The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  But my murderer, having killed his victim, might seek to divert attention, might spot the arrow there on a barrow beside the fire – I visualised a sudden flame spurting up and the light catching the steel tip, a sudden flash and a sudden inspiration. The scratched initials may not even have been visible.

  And so the whole pantomime began. The arrow was used to pierce a hole in the tapestry, right through the hub of the cart – that was a mistake; yes, that was a mistake. Unlikely that an assailant would take that much care as to aim at the stitched hub of the cart. A picture of the murderer began to form in my mind. Naïve, perhaps? And then the body was dragged over, placed lying down behind the tapestry, the arrow was stuck into the wound and voilà, as the cardinal would say, the scene was set. The murderer could retire and await the discovery. In my mind’s eye, I began to write a list. Name, Motive, Opportunity were my headings, scribed in my best Italian hand.

  But the list was too long. Almost anyone could have slipped surreptitiously into the hall at a time when corridors and passageways were lit dimly and ladies and gentlemen went to and fro between their lodgings and the cardinal’s rooms. And pages, secretaries, gentlemen and ladies in waiting were sent on errands by their masters and mistresses. Hampton Court was guarded like a fortress with moat, and barred and locked doors; but on the inside, once a face was known, people came and went as they pleased. In the end, my list, hanging there in front of mind’s eye began to mesmerise me and I slept.

  And woke to a feeling of terrible panic. I was stone cold, my legs and arms seemed frozen to my side; the box seemed to have shrunken overnight. I screamed. It escaped me before I could control it, but once it erupted, I lost all control. I might be here for days. I and the two serjeants were the ones who played the most tennis these days. Others preferred the sport of hunting or jousting.

  ‘Help! Help me!’ I screamed and wished that I believed in prayer. I tore with my nails at those tiny dots of light which were the only thing that rested between me and suffocation. Slightly brighter light. No good, though. No good unless someone decided to play tennis. I screamed for help again and then stopped. My voice had torn through my throat and the sound had come out, ragged and hoarse. I struggled violently for control. I would have to preserve my voice until I heard a door open. I had to lie very quietly and wait until I heard the welcome click of the key in the lock. Surely someone would come? If not to play tennis, then perhaps to clean the place. My throat was sore with shouting and now I realised that I was also desperately thirsty. There was no way that I could get a drink so I tried to thrust that realisation away. Once more I went back to visualising my list but this time it brought no measure of calmness with it. I was consumed with regrets. Why had I agreed to play tennis with a man whom I suspected? Why had I not secured a couple of horses at the very first word of ‘murder’ and taken James back to Ireland, back behind the stoutly barred doors of Kilkenny Castle? I could just as well conduct marriage negotiations from there. I moved my legs fretfully and tried not to imagine a long drink of red wine from the barrel in the corner of the kitchen. I began to recite in my mind all the heptads that I had learned in law school: seven ways in which a church building can be destroyed without legal claim, seven bloodsheds that do not incur fines, seven women who …

  And then I heard a click. I heard it and I was dumb. For a long moment I could say nothing. When my scream came out eventually, it was rusty and seemed to die half way out of my throat. I tried again. There was a silence, a croak from a dry mouth. Violently I kicked at the lid of the wooden box.

  And then a frightened voice, a young voice, half-broken said: ‘God’s wounds. Who’s there?’

  ‘Tom!’ That came out better. The flood of relief was oiling the cords in my throat. Whoever was responsible for hitting me over the head and locking me into the tennis balls’ box, I certainly did not suspect a boy of doing that. What would be the point?

  ‘It’s Hugh, James’s friend,’ I managed to say.

  ‘The key is in the padlock. Wait, I’ll turn it.’

  It seemed too easy. I told myself not to hope, not to expect that the key would work, but it clicked with the precise sound of a well-oiled lock. Tom raised the lid instantly, staring at me, open-mouthed. For a moment he looked like what he really was, just a child. He had left the door open and a blast of cold air rushed in on me. There was light too, very bright light coming from the doorway. I tried to raise my head and felt as though I would vomit so lowered it again. I turned my head away from the door and swallowed hard. My head was thumping.

