Past Master

by Nigel Tranter

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction

Synopsis

Past Master tells the story of Patrick, Master of Gray, in the era of Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots, and of his remarkable daughter Mary. With the end of Elizabeth I's long reign in sight, Patrick, Master of Gray, is determined that James VI should succeed to the English throne. Nothing can be allowed to stand in his way - not even his own daughter's happiness. And so Mary Gray and her lover, Ludovick, Duke of Lennox, are to be caught up in a savage game of power politics, shaped by personal ambition and religious bigotry. '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: 414

Sample

In Order of Appearance

(Fictional characters printed in italics)

Robert Logan of Restalrig: Adventurer; cousin of the Master of Gray.

Mary Gray: illegitimate daughter, publicly unacknowledged, of the Master of Gray.

Ludovick, 2nd Duke of Lennox; second cousin of King James and near heir to the throne. Lord High Admiral of Scotland.

Patrick, Master of Gray: son and heir of 5th Lord Gray former Master of the Wardrobe, Sheriff of Forfar and acting Chancellor of Scotland. Condemned for treason, banished 1587, returned two years later, again fled country 1591.

King James the Sixth of Scots: son of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Lord Darnley. Contender for the throne of England to succeed Elizabeth.

John Erskine, Earl of Mar: Keeper of Stirling Castle; boyhood companion of the King.

Lord Robert Stewart, Earl of Orkney: one of King James the Fifth’s many bastard sons. Former Bishop of Orkney, uncle of the King and father of Lady Marie, Mistress of Gray.

Queen Anne: formerly Princess of Denmark, wife to King James Sixth.

John Maitland, Lord Thirlestane: Chancellor of Scotland.

Master Patrick Galloway: a prominent minister of the Kirk.

Master Andrew Melville: Moderator of the General Assembly, Rector of St. Andrews University; Kirk leader.

William Douglas, 6th Earl of Morton: a powerful nobleman.

Francis Hepburn Stewart: Earl of Bothwell: son of one more of James the Fifth’s bastards, and nephew of Mary Queen of Scots’ third husband, Bothwell.

Henry Frederick, Prince of Scotland: infant son of James and Anne. Died young.

George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal: Hereditary Marshal of Scotland.

Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll: Chief of Clan Campbell, Justiciar of the West.

Master James Melville: nephew to Andrew Melville; a prominent divine.

The Lady Marie Stewart: wife of the Master of Gray.

David Gray: illegitimate eldest son of the 5th Lord Gray, half-brother of the Master; land steward and schoolmaster.

Sir Lachlan Mor Maclean: Highland chief and famous fighter.

Donald MacDonald, 10th Captain of Clanranald: important Highland chief.

Sir Christopher St. Lawrence: one of Queen Elizabeth’s sailors.

Donald Gorm MacDonald of Sleat: leader of the Clan Donald Confederacy, claimant to the Lordship of the Isles.

Sir George Home: a favourite of King James, later Earl of Dunbar.

Sir George Nicolson: English envoy at the Court of Scotland.

The Lady Jean Campbell, Mistress of Eglinton: later Duchess of Lennox.

Patrick, 5th Lord Gray: the Master’s father.

James Elphinstone: one of the Octavians; 4th son of 3rd Lord Elphinstone; later Secretary of State, and Lord Balmerino.

The Lady Henrietta Stewart, Countess of Huntly: sister of Duke of Lennox; wife of the Earl of Huntly.

John Ruthven, 3rd Earl of Gowrie: a young nobleman, Rector of University of Padua, son of former Lord Treasurer.

Alexander Ruthven, Master of Gowrie: brother of above.

Sir Thomas Erskine: a courtier, kinsman of Earl of Mar; later Lord Erskine of Dirleton.

John Ramsay; a favourite page; later Sir John.

Dr Hugh Herries: the King’s physician. Created Sir Hugh Herries of Cousland.

Patrick Leslie, Lord Lindores: a courtier.

Andrew Henderson: chamberlain to the Earl of Gowrie.

