The Queen's Oranges

by House, Gregory

  For now it looked like he had succeeded. The Queen continued to address the formerly filthy friar in an interestingly familiar tone. “It goeth apace Dominic?”

  Well, thought Ned, that particular rumour was true. Decades here had not done much to remove the heavily inflected Castilian accent of the Queen. The friar gave a brief nod and replied in mostly perfect English, tainted by what Ned had come to recognise as a northern burr. “Aye Y’r Majesty. By the great day all will be done an’ our friends prepared.”

  It was at this intriguing point that Ned failed to blend in with the furniture and received another heavy buffet that set his ears a ringing. “Knave, why are you still here?”

  That was not meant as a question from the snarling priest. Ned dropped and gave his best grovelling broken worded excuse. In sympathy at his whimpering, the younger lady tossed him an orange. He maintained his dim aspect and knuckled a grateful thanks, then scuttled out, ignored by all as the door slammed shut behind him. A good turn of speed saw him exit the Privy chambers until, breathing heavily, he’d made it back to the safety of the Livery kitchen.

  Ned lent against the cool stone wall and tried to still his thumping heart. By the damned saints, he had to think about this. Something was definitely going on! Well that was obvious. Only a fool would fail to realise that Katherine would fight tooth and claw to hold on to what she considered as her rightful position and title. Was this what Cromwell hoped to find out? Or the darker suspicion brought out by his daemon, had they twigged that they were being watched and this was a deliberate diversion?

  The more Ned pondered on that, the less likely it seemed. He felt he’d made a good impression of a slack jawed, dumb as dog’s brains servitor. After all, he’d seen a few so had excellent models. As well, he’d wryly noted exactly how crucial the testimony of servants had been in many a court case. It was amazing the detail of memory, especially when stimulated by the promise of the rack or reward. They weren’t near at stupid as you would have thought!

  But what was so important about oranges? And why did he have to lug those heavy baskets up to the Queen’s Privy chamber? It just didn’t make sense. If it was supposed to be a very private affair, why grab a servant, though, as he rubbed his aching head, that could have been explained by natural arrogance. He’d seen more than a few clerics who wouldn’t soil their hands with the slightest speck of labour, if they could expend an equal amount of effort threatening or cajoling someone else to do it for them. After all, thanks to Mistress Black, he did look and smell the part. And the livery, his daemon raised that as ominously interesting, but Ned dismissed it as irrelevant. He had other suspicions to ponder first and more perplexing questions.

  Such as, why three of the noblest ladies of the kingdom were, or so it seemed, packing oranges into small baskets themselves? As the highest of nobility, that was something that you would order done, and with the clerics present, that was even more confusing because none looked that deferential. If the baskets were presents for the Court or a religious festival then the timing was out. The Feast of St John’s was still a few weeks off and that festival was bonfires and feasting. He couldn’t recall that giving oranges was any part of it. Anyway according to Meg, the fruit needed to be used really soon before they went mouldy. It could always be some strange foreign custom. If so then why organise it so secretively, and why were the priests involved, a blessing of the oranges? Even his angel didn’t think so.

  Ned lent against the wall and sighed despondently. It just wasn’t fair. He was here as a codicil to Cromwell’s writ. From the timing, he wasn’t even meant to find anything! It was merely a footnote in some report being prepared for the Privy Council, such as ‘on the seventh of this month, a pursuivant in our employ noted the following at Richmond Palace’. That should be all.

  Another ominous thought surfaced and waved for attention. Ned tried very hard to banish it, but the pesky thing kept on bobbing up at the edge of other considerations. Everyone had spies. It was a fact of life if you were a lord of the land. The pinnacle of the Wheel of Fortuna was a dangerous place. Every rival hungered for your fall. Men racked with ambition and hunger thought nothing of encouraging betrayal. Ned wasn’t naive. He knew that he was just another tool in Cromwell’s array against his competitors. So why was he here? Was he to find something or was he to verify a suspicious report from another of the Councillor’s agents? Or was it that there was no suspicious report and that omission had twitched Cromwell’s curiosity? The absence of information could, at times, be more ominous than its discovery. Ned had a sudden urge to roundly curse his ‘good lord’ for giving him this fool’s errand.