  ‘What happened?’ His voice, for once, sounded frightened.

  I did not answer. I tried to sit up, but the wave of sickness came over me again. I had seen enough, though, to realise that the light came from the snow piled up outside the still open door. I began to shiver and I couldn’t control it.

  ‘Shall I fetch someone?’ Tom came a little nearer. He had a tennis ball in his hand. He looked frightened.

  ‘Why did you come?’ The words came out in a croak.

  Tom held up the tennis ball. ‘I was borrowing this, I wanted a tennis ball.’

  So it was sheer luck. Another wave of sickness overwhelmed me.

  ‘What happened to you? What were you doing in that box?’

  The words echoed in my head but I could make no sense of them. I concentrated on not vomiting, swallowed hard. I closed my eyes tightly against the glare from outside and tried to breathe in slowly and deeply.

  ‘Do you want any help?’ Now he was kneeling beside the coffin, as I now thought of it.

  ‘No.’ I pressed my hands over my eyes. ‘No, go and get Colm, my servant, in my lodgings, but take that key with you! Don’t leave that key. I don’t want anyone to lock me in again.’ My voice had risen with the last command and with shame I heard it crack.

  He sounded embarrassed. ‘I’ll be very quick. Don’t worry.’ He was gone before I could repeat my command about the key, but when I reached out, and felt the lock, there was no key in it.

  It seemed a long time, though. I kept my eyes shut. The deadly waves of nausea were less troublesome like this. Tentatively I moved my legs and my arms trying to work the stiffness out of them. It was wonderful to have that lid removed from on top of my face, but I was beginning to think that I was suffering from concussion. That had happened to me before in Kilkenny when I had slammed my head against the concrete floor of the tennis court. Only time would cure it, I knew, but time was not what I had at the moment. I needed clear wits. Once again I tried to concentrate on those lists of names. From outside I heard the noise of a shovel and then the swish of a broom. They were clearing the snow outside my prison and the sound was comforting. There were plenty of people outside there, ordinary people doing an ordinary job. The murderer, whoever he was, could not come in and finish his deadly task.

  And then Tom came back, the door swinging open bringing light and the sharp fresh smell of snow.

  ‘He’s not there. Colm is not there. Not in your lodgings. There is no sign of him,’ he said breathlessly.

  15

  I sat up carefully and slowly feeling the wave of nausea come back. ‘Fetch a doctor,’ I said. I changed my mind. Useless to have Dr Augustine. He would just bleed me and make me feel worse.

  ‘Find Master Cavendish. Find him and send him here instantly.’ I was beginning to feel less sick. I would manage. The important thing was to make contact with the cardinal and talk to him about what to do. My head ached, but my mind was very clear. Now I knew the truth.

  But this imprisonment of me for a period of less than a day just did not make sense to me.

  ‘See if you can stand. Lean on me.’ Tom stretched out a hand. There was a slight spurt of warmth within me and I felt my muscles respond as I thought of James, with shame for my shortcomings and my past stupidity but with a surge of determination to get the boy out of this affair in safety.

  ‘Here.’ He held out my fur-lined cloak and then without waiting for me to take it,
draped it around my shoulders and fastened the ties under my chin.

  ‘Shall I go now?’

  I nodded. My legs were still stiff and the muscles trembled. I would soon be back to myself, though and when he had left, I sat on the bench and rubbed my legs. My boots were there in the corner of the room. It was a strange affair. Why not throw me in the river once I had been knocked unconscious. This violence towards me and the imprisonment in such a public place which could not have lasted too long made no sense with what I had been painfully working out last night.

  It was almost as though someone just wanted me out of the way for a number of hours.

  Had my release been planned?

  And where was Colm? Had something happened to James?

  Master Cavendish crashed through the door a few minutes later.

  ‘Hugh! What a terrible thing! What happened? Are you all right? This is a terrible business? Nothing seems to be going right these days! And His Grace is so upset! I’ve never seen him like this!’

  I fastened on what was for George the most important matter.

