‘Well,’ I said. ‘I still think better than you of Lord Cromwell but, even if I did not, I would have no choice about serving him. I need his protection.’
‘Then pray God you continue to please him,’ Ned observed grimly, ‘for we are all in the same case.’
‘All?’
‘Aye. You and me and Jed and Lizzie and your mother and little Raphael and all your household. We stand or fall with you. You have recruited us to His Lordship’s service — without giving us any say in the matter.’
A young hind pranced across the road in front of us and made Golding prick up his ears. I was no less taken aback by Ned’s statement. God forgive me, it was true. I had been dicing with the lives of people I cared about.
All I could think to say was, ‘Well, please God, this business will soon be over, and we can all resume our normal lives.’
‘A fond wish.’ Ned stared at me solemnly. ‘Life is not a trundling wagon you can jump on and off at leisure. For example, have you thought what’s to become of Lizzie?’
‘She’s welcome under my roof as long as she wishes to stay. Raphael will need a nurse for several years. I don’t know what other options she has — but then there’s much about her I don’t know. For instance, how did she learn to write?’ It was a clumsy attempt to turn the conversation but Ned seemed as ready as I for a new topic.
‘As far as I can gather from snatches of conversation, her father was servant to a wealthy merchant,’ he explained. ‘Lizzie grew up alongside this man’s daughter and, when he hired a tutor for the girl, Lizzie also attended lessons. She even has a little Latin. That all came to an end when Lizzie’s father fell out with his master — something to do with drink and missing money, I think. When the family were turned out, her father had no hesitation in putting his pretty thirteen-year-old daughter to work in the dockland streets to please sailors who came ashore with their wages.’
‘Poor Lizzie.’
‘Indeed. Fortunately she’s a girl of spirit. It didn’t take her long to calculate that if she was doomed to be a whore she would work on her own terms. That’s how she ended up at St Swithun’s. That’s why I ask you what’s to become of her. She deserves a better life.’
We stopped in Ash at the Sign of the White Swan to refresh ourselves and see the horses rested, fed and watered. After that I left the members of my little caravan to make the best time they could while I rode on ahead with a couple of servants. I wanted to get as close as possible to London before nightfall in order to reach home the next morning. If Cromwell had sent to summon me to his presence I had no wish to keep him waiting. We reached Deptford before a darkening sky obliged us to seek lodging. We had almost left it too late. The man I sent on ahead returned with the news that the inns were full. However, he had discovered that a certain Mistress Flower had a house near St Nicholas’ Church on the Strand, where she sometimes welcomed guests. I, therefore, presented myself at her door and the good lady, having inspected me closely to ensure that I was what she called ‘suitable’, welcomed us in.
It was immediately apparent that, by good fortune, we had stumbled upon a haven much more agreeable than any of Deptford’s bustling and overcrowded inns. We were comfortably accommodated and well fed. The only drawback was the garrulity of our hostess. Having had a substantial meal set out for me in her main room, she insisted on joining me at the table and regaling me with anecdotes about some of the impressive ladies and gentlemen she had welcomed beneath her roof.
‘’Tis all on account of Placentia being so close by,’ she explained.
‘Placentia?’ I asked.
‘The palace at Greenwich.’ She tut-tutted. ‘I still call it by the old name. Can’t get out of the habit. Lovely it is — and big, that I grant, but I prefer Eltham. It has the dignity of age, if you understand me, Master Treviot. But His Majesty prefers Pla… Greenwich. So there you are.’
‘Is the king coming here for Christmas?’ I asked.
‘Oh, indeed. He wouldn’t be anywhere else. He used to spend a lot of time at that ugly, sprawling place upriver that was the Cardinal’s.’
‘Hampton Court?’
‘That’s right, Hampton Court, but between you and me, I think he’s got tired of it. He likes to come here and see his ships being built in the new dock. Oh yes, he’ll be here for Christmas, right enough. And his new queen, of course. Have you seen Queen Jane? I haven’t, not yet. But I’m hoping to get a glimpse of her this time. They say she’s taller than the last one. More stately, but, then, she could hardly be more unstately than the last one — that lewd Frenchified jade.’ The lady laughed raucously.
Mistress Flower paused for breath and I managed to get a word in. ‘I suppose the inns are always full when the court comes to Greenwich.’
‘Yes, only ’tis worse this time. All these northerners, you see. Now that the rebellion’s been put down we’ve got gentlemen and noblemen and churchmen and I don’t know what else all coming here to prove their loyalty. They say — and I was told this by one of Archbishop Cranmer’s gentlemen waiters… Now there’s an odd man. Have you met him? I’ve seen him two or three times. Looks a bit of a dreamer to me. Not your typical bishop. He never seems, well, comfortable at court, if you understand my meaning.’
‘What did he say?’
‘The archbishop?’
‘No, the archbishop’s gentleman.’
‘Oh, him. Well, that was funny. “The king has invited the ass to come down from the North,” he said. Now what he meant by it, I can’t think. Some sort of a court jest, I suppose. Can you think who the “ass” might be? They do have some funny ways, these court folk. I remember Queen Catherine’s silk woman. She stayed here. Spanish she was, though her English was good enough. Insisted that I sat here and tasted all her food in front of her before she would put a morsel in her mouth. She thought that I would poison her! There’s many folk would have been right put out by that. I just laughed at her funny ways. Of course, there’s some as you can’t laugh at. When one of the Duke of Norfolk’s men was staying here, the duke himself came to visit him, along with the Bishop of Winchester. Can’t say I ever liked the looks of him. Sat round this very table, they did, talking till nigh midnight — and no one allowed to come near them. Soldiers on the doors. What they were hatching only our Dear Lady knows. Not treason, I hope — not under my roof.’
It was late before I was able to disengage myself from Mistress Flower and go thankfully to my bed.
Flurries of snow slowed my progress the following day and it was gone noon before I reached the City. My first sight of the river above the bridge revealed islands of ice packing up against the stone piers and beginning to spread eastwards. Several lads had gathered at the bank and were testing the ice, daring each other to venture further and further out. I was glad to reach my own workshop where the refining furnace emitted a welcome heat and where a healthy fire blazed in my own chamber. There was, as yet, no message from Cromwell but, inevitably, there were many other matters that had accumulated in my absence and I was soon absorbed in writing letters, supervising the ongoing work and dealing with requests for new commissions. And I was enjoying it. It may not have been until months later that I reflected on the effects that recent events had had on me but I then came to see that, by the Christmas of that terrible year, 1536, I wanted nothing other than to be allowed to be no more and no less than Master Thomas Treviot, goldsmith of Cheapside in the City of London.
That was not to be — not yet. Late that afternoon I received an unusual visitor. The young woman who asked for me by name arrived unattended but was certainly not a servant bearing a message from a noble mistress. Equally clearly, she was not a lady of means, come to order a piece of gem-set jewellery. She was a slight creature of seventeen or eighteen, wearing a russet woollen overgown, which can have been scarcely adequate on such a freezing day. The auburn hair tucked into her linen coif paid no obeisance to prevailing fashion. The frost had pinched her cheeks to a high colour and the eyes that looked at me pleadingly were soft and brown — kindly, I thought, rather like those of a young foal. She had refused to disclose her business to my assistant and when told that I was very busy, she declared that she would wait. I went through into the shop with the intention of dealing with the woman quickly and getting on with more important matters. My assumption was that she had come on the embarrassing errand of seeking to pawn some precious object for much-needed cash. This was dispelled as soon as she curtsied and introduced herself.