The Queen's Sorrow

by Suzannah Dunn

  Standing to disembark, he turned to see an immense bridge downstream. Just the one bridge – all crossings elsewhere were made via the little wherries that had been cutting across in front of and behind their own vessel – but if a city was going to have just one bridge …

  ‘Look at that!’ he heard himself say aloud. It was made of arches: nineteen, he made it with a rapid count. Just as impressive, if not more so, was the street of many-storeyed houses that ran down its length. It was like a whole small town afloat on the river.

  At the quayside, the two men engaged the services of a porter to assist with the rest of the journey, which was to be undertaken on foot. The cart bearing the trunks trundled off ahead – two near-misses of pedestrians before the first corner – and was soon gone from view. Rafael understood why boating was the preferred mode of transport. The streets were like tunnels: narrow in the first place but made narrower still – almost roofed – by extended, overhanging floors above ground level. Timber-frame buildings. There’d be a big risk of fire even without all the fireplaces these homes and shops would be running during winter. Almost every house was also, on the ground floor, a shop. Doors flew open in their path, admitting and discharging a considerable traffic of customers whose elbows bristled with baskets. Many of them were unaccompanied women. Almost every shop also had a trestle table outside, at which Londoners stopped – usually abruptly – to browse. He’d never seen anything like it: these people clearly loved to shop. As long as you had money to spend, this was the place to be.

  Some lanes were paved, but many were lined with planks along which everyone had to process. Londoners were, of course, much better at it than he and Antonio. Londoners were good at it, they were practised, they’d learned to balance. Over-balancing meant sliding into mud and muck, and within yards his boots were in an appalling state. One of the liveried men shook him by the shoulder to get his attention and then clapped his own hands to his pockets: Be wary of thieves. Rafael nodded his thanks, but he didn’t need to be told how to protect himself from thieves – he was from Seville. The problem was that he couldn’t balance if his hands were in his pockets.

  He saw beggars crouching in the muck at every street corner, barely clothed, bootless, and often with children. He presumed they were children, but there was nothing childlike about them. Small people. Pitifully small, with scabby scalps and claw-like hands. In Seville, there were beggars, of course, by the thousands, black and white, from all around Spain and from the colonies: they all came to Seville. But here, in London, it seemed somehow different. Worse. These people – the small ones, particularly – looked abject. Because they were cold, perhaps that was it. Perhaps because of the smell of roasting of meats, which seemed to be everywhere here but wasn’t for them – that couldn’t help. Something he’d learned on the ship was that there was no charity in England. There was no one to do it; no monks, no nuns. There’d been no religious houses for the past twenty years, thanks to the old king. Nowhere for people to go in hard times but on to the streets. I hate it here sprang up in him and squeezed his throat. I hate it, I hate it. The choked air, the crammed streets, the pitiful children. How on earth was he going to survive this? Even a day of it, let alone six weeks.

  A quarter of an hour or so later, they were in a quiet little street where there were no shops other than what looked like a glove maker’s. The two liveried men consulted a note produced from a pocket, waylaid the sole passer-by for confirmation, and then indicated to Rafael and Antonio that they’d arrived. Rafael was finding it hard to get his bearings, the sun hidden behind tall buildings and then behind cloud, but he decided that the lane ran roughly north–south. All that was to be seen of their destination was a high redbrick wall in which was a solid wooden gate overhung by a sign of crossed keys. A knock on the gate provoked the barking of some dogs and summoned a man in a blue jerkin that was a lot less fancy than the brass-buttoned, braided and crest-embroidered finery of royal households, but nonetheless had the look of livery. Tussling with two wolfhounds, he ushered the visitors through into a cobbled forecourt and there was the house: four-storeyed and newly built, ochre plaster and silvery timber, glassed windows glinting greenish. There was a simple sundial on the wall, a double decliner – north-east facing, then – that’d be no use except on the sunniest of mornings.

