Unicorn Rampant (9 page)

So they went to knock at the first door, semi-subterranean, steps down from street-level. It took much thumping before they got any answer, when a bleary-eyed creature, very obviously female however unappetising, came, part-covered by a dirty blanket, to demand their business. Snores from within, on a blast of hot and foul air, indicated at least one male presence; but the lady denied with cackles the custom of any young English gentry. They were entertaining some lords' men-at-arms, but did not aspire to their masters.

Taking her at her word, they went further up a
nd across the street to a slightl
y better-looking establishment known apparently as Lucky Broun's. Here the door was opened quite promptly and by a much more trim, indeed buxom woman, adequately dressed, who greeted Purves like an old friend, calling him Dand and urging him and his young gentleman inside for a sup of ale. The major-domo, embarrassed somewhat, hastened to point out that this was an ale-house and Mistress Broun a most respectable matron. John cut all this short, to ask the necessary question.

Mistress Broun eyed him warily. "A young gentry Englishman, is it?" she repeated. "Now, I wonder? Mind, they come and go, sir. English, you say? And young . . . ?"

John produced a silver merk.

"Ooh aye, now. It is coming to my mind, sir. Up the stairs, there and the bit door facing you. It's maybe no' your friend, mind
..."

"Mr Purves-—you have that sup of ale with Mistress Broun. I pay." John started to climb the steep stair.

There were four doors up there, three closed. Knocking on the one facing the stairhead, and getting no response, he opened it—and his eyes widened to an unusual sight. Six breasts very much met his gaze, directly opposite. The two in the middle were very feeble masculine ones on a white, hairless and not notably brawny chest. But no such criticism could be levelled at the pairs on either side, all large, round and satisfying, bulging over the rumpled blanket, one with brown aureolas, the other pink. The three tousled heads above, two fair and one dark, had shut eyes.

John considered—and it was a prospect worth considering. This was interesting. He had rather assumed that Steenie's tastes would be otherwise. The vision before him, in consequence, far from shocking him, rather enhanced the favourite in his eyes. They all looked so peacefully replete— it was a pity to disturb them. But a royal command was just that. He coughed loudly.

This producing no results, he went forward to lean over the bed and shake Buckingham's bare shoulder. The young woman directly below him—they were both youthful, obviously—opened her eyes, yawned and smiled up at him, making no attempt to cover herself.

"My lord," he said. "Rouse yourself."

The other girl awoke and reacted differently, starring to giggle and make a great to-do of wrapping the blanket round her exposed upper parts—which had the effect of dragging it right off the female at the opposite side, revealing all her plump nakedness—which sent both off into fits of laughter.

This at last woke Steenie, who peered about him owlishly.

The uncovered lady indicated cheerfully that there was just room for John on the bed alongside her, it being, like herself, of generous dimensions. Expressing his appreciation but regrets, he concentrated on the central figure, who was now sitting up and frowning.

"You, Stewart!" the Earl said. "What is this? How . . . how dare you . . . ?"

"His Majesty's express command, my lord. To find you and bring you after him, with all speed."

"This is not to be borne! I am not some scullion, to be ordered thus—and by such as you! Leave me, sir!"

"I fear not, my lord. I must obey the King's commands, not yours. He was entirely specific. I am to bring you after him to Linlithgow. He and his train have already started out. He is much concerned for you
..."

"You say that they have already set off? For this place? What hour is it?"

"Late enough if we are to win to Linlithgow by midday."

"A plague on it—and on you! This is insupportable!" The other looked around him. "Where are we?"

"In a Mistress Broun's house-of-convenience in the Candlemaker Row. See you, my lord—I will leave you and your, h'm, friends, whilst you dress. Come down at your earliest and we shall return to Holyrood."

"I'll thank you to watch how you speak me, Stewart. I am the Earl of Buckingham and will not be used so—and by some bastard of Lennox's. I. . ."

John turned on his heel for the door, slammed it behind him and stamped down the stairs.

He sent the major-domo to fetch his horse from the Cowgate house.