  Since the matter of the nullity had surfaced, Richmond Palace must be crawling with informers. Any of the servants could be working for Norfolk, Suffolk, the King himself or no doubt foreign powers, the French and Imperials to name just two. So what was going on? As he had found last year, the mighty had this obsession with labyrinthine plots, under the delusion that the more convoluted it was, the less likely that its true purpose would be divulged. However, as with the affair of the Cardinal’s Angels, plots broke down when they were placed in the hands of less capable minions, unable to appreciate the true breadth, scope and complexity of the scheme—in other words common men, who had to flounder through the more mundane realities of daily misfortune and accident.

  Thinking of misfortunes led him to the next worrying question. Last year he’d the dubious pleasure of engaging the attention of one Don Juan Sebastian de Alva, a Spanish gentleman who claimed to serve the Queen. The foreign fop hadn’t been sighted since that unfortunate incident at the badgers set near Grafton Regis, where he had kindly compensated Ned’s humbling and injury, with a splendid horse and a dagger. Ned doubted that the Spaniard had fled home. He’d gained the impression that Don Juan Sebastian intended to gain fame and fortune here and only death would deflect his course. If that was so, then was he lurking here at Richmond? Was the pernicious Spaniard the target of Ned’s commission? That would be sweet justice! Cromwell knew all about the part Don Juan Sebastian had played in the Cardinal’s Angels plot, as well as Ned’s longing for revenge. How did you fathom the cryptic instruction of one’s lord and master? Ned had left a standing commission with Gryne’s men to look out for the offensive foreigner, and occasionally rumour would surface regarding the gentleman in question, but naught else.

  That was another difficulty that would have to wait for resolution. The first matter was the current plotting of Queen Katherine. That she was planning something was as apparent as night follows day. Perhaps it came with the Spanish heritage? Her father, Ferdinand, also had an infamous reputation for double dealing and treachery. Whatever this mad scheme was, Ned suspected it included oranges, friars and the mood of London. Even his daemon agreed with that.

  ***

  Chapter 13. The Powder Mill, Hounslow Heath, Afternoon, 7th June

  By the time the leisurely delivery had concluded Ned was ready to scream in frustration. The receipt of the barrels of double ale had gone smoothly. He should know—he’d helped store them, every damned one! After that, the two girls held, he felt, a deliberately long consultation over the details of the next shipment, then an exchange of recipes for sauces or remedies, news of acquaintances, births, deaths marriages, elopements and the good saints knew whatever else took their fancy for TWO whole hours! During that interminable wait, each minute he was expecting the lean priest to come a hunting him again, eager, wrathful and escorted by unfriendly, hard–eyed guards. It wasn’t that Ned was actually hiding under a table or cowering in the shadows. He just used any scrap of cover that was present in the busy kitchen, and as a measure of his apprehension he even offered to take all the slops to the kitchen midden.

  Eventually and to Ned’s nervous imagination that was a very tardy eventually, the two girls gave their farewells and having gathered the proffered haunches of venison, sauntered slowly back to the wharf. As extra shielding, he’d taken two of the smoked legs, one
slung over each shoulder, the better to hide from view.

  The last few paces were the most difficult as he choked down his instinct to bolt for the welcome cover of the boat away from the overshadowing windows in the palace. After stowing the two dozen joints of game meats in a large salt chest in the stern, Ned dropped relieved and shaking into the boat to the curious stares of Rob Black and Gruesome Roger.

  The rippling wavelets splashed and surged underneath the prow, as the barge charged through the waters of the Crane River. It was an impressive effort on the part of the rowers manning the eight foot long sweeps, chanting in unison as they drove the timber blades deep into the water then throwing their bodies forward with the strain to take the craft up river stroke by stroke.

  Ned lent forward with the rest, grunting the work chant. His sweep shuddered with an accustomed twang as its timber shaft rubbed the pivot pins. It’d only taken him half an hour to fall into the muscle numbing rhythm, then like the rest he kept the pace, as the sweat ran down his arms and set his palms stinging from the broken blisters.