  They followed the porter and dogs towards the main, rosemary-flanked door of the house on which was a large, interesting doorknocker: the head of some beast, something feline, a leopard. A rap of it got the door opened – and more pandemonium with more dogs – but then someone else had to be found to welcome them inside. And quite something, he was: a tall, slender young man with hair like golden silk. All smiles. Good teeth: just the one gap, but barely visible. The household steward, Rafael later learned. He made much of their welcome to the household, not that they could understand what was actually being said; but whatever it was, it was delivered with flair. Slick, was the word that came to mind. And slick would definitely do, after a day of being fobbed off. Rafael wished he could respond more fulsomely to it, make the effort to enter the performance, but he hadn’t realised how exhausted he was until faced with this ebullience.

  The man moved them swiftly to a staircase, shooing back the house dogs, up a flight and then along a rush-carpeted gallery – its walls papered, printed with a design in orange and turquoise – to more stairs, three flights of them. The room was small and simply whitewashed, with a glassed window but no fireplace, and the daylight was so weak that he couldn’t immediately ascertain its aspect. Their two chests had been delivered. On the bed were two piles of bedclothes, folded. A truckle bed was perfunctorily demonstrated: for Antonio, Rafael realised with a lurch of despair; he, too, was to be in here. There was no desk. When the truckle was out, there’d be no room for one.

  The steward was confiding something, speaking quickly and quietly, his eyebrows raised; he indicated the doorway, the stairs, perhaps the house beyond. Rafael felt this was an explanation and an apology. The house was full and this was all there was. Rafael was careful to keep smiling and nodding; Antonio, he saw, was staring moodily at the window. The steward wore the same blue as the porter, but better cut and better kept, and beneath it was a shirt of good linen, perhaps even Holland linen. He’d stopped speaking and was instead presenting one hand to Rafael, palm upwards; the other hand prodded at it and then at his mouth. Forking food? Then a sweep of the hand that had held the imaginary food, from the doorway: Some food will be brought up to you, Rafael understood him to mean. More smiles and nods. No mention of dinner. They’d be having dinner daily at the household. Lunch at the palace, dinner at the Kitsons’, both at no cost: that was the arrangement, or so he’d been told. Could they have missed dinner? What time did these people eat? The steward was going, bowing out of the doorway, off to shower someone else with his abundant beneficence. They’d been dealt with.

  Rafael sat on the bed – where else was there to go? – and felt he’d never get up again. Such a long, long day, it’d been; it seemed to have started days ago. And in a way, it had – thirteen days ago, when he’d left home. Two days to the port, five days sailing across the sea, three anchored, and then three travelling through England. And here he was, arrived; only just arrived, but ready now to go home. The journey was done – he’d done it, come to England – and now he wanted to go home. He had a home, and the very fact of it was compelling: home was where he should be. All he had to do was turn and go. Yet he felt adrift, and despaired of ever seeing it or Leonor and Francisco again.

  Antonio said, ‘I’m going out for a drink.’ He spoke from the doorway; he hadn’t come in any further. He didn’t say, You coming? And of course Rafael didn’t. He could imagine that there might have been a temporary truce on this first evening at the end of their very long journey. A grudging truce. But no, and he was glad, really, and relieved. They’d been in each other’s company all day and – the horror of it – were going to be in each other’s company all night. He said
, though, ‘You don’t speak English.’ Meaning, You’re Spanish. And Spanish – as they all knew – wasn’t a good thing to be, at present, in London.

  No one expected problems from nobles and officials – they’d be well schooled in manners and they’d have jobs to do and be kept busy doing them – but the common people were known for their dislike of foreigners at the best of times, Rafael had heard, to say nothing of when their reigning monarch had just become a foreigner’s wife. Their ruler: now someone’s wife, and, worse, someone who wasn’t just anyone but heir to the world’s biggest empire. Who, in this marriage, was to obey whom? Should she obey her husband, or should he, mere prince in her country, obey her? But he was her husband, and how could a wife not obey? Well, with considerable ease, in Rafael’s experience and, he bet, in the experience of a lot of husbands with varying degrees of happiness and success. But the Church, in its unmarried wisdom, saw it as impossible. A wife obeys a husband: simple as that. And, anyway, one day soon, this husband – amenable though he was reputed to be – would be ruler of most of the world, which was another reason, so the thinking went, for his wife to get used to knuckling under. They’d been warned over and over again on the ship to anticipate the Englishman’s ambivalence and try to understand it. Play the grateful guest at all times and never rise to provocation because the English – Godless people stuck there on their island – are barbarians and we won’t sink to their level. And remember, above all, remember that it’s not for long. Six weeks and we’ll be gone, diplomatic mission done. Until then, keep your head down.

