The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  He grimaced. ‘I can’t do that, Hugh. I can’t go off and leave this man here. I need to look after him.’

  ‘Oh, fiddlesticks,’ I said roughly. ‘Let a servant do that.’

  ‘None left,’ he said. ‘All gone.’

  ‘Well, even so …’ I looked at him tentatively. I was familiar with that expression.

  ‘I’d be a poor sort of fellow, wouldn’t I, if I walked off and left that unfortunate fellow – a man who sheltered me from the law? He needs someone to look after him,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Well you’re not an apothecary or a physician,’ I said roughly. I clenched my fingers with frustration. ‘James, you … you must come,’ I burst out. I made my voice sound pleading. With James it was never any good to order him or to try to bully him. He always had to be made to see reason. ‘James, the man will live or die as God commands. No one knows much about this sweating sickness. The cardinal himself says that he only recovered because it was the will of God, because God had work for him to do in the realm of England. Take the medicine and leave it next to John Skelton and then you will have done all that you can possibly be expected to do. No one will blame you.’

  ‘I’ll blame myself,’ said James and there was a steely note to his voice. ‘The man needs nursing. Now give me some money if you can spare me some.’

  Dumbly I handed him two pounds; it should buy plenty of medicine and food. The rest I would keep to myself. I still had enough to buy two horses and to pay for our journey through southern England and across into Ireland. Could I find lodgings nearby? It was not a long illness, this sweating sickness. Either John Skelton would be cured or dead before a week was out. I shrugged my shoulders and began to turn away, but then turned back.

  ‘What on earth possessed you to tell Gilbert Tailboys your secret?’

  ‘What! He didn’t say anything!’ James also had turned away, but now he had whirled back to face me.

  ‘Yes he did.’ I took pity on his air of stunned disillusionment and added, ‘But luckily only enough to let Mistress Boleyn and Harry Percy know that you have a secret.’

  ‘I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Well, he was very drunk.’ And then, when he didn’t comment on that I said, ‘And did the secret involve your birth?’

  He nodded slowly and looked rather shame-faced.

  ‘Your mother told you,’ I said resignedly.

  ‘No, it was my father, actually. He told me that they had changed my birthday; that I was really four months older than I thought I was. My mother had been promised to another man, but when she told her parents that she was pregnant, they allowed her to marry my father.’ James smiled a little. ‘Piers Rua said that it was all nonsense; that under Irish law there would be no problem.’

  ‘But not under English law,’ I said grimly. ‘Under English law you are illegitimate and would have no right to the earldom, or even to inherit lands from your father. I wonder why he told you.’

  ‘He was afraid that someone might tell me; in fact, he thought I might know already. He was anxious to tell me that it made no difference at all, that I was his eldest son and would always be that no matter who might say nay,’ finished James.

  ‘You do realise how it would change your position under English law. It would ruin everything. Why on earth tell Gilbert Tailboys?’

  ‘It was stupid. I was drunk. I was trying to prove something, I suppose. Trying to prove that it didn’t matter.’

  I looked at him closely. ‘Did Edmund Pace know about this? And don’t tell me any stories about gambling or getting drunk.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I swear to you. But he held over my head that I had a fight with St Leger while the king himself was in residence. Pace ordered that I should have a hand chopped off, but Master Cavendish talked him out of it. But Pace never let it rest; he kept telling me that he could still get an order to have my hand chopped off. And he and the king’s serjeant were as close as a pair of thieves. I was afraid that he would do it and so I paid what he asked.’

  ‘Well, keep your mouth shut from now on; you won’t just lose an earldom. You’ll lose your head,’ I said brutally.

  ‘I know. Makes a good reason to kill a man, doesn’t it, a secret like that.’

  ‘But you didn’t do it.’ I made it a statement, not a question and he nodded his head.

  ‘No, I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I still think I should get you out of here.’

  ‘No,’ he said and there was a warning note in his voice.

