if ye would ride abroad. There are thieves at large, and brigands at Garbridge, for these are lawless times.’
His highness answered coldly, ‘So have I observed, how lawless is the kingdom under Ruthven’s rule, and all those who subscribe it, as Angus and Mar, and the master of Glamis.’
He knew the man, Sir Thomas Keith; the thrist would not be blunt to him. Glamis was his kinsman and laird.
The hook had found its mark. ‘Those lords, who love you dearly, Sire,’ Sir Thomas Keith defended. ‘None that dares to speak for them would see your Highness harmed. Pray, do not let sour humours spoil a summer’s play. Red trout are leaping from the lake, the deer roam through the forest, keeking through the trees, the grassy banks and meadows run alive with hares. Let us make our sport upon the Lomond hills, this fine fair day in Falkland. And it please your Highness, you shall have my lord’s best hawk, to race against your Pen. Whichever bird flies faster shall be yours to keep.’
He showed up a hawk in a red velvet hood, its white and brown plumage the colour of Jem. As bairns with sticky fingers reach for shining things, the king put out his hand.
See the goshawk flutter, helpless to the lure. The whisper came so fast and faint that James could not be certain of its source. Rauf Stewart knelt before him, silent in the grass, and in the shadows falling back, the quiet hunters watched. He saw them trade glances and smiles. With a wink, they could prick him to tears. He answered them hoarsely, biting his lip. ‘Let us be done here, for Pen is not fit to fly.
‘Sir Thomas, we shall take your bird,’ he nodded to the courtier, ‘and rest her in our mews, to try another day. Since hawks are given freely, and are welcome gifts, your laird will want no recompense, save for our grace and favour, which we give to you. Sir Thomas, you may ride by us. You others, fall behind.’
The hunters blew their horns, calling in the hounds, soothing tense, taut falcons, highly strung for flight. Rauf Stewart scrambled to his feet, his green coat tipped darkly from the dampness of the grass. ‘One of us should ride ahead.’
‘Then let it be you.’ The king swore. ‘God knows, I do not want you at my back.’ He watched the boy ride out, until the smooth black mare became a shadowed streak, the bright green silk a dot, beneath the Lomond hills. Then brooding, he reined in his horse, and rode back to the palace, with dark and thoughtful looks, and did not speak a word to Sir Thomas as they went.
At Falkland, he dismissed the lords, retiring to the billiard hall, in company with Jem. The hall backed onto the tennis court, and once had been a stable block; it smelled of horses still, a sweet dry pungent earthiness mellowing the gloom. High windows facing westwards seldom saw the sun, and games were played by candlelight on dreich damp afternoons, or in the glow of lantern horn, on nights too dark for caich. There were no vaults or vennels where a man might hide.
Though James was sick at heart, he did not break down in tears, but concentrated fiercely on the game in hand. He took the pieces in his hand as though he made a weight of them to anchor down his grief. He set the port and skittle out upon the cloth and leant to take his shot, to test the secret slant and bias of the board. His first strike missed its mark, rebounding sharply from the wooden rail, and rolled into a pocket on the other side. Jem, at the chap of it, shifted and stirred, let out a fart, and returned to his dreams. He did not raise a whimper at the coming of the coroner, whose left foot caught his tail. ‘That is a patient wee dug.’
At his back a page boy hurried, half a step too late. ‘Sir Andro Wood o’ Largo, and it please your Majestie,’ he amended breathlessly, ‘waits upon your will.’
James retrieved the ball, allowing it to settle for a moment in his hand. ‘Though ivory is fair and fine, it never forms a perfect sphere,’ he answered to the page. Sir Andrew he ignored, for speaking out of turn.
The boy looked in a box. ‘Here is lignum sanctum that may serve your Highness better.’
‘So we dare to hope. What think ye to it, Andro?’ James was flyting now, for lignum was the Latin word for wood.
The coroner, undaunted, answered with a smile, ‘Perhaps the imperfections turn a profit in the game?’
