Chapter VI: Curiosity

"Who's he?
I know not--Duke Humphrey, mayhap;
But this I know, my sword will test it soon."
_Old Play._

This apartment, which was next to that in which Florence Fawside was testing the merits of the eels of Linlithgow Loch (which are still much prized) and Ralf Riddel's Largo mutton and Alicant wine, opened off the shady gallery wherein we left a gaily-attired group, who had watched the traveller enter the "Golden Rose."

This group, which had also been observing a number of poor lepers, who, under a guard of men-at-arms, were on the sands waiting the boats which were to convey them to banishment on Inch Keith, and had made them the subject of various cruel and ribald jokes--this group, was composed of several men of better position than conduct, for it consisted of that Earl of Glencairn, who had slain one of his nearest relations under tryst; of the Earl of Cassilis; of Patrick Lord Gray of Kinfawns, and his son the master; John Lord Lyle of Duchal, and his son James the Master of Lyle, who had together slain Sir John Penny, an unarmed priest. Several gentlemen of their different surnames were with them--all men who had more or less shed blood in the private quarrels and open feuds of that wild and lawless time. All were richly dressed, for the age was one of profusion and ostentation; the splendour of the third and fourth James was yet remembered in the land, which had not as yet suffered by the civil wars and depression subsequent to the Reformation. Many of those to whom we are about to introduce the reader had their coats of arms embroidered on the breasts of their gorgeous doublets; but the greater number wore half armour, gorgets, breast-plates, and plate sleeves; and all, without distinction, had long swords, Scottish daggers, and Italian pistols or calivers at their girdles; and they were all, in secret, members of the anti-national or English faction--of which more anon.

"I have a presentiment that yonder young galliard in the crimson velvet bravery bodes us no good," said the Lord Kilmaurs in an undertone. He was a stern and reckless noble, whose brown-velvet hat had already been perforated by two bullets in a brawl that day.

"Why think you so, son?" asked his father the earl, whose cold grey eye ever suggested the idea that his lordship said one thing while thinking another.

"He came from yonder gilded galley of the Sieur de Villegaignon--and see! here come the admiral's own bargemen, with the lilies of France upon their pourpoints, bearing his mails. By my soul, sirs, this spark is served like a king's ambassador!"

"And may he not be the envoy of Henry of France?" asked some one.

"Nay, for he is only young Florence Fawside of that ilk, as I understand," said the Lord Kilmaurs, to whose right eye a savage glare was imparted, together with a spasmodic contortion of that side of his face, by a dreadful sword-wound, which he received at the defeat of the English at Ancramford.

"_Only!_" reiterated his father, with an accent upon the word; "Mahoun! art thou sure of this?"

"Sure as I am a living man."

"But men say he is still in France," urged the Lord Lyle.

"Nay, my lord," began the Master of Lyle, "for the old beldame his mother----"

"She is a Kennedy of Colzean, and my near kinswoman," interrupted Lord Cassilis haughtily.

"I crave your pardon, though fortunately we are not of Carrick, where all men court St. Kennedie," replied the other, bowing with a smile on his lip and a sneer in his eye; "but Dame Alison hath written letters into France to the Duchess Anne of Albany and Vendome, desiring her to send back the youth, that he might avenge the death of his brother, whom Claude Hamilton of Preston slew at the king's barresse, and in fair fight, as we all can testify."

"Ay, old Preston's sword hath been reddened alike in the blood of father and son, a strange but not uncommon fatality."

"Consanguinity, my Lord Lyle, should make that quarrel ours too," said the Earl of Cassilis; "but fortunately, I have no wish to embroil myself with Preston, and the old dame Alison hath ever disdained our aid and alliance."

"If that bedizened spark be really Fawside her son, he has been long in the service of Anne de la Tour of Vendome, widow of the late Regent Albany," said one who had not yet spoken, and whose accent marked his country as England, though he wore the badges and livery of the house of Glencairn; "and rede me, sirs, he hath some other mission to Scotland here than his mother's feud with the Prestons."

"Thou art right, Master Shelly," said James Master of Lyle, as a sudden gleam shot athwart his sinister visage; "in these days, when trusty messengers are scarce and bribes high, falsehood dear and fidelity dearer, I doubt not he hath letters from Henry of Valois to the Queen-Mother, and from the grasping princes of the house of Guise to the Regent Arran--and these letters must be inimical to us. Is it thus thou wouldst say, my valiant captain of the Boulogners?"

"It is," replied the disguised English soldier, whose steel salade was worn well over his handsome face, for concealment.

"Such letters would let us see their game, which 'twere well to know ere they can learn ours," said Glencairn. "But if they are concealed in the lining of his doublet, in the scabbard of his sword, in the quills of his feathers, or perhaps indited with invisible necromantic ink by Catherine de Medicis--for I have known all these plans resorted to--we may kill the poor knave for nothing, and raise a pestilent hubbub in the burgh to boot."

"Kill him here, then," said Kilmaurs, his son.

"What, in the hostel?" said his father, starting.

"Yes," was the brief and fierce response.

"'Twould embroil us with Logan, whose property it is. But every thread of his garments shall be searched. 'Twas a shrewd thought of thine, Master Edward Shelly, for time presses in the matter of our baby-queen's marriage to thy baby-king."

"If we find such letters on him," said Kilmaurs with a ferocious glance at each of his companions in succession, "by the five wounds of God he shall swallow them ere he die. I made an English spy eat five on the night before the battle of Ancramford."

"And how fared he after?" asked Shelly laughing.

"Ill enough, I trow."

"How?"

"He straightway swelled up like a huge ball, and burst, whereby I opined that the letters had been written with poisoned ink."