  ‘Have it your own way.’ I was about to make a joke that I didn’t know where he got his stubbornness from, but something about that white face stopped me. This was no obstinate boy. This was a young man with firm principles and I was proud of him. I raised a hand, almost a salute rather than a farewell, and turned to go.

  ‘Hugh,’ he said then.

  ‘What?’ I turned back.

  ‘I didn’t do this murder, Hugh. I had nothing whatsoever to do with it. I swear by all that I hold holy. I swear on my mother’s life. Are you listening to me, Hugh?’ He looked up and down the empty street, but nevertheless, lowered his voice a little and moved somewhat closer to me.

  I nodded. James was not a liar; I had known him all his life and knew that even as a child he was always too proud to lie. And swearing on his mother’s life. James adored his mother and would never have used that phrase lightly.

  ‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘But others may not.’

  ‘Well, then you find out who did do the murder,’ he retorted quickly. ‘I’m not going to run away, to run back to Ireland and to upset all the plans that my father has made, undo all the years of diplomacy. We want this title Earl of Ormond and we are going to keep it. The old earl trusted my father to look after his Irish interests. The Boleyn and the St Leger female heirs can divide the English property between them, Ormond is a place in Ireland, it’s an Irish title and we deserve it. So, listen to me, Hugh, listen carefully. I’m not going to run away. I’m going to stay and face my trial if necessary.’

  I stared at him dumbly, suddenly visualising the aftermath of that trial. He read my face and grinned with a sudden flash of white teeth.

  ‘Go on, Hugh, you can do it. You can clear my name. My father always said that out of all the clever Mac Egans you were the most brilliant of them all. Go on, go and do it. I bet you have a notion. It’s just a matter of working out the proofs. Thanks for the two flasks. And for the money. Just go now, Hugh. I’ll send you a message, another poem, when it’s safe for you to come back.’

  I left him then. There was nothing more that I could do. And if I were to return to Hampton Court in time for supper, then I would have to go quickly. The cardinal’s barge was due to bring his guests in good time for supper, plenty of time to rest, relax, and to get ready for one of the splendid suppers. It would leave Westminster Steps with great punctuality and already the first strokes of the abbey bell sounded on the air.

  ‘Don’t leave me to guess,’ I said urgently. ‘Find some more of Skelton’s doggerel or make up some. By God’s wounds it can’t be too difficult. I’ve never read such rubbish. But keep me in touch. And remember, remember, day or night, you must be ready to leave.’ Skelton, I reckoned, would be dead or recovered within a few days. From all that I had heard of the sweating sickness those who recovered did so quickly.

  If a warrant was issued for the boy’s arrest, then it might be too late, was my thought as I made my way back to Westminster steps to be greeted by Colm with great relief. It had been a boring day for him, but at least he was safe.

  The cardinal’s barge with his distinctive badge and men dressed in the livery of mulberry and gold was moored in its usual place. I was not the first to arrive. Already Tom Seymour was ensconced under the cardinal’s awning with his brother Edward beside him. I took a seat opposite them. And then realised that Sir George St Leger was already beside him.

  ‘You know Master Mac Egan or Master Brehon as the cardinal calls him,’ said
Edward politely to him. Edward, unlike young Tom, was a very smooth and diplomatic young man. He paid me several compliments about attaining the rank of judge at such a young age and then switched to St Leger, enquiring about his lands in Devon.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear about my young relative,’ said Sir George to me and Edward seized the opportunity to enquire about the state of Ireland. Edward Seymour was probably not much older than James, Harry Percy, Gilbert Tailboys and Thomas Arundel, but they were boys in comparison to this smooth and assured young man. He would do well in the service of the Princess Mary. And so I sat and watched Edward listening respectfully to Sir George about the recent happenings in the House of Commons and what an excellent Speaker that Sir Thomas Neville was reckoned and how much power he, as a member of the House of Commons, held. And all the time while St Leger chattered, Edward, with an adroit question or an exclamation of interest, encouraging the man into a state of happy contentment. By the time Princess Mary was old enough to assume the role of Princess of Wales, Edward would be an accomplished diplomat and probably head of her household, in the same way as the Earl of Ormond had risen to be Lord Chamberlain of her mother’s household. Even his normally irrepressible young brother was very subdued by his presence and his flow of talk and looked at him anxiously from time to time.