  ‘Why is His Grace so upset?’ I asked mildly, wishing that he would help to pull my boots on. What with the stiffness of my joints and my aching head, I was having quite a struggle.

  ‘And wait until he hears about this, now!’ George confirmed my view that my small mishap would not be of huge importance to the man who was not only legate, but also Lord Chancellor of England.

  ‘So what did upset him?’

  George looked evasive.

  ‘I think I had better allow His Grace to tell you about that himself.’ He turned his attention to the lesser matter, looking down into the opened tennis ball container.

  ‘Don’t tell me that you spent the night in that little space,’ he said with horrified pity. ‘Poor Hugh, you must be cold and cramped. Was it one of the boys, do you think? Young Tom Seymour, perhaps? Not Francis. He’s a very pious boy, but perhaps George Vernon …’

  ‘Tom released me,’ I said. I didn’t think it was a boyish prank, but I decided I wanted no more talk about it. ‘So, let’s go and see His Grace, George. Do I look respectable?’

  ‘A little creased.’ He eyed me as narrowly as though I were a linen tablecloth for His Grace’s high table. ‘Still, your cloak will hide most things.’ To my relief, he seemed no longer interested in my overnight incarceration, but fussed around me, brushing some chalk from my cloak and offering me a comb, even reaching up himself to put a finishing touch to my hair.

  ‘Well, considering everything, you don’t look too bad,’ he said with his head on one side. That would be the last of his speculations about my imprisonment, I guessed. He went ahead of me into the cardinal’s room and, I suppose, told his story rapidly, because he was out again within minutes, beckoning me to come inside.

  The cardinal had an angry look. His eyes, usually so good-humoured, had the bleak colour of chipped flint stones. He was wrapped in his splendid scarlet cloak and he huddled into it as though, despite the blazing fire, he felt a mortal chill.

  ‘Sit down, Hugh,’ he said gravely. ‘You will take a glass of wine?’

  Almost before the words were out of his mouth, and without waiting for any reply from me, George had poured some wine into two silver goblets and now carried them across, placing each carefully on its silver tray on top of the priceless carpet from Turkey. I drank thirstily. Not the best thing for a man with a thumping headache, perhaps, but it put new heart into me.

  ‘You were not at dinner, Hugh,’ said the cardinal. I noticed that he stated the fact, but did not ask a question. He had doubtless been told the whole story by his gentleman usher and would have drawn his conclusions. I saw a glance pass between them and the cardinal nodded gently, pleased that I had said nothing. I guessed that I was about to be enlightened.

  ‘George, have we something to offer our guest? Perhaps you might fetch something? You feared that there would be more fish, doubtless, that’s why we did not see you at table. But, since today is not a fast day, the kitchen might have something to tempt our guest’s appetite, what do you think, George?’

  And thus, neatly, George was got rid of and in the silence after his departure, the cardinal eyed me across the table for a long moment.

  ‘I made you a promise, Hugh, and the promise is broken.’ His voice was bleak with, if it were possible, an undernote of fear in it. I looked across at him in a puzzled way.

  ‘I promised you that you would have until Monday to solve this matter, but it appears that I had no right to make such an assurance. There is a proclamation on the very gate of Hampton Court, and in all public places in the city of London, that a man is sought for the murder of Edmund Pace.’ The cardinal took a longer draught than usual from his wine goblet and took from a drawer in his table a large piece of paper. It was printed in the usual rough style of public proclamation, the words etched carelessly into a block of wood and then stamped on the page. But, blotted and blurred as it was, the message was quite clear:

  ‘Wanted for the MURDER of Master Edmund Pace,

  Instructor to the Wards at Hampton Court,

  JAMES BUTLER

  Aged about 20 years. Very tall. Red hair, red beard, walks

  with a limp.’

  ‘I see.’ I handed the poster back to him. No doubt that there would also be men crying the name of James Butler in the streets of London and brandishing pamphlets. My blood seemed to have turned to ice and I imagined James as I had seen him last, standing on the doorstep of that house in Canon’s Row, red hair and red beard both blazing forth his identity. And the limp, that would be the final touch.

