The King's Bed

by Campbell Barnes, Margaret

  Dickon looked up eagerly and opened his mouth to speak, but — seeing Tansy shake her head — suggested nothing. “It was a fine piece of craftmanship,” was all he said.

  And in a few days, thanks to the quick wits of Tom Hood, and to the easy-going kindness of the younger Moyle, Dickon and Tansy had a remarkably cheap rented home waiting for them.

  A thin November sun shone and the streets of London were already decorated for the Queen’s belated coronation, when Bow bells rang out for their wedding. And since they themselves were such a likeable couple, it was not nearly such a quiet occasion as they had planned. Of all their guests only the elderly schoolmaster, who gave away the bride, and a humble ostler, knew that she was marrying a Plantagenet. And of all the guests who returned to celebrate at the inn afterwards, only two were utterly unexpected — Master John Moyle and his sister Amy. Her beguiling glances strayed more frequently than they should have done to the debonair best man, but since her brother escorted her, Sir Walter had made no objection to her coming. The wedding party were greatly honoured, and the happy bride could not thank Amy enough for her efforts to assure a pleasant home for the friends of her father’s fletcher.

  It was scatter-brained, warm-hearted Amy Moyle who had sent some spare furniture from the stately house on the Strand. Mistress Goodyear had supplied all the pots and pans. The obliging chapman Gufford had brought from Leicester on his cart the oak chest which Robert Marsh had given to Tansy, together with a few of her mother’s favourite household possessions. And Jod had spent two whole days cleaning up the disused stables.

  “Do you realize, my beloved, that this is the first home I have ever had?” asked Dickon, when at last they had left their friends and the lights of London behind, and stood alone in rural, evening silence at the gate of their home.

  “We shall be able to ride out through the country lanes on Sundays,” murmured Tansy, resting her head on his shoulder.

  Dickon glanced up at the gables, washed white by moonlight beneath their thatch. “I shall be able to make this into a really attractive house. Quite half my mates have offered to help me,” he said, his voice richly deep with content.

  “As soon as Spring comes I am going to sow golden marigolds in the little garden,” said Tansy.

  “As Master Jordan said, we should have been most ill-advised to buy. From here I can ride out early each morning to work, wherever it may be. Now that I am a competent craftsman and a member of my guild, there is no foreseeing what work may come my way. My only regret is that it is not my earnings which are paying for this particular bit of Paradise.”

  “That will come later, love, when we are older. When you are a well-to-do master-builder like Hurland Dale you will be able to buy me all those fine dresses which that scheming merchant promised me at the Court of Burgundy. You will never regret not going there, will you, Dickon? The risks would have been so great that I scarcely know how we ever came to contemplate it. Whereas in England you will almost surely rise to be well known in the world of architecture. And for the present, what more could we ask?” Tansy spread her arms wide, as if gathering to her heart all the happiness she had ever longed for. “Here we can hear the birds sing, with no smell of stale ale nor noise of traffic and street brawls. And yet we shall still be by the sweetly flowing Thames.”

  “And we shall be, for the rest of our lives, together,” said Dickon, drawing her into the firelit living-room and bolting their door on the rest of the world.

  “You did not mind — about the King’s Bed?” asked Tansy shyly, when they had climbed the little winding stair to their room beneath the eaves. “I knew that when you heard it was going cheaply, you had half a mind to buy it. And we could have afforded it, perhaps. But for me it has later memories. I could not bring myself to — ”

  Dickon pulled her down on to the very ordinary bed they possessed. “No, no, my love. You were right. It is something out of our past, fraught with sorrow for us both, and no resting-place for the happy future of young lovers.”

  The present was ecstasy indeed, the more precious for every day they had waited for it. And the future which stretched before them promised all the greater blessing because it had not been easily won.

  It was not only the first time Dickon had enjoyed a wife and a home, but the first time he had had somewhere to keep his precious book Sayings of the Philosophers, and to be able to dip into it whenever he wished.

