‘And the name of the man?’ The cardinal raised his thin eyebrows at me.
I hesitated for a second, but only to gather my thoughts. ‘My servant, Colm, now lying dead, Your Grace, saw and would have been able to bear witness to the man who murdered Dr Ramirez, in mistake, I do believe, for me. Young Colm saw Sir George St Leger raise the bow and fire an arrow towards the front door of my lodgings; I’m sure of that. Unfortunately for poor Ramirez, he had decided to pay me a late-night call and in the darkness was mistaken for me.’
The cardinal absorbed this calmly. ‘And the king’s serjeant, did he have any connection with this affair?’
Once again I was surprised by the detailed knowledge that the cardinal had of what was going on in this huge place.
‘Only one man was seen by my servant,’ I said and noted the slight sigh of relief, no more, perhaps, than the releasing of a breath.
‘Nevertheless, this is a very difficult matter, Hugh,’ he said, speaking in a very low tone of voice. ‘You must understand that I can’t go against the king. St Leger is high in his favour. In fact,’ he continued, raising a white hand, as I impetuously opened my mouth to protest, ‘in fact, I think that there is only one person now who can handle this matter, and that is the queen.’
I could see that he was thinking hard so I did not interrupt him. He was a man who always visualised a situation with great exactitude and never left his subordinates in any doubt as to the desired outcome.
‘I think,’ he said after a few moments, ‘that this would be best if it came, not from me, not from you, but from the queen herself. You’re a man who is good with words, Hugh, you tell the queen, but keep it obscure, vague, you’ll know how to do this. Let the queen to be the one to ask questions and to take any measure that she wishes, yes, I think that is the way to handle it.’ He rose to his feet to take the prescribed three turns around the room before descending majestically to the hall, while I pondered what he had said.
‘Let us go, Hugh. You would not wish to be late when Her Grace, Queen Katherine, does us the honour of dining with us.’
I took the hint and went rapidly ahead of him, running down the corridor and taking the stairs two at time so that I reached the hall well ahead of the cardinal and was already in my place when he entered the room and waited by the door to escort Her Grace to her seat.
***
‘So, you’ve had bad news, Hugh.’ Once he had pronounced grace, the cardinal made that announcement loudly in a voice trained to reach to the back of any church or cathedral. Most people at the table, even those who were helping themselves to pottage, stopped what they were doing and looked at me.
‘Yes, Your Grace.’ There was a large mirror of burnished steel hung on the wall halfway down the hall. If I were giving judgement on the hill of Kyle back in my native Ossory then I would have aimed my voice at a bare patch of rock across the field, but the mirror would do just as well to throw the sound through this enclosed space.
‘My poor servant,’ I said and waited for the words to sound in all ears. The noise of spoons and knives paused, I took in a breath and let out on the next word. ‘Murdered,’ I said and heard the long uuur sound reverberate around the room. There was a stunned silence. Startled eyes flickered in the candlelight just as though a hundred flames had suddenly flashed. I looked down at my plate.
‘Another murder! Jesu!’ exclaimed the queen. She turned her head and looked at me past the cardinal’s paunch. ‘When did that happen?’
‘Just this afternoon,’ I said, still in a carrying tone. ‘His poor body was fished out of the river not long before suppertime. He had been murdered with a knife stuck into his heart.’
‘What is happening, here? My Lord Cardinal!! This is terrible!’
I paused for a moment, but she said no more. Her face was thoughtful, but this was a very discreet woman, a woman who had learned diplomacy in a hard school. I could understand why the cardinal did not want to approach her directly.
And so I bowed to the queen, said nothing, just waited respectfully while she carefully selected a small venison pasty, shaped and ornamented like a needlework pouch with elaborate ‘v’s appearing to be stitched around its four sides. Only when the pasty was half demolished did I turn back to the cardinal. It was time, I thought, to disseminate another piece of news.
‘Your Grace,’ I said, not lowering my tone. ‘I feel that I must take my servant’s body back to Ireland, back to his poor mother who had entrusted him to my care.’
