The Cardinal's Court

by Cora Harrison

  ‘They’ll be happy now, George.’ I shut the door firmly before his anxious face and took his arm and walked him down the gallery. Few of the guests had left and there were people everywhere. I steered him towards a window seat and felt that he was glad to sit down. His face was very pale and his large eyes were anxious. I had once met his father, the clerk of the pipe at the court of the exchequer, a man with a look of a bulldog, but George must take after his mother. There was a gentle refinement about his face, a delicate mouth and his hair, worn rather long, had a slightly feminine curl to it.

  ‘How is the courtship going with Margery Kemp?’ I asked and saw his face relax and the lines of tension smoothed out. He looked very young, not much older than James or Harry Percy. It was a good match, fixed up by the cardinal. Margery Kempe, the niece of the lawyer, Thomas More, was an heiress and a very pretty and gentle girl. I listened to her praises for a few minutes and then steered the conversation around to James.

  ‘A shame about that foot of his,’ I said with a sigh. ‘I suppose last night he had to stand out while the others danced after the sugar banquet was over. The cardinal was telling me that they all seemed very energetic.’

  ‘Including His Grace, our king, of course.’ George smiled happily at the thought. He had told me once that he took this position as he had a burning desire to meet great men.

  ‘Oh, whom did the king dance with?’ I asked idly. I didn’t want to get onto the Anne Boleyn question too quickly.

  ‘Mistress Mary Boleyn, I should say Mistress Mary Carey, one of the ladies-in-waiting, the pretty one who acted the part of Kindness in the pageant, the wife of Will Carey.’ George always knew who was who in court circle. He could be quite a bore when he explained intricate matters of cousinship, so now I seized on his words quickly before he could tell me who Will Carey was.

  ‘That must have made her sister jealous,’ I said.

  ‘Well, no.’ George frowned slightly. ‘She was occupied.’

  ‘With Harry Percy?’

  George looked at me sadly. ‘I’m afraid that they are in earnest, Hugh. I watched them last night. I’ve seldom seen a pair of young people more in love.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ I said brazenly. ‘We’ll find James a nice girl over in Ireland. His mother would fancy one of her own clan, one of the Fitzgeralds, or so I’ve heard.’

  George looked relieved. ‘It was the way they clasped hands when they came together in the dance and once I saw him, young Harry, touch her cheek. He had such a tender expression. He touched her cheek, just with his forefinger.’

  ‘And she?’

  ‘She moved close. And she pulled off her mask and just smiled into his eyes. It brought a tear to my eye.’ George gave a sentimental sigh. ‘It’s sad,’ he said. ‘But I don’t think that the cardinal would like that match. I believe that all the papers have been signed for Harry Percy’s match with Mary Talbot, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s daughter. His Grace won’t be pleased if there is any flirtation with Mistress Boleyn, and yet, you know, Hugh, the two of them there, they made such a handsome young couple, he smiling down at her, and she looking up with those lovely dark eyes of hers. And when they finished a dance, she dropped him such a curtsey. It was for all the world as though she said to him, in body language, I am yours! I couldn’t take my eyes off them,’ finished George in a romantic style, and I stared at him uneasily. This was bad news. I had not thought of the lady being so smitten.

  ‘And they danced together, one dance, two dances …’

  ‘All night,’ said George. ‘I’m afraid that they were together until the very end of the evening and it was an evening that went into the small hours of the morning.’

  ‘And now she is in playing balliards with him.’

  George grimaced.

  ‘Probably holding his arm to make sure that he hits the ball in the right direction.’ The mother of the maids should be looking after Mistress Boleyn a bit better, but that was none of my business. I was never a man to beat my head against a stone wall. From what George said about the pair of young lovers, I thought it would be difficult to make either admit to a lie. I would try something else, gather some other witnesses.

  ‘Have you seen Gilbert?’ I asked.

  ‘I saw him going down the paved passage towards the kitchens a while ago.’ George’s anxious face lit up with a smile. Gilbert’s fondness for marchpane was well known and the other boys teased him about it. He had probably gone to see whether there were any leftovers. I got to my feet, glancing out at the snow, which was thickening now.

