The Queen's Oranges

by House, Gregory

  Yesterday, before he hid the gold he was so providentially given, Ned had grabbed a handful. Just to defray expenses of course. The mass of glued coins proved to be gold sovereigns still stuck to a compressed remnant of orange.

  So that was one connection. Don Juan Sebastian was paying Belsom.

  …But actually it wasn’t.

  Why was the Spaniard handing over masses of coin to the pursuivant of the Lord Chancellor? The action defied logic. Why pay the horse’s arse when you could more easily pay the rider? Sure, Belsom commanded a hefty troop of men, but so did a dozen or more other lords, each more reliable than that fat buffoon. If you were organising some sort of affray, Belsom couldn’t, by any stretch, be classed as a natural leader who commanded compliance or respect. So why did he have the gold and so much to ready hand?

  Ned, to Gryne’s continued amusement, pried further at the orange conglomeration. This still didn’t make any sense. The pulp shouldn’t be so black. His time spent in Meg’s company at the apothecaries hadn’t been wasted. When oranges were as dark as this one, the rot was so far advanced that you could smell them for yards. So why were these smelling sickly sweet, but only slightly pungent?

  Cautiously he dipped his finger into the ooze and then on into his mouth. The taste elicited another cry of surprise. Ned shot to his feet and walked briskly towards the door. A call from a startled Gryne had him half turn and call over his shoulder. “Keep as much of that as you need and send the four men over. If there are any more, I’ll pay triple so long as they arrive before Vespers chimes.”

  Ned had to get back to the Ruyter as soon as possible. He had too much to organise before tonight. The delay and distraction of the Black siblings for one!

  As Ned paced rapidly through the crowded street, he couldn’t help but growl out a string of curses. What an act of red handed ruthlessness. Typical. He should have put the clues together before this. It had been staring him in the face for the past week and he’d been too stupid and narrow focused to step back and see it.

  One of his masters at the college once had come up with a surprisingly wise axiom. A man is only the sum of his experiences, and how a man acts is the result of what he is taught and what he sees.

  Sir Thomas More saw the successful suppression of the Evil May Day Riots catapult him into Royal service and prominence. This time it could do it again, but with a callous twist. It was the cannons in the tower that quelled the last disturbance. Now, with a savage irony, they would start the next one. More was planning a bombardment of the city tonight or tomorrow to pre–empt the signing of the King’s Great Petition. That levelling of the city was paid for by Imperial gold, orchestrated by a bitter queen and the family of an executed traitor.

  And just how did he know all this from just a single taste? It was Rob really who he had to thank for that lesson. The tang wasn’t that of a tart orange. It was of saltpetre with an overlay of sulphur, while the black of the pulp was from charcoal. As Ned had found in the last week, the only place in London with oranges, all the ingredient of Gonne powder and a hefty, iron shod strong box was the office of Sir Welkin Blackford, Master of the King’s Ordinance at the Tower of London, aficionado of oranges and a relation to Lady Stafford

  And the man who controlled all the great city smashing Gonnes in the country!

  ***

  Chapter 30. Treachery at Tower Wharf, Riverside Night–time, 10th June

  The echo of the blow ricocheted off the wooden walls of the flanking warehouses. Ned would have collapsed in a crumpled heap however his captors had thoughtfully supplied him with three hefty men in monk’s robes. If they’d ever been in Holy Orders, then his bet would be on something violent and bloody like the Knights of St John, who hacked off the heads of Moors and Turks as a devout avocation. He’d gone through this sort of questioning the other day, and less than an hour ago it was going so well. This whole situation was so damn unfair. Lady Fortuna, so gracious with her gifts earlier in the day, and now? She was often described as capricious, whimsical, as flighty as a will–o’–the–whisp… Muzzily Ned tried to recall the, oh so recent, past, and sort out just where that fickle hearted lady had deserted him.

  Ned had planned for all foreseeable eventualities. He’d even gone over his preparations with Tam Bourke, and if any man in London understood the vagaries of traps and ambushes, it was the second in command of Gryne’s men. It should have been perfect, gliding elegantly through each stage like the ticking of the great clock at St Paul’s, as one part of the scheme set the next into play.

