The Secret Diaries of Juan Luis Vives

by Tim Darcy Ellis

  She would not be further drawn, but something in her relaxed. She softened as if my words had touched her.

  “Señor, you must know me as Meg.”

  I paused. “But would your husband allow me to call you such?” The man of commerce would surely not allow it.

  “Probably not, but nevertheless you must call me Meg.”

  Silence ensued. Was this a temptation I’d do better to refuse? Was this a step on the path to infidelity?

  “My lady, Meg, recite for me your work and help me with my poor English.”

  She smiled and took her hand at last from mine, allowing herself a deep breath. She let the words out like a man at court. She seemed to be channelling her father in all his strength:

  For thy glory as it is great

  So neither having beginning nor ending

  But ever in itself flourishing

  Can neither increase nor decrease

  But its skills yet mankind not a little

  That every man it knows and magnify

  For to know and confess the one very God.

  Though my knowledge of English was yet imperfect, I could see beauty in her work. The one very God, the concept that we shared but that divided us so, as if the one very God would judge in which language the bible was allowed or would bar citizens from comprehending its words. I could see why her father called her “Marguerita charisma.”

  So, diary, this is why it is hard it is for me. I am ashamed of these thoughts, but if I cannot talk to you, then to whom can I talk? How can I come to know myself if I don’t get it down, even the shame? How beautiful she looked today in her long gown, green as a yew, and pulled tightly around the waist by a cream stomacher. There was just a glimpse of light brown hair beneath her simple English hood, and as for her teeth—they fascinate me, beckon me. But enough! I am here for a reason. This is not it.

  Later that same day, when the burn of the cider had worn off, she and her stepsister, Anne, took me by carriage to the hospital known as Bedlam. There, among the dank dormitories and viewing platforms, live the invalids, the insane. Men and women of the city pay a penny or two to watch these poor souls grubbing about, talking to themselves and crying in their distress. This, the girls told me, was where we need to put God. This, I was told, should be my work until Oxford is ready for me.

  I could not disagree.

  Back home again and before supper, William Roper, with the stomping of steel toecaps, arrived. He bid me a muted “Good evening,” a welcome fit for a pauper with early signs of leprosy. Brown-bearded, thick in the eyebrow, and sallow in the face, he is a little younger than me and carries the odour of opportunity. Surely, he allies himself with this family of scholars just to raise his profile in the upper echelons.

  It was an uncomfortable dinner. Sir Thomas was strangely quiet. “There will be no poetry tonight,” he said. Elizabeth, being the youngest, sulked like my sister Beatriz. Álvaro did not join us at the table as lately he has taken to staying out late at night. The music was played quietly, just a harp. All around was tension, forced postures, a concentration on the knife and the food. Finally, Sir Thomas spoke up.

  “Ludovicus, daughters, I’ve news from the north. The king continues to obsess about the queen’s relations with his long-dead brother, Arthur.”

  “I have heard this,” I told him.

  “The king believes this is why not one of their sons has survived,” he said, his face contorted.

  Elizabeth tried to lift his mood, making light of the king’s fanciful thinking. Sir Thomas spoke of the king’s growing arrogance and that he would challenge even the edict of the pope. “But this talk stays in this room,” he said.

  “Divorce?” Margaret said.

  “Yes, a divorce. There are factions, bastards at court, that suggest the very worst if he does not get it.” I saw that Sir Thomas was deeply troubled by this.

  “The very worst?” I asked, knowing full well that the very worst could be the very best.

  “A break with Rome, an alliance with the Protestants—or worse.”

  “Worse?”

  “Yes, Vives, worse.”

  “What could be worse?” I asked.

  “A Turk, for one. Or worse still, a Jew.”

  Sir Thomas got up and left. Without his guiding presence, the remnant finished quickly and left one by one until it was only Margaret and me and her skulking husband at the table. She looked at me as if scanning my body for signs of something not to like. “As long as I live,” she said, “the Protestants will not find a home in this land. It is father’s dream, as it is mine, to keep England united and Catholic.”

