A servant moved forward to pour but Henry waved him off impatiently. He wanted to be the solicitous uncle all on his own. I suppose I should have been flattered. And I was. His tender care of me was singular throughout the kingdom. Sometimes I marveled where I lay my head.

  ‘Here is wine. Drink up. There now. You tell me what ails you.’

  I couldn’t tell him. But something else was now presented to me. Oh, I knew I had the king’s ear, but if I told him outright about my wanting to marry Marion, he’d wave his hand like a sorcerer and it would be done. By the mass, he would. And my mouth was poised to open on it … until I halted. Henry didn’t want to hear that. As much as he wished to be my solicitous uncle, this he did not want to truly be. So instead I smiled and said, ‘Is there nothing that you can imagine more valiant than the collar of a gentleman’s shirt?’

  ‘Eh? What’s that you said? Are you spouting nonsense again? What of a gentleman’s shirt?’

  I turned to take in the courtiers at the outer edge of our semi-private circle. ‘Marry, because every morning it has a thief by the neck.’

  Henry looked at me questioningly for only a moment, before he burst into laughter. He grabbed me and dragged me into an embrace. ‘You perfect little fool. Even when you are the one who is down, you perk me up.’

  ‘It is the very pleasure of my life, Harry.’

  ‘And the pleasure of mine.’ He gazed at me ever so fondly and with tenderness. Softly, just for our ears, he spoke, ‘But if you ever need my help, you know I am yours.’ He patted his chest, over his heart. ‘You are here.’

  I smiled. ‘I know. You bejeweled great bladder of a man.’

  He cuffed me and I fell over, feet quivering in the air.

  I was dismissed for most of the day. He had his matters to discuss with sour-faced clergy and, though I had sat in many of these meetings, he made it plain he did not want me nigh today. That was all well. I had other matters myself to deal with.

  There was nothing for it but to go back to the Spanish men’s apartments and see if I could discern whom it might be, this blackmailer, for I was certain that the culprit must be there. Who else would wish to scheme against King Henry, for I was certain that Henry’s wish to put aside his Spanish queen was making enemies of them.

  Back in my apartments, I grabbed my cittern and slung the strap over my shoulder. I walked through the corridors, plucking a tune composed by Henry. I hummed along with it, my steps walking in rhythm to the tune. Henry was a fine composer. Sometimes his music had something of a melancholy air about it. I don’t know why. He was ever a merry fellow, but the agonies of the state must confound him and his heart shewed itself in the notes. Aye me. I prattle. For I don’t know Henry’s heart as much as I thought I did. But it still seems to me that there is something sad that weighs on him. Perhaps it is the male heir he so desires, that he must have. And yet it might be even more than that.

  I walked and plucked, plucked and walked. When I passed courtiers, they gave me a polite nod, standing away from me. Always, they stood away, as expected.

  When a lady or two strolled by, I made it my business to particularly serenade them, following them until they yielded and stood, blushing, waiting for me to move on. I’d bow to them and stroll again, but when I looked back over my shoulder, one or two seemed intrigued. Who would not be so? I was the king’s ear, his eyes, his mouth, his song. I bore his secrets, his woes, his merriness. Aye faith! I was his very conscience. And much work I had ahead for me, to be sure, if he intended to do this thing, to put aside the good queen for Lady Nan. And there were too many scheming men around him to encourage it, and none to tell him nay. That was my job, I supposed. A voice crying out in the wilderness. Would Henry listen? Not if it did not suit him, and protestations to the contrary, he would not even listen to me when his mind was set on a course.

  I thought all these things as my fingers picked at the strings. Playing was second nature to me. I did not have to think on the playing. Not anymore. I learned the playing at my father’s house. It was something to pass the time between my lessons or my chores. I never learnt the notation, but I could follow it easily enough. When you hear a thing, it is easier to play it, to embellish. Henry liked that about me and my fellow musicians, though I never accounted myself among that lot. Peter van Wilder and Giles Duwes were among Henry’s favorites. When one of them appeared, I’d put away my instrument, for I could not hope to match them in quality. I was a sometimes musician. More often than not I styled my tunes to make fun of someone or something. But there were times when Henry liked me to play softly, liking my company and my strings. He preferred my lute, because its voice was softer and soothing. But the cittern was easier to carry. And so I wandered, like a minstrel, but instead of traveling from town to town for my meat, I traveled from corridor to hall to alcove … and thence to the apartments of the Spaniards.

