Unicorn Rampant

UNICORN RAMPANT

John rode down into the haugh and on to the winding path which followed the bends of the river. The young woman heard his horse's hooves and turned to wait, smiling. And her smile was a joy. 'Janet!' he said.

'John! Or did I hear aright, back there? Should it now be Sir John?'

'Not to you.' He dismounted and stood before her, looking doubtful.

'What
...
how did it come about? This knighting? You must tell me.' She sounded eager to know.

'It was nothing. Or my part in it was. Little worth the telling. It was all a foolish mistake. At Edinburgh. They had arrested the King, and
...'

'Arrested? The King! Surely not—that cannot be so? You cozen me
...!'

'It is true. They did not know it was the King. A mistake, as I say. I was able to put the matter to rights. Then later I was able to do him some other small service. And when he was knighting Provost Nisbet he called me to him and knighted me also. That is all.'

She stared at him. 'I cannot believe that it was all so simple as that, John.' She had a warm, throaty voice which affected him not a little. 'You are not telling me the half of it! What really did you do?'

Also by the same author,

and available in Coronet Books:

The Clansman David The Prince Lord Of The Isles MacGregor's Gathering Margaret The Queen Montrose: The Captain General Montrose: The Young Montrose

Robert The Bruce Trilogy:

Book
1
—The Steps To The Empty Throne Book 2—The Path Of The Hero King Book 3—The Price Of The King's Peace

The Wallace

The Stewart Trilogy:

Book
1
—Lords Of Misrule Book 2—A Folly Of Princes Book 3—The Captive Crown

CORONET BOOKS Hodder and Stoughton

Copyright © 1984 by Nigel Tranter

First published in Great Britain in 1984 by Hodder and Stoughton Limited

Coronet edition 1986

British Library C.I.P.

Tranter, Nigel Unicorn rampant. I. Title

823'.912[F] PR6070.R34 ISBN 0-340-38635-5

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which this is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Printed and bound in Great Britain for Hodder and Stoughton Paperbacks, a division of Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., Mill Road, Dunton Green, Sevenoaks, Kent (Editorial Office: 47 Bedford Square, London, WC1 3DP) by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd., Bungay, Suffolk

Principal Characters

in order of appearance

John Stewart of Methven
: Illegitimate son of Ludovick,

Duke of Lennox, and Mary Gray.

Mary Gray
: Mother of above. Illegitimate daughter of the

late Master of Gray.

Mary,
C
ountess of Mar
: Sister of the Duke of Lennox and

wife of John, Earl of Mar, Lord High Treasurer of

Scotland.

King James the Sixth and First

George Villiers, Earl of Buckingham
: Current favourite

O
f
J
ames, who called him Steenie.

Thomas Hamilton, Lord Binning and Byres
: Secretary of

State, Lord Advocate and Lord President of Session.

Ludovick Stewart, Duke of Lennox
: Lord High Admiral

of Scotland and the King's cousin.

Sir Gideon Murray of Elibank
: Treasurer-Depute of

Scotland.

Alexander Seton, Lord Fyvie
: Chancellor of Scotland.

Later Earl of Dunfermline.

James Drummond, Lord Madderty
: Strathearn landowner.

Janet Drummond
: Daughter of above.

Queen Anne of Denmark
: Consort of King James.

Margaret Hamilton
: Extra Maid-in-Waiting to the Queen.

C
harles, Prince of Wales
: Later King Charles the First.

Sir William Alexander of Menstrie
: Master of Requests.

Later Earl of Stirling.

Elias Woolcombe
: London merchant.

Will
C
ockayne
: Master of Merchant Venturers of London.

Sheriff of the city and later Lord Mayor.

William Middlemas
: Deputy-Keeper of Dumbarton Castle.

William Vandervyk
: Dutch papermaker.

Alexander Graham
: Friend ofjohn Stewart.

Robert Napier of Kilmahew
: Sheriff-Depute of Dunbartonshire.

James Primrose
: Secretary to the Scots Privy Council.

John of the Dale: A
tinker.

The Lord Erskine
: Deputy-Keeper of Stirling Castle. Heir

to Earl of Mar.

Sir Francis Bacon
: Lawyer, Lord Chancellor of England, , later Viscount St Albans.

PART ONE

There were crowds of people puffing and panting up that grassy hill, many seeming already to be in various stages of exhaustion. John Stewart had not realised that so many would be smitten with the same idea as himself, although perhaps he ought to have thought of it. However, he did not fear that there would be any lack of room at the top, for most of these looked as though they would never reach there, feeble townsfolk unused to employing the muscles God had given them, unlike a country-bred stalwart in his twenty-fourth year such as John Stewart of Methven. Not that he was actually making for the top of the hill himself—no point in that when the eastern shoulder above Duddingston village and loch would give the better view in the required direction.

So, at the level of the high tarn of Dunsappie, cradled darkly in a fold of the hill, he swung away from most of the crowd, right-handed, to contour along a subsidiary ridge, steep on the south, whin-grown and blazing yellow in the May sunshine.

Here there were only two or three others and no gasping chatter, so that he could hear the cuckoos calling from the Prestonfield woodland far below.

He did not have to go so far as the shoulder before he saw all that he had come for. Before him, eastwards by south, the coastal plain was a sight to behold, a rippling carpet of colour and glitter, from no more than a mile or so off to almost as far as he could see, spreading over the fair Lothian countryside like a vast army. The young man had looked for a fine and stately cavalcade; what he saw was a mighty sprawling host of thousands. Small wonder that the King was late.