  My eyes closed like the scrolls of the Torah in the granary, not knowing if or when they would be opened again. And then I was left at the giant table alone, and I retreated quietly to my room.

  Álvaro returned to our chamber by midnight, smelling of summer sweat.

  “Álvaro, tell me where have you been these late evenings?” I needed to know, and I was not above playing innocent to get his answer.

  “I have been to the stews, my friend—to the stews of Southwark, where I have made the acquaintance of more than a fair Scottish lassie.”

  “The stews? A lassie?” I asked, not understanding the meaning of his words. It was not long before I found out that a stew was a whorehouse, and in Southwark there were many, hemmed between the bear-baiting pits and the cockfighting rings.

  “My God, what are you doing there? Haven’t you learnt your lesson from the harlots of Antwerp?” I spoke quietly, though I wanted to shout about creating a good impression on our hosts and spending wisely the money they gave us. I stormed around the room, wanting to throw candlesticks and smash chairs.

  “Calm yourself, my friend. I can handle myself in the stews. Besides, as for the harlots, I have taken precautions.”

  “What precautions?”

  He produced a six-inch-long hollowed-out piece of tortoiseshell as thin as a fingernail.

  “It is amazing what you can pick up in this city,” he told me.

  “Not the clap I hope.”

  “Precisely why I use this little beauty,” he replied and then sat cross-legged, murmuring his barely intelligible chants in Hebrew.

  Something stirred in my memory, something I recognised from Father: Elohei neshama shenatata bi, t’horah hi—the soul God gave me is a pure soul.

  Álvaro de Castro, what game of chess are you playing? Whose side are you on? Am I just one of the pawns that you’re moving on the map of Europe that seems to be your chessboard?

  16 June 1523

  I couldn’t get an audience with the king or queen or even meet with the princess. There was a note from Bruges, but not the one I’d hoped for. It had the diamond seal of Louis de Praet. “How goes my paper?”

  I’d nearly finished it, but there was a city here that I hardly knew, and I wanted to run from that diamond seal. With three silver sovereigns in a leather purse attached to my breeches, we set out into the day.

  “Beware of the cozeners and the coney-catchers!” Sir Thomas yelled as we sped out of the gates, but his voice was drowned by the energy of the streets. St Paul’s rose above the timber houses like a giant cliff. Álvaro rolled his shoulders as he walked, strong as a blacksmith. I tried to copy him until he doubled over with laughter, like someone had put a sword into a sack of grain.

  Outside of the west door was a group of young men, and although it was another warm day, they were gathered about a brazier. There was the sound of shrieking and cheering: they were burning books and pamphlets.

  “What are they burning?” we asked a skinny boy not more than fourteen.

  He smiled, tossed back dirty mouse-coloured hair and replied, “The pamphlets of Luther and English scriptures.” He seemed frightened. Traitors have smuggled ’em in.”

  I played along. “Sho
cking news, intolerable.”

  “Such blasphemies we can’t ’ave.”

  There was a rhythmic cry of “Burn them!” and my mind turned again to other burnings in other lands. I leaned down and whispered into his left ear, “Remember, if you English can read a bible in your own homes, then you can challenge what you live with.”

  He backed off and ran away as if Lucifer was after him.

  Álvaro and I walked into the cathedral and threaded our way through the monks and handsome clergymen laughing like girls. We climbed the two hundred or so steps to the top of the tower and looked beyond the city. To the east was the Tower of London.

  “That’s where you’ll end up if you don’t keep your mouth shut,” Álvaro said, his black hair flowing in the wind. “I believe this is the old Jewish quarter,” he said, pointing.

  I looked at his trajectory. There were crowded streets packed like piglets at a sow’s teats.

  “See that building with its high walls and tiny windows?” he said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Juanito, close your eyes and listen to the wind. You will find the answer.”

  I stood there, at the turret of the poor old cathedral, blustery clouds and strong winds above, chiming bells and murmuring streets below. I closed my eyes, and pictures of dark rooms, men in hoods, and prisons overwhelmed me.

