There was also the history of his first meeting with Skelton last year. The Howard retainer was in a gaming tavern, conspiring with a close servant of Cardinal Wolsey’s. No doubt the northerner had whispered the same blandishments of promised advancement and preferment, right until he slipped his blade into poor Smeaton’s back. Ned had been unconscious by then, but he’d worn the consequences of being the scapegoat. Only luck and friendship had saved him then from the treacherous fruits of Skelton’s devising. So here was Skelton asking Ned to trust him? Judgement Day would be here first before he made that error.
Ned had to think fast. His uncle had given him some good advice from his experiences in serving the former Lord Chancellor on how to deal with those at court. How did he put it? Ahh yes. ‘In public, dissemble like a snake and keep your honesty under your cap’.
Ned gave a loud regretful sigh. “I fear, Master Skelton, that though such considerations may be true, and while I am deeply gratified at your trust in me, my honour and obligation precludes me from accepting.”
The northerner’s brow furrowed in concentration. Then he slowly nodded and grinned, exposing a couple of broken teeth. “I’ll take that were a nay. Ahh lad, yea honour comes at ver–ry high price. Yea’ll learn soon enough.”
Despite his rebuff Skelton remained sitting and took a casual bite out of a capon leg. Obviously they weren’t finished yet. That had just been the first round. “I hear the new Lord Chancellor is on the hot trot fo’ heretics. Lutherans an’ Anabaptists. The man’s fair mad fo’ a pile o’ faggots t’ light. I seen the last lot at Smithfield, a ver–ry purr way fo’ a man ta leave the earth. Nay honour an’ the screams! It’s nay a proper way t’ die, even worse fo’ a woman I heard.”
With that last comment Skelton looked straight at Ned. Well he supposed, if bribery wasn’t going to work, the other avenue to a gain a man’s bidding was fear and threat. It appeared that Mistress Black’s secret activities had gained the attention of Norfolk.
“If you are implying that my friends or myself are engaged in such activities, then perhaps you should make a report to Sir Thomas More. I hear he pays well for informers and spies.” Ned snarled out the reply, sounding a great deal bolder than he felt.
Skelton though burst out laughing and slapped Ned roundly across the shoulders. “Ahh lad, yea ‘ave the makings o’ a man o’ blood an’ bile, nay like the rest of these whey faced pustules that cringe round the corridors o’ the court. That was a good response. Yea ‘ave a touch o’ courage, but yea misconstrue my saying. It’s not black rent I want of yea. My lord would niver toss friends o’ his niece ta the likes o’ More.”
Ned had to struggle to maintain a bland face. As if he believed that. At the present time, Norfolk loved his dear Boleyn niece, but if an occasion occurred that would serve him better, she’d be swept aside like yesterday’s floor rushes.
Skelton struggled with his features to put on a friendly, honest face. It wasn’t working. The results were, well, just intimidating. “I meant but ta offer yea the shield o’ my lord’s good will.”
Now that was interesting. Protection from Norfolk, but why? Was the Duke planning to upset More in some Privy Council rivalry? If so, then why bother with Ned? He must be so far down the list that he was almost invisible from that lofty height. “What does my Lord Norfolk require for such generosity?”
So the bargaining began. Ned wasn’t that much of a fool to refuse outright. He wanted to walk out of the garden alive and unbloodied. Anyway there was the slightest chance that it may work out to his advantage—before the inevitable betrayal.
Skelton gave a very slow nod of acceptance. His eyes narrowed as if in remembered pain and his voice growled out the reply. “Yea recall that stinkin’ turd o’ a Spaniard, that struttin’ catamite, Don de Alva.”
Ned struggled very, very hard to maintain his composure. It looked like Skelton still held a very personal grudge against the Queen’s servant, as you would if someone had rammed a few foot of steel through your shoulder. Good, so long as Skelton didn’t learn the whole truth, all was well. Ned gave a muttered acknowledgement.
“My Lord o’ Norfolk is ver–ry interested in findin’ the foreigner. The measle is working on some piece o’ mischief fo’ that Spanish harridan o’ his. If’n you can do it, my lord ’ll think well o’ yea. But we’ll need ta find the arse–futterer afore the great signing.”