Actually George Villiers was down, dressed and scowling, sooner than might have been expected in the circumstances. What arrangements he had made with the ladies John did not enquire—although Mistress Broun indicated that two silver merks would be appropriate payment for entertainment provided. The humiliated and sore-headed client had to admit that he had no money on his person meantime and so must borrow from Stewart.

His humiliation was further emphasised when presently Purves turned up with John's horse, and the Earl found that he had to mount and ride pillion behind his escort—that, or else walk alongside all the way back to Holyrood, which in the present state of his head was contra-indicated. So, in a heavy silence, the two young men trotted down the Cowgate to the palace.

There was considerable delay thereafter, Villiers taking an unconscionable time—no doubt deliberately—about his preparations for the journey, John fretting, although telling himself that it was all no real concern of his. It was almost mid-forenoon before they finally set off westwards.

Linlithgow lay half-way to Stirling, in the rolling West Lothian country-side. Villiers rode fast now, on his magnificent grey—although, not knowing the roads, he was dependent on John for frequent directions. They went by the Waters of Leith and Almond to Kirkliston and Niddry Seton. There was no great sign of horse-droppings on the roadways and tracks, as there would have been had a large cavalcade passed that way, so presumably the royal party had followed another route, probably by Dalmeny and the Queen's Ferry and Abercorn. They went in the main without conversation, neither finding the other's company to his taste.

That is, until the smoke of Linlithgow town appeared rising before them out of its green hollow cradling the loch. Then, slackening pace somewhat, Buckingham allowed the other to draw alongside on the crest of the grassy ridge.

"No need to tell His Majesty, Stewart, of my circumstances. This morning. He would scarce . . . understand." "Perhaps not."

"It was but a, a mischance. Last night. I do not recollect just how it came about. I was making for Holyrood, you understand, when those wenches accosted me. They, they dragged me inside. I was not, ah, myself."

"To be sure, my lord. It might happen to anyone! Say no more."

"So long as His Majesty is not troubled with it. . ."

The grey town in the hollow, strung round the south shore of the loch, was buzzing like a beehive disturbed when they clattered down into its long and narrow single street. The King and his entourage were already up at the palace apparently and their retainers and men-at-arms were making the most of Linlithgow's amenities.

The two young men trotted uphill to the handsome brown-stone palace on its green mound above the waterside, birthplace of James's ill-fated and beautiful mother Mary. They learned that the meal provided by the magistrates was already proceeding in the great banqueting-hall. Some sort of recitation, from an extraordinary figure in the centre of the hall, was going on as they entered.

Recitation or none, James greeted his Steenie like a ewe-lamb rescued from the slaughter, positively drooling over him and calling on all to rejoice with him. Pushing aside the Provost of Linlithgow, sitting on his right, he made a place there for the prodigal. John Stewart was ignored, and went to seek a modest place at the foot of the hall. However, Mary Gray signalled for him to come and sit beside her and the Countess of Mar, the Duke being placed up at the King's left-hand, as usual.

"You found his estray, then," his mother said. "And small thanks you get! Our liege-lord has been like a mother bereft. We might as well have been riding to a burial!"

"Now perhaps James will be able to pay some heed to this oddity," the Countess observed, referring to the teetering figure enclosed in the plaster-cast of a ramping lion, clutching a paper in one paw and most apparently uncertain whether to proceed or to retire, whilst the monarch fed his favourite with titbits from his own platter.

John consumed the viands brought him, in more humdrum fashion.

Presently the reciter tried again, at a sign from the Provost, with the King now sitting back, although still with an arm round Buckingham's shoulder, and straightening his high hat:

"Thrice Royal Sir, here
i
do you beseech,

Who art a Lion, to hear a Lion's speech,"

came forth from the red-painted jaws in a distinctly high-pitched and squeaky voice.

"A miracle—for since the days of Aesop

No Lion t
ill these times his voice dared raise up;

To such a Majesty, thou King of men

The King of Beasts speaks thee from his den,

Though he now enclosed be in plaster.

