… And as for me, I have already lasted too long. The good days are gone. What I have in my mind is to go down to waterside and find myself an old oar. Then I’ll set out inland with that oar on my shoulder. And I’ll keep on walking until I come to a place where people can point and someone will say of my oar—“What’s that?”
… And that is the place I shall settle down for good and call home.
The world discernes it selfe, while I the world behold,
By me the longest yeares and other times are told.
I the world’s eye.
RALEGH—translation from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
Light misting rain, fine lacework, swimming in gray air. Beading small lozenged panes. Blurring shapes of figures, bulky and bundled, going and coming across Old Palace Yard.
Ralegh cannot see where they are working, repairing the scaffold. Cannot hear the ring of hammers or the calls of the workmen. Awhile ago a cart heavy with timbers rattled this window like a wind, passing under the gate.
It could be timber for any of the structures which must be ready for Lord Mayor’s Day.
He cannot see or hear the river. But he can picture it now. Wherries, lone cargo barges easing along with leather-colored damp sails. The watermen, dark shapes against rain-wrinkling gray of water and the darker gray of the afternoon sky. Shadowy watermen and boats limned against two shades of gray and for background the dwindling roofs and walls on the banks.
Rain on the river. And glistening on stones of palaces and houses. Rain over London, rain and chill and, for once, a stillness in mud-pudding streets and lanes, a quiet time in the shops.
Time to put a lazy prentice to his hornbook lessons.
But the taverns are bright and beery. Loud with the stolen sounds of the street, with voices, laughing and singing. Warm from the logs, lit by flames of many tapers and candles. Above countless chimneys smoke hangs low over the houses, soiling the sky.
Behind him a fire has been rebuilt. And now he is clean and combed, wearing a long loose gown and soft slippers.
He can hear faintly the voices of the boys in the choir school next by. Boys and musicians rehearsing perhaps for some event on Lord Mayor’s Day, or for an occasion he may not have living ears to hear. But he hears them faint and yet clear now as they, believing in and hoping for the future, practice for it.
He has nothing to rehearse yet.
There are other doings of this afternoon and evening he must prepare for. Things which he must rehearse as well as any player. But just now there is nothing. Can stand with his back to a warm room, feel firelight behind him, hear the voices of the choirboys and stare out upon the fading prospect of the gray autumnal day.
He imagines others who have played a part in what has been this day and what may come to pass tomorrow. Not for any of them can there be a time precisely like this, a weighty, yet weightless moment.
Each, witness and actor, is involved. Wheels and weights of clocks turn to their work without ceasing. Sand sifts down in many a glass. Candles burn short beneath their single leaves of flame. Fires die to ash and are rekindled, flare and flourish anew.
For each of the others the time is now. But it is a mere moment passing. Something to be spent. They hoard what they will of the past, and their eyes are on the future. Which is, for each and all of these, a true estate. All their hope and all joy. All promise and all dread.
They share the chill weather of autumn England. Which brings them indoors by choice to chambers or halls or galleries, seeking the pleasures of warm and dry, finding such comfort as they can.
They share weather and time with the man in the gatehouse. But with a difference which is enormous. Still in possession of the future, though lacking least knowledge of what they possess, they can banish this weather with a dream of next springtime; in full and certain knowledge that another English spring will come—come with rinsed skies of the lightest blue, with clouds of larks and clouds as swift as larks or gulls, with whistling blackbirds, with nudge and earth-crumbling thrust of first buds in gardens and growing wild in the fields, with water shivering aglitter in springs and brooks, buds tight as fists on the tip ends of trees, and sun, sun not yet warm but brightly set in pale sky, smiling, it seems, over the waking, washed world and the awakened and dancing senses, five in a ring hand in hand; the world awake and scrubbed to newness; a young woman rising from gentlest froth of surf, doe eyes, innocent, ever expectant, shy, modest, yet dreaming to be known, exposed to the changeless festive ritual of the dancing five; who will ring around her and dance until she too dances in marvelous abandon, dancing on and on until the sun browns her like a berry, takes her inch by inch, every secret place and portal, a patient perfect lover, takes her and leaves her at last spent, a single dead and fallen leaf; but once rising shy and modest, innocent and yet recalling all the world’s story from the beginning, she is composed of fresh cream and wild honey, and she floats, glides toward them in the dream of things to be, not upon sea but on a tide of light and air, seeking to renew, restore, repair them all, each and all, young or old.
