The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  “I am sure that you decided rightly,” Tansy comforted him that evening, seeing how downcast he looked.

  “I suppose we never seriously entertained the hare-brained scheme,” he said, trying to hide his depression because life felt so flat and ordinary. “It was just that we were both carried away by Jan Weaver’s enthusiasm. It was the very thing which my father warned me of, and at least I have obeyed him. But, oh, my pretty one, how I wanted you to have all those fine dresses!”

  “So small an issue in so big a game!” laughed Tansy. “And what would they have meant to me if I had lost you?”

  “You won’t mind being poor? For even as a journeyman — ”

  She grew radiant at being able to reassure him. “Oh, Dickon, I was so relieved at heart about your decision that I forgot, in this first moment, to tell you. We shan’t have to be very poor. While we were aboard the ship the good chapman Gufford came. I was sorry not to see him because he would have given me news from Leicester. But he left this letter with Master Goodyear for me.” She pulled it from the pocket hanging at her belt and handed it to him. “It is from Master Langstaff, the lawyer. You will be able to understand it better than I. The inn is sold — ”

  “But not too well,” ejaculated Dickon, seeing the poor price.

  “We could not expect it. He says no one made a bid for months. It had acquired a bad name.” For a moment, as Dickon stood silently reading, she was plunged back again in all the unhappiness and horror of her last months there. But her busy and completely changed life had helped, and she shook herself free of frightful memories back into the happy present. “The loveliest news is that Master Jordan is coming to London,” she said, catching at Dickon’s arm and pointing to the end of the letter.

  “He will be bringing your money, Langstaff says. Just as well with so many thieves on the roads.”

  “Oar money,” corrected Tansy. “He is waiting a week or two so as to be here for our wedding.”

  “In time to give away the bride,” said Dickon, kissing her and handing back the letter.

  “It will be almost like having my father.”

  “Remembering the size of the Boar — the White Boar, as it was then — it seems a terribly poor price,” reiterated Dickon.

  “You knew it only during its brief days of prosperity, when the King was there,” she reminded him. “My father had let things go, and my step-mother — God rest her poor soul! — was so pleasure-loving. What little trade there was — afterwards — has drifted away to the White Horse, it seems. But at least, if Master Jordan arrives before we are married the money will be enough to buy us a home. Perhaps one of those little cottages facing the Thames in Charing village?”

  “We both seem to have a yearning for green fields,” said Dickon, smiling at her enthusiasm. “Though perhaps before actually buying a home we should know where I shall be working.”

  “But won’t you go on working just the same for Master Dale? Except that you will be paid as one of his more experienced men, of course.”

  “I hope so. But you must remember that once this house on the Strand is finished, we may be working anywhere, and Charing might be less convenient.”

  *

  By dint of hard work, Sir Walter Moyle’s house was ready for him when he came home from Calais in the autumn, and he was more than pleased with it. Like the fine gentleman he was he invited Hurland Dale and all the men who had worked on it to a feast, and after they had eaten, some of the principal guests stood about the splendid fireplace at the end of the great hall with their host and his family, discussing the various problems which had been overcome, and receiving congratulations.

  “Although Calais is like a part of England, it is wonderful to be home again!” exclaimed his only unmarried daughter, Amy.

  “And in time for the Queen’s belated coronation!” Master Dale reminded her.

  “We shall have to do a good deal of entertaining, and this hall will be a splendid setting,” said its owner, looking round with vast satisfaction. “You and your men have indeed done well.”

  “As you probably know, Master Dale, my father was received in audience at Westminster yesterday,” explained young John Moyle, who had come up from the family estate in Kent. “The success he has made of the Calais defences is so much appreciated that it is thought the King and Queen may come and visit him here. And so your work may be seen and admired by royalty.”

  Carpenters, masons, glaziers were all standing about the hall, pricking their ears to catch such words of generous praise for their labours, and being temporarily inattentive to the wives and sweethearts they had been invited to bring with them.