‘May God have mercy on his soul!’ The cardinal made the sign of the cross and everyone bowed heads and held spoons aloft for forty seconds. I noticed Anne Boleyn, who had managed to upset George’s seating plan again, had turned a questioning face to Harry Percy, listening eagerly. Gilbert was on her other side and his face was very grave. Both of the boys were enlightening her and I could see a look of shock on that smooth face. I warmed to her. She was self-centred and ruthless, but she was young. If I could get James out of this mess, and I hoped that I might, well, perhaps the marriage would take place after all. It would be nice to see her busy around Kilkenny Castle and the small town that was growing up around it, arranging for stonemasons to be taught the latest style of Italianate building, setting up a school of artists, rearing a brood of seven sons as the Irish proverb for newly wedded women would have it. But then she touched Harry’s hand, quite gently with her own and smiled tenderly at him. I shrugged my shoulders. I had more important matters to think about. Now was the moment for the second act of the play.
‘May I tell you a story,’ I said to the cardinal. We had finished our pottage and we, too, had begun to help ourselves to the small, pouch-like venison pasties. I cut one open, mopped up some of the gravy with a piece of bread, took a piece between finger and thumb, chewing appreciatively on the deliciously tender meat. There was an amused twinkle in the cardinal’s eye, and he inclined his head graciously, exchanging a smile with the queen. Sometimes, with the cardinal, I felt that my role was like an amalgam between learned judge and Patch the fool. I adopted a clear, storytelling voice, but kept my eyes fixed on the cardinal and resisted the temptation to look at the queen.
‘Well, Your Grace, as in all the best tales, there is in my story a man with a great longing, not for a princess, but for a kingdom. Or at least,’ I added, thinking of Ossory as seen by him, ‘at least a portion fit for a knight.
‘Your tale interests me.’ The cardinal blandly chewed on his venison and then joined in the chorus of delight as a peacock, dressed in all its feathers, was carried up to the top table.
‘The man with the great longing, I fear, is the villain in my story. You see, he hoped to snatch that kingdom from the true heir,’ I kept a smile on my face and the cardinal’s face showed a polite interest. I chanced a quick glance at the queen. She was listening intently, not smiling and I mentally paid tribute to her sharp mind.
‘The only villain?’ The cardinal conveyed a crumb of pastry to his mouth.
I bowed. It needed some such tribute to his quickness of mind.
‘Not the only villain,’ I said, ‘because we have also the unjust steward.’
‘Bribed by the villain, with gold, of course, though not, we hope, fairy gold.’
‘With high honours, Your Grace.’ That, I thought, was true. Every sergeant-at-arms had ambitions to be a judge.
‘I see,’ said the cardinal thoughtfully. He helped himself to a generous portion of ginger sauce and ladled it on top of some chicken mortis. I followed his example. It was delicious. The ginger brought out the delicate flavour of the almonds and cream in that chicken pâté. The queen was still listening intently and I noticed the cardinal had leaned back in his chair to allow my words to flow past him and to her ear. His gaze was fixed on the Mess which held the two serjeants, together with St Leger and George Villiers. His eyes had a hard look and his mouth was tight.
‘And the true heir,’ he queried after a minute.
‘The plan was to throw him
into the deepest, darkest dungeon,’ I said. The peacock, now in neat bite-sized portions, was placed before us. The cardinal helped himself, but I took a beef aloe. Trussed, stuffed and spit roasted, the sirloin went very well with the smooth richness of the wine from Burgundy.
‘And has your story got an ending?’ queried the queen, leaning across the cardinal and looking at me intently.
‘No, not yet, Your Grace. The ending requires, I think, a master-hand.’ I watched her face, but now it was inscrutable as she chewed thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ said the cardinal with a sidelong glance. ‘One always felt with the unjust steward that there was a certain lack of supervision.’ He sighed heavily. It was his constant wail that he did not have enough time, and having seen his workload I could well understand it.
‘Still,’ said the queen unexpectedly, ‘better an unjust steward than an unjust judge.’ And I knew that she was thinking of the ambitions of her husband’s sergeant. She would, I hoped, put a spoke in the wheel of his progress. ‘But your villain. He must be punished. We cannot have murder, you know.’
