‘Did he confide in you indeed? And what had he for your ear?’
The Secretary narrowed his eyes. ‘Matters, my lord, of such intimacy that I still marvel how they came to his knowledge.’
‘I do not share your wonder. He is greatly trusted by the Queen.’
‘True, my lord. But such things as he knoweth are not, as I conjecture, fully known to her Majesty.’
Now it was that the Earl of Moray looked solemnly at his servant. ‘You shall name these things to me, Lethington, if you please.’
‘He knoweth, my lord, for certain, the names of all who were privy to the bond for Davy’s slaughter.’
‘Why, yes, yes,’ says Lord Moray, ‘no doubt but he does. For all of them were confessed to by the King, who, indeed, showed her Majesty the bond.’
Mr. Secretary looked out of window. ‘I said, All who were privy, my lord. I did not refer to the bond. He knows more than is known to her Majesty; but considers now what may be his duty in her regard.’
My Lord Moray blinked like an owl that fears the light. He looked at his hands, sighed, cleared his brow of seams. ‘It would be well that I should confer with his lordship upon that matter, before the Council sits,’ he said. ‘Pray you, ask him to favour me at his leisure—at his perfect leisure, Lethington. And when he is here—if he thinks well to come—it would be convenient that yourself were by, in case of need. The matter is a high one, and we may be thankful of your experience. God speed you, Lethington. God speed you well!’
Conference there then was between two acute intellects, which it would be profitable to report, if one could translate it. But, where, in a conversation, every other word is left out, the record must needs be tedious. The Queen was not once mentioned, nor the King neither. The Earl of Bothwell gave no hint that he knew his fellow-councillor dipped deep in murder; the Earl of Moray did not let it appear that he knew the other stripping for the same red bath. Each understood each; each was necessary to the other; each knew how far he could go with his ally, and where their roads must fork; above all, both were statesmen in conference, to whom decency of debate was a tradition. Naming no names, fixing no prices, they haggled, nevertheless, as acutely as old wives on the quayside; and Mr. Secretary, nimble between them, reduced into writing the incomprehensible. Thus it was that the Earl of Bothwell promised under his hand to be the friend of the Earl of Moray, ‘so far as lay within the Queen’s obedience’; the Earl of Moray signified by the same tokens that he would attend the Council and further the Queen’s service in the matters to be moved by the Earl of Bothwell, ‘so far as lay within the province of a Christian.’ Then Lord Bothwell, apparently satisfied, went away to his friend and brother-in-law, my Lord Huntly.