Child Royal. D. K. Broster

mourning garments beside his young sister, Ninian found it hard to believe that the respite had come to an end seven days ago. For a respite there had been; his mother had lived on for five weeks after his arrival. And now there was nothing to keep him longer in Scotland, for he had learnt that he need have no anxious thoughts about his sister Agnes’s future. John Crichton of Fentonhill was all eagerness to provide for that, now that Lady Graham no longer claimed her daughter’s care. Stealing a look at Agnes now, as with fast-joined hands and closed eyes she prayed for their mother’s soul, Ninian thought she looked more like a nun than a bride-to-be.

      Robert and his two sons left the chapel; then the servants clattered out. Brother and sister knelt side by side for a while longer, until Ninian, with a sigh, rose and offered his arm to Agnes. They came out silently into the grey, cloudy morning—and to the perception that the courtyard of Garthrose House was full of strange horsemen. Agnes hung back, surprised.

      “Ninian, who are these?”

      But her Archer brother was for the moment as much at a loss as she, though he saw at once the badge they bore, three red cinquefoils on a silver ground. His memory, rusted by his exile, would not interpret the cognisance. Then a figure ran down the steps and his young nephew James came hastening towards him.

      “My father has sent me to fetch you, sir, for my Lord Livingstone is here, and asking for you.”

      “Lord Livingstone!” exclaimed Ninian astonished. “Lord Livingstone, one of the Queen’s Keepers—and asking for me?”

      “He is our kinsman on our mother’s side, Ninian,” Agnes reminded him gently. “He has perhaps heard . . .”

      They went together up the steps, but at the top the girl slipped away. Ninian went alone into the hall chamber. There stood Robert with a richly-dressed gentleman, red-faced and grey-bearded, whom he had evidently just induced to seat himself in the high-backed chair of honour.

      But the gentleman at once heaved himself out again. “Is this Master Ninian Graham? Kinsman, I hope that you as well as your good brother here will forgive this unheralded visit to a house of mourning?”

      He held out his hand. “My lord,” murmured the still astonished Ninian, “your presence here at all . . .” For he knew that since the decision had been finally taken to send the little Queen to France without loss of time, Lord Livingstone as well as his fellow Keeper, Lord Erskine, must be immersed in preparations.

      “Aye, aye, I have weighty matters on my shoulders these days,” completed the visitor, with a sigh not devoid of satisfaction. “Nevertheless, I would have come to Garthrose before, although I had not heard till three days agone of my poor cousin’s death. I have but snatched an hour now to ride hither to present you with my condolences and to say a prayer at her graveside. . . . Poor Catherine; I mind her as a lass. I was at her wedding too . . . a fair bride she made, and a loving one.”

      Lord Livingstone turned suddenly about, as if seeking something, and found it—upon the wall. Malise Graham seemed to give him back look for look; and after a second or two the Lord Keeper removed his gaze.

      “My lord,” here said Robert, indicating the food and wine which was being hurried in, “you will, I hope, take some refreshment?”

      But their visitor, saying that he had recently broken his fast, would accept no more than a cup of wine and a morsel of bread. Ninian served him and then sat down by his side, and found after a while his noble kinsman enquiring how he intended to return to France. He answered that he supposed he should find some vessel or other at Leith, that he must get back to his duties as soon as possible and that he would not have lingered even these few days since his mother’s death, but that there were her affairs to set in order.

      Lord Livingstone wiped his beard. “But know you where to find King Henry when you land? Was he not about to set out for Piedmont when you left France?”

      “He had already done so, my lord. It was on the way thither that I received news of my mother’s illness and obtained leave of absence to go to her. And when I reached the coast I was just in time to procure a passage to Scotland in M. d’Essé’s squadron.”

      At that Lord Livingstone threw down his napkin as one who receives illumination. “’Tis in a squadron, then, that you shall return, kinsman! I’ll contrive that you shall embark upon one of the French galleys which are to take the Queen’s Grace to France. God willing, we set sail in a few days from Dumbarton, for the galleys have already passed the Pentland Firth.”

      “The Pentland Firth!” exclaimed Robert in amazement. “In God’s name, what do they up there?”

      The Lord Keeper smiled. “Why, good Master Graham, they fool the English, to be sure, who look to see them setting forth for France from our eastern coast. And while they watch it the galleys with her Majesty on board will slip out of the Clyde.”

      “By’r Lady, well thought of!” said Robert Graham. “But . . . galleys, my lord, galleys, off the northern shores, in those seas!”

      Lord Livingstone nodded complacently. “Aye, I believe no galley hath ever confronted them before. But it is high summer, and M. de Villegaignon a skilled and seasoned sailor. So, if they make the Clyde safely, will it like you to sail for France in one of them, cousin Ninian?”

      “Nothing would like me better, my lord,” answered his kinsman gratefully. “And thus I might chance, also, to get a sight of my sovereign lady, who was not even born when last I was in Scotland.”

      “I shall contrive that too, if I can,” the Lord Keeper assured him. “And you will see that she is the rarest child the sun ever shone upon. I counsel you, then, to be at Dumbarton in three or four days’ time.”

      (4)

      Armed men, waiting ships, a wide river stippled by the wind, a nursery of five excited little girls to be embarked from the frowning steeps of Dumbarton—and one of them a Queen. In addition, a retinue of nobles and gentlemen, young and old; Monsieur Artus de Maillé, Sieur de Brézé, the French ambassador, full of solicitude and the last recommendations of the Queen Mother, Mary of Lorraine; the Lords Erskine and Livingstone, appointed for “the keiping of our Soverane Ladeis persoun”; Lady Fleming, her “governess” who, being a natural daughter of King James IV, was also the aunt of her royal charge; Lord Robert and Lord John Stuart, the two youngest of the Queen’s four bastard brothers, and a number of serving men and women. Most certainly that seaman of experience and Knight of Malta, the Sieur de Villegaignon, had his hands full.

      One hundred and twelve years earlier, from this same port of Dumbarton, another child princess of the House of Stuart, but little older, had set sail for her marriage to the future King of France. She left behind her broken-hearted parents, and went herself, all unknowing, to a broken heart. But with the widowed Mary of Lorraine the compensations far outweighed the sorrow of parting with her only child. Her ambitions for her daughter and the strong family feeling which ran in her Guise blood were alike gratified by that daughter’s coming betrothal to the heir of France. The marriage would lift to yet greater eminence that ambitious and already very influential princely house. In France the little Mary, France’s future queen, would still be under Guise tutelage, for when her grandfather, Duke Claude of Lorraine, and her grandmother the Duchess Antoinette, and her great-uncle the rich and powerful Cardinal of Lorraine should have passed away, there would still remain her six uncles, of whom two were already high in royal favour. So much for the family fortunes. More important still, once in France and betrothed to the Dauphin, Mary of Scotland would be safe from any further attempt of the English to wed her to their young King, Edward VI. and to make a vassal kingdom for themselves beyond Tweed.

      Before the summer sunset had ceased to colour the waters of the Clyde, the embarkation with all its turmoil had been successfully carried through, and the French galleys with their passengers were anchored for the night, to await a favouring breeze next morning. The fresh wind of the earlier part of the day had almost entirely died down, but what remained was still south-westerly, and the master of Ninian’s galley, the Sainte Catherine,