  And then … that little tingle at the back of my neck caused a shiver to travel down my spine, and, on instinct, I twirled round to look what might be after me.

  There she was again. Lady Jane Perwick, twisting her long chain between her fingers. She stopped when I stopped. Or … had she already been there and I had not noticed that I had passed her? No. I was certain she had not been there.

  I bowed, strummed a chord, and smiled. ‘Are you following me, lady?’

  ‘Following you? Who but a fool follows a fool?’

  ‘Well … indeed. Do you need anything of me, Lady Jane?’

  ‘So you know me.’

  ‘Aye. I know nearly everyone at court.’

  ‘So they say,’ she said into her shoulder.

  It was a remark I would usually pass over. But suddenly, everyone was suspect. What had she meant by that? And that sly expression. It was the sort of thing someone might wear when they knew something that they were certain you did not.

  I girded m’self and took a step closer. ‘Aye. I know many things and many people. But I don’t know why you dog my steps or haunt this corridor.’

  Her coy expression faded and a frown creased her brow. ‘I’m not following you, Jester.’

  ‘And yet, when I look, there you are.’

  ‘You imagine things.’ She turned away with a sweep of her skirts, but she stopped just as abruptly and turned back. ‘I’d watch my own step, Jester, if I were you. You never know just who you are making into an enemy.’ With a final bristling look, she turned again and hurried away.

  God mend me. What was that? Another threat? For there was little reason for her to be in this particular corridor … except to follow me. But not artfully either, for surely she could have stayed well back and I might not have noticed her at all. No, she wanted me to notice her … to even admonish her?

  Could she have something to do with Gonzalo’s murder?

  But how do I even imagine it? Could a woman cut a man’s throat? Rush forward and slash it? Would they not get blood all over themselves? For I have helped butcher hogs and blood was aplenty if you did not do it right. The throat squirts it – but I did not want to think it, not about Gonzalo. I pressed my hand to my own throat. A gown would be covered in blood, and how would you explain it to your servants? And your servants would not keep quiet on it, that was a certainty.

  You could stand behind the victim, I supposed, but would a woman be tall enough to reach?

  But there was a bench! If he were sitting and she stood behind …

  God’s teeth! Anyone could have done it.

  I swallowed, eased my breath. I had to comport myself. Lady Jane bore watching, aye. For her actions and words were suspicious. I did not like their tenor. But I had come to the Spanish wing to do my investigating and that I would do!

  I was myself again. Clear-eyed, sharp-eared, ready to spy. I hoped.

  As I neared a hall, I was witness to the strident tones of an argument in full throat, and it was English they were shouting, one with a decidedly Spanish accent and the other with the circuitous tones of an English lawyer or cleric.

  I plastered myself against the wall and carefully peered past the edge of the doorway. Cleric, then. One Father John Kendrick himself, I believe. His face was painted with a cultured beard with its thin lines cropped close and precisely along his jawline, with two thin barbs of a mustache on either side of his pinched mouth, joining the beard. His brows seemed just as sculpted, and arched with their own mind on the matter, as punctuation to each of his carefully pronounced words.

  ‘I tell you, señor,’ said Kendrick, ‘the king is anointed by God, and therefore his pronouncements must also be so.’

  ‘This is the purview of His Holiness the Pope,’ argued the Spanish gentleman, whom I knew by sight but not by name. ‘It is only the pope who may speak for God in his capacity as the descendant of Peter.’

  And so they went, back and forth like a tennis game. Kendrick drew breath to reply, no doubt lengthily and biliously. But thank Christ the Spanish courtier lifted his hand to stop him. ‘There is too much at stake on both sides of the argument, my lord priest, and so let us not prolong that which will not give either of us the outcome we seek. But I do wish to discover what you might have heard regarding our dearly departed Don Gonzalo.’