  “It’s the Domus, isn’t it?” I said. In that moment, I felt his pain and his passion. “Álvaro, we must do something now.” He made to descend the two hundred steps, but before I could catch enough breath to stop him, we were out into the fresh air again. Outside, we were accosted by a group of young men and greeted in broken Spanish.

  “Mi señores Espanol, you must be hungry. Come to the Black Boar for snipes, partridge, and English ale.”

  We followed them to the rowdy, raucous tavern that smelled of hops and old beer.

  One of the men shouted, “Tell us about Spain, sirs. Is it true that you sleep in the afternoons and stay awake all night? And what about the Spanish girls, with their curly hair and big breasts?”

  “Yes, it is true,” Álvaro said, “but if you want to see big breasts, go to Amsterdam and you’ll have a feast.”

  A chorus of laughter erupted. “Amsterdam it is!”

  Dark ale arrived, known as bitter, and bitter it was. This was more food than drink, and more medicine than food. A little later, our meal arrived, but I was already dizzy with the ale, and the food had no appeal.

  “Sirs, we must play some dice now,” said one.

  Remembering Sir Thomas’s words, I sensed a trap. Despite protestations, we stumbled out of the tavern, bid our hosts goodbye, but found they were gone, as was my purse and the three sovereigns. It had been cut from my breeches.

  “Álvaro, my money,” I cried desperately.

  “Do you think I am that stupid?” he laughed, tears running down his face.

  “What will we do now for money, and how will I explain this to Sir Thomas?”

  Álvaro pulled the three sovereigns out of his sleeve.

  “Let them have your purse,” he said. “I emptied it of its contents.”

  “How?”

  “With the skill of a de Castro,” he replied.

  Slightly dizzy with ale, we meandered through the narrow laneways that radiated away from the cathedral. The uneven cobbled streets of the Old Jewry greeted us with suspicion.

  “Do they hide here still?” I asked.

  “There were Viveses here,” Álvaro told me in his worldly tone.

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “I just know.”

  “But that’s not our real name,” I countered.

  “I know that, too.”

  We entered the church of St. Lawrence Jewry, the church of Sir Thomas, where he meets his living muse, William Grocyn, the most learned preacher in the land.

  But what horror! There was a painting of the saint being burned on a gridiron, and it sent shivers down my spine. In the confines of the red-painted walls, my eyes suddenly misted up and lost their focus. Where was the door? I had to escape. Then I smelled it. No, this could not be, not again—the fire, the singeing of hair, the crackling of flesh, the groaning, the cheering, the screams. I raised my hands to my ears. Sweat ran down my brow as I trembled.

  I felt a hand on my arm. Was it the officers of the Inquisition? No, it was Álvaro, guiding me out, one arm around my right shoulder, and we were out at last. I was back in the moment.

  “What would I do without you?” I said.

  He took me in his arms, like a brother, and held me tightly. “You’ll not have to find out.”

  The air was dank and humid as we emerged into the streets of the Old Jewry. A great cart swung around the corner and rolled past us, kicking up thick dust.

  Back at Bucklersbury, they commented on my silence. Voiceless for the next three days, I was unable to offer anything but silence.

  On the third day, Meg took charge. She took me back to Bedlam in the open carriage that sprayed mud and dung so that I had to cover my face with a scarf. I kept it over my mouth as we entered the hospital, for the putrid smell of faeces and unwashed bedding was too much to bear. She spoke with the warden like a counsellor. The patients needed fresher air, clean clothes, and running water. He looked dumbstruck, with a nose that looked like a small rotten apple and skin red from years of ale.

  “My Lady Roper, there are no funds.”

  She looked at me as if egging me towards the land of words, but no words came. She spoke for me.

  “This man has an answer.”

  The warden looked at me kindly, perhaps wondering if I would one day be an admission here.

  “My father and Cardinal Wolsey ponder these questions, and there’s a new tax, a subsidy on the wealthy. If all goes well, we can direct funds here and elsewhere.”

