The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  It was a beautiful plan, all her own in conception and execution, but it failed. She had not been in the dairy two minutes when she heard her mother calling for, ‘Julian! Julian!’ She stood still, making no answer. But one of the servants cried, ‘Mistress July’s in the dairy.’ ‘Send her to me,’ Mistress Nell answered. Julian whisked out into the Court. If she was quick enough it might be possible to do her mother’s bidding and be back in time. But it was not possible. She had only lifted down from its peg the big fat hank of woollen yarn for which her mother sent her, when she heard her father’s voice hailing, ‘Hey! Robin, what have you been at?’

  ‘I’ve been at missing every duck I aimed for between here and Bubwith. All but this one, and he, I swear, ran on my bolt for pure charity, And, for pure amazement to see him fall, I fell into the bog.’

  Julian, looking down from the little low window of the weaving loft, could see them below – her father, who must this moment have returned from Selby, on horseback; her uncle, mired to the waist, and drenched with rain beside, for there had been sharp sleety showers driven on a northerly wind since sunrise. He had a crossbow on his shoulder, and the charitable duck dangled from his hand. Now he waved its corpse in farewell, and went on to the Hall.

  Julian knew that in the Hall waited Master Peter Mewtas, Gentleman of the King’s Bedchamber, with the King’s letter summoning Master Aske to London.

  Too late to give him warning, but as soon as she might, she went after her uncle. He and Mr. Mewtas stood facing each other in the great tower window of the Hall where the bow racks stood. Mr. Mewtas was a big well-looking man of about thirty, both fine and neat from his curling fair hair and short beard to his broad-toed velvet shoes, for he had had time to shift from his wet clothes into a suit of fine black cloth with carnation-coloured sleeves; there were jewels in his ears that gave a winking flash in the fire-light when he moved his head.

  Robert Aske, dribbling bog-water from his boots, coat and hosen, stood with his head bent over a letter. His hood was off, and he held it dangling beside his knee; Julian, watching him from the shadow of the screens, could see that his jaw was very set, and that the hand that held the hood shook, though ever so little. She thought, with a sort of pang, ‘He’s frightened,’ and was both shocked and horribly daunted. Then she called herself a fool. Of course it was the chill of his drenched clothes. She moved forward, and he turned quickly and saw her.

  She knew, by the way he turned and by his look, that he had needed someone. She was glad to be that one who had come. But she dropped her eyes as she curtseyed, lest Mr. Mewtas should divine from a glance that there was any confederacy between them.

  ‘Niece,’ Aske said, ‘will you be pleased to send us some wine. And let someone set me dry stuff ready in my chamber.’

  ‘I will see to it, Sir,’ she said, and went.

  She wanted to bring the wine again herself, but did not because he had said, ‘Send us wine,’ and she would exactly obey. But as she waited a long time upon the stairs, hearing below the voices of her father and mother, as well as those of Mr. Mewtas and Uncle Robin, her teeth were chattering, partly for excitement, partly for dread that she had not rightly understood him.

  When he came up, and she saw how he spied about and how his face lit when he saw her, she knew that she had not mistaken.

  ‘I have set everything ready,’ she told him.

  He laughed silently, and whispered as he came up after her, ‘I said I must put off my wet clothes. I stood close to the fire till the bog mud stank, and Mr. Mewtas could not speak for holding his nose.’

  But when they were together in his room and the door shut he did not laugh.

  ‘Julian,’ said he, ‘will you help me?’

  She scowled at him because he needed to ask, and he understood and gave her a smile. ‘Find me Will, or Chris Clark,’ he said, ‘and send him for me to your Uncle Monkton at Ellerton.’

  She laughed out at that. ‘I have already sent Chris. I sent him as soon as that perfumed popinjay bird below came in.’

  ‘Tut! niece,’ he murmured, ‘the King’s messenger. But—’

  ‘Listen,’ she cried impatiently, and reached up her hands to untie his doublet at the neck. She did it with a sharp tug, and began to undo the buttons, telling him as she did so that, ‘that fellow’s servants watch the stables, I think, but if you should go out by the orchard and so to the ings, it’s like they shall not see you. I told Chris to tell Uncle Monkton to wait by the thicket of thorns. There are four horses down on the ings still. Arrowsmith’s the best, and then Pippin. I told Chris to saddle those two.’

