The Deception of Consequences

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Charming. Delightful. Go away, Richard.”

  There were a hundred candles and the perfumes of beeswax, honey and rose petals crept along the high beams as surely as scampering mice or the slow crawl of beetles. Richard waved up to the slanting perfumed shadows. “Bear witness,” he murmured, “all you hidden leggy creatures of dust and webs. Her illustrious and most beautiful majesty has ordered me gone. Should I go, I wonder? Or will she order me back as soon as I reach a safe haven in the stables, believing at last to get back to my own rest, supper, and bed.”

  Queen Anne regarded her guest and lowered her voice. “Come here, Master Wolfdon, and talk privately with me, and then I’ll let you go. You often complain of tedium. Do you find me tedious? Perhaps that’s what I am, and why Henry stares over my shoulder, purses that little smug mouth of his, and refuses to talk to me. So I need your help and your honest opinion first. You know my problem.”

  Richard turned sharply, and lowered his voice. “You never loved him. So do his feelings matter so much? Allow him a monarch’s choices. Ignore his hauteur. Ignore his mistresses. Smile relentlessly. Remain openly loving and keep your own preferences hidden. Is that the advice you expect?”

  “No.” She shook her head, looking back into her lap. The floor was tiled and one foot, impatient, tapped a drum. “You know it isn’t. I need more. He divorced one woman. He could divorce me.”

  “He doubts his strength, and will therefore display it more often. He has never doubted his choices, and is therefore immovable. Once decided, you’ll never change his mind.”

  “I didn’t want his love before. How can I make him love me now?”

  “That,” Richard said, so softly that she barely heard him, “is something I will not discuss. You yourself are the expert, my lady.”

  It was a very long time after supper before he arrived home and, throwing his horse’s reins to the groom, marched inside and directly to his bedchamber, It was a deep midnight and the moon, a sickle of silver, had edged the stars from the rooftops. Richard did not go outside to sit on the garden bench, nor speak with the tawny owl roosting silent in the old oak. He stripped off his own clothes, sent his valet away, and tumbled naked into the warmth of his own very well aired bed. The pillows cupped him, the mattress cradled him, the billowing eiderdown enveloped him and within minutes he was asleep.

  Out in the night’s dark chill, Jemima wandered alone, pacing the long paths between clipped hedges, standing for some time beneath the stretching gnarls of the old oak, and staring into the star glimmer above. She appeared to be waiting for something or someone who did not come. It was a long wait before she sighed and returned to her own bed.

  At some considerable distance, Queen Anne did not find slumber easy. Due to her delicate situation, her royal husband, King Henry, the eighth of that name, had not visited his wife for many nights past, but her majesty was perfectly sure, knowing his tastes, that he was not sleeping entirely alone.

  Richard woke a little later than usual, and stretched. His valet and personal dresser regarded him from the bedside. “You’ve slept heavy, sir. Will you be wanting breakfast here in your chamber as usual, sir? All them females is down in the small hall again. There’s baked eggs served with cream and spinach leaves, with fresh cheat, grapes and ale.”

  Yawning, Richard said, “Yes, everything as usual, Stawb. But a light breakfast. I shall be riding out before dinner. Lay out my riding clothes and get me a cup of ale.” He rolled from the bed, stretched again, and permitted the page to help him on with his bedrobe. The black velvet enclosed him like a fledgling in its nest.

  It was to the Strand that he rode, accompanied by neither retinue nor groom, dismounted at one of the smaller properties along the grand highway, left his horse tethered at the stables, and strode to the main doorway. The doors were opened by the steward before he needed to announce his arrival.

  “Is Cuthbert Thripp at home?” he demanded. “If so, tell him Richard Wolfdon wishes to speak to him at once. I shall wait for him in the antechamber.”

  The steward stood aside, even the servants having heard of Dickon the Bastard, and Richard entered without delay. He knew precisely where to go. Cuthbert scurried to find him, and, out of breath from having run the stairs, exclaimed, “My dear sir, welcome. I do hope you don’t ask for another examination of the attic, you know. It has been thoroughly cleaned out and there’s nothing more to see. But may I offer wine? Light refreshments? Anything at all? I am more than willing to help in any manner, as I’m sure you know.”