Sir Thomas Hamilton: (Tam o’ the Cowgate) Lord Advocate, later Earl of Haddington.

Sir Robert Carey: English courtier, son of Lord Hunsdon, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth.

Sir Charles Percy: brother of the Earl of Northumberland.

The servant, intending to show the hulking, travel-stained visitor into the lesser hall of Methven Castle, was shouldered roughly aside, and throwing the door wide, the newcomer stamped within, tossing his sodden cloak to the other and shaking the raindrops from his half-armoured person like a dog. Robert Logan of Restalrig was not the man to stand on ceremony, even with dukes.

A few strides inside, and he halted on the deer-skin strewed floor, to stare past the young woman who seemed to be that pleasant and comfortable room’s sole occupant, peering into the corners already shadowed by the early February dusk of a wet day, as though he would root out, with his keen glance, anyone lurking therein.

Calmly the girl considered him, as she stood, a slight but shapely figure, beside the wide open fireplace where the birch logs sizzled and spluttered beneath the great stone-carved coat-of-arms.

‘Well, sir,’ she greeted him evenly. ‘So it is you! Not a messenger from the King’s Grace.’

The newcomer dismissed that with a flick of the wrist. device, no more,’ he jerked. ‘To gain entry without names. I do not want my name shouted the length and breadth of Strathearn, lassie. H’mm,’ he coughed. ‘Mary? Mistress? Or my lady? How do I call you, these days?’

‘Mary Gray will serve very well, sir,’ she answered him coolly. ‘But Mistress if you prefer it – since mistress is a true description of my situation. What may I do for you?’

‘He’s no’ here? Where is he, lassie? Lennox. The Duke. Where is he?’

‘My lord Duke is from home, sir.’

‘Fiend take him, then! I’ve ridden far and fast to see him. And secretly. Where is he, Mary?’

She did not answer at once, considering him closely, thoughtfully, with her lovely dark eyes. She was very lovely altogether, that young woman, with an elfin fine-wrought beauty of feature, a slender but full-breasted figure, and a natural grace of carriage and inborn serenity of bearing which was as disturbing as it was fascinating to men.

‘What is your business with the Duke?’ she asked, at length.

Logan grinned. ‘I said that I came secretly, did I no’? My business is private, lassie. Even from Lennox’s courtesan!’

She nodded, accepting that. ‘You are alone? You seldom ride alone. I think, sir? Usually with a band of cut-throat moss-troopers.’ That was said no less calmly, factually, than the rest.

The man laughed, nowise offended. The Laird of Restalrig indeed was not a man who offended easily – nor could afford to be in sixteenth-century Scotland.

‘No need for my brave lads this journey, Mary. When will Lennox be home? I know that he was here two days back. And that he has not been to Court in Edinburgh since Yule.’ That was sharp.

‘You are well informed, sir. My lord Duke is but at St. John’s town of Perth. He will return tonight. At any hour. He could have been here by this.’

‘Ha! Then I shall await him. Here. In comfort. With your permission, of course, Mistress!’ He chuckled, unbuckling his steel half-armour. ‘You will not deny me some small hospitality, Cousin? To stay a hungry and thirsty man who has ridden ninety miles and more this day. You will pardon my mentioning it – but you show no haste to sustain me!’

‘I have never known your appearance herald aught but ill tidings,’ she answered. But she moved to pull a bell cord hanging amongst the rich arras, to summon a servant.

He laughed again. Logan was a great laugher, an unfailingly cheerful rogue. He sat down on a settle, unbidden, to pull off his great heavy thigh-length riding-boots.

‘You do me injustice, Coz,’ he declared. ‘Often my news is good indeed – for the right folk! As I swear it is on this occasion, lass.’

‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘You are apt to be too close linked to . . . my father!’

He looked up, and his fleering grey-blue eyes met her dark glowing ones. The grin died on his florid fleshy features.

‘I’ph’mmm,’ he said.

The servant reappeared, and was told to bring victuals, cold meats and wine.