‘For one who is a player,’ James agreed. He glowered at Andrew Wood, to see how this might sit with him, and took another shot. ‘We missed you at the hunt.’
Wood’s black coat and britches bore no speck of dust, no sign that he had hurried, riding hard or long. His bending at the knee was formal and perfunctory, for he was not a flatterer. There had been a time, and not so long ago, when James had been afraid of him. The bluntness of his manners rasped and rankled still.
‘Some business kept me from ye, else ye should have found me there.’ Wood made no apology, but turned to pet the spaniel, pulling off a glove for Jem to take the scent of it, stroking his soft muzzle. James was irked by this. ‘Business of the Crown?’ he snapped.
‘Not exactly.’
‘What, exactly?’
The coroner glanced sideways, where the page boy gawped, following the patter like an umpire in an argument. He was eight or nine years old, the son of some ambitious lord, and quick to spill a tale. James caught on at once.
‘Go run into the caichpell, boy, and wait upon the lords. They will want new balls.’
The gawping boy said foolishly, ‘There are none there, your Grace.’
‘I think perhaps,’ said Andrew Wood, ‘you did not hear your king.’ His words had depths of meaning that were difficult to plumb, for they were quiet, mild and thoughtful, and yet they brought a shiver to the child, and a moment of reflection to the king himself. The small boy blushed and fled.
‘Your pardon, sir, your Grace.’
‘Aye, sir,’ James approved, ‘you do well to warn of it. That quelp may well be Ruthven’s boy. How sick am I at heart of renegades and spies.’
The coroner said simply, ‘Every boy is someone’s boy.’
‘So I have come to fear.’ James dropped his voice, to ask again, ‘What business was it kept you, sir?’
Again, Sir Andrew hesitated. ‘Nothing to concern your Grace. It was . . . a family matter.’
He glanced up at the young king’s face, quietly appraising him, sketched paler in the shadows of the darkening afternoon. The king was in his hunting clothes, and in his hand the billiard club swung like a shepherd’s staff. Since turning seventeen he had tried to grow a beard, and the fluff of down and stubble left a rash upon his chin. He looked less like a monarch than a schoolboy on a stage, who comes in on his cue but cannot mind his part.
‘A family matter,’ James repeated, sounding out the words, as something new and strange to him. He accepted the excuse with a light flick of his hand, that left a trail of air for Andrew Wood to kiss. ‘Since we are aware that you have paid our debts, your absence here this morning may be overlooked. Now that you are here, we shall play at billiarts. Look into the box there, and find yourself a ball. Ourselves, we have determined we shall keep the ivory; the lignum wants a lick of polish, it wants turned and buffeting, and shorn of its rough edges, else it rolls no better than a lump of wood.’
He turned back to the table, pleased with this rebuke. James found satisfaction in compelling men to play with him. Those lords who had not
hesitated to lay violent hands on him, depriving him of liberty, authority and friends, were anxious to distract him now, tempting him with toys, as though he were a mewling infant, plucking at the sleeve of those who took upon themselves his rightful role of government. It pleased him to enact upon them small acts of revenge, to win from them their hawks and horses, cups and cloths of gold, though in his heart he kent it for a hollow prize. Had George Buchanan, his old tutor, caught him at his tricks, he would have served his master with a slaffert to the lug.
Did I learn ye nothing? Wad ye be a tyrant now, or would ye be a king? Ye think your duty is to them, that they maun nod and skip to thy daft bairnly tune?
The pedagogue was dead, yet James shrank from the echo ringing in his ears. He coloured at the shame of it. And he was not prepared for Andrew Wood’s response.
‘Your Highness maun excuse me, for I am no player. I do not think you called me here, nor take me from the service I perform on your behalf, for that you want a billie for your barnelike games. There are wasters enough here to play with your Grace.’
The blood rushed hot to James’ face, as though the coroner had slapped him. For a moment, he stood wordless, helpless as to ways to answer to this insolence. Humiliation stung, and prickled in his throat. He managed to choke out, ‘Take caution sir, and care, lest ye cause offence.’