  Richard sat, crossed his ankles, stripped off his riding gloves, and gazed without the slightest emotion at his scrambling host. “What I require,” he said, “is information. First about your cousin. Then concerning your uncle. And finally an explanation of why you were able to claim this property on your uncle’s death, when you have not the slightest right to it.”

  Cuthbert blanched. His usual expression fading from belligerent arrogance as his shoulders slumped. But he said at once, “I have every right, sir. And can prove it. The papers are with my lawyer, but I can accompany you to his chambers at any time you wish. In the meantime, I’ll tell you anything you want concerning my uncle, who was a pirate, a ruthless and black-hearted killer on the high seas, and a very unpleasant man of crude tastes and scandalous practises. As for my silly little cousin, she’s of no account at all.”

  “However, I wish you to tell me about this black-hearted no-account cousin,” Richard said, stretching his legs. “And then every single thing you can tell me of her father. Finally you will tell me the name and direction of your lawyer. I shall visit him after our conversation is complete, but I don’t need you to accompany me.”

  “But – ” said Master Thripp in a hurry.

  “First,” Richard interrupted, “Mistress Jemima Thripp, and in detail.”

  It was once again late when Richard returned to his own home and he went immediately to his bedchamber. The female guests now occupying his house had not seen him for two days. Although as their host he might have felt obliged to rectify this situation, instead such considerations did not for even one moment enter his thoughts.

  “Not sight nor sound. I told you he’s not worthy of trust,” Jemima told Alba. “He’s forgotten all about us again.”

  “My dear little dove,” Alba murmured, smiling, “he is housing us in luxury, feeding us with lavish feasts twice every day, supplies wine of the highest quality and is demanding absolutely nothing in return. I hardly think he has forgotten us. But a man summoned by the king cannot put a parcel of some long dead pirate’s mistresses before the royal command.”

  “Do stop calling Papa a pirate.”

  “He was a good man, my love.” Alba was reclining on her bed, one naked ankle peeping from her voluptuous bedrobe. “I, of all people, would not have loved a fool nor a brute. I am a woman of taste, as I am quite sure you appreciate, my love. Piracy is only a crime according to what country he chooses to pillage. Dearest Edward never plundered English ships, so he isn’t a rogue to us. And I loved him too, as he loved me. Adored me. When we parted, I was more heartbroken than I admitted to him.”

  “He should never have left you.”

  “True, true, and the reason is obscure since we were much devoted. His other women, I am quite sure, never touched his heart as I did. However, you were too young to understand at the time, little dove. Most men tire of their mistresses eventually. As I hear the king has tired of his whore.”

  Jemima looked up in surprise. “Why call her that,” she asked. “Queen Anne is beautiful and they are legally wed now. Cranmer said so. Their story is so romantic.”

  “Romance is a fool’s dream.” Alba smiled, her head back against the piled pillows. “And I doubt the king’s a fool, whatever else he might be.”

  “But,” continued Jemima, “there is something else quite different that I wanted to ask, Alba dear. Could I, just for a few hours, borrow your very beautiful bedrobe?”

  As the rain
passed, the clouds had opened. With a clear sky, the sickle moon had grown just a slice fatter, balancing like a queen’s golden crown above the chimney pots. The stars shrank. There was a small timid wind and a touch of frosty reminder that autumn had come. Richard Wolfdon, only a merging shadow in his dark velvet, stood beneath the oak tree. But he was silent.

  Jemima approached, tiptoe. Her borrowed bedrobe was a swirl of white gossamer over fine flowing linen, thickly pleated. Richard spoke as she approached, although he did not turn around. “Are you looking for me, madam, or for Socrates? He has flown, and is out hunting on the wind.”

  She decided he must himself have the hearing of an owl. “I wasn’t looking for anyone,” she said. “Much as I appreciate your hospitality, I have no need to search for either men – or owls. But as I told you before, I love the night and the silence and the dark fresh emptiness, just as you do.”

  He turned, saying, “We also share a taste in the comfort of undemanding bedrobes, I see madam.” And nodded. “You describe the escape I have savoured over many years of dividing day from night.”

