The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  ‘I always say that there is nothing like meat. And, of course, if your conscience don’t trouble you, well, why should you worry? In any case, the serjeant says that all who live under your kind of law in Ireland are doomed to go to hell so you might as well enjoy this life while you are here.’ Surreptitiously he extracted a chicken leg from under a covered dish and I nibbled at it with an appearance of huge enjoyment.

  ‘Why does the serjeant say that I’m going to go to hell?’ I enquired, sounding, to my satisfaction, quite at ease. A cup of the cook’s own private supply of wine had appeared and I tasted it with appreciation.

  ‘He says that murderers should be hanged and that by your law they are only fined. Mind you,’ the cook lowered his voice. ‘I think that it’s a hard law we have here. Many a decent man or woman have dangled on the end of the rope. There are reasons for killing someone. And sometimes it can be a good reason. A man can kill another man to defend himself, to defend his property or his life itself. A woman can kill a man because he rapes her or tries to rape her.’ He looked sombrely out of the window.

  ‘Men can be beasts,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘When my daughter was a young woman I used to tell her to carry a sharp knife when she walked the streets, a sharp, thin knife, no weight, no bother. “You’ll get me hanged,” she used to say. “I’d prefer to pray.”’

  ‘Or scream,’ I suggested. I wondered what Master Beasley’s daughter looked like. He was a massive man, himself. As tall as myself, but very much broader.

  He shook his head. ‘I used to say to her: “Scream or pray all you like, but have that good sharp knife in your hand and be prepared to use it.”’

  Reflectively I bit the remaining meat from the chicken leg with my front teeth and washed it down with some more wine. What was he trying to tell me? Warning me not to investigate too deeply into this matter of the death of the instructor of the wards. Did he know something that I did not? No women worked in the kitchens at Hampton Court, not even in the pastry or the confectionery. The queen’s ladies, of course, had been present, but they were carefully chaperoned and there would be no question, no possibility of rape by such as Master Edmund Pace, a middle-aged and rather ugly man, on whom these young ladies would not even think of bestowing a glance, not to mind a conversation.

  But there was one woman who worked within the walls of Hampton Court. And she had in her possession a sharp, thin knife just as Master Beasley described it. Susannah Horenbout might be considered by the instructor of the wards as fair game. She worked for her living as he did. She visited the kitchens often; that was obvious. Most of the materials for her paints and her glues came from there.

  And in between the larders, the boiling house, the kitchens, the saucery, the spice house and the bakery were small dark passageways. A girl could easily be seized in a doorway by a man who was stronger than she and who was determined to have his way.

  ‘It is a cruel law,’ I said curtly. I didn’t want to think about the picture that he had evoked. I had to clear James, but when I reflected that it might be at expense of hanging another my mind quailed.

  I might, of course, manage to get James out of the country and back to Ireland, back to the land known as the Pale, but that wouldn’t finish matters. The English were still nominally in charge there. And their deputy, the Earl of Kildare was continually at war, not just with the native Irish, but with his cousins, the Desmonds and the Butlers. If he got a message to say that James Butler was wanted for murder then he would be only too pleased to start a war against his old enemy, Piers Rua Butler. And this would cause deaths – not James’s death, but his father’s also, perhaps. And, even at the very least, it would put an end to the ambition to remain in possession of the earldom of Ormond.

  ‘I’d hate to see that nice young fellow dangle at the end of a rope,’ said Master Beasley. He cast a quick glance around. Most of the kitchen staff had gone for their dinner. There were only a few pot boys left, industriously and noisily scrubbing at the pans and pots over one of the still red-hot fires. There was a cloud of steam and smell of strong lye around their heads and they were shouting merrily at each other. He pushed a small whole cheese over towards me and I concealed it under my cloak.