  “Oh, my sweetest lady,” he replied, with the foul odour from the abscess of a rotten tooth.

  She stepped backwards before remembering her manners and spoke again. “There’s a new breeze in the air, sir, if we can catch it, and then great things will happen here.”

  He smiled and nodded as if to say, “Good luck.”

  Back in the carriage, clarity, my wandering friend, returned. “A new breeze, eh?”

  Her breasts rose a bit. “Are you with us on the breeze, señor, or are you just a cuckoo in the nest?”

  “Every part of me is with you.”

  * * *

  One night, I cornered Álvaro before supper and asked, “What of the Domus? Who’s in there? How can we help? And what of a dramatic rescue or a letter to the king?”

  “You do your work and I’ll do mine,” he said with a snarl.

  Although I was dissatisfied with his answer, I had permission to bask longer in the light of this safe place. The next week was spent immersed in the company of women, so much so that the tiny hairs on my arms and on the nape of the neck bristled. I would not have them think of me as a cuckoo in the nest, but with them on their quest for a more enlightened Catholic realm that our people could also enjoy. I started talking of it to Álvaro, but what silence greeted me! What a scolding came! What of my immediate duty? What of my father in Valencia and my new family in Bruges? Clearly, those bristled hairs had been noticed.

  Perhaps I had forgotten my obligations in Bruges and in Valencia. But what of their obligations to me? There has been no letter from either place.

  “But Juanito.”

  Who said that? Was it you, diary? Was it you, conscience? Whoever it was, go on.

  Nothing. And so I sat here with the window open and the garden breeze wafting through it. Sunlight bounced off the light rosewood panels. The candle flickered but did not reveal a shape. Time passed. I listened to the silence and got a clumsy draft of “On Assistance to the Poor.” Álvaro printed it a
nd sent it to de Praet with a dedication that sounded sincere. Perhaps, then, the drawbridge will be lifted, and I’ll get a letter back from my love?

  26 August 1522

  Is it such a bad resting place, what’s left of you, diary: ripped-up pages from that thing that looked like it had eyes and ears etched upon it, wrapped in Bruges lace, under the false bottom of the hammered leather trunk? I was going to leave you for a while, lost in the shame of love for my new life, and I will, but first I’ve got to tell you about this, the greatest show on Earth—Bartholomew Fair!

  We arrived early dressed as country folk in long, loose white trousers and flowing red shirts. Hysteria was in the air. Even Álvaro began to laugh again. Alas, one of us was missing: Sir Thomas, who’d been called to Woodstock to be with the king. He did invite me to go, and I could plead my case and that of my people, but I chose this instead.

  There were stalls and stages, canvas tents and groups of prancing men, street urchins and women from the stews. There were the merchants from St Katherine’s, Dutchmen wearing clogs and flared justaucorps, and Frenchmen wearing blue-striped hip-length breeches. Margaret Roper told me that even King Harry sometimes attended the fair in disguise. One year, he would come as a monk, the next as a strong man from the circus. Where would he be this year? Was he there amongst the Morris dancers in their smocks and hats, leaping up and bowing?

  “More Moors, Mores, Moriscos and Morrisers,” Álvaro remarked. Casting his eyes towards Margaret More, he added, “But, please, wayward brother, no more amours.”

  He calls me wayward!

  Cicely begged Lady Alice that she might get her fortune told, and so we entered the tent of an ancient gypsy woman. Gnarled like an old tree, she sat at a table with a glass ball, some dice, and a stack of cards. Cicely sat in front of her, but the gypsy pointed at me.

  “Spaniard who is not a Spaniard,” she said, “prepare for the fires of hell!” She gazed down and then flung her head up and cried, “Your dead mother will be killed.” I was petrified by her chilling words.

  “What do you mean?” I demanded.

  “You know very well what I mean” was the venomous reply. “There is one who knows more than you, but no one would believe it. He sees everything that you do not see.” Who could she be referring to but Álvaro? Who but the frequenter of late-night taverns and stews?