  Was Tom Seymour really in that much trouble? I began to ponder this. Why should the king’s serjeant-at-arms, a man whose ambition it was to be a judge, concern himself with a scrubby little schoolboy. After all he had no responsibility for these boys. There was a clergyman from Oxford, a protégé of the cardinal’s coming next week to superintend their studies. In the meantime the normal tutors came and went, giving them lessons in archery, tilting, music, dancing as well as Latin and composition. Why was the serjeant concerning himself with Tom? I wished now that I had cross-questioned the boy, but I had been too anxious about James to worry about other matters. Certainly now he was his usual bumptious self. Whatever worries he had, he was relying on Edward to sort them out.

  ‘And how was your day in London City?’ Edward said to me, and I saw Thomas’s eyes light up at that question. One long leg moved slightly and his knee nudged his brother’s leg. There had been speculation between the brothers about the real purpose of my errand to London and I had a feeling that Edward had been waiting for the opportunity to ask that question.

  ‘Excellent!’ I said enthusiastically and turning to Sir George I explained about my need for funds, so much more important in England than in Ireland, and how my patron, Sir Piers Rua, your Butler relation, Sir George, I could not help adding, had given me a draft on Sir Richard Gresham, a merchant banker. Tom shifted his position impatiently a few times as I related in boring detail all the stories told by Sir Richard about how he had been Cardinal Wolsey’s agent in the purchasing of various tapestries and how he had selected eight chairs upholstered in black, ‘each of them,’ I said solemnly, ‘having a high back fringed with green silk, and having my lord’s arms and letters embroidered on them. And I think,’ I said, drawing out the description, as I could see Thomas fidgeting restlessly and glancing under his black eyelashes at his brother every few seconds. ‘Yes, I do think that he said there was, also, four gilt apples on each of them. Can you remember where those chairs are kept, Tom?’

  ‘No,’ he muttered, and once again his knee nudged against his brother’s spotless hose and he gave an impatient sigh.

  This time Edward responded. ‘So you are leaving us and going back to Ireland, then, are you, Master Mac Egan?’

  I gave what I hoped sounded like a hearty laugh. ‘I rather doubt that. I think that I am enjoying the cardinal’s hospitality too much,’ I said. ‘Hampton Court is such a beautiful place. Italy is wonderful, but Hampton Court would rival some of the palaces in Venice or Rome. Such pictures, such statues, such tapestries.’ I went on with giving them a short summary of all that I knew about the new learning, about the new ways with art and architecture based on Greek and Roman ideas, and bored them for while about my praise of the symmetrical plan for Hampton Court. ‘I must say that I envy you, young Thomas,’ I said with a heavy-handed imitation of the late instructor of the wards, ‘it’s an education in itself to live amongst such beauty.’ The more restless he got, the more I warmed to my subject. ‘When you think that even the smallest rooms … just think of that closet in the cardinal’s lodgings with the gold and blue ceiling above you and the priceless carpet from Turkey beneath your feet …’ I drew in a deep breath and shook my head with the wonder of it all. Tom was flushed with impatience and that amused me, but I had to admire the grace with which Edward managed, simultaneously, to greet other guests getting on the barge and at the same time appear to give me his undivided attention.

  ‘And, of course,’ I put in a light laugh at this stage, ‘the cardinal’s wine is superlative. Why, Master Seymour,’ I enquired, ‘did you think that I was going back to Ireland?’ He had been, I remembered, present on that Shrove Tuesday evening.

