Unicorn Rampant (5 page)

As in a dream, John dismounted and climbed to the platform, not believing any of it. The Provost, still clutching the chicken and the rest, was already kneeling and eyeing the flickering sword point apprehensively. John was gestured down beside him.

"Put thae comestibles doon, man—you canna be knighted wi' an armfu' o' belly-fodder! And dinna jink your head about that way, or you'll maybe get skewered like your ain chicken! Now—what's your name, again? Aye, Nisbet— William Nisbet. Well—still, noo. I hereby dub thee knight, then. So . . . and so! Arise, Sir William Nisbet—and be you guid knight until your life's end. Aye—now you, Johnnie Stewart."

John was too bemused to take avoiding action and sustained a swipe on the head as the sword came over. Fortunately he had a fine thick crop of hair and took no hurt.

Again the litany. "I dub thee knight, John Stewart. So
...
and so! You did well, back yonder—when others were less forrit! Arise, Sir John Stewart
o'.
. . o' Methven, is it? Aye, well—be a guid knight until thy life's end, Sir John man. Up you get
..."
James turned, without pause. "Here, Vicky—take your whinger. I've been thinking—you'd be better wi' a bit sack than the saddlebags. You'd need a wheen o' them, and some fell rogue might be off wi' one. Find you a sack, and then come on to Holyrood. I'm awa' there now—and I'll no' be stoppit this time, as God's my witness! I've had enough."

Allowing himself to catch no one's eye, James Stewart shambled down to his horse, mounted and spurred off round the archway, cleaving the crowd and heading for the Netherbow Port. After that Holyroodhouse was only some hundreds of yards, sanctuary indeed. After him streamed his court.

Father and son eyed each other, the Provost, the magistrates and Council, the ladies and the rest.

"Well, well," Ludovick said, at length. "God's will be done! Or His Anointed's, which is much the same thing! Congratulations, Sir John. Who would have thought it? And to you, to be sure, Sir William. That was a notable contrivance!"

The Provost was still too shaken to utter coherently, John still more so.

The Duke shook his head. "I am to find a sack, for this money. By royal command! Who will find me a sack, in Heaven's name? Someone—come to my aid! Johnnie—you had better get back and find your mother. Lord knows where she will be now. Tell her that I'll be up to your lodgings so soon as I may. James will want to eat and drink and sleep, after all this—so I should hope not to be very long. Off with you, and give her the news that she has got a knight for a son! I see you have lost your fine horse! Steenie Villiers won't forgive you for that! Now—this sack, of a mercy
..."

It was later that evening than he hoped for before Duke Ludovick managed to make his way up from Holyrood-house to the Lady Tippermuir's lodging in the High Street, to fall into Mary Gray's arms, John looking on with a somewhat embarrassed grin. It was a while before anything very sensible was said.

The woman it was who first recovered her composure, she being a notably composed character normally.

"You will have eaten, I suppose, by this time? I had a meal prepared."

"Aye, Murray, the Treasurer-Depute had a great banquet awaiting us—I could not escape it. James actually had me counting out all that money at the table. He appears to look on me as Geordie Heriot's successor, as man-of-business, Heaven help me—for as you know I cannot add three to five and win the same result twice! You heard about the ten thousand merks?"

"Yes. It was a strange device. It is said that
Tam
Hamilton—or the Lord Binning and Byres, as now we must call him—concocted it all, to ensure that the King partook in all the ploys. If he had been given all that gold at the start, we would not have seen hide nor hair of him' thereafter until he had it a
ll safe stowed away in Holyrood
house!"

"It could be so. A dire reputation for our lord and master to have! He is a great fool, but. . ."

"But you still love him, nevertheless, Vicky?"

"I would scarce call it love, my dear! But I have an affection for him, yes. And there is much that is admirable about him, as well as the rest. His virtues outweigh his vices, I swear. Kings cannot be as other men, but James, whatever his faults, is no tyrant and has a heart. Aye, and a
head too, however he looks and sounds. He is shrewd, the shrewdest man in all his court. I have little doubt
..."

"Dear Vicky—you are ever loyal! But
...
we are not come together again, after so long, to talk about James Stewart, are we? There is so much I want to hear—and have to tell. And Johnny was as full of questions for you as an egg of meat—only this odd knighting has driven it all out of his mind, I think!"

"Not so," their son denied. "The knighthood is nothing. Or . . . not exactly nothing." He was a fairly honest young man. "It is . . . good to have. Agreeable. And could be useful, I think. I had never dreamed of this. But it, it changes nothing that is important. I am just the same. And you both are just the same. That is what is important. And, oh—I am glad to see you home, Father!"

"Well said, lad!" Ludovick nodded. "Excellent sentiments. But knighthood is important—or should be. James has made too many knights—and often for the wrong reasons. But it is an honourable state, a standing which should set you apart from other men in some measure. There is more to knighthood than being called Sir John Stewart!"

"Dear me, we are serious tonight," Mary complained, but smiling. "Come, sit to, my solemn duke and knight— we can at least drink a little wine to celebrate our long-delayed reunion. You were not wont to be so sober, Vicky. Of course, you are two years older . . .!"

"Aye—I am growing aged! Whereas you, my heart, grow younger each year! It is unfair, I say!"

"Well seen that you have been biding in France, to teach you such flattering speech, my lord Duke! My father used to say that they all were deceivers ever, there—and
he
should have known, the greatest deceiver of them all! Tell me, have you brought home a new Duchess from France? I am told that French women are very . . . enticing!"