The question was where
was
the King in all that multitude—or rather, where wa
s his father, for it was not so
much James as Ludovick Stewart whom John had come looking for. But his father would be with the King, almost certainly. Would they be at the front of this vast concourse, or in the midst? It could make a difference of almost hours as to when they would reach the gates of Edinburgh.

He waited, staring, trying to distinguish details at a distance, a good-looking young man, not handsome but with pleasant open features, regular if on the blunt side, a little above medium height with wide shoulders tapering to slender, muscular hips and long legs, plainly dressed but in good quality clothing; not one who would be apt to stand out in a crowd but who might attract a second and third glance from the discerning. His own glances still failed to distinguish where the King and his close entourage might ride in all that far
-
flung array. Not being a warlike host there were no banners to identify the leadership. Eventually, still no wiser, he decided that the chances were that James would be at or near the front, and if so it was time that he himself got back to the city streets and his mother, if they were to gain a good viewpoint to watch the forthcoming proceedings.

So he all but ran back whence he had come and down the steep hill below the red-stone crags, to where the grass gave way to the first buildings—mainly byres, stables and pig-styes—reaching out towards Arthur's Seat from the tall tenement wynds on the south side of the Cowgate.

Now he was into more crowds, thronging the fairly narrow street, all heading westwards, like himself, and much slowing him down. Naturally all sought the middle of the cobblestoned thoroughfare, the crown of the causeway as it was called—for the sides were no more than wide gutters abrim with filth and sewage, to be avoided at all costs. So there was much jostling and pushing, much shouting and reviling, although in the main the mood was good-natured, as befitted the atmosphere of holiday. Occasionally, however, there was cursing and fist shaking as some belated great one rode up behind mounted grooms or men-at-arms with cracking whips or even the flats of swords, forcing a way through, and now and again a lumbering coach, heraldically painted, with bawling outriders and horn-blowing postillions—and then all on foot were forced into the swills and stinks of the kennels in furious profanity, with even some of the ordure itself scooped up and hurled at the gleaming paintwork.

John Stewart, being nimbler and fitter than most, managed to avoid any major contact with the excrement, and pushed ahead with fair success. At what was still called the French Ambassador's House, the lodging of the present Secretary of State—known to his master and most others as
Tam
o' the Cowgate, Sir Thomas Hamilton—John turned off up another steep and narrow lane, little more than a stairway, called Libberton's Wynd, which brought him out on to the main spine of that extraordinary climbing city, Scotland's capital, the High Street and Canongate conjoined. Here, quite close to the new Tolbooth, were the lodgings which he and his mother rented for the occasion in the house of a decayed gentlewoman, widow of a former Perthshire laird of their acquaintance.

Hurrying upstairs he found Mary Gray at the window of their room, looking down on the teeming excitement of the High Street below.

"They come," he announced,
a little breathlessly. "A great
legion of them—thousands. Spreading over the land. I have never seen such a host."

"Then His Grace will be in an ill mood. He does not like large numbers in his tail—since they have to be fed and that costs siller!"

The woman turned to smile at him—and she was a joy to behold. Now in her forty-first year, she retained the figure and stance of a girl. Darkly lovely, she was of slender build, with delicate features and great lustrous eyes and an expression which seemed to combine quiet gravity with ready humour. It seemed ridiculous that she should be the mother of the well-built young man before her. Like him she was simply but well dressed and carried herself with grace and an air of unassumed assurance. John Stewart was very proud of his mother, even though her name was not his.

"We had better hurry," he said, "or we shall not be in time to get a good position with all these going."

"How near were they? The King and his close company?"

"I could not tell, there were so many. But the fore
most were across the Figgate Burn
, I could see."

"Then we have plenty of time. James never hurries, save when hunting. And they have quite some distance to ride around the city walls to reach the West Port."

"The
West
Port? But they come from the east."

"Yes. But the Chancellor and the Secretary know their sovereign-lord, Johnnie. After much travelling, James would be apt to go straight to his palace of Holyroodhouse, to eat and drink and sleep, and never enter the city at all. And so would miss all their fine welcome and speeches—which the good city fathers love and their liege loathes. So the King is to be met by Chancellor Seton and Secretary
Tam
and cunningly led round the south walls, to see the site where his good friend, and ours, Geordie Heriot's fine new hospital is to be built—and so, in at the West Port. Thus he has all the town to pass through bef
ore he can win back to Holyrood
house. Endless opportunities for speeches and spectacles and mummery. Is not that clever? I am told that Tam o' the Cowgate himself devised it all—Geordie Heriot was his cousin, of course. So there is no hurry at all, at all."

Nevertheless John Stewart was impatient, and Mary Gray allowed herself to be conducted downstairs
and out into the smelly street to
join the crowd; she laughing, but not unkindly, at all the excitement. That woman had had long and comprehensive experience of such occasions.

They pushed and inserted their way up the High Street, past the High Kirk of St Giles, to the entrance of the Lawn-market, having to squeeze under two decorative arches of scaffolding and painted canvas on the way. On the arches cupids and angels perched precariously, the street and close-mouths were strewn with flowers and evergreens, largely becoming sadly trampled, and tapestries and hangings draped from many of the tenement windows. Down the West Bow, they and the crowd turned and surged, and at the foot there was another and more elaborate arch over-sailing a stage, this all hung with cloth-of-gold which flapped and fluttered in the breeze, for Edinburgh is ever a windy city. The wide space of the Grassmarket beyond under the towering cliffs of the castle-rock, had been cleared of its usual clutter of booths and stalls and was now crammed with the horses and coaches, the grooms and retainers, of the rich and noble. The West Port of the city wall opened at the far end of this Grassmarket.