  I had a sudden flash of inspiration. It might be easier to get a boat to Calais, than to do the obvious thing and make for Bristol. I could visit Richard Gresham in the city of London, draw out some money from him and then we could get a boat to Calais. The cardinal would, I was sure, give me an introduction to Sir Edward Guildford, Marshal of Calais. I might be able to get hospitality in his household while waiting for a ship to Ireland or even a position, perhaps, for the two of them. James, despite his lame leg, was an expert bowman and Padraig could turn his hand to anything. I would not mention James at any stage to the cardinal, I decided. The cardinal could not afford to go against the king’s justice. But there was no reason whatsoever why I should not visit Calais before I went back to Ireland, and armed with the cardinal’s blessing, I would be welcome as a guest in any household there. Calais still remembered the cardinal and the magnificence of the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’, where he set up a splendid tented village where the King of England and the King of France could meet and talk and have fun and games together. I had seen some of the sketches and paintings of the event and guessed that Calais would never forget the event nor the name of the man who had masterminded everything. ‘The cardinal’s signature was on two thousand pieces of paper,’ George Cavendish had boasted to me when telling me about the event.

  It would be a good idea, but it was an idea that I would keep secret between myself and the cardinal. Let the chase go down the road to Bristol. James and I, once I had found him, would make our way south towards the port of Dover.

  ‘Were you one of the cooks at the Field of the Cloth of Gold?’ I needed some more information about Calais and information was always easy to get from Master Beasley.

  ‘Of course I was. Most of this household have been with the cardinal for years and years. Wouldn’t serve another master, none like him. Myself, the serjeant, the chamberlain, the steward, the treasurer, all of us have been with him even before he built Hampton Court. You should have seen that sight in Calais – well outside Calais – nearly two years ago, it would be. It was June. I do remember that size of that bread oven, they built. Like a small house …’

  ‘And the cardinal shipped everything over by ships, did he?’ It was always easy to get this man to talk. I had noted his words about the king’s serjeant’s opinion of me. The cardinal liked me, but I was a stranger, a foreigner. He had given me until Monday, but after that he would trust to that man who had been in king’s service for more than ten years, to solve this murder and to hand the culprit over to the law. ‘I suppose it would take a long time to go by boat to Calais,’ I added in a careless fashion.

  ‘Not a bit of it! We were over in twenty-four hours, if my memory is right. Though the weather was kind to us – I’ll have to admit that. But it’s never too bad a journey, they say. It’s not like going to Ireland, you know. The Earl of Surrey’s cook tells me that his master is always complaining about that journey when the king, God bless him, sends him to Ireland to sort things out over there. No, Calais was pleasant. I enjoyed the trip. Had a good rest, too, on the way back. Tired out, we all were. It was no joke cooking for that lot over field fires with a tent for a kitchen.’ Master Beasley looked around the neat order of his kitchen with the fires burning steadily, the tripods and the spits clean and ready for work, the charcoal ovens glowing gently and the tables scrubbed and ready for chopping and mixing.

  ‘Well, some day, perhaps. I’d like to see it before I go back to Ireland.’ I took a manchet from the basket.

  ‘Try some of this cheese. We get it all the way from Gloucester. His Grace is very fond of it. If you like it, I’ll send a ball of it over to your lodgings. Just the thing if you were to go on a long ride.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I got to my feet. I had no intention of con
fiding my plans to the cook. A nice man, but a great gossip, and information is currency to a gossip. I didn’t want rumours flying around the courts and lodgings that I was going on a journey. This escape had to be done quickly and slickly and not divulged to any except to Padraig and Colm. The cardinal would not want to know. I half-smiled to myself as I went back towards the great hall. I could just imagine how he would hold up his hands and widen his eyes with horror when the story of my departure was brought to him.

  The great hall was in almost darkness. There were a few candles burning on side tables but their glow was lost in the immense space. My own head and shoulders etched a black shadow on the wall. The hall was probably like this, empty, lit only by firelight on the night when Edmund Pace had been killed. It would have been about this time of the evening. I remembered the serjeant’s words – stiff as a board, dead for at least twelve hours. Not while the pageant was on, of course, but later on. The use of the knife had made that certain.