  ‘It wasn’t I, Hugh. I’ve had nothing whatsoever to do with this. The king overrode me in this matter.’ He compressed his lips and sat for a moment, his eyes fixed on the ornate pattern of the table covering. I waited quietly. There was nothing that I could say and nothing now that my friend and patron, Cardinal Wolsey, could do for me. But why? The king, I knew, was capricious, impulsive, easily led. But who had brought this matter up? Who had persuaded the king to take this matter into his own hands? There had been no talk of relatives – Edmund Pace was a man who had come to London in his youth, from somewhere in Cornwall.

  I had a notion.

  ‘I travelled back on the barge with Edward Seymour. Sir George St Leger was there, also. He would be a first cousin of Sir Thomas Boleyn, would he not?’ I allowed the words to hang in the air and saw him nod.

  So it was St Leger who had procured the ‘wanted’.

  ‘The Ormond inheritance,’ I said slowly.

  He smiled but there was still a worried look in his eyes. I understood that. The king had overridden him, had taken the matter out of his cardinal’s hands, for the sake of a low-ranking courtier. That was a grave rebuff to a man who normally held such power. Who was behind it, who had persuaded the king to do this? I raised my eyebrows at him.

  ‘You must understand, Hugh, that Sir George St Leger is a boon companion of the Duke of Suffolk,’ said the cardinal.

  So that was it. The Duke of Suffolk was married to the king’s younger sister, but that was not all. He was also a prime companion at arms to the king, and had been brought up with him in the court of his father. The king and the Duke of Suffolk were as close as brothers. If St Leger was sponsored by Suffolk, then there was little that my friend, the Cardinal of York, could do for James. But what was the reason for my imprisonment?

  ‘I see,’ I said. That would be about all that I was going to get from the cardinal. The king had taken the matter from out of his hands. A slight insult to a proud man such as the cardinal, but a disaster, perhaps, for James Butler.

  ‘Sir George St Leger has a lot of influence at court,’ said the cardinal. There was a glint of a warning in his eyes and I bowed my head.

  ‘So James had been judged and found guilty,’ I said.

  ‘You really should attend some law lectures at the Inns of Court, Hugh; the law in this country is different to your rather stra
nge, rather utopian laws in Ireland. The man has now been accused and so he is guilty until he manages to prove his innocence.’

  ‘Whereas it should be innocent until proved guilty, if we kept to Roman law, as well as Irish law. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui nega. You know that quotation, I’m sure, Your Grace.’

  ‘I shall miss you, Hugh,’ he said affectionately. ‘No one else in my household argues with me.’

  I understood what he was saying. He wondered, probably, why I had turned up again, why I was not, even at this very hour, boarding a ship at Dover.

  ‘Well, I’m sure that Your Grace is familiar with the reverend gentleman, Thomas à Kempis, and his saying: Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit. And, of course, we have often agreed, have we not,’ I went on carefully, watching his face as I spoke, ‘that youth is God these days.’

  His eyes sharpened. He got up, went to the door, looked up and down the corridor, then came back in, turning the key in the lock. A careful man. He then went over to the space in front of the oriel window, twenty feet above the ground, and beckoned to me to join him.

  ‘The horse won’t run,’ he murmured. He had guessed instantly that James had refused.

  ‘No, Your Grace. He has refused.’

  He raised one white, bushy eyebrow while still staring ahead at the snow-clad brick walls.

  ‘Motives can be mixed.’ I, too, fixed my eyes ahead, and kept my voice low. ‘A mixture of pride, family feeling, foresight for the future.’

  ‘Both wise and discreet,’ he murmured and I remembered his words to the king about James. I wondered now whether he was speaking ironically, but he gave a decisive nod after a minute.

  ‘Well, then this matter has to be cleared up, no matter how powerful the interests,’ he said and I guessed that he was speaking of Sir George St Leger.

  ‘I should, as you have often remarked, Your Grace, study some English law, but perhaps you will enlighten me as time is of the essence in this matter. Would a signed confession be acceptable in an English court of law?’