‘There are strange things in this Prologue,’ said one of the two visitors. ‘Tell us, Master, what think you of Baptism?’
‘Now,’ thought Gib, ‘he will be silent or speak humbly of the sacrament.’
He heard the Cook give a kind of scraping cough, and then, in a wavering voice, say that no water, though superstitiously called holy, could save a human soul.
‘Jesu Mary!’ and ‘God’s Bread!’ they cried, and began to ask him of Transubstantiation, which he denied, speaking louder and in a shrill tone, and after that they said they need ask him no further, and Gib heard them go away.
After a few minutes he went down. The Master Cook sat at table drumming with his fingers on the board. There were three cans of ale beside him, untouched. At the fireside his wife was beating eggs, and as she beat tears fell down her cheeks and into the bowl.
They ate dinner very silently. The Cook drank the three cans of ale one after the other. His wife wept without any sound. Gib was ashamed because he could not be glad that the Cook had done valiantly. He said to himself that the Bishop would not care that such a poor, ignorant fellow should talk heresy.
September 16
Gib came back to the sign of King David in time for supper; but he found no supper, and the place in confusion. Two of the servants had run away, and the wife and a serving woman were trying to do the work of those that had fled, and of the Master Cook too.
‘But where’s he?’ Gib asked.
The Cook’s wife did not lift her eyes from the pastry she was rolling.
‘They’ve taken him away, the Bishop’s officers have.’
‘Why?’ asked Gib stupidly, knowing well why.
‘For heresy.’
If the woman had wept Gib would have thought less heavily of the business, but her hard flat voice, and her hands that never stopped their hurried dealings with the pastry, affected him unpleasantly. He mumbled something about returning soon, hardly knowing if it were his or the Cook’s return he promised, and then went out, to roam round the streets in a sort of aimless haste, which never outran the blank fact that the Cook had been taken for a heretic.
November 8
The new Nuns’ Priest had hardly been in the Priory for half an hour before he sent word to the Prioress that he would be ready to sing Lady Mass, thereby showing, as he intended, a commendable zeal.
The Ladies had heard no Mass since their old priest died a month ago, save what was mumbled through for them by the toothless, ancient parish priest, drunk too, most of the time. They were therefore very ready to come into Church. Besides they all wanted to have a look at their new priest.
They saw a round, cheerful, fresh-faced man, with a small, pursed mouth, which let out a loud and tuneful voice. His demeanour was most proper, but more than one caught a glance of his eyes, full of bright, friendly curiosity. When the Mass was over and they back again in the Cloister, the Ladies were able to tell each other, with confidence, that they were pleased, and would be pleased, with their new priest. They stayed rather longer in the Cloister than they would otherwise have stayed on such a raw, drenched day, feeling that the presence of a new priest in the House called for a stricter observance of the Rule; but the mist closing in drove them into the Parlour where they continued, in greater comfort, to discuss the new arrival.
Meanwhile the priest was exploring his two small rooms, with something of a dog’s eager, prying interest. He did not sniff in the corners, or at the bed hangings, but, being short-sighted, he brought his nose very close to everything he looked at, so that he did indeed seem a little like a brisk, cheerful mongrel dog. When he had examined everything he sat down by the fire and took out from his baggage his recorder and a music book. He played to himself till it was dinner-time, and one of the Ladies, hearing faintly the sweet, musing, warbling notes, reported his occupation to the others, importantly and as a discovery. Soon the sound of his recorder would be nothing to them, but to-day everything about him was news.
When it was time for dinner he went across the Great Court and to the Prioress’s Chamber, and they two, Dame Joan Barningham, and Dame Eleanor Maxwell dined together. The Prioress, though more critical than most of the Ladies, was very well satisfied with her brother’s choosing. The little fat priest was of Easby just beyond Richmond, brother of a good worthy yeoman; his manner was attentive; his disposition obviously cheerful. She felt she had done well for the House.
November 30
Norris said, ‘What an if he gains the King’s ear once more? God knows he has the craft of the very serpent.’
