It must have been the lack of sleep and improvised bed that left him so lack witted the next morning. After the fire he’d helped Albrecht organise more guards, a few in small wherries, so as to ensure that no one attempted to deploy another incendiary device again. After that he could have sworn he heard the bells sound for midnight and had fallen, exhausted, into the shipmaster’s cabin with a bit of sacking as a blanket. None of the crew or guard seemed keen on sleeping below decks. He’d awoken after a very inadequate sleep accompanied by disturbing dreams of grim faced friars preaching doom and damnation while tossing gouts of flame around the city and all the while heckled by the gap throated ghost of Joachim.
It didn’t help that it was a well placed prod from Mistress Black in the ribs that had roused him from his troubled slumber. What was even worse somehow was that she had managed a change of clothes into a very attractive blue kirtle and bodice with silk trim-the Lord knew how she did it! She even looked clean and washed while Ned was left in what was once his best set of clothes, now blackened and grimed. His slashed doublet with the exposed red velvet was a disaster and best not talked about. His aunt would have several kinds of fit if she saw it. As for his finest white shirt, ahh, greying black was not a becoming shade.
After the abrupt awakening he’d managed to duck his head in a proffered bucket of water and convince some of the looser flakes of grit to part company. Though his hair still needed a good comb, from the itching behind his ears he suspected lice had once more moved in. A jug of small ale and a ravel loaf went some way towards at least comforting his stomach and then the day began to look brighter. A smiling Meg had acquired a passing boat and he, Rob, and Gruesome Roger had piled in, for as they were told, a brief journey. His better angel had pointed out that riverbank seductions by rivals weren’t all that likely with her brother in tow. Meanwhile Ned made careful note of the tidal flow. No tidal surges-excellent. So he wasn’t going to experience another of the Black’s practical jokes of shooting through the tidal race at the Bridge. Last year’s single occasion had been more than enough for this lifetime and the next!
To his surprise and relief they only travelled to Bear Inn on the city end of the Bridge and left the grumbling boatman behind. He’d wanted a larger fare. However Mistress Black had targeted him with a particularly icy glare which had silenced the wherry man until well after they’d climbed up the worn stone stairs. It was common practice to disembark on the down river side and cross to the upper river side of the bridge and then engage another wherry. As every citizen of London knew, it was always faster to travel on the river than to battle through the city traffic. So if you wanted to get from, say, Petty Wales to Temple Bar, hail any one of the several thousand wherries and pay your coin. The only bottle neck was the Bridge. This morning it had been open for an hour so the road was still packed with carts of produce pulled by horses or oxen and trudging crowds eager to cross for either the wonders of the city or the dubious pleasures of Southwark.
However they didn’t have to challenge that cursing and bellowing surge. Instead Mistress Black led them a short distance along the waterfront to the haunt of the Hanse merchants in London, the stone walled compound of the Steelyard. Ned thought that bit odd since Albrecht had been left in charge of the vessel and its compliment of crew and guards. So why here? His suspicious daemon of the previous night reappeared. It was an assignation with one of the young Hanse merchants! Some tall fellow, with blonde hair, piercing sky blue eyes, all his own teeth, and wealthy too. That last factor always pulled the girls. The swine was probably a follower of Luther’s as well, just to cap it off. Ned ground his teeth in suppressed anger.
Gruesome Roger must have heard his strangled snarl for he raised one eyebrow in sardonic amusement, and slowly smirking, shook his head. That didn’t make it any better. Ned gripped the hilt of his blade until his knuckles turned white. He wasn’t here for anyone’s amusement and definitely not that cursed measle’s prick, Hawkins, by God and all the saints!
As Ned pulled hard on the oar. The remembered rancour of the morning returned. Fooled again-it was so typical. He was too honest and trusting, moaned his daemon. There was no swain, or even the hint of an idyllic passage up the river. Instead Margaret Black; the most treacherous of girls, had met up with a friend, one completely unexpected. Ned was sure it was a conspiracy. After all why else would he be lured here on this vessel larger than the Mary Rose? He’d naturally expected one of the usual small river craft, the sort that commonly plied passengers up and down the river. Cosy, comfortable and powered by a pair of oars wielded by an experienced river man or two. Instead he was forced to regard their chosen vessel with profound dismay. It was a cargo barge of the style used to transport bulk goods, like those hoys he’d rescued during the grain scandal during the cold days of February. Similar to those, it was of large size and if the wind was favourable, had a mast and sail. However it also came equipped with several sets of sweeps to propel the craft against the tidal or river flow. At the Steelyard wharf on first sight of their new ‘pleasure’ craft, Mistress deceitful Black had given a glad cry and jumped onboard, hugging a very unconventional shipmaster- Mistress Emma of the Bee Skep Tavern.
And that was the start of his problems. Pride, arrogance and unquestioning trust had been his downfall again, so here he was pulling the long oar in this bloody barge, carrying a dozen tuns of the finest Bee Skep double ale up to the Royal palace of Richmond. In the meantime Mistress damn her treachery Black and her laughing companion Mistress Emma the alewife sat in the stern in comfort and under the shade of a canopy. His daemon whispered that they were undoubtedly making disparaging comments on the quality of oarsmen and engaging in all manner of malicious plotting. To Ned the vanished prospect of a Hanse swain didn’t look near so appalling after two hours manning a sweep. The fact that both girls looked particularly splendid in silk, velvet-trimmed dresses, pearl drop necklaces, and the ubiquitous mark of an up to date reformist girl, a pearl studded French hood. It was stunning apparel more suited for the elegant dalliance of court. Ned though was stripped to the waist and sweating. This exercise in contrasts, along with their shaded seat, gave his smouldering rancour a bitter edge.
The only minor consolation, if he cared to call it that, was that Queen Katherine was currently ensconced at Richmond Palace. So with luck, and as long as the uncaring and callous Mistress treachery be her name Black didn’t create any more difficulties, he could complete one of the required tasks for Councillor Cromwell.
Ned lent over the heavy oar and gasped from the effort. Two hours solid rowing up stream against the current and finally they had made it to the Royal palace. From the perspective of the river as they slowly pulled closer, it was something to see, a dramatic representation of the modern taste and splendour of their Tudor monarch. True, it had been substantially rebuilt by the present King’s father on the site of an earlier Royal estate. That aside, the building was just incredible-the tall, white stone, octagonal towers several storeys high, bracketing the main buildings, themselves over four storeys, all shimmering above the variegated trees of the orchard that filled the land between the walls and the riverbank. Such a simple description could have sounded like any other grim fortress of the land, pressed into use despite its manifest unfitness for inhabitation. This collection of buildings gave that old necessity the lie. All the walls and towers were punctured with glass paned windows on every level. In fact the side that flanked the river seemed to cascade myriad refracts of rainbow hues from the summer sun, as if it was the castle of the ‘Faerie King’.