  ‘I’m sorry, Hugh,’ George thought about it for a moment and then did not quite know what to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated. He was a nice fellow, this George Cavendish.

  I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We have a saying in the Brehon Courts of Ireland, a triad, one of the truisms that young scholars memorise and it says: There are three doors through which truth is recognised: a patient answer, a firm pleading, appealing to witnesses. You’ve given me a patient answer, George, I’ve made a firm pleading and now I must appeal for witnesses. I’ll leave you to your duties and see whether I can find Gilbert.’

  ***

  There was no sign of Gilbert looking for snacks when I pushed open the kitchen door. The enormous room was relatively quiet, only the wood yard boys wheeling the flat-topped barrows into the main kitchen were still busy. All of the dinners were finished, the boys were washing up in the sculleries, the leftovers were being distributed by the almoner, and the chief cook himself was chatting with the clerk of the kitchens.

  ‘Leave me some number ones to get the fire hot later on.’ Master Beasley interrupted his conversation to turn towards the wood carriers and then saw me.

  ‘Come in, Master,’ he said cordially. ‘Come and taste my wafers. I hear you didn’t attend the sugar banquet last night.’

  ‘I’m not much of a sugar man,’ I said. ‘Give me some of your quails and a good flask of wine and I’m happy.’ There was a woman in the kitchen, I noticed. That was unusual. Master Beasley wouldn’t normally have a woman around his pots and pans. She looked at me with a slightly annoyed glance and said firmly: ‘Stale eggs, Master Beasley, not fresh.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that you will charge me for stale eggs, will you?’ She said the words in an assured fashion to the cook as he came back with six and he grinned at her. They appeared to be old friends. There was something flirtatious about her manner to him, and perhaps something fatherly in his manner to her.

  I wondered who she was. She spoke with a strong accent, Flemish, I guessed. The cardinal had quite a few Flemish working in his household, musicians and engravers. The people from the Netherlands were in the forefront of the new learning, the new art and architecture, and above all the wonderful tapestries that were of such huge importance to the court households. The glittery court of Henry VIII moved from palace to palace in order to cleanse the living quarters and to allow for the thorough cleaning of the rooms and the tapestries moved with them, making for instant warmth and instant colour once they were hung on the walls.

  Many of these Flemish artists had come to work in London. I had never seen this girl before, though. Moderately young. About the same age as Anne Boleyn, but very different in appearance. Very soberly dressed, a black gown with a high-necked chemise beneath it, her blonde hair tucked into a white linen cap, no jewellery. No apron, either, so she could not be a confectioner or maker of pies. All of the cardinal’s kitchen staff were ordered to wear an apron when in the kitchen, the rules were very strict: neat, clean clothing, covered with a linen apron.

  ‘And the almond shells, you remembered to reserve me your almond shells?’

  ‘Nicely baked, just as you ordered. Plenty of them, too, after all the marchpane that was made from the almonds. A chessboard, if you please. And thirty-two little men. Did you see it?’ He cocked an eye at me and I nodded. There had been great excitement about that chessboard. But the cardinal had given it to the French ambassador
and that was the end of the hopes of all the young gentlemen of the cardinal’s court.

  ‘Magnificent,’ I said and the cook looked gratified.

  ‘And the fish spine?’ asked the young lady.

  ‘Don’t worry. I saved some perfect fish spines for you from the Ash Wednesday dishes for the queen. Not one of them broken. She has good carvers.’

  ‘And three pounds of flour, one half pound of salt and a dozen fresh eggs, oh and some sugar, little, little bit of sugar,’ she finished rapidly while I wondered idly what dish could be made from these diverse ingredients.

  ‘We’ll have to charge you for those,’ said the clerk of the kitchen, coming forward from the desk. ‘And sugar is very expensive. Four pence a pound.’

  She grimaced slightly, but handed him her purse and he took the money from it, entered the amounts into his account book and asked her to sign it.

  A beautiful hand. I admired the elaborate flourish of the S. Susannah Horenbout. Probably Flemish, yes, the name sounded like it. She stored her goods carefully into the basket she carried, gave a polite curtsey and left. The clerk of the kitchen nodded at Master Beasley and then followed her out.

