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the Governor of Scotland the Earl of Arran
King’s French widow, Mary of Guise,
Erskine, much the younger, pink, stocky and vehement, was a son of Lord Erskine, who was head of one of the families nearest the throne, and captain of the Queen’s fortress of Stirling.
When her husband died, violently, in the field the elder boy Richard became third Baron Culter, and Francis his brother received the heir’s title of Master of Culter as well as taking name from his own lands of Lymond.
Janet, third and most formidable wife of Wat Scott of Buccleuch,
Edward VI, for whom ruled his uncle, Edward Somerset, Protector of England
many in Scotland who looked away from the French Queen Mother and their old ally, Catholic France, and toward the Reformed Religion instead.
Lady Fleming, who was governess as well as aunt to the baby Queen, was away, but the honours of Boghall were done by her goddaughter Christian Stewart.
Comely and tall, with hair of fine dark red and a decisive air to her, she was pleasant and positive to talk to, and it was impossible to tell that she was blind from birth.
sober, thickset figure with brown hair and reliable grey eyes, Richard Crawford in his thirties was a man of wealth and tried power.
“They get respect from both sides, and money comes pouring into the purse because each faction thinks it’s bought the man’s ultimate loyalty. But Sir George Douglas’s loyalty is to his own house and the devil, and if the devil doesn’t see the Douglases up there at the top of the dynastic dungheap, then to the Pope with the devil.
Europe, poised delicately over a brand-new board, waited for the opening gambit.
Turkey Mat, professional soldier and veteran of Mohacs, Rhodes and Belgrade, sat against an upturned barrel, hauling off his boots and bellowing orders. Forty and liverish, he had done nothing for his looks by growing a curled black beard in the Assyrian style. The men in the yard admired Turkey.
Lymond was lavishly dressed. The knowledgeable gypsy eyes scanned the dairy-maid skin, the gilded hair, the long hands, jewelled to display their beauty while the Master, serenely smiling, returned the compliment under relaxed lids.
He was a graceful creature, with fair skin and a thatch of carroty curls.
Henry, younger son of Lord Wharton, commander of the English army on the west.
Lord Wharton, knight and member for Parliament, Captain of Carlisle, Sheriff of Cumberland, Warden of the West Marches and loyal and perspicacious servant of the English crown in the north.
Thomas, first Baron Wharton, was a tough little self-made Englishman with a whittled brown face and cold disenchanted eye.
This was a very shrewd hit. Everyone present knew that Lennox, ostensibly acting for the Scottish Queen Dowager, had once taken delivery of a shipload of French gold and arms on her behalf; and had then shipped himself and the gold south to England.
The man Bannister might have been weak in geography, and uncertain in his grasp of minor essentials such as avoiding the attention of large bodies of cavalry. But in one thing he excelled: he could keep his mouth shut.
Simon Bogle, bodyguard, got his lady’s permission to fish for one hour, and left by the back postern. A dark, angular child, Sym was Stirling bred, and had for three years served the household with fierce attachment.
Braced, she waited: for remorse, embarrassment, dismay, pity, forced sympathy, naked fear.
His playing was restrained and skilled. Drifting from this to that composer, he discoursed gently about musical theory and philosophy; and she found herself stating her own views, asking questions, listening intently. With humble and rather touching delight, she entered into her own world; the world of sound, and was happy until Conscience put a hand on her shoulder. She said suddenly, “Who is Jonathan Crouch?”
George Douglas, whose elder brother, the Earl of Angus, was head of the House of Douglas in Scotland and father to Lord Lennox’s wife.
Buccleuch returned the stare. “If you’re a decent body by nature, you don’t sell your captain, even if he’s captain of nothing but carrion.”
distant neighbour, a near-contemporary, a gentle and distinguished landowner and courtier, Andrew Hunter
Covertly, she studied Sir Andrew. Slimmer, and with better hands than Lord Culter.
and the Earl, lissom Royal lover of thirty years ago lost in alcoholic fat and sparse beard,
“You know perfectly well Henry of England disinherited her from the succession in the midst of his uxorial fluctuations. And on top of that, she had a cracking row with him the week before he died, and he cut her out of his will. Edward, Mary Tudor, Elizabeth and then the Suffolk infants. Not a word of his own niece.”
For Lymond had genius. When building his force, he had taken sixty heterogeneous ruffians and cut and buffed them like diamonds, each rootless creature made an artist in his own small field.
