by Kage Baker
The golden barge was rowed to shore, and for a while nothing happened, so a lot of people on deck got bored and went below. Eva and I, thus able to see better, were the only witnesses when the wedding party disembarked and took horses on shore. I made out Philip, on a mare with red trappings. Then they all rode off into the countryside, and I swear there was darkness spreading behind them like exhaust smoke.
That was the last I saw of Philip of Spain but not, I regret, of his shadow.
We still weren't allowed to go ashore until the following day, by which time we'd have killed for solid ground under our feet. After hours of jockeying around, we got somebody to row us in with our baggage, under a freezing mist.
"It's July, for crying out loud," I murmured, watching the quay draw nearer. "Doesn't it ever stop raining in this country?"
Flavius just laughed sadly, but Eva said:
"July fifteenth was St. Swithin's Day. The English have a traditional belief that if it rains then, it'll rain for the next forty days."
"I guess it rained then, huh?" said Nefer, wringing out a corner of her shawl.
"What ho!" boomed a voice in English as we bumped up to the landing. "Two fine magnificoes and their ladies with trains of Spain, all wet. How like you our English weather, Grandees?"
There was a chorus of nasty English laughter, and we looked up defensively, but the speaker was one of our own. A big blond man in a leather hood, he was standing at the front of the crowd with arms akimbo.
Welcome to goddam Sherwood to you too, transmitted Joseph sourly.
Careful. These people are ready to lynch you, they're so frightened. Let's play this scene as a comedy, shall we?
Comedy? All right. One order of broad slapstick served hot. Joseph stood up in the boat and stretched out his arms.
"Por favor, good Señor Englishman, will you not offer us some assistance in conveying our baggage to shore? We have much gold and will pay you well."
"Aye, that thou wilt, I doubt it not." Our representative grinned broadly around at the English, wink wink, who were watching us like vultures. "We'll convey thy Spanish gold any day of the year, will we not, my hearts?" They all laughed appreciatively, and Joseph climbed up the creaking ladder. Our man put out a hand to help him up.
"Ay, Señor, muchas gracias, muchas—" Joseph broke off as they did the stunt: the operative, appearing to assist Joseph, tripped him, and Joseph went rolling neatly into a mud puddle with loud Hispanic cries of distress. Nefer and Eva stood on cue, screaming shrilly, and the assembled mob howled with mirth. Several dropped the stones they'd had ready to pitch at us. We weren't dangerous: we were only comic foreigners, after all.
"Oh, sir, you have rolled in horse dung." The operative went to raise Joseph with a great show of concern. "I am most heartily sorry for it. Let me take you to a fine clean inn I know of where belike you'll have a fine sea-coal fire for drying your fleece, I mean your cloak. Rates very reasonable, sir." The word fleece had its subliminal effect on the crowd, and they went off to range along the quay, where other wretched Spaniards were attempting to come ashore.
Nice tumble. You okay? The operative leaned down to Joseph, shaking his hand. Xenophon, facilitator seventh class. Welcome to England. Between them, he and Flavius got our baggage loaded into an oxcart, while the rest of us stood shivering and looking around.
I can remember being astonished at how green everything was. Electric green, glowing emerald-green, green growing out of the cracks between the stones, and green crowding in the gardens. Looming tunnels of green trees and green meadows rolling away that pulsed against the eye, they were so green. In Spain and Australia what passed for spring was a sedate olive season compared to this, and it made the green of the tropics look dried out. No wonder the English had a reputation for rowdiness. They must have been drunk on pure oxygen their whole lives.
The other thing that impressed me was the persons of the English themselves. They were the tallest people I'd ever seen and uniformly, man, woman, and child, had skin like rose petals. I saw a grandmother holding up a toddler to curse at us: the old woman's face was no less white under pink than the baby's, and her cheek only a little less smooth. I felt swarthy, with my freckles and Spanish sunburn.
