Читать книгу King's Fool - Margaret Campbell Barnes - Страница 10

Table of Contents

Although Mistress Joanna was restored to health, the doctor would not hear of her going to London to visit her brother and sister-in-law and to be taken to Court. “Not with all that smoke-polluted air, and the crowded streets with their stinking gutters,” he said firmly. “Let her get strong first in the good country air, and no doubt her father can arrange to take her next year or when he next goes on business.”

A year seems a long time to wait when one is seventeen, and she had talked so often of the masques and tournaments which the Vaux side of the family had described, and of the splendid city of London of which her maternal grandfather, Sir William Brown, had been Lord Mayor. “Are you grievously disappointed?” I asked, after Doctor Mansard’s mandate had gone forth. She was sitting on the sunny terrace and I had just come back from combining exercise for Blanchette and her two puppies with an errand for Mistress Emotte in Towcester.

“Of course I should love to see all the fine buildings, and the Palace and great Abbey at Westminster. And King Henry and Queen Katherine, and the Court ladies’ lovely dresses,” she admitted wistfully. “But in some ways I am relieved that it is not to be yet.”

“Relieved?” I repeated, standing before her with a wriggling pup under either arm. We had grown to know each other so well by then that it seemed no impertinence to inquire into her affairs.

She explained then, slowly and reluctantly. “It was not only because of the tax which is owing that my father was going to London, nor so that I could visit my relatives. But so as to consult the Browns and the Vaux about arranging a suitable marriage for me.”

I let the pups slide down my body to the paving stones and stood there motionless in the warm morning sunlight. It was as if an arrow loosed by some unseen archer had pierced my heart. Heaven knows why I had never before thought about what was so inevitable. Nor why we had never before spoken of it. It could have been reluctance on her part. And as usual, almost before I had recovered from the piercing blow, her aspect of the matter seemed to me more important than my own. “I have often wondered how it must feel to be a girl of good family and have a husband—arranged,” I managed to say, almost impersonally.

She bent over Blanchette, whose head rested against her knee, and began fondling her silken ears. “I think perhaps, if our childhood homes have been happy, we try not to think of it,” she said.

I took a turn about the terrace and came back to her. “Do you know what man it will be?” I asked, hating him as I had never hated any being before.

“Not yet. I do not think my father has decided. It was to have been a young relative of my mother’s who would have inherited part of Sir William Brown’s estate. I always hoped so.”

“Because you loved him?” I asked, kicking viciously at an unoffending stone.

She looked up, puzzled, at my scowling visage. “Loved him?” she repeated, as if the question had scarcely occurred to her. “Not as you probably mean it. We were scarcely more than children when he was brought to stay here. So that we might get to know each other, I imagine. We used to go rowing on this little river and he gave me Blanchette.”

“So that is why you care for her so much. Then why are you not going to marry him?” I asked brusquely.

“He was killed in the French wars.”

I could have kicked myself, for this was yet another grief which I had never so much as guessed at. “I am sorry,” I said inadequately.

“I suppose it is difficult for a man, who can more or less make his own life, to understand,” she went on with spirit. “I liked him. We had interests in common. And just to have had the comfortable assurance that I should not have to go and live with some complete stranger who might be distasteful to me, or to play second wife to some rich old dotard as some of my friends have had to do—all this meant a great deal to me. To know that one must leave a home like this and perhaps go right away into some far county as my sisters have done is hard enough.”

I began to surmise why depression had set in upon her after her illness. “But your father loves you dearly. He would not make an unhappy choice for you,” I said, to comfort her.

She pushed Blanchette aside, got up with a sigh and went to lean against the terrace wall. “No, not willingly,” she said. “But we merchants’ daughters are assets of the business. All his friends who have traded successfully and built themselves comfortable manors try to marry their sons and daughters into the older, titled families. He saw to it that my elder sisters made what we call good marriages. It is a fair enough exchange, I suppose. The titled families want the money and we want to climb.” She paused to pick thoughtfully at some stonecrop on the wall. “But sometimes it means misery for the daughters, and spoils the sons—as it has spoiled John.”

