Mail Royal

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

A casket of incriminating letters from Mary, Queen of Scots. The letters would be an instrument of persuasion - or blackmail as others might call it. Whoever held them had a hold over the James VI King of Scots, now also King James I of England. But for Andrew, seventh Lord Gray, laying hands on the letters was not going to be easy. They were secure in the half-ruined Fast Castle that clung to the sea-cliffs of Berwickshire. A castle that no one could enter if they were not welcome. And so young David Gray, his bastard nephew, was sent on a perilous mission . . . 'Through his imaginative dialogue, he provides a voice for Scotland's heroes' Scotland on Sunday

Release date: September 13, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 320

Sample

The three Grays eyed each other doubtfully, more than doubtfully, suspiciously. At least the two younger looked suspicious, whilst their elder’s handsome features reflected an unusual admixture of aggression and pleading.

“This is a great matter, something vital for me and for our house,” Andrew, seventh Lord Gray repeated. “If it is not put to rights it could mean near ruin. For us all.” It was at the youngest that he looked hopefully.

“Why me?” David Gray wondered. “I am nobody. I do not know the King. Nor London. If you will not, cannot, do it yourself, my lord, Patrick would make a deal better envoy than would I.”

“Not for me.” Patrick, Master of Gray shook his good-looking head definitely. “This whole matter stinks in the nostrils! I want no part in it.”

“More fool you, then!” his father jerked. “For it could mean riches for you, or penury. Do not forget it.”

Patrick shrugged. He and his sire did not get on.

Lord Gray, frowning, looked at David again. “You, at least, are in no position to be so nice, Davie,” he said significantly.

That young man schooled his attractive features, finely wrought but notably far from effeminate, to show little of the resentment he felt. He was used to doing that. They were a well-made, well-favoured lot, these Grays – as they ought to have been, since they were the son and two grandsons of the famous or notorious Master of Gray, who had been, amongst his other claims to renown, reputed the handsomest man in Europe.

“King James must be made to change his mind,” Lord Gray went on. “Down in that London he knows and cares little for what goes on in his ancient kingdom, I think. He must be taught that Scotland’s sheriffdoms are not for disposal to his London favourites!”

“How can I teach His Grace anything? Or even get sufficiently close to him to speak? I, the bastard grandson of a man he hated!” David demanded. “I am but a land-agent, a steward. I have never been to court, know not how to behave at court, know none there. This is not for me, my lord.”

“Not for yourself, Davie, no. But armed with what I hope to give you – that will be different. These letters, I am convinced, are the key. The weakness in James’s armour, King or none. With them, or the threat of them, you can open the doors.”

“Then why not yourself, Uncle? You, a Scots lord, could appear at court in London, as of right, seek audience with King James, speak with him as I can not.”

“It is not suitable, Davie. Cannot you see it? Appearances must be maintained. I cannot enter the King’s presence and threaten him with these letters, a lord of parliament and royal representative for Angus. Forby, I am the son of the man who, as Master of Gray, was his great enemy. It cannot be me.”

“This of threatening the King. Is it not treason, in itself? Could I not find myself in the Tower of London?”

“Not with what you will have to hold over him. These letters. If we can but lay hold of them.”

The two younger men exchanged glances.

“These letters,” Patrick said. “You say that you have never seen them. How can you know that they are so . . . potent?”

“I know that my father used them until his very death. To gain advantage, aye and moneys, from the King. However much he was hated. They are sufficiently important for that.”

“What are they? Whose letters?” David asked. “How can mere letters be of such import? May it not be but some old tale?”

“No tale, no. We would not be sitting here in Broughty Castle now, I think, but for these letters.”

“The King’s own?”

“No, not as I have heard it. My father never told me. He was entirely close on this matter – as on others. He but said that they meant much to James Stewart. Enough to provide himself with royal sustenance all his days – or leastways, after he fell out with the King in 1603 when James went to London, to succeed English Elizabeth Tudor.”

“But you, my lord, do not have those letters now?”

“No, but I know where they are.”

“Then why this mystery?” Patrick demanded. “Why this need for us? Or for one of us. Why not get them, read them, so that we know what we are at?”