  But why had the man not cried out? Surely there would have been a moment between the producing of the knife and the fatal blow.

  Unless, of course, Edmund Pace, a middle-aged man, had tired of the antics of the young and had slipped away from the sugar banquet, away from the music and the dancing afterwards, had come back into the hall, found that all had been cleared away and cleaned up, that the barrow of wood had been delivered to keep the fire going during the night watches. And Susannah? When exactly had she left the hall? By then, I hoped, but I could not be certain as I turned my thoughts back to the dead man.

  And so he came in here, into this warm, dimly lit hall and he would have perhaps settled himself in a comfortable chair by the fire and had fallen asleep.

  His murderer, a victim, perhaps, but still a murderer, had come in, seen his enemy there, asleep, had taken out a knife and thrust it through the man’s heart.

  There was a big chair beside the fire, shielded by a wooden-framed screen from draughts coming from the doors at the back of the hall. This chair would be the first choice of a solitary man in that large room. I crossed the floor and stood beside it. It was upholstered in leather, a dark brown leather. I picked up a candle from a side table and held it in my hand, moving it up and down and then feeling with my fingers. There was nothing: no stickiness, no change of colour as far as I could see. I replaced the candle and crossed to the end of the room, beside a screen. The cardinal had made provision for everything, including accidental fires. Behind the screen were a couple of iron buckets, each filled to the brim with water. If blood had spurted from the wound, then the chair and floor could easily have been cleaned after the body had dragged away to its hiding place behind the tapestries. I moved the screen a little, just enough so that I could see the length of the hall, seated myself on the chair and stretched out my legs like a man who felt drowsy, closed my eyes experimentally. It would be easy for a man who had eaten a large supper and had swallowed numerous cups of wine to drop into a profound sleep quite quickly. There would be music and the sound of merry voices from the cardinal’s chamber, but that would just form a backdrop.

  And when I heard music and laughing voices, for a moment I almost thought that it was my imagination, but it wasn’t; there were clear sounds from just outside the door. Gilbert, Thomas Arundel – I could hear them and Francis Bryan’s high-pitched laugh, Harry Percy, stammering slightly over the word ‘Anne’ and then the voice of Tom Wyatt, a rich, smooth voice rising high above them all. I was no musician, but I liked the spare sharpness of Wyatt’s verse and listened now, waiting for the punchline, the inevitable unhappy ending to all of his tales.

  Why sighs thou, heart, and wilt not break?

  To waste in sighs were piteous death.

  There were a few uncertain giggles and a silence for a moment and then door opened. Tom Wyatt went on singing his verses but I was sharply aware only of the slight, graceful figure of Anne Boleyn. The light from the corridor glowed on the rich silk of her crimson gown and on the small heart-shaped cushion that she bore triumphantly aloft.

  And then the door was gently pulled shut from outside. The song continued from behind the closed door, the lute forming a plaintive accompaniment. The girl had not seen me and I watched her as she prowled around the room, the heart still held in her hand. She seemed to be searching for something and she paused for a moment in the centre of the room and stood looking around its walls. It would, I guessed, take a minute or two for her eyes to adjust to the light. She moved uncertainly and then picked up a candle and stood holding it. The pinpricks of light glittered in the pupils of her eyes for a second and then she held the candle at arm’s length and moving it backwards and forwards, examining the wall opposite to her.

  And then she seemed to come to a decision. Wyatt had begun to sing his song again and the sound came sweet and low through the closed door.

  Comfort thyself, my woeful heart,

  He sang as Anne moved forward resolutely and placed the small heart-shaped object into a large silver chalice that stood on the wooden buffet between the windows. She replaced the candle on the table, but still she lingered, a shadowy figure now.

  To waste in sighs were piteous death.

  There was a torch outside one of the windows, placed to give light to the passageway leading to the chapel. I had noticed earlier how it had cast a precise outline of the window frame onto the floor and now the leaden bars were etched across the girl’s figure with one black bar across her throat. She stood very still for a moment and then moved quickly to the door and flung it open.