  It had begun smoothly. He had convinced Rob that the two punks, Lizzie and Mary, knew the whereabouts of the powder sorters lair, and that it was crucial to organise a raid as soon as darkness fell. He had leant upon the suggestion that Meg Black should be as far away as possible, looking after the remnants of the Orange Watch. Since the fracas this morning such provocation was going to be easy. He reckoned he’d figured out the motivations of Meg Black, well was much as any man could. The lass couldn’t resist the temptation to flout another of his commands.

  Ned had considered the problems of having both Meg and Mary in the same location again. Flame and powder was a good comparison—well, one just had to take some chances. For this part, Ned felt he had hit upon a cunning lure. He’d quietly told Rob that he believed Ben Robinson was being held captive there. That lie, or prevarication as his daemon insisted on naming it, made him feel rather like a base traitor, but it was, at least, a good possibility. Those two so–called powder sorters needed someone to organise the cutting of the illicit powder, a skill Ned was sure that they didn’t possess. In all of London, Master Robinson was the only one apart from the Doutch Gonne artificers, who knew how to do it without expiring suddenly and dramatically.

  That was not the real reason for the raid or the deliberate misdirection of the rest of the company. That owed inspiration from a darker motive. Since his meeting with Dr Caerleon Ned now believed he knew what chaos the Queen’s Oranges were set to unleash. Nothing short of the destruction of London’s east!

  Once all the pieces of the plot had been assembled, it was really rather simple. First the friars that infested the city preached that the Lord’s wrath of fire and destruction would fall upon those who supported the King’s Petition. Next the messages in the oranges warned those caught up in the plot to start agitating, stirring up riots, and other discontent.

  Normally it shouldn’t have been so easy. However the clever bit was the careful use of More’s pursuivants. They had been setting the scene for the last month with strikes all across the city, supposedly looking for ‘heretics’, building up a climate of suspicion and threat. All so that the friars and the oranges holders would have a fertile field of fear to sow.

  And then the final part. Ned thought himself quite brilliant to have worked this out. It all came back to the King’s Gonne powder and that weasel, Welkin. The Master of Ordinance was being paid in gold to vastly over order hundreds of barrels of the volatile powder. So simple. The one person in the kingdom who everyone expected to have the most regulated and checked armaments and here he was stacking it up for another use. It was those two powder sorters who’d given the game away, played up by their greed and ready access to the stores.

  It was the information from the riverside punks that helped to solve the final piece of this conundrum. It was the old monastery in Petty Wales. Ned recalled the decayed set of buildings. He was surprised they hadn’t already collapsed, though usefully, the crumbling collection sprawled for almost a block. If one were too perhaps stack them full to the brim with hundreds of barrels of powder and pitch, and then say, fire a couple of shots from the Tower Gonnes, all of east London would go up in one great conflagration.

  No doubt the other great ordinance would do its part in spreading destruction, but according to the Doutch brothers, there were drawbacks to using them. They took a great deal of time to load, so between each salvo of shot you would have a considerable gap and the quantities of powd
er were well above the voracious appetites of those city smashers.

  From that convenient spot the two powder sorters had figured out their own scheme for enrichment. They’d want to get as much gold as possible before tomorrow, for on Sunday Petty Wales would be lit up. It was the only option left, and it wasn’t as if they were planning to lay siege to the city. That was just impossible.

  It was in its essence a very ruthless and evil plan—the casual and arrogant bloodiness of slaying thousands just to further the ambitions of a bitter Queen. Just another ploy in the game of princes. It was an act of utter barbarity that Ned found difficult to encompass. However his reading of the histories revealed that the great were none too scrupulous about the shedding of common blood in the pursuit of their aspirations.

  So with these revelations sounding their dread knell within his brain, Ned made his preparations. The coffins of the two slain Hanse were taken off the ship, escorted by a wailing troupe of punks. They made very convincing mourners when given the right incentive. Ned had heard of Joachim’s rigid beliefs and just hoped that the fellow’s soul had a sense of humour at such a passage. His nephew may have appreciated it. Even more poetic was the heavily painted and skirted Albrecht accompanying the procession. Tam had been every graphic, describing to the Hanse the methods of leaving the ship either disguised as a punk or as Tam preferred, in a number of weighted sacks dropped over the side. With his loss of the beard Albrecht was indeed a new man, or rather a new woman, though it would have to be a pretty drunken sailor on a moonless night who’d fumble under those skirts.