  “Days at court. With family. Doing your duty.” Jemima smiled back. “Nights alone, breathing that crystal spark of freedom.”

  He came forward, taking her arm and leading her to the garden bench where the wine jug and two cups waited. Jemima wondered exactly if and how her presence had been anticipated but it was his touch that made her tingle, and she thought she needed the wine. He poured it, and continued speaking. “I have never been entirely positive as to what my duty might be. But I obey my king and my queen, and so preserve my life, limbs and the freedom you speak of. Beyond that I sit and write by lamplight until my mind drifts and whispers of my bed.”

  “You never join us at mealtimes.”

  “A just criticism, I fear. But food is a tedium beyond most others. I eat, as I obey my sovereigns, in order to survive until another tedious day passes.”

  Jemima sat, sipping her wine. It was a rich claret and turned ruby in the sinking moonlight. The cup was silver, unadorned, but heavy. Jemima said between sips, “I’d like to meet the king and the queen. She’s beautiful and he’s so grand, so fine and handsome.”

  “You might not think so,” Richard said, the tuck to his mouth dancing, “if you saw him in his bath.”

  “Really naked?”

  “Entirely naked, exceedingly plump, almost hairless and very pink.”

  “I can only think of him tall in velvet and emeralds. So what are they like, our king and queen? I’ve always been accustomed to naked women. Or nearly naked. But men are – so different.” She blushed slightly. “Is the king so ordinary away from the pomp and the brocades and the trumpets?”

  Richard gazed at her over the brim of his cup. “A man not wishing to be overheard rarely speaks where the trees may hide attentive ears.”

  With a deep breath, she said, “We won’t be overheard and there’s no one hiding behind your trees. You know there aren’t. So why not tell me?”

  “Should a man who is trusted,” he almost smiled, “betray that trust, even if unknown to his benefactors?”

  Jemima looked back down at her bare toes, just peeping from beneath the white linen. “I don’t want betrayals or political secrets. I didn’t ask what they told you. Just what they’re like.”

  “What they are truly like is as much a political secret as their foreign policy.” He regarded Jemima without expression. “But – in the end – like a man and a woman.” “A monarch is, they say, beloved and chosen by God Himself. Yet kings have been overthrown, proved unsuitable, corrupt, committed in every sin forbidden by the church, and have been killed as easily and as frequently by others wishing to take their place.” Richard re-poured the wine. “Therefore no God-given right appears to protect or govern them. This one is neither saint nor likely to become one. But he is king, and that must be enough for most of us.’

  “Not all of us?”

  “Mankind is never entirely in accord. That would be even more surprising than a monarch of sainted purity.”

  “So I should think of him as a real man?” Her dimples tucked deep. “I’m sure any king would prefer to be known only as a great monarch covered in rubies and emeralds?”

  Richard refilled her cup, although she had barely noticed having emptied it. “Starlight and diamonds? Worthy of admiration, no doubt.” He added, “As is the admirable diamond sheen of your borrowed bedrobe, mistress.” Pausing, he smiled again. “More – admirable – I assume you decided – than your own robe, no longer admirable except in age.”

  “That’s – rude.” She blushed ruby flushed even in the darkness. “How could you know such a thing? I never see you. You don’t know all my clothes.”

  “Simply that the first time I saw you in the garden, when you least expected to be seen, you wore a robe both threadbare and outworn. Had you owned a garment as luxurious as the one you wear now, you would have worn it before, when the risk of meeting a stranger unknown to you was greater.”

  She buried her nose in her cup. “I’d sooner talk about the king. Or the queen. Is she fascinating? No one could call the queen tedious.”

  “Queen Anne is tired, worried, unhappy, and with child.”

  Jemima blinked and once more drank in a hurry. “How can queens be unhappy?”

  Richard regarded her for a moment, frowning slightly, before once more refilling her cup. Quietly he said, “Now, I wonder – should I tell you? Or should I say nothing about a business which has its dangers and its terrible shadows? The court is a place of fear and secrecy. Each man creeps beneath his own stench, wallowing in crime and vice while dusting off the reputation he shows well-polished to the world. The king’s anger can flare like the sudden spread of an owl’s wings when it sees a rabbit in the long grass, And so, as soundlessly as the hunting owl, the king sweeps and every man cringes and shivers.”

