The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  Dickon looked at him with great liking and gratitude, realizing that his good tutor, Paston, could not have chosen for him a better master. “It would have to be a very remarkable offer of work to tempt me,” he said.

  “I suppose, Sir, you have no idea what subject Master Vertue is likely to set us?” insinuated Red Lakin, beginning to share something of his fellow victim’s sense of the magnitude of their coming ordeal.

  Dale cuffed his flaming, disordered head good-naturedly. “None at all, Lakin. And if I had, I hope I should not be so unethical as to tell you.” He called to the foreman to release them for the rest of that day. “And have them take their ’prentice garb, which they appear to have been playing football in, to my laundry immediately, so that they do not shame us to-morrow. As both jerkins and hose look sadly out-grown, it is to be hoped that to-morrow will be the last time they will need to wear them.”

  “By all the Saints, how fortunate we are!” exclaimed Lakin, as they gathered up their caps and tools and prepared to depart, cheered by the good wishes of their fellows.

  “Thank God, there is not long to wait!” murmured Dickon.

  All afternoon he sharpened his tools, all evening he paced restlessly about the Dale yard, all night he tossed and turned, thinking at intervals, ‘This time to-morrow it will all be over!” His enormous admiration for the architectural genius of the Vertues humbled him hopelessly.

  He envisaged himself failing. Not being qualified to do increasingly interesting and intricate work. Not being able to afford to marry. Failing Tansy. Tansy who had come with him to London and trusted him — who had worked in a stranger’s inn so that she might wait for him. By the time he turned up at the hall of the Masons’ Guild in Basinghall Street in a dean, neatly belted jerkin and ’prentice’s peaked cap, he was almost frantic.

  It was all just as he had been told. The hall packed with members, not because they particularly wanted to watch the efforts of four promising apprentices, but because they were supremely honoured by the presence of the leading exponent of their craft. He and the other three young men standing for trial behind their benches with a slab of rough-hewn stone and their tools laid out before them. Instinctively, Dickon’s hand reached for his chisel, and somehow the familiar feel of it calmed him. He even dared to look up for the first time at the great master mason, to see what manner of man he was, and to his amazement the grey-haired genius, who had built Bath Abbey, smiled down at him, almost as if he understood that absurd shaking of a novice’s hands. So that the comforting thought occurred to Dickon that perhaps many years ago the great man had stood nervously at this very bench. And he was more sure than ever that nothing worthwhile was easy, that all fine creative work must take something physical out of one to the point of exhaustion.

  After asking them a few questions about cusping and mullions and fan-vaulting, Vertue — being big enough to break away from custom — announced, “I am not giving you four candidates any set task, but leaving you to choose, each according to his inclination. So shall we, and you, learn in which direction your best gifts lie.”

  A bell rang, and each pupil stood motionless or fumbling with his tools, momentarily embarrassed by the unexpected but welcome freedom of choice. And in that moment the last shred of Dickon’s tension relaxed, leaving him cool as steel. “Just like my father, after a sleepless night, charging confidently into battle,” he thought, with the hint of a smile curving his lips. And somehow that thought took him back to the King’s Bed at Leicester with, those two panels of exquisite carving, and to King Richard explaining carefully to his landlord’s daughter that they represented the Holy Sepulchre. Because they were something so intimately connected with his father, they were indelibly impressed on Dickon’s memory. He remembered every relief and outline as dearly as though he had seen them only yesterday. Steady in mind and hand, he began without more ado to carve one on the virgin stone before him. His mates were fashioning corbels, bosses or caskets which would be of some material use, but he was recreating a vision from a far-off land fit to decorate some royal throne or cathedral sanctuary. And, as with Sir Walter Moyle’s fireplace, he lost all sense of time or awareness of his surroundings until the bell rang again.

  Ushered by an official, and followed by some of the finest masons in London, Master Vertue stepped down from the examiner’s chair. As the candidates moved respectfully aside, he stood consideringly behind each bench. He was patently pleased with all he saw. But he stood silent so long behind Dickon’s bench, and examined the small carving so carefully, that men pressed and peered from behind to see what had caught his attention. “Is it entirely original?” he asked.

