The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  ‘No, of course not, why should I?’ I had not thought to look for James’s bow. I supposed he had left it beside butts when he had heard the arrival of the barge. It must have been brought to the guardroom after he had made his escape

  ‘I thought that you might have wanted to return it to him.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, John,’ I said irritably. ‘If I wanted to reclaim James’s property I would have asked you for it. So how was it taken? Stolen, I presume.’ I glanced down at the lock to his door. It looked untouched.

  ‘I ordered it to be placed in the guard room,’ he said after a pause.

  ‘I see,’ I said.

  The guard room was next door to John Rushe’s lodgings. It was used as a place to confine a belligerent drunken man overnight, or an unruly offender before he could be sent under guard to one of the London prisons. Normally the room was locked. Now it stood open with what looked like John’s keys in the lock.

  ‘I found it was unlocked; I was checking doors,’ he said. I bit back a smile. Alice and I often joked about John and his obsessive checking. I was a bit annoyed about that valuable bow and the arrows being stolen, but John would probably get it back. He would scour every square yard of Hampton Court in his search. I walked across and looked in. The room was bare, with nothing but a straw pallet and a bucket and I reckoned that would be the way it was always kept. It seemed an odd place for a thief to come looking for booty. I wondered whether there was any possibility that John had accidently left it unlocked. Unlikely. He was a careful man. Still James would not be needing his bow for a while.

  ‘Only I and the king’s serjeant have the key to this place,’ said John and there was a worried frown on his face.

  I stiffened. Why should the king’s serjeant steal James’s bow? More evidence to be piled up against him? What devilry was being planned now?

  ‘Lend me a torch, John, like a good fellow,’ I said. ‘Some idiot has extinguished all the torches in the Base Court.’

  He swore. It seemed like the last straw to him. He left me standing there as he went down to berate the yeoman and when he came back his face was bright red. Grimly and without a word, he pulled out one of the wall torches outside his room and preceded me down the stairs.

  The chastened yeoman was already relighting the torches up by the gatehouse when we came out. I was struck again by how cold and damp the air felt. It held that strange stillness that sometimes occurs just before snow falls and my unease doubled. It was impossible, on such a still night, that all the torches in the Base Court had been extinguished by anything other than deliberate intent. And why just the Base Court?

  ‘You don’t think young James came back for his bow?’ asked John.

  ‘Unlikely,’ I said. ‘Why should he put himself at risk? The bow is not that valuable.’

  He did not reply to this, just continued on, crossing the court with confident steps, holding the light aloft. I was behind him, but I was the first to exclaim.

  Looking back at it, I realised that, subconsciously, I had been expecting something like this. John’s eyes were darting here and there, checking to see that yeoman was doing his task efficiently, checking to see whether any mischief-maker was lurking in the darkness, poised to make a quick escape under the clock tower.

  But I had my eyes fixed on the front door of my lodgings and so I was the one who cried out: ‘There’s a man lying there, just a few feet from my doorway!’

  John quickened his step, holding the torch high and then stopped. A little light came from the window of my lodgings and it shone on the dark figure slumped there. A man, a big man, wearing a dark cloak, a face turned up to the sky, a man of my own size.

  And an arrow protruded from his chest.

  John lowered the torch. ‘It’s Ramirez,’ he said, but I had already known.

  The Spanish doctor must have, in a drunken impulse, decided to visit me. We were much the same size and shape and in the darkness he had been taken for me. That was my immediate thought.

  ‘He had a wife and a new baby,’ I said and heard my voice crack. John gave me an uneasy look and then signalled urgently to the yeoman. I avoided the body, went forward and hammered on the door of my lodgings. It was immediately answered. Colm, my servant, I had expected would be in bed and asleep. I had my own key and would let myself in. But he was wide awake, dressed, but hastily, I thought, noting the wrinkled hose and unbuttoned doublet. He had a scared look on his face and oddly did not even glance at the corpse and the men that gathered around it.

  ‘I don’t know anything about this,’ he said hastily. His voice rang out in the quiet darkness.

  ‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said roughly. ‘No one thinks that you do. Did you hear a knock, any sound or any voices? Did you see anyone hanging around?’

  He shook his head, but the frightened look persisted. He was not very old and perhaps two murders were too much for him. I gave him a pat on the back and told him to bring out a lantern. I would get more out of him when he was on his own. Leaving the door open for the extra light, I returned to John.

  ‘Do you think that he was taken for you?’ John bent down and touched the arrow almost as though he expected that this, also, would fall away from the wound. Colm came over, held the lantern high in a shaking hand. Now we could all see the arrow, lodged deep within the man’s chest, but showing, just next to the fletched end, the two black initials: JB.

  I didn’t answer John’s words. I was busy looking around the Base Court, looking into the shadows. The man who had fired that arrow was a man who would stop at nothing. He was a man who would take a chance.

  ‘He took a terrible chance, committing a crime here where people come and go,’ said John echoing my thoughts.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. And then, thinking back to my law training, ‘There are three people who do a reckless deed,’ I quoted aloud. ‘There is the man without fear; the man without hope and there is the man who has powerful protection.’ I looked at John carefully and saw him flinch. I wondered how much he guessed. He had been present at the supper, had probably heard the drunken words of Ramirez, no doubt but that he knew the king’s serjeant and St Leger were thick as thieves.

  ‘Young Master Butler’s arrow,’ he remarked.

  ‘But not fired by him,’ I countered.

  ‘No, no,’ he said absently. ‘No, that was one of the arrows that I had in my custody. It’s the arrow that fell from the wound in Edmund Pace’s chest. Look,’ he took the candlestick from Colm’s shaking hand, ‘look, just there, on that feather, there’s a tiny smudge of blood. I noticed that. You can see that it is black blood, old blood. That blood has been there since the murder of the instructor of wards. And the arrow has been safely locked in my guardroom ever since.’

  He had been speaking almost to himself, but then he became aware of Colm.

  ‘Go back inside, my lad, this is nothing to do with you, don’t you worry,’ he said with a rough attempt at kindness and then when the door had closed behind my servant, he stood, irresolute for a few seconds. Very unlike him. He was normally a man of quick action.

  ‘John,’ I said after a moment. ‘What’s worrying you?’

  He gave himself a slight shake, almost as though to shrug off his troublesome thoughts. ‘Nothing,’ he said defensively. And then he raised his voice and called his yeomen. I noticed a few lights come on in the clock tower. One of them was Alice’s and I determined to go there and to talk with her. This affair was getting very dangerous. I had to see Colm, first, though, so I went back into my lodgings.

  Colm had made no attempt to get ready for bed. He was standing, gazing through the window. His eyes were troubled and, I noticed, there was a distinct tremor in his hand when he lifted his arm to close over the curtain.

  ‘Colm,’ I said and then I stopped myself. His room, the outer room of the lodgings, was very dim, lit only by the glow from the fire. A man standing at the window, about to close the curtains, perhaps, might not be spotted by the assassin who cr
ouched in a dark doorway on the opposite side of the court, crouched there with an arrow slotted through the bow, ready to shoot once his victim was on the doorstep. That was the way it had been. St Leger, probably with the connivance of the king’s sergeant, had unlocked the guard room, removed James’s bow and arrow, blown out the lanterns and then when a tall figure with hood over his head crossed the Base Court towards my front door, St Leger shot him.

  ‘You saw his hair, I suppose, when he stepped forward to take aim. That silver bush of hair would catch any little stray gleam of light. And the lights under the clock tower were still lit so it wouldn’t have been complete darkness. You saw his hair, didn’t you, Colm?’

  Colm gulped noisily. ‘I’d like to go home if I could, Master, if you are thinking of sending Master James back to Ireland,’ he said and I remembered that he was barely sixteen years old.

  ‘So you shall, Colm. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you. Keep close to me and there will be no problem. But it was him, wasn’t it, Colm? It was the man who tried to shoot James. Sir George St Leger, it was him, wasn’t it, Colm?’