The Duke of Norfolk cried out, ‘Blood of God!’ and wagged his hand at Norris to bid him be silent. He did not wish to hear put into words the fear that had gnawed at his mind since the King had sent for the Earl of Northumberland to arrest Cardinal Wolsey and bring him again to London. He was not going to tell Norris of the scene in the Privy Council yesterday; it would be common knowledge soon enough, such running tongues as most men had. But now, as he remembered it, he felt his face grow cold again, and stiffen, as it had done when the King thumped the board with his fist, leapt up scattering the quills and sand-box and paper all over the place, and then had stormed away from the room, crying that ‘not one of you is worth what the Cardinal was worth to me. Not one of you! Not one of you!’ He had slammed the door of the Council Chamber behind him so fiercely that it had bounced open again, and in the silence that followed they had heard the King’s quick footsteps go down the four stairs beyond, then along the gallery passage where the windows looked out to-day on nothing but the blank, drab fog. On the side of the gallery passage, facing those windows, was the door leading to the apartments of Mistress Anne Boleyn. Norfolk had listened – had guessed too that every other man listened – for the sound of the King’s hand rapping on the door, and for the click of the latch. But the footsteps had not paused. The sound of them died away, and after a moment more of silence and a few moments of murmured, wary talk, His Grace’s honourable Privy Council had broken up. Once again, as yesterday, Norfolk thought, ‘If she lose her power over the King and the Cardinal again wins his ear—’
He got out of his chair and went round to the fire. He heard Norris murmur that they said that ‘my Lady, your niece, swears she will leave the King. And shall all then be for naught, and the Cardinal rule again?’
Norfolk muttered, ‘When last I saw him he was much changed – aged. He’s not the man now to recover that place he had.’ But there was confidence neither in his mind nor in his tone, and he stood staring moodily into the fire for a long time before he said, ‘There is the Italian’s information to be used against the Cardinal. The King will not take it lightly that his own subject and servant begged the King of France to intercede for him. We can raise that nigh hand to treason itself.’ He let out an impatient kick at a log, which, falling inwards, sent a scatter of sparks up the chimney, and tattered flames leaping after the sparks. ‘I shall try the Italian again,’ he said, and leaving Norris hunched on his cushion in the window, went off to his own apartments.
There they presently brought in the Italian, Master Agostino de Agostinis, who had been my Lord Cardinal’s doctor. He was a small, fragile man, fair in colouring, with yellow hair, and a quiet benign face; his looks, and his long, patient discretion, were now turning profitable, for the Cardinal had trusted him as a man trusts his confessor, so that he had much secret knowledge to sell.
The Duke received him coldly, merely waving him to a small table where there was everything necessary for writing, and a candle set and lit, because of the gloom of the day within doors.
‘Sit there, Master Augustine,’ said he; and no more for several minutes. Then he asked, bluntly, for information which would set the King against the Cardinal.
‘Shall it be true?’ The Italian’s soft tone was demure, but Norfolk caught a hint of a smile on the man’s face.
He stared it down. ‘True?’ he repeated.
‘You prefer it true?’
‘
I pay for the truth,’ said the Duke with a look and tone that would have quelled most Englishmen of Master Augustine’s station; but then he was an alien, and, more than that, an Italian, so that these lords, even the greatest of them, were to him more than half barbarian.
‘I remember,’ said the Italian, after a silence in which the Duke twirled a big ruby on his finger and Master Augustine sat at ease, in calm consideration, ‘I remember the Cardinal’s words to me when he first went on embassy to France.’
‘Write them.’
The Duke picked up a book, and Master Augustine bent over the small table, writing down in careful English, and his elegant Italian hand, what the Cardinal had said to him. He remembered accurately, not only the words, but the Cardinal’s hand on his shoulder, even the warmth of the Cardinal’s breath on his ear as my Lord leaned close to whisper so that no one else, less trusty, should hear. But those things it was unnecessary to put down, only the words.