  Despite the pain of his hands and the racked muscles, Ned almost felt happy. He’d finally won an argument with Margaret Black, all be it a brief and low voiced one, but a hard won victory none the less.

  Eventually all had been arranged to their satisfaction and the two girls had taken their relaxed position at the stern bench. Ned, trying to maintain his cover from the watching eyes at the dock, had approached very humbly and engaged Mistress Black in a fast description of the perils ashore and advised that if they wished to live past the day, an immediate departure was imperative. That’d been the edited version, having suppressed his more caustic and invective thoughts, regarding their leisurely carousing in the kitchen. A raging argument would help no one, no matter how satisfying or justified. As a consequence here they were ploughing up the Crane River towards Hounslow Heath, and another required task.

  The days of their reprieve were slowly slipping away and as yet, Ned had nothing to shield them from the inquisitive eye of the Lord Chancellor, let alone a solution to the baffling murders or the disappearance of Ben Robinson. While regarding his efforts for his good lord and patron, he had found more than enough to see one pursuivant, Ned Bedwell by name, dead in a ditch for his silence.

  So here they were, pulling up the small tributary to the Thames just a half a mile or so down stream from Richmond Palace. Ned shook the sweat off his face. He wished that a cartographer would have the foresight to come up with a map of the towns and counties of the Kingdom. Now the Wandle River on the southern bank London-wards of Putney he knew, every cursed inch and riverside tree, too damned well. This patch however wasn’t part of his city geography. To his mounting annoyance and fear, they had to stop and ask several farmers along the river for directions. Ned regarded that expedient as risky since he still had the feeling that someone was after them. The trip up the river may have given them a few hours delay, but if their opponents were persistent enough to try and burn the ship, then chasing them up the river was a very simple matter and every stop and question left a memory to be delved by those that followed. After all it had worked for him with the missing grain shipments.

  They’d pulled around another angled bend to the river when the light easterly breeze washed the foul miasma over the barge. Ned coughed and almost dropped the sweep. That odour was indescribably rank, even worse than the stream by the Shambles or Fleete Ditch! Through streaming eyes Ned could see a cluster of buildings on the northern bank. The collection of stone walls with shingle roofs and open sheds was a lot more extensive than the farms and manors they’d passed. Well the Doutch artificers had suggested that a powder mill was more apparent by smell than by sight.

  As the barge pulled into the mill’s wharf, Ned glimpsed another imminent problem. Just what was the reason to be here? He felt it would be foolhardy to wave his writ and claim Royal interest. That just wouldn’t hold. Hampton Court was only a few miles to the south west. Ned gritted his teeth. If that weren’t sufficient, then the state of his attire precluded any attempt at official business. The master of the mills would just dismiss him as a prating vagabond and ignore the seal and signature, that’s if he’d even spare the time to have his writ verified.

  Ned gave a considering, slit eyed inspection of the two girls seated at the stern and rubbed his sore hands thoughtfully. Well that could be a possibility. He grinned with malicious mirth and wiped a sweaty brow. About time that pair of plumed, chattering birds came in useful and somehow, after this morning, it seemed terribly ironic.

  Ned had selected a position to the rear of the procession. In this case the condition of his clothes fitted the part. All he had to do was put on a more pronounced swagger, with his left hand prominently placed on his sword, tilting it out at a rakish angle. Gruesome Roger was in the vanguard. His size, forbidding presence and grimace made him a natural for the job. As per custom, the two girls strode imperiously behind him, spiced orange pomanders held close to faces set in arrogant disdain, dressed in the finest scarlet cloth, edged in dark velvet braid and hair done up in pearl studded French hoods made popular by Lady Anne. To Ned, it was a sight fit even for his Majesty’s Court. As they paced along he’d the best view of those magnificently arrogant stiff shoulders trailing skirts, and as his daemon noted with speculative interest, swaying buttocks. As for their trailing, raffish retainers, Rob and he made an excellent tail, strutting and grimy.

  Roger grabbed the first mill worker he came across and hauled the fellow up from the pile of stinking manure he was raking. “Find me the governor o’ this dung heap an’ tell him ta prepare fo’ m’ Mistresses!”