  He caught her by the wrists. ‘But for what?’

  ‘To ride. To get away.’ She stamped her foot at him.

  ‘Where should I ride? Into the sea? To the Scots?’

  She understood then that all her plan was foolishness, and hung her head sullenly. ‘You will think I am a great goose.’

  ‘No.’ He did not smile, and there was no gentleness in his look, but she knew that this was how he searched a man’s face, to judge his worth and his truth. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that you are bold, ready, and faithful.’

  At that she flushed her finest crimson. ‘But,’ she said, ‘will you ride to the King?’

  ‘This very day. Mr. Mewtas will have it so. He says it is the King’s command, and indeed so the letter says, to use all despatch. He says it must be to-day because there was snow near Lincoln yesterday. With this wind there is like to be more to-morrow. That is true—’ Yet he was frowning as he turned to cast his doublet down on a bench.

  It was then Julian remembered that he had said: ‘Find me Chris Clark.’ So, ‘What will you have Chris do?’ she asked.

  ‘This,’ he told her. ‘The King writes that I shall make no man privy to his letter. But my Lord Darcy I must tell of it, and send him a copy. Can you have it copied and sent, so that none knows but you and I, Chris Clark, who shall copy it, and your Uncle Monkton, who shall fetch it to my Lord?’

  ‘I shall do it,’ she said, and took the letter, and left him.

  When she came back, and tapped on the door, she found that he was dressed, ready to ride. The suddenness of it struck her then with a great clap of fear, and she caught him by both elbows.

  ‘Uncle, why must you go to-day?’

  ‘To-day or to-morrow is all one.’

  ‘But – must you go?’

  He looked at her very soberly for a minute, before he said: ‘I must go. Some man must tell His Grace the truth of these matters. No one has told him yet how wholly all this part of his realm, lords, gentlemen, commons, are set against his proceedings. And besides these there are also many of our way of thinking in the South. If no one will tell him, then I will tell him.’ He smiled at her. ‘So it is good that the King should send for me.’

  ‘If it is good,’ she muttered, ‘why do you write secretly to my Lord Darcy?’

  ‘You’re a lawyer, are you?’ he teased her, but she would not smile. ‘Because, though I think it is good, yet if it should prove the contrary, my Lord should know on what credence and safe conduct I went.’

  ‘Uncle!’ she cried, ‘don’t—’

  He shook his head at her, and she was silent.

  ‘Now,’ he said, smiling at her, ‘down we go to meet again this what name did you call him by? – this perfumed popinjay bird. And like two true plotters let us look strangely on each other. And I shall chide my niece, and my niece will be froward with her uncle, which, I do fear, she is most apt to be.’

  She would not answer his smile, but gave him over her shoulder a fierce, glowering look, as though she dared him to make light of himself, or of her, or of the affair in which together they were concerned. Yet the truth was she was near to tears, which she would not for the world have let him see.

  *

  Will Monkton came to Templehurst a little before sunset. It was snowing, though not heavily, and in the house it was so dark that the candles were lit already. They were just go
ing to table when Monkton came in, so my Lord bade them set for another at his own table, and Monkton sat down opposite my Lord and Sir George Darcy.

  It was Sir George who said, ‘You bring news from Master Aske?’

  ‘Time enough after supper,’ said my Lord, and, ‘You’ve no wine in your cup, George.’ But Sir George was not to be put off. ‘If it is a privy matter and urgent will you not, Sir, speak at once apart with Master Monkton?’ and he looked from one to the other. He was no wiser for what he saw in my Lord’s face, but it was plain that the big, slow man opposite sat, as it were, on thorns.

  ‘Have you,’ my Lord asked, ‘a letter?’

  Will Monkton answered, after a pause, that he brought the copy of a letter.