  ‘Who’s she?’ I was intrigued. The curtsey had been that of an equal, not a woman who made pies and sold them to the kitchen.

  ‘She’s a painter, works with her brother, he makes pictures for the cardinal. She often comes in here for her stores, mixes her paints and glues with these sort of things, eggs and flour.’

  ‘And even the backbone from the queen’s fish.’

  ‘That’s right.’ He gave a shrug. ‘They lodge in one of the workshops, near to the gate. The cardinal thinks highly of her work, has got her to illuminate a book for him and they say it was she who did those roundels in the gallery, those Roman emperors, not her brother.’ Master Beasley held a flask beneath the tap of a barrel that supported and was partially obscured by a large copper pan. He filled the flask and then poured out two mugs of wine. Good stuff, I noticed, tasting it and wondering whether the clerk of the kitchens had taken a reckoning of that barrel.

  ‘I was looking for Master Tailboys.’ I shifted away from the icy draught from the wood yard arch and settled myself on one of the stools. ‘Someone saw him around here,’ I added, savouring the taste of the wine and then taking another mouthful.

  ‘Here, have some of these. Sin and shame to waste them on those beggars at the gate. Good bit of brawn would be more in their line. But these are very nice. I made them especially for the king last night and I saved some that were not eaten.’

  ‘Delicious,’ I said. The thin juicy pieces of beefsteak were wrapped around olives and the olives themselves were stuffed with a buttery mixture of breadcrumbs and herbs. Even cold they were very tasty. Hot, they must have been superlative. It was no wonder that the king had put on weight since I had last seen him.

  ‘Haven’t seen a sign of Master Tailboys. He didn’t come in here, but then he wouldn’t when he saw old sourguts here, checking on every crumb that came into the kitchen.’ Master Beasley swallowed some more wine.

  ‘Perhaps he has gone to the confectioner’s kitchen?’ I didn’t want to get the cook started on complaints about the clerk of the kitchen. This was a great new innovation of the cardinal. He was appalled at the huge cost of food in the royal kitchens in King Henry’s palaces, George Cavendish had told me, and so he was trying out a new system in his own kitchens. The clerk checked in all food, doled it out to the kitchen and then checked the food served and tried to make sure that all leftovers were either eaten by the servants or else given to the almoner for the beggars who came to the gates of the palace.

  ‘I’m sorry about your young gentleman.’ Master Beasley chewed on one of the tasty meat parcels and swallowed some more wine to wash it down before he continued. ‘Wish I never spotted that shoe. Didn’t like the man much at the best of times. Hand in glove with that fellow who has just gone out.’

  ‘Really,’ I commented. It would be interesting to hear the views of the cook, a man who heard all the gossip in Hampton Court. He gave a grunt now, but said no more, waiting until another load of wood was added to the main fireplace. All three fires seemed to be well banked down now, each with a talshide of number one logs arranged neatly on a trolley, ready for when the fires had to be resurrected for cooking the supper.

  ‘Terrible draught from that archway; I’m surprised that you don’t get the carpenter to build a door across it,’ I said to fill the minute while the boys, well-trained by Master Beasley, carefully swept up pieces of bark and wood dust from the tiled floor.

  ‘You wouldn’t if you were the cook, instead of just being a lawyer. You know what would happen without that draught? Well, the fires would smoke and smoulder and what would His Grace, or one of those tame gentlemen ushers, say to me then? If you’ve got a hundred pounds of beef to boil up, or fifty chickens to roast on a spit, well you need a good fire to roar up that chimneys. So that’s how we keep it. Cold feet and hot head, that’s the life of the kitchen worker!’ Master Beasley drained his mug of wine and went across for a refill.

  ‘There’s a few bits and pieces for you lads under that cloth,’ he said to the boys when he returned. ‘Now be off with you all and make sure you check on the fires a good hour before I start the supper or I’ll hang you all by the heels in that chimney.’

  The boys went off chuckling, pushing their barrows in front of them and Master Beasley settled down for a good gossip.

  ‘Yes, not a nice man, that instructor of the wards. Long nose, he had, and was forever poking it into other people’s business. I had a feeling that he was hounding that young fellow, Master Tailboys.’ The cook cast an inquisitive eye at me and I responded by draining my cup.