"And these letters----"

"Were all anent the ransom of a friend of mine, who shared in England the exile of Mathew of Lennox, and whose lands had been gifted by the late James to me."

"Let us see to this man at once," said Lord Lyle; "for I assure you, sirs, that if this fellow beareth letters out of France to mar our lucrative plans, by my father's soul I will slay him, even as I slew that shaveling mass-priest Penny!"

"And how slew ye him?" asked Master Shelly, an Englishman of pleasing countenance and good presence, who seemed amused by the quaint ferocity of these Scottish lords.

"I slew him like a faulty hound, because I liked him not," replied Lyle with a fierce grimace; "and hewed off his shaven head with my whinger. Then my son reminded me that a soothsayer, the prior of Deer, who now sleeps in Roslin chapel, had foretold by his cradle that in days to come his head should be the highest in Scotland. In sooth, it shall be so, quoth I; and, fixing it on my spear, which was six Scottish ells in length, I rode home with it thus through all the Carse of Gowrie to my castle of Duchal, where you may yet see the bare pyked bones of it grinning on the bartizan wall."

"And what answer made you to the law?"

The other drew himself up with ineffable hauteur, and briefly replied--

"I am the Lord Lyle!"

"Hush, sirs," said Glencairn; "our man is in the next room, perhaps, and may overhear us."

"Let us see to him," said Kilmaurs, loosening his dagger in its sheath.

"Stay, sirs," said Shelly the Englishman; "and excuse me if I am less reckless in bloodshed than you; for, under favour, and with all due deference be it said, I came from a more peaceful land, where if the sword is drawn, it is usually for some weightier reason than because one man wears a dress striped with red and another wears it striped with green, or because one man wears a tuft of heather in his steel cap and another sports a sprig of laurel; and so, ere you proceed to violence in this matter, I would pray your lordship to be well assured of who this stranger is."

"If we suspect this knight of the crimson suit of being a spy of the Valois or the Guises, what matter is it who he is?" replied the master of Lyle impatiently. "But there is the landlord in conference with one of Preston's followers, so, let us inquire of him."

"Ralf Riddel!--gudeman, come hither," said Kilmaurs.

Thus commanded, Riddel ascended to the gallery, with several low bows, while the man with whom he had been conversing, and who was no other than Symon Brodie the butler of Preston, an unscrupulous and bloodthirsty swashbuckler, remained, bonnet in hand, on the steps a little lower down, to listen greedily to all he might overhear from a group so gaily attired.

"Did not yonder gay galliard come from a ship in the roads?" asked Lord Kilmaurs.

"Who?" responded Riddel, with evident reluctance.

"He of the crimson-velvet doublet and long French boots."

"Yes, sir," replied Riddel, with increasing hesitation, for he read mischief in the eyes of all.

"From the galley of Nicolas de Villegaignon?"

"Yes, my lords."

"He hath come from France, then!" said Kilmaurs sternly.

"It would seem so."

"Seem! Speak to the point," continued the fiery heir of Glencairn, "or, by the horns of Mahoun! we will burn thy house to the groundstone. It is so!"

"Yes--my lords,--yes."

"Speak out, cullionly knave," thundersd the Lord Kilmaurs, the long scar on whose visage became purple as his anger increased; "his name----"

"I ken it not."

"How--ye ken it not?"

"No."

"Why!"

"He conceals it."

"Hah! that betokens secrecy!" exclaimed Lord Lyle.

"And as we have secret projects," added his son, "we must suspect all of having the same; so doubt not that he hath letters. All who come from the vicinity of the Louvre, or the Hotel de Guise, bring dangerous letters to Holyrood, dangerous at least to us, and we must have them."

"He _has_ come from France, my lords,--from France direct," said Symon Brodie, approaching and speaking in a whisper, as the abashed landlord withdrew. "Mairower, he is Florence Fawside of that ilk."

"You know him, then?" said several.

"Yea, and a' the race; I ken their dour dark look, and wha but he could wear on his breast, _gules_, a fess between three besants _or_?"

"Right, by Heaven!" said the master of Lyle.

"A follower of Anne of Vendome must have letters from which we may glean what France or the Lorraine princes mean to do," said Shelly bluntly; "cut him off if you will, but not here,--it must be done secretly."

"To horse, then," said Glencairn hoarsely, as if, wolf-like, he already scented blood on the soft evening breeze that came from the glassy river; "to horse, and beset all the roads--Leith-loan, the Figgate Muir, and every path to the southward and the east,--for if he passes the brig of Esk to-night our cause perhaps is lost. He bears, doubtless, letters to the Regent and Queen, with promises of war with England and succour from France. Pietro Strozzi, the Marechal Duke de Montmorenci, or the Comte de Dammartin, with twenty thousand arquebusiers and gendarmes, thrown into the scale against us, would leave our cause and the boy King Edward's but a feather-weight. To horse, sirs, and away; for this August gloaming darkens fast, and night will be on us anon!"

As the earl spoke, they all hurried to the stables, and proceeded to saddle and mount their horses for the deadly purpose in view, and none were more active than Symon Brodie and seven other armed lackeys of the Laird of Preston, who joined in the affair, with no other interest or intention than to cut off the poor youth, in prosecution of the wretched quarrel between their master's house and his; for men joined in such deadly things in those days, as readily as now we go to see a horse-race, a fire, or an election row.

Master Edward Shelly, the Englishman, who was disguised as a follower of the House of Glencairn, joined in the plot also, but with some unwillingness; for he ran considerable risk. By the laws of James II., any Englishman found in Scotland became the lawful captive of the first man who discovered him; and any Scottish subject who met an English man under tryst, as these noblesse were doing, was liable to imprisonment during the king's pleasure, and to the forfeiture of all he possessed.

Such was the law passed by the parliament at Stirling, in 1455.