The young woman paced over to the rain-blurred window that looked out over the fair prospect of green Strathearn, water-meadows and wide pasture-lands lifting and lifting through rolling foothills to the great heather bastions of the Highland Line, all grey and indistinct today under the thin curtains of the rain.

‘You say that you have ridden ninety miles,’ she said, without looking back. ‘Edinburgh is little more than fifty, from here. So you have not come from Restalrig. Your castle of Fast would be near to ninety, I think. In the Borderland. Near to Berwick.’

‘You are quick,’ he acknowledged.

‘If you come, in haste, and secretly, from that airt, then I cannot but fear the reason for your mission, sir. Vicky . . . the Duke, is not apt to be concerned with doings from those parts. Berwick and the Border only spell trouble. He is not one of those who accept secret doles and gold from Queen Elizabeth!’

‘He is fortunate, no doubt, in not requiring to do so,’ the other said lightly.

‘No man, I think, requires to be a traitor to his country,’ the girl gave back. ‘Even the Master of Gray!’ She turned round to face him. ‘It is he that you came from, is it not? From my father? It is on his behalf?’

Restalrig drew a large hand over his mouth and chin. ‘On whose behalf I come, Cousin, is my affair.’

‘If the matter concerns my father and my . . . concerns the Duke of Lennox, then it concerns me also, sir. Though God knows I want none of it! It is Patrick, is it not? My father?’

‘You are hard on him, lassie. Must you hate him so?’

‘I do not hate him. Would that I could! My sorrow is that I love him still. But his works I hate, yes.’

‘His works are for the good o’ this realm, most times, girl. Statecraft. Patrick Gray can save Scotland. As he has done before. And, Deil kens, Scotland needs saving, in this pass!’

Her sigh had something almost of a shudder behind it. ‘Has it come to this again?’ she cried. ‘So soon!’ It was not often that Mary Gray allowed the tranquil assurance of her demeanour to be disturbed thus. ‘Patrick’s works are evil. You know it. If he seems to save the realm on occasion, it is only for his own ends. And at the cost of untold misery, treachery, deceit. I say better far for the realm not to be saved – not by the Master of Gray!’

He padded across the floor to her in his hose. ‘What so ails you at him, Mary? Has he ever done you hurt? God – I’d say it ill becomes any woman to speak so of her sire! However he conceived her! He loves you well, I swear.’

‘I have told you – I love him also. To my grief, my shame. But I shall never trust him again. I have learned my lesson, learned it sorely but surely. A year ago and more I sent him away. Drove him away. Forced him to leave Scotland . . .’

‘You did? Patrick Gray?’

‘I did.’ She nodded, with a quiet certainty, an authority almost, that sat but strangely on a young woman of only nineteen years. ‘I forced him into exile. Never heed how. When his wickednesses became too great to be borne – even by me, who had condoned so many, God forgive me. When he turned against Vicky. When he would have betrayed the Duke. Who was almost as a son to him. You understand? Understand why I must know what now is toward? I must know.’

The other scratched his head. ‘I canna tell you, lassie . . .’

‘I thought, in my foolishness, that we should have peace from him. From Patrick. From his plots and schemings and treasons. That, banished the realm, he would no more endanger Scotland. Nor Vicky. Nor others. A year ago. Eighteen months. So little a time of peace! And now . . . ! Where is he, sir? Where is my father?’

Logan shrugged. ‘That isna for me to say.’ He turned away – and in doing so his eye took in the significance of a piece of furniture in the shadows to the right of the window. He stepped over to peer down.

‘Ha!’ he exclaimed. ‘What have we here? Guidsakes, girl – what’s this?’

It was a wooden cradle into which he looked. Within it lay a tiny infant that stared up at him with wide dark eyes, silent.

Mary Gray came at once, to kneel down by the cradle and smile into it gently, warmly. ‘That is Johnnie,’ she said, nodding simply but proudly. ‘Johnnie, my heart! My little pigeon! My troutie! Three months old. Is he not an angel from heaven?’

At the change in her, so sudden, so complete, the great hulking man looked almost embarrassed, ill at ease. He grinned, and then guffawed. ‘Shrive me!’ he cried. ‘Some, I’d swear, would call him otherwise!’