“Because, Pate, although I know where they are, I might find it difficult to lay hands on them. I have known for many years, but wanted nothing to do with them, well content to let them be. As with so much of my father’s affairs. But now, it is different. The King gives my sheriffdom to another, and for no good reason. I have done him no hurt. No doubt in memory of that George Home he doted on, whom he made Earl of Dunbar. For it is another Home, one of Dunbar’s bastards, who is to be the new Sheriff of Angus – or so I have heard. Some Border kin of his, some cut-throat moss-trooper, not even an Angus man! So now I must defend myself as best I can against a prince who misgoverns and surrounds himself with rogues. Aye, and who hates this house.”

Although David Gray questioned much about this entire affair, he did not question the seriousness of his uncle’s complaint, the extent of his loss, even if treason seemed over-much as a remedy and reprisal; and admittedly a treason committed against a monarch who now lived and ruled over England, the Auld Enemy, was hardly to be equated with real treason committed by Scots in and against the Scots throne. To be Sheriff of Angus meant a great deal more than being merely the King’s chief justice and enforcer of the law in that great shire. It meant responsibility for all taxation – and a percentage of commission on all moneys collected; the holding, protection and dues from markets held in the city of Dundee and other towns, and the harbour-fees of its port; the authority to levy fines and tribute and to requisition armed support from lords and lairds; and much else. So there was a great deal at stake here: money, influence, power. Safe to say that all the revenues of the large estates of the lordship of Gray did not produce half the wealth that was derived from the sheriffdom, hereditary in the Gray family until now.

“You wish to obtain these letters, my lord. To whom do they belong? And where are they?”

“They belong, I must believe, to myself, as heir to my father. In that they were his – or at least in his possession when he died, and for long before. And they are at Fast Castle.”

“Fast! Fast, on the Merse coast? That cliff-side hold of the Homes?” David looked incredulous.

“This same. An ill place, of bad repute. But there, yes.”

“But why? Why there? In a Home house. If they belonged to my late Lord Patrick?” David never liked to call his grandfather that in front of his legitimate descendants.

“My father, I must believe, considered them to be safest there. It is one of the most secure holds in all Scotland. Logan of Restalrig had it – his father had married the Home heiress. Now, with Logan dead and his estates forfeited, it has reverted to the Homes, although it is part ruinous, I hear, and they do not use it. See you, these letters, so potent as they must be, would be much sought after. If my father could all but hold the King to ransom over them, then you may be sure that James would make every endeavour to lay hands on them, over the years. Therefore they would have to be hidden most securely, where the King’s men could never get at them. I know of no house where they would be safer. None can gain entry to Fast, by land or sea, if they are not wanted.”

“And yet you expect Davie to go there and get them?” Patrick said. He made no pretence now of considering himself as a possible retriever of the said letters. “How do you know that they are at Fast?”

“My father revealed it once, two or three years before he died. In my presence – indeed here in this room. That would be some ten years ago. One of his minions had come to him from London, bringing news of the court. He ever wished to know all that went on there. This man told him that George Home, then one of the King’s favourites, had been given the English Order of the Garter and created Earl of Dunbar, and was being sent back to Scotland to be Commissioner of the Border; that was when he hanged the one hundred and forty Border thieves and rievers. Although few of his fellow-Home thieves, I warrant, the worst of the lot! My father, hearing it, slapped his knee and laughed aloud. He declared that if Geordie Home knew that he was safely hiding the Casket Letters in his castle of Fast, he would die a well-deserved death – if the King did not hang him first! I well remember his unholy glee.”

David shook his head helplessly, no glee evident. “You want me to go to this Fast and get these letters? How do I gain entry, if it is so secure? And how to obtain the letters?”

“You will have to use your wits. I am told that there is only one old man and his wife roosting there these days. Somehow you must persuade him to let you in. Use some excuse. Pay him, if need be. I will give you some siller. Once inside, it may not be so difficult to find the letters. They will be hidden, yes. But it is not a large house. The keeper will not know of them. None would know of them, where they are, save my father and Logan – and they are both dead. They will be in their silver casket . . .”

“And you think, my lord, that even if I win into this hold, and find them, that this keeper will let me take away a casket of silver full of papers? Me, a complete stranger!”

“You will say that they belong to you. Or to me, the Lord Gray. The old man will have known my father, or leastways heard of him, for he was often at Fast.”

“And if he does not let me take them – as it seems to me likely?”