  “No, Sir,” admitted Dickon, standing respectfully, cap in hand … “Rather a copy from memory, of something I once saw and admired. It represents the Holy Sepulchre.”

  “It would make a very suitable design for a Crusader’s tomb,” remarked Robert Vertue, obviously impressed. “There seems to be great demand for elaborately-carved tombs just now. And vast need, alas! for more originality.”

  He said no more, but when the results of the examination were announced, the name of Richard Broome headed the list, with only two marks lost — for the lack of complete originality, presumably.

  As soon as the great master was gone, lesser men crowded round to look. “Fine work for an inexperienced ’prentice!” they said. “But what an extraordinary subject to choose!”

  Some of them, whose ’prentices had never achieved anything half as clever, spoke with envy. But Hurland Dale, having seen the King’s mason to the door, came back and wrung Dickon by the hand. He was inordinately proud. “Master Vertue is a man of few words,” he told him. “But such commendation could well make an ambitious young builder’s fortune.”

  “Sir, you have taught me all I know, and all my life I shall be grateful,” vowed Dickon.

  “I am proud to hear you say so. Next week I shall want you to take charge of the new cloister for those monks at Richmond. But remember, Broome,” added Dale generously, “if at any future time work should be offered to you which is more important than mine, I shall not stand in your way.”

  Dickon was almost speechless with happiness. When their betters had departed, he and Red Lakin thumped each other on the back in mutual, incoherent joy. Their ordeal was successfully over. As they gathered up their tools, congratulations flowed over them, and fellow-workmen crowded round trying to plan some sort of celebration. But there was only one person whom Dickon wanted to celebrate with at that moment. Hurrying along Cheapside, in the direction of the Blue Boar, he seemed to walk on air, and knocked into at least half-a-dozen citizens without so much as apologizing.

  The inn parlour seemed particularly full of people, but he scarcely saw them, save as a background to the girl he loved. Although usually undemonstrative before strangers, he rushed to her and caught her to his heart. “Tansy! Tansy! I have passed,” he cried breathlessly. “It was Master Vertue himself, and he seemed very well satisfied. He put me first.”

  “Oh, Dickon, how wonderful!” Turning as best she could from his embrace, she tried to include other people in the good news, but he was still unaware of them. “What did you have to make?”

  “He let us choose. We were so surprised, all of us, that we hadn’t an idea what to do. But it was better so. Guess what I sculptured, Tansy.” Suddenly, seeing her eager face, he remembered that the subject might bring back all her past horrors, but his wise insistence that she should show him the bed had worked well. When he told her she did not flinch from the memory. “Master Vertue asked if it were original, but how could I explain?”

  At that moment someone slapped him on the back, and pushed a brimming tankard into his hand, and he began to realize that they had an audience. That he was as much the centre of an intimate, admiring kind of gathering as if he had ever known a family circle of his own. It gave him a warm, good feeling. There were people whom he knew well, like the Goodyears, customers whom he had come to know by sight,
and strangers whom he had never seen before. “He has just passed his journeyman’s examination,” they were explaining, one to another. “Commended by the King’s own mason, he was.” Tankards were raised. Mistress Goodyear kissed him with affectionate tears in her eyes. “Now you will take her away, I suppose, you brute!” she accused, tom between regret and romantic delight.

  But best of all, a man’s arm was fondly about his shoulders, its owner as generously radiant as if the triumph were his own. “Pardieu, I always knew that you would do it, Dickon!” said a familiar voice. And it was Tom.

  Dickon turned and seized his hand, and they stood laughing and shaking each other’s hands in a renewal of past good comradeship, as united as if nothing had ever threatened to come between them. “We thought we should see you at the supper Sir Walter gave. You can only just have landed.”

  “Two days ago, at Dover. And this is the best news I have had since I came ashore.”