  “Always I have kept it locked in this box, which I made for it as soon as I first got to London. And only occasionally in all this time have I been able to take your gift out from among my gear and read parts of it.”

  “Only when you were alone,” commiserated Tansy, picturing him very young and gawky, as she had first known him, perplexed by the babel of a strange dormitory and aching sometimes for privacy.

  “Not that my work-mates would willingly have harmed it,” he hastened to explain. “Some of diem came from families who had books and lamented that they had not been apprenticed to printing, since it is the most modem craft. But there were others who had no idea of a book’s value, and might have set guttering candles down on it or hurled it at one another in their horseplay.”

  “Well, now it will be taken every care of, and I promise you I shall not feel shut out if you are reading. I shall think of how often you must have wanted to, with no place of your own. Let us keep it on the table Red Lakin made for you, with a piece of my mother’s tapestry for a cover.”

  “But not, I think, down here, where people might pry and ask awkward questions. Unlocked, I think, beside our bed.” And so, like all newly-married couples, they took pride and pleasure in arranging their first home. Every now and then John Moyle and his friends came hawking, and Tansy would set out refreshment for them. Sometimes he brought his sister and inevitably Tom Hood happened to turn up on such occasions. He seemed to have become very much a part of the Moyle family.

  By the time Spring came and the marigolds had begun to show green in the garden, Dickon — with much willing help — had refaced the front of the house, made a window to lighten Tansy’s kitchen and repaired the roof. And one day, after his friends had gone, John Moyle stayed behind specially to see what had been done. “Hood says you have made great improvements to my old property,” he said. “And I am glad to know this before I return to Kent, where our old manor becomes a source of worry and expense because of endless necessary repairs.”

  “With your permission, Sir, I have used my own initiative in this,” said Dickon. “Chiefly in the matter of building a better fireplace in the living-room and letting in more light wherever possible.”

  Moyle, with his keen interest in creative work of any kind, appeared to be well pleased.

  “And he has mended the bedroom roof where it leaked between the beams,” said Tansy proudly. “May we show you?”

  Together the three of them mounted the winding stairs and stood looking round the sunny little room. “What a pleasant place you have made of it!” commended Moyle. “And that ingeniously contrived shelf or desk against the wall.” Instantly his beauty-loving eyes were attracted to the handsome leather-bound volume which lay upon it. “I see you have one of William Caxton’s printed books!” he exclaimed, less surprised that Dickon should read it than that he should possess one.

  “It is Earl Rivers’ Sayings of the Philosophers, said Dickon proudly, unfastening the great metal clasp and opening it at the place where he had been reading.

  For some absorbed minutes they stood there, talking about lay-out and translations and bindings, as booklovers will, until the falconer from next door called from the open doorway, and Dickon excused himself and ran hurriedly downstairs. Tansy, who was still standing on the small landing, saw how lovingly, almost enviously, their landlord turned the pages.

  “Rich man’s son as he is, he may not possess one,” she thought. And then she saw him turn back to the title page where Richardus Rex was written in the late King’s dear, flowing hand. Unaware that he was b
eing observed, he stood there staring down at it for a long time. Then closed it thoughtfully, re-fastening the clasp very carefully. When he turned and saw her he said nothing. But when he came down and joined the others in the living-room Tansy noticed that he was unusually silent, and that he glanced several times at her husband in a puzzled sort of way. She wondered why he did not ask outright how Dickon had come by so rare a treasure. The wild thought even crossed her mind that he might not like to ask in case Dickon had stolen it. But, knowing how well the Moyle family served the new Lancastrian king, she did not mention the incident to Dickon in case the matter should worry him.

  “Well, at least he made no objection to any of the alterations I have made,” said Dickon with relief, when Moyle had gone to see the sick hawk his falconer had called about, before returning to London.

  “He was clearly impressed and should be very thankful that you have so improved his property,” said Tansy. “But you have been working too hard, Dickon, constructing that new vault at the Exchequer during the day, and beginning work again here in the evenings the moment you have supped.”