Though he cannot imagine what their futures may be, having for this moment banished his own, he shares the present with them; those others who are not required to say a grace over a dwindling afternoon and to then drink it, sip and savor, like the last wine in a silver cup. To imagine that, to think upon them, is his prerogative. For to deny himself the pleasure of the future is not to stifle the voice of imagination. Which is beyond his power while he lives.
Sir Thomas Wilson, a man of courage, proved in the past, who serves the King in this matter, has gone to the house of the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower.
Sir Thomas did not join in the dinner at the gatehouse. He dined with a friend in a tavern and bided his time before taking a wherry with the tide to the Tower.
The waterman, though glad for a fare on such a day, would not show it. They will not shed their false pride, these sullen, fractious men. Would rather starve and die first. Well, all of us will die, and some will starve doing it.
No matter, Sir Thomas feels at peace with the world. An unpleasant, somewhat demeaning duty done. Good food and drink, well digested with laughter, riding warm inside. Let it rain and pour. Let the winds come and go.
“Tell me,” Sir Thomas says, determined to make this wooden waterman speak, “what news goes around today?”
“News, sir?”
“The talk.”
“Well, now, there is some talk of the weather.”
“No doubt.”
“There is hope it will change for the better by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“For the Lord Mayor’s Day, sir. It would be a shame to dampen a holiday.”
“Ah, half the Christian year is a holiday to you Londoners.”
“Southwark, sir. Southwark is my town.”
“Indeed? I would not have guessed it.”
The waterman mumbles something and Sir Thomas Wilson smiles.
“Is there talk of anything else?”
“Let me see.… There is said to be a woman, a lady, sir, on Broad Street, give birth this morning to a two-headed boy. The child died.”
“A pity.”
“How is that, sir?”
“Every young gentleman in this age needs two faces to endure. But think, man, what good fortune it would be to have two heads.”
“A man can lose two heads as easy as one. A man can lose the same head twice over.”
“I miss the drift of your riddle.”
“It is not a riddle. All the town knows Sir Walter Ralegh has been named to die a second time.”
“Is that the truth?”
“You would know the truth of it better than I would, sir.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sir Thomas’ smile is fixed, but he feels the warmth of a flush on his cheeks.
“No insolence intended. I mean to say I was tied up at the Tower this morning. I saw you, sir, with the others and Sir Walter Raleg
h when you came out in the King’s boat.”
“Oh … Well then, what do folks think?”
“I would not know.”
“Come now, be open with me.”
“I can tell you what folks say, sir. But I know nothing of what they may be thinking.”
“What do you think?”
“I think this is a foul day in November and a poor time to be out on the river.”
Nevertheless, his good spirits not to be dispelled by one surly waterman, Sir Thomas Wilson gives him a decent gratuity. If only to prove it is the privilege of a gentleman to give as he pleases and chooses.
Apsley, no doubt touched by the bravado of Sir Walter at their final dinner, has forgotten his manners. He is brusque in demanding Sir Thomas’ business. Keeps him waiting, then standing. Offers neither refreshment nor comfort.
No matter. Apsley is to be pitied. All his sons (is it seven?) dead in the Irish Wars. And to be Lieutenant of the Tower. No chance to make much fortune there. A chance to survive with some measure of unearned dignity. Yet only by dancing like an ant in a hot saucepan.
“I have come to take possession of some few things.”
“What things?”