“Then, if the siller does not serve, try steel! Threaten him with your dirk, man! He is old and should not be beyond your powers to convince, Davie!”

Patrick hooted a laugh, the first amusement of that interview. “I can see our Davie brandishing naked steel in Fast Castle!”

“That I shall not do! I, I mislike this matter, from start to finish, my lord.”

“Nevertheless, you will do as I say, Davie,” his uncle said thinly. “Or you will suffer my displeasure. And require to seek other employment! You are my land-steward, employed to see to my interests. This is very much my interest. Refuse to do it and I must seek another steward.” Lord Gray changed his tone somewhat. “See you, Davie, you do not lack wits. You have more than most in our family, I think; more than Pate here, I swear! Use them in this matter – for the benefit of us all, yourself included.”

David made a last effort. “My lord, must you have these letters? Hold them? If Lord Patrick could use them in his hold over the King all those years, without the King ever seeing them, then could not you? If you but refer to them, in a letter of your own to King James, then he will know sufficiently well what you are about, this threat that you can hold over him. Do you need the letters themselves, in this?”

“I do, yes. I am not my father, see you. I must know what is in those letters before I can use them as he did: to effect. He knew all the King’s weakness and business. He had been close to him all his days. I do not. Without knowing, I could not say what was needed to James Stewart, by letter or by your speaking. He is no fool, mind – although the French have called him the Wisest Fool in Christendom – he would soon know. Recognise that I was assailing him out of ignorance. No, I need those letters.”

David sighed. “I cannot think that laying hands on them will be easy.”

“Easy or not you must get them, Davie. I rely on you. And when you do, you will not go unrewarded, I promise you. So, you will go. And at once.”

“At once . . .?”

“To be sure. There is no time to be lost. This new Home interloper – Sir Thomas Home of Primroknowe he is styled – is nominated by King James to be Heritable Sheriff of Angus. But he is not yet installed. He must not be. Once installed and sworn before the Scots Privy Council, he will be much the harder to unseat, if at all. I want those letters quickly. So be you off tomorrow.”

Patrick rose. “I wish you well, Cousin!” he grinned.

Lord Gray had the final word. “On your way to Fast, Davie, go you and see my great-aunt, Anne. At Aberlady on the Lothian coast. She is married to Patrick Douglas of Kilspindie there. She is none so old, although my father’s aunt – younger than he was. She lives some thirty miles from Fast. She it was told me of the situation there now. She knows the Homes, although does not love them; the Douglases and the Homes have always fought. Anne Douglas might well give you good guidance.”

Scarcely grateful even for that crumb of comfort, David took his leave.

Broughty Castle, a massive and tall gaunt fortalice, stood on a projecting rocky promontory at the narrowest point of the Firth of Tay, where it was only one mile across to the Fife shore, yet only three more miles to the mouth, and the same distance east of the city of Dundee – a highly convenient situation, given the requirements and interests of the Lords Gray. Soaring to five storeys and a garret within its high courtyard walling, it frowned down on the humble converted stabling which comprised the offices and home, such as it was, of David Gray, illegitimate son of Lord Gray’s younger and disreputable brother, another Patrick, who had died young and unmarried. His mother, a dairy-maid on the Broughty farm-demesne, had died at the child’s birth; so David had had but a doubtful start in life, much looked down upon, despite the fact that he had royal blood in his veins. For his grandmother had been the Lady Mary Stewart, called after her aunt the hapless Queen, daughter of Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney, one of James the Fifth’s many bastards. So, in fact, David Gray was in cousinship to the present monarch in London, James the Sixth and First, whatever illegitimacy intervening, since the King’s uncle had been his great-grandfather. Not that this was apt to preoccupy him in any degree.

Oddly enough, that next morning, David set out from Broughty, not exactly in holiday mood and anything but hopeful as to the outcome of his mission, but appreciative of a fine June morning, the fair scene around him, the distant high hills of Strathmore on one side and the sparkling firth on the other, with the lightsome feeling of freedom from daily tasks upon him, a change in the dullish routine of duty. He did not dislike nor resent being a land-steward, and indeed found certain satisfactions in the farming aspects of his duties in particular; but it was not the life he would have chosen had there been any choice in the matter. To be riding free for a few days would make a pleasant change, whatever awaited him in this strange quest.

