Both the king and his lady, I am assured, look upon their future marriage as certain, as if that of the queen had actually been dissolved. Preparations are being made for the wedding …

  ‘This was written by Eustace Chapuys … and addressed to the Holy Roman Emperor.’

  ‘God’s teeth,’ I muttered. ‘What else?’

  ‘This is a paper written by my master. See here.’

  I implore Your Majesty to use all the cunning at your disposal. I shall contact the spy to send word back to you of plots from this English king to put aside his Good Queen, and we shall put a stop to it by any means necessary …

  Rodrigo dropped the letter to his thighs. ‘What does he mean? What “means” should he deem necessary? Oh, Holy Mother! What has my poor master plotted?’

  ‘And more importantly, who is this spy?’

  He shook his head, still staring at the paper. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Is Henry’s life in danger? I must warn him if it is. But how to do so and not implicate m’self? Cuds-me.’

  ‘I do not know. What are we to do?’

  ‘I’ll think on it. What’s that next letter?’

  Rodrigo unfolded it but it was torn in half. He read only what was there. ‘It says something about the Princess Mary. Something about Spain and a ship.’ He shook his head. Because most of it is torn away, I cannot make sense of it.’

  ‘A sarding shame is what that is.’

  He stuffed them into the opening of his doublet, and we both hurriedly searched into all the hidden places Rodrigo was privy to, but we found naught else.

  Finally, we gave up. Rodrigo wanted to clean the room, and so I helped him put back all the objects so carelessly thrown about. After an hour – and I worried that every passing moment would find us discovered – he deemed the room repaired to his satisfaction. After all, the truckle bed, under the four-poster, was where he usually laid his head.

  We moved toward the door to leave at last when a figure appeared in the doorway.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Kendrick!

  Rodrigo stiffened and raised his chin. ‘I live here.’

  ‘You were told to stay away.’

  ‘And what was I to do? My things are here. My clothes. And very disturbed they have been.’

  He stood his ground and Kendrick could do nothing but fidget and sneer. Until he cast his eye upon me. ‘Somers. You don’t live here.’

  ‘But all the palace is mine. Uncle Harry has said so.’

  ‘You disgust me, Somers. Your useless prattling, your vile indiscretions, your mockery. There is no place for you in a godly court.’

  ‘If I ever find one, Father, then I shall assuredly not go there.’

  ‘You think your cleverness will save you from the Fires? I know your kind, Somers.’

  ’Fore God! Did he know about me? Oh, I had been far too free with m’self. I had to tread with better care.

  ‘Fires to warm me,’ I said, rubbing my hands together. And then I turned, bending over and facing my bum toward him and rubbing those cheeks. ‘And to warm me all over, my lord.’

  ‘If I had a switch, I’d show you.’

  ‘What would you switch, my lord priest? Your nose for your knob? Or your ear for your arse? That would make for a mass to behold.’

  ‘Infidel! Begone!’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to do, but some talkative cleric is in our way.’

  We moved forward until Kendrick stopped us once more. ‘What is that? Give me that paper.’

  The letters Rodrigo had stuffed into his doublet hadn’t stayed stuffed and were peeking out.

  Kendrick lunged for it and managed to grasp a letter. He unfolded and started to read when a streak of white flashed before us and snatched the letter right out of his grasping hand.

  I blinked. Was it a ghost? A spirit?

  The growl and the rattle of his collar gave him away. Nosewise! You wonderful, scrappy, escaping little cur!

  Nosewise shook it as if it were a rat, and Kendrick dived for him, trying to wrest it from his jaws. But the little dog proved he was the better, and dodged the priest, thinking it a game.

  Picking up a candlestick, Kendrick raised it to hurl at the dog. I leapt and grabbed his arm, dragging it down, and his projectile missed the mark.

  ‘Damn you, Somers.’

  ‘Oh, not yet, sir.’

  ‘That’s your mongrel, isn’t it? I want that paper!’