Of course he will receive a reward for his time and troubles. But a man can never be sure in this service. Which is why he managed, adroit and circumspect, to exact the promise from the King.… Well, no, not a promise, to be sure. A servant exacts nothing from his master. But when he suggested the thing, the King did not change his demeanor. His face showed no change, no surprise. Shrewd, weary face, pursed lips. The King cleared his throat and nodded before he shifted in the chair and turned those soft moist eyes in appeal to Villiers, young dandy in chaste white silk and satin. Like a maid of honor, by God, and pretty enough to be one in wig and farthingale; oh well, I’ve seen everything including one poor wretch who loved chickens. Villiers, once a threadbare scholar boy, now a nobleman and ever rising. The King turned his sad eyes to the one he calls Steenie. And before young Lord of the Bedsheets could cough discreetly behind him, Wilson took his cue and bowed himself halfway to the door.
Not a promise, but near as one can be. Having reminded the King that Walter Ralegh possesses a load of books, old and new, and many of them well bound in leather and velvet, embossed with his arms, many in foreign tongues, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and God knows what else too. Some of considerable value. And taken together, in a lump, a pair of cartloads, not without some value upon the market.
No value to the King, a true scholar and a learned man. But perhaps it would be wise for him to gather them together at the proper time to study them with an intelligencer’s eye—modest scholarship to be sure, but expeditious, part of his duty only, sparing the King and others the time—for marginalia, notes, ciphers, and such. And to make a list of such items as could be named heretical or seditious, and to tender that list to the Council for their perusal.
Also, Ralegh being known for possessing curious instruments and such, he might collect these. As, for example, the glasses for stargazing or looking at jewels close, weights and measures and vials all specially prepared for him by divers makers of such things. These may have value too, but insignificant. For no learned man would desire to have them. Only the fools. Best they should perhaps be destroyed, or anyway kept out of the hands of the unwary.
The King making no reply. But not frowning upon this either.
And he, Wilson, confident that though nothing would make him young or beautiful, he was, head to toe, clean and crisp, as the King insists his servants be. A good, stiff, clean, starched, modest ruff. A long, loose, flowing jerkin. Nice variety of colors. Trim neat shiny little shoes with gilt buckles. No harness and sword, by heaven! And nothing ostentatious, all correct.
His hair and beard fresh-barbered. Fingernails clean and clipped. This last an unfair demand, Wilson thinks, when the King will not wash his hands and his nails are dirty ragged new moons, some bitten to the quick. But no complaint, sir. When he is born a king, he, too, will preach one thing and practice what he pleases.
And all things gathered at little expense. Some borrowed, true. The jerkin, with its fine embroidery, taken off a base fellow who had been passing as one of the Court for some months. Not at the Court but in and among the idlers of St. Paul’s Walls and the Yard.
Wilson noticed him first, reading a play in quarto at the bookstalls. Chewing a gold toothpick and, in form and physiognomy, every bit the equal of this white butterfly, waterbug, fop and flutter, young Steenie. But not so fortunate. No more a rogue, but less lucky. Unfortunately, the fellow was reading the play upside down.
Wilson and another man, separate at first, trailed him to a tavern. After some ale and tobacco, it was easy enough to become in the fellow’s eyes a pair of shrewd and wicked fellows, wise in the craft of conny-catching, quick-tongued with canting talk. And home they went with him, he planning to show them a new way of clipping coins. Which was not new or clever, but nevertheless gave them occasion to frighten the piss out of him when they drew swords and arrested him in the name of the King. He weeping and pleading, and in the end most relieved he could outbargain the King’s agents and spare himself the pains of felony in return for a promise to quit London forever. Picked him clean, they did. And saw him off in country kersey clothes on the back of a baggage cart bound for Bristol. The fellow barely to be distinguished from the heavy sacks he rode on.
Not that the lad had much worth the trouble. But the jerkin was handy, of proper size and fashion. Likewise the shoes, though a mite too large.
The King clearing his throat and Wilson adding that he would further make examination of things at the Tower and Lady Ralegh’s house on Broad Street, and would ferret out other hiding places.