‘I agree, Your Grace,’ I said. ‘Murder destabilises the whole community.’ I left a silence after that. Food, I decided, made very useful pauses. I chewed another beef aloe to point my words. ‘No kingdom, to go back to my little story,’ I said lightly, ‘no kingdom, is worth a human life, certainly not worth two human lives.’ I left it at that. She was meditatively eating some spinach tart, but her eyes were not on her plate, or turned towards the cardinal, but were gazing past us to where St Leger sat, uneasily picking at some shrimps. She would manage the matter carefully, I decided. She would take no action herself; that might anger the king. She would be more likely to catch the king in a good humour and then tell the story to him. In the meantime, St Leger would know that her eye was upon him.
‘A very good maxim,’ said the cardinal with a note of finality in his voice.
‘Indeed,’ I said and decided to leave the matter. The queen would take care of St Leger and I would see that justice was done to poor Colm in my own manner and in accordance with that law wherein I was trained. The cardinal also seemed to think that the subject was closed. Queen Katherine had turned to her neighbour on the other side.
‘So, Hugh, you leave tomorrow on your journey to Ireland.’ He rubbed his shaven upper lip with his forefinger and contemplated the dish of beef olives. ‘How do you stay so slim, Hugh? I suppose it is all that tennis.’ He looked at me benignly. ‘You should start your journey early,’ he said. ‘If I were you I would go at dawn, go while everyone is at Sunday morning Mass. Best to go when no one is around. Farewells,’ exclaimed the cardinal with an energetic wave of his hand, ‘well, they are always well meant, but they do delay one so much.’
‘‘Your Grace is always so perceptive,’ I said with a smile.
‘I will give you a dispensation to excuse you, and your man from going to Mass. You are on a merciful errand, are you not? It was St Paul, I think, who enjoined the faithful to bury their dead.’
He, normally the most hospitable of men, didn’t ask whether I would pay a return visit, something that made me feel that he had a suspicion about my sudden resolve to go back to Ireland. I need say nothing and he would say nothing.
When the meal was over, he pronounced a Latin grace, reminded everyone that he would see them at the dawn Mass and then gave his blessing and retired. I thought with compunction about the number of papers that he would need to attend to on this very evening in between and after seeing the ambassador from Scotland and felt slightly sorry that I had placed another problem on his overworked shoulders. Still, I thought, the queen may just deal with it herself and leave the cardinal out of the matter.
St Leger was still with his friend, the king’s serjeant-at-arms, when we all made our way to the bottom of the hall to partake of the sweet course. And then I saw the queen’s gentleman usher, Senor De Montoya, touch him on the shoulder and whisper something in his ear. St Leger started, moved away, began a whispered conversation with De Montoya and the king’s sergeant was left alone, at the end of the table, prodding some wet suckets with a fork. I went over the facts against him in my mind. Neither murder could have been accomplished without his help; I was certain of that. He had fetched out James’s bow and arrow and had stood by while the Spanish doctor was killed and I was certain, looking back at the end of that tennis match, that he had helped to shut me in that box while he and St Leger tried to flog information about James out of my poor Colm. Whether he would be convicted in an English court was something that I did not know, but I was sure in my own mind of his guilt and was determined to get justice for the boy who had been my servant. I went up and stood beside him, very near to him, so that I could say the words into his ear.
‘The fine for killing is twenty-one milch cows and this is doubled because it was a secret killing not acknowledged within twenty-four hours,’ I said, repressing my anger under a show of judicial firmness, and I saw him look at me with a suddenly blanched face. ‘And one milch cow, I would say, for the honour price of the victim.’ I helped myself to a cinnamon wafer and bit it in halves. ‘Still,’ I added, ‘since the laws of this country would have discouraged you from making a speedy and full confession, I will limit the fine to twenty-two milch cows.’ I crumbled some white gingerbread and looked around for the man who had a finger in every pie.
‘George,’ I called heartily across the room. ‘You know everything. You have a country estate, don’t you? How much would you have to pay for a good milking cow, here in England?’