I had never heard that cynical bitterness in her voice before. She seemed no more the laughing girl I had known. But if I was shocked by her outspoken comments I was learning at first hand my first valuable lesson about the power of ambition and the price which women are often called upon to pay for it. Our conversation had saddened me more than anything that had happened since I came. I joined her by the wall, staring out across the home meadow where the assistant falconer was training the fine hawk Master Fermor had given me, which up to that moment had been my pride, but he might as well have been scything grass for all I cared. “Then you will be leaving us?” I said blankly, although I ought to have been prepared to face up to it since the day I first saw her.

“Not going too far, I hope. I might well become mistress of one of these manors in Northamptonshire,” she said, turning to me with an attempt at a smile.

“Then you will have to take me with you, as your clerk or your steward,” I said, trying to play up to her.

“Or my jester. Have I not always said that you would make a marvelous jester, Will? Not that I am likely to marry into some ducal household and need one. Although it is true that Thomas Vaux keeps one. An amusing little dwarf, my brother says.”

I was not particularly flattered by the association of ideas. “I shall come with you in some capacity or other,” I insisted stubbornly.

“Will, Will, don’t be absurd!” she rallied me. “You never would leave my father. You think so much of him, so why should you want to?”

“Because I could not bear to stay here without you.”

The words were said. The truth was out. We stood facing each other, and a silence fell between us. For the first time we were man and maid, without any thought or barrier of difference in worldly position, and in that moment I am sure that she realized that I loved her. And that her instinctive liking for me was so strong that she dared not look ahead. For the first time the crazy hope leapt in me that in this world of opportunities, where merchants married into titled families, and cattle dealers’ sons rose to be cardinals, I might one day, by hard work and quick wits, become socially worthy of her. It was a mad and dangerous moment. Controlled by the training of wise parents, she cut it short. She stopped and gathered up the two importunate puppies, preparing to depart. “Because he is a widower my father will be very loath to part with me. It may be months and months before I marry,” she said, gently putting our world back into sane and orderly perspective. And I felt that she was saying the words as much for her own comfort as for mine.

Strangely enough, it was that same evening that Master Fermor came into hall with a letter in his hand and a messenger whom we all recognized as Master John’s groom by his side. After bidding the man sit down with us and sup, my master walked to the top table looking mightily pleased and began reading the letter to his daughter, and while he was still eating I could see him giving orders about something to Jordan and Mistress Emotte, and heard him call for horses to be ready in the morning. Sunk in despair, I was ready to believe that letter and journey were all in some way connected with Mistress Joanna’s marriage. But as Jordan came stumping hurriedly out through the serving screens to attend to something or other, he thumped me on the shoulder in passing and said gruffly, “Master wants you in his room soon as supper is over. You’re in luck, Will Somers!”

And there in the private sitting room I found the family in an unusual state of excitement. Mistress Joanna was setting a maidservant to polish her father’s best gold chain and he himself stood before the empty hearth, half in and half out of a doublet, while Emotte knelt before him with needle and scissors, letting out the fastenings. It was a much grander doublet than I had ever seen him wear, with velvet bows and silk slashings. “Grown too heavy for it,” he was grunting, struggling to hold his breath while Emotte got him into it at last. “Last time I wore the thing must have been at John’s wedding.”

“You should have a new one made in case John or Lord Vaux takes you to Court while you are there,” Mistress Joanna admonished him.

“My dear foolish one, what time is there when I must be off first thing tomorrow morning?” he asked, chucking her chin in high good humor.

“Well, I believe Mottie is right. Old as it is, it looks well enough,” she decided with good reason. “How brown velvet becomes you, sir! Charles Brandon, the King’s own friend, could not look more dignified, and he a duke!”

“I feel like one of your peacocks with his tail spread,” grumbled her father, obviously not ill-pleased. He turned to settle the garment more trimly over his firm, hard belly, and caught sight of me standing all goggle-eyed in the doorway. “I’m off to London in the morning, Will, to wait on milord Cardinal,” he called out. “And you are coming with me.”

“I?” If he had told me I was to sing a duet with His Holiness the Pope I could not have been more taken aback. Incredulity, excitement, pride and abashed terror all jostled together in my mind. It was the second shock I had sustained that day. But then anything can happen in a prosperous merchant’s house.