She did not look up, nor even alter her tone of voice. ‘The bastard son of a bastard mother?’ she said calmly. ‘That is true. But what of it? He is no less an angel. And he is mine.’

‘And my lord Duke’s!’

‘Why, yes. Of course.’

‘Oooh, aye! Johnnie Gray, eh. My new cousin!’

‘Not so,’ she said. ‘John Stewart. His father would have it so. Bastard he may be, in the eyes of men. But he is John Stewart of Methven also. Already. This castle and all its demesne is settled upon him. John Stewart of Methven, sir – not Johnnie Gray. And the King’s cousin as well as yours!’

‘My God!’ Logan stared at her. ‘Is this truth? You are none so blate, lassie! You do things in style, I’ll say that for you!’

‘There is nothing of my doing in it. All was his father’s doing. On the day after I gave birth, he brought the papers to show me. All signed and witnessed and sealed.’

‘So-o-o!’ Logan looked round him at all the quietly comfortable splendour of that hall. ‘All this is yours! Mary Gray’s. All this – Methven Castle, one of the finest houses in the land. All yours – Davy Gray the land-steward’s brat!’

She shook her dark head. ‘Not mine. His. John Stewart of Methven’s.’

Robert Logan of Restalrig was right about his cousinship. Both cousinships were true, as cousins go in Scotland, a country where clanship was always important. The Lady Agnes Gray, daughter of the fourth Lord Gray, sister of the present Lord and aunt of the Master, his heir, had married Logan’s father. So he was a full cousin of Patrick, Master of Gray, and half-cousin of the latter’s illegitimate daughter Mary. As for Ludovick Stewart, second Duke of Lennox, he was in second-cousinship to King James the Sixth. His father Esmé, the first Duke, was full cousin to Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, who married Mary Queen of Scots and became James’s father. For lack of closer relatives he was accepted as next heir to the throne of the so-far childless monarch.

Servants brought in food and drink for the visitor, who fell to without delay or ceremony. Mary picked the baby out of the cradle and moved about the great room with him in her arms, crooning softly. They made a pleasing picture, the beautiful girl, her exquisite finely-chiselled patrician features flushed with the bloom of tenderness and mother-love, and the solemn great-eyed infant. But Restalrig had no eyes for other than the viands set before him. More than once the young woman paused and looked at him, lips parted to speak, and then moved on again.

The faint sound of clattering hooves and shouting from the courtyard at the other side of the house, turned both their heads. In a few moments the door opened again to admit another man, preceded by two lanky steaming wolf-hounds, soaked and muddy. Long-strided he came across to enfold Mary and the baby in a boyish impetuous embrace without so much as a glance at the visitor – who indeed rose to his feet only belatedly, and still chewing.

The newcomer was a young man, younger-seeming even than his twenty years, of medium height, stocky but markedly upright of bearing, with an open freckled countenance, blunt-featured and pleasantly plain. He could make no claims whatsoever to either good looks or aristocratic distinction – in marked contrast to that of the girl he so eagerly saluted. Carelessly dressed in comfortably old clothing which had never been more than moderately fine – much less fine even than Restalrig’s, who was no dandy – Ludovick Stewart seemed an unlikely character indeed to fill the role of next heir to the throne, second Duke of Lennox, Lord High Chamberlain of Scotland, Commendator-Prior of St. Andrews, Seigneur D’Aubigny of France and former Viceroy of the Realm.

‘We have a guest, Vicky,’ Mary said warningly, wiping a smear of mud from the baby’s face. ‘The Laird of Restalrig – who you will remember, I think. Related to . . . to my family. But here, I understand, for reasons less frank!’

Quickly the young man looked at Logan, and back to the girl. ‘Indeed!’ he said. ‘M’mmm.’

‘My lord Duke,’ Logan said, nodding briefly. ‘Your servant.’

‘And yours, sir.’ Lennox’s manner was civil but stiff wary, and little more courtly than Restalrig’s. ‘I have not seen you for some years, I think.’