They were interrupted by a knock at the door, and the entrance of a gentleman in haste who began, ‘My Lord Duke—’ and checked dead when he saw Master Augustine with his pen poised and face turned to watch.
The Duke said, ‘Take your paper and candle into the little closet,’ so Master Augustine gathered up all from the table, and went within to a cold little room where the hangings smelt of dust, and there were many dead flies on the window-sill. He was still arranging his papers and preparing to write when the Duke threw open the door and stood looking in. Beyond him, in the brighter light of the outer room, was the gentleman, also looking that way. Both had an air as of men who, without any warning of an approaching storm, had been startled by a sudden thunder-clap.
‘You can spare your writing,’ said the Duke; and while Master Augustine still stared, he added, ‘He is dead.’
‘The Cardinal of York!’ The Italian said it, not to be sure, but to realize what the news meant.
The Duke said, ‘The Cardinal. At Leicester.’ He turned away from the other two and stood by the fire. They heard him let out a long breath. Then he bade the Italian to go, and the other too. ‘Send me Bowman to make me ready to go to the King.’
‘My Lord!’ The Italian paused at the door. The Duke leaned and looked into the fire, with one hand laid against the wall above the hearth; the fingers of that hand tapped restlessly upon the hangings. ‘My Lord!’ Norfolk only answered by a jerk of the head that meant dismissal. Master Augustine’s voice rose several tones. ‘My Lord, I shall be paid – I shall be paid notwithstanding?’
‘Yes. Yes.’ said the Duke, but in a manner so absent that the Italian got no assurance from it.
When both he and the gentleman were gone, and the door shut, the Duke turned and looked about the room, seeing not those four walls, hung with the tapestries of the Quest of the Fleece, but the world itself over which brooded no more the fear of the Cardinal’s return. In spite of the dark day his world seemed bright as spring.
1531
February 11
The Queen was embroidering a green cope with white lilies and butterflies. Her ladies sat about on cushions; most of them were sewing, but a lute was passed round, and now one, now another, would sing. When there was no singing they talked of gowns, of sweethearts or husbands, of the weather; or else someone would tell a story.
The Queen listened, talked, and smiled, cheerful and pleasant as she was always; the Princess sat at her feet, nursing a small brown dog with flop ears. The Queen bent now and again to speak to the girl, and teased her, much as she was teasing the dog. Yet some of the older women, who knew the Queen well, thought that she had not her mind on anything that was said, but was listening. When the Countess of Salisbury came in, her eyes and the Queen’s met.
‘Madame,’ the Countess curtseyed, ‘have you that pattern for a cushion I asked of you – that with the beast, and a tree, and a huntsman blowing on his horn?’
‘I will give it to you.’ The Queen got up. ‘No. No,’ she said to the Princess, ‘stay here, and read in this book to the Ladies.’ She picked up a book from the floor, and gave it to the girl, then she and the Countess went into the inner room, and, shutting the door of it, away to the further side; it was but a small room and hardly more than a closet.
‘They will not hear,’ the Queen said. Only the low murmur of a voice sounded through the door. ‘Not that it matters. All will hear soon.’
The Countess faced the Queen. She said:
‘They have consented.’
‘Merciful God! It cannot be true.’
The Countess laughed sharply. ‘It is true. The Convocation of Canterbury hath acknowledged His Grace to be “Sole Protector and Supreme Head of the Church and Clergy of England”.’
Katherine raised her hands and laid them to her cheeks in a gesture of horror. ‘But it is not possible.’
‘“So far as the law of God allows,”’ the Countess added, and laughed again; but the Queen caught at the phrase.
‘Then – then is all well and this means – nothing.’
‘It means – so far as the will of the King intends.’
The Queen turned away and looked out of the window. The privy garden of the Palace lay below, covered deep and soft with snow. Not a foot had trodden it since the last fall, except the little dainty feet of birds; just then the big flakes began to spin downwards again, a few at first, then myriads. Away in the garden they blew with the wind, sailing by in the opposite direction, slow, giddy and uncertain.