Leaving Dod Carnegie, his farm-grieve and deputy, with his instructions, David led his horse out of the high-walled, gun-loop-pierced courtyard, without mounting. There was no point in mounting, for the fortified gateway opened directly on to the stone jetty which jutted out from Broughty Craig, where the ferry-boats were tied up, an unusual site for a powerful lord’s castle. But a very useful and profitable site. For none could use the ferry over to Fife, or back, without paying toll to Lord Gray; and since he owned the ferry-boats also, and there was no other crossing of the firth for a dozen miles and more, there was very considerable advantage in it, especially with the city of Dundee so close at hand. Not only that, but judiciously placed cannon on Broughty Castle and on a suitably placed small fort opposite at the Fife terminal, at Ferry-Port-on-Craig, could all but close the entire firth to shipping, a notable convenience at times, ensuring that all Dundee’s harbour-dues were always paid. Supervising this ferry service was one of David’s many responsibilities.

He led his mount down on to the first ferry-scow, where already sundry other passengers waited. He was respectfully greeted as he gave orders at once to cast off.

David chatted companionably to the crew and fellow-travellers as the eight oarsmen put out their long sweeps and started to pull, for he was of a friendly nature – too friendly, according to his uncle and lord; in his position sterner attitudes were allegedly required.

It did not take long to cross the seven furlongs of water to the green shores of Fife, where a small crowd was waiting, for this the first ferry of the day, to visit the market at Dundee. Waving to all, David mounted his roan, to head due southwards. By taking that route he was going to save scores of miles of riding, by the Howe of Fife, Kinross, Queen Margaret’s Ferry and Edinburgh.

His way lay through the pleasant rolling north Fife countryside, by Scotscraig, Leuchars and Bishop Wardlaw’s Bridge over the Eden. Thereafter, skirting to the west of St Andrews, up till sixty years before the religious metropolis of Scotland, he rode on by Strathkinness, climbing somewhat now, and over the moorland plateau of this eastern end of the great peninsula, by Lathockar and the heights of Kellie Law, Arncroach and Kilconquhar. Now, with twenty-odd miles behind him, he was confronted with the mouth of the wide estuary of Forth, so much broader than that of Tay, all aglitter in the midday sunlight.

He was making for another ferry, the Earl’s Ferry at Elie, a very different undertaking from that at Broughty, less of a commercial venture. It had been instituted, as its name implied, by the ancient Celtic Earls of Fife as a convenient short-cut for themselves and their servants between their Fife territories and their lands in Lothian, to save them the seventy-five miles detour round the Forth. Later it had been much used and indeed maintained by the ecclesiastics of St Andrews, who required to visit the great Church lands and abbeys in the south of Scotland. Since the Reformation, it was much less used, reduced to only the one vessel, but still functioning, one double voyage daily.

Unfortunately, David arrived at Elie less than an hour after the day’s service had departed; he could see the ferry-boat a mile or two out in the firth, still with eight or nine miles to cover to its destination at North Berwick on the Lothian shore, near the majestic towering Craig of Bass, which even from here dominated the scene. He had been told that the boat sailed at noon each day, and he had timed his arrival to catch it; presumably he had been misinformed. There was nothing for it but to wait, to kick his heels until the next day, for although he might have hired a fishing-coble and crew to put him across the ten or eleven miles, such craft could not have taken his horse.

He filled in time by taking a swim from the golden sands which fringed all this coast, finding the water chilly but refreshing after his riding; and then searching for rubies, or garnets, along the shore of the bay famed for these gemstones. He did find one or two tiny, gleaming fragments, producing a satisfaction out of all proportion to their worth. Then, on a warm sand-dune, gazing out to the Isle of May, where an enterprising Cunningham laird at Crail was maintaining – at a fee paid by the merchant guilds of the many Fife ports – the beacon lit each night on that dangerous island to warn shipping entering the firth, a safety measure hitherto provided free of charge by Holy Church, the first such in all Scotland, he considered the weighty implications of this, and fell asleep.

That night, he put up in the former hospice, established by the Church for travellers, but now run for profit as an inn – which led to further meditation on the alleged reforms of the Reformation.

Next noon he duly caught the daily ferry, and had to pay sweetly for his passage across those miles of the estuary. He was a good Protestant, but . . .