Despite the demands of the other tasks that was a very tempting offer. Ned also had an outstanding claim for vengeance on the Spanish courtier, but how he was to find the foreigner in a few days was perhaps a greater challenge than he could cope with. “Master Skelton that is quite a request. I have my own reasons for finding that Spaniard, but I think you overestimate my abilities.” Well that was not quite a refusal nor was it a straight acceptance.
However Skelton seemed to think he needed a bit more leverage. “My lord watched yon tricks an’ cony catching with Wolsey’s letters. Twas nay quite what he wanted but close enough. I ‘ave nay the knowing o’ the city, but you ken the darker alleys an’ men o’shadows.”
That was rich coming from a man who had a very intimate knowledge of the twists and turns of the Liberties of Southwark. At another time and place, the inference that Ned was on knowing terms with the lower denizens of the city hierarchy could have given him the opportunity to call Skelton to account for the slur on Ned’s good name. However since he was surrounded by the northerner’s retainers, prudence overrode wounded pride.
“Yea’ll find him easy enough fo’ he dresses as one o’ yon prattling friars. I’ve seen him the once but the rat slipped away.”
Ned lost his composure for a moment and cursed roundly. Damn, he should have recognised him! That third cleric at Richmond Palace, the friar with his face shrouded. He stood too proudly and arrogantly for even a man of God and his hands, they were clean with trimmed and polished nails. That’s what had looked out of place!
Skelton’s face broken into what must pass as a satisfied smile, though it would be best to keep it away from fresh milk. “Yea’ve tripped o’er the foreign bugger! Good. Yea’ll find me at the Norfolk Palace on the water by Lambeth. Send word an’ me an the lads’ll come a huntin’!”
Ned received a further thud to his sore shoulders as Skelton pulled him up, and thrusting a half a smoked capon into his hands, walked him out of the garden, all the time laying on the ‘hail fellow and well met’ act. Ned gave automatic replies as he sorted this disturbing piece of news into the rest of this week’s chaos. Damn it all to hell and beyond! Just what he didn’t need—Norfolk’s command to find a disguised Spaniard, who was deeply embroiled in some form of treachery, and if he didn’t then Skelton had made it very plain they‘d be left to the mercy of Sir Thomas More. Ned had a few bitter thoughts regarding the lords of the realm and his new set of duties. Why couldn’t any of them just write out a simple commission without cloaking it in subterfuge and constraining it in threatened reprisals? Where was Christian trust in these sad times?
***
Chapter 18. The Fruit of a Bitter Basket, To the Bee Skep Tavern, Evening, 8th June
After the shock of Skelton’s trap at the Star Chamber, Ned didn’t feel like waiting around for anymore surprises. Right now being away from the palace was the best option. He couldn’t have cared if the King’s Majesty had summoned him. He called in at the tavern and brusquely collected his rag tag retainers. A lot of good they had been! Ned was getting irked at being kicked around like some drooling minion, without the wit to loosen his codpiece before taking a piss. So far his good lord had been next to useless in protecting his liegeman. The reciprocal rights of duty and obligation were getting strained there. Perhaps a man had to defend his own honour, rather than relying on the spur of casual self interest of his betters.
Ned was getting a few rebellious ideas in that area. Cromwell was maintaining a very discrete silence in this divergent affair. By now Ned would have expected a prodding missive or two, even if it was only d
elivered as a ‘weighted suggestion’ by Uncle Richard. The deafening silence was curious especially for a man who revelled in the details of organisation. At this point of his musings his daemon prodded an alarming suspicion. It was possible, it hinted, that the meeting with Skelton had actually been arranged between Cromwell and Norfolk. That sort of third or fourth hand removed scheming would appeal to their devious vanity. As a reinforcement of suspicion, his daemon conveniently recalled a conversation Ned had overhead between his uncle and Cromwell’s clerk, Richard Sadleyer. They’d been discussing the merits of various methods of entry into Parliament, using bribery, influence or family connections. Sadleyer let slip that the trading of influence on the part of Norfolk had gained his master’s position. It could be that Ned’s current transfer of service was, in part, pay back to Norfolk for his patronage.