‘Meg,’ said the Queen, ‘Meg, what does it all mean? What is coming to us? Is he – is His Grace mad?’
‘I do not know.’ The Countess let that answer all for a minute, then she said, ‘What anyone may know is that hard times are coming to us. You and I, Madame, though we are women, we shall have to fight.’
Katherine turned then, and they looked at each other – the Countess too spare, too rare for beauty, but exquisite as carved ivory; the Queen plain, plump and heavy. The Countess was of the blood of Kings and of the King Maker; the Queen came of the royal and fighting House of Spain.
‘So I will,’ said the Queen, ‘when the time comes.’
February 24
Dame Christabel came to the gate of Marrick Manor; old Dame Eleanor Maxwell was with her, and behind them a servant carrying a basket of warden pears. The porter at the gate yelled to the dogs to stop barking, and to a lad to take the Ladies to my Lady in the winter parlour.
They crossed the court, and went into the Hall where a few boys were idling and squabbling on one of the benches. At the far end there was a short dark passage, and then the servant opened the door of the winter parlour, which was warm and bright with a log fire, and with sunshine.
Several women were there, sewing or spinning, but Dame Nan was busy making a hawk’s lure, and a book on falconry lay open on the rushes at her feet. Her hands were stained with the medicines and ointments which she made for the horses, dogs, or hawks, and her skirts with hawks’ droppings; but she did not care. When she got up, however, and greeted the Ladies, you could see that she was the daughter of a great house.
There was a cradle beyond the fireplace, and Dame Eleanor went to it at once; she bent over it making those sounds which are traditionally held to be agreeable to infants. Little Doll, however, began to cry. Dame Eleanor could not hear, but she saw the child’s face crumple and redden, and she drew back. ‘It’s my black gown,’ she explained as one of the women lifted the baby to comfort her, and from a more discreet distance she smiled and beckoned, twiddling her fingers and crying, ‘Ah! the poppet! The poppet!’
The Prioress sat down beside Dame Nan, and came at once to the point of her business. Did Sir Rafe know of any priest for the parish? Such a search she had had but a few months ago for a priest for the Priory, and now here’s all to do again for the parish. Yes, it was early days, she admitted, seeing that the old priest had died only yesterday, but she did not want the Archbishop – who had no right – to put his finger into the pie. ‘The benefice is ours,’ she d
eclared. ‘I have searched all the writings and it is ours to bestow.’
Just then Sir Rafe came in; he was very cold for he had been up on the brew-house roof watching the men mending the chimney. So the Prioress had to wait till mulled wine had been brought, and wafers, while Sir Rafe stamped about warming himself at the fire. Then he was ready to listen.
But he knew of no priest. He seemed to think that it would be well to leave it to the Archbishop; when the Prioress was insistent, he offered to write to his brother Sir John, who, if he was not now in London, on business of a lawsuit, as he had said he should be, knew many in London who would be able to find a man.
‘London? That’s a far cry,’ the Prioress objected.
‘Have it as you will then. The Archbishop—’
The Prioress thought that perhaps she had not done well to ask Sir Rafe’s help. But she must choose between him and the Archbishop. So she capitulated. ‘I pray you ask Sir John to find us a man.’
‘And you’ll have whom he finds?’ Sir Rafe could be a close man at a bargain, and he knew that with the Prioress there was need to be close.
‘We will.’
Sir Rafe and his lady saw the two away from the gate-house, and both returned to the brew-house to see that the work there was well done. The two Ladies from the Priory went down the hill in the sunshine; all about were the pure lucent colours of February; there was still snow on the northern side of walls and banks, which the shadow painted with lavender.
March 2
‘Woman,’ said Gib to the Cook’s wife, ‘what can I do? Will you have me persuade your husband to recant and deny the truth?’
‘No. Yes,’ she mumbled, being by now almost dumb with weeping; and then she said other words disjointedly and so low that he could not hear them.
‘God’s Bread!’ cried Gib, ‘Let me alone. I will do nothing.’
The Man On a Donkey Page 22