  Ned had made arrangements for the deceased to lie at the small parish church of St Mary Magdalene on Milk Street by Cheapside, where his family had a few useful connections. Their poor bodies were unlikely to be disturbed, and Ned had left a couple more precautions. From there it was only a few paces to his uncle’s house, and Rob had a letter detailing in the fullest extent his discoveries so far. True, it was risky, but Rob Black had his wood wright’s gang and a couple of Gryne’s men for protection so there should be no trouble.

  Then it came to his other mission, the discovery and capture of the dammed Spaniard, Don Juan Sebastian. Ned had tried last night and came so close, it was maddening. However last evening’s disaster had established his reputation with Skelton and so tonight he planned to play on that. A simple message sent by one of Emma’s brats should do the trick and Skelton would find himself with Rob and Meg at the powder sorter’s stash. Whether the Spaniard was there or not mattered little to Ned. Skelton’s band of northern savages would prove useful to his friends in frustrating the evil scheme.

  So all had been prepared. His pieces had been primed and set into play. Now all that was required was his part. At the agreed time he had the crew cast off the vessel, and with the aid of the tide and a couple of wherry boats, they floated down river to the Tower wharves.

  Belsom’s party were not hard to spot. The short, stout figure was standing between two warehouses at the wharf, flanked by twenty of his minions complete with lanterns. It was a bit of a give away. Sir Roderick had once more gone for the full martial splendour of half armour. His resemblance to a gilt pot was even more pronounced in the flickering light, so if the hand over was to be as innocent as it had been presented, then the pursuivant was definitely over–dressed.

  Ned had sauntered down the gang plank, followed by two of Gryne’s men and while still a dozen feet away, had given what he considered his most courtly bow to the Lord Chancellor’s servant. It should have worked! It was supposed to work, and damn him, if he could have foreseen the trap!

  The rest of Gryne’s men poured over the bulwark of the docked vessel in a screaming, howling flood at the agreed signal. It was just that Sir Belsom didn’t seem at all flustered by the sudden arrival of Ned’s retainers, and just stood there with that smug smile on his face. A shadow of doubt bloomed into dreadful certainty as the doors of the flanking buildings swung open to reveal the threatening snouts of two of the King’s Great Gonnes.

  Ned threw up his hands, and his previously unstoppable charge skidded to an abrupt halt. It wasn’t going to work. Gryne’s men would cheerfully commit mayhem and violence to whosoever their paymaster of the time indicated, and risk the same bloody fate they dealt out. But asking them to face the annihilation promised by the black maws either side of them was past the bounds of paid loyalty. There was a grumbling clatter of dropped weapons as Ned’s band complied with the menaced request of More’s grinning pursuivant. Every man there had a fair idea of the consequences of non compliance. However when it came to the next logical stage of the ambush, Ned was surprised and humbled by the actions of Tam Bourke. His fearsome bodyguard refused to budge from his post by Ned’s side. It took the further persuasion of several aimed matchlock harquebus to convince the glowering retainer to join the rest of Gryne’s men, now secured in one of the warehouses.

  Then began the questioning. That may not have been so hard to endure, but then the ‘friars’ turned up, and it got so much worse, so, so much worse!

  *

  Ned rocked with another punch to the stomach, breathing interrupted recriminations.

  A querulous trembling voice, the First Inquisitor, sounded in his ear. “Come along Master Bedwell. We don’t have all night. Where’s my gold?”

  Another louder voice interrupted, oh yes the Second Inquisitor. It was a lot less timorous with an overtone of impatient panic to its falsetto squeak. “Damn the gold man. Forget it. Where the hell are the weapons? Fifty sets can’t just disappear!”