It did answer some of the inconsistencies from the last sitting of Parliament. The virulent anti–Wolsey faction led by More had collapsed too easily before Cromwell’s measured defence. Perhaps Norfolk or the King had felt that the Cardinal’s disgrace was sufficient. While that helped explain his current predicament, it did reinforce that the only way out of the current mess was to help Skelton. However, on the other hand, that piece of providential evidence didn’t stack up with reality. Cromwell represented Taunton, which was one of the few seats in the gift of the King, so did that mean his master owed direct loyalty to His Majesty? This situation was getting seriously confusing and could easily give a man a headache.
Ned shook off those convoluted musings and led his escort up King Street, past Whitehall, Wolsey’s old palace of York Place. The new appellation to the former Cardinal’s city lodgings had first been tagged by Londoners as a wry jape, that its former inhabitant had been whiter than the Lamb of God. Now it was accepted as ironically appropriate, since the morning sun reflected off the pale stone.
For Ned that distraction on the fall of the powerful didn’t help. He was tired of changing the step of the dance whenever some lordly fool decided to switch tunes. It was well past time to arrange his own galliard.
Like now!
He was heading for Wilfred the ostler at Charing Cross behind the White Cross Inn. That establishment had proved very useful since their jaunt in the country last year. After a series of personal talks with a towering Rob Black on the rewards of Christian kindness, the ostler had proved to be a most reasonable fellow as regards stabling fees and the price of oats. There was another obligation that drove Ned, his chestnut stallion. He’d named it after its former owner, Don Juan Sebastian, and it was a truly magnificent piece of God’s handiwork. Tall, proud, swift and very responsive, with a gentle mouth, unlike the usual knackers rejects he had been obliged to ride and it had been almost a week since their last gallop. That was a week too long.
Less than half an hour by the chimes and a few more coins had his party mounted and heading off. Ned hadn’t even winced as he handed over more of his dwindling stock from the Cardinals angels—six shillings and six pence for harness and horses for the day! He was determined that before this affair was concluded he’d be recompensed for his inconvenience, several times over. Nor was he going to wait the usual months for payment or be fobbed off with some meaningless office, rich in threadbare dignity but poor in gilt.
The day was warm and sunny with all the sights, sounds and scents of summer. This was the sort of excursion he had been longing for when stuck at Westminster several days ago. Now he was cantering along the roads to the north of the city, oblivious to the pleasure as they woven between the carts, mules and trudging farmers.
Ned was lost in the maze of all the problems. Thoughts flitted about his brain like demented gnats each a possibility, each annoyingly distracting in its cry for attention. What exactly was going on? Two foreigners get murdered on their ship and the killers have time to dispose of the bodies in the most lewd fashion, which must have taken at least an hour. Then they make only a cursory effort to conceal their presence and as far as he can see, steal nothing, then later they try and burn the ship. What was it that they realised they had forgotten, and then urgently needed to destroy? He’d a couple of ideas regarding contraband that could be the reason, but still nothing solid. Also he had a missing Officer of Ordinance and what must be dodgy gonne powder deals, once more nothing more substantial than the tangled skeins of greed let alone the physical remains of Master Ben Robinson. Thirdly he had witnessed a very suspicious gathering in the Queen’s chambers, not that he could stand up in any court and recount it. Foreign or not she was the Queen. In the same room were friars currently busy trying to raise mayhem, and the daughter and wife of an executed traitor who had a penchant for oranges, lots of them. If all that were not sufficient trouble, he had a few days to find a man who last time they met had tried very hard to kill him and who was present in disguise at the Queen’s festival of oranges.
And now Ned’s thoughts circled back to Skelton’s demands. That he should be pressured so blatantly and insulted was demeaning. When stripped of its little finery and superfluous compliments, the northerner’s claim for his services to hunt the Spaniard were simple. Red Ned Bedwell was a boozing friend to all the punks, cozeners, forgers and cross biters that infested the Liberties of London and Southwark. Is that all that his betters thought of him? No more than a hired pursuivant, so besmirched by his associations that he’d only to be retained for the fouler employments and treacheries. Ned felt that touched too close to his honour. Given the chance, he would show them the error of this ill usage.