  Alas, I find thee faint and weak.

  Wyatt led the way, still strumming the lute and then others followed, each carrying a candlestick, hands showing pale in its light, eagerly dashing from one corner to the other, raising the candles high up and casting dark shadows on the polished boards beneath their feet. Harry Percy was last and I saw Mistress Boleyn turn towards him, deliberately lifting her hand in the gesture of one drinking and then when he stared at her, she moved her head slightly, indicating the buffet. He smiled, a flash of white teeth from behind the candle flame and went straight over and plunged his hand into the silver chalice, holding up the crimson heart with a cry of triumph.

  ‘Is this the latest game at court?’ I rose to my feet as suddenly as I could and looked for a reaction.

  The trouble was that I got too much of a reaction. One of the Howard girls almost fainted. Margaret Dymoke screamed. Lucy Brown spilt a long, lacy curtain of wax from her candle all down her green satin gown, Bessie Blount gave a moan of terror and Wyatt plucked a discord from his lute.

  But I had to admit that neither Anne Boleyn nor Harry Percy showed as much emotion as any of the others. In fact, they hardly noticed me. The boy was bemused, holding up the crimson silk heart and she, well, she hardly took her eyes from his flushed face.

  A man rising from a sleep on the chair by the fire seemed to evoke no bad memories in them.

  I got to my feet and made my way towards the door. It was time to have a good night’s sleep and let a fresh mind deal with the problem.

  11

  There was no one around when I made my way towards my lodgings. Apart from a few giddy youngsters, the rest of the inmates of Hampton Court were probably in their beds and fast asleep. A rush of damp cold air hit my face when I opened the door and I guessed that a heavy fall of snow was on its way. It was a very dark night, with not a glimmer of light from the moon or stars. I felt my way carefully through the gateway and into the clock court. The path beneath my feet was still icy in some places and I decided against crossing it, but stayed close to the wall, taking care to stay within the light of the wall torches as I tentatively slid one foot in front of the other until I reached the clock tower archway. There was something abnormal about that, something strangely and unusually dark, and it took me a moment to realise that the torch on the far side had been extinguished. I moved forward and then stopped at the far side.

  The whole of the Base Court was in complete
darkness.

  Cardinal Wolsey, a hospitable man, had not only built quarters for the king and for the queen, and for their courtiers and waiting staff, in his palace of Hampton Court, but had also built, just inside the great gatehouse, the Base Court which had forty-four lodgings for ambassadors, their staff and other guests. At this time I was one of the few occupying one of those lodgings, nevertheless, on every other night the torches had burned at regular intervals around the court until they were extinguished at dawn.

  One torch might have blown out by accident, but not ten.

  There was something about the deep darkness and utter stillness that made me feel uneasy. It would be possible to feel my way to number fifteen, but an instinct stopped me and made me stand, hesitant, sheltered beneath the clock tower.

  ‘Coward,’ I said to myself, grimly amused, but I did not have to give the matter much thought. I had seen how St Leger glared at me, had seen the appraising look of the king’s serjeant, a look that he gave to his opponent on the tennis court. And then there were the indiscreet, drunken ravings from the Spanish doctor, Ramirez, which could have been overheard by anyone. I just did not want to cross the midnight blackness of that court without a light in my hand.

  The cardinal’s serjeant, John Rushe, like his sister Alice, lodged in the clock tower. I would beg a light from him, I decided and went back in through the doorway. A yeoman, just inside the doorway, was dozing peacefully on a chair in the hallway. I did not disturb him. There was something odd about every torch on the Base Court, where I lodged, being extinguished and I wanted John to see it for himself.

  I knocked on his door and he opened it immediately. He showed no surprise at seeing me and I noted that he was fully dressed.

  ‘Did you take the bow and the box of arrows belonging to young James Butler?’ His abruptness took me aback.