‘True, my lord.’ The other grinned. ‘I but little frequent His Grace’s Court, I fear.’

‘That I understand. Myself, I care little for it. But . . . this is a matter of taste. Whereas with you, sir, I believe, it is more than that. The last meeting of the Privy Council which I attended put you to the horn, did it not? For conspiring with the King’s enemies? And declared you rebel also, for robbery, rape and assault, if I remember aright!’

Restalrig’s grin was succeeded by a scowl, and his fleshy jowl thrust forward noticeably. ‘You have a fair memory, my lord Duke. But also, no doubt, some knowledge of the justice of His Grace’s Council! I seem to mind your own self being in trouble with them, two years back, over the Bothwell business! But never heed. It is no matter.’

‘It matters, sir, that a pronounced rebel should be received in my house.’

‘Tcha! I came secretly. None knows that Logan of Restalrig is at Methven. I have word for your private ear.’

‘If it is treasonable word, sir, I had better not hear it.’

‘Treason is a word for clerks and frightened fools! In affairs of the realm, only to lose is treasonable!’

‘He comes on Patrick’s behalf, Vicky, I fear,’ Mary put in, urgently. ‘He will not tell me what it is. But I am sure that it is Patrick again. And if it is, then it is better, I am sure, that you should not hear it. Should not listen to him.’

Frowning, the young man looked from one to the other. ‘Is this true, Restalrig?’ he demanded. ‘That you come on behalf of the Master of Gray?’

‘My instructions are that what I have to say is said in your ear alone, my lord.’

‘Vicky – either do not hear him or let me hear him also! If it is my father’s words he brings to you, then it is my concern. You know it.’

‘This is no women’s business, my lord Duke . . .’

Lennox interrupted him. ‘If I hear you, it is in the Lady Mary’s presence – or not at all, sir. She . . . she is my other self, in all matters.’

The other snorted. ‘God save us!’ But Logan was no fool, and perceiving the expression on the young Duke’s face, he shrugged. ‘Och, well – so be it! If Mistress Gray can hold her tongue . . .’

‘You will refer to her, sir, as the Lady Mary.’

“Ho! I will, will I? Mary Gray, the . . . ! A-well, a-well – if that’s the way o’ it! Aye, then – the lady is right, my lord. I bear you word from Patrick Gray. Privy word. Important word. Word that could hang men . . . and save Scotland.’

‘Where is he? The Master? We heard that he was in London. Then Rome . . .’

‘He is in my house at Fast Castle, my lord.’

Mary and the Duke exchanged glances.

‘Back in Scotland!’ the girl exclaimed. ‘So soon! So near!’ She clutched the baby tighter to her, as at a threat. ‘Endangering his own life. And others’!’

Restalrig barked a laugh. ‘Patrick’s no’ the man to shy at a small whiffle o’ danger! No’ that he’s in danger so long as he bides in Fast. It’ll take more than the Chancellor Maitland and the Council to winkle him out o’ my house! Or King Jamie, either. I’m at the horn, am I no’, and biding there secure? They’ll no’ touch the master o’ Fast Castle. Folk ha’ tried it before this – and learned differently!’

‘You are not in Fast Castle now!’ Lennox reminded.

‘I’ faith – that is true,’ the other nodded. ‘But Patrick is my friend, see you. As well as my cousin. A man must take a risk for his own blood, his friend. Or no?’ He looked from one to the other.

‘What does he want with me?’ Ludovick asked heavily.

‘He wants you, my lord Duke, safe in Fast Castle before the morning’s light.’

‘God in Heaven! Are you mad, man?’

‘Save us all . . .!’

‘With fresh horses, I can have you there before cock-crow. Ninety miles. Hard riding – but you are no shrinking lily, my lord. And I have already ridden that ninety here. None will see you, by night. Ride back tomorrow night. None will know that you have been to Fast.’

‘Why should I do any such thing, sir?’

‘Patrick would speak with you. Urgently. And since he may not come here . . .’

