The Queen's Oranges

by House, Gregory

  Mistress Black positively glowed in the afternoon sunlight. It must have been the battle that gave an added lustre to her already attractive features. The blush of her cheeks and rapid breathing had him momentarily distracted from his rancour at the abrupt summons. The sometime apprentice apothecary took a moment to switch to her newest visitor. Ned may have expected a better welcome after his trials this day. He didn’t get it

  “About time you got here Bedwell. Follow me.”

  It was short and abrupt and he may have taken offence, but from the look in Meg’s eyes, it wasn’t anger that was fuelling her rage rather a deep fear. From what he’d seen last year it took an awful lot to make Margaret Black afraid. With a parting scowl and a muttered curse Gruesome Roger immediately took the vacant guard post at the dock. Ned ignored Hawk’s ill manners, shelved his question about the customs men and instead trailed after as Meg briskly paced across the deck and pushed open a small door in the aft castle of the ship.

  It opened into a cramped room very simply furnished with a demountable trestle table that occupied most of the available space. The rest was packed with a few stools and chests, while on one side was a narrow inset bunk. He’d heard that the living quarters were said to be a bit tight on a ship and this cabin certainly proved that. There was barely enough room to walk around between the table and the walls. It could have seemed even more claustrophobic, but some thoughtful soul had opened the shutters at the back allowing in a needed measure of light and air.

  Meg stood by the table, hands clenched very tightly resting on the smooth timbers. She’d made no move to tread further into the closed space and was trying not to breathe. As soon as he stepped in next to her Ned could see why. The cabin stank even worse than the butcher’s shambles at Eastcheap. Ned thanked the saints that the slightly less offensive air of the river had a chance to circulate. To think they spent days or weeks on these vessels. No wonder sailors were considered mad!

  “All right, I’m here as requested. Why?” His demand was lacking in his usual courtesy. As of this instant Ned didn’t care. He was tired, sore and it stank in here.

  Meg Black said nothing in answer, just lifted a hand and pointed across the room towards the bunk. Her gaze however was fixed on the passing life of the river out the open window. Ned frowned for a moment then shrugged and squeezed past the chests until he made it to the inset bed. It had a pile of blankets and coverlets loosely thrown over the top. He gave brief glance back to Meg Black but apart from a slight trembling, the river trade still held her attention. Perplexed he gave a final shrug and pulled back the covers.

  Luckily it had been hours since his last meal, so his sudden dash to the cabin window and the ensuing bout of retching was blessedly short. But now he knew the source of the stench. Two dead bodies under a blanket in this warmth would ferment the atmosphere of any room.

  “Who are they?” Ned wiped his mouth after finding his stomach had calmed down enough to take a few steps back towards the bunk, though still shaking from the compulsive loss of his refreshment. He tried to take a more critical look at the dead, though slain would be a better term for the remains.

  “The shipmaster, Joachim Schuyer, and his nephew Pieter.” Meg’s voice was flat and drained of emotion. The previous wash of anger at the unfortunate customs officers must have drained away.

  Ned lent a little closer to the scene in the bunk, sleeve cuff pressed over his mouth and nose. “I suppose, ‘natural cause’ is out of the question?”

  It was a bit of a grim jest. A single glance at the corpses would dispel that consideration—a dagger rammed home to the hilt in one body with the throat of the other cut from ear to ear. Even a notoriously blinkered Surrey Inquest under Justice Overton wouldn’t believe that maybe they’d died of say ‘the plague’ or an ‘accidental drowning’. The apparent manner of the death could also raise a few problems. He knew that sailors were considered a bit ‘different’ to other men. After all, who else but a raving loon would chance their life every day to the vagaries of the savage sea and the possibility of being devoured by great monsters from the deep? Sharing dangers in close company was said to create a ‘certain bonding’.