  It was in the sort of snarled command and twisted grip that gave an instant response. The poor peasant gibbered in fright before hobbling at his best speed towards a small two level, stone manor house set just back from the mill site. Excellent start thought Ned. News of their arrival would reach the administrator well before the tottering legs of their messenger.

  It worked. A worried looking man received them in the spartan luxury of the manor house. In between his constant bobbing and repeated apologies for the inadequate reception, poor wine and lack of suitable comforts, it was discovered that he went by the name of Samuel Lyttlefield. Ned didn’t know whether it was a natural trait or a nervous habit from working in so close proximity to the most dangerous substance in the land, but their host was always distractedly smoothing down the tufts of grey hair that fringed the protruding dome of his head. That’s, when he actually was sitting for longer than a minute. His conversation was frequently interspersed with rapid strides to the window where he would peer anxiously over towards the operations of the mill.

  “Master Lyttlefield!” That was very good, with the accustomed snap of command in the tone. Meg must have been taking lessons from one or two of Master Goldsmiths’ wives from the grain syndicate. She had the snarl of arrogance down pat. Once more the governor of the mill scurried back to his seat to attend to his distinguished visitors. His daemon noted with approval that boldness always paid.

  “Please mistresses, forgive my inattention. We’re at a very delicate stage of the process. The slightest error and all our work will be gone!”

  “Really, then we must inspect it at once!” That combination of a command and statement had the most unfortunate effect on Master Lyttlefield. His eyes went wide and his hands flapped before him like a demented windmill.

  “No! No! Mistress Black it would be far too dangerous!” The fellow bobbed up and down in visible distress. The reaction to that was perhaps not all Master Lyttlefield wanted. The two girls, or rather heiress investors in the Company of Merchant Adventurers, put their heads together and whispered intently much to the further consternation of Master Lyttlefield. Ned could tell the fellow was unused to dealing with the powerful women of the city’s merchant families, but no doubt he’d heard of their formidable reputation. Who hadn’t? That explained the fawning treatment. Meg beckoned over Gruesome Roger who knelt
and muttered a few words before being dismissed with an abrupt wave.

  On the way to the house Rob give a very brief run down on the operations here. The long raised mounds of stinking manure were the breeding ground for the white crystals of saltpetre, while the carefully watched smoking mounds that lined the opposite riverbank produced the willow charcoal. The sulphur, the last ingredient, was shipped in from the Low Countries and Spain. Then, according to the brothers Hubrecht and Henryk, all these compounds were harmless until united in a secret proportion. That was the perilous part, when the dried bread cakes of the black powder were ground down and broken under the weight of the slow revolving mill stone which could be seen a few furlongs to the west being powered by a pair of oxen as they trod the worn circular path. Ned did recall the warning of the Doutch artificers. It was very graphic. At this stage one spark from the scrape of steel or metal on the ground powder, and it would instantly erupt, unleashing its destructive power, levelling buildings and slaying all within the conflagration. Perhaps Master Lyttlefield had fair cause to be nervous.

  Ned watched with suppressed amusement as Meg Black gave one of her disapproving scowls over the barrier of the cloved orange and addressed the mill governor. “Well Sirrah, perhaps we will forgo that after all.”

  The grudging concession was greeted with all the acclaim of a benediction from on high by a penitent. Master Lyttlefield rattled out a string of thanks and praises.

  “As I mentioned before, you have been recommended to our service by John Rastell and Sir Thomas.”

  Oh that was very clever. Rastell was the brother–in–law of the Lord Chancellor and a gentleman known to be connected with the Merchant Adventurers. He was still talked about for his ill fated attempt to settle the New World. Apparently his crew preferred piracy and set him ashore in Ireland. Ned also noted the slight of hand with the names. She didn’t actually give a last name after the ‘Thomas’. That was just implied. No matter, the mere suggestion of such impeccable connections stilled the nervous twitching of their host, and if anything, his grovelling obeisance increased. “Thank you mistress. It is an honour to be of service. How may I assist you?”