We clambered into the oxcart, and Xenophon drove away with us, chatting subvocally the while. We learned he was taking us to a Company safe house disguised as an English country inn. I could have cried when we pulled up in front of the Jove His Levin Bolt, with the Company insignia carved into its beam ends, and were shown upstairs to private quarters. I saw my first flush toilets in over a year. I leave it to you, whoever you are, to imagine the bliss of a hot shower after so many unspeakable days in the hold of a ship.
When we assembled in the briefing lounge, steamy and as clean as we were going to be for a long while, Xenophon was sitting with a big tray of food and drinks and our assignment dockets. We found seats while he poured out tankards of room-temperature beer and passed them to us.
"Welcome, everyone. Here's a classic English ploughman's lunch for each of you along with our local beer. We brew our own, by the way. We think it's pretty good. Please feel free to eat while we talk; this is all informal. Well, now." He cleared his throat. "I guess you heard some of the things people were shouting at you as we drove along."
"I did get the impression they weren't exactly happy to see us," Nefer said and blew her nose.
"Yes, that's pretty close to it. The thing to remember is, they're just as frightened of you as you are of them. And the law is technically on your side, if one of them attacks you without reason, though of course I imagine you're all too good at keeping low profiles for that kind of situation to develop. If you're from Spain, you may be expecting the same muscle from the local law enforcement you'd have at home. Not the case here. Robin Hood stories notwithstanding, you'll have a fairly hard time getting hold of any sheriff to help you in this shire if you get robbed. So don't get robbed. Exercise caution. Any of you operatives who've been here before—you, I think?" He nodded at Flavius, who nodded back.
"Yes, well, you're familiar with the crime in urban London. Don't make the mistake of thinking you'll be safer in the country. You're much more visible here, particularly those of you with darker skins. People are frightened, ignorant, and superstitious, so you might as well have targets painted on your backs. Travel fast and keep your heads down. London in fact is pretty cosmopolitan these days, so you're less likely to have your throat cut for racial reasons, though of course you still run the risk of having it cut for your purse.
"So. Enough of the safety lecture. Try some of the cheese, it's the famous Cheshire cheese. Now if you'll all open your dockets…"
Rustle rustle crackle crackle. There was a silence as we all dutifully accessed and integrated. Then one by one we handed the sheets to Xenophon, who tossed them on the fire. "Nice and tidy. Are there any questions?"
"Why can't I stay at the HQ in Eastcheape?" Flavius wanted to know.
"It was decommissioned fifty years ago. History decrees other use of the site."
"Damn."
"You mean you won't be going where we are?" I stared at Flavius. It wasn't that I was going to miss him, particularly, but I'd got used to him.
He shook his head, and Xenophon laughed. "Too much work for him in London. We need systems techs desperately over here right now."
Eva had been sitting with this special little glow on her face ever since she'd accessed her codes. She was feeling such giddy delight, it was coming through on the ether. We turned one by one to stare at her, and Xenophon leaned forward across the table with a grin.
"I see we have a Shakespeare fan here."
"Stratford!" she burst out. "Yes! When do I go?"
"You've got a little identity work here, and then we're sending you off to meet your Arden 'cousins' next month."
So she was going away too, and to live among mortals. This was the first time I had any inkling of how alone we really are. I had been thinking of
my team as a family, getting used to everyone's little quirks. But we weren't a family. Well, I was new then, and hadn't learned yet that that's life in the service.
"I'll be with you the first year, you and Joseph," Nefer told me. Thank you, Nefer. More livestock discussions.
The briefing went on from there to a discussion of the local currency, to national politics and gossip, to the weather (bad), to the latest field technologies available to us (inadequate, everyone felt), to the merits of British beer over German beer. When the meeting broke up, we stayed by the cozy little coal fire and learned English card games, because the rain resolutely kept raining. As I fell asleep that night, I was thinking that I would have to see if I could spot any cowslips or osiers while I was here. And weirs, I'd read about them in English novels too.
CHAPTER NINE
« ^ »
July 22, 1554. I'd been in the field a year and a day. It was a space of time that figured in old songs and poetry.