  He doubted that the church would think any perils were sufficient excuse for what Ned saw before him. He pulled the covers back over the pair of bodies then stepped across to Meg Black. He took her unresisting hands and carefully pulled her over to the cabin window. He would have preferred the deck or somewhere less steeped in death but he had a strong feeling that this required privacy and he needed information now. “What can you tell me?”

  Slowly her attention dropped from the river traffic and came back to him. Her eyes were red and strained. “I’ve known Joachim for several years now. He used to deal with my parents. He is…” Meg Black paused and gave a quick glance towards the shrouded bunk. “…he was a good man, a godly man, believed in the same ideals as my family. This cannot be. He…he loved Pieter as a son. It…it isn’t possible!”

  Ned initially made no comment. In the last year he’d had a chance to review some of the more sordid cases that had passed through the Courts, and from a few, he well understood what some of the godly inhabitants of monasteries were capable of. If they could succumb so frequently to vile lusts, what chance an ordinary man? “Are you so sure?”

  It was a quietly asked question but it received a savage response. She swung around and snarled back at him. “Joachim’s family had died of the Sweats. Pieter was his only living relative!”

  That did put a slightly different complexion on the matter. If the uncle had died then the lad stood to inherit and inheritance was a common reason for sudden death. But with both deceased that ruled out the obvious solution.

  Ned had a flash of inspiration. “Who owns the ship?”

  This simple question gained him a most interesting response from his summoner. She now acquired an air of sudden hesitant evasiveness, then snapped out an instant denial “That has nothing to do this!”

  Ned’s daemon quivered with suspicion at the change from her previous sorrow. “Why not Meg? I was always taught that in any death somebody gains.” Ned didn’t want to add the rider that at the Inns of Court it was part of a longstanding joke—the greater the estate, the longer the case, the bigger the fee ergo, the happier the lawyer.

  Her answer was short and sharp and still evasive. “In this situation, that won’t help.”

  Ned was tired of the dodging and ducking. His leg still hurt and he had lost the best part of a pint of good ale, all to be next to a pair of corpses that were getting, in the warm summer weather, to be more ‘corpsey’ with every passing minute. To top this off, the tide was now actively pulling at the boat lending it a distinctly swaying–tilting motion, that was doing something very similar to his not so happy stomach. At this queasy feeling Ned’s tolerance snapped. “I need to know what’s going on. Or cozen someone else to solve your problems!”

  Meg gave him one of those speculative looks of hers, as if at a tumbler’s dog that had learned to speak. “All right… you do! You own the ship.”

  At her preposterous answer Ned’s mouth automatically started a reply, then frozen in mid syllable. “Wha…”

  What he was going to say went like this. ‘How in the name of all the blessed saints can I own a boat? Why would I own a boat? I get the pukes crossing the river!’ Then a simple fact from the past strangled his words in mid spate. He looked at his companion with more than a twinge of suspicion. “It the Cardinal’s Angels, isn’t it?”

  Meg Black pulled herself haughtily up to her full height of five foot odd and bestowed on him the kind of glare reserved for peddlers of mouldy linen. “Well, what if it is! Lady Anne’s terms for keeping it from the King was that I was the executor, and you agreed, Ned Bedwell! Anyway did you think that twenty pounds a year would last forever? It isn’t going to sit there on its own and breed you know!”

  Ned just shook his head. Wonderful news—he was the owner or more likely part–owner of v
essel with two dead men aboard, and so far he could guarantee that every official in London would be bound to be interested. His daemon made an unwelcome comparison to the grain shipments syndicate. Reluctantly he put that aside once more. The sudden thrill of ownership seemed awfully brief. However it did explain his peremptory summons. Now resigned to a reluctant defence, Ned slowly shook his head. As his daemon reminded him, affairs concerning apprentice apothecary Margaret Black, were never simple. Switching into a more lawyer–ish manner of thinking, Ned rubbed his head. He’d better start somewhere before several burley and insistent men, hauled him up before the dour judges of the Inquest.