  “It’s good to have you back, Tom. And by all accounts you did brilliantly yourself in Calais.”

  And then Tansy was pulling at her betrothed to meet someone else. “It has been a day of arrivals,” she said happily. “See who has come from Leicester. Our beloved schoolmaster, Master Jordan. You have never met him — ”

  “No, but I have heard enough about you, Sir, to fill a book.”

  Young man and old looked into each other’s eyes with mutual liking. Both of them knew that Tansy, in the midst of her troubles, had confided in him. But not a sign of this knowledge passed between them, and Dickon instinctively trusted him.

  “Langstaff the lawyer would have had to send someone trustworthy with the money for the sale of the Boar,” Jordan was explaining. “So it was arranged that I should bring it, and assuage a long desire to see Tansy at the same time.”

  “And of all inspired thoughts, he brought along Jod to mind the horses.”

  “Or help mind the money bags,” laughed Will Jordan.

  Dickon left them all and went to the old ostler who was standing, grinning toothlessly, in the background. “Welcome to London, Jod,” he said. “I do not forget your help, but most of all you mean a great deal to me because you have served and protected Mistress Tansy since she was small. She and I mean to show you the sights of our city.” And Jordan, watching him, recognized in his voice and movements something of the grace and dignity of his royal father.

  Returning to his group of friends, Dickon found Tom and Tansy with their heads together over Jordan’s map of Leicester, laughing over old times. Not that he any longer minded, but considered it time to stake his own firm claim. “Shall we invite them now to our wedding, Tansy?” he said clearly. “At Bow church, next Sunday. I lost no time in speaking to the priest.”

  “And here, for a wedding breakfast, afterwards,” invited the Goodyears in unison.

  “It would not be my real wedding without them all,” said Tansy, kissing the landlord with almost tearful gratitude.

  “I hope you have come in loco parentis, Master Jordan, to give away the bride,” said Dickon.

  “And in locum-tenens for Master Langstaff. Our good host has put your money away in a safe place, Tansy. But there will be some signing to be done.”

  “And you, Tom, must be my man and hold the ring,” invited Dickon. “For who knows when you yourself will need similar support?”

  “Who knows, indeed?” echoed Tom, with unaccustomed gloom. Indeed, so lugubrious did he look that Dickon found occasion to draw him aside. “At Sir Walter Moyle’s house we had the pleasure of meeting at least one charming girl who might help you to answer that question, Tom.”

  Tom brightened immediately. “You mean — she spoke of me?”

  “Of nothing much else. Either to Tansy or myself. I do not imagine that we should have attracted the attention of a daughter of Sir Walter had she not wanted to question us about you. Particularly Tansy, who has known you all her life.”

  “It is not conceivable that her father would ever — agree. And Amy herself is such a provocative tease — but if you think she really likes me … ” stammered the charming, successful fletcher, with quite unaccustomed modesty.

  “You seem to have dented her heart.”

  “She has completely shattered mine,” murmured Tom. “What sort of questions did she ask?”

  “The main qualm in her mind seemed to arise when her father said you had made quite a stir in Calais. She wasn’t sure whether it was a stir among the ladies or the archers.”

  “Whatever it was then, it is only Amy and the archers now. As, with you, it is Tansy and your everlasting transoms.” Then, as if bothered by an uncomfortable thought, he enquired anxiously, “Exactly what did you both tell her?”

  Dickon grinned and punched him rallyingly in the chest. “Exactly nothing,” he assured him.

  21

  The following evening, as soon as his work was done, Dickon was due to be on City Watch with the other liverymen of his Guild. While Tansy, forgetting her work altogether, sat talking with Tom Hood and Master Jordan in the room which the latter had hired at the Cheapside Boar. “They are little white cottages facing the river, with a view of green fields across the water. Charing is a pleasant village, and every day Dickon would see the lovely cross for Edward the Third’s chère reine, which he so much admires,” she was telling them ecstatically.

  “You could easily afford to buy a cottage with the Leicester money, of course, if there is one to be had,” said Tom, who preferred towns.