When he was free was Lithgow's wise Schoolmaster."

A somewhat falsetto roar ended this peroration and for a moment or two there was an agonised silence. Then James nodded his head and waved his wine-cup at the perpetrator.

"Aye. Felicitous. Maist callidatious," he approved.
"Ars celare artem,
as we might say.
Curiosa
felicitas
—eh, Steenie?

Mind, yon Aesop, or mair correctly Aesopus, wasna the true begettor o' the Lion fabulosity—yon was an Egyptian by name o' Lokman, centuries before. You, a schoolmaister, should ha' kent that, man. But och, we'll owerlook it. Guid kens I've heard worse harangs in my day! Your name, schoolmaister?"

"Wiseman, Sire—James Wiseman."

"Ha—is that a fact? James the Wiseman—then we hae something in common, eh?" Majesty hooted laughter, and looked round for approval. Everybody dutifully applauded.

As Master Wiseman sought to bow himself out, backwards, a difficult manoeuvre for an upright plaster lion, the King abruptly shouted for him to halt, declaring that he desired to see how the creature was fabricated. Getting to his feet, and pulling up Steenie with him, although he was by no means finished eating, he used the youth's shoulder as a support to totter round the top-table and down the hall to examine the plasterwork. At this uprising of the monarch, of course, everyone else had to stand also, whatever the state of their platters.

A cursory inspection of the lion, with some acid comments on the workmanship and, as so often, James suddenly had had enough. Turning, he beckoned the Provost, told him that he had to get to Stirling, near-on twenty more miles and he had no more time to waste. He thereupon stumped for the door to the courtyard.

Great was the disarray behind him.

It seemed to take a long time to reach Stirling. For a couple of hours, indeed, the magnificent bulk of its castle, the strongest fortress in all Scotland, rose dramatically out of the littoral plain before them, seeming to get little nearer. Horses and riders were tired now, of course, over thirty miles from Edinburgh; and the midday feasting, although welcomed, had not been conducive to hard riding thereafter. Of all the great company the King himself was one of the most spry, for however odd-looking an equestrian, he greatly enjoyed horsemanship and could ride all day without tiring of it. Not all his court felt likewise.

Passing the pows or pools of Forth at Bannockburn, those forward enough to hear were treated to a royal lecture on that great battle, the strategy and tactics and the consequent entire eclipse of the English; also the speaker's step-by-step descent from the victorious Bruce, the hero-king. When England's Lord Chamberlain, the Earl of Pembroke, feeling his years perhaps, had the temerity to point out that his liege must also be descended from the loser, Edward the Second, or he would not be sitting on the English throne, he was left in no doubt that such comments were uncalled for, and that, besides, any unfortunate Plantagenet blood had been well and truly affused and diluted in the more wholesome fluid of Stewart, Douglas, Drummond, Guise, even a droppie of Tudor—although that was in fact the good Welsh name of Theodore, let none forget. Having made this clear, the monarch set off at his fastest the remaining two miles to Stirling.

So it was a distinctly strung-out and straggling company which entered Scotland's most significant town, and arguably its true capital, at the first crossing of Forth, in the centre of the land, where Highlands and Lowlands met, where more royal events had taken place, more parliaments been held and more blood spilled than anywhere else in the kingdom. Cannon-fire from the castle greeted their arrival, to groans from many, James himself in two minds whether to approve of Johnny Mar's enthusiasm or to deplore his foster-brother's waste of good powder before he himself could expend it.

Stirling's streets climbed even more steeply and consistently than Edinburgh's, although there were not so many of them. There were no triumphal arches and spectacles here, for this was only a necessary halt in passage, as it were, dictated by the crossing of Forth and James's dislike of salt-water travel. The main visit to Stirling would be on their return journey. This had been devised in order to allow the Earl of Mar, who had travelled north with the King and who was hereditary keeper here, time to organise special and suitable reception and entertainment. After all, this was where James had been brought up, in the Mar household.