  “So Meg before the City Coroner, Justices and everyone else tramps up the plank, what happened up to now?”

  Mistress Black cross her arms and frowned, chasing down the memory, before she replied. “Roger and I saw Joachim just before the Vespers bells, say nine of the clock, about…about a matter of cargo.”

  Ned didn’t need to press. He’d a very good idea what sort of illicit shipments she’d have been arranging; heretical books. Damn, why had he been thrown into the situation where to gain Thomas Cromwell’s dubious patronage, they had to rely on the restriction bound privilege of Lady Anne Boleyn’s support? By the saints he knew then it would come back and bite them! As one of his fellows at Grays Inn said about doubtful decisions, ‘the dagger of today trumps the noose of the tomorrow’.

  “The… matter would have taken about an hour then we left. One of the sailors escorted us past the wharf and Joachim and Pieter were very much alive.”

  Once more Ned sensed that Meg Black had answered with a hefty dose of evasion. He hoped that it only concerned forbidden books. “Did anyone else come onto the ship or pass you on the wharf.”

  That received a brief shake of denial. Ned, still undaunted, pushed on. “Was Joachim expecting anybody else?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  So Meg and Roger may still be regarded as suspects. Just what he needed. His daemon hopefully wondered if Hawk’s could be made to take the blame, but his angel banished the suggestion. No, Meg wouldn’t countenance it, and nor should he! Driven back onto the stony path of righteousness, Ned continued his questioning. “When was the boat to leave?”

  “It’s a ship Ned, not a boat, a Hanse carrack, the Ruyter of Bremen.” This reply was in better spirit. Hopefully Meg Black was beginning to recover from the shock, though why they should purchase a foreign vessel he had no idea, but he’d get a full explanation before the end of this, or else.

  “It was to sail on the morning tide, bound for Bristol, Dublin and Glasgow with a mixed load and a shipment for the Earl of Ormond. When the ship master didn’t appear, the crew searched all over for him for an hour. The activity drew those two customs officers and eventually, after all the local taverns had been searched, they tried the shipmaster’s quarters. I had already been summoned and gave authority to break open the door.” Mistress Black waved over towards the occupied bunk. “You can see what we found.”

  That sounded a great deal better, lots of witnesses at the discovery. Any inquest would be hard put to find any real connection between Meg and the murder. It may have been a low thought, but in his proposed profession, it paid to check. “From what you said, the inquest should clear you of any suspicion. It is unfortunate your friends were murdered and possibly they will find the killers, but on the whole you and Roger are in the clear.”

  Ned doubted anyone would find the slayers. Death happened every day in the city. He didn’t think that the under–sheriff or the watch would make much effort to figure out who had killed a pair of foreigners. There may be a brief flurry of correspondence between England and the Hanse League but unless the men had powerful patrons that would be it. The fatalities would be put down to the usual risks of trade.

  However his easy solution didn’t satisfy his companion. Margaret Black’s consideration of his response looked more like someone who had taken a mouthful of tart verjuice and was too proud to spit it out. “That won’t do.”

  Ned sighed. Somehow he expected there to be an added complication. Over the past year he had come to expect as much when dealing with the affairs of Meg Black. “Why not?”

  “You saw how they were found.”

  He nodded.

  “We–ell, the customs officials thought the same as you and are reporting it to a higher authority.”

  This was starting to sound very expensive. At this stage most of the lawyers he knew would be escalating their fee. “How much higher?”

  Meg Black took a moment to consider her answer. To Ned this pause presaged ominous tidings. “You know the King’s annulment and Wolsey’s replacement have created a stir in the city?”

  Ned gave a wry shrug. A stir—that was a very mild way of stating it. Since the savage anti clerical session of Parliament over winter, the repercussions had been felt everywhere in the kingdom, and from what was said at the Inns, overseas as well.

  Meg took that as clear consent and continued. “You’ve heard the proclamation expelling suspect foreigners?”