‘That never was my purpose,’ Andrew Wood contended, ‘but to prove an honest friend, and as I apprehend, it would not serve your Grace if I should pet and flatter you, and treat you as a child. But say, sweet prince, if that is what you will, then you and I shall ride our hobbies in the hall, play football, golf, and jolie at the goose, as I do with my bairns.’
James bit back his pride, though he felt stripped and shamed. He could see no option but to bare his heart. ‘Do you not see?’ he hissed. ‘You have to see, sin ye have wit and subtlety, for all your want of grace. The good lords will suspect us if we do not play. The good lords in the rafters strain to hear our secrets. We shall drown their whispers with the thud of balls.’
The coroner looked back at him. He did not look away, as he ought to from a king, but held him in the gaze of serious grey eyes, that verged upon a frown. And James was trembling now, as much from fear as rage. He felt as he had felt, though he had been a studious child, when called upon to answer at the master’s chair. The question, when it came, was delicately phrased.
‘What lords are those, your Grace?’
‘I call them my good lords,’ James had closed his eyes, to close off Andrew’s face. The room bloomed with his blush, the hot rush of his heart, ‘As we call good neighbours to the faerie folk, hoping with such flattery to fend off faerie darts. If we will not offend them, they may let us pass. Our good neighbours here are Ruthven and his spies, and all those who conspire with them. They lie behind us, in the caichpell, where you will not hear them playing, for they let their racquets fall, and press their traitorous faces close against the walls. They do not ken the stillness of the court has given them away, and I can hear through stone the beating of their hearts.’
Andrew Wood looked on. The full force of his scrutiny, sceptical and calculating, rested on the king, who dared not face its blow. But when at last he spoke, his tone was soft and mild.The mellow force of reason, tempered with his pity, brought James close to tears.
‘The court next door is empty, Sire. The page boy telt the truth. Your good lords dare not play at caich without your Grace’s leave. And were they at their play, we should not hear their sport, nor they the crack of ours, through solid walls of stone.’
Sir Andrew did not hear, for he was not attuned to it, he had not learned to strain and start, to prick at every sound.
James closed his white hand tightly round the billiard mace, as though prepared to strike with it. ‘That is the deception, sir. And surely you were not so vain and foolish as to fall for it? To think that you might come here, without you were watched? But surely you did not suppose that I was left alone with you? That I am ever let alone? That though I sleep and pray and take my meals apart, live out my life in solitude, there are no courtly interlopers, whispering in the galleries?’
The king’s cry was heartfelt. Sir Andrew was moved to take a step towards him, though whether to console or to contradict his terrors did not come to light. James thrust out with his billiard stick. ‘No closer, sir, I charge you; but one word, one cry from me that aught is out of place, the guard will force the gaming house and bring you to your knees.’
‘Patience, my sweet lord!’ The coroner stepped back.
‘Patience?’ James returned. ‘Aye, sir, sound advice. But patience comes not readily to kings, when they are cursed and kept, and dealt with worse than dogs. We maun fool our gaolers, and annul their fears. So, sir, shall we play?’
He stopped short of pleading, for he would not plead. But his fragile state of mind had done its work upon the coroner, who conceded gently, holding out his hands. ‘Aye, then, we shall play.’
‘The truth is that I cannot blame them.’ James was calmer now. The billiards gave him back control, the narrow compass of the game composed and served to centre him, this the field in which we play, this the port, and this the king . . .
‘They do well to watch, for they must know the change that is to come upon them. They lie awake at night, and hear it in the wind. Their deepest guilt will burst and bubble, their black hearts exposed.’ He smiled, a little grimly. ‘That you are no player, sir, we beg leave to doubt. Take care. This table has a bias, leaning to the left. However straight it seems, an honest board is rarer than an honest friend.’
‘I fear your Highness gives away your own advantage.’ Andrew took a shot.
