They all turned to where Matthew sat beneath the tree. They heard his voice as though it were the tree speaking. “I heard the man’s confession. He told us a long tale of his youth. Yes, it was quite a tale he told. He said he was a bastard, but then so are many men whose lives turn out quite differently. He laid claim to having been the son of King Henry and perhaps he was, for I am told that the King had many bastards. But to me that explained nothing, for not poverty, nor ambition, nor religion made him the man he became. Yet what makes a man but these?”
Matthew ceased to speak. He had not answered Thomas’s question, which now seemed more a riddle than ever. But presently Joan answered, for in the weeks since the escape from Newgate she had often pondered the question of Castell’s motives.
“Gervase Castell grew up in a royal court, which was a great misfortune for him, for his mother was but a maidservant who had been got with child by some lord or knight, the King, he said. Early, then, he observed the way of the court—its wealth, power, and intrigue, its honor and grandeur—but in these things he could have no part, though he believed he deserved them because of his parentage. How it must have vexed him, well made and comely as he surely was then, to see lesser than he secure all manner of honor, while he was put down as a maid’s bastard, for though his mother married a schoolmaster, yet it was known abroad that she came to his bed already a mother, her womb round and growing even as her vows were said.”
“But how could he know . . . that he was the King’s son?” William asked skeptically, his eyes on the distant figure of Elizabeth, nursing their young son at her breast. “Did his body bear some mark? Was there some witness to swear it so?”
“I don’t know,” replied Joan. “If there was mark Castell never said. Isn’t that right, Matthew?”
Matthew shook his head and agreed. It had taken the jeweler a good hour to tell his tale, but how little the man
had revealed, as though he wanted to tantalize them all with his great mystery.
“He was a strange man, in faith,” remarked Joan. “Perhaps treason was his way of settling the old debt.”
“What debt?” asked Matthew, turning to his wife. He could hardly see her now, half hidden as she was in the dark leaves.
“Why, his debt with the others, with the young boys who were his playfellows and tormentors. As he grew older they would have gone beyond his grasp, to other cities and lands, to death even. He could not revenge himself then for their laughter, for their ridicule and scorn. But there was England, vulnerable and, in his mind, guilty. England that had denied him his right of birth, the honor due him. He must have concluded that the whole country should pay for what he had suffered, for his wretched youth, more wretched for its very proximity to wealth and honor.”
“Yes,” Matthew said, himself in a philosophical mood, “it’s better to be bom a simple man with a modest number of desires, all within the compass of an average reach. But you make the jeweler’s vengeance sound like the pursuit of justice.”
“Well so it may have been,” Joan returned quickly. “I imagine every vengeful soul aspires to his own conceit of justice, though it be twisted beyond recognition in the eyes of God.”
“So Castell never wanted to be King,” said Thomas.
Joan answered again, “He was no fool. He knew that even if his birth were proved it might mean nothing more in the end than his undoing, for many men and women of high birth have learned to their sorrow what dangers their birth brings to them. No, he did not think to be the Queen’s successor himself. What he did want was . . . was ...” She rummaged among her store of words for the word. At last she said, “Reverence.”
“Reverence,” echoed her husband. “Well, he failed of getting that, except what reverence he earned in his trade. At that I understand he did very well.”
“But he got his revenge, too,” continued Joan thoughtfully. “I doubt the Spaniards understood that, since their
mind was all on the great fleet, on the invasion and the succession. But look you now, every gentleman, knight, or lord he managed to lure into his web gave him a kind of pleasure. He sought to remedy his pain by humiliating his enemies and all of the highborn were his enemies for they had denied him. Knowing he was not of their faith, the Spaniards must have wondered at the jeweler’s dedication, his industry. His secret was that he cared nothing for Spain; he only wanted to mortify England. In the end he must have realized the futility of it all.”
They ceased to speak, enjoying now the fellowship of silence, of common understanding. In the gathering darkness they could hear the infant suckling. Matthew rose and said, “Come, Joan, let us walk together in the fields.”
He helped her to her feet, she brushed the grass from her gown, and then she took his hand and they began to walk. The evening air was mild and sweet with summer flowers, and Joan’s heart swelled with a profound satisfaction, a beneficent glimmering with no other content than a sudden, inexplicable joy. It was all a cause of wonder to her, this world she lived in, this heart that beat within her own breast. How beautiful it all was, but also sad, for she considered the danger she and Matthew had faced, from Gervase Castell and from Starkey, whose bloody demise now seemed no more substantial to her than a bad dream. Her country had been threatened, too, from within as well as without, but now all was secure again. The old Queen continued to live and rule, her faded majesty casting its splendor still on their doughty island kingdom.
Even as she thought this a small voice seemed to whisper in her ear that these things could not last. Nothing in God’s creation lived forever. The Queen would die, and soon.
But to this voice Joan paid no heed. The glimmering prevailed, and she felt passionately the joy of the moment, drawing in greedily all these generous tokens of God’s goodness: the tranquil eve, the mild air, her husband’s hand in hers. She felt the hand, Matthew’s rough, strong hand, and squeezed it affectionately. She looked at Matthew. He was walking with confident stride, his head forward and slightly raised. He was humming to himself and even in the darkness she could discern the smile upon his lips.
About the Author
LEONARD TOURNEY teaches at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of THE BARTHOLOMEW FAIR MURDERS, LOW TREASON, THE PLAYERS’ BOY IS DEAD, and FAMILIAR SPIRITS, all published by Ballantine.
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