  He stared ahead and I could see that his face was white. I took pity on him. He was in a strange country, a place where everyone spoke a strange language and where customs were strange and where the people who surrounded him were mostly strangers. I squeezed his arm. ‘Good boy. Now go to bed. I’ll be back in twenty minutes, don’t worry. Serjeant Rushe has all his men out there looking for the assassin. You will be quite safe.’ He went without a word, but as he stripped off his doublet, I heard his teeth chatter.

  ‘You’ll leave a man on duty here, tonight, John, won’t you?’ I asked when I came back out again.

  ‘Of course I will,’ he snapped. ‘Don’t try to teach me my job, Hugh. There’s someone loose with a bow and a quiverful of arrows, and I mean to find the scoundrel.’ There was an uncertain note in his voice, though, and he had a baffled expression on his face.

  ‘My servant is worried,’ I said mildly.

  ‘You’re the one who should be worried,’ he said harshly. ‘I’d say that you have escaped with your life.’ He paused for a moment and then said, rather hesitantly, ‘Come with me to the cardinal, will you, Hugh? The queen will have to be told and he is the man to do that.’

  I stood aside as he barked out some orders and then I walked to the clock tower archway and waited for him there. I could not bear to wait around and watch the poor dead body of a man, poor Ramirez, who had been so full of life and fun, carried, like dead meat, to repose in that frozen cellar.

  Lights were burning in the cardinal’s rooms. We could see them when we came out into the Clock Court. According to George Cavendish, His Grace had often worked right through the night and I felt sorry that we were about to add to his burdens. Cardinal Wolsey looked his usual benign self, though, when we were ushered in by a sleepy yeoman. Glasses of wine were produced and warm seats by the fire organised before he turned an enquiring face, not to me, but to John.

  ‘There’s been another murder, Your Grace.’

  The cardinal’s eyes went from him to me and then back again to John.

  ‘It’s the Spanish doctor, the queen’s doctor, Your Grace. He was killed in the middle of the Base Court, perhaps on his way towards Hugh’s lodgings.’

  ‘By mistake for Hugh.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘We’re about the same height and shape,’ I put in. ‘And all of the lanterns in the Base Court had been extinguished, presumably to hide the assailants.’

  ‘Assailants,’ he repeated, slightly emphasising the final s.

  ‘Or assailant,’ I amended, though there were two figures in my mind.

  ‘How was he killed?’

  ‘Bow and arrow. The arrow was marked JB, just like the one that killed the instructor of the wards. The same one, I think.’ John went into a laborious explanation about the bloodstain while the cardinal thought hard.

  ‘Too late to speak to the queen tonight,’ he said after a minute. ‘I’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning.’ He pondered for a moment and then raised his head.

  ‘Thank you, John,’ he said with finality and John got to his feet.

  ‘Thank you, Your Grace.’ He hesitated by the door, but I had not moved so he went out, shutting the door very quietly behind him.

  ‘And now he’ll go straight to Alice’s rooms and ask her what he should do.’ The cardinal smiled gently to himself, and then looked across at me.

  ‘You’re in danger, Hugh,’ he said. ‘Until this matter is cleared up, you are in danger. And James is in even greater danger. You are just the pawn, a pawn to be rid of, James is the target; the king you might call him if we are talking about a chess match.’

  ‘The target,’ I repeated. And then aloud, ‘Is an earldom worth risking death?’

  The cardinal did not answer this. ‘They will make a case against James if they can lay their hands on him. They will accuse him of the murder of Edmund Pace. And they will find a good reason for the murder. He was a blackmailer, my instructor of the wards, that was it, wasn’t it? And he had something on James. No,’ he lifted a white bejewelled hand, ‘No, don’t act the innocent with me, Hugh. I can see how anxious you are and, no, I don’t want to know anything about it. I can’t interfere, you can see that, can’t you? I have to uphold the king’s justice. There are enough people who would love to pounce on any minor sin of mine, any hint that I had bent the law to suit my own purposes, to favour a friend or a protégé – well, I just can’t do it, Hugh. I’ve gone as far as I can go. The rest is up to you.’