At the North Berwick haven he learned the reason for the different timings of the ferry-crossings. The harbour on this side was tidal, and dried out at low water, so access by larger vessels had to be adjusted accordingly.

Although Fast Castle lay south-by-east of North Berwick by at least twenty-five miles, David turned his horse’s head westwards. Aberlady, where he was advised to call upon the Lady Kilspindie, was some six miles distant in that direction, on the shores of its great bay. David had never visited here.

This coastline, with its offshore islets, sandy beaches, dunes and small cliffs, he found much to his taste. At the village of Gullane he found more echoes of the reforming zeal of sixty years before, in the fine Priory of St Andrew abandoned and ruinous, even the parish church which had succeeded it removed, at King James’s personal orders, to the neighbouring village of Dirleton, leaving the Gullane villagers with a two-mile walk to worship. Yet this had been an important religious centre since Knights Templar times, with its Provost, eight collegiate priests and many subsidiary chapels around, all swept away in the name of reform.

Beyond Gullane, the bay of Aberlady opened vastly, fifteen hundred acres of tidal sands and mud-flats, all covered at high tide, with far behind the crouching-lion-like outline of Edinburgh’s lofty Arthur’s Craig beginning to hold the eye. On the far side of the bay, quite close to the tide’s edge, rose the Douglas castle of Kilspindie. Behind it, oddly enough on higher ground and almost more prominent, was the ancient red-stone tower of the parish church of Aberlady, battlemented and loop-holed, looking quite as fortified as the castle itself. This one at least had escaped the reformers’ efforts.

Rounding the head of the bay and having to splash across the ford at the mouth of the Peffer Bum, David came to Kilspindie – and saw that it occupied a stronger site than its level sea-shore position might have indicated. This because a canal had been cut from the beach, so that the tide could flow further inland for about two hundred yards, in the style of a great mill-lade, to surround the castle with a protective belt of bog and marsh, the level of which could be controlled by a kind of lock-gate, raised or lowered. A drawbridge across the moat formed gave access.

To say that David was warmly welcomed by his great-great-aunt and her husband would be an exaggeration. He meant nothing to them, the Gray connection unimportant now anyway. In her brother’s time it had been different, when the Master of Gray had all but ruled Scotland, indeed had been acting Chancellor or chief minister for a while. But they accepted the young man and offered refreshment.

In the circumstances David came quickly to the reason for his visit. He desired to go to Fast Castle and gain entry, and Lord Gray had suggested that the Lady Kilspindie might advise him on this.

Extraordinary was the effect of that name, Fast, on both of his hosts. The Douglases were suddenly guarded but interested, more than interested.

David sought to be careful as to what he said. He had to mention the letters, for he knew of no other excuse for Grays to wish to enter Fast; but he did not say that it was to enable his uncle to blackmail King James. However, Patrick Douglas said it for him, a grey-haired, stooping, hawk-like character, apt grandson of the notorious Greysteel Douglas of Kilspindie, who had helped to terrorise young James the Fifth.

“So Gray wants the Casket Letters? No doubt to use them as did his father to coerce King Jamie! It will be over this new Home appointment to his sheriffdom?” The Douglas was seemingly as well-informed as he was shrewd.

“What my lord requires these letters for is no concern of mine,” David averred. “But it is the letters, yes, that I go to seek.”

“And think to lay hands on, laddie? I would not wager on your success!”

“I must try. That is why I am here. My lord believes that you might advise me.”

“My advice to you is to go back to Broughty Castle and tell Gray to forget it,” the other said grimly. “Fast is not for breaking into! Others have tried that, with troops and cannon and ships, and have failed. Have you ever seen the place?”

“No, sir. But I must make the attempt.”

The lady, handsome still, like all the Grays, was somewhat more helpful. “Let him try, Pate. Or my nephew will not look kindly on him. Nor on us.”

“My lord says that there is but one old man and his wife in charge there now?”

“So we hear, yes. But if he denies you entry, as is likely, you will nowise get in.”

“Then I must seek to sweeten him. Or threaten him!”

“Threaten him with what?” Douglas demanded. “He is not King Jamie, with secrets to hide! He will but piss at you, laddie!”

Lady Kilspindie frowned at such vulgarity.