  The first trembling voice of the First Inquisitor rounded on the interrupter. “Well, have your useless men search the ship again. God’s teeth! I wouldn’t trust such a bunch of broken tipsters and drunkards to find their own buttocks!”

  Somewhere within Ned was a part of him, probably somewhat removed from such mundane considerations as the urgent need to breath or perhaps to vomit, that was secretly pleased. That part of him rubbed its metaphorical hands together and thought, good, the plan works.

  “G’n–n p’der.” It came out more as a wheeze than anything coherent, but it drew his inquisitors closer.

  “Shut up, you maggoty weasel! It doesn’t matter about the gold, you old fool,” hissed the Second Inquisitor. His tone was high pitched and urgent, brimming with anger and incipient panic. “What, what was that about the weapons, Ned? I didn’t hear it.”

  At this dismissive rebuke from his companion, the First Inquisitor quivered with outrage. It seemed he was deeply unimpressed with the present line of questioning and spluttered his retort. “What…what the damnation do you meant—it doesn’t matter and forget it! Six hundred pounds of my gold is missing, you lard arsed measle!”

  And now the Second Inquisitor left off his pursuit of secrets and turned to his quivering partner. “You addlepated buffoon. We need the weapons now. We’ll find the gold later!”

  Before the First Inquisitor could muster a suitably vindictive reply, Ned took a much needed breath and quickly slipped in another gem of truth, interrupting the exchange of insults. “Gonne powder, twenty four barrels!”

  The First Inquisitor didn’t take this revelation well. “What! What did he say about Gonne powder?”

  “Arghh, he’s said naught o’ use. Slit ‘is throat now I’s reckon.”

  Ned felt a trickle of ice run down his spine. Oh for the love of Jesus, no. It was the Third Inquisitor. That evil voice had luckily stayed in the background, only occasionally giving out useful hints for the removal of fingers or eyeballs to assay the truth of the question.

  “Theez is all wasting time,” chimed in the final Fourth Inquisitor. He’d mostly held himself aloof from the proceedings, primarily barking out the odd order or sneering hiss of frustration. “The night pazzes on, and you stand here arguing over triflez! When theez is done you’ll each be richer than you can imagine!”

  That was a very familiar Castilian lisp, and now quivering on the edge of anger too.

  “Oi!
Listen t’ the frog. He speaks sense he does. Leave the brat. We’ll work him over later!” Of course the Third Inquisitor would say that. He sounded desperately eager to get on with his plans for the night—spending ‘quality time’ with Ned.

  The sound of a blow and a snarled curse punctuated the discussion. “I ez not French, you sozzle brained, English dog futterer!” Apparently the Fourth Inquisitor had a much shorter fuse to his temper than the others.

  Ned would have smiled except it hurt. Instead he managed to utter a few more phrases for the cause. “Signed a bill, fo’ two hundred sovs fo’ the ship.”

  “What? Did you say two hundred? Why Belsom, you pot bellied cozener, where’s the rest? I gave you six hundred!”

  At the latest confession the First Inquisitor lost his last restraints of temper and trust, bleating like an enraged sheep. “He’s lying, you fool! Where are the Hanse and the girl?”

  Belsom, forgoing his role of Second Inquisitor, gripped Ned tightly by the doublet and shook him like a doll. They say a good rage lends strength to the body, and Belsom tried lifting the apprentice lawyer up. Unfortunately for the pursuivant, his short stature and Ned’s height foiled the attempt.

  “They’s gone. S’true. Got a Gl’smits bill wit’ the powder!” This was a bit slurred but so far they’d only stopped hitting him while the competing interests worked out which part they wanted to hear.

  Another face pushed into view, equipped with a very large, red, wrinkled nose. Ahh, Blackford was now keen to shed his dispassionate role as First Inquisitor and attempted his own grab for Ned. The Tower officer looked distinctly nervous and upset, dabbing furiously at his throat with a grimy kerchief. “You say there’s a bill with the powder. Where is it Bedwell?”

  If it weren’t for the beefy ‘monks’ holding him back, Sir Welkin would have clutched Ned’s throat in desperation. His eyes looked like they were popping out with the strain. Perhaps he should have considered the problems of cutting deals with traitors.