  Nosewise had already torn from the room, heading back to mine, I hoped. ‘And you can have it, my lord. Just as soon as the hound is done with it. Though, by the time it passes through him, I doubt it will be very legible. I’ll be sure to save it, though, just for you.’

  Kendrick wore as foul an expression as ever a man could wear. He got in close to me, and nearly growled like a dog himself. ‘I’ve got my eye on you, Jester. Make no mistake, if I decide to rid the court of you, not even the king can save you.’

  ‘It would be amusing seeing you try.’

  ‘Mark me. Your days are numbered.’

  ‘I should hope so. Else how can we tell which day from the next?’

  He moved in even closer and said in a dark voice, ‘I know about you, Somers. I know … things.’

  It startled me to silence again. I said nothing in reply, but raised my chin as Rodrigo had done, for in truth, my voice caught in my throat.

  His eyes narrowed as he glared and, finally, he jerked away before he squared on Rodrigo. He pointed to his doublet. ‘You have papers that don’t belong to you.’

  Rodrigo slapped his chest, covering the letters with his hand. ‘And they don’t belong to you.’

  ‘These are matters for the English court.’

  ‘I think not. Rather, they belong to the Spanish ambassador.’

  Oh, such a wretched visage Kendrick offered. For he could not argue that. Rodrigo kept his hand over his chest and we sidled out of the room like crabs. Then, once free, we ran like the Devil were after us down the corridor.

  Once we got outside, we stopped in a courtyard, gulping in air.

  Rodrigo turned a worried face to me. ‘He threatened you. Are you not afraid?’

  ‘I’ve been threatened by better men than him. It has always come to naught.’

  But even as we got to the serving hall to get us something to eat, I began to think on Father Kendrick. What was his meaning? Did he know about me? Was he the one who had killed Gonzalo and threatened me?

  Was he the spy?

  I was not myself as we supped in the servants’ hall on bread and cheese. Edward was there, and he tried to beguile me with some cold chicken, but gave up after he saw I wasn’t interested in the meat or in him for the nonce.

  Rodrigo was silent as well, measuring my mood. After I washed my hands in the basin, I looked to him. ‘I must find the king and attend to him.’

  ‘I will make enquiries,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘About the … the spy,’ he said, mouthing the last instead of speaking it aloud. Yes, he could go about the Spanish men and find any that might have had association with Gonzalo. He could talk to the other servants. Servants always knew.

  ‘Before you go,’ I said quietly, ‘know you anything of a woman, a Lady Jane?’

  Rodrigo blinked, thinking. ‘I think this lady – a pretty one with light hair? She came to see my master on the day he died.’

  I breathed hard. ‘What was her business?’

  ‘It was strange.’ But then his eyes widened and his jaw fell open. He crossed himself. ‘Madre de Dios!’

  ‘What is it?’ I got in close, scanning about for listening ears.

  ‘I thought nothing of it at the time, but now …’ He grabbed my arm. ‘Will … she asked … about you.’

  EIGHT

  Jesu. About me? Something was not right. Something was clearly not right. But I had little time to ponder it, for the next day, Friday, was the day of Gonzalo’s memorial, and I could think of naught else. The court dressed in black. Bells in the Church of the Observant Friars tolled. Eustace Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, wore his usual stern face, but all the Spanish contingent was there.

  I couldn’t recall the last time I had felt so sad. Our encounter had been brief, Gonzalo’s and mine, but he’d left a mark on my soul. He seemed genuinely to be a kind man, a thoughtful man. I would have liked to have spent more time with him, just drinking wine, playing chess perhaps, talking. I would have liked him to speak more of Spain, his lands, what his household was like.

  I remember when Queen Catherine spoke of Spain with fondness and with a streak of sadness for never being able to see it again, of her parents King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. I imagined them as great royal personages, dignified, regal.

  Oh, Henry could be regal, and he could even be called upon to be dignified. But once you’ve seen a man on his close stool, well …

  In Queen Catherine’s eyes, I saw that she knew her duty to her lord husband and her God meant that she must sacrifice the life she had known. After all, it was the duty of all princesses to be bargained with and be sent away to unite countries and keep the peace. What great responsibilities we laid upon the laps of these young girls. Did they know? Could they have imagined?