George looked slightly flabbergasted, but did not fail me. ‘About forty shillings, about two sovereigns, I would say.’
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘They are more valuable in Ireland. We rate our cows more highly there. Still, I suppose, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Was it St Augustine who said that?’ I blandly asked the company and added, ‘What a pity that His Grace is not here to answer that little question.’
I did the sum quickly in my head and so, judging by his sour expression, did the serjeant. That was forty-four sovereigns, a very large sum, but I was determined to prise out of him as much as he could lay his hands on. I wasn’t sure how much he was paid, but he had the reputation of being a careful man. I would get, I thought, as much as possible from him. It was the least that I could do for poor Colm’s mother and his six young sisters.
‘Are you betting on it? Betting about cows?’ asked young Wyatt. He had been circulating a piece of paper, folded to look like a butterfly, but with lines of poetry written inside each fold. Girls were snatching it from each other and giggling over it. But now, as was typical of him, he had grown bored with that and was interested in this game of mine.
‘I never bet,’ I said reprovingly, ‘and neither should you.’ He was probably only about nineteen and he was getting thoroughly spoilt here at court. His father, the keeper of the jewel house, and, according to the cardinal, a brilliant accountant who had found many new and creative ways of raising money for the king’s father, was now employing young Wyatt as some sort of clerk in the jewel house. He should, I thought, think to send the gifted lad to university, to Oxford or Cambridge. He could write good poetry and an education wouldn’t do him any harm. Still, I was grateful for the boy’s intervention. It meant that the king’s serjeant was suddenly aware that he could be overheard. I saw Alice look at me with a half-smile on her face and place a restraining hand on her brother’s arm.
‘I was talking about the mother of my poor servant who was killed,’ I said loudly and clearly. ‘It would be good to be able to buy her a cow,’ I continued. ‘She is a widow with lots of small children and she lived on the money that poor Colm sent her from his wages.’ There was a flash of interest and comprehension from Tom Wyatt and he turned and called across to his friends:
‘Listen everyone. We’re getting up a collection for the poor lad’s family, the one who was fished out of the river this morning.’ Tom Wyatt said the word
s quite loudly and I saw Sir George St Leger, now at the doorway, swing around to look at me, standing beside his accomplice. He left the room hurriedly and the candle above the doorway showed the whiteness of his face as he glanced back at us over his shoulder. The king’s serjeant, however, stayed very solemn, very straight-faced and looked along the lines of the supper guests. Finding many pairs of eyes on him, slowly and deliberately he fished in his pocket and took out from his purse, one by one, six sovereigns and counted them into my hand. I bowed and thanked him profusely and resolved to get more out of him in some way or other.
They were a generous crowd, I had to grant them that. Most would be playing cards later in evening and so were well equipped with silver for the betting on results. Mistress Anne Boleyn took out from her the bosom of her gown the padded heart that they had been playing with yesterday. It turned out to be a little pouch with a hollow centre and she went from guest to guest, giving her graceful curtsy, her demure sweet expressive smile and a flash of her dark eyes to the ladies and the gentlemen. When she handed the pouch to me, it was stuffed with silver.
I bowed my thanks, took the serjeant by the arm and escorted him firmly to the back of the room. He dared not make a protest. By now he was, thanks to his own quick-wittedness, thoroughly linked into this charitable enterprise. ‘Two sovereigns per cow, well I make that forty-two sovereigns,’ I said, ‘and so you owe me a lot more. This,’ I continued in a low conversational tone, ‘will be sent back with the body to Ireland to the young man’s sorrowing mother and sisters. I’m sure you can give me a draft for the remaining cash. One way or other, I shall see that the poor woman gets that money.’ I put as much menace as I could manage into my low voice and ushered him out of the room and into the small chamber next door. I had been there on the night of the pageant, drawing up the marriage contract between James Butler and Anne Boleyn, and I knew that there were pens and paper there. It all seemed a long time ago, I thought as I watched him pen a draft for twenty sovereigns, his entire savings, according to him.
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