  ‘And a message?’ Sir George suggested, but my Lord was holding out his hand, and Monkton put the copy of the King’s letter into it in silence.

  When my Lord had read it he laid it down beside his plate, on the side farther from his son, and began to talk about indifferent matters. But while he discoursed to Master Monkton of the price of lime and of the weight of fat porkers killed and salted last month Sir George was looking across him to the copy of the King’s letter, spread open on the board. Suddenly Lord Darcy took it up and laid it before him – ‘For else,’ said he, ‘I can see that your eyes will take a lasting cast, from glancing so long aside.’

  Sir George flushed very hot at that, but he read the letter and then said to his father – yet looking also at Master Monkton:

  ‘Will Master Aske, think you, do well to go?’

  ‘I think,’ said my Lord, ‘that he will do well, having the King’s word for his safe conduct.’

  After that Sir George was silent, and when supper was over one of his servants came in, saying that the horses were ready and the snow falling heavy.

  ‘So,’ said my Lord, ‘you must haste away, or you shall not make Gateforth before dark.’

  Sir George went, having kissed his father’s hand, and given Will Monkton a sour good night.

  Then my Lord led Monkton to a window. It was cold here away from the fire, for the wind was clotting the flakes thickly against the glass, and chill air came filtering through the lead of the window frames. But it was private, and that was what they needed.

  ‘When,’ my Lord asked, ‘will he go?’

  ‘By now he is already some hours gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘My niece sent this word: “Tell my Lord – he would go.”’

  ‘Tchk!’ Darcy said, and then, ‘By the Rood! yes. That he would.’ He dabbled absently with his finger-tips in some of the melted snow that dribbled through the casement, and shook the drops off.

  ‘How many did he take with him?’

  ‘Six, and a horse-boy.’

  ‘Good men? Trusty?’

  ‘All born at Aughton.’

  ‘And that means the same.’ Darcy gave a little laugh. Then – ‘Can you catch him up if you should ride now?’

  ‘I could try. I ride heavy.’

  ‘You shall have a good horse. Come up with him if you can, and tell him he shall leave a man and a horse at divers places along the road – Which now?’ He screwed up his eyes, peering through the muffled and darkening window, but seeing the long road that led to London, and the towns strung out along it. ‘At Lincoln,’ he said, ‘and at Stamford, Huntingdon, Royston, and at Ware. Then if this letter and safe conduct be a trap to take him, that servant who comes with him to London can warn his fellow at Ware, and so each the next, and in a day or but little more I shall know of it. And then—’ my Lord drove his staff down upon the stone floor of the window – ‘By God’s Death, I’ll fetch him out of the Tower if it should cost twenty thousand men’s lives.’

  Monkton said: ‘Where is the horse?’

  But very late that night he knocked again at the gate of Templehurst. When they brought him in they had to lift him down from the saddle, so stiff he was with cold. He had lost himself hours ago, and ridden, he supposed, in a circle. At last, because there was nothing else for it, he had laid the reins on the horse’s neck, and let it find its own way home.

  December 21

  Lord Privy Seal was in the great closet, overlooking the tilt-yard. Before him on the table lay lists of the King’s debts, under three heads – ‘Merchants that be contented to forbear unto a longer day’, ‘Small sums to be paid forthwith’, and ‘Greater sums to be paid forthwith’. Privy Seal was working down the second list, checking from another paper those names against which a clerk had written ‘Sol’: to show that the bill was paid.

  ‘Henry Annottes, fish monger.

  ‘Humphrey Barows, ire monger.

  ‘John Sturgeon, haberdasher.

  ‘John Hom, tallow chandler.’

  There was a knock at the door, and a gentleman put his head inside the room.

  ‘My Lord,’ said he, ‘His Grace comes even now through the Great Gallery.’

  Cromwell looked up, nodded, and went on with his work. Yet his ears were pricking. When the King came in he was half-way to the door, and his cap in his hand.