  And now Gonzalo was to return to the land of his birth.

  There were great benedictions from Cardinal Wolsey in the courtyard. He in his mitre raised his hands to all of us and shouted out his Latin prayers. The Spaniards, stoic but with wet faces, raised their eyes to God. For the question still remained. Who had killed him? What English hand had done it and when would the culprit be found?

  I, too, wondered that.

  There were hours of prayers and today of all days was hot with a yellow sun above us. Should not a memorial be shrouded in dark clouds and rain? It seemed that all English funerals were thus remembered. But I suppose, for a Spaniard, sunshine was more to God’s taste.

  And anyway, it was not a funeral, but a memorial. Dear Gonzalo was to travel by barge down the Thames to a seaport, where he would sail to Spain and be laid to rest there. Ambassador Chapuys was insistent that he not be buried on English soil. This caused a bit of an uproar in Henry’s chambers, but in the end, it was decided that the Spanish in this case must be allowed to do what they liked.

  I dreaded the thought of what they did to Gonzalo’s poor corpse, for this traveling would be days, and to preserve a body was to desecrate it; eviscerate, stuff it, drape herbs about it, cover it in lead. Pour soul. Poor lovely man.

  And then I looked about for any sign of the queen, and my heart boiled with anger that she was not even allowed this little thing, to bid a fellow countryman Godspeed. I wondered vaguely if Henry had wanted to allow it, but his lawyers and clerics had advised against it. Curse them.

  After a mass was held in the Church of the Observant Friars, there was much ceremony carrying the draped body in its coffin to the barge.

  Farewell, Gonzalo. May you rest eternally in God’s grace. You didn’t deserve this. And I give my oath to you that I will find the culprit and give you your justice.

  Only I and the Spanish contingent had remained at the wharf and watched until his barge disappeared around a bend of the river.

  The clouds moved in then, and the proper English weather with it. It rained at last.

  I was glad that the court had not gathered as usual. For I was in mourning for my friend. I knew that the English court didn’t care if a Spaniard died. They didn’t know him. But at least they were somewhat respectful.

  I stayed in Henry’s company because he wished it. But after a time, he shooed his men away, and he offered me a game of chess in his withdrawing chamber. Only occasionally did an usher enter to see to the fire, to fill our goblets. We drank ale, for neither of us wished to get drunk.

  I knew Henry would have rather ridden today, been out of doors, even in the rain. He liked to move about, did Henry, a man who loved his exercise. But he somehow sensed my mood as well. Perhaps all of our minds were on Spain, as Queen Catherine, our own Spanish princess who had become the English queen, languished behind closed doors.

  ‘I’ve taken your knight, Will,’ he said.

  ‘By the mass, Uncle. I am not paying attention.’

  ‘You can’t play a decent game, Somers, if you don’t pay attention to the board.’

  I picked up my black queen, examining the exquisite carving of the thing. A mere playing piece, and here it was, the finest object of the artisan’s hand. ‘Do you ever wonder, Harry?’

  ‘Wonder what? Are you playing that piece?’

  I rolled the queen betwixt my fingers. ‘Do you ever wonder about God’s Providence? We are each a piece on His chessboard.’

  ‘We have free will.’

  ‘Do we? It seems a foolish thing to give something so precious to the likes of Man. We are all too much of an idiot to know what to do with it. Wouldn’t it rather be better if God simply laid out His plan to us and we were to follow it, like a garden path?’

  He shook his head indulgently. ‘Well, Somers, as someone who has spent a great deal of his time in the study of God’s plan and His words, I can tell you that it is a complicated thing. Like architecture,’ and he raised his hands to the ceiling. ‘Observe, if you will, the art of Man, given through God’s gifts, the ability to create … this.’

  I looked up as he did at the wooden ceiling with its fan-vaulted roof and carved pendants. ‘It is amazing, Harry.’

  ‘It is. Not only decorative, but it keeps out the weather. Masons and carpenters worked all their lives to learn this craft of beauty and practicality. This was God’s plan for them.’