  Aha! I pressed tightly to the wall, making a mural of myself; The Fool on a Somers Day Cavorting Amongst the Ladies, it might have been called, had I been paint and plaster. I breathed slow and quiet in order to drink of every drop offered by cleric and lord.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Kendrick. ‘It has fallen to as much silence as his corpse.’

  My heart juddered. To talk so casually about someone I had so recently called my lover

  … It was a sore thing indeed.

  ‘I seem to have heard,’ said the Spanish gentleman, ‘that Don Gonzalo had been negotiating terms for the queen to return to Spain.’

  ‘Ah,’ Kendrick said, nodding, his lids falling low over his eyes. ‘And so he was on the king’s side.’

  ‘He was on the side of Spain … as well he should be. Another shall be appointed to make certain that the queen’s humiliation should be minimized, and that she shall leave for Spain with all dignity.’

  ‘What makes you think she will leave England? If she leaves, she must leave the Princess Mary behind.’

  ‘So the king would disown her, but would still leave a pawn on the board?’

  ‘He has no legal heir. There is only Bessie Blount’s bastard.’

  ‘And that boy will never see a crown.’

  ‘Would that be a threat from Spain?’

  The Spanish gentleman paused, took a step back, and bowed most courteously. ‘Not at all. It is merely an observation. The king is set for the Lady Anne and she is young and healthy.’

  ‘Indeed. But was there not some other mischief your Don Gonzalo was about?’

  ‘Whatever would you mean, my lord?’

  ‘Was he not—’

  But damn me. My foot slipped, making but a soft sound, yet enough for both their heads to turn and see my face peering around the doorway. The Spanish gentleman drew his sword. ‘Sirrah!’ he called, his steel gleaming in the candlelight. ‘Come forth and show yourself!’

  I gulped my heart back into my chest, plucked hard on the cittern likened to some Spanish tune, and stepped into view. ‘My lords.’ I bowed. ‘’Tis only the king’s fool.’

  Kendrick breathed a sigh of relief, but the Spanish gentleman narrowed his eyes and it was a long time until he sheathed his sword. ‘The king’s fool indeed! Why do you spy on innocent conversations?’

  ‘Why sir, I only spy on innocent conversations. For that is the meat of the court and I would feed the court, sir, so that it does not starve.’

  ‘I see,’ he sneered. He reached for his purse hanging from his belt. ‘How much?’

  ‘My lord, you insult me. I am paid good and heartily by the king to fool about in court. I need not take coins from his courtiers. Or those courtiers that are not his. But …’ I said hastily, before he drew his hand away from his purse, ‘a groat or two for the poor box. Aye, that I can carry all on my own, being a strong soul.’

  He scowled, but now he did not seem to be as suspicious of me. He dug out the coins and tossed them to me. I caught them expertly. ‘Bless you, my lord. The Church thanks you.’

  His lip twisted sourly and there was nothing for it but for me to take my leave. Had either of those gentlemen schemed to blackmail me? What other thing was Don Gonzalo at that I had missed with my untimely disruption?

  ‘Incautious foot,’ I scolded my appendage. ‘Why so chatty at so inconvenient a time?’ I stomped it on the floor, but if punishment I sought, it would have been mine as well. As it was, I limped on through the corridors, thinking about their conversation.

  And so, Don Gonzalo was looking to ease the queen’s pain by offering a dignified exit from court. But they did not know our queen. She would never leave Henry, nor their daughter. England had welcomed her all those years ago and she loved it as her own kin. And further, they loved her. I wonder if Henry truly understood that, that they would never accept Lady Nan as queen for usurping the place of Queen Catherine. Henry could devise all the Scripture he wanted to serve his cause, but what would the people care for that?

  Oh, Gonzalo. Could you have been murdered for more than your dallying with me? Could this letter of blackmail have only been a ruse? After all, the blackmailer had not come to the garden, nor sent me another missive with further instructions.

  I scoured about me, at the benign faces, the blank expressions, the crafty ones, the obvious ones … and decided that the court was full of dragons, lounging lazily on their hoard until they felt threatened and poised themselves to strike at just the right time.

  Which dragons must I slay to protect Henry? And which to protect myself?