“I must leave Jordan here to look after the farm,” he said. “And I need someone who can calculate and write a fair hand. Besides, you think quicker. If you keep your wits about you, you may prove of more use to me.”

“It is the scarlet silk,” explained his daughter, taking pity on my mystification, and almost pink with excitement. “Cardinal Wolsey is buying it from us this time.”

“My son was right after all,” said Richard Fermor, as if the reinstatement of his son in his good opinion meant more to him even than the money.

To me all that mattered was that commerce, not matrimony, was taking him so urgently to London.

“And what is Will to wear?” asked Emotte the practical, who had been sitting back on her ankles with her mouth full of pins.

The thought that I was going to see the capital of England was beginning to seep joyously into my mind, but the thought that anyone there was likely to notice my clothes seemed ridiculous.

“There is the plain worsted John used to wear for Sabbaths before he grew so tall,” she suggested. “I folded it away myself and could lay my hands on it.”

I was thankful that it was she and not Mistress Joanna who had thought of anything so utterly unwelcome to me. “It would only cause delay, sir,” I pointed out before they could discuss the matter further. “I will brush the good suit you gave me last year, and go at once and see about any papers you may need.”

“And while you are about it make sure the saddlebags are properly packed,” said my master, obviously relieved. “I am sure to be able to get a new suit of some kind for you in London.”

“And I will see to it that I earn it,” I called back from the door, being caught up in the general excitement which makes for friendly informality between master and man.

I worked until all hours making sure that everything was in order for our journey, and scarcely slept that night for excitement. And so special was the occasion that half the farm hands and servants were gathered out in the courtyard to bid us good-by. Even Mistress Joanna had risen early.

“I feel a brute,” I said to her penitently, when she had embraced her father and we had moved out of the way of his roan’s restive hooves while he was giving some last-minute instructions to Jordan. “I, Will Somers, a nobody, going to see all those fine things you talked of while you, the Mistress of Neston, have to stay here!”

“She will be better here. Mistress Emotte and I will look after her,” promised Father Thayne, as the four of us stood in a little group apart.

“And you must remember everything, Will,” insisted Mistress Joanna gaily, trying to hide from us that her blue eyes were awash with tears of disappointment. “Notice the Queen and the little Princess and all the great personages we are always hearing about—the kind ones and the pompous ones and the funny ones—and when you come back you must keep us amused for weeks imitating them all in hall. Try to see the King himself——”

“And the Cardinal,” I added, strutting a pompous pace or two and sticking out my meager paunch.

And so we were all laughing when we parted. Save that when a stableboy brought my sturdy little horse I bent a knee and asked our good Father for a blessing, suddenly feeling that I should have much need of it.

“We shall be back soon and we shall have all the summer to tell of our adventures,” I said, springing into my saddle.

“And your new suit, Will?” called Mistress Joanna, following me a pace or two as though suddenly reluctant to part from me. “What color will you get?”

“I have no idea,” I shouted back over my shoulder, turning to wave the velvet cap into which dear Emotte had stitched a jaunty feather.

“Green. Get green,” called back Joanna Fermor, cupping her pretty lips with both hands. “You being dark, it should become you.”

But already her voice sounded thin and far off. I had to trot forward to catch up with my master. We passed through the gates with the groom and packhorse clattering behind out onto the Northampton road, and Easton Neston was left behind.

We rode southwards through Buckinghamshire, putting up at comfortable country town inns. It was very different from journeying on foot behind a flock of dusty, bleating sheep. Through Aldersgate we rode into the city of London with the spire of Saint Paul’s pointing like a finger into the sky, and then through Cheapside where there was more chaffering and buying than ever I could have imagined, with ’prentices crying their wares, and separate streets leading off the main thoroughfare for the bakers, the fishmongers, the ironmongers and such. My master pointed out to me the goldsmiths’ splendid houses, and the Lord Mayor’s stocks for evildoers, and the lovely open arcade from which royalty watched the city pageants, and the tall conduit from which all the bustling people in the streets and gabled houses drew their water. And soon we were clattering over London Bridge, narrow between its houses, with the swift Thames swirling through its arches below and every now and then a glimpse of great warehouses on the banks and crowded shipping in the Pool.