  ‘As it was that it was His plan I come to court.’

  ‘Truly, and I have thanked Him most prodigiously for that.’

  I put my hand to my heart, which burned with sudden tenderness for Henry. ‘I’m touched, Harry.’

  ‘I pray for all my subjects. But for some, those prayers are more fervent.’ He smiled. ‘The point is, none of us can know the Almighty’s plan that He has set out for us ever before our birth, but it is up to us to say “yes”, to have the free will to take the first steps in His mighty course. Yours was to be a court jester – and so he gave you wit and verve. And mine was to be king. Though that was never my thought on the matter. And least when I was a boy.’

  I set the chess piece down and leaned on the table with both arms crossed. ‘I wish I’d known you as a young boy, Harry.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Oh … I think we would have been fast friends.’

  ‘Do you truly think so?’

  ‘Though … sadly, I would not have been allowed to play with you. But I do play with you now.’

  He stared at the board, but I sensed rather that he was looking beyond it with that wistful look in his eyes. ‘I wish there had been more playing when I was a boy.’

  ‘You didn’t get to play? Oh, poor little Prince Harry. Always at his books and tutelage.’

  ‘You don’t know how right you are, Will.’

  I gazed at the man. And I pictured him as a lonely little boy with only adults as company. Not even allowed to play with his older brother, who had his own army of tutors, for he was to be king. King Arthur. Would he have had his Round Table? I wondered. Would he have served his Camelot with fairness and courage? He had married Queen Catherine … and then he died. And then poor Prince Harry had become the heir, and then king before his time.

  I glanced down at the chessboard and thought of all the manipulations there were. From God first, then kings, then lords. Aye, we were all likened to these pieces. Some could move most anywhere they liked, but others had strange directions they had to take. For a man born a fool could never be a king, while a man born a king could most certainly be a fool.

  NINE

  Rodrigo had left the letters with me and the next day, Saturday, I scoured them all, trying to make sense of them. But especially the partial letter about Princess Mary. My Latin was not good. And so I made neither head nor tail of it. Something about a ship and the King of Spain … who was also the Holy Roman Emperor.

  But then there was the problem of Lady Jane. Why did she want to know about me? And why ask Gonzalo, of all people? The only conclusion I could draw was that she knew. She knew about him and me. And since no one at court could simply come out with the truth, she had played her coy games with Gonzalo. And perhaps he dismissed her, was rude to her, or worse, ignored her. And she, in her anger, had killed him and sworn to blackmail me. It made sense.

  And yet … I was unsatisfied with it. Perhaps some of it was true, but to know which part made my head ache. It was the notion of a woman doing the murdering that fouled my mind on it, a woman of nobility. How could this be? Yet, thinking of someone like Lady Nan, she had the anger to do it … but would she? It seems that a noble lady would … get a servant to do her bidding. But would a servant kill a lord?

  This is not what a jester should be spending his time on.

  I looked in on Henry after a few hours, but he was as sour as he had been before. After a time, I feared not my quips, my rhymes, nor my music stirred the furrow from his brow, and so, before I got a kick for it, I left his company. How I longed to comfort the queen and Princess Mary, but I was not allowed.

  I wondered if I should harry Lady Nan … until it occurred to me instead to enquire of one of her ladies, Ursula to be precise, what I might have neglected to talk to her about before. And so, with cittern in my hands, I plucked a tune here and there, making my way to the chambers of Lady Nan.

  She was not there, but I was directed to the Great Garden. She was surrounded by her attendants, and they were making amusements on the lawn, playing hoodman’s blind.

  She was not participating, but instead, sitting on a chair under shade, watching them distractedly. I tried to stealthily bypass her, but her eye caught mine and she called out, ‘Somers!’

  Cods. I presented myself before m’lady and bowed low, the perfect courtier.

  ‘Dear Lady Nan.’ Her smile was perfunctory. And even though I had begrudged her only moments ago, my resolve began to wither when in her presence, for she was just a woman, after all. ‘What vexes you, m’lady?’