  ‘Good stuff, that.’

  ‘Have some more. The fellow who delivered the stuff got that barrel in here on one of the wood barrows before the clerk came down from his office. He has a window looking down so that he can see the deliveries arriving at the gate, but then, of course, he has to go down the stairs.’ The cook chuckled. ‘That stuff came in with a good few number six talshides heaped around it. We had it unloaded and stuck in a dark corner before you could say Jack Robinson. But to go back to young Tailboys. I heard him stuttering and stammering one day out in the paved passage. I was up above in the confectioner’s kitchen, just up above the pastry ovens, and I looked down and saw the lad hand over a small bag to Master Pace. I’d swear, by the way he held it, that it was heavy with coins.’

  I reflected on this for a while. I had to admit that it would be most unlikely that Gilbert Tailboys had anything to do with the shooting of Master Pace. Unlike James he was not a good shot and he was a nervous, irresolute type of boy. To shoot a man on the spur of the moment in the presence of the king and his court, not to mention the cardinal and his household, that took a boldness …

  Or utter despair. I drained my cup and got to my feet.

  ‘Great place this, good wine, good food, great gossip,’ I said with a grin. ‘Thanks, Master Beasley. I’d better be off now before the snow gets worse.’

  I needed to find Gilbert Tailboys.

  The confectionery was locked up, as were the saucery, the spicery and pastry offices, all their staff having a rest before the work of making supper had to begin. I went back downstairs, along the narrow passage and out through the gate. The moat looked dark and murky, and here and there were thin skims of ice. Some of the yeoman were drilling with muskets on the gravelled ground beside it, so I turned back again. No sign of him in the card room, although Bessie Blount looked up hopefully when I pushed the door open. No sign of him in the balliard room either. Only Harry Percy and Anne Boleyn were left in there and the lady gave me a bad-tempered look from her very black eyes. Nothing to do with me, my lady, I said to myself as I closed the door, I’m only a lawyer. I just draw up the deeds. We could find a good wife for the young man over in Ireland and she might suit him better than this Frenchified young lady. I doubt that James
cared much for the title. Piers Rua, his father, well, that was a different matter. He had become used to being referred to as ‘the earl’.

  At last in desperation, I opened the door of the chapel and went into the dark, incense scented building. And there, under the stained-glass window showing the martyrdom of St Thomas á Becket, knelt Gilbert. I moved silently up and stood at some little distance from him. His beads were in his hands and he passed them through his fingers.

  He did not look worried or even distraught. He knelt very upright, his eyes fixed on the tabernacle. His lips were moving. For a moment I could only hear an indistinct murmur, but then I distinguished a few words repeated over and over again. Not the Pater Noster, nor yet the Ave Maria, but two words ‘gratias ago’, ‘I give thanks’.

  After a couple of moments I stole back to the door, opened it soundlessly and then shut it with a bang. Gilbert looked around and I came forward with a smile.

  ‘Praying for the dead?’ I enquired and took a seat in the window arch. He joined me there after a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘Not really,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘You’re relieved he’s dead. I’m not surprised,’ I said. ‘He was a man who liked to hold power over people.’

  He gave me a startled glance. ‘You, too?’ There was a query in his voice.

  ‘He had a way of worming out secrets. I know that about him.’ I made the pronouncement without looking at him and I could sense him wondering whether to trust me. I held, after all, no official position at Hampton Court. I had only arrived a few days earlier with instructions from Piers Rua to make sure that the marriage contract between Anne Boleyn and his son James was acceptable to Brehon Law as well as to English law. Piers had steered an adroit route through the laws and the customs of both countries; though his father was a descendent of the Earls of Ormond, his mother was Saibh from the Irish clan of the O’Cavanaghs and Piers Rua had picked up a great respect for the native Brehon law from her. However, the earldom was dear to him and he wanted his son to follow in his footsteps. And of course, when I arrived James had welcomed me boisterously. I had been the youngest person among his father’s household and we had always been good friends. Gilbert now showed no fear of me and I proceeded to probe cautiously.