Cardinal Wolsey, we had been told, was gone to Greenwich to transact some business for the King. They were always together these days, Wolsey gathering more and more of the affairs of the country into his capable hands, and King Henry only too pleased to have more time in which to enjoy the various sports at which he excelled. My master wanted to see the Cardinal about his silks, and the King, if possible, about his taxes. And when we had come by the Kentish bank of the river to Greenwich all that we had been told in London appeared to be true.

“Milord Cardinal will be closeted all morning with the French Ambassador but will no doubt see you tomorrow,” his gentleman usher told my master. And when Master Fermor explained that he was acquainted with Lord Vaux this usher added civilly that his Grace the King was out on the bowling green that lovely morning and without doubt young Lord Vaux would be out there too, watching the play.

He sent a servant to show my master the way and, being eager to see the King and remembering Mistress Joanna’s eager instructions, I followed at a respectful distance and mingled with a crowd of citizens and minor Court officials who appeared to be perfectly free to watch their sovereign and his gentlemen at play. And a fine sight it was, with the verdure of the smoothly clipped grass and the bright silks and velvets of the players and the nimble, bright-faced pages retrieving and handing the woods. I saw Master Fermor join some spectators at the far end of the green, and quite close to me at the nearer end was the King himself—a man who towered over them all, fair-skinned and ruddy, with the good looks of an athletic man in his prime. He was so close that I could even see the beads of sweat on his forehead and the sandy hairs on his strong hands.

Bowling was a game for the gentry. By his new law it was forbidden to most of us in order that we should spend much of our leisure at the butts and so be ready in the defence of our country, and no one grumbled because the Tudors kept no standing army, relying, since Crécy and Agincourt, upon the fact that the marksmanship of England was feared throughout the world. But I had watched my master bowling with his friends often enough to follow the finer points of the game. “It is almost the last end, and his Grace’s and milord of Suffolk’s teams score almost even,” a London craftsman told me with the cameraderie engendered by sport. And by the tenseness of players and spectators alike one might have guessed it. There was one fat, gray-haired little gentleman upon the Duke of Suffolk’s side who kept muttering “Too short!” or “Too wide!” and urging his wood along with gestures of tragic despair, and a tall, lean nobleman in purple who never made a cast but what he pranced sideways after it, following its bias down the rink like an anxious crab. Their unconscious antics enthralled me, and it was all I could do to restrain my own limbs from imitating them.

The last end was excitingly close, with all the woods clustered in a bunch, and when the King himself scattered the lot of them with a final firing shot which carried the jack the tension finished in a deal of backslapping and a burst of applause. Men threw their caps in air and, for the benefit of the good-natured fellows about me—or for sheer joie de vivre—I stepped out on the grass in front of them and began imitating the players, particularly the tall, important-looking crablike gentleman. For how was I to know that he was Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Hereditary Earl Marshal of England?

Everyone about me laughed or tittered, but the noise they made so spontaneously and tried to stifle so swiftly was drowned by a great guffaw of laughter from behind me. I swung round, and there was King Henry himself, leading the players off the green. A page was handing him his feathered velvet cap, and he was standing there within a few yards of me, bare bronze head thrown back, convulsed with mirth. “Beshrew me, Cousin of Norfolk, if he hasn’t got you to the life!” he spluttered, seeming to relish the discomfiture of a powerful relative who probably had quite as much Plantagenet blood as he. “What is your name, young man?”

“William Somers, in the service of Master Richard Fermor of Easton Neston in Northamptonshire,” I answered, snatching the cap from my own head, and trying to seize so auspiciously good-humored a moment to draw his attention to my waiting master.

I knew that my quick seizing of the situation had been successful. I saw Lord Vaux step forward to present him. I saw my master bow, as fine a looking man as any of them in his brown velvet, and the King make a gracious gesture to them both to accompany him back to the Palace. But his florid, laughing face was still turned towards me.

“By the Holy Rood, Will Somers, I like you for a witty, impudent knave! And by your master’s leave, who brought you here,” he said, to my utter dumbfounded amazement, “we will keep you at Court as our Jester.”