  So, how was striding into a London tavern and speaking Spanish keeping your head down? But, of course, Antonio had an answer, as to all things, unintelligible though this one was to Rafael. It was English, he knew: probably, A jug of your best ale, please, sir. Too fast, though, for him to grasp. They’d all learned some English during the voyage – greetings, pleasantries, a few crucial nouns – from English-speaking seamen, and Rafael had worked longer and harder at it than most, but what Antonio had lacked in application, he was clearly making up for in confidence. And so now here he was, ready for drinks with the locals.

  Well, good luck to him. Left alone, Rafael lay back on the unmade bed. This is so far from home, came to him. Leonor, this is so far from home. She wouldn’t want to hear that, though; she’d want to hear about the house. What could he tell her? I’m in a grand house in London. Blue-liveried staff. Dogs, though, indoors. In his mind, he walked himself back through the house, the way he’d come, this time taking note and trying to glance ahead. Everything new, by the look of it: freshly painted panelling, the frames red, the insets gold. Tapestries with a sheen to make you blink. There’s a clock just inside the main door, Leonor, and you’ll know that I’ll be going down there to take a closer look at that. She wouldn’t be interested in the clock; clocks were no interest of hers. He sat up, but laid his head in his hands. Francisco, Poppet, the doorknocker’s a leopard’s head. Yes! Snarling, keeping guard on the house. I’ll have to be brave, whenever I knock. And there are dogs, too, inside the house. I came here, to this house, on a river; it’s almost as wide as you can see, and it’s so busy, it’s like a town in itself. Not just boats, but swans, hundreds and hundreds of them. And along the river are huge red houses like castles. Do you remember, darling, your ‘purple house’?

  No, he wouldn’t remember, and Rafael himself was surprised by the memory. Francisco hadn’t mentioned his ‘purple house’ for a long time, perhaps a year or more, but back when he was two or so, if he liked something, he’d say he’d have it for his ‘purple house’. I’ll have that in my purple house: a little stool; an ornate-handled knife; a neighbour’s donkey. No one but Francisco knew what or where this purple house was. Nonetheless, it was well furnished. Long forgotten, now, though. He’d moved on.

  What would I have in my purple house? Rafael laughed to himself even as he was aware of being close to tears. These past thirteen days, he’d been shaken to the core by how homesick he felt: the savagery of it, its relentlessness. Dizzied by it, was how he felt. About to buckle. Hollowed, as if something had been ripped from him. His chest sang with the pain and he was confused and ashamed because he saw no sign that other men felt like this. Antonio certainly didn’t. But, then, other men too would hide it, wouldn’t they, so there’d be no knowing. He hadn’t anticipated feeling like this. He’d often been away from home – sometimes for a couple of weeks – and had never enjoyed it, but nothing had prepared him for this. And because he hadn’t anticipated it, he felt tripped up, tricked by it, taken unawares and thereby enslaved by it. He couldn’t see how he’d get from under it, or how he was going to cope, to continue, from day to day. Common sense told him that he would, that it would lessen, but he didn’t believe it. This homesickness was going to hunt him down.

  He missed his little Francisco – God, how he missed him – and in six weeks there’d be so much more to miss, because he was growing so fast. A head taller at a time, he seemed. Rafael felt that his son’s head came up to his chest now, even though he knew it couldn’t be so – but that’s where he felt the lack of him, that’s where the hollowness was. That little head. Rafael longed to cup the back of it as he had when Francisco was a baby; take the weight of it, enjoy the fit and solidness of it in one hand. His little boy’s hair, too: his silly blond hair, as Rafael thought affectionately of it. He longed to touch it, to relish its abundance. Not much of it was there when he was newborn, most of it had grown since – which Rafael found almost comical, and touching: all that busy, vigorous but gloriously oblivious growing that Francisco had done for himself.

