The prospect of the journey’s end at such a paradise was, for Ned, very appealing, that was until a bitterly rebellious thought spurred a question to Rob Black, the oarsman to his front. “All right we’re here. Now how do we get these damned barrels off?”
His friend waved his head over his shoulder towards the distant bank. “Past the trees you should be able to see a dock and crane.”
Ned dropped his sweep for moment and peered over the top of the barrels in the indicated direction. Yes, by all the saints, saved from one labour at least! As the vessel pulled beyond the cover of trees, the scene became clearer and to Ned more pleasing. Not only was it a decent sized crane, similar in size to the ones along the London wharves, but it also had its own complement of treadmill labourers to power it. Somehow, the saints only knew how, he’d had the sneaking suspicion that as well as being cony catched into rowing the vessel, he’d also be required to unload the cargo. His daemon whimpered that it was a very, very small mercy, a very small mercy indeed.
Finally their vessel bumped alongside the wharf, joining a small flotilla of other cargo barges, as well as four more stately vessels replete with heraldic crests and banners. Ned, unlike some, didn’t spend all his time hanging around the Royal Court, so the riot of colours and badges of the rowers sprawled on the bank weren’t that familiar. Though it did relay one message; visits to Queen Katherine were still on the agenda of at least some of the Kingdom’s high nobility.
Two of their crew leapt onto the wharf and tied the vessel fast, while Emma stepped carefully ashore to supervise the rest of the off loading. This must have been a common port of call from her nonchalant disregard of the palace. Ned watched all this with a jaundiced eye while cautiously stretching his arms and fingers, giving small winces as each tendon straightened painfully. The likewise painful kinks in his shoulders and back he’d save for a more private occasion, where his resulting screams wouldn’t be so demeaning or so overheard.
He joined Rob standing under a multi trunk elm to watch the unloading via crane. Ned had seen this before in the city, almost every day as a matter of fact. However it was still fascinating to watch. A couple of men would spin a vertical cogged wheel that slowly angled the crane until it was over their vessel. Then at the call of the gang sergeant, the fellows inside the large wooden framed drum would clamber up the slatted rungs, turning the great wheel. That slowly released the tensioned drum of rope as it fed through the crane eye until the slackened rope was fastened on to the coarse woven net rigged around a tun of ale. Then on the command, the treadmill men would clamber in the opposite direction, once more turning the wheel and coiling in the rope as it wound around the drum, hauling the slung cargo skywards. After that another team would swing the crane with its load until it was positioned over a waiting cart and then slowly deposit it, all the while under the watchful eye and sharp tongue of Mistress Emma. As Rob Black always said, ahh for the marvels of modern mechanical artifice!
“You know Rob, you could have warned me about the boat trip.” Ned had expected more support from his friend who now looked decidedly sheepish over his pronounced silence at the Steelyard docks.
“Well, ahh Ned, you should know…it’s very difficult to stop Meg once she has an idea and…well, she sort of implied, ahh, that you wouldn’t mind a journey on the river.”
Ned considered making more of an issue of this pretence, but Rob appeared so stricken with guilt, as though he was a young boy caught with his hand in the comfits pot. Anyway hadn’t he also suffered the frequent impulsive misrepresentations of Meg Black? That sleight of hand with Walter Dellingham at Christmas still rankled. His angel primly reminded him that his own jealousy and pride was all too frequently at fault. To that all he could say was, damn his seductively whispering daemon!
Further consideration of his plight was abruptly curtailed when a ragged smock and doublet hit him in the face. “What!”
“Put this on Master Bedwell.”
At the snarky, imperious command, Ned pulled the offending garment off his front and held it at arms length all the while glaring at the giver, Meg treachery be her name Black. “Arghh! This stinks of offal and horse dung!”
“Good, then it will suit you!”
Ned looked daggers at the lass before him, dressed in all the finery of high station, while he had just been obligated to act the part of the menial labourer these past two hours and now to dress the part of turd carter. For a moment he considered flinging the rags down and unleashing his mounting and justifiable anger.
Well ahh…if…if…
If it wasn’t for that mischievous twinkle that lit her eye and the meaningful tilt of her eyebrow. Not for the first time he was forced to reconsider his reaction. Sometimes, just occasionally enough mind, Margaret insufferable Black displayed sufficient forethought to make him go along with her hare brained schemes. With a barely suppressed oath, he handed his clutched fine doublet and shirt to Rob, then donned the repulsive garb, rammed on the ragged cap and slouched off three paces behind the pair of strutting girls amongst the rest of Emma’s crew. Interestingly, Rob and Gruesome Roger made no move to join them, instead staying on the wharf. Ned did make a note of Roger’s non existent attempts to stifle his mirth at the parade, while Rob suddenly seemed inordinately interested in the crane device.
Ned tried to console himself that at least he now had a better chance to view the palace. The towers were topped with pepper pot domes, each crested with decorated, gilt weather vanes that spun slowly in the light breeze. It was a large complex of buildings, divided into what must be the Privy lodgings on the southern river side and a Great Hall at least a hundred foot long on the west. The road to the palace cut through the orchard and gardens that lined the river meadow, and they followed the trundling wagons to the western side, towards what must be the kitchens and buttery. Its location was given away by the smell of cooking vented through the louvered roof that wafted enticingly overhead, beckoning them on.
Ned soon found that the great livery kitchen was their destination indeed. Here the two girls were instantly enfolded in the generous embrace and booming welcome of an expansive fellow, whom from his sweating brow and stained apron that covered an ample breadth of finery, must be the master cook.
It would seem that neither were strangers here and that raised another set of intriguing questions regarding the diversity of Mistress Black’s contacts. He would have thought that considering the almost common knowledge of her heretical leanings, that here was one place it would’ve been more prudent to shun. Ned was, however, given little time to consider this further since with a hefty clout he was set to unloading the wagons and rolling the barrels into the stone arched buttery, under the watchful eye of the under cook. The two girls of course were entertained by the kitchen master, with a tasting of some game pies fresh from the oven. Ned’s daemon noted sourly that life really wasn’t fair!
It was a large space, cool and dark behind a doubled locked, heavy timber door. The room must have stored enough food for hundreds, if not thousands when the King was in residence, holding festivities and pageants. For here, those days of feasting and celebration seemed to have pasted. The whole area was only a quarter full. This palace had an interesting history of tenants. Recently it had been briefly swapped with Cardinal Wolsey for his new sumptuous estate of Hampton Court near London. At the Inns of Court the word was that Lady Anne Boleyn was instrumental in that arrangement. Rumour had claimed that on viewing it she said that ‘it more became a monarch’s honour that a cleric’s pretensions’. No matter-political prudence dictated that it be given to his lord and master, and then Cardinal Wolsey had, in recompense, received the older buildings of Richmond.