However as prickling and demeaning as his past meeting had been, it hadn’t given even the slightest clue to his most current problem. Who’d tried to kill him this morning?
They reined in outside the entrance to the Bee Skep courtyard by Aldgate and Ned had dismounted before he realised that the ride he’d been hungering for all week was at an end now and could barely recall any of it. Grinding his teeth in frustrated disappointment, he pulled off his gloves and left his horse to be rubbed down by one of the stable boys and then stalked into the tavern, followed by his bemused retinue.
To their delight he left the lads once more in a tavern with curt instructions to stick to the small ale. Any man who got drunk could consider him self discharged without pay. Their leader, a well built fellow from the border country between Somerset and the wild country of Cornwall, known to all as Ouze, clipped one of his sniggering fellows over the head, and bid him to remember himself lest he wished to answer to Captaine Gryne. Ned gave Ouze a few shillings and an approving nod then left the common room for the kitchen.
Mistress Emma ran a very reputable establishment, fresh rushes every second day and the kitchen was scrubbed at least four times a week or more according to some of her grumbling servants. Large aromatic bunches of bitter wormwood hung at every window and door to discourage the entry of foul miasmas that wafted in from the refuse in the street. Like anyone associated with the Court, Ned had heard of the fastidious requirements of the King’s Majesty when it came to the cleanliness of his rooms and Privy kitchen. Well he’d have no problems here.
As for the food, he’d walk across the breadth of the city to eat here, certainly after the error of last week. The aroma of a fresh cony pie had been really alluring, beguiling his senses. Before he knew it he’d passed over a few pence and was munching away. However after a few bites he had lost his appetite very quickly. From what he recalled conies had fluffy tails not long skinny, bald ones like the example he’d pulled from the pie. Hmm, sewer dwelling cony? Perhaps not—thank the saints the piss channel was nearby.
Ned found the Mistress of the tavern standing by the heavy table that occupied the centre of the kitchen, surrounded by the interweaving pattern of cooks and a number of servitors and others wielding knives or scrubbing pots. The fire had a complicated mechanism that slowly revolved the some dozen roasting beasts and haunches. It looked quite a marvel and Ned idly wondered if Rob Black had something to do with its design and fabrication. Its many
cogs and chains seemed to fit his area of delight in the artificers’ trade. However, past all the confusion and wondrous devices, what really riveted his attention was the basket in front of Mistress Emma. It was small and made from the woven willow wickerwork that was so commonly used all along the Thames. Nothing special or different in the design or pattern, they were made by the hundreds, usually by farmer’s wives or children. Everyone used them for carrying or storing produce, mostly fruits like apples, pears, damsons or in this case, the bitter oranges from Spain.
Ned stood there and glowered at the oranges. He used to like their bitingly tart taste, but now he would prefer it if all the dratted fruit in the country were committed to the deeps. Then the incongruity struck him. Why was a basket here?
Mistress Emma noted his entrance and gave a welcoming smile. “Ah Ned, y’ here! I don’t have to send anyone off to find y’. Care to sample some oranges? They’ve just come in.”
He stood surrounded by the interplay of the kitchen, perplexed. The last he recalled, they were to find out where the two ladies and their oranges went, not get a taste. Emma mistook his pause for acceptance and rattled on. “Meg said the first basket should be yours and so here it is.”
Ned suppressed a frown at the mention of his nemesis. Once more Mistress Black seemed to have pre–empted his plans. That was becoming an annoying habit. Damn that precocious woman! “Where did they come from?” That was a reasonable attempt at nonchalance as he rummaged amongst the offensive fruit.
“We got word that their barge was passing Westminster school a few hours ago, and watched as were they landed by Milford Lane, before lodging at the Bishop of Bath’s Inn. So seeing an opportunity, Meg organised a raid while there was a bit of confusion regarding a farmer, his herd of pigs and the right of way. Thus here we are—one basket of oranges!”
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