  SIX

  Marion was in my chamber mid-afternoon, begging for further details. I had little to offer, except for what I had overheard earlier from Father Kendrick and the Spanish man.

  She held Nosewise in her arms, scratching his head as he licked at her face. ‘Will, you must find out what other thing Don Gonzalo was about that the priest worried over.’

  ‘And how can I do that? Who would tell me?’

  ‘You can’t just ask people. You must make them wish to tell you.’

  ‘You think me a sorcerer rather than a jester?’

  ‘Oh, come now. I’ve seen you plenty of times beguile someone into telling you something they did not wish to divulge. You did it to me when first we met.’

  ‘Did I?’

  She set Nosewise down and brushed the dog hair from her gown. ‘You don’t remember? I was sitting at the edge of one of the king’s great gatherings. And you were trotting about like Nosewise, making a jackass of yourself as usual when you spotted me. I was terrified as to what you would say.’

  ‘You were?’ I softened and took her hand. ‘Oh, Marion.’

  ‘Terrified. You have no idea, Will Somers, how frightening a loud pronouncement from you was to a courtier. And there I was, all alone and quite timid.’

  I laughed at the last.

  ‘At the time,’ she assured. ‘And so, instead of some loud insult at my expense, you were kind and sweet and spoke low to me, asking if I were well and enjoying myself. And the more you talked in that soft way, the more relaxed I became and talked and talked to you. I never talked so much to anyone at court up till then. There is magic in your speech.’

  ‘Honesty, Marion. It was honesty. No wonder you didn’t recognize the language of it spoken at court.’

  ‘You were probably trying to get me into your bed.’

  ‘I was. But not in that instant. And we are so close now.’

  ‘And so you must find someone close to Don Gonzalo.’

  ‘Ursula?’

  ‘Someone Spanish, perhaps.’

  ‘He must have a clerk. Or a groom!’ That was an excellent idea. And I told her so, kissing her at the same time. I thanked her and headed out the door, thinking how I was to pass through the gates of the Spaniard’s chambers, when she stopped me.

  ‘But what of Lady Jane?’ Aye, I had told her of that, too, and she frowned with a finger laid to the side of her jaw. ‘Is it merely your fancy, or was she up to naught good?’

  ‘I’m of two minds on it, Marion, dependent upon the hour. On the one hand, it could be entirely coincidental, and I was making more of it than there was, being suddenly suspicious of everyone. But, on the other hand … there she was. Twice.’

  ‘Well,’ she said carefully. ‘If it is thrice, it shall bear some thinking. Meantime, get you to the Spaniards.’

  I bowed to her and set off. Hurrying through the corridors, a dark shape emerged from the shadows and startled me like the Devil himself rising out of the smoky pits. But it wasn’t the Devil. Only his apprentice, Cromwell.

  ‘Master Crumbled-Well,’ I said, posturing.

  ‘Keep your caustic words to yourself, Somers. I have a proposition for you.’

  God’s beard. Cromwell must want something dear if he were trying to make friends with me. I thought to make a quip, but my throat went dry and I could not have wrenched the words from my mouth even if called upon by God Himself. Instead, I waited, nose high, ears acute.

  ‘You think I don’t like you, don’t you, Somers? Because you call me names and point a finger at my doings. But I am not afraid of your words or their barbs. And it is not because I am invulnerable. Oh no. Every man has their vulnerabilities.’

  I narrowed my eyes just that much. No. It couldn’t be him, could it? Did Cromwell want me to spy on the king for him? To what end? He already had his ear. Was he intimating that he knew more about me than I would have liked? Or was it his best weapon to make men think he knew more and was merely holding his tongue? Oh, wicked Master Cromwell. You played a tune whilst the Devil did his dance.

  He did not wait for me to speak, but went on. ‘Please don’t take that as any sort of threat, Master Somers.’ Master Somers was it now? And his assurances only seemed to pile upon the mistrust I had of him. I could do naught but listen. ‘It isn’t. As children of God Almighty, we are all vulnerable and unto Him must we subjugate ourselves, as we must to our masters. To the king. For he is master of us all. Both of us, Will.’