  Ned nodded. He’d definitely heard that one. It had been issued, as the Lord Chancellor claimed, to protect the kingdom from the subversive actions of those who would abuse the King’s Majesty and his laws. In theory it was to get rid of any deemed not supportive of the king’s nullity case. This included all Italians, especially any who could be agents of Pope Clement. However it had also been extended to Imperial citizens from the German Lands or the Low Countries, who may have been suspected of Lutheran sympathies. As expected, a large number of merchants petitioned men of influence regarding their sincere loyalty—he heard it cost about two hundred gold angels for that patronage.

  “So, what’s that to do with this ‘matter’ Meg?” Ned’s daemon cursed ominously as Meg Black gave a deep sigh of frustration and crossed her arms again before she replied in that annoying rote fashion used to teach children. “It’s a foreign vessel Ned, with murdered Hanse citizens Ned. Add the gruesome scene and the customs men, Ned, and so we have questions of precedence and authority, Ned.”

  At this stage of the confession, Meg Black should have looked demure and repentant, shedding remorseful tears like all the best deportment masters advised. No, thought Ned with bitter regret, that wasn’t going to happen. The saints wouldn’t be so kind. ‘Precedence and authority’, that foreboding phrase rose up before him like a cresting wave. By ancient rights and practices, these deaths should be handled by a London inquest empanelled by the Lord Mayor. In more normal times it would be. However these weren’t normal times and this unnatural slaying involved ‘suspect foreigners’. Oh damn, he should have seen it coming! Why was that it that during the normal actions of life they kept on bumping up against the plans and ambitions of the powerful? They really didn’t need this complication. He’d just got over the perils and injuries of the last crisis and those cursed debt petitions! Now with ominous certainty they had attracted the attention of the one man in London it was best to avoid.

  With a resigned sigh Ned asked the obvious question. “When can we expect More’s pursuivants?”

  Meg Black’s eye’s widened in surprise. She seemed impressed by his reasoning, though Blind Ben would have seen it. Just mix foreigners, murder, heresy and a hint of connection to the Rich family together, then behold. Like a Bartholomew Fair conjurors trick, the figure of the new Lord Chancellor automatically pops into view. He’d salivate over this little conundrum. It was only a few weeks ago that the new Lord Chancellor had sent out a command to all local magistrates to impound all and any heretical books and any person whose possession they were found in. More was pulling all the levers of state in his quest for heretics.

  Meg Black gave a brief shrug and a very reluctant answer. “Maybe tonight, more like tomorrow.”

  That didn’t leave much time for action. Ned pressed on with an instant solution. “Can you remove your, ahh, cargo?”

  Once more Meg shook her head in reply. “No. Jeffer
ys, the customs master, will be watched by now. Not even another bribe would help. More’s men have been sniffing around the docks for the past two months and their attentions have the customs men too terrified to sneeze.”

  That sounded about right. Sir Thomas More could rip up their letters of patent in a trice, and unless they were first cousin to the Dukes of Norfolk or Suffolk, they could bid farewell to their not inconsiderable post fee. Worse still, he’d heard rumours that the Lord Chancellor was considering linking the charges of Heresy and Treason together. It was just speculation at the Inns of Court so far, but a very dangerous one.

  Ned dismissed the theoretical threat and pushed on with the practical. “How long would it take the pursuivants to find the cargo?”

  Meg Black gave a very satisfied smile. “If they’re very smart and diligent, five days at the earliest.”

  Right, well that gave just over a week considering the dim witted buffoons More was reputed to have in his service. So that meant back to the business at hand. Ned lent towards the window and took a couple of deep, corpse free breaths, while he had the chance. “I think we need to have another look at the deceased.”

  In reply he received a very arched eyebrow and the beginning of one of her famous frowns. Since Ned could see Meg Black was shifting back into verbal affray mode he snapped out a rapid justification. “Not that I like doing it! But, if, as you insist, Joachim couldn’t have done what is before us, then we need to find out what happened!”