We said farewell to Flavius and Eva in the dark of morning before we rode off. I never saw him again, and her I saw only once, a long time after, in a transport lounge in another country. We were going in opposite directions and had no time to talk.
And into darkness we descended, Joseph and Nefer and I, to ride the famous Company underground. It linked all parts of that island in a series of arrow-straight lines, and the operatives on duty in England were terribly proud of it. I thought it was awful, but there was no other way to get from Hampton to Kent on schedule, and it did cut down on our chances of getting lynched.
So we shuttled through shadows on a track in a tiny closet box going twenty-three kilometers an hour. The box thudded to a halt at last in a gloomy alcove, and we groped our way up uneven steps, flight after flight of them, hoisting our baggage well clear of the puddles, until we emerged at the back of a cave.
"This is a cave," I said accusingly. My voice echoed back, and Joseph and Nefer just looked at me. Somewhere ahead a horse whinnied uneasily, and we followed the sound to daylight.
In fact there were three horses in the mouth of the cave, all saddled and bridled, and a little dark man who sat watching the rain. He jumped up when he saw us emerge from the depths and backed off a pace or two.
"Akai, chavo." Joseph tossed him a bag of coins. The man took it and slipped away out into the rain. "Three transport shuttles at the ready, ladies." Joseph smirked.
We rode into Kent therefore on good horses, with our baggage bound around us, in our Company cloaks issued specially against the rain that rained every minute. Most of the journey was a blur of leaves and water for me, so I can't tell you if there were cowslips by the wayside or not.
Still, as the day wore on, we came into an open landscape. Hop fields wide to the horizon, dotted here and there with toy towns, each with its steeple and cluster of trees. Low rolling hills and rivers. At some point we clattered across a little bridge, and Joseph reined in his mount and said, "I guess it's around here somewhere."
Actually he knew exactly where it was, he had directionals fixed and homing, but he never could resist the temptation to pretend he was real.
"Some ride, huh, ladies?" he remarked brightly. "All ready to make a good impression? Are we in character? Mendoza, have you got the whatsit all ready for presentation?"
"The Indian maize," I told him. "It's right here. In a fancy case and everything."
"Great. Nef, your veil is crooked."
"Thanks a lot. Aren't they going to be a little surprised to see us so soon?"
"No. How are they to know just when the ships put in? Xenophon has been sending letters quote from me unquote to our hosts, so they know we're coming, but they don't know when to expect us. Turn right here, I think."
We set off down a green aisle, with green willows looming across our view of the gray sky. Before we had gone a mile, we picked them up, scanning: three mortal males in a highly excitable frame of mind. A quarter mile farther on, they appeared, just sort of stepped out from between the hedges and stood staring at us. They completely blocked the lane. They were bare-legged, blue with cold, and carried great sharp pitchforks caked with manure. They stared hard at us, and Nefer and I shrank back in our hoods.
Get your thinking caps on, girls, transmitted Joseph. Then in flawless South London English he said, "Good day to ye, good-men."
"Be ye Spaniards?" said one of them. He had very white teeth. So did the other two. I noticed this, because they were baring them threateningly.
"Nay, I thank our Lord Jesus Christ," said Joseph with an easy smile.
"But there be Spaniards come among us now," persisted the man. "We heard tell from Sir Thomas. And monks come to burn us all." His friends were staring at our trappings and baggage.
"For very fear of that, good lads, I and mine are removing to Flanders. That for the Pope!" and Joseph spat elegantly, though he had to wrooch around a little to avoid hitting anyone, because we were so crowded there in the lane.
"Aye," said the man.
They just stood there.
"Well, we must on. Jesu keep you, good lads, and keep England, and God save the Princess Elizabeth!" cried Joseph, urging his horse forward. They let us through.
"You have a ready wit, my father," I said, digging my nails out of my palms.
"Smooth, that's what I am," he replied. "Good navigator, too. Here we are."