‘But, dear God – I cannot do this! Is he crazed, or you? I am Chamberlain of this realm, one of the King’s ministers. Of his Council. I cannot wait secretly upon one banished the realm as an enemy of the King! It is treason for the Master of Gray to be back in Scotland, at all. For me to ride to him at Fast would be treason likewise. He knows that.’

‘Nevertheless, my lord, that is what he’s sent me to bid you do. He said – “Tell the Duke that the Protestant cause, the throne itself, may hang on this. And the English succession”.’

Mary Gray emitted something near to a groan. ‘This again! The same fell game!’

‘This is no game, lassie! You ken the state o’ the realm. Near enough to outright war, wi’ our slobbering King pulled a’ ways! A blow is to be struck that will topple Jamie into the Catholics’ arms first of all. And then off his throne. And that will mean real war. Civil war. Aye, and invasion too.’

‘I understood that you were of the Catholic persuasion yourself, sir?’ Lennox charged him.

The other shrugged. ‘You may say, like Patrick, that I dinna take religion ower seriously. Not to discommode me. That I’m fine and content to worship God in my am way, and let other folk do the like. A plague on them both, I say . . . wi’ due respects to your Dukeship that’s of the Kirk party!’

‘M’mmm . . .’

‘There is nothing new in all this,’ Mary put in, wearily. ‘It is all as it was – ever the same. My father has been playing the Protestants against the Catholics and the Catholics against the Protestants for years. There is nothing new here, that should send the Duke hurrying to Patrick’s beckon . . .’

‘Aye, but there is. That’s where you’re wrong, Mary – there is. Patrick said to say that it was life and death. For the King. Aye, and for yourself, my lord Duke. Because you’re near the throne. He says both your deaths have been decided upon.’

‘Vicky!’ The girl stepped close, to clutch the Duke’s wrist with her free hand. ‘Sweet Jesu – no!’

‘Heed nothing, Mary,’ Lennox told her, encircling mother and child with a damp arm. ‘Nobody is going to kill me. It is but one of Patrick’s alarums. My death would serve no cause, benefit none. I take no part in any of their affairs, neither Catholic nor Protestant. Besides, no one would dare . . .’

‘Not even the Earl o’ Bothwell?’

‘Bothwell! But . . . Bothwell is of the Kirk party. A Protestant.’

‘Patrick says that Bothwell is about to change sides. To turn Catholic. And Bothwell, like yoursel’, my lord Duke, is the King’s cousin – though on the wrong side o’ the blanket. A right bold and fierce man!’

‘By the Powers – Bothwell!’ There was no doubt about the Duke’s perturbation now. Yet he shook his head. ‘I do not believe it!’ he declared. ‘Bothwell has always been a Protestant . . . if he has any true religion at all. Devil-worship and witchcraft, perhaps. But to turn Catholic – no!’

‘If religion matters little to him, and this changing could give him the sure rule of Scotland, think you he’d scruple? Patrick says that he is changing – and have you ever kenned Patrick Gray wrong in his information?’

Mary Gray had, but not often – and she was in no state to contest Restalrig’s claim. ‘Why should he, Bothwell . . .’ She swallowed. ‘Why should he seek Vicky’s hurt? Or the King’s?’

The other shrugged. ‘It’s no’ me you’ve to ask that, it’s Patrick. I’m but his messenger in this, see you. To bring the Duke to him.’

‘It is but a device. This threat to Vicky. To entice him to Fast Castle. To seek to entangle him once again in Patrick’s evil affairs. Do not go, Vicky. Even if it is true about Bothwell, if you stay quietly here at Methven, far from Court, you can be of no danger to him. Why should he seek your death?’

‘But James, Mary – the King? Is my duty not to the King? If he is threatened? Am I not sworn, as a member of the Council, to defend him, my liege lord, with my life? If Patrick has discovered some desperate plot against the King, am I not in duty bound at least to hear of it, for James’s sake?’

‘He canna come hear to the King himsel’,’ Restalrig pointed out. ‘He is banished the realm. Outlawed. He needs an ear close to Jamie’s. That the King will heed. If his warning is to be in time. And there’s no’ much time, he says . . .’