Not needing, with a man of this world like the King, to belabor the obvious like a blacksmith with a hammer: that to make examination means, primo, sir, to take possession of before examining. No one, not even the King, would know anything beyond Wilson’s catalogue. Which could take some time to prepare. And some fine things, unlisted and no one the wiser, especially the charts and instruments, would fetch a fair price to sweeten this service.
Not needing to add that or hint at it. For the King’s uneasy moist eyes rolled in appeal toward Sir Dandy Steenie, Lord Maidenhead, etc., etc. And Wilson, though neither young nor handsome to look upon, was as quick and subtle as this lamb of a lad in his fleeced gains of white silk and satin, Wilson bowing, then gone like a shadow. A smiling, humble shadow.…
The things Fortune will drive a man to do! He thought he had done with his days as an intelligencer long ago. Not that he prepared for that sort of life. He began as a Cambridge scholar, and let no man deny it. A Bachelor of Arts at St. John’s, a Master of Arts at Trinity Hall. Why, he had been friends with such as Sir Philip Sidney (may he rest in peace) and Mr. Arthur Golding. Once had gained repute for his own translation of De Montemayor’s Diana. A promising gent not so long ago, and even Sir Walter Ralegh had sent for him and permitted him to invest in (would God I had not done so!) the Virginia venture.
Down on his luck, he worked for Cecil and Buckhurst as an intelligencer at home and in Europe. Most dangerously in Spain in 1604.…
Cecil made promises and, indeed, did find him the post of Keeper of the Records at Whitehall. From which nothing save trouble could be earned. But it was a place and an office. Without which a man is lost.
But Cecil died and he has slipped a little (mark you, sir, never fallen) since. At least he knows the King trusts him. As much as he can trust any man. Which may be defined as—somewhat, more or less.
The King has implied some profit from the close watch of Ralegh. Implication is enough. He’ll have those books and charts and instruments. And somewhere among them he will find, he is sure, the clue to the chief unspoken thing—the Fox’s jewels. Wilson will find them, if there are any to be found. Will satisfy the King with some good pieces and keep the rest as his own secret.
“What things, pray?”
Apsley is asking him.
“Why, books, man! I’m speaking of books and papers and other pertinent items of evidence.”
“I shall have to see your instructions in writing.”
Wilson sighs to express his annoyance. It is a brisk gesture he has rehearsed, knowing, sure as the sun will rise and green apples turn red and gold, that would be Apsley’s first response. It’s fear, not pride, has turned Apsley into a textual pedant. And that fear will be Wilson’s goad and Apsley’s undoing.
“This is the King’s affair,” Wilson begins patiently explaining. “His Majesty has sent me here expressly to search and collect these things. It is the King’s wish. And, Lieutenant Apsley, neither you nor I need question it further. Indeed, I suggest …”
“By what authority are you here?”
“The King’s, as I have labored to make plain to you. Authority? My God, man, you have a copy of my commission in the matter.”
“Your commission expired, Mr. Wilson, when I accepted the writs of King’s Bench.”
“The King will not be pleased by this pedantry.”
“Perhaps not,” Apsley says, and then smiles.
Smiles, damn his eyes! A condescending, knowing smile.… Do you suppose he does know something? Unlikely, nay, impossible. Apsley’s head has been turned by Ralegh’s wine; or the Fox has slipped a few drops of an elixir of courage in the drink; or Ralegh has bribed him, that’s probable; or—why deny this until now?—the fool wants the things for himself.
A sigh, this time unrehearsed, is of relief. He manages a smile to answer Apsley’s.
“I am sure the details can be arranged as soon as the King returns to Court,” Wilson says. “Meantime, I am certain you and I, gentlemen together, can reach a satisfactory agreement.”
“Agreement?”
“Arrangement then,” he snaps. “I am sure an arrangement, which takes into account your interests, can be made.”
“I do not understand what you are trying to say, Mr. Wilson.”
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