  “Shall you be living here, Sir, more than at Eastwell?” Master Hurland was asking hopefully, seeing how valuable an advertisement this might prove for his architecture.

  “I may have to be at Court more often,” agreed Sir Walter, jovial with well-earned success. “So it looks as if my son will have to run the Kentish estate.”

  “I ask for nothing pleasanter than to marry and settle down,” said the younger Moyle. “Though my future wife will find nothing so fine as this in the old manor at Eastwell, I fear.” He leaned across his sister’s chair to look more closely at the excellently wrought pillars and canopy. “This really is a beautiful fireplace, Master Dale.”

  Dale glowed with pleasure. “One of my ’prentices carved it,” he had the generosity to tell them.

  “A ’prentice!” exclaimed John Moyle, running an appreciative finger over the delicacy of the scrollwork.

  “Yes. That young man standing with the fair-haired girl by the serving screens. He will be taking his journeyman’s examination next week.”

  “The girls over here seem prettier than our settlers in Calais. Is she his wife?” asked Amy Moyle.

  “She soon will be. I gave him leave to fetch her down from Leicester. But he has amply made up for it by all the conscientious work he has put in.”

  “From Leicester!” repeated Amy, who evidently had some interest in the place. And at a word from her father, the master mason called to Dickon to come forward.

  “I hear you have nearly finished the period of your indentures. What is your name, young man?” asked Sir Walter kindly.

  “Richard Broome, Sir,” said Dickon, blushing and bowing.

  “Well, we were admiring your carving here, young Broome. A very painstaking and efficient effort. How long did it take you?”

  “I have no idea, Sir. I just went on working each day until the light failed. It was such a joy to do.”

  They all laughed, including him briefly in their pleasant family circle. And Amy leaned forward to whisper something to her father. “My daughter here has heard your name before, and thinks you must be the fellow who sent that thrusting young fletcher, Tom Hood, so hot-foot after my good old fletcher’s place.”

  “There was little work for him in Leicester after Bosworth. I trust he has served you well across the Channel, Sir.”

  “As well as you men of Hurland Dale’s have served me here. Though in a more — shall we say, spectacular — manner,” he added, with a reminiscent grin. “Quite a stir he made in Calais.”

  “He is a more spectacular sort of person,” laughed Dickon; and would have withdrawn had not Moyle’s daughter caught at his arm. “Did you live in Leicester?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  “No, Mistress Moyle. I have been there only once,” answered Dickon, in the same confidential tone. “But it was there that I met my future bride.”

  “That attractive fair girl with the generous mouth and adorable tip-tilted nose?”

  “Yes. Her father kept the Blue Boar where the late King stayed,” said Dickon, liking his vivacious questioner all the more.

  “Then she would know Tom Hood very well, wouldn’t she? I have heard him speak of her. And of you, with gratitude. Your ears should have burned.”

  “They are burning now, from the kind things your father and brother said.”

  “Oh, my b
rother is most interested in beautiful houses. I think he would have liked to be an architect, if my father hadn’t made him study for the law. Did you know Tom very well?”

  “Oh, yes, though only recently. We spent a good deal of our leisure time together when he first came to London.”

  “Then you can tell me — is it true what my friend Mirabelle in Calais says?”

  Dickon treated the scatter-brained little brunette to his most devastating smile. “Mistress Amy, I do not even know your friend. How then can I even guess what she says?”

  “No, of course not. My father is always saying that I am inconsequent — though I don’t know quite what he means. But you heard him say that Tom Hood made a stir in Calais. And Mirabelle says it was as much among the ladies as among the archers.”

  Clearly the inconsequent little beauty hung upon his words. “Really, you amaze me. Your friend must be very imaginative,” he managed to blurt out, with admirable loyalty. “May I fetch you some of those delicious sweetmeats which the servants are handing round?”