The way opened out in front of us. I don't know what I had expected to see, but it certainly wasn't wrought-iron gates four meters tall, fantastically gilded and ornamented, little pennants fluttering, little weathercocks spinning, and above our heads foot-high letters set with bright enamel that spelled out.
Iden His Garden
And underneath, only slightly smaller, was the legend:
Here Ye May See Where the Desperate CADE Was Taken, With Divers Other Curious Marvels Whereat Ye May Wonder
"Holy Cow," said Nefer.
Down by the entrance was a small porter's lodge, almost a booth, you might say, and on its window a placard reading.
Penny to See the Great Garden of Wonders
Through the gate we could make out some brick walls, an avenue of hedges clipped into geometric shapes, and what must have been the manor house at the far end of it, looking not all that big really.
But here came a man in blue livery, wearing a crucifix the size of a shovel around his neck, advancing on us with hands outstretched.
"Your worships! Welcome, welcome in the name of the Pope! Oh, Jesu bless your worships!"
Is this guy one of ours? I inquired of Joseph.
No. Just a sycophant. "Buenos días, good fellow! This is then the residence of that worthy friend of Spain, Señor Walter Iden?"
"It is even so. The blessed saints be thanked that you met with no heretics on the way!" He seized our horses' bridles and led us in. "I am Francis Ffrawney and I serve Sir Walter and I pray your worships remember me as a constant friend and a true believer. If you should lack for aught the whiles you stay here—"
"Truly you are a courteous gentleman and doubtless faithful." Joseph grinned at us over his head. "The Pope shall hear good things of you."
The man went pasty white. "H-huzzah!" he got out. "And is it true, then, that you have come to spy out foul heretics in Kent, and intelligence the Pope thereof?"
"Peace, friend. I am but a physician come to gather simples in the garden of good Sir Walter. Though I would be served," and Joseph leaned down and looked very Spanish indeed, you could almost see the auto-da-fé smoke in his beard, "by those with discreet tongues in their heads."
"Oh!" said Master Ffrawney; he went a whiter shade still, an ugly color in all that greenery. By this time we had come up before the house, and there were grooms running to help us. Faces peered from all the leaded windows and over one or two of the clipped hedges, and all those rosy English faces looked terrified. Two men were descending the steps of the manor house. The more elaborately dressed of the two stepped forward to meet us.
"I have the joy o
f beholding my great friend Doctor Ruy Anzolabejar," he said carefully, putting a not quite audible question in the statement.
"My beloved friend!" cried Joseph. "How many years has it been since we lay at the Seven Ducks?" That was the code response, and Sir Walter relaxed visibly.
He was not a tall man at all, for an Englishman, but his presence expressed itself in at least three contrasting hues in his brilliant doublet. His hose were vivid yellow, the heels of his shoes were built up, and there was a great deal of gold-colored ornamentation sewn all over his clothes. The rather ordinary face that commanded this fashion looked intelligent enough. He must have been about sixty, quite old for a mortal in that era.
We all dismounted, and Joseph went forward and embraced him. "Mi viejo amigo! It has been so long since our youth in the days of the late and sanctified Queen Katherine. Ah, what joyful times they were, when England and España were one in amity. What high hopes we have for the present union. It quite brings tears to mine eyes." He actually dabbed at them with a large lace handkerchief.
"And to mine also," stammered Sir Walter. "You look most, uh, youthful."
We'd told Joseph he should have grayed his hair more.
"That, my dear friend, you may lay to a certain Greek physick that you wot well of." Joseph looked at him meaningfully. "Of which, more anon. But now, let me present to you Doña Marguerita Figueroa, a woman whose chastity is renowned throughout Valladolid."
Nefer curtseyed, looking regal.
"And allow me further to present to you my daughter, Doña Rosa." Joseph put out his hand to me, and I curtseyed low. "The comfort of my middle age and a scholarly child. Are you not, Daughter? She will assist me in my study of your most justly famous garden. Hija, present to our worthy host the most unworthy trifle we have brought him for his collection."