  I nodded. I appreciated his straight talking.

  ‘No, no, of course, not,’ I said soothingly. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, so hospitable. I’ve enjoyed staying here and meeting the members of the court, seeing a different land. I’m a man,’ I said, watching him carefully, ‘who loves to travel, loves to see new places, see strange buildings, admire the art of far-flung places. You’ll hardly believe this, Your Grace, you who have travelled so often to France, you will hardly believe that I have never been to Calais. Normandy, Brittany, Bordeaux, yes, but never Calais. The cook, Master Beasley was telling me all about the Field of the Cloth of Gold and how you got him to prepare meals in a tent and all about the two thousand sheep and everything else that they cooked on that field. He told me that it didn’t take too long to get there, too. Twenty-seven ships embarked at Dover at dawn and you were all safely in Calais by midday, that’s what he told me. And your signature on two thousand pieces of paper, according to George.’ I smiled blandly at him.

  ‘Well, we can only hope that it was of use in the end and that these two kings can live in peace with each other,’ said the cardinal with a sigh. And then with a sudden change of voice, just as though an idea had this moment popped into his head, he said casually, ‘You should see Calais, Hugh. You’re right. It is interesting to see foreign places. A man should travel as much as he can while still young. When you get to my age, of course, you just want to stay at home, say your prayers and make peace with your maker. But you, you are still young. Go to Calais.’ Cardinal Wolsey, according to George Cavendish was in his mid-fifties, younger than my own father, but he loved to speak of himself as an old, old man.

  ‘Do you know, I’d love to do that? What an excellent idea!’ I spoke as though the thought had just popped into my head also and I saw the twinkle in his eyes.

  ‘Well, so you must. Now, you may not go for months yet, but while I think of it, let me give you a pass for Dover and also pen a note to Sir Edward Guildford in Calais. I find these days that if I don’t do something on the spot, it gets pushed to the back of the long list of matters. Hand me my tablets, Hugh, will you?’

  ‘You’re very kind,’ I said when he scrawled his signature, Thomas Cardinalis and added his seal. This would guarantee me a good reception in Calais and there would be no questions asked about anyone in my company. James could be my secretary, my gentleman usher, my page, anything like that. I packe
d the cardinal’s letter safely away in the purse at my waist and looked at him interrogatively.

  ‘And I have your blessing, Your Grace, is that right? So as to speak,’ I added hastily. I had already confessed to him that I was not particularly pious and his response was to tell me that he was too busy a man to worry about his guest’s religious feelings as long as the guest kept them to himself.

  ‘But not a follower of Luther, I hope,’ he had asked hastily. ‘My master, the king, does not like that man.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I assured him, but didn’t mention that I was no follower of the pope either. I, and most of my family, tended to follow the easy-going rule of the old Celtic church, where priests could marry and where ancient festivals, gods and goddesses merged imperceptibly with their Christian equivalent.

  ‘And you have money to fund your trip?’

  His kindness gave me a good opening. ‘I have a draft from Sir Piers Rua on a merchant banker in London, Sir Richard Gresham, so I might just go up to the city tomorrow morning,’ I said in a casual manner.

  ‘Borrow my barge, if you wish.’ He had risen stiffly, stretched himself, looked out of the window at meagre snowflakes still drifting, feather-like, down onto his knot garden below the window, but then sat down again with a weary sigh, stamped another piece of paper for the barge, and rang the bell for his secretary.

  ‘Wrap up warm and take care,’ he said without lifting his head from his papers and I took my dismissal. He had done all that he could for me and I was more grateful than I could express, or that he would want expressed. Mine Owne Goode Cardinal, the king always addressed him as, and I could understand the affection that had inspired this phrase. I went to the door and raised my hand in a farewell. ‘Go raibh tú í Neamh, leathúair os comhaira bhfuil a fhíos ag an diabhal atá tú bás.’ I said and added: ‘That’s an old Irish saying, Your Grace, and it means “May you be in Heaven half an hour before the devil knows that you are dead”,’ I said the words lightly and his rich laugh followed me down the corridor.