  “And I have been neglecting the sweetest wife a man ever had,” he said contritely, pulling her down on to his knees. “On Sunday we will forget all about building and take some of those delicious pasties of yours and some home-brewed elderberry and ride out to see the riverside monastery at Hampton.”

  But they never did. For as Dickon was setting out for work next morning, they were surprised to see Red Lakin push open the garden gate and come running breathlessly up the path. “The master wants you,” he panted.

  “Well, I am just coming, Red. What is the hurry?” said Dickon, glancing round at the scarcely risen sun as he fastened his saddle girth. “I am not late starting, surely?” “Not to the Exchequer. He doesn’t want you there. But at Westminster.”

  “At Westminster?”

  “He called to me — just as he was starting out — to tell you to meet him there. Master Vertue wants to see you.”

  “Master Vertue!” Dickon paused with one foot in a stirrup and Tansy stood stock still on her way down the path to bid him farewell.

  “Yes, Dickon. I don’t know what it can mean,” said Red, recovering his breath. “All I can tell you is that Master Dale was wearing his best doublet — the one he wore when we had our examination — and that he wants you to meet him at the Vertues’ lodgings by the Abbey.”

  “Oh, Dickon, you don’t suppose it is some much more important work?” Tansy, the practical, ran to take Mopsy’s reins and tether her to the mounting-block hook. “Better come in quickly and change into your best doublet, too. I pressed it only yesterday. And, Red,” she called back over her shoulder, “you will find some cool beer in the brewhouse.”

  “If you get up behind me, Mopsy will carry you as far as Westminster,” offered Dickon, reluctantly wasting precious minutes while Tansy gave due wifely care to his appearance.

  “If Master Vertue himself wants to see you — oh, I shall pray all the time you are gone that it may be something good!” whispered Tansy, proudly fastening his belt.

  He caught her up in his arms and kissed her. “Yes, pray,” he urged, “and when I come back I may have some good news for you.”

  She tried to hold him back a moment. “And I may have some good news for you,” she whispered. But he was gone, without hearing her, eagerly mounting her father s mare, with all his mind already straining forward to fresh work.

  22

  Dickon rode as fast as he could along the river to Westminster, trying to quell his mounting excitement and curiosity. After dismounting Red Lakin and making impatient enquiries of a palace guard, he found the royal mason’s lodgings and saw his master’s horse already tethered outside. Some of the windows overlooked the Abbey and he was all agog to see the interior. A servant admitted him as if he were expected, and opened the door of a living-room where three men were talking. So deep were they in discussion that Dickon stood, cap in hand, for some minutes before they noticed him.

  He had time to observe the lovely beamed room and its occupants. Robert Vertue himself sat at a long table strewn with architect’s designs and lists of figures which looked like quantitive surveys. He seemed to have aged considerably since Dickon had last seen him. It might have been because his brother William, standing beside him, was a younger edition of himself, or possibly, Dickon suspected, because he was a sick man. Hurland Dale was standing on the other side of the table, picking up one design after another with suppressed excitement. Clearly he had been invited to look at them, and was amazed by their merit. As soon as he looked up and became aware of Dickon’s presence, he smiled encouragingly. “My man, Richard Broome, whom you asked me to send for,” he explained to his companions. “You told me you remembered him, Master Robert.”

  “Certainly, I remember him, and his odd carving of the Holy Sepulchre,” agreed the senior builder, waving Dickon towards the parchment-strewn table with a friendly gesture which seemed to include him in the conclave. “I sent for you, young man, because I am convinced not only of your ability but of your devotion to your craft. An apprentice who stops work only when the light fails must be thinking more of perfection than of profit. It takes a burning creative urge to drive one on regardless of time and hunger.”

  “My brother is gathering a small nucleus of assistants for a very large undertaking,” explained his more matter-of-fact brother.

  “Particularly craftsmen who use their tools but not their tongues,” warned Dale, knowing by long experience how well his maddeningly reticent erstwhile pupil qualified for the part. “And, as I have already told you, I shall not stand in your way of advancement.”