“This old man, the keeper – he does not own the castle?” David asked. “Who does? The laird might be more helpful.”

“A Home?” Douglas all but spat. “Whom have the Homes ever helped but themselves!”

“My older sister married Robert Logan of Restalrig, whose father had won the place by marrying the Home heiress. But when Logan died, and his estates were forfeited for his crimes, Agnes married the fifth Lord Home, and so the Homes got Fast back. Now a grandson of that lord, Alexander Home, Laird of Bilsdean, owns Fast. So he is in fact near kin to me, but . . .” She glanced at her husband. “We have no dealings with him.”

“Nor shall we!” Douglas barked. “I want naught to do with that false house. No wonder that they named their robbers’ hold Fast, or False!”

David had been warned that the Douglases and the Homes were ever enemies. “False . . .?” he wondered. “Another Home hold?”

“No – the same. Have you never heard, man? Fast is but a Scots rendering of the French faux, false. They named it that, in their coarse arrogance, because it was used as a wreckers’ hold. For the deliberate wrecking of ships. It is halfway down cliffs, on a savage, rock-bound coast. They used it to hang lanterns down the cliff, on chains, two of them apart, to seem like the entrance lights to a haven, in the darkness. False lamps. And they had horses led along the cliff-tops, with lanterns tied to them, to lure ships on and in. So that the ships struck on the rocks of the shore, and they could rob the wrecks. And slay the survivors, if any! I told you – Homes! Barbarians!”

David stared.

“Not all of them, Pate,” his wife protested. “Sandy Home, my good-brother, was no wrecker.”

“He was little better. He was in Elizabeth Tudor’s pay, and sold his Queen, Mary, to the English.”

David recollected that the Douglas Earl of Morton, another of the Protestant Lords of the Congregation, had done the same; but he discreetly did not say so. “Laird of Bilsdean, you say, sir? Home of Bilsdean? He now owns Fast. Is it near?”

Lady Kilspindie answered him. “Bilsdean lies this side of the Fast, seven or eight miles. Near Dunglass. You will pass it on your way there, after Dunbar. But I cannot think that Alexander Home will give you any joy.”

“More like take a whip to you!” her husband jerked.

Scarcely heartened by all this, David changed the subject somewhat. “These letters in this casket – do you know what they are? What is in them that makes them so . . . valuable?”

“None knows for sure, I think,” Douglas said. “I may know more than most, probably – which is why Gray sent you here, I jalouse. For my kinsman, Morton, held them for a while when he was Regent of this realm. On his death, Robert, Earl of Orkney got them, the Queen’s half-brother. When he died, his son Patrick of Orkney inherited them, and used them against the King – this was partly why he was taken and executed for treason. Since your rascally grandsire, the Master of Gray, had a hand in bringing that about, as so much else, he acquired the Casket Letters, but kept them secure at Fast, then his cousin Logan’s house. They are believed to be there still.”

“And their importance, sir?”

“They are Mary the Queen’s letters. Written by her to Bothwell, before she wed him. Indiscreet letters, love-letters. And poems, Morton said, which she composed for Bothwell. Likewise less than . . . modest. Or so he told me.”

“And is that so grievous? To so alarm her son, King James?”

“Some of them are said to show that she knew of the plan to slay her husband, Darnley, the present King’s father, at Kirk o’ Field, in Edinburgh. And connived at it. Copies to that effect were made, and used at her trial in England, by Elizabeth, to condemn her. Accusing her of being art and part in murder.”

“Copies – or forgeries!” his wife put in.

Douglas shrugged. “Who knows! Whatever, they served their turn! And the letters served your nephew to coerce the King thereafter.”

“I still do not see why,” David insisted. “That was all nothing to do with James. He was born before Darnley’s death. Crowned king before Mary fled to England, after she abdicated in his favour. What is so damning for him? They say that he never loved his mother, never really knew her, reared apart from her, of set purpose. Why should he pay anyone to keep these letters secret now?”

Again Patrick Douglas shrugged, offering no explanation.

Recognising that he had probably got all that he was going to get out of these two, David thanked them and soon thereafter sought his couch, little the wiser.

In the morning, taking his leave and accorded little in the way of well-wishing, he rode back eastwards along that coast, almost wishing that he was indeed going home to Broughty, whatever his reception there. At North Berwick, however, he turned southwards, a