  She thanked him absently, and he beat a cowardly retreat before he could be pressed further on the subject. But when he returned with them she had flitted from the fireside, and he became involved in conversation with some of the senior craftsmen. It was not until some time later that he caught sight of her sitting in one of the familiar window seats with, of all people, Tansy. Dark head and fair were close together, and the daughter of the house appeared to be plying his beloved with yet more confidential questions.

  *

  As Dickon took her back to the Goodyear’s tavern, Tansy talked with a shade too much enthusiasm of the wonderful evening they had spent. “I wish you could work for the Moyles for ever. They are a lovely family,” she said. And, man-like, he failed to recognize the note of unhappy annoyance in her voice.

  Dickon’s own head was in the clouds after all their approbation. “Master Dale thinks I am sure to pass well. I made his head mason tell me exactly what these examinations are like. You go to the hall of your Guild, he says, and some eminent master mason is there to judge your work. He sits on a raised dais so that he can note every movement of mallet and chisel, and you all stand at benches before him. They give you each a block of stone, but you may bring your own tools if you like. Then some official calls out what you are to carve and you are given a certain time to work on it. You may all go about it in different ways. Master Dale once told me that they were fond of setting ecclesiastic sort of tasks, such as making a holy water stoop, or some head to decorate the corbal at the bottom of an arch. Someone times you by an hour glass and when the time is up they ring a bell and the judge comes down and looks at each ’prentice’s work. He gives marks for originality of design as well as actual craftsmanship, of course. If you gain over ninety per cent, I wager any master mason will be glad to employ you. If only one knew the kind of subject which would be set, one could practise and practise. If only — ”

  He, who was given to long silences, had talked his way through several streets, intent upon his own concerns. They had come to the Blue Boar before he was aware that they had crossed the Fleet ditch or walked through Ludgate or passed St. Paul’s. Tansy turned at the open doorway and shook him impatiently by the arms, “Dickon, you have been working too hard trying to finish that wretched house. You are all strung up and nervous.”

  “They say my father was always nervous before a battle,” he recalled irrelevantly. “And he was the finest soldier that ever was. Perhaps, to do anything well, to put everything one has into it, one must be strung up first.”

  Tansy gave up in exasperation. “Good-night,” she said tersely, beginning to stride away from him with head held high.

  Instantly, he was after her, holding her, turning her sweet, hurt face towards him. “Oh, my love, to make you angry I must have been intolerable! I told you, didn’t I, that I cared too passionately for my craft to make a good husband?”

  “You might at least pretend to take an interest in the social side of things — or other people’s — hurts.”

  “But who has hurt you, my dear?” asked Dickon, completely mystified. “I thought that you were so much enjoying everything. Why, Mistress Amy said how attractive you were and she seemed to be talking to you more than to anyone.”

  “She was indeed. And I couldn’t help liking her,” admitted Tansy, half mollified. “But it was only because she wanted to ask questions about Tom.”

  “She tried that on me,” chuckled Dickon.

  “And, of course, you stood by him like a rock. You men — ”

  “But what has Tom done that he needs any man’s defence? A finer fellow never lived?”

  “Of course! Of course!” agreed Tansy, trying to quell her exasperation and allowing him to kiss her at last. “And I do know how important your examination is.”

  “It is important largely because it will mean the end of all this parting,” said Dickon, feeling how much easier it would be to smooth out all their differences in a bed than in a public street. “This time next week I shall be seeing the priest at Bow church about our marriage. You will belong to me then, Tansy.”

  When she had finally broken free from his remorseful embrace she turned back: again to reassure him. “And you need never be jealous of Tom, for all his gaiety and brilliance, any more.”

  Dickon stared at her in questioning silence. He was beginning to come out of his man’s world sufficiently to imagine what might have hurt her.

  “He told that artless little Amy Moyle that I had always seemed like a sister to him, or you may be sure she would never have asked me all those love-sick questions.”