Lennox took a few paces away from the girl, and back, staring at the floor. ‘I believe that I must go, Mary,’ he said, at length.

She emitted a long quivering sigh, but inclined her lovely head.

‘I shall hear him – no more. Do not fear that he shall cozen me, carry me off my feet, Mary. I know Patrick for what he is . . .’

‘Would that I could come with you, Vicky! Two heads are even better than one, in dealing with my father! But . . . Johnnie, here. Nursing the child, I cannot leave him.’

‘Nor would I let you ride ninety miles through a winter’s night, lass . . .’

‘I could, Vicky. You know that I could.’

‘May be. But you will not. This is not for you.’ He turned to Restalrig. ‘When do we start, sir? I have fresh horses.’

‘The sooner the better. Give me an hour, my lord. It will be full dark by then . . .’

‘You will be careful, Vicky? Oh, you must be very careful! Watch Patrick. Do not let him deceive you, charm you, hoodwink you . . .’

For fully an hour none of the three men had spoken – save to curse their weary drooping mounts when the all-but-foundered brutes slipped and stumbled on the rough and broken ground, benighted and water-logged. Coldingham Moor was no place to be in the dark, at any time – but especially not at four o’clock of a winter’s morning, with a half-gale blowing sleet straight off the North Sea in their faces, and after having ridden across five counties.

Though he had no fondness for Logan, Ludovick Stewart’s opinion of the man’s toughness and vigour could hardly have failed to have risen during those past grim hours. Although of middle years and notorious for gross living, he had led the way, and at a cracking pace, right from Methven in Strathearn, across South Perthshire, Stirlingshire, the three Lothians and into Berwickshire, on a foul night, and having already ridden the entire journey in the opposite direction. Not once, despite the thick blackness of the night, had he gone astray to any major extent.

The last lap of that long journey was, as it happened, the most trying of all. Coldinghamshire, that ancient jurisdiction of the once princely Priory of Coldingham, thrusts out from the rest of Berwickshire eastwards like a great clenched fist, where the Lammermuir Hills challenge the sea. At the very tip of the resultant cliff-girt, iron-bound coast, amongst the greatest cliffs in the land, Fast Castle perches in as dizzy and savage a situation as can well be imagined, an eagle’s eyrie of a place – and a particularly solitary and malevolent eagle at that. No other house or haunt of man crouched within miles of it on the bare, lofty, storm-battered promontory.

Even high on the moor here, amongst the whins and the outcropping rocks, Ludovick could hear the roar of the waves, a couple of miles away and four hundred feet below. Heads down, sodden cloaks tight about them, soaked, mud-spattered, stiff with cold and fatigue, they rode on into the howling black emptiness laced with driven sleet. The Duke imagined that hell might be of this order.

He was jerked out of what was little better than a daze by his servant’s beast cannoning into his own, all but unseating both of them. He had been aware that his horse had been slipping and slithering more consistently, indicating that they had been moving downhill. Taking a grip on himself, and shouting at the groom, Ludovick brought his black under control.

Only a short distance further, Logan halted. Indeed it appeared that he had to halt, poised on the very brink of nothingness.

‘Care, now,’ he announced, having to shout above the sustained thunder of the seas which seemed to be breaking directly below them – but notably far below; as though all before had been the merest daunder. ‘Dismount and lead.’

Himself doing so, he picked his way along a narrow twisting ledge of a path, steep hillside on one hand, empty drop on the other. It was a place for goats rather than men and horses.

They came to a naked buttress of the cliff, a thrusting rock bluff round which it seemed there was no passage. Down the side of this their path turned steeply, and then abruptly halted. They faced the abyss.

Logan pointed in front of him, eastwards, seawards – but in the almost horizontally-driving sleet Lennox could see nothing. Then the other drew a small horn out from his saddlebag, and blew a succession of long and short blasts on it. Waiting a few moments, he repeated this, and at the second summons a faint hail answered him from somewhe