"No, I have not! Think you that I would? I found them mostly painted hizzies! I look for my new Duchess a deal nearer home than that. Here, in Edinburgh, in fact—or at least, in Methven!"

"Ah, Vicky, my dear—that nonsense again! How often have I told you, it is not possible? I thank you, with all my heart—but you must know that that is a dream, no more. It cannot be. You
must
know it
...
?"

"I know no such thing. I am not a simple youth, any more, to do as I am told. I am a widower, of middle years, and can marry whom I will."

"You are the King's cousin—the only, male and legitimate. If you were one of the others, it might be different. You are the only duke in this United Kingdom. James would never allow it."

"I am James's cousin and friend, yes—not his slave! I serve him faithfully, but
..."

"You are his representative and envoy, Vicky. You were Viceroy, and High Commissioner to Scotland. Think you that he would send you, as such, with Mary Gray as your wife? The bastard daughter of Patrick, Master of Gray, his enemy? Mother of your own
..."
she baulked at that word as applied to their son who stood, listening,
"...
your own offspring."

"I would not ask his permission. Think you that I care whether I am ever Viceroy or envoy again . . . ?"

"Perhaps not. But
he
cares, the King! And his word is law. He relies on you. He will not let you go. He trusts you, and almost only you. See how he sent you as his special ambassador to the King of France. Could Mary Gray have gone also? You know that I could not. In France you would associate and treat with all the great ones. Would they have accepted such as myself? So, enough of this. Tell us what you did in France, who you saw and what you achieved
...?"

"No—you will not change the subject so easily, Mary. I want you to marry me. I should have insisted when Jean died, five years ago. You talked me out of it then . . ."

"And must do again, my love. James would have the marriage annulled, nothing more sure. He could do. He is head of the Church of England. And up here his archbishops would leap to do his bidding. We would be wed for only days, I swear. But
...
let us have done, for now at least. Have pity on poor Johnnie, who should not have to spend his first evening as knight listening to this sad old story."

"I think that you should do as Father says, Mary." She had always asked him to call her that, not mother. "If the King did insist on the marriage being annulled, at least you would be wed in the sight of God
..."

"We always believed that in the sight of God we
were
man and wife, anyway," she asserted. "Always we held to that, John."

"There at least we agree," the Duke declared vehemently.

"Then why all this to-do if our true union means so much to us? Another marriage would be but for show. We have each other, and John here. And our home at Methven. Is that not sufficient? Is it not what we agreed on, so long ago . . . ?"

It was indeed the arrangement made between these two away back in 1597 when they had fallen in love, she only seventeen and he already wed in an arranged child-marriage to a daughter of Scotland's Lord High Treasurer. When John was born, he had made over, in the boy's name, the fine estate of Methven in Stratheam, really for Mary, and installed there mother and child. James had insisted that his cousin accompanied him to London, to take over the throne of Elizabeth, in 1603, and to set up the United Kingdom; Mary and the boy had to be left behind. Ludovick had come back to them as often as he could, but the King was demanding and piled many duties on his cousin, declaring that there was none other whom he could trust in the same degree. There had frequently been long periods of separation. In fact, the Duke was no courtier and would much have preferred to act the country laird and family-man at Methven. But it was not to be.

"Am I to be bound, always, by what we decided when we were little more than bairns?" he demanded. "But— we will talk of this anon. I want to hear of your doings, both of you. Of what goes on at Methven. Of all that has happened
..."

So he was told of the new stabling and other extensions being added to the castle on its shelf above the loch; of the great drainage project on Methven Moss and the Cowgask Burn; of the timber extraction in Methven Wood and the tree-planting to replace it; of the parish minister and his lengthy sermons; of the MacGregor raids on the farmers' cattle and the counter-measures; of the great heather-fire only the previous month, which had destroyed much grazing; and all the other matters of concern to a large lairdship on the verge of the Highlands. This was mainly of John's recounting. Mary told of the state and doings of their neighbours, friends and unfriends.

"When will you come to Methven, then, Vicky?" she asked. "How soon can you get away?"

"Lord knows! James plans a progress round Scotland. He talks of Linlithgow, Stirling, Dunfermline, hunting at Falkland, St Andrews, Dundee, even Aberdeen. For how much of it all he will need me, or at least demand my presence, I have no notion. But he does demand me much, as you know. I will escape when I can, but. . ."

"He surely does not need
you
all the time, Vicky? Has he not hundreds of others, all those courtiers . . . ?"

"Not hundreds, thousands! Do you know, there were over five thousand in his train by the time we won to Berwick-on-Tweed? Home nearly died a death, meeting us there, when he learned how many mouths he had to feed! The same with Winton at Seton, where we lay last night."

"Well, then."

"The trouble is that James
trusts
so few, almost none. I mean, in arranging his affairs. He affects to despise the English, says that they could scarce manage a cattle-fair! Worse, they waste his siller—the greatest sin of all! Very few will he allow to manage what concerns his person."

"But this is folly! You are not to be tied to him like some servitor, because of his childish distrust of the English. Forby, there are plenty of Scots."

"You would think so. But he must have all done his way. Would you believe it, he had me send up from London, months ago, two black velvet cloaks, one with fur-trimming, as examples for the magistrates and Town Council to copy, for this visit. An improvement on those worn by the aldermen of the City of London."

"And yet I swear that he scarcely looked at any of them today," John put in.

"He would see, nevertheless, and note, lad. Not much eludes the royal eye, however short-of-sight. If there is aught amiss with those gowns, the new Sir William will hear about it tomorrow! James even sent up rolls of white satin for the Town Guard—and fools they looked in it, to be sure!"