  “There is one for sale. Dickon and I have been to look at it many an evening.”

  “But it is not real country, dear child, and may soon cease to be a village at all, what with the city encroaching on one side, and Westminster on the other,” warned Jordan, smiling at her enthusiasm. “And, seriously, would it be wise to buy a home now that Dickon is a journeyman and may be sent to various places?”

  Both men knew that there was sound truth in what he said, but hated to damp her radiant happiness. “We could take rooms for a time perhaps,” she sighed, seeing her dream of a peaceful country cottage fading in the light of common sense. “But I am so tired of living in other people’s houses.”

  “My poor, sweet Tansy!” Tom put a comforting arm about her, while he racked his inventive brains on her behalf. “I wonder,” he said, after they had sat for a few moments in despondent silence, “if young Master Moyle could do anything for you.”

  “How could he?” and “Why should he?” the other two asked, in unison.

  Tom, who was nothing if not an optimist, sat tapping his knee as he weighed the chances. “He shares some mews out Richmond way with a friend who is equally keen on hawking. They took me with them only yesterday. There seemed to be an empty, rather neglected-looking dwelling house of some kind beside his falconer’s cottage. If I could persuade him to let you rent it, Dickon could soon put it to rights. It stood on the edge of a park not far from the Thames, and there was — if I remember — some stabling.”

  “Stabling!” cried Tansy, as if he had offered her the Keys of Heaven. “So far we have managed to keep Mopsy and Pippin at the Boar by letting them on hire to foreign visitors. But now we fear we may have to part with them. Just when I might have time to ride Pippin again!”

  “Nevertheless, Jod reports that both animals are in fine condition. When we rode into Goodyear’s yard and he saw them, it was like the reunion of a parent with long-lost children,” Jordan told Tom.

  “Oh, Tom, do you really think you could persuade Master John Moyle to let us rent that place?” entreated Tansy.

  “I doubt if he will need much persuading, seeing that it is just within the wildest realms of possibility that he may one day be my brother-in-law,” grinned Tom, with some of his old swagger. “And, as you probably gathered for yourself when he talked Master Vertue into that examination business, he is rather taken with that future husband of yours.”

  The future husband joined them at that moment, jubilant because he had caught a pilferer on hi
s first watch and because his wedding had been fixed. He was immediately interested in Tom’s idea. “If I have somewhere to keep the mare I shall be able to get to any building site where Master Dale is likely to send me.”

  “I will ask Amy to put in a word for you,” promised Tom.

  “Tansy and I are certainly blessed with good friends,” said Dickon gratefully.

  “And so are we. John Moyle is putting in a word for us with his father.”

  “So Amy has really said she will marry you?” exclaimed Tansy, any twinges of previous jealousy wiped out by her instinctive liking for the girl.

  “She has really said so at last,” confirmed Tom, so much enamoured that his smile was almost fatuous. “But even with her brother on our side, how can one expect Sir Walter to allow his daughter — who is being wildly sought after by at least three heirs of manors — to marry a mere fletcher?” he added, coming down to earth. “You two ought to be thankful that you are both sprung from ordinary parentage.” He turned to his friend of only a few years’ standing, suddenly realizing how little he knew about his background. “By the way, Dickon, what is your father?”

  Though the other two occupants of the room might hold their breath in sharp uncertainty, the late king’s bastard had his reply rehearsed and ready. “He was a soldier,” he said calmly, for the second time within a matter of days. “And in any case, since none of our parents is living, there is no one to say us nay. Or, for that matter,” he added regretfully, “to bless us.”

  They sat talking for a while, and listening to news from Leicester.

  “What happened to the King’s Bed?” asked Dickon, bending to buckle his shoe with elaborate casualness.

  “The man who bought the Boar does not intend to keep it. He would have made a show piece of it again, but his wife is fearful of ghosts. And so might his customers be,” Jordan told them. “He may be putting it up for sale. Personally, I doubt if he will get much for it now the country is settling down again.”