  She whispered, “Are you afraid too?”

  “There is little gain in fear,” Richard told her. “But many live in fear when the king’s shadow falls close. One day you may criticise the man, and he will turn and laugh. Another day you may praise him behind his back, but he will hear you, and turn, accuse you of slander and treason, and have you dragged to the Tower before you can beg his pardon.”

  “And the queen?”

  “She thought him a pretty rosebud of a child, hers to caress and kiss as she wished, or to put away while she enjoyed herself with his wealth. She has discovered something very different.”

  “Fear?” She looked away, and murmured, “My father always said fear causes more deaths than battle. But I always imagined the queen as a woman of great courage.”

  “She is still entirely unaware of her true danger. I speak with the king and he speaks of her. But what he says I will not repeat in her hearing. She is fearful of divorce, but if she produces a healthy son early next year, she will save her own future. The king will move on to the usual stream of mistresses, but leave her in her palace to cosset her children.”

  Jemima wished she could finish her third cup of wine but did not dare. “So you’re loyal,” she said, looking into his dark heavy lidded eyes. “You don’t like either of them, but you won’t tell one what the other has said. And you won’t tell me either.”

  He spoke to the stars. “There is loyalty. And there is common sense. You would find it unutterably tedious. And so would I.”

  “You talk as my father did.” Jemima sank back against the wall and drank a little more wine than she thought she should. “People call him a pirate but he wasn’t. He was a trader, and a successful one until his ships sank. He wasn’t a saint either of course. And he never met kings or queens or even the nobility. But he told me things and talked to me as if I was intelligent enough to understand him, even when I was little.” She looked up quickly. “I’m not as proper as I ought to be, and what he told me wasn’t always proper either. I lived with his mistresses and called them my friends. But he was a kind man, and an interesting man.”


  “I am not so profound, madam,” Richard answered, his smile just a little more pronounced, “nor is my life so profoundly interesting. Yet I am, for some reason which does not yet concern me, telling you rather more than I am in the habit of saying to others. Perhaps I have more in common with your father than expected.”

  Jemima laughed. “You’re the grandson of an earl, you talk privately with kings, and you’re as rich as the king himself. Not at all like my father.”

  “Considerably richer than the king as it happens. He spends every penny he can claim, justly or unjustly and what he does not have, he borrows or he takes. Whereas I have no particular liking for furs or jewels.”

  “Nor expensive mistresses.” Now she knew she had drunk too much, and put her cup down with a snap.

  Richard looked at her abruptly, and drained his own cup. “What an odd thing to say, madam,” he answered, once again picking up the wine jug, but not offering it to her. “Although my grandfather was attainted after the French invasion which put this king’s father on the throne, my grandfather was careful to hide much of his income, his lands, and his wealth. This was then handed down to my father and from him to me, his only child. Since he was the bastard which now accompanies my name, my mother much preferred her second husband and thus her second son sired by him. So I retained not the affection but the wealth. A fair bargain, perhaps. However, it ensured an upbringing and an education which does not stretch to extravagance, nor to foolery.” He paused, then said, “Is that the explanation you require, madam?”

  She blushed again. “I shouldn’t have said it. I don’t require any explanation and I don’t suppose I deserve one. I’m surprised you answered me.”

  “I should have thundered like the king and packed you off to bed. Either your own – or mine?”

  Jemima’s blushes were deepening. “I think I should pack myself off to bed. My bed, of course, I apologise.”

  He waited a moment, then shook his head. “Let me explain one thing more,” he said quietly. “I speak of myself, although this is something I do not ever do, because I believe it a matter of justified balance. You might even call it contrition. Because,” with the faint hint of a smile, “I have spent some part of this day discussing you with someone whose opinions aroused my curiosity. You have, in fact, been the principal subject of my day’s travels and investigations.” When she stared at him blankly, he continued, “I spoke first with your delightful cousin Cuthbert, and then with his lawyer. I found the result of particular interest.”