‘Do not count upon it. I am not a child.’ James leant across the board, to nudge his own ball gently closer to the king. ‘A penalty, if by your striking ye should knock him down,’ he quipped. ‘And that were bold enough.’ His conquest was complete. His strokes became methodical. Between them, he paced round the stable, craning into corners, sweet with dung and hay, poking in the rubble, where the stalls had been. This was not a ploy, to put Wood off his game. The king was rarely still. He never sat where he could stand, nor stood where he could walk, nor walked where he could ride. And Andrew Wood, without distraction, knew that he could never win. He bore his losses patiently. Once, and once only, did his temper spark. The king had knocked him through the port, crowing with delight, ‘Now you are a fornicator!’
The coroner set down his mace, rising to the taunt. ‘I am what, your Grace?’
‘A fornicator,’ James explained, ‘who kens nae more his grammar, than he does his play. Fornix is a vault – this little port of ivory – and you have passed it retrograde, wherefore you are fornicate, and so must pass it twice.’
‘Pax, then,’ Andrew scowled. ‘Sir, our play is done, for we have played to five. Your good lords in their galleries have long since gone to sleep, lulled of their suspicions by my granks and granes, and by the chink of coin, that signals my defeat. Spill your secrets, speak.’
James stepped back, and listened, to the whisper of his heartbeat, to the quickening of the wind. Outside, he heard a pigeon call, a distant, mournful, fluting, faintly through the trees. He nodded, satisfied. ‘They say that there are brigands at Garbridge. Tell me, is it true, or is it but a tale they tell, to stay our riding out?’
‘It may be both, your Grace. I fear that there are outlaws there, though I have taken measures to contain them.’
‘Then take some measures more. For I have a notion I shall want to pass that way. I feel it in my bones.’ James let slip a smile. ‘Lay hands on one or two, and hang them by the road.’
Sir Andrew nodded. ‘And it please your Grace, I could send an escort, to convey you on your path.’
‘So much had I hoped. I will send a messenger, to tell you when to come. Then, when all is done’ – the king did not disclose the detail of his plan – ‘I have another task for you. I wish to hire an advocate.’
‘An advocate, your Grace?’
‘Hew Cullan of St Andrews.’
Sir Andrew did not start at this, but answered clear and carefully. ‘Your Highness is aware, I doubt, he does not practise law? And, as I recall, you asked him once before if he would be your advocate. It pleased him to refuse.’
He did not dress the slight, but served it blunt and cold. ‘You have a guid lawman, in David McGill.’
‘That we do not doubt.’ James took a careful moment, sizing up the ball, before he nudged it sideways with the sharp end of his stick. ‘We shall want them both. McGill as the pursuer, and Hew Cullan for defence. And I am convicted he will not refuse me this, for he will understand it as a matter of the heart. I trust you to persuade him to it, since you know his mind. For I am well aware he has a will and conscience that will be not forced.’
‘He has a stubborn heart, that sometime works against him,’ Andrew Wood agreed. ‘But Sire, the world has altered since you saw him last.’
‘You think I do not ken? The light has blown out since. For Lennox, my Esme, is dead.’
James had bitten, accidently, deep down to the quick. The words acquired a hardness foreign to his tongue, a lesson he had learned, that he recited coldly, knowing it by heart.
The coroner accepted, ‘I had heard that, Majestie.’ He offered no condolence – he was not that kind of man – but kept a careful watch on James, alert to any change.
Gone were the floods, the raw torrent of grief, the shrill outpourings of a lost, bereft boy. James said again, ‘Lennox is dead. And I mean to have justice for him.’ Twin spots of livid colour darkened his pale cheeks. Yet he was quite controlled, spurred on by excitement, rather than by grief.
‘Your Grace, if you intend to prosecute those lords who hastened his departure, then I do not recommend it. For by your own word, you approved their action, and were well assured of their love for you.’
James received this calmly. ‘That is not what I intend. Though I am well assured, in enforcing his departure, they brought on his death.’
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