  Dickon’s widening grin was a mixture of dawning comprehension, relief and tenderness. “If Tom is half the gallant I think he is, that must have been hard to take.”

  “And Dickon — ”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to know that men have no monopoly in loyalty. I didn’t give him away either.”

  20

  Dickon was filling in time working with the rest of Hurland Dale’s men on some repairs to a garden wall for the new Chancellor of the Exchequer. They talked and laughed as they scappled the rough blocks of stone, discussing the feast which had made such a happy termination to the months of hard work on their last assignment. For once the foreman did not reprimand them, and during the noon break they let off their high spirits still further by a particularly wild game of football through the streets. Like the rest of them, Dickon was dusty and dishevelled by the time he returned to the garden and picked up his tools.

  “Carve us that amusing face of the old tax-gatherer again,” suggested one of his mates.

  “Go on! No one will notice if you do it on one of the bottom quoins,” urged another.

  So while they all stood around laughing, Dickon made a swift, ribald caricature of the much-hated Chancellor on his own wall. He was just adding a devil’s pitch-fork by way of full measure when he became aware of a sudden hush and resumption of work among his mates, and then of a tall shadow falling across his irreverent labours. “Very life-like, but scarcely likely to amuse our client,” remarked a familiar voice acidly. And there stood Master Dale, looking over his shoulder.

  Caught in flagrante delicto, Dickon swung round abashed. “Sir, I am sorry — ”

  “You will probably be sorrier if Master Morton himself sees it.” Dale spoke grimly, but surprisingly he dealt out no well-deserved punishment, his mind seeming to be pleasantly occupied with something considerably more important. “Your examination, Broome, and yours, Red Latin, will be at an hour past noon to-morrow, and I trust you will both do me credit.” Since their master usually rested in his own house at this hour, he had evidently come specially to tell them.

  “To-morrow!” echoed Latin, in consternation. But, Sir, we both thought — ”

  “I know. But it has been fixed for two days earlier. For you two, and a couple of promising apprentices from Paternoster Row. The examiner would not be free to come
at any other time. It is exceedingly good of him to spare time to come at all. And a great honour.”

  “Who will he be, Sir?” ventured the eager red-head, since Dickon — who usually gave him the lead — seemed still too embarrassed to speak.

  Hurland Dale, whose ancestor had built for Richard the Second, seemed to swell visibly with pride. “Master Robert Vertue himself,” he announced.

  “The King’s own master mason!” Young Lakin sank down with a muted whistle on the half-finished wall.

  “Every member of the Guild will probably be there. A great honour,” repeated Dale, “for me and for my two outstanding pupils of the year.”

  He looked round for some sign of elation from the far more outstanding of the two, but Dickon Broome, whose rare remarks usually came so concisely, was positively pale and staring in a kind of daze before him. “Yes, Sir. The greatest mason in all England,” he muttered with an effort. “And I shall most assuredly muff everything, and die of fright.”

  A suppressed titter went round, and even their master had to smile. “Come, come, Broome. A capable craftsman like yourself has nothing to fear. It is a stroke of good fortune which most third-year apprentices would give their ears for, and has come about largely because the Moyles were so pleased with your carving. It seems Sir Walter met Master Vertue at Westminster, and while telling him about his new house he mentioned you. I believe it was really young John Moyle who got him interested and persuaded him to come. Like all great craftsmen, Robert and William Vertue are always on the look-out for new talent.”

  “Sir Walter spoke to the King’s mason about me?” Dickon was beginning to come out of his daze.

  “Why, yes, you will remember how his daughter told him something about your having found him a clever young fletcher. And I imagine that energetic young man had more to do with the excellent state of Calais’ defences than is generally known, because Sir Walter said in his jovial way, ‘One good turn deserves another’. If Robert Vertue passes you, you are made, Broome. Though I hope you won’t be leaving me.”