  Gently, almost unobtrusively, his hand pressed down on his young brother’s knee. Leave this to me. I could almost hear the words so silently conveyed in that gesture. Tom heard them also. His mouth; that red-lipped mouth now mirrored in Susannah’s painting of the fisherman in the Sea of Galilee had opened impetuously, but then it was shut firmly. Tom sat back and left me to his brother’s superior tactics.

  ‘Oh, servants’ gossip,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Tom gathered from James Butler’s man that you were all on your way back to Ireland.’

  ‘Really, goodness!’ I shook my head sadly. I didn’t believe a word of it; Padraig wouldn’t have said such a thing. Why was Master Edward Seymour trying so hard to probe? I thought back to what James had said. Even when Skelton either recovered or died, I doubted whether I could force James to go back to Ireland. He was a very thoughtful boy and his father’s position meant a lot to him. Ormond was an Irish title – came from the two Gaelic words oir Mumhain meaning east Munster, one of the four provinces of Ireland. The original member of the family had come to Ireland with King John, over 300 years ago and though he had been an Anglo-Norman named Theobald Walter, soon to be rechristened Butler after his office to the king, the family had steadily become more identified with Ireland down through the centuries. Piers Rua was determined to keep the title of Ormond in his family and not allow it to go to England, through a female inheritance, something forbidden under Irish law. And James was determined to do his father’s bidding and act as his advocate in the court of King Henry. No, it was no good thinking about fast horses and ships. James would stay and would need his innocence established. One way or another the affair of the murder of Edmund Pace had to be solved and James cleared of all suspicion.

  As soon as we arrived back at Hampton Court, I left the others to make their obeisances to the cardinal and made my way towards my lodgings. Colm had gone ahead of me and the king’s serjeant was there, chatting to him as he supervised the unloading of the firewood.

  ‘Ah, the wanderer has returned.’ He was falsely genial, like a man ordered to play a part. We got on fairly well, on the whole, but it was in a sharp, competitive sort of way where each was anxious to convince the other of the superiority of his native legal system.

  ‘You must be cold; not a great day to be on the river. What about a game of tennis before supper? Will warm you up.’

  ‘Do you know, I’d enjoy that,’ I said in an easy manner. ‘Give me an appetite for my supper.’

  I didn’t quite trust him, but I might be able to influence him. Present him with another and more plausible candidate, or perhaps, I amended, thinking of the rope and the axe, with a signed confession and he might be willing to abandon his case against James.

  He was scrutinising me carefully, and then unexpectedly he smiled.

  ‘Well, I’m looking forward to it,’ he said lightly. ‘Meet you at the tennis play in a few minutes. Did you have a good day?’ he asked over his shoulder, but did not wait for a reply.

 
14

  I collected my racquet and soft shoes, leaving Colm occupied with receiving our stores for the evening. It was one of the busiest times of the day when the second instalment of firewood, candles, wine and bread was being delivered to those lucky enough to have the cardinal’s generous bouche de court, and he would have plenty of company at this work for an hour or so. I could leave him without any worries.

  ‘Do you want me to bring around your stuff in an hour, would that be about right?’ asked Colm.

  ‘No, don’t trouble yourself. I’ll take a change with me,’ I said. The king’s serjeant never bothered with a servant and when I played him I followed his lead in this matter. We had had many interesting discussions while we washed and changed after a match on the differences between the law that I had been taught at Brehon law school and that he had learned in the Inn of the Courts. It would be interesting to hear what he had to say today. The game of tennis was fast and furious with little opportunity for talk. At the most, a few shouts could be exchanged as the dozens of distinct serves with different trajectories and spins sent the ball sliding over the net, or bouncing from a penthouse roof or slamming against a netted window.

  No, the best time for talking would come afterwards, afterwards while we stood together in the small lodging attached to the court, enjoyed the heat of the fire that was always kept burning there, mopped our perspiration with damp sponges, rubbed dry our hair and changed our sweat-soaked shirts for clean linen. The king’s serjeant carried what he needed in a neat leather satchel. I would do the same thing. We would both be wearied after the exercise, and no matter who won we would both be pleased with ourselves.