  The King let himself down into the chair that stood beyond the table, and near to the fire. It was a fine chair, very wide and ample, and its red Spanish leather was stamped with roses and lions, and fringed with gilt and crimson. He bit his lip and eased one leg to a better position, then shot a glance at Cromwell as if he warned him not to know that the King’s ulcer pained him; Cromwell stood like any clerk, pen in one hand, cap in the other, and eyes cast down demurely; yet he missed nothing.

  The King said, ‘You sent me word he was come.’

  ‘Last night, Your Grace, late.’

  ‘Well, what manner of man?’

  ‘A man with one eye. A little man with a big voice.’ Cromwell, not forgetting that the King’s voice was small and high-pitched for his great bulk, added, ‘Over big.’

  The King snapped, ‘As to his eye, we had been told that already.

  As to his bigness and voice we can see for ourselves. Of what manner is he in the inward man?’

  If Privy Seal had been less quick he would have accepted the rebuke. But instead he turned it neatly. ‘Surely,’ said he, ‘Your Grace’s wit will pierce more sharply into the inward man of him than could mine. But so far as I was able to perceive he is very confident.’

  ‘Of our clemency?’

  ‘Of that, and, as I think, also of himself.’

  There was a silence in which Privy Seal turned away to lay the pen in his fingers beside the others on the table.

  ‘He came,’ the King asked in his voice of dangerous gentleness, ‘he came then willingly and without delay?’

  ‘Doubtless,’ said Cromwell, ‘in his heart he feared, remembering his late horrid treasons. But for all Master Mewtas could see, he came willingly and cheerfully. He talked much, Master Mewtas said, by the way.’

  ‘Talked?’ The King leapt on the word. ‘Of what?’

  ‘Of light matters, such as shooting with the long bow.’

  Master Mewtas had reported, not without malice, that Master Aske had spoken very freely of the hatred which the whole North Country bore to Lord Privy Seal, being so angry with him that they would, Master Aske said, in a manner eat him.

  That had not prepared Cromwell to like Aske, nor had their interview last night bettered matters, since Cromwell had found him not at all respectful.

  For my Lord Privy Seal had begun graciously, promising that Master Aske should find him good lord to him.

  Aske thanked him gravely for that.

  ‘And you, for your part,’ said Cromwell, ‘shall be plain with me, opening freely to me your whole mind and stomach.’

  ‘My Lord,’ Aske said, ‘I am, I think, plain with all men. But my whole mind and stomach I shall open to the King alone.’

  ‘I am His Grace’s servant.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Aske, and left a very definite silence.

  So now Cromwell said, watching the King, yet not seeming to watch him, �
��Of light matters, such as shooting with the long bow.’ He saw the King’s hand clench on the handle of the little dagger that hung by a gold lace about his shoulders, and added hastily, since for him policy came before private malice – ‘I think, with my Lord of Norfolk, that if Your Grace uses him with fair words he will tell much, both of himself and the other traitors.’

  The King uncrooked his fingers from about the handle of the dagger. ‘You shall see how I shall use him. Have him in.’

  When Aske came in he saw Privy Seal first and made a gesture with his hand to his cap. Then he saw the King. He pulled his cap off and went down on his knees.

  ‘Well, Master Aske,’ the King leaned forward, staring into his face, ‘you have come. For what have you come?’

  ‘To hear your most merciful pardon from Your Grace’s own mouth, that I have already under your Great Seal. And to answer plainly and frankly, as your Grace commands, whatever it shall please you to ask me.’

  The King heaved himself up from his chair. He went to the window, and came back, tramping heavily, forgetting altogether to disguise the lameness of his diseased leg. He stood over Aske; Aske raised his head and they looked each other between the eyes.

  ‘I shall,’ said Aske, ‘if Your Grace gives me good leave, tell you the truth of the causes of our Pilgrimage.’

  There was a silence. Then the King said to Privy Seal:

  ‘Go. Leave us alone. See that we are not interrupted.’

  Cromwell went out very thoughtful. It might be – he hoped it was – that His Grace could not endure that any should see him so braved. It might be – he hoped it was not – that His Grace had taken a liking to Master Aske. For the King could like, at times, a bold man, and certainly this man was extreme bold.