  By the rules of their Guild he could not, now that Dickon was fully qualified, and they both knew that he hoped to gain professionally through obliging the Vertue brothers, but Dickon’s sense of obligation still remained. “Is it something secret which these gentlemen are about to build?” he asked, puzzled by the aura of importance, and guessing that, as the King’s mason was in charge of it, the project must have something to do with fortifications.

  “It is not so much what we build, as what we shall first have to pull down,” explained Master William. He moved to the window as he spoke, and beckoned to the young journeyman to follow him. “You see the Lady Chapel over there?”

  “Why, yes. Built in the thirteenth century, it was, and part of the pride of the Abbey.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Master William. “And that is why there will be such an outcry when we pull it down.”

  “Pull it down!” echoed Dickon, in horror.

  “Like yourself, Broome, the Londoners will probably make loud protest about it. But the King is set on doing this, and — after seeing some of these wonderful designs for a new chapel — even the Abbot of Westminster is half persuaded.”

  Seeing the genuine concern on Dickon’s face, the elder Vertue took the trouble to explain the matter as carefully as he would have to any senior architect. Through long experience he knew that the only way to draw out the best in his assistants was to share with them his own thoughts. And he had high hopes of this unknown young mason who could, at a moment’s notice, produce a piece of carving worthy of the finest setting. “I well understand your feelings, Broome, and those of many Londoners who have known and loved the Lady Chapel all their lives. And no one knows better than I the grief it will be to the nuns who serve it. But they will build elsewhere with the fabulous price which his Grace has arranged to pay. And the fact is, the present fabric is so sadly in need of repair that it might well cost Abbot Islip almost as much as to rebuild. And, then again, one must consider the cause for which the King so urgently desires it.”

  “But why, Sir, must his Grace have that particular site?” asked Dickon, weaned from all initial shyness.

  “Because it is for the reinternment — the homecoming, as one might say — of a King.”

  “A king?” Dickon scarcely breathed the words, being almost tempted to
believe that after all this time the Tudor’s conscience might be troubling him.

  “A murdered king whose present resting-place is unworthy of him.”

  The words fostered still further the wildly improbable idea. Dickon’s thoughts went back to the Grey Friars’ garden beside the Soar. A pleasant resting-place, kindly tended, but utterly unworthy of the sovereign who had ridden out with such splendour over Bow Bridge and fought with such high courage. Could it be that his poor mangled body would be honoured, and brought to Westminster?

  “The last Lancastrian king, Henry the Sixth. That gentle saint who was murdered by Yorkist venom in the Tower,” Dale hastened to explain, having known Dickon long enough to guess where his dangerous sympathies, like those of many others, really lay.

  Dickon immediately knew himself for an optimistic fool.

  No usurper could afford to stir up past loyalties. “Forget all that I have told you,” his father had said. “Forget! Forget!” he was always saying to himself. But it was never easy. By an effort of will, back from Leicester to the sober room at Westminster came his foolish thoughts. The designs and models became just an extraordinarily good job of work to him, the august personages about the table a sign of unexpected, marvellously good fortune. With all his carefully-garnered technical knowledge he listened intelligently, appreciatively, to their discussions — even putting in a question at times which they answered with kindly patience. It would be wonderful to work with such men, where nothing was petty, no detail unimportant, where one would be learning all the time.

  For a few brief moments his mind went back to Tansy, praying at home for his success. To his gaily-flung half promise that he might bring her back good news. Now he was warmed by the certainty that this very evening he would have the joy of bringing news beyond their highest hopes. How happy they would be! The cottage would still serve them. He would have work in Westminster for years. Progressive work, which would be talked of throughout the land. His fortune and — wildly alluring thought — even his fame might be made. Everything that he had, every skill that he might acquire, would be put enthusiastically into this project of the Vertues’. Given in good measure to the last glimmer of daylight, he vowed smilingly, out of gratitude.