  What if something happened to Francisco while he was away? This was what had got a hold on him, these last two weeks. This was what was haunting him: the fear that he’d never see his son again. That he’d already seen him for the last time. A fever, a fall. An act of negligence by a servant, or cruelty from a stranger. An abscess deep in an ear, the poison leaking deeper. A cat scratch going bad, a loose cart wheel, a rotten branch, a misfooting on the riverbank, a kick from a horse … Anything or nothing, really: it could be nothing that would do it, in the end. It happens.

  He longed to ask Leonor, How do you live with this fear? In thirteen days, he seemed to have forgotten how to do it.

  But Francisco was so full of life, he was crammed with it and, if he were with him now, he wouldn’t be sitting around like this. Snap out of it, Rafael urged himself. Stop this. For his sake. Because what kind of a father are you to him, to sit here like this, foretelling his death?

  And it was at that moment that he saw the child. The door had been left ajar by Antonio and in the gap was a small face, a child, a boy of perhaps four or five years old. Huge blue eyes, serious expression. From behind him came a reprimand, ‘Nicholas!’ to which he reacted immediately, scarpering. The voice had been pitched to reach not only the child but also Rafael. And now, pitched even higher, for him alone, came a word he understood: ‘Sorry!’ The tone was cheerful, confident of acceptance, but no less heartfelt for it. He was across the tiny room in two steps. He couldn’t just stay sitting there in silence: he should accept the apology. And make clear that he hadn’t minded. On the contrary, any distraction was welcome, even a mute child.

  Below on the stairs was a woman – a servant, judging from her simple linen dress and blue apron. She was poised to descend further, coifed head bowed and nape exposed. She was neither very young nor old. She was very pale. A plain, pale woman. Not plain in a bad way, though. Tall, long-boned and broad-browed: that’s what he noticed about her. That, and how she touched the child. Over one arm was looped some fine fabric – clothing, probably, for repair – and her free hand was on the little lad’s shoulder, ostensibly directing him down on to the step in front of her but, Rafael felt, less a shepherding than an excuse for contact. He recognised the quality of that touch. Parental.

  She looked up, saw Rafael, gave a surprised, ‘Oh!’ and a smile. It spoke to him, that smile, he felt, although it s
aid nothing much, said only pretty much what you’d expect: Kids, eh?! That affectation of resignation which was in fact senselessly proud. He did it all the time, he knew, back home, back in his life. He would’ve loved to have been able to say to her, Oh, I know, I know, my own little boy … and he felt she’d have welcomed it. An easy exchange, unremarkable, but such as he hadn’t had for weeks. The possibility of which, he realised, he’d begun to despair of. As it was, he returned the smile and said, ‘It’s fine, it’s fine,’ forgetting his English and speaking his own language. She understood him, though, he saw.

  The next day, Rafael and Antonio had lunch at court – a whole separate sitting for Spaniards – before returning to their host, as arranged, for supper. Supper was served at five o’clock, they’d learned to their dismay. As such, it would follow their afternoon rest. They’d thought they’d stay at the palace for the afternoons – finding somewhere to bed down – but now they realised that, tide permitting, they might as well go back to the Kitson household after lunch and rest in the relative comfort of their room until supper. The problem concerned afterwards: no doubt everyone at the Kitsons’ would return to work after supper for a few hours, but for Rafael and Antonio there would be the journey all the way back to Whitehall. And, again, there was the tide to consider. The cost, too, although the fare was regulated and reasonable. Rafael had been told he’d be fully provided for, but of course he’d come with some money in hand. Whichever way they worked it, there would be, most days, a lot of waiting around, some unanticipated expenditure, and two long return journeys on the river.

  Not for the time being, though. Apart from a couple of site visits, Rafael didn’t need to be anywhere in particular to do his work, although it would help to have space to lay out his drawings. In a couple of weeks’ time, though, Antonio would need a workshop in which to execute the design.